Today, New Garden Beds And Apple Sauce

Last week the temperature dipped to 10 F / -12 C. But not today and not for the past two days - yesterday 55 F / 12 C...and today 40 F/ 5 C. Somehow November has given us the latest respite in recent memory. And today we poured ourselves into our outdoor work. In spite of it being blustery we warmed easily as we added nine more raised beds, bringing our total to twenty-four. They are so easy to care for. After forty years of tilling large tracts we succumbed and built our first beds. Now there is only tilling int the spring and fall and light weeding in the summer. They warm earlier in the spring, allowing us to get a jump on our root crops, and they stay warmer in the fall. Six inches in height and twenty three inches across, anyone can sit on a five gallon plastic bucket and work with the plants with ease...no reaching...no bending over. We still have room for at least six more. But for now twenty-four will do. We currently mow between beds, but are considering laying down plastic and covering it in pea gravel...but in a year or two. The boards are either spruce or aspen. Our oldest beds are now three years old and are enduring quite well. All organic. No need for any type of herbicide or pesticide. The mix we added today was 50:50 composted manure from our llamas and a silty-loam soil that I have stockpiled. I use an electric Remington tiller to mix it. It is quiet and light-weight, cheap to run, and good for the environment. No more back-breaking wrestling with a noisy cast iron tiller. Next spring I will add a few buckets of manure to bring their levels back up and till it again quickly just before seeding. And if we had to do it all by hand it would be so much easier than a conventional garden.

Also - our apples produced this year for the first time. Three gallons of apple sauce...it tastes absolutely delicious. We mixed the eight varieties together that bore and cooked them down yesterday and canned them this evening. A wonderful concoction!

The Tears In My Beans

There is a love for people who you can determine to come to love...people for whom you can determine to learn to love.

The poor.

The dispossesed.

The disadvantaged.

Those who have no way to eat any more than beans and rice. Which tonight we will eat together, even though we may live far apart.

Vegecats

The dog is already a push-over. I have to scold him to stop him from eating all the green beans off of the plants in our garden each summer. And he eats raspberries off the canes, too. His favourites are carrots and apples. But the cats...the cats are just now coming on board.

It is ten degrees Fahrenheit outside this morning. I butcher my own meat. I save the trimmings. Nothing gets thrown away. These are put in individual bags. And frozen. Leftover oatmeal went with this into the microwave this morning. And milk. And now the well-cooked trimmings of potatoes and carrots. Mixed in a warm slurry...adding a small handful of dried cat food and a dash of vitamins for good measure. These purr loudly as they greedily huddle around their platter. And they eat until they have nothing left. Their coats are shiny. Their fur is full. They are fat.

In-Between Borsch(t)

Born in this cabin. It's not a half mile from where I live. The child of immigrants. Slavs. He grew up farming. He still does. But now he also sits with cancer. And walks every day. Goes around the block enough times to make a mile. His walker keeps him company. In-between he went to Normal school. Taught in a one-room building not two miles from me. He tells of the time when one of his students acted up. And he did not know how to handle this. The district supervisor said to strap the student. And he did. But he felt so bad afterward that he never did so again. The teacher went on to his Masters at the U of T, and was invited into his doctorate. But he turned it down so that he could return to his parents. And came back to a headmastership. You are lucky, he once told me, because when I was young you could not plant apples where you live or the porcupines would chew them all right to the ground. But now, there are no more porcupines. And our apples did well this year. He is so gentle. And it is hard to believe that this man ever strapped anyone. It's not who you were. It's not who you are. I think that it's what you became in the in-between...

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In-Between Borsch(t):

2 squares of margarine

1/2 pot of water

4-5 onions

8 potatoes

8-10 carrots

6-8 beets

2 pts. peas

1-2 tsp. dill

1 qt. tomatoes

salt and pepper to taste

cook until tender

let sit overnight

heat again early

can still hot

put in jars

pressure cook it

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I ate it fresh last night.

I added sour cream.

It was wonderful!

...he can teach my kids any time.

Tonic

This is the way we are. It does not matter how many virtues a person may have, even if they are beyond number and limit. If they have turned from the path of self-accusation, they will never find peace. They will always be troubled themselves, or else they will be a source of trouble for others and all their labours will be wasted. [1]

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[1] St. Dorotheus of Gaza, Liturgy of the Hours, Vol.III, p. 296.

