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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (March 14, 2018)
Wednesday, March 14, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon The Bunkhouse Chronicle Craig Rullman Columnist March Madness “Bald eagle’s back in the cottonwood tree, The old brown hills are just about bare, Springtime’s sighing all along the creek, Magpies ganging up everywhere, Sunshine’s warm on the eastern slope, March came in like a lamb for a change…” — Ian Tyson, Springtime March did not come in like a lamb, not really, but it’s finally here and with it we begin another promis- ing round of spring work on the Figure 8. As usual, I’m entertaining big dreams of an extraordinary harvest — 500 pounds, you may recall, remains the gold standard — and to that end I’m ripping the guts out of the greenhouse, turning over the garden beds, building a new turkey run for a crop of fall gobblers, and making sacrifices to whatever gods I can find to spare us all from the anxieties of summer wildfire. And this year we are going to raise bees. I’m doing this for two reasons: first, there aren’t enough bees. You may have read or heard about CCD, or Colony Collapse Disorder, which has killed off, by one estimate, ten million beehives, collectively worth two billion dollars, over the last six years or more. Blame for CCD has been swatted back and forth — predictably — but we can say with reasonable assurance that the problem resides in the use of agricultural chemi- cals. What often happens in CCD is that the chemicals are dumped on pollinating crops, the bees get covered in them (one study showed pollens contaminated “on average with nine different pesticides and fungicides though sci- entists discovered 21 agri- cultural chemicals in ONE sample”) which weakens the bees’ ability to resist infection by a parasite, which eventu- ally kills them. But it gets worse, naturally. The same study found that “U.S. honey bees, which are descendants of European bees, do not bring home pollen from native North American crops but collect bee chow from nearby weeds and wildflowers. That pollen, however, was also contami- nated with pesticides even though those plants were not the target of spraying.” All of this is reason enough for us to raise bees, even if I did not harbor an enormously selfish and insatiable appetite for honey. But there is a third rea- son too, which has more to do with our commitment to becoming what agrarian Wendell Berry describes as a “responsible consumer.” The responsible consumer, Berry writes, “must also be in some way a producer. Out of his own resources and skill, he must be equal to some of his own needs.” Which only makes good sense. A responsible con- sumer lightens the load for everyone because a respon- sible consumer is also a dis- criminating consumer, which would be a delightful world- wide development — should such a thing ever catch on — against the questionable sustainability of our current vision for living on the planet in the long term. Because handing our great, great, great grandchil- dren the rich inheritance of a sustainable way of life seems important. I’m convinced that rais- ing bees, and gardening, and hunting responsibly for our protein, is also precisely the kind of radicalism I appreci- ate the most. It’s a personal, mostly quiet, sort of state- ment against the general trend toward ecological destruction, and as Berry writes in “The Unsettling of America,” “one must begin in one’s own life the private solutions that can only in turn become public solutions.” So, bees. I am seeing this process, which is always underwritten by the natural human desire for self-reliance and indepen- dence, as the very best kind of active resistance against the spiritual, physical, and mental fragmentation increas- ingly imposed on, and even demanded from, the modern citizen in our wildly consum- erist and hip-hop culture. I’ve been warned by sev- eral folks that my bees are likely to fly away in a giant swarm, that they will all die off, that it’s too much work for too little reward, and so on and so on, but I maintain far too positive a bent to be easily dissuaded. Because what’s at work here is a drive to arm our- selves with private solutions, to better invest in the intimate particulars of our lives, and so finally to present to the world “one improved unit.” T h a t ’s w h a t B e r r y describes as moving “from the universal to the particu- lar,” from “protest or public advocacy to work and to good work.” Good work, the kind focused on sustainability, comes in all shapes and sizes. Mostly it requires us to embrace a little sacrifice, and to put our money where our mouths are, which isn’t always easy to do. But we can stand a few sacrifices of ease and conve- nience to create the kind of life and culture that will have long-lasting, sustainable, and positive impacts on the world at our feet. In the meantime, it’s March, and we can be reason- ably certain that it will tease us with another Arctic blast before it’s all said and done. But the red-winged black- birds are back at Indian Ford Meadow, the Golden Eagles are in their nest in Whychus Creek Canyon, the green- house is warming up, we’ve got six new chicks in the brooder, and I’ve got a brand new notebook I’m taking to Bee School. Sister s Rental Why go anywhere else in Central Oregon for your lawn mower needs? Or any equipment need, for that matter? It’s all right here in Sisters, with expert advice and service to back it up. Sisters Rental features Ariens and Gravely lines of lawn mowers, along with Cub Cadet and Husqvarna. Whether your lawn is large or small, they’ve got the right piece of equipment for the job. Sisters Rental services any and all equipment lines, with parts in stock and three full-time mechanics to ensure that your mower or trimmer doesn’t sit idle while spring runs away with you. Sisters Rental is also a Stihl dealer, offering a full line of equipment, including gas and recharge- able chainsaws, trimmers and even hand-tools with a lifetime guarantee. Whatever your project, Sisters Rental has the right equipment for sale or rent to make your work easier, more efficient and more satisfying. And it’s all right here. $329.95 $219.95 $229.95 $499.95 541-549-9631 506 N. Pine St., Sisters Mon-Fri: 7 am-5:30 pm Sat: 8 am-5 pm chainsawsatsistersrental.com $399.95 $299.95 $349.95 21 $349.95
