On the transformation of plants

It’s time for the weekly report on our community supported agriculture [CSA] share. Here’s what was in our box this morning:

• Broccoli Raab
• Summer Squash
• Tomatoes
• Green beans
• Onions
• Cucumbers
• Carrots with tops
• Parsley

Meanwhile, a messy field of weeds that was growing along the northern side of our driveway a couple of days ago has become a beautiful field of wild flowers that’s attracting several butterflies who enhance the attractiveness of the blossoms. One of the advantages of being a procrastinator is that it sometimes keeps me from making horrible mistakes. The “weed field” now looks like this:

our transformed "weed field"

Photo by J. Harrington

The picture, and the flowers, remind me of the paintings in our copy of American Wildflowers: A Literary Field Guide. As I recall, some of the a field guide entries include recipes for wildflowers good enough to eat. I wondered if anyone had focused a field guide on edible wildflowers when I remembered we used to have a copy of Euell Gibbons' Stalking the Wild Asparagus. A quick online search revealed the existence of several more recent volumes of a similar nature but they also cover wild plants rather than primarily wildflowers. This may be fun to explore some rainy day (or next winter).

Wildflowers

By Reginald Gibbons

Coleridge carefully wrote down a whole page

of them, all beginning with the letter b.

Guidebooks preserve our knowledge

of their hues and shapes, their breeding.

Many poems have made delicate word-chimes—

like wind-chimes not for wind but for the breath of man—

out of their lovely names.

At the edge of the prairie in a cabin

when thunder comes closer to thump the roof hard

a few of them—in a corner, brittle in a dry jar

where a woman’s thoughtful hand left them to fade—

seem to blow with the announcing winds outside

as the rain begins to fall on all their supple kin

of all colors, under a sky of one color, or none.

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Getting real

No matter how inane our politics get, it's hard to be grumpy when faced with an abundance of wildflowers along roads and in summer fields. Again this morning I was reminded that I need to get out of the house and into the countryside more. Folk music on the Jeep radio as we head to the farm pick up barn, combined with an occasional sighting of does and fawns, or sandhill cranes, provides a wonderful respite from doom scrolling and headline scanning.

a field of black-eyed Susans

Photo by J. Harrington

Here’s what’s in our community supported agriculture [CSA] share this week:

• CUCUMBERS
• SUMMER SQUASH ASSORTMENT
• GREEN or RED SALANOVA LETTUCE
• TOMATOES
• ONIONS
• PARSLEY, and
• KOHLRABI

The Better Half has been flexing her creativity muscles finding new, and relatively appetizing, ways to use up the fresh vegetables I keep signing us up for each year but hate to eat. I’m not sure I can live long enough to actually enjoy veggies but I like to idea of supporting organically grown and local. These days it’s similar to the way I like the idea of being a Democrat more than the reality. Then, again, when I look at much of the rest of the world, our trials and tribulations are so much less than being bombed or jailed for doing your job as a journalist or just being who you are. That level of problem makes junk mail, spam calls and texts and even software system failures not less annoying but put in a different perspective.

Beans

Mary Oliver
1935 – 2019

They’re not like peaches or squash.
Plumpness isn’t for them. They like
being lean, as if for the narrow
path. The beans themselves sit qui-
etly inside their green pods. In-
stinctively one picks with care, 
never tearing down the fine vine,
never noticing their crisp bod-
ies, or feeling their willingness for
the pot, for the fire.

I have thought sometimes that
something—I can’t name it—
watches as I walk the rows, accept-
ing the gift of their lives to assist
mine.

I know what you think: this is fool-
ishness. They’re only vegetables.
Even the blossoms with which they
begin are small and pale, hardly sig-
nificant Our hands, or minds, our
feet hold more intelligence. With
this I have no quarrel. 

But, what about virtue?

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the moon in June is the berries

Yesterday’s full moon, which was completely cloud covered around here, is called the Strawberry Moon by the Ojibwe and the Good Berries Moon by the Lakota. The community supported agriculture [CSA] share we picked up this morning included the season’s first container of strawberries. Coincidence? I think not!!

Strawberry moon of 2013

Photo by J. Harrington

Here’s a full list of this week’s CSA share:

• RHUBARB
• STRAWBERRIES
• ASPARAGUS
• GARLIC SCAPES, and
• LETTUCE

We almost collected a load of venison on the way to the farm. Just after we had rounded a sharp curve on a township gravel road, a couple of whitetail does came barreling out of the brush on the right-hand side of the road. Fortunately, the curve had caused us to slow enough that we could promptly brake and let the critters safely pass in front of the Jeep. In fact, there were surprising numbers of deer standing at or near the side of various roads this morning.

