Mrs. Nash Gets a Baby In Seattle Because Folks In Anchorage Wouldn't Give Her a White Baby

The title summarizes one of the stories Mrs. Nash tells on a tape my daughter made before Mrs. Nash died. There are a number of interesting bits of Anchorage history on the short audio tape below.

Mrs. Mildred Nash was our neighbor for over 25 years. It would be more accurate to say that we were her neighbor, since she'd lived in this neighborhood 20 years before we moved in. When our house, our side of the street, was still woods. I don't even know if our street was even here. I wrote about Mrs. Nash recently because the ally across the street was made into a street and called Mildred Place.

Today, November 25, is her birthday.  This seems like a good time to post the audio my daughter made with Mrs. Nash.

[Note, it might take a while - it took me a few minutes - for this to upload, but read something else and come back to it.]

If I close my eyes and listen to the tape, it's like Mrs. Nash is here in the room with me. And you can catch the infectious love of life in her voice. She was about 86 and dying with cancer when this recorded. But you wouldn't know it.   If you want to get a little boost today, listen to a truly at-peace woman thinking back on her life.  And hear the story about how she had to go to Seattle to adopt her son, because they didn't have black babies and they weren't going to give her a white one.



I should note it would also be my mother-in-law's birthday today. In one of those strange coincidences in life, her name was also Mildred.  Happy Birthday to both my Mildreds.

Hairy (not Downy) Woodpecker Makes Brief Visit

I was surprised to see the mask that hangs on our deck bobbing so wildly in the wind.  I'd just been out front and there was no wind.  But then I saw there was a woodpecker checking it out.  I pulled out the camera quickly and took a picture.  Then a Steller Jay chased the woodpecker off and it landed on the railing, so I got another shot just before the Jay swooped once more and off it flew.

Then to the bird book. It was down to a Downy or a Hairy Woodpecker.  They look alike.  But the key difference is the Downy "has a stubby bill, obviously shorter than the head."  And this one has a long bill.  Also, the Downy is about 6 1/2 inches and the Hairy is 9".  This one was big.  And when I measured the mask after looking at the photo, it was clearly about 9 or 10 inches.  I also emailed the pictures to my bird expert, Dianne, who confirmed.  Unfortunately my other bird expert, Catherine, is no longer with us, but I'm sure from somewhere she's nodding her head that it's a Hairy.

Oh yes.  Where's the red on the woodpecker's head?   Only the mail has the dark red on the back of the head.

Checking my "Guide to the Birds of Alaska" by Robert H. Armstrong, I notice that I wrote on the Hairy page "11/23/01 or Downy backyard."  I didn't get a picture that time so wasn't able to check the key characteristics.  But today is October 19, so it seems that this is a good time for woodpeckers in our yard. 

For those who have always wondered, I did a post on why woodpeckers don't get brain damage in July this year.

Note to self:  Add wash the kitchen window to the todo list. I really wasn't trying to prevent this woodpecker's friends from knowing where he was this afternoon by blurring his face.

Red, Red Mt. Ash

This tree in front of our house has always kept its leaves longer - sometimes through the winter - than the other trees.  It's the second half of October and the temperatures were moderate - into the low 40˚ F (4.4˚C) range today - and the sky was blue after Monday's grey. 

I also noticed that this tree and the one to the left (a few reddish leaves are still near the top) don't have many berries this year.  The Bohemian waxwings will be disappointed when they show up in the winter.

Rainy Fall Day

We're headed to the museum to check out the mastodons before they head south.

You Can Feel the February Sunshine

At least inside, the sun has a definite warmth when it touches you.  When I go downstairs every morning to spray the bamboo, bromeliads, and begonias, it's light earlier.  Sunrise today was 9:10 am  and it sets at 5:18 pm (the moon gets four more hours in the sky) for a total of eight hours eight minutes and 55 seconds.   But don't believe everything you read on the internet.  The Anchorage Daily News says sunrise today was 9:09 am (five minutes after their scheduled moonrise).   And when I went on line to get the ADN link, I found the online version gave yet another time for the sunrise. (Note, the ADN link goes to weather in general and probably changes from day to day.)  At least they all agree on sunset time.



I'm not sure how you calculate exact sunrise for a place with mountains to the east.

In any case, here are some pictures of my flock.  

