Peeper's Puddle

It was an annoyance at first -- a low spot in the barnyard where water collected after a rain. The horses would mix it up into a muddy mess. Our ducks -- Peeper and Bean -- were the initial pond engineers that got it to hold water. I think their constant churning of the mud as they filter for insects caused it to stratify, with the silt and clay settling in a sealing layer that held in the water. It gained a degree of permanence, but was still just a puddle.

It was about five years ago now that I decided to help them out, digging first with a three-point scoop on the tractor and then some more with the horses using a slip-scraper. It held water, but was still pretty small at first, and summertime turned it into a tub of red or green algae, as it captured much of the barnyard effluent.

Mosquitoes laid their eggs there, but mosquito eating insects arrived in short order and kept them in check. Frogs, and especially toads, started to congregate there, mostly during spring mating season.

The toads have become so numerous that I have to be careful not to step on them after it rains, when herds of them can be roaming the yard. The pond is now the site of their annual spring orgy, where they sing all day and become so focused on making tadpoles that they don't mind me standing right over them. Curious about a writhing mass of something I could see in the water a few weeks back, I investigated to find four males all clinging to a dead female that they had probably drowned in their amorous enthusiasm.

Giant water bug

It didn't take too long for Henry to discover the pond and start seining it for signs of life with his butterfly net. He found all sorts of bugs and insects that I knew next to nothing about: giant venomous water-bugs (aka "the eastern toe-biter"), water-scorpions, giant diving beetles, backswimmers, boatmen, and a bunch of others too numerous to mention. Before long he had an aquarium of them in his room where we could watch them all eat each other.

water scorpion

Visiting geese

A few years ago, we were given two dozen Rouen ducks. Their constant nibbling really stirred up the mud and sealed the pond even more, to the point that the water is rarely more than a few inches below maximum height now.

It's big enough to skate on in the winter, and couldn't be a more convenient skating rink. Henry has

Skating

 made great use of it, playing hockey with a stick for a puck, and our border collie as the opposing team.


When the ice melted this spring, he made another interesting discovery. A bluegill we'd released into the pond last summer had apparently survived until the winter, despite the pond being perhaps 3' deep at the center. With a little more depth (and probably a bubbler) perhaps we could keep some there year round.

Birds are making great use of it now. We have a sandpiper or two who regularly visits to march endlessly around the shore while searching for bugs in the mud. Occasionally we get a few canada geese or mallards, and have even had herons and sandhill cranes visit a few times. Doves regularly come down for a drink, and starlings use it for their baths. Barn swallows use it to collect mud for their nests. They swoop through the air above it for hatching insects throughout the day, while bats take the night shift.

A number of painted turtles have taken up residence, and regularly sun themselves on the log we've placed in the water for them. There are snapping turtles as well, but they don't show themselves so often.

I have big plans for the pond. More digging to make it deeper, and perhaps introducing some cat-tails or other aquatic plants. I suspect that more places to hide or lay eggs would benefit many of the residents. Until I'm moved to do so, I'll just keep watching. It's some of the best entertainment around.

Peeper

Hay

We recently finished putting up the first hay cutting of the year, jumping on a weather window that arrived at just the right time.

Last year we weren't so lucky. Cutting our main field was eight hours of hell with a constantly clogging mower (the cut hay was too thick for the mower's grassboard to clear the swath for the next pass).  Rachel had to clear the swaths with a pitchfork, or it would've taken days to mow. This year, the same field took two hours to cut, with no assist required. Sometimes the weather gods are kind to us.

I always love cutting our smaller back field. It's surrounded by forest, has some gently rolling hills, and offers a nice view back to the barns. The autumn olive at the edge of the woods was in full bloom this year, filling the air with its vanilla scent.  Like most every other shrub in Michigan, it's an introduced "invasive" plant, but is quite welcome in my book. It has wonderful berries in late fall, and our bees love it as well. Perhaps it's the secret ingredient in the honey everyone tells us is the best they've ever tasted?

A Sunday Drive

There are certainly places where such a thing would be inconceivable. But then again, in most of these places, much of what is now viewed as normal will soon be impossible.

It's not a perfect mode of transportation by any means. As with cars, a horse drawn wagon requires roads, though they needn't be as smooth or well maintained for a vehicle traveling 10mph as they need to be for one travelling 70mph. While paved roads are already disappearing in some places, I think dirt roads will survive a while longer. Hills are more of a problem with a horse than they are with a car. I now have a deeper understanding of why early settlers favored flat valleys.

