Wes Loder's Books and Pictures

Beetle has a Sequel

2012-01-30T09:51:00.000-08:00

Virtual girl Lanie Whitehead, e.k. “Beetle,” is back—restarted and now living in University Salvage’s store. She still is programmed to take care of her creator, Jeff, and his girlfriend, Annie. Only everyone is saying they’re dead, killed twelve years ago in a fix of jealousy by a former boyfriend. So what is she to do? Lanie gets Shadow, her "sister" and look-alike, going again, moves in with a family and soon has many new human friends searching for answers. Problem is: the university’s president is determined to keep the truth buried. But Lanie can’t live with any lie—not if it means giving up her whole reason for existence. She still needs Jeff and Annie, and she won’t stop searching for answers until everyone knows what really happened.

Romantic, virtual-person mystery that draws the threads from the first Beetle story back together.

So first check out Beetle: The Autobiography of a Virtual Girl, then read the sequel: Beetle II: Restoration and Retribution. Both are part of the "Adventures of the Whitehead Virtual Sisters."
Both are available as Kindle ebooks via Amazon.
And remember: you DO NOT need a Kindle to read a Kindle ebook. The software to download and read a Kindle ebook is free and downloadable to any Mac, ipad, iphone or PC computer. Check these two stories out and let me know what you think. They're cheap and they're fun.

Broken Giant: End of a Marker Oak

2011-11-22T10:14:00.000-08:00

A "Marker Tree" is one left behind after cutting to mark the corner of a property. The family farm has several of these but none stands out more than the marker oak that indicates where the mill property and the farm property turn a corner at the top of the hill about the farm. In 1996 I wrote an essay about that oak which was later published in Phase magazine.
I am providing it in full below to give you some understanding of what this tree has meant to our family and the farm over the years.

Scott and Rayne Loder by the base of the marker oak in 2009

The Marker Oak [copyright, Michael Wescott Loder 1996]

by M. W. Loder

“Are we going by the Big Tree?” My younger sister or I would ask.
Yes, we would still have time to walk that far. There was always time to stop in those childhood days. Patty and I would run out ahead of our parents and older brother, racing each other through the open woods and up the path toward the one really big tree in the entire forest. Who would win the race? It varied, but “deadheat” was the usual winner I remember.
The Big Tree was special. In those days, a half a century ago, it loomed forty or more feet above all the other trees in our thirty acres of woods. Riding in our car on Route 222, I could easily pick it out against the skyline over a mile away. “There’s the tree,” I would point out, and the rest would look and agree. Yes, that was the Big Tree.
It marked a corner of our property. To the east was ours, to the west and south the land belonged to the neighboring farmer. Two hundred twenty years earlier all of this land had belonged to Peter Klein and his wife, good Pennsylvania Germans who owned the grist mill in the valley and 400 acres of land—most of it granted by the Pennsylvania legislature in gratitute to Peter for his participation on the winning side in the American Revolution. How did Peter’s wife get on the deed? I don’t know, but her name is there along with her “mark”—for she could not write her own name even if her husband could.
Except the Big Tree did not really mark the corner. Huh? Well, my father ran a transit on the line and discovered that the actual property corner was ten feet farther east—on a stump. In 1905 the then-owners logged these woods and took the true “marker oak.” Did they do that by mistake, or was the Big Tree already so much more impressive than any others that they decided to leave it and take the tree on the corner?
Today, it no longer stands out. A hundred years of regeneration have allowed new trees to reach greater heights than the Big Tree. If I search for it from within the forest, I seldom can pick it out until I am within a hundred feet—a case of not being able to see the tree for the forest. Yet … yet when I stand next to it, “awe” is still the first word that comes to mind. How can someone not see this ancient giant?
It is a black oak, Quercus velutina. It looms seventy feet above the ground, its girth so great that two adults can hug it and yet their hands will not meet. “50 inch diameter,” the state forester tells me as he runs his tape around it. He does some quick calculations and nods. “Probably three hundred years old.” We walk farther out into the adjacent cornfield in order to take all of it in. “It’s fully mature: branches are dying back. It probably won’t get any taller.”
“Bigger around though?”
“Yeah, it will do that.”
“How much longer will it live?” I ask.
“Ach, probably only another fifty years.”
“Fifty years? It’s gonna’ outlive me.”
He laughs. “You think so?”
“I know so,” I answer.
Three hundred years old? What did this world look like then? Had any white man yet set foot on this hill and looked out across the Great Valley? Pennsylvania was so new a colony that the first settlers were still breaking ground in what is now downtown Philadelphia. I scan the centuries, trying to comprehend the times of this tree. I have lived fifty-six years, traveled a third of the way around the world, lived in dozens of homes, and yet I cannot measure the experience of a tree like this—a living thing that stays alive by enduring, by outlasting. A limb breaks—it grows over the wound. A drought comes—it sheds leaves and waits. A hurricane blasts its branches—it bends and lets the little stuff break away. Moths eat its leaves—it grows new, more-toxic ones. Like love, it endures all things. Endurance, and a little luck, are what make its life. Time, in the end, means nothing.

-end of essay-

The hurricane that came through here in July brought all this to an end. The largest trunk broke and fell, taking another big branch with it. Only the minor branch of the trunk remains. Water now enters the trunk freely. It is only a matter of time before the rest of the tree will go. We will have to bring in the saws soon to save the fallen wood for heating and to clear the field.

Flag's up at the lodge

2011-11-22T09:08:00.000-08:00

Some days it is just nice to fly the Loder flag. It follows the medieval pattern of color over metal (black over yellow [gold]) and displays only the crest in the center instead of a full coat-of-arms. In this case, it is the white dragon of the Lowthers and Loders. But this flag has two sides. The other side is blue over yellow with a stag's head caboosed with a silver arrow running through it following the colors and crest of the Wakehurst Loders.

Cooking with the sun

2011-08-18T13:03:00.000-07:00

Our solar cooker finally arrived on Monday and today we got a chance to try it out. Pork roast, moist and cooked to perfection, and an apple cake, high and moist. The home-grown potatoes and Zinchini helped add a "local" touch. Sure beats using fossil fuels to bake something.

Another shed (little this time)

2011-06-15T05:21:00.000-07:00

When we built the shed behind our house last summer, it solved a lot of problems of storage and gave me a shop for projects. But the lawn mower and the wheelbarrow were still in the rain, getting garden tools meant one walk after another, back-and-forth, and clutter was taking over. So, another shed came into being. This one is right outside our garden. It is a tiny 4 X 8 feet, with just enough room for everything we need for grounds projects. It took less than a week to build, and I did all the work myself except for finishing the roof . That I left to our capable carpenter/painter, Danny Knarr—who knows more about getting roofs just right than I will ever know.

Lovebirds in the Hemlock

2011-05-26T09:18:00.000-07:00

Every spring and summer our hemlock tree becomes the perch of choice for our local pair of Red-tailed hawks. Usually we only see one at a time, but this morning the pair decided that being close was the best thing. They perched neck-to-neck for several minutes. Of course, by the time I had assembled and trained a long lens at them, they had moved apart. Still, the did not appear to be angry at each other. The smaller male is to the right in the picture.

New work out as Kindle ebook.

2011-05-22T16:14:00.000-07:00

I have been watching as the ebook business continues to expand and have decided to give it a try. So, friends, you can now own Beetle: The Biography of a Virtual Girl in a Kindle edition for the price of 99¢!
Go to Amazon and look under "Beetle Loder" and you will find it quickly enough. Of course you do have to be able to read a Kindle electronic book to enjoy it…
NOTE: Many people have the mistaken impression that you need a Kindle reader from Amazon to read a kindle book. This is not true. You can download the kindle reader as software for free to any modern PC, including Macintosh, Windows, or iOS devices such as the ipad or iphone. So help me out, and give this little story a try. I will post the sequel as soon as I have the right cover.

Beetle is a virtual girl created by Jeff Whitehead, college senior with non-existent social skills. Only he has programmed her to look like an eleven-year-old in order to act as a babe-magnet so he can gain a suitable real girlfriend. Beetle tells the story of her successful efforts to do so, and the problems they all run into with interfering college administrators and an ex-boyfriend who won't give up. The closer Jeff and Annie get to each other, and the closer they get to graduation, the more desperate the violence-prone ex-boyfriend gets. Beetle does everything she can, but there is only so much a virtual person can do about a hammer or a gun when she can't touch anything.

There is a sequel, which I will also publish if enough people like the first book and request I do so. So, who will be the first to read? Who will be the first "friend" to give it a five-star review?
Please let me know what you think,

Sanquinaria canadensis

2011-04-21T13:08:00.000-07:00

We planted a few bloodroot a couple of years ago. Every spring they spread a little farther, adding their brief beauty to our deer-proof garden.

The Glacier in our front yard

2011-02-10T13:59:00.000-08:00

First came the snow, then the rain, then the ice. Now our wheat field is a hard-crusted sea of textured white. Today I noted that this ice field has begun to move as cracks appear. Gravity pulls the ice downhill, the turn of our house forces a change in direction and the field cracks. This crack is the largest and longest. It extends over halfway to our neighbor's property. By definition, a glacier is an ice field that moves, so, I guess, we have a glacier in front of our house. But not to worry. The groundhog said that "Spring is just around the corner," and soon this will be gone.
In the meantime, we are smug and comfortable in our passive-solar house on a day like this, soaking up the rays.

snow scenes

2011-01-14T10:31:00.000-08:00

So often we have only a vague idea as to what the wind can do, or who visits us. We started with four to five inches but within a day, the wind had sculpted it into patterns similar to what it does to fine sand.
Snow can reveal as well, showing what passed in the night. Here the track of a red fox, giving our home a visit. Here the browsing signs of deer. Here the track of a coyote.
Finally, the tracks of the birds that come to our feeders. We get so many that the snow is refigured into something far different than what fell from the sky.

