The world lost three cultural icons this week and much more.
Ed McMahon made us laugh and reminded us that you don’t need to be the front man to be a star.
Farrah Fawcett showed us that beauty without can sometimes hide a creative and courageous soul.
And Michael Jackson changed the way music is experienced in ways we may not yet understand. Unfortunately his true talent became overshadowed by his train wreck of a personal life. Didn’t you hope that one day someone would take him by the shoulders and tell him to stop? Unfortunately, his was a life cut too short. Now his legacy includes the “what might have beens.” I do have fond memories of painting my last college apartment, a lovely studio that I didn’t have to share, to his Thriller album. Thank you MJ for an excellent soundtrack for making a renovation a party. I am sorry that his death will become even more of a train wreck and circus than his life ever was. So sad.
As noted this morning on “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos, ten U.S. servicemen lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan this week. This was news to me. What a strange world we inhabit that the deaths of Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon, people most of us never met and who we didn’t really “know” are more compelling to us than the loss of ten of our sons and brothers and friends and neighbors, people more like us than the other three ever would be. In some way, I find it shameful that those ten precious lives, lost in the service to our country, become just a footnote on a Sunday morning talking heads policy wonk program.
Our priorities could definitely use some adjustment. It seems it's time we recaptured a little of our humanity as well.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Dung Gone It
Let me preface this little essay by telling you a not-so-secret about myself. As anyone who’s known me for more than 20 minutes will tell you, I am a frustrated scientist. If I had to do it all over again, I probably would have gotten some kind of biology degree as my thirst for how the natural world works far exceeds the average person’s. We have a good friend who is a biologist by profession and I like nothing better than to pick his brain and share my theories on the life that surrounds us from the sheep to the fishes, insects to birds. I can’t say that he enjoys our exchanges as much as I do, but he tolerates me. Now on to my musing…
Having sheep around means you also have a fair amount of their dung as well. Surprisingly, sheep poop is not really smelly. It is their urine that can really reek when they are concentrated in one area. On the other hand, I am obsessed with raking up after them twice a day so that they have a nice clean corral area, so who knows what it would smell like if I were a little less OCD about sheep poop.
I have some help in their corral and pasture in the form of two innocuous insects, the yellow dung fly and a burrowing dung beetle.
Within a very short time after the sheep make a deposit, the fuzzy yellow flies arrive. They look like some kind of mutant cross between a pale bumble bee and a fly. Within minutes of their arrival they mate and lay their eggs. Three weeks later, adult flies emerge and continue the cycle. Apparently, the flies eat other insects and feed on nectar. I wonder if we can assume that the larvae eat dung? I haven’t seen larvae yet.
I don’t know when or how the dung beetles show up. As far as I can tell, they arrive by subterranean passages and go to work. I have found piles that the sheep deposit during the night that are nearly hollow shells by the time I get to them in the morning. I’ve never gotten a good look at one of the beetles as they scurry back into the soil as quickly as I expose them. I can tell you that they are small, about a quarter of an inch, shiny and incredibly voracious. What I can’t figure out is how they find the dung, or where they came from to start out with. The area where the sheep are only has had animals grazing on it the past couple of years, so I can’t imagine that there was a population of them just waiting around. Maybe they flew in? Regardless, they are welcome.
In fact as long as the critters who like dung leave us and the sheep alone, they are all welcome. Anything that minimizes the work I have to do to build our soils is a bonus and those things that enhance our efforts are invaluable.
Managing our farm in balance with nature is an ongoing and lifelong learning experience, one which I embrace as it tickles my scientific fancy. “Using” what Mother Nature provides is a heady responsibility. If we aren’t respectful of her gifts, the consequences can be messy and adverse to our human goals, and Mother Nature always wins. Anyone who thinks she doesn’t is a fool and headed for disaster. It’s a shame that our legislators and business leaders missed this day at life school. It is all of us that will suffer for their hubris.
We respectfully continue to do what we can here on our little farm with the help of sheep and dung eaters, bees and butterflies, bats and wild turkeys, and of course the fat robins, and the myriad of other creatures with which we are blessed.
Except the bald-faced hornets. In no way are they a blessing. Mother Nature can have them back.
Having sheep around means you also have a fair amount of their dung as well. Surprisingly, sheep poop is not really smelly. It is their urine that can really reek when they are concentrated in one area. On the other hand, I am obsessed with raking up after them twice a day so that they have a nice clean corral area, so who knows what it would smell like if I were a little less OCD about sheep poop.
I have some help in their corral and pasture in the form of two innocuous insects, the yellow dung fly and a burrowing dung beetle.
Within a very short time after the sheep make a deposit, the fuzzy yellow flies arrive. They look like some kind of mutant cross between a pale bumble bee and a fly. Within minutes of their arrival they mate and lay their eggs. Three weeks later, adult flies emerge and continue the cycle. Apparently, the flies eat other insects and feed on nectar. I wonder if we can assume that the larvae eat dung? I haven’t seen larvae yet.
I don’t know when or how the dung beetles show up. As far as I can tell, they arrive by subterranean passages and go to work. I have found piles that the sheep deposit during the night that are nearly hollow shells by the time I get to them in the morning. I’ve never gotten a good look at one of the beetles as they scurry back into the soil as quickly as I expose them. I can tell you that they are small, about a quarter of an inch, shiny and incredibly voracious. What I can’t figure out is how they find the dung, or where they came from to start out with. The area where the sheep are only has had animals grazing on it the past couple of years, so I can’t imagine that there was a population of them just waiting around. Maybe they flew in? Regardless, they are welcome.
In fact as long as the critters who like dung leave us and the sheep alone, they are all welcome. Anything that minimizes the work I have to do to build our soils is a bonus and those things that enhance our efforts are invaluable.
Managing our farm in balance with nature is an ongoing and lifelong learning experience, one which I embrace as it tickles my scientific fancy. “Using” what Mother Nature provides is a heady responsibility. If we aren’t respectful of her gifts, the consequences can be messy and adverse to our human goals, and Mother Nature always wins. Anyone who thinks she doesn’t is a fool and headed for disaster. It’s a shame that our legislators and business leaders missed this day at life school. It is all of us that will suffer for their hubris.
We respectfully continue to do what we can here on our little farm with the help of sheep and dung eaters, bees and butterflies, bats and wild turkeys, and of course the fat robins, and the myriad of other creatures with which we are blessed.
Except the bald-faced hornets. In no way are they a blessing. Mother Nature can have them back.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Mama Don’t Take My Kodachrome Away…
Among the other sad news of the week, was a short piece I almost missed on NPR about Kodak’s decision to no longer manufacture Kodachrome film.
I have become as lazy as most Americans and have embraced my digital camera. It’s easy, quick and I can take lots of bad photos for little or no cost. For my artistic side, this is not a good thing.
When I was younger and had more leisure time I fancied myself as an above average photographer. I even had a show at a local bank. I loved working in black and white. I was inspired by Ansel Adams, whom I heard speak near the end of his life. He drove home the idea that the initial image was important, but the manipulation done in the dark room was where real artistry is achieved. Black and white allowed me to explore his theories at little expense.
When I was feeling flush and frisky, I would experiment with Kodachrome or Ektachrome transparency films. Since I liked to photograph the natural world, my film of choice was Ektachrome for its ability to capture blues, greens and other cool colors with such vibrancy and almost grain-less clarity. For me, Kodachrome was reserved for photographing people and the most amazing sunsets, sunrises and other “hot” images.
Time and life and other interests have caused me to put my old Nikon SLR in the closet. Every once in a while I fantasize about pulling it out and spending days exploring my current world through its lenses. Sadly, I haven’t done so. Yet. But when I do, I will mourn the loss of one more link to our manual, analog past. Twitter and Facebook and email do not replace handwritten letters. Texting is not a phone call. MP3s and CDs can’t duplicate the richness of vinyl. The internet is not a newspaper. A blog is not a diary.
Easier is definitely not always better and I fear these small losses of reality as we digitize ourselves are lessening us in some intangible way.
Sigh.
I have become as lazy as most Americans and have embraced my digital camera. It’s easy, quick and I can take lots of bad photos for little or no cost. For my artistic side, this is not a good thing.
When I was younger and had more leisure time I fancied myself as an above average photographer. I even had a show at a local bank. I loved working in black and white. I was inspired by Ansel Adams, whom I heard speak near the end of his life. He drove home the idea that the initial image was important, but the manipulation done in the dark room was where real artistry is achieved. Black and white allowed me to explore his theories at little expense.
When I was feeling flush and frisky, I would experiment with Kodachrome or Ektachrome transparency films. Since I liked to photograph the natural world, my film of choice was Ektachrome for its ability to capture blues, greens and other cool colors with such vibrancy and almost grain-less clarity. For me, Kodachrome was reserved for photographing people and the most amazing sunsets, sunrises and other “hot” images.
Time and life and other interests have caused me to put my old Nikon SLR in the closet. Every once in a while I fantasize about pulling it out and spending days exploring my current world through its lenses. Sadly, I haven’t done so. Yet. But when I do, I will mourn the loss of one more link to our manual, analog past. Twitter and Facebook and email do not replace handwritten letters. Texting is not a phone call. MP3s and CDs can’t duplicate the richness of vinyl. The internet is not a newspaper. A blog is not a diary.
Easier is definitely not always better and I fear these small losses of reality as we digitize ourselves are lessening us in some intangible way.
Sigh.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Bad News on the Manure Rule
We had our organic inspection yesterday. All went well and my crazy worrying about it all was just plain stupid.
During our inspection we chatted about the manure rule which defines when a farmer can apply it. In the case of crops within 18" of the ground, there needs to be a 120 day separation between application and harvest. For crops more than 18" from the ground, the separation needs to be 90 days. Our certifier interprets the rule to mean that animals grazing (and pooping) in the orchard is "manure application." For us this means we have to keep the sheep out of the orchard for much of the prime grazing time.
So, back to the conversation with the inspector. As if the manure rule weren't restrictive enough, the NOP, in their wisdom (?), recently determined that farmers who use work horses will now have to put bags on the horses' butts to keep them from dropping "manure" in the fields as they work.
I am as concerned about food safety as any responsible farmer, but this rule and subsequent decision is not serving the goals of organics well. In all of the recent food scares, organics have not been the culprit. Conventional agricultural practices have been to blame.
We are focused on creating vibrant soils, growing a healthy, quality product, minimizing our impact on the local environment (which includes the lake), and lessening our global impacts as they relate to CO2 and fossil fuel usage. By requiring us to manage our sheep in an illogical manner, we are forced to 1) apply more off-farm fertilizers and 2) run our gas guzzling equipment more to mow and fertilize. This is contrary to our philosophy of what organics should be about.
I had hoped that we were going to see a more thoughtful approach to the use of manure.
During our inspection we chatted about the manure rule which defines when a farmer can apply it. In the case of crops within 18" of the ground, there needs to be a 120 day separation between application and harvest. For crops more than 18" from the ground, the separation needs to be 90 days. Our certifier interprets the rule to mean that animals grazing (and pooping) in the orchard is "manure application." For us this means we have to keep the sheep out of the orchard for much of the prime grazing time.
So, back to the conversation with the inspector. As if the manure rule weren't restrictive enough, the NOP, in their wisdom (?), recently determined that farmers who use work horses will now have to put bags on the horses' butts to keep them from dropping "manure" in the fields as they work.
I am as concerned about food safety as any responsible farmer, but this rule and subsequent decision is not serving the goals of organics well. In all of the recent food scares, organics have not been the culprit. Conventional agricultural practices have been to blame.
We are focused on creating vibrant soils, growing a healthy, quality product, minimizing our impact on the local environment (which includes the lake), and lessening our global impacts as they relate to CO2 and fossil fuel usage. By requiring us to manage our sheep in an illogical manner, we are forced to 1) apply more off-farm fertilizers and 2) run our gas guzzling equipment more to mow and fertilize. This is contrary to our philosophy of what organics should be about.
I had hoped that we were going to see a more thoughtful approach to the use of manure.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
I'm a farmer now
Tonight I transitioned from a wannabe farmer to an actual working farmer. I didn’t know I hadn’t made the shift until it happened. I thought I had been a farmer all along.
Since Muffin wouldn’t tell me where he got out, it was time to walk the fence looking for his escape route. It wasn’t where I thought, a weak spot on one side of the cabin where the fence wire is just a tad short, leaving a gap that an insistent sheep could be tempted by. No, he had pushed the fence off of the other side of the building, crumpling it pretty well. Darn. That one wasn’t going to be so easy to fix, and by now it was closer to dark than dusk.
Fortunately I had recently purchased some t-posts, so up to the shed I went to retrieve them and the post pounder, pliers and some wire. I trudged back under my load to the cabin and after some creative language combinations, fought back the prickly bush that resides immediately adjacent to Muffin’s escape route. Of course all of the boys were there to assist…truthfully they are more like a CalTrans road crew than actual assistants, but I enjoyed their company anyway. We got the post in the ground, the fence uncrumpled and attached to it, and the boys got a special late night cookie treat for their sweet natures.
Thank You, Paul Simon
Yesterday it was my birthday. I hung one more year on the line. I should be depressed cause my life's a mess but I'm having a good time...
Yes, a fabulous, ridiculous, delicious, maddening mess, but it's suiting me.
Yes, a fabulous, ridiculous, delicious, maddening mess, but it's suiting me.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Jack, the Crackerjack Mechanic
Last Friday was our first spray day of the season. The first time is always the most challenging. The temperature (not too hot or cold) and wind speed (not too breezy or dead still) have to be just right. You need to remember your rate of speed, just where to start your turns so you don't take down the fence or damage a tree, just how much throttle makes the sprayer hum, how to recognize the sound it makes when you are almost empty. Our 300-gallon sprayer is older than sin but, fortunately, not terribly temperamental. It has an ancient Wisconsin air-cooled engine in it, which is extremely loud, but also amazingly simple. Even I can discern most all of the visible parts.
Maintenance beyond what we can do on the sprayer and tractor is done by a bona fide Montana native by the name of Jack. Albert calls him a “crackerjack” mechanic. Me…I think of him as a MacGyver of the engine. A piece of tin foil, some chewing gum and an eraser and he can make anything work. He was the first true character we met when we moved here. I have never seen him without a woolen watch cap, whether it is January or July. He smokes hand rolled cigarettes while working and drinks cheap beer. His property is scattered with the remnants of myriad machines and he buys old vehicles he spots in his travels just because they fascinate him. His house and shop look much like his yard. I think I counted five or six stoves inside? He drives an old Saab and keeps at least one more in his yard for spare parts. The car doesn’t always start and I have had to give him a push a couple of times to get him going. He often wanders off in the winter to warmer climes. His family has been in the area long enough to actually own an island out in Flathead Lake.
It took him a while to warm up to me. I am not sure he is used to dealing with women regarding farm equipment or in his other job, working on boats. But I think he appreciated my earnestness and willingness to learn about our equipment. He commented that I am one fine assistant. He is fond of telling me how to troubleshoot some engine problem over the phone to keep from having to come out here. More than once I have held the phone up to the sprayer or tractor so that he can hear what it’s doing.
Today I dropped off some parts we pulled for him to replace. He is actually building us some new spark plug wires as he doesn’t trust the commercial ones we could buy at NAPA. Our conversation ran from catalytic converters, acid rain and CO2, to music and computers, international politics, and tree felling, all the while guitar jazz played in the background. I am sure I left something out. While we chatted he showed me how his cat fetches and shared stories about how gentle his dog is.
Like many of the long time or native locals we’ve met in Montana, he isn’t interested in the trappings of life. There isn’t one scintilla of pretense in the man. He is what he is, take him or leave him. I don’t think he really cares either way. The dichotomy between someone like Jack and the folks who breeze into our community for a few weeks or months each year is astounding. I can’t imagine what they might ever have to say to one another. But imagine how much richer their lives would be if they spent just a little while getting to know Jack.
Give me more of the Jacks of the world.
Orcharding is nothin' but glamor, baby!
Maintenance beyond what we can do on the sprayer and tractor is done by a bona fide Montana native by the name of Jack. Albert calls him a “crackerjack” mechanic. Me…I think of him as a MacGyver of the engine. A piece of tin foil, some chewing gum and an eraser and he can make anything work. He was the first true character we met when we moved here. I have never seen him without a woolen watch cap, whether it is January or July. He smokes hand rolled cigarettes while working and drinks cheap beer. His property is scattered with the remnants of myriad machines and he buys old vehicles he spots in his travels just because they fascinate him. His house and shop look much like his yard. I think I counted five or six stoves inside? He drives an old Saab and keeps at least one more in his yard for spare parts. The car doesn’t always start and I have had to give him a push a couple of times to get him going. He often wanders off in the winter to warmer climes. His family has been in the area long enough to actually own an island out in Flathead Lake.
It took him a while to warm up to me. I am not sure he is used to dealing with women regarding farm equipment or in his other job, working on boats. But I think he appreciated my earnestness and willingness to learn about our equipment. He commented that I am one fine assistant. He is fond of telling me how to troubleshoot some engine problem over the phone to keep from having to come out here. More than once I have held the phone up to the sprayer or tractor so that he can hear what it’s doing.
Today I dropped off some parts we pulled for him to replace. He is actually building us some new spark plug wires as he doesn’t trust the commercial ones we could buy at NAPA. Our conversation ran from catalytic converters, acid rain and CO2, to music and computers, international politics, and tree felling, all the while guitar jazz played in the background. I am sure I left something out. While we chatted he showed me how his cat fetches and shared stories about how gentle his dog is.
Like many of the long time or native locals we’ve met in Montana, he isn’t interested in the trappings of life. There isn’t one scintilla of pretense in the man. He is what he is, take him or leave him. I don’t think he really cares either way. The dichotomy between someone like Jack and the folks who breeze into our community for a few weeks or months each year is astounding. I can’t imagine what they might ever have to say to one another. But imagine how much richer their lives would be if they spent just a little while getting to know Jack.
Give me more of the Jacks of the world.
Orcharding is nothin' but glamor, baby!
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