GreenGranny

2012 -- Ready or Not, Here It Comes

Words have been eluding me lately, at least when it comes to environmental writing.  So many hopes, since this blog was established in December 2006--so little comfort about the future of our planet today.   Better activists than I am are toiling without letup, for tiny bits of progress.  At the same time, exploitation of resources, of the natural world, and of human beings seems to be gathering momentum. 

I can remember, back around 2006, thinking that the nations of the world had only a short while remaining of the degree of prosperity prevalent then, and that they needed to invest in reducing carbon emissions while they could.  Waiting until the Third World rose out of poverty wasn't going to work.  It had to rise out of poverty via a different path than fossil fuels, or at least by a variety of paths, or doom us all.   Furthermore, once the world economy falls apart, it's a different game entirely...  People will focus on survival, and so will I.   

Back then I had visions of a rich elite living in artificially cooled clean air bubbles, while the masses of humanity tried to survive extreme climate conditions as their slaves.  In a sense, that elite, that kind of social/economic stratification, exists today.  It's ready to solidify as climate change progresses.  It will be the eventual, inevitable future unless something changes that hasn't changed yet.

The Orwellian horrors of "1984" seem more applicable today than during the cold war, in a twisted and almost humorous sort of way.  I grew up fearing bombs, then terrorists, but now that we are well into the Great Recession (or Lesser Depression, if you prefer), a new suite of fears has appeared to fester in my more mature and experienced brain.  Are we going to repeat some variation of the disasters of 1930s and 40s?  Perhaps the better question is not if but how many. Over just the span of a few years, it's not so hard to understand those times, thanks to the economics and politics of today, and the poison they bring forth in people. 

Having been born during the Second World War, I grew up watching war and Holocaust films and hearing my elders speak in vague terms of life "during depression."  I marveled that most of my parents' many siblings had only one child.  What had caused that?  I did not feel free to ask such a thing.  I was a rare second child.  Obviously, there was a lot my elders were not telling me.  Whatever their deprivations or fears during the Depression or the war, they never shared that with us kids. 

It was never supposed to happen again, after all. 

The new year is about to dawn, and no doubt it will teach us many things.

 

 

My Backyard Garden Harvest--October 2011

These warm sunny days leading up to the first frost are truly glorious.  I keep finding more reasons to go outdoors to catch those balmy breezes and take in all the colors of fall.  And one of those reasons is to tend my backyard garden, whether watering, harvesting, or preparing areas for the winter.

For those of you that haven't followed my garden posts, the veggie plots are located so that our suburban lot looks pretty much like the other lots around us.  I've nothing against putting the plots right out into the middle of the lawn, but I know I don't have the stamina to tend that large a garden.  Better to let the large areas be easily mowed grass which is tended by my husband (head cook in our household).

What we do have are two strips of vegetable garden, one along the deck in back, and the other along the back privacy fence (this strip having chicken wire on the other three sides to keep out rabbits).  I also nestle a couple of summer squash plants--one zucchini and one yellow crookneck--between perennials around the house foundation, in a spot where they get just enough sun to give us six to ten squash each during the growing season.   And that's plenty.

The shadier end of the deck strip has several types of herbs, some which survive the winter.  The shadier end of the back fence strip has the raspberry patch.  Plus we have two dwarf fruit trees, a plum and a peach, both only in their second year planted here.  We were astonished that our tiny peach tree set one fruit, and we ate it only a month ago--large and delicious!  We hope for a few more next year. 

Continuous Harvest, Minimal Preservation

While we occasionally freeze a small bag of raspberries or tomato sauce, we are not into long term preservation.  If there is a surplus of anything it is given to neighbors, family, and friends--or the community food pantry.  Our goal is to have various crops maturing at different times, and to select the plant varieties for home gardeners like us, that mature continuously until frost.  This year I finally managed three sowings of beet seeds in our 18 by 30 inch beet plot, which has enabled us to have beets with supper every couple of weeks, despite the intense damage done by deer back in July.

