Election Day

My legs are sore from walking and knocking on doors. I've talked to a lot of township residents in the last few weeks and I'm once again impressed at the many paths that our residents take in their pursuit of happiness. That drive to live our lives with as much authenticity as we can possibly create, coupled with the capacity to not just tolerate, but to appreciate our neighbors and their unique paths is the key to the economic revival of our township, our region, our state, and our nation.

Sounds hyperbolic, I know.  It’s been that sort of week.  New York suffers under Sandy and suddenly climate change is back on the table and the federal government is competent and people appreciate it.  Here in Leland Township, events have been iconic in a more positive way.  Leland School’s boys soccer team won game after game in their post season until they had claimed the title of 2012 District and Regional Champions, or as it was explained to me “one of the four best teams in the state”.   Their last game was on Halloween in Big Rapids, which left three team members who are also in Mr. Wodek’s  civic class precious little time to complete the required six hours of volunteering on a political campaign.

That’s how I ended up with “bodyguards” on my last weekend of campaigning door to door.  I like going door to door with students, especially on foot. One day we walked from my house down M-204 to M-22.  The next day we walked east from my house into Lake Leelanau.  While we walked, I talked about the the history of the road and the homes, the people who live here now and the ones who are gone.  We met a mom who remembered when Austin’s dad was her oldest son’s soccer coach. We met a 92 year old man who missed keeping chickens in the village. We visited Bad Pony, one of our fledgling internet businesses and, next door, The Washington Building, where Doug Fierberg took time out to give us a tour of the national law firm that they run out of his Lake Leelanau office.  We saw a pileated wood pecker, Provemont Pond, a hidden barn, boots planted with cactus.  Carol Drow told us about her solar panels, "Been there since Jimmy Carter was president!" Simon Dyer turned off his leaf blower long enough to share his comparison between US elections and elections in his native Ireland. 

Sometime halfway through the first day, one of the guys said, “Wow! Everybody here is connected!”  Of course, that’s the point of my patter, the point of the walking tour, the point of going door to door, the point of civics class, the point of serving in local government.  We are all connected, by blood, or by history, or by economics, by sharing the same roads and parks and fire department and lakeshores.

My challenge as supervisor will be to foster that sense of community, and to see where it leads.  The loose ends can be woven in by encouraging our residents to shop locally, by making opportunities for young people to come back and establish their careers and families here, by making township government open and accessible to everyone, not just as a place to complain when things go wrong but as way to meet their neighbors and collaborate to solve problems and create whatever comes next.

I thank all who have helped me along so far, the folks who encouraged me and bankrolled me and advised me and opened their doors and took time to ask good questions and tell me about their lives.  I especially enjoyed the high school students who accompanied me along the way. I hope they have absorbed the idea that governing is not just about winning arguments or elections. 

   

I’m optimistic about the results of today’s voting.  The results for local races will be available at Leelanau.cc  after the polls close, absentee ballots are all fed into the machine, and the township clerk reports the totals to the county clerk’s office. Vote today, and thank our election workers when you do.

Susan Och for Leland Township Supervisor

If you came here looking for information on my run for Leland Township Supervisor, my "broadsheet", the one page description of my campaign, appears below. On the links to the right, you can find links to pieces I've written since 2004 about my life, my family, my community, and my thought process. I haven't blogged much since I was elected to the town board in 2008. I find that blogging requires a person to be out in front of public opinion, while serving effectively in local government means listening carefully to everyone, even those with whom you most disagree. But I am still the pragmatic, frugal, open minded, curious person I was as a blogger. I still keep a garden and chickens and enjoy my accomplished offspring. Here is my campaign broadsheet:

Leland Township needs a calm communicator to serve as our Supervisor. Susan Och’s experience, integrity, and vision make her the best choice on November 6th. 

Experience: Susan has been an active member of the Township Board, schooling herself on all township operations along the way. She regularly visits the harbor, walks the sewer plant, monitors township parks, and sits in on board and commission meetings. She has taken advantage of many Michigan Township Association Trainings and Council of Governments workshops, observed Board of Review proceedings and closely followed the drafting of our new zoning ordinance. She has spearheaded the successful eradication of the giant Phragmites beach grass, helped win the grant that will ensure preservation of Leland’s Clay Cliffs, and completed the groundwork for a money and energy saving streetlight overhaul. She has served as board rep to the Library Board and Fire Board and monitored our harbor renovation and construction of public restrooms in Leland. Susan understands that township operations are important to every resident. Each resident should be treated with respect by an experienced supervisor. 

Integrity: In local government, integrity is measured by a commitment to the laws and principles of open government. We have a right know how decisions that affect our township are made and have the right to see those decisions fully debated in open public meetings by board members, who have informed themselves about the issues. When we spend tax dollars on personnel, the people should know that we have hired the best qualified candidates. As supervisor, 

Susan Och will work to maintain a culture of ethics and enforce the laws and regulations of government transparency. She will encourage the free expression of opinion by all board members and strengthen communications between the board and the community. All boards and commission meetings will be properly posted, boards will take action only on properly adopted agenda items, and all minutes will be posted online. She will strive to create an atmosphere where all township residents feel included. 

Vision: Our township and our region are often held up as examples in leading the way towards a revitalized Michigan economy. We have excelled in stewardship of our beautiful landscape and authentically interesting villages. We have supported our local food producers, grown our wine industry, protected our village commercial centers, and attracted internet entrepreneurs who could live anywhere, but choose to relocate here. 

Other communities may want to follow our example, but we know that this is not enough. Too many of us are unemployed or underemployed. Our community could be much better insulated from the whiplash of energy prices. While tourism dollars are valuable, we worry about the strain to both our infrastructure and to our community ties. Our infrastructure itself needs constant and sometimes costly upkeep and updating. In Leland Township, we have a history of meeting these sorts of challenges on our own terms with solutions that fit. Susan Och understands this, and is committed to fostering dialogue, good government, and stewardship of our township resources. Susan Och will provide the leadership that best serves Leland Township. 

Vote for Susan Och for Leland Township Supervisor on November 6th.

How to Test

Here's a snippet of an article about standardized testing, by Susan Engels, in today's NY Times:

Instead, we should come up with assessments that truly measure the qualities of well-educated children: the ability to understand what they read; an interest in using books to gain knowledge; the capacity to know when a problem calls for mathematics and quantification; the agility to move from concrete examples to abstract principles and back again; the ability to think about a situation in several different ways; and a dynamic working knowledge of the society in which they live.

I'm preparing to launch 4-H Chess Club for another year.  I hope to reformulate the club as a group of high school kids helping me teach the elementary kids, while I reinforce the fun and challenge of all sorts of brain work with the high school kids.  While I'm not a fan of standardized tests, I do take pride in seeing kids' intellects grow. The markers that Engels mentions in the above quote resonate with me as they reflect the themes of many of the informal conversations that erupt during chess club. I have one kid who likes to draw, not so much to read, but who has checked out and studied every drawing book in the school library.  Snack time is always an exercise in practical mathematics -- chess players want everything to be fair even if it means dividing 36 cookies among eight people down to the last crumb. Chess pieces are metaphors for actual fighters;  in elementary school kids move back and forth between the abstract idea of chess pieces fighting and the "real" fighting techniques of Star Wars characters.  We learn en passant by acting it out on the checkered floor of the cafeteria.  We practice the components of a classic handshake and the more nuanced art of losing and winning gracefully.


Engels' idea of a good test of a kid's intellect is to ask the child to read and discuss a book. I like to observe not only intellect, but perseverance and grace under pressure playing chess.

Liz Graduates!

It was a stormy day in Evanston, but that seemed somehow fitting. The graduates were no less fazed by the weather than they were by the crazy world into which they were graduating. Smart, earnest young people ready to work hard at whatever needs doing -- I had the distinct sensation of passing the torch.

Spring Break in Washington

Last spring Anna and I were able to go to Washington DC with my brother Chris and his family. Anna and I ended up spending a lot of time downtown, on the mall, hoofing it from one museum to the next. While there is plenty to see in DC, I spent most of the time teaching her the skills one needs to enjoy a city on foot or using public transportation.

Here we are relaxing on the wall around the flower bed in front of the museum of American History. We had brought some small snacks and were listening to the music that was piped into the flower garden. It was all American music, one familiar song after another -- Gershwin, Joplin, and Paul Robeson singing "Old Man River".

If I haven't been blogging much lately, it's because I was living life instead of chronicling it. This was a good day.

UM Class 0f 2010

Here's a picture. Here's Obama's nice speech. It was a wonderful day, thunderstorms, crowds and all.

Graduations

We are leaving tomorrow for Ann Arbor where Shelagh will graduate with a Bachelor's degree in Elementary Education. In June, Liz will graduate from Northwestern University and in the fall she will be heading to UM to study law.

Shelagh's impending graduation is quite the big deal because the commencement speaker is President Obama. There are restrictive security measures (no purses or camera cases or umbrellas) and strict rules about showing up late. It is in the huge outdoor stadium and the weather is expected to be around 70 degrees with a chance of thunderstorms.

Once I stop contemplating the crazy logistics, I wonder what the president has to say to these kids. These are the kids who did it all right, now emerging into the new jobless economy. I'm glad my kids didn't have to go deeply into debt to get their degrees, but a lot of their friends are not so lucky.

Shelagh's degree is in elementary education. Everyone wants to talk about how important teachers are, but nobody can figure our how to pay to employ them. I'm interested in what the president has to say about that.

Maybe I'll hear nothing. If the thunderstorms materialize, the whole event may be washed out. But I'll still have a newly minted graduate to hug.

Brother Tim on Lockport, New York

This was pretty much my viewpoint on the night that my dad took us downtown to watch the demolition of downtown Lockport.
Brother Tim published a piece in this morning's USA Today, Olympians Can Always Go Home. And the Rest of Us?. He writes about our hometown, Lockport, New York, and the push/pull of the hometown.

Joyce Carol Oates also hails from our hometown. Tim writes

Joyce Carol Oates, another literary lion, recently returned to her home of Lockport, N.Y., for Smithsonian magazine. There she revisited the public library, the old Palace movie house and the Erie Canal locks that give the town its name.She was reminded how much these places still resonate throughout her life and work.

I, too, hail from Lockport. A few years ago, I had the good fortune to meet Oates, and we discussed where in the town of 21,000 we had grown up. She was from the west side, Transit Road, which has been transformed by shopping malls and multilane highways. When I told her I grew up on the east side, a two-lane road that hugged the Erie Canal, Oates' eyes grew excited. "That's the real Lockport," she said

I'm not so sure. When I visit Lockport I find that the place I remember has long ago sprawled over itself in a headlong rush towards "Anytown USA". I have three landscapes in my head, the place I grew up, the place that it has become, and the place that appears when I dream of Lockport, a Lockport that could have been, but maybe never really was, a town with a downtown and farms and neighborhoods and and quiet places and mysterious places and timeless places.

Downtown Lockport's signature brick front downtown was razed for "urban renewal" when I was about 13. At my 20th high school reunion, one of those lots was still empty, with a "Will Build to Suit" sign. Much of my late teen years were spent exploring the back roads and back streets, my friends and I seeking to chronicle our hometown before it disappeared forever.

These days I serve another town, one that managed to make it to the 21st century with a strong sense of place. Still, the struggle to maintain that sense is constant. There are many people devoted to keeping the area the "same as it ever was" and just as many who expect to see a healthy return on their real estate investments. The trick is in selling the idea that a strong sense of place trumps "Anytown, USA", and selling it one detail at a time.

What was for Dinner

Richard fixed the balky basement light switch just in time for "eat out of the basement season". We usually eat out of the basement this time of year because paychecks are small and heat bills are big. We have potatoes, canned vegetables, salsa and pickles, frozen fruit, frozen chicken and fish.

Tonight I had some leftover Cuban black beans that the neighbor had brought us. To go with it I made the "Skillet Corn Bread" recipe from The Joy of Cooking, enlivening it with fried onions, rehydrated dried garden peppers, cheddar cheese, and a freshly fried bits of the bacon ends I bought on sale at Gabe's Maple City market last fall.

The meal looked like it could use more vegis and protein, so I got a jar of home canned salsa from the basement, heated half of it on the stove, and poached eggs in it while the cornbread finished up. The chickens are seeing the days getting longer and laying eggs accordingly, so it's a challenge to come up with new ways to eat eggs. It was a nice meal, quite colorful for mid winter.

High Heat

Brother Tim, stuck at home in DC's snow storm, put together this video trailer for his new book, High Heat.

January Harvest

They didn't size up the way I was hoping when I planted them last July, but getting anything out of the garden in deep January is a coup. these carroys are sweet and crisp and we've been munching them at the dinner table and in lunches. Every year I put less and less emphasis on the traditional garden season and more and more emphasis on the very early and very late season. Next year I will try using shade cloth to cool the mid-July soil so as to get better carrot germination.

Great Lakes Blog

I have been reading up on the legal and political battles over the Asian carp over at Great Lakes Blog. When I'm done with that issue, I'll see what they have to say about Phragmites, that invasive swamp monster grass that is colonizing the Lake Michigan shoreline and has been sighted in the Lake Leelanau Narrows. Leland Township has been asked to adopt an ordinance that would allow the county Soil and Conservation office to treat Phragmites stands with herbicides in the fall without the specific permission of the property owner.

I've been talking about Phragmites with everyone I meet both, trying to gauge support for a spraying program and trying to find alternatives to a spraying program. Everyone who has seen Phragmites doesn't want to see it in our township, but there are still lots of questions to be asked and answered before a spraying program is accepted.

Stop Asian Carp

I'm not convinced that finding Asian Carp DNA in Lake Michigan means that the actual fish are there (seagulls could be dropping fish parts) or that it is time to give up the effort to keep them out of Lake Michigan by closing the locks that can give them access. So I signed the petition here, and I'm urging others to do so.

Easy Winter, So Far

I haven't posted one of these NOAA Lake Michigan temperature maps this year. I haven't needed to. In a normal December, we are huddled under a couple of week's worth of dark clouds dumping foot after foot of lake effect snow. I monitor Lake Michigan surface temperatures, waiting for the day that the big lake gets cold enough to stop adding its moisture to the cold west winds and the lake effect machine shuts down.

The lake is still warm, over 40 degrees, but the winds didn't blow that way this year. After a few days of melt around Christmas, the wind started blowing from the north, from the east, from the northeast, making for cold and wind but no reason to run the snowblower. The rest of the country is seeing low temps and snow, but we are taking a break and even expecting a thaw next week.

17th Annual Madrigal Christmas

The Leelanau Children's Choir will present its 17th Annual Madrigal Concert at 7:30 on Friday December 4th and Saturday December 5th at the Northport Performing Arts Center. This is a picture of Anna and Liz. This photo is maybe 4 years old; the little girl wearing this costume this year is truly little, Liz is long graduated, while Anna has become a young lady. Tech week is always a grind, but the performances truly start the Christmas season.

Thanksgiving

University of Michigan senior Shelagh Fehrenbach works with a group of third graders on Spanish words during a class at Ann Arbor's King Elementary School. Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com

It was a treat to have daughter Shelagh and her husband Jordan home for a short Thanksgiving holiday. My favorite moment was when Shelagh was reacquainting herself with the piano and Beethoven's "Sonata Pathetique" in all its head=banging glory while Jordan and I swept up the kitchen and Anna hovered over Shelagh's shoulder, turning pages and watching music and hands.

We ate a smoked turkey from Carlson's and lots of side dishes. Shelagh and I sort of tag teamed teaching Anna how to make the pies. We burned the first baked pie shell so we had two lemon meringue pies and no apple, but apple is an everyday pie and lemon meringue only shows up when Shelagh comes home, so everyone was happy. I cut up a home grown big Long Island Marrow Squash, roasting part of it in chunks and cooking down the rest for pie filling. Yams with coconut milk and garam masala has been my favorite leftover dish.

Shelagh and Jordan went back to Ann Arbor on Saturday. Shelagh is student teaching in a third grade classroom at Martin Luther King Elementary, hoping to be lucky enough to get a teaching job after graduation, but making plans to work odd jobs until Jordan finishes his degree.

You can read more about the Ann Arbor Language Project here.

350 at the Dunes

Ken Scott's stop action film of the 350 on the dunes.

We had to go to Traverse City anyway, so I told Anna that we would spend the extra fossil fuels to swing by the dunes and join a group of people who were going to make a giant 350 on the dunes to draw attention to climate change. She said "Great!" and asked if her friend Madison could come along.

When we got there, people were sort of milling around and saying hi to each other. It was interesting to try and figure out who was there for climate change and who was there to just visit the dunes. Jim Lively stood on a picnic table, hollered a welcome, explained the event, and then asked us to divide into three groups, one for each digit. I was drawn to the small groups of people picnicking and watching; I made a quick pass down the picnic tables inviting the onlookers to "help us make the number 350 on the dunes as part of an international effort to focus government attention on the challenge of climate change." I knew I probably wouldn't get many takers, but I wanted everyone there to know why we were doing what we were doing.

I'm the person in the teal shirt and dark jeans running to catch up to the last of the "0" group. Anna and Madison were wearing matching neon green T shirts and pink shorts, at the top of the 5. In the stop-action movie it seems like we were rushing, but at the time we had plenty of time for crosstalk, even as we kept our eyes on our director. The lady next to me fretted about people who who coming in late to join. They weren't wearing the bright blues and greens mentioned in the email invitation to the event. "That's OK," we reassured her, "we need all the help we can get." It reminded me of the bickering about "I'm greener than you!" that often pops up in environmentalist circles and discourages neophytes from taking small steps because they can't see themselves going whole hog.

In the movie we are only laying down for a second. In real life we had time to look at the clouds blowing by. A guy to my left started thinking aloud:

"350. That's the percentage of the carbon of what, again?"

I spoke to the sky, "We need to achieve a target of 350 parts per million of CO2 in our atmosphere in order to avoid catastrophic levels of climate change. Scientists agree that 350 is our target."

"And where are we now?"

Across the "0" someone yelled, "We are over 380. Getting close to 390."

An older voice said, "We need to get our governments to get serious about this. We can all do things on our own, but governments need to become involved. A younger voice suggested "Go to 350.org."

We stood up again, on cue, and then jumped up and down and did some waves. I was reminded that I was never meant to be a cheerleader. The elderly lady next to me confessed that she couldn't jump. I said, "I think I'm jumping but I'm afraid that my pants are staying where they were."

We all trooped down again on cue, and then went off to our own pursuits. I fed the girls a picnic lunch and they set off to play on the dunes, the better to justify the extra gas that we had spent on such a frivolous stunt. Usually we come to the dunes when family visits. I was impressed at the discipline of the group that came on the tour bus and dutifully trooped up and down the dunes in a line. I saw many examples of our typical family gathering, when a few people go up and then disappear for what seems like hours while others wait at the bottom wondering if the first group is lost.

I sat for over an hour waiting for Anna and Madison. I talked to the family sharing our picnic table and turned a forgotten video camera over the a park ranger. I fielded questions from people who had seen the 350 and wondered what it was (a family reunion?) I explained that this action was both a precursor to international events being planned for October 24th and a follow up to Bill McKibben's talk in Traverse City last fall, when he saw mentioned on his own dune tour how cool it would be to se folks depict a 350 on that landscape.

Finally we packed up and drove home, getting ice cream bars in Maple City and dropping Madison off at her house. All traces of 350 were gone from the dunes, but Anna and Madison had put two new tracks on by rolling all of the way down.

It was nice this morning to see that the EPA is going to start regulating greenhouse gas emissions on the nations biggest producers, mainly power plants. Even dunes can move.


P.S. There are more pictures of the event here.

4-H Livestock Auction

Two 4-H kids and their lambs, waiting for their turn to show.

The Northwest Michigan Fair opens on Sunday, with the culmination of the 4-H Livestock projects, the 4-H Livestock Auction, taking place on Thursday, August 13th. The 4-H Livestock Auction is an opportunity to purchase high quality, local, home grown animals for meat, for breeding stock, or to add to your laying flock. It is also the place to buy less mainstream meat like goat, rabbit or duck. For those who want to truly know what they are eating, the fair is an opportunity to interview the person who raised the animal, peruse feed records, compare animals, and to see who was deemed the best by expert livestock judges.

Darrel Robinson of the 4-H Livestock Council was kind enough to give me some advice about the action for first timers. 4-H kids will be showing their animals all week (see schedule here) through Wednesday, and will rated for both the quality of their animals and for showmanship (their knowledge of and handling of their animal). Wednesday evening , the eve of the auction, is a good time to walk the barns and talk with the kids about their animals. Registration for the auction is at 8 am on Thursday morning; the auction starts at 9 am. The auction proceeds one specie at a time, beginning with swine. The lineup looks something like this:

Swine
Turkeys
Ducks
Lambs
Goats
Steers
Meat Chickens
Production Chickens (layers)
Dairy Feeders
Rabbits
Jr. Beef

There is a free appreciation luncheon for all registered buyers at noon on auction day. Registered buyers also get free fair admission on auction day. Buyers are also publicly thanked in fair and newspaper advertising. If you are interested in bidding on an animal but can't be there for the auction, you may complete a "proxy card" which authorizes 4-H Livestock Council to bid on your behalf. Call 228-6562 to get a buyer's pass or a proxy card.

After the auction, you may choose from five different local processors, who will slaughter, butcher, vacuum pack, and freeze your meat to your specifications. The processors will have their services and prices posted at the auction. Smoking and other specialty processing is available. 4-H will transport your animal to the processor at the close of the fair. (If you wish to take your animals home instead of to a processor, this is allowed.)

Families who have purchased or shared in the purchase of a cow or pig tell me that having a whole animal in the freezer challenges them to find recipes for more than the usual cuts of meat. I've found these recipes in older cookbooks and ethnic cookbooks. Authentic ethnic cooking often requires goat, rabbit or duck, smaller animals perfect for adventuresome cooks with less freezer space.

Buying at the 4-H Livestock Auction is more than just an alternative way to buy food. Last week at the Traverse City Film Fest, I saw Food, Inc. and was inspired to hand out Livestock Auction brochures at the discussion afterward. During the film, the audience murmured and groaned during scenes of animal distress. I was more moved by descriptions of farmers' distress. The cheap meat that we see in the grocery store is made possible by a system that forces farmers to accept higher and higher levels of debt and diminishing levels of actual income. I'm not worried about the future of the factory far. -- the system is unsustainable and will crumble under its own weight -- but I'm worried that as we build more sustainable systems we will face a dearth of young people who know how to actually work with animals. Supporting 4-H through the Livestock Auction is a way to support the next generation of food producers.

Fourth of July Parade

The 4th of July is a big holiday in Leland. Our streets are full of residents and summer people, although the split may be 50/50 between residents watching in the parade and residents actually in the parade. My family has been dedicated parade watchers, passing up opportunities to ride bikes, be a piece of the baguette, support candidates and causes, etc., although brother Chris has been known to play his french horn in the one-rehearsal-only marching band.

For me, the big drama was the Eve of the Fourth fireworks. As long as I can remember the fireworks have been held on the Lake Michigan beach, sponsored by the Leland Community Improvement Association. A few days before this year's display, Leland's fire chief, Mike Fandel, met with the pyrotechnic crew at the site and determined that the rising water and late dredging had left us with too little beach to safely host a fireworks display. Chief Fandel offered us an alternate location, at Hancock Park, and presented us with a plan for crowd control and how they would station the fire crew to simultaneously monitor the fireworks dsplay and be ready in case of a need elsewhere in the township.

It was fun to be called to a special town board meeting to "save the fireworks" by approving the new location. It was not so much fun to hear feedback from people who feared that the soccer fields would be ruined, the park would be trashed, or that the parking would become unmanageable.

In the end, the fireworks went off without a hitch. I heard good feedback about the fire department's safety enforcement and event management. The new location, on a hill, meant that the display was visible from many more parts of the township, including most of the north lake , East Leland, and even my house, over the tops of the trees. Many village residents skipped going out to the field and simply watched from their yards, streets, or rooftops. People remarked that it was much more of a family event, instead of the beach front bacchanalia that we had seen in recent years.

NOTE: I've mentioned fireworks enough that the web crawlers are sure to think that it is appropriate for this blog to host home fireworks advertising. In order to put on a fireworks display in Leland Township, you must get special permission from the town board, which involves obtaining a large insurance policy and an event plan approved by the fire chief, you are likely to be ticketed, fined, or worse.

After the fireworks drama, it was nice to have a laid back day in Leland, watching the parade and cooking hot dogs. I tried to get one shot of each entry in the parade, but I ran out of memory just before The Leland Fire Department made their customary second appearance, with some members running around the back streets to not only head up the parade, but to also bring up the rear. Chief Fandel ended up on top of the antique engine, using a not so spry water shooter to sprinkle the kids in the crowd.

Suddenly Summer

In summer, we are often too busy living life to properly document it, so here are some quick updates:

• Leland Harbor is still not open for business. The earliest we expect to have slips and fuel is July 3rd, with showers and full service maybe July 17th. If you came into the harbor, you would see docks but no fuel or pump out available, and every second plankon the docks is loose, so that the workers and inspectors can get at the underside.
  
• Strawberries are out, the garden is in, rhubarb was a hot seller again this year.
  
• I set another hen on eight eggs and ended up with two new chicks. She was a real good mom, but the rooster is apparently not giving his job its due.
• It rained in Chicago, so we never made it to the blues fest. But I spent a day letting Anna learn how to navigate the subway and bus and how to handle an umbrella on a busy sidewalk. It was fun.