HOW TO MAKE A BAT HOUSE

I had a question about how to build a bat house. They are really simple to make. It takes a rigid back board of about two feet wide by 14 inches long. No need to be precise. Whatever scrap wood you have around should do it. (For instance, the one I have has three boards to make up the solid front.)
The back board should be one inch longer than the front. Cut the tops of each board at an angle to allow you to put a little roof on it if it is exposed to rain. Or square it off if you plan to hang it under an eve or breezeway or some type of shelter. The front board should be shorter than the back board at the bottom.
Staple a piece of screen to the inside of each board before sandwiching them together with a one by one piece of scrap on each side. The screen gives the bat some purchase. Screw the three thicknesses, front, back and spacer together. Roof the top with left over shingles glued to a flat, thin molding board, screwed onto the top, and you are ready to hang it. The photo below shows the bat house from the bottom, looking into the screened insides. This size house will hold about 80 bats and give the flies and mosquitoes notice to move on to other areas.
Now, how to attach one to the new RV. Hmmm! Just kidding.

VALUE IN RELAXATION

This is our "shake down" cruise in the new motor home. We sit in beautiful Yosemite Lakes this morning. Its quiet here, and the crystal clear water riffles over the rocks. Lovely! We arrived yesterday after a breathtaking drive over 120 through Groveland.
Jim has busily worked on technical installations these past weeks while I played with my guests. It was my turn to orient myself around the kitchen, place pots, pans, dishes, the appliances, my clothing etc. where everything worked best for me. Small inconveniences are easily overcome for a week, but when you spend as much time on the road as we do, it is necessary to minimize them. The signal here is slow, as it often is, no cell phone service at all on this 400 acre preserve, but Jim's antenna installation works well and we have an internet signal without waiting until 8am for the lodge to open. Yes! That is a major convenience, to sit in your own space and do email and blog BEFORE breakfast. It purifies relaxation and reduces my stress. (I'm the self stresser of the family.)
I'm looking forward to Yosemite National Park which is only 90 miles from Murphys and five miles from our park.

MAYBE I'M BATTY

I currently maintain a tub of water for bats, but I was totally unprepared for a gift of a bat house even though I've been accused of being slightly batty.
You will never know how delighted I was to receive a bat house given that bats are the best thing that ever happened to a mosquito, in my opinion.
I've had several encounters with bats. One got caught in an old fashioned fly strip, those sticky spirals one hangs in the barn to keep down the flies. Its wings were not removable without doing the bat fatal damage and, in the end, I had to kill it. It taught me that the bat would most likely have eaten twice the number of flies in my barn and I never put up another fly strip.
As kids we used to throw rocks wrapped in white cloth up in the air and watch the bats dive bomb them. One time, I scored by clunking a bat on the head and it came down with the rock. We kids stood in awe and opened its wings and got a good look at it. It trembled for a bit before it was able to fly away.
But the most exciting encounter was in Austin, Texas. A bridge there attracts millions of Mexican red bats under its corrugated structure. At dusk, tourists like myself sit comfortably about the banks and watch as the bats take flight in enormous waves from under the bridge to launch themselves on the insect population up and down the river. For me, what is memorable about that experience, is my husband's reaction. He grumbled for days claiming: "I can't believe I'm going to Austin so you can see a bunch of !^#*) bats." When we returned home, all he talked about was those bats. It was quite a sensation.

HOLY MOLY KEN BURNS

The fuss Ken Burns has created with his PBS Series about our National Parks is astonishing. It seems like every magazine and newspaper editor has found something to say about our National Parks and National pride. By jumping on the bandwagon, there may even be a chance to save them from the neglect that is currently affecting National and,( in California) State Parks. Maybe the lesson will rub off and help our state parks as well.
Guilty, I am for knowing so little about them. I hadn't a clue that setting aside land for the people to use collectively in this country was an entirely new idea in governance that has spread throughout the world. And, guilty I am for visiting so few of them. With 391 sites, parks, monuments and preserves, there is much to see and do.
Have the National Parks simply not done a good PR job? Ney, again! Their first real leader fought hard to pull visitors into the parks and succeeded.
I had no idea of the fighting spirit needed and the private money of the Rockefellers and others that went into making these great places available to you and me. Now they stand forever so our own children and their children will have great beauty, history and unique plants and animals to see as we do. Let us appreciate and support them, for indeed, they are a unique legacy and our country's Presidents, Congressmen and citizens, did it right.
Tomorrow, Jim and I are headed for Yosemite. Last year, above photo, my son and his family and friends visited The Grand Canyon.

