Recycla has written before about her search for the perfect soda.  She doesn’t drink sodas very often — perhaps once every month or two — but she does love the occasional Coke with her pizza or one of her husband’s divine grilled burgers.

What Recycla does not love is the fact that Coke uses high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in their U.S. sodas, as opposed to the sugar used in Europe and Canada.  Recycla can assure you that European and Canadian Cokes are superior to the American version.

Because Recycla is so anti-HFCS, she has searched far and wide for sodas that contain only sugar or honey as sweeteners.  She is even willing to pay more for a superior product.  This search has been going on for two years and is ongoing, as the products she likes are not always available.

For example, Recycla’s daughters don’t drink sodas all that often — only once or twice a month — but when they do have sodas, they like root beer or creme sodas with their pizza.  Recycla found a great root beer that is produced in her home state of Virginia; unfortunately, it appears to be no longer available.  She also found a creme soda that is made by a family-owned company.  Alas, her local Whole Foods no longer carries it and she has not been able to find another local store that does.  She looked into mail order but found the costs to be prohibitive.

Recycla’s husband is a different kind of soda consumer.  He has a three cans/day Diet Coke habit that stretches back more than 20 years.  Yes, Recycla recognizes the health issues associated with this level of soda consumption but has been unable to convince her husband to change his ways.

Because of the sheer number of sodas that Recycla’s husband consumes and the rest of the family’s desire for quality products with no HFCS, Recycla and her husband have discussed the possibility of making their own sodas.

As it happens, several weeks ago, someone from Sodastream, a company that sells home soda makers, approached Recycla and asked if she would be willing to review their products for this blog.

Whenever any of the Eco Women are asked to review products, they have a group conversation about the product first and decide it if fits in with their mission.  The Eco Women agreed that, while reducing soda consumption is something most Americans should do, Sodastream’s products offered the possibility of at least cutting back on waste.  Recycla agreed to do the product review.

When Recycla’s sample soda machine arrived (via FedEx because of the CO2 canister that is the water carbonator), she was so excited.  Unfortunately, this excited waned when she opened the box and discovered that the soda maker was made entirely of plastic and not a very durable one at that.

Recycla was sent the Fountain Jet, which is the company’s basic model that sells for $89.95, including one carbonator and two plastic bottles.  While Recycla is not entirely opposed to plastic, this is the kind of plastic that will surely end up in landfills and she doesn’t feel that this particular product will stand the test of time.

Recycla also received assorted soda mixes.  A 16.9 oz. (500 ml) bottle of soda mix produces approximately 33 cans (12 liters) of sodas.  Each bottle of soda mix costs $4.99 at the Sodastream online store and you can buy ten bottles for the cost of only nine, which helps increase the savings.

Recycla received two BPA-free plastic 1 liter bottles with her soda maker.  The bottles may not go in the dishwasher and must be handwashed, which is almost never convenient  for anyone.  Stainless steel bottles are available, however, they are twice the price.  Recycla thinks it would be a better choice environmentally if the company eliminated the use of plastic bottles altogether and provided only glass and stainless steel options.

As for the carbonators, they come in steel bottles and the empties can be returned to the company for refilling.   Once the canister is empty, one can order a pair of new carbonators online for $49.95 plus shipping.  Frankly, this seems a bit expensive.

But let’s get to the soda-making part…

To get started, Recycla had to first insert the carbonator in the back, which she did easily.

Then, to make sodas, she filled one of the bottles with very cold water and attached it to the front of the soda maker.  Attaching the bottle was an awkward process that never really got any easier with practice, but would have definitely been easier if Recycla had been born with a third hand.

Once the bottle was in place, she pressed a button at the top of the machine to activate the carbonator and add lots of lovely fizzy bubbles to the water.  This part of the process took less than 30 seconds.  Unfortunately, no matter how tightly Recycla attached the bottle to the machine, water leaked out of the top of the bottle and made a mess on the soda machine and the kitchen counter.  She was also afraid to tighten the connection too much, as she was concerned about breaking some of the plastic parts.

After the water was carbonated, Recycla added in the soda mix.  She was sent a nice variety of flavors, including diet cola, orange, and crème soda.  She poured a small amount of the soda mix into the green cap from the mix’s bottle and then s-l-o-w-l-y poured the mix into the bottle of carbonated water.  Note: If you don’t pour slowly, the entire mixture will fizz explosively and go all over your counter, your floor, and yourself.  Trust Recycla on this.

