Sunday, July 2nd, 2022. Week number 26
Forgive the late start. It’s already 9:00. I’m already dressed, have already taken stock of the fields, have already had some breakfast and have already decided that life is not going to get any less miserable anytime soon.
On a positive note, we got some very good rain last night. All of my water retrieval systems did their job. Some showed me how efficient they are. The system under the barn filled up beautifully and my buckets near the house are also full. Of course they got some well water. Under the roof of The Root cellar, I got perhaps two half buckets and in the back of the house, very little. I genuinely thought there would be more.
We have water though and that’s the main thing. Taking everything I know about the task into consideration, I have perhaps five or even seven available. Actually getting rain also helped give everything a drink. The sweet potatoes are finally starting to get moving. The beans are grasping their new polls. Some of the cruciferous vegetables are still hurting. There were a lot of burnt leaves from this last week. Several trees look like they have been tortured. The new green branches still look somewhat succulent, they just are not going to have leaves for the photosynthesis. Too much heat. They were just not tough enough to withstand the heat.
The potatoes are looking okay, most of them anyway. A few are already looking like they are sagging towards the end. We had one volunteer potato that ended up in one of our other boxes that had attracted potato beetles. They had managed to lay eggs and their children had eaten away most of it. My ex partner pulled it up and even found three little young potatoes. They were nice young potatoes to eat. This morning I found only three small patches of eggs in our potato box and two beetles. No infestation this year, a year that will probably be the last of this line of potatoes.
My ex partner is not due for a visit today. Perhaps she will be in tomorrow or Tuesday. She is on a company retreat. I hope she is enjoying herself. I have never been a corporate guy so I have no idea whether there is any genuine pleasure in these meetings. It sounds like an opportunity to get drunk to me.
But for some reason Dima called me late last night. He seemed intent on coming by and checking out the new water system. I explained to him that we had a problem with the new check valve because of how much sand was in the well. He said something about attaching a board to the check valve. Maybe he’s right. My thought was to cut some cloth out of an old t-shirt. I don’t want to strain the pump too much but that would act as a better filter. The problem is that for good or for bad, I bought a piece of hard plastic for the well intake so it’s very difficult to measure where the end of the intake actually falls. We also don’t have that much water because it’s not a very deep ell. The water is sitting about 225 cm from the lip of the well, maybe 175 below ground level but I only have perhaps 265 or 270 cm to the bottom. To actually get a hose into the water and to be reasonably efficient about getting as much as possible, there’s really not much else other than laying the thing at the bottom. I can see what he means about attaching a stick.
I don’t particularly need to pump the well today so I’m not going to. We got a decent amount of rain last night which was nice. They say that we’re due for two or three more rainfalls today. I have my doubts but that’s what they say. We are also supposed to get some rain over the next two days. It’s also supposed to be cooler all week long. Perhaps, if we’re lucky, this week will be as kind as last week was brutal.
As for my day of rest, it really was quite restful. I let myself go soft and stayed off my feet all day. I think it made some difference. There’s not really so much going on in the garden except for a need for weeding and cleaning up. Perhaps this would be a good week to finally put together the compost bins. The grass took a horrible beating last week. Everything here dried out a bit and genuinely suffered. Hopefully this week we will have something of a rebound.
But if it’s even a little interesting, we have some lentil pods. It’s not a bumper crop to be sure but there are a few hundred bean pods out there. My climbing beans also have really beautiful red flowers. It’s not really going to be enough food to take care of me for the winter but perhaps we have done something to improve the land a little bit. Difficult to say right now what I want to do with that in the future but what we planted has grown. Not beautifully or wonderfully. Not effectively as if we had put everything under a greenhouse. But there is a garden and there is food growing. And of course, we have a ton of butterflies.
***
“Not everyone can get away with walking or biking to the store.”
A message from a friend when I mentioned that we are all responsible for climate change.
The following are some thoughts about climate change. I may be doing more of this over the next while. It seems it needs to be said.
Yesterday, I got to thinking about how prevalent the understanding of climate change is in the world. I was feeling a little remiss that I haven’t been doing any deep dives. Usually, I tune into the war and sometimes I look for external media for food, vegan restaurants or vegan cooks or perhaps health experts who speak about the benefits of a vegan lifestyle. But I simply asked YouTube to tell me what’s been going on within the last week in terms of global warming. There’s not really much I can add to these things except that what these filmmakers and news agencies are paying attention to is the same thing that I see everyday. If you want to tell me they are influencing me and I don’t really see what I see, really, I just measure my groundwater and check how often the weather service is incorrect. Well, that and I’m watching my trees die.
I guess I’m also kind of prone to speaking about how people react to me or tend to isolate me or use me as a scapegoat for their own problems. I usually attribute this to my passport or perhaps my ethnic heritage being the reason why they do it. But the thing about scapegoating is that it is and is only people looking to hide their own problems by blaming it on others. This has been a staple of conservatives for as long as there have been conservatives but truthfully, it’s been a staple of Christianity since they usurped religion generally.
The problem now specifically though is not just how we could perhaps do something about racial or ethnic prejudice or skin color problems or male female problems. The problem is that this basic users slave owner mentality, this usage of the planet for the purposes of enriching a few, has led us now to ecological catastrophe that is not only seeable and understandable and measurable but beginning to cause massive damage. You can count the dollars of this damage if you like but it might be better simply to count the number of lives ruined. This would not only be from the destruction of our habitat of course, we can also talk about the misfortunes of War or specifically a War fought to continue oil profits or enhance them.
When I speak with great frustration about how the environment of this tiny little place in the world has changed over the last 15-20 years, it is always surprising for me how little people wish to take notice. I could say that they have been told not to pay attention. But perhaps the real deal is that they won’t pay attention because paying attention is simply uncomfortable for them. People just wish to be entertained and do not wish to be given responsibilities they don’t want or be forced to look at unpleasant things. We have all become weak as royalty over the last few decades and simply nobody feels or wants personal responsibility outside of their own lives. But yet, why our water systems have become so explosive is understandable.
Desertification, monocrop farming, chemical fertilizers, animal agriculture and all of the things that destroy the basic topsoil all contribute to constipated cloud systems that cannot casually release water. And of course what happens when they do release it, is flooding, erosion of topsoil and the destruction of spillways. All of this is knowable and learnable. You can go on the internet and ask your own questions or you can just look with your own eyes. It’s there to be seen. There really is no conspiracy theory. There is no great mystery.
When I was working as a translator for a Norwegian newspaper covering both the economic and ecological impact of Russian corruption in the Arctic North, I tried to tell people that I was doing this. I went on social media, I tried to start communities and green businesses to talk about this. I went to the university to try and get people to pay attention. I tried to tell people that the truth about the world and the catastrophic change in environment was Noble at all latitudes. Knowing what’s going on at the polls is perhaps the most obvious. But again, people just never want to listen. People always have something else to pay attention to that is more important. People always have something delightful to do with their time. People just will not stop the party because they’re just having too much fun.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg showed up at the Glastonbury music festival to try and make some sense for the gathered partiers. I tried very hard to find a video of her entire speech but for some reason, it is important for almost all media to make their opinions known rather than just listening to people speak. Cobbling together as many quotes as I can from various sources, the speech sounded something like this:
“I am calling on society to take historic responsibility to set things right with the global climate crisis. I feel there is still some hope for the world to choose a path which is sustainable and leads to a future for everyone.
The biosphere is not just changing, it is destabilizing and breaking down. Unfortunately, this is not the new normal. It will get worse until we manage to halt the constant destruction of our life supporting systems and until we prioritize people and planet over profit and greed.
The delicately balanced natural patterns and cycles that are a vital part of the systems that sustain life on Earth as we know it are being disrupted, and the consequences could be catastrophic. The rise in CO2 emissions and these fundamental changes to our society needed to be addressed and held in accordance with the Paris agreement.
But world leaders have been very busy. They have actively created loopholes and benefited the industries of destructive corporations.
Our society has come to expect world leaders to lie to us. We should be fighting for people and for nature but instead we’re fighting against those who are set on destroying it. Today our political leaders are allowed to say one thing and do the exact opposite. They can claim to be climate leaders while at the same time expand their nation’s fossil fuel infrastructure.
Perhaps the situation is not without hope. I feel there is still some time to choose a path which is sustainable and leads to a future for everyone. But instead of looking for hope from leaders, start creating that hope yourself.
We are approaching a precipice and I would strongly suggest that all of those who have not yet been greenwashed out of our senses stand our ground.
If a bunch of school kids were able to get millions of people on the streets to start changing their lives, just imagine what we could do together if we really tried.
We have all been given a historic responsibility to set things right. We have the unfathomable great opportunity to be alive at the most decisive time in human history. The time has come for all of us to tell the story and perhaps even change the ending. Together, we can still avoid the worst consequences and start to heal the wounds that we have inflicted. Together we can do the seemingly impossible. But make no mistake, no one else is going to do this for us. This is up to us here and now. You and me. Right here and now is where we stand our ground.”
And then she led a cheer by screaming Climate! and the crowd responded Justice! Climate justice. Climate Justice. Climate Justice. Climate justice.
But then this:
This is the voice of the economic side. This is how they talk and this is how they teach people to think. For most undoubtedly the same reason that I could not find an accurate single text of what Greta thunberg said nor find a simple video of her speech, the necessity of conservative snow blower tactics, disinformation and pressing opinions over facts is exactly why we cannot actually get a movement going with any consequence. This despite global catastrophe after global catastrophe and the obviousness of the malicious and horrific chaos that is due for us.
And of course, conservtive media wrote the following in several places:
Unfortunately, the buzz from the mass formation psychosis must not have lasted very long – within minutes of Thunberg leaving the stage, the attendees cleared out, leaving a disgusting mess in their wake.
Pictures from the event show what looks like a massive trash dump, with chairs and litter strewn across the entire area. They created a literal sea of trash – I don’t think this is the type of coming together she was talking about.
They must have been tired after a full day of virtue signaling.
Then there were plenty of arguments debating whether this picture of the garbage left near the pyramid stage was from this year or previous years. It’s important to spend our energy on these details. It’s important to point out the mental illness of the speaker. It’s important so let it be known how unimportant these details are and how easily these thoughts can be destroyed. It’s important to give a reason not to pay attention. It’s extremely important for us all to understand that we’re just not supposed to care about such things.
Me personally? I’m really tired of dismissive people playing with me. I’m really tired of having people who find themselves with something they perceive as power over me immediately diving at the chance to make my life more miserable because they have it. I don’t know where we learned this behavior or why people take so much pleasure in the pain that they can cause in others. I don’t know why we so completely love our selfishness. Well, except to say that we are indeed the stupidest people in the history of History. We are the people that lost our birthright. We are the people that lost the planet Earth as a place to live in because we are too greedy to shut the fuck up and walk lightly for a while.
***
More rockets fired, more people killed, another anti-missile package found and accelerated movement towards joining the European Union. This is what we do rather than figuring out how to stop ruining the world. This is what we do rather than figuring out our real problems.
***
It’s about 2:30 and I’ve been puttering for a little while. By puttering, I mean that I have just cleaned out some areas to give the plants a little bit more breathing room and mulched some things that needed it. I also moved one of the roofing panels that was supposed to be feeding one tree that has never grown and it moved it in front of the cherry plum tree in the front of my yard. That cherry plum tree is to be the flagship here. It’s a very dry spot and the original plan for the garden was a very extensive roofing system to increase drip irrigation. That project has as of yet not appeared. I do have the people who supposedly are willing to do it and maybe I should give them a call. I’ve just been doing other things.
The concept of these roofing panels came to me while observing one particular area on my property. There are identical cherry plum trees in line, one is very successful and the other one is simply shade and what berries do appear, are not very tasty. What is extremely obvious to the eye is that the roof of my woodshed feeds the successful tree and the other one just sits on the property line. Where there is additional water, there is fruit.
I am as guilty as anyone in the world for getting tied up in knots last week. I thought I had everything planned out and under control and then in one stupid moment, I lost 40% of my water right before a giant heat blast came and dried everything out everywhere. Scrambling to get the water back together caused a bit of a problem in my legs. The ex-partner took this particular week to go out of town. Generally, a perfect storm and now that flagship cherry plum tree doesn’t look so good at all.
For that matter, neither do six or seven other trees.
The issue is water and it’s difficult to say exactly how much money I’m supposed to lay out just to get some fruit around here. I can agree that perhaps I have made this harder than I needed to. I was very ambitious in the springtime. I really did need to do things to keep warm and I was happy to be doing physical labor for the first time in a while. I believed this was the correct thing for me to do and that this effort I was making would make me stronger.
Unfortunately, some incongruencies with the social health system denied me some access that I should have had and now I’m kind of in worse shape than I was before. When it was time to fix some things, they just told me I had to wait and did it sarcastically. I don’t want to say they. I’ve identified one particular politician working there who seems to believe it is her job to teach an American or a Jew or whatever the hell kind of object I am to her who is boss. Perhaps she does this to everybody. Perhaps she should not be in the position she is and she should be out looking for another job. Maybe she should head out to the country and try to grow a garden. Maybe she would learn about what’s real and what is not real in this great wide world of ours.
I’m not complaining. It’s kind of hot and humid. Theoretically, we are waiting for more rain. There was supposed to be rain three more times today in the morning but there wasn’t any. We did have some rain last night and I’m not complaining about that. But it was supposed to be three rainy days in a row and this is just absolutely not happening. All of my gardening seems like crawling around in the desert cutting away skeletons of what used to be living plants.
After that, I cleaned up a little bit in the kitchen and now I think I’m just going to take a break for a while. I’m going to drink some water and take it easy.
Just one more thing. Probably my current energy level has dropped a little bit from my day off. What I’m going to say here is that I definitely enjoyed some tasty food. I cooked with oil and I ate pretty big meals, definitely too big for the weather. All through the end of last week, I had been eating almost exclusively raw foods, eating cold basically and was enjoying a nice energy Spike by the end of the week. Well, that is also debatable. Let’s just say I felt a little sharper and clear and had less problems dealing with the heat. Even though this week is supposed to be cooler, I’m going to need to get back into that habit as soon as possible.
Finally, and I’m not sure he’s going to make it, but I did get a call today from Dima and he said something about wanting to come by and help with the water system. I’m not sure that I need it but it’s hard for me to say no when a guy says he wants to help out. I really do not know why I’m getting so much sympathy from him except that I am a paying employer. If he shows up, I’ll think of him when I do need something done and if this is the way he is thinking, I appreciate it but it’s not necessary. The fact that he showed up when I called him was enough for me. There are enough people who don’t even do that that this puts him all over everyone else. In the current market, dependability seems to be made of gold.
Of course, it could be a brand new bout of covid thanks to Lena. I also had a cold and some kind of throat infection this weekend. I really couldn’t speak very much yesterday and I still don’t feel so good. There is something about the diseases that alcoholic people carry with them that just climb all over you and eat your lunch. It’s a great question as to how much I actually need my floors cleaned.
Anyway, we will see. If he’s going to call, he’s going to call. But whether he does or doesn’t, I think I’m on the couch for a while.
***
I guess that’s about it. It’s 9:00 and I haven’t been doing much since I got off the field. I don’t feel particularly accomplished. I’m just taking it easy. Truthfully, there are no parties that I want to go to, no hobnobbing I need to do, no competitions I need to prepare for and no big time deals to angst over. It’s the middle of the summer. I’ve got enough water to keep my plants going for a couple of weeks. In theory, we’re going to get even more rain. There is just not all that much to worry about.
Do you think I’ll get my call from Minsk this week? That would be nice. I think we’re a little late. I think the damage has been done. I can see even that this is going to cost me way more than it needed to because of this bureaucratic and competence. I’m not actually sure if I can prove intended negligence or torture. We have the sarcasm of this bureaucrat and the length of our waiting.. we have the inherent dishonesty from her, apparently hiding or misrepresenting one element of the bureaucracy. Whether or not she has had a hand in this is a different question altogether. That would be the hard thing to prove. Abuse of power is a given. That she’s probably unfit for her job goes without saying. That it’s a matter of ethics that she should probably not be in her job at all should be a foregone conclusion. But can I ultimately prove my case? Probably not. This is not television.
Right now I’m eating very weird porridge. I ground up some chickpeas and quinoa, poured the flower over buckwheat and simply filled the bowl with water. I’m not really waiting for the hydration to come but probably within about 15 minutes it’ll all go pretty soft. Right now it’s just kind of chewy and there’s an odd saltiness to it. It’s pretty tasty as it is and it has some texture to it but again, if I’m speaking to a world of royalty, people who at the flick of a finger have all that they desire, I’m sure such food doesn’t live up to their exotic standards. The quinoa probably came some distance. I don’t know who the import company is for the chickpeas but I guarantee you, and especially so with climate change as it is, you can grow chickpeas here. I’m doing it right now.
Perhaps I’m making some kind of a mistake. Perhaps I’m saying things I should not be saying. Perhaps by even trying to talk about ecology, I am going against all conservative governments and all big corporations. To even try to say that our environment is more important than our economy just creates so much opinion news amongst the major networks.
It’s hard to be inspiring. I bet you if you asked Greta about this she would agree with me. They gave the girl a bunch of money to make an organization. Most probably, she has the most eager people working for her and I’m sure they keep her abreast of all of the ecological hotspots. You can be sure that they’ve made friends with the scientists and get the latest weather readings and news about climate catastrophe. You know they are in the loop most probably when they make statements, you should probably listen to it as being true. And all things considered because she is now a major celebrity, if she takes the trouble to make a speech, you should probably listen to her.
But we don’t. We don’t allow resonance for idealists. We don’t allow words, no matter how true, no matter how scientifically accurate and no matter how positive the message for the world. We are not interested in furthering intelligence. We are not interested in teaching our oh so easy to play with citizenry anything about being responsible. You can’t undo thousands of years of religious slavery. You can’t stop coercion or fear. And even if you could calm us down for a second, they just make more war to dirty things up, don’t they?
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