The Chopper

This past week I moved my wife up to a residency program in "upstate" NY. We went grocery shopping at a place that chops prices. In order to participate in the chopping, we needed to wait on the line for both lottery tickets and the chopping card. It was a long line in this economically depressed area. So I began reading all the hanging signs with neighborly faces, women always, stating how much they chop off their grocery bill by shopping at the chopper. It started to make me feel uncomfortable -all this chopping. The goal in america seems to be to spend as little as possible on food. I know, I grew up this way. My father did the grocery shopping (or was that chopping?), and probably wouldn't let my mother because she would be extravagant in some way or another. He would clip coupons, go to double coupon stores, the whole nine yards of saving on food.

Anyway, the signs made me wish we were saving somewhere other than food. The attitude seems to suggest that calories mattered most, no matter what form. Get those calories cheap! What if the advertising, the zeitgeist of american food shopping was different? Can I tell you, I participated in the chopping zone! Oh, dear, get this one -its cheaper. Chop-chop! Let's chop those prices! I stepped into that environment and I became a chopoholic.

Back in NYC, I have stores that I go to because they are less expensive. A place called Golden Farms (they're all called 'farms' around my neighborhood) has the lowest price on Organic Valley milk (3.79 1/2gal) and Peace (whatever its called) cereals (2.99/box). I think they sell them close to cost just to bring in the customers! But I won't buy meats or much veggies there. I go to a variety of butchers or grocers depending on what I need. The farmer's market has the best vegetables in season, but the prices are much higher. I buy there anyway (Cortelyou farmers are less expensive than Grand Army farmers, but I am so eager by Saturday I go to Grand Army). I spend way more time shopping for food in NYC than I suppose I would if I lived in the suburbs or rurals.

When I was on residency, I found food in Wilton, CT to be really expensive, but completely ordinary. Was it because I had only one choice, one store? I hate food cards, where they sell your info as a trade for a deal on sliced mushrooms once every few weeks (like the chopper). In upstate and western NY, things are hard, it's been a bad economy for 30 years. But there are still many family farms across NY state. I hope they are producing more than corn and soy. If people are willing to spend more on food, locally grown can be a reality in season. If the lowest price is all that matters, then it's unlikely it will come from those farms. It would be unethical to have those upstate farmers producing for a NYC market, while those who live around them still buy frozen or shipped "fresh" from name-a-place. It will be up to the retailers to make the push for local, more expensive food in their stores, although I suppose there will always be a market for cheap food and those who will sell it.

Chop chop.

View From Above

Glacial Lakes State Park

Last night I had a tornado dream -usually the kind I have when I am deeply bothered by something. The tornado bears down on me, I hold on. This one shook and rattled the concrete building I dreamt myself to be in. I woke up.

Magically, this made me think of last summer's trip to Glacial Lakes State Park in Minnesota's prairie country. I chose this park as my destination because the name of a nearby lake, Minneswaska, was the same name as a lake and state park in the Shawangunks of the New York's Hudson Valley. And the closest town was named Starbuck.

View Larger Map

Minnesota is divided between three distinct regions: northern coniferous forest, prairie, and the western most extent of the eastern deciduous forest (called Big Woods in Minnesota). My trip took me on one of several roads that follow an arc of glacial lakes, or kettles, that remain as reminder of the Wisconsin glacial period (so-so Wiki article). I left the Big Woods and entered the prairie. According to the Minnesota DNR, 98% of Big Woods has been converted to farm land, housing and commercial development and 99.9% of Minnesota prairie has been turned for farm land.

When I neared the park, the land turned from farm to grassland. The road turned from asphalt to gravel.

This landscape was rolling, elevated, scattered stones and boulders about, and grass -lots of grass.

After entering the park, the roadway descends toward a kettle lake. The parking area is surrounded by a glade of trees.

I began walking on the trail that circumnavigates the main kettle lake, called Signalness Lake.

I'm impressed with the oak forest and the feeling like this forest is a hidden pocket in the prairie come farmland. It also strikes me how similar this landscape is to my own Long Island experience with its kettles and oaks.

As you walk down the slope toward the lake, you cross this simple footbridge. It crosses a wetland adjacent to the lake. Among the many plants, milkweed -Asclepias syriaca and what looks like yarrow, Achillea millefolium (native or not???).

I couldn't ID so many of the plants I discovered on this trip, like this one below. It was just above the wetland.

Lakeside, half-way around and looking at my starting location.

Leaving the lakeside I move back uphill toward the drier forest. To the east rolling hills and prairie grassland. Notice how the woodlands are in the depressions in the land, where there is more moisture and protection.

The drier uplands are primarily prairie land. But native sumacs can aggressively fill the slopes without fire as a control agent. Prairie loves fire because it keeps woody plants from taking hold.

Scanning the prairie you see a fabric of grass and other plants.

Closer looking finds brilliant flowers. What is it?

Likely the native coneflower, Echinacea angustifolia.

Hoary Vervain, Verbena stricta

Name this grass.

I know this one because of my time in New Mexico -its Leadplant, Amorpha canescens.

I always enjoy the interpretive signs, especially old disintegrating ones like this explaining how this landscape was formed.