Outdoors

The recent announcements by McCain and Clinton of their support for a temporary repeal of the Federal gas tax make me sick. More on why later, but first, I want to put forth my idea. I think both Republicans and Democrats would like it -- as it's based on market principles and achieves a reduction in costs to the average household, while simultaneously helping the environment and reducing our dependency on foreign oil. But of course, it's courageous, and we don't have many politicians of that type anymore.

What we need is a large, revenue-neutral, gas tax increase. Now, before people go nuts, let's explore what this means.

Revenue-neutral means that it doesn't result in a net increase of monies going to the government. The increase in the gas tax rate is offset by a decrease in the income tax, tied to the cost of direct and indirect taxable gasoline each family or business consumes. So on day 1, if you cost of filling up at the tank goes up by $10 in a week, if you are an average family, your total paychecks also go up by $10. Your cost for receiving a package might go up by $1, and your paycheck goes up by the same amount. So you're no worse off than before -- if you're average.

Let's look at the pros and cons of this sort of plan:

• The economic incentive to be efficient consumers of gas is magnified. This will eventually lead to Americans having more money in their pockets, increasing market incentives for fuel efficiency, and a decreasing (or increasing slower) price of oil as demand slows.


• Economic incentives to use mass transit, live close to urban centers, or drive fuel-efficient vehicles are magnified. Likewise, the economic incentives to invest in mass transit and efficient automobiles are also magnified.


• As more efficient technologies come on the market, and Americans decide that they'd like to pad their bank accounts by hundreds or thousands of dollars a year, more sustainable and environmentally-friendly development patterns will emerge. Also, the price of oil will be kept low. Of course, people that choose not to change will, on average, be no worse off than before.


• Alternative choices to the automobile will have a greater incentive to develop. Think the return of a fast, speedy national passenger and freight network, greater mass transit options, etc.


• The marketplace will drive Detroit to love making fuel-efficient vehicles, because they will be the new profit centers.


• This sort of thing is known to work well in other countries around the world.

If we think more long-term, we see even more positive effects:

• The return to local agriculture and manufacturing. Due to lower transportation costs, local farmers and manufacturers will be able to undercut Walmart's prices due to the larger relative costs of Walmart's much-vaunted national distribution network. Unless, that is, Walmart starts buying local -- which is a good thing too. This is a good thing for American jobs.


• Keeping all that oil money in the domestic economy is a good thing for American jobs, too.


• Our businesses will have a jump start on being competitive in the increasingly carbon-regulated global marketplace.

As for the cons:

• Eventually this will lead to a net reduction in Federal revenues as efficiencies develop in the marketplace and people save money on gas. Corresponding budget cuts will be required. (A good thing, I figure)


• Implementing this all at once would be a shock to some people living inefficiently now -- those that are far above average. It would have to be implemented gradually to avoid being a shock to the economy.

Now, for the McCain/Clinton plan: it's a farce. Reducing the gas taxes means more efficient gas, which means more consumption of gas, which in turn leads to -- yes -- higher gas prices. Its real effect will be minimal, and is a terrible long-term policy. It charges tens of billions of dollars to the national credit card (which we, and our children, will have to repay) while achieving almost no benefit now. It's a gimmick through and through, and something that says loud and clear that neither candidate is on track for the "Straight Talk Express".

Update 4/29/2008: One potential solution for the problem of declining revenues over time is to periodically re-index the averages to mirror current usage. Assuming this does really lead to the expected drop in consumption, there is no sense in 2020 of paying people for how much gas they would have used in 2008.

About a week and a half ago, I had to call in to work. The conversation went about like this:

Me: I'm going to be a little late today. I'm stuck in the mud, but I'm still on the road.

Other end: (Laughter).. *ahem* I'm sorry, but that sounded really funny.

From our house, we can take either the south road or the north road to lead to the highway. The north road always has at least some rock or sand on it. The south road is just dirt. And at the corner where it meets our road, it's dirt in a flood area with lots of trees around it. Meaning that is is often impassible.

But the south road saves me 1.3 miles each way on my drive in to work. So I like to take it when I can.

Lately we've had moisture, but since it's winter, the mud and water on the south road freezes overnight sometimes. Generally I figure that if the mud all over on our own yard is frozen, it's safe to take the south road.

Last week, our yard was frozen. The mud was solid and there were patches of ice. So I started heading towards the south road. I got to the corner, and there was ice and solid-looking frozen mud. So I went ahead. And promptly fell through the ice and landed in the water -- and mud -- beneath it.

