Placebo Sleep

Welcome back. I’ve written about sleep a few times (Time to Sleep, Sleep and Memory, Sleep Patterns), but it’s always been about, well, sleep, the real thing. Today’s sleep discourse is more about the power of suggestion.

Perception versus reality.
(multiple websites)

Suppose I had some way of convincing you that you slept well or didn’t sleep well last night regardless of how well you actually slept. (You snored all night, dear; you must have slept like a log.) Do you think that would affect your mental acuity? Would it be enough to make you sharper or--sorry--blunter, again, regardless of how well you actually slept?

That’s what investigators from the Colorado College in Colorado Springs set out to learn.

Experiments

The researchers conducted two experiments. The first presented a lesson on the relationship between sleep quality and cognitive functioning to 50 undergraduates and then had the students rate how well they slept the previous night.

In the lesson, students were advised that rapid eye movement (REM) sleep typically occupies 20% to 25% of total sleep, and that those who experience more than 25% do better on learning and memory tests, while those who experience less than 20% do worse.

Each student was then attached to a machine, which the students were led to believe would measure brain activity, pulse and the like to determine how much REM sleep they had experienced the previous night. (You just can’t trust psychology researchers.) After being presented fictitious readings of either 16.2% or 28.7% REM sleep, the students were given a Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test, which assesses auditory information processing speed and flexibility, as well as calculation ability.

I know you’re anxious to hear the results, but since the second experiment, done with 114 undergraduates, followed essentially the same steps as the first experiment, let me lay that out and take the two experiments together.

The main difference between the experiments for our purposes is that the second employed three other cognitive tests: the Controlled Oral Word Association Test, which assesses verbal fluency; Digital Span, which determines the longest list of numbers one can repeat in correct order; and Symbol Digit Modality Test, which gauges the time to pair abstract symbols with specific numbers.

Results

Students who were informed they had experienced below average sleep quality by being given the lower REM sleep value, 16.2%, did significantly worse on the Paced Auditory Serial Addition and Controlled Oral Word Association tests than did students who were informed their sleep quality was above average by being given the higher REM value, 28.7%.

In contrast to the statistically significant effect of the REM sleep values, the students’ self-rated values of sleep quality showed no relation to test performance.

The assigned REM values did not predict students' scores on the Digit Span Test, which was expected, but it also failed to predict performance on the Symbol Digit Modalities Test, which was not expected. The research continues.

Wrap Up

The study, which set out to determine if perceived sleep quality affects cognitive function, successfully demonstrated the placebo effect, where the outcome is attributed to the belief in the treatment--mindset, perception or expectation--rather than to the treatment itself. Placebos aren’t limited to sugar pills. Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.

-Colorado College study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24417326
-Articles on the study on Smithsonian Magazine and Salon websites:
www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/you-can-get-placebo-sleep-180949410/
www.salon.com/2014/02/09/the_placebo_effect_even_works_for_sleep_partner/

My First Motorcycle, Part 2

Welcome back. Today’s blog post concludes the guest post by Jay P. that began last Friday (My First Motorcycle, Part 1).

About the time I was lusting after a driver’s license, ”Honda 50” motorcycle/ scooters were all the rage. Attempting to garner a bit of that market, Harley-Davidson arranged for the Italian company, Aermacchi, to build some small motorcycles. Imported Harleys! Most motorcycle guys, Joe included, were unimpressed with this plan. Still, getting in on a portion of that “scooter” business might not be a bad thing.

There were two models of the red 50cc bikes. One looked like the girls’ variety with a strange bubble sort of gas tank sitting on a downturned frame. The other one had a long rectangular gas tank with the lines of a real motorcycle. The largest import at the time was the black 250cc Sprint model with its giant single cylinder jutting out forward, unconfined by a frame. These were strange renditions of Harley-Davidsons, but there they were, new and shiny, squeezed in that tiny showroom between Schwinns and shovelheads.

They weren’t what a Harley-Davidson should be but they did have those words on the tank. That was the decal my dad thought a motorcycle tank should have on it. Maybe I might be able to talk my parents into allowing me to climb onto one of those. My dad never had an interest in motorcycles but he also never met a motor he didn’t like, enjoyed visiting Joe at his store and always took me along.

