shapes change

change is constant...stasis is death...that is valid for people and for weather...and, at least in my back yard, climate as well...two days and the "sternest" had retreated from winter hereabouts...there is considerable standing water...

the winter rye has begun to emerge from the snow cover...no sign of wheat or ramps just yet...

while the egyptian walking onions...

the native berries...

and new york imports have remained stubbornly green through it all...

in defiance of the weather and the rabbits that have been criss crossing my back yard in search of something to browse...it is the second half of february and i would probably profoundly mistaken in thinking winter nearing its end...still...we remain on the lookout for crocuses.

industrial predation?

out early this morning running errands and finding my self in the area i paid a visit to the industrial dense yellow # 2 behind walmart just to see how the other side is faring these days...there is a lot of corn in that small field ( it can't be more than two or three acres and the corn is so densely planted that you cannot see more than four or five rows into the field..the major modification in engineered corn is the one that allows it to grow so closely together...buffalo bird woman would call maize that was planted so close that it touched "smells itself" corn and knew it would not produce large ears...science [ or, at least, technology ] to the rescue...more corn = more hot pockets ) and most of it is still completely husked...but not all of it...so what's peeling back the husks? genetic mutation? a reversal of catastrophic sexual mutation brought on by gene splicing? or crows? if it's the crows they aren't eating much...if that's the case they are finding it as unpalatable as any human would and being still a part of nature know better than to eat this stuff..well, i wouldn't either...but lots of folks eat the end product...say as big macs and cokes...it is comforting on one hand to think that the industrial folks are dealing with predators just like i am...and, in a perverse way, it's comforting to know that predators like the stuff in our gardens better even if it annoys me when they do.