Diary of a Worm’s Life in a Home “Growing Power” Box and Garden
Greens Yearning to Grow
Outside
Worms
Garden 07/30/08
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Intense - Thursday, July 31, 2008
Godsil’s Euclid Garden
This evening I went over to my friend Godsil’s Euclid GP home garden to give him advice about his newly arrived worm condo. Godsil, co-founder of the Milwaukee Renaissance with my friends Tegan and Bill Sell, was the person who introduced me to Growing Power, Will Allen and the worm. With the help of some friends he has build a very intense home model GP garden in his backyard, front yard and on his garage roof. Since I have known Godsil, starting back in 1965 when we were both students at St. Louis University, he has been an intense person. Our lives took various paths but we are ending up in the same place with the nonviolent worm as our guide. Godsil prides himself as a “peddler” of ideas and actions, and promises to take up the cause of the worm condo and really peddle it. I am glad since he, although only two years younger than I, has a lot more energy and certainly a lot more friends. Almost everyone in Milwaukee knows Godsil or about him.
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Just Do Not Want To Know - Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Back Garden Today
Once a friend of mine, when I was trying to explain to her why Marquette University should not be hosting military training said: “I just do not want to know.” I can understand that honest answer. I enjoyed drinking Diet Coke and did not want to know about the injustices committed by the Coke Cola Company in Africa. I was told anyway and had to change my soda of choice. The patriot, Dr. Bob Bowman, in last night’s talk, said a lot that many do not want to know. This probably explains why, although he is an outstanding speaker, he draws audiences only of 50–200 on his tour. Often people, like the administration at Marquette University ignore a moral issue, like military training for the war in Iraq on campus, because if they would dialog about it they would have to confront an immoral act they do not want to face. However, in this world of mass communications and the Internet it is hard not to know. The reason some of us do not want to know is that if we know we feel compelled to act. We feel compelled to bring truth to power and that can mean trouble. Here are a few things I am trying unsuccesfuly to avoid knowing about: The Truth about 9/11, who was responsible for killing Robert and Jack Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Knowing something like the role of Wal-Mart plays in exploiting persons is not too hard to know and act. I just avoid shopping at Wal-Mart and try not to be judgmental about those who do. However, other informationlike the anti-Christian values taught in the Departments of Military Science at Marquette University are harder to deal with. One area of knowing and acting, however, which is not too difficult to handle is a home garden. Knowing what is happening in the garden, even if it is not great news, is easy to handle. Green Power seems to trump knowing in this area. I doubt if there is many persons who read these postings that “just do not want to know.”
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The Patriot and Compost - Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Tonight I went to the Friends meeting hall to hear Dr. Bob Bowman, Lt. Col. USAF, ret., National Commander of the Patriots, www.ThePatriots.us, talk. He gave his talk as if he were giving his State of the Union address, shortly after his inauguration as President of the USA. In his talk he touched on all the major issues of our country — economic, political and military — in very specific ways, and gave his vision for the nation. His basic message can be summed up in this quote on the card he passed out: “There is no longer Republican nor Democrat, conservative nor liberal, hawk nor dove. There are only Patriots demanding accountability, speaking truth to power and exercising our Constitutional right to save our Republic.”
Before the talk and making and eating diner. I was working on the compost pile in behind the garage. I was adding carbon, wood chips, and nitrogen, food waste and coffee grounds, to build the pile and thus make more soil. It is a smelly job but one that needs to be done to grow more soil. What Dr. Bob Bowman now does, traveling the country speaking to small audiences with his patriot’s message, is not very rewarding financially and has no immediate results. However, just like an Growing Power urban farmer or home gardener, he feels compelled to get the message out. These postings of mine, on a much smaller and earthy scale, are driven by the same compulsion, to get the message out. A number of times Dr. Bowman mentioned how major international agri-businesses are controlling food for their personal wealth and not for the common good of human beings. After the talk someone asked him about this and the need to return agriculture back to small farmers. He agreed and said how essential localizing sources of food are to our future. So building the compost pile so I can Grow Renewable Affordable Food (G.R.A.F) is smelly, but is something I must do to be a true patriot.