Not good. I figured I'd try to get out of it. I actually was able to move the car, and got to within 5 feet of the solid ground, but there was just no going past there. So I called a neighbor with a tractor, and called in to work while he made his way over. He wasn't sure if he wanted to pull our car out from the front, so, due to his location, he had almost a 3-mile tractor drive.

Meanwhile, I worked to get the car as far back as I could. He pulled me out with no problems. I offered to pay, but he wouldn't accept anything. I stopped at home for a quick change of clothes and shoes (I had hopped out in the mud to try to find any sort of debris or something that could provide better traction), then went in to work -- only an hour late.

I got several comments from co-workers. And some "helpful advice" regarding which road I ought to be taking for the next few days. All in good fun, of course.

Terah and I always knew it was just a matter of time before something like this happened.

So, finally, it has. What a relief!

Terah made some buried cherry cookies for me to take over to our neighbors that weekend as a thank-you. He's been pulling people out of that corner for decades, and from the sound of it, I'm just about the most boring one yet.

For those of you wanting to see some pictures from the recent ice storm, here you go.

The morning:



This bush sorta got short and flat:



A tree branch:



And another:



Then, at noon:



Then the snow came:



If you have trouble finding the driveway... well, good thing we've got reflectors.



The rental generator that kept us warmish:



More snow:



You can also see the whole set on flickr.

You may remember my post Monday in which I told Mother Nature to "bring it on".

I would like to clarify that remark at this time. I would have preferred Mother Nature to interpret this in the President Bush sense of "please don't hurt us", rather than the "let's just knock out power to the entire plains region". A nice little romantic power outage Tuesday evening would have been nice.

We lost power at 3:10 on Tuesday according to my workstation's logs. It's still out, and our rural electric cooperative is estimating it will be another week until it's back, though that's better than the Dec. 22 date the state's much larger for-profit utility is giving people. We were lucky enough to be able to find a generator to rent on Wednesday morning. $35 a day isn't cheap. But on the other hand, we don't have a flooded basement due to not pumping out the sump pump, our food isn't spoiled, and our pipes aren't frozen.

At work, our Internet connection went down Tuesday morning. We use a fixed wireless connection, and this was the first time our ISP's radios have been tested in ice. Some antenna designs performed flawlessly. Then there were the antennas we had. 80% packet loss or worse. It wasn't safe to get up on the roof to deice them until Wednesday afternoon, and even then we couldn't get all the ice off. Finally today the connection was back to normal.

That two weeks after someone -- yes -- dug through Sprint/Embarq's apparent only fiber-optic link into town. Took down all long-distance calling into or out of the town, most cell towers, as well as all access to 911 (since dispatch is in another town) for about 8 hours. If we had still be using wired T1s, we would have been out of service with Internet as well.

All told, 200,000 households or business customers of the state's largest utility have been without power. Dozens of other utilities have also had significant outages. Ours alone lost 700 power poles and there are substations in need of repair all over the eastern part of the state. And we weren't even the hardest hit.

On the generator, we can generally pick any three of refrigerator, server, workstation, or furnace to run. So sometime warm, I'll upload the pictures I've taken so far. We have one nice CFL-powered electric lamp we're using, flashlights, and a kerosene lamp. It's amazing how after just a few days of this, we're starting to want to go to bed earlier. Or perhaps that was because I haven't had the chance to get a lot of sleep lately...

When we look out the house to the east, we see pitch black. Normally we can see some yard lights in the distance. Not this week. Nothing at all to the east. To the west, we can see yard lights tantalizingly close -- only 2 miles away, fed from a different location. Ah, the joys of being at the very end of a utility's network.

All this despite the fact that this storm wasn't really all that bad. The roads were never really terrible, and there weren't as many trees down as there were in the ice storm of 2005.

I heard a comment on the news today from an Iowa Republican who had followed the GOP debate yesterday. She mentioned that Romney made a comment like "Well, guess there's no global warming in Iowa with an ice storm like this, huh?" She pointed out that if Iowa was still as chilly as it used to, it would have been a snow storm instead of an ice storm. I agree.

About 80 years ago, a Kansas family -- the Janzens -- built this barn.

About 60 years ago, my grandparents moved onto the farm. Their cattle were kept right here. I remember Grandpa's red tractor being parked in the barn.

So many memories have this barn in the background. We had a visit from one of the Janzens that lived here as a child. He had fond memories of this building. My dad and his siblings once played in the deep snow in front of this barn.

Here's one memory from those times:



That's my grandma and grandpa on their 25th anniversary in 1970. It was a working barn back then, so they probably weren't standing right next to it for this picture, if you get my drift. But they were on the yard.

