Fast Internet
November 16, 2008
Over the past few years my friends have sent me many video attachments by email. At first they caused me no end of trouble, as my dial-up Internet connection was too slow to download them and nothing else could come through until the huge lump of signal had worked its way through the narrow tube. Students needing help and chatting friends had to cue up until somebody’s funny film about monkeys made its way to my screen, where it often would not run. Polite requests eventually turned into snarling warnings not to send any more bandwith hogs my way.
Everyone quite reasonably asked why I didn’t get rid of my dial-up connection and get fast Internet like the rest of the world. But I like my slow Internet connection. It served me very well during my teaching career: students enjoyed the benefit of rapid turn-around on assignments and requests for help. Email allowed me to think about and edit my comments before sending them. My computer’s inability to handle the hotter film meant that I had to focus on the cooler print medium, and I enjoyed my Internet as a refuge from the frantic world of television.
Then Charlie brought a Mac to the farm and it was time to install wireless Internet. The usual teething pains occurred, but once the Westport Telephone Company had set the system up it proved astoundingly good. All of a sudden we could see what our son does for a living at Insidermedicine.com, a medical news service operating out of the Hotel Dieu in Kingston.
My introduction to YouTube was a film which showed flying carp. Silver carp in the Illinois River leap frantically into the air whenever they hear an outboard motor. It makes for a hysterically funny vacation film when ten pound fish launch themselves into the air in front of your boat in a totally random fashion.
I moved on to a classic of viral marketing, Bride Has Massive Hair Wig Out, a YouTube film about a nervous bride who, distraught because she can’t get her hair just right, shears the whole mop off with scissors while her friends watch in dismay. (Where do you think Britney Spears got the idea a year later?) Like many YouTube films, Bride turned out to be a little less spontaneous than we thought. The “bride” is a young Toronto actress who made the film for a cosmetics company to plant the phrase “wig out” in the language prior to a major advertising campaign for a hair product.
A couple of months later Alanis Morrissette announced to the world that she was back in the studio by quietly releasing a YouTube parody of a particularly mindless Fergie video. The Internet buzz guaranteed millions of hits overnight, and the media-savy Alanis made her point.
The most astounding piece of film I have seen is thebestever.wmv. It’s short, and it may or may not be fake, but I guarantee you won’t regret watching this one involving a stunt pilot.
When I bought a Polaris Ranger I wondered what its limits were, so I called up the many YouTube films of UTVs in extreme environments and was treated to an afternoon of drunken young men driving the things through ponds, down rivers, over logs, and somewhat less successfully, through snowbanks. I also saw many Rangers, Rhinos and similar vehicles rolling over backwards when asked to climb steep banks. Apparently a lot of people out there consider it high art to drive a fifteen thousand dollar vehicle down a creek with the water up to the seats in order to make a film to post on the Internet.
But some YouTube films truly inform. I remember watching with interest as a nice old guy explained a flaw in the design of his front-loading washer which doomed it to early failure. He had the whole thing apart in his living room, and he showed us how the conflict between dissimilar metals had led to premature corrosion and failure.
Today Bet found a film showing a guy with an angle grinder cutting a granite counter top in his driveway. He did an excellent job of explaining how to rough out and finish the sink cavity. We both agreed that this operation was within my skill level, so that puts marble back on the list of possible covers for the new bathroom vanity.
While on her roll, Bet further found a set of films from the Kohler company in Toronto which explain the basics of bathroom sinks to the uninformed. The woman describing the products does an outstanding job of entertaining and informing her audience. High-quality commercials to self-targeted audiences may be the new direction in advertising with the rise of streaming video.
Many articles trumpet that senior citizens are the newest Internet experts. What are they doing online? Getting medical information, that’s what. Check out Insidermedicine.com if you want to look at a leader in the field.
At the farm I love my high speed Internet on a Macintosh. I still write these columns, though, on an old PC and send them in by dial-up. Text remains king on PCs, and I’ll stick with mine as long as people take the time to read.
More on the Polaris Ranger TM
November 7, 2008
I’m just in from a half day’s work with the Ranger, and I’m pleasantly surprised by how well thought out the machine is. The first task involved pulling a drag around a small garden plot to prepare the seedbed for a nursery crop of shagbark, chestnuts, butternuts and walnuts. The golf cart used to strain to pull the drag, so the task occurred at full speed. The Polaris has a lot more power and traction, of course, so it makes an easy job of it, yet it still turns sharply enough to get into the corners of the patch. Its wide track leaves compressed soil everywhere, so I think next time I do this I’ll build a yoke to allow it to tow two of the four drag sections, rather than just one.*
After that I “ran the rows” of this year’s five-acre walnut planting, inspecting each seedling and reseeding where necessary. The golf cart used to spend hours on this task, but to my surprise I found the Polaris better suited to it. The seating position allows a good look at each plant. When I make brief stops to plant walnuts where needed, the machine sits and idles, then moves on without fuss. The bus-like steering wheel leaves lots of space for movement on and off the machine, and the tall seat allows me to slide on and off it, rather than climbing up and sitting down in the EZ-Go. Over two hours of repetitions, an inch or two in height makes a big difference. Earlier in these articles I have criticized the bed height of the TM because it makes loading heavy objects difficult. On the other hand, the height is ideal for picking tools and in this case, walnuts, out of the bed without stooping.
I’ve even come to enjoy the pocketta-pocketta-pocketta rhythm of the big 2V engine. The body of the machine seems quite tight, because I haven’t noticed any rattles. My glasses sit comfortably on the dash at all speeds in a depression which must have been designed for them.
One other thing of note: a section of drag harrow is perhaps the worst possible implement to transport in or on anything which can be scratched. The plastic box had no problem with it.
