No more "same old, same old!!!"

Depending on whether you count from Memorial Day or Summer Solstice, Summer's arrival is a little late or a little early. In either case, that season's heat and humidity are now conspicuous by their presence. Those factors have recently been joined by several species of biting bugs, which removes, at least for me, any doubts about whether Spring has burst into Summer.

'tis "that" season again

Photo by J. Harrington

On the brighter side, we are now enjoying corn on the cob, ripe cherries, watermelon, peaches that need more ripening, and regular consumption of ice cream cones. I''m trying to (re)train myself to not let all that's wrong with the world keep me from enjoying some of what's right with it. Sometimes I do have to admit my perfectionist tendencies (me? 😉) can be counterproductive. Plus, I find we live in an increasingly annoying and inept society, thanks to technology misapplication and growing numbers of kleptocratic billionaires and wannabes. I have recently encountered some encouraging resources with worthwhile guidance on how to to turn today's deficits into tomorrow's opportunities. Please don't let the writings at the other end of the links below turn into TL;DR's.

• from The Guardian: The three things Democrats must do to regain rural America’s trust
• from Kosmos: Nate Hagens and the Work of Resilient Futures and,
• Bioregioning and Our Felt Sense of Place

I'm heartened to find intelligent folks are thinking seriously about what it will take to get US and the rest of the world out of the multiple predicaments (existential issues?) we face. I'm even more encouraged that some of them are citing one of my all time favorite poems. Enjoy!!

For the Children

by Gary Snyder

The rising hills, the slopes,

of statistics

lie before us,

the steep climb

of everything, going up,

up, as we all

go down.

In the next century

or the one beyond that,

they say,

are valleys, pastures,

we can meet there in peace

if we make it.

To climb these coming crests

one word to you, to

you and your children:

stay together

learn the flowers

go light 

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It’s not all bad this autumn

In several ways, this has been literally a shitty week My dog SiSi has had diarrhea for the past few days and, since we’re getting the septic tank pumped out soon, I had to locate and dig out the pumping port. Ah, the joys of country living! I won’t trouble you with a list of all the recent political stunts that fit the theme.

On the bright side, our son, a Vikings fan, is quite happy that they’re well ahead of the NY Giants at the beginning of the fourth quarter of today’s first game of the regular season. The Daughter Person is enjoying a weekend visit from a friend who was the maid of honor at Daughter’s wedding a decade ago. Granddaughter is excited about an upcoming fourth birthday and her weekly horseback riding lessons. Most to all of us have been enjoying the drop in temperatures and humidity that occurred this week. I’ve been pleased with autumn’s other encroachments such as increasing color in some trees and bushes,, although the temperature drop has lead to increased time for the sourdough’s bulk rise due to house temperatures several degrees less than 70℉. Plus, the Better Half informs me there are pears on the pear tree this year. Maybe some neighbors will come and help themselves.

a pair of whitetail deer at our pear tree

Photo by J. Harrington

Our community supported agriculture autumn shares started yesterday. The farm hasn’t yet sent a list of what’s in the box this week, or, they sent an email and I inadvertently lost it. If a list is found, we’ll add it next posting.

The latest issue of TROUT magazine arrived yesterday and included an announcement that one of the staff had won the 2024 Colorado Book Award for Poetry. You might want to check out Erin Block’s writing online and How You Walk Alone in the Dark at Middle Creek Publishing. Here’s a sample from an alternate source:

Swallows

Just before the storm moves in, violet-green 
swallows fly overhead. 
I thought they were mayflies,
like what trout eyes see, looking up 
from a plunge pool.
Like a hermit thrush being my mother’s voice 
before dawn. 
With nothing to measure against,
how do you size something up.
This is chasing a horizon.
This is looking valley to valley from a ridgeline 
saying, it’s not all that far. 
Saying, sure, we can get there by dark. 

(Published in The Dodge, Spring 2024 issue.) 

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As Summer fades, Autumn glows emerge

Twice this past week I’ve seen a flock of four or five sandhill cranes standing on a road. A few days ago they were on our paved road, with wetlands on either side. Yesterday, Saturday, they were standing just before a curve on a gravel road I was traveling to pick up our weekly community supported agriculture [CDA] share. I’ve never before seen live cranes on a road. No idea what’s going on.

