Friday, August 03, 2007
My Sister, the Revolutionary
I took a vacation day today in order to try on dresses. Let me 'xplain. My sister is getting married in September and she has asked me to be her matron (gack! that word! so old!) of honor. I'm honored to be asked. Of course, this means that I need a dress. She bought her wedding dress a couple of months ago and has been after me to come try on dresses so that she has this part of the wedding figured out. We've been so busy this summer that I've had trouble finding time, so I finally just took a day off. My sister also asked my daughter to be one of the bridesmaids, so she had to try on dresses too.
We did the dress thing and went back to my sister's house. She and her fiance (a really fabulous, kind guy) have a house in the country, where they've been moving more deeply into farming. It started with a garden and progressed to chickens and now pigs. I can't believe how much pig poop stinks. Yech! They have three pigs, Grizzly, Priscilla, and Wilbur. Grizzly has another name - W.D. It stands for Wedding Dinner. (Alright, go ahead and get all Charlotte's Web on me.) When we were finished looking over the pigs and chickens, making special note of the one-legged chicken who had accidentally stepped into a trap, we went to the garden.
I love my sister's garden. She's got a wide variety of veggies, including broccoli, spinach, carrots, peas, beans, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, corn, lettuce, the ubiquitous zucchini, and kohlrabi. She also has berries and watermelon, and I'm probably missing some other things. Most years the garden is a riot of production and we can wander through picking what we like. It's a personal farmer's market; it's all organic and they don't water it. In the spirit of my Yard and Patio Revolutionaries post, I asked if they saved the seeds. They do and they've found that the seeds they've saved actually work better than store-bought ones. I asked if they thought the seeds had evolved to deal with their soil and growing conditions and they thought maybe so. How cool is that? My sister and her soon-to-be husband are already Yard Revolutionaries. My sister also does her own canning, which is one of those old-fashioned tasks I previously mentioned. A dying art, really, but not in my sister's household.
We did the dress thing and went back to my sister's house. She and her fiance (a really fabulous, kind guy) have a house in the country, where they've been moving more deeply into farming. It started with a garden and progressed to chickens and now pigs. I can't believe how much pig poop stinks. Yech! They have three pigs, Grizzly, Priscilla, and Wilbur. Grizzly has another name - W.D. It stands for Wedding Dinner. (Alright, go ahead and get all Charlotte's Web on me.) When we were finished looking over the pigs and chickens, making special note of the one-legged chicken who had accidentally stepped into a trap, we went to the garden.
I love my sister's garden. She's got a wide variety of veggies, including broccoli, spinach, carrots, peas, beans, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, corn, lettuce, the ubiquitous zucchini, and kohlrabi. She also has berries and watermelon, and I'm probably missing some other things. Most years the garden is a riot of production and we can wander through picking what we like. It's a personal farmer's market; it's all organic and they don't water it. In the spirit of my Yard and Patio Revolutionaries post, I asked if they saved the seeds. They do and they've found that the seeds they've saved actually work better than store-bought ones. I asked if they thought the seeds had evolved to deal with their soil and growing conditions and they thought maybe so. How cool is that? My sister and her soon-to-be husband are already Yard Revolutionaries. My sister also does her own canning, which is one of those old-fashioned tasks I previously mentioned. A dying art, really, but not in my sister's household.
Labels: chickens, daughter, dresses, garden, pigs, seed savers, seeds, vacation, wedding
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Trophic Cascade
Trophic cascade. Such a lovely term for a not-so-lovely phenomenon. A trophic cascade is a domino effect in the natural world, wherein if one part of an ecosystem is taken away, the others around it eventually fail. According to "The Sixth Extinction" by Terry Glavin, deforestation has been a major cause of trophic cascades around the world. Once the trees are gone, the plants and animals dependent upon the trees tend to go extinct if they can't find another area to move into. Trouble is that it's not only the plants and animals that suffer, but human beings, too. Once a trophic cascade really gets going, its eventual outcome is to take human culture with it as well.
Political upheaval can also cause a trophic cascade. Witness Iraq. Did you know that Iraqi farmers are not allowed to save agricultural seeds from year to year? Or that the U.S. government ordered Iraqi seed stocks to be destroyed during the war? Neither did I, until someone mentioned it at my writers group. I looked it up. Unfortunately, 'tis true under Order 81 of The Coalition Provisional Authority. There is a more intelligible discussion of the issue at CorpWatch. While I had no idea this was going on, I've been well aware of the cultural destruction in Iraq, having heard quite a bit about the looting of Iraqi museums.
According to Glavin, the current extinction cycle, the sixth in the earth's history that we're aware of, is by far the most destructive of all the extinction cycles because we have twice the average biological diversity of any other period on earth. The other extinctions were the Ordovician, Devonian, Permian (most destructive before this one), Triassic, and Cretaceous, which took the dinosaurs.
Although the entire subject is incredibly depressing if you're paying attention (and we all should be paying attention, because our necks are on the line), Glavin's book is not depressing, but quite hopeful. Along with pointing out the complex interplay between species and the causes of extinction, he regularly discusses the ways that humans have attempted to stem the bleed of species extinctions, in some cases even reversing extinctions. Bald eagles, which I rarely ever saw in central Minnesota as a child, now often fly over the area where I work. We've even seen flocks of them in area fields. They've made such a comeback that they've been removed from the Endangered Species list. Wild turkeys are also returning in force, as are timber wolves.
Human beings can be a wondrous force for change, if we put our minds to it.
Political upheaval can also cause a trophic cascade. Witness Iraq. Did you know that Iraqi farmers are not allowed to save agricultural seeds from year to year? Or that the U.S. government ordered Iraqi seed stocks to be destroyed during the war? Neither did I, until someone mentioned it at my writers group. I looked it up. Unfortunately, 'tis true under Order 81 of The Coalition Provisional Authority. There is a more intelligible discussion of the issue at CorpWatch. While I had no idea this was going on, I've been well aware of the cultural destruction in Iraq, having heard quite a bit about the looting of Iraqi museums.
According to Glavin, the current extinction cycle, the sixth in the earth's history that we're aware of, is by far the most destructive of all the extinction cycles because we have twice the average biological diversity of any other period on earth. The other extinctions were the Ordovician, Devonian, Permian (most destructive before this one), Triassic, and Cretaceous, which took the dinosaurs.
Although the entire subject is incredibly depressing if you're paying attention (and we all should be paying attention, because our necks are on the line), Glavin's book is not depressing, but quite hopeful. Along with pointing out the complex interplay between species and the causes of extinction, he regularly discusses the ways that humans have attempted to stem the bleed of species extinctions, in some cases even reversing extinctions. Bald eagles, which I rarely ever saw in central Minnesota as a child, now often fly over the area where I work. We've even seen flocks of them in area fields. They've made such a comeback that they've been removed from the Endangered Species list. Wild turkeys are also returning in force, as are timber wolves.
Human beings can be a wondrous force for change, if we put our minds to it.
Labels: animals, eagles, earth, extinction, human being, iraq, minnesota, plants, seeds, terry glavin, trophic cascade, turkey, wolves
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Seed Savers
I have to apologize for yesterday's post. It lacks a certain clarity that I like to convey, almost as though my brain was sitting in a sock while I was writing it. That wasn't the case, really. It was more a matter of thought overwhelm - too many ideas coming out at once and, because I was blogging, not writing an essay, I didn't take the time to properly stitch them all together. Sorry about that.
The RUSS method of artistic resource conservation wasn't even on my mind when I first started blogging. It just popped out, but it's pretty good.
Now, to continue this discussion of getting an ancient hobby. I've been reading "The Sixth Extinction" by Terry Glavin and have finished the chapter "An Apple Is a Kind of Rose," wherein Glavin discusses how ten major corporations have control of around half of the world's seed reservoir. That means that ten corporations control most of our major agricultural crops. They own patents on them and will legally pursue anyone who attempts to create new plants from their inventions. They've modified plants so that when they grow, they won't produce seeds, or it takes the application of the company's herbicides in order to get the plants to grow. This might not be such an issue - companies owning certain plant hybrids - except that "wild" seeds and plants are going extinct at a rapid rate and wild seeds are humanity's hedge against problems with the hybrids.
Glavin mentions that there are a number of people who've been so disturbed by the situation that they've started seed banks. One of these is Kent Wheatly in Decorah, Iowa, with his Seed Savers Exchange, which he began in 1975. (Glavin doesn't mention Diane Ott Wheatly's role in co-founding Seed Savers Exchange.) Seed saving appears to be one of those little underground activities - in some countries it's illegal to do this - like complimentary medicine and organic farming (at least in my neck of the woods). For that reason, it would make a great hobby, one that might be the saving grace of humanity in the future. If each of us chose one or two heirloom varieties of plants to grow in our yards or in pots in our homes, voila! We'd not only have a new pastime, we'd be helping to preserve an essential part of nature. Now, if we could just change the zoning ordinances in our towns so that they'd be more tolerant of wild plantings, rather than perfectly manicured, mostly useless grass, then we'd be onto something.
Coincidence ALERT: Yesterday a writer friend and I were emailing back and forth and she mentioned that she was researching farming and agricultural practices for a novel she's writing. Lo, and behold, she said that she had found information on seed saving and heirloom varieties of plants. We had come across the same topic at about the same time through two different routes.
The RUSS method of artistic resource conservation wasn't even on my mind when I first started blogging. It just popped out, but it's pretty good.
Now, to continue this discussion of getting an ancient hobby. I've been reading "The Sixth Extinction" by Terry Glavin and have finished the chapter "An Apple Is a Kind of Rose," wherein Glavin discusses how ten major corporations have control of around half of the world's seed reservoir. That means that ten corporations control most of our major agricultural crops. They own patents on them and will legally pursue anyone who attempts to create new plants from their inventions. They've modified plants so that when they grow, they won't produce seeds, or it takes the application of the company's herbicides in order to get the plants to grow. This might not be such an issue - companies owning certain plant hybrids - except that "wild" seeds and plants are going extinct at a rapid rate and wild seeds are humanity's hedge against problems with the hybrids.
Glavin mentions that there are a number of people who've been so disturbed by the situation that they've started seed banks. One of these is Kent Wheatly in Decorah, Iowa, with his Seed Savers Exchange, which he began in 1975. (Glavin doesn't mention Diane Ott Wheatly's role in co-founding Seed Savers Exchange.) Seed saving appears to be one of those little underground activities - in some countries it's illegal to do this - like complimentary medicine and organic farming (at least in my neck of the woods). For that reason, it would make a great hobby, one that might be the saving grace of humanity in the future. If each of us chose one or two heirloom varieties of plants to grow in our yards or in pots in our homes, voila! We'd not only have a new pastime, we'd be helping to preserve an essential part of nature. Now, if we could just change the zoning ordinances in our towns so that they'd be more tolerant of wild plantings, rather than perfectly manicured, mostly useless grass, then we'd be onto something.
Coincidence ALERT: Yesterday a writer friend and I were emailing back and forth and she mentioned that she was researching farming and agricultural practices for a novel she's writing. Lo, and behold, she said that she had found information on seed saving and heirloom varieties of plants. We had come across the same topic at about the same time through two different routes.
Labels: agriculture, art, extinction, farming, friend, hobbies, seed savers, seeds, terry glavin, writing
