Karl Meyer Writing Blog

© 2008, Karl Meyer                            

This wren uses the stairs

The wren visits on the dreariest of winter days, and it uses the stairs.  I like the wren.  It visited today.  It prefers afternoon visits.  That’s fine with me.  It prefers days that are rainy, and gloomy, and somewhat out of synch.  That’s great too.  And it uses the stairs—did I already say that?  The wren hops down the stairs.  It’s a very orderly wren.  You don’t often think of wrens as house guests, good or bad, but this one is exceptional.  It visits and hops down the deck stairs, inches from my window–on dreary days.  It is quite cheerful.  I like this wren.

You might figure, from its manners and suburban setting, that it is a House wren.  It is not.  It’s a tidy Carolina wren.  It hops down the stairs one at a time, and looks sideways and askance in the window as it passes.  As a wren, it could easily take the steps two at a time—with all the attendant clatter.  My wren does not do this.  It is very polite and quiet as wrens go.  Very southern, I think.

My Carolina wren is a bird of generous character.  Its visits are spontaneous; they are good will offerings of a high order.  This is not a wren here for a hand-out, or a hand-up.  I’ve made no wren offerings to entice it—no suet hung, or seed hors d’oeuvres set out for wren entertainment on the patio. 

This wren has been winter’s great surprise: a whimsical guest on days when rain and fog press hard on dirty piles of snow.  It arrives in the afternoon, and takes the stairs one at a time.

There is no obvious reason for this tidy, visiting wren.  Winters of late have been warm, but this one’s had a wintry bite.  Not a whit of hospitality has been offered wrens this winter.  December drifts, driving rains, wild temperature swings—hardly wren-friendly weather.  This winter did not say, “May I take your wren hat, your muffler?”  Yet, curve-billed, quizzical, a Carolina wren visits, hopping politely from stair to stair.  I like the wren.

It could go south, this guest, to safer and warmer wren quarters.  But this wren does not.  At peril to life and limb it stays nearby for raw, rainy days, then comes to the stairs and looks in on me as it hops.  In turn I offer surprise–understated of course; a modest turn of the mouth, a raised eyebrow.  There are no false or ungraceful moves.  I keep my comportment natural, and don’t jump up to put on the kettle.  Truth be told, I don’t know much wren protocol.  So I keep it simple.  If it were a House wren I might offer cookies; a Winter or Cactus wren?–maybe dried fruit, or chips and guacamole. 

But this is a Carolina wren, one that hops past the window on gloomy, wintry days.  It takes the steps quietly, one at a time, and always uses the back entrance.  This wren is just the wren you’d want.  After you’ve whined about the weather, called your friends, slogged down coffee, and despaired of light ever returning to the landscape—a wren calls, unannounced.  Its timing is always perfect; it never stays too long.  It hops into view, politely.  It nods its wren head; and glances at you with its bead-black eye, then continues down the steps, cheerily, one at a time.

Winters can be vexing, and seemingly unending.  Brilliant days are matched by others that are punishingly-dark.  But one afternoon—one somber and dulling afternoon, a tiny, feathered comet may burst through the fog and begin bouncing down the steps.  It will acknowledge you with a nod, and a glint from its fiery black eye.  And–politely, you will smile. 

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                                                                   © Karl Meyer 2008

                                March Madness

It’s become familiar turf—part of my personal landscape history. I realized this when I left the edge of the pavement and fitted myself into a narrow, snow-slumped trail made by hikers, cross country skiers, and snowshoers in a wide swatch of woods. Something about the light, and the March snow cover, enabled me to discern the date almost exactly: it was 9 years ago that I’d first taken this path into these woods.

I remembered because I had just moved back to the Connecticut Valley after a stint living in Rhode Island, and then eastern Massachusetts where I’d worked for Mass. Audubon. I was thrilled to be back, and went out walking along the edge of this ridge with a small knot of friends. It was a sunny, mid-afternoon when we came abreast of a small hemlock grove along the dirt track. The sound caught my ear immediately; we all stopped.

It was a thin, melodious, wavering trill, coming from somewhere in the shadows of those hemlocks. Eastern screech owl. There came that sweet, spooky, arc of a trill again. We all stood, mesmerized. These were not thick hemlocks; the little grove was only fifteen feet deep, spread along sixty feet of trail. It seemed there was no way these birds could not have been aware of four people chatting as they moved through the woods.