In those days, a prospective Wisconsin driver could get a “temporary learners permit” at 15.5 years of age. With that, the “learner” could operate a car with a sufficiently experienced driver riding along or drive a motorcycle alone. I don’t remember if there was cc-displacement restriction but there was no skill test required for the cycles. This, happily, was the loophole I could use to convince my parents that they would not need to transport me places a full six months earlier if they would only let me get one of those “Harley 50s.”

Jay’s first motorcycle, a Harley-Davidson
50cc, was built in Italy by Aermacchi.

And so, at about 15.1 years, I submitted my request. I planned ahead, of course, because I anticipated these negotiations would not go swiftly. My mother had once witnessed a motorcycle crash and would oppose the idea of her kid riding, but I eventually prevailed. In time for me to be road ready by my 15.5 year birthday, mom and dad relented. The deal however was that any cycle I drove must have a windshield and I would always wear a helmet. No problem! Just about anything they demanded short of training wheels was going to be acceptable at that point.

I had a job, my dad had taught me how to bargain and Joe was a fair dealer. Before that half-year birthday and my “temps,” I was riding in circles in the backyard. This strange little version of a Harley had a left-hand clutch that, when pulled, the rider also twisted that grip to shift gears. It was all new to me so the odd shifter didn’t seem to matter. It was wheels with a motor, freedom beyond the Schwinn, and I loved it.

I would take long drives to nowhere on warm nights. I customized it with accessories whose brackets would break from fatigue caused by the buzzy little 2- cycle engine. I was hooked and progressed to the other Italian Harleys; the 125 Rapido, and the ankle busting 250 and 350 singles. I often wondered about those cool Japanese bikes with push-button starters, but like other Southsiders, I was pretty loyal to dealer Joe.

Eventually, Joe got older and there were rumors that Corporate Harley wanted bigger, new showrooms that Joe couldn’t afford or may not have been interested in. In time, another Harley dealer opened a new shop in Oshkosh. That must have been hard for Joe to take. Now there’s none. Joe got hurt when a cycle he was working on fell in his cramped shop. A few years later National Cycle was torn down and replaced by an office building.

Also eventually, I sold the kick-non-starting Italian Harley 350 Sprint and came home with a kick-instant-starting Yamaha 250, 2-cycle, twin. Of course, a windshield was clamped to the handlebars. My dad was impressed with that Japanese machine that worked so well and began buying his own motorcycles. He still held Harleys in high esteem. When he passed away, he was the proud owner of a new 1984 Harley Tour Glide and 1983 BMW R80ST. After 45 years of riding, I’ve inherited the Harley and also own two BMW RT’s. I still seem to need the windshield models.

Many thanks to Jay for his essay and to you for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed it. Maybe you remembered your first cycle or bicycle. Was it a Harley? A Schwinn? Any comments or emails about the post would be greatly appreciated by Jay and me.

My First Motorcycle, Part 1

Responding to my call for guest blog posts, Jay P., whose essays placed first or runner-up in this blog's writing contests, submitted a version of an essay he wrote that appeared in BMW Owners News. Jay's guest post is another example of his prize-winning writing. Given its length, I'll split the post between today and next Tuesday.

Oshkosh, Wisconsin, first famous for sawmills, later for blue jeans (B’gosh), now for airplanes (Experimental Aircraft Association), is a city in two halves in a couple ways. It’s bisected by the Fox River into fairly equal North and South geography. This division also produced a once vibrant social disparity with the North populated by the “haves” and the South being the “wish we hads.” This rivalry was so significant early on that two names were proposed: Athens, for the North, and Brooklyn, for the South. That never became official.

The North side had Main Street, the upscale shopping district, with banks, movie theaters, hotels and a fairly well known opera house. The South side had a mini Main Street called Oregon, with its own movie theaters, no live performance facility, but Southside branches of the public library and First National Bank, which were sort of half-scale reproductions of their parent edifices.

An amazing place to young boys like me on the real Main Street was Vern’s Cycle Center, a seeming palace of Schwinn Bicycles. It was a long narrow store. Entering the front door, there was a distinctive odor of tires and bicycle grease. Arrayed ahead was a narrow aisle flanked by all models of Schwinns. These were parked closely together on either side and generally placed on the right or left according to gender of the lucky prospective rider.

