F. A. Farm ,,,1st CSA pickup ....!!!

a beautiful day at the farm and i asked for and got the 10 minutes farm tour from Walter. as usual, he is non stop amazing info. what a great day on planet earth !

free the trees.....

this week all started with a message on a video i had posted on you tube from TheBrassHole where he gave me encouragement on my root flare...this lead me, through him to The Dirt Doctor and a wondraful video on root flare.....

so i have spent the past few days recovering the root flare on the trees i live with.....i did have some good ones but i also had some trees whose root flare needed liberating. i have a large douglas fir i fear may be a goner. i'm not sure it was the covering of the root flare to blame but it sure could be......

i have been obsessed with the root flare...(video here)..and working so hard i fall into bed, wake up a bit sore, and go back at it.....but hey i'm not complaining.....the garden show is becoming magnificent......


and a minute in my new favorite chair....

shifting paradigms

just finished reading a piece over at Life After the Oil Crash by James Howard Kunstler, who always gets my attention with his work. he runs thru a short checklist of where we are and then eloquently sums up our psyche and sends me off in the pursuit of our new future.

...........All these epochal discontinuities present themselves, for the moment, as a season of muted "hope" and general apathy. The days are suddenly mild. We've resumed old and happy habits of grilling meat outdoors and motoring to those remaining places that were not blanketed with franchised food huts and discount malls. We have a new, charming president with an appealing family. Newly-minted dollars are flowing to the "shovel-ready." The new bad news is less bad than the old bad news (or seems to be). And the year just past has been such a bummer that our hard-wired human nature tells us that good things must be just around the corner.

Personally, I think a lot of good things await us, but not the ones we're expecting -- not a return to buying slurpees on credit cards. It will be very salutary to leave behind the junk empire we've accumulated and move into an epoch of quality and purpose. For the moment, though, our hopes reside elsewhere.

full post

yeah spring!!!!

a beautiful spring day in the garden....the montmorency cherry looks promising...Mmmmm...and the mutsu apple is blooming..love that apple!! ..and every year i try to capture the beauty of the "grace seebrook" rhody.

President Obama's first 100 days

i appreciated this 100 day report over at Great Lakes Law. the urgency of this planetary emergency can sometimes feel like no one gets it. and it's good to have a feeling the really smart person we elected is in fact really smart and is bringing the fight. thanks to Noah Hall, author of Great Lakes Law blog

April 28, 2009
Environmental law and policy highlights of Obama’s first 100 days
George W. Bush spent 8 years in the White House undermining environmental protection, eventually leaving office with the worst environmental record of any modern president. His regulatory rollbacks and refusal to enforce environmental laws were most immediately apparent, but history will judge him even more harshly for his total lack of leadership in meeting the national and global clean energy / climate change challenge. President Obama could have come into office and done nothing more than put in a few LED lights around the White House and been a huge improvement. But simply being better than Bush II would not be enough – our environmental problems demand immediate and strong presidential leadership. Overall, this is exactly what Obama has delivered in his first 100 days. Here are my three highlights:
1. A commitment to open and accountable government. As Obama said soon after taking office, “a democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency.” Open government is the foundation for good environmental policy, and Obama and the new EPA leadership made a strong commitment to the letter and spirit of the Freedom of Information Act and public participation in their first week after taking office.
2. Highly qualified appointees with scientific and legal integrity to lead the federal government. Some of Obama’s high profile appointees are already well known for their scientific and legal credentials, such as Dr. Steven Chu, the Nobel Prize winner appointed as Secretary of Energy. But in every key agency, Obama has made excellent appointments with superbly qualified individuals. Two deserve special mention. Dr. Jane Lubchenco, one of the most highly cited marine ecologists, an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, and recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship (the “genius” award), was appointed Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, responsible for a range of scientific and regulatory functions from climate monitoring to fisheries management. Professor Lisa Heinzerling, lead author of the brief in Massachusetts v. EPA that persuaded the Supreme Court that the EPA has the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions pursuant to the Clean Air Act (and co-author of our casebook Environmental Law and Policy: Nature, Law, and Society) was appointed as a special advisor to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on climate change issues.
3. Presidential leadership and comprehensive solutions to meet the clean energy / climate change challenge. President Obama appears to be well ahead of most of Washington DC in moving forward a clean energy / climate change agenda. Most recently, his EPA issued a proposed endangerment finding for greenhouse gas pollution that would trigger a new regulatory process for carbon dioxide emissions and other climate change pollutants. In addition to new regulation, Obama has also shown in his first 100 days a total commitment to transforming the American energy, transportation, and building sectors, investing in smart-grid technologies, high speed rail, and home weatherization programs.
President Obama and his administration have been understandably focused on these major issues in their first 100 days, but let’s not forget some items still on Team Obama’s to-do list for the Great Lakes:
1. Direct the EPA to regulate ballast water discharges and stop the spread of invasive species immediately (fulfilling a key Great Lakes campaign promise).
2. Repeal the EPA’s recent rule exempting water transfers and interbasin diversions from Clean Water Act regulation (if the rule isn’t stuck down in federal court first).
3. Drop the U.S. Army Corps’ ridiculous interpretation of the Clean Water Act that allows tons of mining waste to be dumped into lakes and rivers as “fill” (even if the Supreme Court would allow such an interpretation).
I expect President Obama will take care of these lower profile issues in due time, while keeping his focus on the big picture issues of clean energy and climate change. Based on what he has already accomplished in the first 100 days, the next 1,000 days should produce the type of transformative changes in environmental law and policy that his campaign promised.

blog post here

Star Anna and the Laughing Dogs

"a master crafter of songs and her great band"

congratulations you guys..!!!!! a great review at Twang Nation

MUSIC REVIEW - Star Anna and the Laughing Dogs - The Only Thing That Matters (self-released)
Remember that girl you met at the bowling alley? The one that chews gum, drinks several pitchers of beer, wears painted on jeans and tells you about French philosophy then winks at you as she gets strike after strike? She later on she goes and breaks your heart but you don’t care, you’re just glade to have been there to enjoy the time you had with her. No? Well Star Anna reminds me of that girl.

Well maybe not Star Anna personally but her music. It’s equal parts trashy Americana-laced rock mixed with sophisticated storytelling and charm that raises Anna and her band, The Laughing Dogs, to the a gritty level of greatness. It’s a gazing at the starts from the gutter kind of thing…

......As heartbreaking as many of the songs are this is not a sad album, and though there is an element of moving on it’s not a chick therapy album. It’s a cathartic jubulation that stands as another exceptional release from a master crafter of songs and her great band.

full review

and one of my favs....

just for fun...Lucinda

yikes!!