It's ultimately a fossil fueled means of conveyance nowadays (as diesel is used to harvest the hay or oats that fuel the horse), though that's clearly a temporary condition. Our feed this year has been primarily harvested on-farm using horsepower, as will again be the norm.

I recently expanded our lineup of horse drawn vehicles, with the purchase of a small wagon. It's much lighter than the buggy and is easier for Bobby to pull. It's more stylish to boot, like going from a mini-van to a sporty convertible.

Horses are good for gawkers like myself. They keep their eyes on the road while I'm noting the details of everything we pass. Wildflowers, an old barn, an unusual tree, a pee-filled pop bottle... I see much more of it when holding a pair of lines instead of a steering wheel. Horses are also the self-driving cars of the future and were long before anyone knew what Google was. In fact, Bobby has already made an attempt at returning home sans-driver (a thwarted attempt, fortunately). I hear stories of inebriated Amish who have made good use of this feature.

Perhaps the nicest thing about driving a horse drawn wagon is the fact that I'm not anonymous, as I am inside the confines of a car. People see me, and most wave and smile as I return the greeting. In a world of horse-drawn transportation, I think we'll find some of the community we've lost, and we'll lose much of the anonymity we've gained. I'm looking forward to it.

20 Years?

It'll certainly be a stinky way to go. You've smelled it before, if you've ever rolled a rock over on a beach at low tide, smelled a propane leak, or suffered the consequences of eating jerusalem artichokes (aka "fartichokes") or a healthy serving of beans. It's hydrogen sulfide -- mother nature's cleanser of choice whenever the organisms on planet earth become too annoying, like us.

It happened before -- and is the cause of most previous mass extinctions in the geologic record. A warming planet stratifies the oceans, reducing circulation and oxygenation. Hydrogen sulfide producing bacteria start to dominate, releasing clouds of the toxic gas which wipe out most oxygen-breathing creatures.

Unfortunately for us, it's starting to happen again, because we think we "need" fossil fuels. A warming planet is slowing ocean currents, and our oceans are again stratifying, as the NE Pacific did during the recent El Nino that lead to droves of dead seabirds and marine mammals washing ashore from California to Alaska. This year the stratification is leading to the worst red-tides ever seen in Chile, prompting the shutdown of Chile's fishing fleets.

Off the coast of Namibia, the hydrogen sulfide producing bacteria bloom in quantities that are visible from space. Current modeling suggests that most of the world's oceans will be significantly stratified by the 2030s, leading to the conditions that would allow hydrogen sulfide producing bacteria to flourish.  

We've already bleached out 95% of the northern great barrier reef this year, and recently discovered that the coral reefs of the Florida keys are now dissolving in the CO2 acidified sea water. The crazed hippies at the USGS suggest that we may well see the first-ever blue-sea event in the arctic this year, as the north polar icecap disappears for the first time in human history. If the icecap goes, all the methane under the arctic sea comes out, and our problems become a whole lot tougher to solve. What will next year bring?

Driven a car lately? Flown anywhere?  Turned on your (fracked) gas furnace? Do we need these things more than we want our kids to survive?  It's long past time to remember how to live as we did before.

The Big Lie

Growing up in the US, we've been presented with a package deal that involves a number of assumptions about how we can and should live.

A sampling of those assumptions:

1)  Owning and driving a car is a-okay.
2)  Heating your home with the cheapest and most convenient fuel (natural gas, propane, oil, etc) is absolutely alright (hey, who doesn't?).
3)  The only thing which should limit the size of your home or family is the amount of your salary.
4)  Air travel for work or pleasure is a-okay, and good to encourage among friends & family.
5)  Purchases of consumer goods should be limited only by the size of your bank account (or better yet, by the size of your credit limits).
6)  Whatever the task at hand, it can be made easier and more efficient with the use of electricity, gasoline, or diesel.
7)  Producing your own food is time consuming and not worth the effort.  Purchase your food on price, taste, and convenience considerations.  You needn't concern yourself with how it's grown or raised.  (Only weird people do that!)
8)  Your doctor (with the enthusiastic assistance of our altruistic pharmaceutical corporations) can fix any possible side effects of the above assumptions.  Car accidents, diabetes, heart disease, mental illness... you name it!
9)  "The Economy" is more important than "The Environment" (and you should vote accordingly, as do most Americans).
10)  Technology will fix the problems it makes.  If the technological fixes make worse problems, we'll use technology to fix those too.  If those fixes create still more problems...  Check out this "fix".  Yes, we're going there.  Things are going to be that bad.