Yesterday’s CSA share included:

Tomatoes Red Leaf or Simpson lettuce Broccoli  Cantaloupe Sweet Corn  Green Pepper

This week past also brought several deer sightings. Mid-week, one of this year’s fawns stood in the middle of a neighbor’s driveway and stared at the dogs and me as we walked past. It was still there on our return a few minutes later, but had had enough of visiting and took off into the bushes. On yesterday’s CSA trip, does and fawns were scattered in several fields and at the curve in the gravel road just past where the cranes had been.

August: full moon

Photo by J. Harrington

Our early morning dog walking this morning brought a view of one of the most gorgeous orange “full” moons I’ve seen in a long time. Technically the full moon arrives tomorrow and I’m looking forward to a repeat performance.

More and more trees are showing color changes in their leaves. Two maple trees in widely different locations have turned all red, almost crimson. On the other hand, temperatures have crept back to seasonable and the humidity is uncomfortable. There was a recent report [TPT Almanac, 8/16/24] that so far, this has been the second wettest year on record at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. It appears to be a tossup whether we’ll top the all time annual record. Stay tuned.

Three Songs at the End of Summer

Jane Kenyon
1947 – 1995

A second crop of hay lies cut   
and turned. Five gleaming crows   
search and peck between the rows.
They make a low, companionable squawk,   
and like midwives and undertakers   
possess a weird authority.

Crickets leap from the stubble,   
parting before me like the Red Sea.   
The garden sprawls and spoils.

Across the lake the campers have learned   
to water-ski. They have, or they haven’t.   
Sounds of the instructor’s megaphone   
suffuse the hazy air. “Relax! Relax!”

Cloud shadows rush over drying hay,   
fences, dusty lane, and railroad ravine.   
The first yellowing fronds of goldenrod   
brighten the margins of the woods.

Schoolbooks, carpools, pleated skirts;   
water, silver-still, and a vee of geese.

*

The cicada’s dry monotony breaks   
over me. The days are bright   
and free, bright and free.

Then why did I cry today   
for an hour, with my whole   
body, the way babies cry?

*

A white, indifferent morning sky,   
and a crow, hectoring from its nest   
high in the hemlock, a nest as big   
as a laundry basket....
                     In my childhood   
I stood under a dripping oak,
while autumnal fog eddied around my feet,   
waiting for the school bus
with a dread that took my breath away.

The damp dirt road gave off   
this same complex organic scent.

I had the new books—words, numbers,   
and operations with numbers I did not   
comprehend—and crayons, unspoiled   
by use, in a blue canvas satchel
with red leather straps.

Spruce, inadequate, and alien   
I stood at the side of the road.   
It was the only life I had.

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Going with the flow?

First things first. Along the back roads to pick up this week's community supported agriculture [CSA] share, we saw a handful of deer, including one buck in velvet and a mostly grown fawn who dashed across the road in front of us after I had slowed the Jeep. Apparently no one has explained to the deer they aren’t supposed to be standing at the edge of a road or in the middle of a soy bean field at 8:45 am in a sunny Saturday morning, even if they’re in a rural area near the St. Croix River.

Sunrise River flowing into the St. Croix

Photo by J. Harrington

Here’s what we picked up once we got to the farm:

• Tomatoes
• Green Tower Lettuce
• Green Bell Pepper
• Summer squash 
• Bulb onion
• Parsley 
• Genovese Basil

I'm grateful there was no zucchini included, although the Better Half did a great job hiding the last batch in a spicy veggie sauce for our dinner of shrimp and grits the other night. I suspect the green peppers will show up in tomorrow’s stuffed peppers dinner. I’n not really against veggies, I just don’t want to overdo a good thing. ; >)

Last evening we watched a PBS segment on Ada Limón’s poet laureate project on poetry in the parks. It was a treat to see her and the effort National Park Service is putting into the project. We could use more of this kind of project. I join with Michael Garrigan who "strongly believes that every watershed should have a Poet Laureate.” That could take more than 80 poet laureates for Minnesota river basins. How can we make that happen?