"Over the Hills and Far Away"

2010-10-15T13:31:00.000-07:00

At nearly 700 feet elevation, we not only overlook the western end of the Lehigh Valley, but can see across the Schuylkill Valley, to Eagle Peak, beyond Newmanstown and beyond that to Furnace Ridge, the divide between Lancaster and Lebanon Counties: a distance of well over 40 miles ( 70 kilometers). Not bad for Pennsylvania.
[A 1000mm lens helps bring it closer.]

A Garden shed

2010-10-06T13:29:00.000-07:00

In June we decided to finally finish the garden shed we had started back in 2006. We got Aaron King to return and timber frame, roof and side the little building. This finally allowed us to move the wood shop operations out of the basement and freed up some badly-needed storage space in the house.

Our Off-Grid Electrical System

2010-10-06T13:11:00.000-07:00

Craig Edwards and Kirk Ruhn of Evergreen Systems installed our Photovoltaic panels, batteries and inverter to give us power for our lights, refrigerator, washing machine and computers. They finished in mid-April, right before the refrigerator arrived. They also installed our solar hot water system a year ago and did a superb job with both installations.
We have six panels mounted in front of the south deck next to the hot water panel, for a total of 1.2 Kilowatts of PV. They generate up to 4.5 KWH per day, going to an Outback inverter and four six-volt Rolls Surette batteries. This appears to be more than enough for our needs. We do time clothes washing and ironing to match up with sunny days. This is far less than most typical American homes seem to require, but we are frugal power users. It is working well, and even though we got no credit from the State, we are satisfied.
The final image shows are house two weeks ago, just before the soybean harvest. PV on pole provides the power for the well pump. Tiny panel to the right of the hot water panel provides power for the pump that moves the glycol through the solar panel. The other six panels are our PV for everything else.

First Nine Months of 2010

2010-10-06T12:53:00.000-07:00

Nine months without an entry! Shame, shame, shame … How many of our faithful followers long since gave up and figured that this, like many other blogs, was set to die for lack of interest? You would have been justified to think that. Intentions were good, but things kept coming up.
But, here we are, back again. We will try to do a little catch up.
In January, I retired from Penn State after working as an academic librarian at the Schuylkill Campus for over 26 years. At the time we planned to put our old house on the market and spend a good part of this year finishing the lodge and moving over. But sometimes Fate has other plans. A chance meeting with old acquaintances from our children’s high school days led to the selling of our old home a week before it was to go on the market.
Suddenly we had to move, and move quickly. I spent all of February driving truck loads of “stuff” to the lodge. We tried to sort, and we did get rid of a lot of stuff, but when we moved in, the new house was full of boxes, and we still had no electricity or appliances. For over a month we made do with ice chests and the side burner on the grill while we worked on unpacking and finishing.
For appliances, we bought a Unique (Brand name) Off-grid propane cooking stove at Lapp Gas in Intercourse, PA. It uses little gas, is well insulated and has performed beautifully for us. For our refrigerator, we bought a Sun Frost. Six weeks in the making and a week in the shipping, it arrived in April just as Evergreen Systems finished installing our off-grid, photovoltaic power system. The Sun Frost is truly impressive—all 350 pounds of it. Even with a serious appliance cart, getting it up our steps was a challenge. Sun Frost refrigerators are not cheap, but they are efficient, and with refrigeration our largest power user, that efficiency allowed us to cut back on the size of our system.

So, what is the summation of all we have set out to do? We wanted a retirement home that would require little or no maintenance, would heat and cool itself naturally and would have little or no utility bills. Now, six months after moving in full time, how close have we come?
We think we have gotten pretty close to our goals. We cut some grass occasionally. We cut and store fire wood for the masonry heater. We used less than half a cord last winter. We take off and put on window screens and open and close curtains. Our only utility bill is our monthly internet fee. Other than that, this home is working out for us.
More to follow:

Apple Harvest Time

2010-10-05T14:50:00.000-07:00

Ah, the end of the summer from hell. Finally coolness and rain. We are supposed to average ten days a year in the over ninety-five F range. This year we had more than 32! But now we can turn to autumn, one of my favorite seasons. One reason is apples, particularly the apples from the Almata tree in the farm's yard. You will never see these in any store or roadside stand. Why? Well, they are rather tart, one might say. So tart that even I cannot eat a whole one out-of-hand. But baked! That is a different story.
The coarse-textured flesh holds up in any pie retaining enough body that one knows he/she is eating pie instead of mush. A mixed whole-wheat crust. a little brown sugar and crumbs, and the finest apple pie in the world is the result (IMHO). A plus is the Almata's startling watermelon-pink flesh. Pink apple pie anyone? Dark-pink apple sauce? We got enough this year to freeze some, so maybe we can enjoy this treasure beyond October.

End of fall

2009-12-07T09:21:00.000-08:00

On the 5th of December, we hosted an open house for Brian Klipfel for people interested in masonry heaters. To our surprise and delight, over 20 people showed up, many staying for hours. People are interested in non-fossil fuel heating alternatives and certainly masonry heaters are one of the most efficient ways to do it. In the picture you can see some of our guests looking at pictures. Ted LaMastra is the guy in the back with a hat on. He did much of the masonry work for our foundation.
That was the last fling of fall. It started snowing and by midnight we had over five inches. The seasons have changed.

A Fall Harvest

2009-11-19T08:51:00.000-08:00

When I was young, “hunting season” meant small game: rabbits, pheasant, ducks, squirrels. It certainly did not mean the white-tailed deer. Deer were so rare that seeing one was the outdoor thrill of the year. Today, I spot a roadkill carcass almost every mile on the way to work. Today, “Hunting season” in Eastern Pennsylvania means deer (and sometimes turkey) and little else. The annual deer hunt is so essential to the rural experience that the local schools are all closed on the Monday after Thanksgiving, the traditional “First Day” of buck season.
We see plenty of deer around the lodge, and see plenty of the damage that these four-legged locusts do to crops and the woods. But then, deer have become a crop of their own, like cattle or pigs. It’s just a little harder to kill them, that’s all. Still, we saw some success this fall during bow-and-arrow. We hope that our hunters will have even more success during the upcoming rifle season. Otherwise, we might be left with nothing but old trees, ferns and timothy hay.

The mixed days of October

2009-11-02T06:40:00.000-08:00

This has to have been one of the wettest years in our memory (Sorry, California). The apples are huge (but with so much water, almost flavorless). The kernels on the corn are huge too, but the cobs from our sadly depleted field were small. It seemed as if it rained every weekend, making it hard to get work done on the house. Still, some progress continued. We had our "final" inspection, then spent two weekends fixing all the little details the inspectors wanted. One of those being a street number for emergency responders. We had a number by our gate, but decided to add our mailbox. Its numbers will be hard to miss.
Not much fall color this year. Again, too wet. This weekend it blew and blew and rained, and the leaves came down.
The corn is gone, replaced by gazing deer and a rye cover crop. We walked the field, picking up "cobby" corn to feed to Laura and Steve's chickens. We picked up plenty of golf balls too. once lost in the corn by golfers on the adjoining course, but easy to spot now with the corn down. After three years of injecting "Merit" into the ground, our hemlock appears Wooly Adelgia free and healthy. We will continue to hope.
The house is holding onto its temperature and remains comfortable. More amd more, this is our home.

New lower price

2009-09-25T10:37:00.000-07:00

In other good news, Amazon is once more directly carrying The Golden Horn at a five dollar discount over the "list" price that PublishAmerica chose. So now you can get my first novel for "only" $19.95 once more and even get super-savings shipping. Such a deal! :-)

Upcoming Family Events, Part 1

2009-09-15T08:34:00.000-07:00

When Lisa (our younger) and her husband, Larry, arranged to come up for a visit the Saturday before Grandparents' Day, there was mild speculation. But when both Lisa and Laura (our older) and her husband, Steve, all came to lunch bearing gifts of brag books and booties, we got the news that both our daughters are expecting in late-winter, early spring. Despite being almost four years apart in age, our two girls have always been close and done many things together. The tradition continues. What a weekend!
Larry is a big fan of the Denver Broncos. Can you tell? And, no, none of them have ever been to the University of Wisconsin.

Window Treatments

2009-09-15T08:22:00.000-07:00

Moldings around the windows of our passive solar home might seem to be low-priority, something we could work on at any time. But the approach of winter has given that project a higher status. We need to get the windows finished while there is still warm weather, and we need to have a way to install curtains to hold in night-time heat. The biggest challenge was the large, south overhead window in the central bay. We ended up making our own scaffolding, then spent two days staining, varnishing and painting. With the curtains installed, one window is finally ready for the cold season.

Hot Water, Part 1

2009-09-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

Two major projects have remained for our house to be completely liveable: Power and hot water. But as Linda has pointed out. “I can live without electricity, but I won’t live without hot water.” So the hot water system became our next priority. We engaged Craig Edwards and Kirk Rohn of the Evergreen Group to do the installation. The hardest work was installing the posts and frame for the panel. We went with a large panel in hopes that it would be enough, even on cloudy, winter days, to avoid the need for a supplemental heat source. The panel is now in place, the tank is hooked up and the system is working with temperatures above 150 degrees F. on sunny days. Despite our lower upstairs water pressure, there was enough to enjoy my first shower on Saturday. We may have all the details complete by October.

