Brain Worms

A further counsel bear in mind: 

If that thy roof be made of glass, 

It shows small wit to pick up stones 

To pelt the people as they pass.

Don Quixote 1605 (by Miguel de Cervantes)

Criticism can live in a mind like a worm. Sometimes I try to squish it with another kind of brain worm, a tune that won't leave. You know what those are like, maybe some jingle or popular song that repeats itself all afternoon. I've heard of people that suffered for days. I haven't had that problem, but sometimes a brain worm simply accompanies criticism for a long while, or the critic wins out and I must take another approach. Om. Om.

As my wrinkles deepen, I try harder (yes, often fruitlessly, some of you know) to keep the criticism locked up, unsaid. Keeping quiet is hardest in the face of someone else's inability to do the same.

My membership in several environmental organizations brought me the bantering among letters to the editor. Folks of the same flock criticizing each other for not living the talk reminds me of glass houses. Sell that old Volvo; it's a gas guzzler. Does it make sense to junk it in a landfill and buy another car? And by the way, you in your hybrid, couldn't you bike to work? Or walk, then you wouldn't have to buy tires and repair brakes? Or work out of your home? And grow your own food so you don't have to shop every week? It's endless.

I've heard that if it's worth doing it's worth doing badly the first time. We're trying here at Elk Cliff Farm. Some things we don't do so well. I like to think we do them better the next time. When animals die, we cry (it's part of life, some people like to say). Over all, I think we do a better job than the factories that raised the animals we used to eat when we bought meat at grocery stores. I'll half-bite my tongue and not ask whether you've found an alternative source, too.

"Unfair," says Virginia. "I thought you weren't going to criticize."

I guess it's all in the mind, you know.

Swallowing

As the candidates for president pluck each other’s words out of context and ignore the issues this country needs to face, I pick gobs of green beans and wonder how to squeeze more than 1% out of an investment. I know I should forget about the investment and focus on things that matter, such as relationships at home and in the nearby community, and green beans.

Hidden inside those little green things are tiny communities we ignore as we munch, as if it’s possible to be a vegan or vegetarian. We tend to overlook the things we’d rather not face, such as hugging our pets while eating animals bred and raised in hideous conditions -- or vegetables gathered by machines that squish baby deer and rabbits -- distributed and cooked as if they were industrial parts. Few of us take the time to nurture them, “harvest” them as humanely as we know how (as if we have any idea what it means to be raised for consumption and what it feels like to be terminated), and cook them with the tenderness they deserve, choosing instead industrial food from grocery freezers that can be zapped and eaten in less than 5 minutes, without taste and without tasting.

Meanwhile, the “bugs” that have resided in human stomachs for thousands of generations wonder what’s coming, something that doesn’t look at all like the food our ancestors ate and contains molecules, nay poisons, developed by firms that had to figure out what to make when the government no longer needed the bombs their founders designed (fertilizers and pesticides, bombs, same basic ingredients). Serfs to agricultural conglomerates buy expensive tractors that drive themselves with GPS systems so no one has to come close to the food parts that will be mixed without regard for nutrition and the tastes our grandparents enjoyed, no touchy, feely behavior, only meaningless platitudes, about caring for the land, water, air and future generations. We marched in the 1960s; that was then, this is now we give a few bucks to the Nature Conservancy and say we’ve done our share, let’s drive our grand-kids to McDonalds instead of cook them a fine dinner at home and nibble around a table while discussing matters of moment before playing a game of Scrabble.

“Hold on,” says Virginia. “I think you may have managed to alienate almost every reader.”

At least I stayed away from religion, didn’t I (for the most part)?

Spoiled

Coming out of the fog of 4 months of busy writing, I see pink, red and white dogwoods, redbuds, apple blossoms, and a new generation of tent caterpillars. Sometimes I think they've one-upped us, living in tents. How practical and inexpensive! A few humans are as smart, those who've discovered yurts. I'd bet my Mac PowerBook would work very well in a yurt. Our woodstove might become a hero instead of the villain in this house for which it's proved to be under-sized.