Michael Garrigan

The River, a Mouth

We walk the river’s jaw
along its curved bone ledges,
long palates growing eelgrass,
spooking baitfish and bass, to the dam.

Rusty crayfish flick through
summer teeth slick boulders as we slip
the weight of our bodies becomes buoyant
and we float until our boots touch bottom.

Lightning bugs splatter
shorelines as storms split us in two.
Rain downstream, lightning upstream,
dam at our back, we are halves of all we held.

We wade deeper into the dark
our feet become a bed of pebbles
our legs tooth roots buried in bone
our waists eddies, our chest hair - hibiscus.

We follow the river’s tongue
down its throat into its lungs
and feel the crack of thunder choking
our names in the language of water and rock.

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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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Fritillarying the summer away

It’s finally stopped raining long enough for me to do a second grass cutting of the season in the back yard. I was also going to mow our ditch where the dogs do most of their business but an orange butterfly, with spots, a fritillary I think, landed on some of the yellow wildflower/weed blossoms that would have been mown into oblivion. That deterred me from ditch mowing today.

Earlier, the Better Half and I headed off to the farm to pick up this week’s community supported agriculture [CSA] share. The share box contained:

• GREEN CABBAGE
• EITHER CARROTS OR GOLDEN NUGGET CHERRY TOMATOES (I think we got carrots)
• SNAP PEAS
• KALE
• BEETS WITH TOPS
• SCAPES
• BABY ONIONS
• SLICER CUCUMBER, and
• CILANTRO

During the drive we got a look at a couple of whitetail does and a few small flocks of wild turkeys. All in all a pleasant way to start a weekend.

box of fishing flies, mostly parachute Adams

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday we threatened, or promised, depending on your viewpoint, to spend more time engaged with fly-fishing. Last night, while (re)reading Peter Kaminsky’s Fly Fisherman’s Guide to the Meaning of Life, we reached the chapter on A Fly Fisher’s Essential Reading. I thought you might enjoy seeing what and who's listed:

• In Our Time, Earnest Hemingway
• Trout Madness, Robert Traver
• A River Runs through It, Norman Maclean
• Tarpon Quest, John Cole
• Fy Fishing through the Midlife Crisis, Howell Raines
• Superior Fishing, Robert B. Roosevelt
• Spring Creek, Nick Lyons
• Hatches, Al Caucci and Bob Nastasi
• The Fly and the Fish, John Atherton
• Fishing wth McClane, A. J. McClane

I was pleased to note that I’ve read about half of the titles listed and other works of several of the authors listed. Once I’ve confirmed whether or not a couple of titles are lurking somewhere on our book shelves, we may add one or two of these to an upcoming Christmas list. 

Speckled Trout

By Ron Rash

Water-flesh gleamed like mica:

orange fins, red flankspots, a char

shy as ginseng, found only

in spring-flow gaps, the thin clear

of faraway creeks no map

could name. My cousin showed me

those hidden places. I loved

how we found them, the way we

followed no trail, just stream-sound

tangled in rhododendron,

to where slow water opened

a hole to slip a line in,

and lift as from a well bright

shadows of another world,

held in my hand, their color

already starting to fade.

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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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Recent sightings

On the way to pick up our box of community supported agriculture [CSA] shares this morning, there were several whitetail deer browsing along the side of the road, including one fork horn buck in velvet. Also sharing the road, ditches and adjoining fields were pheasants, turkeys, and a multitude of songbirds. Last night the Better Half and I sat patiently in the Jeep as a hen pheasant and more than a dozen chicks single filed across the road in front of us. There’s also been more than the usual number of cottontails and kits scampering along and across the road the past week or so.

In case it’s of interest, here’s what was in the CSA box this week:

• GREEN TOWERS ROMAINE
• KOHLRABI
• SPINACH
• BABY CARROTS
• MIXED RADISHES, and
• ARUGULA & CILANTRO BUNDLES

a woodcock enjoying the driveway puddle

Photo by J. Harrington

The thunderstorms earlier in the week refilled a puddle that lives in a low spot in our driveway. That puddle has recently been discovered by a handful of goldfinch males in bright yellow mating colors. Watching them thrash at water's edges and erupt into the trees has been an occasional source of beauty and pleasure. The same birds don’t seem particularly interested in the bird bath mounted on the deck railing, perhaps because it gets deeper too quickly?

The strangest sighting of the week came close to, in fact occurred inside, home. We’ve no idea where they came from, but yesterday I captured and released outside two bumblebees that were crawling sluggishly across the floor in the downstairs family room. Then, an hour or two later, I did the same thing with a third bee that was in almost the same spot as the first one. All I can say is “Go figure!”

While I have been writing this, rain has started falling again. It seems to be benefitting much of the local flora and fauna, particularly the non-human species. If I really wanted to live in this kind of climate, I would have moved to the northwest coast long ago. But, even such as I can only spend so much time sitting and reading. I’m looking forward to brighter days.

What Is June Anyway?

By David Budbill

After three weeks of hot weather and drought,

           we've had a week of cold and rain,

just the way it ought to be here in the north,

            in June, a fire going in the woodstove

all day long, so you can go outside in the cold

            and rain anytime and smell

the wood smoke in the air.

 

This is the way I love it. This is why

           I came here almost

fifty years ago. What is June anyway

          without cold and rain

and a fire going in the stove all day?

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It’s summertime!!!

According to the meteorologists, today is the first day of summer. According to me, it’s a beautiful late spring, early summer day. I’m toying with the idea that June may be my second favorite month, after October. Here’s what was in our final community supported agriculture [CSA] Spring Greens share that we picked up this morning.

• RHUBARB
• GREEN GARLIC
• RADISHES
• GREEN INCISED LETTUCE
• ASPARAGUS
• GREEN BUTTER LETTUCE, and
• BABY KALE

what June days are for

Photo by J. Harrington

On the way to the barn, to pick up this week’s share,  we saw several deer and small flocks of wild turkeys. I’m not sure why the hens aren’t incubating eggs, unless they’re not yet bred. Then, when we were almost home, we saw a medium size snapping turtle walking down the middle of the road. I stopped and encouraged the critter off the road and into the grassy shoulder, limiting the likelihood of seeing a squashed turtle the next time we drove that way.

It looks like the Better Half is fixing some kind of desert using the rhubarb and I think she said something about antipasto for dinner tonight. I may yet learn to like eating my veggies instead of just meat and ‘taters.

Speaking of greens, I don’t think I’ve ever seen grass, or fields of rye, as bountiful as roadsides and farm fields are this year. Last winter we were in a deficit of snow (precipitation). This spring we’ve more than compensated and are currently a little above average for this time of year. Fortunately, I’ve always been anything but a fanatic about meticulous lawn care. If I can keep from providing cover for ticks to hang out, it’s good enough for me. There are more important things (like fly-fishing) to do on a beautiful June day. I make a lousy suburbanite which minimizes the liklihood of putting up with the likes of the Alitos.

What Is So Rare as a Day in June? -

by James Russell Lowell

And what is so rare as a day in June? 
Then, if ever, come perfect days; 
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, 
And over it softly her warm ear lays: 
Whether we look, or whether we listen, 
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; 
Every clod feels a stir of might, 
An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 
And, groping blindly above it for light, 
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers; 
The flush of life may well be seen 
Thrilling back over hills and valleys; 
The cowslip starlets in meadows green, 
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, 
And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean 
To be some happy creature's palace; 
The little bird sits at his door in the sun, 
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, 
And lets his illumined being o'errun 
With the deluge of summer it receives; 
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, 
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings; 
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,-- 
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best? 

