Welcome

A curiosity shop is a place of odds and ends in a wide range of categories. One never knows what one will find on any visit, and that is the goal of this blog. Here you'll find postings on doings around Easton, the world's environment, history, recipes, fly fishing, books, music, and movies with many other things thrown in as well. Hope you enjoy it and keep coming back.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Simba Arrives and Coming Attractions

Sorry for the lack of postings lately, but the Harvest Fair has taken a lot of time. That's this Sunday at Sheep Pasture from 10-4. Looking forward to getting back to a regular schedule.

Simba, our Jersey ox, arrived yesterday. He is almost exactly six months old but is developmental delayed due to an illness his mother contracted before he was born. Simba was bottle fed for many months so he is just learning how to eat grass and chew his cud. He is a skinny little guy, but doesn't believe in going into the barn he shares with one of our goats. The goat, of course, hasn't come out of the barn since Simba arrived. Come visit and see if interspecies friendship will bloom.

In the hiatus between postings a lot of things have happened that are worth talking about. Stonehill's History Department had a speaker on Big History. The state has issued a report detailing the effects of climate change specifically on Massachusetts based on several years of research, and as mentioned in an earlier blog Massachusetts Audubon has a brilliant new State of the Birds Report. Plenty to talk about-the start of the Agricultural Commission, the possible casino in Raynham (just another reason to split Easton in two with train tracks), more Civil War stories, etc. All starting Monday.

Monday, September 26, 2011

India

 Having spent so much time talking about our visitors from Pakistan. I thought it only appropriate to talk about its neighbor India.

My introduction to the culture of India came through television viewing of those terrible action films of the 1940s that celebrated British colonialism. The music of Ravi Shankar was a highlight of my college days. Throw in some history courses that mentioned India tangentially, and there things stayed for many years.

Globalization and the electronic revolution changed things. Randolph High School had a number of Indian students so I got to know a little about the traditions of the country. Then the iPod came along and I discovered there was more to Indian music than sitars. Interestingly, I enjoy music played on the sarangi and the veena. The sarangi from northern India and the veena from southern India both have the range and flexibility of the human voice and often accompany singers. All these instruments are part of classical Indian music, but then there's the wonderful pop music of India which may be familiar to folks who watch Bollywood movies.

India makes substantially more movies than Hollywood, but until recently few have been released into international distribution. While there are many genres of Indian films from action adventures to serious dramas, the classic Bollywood film blends music and dance with the storyline. I've tried to introduce Indian films at the Hockomock Film Club, but most run much longer than our typical two hour feature film. Two exceptions are Monsoon Wedding from 2001 and Bride and Prejudice from 2004. Both these films have the classic Bollywood formula but were made with western audiences in mind.

My favorite Indian film is Lagaan. When I mentioned this film to our Pakistani visitors I got a lecture about the film's significance in showing the fight against colonialism. True enough, but it's really a movie about cricket with super production numbers! Another recent omnibus of a film is "My Name is Khan" which in its 165 minutes takes on Asperger's Syndrome, muslim-hindu intermarriage, the Indian diaspora to America, terrorism, and several other topics. It has less music than a typical Bollywood film and manages to channel "Forest Gump" and "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou!" It features two of India's greatest stars Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol who have real chemistry (they have appeared together in at least three films) and give great performances. I'd recommend seeing both films.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Pakistani Visitors

Here's a blog that will be like preaching to the choir since many of us have met the wonderful visitors from Pakistan that have been adding some exotic color to the "lush green" of Easton. However, for readers who didn't get a chance to meet Ms. Sadaf Rani and Ms. Shagufta Ahmed Ansari, here's the story.

Sadaf and Shagufta are part of a group of 13 Pakistani media experts who are visiting the US as part of a cultural exchange. The group was split up among Massachusetts towns for 2 1/2 day visits before moving on to programs in Boston, New York, and Washington. Shagufta works as an Assistant Director of the External Publicity Wing at the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting while Sadaf is a Senior Producer at Radio Pakistan.

Colleen Corona served as the women's host while they were visiting Easton. The goal of the trip is to compare media and journalism in the two countries, but for all who met Sadaf and Shagufta it was an opportunity to overcome some of the misconceptions Americans have about Pakistan. Luckily for me, my media students were invited to interview the two visitors. You'll be able to see that formal interview on ECAT within a few days, but, of course, the best stuff happened after the students turned off the cameras and swarmed around the two women.

We didn't know what to expect from our visitors. Pakistan is a predominantly Muslim country so I think the students expected burkas and veils or at least head scarfs. What we got were two modern women dressed in the spectacularly colorful clothes of Pakistan. Sadaf told me the dress was a choice and showed me pictures of the other women in the group who were wearing western clothes. She told me that even she wore jeans at home, but always in combination with the beautiful traditional style of blouse.

Ironically, the pair arrived in the week when Newsweek magazine listed Pakistan as the eighth worst country for the treatment of women. Our visitors are from Islamabad, the capital and a large modern city. Women have made great strides there and in other cities. As in the US certain professions had always been open to women, and women often worked outside the house running small businesses. In the last two decades many more professions have been opened to women again just like the US. Both women used their own industry as an example. Where once there were only a few channels on TV now there are 70 TV channels and a vibrant radio culture providing new opportunities for women. Pakistan even has affirmative action with job quotas for women. Pay discrimination isn't allowed-equal pay for people in equal positions was something they were justly proud of.

