$2M For Cleaning up the DUMP?

 I realize that the dump leaking and giving up its treasures is a problem for the town, but just building a revetment that will only last twenty years and then need replacing again is not to my mind, a very fiduciarily responsible way to spend that kind of money on a temporary fix!

Just what are we going to do with all that junk that is worming its way out of the ground? Well apparently we are not going to get it off the Island! If I read that article in the local paper correctly, we are just going to dig it up and move it to another location on the same piece of property. How dumb is that? So now all my grandchildren are going to be looking at subsidizing  another move of the same junk in the future!

Just what are the priorities of this town council when it comes to saving the dunes on the east beach and the keeping of the junk from crawling out of the ground and getting into the ocean  Which one takes precedence ? Which is the most likely to to happen first, to the huge determent of the town?

I have  mentioned this before in another forum, that if the town really wants to do something to forestall the disaster to the this burg that would occur if we were to get another Storm Sandy or one or two of even worse destructive power, I think the following would be the best course of action to follow. It would last for at least one hundred years. It is this:

Take all the stones, rocks, boulders, etc. that the State put put up against the dunes and roll them all out onto the beach. Bring in a company that would drive into the sand, pieces of thick steel bulkhead material of at least sixty foot length and pound them into the ground leaving about ten feet sticking out. Then roll back all those boulders along with however many more were needed to provide a good solid eight to ten foot thick buffer in front of those steel bulkhead plates. Fill-in behind them with rocks and clean fill. Leave a space of about ten to twelve feet from the edge of the road to the bulkhead and fill it with concrete to create a promenade along side the road for walkers and bicyclists.  Start as close to the Surf Hotel as would be deemed necessary and continue to the north to at least just past the State/Town beach.

I would think that $2M would advance the bulkhead  project to get pretty close to there! Going past the Beach House would entail leaving a small gap where the windmill turbine cable comes ashore.

When we get to that point, then would be the time to go pissing up a rope trying to mitigate the whole dump farce!  Bringing in a bunch of granite boulders and dropping them in front of the oozing junk would soon see them falling into the undermined sand from wind and tide, and the ooze would continue on it's  way into the ocean. You have to have something to stop the undermining of what ever you put in front of your bulkhead, and undermining to a depth of forty feet is going to probably take a few hundred years at least.

Anybody got another solution that is reasonable? Anyone?

TIFN

  

IS IT SPRING YET?

I can't really remember the last time we had such a cold Spring for so long into April. But with my memory being what it is, it was probably just last year! Anyway I am sick to death of the damned cold weather.

Still getting all the plots tuned up and ready for the planting, which I hope to commence shortly. I have quite a few things going on in the High Tunnel.  I have 16 Bell pepper plants up about a foot and 18 leaves. Swiss chard is about a foot high and being eaten already. Spinach, Rhubarb Chard, Kohlrabi, and Romain lettuce are all up and doing well.

My 20' row of high yielding eating peas are about a foot up the large long trellis. Hope they will climb up to about head high. Have a bunch of basil plants in the House Green House That will be planted in front of the peas. I also have about sixty Marigold and sixty Nasturtiums plants to be interspersed among the different vegetables to help keep the damned bugs away.  I also plant Mustard plants among some others to help with the bug chasing.

We have eight Snow Crown Cauliflower. This early bunch are for summer eating, and about twenty five cabbage plants for making Sauerkraut later on, as well as a few just to eat over the summer, and a few to store for the winter in the root cellar.

Now I mean to tell you, keeping those GD cabbage loopers out of them is a chore and a never ending job! I don't use chemical pesticides on my plants. Mostly Bt and pyrethrin dust. But the absolute surest way to get rid of those loopers is to take a badminton racket and turn them into a white cloud of dust with one stroke, IF you can hit them!!!   My granddaughter Dakota does an admirable  job of disposing of them. I suppose the fifty cent bounty on them helps to incentivize  her too!

I noticed again today that there a couple of more of the accursed signs up along the roads. I would like to know just who the hell it was that initiated this, "supposed study", who was it done by and just who paid for it? All unanswered questions. Was this done by one of our local boards/commissions? Or was it some State entity. What I think we need is for the 'sign vigilantes' to ride again!


I am posting these things on my Facebook page, but am not sure how many folks see it so I am going to put the address of this blog right here so you may log in directly if you wish to make a comment! And it is: IslandVoiceII@blogspot.com.

SO I will be very happy to hear from you, and we can talk about any subject that interest you as related to BI and it's environs! Anyone who is interested in gardening and has seen what I am doing at my place, please come on over and we can talk about it. The one thing I WON"T be doing anymore is tilling up the ground to plant! Come on over or write a note right here, and I'll start bending your ear!

