Judging from the recent additions to my bird-feeding population, this may very well be an irruption year.
Last week, a red breasted nuthatch started showing up regularly. It's still busily coming to and from its favorite feeder all day long.
Today I've seen 3 purple finches (2 female and a male) and a pine siskin too.
We were gone for 3 days over the weekend, so I have no idea exactly which day the purple finches and pine siskin showed up, but today was the first day I saw them.
Today was also the first day I've seen a goldfinch this fall.
A few Harris sparrows, juncos, and white crowned sparrows have been here for 2-3 weeks. Last week I saw a song sparrow and a couple white throated sparrows too, but they stopped in for a day, then seemed to move along.
It's shaping up to be an interesting year for bird feeding!
Monday, October 29, 2007
The Secret Behind One of Life's Enduring Mysteries
I have received wisdom. I have learned the answer to one of life's enduring mysteries. (Note: I have not TESTED this answer, but my source was pretty authoritative.) And so I'm going to pass this wisdom on, out into the blogosphere....
I now know why weeping figs, Ficus benjamina, drop their leaves.
Yes, I know this is astounding, but bear with me. If your fig has done this, it is not because you looked cross-eyed at it. It is not because you are a bad plant owner and it hates you. It is not because you spoke intemperately around it.
In fact, the only thing that probably happened was that you changed the amount of light it was receiving. Maybe you brought it indoors for the winter, or moved it across the room because it looked better there. Maybe you simply put up new curtains or took down the old ones. Or it may just be normal seasonal variations.
It turns out that weeping fig is especially quick to adapt to new light conditions. This is one of the traits that actually makes it a good houseplant. It adapts to the change in light by dropping about half of its leaves and putting out new ones that just happen to be completely suited to the new light situation it finds itself in.
As I learned, plant leaves can be adapted to either high light or low light situations. It has to do with how the intracellular structures with chlorophyll, where photosynthesis occurs, are arranged. Generally it can take a plant up to 6 months to change its leaves from high light to low light, or vice versa. Figs just do it fast, by dropping and regrowing them.
The key here is apparently to realize that the plant is somewhat stressed while it is changing out its leaves and to let it rest. Don't fertilize it. Be careful to wait until it is dry to water it, then saturate the soil completely and let it drain out. Don't let yourself respond like normal people do and say, "It's dropping its leaves. It must be dying! I have to save it by giving it extra food and water." You'll kill it with love, for sure, that way.
I'm so excited by this new insight that I'm ready to go out and buy a new Ficus or two. I left 2 beautiful big ones behind in Mobile, so I'm currently "without fig". It seems like a perfect gardening challenge for the oncoming winter months.
I now know why weeping figs, Ficus benjamina, drop their leaves.
Yes, I know this is astounding, but bear with me. If your fig has done this, it is not because you looked cross-eyed at it. It is not because you are a bad plant owner and it hates you. It is not because you spoke intemperately around it.
In fact, the only thing that probably happened was that you changed the amount of light it was receiving. Maybe you brought it indoors for the winter, or moved it across the room because it looked better there. Maybe you simply put up new curtains or took down the old ones. Or it may just be normal seasonal variations.
It turns out that weeping fig is especially quick to adapt to new light conditions. This is one of the traits that actually makes it a good houseplant. It adapts to the change in light by dropping about half of its leaves and putting out new ones that just happen to be completely suited to the new light situation it finds itself in.
As I learned, plant leaves can be adapted to either high light or low light situations. It has to do with how the intracellular structures with chlorophyll, where photosynthesis occurs, are arranged. Generally it can take a plant up to 6 months to change its leaves from high light to low light, or vice versa. Figs just do it fast, by dropping and regrowing them.
The key here is apparently to realize that the plant is somewhat stressed while it is changing out its leaves and to let it rest. Don't fertilize it. Be careful to wait until it is dry to water it, then saturate the soil completely and let it drain out. Don't let yourself respond like normal people do and say, "It's dropping its leaves. It must be dying! I have to save it by giving it extra food and water." You'll kill it with love, for sure, that way.
I'm so excited by this new insight that I'm ready to go out and buy a new Ficus or two. I left 2 beautiful big ones behind in Mobile, so I'm currently "without fig". It seems like a perfect gardening challenge for the oncoming winter months.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Observations of Fall
I saw the first white crowned sparrow at my feeders two days ago, and it's appearing all the time now. Winter is coming.
It's been interesting to see who's visiting the feeders during these days of natural plenty. (I put up a few feeders - mainly mixed seed and a suet cake - on September 20, along with water in the birdbath.)
A large family of cardinals, the young males looking patchy and as gawky as adolescents of all species tend to do, was among the first visitors, and they've been regulars ever since.
Blue jays. A couple house sparrows. A pair of red-bellied woodpeckers.
Today I saw a male hairy woodpecker.
And I've briefly seen a house wren flitting around the deck, although I can't say that it was drawn in to the feeders.
Few visitors yet, but I know that traffic will pick up as the season gets harsher.
Overhead, I thrill to the sight of crisp white gulls swooping silently south against crystal blue skies. (Do the gulls only fly on clear days? Or do they just disappear into the clouds and become invisible? They are so quiet that it's impossible for me to hear their passage; I just have to be lucky enough to look up at the right time, attracted perhaps by a bit of sparkle or movement in the sky.)
I hear killdeer cry as they wend their way southward, one here, one there....
The barred owls are becoming vocal in the late afternoon and evening again.
The sunflowers have shed their bright fall plumage and are industriously plumping up their rich, life producing seed heads. Dotted gayfeather blooms have faded from bright purple to dusty lavendar, melding back into the textured prairie tapestry. Heath aster is blooming, but its tiny white blossoms almost seem like a foreshadowing of snow and winter's quiet.
Unobstrusively speaking of winter too, the trees are beginning to shed their leaves. It's not a pretty leaf-drop this year. The drought is forcing it a little early, and the leaves tend to be brown and shrivelled. As I look across the landscape, the remaining stubbornly green trees are the only major remnants of summer left, despite our still-warm temperatures.
However, the big bluestem is turning rusty, the Indian grass is golden yellow, the seedheads of the switchgrass are airily puffed out, and all of their slender stems sway gracefully in the wind, outlined against the rich blue autumn sky. The remnants of prairie are especially beautiful right now, despite the dry weather.
It's fall, that bitterly sweet time of year.
It's been interesting to see who's visiting the feeders during these days of natural plenty. (I put up a few feeders - mainly mixed seed and a suet cake - on September 20, along with water in the birdbath.)
A large family of cardinals, the young males looking patchy and as gawky as adolescents of all species tend to do, was among the first visitors, and they've been regulars ever since.
Blue jays. A couple house sparrows. A pair of red-bellied woodpeckers.
Today I saw a male hairy woodpecker.
And I've briefly seen a house wren flitting around the deck, although I can't say that it was drawn in to the feeders.
Few visitors yet, but I know that traffic will pick up as the season gets harsher.
Overhead, I thrill to the sight of crisp white gulls swooping silently south against crystal blue skies. (Do the gulls only fly on clear days? Or do they just disappear into the clouds and become invisible? They are so quiet that it's impossible for me to hear their passage; I just have to be lucky enough to look up at the right time, attracted perhaps by a bit of sparkle or movement in the sky.)
I hear killdeer cry as they wend their way southward, one here, one there....
The barred owls are becoming vocal in the late afternoon and evening again.
The sunflowers have shed their bright fall plumage and are industriously plumping up their rich, life producing seed heads. Dotted gayfeather blooms have faded from bright purple to dusty lavendar, melding back into the textured prairie tapestry. Heath aster is blooming, but its tiny white blossoms almost seem like a foreshadowing of snow and winter's quiet.
Unobstrusively speaking of winter too, the trees are beginning to shed their leaves. It's not a pretty leaf-drop this year. The drought is forcing it a little early, and the leaves tend to be brown and shrivelled. As I look across the landscape, the remaining stubbornly green trees are the only major remnants of summer left, despite our still-warm temperatures.
However, the big bluestem is turning rusty, the Indian grass is golden yellow, the seedheads of the switchgrass are airily puffed out, and all of their slender stems sway gracefully in the wind, outlined against the rich blue autumn sky. The remnants of prairie are especially beautiful right now, despite the dry weather.
It's fall, that bitterly sweet time of year.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
The Pain of Knowledge
"There are things you can't get away from after you know them. It is very complicated to know anything.... Can you ever not know again?" (p. 151)
"[What is innocence?] ...just not knowing about something?... Is it innocent, as in a state of goodness or whatever, if you simply don't know about all those people in the Holocaust? Or is it just naive, stupid? What use is that kind of innocence anyway?...
Can you ever be made innocent again?" (p. 152)
Those two quotes are from The Accidental, a book by Ali Smith. They've been nagging at me ever since I read them.
They remind me of a quote I read many years ago about environmental knowledge. (I thought it was by Aldo Leopold, but I've reread Sand County Almanac lately and I was unable to find it there.) That remembered quote, roughly paraphrased, spoke about how a person who understood how the world worked ecologically would be living "in a world of wounds" invisible to others as they watched how most people treated the natural world.