Not that we've had much need for our woodstove this winter. Our woodpile was small from the beginning, so I couldn't complain too much about frost-free mornings. About the time I began splitting wood every two or three days, our ancient Old Milwaukee furnace that occupies half of a basement room conked out. We filled the oil tank, expecting the old monster to start up again, but it didn't. Karen quickly ordered a couple infrared heaters, then all of a sudden summer arrived. Now we wonder if the heaters would keep us warm on ten degree nights, not having had a chance to find out.

Fools we are. Not too many generations ago, our foreparents got along just fine under blankets on ten degree nights. Couldn't we? We might find comfort seeing our breath with the sunrise. But no, that's for the poor and the hungry. The rest of us are spoiled brats.

"Let's just say spoiled," says Virginia.

That's right. I drew looks once when I mentioned we'd turned our thermostat up to 62. I felt like a brat.

Earthshake, Oooooo

As I munched on 5 ears of sweet corn (some reflected the lack of rain and weren't filled out), the house shook for 15-20 seconds. I thought Karen and Fred, our friend the electrician, were shaking wires in the ceiling of the basement kitchen. I almost said, "It sounds like Clifford, the big red dog, down there." The house shook again a minute or two later.

I didn't think anything of it until Fred's wife called to say there was an earthquake in DC or somewhere east of here. She'd seen something on television, I guess. Inquiries began coming in from around the world, Kansas first.

"I didn't know you had any friends," says Virginia, "until a government action brings them out."

What do you mean?

"Well, you said you didn't give it any thought," says Virginia, "until someone, probably a government agency, reported an earthquake. Then you assumed it was an earthquake."

Heck, she's right, sort of. Maybe it wasn't an earthquake, just a sympathetic vibration imagined by a few hundred thousand or million people. After all, one of our nieces in Ohio didn't feel it, while people around her did. The air may just have been full of brain farts, nothing new.

Still Life

Finish Line

"What on earth is that?" says Virginia.

It's what I collected at the end of my run this morning, littering the roadside along the edge of our field. I decided it would make a nice still life. Several titles crossed my mind, including "Dr. P Rejected."

"Were you feeling rejected this morning?" says Virginia.

Not at all, nor was I feeling like a "doctor." The Dr. Pepper bottle struck me deepest because there it lay, barely touched. Who threw it and why?  

Maybe a rich man had seen soft drinks on the shelf at Tee Pees and bought a bag of a bunch of brands. After he mounted his Mercedes, he grabbed a bottle and took a sip. "Yuck," he said as he threw it out his window.

Perhaps a poor fellow had reached into his pocket and found barely enough coins to buy one bottle. He savored the first sip and another as he walked down the road, carefully screwing the cap on after each drink. "Oh no." He pretended to trip and set the bottle on the ground. A car stopped to give him a ride. "Close one," he thought, knowing the driver, his "fiancee," would have leveled him with a tongue lashing if she'd seen that he'd wasted money on a Dr. Pepper.  

"You're being too kind," says Virginia.

All right. Some slob threw the thing out his window with no thought, the same kind of attention he gives most of his life as he gripes about government spending, how much trouble he goes through to get his disability claims paid, and how seldom his wife cleans house. 

Did you know still lifes were popular in ancient Greek tombs because some people believed the subjects in a still life would become real with reincarnation?  May "Finish Line" or "Dr. P. Rejected" be the first thing our litterbug sees when he or she begins the his next life.

Keri, our Great Pyrenees Pup

Global Rupture?

The pigs are doing a good job roto-tilling a garden bed, their test site.  We're getting a little sweet corn from the field garden, which will be their next project.  Some winter squash seems to be doing all right in that garden, too.  If we put the pigs out there, will they stay inside their electric fence?  We plan to gradually move them around the big garden.  A fence break could badly mess things up.  Hitting a deer is no fun.  Hitting a pig wouldn't be, either.