But there was more to this, of course. The duettng screech owls had mating in mind. These were courtship calls. Both the males and females of these 8-inch, tufted-eared owls sing. We never glimpsed either of them. But neither did we disturb them. Pair bonding was occurring as this little herd of humans stood silent, taking in the cool March air. By mid-April they would be sitting on 4-5 eggs, the male and female sharing the incubation. Sometimes the two of them would squeeze into that tiny nest hole together. By May they would be feeding their young pre-digested bugs, mice, and wood frogs.

I continued my walk, reminded that this is now a familiar wild place—about equal parts park, open woods, and forest. I’m grateful to have it as part of my history. This was another cool March afternoon. There had been another recent snow, but the angle of the sun was conspiring to scour out bare ground in many south facing places. The maple sap was building in those tree roots, readying to make its spring run. You could just feel it. I little downy woodpecker hammered away at a bark-less snag.

For then next while my walk was unremarkable; contemplative. Footsteps on a softening snow path. I eventually wandered up a path that brings you alongside a little rill. With nothing in particular wedged in my mind, I can only say I was startled by a raucous “bah!, bah!, bah!!” I froze. It was a pileated woodpecker, a familiar resident here. Its fist-sized carvings are a signature of many decaying hardwood snags in this tract. I looked up to the trees, but saw nothing.

Then, a shadow, and “bah!, bah!, bah!!” again. It was below me, and to the left, smack in the middle of a ten foot pool of water–moved gently by the input of that tiny brook. Red-crest raised, wings held aside, this crow-sized king of the woodpecker family was having itself a bird bath. I didn’t move. I thought it had been yelling about my intrusion. This was something else. It fidgeted in awkward contentment in that stream for twenty seconds. When it looked aside I quickly shifted so I could see better look around the thick trunk in front of me. The woodpecker shook its wings, droplets rolled off its back. Then it took off.

I thought it would be gone, but the bird stayed. It simply pumped off wing beats enough to take it to a spindly, wrist-thick elm, and then glued itself to the bark, where it used its bill to preen from the tail forward. It was a ridiculously small tree for such a large bird. But then it shot into flight again—not away from me, but back into the puddle. “Bah!, bah!, bah!!!”, it screamed, settling into the chilly stream. Again, it bathed for a minute; then took off to a nearby tree. This one was a slightly more suitable maple, the thickness of the barrel of a baseball bat. There, it did a little more preening, perhaps dispensing with some of the mites in its feathers.

It repeated this act once more, its boisterous yells coming as it settled into the cold water. I felt like I was watching some Russian bureaucrat visiting an icy Moscow pool, then scooting back into the steam bath. Finally, after a victorious yell, it took off for a more suitable forest tract, landing about 40 feet up on the fat trunk of a hundred-foot white pine. I soon lost it in the branches—in woods that are now part of my landscape history.

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                                                        © 2008 Karl Meyer

American Pastime

On this February morning there was drama in the United States Congress. Two powerful men thought to have deceived the American people for most of a decade were answering questions. There were references to wire tapping and intimidation to keep crimes hidden. Personal information had been leaked to impugn credibility. The story was riveting: hubris, bedroom secrets; the let down of the next generation of kids.

It was a story of power and ego; lots of money involved. One party rallied around the powerful man as a god. The other assaulted his testimony as if they were bringing down the Bastille. Hushed talk began circulating of a presidential pardon. This was terrific theatre, but hardly of a high order—sports-entertainment and drugs, the stuff America invests its soul in. The testimony of a baseball player and his trainer rang out in homes across the country.

But as the time of spring training neared my fantasies went way beyond baseball. I dreamt Congress was sending blistering line drives and punishing grounders at the two highest officers of the land—hard ball questions that offered no cover. Stand and catch the ball, or let it go by–on a level playing field, in full view of the American people. Whack: what about weapons of mass destruction? Whack: what about leaked names? Bang: what about soldiers, civilians, sacrificed? Bam: what about water boarding–what about the country’s soul, Sir?

