Bearhat Mountain

Bearhat Mountain, 1994.

I traveled through Glacier National Park with a field class from Saint John's University in 1994 - my study was on freshwater ecosystems and invertebrate population densities, specifically, mayflies, stoneflies and caddis flies. 14 years later, after putting my studies into considerable real world practice, a friend asked me what mountain or what mountain range the photo was from. I couldn't answer with anything better than Somewhere between Sandstone Minnesota and Port Angeles Washington. Turns out, it's called Bearhat Mountain and it's along the pass leading into Glacier National Park...seems like the kind of thing a person wouldn't forget. There is a rock formation, near Dillon, Montana, looks a lot like a Beaver, or a Sakagaweea, depending on the lighting. And another in the BWCA, that looks like a bear.

I don't think this looks much like a bear's hat, is all I'm saying here.

Happy Thanksgiving.

(save now)
(save now)
(pause.........)
(building suspense....)
(save now)

Bread, part 2

Mixed up another batch of bread, this time with

Organic white bread flour
Organic Wheat bread flour
All Purpose Flour
oil, egg, salt, honey, sugar
Ground dry Oatmeal
yeast
Levain

After resting a levain of water, pinch of yeast and flour for 24 hours, I mixed the levain in with Water, egg, honey, sugar, oatmeal, oil and wheat flour.

After mixing this into a smooth consistency with a whisk, I added the remaining organic white flour and some All purpose flour.

After the dough had been shaped, I rolled in the salt.

Bread, part 1

Here's this bread recipe I've been working on, it's a little rough, but if you follow it closely, you should wind up with four loaves of nice fully risen bread.

You'll need a big bread bowl, 4 loaf pans, measuring cups and spoons.

Organic Wheat and white flour.
Honey
Dry uncooked oatmeal
Yeast
Salt
Sugar
Egg
Canola oil

Measure 5 cups of very warm water, pour into the large bowl.
Add two whisked eggs
Add 1/2 Cup of sugar
Add 1/2 Cup of honey
Add Two Tablespoons of Yeast
Add Two Tablespoons of canola oil

Whisk all of that together for about a minute, so it is a yeasty solution.

Blend 4 Cups of uncooked dry oatmeal in a food processor, to the consistency of flour.

Add the processed Dry Oatmeal to the starter, again, whisk this solution.
Add 4 Teaspoons of salt*
Add 6 Cups of Organic White Bread Flour
Add 3 Cups of Organic Wheat Bread Flour

A word about salt,
"It is extremely important to use salt correctly, for undersalting results in insipid flavor while oversalting alters flavor and impedes fermentation." -Maggie Glezer, Artisan Baking

This may result in a slightly wet or dry loaf. Compensate for this by adding a little flour or water as necessary - the heavier and drier the loaf is, the more difficult it will be for the bread to rise against its own density. The wetter the loaf is, the more likely it is to not maintain a shape.

Knead the loaf into a smooth large ball of dough, preferably on a cleaned and prepared workspace - a countertop or table works well for this. After kneading, place the kneaded loaf back into the large bread bowl and allow to rise for at least an hour.

After the first rise is completed, you should have a larger, more porous piece of dough. Place this onto your workspace, use some additional all purpose flour if necessary for handling or shaping the dough. Cut the dough into four equal chunks. Each chunk of dough is then sliced into three pieces, rolled out and braided.

After each of the four loaves are braided, place each into a separate bread pan and allow to rise for another hour, or until the loaves are at least an inch above the edge of the bread pans.

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees, bake for 32 minutes.

Congratulations, you made honey oat wheat bread.

*Another way to add the salt is to combine all of the ingredients, form a large ball of dough and knead the salt into the dough...if you're that worried about it.

Next time, a sourdough. With a levain.