Now is the high-tide of the year, 
And whatever of life hath ebbed away 
Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer, 
Into every bare inlet and creek and bay; 
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, 
We are happy now because God wills it; 
No matter how barren the past may have been, 
'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green; 
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well 
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell; 
We may shut our eyes but we cannot help knowing 
That skies are clear and grass is growing; 
The breeze comes whispering in our ear, 
That dandelions are blossoming near, 
That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing, 
That the river is bluer than the sky, 
That the robin is plastering his house hard by; 
And if the breeze kept the good news back, 
For our couriers we should not lack; 
We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,-- 
And hark! how clear bold chanticleer, 
Warmed with the new wine of the year, 
Tells all in his lusty crowing! 

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how; 
Everything is happy now, 
Everything is upward striving; 
'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true 
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,-- 
'Tis for the natural way of living: 

Who knows whither the clouds have fled? 
In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake, 
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, 
The heart forgets its sorrow and ache; 
The soul partakes the season's youth, 
And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe 
Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, 
Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.

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There are better ways

Bird feeders are back up. Birds are temporarily boycotting because we had the feeders down for a couple of days to discourage the peregrine falcon that was checking out the place.

Yellow Goat's Beard (Tragopogon dubius)

Photo by J. Harrington

The morning’s drive to pick up this week’s community supported agriculture [CSA] share was basically uneventful. Sightings included one whitetail deer, several pair of sandhill cranes, and multiple songbirds. Goat’s beard has started to bloom. The CSA share box included:

• BROCCOLI RABE
• BABY KALE SALAD MIX
• RADISHES
• GREEN INCISED AND MAGENTA LETTUCEs, and
• ENCORE LETTUCE MIX

I've been getting more and more frustrated with myself about the amount of time I spend doom scrolling social media while accomplishing little more than making snarky comments. Then I took a look at one of today’s emails and realized I’m already doing things to help make the world a better place. Voting is very important, but there’s lots more we can do the rest of the year. Here’s a list, via AFSC, of ways you might want to consider for yourself and your familly:

De-commodify what you can. Not everything has to be subject to money. Experiment with formal or informal mutual aid practices. These can include bartering; sharing time, resources, and skills; and receiving help yourself.

Consider self-provisioning. Are there things you can do, make, or grow for yourself and others? Possibilities include arts and crafts, music, gardening, preserving food, making bever-ages, raising chickens, do-it-yourself projects, and knitting.

Think about where your money goes. Consider moving it from big predatory financial banks to credit unions or locally owned financial institutions. When possible, spend yours on locally and sustainably produced goods and services and fair-trade items. Buy from worker-friendly businesses.

Support cooperative or alternative enterprises—or consider starting one. Community land trusts and similar efforts can be a way to preserve affordable housing and even support the local production of basic needs.

Research more possibilities. There are a huge number of resources and organizations that can help you learn more and find a niche to support this growing movement. Check out the websites of the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network and RIPESS, the Intercontinental Social Solidarity Economy Network.

Further reading:

• Seven ways to build the solidarity economy by US network coordinator (and former AFSC staffer) Emily Kawano
• Realizing the Solidarity Economy and System Change: A Basic Primer to the Solidarity Economy, by Nonprofit Quarterly

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The Campus on the Hill

By W. D. Snodgrass

Up the reputable walks of old established trees

They stalk, children of the nouveaux riches; chimes

Of the tall Clock Tower drench their heads in blessing:   

“I don't wanna play at your house;

I don't like you any more.”

My house stands opposite, on the other hill,

Among meadows, with the orchard fences down and falling;   

Deer come almost to the door.

You cannot see it, even in this clearest morning.

White birds hang in the air between

Over the garbage landfill and those homes thereto adjacent,   

Hovering slowly, turning, settling down

Like the flakes sifting imperceptibly onto the little town   

In a waterball of glass.

And yet, this morning, beyond this quiet scene,

The floating birds, the backyards of the poor,

Beyond the shopping plaza, the dead canal, the hillside lying tilted in the air,

Tomorrow has broken out today:

Riot in Algeria, in Cyprus, in Alabama;

Aged in wrong, the empires are declining,

And China gathers, soundlessly, like evidence.

What shall I say to the young on such a morning?—

Mind is the one salvation?—also grammar?—

No; my little ones lean not toward revolt. They

Are the Whites, the vaguely furiously driven, who resist   

Their souls with such passivity

As would make Quakers swear. All day, dear Lord, all day   

They wear their godhead lightly.

