Spring Fever

Spring is the hardest season for people who work the land. You want to plant, but the ground is not ready yet--too wet, too cold. And yet you see the new grass, the tree buds and feel the warm air and it is so frustrating--especially when you know that this year you will begin the grand adventure of planting an acre of vegetables for the farmers' market which may or may not be bought due to the economy. But still, you think, people must eat and they should eat 'green' so it should work. Maybe, maybe not, but whatever happens, it won't go to waste. Food pantry's, family, livestock--we will all eat and we will eat better than most! Our seeds have been ordered and delivered weeks ago. Last fall we put in more fruit trees. Strawberry plants will come in the next month. In my father's basement, he has started the broccoli and cabbage and tomato plants we will use to turn our pasture into the 'truck patch' that I have dreamed about for a long time. I am so proud of the First Lady for planting a garden at the White House. It is a waste of space and water when so much ground is used as lawn when it can grow food. If it takes her to be the example, so be it. I am waiting for her to put up a clothesline like mine to have their clothes dried by the wind and sun. Probably should e-mail her to remind her of that.

When I opened the door to let the hens (and a few roosters) out of the chicken house this morning, I was greeted by a sea of chickens of many different breeds waiting at the door to begin the procession. As I looked across the moving, clucking crowd of the different colors, it reminded me of a moving patchwork quilt and that reminded me that I need to finish cutting out the quilt pieces for the quilt I have promised #2 daughter for the last two years.

Now I am rambling so I guess we truly have spring fever here and it means more work after the winter months when the only work we do outside is thaw out waterers and make sure the livestock and dogs and cats have bedding and food. Now is the time for spring housecleaning--there was a reason why my ancestors did spring and fall housecleaning. The women knew that once garden, food processing, etc. began, there would be no time for heavy cleaning. Then, of course, in the fall after the harvest was done, it was time to clean up from the summer so that one could do other things throughout the winter--sewing, knitting, taking care of livestock, etc. So there was a method to my grandmothers' madness and since we live according to the seasons like they did, we do the same thing. Of course, our jobs take a great deal of time away (darn those bills!), but we still have lots to do here. It seems I am rambling again and that is because my computer sits next to a window directly over the tire swing on the tulip tree and boy do I have spring fever! I have bread to bake and work to do that I brought home from the office, so this is all.

Peace be with us all.

I couldn't have said it better myself

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/10/cafferty.republicans/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
I certainly couldn't have said it better myself.

Hope and History

I saw the entire assembly applauding, craning their necks to see him as he addressed his first joint session of congress. The hope of the world is on the slim shoulders of this young man. I write ‘the hope of the world’ because, even though our reputation is tarnished and may take several years to rebuild, the United States is still the promised land, still that which all look toward to ‘make it better’ and if we don’t succeed, hope is lost and if hope is lost, we are lost. As the planet gets smaller and I get older, I know that the view of America is mostly illusion, but a necessary one. Everyone must believe in a better way, a promise of freedom and peace or life sheds its purpose. So I will believe in this man and what he stands for, but I also know that there are forces at work that long for the old way, the war way, the capitalistic greed way. I am concerned about the increased incidence of hate crimes and how his heritage will be used against him.
Already the partisanship has surfaced-- jealous, vindictive, racist, mean. All of the things that were hidden during the election for fear that the opposition would be perceived as racist. I am old enough to understand the strong relationship between organized religion, hate and conservative politics. In fact, Christianity in particular teaches hate, judgment, and persecution. Hitler only had to intensify the historic blame on the Jews and cast them as scapegoats for everything that was going wrong in Germany during the Weimar Republic. In the past weeks I have heard people place the blame for our entire economic downfall on ‘illegal aliens’. I know that rhetoric has been seeping into our consciousness for the past few years. We are not a nation that finds it easy to blame our own selfishness, wastefulness and greed on ourselves and so we begin casting blame. We ask citizens for donations to make sure that Ellis Island is preserved as a memorial to those who came to this country from Europe, but we are building a fence on our southern border against those who don't look quite as white as they should. With the rate of unemployment climbing, already we hear that 'if we could deport all the illegals, this wouldn't happen'. So simplistic. Of course, it couldn't be us that has made our own mess--it must be the fault of others who don't speak our language, who have audacity to come to this country to make a better life for their children. A very familiar story--one that all white americans should be able to relate to, since all of us came from an immigrant(s) who crossed the Atlantic to make a better life for their children. If we make others a scapegoat for what we have done, we will always have a reason for not making it right. We will always have to find someone to blame. And we may end up proving what we who have studied the Holocaust know. Any country at any time in history given the right set of economic problems and the right ethnocentric mindset could do what Germany did. Let's not make illegal aliens our Jews.