Tag Archives: Earth Community

Balance in the Garden

Posted on by
Raised bed with wooden sides, on left are pea plants on string and bamboo, middle is broccoli seedlings surrounded by pine cones, wire fencing around edge.

This earth love is a balancing act. We love critters in the yard, after all, they live here too, and have the right to be here. They bring so much joy to us. But we want to grow food too. The last time we bought organic broccoli at Hannafords, it was $8 for one crown. These twelve broccoli plants in this raised bed will be very valuable food for us. I’ve also planted cucumber seeds here. So we try to use gentle methods to discourage the critters from eating the plants we want for our food.

Margy saw a groundhog poke its head up out of a hole in the grass, over near the fence. There was a burrow underneath where a spruce tree fell before, and after it was removed there was still a mound of old roots and dirt. Groundhogs can be the worst for eating garden food, despite how cute they are. At times, we’ve used human pee to mark a line around the beds. Last year, we covered that bed with an old screen tent to protect the kale–and it did. All of it is a kind of communication, with respect.

This year, I am trying out a new method for deterring critters from the garden bed–putting pine cones in between the plants as mulch. (I saw it on Facebook.) Apparently many critters do not like the prickly feel of the pine cones under their feet–and these pine cones are very prickly. They come from our pitch pine, and we have tons of them everywhere. Margy had a bag full of them in the garage, so I used those first, and then started twisting them off fallen branches under the pitch pine. I had to wear gloves to do it, that’s how prickly they are. I’m putting them in the hugel mound as well.

We’ll see how it works.

In the meantime, in critter news, a few days ago we saw a mother turkey walk through the yard with about ten baby turkeys. Ducks stop in to take a dip in the pond. The frogs hang out there, and the tadpoles are getting big. They like to linger under the lily pads. The robin has four new eggs she is incubating. The chipmunks fill up on sunflower seeds at the bird feeder, but are also eating the maple seeds that blew all over the yard.

And sometimes, beauty emerges in unlikely ways–this is a dandelion after the rain washed away all the fluffy seeds. A perfect star.

a white star shape of a dandelion plant, surround by angular green iris leaves.

Robins building nests

Posted on by
clear ceiling over deck beam with robin in nest on beam

We have robins nesting again in the beams of our deck! Two years ago, a pair of robins raised three broods of chicks over the course of the season. The year before that, in 2022, they had tried, but failed, and it seemed the clear ceiling raised the heat too much for the babies. So I created a shade from cloth to go over them. That worked for 2023. Last year, no nests on the deck. But this year, they were rooting around again on the beam. Imagine my chagrin when a robin starting building a nest in a different section of the beam, with no shade cloth. I could already see her with her beak open on a warm sunny day. One day when she was gone from the nest, I counted three blue eggs.

So I tried a different solution. It was a bit of a risk, but I went out with a ladder and painted the ceiling above the nest with some white primer/paint. She had flown off when I got close, but after I finished she came back, and I am happy to say has continued to sit on the nest every day. I hope this helps her babies to thrive, as I wish for all babies to thrive. I am thinking of the babies in Gaza who are being starved right now.

Robin in nest with shade from painted ceiling

Another joy is that there is also a robin nesting in the bush near our front door. You can just barely see her from our living room windows–she is so well camouflaged from above. But she too is still sitting.

Spring is bursting all over. The cherry trees have some blossoms and the peach tree is starting too. I just hope all this rain we are getting this week doesn’t prevent them from being pollinated. The rain is much needed because of drought, but I miss the sunny days we had last week. I did a holistic spray for the trees the week before. Our trees struggled last year so I am trying to be more attentive this season.

Cherry blossoms against blue sky

Being in the garden is so healing in light of all the devastating news each day from our country, and from the world. One more photo of beauty, daffodils Margy picked from the garden. May the beauty be a prayer for peace.

yellow and orange multi-layered daffodils

Obscure/Reveal

Posted on by

Yesterday, a really sweet tree guy was taking down some dead/dying spruces at our home. Afterward, we were chatting about some confusion in the estimate for the work. We happened to mention being concerned about our future Social Security income, which has been threatened by the current regime in Washington. He was excited to tell us about a news source he had found that he felt was quite neutral in terms of reporting in the midst of the political divisions in our country. This news source had a chart that showed that social security was the largest item of government spending, much greater than military spending, for example.