For reasons Recycla cannot fathom, the soda mix cap has a double rim around it.  Try as she might, she was not able to pour the mix without some of it ending up between the two rims, where it pooled until it then leaked out and made yet another mess.

Messes aside, let’s talk about flavor, because that’s the most important part, right?  How do the different soda mixes taste?

The Sodastream company makes a big deal on their website and in their marketing materials about how their soda mixes are not sweetened with HFCS.  What they do not mention — except in small print that’s not easily found — is that they sweeten the soda mixes with Splenda.  Recycla recognizes that not everyone has an issue with artificial sweeteners, but she does.  She would prefer to stick with ingredients that were not created in a lab, plus she thinks that artificial sweeteners taste terrible.

Before agreeing to review the Sodastream products, Recycla had searched through their website and found the information on the Splenda, which was almost a deal-breaker for her.  However, after a great deal of thought, she was willing to open her mind a bit and give it a try, just in case it was better than she thought it would be.

When the Sodastream kit arrived, Recycla made crème soda first.  She took a sip and gagged.  The Splenda had a very heavy, chemical flavor.  She didn’t tell her children about the Splenda and, when they tasted the crème soda, they immediately screwed up their faces in displeasure and pronounced the soda to be “disgusting.”  Recycla then made diet soda for her husband.  He gave it the college try but ultimately pronounced the product “undrinkable.”

Unfortunately, Recycla now has several bottles of unopened soda mixes that she and her family refuse to drink, as well as a soda making kit that is now useless to her.

Recycla has since gone online and read dozens of reviews of Sodastream’s products.  There are quite a lot, as it appears that the company’s marketing people have been effective in reaching bloggers like Recycla.  She thinks it is important to disclose that, in general, she found that many (but not all) bloggers were complimentary about Sodastream’s products.  In most cases, they were not eco-bloggers like the Eco Women, so they were not looking at the products from an environmental point of view, not to mention that quite a few of the reviews were by bloggers who were self-admitted soda addicts.

Recycla recognizes that this review will not please the people at Sodastream, but she believes that it is her job to be honest with her readers.  Plus, she hopes that maybe the Sodastream company will read about her concerns and then make some positive changes to their products.

Recycla is not an employee of Sodastream and, other than receiving a free soda kit, received no other compensation for this review.  All photos courtesy of the Sodastream website.

This weekend’s Holiday Lake 50K++ ultramarathon promises to be a wet, snowy, muddy mess. The trail is currently covered by about 5″ of snow, with another several inches forecast. Later in the week, the temperature is expected to rise a bit, so the snow will turn to slush and then to mud. Figure in around 300 runners covering the same single-track trail for 16+ miles, and then doubling back and covering the same ground again, and one can only imagine what a slop-fest it will be. I wouldn’t be running it otherwise.

One day, I hope to approach the first ultra of the year in great shape, trained, rested, and ready to rumble. Saturday will not be that day. Work, weather, and a general malaise have hampered my training, and I had nearly made peace with the thought of taking a pass on Holiday Lake.

And then came the snow, and I realized that this will be no ordinary ultra. Just as last spring’s Promise Land 50K will be remembered for its heat and humidity, this year’s Holiday Lake promises to be remembered for its snow, mud and muck. How could I pass up the experience?

I harbor no illusions about running a PR. Given the conditions, few if any will be able to do that. My main goal – really my only goal – is to beat the 8 hour time limit. I believe that’s doable, but given fitness level and trail conditions, it’s no sure thing.

If nothing else, the experience should give me something to write about.

P.S. For anyone who thinks that 8 hours for a trail ultra through the snow and mud sounds easy, come join me on the starting line at 6:30 a.m. next Saturday. You might want to bring an extra pair of dry socks.

The Miss America Pageant was last weekend (a week ago).

I didn’t even know that the pageant was scheduled.  Didn’t it used to be in September?

Anywho, the winner was Miss Virginia.  Can I hear a shoutout for my home state?

For those of you keeping count, that makes this the third winner from Virginia in the pageant’s history.

[Yes Texas and Mississippi, I hear you down there strutting and preening over your dozens of pageant winners.  Shut it.  Most states don't start training 'em up at birth.]

