At Home

It was back in July when we spotted the first giant puffball of the season. This was early -too early to our senses. By August's middle the water table had been coming back up, not quite draining after a moderate rainfall. The temperatures had descended to the mid to high seventies and steadily declined into the mid to high sixties by the last week of August and first of September. The trees prepared themselves, the monarchs passed through, the squirrels returned to the lawn, and the rains fell. Our autumn is upon us, and has been since mid August. I have casually mentioned to some that the season had changed, before the Minnesota State Fair -typically a late summer festival. For my observation I received a squint and pursed lips, huh blended into hmm.

To perceive the early arrival of autumn is nothing special. To read the language of our environment and to understand its meaning, in the Western mind, is like understanding Latin. Most will see an archaic text, pass over it, and only occasionally fathoming the root of some current verbiage. Millions of years of evolving, hundreds of thousands of years within this epoch of variable, yet recognizable, climate and species and still we have lost the ability to be at home in the world. I write 'at home' to indicate that set of cues that are so familiar as to become understood inconspicuously.

Our trip to Yellowstone National Park, the primary stimulus for these thoughts, offered some very unfamiliar cues. If you haven't been, go. The park is massive, often taking several hours to get from one site to your lodging. There are bison, and more worrying -grizzly bears. You are walking on a volcano, something difficult to dislodge from your steaming, sulfur-scented consciousness.

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Every season I have five, ten, maybe twenty projects to accomplish during the warm season. I typically finish three, especially when the warm season lasts only three months. This year's major project was to complete the renovation of the front lawn-vegetable garden. Above, eggplants, peppers, and cucumbers.

The far left raised bed was refurbished as it had been made from scrap decking, then a new ten foot bed was built and installed, and the remaining two beds moved from last year's location. The framing and mulching was accomplished in early June and then I moved on to other projects.

After our return from Yellowstone I set about laying the sod. We chose sod to cover the area previously covered in black plastic laid to smother creeping charlie. Sod is outside of my experience, and I messed up. When laying sod it is best to have prepped the ground ahead of time, it's best to get it unrolled in a day or two. I had to stretch it over four days and nearly composted the sod on its pallet because I hadn't the time to prepare the soil, pull the volunteer tomatoes (what was I thinking?), or deal with the unknown habits of sedge that had grown where the beds had stood the year before. 

It was only continual rain storms and the early autumn temperatures that spared me the near-total loss of live grass. I credit this for its return from tawny mush to lively green, albeit a few patches of dead remain. Although I've been spared the shame of spending a small fortune on sod and then killing it, the lack of soil preparation will undoubtedly reduce the benefits of sod over seed in the long run.

We've had a good year for brassica, getting two months of broccoli from under twelve square feet. BT worked well on the cabbage worms after I removed the floating cover fabric. I've also observed that deer do not seem to care for kale when there is so much else to eat in your garden.

My July planting of green beans were trimmed quite well by the four-legged pruning crew. But, they came back and I now have a steady supply to snack on in between mosquito raids. Unlike a national park (the "wilderness"), our place is home to us and many other creatures. Living with them feels much more natural than any wilderness experience I've had.

A new garden bed grows out an area of removed hydrangea. Scraps of plants, all flowering blue-purple, have been planted throughout the summer. In the background, the browning of a wet autumn.

Endeavor

Rosmarinus officinalis 'prostratus' -ink on paper, 1999

My blog has served many purposes for me over the last seven years and 1855 posts. Now, we are in a time of transition -not only of place, but also our work and identity as artists. One of the things I would like to do here is bring the artist to the fore whereas previously it hummed in the background. This means I will write more about my projects and exhibitions, but it also means I will seek to contextualize my actions as art. I think my readership is open-minded and will welcome this. 

On July 26 I will be giving a presentation in New York City at a salon called Presenting at 17. Presenting is orchestrated by my good friend and fellow artist (and Italian-American!) Elise Gardella. The salon is open to any and all guests, albeit standing room only beyond the fixed number of seats. My goal for this long awaited moment in time is to recalibrate all my experiences, productions, and insights into a string of connected actions -a life of curiosity and the land. Expect me to utilize this blog as the forum to stitch different ideas together, many that will be pulled from prior posts. I may publish the presentation here simultaneously, although without the effect of my physical presence and voice, a hot NYC room in late July, and a dozen plus sweaty bodies.

I will be teaching my intensive week long course in Vermont this summer at Art New England -2nd year running and with greater enrollment! I will develop this class each year it is taught, eventually branching it into different courses to be taught elsewhere. 

I have seven(!) paintings in an artistically diverse exhibit, Arcadia: Thoughts on the Contemporary Pastoral. My good friend and fellow artist Steve Locke curated this outstanding and provocative collection of art for the Boston Center for the Arts Mills Gallery. I will be there for either the opening (Friday, July 10) or the roundtable discussion (September 18) or both if I can swing it.

There will be reminders about these events as they near and, as always, journaling my experience of the land. Posts may be less frequent as I enter this very busy time. It is summer, of course, so we're mowing lawns, evading mosquitoes, and absorbing reflected green wavelengths while sipping cold drinks.

Rosmarinus officinalis 'prostratus' -pencil, gouache and watercolor on paper, 1999

The Bad Bath

We're not much for bird baths and although usually filled with rain water, I can't say I've ever seen a bird washing up. I'm going to hazard the assumption that bird baths are a thing out of drier climates. Out of place here and with a swath of moss removed to plant ferns given to us by our neighbor, I reinvented the bath as dish of moss.

