December Stillness

 Here we are in the Holiday Season with surging COVID cases and deaths, the presidential election still contested by the current White House occupant, and COVID vaccines being distributed. To paraphrase my daughter, the distribution is "sketchy."  Dr. Fauci  says to continue wearing your mask, like this snowperson.

This is the first holiday in about fifty years without our dear friend, Don. Acute COVID pneumonia contributed to his death. I met Don in the Fall of 1969, when we began teaching at West Bend High School. Don taught math and I taught social studies. On countless occasions over the years, Ann and I enjoyed the love and joy of Don along with his wife, Kay.  For years Don and Kay, along with other of our good friends, celebrated New Year's Eve. COVID means we will not be gathering in person and yet Don will be missed. 

On the celestial plane shortly after sunset on December 21st and on solstice, Jupiter and Saturn will appear to pass each other in the southwest sky creating the illusion of a brilliant star. This heavenly show happens every 800 years and may explain the Star of Bethlehem in the story of Christ's birth. 

In the meantime back on earth Monroe Street establishments continue to adapt. Here are holiday shoppers lining up and patiently waiting to enter Orange Tree Imports, a popular gift and gourmet shop that has  been on Monroe Street for 45 years. I ordered Ann's presents online with pickup on the back porch.

One of her gifts, a special brand of cocoa, was already out of stock. Hopefully this indicates that Orange Tree is surviving. 

Taste of India, a restaurant across the street from our apartment, seems to be doing okay.  Once the red "open" sign lights up, I can see from my office windows a steady stream of customers leaving their cars to pick their orders.   

So much is happening during our epic times. Yet there is stillness in December as underscored by that popular carol, Silent Night and the following poem. I offer this poem for your reflection about the benefits of stillness and especially the kind that penetrates December. 

December Stillness 

December stillness, teach me through your trees

That loom along the west, one with the land,

The veiled evangel of your mysteries.

While nightfall, sad and spacious, on the down

Deepens, and dusk imbues me where I stand,

With grave diminishings of green and brown,

Speak roofless Nature, your instinctive words;

And let me learn your secret from the sky,

Following a flock of steadfast journeying birds

In lone remote migration beating by.

December stillness, crossed by twilight roads,

Teach me to travel far and bear my loads.

By Siegfried Sassoon

Stillness as a teacher strikes me as being very appropriate for this atypical year.  Which brings me to what I relearned from our atypical Christmas tree. This year no Frasier Fir covered with sparkling white lights and the many ornaments collected over the years. We would typically spend hours decorating our tree after buying it from UW Forestry Club's lot within the Stock Pavilion.  

Stillness and giving up the Frasier Fir has reminded me of the importance of gratitude. Here's our "gratitude tree" with ornaments from the 1950s, several bird ornaments mostly purchased over the years from Orange Imports on Monroe Street, and small cards cut from wrapping paper. On each card Ann and I wrote our own statements of gratitude. We anticipate that our daughter, Emily, will send some which we will add. 

The vase is from Ann's beloved Mom. The plastic 1940s snowman is from Ann's Uncle Johnnie and Aunt Gertie.  We found it when we cleaned our their Milwaukee apartment after Uncle Johnnie died in 1985. Johnnie was always included in a Christmas Day gathering at Ethel's, my beloved mother-in-law's Brookfield home. 

Ethel loved the holidays and always prepared a great feast. The main dish was kolbas, a Hungarian sausage. Dessert was kalacs (Hungarian stollen) and her 15 different kinds of cookies made well in advance. She shared tins of cookies with relatives and friends. I liked all of Ethel's cookies with Pecan Fingers and Thumb Prints being my favorites. 

Sometime during the morning of  Christmas, Ann and I would pick up Uncle Johnnie at his Milwaukee flat. Shortly after we arrived, Uncle Johnnie always served us Brandy Manhattans mixed in a purple glass pitcher and poured in matching glasses sitting on a silver tray. My days of enjoying alcoholic beverages are long gone.  Yet the joy of those past Christmas celebrations sustains me while reminding me of how far I have traveled since those Christmas days on our family farm. 

Living in our neighborhood also sustains me.  Here are a two scenes from my daily walks through the neighborhood. 

Monroe Street Framing offers a nostalgic winter scene on the front window. The brick building in the background is the reflection of the building across the street. The ice skaters remind me of the joy of ice skating with Emily on the Vilas Park lagoon. Another favorite winter activity with young Emily was sledding down the hill that was once on the Edgewood campus where the science building and parking lot are now located. I would pull Emily from our house on Keyes Av to the hill on her red plastic sled.

A few blocks from our apartment now are these colorful ornaments hanging in a front yard tree along with others. You can see how much snow (about five inches) we received last weekend.  The picture was taken the day after the storm moved on. 

Our neighbors love to decorate while being somewhat restrained and modest. You wouldn't fine extravagant displays spanning the entire lot or covering the entire front of a home.  Garlands with small lights attached to white picket fences, a few lighted figures, and tree ornaments are more the norm. 

I belong to a small group of fellow Unitarians who meet twice a month. A statement of gratitude for this group, referred to as a "Chalice Group," hangs on our gratitude tree. Before COVID, Barb V. and I carpooled to meetings. During this time of the year we would sometimes rate the Christmas displays as we passed by. Those that were on the skimpy side were rated "why bother" whereas those that were considered too lavish received "over the top/too much." Ones we considered just right were designated as "tasteful."   Most of my neighbors' outdoor display would fall in the "tasteful" group. 

Stillness and having a "tasteful" appearance now characterizes Prospect Gardens. The December stillness of Prospect Gardens evokes a sense of peace while underscoring the value of patience. I patiently wait for spring to learn what will emerge and unfold. Here's the snow covered hosta gardens.

This picture caused me to wonder about the winters that my maternal great-grandparents Frank and Josephine Lepak experienced after they moved to the wilderness of Wisconsin. At that time we did not have standardized time zones. In November 18, 1883, railroads began using a standard time system involving today's four time zones which resulted in all clocks within a time zone to be synchronized. 

The couple arrived in Milwaukee on June 11, 1872 shortly after being married in January from what is now Brusy, Poland. They were visiting Frank’s brother, Michael, and decided to stay.  During the fall of 1877, Frank and Michael, along with two other Milwaukee Polish families, sold their homes and moved to uncleared land they purchased near Hoffa Park, about ten miles northeast of Pulaski.  The men during the summer had built temporary shelters before the women and children arrived.  

According to Wisconsin 1879 census records, Frank owned 80 acres with 20 being cleared. The family produced food to survive as they cleared the land using oxen. The same records show that the family made 100 pounds of butter from the milk of one cow and chickens laid 40 dozens of eggs. Frank harvested 3 acres of wheat yielding 38 bushels. The garden produced Indian Corn, Canada Peas, and beans. One-half acre of potatoes yielded 50 bushels. 

So what was in like during those winters without standardized time? Life must have slowed yet survival required vigilance. Frank died in 1929, a prosperous farmer owning 120 acres. The couple had fifteen children.  Here they are in their old age.

Both Frank and Josephine certainly experienced more stillness during winter compared to our noisy 21st century globalization era in which  standardized time is broken into nanoseconds. 

Prospect Gardens, especially after a heavy snow storm, provides some stillness. Here's a few winter scenes from the Gardens along with quotations about what stillness can teach us.

“Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions.”  Eckhart Tolle

"True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment." William Penn

“The answers you seek never come when the mind is busy, they come when the mind is still.” Leon Brown




“Seek out a tree and let it teach you stillness.” Eckhart Tolle

“Within yourself is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself” Herman Hesse

"In the stillness of the quiet, if we listen, we can hear the whisper of the heart giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair." Howard Thurman

"Stillness is our most intense mode of action. It is in our moments of deep quiet that is born every idea, emotion, and drive which we eventually honor with the name of action. We reach highest in meditation, and farthest in prayer. In stillness every human being is great." Leonard Bernstein

I recall the stillness of winter days growing up on the family farm. The deep snow crunched as we silently walked to the barn to do chores or when we carried the cans of milk from the barn across the yard to the milk house. The night sky sparkled with stars as the yard light buzzed and cast shadows. Many nights the Northern Lights flashed upward from the distant horizon and spread across the sky.  When the moon was out you could see for miles across the white countryside. Silence even became deeper as the animals quieted and settled in for the night. 

Days after severe snow storms were especially infused with silence. Here's my older sister, Angie on top of a snowbank of a particularly heavy 1959 March snowstorm. She conquered the huge snowdrift and is celebrating her victory. 

As the picture indicates this 1959 storm had fierce winds. Blinding winds howled for at least a day and sometimes between gusts you could hear an eerie silence. The world seemed to groan and sigh as the winds swept the snow into huge banks. This snowbank reached the top of the machine shed. Notice the tree tops in the background.

The contrast between the ferocity of the storm and the post storm silence made the days of recovery quite pleasant, as Angie is demonstrating. During these storms I never felt like destruction was imminent. Instead the feeling was more like the acceptance of nature's power and that another day was at hand. 

By no means were we careless or flippant about storms. My mother was well prepared to wait out snowstorms. She had a well stocked pantry off the kitchen, with hundreds of canned fruits and vegetables, along with a pile of potatoes and crocks of sauerkraut in the basement. Just off to the left of the basement stairs was a huge stack of wood that Ma burned in the wood stoves. At bedtime my brothers and I, in our long underwear, crawled in our respective beds and snuggled under the thick goose feather comforters (piszyna in Polish). My sisters in cotton or flannel nightgowns would also retire to their respective beds. On below freezing nights, the square framed house would make a cracking sound as the wood contracted. I was never startled by this unusual sound.

