Energy

A tremendous amount of Missouri River energy flows past a given point each day here in the Bismarck-Mandan area. Only a few days ago we drove up to the powerhouse gates at Garrison Dam and marveled at the gushing, foaming water released from Lake Sacajawea. The cfs rate
has increased since then and is projected to increase even further in the coming days. (People are evacuating.) I don't know if the generating turbines output is greater under these conditions, but I would guess not since their spin rate must be tightly controlled. But, this situation makes me think about power and the problems of providing it for the world's growing demand.

One of the news sources I read regularly posted an article today that caught my attention: Germany plans to phase out all their nuclear generating plants by 2022, eleven years from now. Germany's chancellor Merkel holds a Ph. D. in physics; after watching Japan's recent disaster at Fukushima's nuclear facility, the aftermath of a strong earthquake and powerful tsunami, she decided the risks of atomic energy are too great to ride those work horses any farther into the future. Apparently, Italy abandoned their plants after the Russian Chernobyl disaster, and, too, Switzerland plans to begin shutting down their plants after reaching their average life span of 50 years; the last one to be shut down in 2034.

Even with my scientific ignorance, these developments are very eye opening. I suppose I complacently accepted the notion that atomic energy was the future. Maybe not. And my mind began to change even a bit before. I subscribe to a small circulation magazine, "The Sun," an ad free publication that features just plain good writing. The latest issue, received just a few days ago, carried an interview article featuring the actor Peter Coyote. I've never cared or thought much about him except that he has a great voice for film voice-overs. Reading those words that reflect his knowledge and outlook made me read carefully, however. Nuclear energy entered into this discussion, and he stated that it is expensive, dirty, and waste needs to be stored for a hundred thousand years. He says, "It can't be done ... You can't avoid the 'oops' factor with humans, and you can't afford an 'oops' with a deadly material that stays poisonous forever." His comments were made before Japan's recent disaster; what would he have said then.

Maybe wind towers and solar energy will take their place as the best bet for future energy. I wonder how long it will take, though. Twenty coal trains still roll through here every day, and people are going crazy with delight as they drill in North Dakota's productive oil formations.

Purple Iris and Flooding

I don't have any good pictures of the flood threatening Bismarck-Mandan (are there ever any good ones?), so I submit this picture of beauty. Pictures and stories of the flood problems can be found at Bismarcktribune.com. As time goes along I'm sure I will snap a few. We drove over to Bismarck's east side this afternoon to visit Sam's Club and experienced different traffic than usually seen on a Sunday afternoon: trucks loaded with loose sand, filled sandbags on flatbed trailers, semi trailers hauling bundles of empty sandbags coming from who knows where, pickups and trailers hauling furniture, dikes and piled sandbags rising in many places, the radio filled with warnings some areas are advised to evacuate, etc. And here we sit high and dry at our place. I've tried to find our home's elevation to complare to flood zones and have had no luck yet, but we are nestled a good 20-25 feet above that. When we bought this lot it's elevation was one of the first things I noticed in a favorable light. I've always thought too much confidence was being placed in Garrison Dam's being a cure-all for low level flooding along the river. Developers heavily promoted river-front homes and buyers came. So here we are, facing several weeks of trouble and misery.

Boiling Tail Race, Garrison Dam

As a journalist might say, we are experiencing a developing situation here in Bismarck-Mandan. All at once we have flooding to worry about. A full reservoir, Lake Sacajawea, held in place by the Garrison Dam needs to have pressure released which keeps building from huge runoff from Montana's heavy rains and mountain snow-melt. Personally we have nothing to worry about here at our home because of our elevation but many neighborhoods will be at risk on both sides of the Missouri River. The Corps of Engineers keeps increasing their estimates as to the cubic feet per second (cfs) amount of release needed in the coming weeks to deal with the threat, so the city fathers keep revising their plans to deal with water. Since cfs figures keep bumping up Mary and I decided to drive up to the dam today to take a look at the tail race. The above picture gives a poor interpretation of the boil, but my haiku poem describes it as good as anything.

I felt the ground vibrating as I stood on the bank with my camera where I wished I owned the zoom lens I'm planning to buy. Probably 35 years ago I stood on a concrete pad on the east side and cast my fishing line below the tail race. At that time the water level in the river stood much lower and a good deal of the rusted outlet gates showed. Today nothing of them showed. The power and energy were obviously immense.

We stopped for a break at a convenience store in nearby Riverdale and told the manager our Heart River was running very high too. Yes, he knew of it and said the dam at Lake Tschida was overflowing. The only amusing thing we saw today appeared in nearby Pick City, a bar sign declaring "The best dam bar by a dam site."

The End of the World?

