Feeling Fruity: Michigan U-Pick Experiences

In the past month, Sean and I have picked fruit at three very different U-Pick operations in Mid-Michigan.

We picked strawberries at a large production farm, blueberries at a popular cider mill and entertainment-focused farm, and currants from a back yard garden in Lansing. At each location the end result was fresh, delicious fruit that costs far less than buying lesser-quality fruit from the grocery store or farmers' market.

Strawberry Picking at Felzke Farms
Some weeks ago, Sean and I had the good fortune of finding ourselves in the best strawberry plot at  Felzke Farms. It was hot out, but I was glad of my long pants while I crawled between the rows. Felzke Farms is Michigan's largest strawberry producer, and has been a local U-Pick favorite for years. Sean and I had done some reconnaissance while buying 20 lbs of asparagus in the spring, so we knew what we were up against.

We arrived relatively early - around 9 a.m. - and were the last people to score a spot in the BEST strawberry field at Felzke (according to the lovely librarian picking a few rows over). I have never tasted a better strawberry. I know this doesn't sound like a big deal, but man, these strawberries can change your perspective on life.

About an hour in the field earned us roughly 40 lbs of the ripest, reddest, juiciest Michigan strawberries on the face of the planet (probably). We dehydrated some to put in granola and oatmeal, made a big batch of strawberry jam and froze the rest. Sucking on a frozen strawberry is one the best ways to combat this outrageously dry, hot summer.

Felzke Farms is a production farm, first and foremost. They offer U-Pick strawberries on the side because they have an abundance of strawberries, and there are crazy people like us who are willing to PAY the farm to pick their berries. It's a good deal for the farm, and a good deal for us! These strawberries are WAY better than those we bought by the quart-full from Kroger 2 years ago, or the farmers' market last year. Cheaper, too.

Blueberry Picking at Uncle John's Cider Mill
 The 6-foot blueberry bushes were drooping from the weight of countless ripe berries when we pulled up to the U-Pick field last Sunday. It was a steamy afternoon - about 90 degrees - and we were the only folks there. We bought a pre-paid 10 pound U-Pick box (about $25). An hour later it was overflowing with the best blueberries I've ever tasted!

We've stocked ourselves with delicious blueberry jam, dried blueberries to snack on, frozen blueberries for my oatmeal and a few cans of berries to bake with over the next year. Last night's blueberry crumble was a beautifully violent purple-blue hue that stained our mouths. Yum!

Of course, you don't HAVE to slave away in the sun to get lots of berries for a good price. At Uncle John's you can buy a pre-filled 10 lbs. box for $25 - way cheaper than the grocery store or farmer's market. We opted to pick our own because we like it, and because the berries taste better if you work a little harder for them. The pre-filled boxes are not as fresh, but still a great deal.

Uncle John's is primarily an entertainment location and cider mill, not a production farm like Felzke. They boast sprawling orchards, a winery, a pie house, delicious donuts and cider, U-Pick pumpkins, a fun corn maze and all sorts of family-friendly attractions. They've recently expanded to offer blueberries, asparagus and strawberries to keep people coming in the mill's "off-season". It's working!

Currant Picking in Old Town, Lansing
Sean and I spent our Independence Day morning in Old Town at our friend Lisa's home, picking eight pounds of currants. I love picking currants. Currant bushes don't grow quite as tall as blueberry bushes, but they provide ample shade as I root around, plucking their fruits. Have you ever seen fresh currants? They're lovely little red gems strung together in a way similar to grape bunches.

Picking currants at Lisa's was a significant moment for the two of us - an anniversary, of sorts. Last summer we experienced our first Picking excursion in this very same same back yard on the Grand River. It was hot and dirty work, and I did not enjoy myself. Still, it held a special charm, and the fruits of our labor (pun-tastic!) were well worth a sweaty hour or two. We juiced our berries with various devices, and they will soon become clear, tasty currant jelly.

Lisa is the opposite of massive operations like Felzke Farms and Uncle John's. She's an regular person with a job and a life... a big, back-yard garden. She planted a row of currant bushes years ago, and each season she allows strangers (like us) to come and pick them for a very low price.  It's easy for her, easy for us, and we both benefit.

Since picking currants last summer, we've harvested apples from Clam Lake Orchard (near Torch Lake), a few bushels of huskcherries from Pregitzer Farm, wild raspberries from the areas surrounding "Barton's Blind", a gorgeous Douglas Fir Christmas tree at Peacock Road Tree Farm, the aforementioned strawberries, blueberries, currants and countless other crops from our own gardens.

It's pretty cool, to say the least.

Community Gardening and Rabbit Keeping FAQ

About a year ago, a friend told us about a new community garden forming a few blocks from our house, funded by the Lansing Land Bank and The Garden Project. We jumped on board, and haven't looked back.

We now help maintain two community gardens where everyone works together. Poppin' Fresh is one of those gardens - and it has exploded in size, in more ways than one!

Our footprint has doubled. Last month we got approval to annex the newly-cleared lot next door. We're slowly gaining new members, which are desperately needed to eat all of the tasty things we're harvesting, year-round.

We're happy for more space, but the most exciting thing to happen at Poppin' this month is the arrival of baby bunnies!

With the arrival of bunnies have come questions from alarmed relatives and curious friends. The best way to learn about what we're doing is to come and see for yourself. Until you make it over to the Garden, allow me to answer some of the questions we hear most often.

Why are you doing this?

We're doing this to learn, plain and simple.

My childhood in the suburbs did not offer much hands-on experience with farming and animal husbandry. Sean and I first got involved in the community garden because it sounded like a good opportunity to get our hands dirty and learn the basics of gardening from knowledgeable people, for free.

Our biggest expenditure has been time, and it is time well spent. We're still learning, but we're also teaching new gardeners what we know. We have fun at the Garden, and the time flies when we're there. It's a nice break from the daily grind. The good people and delicious free food are nice perks, too.

The long-term goal is to strike out on our own, get some land and have our own garden with its associated trappings. Until then, we're making the most of what we have and learning lots along the way.

Okay, so, why rabbits?

Rabbits are so cute! They're cuddly, quiet little buggers with twitchy noses and lucky feet. What's not to like? 

There are other benefits, of course...

• Rabbits produce good fertilizer. And when I say good, I mean really good. Please don't be squeamish - it's just nature! Rabbit manure is one of the very best fertilizers available. Fresh manure from large animals (horses, sheep) is harsh stuff that can kill your plants if applied too soon. It needs to be composted for months before adding it to your soil. Rabbit pellets, which are considered "cold" compost, can be used immediately without killing your plants. It's not as smelly, either.

•  Rabbit pellets fix our soil, and we need it! Before Poppin' Fresh came into existence our land was occupied by a few abandoned houses in a flood plain. We've found more than our fair share of rocks, old asphalt and broken glass while putting in garden beds.  The quality of the food you grow is directly determined by the quality of your soil. Building good soil takes time, but amending it regularly helps! Rabbit pellets are chock-full of good nutrients . They drastically improve the soil's structure and porosity, too. You can find out more about the wonders of rabbit pellets by reading Chris McLaughlin's blog post, Rabbit Manure in the Garden.

• Rabbits eat our weeds! Dandelions and many other weeds are a delicacy in the rabbit world. In a matter of weeks our rabbits ate up every dandelion at Poppin' Fresh, which has left us with nicer grass and happier neighbors.

• Rabbits really are cute!  Adding the rabbits to Poppin' Fresh has strengthened our garden community. Regular gardeners, off-and-on gardeners, newcomers and neighbors all think that the rabbits are pretty darn cool. They've become a nice attraction of the Garden.

•  We're learning livestock maintenance. Rabbits are a cheap, relatively easy introduction to the care and keeping of farm animals. We want chickens, just like most of our gardening peers. Chickens required more than our fledgling garden was willing to provide at that point in time. Rabbits have been a great trial-run for us, and we now feel far more confident about our future ability to keep other kinds of rabbits, chickens, quail, bees, a herd of fainting pygmy goats... or whatever comes along.

So, how do you do it?

 Like many things at Poppin' Fresh, the rabbits just sort of... happened. They were premeditated, but we acquired them far earlier than we expected. It was a mad scramble to prepare for spring, but everything worked out wonderfully.

Our original breeding pair (a buck and a doe) of New Zealand rabbits came from a local breeder. New Zealand rabbits are bred as meat rabbits, not pets. Ours came with small cages, food and water dishes. Though they would have been alright in those little metal cages, Sean built two hutches out of re-purposed desks. They're much happier in their rabbit palaces, within the "Hoppin' Fresh" enclosure.

We cross each bridge when we come to it. As novice rabbit keepers, we didn't know exactly when our doe would give birth, but estimated her due date to be mid-June. We expected a litter of 3 or 4 bunnies. We were wrong. Our doe gave birth to 8 or 9 baby bunnies two weeks sooner than we expected! The Big Hutch Building Party is scheduled for this weekend. If you're available and want to play with power tools while building a better future for some cute rabbits, please join us!

Keeping rabbits as a part of your garden is not as outlandish as you might think. They're worth the work, as long as you don't let them "free range" and eat all of your veggies. That book I continuously mention, The Urban Homestead, was how Sean and I first learned about keeping rabbits as part of homesteading. It seemed bizarre at first. There are some urban gardeners who swear by it, and their results speak well!

The internet is full of helpful information about keeping and benefiting from rabbits, as is the library. We just acquired a copy of the eighth edition of Rabbit Production, by McNitt, Patton, Lukefahr and Cheeke. The MSU Extension is a helpful resource, too. EVERY Michigan county has an Extension office that provides free materials in the hopes of helping people improve their own lives, and their knowledge goes far beyond rabbits and gardening.

What will you do with all those bunnies?

Our main goal is to provide these rabbits with a safe, healthy living environment.

We shelter them, protect them from danger and provide a healthy diet of dry rabbit food and greens from the garden. Once weened, we'll keep the new bunnies in separate cages to control their population... and we'll go from there!

Though we make a lot of jokes about Rabbit Stew, I can't predict the future. All I know is that we'll continue to learn from these rabbits.
 

((Check back soon for video of baby rabbits!))


Find out more about raising meat rabbits on a small-scale urban farm (and SO MUCH MORE!) by watching this video, produced by Dan Shifrin. He's an urban homesteader in Florida.

Urban Farming and Community Gardening in Lansing, Michigan

It all began about a year ago, in the sloppy, 

cold Michigan spring of 2011.

We had just moved into our current house 

and were rather pleased with ourselves.

We patted one another on the back and smiled, 

proud as could be.

"Look at us, all grown up, doing grown-up stuff."

The only difficulty with our lovely rental house was
the lack of gardening space. The house is beautifully landscaped
with plenty of perennials and shade-loving flowers,
which leaves little room for all of the vegetables
and other plants we would like to add.
Our very nice landlord had some concerns about
Sean and I ripping up her pretty yard, which is understandable.
But, how could we be self-reliant homesteaders
without our own bit of dirt to cultivate?

Around the time Sean and I were hitting this wall,
we heard from a friend that a new community garden 

was to be organized using empty lots 

rented from Lansing's Land Bank.
Part of Lansing's east side lies within a flood plain,
which has resulted in many vacant lots with rich soil
in a nearby neighborhood.

$10 a year, per lot.
Throw in lots of free seeds, 

seedlings, information and help. 

It sounded too good to be true...

One year later, we now know that it is true, 

and even better than we thought!

Here's Poppin' Fresh. We also have a second lot,

named Marvin's Gardens. (Get the reference?)

It took a lot of hard work, and some prescribed Vicodin

when Sean and I both threw out our backs pulling up 

sodden sod. The pain and temporary 

 inability to walk was worth it, in the end. 

Digging up all of that grass  to make the garden beds 

was the absolute worst part about this entire experience.

Once the Garden Project sent over their 

fabulous tilling machine our prospects looked better.

We have the equivalent of three city lots that we use for planting.

These empty lots are in an older, quiet neighborhood built upon a 

30-year flood plain. No new construction is allowed, 

so the houses are slowly being abandoned, 

eventually to be torn down by the city.

On either side of Poppin' Fresh are vacant houses 

slotted to come down this summer. When that happens, 

I expect we'll incorporate 3 or 4 more lots 

into our already large garden.

Last summer, our first main growing season, was a great success!

We have a core group of 5 - 7 gardeners 

who have invested an obscene amount of time 

and effort to make Poppin' Fresh what it is, today. 

Being close to MSU means there are countless 

students who sporadically show up to help out. 

In return, we send them home with a bounty 

of whatever is ready to harvest. Various student groups have 

come and gone, and we sometimes find 

ourselves short-handed when the demands of 

college keep the crowds at bay.

We function differently from the average 

Community Garden cooperative. Instead of each gardener 

tending their own small plot, we all work together 

on what may be better labeled as a Community Urban Farm. 

However, we don't follow the model presented 

by Urbandale, a production community garden/farm 

about a block away. They have a food stand 

and sell their produce to locals. 

They also have big fence. 

We're sort of against fences, but may need 

to construct one this summer to keep our livestock safe.

We're always a little unorganized, 

but Captain Kirk continues to surprise

us with all kinds of crazy ideas and amazing finds.

It looks like our next project will be a chicken coop!

In the last few months, we've acquired some major items:

 The Hoop House

Tons of pre-consumer compost from MSU  and Starbucks.

Piles in various stages line the left wall of the hoop house.

Our vermicompost (worms!) is doing especially well.

 Two New Zealand Rabbits (a buck and a doe).

Carol named them Thing 1 and Thing 2.

The number system might stick when 

they start breeding, next month.
((Update! More about the rabbits here!))

Seedling trays and pots, dozens of them, that were discarded.

We get free seeds through the Garden Project,

but everything we've planted so far this season comes

from left-over seeds - greens and herbs, mostly!

Sean's rabbit hutches, made from reclaimed MSU dorm desks.

Sean's constructing the roof right now!

One in progress, and one waiting for a new purpose.

A free chicken tractor from a nice stranger!

  Later this week we'll begin harnessing power from the sun. 

THE SUN!

Captain Kirk's super-cool solar panel will be 

on loan to the garden for the next long while. 

This will allow us to ventilate the hoop house with fans, 

hook up a light and maybe a boom box. 

We may also need power to heat the chicken coop this winter,

if we don't keep it in the warm hoop house with the rabbits.

Mennonite-tis: A Case of Better Living

Our slow shift in lifestyle choices has become the butt of many jokes, recently.

After a few of our Let's Become Mormons jokes
were taken too seriously, I think it is time to
shed some light on our "alternative lifestyle".

