Lugnasa Harvest Moon
Friend Tom Crane found this. Those of us who were Buck Rogers fans, or read Asimov and Heinlen early on, those of us who followed Star Trek in its many permutations have been so damned lucky: computers, satellites, walks on the moon, mars exploration, a human-made object leaving the solar system, discoveries of exoplanets and gravity waves and the Higgs Boson, quantum computers and now. Ta-dah. Tractor beams.
Tractor beams? Honestly, this one always seemed a long step beyond possible, so it amazes me as much or more than all the other wonders we’ve seen. This stuff keeps the 13-year-old nerd alive in me. And I like that.
“To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the original Star Trek series premiere, NYU physics professor (and sci-fi fan) David Grier leads a tour of his lab—the birthplace of the real-life tractor beam. In this video, Grier explains how the technology works and how it could find practical use in everything from environmental science to—yes—space exploration.” Published on Aug 31, 2016
Standing Rock Pipeline. This reminds me, on a much larger scale, of the occupation of Wounded Knee back in 1973. Wounded Knee had the ever-present danger of violence. Radical veterans of the Vietnam War had brought their rifles and placed themselves between the Federal Marshals and the A.I.M. folks in Wounded Knee.
Kate had Bailey Patchworkers for most of the day and I spent the day up in the loft with the dogs, so the jackhammering didn’t bother us. This will be worth it, but remodeling is never easy since by definition it has to take place where you live.
The clouds are at 8,800 feet this morning. We’re surrounded by and inside them. A foggy start to the day.
Black Mountain, which is covered in lodgepole pine and actually green as a result, has small gold flecks this morning. Those few aspen groves on its slopes have begun to turn, as have more and more aspens between here and Evergreen, but not those on our property. Too, Orion appeared in the southern sky a week or so ago, the early morning southern sky. On Shadow Mountain Orion and the changing of the aspens are true harbingers of autumn.
Mussar is defined here by Rabbi Ira Stone, of the 
Spent another evening at Montview Elementary with Jon, Ruth and Gabe. We ate a light supper of foods selected at King Sooper (grocery store chain here), then began to make more prints. Ruth has gotten into the spirit of found objects used as surfaces for print making. She bought some things at Goodwill to print: a leaf shaped metal serving dish and a small metal kitchen utensil that looks surprisingly like a giraffe when inked. I printed another spoon, gray-white this time. Gabe made wheeled objects with something like tinker-toys.
After the printmaking, Jen picked up Ruth and Gabe. I headed over to I-70, turned onto it going west and drove into this amazing sunset. The mountain silhouette in the evenings often looks like a Potemkin village, a prop set against the backdrop of a falling sun. This night it was something.
Politically I feel and have felt in, but not of, mainstream American politics. That is, political action has been another key ancientrail in my life, but I’ve had to engage it from a stance left of even the further edges of liberalism.
Palisade, Colorado has had a bumper peach harvest. There is a small area on the Western Slope that has an ideal peach growing microclimate. They have other crops, too: lavender, apples, sweet corn, strawberries and vegetables. The newspapers have carried photo spreads of workers in the orchards with peach baskets gently picking and placing the delicate fruit into baskets. Back in Andover, this time of year, the honey harvest would be in, the raspberries just beginning. I would be out planting garlic and pulling the last plantings of carrots, beets, leeks and onions. This is the peak harvest season, when the land and its workers combine to feed millions, even billions of people.
Being so far removed from farms and large truck gardens feels strange to this former Midwestern lifer. No more so than in this long harvest season. Corn pickers and combines have begun to roll through fields. The state fairs have swept up 4-H’er raised cattle, pigs, sheep, chickens. The vegetable harvest has peaked. Self pick apple orchards have hayrides and cider stations set out. Not there, though.
Labor Day does mark the winding down of one season long harvest up here: tourist dollars from Denver folks. July and August are the heaviest tourist months for our favorite mountain town, Evergreen. We’re not a winter tourist destination, at least not like the ski resorts, so the roads will have less traffic and fewer visitors in Evergreen’s restaurants.