Summer Moon of the First Harvests
Did brix readings for onions, beets and cherries using friend Bill Schmidt’s refractometer. Beets average plus. Onions good. Cherries good plus. Work to do, but starting in a reasonable place. Will continue as the harvest goes one.
Summer Moon of the First Harvests
What a wonder. A black president speaking as a black man about the lived experience of young black men. Trayvon Martin, he said, could have been him 35 years ago. A young black man in hoodie, suspected of, what? WWB? Walking while black. Maybe about to do, something. And something, wrong. Bad. Hearing clicks on car door locks as you walk by. Being followed in stores. Indelible and seemingly inevitable.
Yet, of course, he is not Trayvon. No, he is the president of the most powerful nation the world has ever known. Maybe the most powerful it will ever know. And even he, with all that power at his disposal, literally at his command, can imagine himself into the life of a young man seen, paradoxically, as both powerless and invisible and all too visible and dangerous.
Racism and its even more evil progenitor, slavery, stand out as the original sin, the stain on this city on a hill, this beacon of freedom and hope. We white folk have done this and that, but not too much and now the time of our dominance is passing. This nation will become a colorful quilt with white as one shade among many rather than the shade against which all others stand inferior. May that day come soon.
There are many things I feel privileged to have witnessed. The civil rights movement. The anti-war movement. Feminism and the rise of women. A world in which the whole planet must be taken into account when making decisions. A man walking on the moon. Routine space flight. The discovery of extraterrestrial planets. The discovery of DNA. The global recognition that the people can challenge their government. And win. So many things. These and more.
But, this one, a black president speaking about the lived experience of being a young black man. This one is a miracle.
Summer Moon of the First Harvests
A light rain falling as I went out this morning. The garden continues to look strong, the 
tomatoes are about to enter their bearing and ripening phase, maybe a week, maybe a little more, then Kate will have the stove filled with canning and the counters with canning equipment. Later on the raspberries, which is a bulk harvest, too, and the leeks, even later, will also be a bulk harvest. Around the time the leeks are ready, the apples should begin to ripen.
I’m especially pleased with my new lilies from the Northstar Lily society: the dark purple, the trumpet of white with yellow, the cream colored vase shaped, bright yellows and pinks. Their colors are vibrant. They pulsate. Mid-July is my favorite flower season. Well, mid-July and early spring. I also love the spring ephemerals. The rest I enjoy, but these flowers make my flower growing season.
Sprayed again this morning, this one an oil based spray to strengthen the plants against insects. It does seem to be the case, with the exception of the beets and the cabbage that insect predation is down from years past. This has been such an odd year, especially compared to last year–hot and dry, that it’s a little hard to generalize. It does seem to be the case that stronger plants equal better insect control, by the plant.
While the Woollies were here, I commented on the amount of money we’ve put in the 
outdoors. Initially, the landscaping by Otten Brothers. Then clearing the land for the vegetable and orchard areas. (cost here mostly stump grinding and renting the industrial strength wood-chipper.) The raised beds. Then the ecological gardens work with the orchard and some in the vegetable garden. Fences around the orchard and the vegetable garden and the whole property. Irrigation zones. The fire pit. Mulching the orchard and the vegetable garden. Bulbs in the fall for many years. We’re raising expensive tomatoes.
But, this kind of accounting leaves out the most significant parts of all this work. It keeps us outside, using our bodies. The whole grounds are a joint effort, in work, planning, and hiring. It also allows us to produce a good part of our vegetables at quality we effect and flowers for our tables. Fruits, too.
Best of all it keeps us focused on the rhythms of the earth. Winter puts the garden to sleep and relieves us of its care (for the most part). Spring sees our fall bulb planting rewarded and our earliest vegetables planted. Summer finds us intensely involved with weeding, thinning, managing the various crops for the year. Fall finishes the harvest and brings senescence.