Unabridged

Posted: October 4, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Chronicles of a First Time Parent, Farming off the Farm, What is an Art Farm | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments

In my childhood, pride of place was given to a Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, second edition (c) 1966.  The massive book laid open, upon a bookstand that my Mother built, in the family room always beside the dinner table.  Quick and easy reference was close at hand.  

At 2,129 pages, plus addenda, the Webster’s weighs in at approximately 13 pounds, begins with “a” (first letter of the Roman and English alphabet: from the Greek alpha, a borrowing from the Phoenician) and ends with “zythum” (a malt beverage brewed by ancient Egyptians).  The masterpiece is “based upon the broad foundations laid down by Noah Webster.”  Such informed my childhood.  

My frugal Mother, born in the Depression, bought groceries strictly on a budget, and received S&H Green Stamps for every purchase.  We saved those stamps, compiled them into books, then drove to Glenview, Illinois to redeem same.  The dictionary was purchased with Green Stamps, a day of victory, that I recall vividly, still.  

Of the Silent Generation, she and millions of her peers diligently saved the Green Stamps.  The Sperry & Hutchinson Company was founded in 1896 and operated until the 1980s, when consumerism became the vogue and frugality faded.  But over 90 years the Beinecke family made a fortune, and funded the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale.  In Greenwich, Connecticut, their 66-acre estate is now for sale for the first time, at an asking price of $35 Million, after more than four generations in the family.  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/16/realestate/beinecke-estate-greenwich.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

In my childhood home, words reigned supreme.  My Father was a wordsmith, an Irish extrovert, who knew not the difference between a hammer or a screwdriver, but most certainly knew his nouns and verbs; subjects and objects; gerundives, gerunds, and participles; how to compose a sentence, how to frame his thoughts.  When advertising came of age he worked as a Mad Man; known as the “Grocery Guru” his specialty was food merchandising.  His gift of words allowed him to travel the world, holding meetings in Munich, giving speeches in Sydney; he commuted to his Manhattan office for lunch then flew home for dinner.  He was published in multiple periodicals, and monthly in “Advertising Age,” then an upstart, which has become the standard bearer of the trade.  After his death, my Mother continued the column for two years, writing “Consumer’s Viewpoint” telling the “Big Boys and Fat Cats” what she thought of their products.  

And always, in our home, the Webster’s stood as stanchion, a ready reference, near at hand.  

Last year my Mother sold the family home, and we emptied its rooms.  Saving the dictionary was high on my list.  I stored it at my sister’s, and then in August hauled it back home to Maine, along with sculptures my Mother had made.  It was something of a cruel and unusual ask to have my children carry the tome through TSA at O’Hare Airport, but that I did.  To my mind that task sealed their fate to the written word.  Such is their origin story.  

Growing up in the digital age of Google, my children may disregard the heavy analog hard copy book, a dull relic from the distant past.  But long may it last on their bookshelves, and my hope is that it will endure as a reminder of their lineage.  Languages change over time, such is their nature, but the story of the English language, derived from the German and Latin, and our ability to use words to frame our thoughts is an enduring aspect of our mind’s capacity to understand.  I remain steadfast that there is a mysterious link between grammar and the mind.  

A hard copy dictionary, then, is a bastion of that tradition.  And for my children to understand same, is to know of their past.  And so this Unabridged Dictionary is an heirloom of the highest regard here in our home.  Purchased through frugality, cherished over many years.  

______________________________________
Note: Kudos and thanks to Babs, of whom I say the apple fell not far from the tree. By kind permission of, I borrowed her phrase “…meetings in Munich, speeches in Sydney…”. And she provided the family room photo with dictionary and stand ever the sentry, the rear guard. Many thanks! 🥰

Joy of Aging

Posted: September 20, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Farming off the Farm, Permaculture & Home Renovation, What is an Art Farm | Tags: , | 1 Comment

In my limited experience, there is a joy in aging.  Certainly not the aching joints or onset of arthritis, but in the relaxed confidence, an acceptance of self.  Well beyond the age of peer pressure, I have concern neither about my haircut, nor the shoes that I wear, all of which are quite liberating.  

The cliche of the “Cranky Uncle” is but one example.  At the Thanksgiving table, he lets loose in too blunt a manner which may be simply that he has achieved, at last, a “devil may care” attitude, a sense that time is of the essence. The accuracy of his information tends to be of little concern, to himself at least. The “Cranky Uncle,” in fact, is so ubiquitous that it has become the name of an app that “builds resilience against misinformation.”  https://crankyuncle.com/

If the “Cranky Uncle” is the dark side of anger, then the uplift of mirth was expressed by Jenny Jones, the British poet, in her famous work, “Warning: when I am an old woman I shall wear purple.”  Her poem was twice voted Britain’s best-loved poem, and she was described as “one of Britain’s best loved poets.”  Her words were proof that we can age with grace and wit, a singular independence.  We would do well to follow her lead.  