The day’s baseball drama WAS riveting. He said–he said; he said that she said. What did he say; when did he say it? Patriotism, hard work, respect for rules, were all used to mask the ominous and building backdrop of wrong-doing. The big guy said he could not be a bad guy. It was a miss-understanding. Words were miss-spoke, miss-heard. He was a leader, in control—a decider. Something foul occurred on his watch. He’d moved swiftly to get a handle on it. Now jealous people and the media had turned on him. His reputation was at stake. His legacy. He wanted his soul back. He stood pleading before a soul-less Congress. Expectant.

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The following appeared January 30th, in the RutlandHerald

Karl Meyer

                              Towards a true refuge

The Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge is currently accepting public comment on the direction the Refuge should take in its preservation work for the next 15 years.  Here’s one suggestion: preserve what’s here.  This is not a flip answer.  As a FISH and wildlife refuge they should take their mandate seriously.  Preserve the FISH.

I don’t’ want them chasing ghosts—continuing down the failed 40-year path of farm-raising hatchery Atlantic salmon and tossing them in the river to replace a run that’s been extinct since 1815.  Just 140 return per year. 

I want the Refuge to include plans to preserve the 300,000 American shad that came upriver in 1997–the year the Refuge was founded.   I want a plan that shows what the Refuge has done, and what it will continue to do, to nurse and nurture the 64,000 blueback herring that also swam upstream in 1997.  Part of the Refuge’s mandate is “watershed education” to create an informed public “that supports and understands anadromous fish restoration.”  The shad run is withering; the blueback herring is all but extinct since Conte arrived.  There is little evidence the public understands this tragedy.

The first three species in the Refuge’s conservation mandate are “Atlantic salmon, American shad, and river herring.”   It’s unconscionable that the public is unaware the shad run up the Connecticut River has been virtually reduced by half since Conte began.  Just 159,000 fish swam past Holyoke dam this year, compared to twice that many a decade back.  Blueback herring are now scarcer than sub-prime loans—just 69 swam past Holyoke in 2007, while there were 64,000 in 1997, and 310,000 five years before that.  As a FISH and wildlife refuge, that’s failure.

Another failure is what the public is being left to believe.  Many think salmon is an endangered species here.  It is not.  The Connecticut River’s native salmon strain became extinct two centuries back.  And though it is widely believed that dams put the final nail in that salmon-run’s coffin, it is likely that a short-term climate aberration called the Little Ice Age (1300 – 1850 A.D.) brought cold Atlantic currents–and Atlantic salmon, south to the Connecticut at that time.  When cold currents receded, so did salmon.  They were visiting the southern-most major stream in their fluctuating footprint.  When currents warmed, detouring runs withered—at the same time dams blocked the last spawners.

Salmon is a mythical fish.  It’s big.  It leaps.  Fishermen moon over it like hunters who want to believe in wolf packs and cougars in the woods.  These are ghosts.  The extinct salmon run is simply extinct.  Global warming will not favor a cold water species on a warming river.  Shad were never extinct.  The river teemed with them a decade back.  Why this fish was never prioritized is a tragedy.  It’s been salmon first.  Salmon in grade schools; salmon studies at Conte Fish Lab; and preserving “salmon” streams.  The return on this has been misled school kids and 140 hybrid fish produced at huge expense in energy-sucking hatcheries.

Isn’t it time for change?  Studies left quietly under the radar show that American shad are virtually blocked at Turners Falls dam.  The number of shad passing successfully through fishways there is hovering at 1% since the year 2000.  That was the first season after deregulation allowed hydro-operators–at Turners Falls and just upstream at Northfield Mountain, the unencumbered ability to pump the Connecticut up and down according to spikes in hourly prices on the electricity “spot market.”  Since that change shad passage has plummeted by 85% at Turners.   The river population of shad has dropped a full 17% since 2000.  New Hampshire and Vermont no longer have shad runs. 

A main Refuge artery is blocked—adjacent to a Refuge Visitor Center and the Conte Fish Lab.  The public hasn’t a clue.  No clamor is raised by researchers and the Connecticut River Coordinator’s Office because the handful of salmon that reach Turners fishways pass there easily—all SEVEN this year.  The facilities were designed for salmon, not hoards of two-foot long, green-gold shad, or shiny, foot-long herring–this river’s living fish.  These are not sexy enough, apparently.  So grade school teachers offer kids myths.

