OPineJournal

It's upon us, the next series of blushes, nature ripening another round of fruits, flower, vegetable... The tomatoes are showing the first color, the wild blackberries are ripening one at a time, but there are thousands. Look closely, there are large diagonal raindrops in this picture. The peach lily is blooming as if aroused to a new height this year, perfect weather, rain, sun, balance. This is one of my favorite flowers of all time, and now, I wait each year for them to bloom. This year they are welcoming July again, right on time. The cucumbers are coming alive too, dozens of flowers, a few cukes ready for the weekend.

Today I dipped my toes in the Atlantic, at a favorite beach on the National Seashore, Assateague, where the (formerly) wild ponies roam. They're pretty tame, lollygagging around all day, with token jobs. It s a great beach, because you can go there, park, walk to the water's edge, then turn right and walk another 10 miles. About two miles on, there are few people, though they do drive on the sand there, and party and fish too. I was nearby, picking up a scooter I bought - a 1966 Honda CM91 - it's a fortunate find, as I've been watching Vespas, old Hondas and other brands for a while. Most are either basket-cases, titleless, or too expensive. This one came in with everything I need, except the motorcycle license, and it should get about 60mpg -we'll see. I'm considering converting it to electric... we'll see about that too. So, I drove the extra 15 minutes to see the ocean that I haven't seen in a while, and it was still there, still beautiful, sti...

I've been a vegetarian for about 20 years now, and the reasons are the unnatural conditions that meats are raised in, and because I was tired of scrubbing chicken grease off of pans. Food, Inc. was on my 'never watched, but should' list, and so I watched it last evening. Yes, I should have watched it by now - produced in 2007, it's old now. But the facts within, are way older. They extend back way before I became a vegetarian, and it seems the cheapening of our food sources has been progressing for decades with little challenge, but a lot of progress. I recently learned that many of the brands I handled as a food coop coordinator are now owned by the likes of Coca Cola and Kraft. I've heard theories that this is a good thing, that the behemoths want into the organic movement, but I disagree that it is good. This type of acquisition still lands control of our food in few hands and even fewer pockets. So far, many of the products don't appear to have been ...

Most people, once they get to know me, know I'm a little nuts about some pretty practical daily tasks. I realized that I have only written incidentally about my 'ways', and thought that they might be both thought provoking and informative for those bent on saving energy and, of course, the planet. I am guessing, outside of 'off the grid' homesteaders and the like, that I am perhaps the greenest person you know. But that doesn't mean I own all the trappings, it just means I think about all my actions and minimize my impact in plain, and yes, old fashioned ways. A few rules that I live by: Rule number one - Some things exist, and rather than exorcise the house of all the plastic demons and incorrect products, I simply use them over and over and over until they are quite unsightly and unusable, and then I recycle them. I have yogurt quarts from the 90's that are still holding nails that I salvaged from a box someone was throwing out. Rule number two - If I d...

It's like being in a fairy world, looking out on my back yard. The fireflies are a-bloom, just in time for the start of Summer. This actually used to be the middle of summer, but lopsided seasons irked the orderly, so we ended up with it being summer-like, but not official until the Summer Solstice, which is June 21 st this year and the 20 th next. Earlier, I had a moment to think about the incredible balance that we all live with - consciously or not - on a daily basis. What brought it to mind today were the three ticks I removed from my body as they made their way to juicier pastures to graze in. None of the three made it, but I found it disconcerting that they essentially make me want to hide indoors. Between the diseases and the sheer gruesomeness of their methods, they are pretty creepy, even for a guy like me who lets spiders crawl around my hands while I talk to them. Then, of course, I looked out just after dark and saw the aforementioned fairy world of fireflies t...

Today was the inaugural day of berry picking season - I have a patch of cultivated and organically grown berries (though not organic in origin) that were given me by a special friend. You know it's a special friend, when she gives you a 24 berry plants. I picked one a few days ago, and it was good. I picked one yesterday, and it was good. Today I picked eight, and they were luscious. It's their second year, and so they should bear nicely. Afternoon crept by today. It felt like Friday all day, and when it's Thursday, but feels like Friday, it's a slow day and week and it's time for it to end. The sky was blanketed lightly by deep clouds and rain has been imminent most of the day, while it also appeared that the sun would be let through intermittently. It was, but overall remained gray. The bus dropped me in the rain and I enjoyed the wet grass on my toes during the fifty-yard walk to the house. Rain was gurgling in the gutters and so I changed the buckets unde...

Platitudinous, yes, but global warming is a truth. It is a truth aside from politics, aside from persuasions, religion, academics. The earth has been proven to be warmer now than ever before in our discernible history, and so be it. It's troubling that while all the discussion is going on about whether humans caused it, and while we sit back with our feet up and a pint in hand having a great debate over it, while we waste valuable time, the earth is warming further, and the issues that cause warming are getting more pronounced and regulations are going away, and business is getting the upper hand again. I learned the other day that part of the reason that global warming is not as important a topic for US'ns is because it is not as frequently in the news. This really frightened me, because with all the effort people make to show themselves as independent thinkers -- you know, tattoos, piercings, fancy cars, symbols of success, expensive glasses, witticisms -- this would indi...