Portraits of early autumn #phenology

We live on a township gravel road in the exurban fringe of a metropolitan area, more rural than urban but with clusters of scattered (sprawled) developments and rural trade centers. This time of year it comes into its prime. Here's a portrait, equivalent to 4000+ words, of early autumn, before the row crop harvests begin and life becomes a bit more frantic.

“Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher ‘standard of living’ is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free.” Foreword, A Sand County Almanac.

scattered patches of asters brighten rural ditches

Photo by J. Harrington

autumn's angled sunlight turns sumac leaves into stained glass

Photo by J. Harrington

hay is cut, raked, and baled

Photo by J. Harrington

corn (and soy beans) begins to mature

Photo by J. Harrington

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

By Wendell Berry

One of the articles in Reclaiming Politics (IC#30)
Originally published in Fall/Winter 1991 on page 62
Copyright (c)1991, 1996 by Context Institute

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

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