Pakistan is a big country with almost 200 million people. Most live in rural areas and make their living in agriculture. There the culture is more traditional and there things like the 800 honor killings mentioned in Newsweek can occur. Sadaf told me she had never known of an honor killing in her wide circle of family and friends. I couldn't help but think of at least four murders that have happened to people I knew-all man on woman violence.

Islam does have different cultural rules. Both women have cars in Islamabad, but they wouldn't drive a male co-worker to a restaurant. Only male family members or "trusted family friends." Of course, Sadaf mentioned, college girls drive fellow students all the time. Both women emphasized the positive traditions of Islam and noted that their religion did not prevent engagement with the modern world of the Internet and social media.

Our visitors were candid about the problems of their country without being critical of the government. They noted their long border with Afghanistan, which has been troubled since the 1980s, and their traditional rivalry with India. These concerns have led to a large military, and the military budget is a huge drain on a developing economy that makes for shortages in funds for education, medical care, and economic development. In Pakistan even government supported schools charge a fee to attend. Media censorship is more of a problem there, but things are improving and with dozens of channels in both TV and radio many reports questioning government policies appear every day. Both woman left my students with a number of websites to check out. Sadaf even has a Facebook page. English is one of the official languages of Pakistan (it's mandatory in schools) along with Urdu and five regional languages so we can easily keep tabs on the media there.

Later in the day of our TV interview I got to share a meal with our visitors. We chatted about movies, shopping, fall foliage (they have it too!) and recipes. I asked why do we have such mistaken ideas about each other. These two savvy media folks were quick to point the finger at modern media. While media is making the world a global village, it tends to give us snapshots and soundbites rather than depth. We all agreed if more people could just talk around a kitchen table, the world would be a better place.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Capital Punishment

A man named Troy Davis was executed in Georgia. I don't know much about the case other than he was accused of killing a police officer who had tried to rescue a homeless man from people who were beating him. I came to the case late, and only know that thousands of people who took the time to read about the case signed petitions asking for a stay of execution because they thought there was new evidence that showed Troy Davis might be innocent. It seems to me there is always time to wait to execute some one. The state of Georgia isn't going to die of old age before it carries out its mission of judicially sanctioned revenge. What would it have cost to wait? Money and the chance of embarrassment for officials who might have arrested the wrong man. Not much in a country that professes to hold each individual life as precious.

I'm opposed to the death penalty as I sure you've guessed. It's one of those things a history teacher hears debated annually so I've heard all the arguments many times. The death penalty doesn't deter crime and the justice system is too sloppy to ensure an innocent person isn't put to death. I don't mean sloppy in a critical way; it's just that broad human error can creep into our current system at every stage of the process. One can argue effectively that the justice system is also too sloppy to ensure a dangerous person isn't released from prison to kill an innocent. Thus, I also oppose parole in capital cases.

While Mitt Romney was governor he proposed reinstating the death penalty in Massachusetts only in cases where there was incontrovertible scientific evidence to link the defendant to the crime. No one could be executed on eyewitness testimony like those that were made and recanted in the Davis case. A person could still be convicted under those circumstances, but the sentence would be life without parole. I think this proposal might be the best we can humanly do. Is it good enough? That depends on whether you believe that governments somehow have an inherent right to decide issues of life and death. One of the great ironies of American government is that so many people who say they believe in "limited government" support the death penalty.





Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Bird Report

As you may have read, the Massachusetts Audubon Society has released a State of the Birds report that uses documentary evidence to track the increases and decreases in bird populations in Massachusetts. There are two highlights to this effort. The first is the 64 page glossy report itself. It can be read online or downloaded. The other is the new website that lets you check in on the status of any of the more than 100 species found in Massachusetts. This is way too much information to digest quickly and put in blog form in the days before the Harvest Fair. I like its commitment to scientific analysis not that facts matter much in the magic world of preconceived notions that we live in today. Check out the site and the report and we'll get back to this later.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Easton Needs a Dog Park

Yesterday morning Maggie (in her lovely blue harness) and I were on an expedition to find dodder and pyrola for our botany intern at Sheep Pasture. Maggie is always on a leash because her belief that she should be the only dog at Sheep Pasture can lead to ugly confrontations, and I don't want to get covered in dog drool prying her out of the mouth of a Pit Bull. As she checked out every large rock along the path to the abandoned Cranberry Bog in order to leave her stay away message, a large black standard poodle or labradoodle flew by out in the field followed by a springer spaniel running as fast as its shorter legs could move it. Nobody was in sight and luckily the dogs were so into the joy of running in the cool fall air they didn't notice Maggie or me. Before I knew it the dogs were out of view up the road to the parking lot.  As I wondered where their owners were and whether I should call the dog officer, I walked past the entrance to the Whale Rock Trail only to hear plaintive whistling in the woods. As I reached the Cranberry Bog, the two dogs returned and ran up the Whale Rock Trail apparently to meet their still invisible owners.

We have a leash rule at Sheep Pasture. Little children and mother's with strollers don't need to have a large dog charging at them despite the inevitable claim by the owner that the dog is a paragon of doggy niceness. Some one told we that about a barking, slobbering Rottweiler that appeared at full run over a hill charging at my little Miss Trouble Maker. Maggie is smart enough to take cover behind me at the last second in circumstances like that-good for her, not for me. If I have time, I usually pick her up. She only barks with four feet on the ground-she hasn't made a decision about whether she controls air rights at Sheep Pasture, but I've often had dogs leap on me to greet her. That's something neither of us actually wants no matter how nice the dog is.

I understand why owners like to let their big dogs run, and Stonehill's Clock Farm has become the de facto place for that. On weekend mornings some of this dribbles over to Sheep Pasture so far with no bad consequences, but yesterday's incident was as an eye opener-two dogs out of sight of their owners for at least five minutes. This is why we've considered putting "All Dogs Must Be Leashed" signs at dog eye level hoping they are smarter than owners like the ones yesterday.

We've only addressed the potential for disaster today. Unfortunately, people are much less likely to pick up after a dog off leash so we end up with dog poop in our hay. Dogs off leash also threaten ground nesting birds and small animals. People dumb enough to let little dogs off leash in the woods risk having them eaten by coyotes. 

I'd love to see a dog park in Easton. I  see  a special place where small dogs could get together off leash without fear. An open area would let all breeds get together on leash, and then there would be a large field where big dogs could run under their owners supervision. Does Easton have the three or four acres of open space for this? Could a piece of the CPA's priority properties by used for this? Undoubtedly yes. Elsewhere the days when dogs run free should be over.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

A Newpaper at the Crossroads

Where do you get your news? I subscribe to the Globe and the Enterprise and Time and Newsweek. I listen to radio news on WBZ every day. Since I got my Barnes and Noble Nook, I've had an app called Pulse that draws from 60 news sources and which I check out each night. My browser of choice has a menu bar that always instant access to both Google Reader and my iGoogle page, both with multiple sources and a special menu bar tied to my favorite news sources. I don't watch TV news unless there is some special event like the recent hurricane (sorry, folks I didn't lose power in the storm).

All this makes it seem like I'm more linked into the universal news stream than I really am, but everything may be about to change again. I've blogged about my frustration with Globe home delivery. What once was a drop off at my door is now a toss at the end of the driveway. The once daily ritual of read the front page, check the op-ed page, and then read the sports and funnies over breakfast and a shave has given way to toss the paper in the car and hope to read it sometime during the day. The Enterprise is worse. I always check for Easton news, but that's it unless the Carneys are trying to put a casino in our backyard or South Coast Rail is trying to cut us in two with a train (two sides of the same story really).

So the news weeklies, the Nook and radio are my main news sources now, but the Globe wants to sneak back into my life. As mentioned earlier in the summer, the Globe is about to split its online presence into two parts. The for-pay version is free to viewers until September 30 (or "the Friday before Harvest Fair" in NRT speak). You can view it here and compare it to what will be the free version here. Luckily for my procrastinator's soul as a hard copy subscriber I get the online version free. The difference in cost is striking $49 a month for paper, $16 a month for online only.

Can the Globe make this work? Why would you pay for online service if there is a free service that does the same thing? You can check out the Globe's own comparison of its two products here. Without the subscription service I'd miss out on the funnies and contrary to their advertising not all the comics are in the online version-Red and Rover for instance. The daily chess puzzle is also missing and, unfortunately, Dan Shaughnessy's columns are still present in the sports section. The good news is that in the online version, it is easier to drop him an e-mail and meticulously detail his failings as a journalist.  Finally, while the online reading experience for most of the paper is pretty good, it's harder to read the comics online as you have to click through an alphabetical list rather than quickly scan a page.

The big plus for the Globe is supposed to be the ability to read the "whole" paper anywhere. That means I could read the paper on a school computer while the print version chills in my car. Hard to see why the wired in generation will pay for information they can get for free. The Globe may be overestimating the draw of their columnists and news analysts, but even there a smattering of them would be available in the free version. Another question is how would you pay those guys if every subscriber switched from paying $49 a month (with costs supplemented by ads) to $16 a month (with very limited ads)? Interesting story-I wonder if the Globe will be around to write it.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Krigia virginica

549. That's the number of plants on Sheep Pasture's list since the "discovery" this week of Krigia virginica. Your intrepid reporter spotted the little plant growing at the edge of the driveway outside the Parker Room. It had been missed by all the famous botanists who have surveyed plants at Sheep Pasture. It's easy to overlook-the common name is Virginia Dwarf Dandelion so it's litty-bitty and looks like one of our most common weeds. Right now we have a botany student from Stonehill interning with us. Mr. Doofus thinking the little plant was Hawkweed picked some leaves and a flower, and the intern made the identification.

The little plant is an annual and may be in trouble. It has disappeared from Maine and is listed as threatened in Ohio and endangered in Iowa. We have no idea how common it is in Massachusetts although its reasonable to assume, since it was missed by some pretty high powered botanists, that it is fairly rare at Sheep Pasture. We'll collect a few seeds and plant them near the original.

