Another Reason to Buy Local Food!

As if we needed another reason to purchase our food from local sources, along comes the Great American Egg Recall of 2010!

Billions of eggs potentially tainted with Salmonella bacteria, and thousands of people sick as a result.

The photos of the factory egg "farms" are too awful for me to include here -- chickens packed in cages, stacked on top of one another in conditions that should be criminal. And why? Because Americans want cheap eggs. Lots of cheap eggs. At the rate of 150 (or more) eggs per person, per year, that adds up to nearly 50 billions eggs a year - and that's just the ones folks buy in cartons -- add in all the eggs that are used as an ingredient in the foods we buy, and we are looking at closer to 75 billion eggs consumed each year in the US!

At a price of about $1.00 per dozen, we are talking about at least $4 billion in egg sales each year.

There is an alternative, you know. Yep, more folks could buy their eggs from local farmers.

My husband and I pay $2.50 a dozen for eggs from a family near Harvard, IL. The eggs are fresh, delicious, and safe. The chickens that lay the eggs seem to live happy lives -- at least they appear content running around in the farmyard when I go there to pick up the eggs. And a bonus is that the yolks are a gorgeous shade of deep yellow, not the insipid pale yellow of factory eggs.

The family raises the chickens to sell them as, well, chickens, later after they are good and fat. But the chickens have this pesky habit of laying eggs until they are sent off to be butchered, so the family also collects and sells the eggs.

Fresh eggs have an advantage that factory eggs lack -- they haven't been washed, so they still have the "bloom" intact on the surface of the egg shell. This "bloom" protects the otherwise porous surface of the egg, preventing bacteria from entering the egg.

As a result, fresh eggs can be stored at room temperature, and in Europe, that is how they are sold and kept.

Factory eggs in the US are washed after being collected to remove any surface dirt and bacteria -- which is actually part of the reason for the Great Egg Recall of 2010 -- even trace amounts of bacteria can entered the washed eggs, and once inside, salmonella does not take much time to multiply into enough bacteria cells to make someone sick.

So, remember that next time you buy eggs at the grocery store. Ask around, I bet you can find a local farm that sells fresh eggs -- and I bet you'll agree that they are worth every penny!

What's a Scenic Road?

It may be safe to say that "scenic" is in the eye of the beholder. One person's scenic drive may be tedious to another who just wants to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible, and is annoyed by the hills, slower speed limits, curves and trees close to the road.

I love driving through the county's gently rolling farm fields, but know people who think this area is too flat and the farm fields are b o r i n g.

Whether one likes scenic vistas of farmfields, or curvy, hilly routes that cross through examples of the county's glacial remants (moraines, kettles, kames and outwash plains), there are many scenic driving experiences to be had in McHenry County.

For example, I think most any road through Bull Valley is scenic, with their windey turns and hills, plus the trees overhanging the road and the farm fields stretching across the rolling hills.

O'Brien Road (that turns into Vander Karr Road as one heads east) is one of my favorites. It crosses through farm fields, past conservation land, and over the Nippersink Creek in the north part of the county between Alden and Richmond.

Thayer Road is another of my faves, going from Alden Road in the west to Greenwood Road in the east, passing farm fields, oak woods, and crossing at least one branch of the Nippersink Creek. I find the vistas across farm fields along Thayer amazing. The view is fairly flat and most trees are in the distance, so they don't block the view. I'd like to explore some of the isolated woodlands out there sometime -- they seem so remote and mysterious!

In the middle part of the county, there is Collins Road running west from Woodstock across the flat, outwash plain that sits between the Woodstock and Marengo moraines. The road starts out straight and level, with beautiful views of an agricultural landscape. As Collins hits the Marengo Ridge glacial moraine, the character of the road is transformed into a hilly, wooded route - the vistas are gone, and trees are the norm.

Then there is Fleming Road, a 2 1/2 mile route that runs from Country Club Road at its south end northwest to Route 120 east of Woodstock. In that short stretch of road, one passes visible examples of the county's "swell and swale" glacial terrain, complete with kettles and hills that were left behind when the Wisconsin glacier retreated 12,000 years ago. Additionally, the road passes through perhaps the largest concentration of remnant oak woods in the county.

Scenic may be in the eyes of the beholder, but I'm sure glad for the scenery around McHenry County that I get to behold!

