Swallowtail Laying Eggs on Parsley

Saw the first swallowtail butterfly this morning flying around my parsley plant which survived the winter. I have noticed in years past that swallowtails seem to prefer parsley for laying their eggs over any other plant. I stood a full five minutes, watching this swallowtail leave the parsley after depositing an egg and make a full reconnaissance of two of my neighbors' yards, disappearing behind one house and then reappearing, before coming back to this same parsley plant in my front garden. I suppose it is to their advantage to deposit their eggs in as wide a range as possible, hoping for the best chances of survival of some. But she found no other suitable hosts for the eggs, so returned to mine. The eggs will hatch in due course and become beautiful black, green, and yellow caterpillars which will feed and strip the parsley plant bare (as they did this same plant last year), before becoming cocoons to start the whole process over.

Here's one of the eggs this swallowtail laid (round white dot at the tip of the pink arrow):

A few other herbs bursting forth in the warm sun:

Mint:

Oregano, and chives in the corner:

Chive flowers about to bloom:

Spring has definitely sprung in the Carolinas.

The Hell of the North

The most important bicycle race in the world is the Tour de France, held every year in July. The second most important will be held this Sunday: Paris-Roubaix (say pair-eé roo-báy). To understand just how difficult this one-day race is, all one needs to know is its long-standing monickers: The Hell of the North and A Sunday in Hell.

First run in 1896, Paris-Roubaix averages around 260 kilometers (depending on slight annual variations in the course), or about 161 miles. Paris and Roubaix, France, indicated the original start and end points of the race from 1896 to 1967. Since 1968 the race has started in various French cities but has always ended in the velodrome in Robaix. Regardless of where it starts, the race keeps the traditional name, Paris-Roubaix.

Why "Hell of the North?" Because Roubaix, France, where the race ends, is on the northernmost border of France, right against the France-Belgium border. Belgium is the most fanatical cycling country in Europe and thousands upon thousands of alcohol-fueled Belgians and French line the final miles of the narrow roads making it akin to a gauntlet at a fraternity hazing (all in the historic European spirit of good clean cycling fun, of course). But that's the least of the problems.

Riding 161 miles on a bike under the best of circumstances is bad enough. But 150 riders racing that far on narrow French roads only adds to the danger. The weather is almost always miserable—very cold and very wet. But that's not the worst part of Paris-Roubaix. The worst part are the cobbles.

The race route alternates between tarmac (smooth, paved roads) and very old rural roads still covered with pavé—the traditional, thick paving stones which were originally used to surface the roads. But the pavé are not like smooth, brick-paved streets we might see in America. Many of the cobbles have gaps between them of 1-2 inches on all four sides—not a problem for a car or tractor tire, but absolutely brutal for a very-thin-wheeled racing bike to ride over. Filling the gaps between the cobbles is dirt, not mortar. So when it rains, the dirt turns to mud and the cobbles become extremely slick, resulting in countless crashes and pile-ups during the race. Plus, the bikes have no fenders, so the wheels of every bike flip muddy water into the air with every revolution, soaking every rider with freezing mud in the years it rains. In the coldest wettest years, a large percentage of the riders who begin Paris-Roubaix never make it to the finish line.

Is "Hell of the North" sounding a little more reasonable?

In 2008 there were 28 cobble sections that varied in difficulty and accounted for about one-quarter of the total distance. The cobbled sections are graded according to difficulty, meaning their condition, the following pictures attesting to the variability of the pavé. (Note how narrow the roads are, making for pure bedlam when you combine the bike riders, motorcycle escorts, team support vehicles, official referee vehicles, and the loopy French and Belgian fans crowding in from both sides.)

Following are some views of various conditions of the cobbles along the course:

This is what happens all day long, along with repetitive punctured tires and broken stems and handlebars from the constant pounding:

Here's what the riders can look like (or worse) in the years when it rains:

The winner's trophy is an actual traditional pavé—you can see how deep they are set into the road bed:

The race will be almost over by the time we are well into Sunday, but the Versus network will carry the re-broadcast of the race Sunday evening from 6:00-9:00 pm. Live streaming of the race Sunday morning can be found on numerous Internet sites in your choice of European languages. It is something to behold.