What’s much more important is the fact that Virginia is the home state of eight, count ‘em 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8, EIGHT U.S. presidents.*  Now that’s something to be proud of.

[* For those of you who don't have that information readily available in your brain cells: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, and Woodrow Wilson.]

Anyway, getting back to the pageant, I’m sure this will just stun you, but I didn’t watch it.  I don’t watch reality TV or any live programming at all, but surely I wanted to watch 50+ women wearing tranny makeup jiggle across the stage?

Um, hell to the N-O.

I used to watch the pageant religiously, but now avoid it if at all possible.  And I really don’t want my girls to watch it until they’re old enough to understand that the show is a bad influence on impressionable young female minds.

I can hear you saying, “But Jen, the show is a scholarship contest and those women are out there doing good things for the less fortunate.”

And I say to you, trust me, the show makes young impressionable girls feel bad about themselves.

Want to know how I know?

I can distinctly remember watching the pageant one year when I was about 14 or 15.  During the swimsuit competition, each contestant’s vital stats were flashed on the TV screen, including weight.  Even though I weighed only 107 or thereabouts, I distinctly remember seeing those numbers and worrying that I weighed more than a couple of those malnourished females.

So yeah, bad influence.

But, here’s the thing, I have to be careful about what I say about pageants, otherwise someone who has known me for a real long time could call me out as a hypocrite.

Mmm hmmm, that’s right people, I have a pageant in my past.  My very distant past.

Now, my original plan when I first started writing this post a week ago was that I was going to dig out some old photos, scan them, and then write a lengthy post about it.  Only, I have since achieved none of these things, due mostly to the fact that I’ve spent an incredible amount of time stockpiling food and supplies for our Long-Ass Winter and then shoveling snow, to be followed by resting up from my exertions, only to have to repeat the entire process over and over again, as it almost never stops snowing here in Virginia.  It’s possible that it might be weeks or months before I can stop inventorying toilet paper and wondering if I have enough to get through the next nor’easter.

I am going to tell you that I was never Miss Roanoke or Miss Virginia, that the pageant that I was in was much lower down the totem pole.  I will also state quite clearly for the record that there was no swimsuit contest.  But I did wear tranny makeup, so there’s that.

On the off chance that I 1) dig  up the old photos and 2) actually scan them, would any of you be interested in me humiliating myself in such a manner?

We went a few weeks ago for our 6 week check up with our midwives, Brynne and Deren of Mountain View Midwives. I have posted before on my birth story about how much we loved and appreciated our home birth experience.

Our midwives have always taken the time to talk with us, let us make our own decisions, and are so supportive of the mothering process in general. This visit was a simple check up and there wasn’t anything pressing to talk about – Lucien has been growing, eating, and sleeping well (he is in the 75^th percentile for length and the 90^th for weight, and is sleeping about 6.5 hours at a stretch during the night now that he is 10 weeks).

While at our visit, Brynne and I got on the subject of parenting types. We have taken Lucien with us everywhere  from a very early age. We went to a bridal show at three weeks, a wedding vendor Christmas party at 5 (with an impromptu dinner out with friends afterwards), we’ve been home over the holidays to stay with family, and the list goes on! While I imagined holing up with my little newborn over the winter months, that was not our reality – and I don’t really regret it.

When I mentioned how on-the-go we’ve been she said, “I’ve seen two extreme types of parenting that work well for people – the first is the schedule parenting. These parents have baby home at a certain time, do bedtime a certain way, etc. and that works well for them.”

Then, she said, “On the other extreme are the “rock band groupie” type of parents. These moms and dads take baby wherever they go and baby eats and sleeps whenever and wherever and these parents are happy too. The parents who languish in the middle are the ones I see who are struggling and unhappy.”

Thank goodness we had this conversation! I had been feeling a little guilty that we weren’t part of the scheduling crowd. How wonderful to be given the freedom to call ourselves part of the “groupie” parents who chose this lifestyle because that’s what works well for us. We have changed diapers in restaurant booths and nursed in public places, and that works well for us – we have a happy, healthy boy to prove it.

YOUR TURN: What parenting style works well for you? Are you finding yourself in the middle, and is that working for you and your family?

Elvis Costello — circa 1989 — performs “Veronica” for a group of Warner Brothers employees.

