Blue Ridge Dreaming

June::Home

"One's native ground is the place where, since before you had words for such knowledge, you have known the smells, the seasons, the birds and beasts, the human voices, the houses, the ways of working., the lay of the land, and the quality of light. It is the landscape you learn before you retreat inside the illusion of your skin. You may love the place if you flourished there, or hate the place if you suffered there. But love it or hate it, you cannot shake free. Even if you move to the antipodes, even if you become intimate with a new landscape, you still bear the impression of that first ground." --Scott Russell Sanders, in Staying Put: Making Home in a Restless World (1993, Beacon Press)

"Only by understanding where I live can I learn how to live."--Scott Russell Sanders, in Staying Put

"How do we decide where to dream a life into existence? On what scrap of this vast planet should we hammer in our stakes and say 'home'? How do we live there with our neighbors? What level of commitment to the landscape is acceptable? What lack of awareness is unacceptable?" -- John Lane, in Circling Home (2007, University of Georgia Press)

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This month's theme for NaBloPoMo is Home. Seeing that I thought: "I can surely think of 30 posts about Home." And so I will try. I hope that you will follow along.

One quick technical note: My About page seems to have disappeared. For those of you who may be new to my blog and wish to learn about me, please go to my other blog and click on the About page there. I should have this one back up in a couple of days.

Also, I am still adjusting to Typepad's new compose window, so my apologies to anyone who reads this blog in a feed. Sometimes, I have to post more than once to get the formatting right. 

Happy Easter

Practice resurrection. --Wendell Berry

Happy New Year

What We Need Is Here

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

                                    Wendell Berry

Happy New Year all. May 2008 bring peace to us all.

Instead of a Friday Fact...a Poem for the Weekend

 

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

vacation with pay. Want more

of everything ready-made. Be afraid

to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery

any more. Your mind will be punched in a card

and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something

they will call you. When they want you

to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something

that won’t compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace

the flag. Hope to live in that free

republic for which it stands.

Give your approval to all you cannot

understand. Praise ignorance, for what man

has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.

Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.

Say that your main crop is the forest

that you did not plant,

that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested

when they have rotted into the mold.

Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus

that will build under the trees

every thousand years.

Listen to carrion—put your ear

close, and hear the faint chattering

of the songs that are to come.

Expect the end of the world. Laugh.

Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful

Though you have considered all the facts.

So long as women do not go cheap

for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy

a woman satisfied to bear a child?

Will this disturb the sleep

of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love into the fields.

Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head

in her lap. Swear allegiance

to what is nighest in your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos

can predict the motions of your mind,

lose it. Leave it as a sign

to mark the false trail, the way

you didn’t go. Be like a fox

who makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

                  Wendell Berry

                  From The Country of Marriage (1973)

Local eating is officially trendy now

Okay so the Local Food movement has risen to heights. The New Oxford American Dictionary has declared "locavore" as its Word of the Year.

A Poem for the Weekend

When I Am Among the Trees

When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks, and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

     but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, “Stay awhile.”

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,

“and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled

with light, and to shine.”

                                    Mary Oliver

                                    From Thirst

                                    Beacon Press, 2006

On this Harvest Moon

From Farmer's Almanac TV:

The full harvest moon is the full Moon that occurs closest to the autumn equinox. In two years out of three, the Harvest Moon comes in September, but in some years it occurs in October. At the peak of harvest, farmers can work late into the night by the light of this Moon. Usually the full Moon rises an average of 50 minutes later each night, but for the few nights around the Harvest Moon, the Moon seems to rise at nearly the same time each night: just 25 to 30 minutes later across the U.S., and only 10 to 20 minutes later for much of Canada. Corn, pumpkins, squash, beans, and wild rice, the chief Indian staples, are now ready for gathering.

This year the full harvest Moon is on September 26th.

Here's the video:

Fall

Today is the first day of Fall, as it is the first full day following the Autumnal Equinox.

From the Old Farmer's Almanac:

The autumnal equinox is defined as the point at which the Sun appears to cross the celestial equator from north to south. The celestial equator is the circle in the celestial sphere halfway between the celestial poles. It can be thought of as the plane of Earth's equator projected out onto the sphere. Another definition of fall is nights of below-freezing temperatures combined with days of temperatures below 70 degrees Fahrenheit. The word equinox means "equal night"; night and day are the same length of time. The spring equinox is in late March. In addition to the equal hours of daylight and darkness, the equinoxes are times when the Sun's apparent motion undergoes the most rapid change. Around the time of the equinoxes, variations in the position on the horizon where the Sun rises and sets can be noticed from one day to the next by alert observers.

I do love fall, and for some reason, I'm especially looking forward to it this year. Although it was warm again this weekend, all last week the weather was simply perfect: clear, sunny, and cool enough to leave the windows open all day. It has been an odd year, weather-wise, here in Western NC, with a late Spring freeze and summer drought, so I have no clue as to what the leaf season will hold for us. We'll have to wait and see.

Our summer garden is no more, but our fall garden is in: kohlrabi, broccoli, cabbage, radishes, kale, spinach, sugar snap peas, romaine, collards. Back to fresh salads in no time. Soon we'll be planting for some Spring crops. I'm determined to try some asparagus and garlic (I know, they take years until harvest--I can wait). We need to get some flower bulbs in the ground, too. Lots of work to do.

This weekend we are heading up to NY for a wedding. When we return, October will already be here. I hope next weekend won't be too late for picking apples. Growers were hit hard this year and the local crop, I hear, is 40% of the usual yield. But I do so love our family excursions to Stepp Farm every year, and I want to put up some apple butter, apple pie filling, apple chips, maybe even make some apple cake (perhaps as good as Paul's mom's, but I doubt it).

Yes, welcome fall. I hope we can take some time and savor you before winter sets in.

Right now

It is 77 degrees. The sun is shining. My windows are open. A gentle zephyr ruffles the trees in a wave down the valley. I hear the faint music of wind chimes on my porch, birds at the feeder, insects buzzing in the tall grass.

Man made sounds are at a minimum. No cars on the road, so hammers, no saws. Only the chimes and the happy gurgle of my baby girl learning to sit by herself. And the world outside.

Heaven.

Why I hate going off daylight savings time

1. My daughter wakes at 5:30am instead of 6:30am. She immediately hollers (and that is exactly the right word) for breakfast from her crib. After breakfast she yells for the "Car!", and it will STILL BE DARK OUTSIDE!

2. It's dark at suppertime and I still have an hour and fifteen minutes worth of toddler play time.

3. I think I have to go to bed because it feels like 10pm when it's really only 9pm, and then once I learn that it's just 9, I feel guilty going to bed so early when I have stuff I could be doing before bed (paying bills, watching trash TV, packing).

Of course I hope you realize that come summertime I'll be singing the praises of 8pm sunsets.