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Inch by Inch: SPARROWS WITH A MESSAGE By Pamela Windo I’ve always felt that birds are messengers, and a month ago I was proved right. Back in the spring, I went home to my native For a couple of weeks before my departure, I kept noticing sparrows flying up to my windows—I have five large picture windows overlooking the wooded Palisade escarpment. Each of the sparrows perched sideways on the glass and seemed to want to come in. After this had happened a dozen times, I got the feeling something was up. But how could a few birds make me cancel my plans? So I continued, booked a room, and packed. Four hours before I was due to leave for Though it was a kind offer, I wasn’t much up on Macintosh, and the iMac had seen better days and started to freeze my book document. I also had a disappointment with my sister and a friend, who both did a disappearing act on me (more of that another time) at which point the message was: to cut my losses and return home, which I did after a short but recuperative stay in London with my son and his girlfriend who took me out to dinner and got me to the airport. Back home, faced with harsh reality, I had no choice but to give up my dream of escape and as soon as I got the laptop repaired, got back to work on my book…. and I’m surprised to find that regardless of “distractions,” it’s going very well. As for the sparrows, I found a website posted by a woman who has studied birds as messengers (www.andreawansbury.com) and wrote to her. Her response was: sparrows are birds that bring a message of consolidation. Now if pigeons had come to my windows, their message would have been obedience, and vultures, death and rebirth!
**************************************************************************************************************************************** Inch by Inch: Red Squash, Blue Ribbon
by Libby Dean At this year’s Common Ground Country Fair, the blue rosette for winter squash went to Newforest’s lovely Hokkaido squash (a.k.a. Red Kuri), a pear-shaped, persimmon-colored beauty. Garden manager Lauren Buyofsky says it was “a last minute entry; I was headed out of the barn and saw it and said, ‘You look good!’” As the gardeners prepared for the fair, their cargo included the winning Hokkaido, several lovely large Mars red onions -- the biggest ever grown at Newforest -- and German striped tomatoes. Every one of the nine varieties of vegetable they entered for judging won a ribbon, with two garnering the prestigious Judge’s Award. Newforest also had an information table at this year’s fair, which is just up the road at the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association headquarters in Unity. There, more than 52,000 people gathered on the last weekend of September to celebrate rural living and Maine organic farming during the peak of the harvest. As part of the extensive educational program at the fair, Lauren did a talk on medicinal herbs in the permaculture landscape, and also spoke about mushroom cultivation. The talks drew standing-room-only crowds. Meanwhile, questions at our info table focused on the four-season gardening techniques used at Newforest, such as the movable greenhouse and the hoop houses. By all accounts, it was a successful and engaging event. The enthusiasm for organic farming in Maine, and the hard work and tremendous skill involved, were evident everywhere at the fair. It was a hopeful weekend: All of the classes offered by MOFGA this whole year were full, and there are increasing numbers of young people buying land to farm in Maine. It seems that people are continuing to turn to community and self-sufficiency in response to the strained economy and changed fortunes around us. The results of the work this year by seven resident apprentices and a half-dozen shorter-term volunteers can be seen all around Newforest. A new hops arbor was erected, pillars of hope, really, for the 10 hops vines are still tiny and will likely be joined by another 100. The beer they may one day be part of is a long way off. Beautiful stonework is forming en route to the forest garden. The new movable greenhouse served us well. It provided greens early in the season (and will likely continue to do so into December) and supported more than 120 tomato plants, yielding tomatoes before Aug. 1 and right through the end of September. We have eaten well this summer, using much produce of our own and cooking in the cob oven many times. In August, Newforest hosted its first writer-in-residence, Orna Isakson, a naturopathic doctor who delivered a public talk on natural health. In September, we had the good fortune to present a walk and talk by Tom Wessels, author of "Reading the Forested Landscape: A Natural History of New England." Two score people spent the day learning about the history of past human activities on this parcel of land, based on the evidence they left behind, among other wondrous things. The process of learning from one another and from new people is a source of renewal that is constantly enriching us. Now the harvest moon shines over us in Brooks, as we ponder the fruitful end of the growing season. The garden is slowly yielding the last of its most showy products: the stalwart scallions, sweet corn, and a laundry basket full of green tomatoes to make into salsa or to fry for lunch. But the processes in nature are not linear, so this is not -- nor is it ever really -- “the end of the year.” Around us, in all of nature, we can see that everything is cyclical and circular and therefore never-ending. The work we do to help this land produce food and sustain community is ceaseless, too: The gardens are being bedded down for winter with the tacit understanding that they will awaken again in spring’s thaw and somehow, amazingly, green and yellow and red leaves and flowers and fruits will come again to this brown earth. We believe in this miracle of the seasons and honor it through our labor in Newforest’s varied landscape, working on projects whose fruits may appear in one season or which may not be seen for many, many years. Between now and next summer’s harvest, the leaves of red maple, white ash and poplar will color and drop, wind will blow and snow will fall, covering much of the evidence of our labor. But the seeds we carefully store are holding next summer’s bounty within them already. One of them may even have a blue ribbon in its future. Who knows? The important thing is that they hold our hopes for another year’s harvest. Libby Dean of Brooks has worked as an intern at organic farms in Maine and is a graduate of College of the Atlantic. She recently received a master's degree in environmental studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where her research focused on Inuit women and their understanding of nutrition and health issues, particularly in the area of environmental contaminants. Libby joins Pamela Windo of Jersey City, N.J., and Andy Kekacs of Brooks to write about the intimate connections between humans and the natural world. Their blog, Inch by Inch, will appear regularly on Newforest’s website and Facebook page. We invite you click here and share your thoughts on it. While there, consider becoming a fan. |