If the field garden experiment works, then we may move the pigs or their replacements around the field.  Bit by bit we might be able to plant the field with native grasses and animal food, such as oats and barley.  Or blueberries, pumpkins, strawberries, etc.  I don't know about monoculture planting though, a quarter acre or twenty-five.  How big does it have to be before it becomes monoculture?

Reading Silent Spring, including Rachel Carson's account of the use of DDT on elm trees in Michigan and elsewhere, leads me to wonder if, 60 years later, the robins have returned.  Have we learned from that experience or are we doing the same sort of thing with "safe" treatments like Roundup?  There's so much we don't know.  We should be wary of introducing any inventions into our planet's ecosystems.  I'm inclined to apply the grandmother test -- if grandmother wouldn't recognize it, don't eat it, and think ten thousand times before spraying it on plants. 

"Hey, what's it matter?" says Virginia.  "The rapture is coming soon."

She's a kidder.  Too bad many other people aren't.

Silent Spring

My online bookclub associate and I have begun reading Silent Spring by Rachel Carson as our "classic" for June.  Many credit this book for kicking off the "enviromental movement."  My father, a biologist, read it back in 1962 when it came out and promptly began using it in his university classes and occasionally at our dinner table.

I'm still near the beginning of this book, but I'm astounded how "current" some of it remains.  I read recently that the purple boxes hanging from trees in Virginia are part of an effort to study the movement of emerald ash borers from North to South.  When I heard a couple years ago that my hometown of Bluffton, Ohio has lost most, if not all, of its mature ash trees, I thought, does this mean the ash trees on our farm will soon follow suit?

Here's what Rachel Carson wrote about elm trees.  I imagine we could insert "ash" each time "elm" appears and it would remain fairly accurate:

"The same thing happens in other situations.  A generation or more ago, the towns of large areas of the United States lined their streets with the noble elm tree.  Now the beauty they hopefully created is threatened with complete destruction as disease sweeps through the elms, carried by a beetle that would have only limited chance to build up large populations and to spread from tree to tree if the elms were only occasional trees in a richly diversified planting."

I remember thinking back when elm trees were being destroyed that it was such a shame, that nature would do this to a variety of tree.  I didn't know then it was our fault -- concentrated planting.  Or that the same sort of thing happens when farmers plant thousands of acres of one crop -- and we find ourselves "needing" pesticides to control insects that descend on huge fields.  And then, as Carson wrote so long ago, the insects develop super-species immune to those pesticides, while the pesticide residues remain in soils, streams, water supplies, and eventually, human cells, mother's milk and embryos.

50 years later, the processes described in Silent Spring continue.  Most of us are oblivious.  History remains a class we suffer through and forget.

"Shame on us," says Virginia.

We're Spoiled (and Stuck)

As folks scramble to cope with homes and schools that aren't warm, the suggestion that we pile on clothes and blankets instead of buying generators and installing other back-up heating devices has a certain appeal. I realize it's not an answer for everyone, especially those with less than perfect health, and it won't keep pipes from freezing.  I'm afraid I was kind of drawn to the governor of Pennsylvania's criticism of the cancelling of a professional football game due to weather ("you wimps") -- that he didn't think would have happened in certain other parts of the world.

"We're spoiled," says Virginia.  "We have to be able to run around naked indoors in the winter and fully clothed in the summertime."

I'm tempted to read "Air-Conditioning America" by Gail Cooper or "Cool Comfort: America's Romance with Air-Conditioning" by Marsha Ackerman, which I understand examine how HVAC technology transformed American expectations and the definition of comfort.  For most of time, humans have managed quite well without heated or cooled homes.  Now we've designed ourselves into them.  We're stuck.

One of these days, not today, I want to return to our obsession with growth.  For example, we refuse to invest in companies that don't present us with the expectation of above-average growth.  We view a country as a failure if its GDP doesn't grow as fast as those of other countries.  Inherent in this growth obsession is a tendency to get stuck -- in that we make it virtually impossible to return to a previous, perhaps more reasonable state, because it's "primitive" or too much like the life of "pioneers" -- and at the same time we also might be making the return inevitable because our lifestyle becomes unsustainable on Earth (i.e., a Catch-22).  I think a very serious paradigm shift is inevitable.

"I think you lied when you said 'one of these days, not today,'" says Virginia.  "It's still today."

All right.  Goodbye, folks.

Old Milwaukee, the Cadillac of Furnaces

Every now and then we need to clean the catalytic converter on our wood stove. This requires a complete shutdown and cooldown and means for a couple days we get to rely exclusively on our antique Old Milwaukee oilburner. According to one repairman, it was the Cadillac of furnaces 50 or 60 years ago, "we can still get parts," and it'll chug along forever with consistent maintenance. He even said he'd keep it instead of buying a new, much more efficient furnace. Ironically, I agree except in the summertime, when it'd be nice to have central cooling. Because we use it as a backup and supplementary to our wood stove, it may not make a whole lot of sense to replace it.

When we bought this house, we paid $1,000 or so to fill the 500-gallon tank and it lasted 18 months. We refilled it half way a couple weeks ago, figuring we don't want much oil sitting around if we decide to get a HVAC unit this year. You can do the math. How long would it take to make a new furnace pay for itself? Very long, unless oil prices went sky high.

"How can we figure?" says Virginia. "You didn't say how much a new furnace costs."

Well, if you figure we spent $500 per winter the past 3 winters, that suggests a very long payoff period. The $4,000 furnace we put in our little cottage lasted 8 years, the same period someone else mentioned from their recent experience. $500 per year times 8 takes us to $4,000, but that doesn't include whatever fuel runs it. Yes, a furnace should last longer than that, but how much longer? Not as long as the Old Milwaukee, bet your booty.

So here we are with a classic choice. Would buying a new furnace be better for the environment? Hmmm. A few years ago I posed a similar question to someone promoting hybrid cars. Should we hold onto our 15-year old Volvo that continues to be very dependable or should we exchange it for a new vehicle? It would save fuel going forward, but what about the cost of producing the new car and the cost of junking the old one? His answer was, keep the old one and buy an efficient new one when it conks out.

"You're comparing apples and oranges," says Virginia.

She's right. A new furnace would offer several advantages: (1) more efficient use of the energy source; (2) as we age we may prefer not having to hunt for firewood, so our $500 per year cost could go through the roof (see, we have costs beyond $500 -- gas for the chain saw, blood, sweat and tears); and (3) a new unit could also cool this hot house in the summertime. Besides, we might be able to find a unit with very low operational costs, such as a geothermal or solar option. And the longer we wait, the more options might present themselves.

I'm not interested enough to do gobs of research at the moment. Maybe you can help me with suggestions.

Cars

Another fellow ran into one of our trees yesterday.  This time, a new ghost hasn't moved in.  I heard a bump and thought one of the branches of our dying ash had fallen until I saw an angel running across the lawn.  She'd been sitting with a dying chicken.  I believe Friendly may have given her life so he might live. The rescue squad tilted the driver's seat and lifted him through the tail door of his SUV.

Some days I want to sell our motor vehicles and start walking everywhere.  Then I might not get up and go without carefully thinking things through.  A trip to town would take all day, with a plan and a map, and a credit card, just in case, for a motel, or I might trade some music-making for a little basement space.  For a moment, I envy New Yorkers and other city folks the convenience of things nearby.

Ride a bicycle?  Maybe, but I don't feel lucky with bikes.  Look at my right shoulder and you'll see what I mean.  Besides, tires go flat.  It seems easier to maintain my pair of feet.

If we moved to town, the neighbors might not like our lawn full of vegetables, the chickens and goats.  The City Council might issue us a summons.  I might have to practice piano with the windows closed.

Oh, I nearly forgot.  Before we moved here, we lived in a city.  A neighbor sometimes mowed our lawn when he thought it was too long.  I read about a cool lawnmower today, human-powered, that reportedly is easier to push than a gasoline mower, for $250.  Maybe if I bought that, I'd mow our lawn instead of watching Karen or Adam, not that anyone's had to this year.  Rain is coming, the next 2 or 3 days.

