New book

Well, not really new. It came out in 2017, so new in the sense that we're starting to excerpt from it. As I said a couple of weeks ago, I read it earlier this year, but wasn't sure what to make of some of it, so I started rereading it. It's been a bit slow in the reread because of the time of year. I've been doing quite a bit of garden and yard work. Because I use a reel mower and am mowing the neighbor's yard as well, it takes me about 2.5 hours, plus another 1.5 hours to trim. That doesn't sound like much, but that's 4 hours away from reading. And, I've added in a chapter of the Hebrew Bible and a chapter of the Greek New Testament each day, too. And, of course, there's the garden and then we tend to go for longer walks in the summer. So, as you can see, it all adds up.

OK, enough on the apologies! Here's the first excerpt:

We propose that the Bible is given to us not to provide a list of rules for behavior but to reveal God’s plans and purposes to us, which in turn will allow us to participate with him in those plans and purposes. We believe that God’s plans and purposes are good and that by our participation we will contribute to the manifestation of that goodness in some way. When we get to the conquest, it is easy to become confused about how God's plans and purposes represented there are good and how they should affect our thinking about his goodness and ours.— The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest, 15–16

An alternative to pesticides

About a week ago we went to a thrift store. As usual, I looked through the books. Normally I don't find anything, but once in a while I discover something worth buying. Last week was one of those times. I found a gardening book about pesticides and herbicides by a University of Minnesota professor. He examines the various options, organic and synthetic, to control garden problems, be they weeds or bugs. He isn't against synthetics, but he very firmly believes that whenever possible, organic methods are best. But, he also believes the following, which has been my experience over the years as well:

From nematodes to insect diseases, a plethora of avenues exist to treat for insects without resorting to synthetic or organic insecticides. But why bother with insect control at all if you don’t have to? One of my favorite ways to deal with pests is by ignoring them and instead concentrating on getting plants to grow as vigorously as possible. A healthy and growing plant is better able to tolerate insect damage than one that isn’t and often eliminates the need for insecticides.—The Truth about Organic Gardening, 66

He goes on to say that a plant can lose as much as 1/3 of its leaves and still be fruitful.

Garden update

I haven't been posting about my garden this year, but suffice it to say that it is doing very well, despite the drought. I have 150 gallons of rainwater in three barrels, and it has rained just enough to keep them from running out. I did get down to about 10 gallons at one point, but then we received our only substantial rain all summer—one inch—and they got filled up again. Otherwise, we are getting 0.25–0.50 inches per week, some weeks not even that. Just for perspective, we normally receive an inch a week.

That being said, the upside is that there aren't any slugs and very few mosquitoes!

As for produce, I picked my first full-sized tomato on Saturday. I'm growing Wisconsin 55s this year, and I transplanted them on May 15, so about 60 days. The variety is called "55" because they are a short-season indeterminate variety that is supposed to bear in 55 days.

This is my third season growing them. I like them because they are a nice medium-sized tomato that is perfect for freezing. I core them, and then freeze them whole. To use them, I drop them in the hot water for my soup, let them stew for about a minute and then skin them. If you wait any longer, they become too mushy to skin easily. One or two is perfect for a soup for one or two people.

My pak choi did extremely well. I grew nine plants and cut them up and froze them. That should be enough to last until about March. The peas did well, too. They have been done for about three weeks now and my third planting of beans is up there. I'll plant again at the beginning of August for a fall crop.

The raspberries have been going for about 10 days now. The patch doesn't produce enough to really freeze any, but it does give us a nice serving every day.

For summer squash, I'm growing patty pans and zephyr. I freeze the zephyr, cutting them up into sandwich bags and putting those inside a gallon freezer bag; I get about 8–9 bags per gallon. I add those to the soups on the days I don't use pac choi. Patty pans don't freeze as well as the zephyr, so I just use those fresh and also give them away.

My first and second planting of green beans (Provider) have been producing for about three weeks now and the first crop is about done. I'm planning to pull the first planting this week and plant a fourth crop there. I think I'll let the second planting bloom again and try saving the seeds. I've never saved Provider before, so we'll see how that goes. They are open pollinated and produce reliably whatever the weather, which in our current drought is very nice.