I've often thought of that quote. Just this week, I've felt flayed as I came upon a cruelly shorn thicket of sunflowers that had enlivened our nearby creekside, reduced to 3" tall stubble, then shuddered as the neighbor later boasted to me about mowing it down because now "it looks so much better." That thicket was providing shelter and food for birds and other animals, as well as holding soil in place along the creekbank. Now it's a barren eyesore. Also this week, I've cringed as I've watched the local farmers plowing their bone dry, black-earthed fields in 30 mph winds. I've driven through the resulting dark clouds of topsoil, barely able to see through to the road ahead. The rich topsoil that feeds us, that took eons to form, is being carried skyward and eventually will be washed out to the Gulf of Mexico where it will join the dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi. In this day and age of agricultural knowledge, surely these farmers know better than to treat their land this way. Surely they realize their farm's fertility is blowing away with that soil.
Are these people "innocent" because they refuse to learn about the environment or to accept the longterm consequences of what they are doing?
I don't think so. But while I don't think they can be absolved of their guilt, I can also understand their desire to try to remain ignorant.
So many times, knowledge hurts. Because of that knowledge, you become aware of a wound that you weren't aware of before. You feel like you should act, but what should you do? You are just one person and these are big problems. Now, suddenly, because of this new knowledge, you are different than the people around you, which causes more pain.
No wonder so many people choose willful ignorance over knowledge. They are trying to avoid pain, and that's a very human thing to do.
However, as I've learned the hard way so many times, trying to avoid a problem through running away from it only makes the problem worse. And eventually the pain will be that much worse too, because avoiding the problem only means that you lose the opportunity to solve it or that the problem becomes much worse before you're forced to acknowledge and solve it anyway.
Knowledge and pain. I always believed that "knowledge will set you free," that knowledge was a good thing, that it was desireable, that it was something that would make your life better.
I still believe that knowledge is good and that it will set you free. Now, though, I also realize that sometimes you have to work through a lot of pain to earn the freedom that knowledge promised.
"[What is innocence?] ...just not knowing about something?... Is it innocent, as in a state of goodness or whatever, if you simply don't know about all those people in the Holocaust? Or is it just naive, stupid? What use is that kind of innocence anyway?...
Can you ever be made innocent again?" (p. 152)
Those two quotes are from The Accidental, a book by Ali Smith. They've been nagging at me ever since I read them.
They remind me of a quote I read many years ago about environmental knowledge. (I thought it was by Aldo Leopold, but I've reread Sand County Almanac lately and I was unable to find it there.) That remembered quote, roughly paraphrased, spoke about how a person who understood how the world worked ecologically would be living "in a world of wounds" invisible to others as they watched how most people treated the natural world.
I've often thought of that quote. Just this week, I've felt flayed as I came upon a cruelly shorn thicket of sunflowers that had enlivened our nearby creekside, reduced to 3" tall stubble, then shuddered as the neighbor later boasted to me about mowing it down because now "it looks so much better." That thicket was providing shelter and food for birds and other animals, as well as holding soil in place along the creekbank. Now it's a barren eyesore. Also this week, I've cringed as I've watched the local farmers plowing their bone dry, black-earthed fields in 30 mph winds. I've driven through the resulting dark clouds of topsoil, barely able to see through to the road ahead. The rich topsoil that feeds us, that took eons to form, is being carried skyward and eventually will be washed out to the Gulf of Mexico where it will join the dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi. In this day and age of agricultural knowledge, surely these farmers know better than to treat their land this way. Surely they realize their farm's fertility is blowing away with that soil.
Are these people "innocent" because they refuse to learn about the environment or to accept the longterm consequences of what they are doing?
I don't think so. But while I don't think they can be absolved of their guilt, I can also understand their desire to try to remain ignorant.
So many times, knowledge hurts. Because of that knowledge, you become aware of a wound that you weren't aware of before. You feel like you should act, but what should you do? You are just one person and these are big problems. Now, suddenly, because of this new knowledge, you are different than the people around you, which causes more pain.
No wonder so many people choose willful ignorance over knowledge. They are trying to avoid pain, and that's a very human thing to do.
However, as I've learned the hard way so many times, trying to avoid a problem through running away from it only makes the problem worse. And eventually the pain will be that much worse too, because avoiding the problem only means that you lose the opportunity to solve it or that the problem becomes much worse before you're forced to acknowledge and solve it anyway.
Knowledge and pain. I always believed that "knowledge will set you free," that knowledge was a good thing, that it was desireable, that it was something that would make your life better.
I still believe that knowledge is good and that it will set you free. Now, though, I also realize that sometimes you have to work through a lot of pain to earn the freedom that knowledge promised.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
A Brief Balance of Light and Dark
Today is the autumnal equinox. The light of daytime and the dark of nighttime are balanced for a brief moment, with the dark poised to take the lead for the next 6 months.
And so the seasons pass.
I can feel the changes in the natural world outside. Although the temperatures are still summer-like, there is a sense of winding down. The daily locust chorus is growing quieter by the day. Trees are starting to lose their leaves, the monarchs are beginning to aim southward in their daily flights, and it's suddenly rare to find a germinating plant. The sunflowers are past their prime; each morning when I walk, I see a few more brown, rayless disks and a few less bright yellow, fresh blooms.
Everytime I go outdoors for the next few months, the increasingly less subtle message will be, "Winter will be here soon." The summer birds will be leaving, and the winter birds will be arriving. Green will be disappearing as the fall colors, and eventually winter brown, predominate. The temperatures will finally break, and cold autumn winds and rain begin.
Despite the foreshadowing of hard times ahead, I've always loved the fall, with its cool, crisp air and bright blue days. It's an invigorating time of year, with rich harvests yet a promise of quiet winter reflection.
I'm beginning to feel a correlation between this season and my time of life. Springtime is behind me. Summer is disappearing too. Now my life is full of rich harvests that are beginning to lead me towards quiet reflection. Family, friends, experiences, interests, memories - a potpourri of patches that I'm feeling the urge to stitch together into a velvety, idiosyncratic crazy quilt I can share with others. Hopefully it will help keep them warm during the cold times that return with seasonal regularity.
I know it will help me find the pattern to my days.
Light and dark, balanced.
And so the cycle of life goes on.
And so the seasons pass.
I can feel the changes in the natural world outside. Although the temperatures are still summer-like, there is a sense of winding down. The daily locust chorus is growing quieter by the day. Trees are starting to lose their leaves, the monarchs are beginning to aim southward in their daily flights, and it's suddenly rare to find a germinating plant. The sunflowers are past their prime; each morning when I walk, I see a few more brown, rayless disks and a few less bright yellow, fresh blooms.
Everytime I go outdoors for the next few months, the increasingly less subtle message will be, "Winter will be here soon." The summer birds will be leaving, and the winter birds will be arriving. Green will be disappearing as the fall colors, and eventually winter brown, predominate. The temperatures will finally break, and cold autumn winds and rain begin.
Despite the foreshadowing of hard times ahead, I've always loved the fall, with its cool, crisp air and bright blue days. It's an invigorating time of year, with rich harvests yet a promise of quiet winter reflection.
I'm beginning to feel a correlation between this season and my time of life. Springtime is behind me. Summer is disappearing too. Now my life is full of rich harvests that are beginning to lead me towards quiet reflection. Family, friends, experiences, interests, memories - a potpourri of patches that I'm feeling the urge to stitch together into a velvety, idiosyncratic crazy quilt I can share with others. Hopefully it will help keep them warm during the cold times that return with seasonal regularity.
I know it will help me find the pattern to my days.
Light and dark, balanced.
And so the cycle of life goes on.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Is Our Democratic Experiment Failing?
I woke up this weekend feeling a need to share a growing concern of mine. Events conspired to keep me from writing the piece when it was dominating my thoughts, but this morning I have the time to try to capture it coherently enough to share it on this blog.
Is our country, our grand democratic experiment, failing? Increasingly, I'm afraid that it is.
At the risk of sounding paranoid, I feel like our country is under attack. Not from the usual bogeymen touted (if I hear Bush make about one more "fear-mongering speech"about terrorists, I'll scream), but from super-rich corporate moguls. Terrorists may kill a few of us, but we are systematically beginning to allow many of us to kill ourselves and each other.
Our country's government is one of the few entities left in this world that has the power and clout to restrain corporate greed and make the large corporations and super-rich individuals police themselves and watch out for the well-being of the average person. As a country, we've put regulations and restrictions in place because we've had to, after corporations or individuals have gotten so greedy that they put their own profit-making above other people's lives and health.
All of that is now in jeopardy. Regulations are under direct frontal attack, and have been for years.
Even more disturbingly to me, our country's government is being systematically weakened by being overburdened by debt, underfunded, and chronically maligned. Many branches of our government are now so poorly staffed and funded that they barely function, yet the mantra is always, "No new taxes," and "Make government smaller." After all of this time in Iraq, our military is almost broken too.
The government is nothing more than the citizenry itself, acting collectively, paying a few individuals to do jobs that need to be done but that don't generate money in and of themselves. WE, as citizens, ARE THE GOVERNMENT. It is acting on OUR behalf. If it is failing, it is because we are letting it fail.
Who will benefit from our government falling apart? Not us "average Joe citizens," for sure. But corporations will. They already are. They are becoming increasingly free to pay slave wages, thoughtlessly pollute, produce defective and deficient products, and make obscene profits. The elite who run the biggest of these corporations are rapidly becoming global citizens who are above any country's laws and who are so rich and powerful that they can literally control what people all over the world hear about and discuss.
What will it take to wake our country's citizens up enough to pay attention and take control of their own government again? It's time to quit listening to 30 second sound bites touting "moral values" and to pay attention to what our leaders are actually doing and who they are actually taking care of.
If we don't actually take the time and energy to act as citizens and hold our leaders accountable for their actions, we will end up losing our democracy. Most of us will become powerless, exploited and underpaid serfs whose labors will benefit the new economic aristocracy.
This is beginning to happen already. The time has come to act, if we want to nip this backslide in the bud. Let's live up to our country's ideals and take back the control of this country, putting it once again into the hands of an active, educated, democratic citizenry.
Is our country, our grand democratic experiment, failing? Increasingly, I'm afraid that it is.
At the risk of sounding paranoid, I feel like our country is under attack. Not from the usual bogeymen touted (if I hear Bush make about one more "fear-mongering speech"about terrorists, I'll scream), but from super-rich corporate moguls. Terrorists may kill a few of us, but we are systematically beginning to allow many of us to kill ourselves and each other.
Our country's government is one of the few entities left in this world that has the power and clout to restrain corporate greed and make the large corporations and super-rich individuals police themselves and watch out for the well-being of the average person. As a country, we've put regulations and restrictions in place because we've had to, after corporations or individuals have gotten so greedy that they put their own profit-making above other people's lives and health.
All of that is now in jeopardy. Regulations are under direct frontal attack, and have been for years.
Even more disturbingly to me, our country's government is being systematically weakened by being overburdened by debt, underfunded, and chronically maligned. Many branches of our government are now so poorly staffed and funded that they barely function, yet the mantra is always, "No new taxes," and "Make government smaller." After all of this time in Iraq, our military is almost broken too.
The government is nothing more than the citizenry itself, acting collectively, paying a few individuals to do jobs that need to be done but that don't generate money in and of themselves. WE, as citizens, ARE THE GOVERNMENT. It is acting on OUR behalf. If it is failing, it is because we are letting it fail.
Who will benefit from our government falling apart? Not us "average Joe citizens," for sure. But corporations will. They already are. They are becoming increasingly free to pay slave wages, thoughtlessly pollute, produce defective and deficient products, and make obscene profits. The elite who run the biggest of these corporations are rapidly becoming global citizens who are above any country's laws and who are so rich and powerful that they can literally control what people all over the world hear about and discuss.
What will it take to wake our country's citizens up enough to pay attention and take control of their own government again? It's time to quit listening to 30 second sound bites touting "moral values" and to pay attention to what our leaders are actually doing and who they are actually taking care of.
If we don't actually take the time and energy to act as citizens and hold our leaders accountable for their actions, we will end up losing our democracy. Most of us will become powerless, exploited and underpaid serfs whose labors will benefit the new economic aristocracy.
This is beginning to happen already. The time has come to act, if we want to nip this backslide in the bud. Let's live up to our country's ideals and take back the control of this country, putting it once again into the hands of an active, educated, democratic citizenry.
The World Moves On
I have to laugh. I was born in 1956 and most of the time I trundle along without thinking of my age very much. Like most of us, internally I feel pretty timeless, and if my body occasionally reminds me that I'm actually not...well, I can usually shrug that off pretty easily.
Over the past couple of days, though, I've noticed two news articles that have slapped me upside the head and let me know that the rest of society may not view me as quite as timelessly as I view myself.
The first was an internet piece, the annual Beloit College "Mindset Piece" (http://www.beloit.edu/~pubaff/mindset/), which I saw posted on another blog. For the past several years, this piece has been written to help profs realize what this year's incoming college freshmen have and haven't experienced (based on their age) in their lives. It's always interesting, but for some reason it hit me this year that MY children would find this list interesting and, if they were teaching, might need to refer to it to be able to relate to that age group. After all, this year's incoming freshmen were born in 1989, by which time my kids were already 8 and 10!
The second item bursting my "timeless" bubble was in today's paper. Apparently American Girls is coming out with a new historical era doll this month, Julie, created as a 9 year old girl living in San Francisco during 1974. Ouch. In 1974 I was already 18; I was actually 9 in 1965. Evidently that makes me REALLY historical.
Oh, well, as they say, "It's better than the alternative."
Like so many people, I must say that I actually like being older. I generally feel much more self confident and comfortable with myself than I did when I was younger. Life has only gotten more interesting, too. When I can ignore our cultural bias against midlife and older individuals, I'm happy to be where I am.
So bring on the historical references, World. I wouldn't want to have missed my life's experiences for anything, and I'm proud to have survived this long.
Over the past couple of days, though, I've noticed two news articles that have slapped me upside the head and let me know that the rest of society may not view me as quite as timelessly as I view myself.
The first was an internet piece, the annual Beloit College "Mindset Piece" (http://www.beloit.edu/~pubaff/mindset/), which I saw posted on another blog. For the past several years, this piece has been written to help profs realize what this year's incoming college freshmen have and haven't experienced (based on their age) in their lives. It's always interesting, but for some reason it hit me this year that MY children would find this list interesting and, if they were teaching, might need to refer to it to be able to relate to that age group. After all, this year's incoming freshmen were born in 1989, by which time my kids were already 8 and 10!
The second item bursting my "timeless" bubble was in today's paper. Apparently American Girls is coming out with a new historical era doll this month, Julie, created as a 9 year old girl living in San Francisco during 1974. Ouch. In 1974 I was already 18; I was actually 9 in 1965. Evidently that makes me REALLY historical.
Oh, well, as they say, "It's better than the alternative."
Like so many people, I must say that I actually like being older. I generally feel much more self confident and comfortable with myself than I did when I was younger. Life has only gotten more interesting, too. When I can ignore our cultural bias against midlife and older individuals, I'm happy to be where I am.
So bring on the historical references, World. I wouldn't want to have missed my life's experiences for anything, and I'm proud to have survived this long.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Sunflower Season
Driving through the countryside, I see billows of bright yellow suns with chocolate centers nodding at me in the wind.
The golden disks and rich green foliage soften ugly chainlink fences, skirt the bottom of most telephone poles, lace the edges of fields, and drift in fencerows alongside the roads.
In the morning, they're straining eastward, drinking in the rising sun. By mid-day they're looking southward, sunny faces reflecting the noonday sun. In the evening, they're facing westward, bidding farewell as the sun sets.
I love the abundance and the cheerfulness of their extravagant display. I fantasize about gathering big bouquets of them for the kitchen table...but restrain myself when I think of all the bird seed that I'd be cutting out of existence. Then I fantasize again about the flocks of goldfinch that will be clinging to them later this fall, gorging on the nutritious seeds, enriching the roadsides yet again.
They say that Kansas is a drab state. "They" have obviously never been here during sunflower season.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Did I Miss a Timewarp to 1904?
The "humans vs. the rest of life" war had another skirmish in Logan County, Kansas, recently.
Logan County officials apparently used a 1904 state law to justify coming onto a rancher's land, over his protests, and using an extremely toxic gas to poison prairie dogs and all the other animals that live in their burrows. To add insult to injury, the law allows them to make the landowner pay for this assault against him and his property.
This is wrong on so many levels that I don't know where to begin.
Science has learned a little since 1904. We know now that prairie dogs are actually healthy for a prairie, a "keystone species" in fact. Their burrows not only aerate the soil and increase water penetration during rains, they provide habitat for countless other prairie animals whose numbers have declined precipitously since wholesale destruction of prairie dog colonies began. Ironically, some of those burrow co-inhabitants are also the predators that work to keep the prairie dog populations stable and under control.
Since 1904, we've learned that "playing God" and deciding to take out entire sections of the ecosystem often backfires on us and leaves us with a less stable, less productive, poorer piece of land on which to live and try to eke out a living. Ironically, since 1904, we've also become much better at destructively playing God. We can do a lot more damage in a much shorter period of time than we ever imagined back in 1904. Those of us who realize that it's not 1904 anymore are trying to be more careful in utilizing our destructive power.
Slowly we are learning that poisoning other living things poisons us too. If it's a "-cide" (pesticide, herbicide, insecticide, etc.), that means it's a life killer. That's what "-cide" means. Last time I checked, humans were alive...and we generally prefer to stay that way. When we use "-cide"s against other life forms, we are slowly killing ourselves too.
We like to think that we are smarter - and therefore better - than the rest of the animals. And I think that we can be...I just don't think that we act that way very often. We actually only transcend being animals when we use our brains to act smarter than a typical animal would act. If we've learned through scientific research that, longterm, prairie dogs are important to the health of our land and the animal community that lives on it (which we have), then we are acting like animals, not humans, when we ignore what we've learned and poison off prairie dogs for perceived short-term gain.
As humans, we have the capacity to look at longterm consequences and big pictures. To act like humans, we need to take those longterm consequences and big picture realizations into account in our actions. If , on a wholesale scale, we kill off the rest of life that is competing with us for food or water, we have learned that we will, sooner or later, kill off ourselves. A little killing is often necessary and a part of life; wholesale killing is stupid and short-sighted. Balance, as always, is the key.
It's time to realize that if we think of the natural world as the enemy to be vanquished, we will kill ourselves off too. The war isn't "humans vs. the rest of life." The war is "humans vs. human greed."
For our own sake, it's time to learn how to live in balance with the rest of nature.
Logan County officials apparently used a 1904 state law to justify coming onto a rancher's land, over his protests, and using an extremely toxic gas to poison prairie dogs and all the other animals that live in their burrows. To add insult to injury, the law allows them to make the landowner pay for this assault against him and his property.
This is wrong on so many levels that I don't know where to begin.
Science has learned a little since 1904. We know now that prairie dogs are actually healthy for a prairie, a "keystone species" in fact. Their burrows not only aerate the soil and increase water penetration during rains, they provide habitat for countless other prairie animals whose numbers have declined precipitously since wholesale destruction of prairie dog colonies began. Ironically, some of those burrow co-inhabitants are also the predators that work to keep the prairie dog populations stable and under control.
Since 1904, we've learned that "playing God" and deciding to take out entire sections of the ecosystem often backfires on us and leaves us with a less stable, less productive, poorer piece of land on which to live and try to eke out a living. Ironically, since 1904, we've also become much better at destructively playing God. We can do a lot more damage in a much shorter period of time than we ever imagined back in 1904. Those of us who realize that it's not 1904 anymore are trying to be more careful in utilizing our destructive power.
Slowly we are learning that poisoning other living things poisons us too. If it's a "-cide" (pesticide, herbicide, insecticide, etc.), that means it's a life killer. That's what "-cide" means. Last time I checked, humans were alive...and we generally prefer to stay that way. When we use "-cide"s against other life forms, we are slowly killing ourselves too.
We like to think that we are smarter - and therefore better - than the rest of the animals. And I think that we can be...I just don't think that we act that way very often. We actually only transcend being animals when we use our brains to act smarter than a typical animal would act. If we've learned through scientific research that, longterm, prairie dogs are important to the health of our land and the animal community that lives on it (which we have), then we are acting like animals, not humans, when we ignore what we've learned and poison off prairie dogs for perceived short-term gain.
As humans, we have the capacity to look at longterm consequences and big pictures. To act like humans, we need to take those longterm consequences and big picture realizations into account in our actions. If , on a wholesale scale, we kill off the rest of life that is competing with us for food or water, we have learned that we will, sooner or later, kill off ourselves. A little killing is often necessary and a part of life; wholesale killing is stupid and short-sighted. Balance, as always, is the key.
It's time to realize that if we think of the natural world as the enemy to be vanquished, we will kill ourselves off too. The war isn't "humans vs. the rest of life." The war is "humans vs. human greed."
For our own sake, it's time to learn how to live in balance with the rest of nature.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Trying to Fathom Fate
By the time you get to my age (51), you realize that life is full of fate. Sometimes fate seems good to you, sometimes it seems bad, and most of the time you careen off it or around it, not really knowing whether it's your friend or your enemy until time and events can give you some perspective.
There are lots of sayings about fate and changing your fate. "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade," springs quickly to mind. Some people seems to be "born under a lucky star," while others "have a black cloud hanging over them." "I turned the corner, and there she was." Cliches abound, as they always do about such an important and universal subject.
Overall though, I guess I have to admit that, many times in my life, seemingly negative fateful events turn out to have been extremely positive when viewed in my "20/20 retroscope". I remember, for example, the first apartment Prairiewolf and I tried to rent just before we got married. It was a duplex whose "rent" included helping to care for the owner, an older woman who lived in the other half of the duplex and who, within the hour of receiving it, took my deposit check immediately to my bank to cash it. I was getting my paycheck at work later that same morning and so, at lunch, immediately took my pay over to the bank to cover the deposit check I'd written earlier...by which time our landlady-to-be had already tried to cash my check and been told there were insufficient funds. I was devastated and embarrassed, and I called the woman up to try to explain the events to her, but she was adamant - we could not have the duplex. It felt like my world had dropped out from under me, as we were having a very hard time finding an affordable and decent place to live. I learned several useful lessons that day, but looking back I'm also very glad we started out our married life without a nosy, unforgiving woman who expected me to cook and clean for her living right next door.
So why am I focused on fate - and early events of PW's and my relationship - this morning? I just got news from our son about fate taking a definitive hand in his life. Like so many fateful events, it looks pretty black from his current perspective and my heart sinks for him, but I'm hoping that it will turn out to be a lemon event from which he can squeeze some form of lemonade. For better or for worse, only time will tell.
There are lots of sayings about fate and changing your fate. "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade," springs quickly to mind. Some people seems to be "born under a lucky star," while others "have a black cloud hanging over them." "I turned the corner, and there she was." Cliches abound, as they always do about such an important and universal subject.
Overall though, I guess I have to admit that, many times in my life, seemingly negative fateful events turn out to have been extremely positive when viewed in my "20/20 retroscope". I remember, for example, the first apartment Prairiewolf and I tried to rent just before we got married. It was a duplex whose "rent" included helping to care for the owner, an older woman who lived in the other half of the duplex and who, within the hour of receiving it, took my deposit check immediately to my bank to cash it. I was getting my paycheck at work later that same morning and so, at lunch, immediately took my pay over to the bank to cover the deposit check I'd written earlier...by which time our landlady-to-be had already tried to cash my check and been told there were insufficient funds. I was devastated and embarrassed, and I called the woman up to try to explain the events to her, but she was adamant - we could not have the duplex. It felt like my world had dropped out from under me, as we were having a very hard time finding an affordable and decent place to live. I learned several useful lessons that day, but looking back I'm also very glad we started out our married life without a nosy, unforgiving woman who expected me to cook and clean for her living right next door.
So why am I focused on fate - and early events of PW's and my relationship - this morning? I just got news from our son about fate taking a definitive hand in his life. Like so many fateful events, it looks pretty black from his current perspective and my heart sinks for him, but I'm hoping that it will turn out to be a lemon event from which he can squeeze some form of lemonade. For better or for worse, only time will tell.
Rush Hour in the Country
During the hot weather, I've been trying to do my walking first thing in the morning, after Prairiewolf leaves. Not only does this start my day out productively and keep me from procrastinating exercise out of my daily schedule, it's also generally the coolest part of the day.
Before school started, only a few cars would pass me each morning. Now that the academic year has begun, there's been a marked increase in traffic.
That said, I sure am glad that I live in the country. (Visiting K.C. recently reaffirmed that.) This morning, my "busy rush hour" consisted of a bakers' dozen vehicles - 12 cars/pick-up trucks and 1 true truck - passing me during the course of my 35-40 minute walk. It doesn't seem like very many, but they are still amazingly distracting.
Given that I can hear each vehicle from well over a mile away, one of the main distractions they create is road noise. On the plus side, in between each vehicle's passing I get to listen to the sounds of the wind rustling through the grass and the birds and insects calling from the fields and hedgerows.
As I walked this morning, I wondered if it would be possible to locate the place and season of a recording just based upon the natural sounds of that location. I know that listening to certain songs can temporarily transport me back in time to a different time and place. Could I get good enough at hearing the sounds of nature that listening to a recording of those natural sounds would transport me mentally to where and when that recording was made?
It's funny: country life is considered so "quiet", but it can actually be quite noisy. Think of cicadas singing on a summer afternoon, or coyotes howling at night. There's a great little scene in My Cousin Vinny where city boy Vinny actually can't sleep in a cabin in the woods because of all the strange noises he hears. He doesn't get a good night's sleep until he finds a bed in the local jail, where bells, whistles and the sounds of people surround him all night long.
Out here, the natural noises usually relax me, but even the slightest human noise seems jarring and out of place: the neighbors' talking across the road, the car humming on the pavement a mile or more away, the plane flying overhead, the refrigerator motor kicking on in the kitchen as I write, the whir of the computer fan.
At the same time, through the open window I hear at least 3 different kinds of insects (grasshoppers? crickets? cicadas for sure) singing. If I concentrate on just those songs, my mind quiets and my entire body relaxes. I feel at peace.
I've set myself the task of learning to identify as many of these natural songs as I can. Maybe someday I truly will be able to locate myself solely through natural sounds, and meanwhile I'll enjoy picturing the singer as I listen peacefully to the song.
Before school started, only a few cars would pass me each morning. Now that the academic year has begun, there's been a marked increase in traffic.
That said, I sure am glad that I live in the country. (Visiting K.C. recently reaffirmed that.) This morning, my "busy rush hour" consisted of a bakers' dozen vehicles - 12 cars/pick-up trucks and 1 true truck - passing me during the course of my 35-40 minute walk. It doesn't seem like very many, but they are still amazingly distracting.
Given that I can hear each vehicle from well over a mile away, one of the main distractions they create is road noise. On the plus side, in between each vehicle's passing I get to listen to the sounds of the wind rustling through the grass and the birds and insects calling from the fields and hedgerows.
As I walked this morning, I wondered if it would be possible to locate the place and season of a recording just based upon the natural sounds of that location. I know that listening to certain songs can temporarily transport me back in time to a different time and place. Could I get good enough at hearing the sounds of nature that listening to a recording of those natural sounds would transport me mentally to where and when that recording was made?
It's funny: country life is considered so "quiet", but it can actually be quite noisy. Think of cicadas singing on a summer afternoon, or coyotes howling at night. There's a great little scene in My Cousin Vinny where city boy Vinny actually can't sleep in a cabin in the woods because of all the strange noises he hears. He doesn't get a good night's sleep until he finds a bed in the local jail, where bells, whistles and the sounds of people surround him all night long.
Out here, the natural noises usually relax me, but even the slightest human noise seems jarring and out of place: the neighbors' talking across the road, the car humming on the pavement a mile or more away, the plane flying overhead, the refrigerator motor kicking on in the kitchen as I write, the whir of the computer fan.
At the same time, through the open window I hear at least 3 different kinds of insects (grasshoppers? crickets? cicadas for sure) singing. If I concentrate on just those songs, my mind quiets and my entire body relaxes. I feel at peace.
I've set myself the task of learning to identify as many of these natural songs as I can. Maybe someday I truly will be able to locate myself solely through natural sounds, and meanwhile I'll enjoy picturing the singer as I listen peacefully to the song.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Waterfire and Reconnections
Prairiewolf and I just got back from a wonderful weekend in Kansas City, reconnecting with old friends and making new ones. It was PW's 25th class reunion and we had a "date" with one particular couple of good friends who live half a continent away. We had a great time with them and, as a bonus, we ended up reconnecting with several other old friends and acquaintances as well. There actually weren't very many of us that showed up altogether, but those of us who did seemed to have a great time.
My biggest regret, besides the fact that I don't look like I did 25 years ago, was that I didn't get to know some of these folks better back then.
The reunion, however, is only the backdrop for the main subject of this post.
Serendipitously, while we were there, Kansas City staged a new event called Waterfire. This was held Saturday night on Brush Creek as it winds through the Country Club Plaza.
Picture this:
Floating bonfires swaying down the center of the creek, stationed every 50 feet or so, their vivid orange flames reflecting boldly off the smooth dark water just below them. They form a brilliant living chain that twists down the backbone of the creek.
Smoke drifting through the air, cool breezes intermixing with sudden blasts of heat from the nearby fires.
Music filling the night, broadcast from large, well-placed (but unobtrusive) speakers. Classical arias are followed by African chants or celtic melodies, followed by chamber music or jazz. Every so often the recorded music is replaced by a spotlight shining on a classical singer, who sings from his or her heart, poised on the edge of one of the bridges traversing the creek.
The crowd meandering up and down the creek, some staying above on the roads and bridges, others venturing to walk along the creek, with still others resting on the steep, grassy slopes. Occasionally a member of the Vesuvius fire troupe performs amid the people, juggling blazing batons or breathing fire high into the air.
Sounds of laughter and talking interspersing with applause and sometimes just with awed pockets of silence.
It was a mystical evening, capping off a magical weekend.
A friendly stranger, leaning beside me on a bridge railing, avidly watching the fires and the crowd too, mentioned that they were repeating the event on October 13. I haven't verified that fact but if they do, I'd prescribe attendance for anyone who could use an evening's antidote to the humdrum ordinariness of everyday life.
My biggest regret, besides the fact that I don't look like I did 25 years ago, was that I didn't get to know some of these folks better back then.
The reunion, however, is only the backdrop for the main subject of this post.
Serendipitously, while we were there, Kansas City staged a new event called Waterfire. This was held Saturday night on Brush Creek as it winds through the Country Club Plaza.
Picture this:
Floating bonfires swaying down the center of the creek, stationed every 50 feet or so, their vivid orange flames reflecting boldly off the smooth dark water just below them. They form a brilliant living chain that twists down the backbone of the creek.
Smoke drifting through the air, cool breezes intermixing with sudden blasts of heat from the nearby fires.
Music filling the night, broadcast from large, well-placed (but unobtrusive) speakers. Classical arias are followed by African chants or celtic melodies, followed by chamber music or jazz. Every so often the recorded music is replaced by a spotlight shining on a classical singer, who sings from his or her heart, poised on the edge of one of the bridges traversing the creek.
The crowd meandering up and down the creek, some staying above on the roads and bridges, others venturing to walk along the creek, with still others resting on the steep, grassy slopes. Occasionally a member of the Vesuvius fire troupe performs amid the people, juggling blazing batons or breathing fire high into the air.
Sounds of laughter and talking interspersing with applause and sometimes just with awed pockets of silence.
It was a mystical evening, capping off a magical weekend.
A friendly stranger, leaning beside me on a bridge railing, avidly watching the fires and the crowd too, mentioned that they were repeating the event on October 13. I haven't verified that fact but if they do, I'd prescribe attendance for anyone who could use an evening's antidote to the humdrum ordinariness of everyday life.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Mourning for Roadside Losses
The mowers came yesterday.
As I walk in the morning or drive at any time of day, I enjoy looking at the ever-changing array of plants in the ditches: Illinois bundleflower, big bluestem, silver bluestem, eastern gamagrass, sunflowers, catsclaw sensitive briar, prairie petunia, and many, many more. It's a small tapestry of prairie plants, complete with food and cover for pheasant, quail and many other types of wildlife.
The mowers came yesterday.
Now all I have to look at up close is stubble. Boring, ugly stubble.
At least they waited until nesting season was done.
I worry about the wildlife anyway. At this point in the agricultural cycle, the farmers are all discing their fields, so all of those thousands of acres are being converted back to bare dirt. And now, to add insult to injury, the sanctuary of the roadsides, those narrow bands of habitat that stretch for miles and miles, has been reduced to 4" tall monotony. It's hard to hide from a hawk in 4" of cover.
I know the standard rationale:
"It looks neater this way." (Stubble with exposed trash? Thank you, but no thank you. That may be your idea of better looking, but it sure isn't mine.)
"It's a safety issue. This way cars can get off the road if they break down." (Grass doesn't keep a car from pulling off the road if necessary. And a steep ditch slope will keep someone on the road, whether the grass has been mowed or not. Last but not least, on most of the county roads around here, you can see for miles and there's little traffic, so pulling to the side of the road is all that's needed for safety's sake.)
"If we don't mow, the woody vegetation will grow up and become a problem." (Only one side of the road could be mowed each year, leaving 50% of the habitat available, and reducing mowing costs by 50%. Or, mowing could be delayed until early spring as things start to green up, before nesting occurs. That would leave cover and food for wildlife over the winter, but still set back the woody vegetation.)
"The roadsides are a source of weeds for the farm fields." (If the roadsides are left less disturbed, it allows perennials to dominate there. Most weeds are actually annuals that thrive in disturbed soil and produce massive quantities of seeds, ready to move in and colonize open soil. Annuals can't compete against established perennials, though. And perennials produce many fewer seeds, usually taking years to become well established. So, ironically, disturbing the soil and setting back perennial growth actually increases the weedy plants available to colonize the crop fields.)
I know I'm a lone voice railing against established precedent on this issue, but I'm tired of the tyranny of the "neatnik" crowd. "Neat" isn't always better or healthier, sometimes it's just boring and wasteful. To my mind, this is one of those times.
As I walk in the morning or drive at any time of day, I enjoy looking at the ever-changing array of plants in the ditches: Illinois bundleflower, big bluestem, silver bluestem, eastern gamagrass, sunflowers, catsclaw sensitive briar, prairie petunia, and many, many more. It's a small tapestry of prairie plants, complete with food and cover for pheasant, quail and many other types of wildlife.
The mowers came yesterday.
Now all I have to look at up close is stubble. Boring, ugly stubble.
At least they waited until nesting season was done.
I worry about the wildlife anyway. At this point in the agricultural cycle, the farmers are all discing their fields, so all of those thousands of acres are being converted back to bare dirt. And now, to add insult to injury, the sanctuary of the roadsides, those narrow bands of habitat that stretch for miles and miles, has been reduced to 4" tall monotony. It's hard to hide from a hawk in 4" of cover.
I know the standard rationale:
"It looks neater this way." (Stubble with exposed trash? Thank you, but no thank you. That may be your idea of better looking, but it sure isn't mine.)
"It's a safety issue. This way cars can get off the road if they break down." (Grass doesn't keep a car from pulling off the road if necessary. And a steep ditch slope will keep someone on the road, whether the grass has been mowed or not. Last but not least, on most of the county roads around here, you can see for miles and there's little traffic, so pulling to the side of the road is all that's needed for safety's sake.)
"If we don't mow, the woody vegetation will grow up and become a problem." (Only one side of the road could be mowed each year, leaving 50% of the habitat available, and reducing mowing costs by 50%. Or, mowing could be delayed until early spring as things start to green up, before nesting occurs. That would leave cover and food for wildlife over the winter, but still set back the woody vegetation.)
"The roadsides are a source of weeds for the farm fields." (If the roadsides are left less disturbed, it allows perennials to dominate there. Most weeds are actually annuals that thrive in disturbed soil and produce massive quantities of seeds, ready to move in and colonize open soil. Annuals can't compete against established perennials, though. And perennials produce many fewer seeds, usually taking years to become well established. So, ironically, disturbing the soil and setting back perennial growth actually increases the weedy plants available to colonize the crop fields.)