Michael Barry, one of the most experienced riders on the pro circuit, captured the feel of Paris-Roubaix with a helmet cam when his British Sky Team took a training run on the last 100k of the route just yesterday. Here's how he described it on his blog, Le Métier:

Three days prior to the start of Paris Roubaix the team drove to the Arenberg forest to ride the course. From Arenberg it is roughly 100 km to the finish. Each of the 17 remaining cobbled sectors is separated by less than 10 km of tarmac. In Arenberg the race becomes relentlessly difficult—the 100 km that follow the forest are perhaps the hardest 100 km in professional cycling. The vibrations beat the cyclist’s body, his muscles are torn from the effort and his eyes burn from the dust.

The cobbles were relatively dry when we rode them although there were a few muddy sections where puddles had formed or tractors muddied the road. In the video, you can see the riders slipping and sliding on the slick sections. The crowds were already gathering in anticipation for Sunday’s race and the media was out to photograph the protagonists testing their legs and their equipment on the cobbles.

And here's what it looked (and felt) like (the worst part being in the last minute of the video):

Pinarello, the Italian builder who furnishes Team Sky's bikes (seen in the above video), created a version of their new carbon Dogma 60.1 bike, the KOBH (say "cob," short for cobblestone) just for Paris-Roubaix with some tweaks to make it a bit more comfortable in light of the constant pounding the riders take. (For roadies: note the small black "box" beneath the bottle cages—the battery pack for the Shimano Di2 electronic shifter system which several of the pro teams began using in 2009 and which has gotten excellent reviews for reliability—and also expense. The Pinarello KOBH below with the Di2 system sells for $10,380 in a basic configuration at Competitive Cyclist in Little Rock, AR.) Italian wheels—nice:

Good luck, boys!

What's Wrong with This Picture?

This April 15, a family of four with an income of $50,000, with two children younger than 17, will owe no federal income tax. They are part of the 47 percent of Americans who pay no income tax each year. Half the country is paying for the other half to get something (lots) for nothing.

The top 10 percent of earners in America pay about 73 percent of the taxes collected by the federal government. The bottom 40 percent of earners actually make a profit from the government via tax credits. The government actually sends them money.

Read the whole amazing story here.

Is This a Great Country or What?

The current offerings from five different American eating establishments—three fast-food and two baseball park concessions—are telling. They are so unbelievably unhealthy and artery clogging that they are hopefully being presented as novelty items. (But believe it—novelty or not, these companies wouldn't be offering these items if they didn't fully expect Americans to line up and lay their money down.) (You can see pictures of the five and read about them here. Please look at the pictures and read the captions which detail the calorie counts, etc.)

The very idea that these kinds of foodstuffs are being created, purchased, and eaten says a lot about the health culture in America. It's well established that cultures which traditionally enjoyed very low rates of chronic diseases, based on their traditional diets (mostly plant-based, non-processed) and lifestyles, are now suffering the same health declines as we see in America as a result of our food culture being exported around the world. It's also well-documented that when healthy peoples from these cultures emigrate to America, within one generation their health begins to decline.

Foods like the ones in the article linked to above would not even have been imaginable in these cultures just a few years ago. The fact that they are produced and sold, and laughed at, in America is an indication of just how immune we have become to the causes of ill-health. And in the midst of our decline, our government has just told us that we are free to live and eat any way we please since they (we) will pay for the debilitating results. Indeed, it will be cheaper to pay the fine for not having health insurance than the premiums on health insurance. So, many will choose not to purchase health insurance, which leaves more money to purchase the kinds of foods America has become famous for. And since pre-existing conditions no longer apply, we can eat at the five outlets mentioned above until we get sick, then sign on for healthcare on the public's dime.

On Monday have a Monster Thickburger at Hardee's or a Double Down at KFC, have a heart attack on Tuesday, and sign up for health insurance on Wednesday.

Is this a great country or what?

