Deirdre on reading, writing and living

Last summer I got a little paranoid. Charles was away working in the City while I stayed in the Catskills. Stocks were crashing. The economy was melting. Gas was peaking. And my mother was dying.

I began to hoard food and read up on alternative sources of energy. One was water power. I read many articles on the web and even printed a few in case the electrical grid stopped working and my tech-heavy life was rudely interrupted.

So, last week, when I saw that the Equinunk Historical Society was having a demonstration of their water powered saw mill, I ran over the Lookout. PA and went on a tour.

The photos are on my Facebook page and anyone can look at them here. It's great to know that there are a few examples of the sort of technology that's stood the test of time and requires no electrical juice, only water and gravity.

There are more tours this summer, the second Saturday in August and the first Saturday in October. They happen from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. It's worth the trip.

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Current Location: Catskills
Current Mood: geeky

It turns out that treasure comes in many forms. If you're in a desert the treasure is water. If you're in the water, the treasure could be a life raft. For me the treasure was the rusted septic tank.

As a city dweller I hardly give much thought to sewage. Too bad, because I'm sure its journey is actually fascinating. In the Catskills however, it's been on my mind since winter. Without going too far into the poo problem, I'll just say things weren't working as they should. But today we began phase one of fixing the problem.

There are photos here.

Tomorrow the new, sparkling-clean, tank will be put into the ground and I will be able to flush freely. Once again I can put the septic tank and all it contains out of my mind.

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Current Location: Catskills
Current Mood: satisfied

Last fall I put some new lilies into the area in front of the rock outcropping. All spring and summer I've been imagining them. However in my imagination they were pink star gazers. Imagine my surprise when I returned from a trip yesterday and saw these beauties.




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Current Location: Catskills
Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: silence

Yesterday I speculated about what 62.5 million gallons of runoff would do to the rivers around here. Now I have a few photographs to go with the math.

Old Route 17 Waterfall at 10 AM, Wednesday, July 23, 2008:



Old Route 17 Waterfall at 4 PM, Wednesday, July 23, 2008:



Old Route 17 Waterfall at 10 AM, Thursday, July 24, 2008:



Now long ago I'm sure that there was a swift moving stream coming down from the mountain right there, but as people are prone to do, an attempt was made to control it. After we first bought the house, Charles and I began walking into town to get the paper or to stroll down to the Famous Roscoe Diner for breakfast. As we walked along Old 17 we used to hear a rushing sound. I thought it was leaves blowing, but could never see the evidence. Finally I figured out that there was a little stream coming off the mountain.

In 2004 Roscoe experienced a once-in-a-lifetime flood. There were two additional once-in-a-lifetime floods, one in 2005 and one in 2006. (Charles blogged about the 2006 one here.) One of the floods exposed the constraints that humans had imposed on the stream.



The red arrow indicates where the humans had covered the area with dirt. You can see that it was ripped away by the current. The yellow arrow shows the pipe the humans expected the water to go in. The pipe operated for years, bringing the water safely under the road, Old 17, to another drainage area that channeled it below Route 17 (the new one that is) and into the Willowemec Creek. Apparently that was fine until we found ourselves in the epoch of stronger storms.

When the human-made waterfall replaced that mess, Charles and I were happy. It was nice. We monitored how wet the ground was by the flow of the waterfall. Spring brought snow melt and a nice display. In summer the waterfall dried to a trickle. The workers even provided for a back-up plan for extra water. If the flow was too large to be channeled below the road they put impressive-sized rocks at the bottom to encourage the extra water to flow to the right and find another drainage area to carry it below Old 17 at another point.

As you can see from the photos above, the water had another idea. That's the power of water.

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Current Location: Catskills
Current Mood: impressed
Current Music: silence

I never fail to be impressed by water. It's been raining heavily in the Catskills for about five hours and it is expected to continue for another 24. According to the weather report and a flood watch notice, we are expecting three to four inches of rain altogether. We've had floods before.

During a lull in the storm, I drove out for the paper and saw that the Willowemec Creek is already a light mud brown. The normally sedate ribbon of water has risen a few feet and was pulling at the glorious bed of weeds that grew up along its shores in the last month. A few feet of extra water doesn't matter, it heads downstream and eventually gets to the Delaware River which takes it safely toward the Atlantic Ocean, via Trenton and Philly.

