To build on (e:Libertad)'s & (e:Vincent)'s recent posts (e:Libertad,51746) and (e:Libertad,51740) and (e:Vincent,51726) ...

There are acts of nature beyond man's control.

Oil in water is one of them. The stuff is about as easy to clean up as molten lava. Here's the only number you really need to know about this subject:

14

That would be 14 as in 14 percent, as in the amount of oil recovered after the Exxon spill. Exxon spent more than $2 billion. It skimmed like crazy. It washed beaches. It steam-cleaned rock. It swabbed cliffs. It hauled off driftwood and oil-soaked boom and anything else it could get its hands on that had oil stuck to it, and it got 14 percent of the oil. America doesn't seem to understand -- and journalists who are supposed to know more than the average man in the street truly do not not seem to understand -- once the oil is in the water, we are not getting much of it out. We are screwed.

Massey Energy Co.

Shell Oil bought East Resources for $4.7Bn today. East is pretty much owns the mineral rights in Tioga County. In other words, Shell now owns Tioga County. <blink>

In 1792, coal was discovered in Bloss and became a dominant economic force until the early 1980s. There are some mining activities still occurring in the western half of the county. This weekend is the 18th Annual Blossbu*g State Coal Festival . Tioga County Concerned Citizens Committee is still working to clean up the acid mine drainage that makes the Tioga River "dead" from Fall Brook to Mansfield. (See (e:heidi,49800) - the river rocks are orange from the AMD and the falls stink of sulfur.) As if that environmental damage isn't enough, that same creek, a tributary of the Tioga, which becomes the Chemung, which turns into the Susquehanna, which drains into the Chesapeake Bay, now sports foam discs (probably Airfoam HD) from nearby gas well drilling.

It's all tied together for me.

Full moon rising last night...










Gordie the Chicken Whisperer is planning to sell eggs at the Bloss farmers' market on Saturdays. He gets 20-30 eggs a day from the chicken coops at the office. Organic, free range.




Bodhi's 7 weeks old!

sleeping baby, jealous but calm Nisha. Now they're both sleeping on my lap!

My cousin and his kid designed this cake for a Cub Scout cake auction.

Bodhi was born on Monday - isn't he adorable? (e:heidi,51217)



But there's something wrong with his lungs. Jill got out of the hospital today, but he was transferred to a larger regional medical center with a NICU a few hours after the c-section. At first they said he had pneumonia, then that he had fluid in his lungs from the c-section, and now they said something about emphysema. *worry worry*

I've been working on a baby blanket since January for Jill's third child Bodhi, who will be born April 5. I finished it in time for the baby shower that I was the slacker-host for. I'm really proud of it so I'm posting a rather extensive set of photos.

Crocheted with Lion Brand Yarn LB Collection Cotton Bamboo in Magnolia, Snapdragon and Chocolate Dahlia using my great-grandmother's size G hook. It took 25-30 hours. Please note, crocheting and reading law texts are incompatible activities. However, crochet and hot chocolate at Cafe Taza are highly compatible.

Early February.


Finished - detail




A's shoe box was too big.


One of the shower games was the most eco-friendly packaging. Since I was judge I couldn't win, but you know I totally did. The 100% compostable Sunchips bag is shiny on the inside. It was A's idea.


Squished it in a box I found at Uncle Dudley's so the Sunchips bag would fit around it.


All wrapped - I crocheted the rosette and string, too.


I didn't put a label or card on the box, and it was the first present Jill picked up to open, so she's asking who this is from.



"You made this??" In our six years of working together, I had never mentioned that I crochet. She was astounded.


She later said, "This is my dream blanket! I might have to hang it on the wall."


Some table decorations from the shower. Kelly and Jill had spent lots of time planning the shower and then Kelly's son Christopher (one of the triplets) ended up in the hospital with pneumonia for nearly two weeks so she couldn't even go. And since I'm a slacker and have no idea what to do for or at a baby shower, Jill ended up doing all the work. She's still a little grumpy at me, although the blanket helped win me some points.



All I really did for the shower was buy some bamboo plants in cute elephant pots at Wang's 99 Cent City on Sheridan. Honestly, who thinks it's a good idea to have a single, childfree late-thirties woman host a baby shower?

Nisha and I went for a little picture-taking walk at Big Pond, the former reservoir for the village of Morris Run. There was still ice on the pond. I used to ice skate there as a kid. An older man who lives in one of the two houses and one camp around the pond saw me taking pictures and came out to show me the photos he had recently gotten printed at Walmart. They included close ups of a yearling deer that comes right up to his back porch. I'm pretty sure his daughter used to baby sit me but I've forgotten their names. (gmap: )

The chopped off bushes are blueberry bushes - so yummy!


Nisha walked out on the ice, luckily she trotted right back up on the shore when I called her. It would have been really difficult to rescue her if she had fallen in.








Nisha was muddy up to her knees by the time we were done.


Part of the water treatment facilities.



(Yea for autostitch: www.autostitch.com - now for iphones!)

The creek below the reservoir - Morris Run.


This is a classic saltbox-style company house built for coal miners who owed their souls to the company store. Uncle Dudley lived here when I was a kid. My other aunt and my grandparents lived in saltbox houses just up the street. My family lived in the company office. When my brother was born, we needed another bedroom, so Dad took out the double brick wall (about 12" thick) between the big and little safes and made a bedroom for me. He put in a normal door, but there wasn't anywhere to put in a window because the outside wall was connected to the garage so I lived in a windowless safe.

I drove to Bloss today, met with a client, and I also talked to someone who's been a client in the past and would like to be again, about a cake or two for Jill's baby shower, which I stupidly scheduled for the same day as the St. Patrick's Day parade! Argh!

Then I went to the office and Jill & I strategized about several of our projects, and then went to A's house, since even tho we are no longer involved, my doggie still lives there and I wanted to pick her up. I hung out with his bratty little brother and showed him how to properly hook his laptop to his tv without frying anything. Then Nisha and I went to Uncle Dudley's. Uncle Dudley, her bf Bernie and I went to the American Legion Post 572, a fav drinking hangout, which happens to have been my great-great grandfather's home. My great-great grandfather, William B. Wilson, was the first U.S. Secretary of Labor, and one of the very few (only?) Democrats elected to the House of Representatives in what is currently PA-5, a completely red area save the blue-ish dot of State College. Several years ago I wrote a biography about him for our website (even wikipedia references it ) and that got him re-noticed by the Dep't of Labor and we all went to DC one day to celebrate his induction into the Labor Hall of Fame where we met Elaine Chao, GWBush's sec'y of labor, and Roy Blunt, ew-Missouri, and the Anheiser-Busch heir Adolphus Busch IV or something because his granddad was being inducted into the labor hall of fame, too.

But in addition to being a total overachieving immigrant with only two years of formal education, GGGdad William B. Wilson was a teetotaler. And I drink in his living room. Life is good.


(Most of the time I really appreciate the google-friendliness of estrip, but I know tomorrow when I get a google alert about this post, I'm going to regret it.)

Two chicks hatched while I was at the Pa. office Wednesday. (e:heidi,48491)



tight crop, same picture


... and randomly ...

Eco-friendly, hand-crank vibrator - definitely read the second review...


Heard on AM radio on my way back to Buffalo tonight

I went home a couple weeks ago. (Thanks, (e:janelle), for watching China Cat Sunflower!) It felt so good to be there! Hanging out with Jill & Kelly (and Nisha) at the office,



with Uncle Dudley at her house,



with A and the kids,



and J&R, and my favorite plumber (picture not appropriate!)...

Then trying to keep the town grocery store owners happy with appropriately responsive property management, meeting with clients... folks who love and appreciate me, in stark contrast to my loneliness and isolation here ((e:strip) helps and I know it takes time to establish friendships, I'm just whining a little). I had my puppy with me the whole weekend!

I took some time away from friends & family to visit one of my favorite spots, a swimming hole called Pirate's Rock. I doubt there were ever pirates on the Tioga River. Nisha fell in the creek (that's pronounced "crick," btw) and had trouble getting out. My goal is to help her be an ATP (all-terrain poodle) and help her feel confident in and near the water so I made her get out by herself. Last summer she swam all the way across!



It was just slightly too late in the day to get sunlight sparkling on the water but the trees were just about peak color. (I'm not particularly happy with the photos, I was having a bad camera day, I guess.)








At the deepest point of the swimming hole, the water is usually slightly over my head. At this point it's at least 3.5', but you can't tell from looking at it.




The next day, also gorgeous and sunny, I went up to the highway (US Route 15) and took pictures from the side of the road.


Overlooking the town "recreation complex" as I refer to it in grant applications, locally known as Island Park. (Not really an island, what's up with these misleading placenames?) It has the high school football field, tennis courts, basketball court, baseball, softball & Little League fields, playgrounds, pavilions and the swimming pool. The football booster club installed lighting to have night games in 1997 ($250,000) and in 2002, I think, new bleachers (another $250,000!). The pool will be undergoing renovation/rehabilitation next year ($600,000 with about $300,000 in state & federal grants).



I just happened to catch a beautiful moonrise.



Here's looking at the mountain ridges south of town.



The middle of this picture is the former borough hall, in use from 1900 to 1999, when it was abandoned by the borough. My friend Brendyn bought it for $1,111.11 and rehabbed it with two retail units downstairs and four amazing apartments upstairs. His mom made stained glass windows for the top of the arched windows and over the big main doorway that used to be where the firetrucks were kept. Both the houses I lived in during the past 5.5 years are in the picture, too!



Nisha really wanted to come back with me and I was very sad to have to leave her in Tioga County.