Today in the garden

Garden phlox is always one of the first things to bloom: Bleeding Hearts. This is a plant passed down through three generations of women in my wife’s family: Lilacs are just starting to bloom. In the next day or so there will be enough for me to harvest for syrup. Honeysuckle. This was one of my requests for the garden because I associate it with summer in my childhood. We got this gooseberry three years ago but it never seemed to take off for its first two years in our front yard.

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When there are no brakes on the speed of knowledge

David Orr, as quoted in “Prophetic Possibilities": The increasing velocity of knowledge is widely accepted as sure evidence of human mastery and progress. But many, if not most, of the ecological, economic, social, and psychological ailments that beset contemporary society can be attributed directly or indirectly to knowledge acquired and applied before we had time to think it through carefully. We rushed into the fossil fuel age only to discover the giant problem of climate destabilization.

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You know, drinking straight milk kefir isn’t bad. As an adult I’ve never been a milk drinker (though I’ve been called one in Skyrim) because I don’t care for the aftertaste. Milk kefir just tastes like a drinkable, tangy yogurt.

Day trip to the shrine of St. Mother Theodore Guerin

Today I’ll be driving through southwestern Indiana’s coal country and then up to the Terre Haute area to visit St Mother Theodore Guerin. As is my tradition with these trips, I will be listening to old episodes of Weird Studies. Sets the right mood, since these trips are almost always centered on some religious or “weird” place. 8:12am First stop of the day at Camp Olivet. This creek is where I was baptized.

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A neighbor cut down what appeared to be a perfectly healthy, mature maple on Tuesday. In response, Rachel is planting three serviceberries and one juniper. Answer foolish destruction with a quadruple investment in future life.

Rachel is making spinach pasta today.

The feeling is the prayer

The final word is the opening word of the Tao Te Ching: A Way called Way isn’t the perennial Way. A name that names isn’t the perennial name. Our training has given us chatty minds—but mystery is not chatty. Reassure that anxious part of yourself: Mystery is and ought to be underdefined. It is not trying to slip away; you do not need to tether it with words.

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Projects update: an unexpected task

No F150 work this week—waiting on parts. This week was an unplanned project. I have a neighbor I’ve talked to here and there over the past year, but never at length. Then out of the blue last Monday, he walked over and asked if I’d work on something for him. He had noticed I do a bit of woodworking and he needed a cover for his stove that would double as a cutting board.

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Just saw a sixty-something man, no shirt, huge eagle tattoo spreading from shoulder to shoulder, chasing after a little dog calling, “Here, Cookie! Come here, Cookie!”

Working on a project for a neighbor but I need one final measurement from inside his house. I keep looking over to see if he’s up and about. Reminds me of when I was a kid and the neighbor always opened their door when they were home, which was my signal that I could go ask Timmy to play.