Last week, while sharing lunch with a friend, standing in line at the post office, answering phones at work, passing a stranger on the sidewalk, Charlottesville folks were discussing snow. Big snow…at least for our little city. The forecasters were predicting another huge storm, rumored to rival the December 19th event that pushed its way into the #4 slot on Charlottesville’s list of historic snowfall totals. It was all very exciting, and a tad bit scary. We were warned of the heaviness of this snow, expected to be so much wetter than the last accumulation. We were told to prepare for power outages and potential roof collapse, to be ready to spend days in our homes and to have the supplies required to get us through that time.

The city was a flurry of activity (ahem…pun intended) as residents scrambled to buy stores out of their supply of milk, eggs, and toilet paper. Snow shovels were a hot commodity, with those shops that managed to receive shipments putting a one-shovel-per-customer limit on purchases. We bought ice melt and candles, bread and cans of tuna, charcoal for our grill and meat and potatoes to place over the flame should we lose power and the use of our oven. We settled in, prepared for the worst, ready to weather the storm.

In the end we wound up with nearly 15 inches of snow, 10 inches less than predicted after sleet clinked against our windows and prevented substantial accumulation for most of Friday night. We were lucky enough to lose power only once, and then for only an hour. Although the city did a fine job of clearing primary roads during and after the storm, we still chose to remain at home, warm and cozy, for the entire weekend.

Brian and I have become quite adept at preparing for long periods of isolation in our house. We stock up on the necessities already mentioned, along with certain items that help to keep us entertained and pass the time – wine, multiple disks of Entourage, magazines and books, baking supplies. The last is the most important for me, as I take comfort in the fact that even if the sky were to dump 48 inches of snow across our lawn and we were to lose power for 7 full days, I could still make bread and cookies in our Big Green Egg. Also, I really like to bake, and the thought of three, uninterrupted days to do so makes me very, very happy.

And so, along with the necessary non-perishables and paper goods, my grocery bags contained milk and eggs, flour and yeast as I left the market Thursday afternoon. I browsed through my cookbooks that evening, imagining each one of my mixing bowls tucked into various corners of the kitchen, plastic wrap stretched tight across their tops, plump balls of dough slowly rising within. Brian requested something sweet, a dessert-ish bread to smear soft butter across as an after-dinner snack. Not one to ever pass on the suggestion of something sweet, I dove right into thoughts of a bread swirled with cinnamon and sugar, laced with figs and walnuts, the crumb sweetened by a touch of honey.

The loaf I was hoping for emerged from the oven just as the snow started to lighten Saturday evening. The intoxicating mélange of fresh-baked bread, sultry cinnamon, earthy walnuts and syrupy figs will forever bring to mind the vision of a silver-cloaked sun setting behind frosty trees, their limbs glimmering with a mask of tiny diamonds. A lovely ending, indeed.

Cinnamon Fig Walnut Bread

adapted from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, by Peter Reinhart, with inspiration from Tara of Seven Spoons

makes two 1-1/2 pound loaves

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup buttermilk (or whole milk), at room temperature
• 2 tbsp honey
• 3-1/2 cups unbleached bread flour, plus extra
• 1-1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tsp instant yeast
• 1-1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 large egg, slightly beaten
• 2 tbsp vegetable shortening, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup water, at room temperature
• 1 cup dried figs, chopped
• 1 cup walnuts, chopped
• 1/2 cup turbinado sugar (for cinnamon sugar swirl)
• 2 tbsp ground cinnamon (for cinnamon sugar swirl)
• 2 tbsp butter, melted