Sadly, decades of failed marine fisheries policy may have doomed herring runs to extinction due to wildly fluctuating populations of predatory striped bass.  But the Refuge could keep its name as a true FISH refuge if it prioritized saving the eminently preservable, arguably magnificent, American shad.  The public—in classrooms, in Vermont and New Hampshire; along the entire River, could have an enduring refuge symbol.  But that recently blocked artery at Turners Falls dam would have to be unstopped—fisheries experts would have to speak honestly; committees charged with preserving fish runs would have to stand up; FERC regulators would have to regulate; lawmakers litigate.  That would lead to a real refuge, one with an informed public and real fish—one with an honest future.  Preserve what’s here. 
                                         #  #  #

 Karl Meyer lives in Greenfield, MA.  His book Wild Animals of North America has been given a 2008 Teachers’ Choice Award for Children’s Books.  

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The following essay appeared as an OpEd in both the Daily Hampshire Gazette and the Greenfield Recorder on January 2, 2008.

Karl Meyer © 2007
Conspiracy to Bird

I am standing at the intersection of Wildlife and Freedom—or that’s what it feels like. Actually I’m on Northeast Street, a secondary road with farms on one side and condos on the other. It’s fifteen degrees on Christmas Bird Count Day and I’m looking for birds in Amherst, Massachusetts. I’ve returned to this college town each December for 23 years–since about the time I voted in Amherst Town Meeting for funding to preserve these farms.

When I turn around a policeman is there, cruiser lights flashing on low. He rolls down his window and peers at me–laptop and police equipment in easy reach. I’m surprised, mildly annoyed. He is friendly though, “Hi Sir, could you tell me what you’re doing here with binoculars?”

Here it makes sense to set the scene a bit more. I’m 5’8”, with white, white, hair. I’m standing on the shoulder in a bright yellow anorak, wool pants, and mittens–a pair of binoculars at my neck. I’ve been peering into patches of scrub and staring at old farm silos hoping to identify birds. My main concern—what with the yellow slicker, is not getting shot by deer hunters—or picked off by a car at this farmland edge. I’m as conspicuous as can be, and it’s backfired. An officer of the law is now assessing my threat status.

“I’m looking at birds,” I say. “Looking at birds?” he repeats. I nod. I can tell this is making sense–the binoculars, the funny dress. “Someone called–I had to check it out.” This too makes sense. I offer a little more, “I’m counting birds, it happens every year. They usually hold the count on a Sunday, but changed it to Saturday because of the weather. There’s a bunch of people out doing this.” This seems plausible. “So, you’re counting birds?” “Yup.” With that he appears satisfied. I turn back to my business. But he hesitates, “Could you tell me your name?”

At this point something shifts.

I look back at the young man in the cruiser. He hasn’t been impolite. But now I’m dealing with a whole different animal. Can you tell me your name? I ponder this existential moment: a middle-aged guy in flame-yellow and mittens. I understand. Some older person saw me peering through spy glasses, grew nervous; called. This officer came to check. It should have ended there. His further question moved a polite inquiry to the level of personal invasion, given my lack of guile. My expression changes again, to surprise; annoyance.

I can see the charges—including conspiracy to bird. Will there someday be a national registry–birders spying on birders?? I consider the next twenty years at this spot; a country grown more suspicious, fearful. I look at the computer. I’m staring at a rolling data bank when I’ve come for horned larks.

That’s when I state, with more than disinterest, “You’re going to have to talk to a lawyer, pal.” I should have left off the pal, but my rights were being trampled. I was threatened—like that old person. Civil rights are my territory. They’re every citizen’s turf–that free space in our hearts and minds that make each of us safe. They make this country of common laws special. Each time we cede them, individually, collectively—we are less safe; less free.

And so I reply with, “This is a public way. These are binoculars,” and walk on. His lights flash as he drives off. But that computer had likely long-ago scanned my plates. He had my information—likely knew it while we talked. He didn’t offer his name.