This conversation brought back a long ago memory about how charts can be used to obscure as well as reveal, especially in regard to government spending. I did a bit of internet searching and found what I was looking for. The War Resisters League has created charts every year showing the percentage of the federal budget that goes toward war. They also compare their charts with the the government view of the budget. Ever since the Vietnam War, the government started including Trust Funds like Social Security in their budget pie chart pictures, to make it seem that the military spending was not as great a percentage as it was. They also did not distinguish past military spending from non-military spending. According to WRL calculations for FY2025:

“Current military” includes Dept. of Defense ($871 billion) and the military portion ($320 billion) from other departments as noted in current military box. “Past military” represents veterans’ benefits plus 80% of the interest on the debt.* For further explanation, please go to warresisters.org. The figures are Federal funds, which do not include Trust funds — such as Social Security —which are raised and spent separately from income taxes. What you pay (or don’t pay) by April 15, 2024, goes to the Federal funds portion of the budget. The government practice of combining Trust and Federal funds began during the Vietnam War, thus making the human needs portion of the budget appear larger and the military portion smaller.

Why does it matter? When I was younger, I didn’t really understand much about Social Security. It seemed sort of unfair that even if my partner and I made very little money, self-employed, some 15.3 percent of it was taken out for Social Security and Medicare. Shouldn’t there be a lower income level that wasn’t taxed at all? I didn’t understand that it was a form of collective care for people no longer able to work–we all contribute and we are eligible for benefits if we become disabled or when we are older. Now that I am older, and rely on Social Security to live, I think of it as one of the best things our government has done. I only wish it had been more clear to me when I was younger.

And now, that tendency of the government to obscure things by putting them all in one chart, has helped to break down the divide that was meant to exist between the trust funds and the federal budget. Now the regime is talking about cutting these funds to pass more tax cuts for billionaires. It would be illegal. The trust funds are “off-budget” and treated separately in certain ways from other federal spending, and other trust funds of the federal government. From the U.S. Code (according to Wikipedia):

EXCLUSION OF SOCIAL SECURITY FROM ALL BUDGETS

Pub. L. 101–508, title XIII, Sec. 13301(a), Nov. 5, 1990, 104 Stat. 1388-623, provided that: Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the receipts and disbursements of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund shall not be counted as new budget authority, outlays, receipts, or deficit or surplus for purposes of – (1) the budget of the United States Government as submitted by the President, (2) the congressional budget, or

(3) the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.

Not that the current regime worries too much about the legality of their actions.

I don’t usually get so technical in these posts, but I felt angry this morning that even our really nice tree guy was being deceived by a supposedly neutral news source, that was obscuring the true nature of government spending and the relationship between the regular budget and Social Security. There is a lot more one could say about Social Security, and its limitations, but I am grateful to Frances Perkins who led its development 90 years ago. It is a testament to the values of interconnection and compassion, to our interdependent human family. May it long survive!

Oh, and tax the rich!

Revealing the hidden

Posted on by
deer tracks in snow

One thing I love about snow is the way it reveals all sorts of hidden activities. We haven’t seen any deer on our land for quite a long time, but after the snow storms of the last weeks, we found their tracks making a path through the yard. The deer have been quietly passing through in the dark. They have come to drink the water that we keep thawed for the birds, and come to eat the sunflower seeds scattered near the bird feeder. They have nibbled the yew bushes in front of our windows.

There is so much that is hidden that is only revealed through storms. There is so much that we cannot see, and may never know. In the face of all that is coming undone in our country, in the face of all that is being destroyed, this gives me a kind of hope. Not optimism or naivety. I know that there is a coup happening right now against the ideals of democracy we have cherished, ideals we have tried to expand and perfect. Human dignity, diversity, equity, inclusion. Compassion for the vulnerable. I feel anxiety and rage in the face of the dangers that hang over us.

But as Rebecca Solnit says, “Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act.” The deer tracks remind me that, in truth, we don’t even know what is happening right now, right outside our windows in the dark. We don’t know what may be happening that will change the trajectory of the future.

The deer tracks remind me that we are not alone in our yard, our home is the home of many other beings, those we can see, and those who are invisible to us. And just so, we are not alone in our struggles. In ways that we cannot begin to understand, we are all connected. That interconnection means that even our small actions of love and kindness may have beautiful consequences, and there are others unknown to us whose actions may bring liberation to all. May it be so!

Tiny and partial

Posted on by

On the last day of 2024, Margy and I went to Kettle Cove beach. I saw this tiny partial sunbow in the sky, bursts of color hanging on either side of a bright sun. Tiny and partial are the words for today. There is so much suffering in the world, so much violence and evil. I can’t stop the devastation of Gaza, or the cruelty of the Israeli army continuing to kill scores of people even after a ceasefire has just been signed, to take affect on Sunday. Why not stop the killing today? All I can do is bear witness, share posts on Facebook. Tiny and partial.

What can we do to bring good to the world? I think about my visit to my friend at the nursing home yesterday. He was happy to see me–I went to wish him happy birthday and we had a good visit. But immediately afterward I felt a sense of guilt that I can’t visit more often than every months or so. What I can offer him is tiny and partial. But perhaps it is important, especially in the face of large and unrelenting troubles, to honor the tiny and partial acts of goodness we do? And what can he offer now, my old friend, after years of activism and kindness? Perhaps merely to receive with cheerfulness the help he now needs. We each bring goodness in the tiny and partial ways that we are able.

Each morning I take a walk. I have been able to take a little walk most days, after a message a year ago that “walking will be needed.” I have been able, ever so slowly, to increase my walk to about 20 minutes, no longer going directly to the brook and back, but making a little circle around the neighborhood, on my way there. It feeds my spirit, and reminds me to be in love with the earth, the sun, the water, the place where I live. It is a tiny walk as walks go, but by tiny increments, a little more.

Before I walk, I empty and refill the water that we have in a heated tray for the birds. Perhaps that is my tiny gift to the creatures who live here with us on this land. It feels like a prayer each morning. It reminds me of the importance of giving what we are able to this wider community of life. The other day I saw the crows laughing and jostling each other as they perched on the edge and dipped their beaks in.

We are living in very troubled times. Some will be called to wise analysis, and great acts of heroism, and energetically building the systems that honor our deepest values. But all of us, no matter how tiny, must still cling to kindness, cling to our interconnected earth community, and give what we can, no matter how partial. And I hope I remember to celebrate the brightness of the colors revealed in those gifts.

Sustenance

Posted on by

Today I saw this gray goldfinch on a gray seed-head of evening primrose! Both the bird and the flower have let go of their bright yellow plumage as we enter the dark season. But still so beautiful in their subdued and subtle way. We haven’t cut down the “dead” plants because they are still such a source of sustenance and life to our little friends.

It is these small beauties that are sustaining me during these anxious days in the United States election season. It is terrifying to me that there is a close race between a mentally-unstable fascist who spreads hate wherever he goes, and a very qualified woman with whom I disagree on certain policies, but who will be president of all the people, and uphold the basic principles of democracy. My partner and I dropped off our absentee ballots last Monday, and gave Kamala Harris our votes.

It breaks my heart that some people I love seem to have been taken in by the lies of the MAGA propaganda machine. I don’t know how to ease that pain, except to pray that the fascists don’t win.

I haven’t forgotten the genocide that is being perpetrated by the Israeli government in Gaza, and expanding to Lebanon. I will continue to protest that killing in whatever ways that I can, small though they may be, every day. I have heard that some folks say they can’t vote for Harris because of her association with the Biden administration’s participation in the genocide. I don’t know what might happen under a Harris administration. But I know that the other side will be much worse, and would accelerate the destruction.

For me, voting is strategic. I have protested in some way every administration of our country–but there are better and worse administrations. For all of my adult life, I have been part of the movements to expand equality and democracy–to women, to people of color, to queer folks, to disabled people. I have protested the wars of empire and supported the raising of our awareness of the interconnected web of life, and the challenges of climate destruction. We keep pushing toward the hopes, and resisting those who would take all of that away in favor of hierarchical despotism.

In this season when the veil between the worlds of the dead and the living is thin, I think of my uncle Jim, who fought fascists in World War Two, and then grew marvelous gardens when I knew him. I think of my uncle Richard, whom I never knew because he died in that fight. May their spirits help us now. May all the spirits who cherish peace and liberation help us now.

Peach Cobbler

Posted on by

This year, our peaches were extra fragile as they ripened, so we picked them and cut them up and froze them before they could go bad. The upside to this turn of events is that I discovered the joy of peach cobbler. I created/adapted a gluten-free recipe that we love. It also works for raspberries. I’ve turned into an obsessive cobbler baker for the cool fall days.

Gluten-Free Peach Cobbler

Preheat over to 375 degrees. Grease a 9 x 9 glass pan. Fill it about half full with frozen cut peaches, and sprinkle liberally with cinnamon.

Mix together 1 cup oat flour (made by blending gluten-free rolled oats), 1 cup almond flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Set aside.

Mix together 1 egg, 1/2 cup yogurt (we use whole milk organic greek yogurt), 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1 tablespoon honey, and 2 tablespoons soft butter. Beat together with a fork, and then add to dry ingredients, scraping the sides with a spatula to get it all. Mix together.

Then use the spatula to put the dough in clumps on top of the peaches, and gently spread out over the top of the peaches. Bake at 375 for 30-35 minutes. The cobbler should be golden brown, and the peaches bubbling; add some more minutes if it’s not quite brown enough. I’m not an expert, but as far as I can figure, with 9 servings, each serving has about 7 grams of protein and 14 grams of carbs.

I find that it actually tastes better after cooling off, because the juice from the peaches is absorbed into the cobbler. [If I make it with raspberries, I add 1/8 cup sugar to the raspberries to make them a little less tart.] It also tastes great with Greek yogurt on top, or ice cream.

The Lost Words

Posted on by

I haven’t had many words this autumn. Now, here we are in mid October. Leaves changing color, lovely cool days and cooler nights.

On the autumn equinox, we had a ritual with a few friends around our fire outside. I had gathered some acorns and we passed around a basket of them and each took out one acorn to express our thanks for some aspect of our lives, and then one for a wish or intention that we wanted for the next darker season. My intention was to bring back more music into my life. For whatever reason, I hadn’t been singing or playing my guitar for ages–I mean, years. So I put on new strings, and tuned the guitar, and then started singing a song here and there.

I found this hauntingly lovely song, Lost Words Blessing, originally shared by a colleague in a worship ritual. The song was inspired by a book The Lost Words created by by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris. “The book began as a response to the removal of everyday nature words – among them “acorn”, “bluebell”, “kingfisher” and “wren” – from a widely used children’s dictionary, because those words were not being used enough by children to merit inclusion. But The Lost Words then grew to become a much broader protest at the loss of the natural world around us, as well as a celebration of the creatures and plants with which we share our lives, in all their wonderful, characterful glory.” [You can find out more about it on their website, and order books and albums there as well.]

One of my favorite things to do with songs is to figure out how I can sing and play them, and so I did with this one. And then, I found myself thinking about Passamaquoddy/Wolastoqey words, and how the language is in a fragile place, with original speakers growing older, and newer speakers trying to find their way into the language after long years thinking in English. How many of those words have been lost, or almost lost?

It has been a powerful gift for me to be learning the language with Roger Paul, via the University of Southern Maine during the last six years. Roger told us that the elders had given permission to share the language with outsiders, so that others might wake up to the world view hidden within. But I am always conscious that the language is filled with triggers of pain for all that was lost and taken by the violence of colonization.

There was something about the language that resonated for me with the song “The Lost Words Blessing.” So I decided to try to translate the song into Passamaquoddy–which I quickly found out isn’t really possible. It isn’t possible in part because the structure of English poetry is based on filling the lines with many words to evoke an experience, while the structure of Passamaquoddy, as well as I can understand it, is to use words that themselves are full of descriptive action. I learned a lot about how different the two languages are, by trying to create a version of the song in Passamaquoddy.

Still, I kept at it, not “translating” but pulling out words and sentences that created a similar experience in me, and also fit the phrasing of the music. While I am only an intermediate learner, I have learned how to research using the pmportal.org, to try to identify patterns and options and vocabulary. I couldn’t do it without that aid, and likely I made mistakes. I still don’t know if or when it might be respectful for me to sing this song. Can I, as a white woman, bring the language into this particular experience? When might it be appropriate to enter deeply into the language such that I can create a song with it? But to learn the language is, in a way, to fall in love with it. I want to honor Roger’s teaching by speaking as well as I can. Whether I ever sing the song for anyone but myself, I have learned so much by trying to create it.

Here is a sample, the first verse, with the original English, the Passamaquoddy, and then a more literal rendering of the Passamaquoddy into English. [Note: edited Dec 2024 with updated draft]

  • Enter the wild with care, my love
  • Kuli-nutahan elomahkiwik
  • In a good way, go out to the wilderness
  • And speak the things you see
  • on ktitomon keq nemihtuwon
  • and say what you see
  • Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
  • Piliwihtomun on kminuwiwihtomon
  • Name it/them newly and name it/them repeatedly
  • And even as you travel far from heather, crag and river  
  • Peci-te pihcehkomon nit sip weceyawiyin
  • Even when you go far from the river where you are from
  • May you like the little fisher, set the stream alight with glitter
  • Ansa pokomkehsis sipuhsis seskahtuweht
  • Like the little fisher make the stream sparkle brightly
  • May you enter now as otter without falter into water
  • Ansa kiwonik cupotomhat, kini-cupotomha
  • Like the otter slides into water, boldly slide into water

Sunflowers & Pond Lilies

Posted on by

This is the view outside our back windows. We didn’t plant these sunflowers, they came up on their own, with help from squirrels and the bird feeder. These are the ones that goldfinches and bees love so much. Even a photo can’t capture the brightness of the flowers. They glow! They make me so happy each time I see them. I also always think of a dear friend who loves sunflowers, and that makes me happy too.

Another source of joy are the pond lilies, that have also multiplied. In other years, we’ve had many one bloom the whole summer, or maybe one bloom at a time. So in the morning, I see these sunflowers out my window. Then I take a little walk back to the pond, and see the blooms, and the little frogs. I hope they will bring a smile to you as well.

Food for Wildlife

Posted on by
Three goldfinches were perched on this volunteer sunflower!

We haven’t been that successful in growing food for ourselves in the garden. (Yes, the experiment with the kale worked well. And we harvested blueberries and raspberries.) But right now the peaches are getting mold on them just as they ripen. Another fungal issue. I’ve started harvesting some that are not yet quite ripe, and just cutting them up to put in the freezer. But in the meantime, the squirrels and a groundhog are happily coming to the tree each morning to eat a peach. The squirrel climbs up the branches to pick her own, but the groundhog takes one that has dropped off.

The squirrels are always fairly bold, but the groundhog is shy and runs away as soon as she sees us on the back porch. So this photo was from a back window.

The more I try to garden, the more I realize what I don’t know. But it makes me happy that critters feel at home with us here. Unfortunately, the groundhog has dug a few holes to get under our garage–we don’t want her to feel that at home, such that she undermines the foundation. So I refill the holes any time I see them, and then pour some human urine on the area, hoping it will discourage her from more digging. Marking our territory, so to speak. We’ll see if that keeps working.

Meanwhile, the birds are relishing the volunteer sunflowers and evening primroses that are blooming and going to seed in lots of places. Also the elderberry bush. They seem to like everything about our yard. That makes me really happy.