Category Archives: Weather +Climate

Garden, Our Land and Home, Weather +Climate

Tulips and Daffodils, Oh My!

April 5, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

54 bar steady 29.77 3mph ENE dewpoint 32 Spring

New Moon

This is a fecund time. I spent a couple of hours today putting down pre-emergent weed prevention in the flower beds, moving some mulch completely off now, the garlic, and putting Cygon on the Iris to prevent borers. Cygon is now a prohibited insecticide so my stash is pretty much it. Our beds are not near running water and we have a storm drainage basin to catch run off so I don’t see my limited use of Cygon, once or twice a year on about 40 Iris, as a great health hazard.

Just being outside is wonderful. Where the snow melts back, as it has begun to do even here, we often find tiny tunnel systems in the grass. Voles dig these under the snow all winter. At first it seems that they might kill the grass, but in fact, I think the opposite is true. Where they go, the soil gets aerated and the grass continues to grow. It looks strange and possibly harmful when you first see it.

The Iris have grown about six inches and now is the time to get those damned Iris borers. If you raise Iris, you know what I mean. If you don’t, well, they’re slimy and icky and eat the rhizome. Yeck.

Tulips and daffodils have also begun to press through the snow and frozen earth. With the showers we get this week I wouldn’t be surprised if we get some blooms, especially if it warms up, too.

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Garden, Our Land and Home, Weather +Climate

Natural Rhythms and Time

April 3, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

53 bar falls 30.03 omph W dewpoint 32 Spring

Waning Crescent Moon of Winds

Over to IHOP for some of that down home country fried food. Always a treat. Kate and I did our business meeting, deposited several thousand dollars in Wells Fargo and came back home. Lois was here. She commented on the amaryllis which have bloomed yet again for me. I do nothing special to them except take them outside in the summer, then back inside in the winter. At some point they decided its ready to bloom, so I put them in a window and water and feed them.

I have no tours tomorrow and so have a good stretch with no art tour work. I like that.

Went outside and looked at the trees. Looks like at least five, two Norway Pines and two River Birch got trimmed back to the hose I used to protect them from sun scald. Those rascally rabbits I presume. In the other area, though, two white pines thrived during the winter, as did a Norway Pine, an oak and, I believe, a River Birch. Feels good to see them growing.

The garlic has begun to push through the soil, a bit pale under the mulch, but I removed it and they will green up fast. Garlic are hardy plants that like a cold winter and they had one this year. They come to maturity in June/July. Drying, then using our own garlic will be a treat.

Wandering around outside gets the horticulture sap rising. I’m itchy to do stuff.

Signed up for a Natural Rhythms and Time course at the Arboretum. It’s a symposium put on by the University’s Institute for Advanced Studies, a real find. If you live in the Twin Cities, I recommend getting on its mailing list.

GeekWorld, Our Land and Home, Weather +Climate

Kohler Generators

April 1, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

32 bar steep rise 30.22 4mph dewpoint 24 Spring

Waning Crescent Moon of Winds

“I simply cannot think that human beings will be able to discard their desire and need for something that is sublime, something that transports them, takes them out of time, takes them out of the banality of the everyday world . . . to make something is tremendously powerful in and of itself.” -Sean Scully

“Men do not care how nobly they live, but only how long they live, although it is in the reach of every man to live nobly, but within no man’s power to live long.” – Seneca

One last snowblowing adventure. The snow has already melted off the driveway and the sidewalk. It will remain longer on the yard and in the woods, but the days of the snowcover are near an end. Even so, it was nice to get out one more time and see the arc of white curving up then fall toward the earth. Good to be outside. (We’ll set aside being there with a two-cycle engine.)

Roger came out today from Allied Generators. When we went through a spate of disaster planning last fall, we realized our home would not fare well in a power outage. Why? No water since we get our pump from a well. That’s the big one. We could be here with all the water we needed 180 feet below us and no way to get it to the surface. Dumb. Then, of course, there’s powering up the cell phones and the computers for necessary communication. If Kate is to survive in a reasonably mellow state, we need the air con to work, too. All of our appliances have electric starter switches. And so on.

The result of this got me to looking at generators. Consumer reports pointed out an obvious problem with gasoline powered generators. If there’s a problem with the electricity, filling station pumps don’t work. So, how do you supply the generator? Gas gets old, too, so storing much at home is problematic. Anyhow, the Kohler line of generators run on natural gas which solves that problem. They also supply enough power to manage the whole house. Roger will send us an estimate this afternoon. It might be a sledge hammer to take care of a mosquito sized problem, but we’ll see.

Piece of trivia: Kohler got into the generator business in 1918 so customers could use their flush toilets and their bathtubs. What da ya know?

I got on a tear this last week or so, completing several major tasks in a short period of time. It reminded me of the way I used to work, juggling many complicated tasks over long periods of time. Back then I was productive, really productive. The old work method felt good to slip into for a while. Don’t know that I’d want to sustain it anymore.

Art and Culture, Friends, Weather +Climate

Simple, Straight-Forward Human Decency

March 31, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

30 bar steady 29.83 5mph N Dewpoint 29 Spring

Last Quarter Moon of Winds

“Let us all be thankful for today, for if we did not learn a lot, at least we learnt a little. And if we did not learn a little, at least we did not become ill. And if we became ill, at least we did not die. So let us all be thankful. – Buddha, attr.

This snow is serious. The rocks in the garden have white cloaks and look as if they will disappear once again. The winds stay high and the accumulation has weighed down the trees. Vale and Breckenridge may have powder, but in the late spring we have heart attack snow. Heavy, wet, voluminous. Still pretty.

I love the quote attributed to the Buddha. Put that together with Grandpa’s, “You come from nothing and the purpose of life is to make something from nothing.” and you have a complete philosophy of life without all the dreary textual criticism, dogma and fancy dress.

A docent colleague has organized a food service for Bill Bomash who broke his femur in five places while vacationing in Brazil. This kind of simple, straight forward human decency is enough. It allows us to make something from nothing and, as Grandpa said, that’s the purpose of life.

Art and Culture, Faith and Spirituality, Weather +Climate

Snow, Snow, and Then, Some More

March 18, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

33 bar steady 0mph ESE windchill33 29.85 a buncha snow

Waxing Gibbous Moon of Winds

We got socked after I came home from Frank’s at around 10. Maybe 4 or 5 inches of wet spring snow. All the leaves, rocks and beginning to peak through patches of grass are white again. Tourney snow we called it Indiana.

Gotta get out and see if the snowblower can take it. Often, at the beginning of the winter and especially in its last gasps the snow is so heavy and wet that it plugs the chute of the snowblower. Then, I just wait for the grand snow remover in the sky to work his solar wonder.

Allison sent me this note after the docent book group discussion. I think she caught the sense of the meeting.

Charlie,

I enjoyed the discussion meeting today. I want to thank you for your efforts. I think we were chasing something elusive. And also feeling each other out-on some pretty big subjects.

Personally, I think Dale phrased his initial question rather awkwardly.

However, Sharon intrigued me with her question which was “Why doesn’t contemporary religion seem to make better use of art?

So between the two of them we are left with something corresponding to “what came first the chicken or the egg?” Did art lose its need for religion or did religion lose its need for art?

I would have liked to have the team fill out your worksheet and plan a tour.

Speaking of your tour ideas, it would be great to get some serious discussions going on a tour. You need the right people to show up for that to work.

Travel, Weather +Climate

Mulberry Trees in Armenia

February 4, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

31 91% 26% 3mph N bar29.80 steady windchill29 Imbolc

Waning Crescent of the Winter Moon

This snow has a lot of different forms: sleet, snert, wet snow, less wet snow. At least it didn’t plug the snowblower. As I followed the snowblower down the driveway and back up, I had these background/foreground visions: background–I’m layered up, in swiftly falling snow and operating a loud orange machine; foreground–I’m sitting on the lanai of our oceanview room in the Westin looking out toward the western horizon of the Pacific ocean as the sun begins to set.

The snow makes the transition from Minnesota to Hawai’i a nice contrast.

Getting stuff done today and tomorrow since on Wednesday I leave for Dwelling in the Woods. My day without the guys I plan to snowshoe and read about Taoism, prepare for my workshop. During the retreat I plan to snowshoe at least once a day.

Picked up some dried mulberries today at the co-op. Sweet, but not local. Not hardly. From Turkey. It just occurred to me that I read an article this afternoon about silk scarf makers in Armenia, next to the Turkish border. They had a historic industry, but the Armenian genocide wiped it out. This town had just received a grant from the EU to grow, mulberry trees!

Faith and Spirituality, Weather +Climate, Woolly Mammoths

Fallen Oak Leaves in the Snow

February 3, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

26 71% 24% 1mph EES bar30.02 falls windchill25 Imbolc

Waning Crescent of the Winter Moon

The Superbowl program started at 1pm. 1pm. Kickoff isn’t until 5:17pm. Geez.

Spent late morning putting together my workshop/presentation for the Woolly Retreat. I plan to read sections from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, talk about it a bit as a fable for our time and a bit about what I call the ur-faith. The way to name it still is not clear to me. Maybe that will come as the workshop proceeds. Sometimes presenting things to others helps flesh them out, identify new angles or flaws in the conception. The sacrament I posted a few days ago will follow the reading and then we’ll talk.

I may use a way to get inside material I learned in seminary. In this method the audience gets an invitation to take on one of the roles in the reading, to hear the material being read from that person’s perspective. In SGGK characters include Arthur, Gawain, Guinevere, the Green Knight, the two women in Hautdesert’s castle, and the servant who leads Gawain to the Green Chapel. Sometimes this cracks open poetry or scripture in a way nothing else can.

Fallen oak leaves have begun to show through the snow. The boulders in our boulder walls now peak out from caps of white. This is an unlovely aspect of snow. Snow has its most beautiful moments as and just after it falls. If it remains cold, as it often does after a big snow, the pristine character of the snow can last for days. Sometimes it does glint and sparkle in the sun. Hope we get a big whack just before I leave for Dwelling in the Woods.

Weather +Climate

The Undergods

January 21, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

4 70% 19% omph W bar30.55 windchill4 Winter

Full Winter Moon

The Giants are the undergods–oops, I meant to write underdogs, but I like undergods, too–against the Übergods, the New England Patriots. Long years ago, when I began to love anthropology, a favorite professor, David Scruton, said Americans are infracaninophiles, that is, lovers of the underdog. Maybe we’re also infratheophiles, lovers of the undergods. Anyhow, I wouldn’t count the Giants out. Their defense seems pretty sticky and Eli Manning and Plaxico Burress have a groove going. If they can get Bradshaw and Jacobs going early, they’ll have a chance. We’ll see.

A light snow. The slightly warmer temps produce more interesting weather. The cold builds character and the days are usually bright and clear, but warmer weather often brings back the snow. We need some snow since the older snow got thinned out during the January thaw and we look a bit straggly here.

On to the Transcendentalists and life in the thought lane.

As Bill Schimdt noticed on yesterday’s post, the NFL pinged back. Bill said he was sure only the computer read my post. I’m sure he’s right.

Art and Culture, Weather +Climate

Art’s Beginnings

January 19, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

-2 46% 20% 0mph S bar 30.37 steep drop windchill-4 Winter

Waxing Gibbous Winter Moon

As predicted the day has continued cold, thought we’ve warmed a bit from the early readings. Still, when the high is below zero, you know you’re dealing with a bitter time. We have the most trouble with the whippets when the temperatures drop. They have zero body fat, so they do not like to go outside. This increases the pressure on their bladders. Accidents do happen.

