For the Beauty of the Earth

Tonight the clouds actually roiled into thunderheads before my eyes. The setting sun lit the clouds to the southeast brilliant pink. This picture doesn't capture how bright pink that cloud became- I had to put down the camera and do chicken chores as Mike ran down to the lake to help his dad. We have 60 broilers (raised for eatin') that have about 10 days of life left. As I moved the portable hutch I could see that the one with the gimpy leg was down-- too weak to move. I brought her over some water- tried to get her to drink. I could see she was dying. If I had the mettle I would have put her down. I don't.

So I petted her back and blessed her. Go in peace little one. Lord let this little guy pass in peace.
She'll be dead by morning.

Sometimes the contrast between City and farm is so great it make my heart ache.

Earlier today I was having what would have been a 3 martini lunch (if not for the drive) with a very cool executive friend of mine. We sat at the window of a most comfortable, elegant restaurant enjoying good food and conversation.

I went down to the barn to care for the layers. As I walked back under roiling pink clouds, in the lush green of a late, wet June there was a song playing in head. As long as I can remember I've often had a tune in my mind. If I actually listen to that tune it usually has some meaning-- a subconcious connection to what I'm thinking, seeing, doing (as profound as the Wham hit "wake me up before you go go" when a kid gets me up 'cuz they have to go pee at night).

The song in my head was For the Beauty of the Earth (Folliot Pierpoint, 1864).

For the beauty of the earth
For the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies.

Lord of all, to Thee we raise,
This our hymn of grateful praise.

For the beauty of each hour,
Of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale, and tree and flower,
Sun and moon, and stars of light.

(To read the full version click "continue reading")

For the Beauty of the Earth
Words: Folliot Pierpoint (1864)
Music: Conrad Kocher (1838)

For the beauty of the earth
For the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies.

Lord of all, to Thee we raise,
This our hymn of grateful praise.

For the beauty of each hour,
Of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale, and tree and flower,
Sun and moon, and stars of light.

For the joy of ear and eye,
For the heart and mind’s delight,
For the mystic harmony
Linking sense to sound and sight.

For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child,
Friends on earth and friends above,
For all gentle thoughts and mild.

For Thy Church, that evermore
Lifteth holy hands above,
Offering up on every shore
Her pure sacrifice of love.

For the martyrs’ crown of light,
For Thy prophets’ eagle eye,
For Thy bold confessors’ might,
For the lips of infancy.

For Thy virgins’ robes of snow,
For Thy maiden mother mild,
For Thyself, with hearts aglow,
Jesu, Victim undefiled.

For each perfect gift of Thine,
To our race so freely given,
Graces human and divine,
Flowers of earth and buds of Heaven

Lost Menagerie

Last Thursday I was a "distinguished environmental scientist" on a panel at the Form + Content Gallery in Minneapolis- packed to standing room only. The exhibition was by artist Christine Baeumler whose work I've loved, admired, and collected for over 10 years. She soulfully captures the poignant beauty, tinged with grief, of the natural world slipping away under our watch. One of Chris' works is the lovely center piece of our home -- a mosaic painting of 8 extinct fish speicies. It's just about the only thing we yell at the kids not to wreck-- "Quit hanging from the radiator pipes-- You'll hurt the art!!"

But I shook for two days; move by the exhibit, the panel discussion, my own fears.

On the panel, Kris Johnson and I talked about the Minnesota 2050
work/research we've been doing the past 1.5 years. We've been working with groups around the State to create scenarios of the year 2050. Most people, from Grand Marais to Worthington- Crookston to Winona, believe that we are in for a rough ride ahead what with intersection of climate change, peak oil, mass extinctions, economic strains, etc... Hope lies in what emerges from the ashes. Brent Olson, a writer from Big Stone County, articulates this perfectly in the scenario he wrote for Minnesota 2050 (click "continue reading" to read it). I read this scenario for the crowd and they were moved.

We are living in a time of transformation- that's the message I see in Lost Menagerie.

Scenarios – Township Meeting, Big Stone County April 2050

Brent Olson
April 13th, 2007

The small brown horse scampered across the muddy February landscape.

“I’ll call this meeting to order, John said, his body rocking in gentle rhythm. A voice in his ear trilled, “John, I’m in the freakn’ shower. How am I going to keep notes?

“Maria, you may be the secretary, but you haven’t taken notes once in your life. The ‘puter does that. You just wanted to mess with us by presenting the image of you in the shower.

“Maybe, maybe not. Is the agenda approved?

“I’ll approve it. The voice was deeper, with a faint accent. “I do want to add an item about visioning.

“Ahmad, you Turkish twit, I don’t care what kind of crapola went on around the Caspian, but ‘round here visioning is still a hanging offense. An assenting chorus from the other council members filled the air, and they moved on to the financial report.

“We have a current balance of $17,342, there is still nearly 26,000 bushels of corn, two casks of brandy, 73 wheels of Cheddar and I think the prosciutto will be ready to eat by Christmas. In addition, the Omaha community owes us server time and those guys out around Clear Lake have promised three loads of hay and a PlayStation XX in exchange for five days of no-wind electricity. Rochester called and they are still willing to pay a surgical procedure up to a transplant or seven appendectomies, in exchange for our spare bearing for the Vesta 1.79 turbine.

“Why are we still getting the kids video games? Couldn’t we cancel the PlayStation XX for a turbine bearing repair?

“Is that a motion, Fred? If not, shut up – I don’t want my kids hearing that.

“Well, if the rest of you guys don’t want it in a motion, I certainly won’t interfere with the will of the whole.

“Plus, your kids would slit your throat and you know it. Next item.

“Public Defense here. Those folks who made it here all the way from Belize are settled down by the lake. They say they know aquaculture, and if we will feed them for six months, they’ll be turning out crawfish and have pens built for panfish.

“Is there a motion?

“I move we provide them with a Level Three diet, with milk supplements for the children, for the period of eight months, at which point if they’re not pulling their weight we put them on the road again.
“I’ll second that, but keep my wife away from those kids, or she’ll never agree to putting them on the road. All those in favor?

John didn’t think he heard a unanimous vote, but it seemed like more than a hundred, which would be a clear majority so he didn’t even ask for a tally vote.

The grass was greening around him, with only a few grimy piles of snow in the shadows of the wind turbines that were the community’s main cash crop. Angora goats grazed on the last remnants of the leafy spurge which had almost ruined the pastures until the guy in Dickenson had hooked them up with a goat rancher in the Black Hills with excess inventory.

He dismounted and opened and closed a gate leading into the Season 6 rotational pasture. The mixed prairie grasses were still nearly head high, even after a winter’s weather. The ground squished around his boots and he knelt long enough to scoop up a handful of mud, kneading it gently as he stared off to the horizon. Felt good – still a clay loam, but pretty good body and organic matter.

“Any other business to be brought before this board at this time? He paused a moment and then said, “Hearing none, this meeting of the board of Otrey Township, Big Stone County, State of Minnesota is declared adjourned until next month, date to be determined by when we finish planting wheat.

The little green light in the corner of his peripheral vision, indicating a group conversation, shut off and he was alone with the springtime. He slowly rose to his feet, knees and ankles cracking, after a morning on horseback feeling every day of his 83 years. How much longer? he wondered. I’ve paid my dues. I was forty when the first crash came, the Middle East blowing up, the no gas, no electricity, no nothing. He remembered being cold and hungry, everyone scared, and yet holding this place together, cutting loose from the grid and getting all the work done during daylight days or when the wind had the turbines cranking out juice, shivering by a woodburner on the cold January days when the wind didn’t blow. Catching a deep breath when no one was starving and then the harder work of convincing the neighbors to return to society, hooking back up to the grid, taking in refugees when they could, working to build the connections that could get you through the hard times. Washington not much help, not even before the tsunami and not at all afterwards. The dark years took him away, but then his eye focused on what was nearly beneath his boot. He reached down, plucked, and returned to his feet.

He stretched, and led the horse down the hill to the house and his granddaughter headed up to take the horse to the barn. Eighty years of being a farmer made him not aware that he was aware of everything, from the grape vines along every path to the solar collectors running the water treatment plant.

“Hey sweetheart, his wife said as he came through the door, “How was your day?

“Pasture looks good, the damn town meeting is over for another month and I saw a blue heron on the slough. Oh, and I found a crocus for you. He held out a small blue flower on a drooping stem. She patted his chest and stuck the flower in a jelly jar above the sink. “Life is good, darling, life is good.

The Good People of Chokio

I spent 2 hours on main street Chokio (pronounced Cho-ky'-yo) yesterday. I enjoyed a couple diet cokes at John's cafe while Alma had her swimming lessons. Brilliant that they have 2 hour swim lessons for those of us who live remotely. The CHOKIO EQUITY EXCHANGE towers over the town of 400 people. There's something inspiring about sitting under the 20 foot high word "EQUITY." And don't be so sure that when it was painted that they just meant common corporate ownership-- there was probably an undercurrent of equity meaning:

"the concept or idea of fairness or justice in economics, particularly in terms of taxation and welfare economics"

When I rode in the ambulance from the farm to Ortonville last month I was with the county's emergency plan coordinator. Of course we talked about disaster preparedness. He told me that the city of Wilmar is planning that within 72 hours of a disaster their population will swell 2-3 times. That means in case of a pandemic or other scary unpredictable event that many cousins, great nieces, college buddies, etc... will flee the Twin Cities to head to safer ground in Wilmar.

What does this have to do with Chokio?

Well- Chokio's population is swelling 2 to 3 time this weekend. Last night was the Federated Telephone Cooperative Annual meeting. I'm lucky and thankful to be a Federated Coop member. John, owner of the Chokio Cafe, was planning on feeding 750 people for that meeting! It doesn't stop there. Tonight is the 1947-1948 class reunion. Tomorrow, Saturday, is the town celebration and they are expecting 1,000 people to attend. They are serving FREE MEAT-- just bring your own salad for the noon meal, following the parade. On Sunday there's a fund raiser omelet breakfast at the Catholic Church to help pay for a new "Welcome to Chokio" sign.

On Saturday night Todd Sandberg, the Rock 'N Roll Farmer, will DJ the Chokio street dance from 9pm to 1 am.

The crops are under water-- we may as well dance the night away.

Flash Flood in Big Stone County

I scoffed at the idea of a flash flood in Big Stone County-- those sloughs and pothole ponds don't look threatening. Well-- we had a flash flood on the farm today. Hurrying to move cars and tractors as the driveway turned into a water fall. We have well over 100 acres under water.

Mike and I made a desparate attempt to move my bee hives. The pink spots are my hives sitting on the cement bridge that crossed the grass waterway. We moved the hives to higher ground. They were already filling with water and I hope they will survive. We lost a couple chickens.

Part of why this flooding is so dramatic is that our farm is at the bottom of a subwatershed that has been increasingly ditched and drained. The neighbor informed me last week that the county is putting a bigger culvert between our lands-- meaning water will flow even more rapidly onto our land... Looks like I'm finally living some of the watershed work I did in years past.
Whiskey is for drinking.
Water is for fighten' over.
Or else we just give into the landscape and the drainage and make that north 100 a wetland.

Holding Still

On Sunday I was outside before the sunrise. As I stood looking to the pinkening sky to the east, a fog rose from the prairie grass just 100 yards from me-- its genesis right before my eyes. A deer walked into that fog. Birds were singing all around. I remembered a lesson from my high school band teacher, Mr. Paulisch, playing a symphony and telling us to train our ears to hear one instrument at a time. I trained my ears and pulled out different bird songs one at a time. A small, nondescript sparrow landed a few feet from me and startled me with the most lovely calls-- unexpected from such a drab, brown bird.

Three jets made their way east over the prairie-- maybe looking down on "fly over" country. Then the sun rose like a neon pink laser-- a pin point piercing over the praire. The world exploded in color-- the white silo turned pink and casting a 1/2 mile shadow across the field.

Later, at church I was surprised to read in the bulletin that I was the day's lector-- reading scripture about our responsibilities to our children. Muffins and coffee afterwards with the good people of Trinity. I walked with the kids to Bonnie's grocery on main street-- collecting an entourage of little kids along the way and the cell phone number of a local stone mason. After gettting our groceries we went over to the Clinton Depot playground. Our three kids the nucleaus for what became a gathering of 16 kids--a couple of whom went back to Bonnies for ballons. The waterballons were flying-- the ground around the water pump covered with multi-colored scraps of ballons. Lovely kid confetti.
When we came home, I made a batch of homemade mozzarella cheese, picked some basil from the garden, took a loaf of freshly baked crusty bread out of the oven and watched Star Trek TNG with my kids.

It was the best birthday of my entire life.

I had been asked to consider running for the open Minnesota District 20A House of Representative's seat.
I decide not to run.
I would hold still.
At least for now.