The Paradigm Has Officially Shifted

This really caught my attention. Two of the periodicals I subscribe to, Wired and National Geographic, featured biofuels on their cover this month. National Geographic features an ear of corn on the cover, while Wired shows us a tuft of switchgrass. This seems appropriate to me, since NG tends to focus more on what is already happening, while Wired is much more future-oriented with a heavy emphasis on technological solutions to what appear to be intractable problems.

In my opinion, the NG piece is much more informative and balanced, in that it looks at a lot of the potential sources of biofuels--corn, sugar cane, soy beans, and cellulosic ethanol (which can actually be made from just about any organic matter containing cellulose, including switchgrass) and algae. They talk at some length about the trade-offs inherent in burning crops in our gas tanks, including the displacement of human food production and the subsequent conversion of wildlands into new fields and pastures.

Both articles are good, and although the NG piece mentions the dubious EROEI (energy return on energy invested) of corn, neither one is honest about the impossibility of continuing our profligate use of energy to move ourselves around in 6,000 pound hunks of metal. There just isn't enough arable land in the world to make that happen.

So I think it's good that our society finally seems to be waking up to the impending oil crisis, but there still seems to be a lot of denial about the incontrovertible fact that we are going to have to make a lot of fundamental, transformative changes to our lifestyles, economy, and political institutions. Hopefully that part will be in the next issue. :)

Getting Local With Food

This past Saturday was the 9th Annual King County Harvest Celebration Day. A bunch of farms around the county had an "open house," and invited the public in to walk the fields, ride a hay wagon, pick some produce, and (my favorite) eat some fresh veggies. We spent most of our time at Fall City Farms, where Herban Feast cooked a very nice roasted veggie pizza with goat cheese from the Raging River Farm, just down the street.

The boys watched an apple press in action, then drank the cider. They picked carrots, broccoli, and monster zucchinis. Liam got to play the Medium Billy Goat during a story telling session. And last but not least, they got to pet baby goats, a calf, and a baby yak. It was quite a day.

Yes Virigina, Global Oil Production Really DID Peak Last Year

This is a pretty powerful graphic. It illustrates that global oil production has not increased since the July 2006 peak, and shows a number of production forecasts that predict(ed) an oil production peak before 2020. The notes accompanying this graphic are worth reading, as is the rest of the extremely detailed post on The Oil Drum in which it appears.

We are entering a new world, and the effects are just now starting to be felt. There are many indications that the transition will not be a smooth one (for example, see here, here, and here), but there is reason to hope that there could eventually be some fairly positive outcomes, especially if we get busy RIGHT NOW. The re-localization movement is one effort in particular that gives me some reason to feel optimistic that we might be able to handle this transition.

Dormer--DAY 9

The guys have started framing the new interior walls. Dave also raised the ceiling throughout the entire second floor by about 5", which will be really nice. I also wanted to point out that Liam has been selecting his own clothes and dressing himself for some time now, and he has clearly inherited my adventurous fashion sense.

Dormer--DAY 7

Things have slowed a bit from the initial rapid pace--Dave and his gang of merry nail bangers are working on more of the details inside now, and there have been meetings with various subs--plumbers, roofers, electricians, etc. However, Burke did bust a move on the deck.

Dormer--DAY 5

At the end of Day 5 we had a roof and a wall. These guys are moving fast!

Dormer--DAY 4

Day 4 was, perhaps understandably, a bit shocking, because this was the day the cut a HUGE HOLE in the roof of our house. Not for the faint of heart.

Dormer--DAY 3

Day 2 was mostly prep work for the big, big job of day three, which was putting in the 30' long, 18" thick beam that will carry the load from the new dormer and distribute it down the sides of the house and on to the foundation. This was a huge undertaking, and I wish I had photos of the acrobatics Dave and his helper had to go through to get this thing in place. I think he took some photos while they were doing it, and if I can get a hold of those, I'll post them here.