But, I got to thinking about the three to four inches that might be falling from the sky. It's been raining up here every other day. I really haven't had to water the garden that much. Yesterday we had a steady rain, so the soil is a bit wet. I'm sure it can hold more water, but let's assume that it can't hold it all. Let's say it can hold only half. That leave about two inches of water that must go somewhere.

As I drove for the paper, I noticed that the Willowemec wasn't as brown or high in the next town over. Certainly the water that fell between our two towns since 5:00 AM, when I was awakened by thunder and heavy rain, was having a significant effect.

The question became, just how much water will we get from two inches of runoff between Roscoe and Livingston Manor? Since I finished reading my husband's book, The Annotated Turing, I've been feeling mathematical.

We are in a valley. It's about a half a mile, give or take, from hilltop to hilltop. There are about five miles between the two villages or 2.5 square miles of potential ground for runoff into the creek. That's a whopping 10,036,224,000 square inches of land that may receive two inches of water or 20,072,048,000 potential cubic inches of water or 62,530,991 gallons. Sounds like a lot and it is.

The creek is not straight, but for our calculation let's call it five miles long and 20 feet wide or about 528,000 square feet of creek to absorb the 62.5 million gallons of water. (62.5 million gallons is about 11,615,769 cubic feet of water.)

So all tolled, the river could rise almost 22 feet above its normal level. Of course all of this doesn't happen at once, but that's a lot of water! Flood stage is 15 to 19 feet in some areas of the creek, less in others.

I'm not leaving the house, which is on a slight rise. I'm safe from the Willowemec's power. I just get to watch and wonder about water. I'm sure my garden will be growing by leaps and bounds, if it doesn't get washed away.

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Current Location: Catskills
Current Mood: surprised
Current Music: silence

I've changed, I can't deny it and it seems to be for the better. What's changed? The amount I drive and the way I drive. I have a house outside New York City. For the last few summers I've slipped away from my studio apartment to spend June in the Catskill Mountains.

I also like to save money, so in 2005 I bought a new Toyota Corolla, upping my miles per gallon from 25 on a used Ford Taurus to a promised 37 MPG. It was a number I could live with.

One more thing about me is that I've grown to love data. Once you begin to accumulate data it becomes important. My husband Charles and I kept a log of our gas usage. Each time we pulled into a station we noted the mileage, numbers of gallons purchased, and the cost. We also wrote down what state we bought the petrol in, just for laughs. We had no idea what might be done with this information, but we had it if we needed it.

Occasionally, if I happened to buy ten gallons of gas, I did the very painless math and figure out how the car was doing. It seemed to be within the specs promised, so I didn't worry. Until gas hit $4 per gallon I'll admit I didn't change, but now I have.

Here is the beauty of having the data:
                     Miles Driven / Gallons Used / Money Spent
June 2005      1,821.8            51.77                $109
June 2006       2,248.3           62                      $183
June 2007       1,803.4           54.75                 $162
June 2008       1,556              39.48                $162 

You can see that the amount I drive has dropped and I'm spending the same amount of money as I did in previous years. 
In 2005 the car averaged 35.19 MPG gas cost about $2.11. 
In 2006 I got 36.26 MPG and gas cost $2.95 per gallon.
In 2007 I got 32.94 MPG (I don't know why it was so low) and gas was $2.96.
In 2008 I got a whopping 39.41 MPG and the gas has averaged $4.08!

So how did I up my mileage per gallon so much? I'm driving slower, 55 MPH on the two-lane highway that connects the towns up here instead of 65. And on roads where there are three lanes I drive the speed limit 65. Believe me everyone passes me, but I've noticed that I'm not alone.

I am also starting slower, no more zooming around. My acceleration is much smoother and I don't jam on the gas unless there is some kind of situation I need to power out of. 

Can all this be frustrating? Yes. I used to count the minutes it took me to get from the house to the Lincoln Tunnel. I got it down to 1 hour 53 minutes, but that meant going 70+ MPH on the three lane highways. Now the trip is more like 2 hours 15 minutes. 

What does it all add up to? I basically got a bunch of free miles by driving in a safer manner. And I do really want to keep this lovely little spot I have in the country, so I'm trying to be a changed woman.

I do miss the zooming though. 

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Current Location: Catskills
Current Mood: pleased
Current Music: silence

The vagaries of cats' guts are legendary. Some felines seem to think that mommy wants to find little cold wet "gifts" hidden in the pattern of the oriental rugs.

