Chautauqua

We spent most of the day, from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM
at Chautauqua. Climate and Energy Action Heroes was
the title of the conference. The morning session
was a panel discussion and the panelists included
Jim Kuntsler who wrote "The Long Emergency," Patti
Limerick a CU professor and head of the group
called "The American West," Gary Hart, former
Senator and presidential candidate, Hank Brown
who is the current President of CU and former
State Senator. The moderator was Richard Brenne.
Richard is a very energetic young man who has
become involved in convening all sorts of panels
and conferences and discussions on climate, energy
and sustainability of our lives and culture.

Kuntsler started out with his statement which, true
to his book was very depressing. He harps on Peak
Oil and how our technology won't solve the problems
we are facing and this time he added comments about
the stupidity of the American people and the Nazi
Palin. Patti added her concerns about the issues,
but suggested being totally pessimistic was counter
productive. Getting people to act was not likely to
happen if you tell them what they must do and that
they are stupid if they don't. She sighted examples
of her teaching philosophy of leading rather than
cudgeling. Gary Hart told of his frustration since
the 1970s of legislation not being passed to raise
the gas tax, among other things. And then it was
Hank Brown's turn and he immediately attacked Kuntsler
on his political hate language and how counter productive
that was and how that kind of language has gotten
us into the mess we are currently in because our
politics has become so polarized that if the Dems
want something the Republicans automatically say no and
vice versa. That calling Palin a Nazi was the height
of irresponsibility. Then Patti jumped in and
seconded everything Brown said and added more. It
was pretty hot and heavy for a few minutes and the
moderator was having no success in turning it around
when one of the other panelists whose credentials I
missed jumped in and radically changed the subject.

The only new thing I heard and I was grateful for
was that there should be a new definition of GDP and
that should include, instead of profit, the new
business model should be innovation,
sustainability, and social responsibility.

After the morning session we had lunch which was
a Texado barbecue catered by Daddy Bruce barbecue
stand and hosted by the Chautauqua residents from
Texas. It was good food and we sat with a young
couple and their two children who had moved to
Boulder a year and a half a go, from Virginia. They
love Boulder and I was reminded of my past when we
first moved to Boulder although the young man is
employed and she is a stay at home mom until the
kids, ages 3 and 5 are both in school. We told
them about our recent trip to DC and they knew
exactly where our motel was and the metro station
we used. He grew up in that area.

The after sessions were three panels, the first was
about Climate Change. It was really scary because
the climate is changing so much faster than any of
the earlier predictions, even since Gore's movie.

The second session was on Energy...and that was
pretty ho hum. I didn't hear anything new in
that discussion.

The third was on Agriculture and looking at the
panelists we decided to leave because we have
heard them all before.

It was a good day overall. We sat with the Mosburgs
which is always fun. They are leaving next week to
camp on Echo (I think that is the name) Island which
is in the Great Salt Lake. Their daughter and her
husband are joining them there and they, Earl and
Shirley Mosburg will be celebrating their 50th
wedding anniversary.

crab apple jelly

Yesterday I made crab apple jelly. The total came
to 18 pints of jelly. That should get us through
a year or two.

In the evening Robert went to his Cosmology book
club. Vernon showed up about 8 PM to return
the books he had and to pick up some more. We
are his lending library. We had fun discussing
his adventures on his new off-road motorcycle
down in the Dove Creek area and I regaled him
with tales of out 5700 mile trip for the last
month.

Today I started making lists and assembling things
for the trip to Gothic. We'll have a cabin to
stay in, but it'll not have any water nor water=
related facilities. Carl and Martha are coming
Sunday night so we can plan menus and such.

Robert and I went to town to get tires for the
truck. We took two cars so he wouldn't have to
sit indefinitely waiting for the tires to be
mounted on the truck. We did some grocery
shopping and picked up a few things for the
Gothic trip.

