Morale Compass

Several times following the break-in at the cafe we've been asked "did they catch them yet?"  Reading the local suburban paper which now is published every other week, I see that about ten other businesses have been broken into by throwing something large through a window.  Propane tanks seem to be the choice recently.  I've been observant, watching for skinny punks carrying propane tanks.  Most skinny punks smoke.  I'd assume we could check all the local non-smoking programs and nail these people given the warning on tanks to not smoke.

Once in a building they simply kick the sheetrock out from space to space.  Those are walls for people who have some level of values, at least as we conventionally define them.  In Iraq the citizenry pulled the copper wire as quickly as the US Dollars put it in place.  That was the value there as conventionally defined.  You did not leave you home empty because someone would come in.  We leave our homes empty all the time.  This year we're all going to grandma's house but you, Bobby, get to skip that, stay home and watch TV w/ your AK-47 at hand.

No "they" have not caught them and if they are caught it will probably be a year on probation.

Fall
For at least twenty-five years I've been planting trees each spring.  In many

ways this was planting food for more deer.  Now I fence or use tree protectors on almost everything put in the ground.  The survival rate of my white pine (Pinus Strobus) plantings is correlated with the deer population.  I like wolves.

 The deer hunters dislike wolves.  Apparently deer hunters dislike white pine trees, too.  White pines can live to four hundred years and some five hundred in Wisconsin and Michigan.  One percent of the old growth forests remain from the extensive logging occurring into the early 20th century.

Pre-colonial white pines could be as much as 230 feet tall.  From about fifteen years of age on they grow approximately three feet per year.  Some of my early plantings are growing at that rate, now.  Along the lakeshore I put up wire fence to discourage the beavers.  Conventional wisdom indicates that beavers will not take down pines because the sap gunks up their teeth.  I've not found that to be true. 

The leading portion of the white pine produces a bud cap which deer love.  Once they eat that the trees destiny as a 230' Tree of Peace (Iroquois) has ended.  The bud capping process needs to occur each fall to discourage the deer.  Here in MN I do this before deer season.  Typically we'll get at least one wet snow which requires doing it all over again.  I've had very good luck using 3M Post-It notes.

This tree stuff all falls into the category of work for which there is no pay, there will never be any lumber harvesting and for which many simply say "why?"  For some reason, perhaps because of being a midwestern flatlander, I think adding height to the other four dimensions of our morale compass is good.

Time
The small business calls.