Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Ummm... No!

I had to chuckle at yesterday's press release from the New York Yacht Club which was faithfully republished by that well-known faithful republisher of press releases, Scuttlebutt. The opening paragraph reads...

Known as the longest running regatta in America, the New York Yacht Club’s 156th Annual Regatta presented by Rolex also has the distinction of kicking off the sailing season in New England. This past weekend, June 11-13, over 1,000 sailors on 111 boats gathered from across the U.S. and Europe for three days of racing on Narragansett Bay and Rhode Island Sound.

"Kicking off the sailing season" on the second weekend in June!!!

Ummm... No!

Who are these people? Don't they have eyes to see?

Dear New York Yacht Club, some of us have been sailing in New England since January. If you had bothered to look out of the windows of your Harbour Court club house in Newport on January 10, you might have seen us. That's when the sailing season started around here. Not June 11.

The Rhubarb Man

Carol Anne of Five O'Clock Somewhere has challenged us to describe a dinner we would prepare for fellow waterbloggers on a fantasy food tour. What meal would I prepare for these friends after a long day Laser sailing on the waters of Narragansett Bay with me?

Carol Anne says it has to be...

• easy - because I would be too tired from sailing to spend much effort on it
  
• yummy
  
• prepared on or near the water.

Hmmm.

I think I'm going to change the rules a little.

1. The meal will be prepared close to the water and eaten in sight of it, because we are lucky enough to live in a house high above the shores of Mount Hope Bay with superb views across the bay to Bristol and Warren.
   
2. The meal will definitely be yummy because Tillerwoman is an excellent cook, and I am smart enough to let her do most of the cooking in our household. I am sometimes allowed to do simple preparation chores like peeling shrimp or making guacamole but she is definitely in charge in the kitchen.
   
3. Which gives me an opportunity to circumvent our stern taskmaster's first rule. Tillerwoman doesn't sail but loves to cook. I don't cook but love to sail. So she will be doing most of the work to prepare the meal and as she won't be tired from sailing, it doesn't have to be all that easy.

But what to serve? Something traditionally English, I think. Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding perhaps? Or more likely a slight variation on that theme, Beef Wellington, beef tenderloin coated with pâté and duxelles, which is then wrapped in puff pastry and baked. Some would argue this is really French, it is only filet de bœuf en croûte after all, but the name Wellington is English enough.

The beef would be accompanied by fresh vegetables from Tillerwoman's garden... peas, beans, carrots, onions... whatever is in season. While the beef is cooking our guests would enjoy cocktails on our deck overlooking the bay and we would relive the events of the Laser racing at the day's regatta...

Who knew that O Docker would be so fast upwind? What about that move that Baydog pulled at the start of the third race? Where did JP learn to do roll tacks like that? Did you see Carol Anne ride those waves? Did anyone get a photo of Bonnie's hat?

And how about that spectacular death roll that Joe Rouse performed the only time he was leading a race? Someone got it on video? It's on YouTube? Great!

After the main course we would have dessert of Rhubarb Crumble. The rhubarb would also be fresh from Tillerwoman's garden. Her rhubarb crumble is the most delicious pudding I have ever tasted and I'm sure she's not going to release her recipe to a bunch of bloggers, so don't ask. It's marvellous with heavy cream, and even better with ice cream.

Rhubarb reminds me of growing up in England. Everyone in our family had a rhubarb patch at the back of the garden. I guess it grows well in a cold, damp climate... and it's quite rampant in our Rhode Island garden too.

I only discovered how much rhubarb is part of my heritage a few days ago. My mother is almost 90 years old and now lives in a care home in Oxfordshire in England near where my sister lives. Her physical health is in reasonable shape for her age but she is definitely losing her short-term memory. However, her long-term memory is excellent. I phone her several times a week and she usually can't recall who has visited her this week or what she had for lunch. But she will retell stories from the 1930's and 1940's which she remembers vividly.

I mentioned the other day that we have a rhubarb patch in our garden here and she excitedly told me that her father, my grandfather, who died when I was only a few years old and of whom I only have the faintest memory, was known in their neighborhood as... "The Rhubarb Man." Apparently it was because he grew rhubarb in such vast quantities that he was always giving it away to all his neighbors.

So now I know that rhubarb is in my blood. I am The Rhubarb Man.

Enjoy.

A Man with a Goat and a Stick and a Cessna

What can I say? Another superb Tuesday evening of Laser practice racing in Bristol Harbor, this time in a gusty north-westerly.

This week there were seven of us and we were on the water for a couple of hours racing windward-leeward courses with rabbit starts. My upwind speed usually placed me about fifth out of the seven, so I really had to work hard to place higher than this... which I did occasionally when someone in front of me made a mistake. Downwind I seemed to be slow early in the evening but later found more speed and was passing other boats in some races.

This kind of small group practice is exactly what I need to work on my boatspeed and tactics. Training with such quality sailors is all good.

Afterwards it was off to Redlefsens where I enjoyed the Wurst Platter and a couple of glasses of Pilsner Urquell and a wide-ranging conversation with all the other sailors. I know that we talked about saving sailing and how to beat a man with a goat and a stick, but the rest is a blur.

If you are a Laser sailor in this area and can get out of work early enough to make it to Bristol, you owe it to yourself to come and join us. I promise you won't be disappointed. Meet outside the mooring field at 5:30 pm.

I think I've exhausted my store of verbal and visual puns around wurst and sausages in previous posts so I won't bore you with those. I think I've exhausted my ways to describe how much fun Laser sailing is too, so I won't even try to do that. Actually, after last night, I think I'm just exhausted.

Last week I mentioned that in the parking lot next to the beach there was an army veteran with an old day sailer and a van. One of my readers surmised it might be Larry Ellison playing a joke on us. Huh? Anyway, this week "Larry" was still there pottering about with his boat. But there was also a plane. Honestly. I saw it before drinking the Pilsner. There must be a story as to why there is a Cessna in the parking lot but I have no idea what it is.

Let It Be... Random

How to practice?

I went over to Bristol on Monday for some solo practice in a puffy, shifty, westerly breeze. For some reason I recalled a post I wrote about Practice almost five years ago in which I discussed the relative merits of "block" vs "random" practice. Block practice is repetitive practice over and over again of a single skill, like doing 100 roll tacks one after the other, and then moving on to blocks of practice of other skills such as gybes or mark roundings; random practice would be to practice different skills one after the other such as a gybe, a leeward mark rounding, sailing fast upwind, a tack, a windward mark rounding. Research has shown that block practice improves the given skill on the practice day; but random practice has more beneficial effects when tests are conducted on another day a.k.a. as using those skills in a regatta.

Go figure.

So I did some "random" practice. Actually I sailed round and round and round a windward-leeward course between a couple of "No Wake" buoys. Had a chance to work on all the things I am total crap at such as upwind sailing, downwind sailing, tacks, gybes, judging laylines, sailing fast in a steady wind, sailing fast in a shifty wind, windward mark roundings and leeward mark roundings. Come to think of it, what else is there?

For light relief I did do a bit of "block" practice on reaches and gybes, a.k.a. just goofing off and having fun.

I also remembered something that Jay Livingston wrote a few weeks ago in Practice Towards Perfection.

For me, practice is a form of meditation. And just like sitting meditation, I find my attention wandering. And just like meditation I need to draw my attention back to the present moment – the motion of my body and the boat. No recriminations for the slip in attention, just a nudge back to the task at hand. With practice my attention “learns” what it feels like to be placed in the moment and I can keep it there a bit easier, for a bit longer.

No recriminations. My performance is what it is. Let it be.

Visualizing the BP Oil Spill Disaster

Thanks to Bowsprite for directing us to Visualizing the BP Oil Spill Disaster, a site which enables us to appreciate the size of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico if it were in our home waters.

The graphic above shows how far the oil spill would extend if the Deepwater Horizon rig had been in the vicinity of Block Island.

Yikes!

Not only all of Narragansett Bay but all the coastline of Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts including Cape Cod and the Islands would be affected, not to mention all of Long Island Sound and the south coast of Long Island. Basically everywhere I would ever sail.

This really brings home (literally) the enormity of this ecological disaster.

Anyone want to argue for more deep water offshore drilling in their own backyard?

Tuesday on Wednesday

A few days ago I wrote about my new-found enthusiasm for training with the guys who sail Lasers on Tuesday evenings in Bristol.

This week on Tuesday there was thunder rolling around the bay and rain in the the forecast which totally dampened my new-found enthusiasm for training with the guys who sail Lasers on Tuesday evenings in Bristol. So I wimped out and went sailing by myself on Bristol Harbor on Wednesday afternoon instead.

There was an old dude wearing an Army Veteran cap who came across to talk to me as soon as I pulled into the parking lot. He had an old day sailer on a trailer and he proudly informed me that he was sleeping in the van parked in front of the boat. He asked me to go over and admire the boat name graphic, FREE BEE, he had just constructed out of black electrical tape on the side of his boat. I looked to see if he had put the name on the other side of the boat. No, not yet. He had run out of tape. I asked him if he was taking his boat out sailing, but he muttered something about needing to repair a hole in his hull. He then started dropping hints about needing "donations" so I told him that we all needed donations these days and beat a hasty retreat to rig my Laser.