We're still here, even after the end of life as we know it never came to pass as predicted by the senile prophet who thought he and his followers were to be taken up to heaven last weekend and leave the rest of us evildoers behind. All of us in some way will experience death, and I'm sure not willing to give up time and treasure to that doddering old fool. End of life did come, though, to those who died in the recent tornado in Joplin, MO. Physical tragedies from storms, financial turmoil, engagement in wars, shortages, high prices, etc. all contribute to people's thinking we keep sinking deeper into a hole. As a kid I'd often see cartoons that pictured a person carrying a sign saying, "The end is near" with a tag line stating the joke. Now many years have passed since I first noticed dire prophecies told me the end is near, I'm still here, and I took away a good lesson.

The latest issue of the Smithsonian magazine came in my mailbox yesterday, and as usual I flipped through it rather hurriedly until one of the articles stopped me cold, "Don't Sniff the Antlers." I scanned it and several key words teased me to go back to read and re-read and underline and make notes until I fully grasped the author's gist. Lance Morrow wrote of the 13th century Buddhist monk named Kenko whose philosophy was to accept change and impermanence as part of living. He felt at the time Japan was degenerate and in decline. Morrow lifted this interesting view of Kinko, "It is perversely comforting to reflect that people have been anticipating the end of the world for so many centuries. Such pessimism almost gives one hope." Further, Morrow saw this in the 700 year old teachings of this Buddhist monk, "It is a form of vanity to imagine you are living in the worst of times - there have always been worse. In bad times and heavy seas, the natural fear is that things will get worse, and never better."

Occasionally some sensible thinking and writing comes along, and I always find it refreshing when it does. I'm just going to keep plodding along, and like everyone else I will experience the end of the world some day. You are all invited to attend my funeral.

You Can Tell It's Spring Now

Here is a picture of the dear wife going bonkers in the Cottontail Greenhouse just a bit south of our place on Highway 1806. Since opening a few years ago this has been a favorite destination of hers during the planting season. I inquired beforehand if I could take a few pictures and the man said I could if I gave the name of his business, so here it is again: Cottontail Greenhouse. I still don't know much about this camera of mine but I still have two classes to go at Bismarck State so maybe I will have an epiphany. Actually what I need to do is take hundreds of pictures and figure out what setting goes where. Things are working a bit better with some healing of the old gluteus maximus that I injured a while back, and I can walk around a bit better now to take pictures. I exercised in the fitness center today the first time in about three weeks and a couple of the regulars wondered where I'd been. Visiting with my 91 year old mother on the phone yesterday I told her about limping around and she imparted this wisdom, "You aren't getting any younger, are you?"

How High's the Water, Mama

Sheyenne River



Johnny Cash sang that song a long time ago, and it still applies. I don't know how high but it's risin'. Here in the Bis-Man area the Missouri River rises daily because they're opening the gates at the Garrison Dam due to the build-up of water volume on Lake Sacajawea. People with low-lying property along the river bank are getting nervous, and I heard someone on the local news last night say it's probably all right for now, but what if down river they close some gates to control flooding downstream. Then we can look for back-up just as it happened a couple years ago when the ice jams made the water rise locally. I'm still glad our house sits on high ground.

As for the Sheyenne River's future, it just might have to contend with high water on a permanent basis if the folks up in Devil's Lake get their way and start draining that water into the Sheyenne. This year almost everyone has too much water. My old stomping grounds east of Sheldon is the worst it's ever been according to my cousin who farms land there, and when I drove along Highway 46 I saw plenty of other farmland that will probably be un-farmable this year. And the landowners still have to pay taxes on it.

Thinking About Old Times

Not much remains on Main Street Sheldon nowadays to remind me of the old days. I wanted this picture while the sign still hangs on the old bank building; one never knows when a wild storm might take it down and fling it in a heap somewhere. When the town stood as a viable shopping center this old bank hosted lots of activity. Reading old newspapers at the Heritage Center here in Bismarck offers proof of that. I remember going in there while it was still being used and remember how nice the woodwork looked. The chair on which I'm sitting came from there - a straight-backed oak chair with thin padding which I had re-upholstered a long time ago when I first acquired it, and again last winter when Mary freshened it up with a classical floral pattern. The chair will outlast me, even though the bank sign and the leaky-roofed building will disappear.

As we gathered in the cemetery on Monday a lot of talk centered on names of those who rest in eternity beneath their monument markers. The number of people I knew well and inter-acted with who have passed away grows year by year. But knowledge of another, older generation has faded. I could only guess one of the names, Joyal, was a past barber in town, and when I was in the younger grades I loved talking my mother out of a fifty-cent piece and get excused from class to go down there and get a haircut during the school day. I usually disturbed his card game when I entered the place, and I still remember how fast he trimmed me so he could get back to it.

Mary and I talk about where our final resting place should be, and we seem to agree that maybe this will be our spot, too. A hundred years hence people can then wonder who we were.

A Day for Funeral Services

Too seldom extended families gather except for weddings and funerals. Yesterday members of the Bueling family gathered to say goodbye to two of their members. Pictured is the priest presiding over the graveside of Jane Bueling, wife of Steve. Jane chose to have her ashes buried here, and on this day it could not have been a more beautiful day with mild temperatures, a slight southerly breeze, and dozens of birds singing in the tree tops. Following this simple ceremony, we traveled to the Sheyenne River with the ashes of another of our family, Bruce, who wished to have his ashes scattered in the Sheyenne River at a spot southeast of Sheldon where river flows fast and high and wildlife abound.