The day length today is 6 seconds shorter than yesterday, which was 1 second less than the solstice. It will take awhile before we really notice, but the days are getting shorter already. For those trapped under a heat dome, autumn probably can’t come soon enough. Some of us beleaguered by mosquitos and teeny little flies are already looking forward to the first frost. Plus, grocers this summer are selling peaches that look ripe but are firm as a rock and don’t soften sitting on the counter at home. Another case of mis- or dis-information?

I am pleased to announce that I baked a boule of high-hydration sourdough and it turned out to be one of the best loaves I’ve baked in a long time. If you’re looking for some good guidance on baking sourdough, let me recommend (again) Emilie Raffa’s Artisan Sourdough Made Simple.

Strawberrying

May Swenson
1913 – 1989

My hands are murder-red. Many a plump head
drops on the heap in the basket. Or, ripe
to bursting, they might be hearts, matching
the blackbird’s wing-fleck. Gripped to a reed
he shrieks his ko-ka-ree in the next field.
He’s left his peck in some juicy cheeks, when
at first blush and mostly white, they showed
streaks of sweetness to the marauder.

We’re picking near the shore, the morning
sunny, a slight wind moving rough-veined leaves
our hands rumple among. Fingers find by feel
the ready fruit in clusters. Here and there,
their squishy wounds . . . . Flesh was perfect
yesterday . . . . June was for gorging . . . .
sweet hearts young and firm before decay.

“Take only the biggest, and not too ripe,”
a mother calls to her girl and boy, barefoot
in the furrows. “Don’t step on any. Don’t
change rows. Don’t eat too many.” Mesmerized
by the largesse, the children squat and pull
and pick handfuls of rich scarlets, half
for the baskets, half for avid mouths.
Soon, whole faces are stained.

A crop this thick begs for plunder. Ripeness
wants to be ravished, as udders of cows when hard,
the blue-veined bags distended, ache to be stripped.
Hunkered in mud between the rows, sun burning
the backs of our necks, we grope for, and rip loose
soft nippled heads. If they bleed—too soft—
let them stay. Let them rot in the heat.

When, hidden away in a damp hollow under moldy
leaves, I come upon a clump of heart-shapes
once red, now spiderspit-gray, intact but empty,
still attached to their dead stems—
families smothered as at Pompeii—I rise
and stretch. I eat one more big ripe lopped
head. Red-handed, I leave the field.

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Making hay while ...?

It rained (again) this morning. Thunderstorms are in tomorrow afternoon’s forecast. Lots of hay fields around here have their first cutting of hay lying in rows to dry or sitting in round bales. All of the above makes me glad I’m not a farmer trying to make hay, cause the sun isn’t shining much these days.

farmer baling hay

Photo by J. Harrington

Cornfields look happy, though it’s dicey if corn will be knee high by the Fourth of July. According to recent reports from the mosquito control district, this is becoming (has become?) a banner year for mosquitos. If the “hot sports” are several counties south of us, I don’t want to know how thick the flocks of the “state bird” are down there.

Since weather is, tragically😉, limiting today’s outdoor chore possibilities, I mixed up a batch of sourdough that’s now rising. Early tomorrow, before the day heats up, we’ll bake a loaf of artisan sourdough using a recipe we’ve neglected for a couple of years now. Slices of that’ll serve as breakfast for several days and help keep me away from too many cookies.

Haymaking

By Edward Thomas

Aftear night’s thunder far away had rolled

The fiery day had a kernel sweet of cold,

And in the perfect blue the clouds uncurled,

Like the first gods before they made the world

And misery, swimming the stormless sea

In beauty and in divine gaiety.

The smooth white empty road was lightly strewn

With leaves—the holly’s Autumn falls in June—

And fir cones standing stiff up in the heat.

The mill-foot water tumbled white and lit

With tossing crystals, happier than any crowd

Of children pouring out of school aloud.

And in the little thickets where a sleeper

For ever might lie lost, the nettle-creeper

And garden warbler sang unceasingly;

While over them shrill shrieked in his fierce glee

The swift with wings and tail as sharp and narrow

As if the bow had flown off with the arrow.

Only the scent of woodbine and hay new-mown

Travelled the road. In the field sloping down,

Park-like, to where its willows showed the brook,

Haymakers rested. The tosser lay forsook

Out in the sun; and the long waggon stood

Without its team, it seemed it never would

Move from the shadow of that single yew.

The team, as still, until their task was due,

Beside the labourers enjoyed the shade

That three squat oaks mid-field together made

Upon a circle of grass and weed uncut,

And on the hollow, once a chalk-pit, but

Now brimmed with nut and elder-flower so clean.

The men leaned on their rakes, about to begin,

But still. And all were silent. All was old,

This morning time, with a great age untold,

Older than Clare and Cobbett, Morland and Crome,

Than, at the field’s far edge, the farmer’s home,

A white house crouched at the foot of a great tree.

Under the heavens that know not what years be

The men, the beasts, the trees, the implements

Uttered even what they will in times far hence—

All of us gone out of the reach of change—

Immortal in a picture of an old grange.

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Thought for Food

For quite some years, we’ve been purchasing shares in a community supported agriculture farm. Rarely have we shopped at a farmer’s market; sometimes at a roadside stand. We’ve bought quarter or half an animal for meat (beef and lamb) in bulk from local producers. Long ago we tried our hands at growing our own vegetables. That was a course in frustration involving poor soil, wildlife freeloaders, uncooperative weather, lack of training, plus excessive biting insects.

there’s more than one way to harvest sunshine

Photo by J. Harrington

Something like a dozen or so fruit trees have been sacrificed in our efforts to start a small orchard of apple and pear trees. At this time of year I deeply regret not having planted any crab apples for just their blossoming beauty. The fruit tree deaths appear attributable to sandy, excessively drained soil and the taste pocket gophers have for fruit tree roots.

The Better Half [BH] and I share two memberships in local food co-ops, if we are liberal in our use of the term local. The BH took out a membership in a central city co-op back in the days when one or both of us were working in one Twin City or another. After we moved to the exurbs and headed “downtown” less frequently, I took out a membership in a Greater Minnesota city co-op next to a favorite book store.

We annually make what we consider meaningful contributions to a regional food shelf. I usually shop for native harvested, Minnesota grown wild rice. For several years we traveled to rural areas in the state to buy, roast, and eat at Thanksgiving a heritage breed turkey. In the years when I was more active as a waterfowler, we occasionally enjoyed a roast Canada goose at Christmas. We consider ourselves fortunate to have been able to indulge our food and taste preferences and to limit our dependence on industrial scale agriculture.

All of the preceding is lead up to my pleasant surprise at finding in my email inbox this week several announcements from organizations I’ve been following for some time. Rhey are now emphasizing their focus on food as part of a response to reducing greenhouse gases. For example:

Welcome to Drawdown Food

Food is the forgotten frontier of climate action. While energy, transportation, and industry garner much of the attention, what we eat and how we grow is one of the biggest contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions. To equip those in the food systems sector with the tools and insights they need to reduce emissions, Project Drawdown is launching a major new initiative: Drawdown Food.

“Using available technologies and practices, we can meet every person’s food needs while also neutralizing the food system’s impact on climate,” says Project Drawdown executive director Jonathan Foley, who is leading the initiative. “We just need to apply the right combinations of solutions in the right place at the right time.” Be sure to follow along – and invite those in your network to do the same – as we advance food-based solutions in the weeks and months to come. Learn more >>

and

🌸 Announcing the 2024–26 Rural Regenerator Fellowship

Calling rural artists in the Upper Midwest: Applications are now open for Springboard's 2024–26 Rural Regenerator Fellowship! We are excited to announce that this year’s Fellowship will focus on supporting artists whose work is connected to land, environment, and/or food systems.Rural artists who are using their creative practice to explore environmental justice, land and food sovereignty, agriculture, foodways, climate solutions, and/or sustainability are welcome to apply. We will select 12 fellows total. What the two-year Fellowship offers: Unrestricted $10,000 stipend to continue or expand rural artist's existing work. Opportunities for exchange and learning with other Rural Regenerator Fellows across the Upper Midwest. A supportive platform to build solidarity across rural geographies. This year’s new effort to amplify and support the urgent work of environmental stewardship aims to bring a new level of focus to the Fellowship in order to collectively contribute to long term change and support existing movements. Applications are open now through June 24, 2024. Interested in applying? Join our virtual info session on Friday, May 31 to learn more about the application and the fellowship.

Learn more and apply

I’m encouraged by the concurrent serendipity evidenced above because for years I’ve experienced how challenging, and expensive, it can be to eat healthy while limiting one’s climate (and related) footprint. If we really want to see widespread systems change, we need to make it much easier for families and individuals to do the right thing. Maybe we’re finally headed in that direction.

The Farmer

By W.D. Ehrhart

Each day I go into the fields to see what is growing

and what remains to be done.

It is always the same thing: nothing

is growing, everything needs to be done.

Plow, harrow, disc, water, pray

till my bones ache and hands rub

blood-raw with honest labor—

all that grows is the slow

intransigent intensity of need.

I have sown my seed on soil

guaranteed by poverty to fail.

But I don’t complain—except

to passersby who ask me why

I work such barren earth.