About 25 years ago, Grandma lost her battle with cancer. At some point or another, Grandpa had eased out of farming, so the barn had a lot less activity. I remember exploring his outbuildings when I got bored at family gatherings. And I used to mow the lawn next to it every summer when Grandpa went off to be a cook at a camp. I didn't mind mowing next to the barn. But I always tried to go past one corner of the house as fast as I could, because there were wasp and hornet nests right there.

About 7 years ago, it was time for Grandpa to move off the farm. It was getting to be too much to keep up the old house, the barn, the yard, and deal with things like freezing water pipes and water getting in through the windows. He moved to an independent-living duplex in town. He was always worried about what would happen to the farm. Over the next few years, the farm would sometimes be vacant, sometimes have renters. Some renters did some work on the house, but the barn sat. Grandpa would eventually move into the nursing home because of his Parkinson's.

Two and a half years ago, Grandpa passed away. I shared some memories from Grandpa's place at the funeral.

But what of the house, the farm now? Renters went, and it sat empty. Nothing was in great shape, and the house needed a lot of work. Perhaps the whole place would be leveled and turned back into the prairie that it once was, or used as farmland. Perhaps someone would have an interest someday.

A year and a half ago, Jacob was on the way. Terah and I had occasionally thought of buying Grandpa's place, but we never talked about it seriously. We figured that we better finally decide what we're doing, before we have a baby around, or a child in school. So in April 2006, we went out to the farm and checked it out. The picture at the top of this post is from that visit. Terah and I checked out the house, the barns, the granary, the pasture, and the creek. As we walked past one of the barns, a pigeon flew out. Terah jumped with a shout. I grew up around barns and didn't really notice it. In the big red barn, besides Grandpa's tractor, we found some remnants from years ago: some old bales, corn cobs that raccoons had found long ago, several generations of electric fencers, old appliances.

And we decided to go for it and buy the farm. This was right at a year after Grandpa died.

The family always liked to get together for Easter. What would happen for 2006? Well, they decided to have a picnic out at the farm. It was vacant, and a bit eerie. Yet they knew that we were working on buying the place and moving in. All but one took a last look through the house before our renovations began. The one person who didn't was my great aunt, Grandma's sister. She said, "I haven't been in this house for years. I remember how it looked back then. I don't want to remember how it looks now, run down like this. So I'm not going in. But once you have it all fixed up, THEN I'll go in!"

In June of 2006, we bought the farm.

One month later, we lost this barn, and two other buildings, to a fire at our yard. This is what the beautiful red barn looked like that sad afternoon last year:



As I wrote back then, nobody got hurt, the barn was insured, but "somehow, despite all these things, it still feels like we lost a little bit of Grandpa today."

2006 was a hot, dry summer. We had a patch of debris, then a patch of dirt, where the barn once stood.

7 months ago, Terah, Jacob, and I moved out to the farm. For the first time in 80 years, someone could stand in the farmhouse in the evening, look to the west, and see the colorful Kansas sunset over the pasture; the trees down by the creek; and even the neighbor's barn off in the distance. It was a beautiful sight, but it was also sad; that's not the view we had expected.

But then a surprise. This spring and summer, plants started coming up where none had grown for 80 years. But only where this barn stood -- not where the other two buildings were.

We watched as they grew tall. I'm sure decades of animals hanging out there were well appreciated by the plants.

As they grew, it looked like we might be seeing Terah's favorite flower: wild Kansas sunflowers.

And sure enough, they were.

Last weekend, Terah, Jacob, and I went out to the old barn. I took some pictures of its new appearance.



This one stands where Grandpa's tractor used to be parked.



And here we see a lifetime of flowers, from the old and withering, to the young just about ready to bloom.



At the edge of the sunflowers, there's an old plow next to them. Though you might think it's barn-colored.



Animals continue to be attracted to the area. Here's one of the smaller visitors.



And here's a picture of almost the whole patch, right where the barn used to stand. I still mow right up to it.

I still miss the old barn. But somehow it still seems to be full of surprises and worth exploring. I wonder what next year will bring.

And I wonder if, a few years from now, Jacob will tell his friends about mowing right up to the sunflower patch, going fast to try to avoid any trouble with the bees.

One of the things about living in the country is that there isn't all that much predictability. You can have your water supply disrupted by ants, sewage issues, power supply problems, etc.

But today was a new one that disrupted my morning commute.

It wasn't mud, or harvest.

No, it was traffic. On our driveway, just a few feet in front of our front door.



Takes only one of those standing on the driveway to make a traffic jam.

