Remembering CMK

I first met Dr Charles M Kirkpatrick a couple years after I graduated high school.  I was at Purdue for a day on campus, registering for classes.  Kirk, as he was known to colleagues and friends, was sitting behind a desk in the old Ag Annex Building. He was lean, white-haired, and wore a scowl befitting a man bored with the prospect of signing up another new student. He sat quietly, reviewing my paperwork.  “Greensburg Indiana,” he said, making eye contact. “My home town.”

I’m not sure it meant much to him, but it did to me.  I had never met someone schooled as a wildlife professional, and did not expect my first to be someone intimately familiar with a tree growing from a courthouse tower in Decatur County. He had to know Sand Creek, the way it brushed the edge of town before meandering south and west to merge with the White River. Maybe, in a newly fallen snow, he’d found a fresh fox track where the creek passed under the railroad, and followed ole Reynard half a day as I had. He’d be familiar with Cobbs Fork and its limestone bottom, perfect for wading and looking for salamanders. Perhaps he’d thrown spinners to smallmouth bass in Clifty Creek where they held tight against the bridge abutment on the Vandalia Road, and hunted squirrels in the rolling oak-hickory woodlands east and south of town.  I reasoned that the experiences that led me to this campus likely influenced him as well, and I felt a kinship with the man and a confidence I had come to the right place.

In high school I focused on industrial arts and worked part time as an electrician to get me out of the classroom. I was not college material. Then two weeks before graduating I walked into the office of Miss Risk, my guidance counselor, and said, “I want to study wildlife science.”  “I know,” she said, smiling. Geneva Risk was a seasoned professional who had counseled my dad a generation before, and knew what students wanted sometimes before they did. She laid out a plan for evening courses at a nearby technical school where I would pick up math, economics, and other classes Purdue required.

I wouldn’t have C.M. Kirkpatrick as a class instructor until my junior and senior years but would stop in his office occasionally, maybe to appease my home sickness.  He was editor of The Journal of Wildlife Management, a technical publication with the latest findings in wildlife research, and was a stickler for proper verbiage, both written and spoken. I was a lad with little respect for either.  At one of my visits he abruptly asked, “If two Fords are traveling single file down the highway, what time is it?”  I hadn't the faintest idea. “Tin after tin,” he said. It was a joke, but its purpose was to have me listen to myself and my hillbilly lingo. “It’s ten, not tin; get, not git.” He wore professionalism and integrity like a well tailored shirt, and would subtly and patiently demonstrate to a group of backwoods students that there was infinitely more to his science than a love of hunting and fishing. 

I can picture him now walking the aisles of the classroom, handing out a freshly mimeographed lesson, his brow furrowed. He approaches a girl who is not yet my wife and their eyes meet. She’s intimidated, but reflexively offers him a Milk Dud. He gladly accepts.  

I came to learn he suffered from frequent migraines and wondered if they explained the scowl he often wore, but there was rarely a time he would not break into a smile and chuckle given the slightest incentive.  It would happen as we reminisced about squirrel hunts. “Amazing, how vivid the memories,” he once reflected, “the details of particularly difficult shots.”  It happened anytime we spoke of home turf and families, or the north country, or the Rocky Mountains of the west. 

His specialty was wildlife physiology and he had studied under the tutelage of the great Aldo Leopold at the University of Wisconsin, the man who said, “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds… (He) sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.” Leopold’s science-based revelation that healthy ecosystems require top predators and his philosophical insights of a land ethic encompassing all living things earned him worldwide acclaim.  

Kirk was among the fortunate to know Leopold personally.  When Aldo’s beloved dog, Gus, was accidentally shot on a bird hunt, it was Kirk who drove the car to the vet, a distraught Aldo in the backseat, a wounded dog on his lap.  “Gus, you poor goddamned dog,”  Aldo repeated over and over. Kirk’s admiration for Leopold’s tenets and values would guide him for life, as they continue to guide and inspire today. 

When C.M. Kirkpatrick was offered the opportunity to develop a wildlife science program at Purdue, he quickly accepted and set the university on course to become a leader in preparing students for careers as biologists, researchers, and naturalists. The undergraduate curriculum he designed and implemented was topped off with a senior year I never wanted to end.  Ornithology, mammalogy, ichthyology, wildlife ecology— what not to love?  

