Life as Usual

photo by Tom the federal worker

Tom the federal worker got the call from his boss just minutes before time to leave for work on Thursday morning. Of course, he was already dressed and ready to go by 6 a.m., since we had read online the evening before that a debt limit bill was close to passing, that a vote on the continuing resolution to fund the government under sequestration would also pass, and that federal employees would be expected to be at work the following day. Tom spent the entire day, he said, trying to catch up with a project that had been put on hold, that required public meetings to be rescheduled. I spent the morning preparing a bed for some loropetalum bushes Tom was planning to transplant as a screen along our property line behind the newly-built wood rack. The soil was a little compacted there, and Tom had dug up the area the day before; I broke up the clods of dirt with a shovel, turned over the soil to fluff it up, pulled out the grass, and added compost. We planted the bushes that evening after Tom got home from work.

And so we're back to our usual routine.

One of my Facebook friends referred to these two weeks as "paid vacation" for federal employees. It's often difficult to judge tone accurately in FB posts, even with emoticons, but the response, following as it did a comment from another friend who expressed sympathy for those who had gone without pay for two weeks (and longer, as paychecks won't be on schedule for a while), struck me as flippant--similar to the unsympathetic attitude folks often have about public school teachers and summer break. Teachers may not get paid well, but at least they get the summer off, these people often say when teacher compensation comes up in conversation. Of course, as most of us know, especially those of us who have been teachers, the hours are very long, as one inevitably takes the work home, and many weeks of the summer months are spent preparing for the following school year.

In retrospect, now that the shutdown is over, and Tom and other federal workers are on the job once again, getting back pay, the two-week duration seems almost like vacation--but it certainly didn't feel like vacation at the time. Our vacations are often long-planned events, in which we save up money to get the hell out of Dodge. During these past two weeks, we couldn't go far, as Tom had to be ready to return to work as soon as Congress and the President could clinch a deal. And how about those federal employees  living from paycheck to paycheck on salaries near the bottom of the federal payroll? Did worrying about imminent bills feel like a vacation to them? Many were also concerned about work piling up, important duties not being performed. And since no one knew, really, when the shutdown would be over, anxiety about those bills and commitments remained high throughout the ordeal.

The sequester, which many Americans probably don't think about at all, further fuels the anxieties of federal workers. As The New York Times explains, the sequester:

emerged from the refusal of House Republicans to raise the debt ceiling in 2011 without significant deficit reduction. In response, the two parties agreed to the Budget Control Act, which cut domestic spending over the next 10 years by about $1 trillion. Democrats refused to agree to more cuts without additional revenue from taxes, and Republicans refused to agree to tax increases.

Instead, Congress set up a committee to find further deficit reduction. To push the committee to reach a deal, negotiators established a fallback mechanism meant to be so onerous it would never happen: $1.2 trillion in across-the-board, automatic cuts to both military and domestic programs, set to begin this year. (Jonathan Weisman,"Answers to Questions on Capitol's Top Topic," The New York Times  21 February 2013.)

So the sequester sets up this 10-year, 1.2 trillion, across-the-board, indiscriminate schedule of cuts, $85 billion which was to be put into effect this year. As the Times article points out, the cuts can't be targeted toward particular ineffective or redundant programs: all programs suffer. This deal was supposed to be so catastrophic that Congress would be forced to agree on a budget.....but that hasn't happened yet. Republicans want even more cuts, and Democrats want to raise taxes on those who can afford it (those who came out of the economic crisis with even more of the American pie). With the Budget Control Act, Republicans got catastrophic cuts with the sequester, the Democrats, not so much. Thus, we have the Continuing Resolution of the sequestration, under which the government is currently funded. That is what was up for a vote by the end of September; that's what shut the government down first--the Republicans' wanting to tack onto the CR outrageous policy demands: defunding (essentially, getting rid of) the Affordable Care Act (aka, ObamaCare), privatizing Medicare, approving Keystone XL, preserving all the Bush tax cuts while slashing funding for food stamps, among others. The vote on the CR ran into the deadline on the debt limit, which, if defaulted, would have been even more catastrophic than a shutdown.

Thus, the view that Republicans were holding the country hostage to radical demands from the far-right is not an exaggeration.

The sequester has already impacted federal programs. People have lost their jobs; others have faced furloughs (before the shutdown) and reduced pay. This is what federal workers also had in the back of their minds as the country went into shutdown mode. (For an objective look at the effects of sequestration, you can go to the website of the Pew Charitable Trusts and search "impact of sequester.") Tom the federal worker had a meeting with his colleagues and bosses in the summer to discuss how the cuts under sequestration would affect jobs in his particular branch of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The conclusion: uncertain, not good. Advice: keep your eyes open for other jobs in the near future. This is happening all throughout the federal government, and people are worrying about their livelihoods. These worries were there before the shutdown and were exacerbated by the shutdown.

Another shutdown looms as the next deadline for voting on the CR approaches in January. Radical Republicans will still probably use the lives of federal workers and their families (and those of millions of Americans who benefit from federal programs) and the economic stability of our country as bargaining chips in their demands.

Yes, life has returned to what counts for normal these days.

On the 16th Day (NOT "home watching Netflix or whatever")

morning run

Yes, Tom the federal worker has been home these 16 days of shutdown of the United States, but except for our usual internet-accessed film viewing through Roku in the evenings (saw 56 Up last night on POV; League of Denial on PBS earlier in the week), he has not been vegging, as Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) imagines federal workers doing all day while they've been locked out of the work that pays the bills. Tom has continued chopping and splitting the wood from the downed water oaks, and the newly built wood rack is filling up. I spent yesterday cleaning up the mess of having two water oaks expire on our lawn, picking up all the limbs not big enough for firewood and stacking them on a pile for burning (which is legal to do in this small Louisiana town as long as the fire is out by night), raking all the dead leaves and spreading them as mulch around our little citrus grove, and then mowing the yard. The lawn mower gas tank that Tom ordered was delivered, and Tom repaired the lawn mower for me. He also sharpened the blades. And he expanded the wood rack. It was a busy day.

Today has been much the same.

Tom has also begun training this week for the Rock and Roll marathon in New Orleans, scheduled for February 2, 2014. When he is working and being paid by the government, he runs in the evenings, with longer runs on weekends. But since he has been home on weekdays during the shutdown, he often runs in the mornings. I accompanied him on my bicycle this morning for a four-mile run. Although rain is forecast for this afternoon and later in the week, it was a beautiful clear morning, with a light breeze. Fall-blooming flowers brightened the edges of The Tammany Trace.

I especially love the fall-blooming mist flowers and the dainty asters forming delicate, lacy sprays. The south portion of our property is full of fall-flowering plants: dog fennel, mist flower, asters, goldenrod, clematis (probably an exotic).  Before we bought the property, the area was kept less weedy by the presence of azaleas. We allowed the previous owners to remove many azaleas after we bought the lot, and, unfortunately, the man who did the work for them created deep, compacted ruts in muddy soil, making the area impossible to mow with an ordinary lawn mower. Last year, I cut down all the weedy growth twice with a swing blade, but this year, I didn't, and the area is almost impenetrable. It wouldn't be so bad except that exotic mimosa is also growing freely among the native plants. In very early spring we marked with pink flagging all the native plants and azaleas that we wanted to keep, with plans to clear the area, but we were too busy with other projects. I imagine that we could keep many of the fall-flowering plants--even the dog fennel, which Tom doesn't like much--to create a soft weedy edge to the lot, but it will take a lot of work and planning to do so--maybe during the next government shutdown--which seems as likely to happen as this one has.

Dog fennel and goldenrod on the edge of the south lot

The day is not over as I'm typing this, and while a debt ceiling deal seems to be in the works, the votes aren't in. But the government shutdown isn't the only threat to paychecks of federal workers. Sequestration has already negatively impacted federal jobs and will continue to do so. All the brou-ha-ha and crocodile tears of some Republicans over national monuments being closed was laughable to anyone who has been keeping up with the effects of sequestration.  It's just so much theater for people whose jobs and livelihood aren't affected.