They look out from their hill and say,

To themselves, “We have nowhere to go but down;   

The great destination is to stay.”

Surely the nations will be reasonable;

They look at the world—don't they?—the world's way?   

The clock just now has nothing more to say.

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Mid-May musings

Early this morning we enjoyed some mild thunder and lightning as thundershowers rolled through. Later, we watched a wild tom turkey displaying for a sole hen in the backyard. She didn’t seem interested, but maybe she just thought the field was too open to engage in intimacies. In any case, after ten minutes or so, the hen wandered into the woods, followed by a somewhat distraught tom. I’m guessing that at this time of year, most of the hens are incubating eggs and the mating season is winding down.

backyard tom turkey in mating display

Photo by J. Harrington

Once the back yard performance ended, we headed off to the farm to pick up this week’s community supported agriculture [CSA] share. It includes:

• ARUGULA
• MESCLUN
• SPRING "SPACE” SPINACH
• SIMPSON OR PIRAT LETTUCE, and
• CHIVES

One of the high points of my week is the drive to the CSA farm through the countryside of the St. Croix River valley, noting changes in the season’s displays. This year some farmer’s are either planting very late or leaving what looks like an unusual number of fields fallow. Other fields, that got corn planted early(?), are showing emergent corn plants already.

Now it’s time for me to go and refresh the planting trays and try again to successfully germinate some bergamot seeds. Cross your fingers for us, please.

Wild Turkey

Heid E. Erdrich

Not the bottle
Not the burn on the lips
lit throat glow
Not even wild     really
but a small-town bird
whose burgundy throat
shimmers like nothing ever
A huge bird    impressive
who lurches and stalks me
window to window in this
desert retreat
What does he want?
Clearly he is lonely
pecks his reflection
and speaks to it in a low gubble
(not gobble) gubbles so tenderly
Soon as I think of him     his eye hits on me
We have watched each other for days
His shifting colors fascinate me  his territorial strut
But it is his bald and blue-red head
his old man habits and gait that move me
If I even think of him        I taste whiskey
Drunk on solitude    I’d talk to anybody
I try his language on my lips
His keen response burns     like shame

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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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Too big to fail = too big

Once upon a time, I believed that big government was the the way to control big business, i.e., mega corporations. Then came regulatory capture and Citizens United. Now I’m of the opinion that too big to fail is simply too big and we can't afford that kind of oligarchy. The recent example of UnitedHealth and the damage being done through their failures confirms my opinion. The recent behavior of a number of college and universities, calling police riot squads to disperse peaceful student protesters doesn’t do anything to make me rethink my assessment.

small, but beautiful, bird, scarlet tanager

Photo by J. Harrington

If a business has only one customer, that customer can essentially control the business. If a customer has only one source for a critical element, the customer is totally dependent on that source. Neither is a healthy situation. For example, look at the status of downtown high-rise office towers now seeking new tenants after the recent pandemic triggered lots of work from home options. For too long, business consolidation has been see as a way to control prices through increased efficiency. Remember the 2007-2008 economic crisis? Were financial institutions bailed out because they were “too big to fail?” Are we now watching similar developments in our health care and insurance and information system(s)?

Meanwhile, governments and economies are responding with too little, too late to a number of global environmental crises such as the sixth extinction and loss of biodiversity, climate breakdown and its ramifications, and overconsumption. Lip service to responses is paid while too much business as usual continues. We need to pay more attention and only vote for those who have demonstrated they walk their talk, although for now we are limited to the lessor of two evils.

If you think I’ve been too negative today, see if you can get a copy of Small Is Beautiful and read it. These days we’re experiencing the consequences of not following Schumacher’s guidance.

A Small Needful Fact

Ross Gay

Is that Eric Garner worked
for some time for the Parks and Rec.
Horticultural Department, which means,
perhaps, that with his very large hands,
perhaps, in all likelihood,
he put gently into the earth
some plants which, most likely,
some of them, in all likelihood,
continue to grow, continue
to do what such plants do, like house
and feed small and necessary creatures,
like being pleasant to touch and smell,
like converting sunlight
into food, like making it easier
for us to breathe.