The magic number 549 is a little misleading. It includes plants from Olmsted's original planting list some of which may never have been planted and many of which have not been seen in years. The list also excludes cultivated flowers like those in our butterfly garden and in the new Eagle scout garden being planted now behind the Carriage House. Cultivated plants that manage to escape and survive on their own are listed.

The little triangle in the driveway that held our 100 foot tall pine will be replanted to Mr. Olmsted's original plan. He put wild rose (Rosa lucida) at the points of the triangle and filled with Japanese barberry. We're going to use a hardy rose, but the barberry is an invasive that can no longer be planted here so we are going to replace its red berries and small leaves with a dwarf cotoneaster or a dwarf firethorn. The cotoneaster was not on Olmsted's original list, but a variety of firethorn apparently made the list. I say apparently because while the common name matches the scientific name indicates Olmsted might have been thinking of a hawthorn. Cotoneaster, firethorn, and hawthorn are closely related. It will be fun to recreate part of the original look of the estate "after the Fair."

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Red Pine

 What do you, cheetahs, and red pine trees have in common? All three have been victims of extinction events at some time in the past that reduced their numbers almost to zero. That means that all three species have very little genetic variability. All cheetahs are so closely related that skin grafts from one animal to another face no rejection reactions. People have more variability, but a native of Iceland is still able to produce children with a native of China. Lack of genetic variation in red pines mean that they are ideal lumber trees. Even single one wants to grow straight and tall without the knots in the wood characteristic of white pine.

 Red pine is the state tree of Minnesota which should tell you something about its survivability here. Massachusetts is climatically marginal for red pine. It doesn't grow here naturally. Still there is a fair amount of it here planted by foresters in the early part of the 20th century. It did OK as long as it was planted on dry uplands. But the lack of genetic variability and the slightly too warm climate were not a perfect match. For many years the red pine grew well even producing cones and young trees, but as our climate has drifted warmer, the red pines have become stressed leaving them vulnerable to bugs and diseases that normally don't bother them in their cooler native climates. With us, when one of us gets a cold, almost everyone gets it. The lack of variability in red pine make that situation even worse so that now there is a massive dieback of almost all red pine going on in Massachusetts.

Today we had the largest WHITE pine at Sheep Pasture chopped down. It was the one with multiple trunks that stood in the middle of the driveway near the foundation. The multiple trunks were the result of a bug that ate the tree's leading stem when it was a mere sapling. This damaged many white pines here and coupled with the hurricane of 1938 probably convinced the Ames family to plant red pine.

The point of this long story is that the NRT has adopted a forestry plan to promote biodiversity for both plants and animals. It is a ten year plan overseen by famous forestry guru Phil Benjamin. His recommendation is to start with the ten acres around the Coit trail, one of our "wilderness" trails. The goal is to remove all the red pine and a some red maple in order to give more space for white pine and oaks which provide food for wild animals. Some oaks and white pine would also be removed if they are misshapen or diseased. The cutting would open up patches of sunlight that would spark the growth of wildflowers and shrubs. All this will begin around the time the ground freezes in order to make things easier for the horses who will be doing the work. We are using horses because they are more environmentally friendly than tractors, and because they will give visitors to Sheep Pasture a glimpse into the history of how the farm was originally run. Stay tuned!







Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Two short pieces and a long one for Bob

Sorry for missing the post yesterday, but Google has “updated” their blogging software and caused a glitch in publishing the blog.
1. I'm often asked how the Shovel Shop Project is going. Funding is in place, and the project is moving forward towards ground breaking sometime in mid-November instead of early October. Another step took place last night when Beacon and the Historical Commission finalized the historic preservation restriction on the property and agreed on (pretty much) a final design.
2. Interesting article in Nature News about consciousness and decision making. It presents evidence from brain MRIs to show that for simple decisions at least that brain activity predicting an action takes place before we are conscious of them. This may be an indication that consciousness is mere frosting on the cake of actions that easily take place without its intervention. The article goes on to explore the implication of this in the age old debate about free will. If decisions are made without our being conscious of them, do we really have free will?

3. I promised to present an analysis of the Johnny Walker line of blended scotch. I finally completed the research the other day with a glass of Johnny Walker Gold. Here are the results:
 Johnny Walker Red-Didn't taste this one. Purported to be Dick Cheney's favorite scotch. Figured his taste was probably as bad as his policy decisions. This is a blend of malt (all barley) and grain (other grains) whiskies. The company recommends it for mixed drinks.
Johnny Walker Black-A complex mix of 40 different malt and grain whiskies, it descends from a formula that was developed in the 1870s. It's been called black label since 1909, but evidence seems to point to the blend moving away from the peaty/smoky end of the taste spectrum towards the honey/fruity end as tastes have changed. The Johnny Walker line gets credit for retaining more of the scotch smoke than most current blends, however. I wasn't impressed on first tasting although a second tasting at another time proved Black Label to be a good blend with a balanced taste. I think someone used to single malts should be able to taste the grain whiskey in the mix.
Johnny Walker Green-A blend of only single malt whisky that has been aged at least 15 years. It is primarily a blend of four malts from the "four corners" of Scotland. Talisker from the Isle of Skye is noted for its smokiness and peppery finish while retaining some of the honey notes of Highland malts. Talisker will straighten your knickers if you are looking for a smooth drink, but it has been considered to be one of the finest single malts since the days of Robert Louis Stevenson. It is joined by Caol Ila from Islay another smoky single malt. The smokiness is well balanced by Highland malts Cragganmore which adds honey and dark fruit flavors and Linkwood that adds smoothness. A real scotch in that it retains enough smokiness, but the overall taste is smooth not harsh with subtle sweetness and great dried fruit overtones. For a single malt lover, this is a spectacular blend. It's one fault, shared by the next two colors, is that the cost of a bottle equals that of a good single malt. Here the cost-benefit analysis still points to buy. This is also a great blend to introduce people to single malts.

 Johnny Walker Gold-The next most expensive rung in the Walker ladder. Once again this is a blend of malt and grain whisky which is amazing given the price. Both types have been aged in the barrel for at least 18 years. The Gold blend was formulated to celebrate the centenary of the company in 1920 with special customers. It was not produced for sale until after World War II. The heart of the blend is a 22 year old Clynelish single malt along with 14 other single malts. The recipe is much more of a secret than some of the other blends perhaps because of the percentage of grain whisky included. It's believed by some that the percentage is so high that it would hurt sales if it was widely known. The drink itself has a big nose-it smells of peat and heather honey. Tasting is a big deal with descriptions sounding like the most fantastical wine buffs. The predominant first taste is sweet with peat and spice tastes coming on after the initial sweetness. Some find a burn, a harshness, caused by the long aging not the alcohol content, but I found it relatively mild and smooth compared to some single malts. Not bad, but from a price angle you might be better off going to Pop's and buying a bottle of Clynelish even if it isn't old enough to vote. The Gold name, by the way, comes from the fact that the water for the Clynelish distillery runs over veins of gold. I discovered Clynelish a few years ago and it became my favorite Highland single malt.

Johnny Walker Blue at over $200 a bottle is the most expensive blended scotch in the world. You could buy 3 or even 4 bottles of top notch single malts for that price! It is made of single malts that have been aged at least 25 years with some that have been in the cask for 40 years. Many of the malts in the blend come from distilleries that are no longer in operation. I tried this once at $26 a glass after a very bad day at work and probably missed some of the complexity that comes from these ancient malts. I'll have to give it another try. I remember it as remarkably smooth with nutty and citrus flavors and some pepper all imparted by the long cask aging. But was it 3 times more complex than the Green or a top draw single malt? 

Monday, September 12, 2011

Changes at Sheep Pasture

There will be many changes in Sheep Pasture in the coming months. Our Executive Director Jennifer Cummings has resigned to take an assistant principal's job in Fall River. Jen was surprised to get the offer and had been working hard to develop an expansion plan to add staff and buildings to meet the needs of the 21st century.You'll be reading more about this in the coming months. One part of the plan will make its debut in this blog later in the week after the big forestry meeting on Wednesday.

Our "new"  teacher will be arriving this week. Miss Amanda who did pre-school as a Stonehill intern and then substituted for Miss Katie in the K-6 program will be expanding our pre-school program and working to create weekend family and adult events.

Simba, a Jersey calf, will be arriving at Sheep Pasture on Friday. Simba is technically a steer or young ox which means he has been "fixed." Oxen generally have a reputation for being phlegmatic, but Jersey oxen are more active than many. Simba and his siblings were infected with a virus in vitro when their mothers were shown at a fair last year. His operation was performed to prevent testosterone from interfering with the medication that cured the disease and saved his life. Right now Simba is about half the size of a calf his age, but stories abound of small calves eventually catching up in size. A full size Jersey ox can reach 1,600 pounds-small for oxen in general, but about six times heavier than any animal now on the property. Simba will be start his stay with our remaining brown pygmy goat. She recently lost her life long pal to old age.

Max, one of our mini-horses, is being treated for Cushing's Disease, a condition that effects the pituitary gland. If you noticed that Max didn't shed some patches of his winter coat, you saw the most visible symptom of the disease that has many insidious effects. Luckily, Max is responding well to treat and now has a good looking coat and a trim figure. Teddy, Max' girlfriend, is totally unimpressed with her newly buff partner. Of course, Teddy is generally unimpressed with everything-we've thought about painting her gray and renaming her Eeyore.

Maggie, my amazing Pomeranian, also suffers from Cushing's. It is a diagnosis that is becoming much more common as good treatment of pets is extending their life. In most cases Cushing's is a manageable disease like diabetes. Right now both Max and Maggie are doing well.

By the way, Maggie may be the only "person" at Sheep Pasture looking forward to winter. Believe it or not, the tiny Poms were developed in a cold climate and have many of the same adaptations for cold as Huskies and Malamutes. Besides, Maggie has a deer hunter fantasy-they're the only animal she ever wants to chase-and the snow slows them down!




Saturday, September 10, 2011

Remembering 9/11

The old Oliver Ames did not have much access to the outside world. One Social Studies classroom could get network TV and there was a TV in the Guidance Department's lunch room. I don't remember how I heard about the first plane hitting the World Trade Center, but Principal Wes Paul asked all the department heads to go around to their classrooms and start a news blackout. We were told we'd monitor the situation at the Guidance Department and to tell the teachers that a plane had crashed into the WTC, but that things were going to be OK. As I walked around, I was thinking of King Kong on the Empire State Building which, when I was a kid,  I used to confuse with the very real crash of a B-25 bomber there in 1945. Bombers crashed into buildings and they didn't collapse so, of course, everything was going to be OK. I made my rounds and headed back to the Guidance Office to join a small group of teachers as we watched the first tower collapse. Things were definitely not going to be OK, and I had just lied to a whole bunch of students. Despite the news blackout students quickly learned everything by using their cell phones in the bathrooms.

Oliver Ames lost one alumnus in the tragedy. Stephen Adams was a 1968 graduate of our school. He was a sophomore when I was a senior. I remembered him a little-a quiet kid who had moved to Easton from Brockton. He had been named the beverage manager at the Windows on the World restaurant complex about a year before 9/11. Windows on the World occupied the 106th and 107th floor of the North Tower of the WTC. At the time of the attack it was the highest grossing restaurant in the United States. At 8:46 the North Tower was the first one struck. The plane went in at an angle impacting the 93rd to 99th floors. Stephen was one of over 1,300 people who became trapped on the floors above the impact. Christine Olender, the assistant manager of the restaurant had gathered all the breakfast guests and employees like Stephen on the 106th floor when she called the Port Authority (operators of the tower complex) 15 minutes after the attack. The three emergency stairwells were already full of smoke.

"We are getting no direction up here," she said according to phone transcripts released in 2002. "We need direction as to where we need to direct our guests and our employees as soon as possible." The police officer told her the fire department was on the way and asked her to call back in two minutes. Olender would call back four more times. Five minutes after this call she reached her boss' wife at home and told her "The ceilings are falling. The floors are buckling."

In a later call to the Port Authority she said "Hi, this is Christine, up at Windows. We need to find a safe haven on 106, where the smoke condition isn't bad. Can you direct us to a certain quadrant?" Again she was told help would arrive as soon as humanly possible. People were told to wet towels and wrap them around their faces, but the water pipes were broken so the little water in flower vases were pressed into service.

In her last call she said "The fresh air is going down fast. I'm not exaggerating." The officer at the other end of the line responded "Ma'am, I know you're not exaggerating," said the officer. "I have you, Christine, four calls, 75 to 100 people, Windows on the World,  106th floor."

Oleander responded "Can we break a window?" She was told to do whatever she had to do to get air. "All right," were her final words. With the windows broken some made it onto the ledge outside the restaurant. Some jumped to their deaths. Others died from the smoke or when the building collapsed. Everyone in the restaurant perished. A famous photograph called "The Falling Man" shows a man dressed in white chef's vest falling head first from the building. He is believed to be Jonathan Briley an employee at Windows on the World. The North Tower collapsed 102 very long minutes after it was struck.

Until researching this post I had always hoped that my classmate Stephen Adams had been killed instantly. I can't imagine the horror in that restaurant as hope of rescue faded away. Here's a quote from the documentary about the Falling Man photo, I think it's a fitting way to end this blog:

"Did that person have so much faith that he knew God would catch him, or was he so afraid to experience the end up there? That's something I'll never know, because that happened to him."


Friday, September 9, 2011

Chestnuts

I remember an article in the Globe written by Chet Raymo several decades ago telling of a remnant population of bluebirds at Sheep Pasture. Bluebirds were in trouble due to competition for nest sites with starlings and English sparrows. In the following decades through the work of Wild Birds Unlimited's Bob Hurd with help from Doc Everett, Bob Benson, and many others bluebirds have made a huge comeback. At Sheep Pasture Bob Benson maintains a series of nests that is part of a trail that now stretches from Wheaton Farm through Stoughton. We're very proud of our role in reestablishing a native species, and soon we'll have the chance to start on a new species.

Last evening John Grant, long time member of the Conservation Commission, spoke about his  dream of restoring the American chestnut to Easton. The American chestnut once was the dominant tree in southern New England's forest. Their reliable nut production fed wildlife and people alike, and they also provided some of the best lumber. About a century ago a blight killed over 4 billion chestnut trees reducing the wildlife that depended on them by 60 percent. Today, chestnuts still sprout from the stumps of these dead giants, but these sprouts seldom live long enough to produce nuts.

The Chestnut has many friends like John who have spent decades trying to produce a blight resistant tree. The Chinese chestnut is blight resistant, but it doesn't have tasty nuts or high quality timber. Just as you might cross two varieties of tomatoes to create a new hybrid, people have been crossing American chestnuts and their Chinese cousins. Unlike tomatoes, however, these chestnut crossses take years to prove themselves. Success looked near about a decade ago until it was determined that the trees with the best blend of blight resistance and American qualities didn't pass these traits on in their nuts. It's one thing to plant a blight resistant single tree, but if the chestnut is to truly recover it has to help itself, or more precisely squirrels have to help by hiding and forgetting about some of the one to two bushels of nuts produced annually by a mature tree.