These thoughts come to mind because the “silver tsunami” has begun with over 10,000 people per day now turning age 65.  By 2030 more than 73 million Baby Boomers will be over age 65, a demographic shift of unparalleled scale.  

I am a Baby Boomer, born at its tail end.  I therefore feel eligible to opine that we have skimmed the cream, and the world we leave to our children’s children, is, I fear, darkened by the shadow of our deeds. 

Early in the Boomer era, an active idealism rose: civil rights, voting rights, environmental protections, the Clean Water Act, a woman’s right to choose, and protests against endless wars of the Empire. 

As a young boy, I went one night to my long-haired neighbors, to help paint cars for a convoy to a Vietnam War/anti-Nixon protest.  I loved it, all of it, the idealism and sense of community (among some but certainly not all).  

By 1980, when the Boomers’ careers had begun the zeitgeist changed; capitalism roared into vogue, taxes were cut, deregulation began.  The success of the Boomers seems unparalleled:

  • In 1967 the movie “The Graduate” contained the prophetic line, “Plastics…there is a great future in plastics.”  Fifty-seven years later every person on the planet ingests about 5 grams of microplastic every week  – the equivalent of a credit card – eaten every week, every year by every person, all 8.1 billion of us, with no end in sight.  More than likely, the quantity will increase.  
  • In our insatiable quest for red meat, more than 185 million acres of the Amazon River basin have been clear cut since 1978; food production accounts for one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and takes up half of the planet’s habitable surface.  A diet that includes beef has 10 times the climate impact of a plant-based diet.
  • The “fast fashion” industry is responsible for over 20% of global water pollution while producing 100 billion garments per year, of which 92 million tons end up in landfills, the equivalent of one semi truck of waste every second, every day.  The average consumer throws away 81.5 pounds of clothes every year.
  • The richest one-fifth of the world’s population possess 80 times the income of the poorest one-fifth, and the richest one-fifth uses over 86% of the world’s resources.  In America, the top 0.1% average wealth is $1.52 billion USD per household.
  • From 1979 to 2022 wages grew 32.9% for the bottom 90%, 171.7% for the top 1%, and 344.4% for the top 0.1% of the USA population.  
  • More than 99 million people now face emergency levels of hunger, while more than 1.1 million people are in the grips of catastrophic hunger.  
  • Baby boomers will bequest a total of $72.6 trillion in assets through 2045.

The transfer of assets is defined in financial terms but represents essentially a set of values which will govern how those funds will be used. If we think of $72 trillion as a lever, with values as its fulcrum, then Archimedes comes to mind: “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”  Change is still possible.  

Another poet wrote “This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper.”  We might replace “bang” with “boom” while “whimper” could yet become “win.”  This is a matter of some urgency as the silver tsunami rolls on.  

I am a parent now, raising children coming of age.  My approach here is to be forthright about what we have done and with what they must deal; I value honesty more than politeness, and future generations should be clear sighted, to act with compassion and a commitment to social justice.  A certain non-conformance may be required, and to that end the “Warning” of Jenny Jones, indeed pertains:

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple

With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired

And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

And run my stick along the public railings

And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

And pick flowers in other people’s gardens

And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

And eat three pounds of sausages at a go

Or only bread and pickle for a week

And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

And pay our rent and not swear in the street

And set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practise a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

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The thrum of summer has quieted, the Supermoon Full Moon Lunar Eclipse passed on Tuesday, cool nights of autumn descend: Pole beans ripen, Winter squash come to its full, Brussel Sprouts fatten, Poblanos produce still, Tomatoes remain abundant, the Cucumbers are spent, while Tithonia still shouts “look at me!!!” We will plant garlic come November.

The Grandest Cataract in New England

Posted: September 12, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Art & Healing, Portfolio - David's work, What is an Art Farm | Tags: , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Rumford Falls, Maine is situated where the Concord, Ellis, and Swift rivers converge into the Androscoggin River, which form the watershed of the Western Maine mountains. At the Falls, called the “the grandest cataract in New England,” the Androscoggin drops a total of 176 feet over a sheer wall of granite.  

In our pre-industrial age, indigenous peoples gathered there to hunt, fish and trade furs from the Lakes Region of Maine.  In 1882, history forever changed when industrialist Hugh Chisholm grasped the Falls’ potential for the manufacture of paper.

Chisholm first built a railroad, then a mill for his Oxford Paper Company, which grew to become the founding asset of International Paper Company, the corporate behemoth, still active today.  A Utopian, he also built planned community housing for the workers in his mills, which housing became a model for the nation.  Chisholm hired architects to build great buildings in Rumford, those architects also having designed the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan, and the Copley Plaza in Boston.   At its peak, in the 1930s, Rumford held its own with Manhattan, but today it has fallen deeply into the abyss.  

Rumford, and the surrounding River Valley towns of Maine, are known nationally as “Cancer Valley” given the incredibly high rates of cancer among its mill-working inhabitants.  Four out of five children are food insecure, while Rumford has the highest special education population in the state of Maine.  The opioid crisis has run rampant, and Rumford’s rate of crime is now the highest in Maine.  

Rumford Falls is but one, among many cities, ravaged by the flight of capitalist money, ever in pursuit of profit.  The New York Times recently reported, “Milwaukee was once known as the ‘machine shop of the world.’ In the 1950s, nearly 60 percent of the city’s adult population worked in manufacturing….  By 2021, Milwaukee had lost more than 80 percent of its manufacturing jobs (barely 5 percent of those that remained were unionized), and it had the second-highest poverty rate of any large American city….  Between 1997 and 2020, more than 90,000 factories closed, partly as a result of NAFTA and similar agreements.”

Last Sunday, I was in Rumford Falls helping on a Public Art project.  Although the politics of free trade is vitally important, my work focused upon the power of art, the agency of making, and the process of civic discourse; how does a community rebuild once the rivers of cash flow have dried up? 

A real estate developer recently purchased Rumford’s old mill building for the price of $1 USD, and she has received a grant from the Department of Agriculture to put solar panels on top of the mill, and another from the National Parks Foundation “historic preservation” fund with the condition of “community engagement.”  The developer promptly called Chris Miller, and asked, “I have the building, and a chain link fence out front.  Can you do something of civic engagement?”  Chris pondered the problem.  

He decided to ask the citizens of Rumford what their desired future might be?  Adults declined to respond, but a classroom of 3rd grade students enthusiastically spoke up.  Chris’ question was “If you lent your hand, if you had your say, what would Rumford’s future gain?  If you wore a hat that said “Civic Leader,” what might Rumford’s future feature?  Would you champion a cause, plant more flowers, have a parade or build a tower?  Would you open a business to meet a need?  Would you captain a brand new industry?  Would you start a club or paint a mural?  Would you build a park in honor of a hometown hero?”

The 8- and 9-year old students offered fantastical ideas: a skyscraper, an amusement park, an IKEA water park, trains running upside down.  Gathering their bold ideas, Chris set them down graphically in the style of a picture postcard, then printed on vinyl adhesive which he affixed to seven 4×8 sheets of 1/2” masonite.  My role was minimal, priming and painting the boards and helping Chris hang them upon the chain link fence.

His design links to Rumford’s past, given that Hugh Chisholm made his first fortune printing picture postcards, holding the monopoly contract with the United States Postal Service to print all of the picture postcards sold in United States post offices at the turn of the 19th century.  The Rumford Mill produced all those postcards, as it grew into its peak production years.  

The children of today very likely could become the leaders of our future.  Rumford’s native son, Edmund Muskie, was born there in 1914 and then wrote and championed both the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act in the 1970s.  His political leanings have been demonized by many industrialists, but one has to wonder how his Rumford childhood shaped his environmental thoughts.    

Restoration, it seems, is the work of our times.  The task in Rumford is how to build a new economic base, to clean up after decades of toxic waste, and to heal generations of families whose lives have been shaped by the working conditions at the Mill and power plant on the Androscoggin River.  Chris’ “picture postcards” are but one very small step, but Rumford’s task of recovery does move forward.  

When Tears Become Bullets

Posted: August 22, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Chronicles of a First Time Parent, consciousness, Permaculture & Home Renovation, What is an Art Farm | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments

In 2001, I met and soon moved in with a remarkable young woman, an art therapist, who had worked with young children at Byrd Elementary School at Chicago’s Cabrini Green housing project, as well as in the Robert Taylor Homes and Cook County Hospital.  Working with inner-city boys, she was driven to thread the emotional needle, to help them move forward.  

In that studio apartment, on her bookshelf, was ”Real Boys” written by William Pollock, PhD about “the myths of boyhood,” how our society shapes boys to become men.  I tried repeatedly to crack that cover but could not.  It cut too close to my core.

I quote now the four core tenets of what Pollock called “the Boy Code”:

“The sturdy oak: Men should be stoic, stable, and independent. A man never never shows weakness…boys are not to share pain or grieve openly. 

Give ‘em hell: This is the stance of some of our sports coaches, of roles played by John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and Bruce Lee, a stance based on a false self, of extreme daring, bravado, and attraction to violence. 

The “big wheel”:  This is the imperative men and boys feel to achieve status, dominance, and power. Or, understood another way, the “big wheel refers to the way in which boys and men are taught to avoid shame at all costs, to wear the mask of coolness, to act as though everything is under control….

“No sissy stuff:” Perhaps the most traumatizing and dangerous injunction thrust on boys and men is the literal gender straight jacket that prohibits boys from expressing feelings or urges seen as “feminine” – dependence, warmth, empathy.”

In short, big boys don’t cry.  When I was young, my father – who lived to seize the brass ring, to slay the dragon, to climb the mountain, then died young – he repeatedly told me, “David, you can get used to hanging if you have to.”  My football coaches always rhymed “no pain, no gain!”  I fault neither my Father nor the coaches, as they only passed on what they had been taught.  About all this, Pollock cautioned, “when boys cannot cry, their tears become bullets.”

Bullets, of course, can be metaphorical, and but one example would be the Wall Street “Masters of the Universe” among whom “might is right” with finance a zero sum game of domination, power and control.  Consider hedge funds buying up the foreclosed housing stock and then raising rents, in the midst of a housing shortage.  Or private equity buying medical practices, to maximize profits at the expense of patient care. 

The first rule of the Boy Code is that we don’t talk about the Boy Code.  I violate masculinity in writing this meditation upon raising a daughter and son in a culture where hypermasculinity is the norm.  I speak here not of the male gender but the masculine traits, as taught.  

Jackson Katz, a male pioneer in women’s studies, has written a book titled “Man Enough?” about the “Politics of Presidential Masculinity.”  Presidential campaigns are described “…as the center stage of an ongoing national debate about manhood, a kind of quadrennial referendum on what type of man—or one day, woman—embodies not only our ideological beliefs, but our very identity as a nation….how fears of appearing weak and vulnerable end up shaping candidates’ actual policy positions…”

I write here neither to praise nor denigrate any candidate. My concern is our culture of dominance.  In this time of hypermasculinity, where we demonize “other,” be they immigrants, the extreme right, the “marxist” left, Neo-nazis, ad infinitum, I am compelled to ask what if the problem is not “them” but us?  It is so easy to point and blame “them” but infinitely more challenging to say it is our system of beliefs, self-reinforcing, which perpetuate cycles of violence, a culture of dominance rather than compassion. 

Jackson Katz gave a TED Talk titled “Violence against women – it’s a men’s issue.”  He makes the subtly persuasive point that rational self interest in a patriarchal society becomes a self-reinforcing system of belief; there is no conspiracy but a self interest in maintaining the status quo rather than embracing change.  By analogy, Newton’s First Law of Motion here pertains, that a system of domination will persist until it is acted upon by an external force strong enough to bring change.  https://www.ted.com/talks/jackson_katz_violence_against_women_it_s_a_men_s_issue?subtitle=en

“It takes a village” becomes my curse.  In our home we raise children to value empathy, compassion and emotional intelligence, but the world into which they go – are schooled, coached and policed – there predominates the hypermasculine.  How do we raise our children to be compassionate when their peers practice dominance?  “Gentle as a dove, wise as a serpent,” comes to mind. 

As a child, I would read the Sunday comics seated below my Father, while he devoured the business news.  Pogo, the political satire, ran in those comics, with its theme “We have met the enemy, and He is us.”  More than fifty years have passed and some demonize the “Deep State” or “them” but I ask, what if Pogo really was right?  What then, if we ourselves are the problem?

An honest awareness seems a necessary starting point in a new dialogue. 

* * * * * * * * *

Here at an art farm Bacchus has arrived bearing wild seedless Champagne grapes. Jimmy Nardello Italian Frying Peppers are abundant. Tomatoes exceed our capacity to use. Pole beans flower, to attract hummingbirds. Butternut squash grow on the vine. Peaches are ripe for the picking. We bring bushels of produce to the Food Cupboard.

Saturday on the Street

Posted: August 9, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Art & Healing, Farming off the Farm, Permaculture & Home Renovation, What is an Art Farm | Tags: , | 3 Comments

In 1830, in South Portland (known then as Cape Elizabeth) a New England farmhouse was built and its barn completed by 1848.  The town’s population was 1,696 people and only six families lived on the street where the farm was located.  The farm most certainly had significant acreage.  

In 1999, South Portland’s population had grown to 23,324, and the last remaining farmland surrounding this farmhouse was sold off to make a development of six homes.  In modern times developers put their road wherever best suits their plan but in 1830 the builders sited the home thoughtfully, based upon the sun’s path; they needed to maximize the solar gain as a heat source.  The home’s location then determined where went the developer’s road and the old front yard was paved to put in a street named in honor of the developer’s daughter.  The home, which we purchased in 2012, was left with a smaller, but still full sun front yard, enough space to garden and grow food and fruits.  

We have felt guided here in creating a healing space.  Neighbors have brought wounded birds into our garden, tucking them under the plants, as a place to heal.  Young Mothers bring their infants to gaze and we gift them vine ripened tomatoes.  We grow less as a matter of sustenance and more as a gift to be given, to be shared.  

Saturday on our street was very active.  Art work arrived from Chicago, from our dear friend Laurie LeBreton, a sculptor whose work combines handmade paper and mixed media.  She explains, “I work to access something beyond our concrete world and to find meaning and comfort as I do so. Recent themes have included healing, refuge and ritual.”  If yard placards tend to promote politics, Laurie’s speak to art and healing.  We embraced Laurie’s generosity and eagerly put them on our side of the street.  https://www.laurielebreton.net/

Also on Saturday, very large gooseneck trailers arrived to unload massive paving equipment, parked on the other side of the street.  A dialectic began between the mechanized and the natural.  If our “Orwellian” week was a “heavy equipment summer camp,” then this week has been about “massive paving equipment and road grinding at night.”  My son was over-the-moon delighted.  On Sunday night the City began grinding streets here, and the equipment has moved to several other jobs in town.  Nightly we have driven to see them work.  

