Best Osprey Netsuke View

You can see the Himotoshi:

Osprey holding a fish

 

Pretty sloppy. I had a hard time seeing what I was working on.

My role in having an "open" policy, in New England Ceremonial Stone Landscape

From the beginning of having discussions about secrecy for sites versus publicity, I argued that publicity and education was the best way to protect the sites. Then I forced the issue by publishing the majority of the sites I found. Since I found so many, this became a sort of "fait accompli".

One time at a NEARA conference a woman said to me: "We'll just have to agree to disagree". I thought to myself: "No I do not agree to disagree. I will just go on publishing sites and you can keep your one or two 'special' places secret."

Older than Pompeii

It occurs to me that the conditions that perfectly preserved Pompeii must have "frozen" some other places in time - but older. There might be a search conducted for a village of ~50K years ago, somewhere out in the West or wherever in the US there is an appropriate aged bed of volcanic material. Boy would that tell us something!

Wild Cherry Sourdough Bread

See recipe summary at the bottom.

I followed the instructions from YouTube's My Strongest Starter Ever – Made from Grape Must! Naturally, Ideal for All Breads and Sweets to make my starter. But I used wild cherries that are growing here in Woods Hole. My son Joe suggested using wild fruit, since the plums and cherries I did this with before came from the supermarket where they were washed thoroughly. 

This time, I collected a couple handfuls of cherries from a tree at the corner where Quisset Ave become School Str, removed the pits and squashed the berries in a glass. Not much liquid so I stirred in a small amount of water. Although the lady on YouTube recommends 3 days of fermenting, I covered the glass with a wet cloth and let it sit for 2 days, stirring it in the morning. This produced about a tablespoon of deep rich juice, to which I added flour making a small, dry "puck" of dough. The timing was: noon make the mash. Two days later, at noon, extracted the juice, made the dense flour "puck" with the cross cut in its top. 5 hours later, it had "exploded".

Then, at 5 pm, I mixed in the same amount of flour + 1/2 the amount of water to produce a starter. Given the time of day, I made a "leaven", with the plan to use it 1.5 hours later, at 6:30. For store-bought yeast bread with a poolish that has been in the fridge all day, 6:30 gives me enough time to rest the mixture and follow it with 3 stretch-and-folds before going to bed. Usually I put the dough in the fridge over night, take it out in the AM, shape the dough while heating the oven and then score and bake. This time I left the dough on the counter, got up at 1 AM and proceeded.

Joe and I came to the conclusion that fruit-based yeast does not tolerate the fridge well and advantages the bacteria, so things stop foaming and get sour. So with this cherry starter leaven ready at 6:30, 

and an additional poolish made from 1 tsp sugar, 0.7 cups warm water, 1/2 tsp of store-bought yeast that rested for 15 minutes, I mixed it all together with 2 cups  (King Arthur All purpose) flour, and a 1/4 cup of dark rye flour, then added more flour till the right consistency was achieved. I follow Adam Ragusa's method of stirring with a wooden spoon till no more flour gets incorporated. 

Finally, this dough stayed on the counter, not the fridge, for the overnight bulk fermentation. My house is warm right now, in summertime, at around 70F or a bit more. I got up in the middle of the night and the dough was starting to over proof, bumping up against the plastic bag covering the bowl. So I shaped the dough and then put it in the fridge until morning. It had continued to puff up (after the shaping deflation) and I baked it at 450F in a Dutch oven. I looks like a great loaf. [Sadly, I forgot the salt.]

Recipe: [I am using King Arthur All Purpose Flour, in a 70F degree kitchen.]

For the starter: 

 - 1/2 cup wild cherries (pits removed), squash, and let sit for 2 days- stirring each morning. Add a tsp of water (preferably de-chlorinated) to add liquid.

 - Push the mash through a sieve to get  ~1 tbs of dense liquid.

 - Mix in as much flower as possible to the liquid, cut a cross in the top, let ferment in glass covered with damp cloths for 5 hours. 

Gives about 2 tbs of material.  [See first photo]. 

For the leaven: 

 - After 5 hours, mix 2 tbs starter with 1 cup of flower, and 1 cup of warm water. Let rest for 1.5 hours. 

