Art and Culture, Garden

Planting and Reaping

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Fall                                            Waning Harvest Moon

The last forty bulbs, a monet tulip collection, have gone in the ground.   I planted a couple of hundred daffodil and tulips at various spots in the orchard, which we see from the table while eating breakfast.  The others, more daffodils and tulips along with a bunch of new lilies, went into the tiered beds off our patio.  Spring color has such an invigorating effect after winter.

It was more hassle, but I went ahead and amended the sandy orchard soil where I planted the monet tulips.  Without the composted manure/top soil mixture, the sandy soil would not support these tulips for long, especially since most tulips are biennials at best in our garden.

With all the bulbs and corms put to bed, I went to work taking out all the remaining root crops:  onions, beets and carrots.  We had a large number of each, enough to add to our stores for the coming winter.  I also picked four big leeks since I plan to reprise my leek based chicken pot pies.  Over the next week I’ll have to pull the remainder of the leeks and make something with them.  The last butternut squash came in as well.

With the exception of putting the bees up for the winter the only remaining necessary garden chore will be mulching once the ground freezes.  I have oak leaves and still hold out hope that I can find actual bales of straw somewhere.

Bees

Bee Diary: Winter Prep

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Fall                                              Waning Harvest Moon

Up by 10 today.  Still recuperating from the week.  Out to Stillwater to buy moisture boards for the bees and another cardboard sleeve for winter.  I already have two.  The process now is pretty straightforward.  Remove all honey supers.  Done.  Put in the boards that reduce the bottom entrance to below mouse size.  Done.  Take off feeding and treatments.  Will be done this weekend.  Cork up all but the top hole that allows bees access to the hive box from above.  Done, except that I have to drill a hole in one hive box.  Not sure how the bees will tolerate that, but I’ll find out soon enough.

After all this, I wait somewhere into the first couple/three weeks of November.  At that point I put in the moisture board on the top.  This board wicks moisture from the writhing mass of bees as they crawl around each other in a ball that maintains a steady temperature in the colony.  I make sure there is a top entry point cut into the cardboard that conforms to the entrance on the top hive box.  I then put the cover on the top hive box, over the moisture board, but slightly tilted to allow the moisture to escape.  This necessitates a rock or brick to be sure the cover doesn’t blow away.  The card board sleeve fits over the three hive boxes and serves as a wind barrier and provides a small amount of insulation.  The outside of the cardboard has a wax coating to repel water.  After that, walk away.  I’ll check on the colonies in late January, early February.

Commentary on Religion

Under the: Who Will Miss Them Anyhow banner

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Fall                                        Waning Harvest Moon

Retired chaplains warn against ‘don’t ask’ repeal

“Dozens of retired military chaplains say that serving both God and the U.S. armed forces will become impossible for chaplains whose faiths consider homosexuality a sin if the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is thrown out.

If a chaplain preaches against homosexuality, he could conceivably be disciplined as a bigot under the military’s nondiscrimination policy, the retired chaplains say. The Pentagon, however, says chaplains’ religious beliefs and their need to express them will be respected…

“My heart doesn’t bleed for these chaplains,” said Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. “If you don’t like it, there’s a very simple solution: Fold your uniform, file the paperwork and find something else to do.””

Politics

Mlid-Term Elections 2010

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Fall                                        Waning Harvest Moon

Politics in Minnesota started its private subscriber newsletter this week with this (to me) sobering paragraph:

“The big news today is last night’s KSTP/SurveyUSA poll showing a virtual tie between Mark Dayton and Tom Emmer heading toward Tuesday’s election. This year partisans of all stripes have had the opportunity to pick and choose among a selection of cheerfully discrepant, mutually contradictory polls; by selectively holding up their internal data, you can “prove” almost anything about the race.”

It would be nice if Minnesota proved an exception to what looks like an otherwise ugly election day, but that remains to be seen.  As always, only a whole lot rides on this election.  In particular, control of this state and many others for the popular political sport called gerrymandering.  That means, in essence, that the big winners of this by-election will have a good shot at creating favorable political districts for themselves for the next decade.  Ouch.

(As last year, myself and comrades will be combing the late night spots and digging up new voters.)

As matters cease to have the one and done significance my younger self ascribed to all elections, I can see this election in a broader pattern.  A new president’s party always, almost always, loses seats in the by-election.  Due to a confluence of factors this one may be worse than others for the Democrats.  There is wide spread anger at the state of the economy as the working class and the soon-to-be-retiring class both find their futures crimped by a stagnant and perhaps deflating economy.  The war in Afghanistan long ago passed all U.S. records for foreign entanglements and Obama seems to have achieved no political credit for closing out troop actions in Iraq.  The passage of the economic stimulus, which will, like the health care legislation, be seen by history as critically important for our nations future have also failed to stick to Obama’s credit.  This means something is wrong with his handlers, but perhaps, too, with this cerebral, even style.   On top of these realities is the Tea Party, a not so new mix of populist politics and ideas created in the heyday of such notable movements as the John Birch Society.

From a legislative perspective in Minnesota the terrain still looks unclear today, four + days before the election, but it will clear up a lot by Wednesday of next week.  Not a fun funny season if you’re on the left edge of the political spectrum as I am.

Garden, Humanities

Rusty Latin

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Fall                                                         Waning Harvest Moon

Back into the Latin this morning with my tutor, Greg.  Boy, I got rusty in just two months off.  This language stuff requires constant attention.  When I went through college and sem, I took courses that I could set aside for weeks at a time, do a reading and note review in one big gulp, then be fine for a mid-term or a final.  I can’t do that with Latin.  It’s probably why I never learned a language.  The repeated application just didn’t suit the style I brought to learning.  Now, older, I’m more methodical, more patient with myself and feel no pressure for a grade.  Makes the process better, though not simpler.

So.  This ends the intellectually demanding week I’ve had since Tuesday morning.  Whew.  A bit of let down now, a kick back and read.  Then, I’m going to pick up the Latin again this afternoon after the nap.  Strike while the mental iron is still hot.

The weekend will see me finishing the bulb planting-24 tulips, harvesting carrots and beets and leeks and squash, maybe even some more greens.  I’ll also get the bees ready for their cardboard wraps, though I won’t put them on until sometime in November.

General

Deep in the Books

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Fall                                        Waning Harvest Moon

Studying the history of landscapes the last two days.  Now I have to put the tour together before the Sierra Club meeting tonight.  This has taken a lot of time because I couldn’t recall much about landscapes.  My speculation is that the more I learn the quicker tours will come in the future.  I know that’s already true in some instances.  Not on landscapes.  Not yet.

News of the Strange

News You Might Otherwise Miss

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Fall                                           Waning Harvest Moon

Reminds me of Rigel

Link to a video of the extraction

CLEVELAND, Ga. – A north Georgia man said he and his wife found a neighbor’s buffalo in their swimming pool. Chris Nonnemaker said he and his wife noticed two holes in the pool’s cover and went outside to take a look Saturday morning in White County. Nonnemaker said they noticed something moving. When he pulled the pool cover back, Nonnemaker saw a buffalo that had escaped from a neighbor’s home.

Nonnemaker called police and videotaped the animal’s rescue, which involved ropes to help coax the buffalo out near the shallow end.

Deputies said the buffalo belonged to a neighbor and escaped with two others weeks ago. They said those two were caught shortly after they got away.

The owners of the buffalo that was in the pool decided to put the animal down.

Aging, Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Humanities, Myth and Story, Politics, Retirement, Weather +Climate

The Constructive Task

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Fall                                                   Waning Harvest Moon

Another morning of cool, wet weather.  The beginning of October.  No.  Scratch that.  The end of October.  I recognize this fall weather actually; it comes to us courtesy of the climate that used to be Indiana’s.  This is the weather pattern of my boyhood.  Sunny, sometimes warm, sometimes not fall days, then rain drifting over into ice or snow with some cold, a January thaw that makes everything muddy and nasty, then a bit more cold and snow until March when the muddy, nasty part returns until spring.  This weather pattern had a good deal to do with my move north, since I wanted stable seasons and in particular real winters.  Now it seems the weather patterns I left have begun to follow me.

The Liberal Spirit is on Ancientrails now, just look on the left side, all the way at the bottom under Ge-ology.  This presentation completed a six part exploration of, first, the movement West of Unitarian-Universalism, and then the nature and future of liberalism, especially as it applies to matters often called religious.  I like working in three parts because it encourages me to think longer than the usually 5-7 page presentation, to take an idea further, develop it.  Not sure what I might do next, but I do feel a need to begin what my old seminary theology professor would call the constructive task.

Constructive theology as an abstract idea involves the coherent development of ideas, ideas about the ultimate nature of reality, human existence and the forces that work on both of them.  My notion of a Ge-ology, which continues to rattle around, make sense, but defy careful development is a significant part of where I want to go, but there’s a lot more to piece together.  The whole notion has become a more and more pressing idea for me as I work in the Sierra Club legislative arena.  It confirms what I have known now for some time.  The representative democracy which serves our nation well at a conflict reduction level, does not work well when it comes to deep, systemic change.  Its checks and balances, its partisan politics and its ephemeral nature make radical change not only unlikely, but almost impossible.  This is by design and it does well at frustrating regional ambitions or the rise of a revolutionary faction, yet those same mechanisms also frustrate radical analysis, even in those instances in which it is so obviously needed.

Upstairs now to our business meeting, still massaging our way toward Kate’s retirement, getting comfortable with the financial side and with our new life.  Not long now.