Signs of Mennonite-tis:

 - We grow much of our own food and buy things like syrup, eggs, butter, apple cider, carrots and kohlrabi from local farmers markets.

- We don't buy fast food or coffee drinks, and rarely go out to eat.

We do get pizza once a month, or so. 

- We don't have cable TV. 

When we want to stare at a screen for a prolonged period of time,

we can watch stuff online or on Netflix. The internet is our main news source.

We read the paper and listen to NPR and other radio stations.

- We keep the heat down in our house, and supplement

with the two cords of wood we picked up late last year.

- We walk, bike and bus to work whenever possible.
- We're learning new skills!
The more people we meet, the more we have to learn.
Some of our current study topics include
herbalism, passive building and solar energy, plant identification,
animal husbandry (looks like we're getting rabbits at the Garden!),
pioneer recipes and food preservation, basic construction,
furniture building and restoration,
and how to keep our cats from eating violets.

 Note the fine beard and willingness to work hard with 

like-minded folks for food, not money.

Since late December, I have been making bread
every few days. It's easy, healthy, and much cheaper
than buying it from the grocery store. 

The quality of bread we eat is on par with
artisan loaves, and smells so good!

 Plenty of bread means plenty of ingredients. 

We've ordered bulk amounts white flour, wheat flour, rolled oats, 

quick oats, yeast, sugars and more from ELFCO. 

These buckets have Gamma Lids, which are a life saver! 

Sean found a great company out in Utah that sells all sorts of 

long-term food storage things, like oxygen-eating packets to 

put in with bulk foods - they'll keep for 25 years!

 My first rag rug, made of unwanted bed sheets.

This is just one example of "old-timey"
craft projects currently under way.

Just to be clear, we are not currently planning on
converting to the Mennonite lifestyle
(though I'm sure it is lovely). 

We just think it's awfully funny to say we have Mennonite-tis, 

because it sounds like Meningitis and we are goofy.

We do these things because we want to. 

Financially, it's much sounder. Healthier, too. 

We have a greater respect for the things we
eat, make and use. We care more about where our
food comes from, and enjoy supporting
 local businesses instead of Big Box stores.

And hey, if the zombie apocalypse comes earlier than expected 

we'll have a good chance of outlasting the first wave of chaos.

Bromfield's "Apologia"

Because I'm self-obsessed, I was looking this blog's viewer statistics. I love to see the trails which lead people to me. Today, I noticed that some stranger out there was looking for Louis Bromfield's "Apologia," the introduction from his shockingly under-celebrated book, A Few Brass Tacks.

In an earlier post about green/environmentalism books I promised to eventually upload some of Bromfield's "Apologia." Today is the day!

The following is the entirety of Louis Bromfield's "Apologia," transcribed by me from a 1946 first edition copy of A Few Brass Tacks, published by Harper & Brothers Publishers. As I'm typing this up myself with semi-frozen fingers in my basement, please excuse any typos. Let me know if you spot any. There may be a copy of this on Google somewhere, but... well, I don't always take the easy way out.

Italicized words are Bromfield's own.

If you'd prefer a printable file that's easier to read, skip to the bottom of this post.

This book is no more than the thinking aloud of one man who makes no pretension at being a specialist in economics nor at solving the problems of the world, the nation or even of the township in which he lives. It is simply the record of the intellectual processes of one individual trying to find his way, indeed at times to force his way, out of the jungle and morass of man's troubled life in this Age of Irritation in which man, caught in the maze of his own selfishness, stupidity, ambition, greed and intricate mechanical ingenuity, lives in a perpetual state of nerves with his neighbors, with fellow men on the other side of earth whom he has never seen, indeed with his own wife and children. It is a record born out of experience of one politically-minded citizen who happens to like the human race, without regard for race, religion, creed or color, and who has lived closely and intimately with inflations and booms and depressions, wars and invasions and revolutions, and the oppression and exploitation of his fellow men, not only in his home country but in many others. Out of this experience he has come to regard with some cynicism the term 'civilized man' and to arrive at the conclusion that the bases of man's wretchedness and bewilderment are far more of economic than of political or social or racial or national origins. He is almost persuaded that the violent political differences, the social unrest, the racial hatreds are largely only manifestations of economic inequalities, maladjustments and injustices, and that, if the economic ills of this badly managed, complex, industrialized world could be adjusted, many of these evils would presently disappear and we should make a great advance in civilization itself, which in the end is the only real justification for man's existence.