They would not understand me

if I stooped to lift a rock

and hold it like a child, or laughed,

or told them it is their poverty

I labor to relieve. For them,

I complain. A farmer of dreams

knows how to pretend. A farmer of dreams

knows what it means to be patient.

Each day I go into the fields.

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May the fourth must be reckoned with

Before we get into today’s themes, let me be among those greeting you with the salutation:

May the Fourth Be with You! Happy Star Wars Day!

Yesterday farmers were working fields that had standing water in the low spots and, sometimes, elsewhere. I suppose there’s only so many days in a growing season no matter how much it rains in springtime and that means fields need to be readied for planting. I wonder if having cover crops has any effect on working fields that otherwise might be too muddy to work.

a barn at our CSA farm

Photo by J. Harrington

Intermittent rain and sun have brought full leaf out to about three quarters of the trees in the area. Wild plum bushes / trees have developed ivory blooms to beautify rural roadsides almost everywhere we drive. Meanwhile, our efforts to germinate wild bergamot seeds has proven to be mostly a failure, compounded by one seeding tray getting blown off the deck railing yesterday. I think we’ll try replanting at least one of the trays. There’s plenty of seeds left in the bag but we’re not sure what went (or we did) wrong, although even in the house the temperature has been at or less than ideal for germination.

This morning we picked up week #2 of our Spring Greens community supported agriculture [CSA] shares. Week two’s box contains:

• GREEN GARLIC
• TANGO LETTUCE
• BABY RED RUSSIAN KALE
• SUNFLOWER MICROGREENS
• LAMB'S QUARTERS, and
• A DOZEN ORGANIC EGGS!

cutting greens

By Lucille Clifton

curling them around

i hold their bodies in obscene embrace

thinking of everything but kinship.

collards and kale

strain against each strange other

away from my kissmaking hand and

the iron bedpot.

the pot is black,

the cutting board is black,

my hand,

and just for a minute

the greens roll black under the knife,

and the kitchen twists dark on its spine

and I taste in my natural appetite

the bond of live things everywhere.

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The season is getting chili

Another sign of the changing of the seasons? Today we pick up our penultimate autumn share from the community supported agriculture farm. Here’s what we’ll be collecting:

• BUTTERCUP SQUASH
• FAMOSA CABBAGE
• APPLES
• CARROTS WITH GREENS
• BROCCOLI
• HOT PEPPERS, and
• KALE

The chilly weather today, plus the hot peppers in the CSA box, reminds me we’re entering chili season. [Note to self: speak to Better Half about upcoming menus.] After next week, we’ll be back to relying on local grocers for any fresh vegetables during the winter. There was an interesting article in The Guardian the other day about the need to rely on “mass agriculture.” It both irritated me in its support for large scale agriculture and helped me realize that, once again, the real world answers to many issues isn’t “either / or,” it’s “both /and.” Unfortunately, much of the corporate, capitalistic, global economy persists in creating mega-markets that will only deal with mega-producers, thereby eliminating smaller, local food webs and making all of US vulnerable to price gouging because of oligarchically controlled markets, much like our problems with pharmaceutical giants.

farm size is critical

Photo by J. Harrington

There’s also a significant and growing issue associated with mega-farms and confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs): surface and groundwater pollution that’s imposed additional treatment costs on local water supply systems, both public and private. Instances can be found in Iowa, WIsconsin and Minnesota. I’m unsure of other locations, but The Limits to Growth, 30 Year Update, notes the problem is global in scale:

Resources can be renewable, like agricultural soils, or nonrenew- able, like the world’s oil resources. Both have their limits. The most obvious limit on food production is land. Millions of acres of cultivated land are being degraded by processes such as soil erosion and salinization, while the cultivated area remains roughly constant. Higher yields have compensated somewhat for this loss, but yields cannot be expected to increase indefinitely. Per capita grain production peaked in 1985 and has been trending down slowly ever since. Exponential growth has moved the world from land abundance to land scarcity. Within the last 35 years, the limits, especially of areas with the best soils, have been approached.

Another limit to food production is water. In many countries, both developing and developed, current water use is often not sustain- able. In an increasing number of the world’s watersheds, limits have already been reached. In the U.S. the Midwestern Ogalallah aquifer in Kansas is overdrawn by 12 cubic kilometers each year. Its depletion has so far caused 2.46 million acres of farmland to be taken out of cultivation. In an increasing number of the world’s watersheds, limits have already, indisputably, been exceeded. In some of the poorest and richest economies, per capita water withdrawals are going down because of environmental problems, rising costs, or scarcity.

