Cranky n Stinky.com

Aaron and I have been busy doing other things this summer too. We haven't (obviously) been spending time on the blog. But, in general, this does not mean we don't have things to say and eventually some of them will get posted. Here are some highlights of what we've been up to.

-Picked over 30 quarts of berries (straw, blue, rasp, black)
-Made 3 batches of jam, our first ever. I have great pictures somewhere. We have made straw, blue, and a mixed berry. We'll make one batch of peach jam next.
-Have gotten several interesting CSAs incl. beets which means we've made some interesting salads and stir frys
-gone to baby birthing class, had two baby showers, and are setting up the nursery (in progress)
-Aaron's ridden two big rides - the B2B, and Trans NH
-Have had three sets of family visitors (my parents, my brother's family, and my sister's family) for a total of 11 visitors over 16 or so days
-work has been stressful and busy for us both
-we had 3 more male crias, making it 11 in a row (and had one pass away earlier this summer)
-put in a clothes line

so, all in all it is just another run of the mill summer here where we sit around and do nothing...

We have two more baby related classes coming up, then whatever else we feel like doing... truthfully I am ready to not have to do ANYTHING major for a while. We still have a lot to do, but whatever gets done, gets done. The rest will happen at its own pace.

I'm beyond tired from what we had on the plate...

Well, I promised more updates and so far haven't really delivered to you, our faithful 5 or so blog readers,
And now it's April... The snow has finally melted from our huge shoveled piles. It is time for the flowers to be coming up (they are, but slowly), the grass to green (it's sorta yellow on balance but the hints of green are there), and for us to ponder what the warmer weather will bring. To that end, I mentioned earlier that I won't be doing a 1/2 Iron triathlon this year. In fact, I won't be doing any triathlons or cycling this summer, but I will still be swimming and exercising. So what scenario is leading me down a non-tri season path? Some of you know the answer, but a few of you probably do not. My hints on why I'm not racing are below....

1. We will be doing some home projects which will take time.

2. I have to keep my heart rate reasonable.

3. I am being monitored medically.

4. We'll be taking classes.

5. I'm going to be gaining a bunch of weight.

and last but not least,

6. We are preparing for something we've never done before!

Yep, you've probably figured it out. Aaron and I are becoming parents - we have a baby on the way. So, this is big news, and it's real, and we're very excited. I'm due in September!

And that is today's blog entry.

Well I realize I haven't blogged in too long of a time. This too will be a short entry but I promise I will be back with more in the coming weeks and months. For now, I will just say that I won't be doing a half Iron triathlon this year, after all. More on this later. It will remain as a 2010 or 2011 goal. Aaron will be riding - I will be a crew member for the TransNH which will make me want to probably ride it myself. I will also be helping a friend complete his first tri season which should be a lot of fun. And, we're still planning to sell some of our own goods at the farmer's market this summer. It will undoubtedly be another busy year, and with the first teases of spring this week, while there's still snow yet to come, the time to return to the outdoors is not far off. That's a good thing as it has been a long winter around here!

[I posted a bit before I meant, alas I've corrected my dangling thoughts at the end!]

I have finished reading "The End of Food" by Paul Roberts, an accomplishment since I rarely have the patience to read a book start to finish these days (or at least the time). I even finished before it's due back to the library this weekend. Roberts is also the author of "The End of Oil" in which he discusses the world's dependence on fossil fuels, and while I haven't read it yet, I think the tone of his newer book on food is probably quite similar.

Truth be told, the book is not unlike others we have read in terms of stating the damage to the world that current food practices are causing. However, he did weave the narratives together quite artfully, with some new perspectives thrown in. It is definitely worth reading, and while I'll touch on some of the topics, the book goes into great detail on all these topics.

What I will do is summarize some themes that may interest you; most of these are put into a context of a specific story or personal recollection. In addition, the examples are from recent years, so the book feels very current to the state of our food production.

Here is an excerpt of topics.

