We went hiking in Greenbrier State Forest with dear friend K, and Rhodi, who tolerated a brief photo shoot.
Showing posts with label West Virginia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label West Virginia. Show all posts
Sunday, March 11, 2018
Saturday, January 13, 2018
Blowing Snow:
A Story:
I live in a big house at the bottom of a big hill, with a window that looks out onto a driveway and parking lot at the bottom of said big hill, in a valley, near a river, in a Mountain(ous) State. Well, at least the ones they haven't blown up yet.
This makes for very interesting wind and weather. When snowflakes flutter and swirl and float around, it's so beautiful, sometimes nearly hypnotic. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) video and photographs really don't capture it or do it justice. So I usually just look out my window every few minutes and take it in for a while. It's truly lovely.
And then a someone with a "Friends of Coal" license plate shows up and parks like an asshole and roars their tricked out Mustang's engine.
But then they go away, and the snowflakes remain.
The End.
I live in a big house at the bottom of a big hill, with a window that looks out onto a driveway and parking lot at the bottom of said big hill, in a valley, near a river, in a Mountain(ous) State. Well, at least the ones they haven't blown up yet.
This makes for very interesting wind and weather. When snowflakes flutter and swirl and float around, it's so beautiful, sometimes nearly hypnotic. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) video and photographs really don't capture it or do it justice. So I usually just look out my window every few minutes and take it in for a while. It's truly lovely.
And then a someone with a "Friends of Coal" license plate shows up and parks like an asshole and roars their tricked out Mustang's engine.
But then they go away, and the snowflakes remain.
The End.
Thursday, October 05, 2017
And now, my day today
Another tantalizing photo that sorta shows how my day went:
It was mostly uneventful. Just lots of driving, and dealing with various hardware stores and stuff.
Saturday is "build some raised beds" day.
It was mostly uneventful. Just lots of driving, and dealing with various hardware stores and stuff.
Saturday is "build some raised beds" day.
Sunday, September 24, 2017
Breakfast Sammie!
With artistic background and slightly diffused morning light.
That's sourdough, green onions, sauteed mushrooms and garlic, and vegan cream cheeze.
Plenty of fuel to go run a farmers market!
Friday, September 08, 2017
$10?
There are so many important things to be donating to right now, if you are able. It's a tough time in many places in the world. I'd ask you to consider one more, that might be a little off of the mainstream radar, in West Virginia.
Especially if you know me personally, I'd ask you to (once again) consider donating $10 to this really outstanding cause, and sharing / spreading it to your friends to encourage them to do the same:
https://razo.io/iUS2r8
The concept is for you to donate $10, and encourage nine others to do the same, to end up with a cool $100. If you donate and let me know, I'll personally match $10 for everyone who does. And if you can give more, well... of course!
The Alderson Hospitality House is very near and dear to my heart. We do really important work here, providing literally thousands of room nights, and thousands of meals annually, to families visiting women incarcerated at the nearby federal women's prison. We also provide hospitality for women who are self-surrendering to the prison, as well as families coming to pick them up when their time is done.
The Hospitality House receives zero funding from any government, and runs entirely on donations. There is no expectation of any payment or donation from our guests, and for many the travel expenses, time off of work, etc., are enough of a financial stress.
Our guests come from all over the place: we have a map with pins stuck in it representing 49 US states. (I like to challenge guests who are looking at the map to find the one state without a pin. It's not necessarily what you'd guess: both Alaska and Hawaii have pins! Kathleen likes to claim that the remaining state use to have a pin in it.)
And, related/unrelated: please be good to the people in your life. Call them. Email them. Visit them. Hold space for them. Support them. Love them.
Especially if you know me personally, I'd ask you to (once again) consider donating $10 to this really outstanding cause, and sharing / spreading it to your friends to encourage them to do the same:
https://razo.io/iUS2r8
The Alderson Hospitality House is very near and dear to my heart. We do really important work here, providing literally thousands of room nights, and thousands of meals annually, to families visiting women incarcerated at the nearby federal women's prison. We also provide hospitality for women who are self-surrendering to the prison, as well as families coming to pick them up when their time is done.
The Hospitality House receives zero funding from any government, and runs entirely on donations. There is no expectation of any payment or donation from our guests, and for many the travel expenses, time off of work, etc., are enough of a financial stress.
Our guests come from all over the place: we have a map with pins stuck in it representing 49 US states. (I like to challenge guests who are looking at the map to find the one state without a pin. It's not necessarily what you'd guess: both Alaska and Hawaii have pins! Kathleen likes to claim that the remaining state use to have a pin in it.)
And, related/unrelated: please be good to the people in your life. Call them. Email them. Visit them. Hold space for them. Support them. Love them.
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Farmers Market breakfast sammich!
With a Lunchbox Pepper where I know the farmer and bought it from him, and green onions where I know the farmer and bought them from her.
Now if only there was a local bagel shop so I didn't have to have it on a supermarket bagel. Ah well, still pretty!
Friday, August 18, 2017
Saturday, August 12, 2017
What I did with about three hours of my day
Yes. Really. This took me about that long.
I reminisced back to the 10th grade, when I had a drafting table to use, rather than just a picnic table. It would've cut at least an hour off of the project.
This is a piece of sign metal I trashpicked. I still need a yellow permanent marker to fill in the arrow on the bottom (which will be covered on one side so that it's not just a tease.)
One of the things that I learned (remembered) is that I should always letter right to left.
I reminisced back to the 10th grade, when I had a drafting table to use, rather than just a picnic table. It would've cut at least an hour off of the project.
This is a piece of sign metal I trashpicked. I still need a yellow permanent marker to fill in the arrow on the bottom (which will be covered on one side so that it's not just a tease.)
One of the things that I learned (remembered) is that I should always letter right to left.
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Make Your Own Pizza Night!
At the "Little House". After a full day of work, and then a community meeting about riverfront improvements.
Onion, vegan sausage, daiya, and avocado (not pictured). On K's homemade pizza dough.
Yum.
Friday, May 26, 2017
New to us!
After a couple months of flooring repair, and then a ridiculous run-around to get the carpet installed, RP is finally fully open again!
Sunday, May 21, 2017
Guest room reboot!
Here's what I did with my afternoon, with before and after pics:
Finished the hardwood flooring repair, built a couple of beds, put down a couple area rugs, while we're waiting (2+ months now) for the carpet installation.
It's a little rustic, but we have another guest room back on line!
Finished the hardwood flooring repair, built a couple of beds, put down a couple area rugs, while we're waiting (2+ months now) for the carpet installation.
It's a little rustic, but we have another guest room back on line!
Thursday, May 18, 2017
Food Pantry: a rant
This is most definitely not food porn.
Trigger warnings: poverty, systemic oppression, capitalism, sadness, anger.
This is what 120 bags of groceries look like, packed today, for distribution at the Food Pantry tomorrow morning. It's basically one each of: small can of green beans, small can of kidney beans, small can of string beans, small can of beef ravioli, a 6 pack of ramen noodles, a box of corn flakes, a concentrate of cranberry juice, some sugary granola bars. The big "treat" is that we have real, brand-name Pop Tarts to give out tomorrow. We don't have a lot, and they'll go quickly.
When I get there at 8:00am to set up, there will already be a line for the 9:00am distribution.
Also tomorrow, currently in the the freezers, there will be (one per bag) bread, and (one per bag) desserts, from the Kroger Manager's Special "Woohoo" (closeout/expired) department, and cheap meat. People are already excited that some of it is, unusually, frozen chicken breasts. Until they run out, then it's the usual of (one per bag) eight-pack of shitty hot dogs. Yeah: Woohoo.
In order to qualify for one bag of this, you have to prove that your household GROSS monthly income for a household of one is $1,276 or less. For a family of four, $2,628 or less, then you can have two bags. And so on. Add $345 for each additional person after eight.
It's fucking heartbreaking.
This isn't meant, in any way, to cheapen the heartfelt commitment and love of the people who packed these bags, many of whom I'll be distributing them with tomorrow morning. They're kind, beautiful people.
