Last Coal Miner out of WV turn out the Lights!

       I attended the rally at the DEP headquarters in Charleston on Monday to demand an end to
blasting on Coal River Mountain.  I had the opportunity to speak with several miners there
including a friendly Massey Employee from Mingo county.  He told me that without coal mining there
would be nothing- no jobs, no money.  Without coal mining he would have to leave his home to look
for work elsewhere.  He supports MTR because it supports him and his family.  At least in the
short term.  And while we disagreed on MTR, we could agree that politicians are worthless. 
    
       But it got me thinking because I hear the same points over and over - There is no
alternative, without mining we'd have nothing.  Many say they would love to get out of
mining, if only there were something else. 

       Do I need to point out that there are people living in rural areas all over this country that
aren't dependent on coal mining to survive?  You miners complain about the lack of options,
of alternatives but you've got to make it happen.  You complain endlessly about the "outsiders" interfering in your business but you want the same "outsiders" to give you another job.  Stop waiting for someone else to do it for you.  YOU make it happen, Take responsibility for diversifying the economy of southern West
Virginia.   Start farming (all that flat land down there now, right!), start sustainable
forestry operations, fight for federal funds for mine and stream reclamation work, make
furniture, whatever.   Why not?  All of our ancestors had to make their own way in these
hills before mining and if there's any clean water left our descendants will have to make
their own way after the mining stops.   With those fat miner paychecks you ought to be able to put aside something to help start a business with. 

       The miner's I've talked with (the ones that haven't tried to shout me out anyway) seem to be 
decent people.  When it comes down to it I think that most all of us want the same basic
things.  We want the ability to provide for our families, we want to be free and healthy, we
want good food to eat, clean water to drink, and clear air to breath.  These are things we
all want because they are necessary for our survival.  The issue is that some people believe
that they can have these things and have coal mining too.  I disagree.  The coal mining areas
of our state tend to be the sickest, they have the dirtiest air, the foulest water.   I've
personally walked through the playground at Marsh Fork elementary and had my feet blackened
with coal dust.  I've seen the bags and bags of coal dust samples taken from the sides of
homes in the coal river valley.  I've seen the blackwater spills that poison the streams. 
Sure, several thousand miners are making a good paycheck, but we all suffer for it with our
health.  

       To be fair, coal mining isn't the only problem we face.  Many miners told me that they feel
that mining is being unfairly targeted.  Why aren't we going after the gas companies that are
wrecking people's wells, or the raw sewage going into so many streams, or the chemical
companies in the Kanawha valley?  It's a good point, and I hope we are able to deal with all
of these issues in turn, but we have to start somewhere, and that somewhere is with coal.  

the church is down...

After eight consecutive 12 hour days of labor of a most difficult variety, I managed to haul out all the lumber I had salvaged and stacked in the church, just hours before the demolition.    I got the oak floor and the subfloor, and about a dozen 2x12 joists.  With a few more days I could have knocked out the remaining 50 or so joists as well as the last of the t&g pine unstairs, but I'm pretty happy with what I managed to get out.    I was told by the church pastor on friday evening that the church board decided they did not want anyone working over there on sunday (the day before demo).   It IS the lord's day after all.   Even if that means many trees worth of lumber will be sent to the landfill rather than be reused and given a new life.   On sunday, as I rested (and on the seventh day...) I thought about this.   I thought about how, in addition to jesus dying for them, the many trees that formed their church, their shelter, their place of worship,, also died for them.  Living, breathing trees gave their lives so that folks could worship god in a dry warm room.   It only seems right to honor those trees by giving them new life rather than unceremoniously dumping them in the trash.   I didn't complain though (at least not to them) as I am grateful that they gave me the opportunity to salvage what I did.
I cheated a bit by going back sunday night at 10pm to start hauling rather that waiting for midnight and official monday.   By 3am monday I was done.  By noon the church was gone.   At one I took a nap.  Now it's back to the house.....

 

 

From http://www.shift2020.com

Racing against time, snow, the demolition man....

I recently stumbled into a goldmine of free material.   Thousands of square feet of oak and pine hardwood floors, 1x6 pine subfloor, 2x8 and 2x10 joists, 2x4s, etc.   There's only one catch.  I have possibly as little as one more day to get out what I can before the demolition man comes with his giant machinery to tear the building to shreds and haul it away.    While I was away for thanksgiving week another guy began removing the roof to get at the roof sheathing and rafters.  At this point half the roof is gone and it's supposed to rain and snow the rest of the week.  I've worked frantically, fanatically the last three days removing flooring.  I am so exhausted that I fell asleep twice while reading the kids their bedtime storybook then fell asleep again in the shower.   I am hallucinating.   All I can think about is lumber lumber lumber lumber..... I'm going to bed.

*UPDATE WED 12/02:  demolition man has POSTPONED until monday!   Yeehaw!

long day...

       I really like the feel of the house with everything opened up.    I would love to keep it this way and I've been considering some options.  In order to make it work I would have to remove the entire roof structure and rebuild it with a steeper pitch and some dormers to make room for an upstairs.  Would it be worth it?  It would be a hell of a lot of extra work, but it would make for a really open and roomy main level. 

