Daily Archives: May 7, 2014

Commentary on the news, Minnesota, News of the Strange

Minnesota Whacko: Addendum

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Beltane                                                                Emergence Moon

OK, I thought John LaDue, Byron White and the corpse containing RV were enough to maintain our international standing, but I’m glad to see that the Zumberge family, all three of them, have jumped into a possible sanity breach. Here’s a quote from today’s Star-Tribune:

“Shoot, shoot, shoot, keep shooting,” Zumberge’s wife allegedly said as he fired a 12-gauge, semiautomatic shotgun at his neighbors.

This was apparently the culmination of a 15 year feud over the Zumberge’s neighbors feeding of deer. The Zumberges didn’t like it.

Son, Jacob, apparently pushed the neighbors at a local VFW, and then promised to “burn down their house and kill them.” According to the Tribune he felt the neighbor, dubbed “Mr. Corn” by the Zumberges in letters of complaint, contributed to his father getting Lyme’s disease.

(one of many shotguns available for purchase at a nearby Walmart.)

After Neal Zumberge emerged from his basement through a window, he emptied his semi-automatic shotgun. In a laconic observation the paper also reported that “four empty 12-gauge shotgun shells were found near (the neighbor’s) front door.”

Friends, GeekWorld, Woolly Mammoths

Leeks In The Ground, Fresh Oil in the Truck

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Beltane                                                              Emergence Moon

I planted leeks this morning and will plant the onions soon. The leeks went in with a IMAG0595sprinkling of Jubilate (microbial inoculant) and a drenching with transplant water, made from OND and water. OND is a fish emulsion.  After closing up the 8″ trenches, I put all the planting paraphernalia back in the honey house, then hopped in the Rav4.

Over to Carlson Toyota for its 35,000 mile oil change and service. While waiting, the Lenovo laptop connected with Perseus and I went over my Latin for Friday’s session with Greg. In the work for him we’re back when Jupiter told his azure brother, Neptune, to let loose the reins that hold back the rivers. Let them flood the earth. The waters cover the fields, the cattle, the human beings and their homes and temples.

On the way to Carlson I had a thought about mentors. I’ve often said that I’ve neglected mentors and have probably suffered because of it. It occurred to me that that’s not exactly true. I have a circle of mentors in the Woolly Mammoths.

 

Aging, Faith and Spirituality, Feelings, Friends, Third Phase, Woolly Mammoths

How We Walk

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Beltane                                                                 Emergence Moon

It has always been so, I imagine. That those closest to us teach us life’s important lessons. Over the last couple of years my longtime and good friends in the Woolly Mammoths have taught me many things. This sort of teaching is much closer to apprenticeship than classroom lecture. That is, the lessons are taught by example rather than declamation. When we learn by example, we integrate the lesson into our journey; we learn as it affects us, rather than focusing on getting it right.

Regina_20120926aTwo lessons stand out though there have been many from each Woolly. The first, accepting the death of a spouse has come from Woolly Bill Schmidt whose wife, Regina, died in September of 2012. The grace in his acceptance of her death, his willingness to give voice to his grief and his sense of loss while remaining upright and present to all around him teaches one elegant way to walk the ancientrail occasioned by our mortality. It is not in mimicking him that we will learn his lesson but, in heeding the deeper lesson, that is, to be present to grief in a way that is authentically our own.

The second is the homecoming of Frank Broderick. Frank has been in tremendous pain from spinal degeneration for the last couple of years. To deal with it a back operation, his second, was the only solution. But, Frank has a bad heart. Frank had to choose between a image002life of constant pain (He’s 81.) or an operation with some risk of death. As Frank does, he weighed his options seriously, getting a second opinion at the Mayo Clinic. Satisfied with the level of risk, he decided to go ahead.

He came home yesterday after a grueling 10 days of rehab and faced with several weeks of rehab still ahead. Again, the Frank lesson is not in how to deal with pain or a bad back, though he did both of those well, but how to bring personal courage and intelligent decision making to the often complex health matters we will all deal with as we age.

Both of these men have granted me access to their lives and to the way they live them. When the student was ready, his teachers appeared.