GRAND OPENING: SUMMER 2005

We have had a beautiful and memorable Memorial Day weekend.  My sister, brother in law and niece came out from D.C. and spent all three days with us.  They just left a few hours ago.  I am working on an entry, with pictures, about the silent vigil we all attended in Lewes on Sunday.  Lots of pictures, so it will take a while.  It may take a couple of entries to talk about all the fun we had this weekend.  Just want to say here that I hope everyone else also had a rest, a moment of solemnity, and a good beginning to this summer. 

TOM HAS HIS UNDIES IN A TWIST

Later the same day!   Since posting my previous entry earlier this morning, I saw this article on AOL News.  Yep, them Reps can really yell when it's something that gets on THEIR nerves.  Do they have a clue how the rightwing talk shows routinely defame everyone they even imagine or dream is a - gasp - "liberal?"  With absolutely no factual basis for anything.  Sure, they do.  But they LIKE that.  See Tom have a tantrum, whine, Tom, whine.  I do hope NBC won't take the Newsweek way out, and make a big "retraction" and apology.

PERILOUS TIMES

I've spent some time in the automobile lately, especially yesterday -when I traveled to Annapolis to do holiday weekend grocery shopping at Whole Foods. Yes, we live near the beach, so we usually get holiday weekend visitors. It's the D.C. family coming to hang out with us, cheer us up, attend the peace vigil with us on Sunday, go to the beach, eat, and play.

So, I enjoyed my roundtrip, listening to various NPR stations as I drove. Where else but on NPR, the Diane Rehm show to be exact, would I hear a discussion on stemcell research – conducted in civil, sane, intelligent fashion? That then followed by an interview with Andrew Bacevich, a West Point grad, a VN vet, currently a foreign relations professor, who has just written a book called The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War, which is decrying the new American militarism, not celebrating it  (Tom Engelhardt has also written about Bacevich and his book here.) The interview brought up many points that I have pondered myself, and made me hope that this is a book that will get wide attention. I’m not much of a nonfiction reader, but I just might check this one out.

Later I heard part of Day to Day, where Elizabeth Arnold was discussing the latest miraculous find, the Mt. Diablo Buckwheat flower in California. Nowhere else on my radio dial would I ever hear such a thing.

Meanwhile, I have been hearing cries and whispers of the government’s displeasure with NPR, and its "leftist" slant. I haven’t had time to investigate this until recently, and when I did it made my hair stand on end. I’ll give you the link to one article which has given me waking nightmares since I read it. It’s on Salon.com, so you need a subscription or the daypass to read it, but it’s worth reading every word.

I am way too familiar with Fulton Lewis Jr., having been forced to hear him raving on through much of my childhood and adolescence. My mother (having come from an Irish FDR democrat background in her youth, became a rabid nutso rightwinger as she went through life, for reasons that I never managed to fathom) insisted on listening to his program no matter what time it came on. In the car on family trips, in the kitchen during dinner, in the kitchen while I was in forced labor doing the dishes, etc etc etc. If the new head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a protegé of his, we are in for some unhappy days ahead.

It’s not just NPR of course, it’s also PBS. The wonderful show NOW, which Bill Moyers made into my Friday night addiction, is the main thing in their gunsights evidently. G’s theory is that they want to destroy Public Broadcasting entirely – we who support it with our contributions will no longer contribute if Britt Hume and Bill O’Reilly join up.

"Fair and balanced" -- the McCarthy way"
CPB head Kenneth Tomlinson, who is leading a jihad against "liberal bias" in public broadcasting, and one of his two new ombudsmen both worked for the late Fulton Lewis, a reactionary radio personality associated with Sen. Joe McCarthy

Why is it that there is no official outcry and complaint about all the TV and radio stations that have a totally undisguised "rightwing" slant?  If it were not for NPR and a couple of jazz and retro rock and roll stations, I'd have no reason to own a radio anywhere.  If Public Broadcasting goes "Fair and Balanced" there'll be NOplace for news and information except the Internet.  Are we next, folks? 

POST-NUCLEAR FALLOUT

I posted several times last month about the dangers to the environment of eliminating the judicial filibuster, taking the "nuclear option" as it was called.  The dangers of giving the Republican Senate carte blanche to shoo in some of the most dreadful foes of the environment to a position where they can make decisions for the REST OF THEIR LIVES.  As I'm sure everyone is aware, the nuclear option was averted, in a bipartisan deal which at first glance had me yelling obscenities at my computer screen.  However, I have calmed down now, am able to sit up and take nourishment and read some thoughts from saner minds on this.  The fact that William Myers was not one of the judicial candidates in the deal was a huge relief to me, though the three candidates in the deal don't smell much sweeter. 

Here, from Bush GreenWatch, are some reassuring comments from one Doug Kendall, executive director of Community Rights Counsel.  I can believe this guy because his group worked with Earthjustice on "Judging the Environment,"  a project highlighting the environmental stakes in this judicial nomination battle.  I linked to the project often in my entries on this whole situation, and will continue to do so if/when I write more about it.

TWO THRENODIES AND A PSALM

I

It is not approaching.
It has arrived.
We are not circumventing it.

It is happening.
It is happening now.
We are not preventing it.
We are within it.

The sound of its happening
is splitting other ears.
The sight of its happening
is searing other eyes.
The grip of its happening
is strangling other throats.

Without intermissions it spins,
without cessation we circle its edge
as leaf or crumb will float circling
a long time at the other rim
before centripetal force
tugs it down.

II

The body being savaged
is alive.
It is our own.
While the eagle-vulture
tears the earth's liver,
while the heart-worm burrows
into earth's heart.

Extremities, we are in
unacknowledged extremis.
We feel only
a chill as the pulse of life
recedes.

We don't beat off the devouring beak,
the talons. We don't dig out what burrows
into our core. It is not
our heart, we think (but do not say).
It is the world's, poor world, but I
am other.

III

Our clear water
one with the infested water

women walk miles to
each day they live.

One with the rivers tainted with detritus

of our ambitions,

and with the dishonored ocean.
Our unbroken skin
one with the ripped skin of the tortured,

the shot-down, bombed, napalmed,
the burned alive.

One with the sore and filthy skin of the destitute.

We utter the words
we are one
but their truth
is not real to us.

Spirit, waken
our understanding.
Out of the stasis
in which we perish,
the sullen immobility
to which the lead weight of our disbelief
condemns us,
only your rushing wind
can lift us.

Our flesh and theirs
one with the flesh of fruit and tree.

Our blood
one with the blood of whale and sparrow.

Our bones
ash and cinder of star-fire.

Our being
tinder for primal light.

Lift us, Spirit, impel
our rising
into that knowledge.

Make truth real to us,
flame on our lips.
Lift us to seize the present,
wrench it
out of its downspin.

- Denise Levertov

CAPE HENLOPEN, ALMOST FULL MOON

High tide coming in with May's full moon,
the flower moon/fish moon/milk moon,
we walked on the beach as the sun went down
and the moon came up - waves washing around our feet,
water in up to the dunes and still rising. 
Dolphins leapt and swam and jumped out in the water,
a group swimming north and a group swimming south. 
Colors of sky, water, dunes, too many to name, a swirl of
soft blues, mauves, greys, darker blues, whites,
dune grass green, soft slope of sand,
we the only humans on the beach, for us alone tonight
this gift of endless reaching beauty.

ANTI-NUCLEAR ACTION

I know that many of you who read this journal are MoveOn.org members, and so have probably already received an email advising you of this action.  You have probably already signed the petition.  For any readers who are not MoveOn groupies, this link will take you to a petition to your senators, to which you can add your own comments before you sign and send.  The letters and comments are being delivered to Senate floor as the storm rages on, some are being read aloud on the floor.  Be a part of this historic action, send this info on to your online friends, or post it in your own journal.  If not now, then when?  If not you, then who?

And thanks.

WAKE UP TO THE WARM UP, EXXON!!!

The first link below will take you to a letter to an Exxon board member which you can sign and send on, adding your voice to those who would like them to pull their heads out of the sand.  If you'd like to read more about this issue, click the "tell me more" link at the end of the post. 

Turn the heat up on ExxonMobil!

ExxonMobil, the most powerful oil and gas company, continues to fight the shift toward a clean energy future. While the consensus within the scientific community on global warming only gets stronger, ExxonMobil remains the leading funder of climate skeptics and their political maneuvers have stunted attempts to curb global warming for the past decade. ExxonMobil's unwillingness to build a low-carbon future is only furthering the dangerous addiction to fossil fuels.

You can help by sending a letter to ExxonMobil board member, Dr. Michael J. Boskin, asking him to lead ExxonMobil in a different direction, one toward a clean energy future. 
Tell me more

 

THE GRASS IS GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE

Because I've spent a lot of time this week in my yard, the subject of grass is much on my mind right now.  A lot of the yard is not what could technically be called "grass."  There's a good deal of clover, a large contingent of dandelions - though far fewer than other years  - many violets, some wild strawberries that will never give up their domain, and, indeed, some grass.  We've lived here going on eight years now, and nary a chemical pesticide or fertilizer has touched the yard or the gardens during that time. It all looks much better than it did when we bought it; many of the weeds have been choked out by the grass, which is thicker and stays greener through the summer than it did the first couple of years.  I mow with a plug-in battery-operated electric mulching mower, leaving the clippings to mulch into the lawn.  In the fall I also mulch most of the leaves in situ, and they too go to fertilize the ground. 

I'd like to share some good information about organic lawn care with you, from some of my favorite sites.  NRDC publishes a monthly bulletin called "This Green Life," and the current one is about green lawn care.  Here's the basics from that bulletin:

EIGHT STEPS TO A SAFE AND NATURAL LAWN

1) Check your soil's pH. It should be 6.5 to 7. If it's too acidic, add lime; too alkaline, add sulfur.

2) If the soil's too compact, aerate it to ensure good air and water penetration. An aerating machine can be rented from many garden stores, or use a hand aerator if your lawn is small.

3) Apply compost to condition and fertilize the soil before planting. If you plan to buy, rather than make, your compost, check the composting guide in the links for tips on how to tell good from bad.

4) Apply natural fertilizer as well (since compost only has low levels of nutrients). You only need to fertilize your lawn once or twice a year. Fall and early spring are the recommended times.

5) When you mow, leave the clippings on the grass to condition and fertilize the soil further. The clippings will provide organic matter and half your lawn's nitrogen needs. It's helpful, though not necessary, to use a mulch-mower.

6) Mow frequently, but don't cut too much off. Most grass varieties do best at 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 inches high. Mow often enough that you never have to cut off more than the top third of the grass.

7) Water infrequently, but deeply. Early morning is the best time of day. Midday watering results in water loss from evaporation. Evening watering leaves your lawn soggy at nightfall, which puts grass at risk of disease.

8) Don't let the layer of thatch get deeper than half an inch. (Thatch is the dead plant material between the soil and blades of grass.) Remove the excess by raking.

If the lawn you currently have is looking puny after a long mean winter, Organic Gardening online has a wealth of tips on how to solve problems and have a greener, healthier, happier lawn.

Maybe you practice Safe Lawn Care, but you are surrounded by neighbors who get out the poisons as often as possible.  Chances are those poisons are not staying neatly in the neighbor's yard and air space.  If you have children or pets, or just like to enjoy your own grass by sitting on it, walking barefoot in it, or occasionally rolling around in it after a few still drinks - here's a site (Washington Toxics Organization) that will give you information you can share with those neighbors about just what they're doing to the world with all those wonderful chemicals.  You can also order the sign with which I begin this entry from these folks.  I'm getting two, one for the front and one for the back yards.  

And then, if your yard is really not at all suited for a green stretch of Victorian lawn (those buggers started all this, there was no such thing as "lawns" pre Victorian days), if it's wild and wooly and wants to be a jungle of sorts  - why not think of turning it into an offical backyard wildlife habitat?  Part of my backyard is just that, and it's full of rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, tons of birds, and I may not know exactly what all else.  The National Wildlife Federation has instructions and helpful stuff to get you started, and they will even certify you when you get it done. 

As I said in my Compost entry, we are all caretakers of some small piece of the environment.  Let's do it consciously.

"LIVE WITH IT OR CALL YOURSELF SOMETHING ELSE"

A jaw-dropping  story from the AOL news screen that illuminates a little bit of why I no longer consider myself a Catholic.  Or even, really, a Christian. 

Priest Denies Communion to Supporters of Gay Catholics.

ONE FOR THE BIRDS

As the Senate prepares for nuclear meltdown, the new "Energy Bill" wends its way through Congress, the roadless forest rule passed by Clinton is rescinded by Bush - leaving formerly pristine forests now open for logging and mining by the Fat Cats who control our government - we try to protect and enjoy what remains to us of natural space, land preserved as habitat for plants, birds, animals and as a glimpse of the wonders of creation for us, its sad destroyers.  Robin, of Midlife Matters, just sent around a wonderful post from her weekend in Ohio, and I'd like to share the birding trip G and I had Saturday.  We went with a small group led by a naturalist from the Cape Henlopen State Park Nature Center to a place we'd never heard of, Thompson's Island.  To get there we had to wend our way through a condo complex between Rehoboth Beach and Dewey Beach.  The preserve, which Richard - our naturalist - says is part of the State Parks land, encompasses forests, marshes and wetlands, and the banks of the RB/Lewes Canal. 

As we went through the first part of the forest, we heard many many birds calling, but the canopy was too thick to see much.  At one point the canopy opened up, and the warblers were so numerous we couldn't decide where to look first.  The canopy was high, and the sky a hazy grey that produces unfortunate backlighting.  Even so, we saw black and whites, American redstarts, a female summer tanager, yellow-rumps (butter-butts), one black-throated green, and pine warblers. 

When we got to the water there were many common terns gracefully looping and diving, yellow-legs, dowitchers, one spotted sandpiper on the mudflats, a couple of great blue herons, a green heron, a louisiana tricolor heron, clapper rails constantly heard in the grasses, but never seen.  There was a wonderful osprey sitting on a snag very close to us, guarding his nest in the marsh at the edge of the woods. Two osprey also flew overhead, one carrying home some lunch.  At one point, to everyone's surprise, a bald eagle flew overhead - quite low - going so fast it took our breath away.  He was on a very definite mission.  There were several pair of eastern king birds in the trees near the marsh, squabbling over territory, as it seemed. 

For me the best moment of the trip was coming across a pair of tree swallows building a nest in a cavity in a snag, just off the trail.  They were both flying in and out with strands of dried grasses, taking turns sitting on top of another snag in the sunlight, thinking about decor, I guess.  The male was so shiningly blue in the sunlight; I've never seen one so blue.                          

   Tree swallow on fence.

As we returned - an hour over the time we were supposed to have spent - through the woods we first heard, then saw, several red-bellied woodpeckers.  For a birding farewell, just before we came out of the woods into the parking lot, there was a red-eyed vireo flitting around in the branches right above us - we first heard, then saw it also. 

I'm sure I have forgotten some of what we saw  - G kept the list, and I don't quite know where it is right now.  Though we were very close to human habitation, and much too close to boats coming down the canal ignoring the "no wake" request, it felt magically apart from all that.  Had we seen no birds to speak of, it still would have been a wonderful morning.  But we saw so many, heard many more, got muddy feet, mosquito bites  (and G found a tick this morning, two days later, though we had assiduously searched our bodies for them ASAP), knew we were in a place that has been saved from condos, marinas, giant beach houses, kept safe for small shining birds to peacefully build nests in hollow trees.

SUNDAY SIX, YAWN

Yesterday we were birding all morning, and I will write about that pretty soon.  But right now I'm feeling very lazy, so am going to take the fun road and answer Patrick's Saturday Six.  Which now are the Sunday Six, whether that's okay or not.

1. How many scars do you have on your body?  Where are they?
 
Any body that makes it to my age without scars has not lived much of a life, is what I think.  I will only mention the outstanding ones.  On my right index finger, a large V-shaped scar from a broken glass when I was eleven, poorly stitched together by an intern.   Right palm and wrist, carpal-tunnel surgery scar. Left shoulder, a four inch scar from surgery to remove a bonespur on my acromium.  Small scars on my belly from laproscopic surgery.  Left elbow, inch long scar from putting elbow through glass door as a teenager.  Bottoms of both feet, scars from cuts obtained jumping off barn roof, landing on pile of boards, as a kid and never telling parents about it for fear of tetanus shots.

   

2. What is the last junk food you ate in such large quantity that you actually felt guilty afterwards?

       Is ice cream really junk food?

3. What is the closest spot to your home where you go when you feel like you need an afternoon escape?

      The beach at Cape Henlopen State Park, for a long walk.

4. Of those in your collection, what movie have you watched the most times?

      Shrek.

5. Have you ever felt discriminated against?  What about you do you believe led to the discrimination?

      I have to say no.  And this is true even though I am a lesbian.

6. RAPID FIRE QUESTION #3:  Have you ever hired a:
    a. Maid
    b. Lawyer
    c. Chauffeur
    d. Plumber
    e. Photographer
    f. Realtor
    g. Gardener
    h. Personal Trainer
    i. Psychic/Spirtual Advisor
    j. Mortician

        Lawyer, Plumber, Realtor, Funeral Home services.  Is there more to this question?  Hasn't everyone hired a plumber at some point?  Or else they don't have plumbing in their dwellings. 

THE JOYS OF COMPOSTING

Things sometimes converge strangely and fortuitously, in J-land as well as life, don't you find?  I have been planning an entry on the subject of composting, mulling it over as I have worked my own compost bin - extracting glorious finished stuff to work into the garden soil, adding mulched leaves from last fall to start the pile cooking anew.  Then, just this morning, I opened my email box to find a note from my pal Tank Gurl asking about compost - should she be putting her garden byproducts into a compost pile, instead of bagging them up for the city to remove?   The answer, of course, is a most emphatic "YES!"

I have been composting for as long as I can remember.  My parents (avid gardeners, both of them - my father grew vegetables and fruit trees, my mother grew herbs and the most amazing flowers) composted all through my life with them, and it was a natural step to start my own compost heap as soon as I was no longer living in boarding school or university dormitories. 

Composting is actually, yes really, one of my chief pleasures in life.  Does this sound as if I have a wretched life?  Well, maybe - but there is something about taking what would be regarded as trash and seeing it turn into living soil, full of earthworms and unseen beneficial bacteria, that is not equaled by much else.  It's working with nature, to create life.  Or, as the I Ching says:

-- "Man's work with Nature that furthers Nature's aims is the work that rewards him the best."

My compost is composed of garden waste (weeds that have already made seeds are put in a pile way in the back of the yard, to remain there for unknown ages, until the seeds are cooked out), grass clippings, fallen leaves that have been mulched so they're in smaller pieces, kitchen scraps of a vegetable or fruit nature  (no meat scraps), eggshells, coffee grounds, tea bags.  My favorite form of compost container is a chicken wire pen, but as we live in an area with critters who would pull such a pile apart, here I have a bin of plastic slats and  removable top.  The finished compost is pulled out of the bottom of the bin - not the most convenient or accessible method, I have to admit.  My old bin was destroyed in Hurricane Isabel, when a crape myrtle tree was knocked over onto it.  I'd had it since we lived on Cape Cod - we actually moved both bin and compost down here.  Imagine that. 

The best site I know for more information than you could possibly absorb is on Journey to Forever.  Both the preceding picture and I Ching quote come from that site.  Once you get into it, you won't want to leave for a long time - be forewarned. 

Last year I wrote an entry about Tim Dundon, "The Compost Guru."  He built a 30 foot-high pile of compost, over a period of thirty-five  years, in an L.A. suburb.  It's an amazing story, one that really hit my soft spot.  You can read his story here, on the wonderful Path to Freedom site. In the sidebar to Tim's story are more compost links. Be sure to browse the picture galleries, from which I give you a few samples:

    Whole TREES are growing in this pile.

   This is a shot of vegetables growing ON THE HEAP.

Tim's story has a sad ending, however.  He had built this heap on a piece of land owned, but unused, by a cemetary.  He had offered a large sum of money to buy the land, but had been refused.  Despite the fact that a good compost heap has absolutely no offensive odor at all, apparently his neighbors had long wanted to find a way to get rid of him.  Last month his pile was bulldozed and spread out on the land, which isprobably going to be used for development.  Tim is selling his own land and moving elsewhere.  To start afresh (so to speak), I'm sure.

So, you have an environment to tend in your own back yard - put your hand in the hand of Mother Nature, and build that glorious heap!

        

 

OH FRABJOUS DAY! CALLOOH! CALLAY!

(She chortled in her joy.)  Spring semester has, at last, ended! At ten this a.m. I finished conferring with my dept head about some of my students and their grades, entered the grades into the computer, kissed everyone goodbye and came home to begin establishing some kind of Real Life for myself.  It will involve a lot of gardening, reading, kayaking, and hopefully returning to journal reading and writing.  I have been woefully remiss, and do thank those of you who have stuck with me through this hiatus in journal participation.  I've missed it dreadfully.

I'll still have the afterschool kids for another couple of weeks, but they are mostly fun.  When the summer semester starts, mid-June, I'll be back at the college for a class or two.  But I'm not going to think about that now. NO!  The sun is shining, the irises are blooming, the lettuce is fresh and green and young.  Every time I go in or out the kitchen door a bright shower of goldfinches sparks up from the feeders in the crape myrtle. 

I wish I were a cat right now; I'd lie down in the sun and purr - as Molly is doing in front of the door this very minute. 

 

EMPTY NEST SYNDROME

It's hard to believe how fast the eaglets grew up, and now one of them has already left home for a new home in Vermont.  Not under his own speed, but under the aegis of a program to replenish the eagle population there.  I have been as out of touch with the eagles as I have with everything else except the last weeks of teaching, giving tests, counseling students, working with my afterschool kids, and trying to get a few things planted.  I've only gone online once or twice daily, to check in on news and email.

In that time many things have happened.  You can read all about this fascinating transfer in the EagleCamBlog, and also see some kickass pictures of the transfer.  If I was only seventeen again, and knew what I know now about my real interests in this world, I'd start all over again as a wildlife biologist.  Of course, if I were seventeen at this particular point in history, I'm sure I'd be a completely whacked-out junky goth freak.  So maybe it's just as well.

Maybe I'll go back to school once this life of busy working is finished and study to become The Oldest Living Wildlife Biologist. 

Anyway, during the past week they took eaglet #2 off to the north country, and the other two will soon be ready to fledge.  I now feel that I really know what the Empty Nest Syndrome means - I am so sad that they will be gone.  The ospreys, in the meantime, are gearing into the beginning phases of this process - so we can start all over and get attached to these birds.

JOKE

So, a woman walks into a curio shop in San Francisco. Looking around at
the exotica, she notices a very life-like, life-size bronze statue of
a rat. It has no price tag, but it looks so striking she decides she
must have it. She takes it to the owner: "How much is the bronze
rat?"

"Twelve dollars for the rat, a hundred dollars for the story," says
the owner.

The woman gives the shop owner twelve dollars. "I'll just take the
rat; you can keep the story."

As she walks down the street carrying the bronze rat, she notices
that a few real rats have crawled out of alleys and sewers, and begun
following her down the street. This is a bit disconcerting, so she
begins walking a little bit faster.

Within a couple of blocks, the group of rats behind her grows to over
a hundred, and they begin squealing. She starts to trot towards the
Bay. She takes a nervous look around and sees that the rats now
number in the thousands, maybe in the millions, and they are all
squealing and coming towards her faster and faster. Terrified, she
runs to the edge of the Bay and throws the bronze rat as far out into
the Bay as she can. Amazingly, the millions of rats all jump into the
Bay after it, and are all drowned.

The woman walks back to the curio shop. "Aha," says the owner, "I'll
bet you have come back for the story."

"Actually no," says the woman. "I came back to see if you have a
bronze Republican."

Just in case any Republicans ever read this journal, I apologize in advance.  It's just a joke, okay?  (Pretty good one, huh?)  Actually,  no one is going to be reading this journal, if I don't get back into the loop fairly soon.  Another week should do it, grades handed in, a training in the new language lab, maybe even the lawn mowed.  And I'll cease to be an indentured servant.