When you care enough to take care

© harrington

Hi. Thanks for the visit. Many years ago, I read something to the effect that, if the world suffered a major natural or man made catastrophe, we'd be in a lot of trouble trying to replicate our previous evolutionary stages because all the easily mined iron ore had been already. I have my doubts about how many of today's contractors have the skill set needed to restore, repair and rebuild the outbuilding above. I do know where many of us could learn the necessary skills, at the North House Folk School. I can't tell you how much I lust after a writing cabin like the one shown on their web page. I suspect that my youthful, "back to the land," hippie-folk leanings are reasserting themselves. One of the reasons I write this blog is that it forces me to pay attention to what's going on in the world around me. The more I see of the ordinary built environment, the greater the cause for discouragement. The next time you're walking through a neighborhood, particularly in the suburbs, take a hard look and ask yourself, "what here is worth conserving?" Regular readers know that I grew up in Boston, home to the U.S.S. Constitution, "Old Ironsides." That ship is but one of many pieces of our history located in New England that we've found worth preserving. There are houses in New England that are hundreds of years old and still in daily use. How many of our contemporary houses can we expect to serve that long? Have we become too fixated on the cost of our houses more than their value? The last time I checked, which was awhile ago, about two-thirds of the cost of a house with a relatively typical thirty year mortgage was the interest payments. We're paying more for money than for quality housing. More and more, I'm finding that model to be of highly questionable sustainability. But, since the "value" and price of housing always increases, what could possibly go wrong? Everything's returning to "normal" now, right? Right? If we want to create a sustainable world, we have to create one that we care about, preferably one that we love. Otherwise, we won't take care of what we have. Come to think of it, isn't that fundamentally what's wrong with how we treat the world and each other these days? I think we can do better, don't you? Thanks for listening. Come again when you can. Rants, raves and reflections served here daily.

Season of fruition

© harrington

Welcome. Thanks for stopping. If you look carefully, you can see both maroon and green berries on the black chokeberry bush in the picture above. The bush next to this one is full of dark red berries. I'm both excited and a little apprehensive about the upcoming harvest and rendering the fruits into preserves. Will it work? Will we enjoy the results? I have no idea what they'll taste like after they've been subjected to heat and  quantities of pectin equal to the juice rendered from the berries. September is supposed to be prime time for Aronia melanocarpa. The race between humans and other animals to see who gets to harvest the fruit will, I suspect, be a close one. The local deer have already been helping themselves to the lower branches of the pear tree. The local bear has been checking out the bird feeders' sunflower seeds. Either or both may find chokeberries appealing and I've also noticed the local robins casting covetous eyes toward the bushes. We'll learn about Aronia while we wait for the apple trees (safely ensconced behind their fence?) to start to produce fruit, assuming we continue to prevail over the cedar-apple rust. Do you forage? Are you a locavore? Which guidebooks have you used? Are they helpful? Thanks for listening. Come again when you can. Rants, raves and reflections served here daily (for the most part). In honor of our transiting seasons, I hope this poem brings you the pleasure it brought to me.

The Last Days of Summer Before the First Frost

By Tim Bowling

Here at the wolf’s throat, at the egress of the howl,

all along the avenue of deer-blink and salmon-kick

where the spider lets its microphone down

into the cave of the blackberry bush—earth echo,

absence of the human voice—wait here

with a bee on your wrist and a fly on your cheek,

the tiny sun and tiny eclipse.

It is time to be grateful for the breath

of what you could crush without thought,

a moth, a child’s love, your own life.

There might never be another chance.

How did you find me, the astonished mother says

to her four-year-old boy who’d disappeared

in the crowds at the music festival.

I followed my heart, he shrugs,

so matter-of-fact you might not see

behind his words

(o hover and feed, but not too long)

the bee trails turning to ice as they’re flown.

Source: Poetry (April 2011).