I know I'm a lone voice railing against established precedent on this issue, but I'm tired of the tyranny of the "neatnik" crowd. "Neat" isn't always better or healthier, sometimes it's just boring and wasteful. To my mind, this is one of those times.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato Squash
I have found a real keeper for our garden line up!
Prairiewolf and I started using heirloom varieties of many vegetables over 10 years ago, in Mayetta, Kansas, after learning about how rapidly these interesting, locally adapted, non-hybrid varieties were disappearing. Tomatoes were our favorites, but we've tried a wide variety of heirlooms over the years.
We didn't really grow vegetables in Mobile, both because the weather was extremely hot and humid and because we didn't really have a good, sunny spot where vegetables could thrive.
So this year, after moving back to Kansas, we found ourselves really excited about putting in a vegetable garden again. Even though we started our garden extremely late and didn't put in a very big one, it seemed important to incorporate at least a few heirlooms.
So we put in 3 different kinds of squash: spaghetti squash (my personal favorite from the grocery store), delicata or sweet dumpling squash (written up as one of the sweetest squash - seemed like a good one to try!), and Thelma Sanders sweet potato squash. The sweet potato squash had two things going for it: I couldn't resist the name, and it came from a woman in Adair County, Missouri, which seemed reasonably close to Kansas agriculturally.
The spaghetti squash wilted away with the first squash bug. All 3 plants, even though several young squash had set already and I got after the squash bugs right away.
Only one delicata squash came up, and it looked very healthy for most of the summer, but it never set any fruit. Finally, when I let my watering and squash bug patrol slip for a couple weeks during a combination of horribly hot weather and a family reunion, it succumbed.
The Thelma Sanders sweet potato squash, however, took everything that this Kansas summer could dish out and thrived on it. With 2 vines coming up in the single hill we planted, I've got at least a dozen fruit maturing and the vines are scrambling throughout the raised bed, in the path, under the basil, through the real sweet potatoes, and generally running rampant. Based on squash vines winding through the garden, you can't tell anymore that all the other squash plants croaked.
Besides watering, my only care has been to try to control the squash bugs organically. (That translates, for me, as picking off squash bug eggs, crushing nymphs, and drowning adults in soapy water. It's a gross activity to have to do, but it feels better to me than spraying or sprinkling pesticides.) Obviously, I've been in a holding pattern, not trying to wipe out the little beasts.
This morning, when I picked up a couple of the fruits, 2 of them easily came off the stem, so I took that as a sign that they were ripe.
I fixed the first one for dinner tonight...and it was great. Size-wise, they are rather like a small acorn squash, and the texture of their flesh is very similar too. I baked them with butter, the same way I usually fix acorn squash. The taste is a little different, but it was excellent. Using them up is going to be no problem at all.
I am really excited about finding this great variety: hardy, prolific and tasty. And it's got a great name. I couldn't ask for anything more.
Prairiewolf and I started using heirloom varieties of many vegetables over 10 years ago, in Mayetta, Kansas, after learning about how rapidly these interesting, locally adapted, non-hybrid varieties were disappearing. Tomatoes were our favorites, but we've tried a wide variety of heirlooms over the years.
We didn't really grow vegetables in Mobile, both because the weather was extremely hot and humid and because we didn't really have a good, sunny spot where vegetables could thrive.
So this year, after moving back to Kansas, we found ourselves really excited about putting in a vegetable garden again. Even though we started our garden extremely late and didn't put in a very big one, it seemed important to incorporate at least a few heirlooms.
So we put in 3 different kinds of squash: spaghetti squash (my personal favorite from the grocery store), delicata or sweet dumpling squash (written up as one of the sweetest squash - seemed like a good one to try!), and Thelma Sanders sweet potato squash. The sweet potato squash had two things going for it: I couldn't resist the name, and it came from a woman in Adair County, Missouri, which seemed reasonably close to Kansas agriculturally.
The spaghetti squash wilted away with the first squash bug. All 3 plants, even though several young squash had set already and I got after the squash bugs right away.
Only one delicata squash came up, and it looked very healthy for most of the summer, but it never set any fruit. Finally, when I let my watering and squash bug patrol slip for a couple weeks during a combination of horribly hot weather and a family reunion, it succumbed.
The Thelma Sanders sweet potato squash, however, took everything that this Kansas summer could dish out and thrived on it. With 2 vines coming up in the single hill we planted, I've got at least a dozen fruit maturing and the vines are scrambling throughout the raised bed, in the path, under the basil, through the real sweet potatoes, and generally running rampant. Based on squash vines winding through the garden, you can't tell anymore that all the other squash plants croaked.Besides watering, my only care has been to try to control the squash bugs organically. (That translates, for me, as picking off squash bug eggs, crushing nymphs, and drowning adults in soapy water. It's a gross activity to have to do, but it feels better to me than spraying or sprinkling pesticides.) Obviously, I've been in a holding pattern, not trying to wipe out the little beasts.
This morning, when I picked up a couple of the fruits, 2 of them easily came off the stem, so I took that as a sign that they were ripe. I fixed the first one for dinner tonight...and it was great. Size-wise, they are rather like a small acorn squash, and the texture of their flesh is very similar too. I baked them with butter, the same way I usually fix acorn squash. The taste is a little different, but it was excellent. Using them up is going to be no problem at all.
I am really excited about finding this great variety: hardy, prolific and tasty. And it's got a great name. I couldn't ask for anything more.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
The Sport of Champions?
'Tis the season for recreational mowing.
Moving back after 6 years away, I am struck by how popular this "sport" is here in Kansas.
We looked at numerous houses in the country before deciding on this one. One of our big deciding factors was that I wanted to be able to let some of the grass grow on our acreage. Unfortunately, most of the "country" acreages around here require edge-to-edge mowing that seems much more suited to a postage stamp size lot in the city than to 5 acres or more in the country.
What a waste of time and gasoline. I would think that in this day and age of $3/gallon gasoline, people could find better things to do with their money than burn it up while cutting grass and wildflowers to an unsightly and boring stubble.
Now please understand that I'm ludicrously allergic to chiggers and I therefore fully appreciate the need to have mowed grass to walk on. My compromise is to mow (or have PW mow) a winding path through our acreage. This way I get to walk chigger-free through gracefully waving grasses and colorful interesting wildflowers. Meadowlarks cling to the tops of redcedars, bobwhite quail call from our frontyard, pheasant nest in the grasses. The path becomes our personal, stress-reducing, 3-D, ever-changing nature program.
For those folks who just love to mow, I'm not trying to take all your fun away. It's always a great idea on any prairie homestead to keep a firebreak of 50-100 feet mowed around any combustible structures. That makes a nice mowed lawn around the house, barn and/or garage.
We're a prairie state. Why is everyone so scared of prairie?
Moving back after 6 years away, I am struck by how popular this "sport" is here in Kansas.
We looked at numerous houses in the country before deciding on this one. One of our big deciding factors was that I wanted to be able to let some of the grass grow on our acreage. Unfortunately, most of the "country" acreages around here require edge-to-edge mowing that seems much more suited to a postage stamp size lot in the city than to 5 acres or more in the country.
What a waste of time and gasoline. I would think that in this day and age of $3/gallon gasoline, people could find better things to do with their money than burn it up while cutting grass and wildflowers to an unsightly and boring stubble.
Now please understand that I'm ludicrously allergic to chiggers and I therefore fully appreciate the need to have mowed grass to walk on. My compromise is to mow (or have PW mow) a winding path through our acreage. This way I get to walk chigger-free through gracefully waving grasses and colorful interesting wildflowers. Meadowlarks cling to the tops of redcedars, bobwhite quail call from our frontyard, pheasant nest in the grasses. The path becomes our personal, stress-reducing, 3-D, ever-changing nature program.
For those folks who just love to mow, I'm not trying to take all your fun away. It's always a great idea on any prairie homestead to keep a firebreak of 50-100 feet mowed around any combustible structures. That makes a nice mowed lawn around the house, barn and/or garage.
We're a prairie state. Why is everyone so scared of prairie?
Friday, August 17, 2007
Meditations on Ownership
What do I own - truly own? A chance phrase I read made me start thinking about this basic concept.
According to the normal concept of the word in the United States, I "own" (in conjunction with Prairiewolf) 4 dogs and a cat, a home and 10 acres of land, many books, furniture, 2 cars and a truck, lots of clothes, and so forth.
But as I list all of that, a niggling feeling of doubt arises. Do I really own all of that? What is my real relationship with each of those beings and items?
First of all, there is the classic question: do I own these things or do they own me? Trust me, when I'm feeling the recurrent obligation to dust, vacuum, mend, and otherwise manage inanimate objects, I find myself asking whether my life belongs to me or if it doesn't truly belong to all of this stuff that we've accumulated.
That makes me want to look up the actual definition of "to own".
With some apologies to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 3rd Edition, for rather sloppily quoting their careful work, the definitions the dictionary gives are:
"belonging to oneself..."
"used to express immediate or direct kinship"
"to have or hold as property"
"to have power over"
"to acknowledge to be true, valid or as claimed".