Angle of Repose

Yesterday, as we drove back after picking Mary up at the airport I noticed a landslide on the west side of West Fargo on an interstate ramp. The excessive amount of moisture we've received this year worked with gravity, and a large chunk of good old Red River Valley dirt came sliding down. Just south of the interstate by Valley City there was another spot like it. I ran across the term "angle of repose" a few years back when I read one of the great American novels of the same name Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner. It means the maximum angle of slope at which sand, loose rock, mud, etc. will remain in place without sliding on a hillside. Stegner, born in 1909, lived for a time in North Dakota, and I am surprised the state promoters haven't laid more claim to him than they have people like Louis L'Amour, Lawrence Welk, Peggy Lee, plus the whole lot of them that grace the hallway of the state capital building.

The book centers on the life and thoughts of a historian and the history of his family that he uncovers. As a professor Stegner ran the writing program at Stanford University for many years and a good many of my favorite writers studied under him: Larry McMurtry, N. Scott Momaday, Thomas McGuane, Ken Kesey, Edward Abbey, Wendell Berry, William Kittridge, to name a few. The book can probably be considered a metaphor for him and his family as after much sliding and moving downhill, they finally came to rest, just as a landslide would.

Living Alone

Bachelorhood doesn't fit very well anymore. Mary flew off to Minneapolis to help with Clint and Robyn's kids for the week. Around here doors don't slam, pots and pans aren't banging, the wash machine isn't swishing, I'm eating in cafes, nothing much is going on. So here I sit just feeling sorry for myself. I guess I'll just have to start following orders: watering the plants, vacuuming the carpet, mowing the grass, and picking up my mess! P.S. I had fun writing the limerick. Maybe I'll try a few more of them.

Bridge and Rails

During the tourist season this site comes into view by those who choose to buy the ticket to ride the rails to Fort Abraham Lincoln. A lot of trains pass through Mandan every day but they don't use this particular line. Loaded coal trains heading east and empty trains heading back west to reload comprise the bulk of the traffic. I've heard different numbers as to their frequency, but 18-20 long trains per day seems to be agreed upon. Maintenance of these heavy traffic lines seems to require much attention. Driving east along I-94 I lately seen hundreds of new railroad ties laying alongside the tracks and a string of machines that seem to have automated most of the labor. Remember the old "John Henry was a steel driving man, Lord, Lord, oh what a man was he!" I still see that little old speeder leaving Sheldon with three or four men going out to inspect and repair track. And, I'd just as soon forget a carful of young bucks tooted up on too much beer who lined their car up on the tracks and rode the rails all the way to Leonard.

Mysteries of the Camera

The picture shown here is of no use to anyone except that it shows some experimenting with my camera from the 4th floor of the NECE building on Bismarck State's campus. Last evening was the first session of the photography class I'm taking named "Beyond the Auto Button." Hopefully I'll learn some of the settings on my digital slr camera. It faces the southern view and if one squints you can make out a butte on the extreme right of the horizon called Little Heart Butte.

Right now a back problem prevents me from getting too verbal at my keyboard. A trip to my prostheticist didn't bring relief, so now I'm heading to my doctor for a probable x-ray. I suspect I worked too hard with my gym exercises, namely the sit-up machine. How does the old saying go, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

Kansas item of interest

Already a long time ago I would follow the harvest down to southern Kansas and then work my way north to home again. I've never forgotten the scene when somewhere north of Russell, Kansas I drove my truck and combine past miles of stone fence posts that were erected by a past generation that have weathered well to endure many years of usefulness. It was one of those strong memories formed when so much of the world was still new to my eyes.

Stone fence posts stood statue-like
by Highway 281
north of Russell, Kansas. Hewn
from common "post rock," they held
barbed wire that marked boundaries
and kept free-ranging cattle
from trampling hard-worked wheat fields.
Northern boy, I thought this strange
having sunk wooden fence posts
around and through pasture land,
digging post holes with auger
or clam-shell, setting them straight
after eye-balling them on
a landmark in the distance,
unrolling wire, tightening
it with a rope and pulley,
finally pounding staples
to fasten it to the wood.

(Curious with ways of the world
I thought it looked out-of-sync
when Dad worked on down the line
and the humid summer air
slowed the sound from reaching me
when his hammer struck staples.)



Indians called those thorny loops
of prickly vines Devil's Rope.
It spread across the landscape
choking the free range because
ranchers ran ever-larger
herds; then cold, killing blizzards
screamed that overgrazed grass lands
couldn't support their greed schemes.
It's barbed wire we're talking here,
an invasive invention
that begged to be criticized
by some, welcomed by others.
Range wars raged over its metes
and bounds when settlers defined
their farms with it; the shortage
of wood did not deter them
when stone fence posts could be crafted
to stand for a century.
.....

Recent bumper sticker - "Get hooked on barbed wire."