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Saturday mornin’ comin’ down*

Have you visited your local independent bookstore today? We have, to help celebrate Independent Bookstore Day. The Better Half picked up a book. I’m still hacking away at my tsunduko stack(s). That visit was part of a loop that also included a stop at our local feed store where we purchased more coarse sunflower seeds for the birds and another jug of honey for my morning coffee. Finally, we swung by the farm and picked up this year’s first community supported agriculture [CSA] share. It includes:

• GREEN INCISED LETTUCE,
• RED KITTEN SPINACH,
• SUNFLOWER MICROGREENS,
• WATERCRESS, and
• BRIGHT LIGHTS CHARD

Today is special for at least a couple of other reasons. SiSi, the twelve year old yellow lab cross who rescued us, came to live with us in her forever home eleven years ago this week, when she looked like this. We’ve enjoyed each other’s company since then and are looking forward to more years together. SiSi and the Better Half’s rescue beagle, Harry, are an interesting, although sometimes noisy, combination.

SiSi our yellow lab cross at 1 year old

Photo by J. Harrington

Today is also the first time this year we’ve seen marsh marigolds in bloom. They’re growing and blooming in a ditch along a township road near the CSA pick up barn.

*with apologies to Kris Kristofferson

How It Begins

A puppy is a puppy is a puppy.
He’s probably in a basket with a bunch
of other puppies.
Then he’s a little older and he’s nothing
but a bundle of longing.
He doesn’t even understand it.

Then someone picks him up and says,
“I want this one.”

-Mary Oliver, in “Dog Songs”

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Should these times be more taxing?

It seems as though, once upon a time or so, I read that, if a society wants less of something, they should tax it. If there’s any truth to such guidance, I’m afraid I don’t understand why we haven’t decided to tax red meat. There was an article the other day that claims Eating red meat twice a week may increase type 2 diabetes risk, study finds. That comes on top of long standing knowledge that Livestock emissions – from manure and gastroenteric releases – account for roughly 32 per cent of human-caused methane emissions. None of which begins to address the surface and groundwater pollution from confined animal feedlot operations (CAFOs). Perhaps that old guidance was off target. After all, in the midst of increasing effects of climate breakdown, we continue to subsidize the fossil fuel industry.

Is there a beef with bison?

Photo by J. Harrington

But, let’s assume the idea of taxing what we want less of is true. That means we could, and should, impose more and more progressive taxes on:

• fossil fuels
• red meats
• pharmaceutical price gouging
• executive pay that exceeds some reasonable ratio to regular employee income
• disinformation distributors
• who or what else?

We raised a question about the country’s priorities the other day, when President Biden announced a request for $106bn aid to Congress for Israel, Ukraine and Gaza at the same time that Home health access for Minnesota seniors at risk as Medicare keeps cutting.

As long as I'm at it, what about the idea of taxing Artificial Intelligence that does anything except making current software bug-free, interoperable and unhackable. I’m tired of the amount of time I have to spend dealing with workarounds and/or responses to some programmers screwup.

All of which means we need to stop electing Republicans, who have clearly demonstrated that, even when they win by cheating, they’re incapable of governing or even carrying their own weight.

Ox Cart Man

Donald Hall     1928 – 2018

In October of the year,
he counts potatoes dug from the brown field,
counting the seed, counting
the cellar's portion out,
and bags the rest on the cart's floor.

He packs wool sheared in April, honey
in combs, linen, leather
tanned from deerhide,
and vinegar in a barrel
hoped by hand at the forge's fire.

He walks by his ox's head, ten days
to Portsmouth Market, and sells potatoes,
and the bag that carried potatoes,
flaxseed, birch brooms, maple sugar, goose
feathers, yarn.

When the cart is empty he sells the cart.
When the cart is sold he sells the ox,
harness and yoke, and walks
home, his pockets heavy
with the year's coin for salt and taxes,

and at home by fire's light in November cold
stitches new harness
for next year's ox in the barn,
and carves the yoke, and saws planks
building the cart again.

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