Another nice value wine

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While I’m thinking about wine, here’s another good value, from Trader Joe’s. For at least a couple of months now, Trader Joe’s has carried both a chardonnay and a cabernet from Liberté vineyards. That winemaker is in Paso Robles, which is in San Luis Obispo County in southern California. Both the chardonnay and the cabernet are $9.99.

Truth is, I never cared much for so-called “fine wines.” As the price of a bottle of wine rises, the increased quality either diminishes rapidly in line with the law of diminishing returns, or the value is entirely fictitious and is related to heightened demand, or snob appeal. I’m one of those people who see wine as food. I’d no more pay $40 for a bottle of wine than I’d pay $20 for a cauliflower. There’s not a thing in the world wrong with good country wine. I also don’t mess around much with weird varietals. When I’m shopping for wine, I go always look for honest, basic, fruity chardonnays and cabernets.

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Bonterra organic wines

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Back in the 1990s, when I was living in San Francisco, had a comfortable income, and had access to a deep cellar, I lived in the French mode, bought wine by the case, and fetched it from the cellar. A lot of the wine I bought was from Bonterra Organic Vineyards. Bonterra’s wines aren’t the sort of wines that will knock your socks off, but they’re good wines and a good value.

Now that I’m in North Carolina and now that retirement has suppressed my wine budget, I no longer buy wine by the case (though I probably should — it doesn’t really cost any more that way). I had not even seen a bottle of Bonterra wine in years. Imagine my surprise, then, at seeing several bottles of Bonterra organic chardonnay and cabernet in an ordinary country grocery store in Walnut Cove. I bought all the bottles that were on the shelf. The 2011 chardonnay was about $10 a bottle and the 2011 cabernet about $12.

I find this puzzling. How did organic wine from a not-very-large California vintner end up on a shelf in a country grocery store in North Carolina? I’m afraid that it probably means that the wine was not well reviewed, didn’t sell well, and got remaindered out to free up warehouse space. But I’m speculating.

Still, if you come across Bonterra wine, give it a try. I see from their web site that they have a wine club. I just might sign up. I have not yet opened the cabernet. The chardonnay is slightly watery though strong on alcohol, but it has good color and a nice, fairly soft chardonnay taste. In short, it’s perfectly fine for a $10 wine.

It occurs to me that I’ve not written about wines here often, mainly because retirement has cut into my wine budget. For the record, I am strongly of the opinion that California wines are the best in the world. I prefer wines from Sonoma County, but Napa and Mendocino will do.

Blacksnakes, in flagrante delicto

I’m not going to actually post these photos directly to the blog, because I think many people will find them frightening or disgusting, especially those who have a phobia of snakes. So, instead, below are links that you can click on if you really want to see the photos.

While doing chicken chores this afternoon, the lower bodies of two blacksnakes were hanging down through the trap door in the chickens’ two-level chicken house. I ran and grabbed the camera, and the snakes were still at it when I came back. I am fairly snake phobic myself, but I’m becoming less so, as I accept the fact that snakes are an important part of the local ecology, and as I get used to seeing them. I’ve gotten pretty brave, as you can see just because I took these photos (with a 70mm lens). These X-rated photos shed a lot of light on snake anatomy and behavior.

Trigger alert! Do not view these photos if you have a phobia of snakes. These photos are rated X.

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Rural communities

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Earlier this week, I was asked to attend and shoot photos of a community gathering in northern Stokes County. The people there are concerned about the possible closing of the elementary school there. To them, the school is an important part of their community. To the school board and the county commissioners, the school is a budget problem in an era in which the county (like many rural counties) actually is losing population.

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The people strike back

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From time to time, when I think it is of general interest, I will post here about what I’m up to as a local political and environmental activist.

When I bought land in rural Stokes County, North Carolina, and built the abbey here, I did expect to have some involvement in the county’s civic life. I never guessed, though, that at times it would seem like a full-time job. I’m now chairman of the county’s Democratic Party. Three years ago, Ken and I helped start an environmental group called No Fracking in Stokes. This group has had its hands full, and many people say that it is the most effective grassroots environmental group in North Carolina.

The scenic Dan River runs through the foothills of Stokes County. Its headwaters lie in the Blue Ridge Mountains, in Meadows of Dan, Virginia. After weaving southward into North Carolina, the river meanders north again toward Danville, Virginia. (The river is about two miles from the abbey.) A shale basin lies underneath parts of the river, and geologists think that some (though probably not much) recoverable shale gas lies in this basin that could be gotten out with fracking. This was on no one’s radar screen until 2012, when North Carolina’s newly elected Republican legislature, stimulated largely by banking money out of Charlotte that found its way into Republican pockets, became hell bent on dragging North Carolina kicking and screaming into fracking.

