There’s a really interesting piece in this morning’s New York Times about the town of Hardwick, Vermont and the Center for Agricultural Economy. Hardwick was, like many small rural towns, emptying out — main street was full of empty buildings, and there was no way to make a living. Then a group of local agricultural entrepreneurs got together, meeting monthly, loaning one another money, figuring out ways to share skills and resources so that they all prosper. Their website says that their goal is programs that: …will recognize that the 21st century food system balance be tipped towards localization over…
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As anyone who has been reading here for a while knows, I’m no vegetarian (I tried in college, but I missed sausage, and lamb, and bacon, and cheeseburgers). But I have to admit that with rising food prices, and global warming, and my increasing unwillingness to eat meat that wasn’t raised by someone I know (which means I’m paying a lot more for meat) — well, I’m eating less meat. Mark Bittman wrote a rather inspirational post about this earlier this summer that got me thinking — it’s really easy to just slip into that meat-veg-starch dinner formula. And it’…
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It took a while, but spring has finally arrived in my garden! Look! Green grass, sunshine, and actual vegetables growing in my garden! Here’s a better shot of the vegetables: It was a long weekend of puttering. I planted about a million pepper plants: cayenne, aci sivri, topepo rosso, cieliga, cieliga hot, corno di toro, and I think at least one other variety that I’m forgetting. I also planted some brussels sprouts, fennel, round eggplants, and long eggplants. I still have the tarragon, sage, lavender, and columbines in the cold frame because it got hot, and I lost my transplant…
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Well this is serendipitous — Poetry Magazine has an interview with Gary Snyder, by Alan Williamson! When I was at Davis, Gary taught a course about Zen in classical Chinese and Japanese poetry. Basically, he came in once a week and gave us a Dharma talk, then we looked at the poems. Alan also teaches at Davis, and he sat in on the course (along with a couple of other professors). Alan is one of the nicest people on the planet, and one day, as we were all happily bashing away at the English Romantics for being dualistic, he gently…
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The Dog Walk Sutra of a couple of weeks ago came out of my little project to finally memorize the Heart Sutra, and to dedicate at least a part of my morning dog walks to reciting it. Because that was such a success, I decided that maybe the morning dog walks might also be a good opportunity to memorize some poems. I’m not getting any younger, and my graduate work is fading farther and farther into the past, and although I am grateful for my day job at the Big Corporation, it’s not creative work at all. I had this…
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So, here we are, the last primary in the nation. Although I’ve been an Obama supporter for months, I’ve been lying to the campaign. They (quite rightly) have been encouraging people to vote early, especially since here in Montana you can register any time, including on election day, and you can vote right when you register. The Bozeman Chronicle had a photo on the front page this morning of a line of early voters snaking out the door of the courthouse over there yesterday. But I’ve written on this blog before about how I love to go to the polls…
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So, it’s snowing again this morning — and although I’m quite tired of snow, it’s a lovely soft morning — bit fat snowflakes, no wind, not too cold. So off for our morning dog walk I went — I’m babysitting the MH’s dog while he’s gone to Arizona for a couple of days and it was good to have 2 dogs with me again. So we get to the dog park and we’re coming around the edge of the bluff and there’s another couple coming toward us. She’s on the phone, and he barely nods hello. I don’t recognize them,…
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Sorry for the spotty posting this week — Owen-the-dog had ACL surgery on Wednesday. He’s fine. Home on the couch next to me, but in considerable pain and will have to be on-leash or in a crate for the next few weeks. And my Dad had surgery in the Czech Republic, where he lives. He’s had an odd cyst behind his ear for decades, and the doctors decided that it was time to take it out. It was in a dodgy spot with a lot of nerves, and he was nervous he’d wind up drooling for the rest of his…
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I was doing laundry yesterday, and while channel surfing in search of something non-football-related to watch, I stumbled upon the UCLA rally. I missed Caroline Kennedy and Oprah, but lucked out and switched to CSPAN just as Michelle Obama began to speak. She was amazing — funny and smart and fierce — to those who say there’s no there there but empty rhetoric, all I can say is that’s the family I want in the White House — people my age, who just paid off their student loans (which Michelle Obama pointed out had only happened because Barak wrote two…
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My 97-year-old grandmother asked for an absentee ballot for the Democratic primary so she can vote for Hillary. My grandmother has never voted for a Democrat before in her life, but she wanted to “vote for that woman.” My grandmother was a crack polo player in the 1930s, when polo was a hugely popular public sport (30,000 people took the train up out from Chicago to see the 1938 East-West game, when Will Roger’s team beat the best players from the East coast). Because she was a “girl” my grandmother wasn’t allowed to play — she could play practice matches…