I'd say that the third definition, with overtones of the fourth definition, comes closest to the standard concept of ownership.
I could, however, definitely say that the dogs and cat "have power over" me, and therefore own me, perhaps almost as much as I own them. (On my 10th time out the door to watch over our blind dog in the yard, it definitely feels like she has more power over me more than I have over her!)
There's another nuance here that's arising today. What is the difference between things I own...and things I really just tend? (Is "tending", for all intents and purposes, the same as "being owned by"?) PW and I technically own this house and land, but they will long outlast us and we are likely just a small part of their history. Truthfully, I think we just tend our house and land rather than truly own it, no matter what it says on the deed.
Does that mean that the house and land actually owns us?
It does feel like I truly own the books and furniture and vehicles. Yes, they exist separately from me and they may very well outlast me, but their value is chiefly the value that they have in my (our) life.
Except for the family history items. Those have a history that began before our "ownership" and that hopefully will outlast that same ownership. I'm back to being simply a "tend-er" again.
In some ways it is as simple as ownership enjoyments vs. ownership responsibilities. Saying that, anything you could actually get rid of by destroying it would be something you truly own.
Transfering responsibility and care to someone else, though, leads me back to the idea of ownership as tending.
So, for me, if I could destroy it without a qualm, I own it. If I would feel obligated to pass responsibility for it on to someone else, I am simply a tend-er.
By those standards, I own very little: some of my books (but not the good ones or the important ones); the everyday accompaniments to modern life like shampoo and cleaning supplies; clothes; cars.
But I tend a lot. Our house and land. The animals. The important books. The family history things.
I own a few things, but most of my "possessions" own me.
I'm not sure how I feel about that state of things.
According to the normal concept of the word in the United States, I "own" (in conjunction with Prairiewolf) 4 dogs and a cat, a home and 10 acres of land, many books, furniture, 2 cars and a truck, lots of clothes, and so forth.
But as I list all of that, a niggling feeling of doubt arises. Do I really own all of that? What is my real relationship with each of those beings and items?
First of all, there is the classic question: do I own these things or do they own me? Trust me, when I'm feeling the recurrent obligation to dust, vacuum, mend, and otherwise manage inanimate objects, I find myself asking whether my life belongs to me or if it doesn't truly belong to all of this stuff that we've accumulated.
That makes me want to look up the actual definition of "to own".
With some apologies to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 3rd Edition, for rather sloppily quoting their careful work, the definitions the dictionary gives are:
"belonging to oneself..."
"used to express immediate or direct kinship"
"to have or hold as property"
"to have power over"
"to acknowledge to be true, valid or as claimed".
I'd say that the third definition, with overtones of the fourth definition, comes closest to the standard concept of ownership.
I could, however, definitely say that the dogs and cat "have power over" me, and therefore own me, perhaps almost as much as I own them. (On my 10th time out the door to watch over our blind dog in the yard, it definitely feels like she has more power over me more than I have over her!)
There's another nuance here that's arising today. What is the difference between things I own...and things I really just tend? (Is "tending", for all intents and purposes, the same as "being owned by"?) PW and I technically own this house and land, but they will long outlast us and we are likely just a small part of their history. Truthfully, I think we just tend our house and land rather than truly own it, no matter what it says on the deed.
Does that mean that the house and land actually owns us?
It does feel like I truly own the books and furniture and vehicles. Yes, they exist separately from me and they may very well outlast me, but their value is chiefly the value that they have in my (our) life.
Except for the family history items. Those have a history that began before our "ownership" and that hopefully will outlast that same ownership. I'm back to being simply a "tend-er" again.
In some ways it is as simple as ownership enjoyments vs. ownership responsibilities. Saying that, anything you could actually get rid of by destroying it would be something you truly own.
Transfering responsibility and care to someone else, though, leads me back to the idea of ownership as tending.
So, for me, if I could destroy it without a qualm, I own it. If I would feel obligated to pass responsibility for it on to someone else, I am simply a tend-er.
By those standards, I own very little: some of my books (but not the good ones or the important ones); the everyday accompaniments to modern life like shampoo and cleaning supplies; clothes; cars.
But I tend a lot. Our house and land. The animals. The important books. The family history things.
I own a few things, but most of my "possessions" own me.
I'm not sure how I feel about that state of things.
Startling Statistic - Why Does It Bother Me?
As I was reading Mary Pipher's book Writing to Change the World last night, I came across a startling statistic. On page 3, she writes "Tech Tonic, a publication of the Alliance for Childhood, reports that the average American can recognize over a thousand brand names but is unable to identify ten indigenous plants or animals."
Ouch. Could that possibly be true?
Ironically, I don't question in the least that most Americans can recognize over a thousand brand names. What scares me is the thought that most Americans could not identify ten indigenous plants or animals.
(Could this be a language issue: not understanding the meaning of the word "indigenous"? If that word were defined for them by the researcher, would they then be able to come up with ten indigenous plants or animals?)
I can't imagine any Kansan over the age of 10 not being able to identify: bison, blue jay, raccoon, opossum, skunk, bald eagle, meadowlark, box turtle, (fox) squirrel, and turkey.
The plant side is harder, though. Most of the plants people can recognize are weeds...and most of those are not indigenous. (Dandelion springs immediately to mind.) By the age of 10, I'd like to see Kansans able to recognize cottonwood, red cedar, poison ivy, big bluestem, cattails, Indian grass, willows, and a couple prairie wildflowers. Knowing the grasses and wildflowers would help them know when the land they were looking at was relatively undisturbed, and it would help them learn about and understand the ecosystem that formed the landscape they live in. Recognizing cottonwood, willows and cattails would help them understand where the land they're looking at is often wet. Red cedar's the only native evergreen here. And knowing poison ivy might help keep them from inadvertently getting themselves in trouble.
Ultimately, though, I think the problem is that most people don't think understanding the land is important any more. They still "hunt and gather", but now they hunt and gather clothes and CDs and DVDs and cars and other stuff. Stuff to make themselves look powerful or important to their friends and enemies. Stuff to impress the other sex. Occasionally even stuff to help them survive.
In other words, they are still acting as animals, but now their frame of reference is divorced from the environment that actually supports them. Who needs to know plants and animals when you think that everything you need is in a store?
My gut tells me that it's important for people to be able to understand the physical world around them. That our health as living beings depends on the health of the environment we live in. And that if we have absolutely no clue how to "read" our environment, we won't take care of it... and we'll "break" it, perhaps irrevocably as far as its ability to support us.
But I wonder if I'm right to be concerned.... Maybe we really aren't living beings any more.
Ouch. Could that possibly be true?
Ironically, I don't question in the least that most Americans can recognize over a thousand brand names. What scares me is the thought that most Americans could not identify ten indigenous plants or animals.
(Could this be a language issue: not understanding the meaning of the word "indigenous"? If that word were defined for them by the researcher, would they then be able to come up with ten indigenous plants or animals?)
I can't imagine any Kansan over the age of 10 not being able to identify: bison, blue jay, raccoon, opossum, skunk, bald eagle, meadowlark, box turtle, (fox) squirrel, and turkey.
The plant side is harder, though. Most of the plants people can recognize are weeds...and most of those are not indigenous. (Dandelion springs immediately to mind.) By the age of 10, I'd like to see Kansans able to recognize cottonwood, red cedar, poison ivy, big bluestem, cattails, Indian grass, willows, and a couple prairie wildflowers. Knowing the grasses and wildflowers would help them know when the land they were looking at was relatively undisturbed, and it would help them learn about and understand the ecosystem that formed the landscape they live in. Recognizing cottonwood, willows and cattails would help them understand where the land they're looking at is often wet. Red cedar's the only native evergreen here. And knowing poison ivy might help keep them from inadvertently getting themselves in trouble.
Ultimately, though, I think the problem is that most people don't think understanding the land is important any more. They still "hunt and gather", but now they hunt and gather clothes and CDs and DVDs and cars and other stuff. Stuff to make themselves look powerful or important to their friends and enemies. Stuff to impress the other sex. Occasionally even stuff to help them survive.
In other words, they are still acting as animals, but now their frame of reference is divorced from the environment that actually supports them. Who needs to know plants and animals when you think that everything you need is in a store?
My gut tells me that it's important for people to be able to understand the physical world around them. That our health as living beings depends on the health of the environment we live in. And that if we have absolutely no clue how to "read" our environment, we won't take care of it... and we'll "break" it, perhaps irrevocably as far as its ability to support us.
But I wonder if I'm right to be concerned.... Maybe we really aren't living beings any more.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Perseid Meteor Watch
It's the time of year for the Perseid meteor showers.
In Mayetta, we would spend several hours on at least one night each year, lying on our backs on the front lawn, watching the sky for the sudden flash of a streaking meteor. In Mobile, however, we lost the habit. There was too much light pollution there, and the sky was hardly visible due to tall trees and surrounding houses.
I missed my annual sky-watching event.
Last night I got it back. I took a blanket out and spread it on our front lawn, then lay down facing the northeast sky. Pretty soon Lefty, our oldest English setter, staggered out to join me. Then Prairiewolf and Becker, our German shepherd, came out from inside. We all lay on the blanket together, panting softly.