Just like the edges of these farms–slowly disappearing before developer’s cash–our rights are eroding. They fray from disuse, ignorance, the abuse of fear by an increasingly secretive government banking on a sheep-like acquiescence of citizens. Absent an understanding of civil rights, we are no special country at all. We trumpet math and science, while the tenets of freedom, privacy, and democracy gasp for air. Perhaps why I head out on cold December days is to feel a little free. It’s why “pal” slipped into that brief interrogation. My rights are a bit raw at the moment. It’s why I chose to be simply “free citizen” that day, under blue sky.

The next morning the BBC interviewed Judith Krug, Director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom for the American Library Association. Krug has fought for the right to free inquiry for decades–has stood up to keep the government from snooping library records of ordinary citizens. She’s defended books banned for stating simple truths. Her final question was “why have you kept up the fight so long?” She answered–clear as a winter day, “Because I’m not a person that the government can rule by fear.”

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* the following commentary aired on American Public Media’s Marketplace on December 27, 2007.  If you scroll down the right side of this page to “Blog Roll,” there is a link to their web page and the story.  I think it works…

KarlMeyer                                                                                           © 2007

                                     Fishing the Big Three

There was no room for panic; no margin for error.  I watched–as if from above.  One minute I’m enjoying the simplest of quick-lunch pleasures; the next I’m hurtling down a path toward oblivion, a twig-like object wedged between my teeth.  The culprit was a can of chunk white albacore.  I plunged my hand into the mess and clamped on the menacing stick.  Pulling back, I experienced the same rush cardiologists must feel when the paddles bring a heartbeat back to life, “I’m rich!”

The tuna bone, an inch-long relict of Thunnus alalunga, glistened.  My eyes darted to the can.  Yes!  I’d hooked into one of the Big Three!  Now, instead of my life ending in premature asphyxiation, I’m suddenly contemplating ascension to the ruling class.  Call me lucky, call me Ishmael– just don’t call me late for dinner!

Shaking, I washed the bone.  I contacted the tuna company’s website, stating facts: I have the bone; I have the can in a photo with a dated newspaper.  I didn’t mention lawsuit, or involuntary manslaughter.  We’re all professionals.  This could be handled neatly.  I’d await their generous offer.  I started pricing houses and hybrid cars.

The letter arrived a week later, standard mail, “A bone the size you reported is not typical of our efforts to produce the highest quality canned tuna on the market.”  A settlement of sorts was enclosed: four free cans of albacore with hopes that this would restore my consumer confidence.  They requested the bone back, and included two coupons for 25 cents off.  Big Tuna, showing me the love.

So this was customer care?  Double coupons–my loyal-silence secured for the price of stinking mackerel??  Well not so fast Chunk Lite!  Even a fish knows fishy when he smells it.  No deal–bottom feeder!  Try starting with roses next time, maybe a little sushi.  For now, I’m securing your little tuna terror-bone in a tiny evidence bag.  Have your people get in touch with mine.  We’ll talk turkey, brand-loyalty, hybrid cars…

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December 13, 2007           Copyright: Karl Meyer

                    Karl’s Christmas Kitsch Farm

Looking for an alternative, environmentally-friendly way to ring in the holidays?  Come to Karl’s Christmas Kitsch Farm in nearby Confield!  At Karl’s you can experience the excesses of the holidays without having to “buy” into them.  Come to Karl’s and hack down your own plastic spiral tree—it’s easy as one-two-three with our Karaoke chain saw.  Rev her up and “Timber!”, that PVC beauty is lifeless on the ground.  Enjoy the crisp air as it bumps along behind Santa’s golf cart.

Worried about the environment?  The Kitsch Farm can help!  All Karl’s trees can be rented on an annual basis.  Drive up to KCKF and pick a plastic tree at any season.  We’ll tag it; water it, and mulch it until you arrive for the Big Day!  When you’re done, simply ship it back in the Kitsch Mailer.  We return it to the stillness of our ancient PVC forest and its own pre-sunk stand.

Want to make a dent in climate change, but don’t know where to turn??  Let the Kitsch Farm help with holiday venting!  Follow Snowman Drive to our sea of blow-up, Frosty Snowmen.  Imported exclusively from China, each Frosty is carefully inflated to maximize Kitsch appeal.  Your venting options diverge here: you may simply unplug your Frosty, letting it ooze out its life like the Wicked Witch of the West; or rent a simulated Samuarri dagger and “take the snowman out” shouting expletives from Caesar’s time; finally, send Frosty packing with a blast from our holiday shotgun—available exclusively on our Plastic Reindeer Safari from Karl’s expert PVC Guides.

