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7 & 1/2 Acres |
2004-12-05 - 8:39 a.m. Same ole shit. Restlessness. Really it's not restlessness but rather the opposite. It all ends at the same place though--the Sunday morning blues. My days are the same. It's work, work, drive, work. Then home and worry, or work. The work often feels good but, fuck, I want play. Play and leisure and time to think. I'm glad to say I'm not overly busy. I just have these two commitments--one that asks for a shitload of time and the other that's a monumental task. It's a project on a huge scale and which I can only tackle with these tiny, little, baby steps. It drives me crazy. There was this artist in NY who built an exact scaled replica of the ocean liner Queen Victoria or some such out of toothpicks. This thing was some nine feet long--built in his apartment over a number of months (or years). Another artist friend puts together large canvases of tiny cut out photographs pinned to foam board. Another has these five by six or so canvases covered with tiny, tiny scribbles with a pen. I'm not suited to such work. I like large movements with quick, fast results. The tree is there--in four cuts with the help of a crane--it is not there. Two hours--four, no trace but a stump. I like these large movements but know the downside of speed as well. It's considered and thought through speed that I like so much. I hate the kind of speed, for instance that I heard of yesterday, that can end the life of several hundred year old trees in the workings of a single day for a short sighted and minimal profit (profit does not equal just money but the big picture of the activity). This kind of speed repells me. It's the kind of speed and power Wendell Barry states as "[M}an with a machine and inadequate culture...is a petilence." Travis and Will learned this week from workshops for two days that soil compaction on forest soil (foot and vehicle traffic--not to mention the tremendous weight of skid steers, log skidders and loaders, Catepillars, for instance) takes about 300 years to recover. The necessary for life oxygen and pore space is mashed in an instant right out of the soil. To digress further, I've created my own version of Wendell Barry's pond on a hillside here at my place. I know about soil compaction but with impatience and short term access to machinery, last winter with the ground wet, I cleared a bunch of privet along a drainline behind the house. The privet is invasive and my intention to return this land to native species and grasses was good. But, the ramifications of this 8000 lb plus machine running back and forth across the land here will last for many years. I've good odds I've seriously damaged the valued persimmon tree, two pecans, and several cedars. With culture, time and money, I hope to mitigate this damage. The act, however, was muda--waste and ineffiency. But anyway, I'm in a funk this morning. I'd like time to think and mull over this book, Natural Capitalism. I'd like to think about how we can improve safety in our tree care operations. I'd like to think about the design here and the house and its function. I'd like to plan the mitigations to my mistakes. I'd like to work but enjoy my labor and be present and consummed in it. I'd like to clean the shed and organize it for tree care storage. I'd like to walk these 7 1/2 acres and lay out where wildflowers will grow, red milkweed, gardens, fields, etc. In short, I think I'm just like my Dad--he (and me) with a love for the big picture, the planning, the vision, the dreaming. The reality of the work to get there, sometimes a dread.
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