*Update, May, 2009: When I finally got around to cutting the steel to make a yoke for two sections of drag harrow, I discovered that the Polaris doesn’t like to turn while pulling a heavy load. This meant I couldn’t get around the narrow garden plot, so I unhitched the Ranger and backed in my Massey Harris 30. It’s a lot bigger, but it has wheel brakes which enable it to turn sharply while under load. A 1947 tractor isn’t as versatile as the Ranger, but it’s still the better implement for tilling soil.
The Time Roger Rode the Buck
November 2, 2008
Dave and Roger were my students in grade 8, and then again several times in grades 9 to 12. Around about the time they got hunting licenses, they decided that I would have to go out onto the marsh to hunt teal with them.
We set out down the creek above Kilmarnok, and before long their decoys (inherited antiques, most of them) were arrayed in front of their blind. I headed down the bay to a promising clump of cattails.
My cocker spaniel of the time had a deviant streak a mile wide, but he was a wizard in a duck swamp. During the morning shoot he delivered five teal to the canoe. Two I had shot cleanly, two Jasper had seen swimming by and chased down, and one he had retrieved from a twenty-acre corn field behind my stand after I had winged it. That dog could track a mouse through a haymow.
Anyway, I had fired about a box of shells, bagged some ducks, and thought the morning a great success. I was a little disappointed for Dave and Roger. I had hardly heard any shooting from their blind. When I got there I was rather shocked to discover that they had thirteen ducks between them — with thirteen shots. Dave had missed one duck, but redeemed himself by dropping a pair of bluebills with a single.
A few years later, established in their careers, Dave and Roger decided that it was time to try deer hunting. They bought deer tags and slugs for their trusty Remington 870’s, and set out to try their luck.
In the neighbourhood of Dave’s farm lived a ten point buck, a wily character who seemed often to be more a figment of the hunter’s imagination than an actual animal, to judge by the stories told about him. On the first morning of the season, Dave encountered the buck in an old orchard within easy shotgun range. The young man carefully raised his 870, took aim, and pumped all five slugs onto the ground. The buck snorted and walked off, not to be seen for the rest of the week.
Ever honest, Dave told the others what he had done. Everybody broke up. Roger shared some of his friend’s ignominy, so they resolved to prepare better for next season. They bought 30:30 rifles, nice, traditional deer guns, and became competent marksmen with solid bullets.
Roger’s turn came on the second day of the next season. In the same orchard he encountered the mythical ten pointer, dumping the running deer with a neat hundred-yard, offhand shot. Roger sprinted to the deer, prepared to finish it off. The large buck lay still. Roger thought he’d better put another bullet in it, just to be sure, because he couldn’t see any wound, just a nicked antler. But where should he shoot? The neck, and ruin the meat? The head, and ruin the rack? He couldn’t decide, and stood there, irresolute, the gun pointed at the ear of the buck, just long enough for the deer to revive, disarming Roger with a sudden shake of his rack. The 30:30 landed somewhere in the bushes. The deer started to rise.
Roger was not about to let his first deer get away, so he jumped onto the half-conscious buck’s neck, and tried to hold the antlers to the ground, yelling loudly to his brother-in-law, Malcolm, for help. Malcolm was a long way away, and the deer broke Roger’s hold and started to get up. What to do? Roger held on to the bases of the antlers like death. The deer started to move away from the scene of its accident. Roger had no choice but to go along too. Before long the pair were making pretty good time through the woods, so Roger threw a leg over the deer’s back and climbed aboard, hoping that he could find a clump of brush into which to entangle the buck’s magnificent antlers. This went on for some time, with the pace getting faster, until Roger, with a desperate bulldogging roll, tripped the buck into a clump of young soft maples, and was able to entangle his antlers in their flexible stems.
Roger had kept yelling for Malcolm, and the young fellow arrived, out of breath, and brandishing his .308.
“You’re not shooting my deer with that cannon!” Roger yelled. “Go back and find my 30:30!” Of course this cost Roger another harrowing trip through the woods, and more bruises, but finally Malcolm got back and they finished off the deer with a shot through the heart. Neither liked organ meats.
Word spread like wildfire through town about Roger riding the buck. The only hearer not to be amused and impressed by the story was his wife. She looked at his hands — like hamburger — and his vest — flayed by flying hooves, and said that if he did a damned fool thing like that again, he’d be sleeping in the woodshed.
Dave and Roger’s marksmanship has improved over the years, but around the Falls wherever orange hats are worn and beverages are served, they still talk about the day Roger rode the buck.
The Trailer Project
October 29, 2008
Tomorrow’s task is the erection of one of those chintzy little 10 by 10′ portable garages bought mail-order from Winnipeg. The new Polaris Ranger’s demands must be met, or else I’ll gimp around all winter with icy back and bottom, and my tools will rust from dips in the soggy leaf-container on behind.
A more significant problem rests with the Ranger’s outlandish dimensions: it won’t fit any trailer I own, so I can’t even take it back to the dealer should it need service. Not to worry, I’ve been yearning for a new highway trailer for some years now.
I found a good 6X10 utility trailer at a farm implements dealer, but I didn’t like the price. As well, when I inquired at the Ontario License Bureau I learned that: “Only livestock trailers are exempt from provincial sales tax,” regardless of my tree-farm status. I was not about to add another 8% to the already-exorbitant rate. Steel prices are high, eh?
Then I found on Kijiji a set of axles, springs, wheels and tires off a large boat trailer. The owner had replaced the running gear with a heavier set to use for a steel dive boat he owns. The kit looked like an interesting way to start a winter project, so I drove to Kingston and picked up the axles.