Hung on the showroom walls high above the two rows of bikes were bunches of tires on long hooks and also a couple rare and exotic Schwinn Paramount racing bicycles, unobtainably high placed and high priced. At that time, before “10 speeds,” I was not sure who would want such bikes as Paramounts. They had a frail looking diamond-shaped frame, skinny tires and drooping handlebars, but as the name suggested, they were the very best Schwinns. Vern’s was an impressive place to a 12 year old--from the Southside.

National Cycle and Repair, located on the
south side of Oshkosh, was the city’s only
Harley-Davidson motorcycle dealer.

As with Main Street and the library, Southern Oshkosh had its own version of a Schwinn dealer. This was a smallish shop, with maybe a half dozen bicycles at any one time, called National Cycle and Repair. The scant Schwinn selection was not such a problem, however, because this was also the city’s only Harley-Davidson motorcycle dealer. We had the Northsiders on that account. If you went there to look at the Schwinns, you might get to sit on a Harley!

Joe, the proprietor of National Cycle
and Repair, was one of the first
Harley-Davidson dealers in the state.

The aroma of this establishment was tires and grease mixed with gas, oil and leather. Joe was the proprietor, and since 1929, one of the first Harley dealers in the state where they were devised and manufactured. He was a good guy, often sporting a partial, unlit cigar and unconcerned about maintaining an impressive looking dealership.

The showroom was about 20 feet by 20 feet with a hardwood floor that creaked like old wooden floors do. It was like a converted living room housing a single row of three or four Harleys next to as many Schwinns. About six feet ahead of the front tires were glass display cases with a jumble of cool accessories, license plate reflector jewels and American Motorcyclist Association and Harley hats and pins. A large open double doorway on the other side of the room revealed the repair shop area where Joe, by himself, fixed motorcycles ‘til the early morning.

There were no signs restricting the shop area to only the most authorized of employees. Anyone could walk back to converse with Joe or just look and marvel at how he got the job done on work benches piled high with pistons, gears, wrenches, wires and whatever the last broken motorcycle, or one five years ago, left behind. Joe’s adult son Arden had a separate workbench. He was in charge of the Schwinns. Joe’s family lived upstairs.

Jay’s essay will continue next Tuesday. I hope you’ll be back. Thanks for stopping by.

Creative Walkers Photo Addendum

Last Friday’s blog post, Walking for Creativity , summarized research that demonstrated how walking, especially outdoors, promoted creative ideas. Today’s photo addendum carries that theme a bit further.

A creative elephant walking with others that have lost their stripes. (multiple websites)

An older walker with a very creative shadow.
(www.jasonratliff.netindex.phpt-shirtswalking-shadow-series)

A creative racer carries a tiger. (multiple websites)

An innovative approach to learning to walk.
(Upspring Baby Walking Wings)

Imagine Nik Wallenda’s thoughts as he walked over Niagara Falls,
15 June 2012. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Frank Gunn)

Walking for Creativity

Welcome back. If you follow this blog, you’re aware that, along with recalling, I often explore, especially recent research. Research comes in different flavors from vanilla to tutti frutti. One type of applied research that anyone can appreciate is when the study findings confirm what you already know or have experienced.

That was my reaction when I saw that a recent Stanford University study demonstrated that walking boosts creative thought.

Before retiring, I had always found that if I took a walk after work or when I hit the wall on a problem, there was a pretty good chance I’d come up with a solution or at least an approach to a solution. Even today, when I’m wondering how to develop a blog post or what to use for a photo addendum, there’s a better chance I’ll come up with an idea if I take a walk than if I just sit and ponder.

Stanford Study and Tests

So what did the Stanford investigators do to validate my experience? They conducted four experiments in which volunteer participants took tests used to measure creative thinking, while the participants were sitting, walking or being pushed in a wheelchair, indoors and outdoors.

A divergent creative thought test used in 3 of the 4 experiments gave participants a limited time to suggest alternative uses for common objects. For example, uses suggested for a “button” included a dollhouse doorknob and tiny strainer. A convergent thought test used on one experiment had participants supply a word that fits with each of three given words. Given “cottage--Swiss--cake,” for instance, the answer is cheese. A third test used only for the last experiment had participants generate analogies to statements. “A candle burning low” might elicit “the last hand of a gambler’s last game.”