The work of the day involves the waning religious influence on art in the modern era, though, as I’ve learned, the decline can really be seen post-Renaissance. James Elkins makes a creditable argument for the pervasive nature of religious art during most of the millennia of human existence. Art’s beginnings lie somewhere in our murky transition toward full consciousness, a transition accelerated when humans realized they would die. If not in the service of the hunt, a ritual activity in its earliest form, then in the service of funeral rites, early humans drew elegant animals on cave walls and adorned their dead with red ochre, feathers and other items felt necessary to the afterlife.

This general trend continued for many cultures well into the modern era, but in the West, sometime in the Renaissance/post-Renaissance period, religious art became a particular kind of art, rather than the primary purpose for artistic work. It was during the Renaissance that an emphasis began on the skill of the artist in addition to the importance of the subject matter rendered. These two factors, appreciation of the talents of individual artists and the addition of subject matter like history, portraiture and mythopoetic themes opened a fissure between what had previously been art’s sole domain, the religious, and other forms of art.

A Gospel for These Heavens and This Earth

January 18, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

-10 59% 23% 0mph WSW bar30.36 steep rise windchill-12 Winter

Waxing Gibbous Winter Moon

How low will it go? Pretty low. These are the days for staying inside, watching movies, drinking hot chocolate, reading and studying. I’ll do all these tomorrow.

Driving into the MIA this week, on Monday and then again today, I saw sundogs. A sundog creates a rainbow like lens, in this case pointing toward the west. As I understand the presence of a sundog indicates ice crystals in the air which act as a prism. Just checked, that’s right. Also, it says they always form at 22 degrees on either side of the sun.

Both days an earth centered faith was on my mind, as it often is these days, in fact, these last few years. It is not, perhaps, most accurate to say earth centered, since the sundog itself is a good reminder that any faith which grounds itself in the material reality of this world also relies, for life itself, on the heat and energy received from the sun. So, I don’t know, perhaps a solar system centered faith. The earth’s orbit around the sun orchestrates the seasons and the moon pulses the oceans through bays and onto beaches with tidal flows. Even a rudimentary understanding of the creation of the solar system acknowledges the intimate nature of our relationship to other planets that share Sol. So, there’s a puzzle here in terms of where to focus, but I don’t think the parameters are much wider than the solar system, although there is the whole star formation, interstellar dust cloud thing which makes us part of the ongoing galactic reality. Even so, those relationship are distant both in distance and in terms of direct affect, if any on our daily lives, where Sol makes our life possible and its planets are our neighbors.

Anyhow, more thoughts on the notion of Ge-ology. What I might write, rather than a Ge-ology, is a gospel for these heavens and this earth, a faith focused on the intricate and delicate and complex interdependence between and among life and the inanimate yet critical context in which it exists; a celebration of the wonderful and the awesome we experience each day. Our heart beats. The winds blow. A lover or a child smiles. The sun warms our face. We recall times that seem long ago; we think and imagine. The stars shine. Snow falls. These are miracles which do not require walking on water, a Pure Land or a night ride to Jerusalem. No exodus or burning bush.

Gospel means good news. I see this faith as good news for all humankind and for all living creatures on our planet. It means we can turn our face toward each other and our hands toward the earth in love, not lust.

As I see it, this is the ur-faith, the one prior to all the others. It came naturally to indigenous communities through faith traditions like Taoism, Shintoism, Native American faiths, the faith of those who painted Lascaux and who erected Stonehenge. Are all these the same, no, of course not; are they all similar in their insistence on loving attention to the reality within which we dwell and move and have our being? Yes. This is the ur-faith because it was one we all know in our deep heart; it is not exclusive, if you want to follow the path of this ancient faith and the way of Jesus or Buddha or Shiva or Mohammad, there is no conflict.