"Like you'd really get rid of your cars," says Virginia.  "You're a big talker, but when it comes down to it, you're as addicted as the next guy."

I guess that's why I'm shaking.

Butterflies

I ran through butterfly colonies this morning.  Are they heading south?  I decided to sing louder than usual, hoping they'd hear me coming and escape my pounding feet.  Maybe instead of hearing, they felt the little earthquakes emanating from the landings of my great toe joints instead of heel strikes, which Born to Run persuaded me to try to avoid.

Speaking of earthquakes, I understand we (mankind) sometimes generate earthquakes when we disturb the interior of the earth, such as when we sink holes for geothermal power.  Not when we garden, I hope.

At a memorial service we attended last Sunday, one of the memorialists said she had noticed a butterfly flitting from one family member to another, a year ago when they had the funeral for family only, which reminded me of Nabakov (the author).  It might be fun someday to come back as a butterfly.  Please don't tread on me.

I must confess.  As a kid, I caught them in nets, stuck them in a jar with a cotton ball soaked in ether, then stuck pins through them so I could admire them through the glass-tops of wooden boxes.

"What would PETA say?" asks Virginia.

Ban butterfly nets.

I suppose I'll get a few butterflies on Sunday.  The Arrowhead Trio performs Hans Gal, 2:30, in a concert entitled "Trios by Trios," Unitarian Church, in downtown Lynchburg.

The Annual Buena Vista Labor Day Parade

My cellphone buzzed about 8 this morning as I ran past the Arrowhead Lodge mailbox.  That's where we can usually count on a signal.  I was on my way to my daily meeting.  Yes, even I have meetings on Labor Day, no rest for the weary.  Otherwise, I'll never have my part in the Hans Gal Piano Trio anywhere close to ready by the Arrowhead Trio's concert on September 26.

The phone message went something like this:  "Hello, this is Ms. X. You wondered if it would be all right to drive your car in the parade today.  Sure, come join us."

Mine was a wrong number, but it got me thinking.  Maybe next year I'll show up -- in a solar-powered battery mobile, with a few signs, including:

"Who is James Pannabecker?"
"Drink Goat Milk"
"Victory Gardens"
"Make Your Own Cheese"
"Write and Mulch"
"Read"
"Make Music, Not War" (to quote the bumper sticker of Rockbridge Music)
"Let Donkeys Vote"

"Don't forget 'Who's Virginia?'" says Virginia.

I thought of that, but this is a political parade.  The governor and at least one senator were there.  If I start showing up every year, begin to establish a reputation and a following, perhaps when I'm 95, after most of the witnesses to my checkered past are out of commission, I could run for Congress.

National Bird

If I were Peeping Tommy (see blog entry of Sept. 3), I would have been very pleased this morning.  As my Brooks Adrenalines treaded the Greenlea Bridge, my eyes spied something unusual resting on a power line high above the James River.  I ran a few more paces, then turned back for another look at what normally would have been a dove or pigeon.  This one had a solid white head (not one to squeeze).  It watched me out of the corner of an eye while I simply stared (no manners, this human).  After a few minutes, I dialed Karen's number to report the sighting.  She said she'd bring the camera and scurried car-ward.  No use. The bald eagle spread its wings after a noisy truck lumbered past.  I called off the photo staff support.  Sorry, no pic today.

Meanwhile, down in the bushes, Mr. and Mrs. Bentley....just kidding.  The bushes and the river played a quiet prelude to what was certain to become a rush of water traffic for this last summer holiday of the year.  An hour later, my chain saw melody interrupted the peaceful morning, quickly punished and silenced by a nut gone missing (not me; one of the two used to tighten the chain).  I seem to be having difficulty becoming one with firewood harvesting this year.  Om, Om.

Karma

A couple new friends invited us over yesterday evening to snare apples and share meatloaf.  I'm an oink when it comes to free fruit, but I didn't feel too embarrassed because you still can't tell we were there.  In the back of my mind is a return trip, if I can figure out what to make.  I'm beginning to picture long rows of canned apple juice next to our tomatoes.

