Daily Archives: July 24, 2014

Cooking, Garden, Latin, Science, Translating Metamorphoses

Matters Thorny

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Summer                                                              New (Lughnasa) Moon

croppedIMAG0360Kate destemmed and clipped the wispy end off all the gooseberries I picked. Gooseberries are just this side of not being worth the effort. She put them in a bowl with our blueberries, mixed them and made tarts. Tasty. We also had green beans and carrots tonight, one day out of the garden. With fish.

The Latin I reviewed over the last couple of days continues to come more easily. Incremental jumps, consolidation of past learning and, by now, long practice have combined to push me forward. Kate reminded me (I’d forgotten.) that I started on this because I doubted I could learn a foreign language. But, I wanted to try.

I’ve felt for many years the same way about calculus and step by slow step I’m learning pre-calculus through the Khan Academy. Somewhere back in my education, maybe junior high or so, I got into the habit of racing through exams, wanting to finish well ahead of everybody else and have the rest of the time to myself. As I work on these math problems, I find that same self-pressure, a hurry-up attitude has not left me. It gets in my way. I make bone head mistakes, having to take more time going back over what I’ve done. So, I’m slowing down. Making sure.

Why am I doing this? I enjoy challenging myself, pushing myself into strange places, foreign lands. Latin was a foreign country four years ago, though I’m now a resident alien. Calculus continues to be a faraway land, but I’ve found a path and I’m on it. These are different ways of looking at the world, different perspectives. With Latin I’m going deep into an ancient culture and the deeper I go the more mysterious it becomes. I imagine calculus will prove the same.

Cooking, Garden

I Sprayed In The Garden Alone

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Summer                                                              Most Heat Moon

As the Most Heat Moon gives way to the Lughnasa Moon, gardening takes more time. Today I picked gooseberries, a thorny fruit, willing to rip and tear any who venture near. Got enough for a full basket and didn’t end up wounded.

This was also a spray morning. One goes on the plants throwing out seeds in various fleshy carriers like tomatoes, egg plants, cucumbers, beans, peppers, as well as those concentrating on root growth like onions, garlic, carrots and beets. The other is for those plants spreading their leaves like chard and collard greens, various herbs.

Today was also a drench day, a concentrated solution that goes on the soil, not on the plant, and raises the level of molecular interactions in the soil that create plant growth. Drenching is a bit messy since I’m using an old Miraclegro feeder that has seen far better days. It leaks and sprays, soaking my shoes and pants. Time for a new one.

Kate has the pressure cooker out, shades of the 1950’s, having discovered that low acid vegetables like beets and carrots require the higher 240 degrees a pressure cooker can reach.

Forgot to mention that my energy level has returned to normal, perhaps normal plus a bit, after the long two weeks with guests, then Kate gone, then more guests. I’m glad because it restored my sense that I can care for a garden, a vegetable garden, about the size of ours, especially if that’s the primary outdoor work I have to do. That and the bees.

Politics, US History, Weather +Climate

Positive Signs

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Summer                                                             Most Heat Moon

Some positive signs. News about climate change has gone from whether to when, how much and what do we do. Though this is a fight that will require joint effort beyond anything I’ve seen short of a war, the U.S. can lead if it finds the will. A change in the public opinion atmosphere, in this case, may lead to a change in the less gaseous atmosphere.

Another. News reports have begun to notice inner city America. Again. Urban poverty became prevalent long before climate change arose. Roman and Chinese cities in ancient times already grappled with its problems. Over the course of my life urban issues have had their cycles, reaching a zenith during the Presidency of Lyndon Johnson and his Great Cities programs.

Today’s Star-Tribune has an article that grazes the issue written by Chicago Tribune conservative Steve Chapman who quotes Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic.  This link to the Atlantic collects several of Coates’ fine essays on urban America, particularly urban black America with a focus on Chicago. He’s making a case for reparations, that is, some form of restitution for all those effected by chattel slavery. Well worth reading.

Cities and their issues were the focus of my professional and political life. It’s heartening to me to see these matters beginning to take up space in various media. The amount of human heartache and the egregious loss of raw talent occasioned through urban poverty is stupefying.

May both climate change and urban poverty see more of our combined attention over the next few decades. They both need it. (Another bit on the intractability of urban poverty later.)