Gives about 1.5 cups of material, composed of 1 cup of flour plus1 cup water.  [See second photo] 

For the poolish: 

 - Take 0.7 cups warm water, mix with 1 tsp of sugar, 1/2 tsp of active dry yeast. Let foam for over ~15 minutes.

For the final dough: 

 - Put leaven in large mixing bowl. (Don't worry about the amount, it is about 1.5 cups)

 - Add 2 cups of flour plus a handful of dark rye flour.

 - Add poolish.

 - Add 1 tsp of salt. [I forgot it by mistake]

This gives a total of 3+ cups of flour and 1.7 cups of water. I had to add more flour to get the right consistency, so probably about 2 times more flour than water.

 - Let rest for 1/2 hour, then do 3 stretch-and-folds, with half hour in between them.

NOW: Let bulk ferment for 4-6 hours until doubled. Do not use the fridge. Then shape the dough, and put in fridge for 3 hours. It should keep inflating slightly. 

Preheat oven and Dutch oven to 450F. Score the dough, spritz it, and bake covered for 18 minutes. Remove cover and bake for another 10 minutes.

Things rich people say

"I stay at the Everest View Hotel in Kathmandu. I am friends with the manager"

Osprey drops a fish

We have been blessed with the presence of an Osprey, roosting on a dead branch high above the yard. When it first started roosting and occasionally eating up there, it only took the crows a short while to fly up and start hassling the Osprey. Then the crows started hanging out up there - since it is a nice perch. It didn't take the Blue Jays long to fly up there and start hassling the crows. Now all the birds in the yard go up there to hang out. They never noticed it was a nice place until the Osprey showed them.

(here it has a fish)

Nowadays the Osprey waits until it is starting to get dark before returning to its roost over the yard. During the day, the crows are up there. I don't know where the crows are at night and I rarely see the Osprey take off or land.

In the morning as it starts to get light out, I see the Osprey's outline up there and then I blink and it is gone. Sometimes it comes back with a breakfast fish and eats for a while. So this morning I see it landing with a fish and dropping it into thick forest foliage. It spent around 10 minutes looking down, doing a short loop of flight, and trying to spot where the fish had fallen. Then it gave up and flew off - still wanting breakfast. But it came back, looking tired, with no fish, and is sitting there now. I don't mean to project. It could have eaten somewhere else. 

Such a beautiful bird.

Adjective Order Recapitulates Learning Order

The more I think about adjective order in terms of different "layers" of topics learned at different times during childhood development and language acquisition, the more it makes sense. For example with the "Lying Old Man" versus "Old Lying Man" there can be no doubt that these have different meanings. And that one of them ("Lying Old Man") is more natural. 

I propose this is simply because we learned the concept of "Old" before we learned the concept of "Liar". We learned the word "Liar" in a world that already had the "Old" concept. The linguistic principle we draw from this is that we speak in the same order as we learned. Or Adjective Order recapitulates Learning Order.

Binoculars and Sweet Potato

Reparations

At this point, I am thinking the US and Israel should compensate victims of the Palestinian genocide by giving them a piece of land in Somalia.

White Irises

. 

The long and the short of De Morgan's Laws

Well you have two mechanisms, one for selecting from a temp collection, and the rules of "not" that take  the complement within a temp collection. But this is not sets of elements, but temp collections of labels of individual narratives.

De Morgan's Law, aside from its use of the law of the excluded middle, devolves to the observation that "A or B" encompasses a full row and full column of the table. Leaving a single square as its complement.

Aside from that, negating "A or B" gives the complement: A*, B*.

Update: What is most puzzling is the transition from "A or B" to the four "cases". What is that?

At the Newark Earthworks

 We grabbed a bite.

Zebra Swallowtail - White River AR

 

Another young Waksman photo

 I am proud I was a sportsman from a young age. It never developed much.

In this shot I am catching small fries in the Tarn River.

Driving to Las Vegas and Back with Barb

Before I forget our stops:

Heading out:

Wilkes Barre PA, Pittsburgh, Sikeston MO, Webb Lake on the White River AR, Clarendon TX, Winslow AZ, Las Vegas

On the way back:

Tucumcari NM, Mt Vernon MO, Clayton OH, Pittsburgh, HOME.