What we really dreaded during winter and especially during storms was a visit to the outdoor privy across from the house and next to the machine shed. I will leave this experience to your imagination while just saying one did not linger for long in the cold December silence.

I offer this Mary Oliver poem for your reflection as we near the end of these meanderings and musings. Its messages are similar as those in the first poem, "December Stillness."  

First Snow 

The snow 

began here 

this morning and all day 

continued, its white 

rhetoric everywhere 

calling us back to why, how; 

whence such beauty and what 

the meaning; such 

an oracular fever! flowing 

past windows, an energy it seemed 

would never ebb, never settle 

less than lovely! and only now, 

deep into night, 

it has finally ended. 

The silence 

is immense, 

and the heavens still hold 

a million candles; nowhere 

the familiar things: 

stars, the moon, 

the darkness we expect 

and nightly turn from. Trees 

glitter like castles 

of ribbons, the broad fields 

smolder with light, a passing 

creekbed lies 

heaped with shining hills; 

and though the questions 

assailed us all day 

remain---not a single 

answer has been found---- 

walking out now 

into the silence and the light 

under the trees, 

and through the fields, 

feels like one. 

Mary Oliver. (1992, p. 150-51). New and Selected Poems. Beacon Press: Boston, MA. 

 

May you experience the blessings of silence during this month of holidays and may these blessings increase and multiply as 2021 unfolds. Peace and good health to you and your loved ones. 

 

 

 

  

  

 

October Transitions

COVID 19 cases and deaths continue to rise in Wisconsin.  Fall edges into winter and the presidential election looms just over the horizon.  I offer this poem for your reflection during this time of heightened uncertainty and transition. May it lighten any burdens that we carry.

AND THE PEOPLE STAYED HOME [Kitty O’Meara]

And the people stayed home. And read books, and

Listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art,
And played games, and learned new ways of being,
And were still. And listened more deeply. Some
Meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met
Their shadows. And the people began to think
Differently.

And the people healed. And, in the absence of people living

In ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless
Ways, the earth began to heal.

And when the danger passed, and the people joined

Together again, they grieved their losses, and made
New choices, and dreamed new images, and created
New ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had

Been healed.

May the promise of this poem become a reality. Meanwhile, a cold and cloudy day has replaced the steady rain of the last two days. Snow is in the forecast. The warm days of early October are just a memory.

The eleventh season of caring for the Prospect Gardens has ended. A few days ago while autumnal (love this word) warmth was still with us, Ann and I once again put up the protective orange snow fences.  

The fences are showing their age battered by past winter winds and the forces of the snow plows. I considered asking the city for replacements, but like this aging body, I decided that they could withstand whatever lies ahead for another year.

Thanks Joyce for clearing out this area and preparing it for the winter. The cherry tree in the background is diseased and next spring will be removed. Not using chemical sprays may be a contributing factor. Over the years passersby and the birds have enjoyed the cherries. 

A few months ago Ann N. offered columbine from her nearby home. She gave me a shopping bag full of dried plants which yielded nearly a third of a cup of tiny black seeds. The seeds were in the refrigerator for about a month, mimicking winter, before I spread them. 

Ann N. also donated a few bleeding hearts roots which she and I planted while being fully masked.  Planting them indicates my belief that we will heal and the blooms will grace future springs. "God willing", as my mother would say. 

Another neighbor, Aileen, gave spider wort seeds which I also casted across the Gardens.  Here they are in a shopping bag. Thanks Ann N. and Aileen.

This stump marks transition and time passing. Eleven years ago the stump was deeply anchored into the earth and impossible to move. Earlier this month the stump easily gave way as I prepared a section of the Garden for purple cones flowers donated by Laura R., another neighbor. Thanks Laura.

The stump also reminds me that while we lovingly care for the Gardens the earth has its say as to what survives.  Another neighbor, Kate, posts poems on a pedestal in her front yard. Here's one that reminds us about the importance and spiritual significance of dirt. Thanks Kate.

“Ode to Dirt” by Sharon Olds (born 1942)

Dear dirt, I am sorry I slighted you,
I thought that you were only the background
for the leading characters—the plants
and animals and human animals.
It’s as if I had loved only the stars
and not the sky which gave them space
in which to shine.  Subtle, various,
sensitive, you are the skin of our terrain,
you’re our democracy.  When I understood
I had never honored you as a living
equal, I was ashamed of myself,
as if I had not recognized
a character who looked so different from me,
but now I can see us all, made of the
same basic materials—
cousins of that first exploding from nothing—
in our intricate equation together.  O dirt,
help us find ways to serve your life,
you who have brought us forth, and fed us,
and who at the end will take us in
and rotate with us, and wobble, and orbit.

I never have slighted dirt or underestimated the importance of dirt, because in part, of being raised on a farm. My farm experiences, while difficult at times, have left a residue of respect for the earth. Caring for Prospect Gardens also is a lesson in the importance of soil. For example, the soil of one section is heavily mixed with cinder and ash dumped before the path was opened. This poor quality soil has hindered plant growth. Also, planting among the rocks required us to haul in dirt as we carved out beds among the rocks.  

Aging has meant a greater appreciation of Sharon Olds final admonition that at the end of life earth " will take us in and rotate with us, and wobble, and orbit." A pleasant thought to contemplate as the grasses of Prospect Gardens, pictured here, wait for the upcoming winter. 

Paradoxically, these few daisies, continue to thrive.  A fly is resting on the flower in the right side of the picture and I imagine it's enjoying the pollen. Somehow seeds found their way to this spot outside of the Gardens, but near the Regent entrance and are defying time. In early spring, daisies are plentiful. These daisies will surely feel the effects of this upcoming weekend's predicted frost.  Hopefully, daisies will reappear in this spot during the next spring.  I will watch for them.

Here's another late October survivor: the hardy saw tooth daisy. They spread easily. I planted one clump in Prospect Gardens ten years ago. During this last month, we thinned out and removed these plants while preparing the Gardens for the winter. A few years ago, I moved a clump to an area near the next set of bike ramps east of Prospect Gardens. The clump of saw tooth daisies is now a large patch and some have spread even further east. 

This month of caring for Prospect Gardens reminds me of Autumn on my family farm; another time of transition. In a normal year harvesting would be just about done. The granary with its beautiful wood floor is full of oats. The loft in the gable roof barn is full of hay and the silo is filled to the top with chopped corn referred to as silage. The cows are kept in the barn and fed daily.

Perhaps some corn is being harvested for grain. Harvesting the cobs of ripened corn involved walking between the rows of corn, breaking off each ear by hand and throwing the cobs into an adjoining wagon driven by a younger brother.  We made our way to the corn crib once the wagon was filled with cobs.  We shoveled the cobs into a machine with rollers that removed the husk and an elevator took the cleaned ears into the crib. During the winter they would be ground into cattle feed.

This is the same crib in which my sister Angie and I played house during the summer months and when we were young children unable to do farm work. We made "furnishings" from boards and cardboard boxes. This was a precious and short time period before joining the family workforce. 

Wood was made before heavy snowfall. My older brother John loved "making wood." I recall working with him on a chilly cloudy day when I was about eleven years old. 

John pulled a saw rig like this one out from the machine shed. The blacksmith, located a few miles from the farm, had already sharpened the teeth of the round large blade. Each tooth was now razor sharp. We hauled the rig to the neighbor's woodlot. A pulley on the tractor with a belt connected to the saw's blade caused it to whirl at an amazing speed.

Trunks of dead trees were stacked on a pile. Sometimes John and I would cut down a dead tree using a crosscut saw, with him at one end and I at the other, pulling back and forth until the tree dropped. When ready, John placed a log on the wood platform, leaned into the platform which pushed the log into the whirling, whistling blade.  Meanwhile, with great caution and high alertness, I held the other end as the noisy saw sliced off a piece of wood about a foot or so in the length.  I can still hear the whirling piercing sound of steel against wood that could be heard for miles.

Here's John decades later riding his antique tractor in Pulaski's Polka Days parade that happens annually near my July birthday. Thousands from throughout the Midwest travel to the village for four days of polka music, dancing and Polish food such as Kielbasa (Polish sausage).  This year's 42nd festival was cancelled because of COVID. In 2019, several Polka bands, including one from Poland, played as people danced the polka, the official dance of Wisconsin. I have never attended the festival, but danced the polka at my three sisters' large weddings. 

John was an antique picker who often purchased his collections at auctions and sold many items to antique dealers. His barn near Bonduel, west of Pulaski, was crammed with old tools, lamps, appliances, farming equipment and other items.  

John loved discussing politics and he strongly favored Democrats. This election would be of intense interest to John if he still was alive. John's interest in politics started early. As an eighteen year old, according to my sister Jenny, he spoke at public meetings against consolidation of schools which ultimately meant closing of  Polandi, the one room school that I attended until the seventh grade.  

I don't know what was the basis of his argument. I wonder if John sensed how school consolidation, along with other factors, would eventually change rural Wisconsin and the township we lived in. Now I realize the changes were already underway at that time. 

When I was a child, the one room school house and small towns, such as Pittsfield and Laney, were important in our lives and we identified with these places. Social gatherings such as the annual picnics and Christmas programs were held at Polandi. 

During summers, we checked out books from the bookmobile parked in front of the school. It was our only source for books. I still have a certificate showing the books I read during the summer when I was in second grade. These included "Frisky the Goat" and "Jerry Goes Fishing."  

The cheese factory in Laney, owned by the Schrieber brothers, purchased the milk from our farm and we stored meat in the factory's rented lockers. They lived next door in a large white house. Loans could be made with the Schrieber brothers and paid off with future milk sales. My mother sold eggs and often shopped at Hussin, a store in nearby Pittsfield. The unincorporated town also had several homes, a one room school, a Lutheran church, Kolb's tavern and its dance hall. My Dad attended the school for seven years which was considered an adequate education. 

Today nothing remains of Pittsfield except the church's cemetery. The sign stating its unincorporated status is even gone. Laney still hangs on to an identity but the cheese factory has been closed for years. The Schrieber home and the building that once was the cheese factory still exists. Adjacent to the house is a cheese store stocked with fancy cheeses from throughout the United States. A hotel and saw mills were already gone by my time.  The two room brick schoolhouse was torn down several years ago. A fire destroyed the impressive brick building housing Mastey's Tavern, gas station, store and living quarters after these were closed for many years. I recall seeing the ruins and my brother gave me, a few years ago, two bricks from the ruins as a Christmas present. A three bay brick garage with dormers survived the fire and was the site for selling locally grown organic vegetables. I am unsure if the stand is still in business.       

In short, during my lifetime much has changed and in one sense transition was a constant. In many parts of our state rural and urban now overlap, creating what is referred to as "urban-rural interface." The Madison area is a prime example of this interface, which is very noticeable along the Southwest Bike Path going through Fitchburg. Clusters of houses adjacent to farm lands are all part of the city. The city has ordinances protecting farmland. 

My birthplace, the township of Maple Grove, is still largely rural. Farms now have more acreage than our family farm but many are still family owned. There are no large dairy farms with thousands of cattle.  However, many unused farm buildings have collapsed, including the barn that was part of our family farm. Some farm buildings along with lots have been cut out of the initial acreage and sold to individuals who work in nearby Green Bay. This is the case with our once 120 acre farm. Somebody from Green Bay owns most of the 120 acres, and another family owns the house and a small parcel of land.

Researchers now study how rapid change and our habit of moving frequently affects a "sense of place."  This concept refers to both the attachments and the meanings that individuals or groups hold for a specific place. Such attachments contribute to self-identity and satisfaction with life. 

Caring for Prospect Gardens, along with my wife, Ann, and neighbors, contributes to my deep sense of place and to being satisfied with my life. I am grateful for the neighborly connections that result from caring for the Gardens. These connections have sustained me during this time of great uncertainty and this time of transition. Hopefully we are turning towards what O'Meara says in her poem, AND THE PEOPLE STAYED HOME: 

"New choices, and dreamed new images, and created
New ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had

Been healed."

May it be so. Peace and good health to you and your loved ones. 

 

 

    

 

 

 

Summer Abundance and Beauty

During these summer days while walking through Prospect Gardens I am mindful of the abundance and beauty that surrounds me. The Gardens now are like a Monet painting awash in pinks and yellows with tinges of reds, purples and blues. Phlox, black-eyed susan, tickseed, early sunflower, coreopsis, Joe Pye Weed, purple cone flower, cardinal plant, lavender hysop, and blue lobelia are in bloom. During my visits, I am likely to see a chipmunk scurry across the rocks, a bunny dive into the undergrowth, butterflies, bees, and a Gold Finch perched on the pod of purple cones looking for some early seeds.  

Last week while checking on transplanted plants from a neighbor, Hanns stopped and got off his bike for a friendly chat. Katie, who lives nearby is expanding play space for her three active children which requires removal of several flower beds. I moved lily of the valley, purple cones and ginger to the Gardens.

I so enjoyed the brief visit with Hanns as we talked at an appropriate distance and masked. Hanns has a delightful sense of humor. These brief visits with passersby are even more precious during these days of restricted socializing. Ann and I continue to practice social isolation while missing face-to-face visits with neighbors, friends and relatives. Zoom gatherings, sometimes up to three a week, are an inadequate substitute and yet I value these virtual ties. 

Here's a few pictures showing the abundance of Prospect Gardens along with quotations about gardens. 

"Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace. May Sarton (1912-1995): American poet.

"Just living is not enough... one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower." Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875): Dane famous for fairy tales.

    

"I think this is what hooks one to gardening: it is the closest one can come to being present at creation."  Phyllis Theroux: American children's book writer, born in 1939.

"I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow." President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

"We learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent question of the time: How much is enough?"  Wendell Berry: Poet, activist, critic and Kentucky farmer born in 1934.

"Because I am really interested in gardening, I do really interesting plants, not even always flowers. And because I have grown them, I really know them like friends. I paint everything from exotic orchids to rosehips growing wild in a hedge. They just have to speak to me." Emma Tennant (1932-2017): British  novelist  and editor known for her post-modern style.

"A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust." Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932): British horticulturist .

"Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul." Luther Burbank (1949-1926); American botanist.  

"I know that if odour were visible, as colour is, I'd see the summer garden in rainbow clouds."Robert Bridges (1844-1930): British Poet Laureate . 

“In my garden there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful. ” Abram L. Urban (1899-1963): Prominent African American  Economist

"It's August, and the Joe Pye Weed has appeared in all its glory to announce the coming end of summer. This showy giant native plant gained its common name from a Colonial-era Native American by the name of Joe Pye who used the plant medicinally. This wise medicine man reputedly knew many cures made with the herb “Eupatorium purpureum,” curing fevers, urinary obstructions and typhus outbreaks. Along with its beauty and medicinal qualities Joe Pye is a favorite of pollinators. " Rita Jones/For The Logan Daily News, August 20. 2020. 

H. Jackson Brown, an American author said "Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get."  Caring for Prospect Gardens is this bee, pollinating the lobellia.  Recently, Ann B.,  Dave G., Laura, Joyce and Nick have also taken good care of the Gardens. Thank you.      

Thank you to Marcia and Jim for donating the small decorative fence now bordering the Peg Arnold memorial garden. It's the perfect touch. Peg was one of the first volunteers along with her husband Steve. 

Recently Steve moved to Ashland so he could be near his daughter, her husband and their son. I bet Grandpa Steve is enjoying his Grandson. His daughter's dog loved eating raspberries at Prospect Gardens before Steve and I, during our encounters, would notice. 

Another grateful thank you to Marcia and Jim for sharing the abundance of their friend's organic vegetable garden, which is in Appleton. What a generous and tasteful gift. Ann made delicious gazpacho with the heirloom tomatoes, garlic, leeks and cucumbers. The beets, yellow summer squash and the potatoes were just as tasteful. The red cabbage, along with pork chops, made for another delicious dinner. Still another dinner featured homemade tomato soup from several different kinds of tomatoes. 

The ground cherries made a unique pie plus added a new taste to a salad of beets and cherry tomatoes. Ground cherries taste like a cherry tomato injected with mango and pineapple juice, and look like an orange pearl encased in a miniature paper lantern.   

Ann's friend and a former neighbor of ours on Fox, Peg, also shared tomatoes and herbs from their backyard garden.  Thanks, Peg.

The gifts of fresh summer vegetables reminded me of the vegetable gardens and orchards on my family farm. Summer was a time of harvesting. While my brothers and I harvested crops, our Mother canned in the hot kitchen during the entire summer. Windows and the screen door to front porch were wide open in anticipation of a breeze.   

She canned several different kinds of apples from the orchards, vegetables from our garden, Georgia or Colorado peaches, and Door County cherries. Empty jars were brought up from the cool basement into the steaming kitchen and washed. The prepared fruits and vegetables, packed into jars, were stacked into the copper boiler for a steamed bath. Ma, with her hair pulled back and her brow covered with sweat, would pull, at the appointed time, the hot jars from the steaming water.  

By September, the basement shelves were filled with the results of her hard labor. Stored nearby were potatoes, pumpkins, and squash in bins with a dirt floor, crocks of sauerkraut, and an old butter churn full of pickles next to the sauerkraut. The filled storehouse fed us throughout the winter. The massive woodpile and sometimes a pile of coal stored in the basement kept us warm during the long winter days and nights. Sometime in September, I recall hauling the wood with a tractor and trailer to a basement window and tossing the wood into the basement. One of my brothers would assist.  

Prior to getting a gas stove in the late 1940s, Ma, as we referred to her, canned and baked using a wood stove. Somehow she knew how to create and regulate the heat of burning wood. The gas stove stood next to the wood stove. Ma preferred using the wood stove for baking bread because she said wood heat made a better brown crust. I can recall the large tin bread pan full of dough covered with a dish cloth sitting near the hot wood stove rising and eventually bellowing like a cloud. Ma eventually punched the cloud down and divided up the dough into well used darkened tins. If it was early morning Ma would be listening to the "Farm Hour", coming from Green Bay. I can still hear the mellow voice of one of the men as he and his partner chatted about farm topics including the market price of milk, hogs and cattle. 

Ma was well known for her pies. She often used Wolf River apples from one of the orchards. These large apples have pale yellow skin with shades of pale dull red and their flesh is tender, white and creamy. Ma made sheet pies rather than the typical round nine inch pies. Remember Ma had fourteen children and during my elementary school years she was feeding eleven counting her.

Ma in the neighborhood was known also for her homemade raised doughnuts. She often made them weekly. The large harvest kitchen table would be covered with cut out doughnuts waiting to be popped into hot lard. We often ate them when they were still warm and without any sugar or powdered sugar. 

She often shared her doughnuts with neighbors. My sister Theresa walked the mile dead-end road delivering freshly made doughnuts to Katie and Mary Johnson who lived in a house made of logs.  Katie and Mary Johnson were generous, kind, and sweet.  Their house was always spotless and had a sweet smell even though the kitchen had a kerosene cook stove. On the kitchen wall was the wooden box-like phone with the crank on the side. Many neighbors, including us, had access to the phone for fetching the doctor or ordering gas. Katie usually did the actual calling.  

Here is Ma with me in 1962 when I graduated from high school. The farm was already sold and we were about to move into Pulaski.  After the move, Ma still had a garden in the backyard. She made bread well into her eighties as well as apple pie. However, the pies were in nine inch tins and the bread baked in a gas stove. Yet the bread always had a brown crust. She didn't do much canning in town.

When Emily, Ann and I visited, Ma usually offered pie. Sometimes we would have lunch or dinner which included her homemade bread. If we were lucky, polish sausage was on the menu. 

We plant zinnias, one of her favorite flowers, every year in her honor. She died in 1998. There is now a large pot of zinnias on the deck of our apartment just outside my office window.   I close with a poem by American poet Amy Schmidt followed by another poem of blessing.  The pictured zinnias from our deck are a virtual gift to you.

ABUNDANCE in memory of Mary Oliver  

It’s impossible to be lonely
when you’re zesting an orange.
Scrape the soft rind once
and the whole room
fills with fruit.
Look around: you have
more than enough.
Always have.
You just didn’t notice
until now.

Blessing  by Carrie Newcomer 

May you wake with a sense of play,

An exultation of the possible.
May you rest without guilt,
Satisfied at the end of a day well done.
May all the rough edges be smoothed,
If to smooth is to heal,
And the edges be left rough,
When the unpolished is more true
And infinitely more interesting.
May you wear your years like a well-tailored coat
Or a brave sassy scarf.
May every year yet to come:
Be one more bright button
Sewn on a hat you wear at a tilt.
May the friendships you’ve sown
Grown tall as summer corn.
And the things you’ve left behind,
Rest quietly in the unchangeable past.
May you embrace this day,
Not just as any old day,
But as this day.
Your day.
Held in trust
By you,
In a singular place,
Called now. 

Summer Reflections

July 4th, a rather strange holiday given our times, has passed. Here's the neighborhood annual fireworks seen from our deck. The show was short and spectacular, as was the full moon. I have been told that a small group of neighbors fund and carry out the firework. I was glad to again witness the show..

Summer heat with high humidity is converging with spiking of COVID-19 while racial justice protests continue. Tending Prospect Gardens has provided some solace while my birthday is on the horizon. Some of my feelings to all of this is captured by poet and philosopher Kahlil Gibran's (1883-1931) poem "On Joy and Sorrow."  Here's one stanza that summarizes the poem's message.

"Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.” But I say unto you, they are inseparable.  Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed."   https://poets.org/poem/joy-and-sorrow  for complete poem.

An example of me experiencing the inseparability of joy and sorrow involved these three high school students practicing under the nearby Spooner Street bridge. On June 26th, I was on the return loop of my daily walk. Unlike today's searing 90 degrees, it was a perfect Wisconsin summer day: mild temperatures, blue skies, and a gentle breeze. As I approached the bridge the young men were tuning their trombones. I stopped and listened. They began playing and I recognized Simon and Art Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence." 

A palpable wave of joy washed through my body. Written in 1964, the song hit its popularity in early 1966. It's now a classic folk song added in 2012 to the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important".  My favorite memory of the song is associated with teaching high school social studies at West Bend West High School in 1970.  A student included "The Sound of Silence" in an oral report on music and American culture in a course entitled "American Studies."  

Those were exciting and joyful days in my long education career. I was part of an educational reform that included modular scheduling, team teaching, what is now called project based learning, and a social studies curriculum based on historical themes. For example "The Rise of  American Industrialism" which concluded with a community open house showcasing student displays and projects.

When the three finished playing, and after I thanked them and told them to "Keep on playing your entire lives" a wave of sorrow followed my joy.  I teared up as I walked toward home. I  can't attribute any one reason why I felt so sad. Time certainly has marched on.  Perhaps the sad lyrics themselves were a contributing factor, now experienced through the lenses of multiple crises impacting health, the economy and questions of morality swirling around the "Black Lives Matter" movement.  For lyrics see  https://genius.com/Simon-and-garfunkel-the-sound-of-silence-lyrics  

 

Joy and sorrow intermingled could be the theme of this summer and for the foreseeable future. Here's the first of two poems on the joy side of the pendulum. 

Flowers: Imran Will Suleyman, Architect, Vocalist, Pianist and poet from Kenya. 

