October 2011 Notes

(0) Pretty sure I haven't caught a fish in the month of October, outside of maybe a panfish or two logged with kids, but I can't even remember that 100% at this point. I know one day we took out a little buddy approx age six and guided by James, he caught his first ever fish (crappie). For old ass 35 year old me though nothing going.

(1) I've noted with interest the continuous air temp data logged at the local USGS station. October has been a remarkably welcoming month. Perfect days to be outside. Playing a lot of catch. So on, etc.

(2) Finished rereading Another Turn of the Crank. Frustrating exercise to absorb such good analysis that leaves you with a negative vibe. I put a link in the sidebar to some WB essays. Worth a look. He's not called the modern prophetic voice for nothing.

Couple excerpts:

Conserving communities:

now claim that they can do a better job in running a global economy? American agriculture has demonstrated by its own ruination that you cannot solve economic problems just by increasing scale and, moreover, that increasing scale is almost certain to cause other problems-ecological, social, and cultural.

We can't go on too much longer, maybe, without considering the likelihood that we humans are not intelligent enough to work on the scale to which we have been tempted by our technological abilities. Some such recognition is undoubtedly implicit in American conservatives' long-standing objection to a big central government. And so it has been odd to see many of these same conservatives pushing for the establishment of a supranational economy that would inevitably function as a government far bigger and more centralized than any dreamed of before. Long experience has made it clear-as we might say to the liberals-that to be free we must limit the size of government and we must have some sort of home rule. But it is just as clear-as we might say to the conservatives-that it is foolish to complain about big government if we do not do everything we can to support strong local communities and strong community economies.

But in helping us to confront, understand, and oppose the principles of the global economy, the old political alignments have become virtually useless. Communists and capitalists are alike in their contempt for country people, country life, and country places. They have exploited the countryside with equal greed and disregard. They are alike even in their plea that it is right to damage the present in order to make "a better future."

[]

Conserving Forest Communities

That early regardlessness of consequence infected our character, and so far it has dominated the political and economic life of our state. So far, for every Kentuckian, like Harry Caudill, willing to speak of the natural limits within which we have been living all along, there have been many who have wished only to fill their pockets and move on, leaving their ecological debts to be paid by somebody else's children.

But by this time, the era of cut-and-run economics ought to be finished. Such an economy cannot be rationally defended or even apologized for. The proofs of its immense folly, heartlessness, and destructiveness are everywhere. Its failure as a way of dealing with the natural world and human society can no longer be sanely denied. That this colonial system persists and grows larger and stronger in spite of its evident failure has nothing to do with rationality or, for that matter, with evidence. It persists because, embodied now in multinational corporations, it has discovered a terrifying truth: If you can control a people's economy, you don t need to worry about its politics; its politics have become irrelevant. If you control people's choices as to whether or not they will work, and where they will work, and what they will do, and how well they will do it, and what they will eat and wear, and the genetic makeup of their crops and animals, and what they will do for amusement, then why should you worry about freedom of speech? In a totalitarian economy, any "political liberties" that the people might retain would simply cease to matter. If, as is of then the case already, nobody can be elected who is not wealthy, and if nobody can be wealthy without dependence on the corporate economy, then what is your vote worth? The citizen thus becomes an economic subject.

(3) I walked into a cubicle that confines me for hours on end and the place had a brightness to it that was brought there by a box from The Big Red Barn kept by WFF. Gem tomatoes, pickles, salsas, pizza sauce. Most of it's eaten already. Few nights ago had brown trout with caper sauce. Put the cream in the dirty pan and mop it all up. That's the sauce recipe. Then throw capers in there. Soups, breads. Last of the peppers. Arugula and beet greens. Potatoes. Grapes and raspberries coming to end.

(4) Regarding the previous post in which I foolishly spoke with bravado regarding a stake-out method to be employed in an effort to hook one last carp: it didn't work. The water was down a good bit, and the silt plumes, while visible, were out of reach. There will almost certainly be no carp for the remainder of 2011. Danny and I found three urban wanderers last weekend, but all were out of reach, and had they been accessible, would have been not-landable given the local flood control channel (really high walls). One exceedingly good bit did come of that outing though: as we were lining up a rod in a parking lot, two guys approached; Danny volunteered: We're going fishing. They replied: For what, crappies? Danny: Nah [not no, it was nah], they're too small. I file that one away in the best-ever category.

(5) Figuring I will head out deer hunting again this year. Many years of failure don't get me too down because it's an enjoyable undertaking. I'll be fishing a trout stream again this year, very close to my house. Scouted around twice, second time with Danny (pics below). BTW, Danny shat in the woods on this outing, with no TP and thus messed his underwear a bit. Then he stepped in his own droppings. Happy and impressed to report that he walked funny for a few minutes, but then: not another word. The kid is not a complainer. I am fully convinced that he would follow one on pretty much any adventure, provided you have snacks or candy to keep him committed.

(6) Must be about time to walk around on the river a bit, see what's out there.

Happy fall to everyone; I hope you can look past the shortcomings of humanity and somehow figure out a way to relax. I know I can't, at this point anyway. It'd be nice though and it's a life goal: to relax.