He came across again a few minutes later and asked if I had been there last night. No, on account of the thunder, I explained. He said that there had been three Lasers there on Tuesday evening and they sailed "way out there" as he waved an arm in the general direction of Bermuda. Damn, I should have gone. Four would have been a good practice group.

My new friend then asked me what my sail number was. This was a little strange because it was written in large on both sides of the sail which was now hoisted. After I had repeated the number three times, he then proceeded to write it down. No idea why. Maybe it's like train spotting with him. Or maybe he has a laptop with WiFi in his van and he's going to look up my racing results online.

Eventually I managed to break away and launch my Laser and enjoy a most rewarding solo sail in a hiking breeze on a sunny afternoon (with no thunder.) I practiced a whole bunch of stuff but mainly lots of simulated racing starts. I figured that starts are the weakest part of my game right now, so I practiced holding position on an imaginary start line, then bearing away, accelerating and sheeting in for a fast start. Then I would sail flat out for a couple of minutes as I imagined trying to hold my lane against a whole bunch of imaginary friends. It's funny. I always have great starts when I'm sailing with my imaginary friends.

One of my non-imaginary Facebook friends, SAILFIT, Inc, had posted a most excellent piece of advice for Wednesday: When sailing upwind focus mostly on the water, not your tell tales. Keep your gaze two lengths forward and one to windward. So I concentrated on doing that too. Very Zen-like after a while.

When I had had enough and sailed back to the beach, my new non-imaginary veteran friend was showing off his electrical tape boat name to some other guy he had managed to buttonhole. My "friend" later came over and asked me where I live. When I told him Tiverton he said that he didn't think the waterside parking situation in Tiverton was as good as Bristol and that I should seriously consider buying some waterfront property in Tiverton and constructing a parking lot.

Hmmm.

One of the most rewarding things about sailing is the people you meet...

It Could Get Worse

This is not a post

This is not a post.

The US Supreme Court recently ruled that if you wish to invoke your right to remain silent, then it is not sufficient merely to remain silent. To have the right to remain silent then you have to break your silence to say that you wish to remain silent.

Can anyone else see the logical problem with this concept?

I was hoping not to write a post on this blog today. I wished to remain silent today.

However, under the new interpretation of the law I have to write a post to say that I'm not writing a post today.

This is the post saying I am not writing a post today.

This is not a post.

A Run to Remember

I read somewhere that there is a boom in half-marathon running. More and more people are running the half, a distance of approximately 13.1 miles. Participation has been surging for five years now.

Sounds about right. It usually takes me about that long to latch on to a new trend. To be fair I did run my first half-marathon in 2007, but this is the first year that I somehow got the crazy idea to run several of them in one year.

According to running guru Jeff Galloway, "The half-marathon gives you almost all of the satisfaction and achievement of the marathon and far less than half of the aches and pains and fatigue." I'd second that.

Jeff has identified three segments among the people that ask him for advice. About 20 percent, he estimates, do the half-marathon as a stepping-stone to the full marathon. About 40 percent, want to focus only on the half, with no interest in the full marathon. Another 40 percent are "people who used to run just full marathons, but are now primarily doing halves."

I'm in that last group. I ran three marathons from 2005 to 2007. I don't know if I'll ever run another. For now I'm concentrating on the half-marathon.

On Sunday I ran the Run to Remember half-marathon in Boston. It's a great course that starts in South Boston, winds around the historic center of Boston and then alongside the Charles River past MIT and Harvard, returning around Boston Common.

It was hot. I drank at least two cups of fluid at every water stop. I remembered Jeff Galloway's advice to take walk breaks, walking for a minute at every mile marker and again at water stops.

In spite of the heat I ran the course four minutes faster than I had run the half-marathon in Providence four weeks before. I kept up a pretty steady pace through the first twelve miles and still had some enough juice left in the tank for a sprint in the last half mile.

Maybe there's some life in the old dog yet.

So that's half-marathons in Rhode Island and Massachusetts so far this year. Two out of six New England states. Wonder if I could do a half in all six states before the end of the year?

Hmmm.

Update: I just realized that the photo I stole to head up this post has snow on the ground. Just for the record, there wasn't any snow on the ground in Boston this Memorial Day Weekend. Even in New England, the winter isn't quite that long.