I hadn’t heard rain on the roof for a while, so I assumed that that was the end of the rain we had today. But I stepped outside and it was snowing! The photo is right outside my trailer door.
I guess I’m not in San Francisco anymore.
Living in a small space
I’m learning that there’s a certain Zen to living in a small space. I’d better get used to it — I’ll probably need to live in the travel trailer for about a year until the house is done. Clutter-control needs to be a constant discipline. If you don’t need it, don’t bring it into the trailer. Everything must have a place, and the storage areas must be used efficiently. Don’t let dishes collect. Wash them right away. This is all much easier when you don’t have to go to work every day. When you’re rushing around to keep a schedule, chores have to be postponed. When you’re on your own clock, you can take the time to do things as needed.
There’s always room for a computer! I lasted five days before i went to ComputerTree in Winston-Salem and got an iMac.
Two new permits…
I got quite a lot done in Stokes County on Thursday. The people in the building permits office in Danbury were delightful to work with. I explained my intentions and showed them the blueprints for the house and wellhouse. In no time at all I had permits for the wellhouse and for the temporary electrical hookup (the cost for the two permits was $90). It’s a little too early to get the permit for the house itself, but at this point that’s the only permit I still need. All the other permits — wellhouse, temporary power, the well, and the septic tank — are taken care of.
Then I went out to the land and put in some stakes (around here we call them “stobs”) and flags to mark approximate locations of the house, the wellhouse, and the driveway. On Sunday, I’ll go back with my brother and sister to let them have a look at the location of everything. Once that’s all settled, the next step will be to get the tree guy to come take a look. I’ll only need to take out pine trees — no need to take out any of the mature hardwood trees. Among the pines there are many young hardwoods, mainly poplar and maple, eager to have room to grow. I hope we can take out the pine trees with minimum damage to the young hardwoods. They should grow quickly once the pines are gone and they have light and space.
The big rock is surprisingly difficult to photograph. But I tried.
Finally in North Carolina…
I arrived in North Carolina on Monday (Feb. 4), and not until today (Feb. 6) have I had a chance to get at a computer.
The land is looking good. There’s been a fair amount of rain recently, and the little stream across my land was trickling over the rocks.
Next steps: I need to stake out the exact location of the house and wellhouse, mark the driveway, and tag trees for the tree man. Luckily I have to take down only low-value pines. I won’t have to disturb any of my hardwood trees.
I’ll have a real post, and some photos, in a day or two.
Road trip!
Later this afternoon I will shut down my computers in San Francisco, and I’ll pretty much be out of the loop until I get to North Carolina. I will start the drive across the country on Sunday, Jan. 27, with a one-day stop in Sacramento.
While I’m in the Jeep, I’ll be using my ham radio GPS locator. A GPS device in the Jeep is attached to a 50-watt transceiver on the 145Mhz amateur band. Every five minutes it will transmit my location, altitude, speed, and heading. If I am in range of the right kind of amateur radio relay station, then the data will be gated to an Internet database and can be found here:
The link should start working when I start the trip on Jan. 27. It may not work at all times. If I’m out of radio range, I may appear to stay in the same spot for a while, then I’ll suddenly reappear several hundred miles farther on. That’s normal.
I’ll resume blogging around Feb. 7.
Goodbye to the Chronicle…
Mike Keiser
Friday was my last day at the Chronicle, and Saturday night my Chronicle colleagues had a beautiful party for me at the home of Allen Matthews and Deb Wandell. I am really going to miss my Chronicle colleagues, but they’ve all promised to come visit and have an omelette from my fresh home-grown eggs.
Mike Keiser
New bike routes in Stokes
Winston-Salem Journal
I’m sure a lot of the locals don’t much like outsiders bicycling through the county, but just consider how much nicer it is to have flocks of bicycists rather than flocks of bulldozers. The two modes of economic development are mutually exclusive.
4 bike routes get N.C. recognition
Stokes County hopes to have state signs up along roads by late spring, manager says
By Lisa Boone-Wood
Winston-Salem Journal
Friday, January 18, 2008
Drivers in Stokes County will soon be reminded to share the road with bicyclists on some of the twisting curves of narrow two-lane highways throughout the county.
County officials have completed work with the N.C. Department of Transportation for officially designated bicycle routes in Stokes, hoping to increase safety for bicyclists and drivers.
It’s difficult to think about cycling on a dreary winter day such as yesterday, but better weather will be here soon enough. County Manager Bryan Steen said he hopes that share-the-road bicycle route signs provided by the DOT will be posted before the end of this fiscal year in late spring.
Bike routes in the county have already been informally established, Steen said. The formal routes will help the county’s economic development by drawing visitors to the area and will also improve safety for bicyclists, he said.
“We have a lot of bicyclists that are interested in the county,” Steen said. “We have a beautiful area here. We have a great interest in all parts of economic development and view this as another element as an economic development strategy.”
The Web site of the DOT’s Division of Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation lists about 30 cities and counties across the state as having designated bicycle routes.
The routes are developed with the help of city or county officials and experienced cyclists, said Tom Norman, the director of the division. The division tries to make sure that residents and visitors can safely walk and bicycle in the state.
Marc Allred, a rural planner for the Northwest Piedmont Council of Governments who reviewed and sent the bicycle-route plans for Stokes to be approved by the DOT, said that bike plans are becoming more common in rural counties in North Carolina.
“A lot of bikers like to ride out in the rural areas because it’s more scenic, so the counties have gotten together to show bikers which way to go,” Allred said.
What should we do about too many deer?
Winston-Salem Journal
Why are there too many deer in the suburbs?
It’s not just because there are too few natural predators and because it’s dangerous for hunters to shoot deer in the suburbs. It’s also because there’s more for deer to eat in the suburbs.
In an old-growth forest, there’s very little new growth for deer to eat. Logging creates a feast for deer, because the sunlight can reach the ground and all kinds of new growth springs up. If you cut down the woods to make new suburbs, the deer love it.
The Winston-Salem Journal has a story this morning on hunters using bows, including crossbows, to hunt deer in Elkin. Sorry, but it’s difficult to post links to stories in the Winston-Salem Journal because the Journal has a primitive web site without a decent system for permalinks.
The fact missing from the Journal’s story is that suburbanization causes the deer population to grow, because suburbanization clears ground for deer’s favorite foods.
As for what we should do about deer overpopulation, other than to stop building suburbs, I don’t know. Deer overpopulation certainly is real. Feasting by the fauna is very hard on the flora, and we need all the flora we can get these days. After I’m situated in Stokes County, I hope to understand the deer situation better.
Bluegrass meets anime
This odd blending of Bluegrass and anime is, I think, evidence of the universal appeal of Bluegrass.
The right kind of rain
Now here’s the kind of rain that’s so badly needed. Nice rains on Dec. 23, Dec. 26, Dec. 28, and Dec. 30, with the rain on Dec. 28 and Dec. 30 pushing the Dan River above its median. This is the kind of rain that soaks into the acquifer and beats back drought.