Heat and Animal Damage

Actually in July we didn't know if the garden was going to end badly.  The heat and dryness of last summer made what  little there was to pick tough and bitter.  Deer started foraging each night, and we'd never had damage to the vegetables from deer before.

 My daughter dug up her no-good broccoli, but I kept cutting and discarding the tops off mine until cooler temperatures arrived.  I got a few bowls of good broccoli tips out of it, useful in salads or stir-fry.  Now I'm going to let the buds bloom and provide late season nourishment for the bees.

My Home-Made Raised Carrot Bed

I made a renewed attempt to grow carrots this year.  Carrots are so cheap to buy, it hardly seems worth it, especially if they are hard to dig.  My daughter once told me a plan she had for growing carrots that she never actually did, of using boards in a V formation filled with soil to grow them in above ground.  That strategy intrigued me.  

Late this spring I made my own raised carrot bed using junk from the garage.  I had two plastic crates and a couple pieces of untreated lumber just 20 inches long or so and as wide as the crates are high.  Inside the rabbit fenced garden strip by the back fence, I set the two crates far enough apart so the boards would reach between, and used another wood scrap as a stake to hold the side away from the chicken wire against the crate edges.  I put several thicknesses of folded newspaper around the outer sides of the crates to hold in the dirt.   Then I filled the crates and space between with potting soil about 10 inches deep.  I planted Danvers half-long carrot seeds to further help in pulling them out.

Aside from having to water this raised bed fairly often, it worked like a charm.  I've been pulling large delectable carrots out of it for many weeks.  The smaller ones remaining then grow larger.  The carrots grew  well right up against the container sides or very close to other carrots.  That's good, because thinning them is difficult.  The carrots keep very well in the refrigerator and maintain their flavor--whereas we try to pick beets right before we cook them.

Brussels Sprouts and Kale

These two cool season crops turned out to be very easy to grow, my first attempt with them.  I bought plants to set out, a four-pack of each, and that was plenty for our needs.  I know that as fall goes on, they will only taste better.   When you decide you'd like to eat either the kale or brussels spouts, you go pick it.   The plants stay in fine condition and do the work of maintaining the parts we like to eat.  Like the beets and carrots remaining in the ground,  the kale leaves and sprouts on the stalks are ready when we are.  These attributes are very useful for gardeners like us!

Raspberries

The fall crop of berries has been coming on for weeks.  Each day I pick about 2/3 rds of a cup.  On the days our five year old granddaughter is here, she helps pick them--and the little bowl is empty by the time we're done!  Other days I set the bowl of berries in the refrigerator and we put them on top breakfast cereal.  Raspberries only keep a couple of days in the refrigerator, so if we get more than we can eat, we toss those in the freezer right away.   

Pumpkins and Beans

This year my daughter's baking  pumpkins did very well, and the vines cover most of her large garden.  It was the first time she'd grown them, and their success made up for the failures of other crops.   She gave me permission to harvest a row of beans, to salvage what I could.  Those beans made three servings of delicious soup.  Being retired, I can fuss with things like that.  It's how I have fun.

Our little grandchild learned this year about shelling beans, and it looks like she finds it as much fun as I do.  I hope she keeps that sense of garden fun for a long long while!

June 2011--and a long overdue update on GreenGranny

Some loyal readers have noticed my lack of new posts this winter and inquired about me.  I'm fine, but there were a few setbacks.

Physically, I experienced a relapse of my formerly chronic trouble with neck and shoulder muscle knots and pain.  It gets to the point where I can't turn my head right or left, and the constant muscle tetany causes exhaustion.  Then I go for physical therapy.  That's one of the things I've been doing for months now, and making slow slow progress.

One of the reasons I retired from my government job in 2006 was this problem that I could not control while holding down a full time desk job.   I was fine for the next five years.  Now it seems I can't control it even as a part time contractor, able to distribute my computer time in short intervals throughout the day.   March through May are my busiest months for paid work while June-September are lightest, so I'm hoping to make better progress in recovering this summer.

