Kendall Giles

Today I finished installing a small pond for wildlife in my backyard. It took a while - digging clay soil is never an easy task. But the reward was almost instantaneous - even before it was finished all sorts of creatures discovered it and made use of it. Birds regularly stop by for a fill up. I found some chicken bones in the bottom, likely from a raccoon who dug some chicken out of someone's garbage and came by to wash it off before having a feast. (And no - the chicken didn't come from my garbage, since I don't buy dead animals to cook in my home). I am not sure who left corn in the bottom, since my birdfeeders are a good 60 yards away from the pond. And I'll have to investigate further, but there are now what appear to be some sort of fresh water mollusk in the bottom. How did they get there? I also expect to see frogs soon - it's about time for them to do their thing in the water.

I used to see deer visit for a drink, but not lately. The County took a significant part of my land so that they can turn a nice country road into a 4-lane behemoth. The nice meadow and woods that were across the street from me are being razed to turn into row-house apartments. So the hawks don't fly over much any more, and I no longer see deer prancing in the yard. I also no longer see the cranes who used to have a flight path directly over my house. So much for progress.

But at least the pond will help the various furry, feathered, and otherwise friendly creatures who want to visit, take a sip of water, and be on their way.

Technorati Tags: living

Here's an interesting quote from Noam Chomsky about people who like to wring their hands about this or that problem, but then don't follow up with action.

To tell you the honest truth, when I see a huge mob, which is pretty common these days, I have a mixture of feelings. Partly, I'm sort of depressed about it, for a lot of reasons. For one thing, there's just too much personalization. It doesn't make any sense. It's worrisome. The other thing is that the ratio of passive participation to active engagement is way too high. These were well-arranged talks. For example, they did what a lot of people don't do and ought to do. Every place I went there were a dozen tables outside with every conceivable organization having leaflets and handouts and sign-up sheets and telling what they're up to. So if people want to do anything, there are easy answers to what you can do in your own community. The question that comes up over and over again, and I don't really have an answer still -- really, I don't know any other people who have answers to them -- is, 'It's terrible, awful, getting worse. What do we do? Tell me the answer.' The trouble is, there has not in history ever been any answer other than, 'Get to work on it.'

There are a thousand different ways to get to work on it. For one thing, there's no "it." There's lots of different things. You can think of long-term goals and visions you have in mind, but even if that's what you're focused on, you're going to have to take steps towards them. The steps can be in all kinds of directions, from caring about starving children in Central America or Africa, to working on the rights of working people here, to worrying about the fact that the environment's in serious danger. There's no one thing that's the right thing to do. It depends on what your interests are and what's going on and what the problems are, and so on. And you have to deal with them. There's very little that anybody can do about these things alone. Occasionally somebody can, but it's marginal. Mainly you work with other people to try to develop ideas and learn more about it and figure out appropriate tactics for the situation in question and deal with them and try to develop more support. That's the way everything happens, whether it's small changes or huge changes.

If there is a magic answer, I don't know it. But it sounds to me as if the tone of the questions and part of the disparity between listening and acting suggests -- I'm sure this is unfair -- "Tell me something that's going to work pretty soon or else I'm not going to bother, because I've got other things to do." Nothing is going to work pretty soon, at least if it's worth doing, nor has that ever been the case.

Technorati Tags: culture, living