The Little Wetland

I have many favorite spots at our place, but this one is high on the list. It is hard to fathom that we are stewards of such a place. The lower photo reveals a deer trail entering the wetland. I am considering a plank walk so that we can experience the wetland from within outside of winter.

The Buckthorn and The Squill

These are squill, Siberian squill, wood squill, Scilla siberica in the woods. My father in law loved them, and no doubt had many on his old, family property. These escaped from the perennial garden planted in the driveway roundabout and were likely pushed to this spot by a misguided snowplow. They're lovely in spring, and they spread. It's hard to know how to treat them. Is our woods pure? Absolutely not, so why remove something so pleasing to our eyes. To some degree I accept this quandary as part of who we are. How, then, do I pick and choose which "invasion" to sustain and which to eradicate? What is nature? I do not believe it is a world without humanity, but then I do believe that we can be terribly short-sighted.

We have to accept that we are the Earth's most active agent of change and  that we are not in control. Things get out of hand, we lose interest, we cannot manage every outcome. Amid the chaos, there are lovely things and terrible things, there is squill and there is buckthorn. We disparage the buckthorn and admire the squill, while doing little about either or choosing one over the other because it charms us. This weakness keeps us interesting. We despise buckthorn because it is so bland, so visually unpalatable, as much or more than for its aggressive growth. Then, we justify time consuming, expensive, aggressive eradication with ennobling gestures toward native purity.

The radical streak in Nature abhors a museum. We are nature. The way we change the land is nature while we are here, and for some years after. We are the buckthorn and the squill amongst the oaks and the orchids.

A Subtlety

We returned at midnight from a week-long trip to southern New Mexico and Arizona. The following morning, the sun reflected not grey or brown of twigs and branches, but emergent bright green leaves of the lilac. Later, strong southwesterly winds carried thunderstorms and heavy rain and a chorus of frogs heralding the arrival of spring.

The following day, in the great wetland, shrub willows bloom. Although the oaks reserve their enthusiasm, there are buds or blooms on red maples, willows, and basswood.

 Colorful catkins decorate the woodland floor.

The earliest and predominant herb is garlic mustard, Alliaria petiolata. Invasive precisely for this reason, getting it's start before the snow has departed, gaining ground in the leafless sunshine of early spring. The woods is an impeccable example of humanity and forest, neither untouched or wholly impaired, unintentionally altered to the benefit of some species over others. Should we remain here, its condition will be the project of my days. 

It will be helpful to identify some of the earliest plants, some of which may be detrimental to the spring ephemerals and some that may be the ephemerals. Minnesota shares several native plants with New York, so I am not completely out of my league, however at the earliest stages of growth, identification becomes quite a bit more difficult. This plant, above, is growing in the sunshine, in the garlic patch, in the woods, everywhere! It has blue-green, mildly glaucous leaves and reddened glaucous stem. My first guess is in the direction of buttercup, Ranunculaceae. Does anyone recognize it? Please, comment if you do.

Another early riser, looking more like columbine or possibly a meadow rue, Ranunculaceae?

This looks familiar, but I haven't found a good web source for early growth characteristics, Minnesota woodland plants, etc. etc.  Only so much time in a day.

Not garlic mustard, but what?

Ahh, something a different, lanceolate grey-green leaves. Asteraceae?

This grass, throughout the woods but primarily on paths, has been up since early March. Clump forming and flowering now, I'm guessing a sedge, maybe Carex pensylvanica.

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Understanding what lies underfoot, what calls over the wetland, what tree is more likely to fall is quite a bit of my task now. Despite having visited here for a dozen years, although mostly in winter, I have yet to witness much of what happens. For this reason I temper my big ideas and ambitious projects, settling instead to witness the changes before me. Time is short, yes, but I keep asking myself if the ideas I do have would be any better than what is already there. So I watch, taking in as much as I can, and see my own ideas transformed in the process.

The Slow Life Or I Just Turned Fortyfive

One of the tropes of speaking about a move from the city to the "country" is that life slows down, that you slow down. Some falsely reason that to slow down, they should aim for the country. 

What I have found is the movement of the earth. I see it in the shadows and celestial bodies.

Before I can see the rising sun, a window reflects it from nearly a half mile away.

Frenetic, self-centered city life dispenses with this perception. Time is human time, measured in seconds and minutes so numerous as to seem endless. It becomes the measurement of how long to, intervals of trains, a meeting at four, of dinner at eight. Children are unformed adults wed to their colleges before they can speak (yet only they have the perception of slowed time). Nursing facilities are horror houses, what happened to these people?  Celestial events are spectacles detached from prescience. 

No, the country hasn't slowed me down. It's only made me aware of how fast we are going.

Interstellar

Two weeks ago we went to a late showing of the Chris Nolan film, Interstellar, at a three-dollar theater. The take away is manifold, but one thing sticks to my ribs: we are more than corn farmers contented to feed 5 billion people. We have to tackle our fears, (spoiler alert) we have to dive into the black hole if we are going to achieve our promise, and we can't forget who we are (emotional beings) in the process.  

Humanity hates toiling in the dirt, we're intellectual beings, explorers, so get on to it. 

Don't be nostalgic, either -leave our prior existence back where it belongs. When we're in that new place, be in that new place. Don't burden us with longings for home or waste energy trying to recreate it. Our minds are the only thing that make us unique and they are built for adaptation. Adapt.

Don't let climate calamity slide us into a new dark age -get out into the dark.