From Enola Gay, "The Modern Manifesto"

http://www.paratusfamilia.com/2017/02/a-modern-manifesto.html

Interesting bit of history.

The Way of Ignorance, Finished

I finally finished The Way of Ignorance by Wendell Berry. For me this was a slow read and I stopped and started a couple of times and read other books in between. But Ignorance made me think so I plodded through it at times. The last time I wrote about this book I compared it to an Yvon Chouinard book, Let My People Go Surfing. Reponsibility is important to both authors, and local responsibility especially. As I finished Berry's book, this became more evident as he shared letters to and from friends.

The title comes from a poem by T.S. Eliot called "East Coker," which is from the book Four Quartets.

                       In order to arrive at what you do not know, 

                      You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.

There is much I don't know, but the first step to understanding is to admit the lack of knowledge. This book helped me think through some ideas. A Big thought is the concept of soil health. The last story puts forth the thought that soil health is not of result of limiting or excluding human or animal access to "wilderness." A new idea is that in nature periodic disturbances help health. These disturbances can be fire, floods, or grazing. Remember the stories of bison grazing in the past? Cattle can take their place now. As a preview, there is a story of cattlemen combining their herds into one of over a thousand and letting them graze together. Destructive? No. It depends upon how long the cattle were allowed to graze in one place. And it requires us to rethink our perceptions of what land should look like. That grazed land looked very disturbed right after the cattle went through, but six months later the land was covered in grass and green.

In our local mountain area, happens to be a national park, there are many trees dying. A combination of drought and a beetle infestation. But a new theory is also too many trees. There hasn't been a fire in the area in 50 years. Hasn't been a disturbance to stimulate growth.

Admit our ignorance, rethink our ideas and build health. Good ideas to consider.

Canaan Calls

I'm reading The Daily Walk Bible now. It is designed to help you read the entire Bible in a year. 2-4 chapters a day with a commentary each day. Slogging through the early parts of the Old Testament is slow, but the commentary helps as it gives the reasons for the genealogies and ritual descriptions. The narratives give insight to our reluctance and rebellion as humans. And God's mercies as well.

Today was an example. I'm in Numbers and the Israelites are getting ready to enter Canaan. The scouts have been sent into the new land promised by God and they are back with their report. Remember, God has brought the Israelites out of slavery and across the desert to this promised land. Many times they are rebellious and resistant, but here is the land for them to settle on and prosper. What do they do? Whine, complain and say the inhabitants are too big and strong. A repeat of the last year.

We would never do that would we? It was a reminder to me that we all have our Canaans. Those promises and things in our lives that we won't accept or believe. We just have to thank God.

To Tea, or Not to Tea

This morning I made myself a cup of Earl Grey tea. Haven't had a cup of tea in the morning for years, maybe decades. Tea is a night time drink before bed. Maureen makes some for each of us as we watch TV. As I steeped the tea I stated thinking of when I used to drink tea exclusively, no coffee. You could tie this in with the usual winter go into hibernation feeling I get this time of year, but this time there was some nostalgia and the experience of me as a young man learning something new.

College was one new experience after another. I went from a small provincial town to the local county seat to a larger college town 300 miles away at the almost other end of the state. I met many people along the way and some became roommates and lifelong friends. It was within this setting that I was introduced to tea and Red Zinger was the gateway tea.

First off it was red. Not the brown of Grandma's tea. It also didn't have the acidic bite that something like an Earl Grey or a common Lipton's. After that initial introduction to Red Zinger I discovered that the maker, Celestial Seasonings, had many other offerings in so many other flavors and colors. It was a mind blowing experience for this small town young man. I learned much and enjoyed much. I think from time to time about that friend and roommate, GS, that taught me of tea, Midwestern tea with cream and sugar, bagels and cream cheese and all sorts of life rearranging food items.

The tea changed after I met a young woman that changed me in other ways. She and her family were coffee drinkers, and that began another part of my life that continues today. But she also drinks tea, and that makes all the difference.

Presidential History

The last post reminded me of a story regarding Bess Truman, the wife of President Harry Truman. President Truman was from the "Show Me" state of Missouri and had the habit of using the word manure. One day a woman happened to have a chance to meet with Mrs. Truman and asked for a favor. This woman said she didn't like the fact that the president used the word manure, and would Mrs. Truman kindly ask the president to quit using the word.

Mrs. Truman thanked the lady and replied, "As course as the word manure sounded, it was much better to the word the president used to use."

Manure vs. Compost

I've been thinking about a few of my daily tasks and how parts of them are different. We have some cats, a few dogs, some laying hens and even a friendly duck. The duck has it's own friend, our disabled hen and they wander separately from the other laying hens. As you might guess with so many animals we have to deal with the issue of manure. Generally I deal with the manure and what happens with it. It certainly is no fun to walk out into the back yard and step in a pile or slip on a gooey mess from the duck and chicken friendship.

I was pondering the differences between the manure from each of the different animals, and how I handle each. It hit me that this task is like life. The cats mostly use a litter box and the dogs use a few areas outside. We dispose of them in the trash. The chickens and duck go in areas within their runs and that gets raked up or shoveled and put into the compost pile to decompose. One is waste and the other is fertilizer. One is a problem and one helps grow food. Kind of like life, you have to learn to separate the good from the not so good.

A Couple of Books

After finishing Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard I started back in to The Way of Ignorance by Wendell Berry. Haven't finished Ignorance yet, but I have been struck by how the two books dovetail in many ways.

Chouinard told tales of how he climbed and created a business, but he hammered away most about the responsibility we have to the world we live in, both individually and corporately. He gave details how Patagonia has been shaped as a company to minimize its footprint and damage to the world. He admits there is damage, but effort must be made to have as little impact as possible.

This is one of the first Berry books I have read and it is a collection of essays and talks he has given. The theme of localism comes through loud and clear, but the idea is localism builds whereas the opposite, globalism, has no one being responsible for what happens. Soil and water and people are materials to be used, not built. The end result is we all die somewhere in the future.

As Chouinard says, "The problem is like [environmentalist] David Brower said, there’s no business to be done on a dead planet."

Quote of the Day

"This world can be a tough address."

Paul David Tripp from New Morning Mercies

Which Comes First: Chicken, Egg? Art, Life?

Maureen and I recently went to the latest Bourne movie. Back to the formulaic action version. Action, fights, car chase with Matt Damon. Early in the movie I started to become uneasy about the actions of a few characters. The government "good" guys  weren't good. In fact they seemed more than ever doing what they wanted to do regardless of the rightness or wrongness. People killed, laws ignored. I wanted to check out and live on a mountain somewhere.

We got home and turned on the Olympics hoping for some  good. Accusations of being pulled over and robbed by police, now are the athletes are accused of fabricating the story. And then the scrolling news message at the bottom of the screen: US State Department spokesman says that the $400 million given to Iran was indeed for the release of American citizens. Two weeks after our president says the two actions are coincidental.

Art imitating life? Life copying art? Who can you trust?

God.

A Tale of Two Celebrations

This past weekend I was involved to two different celebrations from two different countries.

1 July is Canada Day and that morning a few of our children and I crawled down the rabbit hole of the internet and researched the origins of the day. Interesting reading and discussions ensued. Saturday I had the chance to talk with some Canadians from Ontario visiting the park and we discussed how the holiday was celebrated, including those in Quebec. "They call it Jean Baptiste Day, or something like that," was what I was told.

Monday the 4th I spent working and talking to crowds from many different countries. I listened to talk radio coming down the hill and heard a few patriotic readings. Today the summer school English class tried to read the Declaration of Independence. A few got the gist, but most gave up before even getting to "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" in the second paragraph. I guess that is why not many complain when rights are legislated away in this country.

Baseball, Meds, Wedding, Alaska, Summer School and the Cave

I coached what is probably my last time coaching baseball on a Tuesday and missed the Friday game when I was in the hospital for an R & R visit. These are the JV games. It's time to take a break from being the one in charge of a team, though helping others might be in the future. I did help the varsity in their playoff games, and that was a good time even though the last game was a loss. Baseball has been very good to me and I hope I have honored the game and helped others.

The R & R in the hospital? Courtesy of modern medication the doctors think. This is the second time that blood pressure medication has slowed my heart to the point that I black out. The first time I was teaching and woke up laying sideways across a desk. This time I was finishing breakfast and I "awoke" to my family asking what was going on. I had no clue what they were talking about, but soon pieced together the fact that I has momentarily blacked out and I agreed that I should go to the ER. By the way the ER is much better in the morning than at night. No other pesky patients throwing up in the waiting room. The ER doctor is a friend and he with an resident quickly got me to a room. It seems fitting to mention that besides the ER doctor an admitting nurse and two ER nurses were either former athletes or students. I guess my teaching helped someone.

Eventually my GP and cardiologist came to the conclusion that I was over medicated and my heart meds were reduced. I guess that was also why I had been light headed and had dizzy spells for the previous week. Lesson learned. Also makes me think about a situation where society breaks down and I can't get meds. Cardiologist mentioned that it appears post surgery my heart needs to have a slightly higher pressure for me to function. Not bad news if meds are hard to get.

With the dizziness I was told not to drive. Usually not a problem, but we had a 5 hour trip north to help family, then a wedding in Alaska. I'm usually the driver in the family and Maureen had to drive both ways. I'm a horrible co-pilot/navigator. I'm used to reading maps and deciphering to info available on a smart phone is taking some time to learn. Partly because I don't use the app very often and partly because I know where I'm going most of the time, or can use my sense of direction to figure things out. I will admit one of the beauties of the map app is checking where there is traffic problems or road issues, and using that information to change course. So you can imagine the Subie's cockpit conversations as I try to read the phone and direct Maureen on which road to turn on, which lane to be in and to do so in plenty of time to execute the maneuver; all the while with Maureen processing my gibberish and the phone spitting out updates that have to be figured out. We made it up and back alive, but I will tell of a part 2 a bit later.

The good news upon return home is the doctors gave me the okay to drive and I didn't receive a letter from the DMV directing me to stop driving. The letter would involve an appointment and interview with an DMV person to see if I was fit to drive. I had to do that 3 years ago with the first blackout. The big offshoot of this is I got to drive in Alaska and the rental of cars was easier to pull off.

Alaska and wedding? Son number two lives in the Caribbean with his fiancee and they decided to simplify their lives and get married--Yahoo! They decided to do this in Alaska when they were on a vacation with her family. There is so much to write about. Maybe it was a rationalization of mine that because we financially couldn't travel much, looking at books and watching movies could give you a sense of what a location is like. And I still believe that to a certain extent. But actually being in a new place like Alaska gives you so much more than a movie or book can. Everything in Alaska seems BIGGER. The wilderness is so close. We stayed at and Air B-nB in Anchorage and were warned to keep the back gate close so the moose wouldn't wander into the yard. That's wild. I will write another post to give the trip it's due, but it was great and the time together as a family will always be remembered.

The rest of life is normal. I'm teaching summer school during the week and working at the cave in the park on weekends. Again reinforcing the decision to "resign" from teaching but continue to work as a new job. Still a good decision.

Morning Flowers, and Some Food Growing

I thought I'd share what I get to see every morning. This is the view out the front door and out into the front garden. The sun was just coming up so the pictures are a bit hazy. Flowers and vegi's getting ready to by taken out and turned into different plants and vegetables. You have to look close to find the vegetables. Good Stuff!

Voting By Mail and Precinct Update

I eventually decided to call the elections office of the county for an explanation of the new mail-in ballot status. I became even more suspicious when the kind assistant director said that not all precincts in our town will be voting by mail. It turns out that it's more than somewhat based on local politics.

A few years ago two forces appeared locally. There has been a movement to split towns, cities and school districts into voting districts so that all citizens would be fairly represented. In some communities it took lawsuits, others happened as another item on the docket. Our community seemed to favor unification of the school districts as a high priority and in the process of the unification, new district lines were drawn for seven school board members. There was some weird that resulted.

In one case two board members were living next to each other. In the next election one no longer was on the board. There were other cases of more than one member in the same district as well as a few instances of an elementary board member living near a high school board member. When the election dust settled the schools were unified, to the betterment of education, and there are now seven school board members. Some representing some gerrymandered looking districts.

How does this lead to mail-in voting? Each of these new school board districts had to become a new voting precinct, and to qualify for a physical voting precinct there must be 250 registered voters in said precinct. The precinct I live in is one block from the core downtown of our town and at that point is a small sliver of a pizza, but it eventually becomes a large chuck of orange groves and bovine pasture outside of town up into the foothills nearby. In the spring we easily have more cows than people living in District 3.