It was a perfect night for star gazing. The air was softly warm with a light breeze. The sky was clear, and the stars were scattered across it like sand on a dark glazed floor.
I didn't get to see too many meteors - only 4 - but I had a wonderfully relaxing time trying. I can't think of a better activity for keeping myself centered in the "now" and for sinking back and enjoying being alive.
Sometimes it's important to smell the roses; last night it was important to watch the stars.
In Mayetta, we would spend several hours on at least one night each year, lying on our backs on the front lawn, watching the sky for the sudden flash of a streaking meteor. In Mobile, however, we lost the habit. There was too much light pollution there, and the sky was hardly visible due to tall trees and surrounding houses.
I missed my annual sky-watching event.
Last night I got it back. I took a blanket out and spread it on our front lawn, then lay down facing the northeast sky. Pretty soon Lefty, our oldest English setter, staggered out to join me. Then Prairiewolf and Becker, our German shepherd, came out from inside. We all lay on the blanket together, panting softly.
It was a perfect night for star gazing. The air was softly warm with a light breeze. The sky was clear, and the stars were scattered across it like sand on a dark glazed floor.
I didn't get to see too many meteors - only 4 - but I had a wonderfully relaxing time trying. I can't think of a better activity for keeping myself centered in the "now" and for sinking back and enjoying being alive.
Sometimes it's important to smell the roses; last night it was important to watch the stars.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Summertime Haiku
Recently our local paper, The Wichita Eagle, sponsored a little contest at their website, encouraging their readers to submit "hot haiku" about their angst over dealing with summertime heat and humidity.
(For those whose grasp of poetry is as rusty as mine, haiku is a Japanese form of poetry, non-rhyming, where the first line has 5 syllables, the second line has 7 syllables, and the last line has 5 syllables again. )
Last Thursday, they published 12 of the best entries they'd received so far (The Wichita Eagle, 9 August 2007, p. 3A). My favorite two were:
Yes, I do love you
But it's summer in Kansas
Please don't sit so close.
Flowers are wilting
My enthusiasm, too
Only weeds survive.
The contest idea tickled my fancy as something that I had the energy to do, despite temperatures in the upper 90s and low 100s. Since "heat" alone wasn't getting my creative energy flowing very strongly, I expanded my allowable topics to include summer in general. Here are a couple of the summertime haiku that I came up with....
Soaring vulture tilts
Side to side, searching below,
Drifting on the wind.
Shiny leaves waving
As wind rustles through the tree.
Cottonwood music.
Silent shell clings tight
To twig while living locust
Sings shrilly above.
Shimmering heat waves
Ripple through the stifling air.
Summertime Kansas.
The grammar of the locust one still bugs me (no pun intended), but I like the image, so I included it anyway.
I had fun doing this, especially as I drove the country roads doing errands. The biggest problem was that I would find a phrase I liked, but be unable to write it down for miles until I came to the next stop sign. I tried writing against the steering wheel, but ended up honking the horn with the slightest bit of pressure. Finally I decided that it was good mental exercise to either refine the phrase I was thinking of or just commit it to memory. Who knows what literary masterpiece was lost to posterity due to a middle-aged memory!!!
Too bad the kids are all grown up - this would have been a great family road game.
Maybe my next poetic creations should be limericks.... ("There was an old dame from....")
Then again, maybe not.
(For those whose grasp of poetry is as rusty as mine, haiku is a Japanese form of poetry, non-rhyming, where the first line has 5 syllables, the second line has 7 syllables, and the last line has 5 syllables again. )
Last Thursday, they published 12 of the best entries they'd received so far (The Wichita Eagle, 9 August 2007, p. 3A). My favorite two were:
Yes, I do love you
But it's summer in Kansas
Please don't sit so close.
Flowers are wilting
My enthusiasm, too
Only weeds survive.
The contest idea tickled my fancy as something that I had the energy to do, despite temperatures in the upper 90s and low 100s. Since "heat" alone wasn't getting my creative energy flowing very strongly, I expanded my allowable topics to include summer in general. Here are a couple of the summertime haiku that I came up with....
Soaring vulture tilts
Side to side, searching below,
Drifting on the wind.
Shiny leaves waving
As wind rustles through the tree.
Cottonwood music.
Silent shell clings tight
To twig while living locust
Sings shrilly above.
Shimmering heat waves
Ripple through the stifling air.
Summertime Kansas.
The grammar of the locust one still bugs me (no pun intended), but I like the image, so I included it anyway.
I had fun doing this, especially as I drove the country roads doing errands. The biggest problem was that I would find a phrase I liked, but be unable to write it down for miles until I came to the next stop sign. I tried writing against the steering wheel, but ended up honking the horn with the slightest bit of pressure. Finally I decided that it was good mental exercise to either refine the phrase I was thinking of or just commit it to memory. Who knows what literary masterpiece was lost to posterity due to a middle-aged memory!!!
Too bad the kids are all grown up - this would have been a great family road game.
Maybe my next poetic creations should be limericks.... ("There was an old dame from....")
Then again, maybe not.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
My New Personal Trainer
About 6 weeks ago I went to the local family practice physician (at Prairiewolf's request) to have my blood pressure checked out. To make a long story short(er), the doc recommended the typical "walk for 30 minutes every day," which I knew I should be doing but somehow never managed to accomplish on a regular basis. About two weeks ago I finally quit procrastinating and, with our German Shepherd, Becker, as a companion, I hit the road, walking about half an hour each day for a couple mornings in a row.
A couple mornings was all it took. It turns out that Becker is a strong "J" (to use the Meyers-Brigg personality profile terminology). That means he likes his routines...ah, no, that means he craves his routines. Within those "couple" days, he had decided that this morning walk thing was a GREAT addition to his morning rituals.
Becker is an extremely talented nag. Obviously he can't say anything, but his body language is unmistakeable: "Okay, Mom, time to get up" (cold nose nudge in face, whine, whine). "Okay, Mom, time to get dressed" (hopeful look back upstairs, dancing feet if I head even slightly in that direction). "Okay, Mom, time to go outside" (alert stance, whine, whine, dancing feet when I pass near the door). "O boy, Mom! Now you're talking!" (dancing happy dance as we go out the door).
Do you know how hard it is to ignore a 110+ pound German Shepherd?
Any thoughts I now have of occasionally skipping this morning walk are not about to be tolerated...at least not by Becker. It doesn't matter what the weather is. It doesn't matter if I'm feeling groggy from allergy meds or from an interrupted night of sleep. It doesn't matter if my feet hurt because I stood on them all day the day before. We ARE going walking every morning. And we ARE going walking as soon as he can nag me to get out the door. No lolligagging is permitted.
It irritates the living daylights out of me, especially when I've been up half the night and sleep is seductively calling my name after Prairiewolf has left in the morning, but some taskmasters are simply inescapable.
Once I get outside and on the road, though, I'm usually glad we came. Becker settles down right beside me, ears slightly back, nose quivering, eyes scanning, panting as he contentedly pads along the side of the road. I notice the wildflowers blooming in the ditches and the birds singing in the fields. (The dickcissels have been particularly vocal lately.) Becker notices the roadkills. We both do our own versions of neighborhood watch.
Back at home once again, I have to laugh. Some people actually PAY for personal trainers. For better or worse, I've got mine living with me 24/7...and he WILL NOT be ignored.
A couple mornings was all it took. It turns out that Becker is a strong "J" (to use the Meyers-Brigg personality profile terminology). That means he likes his routines...ah, no, that means he craves his routines. Within those "couple" days, he had decided that this morning walk thing was a GREAT addition to his morning rituals.
Becker is an extremely talented nag. Obviously he can't say anything, but his body language is unmistakeable: "Okay, Mom, time to get up" (cold nose nudge in face, whine, whine). "Okay, Mom, time to get dressed" (hopeful look back upstairs, dancing feet if I head even slightly in that direction). "Okay, Mom, time to go outside" (alert stance, whine, whine, dancing feet when I pass near the door). "O boy, Mom! Now you're talking!" (dancing happy dance as we go out the door).
Do you know how hard it is to ignore a 110+ pound German Shepherd?
Any thoughts I now have of occasionally skipping this morning walk are not about to be tolerated...at least not by Becker. It doesn't matter what the weather is. It doesn't matter if I'm feeling groggy from allergy meds or from an interrupted night of sleep. It doesn't matter if my feet hurt because I stood on them all day the day before. We ARE going walking every morning. And we ARE going walking as soon as he can nag me to get out the door. No lolligagging is permitted.
It irritates the living daylights out of me, especially when I've been up half the night and sleep is seductively calling my name after Prairiewolf has left in the morning, but some taskmasters are simply inescapable.
Once I get outside and on the road, though, I'm usually glad we came. Becker settles down right beside me, ears slightly back, nose quivering, eyes scanning, panting as he contentedly pads along the side of the road. I notice the wildflowers blooming in the ditches and the birds singing in the fields. (The dickcissels have been particularly vocal lately.) Becker notices the roadkills. We both do our own versions of neighborhood watch.
Back at home once again, I have to laugh. Some people actually PAY for personal trainers. For better or worse, I've got mine living with me 24/7...and he WILL NOT be ignored.
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