HinesSight

Goodbye DR Field Mower, hello John Deere X394

It was a bittersweet moment when I sold the DR Field Mower with lawnmower attachment that I'd bought in 2016.


Over the past 25 years or so I've owned maybe five versions of the DR Field Mower, each better than the last. They've been put to a lot of work mowing grassy natural fields on our ten acres in rural south Salem, along with our lawn.

I've written about my field mowing experiences in a number of blog posts: here, here, here, here, here, here.

But as the saying goes, all good things come to an end. Hopefully so better things can replace them. But I can't be sure about that.

All I know is that it seemed like it was time to get a lawn tractor and electric lawnmower to replace what I've been able to do with the DR Field Mower with lawnmower attachment. 

At the age of 72, the joy of mowing our fields with a walk behind device was wearing a bit thin on me. And I realized that while I was still capable of handling the DR mower, I didn't feel comfortable with my wife using it.

So if I ever was incapable of mowing, we'd have to hire somebody to do it. 

After mulling over the pros and cons of getting a lawn tractor, one morning I woke up convinced that this was the right thing to do. That led me to drive to our local John Deere dealer, Papé Machinery here in Salem, Oregon.

And not only once -- three days in a row. That's how long it took for the salesperson I talked with, Ray Rodriquez, to steer me toward a lawn tractor that he felt comfortable selling to me and I felt comfortable buying. 

I'd taken photos of the fields I mow to show to Ray. Wise decision.

He told me that I wouldn't be happy with the lower end John Deere models they sell at Lowe's and Home Depot. Too flimsy for the terrain I was mowing on, filled with humps, bumps, gullies, and quite a few trees. His advice was to get a 300 series John Deere, or a higher numbered model.

I ended up buying the full-featured X394. ("X" means it is only sold by John Deere dealers; 394 shows it is the top model in the 300 series.) Four-wheel steering was the main feature that attracted me to the X394. You Tube videos showed how tightly this mower could cut around a tree or other obstacle.

When I told Ray that I was ready to order a X394, he told me that John Deere was showing a September 19 delivery date. Since this was mid-June, I was facing a three month wait. 

But a week ago I got a phone message that the lawn tractor had arrived over two months early. Apparently John Deere sometimes works in mysterious ways. 

I tried out the X394 yesterday. Here it is sitting in our cramped garage, with a utility cart behind it.

At first riding on the X394 felt decidedly weird, after so many years of using a walk-behind mower. For the first few minutes I worried about tipping over, even though the slopes were mild. But it didn't take long for me to feel comfortable with the lawn tractor.

I mowed our main fields in about an hour. Here's the results.

 

The maneuverability of the X394 with its four wheel steering is really impressive. I had to focus on the side discharge chute, making sure it didn't hit the trees I was mowing around. Other than that, though, my first mowing experience went really well.

So did my cleaning experience. It was easy to hook up a hose to the washer port, turn the water on, then activate the blades for a minute or so as debris was flushed out.

Naturally I hadn't read the manual before setting off on the X394. Ray did give me a walk-through and test drive on the lawn tractor the day before it was delivered to me. I wasn't aware that I could put the parking brake on and get off the seat while the mower was running.

When I jumped off to move a fallen limb, the mower would stop. Safety thing. Next time I'll know better.

Hey, Salemians, start a Salon discussion group

Do you enjoy intelligent talks with friends? Does embracing the art of conversation appeal to you?

If so, consider starting a Salon discussion group. 

That's what my wife, Laurel, and I did back in the early 1990s. Since, a group of about a dozen people has met each month in someone's home for three hours of so of pleasant conversing.

Here's a photo of us in December 2017. Our Salon membership has changed some in the past four years. But everybody in the photo is still part of our group, even though Jim (front row on left) has moved to Ashland.

Last night my wife and I attended a Salon meeting in the back yard of Russ and Delana Beaton, rocking red in the photo above. This was our first BBQ Salon.

Russ handled the turkey burgers. I cooked the veggie burgers, being careful to use the non-meaty spatula. Jim even came, having journeyed from Ashland to Portland and stopping by Salem on his way back.

There's lots of ways to organize a Salon group. The Utne Reader is how Laurel and I got the idea to start one in Salem. The 1991 article now is online. 

