Farm Friday, June 9th, 2023

Summer is here!

A Maple tree in our forest. The full leaf cover means forest walks are shaded. All photos by the author.

This week we hosted our last school group of the year. My focus will shift to planting and weeding the gardens and keeping up with the mowing. I hope I will have time to get to woodworking, writing essays, and reading, but I know summer on a farm can provide unexpected work around every corner.

My Morris dance group participated in a gathering of other Morris dancers over Memorial Day Weekend.

Video here of a “molly” dance called Katy Cruel:

From the ground

The same dance from a drone

Video here is the documentary my friend Chris made about the team. It is long but might be interesting to you.

hawkweed loves the sun.

Three sisters getting some water

We plant corn, beans, and squash all in a “hill” and then weed it until the corn is tall and the squash shades out the weeds.

Pumpkins in the big field, flanked by a tall rye cover crop, which provides some shelter to the new transplants.

Our first flush of Chicken-of-the woods mushroom. A summer treat.

The garlic looks good. The potatoes have not come up through the mulch, yet.

Rheaa and Poppers on pasture with the sheep.

A sure sign of summer is that we have hay down. Once dry, our neighbor will bale it up for us.

There is a good fruit set for the apples in the orchard.

Catching a swallowtail butterfly on some sage that is flowering.

In writing news, there is no news. Busy with kids and planting. But here are some undeveloped essays that are simmering:

1. Lessons from The History of the Germans Podcast. I am in love with this dry podcast of history from the 900s-1100s (so far). It is like Game of Thrones without the dragons and white walkers.
2. OK, Groomer. I am thinking about how I was groomed by the people around me to be straight and male-presenting. The crowd that is worried about LGBTQ+ folks grooming children has a long history of grooming their own children. I haven’t touched this essay because it is a powderkeg and I don’t know enough to navigate it well, yet. I do notice that the young people I teach are not negatively affected by having the option to declare their pronouns in a circle.
3. Climate change topic: what if economic collapse is the only way to slow down climate change? Should I (1) get ready for collapse and (2) hope for it?
4. Social media is literally killing our young people. Ezra Klein interviewed the author of Generations, and she made a strong case for social media causing an uptick in self-harm and suicide. This is an issue near to me, as a teacher, and I deleted my Instagram app the next day. I find disengaging from the internet is harder than just deleting the app.
5. I need to write about the whole “anti-woke” talking point on the right. I think this is a winner for them, but it could bring us closer to fascism. I don’t know how the Dems can fight against the Republicans calling them “woke.” If they deny it, they risk losing their base. If they accept the label, it is fuel on the Trump/Desantis fire. I need to write about it because it scares the shit out of me and I want to wrap my head around it.
6. I am considering a piece about Medium. I want to be sure to see the posts of my 30–50 favorite writers. There are few people who comment on my posts and I want to be sure to see theirs when they post. Instead, my feed is a combination of the various posts that Medium is boosting along with some from the people I follow. My following list is too long. Why can’t we have a “favorites” list?
7. I have recently noticed that the flow of items on the farm runs into problems when there is something that I don’t have time to put away or I don’t have a good place to put it. Then, wherever that item ends up, it collects other items until there is a cluster or pile, which will tie up that surface or space until I clear it away. The busier I get, the more clusters and piles accumulate. There is an essay or story here.
8. Are white men in trouble? Again, Ezra Klein has a great podcast that got me thinking.
9. Something about how white college-educated people will move to a new city or state in search of a career. That ability to leave one’s community and join another one is made possible by private property. In the deep history, before private property, to be exiled was akin to death because one depended on the community for so much. As such, we humans needed to be aware of and adhere to the community norms and responsibilities. Now, we are “free to move about the country” and with that freedom comes the loss of the need to participate as contributing community members.
10. My favorite writers from Minnesota and Wisconsin. I have been wanting to do a tribute piece for a while.

Which idea should I start on?