Maybe it was the natural consequence of his aging, the decades of discouraging environmental observations and experiences that wore him down, but it seemed Kirk’s hope for a healthy and viable future for the resource he dedicated his life to was waning. Wildlife would always be tertiary to agriculture and industry and the whims of civilized man. The loss of wetlands and critical habitats was ongoing despite their intrinsic value and proven necessity for a healthy planet. Once, while gazing across a section of native prairie turned cropland, he said, mostly to himself, “A  cottontail would have to pack a lunch to cross that field.” At Purdue, he’d be approached by ag industry leaders concerned that damage from wildlife was threatening their livestock operations or field crops. Rarely was there space for compromise, for consideration of harmonious existence. When my wife and I finished grad school, Kirk came to visit and to meet our first born son, and we joked that Jacob was destined to be a biologist. Kirk set his eyes on the boy and lamented, “There won’t be any wildlife when you grow up.”  Jacob turned 42 this year, and the sixth great extinction is well underway. 

In our senior year we were given an assignment to produce a polished scientific report on a particular species, including life history, past and current research, special concerns, etc..  To avoid bias in grading, Kirk required all reports to be identified only by the author's social security number.  Sometime later, I was in his office and the topic of reports came up.  “Which one was yours?” he asked. “Sharp-tailed grouse,” I replied. Wearing a wry smile and tugging the front of my shirt, he said, “Don’t ever stop writing.”

I could have come clean and told him my wizard roommate had voluntarily dissected my report and made it what it was, but I didn’t. But neither did I take CMK’s words lightly. He made me want to be a better writer.  I’m still working on it, his memory urging me on.

Leopold said, “The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant, ‘What good is it?’  If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not.” In the introduction to his book, A Sand County Almanac, he wrote, “There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot.” 

In reality, humanity can’t exist without the elaborate interconnections and collaborations among wild things, but not everyone agrees or understands, and our collective behaviors and actions have resulted in a planet whose environmental systems are collapsing.  We need mentors to help us anticipate and navigate the consequences. I’m glad CMK was mine.

Maisy

We buried a dog this week, and not just any dog.  This was a 70 pound, bearded, coarse haired cur named “Maisy,” and for the past 13 years there was scarcely a day we were not together. 

Lee found her on Craigslist. We were, at the time, about three months into a one year agreement to not own a dog, but there was something in the photo of this girl that altered the plan. We went for an initial meeting and found her sitting bolt upright, propped by long front legs, looking regal. She was rail thin, had a urinary tract infection, in need of spaying. We took her home. 

When we got back to our house she leapt from the car and was on a dead run, exploring her new territory. She spied a chipmunk that streaked across the patio then disappeared under the dock at the edge of the pond. In flaming pursuit the dog launched herself full speed into the pond, then began an awkward attempt to swim while remaining vertical. It was a baffling display of thrashing but she eventually made it to shore, and my wife said, “That dog can’t swim.”  “Agh,” I responded, “all dogs can swim!”  It took some time but I was proven wrong— this dog, indeed, could not swim. With training she would eventually learn, but she would never learn to enjoy it. 

Maisy hated obedience exercises. When put on a leash for training she’d assume a dejected attitude as if cruelly reprimanded, and seemed thoroughly bored with the stop-sit-stay-come routine. It turned out she was listening— and learning— but from her perspective there were matters of much greater priority and urgency. 

In her youth she was built like a cheetah and behaved accordingly. She lived to run and ran with artistry, her head steady, legs sending her forward in long strides, covering great distance with impressive power.  Yet, she could turn on a dime, and with these talents would often overcome whatever she deemed as prey. When in a playful mood, she’d work herself into a frenzy spinning in tight circles with her butt an inch off the ground. She was speed and agility perfected. 

She was a sight hound with a hesitancy to use her nose because stopping to smell things necessarily interfered with running. She would barrel through fields of weeds, leaping high in search of anything she might flush, then follow in hot pursuit as long as she could see her quarry. She was interested in anything furred with one exception: she could identify a hawk at 100 yards and would sprint hell bent in its direction, eyes skyward. 

Her posture while sitting was abnormally erect, her spine nearly perpendicular to the ground.  We were never sure exactly what combination of breeds made her, but there was no shortage of speculation from casual observers. Irish wolfhound was often mentioned, as was Norwegian deerhound and Lurcher.  A DNA test indicated she was predominately Airedale, with Akita and other miscellaneous thrown in.  None of it really mattered.  She was a handsome girl, 95 percent sweetheart, and worked her way into my heart like no dog ever had.

She was a perfect traveler, even on multi-day trips. She’d sit or lie in the backseat without a sound or sign of restlessness, content only to be with us and to occasionally hang her head out the window and drool down the side of the truck.  We spent years adjusting our routines so she could be included, taking time for daily walks, making travel plans that allowed for her, forfeiting hikes and venues where dogs weren’t allowed. 

I sometimes resented her need for accommodation and her senseless disruptions.  There were evenings when her inability to decide if she wanted in or out of the house drove me to distraction. But then she’d walk up and with the most expressive eyes in the animal kingdom ask for hearty rubs behind the ears, and I would respond and she would lean into the pleasure with groans of contentment and all would be forgiven.  And then there were nights in bed when I’d look up to find her eyes locked on mine, watchful, with a loyalty beyond measure. 

She slowed down the last couple years, lost her cheetah behaviors as her hips were failing.  She began struggling with stairs and had to be lifted into the car and onto the bed. She showed only casual interest in nearby squirrels and rabbits, fell behind during walks. Then she quit eating. 

We made arrangements with the vet. One of our sons called for an update and suddenly I couldn’t speak. I don’t cry easily. I don’t cry at all. Damn this dog. 

Sir Walter Scott said, “The misery of keeping a dog is his dying so soon. But, to be sure, if he lived for fifty years and then died, what would become of me?” 

It’s different around the house these days. Something’s amiss first thing in the morning and the last thing at night and a hundred times in between. We’re not looking for another dog, we’re still looking for ours. 

She was still warm when we laid her in the ground. Still huggable. I scratched her ears one last time. 

Transitional September

There is a certain quiet in September, when the heat of summer has broken and a light breeze sways the flowers of Queen Anne’s lace. It’s the absence of bird song. Their season of procreation is complete and, for many, migration has commenced. They've been replaced by a chorus of crickets, who accompany me as I pick the last tomatoes, as I watch honey bees working goldenrod and wingstem, as squadrons of southbound swallows dip low over the pond. 

It is a month of transition— no longer summer but not yet fall— and big changes are afoot.  September stands between productivity and dormancy, between bare feet and insulated boots, between flowers and frost. It has come quickly but we’re ready for it, as the root cellar and pantry and freezer will attest. 

In another month the combination of diminishing daylength and cooler temperatures will spawn chemical changes in leaves, and some will scream with yellows and reds that cannot go unnoticed. And squirrels will pack the hollow in the maple tree with walnuts, and the queen hornet will seek shelter in woodland duff, and groundhogs will be fattened for a season of sleep.

This is the month when the unattended flower bed comes to glory, when the beggar tick and thistle and bugleweed make their unsolicited displays, and there is beauty there for those who look. The wildflowers of late summer are no less spectacular than those of early spring. Tidiness in the garden can wait; neglect has its rewards. 

On a September afternoon we take a bike ride along the river and come upon a group of wild turkeys loitering roadside. We coast within a rock’s throw before they move on, showing minimal concern. Around the next curve we encounter a rope-tailed red fox pup, who trots nonchalantly down the centerline for 100 yards before leaping through jewelweed and chicory and being swallowed by underbrush. 

I read a piece this morning written by the director of an integrative health and healing facility on the California coast.  He mentioned how the rhythm of September and October has changed.  What was once a couple months of sunny days and mild temperatures is now a time when he is particularly alert to the smell of smoke, and dinner conversations with friends include news of floods and droughts and evacuation routes. He calls it “eco-grief,” which unlike other forms of grief does not diminish with time, but intensifies. “Our eco-grief not only mourns the loss of what was,” he writes, “but also of what will be gone.”

I am by definition an old man. It’s been my living and the living of my boomer cohort that has led us here, and we have thrown a veil of uncertainty over the aspirations of generations to come. We live on, continuing to support the industrial machine responsible for the mess. A full scale transition to green energy is not easy and we are not united in our resolve to get it done quickly. 

In September, the month of transition, we can appreciate all the natural beauty we still have while looking ahead, adjusting our sights and ambitions.  Today’s eco-grief-stricken youth have everything to lose. They are watching us.

Finding an Exit Ramp

For dinner tonight we had pork ribs brined in salt, slow cooked for three hours, then slathered with sauce and lightly charred.  They were tender and perfect and served up with fresh picked sweetcorn swimming in butter, a sliced tomato the size of a softball, and cucumber rounds doused with ranch dressing.  Ahhh, summer in the heartland.

The sign in the meat department said the hog that gave up its ribs was raised humanely with no added hormones or antibiotics.  It did not mention how much carbon energy and land mass it took to grow the grain that fattened the hog, or how many wild species were put at risk in the process, or any negative impacts to air and water quality. 

The amount of land required to feed global livestock accounts for 77 percent of all farm acreage but provides only 18 percent of the world’s calories and 37 percent of protein.  There is more greenhouse gas associated with the livestock industry than with the entire transportation sector, not to mention associated habitat and biodiversity loss.  

A climate emergency is in progress and the future that scientists warned of is here.  The recent heat wave in Europe that killed 2000, areas of Pakistan that are declared “unlivable for humans”, buckled roads and warped rails in Britain, unprecedented flooding in Missouri, Kentucky, and elsewhere; droughts, wildfires, ocean acidification, melting ice sheets, it's all happening. 

By definition, emergencies call for immediate action, a sense of urgency where everyone’s engaged.  Travel is up following the COVID shutdown, airlines are swamped, RV sales are off the chart, demand for oil increases even with inflated prices. We had ribs for dinner.

A recent survey conducted over multiple countries indicates widespread awareness of the climate crisis but awareness has yet to be coupled with a willingness to act.  It doesn’t feel like an emergency when even those who obsess about the climate continue to contribute to the problem. It feels more like we’re stuck in turnpike traffic and the exit ramps are jammed. 

I saw a reel the other day of a middle aged woman: dark skinned, lean, attractive, wearing colorful beads and small wooden earrings.  She appeared poised, content, confident, and was casually chewing on the end of a broken leg bone from a small ungulate. After thoroughly cleaning the outside of the bone she took a splinter of wood and began probing the interior for marrow, placing tiny morsels on her tongue as if relishing bits of caviar.  At her side was the animal’s fresh hide and metatarsal bones, still covered with shining fur the color of rich mahogany.  In the background another woman was on her knees in the dust, flattening dough on a slab of wood. These women, who have contributed nothing to the current crisis, may be better prepared for it than the majority of us.

My wife turned 70 this month. To celebrate, we drove to Lake Michigan and found Caribbean blue water meeting a cloudless sky. We hiked a marsh trail near the dunes, admired the mallow and red cardinal flower, took note of a few pollinators and songbirds, found a nice cafe with outdoor seating overlooking a marina filled with yachts and sailboats. We ate a good chicken sandwich and washed it down with the best brown ale money can buy.  We made the round trip in an electric car with batteries charged by the sun. We didn’t talk about the sixth great extinction but instead focused on the not yet extinct and the raft of promising technologies and practices that could turn our economy green. The whole day felt good and was a reprieve from a planetary reality that beats us up, plagues us with guilt, and threatens to shadow the beauty that still remains. For just a day, we found an exit ramp. 

A Cathedral and a Hopi Prophecy

A few decades ago we bought a piece of land adjoining ours, a 23 acre parcel oriented north and south in a long rectangle.  Along its east edge runs Spring Creek, straight as an arrow, because years before there was a decree among neighbors to amend the stream for fast and efficient drainage.  There was one holdout, the then-owner of our original 20 acres, who refused to take part. So today the creek has been straightened against its will except for one small segment where it enjoys great purpose as it snakes its way through willows and sedges.  

On the banks of the dredged portion lie piles of spoil from the excavator and remnant oxbows where meanders were forcibly disconnected from the channel. On the spoil mounds the hackberries and sycamores have matured and brambly thickets have formed and mink find den sites. The wounds from the dredge have softened, so today the views up and downstream are rather delightful in spite of prior abuses.

On the western border of the property is a mixed woodland with scattered openings.  It was damaged years ago by grazing cattle, and its healing has been slow.  The wildflowers and understory that typify a deciduous forest have been reluctant to return, but they are returning, struggling as they must against the influence of bush honeysuckle.

Between the recovering woodland on the west and the channeled creek on the east lay nine acres of flat and productive bottomland.  In the woodland a spring bubbles from the ground and skips across the woodland floor a distance before being collected in a riser and carried underground to the creek. 

We used the tillable soil for growing shade and ornamental trees, evergreens and flowering shrubs, to help stock our landscape business.  The land was productive and the plants grew well, but we were haunted by the spring water being funneled away, seemingly wasted. So we sacrificed a few acres of nursery and constructed a pond where the spring could pool and grow fish and wildfowl and offer us a swimming hole before passing through onto the creek.

A half lifetime later we sold the business but not the land, and the “north 20” was left to its own devices. Unbeknownst to us there were plans, established centuries ago, to build a grand cathedral on the site, and now construction had commenced in earnest. There were no architectural drawings, no committees, no fundraisers or budgets, only steadfast development. Already, a choir of birds appeared and were holding dawn rehearsals. And a mixture of plants, goldenrod and brambles and elms and oaks, began occupying the cathedral.  New members showed up unannounced and were welcomed, as the congregation was open to all. And in its willingness to embrace differences, its diversity, value, and function improved.  The soil was free of disturbance for the first time in a century, and in it a complex communication and hydrologic system began to take shape, one specifically designed for the cathedral’s needs.

The work continues today, with no scheduled completion date. This morning we took a tour to measure progress, raspberry pails in hand. The picking was excellent for a crop requiring no cultivation or pruning, fertilization or irrigation, just picking. We suspect a congregation member brought in the first plants, perhaps a visiting raccoon or a member of the choir, and now the ripening berries invite others to join. Such is the selfless giving within the assembly.

While picking, I was drawn deep into the chambers of the cathedral, in and out of shadows, over obstacles, through vines and thorny branches. And I found myself in a clearing with not a single recognizable landmark, uncertain of the way out. Inside a mere 23 acres I was momentarily lost, and it was good.  

The cathedral building crews, with their quiet persistence, attention to detail, and an attitude of acceptance toward participants, has made incredible headway, but things are not exactly as they seem. Within all the positive progress is reason for concern. We have seen, over the past 10-15 years, certain species grow increasingly scarce or disappear entirely, despite perfect habitat conditions. Among them, several snakes: the hog nose, black, fox, milk, even the common water snake. All were once seen regularly, but now rarely. Ditto the eastern box turtle. Ditto many of the frogs and toads, grasshoppers and dragonflies, katydids and mantids. 

The arrival of certain species, horned owls or wild turkeys or a family of foxes, are quick to attract attention and give the illusion that a balanced and healthy system is taking shape. But global threats are at work, extinctions are on the rise, diversity is crashing and the ecological heart of the planet is at risk. To say it will get worse is not negativity, it’s reality. To say we can save ourselves might be true, but will we?  

A recent Hopi prophecy says we are no longer living in the eleventh hour, but The Hour:

“There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.

And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word ’struggle’ from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

Some of us live in denial of environmental threats or feel helpless to do anything, a position requiring no actual study or consideration. Others believe technology will provide solutions and our consumptive economy will go on clicking, which passes the burden of finding a remedy onto a select few engineers and tech wizards. Some who study the threats are anxious and depressed and filled with hopelessness, which beyond being unhealthy, challenges a genuine joy and zest for life. 

A Hopi elder recites the prophecy, smiles at his people and says, “This could be a good time!”  His invitation requires a conscious effort to choose the way we prepare and react to environmental calamity. It means learning to recognize and anticipate our own survival behaviors and putting in their place a generous and compassionate spirit that thrives in community and relationship. 

It’s heavy stuff for me.  My gut reaction is to head to the North 20 and pick raspberries and leave my concerns under a tangle of brambles. I’d rather be at peace with my lower animal self and focus on tending the garden and filling the root cellar and doing practical and wholesome things because I enjoy using less and being self-sufficient, but not because I’m preparing for a painful and difficult time. An attitude of celebration will take some work. 

Teddy Roosevelt said, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”  He was addressing troops during the Spanish American war, but they are solid words for today.  The Hopi elders would agree. 