 On the mental/emotional side, I admit to two problems.  One is realizing that not fully embracing "social media" was a mistake from the standpoint of my blogs getting noticed.  I haven't been able to bring myself to enter that sphere, and until I'm much better physically, I can't afford sitting time at the computer to do it.  But the main thing repelling me is a distaste for feeling THAT exposed.  I don't want to socialize in that way.  I guess I'm out of step with the rest of the human race.

The other emotional problem is...how shall I put this...a sense of horror ...a realization of just how limited the human species really is in coping with certain types of threats to its existence.  Back in 2005-2006 I was aware that the response of humans to the threat of global warming from anthropogenic sources could be overwhelming denial and/or the global manipulation of resources by and for the most powerful few.  Now both of those trends are securely established.

Meanwhile, the rest of us do what we can, and I'm still very proud of my community and the environmental activists within it.  They have not let up their efforts or allowed discouragement to weaken their productivity.  While governments dither, while one part of society is oblivious to the world around them, another part of society is working tirelessly to build a more sustainable future.  It is unglorious labor.

My own contributions have been paltry this year and still center on using my bicycle as much as I can, and on developing my little backyard veggie garden.  Nothing has so eroded my pleasure in living as having some of that curtailed by the shoulder-muscle problem.  But with physical therapy ongoing,  I DID get the garden planted last month and I DO continue to ride my bike, even if on shorter outings for now. 

Most important, I'm past the overwhelming sense of exhaustion and active with my grandchildren once again. 

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 I noticed a twig stuck in the ground in my daughter's backyard.  She explained that her four-year-old found it and pronounced it to be an apple tree, and so the little child "planted" that twig and said it would grow into a beautiful tree with delicious apples for everyone.

I leave you with that vision.  I have some twigs to plant.

 

 

October 2010 Greengranny Checklist

Start mulching the vegetable beds for winter - CHECK.

Cook the last picking of green beans before they spoil - CHECK.

Pick the last cucumbers and green tomatoes before frost hits - CHECK.

Ride bicycle to the city Resource Recovery Plant open house and tour - CHECK.

Ride bicycle to annual eye exam - CHECK.

Begin planning/drafting next letter to the editor on topic of phase-out of local use of coal power - CHECK.

Pre-register for free workshop on Sustainable Communities (put on by local activists) - CHECK.

Get photos posted from the 10/10/10  joint Crop Walk and 350.org campaign event in town -  DO.

Re-Post some of Dennis Keeney's published articles on Green Seniors -  DO.

************

This is a sample of my October.   There is always more to do than there is time, but the weather waits for no one.  Anything to be done outside gets a higher priority.   It goes without saying that time with my family (the extended family in town includes 12) and my for-pay work that is not environmental claims many hours of each week.

The youngest grandchild is now four years old, and quality time with her takes precedence over all else.  My "fab five" older granddaughters are now young ladies between the ages of 11 and 13.  I soaked up all the time with them that I could, while I could, and now they are leaving childhood behind.  My role as Grandma is changing. 

Living in the moment is something one appreciates most when very young or very old.  I have one more chance to share the joy of eating berries right off the bushes, watching the shapes of clouds change, and finding interesting leaves on the ground.  If I'm lucky, perhaps I'll do these things again with great-grandchildren. 

As a follow up to my plan to rescue more fruit for community use, it fizzled.   I discovered my community was already highly organized to deal with hunger and food needs.  I did deliver one batch of my own produce to the community food pantry--the rest of my surplus went to neighbors, friends, and relatives.  It was a matter of, that base is covered, find ones that aren't. 

And to further take the wind of my my fruit co-op sails, the apple trees I monitor just didn't produce at all this year.  But that's the point of having a lot of initiatives--some fall by the wayside for various reasons, but others become winners.

 

 

 

 

 

Of Broccoli, Bicycles, Beans and Ballet

It's September 22.  Today I went to the garden with my bowl to see what I could harvest, same as every other day.   I got two ugly tomatoes, a few ugly green beans, and some raspberries ravenged by insects.  And a lovely, if somewhat small, head of broccoli.

I can't complain.  Every other day I would fill my bowl with produce from my garden, sometimes more than I could carry into the house on one trip.  Day after day, the beans were beautiful and bountiful.  The tomatoes suffered from the very wet summer, but we still had some to give away after eating all we could.  It was amazing how much food we took from that little backyard garden starting early in July.

The zucchini plant looks like it will make another couple squash, and the few carrots still unharvested are trying to grow a bit bigger.  The rest is probably history--except for the broccoli.  With the advent of cooler weather, the broccoli is at long last flourishing.

Tonight's supper included pole green beans, carrots, and tomato salad using our garden produce.  We've greatly enjoyed the occasional acorn squash or mess of beets, and stir fries with zucchini strips and broccoli tips.   I have to figure out how to grow more of those vegetables that give us variety in flavors and extend the fresh produce season both earlier and later.   

For most of our married lives, my husband and I have eaten lots of vegetables in wide variety.  With the garden, we're not so much changing our diet as reveling in it for a few months of the year.  I think our attention to "slow food" over the years has paid health dividends.  Which brings me to the subjects of bicycles and ballet.

A love of bicycle riding goes back to my childhood days--and I talk about cycling around town  often on this blog.   What you may not know about me is that roughly between ages 40 and 60, ballet was my major form of physical activity, my recreation, my art form.  At around 60 I seemed to phase out of ballet and back to the bicycle.  This year I had a surprise--I've gone back to ballet class and love it as much as ever--as I turn 67!

No doubt the bicycle kept me in good enough condition (and the garden, and the stairs in my house, and  playing with grandchildren) to let me attempt dance once again.  Here's what happened.

This year I'd been taking my granddaughter Lily, age 10, to ballet class at my old school, for lessons with my former teachers.  I couldn't pull myself away from the observation window.  In my mind, I craved doing those exercises again.  One day this spring, one of my former teachers said casually in passing, there's an adult beginning ballet class this season.  You could do that.  Why not try it?

A couple of weeks later I did get up my courage, found some tent-like exercise clothing in black, and some old ballet slippers, and went. A couple of those classes led to some summer classes of mixed skill levels.  The tent outfit was exchanged for one that was a little more form revealing.   My summer teacher said I should come to her class in the fall, the skill level where I'd left off about six years earlier.  And that's what I'm doing today.

It has been slow getting back some muscles one uses a lot in ballet.  Ditto for flexibility.  My class is just one hour a week, and that is about right.  I need the rest.  But it feels wonderful, not only while I'm doing it, but all the time in between classes.  I just feel better.

Ballet was something I tried on a whim when I was about 40.  I found out that the methodical warm ups and progression of exercises for strength training, balance, and coordination were ideal for me.   I was very slow at learning combinations of steps--in other words, in learning the phrases of dance language.  Perhaps not dancing as a child hindered me.  But after 20 years, I was getting pretty good even at that.

During those very active decades of ballet, I learned to dance in pointe shoes and danced in recitals with kids who were as tall as me, but a third my age.  I can't begin to describe the richness of experience I obtained from dance.  At that level of performance I had to live a disciplined life.  After age 50 I started to pull back from recitals, and later, from taking class with teenagers.  Extra pounds crept on.  At age 60 I did some performing in the annual Senior Variety shows, for which performers must be at least 60 years old.  And then life got even more complicated than it had been, and I just quit--until now.

My adult classmates are still decades younger than me.  They are totally supportive, however.  They respect what I can do at my age, and they respect the glimmers of advanced technique that still reveal themselves in my dancing.  They know it took years and a lot of work to become able to do those things.  Sometimes, when we are doing a set of steps across the studio--the real dancing part of class--something clicks in my head and my brain finds some well-worn synapses that pull my body into line.  The music becomes transcendent.  And I'm dancing as I thought I'd never dance again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ames, Iowa Flood of August 2010

As you know, Greengranny lives in Ames, a small university city in central Iowa. You may have heard about our recent flood in the news--my California relatives reported that they did.  I'm writing today to say my home and those of family members here were all ok. 

Even our basements stayed dry.  Other family members kept watch all night as water rose around their houses and threatened to top the basement window wells, but stopped just short.  We do not have finished living space in our basement as do our relatives here, but we did have lots of bags filled with children's clothing and toys for a garage sale, and would have hated to throw it all away.  More important, like most midwesterners, our basement contains the wash machine, furnace, and hot water heater.  Dry basements are the norm here--or used to be.

Most areas that flooded in Ames have done so previously due to their location relative to the Squaw Creek and South Skunk River flood plains.  The first "big one" came in 1993.  Then 2008 saw a smaller version of that.  This year, the flood was about equal to the one in 1993. 

So much for "500 year" floods.   People tired of flooded homes, apartments, and businesses are leaving those areas, often with no compensation for property that used to be worth something.  However, some businesses have gotten building permits for new construction in that same area.  One of these is a Super-Walmart.  In 2008, some customers had their vehicles flooded in the WalMart parking lot, which was lower than the store proper.  In 2010, there was reported to be two feet of water in the store itself.  It remains closed for the time being.

Do a web search on "Ames flooding" and you'll find lots of photos of the flood zone.  Remember, most of the city remained dry, and basement seepage from saturated soil was the main concern.  Since the electricity remained on in most areas, sump pumps did their job.

The immediate result of the flood for most Ames residents was not being able to get from one part of town to another, as flood waters rose higher than bridges over streams and the river.  By the second day, water began to recede from the roads.

What effected everyone in town was the loss of drinkable water.  The flooding caused six separate breaks in water mains, including a 24 inch main and a 12 inch main.  Two of the town's three water towers emptied out quickly.  The third one, near my home, had to be shared by everyone for days and thus, we were all asked not to do laundry, bathe often, or do any outdoor water tasks like car washing.  And it wasn't safe to drink because of the several ruptures. 

Bottled water was distributed for drinking, and most people with access to home kitchens were able to boil water for drinking, washing dishes, brushing teeth, and washing hands.   The fire department had to arrange for use of water tank trucks in case of a fire, due to the lack of water pressure.  Some factories had to stop production due to the lack of water.

The weather was quite hot and humid, and we had to boil large pots of water on the stove.  We realized how lucky were were to have homes intact and working kitchens at our disposal, along with air conditioning.  Green-minded citizens may have kept their home thermostats set fairly high, but I doubt anyone who had air conditioning available was doing completely without it that week. 

It was a particularly challenging week to manage our household for my husband and me, but that's a story for another day. 

The Ames Flood of 2010 underscored several general points. 

First, the most economically marginal people tend to suffer the worst in floods.  The older parts of towns with aging housing stock and many elderly residents are nearest to rivers.  Trailer parks are built on cheap land vulnerable to floods.  Young people and college students rent the most vulnerable apartments (often  unknowingly, coming from out of town). 

Second, one problem can quickly cause others until the situation becomes ever-more difficult to cope with.  Stress builds up in people's lives and some are pushed to the breaking point.  We see in the news photos from the Haitian earthquake, Pakistani floods, and Russian wildfires--people by the millions, in despair, who have lost everything.  It seems beyond comprehension by those of us who have only been temporarily inconvenienced.  And yet for an unlucky few here in Ames, the flood caused a cascade of personal disasters to happen to them.  At least they had more fortunate people right here, around them, to render aid. 

Third, existing city and social services can quickly be stretched to their limits.  The Senior Variety Show to be held last weekend at the Ames City Auditorium was canceled so that everyone serving the elderly could focus on getting meals-on-wheels out to elderly around the county, and to maintain transportation to health services for them.   With many flooded roads, routes to get help to people were often convoluted, if there was a way at all.  I hope the show will be rescheduled, because the cast of people age 60 and above put on a great show. 

The flooding and water situation caused some children's day care centers to close, I'm sure making new complications for the parents affected.  And most Ames restaurants had to shut down also, for a few days.  Neither Iowa State University nor K-12 schools were in session when the flood occurred, or the disruption would have been more extreme.

The social safety net, normally so effective here in Ames, was initially stretched thin by fairly modest physical events (when compared to major disasters like Hurricane Katrina).  But there is good emergency response planning here in Iowa and Story County, and it made a real difference as the flood event played out.

A Permanent Change in Flood Likelihood

While this single flood event cannot be linked directly to global warming (floods happened here long ago), it is certainly the predicted weather pattern that Iowa is expected to experience as warming progresses--storms with much heavier rainfall.   As development and farming practices have drained wetlands and built up flood plains, there are many contributing factors for the recent floods our state has experienced.  I see no reason to expect fewer floods in the future.  All the variables are moving in the same direction--to having more high-rainfall storms and having more extreme floods as the land's response to excessive rainfall amounts.

   

Why we need to stop corporations like Target from huge political donations

A couple of days ago I received email notification from an activist group that Target  had become the first corporation to use the new Supreme Court ruling to influence elections, with a $150,000 contribution to one candidate for governor of the state of Minnesota. 

I immediately said I was ready to visit my local Target store to protest, and "signed" an on-line pledge not to shop at Target.  Today, Friday August 6, 2010 at noon was the time all protesters were to visit their stores and lodge a complaint with the manager. 

This morning's newspaper had an item  "Target CEO apologizes for political donation."  I looked at it with curiosity.   Apparently a gay rights group was the swiftest to make its displeasure known, for the candidate receiving the cash was strongly opposed to gay rights initiatives.  Minnesota is known as a politically progressive state.  An action such as Target took wouldn't sit well with a great many people there, gay or straight, I'm pretty sure.  However, this is not the reason I am boycotting Target.

It's not WHO they gave the money to, it was that they made a corporate donation--not from the CEO's personal wealth, not from an employee collection, but from the corporate treasury.  And there is enough money in corporate treasuries right now to overwhelm funds contributed by individuals and small organizations, enabling corporations as "entities" to buy almost any election if allowed.  Paid-for mass media would determine election outcomes, even more than it does today.  Our nation's experiment in democracy would be finished.

In the article about the apology, the CEO was reported to have said the decision for the political campaign contribution had to do with the candidate's business policies and not his social policies.  He admitted the donation affected people in ways he did not anticipate.  He said Target would set up a review process for political donations.

This example shows exactly why the dissenting justices on the Supreme Court opposed this ruling.   A corporation is not a person, not a voter, not an entity that must live with ALL the consequences of putting a certain individual into public office.  A corporation cannot evaluate the pros and cons of a given candidate, business policies versus social policies and such.   There is no conscience to tell the corporation that doing right trumps making money.  The corporation is not a moral creature.  A corporation is not entitled to human rights.   

The Target CEO should be honest.  He is going to make decisions that will make money for the shareholders.  Like the externalized costs to the environment, human misery costs are not part of the corporate balance sheet.  However, I'm sure next time he donates to a politician, he will have his public relations office prepare the proper message to the public. 

Now that unlimited financial influence has been released to corporations by the Supreme Court decision, they are going to use it.  It's been said that corporations already have so many ways to control Congress and buy elections, this added perk won't matter much.   Possibly.  Or, it may just be the last straw, the thing that causes public opinion to turn against it.

Our culture has created a monster and given it dominion over people.  This is analogous to the science fiction story theme of robots or androids who take charge and enslave us.  And we can all say together,

  "We are BORG." 

That, by the way, comes from a Star Trek script in which a machine-run spaceship colony incorporates any life forms it finds in the universe into itself, with sentient beings losing their identity--becoming a slave brain connected to the machine. 

Our fiction has experimented with various ways humans might be enslaved, from computers that would turn tables on us and take over, to invaders from outer space like BORG,  to Orwellian "Big Brother" totalitarian rule.  But corporations, with a little help from our Supreme Court,  have nearly finished that job. 

I'd like to thank Keith Farnish, environmental activist and blogger, for being the first person to enlighten me about the nature of corporations and of our failure to understand what we have enabled them to do.

Garden Update: Eating out of the garden and keeping the beetles away

Now that it's the second half of July, I wanted to share my progress with all of you senior gardeners out there.  If you are growing even a little of your food, you are a green senior in an important respect.

 
In earlier posts I reported on my backyard urban vegetable garden and on our clash with Japanese beetles--this being only the second year we've ever had them.  The photo above shows about a third of the garden, raspberries to the left and green beans beginning at the right.  Most of the middle is tomatoes.  As hoped, the marigold seeds I planted in front of the tomatoes are now plants able to peek through the chicken wire and get enough sun to bloom.  The taller zinnias are happy in the back row.

There are benefits to having a climate with more rain.  (Climate models predict more rainfall for my area in the next decades, followed by...lets not go there today. )  I read today that Iowa farmers are worried about the amount of rain this year, which floods areas of the fields, killing the corn.  It is a more serious problem than the potential damage from wind and hail that comes along with more thundershowers.  But so far, my garden is flourishing.  Our neighbor's lovely linden tree did not make it through the last storm, with wind gusts over 70 mph.  See below.

I've been saved from the labor of watering the garden from the garden hose, which gives me time to keep picking what's ready.  I think frequent harvesting keeps the plants producing longer, maximizes yield, and minimizes damage from insects or mold.   The newspaper mulch keeps mud from splattering on ripening fruit and is nice to walk on. 

The edible pea pod plants and green beans are still blooming!  The peas are especially surprising given the heat we've been having--high 80's and some days in the 90's.  That's tomato weather, not pea weather.  My daughter's broccoli, another cool season plant, is going great as well.

We've grown bush green beans many times before at different places we've lived, but I never noticed how they regulate their environment by turning their leaves.  Mornings and evenings the leaves are facing the sun.  In the heat of mid-day, the leaves are held vertically.  That's when it is easiest to see the beans!

Our red raspberry plants produce two harvests--the first one is done, from the second year canes.  The first year canes are setting fruit now.   However, due to a few canes not keeping time with their age-mates, we've had berries to eat every day during the gap.  I'm happy to see a few extra bumble bees and wasps helping out with the pollination of the second crop.

We continue to learn more about the habits of Japanese beetles.  Our garden is largely unscathed, with just a few spotty areas of heavy damage.  However, our neighbors have complained mightily.  Most of them have ornamental plants that they don't watch each day and don't even know what insect has eaten their plant into skeletons.   They are not doing anything to control them, and I'm just as glad they aren't using massive amounts of pesticides.  I show them my jar of beetles.  About once a week we dump out the dead beetles and put fresh rubbing alcohol in the bottom.

Several times a day we make the rounds with the jar, looking for Japanese beetles.  We may find a couple, or half a dozen or more.   It's not so much a chore because we like being outside and it's just steps out the back door.

However, looking over our back fence, we can see dozens of  beetles swarming above the ornamental fruit trees in the neighbor's back yard.  The upper leaves of those trees must be riddled, but probably trees of that size can survive that sort of attack. 

We regret we did not check our own new fruit trees until recently.  The plum tree has had significant damage. 

So here's the scoop on Japanese beetles:  if you regularly pick them off of plants, you  can prevent a horde from showing up the next day.  This seems true even for plants close by, even in the same yard.  Get them off before they ring the dinner bell for their brethren, and that plant is likely to be spared major damage.  Even though they prefer the raspberries, they will substitute another plant that they don't keep getting removed from.  Such was the plight of the plum tree and a few of the zinnias.

The beetles have two escape maneuvers when they are disturbed.  One is to fly off quickly in a sideways direction.  The other is to let go and fall to the ground, where they disappear in a second.  Those are the only defenses they have, other than there being nothing that wants to eat them here.

With the jar, it is best to hold the jar underneath the vegetation they are sitting on, and come down from above with the lid.  In the heat of mid-day they are more likely to use the flight strategy, so I just grab them fast, firmly hang onto them, open the jar with the other hand and plop them in.  Often one gets several at a time.

So, fellow urban gardeners, do not despair that catching Japanese beetles will get you nowhere.  It will protect the plants from which you remove them while they ravage other things nearby...  Fortunately most plants like trees can withstand this periodic leaf damage, and many other plants are just too far down on their preference list to be bothered.  I've never seen them alight on the vast majority of plants in my yard, although they COULD eat them if need be.

It's time for me to make salad...good eating to all of you! 

July 9, 2010 - First sighting of honey bees this year!

For weeks I have watched the white clover in our lawn bloom,  just as it did when I was a child at a different home long ago and far away.  I was pleased that our refusal to use broad leaf weed killers in our yard had paid off.  White clover adds nitrogen to the soil that helps the grass.  But where were the bees?  White clover flowers always had honey bees on them.

It had been a very cold, severe winter that probably was hard on wild pollinating insects, although they have been getting scarcer for many years.  We have a variety of flowers in bloom, and until today, the only bee I'd seen in our yard this year was an occasional solitary bumblebee.  That's okay, I thought.  New generations will be raised and I'll see lots of bumblebees by late summer.

Yet I longed to see honey bees. 

Today I looked closely at the deep purple flower spikes on a row of hosta, newly blooming.  Two bees!

Excited by that discovery, I ran to the front of the house to check out the Russian sage bush.  It always is a favorite of bees, but so far this year, its blooming only brought forth another solitary bumblebee.  But not today.  Today, it was keeping  a small swarm of honey bees busy!  And the bumblebee was hard at work there too.

That sage bush is so large, there's room for many more bees and I hope they show up.

As for the white clover, it is still blooming and still bee-less.  I have no idea why.

USA is poised for a "Green" Revolution--So why isn't it happening?

Well it IS happening, by people like you and me and many others who understand the twin threats of climate change and peak oil, and who are doing all they can to prepare, for the sake of their children and grandchildren.

What I'm talking about in this post title is the "government/corporate establishment." 

As I peruse the news both on-line and in my local newspapers, I keep seeing these expressions:

"excess production capacity"  

"corporations are holding cash"  

"millionaires are increasing savings"

These items are matters of fact that can be verified--they are not political viewpoints.

During the recession and continuing to the present, our economy has huge excess capacity, but since so much industry has left, I'm not sure just what kind of excess capacity it is.  In our global society, the US-based corporations can't keep their US workforce at full employment if its overseas factories can't sell the stuff that they make.  So it can't put people to work either here as accountants and sales reps or abroad on the factory floor.   Eventually falling tax receipts puts teachers, police, and other public servants out of work, no matter how much their services are needed in communities.

In light of that complex global relationship, perhaps it is correct to state that the US and world's excess capacity includes video games, designer handbags, wide screen TVs, and all the other stuff  that goes under the heading "consumer goods."  Then the downward spiral affects vacations, hotel and resort occupancy, and other leisure spending.  As jobs are lost, the cycle gains momentum  until the entire economy is down the drain.

People with an income rather save a little more of  it than buy stuff they don't really need or take a vacation they could postpone.  They've come to see that the world and their position in it is less secure than they once thought.  And for the 10 percent who are unemployed, most spending on consumer goods evaporates, along with prodding their better-off relatives who are sustaining them (if they are lucky) into a truly austere spending pattern.

Isn't this a turning point we environmental activists had hoped for? 

Let's see, there is a huge supply of money saved which needs to be invested, but not in producing the same stuff as before.   

There is a huge unemployed and underemployed workforce which needs to be utilized, but not by doing the same work as before. 

And, there is a gargantuan task ahead in building a sustainable society, one that needs capital and a workforce that is used in new ways.

It's time to stop living in the 20th Century and get on with creating the 21st.

We have what we need to save our economy, our middle class, our once egalitarian democratic society, our world standing as a nation, and the habitability of our planet.  We could build  that sustainable society.

Or not.