Method

1. Dissolve the honey in the buttermilk by heating both over low heat.  Allow to cool to room temperature.
2. Sift together the flour, salt, yeast and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl.  Add the egg, shortening, buttermilk mixture and water. Stir together with a large spoon (or mix on low speed in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment) until the ingredients come together and form a ball.  Adjust with flour and water if the dough seems too sticky or too dry and stiff.
3. Sprinkle flour on a counter and transfer the dough to the counter.  Knead (or mix on medium speed with the dough hook).  The dough should be soft and pliable, tacky but not sticky.  Add flour as you knead (or mix), if necessary to achieve this texture. Knead by hand for approximately 10 minutes (or by machine for 6 to 8 minutes). Sprinkle in the figs and walnuts during the final 2 minutes of kneading (or mixing) to distribute them evenly. If you are kneading with a mixer, you’ll want to finish kneading by hand to avoid crushing the figs and walnuts, and to be sure to distribute them evenly.
4. Lightly oil a large bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling it to coat it with oil.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow to ferment at room temperature for approximately 2 hours, or until the dough doubles in size.
5. Mix together the 1/2 cup turbinado sugar and 2 tbsp ground cinnamon.  Set aside.
6. Butter two 4×8 loaf pans.
7. Divide the dough into 2 equal pieces.  On a lightly floured surface, roll one piece into a 5×8 rectangle. Sprinkle half of the cinnamon sugar mixture over the dough, leaving a small border around the edge of the dough.
8. Starting at the short end, carefully roll the dough into a tight log*, sealing the seam as best you can. Tuck the ends up towards the seam, sealing as best you can. Place the log in a buttered loaf pan, seam-side down. Repeat with the second piece of dough. Spray the tops of the loaves with spray oil and cover loosely with plastic wrap.  Place in a warm, draft-free location to proof for 60 to 90 minutes.
9. Preheat the oven to 350* with the rack in the middle of the oven. Uncover the loaves and brush the tops with melted butter.  Sprinkle the tops with turbinado sugar.
10. Bake the loaves for 20 minutes. Rotate the loaf pans 180 degrees and continue baking for another 20 to 30 minutes, until the loaves are golden brown on top and lightly golden on the sides and bottom. They should make a hollow sound when thumped on the bottom.
11. Immediately remove the loaves from their pans and cool on a rack for at least an hour before slicing and serving.

*I’m guessing that my loaf pulled apart along the swirl because it wasn’t rolled tightly enough. It is still perfectly textured and delicious, the slices just don’t hold together well as you bite into them.

The landscape during and after a winter storm is an amazing sight, always changing, different from one minute to the next. Every few hours I piled on layers of warmth, tucked my jeans into my boots, forced a hat over unruly hair, and trudged outside in the swirling snow to capture some of the magic.

Welcome to the Valentine’s Day Gift Guide on Traveling with Baby.  From now until February 14th, you’ll find great Valentine’s gift ideas for the whole family.  You’ll even have the opportunity to win some of the products featured on the Gift Guide–isn’t that lovely?

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A couple weeks ago, we had too much rain, and my son could have worn his new Kidorables Dinosaur rain boots indoors to keep his toes dry.

We haven’t had much rain since then, but we’ve had GOBS of snow.  If you live in central Virginia, you may have heard the terms Snowmageddon, Snowpocalypse used to describe last weekend’s two foot onslaught (on top of all the other snow we’ve already had this record-setting winter).

So, instead of splashing in rain puddles, Calvin’s been wearing his rain boots everywhere, and especially tracking through the snow.  I love the great rubber gripping treads in slushy or packed snow.  He loves the dino teeth and  eyes.  His favorite part?  He can slip them on all by himself.  He proudly stomps around and announces this feat every. time. he puts them on. every. time.

Although 14 degrees is still too cold to head outdoors with a thin rain coat, he’s armed and ready for the rains of spring in his matching dinosaur rain coat. I like the wooden dinosaur hanger that comes with the coat.

Don’t you just love the orange spikes on the shoulders? It gets better.  Check out the pockets.  Look at this little guy on the right side.  Adorable!  There’s more…

See this one on the left?  That’s one cute brontosaurus.

But, they’re not nearly as cute as the little guy wearing the coat.

After an afternoon of sliding through the snow fort and cobbling together a snow baby, Calvin likes to head indoors for a cup of warm lemon-blueberry tea followed by a soak in the tub to warm up his fingers and toes.

After the bath, he roars around our home in his dinosaur towel.

I just wish the photo above had sound…can’t you just hear him roaring?  There’s little pockets in the top claws where he can grab on to create the perfect dino dude.

See what I mean?

And when he’s not pretending to be a dinosaur, then he just walks around in a very big green hat.

The towel arrives rolled up and secured with a pretty white bow. It’s tucked nicely in a reusable plastic bag with a canvas strap so you can keep it dry when you haul it to the pool in the summertime.

If you get a lot of spring rain in your neck of the woods, Kidorables creates fun ways to present your valentine with an imaginative and practical gift.  Besides dinosaurs, they also feature their classic ladybug and frog designs.  Not into dinosaurs?  How about pirates, firefighters, mermaids, or pink cats?

