Phil has been doing engineering work until the wee hours of the morning for the last week. Others of us in the family have been feeling a bit sick (coughs, goopy eyes, mild fever, runny nose), so I wasn't surprised when Phil, today, crashed. I am pretty sure he spent the day in the motor home, sleeping; I know I didn't see him. (I myself was feeling a bit sick for a few hours, but thankfully a nap and homeopathic Pulsatilla took care of the ickies for me.)
As we all wait for the land to be a little less sodden, Isaiah has been taken with the pattern blocks. For the last two days, he's spent all his free time creating fanciful snowflakes and elaborate structures. He stacked a vertical triangle eight levels high, and created this delicate balance of triangles, half-hexagons, and hexagons. Impressive!
Yesterday was a day to notice new growth. The pasture we grazed a few times this year delights us: the bucks are in there, keeping the weeds down, and the areas where we had hay bales are sprouting with soft green grass.
Also, the neighbor's land had shown no signs of growth—until yesterday. Although looking over the land still looks like acres of bare soil, close up, the rye is peeking out.
Perhaps most noticeable in the spot where Phil spilled some seed while calibrating the seeder (above), there are small wisps of green poking up all over. Very exciting.
The last rainfall knocked loose many more leaves. Although a few of the apple leaves persist, most have fallen off, as have most of the hardwoods in the surrounding forest. It's the season of burnt siena, soon to give way to the season of white and mud. Winter is coming.
Our Vermont cows are getting a lush winter coat. They know what's coming. (The Tennessee cows are still pretty smooth: I fear it will be a bit chilly for them this year, until they adjust!)
***
Did you know it is very easy to contact your Senators? I think there's a part of me that has always felt like Washington was like the moon, completely separate, extremely hard to get to.
But after reading again about the horrors of S.510, the "Food Safety Modernization Act" (read a great summary on my Dad's blog here), I looked up my Senator's phone numbers and gave them a call.
(Briefly, among other things, S.510 would make it extremely difficult for a small farm, like ours, to stay in business. It seems that a country's ability to produce food for itself should be a primary national security issue. To attempt to drive small producers out of business is foolish; to foist GM food on the public is unhealthy; to halt seed savers and gain a monopoly on seeds is wicked. It's a bad, bad bill.)
Here's how easy this is: to find your senator's phone numbers, put in your zip code at http://www.congress.org/. It shows you your people in the government, and gives you their contact info.
When I called my senators, I was given the option to leave a message or speak with a staffer. This, too, I thought was interesting: if I just wanted to voice my opinion, I could, rather anonymously. But I opted to speak with a staffer (asked for the one responsible for agriculture; both times, that person was already on the phone), so I left my message with the original answerer, and hung up, feeling like I was actually part of the political process.
No lengthy wait time; no need to be on the phone forever. Both calls took about five minutes. One office needed my name and zip code; the other, just a zip code.
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