Their Destiny is Ours

Spring’s big bang has melded to summer and the riverwalk path is smudged with mulberries.  Motherwort blooms, the sweet fragrance of wild grape hangs in the woodland.  In late evening Canada geese gather in the pond near the house, motionless, bellies full. They’ve cropped the grass around the pond as short as a putting green and for the past hour have been dabbling duckweed.  The air is heavy and has a summer stillness as the geese settle in for the night. A wood thrush sings a final song. Bullfrogs begin their serenade.  

After dark we run a bat survey for the DNR. We drive a 20 mile specified route and the Anabat computer picks up chatter from about a dozen feeding bats.  The number is low, but not surprising in the big ag country we survey. No habitat, no bats. We see few insects in our headlights. There will be more later in the season, we say, as new generations are born. But insect numbers are not what they were a decade or two ago, which is true of too many wild things. 

We’ve come off a week of drenching rains and now it’s hot. Dangerously hot. Further west the drought deepens and fires rage. In the far north, tundra burns.

Volatile herbicides from area crop fields curl the leaves on our garden tomatoes, burn the tips of other veggies, defoliate some of our flowering shrubs.  The chemical companies call it “drift”, and it happens even when application protocols are followed to a T.  It’s an Achilles heel for operators, who can be held liable for damage, but a risk justified for the sake of weed free fields.  

In exchange for geese on the pond we have a manure speckled patio and annual flowers nipped to the ground by foraging fowl. In exchange for the efficiencies in an industrialized food system we have chemical drift, degradation of soils and water, massive destruction of habitats, dead zones in the oceans.  In exchange for an endless stream of conveniences and comforts made possible by fossil fuels we pollute our environment, modify our climate, and keep landfills humming.  Everything has a price. 

The Cornell ornithology lab developed an app to aid in bird identification. Among its features is a sound ID, which uses a smartphone to match songs with birds.  On our walks, the app typically picks up a half dozen or more songbirds at any given time, and without it we might never know we were passing a prothonotary warbler or northern parula or warbling vireo.  

We trade hours of field study for the luxury of pressing a button and having a bird identified, and in so doing we support the extraction of “blood minerals” our smartphones require. Few of us think about the cheap labor used to assemble our phones, or the likelihood they’ll someday join a mountain of toxin-oozing gadgetry discarded by a society that fails to embrace a cradle to cradle mentality.  Most of us don’t consider the data centers “in the cloud” consuming massive amounts of energy to process information so we can have the collective knowledge of the world at our fingertips and say, with no field work or study invested , “that’s the voice of a great crested flycatcher.”  

Early in the month I was mowing in the south field, collecting mulch for the garden, and nearly ran over a fawn not more than a day or two old. At the last moment it leapt up on uncertain legs and stumbled to safety among the brambles.  I found it later, bedded down, chin flat to the ground, watchful eyes locked on me.  

Written in those eyes was a 10,000 year history of an herbivore crucial to apex predators and critical in providing food, clothing, and tools for indigenous tribes and European settlers.  Its predecessors survived a massive population decline resulting from habitat destruction and market hunting that reduced their numbers to no more than 500,000.  Today their population has rebounded, 30 million strong, because we wanted them back. 

In the fawn’s eyes lay a question: What value do we give less loved species whose welfare rests on the whims of our land use practices and policies?  Despite a recent history of appreciation and protections for things wild, we still treat the natural world much like a modified version of Jenga, removing individual pieces as the tower draws closer to collapse. Fully functioning ecosystems rely on bats and birds and insects and countless others to provide ecological services essential to us. We control their destinies, and they will determine ours. 

May, and the Soil That Feeds Us

May rolled in with a palette of vibrant colors and kicked a reluctant spring into high gear.  The cold wind carrying the threat of frost retreated north and in its place came a balmy southern breeze that urged a bazillion seeds to sprout and swollen buds to explode with leaf and flower.  The marsh celebrated with blooms on red twig dogwood, the woodlot with wild hyacinth, and the thrush filled the late afternoon with a flute-like song, confirming that May had arrived.  

Early in the month, the incubating goose in the flower box grew fidgety and within hours she was surrounded by seven downy goslings.  Ten days later the total had grown to 42 as other area nests hatched. It all proved more than the parents could handle as members of one brood joined another, and while distraught ganders fought for order the chaos continued, and families were split up.  After several days of commotion and fussing there seems an intentional goose community has formed.  Broods have consolidated into a couple of herds and are under the watchful eyes of 2 to 6 tending adults. Parents take shifts in chaperoning but still squabble among themselves over proper care of offspring. The youngsters, though, are in hog heaven and growing by the day.

