Living Downsteam

© harrington

Hi! Thanks for stopping by. Can you see the turtle sitting on the rock in the St. Croix? He (or she, it's hard for me to tell with turtles) could well be thinking unpleasant thoughts about whoever or whatever is doing something upstream that's creating all the gunk that's floating by. Or, the turtle could be ignoring the gunk and just enjoying soaking up the warm sunshine. I'm probably guilty of projecting and anthropomorphizing. I was certainly disappointed to see all the clumps of foam or whatever floating downstream. Perhaps the turtle was simply wishing someone had given him (or her) a membership in the WEI CSA just down the road so s/he could enjoy a nice lunch of bok choy. If that's the case, the turtle would probably eat and enjoy the Chinese cabbage raw, since there are few stoves that will fit on small rocks in the St. Croix River, and even fewer that turtles can reach the top of. For those of us with stoves we can reach, we might want to check out The Featherstone Farm Cookbook. We picked up a copy in the last year or so from the Mississippi Market Co-op. It has lots of fun reading and even more useful recipes, including Bok Choy Provencale and Stir-Fried Dungeness Crab with Sweet Chili Sauce and Bok Choy. The downstream benefits that come about when folks upstream care about their neighbors (farmers producing cookbooks being one example) are immeasurable. I know I'm not always mindful of the impact I may have on those living downstream from me, but I keep working on it. How about you? Thanks for listening. Come again when you can. Rants, raves and reflections served here daily. And by the way, have you thanked your CSA farmer recently? Here's an example of what they go through on our behalf.

A Garden’s End

By Gabriel Welsch

Forsythia, scaled and bud-bangled,

I pruned to a thatch of leaves

for the curb, by the squirrel-gnawed

corn, silk strewn, kernels tooth carved

and husks shorn over the ground

pocked with paw prints.

The borers mashed the squash vine,

the drought tugged the roots of sage,

catmint languished by the sidewalk,

tools grew flowers of rust.

That winter we left our hope

beneath the snow, loved through the last

of the onions, watched the late leeks freeze

to crystal, bent like sedges, their shadows

on the snow. That winter we left

our hope beneath the snow.