This Has to Stop

Another undercover operation in Jan-Feb of this year has documented horrific abuse of egg-laying hens at the second and third-largest egg producers in the nation. A HSUS (Humane Society of the U.S.) worker hired on for three weeks to work in the battery-cage factories where egg-laying hens are kept and shot the undercover video footage. Battery cage operations have only one motive: the maximization of profits at the expense of "workers"—the hens who lay the eggs. Three to five hens are crammed into small cages where they lay their eggs until they die or become too sick or too spent, at which point they are shipped off to slaughter houses. California and Michigan have passed laws banning battery cage hen operations, and all states should. I keep showing these videos, unsettling as they may be, so that more and more people will become aware of where the eggs come from that fill their grocery store's coolers. If you eat eggs (as I once did), your demand creates the supply that these systems meet. I stopped eating all animal products (including eggs) 10 years ago for more than animal abuse reasons, but said reasons would have been enough.

The Dangers of Not Owning a Farm

There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.

To avoid the first danger, one should plant a garden, preferably where there is no grocer to confuse the issue.

To avoid the second, he should lay a split of good oak on the andirons, preferably where there is no furnace, and let it warm his shins while a February blizzard tosses the trees outside. If one has cut, split, hauled, and piled his own good oak, and let his mind work the while, he will remember much about where the heat comes from, and with a wealth of detail denied to those who spend the weekend in town astride a radiator.

From Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac—and Sketches Here and There (Oxford University Press, 1949). See also . . .

Leopold Conservation Award

The Aldo Leopold Archives

Leopold Heritage Group

The Aldo Leopold Foundation

Paper, Printing, and the iPad

Here's a good overview article on what the iPad (and other e-readers like the Kindle) means in the big picture of publishing. The author clearly summarizes this macro-fact: the biggest expense in paper publishing products (books, newspapers, magazines) are printing and shipping. HUGE amounts of energy (i.e., money) are expended every 24 hours to produce a product (newspaper) that is thrown out at the end of the day! And the whole thing is repeated every 24 hours, world without end. That's amazing. And the same for magazines like Time and Newsweek, except the lifespan is seven days instead of 24 hours. (Books obviously have a lifespan measured in years, so the cost is more gently spread out.)

But think about buying a book for an e-reader. One second before you push "Buy" on your computing device, that copy didn't exist. It is instantaneously generated from an existing digital master—like a cell replicating—and downloaded to your device at practically zero cost to the seller. The more copies sold, the cost-per-copy (web hosting the master copy, tech support, etc.) keeps going down.

While I lament the direction this is going for books, I can't argue with the premise. When you eliminate production and shipping costs, the profit margin per copy for e-books approaches 100 percent after the cost of creating the original. The only good side is that, while Apple and Amazon are currently charging prices for e-books approximately equal to hard copies, this ruse will quickly be realized by buyers and competitors will step in, selling the e-books for less. After all, there are plenty of companies who would be happy with, say, a 50% profit margin instead of a 95% profit margin.

Publishing is changing before our very eyes—literally.

Farmer Poets

I have subscribed to Small Farmer's Journal—The International Agrarian Quarterly for several years now, and read most pages of every quarterly issue. It's an "old-timey" magazine—large (10.5" x 13", about 100 pages), covered with brown-bag paper. The founder and editor, Lynn R. Miller, is a farmer-poet, artist, and author of many authoritative books dealing with horse-drawn farming. He is the driving force behind the developing Small Farms Conservancy and well-respected in agrarian, sustainable, small-farming circles.

What continues to impress me is the quality of the writing of many of the farmers Lynn invites to contribute to the Journal. I was touched by more than one passage from articles in the current issue (Winter, Vol. 34, No. 1), and share them here for your pleasure. (In all the following excerpts, I have "bolded" portions that were particularly meaningful to me—words worth pondering.)

Ryan Foxley is a farmer who began a regular column with his first article. In it he speaks of his appreciation for the Journal through the years.

It was with surprise and humbled excitement that I agreed to Lynn Miller's suggestion that I write a column for this, our treasured Small Farmer's Journal; this agrarian guidebook that so many of us have come to rely on and savor over the years. I have always said that if I had to choose between buying food or renewing my SFJ subscription I would go hungry. This magazine truly has had a profound impact on my life over the years. It has always been amply endowed with matters of practical know-how joined with a philosophical wisdom that has never been afraid of romance and poetry. It really is a place to come for reassurance, for consolation, for hope. The present world in which we live has no spreadsheet or bottom line accounting for slowness, for craft, for art, for poetry lived. Right livelihood should include a fair dose of intangible sweetness. The Journal has all this and more. It has always been there, reiterating good sense like a reassuring grandfather, assuaging fears when my self-induced agricultural isolation threatened to envelop me a fog of doubt and uncertainty. ("Little Field Notes," p. 40)

The following excerpt is from the article, "Primary Tillage at Cedar Mountain Farm, Part One," by Stephen Little:

Years ago in the pages of the Small Farmer's Journal, I read about the practice of "imprinting" oneself upon [a] newborn foal. I took this advice and held the first live foal born on our farm gently but firmly from stem to stern in the embrace of my arms for a full twenty minutes. I stand convinced that if you can convince horses and cattle when they are very young that you are the kindly but stronger and more dominate animal in the herd, and if you persist in living your life close to your horses and presenting to them a fair and consistent authority, then they will continue to believe this about you and to respect your wishes even as they grow up to attain gargantuan proportion and Herculean strength.

The bold portion above is about as meaningful a picture of man having dominion over animals as I've read (Genesis 1:28). Kindness, strength, fairness, consistency, and authority lead to a partnership between man and beast—at least some animals—that serves both well, and reflects the images from Genesis 2:19-20.

Little continues:

I suppose some farmer boy living sixty or more years ago might not have been so excited, might have been a little bored—might have even been day-dreaming about what life away off in the big city is like—such a boy might have been much impressed with his own God-given moment of driving a team of horses he'd trained himself on a plow he'd fitted an scoured and repaired dozens of times himself. But for a boy like me raised in the suburbs, every I hitch up my little team, no matter how mundane the farm task at hand, something elemental in my soul is kindled and all my worldly senses and the inner attention of my heart and the dull ministrations of my mind stand ready and are drawn into an awakened coalescence in this present moment of lines connected to horses in my hands.

There are many tangible rewards to farming and many more fleeting sweet and beautiful intangible ones—the ones that make the life worth living. Intangibles like sitting down to a delicious home cooked meal and hearing Kerry say, "All the ingredients in this meal are from the farm." Intangibles like watching our neighbors from up the street, Joe and Clare and their three little kids, making their weekly visit to the farm to pick up their jars of fresh raw milk and drop off some eggs from their home flock to sell in our farm store and then to linger and stroll about the barns visiting with calves, horses, chickens, and just seeing what a difference it makes in the lives of those kids that this place exists, and to think how empty and sterile this stretch of road would be if our farm were just another sub-division. Intangibles like watching my toddler daughter marvel at the sight and sound of bees alighting on the heavy heads of sunflowers or screeching in delight at the sight of chickens running after the apple core she just tossed into their pen. Intangibles like "whoaing" the horses to let them stop and blow and looking back behind to see the neatly laid over furrows that have followed in the wake of the plow they are pulling, and then turning back again to see them standing with the steam rising off their flanks, the mixed sweet scents of horse sweat mingled with freshly disturbed earth, the sounds of raucous crows up on the hill side and the promise of another season on the far side of this fall plowing. (p. 53)

The reference to the children above reminds me of my own dreams concerning Living Kitchen Farm.

Finally, a portion of an article by Lisa W. Roesing—her reflections on attending an organic farming fair in Maine with her farming family. Lisa lives in Ohio, but attending the fair rekindled in her the desire to get back to Maine, back to the farm on which she was raised. The article is titled "Sweet Annie," a reference to an herb, the scents of which wafted through the fair grounds and contributed to the longing she felt for her farm-home.