John announced last night the arrival of trees that are 15/16th American chestnut with all the qualities of the original plus blight resistance and viable nuts. Sheep Pasture has been chosen as one site for field testing the new plants. It is a perfect time for us as we begin implementing a new ten year forestry plan. Yes, folks we will be chopping down trees at Sheep Pasture as well as planting new ones. More on that after a big meeting next week!

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Triple E Spraying


Auto accidents caused by deer kill 130 people a year. Bee stings kill about 50 people a year. Bites from black widow or brown recluse spiders kill about 6 people a year. Eastern Equine Encephalitis kills about 3 people a year. Between 1964 and 2004 there were 60 cases in Florida with Georgia and Massachusetts tied for the dubious distinction of second place with 26 cases.  The average annual number of reported cases of EEE in people in the entire USA is between 5 and 6. Mortality is in the 30-50% range with most survivors suffering permanent disability. Since 2004 there has been an apparent uptick in reported cases and an increase in mosquitoes trapped with the disease by researchers. Normally the disease goes through peaks and valleys in a three year cycle, but that seems to be changing. The most likely culprit (cover your ears and eyes, Republicans) is global warming extending the mosquito season.

The good news, I suppose, is that you can be completely stupid and take no precautions and still be more than likely to escape the disease. The bad news is the disease is so rare and so deadly that it is unlikely there are people walking around with antigens from a mild undetected case as there are with West Nile. Even if you’ve lived in the swampland of Easton all your life, you don’t have immunity to triple E.

Murderous Bambi (I knew that hunter killing his mom was a bad idea) doesn’t cause widespread panic like triple E. Everyone hates mosquitoes including environmentalists who understand their role in the food chain. EEE and mosquitoes are such insidious threats that they easily induce fear. However, if you do a risk/benefit analysis shouldn’t we be shooting deer or banning cars rather than spending money fighting triple E?

There’s no good answer to that question. The family of the Raynham man who died want aerial spraying, but the state argues that the criteria for aerial spraying has not been met. One death of a person in a particularly susceptible category isn’t enough when virus concentrations in trapped mosquitoes and the number of pools with infected bugs remain below a certain level. Aerial spraying is expensive and only offers a temporary threat reduction. You could still get EEE from a mosquito that wasn’t killed (knowing you, dear reader, you’d stop taking precautions!) and even the mildest pesticide has some unwanted environmental side effects for humans and other animals.

That being said, I don’t see the harm in doing a limited ground spray around the periphery of athletic fields. A mix of a relatively safe adult pesticide with a larvacide coupled with the usual change in time for sporting events would go far in alleviating the worry that parents have. Ironically, it’s probably the spectators at athletic events that are most at risk than the participants.

I know covering myself head to foot in Off did not prevent me from getting bitten at the TPC last week. Spraying 18 holes on a golf course was probably unrealistic and DEET did work pretty well while on the course. However, spraying the edge of the cart yard, an acre area tucked into swampy land, would have done a lot to cut down on mosquito bites for our volunteers and the worry that I have about being the unlucky lottery winner receiving triple E as my prize.

So, two cheers for a limited and thoughtful application of the safest spray and don’t forget the other precautions as well. Here’s a suggestion that no one speaks about: have the state spend money to fund research to find a vaccine that is safe for humans. Such a vaccine already exists for horses-our little guys are safe at Sheep Pasture. I suppose we’d discover that more people would die from a large scale vaccination program than would ever die from triple E, but we wouldn’t know until we’ve tried to develop a vaccine. Millions of people might die in a flu epidemic justifying a few deaths from bad reactions to the vaccine, but if more than one person a year died from the triple E vaccine, it wouldn’t be worth it. Sometimes you just can’t beat Mother Nature!

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Phenology

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The sun is the force that drives all in its complex dance through the year. The green fuse traps the sun's energy to produce the flower. The sun's energy creates the weather from a local breeze to a full blown hurricane that blasts the root. Phenology "is the study of periodic plant and animal life cycle events and how these are influenced by seasonal and interannual variations in climate." Phenology attempts to transcribe the music of the sun's dance into something we can understand. If we can't tell the rose about it, we can use this transcription as stewards of the earth.

In a world where genetics and biochemistry get all the headlines, phenology may be the most important biological science of all. How do we translate the sun's story into something we can understand? One way is to simply measure the amount of light on a patch of ground and record what happens there. More useful is the concept of growing degree days. Plant growth around here is thought to start somewhere between 45 and 55 degrees Fahrenheit so 50° has been chosen as a baseline. To calculate GDD you simply take the high and low temperature for the day and average it. If the high was 80° and the low was 60° then the average for the day was 70°. Subtract 50 from the average, and you get 20 Growing Degree Days for that date. Total the GDD's then match the number with events like bud opening or full flowering of a specific plant, and soon you have a record of how the sun's energy effects plant life. You can then expand out to match the lifestyles of the bugs that eat the plants, and the animals that eat the bugs. While it's fun to play Carnac the Magician and predict when lilacs will bloom in your neighbor's backyard, the real use of this method is in integrated pest management (IPM) systems. IPM attempts to cut down on pesticide use and use the mildest possible pesticides, by striking at a pest at its weakest moment. Using phenology you can predict the best time to spray your fruit trees to kill gypsy moth caterpillars before they do extensive damage.
Lilacs have bloomed in doorways long before Walt Whitman wrote about them, and dates of bloom were recorded in farmer's diaries. Collect this data and you can see how our irresponsible acts have changed the music of the solar dance. Birds can't count GDD, but the ones that showed up when the total GDD had their prey species at a maximum survived better than those that didn't so over generations average arrival dates were keyed to average GDD. Change the insect maxima by warming the planet and you have added dissonance to the dance of life that can lead to species extinction.

