Life Enrichment Opportunity

Follow the link below and go to each of the hundreds of articles found there. You will find a vast list of all the outcomes resulting from global warming. http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm This will arm you with the facts to deal with the climate change deniers.

ps. did you know that planting marijuana in your back yard helps take carbon out of the air? However, you can't smoke it. It must be eaten to become part of your personal carbon sink (PCS) if you want to prevent global warming. TWW assumes no responsibility for what you do with this information.

Is this a trend??

Is she vying for the Ms. Airhead crown for 2007? If TV keeps doing this to Mrs. Clinton she may end looking worse than Gerald Ford. Expand the picture and notice the eyes. See this link for a previous misleading picture: http://warpedwoodturner.blogspot.com/2007/10/happy-halloween.html

Another new product announced

TWW Enterprises is pleased to announce another addition to its ever-growing product line. Current products include the Boring Bowl series (finished with mineral oil to be safe for food), the Bottomless Bowl series and most recently the Yuk! Bowls.

The latest bowl style is called the Virgin Bowl. All Virgin Bowls are made of the finest cherry. Ony 72 of these will be made. Order yours today. These will go fast. Seen above are the first two virgin (not yet numbered) bowls in the series.

Time to blame global warming again

There was ice on the inside of the windows this morning and no temperature outside. Winter is supposed to start in three weeks.

Thanks for the Donation

The Garbin Moraine Foundation wishes to thank the people at Paltry Pleasure (a grownup retail subsidiary of T.J. Enterprises) for the donation of the data storage tower. We welcome other donations as well. The only requirement is the donation must be consistent with the principles of Country Freeloading. Also, remember all donations to the Garbin Moraine Foundation are not tax deductible.

Only a few Thanksgiving pics (technical problems)

The TWWs presented a birthday bowl to SA for seven decades of service to humanity. It is 8" by 2" oak.




The oak has interesting markings on it. It almost looks like an inlay but it is the way the wood came out of the tree.

One of the family member's lives in North Dakota but could not afford to buy a winter jacket so the family took up a holiday collection before she left to go back to the tundra.

Have a great Thanksgiving

And please remember the holiday season in the US is a perfect time to begin your own personal carbon sink endeavor by practicing the EMBL Program. TWW will be at relatives over the next few days but since all 6 of the people who normally read this blog will be doing the same, there is no need to apologize for the inconvenience caused by no updates to this blog until Sunday.

And as your mother said be sure to clean your plates. The new meaning to this is there will be less garbage in the landfills creating greenhouse gases as it decomposes. The CO2 will be in your fat cells instead of the fragile atmosphere. Happy holidays!

Latest EMBL Program convert

The president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, has joined ex-president Algore as a promoter of the EMBL Program to help save the planet. The next time you see a picture of him note how he is becoming a personal carbon sink.

Potential Headache

There is a cherry tree in our valley that could make a series of bowls. The problem is the tree has a widow maker just waiting to fall on the poor person who tries to cut the tree down. The branch is about 25 feet above the ground so it is too high for a pole saw. All ideas on how to cut down the tree and live to tell about it are welcome.

EM-BL Method comes under attack

The earlier post of the Eat More - Breathe Less Method has been criticised as having some leaks in it. Critics claimed belching and flatulence allowed excess CO2 into the fragile atmosphere even if people were practicing EM-BL. The earlier post on the end of cutting should address the concerns about flatulence. Above you can see Prophet Algore demonstrating how to suppress any belching problems you may have.

TWW Thanks all the people who are working for a living

Free trees

The Garbin Moraine Nursery division is having a clearance sale. We currently have one white spruce, two red pines and 14 white pine transplants free for the asking (note there is no handling charge but you must come and get them and follow all the rules on how much guests should bring when they visit). These beautiful trees were grown from seedlings in foam blocks and are now about 5 year old so they are well acclimated to the cold north country. Please leave comments if you want any so we can contact you.

Winter Weenie Roast all set up

To help keep operating expenses down please bring your own sticks.

film just back from the store

TWW goes out trick or treating. It was amazing how much candy they forked over when they saw him with a chain saw in his hand. Expand the picture for more detail.

The Eat More - Breathe Less Method

TWW recently learned of the Eat More - Breathe Less Method (EMBLM) of saving the planet. Unlike other plans promoted by the liberal elite such as Clinton and Edwards, this plan is pushed by someone who practices what he preaches by becoming a personal carbon sink (PCS).

