Into the Woods – Page 130 – Watching a bewildering world from the middle of nowhere

Clothes dryers: Just say no

When I moved into the abbey, I bought a washing machine with the intention of buying a dryer later on. It has been more than four years, and I’ve still not bought a dryer. I just haven’t seen the need for it.

There is a clothesline that is convenient to the back door. I hung out a load of clothes this morning when it was 38 degrees, and it’s really not that bad. If there’s a run of rainy weather, the laundry can be draped over the upstairs railings. It may look a little sloppy for a while, but it works just fine.

Dryers, of course, use a huge amount of energy. Dryers also eat clothes. My guess is that dryers wear out clothes almost as much as wearing them. Who needs them. At the very least, who needs them all the time.

The high existential cost of being rich

Source: careerassessmentsite.com

Do you know your personality type, as measured by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test? If not, with a little Googling you’ll probably find a way to get a quick and dirty assessment, if not the trademarked test. But the odds are that, if you are reading this blog, then you are not rich, and you are not an ENTJ.

So what’s an ENTJ? Of the 16 personality types described by the Myers-Briggs, ENTJ’s are the type most likely to get rich. Let’s look at the categories.

Extraverted vs. Introverted (E/I)

Intuitive vs. Sensing (N/S)

Thinking vs. Feeling (T/F)

Judging vs. Perceiving (J/P)

There are 16 combinations of these attributes. According to a report by the Career Assessment Site, ENTJ types are most likely to make a lot of money. That is, people who are extraverted, intuitive, thinking, and judging. There also was an article about this at the Motley Fool web site.

If there’s a kind of person that I just can’t stand, it’s ENTJ’s or ESTJ’s. They’re the opposite of people like me (and probably the opposite of people like you, if you are reading this blog). I am an INFP – introverted, intuitive, feeling, perceiving. Guess which type makes the least money? People like me — INFP’s. I’m pretty sure that’s because INFP’s don’t much care about money beyond what it takes to live reasonably well and to travel a bit.

I want to clear up some common misconceptions, though. Introverts are not shy. In fact, in my experience introverts often have more social skill than extraverts, simply because introverts pay attention, and extraverts never stop running their mouths. There is another misconception that holds that, if feeling is predominant over thinking, then you must not be very smart, and that if you are very smart, then feeling must be subordinate. That is extremely not true. The IQ’s of feeling types follow the same bell curve as all IQ’s. To be able to think sharply does not imply a devaluation of feeling. Feeling, after all, is the key to meaning.

So is money all that matters? Not to an INFP. It is meaning that we seek in life, not wealth and power. If there is anything that strikes existential terror into the heart of an INFP, it’s the thought of the inner poverty that can almost always be perceived in the lives of those who seek wealth and power. I don’t envy them. I feel sorry for them. They seek to fill their emptiness with things, and to compensate for meaninglessness with power.

Now, as for my income, I did OK. To be an INFP is not necessarily to be sentenced to poverty. I never got rich, that’s for sure. But I retired early, and I own my own time and my own thoughts. If an INFP can find the right niche, then creativity, kindness, and insight will be rewarded, even in corporate America.

I wouldn’t trade places with an ENTJ for all the money in the world.

Fire tower — like a lighthouse in the woods

I have long been fascinated by fire towers. Like lighthouses, they appeal to introverts because of their isolation and because they are found in appealing places — beside a coast, or in a forest. They have all the magic of promontories. Plus, fire towers have a certain nerdy appeal, because of the observation and communications apparatus that they contain.

It happens that, in Fugue in Ursa Major, I use a fire tower as a setting. When writing the descriptions of the fire tower, I had to rely on research. But on a recent trip to the North Carolina coast, I had a chance to examine this fire tower up close and verify that my descriptions of the fire tower were accurate.

Wikipedia has a pretty good article on fire towers, also called lookout towers. They vary in height, but the tallest one in the United States is 175 feet.

The cabin

The landing

One of the eight landings on the way up

Ender’s Game: Fantastic filmmaking

I fully expected to be disappointed by Ender’s Game. Still, I did something I have rarely ever done: went to see it on opening day. In IMAX.

It is true to the book. It is visually stunning. The performances are excellent. The soundtrack is impressive. This film could have ruined itself in a hundred different ways — for example, by diluting the intensity and darkness of the story by trying to make it suitable for children. But, as Ken said, it’s one of the most adult films he has seen lately.

Any criticisms I can muster would be nitpicking.

In a blog post a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned my previous association with Orson Scott Card, so I won’t go into that again. But I’m not cutting the film any slack because of that. If anything, the opposite would be true, because Card’s politics baffle me. But Card’s politics have nothing to do with this story or the film.

For most films, I wait for the DVD (or Blu-ray). But Ender’s Game is worth seeing in the theater, in IMAX if possible. You’ll also get trailers for some other good science fiction and fantasy films coming out this fall and winter, including the second part of The Hobbit and the second installment of The Hunger Games, Catching Fire.