All this is on my mind today as I meet with an intern from Stonehill who will begin to design a floral calendar for us. It's a first step towards real phenology. Thanks again to Ali and Caitlyn who put me on this path many years ago.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Back to School

Back to school today. Teaching one media course is a generally fun and challenging way to spend my mornings. As old media adapt their presentation methods there are more and more opportunities for content made by members of the public like my students. Time at the golf tournament surprisingly brought an offer to speak about advertising techniques in media and a proposal to provide content for the Enterprise and Journal. Expect to see more of Oliver Ames on ECAT as well.

People have shot home video for a long time, but the distinction between home video and professional TV was a wide one. Technical advances closed the gap between professional and consumer cameras, but professional editing remained out of reach until Apple created Final Cut Pro and its little brother iMovie. These software packages enabled folks at home to digitally edit film in exactly the same way as the people in Hollywood or the big networks. The final frontier for home video remained live or live to tape productions like the local news. Your typical news show assembles previously edited video along with logos, green screens, and picture-in-pictures. This has long remained the domain of expensive stand alone hardware. Even the little studio at the high school had a box called a tricaster connected to a monitor and sound board. This year all that will be used by ECAT to create programming in the gym and auditorium while our students will audition a new software package that does most of what the old equipment did in an ordinary computer.

Final words on the golf tournament. There's a famous book on golf called A Good Walk Spoiled. That sums up playing the game, but for visitors to the tournament you got an opportunity to see a very special kind of landscaping. The entrance road to the TPC has spectacular flower beds that are at the height of their beauty for the tournament. Summer plants are still going strong and are supplemented by pots of autumn favorites like mums. The wild areas of the course are home to turkeys, squirrels, and all the other animals that are familiar to New Englanders. The course design tries to blend the fairways and greens into the natural environment. The course gets very high marks from the players for its near perfect condition, but the vistas for the spectator call to mind Olmsted's "more natural looking than nature" credo. Standing on the course early in the morning lets you see just how sublime a local landscape can be.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Skinning the Cat at Hole 7

God bless the greenskeepers at all our home courses, but PGA pros would hyperventilate if they had to play our courses on a regular basis. At the TPC Norton the collar at the edge of the green is cut like the regular green at our courses and the real green is shorter and faster still. Hole 7 is a 600 yard par 5 and yesterday the hole was about 8 feet from the back of the green. The green itself rises from the front, dips down in the middle and then rises again to yesterday's pin placement.

Current golf course design tries to give the golfer a variety of ways to get to the same result. You're OK and I'm OK thinking. Yesterday's pin placement created a more Calvinist perspective-there was only one way to be saved and it was a narrow and difficult way. Pro after pro ended their previous shot right at the front of the green and were faced with a 90 to 100 foot shot to the hole. The typical pro shot would be to throw the shot in a high arc past the hole and use the golf professional's almost magical control of spin to make the ball roll backwards towards the hole. Several tried this, but the ball either flew too far and got stuck in the rough past the hole or spun back too far and rolled down the slope away from the hole. Other pros putted the ball, a mighty whack even on a superfast green, but here everyone misjudged the dip in the middle and had their ball stop far from the hole. The only way to get the ball close to the hole was with a duffer's bump and run shot. Drop a low running shot into the low spot and the ball almost inevitably rolled to a stop just a few feet or inches away from the hole. Stray from the path and be damned! I've always believed that the Scots developed the game as a metaphor for life as they saw it-stay on the straight and narrow and you might get to heaven, but even then your ball may roll into a divot in the center of the fairway and you make double bogey. Dealing with sheep is bound to sour your view of life!

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Changes

     The weather at this week's Deutsche Bank Tournament has been exceptional so far, the experience for volunteers excellent, but a feeling of melancholy has hit me hard. I've been watching golf on TV for more than half a century. I've seen Gene Sarazen and Sam Snead play. Arnold Palmer was my first golfing idol. This year's tournament seems to be a passing of the torch from an older generation who I have watched play for many years to new players who I don't have any real feeling for.
    Time to think about passing the torch myself.
    On the leaderboard only Ernie Els represents the older generation in the top ten. Lots of the young guns missed the cut, sure; but so did Steve Stricker and V. J. Singh. Phil Michelson, Davis Love III, and Padraig Harrington are hanging on with little chance to win. Tiger Woods isn't even here.
    Change is inevitable. When do you hang on and try to make a difference, and when do you hang it up and let time's river flow on without you? Few athletes make a graceful exit. There's no stage manager whispering the final lines to the tiring player. Few people make a graceful exit either, but having never risen so high there isn't so far to fall and the downward slope is a more gentle one. Inevitably, everything we hold dear, everything we've accomplished or tried to accomplish, washes away like "tears in rain."
   Written after a week of very little sleep  while watching Sam Peckinpah's "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid."