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#81035 09/21/02 05:26 PM
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Dear Wordminstrel, do, I beg of you, call attention to any of my word choices that
could be improved on. That is what AWADtalk was created for. Until your post I
had forgotten the more usual complaint about water, its inequitable consumption
by some cities, resulting in deprivation of other less politically powerful communities.


#81036 09/21/02 07:51 PM
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I dare you, ask me a question

OK, Mr. Answer Man. In the movie My Little Chickadee, starring W. C. Fields and Mae West, who was whose little chickadee?


#81037 09/22/02 12:29 AM
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So, we go from riparian rights to My Little Chickadee. What is this? Fields and Streams?



TEd
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In reply to:

So, we go from riparian rights to My Little Chickadee. What is this? Fields and Streams?


Aw, come on, Ted! Why don't you ask A.L.I.C.E. again? She kind of liked you, if I remember correctly.


#81039 09/22/02 12:42 AM
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Darn pesky aluminum siding salesman, sorry I'm late but that guy wouldn't shut up talking. Let's see, where was I before I was so rudely interrupted?...
...oh yeah it seems that Pal Fal has asked a tangent while I was gone, Ok Mr. Faldage the answer is - W.C. Fields called Mae West "My Little Chickadee" not once but twice, when they were on the train headed west to be married. Have you forgotten?

Ok, now I can return to explaining the many interesting aspects of Water Tables to Wordwind.
You know...sometimes fate intervenes, the aluminum siding salesman (whose name was Van) gave me a hint as to how to explain complicated earth science processes to females. Van said...

"Women think in little packages, I understand nothing about the way their minds work. They put every subject into an envelope, label it and it's finished...little packages...little packages."

Actually Van was quoting the 19th century painter Edgar Degas, but it gave me an idea as to how to format my Water Table talk to insure an effective transfer of information.

I will go now and write it up and return posthaste.








#81040 09/22/02 12:59 AM
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While milum's gone, I'll stick in a word. In early colonial times in Massachusetts a number
of places had enough iron in soil that it leached out into many ponds and bogs, and was
used by coloniists to make cast iron pots, etc. The soluble iron when it got into pond
became insoluble, and made a layer on bottom of pond that got thick enough in twenty
years to be dug out again. But imagine work of digging a ton of that goo and gunk in
a day's work, and then having to transport it over a footpath to nearest forge, perhaps
ten miles away. Instead of cash you got a pot or two, and so then had to hoof many
miles to find someone who could barter you something for it. A rough way to make a
living. Every brook just about had a forge on it, to work bellows to make forge hot
enough to burn wood charcoal to reduce iron to a spidery "bloom" which could then
be removed, and when enough was obtained, be remelted to make the pots, etc.
Incidentally, high water table in all those bog areas is now basis for cranberry bogs,
which I understand are now Massachusetts largest agricultural enterprise.
Buy OCEAN SPRAY cranberry juice. End of commercial.


#81041 09/22/02 01:10 AM
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Yeah, wwh. Cranberries and their bogs are really fascinating.

But back to iron. I've been wondering. You see, out here on the farm the land is mostly red clay. And just today I was wondering what made the clay red. Do you think it's iron? I mean, iron turns red, doesn't it? So that's why I'm wondering whether there may be high iron content in the soil. When the rain works away at the clay, and the runoff moves into the dirt road, it turns into reddish-yellowish-orangish sand. But I'll bet there's high iron content in that clay.


#81042 09/22/02 01:30 AM
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Dear WW: I told you a long time ago I lived three years in Herndon, a mile east of control
tower at Dulles. The soil there was red clay. The red is indeed from iron, but in tightly
bonded enough not to be in excess. But red clay is commendably fertile. Only probblem
is narrow window of ploughing schedule. The Massachusetts soil is orange and yellow
sand and doesn't hold nutrients at all well. Colonial farms played out very quickly, and
farmers had to find new land elsewhere. I read about a farm of fifteen acres arable,
and fifteen of woodland. But half the value of farm was in three acres of salt meadow,
where sea replenished nutrients removed with hay. When I hear nuts talking about
wonders of organic farming, I'd like to have them compelled to make it work on such
a farm. Even rapacious Lord Faldage with his sheep byproducts extorted from his pathetic
peasants would have a tough time with soil llike that.


#81043 09/22/02 10:42 AM
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W.C. Fields called Mae West "My Little Chickadee" not once but twice

Dang you, milum! Now I gots to watch the flick instead o jus lissenin to other folks talkin about it.

Oh, and Dr. Bill? Could you move your sheep over to the north 40? I need some more ammo.


#81044 09/22/02 11:44 AM
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Hi Faldage:

If you'll be in southern latitudes on 5 November 2003, come and see it with Hobart Film Society in a double-bill with the Marx Brothers in 'Horse feathers'.

And other AWADers are also welcome!


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