Why Everyone Knows More Than I Do

Photo courtesy John Carlson (http://prairieice.blogspot.com/2009/08/buffalo-guys.html)

It comes to pass that farm neighborhoods are good in proportion to the poverty of their floras.

What a thousand acres of compass plant looked like when they tickled the bellies of the buffalo is a question never again to be answered, and perhaps not even asked.[1]

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There are competing views of society. Just like there are different forms of social knowledge. The hierarchies of knowledge carry over into a hierarchy of knowers. People outside of a particular hierarchy are excluded from the specialized knowledge promoted by its promoters. Often times the best that people outside the circle may do is to experience the reality of these things in their daily experience. But they lack the terminology that confers the power.

For those whose trade is objective facts there is disinterest in the causes and origins of these facts.

In measuring quantities they disregard the aspects of life that cannot be measured, but which are nonetheless essential.

People become treated as objects.

There is a social world, it insists, that exists independent of people's subjective awareness of it...even their own.

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First Nations Traditional Values (PDF) - Pepper & White, Naut'sa Mawt Tribal Council: http://www.nautsamawt.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_details&gid=15&Itemid=37

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[1] A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold, 1949.

Promises, Promises

Tautra monastery, Trondheim fjord, Norway

Soren Kierkegaard called monasteries lighthouses, necessary yardsticks against which we may gauge our own spiritual progress.[1] Pointing to the social value of people who are single-minded he made a simple observation, …for people have forgotten the point in Christianity: self-denial….[2] And so monastic life was allowed to be extinguished, and now we stumble about in total darkness, not knowing where we are….[3]

With one exception we as a society do not make vows any more. Ironically, the only thing we do promise one another is to not promise each other anything. And we seem quite adept at keeping our word on this one…

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[1] The Journals of Soren Kierkegaard, ed. and trans., Dru, London, 1938, p. 222.
[2] Ibid, p.509.

[3] Soren Kierkegaards Papers, vol. X, ed. Heilberg, Copenhagen, 1927, p. 218.

My Salami Sandwich

Yesterday I made a salami sandwich.

The salami is made of elk. The man who made the salami is also the man who shot the elk.

I know this man. I have stopped by his home. He has a very nice home.

We talked elk. We talked rifles. He told me stories about elk and rifles. He is highly skilled. He is humble. He is soft-spoken.

One time. When we had finished talking. He gave me a gift. It was elk salami.

This man has children. They are beautiful children. They are bright children. They work hard. They love their dad.

This man has a wife. She is one of the most beautiful women I have ever met. She left him. She lives with another man.

This man is now dead. A month ago he killed himself.

Yesterday. I ate a sandwich. It was made with this man's salami.

Always

When I despair
I remember that all through history
the way of truth and love
has always won

there have been tyrants and murderers
and for a time they can seem invincible
but in the end
they always fall

think of it

always

--- MK Gandhi

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Gandhi with children (http://www.mkgandhi.org/)

The Politics Of Food

http://haskapwine.blogspot.com/2009/09/emerging-politics-of-haskap.html

My Grocery Store

When I was eight years old I asked my mother if I could plant a garden. And she said, Sure, never thinking of course that I would do it. But I did...removed every square inch of sod behind our garage and turned over all the soil and crushed every clod by hand into a fine powder. Doing the actual work made me feel good...connected. And then we bought compost and I mixed it in. And then I planted seeds and watered and waited.

Two nights ago, and after a full day of raking and baling and stacking hay that began at 5 a.m., we started on 150 ears of corn at 9 p.m.. We ended with 40 pints and 8 quarts of frozen corn at 1 a.m.. This is my grocery store. It tastes fabulous. It costs a fraction of what it would cost at a store. It is not making some anonymous middle-man rich for simply maintaining agro-colonialism. I know how it was raised. I have a sense of accomplishment. I know my place on the planet.

You can do this, too. Even when we were city-bound we grew our vegetables and fruits in pots on our balcony and froze our food.

Juggling At The Gates Of Hell

A voice is heard in Ramah. Rachel is wailing for her children, and refuses to be consoled. [1]

Hospital chaplains mediate difficult situations. These see the world through the eyes of people and medical staff who are undergoing trauma and journey with them, offering resources and hope. In the fall of 1983 I entered into a year-long, full-time, and on-site chaplaincy internship at a level one trauma centre in one of the largest cities in the world. And after three weeks of supervised training I was scheduled for my first solo on-call. I was in my mid-twenties. And I was immediately paged.