Also on Saturday our work on the invasive Norway Maples continued.  Our friend Nate arrived, a journeyman carpenter, master of many trades, and he brought tools for tree work.  Nate taught my son how to use a come along, how to sharpen a chain saw, and to use the Phythagorean Theorem to calculate where the tree would fall.  My son put on his work boots and got busy.

Norway Maples are not native to America.  They were brought here first in 1756, by a nurseryman in Philadelphia, and became popular as an ideal street tree.  During the 1970s when the Dutch Elm Disease decimated the urban canopy, the Norway Maples became ever more prominent, but the trees promote a monoculture and grow rapidly, spreading seeds by the wind.  They shade out competition.  Because they grow fast, their wood grain is long, not tight, and they easily sheer and crack in heavy weather, which has become increasingly more prominent here in Southern Maine.    

Two years ago, during a late autumn wind storm, a Norway Maple, with 8” trunk, split and fell onto our swimming pool.  Thankfully we were able to repair the pool.  Last winter, a much larger Maple, 18” diameter, splintered and fell into the neighbors yard.  It leaned precipitously, and my intuition told me not to DIY but to get help.  

Nate used the “come along” – a sort of ratchet winch – to direct the tree away from the neighbors yard and to his designated spot. My son worked the come along, tightening the line by cranking to pull the tree down, as Nate cut into the trunk.

It took a village but the tree is felled, and we have firewood for our winter.  

All Is Well Again

Posted: August 2, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Farming off the Farm, Permaculture & Home Renovation, What is an Art Farm | Tags: , | 2 Comments

On 22 July I wrote about circumstances “Orwellian,” but on 2 August I can report that “all is well again.”  We have cured the problem: gone is the gravel pile, our insurance will not be terminated, and we have made arrangements to switch to another carrier at end of this month.

The project was twelve years in the making.  When we bought the farm, Labor Day 2012, our son was in utero and my wife in her third-trimester.  We had but little money, and less time to make any renovations.  The barn was beyond repair – beyond our budget, more precisely – so we tore that down.  I saved as many beams and sheathing boards as I could but the rest was hauled away.  Nine yards of rubble, from two brick chimneys and concrete sidewalks remained, overgrown by invasive plants.  Last week, having moved the gravel and made the driveway larger, we continued north to grub out more than 50 stumps – along 50 linear feet of fence line – of the rapidly growing, invasive Norway Maple.

Our farmhouse, in the classic New England style of “big house, little house, back house, barn,” is 200 years old, built when Andrew Jackson was the 7th President of the United States.  The barn was completed in 1840, which I know for a fact, having saved one beam with that date proudly carved by the makers into the wood.  All materials used in this house were sourced locally, within a mile or two, trees felled, then moved and milled by hand.  

Some of the barn sheathing boards are 26” wide, and given the growth rate of pine trees, we can deduce that the tree from which that wood came sprouted circa 1681, which is five years before the English King James established the “Dominion of New England” which covered all of New England and the Mid-Atlantic colonies.  The Charter of Pennsylvania, sovereign and independent from the Dominion, was signed by King Charles in 1681 granting the Quakers land for religious freedom.  

Restoring this home is a yeoman’s task.  We bought the home at a foreclosure price, plus 20-years of hard labor.  We are only halfway toward our goal.  In doing this work we are not making this home great again; “never better” is my goal.  The home never had insulation and was cold and drafty.  We have super-insulated more than half, but work remains.  I will need to rebuild the foundation of the Ell, while we live in the house.  The invasive Maples are an ongoing nuisance.

The charm of the hand built home seems to be its simplicity, its economy of purpose.  I have neither the income nor interest in anything opulent.  I seek not a monument to myself.  For the driveway project I chose gravel, which is underwhelming to many, but to my mind the better choice because it is both less expensive and fully functional.  I have learned that I am happier living on a dirt road, and on my half-acre I have chosen same.  

More importantly, in terms of environmental impact, gravel has a minimal carbon footprint compared to the very high embedded energy – the petroleum consumed both in manufacturing and applying – of asphalt pavement.  Hard though it may be for my children to grasp this point, it is my responsibility to model sustainability, to the extent possible.   

My curse is the adage “a carpenter’s home is never finished.”  And so life goes, but in the meantime all is well again, never better.   

* * * * * * * * *

The abundance of August has arrived. Onions and potatoes need be harvested, Italian Frying peppers await us, we pickle cucumbers then give armfuls away, fruits – tomatoes, grapes, peaches – tower overhead, our lime tree provides the citrus for a Gin & Tonic.