About 50 years ago I saw an old timer with a grizzled face sitting on a wooden bench outside a general store. As I was passing we made small talk about weather and the coming of May and the season of morel mushrooms. He said, “The time to hunt mushrooms is when oak leaves are the size of squirrel ears.”  I’ve tested the theory over decades and found it quite accurate, especially applicable to the big, meaty yellows.  

It’s been a great mushroom year for some and good enough for us. We enjoy them for any meal but particularly breakfast, sautéed in butter and served up with eggs and toast. Delectable. There are some things better left as seasonal treats and a mess of meaty morels is among them.  If they were available from the market year round they would be good, but appreciated less.  Rhubarb pie, likewise, is best reserved for the month of May, strawberry shortcake for June, fresh corn on the cob for July.  Some treats are better left seasonal. 

There are photos this morning from the Dakotas showing massive dark walls of dust engulfing homes and communities, eerily reminiscent of the Dust Bowl era. Also this week was an article published in The Guardian by George Monbiot on life in the soil. “As diverse as a rainforest or a coral reef…yet we scarcely know it.”  

A few years ago we visited a biodynamic farm in Northern California.  The crops were terraced along a mountain slope in soil chocked full of stone. This particular farm operated without inputs from livestock or other sources, no manure or fertilizers ever added.  Instead, crops were intensely managed and rotated, so when one crop used an excessive amount of a particular nutrient, the crop that followed helped restore it.  In biodynamic farming, the soil and the quality of the product is the central objective, not the farming itself.  “We focus on growing carbon,” our guide, Jes, told us, “to give soil microbes what they need to do their job.”  That job, Monbiot points out, is to make cements out of carbon that are used to stick mineral particles together, creating pores and passages for water, oxygen and nutrients.  

In a teaspoon of soil lives a billion bacteria that feed on the sugars and complex compounds provided by the plant.  In exchange, the bacteria break down organic matter and allow essential nutrients to be available to the plant.  It is a highly evolved system where particular chemicals alert specific bacteria that provide the exact nutrient the plant needs. 

My wife and I have been growing food organically for 20-odd years, with the only inputs being mulch used to control weeds, and compost from garden and kitchen waste.  We’ve been impressed by the garden’s productivity, year after year.  Each spring we till in the winter's cover crop to incorporate organic matter, which is good, but the practice also disrupts fungal networks and established ecological communities in the soil, which is not good.  Yet we continue because the results we get are most satisfactory.  It’s a human tendency to stick with what works, but it can be a curse when it leads to a refusal to accept change. 

There are nearly eight billion people on the planet that need to eat.  To satisfy the projected world population in 30 years we will need 50 percent more grain than grown today, which will require 146 percent more irrigation water if traditional farming methods continue.  The water does not exist.

Ninety nine percent of the foods we eat are grown in soil, which explains why 80 percent of the deforestation in the past century has been for the sake of agriculture. And it continues today. “Farming is the world’s greatest cause of habitat destruction... and the global extinction crisis,” according to Monbiot.  “Of the 28,000 species known to be at imminent risk of extinction, 24,000 are threatened by farming.”  Around half of all grain is used to support the livestock industry, so the problem is not a lack of farmable land, the problem is what we choose to eat. 

It’s spring, and the season for planting is underway. A barrage of chemically concocted insecticides, herbicides, and fertilizers are being applied to over 250 million acres in the U.S., supporting practices farmers trust and chemical and seed companies love. But the methods are destroying soils and fueling a long list of woes affecting our health and environment. Our own Department of Agriculture recommends eating organic foods and supporting non traditional farming operations that use fewer chemical inputs. The writing on the wall is clear, but when impending disasters unfold slowly they struggle to gain the remedial action deserved, particularly when tradition and corporate profits support the status quo.  

It’s May and early seasonal crops are reaching their prime. Below our feet lies a baffling orchestra of life, intricately connected, not fully understood, poorly treated.  The thrush sings, flowers bloom, another season of growth is underway, and the soil that sustains it all begs attention.