I decided to find a welder to make this project happen. Peter Meyers was willing. His loader picked the axles out of my utility trailer and I headed off to the nearest metal yard for some scrap 2″ pipe to extend the axles from 5 to almost 7′.
Through a series of email conversations with pals, I developed the following set of objectives for the trailer:
1. transport the Polaris Ranger;
2. have a versatile bed surface available to transport pieces of machinery, as needed;
3. have a stake trailer available to transport logs and lumber to mill and/or market;
4. have the capacity to transport 1 cubic cord of firewood on the highway, as needed.
The occasional 3-ton capacity and the greater smoothness of towing are why I’m interested in a tandem, rather than using just one of the axles. Yet I want to stay with a smaller-is-better principle in its building, as I see little point in hauling around a lot of extra height, width and weight. Removable sides improve the trailer’s potential versatility, but extract a penalty in convenience; i.e: the drive-on-and-forget ease of a golf cart in a 5X8 box with ramp.
The other conundrum has to do with the trailer’s potential length. A ten-footer would carry the Polaris in better balance than a twelve or fourteen, but a longer bed would work better for lumber and logs. Without a back gate a few feet of overhang wouldn’t be such a big deal, though. My son suggested that his sports car is 13.5 feet long. How could he know that?
The other thing is that the Polaris likely won’t venture away from the farm much. The trailer’s far more likely to haul lumber and machinery for use on the farm.
A system of stakes seems indicated by the wish list above. Regadles s of how it looks, I want a tall stake on the right rear to provide a fulcrum for swinging heavy planks onto and off the trailer. I have found that a similar wooden stake on the lumber trailer is invaluable in making the transfer from trailer to pile. I pull, lift one end, pivot and drop, never lifting more than half of the weight.
Maybe a flat bed with cleats on the sides would work. I could use heavy ratchet tie-downs like what the lumber yards use, substituting chains for the really heavy stuff.
Another priority will be to keep the bed of the trailer as low as is practical, given the nature of the axles and tires. A 21″ height would be a reasonable target. I think a pair of ramps will do for access to this trailer. I’d keep the 5X8 for utility loads such as lawn mowers, golf carts and leaves.
Peter Meyers warned about potential trouble with the Ministry of Transport if we build the trailer too big. I don’t want to get into the annual-inspections routine or have to install brakes. The price list at the metal place woke me up. 1 1/2 by 3″, 1/8″ wall square tubing costs 3.60 per foot. Similar 2″ square tubing costs 3.24 per foot. 2 1/2″ angle iron, 3/16″ wall, costs 2.82 per foot. This tends to shorten a trailer rather quickly. Let’s see: 5 1/2′ by 9 1/2′ will do it…
Notwithstanding my son’s hint that his Porsche is 13 1/2′ long, I think I’ll trim as much “weight” as I can from the trailer at the planning stage.
That’s about it, so far.
UPDATE: November 3, 2008
This evening I discovered that there are no books on the subject of utility trailer construction in the Ontario Library System. The best the research librarian in Smiths Falls could do was a Haynes trailer manual in the collection of the Toronto Public Library, but it’s missing. Maybe I should write a book about this project.
Peter and I settled upon 3 by 1 1/2 square tubing for the frame, and he likes the idea of continuing the frame sides on to form an “A” tongue. That will mean hauling 18′ steel home. This isn’t much of a problem: one of the many trailers at the farm is a tri-axle narrow flat bed 17′ long.
UPDATE: November 8, 2008
At a junk yard I ran across three, three by four inch beams, 17′ long and 1/8″ in wall thickness. I couldn’t resist, so I brought them to Peter for use as the main structual members of the frame. Another foray into the used market proved fruitless, so I bought the remaining material (mainly 1/8X2X2 square tube) at Heaslip’s in Smiths Falls. Or so I thought. When I delivered the steel, Peter had been thinking about the tongue and decided that it needs to mount as a V beneath the bed, rather than an extension of it, so I need to pick up an additional 16′ of 3 X 1 1/2″, 1/8th wall. Oh well, over-runs happen. On the other hand Peter cut and lengthened the axles very neatly, then straightened the bent one to where I couldn’t find any evidence of damage. The guy’s great at straightening steel.
The axles are a bit over 3/16″ steel, so I guess the vendor’s claim that they are rated at 3500 pounds isn’t too crazy even if they are only 1 15/16″ in diameter. The springs are 5 leaf, now moved to beneath the axles to lower the trailer bed.
This may turn into a pretty good trailer.
UPDATE: Nov. 11th, 2008
The basic frame is now complete at 11′ 9″ by 6′. The outer frame is made of 3 X 4″ expanded tube, 1/8″ thick, with stringers on two foot centres of 2 X 2. The “A frame” tongue is on the same level as the top of the bed, made of 1 1/2 X 3 expanded tube, with similar reinforcement underneath to take the weight back to the outer edges of the frame. Peter will next turn the frame over onto the suspension and weld on the large tandem fenders. I think I’ll use 1 1/4″ basswood planks for the floor and bolt the planks to pieces of angle Peter welded on to the front and back cross members for the purpose. That way I won’t have to drill into the main structure to fasten the wood, and the hollow steel should stay dryer without holes in it. The basswood will be strong for ten years and then deteriorate, so I’ll replace the bed at some point before that. Clear basswood’s abundant in the woodlot and surprisingly tough stuff, as long as it isn’t trapped with moisture in a cavity. With the lighter wood I can easily keep the trailer under 1000 pounds.
