Last of the Firewood

It is better to have your firewood in before the end of November.  If you wait longer than that, you are likely to be working in the snow and in the dark.  Fortunately for Rural Ways, this month has turned in to one long indian summer.  It has been warm (50s and 60s) and sunny for a couple of weeks.  Because I was away from The Homestead for much of the autumn, I needed this nice weather to catch up on some of the fall chores, including cutting and hauling three loads of firewood.  Yesterday, I got the last of it.  I dropped, bucked, and loaded two dead aspen trees near Robinson Reservoir.  Usually, I wouldn't expect to be working in this area on 24 November, but, as you can see from the picture, it remains warm and dry.

Thanksgiving Interlude

After a month away from The Homestead—Salt Lake, Colorado Springs, Woodland Park, Denver, Milwaukee, Rhinelander, Ontonagon, Charlotte, New Orleans—I finally walked off the afternoon flight in Cedar City the other day.  I was greeted with ENTHUSIAM by two of the prettiest young ladies in southern Utah.  A few minutes later, standing at the baggage claim, a gentleman who had deplaned behind me walked up and said, "You're the luckiest guy on that flight."  Oh, man, he doesn't know the half of it.  There is nothing better than coming home to a family like this one.  I hate to argue with the dude, but I'm the luckiest guy in the whole state.  Happy Thanksgiving.

View from the Office

This week we're bunking on the Pearl River near Bogalusa, Louisiana.  We're on the Mississippi side of the river, but you could throw a stone into Louisiana.  Of course, this being rural southern Mississippi, nobody throws stones, gunfire is more the norm.  Our host sits on his porch and shoots his .308 into Louisiana—180 yards, he says.  Last night he had the .223 ready to shoot a hog out the back door.  They were jittery when they came to feed, however, and so we'll wait for another day.  Besides, after a dinner of boiled (pronounced "bowled") peanuts and moonshine, I didn't need any more excitement.

View from the Office

This week we're working in northern hardwoods on the upper peninsula of Michigan.  Oh, ya, up nort' der, eh?  The ground is mostly flat and it rains only about half the time, so it is pretty good duty.  On the other hand, it can be hard to see anything in the semi-gloom that counts as daylight.  But, the worst problem for me is leaf-off species ID.  When I arrived, I figured that I would just look on the ground under the tree for a little help, but what I found was that the entire forest floor is a mat of maple.  Now, granted, red and sugar maple trees are very common, if not dominant, in these forests, but maple leaves must also fall late and persist long because they've covered everything.  I've developed some litter-fall archeological techniques this week—pealing back the top layer to see what leaf skeletons are underneath.  Of course, the picture above has nothing to do with any of this.  It is of a species that is common everywhere:  Quaking aspen.

Kenneth Evett Painting

In 1935, the federal government created an agency called the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which was intended to provide jobs for the depression era unemployed.  Within the WPA, artists were a group of workers especially targeted by the Roosevelt Administration for employment.  As a result, new deal taxpayers funded thousands of jobs for artists, and became the owners of thousands of pieces of public art.

In Colorado, a painter named Kenneth Evett joined the WPA arts program and was paid to make oil paintings.  Two of those paintings found their way to the Manitou Experimental Forest and are currently on display in the 1930s era lodge where Rural Ways recently spent a week.  Of the two, the one pictured is our favorite.

Mr. Evett went on to make a name for himself as a painter of murals.  He is, evidently, most famous for the work he did in Nebraska—including installations in the Pawnee City post office and at the state capitol in Lincoln.  Eventually, Evett took a job teaching art at Cornell, a position he held for more than thirty years.  In 2005, he passed away at the age of 91.