A couple of days ago, I posted a radar image.

The above photo is the result of that (and a following) storm.

It's the muddy road at the end of our driveway. Your guess as to which road is the driveway.

Here's another road near us:



Cliff also has some photos from this same storm system.

Views like this from our house, almost every single day:









Maybe we're not quite as crazy as we thought after all.

We had some wonderful weather yesterday. I've always said that I like snow. It can completely change the landscape in an instant. And it looks so beautiful.

Yesterday we had a nice snowstorm all day. Large, wet flakes. It was the most snow we've had at once in a few years right around here. It was beautiful just like always. It started early in the morning before we got up and continued until almost midnight. This morning, I went out into a big open area and measured the snow -- 7.5".

There are two problems with snow. One is that it's difficult to get anywhere. The other is that it blows into everything.

And guess what -- yesterday was our moving day.

Fortunately, on Friday evening, most of the furniture that needed to go in a pickup did. But we still had to wrap some things in plastic on Saturday. We didn't get everything moved that we wanted to. Between icy ground outside, travel at less than half the usual speed on the roads, and snow blowing everywhere, things were slow. But that's fine; we'll get the rest later.

This was the scene during the move:



Not long after that picture was taken, it was announced that church was canceled today. We kept moving things though.

Although we didn't get everything moved that we had hoped to, we got enough moved to consider ourselves moved in. We have one fully-functional bathroom. Jacob's bedroom and our bedroom are done. The kitchen will get its floor Monday and we'll get appliances Thursday. The only big thing left is guttering, plus there are still a few doorknobs and light fixtures pending. But it was enough that the three of us spent our first night here last night!

We're very appreciative of the help we got from family & friends, who helped us move and brought us food (since we don't have a fridge for the next few days).

Jacob doesn't like change very much (he cried when he noticed that some clutter in our apartment living room was gone). But he likes to learn about his environment. So today, he woke up at 6AM (and got us up at 6AM), spent an hour happily looking around, then promptly started fussing. That's how the day has been for him -- interest and crying.

At about 7:30AM, we were shocked to see a road maintainer plowing our road. Why shocked? Well, nobody else lives on this road for a couple of miles. It's not exactly a popular spot. And it hadn't been in all that great of shape before winter.

Later in the day, I went out to take some pictures. Here's one of our driveway:



Doesn't it look fun?

I decided to see if we could get out. The short answer is yes. The long answer is "yes, if you have patience." After rocking the car back and forth to get it turned around in the yard, I was able to keep up enough speed to get to the road and back. So Terah and I had lunch with my parents, then went into town to get another carload of stuff. There were children out playing everywhere, and well-worn sledding paths down hillsides. Too bad Jacob isn't old enough to enjoy this!

It was last April when we first started thinking about this. By June we had bought the property out here, and in October we moved to the apartment. It's been a long time feeling like we were living somewhere temporarily.

And, right now, it is great to be home.

There are a lot of beautiful fall colors that will be showing up in forests around the world shortly.

But here in Kansas, we get a little jump on the colors because this is sunflower season.

If you drive around Kansas this time of year (roughly August and September), you'll see sunflowers all over the place. The wild sunflowers thrive anywhere there's nobody to plow them under or mow them down. If you pick the right country road, you can drive along and see what looks like a yellow wall in the distance. As you get closer, you realize that you're seeing sunflowers growing along a small stream or creek, though they've completely hidden it.

Although I grew up here, I had never really paid attention to the sunflowers. Back in 2002, as we were moving to Kansas from Indiana, Terah noticed the wild sunflowers. She'd never seen wild sunflowers and has really enjoyed them ever since (and so have I).

So, here are some sunflower photos, for those of you that have never had the chance to travel some of the back roads of Kansas.

First we start with a small bunch of wild sunflowers:



This small patch is growing in the ditch by our farm (our house is in that clump of trees in the background). These sunflowers are pretty young, so they aren't very tall yet. Also, there's a butterly fluttering around in that photo.

Most of the wild sunflowers get much taller than these. They seem to usually grow to about 5 to 7 feet (1.5 - 2.1m) tall. Here's a taller patch, about 1/2 mile away from the first one:



Neither of these two example photos show a very "deep" view of a group of sunflowers, because they are so dense that it's hard to really see what the individual plants look like in such a photo.

But here's a photo of a sunflower field:



These sunflowers don't grow as tall as their wild cousins, but their flower heads are quite a bit larger. This type of sunflower can be found many places. Wild sunflowers like we have here can be found in different places, too, but I've never seen them so common as here in Kansas.