Do you know why their tree branches droop to the ground?  Because V sings and talks to them.  She learned how to do this years ago when she and D lived in Findhorn Community, Scotland.  I talked to my new pea, beet and kale seedlings all day today, trying to get them to grow fast so they're too big to be bothered by rabbits and free-range birds, not that either are going to be pests for long in light of recent history at Elk Cliff.

We need to restore Elk Cliff Karma.  Two days of turkey sacrifice invited predators to our gentle farm.  Gone are eight turkeys (us), five ducks (coyote) and three chickens (hawk and opossum).  What's next?

My mind, as usual, went macro based on micro experience.  We're mass murderers, every one of us.  Burning oil not only may be shortening life on Earth, but imagine all the animals and plants that die getting the oil to us (for example, think Gulf of Mexico or the giant freighter cutting through the seas).  Eat veggies?  Dissect a green bean and examine it with a microscope.  Swat!  Darn mosquito.  Take a step. Did something squish?  Drive at night.  What's all that goop on the radiator?  Order something on the Internet.  What did UPS terminate on its hurried path to delivery?

"Stop it," says Virginia.  "You're depressing me."

Double Dip

I ordered a double dip ice cream cone.  Many of us ordered three or more.  We can't help ourselves.  Our presidents have been telling us to do it for 9 years, backed up by suits full of numbers.  It's the only way out, so far as they know.  Every one of us has become a minor league Bernie Madoff, except most of us use our own money, Ponzi schemers from the days we were born.

"What about the little children in Zimbabwe, the Congo, Burundi, the poorest countries in the world?" says Virginia.

She's right, I'm talking about the first world, we who got there first and are doing our best to ensure the others never get there, even while we're on a mission to convert them.  It's almost embarrassing to find out they can stay alive, although barely, without a McDonalds, Wal-Mart and Lowe's or Home Depot on a nearby corner.  We must sign them up for our addictions.

"Is that why the stock market bounces up and down?" asks Virginia. 

Maybe.  Nothing has changed.  We like to think something has, that Ford's One Ford Plan (One Team, One Plan, One Goal), GM's first profitable quarter, the banks' repayment of taxpayer injections and a $100,000 Tesla have turned things around.  For a few days we cheer.  Then we reconsider.  Uptick, downtick.

Buy fresh, buy local -- unless it costs too much.  Winter's coming.  Most of us aren't squirrels any more.  Like boycotting gasoline stations on Tuesday, it's a great idea, so long as we gas up on Monday or Wednesday.  Change our way of life?  No way.  We refuse to surrender.

We'd rather leave simple math to our children, or our children's children, when even more people sharing this planet will finally have brains enough to harness the sun.  It's never too late.

Never say never.  Give me that double dip.  Gulp.

The Smiling Boar

Twice, for a second or two, I smelled paradise, a gentle perfume with a tiny hint of lemon, as I ran up and then down Thunder Ridge.  Maybe some vegetation had anxiously awaited today's generous raindrops.

My eyesight took its turn yesterday.  I crossed a creekbed as a huge hog gently lowered himself into the cool water.  I'd almost swear the corners of his mouth turned upwards as he sank deeper and deeper.  Even if I were nearly blind I would have recognized him as a boar, not a sow or a barrow.  Later, I passed a dead snake on the road.  Not an ordinary copperhead or black snake, its rattle must have caught my eye, or maybe the width of its carriage.  I stopped and returned to examine the timber rattlesnake.

The skies warned me this morning, so I surrendered to my stomach.  It cannot afford a summer without enough of our own corn to freeze, even if I should have been writing.  I attacked the winter wheat garden over by the goat paddock, hoed eleven trenches and dropped in enough seeds for 25 dozen ears if we're lucky.

"It's late for corn, isn't it?" says Virginia.

Seventy-three days takes us to the end of September, which should be plenty of time.

Grandfatherland

"You forgot to mention me yesterday," says Virginia.

"Yes, but I didn't forget you," I say, "when I wrote of ancient history, of continual fighting, I thought of grandfatherland.

