Category: Positive Thinking

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Burrrr…

gregoryjoel

The scene beyond my window is rather drab. A blast of cold Arctic air exploded across North Texas yesterday afternoon. It brought with it the cutting icy North wind that plagues the Southern plains every winter. The “feels like” temperatures this morning were in the single digits and they’re predicting eighty-plus hours below freezing and sleet for this evening. Folks in these parts are understandably nervous. Ice brings out the worst in Texas drivers and the memory of Winter Storm Uri in 2021 is still fresh to anyone who lived here then. The power grid crashed, Texans went for days without power and water, and 246 people died from storm-related issues.

Last year saw a major ice storm at the end of January. We were at the Texas Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association Conference in Dallas and left early because of the roads. One of our employees ended up staying at the motel that night. One night turned into a week. Texans do not do well in cold weather. It doesn’t storm often but when it does look out!

Fortunately, we’ve had ample time to prepare for this Arctic visitor. Store shelves are empty of non-perishables and bottled water. Gas tanks are full and homes lucky enough to have a generator are standing by. People take the weather forecast a bit more seriously since the winter of ’21.

( Opal’s Farm and the frozen Trinity River February 2021 )

Personally, I haven’t had much time to prepare our house. I still must make a run to Home Depot. My neighbor said they had some outdoor faucet covers hidden in the back of the store. Information like that is like finding gold. We try to take care of each other in our neighborhood. I have, however, taken steps to prepare Opal’s Farm the best we can to save our winter crops. Frost cloth has been double-spread on the bio-intensive section and several of the hundred-foot rows. Prayers have been said, fingers have been crossed, and if I had a rabbit’s foot, I’m sure I’d be holding it close. We’ll keep you posted…

On a lighter, and somewhat warmer note (it was cool but warmer yesterday), we moved Opal’s Farm Stand hours to Saturday afternoons from 1:30 PM to 4:00 PM. We found his to be more convenient for our neighbors and the traffic on Sylvania isn’t rushing between jobs. We had several customers yesterday afternoon. This complements our mornings at Cowtown Farmers Market and our delivery for Hao’s Grocery and Café. We can harvest once a week to bring quality fresh produce to our community.

Anyway…

My fur-babies don’t seem to be bothered by the single-digit temperatures. They are out running around and playing as I sit here. Sitting here watching them got me to thinking about this blog. I’ve always called it “Thoughts From the Porch” because that was the place my thoughts and coffee ran freely since this journey began. I no longer spend my mornings on the front porch. It’s not because it’s cold. When you smoke it really doesn’t matter if it’s the summer Texas heat or the winter freeze, you’re driven to suffer outside.

However, that changed on November 1st of last year. That’s the day I quit smoking. I’ve been cigarette-less since then. The cravings have become less severe most of the time. The operative word being “most”. Other days – not so much. Staying off the porch has been a good move so here I sit. I still get a good view of the world through the patio door next to my office. It’s a constant reminder of God’s goodness and grace in our lives.

Maybe it’s time to find another name for this? Let me know your thoughts!

Please stay warm and safe through this cold snap. Stay inside, make it a family day or a day of introspection. Enjoy the time and pray the lights don’t go out…

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What’s Plan B?

gregoryjoel

A researcher from the City of Austin called me a couple of years ago to ask some questions about having an urban farm on a floodplain similar to Opal’s. The city had recently bought out a thousand homes because of flooding on Williamson and Onion Creek. They wanted to build an urban farm on the property and much like governments do, they had to do a study first. Not that it’s a negative mind you. One should “count the cost” before jumping in, but the city was overthinking the whole project. That tends to happen a lot…

Anyway, this nice grad student from the University of Texas called to pick my brain and had a very long list of questions to be answered. Our conversation went well. Yes, there are challenges to urban farming and no, they’re not that big a deal. Farming teaches us how to work with nature and not against it. Moreover, it’s always a risk since nature tends to win no matter what we do. That’s just the way it is. Resilience must be a core value.

She asked me a question I’d never thought of before: what is your Plan B if it floods? It took me back a bit. “What do you mean by Plan B?”

She went on to explain that they were on a twenty-five-year flood plain and they needed a Plan B if it flooded there. I had to laugh and then remember I was talking to a researcher for the city. Cities have a need to put everything in a plan. Unfortunately, farming doesn’t work like that. I guess that’s why I love it so much. There’s never a dull moment.

I informed her that we had no “Plan B”. If it floods, we rebuild the beds and replant. What else is there to do? Maybe that’s a tad easier for me to say since we are on a hundred-year floodplain and have never had to deal with flooding – at least until this week.

The local media is calling this week’s rain historic. We received a month’s rainfall in a day – fifteen inches at Opal’s Farm. The Trinity River breached a section of the levee and flooded the back half of the farm. I was finally able to drive down there by Wednesday. Walking the beds and negotiating some of the still standing water I was surprised to find the back road covered in dead fish – hundreds of them. The levee is slightly lower on the south end of the farm and had washed over that section and when it receded, it left our finned friends high and dry. It was a first for us.