-Large scale monoculture crop farms versus diverse, small scale polyculture agriculture
-Till vs no-till practices
-The availability of high calorie, low quality foods in wealthy and developing areas/nations
-The unavailability of high quality, appropriate calorie foods in poor areas
-How much energy is redirected into transporting food and water, because it is cheaper to buy it and more expensive to sell it, on the world market versus locally.
-Engineering of animals and plants in hopes of faster, cheaper food (even if it is not as good for you)
-The rapid spread of disease through food supply (meats and veggies)
-Animal borne disease that can jump to humans and kill both
-and perhaps most directly, should the world attempt to support life for 6 to 9 billion humans (almost 7 today, expected if growth continues to be 9 by mid century).

What the book isn't long on are suggestions that make sense for a broad scale approach. While it's going to be a whole list of solutions, I am left wondering as an individual reader how I can better my food footprint on top of what we can afford and reasonably do as modern Americans, given this worldwide crisis. Even he acknowledges there isn't a lot of how to make it better from his research, and that a highly aware consumer who is willing to bear the extra cost or effort, sometimes both, for well sourced food may be stuck until it is just so dire we have a forced upheaval of the social and food system.

When I get discouraged this way, I remember what we have done, and I would love to hear from anyone else on what other priorities we need to set in our domestic and world agendas.

I know I've rambled about it but as a recap of what we personally do:

we have our grass beef from a farmer in town
our pasture raised chicken from another farm
our produce from the in town farmers market every summer weekend (and it is about time to dig into the fruit we saved over the summer).
organic milk and yogurt (recognizing organic is not a panacea label)
our own eggs from our hens
our own herbs and a few veggies from this summer
limited use of bottled water (we get it for our fish, and sometimes house guests)
we are increasingly vigilant on ingredients such as HFCS, sulfides (common dried fruits), and complex sounding ingredients.

Part II of this entry later this weekend will recap some of the interesting figures mentioned in the book.

Well, I started this one days ago, but the title still applies. We got five eggs today, and for the first time two Easter Eggs! The new egg is a lovely shade of pale blue, not as green. It is pretty big for a first egg also (well, we think it is a first egg). Our trendlines are really beginning to go up in our graph, despite the daylight hours being much shorter at this time of year. According to our spreadsheet, we have gotten roughly 90 eggs since they started laying, which sounds like an awful lot for a short time. If we get up to 50% laying a day, that will be very impressive.

Fortunately, the temperature has moderated so the waterer hasn't frozen this week at all. We did get a heater base, and as of today, a heavy duty outdoor cord. The alps already have the heated bucket I got this weekend, though presently unplugged.

Yesterday, Aaron prepared a dinner with 10 of our fresh eggs, sliced dried tomatoes, goat cheese, and herbs (basil, chives) from our winter herb garden. We had some hearty bread on the side. More on that some other time... I've been negligent in my reporting on the hydroponic herb garden (Aerogarden).

It's also been great to have my Dad here, on this very historic week. We've had a lot of great conversations which makes for a great change of pace, even though this week has certainly been as hectic as any, with coordination of more alpaca moving going on. The vet will be out to our farm tomorrow, I've got the day off to spend with my Dad, though I am hoping to get to the gym as well. Aaron's parents will be here later in the evening before they head off on a fun trip to Costa Rica with his sister, her husband, and their granddaughter.

Over the weekend, I'm hoping we'll have time and good weather to get into the woods for some walking, as well as visit some local farm stores.

For those who may have missed, we have a cam currently pointed at our paddock. You may be able to spy pacas or chickens. They will be small (chickens especially) so look carefully.

http://www.crankynstinky.com/pict/tank.jpg

Works during the day.

All in all, we're well, but busy.

I'm in my 21st or so (not going to figure out exactly) hour of fasting for Yom Kippur. For those unfamiliar with it, it's a full day fast that begins before nightfall the eve of Yom Kippur, the night of Kol Nidre. We have a final day of introspection and atonement. In the tradition, it is also a conversation time with G-d before the Book of Life is sealed. Fasting is a big part of the observation, and I always dread it prior to, but in the moment of it I understand. It's not until about the 20th hour that it starts to sink in, i.e. when it starts to feel difficult.