Orwellian

Posted: July 19, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Chronicles of a First Time Parent, Farming off the Farm, Permaculture & Home Renovation, What is an Art Farm | Tags: , | 2 Comments

In May a satellite flew over our house and took photos.  On 11 June we received a notice – with photos above and below – that our homeowners insurance would be cancelled, due to a “safety hazard on your property…[which] increases the chance for injury or damage to your property.”  I contacted our broker and inquired whether some “Desk Sergeant” had scanned the photos and made such a call?

The Broker wrote back, “As for a live officer in the back, I would assume it’s more akin to a machine learning/AI algorithm scanning pictures and flagging unusual things, although that is pure speculation on my part.  To the best of my knowledge, the only issue is the gravel at the end of the driveway, confirmed. I had to speak with an underwriter at Nationwide yesterday to even ascertain what the problem was.”  

We were told we had until 30 August to cure the problem, but in late June we received notice, and were given 22 July as a cease and desist date.

We recently visited family in Western Massachusetts, and standing upon their driveway, we talked about the asphalt.  One section is newer, another older, with swales and cracks.  “My Homeowner’s Policy has been cancelled” she said, “because of . . . picky stuff like these cracks.  The company cited a number of issues, but all of them were picky…”  An agent had walked the property looking for issues, which found, then moved her into the high-risk pool, at a substantial cost increase.   

In the 10-year period from 2014 to 2023 extreme weather has caused disaster events at a cost of $183 Billion Dollars.  The underwriters’ rational self-interest – unlike a good neighbor – argues they cut losses by moving homeowners out of their coverage into the high-risk pool.  Gravel at the end of our driveway put us in that category.  Caveat emptor.  

Thankfully I work in the trades, and our friend Jim has spent decades doing site work, building roads deep in the Maine Woods for loggers.  In fact, Jim is both the solution and cause of our problem, having dumped – at my request – the gravel here in our yard, left overs from a tiny house job we did together.  We need to expand our driveway, and free material helps.

Time now is of the essence, and given the heavy equipment this is a mere trifle.  Jim has arrived and we have removed 9 cubic yards of rubble, 3 cubic yards of tree stumps. We will remove approximately 15 tons of soil, and then move the gravel into that space.

Our soil is infested with knotweed, the highly invasive plant, and very few dumps will take soil with knotweed. I found one yard which will incinerate it, at a very high cost of $145 per ton. I will not be sneaky and lie. So we hauled 4 tons off, and will spread the rest in our side yard, then plant grass seed. A compromise lower cost solution.

We will meet the deadline. We will then give notice we are changing carriers, having improved our coverage at no additional cost.  A larger parking area makes sense as my daughter will soon get her driver’s license. My son this week had a summer camp of site work with heavy equipment.  So life goes restoring a 200-year old New England farmhouse

Garlic Scapes and Landscapes

Posted: June 15, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Child Centered Activities, Chronicles of a First Time Parent, Farming off the Farm, What is an Art Farm | 2 Comments

By the stars, it is late spring. By the warm temperatures and school having ended, it is summer. In our garden, it is the time when garlic stretches the curlicue scapes wildly upwards to the sun.

Summer brings heavy equipment to the farm, and equipment requires outbuildings, so we have been building, albeit in 1/16th scale.

And finally, a new lawnmower, for a field of dreams, also in 1/16th scale.

Planting Potatoes

Posted: June 8, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Farming off the Farm, What is an Art Farm | Tags: | 2 Comments

Here at our Art Farm, we have been planting potatoes, three varieties this year: Dark Red Norland, Kennebec White, and Russian Banana Fingerlings.  We have some “volunteers” returning from last year, never harvested.  The bounty continues.  Norland are early to mature, Kennebec are mid-season, Russian Banana are late to produce, which means potatoes all summer long.

Although of Irish heritage, I plant potatoes because, like a foraging groundhog, it is simply divine to rummage through the dirt and pull up a bouquet of spuds, hanging upon the vine.  Gaia’s abundance is never closer at hand.  

My long-deceased father rarely or never spoke about his origins, and through ancestry.com we have learned the barest of an outline.  Phillip Mahaney immigrated, we believe, from the city of Cork, in the County of Munster, Ireland to the United States in 1850.  The Great Potato Famine impacted that region, and between 1845 and 1855 more than 1.5 million adults and children left Ireland seeking refuge in America. 

Thaddeus Shannon was born in Kildimo South, Miltown Malbay, County Clare, Ireland at the ancestral home named “Annagh Bridge House.” Thaddeus was not the eldest and therefore would not inherit the family farm, so he immigrated to the United States in 1884.  Both Phillip and Thaddeus entered America on the Eastern seaboard, but traveled west to Bourbon County, in the bluegrass region of Kentucky.  Their descendants – my grandparents – were married in June of 1924 in Paris, Kentucky.  

