INVITE THE WILD NEIGHBORS TO DINNER

Charismatic mega-fauna are really taking it on the chin these days. They look great on posters and t-shirts, but don’t let them walk un-tethered through town!

I was quite upset when, in April, a mountain lion showed up in Chicago, and was shot seven times by the police. I too have always felt a bit conspicuous and unwieldy in the city.

This cougar traveled hundreds of miles to get to Chicago. Perhaps it knocked out a few slow squirrels or stray cats when it touched on the interminable sprawl of Chicago, or Milwaukee, or even Rockford, Illinois, but there were no human attacks. Of course, there could have been – but there wasn’t.

Last year, also in Chicago, a coyote showed up in the refrigerated beverage section of a downtown sandwich shop. After forty-five minutes, and after several people-customers took pictures of it with their cell phones, animal control showed up. The coyote was given an overnight stay at a suburban wildlife rehabilitation center and released – probably back into the suburbs.

Most people around here are asking why these animals show up in huge metropolises. I think a better question to ask is this -- don’t you ever feel like one of these animals?

Mountain lions are both protectors and nurturers. They are loners and independent types. They stand for something quite formidable. Heck, they’re lions! It doesn’t seem like city folk are ready to live with such animals. Most have fear rather than respect for them. Lots of fear. Some reasonable. Some -- not so much.

So, if you feel like you’re a big cat in the big city, how do you protect yourself from being shot?

Is it better to adapt the strategy of a weed?

Weeds are plants that were once valued and cultivated but now have escaped cultivation. Some have been further domesticated into a more mild form now recognized as food. For instance, our lettuces are domesticated variations of wild lettuce.

Weeds are really good at hiding in the open. Their secrets are kept close in their invisibility. Their numbers are always spreading.

Be a weed:
thrive no matter where you are
make your own food and oxygen
make soils better for the next inhabitants
send out a gazillion seeds
reincarnate frequently in unexpected places

I want to introduce you to mugwort – Ms. Artemesia vulgaris. She is widespread in the United States. Mugwort pops up in both our urban and rural settings. She is downright plentiful and ready for you to use. (Note: if pregnant, please do not use this herb. Read more about it first.)

Artemis, the Queen of the Beasts was a wild one. She was an supreme hunter and friend of forest beasts. Artemis found mugwort and delivered it to the centaur. Forever after, the herb has carried her name.

I recommend you look for Artemesia vulgaris. And when you find her, gently trim a piece and dry it (simply burn it in a saucer) and inhale the smoke. This plant is a protector from evil as well as an aide to communication with the plant world.

Native Americans, Asians, and Europeans have used this plant medicinally and as a healthful culinary herb for hundreds of years. In Europe it was used as the main bittering flavor for ales until cultivated hops took over. My friend Tree, just shared some of his herby mugwort ale with me. yummy stuff paired with the homemade raw cheese we were munching on.

Mugwort is used in moxibustion. In acupuncture, this is the smoking punk they hover over your acupuncture points. It draws blood to the skin’s surface and unblocks your body’s meridian points of stuck energies.

Fresh or dried mugwort also repels insects, cleanses your blood of toxins, promotes sweating, and reduces tension. Lastly, you should know it has some of the same properties of its mysterious cousin of a different species (any guesses?).

Mugwort is also used for lucid dreaming. Cut a spring and put it under your pillow or tuck a sprig into your pocket for protection. Burn some before you settle into an evening outside. Smoke some before you go foraging or before you lie down in a meadow for a nap.

Maybe it is time we invite these charismatic mega-fauna and not-so-charismatic weeds to the table. Set a place for them. I am not talking about putting them on the menu at some upscale restaurant so we can create a demand. I am simply proposing we let them walk through town. Let them take up shelter under our porches or feed off the extra bunnies.

Speaking of weeds, please do serve them up, drink them, smoke them, learn about them and love them. Find an overarching but examined respect for them. You should, because the mega-fauna and weeds are already here or on their way.

While riding my bicycle by the train line recently, I saw the ghost image of the big cat out of the corner of my eye. It emerged from the alley and then ducked back in. In other words, the cat’s spirit hasn’t left.

From Eli:

A Small Sampling of Snapshots from Mike's Itinerant Summer

This badly lit photo is of a diorama by Ella Silcox, made from surplus copper wire. The title reads, "Breaking Virgin Prairies." I wonder what this wire was used for and where it was mined, and how the hell Ella got ahold of it? I neglected to note down the year, circa 1950, maybe. Martin County Historical Society, Fairmont, Minnesota.

Here I am attacking a windmill. These things are incredibly large and menacing when you get up close. Near Windom, Minnesota.

This is a hunting decoy of a buffalo on which tourists can practice their atlatl dart throwing. An atlatl is a hook-like stick used to throw darts, a pre-bow-and-arrow hunting technology used in North America, and many other places around the world. It's fun. I missed. Near Comfrey, Minnesota

Here is one of the thousands of petroglyphs, a turtle, possibly as old as 6000 years, at the Jeffers Petroglyphs site. This picture was taken mid-day, the worst time to see the faint carvings. The best time is in the raking light if the morning or evening. But I was happy to see them at all, since I had just endured about four days of heavy rain while biking through southern Minnesota and almost had to skip the petroglyphs altogether. Near Comfrey, Minnesota

This is an encampment I stumbled across on the southeastern shore of Prairie Island where someone was eating A LOT of mussels from Sturgeon Lake, on the Mississippi River. Near Prairie Island, Minnesota (obviously).

I had never heard of NAFEX, but probably you have. This is one of the many curious discoveries in the Dreamtime Village Public Library, a collection of amazing, pre-internet publications, which is quite frankly in a state of neglect and jeopardy. West Lima, Wisconsin

This is a portion of Paula Kaplan's bowling ball collection at her farm, Little Bluff Farm. She let me stay in a small cabin on the little bluff for a week in exchange for 2 days of labor. It was a good deal. Near Brodhead, Wisconsin

This is a sod house, similar to the ones that some European colonizers of the Midwestern prairies lived in during the 1800's. They would peel the skin off the prairie and pile strips of it to make the walls, then cover the roof slats with the canvas wagon cover and place more sod strips on top of that. Luckily this one was locked up on the day that I visited because when I peered through the window there was a creepy mannequin dressed like a settler in there. Fort Belmont, Jackson, Minnesota

This is a platform adjacent to one of the plots of a large experimental garden, Vasa Gardens, that reminded me of the corn watching stages described in Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden. When I asked I was told that it was built as a platform for long range rifle target practice by the son of the man in charge of Vasa Gardens, who had recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq.
Vasa, Minnesota

I take two busses and a train from Tucson to arrive in Creel, Chihuahua, Mexico, the tourist and transportation capital of the Sierra Tarahumara. From there I ride in a four-wheel truck with people from my organization down to the community of Batopilas. The ride is literally breathtaking, incredible. It follows the mountainside into a deep subtropical canyon, where there are papaya trees, banana trees, avocados and mangos, narrow brick streets, colonial-ish architecture, there in the town of Batopilas. It reminds me of what I think the south of Mexico must look like.

The river is rushing and gushing, Rio Batopilas, that separates the community from the decaying ruins of the hacienda that was the home of a rich mining magnate from the U.S., Alexander Sheper. We hike through the canyons, which are shockingly beautiful despite the damaged state they are in. They are riddled with abandoned silver mines, which fed the consumer appetite of industrial society for the past century, and the hills are piled with the dregs of the rock waste. Plants are retaking the land, but recovery is always much slower than the pace of human movement. The hills are being trashed and eroded by goats, as the forests and desert are being degraded by cows.

But there is still an incredible beauty here in the rocks, in the sheer force and clarity of the river, in the sight of isolated Tarahumara and mestizo singles and pairs hiking through the bush, with their brilliantly colored fabrics: harvesting baskets of cactus for dinner, bringing groceries back from Batopilas, or for whatever other reason they are walking.

In the road down to Batopilas, there are giant piles of mine tailings just dumped in mass along the canyon. Nothing grows on them, they are saturated with chemicals. In the process of mining, they mix the rock pulp with chemicals in order to separate the desired ore, and the leftovers are tailings. The tailings are draining straight into the river, and it is contaminating the downstream communities with dangerous chemicals, apart from the lead that is coming out of the abandoned mines in great quantities.

The people must drink purified water, they can no longer healthfully harvest water from the river. Much if not most of the bottled water in Mexico is from the Coca Cola or Pepsi Cola corporations, Vincente Fox having been the president of CocaCola Mexico. I just realized lately that almost all of the water in the industrialized world must be purified because it is so contaminated, as are all of the fish living in the waters.

At twilight I go swimming in the river, just beyond a hanging foot bridge crossing the expanse of both sides of the canyon. It is idyllic and beautiful, it is twilight and also with me is a beautiful and spontaneous young Mexican man soaping himself up in the river. There are little girls running across the foot bridge and palm trees loom against the red-purple horizon with the towering Sierras in the background. Apart from the many problems I know that afflict these communities and this land, it is easy to temporarily forget them in the tranquility of that beautiful place.

--Marcos

October 11, 2007
by Bill

I stepped outside the other day and the city smelled like fennel. The next night when I stepped out, the air was damp and almost warm. I caught a whiff of wet rock and realized it had started to rain.

I have never looked forward to the rainy season until this year. Last year, I learned how to enjoy it – dressing warmly and in layers, and hiking or biking the hills of the Marin Headlands. I came to enjoy the surprising coziness of hiking up toward the sky on an overcast day and one time hiking in fog so consuming let I could barely see twenty feet in front of me, let alone the panoramic views of the hills, the bridges, the bay, the ocean, and the urban areas nestled amongst them.

The garden is all about beans and brussels sprouts right now. I get an occasional small harvest of potatoes, strawberries, carrots, lettuce, and roses. Also, I recently harvested a small quantity of Cipollini onions. I like to roast them whole and tossed in with some chunks of root vegetables.

I have scattered a bunch of seed – some greens, onions, and carrots. There are a few things coming up from that effort, but nothing that I recognize yet. The mustard is self-perpetuating at this point, and I am happy about that. The calendula has also germinated abundantly. Some consider it unsightly, but not me. I love it and appreciate its volunteerism. I tend to deadhead it in order to keep it looking nice for longer. Several years back, I made a couple batches of calendula liniment. I use it on occasion, but haven’t needed to make more, as a little goes a long way.

One of my favorite combinations is borage flowers and calendula flowers together. The summer borage has died back, but new plants are coming up all over and if I’m lucky, their flowering will overlap with the calendula, which may be on its way out by then.

I recently got a new load of poopy straw from the small farm behind my house. I took my compost pile apart and put it back together upside down – incorporating some of the new materials, and saving some for later layering. The worms in my compost pile and in my soil are very long and very fat. I try not to hurt them when I handle the compost, but inevitable one or two (or more) seemed shocked or lifeless after the procedure. It saddens me. I find that I talk to the worms quite a bit as I sift through the compost.

I am going to plant some garlic this month, and am excited to see it grow. Growing my own garlic has been such an unexpected pleasure – even though the supply never lasts very long…

(to be continued)