The Watchers, Part Seven

2009-09-15T07:43:00.000-07:00

Another entry in the story started last year: Let me know if you want more.

“Titus, poor Titus! What has this place done to you?” Benjamin sighed before bending over once more to fasten the strap on his other sandal. Should he have left two days ago? He had secured a seat; he had gone to the aeroport. Why had he come back? It could not have been the warmth of his hosts. They had been but strangers. He took a deep breath. “It’s the girl.” There, he had spoken truth at last. He had been plagued with mysteries from the moment he had left his own country, but none were vexing him as much as that child with her sweet voice, big eyes and impossible hand. She had saved his life … and threatened it as well. What was she? For the eighth time, Benjamin ran what he knew to be truth back through his mind. She was a worship house child, she was an adolescent scholar, she was a rich family’s second daughter, she was a ninja warrior. She had two hands, or one, or many? She wore a simple shift or silken gowns, or black tights. She spoke of the “watchers;” she agreed that this was an evil place. What was she? Very smart and much too wise for her physical age, that he knew to be true. Otherwise?
The Wall. She had mentioned a “wall.” She said it had answers. “Hmm.” Benjamin opened the paperback novel and his compupad. He began leafing through the book’s off-white pages, occasionally pausing and noting a word or letter. He typed these characters into a fresh document on his compupad. When he had two lines of text, he hit return, entered a password, confirmed and began to page through the screens that the compupad provided. He took no notes and when he was done, he did not save anything. Instead he ran a second program that deep-erased any record that he had ever accessed any outside source.
__________________________

“I don’t like this.”
Why? the thought passed through Beriana’s mind.
“I am too old, too tall. I am growing up.”
Does that matter?
“You know it does. I used to be a little beggar girl. Now …” Briana made a sour face. “The last time I went out with the bowl, a man offered to take me to a place where they make love. He thought I was trying to sell my body. I don’t like that.”
We have only a few left. We need someone to see for us.
“I don’t want to do this.”
Remember your promise?
“I remember.” Beriana rubbed her right hand, then folded her arms and hugged herself. “This is the last time, for sure.” She began changing.

Nineteen beggars squatted in a line against the north wall of the square. Some were missing limbs. Two appeared to be blind. Beriana seated herself close enough to the group so that she was clearly one of them but not too near. Her business today did not involve coins. She hunched down, trying to make herself appear as small and short as possible before setting down her bowl in front of herself. The sun felt good, and Beriana turned her smudged face toward it, gathering in its heat, then she shielded her brow with her left hand and began watching. She did not have long to wait. The paster arrived within three tick-tocks of her own arrival. He was trying to appear casual, as if he were a simple visitor from the south lands, or some other closer country. He studied the brass bracelets in Uncle Ollie’s stand, spoke briefly with a horse vendor, even looked her way briefly, but gave no sign that he recognized her. Then he approached the older part of a stone-rubble wall that closed in the south side of the market.
“If you know so much about this man that you can predict exactly when he will show up where, why do you need me?”
You know the answer already to that question.
“Humph.” The girl made no further sound but concentrated on watching the pastor’s every move.

Benjamin certainly did not know what he was looking for. He traced the lines and cuts of the wall’s massive boulders, occasionally touching projections or nobules. This had to be the wall the girl had referred to. No other wall was so old or more storied. Here the first humans had overcome the first demons, hurling them from the wall’s heights to destruction on sharp rocks below. Here had once been the altar of love and hate where the first judges had granted marriages and cast evil humans to their deaths. Dark red stains, some washed by rain and scoured by winds back to a limestone white, hinted at ancient violence. Benjamin did not touch the stains. Instead he searched with his eyes, squinting and moving his head back-and-forth to catch each irregularity from as many angles as possible. When three tick-tocks has passed, he straightened and stretched his back. He tried once more, this time using the corners of his eyes as he had in the hotel room. Nothing. The wall, this wall, was supposed to have answers, yet he had found none. He sighed, failure and frustration complete, then, as he turned away, a quick breeze began to blow.
The sudden wind caused stall awnings to flap and even toppled several poles. Merchants grabbed cloth and wood and held on. Shoppers pulled hoods up to shield their faces from the stinging sands and dirt swirling through the booths. The threatening chaos caused even the girl’s companions to pull in their bowls and mute their begging chants.
Benjamin remained still as the sand grains pelted his cheeks, He listened to the sounds of wind and sand squeezing through the crevices and grooves of the wall. The wall was speaking. When the dervish column of air had run its course, he smiled and turned away. He came quite close to the girl as he left, close enough to easily drop a coin in her bowl. The clink of metal against fired clay like a clap of thunder, caused all but the girl to stiffen, but the pastor did not look back as he continued on his way.

“You heard?”
Yes, we heard. We do not need eyes to know that he has caught the first message.
“Am I done then?”
Yes. For now.
The girl retrieved the bowl and its offering with her left hand and got to her feet. For a moment her eyes appeared to see nothing while her left hand rubbed the fingerless knuckles of her right. Then she swallowed a faint sob and followed the same route out of the market that the pastor had just taken. [To be continued.]

Evolution of ideas and plans

2009-08-25T10:24:00.000-07:00

Here are some examples of the drawings for our house that we made over a two year period. We had a fairly good idea of what we wanted from the beginning, but had to come up with a design that was practical and affordable. Affordable meant that many of the fancy features such as a bump out in the bedroom and a balcony disappeared before the end. Practicality meant that we had to shape dimensions and spaces to meet standard block and timber sizes.
These are for the south elevation:
The first shows some of the very first free-hand sketches I made as Linda and I discussed layouts. Even in these first drawings the south orientation, the kitchen and living areas appear pretty much as they would be in the final.
The next drawing is from the the dream stage when any fantasy could still be indulged in. The bump-out on the right would have allowed us to lie in bed and view the world. The balcony and central window would have been nice. The tall tower would have been neat.
In next drawing, reality and the advice of Aaron have intruded. The fancy parts are gone and the roof line is lower in order to save timber. The tower remains an tower, but also lower.
The last drawing is the as-built. We went back to an eight-foot second floor to simplify the timbering. but kept the total building height the same. As a result, the tower sits lower on the roof.
More drawings of the floor plans later.

July activites at the new place.

2009-08-03T08:06:00.000-07:00

The center of our house, looking up.
Despite a lack of entries here, July was a busy time for us. With the south deck on our new house finished, we could start to enjoy sitting out there, cooking, eating and watching the corn grow. Linda cleaned the old cushions and we were set.

We turned our attention to the kitchen. We cut flooring to make a countertop and finished it with four coats of nice, old-fashioned shellac. The plumber got in there and now we finally have a working kitchen sink.
We started to add the railings to the east deck and by the end of the month had finished all but a few balusters on the steps.
This has been a rainy month, but we still have the sun and the views to remind us that we live with nature and take whatever the weather brings.

Finishing the south deck

2009-06-30T05:43:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, June 28th, we finished the south deck—thereby keeping with our plan to have it done before the end of April …
We enclosed the rest of the west side, redid the corner post on the east, installed and sanded the railings. The house proportions look better now. Next will be railings for the east deck. The corn is getting higher.

Our timber framer

2009-06-25T06:51:00.000-07:00

Since he is Amish, you will not find any website or e-mail address for our timber framer. So I thought I would put in my own plug. We learned about Aaron King through a friend who’d had Aaron build him a timber frame barn which later became a home. I looked into several different timber framers before visiting Aaron at his shop in the spring of 2007. I was not only impressed with his shop, which was orderly, clean and run using either pneumatic or hydraulic-powered tools, but by Aaron’s understanding of what I had in mind and his ability to explain ways to improve the design and gain savings in the process. I made three visits to his shop that spring, each time taking Aaron a new set of drawings. In the end, we had a plan that both of us were happy with.
His craftmanship, precision and sense of the wood were superb. No matter how much the ideas for our house were Linda’s and mine, it was Aaron’s ability to translate those ideas into finished timber art that really make our house special.

Aaron K. King, LLC does not have a phone, but he can be reached at his shop’s address: 21 West Eby Road, Leola, PA 17540.
You can also reach him by calling the number for the phone that lives outside his shop in its own little booth. If no one answers, leave a message. (717) 656-8253.

A special note on terms: Many people see our house and say, “Oh, you have post-and-beam construction.” Well, yes and no. While technically a timber frame structure is a type of post-and-beam, that term is generally used for structures in which the timbers are held together with steel sleeves and/or bolts—such as I used to make our deck. In “timber frame” everything is pegged together with wood dowels, in this case, oak.
Timber framing yields a structure that is all of the same material (wood). This results in tighter joints with less chance of wear from the harder steel flexing against wood. Generally builders consider timber frame buildings to be more durable, stronger and better-looking, although either methods can work well. That is why we went with timber framing. It was also a construction method we had both grown up with and admired.

All the pictures were taken either by Linda and myself using a Nikon Coolpix 995, a D70 or a Nikon SP equipped with an F-mount 21mm nikkor.

The South Deck: continued

2009-06-22T07:45:00.000-07:00

The deck on the south side of the house continues to "mature" as we get time on weekends to work on it. As you look at these pictures, watch the corn grow from weekend to weekend.
The second weekend in June we had good weather and managed to lay down the deck boards and get the east-side railing in place.
Last weekend, despite miserable, rainy weather, we got in the south and west railings and the last two deck boards. The posts are held with half-inch carriage bolts and everything is screwed together. We made the railing quite high for more security. Another weekend or so, and it may be done. Then we have to work on kitchen counters and the railings for the east-side porch.
Kent Kjellgren, an Energy Star examiner, came by to finish our energy audit, including the blower test. The equipment pulls air into the house under sealed winter conditions, measures the resistance and this, in turn, indicates how much leakage the house has. He had a frustrating time because the house is so tight that he had a hard time getting a reading. We have around 205 CFM, which is almost no leaks at all.