We've been meeting monthly for so long, I can't remember how we started off.

Doesn't matter. What matters is how we've ended up. I share our approach not because it's the best way to do a Salon. Everyone has to decide that for themselves. This just works well for our group.

Someone has to do the scheduling. Currently that's me.

I keep a list of which home we meet at each month. Pre-Covid, I tried to rotate meeting places in a fairly regular fashion. We're about to start meeting indoors again, but have been using Zoom and outdoor meetings since March 2020.

Most people bring a snack or wine/beer to share. Food and drink isn't a big part of the meeting, the conversation is. But it's nice to have some sustenance in the early evening or late afternoon, our meeting time.

Causal conversation occupies us at first. Then after 15-20 minutes or so we assemble as a group. Mostly we just let the conversation flow freely. No preassigned topics. No rules. Just people talking about whatever, shifting from subject to subject spontaneously.

Sometimes the host starts us off with a particular subject. Other times someone just begins speaking about something that interests them. Like I said, no rules.

We all lean liberal. Politics usually comes up.

So do a bunch of other topics, including what's going on with our personal lives. There's a natural ebb and flow to our conversation, undoubtedly aided by how long most of us have been doing this Salon thing together. 

Sometimes I'll throw out an idea that I find amazingly interesting, because I'm me, and it will hit a conversational wall. After a bit of silence, someone else will start talking about a subject that elicits more interest.

It's like talking natural selection. Some ideas are embraced by the group and thrive for a while; others die a quick death. 

Often we disagree.

That makes for a more interesting conversation. We never attack each other personally, just the idea someone is expressing. Given the polarization of our country, I think it's wise to have a Salon group where the members mostly are of the same general political persuasion.

I'm not saying that avid conservatives and avid liberals couldn't have a good conversation. I simply doubt that the resulting arguments would make for a good regular Salon experience. Ditto for avowed atheists mixing with fervent evangelicals.

We're a liberal non-religious group. Works for us. Another group might be able to pull off a more diverse membership.

Currently there's 13 regular members, with Jim attending occasionally. Usually a few people can't make the monthly meeting.

Nine to twelve people is a good number for a discussion group. Any more, and the conversing becomes rather difficult, with the less talkative people finding it difficult to get a word in.

Five reasons to buy Kelly Williams Brown's new book

I buy and read lots of books. So many, I deserve a bookaholic diagnosis.

But at first I had some reservations about getting a new book by Kelly Williams Brown, the Salem author who wrote Adulting (about becoming a grown-up) and Gracious (a modern etiquette book of sorts).

Even though I admired the writing Brown did when she was a Statesman Journal reporter, I figured that regarding Adulting, I was already so grown-up I have one foot in the grave, and regarding Gracious, I'm at the age when you just feel entitled to act however you damn well please -- because of that one foot in the grave thing.

Easy Crafts for the Insane, though, appealed to me instantly.

Not because I have even a slight interest in crafts. Because I have considerable experience with mental illness. (The book's subtitle is A Mostly Funny Memoir of Mental Illness and Making Things.)

Aside from being raised by an alcoholic mother who drove me crazy once I reached my teen years, and struggling with various anxieties for much of my life, I was diagnosed with a serious depression about four years ago. 

However, you can be perfectly mentally healthy and still hugely enjoy Easy Crafts for the Insane, even if you couldn't care less about crafts. 

Here's five reasons why.

(1) Brown is an amazing writer. There are many sentences in this book that I would die for, if I didn't already have one foot in the grave. (Have I mentioned that before?) Like, "After all, I was a 31-year-old crone wandering through the world, my very footsteps turning fertile soul to ash. My uterus, I assumed, had dried up like a tumbleweed and blown away; surely it was rolling through Montana by now." I'm so envious that she can toss out lines like that, because I could write for a million years and never say something so perfectly.

(2) Honesty bursts on every page. No doubt some of the stories in this book are embellished to some extent. Or, a large extent. Doesn't matter. What matters is that Brown unfailingly comes across as being honest about the ups and downs in her life that ended up with her being admitted to a mental hospital after attempting suicide. She has an amazing ability to see herself and others clearly, though for all of us, in retrospect most things look less murky than they did in real time.