Meanwhile, here in southeast Louisiana, Tom is still waiting for that call (on his personal phone since he had to turn in his work phone before leaving the office October 1st) directing him back to work. We sure are getting a lot of chores done.

limbs too small for the wood rack go up in smoke

the wood rack complete, with two stacks full

How many more government shutdowns do we need to get this wood split?

On the 13th day of the Shutdown of our Country

Tom splitting wood

 Although his work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is piling up as Republicans refuse to fund our country to pay its bills as long as their extreme policy demands aren't met, Tom managed to get quite a bit of work done here at home. He made some headway into the huge chore of sawing up and then splitting the wood of the two water oaks downed on the south side of our property, and he started stacking split wood in the wood rack that he built yesterday. My job was to gather up wood in a wheelbarrow and tote it to the wood stack, where Tom could then stack the wood. He's the professional woodstacker; I just loaned my muscles for the grunt work.

After a few days of cool weather, warm weather had returned, with highs in the upper 80s. 

Tom's wood rack

One of the disappointments of the weekend was the cancellation of Wildthings, an event that thousands of people look forward to every fall; it takes place on the grounds of the Bayou Lacombe Centre, the headquarters of the Southeast Louisiana National Wildlife Refuges. Last year about 5,000 people attended, many of them children. The event includes a wildlife art contest, with participants from nearby schools, vendors, lots of activities for children, music, food, and opportunities for people to explore Bayou Lacombe on canoes that launch into the bayou from the Centre's grounds. Many people at the headquarters worked very hard for months to make this year's event the best ever: only the event was cancelled, as so many such events are being cancelled around the country.

We heard from our son that his research at a flagship university in Texas has also been affected by the shutdown. His grant is funded by a company that has a contract with the Air Force; he received a work stop-order on his research until this year's budget is approved by Congress. He cannot order any supplies with the designated grant money. Such halts on research are happening all over the country. James Fallows has been sharing readers' reports on just such issues: See "Weekend Shutdown Reader: Lest We Forget," and "Sunday Shutdown Reader: Harold Varmus on Self-Destruction in the Sciences," among others.

Hard work, however, helps keep us emotionally and mentally balanced here on our one acre of land in the middle of a small town in southeast Louisiana. I just worry about the many people even more vulnerable than we are to the vicissitudes of irresponsible, radical politics.

By late morning, Tom has almost filled the first tier of the wood rack. (I should add here that he didn't split all this wood in one day.)

By afternoon, the first tier of the wood rack is almost full.

By early evening, I've hauled cut wood from the front of the lot to the wood stack, and the second tier is beginning to fill.

But there was still time to play.

Final note: As James Fallows writes: "And the situation could have been solved at any point if John Boehner had only brought a budget measure for a vote in the House. "

On the 10th Day of the Takeover of our Country by the Minority Party

Today the sun is obscured behind a damp, gray sky. Tom made coffee and biscuits, and we sat on the patio talking about the events that have led to his being home on a weekday. When the local school bus passed, Tom said, "It's weird to hear the school bus," as he is always long gone to work with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service by then, always arriving at his office by 7 a.m.. He began to notice other sounds of the weekday morning that he is usually not home to hear, such as the strange "Close Encounters" chime of a business or school ringing through the woods [I've yet to identify the source]. Yesterday, on the 9th day of the takeover, he began the process of repairing our lawn mower, which had sprung a leak in the fuel tank; he ordered a replacement fuel tank, and began the work of repairing the grass deflector on the side of the mower. He measured the chimney so that he could calculate the amount of steel lining we would need for the wood stove, which he also ordered. He planted bok choy seeds in the garden, hoed some weeds, and in the evening, went for a six-mile run. Today he plans to continue chopping wood and begin building a wood rack.