We camped at Webb Lake and in Clarendon TX. Clarendon is a town full of nice people. I talked to the Lady at the motel, the Sherriff, the mechanic "Byron" who was recommended by the lady (he vented our condensation duct, for the price of a handshake), and the gentlemen running the water authority plant. The poor town got 0.58 inches of rain last year and I hope they do better this summer. I see a couple thunderstorms in their forecast. We discussed how beavers couldn't work with total drought.

I can tell you I took my grandchildren to see my little hill in Hidden Valley. I failed to engage them, as I got more interested in what is under my own feet. On the subject of archaeology, I failed to get to any river's gravel. Although I saw many fine stretches of gravel as we drove, they are all fenced off. Even in parks that contain a river, the river is fenced off. I found it particularly annoying in Winslow AZ, where Homolovi Park surrounds a stretch of the Little Colorado -and yet has the river fenced off from visitors. What a pain! By contrast I got to the edge of the White River in AR and it was high water and silted in. IN fact I failed to get to gravel at every river I tried:

Ct river in Glastonbury; the Susquehanna in Wikes Barre, the White River in AR, the Salt Fork of the Red River (in Clarendon) - where I actually did hit up a bit of gravel walking around the shrunken lake. The Little Colorado in Winslow AZ. Parenthetically, I nearly got on some gravel next to the Newark Octagon: there is a Racoon Creek behind some gas stations. Would have been well worth a look but it was a steep bank with poison ivy and uncertain footing. 

I had planned to need an oil change, somewhere on the way back. It happened near the MO border with Indiana. So we started looking for a garage in Marshall IL. We called the first name on the list and the guy was scheduling out till the next week. So at a gas station I asked an elderly guy if he knew a garage and, seemingly exasperated, he said there was a place just north of the highway. So I went there and "Randy" said they were closed. I assumed they had just closed, and I said "please", thinking they would just be open a few more minutes. So they changed my oil. Then the guy said they were actually closed permanently. I gave him and extra $20 but I think I took advantage of his good will. Nice mechanics everywhere.

I should also mention some food experiences. I had my first Chicken Fried Steak with white gravy and mashed potatoes in Las Vegas. I had an exquisite second example at Del's in Tucumcari on Rt 66. I never had Chicken fried steak and -boy- is it good. I also had a great birria corn taco in Las Vegas. Later I had a great Ham Hock at a large German restaurant in Pittsburgh, with out friends the Ratz's.

A little joke or two

 - There are no clouds on the horizon

 - ....er.... that's not the horizon.

Another: The espresso was no better than what you can get at a gas station [or variants]

My friend Dave Larson re-enters the picture

After ignoring my phone calls for several months, for whatever reason, an old friend decided to get in touch again. He added to his previous poem (see here):

SEARCHING FOR ARROWHEADS IN NEVADA WITH PETER WAKSMAN

The breath of the ancient ones did flow

Carried by westerly winds to the soul

Treading lightly on their hallowed ground

Through light and silence, there was no sound

Searching for signs of their time on earth

Carefully sifting through stones, desert hearth

Looking to find simple marks of their time

Migrating across this timeless sublime

The ancient ones can fill your soul

With dreams and visions that take their toll

Eyes to the ground but look up ahead

A stone circle gathering place we are lead

We can sense and feel their feet at the fire

As they rested, and ate, smoke rings rising higher

To see their lives and works turned to dirt

Opens the window of death... and it hurt 

I was hungry so I painted the garage

The title "I was hungry, so I painted the garage" was an example of a non-sequitur that can be resolved with an intermediary narrative. For example, 

I was hungry and walking into town. I saw a woman working in the yard of a house and she said she would give me a meal if I painted the garage. I was hungry, so I painted the garage.

The point of this story is that the phrase "I was happy, so I patted the dog" works without an invented narrative, because we all know that passion evokes action. 

To explain "I was hungry so I went to the kitchen" is a little more work.

Flowery language

 You could cut the tension with a fork.