Phoning the ER I was told that an ambulance was arriving. Walking down the last corridor before I entered the reception area I could hear a woman wailing...high, out-of-her-mind wailing. Rounding the corner it was a place of focused chaos. A nurse whom I had gotten to know saw me and pulled me aside and said, Look, we have a child who has just been mauled by a dog. Do what you can for her (pointing to the woman) - get her into a private waiting room - then come and see us. And she turned and literally ran into a room designated as an ER operating theatre. And I thought, This can't be good.

The woman was by herself. A male receptionist had gone over and was sitting next to her. She kept trying to get up, wanting to join her child. Each time she arose he gently invited her to sit back down. I had never before seen anyone so distraught – hysterical. I walked over and sat down next to her and introduced myself. But she could not hear me. I felt as if I was breaking into something very private. My words bounced back to me each time I spoke. I gently persisted. And at last it was as if in coming up for air she was able to focus enough to hear me. And she focused outside of herself enough, and I invited her into a private reception area. But when she went to stand her knees buckled. The receptionist and I caught her and helped her walk down the hall. But then, just before we went into the room, she turned and said, But I want my baby!, and went to return back down the hall. And I calmly replied, We have to let the doctors do what they can do, and that momentarily satisfied her, and we went into the room and sat on the couch.

Once again she became hysterical. And now her head was down between her knees. A seated fetal position. And she wailed for a very long time. An hour had passed since the ambulance had first arrived. And her tears found resonance in my own heart, even though I did not know the cause of her weeping. And I wanted to speak with her, but I felt it was intrusive. And I wanted to hold her, but she was submerged inside of herself. And after a long time a nurse came to the door and asked if this woman was okay, or did I think that a doctor needed to see her? And out of my guts I said that I thought that she was okay, and that I would stay with her. I was informed that if she became worse that she would be medicated…all I had to do was say the word. And suddenly here I was, a twenty-something with no life experience drawn into a decision-making process over someone else's life.. And people were still running everywhere. So I gently went back and sat down next to her and said very softly, I need to talk with you. And to my surprise she lifted her head and looked at me. I reintroduced myself and softly said, I want to help you. Do you want me to help you? And she nodded. Okay, then I think that I can start to help you best if you will tell me what happened? Tell me the story. It was hard at first for her to find words. Choking back the tears, pulling at her clothing, she sputtered, and started sentences again and again. And slowly it came out. Single mom. Went to visit her father. Father had a watch dog. Something in the child triggered the dog, and as she watched the animal had broken through a fence and attacked her daughter, who was two. The two adults had fought the dog, which had never before done anything like this…previously friendly to the point that her father had joked about getting rid of him as worthless. And on two occasions the man was not strong enough to keep the dog off the child once extracted, and it had attacked again. And then I took her hand and she began to wail all over. And I could not stop it!, she repeated again and again, and then, How’s my baby? Would you like me to go and find out?, I asked. And she nodded affirmatively. I stepped to the door and motioned to the receptionist to come and told him I’d be right back, and he stood at the door, not knowing what to say to her.

I am originally an Aggie – animal husbandry to be exact. And it sounds crude to say it, but if I had not had several years experience dealing with carcasses and meat I would not have been prepared for what I saw next. I walked into the triage theatre and nobody looked up. Staff was still running – coming and going. And here is what I saw on the table in front of me. A child…a little girl…a toddler – slight in build and perhaps two feet tall. Her face was peeled back from just above her teeth on the left, folded up and over her head well beyond her hairline. Her left eyeball lay completely exposed, staring straight ahead. Her cheekbone was caved in, crushed by the dog’s jaws. Puncture wounds covered her head. The child’s left arm was lacerated to the point that only bone held it onto her shoulder…her muscle was totally skinned down to nothing. And her body was totally covered with bite marks, and bruises, and cuts. And my heart went out to this young one.

I looked at the medical staff and wondered how they were doing? One of the doctors caught my eye, and then the intern who was assisting. The look that they gave me was of standing on a beach and having a tidal wave coming down on you with nowhere to run. And they were focused. And I watched their hands. And there was not a wasted movement, and not a wasted moment. And the nurses, too. Directed. Patient. Purposeful. Fighting. And I stood there in silence and out of the way for a very long time.

Thomas Merton once wrote how angry he got when people would make statements about the worthlessness of religion when they themselves had never taken any significant time out of their lives to seriously explore the presence of God. And at that point, standing there, I began to pray in the silence of my heart, for each person. And I did not know that I even did this until I reflected on the whole thing the next day. See, when you are involuntarily soiling your pants, any argument for or against God is nothing but intellectualization from inexperienced and self-absorbed brains. And then the intern turned and stepped out of the room. I followed. And he was leaning on a desk in a private area. And then he took his fist and drove it into it. And then he launched out into a vindictive against what kind of woman would allow something like this to happen to her child? And now I had two people for whom to care. And then I realized that I had all of them to care for. And we spoke briefly. And then he went back in. And for hours afterward I was back and forth between family, and child, and doctors and nurses. A giant juggling act at the gates of hell.

And then at midnight the baby died.

By then it was not a surprise. And by then I was holding this woman. And we walked together from the waiting room into the the room where her baby lay, where they had mopped up the blood and cleaned and covered the body appropriately with sheets out of respect and discretion. And she hugged her baby, and kissed the exposed face…and apologized. And it broke all of our hearts. And staff had to leave the room. And then the police investigation began and I saw this mother no more. And I talked with staff throughout the rest of the night as they each worked out in their own words what they had done and what they had experienced. And then dawn came. And people slipped off to their own homes as a new staff came on, and I began my own walk home – a mile down a busy boulevard in a city that was just waking up. I was exhausted, awake for twenty four hours. And then I was home. And then I ate breakfast. And then I sat down. And then I began to weep uncontrollably – the first since this all had begun. And I wept for an hour, and finally fell asleep on the couch, weeping and exhausted. And a week later one of the doctors gave me a compliment in a staff meeting and asked if whenever they had such an emergency if they could call me up and ask me to come in? That they had appreciated my presence so much...even the atheists. And at the time I accepted his compliment, but was still crying inside in spite of a calm exterior.

I recently read an interview with a woman who had lost her son. Someone asked her if she felt a sense of loss for the potential of his life un-lived? And she said no, that she was simply grateful for the time that she had had with him. And when I read it I thought, What kind of f****d up thinking is this? What is wrong with us...with each generation that we just don't get it? Everything has become relative these days, and we are supposed to affirm the craziest, life-denying, selfish, and ignorant sentiments. Her words are a cop-out…an intellectualization…a psychological insurance-protection policy. See, when I get done with this post, I am going to go onto my front porch with a cup of coffee, and I will look out over the remote valley in which I now live, and play a bit of guitar, listen to some Joni Mitchell, and watch the antics of our kittens, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that I would prefer, than to have that child sitting on my lap, and bouncing on my knee, and drinking Kool-Aid from a tippy cup. Nothing. And I still carry her in my heart. And I still pray for her. And any more, with my life running out, I just don’t have time or energy for screwed-up philosophies that are not capable of a depth of feelings, because as painful as these desires and passions may be, all on their own they invite us even deeper into life itself. And I would not miss that ride for anything.

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[1] Jeremiah 31:15

Painting: Starry Night, by Vincent Van Gogh - my favourite painting of all time...hands down.

Freedom Of Movement

St. John Chrysostom

Our heart is enlarged. For as heat makes things expand, so it is the work of love to expand the heart, for its power is to heat and make fervent. It is this that opened Paul's lips and enlarged his heart. For I do not write only in words; he means, but my loving heart too is in unison with my words; and so I speak with confidence, without restraint or reserve. There is nothing more capacious than the heart of Paul, for he loved all the faithful with as intimate a love as any lover could have for a loved one, his love not being divided and lessened but remaining whole and entire for each of them. And what marvel is it that his love for the faithful was such, since his heart embraced the unbelievers, too, throughout the whole world?

So he did not just say, 'I love you,' but with greater emphasis: Our mouth is open, our heart enlarged; we hold you all in it, and not only that, but with room for you to move freely...

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John Chrysostom, Homily on Second Corinthians, Liturgy of the Hours, V. III, p. 539.

Putting You In Touch With More People: The Jingo-ism Of Technology

All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth. --- Richard Avedom

Today marks the anniversary of the battle of Antietam. It was the bloodiest battle in American history. 23,000 casualties occurred in less than twelve hours. It included 3,650 deaths.

On October 20, 1862, Mathew Brady opened an exhibit of photographs at his gallery on lower Broadway in New York City. The exhibit was entitled, 'The Dead Of Antietam.' But Brady's purpose was not to educate or to use war as a medium for art. His desire was for sales. And true to his suspicions, people flocked in for the new technology...photographs.

Alexander Gardner, the photographer sent by Brady, had arrived at Antietem two days after the battle. The Union had already removed their dead. Confederate corpses lay everywhere among the debris that Union troops had left after they had looted the bodies. Rigour, death grimmaces, and bloat became displays never before seen in public in North America. These unburied were strewn across fields, and roads, and were organized in shallow trenches, supposedly awaiting burial, but as it turns out were largely consumed by hogs in the end.

During the following two and half years of combat, photographs were added to Brady's collection from Chancellorville, and Vicksburg, and Gettysburg. Oliver Wendell Holmes dubbed these photos 'honest sunshine.' But they are no such thing. By the time of Gettysburg, Gardner was moving and repositioning bodies to suit the market. Postcards sold for forty cents a piece. Everyone wanted a piece of the technology. Brady became wealthy. Viewers used the technology individualistically to promoted personal agendas. Holmes, a physician, chose to see in them a metaphor for surgery. President Lincoln deciphered God's justice in them. Privately people displayed them proudly in their homes, and fawned over them, talking endlessly about this new invention of human advancement.

A week ago I sat on a deck with a group of people. A young man was holding a beer in one hand and texting with the other. He largely ignored everyone around him. But he looked up, and for a moment I thought that we might actually engage one another. And then he said to me, 'It just doesn't get any better than this,' and immediately he went back to texting. And I said, 'Oh, yes it does,' but I know that he did not hear me.

Taken Out To Sea

In the spring of 1986 I was almost drowned while swimming in the Andaman Sea. Caught in a rip tide I remembered something that I had read, and rather than fight the current, I swam perpendicular to it in order to escape, and eventually made it back to shore, exhausted…and deeply grateful to be alive.
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250 years ago this Sunday the single most important event in the history of North America took place...it would shape the course of and allow for everything that followed.

The French and British were locked in battle for Europe. By 1759 in North America 65,000 French citizens had built towns and cities and were farming along the St. Lawrence Seaway. Simultaneously, one million colonists were living in the British colonies along the Atlantic seaboard to the south. Then, in the summer of 1759, over 200 British navy vessels sailed into the St. Lawrence and anchored off of Quebec City – frigates, Man-O-Wars, supply ships. This represented fully one fourth of the entire British navy, world-wide. After a couple months of terrorizing up and down the Seaway, and not finding a foothold by which to engage the substantial French armies guarding the north shore, General Wolfe, a man dying of Tuberculosis, seized upon a last resort. That on the evening of September 12, 1759, 5,000 British troops landed and began scaling a two hundred foot, unguarded sheer cliff. They climbed and hauled gear throughout the night. By 5:00 a.m. they were mustering in the field above, complete with canon. But Wolfe knew this to be a gamble. Technically, they were trapped. Two great French armies lay on either side of them. Wolfe hoped that these armies would arrive independent of one another. If this happened, then he would immediately engage the first army upon its arrival. But if these forces arrived simultaneously, then he knew that his men would be overwhelmed. When General Montcalm arrived from the east a couple of short hours later he decided to attack, rather than to await the arrival of the western army. He did so based upon his unwillingness to allow the British to become entrenched…which if allowed to have happened would have made it impossible for the French to later route them because of the cliff at the invader's backs, and their access to the St. Lawrence for future supplies. But Montcalm’s advance is ragged. British canon has been pounding them since their arrival, creating dis-order. Part way across the field someone in the advancing French forces gives the order to fire, but the British are well out of range of the French muskets. Even more bedraggled, trying to reload, the French arrive forty yards in front of the British line, which is two men deep and stretches for a full mile. The French fire, but are seriously shaken by this time, and their volley is only mildly effective. But the British troops remain focused, and a full mile of guns concentrates their fire on the advanced French guard and the effect is devastating. The French turned and fled. At this the Scottish regiment drew their broad swords and gave chase, literally cutting men in two. These are the facts of the story. But at this point the facts become personal for me.
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My first ancestors to arrive in North America were Scottish conscripts in the British army. They were conscripts because the British government had taken away their farms in Scotland. They were conscripted because they were unemployed. They had been made unemployed by the people who took their land. And because of this there were then many men of hearty stock available to fighting for expanding British interests around the world. Interesting how that happens, hey? So my ancestors were given a choice. They could be sentenced to prison in Scotland (which may have meant being sent to a penal colony somewhere else in the world anyway), or they could get on a ship and learn to fight. Not surprisingly, they chose the latter. My Scottish ancestors were sent to North America. As far as I know none of my ancestors were on the Plains of Abraham on the morning of September 13, 1759. But they did serve their time. A generation later they were farming again on the American frontier, having sided with the American colonies when independence was declared. And I ask myself, is it any wonder that they sided with these rebels? People have memories; people carry resentments. Each generation of these Scots moved farther west, clearing land, and building farms, until land for settlement in the United States ran out in the early 1900’s.

What affects me most on this, the 250th anniversary of this battle is certainly not the grandeur of the battlefield itself. Nor do I care at all about the sweeping themes of history that led up to or away from it. Instead, today I am reminded of all the men and women around the world who even today are swept along with social agendas of aggression, and war, and injustice...and who either do not have a choice to extract themselves, or who ignorantly engage in these struggles as a part of their mistaken, immature notion of their own identity, or who may even be selfish enough to intentionally seek some personal gain by imposing the violence of these oppressions upon others.

Many of the French soldiers on the field that day were likewise conscripts from France. Their numbers were added to by local farmers who had by that time had made a life for several generations along the St. Lawrence. Why were they fighting? And who knows why in the world native warriors allied themselves with such extreme forces? But then again perhaps it was precisely because of this overwhelming surge of power invading their land that they felt compelled to side with someone. Again, what were the options?

I find it overwhelmingly true, that for most of my life I have been swept along in a vast social current in which I had little choice but to begrudgingly tread water. My ancestors came to North America either because they were compelled to do so, or because of mistaken notions of success as domestics and skilled labourers.

When I was in my mid-20’s, working on my first Master’s degree, and living in the U.S.A., I was a part of a conference call with one of the world’s experts on just-war theory – who was ironically Canadian, and teaching at the University of Toronto. His position was that there was indeed such a thing as a just war. Part way through the conversation it occurred to me that in spite of its violent history and the legacy that that has created, Canada itself had eventually been ultimately granted its independence simply because it was the pleasure of one, single, enlightened person to grant Canadians their right to govern themselves. I nervously raised this observation. It was a show-stopper. No amount of killing or exploitation, or forcing/coercing others to do so on your behalf, can bring anything good…ever.

I find it interesting that after all these generations that I have come full-circle back to understand, and appreciate, and accept the rule of authority expressed most fully in Canada’s commitment to law, and order, and peace. It is not a perfect authority. (Stephen Harper’s recent private-party-tirade http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWaxTotsqrE being a throw-back and a reason for every peace-loving Canadian to be thoroughly embarrassed.) That any nation promotes the monstrous domination of anyone based on the wealth of today’s middle- and upper-class is nothing other than the old colonialism and I believe the most insidious element of modern life.

I can swim with the tide, or I can swim against it, or I can swim perpendicular to it. I will become a monster, or I will become exhausted, or I just might wind up meeting all the deepest longings for living a peaceful, neighbourly life that my ancestors desired, respectively.

Today I apologize on behalf of all my ancestors who hurt anyone in any way. I ask your forgiveness.

The Kind Of People We Are

O Eternal Wisdom, between you and your Father that was enough; that was how you prayed in the garden. You expressed your desire and fear but surrendered yourself to his will. But as for us, my Lord, you know that we are less submissive to the will of your Father and need to mention each thing separately in order to stop and think whether it would be good for us, and otherwise not ask for it. You see, the gift our Lord intends for us may be by far the best, but if it is not what we wanted we are quite capable of flinging it back in his face. This is the kind of people we are; ready cash is the only wealth we understand. --- St. Teresa of Avila
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Liturgy of the Hours, Vol. 3, p.431

Hay And Moose

It has been an odd summer when it comes to the weather. In fact, it has been wierd weather-wise ever since the end of last November. At first the summer started off unbelievably cold and stayed that way - nothing was maturing. Then half way through it began to rain and did not stop. Entire hay crops were wrecked when farmers became impatient and swathed, only to have it turn black in the field from repeatedly lying in water. And it was hard to wait. My buyers were calling in panics. One buyer caved in and bought hay for her horses only to find out that she was not happy with it once she got it home...a costly mistake. And I continued to wait to cut, and buyers became more frantic. And I was beginning to think that I might have to wait until everything froze and then to cut just enough for my own animals. But now on this past weekend the sun has come out, and the temperature is in the 25/80 degree range, and I am starting to bale lush, prime hay. Last year I seeded Timothy to 27 acres of land that had not produced anything in eight years - the soil type did not like what others had sown before me, and my best efforts at establishment of anything failed. But something appealed to me when I thought of Timothy. And in the end last summer's drenching rains, and then this summer's coolness have produced a bumper crop of Timothy hay in a year when few others around me have any hay to sell whatsoever. How am I to understand this? ...that I'm just lucky? And then yesterday just after sunrise I looked out and two bull moose were trotting west across my newly-mown Timothy field. By the time I could grab my camera they were a quarter mile west. I think that the word serendipity best describes what it feels like to be coming into September here this year...and it is no small feeling.

Fruit Harvest

Apples hang heavy on the trees we planted five years ago. And cherries.

Pat

You may have believed that the land itself is what matters, that men may come and go, and their names be unimportant – that one may sow an acre where another reaps, and the change be nothing, since it is the same acre, and the wheat or corn is wheat or corn, whoever the plowman or the reaper. Farmers, so far as history knows, are stripped of their personal idiosyncrasies; in all that makes them essential to the nation, they are alike. You may have believed this – but…it is man’s relation to the land, whether he be its owner or its slave, that is important to him and to the society he has created… [1]

Red angus cattle graze on the hills. We drive by. Slowly. And she says, This was our farm... - almost in a whisper.

It is where it all began. Her grandfather brought in the railway. Built the grain elevator in town. And a fine home in which children are now living again – something that she would notice – toys in the yard. She points this out with a sideways smile that is so typical. And pointing directly north, through the window in the house across the street we can see people watching television, and the flicker of light off of its screen: And I was born right there. And she did not know these people, but she had named every one of the those who had lived all along that road when she had grown up there. Now all dead and gone. And here she is, eighty-four.

We had been sitting across from one another in a booth over dinner and I asked a simple question, Why don’t we go there? When?, she replied. And I said, Well, now…we still have daylight. A hasty retreat. A half hour later. There we were. An interstate touches on the town now. And a restaurant called the Cheesehaus, with a sign, in a bid to try to draw in traffic. And I want to stop and ask to see their financials…my sense is that most people would rather pull into Appleby’s a couple of exits down the road, choosing the sandbar of predictability over the deeper waters of disappointment or delight that may lay on either side.

She is not your average person. And of course lots of average people affectionately mouth the same words about their auntie Mae or uncle Wendell...who in the end are not average people, because what they mean is that these are endearing after a quirky fashion. But not she. She is extraordinary. Married and farming because her husband was genuinely war-time 4F. Branched into carpentry. Went booming on the big projects out west. On to university engineering. You can see the whole progression. And I knew it all, and loved it, and loved them in it before. But more than this, I especially know the reverence with which she approached the grave of her husband that evening. A few miles down the road. Across from a Methodist Church. In a small, sheltered valley. I do not recollect the names of these places except hers alone, which I have known for thirty-three years. And am now frankly elated to know where I can find her for the remainder of my own time. In his Journal, Thoreau wrote, A name is at most a mere convenience and carries no information with it. As soon as I begin to be aware of the life of any creature, I at once forget its name.

Twilight. We stand next to the steps of the town-church. She says, This is where I first went to Sunday School. That, and, with this exception. Her name is Pat.

_________

[1] Ohio Town, Helen Santmyer (1963)

The Failure Of Reasonable People

One is distressed by the failure of reasonable people to perceive the depths of evil or the depth of the holy. With the best of intentions they believe that a little reason will suffice them to clamp together the parting timbers of the building. They are so blind in their desire to see justice done to both sides [that] they are crushed between two clashing forces and end by achieving nothing... The news that God has become man strikes at the very heart of an age in which the good and the wicked regard either scorn for [people] or the idolization of [people] as the highest attainable wisdom. --- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics