First Time

The weather outside this afternoon was so nice I decided to start my motorcycle.  Last year I had a gunked up carburetor so I was a little nervous this year.  I put my lunch bag away and, wearing my gym clothes, swung my right leg over the seat of the bike.  This is the first time I've swung that leg over the top of the bike using my artificial hip.  I swung it up and it went over smoothly and easily and painlessly!  Wow, that was nice.  I made sure the transmission was in neutral and the shut off button was in the right position.  I put the key in.  I pressed the starter button.  Nothing.  Oh, I forgot to turn the key to the on position.  Silly me.  I turned the key to the on position and while I was down there I pulled the choke all the way out.  I've been through a lot in the last six months.  A person forgets these things.  I pushed the starter button and my beautiful bike turned over on the second try.  Vroom Vroom!!!  To be honest my bike sounds more like "Rrrrr Rrrrr" and not "Vroom Vroom."   Now that I had it started, I might as well take it out, right?  Well, I wasn't dressed for the occasion.  Yoga pants aren't motorcycle attire for me.  I ran in the house and put on my motorcycle jacket, my helmet, and my reflective safety vest but kept the yoga pants and tennis shoes.  I was just going around the block.  I got on my bike and pushed the choke back in.  The engine kept running which was very good.  I walked it out of the garage and put it into first gear as I rolled down the driveway.  I turned right and took another right at the corner.  Did I turn at the first block and put it safely back in the garage?  No, I did not.  Wearing yoga pants I drove it around every possible block in my neighborhood without going on the highway. I happily noticed that the sand and salt have been swept off my street.  I practiced signalling turns, leaning into corners, braking, and changing gears.  I've been out of practice.  Right away I noticed the comfort I felt in my right hip.  Maybe comfort isn't the right word.  Lack of pain might be more accurate.  I had no idea, until today, how much pain I was in riding that bike.  I guess the pain crept up on me gradually so I didn't notice it as much.  But once it is absent the difference is very noticeable.  Of course I just came home from the gym and after the gym is when I always feel the best.  After the gym I walk better, I stand taller, and I feel years younger.  I had a very fun first ride of the year and I look forward to putting many, many miles on the bike this season. I feel fabulous!  

The Emperor of All Maladies

Ken Burns has done it again.  This time his documentary, "The Emperor of Maladies" is about cancer.  I was watching it last night and for a while they focused on leukemia.  A doctor worked at a hospital in the 1950's and the 1960's.  He talked about seeing children come in with leukemia, kids who were 6, 8, or 10 years old who would all die within a month.  My heart lurched when I heard this because my sister was 7 when she was diagnosed with leukemia.  One of the boys who suffered with leukemia that he treated was a twin.  The brother of the twin spoke about his brother with leukemia.  He told about his brother being ill.  Then the doctor treated his brother with a new medication and his brother got better.  His white cell count went down and he was able to come home and be a normal kid for a couple of months.  After two months his brother got sick again. The remission was over. The ambulance was called to his house and the attendants came to take his brother back to the hospital.  He said "Like opening a page in a book, I remember this moment."  He said he saw the ambulance attendants carry his brother on a stretcher down the hallway past his bedroom and that was the last time he saw him.  His brother didn't wave at him or even look at him. My heart lurched again.  His words "like a page in a book" struck my heart because that is exactly how I feel about the last time I saw my sister.  I just never put it into words like he did.  I remember standing in the parking lot of Children's Hospital in Saint Paul.  At that time it was built into a bluff and the driveway to the parking lot was very steep.  I stood looking into a first floor window where my sister sat on her bed with her legs between the iron bars of the headboard.  She waved at me.  I saw her waving at me.  I didn't wave back though. I remember wondering why she was in there and I was out here.  My Grandmother took my forearm and moved it up and down so my hand flopped in a wave.  I remember it like a page in a book.  The show went on to document more medical treatments for leukemia including stem cell transplants.  If only that treatment was available in the 1950's I would have an older sister around to love and to complain about.  I wouldn't be the oldest kid in my family.  I would like to think the four year old me, without tears or complaint, could have donated bone marrow and saved her life.  My cells would have taken over for her and started producing healthy blood that would circulate through her little body.  I wish I could have been a hero for her.  Things didn't happen that way for me or for her.  Luckily, thanks to dedicated researchers and medical scientists, there are kids who can be bone marrow donors and help their siblings conquer the emperor of maladies.