Of course, rejecting any one of these assumptions is quite difficult without rejecting them all.  I understand that very well, because I've tried to reject most of them at one point or another.  Modern industrial society is a package deal, where getting rid of your car is likely to get rid of your employment, or where moving from a McMansion to a suitably sized abode is likely to bring a visit from the local building inspector, or perhaps Child Protective Services.  While we'd be fooling ourselves to think that we can avert catastrophic climate change at this point, fighting this system has never been more important.

In most of my blog entries, you'll note a recurring theme of "if we don't change soon, we suffer the consequences".   Well... we didn't change, and now the era of consequences has begun with a vengeance. The climate change rocket isn't just sitting on the launchpad while we debate its existence; we've recently achieved liftoff!  We've triggered the feedback loops we were warned of decades ago.  We've got an amazing front-row seat to watch while our world burns before us. Chances are we'll lose the ability to continue living. That won't seem like such a bad thing when the desire to continue living takes a serious beating as the beauty and joys of our world are extinguished. Was it all worth it?  Have you figured out how you'll justify your inaction to the youngest in your family when they inevitably ask?  Will you be able to look them in the eye and say (honestly) that you tried?

Should we leave the climate deniers alone?

There was a time when I was angry with climate deniers. I was convinced that most were stupid, or that those who clearly weren't stupid simply lacked any understanding of chemistry or physics. The anger was certainly warranted, though perhaps not so constructive. It's like being stuck in a lifeboat with another shipwreck survivor who insists on rowing further out to sea when land is already in sight. If only it were so simple! We could just clock them over the head with an oar and be done with their nonsense until we were safely back on shore.

I'm increasingly convinced that the people making such arguments do not in fact believe them, but are instead displaying a complete inability to handle the horrific implications of climate change (you know, like the death of *everyone*, for instance). For all practical purposes, excessive (and well warranted) fear has tripped their mind's "circuit breaker", making them not only unhelpful but actively pushing us towards the very thing they fear. It's no coincidence that most of the climate deniers have conservative personalities, whom a psychological study has shown have a much stronger fear response than those with liberal personalities.  Acknowledging the truth also means they'd have to make significant changes... which isn't easy with a conservative mindset.

The logic I'd long adhered to was that increasing evidence would eventually break through to them, and they would fall into line and begin to help. I'm now convinced that this will never happen. They will fight us at every turn, because they cannot handle the truth, and anyone who acknowledges the truth only makes their fear worse and their denial more adamant.

History is loaded with similar examples.  Author Elie Wiesel, who survived the Holocaust to tell his story, made mention of a man who had escaped from a concentration camp and came back to warn the people in his village (most of whom later ended up in a similar camp). His story was so horrific that nobody believed him.  He was ostracized and ignored.  Could he have told it in a way that people would've listened to him?

I wish I knew of a good way to motivate such people without driving their circuit breaker even further into the off position. The only thing which comes to mind is the possibility of showing them the good world that could be had if we do the things necessary to save ourselves. The longer we wait, the harder it will be to paint the picture of that world in a convincing manner. The hour is late, and the task likely to fail, but I'd suggest we start rowing.

A Change of Plans

Many of us have big plans for the future.  We're saving for a house, planning a family, retirement, or sending the kids to college, or perhaps planning the trip of a lifetime.  It may be time to rethink those plans, because our future isn't likely to be what we'd hoped for.  It's long past time to resize our consumption to that of our ancestors, if we're to have any descendants.

Remember a few years ago, when talk of a 2 degree C limit was bandied about in Copenhagen as the limit which cannot be crossed without triggering feedback loops that would set off a spiral of uncontrolled (and likely unsurvivable) changes to our planet? The same threshold which was cited by many scientists as being arbitrary and much too high, considering that we had already triggered numerous feedback loops? The same threshold which wasn't supposed to be a risk until mid-century?

Well...  NASA says we've just reached it, at least in the northern hemisphere (be sure to read the update at the bottom of the article). This hemisphere just happens to have the most potential feedback loops, whether that's increased albedo over an ice-free arctic, or shallow arctic seas with lots of clathrate deposits.

The changes are coming faster than anyone had anticipated just a few short years (or even months) ago. If you're not willing to make significant changes to your life, prepare yourself to say goodbye to everything and everyone you love. As is becoming increasingly clear, the choice between our cars (among other things) and our future is not one that we'll have to make a few decades from now.  It needs to be made now.