If you’re going to have 6 more weeks of winter, check out the knit scarves, and gloves & mittens available.

WIN IT!

One (1) winner will receive a Kidorable umbrella of choice (retail value $13.50)!

To enter, please visit the Kidorables website, and leave a comment describing your favorite style and item on this post prior to February 14th at 11:59 p.m.  Please follow the contest rules and avoid any generalized comments, or you will be disqualified.

FOR A SECOND ENTRY:Become a Facebook Fan of Kidorables, then leave a comment telling me you did so.

FOR A THIRD ENTRY: Follow @drdolly and @kidorable on Twitter for a coupon code and another opportunity to win a Kidorable umbrella.

FOR A FOURTH ENTRY: Tweet (include @drdolly) about this giveaways or the Valentine’s Day gift guide, then leave a second comment telling me that you did with a link.

FOR A FIFTH ENTRY: Blog about the Valentine’s Day Gift Guide or this giveaway, then leave a comment with a link to your post.

FOR A  SIXTH ENTRY: Enter another contest on the Valentine’s Day Gift Guide, and leave a comment telling me which one you entered.

*I received product samples from Kidorables for the purpose of this review.  Read my full disclosure policy.

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Please check back for weather cancellations during the day. Most likely we will cancel the 7PM class.

Buy In – Day 1 Diesel Crew Shoulder Rehab Protocol

Untimed 2 Rounds of

• 15 DB Retractions
• 15 DB Protractions
• 10 Posterior Capsule Stretch

(see Video)

Strength

5 Unbroken Deadlifts (should be heavy and have perfect form)

Rest 3 Minutes

WOD

10 Minute AMRAP of

• 5 Pullups
• 10 Pushups
• 15 Squats

A loose transcript appears on the clip’s youtube page.

Very little is known about the origins of The Hat. Born in Middlesex, England in 1793 he is rumored to have spent his childhood and adolscence traveling the world before landing in Charlottesville, VA sometime in early 2001, ready, finally, to retire from a strange and interesting life as headgear.

The hat keeps mostly to himself, making appearances at special occasions such as Vice Presidential Debates when a top hat is needed to properly pretend to be the Monopoly Man, etc. A usual day for The Hat, however, is spent containing one of the house’s precious heirlooms, the drunk jenga blocks.

Beginning last month, once a month, The Hat moonlights as the Secretly Y’all Hat. He’ll be there on Sunday, 7pm Random Row Books, just waiting to take your name.

Yes, Winter can just move along now. It snowed on Tuesday, melted a bit on Wednesday and Thursday only to seriously dump on us late Thursday night and Friday morning, oh and Saturday too. We got about 16″, I think. But to be honest, I don’t care anymore. I’m done with it all.

I mentioned on a previous post about clearing the snow off your shrubs, especially the evergreen ones. Well do it, and do it now, tonight , before it freezes on and breaks branches again.

I did it this time like a total Nazi, about 5 times during the storm. Gardening around here is so tough anyway that it’s really disheartening to finally get some thing to thrive only to have it trashed overnight.

O.k, that’s from last time but you get the idea.

Enough about the snow, hopefully you got some seed catalogues in the mail and now is a great time to start planning for the new beds or veg plots. Think about flowering times, colours, heights, and how it all works together throughout the season so that there is always something of interest going on. With the vegetables, I think the hardest thing is co-ordinate seed sowing indoors for early crops with direct sowing and then getting successional sowings done so that you don’t have a glut of produce one week and are starving the next.Try and get that figured out and you’re golden. You might want to think about sharing excess plants with your neighbours or even selling them at yard sales (or car boot sales as we call them over there.)

Pruning. Now is a good time to take some serious limbs off the trees and shrubs you are looking to reshape and rejuvinate, especially if the snow has taken down some branches too. Fruit trees would really benefit from this right now.

Winter is also the perfect time to overhaul your machinery. While the winter is still here now is a good time to sharpen and oil anything that cuts, and clean and do the usual winter maintenance on mowers and anything else gas powered. Don’t leave it until early Spring because you’ll run out of time and if you need someone to do it for you, you’ ll have a long time to wait while everyone else is having theirs done too.

A little something we created this weekend……Until next time folks……

Sarah

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on Arches watercolor block, 16 x 20.

I’ve never taken the advice one frequently sees, or receives, to “Breathe” or “Breathe Deeply,” or be sure to take deep breaths – never taken these very seriously. But when you consider the alternative to breathing, it does give you pause.