The author has seen the sense of co-operation, of neighborliness, of patriotism (which may or may not be a bad thing, according to its manifestation) disappear from the village, from the great city, from the nation and from the rapidly intensifying interrelationship among nations until the average man has come to live perpetually in a state of pessimism, accepting dully a conviction that wars are inevitable, that economic depression and misery and starvation are simply the common lot of mankind and that the only course for the individual is to look out for the interests of himself and those immediately dependent upon him. such a despair, such a disillusionment and cynicism were largely responsible for the disintegration and defeat of a great nation like France. Her forty million people ceased to be a united nation; they became simply forty million individuals each looking out for himself. [end page 2]

It would be well for other Western nations to regard France as a barometer, for being the most civilized of nations (and I am not speaking in terms of plumbing and country clubs but of true civilization) and the leader of Western civilization which has kept alive the fire of Greece, of Rome and of the Renaissance, she serves well and accurately as a gauge of the social and political weather which lies ahead just beyond the horizon. The signs of national disintegration are present in every country in Europe, in every modern empire, even in these United States, standing apparently at the very peak of her power and wealth.

As man looks about him today for leadership or a solution of the demoralizing perplexities which surround him, he finds himself confronted by hordes of soothsayers and midget messiahs, gigantic humbugs (no less humbugs for all their sincerity and sentimentality), by demagogues ranging from Hitler and Mussolini to the politicians of the democratic states, all talking loudly and intimately of 'the people' and promising them the millennium. And the man in the Western world is an easy victim of all this rabble rousing and superficiality since he seeks pitifully for some leader or some faith that will clarify his confusion and east the pain of his bewilderment and despair.

Man is not naturally a cynic; he wants pitifully to believe, in himself, in his future, in his community and in the nation in which he is a part. Hitler was [end page 3]born of the despair of the German people. As history has already shown, he was neither a great man nor a great leader, but only a windy demagogue who promised the German people salvation and an end to their misery, spiritual as well as economic. The end, as with all leadership by demagogues, was tragedy and disaster, not only for the people of Germany but for the whole of the world. The Hitler story might well serve as a symbol of caution to the rest of us, warning of the inefficacy of short-cuts, of intolerance, of economic panaceas, of loose and visionary thinking. And it should never be forgotten that both Hitler and Mussolini began their careers as radicals, promising 'the people' everything.

Largely speaking, salvation in these times is held forth to troubled mankind either by the demagogues and the superficial, ecstatic visionaries wallowing in self-conscious reflection upon their own virtues and superiority, or by the reactionaries who would have man betray himself by turning backward into his own dark and painful past. These are the elements which, without reason or profundity or balance, scream at each other the shrill and meaningless epithets of 'Red' and 'Fascist,' 'Bolshevik' and 'Reactionary.'

The word 'liberal' once had a real meaning which implied reason, dignity, intelligence, balance and tolerance. That meaning is lost. The 'liberal' of our times has become all too often little more than a sentimentalist [end page 4] 'with both feet planted firmly in mid-air' or a vicious name caller in the school playground at recess time.
Economic prosperity and the privileges of growth and development which accompany it, are not achieved by short-cuts and fanciful and visionary theories, but by work and experience and faith and wisdom. The whole of the history of man's long struggle upward out of the steaming ooze is evidence of this irrefutable fact. In his capacity for work and in his faith in himself and the ideals by which he lives, modern man in the twentieth century is tragically deficient. More and more he looks wearily toward the easy way out, toward something for nothing, toward doles and subsidies, toward the political leader who promises utopia overnight. But the grim truth is that there are no short-cuts and panaceas.

On the other hand, unhappy, bewildered, modern man finds those who would lead him backward into the dark world of the nineteenth century - a brutal, sentimental world of extremes in luxury and poverty, of incredible opportunity for the unscrupulous exploiter as well as for the genius, a world which can reappear only as a prelude to the anarchy of a demoralized and disintegrated Western world. The leaders of this philosophy of the return to the 'good old days' are themselves the very symbols of decay and despair, and offer no hope whatever of man's advance but only of his [end page 5] retrogression toward the hazy blessings of a sentimentalized world which no longer exists and never did exist save in the experience of the gifted, the fortunate and the unscrupulous. Out of the reality of that nineteenth century world were born much of the evil and most of the perplexities that torment us today.

In most of the panaceas offered either from the extreme Left or from the extreme Right, one element seems to have been almost wholly overlooked and that is consideration for the nature of man - that he is a creature which must move upward toward a greater realization of his capacity and his dignity as an individual, that he must have gods in which to believe and results which justify, regardless of illusion, his faith in these gods, that there is in any man, save for the physiologically handicapped and debased, a desire to work and to create which is the foundation of his neighbor's respect for him, and what is more important, his respect for himself.

In our modern world these things, which are the very foundations of man's rise in the world of animals, are too much lacking both in himself and in his community as well as in the community of nations. One thing is certain - that he cannot go backward either into the world of Fascism or of Marxian Communism without losing his liberty of action and the freedom and dignity which are his right as an individual man who walks erect and thinks. [end page 6]

It is sad that so many of the soothsayers offer him economic security and even a state-supported indolence at the price of his independence, his dignity, his freedom and his very soul. The short-cuts, the panaceas are, at best, but the Devil's bargain - which dangle a short-time paradise in the scales of civilization as a balance against retrogression and eternal damnation, political, social, spiritual and even economic on this earth.

No less puzzled and confused by the cynicism and evangelical visions, the irritations, the pressures of his day, the author felt long ago - indeed years ago while living in the midst of a European civilization already in the process of disintegration - a passionate desire to cut his way somehow through the jungle of disillusionment and false gods back to fundamentals, to those things and beliefs and thoughts by which man can and has, at certain epochs of his existence, lived well and sanely, however briefly. The impulse of escape took the form of a driving desire to return to his own roots, to find some base, solid and eternal, even perhaps primitive, upon which to build the structure of his own thought, uncontaminated either by the propaganda of those who would turn backward or those who with hosannas would rush forward into the treacherous mirages of what is too frequently no more than man's hunger for a paradise for which he is not yet prepared, a mirage of wishful thinking which sails serenely over [end page 7] all the realities of nature and of the nature of man himself.

It was inevitable that in the search for some base in truth and reality, the author should have turned to the earth, to the soil and to agriculture. There were two very strong reasons for this (1) that he came of an ancestry and background which for generations had been rural rather than urban and that by interest as well as by experience, he had faith in the philosophy and in the character of things rural and small town rather than urban; (2) that he found out of daily living and a widespread experience that the farmers and gardeners of the world, however poor or prosperous, whatever their nationality or race or faith, possessed a common basic philosophy which proved a bulwark against the uncertainty of existence and the periods of crisis which the men who lived in great cities lacked conspicuously and immeasurably.
The farmer, the gardener, is inevitably a pragmatist who believes in what works. This is so because he lives nearer to the basic and eternal laws of nature than any other element of society. These laws are a part of his daily life. He lives with them and in a sense by them. The rain, the sun, the ice and snow, the soil, the breeding of his animals, are constant and eternal reminders of the laws by which man must live whether he chooses to or not, those laws which, if ignored or tampered with, only encompass his own disintegration and destruction. [end page 8] The farm, the earth, appeared to be the sound base from which a man, especially one who was weary and disillusioned through too much experience in the modern, complex, industrial, imperialist world, could re-examine his own significance, if any, and that of the confused and confusing period in which he lived.

The wisdom of the good farmer is an eternal wisdom and indestructible. As Liberty Hyde Bailey once wrote and as history has testified so many times, 'The farmer is the first man and he will be the last man.' The good farmer, working with soil and plants and animals, living in peace and co-operation with his neighbors, outwitting the weather or profiting by it but never ignoring it, is far nearer to the eternal truths and laws of our existence, by which we must live and within which we must find our salvation, than the workers of the industrial age, fitting similar nuts onto similar bolts eight hours a day five days a week throughout the whole of his life. When all industry lies in ruins and the industrial worker has died either in riots or against a wall in the war of brother against brother or by starvation, the farmer will still be there, tilling his bit of earth - in China, in Russia, in Germany, in the United States, everywhere.

Few thinkers would disagree with the premise that much of our cynicism and discontent, most of our ills, a great part of our perplexities and irritation, much of our ill-health and insanity, are the results of the rapid industrialization [end page 9] of the modern world. We have not had time to adjust ourselves to this monstrous change and the staggering increases of population which have accompanied it nor to fit industry itself into the pattern of a wise and balanced economy or existence. No change in the history of the world has ever come so rapidly or with such devastating effects as the brief industrial revolution with steam power, the telephone, the telegraph, the railway, the automobile, the airplane, the radio and countless other developments which have shrunken the world and made neighbors, however unhappy or perilous, of all of us. this headlong change has led us, especially in America, to confuse plumbing and automobiles, which have to do only with the body, with civilization, which has to do with the mind, the spirit, the soul and with man's relation to his fellow men. It has led man into a conceit in his own ingenuity which may in the end achieve only his destruction. It has immensely enhanced the growth of his baser side by encouraging his faith in the material and the mechanical and by these things he certainly cannot live alone, safe in eventual brutishness and misery. The atomic bomb, the Bofors gun, the jet plane, a hundred other examples of man's material ingenuity, all become symbols of a materialism by which the best efforts of scientists and inventors, which should be directed toward civilization, are in an utterly material and badly adjusted world instead aimed only at the destruction of civilization and eventually of man himself. [end page 10]

This modern world, this Age of Irritation is not one in which man can take pride. This is so, I think, because man himself has established false values and false gods, often in defiance of his own nature and certainly of natural law. He is in the process of selling his great birthright of aspiration, of achievement, of growth and advance for a mess of pottage composed of selfishness, materialism, indolence, confusion, pride and despair.

The problem is not to do away with mechanics, with industry and scientific discovery. These things are with us and of inestimable value, if they can be used by man instead of using man. the problem is how to live with these things, how to adjust the daily life of man, of cities and of nations to the vast and complicated problems which machines, industry and scientific discovery have themselves created. In all of history there has never been such a hot potato as the atomic bomb. It is indeed so hot a potato that there is, despite all the highfalutin talk, no solution but for men and nations to learn the lesson of living together in peace.

We shall never learn by turning backward and we shall never find the answer by following the soothsayers and demagogues who promise paradise overnight or those whose panaceas are all founded upon money or the manipulation of money. Man's problems are not and have never been solely material problems, nor can they be solved by inflations and deflations or the manipulation of currencies. When they become so, as they threaten to do in our trying times, civilization [end page 11] dies to be revived again only when man through misery and defeat and disillusionment touches bottom and begins again. For civilized man, for those leaders who have influenced the long journey upward of mankind, money or rewards in material were not the great and ultimately desired rewards. When they become so, man dies spiritually and his civilization dies with him.

The author, in the thinking aloud recorded here, is aware that he will probably be accused of many things - as many indeed as there are soothsayers and reactionaries, as many as there are panaceas and economic short-cuts. The whole science of economics (and the belief of the author is that it is a science as well as an art and a philosophic exercise) is a difficult and complex one which in the end may be justified perhaps only in the farmer's pragmatic way - that it works. In our age and especially in our own country, we have been treated during the past few years to such an appalling array of unorthodox and experimental economics, that the sound rules which the experience of the world has proven workable, have tended to become unorthodox. In other words, orthodoxy has become unorthodoxy and vice versa. To put forward some new and interesting short-cuts, some fresh panacea which is 'good for man, child or beast' has become orthodox or conventional procedure. Few if any of these panaceas have produced noticeable results; few if any have worked by solving any of the complex problems which confront us. [end page 12] Many of them have only done harm by further confusing the desperately important problems involved and by adding further to man's perplexities.

Too many of the panaceas, sometimes through the necessity of emergency, have been improvised, superficial or based upon money and the manipulation of money, while overlooking completely the fundamental causes of the crises involved. Reforms in terms of money and of the manipulation of currencies are not signs of wisdom nor of deep thinking nor of statesmanship but rather symptoms of the chronic weakness of a nation or a world or a civilization, symptoms of shallow makeshift thinking, of shiftlessness, of demagoguery, of ear and of desperation. In this realm of action the San Francisco and Bretton Woods conferences, despite all the good will of their most enthusiastic supporters, stand somehow as symbols of the superficiality and the futility of these methods. In the one case a vague and powerless political structure was erected and in the other arrangements for the manipulations of international exchange were established, while the fundamental causes of war, of economic depressions, of misery, of hunger - the access and distribution on a fair basis of raw materials, food and markets - were passed over with averted gaze. It was as if both conferences had been thrown out cynically as a sop to those who hope passionately and tragically for a better world without ever understanding how to achieve one. Already the results of both conferences [end page 13] show the pallid signs of futility, because the nations of the world or the leaders who represent them are either not yet able to save themselves or are unwilling to do so. Surely there must have been among the distinguished men assembled at San Francisco and Bretton Woods some who knew in their hearts that they were only making gestures and solving nothing at all. Is it that there are no more great leaders in the world or only that the problems of this modern industrial imperialist world have become so vast and so complex as to dwarf all men however great?

This is not a book written for the economist closeted behind a desk in some college or university. Humbly it attempts to reveal the mental processes of an ordinary layman trying to understand something of the increasingly complex world in which he lives and to fight his way to fairly simple fundamentals, despite the confusion created by the aggregate opinions of the professional economists. The author in his reading of and conversation with the economists is led to believe that all too often many of these gentlemen suffer from multiple vision and cannot discern very clearly either the forest or even a single tree. The immense diversity of their opinions and theories and the spectacle of their intense animosity toward each other, both fail to encourage a belief in their infallibility, either singly or as a whole. The truth is that probably no one man, or even a school of men, thinking together, has either [end page 14] sufficient learning or sufficient experience to permit a complete understanding of the immensely complex economic problems of our times.

In any case the author has put his thoughts and conclusions on paper with the primary purpose of clarifying his own thinking. If they serve to stimulate either discussion or abuse or are of any value whatever to others, so much the better.

This is merely the book's introduction! I'm going to print out a copy to highlight and scribble upon. Even though Bromfield is long-winded in some places, "Apologia" is a fascinating piece to read while living the life of a Midwesterner in the new millennium.

It took me about two hours type this up, and I've not yet begun to reread it and fix typos. If you found this useful, please tell me! It'd be nice to know that someone else finds Bromfield's musings interesting and engaging more than 60 years after publication!

Contact me if you'd like a Word document file of "Apologia" without the info links, and with better formatting. Indentations and appropriate spacing, oh my! I'll gladly share it with you.

If you'd like your own copy of this underrated classic, please check your local used book shops. You could also try my personal favorite, The Curious Book Shop. Or, if all else fails, you have a friend in Bookfinder.

A hungry little review of Bill McKibben's Eaarth

I've been getting into things, lately. Numerous firsts, and a few seconds, thirds, etc.

I'm dangling off the back of the yoga train, and truly practicing twice a week. Far from my every-day goal, but not the worst possible outcome.

Last night, I played Dungeons and Dragons for the first time. I finally, sort-of understand how the game works. It was enough to show me that my half-elf bard character won't be enough to keep me challenged and entertained. Sure, it'll allow for a certain amount of mischeviousness, but I want to FIGHT! Kill some monsters, ya know?

Although my reading progesses at a slower pace than normal, I'm thoroughly enjoying Bill McKibben's Eaarth. To call it thought-provoking would be a cliche understatment. It's life changing in a completely new and important way.

"A car is the ultimate expression of individualism." Deep Economy, 152

"{Hyper-individuaism} may be a phase through which humans need to pass before they can figure out its limitations." Deep Economy, 157

I'd quote from Eaarth, but I'd end up typing out the entire book. Let's avoid copyright infringement. Just read it for youself. Weathering the long wait-list at your local library is well worth it. This book is an important piece of the coming (present, really) changes to our individual lives, local communities, states, nations, and society as a whole. Most importantly, it's about how nature has already changed, and it will teach us how to gracefully and sustainably adapt to these changes before it's too late.

I would write more, but my sandwich is ready and I'm famished. Gotta enjoy GRC while I can!

A Less-Trampled Path

So here's the deal. I'm back to blogging again. And once again, I'm serious about it (haha). I think this time it might stick. True, I've said this before. There's truly only one way to find out.

Sustainability is quite the catch-phrase these days, in this post-millennial, greenified world. First there was Al Gore, then Elphaba. Next, Lady Gaga will premiere her new Lady Gaia costume and become the first (?) international Green Revolution icon. I was a history major. I know all about using the figure of a woman as the symbol of a true revolution. I'm down.

I'm so “down,” in fact, that I'm prepared to put it onto the vast Internetverse. I know that Blogs are rather Old-School. Still, I shall persevere. Given my circumstances, I'd consider this a rather advanced personal technological achievement. Don't mock me. Just keep reading!

In trying to trace the root of this sudden zeal, I realized a few of the doubtless numerous and otherwise unnoticed influences upon my life. My new husband, Sean, is something of a zombie aficionado. What began as a kitchy interest and collection theme has blossomed into a fully fledged state of paranoia regarding the (most definitely real) zombie apocalypse. I'm yet skeptical, but anything is possible. Or, maybe this sprouts from his interest in the spread of diseases and epidemiology.

He's truly not insane, I promise. Or, are we both?

We've both recently graduated. In college, I became very involved in things. I worked at the library and joined a few honors societies, which I had some part in governing. I was a bit of a departmental starlet, although it seems very awkward (yet right) to call myself so. Harlot, sometimes. I studied creative non-fiction under one of the most influential women of my life. I became the aforementioned history major, in addition to majoring in English. I was on the fast-track to a career in retail and freelance, most likely.

Goodness, how true it's become!

I started to make friends with a fascinatingly diverse group of people. I found the most excellent mentors and academics available, there. And even more – they're actually invested in their students as individuals and future colleagues. It was flattering, startling, and emboldening. I'm truly lucky/blessed/______ to have been where I've been.

It goes deeper and deeper, I'm realizing while I write and reminisce. I used to spend my playtime, nearly every day, outside under the Texas sun. My dad's a gardener. Really, each relative I'm fortunate enough to have has influenced me toward this in some way or another. Really, all of you. Thank you.

Ah, I'm rambling. If anyone cares about the rest of the story, comment one day far into the future and I'll tell you more. I don't have time to dawdle!

What's in the Green Bag:
- Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation, by Jason Mattera
- Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, by Bill McKibben
(I found this through a recent NYTimes review of Eaarth, and am simply stunned by the number of things I do not know, or simply have not paused to consider!)
- The End of Nature, by Bill McKibben
- The Age of Missing Information, by Bill McKibben
- Green Guide: The Complete Reference for Consuming Wisely (endorsed by NatGeo)
- Worms Eat My Garbage, by Appelhof (Sean's book, and by a local author!)
- Watershed: The Undamming of America, by Elizabeth Grossman
- Meditations from the Mat, by Gates aand Kenison
- A Few Brass Tacks, by Louis Bromfield
(I just happened upon this at work, and was astounded by the "Apologia" at the beginning. I'll post a version of it soon!)
- The Sunflower Forest: Ecological Restoration and the New Communion with Nature, by William R. Jordan III
(Ecological Restoration. Now, why haven't I heard of THIS before?)
- August Celebration: A Molecule of Hope for a Changing World, by Linda Grovner
(Another wildcard find from The Curious Book Shop!)
- The Bill McKibben Reader: Pieces of an Active Life

One of my major problems is handling the barrage of information coming down all around me. Learning about so many new things at once is exhilarating and overwhelming. I'm coping with it in the only way I know how - by writing. My journal has become a good commonplace book over the last few weks, but I can recognize a situation which calls for a keyboard and forum.

The time, dear reader, is now.