As I looked at the district map I realized that having seven member areas we had to have seven precincts and some of the precincts will have less voting people than others, even though on paper the same number of inhabitants live in each precinct. Then I started doing some basic Math.

The town I live in has a few more than11,000 residents, and the surrounding rural area has at least another 3,000 people. Of those 14,000 let's says 50% of them are underage and not allowed to vote, so we're at 7,000 potential voters, or 1,000 per precinct. I was told that possibly 2 of the 7 precincts have the required 250 registered voters. So (2 @ > 250 = 500 voters ) + (5 @ < 250 = < 1,250) = < 1,750 registered voters out of 14,000 + or -.  Less than 25 % of people deems it important to vote.

One doesn't have to wonder whyAmerica is failing.

Is This Really Happening? Voting This Year by Mail

Last week we received a letter from the county elections office stating that out polling place was being closed. We, and everyone that votes in our town of 11,000, will now be sent a ballot 29 days before the election. We are to vote and send in the ballot. Do the red flags start waving, or is it just me?

I have to wonder what is behind this move. I know there has been difficulty getting people to volunteer to work at the polling place, but there always seems to enough workers. It's a place to say hi to people that you don't see often. In this small town it's a pleasant experience.

But have we as a community become insignificant in the county's political eyes? Maybe this is a trend in small towns now, but it doesn't seem right. This just seems ripe for fraud also. Could one family member take all the ballots, fill them out and mail them in? What about mail theft? If I know ballots are coming out I could steal from my neighbors and Chicago vote. Instead of ,"Vote early, and vote often," one could vote often in the privacy of their home.

Lastly it just seems like another way citizens are being marginalized.

A Time for Everything Under the Sun

24 April 2009 was tilling day, and the beginning of our adventure across the street. We started with such great expectations and for the most part they came true. We jumped in and grew many things. What started with our neighbor Joyce welcoming us into her backyard and her daughter Marcie continuing to give us open access has ended. Our choice after seven years.

How many people do you know that would let you use their backyard as if it was your own? We had access virtually any time of the day. And as much as we could get them to take the produce, the only rental cost was the fruits and vegetables that were produced. Suburban Sharecropping is what we called it and it worked. In Joyce's last days we knew that she could look out onto a green yard and that spurred us on to grow.

Ultimately lives and times change. We found ourselves in a constant battle with Bermuda grass and weeds. But the Bermuda was and irritant beyond contempt. We tried things we never would have tried in the beginning. Weed cloth, pulling by hand, mulch, herbicides were to no avail. It became tiring to walk across the street knowing we would see our vegetables partially grown over with the Kudzu of the west.

But it was more than the Bermuda. Marcie, Tyson and the boys always made us welcome, but we were still walking into someone else's yard. My personal sense of space had alarms going off. It was me that felt like an intrusion. I used the alley gate and that helped, but as the family grew I couldn't help but feel like an interloper. This was my internal workings nothing they did or said.

The final decision was made in January. We were starting to plan for this year's plantings. The no-till method was working well on our property and for the most part across the street. We were confident the plants were getting nourished. We were talking one evening about weeding across the street in preparation for planting. I happened to look out into our back yard, specifically some unnamed unfinished job and I became overwhelmed. I looked at the tasks I needed to finish here, the fact that baseball season was beginning and I would be around less and i thought now is the time to change. I felt I wasn't taking care of my own first and that any time spent away would make finishing more difficult.

We talked about the decision and made adjustments. I still haven't finished everything I want to, but some have been completed. Many days bring a reminder of the decision, and more often than not it is an affirmation that we made the correct choice. We won't have as much produce, but one of the ways we are adjusting is to look to maximize our own land usage. Disposing of some stuff is helping and looking closely at what we keep is important.

Ultimately if we believe that hard times are coming, we can't have unfinished jobs, materials and work cluttering our minds and efforts.

How Wide is Home Plate?

Some will know that I coach baseball. High school baseball with some Babe Ruth and Little League thrown in. Simplicity and complexness and attention to minutia rolled into one wonderful game. The is so much going on when so little seems to be happening. But that's not the only reason I coach baseball.