Meanwhile, I will continue the fall clean-up of the garden areas that I began yesterday, trying to keep at some emotional distance my increasing dismay over how the Republican party has brought our country to a halt. This is no longer just a "government shutdown" to me; it's a hostile takeover, a hijacking of the democratic process and an attack on a million American families whose breadwinners work for the federal government. Republicans are trying to put the blame on President Obama, but since they've been playing this card since at least 2011 and planning this takeover for months, only the politically naive, ideologically blinkered, or easily bamboozled  are convinced. In 2012, President Obama won re-election with a majority of the American vote. Not able to win the presidency at the polls, even with intense gerrymandering, Republicans have resorted to holding the whole country hostage to their policy demands. First, they wanted to get rid of the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a., ObamaCare); now they're talking about cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

Remember the sequestration (which we are still under)? The cuts brought on by sequestration were already affecting the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service; we weren't sure whether or not Tom's job would continue beyond next year. The takeover and total shutdown of the government on October 1st just adds more to that insecurity.

Need a review of the sequestration? Links below.  I have a yard to clean up.

• February 20, 2013: "The Sequester: Absolutely Everything You Could Possible Need to Know, in One FAQ," by Dylan Matthews, at Wonkblog, The Washington Post.

• February 21, 2013: Answers to Questions on Capital's Top Topic," Jonathan Weisman, The New York Times.

• February 28, 2013: "A Graphic Guide to the Sequester," Christie Thompson, ProPublica.

• May 7, 2013: "Everything We Know About What's Happened Under Sequestration," Theodoric Meyer, ProPublica.

Tom surveys his fall vegetable garden on his 10th day off work

Shut Downs (and how to cope with them)

An avid gardener, I lose heart in gardening in the summer months, usually from the end of July to mid-September along the Gulf Coast. This year, the heat seems to have lasted longer, into October, and the government shut down that began October 1st has exacerbated the anxiety from which I tend to suffer during the hottest months. I prefer a cooler climate--rationally, emotionally, and physically--but fate has led us once again to Louisiana, where the climate seems hotter than when we last lived here (mid-80s) and where rationality rarely flourishes. My late summer garden goes into maintenance mode, in which I complete the most essential tasks: lawn mowing, some desultory weeding and edging. I pass the long, hot afternoons in our old, early twentieth-century cottage, with its high ceilings and cool wooden floors, watching British crime drama on Netflix while crocheting or hand-sewing my latest project. And I read a lot of online news. (When I was teaching, I would spend the hot summer months reading voraciously.) So any intensive gardening work shuts down by mid-August, to be revived for fall planting, if the weather permits.

My writing here also shut down in mid-August, as I was spending a lot of time scanning old family photographs for my parents and old letters written by Tom's ancestors.

But just as I was looking forward to cooler fall weather, for planting bulbs and clearing the spent flowers and other debris of this year's gardens, the government shut down began. Tom was furloughed, without pay, from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and a late summer storm began brewing in the Gulf. Now we're waiting--for Tropical Storm Karen to hit the Gulf Coast and for Congress to resolve the shut-down. Fortunately, early in the summer we had two water oaks near the house cut down in anticipation of the next hurricane; these trees have shallow roots, and as they near the end of their lifespan, as our trees were, they are apt to be uprooted by wind and rain. Then, this past week, we had the roof repaired over the guest/TV room (an old enclosed porch), where it had been leaking in every rain storm. Finally, and most fortunately, we have some savings to get us through a few weeks without income. Such foresight, however, does not totally belay the anxiety that accompanies an approaching storm or that attends concern over our family's finances. So we took a break from our anxieties yesterday by visiting the Burden Center in Baton Rouge; we had visited the Rural Life Museum years ago, and Tom had walked the wooded grounds when he was studying dendrology at LSU over 25 years ago.

the Steele Burden Memorial Orangerie

The day was much hotter than I had hoped an early-October day would be as we parked in the Burden Conference Center lot. The Burden Center is a part of an old family plantation, first owned by William Pike and then passed on to a daughter who married John Charles Burden. The children from that marriage lived on the farm through much of the twentieth century, and the family eventually donated the land to LSU. Today, about five miles of trails wind through woods that are rather open, courtesy of Hurricane Gustave.

Just off I-10, Burden Woods is never free of the sound of traffic, but it's a green oasis in an urban landscape.