This evening Viki called. We're both taking
the same judge-training class on Oct. 9th. I'll
pick her up at Boulder High. And now to brag
a little. Keegan is playing in the Boulder
Philharmonic Ochestra on Sept. 24th. He is a
freshman music major at CU. There are 3
harpist. Keegan, a woman who is a junior
at CU and another woman who is in the
graduate school. Keegan and the graduate
student are playing in he ochestra. Keegan, is
not actually playing a "solo" but, will be
playing at one time in the concert when no
one else is playing. Not bad for a freshman.
He does play beautifully.

I am so glad he is doing his music thing. I
wish he were at Eastman or Julliard though.

Tomorrow we spend the day at Chautauqua. More
about that after the fact.

Home, at last

We made it home yesterday afternoon. We opted out
of going to Wichita to visit Connie since we'll be
going there in two weeks anyway. The dire warnings
of floods in Arkansas had dissuaded us from going
through Arkansas and Oklahoma so we were going the
same old route from NC to Boulder and would have
gone south at KC on the turnpike to Connie's. Once
our nose was pointed home, we decided to just keep
going.

Unloading the car was our first priority after we got
here and we accomplished that. And I got the mail
sorted out. A month of mail requires a lot of sorting.
Most of the catalogs I have just put in the recycle.

Everything looks fine, except for the fish pond.
A bear seems to fancy our fish pond, but the fish
are on to him so they disappear much too fast for
them to get caught by the clumsy bear. However,
the bear did sink our decorative grass pot and
plant and knocked the papyrus off the table so
that it was laying on its side in the pond. Russell
discovered it and he and Vernon managed to right
the pot although it was still sort of smashed
against the side of the pond.

Robert managed to grab the grass pot
with the rake and pull it up where I could grab
it and haul it on to the ground. We then
replaced it back on the table in the pond. The
papyrus had many, many new plants coming from
the ends that had been lying in the pool so I
have planted them in another pot. These I shall
take in for the winter. The big plant is now
sitting on the bottom of the pool and still has
almost three feet of plant above the water. I shall
leave it out over the winter. I expect the winter
will be too much for it, but perhaps the roots
system will survive. The temperature at the bottom
never gets to freezing. We'll see. It is much
too big to take into the house. I have no
where to put such a huge plant! In any case
I'll have a dozen or more new plants for next year.

The small vegetable garden I had doesn't look
great. I have two cucumbers, but they are
very small and spherical?!? I have one hot
pepper and lots of blossoms. The tomatoes look
OK, but are pretty much done for the season, I
think. I probably won't try veggies next year.
They are a bother and with our water problems
just not worth it. I'll plant flowers and if
we don't have water for them, so be it. I
won't feel I've lost much.

I had planned on unpacking today, but discovered
the crab apples are ripe and are ripe enough so
I decided I better pick them today. Our old tree
by the front gate had none, but the tree growing
by the creek is overloaded with apples. The
problem, of course, is getting to them. I managed
to get almost a full bucket and when Robert discovered
what I was doing he joined in. I shall make jelly
first thing tomorrow morning. I have enough apples
for at least two batches and maybe a third.

I have managed to get everything out of the car and
shall have everything upstairs by the end of the day.

Salina, KS

Wow! Finally, we have an internet connection.

Our trip from DC to NC went well. We spent several
days with Robert's sister and husband as guests
in an apartment in their retirement complex...God's
Waiting Room. Every time we spend any time in one
of these places we thank our lucky stars that we
don't live there.

Patricia and Thomas don't have an internet connection
and the computer room at the complex was locked up
tight all the time we were there. Everything is
run by volunteers and if there is no volunteer
to monitor the computers then they are locked up.
More and more we kept calling the people who lived
there the inmates because it did seem much like a
fancy prison.

Yesterday we drove from Durham to Puducah, KY and
missed the floods, rain, etc from Ike, but not the
power outage problems. Our motel had power, but
Comcast was out of business so we had no TV which
we can do without, but no internet either. Yikes!

We should get home tomorrow if all goes well. It'll
be good to get home.

We had planned to stop at Connie's, but since we
couldn't go through Arkansas because of floods
we decided to skip that visit. We'll be there
in a couple of weeks anyway.