(3) Great insights into women. I've been married for 49 years, which would qualify me for a Golden Anniversary soon aside from the minor detail of needing to combine years spent in two marriages (18 + 31). Even so, women are still a mystery to me. That's why I enjoyed the "girl talk" in the book as Brown describes her relationships with female friends. It was a treat to feel like an eavesdropper on what women talk about when men aren't around. 

(4) Brown pulls no punches. Yes, she says that the names of people have been changed to protect the innocent. Along with the guilty. Yet I liked how she didn't change the names of two local hospitals. "So I will say this again, as everyone had always said it to me: If you are in Salem and you get injured, go to Silverton Hospital. The 30-minute drive is worth it!" Read the book and you'll learn why she had a good reason to say this.

(5) It's a book like no other. OK, I really am not qualified to make this claim, since I neither read memoirs, nor craft books. However, I'm confident that no one has written a book that simultaneously is... highly humorous, deeply moving, filled with step-by-step instructions to make various crafts, and carries the reader through the ups and downs of a woman's life in a gripping fashion.

During my morning reading time, usually I read from two or three books. But as soon as I started Easy Crafts for the Insane, this was the only book I wanted to read.

It was like Kelly Williams Brown opened up the top of her head and let me rummage through her mind, exploring the nooks and crannies of a creative psyche that was capable of great accomplishments and equally great downfalls. 

This was a gift from Brown that I'm deeply grateful for. Her book has helped me to take my own troubles less seriously. Or at least, to be better able to smile some through my tears even if I'm not able to laugh them away.

Black Butte Ranch roads have lessons for Salem streets

Salem, like almost all cities, isn't a pleasant place to drive around in. The exceptions are quiet residential neighborhoods where the speed limit is low, 25 mph or a bit higher, and the streets are narrow with plenty of trees.

That's why the roads in central Oregon's Black Butte Ranch, where my wife and I have owned a 1/4 share in a vacation house for about four years, can teach Salem streets some valuable lessons.

Wikipedia says that the permanent residents in Black Butte Ranch only numbered 366 in the 2010 census. But "During the peak tourist season, the population, including guests who do not own property but are renting residences within the community, is estimated to rise to 5,000."

That's considerable. and the many residences in Black Butte Ranch require the same services as any other place. Trash trucks. Construction equipment. Fire engines. Everything that a community of just about any size needs its roads to accommodate.

Yet driving around Black Butte Ranch is highly pleasurable, as is bicycling. Here's some photos taken near our house that explain why.

The speed limit is 25 mph. There aren't any painted lines on the roads, except for bike paths that sometimes run along a road. And in places there are delightful tree islands where the road splits around them. 

I love how there aren't any reflective markers on this side of the trees to warn drivers of what's ahead.

There aren't any reflective markers on the other side of the trees either. Whenever I approach these trees, I'm jolted into increased awareness of my driving, a very good thing.

Same is true of not having lines down the middle of the road. When two vehicles approach, each has to adjust to the other -- rather than assuming that if I'm on my side of the road, everything is fine.

Behold! Cars do just fine driving on a low speed limit road with no lane markings, no side of the road markings, and large trees in the middle of two traffic lanes.

Lastly, most of the pedestrian/bicycle paths are separated from roads. (See bike path on the left.) This makes walking and biking around Black Butte Ranch safe and pleasurable. 

Obviously it wouldn't be possible to transfer how Black Butte Ranch handles its roads and bike paths directly to Salem. But it sure would be nice if the City of Salem adopted the same basic principles:

-- Keep speed limits as low as possible
-- Preserve trees and other aspects of nature whenever possible
-- Have dedicated bicycle paths wherever possible rather than painted lines on a road

Oregon is becoming a climate change hellscape

We're not quite there yet, thankfully. Oregon hasn't transitioned from a wonderful place to live into a hellscape -- "a harshly unpleasant place or environment."

But the handwriting is on the global warming wall.

Today my daughter, Celeste, her husband, Patrick, and my granddaughter, Evelyn, arrived to visit us at the Black Butte Ranch house that we have a 1/4 share in. 

They're from southern California, though Celeste was born and raised in Oregon. 