The trails through Burden Woods are covered with gravel, and some are wide enough for wheeled vehicles.

We found the Trail Map a little confusing, however, as it did not accurately depict the trails we were walking. As we were describing its faults to a docent later at the Rural Life Museum, the woman took my copy, looked at it, and declared it useless. She crumpled it up before I could tell her I had written on it the names of some ginger species I had seen in the Ginger Garden that I was thinking of researching for my own garden areas.

The Rural Life Museum is full of interesting farm machinery from the past, old buggies and funeral carriages, quilts, paintings, collections of jewelry, and household items. Some are labeled; most items are organized by type (such as were several old sewing machines, lined up against the wall in one room). The place still looks like a work in progress, and I hope sufficient funding allows that work to continue. We noticed that all the rose beds in the Rose Garden are maintained by volunteers.

carriage hearse, Rural Life Museum, Baton Rouge, LA

Acadian Loom, Rural Life Museum

The museum grounds contain many old buildings from past rural life, including slave cabins that served as homes through the mid-twentieth century. As the only people walking the trails on this hot October day, we decided to save a walk through Windrush Gardens for another day, perhaps a cooler day in spring or early summer. And, anyway, we had a storm for which to prepare.

Exiting the Rural Life Museum for the grounds

slave cabin, Rural Life Museum

a house that has been moved from its original location to the grounds of the Rural Life Museum

old church on the grounds of the Rural Life Museum

A Morning Paddle and a Lesson in Marsh Preservation

cooling off in the shade in Big Branch Marsh

Yesterday morning my husband, daughter, and I headed out to Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, where we unloaded our kayaks at an unmotorized boat ramp and paddled down a canal and out into the marsh. At 8 o'clock in the morning, temperatures were already rising. This was our first time out on the canal that leads from the ramp to Lake Pontchartrain; we usually paddle Bayou Cane, where we always look forward to sighting the osprey nesting in a tall dead tree at the edge of the bayou. But yesterday in this area of Big Branch Marsh we didn't see a lot of wildlife: a couple of small alligators cooling off in the water, lots of red-winged blackbirds, several Great Egrets fishing in the shallow waters, an eastern kingbird, and a couple of wood ducks flying up, startled, from the great swathes of bullrushes and cane, and, of course, the ubiquitous dragonflies that pose in silhouette on tall grasses, sedges, and half-submerged limbs of dead trees.

canal in Big Branch Marsh

Our plan was to paddle around in the marsh for two to three hours, and that's what we did, stopping for second breakfast on a berm in the marsh. There we saw piles of raccoon waste full of tiny seashells, clues to that animal's breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  We were satisfied with bananas, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and water.

Along the way, we had noted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's attempts to restore the marsh. Anyone who knows anything about this area knows how important wetlands are to the livelihood of local people and of local and migrating plants and animals. The American alligator was on the endangered species list when I was growing up on the Texas Gulf Coast and was finally removed from that list in 1987. Bald eagles, too, find refuge in the swamps of Louisiana, along with other animals coming back from the brink of extinction, such as the brown pelican. The vast marshes of Louisiana also protect the coast from the destruction of hurricanes. Over the years, the draining of swampland to provide living space for the inhabitants of New Orleans and other towns nearby, the building of levees along the Mississippi River, the unrestrained logging of cypress trees in the 1930s, the dredging for navigation canals and pipelines through the swamps by the oil and gas industries, and the importing of the South American nutria in the 1940s have devastated this natural protection (more here).  The small area of the vast network of swamp that we paddled around in for three hours yesterday is "disappearing at the rate of more than 25 square miles a year."

The U.S. Geological Survey provides these statistics:

Coastal Louisiana has lost a wetland area the size of Delaware, equaling 1,883 square miles, over the past 78 years, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey National Wetlands Research Center study. 

Twenty-five percent of the wetland area present in 1932 was lost by 2010. If this trend were to continue, Louisiana would lose a wetland area larger than the size of the island of Manhattan every year. [See "How Are Louisiana Wetlands Changing?," USGS news release, 2 June 2011]

Add the marsh loss caused by the poor decisions of people and the marsh loss caused by hurricanes and other storms--you can see why we have a coastline in crisis:

When the hurricanes of 2005 and 2008 are factored in, the trend increased the amount of land lost to 16.57 square miles per year from 1985 to 2010. If this loss were to occur at a constant rate, it would equate to losing more than a football field every hour. The combined loss from the storms of 2005 and 2008 equal a land area the size of Chicago. [See "How Are Louisiana Wetlands Changing?," on the USGS website]

As we stood on that berm in Big Branch Marsh, my husband waved his hand toward the open water behind us. "Hurricane Katrina tore big swatches of marsh out of this area, leaving behind open water like that," he said. Then he pointed to the south side of the berm where we were standing. "That area, now covered with sedges, bull rushes, and other marsh plants, was once open water. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service built this berm, pumped in sediment behind it, and then planted this area; see how the marsh has been reclaimed here."

open water in Big Branch Marsh

berm in Big Branch Marsh

reclaimed marsh in Big Branch Marsh

Earlier in our paddle we had also come across another marsh reclamation project, brush fences of Christmas trees built to direct the flow of water in the marsh, allowing sediment to build and plants to root.  A wooden fence, sort of like a cattle chute, is built in shallow waters, and then recycled Christmas trees are placed within the structure.  We wondered if these structures worked, and then, later in our paddle, we saw where sediment had evidently deposited along one side of a fence, for marsh plants had established a solid foothold there, obscuring part of the fence.

brush fence in Big Branch Marsh

close-up of recycled Christmas trees in brush fence

plants growing along brush fence in Big Branch Marsh

When I see such reclamation projects, evidence of the hard work of government employees, volunteers, and employees of participating non-profit organizations, I am reminded of what government can do. Every time some member of Congress insists on mandatory lay-offs of government employees and great spending cuts in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other such worthwhile government services, I think of the marshlands of Louisiana and other areas of the country that would suffer without the work and protection of such services.

Private enterprise cannot take up the slack here, for private enterprise focuses first on profit, and the worth of a wetland cannot be measured by corporate profit. Without these wetlands, 30% or more of the nation's seafood would disappear from restaurant menus and from seafood markets; oil platforms and gas pipelines protected by swamp would soon be in open sea, vulnerable to storms; coastal people would be homeless and jobless; endangered species would become extinct; American citizens looking for hunting and fishing recreation would have many fewer--and ever more dwindling--options.

This is why government services such as the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service need our support. We all profit.

 

note:

See discussion of U.S. budget proposals at the American Trails website: Federal Budget Proposals: funding issues for trails".  Quote: "U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would receive a 21% cut: $1.2 billion budget is $315 million below last year’s level." Republicans pushing these cuts refuse to let the Bush tax cuts expire as planned and refuse to compromise on taxes and other revenue options.

another quote:

Dan Ashe, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, tells it like it is concerning the fierce budget cuts some in Congress are aiming at fish and wildlife conservation programs: "This is not deficit reduction. These are policy and political objectives dressed up as deficit reduction by those who seek to get those pesky fish and wildlife agencies -- federal and state -- out of the way of development. Never mind that America's outdoor recreation economy generates 8.4 million, nonexportable U.S. jobs, most in rural areas, generating over $100 billion annually in federal, state and local taxes." Ashe also pointed out: "Now the legacy of a century of conservation -- indeed the future of the North American model of wildlife conservation -- is threatened by the prospect of draconian cuts to conservation programs. These programs, though only a sliver of a percentage of the federal budget and largely inconsequential for deficit reduction, have been disproportionately singled out by some in Congress and their supporters." from NOLA online, 23 October 2011

 other sources:
The Izaak Walton League of America, "Conservation Funding Cuts"

What the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service does, here: AllGov: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

editorial by Shawn Perich, on Northern Wilds website: "Points North: Don't Destroy Fish and Wildlife Conservation to Balance the Budget"

'The Rise and Disappearance of Southeast Louisiana," an interactive graphic for The Times-Picayune by Dan Swenson.