The World Without Us

I read The World Without Us by Alan Weisman and was very affected by it.  It's not fiction but it's not non-fiction either.  Maybe it's non-fiction science or speculative fiction?  I don't know but the story is about what would happen to our planet if for some reason (like the Rapture?) all the human beings suddenly disappeared.  This thought is crazy but the author writes it in a way that makes it very easy to read.  And it's informative too.  Several times Weisman would write something seemingly secondary that would blow my mind and I'd be like, "Wait, what?"  And he wrote about places on the earth that I have been to like the Great Barrier Reef, the chunnel (the rail line between London and France that goes under the sea), and Lake Navaisha in Kenya.  One thing he wrote about, just in passing, was the Maasai tribe of Kenya and their red plaid shukas (cloth shawls) were from visitors from Scotland. What?  The Maasai tribe is one of the most wild culture on this planet.  They live a nomadic lifestyle and they're wearing Scottish material?  Well, now that I think about it the shukas do look totally tartan.  But I was told they wore red to be seen across the African wilderness.  That fact blew my mind. He wrote about the Puszcza forest between Poland and Belarus and now I want to see that because it sound amazing.  The author talks about humans have impacted the world with mining, creating more than 400 nuclear power plants, bringing in invasive species, making plastic, damming rivers, building bridges, replacing forests and grasslands with row crops, and crowding out the upper level predators with cattle, hogs, sheep, goats and pigs.  Once we're gone, how long will it take before the changes we have made go away?  When will the birds make a comeback?  When will the forests return?  In Manhattan, without humans to keep things running, the subways will fill with water within days and that will cause the streets to cave in and the buildings will tumble.  The older buildings, like those made centuries ago out of stone, will last longer than the modern ones.  The chunnel might last quite a long time although who knows if any animals will try to cross the 36 miles of complete darkness?  The French side of the chunnel is only 20 yards above sea level so water may come in that side.  The English side is 200 yards above sea level so that will last longer.  The author said if you want to get rid of a barn just cut a one foot hole in the roof and the building will collapse in ten years.  All the nuclear power plants, without humans (or Homer Simpson) to maintain them, will eventually blow up and spew heavy metals into the air.  Hard to say what will happen there but they do know there are fish near military atolls in the Pacific Ocean with a herringbone pattern on one side of their body and a "pop art" pattern on the other side.  Most art will disappear but bronze statues will last the longest.  There is a nuclear waste collection in the salt domes of south east New Mexico.  Spent fuel rods, more dangerous now that they've been used because of the nuclear reaction in them that cannot be stopped, are protected as much as possible.  Instructions about them and why the salt domes should not be opened are placed on bronze plaques around the area in case all humans are gone and cannot warn visitors of the dangers.  The Panama Canal will quickly fill in because of the silt carried by rivers into the canal.  One of the last human artifacts to remain will be, of all places, Mount Rushmore.  This was a grim book.  Parts of it made me quite sad.  We humans have set up an system that cannot be sustained.  Our population cannot keep growing at this pace.  Why, oh why, did I choose plastic wood for my deck?  I feel terrible for using pesticides but golly, when I have a wasp nest right by a door what can I do?  Why do I buy so much plastic?  I think I live a fairly "green" life but this book has me dismayed.  If you're going to read it, make sure you're in a good place first.  I think it would be dangerous to read if you are already depressed.