Chatting with them as we ate pizza and salad outside at the charming Lakeside Bistro, I pointed out how little snow there is on the Three Sisters mountains, and the smoky haze that probably is coming from a giant Klamath County wildfire in southern Oregon.

Both the missing snow and the wildfire are related to the drought conditions facing Oregon,

The snowpack is much below normal, with less precipitation overall and with what does fall in the mountains being abnormally tilted toward rain rather than snow. The Klamath region is in an exceptional drought. The Oregonian story linked to above says:

Trees, brush and other fuel in the area are so dry that embers can immediately ignite them in the full sun and even in the shade, Saalsaa said.

“It’s a very scary fire,” he said. “It’s moving so fast it’s creating its own weather climate.”

The wildfire has grown from 16,814 acres on Thursday to 47,554 acres Friday, 76,897 acres Saturday and 143,607 acres by Sunday morning.

Yesterday I drove from Salem to Black Butte Ranch in central Oregon. This was the first time since the massive Santiam Canyon wildfire in September 2020 that I'd been in that area.

It was shocking to see how little remains of Detroit. I also was surprised at how the views had changed from Highway 22. With so many roadside trees burned in the wildfire, then removed, the landscape was much more open. Detroit Lake was considerably lower than usual, given the drought.

While eating dinner, I told my daughter and her family that this has been a disastrous weather year for our part of Oregon.

First came the wildfires in the early fall of 2020. Here's how I described this photo in a blog post.

Yesterday I took this photo at 9 am while standing in our almost pitch black driveway. 

Smoke from what now is called the Santiam Fire was so thick, blown by the east winds in the direction of Salem, where I live, that the sun was completely obscured. All that could be seen in the sky was an eerie red glow. Later in the day it was still strangely dark, which made me think darkness at noon.

Then came the February 2021 ice storm. We were without electricity for 12 days. Along with so many other people, our property suffered a lot of tree damage. We've still got quite a bit of debris to clean up on our ten rural acres.

Last month Oregon broke all-time high temperature records. And not by a little, by a lot. Salem hit 117 degrees, the same as the record high in Las Vegas.

It's damn clear that the climate is changing due to manmade greenhouse gas emissions.

The most disturbing thing is, the worst is yet to come. Oregon has endured gigantic wildfires, a highly destructive ice storm, and record-breaking temperatures in just the past ten months.

But by and large the world has just been giving lip service to tackling global warming.

So it looks like things are going to have to get much worse before politicians, policy-makers, and the general public wake up to the need to dramatically alter humanity's carbon footprint.

Summer of Soul -- great movie about 1969's Black Woodstock

Last night, via Hulu, my wife and I finished watching Summer of Soul, a hugely entertaining movie about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival that featured outdoor concerts with musicians such as...

Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly and the Family Stone, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, and The Fifth Dimension.

It's been called the Black Woodstock.

However, a big difference is that Woodstock, which also happened in 1969, became a cultural phenomenon, with a movie about the festival coming out just a year later in 1970. By contrast, footage of the Harlem Cultural Festival sat untouched for fifty years.

Thankfully, we're now able to see many of the acts that thrilled a mostly Black crowd of 35,000 or so who crowded into Mount Morris Park for six concerts in the summer of 1969. 

I found the movie deeply moving for several reasons. 

The emotions conveyed by the musicians gripped me. The movie flips back and forth between video of the performances and footage of what was going on in the country around that time. 

Murders of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. Vietnam War. Hippies. Drugs. Hair, the musical. Black Panthers. It was a tumultuous time. 

I was attending San Jose State College in 1969. Me and my hippie friends would go to San Francisco, Berkeley, Santa Cruz, tripping on marijuana, psychedelics, or both. 

Once we saw Ike and Tina Turner, but I don't recall seeing any other Black musical groups in person. So it was a delight to watch them perform in Summer of Soul, since their TV appearances back then were a lot less soulful than the Harlem performances.

The movie talks about how music was used to both express the Black experience and to help Blacks deal with the many challenges they faced back then. Also today, of course.

Seeing the faces of the crowd as they watched the Harlem Cultural Festival performances made me realize much more deeply how soul, blues, and gospel music touched the Black community. This was a special event for Harlem. Attendees speaking today in the film would say that they'd never been with 30,000 fellow Blacks in one place before.

The highlight of Summer of Soul for me was Mahalia Jackson and Mavis Staples singing Take My Hand Precious Lord. A short clip someone put on You Tube doesn't do justice to their performance, but it gives a hint of the strong feelings expressed by Jackson and Staples.

What kept going through my mind as I watched Summer of Soul is that expressing how we really feel may not make a crappy situation better, or make a pleasant situation even more enjoyable, but it connects us more deeply to reality -- whatever that reality may consist of.

I saw hundreds of years of Black oppression and Black culture being expressed on the stage of the Harlem Cultural Festival. And I know that the people who attended the festival viewed those performances with much clearer inner eyes, since they were living the realities being sung about.

I'm sort of embarrassed to admit that when The Fifth Dimension came on stage and sang songs from Hair, I thought, "Well, damn, they're Black." I didn't know that.

A member of The Fifth Dimension said in a present-day interview that they were criticized for being Black and sounding white. Yet she noted that they couldn't help sounding however they did, correctly saying that it was ridiculous to expect them to sound Black -- as if that's an actual sound. 

Here's a 1970 video of them performing The Age of Aquarius.

Sly and the Family Stone brought back memories, though I can't be sure if I ever saw this band in person. (OK, there's lots I can't remember from that psychedelic era; as the saying goes, if you can remember the 1960s, you weren't there.)

Sly singing Wanna Take You Higher to the Harlem audience had mixed messages. Sure, that what's marijuana and other drugs do. Sly also seemed to be speaking to the heights Blacks could reach if the forces keeping them down were lessened.

I think this video is from the Woodstock performance by Sly and the Family Stone. 

Fireworks should be shunned like cigarettes are

I'm not delusional. I don't believe fireworks are going to be banned anytime soon.

Heck, here in Salem, Oregon, the City Manager ignored pleas from the public and several city councilors to ban the use of fireworks this year given a severe drought condition and recent record-breaking high temperatures.

But I'm hopeful that with enough citizen education, the downside of fireworks will be understood so well, anyone setting them off on or around the Fourth of July will be viewed by most people with the same don't you know better attitude a cigarette smoker is these days.

I've been familiar with the obvious problems fireworks cause. 

Like, fires. 

Fireworks started an estimated 19,500 fires in 2018, including 1,900 structure fires, 500 vehicle fires, and 17,100 outside and other fires. These fires caused five deaths, 46 civilian injuries, and $105 million in direct property damage.  

And trauma to pets. We've had dogs who were terrified of fireworks.

Many people enjoy the booming sounds and flashing lights of fireworks, but they can be terrifying and overwhelming for pets⁠—and possibly hazardous.

On the Fourth of July, many pets become so frightened by the noise and commotion of fireworks that they run from otherwise familiar environments and people, and sadly become lost. 

Along with scaring wildlife. 

As we enjoy the bright colors and thunderous explosions, it's easy to overlook the impact to wildlife around us. We know what to expect, but wildlife don’t. The abrupt lights and sounds are often seen as a threat by nesting bald eagles and easily startle great blue herons and other colonial nesting birds.

The shock of fireworks can cause wildlife to flee, ending up in unexpected areas or roadways, flying into buildings and other obstacles, and even abandoning nests, leaving young vulnerable to predators. The threat to wildlife doesn’t stop at startling lights and sounds; fireworks also have the potential of starting wildfires, directly affecting wildlife and destroying essential habitat. Litter from firecrackers, bottle rockets and other explosives can be choking hazards for wildlife and may be toxic if ingested.

But when I Googled "why fireworks are bad" I learned that they're toxic, something I hadn't realized before.

Fireworks create highly toxic gases and pollutants that poison the air, the water and the soil, making them toxic to birds, wildlife, pets, livestock — and people — but there are environmentally-friendly alternatives available.

For some strange reason, people around the world have decided that the best way to mark important holidays and events is to have a public fireworks show. We choose to celebrate the birth of a New Year, the freedom of our nation, the triumph of good over evil, by blowing things up.