Obligatory Matt Damon quote from Good Will Hunting -

"See, the sad thing about a guy like you is, in 50 years you're gonna start doin' some thinkin' on your own and you're going to come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life: one, don't do that, and two, you dropped 150 grand on a fuckin' education you could have got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library! "

Followed by an obligatory Robin Williams quote from Good Will Hunting -

"Personally, I don't give a shit about all that, because - You know what? I can't learn anything from you... I can't read in some fuckin' book."

Love those libraries.

November 18th

This morning I had breakfast with my father, as we have been doing together since August of last year, when I moved into Grand Avenue in St. Paul. He paid for breakfast, as he has been doing for a long time. Even back as a kid, we would go to breakfasts together after church once in a while. Meg's Last Chance Cafe in Stillwater, on the corner of Main and Mulberry, which was the video arcade, before being made into Meg's last chance Cafe, was one of our favorite spots, also The Main Street Cafe, The Oasis, Savories and Perkins.
These days, here in St. Paul, we have been going to The St. Clair Broiler, Trotters, Coffee News Cafe and The Neighborhood Cafe next door to Cahoots on Selby Avenue. There is something nice about sitting down every friday and hashing over some old topics, and having the chance to catch up with my dad, who spent his career as a physicist for 3M, developing data storage techniques in a research department, (think tank), which eventually made computer data storage what it is today. Believe it or not, I don't care. I enjoy breakfast.
Today we talked about a book I had just finished reading, called River-Horse, about a man who travels from the Eastern coast of the Contiguous United States, through rivers and channels all of the way to the Pacific ocean, out of the Columbia river in Washington / Oregon. I wrote a review of it on Goodreads, and will link a copy of that review to this page. My dad's passions have always been bicycling, sailing, coaching and community involvement.

I have this memory, of playing soccer on one of my dad's VAA teams.

Another kid my age, named Toby, had a father who was a coach. Thobias, as I will call him now out of respect, and I knew each other all through high school. He was the Lemmon to my Matheau. For every effort I made to excel at music or soccer, Thobias was there, seemingly infinitely more capable of success and focused thinking than I. Anyway, Thobias's father was also a coach, and apparently didn't speak a word of English. Even during the game, he's standing on the sideline, screaming at Thobias in German...we were probably 10 or 11 years old, and for some reason the game carried a weight to it, even then. This foreigner was trying to beat my dad! I remember losing the game on a penalty kick - I was the goalie. Thobias actually scored the winning goal and strategized the screen play that made a quick penalty shot into what would forever stand in my mind as an astute play. I told my defense to make a five man wall, to help shield part of the goal. Thobias in turn, added three or four of his own players, to screen my vision of the shot. I never saw the penalty kick, just the ball going into the net.

This was 25 years ago.

This morning, my dad picks me up at nine in the morning, takes me to breakfast and tells me he still hasn't read his own copy of Cadillac Desert, which I read eight years ago. I tried to explain once, to a friend, the difference between a mountain and a river, from an allegorical perspective. One is defined by its obstinate lack of change, the other by its constant evolution - in that disparity are eons of erosion and flow, but little room for lack of definition.

Anyway, here's my review of River-Horse. A little Passage to Juneau, a little Cadillac Desert.

River-Horse by William Least Heat-Moon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Passage to Juneau had many of the same sentiments as this book. William Least Heat-Moon captures a quick summation from one of the strangers he encounters, "When a man takes to the road, he is running away from something. When a woman takes to the road, she is looking for something." While he tracks a course through the Midwest, having started from the East Coast of America, carrying a liter of the Atlantic ocean in a mason jar, William Least Heat Moon seems intent on holding himself to some ideal. He briefly mentions two marriages, as though the loss of those is not as important as the quest he imperils himself upon. Passage to Juneau frequently speaks of the author's distress and heartbreak, and occasionally allusions can be made to the sailing habits and the emotional status of the author. Taking port in a storm, as it were. The intent of that novel, it seems, is an attempt by the author to re-establish his sense of competence and self-worth in the aftermath of losing his wife. River-Horse, in turn, seems less involved in the sociological well being of William Least Heat-Moon, and more involved in describing the accomplishment of a goal.

To that end, I don't think Least Heat-Moon was specifically running away from anything so much as he was swimming upriver for the challenge it represented. After dumping his liter of the Atlantic ocean into the Pacific, he announces the journey complete, and turns his boat back East; considering the thousands of miles and hundreds of strangers he meets along the way, the ending seems anti-climactic.



View all my reviews

11-11-11 Bike ride

I got out on my 2005 Specialized Allez today, and wrestled with the triple crank for 68 miles. Sunny and bright four hour ride around and through the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, including the shady lowlands of Fort Snelling State Park, the resplendent Lake Minnetonka, the 12% gradient Ramsey hill and of course good folks.

11-10-11

Photo Source mn350.org

This is the bike I will be using to get around this winter. It's a single speed Raleigh xxix, with disc brakes and a very smooth direct drive. I don't have a lot more to say about it.

I have not owned a car for over two years.
I still walk and bus and ride my bicycle as much as possible.
I am still unemployed.

From a very distant perspective, this is beginning to feel like an argument about class, gentrification and wealth. A lot of the dishwashers I knew at restaurants rode their bikes to work, and didn't blog about it. Then again, a lot of guys probably darn their own socks.

In other news, the Keystone pipeline was stopped. Bill McKibben and 350.org demonstrated the power of democracy for the benefit of our ecology.

Darning socks

Repairman: [pointing to a Good/Evil switch on the back of the doll]
Yup, here's your problem. Someone set this thing to ``Evil''.




I've got some nice socks. I've had a lot of really good socks, in my life. And right now, I've got some really nice, warm, toasty, form fitting socks. Skiing, biking, running, every day walking around the city or riding the bus socks. There's a great poem by Pablo Neruda about socks-

Maru Mori brought me
a pair
of socks
that she knit with her
shepherd's hands.
Two socks as soft
as rabbit fur.
I thrust my feet
inside them
as if they were
two
little boxes
knit
from threads
of sunset
and sheepskin.

My feet were
two woolen
fish
in those outrageous socks,
two gangly,
navy-blue sharks
impaled
on a golden thread,
two giant blackbirds,
two cannons:
thus
were my feet
honored
by
those
heavenly
socks.
They were
so beautiful
I found my feet
unlovable
for the very first time,
like two crusty old
firemen, firemen
unworthy
of that embroidered
fire,
those incandescent
socks.

Nevertheless
I fought
the sharp temptation
to put them away
the way schoolboys
put
fireflies in a bottle,
the way scholars
hoard
holy writ.
I fought
the mad urge
to lock them
in a golden
cage
and feed them birdseed
and morsels of pink melon
every day.
Like jungle
explorers
who deliver a young deer
of the rarest species
to the roasting spit
then wolf it down
in shame,
I stretched
my feet forward
and pulled on
those
gorgeous
socks,
and over them
my shoes.

So this is
the moral of my ode:
beauty is beauty
twice over
and good things are doubly
good
when you're talking about a pair of wool
socks
in the of winter.

-Pablo Neruda

Unfortunately, a few pairs of my favorite socks got holes in them, from wearing them too much, or especially wearing them while wearing shoes with holes. I did a google search yesterday about darning socks, asked at a couple of nearby businesses and found a shop that sold a suitable wool for darning lycra / knit blended socks. Here's a link to the blog I found with a good post about darning-

http://zigzagstitch.wordpress.com/2009/02/26/how-to-do-it-darn-socks/

and here are some photos of the work. Socks darned in this blog: Smartwool and Darn Tough.

Etiquette

What follows is a craigslist posting and thread. I have no idea who the people are who replied, and I hereby make no verification of the situation

like triangle < mlmck > 10/23 13:35:51

I like a woman who is in love with a man who dislikes me. Every time I attempt niceties, he gets angry, wants to hurt me and becomes violent. The woman in question puts herself between he and I and subjects herself to abuse, coercion, manipulation and subjugation. She emerges from these conflicts with an appeasing attitude, as if nothing bad has happened, and hopes for continued peaceful resolutions to future conflicts. Then the cycle repeats. My kindness has become less and less out of fear that she will be hurt, and now feel that being mean to her will be the only way to prevent any interaction which might instigate conflagration, conflict or altercation. Any suggestions?

cut ties with all of them, after you give her < some-pamphlets > 10/23 13:53:23
from the local women's resource center on the different kinds of abuse.

wow! can I join? jk jk < curious-yaya > 10/23 13:53:33
I play on the other side of the fence?
Sounds like you like drama bud. Gimme a break.

If you really loved her you would leave her < - > 10/23 14:41:33
so she wouldn't be abused because of you. Stop thinking about yourself & walk away. She's made her choice. Stay out of it.

They are playing a game, you are the pawn § < stay-away > 10/23 15:17:50

1-800-JERRY-SPRINGER § < O_Rosio > 10/23 16:02:01

she's playing you like a cheap violin § < DrBallParkFrankley > 10/23 17:58:10

Can I play with your fiddle, DrBallParkFrankley? § < Tyler777 > 10/23 19:50:41

^^ a new troll § < DrBallParkFrankley > 10/23 20:51:42

Sad < GramaBeachyKeen > 10/23 22:15:45
This post doesn't say if you are male or female but it doesn't really matter. This man is a control freak and will do whatever to drive people away from HIS woman. She encourages this behavior and by making nice.Cut bait, run like hell. It will only get worse.

Let it go. You are a 3rd wheel. < - > 10/23 23:33:20
She doesn't value your friendship enough to stand up to him. You are only making problems for you and her.
Sometimes you have to take a stand to show people what you're made of; is her friendship worth it? I wouldn't have much respect for her. She loves someone who doesn't seem capable of loving her (he doesn't show it).

Cut ties with both of them as suggested. < EricTO > 10/24 08:22:46
It can be nicely gently and nicely. Tell your friend you are doing so because of this repetitive pattern. And ask her has she stopped to consider how much she values your friendship to keep putting you in this position? The cynical side of me causes me to suspect that she is subconsciously enjoying the drama.


Is he only like that when you come around? < - > 10/24 08:45:45
How do you know what he is like otherwise?
If he only gets like that around you/because of you, then leave them both alone.

ultimatum time < Bubbleface > 10/26 06:42:40
Either distance yourself from trouble, or give woman an ultimatum to leave the bastard, or you will be history.

Pottery class #2

I registered for another pottery class through the Community Education Program in St. Paul, this time at Central high School. Rather than working off of one communal piece of clay, I was given a block of clay to work with, and proceeded to kick and pull my way through it. I have been told a couple of times now by other members of the class that working on an electric wheel is a little easier, but after five weeks in the class, there has only been one instance when an electric wheel was available for use. The electric wheel runs on a right footed pedal which adjusts the speed of the revolving pottery wheel similar to a car's gas pedal- the kick wheel I used in the first class, earlier this year, was a spinning wheel, pushed counter clockwise with the right foot, while the wheel for this class uses a left footed pedal to spin the wheel either counter clockwise or clockwise.
The clay is also different, a white talc rather than terra cotta. A second block of clay was purchased after finishing off the first, with a result of thirteen fired and glazed pieces. The second block of clay is Raku, and has yielded eleven pieces, all of which are in the trimming, firing, glazing and finishing stages now. After working through the first class, and making a lot of pieces that were off balance, uncentered, uneven, thin-walled and thick-skinned, only to destroy them by pulling them off the wheel and walking them to the slurry bucket, I tried reshaping those pieces by reforming the clay after pulling a piece off the wheel. This might have saved clay and might have resulted in slightly better pieces, but the majority of the first thirteen from this class are also misshapen, off balance, uncentered and unessential.

Only 9,962 more pieces of thrown pottery before I'm a master potter.

(autosave)
(autosave)
(autosave)
pause....pause...pause...
(autosave)