The Eat More - Breathe Less Method (affectionately called 'embalm' in elite circles) lets people think globally while acting locally as they become PCSs by eating more and exercising less. This means a net storage of carbon instead of exhaling carbon into the air while exercising. EMBLM insures CO2 will not escape into the air of our fragile planet by insuring the PCSs are buried in a sealed casket. This is the same process as the planet used to store carbon in petroleum and coal for billions of years until western capitalism reversed the process to make obscene profits. The EMBLM method also helps with population control (hence will save Social Security) since it will drop life expectancies so people will not be around as long to pollute the planet. For more help with becoming a personal carbon sink visit: http://www.algore.org/

Feral car found on Garbin Moraine

We have to thank Mike Perry, author of Truck: A Love Story for this tip. In his book he writes "feral refrigerators and washing machines are generally found clustered at the bottom of eroded gullies, or at the terminus of dead-end roads and abandoned driveways". We had no idea we had a feral car on our land and what dangers they pose.

For a picture of this menacing problem see: http://warpedwoodturner.blogspot.com/2006/02/old-car-with-tree-growing-through-it.html

Garbin Moraine cuts it CO2 footprint in half

To help limit our CO2 footprint we got rid of our 500 gallon LP tank today. Instead, we now have a green 250 gallon tank. This new tank has a footprint about one half the size of our previous tank which helps our carbon footprint immensely.

QSL Cards in the Time of the Internet

Ham radio or people who have shortwave listening as a hobby (not too many of them any more), collect QSL cards. These cards are what hams send each other confirming they were in contact. Shortwave radio stations send them for reports on how well the station comes in. With the Internet, QSLing in on its way to becoming a thing of the past. But now people with blogs have Google Analytics. They have a map of all the states where someone looks at a blog. TWW's blog has some states already but is looking for ways to get people from every state in the nation to look at his blog so the Google Analytics map of the US has all the states green (that means someone in the state has had the misfortune to look at TWW's blog). All ideas are welcome. (except becoming a porn blog).

Less cutting for a while

Note to loyal viewers (all 3 of you)

TWW just spent the weekend in the BIG CITY. There is nothing like going to the BIG CITY to enhance your understanding of the meaning of life. Driving on the Interstates with the cars whizzing by helps one know how finite one's own life is and how it may all end soon if someone messes up. It is sort of like walking in the woods during the deer gun season wearing camouflage and wondering if the people in red are operating while under the influence of something. Anyway, TWW has not forgotten you and will be working to catch up. Mrs TWW has company coming so TWW will work as permitted. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

PETA supporters get the blame for this one

People for the Ethical Treatment of Ants (PETA) are the cause of a recent power problem on Garbin Moraine. There is a transformer outside dropping the power from the pole down to 110 volts. It was designed to work above ground. When TWW called the power coop to report flashing lights they sent out a crew to investigate. They struggled to get the transformer cover off. Once they got it off they found about two gallons of sand inside the box. The lineperson said it was the work of ants. Perhaps it was a protest against something. The moist sand had caused corrosion on the connectors.

Waiting for El Trucko

City people are more artsy-craftsy than the people on Garbin Moraine. They go to theaters and watch plays like Waiting for Godot. In the country we order stuff online and then wait for El Trucko. There are two incarnations of El Trucko. One is Santaups and the other is Santafed. To amuse ourselves we watch the stuff cross the country on the computer while the trucks carrying it cloud the atmosphere with CO2 but since we are not driving the car to town to buy stuff we get carbon credits for not emitting CO2. Our latest order is now sitting next to Lake Superior so it is getting closer. For now we just wait.

Life enrichment ?

In July TWW answered the Countryside magazine question of the month. Below is the answer. Your task is to figure out what the question was. The text below is what was sent to Countryside using a fake name instead of TWW and appears in the current issue. Creating this post was a test of the Google document feature and it appears the feature works.

Moving to the country means lots of decisions. You have needs to meet, make some assumptions about the world, have some values or criteria to judge options against and then stir all this into decisions. Our failures though small in moving to the country came from places where we were ignorant of our needs, assumptions or values. Decisions on how to use your resources of time and money to meet needs decides success or failure in moving to the country. Below is what we learned along the way.

