Rhinelander, Wisconsin Closes Two Wells

Most people who are familiar with Wisconsin know about the Rhinelander/Eagle River Area. Many who live there or have cottages in the area refer to it as God's Country. This is the area that I typically harvest wild rice. It has gotten more difficult over the past thirty years to find waters that are not contaminated with oil and/or gas, but that is the cost, it seems, of places being popular. There are places that still remain somewhat untouched by modern maladies, but two municipal drinking water supply wells have tested positive for PFAS, you may know it as an ingredient in high performance fabrics made by DuPont, or perhaps as Teflon, the non-stick cooking surface that was touted as revolutionary but that flaked off the pans it was coating. It may be something you have un-knowingly purchased as flame retardent clothing. Most children's sleepwear has it and a tiny bit is released every time you wash the garment. These wells in Rhinelander are not just a little bit contaminated, the health advisory has been exceeded by nearly fifteen times. Regulators set the action level at 40 ppt (parts per trillion) these wells are at nearly 600 ppt. The reason PFAS is called the forever chemical is because it literally does not breakdown, not in nature and certainly not in our bodies. It presents a long term problem that cannot be ignored.
Especially now, when property values are peaking and tourism brings in 90% of the income to several couties around this great lakes and rivers district, having to deal with forever pollution of the public water supply has an even more profound cost.The Mayor was interviewed and he said that they are taking a position that noone is at fault.7,500 souls spread out over nearly ten square miles will have a difficult time funding even one more well and for the people outside the city limits, they are completely on their own as far as finding clean and fresh water. This problem has been known since 2013. Since the municipality only had five wells to begin with, this makes their fresh water source rather precarious. It has been reported that if they have to close one more well, they won't have enough water to meet the needs of residents.

Emergent Prophesy

I am coming to understand that seeing the future is not as much about having some sort of divine intervention or transformative experience involving the divine, but it is arrived at by paying acute and critical attention to details, motivations behind some of the slightest actions and grasping minute details about the now and trends that have been established over time. The more deep the dive we take into experiencing fully both the past and how it affected our moment in time, the more likely we are to "see into the future". Not one of us can say with certainty what the next big thing will be. A short list of trends will prove that. For instance who could have said before hand that chipotle, which has existed for centuries, perhaps millennea, would become so ubiquitous that you could not swing a cat without hitting something with smoked pepper spice in it? Pet rocks, clackers, fidget spinners, blogs and books "on tape" seemed extremely odd, quirky and arcane until they became ubiquitous. In hindsight we say, that it was inevitable, but to presage those trends required not just out of the box thinking, but an element of understanding what humans want and need, their underlying perception of lack that drives them to the marketplace, or what makes them feel guilty. Even though if you asked the person they might not know or admit to it, but we all have a sense of guilt that we are not being "productive enough" when we drive to and from work every day, or do the tasks that have become rote with basic,boring repetition. I mean, there is only so good a job you can do pairing socks or folding shirts for heaven's sake and driving, well...One of my mentors who taught me little else used to say, driving is like a contest that everyone can win if we all get safely to our destination with no damage to any of the vehicles. The books on tape allow us to learn, have fun with and be read to while doing some jobs that just need to be done, but that we could nearly do without a thought. If the stressors get too high to pay attention or you have to concentrate on changing loads of laundry for instance or if you like the turn of phrase and just want to hear it again, you can always rewind the tape a bit or have an instant "do over". All of these trends have been based on conscious as well as unconscious wants, needs and desires. The main taproot of prophesy, it is my contention, goes deep into the heart of humankind and pulls up what is salient when others might scoff or blatantly deny those needs, wants and desires. Honestly, I still don't understand the fascination with chipotle.
Growth and adaptation are the rule, not the exception. We can look at trend lines until we are blue in the face, but in virtually all things sociologic (dealing with people and their behavior) all trends seem to have a break point where things steadily change and then suddenly, the sky is the limit or the next day the trend falls flat. Anyone who has participated in a trend knows what I'm talking about. Remeber when the cool kids collected Pogs or when beanie babies were the hot new item? What about the Mrs. Beasley dolls or Cabbage Patch Kids? If you are of a certain age, there was a time when yo-yos were hot, or stuffed Smurfs and E.T.s could not be kept on the shelves of stores. I know it sounds odd, but trends almost presage their own elimination simply because they are trends. Trends start with a few odd balls. in the business, they are called early adopters. Then, the cool kids think it makes them special to get on board or it fills a need in them. Soon everyone wants to, using the yo-yo example "Walk the Dog", successfully pull off "Around the World" or perform "Cat's Cradle". The only reason they still sell yo-yos is because some people are still fascinated by the inertia of the spinning top turned horizontally. If a trend helps us to excel or refine hidden talents, develop or show off, have more time to do the things we love or to simply feel seen or heard, in the case of clackers, standing out from the crowd, the trend line goes up. If these factors get removed, that is when the trend line crashes. That is why the most annoying trends have to constantly reach extreme levels. That is why some people juggle while standing on their head and simultaneously balancing on three chairs stacked on a ball. Or two people do all these things on opposite sides of a teeter-otter. To keep things interesting at this point, one person may juggle knives while the other juggles flaming batons. It is also why luxury cars, monster trucks and blowing coal exist. There will always be those who want to be the oddballs and will pay any price to remain the most extreme.

This is a photo of me in my garden. When I bought this property, every inch of it was hard-packed, expansive clay. When it was dry, cracks up to an inch across would open up across the whole surface, deep enough that until there was a full inch of rain, they would not fill up. when it was dry, there was so little life in it that you could throw a sharpened spade down, in an attempt to pierce the surface anywhere in the yard and it would bounce off and ring like a bell. My passion was for organic gardening and this image is of me when I had acheived three crops on the same square foot of soil for the first time. Now, I'm up to five crops on one square foot in a single growing season and don't get that level of joy from it because it is not as novel as three crops was back then. This is another reason trends occasionally die out. If you need to constantly out do yourself but the technology or technique has finite limits, once you are up against them, you may lose interest. Going back to yo-yo tricks, I have seen it claimed tha tthere are fifty of them, but if the cool kids only did ten, you may lose interest when you master those ten. you may only get good at three and that could make you lose interest. You could even tangle the string or tie it to the shaft with the wrong knot and you might give up the whole undertaking on day one, but at least you bought the hot "new" trendy item. But, for now, let's go back to the garden. What allows some people to sustain what would otherwise become just a trendy diversion or after the activity or item loses that lustre that can only come from "newness"? I contend that it has to do with how well it serves the future and this is where we can sidle up to prophesy. When we can see through the now into a future time and understand the wants and needs of those people who inhabit it. We have always known that some people will always say, "I have a black, (or brown) thumb." or "I can't keep a cactus alive." So, the chia pet was created. That one, as strange as it may sound was sort of a no-brainer. What is odd, to my way of thinking is that they have not yet offered chia self portraits. I guess not enough people want to see themselves with green afros. How much people invest in trends is often directly related to what they get back. For some, having a crowd pay to see them perform does the trick. Chances are, if you ever see the two people balanced and juggling on a teeter-totter, you will have paid to see them perform or you are also part of the troupe who are backstage watching them practice. My gardening gets practiced in relative isolation, but as I offered neighbors some of my extra produce, it brought a handful around to start asking, "Hey, how did you do that?" When I strted, I was the weird guy at the end of the block collecting everyone's leaves that they put out to the curb in the fall. those who asked, or paid attention realized that the yards that were full of trash or outright garbage had their leaves passed over and when the leaves turned to lawn clippings the next spring, the people who used chaemicals also had their grass clippings left behind. If I didn't see parts of dandelion leaves or flowers in their yard waste, I didn't want or use it.
Building up the organic matter in my soil took years but I never got bored with it. I pushed the limits of what I had heard is a "good amount" of soil organic matter. I began to study just what I was doing in a scientific sense and tried to grapple with how and why I inherited such awful soil. It was because it had been treated like dirt for so long, abused and taken advantage of, there really wasn't any soil left. Then, I learned that on average, agricultural soils in the U.S. have as little as 1% SOM (Soil Organic Matter)I have seen soil tests as low as 0.6% and heard of them as low as 0.4%. I stopped checking when I got over 10% but I know that you can and I did go higher. The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture)and the NRDC (National Resources Defense Council) have known for decades that increasing SOM 1% will allow soil to hold 25,000 gallons of water per acre, making that water available to plants. It does not take a sage or soothsayer to understand that if humans are to survive on this planet as a species, we will need to increase the moisture holding capacity of soil and this trend has already begun. The results of what we have done since the advent of fossil energy use in agriculture has created a devastating trend and the line, when followed into the future will give us more drought and more floods, more desertification and less healthy crops. The trend we are on the threshold of is to flip the script and build soil, with organic carbon. Not doing so will result in the elimination of our species. The stakes are high but the propensity of people to jump on the hottest new trends should not be overlooked, it may be the only thing that can save our species.

Biochar Kiln Arrives

Now, we will be making quick work of brusgh piles, slash and dry woody agricultural debris. If you have a need for us to help produce biochar onsite, contact us by e-mail at: tnsaladino42@hotmail.com
We are limited to providing our sevices to Northeast and North Central Wisconsin as well as the Northern tier of Counties and the U. P. of Michigan. We can bring one of the Wilson Biochar kilns and would love to work with your not-for-proift or small farm or logging operations. We can transform dry woody debris into char cheaply economically and advise on how to prepare the char for soil building whether you want to use it in forest land, agricultural acreages or home gardens. Have brush pile, or other fire hazard onsite? Reduce the volume by half and turn the resulting char into rich soil amendment. we can show yo uhow our ancestors did the same for thousands of years, building a thriving soil microbiome at the same time!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCQ6NoY2-Fg
Update: 25-11-21we have already sequestered more than three tons since getting our Wilson Biochasr Kiln! Thank-you Kelpie and we will continue to hold classes with the kiln!

Words Fall Short Post Covid

I learned that my community is Global, just like Todd Rundgren's album says. The glowing electrons of Zoom and other portals to the digi-realm are representations of real people. (not the people themselves) It is not any of our faults that we cannot make eye contact through this techno-meeting medium. We can actually honor our affinity groups and "see" into the hearts of what matters to us by our belonging to groups. My experience has been that the anonymity of the digital interface allows a$$#*les to operate with relative impunity and I have learned that the people I didn't like before are even less tolerable post covid. Many either refuse to or are unable to change. Perhaps they are happy being miserable hot-heads and morose complainers, that has zero bearing on who I am or choose to be. Now, I won't waste time on them. The fact that I can teach people from around the planet to sequester carbon cheaply, efficiently and virtually forever has been one of the most liberating things about not being able to interact with "real" people, in person or wasting time trying to talk to people who just happen to be in my physical presence. I don't have time to spend on players. I spent the last year learning about more than twenty types of soil organisms, what they "like", need and rely on for their quality of life. What they prefer to consume and which organisms consume them, which are cannibalistic and which are not. I am becoming "friends" with them instead of human-beings. I don't miss two-leggeds as much as I had expected to and I have discovered that soil organisms will never sell you out or lie to your face. They won't try to commodify the relationship or turn on you over a misunderstanding or feign compassion in an attempt to gain your trust. In short, I have grown into a different person with new perspective and will continue to share deeply with those who respect who I have become. Those who regressively cling to their out-dated beliefs, practices and neuroses are welcome to keep them, I just won't waste time concerning myself with their mal-adaptive behavior. I mean are we not all responsible for our own development? I don't want to bring anyone down, but I'm not going to spare anyone the truth either. I still detest chickenshits and liars, that has not changed. What I value has changed and most importantly it is my time that I value.

12-06-2021 Status Report

ECO-Tours has been working to purchase land for an outdoor school. Not only will we be able to teach carbon smart farming in a hands-on way, but regenerative grazing, permaculture principles, Leave No Trace Ethics and skills needed to be more sustainable. In the old days, we called some of the skills Home Economics, or Folkways, and we will also teach skills for enhancing energy efficient and healthy home retrofits that dfon't require people to have hundreds of thousands of dollars to drop on a home renovation. We will also teach strawbale construction, Living Home systems design and construction. We have recently received a large contribution from an anaonymous donor and want to thank everyone who has contributed through our gofundme page as well. We now have more than ten percent of the total needed for the land purchase and we have more than a dozen experts who are anxiously waiting to teach as soon as we close on the land.
In the interim, we have reached out to several Land Trusts to see if we can begin teaching some of our classes even before we finish our fund-raising efforts and several other not-for-profit organizations have voiced an interest in collaborating and participating with our programs in several important ways. Bringing students, offering classes of their own and helping spread the word about what we offer. This word of mouth advertising is invaluable for making the transformation we need to happen. At this moment there are thousands of voices raised to tell people that there is no hope, that we are devolving into some sort of Apocalyptic mayhem and our message of peace and cooperation, mutualism and intentional communities that allow people to thrive is more important than ever. If there is any way that you can help share information about our efforts, or use anythnig that has been written at this blog or at theotherfishwrapplease share it. Education has always been and continues to be the second most expensive thing in the world, ignorance is number one.
For now, we continue to give away what we can afford to and hope it finds traction because we cannot wait for better times to do our best.We are anxious to work with you and are willing to teach via the digital realm wherever you are. If you want to contact us, we are available in a variety of ways. tnsaladino42@hotmail.com will get you to my personal e-mail. You can reach out via facebook. Tony C. Saladino Drirector/Guide ECO-Tours of Wisconsin,Inc.

Save Money Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

Most of us live in stick built homes. Wood, cut into rectangular boards or sticks are used, most often at a standard distance from one another to create a frame. Within this frame are holes that are later filled with windows or doors and in places that are eventually covered with siding (outside) and drywall or plaster (inside), it leaves a voids the thickness of the sticks that get filled with insulation. Most of these types of buildings are built upon a deck of some sort which becomes the floor of the finished space. The most common area to be forgotten, especially by insulators is the space directly under the floor. Often, it is just what is referred to as the rim joist. Often a single wide board, set on edge, holding all the floor members (joists) together. The structure that is made of the intersection of rim joists and the floor joists is often called the sill box, because the end of the floor, above the foundation looks like a series of small boxes along one wall of the basement, or foundation and the opposite wall the two walls going the other direction may just have a single, or in some cases a double joist to supprt the rest of the floor deck.This area, especially if forgotten in an otherwise insulated home can account for up to thirty percent of the heat loss in the entire structure and it causes floors to be permanently cold in winter and it even wastes the expensive cooled air in an air conditioned space in summer. some people like to spray foam insulation into that area but unless you take your time, to make sure all the gaps are filled completely and work slow enough to build up a thick layer of spray foam, this may not be the best approach. A more time consuming but also more reliable way to make sure adequate thickness of insulation gets put around this area is to use rigid foam, which can be cut to the proper size and wedged into the space.

The Beverage Manager of Beantown

I met up with a friend for coffee yesterday and she has started using the term "spoons". Instead of telling people that she has "no more fucks to give", or something that could be considered abrasive, she'll say, "Too many spoons." In some cases, she'll say, that dealing with certain types of people would require a whole ladle and "I just don't have the spoons." for that level of interaction. It is interesting to think of parceling out our fucks by the spoonful. I think it is tied up with my theory that if I don't know you, I'll try once (perhaps one spoonful) giving my energy to share the truth with that person. I always try at least once to educate people, even strangers. If I am more invested, like with a good friend, relative or someone I deeply care about, I definitely have more spoons, perhaps a whole ladle to put into sharing my vision of truth. You don't want to waste a whole lot of energy on folks who you may never see again, so "Ain't got the spoons" for them might be the perfect amount. Wear a "Make America Great" hat around me, you are getting served with a coke spoon. I'll still share my truth, but don't want to squander too much truth on someone who is in active denial. I'll still tell the truth, but won't waste much of my energy doing it. I ain't got the spoons. I also had an interesting interaction with the Barista, who happens to own the coffeehouse. She is from near Boston and I told her about the time I was invited to go to The Athens of America, Beantown and how the folks who brought me were going to stay with paranoid friends who didn't want to open their home to me, so I nearly spent the night homeless. About 2 AM, I was outside the Hilton, looking as dejected as a young punk ever did, I am sure; when the beverage manager walked out and saw me. He was on his way home after a long, long day of making sure that people he may never meet could have their desires fulfilled. He said, "What's wrong, you look like you are in trouble." I told him what had happened and he said, "Do you like dogs?" I said that yes, I did and he said, "You can stay at my place, but my dog will want to sleep on the bed with you." So he took me out to Squantum on the train, telling me about how his whole neighborhood was built atop the garbage of Boston that had accumulated during the previous century. He let me stay the night in a nice big bed with a lovely pit bull terrier named beast or something like that. In the morning when I woke up, he was gone to work already and his wife sent me off with breakfast and a brown bag lunch in case I didn't meet up with my friends before I got hungry again. She even gave me train fare back to the city along with great directions for finding the train station because the neighborhood looked completely different in the light of day. The Barista from Wrightstown reminded me that hospitality is not about how we treat the people we know, but those we do not. How can a guy live nearly sixty years and nobody ever explained that to him overtly? I mean, I had lived the experience! In my industry, "hospitality" is an actual place, where you can go to get fueled up, re-hydrate or catch a quick snack. When you travel around the country, you may never even meet the people who care for you and provide you the service of caring for you. Catering to your essential needs. Hearty thanks to all those strangers who have the spoons to provide hospitality! The world would be a dismal place without you!