63 bar rises 29.72 1mph NNW dew-point 60 sunrise 6:30 sunset 7:57 Lughnasa
Waning Crescent of the Corn Moon
As the corn moon wanes toward the harvest moon, I thought a picture of the Lughnasa/Corn Moon harvest for today would say more than words.
Crabby but Eco-Friendly
72 bar falls 20.76 0mph ESE dew-point 64 sunrise 6:29 sunset 7:58 Lughnasa
Waning Crescent of the Corn Moon
A Sierra club blogger caught these comments after her light hearted, energetic account of her second day at the Democratic convention:
What I would like to know is the substance of what is being said and promised to America. The rest is nonsense and not worth our time.
I would also like more substance. This is time consuming, I don’t appreciate my time being wasted on insignicant information.
I agree with Bruce. Less fluff, more substance.
I posted the following:
Geez. Lighten up. Color is part of the information. This kind of crabby feedback is part of the problem we have in general. Who wants to listen to folks who sound like tight-lipped great-grand parents?
The environmental movement has a large dose of self-righteousness that often brooks no dissent. It is not unlike the New Left of the sixties. The tone and flavor of “I’m right and you’re not” creates a sense of condescension that impeded the capacity to get our message to the people who need to hear it. Are we wrong about some things? History assures us we are? Which things? Well, it is not history yet. This reality should make us more humble.
I watched a good film the other night called U-571. The plot is irrelevant here, but the Captain said to his Ex O, “To be a captain you have to make decisions with imperfect information and no time for consideration.” This is the human condition on all the great issues of the day. We get further with each other if we admit our information is imperfect. What we look for is the trend, the decision that if not made will hurt us more than inaction. Climate change sure seems to be one of those decisions. Could we have some of the science wrong? Absolutely. Is the trend clear enough to make decisions now imperative? Seems so to me.
But there may be some who read the data differently. They might disagree about urgency, agency. They might disagree, as noted physicist Freeman Dyson does, with the assumptions that go into the climate models. Those of us, though, who see the need for action must make our case in a way others can at least agree with us that acting is more important than the possibility of being wrong in some of the details. That’s our task.
Right Regrets
62 bar rises 29.84 0mpn NEE dew-point 61 sunrise 6:29 sunset 29.84 Lughnasa
Waning Crescent of the Corn Moon
“Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.” – Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller. Once married to Marilyn Monroe. A right regret? Who knows.
His point seems apt. Until scientists convince us we do not have free will (another time), all we have in life are the choices we make. Since the world and its manifold dynamics function chaotically (thought not without a kind of order), making choices that reflect our true values and our authentic Selves are the best we can do. Results have so much to do with accidents of birth, i.e. man, woman, white, black, Latino, Asian, African, poor parents, middle class parents, rich parents, country of origin: USA, Namibia, Brazil, Bangladesh, France, Georgia, era: middle ages, reformation, 19th century, 23rd century, not to mention genetic endowments and psychological environment, the crucial forks in the road for each individual life.
This reality gives Taoism a special resonance for me. Conforming ourselves to the movement of heaven means recognizing all these various factors as they come to a point in an individual life, our life. Attunement rather than atonement. We scan the heavens, using the I Ching, the Tao Te Ching, our minds and discern where to adapt and where to use the times as leverage for our choices. Even a perfectly attuned Taoist, a sage, may have no result in their life if the times and the heavens have no room for their ambitions.
Thus, we can only choose. Our choices, not the results, define our regrets. If we choose paths consistent with our values and our authentic Selves, then we will have only the right regrets. Why? Because we will have not betrayed who we are and we will not have betrayed those values we clasp to our hearts. The results come from the movement of the heavens as our choices either align with them or bump into their hard reality.
It may be that I have added one step too many. If we align ourselves with the Tao, the movement of heaven, then our values may be of no importance. If a value serves to set one in conflict with the movement of heaven, then, if I understand the Tao, it can force one out of alignment with the Tao. This can violates conforming ourselve to the movement of heaven.
This is what I mean when I say life does not need meaning, it is meaning; life does not need purpose, it is purpose.
An Old Guy Observation
56 bar steady 20.00 ompn NE dew-point 44 sunrise 6:28 sunset 8:02 Lughnasa
Waning Crescent of the Corn Moon
The Democratic convention. Ironically for our family, in Denver where our clan has strong roots. The Republican convention. Equally ironical, here in St. Paul.
Here’s an, oh my god I’m an old guy thought, but conventions aren’t what they were when I was a kid. When primaries began to take the decision about party nominees out of the hands of power brokers and the politics of a particular convention, conventions became mass marketing. No fun. Not interesting. In the past I watched convention coverage as eagerly as the final 4 in the NCAA or the Indianapolis 500. No more.