Lest you think there’s a Kitsch bias at Karl’s, you’d be mistaken.  How about Karl’s Plastic Menorah Darts?; Karl’s Kwanza Demolition Derby??; and, for “ye of little” or no faith: Karl’s Kitschy Gift Card–for consumerist venting any time of year.  Karl’s products are fully guaranteed.  Your spiral tree will fall in a perfect single helix; your Frosty will pop with the sound of fresh powder; and your “Kwanza Car by Karl” will plow into that bloated pile of gifts with unflinching speed.  We promise!  Remember: “Thinking Kitsch?  Think Karl’s!”

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This was written as a radio commentary                          December 11, 2007
© Karl Meyer

             The Institute for Foul Language (IFFL)

In today’s global economy businesses are often confronted by languages and accents impossible to follow.  But foreign deals need to close, pronto; stock needs shipping–yesterday.  Now there’s a way to get through to folks that don’t have a clue what you mean either.  Learn to communicate instantly–unequivocally, using skills and training from the Institute for Foul Language.

Need something relayed in Farsi, Mandarin, Sumatran?  Don’t memorize the whole darned language!  A few accented phrases from the IFFL playbook will get that bloody contract photocopied and faxed, TODAY!   There’s little time for decorum in today’s international marketplace. 

Let the Institute for Foul Language put the “pro” back in your profanity, the “cur” back in your cursing. Our foul language classes get the results that you want, in the time frame you need!

One, three, and eight week courses can have you heaping expletives on that shipping clerk in Timbuktu in no time.  You’ll curse like a Wall Street floor trader—sling slurs like one of the Sopranos.  We’re not bleeping kidding!

Maybe your trash-talk’s still pretty good and you just need some brushing up.  An IFFL Day-Spa Refresher is just the thing.  Spend a day in our hot tub, work-out rooms and massage center, learning tricks and filthy trade terms from our cell-phone phrase book.  Then, rejuvenated, head back into the business world with the confidence and foul-mouthed temerity that moves international business.

Remember, the Institute for Foul Language has the words and phrases that will move your product.  Why be polite, when you can be succinct, salacious, and successful?  Operators are standing by.  Courses begin this week in a town near you.  All certified IFFL courses come with a no-bull, money-back guarantee.  We bleep you not!  Phone today, toll-free: 1-888-GET FOUL.

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Karl Meyer                                                                                December 9, 2007

                  Holding up a candle

I am at a meeting of excited townspeople, and a certain magical realism seems to be at work.  The evening’s focus is the building of a sustainable downtown.  It’s a sharing of ideas. I’m feeling like I want to hold up a candle, but that would be a mistake.  Though it might seem otherwise, what’s mostly heard here is an affirmation of the belief there will be continuing plenty into the future.  And the crowd continues to warm to that idea of plenty.  Slowly the sentiment builds into a celebration of much-ness.  But maybe it just an awkward human jab at a universe that perhaps seems filled with dark–an indoor howl at a fluorescent moon.

I am new to this town, though I’ve known it for years.  I wanted to see what neighbors might have to say about living in harmony with a warming planet and each other.  And those neighbors showed up–close to a hundred.  Most are what are called progressives here.  In general they appear to be either business owners or nascent entrepreneurs.  Tonight’s sustainable topic is fostering vital downtowns.

The downtown here is a little ragged, but making progress.  A seemingly endless theme has been the political tug of war over when, if, and how, a big box retailer should be brought into town.  Since, overall, it’s not a particularly wealthy community, big WalMart-ideas get good traction among the less well-to-do, who are not represented here–and the better-healed chamber types and construction interests.

But the people at this meeting believe in a smaller version of things.  They want to see shops and businesses in the downtown spaces—and they want to be running them, or retailing products through them.  But something is missing.  The conversation in this town of eighteen thousand always swings back to perceived customer bases that are either tourists or people on the other side of the globe hankering to purchase distant products over the world-wide web.

Some presenters do speak briefly and well about sustainability and community.  But that message has been heard before, and no one is here to step on anyone’s toes.  Several have done their best to incorporate products and ingredients from local manufacturers and growers.  One is a local food coop/grocery store.  Another is a pub-restaurant that has reduced its footprint to just one bag of trash per night.  Another briefly mentions reestablishing a vanished infrastructure of regional dairy, meat, and manufacturing plants.  But the majority have businesses and dreams fixed on a big-box pipeline—overseas imports arriving at astonishingly cheap rates that promise their particular sustainable/local enterprise comfortable profits into the future.

This crowd, and many of its panel members, are a cheering squad for big time marketing by small players.  Though a few are about cooperatives, most pattern themselves as the enlightened individuals of the entrepreneur frontier.  A glow of dollars flashes across faces when profit is mentioned.  They want to profit from ideas.  And, in return for such things, we’d each like to believe that the earth should offer us sustenance.  And a whole lot of comfort beyond that.  But unacknowledged in the back of this thinking is an invisible pool of cheap labor, the foundation of this dream of cheap goods and money.

Of the actual people here that produce something sustainable there could be a dozen.  At least three people are from farms, and several more sell and install soft energy products.  But there are no union people here, and no one looks poor.  This is not the face of diversity.  Most here have probably had a least one restaurant meal in the past week.  Ultimately they give a college cheer when someone explains a gimmick to bring a nearby run of tourists up the hill and into town from the interstate.  Everyone smiles at the idea of money from elsewhere, marching onto Main Street.  Those consumers will surely purchase meals and jewelry and imported treasures and electronics.  Or, they can be sold financial services, insurance, web-sites, second homes, advertising, or art.

But almost nowhere is the bedrock question about the fuel behind this windfall of consumers addressed.  They will be expected to sweep in daily and then leave—as regular as the tides.  There is no mention of gasoline—sustainability; a warming planet.  Though someone mentions bicycles, no one is talking trolleys, passenger rail, or even tour busses.  There is up-front recognition that this group’s sustainable idea of itself could never be supported by a community of a mere 18,000 souls.  These market ideas require a much larger pie.  They are meant to serve armies arriving in individual vehicles—convoys from New York City, 170 miles away.  And there’s the rub.

What’s mostly missing in this view toward a sustainable and vital downtown is the idea of sustainability.  Though many of these folks don’t like taxes, neither are they prepared to admit the obvious—that we’ve taxed the planet to the point of no longer sustaining us.  We believe our ideas–and a few well-placed investments, are enough afford us a comfortable living.  We feel entitled to be comfortably fed and warmed by the planet simply for figuring out how to get money from people from afar.

Honest sustainability talk might acknowledge that systems need to change—that we need to change.  Our notions can no longer be fueled by exhaust spewing cars from afar–arriving with hungry tourists wishing to purchase products from distant lands with dollars leveraged on over-heated, carbon-fueled, production fires in Asia.  Honest talk would recognize the hum of devastating wars that fuel this idea of plenty.  That too is unsustainable.

One woman makes a point that begins to address the underlying issue in a simple thought.  She’s one of the farm-connected people.  She states that what ultimately is going to impose itself as the limiting factor–above any and all ideas here, is the carrying capacity of earth’s systems–the actual limits of the planet we each inhabit for just a few short years.  But her nugget of common sense is mostly-missed by this crowd.

And, as a newcomer, I do not hold up my candle this night.  It is best.  It’s not something I’m good at.  I’m more likely to bonk people over the head and say—what are you possibly thinking?  No one would see that clumsy light.  But I’m grateful for my friend Tom, who holds his candle light up into the face of the night’s roaring fire.  It is humble; it addresses the present.  And what he has to say perhaps reaches a few who care to see beyond its small flame.

Tom’s in his eighties, but you wouldn’t know it.  And he’s been sick for a while, but you wouldn’t know that either.  I see him stand—way up front, and be recognized as the night’s last speaker from the audience.  His message is brief.  He speaks honestly of sustainability, but perhaps what’s most important is encapsulated in his last words: “I hope as we go forward, that we’ll all take the time to take care of each other.”

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Karl Meyer                                            December 6, 2007
Greenfield, MA

                             On making assumptions…

Never assume anything–particularly wrens.  I made that mistake recently and a wren got the jump on me.  It was a good lesson.  The weather was brooding and dreary.  The afternoon world was wrapped in dulling late-fall rain.  Then a wren barged in–spring-boarding off the window casement three feet from me.  Its scratchy wildness scuttled any thoughts of surrender to dreariness.  A world with wrens is magic.  I’ll never again assume to the contrary.

It’s not that I ever discount wrens.  In southern New England we’re never completely without them.  A few hardy winter wrens–secretive denizens of evergreen shadows, don’t retreat south from our winter chill.  And Carolina wrens, a species that jumped north to our latitude in the mid-1900s on global warming’s edge, are now widely dispersed through varied scrubby habitats.  They hold their turf in winter to the point where significant die-offs occur some years due to intense cold.  The other wren varieties we enjoy from this plucky, gravy-boat-shaped family—the house, sedge, and marsh wrens, all retreat south at winter’s approach.

But here–out of the bleak afternoon universe on the cusp of winter, comes the wren.  It’s a lightning bolt visit.  Quickness is the livelihood of wrens.  Just a flash: a head with a curving bill, a bright eye with arching white eyebrow, and the briefest flicker of a stubbed brown tail.  Then it bolts from view.  Wren!—unmistakably wren.  Quick, stubby, plucky, and warm brown—a Carolina wren!

You may not know this bird from sight, but likely somewhere you’ve heard–spring, summer, or fall, in the last decade.  In the size-to-volume range this wisp of feathers pumps out song like it has a bullhorn.  It’s a boldly sweet, “tea-kettle, tea-kettle, tea,” pause, “tea-kettle, tea-kettle, tea,” pause—“tea-kettle tea.”   And then again, over and over—until it’s through with that variation, and moves onto something quite similar but varying by a quarter note, and runs through that repertoire.  And then another barely perceptible change, and then another run of wren song.  It’s what wren’s do.

More Carolina wrens are making it through more Eastern state winters–further north and at higher elevations, as our climate warms.  That’s good news for the wrens, while we’ll have to do the math on what it means for humans.  In summer here you’ll now you hear “tea-kettle-tea” high in hilltowns, where it was never heard before.  So, even at winter’s approach it’s incumbent on all of us to prepare ourselves for wrens.  You just never know.

The actual prep work isn’t much really.  It amounts to un-cultivating the certain understanding that life can appear boring at times—routines can collect in a dulling sameness, leaving us vulnerable to the element of surprise.  And then, WHAM!—that wren hits your window.  To those not mentally prepared, this might assault our slowed senses as annoyance—there’s a leaf, a branch, a twig, some sparrow blundering onto the deck.  It is not.  It is magic come to visit—so be not fooled.

Why a wren you might ask—why here, why now??  Well because insects and spiders crawl around your porch steps and window casements—all are winter gifts to a Carolina wren.  And then, even in urban neighborhoods, there are likely a few choice berry and seed producing shrubs that can supplement a wren’s insect diet through a winter.  With enough scrubby shelter and available water, this half-ounce feather ball just might make it to spring, and a new round of tea-kettling in your neighborhood.

If that happens they’ll be two Carolina wrens looking to nest.  They stay together year-round and mate for life.  The males do the bulk of the tuneful singing, but they both work on the domed nest that’s wound like a beehive and is made from bark, grass, leaves, hair, and even plastic.  There will be an entrance at the side, and 3 – 7 eggs will be placed at its center.  It’ll make for a very melodious summer.

Meanwhile, if you’re out in the wilder, dense evergreen woods, you might listen for the intense little spit-stutter-scold of the tiny winter wren.   These guys are tiny, grayish-brown, secretive and amazingly quick.  They are usually not far from water and dense cover—which includes brush piles.  Don’t let them get the jump on you!

Curiously, the winter wren is the only wren species that we share with Europe, Asia, and Africa.  Same bird.  In Ireland there’s the medieval tradition of the Wren Boys.  On St. Stephen’s Day, December 26, groups of young boys go around and get the jump on a winter wren—known simply as “the wren.”  They kill the poor creature, tying it to a stick.  They then go around dressed-up, singing songs and begging money for the dead bird on a stick.  When there’s enough money for a party they give that wren a solemn burial, then drink themselves silly.  So, even if you’re a wren: never assume anything.

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