WINTER HAS ARRIVED #2

A relatively warm day on the Saturday before the snow really fell. We had had about a quarter to a half inch on last Friday the remains of which you can see in the background. Uma travels down to open her two Subway shops before daylight and I frequently accompany her part way either to walk back a mile or so or else to don my roller skis and return by a longer route. It is convenient to look out onto the back porch to see how cold it is going to be and decide what to wear

A day or so later, the scene is a little different. I inspect the back yard on skis! I also took a little tour of the immediate neighborhood. At the rear, behind me, I skied down to visit my friends Lenwood and his daughter, Tiffany. Lenwood was clearing his drive of snow, a task I had just completed. With that done, I could not resist donning the skis and setting out.

YES; WINTER HAS ARRIVED

So, here I am in the front garden of Uma's house all ready to get out on the skis for a tour of the yard and then a look at the neighborhood. This was on Sunday last and we have had snow off and on since, with a little freezing rain to make it interesting. As I write, this Tuesday morning, we have light snow flurries that look to be increasing in strength. Back in Portland, there is really serious rain with floods and road closures, including the main Interstate running between Mexico and British Columbia.

Hard to imagine now that all those Fall tasks are behind me. All the leaves and lawn clippings now slumber in three compost heaps, covered with snow.

The wood from the fir tree, it turns out, does not burn all that well. Besides, having covered most of the windorws on the inside with clear plastic wrap and researched the problems of keeping heat in the house, I have found that a fire is more likely to cool the house than heat it. This does not mean that one cannot have a fire but the hot air that goes up the chimney has to be replaced by fresh cold air from the exterior. Not such a good idea.

FALL TASKS

Here is a little story to show you what other chores have come my way beside mowing, composting and bread baking. Unfortunately, the posts as in reverse order so I must leave you to make sense of them since I have not yet figured out if it is possible to reorder them.
The composting proceeds apace as does the weekly loaf of bread. More on them later.

ABOUT AS FIR AS I CAN GO

Now I have a good bit of firewood for the Winter. Some is a little green and will have to be split if it is to burn. With the compost bins and lots of small branches that will do for kindling, I find that I spend quite a bit of time at the bottom of the yard. This has has led to occasional evening meetings with with my neighbors. Chris and Jan have recently moved in next door while Lenwood and Angie have been living in the house at the rear for almost a year. They have two children (Troy and Tiffany) while the recent arrivals have two dogs and an electronic fence to keep them in. You can see that there is a terrific chopping block waiting to be used. Trouble is we do not have either an axe or a tomahawk as yet.

Fall Tasks #2

So, Here I am in the thick of it, with the work well advanced.
I expect that we will be able to burn this wood in the fireplace in the living room. Anyway, here I am working with the bow saw cutting up the branches removed.






Sawing away at it!






The tree is now much more free of unnecessary growth. I have used rope to pull several branches over to fill in the space made by heavy pruning.

So, here I am having a look at the task in hand; actually, I am well into it at this stage. I have not attempted to prune and shape such a large tree before. It took several days to think out the best way to approach it. Some branches were broken or had spit under the weight of foliage. It seemed that the bottom third of the tree was desperate for sunlight with branches stretching out and criscrossing in the interior of the tree. I figured that some branches could be retrained to fill gaps resulting from the removal of large broken branches. Removing these brances enabled me to enter the tree to clean out the old, dead wood.

Wednesday, November 7. Well, the weather is certainly shifting hereabouts. Very slight snow flurries are falling as I write and the temperature is in the low 40's. We have had a couple of mornings when it has fallen to the low 20's. Seems like the Fall is shaping up for the onset of Winter. Nonetheless we have had fine days and probably need some precipitation as things are quite dry. Here you see where I live...


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That fir tree on the right had been let go for years with little attention; mowing around it was a real bug bear. Uma and I decided that the time had come to thin it out a little at the base. You would not believe how convoluted the growth was. "Woodman, spare that tree."do I hear you cry?

FALL AND SAD

Here in Painted Post, we are now well into the Fall. Overnight temperatures are down to freezing level causing the autumn colors to shift to reds and crimsons. Hooray that DLS ends next Sunday with daylight shifting a hour back to the beginning of the day!

Have you noticed how, during the shorter days of Fall and Winter, your energy slowly slips away? When I worked in Kennewick (in eastern Washington state) I chose a four day working week. This had me at work from 7 AM to 6 PM, leaving my apartment in the dark and returning in the dark. When the Spring finally came and the trees burst into flower, I was amazed at the surge of energy I experienced. I finally realized that my energy had been gradually seeping away each day without my realizing what was going on.

Strictly speaking, this was not Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) but nonetheless a serious depletion of mood. I suspect it affects many of us. In Australia, I had not noticed this. However the latitude of Kennewick is about 46 degrees while that of Melbourne is about 46 degrees. That means that in Melbourne Winter daylight is much longer. Besides, there are always some plants flowering, like the beautiful wattle.

What can be done about this? Our mood is highly related to the level of serotonin; this chemical washes all around our body but is associated in the brain with elevation of mood. This is why recent drugs developed to combat depression aim to increase seratonin levels. Researchers at Austin Hospital in Melbourne have found that seratonin plummets during Autumn to as low as 20% of summertime levels. They also found that spending 20 minutes midmorning outside, even on cloudy days, could produce impressive increases. Adding exercise outdoors, like a 20 minute walk around the block, further assists to this effect. It is important not to wear sunglasses when doing this. Looking up from time to time at the sky also helped.

Exercise that produces slight sweating for about 20 minutes also increases other 'feel good' chemicals, endorphins, in the brain. Regular exercise has the effect of training the brain to produce these hormones earlier in the exercise period. Regular exercise also signals the brain to instruct the body to shaft away from the "slow down, winter is here" metabolic rate.

One can increase seratonin by eating dark chocolate. In addition to the active ingredient in chocolate, the sugar assists seratonin levels to increase. We are only talking of eating a few (more than two and less than five) small pieces of chocolate each day. The calories in this amount of chocolate will be burned off with moderate, regular exercise.

Lots of folk find that fluorescent lights help as do 'full spectrum' globes with a color temperature of above 5,000 K. These used to be very expensive (like $12 each) but now can be readily purchased for about $2 each. The great thing about this is that you also reduce your energy bills when you use these bulbs (plus, following Al Gore, if every household in America switched five regular light bulbs for five fluorescent bulbs, it would be the equivalent of taking 1 million cars off the highways for a full year.) Feel good...do good!

Autumn seems to be the danger period when we begin to feel that we ought to stay inside (maybe because our bodies are not used to the sudden onset of cold conditions). Toward actual Winter, we get outdoors again to ski or just go for a drive or a walk. In 1992, I was in Alaska in the little town of Anderson to attend a blue grass music festival. I talked to the sheriff about the long winter days (I was there in midsummer). He told me how they arranged outdoor competitions under lights. He said it was those who stayed indoors who suffered 'cabin fever' and were at risk of depression and even suicide.

What do I do about it? I use the full spectrum lights, make sure I exercise in some way each day, get outside before lunchtime (like yesterday when I turned the compost before lunch) and make sure that I eat enough (trying to stay on a strict diet can cause serotonin levels to drop really seriously). Yes, and I think that I will buy some dark chocolate next time I hit the supermarket!

COMPOSTING: ANOTHER PASSION?

Here you see a picture of my initial composting heaps. When I was over here last Fall, I was amazed at how many leaves had to be raked and carted out to curbside to be carried away to "whoknowswhere" for "whoknowswhat". However, I noticed that where the leaves had been left they had turned into nice soil.
I thought, This is what I am going to do next year: turn all the leaves into compost for the 2008 garden. The first thing to do was to research composting; the University of Minnesota has some good material on this topic. I determined to use bins constructed of chicken wire. This comes in 25 foot lengths and is 4 feet high, making it possible to construct quickly two bins 3'x3'x4 (with a side that can be opened up like a gate). I have placed them 4 feet apart so that I can use the space between by adding two lengths of chicken wire for a third bin. I may end up with five bins at the bottom of the yard. Our mower has blades designed for mulching and, cleaning out the shed, I found the catch bag. By mowing selected areas of the lawn I have been able to layer grass clippings with leaves (mixed with clippings). The mower chops up the leaves very nicely. Each mowing (about 7 to 10 days apart) just about fills up a bin. I put in coffee grounds and odd kitchen scraps as well. After about a day, I can feel the heat generated in the bin and at the end of one week, the contents have reduced to about half the original height. I turned out the first bin (the one on the right) after about two weeks and noticed that it seemed to be too dry. Once the layers had been turned over I placed them back in the bin and added a few gallons of water. Two mowings in that bin are now only about a foot deep and I can tell you, it is really cooking along.
I have been lucky with the weather as it has been quite warm and this has assisted in keeping the heat going in the mounds. The big test will come as the weather cools and it is mainly leaves that go into the bins. I hope to have the bins working up to Thanksgiving and that will take care of most of the leaves. After that, things will slow down prior to serious cold and possible snow. I may have to wrap the bins with mostly leaves in them (maybe with plastic) to preserve the heat but, my, don't those bacteria go to work!

Compost 'Bins'

PASSION: THIS WILL DO FOR NOW?

I seem to be acquiring two passions during this Fall season: Bread Baking and Composting.
I got a great recipe for "Kneadless Bread" out of New York Times
and see what you think of it. The trick is to make the dough fairly wet and sticky and then bake it a covered hot pot (a bit like making damper) to release a surge of steam to create a delicious crust. I am trying to work out how to load photos...As you will see, I am using a multi-grain mix by a miller in Wisconsin (purchased off amazon.com). It is a bit tricky and I will need one or more essays to get it right. I gave the first loaf 6.5 out of 10 and this second loaf 7.5. The first photo shows the bread on its second proving and the second shows the actual baked loaf.

Settling In or Setting Out?

Here I am...back on my blog after almost a month of neglect.
Chris Crowley (remember the book I mentioned, Younger Next Year?) makes the point that successful retirement involves a complete break with the past and a reinvention of oneself. The long journey across the US provided an effective buffer between my last life and the next. I will write a little about the net effect of that drive in another piece. However, now that I am here, it is not so much a matter of settling in as setting out. Part of this is finding a passion. One of my past passions was flying. I started out with learning to fly in gliders (real full size sail planes) and then got into flying things with a fan at the front end. This led to many adventures. As part of sizing up life in Corning/Painted Post, I discovered the original site of gliding in the US (on a ridge called Harris Hill, overlooking the regional airport). One day, I rode my bike out to have a look at the operations there; it was quite a climb up to the ridge. After watching the launch of several flights and the return of a couple of gliders I realized that this now was quite boring for me. On another bike ride, I dropped into the local airfield and tried to imagine myself getting back into that scene. When I took up flying, I knew there would be an end to it and sensed that, when I came to the US, that I would probably leave the flying business behind. Early on, in Portland, I did some flying with an instructor in preparation for my US license renewal. Dropping into the local airfield the other day did not ignite the old fire.
What would a new passion look like? Now take my friend Michael; he devotes lots of time and energy to getting his Buick Electra ready for its big test in Nevada next year. Last Saturday, we went to the drag strip about 70 miles away. The car went well. We had to wait all morning and part of the afternoon for the strip to dry out. Only 1/8 mile was available; nonetheless, one 'rocket' was timed at 146 mph at the end. All that work for 4.6 seconds of experience!!! But what an experience! Not my brand of passion however.
In the meantime, following the advice of Crowley and Lodge, I go to work each day at the office of exercise. Currently this is a couple of good bike rides each week, and, most days, around 5000 meters on my Concept2 Rower. To this routine I have added an early morning bout on the roller skis of about five kilometers (sic...the non-US readers will have to accept this instead of kilometres). I pole and skate around in the dark, my headlamp pointing to the front and, at my rear, a red blinking lamp to warn overtaking motorists. With the ski season mind, I have added strength training to the weekly exercise routine. This must be doing me good as I have lost another five or so pounds (2.27 kg). Crowley is right...you have to treat this as the new job.
Still looking for that passion. I have a few little projects in mind. Remembering last years autumn leaves, I am using Uma's lawn mower's mulching capacity to convert lawn clippings and fall leaves into compost and am in the process of constructing compost bins at the bottom of the back yard. The completed bin is almost full as a result of yesterday's mowing. And last night I baked my first wholemeal loaf (nine grains) of bread. I am considering doing the two day High Performance Driving Course offered by the local chapter of the BMW Drivers' Club. Learning to pilot my Infiniti G20 as swiftly as I am able around the Watkins Glen Raceway sounds like an interesting and exciting thing to do.
Watch this space...you may see passion emerging!

YOU: ON A DIET?

Returning to some things I have picked up from the three books I mentioned earlier: The basic message is two fold:

• Forget diets!!! All the recent research has shown that diets work only temporarily, if at all, and most usually result in a return to the original weight or worse
• Regular exercise and adequate diet will make you younger relative to your chronological age and, with persistence over a year or so, will likely result in some weight loss. More importantly, you will feel great, look great, and have fewer aches and pains.

According to Crowley and Lodge, our bodies adjust the fat content in response to complex signals sent from the most primitive part of the brain (that bit just at the top of the spinal cord that we share with all vertebrates) to influence how fat is used and stored. We become obese when we send messages (via this primitive, unthinking brain) that are confusing to the rest of the body. What do they mean by this?
They ask us to consider the conditions to which we adjusted as we evolved over millions of years inheriting from our evolutionary ancestors highly specialized ways of managing ourselves in relation to the changing environment. For virtually all of this time we were hunter-gatherers, walking eight to ten miles per day searching for food. For the hunters, on top of this basic exercise, there would be the chase with its final burst to separate out prey. In the springtime, there would be plenty of game and the promise of gathering berries and fruits, as well as digging up roots. All creatures have learned this and the knowledge of this season stored in such a way in the brain to influence shedding of fat and increase in muscle mass. The increased activity of hunting and gathering as this season progressed sends a message to the primitive brain to set the body to dispose of fat and increase strength for the search for game and food, according to whether one were male or female.
Going now to the end of Autumn, game is scarce, there is little fruit and berries to forage; now the body's ancestry tells it to slow down. There is no point to searching for food so we stay around the remaining food sources (probably nuts) and near shelter. This diminished activity sends a message to the brain that it is time to lay up and store as many calories as possible as fat. Here is the nub of it: If the primitive brain "thinks" it is Spring, because of increased activity, most food gets directed to muscle growth. If we lead it go believe we are going into Winter, because of decreased activity, most food goes into fat.
What does this mean? The couch potato is telling the body that Winter is approaching and to turn food into fat if at all possible whereas the person who walks five miles each day and has the occasional game of tennis or rides a bike twenty miles each weekend is telling the body to turn food into muscle and bone wherever possible.
I think this new approach, based on our evolutionary history, is very cool and a great clue to how to manage our waist, and grow younger as we grow older.
Any comments?

Excellent Book On Managing Health and Ageing

I thought that the time here in Basalt with my daughter (Bronwyn) and granddaughter (Stephanie) would be a more or less idle interlude. I did take it easy for a day or so but a short bike ride with Bronwyn has introduced me to the excellent system of bike ways they have developed here in the Rocky River Valley. It is possible to ride the length of the valley witDiethout going onto the main road; fortuitous indeed as the traffic is very dense.
I have also renewed acquaintance with a neighbor and good friend of Bronwyn, Willie Sabarase. Originally trained as a biologist, Willie is quite an entrepreneur and very successful; he has quite wide interests. Meeting up with him again is an example of the privilege of traveling: the opportunity to engage with interesting people.
Willie has loaned me a book, Younger Next year; turn back your biological clock, by Chris Crowley and Henry Lodge. Chris is a 70 year old man who became a patient of Henry (an internist and gerontologist) about a decade back. If you read it, this will revolutionize your approach to exercise which they hold to be the secret to managing health, fitness, and to managing the ageing process. It is a great complement to the Real Age book, You: On a Diet: The Owners Manual for Waist Management.
Another great book to read in this connection is Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss--and the Myths and Realities of Dieting.
This latter is by Gina Kolata, a science writer for NY Times who researched various diets. All three books are written in an energetic style and chockablock with the latest information about how the body manages either for heath or illness. It seems we actually have a lot of choice available to us based on this knowledge.
Actually, the order I have mentioned these books is the order I recommend you take them up. They connect our hunter gatherer heritage of just a few thousand years back with the challenges life in our "civilized" complex society and the health problems the disconnect between the two bring our way.

In The Beginning

In the beginning, at a party, several people said, "Robert, you will have to start a blog so that we can follow you adventures..."
So, here we all are at the beginning of an adventure together. I will seem to be obsessed with what is next rather than what is passed away. We will all pass away but that can wait. One cannot drive well going forwards by gazing into the rear-vision mirror. You are permitted to display your own obsessions, should you have any, to do with the adventure, the journey we call life. All aboard!