Greenjeans Farm

Foxglove summer and Amaranth fall.

There is always something about fall that makes me think of passing. I will never forget the foxgloves this spring and will never not equate them with my friend and the horror she has gone through and is still trying to push through.The height of the harvest and the end of the bountiful season!Mother nature was stingy this year.Too much rain and not enough heat.And now at the end mother nature is passing on the things we have overlooked, the Amaranth and the Sun Flowers, and the Blanket flowers!And bringing on some Brandywine tomatoes at least! That makes a case for keeping the canned goods for two years!The grape bins are out across the way, but I don’t hear any banging.There are no machines going all night in the vineyard keeping me awake, yet!It’s a so, so harvest and I am still grateful!When I pass, I think I want to just be put on a brush pile and burned, worked back into the soil and work at keeping worms happy!We’ve had a hard year but it was a growing one.

The free radical farmer

In chemistry, radicals (often referred to as free radicals) are atomic or molecular species with unpaired electrons on an otherwise open shell configuration. These unpaired electrons are usually highly reactive, so radicals are likely to take part in chemical reactions. Radicals play an important role in combustion, atmospheric chemistry, polymerization, plasma chemistry, biochemistry, and many other chemical processes, including human physiology.

Growing up in the 60’, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s had its up’s and downs, but it taught us to guard that open shell configuration.  We were a different generation who were taught to look at life from different perspectives.  Most of us  ( the baby boomers ) were born in the affluent and kind 40’s and 50’s. We lived in neighborhoods and our mothers wore dresses and pearls while they pushed a vacuum or we wished they would have.  Then something odd happened.  Some of our mothers were not content to just push a vacuum, and were certainly not content living in one.  Television had opened up their eyes to a world outside of children and husbands and home keeping.  There were women who knew that they were equal to men they could do the same things men did,  There were people of color who dared to believe they were equal to anyone else in this world.  There were people unafraid to sit in the front of the bus and drink from the same water fountain, walk out the door to be independent; people who fought to be educated, and to be valued on an equal basis. These people saw that there were plenty of places in the world to be beside the place someone else had put you in.

Radical thinking? Radical behavior?  You bet.  Open configuration? Yep!  Highly reactive?  Absolutely!    It’s the free radicals that cause change.    From there on you know the story; free thinking, free speech, free love, free to be you and me yada yada.   There was a sense of exploration and activity that held progress as the standard.  Both good and bad progress.  As long as it progressed Unfortunately all of this progress involved production.  Everyone had the right to have everything all the time.  A chicken in every pot, a tv in every room.  Freedom and Justice for all.  Unfortunately, everyone and all things being equal brought on a certain twisted sense of entitlement.  The shopper entitled to that fresh strawberry in the middle of winter.  The multitude of clothing we put on our backs and electronics we use and dispose of when the next new thing comes along.  Made in far away countries under who knows what conditions. And as usual people, male and female, all colors and religions thought of ways to take advantage of this brave new world. 

We started as a nation of farmers.  We were many people from many different countries including our own trying to make their way. A self sufficient lot who brought what we knew here. 

Over the years through science and chemistry we have learned ways to manipulate nature to do our bidding.  Super plants and hybrids, pest resistant species, genetically modified organisms. 

Sprays and powders that would kill any bug in the world,we soon found, were also killing us.  All the while living in the horn of plenty of the world and actually eating what we wrought.  Every family was entitled to a salad of iceburg lettuce and cardboard tomatoes with a big glob of ranch dressing to get their serving of veggies in, no matter if it was the dead of winter.  Meat treated with antibiotics to assure that there was enough for every plate.  Eggs laid by hens that never saw the sunlight and never left their cage in the interest of production.  No matter that the nutritional value of those veggies and meat and eggs had gone out the door long before they hit the table. The vegetables had to be picked before they were naturally ripened to facilitate packing for the long trip ahead often thousands of miles to show up in the supermarket to be waxed down and sprayed down to showcase their pale beauty.

The planes, boats, trucks and trains that brought this bounty to our tables used gallons and gallons of gas and diesel.  The fumes made the air grey; the air made our lungs grey, which in turn made our skin grey.  We no longer were a vibrant melting pot of traditions and taste and color, we became a nation of grey. Yet we went on happily enjoying our four food groups  basically eating our pesticides and cardboard and making sure to take our multi vitamins and work out at the gym.

It is frightening that every new born child born in the United States has traces of over 200 types of pesticide in their blood.  It is ridiculous that by eating 10% of our food locally and organically grown, we could just as well be taking 2 million cars off the road.    It is crazy that we recognize global warming, mark the symptoms, and do so little to slow or reverse the progress, not wanting to upset the economic machine, or our way of life in too radical a manner.   It is death to think that the United State senate would vote down a bill that deals with alternate energy, because there are no provisions for the oil and coal companies in the bill.

This is the story of the Free Radical Farmer.  This is a story about turning your head and realizing that you already have what really works to grow and be healthy.  It all starts with the soil.