Needless to say…

We spent the rest of the week on “Plan B” – clean up, rebuild, and replant. We were unable to make Cowtown Farmers Market this week, but we should be there next week. We didn’t lose any of our existing crops although everything was covered in mud. The rain and the cooler nights have led the tomatoes to bloom in force and begin setting tomatoes again. Everything is a vibrant green on the farm once more. The dead fish have been added to the compost pile, so I assume we don’t have to spend anything on fish emulsion. The rain brought us down for “Extreme Drought” stage to “Severe Drought” stage. After all, resilience is one of our core values…

Activism, Community, Courage, Culture, Faith, Generations, Heroes, Positive Thinking, Quotes, Respect, Role Models, Service to Others, Spirituality, Thoughts From the Porch

Larger Than Life

gregoryjoel

While everyone can be a role model, not everyone can be larger-than-life. I think of those that are “larger” than the rest of us as the positive role models to role models. We all have larger than life heroes.

The kind of hero they are changed as I’ve grew. It was John Wayne, Superman, and John F. Kennedy when I was growing up in the sixties. My definition of a hero changed by the time I was in college in the seventies – it was more of an anti-hero. If you were against the establishment, I was with you! I even had a Che Guevarra poster in my dorm room and a “Question Authority” bumper sticker on my car (both by the way, were a burr under the saddle of the administration of the Christian college I attended for a year where piety and strict obedience were the norm).

I’m not sure who my heroes were in the eighties and nineties. Those were lost decades in many ways. I think I thought of anyone who could stay clean and sober was my hero. I sure wasn’t hanging around anyone like that. The new century brought about the recovery I’d longed for and my definition of “larger-than-life” changed once again to those that looked beyond themselves to serve the common good and make this a better place to be.

It I’d be willing to wager that we’ve all wanted to be a hero. I’ve even met folks who believe themselves to be one (a little clue – larger than life people don’t think of themselves as heroes, or even think of themselves at all, really – at least not mine…).

What is larger-than-life?

“What creates such larger-than-life people? Their altruism is hard to understand by almost any psychological definition of the human person. I believe such people have built their lives on the reality of union with God, Reality, or What Finally Is.” – Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope for, and Believe (New York: Convergent Books, 2019), 161–162.

“Surrender is the strongest, most subversive thing you can do in this world. It takes strength to admit you are weak, bravery to show you are vulnerable, courage to ask for help.” – Holly Whitaker

“Your ordinary acts of love and hope point to the extraordinary promise that every human life is of inestimable value.” – Desmond Tutu

“Whatever that you do, you begin from the premise that you’re human together.” – Musimbi Kanyoro

“I’m not sure it even matters what the artist thought they wanted when they sat down to create the work. The art itself seems to want something, to make a change in the world. And the ability to create art like that belongs to each of us.” – Seth Godin

“If someone can be taught to hate, they can be taught to love. – Dr. Opal Lee (the Grandmother of Juneteenth)

I asked Ms. Opal if I needed to start calling her Dr. Lee. She laughed and told me Ms. Opal is fine. That’s what larger-than-life heroes do…

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com
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Brrrrrrrrrrrrr…

gregoryjoel

 “It’s frigging cold!” I used to laugh it at my neighbors who complained about the cold in in Texas. We’ve had above-average temperatures this year. Fifty degrees is not cold folks. Today? “It’s frigging cold!”

We’ve haven’t gotten above freezing for the last couple of weeks. The high temperatures are only projected to drop for the next few days. The forecast calls for a possible three inches of snow over the weekend and more later in the week. Much of the country is in the deep freeze so we’re not alone. It just doesn’t happen here often, so this is a major “weather event” for us. There was a 133 car pile-up on I-35 yesterday with six fatalities and 80-plus people sent to the hospital…

Opal’s Farm has come to a bit of a stopping point in our late winter planting because of the weather. It didn’t stop the Tarrant Regional Water District though. The started on the infrastructure for our new pump and irrigation this week and are almost finished. I’ve been doing the “Happy Dance” all week. TRWD is so good to Opal’s Farm. The best way I know to show them gratitude is to grow lots of food for our neighbors. TRWD has always believed in Opal’s Farm’s mission and their support has been invaluable.

Please keep us in your prayers as we go through this week and freezing temperatures. We planted all our onions (around 6,000 of them!) in the week before we knew about this coming in. Onions are hearty plants but so many freezing days in a row will inevitably hurt some of them.

I was once asked what our “Plan B” was in the event of a flood or other disaster. It’s simple – we replant! The farm is a great example of what to do in life – replant. Life throws out some hard lessons. Sometimes you just have to replant and go on from there…

I know this has been a tough year on everyone. If you are able, please consider a donation to Opal’s Farm today. You can donate securely at www.unityunlimited.org/opalsfarm.

Stay warm out there folks…

Photo by Julian Hochgesang on Unsplash