The Dog Days of Summer!

I thought a nice winter landscape shot would help me keep my cool while writing about the heat!

I heard someone refer to the "Dog Days" of summer, which got me wondering about where that term came from.

First off, the dog days are generally considered the hottest, most humid days of summer that run sometime between early July and mid-September. But, why are dogs taking the heat for this unpleasant time of year?

After doing some research, it looks like the term originally had nothing to do with the furry, friendly critters known as "man's best friend." Rather, the term arose in reference to the "dog star" in the constellation "Canis Major" (Big Dog).

The Romans called the hottest days of summer dies canicularis, Latin for "dog days." They associated the heat with the "dog star" Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky which happens to be found in the Canis Major (big dog) constellation. They even sacrificed a dog each year at the beginning of the dog days to try and appease Sirius.

The Greeks were in on the dog days too, as were the ancient Egyptians who associated the seasonal flooding of the Nile with the appearance of Sirius in the early morning sky just prior to sunrise.

In modern times, folks have associated the term "dog days" with a sluggish stock market, calling poorly performing stocks "dogs." The terms "dog tired" and "dogging it" may have come from the lethargy that many people feel during the hottest, most humid days of the year, even though the originial "dog days" name had nothing to do with an actual dog!

So, another 90+ day today, and it's expected to be at least that hot on Friday. And temps are staying in the mid-upper 70s at night, which means there is no relief from the heat and humidity.

Things may cool to the upper 80s by Saturday when a storm system will move through the area. Starting Saturday night, the evening temperatures should be in the mid 60s, which should help cool things off.

In the meantime, be sure to leave plenty of water out for the dogs to drink - it'll help them get through the dog days!

Water is Life

I heard a talk about Water this morning by Reverend Budd Friend-Jones of the First Congregational Church of Crystal Lake. He spoke of the spiritual aspects of water - the life force that all religions somehow honor through their creation stories and important rituals.

Our bodies are about 70% water, as is the planet. Where there is no water, there is no life, for all life on our planet evolved in a water world.

Reverend Friend-Jones suggested that when we look into water, we see ourselves - not just our reflections, but our deeper selves as a people. What does our relationship with water say about us? What kind of people would treat the source of all life on the planet as a waste product or a garbage can?

Call me a savage, but I don't think you need modern religion to be moved by that idea!

Consider the Lakota word for water, "mee-nee." The literal translation of "mee-nee" is "my spiritual quality of life." The Lakota regarded water as the life source, and felt they had been entrusted to care for this Sacred Resource by the Creator!

Oil Spill Thoughts

It’s an old adage: oil & water don’t mix. And there have been a lot of examples in recent months that demonstrate the truth of those words. Off the top of my head, I can think of an oil spill into a creek in Utah, an oil pipeline spewing heavy crude into a bay in China, and, of course, the mega-spill in the Gulf of Mexico (link to a time-lapsed video from NASA).

From a technical standpoint, oil and water don’t mix for the simple reason that both oil and water molecules have a stronger affinity for their own kind than for the other. Also, oil is less dense than water, so it tends to float on the surface of the water. Unless it’s cold and heavy, like some of the oil that spewed into the Gulf of Mexico a mile below the surface. Then, the oil may find itself in a limbo somewhere between the sea surface and the seafloor. It still does not mix with the water, but it doesn’t rise to the surface, so it is hard to find and nearly impossible to clean up.

I’ve been trying to come up with a good local analogy to put the Gulf oil disaster into local terms. The website www.ifitwasmyhome.com shows the extent of the oil superimposed upon any geographic region on the planet. So, for scale, imagine placing Woodstock at the center. The oil slick would extend north to south from Milwaukee to Kankakee and east to west from central Iowa across Lake Michigan to the state of Michigan.

Another way to think about the Gulf spill: What if tar balls (globs of thick oil) started washing up on Main Beach in Crystal Lake? What if one of the Wonder Lake Water ski team members wiped out, and emerged from the water covered in thick oil? Or what if boating on the Chain of Lakes had to be cancelled because the Fire Department was burning the surface to reduce the amount of oil floating there? Local residents would be outraged, that’s what.