Dormer--DAY 1

The first day was DEMO day. Our builder, Dave, and his helpers gutted our entire upstairs. Pretty drastic change, eh?!?

The Dormer--BEFORE

We live in a small house that is over sixty years old. The basement was converted into an apartment before we bought the house, and we rent it out to help defray our mortgage. However, that leaves us with only one bathroom for the four members of our family, and even though Lochlan has not yet started using the toilet regularly, those days are not too far off. So we decided to put a dormer on our second floor, which will include a new bathroom, a reading room, and a second story deck. Here is what our upstairs looked like before the construction began.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation, Part III--AUGUST

August was the month of Amy the Amazing Organizer. Liam turned four, and Amy planned his entire birthday party (I think I bought ice). She also instigated and planned a block party on our street for the National Night Out, and continued to stay on top of the construction project that is currently underway on the upstairs of our house--but much more on that in future postings.

It is hard to believe that our baby is FOUR! I think most parents understand how quickly children grow up, but before we had kids I didn't really 'get it'. Now I do. Liam had a great time opening his presents in the morning, and in the afternoon we had a birthday party at Woodland Park with all of the usual suspects--Colin, Max, Liam Prestia, and all their siblings and parents. Liam invited several additional friends, but they were all out of town. There was a pinata, cake, a red rocket ship made out of refrigerator box, and much running around through the woods playing monsters and super heroes.

I moved my office out of the house and into a nearby Activspace. I will be there for the duration of the construction, and depending on how it works out, I may stay there. But I also like working from home, so we shall see.

Lochlan really started picking up new words this month. One morning in particular stands out--Liam was still asleep and Lochlan and I were playing in the front room. He picked up a little wooden train, held it up in front of my face, smiled, and said "TRAIN!" He's also continued to say 'ball', 'mama' 'da' and will say 'wup wup wup wup' whenever one of us says 'helicopter.'

We also managed to fit in a visit to the zoo, catch-and-release crab hunting in Padilla Bay, a bit of canoeing around the arboretum, and a hike in the Cascades.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation, Part II--JULY

July was another fun month, packed with camping, visitors, super-duper hot weather (for Seattle, anyway), and Amy and I celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary.

In the second week of July temperatures in Seattle got up to around 100 degrees, and for a city that just doesn't do air conditioning, that can be pretty uncomfortable. So we headed out to Mora on the Olympic coast, and that was a pleasant 25 degrees cooler than the city. The boys loved hanging out on the beach, looking for giant banana slugs in the old growth, and of course, more smores!

We don't usually give each other big fancy presents when we celebrate 'the big day', but this year I decided to make an exception. I bought Amy a double sea kayak! The best part of all is that she was completely surprised. It was a fair bit of work to keep everything on the down-low, but when I brought her outside and she saw it strapped to the car the expression on her face was completely worth it.

Towards the end of the month my brother Andy and his S.O. Rhea came to visit us for a few days. We had never met Rhea so it was good to get to know her in person. We hung out around Seattle for a few days so she could see the sights, then we all headed up to Fort Ebey State Park on Whidbey Island. We camped with the Moore-Ireland and Mahoney-Schaefer families (yes, we are one of the few non-hyphenated families in our circle of friends), and Liam was of course delighted to cruise through the woods with his buddies Colin and Max. Lochlan was happy to play with their younger siblings, Darby and Lily, but he also still tried to keep up with the bigger boys. I think this is why he started running. We brought the sea kayak along, so on the second day Andy and I paddled around Puget Sound for a bit. That was fun! It brought back a lot of memories of the epic tour we did in Southeast Alaska about 14 years ago. Amy took Liam out the next day, and at first I think he might have felt a little intimidated being in a big body of water in such a small boat, but overall I think he enjoyed it.

We also released the native butterflies we grew in our butterfly tent. It was really fun (especially for Liam) to watch the caterpillars spin their chrysalids, hatch, dry their wings, and start fluttering around the tent. We had eight butterflies in total.