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Selected - Monday, July 28, 2008
Ignatius selected to be with Jesus
on the cross
Today I was returning from a conference on Ignatian Spirituality in St. Louis. At the St. Louis airport security checkpoint the lady said I was ‘selected’. Ordinarily I would feel honored to be ‘selected’ but at an airport security it did not seem like too good a thing. I asked the security lady what it meant and she said she did not know why I was selected but to just take a seat on the side and that I would be called. When another security person did call me, she was upset that I did not have my stuff in boxes ready to go through the scanner. So I got my stuff ready to go through the scanner and asked another security person why I was “selected.’ He said that he did not know, and that maybe I had just smiled the wrong way or something like that. He told me not to touch my stuff while or after it went through the scanner. Then another security person told me to take a seat next to a table in the back. She then proceeded to take everything out of my bag and run some kind of round white paper over my stuff. She than called a male security person over to pat me down. He asked if I wanted to have it done in a private room. I said no. After he was done the security lady was still concerned over something she did not take out of my duffel bag. She called over a supervisor to take a peek at it in the bag and asked him about it. He took a peek, and then walked away from the table shaking his head with a ‘no’. She then said I could repack my stuff and go past the security checkpoint. Before doing so I took a peek in the bag to see what had concerned her. It was a pin on a hat in the bag that read: “Free Palestine.” Obviously that was not the reason I was selected in the first place, but I thought it was interesting that the pin concerned her. This experience of being selected fit right in with the theme of the conference, which was the third week of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, meditations on the passion of Jesus.
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‘Ruined by DMZ’ - Wednesday, July 23, 2008
DMZ Comminity Garden
The DMZ community garden under the hard work of Marna and Dawn is growing and becoming a truly community garden. How this garden went from another vacant lot in the central city a few months ago to this source of home-grown, organic food is truly a miracle. People in the community really respect the garden, look after it, and frequently stop by to help. They can use my help now and then, but it is not essential. I can move on. One way of ‘moving on’ is using my garden to improve on this model of growing and to be a source of aid and advice to others. Today a friend and his wife came over to check out the garden. They are in the process of making soil and building this type of garden in their own backyard. They were impressed by the vertical grower, so much growing and happening in such a small space.
I am moving on in other ways also. One is to put more emphasis on my other interests and activities. Over the next four days I am attending a conference on Ignatius Spirituality, a way of being a follower of Jesus that St. Ignatius of Loyola, found of the Society of Jesus, Jesuit, demonstrated. It also will be a chance to visit with old friends. One of those attending is Father David of Casa Romero Renewal Center here in Milwaukee. He is someone I have known since high school, and together we worked on the retreat in daily life. Sometimes I feel a little uncomfortable at these types of events, since the words or rhetoric do not always match actions.
That feeling of wanting to see practice of what we preach is one of the ways I was ‘ruined by Jesuits’. Parents of Jesuit volunteers started this phase ‘ruined by Jesuits’, to describe youth who went off to do a year or two of service. When they returned they were changed by their experience of living in solidarity with the poor, thus the phrase ‘ruined by Jesuits’. I guess we can use a similar phase with every life experience when we live with and learn from others, especially the poor and marginalized. In a sense I was ‘ruined by the DMZ’ since after this community garden experience I will never look on a vacant lot the same, knowing there are dedicated persons like Marna and Dawn whose life is built on service to others and making the best of any situation, even another vacant lot in the central city. I may be ‘ruined’, but with God’s blessings this posting will return Monday.
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Three Healing Keys - Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Proposed Rooftop Healing Garden
On the way to a prayer service for a homicide victim I heard on the car radio about a Rooftop Healing Garden and Conservatory that is being built at St. Luke’s Hospital. “Work on the Vince Lombardi Charitable Funds Healing Garden and the Agnes and Morland Hamilton Healing Conservatory will start this week.” Many of us can testify to the healing power of gardens, so having one on the roof of major hospital is natural. Gardens are a key to healing.
After the first prayer vigil and on the way to a second one, I got a call from the locksmith that he could meet me at Matthias’ house to make the keys for the ambulance we are trying to send to a rural hospital in Sierra Leone. The donation to the Seisay Foundation of the ambulance was made a few years ago. However, it has taken some time to raise the money to ship to the hospital, and a slight starting problem caused the ambulance to miss the last shipment of goods. We had a person who was going to repair the ambulance last winter and took the one set of keys to do so. However, he lost the keys. Now we have another chance to ship the ambulance and needed a locksmith to make keys for the door and ignition. He made the keys and I, Uncle Bob, gave them to Matthias Seisay, the president of the foundation and my African nephew. For now, there is no ambulance at this hospital and ill persons in the villages must walk, be carried to hospital or get a ride in a sidecar of a motorbike which at times on those roads can be more treacherous than the sickness. This ambulance holds the key to healing in this poor African rural area.
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Clean Air and Food - Monday, July 21, 2008
Smog in China
Today I heard a report on the news that China has shut down industries in and around Beijing and banned thousands of cars in the city in an effort to clean the air for the Olympics. The news showed young men who were on an unpaid forced layoff until after the Olympics. Also there was a report about US athletes’ concerns about eating the food in China. China uses many chemicals and hormones in their food, and western athletes are concerned about getting sick or testing positive for drugs because of the food in China. China has responded by created special organic farms around Beijing to grow food just for the Olympic athletes. The unclean air and unhealthy food in China is a cost they are paying for rapid progress and short term gain. But this is a side of progress they do not want to show the world, which has more respect for the health and welfare of humans. The rest of the world sits and watches and says “That is nice” and continues to trade with China because they can produce stuff cheaply, even though the human cost is high and often harms us. Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, and many other businesses in the USA, are in partnership with China in this delivery of low-cost goods for a high human price. All of this convinces me more that the Green movement in this country and the world is our main hope for a world with clean air and safe food.
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Plants In Rain Garden Need Water - Sunday, July 20, 2008
Rain Garden Today
Rain gardens need water. Between the bouts of rain and watering, my rain garden has had its due of water recently. As you can see in this picture it is starting to grow. There are no flowers yet but they will come in time. At first, almost a month ago, when the perennials, native to Wisconsin, were planted they were small and stayed small for quite awhile. I kept watering them unless it rained. I thought they are taking root. Except for a few plants that the rabbits seem to bite off this turned out to be true. Now they are growing and, if not this year then hopefully in years to come, the garden will spread and flower. The rain barrel in the back of the picture is diverting the rain from the roof to the rain garden instead of to the sewer system. The plants not only get the rain that falls on them or the water that I put on them, but they also enjoy the water from a good part of the roof that comes down the gutter from the roof to the barrel and flows out, with some tea added, into the rain garden. Three sources of water are better than two or one or none.
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Care Matters! - Saturday, July 19, 2008
St. Vincent De Paul Logo
When Blessings Come Down, When Prayers Go Up, It is easy to fill joy.
When Sorrows Surround Us, When Prayers Go Up, It is tough to feel joy.
Yesterday, while waiting for a sandwich at frozen custard stand I read in a local community newspaper that a young girl I knew, when she was in middle school and I was the youth minister at her church and school, was leaving for a mission trip in Belize. It was a similar mission trip that I had helped high school youth make when I was working at the parish. Now she is becoming a senior in high school and is taking the mission trip. This young girl’s mother and father used to help chaperone the middle school dances we had at the time at the parish. I called her home this morning and her mother said she had just left this morning. Before she left, her mother said, she had mentioned that now she was taking a mission trip that she had saw me help other youth to do when she was middle school. By some type of three way hook up I was able to talk with the youth’s dad who was at work. I remembered him reading seed catalogs when he was championing youth events. So I told him that now I was into gardening, something it had been doing for many years. I mentioned this youth and parents because they have been through some tough times but always managed to stay joyful and caring to their daughter. Also I like to think that I, in a very small way influenced this youth by my care
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Summer Harvest - Friday, July 18, 2008
Summer Harvest 07/18/08
Today I decided to harvest some of the food in the garden. There was a lot of mint and chives, most of which is now in the dehydrator. There was one tomato, a number of green beans and salad greens. (There were also some grape leaves picked that are not pictured here) The beans and greens were consumed at dinner tonight. Working outside today I noticed that the Wisconsin perennial flowers in the rain garden have finally taken root and are visibly growing. Flowers and vegetables offer the two sides of nature, beauty and food, both organic and both healthy for the soul and the stomach. Besides growing of beauty and food the garden also grows soil and fertilizer, castings.
Neil Young on the public television show of ‘Charlie Rose’ last night was talking about his faith and his gift of song that is given to him and he must share. He did not label it with any religious affiliation and did not know where it came from but believed in it. However, he did mention how nature reflects the beauty and source of his deep faith. As we explore nature more deeply we strengthen our faith in God or whatever higher power we believe in. Just like the garden our faith has a harvest.
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Small Does Not Smell! - Thursday, July 17, 2008
Vertical Growers 07/17/08
Here is a picture of the two vertical growers in my backyard as of today. There is a lot of growing going on in this small space. Plus the water draining through the four plant boxes makes for good tea for the rest of the garden. If only all my garden space were so productive. However, on the chicken-wire fence I built for the pole beans I noticed there are a number of long green beans already. So the vertical growing space along with the pole bean fence and the always-productive mint production circle are in competition for the most production per foot. On the other hand the lettuce and tomato mounds lag far behind. Small is good when it is productive.
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Where Have All The Tomatoes Gone? - Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Vertical Gowers when new
A staple of most gardens is tomatoes. In my past gardens tomatoes were always one plant you could count on. After I moved here tomato production fell off. Before the GP model home garden I had big plants but less tomatoes. Now that I build the mounds up I do not have a lot of green leaves but also not a lot of tomatoes. An exception to this general rule has been the vine tomatoes that I grow in the vertical growers. Since the soil in the vertical growers is similar to soil in the mounds I am led to believe that it is not the soil. All I can think of is that it is something to do with sun and water. Where the boxes are gets more sun than where the mounds of tomato plants are. Also there is better drainage since the growers drain excess water into a container below. Tomatoes need a lot of sun and water. I can deal with water but sun is limited. Next year I will put the tomatoes where the mounds for greens are and vice versa. Greens need sun but not as much. If anyone has hints of where the tomatoes may have gone let me know.
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Living With Nature - Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Stoic Emblem
Tonight in a conversation with my adult son the philosophy of Stoicism came up. Stoicism holds the belief that “virtue is to maintain a will that is in accord with nature “, something I can agree with. However, in my mind Stoicism means more a detachment from emotion, something I have difficulty with. It turns out that this second meaning associated with stoicism is a misunderstanding of the original philosophy. So maybe I need to take another look at Stoicism, since the value of living in accord within nature is something I am learning to be true from working in the garden. Like the black caterpillar with a purpose mentioned last night’s posting, living in accord with our nature and with nature is something I can believe in.
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Caterpillar With Purpose - Monday, July 14, 2008
Black Caterpillars
Tonight in my pictorial essay on Venezuela, Risen in Venzuela I wrote in my essay on Sweet Cacao about a black caterpillar, sister and brother to the worm, who has a very definite purpose and meaning to life. The story of the caterpillar with a purpose will be my posting tonight.
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From Basement To Compost Pile - Sunday, July 13, 2008
Sower Sows Seed
Cleaning out the basement is a good for the soul and, as it turns out, good for the garden. In cleaning out the basement we found box of old bills and invoices. Although they were no longer needed, my wife said we should not throw them in the garbage because some of them might include our social security number and other I.D. I said “good”. We could shred them and put them in the compost pile. Because my car was in the body shop all of last week I have not been able to go to the dump and get my regular source of carbon, wood chips, from the dump. I had run out of cardboard boxes, until today, and shredded wood chips make a good source of carbon for the compost pile. Also, once it is composted, I think the worms will enjoy the little change in mixture of compost. After all bait shops use newspaper in layers in refrigerators to keep and grow worms. In the children’s book “Diary of a Worm” one of the funny lines to the little worm is from his mom telling him not to “bother Dad when he is eating the newspaper.” When one is garden mindful who knows what treasures one will find in cleaning out a basement.
I started again work on putting on the web the Retreat in Daily Life, something some of us developed when I was working with Casa Romero, a renewal center on the South side. I worked on it with a Jesuit, a friend since high school days, who is the Director of Casa Romero, before going off in another direction with it. Now I remember why I stopped working on putting it on the web last year. Each of the thirteen sections takes time and effort to put on the web. It may be ‘arrogant’ of me, just like this daily posting may be, but for some reason it is something I feel like I should share. My Jesuit friend and I are both going to St. Louis to a conference on Ignatian Spirituality at end of this month, so we may have a chance to update each other where our pilgrimage with this idea, which was his, has taken us.
Maybe you can say my efforts at communicating or broadcasting are like the person in the gospel garden parable in the reading this morning in Church. He was a sower and broadcast seeds everywhere, on rocky ground, on paths, thorns and rich soil, where it took root and bore fruit. (Mt: 13:1–23) The point was that he sowed seed everywhere, even though only some of it was useful. I guest us broadcasters are this way, just spreading seeds, words or thoughts everywhere and saying like Jesus: “Whoever has ears ought to hear.” If this is being ‘arrogant’ so be it. Even the lowly worm or the basement can bear something worthwhile.
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Ordinary Passion! - Saturday, July 12, 2008
St. Therese of the ‘Little Way’
What do the movie There Will Be Blood, the newly released book of the Diaries of Dorothy Day, and working on my gardens have to do with each other? Besides all being a part of my day today, they all deal with passion. The character in the movie has a passion for oil and making money from it. Dorothy Day was passionate about following the Way of Jesus by serving persons in need. Gardeners like me are passionate about their gardens. Living humans have a passion for something, be it their faith or a computer game. A passion can take over a person’s life like it does in the movie. A passion can put us at risk like it did with Dorothy Day, the co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. A passion takes time to exercise like working in a garden. We all need passions in life; the trick, however, is not to be consumed by our passions but to use our passions to make ordinary things extraordinary.
Ordinary people can be passionate and by their passions can be extraordinary. In the creature world a worm is a good example of an ordinary creature that by its passions to eat, castoff and procreate is an extraordinary creature. A ordinary worm can take compost, digest it though its system and cast it off as extraordinary rich organic soil, “black gold” as some call it. St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower and favorite saint of Dorothy Day, was just an ordinary religious woman living in a convent dong her daily chores, yet she is considered an extraordinary saint, the patron saint of missionaries, although she died young without leaving the convent. Dorothy Day called this way of St. Therese of making the ordinary extraordinary the “little way”. We do not need to be an oil mogul as in the movie, a saint as Dorothy Day is now considered, or a major organic gardener and farmer. Like Therese we can be extraordinary human beings dong ordinary things, like working in the garden, filling up the gas tank or sharing a meal. We just need to do the ordinary with passion for it to be extraordinary.
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Cook The Compost First - Friday, July 11, 2008
Cooked Compost in Worm Condo
I am supposed to be writing a promised report about a worm condo, how to build, maintain and purchase one. But other things have taken a priority of my time. However, today I have a good excuse for my procrastination. I learned something new about care of a worm condo today. I was removing the compost from the bottom of my first worm condo, sifting out the castings, today when I noticed how rough the compost was and how many worms were in it. There seems to be two reasons for this situation. One is that I made the compost last fall from leaves and things right in the box. It is better to take already cooked compost to start the worm condo process of making castings. The second reason is that my first worm condo, like my new one, is almost three feet tall. When I put the screen with fresh compost on top of the box a number of times the worms at the bottom do not have time, and in this case little incentive, to make it all the way up to the top. Lessons learned are to just used cooked compost and make the worm condo oblong and not so high. Good evidence that this will work is my Growing Power Box in the sunroom. I put cooked compost in it in the fall before placing in worms and castings for the top, and it is only two feet or less tall. With three or so screenings on top with fresh compost I can remove about 90% of the worms in the spring before using this worm enriched soil for the garden.
Now for novices I mean by cooked compost, compost that has had time to heat up and be made into soil. Perhaps I need to explain sifting the castings or putting fresh compost on top of screen to remove worms. What do you think?
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Paradox 0f Suffering - Thursday, July 10, 2008
4 angels on sidewalke where 4
homicide victims died the 4th of July.
I remember once being seasick. I felt so sick that about all I could think about was that this nausea would pass. Since it was a time after my sister had died from cancer after a period of suffering I did think about how horrible it would be to live with such pain and suffering. For almost a year a friend from Church has been suffering from pain from an unknown source. After many doctors and much testing she underwent an operation that was supposed to take pressure off her brain and thus lessen the suffering. Today when I talked to her she told me the operation did not work and that she was now in greater pain and suffering than before the operation. The hope she had that the source of the pain would be found and her suffering would end is now very faint. She is losing hope, and on the phone broke down crying, questioning why God was allowing her to suffer so much.
This morning I attended a prayer vigil of the four young persons shot down and killed on the 4th of July. The sorrow in the air was so heavy that it could be felt. Again the question is why there is such senseless violence and why these four had to die. I do not pretend to have any of the answers to the question of why there is suffering, but believe (although weakly at times like today) there is a reason for such great pain and suffering.
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Nature: Danger or Security? - Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Grape Leave—Secured Food
Avoiding nature or going contrary to nature can be dangerous. The last few years we have heard about human-made disasters, like the flooding in New Orleans or the emptying of Lake Delton in the flooding in Wisconsin recently; we hear about how the world-wide food shortage is human-made, and even about how the oil prices have gone up as a result of human error. In all these cases and many others nature plays a role but the disaster or danger is caused by humans. The same can be said about the dangers on our streets. If we make dangerous weapons easily available, do not deal with the roots of violence, punish but not treat persons with alcohol and drug addictions, do not value all human life, have a government that seeks force to enforce its will, yes we will see an increase in violence. Violence begets violence.
