Perception
May 11, 2012 § Leave a comment
“Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language.” -Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac
Low voices
May 6, 2012 § Leave a comment
“In that same lovely Maytime we took to the river in a canoe. Here she was the skilled one and I the crew. At night we would paddle far upriver, and then, sitting together, leaning against the rack, we would drift down, talking in low voices so as not to offend the peace of the night.”
– Sheldon Vanauken, A Severe Mercy
This made me laugh. Sometimes I am one of those persons.
May 4, 2012 § 2 Comments
“If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that’s read by persons who move their lips when they’re reading to themselves.” – Don Marquis
(I just do it when it’s something technical. It goes into my brain better that way. I swear.)
A country lad
April 22, 2012 § 2 Comments
The Passionate Shepherd
Who can live in heart so glad
As the merry country lad?
Who upon a fair green balk
May at pleasure sit and walk,
And amid the azure skies
See the morning sun arise;
While he hears in every spring
How the birds do chirp and sing;
Or before the hounds in cry
See the hare go stealing by;
Or along the shallow brook
Angling with a baited hook,
See the fishes leap and play
In a blessed sunny day;
Or to hear the partridge call
Till she have her covey all;
Or to see the subtle fox,
How the villain plies the box,
After feeding on his prey
How he closely sneaks away
Through the hedge and down the furrow,
Till he gets into his burrow;
Then the bee to gather honey,
And the little black hair’d coney
On a bank for sunny place
With her forefeet wash her face:
Are not these, with thousands moe
Than the courts of kings do know,
The true pleasing-spirits sights
That may breed true love’s delights?
– Nicholas Breton
After driving through a thunderstorm
April 15, 2012 § Leave a comment
“The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night-
And I love the rain.”
-Langston Hughes, “April Rain Song”
50 Dispatches
April 11, 2012 § Leave a comment
“Your hands are going to bleed.”
Anne Cure, owner of Cure Organic Farm in Boulder, Colorado, said this softly while looking off into the distance as Jack, one of the other farmers, described the day’s task of transplanting thousands of seedlings from the greenhouse into the field. The “bleeding hands” comment was not ill-natured in any way; it was merely a statement of fact, one learned through many springs of transplanting thousands of seedlings into the field. This was the acknowledgment that today the fields were going to be especially tough to plant. It would be a painful process for a new farmer’s hands.
This is an excerpt of an essay featured in The Atlantic from the Greenhorns’ new book.
And it makes sort of warmly proud and glad for a couple of reasons:
1. I had the privilege of preparing and serving farm dinners at Anne Cure’s farm two summers ago – her smiling face is a familiar one!
2. I also sort of know Jeff, the author of this particular essay, as he had dinner with us on occasion, and he ended up dating my friend and co-worker. AND he’s from Iowa.
3. I’m just excited about what the Greenhorns are doing here. I love the idea of this book. Sharing stories of enthusiasm, passion, pain, discovery, purpose. And dirt. No – better word – soil. I wanted to contribute when they sent out their call for essays, but I wasn’t farming at the time, and they requested words from farmers. That’s all right. I’ve got my own farm and book plans. For now, I’m happy to read others. Hooray, everyone!
Good things are happening.
On a walk
April 10, 2012 § Leave a comment
“Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.” -Wallace Stevens
On prairie
April 4, 2012 § Leave a comment
Jump on over to The Prairie Ecologist to read a guest essay by Doug Ladd, Director of Conservation Science for the Nature Conservancy of Missouri. Here’s an excerpt from his essay, reprinted there, entitled “Why Prairie Matters”:
To visit a prairie is to be immersed in the result of thousands of generations of competition and natural selection resulting in a dynamic array of diversity, which, collectively, is supremely attuned to this uniquely midcontinental landscape.
Here flourish long-lived, deep-rooted perennial plants annealed by the frequent Native American fires, searing summer droughts, frigid winters, episodes of intensive grazing and trampling, and rapid, recurrent freeze-thaw cycles that exemplify the Midwest. These plants in all their varied magnificence in turn support myriad animals ranging from minute prairie leafhoppers that spend their entire lives in a few square meters to wide-ranging mammals and birds that travel hundreds or even thousands of miles in a season.
Prairie matters beyond the prairies themselves.
(Read on! Read on. We must be thinking about these things. And then, hopefully, carefully, acting.)
Go to nature
April 1, 2012 § 1 Comment
I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order. -John Burroughs
Bad dog, Danny
March 26, 2012 § 4 Comments
You know the black dog?
He is black as night. Especially in this snow storm where I first took his picture. Remember?
Here he is a few days ago, exploring a very wonderful tree.
Well, this Danny-boy has a sweet, affectionate disposition but a bad, bad happy of chewing. As a puppy he chewed the cords off my father’s power tools. And the legs of the porch furniture. And shoes, of course. And anything else he fancied.
He’s gotten much better, but one of his favorite things still seems to be chewing packages that get dropped on the front porch. Usually we try to leave a note or put in special instructions: Packages must go INSIDE! Or, Do not deliver package without a signature!
Guess what came at some hour of the day when we happened to be (or be focused) elsewhere?
My first shipment of my books.
Guess who chewed the box open and spilled books all over the (dewy, wet, morning lawn)? Guess who put teeth or claw marks in at least half of them?
That black dog.
Good thing it was only a shipment of ten copies. Good thing I’ve learned to find humor in unfortunate circumstances. Good thing for that dog, and good thing for me.
I scooped them up in a half-panic, with my mother’s help, and wiped them down. A few were still presentable. The others will be family copies, I suppose.
We’re still dog people around here. Don’t worry. But Danny’s position in the family was, that afternoon, somewhat up for review. Good thing for him he’s the friend of the little Shar Pei we’re all smitten with. It keeps him around despite his unruly antics. (His kindly brown eyes and affectionate pet-me nudges may also help.)
And, nevertheless, what a little satisfaction it is to see this pile. A little beat up. But mine.
Kinds of Honey 