Monday, April 28, 2008

Shading and contrast-On Blue View Lane

Shading and contrasts- On Blue View Lane

Spring is full upon us now. The leaves grow hour by hour, like butterflies emerging from their chrysalis with their many shapes. In the north when spring shouts it shouts loud and quick.
The contrast overnight has been astounding. Trees that were bare are filling to full. Those that were budding have grown inches of green. The world is closing in, my views of water to the south obscured by a hundred poplars. The birch and maple are halfway full, and the earliest fruit trees down the road, some ancient cherries, are now in full bloom. Others, cherries both tart and sweet, apples, apples, apples, and peach and apricot will begin to blossom in a few more days.
Sun or cloud. It should be a week of beauty...A week of change and constancy

And a progress report: we planted 8 fruit trees in front of our building on Saturday and Sunday. Small ones, their branches trimmed, cherry-Mount Morency Red tart, and Regina sweet, Blazing Star Peach, and Honey Crisp apple. I hope by next year they have blossoms.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Trillium Rising

I sing a song to Trillium
A flower so sublime
It likes the light
A bit of shade
And not too much
Sunshine.

Friday, April 25, 2008

It is Arbor Day

Arbor Day

At the Blue View Lane Center for Pollen Research we celebrate Arbor day during the same week as earth day. In Michigan it is the final Friday in April...Today....Whoop-ee.

It has been one beautiful week here at Blue View Lane, slightly north of the 44th parallel, overlooking Torch lake and lake Michigan. The blues of the water against the white birch, the reddish maple buds, the darker cherry have combined for magnificent vistas. What a spot.

Arbor Day, Earth week, why do we celebrate, why do we notice, why do we worry, why do we observe? The Answer is we cannot help it. Even of we do not set a date we notice. It is impossible not to sense the spring. Mankind takes note because we are as natural as the trees, the sky, the wind and rain. We grow and wither like the forests. Our essence comes from the natural world. It is when we lose track of this that we have problems. We celebrate so we don’t forget, especially in springtime when the animal portions of our DNA just cannot not notice. Sap runs in humans too.

Man’s finest creativity, his art, his buildings, his sculpture, fiction and music all come from the natural world. Rodin with his sculptures, his people with their lengthy limbs- roots into the earth. Mahler with his moody reverent nature (listen to the third, the sixth sympony) Van Gogh with his sunflowers, Monet-his water lilies, Aron Copeland and his Appalachian Spring, Stravinsky’s Sacre du Printemps.

And fiction.... It is everywhere from Moby Dick, the struggle ... Ahab’s demonic Great White Whale. To this random and hastily selected bit of boat and sky from my second novel, 'A Builder's Tale'.

‘The glorious blue North of earlier in the day had retreated from the sky and with the winds shift East arrived greater humidity and clouds. The horizon going a flat bruised yellow-gray, and the water, no longer the azure of the morning, now turned a forceful stormy tarnished silver. The wind continued to build as he spun the Anomie bow first to the waves. The halyard clanged as he raised the mainsail, flapping snapping to the winds whistling increased howl. Wilson shut off the diesel and let the Anomie slide off the wind, due North, into a quartering, building, white clotting sea... the little sloop turning from form to function.... Becoming alive.’ See http://www.jmatsonheininger.com/

To this perfect opening passage of Ken Kesey’s magnificent second novel ‘Sometimes a Great Notion’, which says it all.

"Along the western slopes of the Oregon Coastal Range....come look: the hysterical crashing of tributeries as they merge into the Wakonda Auga River....
The first little washes flashing like thick rushing winds through sheep sorrel and clover, ghost fern and nettle, sheering, cutting....forming branches. Then through bearberry and salmonberry, blueberry and blackberry, the branches crashing into creeks, into streams. Finally, in the foothills, through tamarack and sugar pine, shittim bark and silver spruce- and the green and blue mosaic of Douglas fir- the actual river falls five hundred feet....and look: opens out upon the fields.Metallic at first, seen from the highway, down through the trees, like an aluminum rainbow, like a slice of alloy moon.............."

WOW!

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Europe is moving back into coal

The high price of oil, the regulation on new nuclear plants, and the world's abundance of coal, is causing the countries of Europe to back away from their commitment to clean energy. Europe needs electricity and it is choosing coal. While the new coal plants are excellent against pollutants, and particulates, the technology does not currently exist to capture co2 which is the bane of the planet when it comes to global warming. This is causing alarm in green circles. The new plants are designed to last fifty years, possibly severely adding to global warming unles carbon capture technology evolves. This is discussed further in this article from the New York Times







Tuesday, April 22, 2008

THINK GREEN IN PENNSYLVANIA

Save the nation
Save a bee
And please
Get Rid of Hillary

Monday, April 21, 2008

SAVE THE BEES IS OFF AND RUNNING

During the last week, we have put our scholarship program in motion, and contacted Michigan State University about our research site. Our spring is unusually warm. The trees: birch, beech, ash and maple, which along with conifers make our forest, are in a race to meet the summer.