Sure, the ocean is very large, and by comparison, the amount of oil released may be small, but any amount is too much when it washes up on a community’s beach, fouls one’s oyster beds, or ruins a family’s livelihood or even someone’s summer vacation.

Fortunately for local residents, the chance of a disaster involving an oil well or pipeline leak is very small. But the risk isn’t zero, as there are oil pipelines that cross McHenry County. The concern in this area could be that an underground pipeline developed a leak and oil seeped into an underground aquifer, rather than oil spewing into a lake or wetland. In this scenario, the leak might go unnoticed for many months or even years until oil turned up in an unsuspecting neighbor’s well water.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling for a removal of the pipelines, nor do I think a local disaster of this nature is anything but a theoretical possibility. After all, I drive a car that is fueled by gasoline, which is in turn produced from oil like that which flows through the pipelines that pass through our area.

My point is simply that there are existing threats to our precious groundwater – the lifeblood of our community. The water that all residents need to live comes from the underground reservoirs of sand a gravel that were left by the glaciers over 12,000 years ago! Whether the threat is pollution or overuse, the security of local water supplies should matter to all residents. For what is a house worth if there is no water to flush the toilets, or if the well water is fouled?

The Heat of Summer

For the month of July, the average high temperature in Chicago is 83.5. So far this year (2010), the average high temp in July is closer to 87. The average last summer was about 80 degrees - one of the coolest July's on record, and certainly part of the reason this month has felt so darn hot!

Last year, I didn't put the air conditioner on once all summer. But last night I slept with the A/C on all night! The combination of heat and humidity was more than I could stand, but 76 degrees sure hit the spot! I think 2005 was the last summer that seemed this hot.

If there is anything to this Global Warming/Climate Change thing (and I believe there is), then these hot summers will become more frequent. That's the point of the two maps at the top of the page - the one on the right shows average temperatures for the eastern US today, and the one on the left shows what they could be in 2050. The take home message is that average temps are predicted to be much higher almost everywhere.

So, our area would be more like southern Missouri? And Northern Wisconsin would be like Central Illinois? And Florida would be mostly under water? Cripes! So in another 40 years, all those Midwestern snowbirds will just stay right here? Sounds like Sun City will need to expand!

Are the bats trying to tell us something?

I read an article about bats in the most recent University of Vermont alumnae magazine today. It made me want to cry.

Bats are dying due to a little-understood disorder called "White nose syndrome." The disorder causes the bats to wake frequently throughout their winter hibernation, and since they are hungry when they wake, they fly off in search of insects - their primary source of food. The problem is that in the winter, there are no insects, so the bats expend valuable energy in futile searches before returning to their winter slumbers. By the time they wake in the spring, the bats are so emaciated, that they are susceptible to other illnesses that healthy bats can easily fight off. So, the bats die from a variety of things, so it has been hard to pin-point the exact cause of the syndrome.

Researchers at the University of Vermont have been studying the bats in Vermont, trying to determine what is causing this disorder to decimate the bat populations across the country in a very short time period. Consider: the disorder was first identified in eastern New York state in 2006, and since that time has killed millions of bats in the Northeast US, rapidly spreading down the east coast, and towards the Midwest.

There have been articles in the local paper recently about the discovery of rabid bats in McHenry County, warning people to avoid coming into contact with bats in the event the bats are rabid. So, there may be those who think that bats are dangerous to people, so who cares if bats die?

Well, maybe we should care if all the bats die.

As one of the researchers comments in the article: the bats could be the canaries in the coal mine, perhaps giving us a warning about the general degredation of the environment that we all depend upon for life. Consider that frogs and toads are dying off at an alarming rate across the globe due to a fungus. And Colony Collapse Disorder is affecting bee populations across the US. With no known cause, the loss of bee populations has the potential to destroy the country's agriculture system, as bees are the primary pollinators for many crops!

Do we really want to take the chance that these dramatic die-offs of three unrelated groups of organisims are just a weird coincidence? Or are we prepared to heed the warnings and start making changes to clean up and improve the environment that we all depend upon for survival?

After all, the coal miners couldn't see or smell the invisible gas that killed the canary, but they knew enough to heed the warning that the dead bird gave them. Unlike the coal miners, we can't just move out of the mine into the clean air. We are living in the mine. Will we take the steps necessary to clean the air, water and soil around us before it's too late?