Most of us are aware that fireworks are dangerous: we either know someone, or know of someone, who ended up in the hospital emergency room due to fireworks, but most people are completely unaware of the more insidious environmental damages and health impacts caused by fireworks.

...But how much more of these heavy metals can just one fireworks show add to the atmosphere? Surely, not much? No, not so. A case study found that within 1 hour of fireworks displays, strontium levels in the air increased 120 times, magnesium 22 times, barium 12 times, potassium 11 times, and copper (Cu) 6 times more than the amount already present in the air before the event.

Pollutants released by fireworks travel far from their origin. Several studies revealed that in mild weather, tagged heavy metals used in pyrotechnics traveled 100 km (62 miles) downwind over a two-day period.

Among the pollutants traced were: strontium, vanadium (V), potassium, titanium (Ti), barium, copper, lead, magnesium, aluminum (Al) and zinc (Zn). These heavy metals add to the toxic pollution in the air. Further, the environmental impacts of these emissions are not confined to the air because these heavy metals are washed out of the air by rainfall, and accumulate in — and pollute — local watersheds.

I don't know if home-bought fireworks are as environmentally disastrous as professional fireworks displays are. They can't be good for the environment, that's for sure. And obviously they bother a lot of people -- including veterans with PTSD -- plus pets and other animals.

One day, I hope, setting off fireworks will be viewed with the same sort of raised-eyebrow disapproval as smoking a cigarette in a public place is nowadays.

There's plenty of other ways to express patriotism on the Fourth of July. Including becoming a super-patriot, my favored approach. 

Patriotism is way over-rated. At least, the way this word usually is defined makes it highly limiting: love for or devotion to one's country. 

OK. I love the United States. I'm devoted to this country.

I also love...

My neighborhood, Spring Lake Estates
My city, Salem
My county, Marion
My state, Oregon.
My country, United States (as already mentioned)
My continent, North America
My planet, Earth
My galaxy, Milky Way
My universe, which let's call Universe

So I'm super-patriotic.

I love and am devoted to so much more than just my country. Celebrating Independence Day (today!) by focusing on the American flag, fireworks, nationalism, our military, the Founding Fathers (no mothers, apparently) strikes me as an excessive attention to a small slice of what every person in this country should be devoted to.

Yellow jackets and forecasts say weekend will be HOT

Before sharing how damn HOT several weather forecasts are saying the coming weekend in Salem will be, this sign my wife put up yesterday speaks to how yellow jackets are viewing our highly unusual weather.

We're used to yellow jackets causing problems on our rural property during the summer. But we rarely, if ever, see them acting aggressively before late July or August.

That's when I wrote "Killing yellow jackets in their hidey-holes," my detailed description of how Laurel and I normally deal with yellow jackets.

Yet here we are in late June with Laurel getting stung as she walked to our front door, spurring her to warn delivery people to leave packages in our carport until we deal with the yellow jacket nest.

Global warming is very real.

Yellow jackets getting irritable a month earlier than usual is just one of a great many signs that temperatures are steadily rising, with extreme weather events like heat waves becoming increasingly common.

Like what Salem and the rest of the Pacific Northwest have to endure this coming weekend, and the beginning of next week. Forecasts differ about how hot it will be, but the consensus is HOT. 

Here's what the National Weather Service forecasts for our location: 102 on Saturday, 107 on Sunday,  100 on Monday.

The Weather Channel app has an even scarier forecast: 105 on Saturday, 115 on Sunday, 99 on Monday. That's insane! Yet possible. 

And here's what my AccuWeather app is showing: 104 on Saturday, 113 on Sunday, 101 on Monday.

AccuWeather says the record high for Salem on those days is: Saturday 103 (set in 2006), Sunday 99 (set in 2000), Monday 101 (set in 2008). So we could have record-setting heat on all three days, and almost certainly on Sunday.

Last year was a really bad fire season in Oregon. With all of the state experiencing drought conditions, this heat wave, and possible thunderstorms in central and eastern Oregon, threatens to make 2021 an even worse wildfire year.

Keep this in mind if someone tells you not to worry about global warming. But in one sense they're correct. We shouldn't worry about global warming; we should be terrified of it. 

And demanding that our elected officials at the local, state, and federal level act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as rapidly as possible before our planet heats up so much as to be barely habitable for humans.