When I think of grandfatherland I think of what some folks call solidarity, the concept that we, our ancestors and future generations are bound together in this time and place.  Our actions, like those of our ancestors, affect today and tomorrow. 

I like the phrase "memory of future times," which places the future in the present, something I think we must do, we have an obligation and responsibility to do.  We are stewards of the Earth, temporary managers for future generations.  As we make decisions, we must remember the future.

"We aren't very good at this," says Virginia.

No, too many of us have optimistic delusions that when the going gets really tough we or our descendants will save the Earth with answers pulled out of thin air.

Working Vacation

Set your suitcase down at our house and you're liable to find yourself aching for a nap and early bedtime.  At 5:45 this morning, Larry and I were nibbling cereal and imbibing grape juice.  By 6:30 we were gently paddling the James River.  Mist obscured Blue Ridge peaks, draping curtains from the sky.  "Do you see them?" I asked, hoping I didn't have a detached retina.  I relaxed as our kayaks parted the low-floating sky.  This sort of thing, cool temperatures, and no one in sight, make a morning float worthwhile.

"See the drooping pawpaws?" points Larry, "in Alabama we rarely find ripe fruit because wildlife gets there first."  "Not so in Virginia," I answer, "we picked ten grocery bags last summer.  Karen made a pie and pawpaw wine."

Larry's my go-to guy for nature lessons.  Last week on his way North, he gave us an American chestnut tree to plant (mostly American, perhaps as much as 1/8th Chinese to make it blight-resistant).  Knowing he was stopping again on his way South, I made sure I got that sucker in the ground.  Besides, I believe we should invest in future generations and, if I'm lucky, we may get to roast some of its chestnuts before we die.  I also like the symbolism of blending Chinese and American cultures, a sign of future times as well as the past -- my father, though he was born in Bluffton, Ohio, lived until his early twenties in that land that no longer seems far away.

Needing more mulch for my garden, Boxerwood Gardens was a perfect fit for our next stop. Boxerwood, in Lexington, is an environmental education center.  I like contributing to Boxerwood (http://www.boxerwood.org/) because I can support two interests at once -- the environment and childhood education.

KB loaded up my pickup while Larry and I toured the grounds.  Quickly recognizing Dr. Munger's passion for exotic trees, Larry said, "I've never seen such a large grove of human-planted Bottlebrush Buckeyes, native to Alabama.  The evening fragrance of these blossoms is incredible."  They didn't smell too bad in the morning either.  Everywhere we went, different varieties of Japanese maples greeted us.  Admiring what is affectionately called "The Great Oak" prompted a short lecture on dendrochronology, tree-ring dating.  Larry anxiously awaited a dendrochronologist's report on a beam sample recently taken from his wife's family homestead.  Later, back at Elk Cliff Farm (our home), Larry identified two post oaks (quercus stellata) and explained that these 3-4 foot diameter trees easily could be older than the 10-foot plus "Great Oak" because post oaks are very slow-growing trees.  Later he complimented a cedar-crowded American Elm that stands along our fence line.  Let me tell you, Larry can come again any time -- he helps make our place feel very special.

Then came that nap I warned you about, two hours for Larry.  I nodded briefly, then planted a few rows of Blue Lake green beans and some sweet corn.  Remember that pickup full of mulch?  When Larry came to, off we went to my field garden to carefully lay the mulch on a protective barrier of miscellaneous materials (magazines, newspapers, cardboard boxes, rugs, blankets and plastic) underneath my electric fence.  While he kindly agreed it should prevent me from having to periodically whack weeds so they don't short the fence, I don't think it reassured him of my sanity. 

"I'm not sure anything could do that," says Virginia, "ask Jerry and Kathy."

At 9:15, Larry began to hint that his 2-hour nap needed renewal.

Karen's New Job

These mornings we milk
beside baby wrens, mouths open
like people waiting
while others live their dreams.

Karen and I didn't wait for sunshine this morning. We had a lunch to pack, goats to milk, turkeys to feed, ducks to free, greenhouse plants to water.