"They have no mouth, but seem to speak

A thousand words so mild and meek.

They have no eyes , but seem to see

And bury thoughts into me.

They have no ears, but seem to hear

All my cries, my every tear.

They have no arms, but seem to pat

When with worries my heart is fat.

They have no feet, but seem to walk

Along with me in my dreams and talk.

They, I know, are the flowers so nice

That spread their fragrance a million miles.

Grow a few and then you'll know

How your life is fresh and new.

With a smile so broad, I thank my God,

Whose work to imagine is really too hard."

These blooming Prospect Gardens' plants confirm the poem's message of "Grow a few and then you'll know how your life is fresh and new."  I would add growing flowers is a joyful act. Here's a few for your enjoyment. Thanks to the volunteers who so far this summer have helped tend these Gardens. 

Bee Balm 

False Sunflower

Hosta 

Hydrangea

Native Bee Balm

Purple Cone Flower 

Sun Drop

 

Mary Oliver's "The Summer Day, the second poem, reminds us that summer is also a time of reflection.

"Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper I mean------
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-----
who is gazing around with enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
Into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your own wild and precious life?"

  I never really had a plan with detailed goals that I followed, except for knowing deep down that I did not want to remain on the family farm. I was born in this house on a hot July 22nd day, 1944 while my father was shingling a roof on a farm building. This picture is from 1977 and 15 years after the farm was sold in 1962. According to my older brother Leo, I was born in the bedroom behind the windows on the left side of the house. Dr. Shippy delivered me with my Grandma Julia assisting. Leo says he carried the hot water for my first bath in a tin tub. 

Here’s my father and mother, Anton and Anna, shortly after being married. I love this picture. It shows their youth and suggests their optimism. My father was an only child of Leo Blasczyk and Julia Rudnick. After marrying in 1922, the couple moved to the farm owned by Leo and Julia. My paternal grandparents lived with us throughout their lives.  

Grandpa Leo purchased the original 40 acres shortly after marrying Julia on May 16, 1899 from his father-in-law and nine years after Leo came to this country.  Grandfather Leo retired at the age of 50 saying that Americans worked too hard. 

Anton was more ambitious than his father. My father, with a 5th grade education, purchased the farm from his father in 1922. Pa, as we called him, expanded the farm to 120 acres, had the latest farm equipment, electrified the farm and bought the latest household appliances, including a radio. 

According to my brother,Tony my father wanted all his sons to own farms. My father died in 1949 at the age of 49 from complications of alcoholism and when I was four years old. I sometimes wonder how my life would be different if he had lived to a ripe age and free of alcoholism. Would he have accomplished his dream and how would that have affected me ?  

Yet historical forces at the time of his death foretold the demise of the family farm. Farm boys were leaving for factory jobs starting as early as 1920.  My older brothers, as they reached adulthood, joined this historical wave.  According to my brother Leo, he was "Attracted by the big city lights."  Meanwhile the family farms throughout our country were replaced with an agribusiness model. Mega-farms with as many as 8,000 milking cows and employing many immigrants is now the norm. How these industrialized, mega-farms contribute to the climate change crisis is now being understood.   

As I approach my birthday, I have intentions instead of a goal-based plan. I also don't have a "bucket list" that I must accomplish. Being supportive of Ann, my wife and Emily, my daughter is an important intention. I hope to tend Prospect Gardens until this aging body says otherwise because the Gardens are one of my sources of joy. This year I'm feeling more aches compared to the past. The aches fade away after a shower and rest. Appreciating the flow of my aging life with it joys and sorrows, and learning from this flow is yet another intention along with deepening the spiritual side of life. 

Perhaps intentionally noticing and savoring joy in the midst of all the world's suffering seems illogical or an act of denial.  Jack Gilbert maintains otherwise in this somewhat provocative poem. 

A Brief for the Defense: Jack Gilbert 

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies   

are not starving someplace, they are starving

somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.

But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.

Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not

be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not

be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women

at the fountain are laughing together between

the suffering they have known and the awfulness

in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody

in the village is very sick. There is laughter

every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,

and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.

If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,

we lessen the importance of their deprivation.

We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,

but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have

the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless

furnace of this world. To make injustice the only

measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.

If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,

we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.

We must admit there will be music despite everything.

We stand at the prow again of a small ship

anchored late at night in the tiny port

looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront

is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.

To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat

comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth

all the years of sorrow that are to come.

Our times sure are marked with sorrow. Yet in the midst of it all, I give praise and thanks for the Queen of the Prairie. The splendid blooms have returned again radiating joy and hope while providing nectar for the bees. Blessed it be.

May you experience joy as the summer and 2020 unfolds while also keeping in mind Kahlil Gibran's message that joy and sorrow are inseparable. Peace and good health to you and your loved ones.