There is a survival rule of thumb - the rule of threes - which anyone trained in Wilderness medicine or rescue will know. It's not quite literal, but helpful to remember: three minutes without air, three hours without shelter (from cold/exposure), three days without water, three weeks without food. A Yom Kippur fast does not approach these limits, but it is at this moment that I can imagine the confusion and desperation someone who has had no food or water for a few days more is going through, the cumulative effect of a weakening system. In terms of Yom Kippur, it is meant to keep the focus of the day on prayer. But I think it is also meant to remind of how frail and fleeting life is - and our returning to eat at the end of the fast is a returning to life, as well as normal life (work, school, etc). By this time in the fast, many people have varying degrees of tiredness, headaches, and general lethargy. We are past general "hangriness" as some of my friends call cranky hunger. We can no longer work terribly effectively, even if we want to. As a kid this was always a time for homework, which was difficult with my mind straying a lot. I remember things like rereading the same paragraph several times, or restarting a math problem after getting clearly wrong answers. In short, it was frustrating to not be functioning as expected, much like anytime it is frustrating for one to be sick with a cold or an injury. It still is, but I have come to accept that as part of the fast, and I know it ends quite soon after I start to eat again.

In good health and times of success, we don't remember this feeling of being on the brink that easily. Of course, we are in a challenging economic time and more people are scaling back on luxury and even basic needs as we contend with depressed job markets, foreclosures, and loss of retirement savings. Fasting today is an interesting parallel to the refocusing for many going on at the societal level, and of the difficult choices many are having to make to maintain food or shelter.

Yom Kippur comes along without any relation to whether it be a good time or not for someone, let alone a society, and any Jewish adult who is physically able to (it won't endanger their life) must observe the fast.

I am thankful for this, I think it is a necessary space to be in once a year, a humbling moment. In this one day fast, it helps me remember that I am never more than the rule of three away from potentially life threatening times, and that without these basics higher production is difficult. It is an opportunity to remember that on a day to day basis, how fortunate I have been to not know this feeling. And it is symbolic that as my individual fast ends, a meal together with others begins.

I'm going to make this quick... as I am blogging at 1:30 (yeah, good idea).

But I wanted to post some observations - three nights ago I was driving in Hollis NH in the dark, when I startled, passed a man on a bicycle. He had no light, scruffy appearance, and the look of one who had all his belongings attached with him.

Odd, but as an isolated event, maybe not so.

This morning, on my way to work I saw a man sitting on a bench in Groton, who again, had the general appearance of a homeless person.

Strange, but so be it...

Tonight, on my way home from work, I saw a third man, on a bicycle, again appearing to be unkempt, worn clothes and so on, and he was riding with a large bag of cans gathered from recycling bins. This was in Westford.

It is a unusual to have seen three potentially homeless people in such a short time in some of the wealthiest towns. Of course I am not denying their existence, but it's not something I have observed save the occasional notice, like I did these past few days. Truth be told, they do stand out in this area. I'm not sure what to make of it; it could be seasonal as homeless people with some mobility move toward cities or other locations where shelters exist for the winter. I just hope this isn't indicative of an increase in the numbers of homeless in our state...

Tomorrow morning, seven years ago, it was a bright sunny fall morning. I was in a great mood and had the music from a CD cranked up as I drove to my office in Waltham, MA. Traffic was flowing, and I got to work sometime around nine. I walked in the building and passed by a cube where someone appeared to be listening to the radio out loud. Unusual, but I didn't think much of it. I greeted my coworker with an enthusiastic hello (we shared our office) and he looked at me and said "Have you heard?" "Heard what?" "A plane crashed into the World Trade Center in NYC." I said, "Oh, really? What, a Cessna?" I'd immediately thought about those little planes flying close to the skyscrapers. "No," he said, "a passenger jet." My blood stood still and my heart sank. "Oh, wow." I said. We talked about what he knew which wasn't much. At this time, the second plane hadn't hit the tower yet, but just moments later our administrative assistant rushed in, and said something like, "A second one has hit!" People started to gather in the corner conference room where there was a TV, and as we saw the images of the planes going into the towers, the fire balls, and began to piece together an attack on our nation like none of us had ever fathomed. I remember the fear for the unaccounted flights, seeing the other two planes go down, learning the two flights had left from Logan, wondering where my sister who worked at the Federal courthouse was, and if she was safe. I immediately started calling and texting her but had trouble getting through, as everyone did. I wondered who was on those planes, and in the towers, a question answered only many weeks later as those lost truly became known. Fortunately I did later hear from my sister, once she was able to respond. That would prove to be our main way to communicate in the next week. And I wondered what our future would become as a country.