The railroads were major employers of the Irish, and for the Mahany and Shannon families that is certainly the case. The Louisville & Nashville Railroad – “The Old Reliable” – was a major carrier serving fourteen states throughout the southern USA, and between 1880 and 1950 no less than 21 members of our extended family worked on those lines. The list of positions includes: Laborer, Shop Laborer or Section Laborer; Yard Master, Track Supervisor or Section Foreman (Boss); Machinist, Clerk or Messenger; Car Inspector, Brakeman, Conductor, Engineer or Head Engineer.  My father’s first job, in 1944 at age 16, was Messenger at the Paris, Kentucky depot.   

The sheer physical labor of the rail crews must have been daunting and the saying “Beneath every railroad tie there lies a dead Irishman” describes the struggles of the emigres.  Although we know virtually nothing of our ancestors’ experience, something that happened but 10 miles from our farm tells a bone chilling story.  

In the winter of 1864 the Royal Mail Ship “Bohemian” sailed from Liverpool, England to Quebec, Canada via Portland, Maine. A 295-foot, three-masted, bark-rigged ship, the Bohemian was also equipped with a 500-horsepower, double-cylinder steam engine, a screw propeller and six watertight bulkheads; the vessel’s design was considered very safe. On that final voyage there were 219 passengers with 99 crew members on board. 19 of the passengers were in cabins, while the remaining 200 were Irish immigrants in steerage.

“Steerage” class, effectively third or fourth class accommodations, was named because these passengers slept in the mechanical rooms of the ships, rather than cabins or public spaces. The passengers in steerage were literally looked down upon by the upper class passengers traveling on the decks above. The following description, from 1906, describes the conditions:

“[They] are positively packed like cattle, making a walk on deck when the weather is good, absolutely impossible, while to breathe clean air below in rough weather, when the hatches are down is an equal impossibility. The stenches become unbearable… [and the] division between the sexes is not carefully looked after, and the young women who are quartered among the married passengers have neither the privacy to which they are entitled nor are they much more protected than if they were living promiscuously. The food, which is miserable, is dealt out of huge kettles into the dinner pails provided by the steamship company.”

At 8pm on 22 February, amidst heavy fog, the ship struck Alden’s Rock, just off of Cape Elizabeth, Maine. The hull plates were ripped open and fire broke out. The Captain tried to run the ship to shore, but ran aground on Broad Cove Rock. Panic ensued. The first lifeboat safely transported 80 passengers to land.  The Captain’s command was not “Women and children first” but the crew and upper class English went first.  The Irish immigrants went last, and many – including women and children – jumped for life over board. More than 40 passengers and two crew members died at sea. Twelve of the bodies, thought to be Irish steerage passengers, were buried in a mass grave in Calvary Cemetery, Portland, Maine.  During the exodus from the Great Potato Famine, an estimated 17,000 Irish immigrants were lost at sea attempting to migrate.

The topic of potatoes can stir an Irishman to great passion.  An Irishman from Kentucky, whose ancestors lived in Henry County, not far from our Bourbon County, Wendell Berry wrote an essay, published in the Whole Earth Catalog in 1969, about the Civil Rights, Anti-War and environmental movements:

“The mentality that exploits and destroys the natural environment is the same that abuses racial and economic minorities, that imposes on young men the tyranny of the military draft, that makes war against peasants and women and children with the indifference of technology. 

“The Confucian Great Digest says that the “chief way for the production of wealth” (and he is talking about real goods, not money) is “that the producers be many and that the mere consumers be few….” But even in the much-publicized rebellion of the young against the materialism of the affluent society, the consumer mentality is too often still intact: …In this state of total consumerism – which is to say a state of helpless dependence on things and services and ideas and motives that we have forgotten how to provide ourselves – all meaningful contact between ourselves and the earth is broken. We do not understand the earth in terms either of what it offers us or of what it requires of us, and I think it is the rule that people inevitably destroy what they do not understand. 

Most of us, for example, not only do not know how to produce the best food in the best way – we don’t know how to produce any kind in any way. Our model citizen is a sophisticate who before puberty understands how to produce a baby, but who at the age of thirty will not know how to produce a potato. And for this condition we have elaborate rationalizations, instructing us that dependence for everything on somebody else is efficient and economical and a scientific miracle. I say, instead, that it is madness, mass produced.”

Some among us may not agree with his sentiments, but certainly we all can agree that upon the topic of potatoes an Irishman will have much to say.

The Patriarch

Posted: June 1, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: consciousness, What is an Art Farm | Tags: , | 1 Comment

It is generally considered there were six cradles of civilization on Planet Earth: Mesopotamia; ancient Egypt, India and China; the Caral-Supe of coastal Peru, and the Olmec of Mexico.  

Mesopotamia, known as the Fertile Crescent, is significant as the location of the Neolithic Revolution circa 10,000 BCE, from which arose the invention of the wheel, the planting of cereal crops, the development of cursive script, mathematics, astronomy and agriculture.    