I’m beginning to think it’s a great idea. If anyone ever wants to use one of these skies as a sort of daily token or reminder to stop – and breathe – that’s wonderful by me.

This weekend, we saw some pretty snow and ice.  This is the view from our backyard.

Here’s a close-up of one of the Dogwoods covered in snow.

Don’t you just love the contrast of the fluffy snow with the stunning blue sky?  The sky wasn’t quite so blue all weekend.  We did have another blizzard, after all.  In fact, most of the weekend the sky was impermeable gray with big chunks of white fluffy stuff falling everywhere and fast.

Our street looked like this:

Gray and white and black…the only color is the red brake light on that gray car.

The other side of our street perked up a bit with the blue skies on Sunday.

Just a bit.

Still a ton of ice on the trees and power lines.  We still have power, but heard that over 20,000 homes were without it…still.

To top it off, only 4 houses down from us, a brick house blazed on fire.  There were at least five fire engines, a ladder truck, paramedics, ambulance, police cars, and other red trucks with flashing lights.  Here’s the street view today…slight contrast from the weekend.

The ladder is raised on the ladder truck…can you see it between the trees?

Thankfully, none of the residents nor their dog were injured.  However, the house is probably toast…no pun intended.

Meanwhile, I was blocked in my driveway due to the massive fire hose lying in the middle of our street.  So, I couldn’t make it to the office for my afternoon patients.  They kindly rescheduled for tomorrow.

No civilian vehicles were allowed to travel in or out of our street for hours…the street is still barricaded almost 4 hours later.This is the view from our driveway…a little boy’s DREAM. Calvin and I walked up and down the street admiring the fire engines and waving to the firefighters who really liked his monkey hat.  Calvin even ran into Firefighter Steve whom he met when he toured the headquarters station last summer.

Word is we’re getting four to eight eight to twelve (ugh) more inches of snow tomorrow.  I’m kinda hoping and praying summer gets here STAT…that would be great!

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Wow.

STS-130 lifted off at 4:14AM on 8 February 2010. The crew of the space shuttle Endeavor was strapped in for a second launch attempt after the previous morning’s attempt had been scrubbed for a low cloud ceiling. A few miles away, on a much emptier and slightly warmer causeway, the space tweeps gathered once again to see Endeavor lift into the sky.

The weather forecast was red for most of the night. Weather forecasters were, however, cautiously optimistic. We cheered as the forecast turned to green when the clouds broke up just before 4AM.

As the launch countdown came out of a hold and began counting down from the 9 minute mark, we raced to get our cameras, and ourselves, ready for the Big Moment. My little camera sat on a gorillapod, wrapped around a folding chair, ready for video. Aleya took some last video of us bouncing excitedly, and the guys and gals with fancy cameras got their last settings set. Tweets were sent, and we began the countdown. New Years Eve has nothing on this countdown!

At ignition start, the little white dot with the barely resolvable wings that we had been gazing at for two nights began to flare up. A cloud of smoke billowed up in front as the tiny, distant rocket began its ride up a column of fire into the sky. We screamed our little heads off. I swore I could feel the heat on my face, but maybe that was just the rush of excitement.

Unlike in all the pictures, the flames burned a bright yellow. We felt the rumble of takeoff and heard the crackling like fireworks. This was it. As the shuttle curved to our right, six astronauts were being launched into orbit.

With a cloud of smoke left behind, Endeavor became a bright star, fading slowly as it set off for the International Space Station. I almost missed the rapid brightening as the solid rocket boosters separated, as I was too busy hugging people and making sure I didn’t lose my camera. I finally started to cry, like I do for every launch I watch on tv. Only it wasn’t a quiet tear to myself, but a laughing cry! There was no time, as the voice over the speakers urged us to get away from the causeway as an acid rain cloud was on its way, and we had trekked pretty far from the car. I got my things, got back on Twitter, and kept hugging more Space Tweeps on the way.

This was my first live launch, and one of the last launches of the space shuttle program. I know that NASA’s manned spaceflight program is having a rough time, and I don’t know what to say about that. I am, however, optimistic that we’ll be reaching further and further away from our home planet, even if progress seems slow at the moment. It’s just part of our nature.