The 6′ tandem fenders I bought at Princess Auto wouldn’t fit the trailer. The existing frame for the fenders had come with the axles, and it was clear that we needed 5’6″ units to fit the space. An Internet search revealed that a trailer store in Stittsville had two in stock, so I gratefully drove in to pick them up. The new fenders also had a teardrop, a rounded lump of sheet metal to occupy some of the empty space between the tops of the tires and provide reinforcement for the flat surface above it.
I asked Peter to rig up out of scrap some sort of “headache bar” for the front to which I can fasten a simple winch for pulling and holding cargo. He’ll also put stake pockets along the sides and front for tie-downs, or in case I decide to build a low picket fence around the perimeter for hauling firewood. I’ll wait and see what I need as a ramp. I do have a couple of planks with aluminum ends from another trailer, so I’ll try them first.
UPDATE: 19 November, 2008
I’ve scrubbed most of the red paint off my hands, but I’d have to describe outdoor painting in late November as a chancy activity at best. The compressor would barely start because the oil was so cold, and when I poured thinned Tremclad into the sprayer I realized that this was unlikely to work. I sprayed around a couple of corners with diminishing success until I gave up and used a roller. That worked pretty well as soon as I gave up any aspiration to do more than prevent rust. The trailer’s a rough piece of equipment, not a show piece, so it was more important to have the metal protected so that I could use it over the winter than to have a gemlike paint job.
The basswood boards went on after two coats of Cuprinol and I worked the rest of a gallon of paint into them, as well. The trailer is now very red.
Next I’ll wire it, then fasten the boards on. It may take a few days for the paint to dry, though, as it hasn’t gotten above freezing for a while around here.
The overall quality of the construction on the trailer seems to be very high. Peter Myers did a great job on it.
UPDATE: December 6th, 2008
The wiring was an interesting challenge on a cold November day. Because the trailer is over 80″ wide, Ontario regulations require a set of clearance lights at the back. Everyone looks at them and speculates about how long they will last, exposed as they are to banks and loading docks. I put the wires inside a conduit so that I should in the future be able to fish a new harness from front to back without crawling around on the ground. The rest of the wiring went well. Clearance lights went onto the ends of the headache bar.
Then when I connected the rig to the truck, nothing but the left signal light worked.
On a hunch I tested the lights with a 12v battery. Everything worked perfectly. The truck was the villain. I replaced the back pigtail and then all but the right hand signal worked fine. For some reason my Tacoma won’t fire the right-hand signal on the trailer, though all other lights on truck and trailer work perfectly. So far in a year of ownership, this is the only glitch that has defeated me on the truck.
The Ranger loaded onto the trailer without difficulty, and so we then had to devise an efficient method of holding the machine in place. When the dealer loaned me his 6 X 12 utility trailer to bring the Ranger home, he simply winched the machine up against the front rail with a heavy strap and left it. The front tires pulled against the railing provided all of the restraint the rig needed for a highway haul.
With a flatbed I figured I’d better do more, so I winched it against the headache bar with a ratchet strap and then attached two more smaller straps from stake pockets at the sides to the trailer hitch at the back of the Ranger.
This proved less effective than a single, strong attachment point at the front, so I added a commercial-grade strap tightener (the kind you use a separate bar to tighten) and installed 7/8″ basswood sideboards to wooden stakes to enclose the bed. This also lined and strenghtened the fenders.
I’m still using four-foot 2X6 basswood planks with aluminum ends as a ramp. For now I store them in the bed of the truck when hauling.
The system is still evolving, but one strap with a heavy hook runs from the strap-tightener to an appropriate hole in the undercarriage of the Ranger. The front tires tighten up nicely against the headache bar and so far nothing has moved during a couple of tows over moderately bumpy roads.
The tandem trailer works very well, with a smoother ride for the Ranger than I expected. That does not mean that the rig is easy to tow. For my four cylinder pickup the one-ton weight is not a problem, but the sail area on the Ranger is quite considerable, especially with the mesh insert which links the roll bar to the passenger compartment. As I wrote before, the beast towed much better with the mesh removed, but now I have the license and the slow moving vehicle sign mounted up there as well, no doubt robbing even more power through wind resistance. I’ll be o.k. in fourth gear for local jaunts. If I need to go far, I’ll remove the mesh grill and use fifth gear on the highway.
Missing my EZ-Go: EZ-Go TXT vs Ranger TM revisited
October 17, 2008
I never should have sold that cart. A good friend bought it and it will do him and his wife for years, but the Polaris Ranger TM is no substitute for a golf cart. It’s too cumbersome. It has to be started and put into gear. I can’t do a quick U turn in the driveway with it. Sure, it’s great off the road and it carries a huge load and it’s much better for passengers, but the best use of a golf cart is to make a series of lightning dashes between the barn and the garage, back to the house, then over to a tractor in the field with a wrench or a can of gas.
Now I walk. No, this is not good for me because I have to walk back, usually carrying something heavy. There’s no way a hundred yard walk with a five gallon can of gas is good for the spine. Without the cart, I now park outside the barn and walk in, rather than blasting through with the EZ-Go and grabbing a tool off the bench on the way by. Now I have to think twice about starting the Ranger up because it uses a lot more fuel than the golf cart.
What’s more, I figured out a year or so ago that it’s way cheaper to drive a golf cart than to walk. A pair of hiking boots is good for about two hundred miles, by the makers’ estimates. Even on eBay, these boots will cost about $100. That’s fifty cents a mile for shoe leather. A set of tires for the golf cart? Forget it. They don’t wear out. Chances are a golf cart will run on twenty-five cents per mile, total cost. And that doesn’t count wasted time walking. I don’t know what the cost of the Ranger will be, but it uses more gas than a golf cart.
