The grapes really came in this year. They’re ripe now; reminding me that nature has its own schedule, regardless of what I else I think I have to do.
So I was out early this morning, cutting clusters, hoping to get some juice pressed before the day’s (previously scheduled) activities began. The sun was just clearing the trees and it was already hot, having only gone down to 70 or so last night.
The bees were active, heading out toward the fields of goldenrod by the barge canal and hydrangeas of the neighborhood for pollen. The grape arbor is adjacent to the hives and the bee smell was strong in the air. (It’s the goldenrod pollen. My friend Bill says, “People think it stinks. Unless they happen to like it.”) Adrienne calls the bee smell sweet; I think it’s nutty. Either way, it was heavy and cloying in the close morning air. All the odors of the yard – flowers, vegetables, bees and compost – are heady these days with the final fullness of summer.
Grapes don’t ripen simultaneously, even those in the same cluster, so the idea was to find those bunches with the fewest unripe grapes. The big steel salad bowl was quickly filled and many left hanging, but I had at some point to find an accommodation between nature’s agenda and my own.
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Not that you’d know it by the national media, but we had a primary election in Vermont Tuesday. Pretty exciting, but lacking in tea parties, billionaires trying to buy their way into office, wrestling executives and so forth.
What we had was a five-way contest for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Our four-term (two-year terms) Republican governor is declining to run for re-election and anyone with ambition and a “D” after their name saw this as their opportunity. (Our congressional delegation consists of two Ds and a lefty I, none of whom is over 90, so no one expects those seats to open soon.)
A five-way primary campaign and everyone was so… nice. Perhaps it was a Canadian contagion; we are a border state. The rivers flow north, the manners head south. Debate after forum, the five limned policy differences so precise one had to be a wonk to appreciate the nuances. (“Oh and before I finish, I’d like to thank my fellow candidates for the great campaigns they’re running…”)
So, of course the national media didn’t pay attention. Where’s the conflict? Who’d care about that race? Vermonters, apparently. Despite moving the date of the primary from September to August for the first time (“Everyone’ll be on vacation!”), voter turnout exceeded all predictions. About 70,000 ballots cast. (“Seventy thousand? I had more people than that in my high school!” I know, I know, but it’s Vermont. We’re tiny.)
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Where’s Whitey?
So I’m working Monday afternoon, busy and a Skype message from one of Greenpeace’s media officers pops up on my screen and – God bless them, they’re wonderful – but it’s never good news.
A Dallas tee vee station was calling her about a report just released by the Department of Justice that detailed the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s efforts to spy on American non-governmental organizations, including Greenpeace. Nothing else I was supposed to get done got done that day.
This 209-page um, … effort… from Justice’s inspector general goes to great lengths to say that while these FBI investigations were wrong-headed and not based on federal crimes and caused FBI Director Robert Mueller III (aka “Bobby Three Sticks”) to give inaccurate information to Congress (Wasn’t Roger Clemens indicted for that?), it was all well intentioned and no one was targeted for exercising their First Amendment rights.
Three days later, I still have doubts about the FBI’s intentions. Although the report frequently features attractive blocks of black ink over sections of copy and pseudonyms are used for real people – leading me to wonder if the people the FBI identified as Greenpeacer “members” (as they call them) are affiliated with Greenpeace at all – I think that was done as a favor to the FBI, not Greenpeace.
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