Today I asked myself if the opposite was true, can embracing nature or going with the flow of nature bring security and abundance? I do not know but believe, from the calm effect of working in the garden in my life, this to be true. As an experiment in this proposal I decided to pick at every possible opportunity that I have the next few weeks. Grape leaves are plentiful in nature. I already know that the more you pick grape leaves the more they will grow. My theory now is that the more I pick the greater the odds of my wife cooking them will be. We always seem to make and eat all the grape leaves that we pick, clean and freeze. Today I picked some from the backyard; perhaps tomorrow I will venture out to a nearby park. They are everywhere, and when wrapped and cooked with rice, meat and the right spices are delicious.
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Flowers of Gratitude - Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Garden Flowers 07/01/08
At one point today my car was still in the body shop, my computer did not work, my web site was down and my air conditioner was broke. Yet I was blessed. My computer and web site are back and I am still blessed. My car and air conditioner will be fixed and I will still be blessed. I am blessed in so many ways, with housing, food, family and friends and enough money to get back some of the extra items, like two cars and air conditioning, that are part of my life. I received a sign of my blessing today when I took some old clothes over to a place nearby where those in real need can receive clothing and furniture. The lady there had just received a donation of some flowers and gave me some for my gardens in front and back. Flowers, a sign of blessings, are used at weddings, funerals, as gifts, or just to display for beauty. These flowers are not eaten but are sign of beauty and gratitude. Why worry and fret about the above, or even clothes: “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.” (Matthew 5:28) Or to put it in English slang: Why focus on your problems when “Bob’s Your Uncle.” And Uncle Bob has flowers.
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Good or Bad? - Monday, July 07, 2008
Today my AVG virus control system was not working correctly. That was bad. Fortunately I had a backup disk for the AVG system. That was good. After reinstalling the system the computer would start and then restart and so on and on. This was bad. I called my computer repair person friend and he said he could fix the problem. That was good. However, he cannot make it till tomorrow afternoon. That was bad. However, my wife has a lap top that I could use for this posting. This was good. But her lap top has different software and is confusing for me to use. This is bad. I have done a couple of updates on the Graf Kids site to their art Gallery and to my grandson’s pictorial description of his school trip to the Milwaukee Museum. I also just wrote an Air Insulation Project (AIR) energy savings proposal so I can use it today also on “What’s New” on the Home page. This is good. However, doing this on another computer is difficult. This is bad. So for tonight’s posting you are getting “What’s New”, which is neither good nor bad.
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Images of Nature - Sunday, July 06, 2008
Baby rises from the waters of Baptism
The image of nature is everywhere. This morning in church a newborn baby was raised from the waters of baptism into the community of Christ. This evening I watered my garden after talking with my friend Marna who was watering the DMZ garden. We water so our plants will grow and bear fruit. Today the beat of the drum, one of the first musical sounds heard in nature, was all over the Summerfest grounds, the world’s largest music gig. Today someone talked with me about the fear of suffering or dying to oneself in order to grow. This is something, dying and rising, that happens all the time in nature. The news today once again features the senseless, contrary to nature, acts of violence in the recent homicides in Milwaukee. The Sunday newspaper features the story of one orangutan in the Zoo, which is the story of a whole species of animals in nature, close to humans but threatened by humans to near extinction. The imagery of nature is everywhere.
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The Butterfly Effect - Saturday, July 05, 2008
“The Lifecycle of a Butterfly” by Dustin Graf
A visit north to my son and his family’s place contributed some new material for my grandchildren’s web page, Graf Kids. My grandson Dustin added some words to his picture page about his class trip to the Milwaukee Public Museum, and I got some new artwork from him and my granddaughter. The museum page and artwork will be updated in the next couple of days, but one way they related is in this art drawing called “The Lifecycle of a Butterfly”. There is something intriguing and revealing about this picture, and the butterfly experience was a central part of our trip to the museum. In other postings I have talked about the chaordic universe and the butterfly effect, how a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil could cause tornadoes in Texas. In a child’s view, like that of my grandchildren, there is a connection between all things. Also some adults with great insight, mystics or those we call “persons with a mental illness” often have this same vision of the connectedness of the universe, the butterfly effect. To glimpse this connection of all creatures is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because we find great joy and peace in the wonders of creation. It is a curse because we must then also share in the suffering and struggles of creation.
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Investment In The Future - Friday, July 04, 2008
Compost Pile 07/04/08
This July 4th I am thinking of investments in the future. One investment in the future that I worked on today is building the compost pile, which is an investment in building soil for future gardens. This home model of growing power starts with the collection of waste, nitrogen products like coffee grounds and carbon products like wood chips, and allowing nature to take its course and form them into rich soil.
Another investment in the future that I worked on today was the Air Insulation Resource (AIR) Energy Savings Window System Draft that is designed to help church and community groups help low-income households save thousands of dollars in energy bills next winter.
Also I put some thought into the 40-year movement for Marquette University to Be Faithful to the Gospel and No Longer Host Departments of Military Science. Soon I will be finishing an article on this site about the “dangerous values” being taught at this Christian university. On this celebration of the Independence of the USA from England, our thoughts go out to brave soldiers who have fought and are fighting for our country. We dishonor these brave men and women when we train and send them to a war like in Iraq, which is “immoral, unjust and illegal.” We can have nothing but respect for our military men and women, but we need to make sure they give their lives for honorable defense of our nation, not for oil. The military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about in the 50’s is here today, and now is joined by universities, government and church officials. How can I love and respect persons in the military without opposing an immoral war and those who, like Marquette University, cooperate with it. I need to make an investment now to ensure peace in the future.
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Do the Best with What You Got - Thursday, July 03, 2008
Do It With What You Got!
Working in the garden has taught me the truth of another basic principle of life: “Do the best with what you got.” My deeper awareness of this principle started last week when I went over the DMZ to drop off some coffee grounds for making compost. I discovered there that Growing Power had given them buckets of “brewers yeast”, a good source of nitrogen for compost and worm feed. I asked the person from Growing Power about the source of brewers yeast and he said it was a secret source and I should go out and ask some brewers. I asked a friend who I knew had some and he said the same thing — go out and seek some from brewers. I know enough about collecting waste for compost to know that a small home model gardener like I am needs sources that do not require a consistent and regular pick up and sources not valuable for sale. All my other sources for compost materials, coffee grounds from coffee shops, wood chips from dump, vegetable waste from a dumpster behind a store, grass and leaves and kitchen waste do not require a systematic pick up. Also none of them are valuable like brewers yeast that can be sold to farmers for cattle feed. So my compost, worms and I need to be content with the waste we can get. My awareness of this principle also increased today when I was outside working on the irrigation system in front and back from the rain barrels to garden and rain garden.
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Childlike or Not - Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Childlike Matthew
Due to rain I did not get outside today to work in the garden. But my day was brightened by a visit from Matthew, the son of my nephew and his wife. Matthew is nine months old, and his face radiates the innocence and joy of a child. Another Matthew, the Gospel writer, tells the story today about Jesus encountering two persons possessed by demons in foreign land of the Gadarenes on the other side of Lake Galilee. The demons recognized Jesus and his healing power and asked that if he drove them out to send them into a herd of swine nearby. Jesus did and the swine herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea where they drowned. The swineherd persons recognized what had happened and ran to town to report what happened. The whole town came out to meet Jesus and begged him to leave the district. Even though I had been at the place where this supposedly happened I could never understand why the persons of the town asked Jesus to leave. Today reading the Gospel again I read an accompanying poem by poet laureate Richard Wilbur that perhaps explains why the townspersons asked Jesus to leave. In his poem the townspersons were not childlike and had very materialistic reasons to ask Jesus to leave.
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Picture Day - Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Worm Condo For Sale
Worm Condo For Sale
Nicolas and his brother came over today to see how the new condo they built is doing. The condo is a 3-foot cube box and can hold a cubic yard of compost. With good cooked compost this can produce about 2/3 to 3/4 of a cubic yard of ‘black gold’ or worm castings for making casting ‘tea’ or for fertilizing plants. With worm castings costing $20 for an 8 lb. Bag, this makes the value of the worm castings valued at hundreds of dollars. This is the box that I think every personal and community garden needs for increased production. Alex and his brother can produce these worm condos with new material for about $85. They can also be made with used material and different sizes. There will be a special site on the worm condos for sale soon on the with more details.
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