I came home from work yesterday and noticed the garlic is scaping. When I say that escalated quickly, I mean it; it was just minding its own business the day before.
I’m home now, but please know I was thinking of you on my recent trip ᏣᎳᎫᏪᏘᏱ Tsalaguwetiyi (also known as southeastern Tennessee).
So. Part of my lack of timely newsletters has to do with the fact that I started a new job a few weeks ago, and that once I had a week under my belt, Jim and I struck out on a long-planned road trip to a cabin in Tellico Plains, Tennessee. We’d visited before, back in October 2021, on the recommendation of a good friend/former colleague, and it was so magical out there that I declared we should come back again in the late spring/early summer, circumstances permitting. So we went.
What struck me this time?
Watching the shadows of cumulus clouds move across the valley floor—majestic, easy, and in no hurry, like turtles moving through water;
The birds and the frogs and whatever else was outside at dawn tuning up and then offering a concert to me, bleary but witnessing, on the balcony;
The morning fog. (I’ll never be over it);
Tracking the movements of livestock pasturing in the valley each day, which entailed performing cow checks every hour and remaining invested in the habits of the sheep; and
The beauty of doing “nothing”… which, in my case, was “noting”.
It was a much-needed reset for us, with plenty of room and time and fresh air to think and consider and make some tentative plans. I don’t know when we’ll be able to do it again, so I made an effort to recognize those moments as though they would never come again and had never been before. My gratitude is boundless.
Confession time!
This year’s garden isn’t going AT ALL the way I wanted it to go, for many reasons—the seedlings didn’t do well, fauna eating my plants, I had/still have various/numerous small wear-and-tear injuries rearing their head at the same time, the weather was uncooperative at critical times, my evolving job situation, etc. Whatever. All I know is that this heady combination has made it very difficult to manage what I had planned, which surprises me a lot and alarms me a little. It’s another layer to add to the constant risk assessment I’m performing in the covid sphere—am I gonna hurt myself doing this? Are the squirrels just going to destroy everything? I do not feel like much of a Backyard Industrialist.
So of course I’m thinking about discipline, and rigor, and going hard, and how perhaps I have to rethink what that means. I’m reminded of this tweet about the tortoise (turtle?) who slowly moved an amount of earth that weighed more than it did. I think everyone has their own version of going hard, and this isn’t a competition (though it absolutely feels like one sometimes), but it’s hard for me to not feel a sense of urgency. Now is definitely not the time to not be able to go hard in the yard.
That little booklet of east central Illinoisian poetry I referenced in my previous post reminded me of a note published in the “Contact” section of the May 1970 issue of Mother Earth News. [Sidebar: I bought a bunch of early issues from a seller online many years ago, and I fell in love with reading readers’ missives.]
The note reads:
One June 1, 1970, my partner and I plan to open a “head shop” in Springfield, Ill., by the name Morning Glory. We are now in the process of ordering and purchasing merchandise for our new business. As there are no original “head” articles available to the public in this locality at present, we believe a good shop carrying original handicrafts and articles from communes and the West Coast, would be a great success. We are also interested in carrying various types of underground newspapers.
Charles L. Scott
Rural Route 2
Auburn, Ill. 62615
Because I’m me, I wonder if anyone wrote back. Did Charles and his partner get to open the store? how did it go? Did they find what they were looking for in 1970? (I couldn’t find anything in a quick online search.) There were so many seekers back then, traveling one way or another, looking for something and determined to find it, and those early issues of Mother Earth News are filled with letters and notes from very interesting people who were doing very interesting things and who were sincerely trying to connect with others and create in-person community.
Like… whatever happened to these people? Because they were AWESOME.
The New Life Environmental Design Institute is a nonprofit organization designed to provide access to the tools, techniques, and theoretical procedures of a restructured and decentralized environment.
We are now gathering information of life-support systems with the following characteristics:
ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE
By this we mean systems which are as independent as possible form the major economic institutions, i.e., the Madison Avenue brand of consumerism; inefficient use of labor, wasteful gadgetry.ECOLOGICAL FIT
The systems we want are those which will yield little or no pollution, or grossly disrupt the effects on the local, or total environment.
EASE OF CONSTRUCTION OR ACCESS
The systems should be simple to construct of readily available, minimum cost materials or the systems should be available through existing markets.
INDEPENDENT MAINTENANCE
These systems should be as maintenance-free as possible, and what repair work must be done should be carried out by the immediate users.
The above, which also appears in issue #3, was sent in by one Richard Tillman from New Orleans. Another cursory online search indicated that NLEDI was formed in or moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan, and there was a newsletter, but… that’s it.
20+ years ago, I made it my business to begin building a library—largely comprising thrifted books and magazines scored from yard sales/library discards/the occasional foray online—that shared other ways of keeping a house, told me what was important to some people decades ago, and showed me how some people lived with small(er) footprints and a large array of DIY skills. I have so much print shelved in our basement. The information will never not be valuable to me, but now I also find myself newly curious about the stories. Like, I’m wondering how this went for the folks at The Toronto Brain Farm in Ontario, Canada in 1970, cuz I kinda feel the same 52 years later:
Our invite’s open for the summer. We are interested in congenial folks without the usual hassles or mooches.
++++++++++++++++++
LOTSA (Lisa’s Open Tabs, Saved Aggressively)
Thinking about getting into writing cinquains
“Tool maker, stacker of wheat”
I wish I could have been in the room when this was arrived at as a book title
This show was absolutely beautiful MAGIC this past weekend
If you need to make strawberry shortcake for a crowd, use this cake recipe as your base
My friend Mike was right: This bird app changed my life
I’ll be watching this over the weekend
Quite smitten with microsolidarity
More next week. No hassling or mooching, OK?
Lovely thoughts and ideas. I also want to hear about your NEW JOB.
Gah! I've tried innumerable times to comment but something always goes awry. Anyways, I enjoyed this and the "microsolidarity" concept BEAUTIFULLY describes what I'm hoping will happen if I do this podcasting/interviewing thing. Thanks!