Making plans

 Once again it's cloudy and cool. Yesterday may have been Spring in the North Country. There's snow in the forecast over the weekend, both days. What all too frequently happens is this kind of weather pattern staggers along until, suddenly, sometime in May or early June, daytime temperatures reach the mid 80's and it's Summer. Sigh : >( !

Amador Hill Farm and Orchard

Photo by J. Harrington

But, at least a week from today we again start our Spring Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] share at Women's Environmental Institute farm. Slowly but surely I'm learning to eat, and sometimes even like, my veggies, even greens. I think it's the software sector that started a saying about "eating your own dog food." Since we spend many minutes and  pixels posting about a local economy, bioregionalism, local foods and related matters, belonging to two food co-ops and various CSAs are among our ways of "walking the talk" or "eating the food." In fact, aided and abetted by the Daughter Person and Son-In-Law, we've even added buying non-CAFO pasture raised meat to our program. It's not entirely clear how much difference any of this makes except we know we're doing as little as possible to support an industrial agriculture system. In theory, if enough folks could and would do that, the big-ind-ag system, "get big or get out," should implode.

We hope you had a wonderful Earth Day yesterday and find ways to honor Gaia all year. Unfortunately, many of the messages in our in basket yesterday emphasized by folks wanted to stop more than what, and how, replacements to the current system are possible. Has anyone seen a report that describes how self-sufficient Minnesota is, or could be, at meeting its own food needs each year? I've been looking for such a report and haven't yet been successful. One of the nicest things about being a recovering planner is that I know that planning let's you make mistakes on paper (or in computers) instead of just testing on real people in the real world. Maybe Minnesota could and should bring back its Office of State Planning.

The Summer Day 

by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean--

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

With your one wild and precious life? 

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