Thursday November 27, 2008
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Ramblings from the Mountains Michael Hunter's Weblog |
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Thursday November 27, 2008 I get nostalgic this time of year. I know, sickening, eh? My Grandmother grew up in Mountain Home, Arkansas. Her family left Arkansas by buggy to Oklahoma and then ultimately by Model T to California where they scratched out a living during her high school years in the central California world Steinbeck was to immortalize. She ultimately married my Grandfather becoming part of a large farming family. Last night my wife was sorting through a stack of recipes and came across one of my Grandmother's holiday delicacies. It started out "10# potatoes/1 cup butter melted/...". I remember when she first got this and started to follow it. 10 pounds she asked me?!? In my Grandmother's world either she was making large amounts because of the large numbers of people she was cooking for or she was freezing it for another day. She always saved every bit she could. Living on canal banks, doing piece farm labor, walking over the Grape Vine behind the car that couldn't carry them all, and like adventures had conditioned her to always be ready for a life of hardships that most people of my world couldn't come close to contemplating. I was looking at the socio-economic conditions in the world the other day wondering if they could get any worse. I went sledding today thinking about eating sour cream potatoes, got and sent cheery text messages to friends and family, and realized life was good. Sour Cream Potatoes
Sunday January 06, 2008 why There are many reasons to live here. Even with all the hard work days like today are one of them.
Saturday January 05, 2008 glad I don't have to drive This is the reason to keep up with your snow blowing (roughly 36 hours into this storm sequence). But a little snow blowing and shoveling and at least we won't have to work so hard tomorrow!
Wednesday June 27, 2007 best map so far This appears to be the best map so far of the fire area. Its dated as it appears a back burn turned on the fire fighters and crossed 89 yesterday threatening tallac village and the area towards Tahoe keys and Venice Dr. ( Jun 27 2007, 12:18:30 PM PDT ) Permalink
Monday June 25, 2007 Angora Ridge fire This map (credit to Chris for the pointer) gives some idea as to the area of the fire. My house is above Chris's 1500' in elevation or so we are also not currently threatened. dmorr points to a prettier although seemingly less (?) accurate graphic from his blog. Current numbers seem to be that earlier this evening containment was at 40% with ~200 structures destroyed. Weather reports have light SSW winds tomorrow. Lets hope this leads to further containment tomorrow and that those that have been made homeless can find shelter and help. ( Jun 25 2007, 10:09:44 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [1]
Thursday November 23, 2006 I worked through lunch today and then walked my dogs in the mid afternoon. After getting back I spent time trying to rationalize some design ideas for one of the projects I am working on. Finally close to the end of the work day I took my problems, a good panic CD I hadn't listened to for a while, jumped in the hot tub, and watched the above develop. Thanksgiving looks back to a time when we would be glad at this time of the year that we had time to bring in the harvest and prepare for the wane of the year and hopefully for the rebirth and renewal of spring. I feel very lucky that I can sometimes experience the wonder of a beautiful sunset to remind me that the simple cycles of the world still exist even if they are hidden by intense work schedules, commitments to friends, family, and self, or heavily commercialized holidays. ( Nov 23 2006, 01:23:56 AM PST ) Permalink
Thursday October 19, 2006 I grew up in Bakersfield, CA in a farm family. One of the things I remember growing up was seeing the sheep in the fields when driving or running through the agricultural areas. A family tradition was to go to a Basque restaurant for holidays. Even living in northern Nevada my wife (who likes lamb and quickly came to like Basque food) and I make it to Wool Grower's on an annual basis. A recent article entitled The last Sierra shepherds in a local newspaper reminded me that some of the sheepherding tradition from the southern San Joaquin valley also exists in northern Nevada. The tradition has changed over the years away from the Basque sheepherder but we still see the Basque influence in a fair number of Basque restaurants in the local area (our local favorite is JT's in Gardnerville, NV although its doesn't compare to my childhood Wool Grower's). An interesting focus of Bunker's article is that the grazing tradition is kept eventhough the cost of the grazing isn't completely supported by those profiting from the animals. As is noted in the article sheep are rather hard on the land (Muir called them "hoofed locust"). If society is not seeing economic value and the environmental value is negative I think we would be better off helping find economically viable ways to meet demand other then government welfare. In this case I suspect that the demand is at least somewhat inelastic (speciality foods tend to be comfort items) and that necessity would drive those managing these animals to find economically viable ways to continue to do so. ( Oct 19 2006, 10:47:02 PM PDT ) Permalink