 

Clutter Wars - New Carpet In

J has wanted a new carpet downstairs for years.  It didn't bother me at all.  I thought it worked.  But recently she ordered a new 'green' carpet and then painted the key room it's going in and it was due to arrive in Anchorage about when I got back.  (J stayed in LA a few more days and is due in tonight.)  Well, it got here earlier and there were two phone messages.  So when I called them, yes, it was possible to do it the next day, so yesterday they came and put it in.  I delayed this post so she wouldn't see the post before she saw the actual carpet.  I'm sure she won't have access to the internet before she gets home any more - and she wouldn't be looking here probably anyway. 

Someone could ask why this is in the Clutter War category. It would be a good question. Minimally, we had to clear the floor in the room and hallway and I'm hoping not everything will go back. In fact the sofa bed has been marked for disposal already. We'll see.

Alaska Energy Rating with Kyle Lepping

We signed up with the State last May for an energy audit rebate.  The State will reimburse people with $325 for the audit and up to $10,000 more for implementing projects recommended in the audit.  Someone had recommended a good rater, but he said we had to get on the State list and there was a wait.  We were something like 1200th on the list. 

Well, in November we finally got on the list and Kyle Lepping's firm (the one that had been recommended) was notified and we set up a date.

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I wasn't quite prepared for all that happened.  He brought all this equipment in.  I thought the telescopic ladder (next to the red case on the bottom right) was very cool.  He also had a smoke generator so he could see which way the draft was going.  the frame goes on the door way with a plastic cover, then he took a fan out of the red case and used it to depressurize the house so he could see where leaks came in - around windows, electrical sockets, etc. 



Here's Kyle in his vest of many pockets and gadgets, and his nifty head lamp checking in the garage.

Throughout he acted as though being middle of the clutter wars was perfectly normal. 

He had his BPI Patch on his shoulder.  Their website says:

We are a national standards development and credentialing organization for residential energy efficiency retrofit work – providing training through a network of training affiliate organizations, individual certifications, company accreditations and quality assurance programs. As an independent, not-for-profit organization, we bring together leading building science experts from across North America to develop our standards using a consensus-based methodology.
The result? Sustainable, green-collar jobs in local communities that improve the comfort, health, safety, durability and energy efficiency of America’s existing houses.

Kyle said there were only a few BPI certified contractors and raters in the state.  Federal energy loans which are coming up in the future will require certified contractors to do the work, but the State program doesn't.

Here he has the front door open and is using the frame to hold the plastic in place and the hole is where he's about to put the fan.


On the video he explains a bit what he's doing and then explains his report at the end.  I've left about five minutes of the report and then cut off the rest.   [I'm having trouble uploading the video.  I'll add it when it works later.]

Clutter Wars - Let's Paint

J has wanted a new downstairs carpet forever and with guests coming this summer, it's forever has a date.  But if you put down a new carpet, you have to paint first.  She told me it was a law of nature.  The good news is that we had to take out everything that was in the open.  So now my back room is full again as is the room we misleadingly call the greenhouse.






But while I've been blogging about the film festival (I've changed the banner back to What Do I Know? even though we still have a couple more days of Best of the Fest), J has been painting.  (I did a little bit of the cleaning out, taping, and 15 minutes of painting a high tight spot, but some things couples aren't meant to do together.)  She claims to like painting and who am I to disagree? 

It really looks much better, even with things still wrapped up.  We have decisions though now.   Probably time to have a new look.  A more comfortable sofa bed for guests.  Get rid of the stuff that we moved out.  

 The fake brick wall that leaves an air space behind the wood stove looks much better painted white.

Clutter Wars - Low Tide

The clutter wars continue.  J announced last week that she wants to paint one of the downstairs rooms and needs to get things out of there.  The room that is my project was totally strewn with boxes and stuff.  There was no room there to put the painting refugees from the other room.  So I vowed to get the floor cleared enough that it could become a storage room for the room being painted.

The picture shows the morning high tide and the afternoon low tide.

This room has been full and bare several times over the last few years.  I'd like to think that we get rid of stuff in the process.  And that like things get closer to being in the same boxes so they can be more easily sorted later.



In any case, I did get the floor clear by my arbitrary Friday deadline.  There does seem to be more room in the closet, and I remember filling the recycle bin with stuff.  Now I have to take pictures off the walls and books off the shelves and other odds and ends that are out in the open and move them into my now cleared floor.

Clutter Wars - Memories of Meals Past

The Clutter War continues.  There's more room in the closet, less in the new recycle bin we got from Solid Waste Services in October, and empty boxes.  But I won't even show you what the room looks like.  But sorting through things I found these mementos of meals past. 