In the days after 9/11 there was such sorrow. Such pain. Such unity. 9/11 disproportionately affected the east coast - my state of Massachusetts, New York City, and Washington D.C. It also affected Los Angeles, as two flights were destined there and several of the people on board were from California. And it left a scar upon the people of Shanksville, PA in what we believe was a story of heroism as the average Americans aboard Flight 93 realized they were being used as a weapon to kill more of us on the ground. But even as the east coast collectively mourned, Americans from across the nation - Florida to Iowa, Alaska to Alabama - mourned alongside. There was a renewed understanding we were bound together, and that we'd succeed or fail together.

Seven years and two wars later, we are still hurting. We seem to have lost so much in addition to the lives lost on that day. We are in many ways more divided, and we have given up personal liberties in exchange for promised security. Yet, really, we are no more secure from the unpredictable. Many Americans are more fearful, more cynical than other times in our nation's history. We have seen our political leaders betray us, our corporate CEOs mislead, our jobs continue to move overseas, our housing market depressed. It hasn't been a shining moment in our history.

We need to begin a new period where hope wins over fear; where we care about each other again; where we embrace the best of this country's ideals, and no longer scrape the barrel with the worst. Perhaps this seventh day of remembering will mark our nation's time to move forward again.

This is going to be pretty short as I am feeling fried from work. Of course, during the day I have all these great thoughts I want to blog about but after evening tasks and dinner, I'm now feeling sluglike.

But, I think we are a real farm now. We both have mucked the poop to prove it. On Monday, two of our alpacas arrived and are managing to settle in now. Tonight they even had some fun running around after the chickens which were out for some early evening grazing. It's nice to let the chickens out in the evening because they will return to the coop on their own - so I take advantage of that! Anyway the boys haven't been around chickens before so they spend a lot of time studying them. When the chickens are out, they try to follow them and the chickens get all scatterbrained. Really, the chickens are not very intelligent creatures. But still adorable.

I don't have pictures yet of this momentous event, in part due to our continuing afternoon rainy/stormy weather. This weekend I hope to have the time and inclination to snap some pictures and I'll post them up here.

I'm amazed at how quickly the presence of the alpacas has caused that sweet alive pasture smell - and I mean that in a good way. Alpaca pastures smell really pleasant to me.

Aaron picked a few more quarts of blackberries, and fought the weed whacker (it'll be going back to the store for a return) to get the back split rail growth cleared up. Our paddock almost looks nice again. And there's no way the two boys will run out of greens anytime soon. We could have all the boys here and still have plenty.

Speaking of boys, yep, we had our fourth and final cria for the year, a fawn male. He's looking really nice so we're holding on to hope that at least one of our 8 boys will blossom into a special herdsire.

This weekend will feature in no particular order: barn office cleaning, coop muck out, hanging with the boys, blueberry picking, exercise at some point... that's been the real casualty these last two weeks, minimal exercising. Not ideal for race preparation... oh well - the farm has to come first.

I'll be back with more updates soon!

Well, I haven't been tagged (I'm not cool enough) by the question going around on the farmy blogs but I did invite myself to the tagging, and I meant to post this but then I had the family emergency. So, here is my list of what I don't think we could give up, though even here there are shades of gray. I will try my best though.

1. Electricity - I think we'd go solar but up here that wouldn't work year round. So, I think we'd have to depend on outside electric for a good percentage of the time. What we'd need it most for? Refrigeration/Freezing. Fans in summer... And truthfully, Internet. We do love our internet access. In thinking about it we probably could be a lot more aggressive about curtailing our electric use than we are. Many things are in some form of "always on" but we might be able to make them more clever.

2. Some form of heat for winter. All heating methods pollute and are varying degrees of badness so ideally we wouldn't heat but I get cold very easily, even with extra layers on in winter. We currently rely on oil and in the next few years we will probably go to wood or pellet for the main area of the house - well it may not be a choice but then again it's a fairly expensive change too. We'll see

3. the truck we don't have yet? ok, this doesn't really count, but we need a truck with the alps coming soon, and so we can plow the drive ourselves in future winters. it's on the to-do list.

4. I would not give up being able to travel for two purposes.
a. family events. We have family in several parts of the country and it's definitely not green to get there. I could miss the biggest events, but it'd bug me on a deep level [and probably my family too]. I already miss or have missed out on a lot as it is, including most birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, several baby ceremonies etc. I would consider changing how I travel (doing more extended combo personal/family vacations) to keep this feasible. But the fact is there's no GOOD way to see be able to see our family at the farthest points.

b. going to a few races/rides a year. Without races or good bike rides to look forward to, I lose a lot of motivation to exercise, which translates into a lot of other potential health problems I don't want to have. So, I would do whatever I can to keep this external motivator part of my life. Most of our events are within a few hours of us anyway.

We don't have central AC so there isn't much to give up there. I'd give up non-local meat and collaborate more with locals who raise poultry and beef (which we already have stared doing). We're changing how we travel for work... Probably those are the major things.

I was away last week to the Netherlands visiting with my Dutch cousins after my aunt had passed away. While I've had many thoughts I likely won't recapture, I wanted to share just a few. First, my sister is awesome for helping me out with frequent flier miles, without which I surely would have had challenges with obtaining a ticket on such short notice.

It had been many years since I was last there, but the essence of the country hadn't changed. Still, I felt there were subtle differences. It felt more North American than the last time I recalled being there, perhaps maybe due to the Starbucks, Burger Kings, and other American chains I encountered, or perhaps due to more similar styles of clothing and dress (minus the US "street thug" look many teens here follow). Yet like a twist of reality, I could not mistake I was in the NL.

For starters, flying in to Schiphol there were dozens of grouped wind turbines in the North Sea, harnessing wind power for residents of Amsterdam. Although unnatural, they did not appear ugly - actually quite the opposite, I found them beautiful and mesmerizing looking down at the evenly spaced towers with their whirring blades. It really made me wonder about why Americans have been so reluctant on siting any form of offshore wind farm. People have been trying in Massachusetts now for several years, and every time, the issue of birds or potential ugliness rears its head. Birds, I grant, are legit concerns and I'm sure we can find ways around any migratory issues, however the aesthetics issue I find strange. I wonder if those who complain have ever seen a wind turbine, and better yet, if they find billowing smokestacks of coal or oil production somehow more pleasing. If they realize we really are running out of options and the time to do something is now. Ironically, I read two articles about wind power use in different publications while there. Hull, MA has gone ahead with its own turbines and residents are saving something like a third of the cost over other municipal providers. Cleveland OH is also siting a wind farm off the shore of Lake Erie, and is taking square aim at being a leader in both practice and opportunity in the "green economy." Why CAN'T people in Massachusetts get behind this? What leadership are we as a state going to set for the next generations of tech workers? It is really just baffling. The worldwide wait for a turbine is now 2 yrs, so even if some agreement arises in the next year or so, it will be a few years before any energy is captured.

Sad to say though, the Dutch habits were not as far as I could tell significantly more green beyond this point. I think this is my expectation that the Dutch would teach me new tricks in this area, but not so much. It's hard to say from a quick visit, but there was plenty of plastic litter, little visible recycling (maybe this is done at the trash collection point), and in general the same type and rate of consumption one would find here, minus two notables - house size (much smaller), and car use (trains and bikes preferred). However, there was no shortage of cars despite all the bike use. There also didn't seem to be a tremendous amount of local or organic produce to buy, for example. Nonetheless, the NL and even Amsterdam remains very green (literally) since it rains frequently, and with the canals that cut corridors across all parts of the country, it is beautiful and calming to ride through the countryside.

I can say that bikes are still a major transportation method, and I mean transportation. Riders are of all ages and persuasions, from 7 yrs to 80, and it's by no means embarrassing to be seen on the oldest, cheapest, questionable bike. They are not status symbols. A significant percentage of the bikes are single speeds (not fixies), have handlebar bells, and feature some rusting parts or balding tires. Some have a few gears. A few look like 10 speeds from the 1970s or so. Apparently bike theft of these steeds is still prevalent as I saw many motorcycle style locks to lock them (very thick chain in a web type cover). People would also double up on bikes, with the passenger sitting sidesaddle on the rack. Many bikes have panniers, and almost all have racks or baskets. People do not wear helmets at all, and yet the bikes mix with the cars and pedestrians on any form of pavement - bike paths, roadways, and sidewalks seemed to be used heavily with very few tense moments between motorists and pedestrians. My cousin said that road cycling is more popular in certain areas of the country, but I may have seen a total of 10 or so kitted up roadies across the thousands of other riders, almost as many as I might see on a single ride near my house, at least on certain roads/days.

Almost needless to say, I did not observe very many overweight people. I guess they aren't supersizing themselves at the McDonald's anyway...

Amsterdam is really a great city, and it does help (me) that so many people speak English very well. We had some long conversations about differences in the US and I won't go into details, but they start learning English in grade school now. It's a pretty reasonable flight, so long as you don't plan a tough first day, since it's hard to avoid being tired on the way there. I hope it does not take me 15 yrs to get back there again - I don't plan it to, anyway.

It is quite a bit farther north than I remembered, so it was light out until 10:30, which I always love, and temps were about 10-15 degrees cooler than here for this time of year (especially with the darn heat we've been having). I went for a great run through a park near my cousin's house (while he and my sister were off doing a 9 mile run).

Last of all, my sister and I noted how different our airport/customs and immigration process is. At Schiphol, I was asked where I was going and so on, but no forms, no visas, no waiting in lines, just a quick look & stamp from the officer. Leaving at Schiphol, no undressing and removal of every possible metal item or threat (after all, shoes are really such a threat!!) that we have to go through in the US. I filled out my form complete with passport numbers etc, saying I was not bringing lots of goods or gifts in to others, and we got treated to a long plane video for non-citizens on all the forms THEY had to fill out. There were two lines - one for US citizens, and one for everyone else. Still, I baffled two TSA agents who were perplexed by my "grapefruits" in the x-ray belt thing (two grapefruit sized wax covered cheeses). I don't know, I realize I'm not writing this part well, but we certainly do not make it very welcoming for perfectly legal visitors to our country when their first experience off the plane is bewildering forms and lines they must wait in - especially after a long, tiring flight. And it's nice to know the government wanted me to fill out a form with repetitive info they can get off my passport.

I can't think of other observations at the moment, but I'll add some photos once I've uploaded them.

David and his staff say GTD is really about the projects, yet I've resisted this step for as long as I've been doing it.

I have gotten the inbox for real physical papers. I have the work weekly review habit going pretty well (home not as much). I use a checklist to go through places where I may have collection leaks (email at zero, vmail at zero, inbox papers processed etc). I keep both gmail and work email at close to zero and get to zero a few times a week. I have somewhere around 350 discrete actions captured. I have set up home and work filing systems, with labels, and use them. But this is mostly runway level stuff. Now I feel like I need to glue my runway down to something - so that I can leave it without it coming with me. I think I've realized that some of the 50,000 level questions that I know are on my mind have answers in this middle layer of projects.

So it's time to make a project list. I am going to be fiddling with MindManager to create this and if I can get really fancy maybe have it pull tasks into Outlook. First, though, I just need to get all my projects captured, and have them in one place for reviews.

Today, I went to a fencing workshop in Chesham, NH. It was freezing and raining for much of the day. But being on a working farm is something else, and I never get over that feeling of wonder. Wellscroft is a pretty well known fencing supply in this area, but they are an active farm with cattle, sheep, chickens, working border collies, and they even have a guard llama. The goal of the workshop was to give an overview of different types of fences which either serve one of two purposes: keep certain animals out, or keep certain animals in. We're looking for how to keep certain animals out, since alpacas rarely challenge fences.

We walked around on the property and saw different types of fences, gates, and latches. I could talk of what I learned about post pounders, high tensile electric tape, or even solar powered battery chargers. But what struck me as I was trying to absorb all this information was the variety of people attending, who were everything from prospective farm animal owners to existing beef cattle owners. One person in our group was a produce grower who wanted to keep deer out of his fields to prevent crop damage. But we were all there to add to our agricultural knowledge, and had common understanding of being tied to the land and ways of animals.