Mind you, my walnut production has increased to fit the capacity of my new vehicle. Each trip to the woods brings back three to four times the load the golf cart carried. The Ranger also tows utility trailers without strain or complaint. On the road it really motors, with twice the speed of a cart. For any distance over 100 yards it has a significant advantage over the cart. The four-wheel brakes are also great for dignified descents of hills, especially when towing.
People react differently to the Polaris than to the cart. Many visitors and family members have had a lot of fun with the golf cart, but they saw it as a weak but sturdy toy, something to be bullied and ridiculed, though with a grudging affection, like the time Charlie and Shiva pushed and drove the thing through a foot of snow back to the woodlot, just to say that they had done it.
The Ranger gets more respect. It’s bigger than most visitors, so they look up to it and approve. They also like the way things they load into the back have a trick of staying there, not falling out, as was often the case with gear and the EZ-Go.
I’ll conclude this update with a harrowing anecdote, the last, I hope, in which the Ranger figures: I put a .22 rifle aboard and headed back to the woods to meet with a visitor looking for squirrels. Normally with the EZ-Go I put the muzzle of the unloaded bolt action rifle in the glove compartment on the passenger side, then let the stock sit on the bench seat. Worked fine. This time I unwisely tried laying the rifle, butt toward my thigh, on the broad bench seat. Nothing untoward happened until I blundered onto a new trail cut through tall maple saplings. I was just picking my way through a narrow gap when suddenly the rifle took off, cartwheeling like a Mossberg frizbie out the passenger side of the Ranger and skidding to a halt, butt-first, under the leaves about thirty feet from the seat. That’s when I noticed the maple sapling rubbing against the passenger side of the Ranger. It bore a scar where the front sight had dug in. The seat and the belt retractor had compressed as the tree tried to shear off the barrel against the roll bar, and then the gun found the path of least resistance, cartwheeling wildly to the right off the bench seat.
The laser scope was forcibly dismantled, though I found all of the pieces, put it back together, and it still shoots all right. It might have been a different story had I left a clip in the gun with one up the spout. The clear rule here is never leave a firearm (or any protruding object) on the seat of a utility vehicle while under way.
You can hardly blame the Ranger for this. The problem was the absent-minded geezer at the wheel.
They’re both fine vehicles, but I had underestimated the value of golf-cart-convenience when I made the decision to sell.
Unilingual at the Experimental Farm
October 15, 2008
One of the most splendid public institutions in Eastern Ontario is the Experimental Farm in Ottawa. Originally conceived as a model farm to demonstrate developments in agriculture such as winter wheat, the farm has continued to fulfill its mandate long after progress should have passed it by. The farm is the city’s jewel, an outpost of spacious greenery in a bustling urban landscape.
Walnut grower Neil Thomas has accumulated data on most stands of black walnuts in Eastern Ontario, and in his opinion the trees on Experimental Farm property near the Civic Hospital are the best he has seen. I dropped by to gather some seed after a morning appointment. Staff encourage the gathering of nuts from these trees, and Ottawa friends have reported seeing tree lovers stuffing the green nuts into shopping bags and baskets, laying in their supply for winter while the squirrels scold from above.
After filling all of the grocery bags I could find in my vehicle, I decided to venture over to the Arboretum in search of a shagbark hickory. Leeds County Stewardship Coordinator Martin Streit found one in our woodlot, but it’s a small, scrawny specimen, locked in a death struggle with a towering walnut and unlikely to survive. Martin told me about the edible nuts this strain of hickory produces, so I thought I might try to plant a few if I could find seeds.
Not quite knowing where to look, I did the logical thing: I flagged down a golf cart and asked the driver. She directed me to the Friends of the Experimental Farm building, in the Arboretum just off the traffic circle south of Dow’s Lake. I wandered through a corridor of offices until someone looked out an open door. I asked if they had any shagbark hickory in the area. Blank look. An obvious language problem. I had no idea how to translate my request, but the pleasant-looking middle-aged man turned to the younger man beside him with a quizzical look. “Carya, I think. Let me look it up.” With me in tow he dashed down the corridor to a sort of closet, where he started rifling through a set of index cards. “Yep, carya ovata, not carya cordiformis. There’s one just outside, across the parking lot. Would you like me to show you?”
Away we went out a side door, and across an open space to a beautifully manicured park with a large shagbark hickory as its centerpiece. The man looked at a tag implanted in the bark on an ingenious spring system anchored by two long brass screws. It listed the tree’s Latin name, as well as the translation into the vulgate, “shagbark hickory” and the year of the tree’s planting.
I asked how often it produces seeds. The guy didn’t know, but pulled down an overhanging branch and showed me some. “Go ahead and pick any you can reach. Check back with me if you need anything.” I offered my surprised thanks, and away he went.
Pockets bulging with hickory nuts, I stumbled back across the parking lot, only to encounter the lady on the golf cart again. I thanked her for the directions and asked if they had any butternuts with seeds in the Arboretum. She gave directions to a couple of trees, but saw my blank look every time she used the word “walk”. Hey, my pockets were bulging with hickory nuts!
Before long we were gliding over the lawns in an electric, four-passenger Club Car, her personal ride at the Experimental Farm, where she is a head hand, Ornamental Gardens division. To my dismay I have lost her name. (Madam, if you read this, please post a comment with your name, and that of the other guy, O.K? I need them for a Review Mirror column. Thanks.) Down a grassy hill we zoomed, fetching up at the bottom next to a small aesculus glabra, or Ohio Buckeye. That’s American for a chestnut, I guess. I picked up a nut on the ground. She nodded, so I tore the thick, spongy husk away, to reveal a bright, chestnut-coloured, uh, chestnut. Cool. She told me you can eat them, as long as you don’t overdo it, at which point they become poisonous because of the high concentration of tannin in the nut.
Off we went on our quest for the perfect caryocar nuciferum, or butternut tree. She stopped at two more carya ovata to show me how the young ones grow.
Conversation veered to heartnuts, so the cart took a detour through a tall stand of spruces to the juglans section. I knew that one. Juglans nigra is the black walnut. What I hadn’t known is how many subspecies of black walnut they have growing at the Arboretum.
A large juglans ailantifolia – that’s a heartnut – graced a small knoll next to a dwarf black walnut and a magnificent full-sized black walnut planted in 1885, according to the tag on the trunk.
I explained my desire to learn how to graft heartnut branches onto black walnut rootstock. My guide led me to believe that it might not be hard to time my grafting with some pruning of the heartnut tree at the Arboretum.
Off to the butternut tree. We passed below a tall bluff with a carefully maintained grassy slope to the river below. Sitting on the railing of a parking lot at the top of the hill were a number of dog owners, tossing frizbees and tennis balls down the slope for their eager retrievers who didn’t mind at all having to race up and down the steep hill. The Arboretum has a leashes-optional policy and the dog owners flock to the exquisite park with their charges.
We arrived at the butternut tree and lo and behold, there were butternuts on the ground under it! I’d never seen this many butternuts in one place before in my life. The squirrels nab them first thing in our area. I guess the grays in the park have so many hickories they haven’t had time yet for butternuts. Whoever mowed the lawn had kindly moved a good quantity of the nuts into a pile out of the way next to the trunk
My guide encouraged me to take them and plant them, so I headed back up the hill to the office and my vehicle with a bagful of butternuts for seed, as well as the hickories, two buckeyes, and one pecan.
My V.I.P. tour of the Arboretum could hardly have been more pleasant or informative. This large, friendly park is truly the jewel in the crown of Ottawa’s green spaces, and I encourage tree-lovers to visit frequently.
Thanksgiving Visitors
October 13, 2008
As I passed by the kitchen window Thanksgiving morning I noticed a young coyote lying in the orchard, chewing merrily on an apple. Of course I stopped to watch. The critter’s enjoyment of her prize was obvious, as were her poor table manners. I guess a coyote pretty well has to chew with her mouth open, but she certainly shows a lot of teeth while eating fruit. The apple finished, she got up, moved over two trees, selected a wind-fall and returned to the same spot.
Ever alert, she alternated sharp looks in all directions with great and messy enjoyment of her meal. Her head rolled back and forth in pleasure as she chewed. A coyote reacts to even the slightest sound, so I tried chatting to her through the insulated windows. Every word I said registered on her ears, which turned like radar domes to track the sounds, though I don’t think the rest of the coyote paid much attention to me.
Her feast went on for some time. Once again I found myself marveling at the appetite of the eastern coyote. I remember last summer watching a pair consume an astounding number of mice on a trip across a field. This one must have eaten all or parts of a dozen apples before she eventually ducked behind a hedge and disappeared.
As it turned out the coyote was not the only visitor today. A drunken lout broke the screen out of our front door, disrupting dinner with a crash, only to stagger around the lawn for a bit, then fly away. The male ruffed grouse must have been hitting the grapes again. All it takes is a few falling leaves to startle a tipsy grouse and start it off on a path of self-destruction which often ends at a kitchen window. In this case the screen let go before the poor grouse’s neck snapped.
He must have decided he was in no condition to fly after his crash, because he staggered across the road in front of Bet when she was on her way home. With one look at the oncoming vehicle, he reeled off into the ditch, most likely to sleep it off until morning, and then begin the grape-game anew.
The final vistors of the day were the least welcome: the neighbour’s Holsteins have grown fed up with fences, it seems. While I had thought I had the fence all fixed, the tall black cow was having none of it and she led two of her pals over the rails for a raid on our apple trees.
Charlie happened to be driving the cart at the time with me as a passenger, so I said, “Buckle up!” and we made like a border collie in the open field. This isn’t fun any more, because I had spent all of Sunday morning fixing that fence. What was I to do now? A cow with a belly full of apples is happy to go home, and can be counted upon to find the same hole in the fence, but a hungry one feels much less co-operative, and requires a good deal of urging even to get to the fence, let alone to find a way through it.
The human visitors today were a good deal less eccentric. Charlie and Roz pulled in just in time for a photo session under the maples on the lane – I got to use Charlie’s professional Canon with the state of the art telephoto lens for some soft-background shots of the couple in front of a leafy backdrop. This required some instructions shouted from a hundred feet away: inside the viewfinder there is a galaxy of little red squares. Press a button and turn a wheel and all of the squares go away except for one. Rotate further and that off-centre red square is one you put on Charlie’s nose for a long-lens portrait. The trouble was there were two of them — two noses, and if I tried to balance the picture this camera would focus on the tree fifty feet behind them. That meant favouring one nose or the other. Oh well, at least the focus and colours were good. Charlie can crop the pictures later.
Apart from the interruption of the drunken grouse, Thanksgiving dinner went superbly. Bet had decorated the kitchen with garlands made from the many vines and wild flowers she gathered. Mom did the vegetables, Bet browned the turkey to perfection, and each baked a pie. The fresh garden potatoes were also a hit. After the meal, the various desserts and a clandestine raid on the raspberry patch, Roz found a bag of walnuts Neil Thomas had cracked for me. She plunked down in a lawn chair and started sorting the nut meat from the shells. Conversations came and went, but Roz still sorted. It was a big bag. Charlie suggested it was time to go. “That’s fine. I’ll finish sorting them in the car.” They stayed until the nuts were done.