Start of a deck

2009-06-02T05:59:00.000-07:00

On May 3oth, we started to build the long-delayed south deck. This is a must-do. We need the deck done before we can add either a hot-water system or photovoltaic panels. Saturday was brute work. We dug four post holes by hand, set in six-six's and concreted them in place. They are solid.
Sunday we bolted on the cross members, then installed joists. As the afternoon sun moved into shadow. we screwed down the first two deck boards. Lots of cutting and shaping are yet to come.

Linda took all these pictures, but she did half the work too.

Spring comes to the farm.

2009-05-11T10:05:00.000-07:00

Temperatures in the eighties followed by weeks of rain do not build pleasant memories of spring. But May brings it own rewards. Our dogwoods begin blooming, each bringing the promise of new life.

On May 9th, Our farmer arrives and proceeds to plant our field in corn. The field is larger than it appears and using a GPS mapper, it takes him over an hour to cut in liquid fertilizer and corn seeds with a twelve-row planter. No plowing, no disking. The planter-cum-tractor combination is huge, but appears small across the evening-lit field. It offers precision and economy as he puts in only as much as he needs. We pay for this technology whenever we buy food, and as we watch oil prices start up again.

The Watchers: Part Six.

2009-05-11T09:59:00.000-07:00

A continuation of The Watchers. Copyright, Michael Wescott Loder 2009.

First Day, and all breeched and cloaked children as yet unmarried must be in school. Week-in and week-out, summer or winter, that was truth. It mattered not that Beriana shared a private tutor with her sisters and only brother four days a week. On First Day, she must be in the town school from sunup until sundown—a long day for anyone at high summer. Louisa-Bin might still have to suffer on a backless bench, holding tablets and codexes in her hands, but Beriana got an individual seat with a work surface in front. This added little to her comfort, for the seat’s smooth flatness meant that the slightest leaning back would promise a quick slide to the floor. All the students sat up straight and kept their feet firmly on the frayed rugs under their sandals.
“Beriana, did you hear about the hotel fire,” her neighbor whispered.
“Yes. We could see the smoke from the house.”
“We could hear the sirens up on the hill. How many died? What number have you heard?” Another girl added.
Beriana shrugged. “I heard over thirty, but …”
“Class, attention to the front—now! Beriana Krinklesdau,” Madam Teacher glared her. “What answer do you have to the fifth problem?”
“Arrival time of twelve and one quarter turns, plus or minus one tick-tock,” Beriana answered.
“Ah… That is correct. Thank you. Class, please now turn to the second set of problems that are on your screens.”
Beriana ignored the awed stares coming from her classmates and began tapping her way through the new set of problems starting to display themselves on her computablet. She had solved seven out of the eight when her eyes briefly widened. “Ah-oh’” she breathed. “Madam Teacher, please. I need a moment in the hall room?”
Madam Teacher frowned and looked at Beriana. “Yes, you may go.” She nodded to the floor guard.
Beriana stood, curtsied and left the room. The floor guard straightened and followed her out. A half tick-tock later, safely hidden from the attendent’s view in the farthest stall, Beriana opened her right hand and slowly flexed it six times, then laid the palm against her ear. For a several moments she stood still, listening, eyes closed, mind concentrated. Then she shifted her hand away, took a slightly longer breath and rubbed her right palm with her left before flushing the toilet. She remembered to give the guard a nod and smile on her way back to the classroom, even if her deeper thoughts were far away.

What do we do for fun at the Lodge?

2009-04-20T08:03:00.000-07:00

People sometimes ask, and we know that they think: What can you do in a house with no electricity yet and no entertainment electronics?
Well, our neighbors keep us entertained part of the time. Saturday morning four of them came calling. Although the hen beaked at the door for a long time, when we went to open, she changed her mind. As for her tom? He apparently only cared about the impression he was making on the other turkeys, including the one that looked like him in the glass.
Yes, I was using the 50-year-old 250mm Nikkor.

House construction in March & April 2009

2009-04-15T09:49:00.001-07:00

We are making progress on our interior woodwork. The upstairs bathroom finally has a door.
The finished walls set off the posts and beams. When the driver brought in the last kitchen cabinet box, he looked around and said, "I like your wood!" We like it too.
All the baseboards and window trim is finally on in the bedroom. The stairs are finished as well. We are getting there.

Kitchen cabinets

2009-04-15T08:40:00.000-07:00

On March 27th, our kitchen cabinets arrived via truck from Ohio. We spent a busy weekend installing all but the sink unit, then finished the adjacent kitchen window as well. The interior is starting to show its possibilities.

The Watchers: Part Five

2009-04-15T08:26:00.000-07:00

A continuation of The Watchers. Copyright, Michael Wescott Loder 2009.

Pastor Benjamin had said good-night to his new hosts and was standing in the bedroom they had provided. He was just saying his last prayers of the day, when he felt a cold hand grasp his neck. The thumb settled just left of his windpipe, the slender fingers easily working their way into the muscles by the back of his neck. He stiffened. “What? Who is this? Ah …?” The finger tips now had blades with sharp tips that already were settling under his skin.
“Do not move, Cleric,” a young voice hissed. “I saved you once. Now your life belongs to me. No! Do not move anything! You asked about my right hand. Do you understand what it can do? A little tightening, just a little, and its fingers will find your spinal cord. It will part easily. Then you will not be able to move even if you want to. A strange life that will be.”
“What do you want, Child?”
“What do you want? Why are you here? The Watchers are curious.”
“The Watchers? I do not know them.” Benjamin found that he was breathing slowly and carefully. It was easy not to want to move at all.
“You don’t have to.”
Benjamin took a deep breath. “My people have heard little from our own kind who live here. I persuaded our Council of Elders to send me here to speak with your elders. They … they wish to know that all is well. I am afraid it is not.”
“You’re pretty smart, Benjamin. No. This place is a mess. Tell me more.”
“My … my eldest disciple was a young man who came from Tartuff. When he spoke of this land, he spoke of wild apples, sweet wines and bold women who dared to show both their hands and faces. He spoke of how your people were hospitable to all, kind and generous in goods and spirit. He said you loved to tell stories and celebrated those who spoke and wrote the best.
“A turning of the seasons ago, he went home. When he returned to my place, he was changed.” Benjamin swallowed and closed his eyes. Even moving his lips was bringing pain to his neck.
The hand settled its grip and Benjamin found he could breathe easier. “What was his name?” the girl asked.
“Titus. Titus Adornett. He was no longer happy. He was with me, you understand, but his spirit remained back here. One morning he was gone. He left a message on his computer, apologizing for taking my time. He said he had to go home. I assumed he meant here; I assumed he returned here”
“Hmm. You came here to look for Titus?” she asked.
“Yes. I had searched the web. Many sites spoke of the bad things happening here. I contacted others of my faith, as I said.”
“I believe you. Come, I will release you now, if you promise not to ask me any more questions about myself, or seek me out again.”
“You fill me with curiosity, but, yes, I will be silent and circumspect.”
“Swear on all you hold holy and sacred.”
“I … I swear.”
“Cross you heart and hope to die?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.” The hand slipped away from Benjamin’s neck. He sighed, took another deep breath and sighed again before carefully touching his wounds. He glanced at the girl. She was in front of him now, clothed completely in black—including a hood that hid all but her face—the cheeks and nose which bore streaks of black. As he stared at her, trying to see both the beggar of half a day ago and the rich child of supper, she brought up her hands so that to see her eyes, he had to look through ten fingers.
“Do not always believe what you see,” she whispered. “This is a plagued land with many sick people. Be careful. The wall holds many answers; the watchers seek answers.” She lowered her hands, nodded briefly and disappeared into the shadows. By the time Benjamin located the window she had used, she was more than a quarter dial turn gone.

Golden Horn Reviews

2009-04-07T10:47:00.000-07:00

What the reviewers have said about the Golden Horn:

"Alternating between Jim's and Jonnie's point of view, this fast-moving tale blends romance, mystery and adventure as the couple fights against long-standing prejudices and a culture in which the right to revenge is unquestioned. The breathtaking climax holds more than a few surprises. Jim and Jonnie may be able to set the record straight about a pivotal event in Starnovia's history, but will they escape the turmoil they've created? The unique setting, appealing characters and plot twists make this an enjoyable read." Chesakis on Amazon.

"This book is a must-read for fans of Indiana Jones and for those who love stories about ancient myths and legends. Set in the present day, the story centers around an archaeology student who seems to find danger, and love, in the most unexpected places. Two-thumbs up." Archaeologist on Amazon.

"The author does a good job in creating characters and atmosphere. The two main characters (Jonneanna and Jim) alternately tell the story. This is a little bit different - but works well in creating empathy with the characters and showing the different worlds they're coming from."
Avery on Amazon.

"This author has accomplished what this reviewer would confidently call a literary tour de force, in creating out of whole cloth a sovereign nation, presumably part of what we once knew as Yugoslavia, and telling a thoroughly engrossing tale about that nation against a backdrop of history both modern and ancient."
"The author's knowledge of Eastern European history, archaeological theory and practice, and his skill in creating a plausible vignette of life in the years following the recent conflict in the Balkans, together with his craftsmanship in creating characters and putting them into action, all combine to make a stunningly workmanlike debut novel." Clempage on Amazon.