TIFN

A Blight on the Landscape!

Went out for a Sunday afternoon ride around the Island  about three weeks ago. Not an unusual thing, but this time we noticed that there were a few new traffic signs having been put up. It was a cause of some wonderment as to why in these places, and we thought no more about it till the ensuing Sunday arrived.

As we progressed around the Island we discovered a plethora of new sign sproutings! All over the damned place!  Not just one or two,  but on one curve/corner alone there were nine individual  signs to tell the unwary driver just how to negotiate this bend in the road! Well we began to have a few discussions as to why all of a sudden the influx of obtrusive signs.

We kept on talking about them as we started our third subsequent Sunday trip around the Island, only to find that there had been even more of these obnoxious yellow beacons of portending doom sprouting up like unwanted dandelions of toad stools! We are now totally infested with the damned things1

I would like to know WHO decided all these signs had to be put up on virtually every corner or curve and every hill, up an down the length of the Island. Was this just on the whim of some single person or group in the town? Or was it all at the behest of  the infamous DOT?

It looks like some traffic engineer came out here for a weekend and saw all these totally dangerous curves,  bends, and steep inclines and was aghast that they were not "signed up"!

I would also like to know just how in the hell all we local inhabitants managed to survive out here all these years, traveling at the maximum allowed speed of 25 MPH,  and have not all wound up in the ditches and bushes! Traveling at 40-50 MPH or more, might  cause one to inhabit those said bushes and ditches, and it has happened on occasion.

So were these signs then inflicted on us solely to warn tourists of the dangers of rounding these bends? If you are driving at 25 MPH on these roads, around all these sharp curves and mountainous inclines, and you don't have the mental processes that would allow you the reaction time to navigate said curves, YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE A DRIVERS LICENSE!  You could probably have a cat nap from the time you saw the curve coming to the time you had to start turning the wheel!

So I  would like to start a letter writing campaign to our Town Council to get the damned, ugly, and way too numerous things removed from the roads! Hell you can't see the weeds along the road for the big yellow signs blocking the view!

TIFN

Cheese and Garden stuff

Well since the last wheel of cheese back there in early Feb. I have gotten the two devices to regulate the water temp and the latest attempt at a traditional Cheddar went a lot easier1 Not much faster because there are long waiting periods between each phase of the process. But this one came out really well although a little lopsided because I didn't have the press follower centered very well. But it is in the cave and waiting for at least 6 months before eating it!

Been making many more Minibed on plastic frames as I have a lot of ground to get covered with them. I have 46 done and need another36!

Have ordered and received five more of the billboard tarps. These are 11 mil thick and should last a good long time. Up to ten years so I am told. When I get through getting the tarps anchored in the dirt and the frames on them and secured, I'll be ready to go. There will be NO MORE WEEDING for me in any of the gardens! Some small ones may sprout before the actual seeds I planted germinate and take hold.

Inside the High Tunnel all is in readiness and I have planted three MBOP,(mini beds on plastic) already. I put Swiss chard in one, Kale in another, and some mixed lettuce in the last of the three. That particular;ar batch of seed was 6 years old so I don't think it is going too sprout! So in a couple of days I'll be planting some '18 seed of the same type.

Nice to have the root cellar all done and working! Have plenty of potatoes left and none of the white taters have even started to sprout! Usually have had to rub off the eyes a couple of times in past years.
The Pontiac Reds and the Red Norlands, being early taters HAVE started to sprout a couple of times and I don't think they will last till the middle of next month or so. Going to rub them off again tomorrow and see what happens.

Got 22 RIR chickens and one rooster  and am getting 23 eggs a day! Either one of them is laying two a day or that rooster has the wrong internal plumbing!!

Well I guess that is it for this time. If anyone has questions or comments would love to hear them!    TIFN

Cheese

I have gotten myself involved in the art of making cheese. Thought I'd try doing just a simple one like cottage cheese for the first outing and it worked out pretty well.

Next up was one called Quark. No not those ones flying around out in space. or going through my house at light speed. This is an old original one developed about 5-6 hundred years ago. It is also a soft one and ready to eat just as soon as you are done with the making it part. Goes good spread on hot toast with made just a touch of homemade blackberry jam smeared on it.

Now it is time to try one that actually set me on this  course in the first place. Cheddar, the King of cheeses as far as I am concerned. I guess the Queen award would have to go to Rogurfort,(sp). But back to the King. This one takes a little longer to age before you can eat it. It is called Farmhouse Cheddar, but it is kind of bland and pure white when first out of the press. It tastes like a cheddar but with overtones of feta slipped in there somehow. I let it age in a cool environment for about 30 days and just had to try it. It is a little crumbly but has started to develop a bit of a tang on the tongue. So I am eating the third quarter of that one. After rewaxing the last quarter piece, put it back in the storage place for another month or two to see what develops.

For the fourth  attempt I went for doing a Traditional Cheddar. This one is a lot more involved than the Farmhouse one. There are a few more steps to this process that eventually gives you my favorite  tasting cheese. "Cheddaring" is the actual process of cutting and stacking the cheese curds into strips, and turning them every fifteen minutes or so, all the while holding them at a constant temperature in a pot surrounded with hot water at a very specific temp.

Because of difficulty of getting the water to an exact temperature, I'm not sure how my latest attempt is going to turn out. But won't know for sure till 6-9 months down the road. Since that last time I have bought a device to immerse in the water to keep it heated and also a device that automatically regulates the water heater to maintain that oh so critical temp!

So tomorrow morning I am going to put all my new found information and gadgets to the test and will begin the second of what I hope will be a bi-weekly affair of starting a new cheese to feed to the masses, Well at least to my family. If it is eatable, I may pass out a few tastes albeit grudgingly!

TIFN

Calling a Spade a Spade

Well “The Donald” is at it again! Calling a spade a spade and Not a Heart or a Diamond. And it is just driving all the poor little snowflakes into hissy fits of unimagined proportions! Oh my God! How can he possibly say that about those countries? Well let me tell you something, In my 20 years in the US Navy I was in quite a few of those shitholes. Not up in the hills and mountain tops where all the rich or well to do’s abide, but down in the towns/cities in the poor sections. Around the docks, and the slums. Have any of you folks who are world travelers with pockets full of money, ever been down in the nitty-gritty parts of the cities you visit? Have you been down there where the “sewer system” is  a trench that runs the length of the Main Street and into the local river or harbor? Where people just walk out to the middle of the street and lift their clothes a mite, do their business and walk off right through the latest deposits in their open topped sandals? Well have you? Go too Karachi Pakistan, Mombasa or Assab,Ethiopia, go over to Cochin, India. How about into Angola to the capital city? Mozambique has a whole row of shitholes running from north to south that they call home.

These are the places that feed us all those chain migration folks! Can’t blame them for wanting to run from their abject poverty, but there is no good reason why we should accept them all when they become a drain on all of our resources, to the detriment of our own tax paying citizens.

They have migrated to enclaves here in the the US and are speedily turning large tracts of our country into the selfsame shitholes they came from. Go to Baltimore, Chicago, Places in Minnesota, and others all over this country and see for yourself just what is happening!

Go to the library and check out Toynbee’s Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire and you can see right where we are headed if all the policies of the previous four or five Administrations are not reversed. Especially the last one where he/it was going to ,”fundamentally change the face of the US of A!

TIFN

Repair of a Linguini (inguinal) hernia!

When I first went to see a doc about the pain in the gut way down low and to the right, after he checked  it all out he turns to me and says I have a "Linguini" hernia down there. Well it kind of made sense to me cause the pasta stuff looks a lot like a plate full of guts when it comes right down to it! But it t'was an inguinal  hernia, DUH!

So off I went to the South County hospital yesterday morning. In at 0730, into the OR at 0950, and in recovery by 1030, and not one piece of spaghetti leaked out on the floor!

Now comes the fun part for the next few days till the pain goes away and then six to eight weeks of picking up nothing heavier than a gallon of milk. Kind of puts the kibosh on outside work involving raking, shoveling etc. I guess I can go ahead and screw a bunch of the pieces of precut 2x4x27.5" stock into 52 more of the minibeds for my next springs garden.

Going to actually finish a Piper Cub R/C kit that I started two winters ago. Just got the servos, receiver and a couple other small items needed to finish it.

Then on to the reloading bench to turn some of my components into real live ammo. Got to be ready when that Zombie Apocalypse arrives. Or at least a few of the gone awry snowflakes !




TIFN

Be Scared! Big Storm coming!

Well as usual in this screwy state just because Mother Nature decides to dampen us a bit, all the Weather Guessers on the tube are claiming that we are going to be in dire straits because we MAY get UP TO eight inches of snow sometime in the next 36 hours!

So I guess I'll go right out and buy a generator, a truck load of bottled water, and another of batteries. OOOH, I must not forget to go by the bakery and buy all they have!

See you later after I get all dug out next spring!


TIFN