Life lessons are taught with this game, and that is true for many sporting activities. Baseball is what I connected with and baseball is what I use to teach about life. I was told by an old baseball friend about a story I needed to read. The story was told by John Scolinos a college coach. The story was told to a group of coaches at a coaches convention.  It sums up better and tells the tale of what I've been trying to do in one quick read. Baseball fan or not, you should read this.

http://www.sperrybaseballlife.com/stay-at-17-inches/

The Botany of Desire--A Review of Sorts

This Michael Pollan book is like many of his books. He brings a quirky history to a subject and makes me think. The premise of the book is human desire. Desire for sweetness, beauty, intoxication and control. Pollan couples these four desire with plants that are historically connected to these desires. Pollan gives us the history of these desires as well as the current thoughts.

Apples, tulips, marijuana and potatoes. I learned something new about each and changed my view on a couple of the desires. I was also reminded that just beyond desire is greed, and not all we are told is truth.

Ducky, Part II

We don't have any absolute answers to why Ducky goes AWOL every day. Our best guess is that she is broody and sitting on a clutch of eggs. We found her first two laying nests and took the eggs. We think she is hiding in the yard trying to hatch her eggs. But they aren't fertilized. And we can't find the eggs. Ducky shows up in the afternoon quacking loudly to announce herself. She eats some and socializes with us and Jimmy, then she disappears.

Hope we find her nest before summer.

Ducky and Jimmy, the Autopsy Gremlin

We are NCIS fans. The original, not so much the added cities. I like Gibbs' rules, and for years before we discovered Gibbs' Rules I have three of my own for the baseball teams I coach and have shared them with the players often.* One of the characters, Dr. Mallard or Ducky, has an assistant, Jimmy. This post isn't about NCIS or even about the rules. It's about our duck, Ducky, and her chicken companion, Jimmy.

Over the last few months Ducky has ingratiated herself to us. She quacks and follows us around when we are working in the back yard. One day she walked into the back cabana to see our son. Right after that a chicken  flew over the chicken yard fence and the duck and the chicken soon became fast friends. Now Ducky and Jimmy both follow us around and come into the house when the back door is open. Ducky originally had a male duck companion, but that duck flew the yard and the last we saw of him he was paddling around the golf course ponds with the other ducks. I guess Jimmy fills that void.

The last few days Ducky has been absent in the morning. We're not totally sure what is happening. At first we thought she had flown to greener pastures and ponds. But she came back in the afternoon. Then it happened again, and today it's the third day she has left or hidden herself in the morning. What is interesting to see is that Jimmy is looking for her each day. Ducky isn't back yet today. We don't know what will eventually happen, but Ducky sure has been a hoot, er, quack to have around.




*Coach's Rules for baseball
Rule #1: The coach is always right.
Rule #2: Never play catch or pepper in front of the dugout.
Rule #3: Refer to Rule #1.

But I always remember Gibbs' Rule # 51: Sometimes you're wrong.

What's Goin' On?

Baseball, building (or at least tearing down) and gardens. It's that time of year when baseball interferes with the spring garden beginnings. Having some time in the morning helps, but evening is my most productive time and I am away.

We took the youngsters to an almost inner city school yesterday and for some it was eye opening. Other than a bad loss,it was event free. Our whitebread players were exposed to other people and with some prodding realized those young men have the same thoughts and desires as our kids do.

The one thing the kids were shocked a bit about were the homeless camped and sleeping in the trees and shrubs of the freeway. The boys literally saw people sleeping as we creeped by on the congested freeway.

Besides our own gardens, we started a project we have been trying to get started at sister-in-law's house. We have helped others start gardens and while this is the latest we hope to have more going this year. We have decided to cease gardening across the street at our neighbor's. The years of trying to eradicate bermuda grass finally was too much. The area will be missed, but the recovered time will allow us to refocus other places. We spent so much time fighting the bermuda it finally hit us we could use the time in better ways.

The playhouse is mostly down. The second story is demolished and ready for nails to be pulled. The bottom half is ready to move and will be soon. The area left behind will become a mini orchard and tomato patch. We will try to grow vegetables until the trees get bigger and shade the area. It also cleans of the backyard a bit. We still have to find places to store tools and such, but that will come. As usual for us, we plan as we build and fit things as we create new openings. Sounds kid of like nature--Nature abhors a void. So I guess I should go fill the opening to do work.