Vera, our little female, is usually pretty good about keeping things down, unlike her brother Noodles. However since we bought the house in the Catskills and began transporting the kitties up and back twice a year, we noticed that poor little Vera got queasy each time.

At first we thought she was just dizzy, so we bought her a bigger, more open box to ride in. Still she let loose from both ends on every trip. Finally I noticed that her illness happened just when we were traversing a patch of road with a very steep incline following an equally steep decline.

Vera's problems could only have been caused by the changing altitude. So today, as we moved the cats from the studio apartment we share with them in New York City, we tried a new strategy. After the first rise we got off the highway and sat for a few minutes to acclimate the cat to the new height. We then proceeded slowly until we were at the bottom of hill number one. On hill number two we went slowly, monitoring the poor creature as we drove.

Result: No vomit, no poop. Two happy humans and one slightly less disturbed cat.

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Current Location: Catskills
Current Mood: relieved
Current Music: silence

When Charles emailed the final chapter of his new book The Annotated Turing to his editor, he wanted to take a day off. We considered spending Tuesday in a New York museum or catching up on all the movies that populate our "to see" list. Instead we decided to combine two things into one.

I happen to own a 2005 Toyota Corolla. I bought it in Manhattan, but usually get it serviced in Monticello. (The Manhattan Toyota is fine, but it's way over on 11th Avenue, and they make you leave it and come back later.) I need an oil change so we decided to make an appointment in the Catskills and spend one night in our house up there.

Everything seemed to be great. We brought a Netflix. We had plans to eat at the local and "famous" diner. We looked forward to stoking up the wood stove for a nice cozy evening.

However our oil furnace had failed. The house was a chilly 33 degrees! After trying to reset the burner, we called for service, started a fire, and turned on an electric heater to warm up the basement pluming.

Because I have had visions of this sort of disaster, I installed a cold alert module that is SUPPOSED to call me if the temperature in the house falls to 45 degrees. The thing failed because the phone jack splitter I plugged it into was 1/2 dead. Duh! Why didn't I test the thing for a second time when I adjusted the plug?

Luckily it wasn't an expensive lesson. None of the basement pipes froze (due, I suppose, to the warm weekend). The only thing that happened was that the traps for the kitchen sink, toilet, bathroom sink, and shower froze. The only one to burst was the one for the bathroom sink.

I'm so happy that we decided to forgo the museums, movies, and other Manhattan delights. Last night the temperature was in the teens in the mountains, so coming up to the house today or next weekend (as originally planned) would have been a disaster.

I'm feeling lucky, perhaps I should buy a lottery ticket!
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Current Location: Catskills
Current Mood: thankful
Current Music: Stravinsky

	Backyard in the Catskills. Twelve inches in the last 48 hours!
	Pine out back.
	Apple Tree
	Rubeckia
	Knee deep in the snow.

Current Location: Catskills
Current Mood: jubilant
Current Music: silence

Fall signals a time of preparation. For mice that means leaving the summer luxury of open living and searching for a nice, warm, dry, winter spot. Our home in the Catskills must look pretty good. The alternative is freezing nights, massive precipitation, and facing the army of hungry cats who prowl the neighborhood.

Late in the summer, Vera, our little black cat, caught a mouse on the porch. We knew where it got in because she spent the rest of August staring at the spot, waiting for the mouse's cousin to appear. Once the cats were safely back in New York City, Charles and I set out traps to see if it was a fluke or an infestation.

Apparently it was the latter. Not only did we kill five mice in one 12-hour period, I found droppings all over my workbench in the basement. So today, I shifted from working on winter garden preparations to mouse-proofing the house.

I have defeated them in the past. The first fall we had the house, the mice found their way upstairs. We discovered their "calling cards" inside the refrigerator. They crawled through an opening in the seal on the door and nibbled every piece of food inside. It was disgusting. I closed up numerous entries into the building and we had been mouse-free for three winters.

This afternoon, I shored up my previous measures, replacing old rusty steel wool, re-caulking some seams on the house, and filling gaps with that expanding foam insulation that we used against the milk snake.

My final move was to grab my handy bag of cement and work on the areas of the foundation that had pulled away from the patio. I must admit that I love working with cement. Anyone who has ever frosted a cake can do it. And it's so butch.

Right now, we have over eight traps set. Two on the porch where we got the five last night and six in the basement to wipe out any remaining mice. If I've done my job well, new mice will not be able to get into the house and we can have a vermin-free winter.

BTW we did replace the fridge.