Is 94 degrees hot? Ask your inner child.

I just got back from a 2-mile hilly walk around a road loop in our rural south Salem neighborhood. The thermometer tells me it's about 94 degrees. 

But it can't tell me if that's hot. 

Hot is subjective. Temperature is objective.

The difference explains why I'm often asked by a Starbucks employee, when the temperature gets over 80 in our part of Oregon, if I want my grande decaf nonfat vanilla latte iced or hot.

I try not to sound too heat-superior when I reply, "Why, hot of course. I don't believe in drinking an iced coffee no matter what the temperature is."

Sometimes I add, "I grew up in a California town where it often was over 100 degrees in the summer, so the temperature here in the Willamette Valley doesn't bother me much."

Now, that town was Three Rivers.

It lived up to its name with three forks of the Kaweah River running through different parts of Three Rivers. So along with the summer heat came summer swimming -- a nice blend of temperature yin and yang.

I'm not sure whether my current tolerance for 90+ degree days stems more from psychological or physical factors. Maybe both. 

Regardless, my theory -- which I readily admit may have no scientific foundation -- is that whatever climate we grew used to as a child leads us to be more comfortable with that sort of climate as an adult.

So when I went for that two-mile walk today, 72 year old me in Oregon was reliving part of the experience of 12 year old me in California.

Feeling the hot air rising from the road and adjacent fields, I certainly was reminded of similar sensations when I walked or biked around Three Rivers. It felt natural to be walking along on a hot asphalt road, like I'd done this many times before.

Which, of course, I did in my youthful years.

It also isn't out of the realm of possibility that thanks to evolution, stresses in the early years of our life -- extreme cold or heat, for example -- cause our body to become adapted to those circumstances, making it easier for us to deal with similar situations in our adult life.

That said, it looks like we've got another string of 90 degree days coming after a respite in the 80s tomorrow, Wednesday, and Thursday.

My inner child may be fine with that, but my old man self wishes it wasn't going to be so damn hot.

Happiness in this dry spring is 2.6 inches in our rain gauge

This is what happiness looks like when, as my wife and I do, you live in a groundwater limited area in the south Salem hills and this has been the driest spring ever in our part of Oregon.

I turned off our sprinkler system last week when substantial rain finally was forecasted. Then I dumped out the small amount of water in the rain gauge. 

So we got about 2.6 inches of rain during the recent wet weather period. That's more than I expected, thanks in part to some intense showers that passed over us periodically.

The past three years have been drier than normal, if I recall correctly what the KGW News weather guys have been saying.

That's added to my anxiety about this year's very dry spring.

We rely on our two wells for water (one is used for the sprinkler system; the other supplies house water). So do all of our neighbors, since our neighborhood is rural.

Thus dry weather means something different to us than it does to people who live in a town or city with piped-in water.

I guess rural residents are sort of like the Pacific islanders whose homes are threatened by rising ocean levels. Global warming has more immediate impacts on us than on city dwellers. 

Dry weather leads to worries about running out of water, whereas this is much less likely in a city like Salem -- where there are multiple options for keeping water flowing to its residents. 

I'm not saying that city folks don't care about global warming. Naturally they do. Rural and urban people just experience the current drought conditions in most of the western United States differently.

Which makes it kind of strange that rural residents, who are considerably more conservative than urban residents, tend to downplay the seriousness of global warming, even though they're more likely to suffer from devastating wildfires, dried-up wells, and other manifestations of steadily rising greenhouse gases.

We have a mixture of native and non-native plantings in our yard.

I like the Oregon Grape that was growing under two large fir trees when we moved to our house in 1990. Since, I've planted more Oregon Grape in that area, which doesn't get watered by our sprinklers.

The several inches of rain we got is good news for the plants in our yard. However, hot weather is coming in a couple of days. 

I'm hoping that our wells make it through summer. And that the next water year, which begins October 1, will be considerably wetter than normal. That's needed to make up for the recent dry years.

The Willamette Valley isn't in as bad a drought as California and the southwest are enduring. I'm thankful for that. Having lived in Oregon for 48 years, it just feels strange to be worrying about a lack of rain, since usually Oregonians complain about too much rain.