My gut tells me that Obama will sit down with his folks, figure out a strategy to focus his campaign on two or three issues-probably the economy, health care reform and energy independence. He and Biden will punch those home. They will be more dynamic, more thoughtful, and not Republican. In the end this should be enough.
Obama needs help, no doubt about that. He’s a young, inexperienced politician running against a Washington insider, again. I mean, Hillary was a prime example of an insider. He’s black. He’s smart. He needed this non-incumbent race following an unpopular presidency to give his way outside the box personal situation a chance. He has it and I think he’ll win pulling away.
Gazpacho tomorrow and planting. Gazpacho first.
Chou Nu Er, Xin QiJi
A final post for the China poetry series
Chou Nu Er
In days when I was young and didn’t know the taste of sorrow
I like to climb the storied tower,
I like to climb the storied tower;
To write the latest odes I forced myself to tell of sorrow.
Now that I understand the taste of sorrow altogether
I would like to tell, but stop,
I would like to tell, but stop;
Instead I say, ‘What a cool day! Such lovely autumn weather!’
As American as Basketball
63 bar rises 30.17 3mph NW dew-point 49 sunrise 6:26 sunset 8:04 Lughnasa
Last Quarter of the Corn Moon
The USA basketball team made this Indiana boy proud. Not so much because they won gold, but because they showed that the ego driven individualism of the NBA can flow into team play. The ego driven individualism of the NBA showcases an American individualism on steroids, true; but, aberrant it is not. The NBA demonstrates both the blessing and the curse of this signal American trait. The blessing: peak individual performance. Think Michael Jordan. Bill Russell. Magic Johnson. The curse: destruction of group cohesion. Think Kobe Bryant. Stephon Marberry.
Basketball and America go together like cricket and India, soccer and Brazil, rugby and England, hurling and Ireland. We should find satisfaction in the skilled play of countries all around the world, since it shows the global penetration of a defining American game. It is not yet time, though, for us to look at the rest of the world and see how far they have traveled in outstripping us on our own court. That time may come, probably will come when China matures as a basketball culture, but it is not now and for now we showed the world again how the game can be played. We have not become Milan, Indiana and Bobby Plump, not by a three-point shot we’re not.
The gardening part of life here in Andover picks up its pace as the temperature cools. I look forward to it.
Football and Iris, an Excellent Saturday
57 bar rises 30.06 0mph N dew-point 50 sunrise 6:26 sunset 8:05 Lughnasa
Last Quarter of the Corn Moon
The weather has gotten cooler and dryer. A taste of autumn today. Most Minnesotans enjoy fall the most with winter second.
Read my lily culture book this evening and got the information I needed to dig up the lily bulbs. They will go in amongst the iris. Later this fall I will plant daffodils in amongst them, too.
Paula Westmoreland from Ecological Gardens got back in touch with me today. We’ll connect on Monday. Kate and I want her to come out and help us with a site plan and assessment of our potential for permaculture. She can give us concrete next steps to take: plant lists, landscaping advice, energy conservation and capture ideas, perhaps even some modest income producing possibilities. This will give us a set of goals and objectives against which we can work.
I can do much of the work myself. What I can’t do we’ll hire. Exciting.
The Vikes looked pretty good. The defense did a great job. The offense sputtered, chugged, then hit on all cylinders for a few beautiful plays, then sputtered again. The announcers made a good point. At this time in the season the defense has its act together better than the offense. Offense relies on split second timing. Frerotte is our second string quarterback so in spite of a good game from him, the offense played with out its key player, Tavaris Jackson. His year will probably end up being our year, so here’s hoping he comes on strong after the knee injury.
Gardening By Doing Nothing
70 bar steady 30.01 2mph NEE dew-point 47 sunrise 6:26 sunset 8:05
Last Quarter of the Corn Moon moonrise 2306 moonset 1138
While dividing the iris rhizomes this morning, the air was cool and the sun shifted in the sky enough that I can see the change. These are fall moments for me, working on perennials and the garden, either planting or preparing to plant. A couple of years ago in September I planted daffodils on a cool, but bright Saturday afternoon. The pep band from Andover High School practiced for a football game that evening. The marches and rousers drifted over to our back property, the aural equivalent of falling leaves.