Last night at a public meeting in the little town of Walnut Cove, people were too polite to kick and scream. But they were mad as hell, and they fired high-calibre volleys across the bow of the Walnut Cove town board, which at its previous meeting had voted to allow geologists from North Carolina’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources to do sample core drilling on the town’s property. Though it’s true that the issue had been on the board’s agenda and was posted on the town hall door or something, the larger truth is that the board was trying to sneak it through in the dark of night. A reporter for our local weekly newspaper reported it, and people were quickly up in arms. The next meeting of the board was packed. In fact, the town’s fire marshall had to prevent more people from entering the building. A bunch of windows were opened in the old frame building (which used to be a school for black children), and the overflow crowd was allowed to stand outside and look in.

A retired schoolteacher told me that, as a nervous mayor was opening windows, the mayor saw a sheriff’s deputy standing outside and said, “Are you the only one here?” The deputy replied, “I’ve got backup.”

There is a well established African-American community in Walnut Cove. They live mostly in two neighborhoods. The test well is to be drilled in one of those neighborhoods. The African-American community is angry because they weren’t consulted.

To make the situation even more dangerous, if fracking comes to the Dan River shale basin, it would be dangerously close to a huge coal ash impoundment at Duke Energy’s Belews Creek Steam Station. A breach of the 130-foot dam there probably would wipe out the nearby community of Pine Hall, and the ash would certainly spill into the Dan River.

Few things warm my heart more than people talking back to government when government does what big money wants rather than what the people want. It’s unclear at this time whether the Walnut Cove town board will — or even legally can — rescind its decision. But one thing is for sure. The people will pay them back at the next election, and the county’s Democratic Party will do everything possible to help them with that payback.

For those who would like more information on our environmental battles here in North Carolina, below are some newspaper links. You also are invited to join our Facebook group, No Fracking in Stokes.

Winston-Salem Journal

The Stokes News

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Commingled recycling

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Sign on a county recycling container

Some time back, the county I live in changed its recycling system. In the old system, stuff had to be carefully sorted. For example, green, brown and clear glass had to be kept separate. Plastics, aluminum, and cardboard had to be separated. Steel cans, junk mail, and paper milk cartons were not recyclable at all.

Then everything changed. All the bins were relabeled with no fanfare, no explanation, and no public announcement, as far as I know. Now all glass went into the same place, regardless of color. Everything else could be “commingled,” and dumped willy nilly into the same bin.

I was very skeptical of this new system. It’s obvious that if all that commingled stuff truly was recycled, then somewhere down the line a huge amount of labor would be required to separate everything. I finally got around to making changes in my recycling chores and bins at home to reflect the new system. While I was at it, I did some Googling to try to figure out how commingled recycling can work.

It’s legit. In fact, depending on where you live, you’ve probably had it for ages. It does require a huge amount of labor and machinery downstream. The reason for the move to commingled recycling, I’m guessing, was to make it easier for people and thus to encourage recycling.

If you Google, you’ll find videos of these industrial sorting systems. Some of it is automated. The machinery can sort some stuff based on weight, or by using magnets, or by blowing things with puffs of air. But it also requires a lot of human labor. Humans are stationed along the conveyor belts, picking stuff out and throwing it in bins.

Apparently even junk mail is recyclable with the new systems. Small pieces of cardboard (beer cartons, for example) can be happily commingled, it seems. But our recycling depots here still prefer that large cardboard boxes be broken down and kept separate.

The new commingled recycling systems, now that I have a better understanding of how they work, should help me improve my trash to recycling ratio and simplify my container situation at home. Here in the sticks, where we have to drive our own trash and recyclables to county depots, some storage and organization is required at home. Sometime I would like to measure my compost to trash to recyclables ratio. But I already know that, by far, my trash portion is the smallest.

Egg-testing a “green” pan

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The butter is a little brown not because I overheated it but because I had cooked a Trader Joe’s fake sausage before cooking the egg.

Six or seven years ago, I bought some nonstick Calphalon pans from Williams Sonoma. They were on sale, but they were still pricey. They were said to be dishwasher safe. For several years, they worked great. But now they’ve mostly lost their nonstick qualities, and using them is a lot like cooking with cast iron.

