"Green side Up"

OK.  I'm posting a lot lately.  Seems I'm teeming with thoughts that need some symbols around them so the casual observer can see into the beast.  I'm thinking about this most unusual August in Northwestern Minnesota, at least on our farm, between doing lint inspections in my belly button, working this years wonderful garden with Lyn, moving the cows between paddocks and chatting with drop-ins at the Richwood Farmer's Market.  I don't remember an August like this since I lived in Anchorage and Kenai, Alaska in the early 1970's.  Temperatures in the 70s in Minnesota in August can make one wonder what's up.  This past week we've been pretty dry, not so unusual for August, but the temperatures being relatively cool this August does make me wonder about climate change.  So, has the climate in Minnesota changed since I was a kid living with my parents in White Bear Lake through the 1960's?  How long does it take to grow a "climate" anyway.

I first heard the term "green side up" while working with a biologist named Carl Madsen.  Carl wasn't a fan of Industrial Agriculture in the late '70s when I first met him and his fellow habitat restoration buffs.  They were working the area of Minnesota I now live in and collectively they were working with farmers and others in this area to restore wetlands and grasslands primarily for ducks.  Sure they knew they were benefiting all sorts of little live things with their mantra and dogma to retard the declining numbers of ducks in Minnesota and the region (they knew it was happening everywhere, but they were keen on focusing in the area they lived in).  Carl was a great salesman for the idea that doing more for ducks had to happen off protected Federal and state lands and had to involve private landowners who owned drained wetlands and plowed ground that they might be willing to set back into a more natural situation than corn, soybeans and wheat. 

So, the idea of keeping the 'greenside up' came from their dogma of cooperative ideas generating better stewardship of the land in areas where ducks used to have adequate wetlands and uplands during the breeding season to do what ducks are supposed to do up north.  Eventually the ideas of these few hayseeds spread to a nationwide program of habitat restoration within the US Fish and Wildlife Service and became known as the Partners for Wildlife Program.  But I digress....

My point in all this finger pecking I'm doing tonight is to linger on this idea of the "green side up" in relation to some pretty radical weather we've seen across the US and the world lately.  Sure, severe weather on any given day is not an indication that global warming has arrived, but I'm thinking and writing here more about the patterns we're supposed to expect based upon findings by climatologists that we have increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to a point where climate patterns or weather events are likely to change in ways that are detrimental to our well being, no less everything else on earth.  Green side up is now a great way to think about it's corollary, brown side down or better still, carbon sequestered rather than burned and/or released into the atmosphere as CO2.

What's this thing about the arctic permafrost melting.  Seems to me there is a huge amount of methane stored under that permafrost and methane is more serious as a global warming agent that CO2.  There isn't any serious number of folks living on permafrost you know.  So who's going to notice when the tundra starts belching methane into the atmosphere at a rate that makes the methane released by all the  cows on the planet barely a fart in the bucket.

Having lived in Montana a good long time and not that long ago, I can't help but think about all those Rocky Mountain glaciers that are melting like marshmallows over an open fire.  I wonder if my pals and family in Montana might find their backyards warming up faster in the summer.  Hey, think of those glaciers as huge ice cubes dropping cold air down those headwaters into valleys and prairie areas.  Less glaciers has to mean less of that cold air sinking down.  And less reflective ice in those heads also means faster warming of mountains by sunlight.  Collectively doesn't that spell some pretty warm days in Western Montana during the summer than in the good old days?

Lets not get into Somalia and Kenya right now, OK?  We're talking about a migration of people away from some pretty serious drought that, across the board in Africa, China, Texas+, and elsewhere, looks like a pattern that spells serious trouble for local folks with spill over effects on others: like moi.  And, anyway, why are all those Mexicans crossing the boarder into the US of A anyway?  Worse yet, think of all the cops we've put on that boarder to keep them out.  How about the conflicts in Somalia?   Ever stop to think about why they raise poppies in Afghanistan?  Drought, that's why.  Any conflict going on in that country that hits close to home?  Three guesses why China is building some really big dams.  Sure hydropower, but also to stop some of the water leaving China because there is less of it coming down the pike.  Yup, I suspect the issues in Tibet are about water shortages too.  Crap, man, Pakistan is one of the driest places in the world and India is building dams to keep the water from going to Pakistan.  Wonder if that is a climatological iron curtain between those two countries.  I think humans get pissed when the climate goes south.  What do you think?

I'm thinking 'green side up' has come full circle for me, but what to do about global warming is still a bit out of sight for most of us.  For now I'm going to keep grass on this farm and do less driving in my GMC Subdivision.  I do wish our government under Obama would be more aggressive in implementing change in it's purchases of climate friendly buildings, vehicles, etc., etc.  Well, maybe after the election, right?  What the hell, when in doubt buy local food, that'll help.

When in doubt, keep the green side up.

Once Upon a Time in August

Most days on Blue Moon Farm are great days.  Lately there have been some exceptionally great days even if it's not clear to me the difference between "great" and "exceptionally great".  But, here goes...

First, in Minnesota, August is like a curse you know is going to happen to you.  You learn to expect August each summer like a dog expects fleas or ticks.  One day, let's say, July 31st, you're cruising along having a gay old time doing summer chores in a long sleeve shirt sans T-shirt and sweating up a mild storm, but in general feeling pretty good about 80 degrees and just enough wind to keep to "skits" (as mom used to call them) at bay.  For some reason you check the calender to see when the bull is going to join the heifers and cows and BLAM!!! there it is AUSGUSTA FIRSTA. "Oh Mon Deu" you cry aloud, "August 1st already?" and immediately your paranoia meter jams the needle max right.  Your body and mind start communicating worst case scenarios like temps and humidity getting married at 95 on the Fahrenheit scale.  Somehow this year the actual and the preconceived have not coincided and we have been on holiday for most of August.  That is not just great, it's exceptionally great.

Then, my anticipation of some great fishing in August was bushwhacked by a failure of the engineers at Mercury Outboard Motor Company to communicate with the Oil and Gas industry on a fuel that would actually work in a four-stroke outboard engine.  For the third season in a row, my outboard has croaked on the juice that keeps America in the race; gasoline.  "Nope, ain't fixin' it again" I jeered at the mechanics at J and K Marine in lovely downtown Detroit Lakes, MN.  If I have to be a motor geek to run a tillered 25 HP outboard motor I don't want one.  So, what's so exceptionally great about living in Becker County, Minnesota with it's 400 fishable lakes and owning a boat with an outboard motor that has gummy bears in the carburetor jets?  I get to do something else that's what.  I don't have to feel any obligation to spend two hours rounding up fishing gear, two hours trying to get the lights to work on the boat trailer, one hour untangling rods stuffed in a corner of the basement with last years line, hooks and dehydrated night crawlers on rusting hooks all bound together in a cobweb of Water Gremlin slip sinkers and bobbers.  Exceptionally great too is not having the repeat experience of trying to launch and land an 18 foot Crestliner boat from an antique trailer hitched to a '94 Suburban that when strung out reaches 18X3 or 54 feet in length at a public boat launch designed for a reasonably sized vehicle, a normal sized boat and a standard sized trailer totaling about 40 feet when all are daisy-chained at launch or take out.  Imagine if you will this suburban backed into a relic boat launch up to the back tires, a boat trailer behind it and into the water over the back tires so the boat will float off of it.  Then, try to see an 18 foot boat free-wheeling off that trailer into the lake with a 95 lb. woman holding onto the anchor rope white caps coming straight into the landing ahead of 25 knot winds.  The guy in the drivers seat is Moi and my German wire-haired pointer is running around this Cirque daa China Closet like she's on speed as she alpha females every dog scent ever left at this port.  An exceptionally good day is not having the option to recreate in this manner.

Lyn and I had an exceptionally great day with our customers at the Richwood Farmer's Market today.  Good people stop at farmers markets.  We spend our morning picking and sorting the very best produce our farm grows, packaging it to look delicious, safe and clean, chilling it as needed so it is delivered nearly as fresh as that which we eat at our own table.  We load up our market shelter, a table, some chairs, coolers of produce, a cash box, some bags, a scale and off we go 1.5 miles to Richwood to meet our fellow local food fanatics on their way to their lake homes from Fargo-Moorhead or just regular old local folks like us looking for some August tomatoes or sweet corn.  Imagine the conversations we have with these people as they fondle our offerings.  Imagine me trying to find out what lake they are on and whether they fish or just hang out eating for two days.  Imagine the exchange of coins for the red tomatoes, the 'Half Dozen' ears of corn or the surprise when a majority of our customers like beets.  How about the story today from Jeff of Moorhead that he makes the best liver and onions of anyone, anywhere and yes, he'll take all the onions I have left.  And, "Ooh, by the way Ron, if you have more onions than you need for winter at your house, I'd love to buy a 25 or 50 lb. bag from you.  We'll be coming back over for Labor Day Weekend and I'll pick them up then, if you can spare that many."  And Virginia C. who was searching for pickles for her friend who didn't "raise" a garden this year.  Were we the "Richwood Market" that her husband had called to hold a bag of pickles for her?"  How can you not like these people.  Even the locals coming from 5 to 10 miles away looking for sweet corn at the end of our market session and not bothered a bit if we had 'just ran out'.  I went almost into a seizure four or five weeks ago when a guy came looking for sweet corn; another potatoes, and a woman asking if we had onions.  These requests in June made me realize how badly our food system has failed us.  Everything is always available at Walmart or the other chainstores.  Why wouldn't a farmers market have late summer items just after the frost went out of the ground at 47 degrees north latitude?  We have lost our way a bit in this regard.  But, for me, the sum of this experience is an exceptionally great day.

Amen.

The Clay Oven Caper

I've always liked making bread.  I suspect it's the same as potters throwing pots.  There is something in the formless gooiness of the preparations that takes a mind out of itself and turns the world into a sensual mass ideally suited for a countertop concerto for two hands.  Since finding our anchorage along marsh-front property in Becker County, Minnesota and with three years of engagement in our fertile Blue Moon Garden we have come to the conclusion that a day without homemade bread on the table is a day wasted.  A lingering issue is how to make bread in Minnesota in the summertime without baking the bread and the occupants of the farmhouse, namely; Lyn and I, the parrots and our dog Tess.  A bright idea has found me and the caper goes like this.

Somehow the bread baking has to occur outside the house.  I've heard of Basque sheep herders building their own rock ovens in the mountains of Montana (and elsewhere of course too as Basques have been world travelers since Basques became Basques or so I'm told).  Here, on the White Earth Indian Reservation in Northwestern Minnesota we are blessed with some essentials for making an outdoor baking oven.  Maybe I'm not blessed with ingenuity like the Basques, but that shouldn't keep me from finding the keys to the kingdom of clay oven building.

We live on a glacial ridge loaded with lakes and marshes as I've already mentioned, but also blessed with more glacier tumbled rock than there are fish in the sea.  Ask any farmer from this area if he's ever picked rock before spring plowing and she'll look at you like you barfed up a goldfish.  So, the Basques in the mountains don't have anything on us there.

The name "White Earth" comes from the workings of the glaciers as well.  Under the 9 to 15 inches of nearly black topsoil of this area lies several feet of a whitish clay, slightly loamy subsoil that, although not a pure clay, it is a very suitable base for making adobe.  What would be added after removing some of the pebbles and other minor impurities would be some straw.  Luckily, the normal crop rotations in this area are corn, wheat and soybeans followed by corn, wheat and soybeans ad nosium.... There must be some straw in there somewhere, right?

Now if only the glaciers had left some sandy outwash plains nearby.  Well, shucks if they didn't.  There is no sand on Blue Moon Farm, but within two miles there is a gravel operation with enough sand to fill the new Twins ballpark.

So.  I need some wood according to the recipes I've seen for building and heating an outdoor clay oven.  No shortage of wood here either.  We are situated in the transition zone between the prairie and mixed conifer vegetation types mapped in Minnesota.  Lyn and I heat our little farmhouse primarily with hardwood from our 25 acres of woodland on our 80 acre farm.  There.  The ingredients for constructing a clay oven are available and abundant.  So what's the holdup.  Certainly it's not the bread dough I have waiting in the refrigerator.

No!  It's my lack of confidence that I can pull off this caper without a trusty Basque or Hopi or kiln builder guiding the way.  That's really nonsense when I look at the addition I just added to our house so we had an entry room to take off muddy or wet boots before entering our dining area.  Should be the same skill set as that endeavor was:

0.  Design the project if you have time.
1.  Gather materials.  Then, make a materials list after redundant trips to Menards.
2.  Consider the order for constructing the project after you have some of the work done.
2a. Re do the design.
3.  Throw away all designs and keep working toward the image you have in your minds eye.
4.  Cuss your way through the mistakes.
5.  Start over if necessary.
6.  Get help when things really turn to crap.
7.  Start over.
8.  Hire someone to do it for you.
9.  Go in the house and make bread dough if that's what you're good at.
10.  Wait until the oven is finished by the Basque you imported from Northern Spain or Southern France, depending on your country of origin.
11.  Go outside and throw some bread dough in the oven and wait for the black smoke to come out of the chimney.
12.  That means the College of Cardinals have elected a new pope, and;
13.  Start over....

Well, you know what I mean.   And thus, the title of this post.  Lyn said I can't start anymore projects this year.  I guess that means I have already spent beyond our means on the 'mudroom' and constructing 5 or 6 prototype clay ovens all over the farm might mean further bankruptcy filings for us (we are small scale non-commodities farmers you know).

Stay tuned as this frivolous, carefree episode continues, and please; keep the green side up or remember the old saying; "If it's brown flush it down, if it's green feed it to the cows or make salad out of it."  Let me check my notes on that one again, but I think that's pretty close.

The Blue Moon Farmer-Baker-Not So Basque Clay Oven Builder

The Unplugged Scientist

The Unplugged Scientist drinks his tea on a Saturday morning in the green glow of a rising sun filtered through the flush of summer on his Blue Moon Farm.  How, after so many years of taking things apart, checking their oil (so to speak) and writing tales of how the world works, do I find myself now in the midst of a world view collapse.  Yes, the 'scientist' is supposed to put Humpty Dumpty back to together again after the myriad dissections, but for some reason that doesn't seem to be happening at political levels. 

Let's get serious here.  First, I have no idea what I'm talking about.  Second, I have no idea what I mean by that first paragraph.  Well maybe I do.  I mean, since coming to this farmstead and digging in four years ago, my inner scientist has found himself in a vortex like reversed world view.  I find myself consolidating.  I see things in lumps rather than pieces.  I find myself gathering rather than taking apart.  I don't see "cattails" in a marsh now.  I see a marsh woven with cattails, sedges, Reed canary grass, ....  Our chickens are not, "Ribbons and Curly, or Sophie and Hobbes, but a flock of free ranging omnivores constantly in search of their well being and a south facing building foundation to dust against.  When I go to move the cows to a new paddock I'm walking in a sun-soaked tame grassland supporting cow pies, flies, frogs, hoppers, thistle, fences, cattle, salt skidders, marsh, surrounded by forest, sky, warmth, wind and me; yes me!  Pushing myself through this maize of connectedness and like the wind causing a ripple, albeit, a slight one, in time.

I put on my rubber knee-high boots the other day.  Took to the marsh to check my aquatic insect traps and found that the dragon flies larvae had once again evaded my trapline.  Hummmm.  There I was again, trying to take the system I depend upon apart.  The empty trap was like a sign (about time I get a "sign" around here) signaling; "STOP.  You can't see anything by taking this apart".  Years and years of study and conditioning standing at attention in the marsh with this sign slapping me "smack" in the forehead.  Off in the distance a combine is spewing dust above the neighbor's wheat field as the harvest is underway in every direction except east (Ha! The forest gets in the way of harvest to the east.  Three Cheers for that luck!).  They are taking apart the wheat field, counting their "beans" and putting them in a basket.  Dismantling.  Great word with "man" locked inside it.  We are a beast that takes things apart.  Then, we engineer until we attempt anxiously to reassemble our restless behavior.  We try to make it better with our sliderules (oops those are artifacts now, so I mean our computers) and our ingenuity and what I'll see of that wheat field in a while is a baler going hell bent for election to role up the straw leaving a stubble as frisky as a hog haired brush each bristle pointing to the sun.  How ironic.  Most of the farmers here will fallow those fields for winter hoping to get back in them in spring as soon as the drains move the spring melt to the sandbags protecting Fargo from the annual 100-year flood of the Red River of the North.

We have learned to take it apart, whatever it is.  We believe we are putting it back together again.  (Sorry, Humpty).  Yet each year I find myself in a sulk of inter sadness.  We all feel it.  We all mostly ignore it.  Even politicians feel it, but I have to believe they interpret their feelings as symptoms of the stress of their work and so take analgesics to counter the pain.  Our intuitive emotional fabric is working, but we are trying to fix it with a mis-ID and a pill.  Each year that we take it apart it comes back together a bit shabbier than the last.  But, those incremental bits of difference are almost undetectable and thus the lawmakers and the policy makers fail to fix anything as well.  A scientist worth her salt will take the pieces, thrice examined, shine them against her hypotheses and draw some conclusions.  Not definitive conclusions since by nature science is incremental in its truth telling.  Those conclusions are turned to recommendations and sent up the line for lawmakers, policy makers, and decision makers to deal with.  The result is they take another pill and pass the buck to the future overwhelmed with the complexity of the mouse trap we find ourselves walking into.  Even with their constituents dropping like flies in the human pies we have spread in our wake, the leaders of our communities, our counties, our states, our nation, the world do little more than sidestep the 'pies' for fear of it sticking to their loafers.

I'm going out now.  I'm going to walk outside this post into the fresh air and make a small wrinkle in time again.  On my way, you come too, I'm going to unplug my scientist and lean into the day like a cog in the wheel.

Ah, the greenside is up on Blue Moon Farm.  And it is richly overwhelming....

Hello my fellow Debt Ceiling Refugees.  Is that the correct phase for how I'm feeling about having the American Debt Ceiling increased?  Somehow I feel like I'm on a sinking life boat somewhere between Miami and Cuba in shark infested water, but my president and a bunch of lunatic extremists in Congress have thrown me a cement life preserver with a new Visa Card in the vest pocket. 

Why do us average Americans even have to know about this Debt Ceiling stuff anyway?  It's not like I get to discuss or even know what the options are.  I have two Senators and a District 7 House Rep. there in Washington, DC taking care of me on this matter and we Minnewegians pay them well to tend the chicken coop for us and keep those big bad Republican Wolves away from our free range chickens: Here Little!  Here Red!  Here Riding!  Here Hood!.  All secure and tucked into the coop for the night.  I can rest assured.

Rest Assured?  Rest assured about what?  I don't even know what the Debt Ceiling looks like.  Did Michael What's His Name paint on it or am I thinking of a chapel somewhere in Rome?  I guess I'm supposed to be reassured that the "full faith and confidence" of the world has been restored in our ability to pay back our debts.  But, since when would a guy like me worry about paying back a debt to China or France or O'Canada for that matter, when I'm going down in shark infested water clinging to a cement life preserver with an unsigned credit card in the vest pocket just behind my emergency Acme Thunderer black plastic whistle (only to be used in case of emergency)?  I, being a life-long debt monger (I should have been a fish monger), have never had to worry about paying back my borrowed debts.  If I didn't there was a contract that specifically stated I would be thrust behind bars for eternity if I defaulted.  Hells Bells man, the good old US of A has a nuclear arsenal to back up it's "full faith  and confidence" should we ever have to default.  I mean, to me that says loud and clear: "Hey schmuck, we'll pay you back when we get the cash.  Right now we're in a spiral to hell economy and the Tea Mongers (who are really spouting terrorist tactics while holding us all hostage to their radical position that if we don't curb the spending we won't see God) are trying to slow the economy even more by curbing government spending whilst all their corporate booking agents are holding two trillion dollars in escrow (aka hording shareholders money) because they know the average American (that's me and you unless you're a corporation reading this) doesn't have a dollar to spend on anything besides food, clothing and shelter and many of us low lifes don't even have money for more than one of those three items.

OK.  So, we less than upper class folks are busted.  The wealthy 1% now own 70% of American wealth.  Uncle Sam has his hands tied behind his back so he can't press the keys at the ATM.  THEY are cutting my social security and my annuity by not allowing any increases in cost of living and more cuts are promised by this new law.  God knows the cost of living isn't going up anyway,  according to the latest poll conducted by the 1% that own 70% of the wealth. 

I think this is a perfect lead into the title of this post.  I've been contemplating turning my bull, Joey Mauer, in with my cows so he can breed them and I can get rich on the seven or eight calves they might produce next spring.  See, I like my calves to slide onto a green carpet on the opening day of their ballgame.  When I lived in Montana and I wasn't the cowboy I am now, I observed many ranchers calving in February and never really understood why calves wanted to be born in a Montana blizzard, why a cow would like going into labor when she was at the peak of her annual malnourishment and why a rancher would want to participate in pulling a breached calf or even just watching  calves be born when the wind is howling, the snow is flying sideways and their breathe is freezing their mustache to their nose hairs.  There certainly was a reason for choosing February in Montana, but I see no reason for anything before mid-May in Northwestern Minnesota.  Unless.  Unless you are raising cows for the commodities market and that's the best timing for getting calves ready for the finishing feedlots in Kansas or Nebraska.  Well, I raise grass fed beeves and I don't know if I have a market from one day to the next, one month to the next or one year to the next.  So, why not have calves on this farm in mid-May after the cows have fed on green grass for at least two weeks, the temperatures have moderated somewhat and spring blizzards are at least three or four days apart rather than non-stop in February.  So, I'm thinking tomorrow I'll let Joey in with "the girls" and that'll be that until next May. 

And of course this brings me full circle.  Yesterday I was locked in a debate with myself over the National Debby Sealing and today I'm all flustered trying to figure out if Joey should be with "the girls" now or in a few days.  And before I knew it all my troubles were over.  The National Kentucky Derby was passed and President Obama signed it into law and tomorrow Joey Mauer the Angus bull will step into the greenest pasture he has seen since last August.  His upper lip will be doing curls like a weight lifter and life will go on. 

I love farming.  I made this procreative bovine decision without any negotiations with President Obama or Congress, there was no Bill to be signed into law and I'm not in prison for defaulting on my debt.  I do have seven grandchildren though, and now I'm wondering; just how I explain "debt ceiling" to them.  I have to find a way to tell them what we are putting off for them to pay for.  They are the ones who really got stuck with the Bill as far as I can see and this little old farm I'm loosing to the bank one day at a time is surely not going to be a nuclear arsenal they can brandish in front of their World contending to be broke.  Maybe they won't have to worry about it.  Maybe by then the world will be one nation under China with liberty and justice for all.

Green side is up and it sure is purdy....

No, I'm not strangling that calf.  It's not at all interested in being photographed and I didn't want it out of my grasp, so to speak.  This little guy had a bout of scours and pneumonia earlier this summer and he's just back from the Vet's shop in this photo. 

Boy, it's been a while since I've done this; posted.  I've actually been off trying my hand at setting up a website for this blog, it's own domain name, the works.  Well, it didn't work.  Even my trusty iMac and iWeb failed me in this effort.  I mean I got totally crashed out trying this.  Sure it cost it me plenty to purchase all the gookimpucky it takes to do that, but just now I went to GoDaddy and cancelled the whole works.  I even cancelled the website for the farm that was really nicely done if I do say so myself.

Here's the rub.  I just couldn't justify my ego any longer.  I mean, why else would someone go to all that trouble unless it was making him rich and famous or at least one of the above.  Why am I still doing this blog on "Bloddger"?  I have no idea.  At least five of you are following my  writing adventure, but to be sure, I'm not sure I'm following myself all that well. 

Sure it's fun to goof off with a Blog like this and it does get me to sit down and drop some nonsense on the page for Posterity's sake, but I'm not sure Posterity reads this stuff.  At least Blogspot is free and someone other than me has to maintain it.

So, for a while I'll keep this blog going and try to make it interesting, helpful or useless; whatever strikes you as correct. As you can see there is no rhyme nor reason for the timing of my posts.  If I was a real blogger I'd do one everyday.  I'm a fake blogger.

By the way, the calf is doing fine and I ended up calling him "Pneumo" even if he's destined for a trip to the Ballpark in a couple of years.

Ta ta, chit chatty and all that.  It's summertime lets go fishing or do something outside.  Since its late I might just turn on the Twins game as they are in LA tonight and I suspect it's the Angels night to win.  Maybe I'll think of something important to write about, like the passage of a Bill by Congress to raise the debt ceiling.  Say What?  I think they ought to pass a law that whatever has been biting me these past few days knocks it off.  My legs look like little groups of cells have blown up and left bright red circles under my skin.  Itch.  Damn straight they itch.  That's how I know it's summer.  Sometimes I hate antigen/antibody reactions.

Farmer Ron