It amazes me how most people I am in contact with on a daily basis have little understanding of life around farms, and when I am back in this environment, how much it feels like my home, like a more comfortable environment than that of the cubicle, sterile, electronic corporate world I also inhabit. While I didn't grow up on a farm, I spent a lot of time on them until I went off to college, and this imprinted my tangible senses: the smell of fresh sweet hay, the heat of summer sun drying out the earth, the jagged edges of a corn leaf cutting against my skin, the soft bleats or moos of a sheep or cow contentedly munching away, the quiet of the dawn or twilight. These are the things that seem real, and meaningful, to me.

Life as a farmer is hard. It's often operating on a shoestring, and it's often long days ending in complete exhaustion. I know this, and yes, at times I worry I am not cut from the same cloth, that the stresses of the life will be too much... You can see them on the wizened faces of the folks who've stopped worrying if every blade of grass is where it should be, if every piece of equipment is working let alone put away clean. But you also see something else. That these people have learned something maybe more basic - and the hint of irony, that quirk of humor many farmers have - gives it away. That what become the farmer's ways, what so many others search for and may never find, or find late in their years, are indeed what life is - a series of beginnings and ends...

We get a lot of junk mail, way too much now that we're past the "discovery" threshold for the new address. So I spent about a half hour to start the reduction, which I'd done for our old address but not for the new house. I figured I'd write some tips for those of you who'd like to reduce your junk mail.

1. www.dmaconsumers.org is the first step, which will get rid of unsolicited mail. Choose the "get rid of it all" option. Note this only gets rid of place you probably haven't bought from before. It won't get rid of catalogs from companies you may actually buy stuff from. If you're like us, you do this online so the categories are a waste anyway. You will have to put in a CC number but it's to validate your address. They used to charge you $1, now it's free.

2. www.optoutprescreen.com
This is run by the credit bureaus and will get you off of credit card offer mailing lists.

3. go to www.catalogchoice.org, to remove yourself from catalogs you get from companies you do buy stuff from but don't want catalogs for. Keep this updated approximately quarterly.

The above steps take little time to do, but will take 2+ months to see the full benefit of since your name is already out there on lists. Given time, it does work.

4. Email to any other repeat offenders that you don't want their mail/catalogs.

Any other suggestions?

Over on Jaiku I've gotten asked what is the story on Evernote, so since it may take a while to respond, I'm blogging it...

I'd heard about OneNote and Evernote for a while, as they've been mentioned on GTD Connect several times. I had only a fuzzy idea of what they do, but this week, my boss asked for some help with a problem and that led me to checking out Evernote. I am just learning it so this is very much a newbie's perspective. I've also not spent any time with OneNote but have a rudimentary understanding of it from the forums I've read. As background, I have been using Google Notebook for a while but in a pretty disorganized fashion.

Evernote is from what I've seen so far, foremost a capture tool. It comes with a grabber for the browsers, Outlook, and also includes a Universal clipping tool. So, in Firefox I now have an icon and all I need to do is highlight text and images then click to create a new note.

Otherwise, copy and paste work well, and it seems to retain the info of the source - a clip from a MS Word doc for example is automatically categorized as a Word doc. It also works with images, and if there is handwriting or text in the image, it will recognize it and not only does that become searchable, it also will transfer it to text. The purchased version works well with digital handwriting as well, which I will be migrating to with a digipad coming soon.

As for individual notes, you can tag them with as many categories as you want like you would with blog entries, Flickr photos etc, which makes it super easy to search for items. I understand this is a difference from OneNote where each item goes in one and only one place/label. There's also a scroll timeline so that you can see all the notes you've done over time. When you do search for a phrase, it is automatically highlighted in every note that contains it.

There is a Evernote mobile version I am testing out as well. It is a preview install but it works the same way the installed version does, minus the grabbers. It does have a grabber for a cameraphone snapshot. Syncing is a bit of a manual process and I hope they'll go the ActiveSync route before this becomes prime time. Still, having all the info on the phone is awesome...

I am just beginning to figure out a tagging system that will work for me and the nice thing is I can have a GTD tag structure, as well as a keyword tag structure. One of the nicer features is it comes with a Category (tag) intersection tool, which lets you find relationships between information you might not think of, as well as allowing you to map your data path. Overall, it's pretty neat.

And also as a newbie I am just beginning to explore filters and the custom templates that are out there for data capture. The "intro" learning curve is a short one, but now I'm on the secondary one which could be a slower voyage.

I will come back with some additional thoughts once I've used it for a bit longer....