I would have guiltily written this off to putting them in the dishwasher and not taking proper care of them, but from doing some reading it appears that all nonstick pans eventually stop working. Good pots and pans should last a lifetime or longer — except, apparently, for nonstick pans. So if a pan is going to last for only five or six or seven years, then why pay Calphalon prices?

While I was on the lookout for replacements, so-called “green” pans with a white ceramic coating caught my eye. They are moderately priced, just above the level of cheap. Some Googling and reading finds that, though they greatly reduce the toxic substances in nonstick coatings, they still may not be entirely free of toxins. These pans generally get pretty good reviews. The small pan I bought is clearly marked as not safe for dishwashers. And clearly it should never be used on high heat. At least while new, it does a fine job of cooking eggs.

The egg in the photo, by the way, was picked up from the chicken house about 10 minutes before I cooked it. I did not feed the chickens yesterday, forcing them to forage in their woods lot and in the grass of the orchard. Chickens eating greens makes for really golden egg yolks. When the girls are first let out in the morning, they immediately go for chickweed and clover. Though it comes back to me indirectly, I do get some nutrition out of that delicious-looking organic grass in the orchard.

Poldark is returning to PBS

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If asked to name my favorite Masterpiece Theater series of all time, it would be “Poldark.” The series started in 1975. It starred Robin Ellis as Ross Poldark and Angharad Rees as Demelza. Rees, unfortunately, died in 2012 of pancreatic cancer. Robin Ellis, now 73 years old, lives in France and has an excellent web site and blog.

The Poldark series is based on a series of books by Winston Graham. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, I read at least nine of the books. Graham, who was English, died in 2003. He was a fine historical novelist. He has a cinematic, masculine style, and yet his novels rival the novels of women writers in that Graham is able to explore and exploit the emotional entanglements of his characters.

The Poldark story is set in Cornwall right after the American Revolution. Ross Poldark returns to Cornwall after fighting in America. Everyone had thought he was dead. His father had died, and his family home had fallen into ruin. The woman he loves had become engaged to a cousin. He was broke and in debt. The story revolves around his trying to put his life back together. Poldark is a man ahead of his time. He is a man of the Enlightenment, but all around him it’s still the Dark Ages in many ways.

The new Poldark casts Aidan Turner as Ross Poldark. It is, like the 1975 series, being filmed in Cornwall. Where else do you get those romantic cliffs overlooking the channel? Turner, now 31, who is Irish, played Kíli in “The Hobbit.”

British viewers started watching Poldark on March 8. In the U.S., the series will start in June, on PBS’ Masterpiece.

The books have been re-released, apparently with cover images from the new PBS production. There also are Kindle editions.

Watch out. If you read these books, you’ll become obsessed with visiting Cornwall. On my first trip to London in the early 1980s, I took a train to Truro.

By the way, Winston Graham wrote another novel set in Cornwall, The Grove of Eagles. As far as I can tell, that book is out of print, but it is one of my favorite historical novels, and this reminds me that it’s time to read it again.

A new Neal Stephenson, May 19

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I wish the list were longer, but there are only two science fiction writers whose books I eagerly await and buy the day they’re released — John Twelve Hawks and Neal Stephenson. Stephenson’s new novel, Seveneves, will be released on May 19. I’ve pre-ordered the hardback version from Amazon.

By the way, the Kindle version is $16.99, and Amazon discounts the hardback at $21.04 with free shipping. Not many authors can command Kindle prices that high. If I’m paying that much, I want something that I can hold in my hand. So there’s another thick book that I don’t have shelf space for.

Seveneves is another huge book — 880 pages. One of the things I like about Stephenson is that he is unapologetically and unpretentiously intelligent. He has a weird mind. I suspect that he is fairly far along on the autistic spectrum, because his characters are oddly lacking in affect. Stephenson does not write social novels. His social IQ is probably as low as his intellectual IQ is high. This makes for strange fiction, but in science fiction, strange is good. His characters are nerds. Nerds are good.

Another factor that makes Stephenson’s long tomes a pleasure to read is that Stephenson doesn’t mess around with language. His prose is concise, clear, and transparent. I don’t know whether this is because Stephenson has mastered English or because his books make so much money that he is assigned the best editors. I generally decide within the first three pages whether I’m going to finish — or at least continue reading — a book. If I have to fight with sloppy prose or with a writer’s attempt to cultivate some sort of unique personal “style,” I fling the book and give it a one-star review on Amazon. Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall was such a book. How such writers keep from being murdered by their editors is beyond me.