"Did you say 'lunch to pack?'" says Virginia.

"I did, and rubber boots, a change of clothes, a camera I assume, I can't find it anywhere," I say.

"What's that about?" she asks.

New job, seasonal, occasional.  Karen's helping a farm slaughter 8,000 poultry, which reminds me of a court decision I read a few days ago.  The issue was whether "poults" were "agricultural supplies" under Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code and whether an agricultural supplier's lien filed by the seller of the poults had superpriority status when Sara Lee Corp. bought the adult turkeys.  I know you're breathless with anticipation -- yes, they were and it did, which means the seller of the poults was entitled to payment first from Sara Lee's check, before other creditors of the farmer including the bank that had loaned money for the turkey operations.

My bad, let's not use the term "farmer" here.  We're talking industrial-type production, with turkeys bred to be so big it doesn't matter if their legs can hold them up, and so many in one building one sick turkey means thousands of sick turkeys.  No, that's not "farming."  That's abuse, of the turkeys, of our planet, and of you and me (see the movie Fresh, at http://FRESHthemovie.com) -- which is why....

we have 19 turkeys getting ready to range with our goats and chickens and Karen has this new job.  It's part of our deal.  If we can't handle the killing, it's time to stop eating meat.

May Day Nonsense

Corporations are beginning to move their headquarters from suburbs to inner cities.  That's where the most promising employees want to live, where they can get to work quickly without a car and walk to stores, entertainment, parks and other interesting places.  What a change from 20 years ago, when the suburbs were in!  Now we discover that people who live on the most interconnected streets travel 26% fewer vehicle miles than folks who live on cul de sacs.  People who live in suburbs are more obese than city folks because they drive everywhere.  ("Back to the City," in Mary 2010 Harvard Business Review.)

Here we are, way beyond the suburbs and despite everything we do for ourselves our ecological footprints may be heavier than if we lived in a city.  Someday I'd like to figure out whether or not this is true.  Every time I play in the orchestra or sing in a chorus, I drive 18 miles to town and back.  Perhaps I should get an electric scooter.  We burn gallons of gasoline to mow our 6-acre lawn, although I keep adding gardens to make it smaller.  The UPS truck stops by 3 or 4 times a week.  We don't want to give up our hot tub, but we keep forgetting to set its timer.  The chain saw that cuts our firewood uses gasoline.

The almost endless list of how I use oil dulls my aggravation with BP for its Gulf oil spill...until I remember that when President Obama announced opening the Virginia coast to "drill baby drill," the government and oil industry insisted it was safe.  Now, when a spill like this occurs and threatens the livelihood of the residents of five States, Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen says, "We're breaking new ground here. It's hard to write a plan for a catastrophic event that has no precedent, which is what this was" as he defends BP against not writing a response for "what could never be in a plan, what you couldn't anticipate." So you see, now they sing a different tune, saying it's unavoidable.  It's unsafe after all.

Government, we want to count on you to ensure a balance between special interests, including an industry that wants one way and whoever (e.g., environmentalists, consumer protection advocates, etc.) want another way.  Instead, you end up sharing the same bucket seat.  Goldman Sachs, forgive our skepticism when you trot fancy suits into Washington 18 months after we saved you from bankruptcy.

Why do I read Harvard Business Review?  In case a headhunter calls, as they do once in a long while, to offer me a dream job in Detroit or Harlem (next to Bill Clinton's office) in some big corporate headquarters on some street close to classy condos and concert halls.  It's been years since I interviewed for a job.  Now might be fun.

Then I could come home, laugh as I tell Karen all about it, and pull some weeds.

"You wouldn't waste time like that, would you?" says Virginia.

"What do you mean?" I say.

"I mean, certainly you have something better to do with your time than interview?" she says.

"Yep," I say.  "I've got corn and beans to plant.  It's time for the summer garden.  By the way, you should see the weeds that came up in the peas overnight. I guess I'd better pull them."

"Ah, Mr. Businessman," says Virginia.  "Better be careful who you criticize.  They helped make your way of life possible."