LIVING POOR NOSTALGIA

My background is pretty rustic. My brother is in front of the two room log house we lived in. Behind it, is a clapboard building my father dragged on to the property with horses and a dray to house hunters in the winter. It contained four home-made bunks, a table, and a wood stove. We lived entirely off the land and hunters brought in extra money. We had no indoor plumbing and, at first, no electricity, either.
When I first moved to California, someone invited me to go camping. I wasn't interested. I LIVED that way. A wood fire holds no romance for one such as me because I disliked stacking wood, the dirt, the chips from my father's axe that I had to pick up by the wagon load for kindling. Typical kid complaints while we took for granted the whole outdoors and bountiful nature at our feet.
With my recent visit from my old neighbors, I'm reminded of the wonderful things about living poor. I'm grounded, hard working, practical, a conservationist. (That is the word we used before environmentalist became common.) And, it surprised me that the years could wash away and we could reconnect and feel that we had a lot in common even though Bernice and Marie, each became the wife of farmers, had no higher education, and remained in the same, small community of Hardwood, Mi.
Pat, on the other hand, moved to Indiana and worked in the "big city." None of us attended college and all of us consider ourselves "successful", whatever that means. Let us say, we are no longer poor.
I believe we reconnected so easily because we share the same values. Hard work, the importance of family, self sufficiency, and consistency, come to mind. We share attitudes of stick-to-it, never give up, help yourself and above all, be a good neighbor. There was an-I can do anything anyone else can d0-attitude at our house. I feel so fortunate that my folks drilled those values home. As a consequence, we were rich in friends and self satisfaction. I believe I've retained those values today and they have held me in good stead.
The biggest difference, as it turns out, is I have good health insurance and have retired. Pat, the city worker, the same. Farmers typically do not have health insurance, and that difference is enormous for Bernice, whose husband died of a long catastrophic illness. She now works, at age 71, in an Indian Casino to pay for her deceased husband's medical bills that were enormous. Marie, too, a widow, has a low social security income and no medical insurance. She is 78 and typical of the type of salt-of-the-earth, hard working person who needs affordable health insurance. Well, enough said.
I actually meant to blog today about the National Parks, another "camping" venue, but I got carried away with nostalgia. Maybe tomorrow.

HEALTH CARE RANT

From a public non profit organization, Public Citizen Health Research Group, comes this insightful information via Dr. Sidney Wolfe. He spoke before a Subcommittee on Health at a hearing on Health Insurance.
"The real question is, why should we tolerate the fragmented, highly profitable, administratively wasteful private health insurance industry any longer?" questions Wolfe. To paraphrase his comments, he states the public is way ahead of either Pres. Obama or the congress in its distrust of the health insurance industry. The Congress, on the other hand is writing them into the legislation. They want us to believe health insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry will be good citizens and voluntarily lower prices.
In the last 30 years there are three times more doctors and nurses, and 30 times more health administrators. Administrators do not provide any care. The drug companies and insurance companies make more money with a frangmented, uncontroled system that allows them to not insure "unprofitable" people and let the the public (that's you and me) take care of them. 30 other countries have adoped centralized health insurance coverage which reaches as high as 96% of their people by throwing out the health insurance industry that obstructs care. Countries who do this get high coverage at cheaper cost then we now know. So, what model should we follow? A failed, fragmented policy or a practical single payer program that does the right thing by the people of Canada, Taiwan, New Zealand, most of Europe, Iceland, Japan, Korea, Mexico and Turkey?
Public Citizen's Dr. Woohandler's testimony before the same Subcommittee on Health Insurance, pointed out that 62 % of bankruptcies in this country are related to health care. And 50% of those bankrupt families HAD health insurance. Dr. Woolhandler went on to say that private insurance is a defective product. It would take vast government expenditures to support America's uninsured under the current system. It would save $400 billion annually by using single-payer reform just to shrink the health care bureaucracy.
It angers me that good health care is so fundamental to a successful society, and here we are with too many congressional "leaders" taking money from the health industry lobby that is doing it's best to befuddle the picture. My neighbors and friends are mad as hell and believe me, the voters are going to have the last say. Hopefully, it won't be too late for a single-payer reform that has teeth.

HOW THE WEST WAS WON

My daughter and grandchildren came to play and one of their favorite places is the old historic gold town of Columbia. It amazes me that I can go there once or twice a year and always come away with something new.
Having a fourth grader along helps. Owen is studying California History; the gold rush, the Missions, etc., so that much of what we saw was related to his school work and a good review for adults.
A bumpy, authentic stage ride reminded us of how the west was won, often at gunpoint. The faux robber grabbed the driver's poke and wanted the kids candy. Turns out he didn't like their particular treats so we were allowed to pass.
We enjoyed a picnic, shops, and a young street violinist. That and history with and the background strains of a fiddlers contest. A lovely day. Its a great place to visit with kids.
This fat cat was the queen of the Candle and Soap Works.

SOOTHING FALL

California transitions into fall. The days are shorter, darker. Then, thud. You get a cold day, an even colder night, and suddenly its time to put on the wool blanket, close the windows, and make soup. It doesn't test your courage to turn on the oven. Yesterday, my neighbor baked an apple pie for me from my own apples. Some trees are just beginning a tinge of orange and yellow.
This morning I started the applesauce. We had applesauce for breakfast and more to tuck in the freezer. Its soothing to me when the weather changes and signals a new season, even if it signals rain and cold to come. I'm tired of the heat and welcome the chance to tuck in, read more, do less yard work and more slow cooking, applesauce and beans and stews. And, home made pie from the oven.

AND BENEFITS TO ALL...

Never would I have considered myself an avid player on the internet just a few short years ago. Now, I'm on it everyday. It has changed the way I advertise something for sale, and the way I shop. It provides me with nearly daily contact with far away friends I hadn't heard from in years. It transcends phone contact. It isn't free, but it is affordable.
Many of you have no doubt heard about net neutrality. The cable companies and phone companies would dearly like to suck more money out of us in a pay-as-you-go way to cruise the internet, exploit it and to hell with this vast, wonderful, infrastructure that spread from college campuses and to the public free from students, hackers, geeks ordinary citizens. It leveled the playing field for entreprenuers of America by putting small companies, individuals and big companies side by side with equal exposure. What a wonderful worldwide democracy we have going on the internet. I can contact my Indonesian exchange student-free-instead of paying a $300 phone bill. If you enjoy your internet, be sure and support net neutrality. There are many myths about net neutrality. Get to the truth by contacting www.freepress.net and
www.savetheinternet.com

MIGHTY FROG HUNTERS IN FROGTOWN

Its one of those things I don't tell anyone from Calaveras County, especially anyone I know from Angels Camp, the frog jumping capitol of the world. If the Chamber of Commerce finds out about my past, I'll be run out of town on a rail.
As kids, we all caught frogs in the creek that ran by our place, and butchered them for their tasty legs. Pat's mother wouldn't cook them, but my mother would. Was it serendipity that I found frog legs for sale in Angels Camp? I couldn't resist. We had a farewell dinner of frog legs, and they were just as delicious as we remembered them.
We toasted this gathering of childhood friends, after 60 years of no contact, and marveled at our good fortune to have found each other. We shared treasured memories, made joyful new memories and will never again let the years pile up before we see each other again.
Our visit ended, but some friendships, we discovered, are forever.