Feeding at Dandelions

Today for perhaps an hour I pushed around our reel mower, which, for those not in the know, is a non-motorized affair -- an equivalent in yard care (vs. the various noisy and noisome affairs that destroy suburban and village peace, while consuming deep-drilled fuel) to the pencil, pen, and typewriter in writing (vs. the electric word processor which so many writers take skittering across a million electronic landscapes).

At some point while mowing, my eye lit upon a lone dandelion bloom, which had upon it a feeding Sulfur. A butterfly. Both dandelion and Sulfur fall within the category of Vagrant Organism, since both happen to flourish readily under the conditions Caucasian rule has imposed on this continent -- conditions which include disrupted and damaged soils, and a narrowed range of dominant plant types.

So my eye was caught by this sight which should be utterly commonplace -- "vulgar," perhaps, in an older usage -- of a vagrant insect feeding upon a vagrant forb's sunny blossom ...

When this thought intruded: "How beautiful."

Butterfly flew away. Lawnmower, pushed along by force of my legs and bare feet, beheaded weed.

Alas, poor Beauty! I knew her ... well, momentarily.

Various thoughts filled me. We have seen few or no dandelion blooms in our yard for a month or more -- until now, when a handful are appearing again, here and there. We missed dandelion season completely, in terms of wine making, even though both Martha and I made noises about wanting to make some again this year.

Reflecting on missing this window of opportunity made me think that the people who realize most clearly the fact that dandelion blooms are fleeting in their coming and going are the home winemakers -- the ones who prize them, and know how promptly they must seize their chance.

What an utter puzzle it is that our society prizes lawns and loathes flowers that might disturb that green expanse, when the flowers themselves last so short a time. What a puzzle it is, too, that our society lacks respect for something that attempts to disrupt our un-beauteous lives with beauty. The disrespect arises, perhaps, because the beauty being offered is so commonplace -- even if not so common as it should be ... at least along our village street, where deleterious and long-lived poisons have ruined matters for even our most commonplace butterflies: for on this July day one might walk past yard after yard before spotting any vegetative sustenance that a lowly Sulfur might need.

How strange it is, too, to feel a celebratory twinge at seeing a butterfly that commands little respect even from lepidopterists. Sulfurs survived in numbers through the post-WWII disaster of DDT application and have thus far survived the neonicotinoids and other synthetic world-wreckers that have been unleashed by our so-called "agricultural" industries; their larvae feed on common vagrant forbs, as well as on commercially planted ones; adults produce as many generations in a season as they can, with the thoughtless abandon so appropriate to the vagrant.

Yet I felt the celebratory twinge, because while I have been seeing a variety of "better" butterflies in our garden I have seen none of these unassuming creatures for quite some time.

The fact that the rich and powerful among North American humans want all aspects of life aligned with the interests of their infinitely expandable pocketbooks has made our continent an uncongenial place for the poor, the downtrodden, and a supposedly commonplace butterfly.

The rich and powerful, mind you, regard themselves as the Beautiful People.

This I might believe, did they feed at dandelions.

For some reason the further thought appeared in my mind on this July day that writers should be like weeds: tenacious; recurring despite discouragement and attack; blooming predictably yet also, if lucky, unpredictably at other times, in some years; and commonplace.

Commonplace? Naturally. And should not readers, too, be commonplace? And beautiful?

I dream of the years before DDT and Agent Orange and Roundup, before Monsanto and Dow Chemical and Scott, before chemical lawn services, before the monoculture farming of the entire inner North American craton, before the gas-powered grass-shearing abominations that await sunny afternoons in every garage ...

Of the years when one kind of winged beauty by countless millions filled the air by day, and another sort, by night -- all of them alert and attuned to their vast world, and all of them alighting to feed at the countless millions available to them, in every variety, of blooms.

Cheers ...

Glimpses of a Fruitless Future

Even though spring wines have worked out for us more often than some late-season wines, I may forgo them this year——being busy with writing, with antiquing——and with fretting over the step I want to take with the spring dandelion blossoms and rhubarb stalks. I want to use them in wines sweetened only with grapes, either by the traditional method of using raisins or the contemporary method of buying the must——pairing dandelion with white grapes, and rhubarb with white or red.

I may yet talk myself into starting anew along this line of experimenting——yet still must face the questions: can I afford to take the time this year, when I am trying to make good on some greatly overdue project deadlines; and can I afford organic must——especially during spring auction season?

Yesterday morning, not too early but early enough that the air was cool and lacked the humidity it would take on later in the day, Martha and I were standing by our young Cortland apple, admiring its blooms——and seeing not a single ground bee at the blossoms. The sun shined; the night had been cool, not cold. Even the sand cherry, with its abundant smaller white blooms, attracted no notice except our own.

I feel it is one thing for agribusiness, monocropping and factory farming to take away our honey bees, and quite another for it to take away native bees. The first act represents an assault against civilization and tradition: for apiculture and Western culture have come down to us over the centuries and perhaps millennia hand-in-hand. The second represents an assault against the native North American ecosystem, which has been struggling against pressures created by the human communal lifestyle for fifteen thousand years or more but especially since the 18th century.

The vineyard where I worked for a time is as much a suspect in the local area's bee problems as are the much larger corn and soybean monocroppers.

The owner of that vineyard rarely praised an organic grower. I recall him doing so just once, one morning when he spoke admiringly of an organic corn field. What pleased him, in other words, was this farm's example of factory-style monocropping, which it practiced even if certified for its adherence to organic-farming methods.

On the other hand, the owner of that vineyard seized any opportunity that arose to ridicule or criticize organic growers, especially small ones——always, of course, in his affable, nicest-guy-around manner.

Monsanto herbicide made up part of the vineyard's arsenal. I could have examined the containers for the fungicides and pesticides being used, but never did, closely——not that I would have recognized the neonicotinoids on the ingredients lists.

The vineyard owner used other toxins and poisons in the vineyard, too. One day when our Scottiedog was there with Martha and I, Lorna began throwing up, repeatedly——an incident that may have helped cause or hasten the digestive-system problem that killed her before we had finished our time with the vineyard.

Neonicotinoids rank high among suspects in the collapse of bee populations——a problem that made itself more severely felt this last winter than in previous ones. Yesterday, in doing some reading on the issue, I learned that wine grapes number among the crops that typically, in agrifactory anti-culture practice, receive neonicotinoids.

I will drink the wine that I have remaining from the vineyard, which I made. One case of it, in fact, I made from organically raised grapes from a different farm. From this time forward, however, I will be feeling qualms about wine grapes lacking organic certification. I have known since the 1980s that table grapes are one food above all to eat only if grown organically: but the attractions of wine and wine-making made this knowledge about vineyard practices recede from my thoughts, for quite a while.

Later yesterday I went into the backyard again and did see native bees, although not in a profusion——and I even saw a probable honey bee. After our morning visit to the garden, which had scared us with its lack of bee action, at this warmer hour I felt a bit reassured——although not inclined to alter the thoughts that had growing in my mind during the morning.

Just now in the front yard I looked at the blooms on our youngest apple, a Wealthy. Sunshine, breeze, sixty-nine degrees, eleven a.m. Nary an insect about. Around the tree, in the lawn: beautiful bright dandelion blooms, perfect for picking.

And beeless.

Cheers ...