Rather:
WHO THE FUCK ARE WE?
WHAT IN THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?
How the fuck are we spending untold billions on foreign wars? How is the West Virginia legislature spending approximately $35,000 per day in extended session having stupid ideologue arguments about the budget, while people are barely getting by?
Remember the concept of the War on Poverty? To paraphrase a song / story lyric from (fantastic, amazing band) Dry Branch Fire Squad, his grandmother had been fighting the War on Poverty so long, she went down to the courthouse and offered to surrender.
Well, here in rural West Virginia, many are still fighting the War on Poverty. They're not surrendering. But they're most certainly on the losing side.
Today I helped pack a lot of food, half of it junk, none of it enough to meaningfully sustain a household of even one for even a week. Tomorrow I'll help give it away, and load it in people's cars, helping many people who can barely walk, much less carry a bag of groceries.
And these people will all struggle through another month.
And we'll do it all again next month.
While the West Virginia Legislature increases regressive sales taxes, and lowers income taxes.
And don't be confused: this isn't just a West Virginia story.
Look around. See if your city/town/community has a food bank, a food pantry, a soup kitchen, a homeless shelter, human beings living in cardboard boxes under freeway overpasses, in doorways. Living in the woods close enough to walk in to do day labor, if they're lucky enough to get a backbreaking job for a few hours, with no benefits, no work comp, no day to day reliability, because they're an "independent contractor". Being arrested for the crime of being poor, and homeless.
I assure you, you do. Look around.
This is ALL of us. Many of us are lucky enough that we don't have to live it daily. Think on that for a minute. Or sixty.
Trigger warnings: poverty, systemic oppression, capitalism, sadness, anger.
This is what 120 bags of groceries look like, packed today, for distribution at the Food Pantry tomorrow morning. It's basically one each of: small can of green beans, small can of kidney beans, small can of string beans, small can of beef ravioli, a 6 pack of ramen noodles, a box of corn flakes, a concentrate of cranberry juice, some sugary granola bars. The big "treat" is that we have real, brand-name Pop Tarts to give out tomorrow. We don't have a lot, and they'll go quickly.
When I get there at 8:00am to set up, there will already be a line for the 9:00am distribution.
Also tomorrow, currently in the the freezers, there will be (one per bag) bread, and (one per bag) desserts, from the Kroger Manager's Special "Woohoo" (closeout/expired) department, and cheap meat. People are already excited that some of it is, unusually, frozen chicken breasts. Until they run out, then it's the usual of (one per bag) eight-pack of shitty hot dogs. Yeah: Woohoo.
In order to qualify for one bag of this, you have to prove that your household GROSS monthly income for a household of one is $1,276 or less. For a family of four, $2,628 or less, then you can have two bags. And so on. Add $345 for each additional person after eight.
It's fucking heartbreaking.
This isn't meant, in any way, to cheapen the heartfelt commitment and love of the people who packed these bags, many of whom I'll be distributing them with tomorrow morning. They're kind, beautiful people.
Rather:
WHO THE FUCK ARE WE?
WHAT IN THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?
How the fuck are we spending untold billions on foreign wars? How is the West Virginia legislature spending approximately $35,000 per day in extended session having stupid ideologue arguments about the budget, while people are barely getting by?
Remember the concept of the War on Poverty? To paraphrase a song / story lyric from (fantastic, amazing band) Dry Branch Fire Squad, his grandmother had been fighting the War on Poverty so long, she went down to the courthouse and offered to surrender.
Well, here in rural West Virginia, many are still fighting the War on Poverty. They're not surrendering. But they're most certainly on the losing side.
Today I helped pack a lot of food, half of it junk, none of it enough to meaningfully sustain a household of even one for even a week. Tomorrow I'll help give it away, and load it in people's cars, helping many people who can barely walk, much less carry a bag of groceries.
And these people will all struggle through another month.
And we'll do it all again next month.
While the West Virginia Legislature increases regressive sales taxes, and lowers income taxes.