At the rate we’re going, and have already gone, it probably won’t be long until “big ag” gets sued by as many offended folks with the resources to make it a lasting fight as is currently underway with “big oil.” By the time we’re through, subsistence agriculture may be the only option for the remaining population. That’s also a chilling thought.

Photosynthesis 

Ashley M. Jones 

When I was young, my father taught us
how dirt made way for food,
how to turn over soil so it would hold a seed,
an infant bud, how the dark could nurse it
until it broke its green arms out to touch the sun.
In every backyard we’ve ever had, he made a little garden plot
with room for heirloom tomatoes, corn, carrots, 
peppers: jalapeno, bell, and poblano—
okra, eggplant, lemons, collards, broccoli, pole beans,
watermelon, squash, trees filled with fruit and nuts,
brussels sprouts, herbs: basil, mint, parsley, rosemary—
onions, sweet potatoes, cucumber, cantaloupe, cabbage, 
oranges, swiss chard and peaches,
sunflowers tall and straightbacked as soldiers,
lantana, amaryllis, echinacea, 
pansies and roses and bushes bubbling with hydrangeas. 
Every plant with its purpose.
Flowers to bring worms and wasps. How their work matters here. 

This is the work we have always known,
pulling food and flowers from a pile of earth.
The difference, now: my father is not a slave,
not a sharecropper. This land is his and so is this garden,
so is this work. The difference is that he owns this labor.
The work of his own hands for his own belly, 
for his own children’s bellies. We eat because he works. 

This is the legacy of his grandmother, my great-granny.
Ollie Mae Harris and her untouchable flower garden.
Just like her hats, her flowerbeds sprouted something special,
plants and colors the neighbors could only dream of.
He was young when he learned that this beauty is built on work,
the cows and the factories in their stomachs, 
the fertilizer they spewed out—
the stink that brought such fragrance. What you call waste,
I call power. What you call work I make beautiful again.

In his garden, even problems become energy, beauty—
my father has ended many work days in the backyard, 
worries of the firehouse dropping like grain, my father wrist-deep
in soil. I am convinced the earth speaks back to him 
as he feeds it—it is a conversational labor, gardening.
The seeds tell him what they will be, the soil tells seeds how to grow,
my father speaks sun and water into the earth,
we hear him, each harvest, his heartbeat sweet, like fruit. 

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Not just meat and ‘taters

Yesterday we picked up another autumn community supported agriculture [CSA] share. This week our box contained:

• RED KURI SQUASH
• RED POTATOES
• APPLES
• BELL PEPPERS
• LUNCHBOX PEPPERS
• SPINACH, and
• BULB ONIONS

Now that we are into serious autumn weather, food seems more significant than during summer. Maintaining body core temperatures requires more than lightweight summer salads. The Better Half did something deliciously creative, or maybe it was creatively delicious, when she cooked up a bunch of root vegetables the other day. She splashed a taste of maple syrup into the pan with the veggies and stirred. I don’t recall ever tasting anything quite like it. She may yet convince me that eating veggies isn’t just a punishment for naughty adults.

Amador Hill Orchard

Photo by J. Harrington

I’m noticing that there appears to be a growing number of local, small, family farms following regenerative or similar practices. The latest that’s been brought to my attention is just up the road in Lindstrom, the Abdi-Mayfield Farm. I’m intrigued by their claim to offer “edible flowers,” among other fare. We’ll have to learn more and possibly try some of their products. One of the potential disadvantages we’ve discovered in purchasing whole, half, or quarter animals from local sources, rather than packaged meat from a big box, is that sometimes the cuts may be less than prime, like the need to turn a roast into stew meat because it’s a little to chewy when simply roasted. Back when the food system was through-putting “dairy herd buyout” products, a similar issue cropped up. We’ve not yet purchased and eaten enough local meat to have a sense of how widespread and/or frequent the question of “mislabeled” meat may be, but my aversion to confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) is strong enough that the problem will have to be much worse than we’ve experienced so far to deter me from eating local as much as possible.

The Farm

By Joyce Sutphen

My father’s farm is an apple blossomer.

He keeps his hills in dandelion carpet

and weaves a lane of lilacs between the rose

and the jack-in-the-pulpits.

His sleek cows ripple in the pastures.

The dog and purple iris

keep watch at the garden’s end.

His farm is rolling thunder,

a lightning bolt on the horizon.

His crops suck rain from the sky

and swallow the smoldering sun.

His fields are oceans of heat,

where waves of gold

beat the burning shore.

A red fox

pauses under the birch trees,

a shadow is in the river’s bend.

When the hawk circles the land,

my father’s grainfields whirl beneath it.

Owls gather together to sing in his woods,

and the deer run his golden meadow.