This is the menu for dinner on Friday, June 23, 1950 at Camp Curry in Yosemite Valley.  I wasn't yet five and I don't remember the meal at all. (You can double click the photo to see the offerings more clearly.)  But I do remember sheer walls rising above the valley, the big trees, the waterfalls, the deer in the meadows, and best of all, the firefall.  In the evening during the campfire program, someone would yell up and someone would yell back down from the top of Glacier Point.  I can still here the long faint, "Fiiiiire Faaaaaaaall" and see the glowing embers sliding down the side of the mountain.  Firefall.info gives more specifics:

At 9:00 each evening in Camp Curry, the crowd which had gathered for the nightly campfire program, would fall silent. A man would call out to the top of Glacier Point "Let the Fire Fall!", and a faint reply could be heard from the top of the mountain. Then a great bonfire of red fir bark would be pushed evenly over the edge of the cliff, appearing to the onlookers below as a glowing waterfall of sparks and fire.[This site has a lot more information including memories of many people who watched the firefall.]

He says the last firefall was in 1968.

Double click to enlarge

Here's a menu from the Los Angeles Brown Derby on Wilshire Blvd.  My 6th grade class had a 'graduation' party there. The building was shaped like a brown derby hat and was considered a fancy restaurant. (I asked fineartsla for permission to use their picture of the building but haven't heard from them, but you can click on the link and see it.)  I do not remember what I ate.  It was being there that was special.  And I recall we had trouble trying to figure out at the end who owed how much.

This is from a journal entry  -  Tuesday, Thessalonikki March 9, 1965.  It was the year I was a student in Göttingen, Germany.  We had two months off March and April and I'd hitchhiked to Vienna. I took the trains in Yugoslavia and after a week was more than ready to leave.  The last day turned out to be the best.  The ballet in Belgrade between trains where I met a Yugoslavian student, and we ate a great dinner, then got on the train that had no seats left and a Greek family pulled me into their compartment and fed me all the way to Thessalonikki.  There I looked up a friend of a Greek student in Germany and he took me to this fantastic fish restaurant.  No pictures, but it's in the journal.  This was truly one of the best meals of my life.  The food, the atmosphere, and the company.  Let me correct the journal.  The seaman didn't eat alone.  He shared his lobster with a cat.

J and I were in Beijing for a month in July 1990.  I was doing research on an article and we were staying at the People's University with wonderful people.  At that time, there weren't very many restaurants in Beijing and finding them wasn't easy.  The Dean knew where they were and took us to several.  Then he learned that I liked spicy food and suggested we go to this Sichuan Restaurant.  They day we settled on turned out to be my birthday and I insisted on paying.  He wouldn't hear that until I insisted it was an American tradition to treat your friends on your birthday.  (You have to resort to subterfuge to pay when with Chinese friends in China.) 

In the end, we had dinner for twelve.  The dean ordered the many course meal, and it was incredible.  It was in a private room in an old Chinese house.  It was a wonderful evening with good friends, good food, amazing atmosphere.  The bill - including everything - was just under $100. (Des, can you translate the menu?)  I might be able to find some pictures of this meal.  If I do, I'll add them later. 


As I wrote this it became clear that for me, a memorable meal includes good friends, good food, and good ambiance.  There have been many other memorable meals, but these are ones that showed up while working on the clutter downstairs. 

Becoming a War Reporter in the Home Clutter Wars

There's been a war going on for at least seven years over possession of what was once my daughter's room.   We've been fighting an uphill battle since the year we rented out the house while we were on sabbatical.  The room became our storage unit while the tenant had access to the rest of the house.  

We've fought the boxes now and then, successfully unhooking emotional claws long enough to donate, recycle, or trash.  And for periods of time we've managed to confine the boxes to the overcrowded refugee camp in the closet.   But somehow, when we aren't looking, troublemakers manage to sneak out and set up cardboard shanty towns on the floor.

I posted before and after pictures of this room last summer when we had temporarily reclaimed the floor. Things have again gotten out of hand. 

So I commissioned a report from a prestigious think tank on whether this war is even winnable and if so, what is the best strategy.  Here are the findings and recommendations.

Causes

• Rampant consumerism is NOT the issue- with the exception of books, there are relatively few impulse items.
• Both rational and emotional needs to remember, document, and stay connected.
• There's an array of photos, slides, old letters, kids' art, mementos, tapes, gifts, and old documents
• Relentlessly changing technology has left its detritus of old computer, telephone, and camera debris.
• Retirement brought old work materials home that haven't been properly triaged.
• Way station - the room is the way stay station for things being eliminated from other parts of the house.  So things may look worse than they really are. As new stuff is added old stuff does move out. 

Obstacles to winning the war

• Emotional Attachment - "But these letters are from my grandfather who I never met." "This is M's favorite stuffed animal." "But this is Cocoa's collar."
• Exaggerated Sense of Future Need - "But we might need these telephone bills from 1985 one day." "I could use this cracked mug to plant something in."
• Distorted Sense of History - "But these old checkbooks are archeological data of how people really lived."
• Distorted Sense of the Future - "But surely our (unborn) grandchildren will want to see these."
• Distorted sense of Economics - "But these Dungeons and Dragons magazines will be valuable one day."
• Lack of Will -"What's playing at the Bear Tooth?"
• Lack of Clear Goals and Deadline - "I'm gonna start on it when it gets cold outside."

And one more that is relevant to this post:

• Blogging - takes too much time and gives excuses to do other things

Strategies

• Blog about the war.  This will give me incentive to get more done. Consider yourselves warned. But it should be fun. I have a post on great meals coming up.
  
• Deadline.  There will be people coming this summer, so the room (and other parts of the house) not not only must be liberated, but also transformed into an inviting livable space with no traces of its former war zone status.

Immediate Steps

• Write this post.√
• Take old computer. monitor, and keyboard to Total Reclaim Saturday

RECYCLING COLLECTION EVENT:
Saturday November 13, 8 AM - 5 PM

In celebration of America Recycles Day, Total Reclaim will accept electronics for recycling at the discounted rate of $25 per carload.

I Found My Camera

My camera is with me most of the time these days.  It takes photos, video, and audio.  It's an important tool for this blog.  So when I couldn't find it last night, well, I wasn't worried, because I knew it would turn up.  But it wasn't in any of the normal places.  The place in the bedroom where I empty my pockets.  The same place downstairs.  My desk.  In any of the pockets of pants and jackets I wore.

So, I forced myself to stop looking for the camera and to just clean up areas of the house.  If I look for something, I will just move things around and end up more frustrated at the end.  If I start cleaning up, I may not find what I'm looking for, but I will have accomplished something, and may find things I didn't know I was looking for.

We have a drawer near the kitchen phone that has accumulated a serious collection of useless items.  Here are a few things I found in there. 


I don't know how much money, if any, is on the REI card. I really have a problem with gift cards because a large percent of them are never redeemed. 


I have no idea who Merry and Jack are or where those matches came from.  It long predates our even being married. 


I do remember this clipping from the classifieds.  I couldn't believe a mastodon was for sale and really wanted to buy it, but it was out of my price range.  But I kept the clipping in the drawer.

And then I went downstairs to clean up the room that has become a storage room and where I have been making some progress.  And there, on the table, under things I'd sorted, was my camera.  And I also found this painting of a hoopoe.   Now that I have my camera back, I can start blogging again.

Anchorage Trailer Trash

I would hope regular readers would know that I wouldn't refer to people in such a negative way.  In fact I'm speaking quite literally here - trailers reduced to trash.  This picture is from the trailer park at Piper and 40[42nd]. 

Here's a picture I took of the park in 2008 when this fence had just gone up.  You can see that it was full of low cost housing.  Here's a picture I took last week at the same spot along the fence.

View at fence opening  July 2010

View at fence opening August 2008

This used to be full of trailers with little gardens.

The trailer park at 40th and Piper takes up quite a bit of space and I'm sure the property value is much higher than when it first became a trailer park and maybe the owners feels they can use the land more profitably.  Or perhaps they've gotten older and just wants to get their cash and the new buyer wants to build.  Who knows?  Trailers seem like a poor option where the winters get really cold, but they also aren't cubby holes in long dark corridors.  The people at this park had quick access to the out of doors, little yards and gardens.

I recall news stories in past years about trailer park closures and people not being able to find space to relocate their trailers.  I can't find any of those stories online.  But my sense is that the number of trailer parks is shrinking and there are fewer places that people can park them.  Here's a google list:

I'm not really making a statement one way or the other about this.  I don't know enough to do that.  Things change.  I'm just putting this up for the record.  Maybe others can interpret what this means for Anchorage and the people who live here.

There are still trailer parks around.  Just a few blocks south of the now defuncting Piper/42nd trailer park across Tudor, at Piper and 46th, is a small trailer park with maybe half a dozen trailers.

Freshly Baked Bread

I finally baked the first loaves of breads since we got back. The bakeries in Germany were incredible. Beautiful loaves of wonderful fresh breads.


  Many had lots of seeds on the crusts. In Juneau we didn't have our bread maker so I made breads from scratch. I like that and I learned I could leave dough in the fridge overnight. A useful trick to know.




But here I can do the first round of kneading and rising in the bread maker, set it so it will be ready when I get up in the morning, and then do the second round of kneading by hand. That also let me add seeds to the crust. Mine tend to fall off. But this time I wet the dough and pressed the seeds into the dough before sticking it into the oven.


A friend is coming over for lunch today and to help me set up a new website.  It's good to have incentives to get me to do something like bake the bread.  And now I have to clean up a bit. 

Cat Lovers Should Check Out This House

I ran into this post on moderncat.net while working on my animations in competition post for the Anchorage International Film Festival.  Yes, that post is still coming.  But I know that this link will get the cat fan's imaginations running wild.

The photo here plus many are more in the post, "Another Amazing Cat-friendly House Design from Japan"

Tiny Black Bugs - Fruit Flies or Fungus Gnats?

In lieu of a dog or cat, we have various insects living at our house. Most prominent lately have been these tiny black flying things. But they're too small and too active to really get a decent picture. But this week I found one floating in a little water at the bottom of a cup on the table. These guys sometimes seem to come home with bananas and they like any kitchen scraps we haven't covered well before taking them out to the compost. And we're at the season change time when our backyard compost takes its winter break and we haven't quite gotten used to the garbage disposal yet.

But with a picture in hand, I finally called Cooperative Extension to see if I could identify the little critters. Because they liked the fruit he thought they might be fruit flies, but when he saw the picture he called to say they were Fungus Gnats.

He sent me a link to the Colorado State  Extension site where I learned:

Fungus gnats (Bradysia species) – also known as dark-winged fungus gnats, are small, mosquito-like insects often found in homes and offices, usually in the vicinity of houseplants. They are considered a nuisance when present in noticeable numbers, but the adults are harmless insects that do not bite. Fungus gnat larvae develop in the growing medium of houseplants and are considered minor pests of houseplants. . .

They are really small, I took another picture with a grain of uncooked rice floating next to it.

The most important strategy to minimize fungus gnat problems associated with houseplants is to allow the growing medium to dry between watering, especially the top 1 to 2 inches. The dry-growing medium will decrease survival of any eggs laid and/or larvae that hatch from the eggs as well as reduce the attractiveness of the growing medium to egg-laying adult females. In addition, it is recommended to re-pot every so often, particularly when the growing medium has “broken down” and is retaining too much moisture. Furthermore, be sure to remove any containers with an abundance of decaying plant matter such as decayed bulbs and roots, which provide an excellent food source for fungus gnat larvae. . .

 Want to see if there are larvae growing in your potted plant soil?  But do you really want to find these guys?  (The larvae picture - on a potato - is from the Colorado State site.)

"An effective means of detecting the presence of fungus gnat larvae is to insert 1/4 inch slices or wedges of potato into the growing medium. Larvae will migrate to the potato and start feeding within a few days. The potato slices should be turned over to look for larvae present on the underside."

And the fruit fly?  That looks totally different.  Picture and text are from an Oklahoma State webpage

Life Cycle: Female fruit flies lay their eggs on the surface of rotting fruits and vegetables. Each female may lay as many as 500 eggs. These eggs hatch into larvae which molt twice before becoming fully grown. The larvae feed on the yeast organisms and fungi growing in infested material, and through their feeding efforts, they soon turn their food into a semi-liquid "mess." When the full-grown larvae are ready to pupate, they leave the food material for dryer areas. Complete development from egg to adult under summer conditions may be completed in 8 to 10 days. Mating takes place soon after adult emergence, usually within a few hours, and egg laying begins about 24 hours later.

There's a lot more on the links if you want to know more. 

Gate Almost Done

A lot seemed to get done yesterday. The section of old fence went back up on the new framing and the new fencing went up on the new framing between the front yard and back yard.

Today things seemed to slow down as Brian built the gate. That took more thinking and visually, there was much less progress to see. But the big deal was getting the gate frame done and on hinges so that it swings easily and freely.






So here's where it was yesterday afternoon when Brian had to go to meet a lady about a bike. The frame is ready, the wood is sitting there to be sized and nailed on.

You can see the old gate and almost dead tree and the ivy as it looked last week here.