The Kingdom of Sumer, situated between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, is known for its innovations in language, governance, and architecture; the Sumerians are considered the creators of civilization as modern humans understand it.  

The Akkadian Empire followed, reaching its political peak between the 24th and 22nd centuries BCE and generally regarded as the first empire in history.  

The Babylonian empire arose circa 1894 BCE and became the dominant power under Hammurabi, an extraordinary leader who gave himself the title “King of Babylon, Sumer and Akkad and of the four quarters of the world.”  Most well known for his detailed legal code, part of which remains on display in the Louvre, Hammurabai ranks highly among the great lawgivers of history.  But he is not among the Patriarchs.  

In southern Mesopotamia, maybe in the city of Camarina, or likely in the city of Ur, although most commonly believed to have been Ur of the Chaldeans was born, circa 1951 BCE, a male named Abraham, who once grown, heard the divine voice command, “And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great and thou shall be a blessing.”  In an empire of polytheism, Abraham followed a singular voice and became the Patriarch of monotheism.  

Abba Solomon Eban, the author of “My People: The Story of the Jews” tells the story of the Jewish odyssey as “…not a chronicle of remote, superhuman warriors.  It does not resemble the vision a resplendent heroic world such as the Greeks and other ancient peoples saw as their original state.  …In subsequent literature and memory the Hebrew nation looked back to its first ancestor as the prototype of two virtues: goodness and warmth in human relations and utter resignation, beyond mere humility, to the divine will.  Both Christian and Muslim traditions accept the historic authenticity of Abraham and admit him as their spiritual ancestor.  But to the Jews he is the first and unique Patriarch, the model of Hebrew excellence.  Inspired by his covenant and welded together by the memories of three generations descended from his loins, the Children of Israel, precariously settled in Egypt, cross the frontier into established history in the middle of the second millennium B.C.E.”

Ancestry is important, and the loins of Abraham are central both to Judaism and to the Christian faith.  Biblical tradition holds that the Twelve Tribes of Israel are the descendants of Jacob, descended from Abraham.  Chartres Cathedral, considered the high point of French Gothic art, has stained glass windows on the west wall showing the genealogy of the Royal House of David, in the form of a tree which springs from the loins of Jesse – he, a descendant of Jacob, and thus of Abraham – to reach its flowering in the carpenter’s son from Nazareth.

There is neither historical nor archeological evidence of Abraham.  More than one-hundred years of searching in the desert have produced no evidence of this man considered the founding father of the relationship between the Jews and God, the spiritual progenitor of all Christians and Eastern Orthodox, and in Islam, a link in the chain of prophets beginning with Adam and culminating in Muhammad.  

With more than 2.6 billion Christians and Eastern Orthodox plus 1.9 billion Muslims plus approximately 15.2 million Jews, more than half of the world’s population regard Abraham as a central pillar of their faith.  And Abraham’s heirs – whether biological or spiritual – have often been at war, among themselves.

War is of this world, not of the divine.  Constantine, of In Hoc Signo Vinces fame, converted to Christianity, while commanding the largest Roman army.  He hired as tutor to his son a philosopher named Lucius Caecilius Lactantius, who taught that the goals of any political power were always, “to extend the boundaries which are violently taken from others, to increase the power of the state, to improve the revenues,” by latrocinium, which in Latin means “violence and robbery.”  

The Nazarene, avatar of consciousness, Abraham’s grandson – the 54th as counted by Luke or the 43rd as per Matthew – Jesus taught, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”  The Holy Roman Emperor was a Caesar, and the teachings of latrocinium were passed down.  The Empire would rule for more than 1,000 years, until the 1800s.  

Pope Urban called for the First Crusade, in 1096, to slay the infidels in the Holy Land.  With alacrity his orders were carried out, thirty thousand people killed in three days.  Raymond of Aguilers described it, “Piles of heads, hands and feet were to be seen.  Men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins.  Indeed it was a just and splendid judgment of God that this place should be filled with the blood of unbelievers.”  

Robert the Monk, an abbot in France, argued the Muslims were a “vile and abominable race,” “despicable, degenerate and enslaved by demons,” “absolutely alien to God,” and “fit only for extermination.”

Many of the Knights stayed closer to home, in Europe, as Abba Eban writes, “ ‘Kill a Jew and save your soul’ became the shortcut taken by many a zealous Crusader.  A small number of Jews accepted baptism to remain alive; the majority refused, and died.” 

To the slaying, the Muslims responded in kind, an eye-for-an-eye, and Holy Jihad began.  Between 1096 and 1272 there were a total of nine Crusades, until 1291 when the Egyptian Mamelukes drove the Crusaders out of the Holy City.  

The story of Abraham has played out over more than 120 generations, and one is tempted to wonder for how many more generations will the Righteous continue their brutally horrid and inhumane fight?  We would do well to contemplate Abraham’s cardinal virtues: “goodness and warmth in human relations and utter resignation, beyond mere humility, to the divine will.”

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