Animal Farm

Thank god for Helena Bonham Carter.  In our media managed world, eccentricity has been ruthlessly plucked and groomed out our lives. Everyone is smooth shaven and waxed, and no warts or bumps anywhere.  Tastefully and safely dressed, we are drowning in everything anodyne.  (To wit, in googling the spelling of anodyne, I found a marketing agency called Anodyne. . .figures).  At least Helena BC  dresses as a "steward of wackitude.  Bellatrix Lestange is, in fact, in fact, the perfect alter-ego name for her -- she's beautiful, she's strange, and some of her trix are for kids."

Thus, I was rather pleased to get Farmer Ron's monthly letter from Coonamessett Farm, the local community farm in my neighborhood, right next to New Alchemy (yes, we're a bit granola here).  You sign up to be a member, and you can go and pick their vegetables, pet their animals, and generally wander around the farm with the aging hippies.  We've been members as it's a fun thing to do with visitors with kids, and the ice cream is very good.

Hi Everyone, 

Before getting to the “meat” of this email I just got back from sea; I was on another Coonamessett Farm Foundation turtle tagging expedition. My hypothesis is that these sea turtles are evil alien creatures sent here to take over the Earth from mankind. The evidence is startling and will soon be published in the National Inquirer unless it is suppressed by the Government. Only the sharks are keeping these beasts from ruling the world. We should be thankful that we are living safely on Cape Cod terra firma safe from sea turtles, sharks, and bears.

One of the first things I do when I get back from sea is skim emails and read the news reports to get an idea of the key issues that arose while I was away.  From this quick review I conclude that key domestic issues we should be concerned about are the missing Romney years (they coincide with his governorship), windmills, and zombies; not necessarily in that order.  On the international scene we just need to worry about zombies.  Staring at windmills can lead to zombie like trances (see Romney above) and it is doubly dangerous if they are offshore windmills as then you become easy prey for sea turtles. 

I have informed you of the above threats so that you can prepare yourself by coming to the farm to pick strawberries, sugar snap peas, broccoli, and lettuce which is all coming in quite nicely. Just don’t stare at our windmill. Picking season for strawberries may end up being very short so put on that rain gear and get on over to the farm.    

I think all CSAs should have a streak of unapologetic crazy. . . Hurrah for wackitude!

Tilting at windmills

9 October 2010, a photo by Snowlet on Flickr.

I saw my colleague Dan Webb the other day, and he looked tired. He owns a wind turbine by my office and wind power is causing quite a controversy in our little town. "The thing is," he said, "I'm spending all my time doing PR."

Certainly some people are quite exercised about the noise, flicker, health impacts, and purported decline in property values. Some folks are angry, and there is a rather effective campaign against the wind turbines. There are signs all over town suggesting that one should "Support our neighbors, Stop the Wind Turbines" -- implying that proponents of the turbines are bad neighbors (you wretch, you.)

That said, I like Dan's numbers: "During its first 22 months of operation, the turbine generated over nine million kWh (9 GWh) of electricity, equivalent to the usage of 690 average Massachusetts homes. This displaced emissions of over 4500 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), as well as 2.5 tons of sulfur dioxide and one ton of nitrous oxides. . ."

Here's my experience: my office is about 1400ft from Dan's turbine. As a recovering workaholic, I spend the grand majority of my waking hours next to Dan's wind turbine. Yes, on high wind days I can hear his turbine, but the incidences are few, and not unpleasant. In contrast, tourist traffic (a major industry in my town) in the summer has a far larger negative impact on my life in terms of noise and stress. Yes, we can see flicker for a half hour for a week in the spring and a week in the fall. How do we deal with this? We lower the shades (which Dan paid for: what a good neighbor). None of my employees have reported health problems from the wind turbine.

Also, I can't help but contrast these "inconveniences" to those of Maj. C, who has gone on deployments to the anti-tourtist capitals of the world (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc) for wars that were ultimately about the geopolitics of oil. He's fine, but many of his colleagues are not. Some never returned home.  Others returned home physically intact but developed other, sometimes fatal, problems and addictions. Maj. C jumps at the idea at wind: "Local power for local people."Added to this, I work in ocean science, so every day I see alarming new evidence of the impact of man-made carbon dioxide emissions on the environment.

I'm not a flag waver and am generally pretty suspicious of the State, but I do feel that this just might be the best way of supporting our troops.

If you are a Falmouth, MA resident, please consider signing this petition.