Since full disclosure is in style I should mention we fit into the category of pensioner used in the book New Pioneers by Jeffrey Jacob. In his study based on a survey of Countryside readers about 18% of people living in the country were pensioners living on retirement income. While we are not 100 % pure homesteaders some of what you find below could still apply to your situation.

It’s best to learn how you meet your needs with your time and money while still in the city. To know where your time goes you need to record how you spend it.

Another part of time management is to make lists of what needs doing. Some things you do completely yourself but often you need supplies.

Keep track of how and where you meet your needs for supplies or services. Many of the needs will move to the country with you. Next is one way of you can begin compiling a list of needs.

Take a big piece of paper and draw a circle in the middle labeled ‘my homestead’. Next start listing everything you can remember that goes into your homestead (energy, food, water, etc). Put arrows on the items pointing into the circle. Also list everything you can remember coming out of the circle (wastes, etc) with arrows pointing out. In the country you will need to account for most of what goes in and out of your city homestead. This process helps identify needs you have.

People often assume their needs will be magically met by buying things until they get an unwelcome surprise. We got the latest edition of Countryside a few days after a bridge I had assumed safe to drive on numerous times before moving to the country from Minneapolis surprised people in an unfortunate way. Moving to the country has surprises when your assumptions don’t hold true.

To know where your money goes you also need to record how you use it. The starting point is to read Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominquez and Vicki Robin.

Finally, although this is not a pop psychology magazine, when you move to the country your mind comes with whether you like it or not. To better understand how your mind works, start doing morning pages. Julia Cameron in the Artist’s Way suggests people take three blank pages of paper and write longhand to dump their minds on paper when they get up in the morning. Doing that for a while will help you decide what you really want.

After you make the big move to the country keep recording how you spend your money. It is easy to lose control when you do something like build a house and buy items you end up not really needing.

Your list of items to do will be long after moving . Here is one simple thing to help keep you sane. Pay attention to your accomplishments. Get a diary book and record how you spend your time. I don’t mean recording how many seconds something takes. Rather, when you cross something off a list of tasks to complete write it in the diary book. The value of this is you then see how much you have accomplished rather than focusing on a nagging list of incomplete tasks.

Finally, here are a few things we learned the hard way because we assumed wrong:

1)The wind may blow differently than you expected. We had a garage and a privy on the land (Countryside Vol 80 #5) for about eight years but learned after we built a house on the land the wind came from the east and the south during the winter more than we ever thought possible and cooled the house. We planted most of the trees on the north side of the property. We had assumed wrong.

2)Darling little animals were a bigger nuisance than we expected. Tree shelters and wire fence cages around trees have helped us keep trees going.

3)Services and goods not available on your land mean you drive. Use your lists of needs to learn where you will meet your needs for medical, pharmacy, hair, or financial services and also types of goods you buy regularly to locate businesses early. We unwittingly split ourselves between two cities and it means extra driving .

4)Deciding where to put a sidewalk or LP tank changes where people can drive a big truck . Though it has not mattered yet, we discovered we do not have a way for a well repair truck to reach the well without moving the LP tank and cutting down some trees. Fortunately, we realized we had decided wrong before we had a crisis on our hands and hopefully have time to fix things.

Deer is only a little horny

Global warming causes snow in November

Snow this early in our area is rare so it must be the work of global warming.

Silvaculture Day

Today was Silvaculture Day at the Shirleywood Forest on Garbin Moraine. It was time again to remove lower branches on the red pines so any fires caused by global warming would hopefully slow down before they got to the manor. The picture above is of the branches lined up to march down to the bonfire in the valley below the manor. (note to DNR: we won't actually burn the branches until there is enough snow on the ground so you don't need to send any enforcers over). TWW recently read in the local paper about the manager of a new wood pellet plant saying burning wood pellets is carbon neutral. This must mean while the smoke from burning pellets (or these branches) will put CO2 into the air, the CO2 would have gone into the air anyway as the trees the pellets came from (or these branches) rotted away. Either way CO2 goes into the air and warms the planet. This brings up a good question to ask your tree hugger friends: Since trees pollute as they decompose shouldn't we stop planting new trees and also work for ways to prevent living trees from reproducing and creating even more carbon to put into the air and warm the planet?

Rare horny deer seen on Garbin Moraine

The deer was observed at dusk. This is an enhanced picture. With a male: female ratio of 1:6 the does definitely get what is left over if they wait too long.

Cut, cut, cut

One cord done.

Nine to go.