Sunday, August 31, 2014

A grumpy hostess, school problems, tax revenue and the future of wind power and rural areas!

Wood House
We had the final dinner party for the museum group this past week…sometimes we invent reasons for them…but this time it was real birthdays.  As usual the locals turned out and the talk was fun and lighthearted except for the hostess who was in a bad mood (as always).  This ended up by winding down to an important issue facing the MECS district. 

The study on combining the two existing schools into one….and the reality is it would be at a ridiculous cost…and the study came to the same conclusion that I gave a full talk on at another dinner party.  It does not take a rocket scientist to know that you can’t put small children in a big child facility.

The cost of building an addition would be outrageous for a town of 5 thousand people and that selling the old building wouldn’t cover the bills of the old building. So why do we pay for these ridiculous studies?


Then the talk spread to the big problem of some lawsuit that is going to cause a tax reduction on wind farms assessment that is going to hurt the school tax income…well that would be a problem!  But where is the information on this?  Why don’t we know about this?  Who has this information?

I went on line and sure enough there are articles but none that give a clear answer. 

The existing problem is that we have no real tax base in this rural area.  “Agribusiness” is not the same as storefronts, sales tax revenue (food is exempt from sales tax) and no industry that pays a living wage and has benefits.  (I bet a good 50% work for government or schools that draw off more tax dollars)

We do have houses being sold for taxes in large numbers because people cannot pay their taxes and these are sold to people who cannot fix them up because they are poor… or to landlords who turn them into rentals. 

Rentals lower the tax value of the houses around them in the majority of cases…they also cause a fluctuation in the number of children who attend the schools…some years many more…some years many less.

The need is for single-family houses that are in good condition that raise the tax base and not for rentals that appeal to occupants that are prone… in a rural area… to be poor and draw on government subsidies, and yes that becomes a tax burden on the county tax payers.

So what is the answer???

The answer is a sustainable economy made up of the correct percentages of industry, agriculture, retail and residential…something we have ignored in this county for years…a county...I might add..that gives people working for it insurance for life after only ten years...is run by supervisors on a flawed weighted vote who are not particularly capable of spending enough time and energy on problem solving for the future… reactive rather than proactive.

Oh well...


Sunday, August 24, 2014

Yes folks.. it is the end of summer...Labor Day... and Elderberry time! Whoo Hoo!

Well folks it is that time of year again...yes "Elderberry Time".  A time when full grown older women wander roadsides and hills looking for and picking bushes with Elderberries on them.

Went over to Pat Utter's porch with Cathy Nagle the other dayand there was Pat sitting in a chair with the largest bowl I have ever seen on her lap... picking the little stems off of what seemed like a million Elderberries.

For those who do not know what they look like they are miniature berries attached to a stalk with miniature stems that you have to pull off....time consuming...Oh Yeah!

My friends Nellie and Pauline would go picking and then spend hours with TWEEZERS picking the little stems off of them...hours and hours of work.  They were also so possesive of their patch of bushes you had to be "in" to know where they were, and of who got the berries from those bushes.

One year we all went Elderberrying (as I called it) and it was a banner year.  They totted home bags and bags of the tiny fruit... and so did I.  I also put together the Labor Day picnic out in my side yard and all the neighbors gathered for the last big hurrah of the summer... with yes... fresh elderberry pie as dessert.

During the festivities a friend Marlene stopped and seeing the elderberry pie exclaimed that her mother was just talking about them...too bad she could no longer get around...and Marlene wished she could get some...so her and her mom could do their tradition of cleaning and baking a pie. So I gave her my bag that they could clean together and bake with...  This gesture was not welcomed by my neighbors...in unison "Why my nerve giving away elderberries from "their" patch!"  I was shocked.

So not wanting to offend I climbed Lebanon Hill and went to where I was told there was a stash and picked two bags full and brought them to then as a peace offering...where as tradition had it, Pauline sat for hours pulling the little stems with covetous glee....

I am sure that everywhere in this rural area there are home freezers filled with berries that will never be used...but that seem like the thing to have stored...

Pat said, "And they are FREE!"  Hmmmm $3.89 a gallon for gas to run around in your car to get them, hours cleaning and storing, electricity to freeze them...but free for the picking...AND OF COURSE....TRADITION!

Here is a link to my other article and below a poem....

http://backstreetmary.blogspot.com/2013/08/memories-elderberry-timefriends-in.html


Elderberry Time

As August’s sun heats the hills,
And balmy breezes fill the air,

We set about in bright green color, 

Searching for the fruit of summer there.

Up steep hills, across the pasture, 
Down against the forest’s wall, 
We seek a tiny little prize: 
The smallest berry of them all.

Then about a tattered building,
In a patch thick and tall,

We spot the booty we were seeking 

And try quite quick to pick them all.

The gleaming dark purple color 
Gives a clue to what they’ll be: 
For in a pie or in a bottle, 
The fruit is the “Elderberry”. 


Sunday, August 10, 2014

The "Super Moon", Sacagawea, Lewis & Clark and Me!

Last night as the moon peeked from behind the clouds and trees… my whole house was bathed in silver, almost like a spotlight was on it.  I managed to make it out to the porch in the dark and sat gazing at the moon through the summer foliage on the trees.  What a sight…a surreal image that could have been from any of the two hundred years history of the house.

The scene made me think about the book I had just finished on the Lewis & Clark Expedition, the book is “Undaunted Courage” by Stephen E. Ambrose.  The book takes you on the trip across the then Louisiana Purchase and is a multi-year odyssey that looks for a water route to the Pacific Ocean.  We wander over the Great Divide, up raging rivers, and across untouched plains.

For any person who has been west to Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks it is way to relive seeing the Great Continental Divide and the high peaks, the Bitterroot Valley and the hot springs… but it makes you sad in a way that you are not there now enjoying the wilderness without electronics, TV, and the news.

It also points out what the west has lost with its vast herds of wildlife and its fast flowing rivers that have now been tamed in spots.  We can see the meadows filled with thousands of elk and bison, they… the beaver and his furry friends… were much the objects the hunt… not for food but for their hides…and of course for the money it brought.  Yes money it brought! Seems we have been a wasteful nation that has used its resources poorly for many years.

And there is Sacagawea, having just had a baby...tying it on her back in a baby-board and carrying it in wild canoe rides, on horseback across the mountains, through the prairies… to find her homeland of the Shoshone. Then acting as a translator (why they hired her husband) and female slave (in part) since it was she that would look for roots, put up and take down a teepee made of skin and…  she who goes unmentioned in her accomplishment on this trip until the end when Lewis wrote a letter to Charbonneau, Sacagawea’s husband saying, “Your woman who accompanied you that long dangerous and fatiguing route to the Pacific Ocean and back, deserved a greater reward for her attention and services on that route than we had in our power to give her!”  I guess nothing has changed for women huh!


Still in looking at that super moon last night, as I felt my wanderlust rising with the moon… I wished that I could have been there.  I wish I could go back to the dark of a time before lights and wandered it but for a day… in the scenes of yesteryear… before man tamed the land and pushed the poor Native Americans off and claimed it for his wealth.


**Today I understand... in places you can see and hear the gas and oil derricks & compressors, as well as view some oil spills on the way!  After money again!