Experiments

For maximum creative and focused thought,
try a Treadmill Desk by Details from Steelcase,
but you might want to drag it outdoors.
(store.steelcase.com/products)

In the first experiment, 48 undergraduates completed the divergent and convergent thought tests first when sitting and then when walking on a treadmill. The results showed an average increase in creative output of about 60 percent when walking. Participants generated more uses when walking, and more of those uses were novel and appropriate. In contrast to creative thought, however, walking did not benefit activities that require more focused, convergent types of thinking, such as choosing one correct answer.

In the second experiment, a different group of 48 students completed the divergent thought test after being randomly assigned to three conditions: sit then walk (as in first experiment), walk then sit, and sit then sit. Again, walking increased creativity. Participants who walked first did better than those who sat, and those who only sat did not improve. Of note is that after walking, participants’ seated creativity was much higher than the creativity of those who had not walked.

In the third experiment, divergent thought test data were collected from 40 students under four conditions--sit then sit, sit then walk, walk then sit, and walk then walk—but unlike the first two experiments, students walked outdoors. Although walking again increased creative output, the effect of being outdoors was inconclusive.

The fourth experiment enlisted 40 participants to assess the effect of walking on generating creative analogies, in a fixed time, while sitting indoors, walking indoors, walking outdoors and being pushed in a wheelchair outdoors. Walking indoors or outdoors increased analogical creativity, and walking outdoors rather than just being outdoors produced the most novel and highest quality analogies.

Wrap Up

It seems rather conclusive that if creative thought is your goal, take a walk, ideally outdoors (weather permitting). How or why your creative side is heightened by walking and the environment is the subject of continuing research.

Though walking works for me, I think I’m even more creative during my predawn jogging. Of course, that could be because I’ve slept and I’m sharper. Or maybe that’s because I’m still groggy and just more receptive to any silly idea. Anyway, thanks for stopping by. Please invite others who might be interested.

P.S.

-Stanford researchers’ paper from Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition:
www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/xlm-a0036577.pdf
-Article on paper on Science Daily website:
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140424101556.htm

Insect-Themed Food Addendum

Just in case you’re not ready to face edible insect dishes and recipes, however scrumptious they may be, today’s addendum to last Friday’s blog post, Entomophagy, features insect-themed, not insect-based, food. If you’d like the real deal, check out the links in the “P.S.” of last Friday’s post, especially the cookbooks, or just search Google Images for “entomophagy” or “edible insects.”

Today’s treats are mostly for kids’ parties, and you won’t have to scour the forest or lawn to find the ingredients.

Ladybugs of tomato, black olives and cheese.
(marzime.hubpages.com/hub/LadyBug-Theme-Party#slide6607687)

Spider ham and cheese sandwiches.
(www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/ham--n--cheese-spiders)

Honey Bees of oats, flax meal, honey, almond slivers
and chocolate. (puregoodness.net/?p=971)

Butterfly of celery, yogurt, pretzels and cranberries.
(www.mummyslittledreams.com/2012/09/butterfly-party-theme.html)

Caterpillars of grapes and chocolate on skewers.
(www.kidspot.com.au/best-recipes/Party-food+11/Grape-caterpillars-recipe+4403.htm)

Spider of chocolate cake.
(www.notmartha.org/archives/2007/10/26/spider-cakes/)

Gummy worms on chocolate pudding and crushed cookies.
(www.jenthousandwords.com/2009/11/daniels-bug-themed-birthday-party.html)

Entomophagy

Welcome back. No matter where or how I begin this topic, the moment you learn what the post title, entomophagy, means--presuming you don’t already know and have gotten this far--half of you are going to go Ecchhh! and stop reading. So I’ll get right to it.

Entomophagy is the consumption of insects, yes, as food; especially by humans. That includes you and me.  

Flour made with crickets
(www.thailandunique.com)

Are you still there? Hey, this is all new to me, too. If you can control that gag reflex and think of the subject objectively, it’s actually fascinating and could have significant benefits.

FAO Report and World Status

I’ve mentioned that, when I was in academia, I consulted for the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (e.g., Rome and Vatican City Time). FAO teamed with the Netherlands’ Wageningen University to produce an excellent, 201 page report, Edible insects; Future prospects for food and feed security. That’s what got me onto the topic.