I must admit that during this superb day I didn’t think much at all about Tuesday’s election. Regardless of the lies, distortions and statistics of the race, no matter who wins things will likely go along pretty much the same as before, and for that we can be truly thankful.
On speechwriters (and plagiarism)
October 6, 2008
Years ago an incoming director of education called us together for a meeting to wow us with a speech and set the tone for his tenure as our boss. The central feature of his presentation was an anecdote about his experience with a little girl who proudly defied her teacher’s assumptions in the classroom. His talk went over quite well with secondary teachers, but our elementary colleagues were livid: most had read Everything I Know in Life I Learned in Kindergarten from which the central anecdote had been cribbed. These teachers were outraged that the leader of a respected educational institution would pass off as his own a story lifted from a current best-seller and worse, that he would be stupid enough to think these rubes in Lanark County hadn’t read the book.
Confronted with the charge of plagiarism on his first day on the job, the director for the next few weeks toured the County, meeting with each school’s staff to deliver a personal apology. These extra meetings further annoyed the teachers, as did his insistence that he had bought the speech from a public relations firm in Toronto and couldn’t really be held responsible for its content.
Why were we so angry? As educators we expected a director to be someone to whom we could look up as our intellectual superior, a leader who had found the position by virtue of his or her ideas. That someone in an exalted position would perform an act on the level of the most despicable, dishonest and underachieving kid in a class, well, it left us a bit breathless.
We had had a lifetime of experience with plagiarists: those who are caught early, show remorse and mend their ways can still do well. Those who succeed a few times in their deceptions quickly become trapped in their mindset and can’t get out of it. From my observation these people usually fail in life. That’s why good teachers try so hard and so early to teach habits of intellectual honesty to their students: we want them to have successful lives.
When it comes to politics the lines begin to blur. Leaders we could admire can’t get elected because of the sound bite and what columnist Alex Strachan called last week “the way the medium trumps the message every time on television.”
In March of 2003 Stephen Harper read in the House of Commons a speech plagiarized from remarks made three days earlier by Australian P.M. John Howard. Perhaps Harper’s writer would have been a bit more careful had he known that Howard’s speech would go into the history books as one of the turning points of the era. What’s the problem? A man who would lead our country is so unsure of his beliefs and the needs of his people that he must steal ideas and pass them off as his own? Then why lead? Politics is a game, and getting power is how you score. That’s all that matters. The rest is just “fairly standard political rhetoric,” as Harper told a CTV reporter after a second charge of plagiarizing a speech from fellow intellectual giant, Mike Harris.
O.K., we can write Harper off as a lazy character who farms out to speech writers the tedious duty of finding words to feed the masses. That makes him a useless sort to many of us, but the ballot box can take care of that.
But even scarier is the Sarah Palin phenomenon south of the border. Palin is a good looking woman with a clear voice, excellent enunciation, and she can read a teleprompter. What terrifies me is the words she will find on that screen and pass off as her own.
After her acceptance speech Robert Kennedy Jr. wrote an impassioned criticism of the use of the quotation: “We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity.” Speechwriter Matthew Scully did not name its author, Westbrook Pegler, and the question Americans must face is whether they should hold Palin accountable for the actions and opinions of the author whom she quoted.
Here’s what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote about Pegler in the Huffington Post:
“Fascist writer Westbrook Pegler, an avowed racist who Sarah Palin approvingly quoted in her acceptance speech for the moral superiority of small town values, expressed his fervent hope about my father, Robert F. Kennedy, as he contemplated his own run for the presidency in 1965, that ‘some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies.’ It might be worth asking Governor Palin for a tally of the other favorites from her reading list.”
I don’t think Sarah Palin is aware enough to realize the implications of this quote. To those who could read the code, though, it was a strong statement that the candidate will be a willing puppet for the far right. By the end of his career Pegler had become so radical that even the John Birch society canceled his membership, yet George W. Bush’s head speechwriter chose to channel his views through Sarah Palin.
We must hold our leaders to a high standard. Money, if wasted, can be re-earned and replaced, but the flow of history is a raging current in a river: unexamined ideas can have irrevocable consequences, because there is no going back. If the speech Harper plagiarized had had its intended effect, Canadian soldiers would have already endured half a decade in Iraq.
EZ-Go golf cart vs Polaris Ranger TM
October 1, 2008
You may wish to read parts two through eight of this review, also posted on this site.
Our EZ-Go has been an indispensable part of life on the farm now for two years. It replaced a two cycle EZ-Go, a 1989 whose engine simply wore out. Its predecessor was a Yamaha G1 rescued from a wrecking yard and resurrected with regular engine rebuilds.
What I learned from the series of carts is that 2 cycle golf cart engines have a life expectancy measured in hundreds of hours; four cycles run for thousands.
The EZ-Go has worked steadily for the last two weeks on the walnut harvest. Each expedition would involve loading a large plastic tub onto the back compartment of the cart (where the golf bags go), and adding various pails as space provided. Off I’d go, cheerfully picking my way over the familiar bumps on the road back to the walnut plantation.
A good morning’s picking would fill a twenty-gallon tub and a couple of five gallon pails. Then would come a leisurely drive up the hill and back to the house. The cart moved agilely along some rather rudimentary trails in the woodlot, its handiness greatly enhanced by a narrow track, short wheelbase, and rearward weight distribution.
The EZ-Go won’t carry a lot in its “trunk”, but the lift-over height of the back bumper is about fifteen inches. Heavy stuff like rocks or a tub of walnuts can swing in there without much effort on the part of the labourer.
The EZ-Go’s two cylinder, 251 cc Subaru/Robin engine is the smoothest small gas engine I have seen. It provides an ample nine horsepower and runs tirelessly. Maintenance is very easy.
Then we come to the Polaris Ranger TM, a new addition to the farm. It was too big for my 5X8 trailer. This caused some consternation, but the dealer lent me a 6X12 for the delivery. Something that almost broke the deal was the requirement that one remove six screws and a plastic plate in order to check the engine oil! Polaris got rid of this abomination the next year, but it might account for why this brand new 2004 was still on the lot.
Like the EZ-Go, the Ranger has a Subaru/Robin engine, a selling point for me. This one is a big, rumbling V2, shaped like a Harley’s. The 653 cubic centimeters only produce 18 hp, so it’s not working very hard. The other two wheel drive Ranger, the 2X4, digs 40 hp out of a 500cc single, but that model costs a lot more. I read an online review which suggested that the larger engine is detuned in order that the top speed be kept under the 25 mph ceiling for low speed vehicles in the U.S.A.
Anyway, to get to the driving impressions of the new toy: from the first trip across a meadow we all realized that the Polaris is a clear winner in the ride category. The downside of life with the EZ-Go has always been its savagely harsh ride off-road. Do the math: the same back springs go into this 700 pound, gas engined machine as go into a four passenger, electric cart which weighs close to twice that amount.
On the other hand, the Polaris has adjustable back shocks to dial in ride stiffness. In full soft mode for the test drive, the thing floated majestically over the rough fields, even when I used a burst of speed to encourage the neighbour’s cow to return home. There is simply no comparison between the two in the ride department. The Polaris seats three adults side-by-side on its tall bench seat. My elderly mother quibbled a bit about its height because her feet didn’t touch the floor, but insisted that the ride was still comfortable for her while she drove.
As far as cargo hauling is concerned, the EZ-Go handles one large tub of walnuts, with perhaps a five gallon pail or two on the cockpit floor in front of the passenger seat. That’s a lot of nuts, but the Ranger easily holds four tubs and a bunch of pails in its dump box. The liftover height is a killer, though. It’s too high for heavy items. From now on I’ll set tubs of walnuts into the box with the loader or else tow them on a trailer. The golf cart wins hands down in the ease of shuffling aboard a heavy object. Another cargo advantage which goes to the EZ-Go is capacity to handle long objects. I learned last winter that the easiest way to bring a few 16′ boards to the planer is to slide them through the cockpit of the cart from front to back. They balance harmlessly on the dash coping and the rear sweater rack. This trick has proven a real work-saver.
The other thing the EZ-Go is unsurpassed at is sanding an icy driveway. In the fall I fill a few large plastic tubs with salted sand. Under normal circumstances I carry two tubs in the loader of the tractor when sanding is needed, but if it is too icy to walk, getting on and off the tractor safely becomes a problem. I have learned that one tub on the back of the cart is much more manageable than the tractor. Getting on and off the cart is safe because of the handholds provided by the top, and the EZ-Go’s traction is more than adequate for use as a sanding vehicle. The “trunk” is all plastic and I don’t think it has suffered at all from occasional sanding forays.
The Ranger’s plastic dump box isn’t pretty, but it seems well enough designed, apart from the liftover height. Things don’t seem to fall out of it on a rough trail, it dumps easily, and of course it holds a great deal of whatever one sees fit to pile into it.
The Polaris handles the narrow golf cart trails quite well when you consider that it is 16″ wider than the EZ-Go. Two wheel drive isn’t a problem at this time of year, though the differential lock is handy when the drive wheel spins on a rock or stump. Both machines are good in the woods, as long as trails are halfway civilized.
Even with a roof in place, a golf cart is very easy to tow behind a mid-sized vehicle. It feels as if it belongs back there. The Polaris on the borrowed 6X12 trailer nearly stalled my four cylinder pickup truck until I figured out that the mesh grate below the Ranger’s roll bar was sucking power away. I removed the grate at first opportunity, and then it towed well, though the extra weight and the roughness of the larger trailer were obvious.
As far as costs go, a good golf cart can still be found for around $3000, and all it needs is fuel. Overhead is delightfully low on a golf cart. The Ranger costs almost double that, requires $250 for liability insurance or about $450 annually for all perils coverage. The license is a one-time $35 charge.
So why did I buy the Ranger? It handles much heavier loads than a golf cart, the ride is terrific, and it can be used as a miniature truck. When time for spraying comes, the equipment will likely mount on the Ranger. While I still think an old tractor and trailer is the best rig for hauling out firewood, I can see the Ranger taking a larger role as I get too old to climb nimbly onto a tractor seat. Certainly it will come in handy in the future for moving fuel from woodpile to boiler in my shop. The Polaris Ranger TM is a long term investment, but I would probably have stuck with the golf cart if not for the bone-crunching ride over rough terrain.
Update: September 22, 2008
Today I ordered a portable garage to shelter the Ranger from the elements. It’s too much work scraping the frost off that seat in the morning, and it’s better to have the box dry for tools than to have to muck around the accumulated wet leaves to find something. On another level, the Ranger gives every indication of being around the farm for a very long time, so I might as well protect it from the UV. It’s finding its niche nicely, though I do a good deal more walking than I used to when served by a golf cart, most of the trips arising from a reluctance to sit on a cold, wet seat in the morning. The golf cart’s roof really did make a difference.
I almost forgot: the Ranger’s box makes a handy workbench. It’s a good height for that, at least. If I slide scraps of wood into the slots for racks (2003-4 only) they keep boards from sliding backward off the box when I balance a load across the back, though I need a wide, treeless lane when moving long stock to the planer.
the Walnut Diary 