Thursday October 12, 2006 Mineral King The Carson area computer vet mentioned Mineral King in his blog the other day. The entry pointed to a slice of Mineral Kings history. As it happens I was 5 around the time that Disney was attempting to turn Mineral King into a ski resort and my father and I had just started taking a series of backpacking trips to the area which was to cover more then the next decade. This controversy was my first foray into trying to understand some of the issues behind trading off easier access to some very delicate ecoclimets and the need to maintain some of the most beautiful places in the world. Today I live in Tahoe where access is easier but there are often conflicts between nature and man, beauty and man. I'm happy that other remote areas like Mineral King are kept for future generations to enjoy as I did when I was a youth. ( Oct 12 2006, 11:04:20 AM PDT ) Permalink
Tuesday October 10, 2006
first snow We had a little bit earlier in the week but the air temperature was over 40F and it didn't last long. This snow won't last more then a few days as this weekend is suppose to be a scorcher, but hopefully its signs of a good winter to come.
Thursday June 22, 2006 requiem followup There is an article in the tribune this morning about our bear. ( Jun 22 2006, 08:00:41 AM PDT ) Permalink
Wednesday June 21, 2006 requiem My choice of words for the subject of my article last night comes back as pretty unfeeling as our bear from last night was ultimately killed by game officials. We will probably see an article in the Tahoe Tribune sooner or later about this incident but as I understand it the decision point came when the animal decided to square off against an officer. Its a sad affair and one that is often blamed on the animal but is really the cause of in appropriate interactions by humans. Maybe a small amount of good will come from this by causing our family to became more involved in some animal education and rescue. ( Jun 21 2006, 12:21:55 PM PDT ) Permalink
Tuesday June 20, 2006 My sister-in-law called me hysterically last night saying she had run into a bear as she was entering her home. Then she realized that the bear was actually hanging out in her house. I called the Sheriff and went over to comfort her as they chased it out of the house and treed it. I missed a good photo oportunity at the back of the house so the two below will have to do. It must not have spent to much time in the house as all it really got into were some dry goods and managed to not break the window. It hadn't gotten to the cat or dog food yet. The activity outside her house was amusing with people, their dogs, and babies in strollers checking out the activity with the odd passerby offering their dogs up for the chase. Unfortunately for such a young good looking bear he is a regular in the neighborhood.
Thursday March 30, 2006
another beast in the family
Sunday February 05, 2006 I took a look around this afternoon when the rest of the world was glued to the superbowl. Unlike yesterday the day was beautiful from first light. I played poker most of Saturday afternoon and evening into Sunday morning. I had played a little on Friday and started to suspect that 3 of the people I was playing with might know a friend from the Bay Area poker scene. As it turns out they suspected the same thing. Sometime Saturday I finally asked to amused nods. I guess its not so surprising that the intersection of the silly valley playground world and the poker world really isn't that large. Analytical types, even if they lack experience, are not the best opponents but it did make for some good conversation :) The mountains in this picture look other worldly. My wife has been complaining that I keep showing her pictures that she would like to use but we don't get most of them in hard copy. We do have a nice general purpose printer but its a pain to change paper, etc. for a picture. So we ended up with a HP Photosmart 385. While it can be used via a host PC it has a nice collection of media slots and front panel controls. Its been really useful to be able to just slip in a SD card and print off a picture without getting the PC going and changing the paper in the printer. Today I printed off this picture but used some cheaper porous stock. It turned out kinda cool with a real somewhat weathered and blurred look. The layout of the light spots on the card were almost in the right spots to make a nice postcard out of. I wonder what specifications need to be met to send something through the USPS as a post card? A quick look turned up this unofficial but fairly reasonable looking description. Looks like I'll have to do a little more processing to be able to turn a picture into a postcard. The picture also looks very nice on glossy stock. ( Feb 05 2006, 06:47:24 PM PST ) Permalink
Saturday February 04, 2006
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