I wasn’t aware that insects are included in the regular diet of at least 2 billion people worldwide. Beetles, caterpillars, bees, wasps, ants, grasshoppers, locusts and crickets are the most commonly consumed bugs, yet over 1900 insect species having purportedly been used as food.

And what’s that got to do with you and me? Well, as the world’s population grows, there are limited opportunities to increase the production of food from land or ocean. Making greater use of insects for both human diet as well as animal feed should be considered. The reasons are clear.

Bugs Are Nutritious

Are you a healthy eater? Get this. While there’s wide variability, edible insects are generally high in protein, vitamin, mineral, fiber and good fat content. By “high,” I mean, nutrition-wise, they can be comparable to or better than meat and fish. And this comparison applies to animal feed, where fishmeal and soy products are the major components for aquaculture and livestock.

Non-Nutritional Benefits

There are a handful of other reasons to reach for the edible bugs when you’re hungry. I’ll stick with two: environmental and economic.

Edible insects emit fewer greenhouse gasses than most livestock; require less land for rearing and no land clearing; and being cold-blooded, are much more efficient at converting feed to protein than conventional livestock. Take crickets. They need 12 times less feed than cattle to produce the same amount of protein.

Gathering and raising edible insects, whether at the household or industrial level, can improve the livelihood of people in developing countries. While most edible insects are gathered from forest habitats, there are opportunities to link science with traditional knowledge; innovation in mass rearing of insects has already begun.

The Way Forward

The FAO report outlines four steps to tap the potential that insects offer for enhancing global food security:
1) Document and promote the nutritional value of edible insects. The big gap is getting Western cultures to invite a bug to dinner or even for a snack. Instead, Western cultures have a history of suppressing entomophagy, for example, by Native Americans and sub-Saharan African groups.
2) Assess the environmental impacts of harvesting and farming insects compared to traditional crop and livestock production.
3) Assess the socioeconomic benefits of insect gathering and farming for food security, especially for the poorest of society.
4) Develop the regulatory framework for edible insect production and trade to increase investment.

Snack bars made with cricket-based
flour (chapul.com)

Wrap Up

Though I am or at least used to be somewhat flexible on eating (Dining Out), I’m not quite ready to munch on a scorpion or mealworm even if it’s dipped in chocolate. On the other hand I’m sure I could handle something made from insect-based flour. I guess we do that anyway. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration allows wheat flour to contain on average up to 75 insect fragments per 50 grams. Gee, that’s not even 2 ounces. Sorry, you probably didn’t want to know that. Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.

-FAO report: www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3253e/i3253e.pdf
-TED talk on topic by Marcel Dicke (2010, 16:34 min): www.ted.com/talks/marcel_dicke_why_not_eat_insects
-Video on topic by 2013 Hult Prize winner McGill University team (2:20 min):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOLFu9sDl7o
-Example newsletter on topic: www.foodinsectsnewsletter.org/
-Example website: edibug.wordpress.com
-Example vendors:
chapul.com
www.hotlix.com
www.flukerfarms.com
buggrub.com/
www.thailandunique.com
-FDA regulation on food sanitation: www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/SanitationTransportation/ucm056174.htm
-Example edible insect cookbooks:

Stone Walls Photo Addendum

In the mid-1960s, I took a course where the professor shared his recent consulting work, assessing the value of an airborne lidar profile of the terrain’s elevation in a heavily forested area. We were all impressed that this experimental application of laser light was able to obtain measurements through tree cover.

Today, lidar mapping is an accurate, widely used, cost effective alternative to traditional surveying approaches. Recent work by a doctoral candidate at the University of Connecticut illustrates one interesting application and provides a cool addendum to last Friday’s Stone Walls.

Aerial photograph of a forested area in Connecticut.
(today.uconn.edu/blog/2014/02/hidden-new-england-landscape-comes-to-life/)

Airborne lidar-derived digital elevation model of the forested area in the aerial photograph. Highlighted linear features are dominantly stone walls. (today.uconn.edu/blog/2014/02/hidden-new-england-landscape-comes-to-life/)

Ground photograph of a stone wall from the Connecticut study.
(www.livescience.com/42638-lost-new-england-archaeology-lidar-photos.html)

Airborne lidar-derived digital elevation model showing the site of the ground photograph and highlighted stone wall.
(www.livescience.com/42638-lost-new-england-archaeology-lidar-photos.html)

P.S.

-The University of Connecticut study in the Journal of Archaeological Science:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440313004342
-Articles on the study on LiveScience and National Geographic websites:
www.livescience.com/42642-new-englands-lost-archaeological-sites-rediscovered.html
news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140103-new-england-archaeology-lidar-science/

Stone Walls

Welcome back. During my grade school years, poems rhymed. I remember having to memorize Kilmer’s Trees and Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. I especially remember Frost’s Mending Walls, even if it didn’t rhyme and we didn’t have to memorize it. Though I later learned the poem might reach back to classics or be used as a metaphor, at the time, I was content with neighbors annually repairing the wall that bounded their properties: “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Our Upstate New York neighborhood had open fields, unfenced lots and a few wood or chain link fences, but no stone walls. With Frost’s poem, they weren’t hard to imagine. Here on the farm in Wisconsin, it takes no imagination.

The Farm’s Stone Wall

The shop, the road and the stone wall,
which runs almost as far as the trees.

Not long after the snow melted last spring, I started wondering about the stone wall along the road in front of the house. On earlier visits, I saw the stones by the driveway to the shop, yet it didn’t register that they were one end of a wall whose other end was about 750 feet down the road.

The field side of the stone wall
 near the shop.

The wall, which reaches my hips in spots, is mostly 3 stones high, hardly reaching my knees. Its width, 2 or 3 stones across when built, now holds at least one more toppled stone in places. The location at the edge of a field, borders the roadway that was likely part of the farm before becoming a town road.

Two sections of the stone wall.

The stones were no doubt cleared from the field to improve its suitability for farming; glacial till or drift covers the area, with material ranging from clay to boulder. As for who built the wall, when and how, my father-in-law isn’t certain. He guessed that the wall was built by his grandfather, adding, I’d like to have seen him move those stones.

A book cover photograph of the farm’s stone wall.
The date is unknown, but nearly all cars in the U.S.
had steering wheels on the right before Model T’s
came out in 1908.

A 2014 photograph of the area
in the book cover photograph.

Stone Walls in the U.S.

Similar stone walls associated with agricultural fields are found around the world, especially in the British Isles. In the U.S., they’re common in several areas, particularly Kentucky, Virginia and Texas; but they were concentrated in New England and parts of New York, where an 1872 U.S. Department of Agriculture report estimated their length at 250,000 miles.

Restored stone puller (ohara-mill.org)

Most stone walls in the Northeast were built between 1750 and 1850 by farmers clearing their fields, though many were also built by slaves, prisoners or low cost laborers. Construction was normally as dry walls, knee to hip high and some shoulder height. There were walls built as fences, but most by far were simply intended to hold stone taken from the field.

Clearing the land with horses and
a stone-boat. (www.gltrust.org )

The tools used generally involved a horse or ox, winch and rope, and once the stone was unearthed, a stone-boat (like a sled) to drag the stone to the wall.

Wrap Up

A top view of the farm’s
stone wall shows
 toppled stones.

The old stone walls in the U.S. are being destroyed; possibly half of the walls that once stood are gone. Blame nature and time, blame those who take the stones for other uses, including new walls, but mostly, blame development that needs more space. There is a move toward preserving the walls like historic buildings, and states have passed laws, imposing fines that are more reminder than punishment.

Do we need every wall? If not, which should we keep? Those can be difficult calls to make. While they’re still standing, I’d like to see those I read about in northeastern Wisconsin. 

A beaten up section of
the farm's stone wall.

First, I’ll check out the other stone walls my father-in-law said I could find elsewhere on this farm. Thanks for stopping by.
 
P.S.

-Frost reading  Mending Wall:
www.dailymotion.com/video/xc7b5s_robert-frost-mending-wall_creation
-Commentary on Mending Wall:
www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/frost/wall.htm
-Photo cover book: Mead, H., Dean, J. and Smith, S. 1971. Portrait of the past: A photographic journey through Wisconsin. Wisconsin Tales and Trails, Madison, Wis. 176 p.
-Example reading on stone wall preservation and laws:
ncpe.us/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Tassinary.pdf
www.eagletribune.com/newhampshire/x1896344295/New-law-protects-stone-wal
-Background reading on stone walls: www.stonewall.uconn.edu/
… Amazon book links: