At the End of the Rainbow

Vigeland Obelisk, Norway. Sculptor Gustav Vigeland. "Meant to represent man’s desire to become closer with the spiritual and divine. It portrays a feeling of togetherness as the human figures embrace one another as they are carried toward salvation."

The school bus arrives now before the sun is up— so I spend the first part of my run in the early steel grey dawn. When I got to the pond/slough down the road I stopped—not just paused, but stopped. The first thin skim of ice floated on the still water a few feet from shore. As I stood there a half-dozen muskrats jumped into the pond from right at my feet- maybe 3 feet away. Some of them did big belly flops- making a loud splash.

The sun was still below the horizon, but the sunrise was 360 degrees around me N-S-E-W. As I stood there the ice turned bright pink- right where I was standing. I felt, for the first time in my life, that I was at the end of the rainbow. Then one of those muskrats popped his nose up through the thin ice. Over my shoulder, in the squat, dark, dense little forest (it is very ominous looking and I suspected last year that a big cat- like a cougar- lived there) I saw a huge bird land in the tree about 30 feet from me. I thought to myself- I think that’s an owl. Who-who-whooooo comes from the tree.

I’m taking a new way home now- going cross county across the prairie. Some hunters ran their trucks over the fence to save walking a few feet to the slough. I try not to get crabby about those lazy asses and imagine instead that the tire tracks are some ancient trail. And who knows—maybe they are. At any rate- they make the walk easier through the waist/chest high grass. As I look to the north I see a shining neon pink obelisk some miles away. This tall sliver of light pokes up from the prairie and reflects the rising sun looking even more brilliant even than the sun itself. It’s some kind of monument, maybe to farming, or progress, or a failed past, or an uncertain yet hopeful future.

Pobrecitos

One thing about living on the farm is that the kids work harder. Alma helped a lot iwth the garden and farmers market. Here's a picture of the boys on their way to clean out the chicken coop with their Dad.

I remember taking a Global Food Supply course as a graduate student. I learned that in parts of the world, children start making an agricultural contribution at age 5 and that at age 7 some kids are doing enough agricultural work to supply their food needs for the year. How can that be?

Mike said when be brought them back in:
~They were more help this year than last!~

I'm thinking-- they were only 3 years old last year. Amazing that at 4 years old they actually help lighten the load a bit.

Last Summer Menu....

With the exception of beets, carrots and 1,000 feet of turnips (what do I do with 2 tons of turnips??)-- the garden is done for 2008. I just couldn't bring myself to erase the Last Summer Menu-- what with remembering eating the garden fresh sweet corn, basil pesto, stuffed peppers, and eggplant ratioullie...

Last night I took out the first frozen broccoli and added it to tuna noodle hotdish.
I think that about sums up the end of summer food.

Something Stinks

Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack- leaving the meeting with US Treasury Secretary Paulson after learning he is forced to accept $250,000,000,000 from US Taxpayers. KJD notes: Does this man look repentant, sorry, chagrined?

"That's a jig saw Mommy" my son Lake informs me as Mike cuts out the back of the kitchen wall to extricate a rotting mouse that was making us all gag. The kitchen had been smelling increasingly putrid over the past couple of days. Relief was immediate when Mike took out the mouse, uncharacteristically groaning with displeasure and telling the boys to run because they wouldn't want to see this!

That's not all. My mom was helping me clean out my pantry-- filled to the brim with scores of squash, couple hundred pounds of potatoes, dried beans, garlic, and canned goods. I grabbed a bag of potatoes and the bottom fell out in a soggy mess of rotted potatoes-- the smell rivaled the dead mouse. But I had to clean this one up.

I had a dream yesterday. In my dream I was sitting on a park bench with a colleague from the Bush Foundation. A baby carriage was beside us. Distraught, I told her "I spent 3 years working on the farm bill. It was $6 billion dollars. Now they passed $700 billion in 10 days." I started to cry. "I wasted three years of my life."

In real life I didn't work on the Farm Bill. Maybe I was channeling my Representative, Collin Peterson, who is the chair of the House Agricultural Committee. The fact remains, that the Farm Bill was $6 Billion and it DID take more than 3 years to negotiate. The Farm Bill includes Food Stamps, farm subsidies, agricultural research, biofuels, land conservation, and more.

The gentlemen above "reluctantly" accepted $250 billion of your dollars. Paulson et al. decided upon and spent that money in one weekend.
Something Stinks.

Orion Reposing

Orion- the hunter

When I wake up maddeningly early and look out my dining room window I can see Orion-- at rest. Usually you see Orion upright-- his belt and blade at his waist and feet beneath him. In the middle of the night, however, Orion rests on the tops of trees lining the east side of our property. He lies there on his side-- relaxing on his elbow-- not hunting for the time being. I've a kind of repoir with this early morning constellation-- "you just rest there-- I'll get the coffee going."

I woke up in St. Paul this morning and walked out into the "darkeness" of the City. I looked straight up and was surprised to see my early morning companion Orion above my head. Upright and at work already-- another day another Horsehead Nebula. I didn't know or remember that I could see Orion in the City.

A bit later in my St. Paul campus office I reached into my jeans pocket and was surprised to find a handful of soybeans.

What I want to say is how this split life brings a reality to both. I can now see the stars in the City because I have come to know them, personally, at home on the prairie. I can now work in the Agronomy Deptartment with soybeans from my own field in my pocket. In some ways it is all the more richer because of the contrast.

But man I'm missing my kids.

Mobilizing

Photo credit: MN Historical Society 1970
(No details with this picture- but I imagine it is a farmer with his banker. Here's hoping he kept that tractor through the farm crisis)

The countryside is mobilized to bring in the crops. Wheat is in- soybeans coming off the field- the corn has a ways to go. Friday I passed a field full of combines and semi trucks-- a harvest crew working together. It was impressive. On Saturday I watched my neighbor climb into his monstrous John Deere combine holding his 2-year old daughter's hand. She pranced around in a fluffy pink dress. I'm sure they both like the time together-- but with two fulltime working parents and farming, sometimes there is no choice.

It seems that people of this country mobilized against the Wallstreet bailout and their congressional representatives listened-- a victory of sorts for democracy. $700 billion is a lot of money and, in truth, I think it's ok to take some time to figure out the right path. There's some lesson here about honest work by real people for real products-- but I'm not sure I know what it is. Just some vague notions about hard times, hard work, sacrifice, integrity, and the democratic process. If you figured it out, I'd like to know.

Jens Jergensen and Peak Oil

“When the wells begin to peter out, the competition for the remaining petroleum resources will grow even fiercer. Are more than the 0.5 percent of Americans who now serve in the military willing to risk their lives fighting overseas so we can continue to live as we wish? Peak oil will force that question on us.

Rod Dreher: Peak Oil is Coming, and We're Unready. August 17, 2008—Dallas Morning News [Note: Rod Dreher is a self proclaimed “Crunchy Con who blogs conservative politics and religion]

My favorite, most savored moments of the day are when I put my boys to bed. I lay between them in their shared bed, looking back and forth between their two sweet faces. Jens smiling, Lake sternly plotting to be the one who gets to turn off the light when we’re done reading. One night after the light was out I looked at Jens, the sprite, who still holds the look of a cherubic toddler at age four. My mind flashed forward to him being a soldier—a conscripted soldier. This thought came out of thin air, nothing I’d read or seen on tv had planted the seeds in my mind. This boy—Jens in particular—is not being raised to be a soldier. He’s being raised with tender kindness, humored in his spirited nature, adored for his adorableness. There are not a lot of hard edges in his world. I looked at him and could see his grown up face startled by a world of violence. I could see him remembering me, his mother, and these times together. So sweet, so safe.
Dreher goes on to say:

“A famed U.S. military leader has warned that the fossil-fuel supply on which American civilization depends utterly will run out someday in the 21st century and that our nation cannot afford to place our hope in "the sentimental belief that the things we fear will never really happen. I suggest that this is a good time to think soberly about our responsibilities to our descendants – those who will ring out the Fossil Fuel Age," said Adm. Hyman G. Rickover, father of the nuclear Navy. In 1957.

We've wasted a half-century of precious time, another non-renewable resource. We probably don't have another one to spare.

Next installment: Can you live out both your dream and your nightmare at the same time?