St Patrick's Day parade in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania

2009-03-17T06:23:00.000-07:00

Jim Thorpe, a lovely little town nestled in a mountain valley in Eastern Pennsylvania, holds a huge parade each year on the Sunday closest to St. Patrick's Day. The Hawk Mountain Highlanders, my bagpipe band, has participated for all of the last eight years. This was the warmest and most pleasant day we have yet had.
Front rank includes myself on the right flank, Hutten Moyer, Kyle Roeder Jr., Shawn Woll, Pipe Sergeant. Behind are Sean McCormack, Tyler Walthers, David Weisman, Brain Kahl, Nick McNally, Marina Piccioni. Dave Weidenhammer on bass, Mary Beth Rissinger, Katie Malone and Bryce McNally on tenor and Luke Rissinger on side. Logan Walthers is serving as Drum Major. Tune is the Piobaireachd of Donald Dhu.

The Watchers: Part Four.

2009-03-17T06:12:00.000-07:00

A continuation of the Watchers. Copyright, Michael Wescott Loder 2009.

“Be sure the cucumber slices are not too thin.”
“Yes, Ma-Ma.”
“You said that last time, but they were so thin, the plate held nothing but a slimey mess. Our guests could pick up nothing.”
“Yes, Ma-Ma.”
“Beriana Beth, are you listening?”
“Yes, Ma-Ma.” Beriana emphasized her answer with an extra-loud chop of her paring knife, then waited until her mother had moved on to the meat trays Madam Cook was assembling. Her hands remained motionless as she let her gaze drift away from the chopping table, taking in shining pots and pans hanging from hooks near the stoves and the hung strings of dried apples, tomatoes, red peppers and—her favorite—klemfruits gathered among the overhead beams. She wondered for a moment if she could break off one or two from the one string that might be a bit longer than the others. Her mouth and tongue reminded her of the tangy snap mixed with sweetness that klemfruit always delivered. “Mmm.” If Madam Cook and Ma-Ma and Madam Assistant and Master Souper all left the kitchen for at least half a dial … She wrinkled her perfectly-complexioned, delicate nose with its slight bump right in the middle. She might as well hope for an elder’s blessing. Not today, anyway … Beriana’s gaze moved from the fruit to nearest west-facing window. The sun was still too high in the sky for her to see it, and no one would eat until a dial-turn after it had set. Why did Solstice Day promise such marvelous foods, yet make everyone wait so long to enjoy them?
Fiona, Beriana’s sister, opened the swinging door and leaned in. “Ma-Ma, the Fletchers just called. They won’t be coming. They said something about their dog being sick?”
“Oh, dear. I was going to seat them next to our off-land visitors.” Ma-Ma sighed. “This always happens. I will think of something.”
“That dog of theirs is always getting sick,” Fiona agreed.
“That’s because they don’t have any children to get sick when they don’t want to come here. Bappsie is their baby,” Beriana pointed out. “Besides, they’re always feeding her sweet breads and biscuits,”
“Beriana Beth Krinklesdau, mind your tongue and your manners … and get back to your task.”
“Yes, Ma-Ma.” She glanced in her sister’s direction and was rewarded with a return wink. Chop-slice, chop-slice: Beriana was back at her task.

The guests began arriving shortly after the last sunrays faded from Krinkles’ upturned eaves. The women all wore shawls woven from the finest, thinnest wools and covered with floral and leaf motifs over their light-weight summer dresses. They greeted their lady host warmly, pressing covered dishes into her hands and often kissing both cheeks as well. The men wore somber black jackets ornamented with many pockets underneath pale robes. They nodded to the lady and bowed to her husband but did not kiss. “Betty, Rauldo, oh, so glad you are here! We had thought you might be in Tartuff.”
“And miss any of Madam Theresa’s cooking? Shame on you, Margareta,” Betty answered with mock horror. “Come, we have brought you a special guest.” She gestured that the stranger dressed in clerical grey and blue should step forward. “This is Shepherd Benjamin. We met him this morning in the aeroport. He was going; we were coming. Oh, but he did not want to leave. It was just that he had no longer any place to stay. You know the Avon Hotel burned at lunch time? Yes, the news is everywhere. So we invited him to stay with us while he completes his research. And, of course, we had to ask him to share Solstice with you!”
Margareta smiled and nodded as Benjamin gave her his best clerical smile and bow. “I hope this does not mean you will have to look for another plate?”
“No, certainly not. I shall just tell Madam Cook to add more water to the soup,” Margareta replied. Everyone laughed except for Beriana, standing unseen behind the foyer’s curtain. Instead, she squinted and glared at the cleric who stood grasping his staff, smiling and gripping her father’s hand.

“This is our eldest daughter, Fiona-Bel. This is our middle daughter, Beriana-Beth and here is our youngest, Louisa-Bin.” Margareta pointed each of her three youngest standing in line, feet carefully alined and heads slightly bowed.
“Pleased, I’m sure,” the uninvited guest replied. Benjamin’s smile froze then faded as he took in the middle daughter. Thrusting his head forward he studied Beriana. “We have met before?”
“I don’t think so,” she answered indifferently, then with a slight nod turned and followed her sisters.
A solstice even’ meal should have forty-two in attendance: thirty for the days of the month and another twelve for the months of a year. The Krinkles often did manage that many, but tonight they were still one short—the unexpected Shepherd Benjamin making up for only one of the missing Fletchers.
“Beriana?”
“Yes, Ma-Ma?” Beriana stood still, waiting.
“Would you sit by our newest guest, the cleric? I know you can sparkle in conversation when you put your mind to it.”
“Yes, Ma-Ma.”
“He did specifically ask for your company. What do you think of that?”
“Humph. Yes, Ma-Ma.” She bowed and walked slowly over to station herself by the tall-backed chair next to where the cleric already stood, staff still in hand. The prayers and holiday salutes went on and on. Beriana thought about how empty her insides felt, and how she longed to sit and eat. But an end did come at last, and the assembly eased into their seats, Beriana waiting until Benjamin had settled into his before taking her own. Soups and cheeses started their rounds. Except for a few courteous remarks and nods her way, Benjamin spent most of his supper responding to questions from the woman to his left. Beriana was halfway through her roast mutton when he politely freed himself from the woman’s curiosity and concentrated on his own food. Three bites into his main course, he paused and, without looking her way, spoke softly. “You have an unusual ability to leave sunburns behind quickly.”
Beriana did not answer but continued to cut and eat, carefully chewing each bite.
“Come, child. I know you can say more than ‘Yes, Ma-Ma.’ I heard you say more than that in the dawn turnings.”
“Sir?”
“Ah. Now I have this strange curiosity that must be satisfied. How is it that a beggar girl wearing little more than one, threadbare gown and missing most of her right hand should now find herself seated beside me an a dinner fit for a ruler, dressed in silk and with both hands intact?”
“Tsk. It is a puzzle,” Beriana allowed. She helped herself to a soft roll, broke it in two and began to mop up some of the gravy.
“May I see your right hand?”
“No.” Beriana continued to eat. If she was offended by this direct demand, her voice did not show it.
“You’re strange one, Child.”
“And you also, Shepherd. What flocks are they that you tend?”
He grinned. “Ones that walk on two legs. I am a shepherd of men and women, a pastor, as they say in my own land.”
“And that gives you a staff that is not a crook, but a versatile and even deadly weapon?”
“You spar well for one so young,” he admitted.
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Beriana rejoined, ending the conversation.

Interior trim for the lodge

2009-03-17T06:03:00.000-07:00

Bit by bit, we are starting to add trim: baseboards and moldings around the windows. It is slow work and real wood is expensive, so it may be months before all is done.
Images show me nailing on sub-baseboard, then finishing a power receptacle. I paint and stain the grill work for the large bedroom window, then install it. The small windows in the bedroom are done with the white dragon of the Loders watching over all.

Animals at the lodge

2009-02-19T07:36:00.000-08:00

Hunting season is over, and our deer are getting bolder again. Sunday afternoon, eight came out of the lower woods and worked on the green weeds growing in the soybean field. This image was taken using a modern digital Nikon combined with a 250mm f4 Nikkor lens that dates back to 1959 and first saw use with a reflex housing and a rangefinder camera. Not bad for a lens that is probably 50 years old. If I'd used a tripod and didn't have a window in the way. the results would be even sharper.

Our Steinbock (Eurasian Ibex) had taken up residence in the passive solar home. He seems quite happy there, although I do not know what he thinks of the circle of light one window gives to the interior in the late afternoon sun.

The Watchers, The Holy Man is watched.

