Stepped out into bright Sun, the buzzing of bees (honeys and some big black suckers), the flitting of butterflys, and the darting about of hoverflies. They weren't there a week ago before the cold and the rains, and the nightly fires (ended yesterday). The butterflys are all over the sage but the bees seem to be making do with the forget-me-nots and the wild onions. Presently 3:15 PM and 68F in that wide spot in the road that we call Forestville.
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is really helpful in identifying the local wild life.
As reported earlier, I was highly encouraged by the sight of several dozen honeys in the apricot tree last week *and* the plums that are blooming now!
Shoot mon, we beatcha on temp today....74F! Sadly though, we are heading down for a while, with frost danger predicted for a couple nights!
Sigh, we get what we gets, eh, old buddy?
One son and I went out and picked up a few goodies today. Stocks were a little low, and out when we left the store. ;-) Kinda fun to observe others carts....the herd ain't movin' here yet, but a few have their heads up sniffin'.
I've radishes and onions and peas and lettuces and beets crowning and showing the tops of their little heads. I be gettin' a watery mowff just looking at them!
I thinking I am hearing them catfish mewling too. It's approaching time for The Annual Clan FishFest...we have a new little feller to initiate!!!
Keep On Truckin' Charlie
"You just caught me on a good night. I'm doing what I was made to do - and I've got a feeling I'm going to do it even better this time" - Captain Billy Tyne
Ahh shit Billy. I'm a gonna rain on your Apple Blossom Parade.
Ain't never much happening in this group that hasn't been xposted. Should be, this is the edible, as in food, as in gotta have it newsgroup. I'm gonna add to it.
Anyhows here's some rain fer yer garden...glad you had some hopeful moments afore CharlieStormCloud arrived on the scene. ;-)
Yer Gloomy Bud Charlie, have a nice day ;-)
Thursday, 24 April 2008
To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.
~George Santayana~
The appearance of springtime in North America may be more welcome this year than at anytime in recent history. The winter has been long, cold, and dreary-particularly in the Rust Belt where the devastations of housing foreclosures, unemployment, and the resultant blight have left a trail of human misery and degradation not seen since the Great Depression. Ten percent of the population of Ohio now relies on food stamps while hordes of domestic animals abandoned in foreclosed homes endure long and grotesque deaths from starvation.
For countless Americans across the nation, this winter has brought with it something far more distressing than brutal, bone-chilling temperatures-horrific, traumatic revelations that the American dream, neatly packaged and sold for decades, has become their worst possible nightmare. Should they happen to see on TV the guy from the Countrywide commercial greeting them with "Homeowners...", they are probably wondering why he hasn't been assassinated and at the very least wondering why Countrywide is still in business.
Something is festering in the psyches of the formerly middle class of this nation-something far more ominous than burgeoning public assistance and food stamp applications or mushrooming meth labs. If the subprime mortgage massacre had occurred in a vacuum, the dirty little secret might have been kept a bit longer, but juxtaposing it with Peak Oil, skyrocketing food prices, wacky weather and debilitating droughts, not to mention proliferating pink slips, it daily becomes embarrassingly obvious that Jim Kunstler was spot-on when he uttered his infamous declaration in the documentary, "The End Of Suburbia" that "the entire suburban project is the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world."
And yet during this "winter of disconnect" we have heard delusional economists and the President himself describe the current horrors in terms of "a soft patch" or the need to "ride this one out until things bounce back." And overall, the human race is virtually ignoring climate change and perseverating in the madness of the ethanol panacea.
The Apple Blossom Parade is this weekend and is predicted to be warm and sunny. Appears that, seasonally speaking, Spring is behind us as we rush to the embrace of Summer, hallelujah.
While I like to think that I know what's going on, truth is there are some folk who are years ahead of me. I'm still trying to catch up to the Battle in Seattle. Not easy out here for us tardy Cassandras.
It appears that a grand convergence is taking place and we may end up a sub-set of misc.survivalism. I was just peeking over the fence and saw
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we live in interesting time:-(
Nice article by Caroline Baker. She took our graffiti and turned it into a mid-term essay.
Just remember what my dance instructor said. "If you fall, fall gracefully". And that takes preparation.
I meant to comment on two other points you made, but my brain is like a sieve!
But a much more genteel subset, I might add. ;-)
But hey, take solace in the possibility that you are actually witnessing the fall of..... all this! ;-) Hell, if nothing else, look what we are all learning, and that we are able to keep the faith, the faith we professed so long ago.
It is a fine essay. I recently subscribed to her newsletter, something I seldom do, and am pleased with the content. Been reading the website for a year or so.
That is my point. She gave sheen and gloss, and a ray of hope to our forebodings. I just hope our kids live long enough to reap the benefits. Truth is though, the American life style is on the endangered species list and will soon be extinct. We who were born before 1950, have lived in auspicious times, which will not come this way again. Our children, sadly, will have to rejoin the real world. But hope and joy remain, and in equality, may they find peace.
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