I think I’m in love with the cinema again. And the Academy Awards should be worth watching next year.

Halloween work day

Ken has done a lot of traveling and has had a number of public appearances to prepare for, so there hasn’t been a lot of time for farm work this fall. But this week he has started catching up. First step: clean the litter out of the garden. Second step: throw on some compost. Next: Till the garden, plant winter rye, and wait for rain. Not only is a crop of winter rye good for the garden, it also provides winter greens for the chickens.

Ken lets the chickens out to roam when he’s outside working and can keep an eye on them. The abbey has six chickens at present.

A late, shabby rosebud

Late bees working a camellia blossom

Free clover, all you can eat

Click on image for high-resolution version

Everybody eats the abbey’s clover — rabbits, groundhogs, squirrels, chipmunks, chickens, deer. And who knows who comes in and eats it in the dark of night.

I’ve seen this chipmunk several times lately outside the abbey’s side door. I’m wondering if a family of chipmunks has taken up residence under the side porch.

Sourdough in winter

During a couple of early cold snaps, I learned that making sourdough bread takes forever in a cold kitchen. Though all the experts seem to like the idea of a long, slow rise, I don’t have forever. The leaven process must complete overnight, and the rest of the job must be done in time to bake by 5 p.m. or so the next day.

The method I’ve hit upon is to let the dough rise in the oven with the oven light on. Then things seem to happen at about the same rate as during the summer. And while I’m at it, I set a jar of clover sprouts in the oven with the dough. All seeds (as far as I know) germinate better when they’re warm.

The standard abbey sourdough loaf is big — about three pounds. It’s half whole wheat. The whole wheat dough rises nicely, but I don’t get much oven spring with half whole wheat. The crumb is far from dense, though, and it’s great hot, cold, or as toast. When there’s company, or for a showy loaf, I use unbleached flour. That makes a much higher loaf with dramatic oven spring.

The thermostat on a typical winter morning

The dough doubles after about four hours in a warm oven

Ready to put the lid on and bake. The parchment is for lifting the dough out of the bowl into the Dutch oven. Lining the dough-rising bowl with parchment, then lifting by the edges of the paper, is the only way I’ve found to transfer the dough to the Dutch oven, which is preheated to 500 degrees. Upending the dough bowl over the Dutch oven deflates the dough.

Another finished loaf of abbey bread

Apple expedition

What an apple should look like

Someday the abbey’s orchard will have a stand of grand old apple trees that will supply a variety of apples from late summer until fall. But unfortunately the abbey’s orchard is only five years old. Though it’s producing apples, the young trees can’t make apples faster than the squirrels can sneak over the fence from the woods and carry them off (along with the figs).

Therefore, whenever we’re out and about, Ken and I are on the lookout for abandoned apple trees. On a recent trip to Asheville, we hit the jackpot. There were two grand apple trees — a green and a red — near a friend’s house, and he had been given picking rights by the owner.

I won’t repeat my rant about the worthlessness of grocery store apples. I’ll just summarize with the fact that, whatever they are, they are not apples. I will make do with commercial apples when I can’t get anything else. But the only real apples come from old, abandoned trees. The age of the tree helps ensure that the apples are of an honest variety meant for eating rather than shipping. And being abandoned ensures that they’ve never been sprayed. A healthy apple tree is remarkably pest free. The ugly skin of the apple is the truest indicator of its quality. An apple with a beautiful skin is hardly ever fit to eat.

These apples were at the perfect time for picking. They were hard and very juicy.

Ken in the apple tree

The red tree wasn’t quite as grand as the green tree

The green apple tree

John Twelve Hawks: I’m not James Frey

Source: johntwelvehawks.com

I had email from John Twelve Hawks this afternoon. He had seen my recent blog post, in which I mentioned speculation in some big-city literary circles that John Twelve Hawks is a pseudonym for James Frey. “… I can confirm … I’m not James Frey,” John Twelve Hawks writes in the email.

He also included a link to a piece in New York magazine (November 2010) that paints a very, um, interesting portrait of James Frey.

I have a tremendous respect for John Twelve Hawks as a writer. For James Frey, none. You’ll see why I have such a low opinion of James Frey if you read the New York magazine piece.

In my Googling on this subject, I have not previously come across a statement from John Twelve Hawks on this. For all I know, this blog post may be John Twelve Hawks’ first public denial of any connection to James Frey. Frey, however, was very willing to milk the publicity and exploit John Twelve Hawks’ reputation. Frey told the New York Post, “I will neither confirm nor deny that I am John Twelve Hawks.” Yeah, whatever, James Frey.

2013 summer garden, R.I.P.

Click on image for high-res version

As you get closer and closer to the last pepper of summer, or the last tomato, or the last basil, it all gets increasingly precious and picturesque.