Out and About -- In the World at Large

[dillon]

I'm sorry for the loss of your mother, Donald. My father's last six months were also robbed of kinships by dementia.

I was out for a stroll with my wife this evening in the Koppen stretch mini, and encountered a neighbor whom I don't think had seen me skirted before. No reaction. In fact he invited us to visit them at their mountain vacation home when we go up next month.

Another interesting thing i just noticed. The 6pm.com website now gives both women's and men's size chart links in the skirts section, for product lines that have products for both sexes; until recently the site only gave women's size charts in the skirt section. I don't think it is anything significant, but it amused me to think that perhaps all the cross-aisle shopping I have done there had prompted the company to make that adjustment.

[skirtingtoday]

Took part in a sponsored walk today, to raise funds for Alzheimer Scotland and in memory of my Mother, who died of dementia in 2002. I decided to do the walk wearing a black cargo skirt. Got quite a few sideways looks, as you can see in this photo take by my wife as we set off. But mostly either ignored, or approving smiles from the women.

Glad to have sponsored you. Hope you and all the others on the walk raised loads of money for Alzheimer Scotland!

[crfriend]

Given the level of stress and strain I've been under for the past several weeks (since early July), I've not really been getting out and about much in skirts or any of my fancier gear recently. In fact, I've sort of re-adopted drab just so I stay below the RADAR. I've worn skirts a few times to work, but not with my panache of old.

However, today I decided to give it a go and put on my black tiered skirt, red variegated floral blouse, and plain black waistcoat and headed out to put some old stereo gear (badly-damaged by cat-spray stereo-gear from my ex's place) in my storage locker (to get it out of my car), grab some lunch, and run some errands. And I picked up a nice comment in the supermarket parking-lot: "I like your attire, sir!", spoken by a chap in his 30s or so who was sitting in his car. I thanked him and went on my way with a bit of a spring in my step which, given the events of late, was remarkably welcome.

So, yes, folks notice; moreover, when they comment, it's usually quite positive. The naysayers seem to keep to themselves.

[dillon]

Carl, when you have too much emotionally to manage and a day or four of time you have a standing invitation here in NC. It would be my honor to be a host and a friendly ear.

[johnb]

Last Friday I drove back home to West Sussex after a few days walking in Devon. For comfort I changed into a home made wrap around denim skirt for the journey. I decided to stop at a pub for a meal on the way. The couple of people behind the bar didn't appear to register any surprise when I walked in, and whilst I was there, I wasn't aware of anyone in the pub giving me any more than a passing glance.

John

[dillon]

Today was one of those perfect autumn days, sunny and 70F under blue Carolina skies, that could almost make me forget the twelve inches of rain and twenty cloudy days of September. We took the State Park pedestrian pontoon ferry to Bear Island, one of the few remaining pristine barrier islands on the NC coast. The ocean temperature was about the same as the sair temperature. It was gorgeous, as long as we kept moving. If you attempted to sit and enjoy a book, however, the biting black flies let you know quickly that wasn't going to happen. I wore a tan ExOfficio skirt out to the island and back, also later in Swansboro for a late lunch/early supper. At the beach I wore a navy blue skirted swimsuit bottom. It's just the second time I've been public in it, but I thought it looked good. I received a few odd looks but no remarks. Later we watched the weigh-ins from a mackeral fishing tournament after having a fine meal on a second story porch overlooking the White Oak River, and the local marina. The dinner included skewered fried alligator appetizers and a good glass of Maker's Mark for yours truly. A fine time was had by all. The weather is cooling quickly and we may have the first frost of the fall this week. As long as it stays clear and glorious, I won't mind. Autumn is my favorite season and I have enough firewood for another winter.

[Kirbstone]

Hi Dillon,

Nice for you that during the day you still have temps. of 70 deg. F. and water temps to match.

not so here on our Northerly Emerald Isle, where, although we are enjoying mostly sunny dry conditions, it's as lot cooler with a touch of frost towards dawn, now.
Away from big towns we still burn open fires as domestic heat suppliment and apart from logging our own timber we have peat delivered. This is universally called 'turf' in Ireland and it heats you three times, once in the harvesting from the local bogs, which is very labour-intensive, second time when stacking it in a shed and the third time when you burn it in the grate or stove. It has about the same calorific value as timber but is pleasantly aromatic. It is also clean to handle, unlike coal.

Tom

[dillon]

Interesting, Tom. I had not realized peat was still widely used. At one time, some thirty years back, a company had proposed harvesting peat for fueling a power station here in the "tidewater" counties of NC, where there are vast acres of histic soils. Most of that land is forested, the rest farmed,as it is too wet and weak to support much in terms of development. But law and parentage precluded the project, luckily. The soils that were not yet ditched and drained are now protected by various laws including the old "swampbuster" act and original versions of laws which have since been combined in the Clean Water Act.

Second, they found that the peat was not harvestable in the way Irish peat is. All peat results from poorly drained conditions which over countless millenia has reduced the oxidation of organic matter back to carbon dioxide. Ireland's peat came from heath and moor vegetation, a fairly dense and fine carbon source. Ours resulted from pocosin forest, and is still filled with preserved stumps and logs that will stop a Cat D6 cold on it's tracks! Some are four feet in diameter, and, when the land was cleared for farming, had to be excavated with draglines.

Additionally, our peat was far too coarse in cellulose to stay in intact blocks to dry, as Irish peat seems to do. Whatever, we are mostly pleased not to have our pocosins industrially mined. We already have enough mining pressure for marl as stone and a calcium source for cement manufacturing, and for phosphate extraction. They mine into marine sediment that is hundreds of millions of years old. It is fascinating to see the fossils that are unearthed, including shark teeth - Jaws step aside - as big as your opened hand.

But carbon fuel will flow from our coastal forests anyway, as a huge wood pelleting plant is being constructed not far from us. It will export fuel pellets to Europe to replace coal in power plants, ostensibly because wood is renewable and coal isn't. It is a (IMO false)means of Germany and other places meeting their requirements for renewable energy. I am in favor of renewable energy, but I don't think forest harvesting is appreciably better than coal due to the realistic timeline for recovering the carbon sequestered in forestland. There is simply too great a lag in the carbon cycle in this energy source. If pellets were produced solely from wood waste salvaged from timber harvested for commercial purposes, I am in favor of it, but I fully expect that, should relations between Russia and the West continue to deteriorate, and affect the price and abundance of natural gas provided to Europe, that wholesale logging for fuel pellet production will explode. Of course, it's not like Europe wasn't cautioned about getting in bed with Putin.

But I digress. My firewood was all salvaged from field corners and borders one of my farmer clients was cleaning up with a dozer and excavator. That wood was destined to be burned, save the portion salvaged for saw-timber; so it could have been burned fast in a stump pile, or slowly through my wood stove!

[dillon]

Tonight we went to see the film 'Time Out Of Mind' produced by and starring Richard Gere. It was a worms-eye look at homelessness, mental illness, and alcoholism on the streets of New York. It was excellent, visually and aurally. I had not seen Ben Vereen in a film in ages, and he was amazing. I wore the pinstripe skirt with fishnet tights, by the way. No comments, but a couple looks in Port City Java, which I read as favorable.

[johnb]

I went over to my allotment in the afternoon yesterday. Through the summer I'd generally been wearing on of my home made wrap around skirts there. However the autumn weather, plus the nature of the work, clearing and digging, made my heavy duty utility type kilt more appropriate to wear. Having put it on once, I decided it would be worth trying it with the addition of a slip. I thought I had three, but there wear four in wardrobe, maybe one of my wife's (similar size) had been added in error. No matter, the one I picked did make the heavy cotton kilt more comfortable.

Over at the allotment I saw three people, all of whom are used to seeing me in a skirt or kilt, so they chatted as normal. The only difficulty I had was making excuses, including to the chairman, as to why I wasn't going to the allotment societies AGM later in the day.

John

[Gordon]

allotment? I don't know that term in the context you are using. Please explain.

[Reaper_Man]

allotment? I don't know that term in the context you are using. Please explain.

Allotment - a plot of land rented by an individual for growing vegetables or flowers.

[Kirbstone]

Dillon,

Our damp climate here has for aeons favoured the growth of the Sphagnum plant in what were shallow lakes left over from the glacial period. The cells of this plant reproduce on top of one another and the water table is raised ever higher, producing over time a raised peat bog which can be up to 40 feet deep. The weight of the newer growth+water on the older compresses it and at the bottom the peat is very dense indeed.

Traditional method of cutting was with a shlaun (phonetic spelling) which is a flat oblong spade with a vertical cutting blade on one side. They are 'handed'. Machines came along and cut vast areas for power stations and for sale to the public.

More recent is the developement of a tractor-driven trailer with a hydraulic ram in a hopper into which very wet excavated peat is tipped. This is then squeezed by the ram into and out of rows of nozzles at ground level, extruded like parallel sausages on the ground, left to dry out a little, segmented, stacked to dry out in the wind and hauled away to be sold or divided among families.

The stuff we buy now is all of uniform cross-section, indicating that it is the extruded material, which on drying becomes very solid indeed and can be stacked as illustrated.

Peat-fuelled power stations have all now been phased out, as the per-therm costs are much more than i.e. imported oil ! We use a lot of hydro and a bit of wind, (but they are ghastly)

Tom

[Gordon]

allotment? I don't know that term in the context you are using. Please explain.

Allotment - a plot of land rented by an individual for growing vegetables or flowers.

Thanks

[r.m.anderson]

Peat - looks like oversized charcoal bricks.

Isn't peat used in other ways to filter Irish Whiskey leaving the drink with an unique taste ?

Odd I am next to a state with a fracken oil basin and you have a country side sitting on top off burnable energy vegetation.