2009-02-19T07:29:00.000-08:00

Another entry in the continuing saga of Shepherd Benjamin and the watchers. All copyright 2009, Michael W. Loder

“There he goes.” Several pairs of eyes watched as the holy man left the hotel and started down the street, his crook-staff in one hand, a fawn-colored dufflebag slung over his opposite shoulder. Even at two rods’ distance, the watchers could mark the look of fear and anger on his face
The girl nodded and chewed on her lower lip. “Puffy-filled pants,” she whispered.
“He does not wear trews, just his robe, tunic and jack.”
“You know what I mean!” She had been forced to use one of her flash bombs to save him. Three of her friends had risked their lives to obtain those bombs. “He has power enough. Why did he not use it to check, instead of doubt’n my word.” Holy man—silly outlander, she added in her mind.
“Perhaps not so foolish if the Elders brought him here?”
“Humph.” She watched until the cleric had turned the next corner and disappeared into the market crowds. It was disgusting in that old building.It stank horribly—like burnt sausage.
“Is he headed for the aeroport?”
The girl stood, leaned left and shaded her eyes. “He has crossed the street.”
“Then Rasstut will pick up. We can do nothing more here.”
“I know.” She shook herself and sighed, then grasped the roof’s soffit and, using its support, swung down easily to the ground. She immediately slipped behind a bulky pillar that was part of the roof’s support.
“Later?”
“Yes. Little-later.” The girl straightened a long, cream-colored, cotton dress with many opaque folds and her grey wool shaw and waited. Half a dial-turn later, when a young couple wearing custom-fitted and matching great clothes striped with gold and silver ribbon walked by, she left the pillar’s shelter and fell in behind them.
She matched her pace to the couples’, keeping a careful three yards back. The two were both nineteen; both thought they were in love and had eyes only for each other. It was easy for the girl to suddenly appear as if from nowhere.
“Beriana, where have you been?” Her sister, blurted out in surprise.
“Nowheres, but I’ve been good, I promise,” Beriana answered, tossing her loosened. now-wavy hair—held only by a silken ribbon that matched the color of her dress.
“Good for whom?” the boy asked with a thread of irony.
“What mean you by that tone?” Beriana pouted.
The boy and her sister stopped and turned around. He leaned over so his eyes were level with Beriana’s and she could not miss their twinkle. “What I mean is, if you do good, why does trouble always seem to follow in your wake? Aye?”
Beriana looked away and sniffed. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Oooh, I sense a nose too long for a face,” the boy laughed. “But come, we will speak no more.” He grabbed the other girl around her waist and squeezed. She returned it with a crooked smile and shrug.

2009-02-03T07:22:00.000-08:00

On the first Sunday in February we finally had the combination we needed: a tall ladder and most of the dust and dirt making finished. So we installed the overhead light in the open center of the house. Some day we might even have the power to light it up. Note the drapes and sheets covering railings. Soon they will be gone. Meanwhile, our "house cat" keeps watch on top of the heater.

Third entry for The Watchers, Enjoy

2009-02-02T09:44:00.000-08:00

Shepherd Benjamin was what many refer to as a “competent man.” If pressed, he can butcher a sheep, make his own clothes, tune a buzz ship, even restore an operating system. He had climbed glacier-covered mountains, pot-holed his way through underwater caverns and written successful grant proposals. In his own world, he liked to think that nothing wrong could happen to him that he could not either prevent, solve or pass off on someone else. Now he felt as close to helpless as a naked mouse standing beneath a descending owl. His life had just been saved by an half-grown child with a missing hand, and without her word … and well-aimed missile, he could have done nothing to save himself. He had not been alert; he had missed all the obvious signs. All his mind had read was that he was late, very late, to a critical appointment.
Benjamin sighed, rubbed his face and studied his ransacked room. “Think of it, things could be worse.” He had thought, and things got worse. In the half morning he had been gone, someone or something has entered and smashed, ripped or broken every furnishing, case or article of clothing. What they had not destroyed, they had covered with enough passings to ensure that no human would touch the remains. He groaned, closed his eyes and let the prayers come. One is never alone in the presence of That Which Animates All Living Things, he told himself, but he certainly was feeling vulnerable now—a stranger in an increasingly strange and hostile world where even friends were weird. He owned nothing but what he carried; his only possible hope for returning to his own world with answers to his many questions had appeared to be those elders, his supposed hosts and assistants—and they were gone. He really was up that proverbial stream without the means of propulsion. What was making things worse, he now had to factor in something called the “Watchers.” Who were they? The term meant nothing. Why would they send that beggar girl to warn him? Why did they care? What did they gain from his survival?
One matter was certain: he could not stay here. His aging nose was not about to tolerate it. Benjamin lifted his staff and aimed it at the most transportable of his luggage. A few simple instructions later and the staff’s end had become a steam nozzle cleaning and sterilizing the excrement-covered duffle. When the bag reached a stage just short of new, Benjamin began to retrieve, clean and pack it with other essentials. He was soon able to rehabilitate an extra set of small clothes, socks, his field boots and a meagre travel kit. As he had hoped, everything fit into the duffle sack with room to spare.
As his staff did its work, he used his left-hand ring to rescan the room. The ring found no snoops or monitors. It did show Benjamin the location of his computpad which he had feared to take with him that morning and had left behind in a random, vision-blocking path cycle around the main room. He snagged it on its second pass by his outstretched hand and slipped it into a cloth sack strapped under his left arm. Good. One more item and he would have all the essentials. He tip-toed across the room, checking for detect traps and other unamusing and possibly-fatal retards to his progress. “Ah,” Benjamin smiled faintly, then gently lifted up a dusty codex whose title hinted only at a romantic bodice-ripper, its vivid cover depicting a pink-clad damsel succumbing to some beak-nosed, large-pectoraled dark-haired man. Benjamin scanned the tome twice before shoving it in the duffle. That was it. He retraced his steps until he was once more standing by the outer door. Perhaps his enemies were not as omnipotent as he had begun to fear. Still, he dared not underestimate their resources.
One more scan, instrumental and visual, and he would be gone. The first three days here had given Benjamin many good memories. The gear he was about to leave behind had granted him even more. Half of his most recent life was bound up in this now ruined and destroyed garbage, but he would be angry and grieve later. “Aye,” he breathed again. That mark had not been there before. Benjamin studied the small, red stamping—like a signature chop—that floated just left of the room’s fireplace. If he tried to look at it directly, it disappeared, leaving just blank wall. Only when he shifted his vision and tilted his head slightly right, could he see it. “Clever.” It had definitely not been there before this morning, and, since seeing it required his peripheral vision, he still could not take in any details. Red horns? Yes, the chop was an image of some creature with red, curved horns and very long teeth—like a sabre-toothed cat crossed with an Irish Elk. Not the sort of thing one wished to meet in a dark alley or even a public boulevard. Shivering only slightly, Benjamin stepped out of the room, gently closed the door and made tracks.

LEGO return

2009-01-16T06:14:00.000-08:00

I have been a big fan of LEGO ever since my own children were barely walking. At one time we had a train setup that took an entire room, allowing two trains to run simultaneously. Alas, time and space moved on. But this year, for the first time in over a dozen, I got the trains out and created a small setup. To my surprise, everything still works!

Here a Freight comes around the curve. Note the street lights, powered by transformers wired into the old 4.5 volt LEGO light fixtures.

A minifig team climbs a mountain. The rope leader is chopping ice out of a handhold. His teammate is providing belay.
The pesky Belville girls, including two Lassies in tartan, are once more invading minifig country. I loved to work in the Belville dollhouse scale, but it sure takes a lot of bricks.
Here is an overview of the south side of town. Note the traffic light.

2009-01-14T08:26:00.000-08:00

Second entry for The Watchers, Enjoy and give me feedback.

Shepherd Benjamin saw himself as a quiet scholar, a seeker of truth and the higher planes of existence. He do not care for the thrills or dangers of violence, but this was inhospitable and unprovoked! He tapped his staff against the doorstile, stepped back in front of the doorway, pointed the staff’s end into the interior, closed his eyes and spoke a few, seldom-used phrases. The flashes of light that followed were all any mid-summer festival could have hoped for in pyrotechnics. Screams and grinding metal sounds preceded a break-building explosion. He shivered. “Ugh!” The place still stank. He turned and walked away, mumbling brief prayers for the souls of the sapient beings his staff had just turned to ash.
When he reached the far side of the fountain, the beggar girl moved in beside him, matching her pace to his own. “That was impressive,” she enthused. “What happened to those inside?”
Benjamin stopped and took a deep breath, letting the clean, stenchless air he was now moving through his lungs linger in his nose and throat. “I am afraid that all those inside were overly sensitive to light. It is possible that they separated.”
“Separated? Life force from body?”
“Indeed. Their bodies have departed. I know not where their life forces now reside.”
“You use strange verbs, holy man.”
He chuckled, allowing himself a nervous look at his most-recent savior. “You have a strange way of understanding them. Thanks for the warning …and the flash bomb.”
The girl gave him a brief, fierce look then shrugged and cupped her right stump in her left hand and rubbed. Head tilted back slightly, she returned his look in the same manner as before. “Where do you go now, holy man?” she asked.
“Back to my lodging, I guess.”
“You do not wish to examine the place you just incinerated?” she asked.
“Hmm. Had not considered that.” Benjamin stopped, turned around and studied the worship house. It appeared unchanged except for faint streams of pale smoke that continued to drift from the doorway and several small, shattered windows set in its upper dome. Nothing now would be alive inside—not even the elders he had sought—if they had yet been resident. No, he needed the fresh air and these clean, sanded streets, not rooms half-filled with burnt meat. “No, child. I think I have done enough here.”
“Then I shall,” the girl answered, and left him. He watched her skip and weave her way back to the entry, tapping the fountain’s basin edge with her good hand as she passed it and whistling a simple melody that he was sure he knew but could not at that moment place. She waved to him once, then disappeared inside.
“‘You’re a better man than I, Gunga Din,’” he quoted, sighed and resumed his retreat as the fire sirens began scream their warnings. It was only the next day that he realized that the girl’s melody was Bach’s “That Sheep Might Safely Graze.”

Birds, and more birds

2009-01-08T07:04:00.000-08:00

I covered some of my bird photography on my older web site , but thought I would add a few more pictures here as a salute to the new year.

The lesser snow geese were in migration and using Harney Lake in East Central Oregon.
The American goldfinch, the yellow-headed blackbird and the ruby-crowned kinglet were shots taken on the fly, handheld, using a 400mm F4.5 Nikkor with pistol grip. The pigmy owl was much closer and, after rehabilitation, about to be released back into the wild.

First pizza

2008-12-23T13:30:00.000-08:00

We made our first pizza in the oven on the 20th. It came out perfectly and made one of the best suppers we have had so far at our new place.

The Watchers: a story in progress

2008-12-19T08:43:00.000-08:00

Here is the first chapter from a story in progress. Let me know what you think and whether you would like to read more. Happy Holidays.

The Watchers

The girl stood by the stile of the worship house, her dark hair neatly parted and pulled back close to her skull. In her left hand—the soiled one, the evil one—she held a colorless, unglazed bowl. The thin material of her simple, almost seamless, muslin tunic could not conceal either her frailty or undergown nakedness.
The pale-faced cleric turned away, embarrassed by his own observing eyes. She was, after all, a child of God, set here by their holy ones, regardless of which hand she used. Her sex, age or name—if she still had one—no longer mattered. He firmly set his gaze straight ahead, his eyes boring into the dark, shadowless interior of the building which he intended to enter. His vision, adapted to the white-hot sunlight he was about to leave, gave him no objective or dimensional clue as to what it was he was moving into. He paused and blinked, briefly taking in the entry’s carved stone archway with its three-dimensional relief of gargoyles and demons. Cool, hardened clay brushed his left arm. “Please, Sir. A coin, one coin before you die?”
“Bless you, child,” the man answered, but neither reached for his purse, nor shifted his gaze. This child was already in their Supreme One’s hands. He would not be the reshaper of her fate. He habbened his staff and stepped toward the darkness.
“Aaah!” The cleric spun around, pulling his left leg back. “Blessed book! Dare you kick me?” Raising his free hand, he glared at the girl. She stared back, her light-blue eyes steady and bright. She was taller than he had first thought. His gaze shifted to her still out-stretched hand. Hand? She had only one. Where her right should be was only a leather-covered stump the size of a thumb and half a palm. “Ouch,” he whispered.
“A coin, Sir?” she repeated. Her voice was as level as her fearless gaze.
“… and if I don’t, you will kick me again?”
“No, Sir. You will die.”
The man’s appointment in the worship house seemed far away now. “We all shall die, eventually.” He still did not reach for his purse. Not yet, but this child was already proving more interesting than anything he could have planned for this hot, solstice day. “That is the safest prediction anyone can make.”
The child set her chin on the covered stump of her right hand. A smile flickered across her thin, sunburned face. “You speak great truth, Sir. But what is your life worth if you could extend it one more day?”
“A coin in your bowl will do that?”
“No.” She straightened up so that her eyes were almost level with the visitor’s shoulders. “But what I will tell you in exchange for your coin will.”
“Mmm. You know something that, if I know it, will safeguard me for one extra day of my allotted time?”
She nodded. “Something like that.”
“Well, I am late for my appointment. If you be here when I leave, I will look for you. Perhaps then I may find a coin that is worth a day of my life.” The man turned to go.
“Perhaps if I told you that one day was today …”
The cleric stared at the interior darkness. His eyes had adjusted and he now could see shapes: more archways, chairs and large creatures waiting—more than he had been led to expect. A metal blade caught an unseen light and glittered briefly. He took a deep breath and opened his purse without moving his eyes. “Here is your coin, child.”
“Thank you,” she said. He could hear the coin clink in the bowl, its sound harsh against this house’s swelling silence. “The holy ones that you are appointed to meet today are dead. Those who wait for you inside wait only to enjoy your blood.”
“Where am I safe?”
“Outside, in the sun.”
A chillness moved across his chest and down his arms. “Vampires?” he whispered.
“I do not know that term. They are not human—although once they might have been.”
The cleric stepped back out of the doorway and onto the street. “Child, how do you know these things?”
She shrugged and rubbed her left wrist with her right stump before dropping the bowl and coin into the pocket hanging on her left hip. “The watchers know. They told me to stop you.”
“Watchers?” The visitor moved away from the doorway so that he was no longer in the line-of-sight of whoever was waiting inside.
“Watchers: because they watch everything and everyone. Thanks for the coin.” The girl skipped several feet away, circled around a dry, ancient bronze fountain, swung around a lamp post using her good hand, waved once, ducked into an alley and was gone.
“Wait!” A pause and he was snapping fingers in frustration. Now what? He gripped the rim of the fountain’s bowl. It, at least, was real. But what now was truth? He had an appointment—an appointment he was now a day and two dial turns late for. Was that truth? Or was the word of one strange, adolescent girl? If her missing hand was any indication, she was a thief, or a former one who got caught.
He patted the pockets of his under jack, pulled out a small, green tablet, regarded it briefly and popped it into his mouth. As the cool, fresh limey favor began to fill his taste buds, he contemplated his next move. The interior of the holy house had felt evil; it had smelled of mold and old rat poison. It had not been what he had expected. But a thief? He sighed and walked over to the quiet, waiting opening. First tapping the dust from his shoes, he stepped just inside the entry way.

“Good day, kind sir. You are?”
“Huh?” He had been squeezing and blinking his eyes, trying to adjust to the breeze-cooled passage and its dim lighting. But how had he missed this creature, or thing, that now hovered a yard from his right elbow. How indeed, for it stank worse than gutted roadkill under a noonday sun. Involuntarily, he stepped back, pausing at the edge of the light.
“You are?” the creature prompted him again.
“I am Shepherd Benjamin,” the man replied formally.
“Shepherd? A shepherd. Hmm …” The doorkeeper pulled long yellow locks of matted hair away from its grey-furred face and began sniffing at a digital tablet it held in its third hand. “”Mmm. Ah, yes. Here. They are no longer here to meet you. So sorry.” The creature folded its lower arms, causing the tablet to disappear.
“Did the elders leave a message or location where they might be reached?” The sunlight touching Benjamin’s heels and calves was like a safety line holding him to the real, saner world of the outside. Ahead, he could now see and count at least seven other creatures standing in the vestibule fewer than a dozen paces away. Most appeared humanoid, but only in the sense that they stood erect on two limbs and were using their forelimbs to hold and carry tools.
The doorkeeper shook its head. “Would you come farther inside? One of our caretakers might know … I believe a message might be waiting …”
Caretakers? A strange word choice, Benjamin told myself. Time to trust a young thief over the word of a something that used its nose rather then its eyes to read a computablet. “Thank you. I will try to reconnect with the elders from my lodgings.”
“Please come in,” a new voice called, honey-trimmed like a girl-child’s at first commitment. Three of the creatures began moving toward Benjamin. Others shifted left and right. Again he caught the faint reflections of dull, unpolished metal just edging the light behind him. “Do, do come in.” The voice was soft and insistent, but Benjamin felt his stomach rebelling against the rank odor still smashing against his nostrils.
“Wogard!” a deep-throated creature called.
Benjamin tightened his grip on his staff and turned it crosswise, moving it to guard position. As he did, a shining disk flashed by his head and into the interior. “Run,” the child’s voice screamed from behind him. Benjamin leaped back to one side of the entry as silvery, searching tendrils and spinning stars launched themselves toward where he had stood.

Lodge life

2008-12-08T07:11:00.000-08:00

Our little garden in our solar house is doing well, despite the recent bitter cold. Swiss chard and zuchini are growing and the zuchini is developing buds.
An evening view. Wes on his computer, the masonry heater burning a charge and our Amish light iluminating everything.

the fate of turkeys

2008-12-01T05:19:00.000-08:00

"Mr. Gobble" went to his reward this weekend. He only weighed 15 pounds. I guess free-range turkeys have a lot more feathers.
Without any doubt, the best tasting turkey in my memory. My daughter and son-in-law did the butchering. More power to them, but it sure had the flavor. Hmm.

Our masonry heater

2008-11-26T11:10:00.000-08:00

Well, we cranked up the three-ton masonry heater again last weekend. It was down to 55 degrees F inside and 20 degrees F outside, so we decided it might be time. It worked beautifully and we baked yams, hubert squash and biscuits as well. The slow cooking does a great job.
In these pictures, Linda is cutting scones from our first baking back in March.
Another image shows the kitchen side of the heater with its oven big enough for pizza.
The heater is ornamented with Mercer tile from the Moravian Tile Works in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. The dragon has been a Loder badge for a long time.

2008-11-17T11:28:00.000-08:00

We took a few more pictures in September. Here is the south side the week before the soybean harvest and Linda standing by the heater. We fired it up for the first time this season this last weekend. I guess we were impatient, because it was up to 70 degrees F by late afternoon as a warm front passed through.
The heater was built by Brian Klipfel of Amazin' Masons—a fine craftman and artist who did a beautiful job.

Posts and beams

2008-11-17T11:19:00.001-08:00

Part of the reason we went with a timberframe structure was due to the beauty that the wood gives to a building. Here, even in the early stages, the curves of the braces and the lines of the timbers created a visual grace that we never grow tired of looking at.

The Nikon Book

2008-11-04T10:42:00.000-08:00

So far I have not written too much here about my second book. This is The Nikon Camera in America, 1946-1953. You can readily access more publishing information from the book's website:
http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-3221-9

This is a story about people, both American and Japanese, who believed in a little camera and its lenses and were willing to take risks to promote a product made by a former foe to a public who then believed that anything Japanese was junk.

If you are at all interested any aspects of the history of photography, the history of technology, the post-war recovery of Japan and the interrelations of Americans with their former enemies, then this is a story worth reading.

If you are particularly interested in Nikon cameras: their design, their features, their history and in the individuals who made the camera and its lenses happen, this book is an essential read.