Black Walnut and White Oak

Before

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I had a knock on my door on Friday evening.  A young man asked if I wanted any tree trimming done.  I had seen him walking down the road on my way home.  I noticed he had missing teeth.  My mind ran through the options of meth use or poor dental care.  I voted for poor dental care because his skin looked clear. I said, "Yes."  Actually I've been trying to get my black walnut tree trimmed since last summer.  Two branches were growing toward the house.  One of them touched the roof and the other one would be touching the house within the next growing season.  This walnut tree can drop between 500 and 700 walnuts per year and many of them were dropping on the roof and rolling down.  The noise was just like someone knocking on the front door and I spent a lot of time answering the door for the stupid walnut tree.  I called 4 tree trimming companies and the city manager.  The city manager did not give me any names but suggested I get a certified tree arborist. One of the companies said they did not work in Ramsey.  The other three said they would be out to give me an estimate but never showed up.  I don't have faith in companies who say they will come but don't bother to show.  So I was discouraged and that is why I told this man I would like my trees trimmed.  He gave me a card and said the arborist would stop by later this evening.  An hour later another guy knocked on the door.  He said he was a certified tree arborist.  We looked at the walnut tree.  He said he could trim that tree.  He said walnuts falling on the roof can create dimples that fill with water and cause damage.  He said my white oak seriously needed trimming.  Leaning over the house like it was and with dead limbs above the driveway it was out of balance and dangerous. Did I want the brush and wood picked up?  I said I could take care of that part.  The penny pincher in me got ahead of the "recovering from hip replacement" me.  He said he could trim the walnut tree for $200. He'd be happy to trim the oak tree for another $200.  He would be back on Saturday night or Sunday morning to do the work. He said his company was trimming other trees in my neighborhood.  We could hear his chain saws working. I said I definitely wanted the walnut trimmed and would think about the oak.  I asked if it wasn't too late in the year to trim the oak.  I thought oaks had to be trimmed in early March to prevent oak wilt.  He said it wasn't too late. He said these 3 trees (2 oaks and the walnut) were joined together underground because their roots were interwoven.  If one oak got oak wilt, the other oak, even if it wasn't the same species, might get it too.  Having dead branches falling at random could invite oak wilt into the system.  He had a jerky speaking pattern with long pauses while he searched his mind for words.  He said the oak should be trimmed before the (long gap here, so long in fact I proposed a word for him - catkin?) catkins appear.  In my mind I wonder what kind of arborist forgets the work catkin?  He left with a plan to return to trim the walnut for sure and possibly the oak.  In the meantime I researched the cost of trimming trees.  $200 was a fair price.  I researched his company.  I found them listed in the Stillwater phone book but nothing else.  Was I making the right choice in hiring this guy?  I wasn't sure.  On Saturday at 6:45 p.m. I got another knock on the door.  My arborist was back.  I asked, "You are going to work now?"  He said he was.  The sun was low in the sky but he said he could get it done.  He said if I paid in cash he would give me a discount and do both trees for $350.  "Yes, go ahead and do both trees," I said and got in my car to go to the bank.  When I returned with the cash the walnut tree was done and a man was climbing the oak tree.  I watched as he climbed the tree and strapped himself to the branches.  Another guy connected a chain saw to a rope.  The tree climber pulled the chain saw up and he cut branches off as he headed up the tree.  Part of the tree is curved over like a palm tree.  I thought that part would be easier for him to climb.  He cut off branches to even out the weight of the tree.  Maybe it will stop tipping toward the south pole now. He cut the dead branches off.  Branches came crashing down.  At one point I watched him cut off a branch while totally dangling from his harness.  Both his feet were hanging free.  Later he let the running chain saw go.  It dangled from a rope on his waist while still running!  I guess the chain wasn't moving but the motor was definitely running.  This was exciting to see.  He finished the oak.  Another guy cut the larger branches into smaller pieces for me and put the brush on a pile.  He used his leatherman tool to cut the rope that Offspring #1 put around the branch of the walnut tree 18 years ago.  A little bit of family history in that one branch.  The talented tree trimmer descended the tree as the sun set on Saturday night.  More branches were picked up by the light from a pick up truck.  I paid my $350 and the guys drove away.  My trees are trimmed and I have a bunch of branches and wood to pick up.  I look forward to many large bonfires this summer.  I think I made the right choice in hiring these guys.  At least branches won't be rubbing and damaging the house my house anymore. 

After

Amur Maple Observations

I found an amur maple sap stalagtite today.  The sap must have run yesterday and froze overnight.

Then I found a  hole where two branches grew together.

And then I found an amur maple sap stalagmite underneath the stalactite.

A Good Idea If I Have Mice Problems Again In The Fall

Apricot

We're working on a new database at work.  Excel just isn't cutting it anymore.  A little over a year ago my employers decided to go with the Access program.  I personally put at least 40 hours into working with the Access program before it died in a hideous HIPPA violation death.  I had a hard time letting Access go.  I felt like I was bringing a puppy back to the pet store after spending a week training it to behave.  But it wasn't my choice so I let it go.  Now we're working with Apricot.  Four of us are inputting tons of confidential information into this cloud based program.  Besides inputting the data we are linking bits of data to other bits of data.  The work is hard at first but goes faster as we get used to it.  In an effort to maintain uniformity I started a round of emails between the four of us asking questions.  Our process involves linking a variety of staff.  Since my job is different in that I work with everyone I sent an email stating I was not linking myself to everyone.  We could all save time this way.  One of the four data inputters had been adding me as a link.  But then as a group we decided it wasn't necessary.  So this person said he would not link me anymore.  Next came an email that made me think of a movie and kinda made my heart swell a little.  He wrote "I wish I knew how to delete you."