Will a Halloween Scrooge Create a New National Cemetery?

Halloween is a fun sort of holiday. It's actually the start of the “holiday” season, quickly followed by Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's. It begins the season of gathering together with family and friends, gift giving and celebration.

Originally, established as a harvest festival it is now connected with remembrances of those who have died, costumes, trick or treat, pumpkins and gourds, witches and black cats.

Dia de Muerto's, November 1 & 2, is the Mexican celebration perhaps best known for welcoming back the spirits of family and friends who come back for a visit. It is an important holiday to visit cemeteries. Halloween is actually a joyous festival.

Pennsylvania Senate Republicans – The Holiday Scrooge Factor for Citizens ?

Pennsylvania Republican Senators, however, are “scrooging” Pennsylvania citizens by balking at a severance tax on Marcellus Gas. The Pennsylvania House adopted a tax proposal, as promised, and forwarded it to the Senate, which has until Thursday October 14^th to pass the legislation. The proposed tax calls for a tax of $.39 per 1,000 cubic feet of gas taken. Not a whole lot of money. If the severance tax is not in place, it is likely dead in the water since no more legislative sessions are scheduled.

Of course elections are only a few weeks away, and the politicians need to spend some time with the electorate. Many of the politicos will have some extra money to spend this election cycle, thanks the generosity of the drilling companies. Check out MacellusMoney.Org to see who is getting rich.

Perhaps, not as much in northwestern Pennsylvania, but in other regions, the Marcellus debate is a contentious issue during this election. Chances are that is the same in New York, West Virginia, and parts of Ohio.

Pennsylvania sits on what is estimated as trillions of dollars of Marcellus Gas and there is no tax to help fund the local communities, state government, nor environmental issues. This despite the fact there is enough gas to supply US energy needs for the next fifty years.

The gas is a statewide, people's resource not a corporation's resource. At least in Alaska, the oil wealth is shared, why not Pennsylvania? Could it be the Halloween Scrooge at work?

The Halloween Costume of Marcellus Gas ?

Marcellus drilling does offer some hope. There will be plenty of jobs in many communities connected with the drilling. Although, lets face it some jobs, perhaps the highest paying, will go to company workers from out of state; fine. There are many other related spin-off jobs which will be available. Besides, the gas is here not in Texas or Iraq.

From a company viewpoint, there are few environmental problems, some even admit to no wrong. But that is not the reality. There have been problems with private water wells, public waterways, farm animals and forest land.

Concerns are also being raised about the effects of roads and huge machinery rumbling through forest land and it's impact on wildlife. Yet, very little environmental studies have been completed, despite the fact that 70 percent of Pennsylvania is forest land.

Gas might be a clean burning energy resource, but extracting it has some serious issues.

What are the impacts on the deer herd, turkey flocks, grouse and other native wildlife? Could Appalachia become the next national cemetery? After all, it is Halloween.

Halloween and the Vegetable Garden

Halloween also brings up images of snow, fireplaces and woodstoves. The holiday means winter is knocking at the back door. Ashes can be good for the garden but be careful.

Do not use the ashes if cardboard has been burned, plastic or most fire starter logs. These items have dangerous chemicals.

The best wood ash to use which will raise a soils pH are the hardwoods like cherry, oak, hickory and beech. It is also best to dig the ashes into the ground in the spring of the year which means safely storing them in a covered container. Melting snow and rain will leech out the available nutrients.

Before using the wood ash, it is a good idea to have a soil test done to determine the ration of ash to use. These test are inexpensive and will help to improve soil quality for the next growing season.

Additional Quick Note: Be careful, there is a ban on moving firewood because of the Emerald Ash Borer.

Good Blogs to Read

One Woman--over sixty--and her perspective of life. - by Kathleen Richardson. This was formerly called On Your Way to the Top. It is a great blog and she has worked hard to improve it and make it better.

Penn Future - This is a Web site, not actually a blog, but worth the time to check.

Marcellus Money - Not a blog but a listing of whose accepting money.

The snake

Yesterday, Halloween, was just a nice day. The weather was perfect. I planted about 100 black walnuts in the big garden. It was warm but I still had to hoe a couple of inches of snow to make a row. Now, if they grow...spring will tell.
The rosie reds were in schools swimming in the new pond enjoying the warm sunshine. It was the first time I saw them swimming in schools (about three groups of them). It was neat.
Mike and John showed up and we went up back in the woods to begin cutting up an old beech tree that fell down one day in July almost a year and a half ago. I was walking up the foot path that day with the Yaw. It was warm, sunny, clear blue sky and very calm.
Suddenly, there was a loud crash and the woods became brighter. The tree, likely well over 100 years old, was on the ground hardly 75 feet away.
Last winter I cut some of the branches for firewood but my chain saw wasn't able to really cut the larger branches or the trunk. When Mike and John saw the tree a couple weeks ago, they decided it was worth the time and effort to harvest the rest of the wood.
We spent most of the afternoon cutting and splitting that tree. It was a great afternoon to be in the woods. During a short break, we saw the snake in the sawdust. It was a small snake, maybe eight inches. I am thinking maybe it was hibernating in the tree and we woke it up. It didn't have a real good attitude.
We got to thinking about seeing a snake on Halloween and shortly we were back in my kitchen eating a loaf of bread I made in the bread machine. It is a day, an afternoon actually, I'll likely never forget.
I think I might have close to enough wood for the rest of winter. Yesterday, Jeff also split quite a bit of wood, maybe upwards of a chord. That is in addition to the other chord or so that I had cut and stacked over the last couple months. Once I get the Halloween wood down here, I am thinking I have close to four chords of firewood. It will be a warm January and February and some memories of some good times.

Halloween October 31st 2008

It has been some time since I have had the time to collect some thoughts and write here. I guess the scariest part of Halloween this year would be a Republican victory on Tuesday, election day.
But I don't think that is going to happen. Far from it, the Dems and Obama are on the brink of a victory of perhaps landslide proportions. The end is in sight, whew! Eight years of the Bush Disaster and 21 months of the McCain campaign's sleaze has raised the misery index for millions of people.
In the last two months, the economic meltdown on Wall Street has been a big focus, and even now, the future of the economy still looks bleak. Everyday I am meeting people out of work or who have had work hours cut back. There is a lot of worry about how to pay the bills and a lot of creative thinking about how to raise extra cash. I've found myself doing the same.
The weather changed quickly. October 19th was the first hard frost and on October 27th the first snowfall of about six inches. Today, however, it will melt- sunny skies this morning and temps will reach into the sixties.
On September 26, I had the Frog Bog, a small marshy area, dug out and deepened on one side. Within the week, it filled after some heavy rains the first week of October and Jeff, my friend and I, added some rosie red minnows.
I also spent a lot of time planting some things around the pond, mostly native wild flowers. It should look pretty sharp in the spring when winter breaks. More on this later. The project kept me pretty busy.