I've dreamed for so long about moving back and now it's so close I can taste it, I can feel it, my body aches with a desire for all that is High View Farm. My hands crave the feel of a set of single reins. The smooth leather slipping through my gloves, Pa speaks to the horse in his quiet gentle voice, "Whoa there, Red." I watch and learn as Pa wraps the heavy chain twice around the fresh cut pine and places the cold, rusty colored hook over a link. I can feel it. My lungs long for the sharp cold air. I inhale. The snow settles under my snow shoe clad feet as I help assist Pa in collecting the sap. The woods silently welcoming me home. I exhale. It won't be long. My eyes yearn to see my Gram, brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews, my family coming towards me. Arms open wide. Anticipating the hug, the feeling of being held and holding a loved one close. All is well. My feet ache to push deep into the fertile dark soil of the garden that has been lovingly tended by generations of Winslows. Darcy and I in the hot summer sun fill our buckets with strawberries to be used in ice cream, short cake, jam, and even some to be sold at the farmers market. Abbie and I walk the old logging trails, where only family, friends, and horses have tread. I'm almost there. My tongue hungers for farm and sustainably grown beef, eggs, lamb, butter, milk, and vegetables. I swirl the heavy cream into my coffee and add a dollop of syrup. Syrup, that I sat and watched boiling with a big heavy book in my hands. It will be soon now. My nose has an itch to smell the pine trees, the horses and the dairy. The fresh mown field and hay drying in the sun waiting to be raked into windrows. The memory of Sweet Annie wafting by as I walk in my father's footsteps and my soul is instantly grounded, my serenity restored. I'm ready, I'm coming home. (p. 35)

These passages aren't about being vegetarian, vegan, or not. They're about men and women who relish the life that parallels the place where God first placed man and woman to live, a Garden-farm. And they're about the eloquence of their voices and the depth of their understanding. It's a shame that small farmers, in our day, have a reputation for no longer having a voice that needs to be heard. Yet some of the most eloquent voices of the day are those of small farmers. Who can deny that Louis Bromfield, Wendell Berry, Charles Walters, Joel Salatin, Albert Howard, Elliot Coleman, Masanobu Fukuoka, Michael Ableman, Marion Nestle, Barbara Kingsolver, Scott and Helen Nearing, J. I. Rodale, Eve Balfour, Lynn Miller, Gene Logsdon, and a host of others whose voices have not yet been heard widely (like those quoted above), have things to say and share that would make this world a more sane place?

Sadly, as Ryan Foxley wrote, "The present world in which we live has no spreadsheet or bottom line accounting for slowness, for craft, for art, for poetry lived." But happily, the ranks of young, small farmers has been growing in recent years. After the Secretary of Agriculture under Presidents Nixon and Ford, Earl Butz, admonished America's farmers to "Get big or get out," small farmers were forced out by the hundreds of thousands. But they are returning with renewed insights into the fallibility of accounting only for yields and dollars. There is a new accounting for "slowness, for craft, for art, for poetry lived." And we will be the better for it.

The Lord Is Risen

THE LORD IS RISEN!

Hail to thee, Festival Day! Blest day that art hallowed for ever;

Day wherein God destroyed hell, rising again from the dead.

He who was nailed to the Cross is God and the Ruler of all things;

All things created on earth worship the Maker of all.

God of all pity and power, let thy word be assured to the doubting;

Light on the third day returns: rise, Son of God, from the tomb.

Ill doth it seem that thy limbs should linger in lowly dishonour,

Ransom and price of the world, veiled from the vision of men.

Ill doth it seem that thou, by whose hand all things are encompassed,

Captive and bound should remain, deep in the gloom of the rock.

Rise now, O Lord, from the grave and cast off the shroud that enwrapped thee;

Thou are sufficient for us; nothing exists without thee.

Mourning they laid thee to rest, who art Author of life and creation;

Treading the pathway of death, life thou bestowest on man.

Show us thy face once more, that all times may exult in thy brightness;

Give us the light of day, darkened on earth at thy death.

Out of the prison of death thou art rescuing numberless captives;

Freely they tread in the way wither their Maker has gone.

Jesus has harrowed hell; he has led captivity captive;

Darkness and chaos and death flee from the face of the light.

Easter Processional, Western Rite, Venantuis Fortunatus

(Thanks to Dr. Ken Boa for this Easter meditation.)