My father’s farm is an icicle,

a hillside of white powder.

He parts the snowy sea,

and smooths away the valleys.

He cultivates his rows of starlight

and drags the crescent moon

through dark unfurrowed fields.

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Foodie's fun

A week or ten days or so ago, I scattered the dregs of a bag of whole sunflower seeds on the slope behind the house. I had tried filling a bird feeder with them earlier this summer and the birds made a big mess with the shells. I had no idea if the seeds might germinate next spring or all be consumed by wildlife before then. This morning we got a partial answer. A flock of almost a dozen wild turkeys spent half an hour or more picking and pecking their way across the slope. I’lll be surprised if there are any undigested seeds left come spring.

In a bit, we’ll head off to pick up this week’s community supported agriculture share and drop off the Daughter Person’s half share at the abode she shares with her spouse and daughter, who also share the veggies we leave. I’m looking forward to the drive over backroads through farm country mixed with rural residential and a state park along the St. Croix river. I wonder if there’ll be much in the way of fall color showing yet. If so, I expect it to be sparse and scattered. Autumn Equinox is still a week away (locally, Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 1:50 am CDT).

artisan sourdough boule

Photo by J. Harrington

The dough is mixed and rising so we can bake a boulle of kernza/sourdough bread tomorrow. We’re still looking for that happy point at which I think there’s enough kernza flavor in the bread and the Better Half doesn’t think there’s too much kernza flavor. We’ll let you know how it turns out. It does feel good to be getting back into the routine of sourdough bread baking once a week or so.

A Poem Made of Bread

by Ibtisam Barakat

In the middle of bread --
all loaves, all shapes:
American white,
French baguette, or
Arabic flat --
single flour
or multi-grain
there is the word: read.
All that remains if you break
a loaf of bread is: read.
past and present
eternal like rain
falling from the sky
grain by grain. . .
Those who cannot read
are the hunger of this world.
And dinner will not be ready
until they can read.
Dinner will not be served
until all can read
and the young have books
early in life
to sleep on like pillows
after reading so late,
and the passing to have books
to take to the afterlife --
a gift to the reading angels
who long for human bread.

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The music of poetry

Thanks to the Better Half, today I learned something new about one of my favorite singer/songwriters, Ani DiFranco: she’s also a published poet and author. Somehow, I had missed that, probably because I usually search either for music or for poetry/writing but rarely for both at the same time. The Better Half bought DiFranco’s The Knowing for our granddaughter’s upcoming birthday. As I was checking online reviews, I came across a reference to DiFranco’s poetry and went looking specifically for that (Verses) and then came across No Walls and the Recurring Dream: A Memoir. Interestingly, her book of poetry isn’t listed on the “books” page of her web site. Since I currently am in possession of two plus shelves of (indirectly inherited) unread poetry volumes, I’m a little hesitant to add Ms. DiFranco’s just yet, but I expect to get the unread down to a point where I can add to the stacks. Then, a copy of Verses may well show up. May such be my biggest problem for the next several months.

poetry complements music complements poetry

Photo by J. Harrington

Summer has returned in the form of a warm (80℉), sunny afternoon. It’s not helping our drought, but neither is it unseasonable. There’s a chance of a little rain tonight and tomorrow, so we’ll cross our fingers and hope for the best. There’s still six weeks of autumn community supported agriculture [CSA] shares to look forward to, beginning tomorrow. Our share box is reported to contain:

• SPAGHETTI SQUASH
• CARAFLEX CABBAGE
• GREEN ONION
• FRENCH BREAKFAST RADISH
• CHERRY TOMATOES
• BROCCOLI, and
• BRIGHT LIGHTS CHARD

Once again the Better Half will rise to the occasions (yes, plural) and turn things I’d normally try to avoid consuming into something I find at least palatable. If I didn’t think we needed more and stronger local food systems (residual affinity from my folkies and hippies days), we wouldn’t purchase CSA shares each year and I wouldn’t be faced with the prospect of eating so many fresh veggies. It’s all living proof of the old saying “No good deed shall go unpunished.” 

The Weary Blues

Langston Hughes     1901 – 1967

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
     I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
     He did a lazy sway . . .
     He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o’ those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
     O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
     Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man’s soul.
     O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan—
     "Ain’t got nobody in all this world,
       Ain’t got nobody but ma self.
       I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’
       And put ma troubles on the shelf."

Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more—
     "I got the Weary Blues
       And I can’t be satisfied.
       Got the Weary Blues
       And can’t be satisfied—
       I ain’t happy no mo’
       And I wish that I had died."
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.

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Please be kind to each other while you can.

It’s time to turn positive

Here’s what’s supposed to be in this week’s community supported agriculture [CSA] share. It’s the last one in the summer series. (Yesterday we noted there have been some timing issues in notifications from our CSA about box content. As of today, we’re done for summer and the autumn shares won’t start for a few weeks.)

• CUCUMBER
• GARLIC
• LETTUCE
• SWEET CORN
• TOMATOES, and
• Peppers

tomatoes (courtesy WEI CSA)

Now that there are no 90+ degree days in the forecast, we’ll get back to sourdough artisan bread (or is it artisan sourdough bread?) baking. This time we’ll add a little kernza flour for a different flavor. I should be back in practice by the time soup and stew season is in full swing.

One week from today marks the beginning of meteorological autumn. As summer ends our wishes are that all bad luck, and bad weather, goes with it. Unfortunately, the seasonal change will bring US deeper into the election season, compounded and complicated by multiple handsful of trials in various federal and state courts. I’m seriously considering hanging a sign on our internet connection. It will say: “CLOSED - gone fishin’, back soon”

At least there is some brighter news these days. The Biden Administration is taking a positive approach with their new ad that makes Americans positively heroes in restoring the economy and responding to climate change. Plus, although I’ve not seen nearly enough coverage in the news media, the administration and the G20 are generating new tools to better account for the benefits of investments in adapting to climate change and other environmental improvements. The White House' Nature-Based Solutions Resource Guide nicely complements the USGS Piloting urban ecosystem accounting for the United States. Both augment the State of Finance for Nature in Cities 2023: Time to Assess - Summary for Local Policymakers. We can, and must, be much wiser about how we invest in infrastructure. Targeting multiple objectives for multi-benefits will give US bigger bangs for our bucks. We know how to do it. It’s time to apply that knowledge as quickly as we can in as many places as we can. Part of those solutions include community gardens that may grow tomatoes.

Ode To Tomatoes by Pablo Neruda

The street
filled with tomatoes,
midday,
summer,
light is
halved
like
a
tomato,
its juice
runs
through the streets.
In December,
unabated,
the tomato
invades
the kitchen,
it enters at lunchtime,
takes
its ease
on countertops,
among glasses,
butter dishes,
blue saltcellars.
It sheds
its own light,
benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we must
murder it:
the knife
sinks
into living flesh,
red
viscera
a cool
sun,
profound,
inexhaustible,
populates the salads
of Chile,
happily, it is wed
to the clear onion,
and to celebrate the union
we
pour
oil,
essential
child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper
adds
its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism;
it is the wedding
of the day,
parsley
hoists
its flag,
potatoes
bubble vigorously,
the aroma
of the roast
knocks
at the door,
it's time!
come on!
and, on
the table, at the midpoint
of summer,
the tomato,
star of earth, recurrent
and fertile
star,
displays
its convolutions,
its canals,
its remarkable amplitude
and abundance,
no pit,
no husk,
no leaves or thorns,
the tomato offers
its gift
of fiery color
and cool completeness.

“Book ’em Danno"

Remember that phrase from the tv series Hawaii 5-0? I wonder if a Jack Lord recording will be played in Fulton County, GA as an ex-president re-elect wannabe surrenders to be arrested on conspiracy and racketeering charges. I haven’t yet decided whether I care enough to watch. I’m sick of hearing and reading about MAGAts, including the chief one.

our CSA pickup place

Photo by J. Harrington

Sans segue, our community supported agriculture [CSA] farm is behind schedule again this week so we don’t yet know what will be in our share box tomorrow. But, we haven’t yet let you know what was in last week’s box because that message arrived late. So, now we’ll fill you in on what was, and wasn’t, in last week’s share.

• GARLIC
• CARROT (missing)
• YELLOW ONION
• EGGPLANT
• TOMATO, and
• Add ons WATERMELON, Broccoli or carrots  (ours was watermelon)

Tomorrow, as we’ve mentioned already, is the last CSA share of the summer. The Better Half made a delicious moussaka with the egg plant and bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches with the tomato(es). We’ll report on tomorrow’s surprise in a posting soon. It’s well understood that part of the package of participating in a CSA is that the members share risk with the farmer(s). That’s why you won’t see me ranting about being short-changed no matter what’s in the weekly box, or even if there is one. Farming is a tough business and we’re interested in helping to build a local food system so we’re not dependent on big boxes, industrial ag, and CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operation). There’s a new farm bill being negotiated. You might want to track what Minnesota’s Land Stewardship Project has to say about it, especially if you enjoy eating regularly.

          Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

            by Wendell Berry

 

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 easy 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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Please be kind to each other while you can.

Peaked summer; piqued for autumn!