And don't be confused: this isn't just a West Virginia story.
Look around. See if your city/town/community has a food bank, a food pantry, a soup kitchen, a homeless shelter, human beings living in cardboard boxes under freeway overpasses, in doorways. Living in the woods close enough to walk in to do day labor, if they're lucky enough to get a backbreaking job for a few hours, with no benefits, no work comp, no day to day reliability, because they're an "independent contractor". Being arrested for the crime of being poor, and homeless.
I assure you, you do. Look around.
This is ALL of us. Many of us are lucky enough that we don't have to live it daily. Think on that for a minute. Or sixty.
Saturday, May 13, 2017
Pickle in a Blanket!
You probably can hardly tell under all that goodness, but that's a pretty classic PIAB.
Gonna go build some ramps so I can get the riding mower into the park now. Long story.
Saturday, April 15, 2017
blood and gore
I don't recall if, in over 1,300 posts, I've ever posted a yucky picture of a body part. (I happily specialize in beautiful food and bicycles.) Well, why not? First time for everything, right?
Here is what I had done yesterday:
The technical name, like many things in medicine, makes it sound abstract (or at least not so yucky): ablation. The reality is that the doctor (in this case, my wonderful smalltown family practice doc) cuts out half (or sometimes all) of your toenail to fix a constantly ingrown toenail.
I first had this done on the other big toe when I was 19, and it took three months to get an appointment with a podiatrist at Kaiser, and hurt like hell. A week ago when I went in for a tetanus shot (gored my leg on rusty barb wire while hiking in the West Virginia woods) my doctor was like "yeah, sure, I can do that. Do you want a full ablation or just half?" The procedure yesterday didn't hurt at all.
So anyway, this is what it looks like when you get half of your big toenail cut out.
/EOF
Here is what I had done yesterday:
The technical name, like many things in medicine, makes it sound abstract (or at least not so yucky): ablation. The reality is that the doctor (in this case, my wonderful smalltown family practice doc) cuts out half (or sometimes all) of your toenail to fix a constantly ingrown toenail.
I first had this done on the other big toe when I was 19, and it took three months to get an appointment with a podiatrist at Kaiser, and hurt like hell. A week ago when I went in for a tetanus shot (gored my leg on rusty barb wire while hiking in the West Virginia woods) my doctor was like "yeah, sure, I can do that. Do you want a full ablation or just half?" The procedure yesterday didn't hurt at all.
So anyway, this is what it looks like when you get half of your big toenail cut out.
/EOF
Monday, March 06, 2017
building from random scrap
I'm building a pigpen. No joke: a pigpen.
This is OSB I'm cutting strips from to tie together panels I cut from 100 year old doors that would have otherwise been bulldozed (since they were part of the June 2016 flood.)
More photos (may or may not be) coming soon!
This is OSB I'm cutting strips from to tie together panels I cut from 100 year old doors that would have otherwise been bulldozed (since they were part of the June 2016 flood.)
More photos (may or may not be) coming soon!
Friday, March 03, 2017
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
SAUERKRAUT.
While not necessarily the prettiest photo of this food porn blogging binge,
the sauerkraut prep is definitely my favorite. Two big heads of cabbage that lead to one decent sized crock of sauerkraut. It's been a while since I made sauerkraut, and needless to say, I'm excited!
the sauerkraut prep is definitely my favorite. Two big heads of cabbage that lead to one decent sized crock of sauerkraut. It's been a while since I made sauerkraut, and needless to say, I'm excited!
BANANA BREAD!
We had a whole bunch of extra bananas:
So I made five loaves of banana bread:
Received many nice compliments. A couple folks were baffled that it was vegan.
fsdsdffds
So I made five loaves of banana bread:
Received many nice compliments. A couple folks were baffled that it was vegan.
fsdsdffds
ONIONS. YES.
Kinda of amazing how this many ONIONS:
results in only this much (delicious) caramelized onion:
Catching up now on West Virginia food porn blogging. More to come!
results in only this much (delicious) caramelized onion:
Catching up now on West Virginia food porn blogging. More to come!
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