My launch video:

Aleya’s FANTASTIC video of the SDOisGO crew at both nights… plus the launch itself. With cool tunes!

Heavy snow, saturated soil and high winds wreaked havoc on area trees.
PHOTO BY CHARLES WERNER

Between Friday and Saturday night during last weekend’s not-quite-a blizzard, 40,000 Dominion Power customers’ lights went out in the Charlottesville area. The other major power provider for Albemarle County, Central Virginia Electric Cooperative, had between 11,000 and 13,000 households–one third of its members– sitting in the dark.

When such widespread, misery-inducing outages occur (like Hurricane Isabel in 2003), the perennial question pops up: Why aren’t the power lines buried?

“It costs six times more to put power lines underground,” says Dominion spokesperson Dan Genest.

“The state of Virginia did a study and the cost to bury lines throughout the state is $94 billion,” says the Co-op’s Greg Kelly.

Back in 2003, when 55,000 Albemarleans were without power, Dominion also told the Hook that line burial was cost prohibitive to the tune of “several million dollars a mile.”

“It is prohibitively expensive in new subdivisions? ” asks attorney Lloyd Smith, longtime advocate for buried lines. “They do it all the time. What about the expense to all the stores and businesses that don’t have emergency generators? What about the safety of people in cold houses?”

Even when it’s your neighbor’s white pines that cause power lines to crash, the electricity providers are responsible for maintaining those rights of way.

“The Co-op has 5,000 miles of power line, much of that overhead and much through rural terrain with trees,” says Greg Kelly. “We spend $1.4 million a year in maintaining the rights of way.”  Co-op customers hardest hit in the most recent storm are in White Hall, Midway and Red Hill.

Kelly estimates “hundreds and hundreds” of trees down. He points to saturated soil, a very heavy snow and wind as factors in bringing trees down.

The Virginia Electric Co-op has a 40-foot right of way, and Dominion’s is 30 feet. “If you have a 60-foot tree on the edge of the right-of-way and it falls sideways, it’s going to hit something, says Kelly.

“This event is more trees than limbs,” says Dominion’s Genest. “This heavy wet snow is murder on pine trees. Limb problems are much preferred.”

By 11:50am Monday, February 8, 2,688 Albemarle customers and 440 in Charlottesville were still without power. “We have made a commitment to get everyone back on by Tuesday evening,” says Genest, noting another storm predicted for that day.

But Theresa Bergen has little faith in power company pledges. She says she was told Saturday when the power went out around noon in her Owensville Forest neighborhood that it would be restored at 5pm. That didn’t happen, and on Sunday, again she was told power would be on by 5 o’clock, and she says her neighbors said they were told the same thing. Her power came back around 5– Monday morning.

“We could have gone to a hotel if we’d known,” says Bergen. “We can’t blame Dominion for the storm,” she admonishes. “We can blame them for the lack of truth.”

At least Bergen, 85, and her husband were prepared with a camp stove, Coleman lantern and coffeepot. “When you’ve been married 50 years, you know how to be prepared,” she says.

Now she just needs to get her phone service back on. “They told me it would be on Monday,” says Bergen, “around 5 o’clock.”

Totally addicted.

Thanks, @poeks.

This — along with graduation — may be one of the final major public events at which Casteen will make extended remarks before he retires Aug. 1. I know the weather forecast is not wonderful, and that the crowd usually consists of administrators, a few faculty and fewer students, but it would be nice if the University community packed the place in a show of appreciation for Casteen’s two-decade stewardship.

About 6,000 people turned out Saturday in the midst of a snowstorm for the men’s basketball game against Wake Forest. Certainly, a couple hundred folks ought to be able to find their way to Old Cabell at noon tomorrow.

Damon Linker speaks truth to progressives wavering about their commitment to the Democratic Party (and I include myself in that number):

“Anything But The Other Guys” isn’t a particularly inspiring slogan, especially in comparison to the (let’s face it) exaggerated expectations for change many progressives entertained during the 2008 campaign. But the phrase captures the most pressing fact about the present political moment: Today’s Republican Party is unfit to govern and so must not be permitted to win the presidency. Everything else—including health care reform and climate change legislation—can and should be treated as negotiable. If the Democrats conclude that compromise or caution will make a Republican resurgence less likely, then they should take that path, for the good of the country. Until the Republicans come to their collective senses, depriving them of power must be the most urgent aim of progressive politics.