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Current Location: Catskil Mountains
Current Mood: determined

Got wood? We do.

Calling Bob, our compulsively-honest wood merchant, has been on my "to do" list all summer. I procrastinated. I had bunches of reasons: it's too early, Charles is on a deadline for his book and can't spare the time, the cellar isn't ready for more wood storage, and most importantly--I don't wanna!

Because you see, Bob isn't the only compulsive one, Charles and I neatly fall into the same category. The day the wood arrives, we feel we must move the entire pile inside for storage. We claim that we can simply throw a tarp over it and move it in at our leisure, but it never happens that way. There's something about having a gigantic pile sitting in front of the house--it represents an undone job and seems to mess with our sense of order. It drives us forward, compelling much lifting, grunting, and sweating.

That's our compulsion, Bob's is being honest. Last year he announced that he had shorted us wood from the year before. I kind of knew that, the load he left never quite measured up to the traditional definition of a "cord" (a stack of wood with the dimensions of four food high, four foot wide and eight foot long). To make up for the shortage, he brought about 2.6 cords when we only ordered two.

In 2006 we were planning on staying in the Catskills in December and January. We go through about one cord per month, so with what we had left over from Winter 2005, two would keep us cozy for all our country visits. However, our plans changed and when spring arrived, we had about one cord leftover.

So this is what two cords of compulsively stacked wood looks like.



This morning, after getting out of bed and stretching my sore back, I went down stairs to admire the wood. As soon as I opened the cellar door the musty, rich, primeval smell of the forest filled my head. It's better than any "new car smell" could ever be. It means we'll be warm.

Current Location: Catskill Mountains
Current Mood: satisfied

In the 1990's, when I was in my thirties, I began riding a bicycle long distances. It gave me something to feel good about. I might have deep, seemingly intractable problems, but, I thought, at least I'm riding a bike. My legs took me to places that I couldn't appreciate at 55 miles per hour.

The bike and I traveled from New York City to Ocean Grove, down the Jersey shore. I did a solo ride from my apartment to my parents house in upstate New York over the course of four days. (No, I did not camp out. My other companion was my credit card, so I slept on real beds, showered in real bathrooms, and ate at real restaurants.)

In the mid 90's, I learned how to design web pages and subsequently developed a repetitive stress injury in my right arm. I'm nothing if not obsessive and compulsive. Stop work because my arm is about to fall off? Don't be ridiculous! Each week my chiropractor put my arm back together and each week I'd work with the mouse and get on the bike, never allowing any healing time.

I had to give it up in 1997. With much regret, I admitted that I had to chose my arm and my job over my bicycle. It took nine years for me to get back onto the saddle. Last summer I bought a new bike at a bike shop near my house. I'm in love again.

I'm hoping that it's a more mature love. One that doesn't hurt me.

Yesterday, I spent the day building a new website. I worked too long, made too many gif files, didn't stop when my arm began to get sore, and caused a flareup of the repetitive stress injury. Today, when I hopped on the bike to pick up the newspaper, my wrist and hand hurt.

At first I was confused. I hadn't ridden that much last week, but the poor bike had nothing to do with it. When I realized that I was behaving in the same old way, I decided to lay off the website for a day and try to absorb my lesson. That is, before I have to give up my renewed relationship with the old riding habit.

xposted: Blog, aim_highly, cycling

Current Mood: amused

A few years back I read a book called Passing for Thin: Losing Half My Weight and Finding My Self, by Frances Kuffel. In it she talked about how much she loved running on the treadmill. I've always avidly avoided the treadmill. I figured that my old joints couldn't take the abuse, but her book struck a chord so I tried it.

It turns out I like jogging. I've done it both on treadmills, tracks and the road. In 2005, when I started jogging, I said that I wanted to do a 5K. It may seem like a rather long time to finally get to the goal of 3.1 miles when people run much further on a daily basis. But for me, overweight, active but not athletic, and a former long-distance bicyclist, it was a challenge.

So last weekend I participated in the "Trout Run" as part of Livingston Manor's Trout Parade. I got a little nervous because they allowed 45 minutes for the 5K and my best time to date was 46 minutes.



I know I'm slow, but I made it and improved my time by three minutes! I'm in costume (an apron and tongs) because my only association with trout is cooking and eating them. I have a house in "Trout Town, USA" but I still haven't gotten around to fly fishing.

x-posted to: Blog, aim_highly

Current Mood: pleased