Soon, we will be displaying photos of the miles of orchards which fill the land around us, set as foreground to the deep blues of Torch Lake and Lake Michigan. Every day for the past week has been a 'belle jolie'.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Politics meet the Bees

Or should I say Politics meets the environment. Or oops it doesn't. The environment is an important issue to voters. Things are heating up. The water's rising, the cities will be sweltering soon, and part of the reason food prices have been going up is the Ethanol boondoggle...or is it.

These are all issues which should be in discussion in the Presidential debates. However; on Thursday, Sephanopolouse (the spelling is on purpose) questioned no one, not a bit. Now this gets back to Deeply Imbedded's post today, which you can get to by just clicking down the page to your left. Big business ( no surprise here) seems to be in charge and they do not like the losing money to the environment any more than they liked Edwards or than they like Obama. Read article with graph.

And just a reminder Haagen Dazs may love the bees, but they love money more.





http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/19/opinion/19blow.html?hp

Friday, April 11, 2008

BUSY AS A BEE

There once was a bee
From Botswana
Where the climate is
Much like a sauna

Work made him dizzy
He was not very busy
He spent his days
Saying manyana

Green Gadget Page

Good Morning and Alert-Alert. I plan to set up a Green Gadget page and link, for, you guessed it, cool green gadgets, whatever I find, and if you like them and we get feed back we may include them as products available at SaveTheBeesShirts.com-to be up and running yet this weekend. Do they make Green Golf Clubs, Green Tassle Toed Weasle Shoes...NO... but they do make green Zappos. Check them out I have red ones.

Also the Center for Pollen Research Moves forward...Tree planting the end of the month.

Meanwhile, here is a link to a national geographic site about Green Buildings.

Be Green-Be Great

Save the Earth
Before

It becomes
Too Late

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Plastic Containers and your health.

Hi ho and a happy green spring to you, and a pleasant morning as well. The last few days there has been conversation in the news of the safety of plastic containers. This seems to come and go, they're safe, they're not...they're-hell we don't really no. They may give you cancer like everything else...Silent Spring...thank you Rachael Carson.

Well to set your mind at ease about this issue go to this swell site. And then go fill up that plastic water bottle with beer and go for a long bike ride. Just kidding. We recommend stillsuits a la Dune, or one of those multi-port personal hydration systems... or a stream where you may get ghiardia...live dangerously!




Tuesday, April 8, 2008

The Mystery of the Anasazi

Twenty two years ago I took some French folks , who had entertained me in Chamonix, on a tour of the Southwest. Utah, Colorado, Arizona. All Europeans want to see the Grand Canyon. The Mafiols, I had skied the extremes of Chamonix with their son, were astounded by the lack of wine in Utah, kept repeating Tres Vast, Tres Vast in amazement at the expansive vistas of our beautiful country, and were dumbfounded as I explained to them the departure of the Anasazi from Mesa Verde (of course this might have been my imperfect French).

Today, there is an article of the whys and perhapses in the New York Times. Scientists are still speculating, drought, alienation, wars...a new God... We will never know. However this Photo Album tells a story.







Monday, April 7, 2008

Green Buildings

Yes we will be talking to you about more than bees here. And, as I continue to finish my simple cottage, the most modest and most environmentally aware building I have ever designed or built. A structure of glass, foam concrete walls, great insulation....a hybrid of a simple cottage and Phillip Johnson's glass house. I will, on occasion, burden you my reader with my choices to save big and little bucks, build simple and save the environment too.

Win-win... I us to say no way but sometimes it is true.

So, here is a link and here are pictures of designs and homes And now the purpose of this post, a link to a whole house electric water heater. I chose Stiebel Eltron. There are others. There are gas ones too. The gas needs a vent and that is why I did not use one. The electric: it might as well be a toaster, albeit a much more complicated one, but almost just as easy to install. ( If you want advice on this contact me through my profile page) Fast as an electron in heat: I will get back to you.

Friday, April 4, 2008

Haagen Dazs-fun bee site

Yes folks, we are all about bees these days and Haagen Dazs has a fun site.
My New Blog
Hi folks, inspired by my continued research into the declining bee population, along with my purchase of Peach, Apple, and Cherry trees, both tart and sweet, to be planted this spring on my Michigan property. I have started this new blog SAVE THE BEES. Soon you will be able to puruse articles on this site about the environment, the bee population, green building, and global warming. Save the planet, and feel swell doing it. Also, you will find links to the website Save The Bees Shirts.com... Here, you will find shirts and caps and other assorted envirocentric products to be worn as you wish, and just in time for your spring and summer wardrobes. Purchase a hat a shirt. Support research and the Scholarship we are establishing to send a local student, or students, (it depends how much you want the products) to Michigan State University.

Remember to sing the save the bees song ( see the left side of the page) every morning.

Honey Bees Vanishing at an Alarming Rate

See article