       The ceiling joists are 2x6s, 16 inches apart.  To meet code for second story living space I would probably have to remove them and replace with 2x8s or larger.  

I'll need to talk to the building department to find out exactly what they'll require for a second story addition.

It may not be in the cards for this house....we'll see. 

good finds and dumpster dives...

I've always wanted a urinal.  My dreams came true when I got this one from a church that's being torn down in St. Albans.    It makes me happy to know that countless churchgoers have used the urinal that will be in our house and while I'll never know if they found redemption in all those Sunday mornings, I can be certain they at least found relief.  

I'm also receiving, for free, about 2,000 square feet of tongue and groove oak hardwood flooring.  I started pulling it up a few days ago.  I have no idea where I will store it all. 

Last night at a construction dumpster I found this great bike rack that we can lock our bikes to...

And today I found some little pencil drawings on the underside of a piece of old pine flooring that I pulled up from the old kitchen.

the river...

       We lay in our tent by the Williams River.   Stars by the thousands above us in the sky, the locust wood fire burning hot nearby, and the song of the river flowing.   I listened to that river song and thought of how long that sound has filled this river valley.   I thought of the thousands of years this clear water has coursed over and through the boulders here and of the many people before me who listened to this same beautiful song.    Long before the timber companies came through to clearcut the ancient hemlock, chestnut, oak, hickory; Long before the road builders came with their dozers and backhoes to grade and blast the steep rocky riverbank;  Before all that, someone lay here on this riverbank, looking at those same thousands of stars in the sky through a wintergreen canopy of rhododendron and hemlock and listened to this river's song as we did.    I hope that thousands of years from now, when the ancient trees have grown back, and the road has long since disappeared, that someone will lay here, in this spot, listening to this same river's song, and give thanks. 

       I got out the bow drill and began cutting a new notch in the fireboard.   U* asked what I was doing and I told her that I was preparing to make a fire.  She watched as I cut the notch deeper into the board, then placed the cedar spindle on the notch's point and began to burn it in.  The notch filled with the dark brown wood dust and began to smoke as I worked the bow.   I carefully removed the spindle and let our tiny coal burn while I told U* how the coal was like a fragile egg that needed a nest so that it could grow.  We made a nest for it, our tinder bundle, by shredding up some toilet paper that was close at hand and then carefully tapped out the coal.  I gently enveloped the coal in the tinder and we took turns blowing life into it, watching the coal grow and glow red in the center of it's nest.   
Every stick holds a fire, each twig carries the stored energy of the sun. 

       This is freedom.  A wild river, a cold morning, chasing the long rays of the sun for warmth.   I was told the other day that if we stopped using electricity we would be living in the dark ages again.   I think the opposite is true.   If we turn off our lights, our appliances, all the screens that fill our collective nightly vision - TV, computer - imagine what we might begin to see, to hear, to experience.   The world is out here, waiting, if we don't destroy it first.    The happiest times of my life have taken place in the absence of electricity - a  month walking the high mountains of New Mexico;  Sharing songs and stories around a campfire in the cascades, defending a tiny piece of the forest I love;  Dark nights in deep Utah canyons, singing with coyotes under more stars than I knew existed.   It isn't the lights and gadgets that give us happiness.   Electricity is irrelevant to our happiness, inconsequential as a measure of our well-being.   Happiness for me in those times was found in community - in shared purpose, shared song. 

weekend at the williams river...

earth creature. a parable.

       I was in Gabriel Brothers awhile back. I picked out a couple of t-shits and took them up to the checkout counter.  The cashier rang them in and I said (as I do at every store) "I don't need a bag, I'll just carry them out".   She stopped.   She looked at me with astonishment.   There was a moment of silence before she slowly formed the words "Are you one of them...earth.....creatures?"     That's what stumbled out.  The Gabriel Bros. cashier asked me if I was an earth creature.     I gave it a moment to sink in, then I smiled, and said "Aren't we all?"     She looked at me and said very seriously that Gabriel Brothers policy is that every purchase leaves the store in a bag, and that I did, in fact, need one. 
       I said, "Okay, but I'm bringing it back to you."
Then I took my bagged t-shits to the car, removed them from the bag, and returned the bag to the cashier.   I didn't stay to see, but I'll bet she threw it straight in the trash.

the bathroom comes down...

This was originally a porch.  Later the floor was raised, the walls closed in, and it became the bathroom.   In our plan this bathroom is being moved to the middle of the house and this space will become a part of the bedroom next to it.   I pulled the floor up because I'll need to rebuild it to the exact level of the floor it will be joining (left side of photo) and because I wanted to check the condition of the main drain/sewer line out of the house.   I'm glad I did because it's in rough shape.   The sink drain had rotted away from the main drain line and for who knows how long has been draining directly into the crawl space.  The T joint in the main sewer where that sink connected is also broken and will have to be dug up and replaced.    I don't know of any way to check the condition of the sewer line between the house and the street except for having a plumber send a little pipe camera down there.  I really hope I don't have to dig up and repace the sewer all the way out to the main line at the street.  It's a long way from the house to the road.