I will not apologize for saying these things. I spent over three years doing the research and, I will admit, that this has been one of the most rewarding things I have ever done. So, take a look, and if you have read it, let me know what you think.

Ganado, Arizona

2008-11-04T06:09:00.000-08:00

We lived for two years in Ganado, Arizona, where I worked in the college's library. The College of Ganado is long gone, but the old mission compound continues. Two images from our stay there.
The edge of the roof of the old adobe dining hall, and Round Top, a local landmark, as seen from the college's horse corral. Both pictures taken using 35mm film and Nikons, although I am not sure at this point which model or lens.

Oregon in Black & White

2008-10-31T06:19:00.001-07:00

I have not had my darkroom set up for over 25 years. Time, lack of space, career demands and a dozen other excuses, such as raising a family, come to mind. Still, I have fond memories of the private world Linda and I would enter with only a safe light for company. The thrill of watching the image materialize on paper in the developer and the sense of quality that good, silver-based paper gives is quite different from the what most photographers go through now.

Here are a few images from Oregon where we lived for several years in the 1970s. The picture from Central Oregon was taken on the highway from Bend to Malheur, one of the loneliest, but beautiful, stretches of finished highway anywhere. The high north desert is quite different from what most people think of when they consider rained-on Oregon.
The other two pictures are from the Fern Ridge Reservoir, located only a few miles west of Eugene. In the early spring, there may be a lake below those clouds, but it is impossible to tell. The lichen-covered trees are typical. They drain the reservoir in the winter and it becomes acres and acres of mud flats, often lost in the rain and fog. Old roads and other hints of pre-water civilization show up, then disappear when the reservoir is refilled in the spring.

180mm Nikkor as a closeup lens

2008-10-30T08:21:00.000-07:00

I used the 180mm f2.5 short-mount Nikkor heavily in the early 70s. I loved its speed and its ability to isolate items. Here are a few images I took in the fall of 1971. Enjoy.

House construction in August 2008

2008-10-22T10:52:00.001-07:00

Some pictures we took at the end of the summer. In both of the interior shots, you are looking across the entire floor.
The first picture shows the house from the southeast. Note the large windows and overhangs on the south side and minimal windows on the east. The tiny lawn next to the porch is now partly covered with mums.
The downstairs interior picture shows the view toward our masonry heater and the kitchen area behind. The upstairs shot shows the bedroom area and the upstairs bath. Since these pictures were taken, the interior walls have lost their measles look as we have gotten base coats of paint on the sheetrock. The interior is open. The only "rooms" are the bathrooms and our closet. As a result, the house is full of light whenever the sun is up. Of course, it gets dark inside pretty quickly once the sun goes down since we still have no electricity. House will never be connected to the mains in any case.
The timber framing is all local oak, the downstairs floored with tile and the upstairs in yellow pine. The masonry heater is a Finnish style and sheathed in local limestone we recovered from a ruin on the family's farm.

Waiting for Thanksgiving

2008-10-21T05:46:00.000-07:00

Aren't they handsome? These days they spend all their time strutting around the farm in an almost continual dance of one-upmanship. Their fate? Come November 27th, the heaviest one is likely to grace a dinner table.

Up until now, they've looked in bedroom windows, walked around the house if a door was left open, pooped on the porches, dug up the mums and sat on the asters. Now that the garden fence is down, they consider that their own private dessert tray. Bon appetite! Who would have thought that turkeys could be so entertaining?

Bagpipes

2008-10-16T10:53:00.000-07:00

In addition to other interests, I am a piper. I have played the highland bagpiper for over thirty years. In 1986, I helped start the Hawk Mountain Highlanders, and I am still serving as Pipe Major.
In the first picture, I am marching in Girardville's St. Patrick's Day Parade. With me in the front line are Laura Eastman, my older daughter, carrying the Loder banner, and Jeff Yourshaw, now a med school student, carrying the Penn State banner.

• Laura Eastman at the Girardville Parade in 2006. She has been a piper since she was 14. Behind her is Dave Weidenhammer, our long-time bass drummer.
• The band in the Hamburg Firemen's Parade, September 2007. My wife, Linda, as acting Drum Major, leads us.

Thoughts on building

2008-10-15T07:54:00.000-07:00

We start with a field of dreams. It may be an actual field, or it might be an open lot, or a place where another building stood. Still, it begins with a blank space, a space in which we draw our vision up out of the ground, conjure walls, a roof, windows, floors and spaces. Once such a dream would involve no more than the biggest and grandest space that one could afford. Today it may involve questions of how long the building will last, where its materials came from, what it will cost to upkeep and the health of the environment it creates.

The academic libraries I visited in the spring of 2008, new or old but mostly LEED-certified, all reflected new concerns with long-term costs and the long-term environment being created. I find this encouraging and refreshing, although I am still not sure if this is a trend. I hope so.

2008-10-14T11:27:00.000-07:00

The bleat was more scream than cry. The boy pivoted, put down his cup and stared out of the open dutch door. “Elsie? Elsie!”
A second cry hit his ears, but he was already taking the porch steps two at a time and tearing toward the barn, the screen door banging behind him. The barnyard’s gate was closed, but—never mind—he scaled it, spotting the cause of Elsie’s cries just before he dropped over the other side. His family’s favorite ewe and her three days old lamb were both outside. So was another, older lamb and something red—like flame and anger flashing—all four circling and jumping in a frantic dance together.
Without thinking, he charged right into this circle of snorts, bleats and sudden, high-pitched barks—the barks sounding like the horn at the start of a race, or a dog’s last cry as it discovers the inflexibility of a moving car’s bumper. The red-furred animal was the boy’s target. He swept aside the bigger lamb and dove at the creature still spinning in the manure pile, caught between Elsie and himself. He had a dim, break-of-dawn vision of a small, narrow-snouted dog, all flame-colored except for black feet and a white chest. Then it was under his body and he had it by the throat and jaw, his right hand clamping its mouth shut.
Suddenly his grip slipped, for the nose he had just held was flattening, and changing from black to white, the creature’s head growing rounder and its ears shrinking. The flailing, furry, dark paws were morphing into hands scarcely smaller than his own, a fuzzy red dress replacing what had been fur and bushy tail.
A moment later, and he was staring into frightened, blue eyes set in a pale face and framed by the brightest red hair he could ever imagine. “Hu, huh” the girl gasped.
“Wha …?” The boy let his hands go limp and panted several times before more words could come out. “Where’d you come from?” he finally managed.
“Ah-mm, Mmp?” the girl seemed to be able to manage only meaningless noises from deep in her throat.
“I’m sorry. I’m sitting on you, aren’t I?” The boy rolled off the girl. He was about to offer her a hand when he spotted the first drop of blood dribbling from the side of her mouth. He backed away, holding up his hands with the index fingers crossed. Yes, he could see that the older lamb was limping and the wool of Elsie’s near shoulder was turning a dark red. “Go away,” he cried. “Go, go back to your own world. Leave our sheep alone. Go on. I’m sorry I hurt you, but begone.”
The girl got up on her knees, then stood, brushing bits of straw and turds from her dress. She stared at him, her eyes wet and anxious, then she licked away the blood on her chin with a long, black tongue.

Plug for book

2008-10-14T11:15:00.000-07:00

I will start this with an unabashed plug for my first book (The Golden Horn, published August 2007, ISBN: 1-4241-8927-6, Available from the publisher, PublishAmerica, or through Amazon, or at the Waldens in the Fairlane Mall, Pottsville, or the bookstore at the Schuylkill Campus of Penn State).

"In the Balkan country of Starnovia, a land of roses and dust, memories and hatreds run deep, and poor families sell their daughters to city brothels. Here, over one long summer, an American boy and a Starnovian girl discover the power of truth and love.

"For Jim Gailey, the excavation of the ancient fortress of Castelschtop begans as just a job to earn extra college credits. But for Jonnie Gilenhoff, the native girl he rescues from a bar and hires as his assistant, the archaeological dig means far more—for it promises of a new future for both her country and herself.

"As the excavating progresses, Jim and Jonnie struggle to maintain proprieties yet help each other. A death vendetta, ancient lies, stolen equipment and growing affection all come together in a fatal climax, sparked by the recovery of a national treasure believed lost in an invasion 300 years earlier."

Sales have been good, reviews have been helpful and positive. Perhaps its biggest problem is finding a niche. Is it YA, crossover or adult? Is it an adventure, a coming-of-age story, a mystery or a romance? Is it a guy-book- or chick-lit? Have it any way you like, because it is all of these. If you have read it, let me know your thoughts. I am open to any feedback and suggestions.

For my next entry, I will share a little something that might be appropriate for the coming Halloween season.

Construction

2008-10-13T07:42:00.000-07:00

Most of the pictures Linda and I took of the house raising a year ago were taken with a Nikon Coolpix 995, which has since died. I also took quite a few pictures using a Nikon rangefinder camera and a 21mm f4 Nikkor. A nice combination for this kind of work and one that allows coverage of all the action.

Why?

2008-10-13T07:29:00.000-07:00

I guess everyone has to start by explaining why he or she is pushing his or her interests on a nosy public. My reasons are modest, but mercenary. I have written and published two books that people—even those who are not my friends—say are well-written, informative and entertaining. I hope that this blog might reach more of a public that would be interested in what I have had to say.
The second reason will become clearer as I comment on the home Linda and I are building. We believe that all of us need to move to a life style that uses less energy, is healthier and reduces our carbon footprint. Others’ thoughts are welcome in this regard.
Finally, I hope to occasionally showcase some of my writings in progress, comment of my photography and feature pictures I have taken. Again, feedback is welcome.