The rhizomes I dug up both in the raised bed out back and in the second tier perennial bed beside our downstairs patio had no soft rot, no sign of iris borer infestation. This means the clean-up in the fall and spring, coupled with the early doses of cygon, have created an ideal environment for them. This makes me feel good, competent. In this garden a healthy plant has superiority over a beautiful plant. Of course, both have their place, but a healthy plant means a plant that has found a spot where it feels comfortable, the right amount of sun, the right neighbors, the right soil nutrients. A healthy plant overtime produces more healthy plants, so plant health oriented gardening fills up the landscape with homegrown brothers and sisters, clones. It is also true that to my eye a healthy plant is a beautiful plant, so I do not choose between the two.
This is not to say we get no disease or infestations. We do. The spaghetti squash had an ugly horde of gray bugs that looked like giant ticks. Yuck. I removed the leaf and stepped on them. In general, I do not kill bugs, even pests, out of respect for life and its varying forms. In the case, though, of insects or diseases that harm plants, I will selectively kill. Most plants, even vegetables, can take an enormous amount of damage and still produce blooms, leaves and fruit, so I do not arbitrarily destroy and I almost never use chemicals. The cygon for iris borers is an exception.
This also means, by the way, that a healthy plant may have a few holes in its leaves, even attacks of black spot on the leaves, as our Cherokee Purple tomato have right now. If however, the plant has no difficulty growing and fruiting, I may only pluck off leaves, or do nothing. Since a plant can thrive even with substantial leaf damage, doing nothing covers most instances. I prefer doing nothing.
Gardening by doing nothing. Often, very satisfying results come from doing nothing. When we first moved in there was a single mangy cedar about 20 feet outside our backdoor. Since I cut down many black locust trees around it, I could have cut it down, too, but I chose to build a small garden bed around it and leave it alone. Fourteen years later it is a beautiful signature plant as you look out the back sliding doors. There are three oaks, close neighbors, that I also left alone. They, too, have grown into fine young trees, maybe 30 feet tall. We also have an ash in the park, again, a tree about which I did nothing, except put a garden bed around it. It now has a prominent spot in the park where we have our raised beds. It is the biggest plant.
Losing the Battle with Gravity
82 bar rises 29.65 omph ESE dew-point 69 sunrise 6:23 sunset 8:07 Lughnasa
Waning Gibbous Corn Moon moonrise 2246 moonset 1316
These are iris rhizomes. I spent the morning and a hour this afternoon digging these up out of our raised bed. You have to shear off the individual rhizomes from the mother rhizome, now spent from having thrown up its flower. Cutting the leaves helps reduce transpiration when transplanting and helps avoid transplant shock.
Normally I would soak them in a bleach solution, then coat them in captan as a way of reducing fungus and other diseases, but these iris were very healthy. Only one had any soft rot and I saw no evidence of iris borer either, so instead of treating them for disease, I spread them out on the same screen door I used to dry the onions. They’ll dry a couple of days. Tomorrow I’ll dig out the lower bed of iris, where all these will go and do the same to them.
As I sat on the edge of the raised bed, cutting the large fans of leaves and shaving off a clean cut with an old carving knife, a change in front stirred up a fair wind, blowing the leaves on the poplars, rustling them. Doing this kind of work takes me away from everything else, I’m only in the moment. A good feeling.
Our Country Gentleman corn, now over 8 feet high, didn’t develop adequate stalks. I planted them too close together. As a result, as this wind has whipped them around some of the stalks, burdened now by fat ears, lose the battle with gravity and flop earthward. The corns not quite ripe, but close enough. We had one ear for lunch, a couple more now for supper.
Reading
82 br falls 29.82 2mph NNW dew-point 63 sunrise 6:22 sunset 8:02 Lughnasa
Waning Gibbous Corn Moon
Started “The Street” last night. It is by Ann Petry. I found it while hunting for good books on the novel. A literature professor recommended it as a gritty, realist account of life in Harlem circa 1947, or post-WW II, a neglected work of genius. After the first chapter, I can see she was right. It is literally gritty, opening with a young woman looking for an apartment on St. Nicholas Avenue in a vicious wind that throws dust and sand from the gutters into her eyes. She wants the apartment to save her brother, Bub, who is 8, from her father’s girlfriend who gives Bub gin.
Further into “Maus” and it continues to amaze me, not only with the detailed account of the author’s father and mother and their extended family during the years preceding WW II and the war years, but with the uncomfortable honesty with which he portrays his father and his second wife, Mala. This contemporary honesty seems to underwrite the veracity of the European story.
Late afternoon and the sky has become cloudy. The transpiration cycle bundles moisture from the plants and the soil, the lakes and rivers and pumps up, up, up until it meets the air transports dew point. It then goes in to clouds and, if conditions are just right, thunderheads form and the water returns, perhaps to the same place, perhaps somewhere else.