Tomorrow, weather permitting, is pick up day for this week’s Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] share. The forecast hints at the possibility of severe thunderstorms. That could mean downed trees across country roads and this old codger doesn’t intend to hack his way in or out of the way to the farm. That said, here’s what we get this week:

• CANTALOUPE
• BROCCOLI
• CUCUMBER
• SUMMER SQUASH, and
• SAVOY CABBAGE

The Better Half has, once again, gone above and beyond, finding creative ways to serve vegetables to make them more palatable and less boring. (You’re right! I’m what Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes) turns into when he gets older. He never does grow up.) I find the similarities among cucumbers, zucchini, and summer squash quite distressing, lots of water, little flavor. On the other hand, the occasional watermelon, and, come autumn, acorn squash, is delicious. Broccoli in cheese sauce is okay too. Summer has peaked and left me looking forward to cooler temperatures as well as the return of soup and stew season.

female ruby-throated hummingbird

Photo by J. Harrington

I’m not sure but I believe we’re seeing this year’s hummingbird hatchlings showing up at the feeders. At least the one I saw earlier today looked smaller than any we’ve seen so far this season. I continue to have a hard time getting my head around something the size of a hummingbird flying as far as they do. Soon they males will begin their 2,000 mile trip south to their wintering grounds, followed later by females and young. Meanwhile, the American goldfinches are busy nesting and lining their nests with thistle down. Different strokes for different folks.

Summer Story

by Mary Oliver

When the hummingbird
sinks its face
into the trumpet vine,
into the funnels

of the blossoms
and the tongue
leaps out
and throbs,

I am scorched
to realize once again
how many small, available things
are in this world

that aren’t
pieces of gold
or power-------
that nobody owns

or could but even
for a hillside of money-----
that just float
in the world,

or drift over the fields,
or into the gardens,
and into the tents of the vines,
and now here I am

spending my time,
as the saying goes,
watching until the watching turns into feeling,
so that I feel I am myself

a small bird with a terrible hunger,
with a thin beak probing and dipping
and a heart that races so fast

it is only a heart beat ahead of breaking------
and I am the hunger and the assuagement,
and also I am the leaves and the blossoms,
and, like them, I am full of delight, and shaking.

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Please be kind to each other while you can.

For food sovereignty

 Here’s this weeks’s Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] share:

• GREEN BELL PEPPER
• GREEN ONIONS
• BROCCOLI
• CUCUMBERs
• KALE
• SUMMER SQUASH, and
• FENNEL

Unfortunately, per the farm manager’s email, some of the past week's intense summer storms “tore our tomato hoop into sheds, knocked down one of our gates, and hailed on our van leaving five cracks in the windshield and pockmarks everywhere.” The email doesn’t mention any anticipated shortage of tomatoes, but it wouldn’t surprise me if some future boxes end up on the light side due to this summer’s drought, interrupted on occasion by intense thunderstorms and, rarely, gentle rain.

summer storm

Photo by J. Harrington

Later this afternoon, we’ll head off to pick up our CSA share box and drop off half of it with the Daughter Person et. al. It’s almost always a fun drive on lots of back roads that give us a chance to see what’s happening in the real world. Some of the bushes and trees are already beginning to turn color. Heat stress? At least we’re looking at a week plus of more reasonable temperatures and increased possibilities of showers. Now, if only the John Deere dealer can get the parts to fix our tractor, we may be able to check off some yard chores before snow flies.

We did bake another sourdough boule this week. This time using 20% Irish flour. It turned out tasty, crusty, and crumby, that is, with a nice crumb! That’s all for now.

In Defense of Our Overgrown Garden

By Matthea Harvey

Last night the apple trees shook and gave each lettuce a heart

Six hard red apples broke through the greenhouse glass and

Landed in the middle of those ever-so-slightly green leaves

That seem no mix of seeds and soil but of pastels and light and

Chalk x’s mark our oaks that are supposed to be cut down   

I’ve seen the neighbors frown when they look over the fence

And see our espalier pear trees bowing out of shape I did like that

They looked like candelabras against the wall but what’s the sense

In swooning over pruning I said as much to Mrs. Jones and I swear

She threw her cane at me and walked off down the street without

It has always puzzled me that people coo over bonsai trees when

You can squint your eyes and shrink anything without much of   

A struggle ensued with some starlings and the strawberry nets

So after untangling the two I took the nets off and watched birds

With red beaks fly by all morning at the window I reread your letter

About how the castles you flew over made crenellated shadows on   

The water in the rainbarrel has overflowed and made a small swamp

I think the potatoes might turn out slightly damp don’t worry

If there is no fog on the day you come home I will build a bonfire

So the smoke will make the cedars look the way you like them

To close I’m sorry there won’t be any salad and I love you

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.