Return to West Virginia

It has been almost a year since I was down here studying mountaintop removal (MTR), but I have returned, but this time with six students who were interested enough in the issues to come down and spend a few days learning first hand. Today we drove down in our rented van. Left my house about 10 and after a brief return (I forgot an address) we were on our way. Stopped near Columbus for lunch (looking for a Baja Fresh that we never found, but did find a Panera) and then continued on to Cheshire. I had lectured about it in class and asked if they were interested, and voila they were. So here they are, the Gavin plant behind them. Michael, Ian, Sarah, Chelsea , Michelle, and Paula (in that order).

After this we were on the road again to Charleston. Tomorrow morning we go on a Southwings flight over the MTR area, and then head over to Kayford.

Returning to WV

The past year has been filled with classes, honing writing skills, and now a return to WV. This time though, I will be taking a van filled with students who have shown an interest in Mountaintop removal(MTR). Over the past year, I have had Dave Cooper and his MTR Roadshow at the school twice. The first time he brought Larry Gibson, and the second time Judy Bonds. I volunteered to take them if they showed an interst and voila 7 did, and have put up the money to help pay for the expenses. We leave on Sunday (April 30) for a 5 day trip. We will be visiting Larry on Kayford Mountain (before he heads out for the UN!), Hillary and Judy in Coal River Valley, have a flight with Southwings, and then head over for Mingo County where we will visit James Simpkins before spending the night at Matewan. Filled with things to learn, see and do. I am thrilled with the prospects.

The $800 Kayak trip

....Or how i was an idiot and paid big time



The pain is so great i can barely even write this. For my birthday I received a top of the line digital camera. 8 million megapixels and all the bells and whistles. What a wonderful thing. Jay got it for me. I can't tell him what happened. It hurts too much.

It was dunked. It no longer works.

The day was fabulous. We arrived fairly early (10A) so we were there before it was too crowded or too hot. It was perfection. The river was placid, and you could just float without your paddles and still move along lazily.



But around noon, as the river filled up with people in innertubes and canoes, one person was going to capsize due to the crowding. Guess who?

A large branch blocked much of the waterway. All had to go to the middle. One innertube was in the middle as i approached. I tried to avoid him, and one long branch was aiming right for my head. I ducked. I dunked. The camera is history. My car keys battery died. My week is no longer enjoyable. Too much pain (oh, and i cut my foot when i went down and it is infected.)

Moral: never bring electronics into water areas where they may get wet. Too late. I am an idiot.

From Mars to Uranus

The TART trail in Traverse City is set up to show the relative distance of the planets. Today i rode from Uranus to Mars and back. As it says in the website...
"The Solar System model is the brainchild of local artist and science teacher David Kirby. The planets are large fiberglass spheres covered in space age urethane paints designed to survive many years exposed to Traverse City's weather.
Hanging from poles generously donated by Traverse City Light & Power, the planets run along the TART trail from the library east to Bunker Hill Road in Acme- a distance of 5 miles! This makes the TBCSS the largest art installation in Michigan! Planets are spaced out according to an accurate distance scale that makes one step along the trail equal to 400,000 miles in outer space! It is worthwhile to note that the planets have not been made to scale by size. If this had been attempted, with the Sun being 9 feet in diameter, then Pluto, the smallest planet, would be smaller than the smallest pea!! So we made them all BIG!"

All in all a pretty cool project. More can be found about it by going to http://www2.tcaps.net/wsh/stafflist/teachers/kirby/project6.htm

Patterns

Okay, okay. I AM a geographer, and sometimes I can't help myself. But this is the class I am teaching right now up here in Traverse City. They are a good group and quite bright so it is a pleasure to work with them. But I observed a few interesting details about them.

First you notice the class is small. Oh Yeah!!! At EMU in dreadful Ypsi the classes are anywhere form 40 to 80 students in small overcrowded rooms with NO technology. This room is modern, clean, bright and has state of the art technology. I can actually show my movies here. But I digress.

Of those 18 students 3 are named Joshua, and 3 named Kelly! All 3 of the men are within 3 years of 25 years old, and 2 of the 3 women are in the same age group (the third is OLD at 33).

Now look at how they are seated. The room is very large, and so there is a choice of seating. Each has found their own seat and sit it in each day. It is where they feel best, be it in the front or rear of the class to the left or the right. A sort of natural pattern that they formed by finding the seat and space that made them most comfortable. I have, in the past, made people sit in other seats, just to see how it made them feel. I don't do it permanently, because I do feel that it interferes with their comfort level and therefore with their learning.

And so my geography lesson of spatial patterns is done for the day.

On the road again

Amish in Montcalm County, wrapping it up after a day of selling. See all the trees in the background. floristic tension zone!!! (See below)

Montcalm County in Michigan is known for....not much. Not many people, no large towns. But it has potatoes, and that is why I made a special trip through this rural county, rather than taking Hiway 75.(Besides, I heard that 75 is so torn up it is a slog anyway. You know Michigan with its 2 seasons....winter and construction).

I did find potatoes, though I was not able to contact anyone at the MSU station, or find many, what I would call potato storage buildings. But here is the best candidate so far....

It has the insulating sides and no windows, best for keeping the tubers cool. But for all the potatoes grown here (Michigan's #1 crop) there were very few barns. I am wondering if because most of the potatoes become "chips" there isn't a need to store them and they leave immediately for the chip factory? I don't know. But I am investigating this crisis mode question. Inquiring minds want to know.

What I also found though while driving thru the county were a few other facts.
1. Ionia (Ionia county) is the BIG city on the way to Montcalm County. It is rural also, but has over 10,000 and a brand new Walmart!

2. That Montcalm is about on the floristic tension zone line in Michigan. From here north the landscape was almost constantly treed. To the south it was mostly fields. (Potatoes being one of those root veggies that grows in the marginally north regions.) As you can see from the map below, the floristic tension zone of Michigan is a big item of discussion.

3. There are a lot of Amish living in this area. My first clue was an elderly man walking along the side of the road, who upon close inspection had a long grey beard, and that look. Followed shortly by a site I wish I could have taken a picture of, but respect stopped me. Strict Amish don't want their picture taken, or at least so that you can see them. But picture this: three lads of maybe 12. All tall, skinny and in overalls. Straw colored straight hair flopping in their eyes (images of Tom Sawyer). Two were attached by a sisal rope to a push lawnmower, pulling. The third behind the mower, performing the lawncutting function. They were playing. Having fun. Mechanization of sorts, 19th century style in the 21st century. They all stopped for a moment when I drove by with my bike on my roof. Oh how I wanted their picture, but it wouldn't have been nice or natural. So I carry the picture in my head.


This is what my car was like when I drove by. The night before Jay had fixed the roof rack so that I could ride my bike (I want to ride by....bike ...to the music of Queen) while teaching in Traverse City (TC).
Jay did NOT like me taking his picture, but was a good sport. And now I have to go and take that bike off my roof and discover the bike paths here in TC!

Martini Blues

Why is this girl smiling?

Jay does some nice things for me, and I always want to "pay him back" by doing something nice for him. Trouble is he lives a simple life and has few needs. Just buying him "stuff" won't please him. And along came the martini....

He doesn't really drink, beer sure, but that's it, and only one kind. So not much adventure there. But the other day he made a comment about some green olives I bot, that were mixed in with some kalamata, and other blacks. He liked them in martinis. mmmmm.

What to you think of those eyeglasses?

So after he did the AC thing for me, I thought we could try a little martini fun. So I found some cute but inexpensive martini type glasses (he said they were too big, but what do I know?) and bot a small bottle of Tanqueray gin. I know nothing about hard liquor, but I still felt like a wino buying this little bottle.

And last night we had a martini each. One.
After having it, I wanted to go for a walk around the block, and then went to bed.
Once again, I must be getting old. Do you know I felt that drink this morning? Yuck. I even had a cup of coffee (which I gave up a year ago) just to bring me around. No more martinis for me!

On Being Cool

As you can see I have no claim to the word cool.
But I am cool. The room is 76 degrees cool.

I have been soooo depressed for the last several days because of so many things, but one was the abysmal heat we have been having. Everyday since I returned from WV it has been over 90 and very humid. Utilities have gone thru the roof here in Michigan with the promise that they are going higher, and I am tired of paying $300 a month to heat or cool this awful land. So I always keep the heat to bare minimum (hence freezing in the winter) and bare minimum air in the summer (and thereby sweating and hot).
I am too stubborn to do otherwise. I truly feel they should pay us to live in this god forsaken state (apparently I am not alone as it is the worst state in the union economically).

And I can't sell my house. I want to move in with my boyfriend Jay, but though my house has been for sale for the past 2 months, I have had no interest whatsoever. They say the price is too high, but I will barely break even after 6 years. The most sobering fact is that I figured out that if I had stayed in my house in California, and just sat there, not working a day, I would be more wealthy now than having moved here and worked my .....off (I wish) for the past six years. THAT is the state of Michigan.

But Jay was sent to me (or me to him) for a reason. He is a different one, no doubt, but then....yikes, to find someone who can handle my eccentricities with the ease he does??? What a find!

Jay no longer has a car. Some kind of statement about the state of his finances, having to HAVE a car, that he uses one so infrequently anyway....and he lived in a tepee when he was younger....out in the mountains of Arizona. He has a few eccentricities of his own.

But last night he took matters into his own hands. He used his old Hertz Gold Card (hadn't been used in years since he left corporate America) and rented a car. He then told me to go to Home Depot and buy a room size AC. I did, but would not put it in. That's fine. He drove the one hour to my house (at 11 at night no less) and put in the AC. The room which reaches 90 degrees everyday for the past couple of weeks is now cool. When I walked in an hour ago it was already on its climb at 80 degrees, but it is now 76.

He wanted to know if having the room where I work (the school is no better than here, my office is clocked at the mid 80s even though they say there is AC) would make my mood better. I am not sure if it is that, but, my mood is better. It may be because he did that, and with no comments about my mood, in fact good cheer.

He is a find.

Helicopters

Okay, before I go off on how much I dislike this state, let me start with one of the good things about Michigan. The light. I lived in LA,CA for a long time, and never was I impressed by the light the way I am here. This place has little going for it (more about that in future days--as well as some positives, hard though they be to find) but the light is one of them.


And now for today's bitch. It isn't even 8 in the morning yet, and already I have had to deal with cleaning up the mess from the damn silver maple tree in my back yard. Though for the first few years I lived here it wasn't much of a problem, it has more than made up for it lately. It sheds helicopters.
silver maple with helicopters still attached.

The gutters are overflowing with these helicopters and if I don't take care of them, fishing them out by hand, they will grow in the gutters. but, still, even with cleaning them out (at 6 in the morning, and already sweaty as the temp is going to be in the 90s today and HUMID!!!) you end up with all these little silver maples sprouting in the yard all year long. And now they have even started in my gutters. Look!


I am getting too old to be on a ladder at the top rung scooping out these helicopters, followed by all the leaves in the fall.....and I can no longer afford to live anywhere better as I don't make enough money, and my house is worth nothing in Michigan (more on that later).

My deck with helicopters twirling down...

Namaste (think meditational Indian music)

It was hard to do yoga in Appalachia. I tried at the beginning in our house, but without a mat, and hardwood floors, I was slipping all over. And then we were so involved in what we were doing that I was lucky to get any exercise at all. I was really pleased when I went on the hike at Kayford Mountain, because it was several miles and I felt I needed it.

I have been doing yoga for over 30 years now. Hard to believe. I am good at it, not great, but I had an excellent trainer, Dee Dee, at the beginning, and that has kept me in good stead since. Never went the way of the trainer, the workshops and all, but just kept a small practice of basic moves. I think it has done me well. I am still fairly flexible and have good tone in my body though, my body has certainly changed as menopause has set in.


I hadn't been to my yoga class in some time, since before leaving for WV. Last time it was still cold and the room had heaters so we didn't freeze, but it was quite the different experience now. The weather has been unbearably hot, and there is no AC in the studio. So, we did it like Birkam, or whatever his name is, only this wasn't the latest fad, it was real. HOT. But it wasn't a killer workout this time (there have been times when i could hardly walk down stairs in the past) andthough hot, i made it thru and felt better about keeping my body in some type of shape since the "change." Look out girls if you haven't gone thru it, it is a rough one. Best to stay in shape rather than deal with it all after. AND DON"T DIET!!! It seldom works long-term.

A different life

I am back in Michigan. The summer is here...well, not officially, we all know that, but humidi...cally, it is. Hot, humid and we have had very little rain since I left. I think it was like that last year too.

Since I have been back I have been working already. Started an article for a geographic journal, and thinking about a movie. Went to school and began a campaign to get the MTR speakers on campus.

But much of my time has been in the garden. Getting rid of weeds, watering and planting. In WV the peonies were almost done, but up here they are just beginning, so I will get to enjoy them. The lilacs though are finished. They were just starting when I left, but obviously, don't last long. Too bad. I planted a bunch of lilies in the patch in the front. That area has never been successful since we pulled out a scraggly tree years ago. Still find a lot of old roots and very shallow top soil. Makes me think of MTR! This year I put some purchased top soil on the site, and we will see if I have some luck.

MTR from the air

Mountain top removal (MTR) is evident everywhere in West Virginia

How can people let something like this happen to their state? This was the question that our pilot asked as we looked down on the...the only word to describe it is ....rape of the countryside.

West Virginia is a beautiful state. It is rolling and green with many valuable hardwood trees. But it has been doomed from its formation. Coal companies own most of the land and they don't care about it, or the people who live on the remainder. MTR proves this. It is a war on the land. What they leave behind is nothing but destruction. Think Sarajevo, Baghdad, think West Virginia. How CAN this be happening?

As I had mentioned earlier about Marsh Fork Elementary (May 12) this school is under assault. The silo, visible from the ground is spewing toxic chemicals and coal dust on students and staff, who are responding with a plethora of respiratory illness. But seen from the air, the story is much worse.


In the upper right corner is a sludge dam, 2.8 billion gallons of sludge, directly above the school. The polluting silo and the school are dwarfed by the earthen dam.

The shear size of these MTR sites is hard to imagine. One needs a measuring stick to begin to decipher the destruction. In the following photo there is a red arrow. That is pointing to a huge machine called a dragline. This machine is about 20 stories tall, 20 stories! How big are they? Well in the next photo I have blown up that portion of the picture to show it surrounded with coal trucks, which look like ants next to the dragline. The dragline removes the overburden (the soil covering the coal seam).


Arrow points to a dragline, a 20 story machine, which in turn is dwarfed by the surrounding destruction. In the rear of the photo the coal companies are burning trees to prepare another MTR site. They seldom use the timber.



Though the Southwings sponsored flight was a thrill, it also was so hurtful to see what we are doing to Earth, and how we are not even attempting, at least honestly, to recover. Little of this area is more than roughly reclaimed (See May 30th entry)

"http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#">37.903125-81.540472

Kayford Mountain

Before I left for this trip I visited my son. His only perception of Appalachia was formed by a movie, "Dancing Outlaw," which he showed me when he heard that was where I was going. It is a very funny, but damaging movie for those in Appalachia who have moved well beyond this "hillbilly" stereotype (and everyone I have met are more like me than they are the stereotype [if THAT means anything!]).My son and I laughed watching the movie and I vaguely noted where the movie was made.

It was made a few miles from where I am staying. I will be going there today before my flight over the area via Southwings.

But meanwhile, on Saturday I went to Kayford Mountain, a very different case from the case in Mingo County. Kayford is close to the Raleigh and Boone county lines, way up the holler. I found more than I bargained for.

Yes, I found MTR, lots of it. The entire mountain is being chipping away by Massey Energy piece by piece. It is a private holiday retreat for, well, to be honest, for those types I have not yet run into, the hillbillies, as the upper picture reveals. These guys were nice, though a bit cruder than I prefer. By luck and chance I figured out a way to have my picture taken with them. A few obscenities and rude gestures later, it was done. I like to say I found the couzins of Jesco (see the above movie if you are intrigued!)

Kayford Mountain being taken down piece by piece leaving only rubble.

But I also found this mountain that has a large cemetery filled with the remains of people who have lived there over the past century. Larry Gibson is the caretaker of the cemetery and trying to keep this sacred ground from being completely destroyed by Massey. His family and many others were buried there. As it was Memorial day weekend when I was there, people were roaming the graves going from plot to plot talking about those who were buried there, their lives, their hopes, their dreams, their demise. These people are real and should be respected as much as any other. To do less is to call them inhuman---and not treating others as you would be treated. There is no shortage of love in the mountains, but it is as if Massey or Arch were here to remove the strongest bond people have.

It isn't enough that they own most of the land and left WV poor, but now they want to take the people's culture, heritage and remains as well. Though the men in the upper photo are much different than I, they aren't hurting anyone, and are enjoying their own company in their own place. In my eyes they are much better men than the heartless people of the coal companies.

Growing old

I must be getting old. No longer among the young. It had to happen sometime, but, just like mom, I don't know when it happened. But I do not think like the people who are moving into the house. They are mostly around Zack's age, and I don't get it. No respect, and a superior attitude wrapped in an ancarchist package. I like anarchy, or at least the idea, but have never felt that most people are ready for it, so we live with much less freedom.



To be sure, they are less consumer oriented (and I am much more so than most people I know my age) but they are, well, can I really say it? Dirty, and smelly. Now to be fair, part of this is what they practice instead of preach. We were all doing an ecological footprint quiz and found that these young people, with their pared down lifestyles were STILL living in a way that required 2 or more earth's if EVERYONE lived as they do. And me? Well, if everyone lived my very modest life (other than geographic travel) we would still need 9 earths.

But they also have a set of ethics, morals and codes very different than mine. They say to do your own dishes, but as the picture shows, they don't do it, and though I have been helping all along with Hillary in this manner, I am not their slave. The attitude is what gets me. Because they live "differently" we all must. Narrow point of view.

It stems from I have been purchasing nice, good, healthy food that was not here for me, for Hillary, for Abe, Benji and Chris---no problem. Pretty much a community, and for me, very progressive. But not enough.

No one asked to bring this dog in the house, and his food. The dog has been outside at camp for the past week.

No, now we have to have signs to tell us how to behave, and then they are not followed. And the signs keep coming. And the food disappearing. Last night 5 people (4 women and 1 transgender??? But I have been told NOT to refer to them in ANY gendered way) moved in and they take, take, take, and give nothing but dirt, dogs and who knows? They have eaten all the good food (brought nothing) left dirty dishes, tied up the phone and bath for hours and had no respect for anyone elses things. Everything is all of a sudden their way, with no asking if it was acceptable. It just is. They are right and everyone one else has no voice. No better than any others- just self-righteous.

I must be getting old. It is time for me to leave.


Making more signs

Meanwhile....i can't help to admire that they believe that life in America CAN be more environmentally sustainable. More sound. i can't help but think, where else are the people who are willing to make America a more healthy place for everyone? Are these people who are bothersome to me, our only hope?

MTR for real

Reclaimed site and current MTR (mountain top removal) site

The reason I originally came to WV was to learn about MTR (Mountain top removal). Instead I became involved in putting the house together for the community that was forming, and to attend various meetings, summits and camps populated largely by Earth Firsters. Quite different than I had planned, but I have learned so much. But I still wanted to do what I came to do. And finally it began on Saturday. I woke up at camp and soon headed out to Mingo and Logan counties, armed with various names and numbers offered to me by Abe. One was someone he had not yet talked to, and he was the person I met, and it was amazing. A visionary who purchased a huge swath of reclaimed land, and went about making it into a working farm. He built his house, originally a country retreat, and ended up liking it so much he moved there. It sits alone on top of the reclaimed MTR site. No trees. He built the house out of what was once on the site before the removal.


Things were going well. He started an orchard with peaches and apples, a vineyard that produced grapes with 29% sugar, and a cow calf operation on the reclaimed grass which he created the topsoil for. And the trouble began. Arch Coal purchased the company he was originally working with, and they did not reclaim the land to any extent that it could be used, and drove their trucks over his land without paying him any wheelage fees. He couldn't use over half of his land because of the poor shape it was in, and the constant trucks driving over the land. He goes to court next week against Arch Coal.

The grasses grown on properly reclaimed land.

rubble filled reclamation with no topsoil, left by Arch Coal.