"May You Live in Interesting Times": A Curse or a Blessing?

We are in the depth of winter. Last night the temperature dipped to -9 degrees. The sun is back after several days of low hanging clouds. Night time subzero temperatures will continue for several days.

In the midst of this winter, we continue moving through unprecedented times. Climate change is increasingly obvious, raising the question if we have entered the sixth mass extension. The pandemic wages on while vaccines are slowly being distributed. Asking if you got a vaccine shot is a common question among my friends. The Capitol was ransacked on January 6th, halting the certification of the election for several hours. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were inaugurated with nearly 25,000 National Guard troops on stand by. Trump's second Senate trail is history.  

In passing, I mention the Super Bowl with all its hype, greed and a distraction for many, but not so much for me. I tuned in occasionally. The half time show was beyond my comprehension, while reminding me of the chaos of our current times. 

"May you live in interesting times" supposedly is the English translation of a traditional Chinese curse.  I will leave it up to you as to whether our times are a curse or a potential blessing. I think it's a little of both. A curse because these times are emotionally draining and full of suffering; especially for the loved ones of those nearly 483,000 who have died. Feeling vulnerable, exposed, and anxious about the future is a norm for most of us. At the same time, we may be in a midst of a transformation towards a new order.  Joanna Macy, environmental activist, and scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and ecology, writes about the "Great Turning." Here's what she had to say in a 2009 article:

"The Great Turning is a name for the essential adventure of our time: the shift from the Industrial Growth Society to a life-sustaining civilization. The ecological and social crises we face are caused by an economic system dependent on accelerating growth. This self-destructing political economy sets its goals and measures its performance in terms of ever-increasing corporate profits—in other words by how fast materials can be extracted from Earth and turned into consumer products, weapons, and waste. A revolution is under way because people are realizing that our needs can be met without destroying our world." https://www.ecoliteracy.org/article/great-turning

Regarding pandemics, New Yorker author Lawrence Wright, investigates the history of pandemic in a July 13, 2020  article entitled, "How Pandemic Wreak Havoc---- And Open Minds."  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/20/how-pandemics-wreak-havoc-and-open-minds.

Wright asks this question in his introduction to the article: "The plague marked the end of the Middle Ages and the start of a great cultural renewal. Could the coronavirus, for all its destruction, offer a similar opportunity for radical change?"

Wright, along with Gianna Pomata, a retired professor at the Institute of the History of Medicine, at Johns Hopkins University, tells us about the history of the plague and its effects. Here's just one of the fascinating comments: 

 "Pomata told me, “What happens after the Black Death, it’s like a wind—fresh air coming in, the fresh air of common sense.” The intellectual overthrow of the scholastic-medicine establishment in the Middle Ages was caused by doctors who set aside the classical texts and gradually turned to empirical evidence. It was a revival of medical science, which had been dismissed after the fall of ancient Rome, a thousand years earlier. “After the Black Death, nothing was the same,” Pomata said. “What I expect now is something as dramatic is going to happen, not so much in medicine but in economy and culture. Because of danger, there’s this wonderful human response, which is to think in a new way.”

Are we thinking in new ways as Pomata hopes we are? I see some signs. General Motors recently announced their goal of eliminating gas and diesel fuel vehicles by 2035 and replacing all with electrical ones. Working at home is now acceptable by large corporations like Google. The pandemic has heightened our awareness of social and economic inequalities while underscoring how deeply interconnected we all are. The January 6th insurrection points out the fragility of our democracy. Seeing clearly is often the first step towards right action.  

Locally, a group of Madison citizens is thinking in new ways about development. They have created a non-profit and launched the "Save the Farm!" campaign, an effort to redevelop a 65-acre property on Madison's far eastside. The former Voit farm is ripe for development and for sale. I drive past the Milwaukee Street property on my way to the dentist. The barn, silo, and home still stand.

The non-profit hopes to buy the farm and develop the property in unconventional ways. They imagine a "purpose-built neighborhood that incorporates core values of anti-racism, diversity/inclusion, affordable housing, urban agricultural and environmental sustainability." 

An investment cooperative is being organized, allowing ordinary citizens to purchase shares. The campaign is now determining how many would potentially be interested in buying shares.  Ann and I have indicated our interest. If you are interested, please see https://www.savethefarm.net/   You provide contact information and how much you may want to invest, without any obligation to follow through.

I see signs of thinking and acting in new ways in my neighborhood. The Dudgeon-Monroe Neighborhood Association now has an Anti-Racism Committee, formed in 2020 in response to concerns about systemic racism in our community. Here's the mission statement: "We connect the Dudgeon-Monroe neighborhood to issues of racial equity in a way intended to inspire action and policy-making towards dismantling systemic racism." For more information see https://www.dmna.org/antiracism

Another neighborhood example of thinking in new ways is a subaward proposal Sandy and I, as co-chairs of the Southwest Path Committee, just submitted to the UW Arboretum. The Arboretum received an Environmental Protection Agency grant to promote stormwater community engagement and education at the neighborhood level. If funded, along with our partners, we plan to install two 400 square feet rain gardens on park land adjacent to Wingra School, and conduct educational outreach activities. Activities involve Wingra School teachers, staff and families, as well as residents of the Dudgeon-Monroe neighborhood and other nearby neighborhoods.

Rather than just emphasizing best practices, we take a wider perspective towards stormwater.  During a "kick-off" Community Gathering for 60 residents, a member of the Ho-Chunk nation will be invited to offer a local Indigenous perspective on water. We hope that this offering linked to Traditional Ecological Knowledge will inspire participants to reframe stormwater management as water stewardship.  Wingra School, after rain gardens are installed, will also invite members of the Ho-Chunk and Ojibwe speaking Nations to share plant names in their respective language, and explain the multidimensional meaning language and words have in their cultures. With this base of knowledge, signs will be made for plants that include Ho-Chunk, Ojibwe, Spanish and English languages. 

I am optimistic that we will be funded. We will need volunteers. If you live in the Madison area and are interested in volunteering, please contact me at jblasczyk13@gmail.com. There are several ways of lending a hand, which I will gladly explain when you contact me. 

I like to think that our eleven year effort involving Prospect Gardens is another example of thinking in new ways. The prairie plants with their deep roots keep rain water at the site while beautifying a previously ugly, weed-invested site. Otherwise the rain water would find its way into the ditches along the bike path and eventually into a stormwater drain and into Lake Wingra. 

The raspberry and gooseberry patches provide snacks for passersby. The cherry trees and the elderberry shrubs likewise offer food for both birds and humans. Neighbors, while volunteering and afterwards, have developed deeper connections. Prospect Gardens' future depends upon volunteers and the need is constant. Please contact me at jblasczyk13@gmail.com,  if you are interested in lending a hand. 

Prospect Gardens now are covered in deep snow patiently waiting for spring. In late January, prior to the arrival of the deep snow, I took the following pictures while visiting the Gardens. January, if you recall, was quite mild.  These pictures testify to the beauty of the Gardens, even in late January. I offer these along with quotations for your reflections. For me, Prospect Gardens continues to teach me to look at and experience life in new ways.

“Among our Potawatomi people, women are the Keepers of Water. We carry the sacred water to ceremonies and act on its behalf. “Women have a natural bond with water, because we are both life bearers,” my sister said. “We carry our babies in internal ponds and they come forth into the world on a wave of water. It is our responsibility to safeguard the water for all our relations.” ― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

"As I walk with Beauty
As I walk, as I walk,
The universe is walking with me,
In beauty it walks before me,
In beauty it walks behind me,
In beauty it walks below me,
In beauty it walks above me,
Beauty is on every side."

—Traditional Navajo Prayer

“I don’t think that it is more technology we need, or more money or more data. We need a change in heart, a change in ethics, away from an anthropocentric worldview that considers the Earth our exploitable property to a biocentric, life-centered worldview in which an ethic of respect and reciprocity can grow."  

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Returning the Gift, Minding Nature May 2014

“Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.”

Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation

  “Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.”

― Wendell Berry

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

George Bernard Shaw

“We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as its other creatures do.”

—Barbara Ward

Spring will surely arrive, the Earth will thaw, and the plants pictured above will once again rise up. I end with this poem by Jane Kenyon and her message of imagining spring. 

February: Thinking Of Flowers 

Now wind torments the field,

turning the white surface back

on itself, back and back on itself,

like an animal licking a wound.

Nothing but white--the air, the light;

only one brown milkweed pod

bobbing in the gully, smallest

brown boat on the immense tide.

A single green sprouting thing

would restore me. . . .

Then think of the tall delphinium,

swaying, or the bee when it comes

to the tongue of the burgundy lily.

 

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.