We are using up the earth

There was an article in the Globe and Mail newspaper this weekend which was an excerpt from Margaret Atwood’s new book, The Year of The Flood. “…back to the post-apocalyptic future” were some of the words in the byline heading up the item and I think this diminishes not only Atwood’s work but also the legitimate feelings of fear and unease about environmental disaster that many people have and which Atwood is able to give words to.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/were-using-up-the-earth/article1276475/

It also put me in mind of Caryl Churchill’s remarkable play “Seven Jewish Children” where different parental voices over ten minutes tell how to explain to their children what happened at Gaza this year and in these ways possibly be able to deny their own passive complicity. Because sometimes our silence(s) are interpreted by our children as complicity. (listen to it here http://politics-infozone.com/audio/7jewishChildren.mov on cbc with intro by Michael Enright and make up your own mind, it takes about 15 hypnotic minutes)

Atwood gives words to the silence, the unspeakable. What do we tell our children about our own complicity in the atrocities regularly committed against the “more-than-human-world”?

Tell them we didn’t know.

Tell her we couldn’t know.

Tell them it wasn’t us.

Tell them we had to have that stuff.

Tell her we were doing our best.

Tell them we wanted to protect them.

Tell them the animals didn’t feel anything.

Don’t frighten her.

Tell her  god’s on our side.

Tell her  it was the economy.

Tell them we were misinformed.

We didn’t know about the deaths.

Tell her it’s not our fault.

etc.  Yes, there were fantastic creatures when we were children, but they “disappeared”

Tell them they disappeared.

post script, Sept 9th Globe and Mail front page:   Grizzlies Starve as Salmon Disappear

Tell them they disappeared.

Tell them they are absent.

from the article: The grizzlies are absent this year. “I’ve never seen anything like this…I’ve been doing this for 11 years and this is the worst I’ve seen it… Last year on the Mussel River, I saw 27 bears. This year it’s six. That’s an indication of what it’s like everywhere… I’ve never seen bears hungry in the fall before, but last year they were starving… I noticed in the spring there weren’t as many bears coming out, but I felt it was premature to jump to any conclusions… but now there just aren’t any bears. It’s scary. I think a lot are dead. I think they died in their dens [last winter].  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/grizzlies-starve-as-salmon-disappear/article1279874/

Writing the disaster is scary. Climate change? Who can be against change? Why not call it global ecological disaster,   and jump to some conclusions.

Invasion of Wheat

I was quite in despair about the state of growth of my boxes and then as I left, I passed by the infernal petunia boxes, where I had planted the first batch of wheat last monday-  LOOK!  my wheat has come up as weeds!  I am thrilled to note that seeds CAN grow here (perhaps only monocultures).

My new participant/collaborator in this escapelot will be known as “able gardener 1“. There will be another voice, another plotter, another denizen of this space.

Wheat mini- monoculture/Monday

These were my boxes, planted with wheat seed on Monday. By Wednesday petunias were in full bloom. (see below)

You could call this a detour from the Plan.

invasive pests/Wednesday

crop failure/invasive petunias

I’m guessing that monoculture really does not work on university campuses. My wheat crop has failed in a day to resist an invasive species of planter-box petunias. I had to rub my startled eyes when I returned to the University yesterday and from a distance could see that my wheat plantation had grown into an amazing crop of petunias!!

plants in planters

I planted two boxes with the companion planting attributed to the Iroquois, who used to be one-time inhabitants of this area of Ontario. Beans grew up the corn stalks in the centre of a mound, and on the periphery squash was planted, which would shade the soil and keep the moisture in, as well as the big squash leaves discouraging weeds. Beans add nitrogen to the soil that the corn needs to grow. A natural fertilizer.

In the other two boxes I planted a spiral of wheat with corn in the centre and then the other box with rows of wheat as it is typically grown in monoculture farming of the sort we so-called Westerners have developed.

I planted the escapelot blog address as well– see what grows in this virtual garden.

For more on escapelot, go to categories on the right hand index and click on escapelot. Click on anything in the right hand index for links all over the place.

escapelot plots

mini-monoculture

escapelot planting

above and below are photos of the box planters granted to me by the university. I finally planted them today after waiting for the sub contractor to replenish the soil, and for Ottawa U. Physical Resources to move them in front of the Faculty of Education. Someone in a landscaping truck slowed and stopped next to the curb where I was planting the corn, beans and squash, and it turns out he’s someone I needed to meet- the subcontractor who did the soil and does the groundskeeping- he seems a nice guy (Tom Waits look alike). I was transplanting my embarassingly etiolated seedlings.
I told him I was going to collect whatever garbage gets tossed into the boxes as well as grow seeds, when he complained to me about how students didn’t seem to understand that if they didn’t pick up after themselves, another human being was going to have to.
The garbage might be all that grows. But I am naively hoping students and passers-by will treat it with some kind of respect. I called it “children’s garden”, in an effort to encourage nurturing behaviour towards my baby plants, and the idea of children’s gardens and gardening.
The Psychology building is being demolished simultaneously as I plant new seeds, and since it is rainy, cold and spring/summer term, there are only a few stragglers about, some of whom watched as the building gets pulled down layer by layer. Hoses were on today as well as rain off and on, to keep the dust down.
When I got home, after cooking dinner, I read Frederick Kaufman’s article (Harper’s) about the World Food Program (and P4P) and Bill Gates, “Let Then Eat Cash“. It discusses how the world starves during times of plenty, anywhere and (possibly) everywhere. Amartya Sen is someone to read when it comes to economics, starvation, and the poverty of most of the world’s farmers.

Kids aren’t even told it’s possible to farm as an occupation, perhpas due to a reluctance to talk about factory farming practices and the conditions most animals are expected to live in before they are killed. The meatrix is a pretty good cartoon about it though.

after nature

after nature