The onions and garlic are done and drying in the garage on a folding table. After a couple of weeks, I'll clean them up and store them in the basement. Last year we had enough onions to last until the walking onions started producing and them when the greens on the walking onions got too tough and started producing little onions, we switched to the green onions, which were just big enough. The green onions are done now, and I've been using the small little onions on the walking onions, but pretty soon I'll start using the red onions that are drying.

We had enough garlic to almost last until the new crop. We were about 3 weeks short. Hopefully this year it will be enough. I'll save some for seed, planting in October. I also am going to try some Red German garlic. We'll see how that goes. It's a hardneck, so I'll have scapes to eat. Should be fun!

OK, that's enough for now, although I will end by saying that the only disappointment this year is the strawberries. I bought 30 plants, but only 14 grew—and none of them bloomed. They were slow starting out but are now sending out runners like crazy, so maybe next year. (Gardeners are hopeless optimists!)

Another year

I put the garden to bed for the winter the other day. After a cool fall, the last few weeks were unseasonally warm. We had a hard frost in September, two weeks earlier than normal and a month earlier than last year. Then, it stayed cold for a while before warming up.

They say that Halloween was the warmest in 22 years! And my Brussels sprouts loved it, as did my kale. I had forgotten to pull out the growing tip on the Brussels sprouts at the end of August. You do that to stop the plant from putting all its energy into growing taller; it redirects that energy into fattening up the existing sprouts. I didn't do it until the frost, so three-to-four weeks late. I figured I wouldn't get very many this year. But, the warmer weather in late October and early November sure helped! I ended up with over double what I thought I was going to get! (You can leave them on the stock until late December–early January, but I usually harvest them in early November in case of snow—the garden gate won't open once it snows.)

The only thing in the garden now is some late-planted kale that I'll keep harvesting for my soup each day until snow blocks the garden gate. It might survive the winter and be around for early spring; that's happened before. But, I don't count on it and start some in the basement in March to transplant in April. Meanwhile, I've frozen enough to keep me supplied until May.

In general, it was a good garden year. I froze sufficient broccoli, beans, tomatoes, summer squash, and bok choi for the winter. We ate more than our fill of peas fresh off the vine; the raspberries gave us enough to eat, but not enough to freeze. I have onions and garlic enough for most, if not the whole winter. We ended up with around twenty delicata, so we'll be eating that until the end of December. I have rhubarb in the freezer, too, for some nice tart rhubarb sauce on a cold winter morning.

So, the garden to bed, last night I started looking through the latest Johnny's catalog, making a list of stuff I need to try or reorder. Next, I'll go through Fedco's catalog and compare. I like to order my seeds before January—for two reasons: (1) to avoid stock-outs in the spring (this year my green beans were back-ordered until just before planting date; I was concerned), and (2) so I can start stuff in the basement in March.

I also like to order from other seed companies, like Baker Creek, and a few others I can't recall right now.

Strawberries!

OK, one strawberry, but it is the promise of more to come. I picked our first strawberry of the season yesterday, and it reminded me of why fresh strawberries, not even an hour from the plant, are the best. We'll get another one today and for the next few days until the main bunch starts ripening. Meanwhile, we savor that one strawberry each day.

I also picked the first peas of the season yesterday. A handful of them and more will be ready each day. The second crop, from a slightly later variety will come in when the first plants are done. And the snow peas will be starting soon, too.

Meanwhile, I've been chomping down on fresh chard and radishes for a couple of weeks now. The kale is pickable, but I'm trying to use up the stuff I have frozen from last year, so I'm letting it get bigger.

And the raspberries are blooming and the bumblebees and honey bees are thoroughly enjoying them. You walk by the patch and you can hear their contented buzzing.

And, something I forgot in the initial posting, I've been enjoying summer pita sandwiches, consisting of broccoli raab, chard, chive blossoms, and Mustard Girl garlic mustard. Delicious and the sure sign that summer is here!

Plant a garden!

This excerpt from Braiding Sweetgrass stands on its own and is too good not to post:

People often ask me what one thing I would recommend to restore relationship between land and people. My answer is almost always, “Plant a garden.” It’s good for the health of the earth and it’s good for the health of people. A garden is a nursery for nurturing connection, the soil for cultivation of practical reverence. And its power goes far beyond the garden gate—once you develop a relationship with a little patch of earth, it becomes a seed itself.

Something essential happens in a vegetable garden. It’s a place where if you can’t say “I love you” out loud, you can say it in seeds. And the land‘ will reciprocate, in beans.—Braiding Sweetgrass, 126–27

<idle musing>
Indeed! That's been true in my own life. Do yourself a favor, plant a garden. Start small, though or you will be overwhelmed.
</idle musing>

What's happening here?

I've been silent here for a few days, and it's likely to continue. Right now I'm in the process of reading Braiding Sweetgrass, a fascinating book. It's a collection of short essays by a Native American biologist trying to integrate her ancestry with the scientific approach. Well, actually, it's much more than that. Fascinating book and challenging at the same time. It appeals to my gardening instincts and my mystical bent in Christianity (she's not Christian, but some of her insights are very easily adapted).

The essays are short; the storytelling is great. But, it doesn't lend itself to extracts because that would destroy the narrative that makes them so powerful.

All that to say, this blog will be relatively quiet for a while until I pick up the next book that lends itself to extracts, which could be as soon as today or as late as a month from now.

Meanwhile, we have a pileated woodpecker attacking a stump outside my study window. It's doing a great job of scattering wood chips all over and grabbing grubs. But, it kind of wreaked havoc with the marigolds I had planted there, so I transplanted them : )

Here's a picture that Debbie took yesterday. Enjoy!

Frost!

We had our first frost of the year last night, about two weeks later than normal—and it was a hard frost. I didn't cover anything because it was so late. The daytime temperatures aren't going to stay warm enough for any meaningful growth for tomatoes, peppers, or squash.

It was a good, if dry, summer for gardens. The strawberries were small and few because of the heat and dryness, even though I watered them. But other than that, the rest of the garden has done well. I have three 50-gallon rain barrels, and I emptied them twice because of the drought. I even had to augment that with city water by filling one of the barrels twice. And when it did rain, it was sometimes too much—one week we received seven inches of rain in five days! Because I have raised beds, they were able to absorb it, but it sure made a mess elsewhere.

I haven't posted much on activities this summer, either because of laziness or being too busy doing other things. The truth is, blogging isn't the attraction to me it once was. Part of that is the community that blogging used to represent has moved to social media. That happened about eight to ten years ago, but I resisted. And part of it is that other things take up the time that I used to spend blogging.

Being a contract employee has its benefits, such as flexible hours. But it also has the downside of seeing too much of life as billable hours. Work tends to creep into every corner. After almost ten years of doing this, I'm still learning (or maybe not learning) to balance that. And the amount of time I don't spend reading nonbillable stuff or blogging is a direct reflection of that.

That being said, this summer did contain a couple of trips to see my parents. The first trip, Ryan (our son) and I intended to take my 89-year-old dad on a canoe ride down the Red Cedar River. I had called the outfitter a couple of weeks before, but the water was too low, but it had rained that week and the water level looked good. But once we got there, they had closed because the water was too high! So, instead, we talked and visited—and rescheduled.

The second trip, we managed to get the canoe ride in, going from Riverside Park in Menomonie to Downsville, but the water was definitely low. I had to get out a few times for a push-over, and Ryan had to get out once, but dad was able to stay in the whole time. And because the water was so low, we scraped more times than I would like to admit as an experienced canoeist. When we got to the end, the outfitter said that the water had dropped six inches since we had put in two and a half hours earlier. We wouldn't have been able to do it if we had delayed a day. But we had a grand time. The weather was beautiful and dad enjoyed it, as did Ryan and I!

Ryan and I had decided to turn the rest of the weekend into a bike trip, so from there we headed over to Eau Claire to ride the Chippewa Valley Trail down to Durand, stay the night, and then ride back up the Red Cedar Trail to Menomonie on Sunday. My parents would then shuttle us to where we left our cars (neither of us have a bike rack, or a car big enough for two bikes, a bike trailer, and gear).

That worked like a charm. The campground in Durand is very nice—and cheap! Only $5.00/night for a tent with no electrical hookup. It's right on the Chippewa Valley Trail. We had an issue with our gas stoves, but they worked enough to make supper. The next day, a surprise was to find that some friends of Ryan's were staying there, too, attending a wedding. They generously cooked our oatmeal for us. We had a good visit with them and then rode back to Menomonie and then home again.

Below are a few pictures.

Ready to go.

On the water

The campsite

Ready to go on Sunday. Note the trailer vs. panniers.

These are from the garden

Theodore the toad amidst the squash

The marigolds did great this year!

The weekend that was

We had a storm come through on Saturday afternoon, with winds up to 60 MPH. It knocked down both my pole bean trellis and my cucumber one; they were both made from 1x2 and 2x2 lumber. I spent a few hours yesterday rebuilding them and reinforcing them by tying them to the garage, the old clothesline post, and a pair of fenceposts. I don't think they will come falling down again. Miraculously, none of the plants were destroyed.

We also were without electricity for about 10 hours. The electricity had flickered a couple times, and then a blast of lightning hit so close that the boom was almost simultaneous with the flash. Probably the closest I've ever experienced. Later we found out that most of our side of town was without power. We got ours back around 2:00 AM. Others didn't get their power back until Sunday afternoon.

When we went out for a walk after the storm, there were limbs down everywhere. On East Avenue, tree had fallen across the road, blocking it. It had also taken out some power lines. It was an older maple that was hollow inside, so it basically snapped into pieces.

Sunday afternoon, about 20 hours after the storm, I was working the garden (putting the trellises back together) when I heard a loud crash from the front yard. I thought maybe someone was doing some cleanup across the street and kept working. A minute or two later, a neighbor told me to look out front. A limb from our maple, weakened by the storm, had cracked and fallen across the street! Normally, there is a vehicle parked under that limb, but they were gone. Five minutes later, they came home. Needless to say, they were extremely thankful that their vehicle wasn't parked there when the limb fell.

Here are a couple of pictures of it.

How does the garden grow?

I haven't posted much about my garden this year, but it is doing wonderfully well! We could use some rain; one of my rain barrels is empty, and the other one is only about 1/3 full. Beyond that, the weather has been wonderful for growing.

We had a great harvest of snap peas in June. They are done now, and I've replanted that area with a fourth planting of green beans, more green onions, and a second planting of carrots. My first and second plantings of green beans are both producing now; we're eating fresh beans and freezing them for the winter. I experimented with not blanching them before freezing last winter. The results were great; I suspect their storage life was shortened, but we use them all up before spring, so there were no ill effects. Sure does save time!

The strawberries are done, too. I ordered ever-bearing strawberries last year, but they sent me June-bearing instead, which was a disappointment, but the flavor makes up for it. I only have an eight foot bed, so we didn't get enough to freeze. Next year, I'll plant ever-bearing because it will be time for new ones anyway. A bed of strawberries is usually only productive for about three years before requiring replanting.

We are gorging ourselves on raspberries! Last year I planted some ever-bearing raspberries that a friend gave us. We got a few berries in the fall, just before frost. But this year, they are producing like crazy. They also are trying to take over the surrounding beds, so it's a continual pulling of stray plants in those beds. Raspberries spread via root, so I might have to move the berries to a corner bed. Right now they are in a central bed, so they can infect three other beds.

My squash are doing wonderfully well. The winter squash are climbing all over their trellis and are loaded with squash. I'm experimenting this year with a new variety in addition to the favorites (delicata and carnival). We'll see how it goes. The patty pan summer squash are producing more than I can eat, and the zephyr has given me two so far. I might end up pulling one of the patty pan plants if this keeps up; nobody in the neighborhood likes summer squash. For that matter, only the one neighbor likes vegetables at all! No wonder the US is so unhealthy.

I picked my first cucumber yesterday. Nothing beats a cucumber fresh from the vine! I'm trialing five different kinds this summer, trying to see what does best here. So far it looks like all of them are winners. If all the blossoms and small cukes bear, I'll have far too many! I don't make sweet pickles anymore because the sugar content is far to high; same for pickle relish. So that just leaves eating them fresh and making dill pickles. My dill is doing fine, so that won't be a problem, but there is a limit to how many quarts of dill pickles a person can eat!

I can't forget to mention the kale and chard! I've frozen quite a bit of it. I've never had chard and kale do as well as they are this year. I think it must be because of the organic slow release fertilizer and fresh compost I'm using. I'll write more about the fertilizer later; I'm running short on time right now.

How's your garden doing? Here are a few pictures for you. The first one is from the mid-April snowstorm we had—again! Third year in a row for a mid-April blizzard, although this one wasn't as bad as the first two.

A day late

Normally I post this on Saturday, but better late than never, I guess. It also allows me to include a post or two from yesterday. Let's start with a Library Comic. If you aren't familiar with them, they are the replacement for Unshelved, which is now only posting reruns. I only wish I could access JSTOR through my local library!

Scot McKnight's Jesus Creed blog has moved. Unfortunately, his RSS feed doesn't seem to be working yet. But, his post on Christianity Tomorrow is worth reading. Here's an excerpt:

The problem, for far too many, Left and Right, is Locke’s trap or statism. It is not speaking prophetically to claim the mantle of the prophet only when it is a Left-leaner criticizing the GOP, nor is it prophetic if a Right-leaner criticizes the Democrats. That’s falling into Locke’s trap. It is little more than partisan criticism baptized by Christian language.

Yep. Don't get caught in equating the U.S. with the kingdom of heaven!

The Old Curmudgeon takes a look at truth in a posttruth age:

We're used to the idea of propaganda aimed at getting us to believe something in particular, that it is designed for linear goals-- we will get people to believe that a balanced breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so that they'll buy more cereal. By convincing people that X is true, we can get them to do Y. Our idea of good, traditional propaganda is that it is focused and on message. Repeat your main talking point. Chip away. (After a couple of decades of hearing it repeated, everyone will believe that US schools are failing.)

But in the information age, the era of computerized super-communication, we have Propaganda 2.0. We don't need you to believe X; we just want you to believe that you can't believe anything. We don't need to substitute our "truth" for the actual truth; we just have to convince you that the truth is unknowable, possibly non-existent. You have no hope of navigating this world on your own. Just give all your obedience to a strong boss; take all your navigation from Beloved Leader.

Does he contradict himself? Well, it may seem that way, but the truth is complicated and unknowable, so why should the truth he peddles feel any different. Does his truth seem to be contradicted by actual reality? That's only because you can't trust your own perception of reality.

Best summary of what's going on that I have seen yet. Read the rest for how to combat it.

How about a bit of satire (it is satire, isn't it?)? First, the worship wars:

EAU CLAIRE, WI – A church musician is under investigation for playing a song the congregation already knew. “I had no idea so many people had heard this song before,” said Brad Font, worship pastor at Living Waters Fellowship. “I sincerely regret the error.”

Font realized his mistake as soon as he began singing. “I heard a strange noise coming from the crowd. I squinted to see under the stage lights and discovered that more than half of the congregation was singing along,” he said.

Sadly, it seems only too true. But what if a university ran a polar expedition?

We are terribly honored to mark another year under the leadership of Captain Braithwaite, a 60-year-old man who served in Borneo and had never seen snow before this voyage. Many thanks as well to Mr. Arnold Barrington, who has shared many helpful “tidbits” learned during his forty years north of the Arctic Circle. We’ve never had a finer deck swab!

And it degenerates from there. Enough satire; life is deadly enough without it, as this article shows:

Researchers discover that neonicotinoid seed treatments are driving a dramatic increase in insecticide toxicity in U.S. agricultural landscapes, despite evidence that these treatments have little to no benefit in many crops.

But, hey, it's lining the pockets of the investors and driving the desire to find replacement pollinators in the form of drones, so what's the big deal? Well, according to recent research, we might be suffering from species loneliness:

species loneliness de­notes the way human beings have cut ourselves off from the nonhuman species inhabiting our world. In our desire for dominance and self-gratification we have put ourselves in solitary confinement, and in the worst cases become the tormenter of all things nonhuman. We have deprived ourselves of love relationships with nonhumans.

It is making us sick. We were never meant to operate as an autonomous and independent species. We desperately need the full cooperation of other species to survive, from large mammals that maintain a crucial balance within ecosystems to microbial communities in our own guts. As a result of our non-cooperation, interspecies disconnection is breaking down the systems humans depend on. This disconnection is deeper than the interdependence of biological systems; it is also theological.

Read it. It's not a tree-hugger piece, although I do find the final paragraph, quoting from a gnostic gospel to endorse a very nongnostic idea quite interesting. That sounds like something Roger Olson would think of, but instead, he's running nice series on theology. Why?

Why is theology necessary? Simply put—because the Bible is not always as clear as we wish it were.

Well put. Be sure to check out all his posts, especially this one on folk religion. Oh, back to the worship wars for a second. On Michael Bird's blog, two people posted on the old hymns. Read it! And what do same-sex leadership and same-sex marriage have in common? Turns out, a lot, at least according to Wade Burleson. He give five similarities, ending with this:

It's always more comfortable to be in control and to rule over others than it is to follow the Spirit and let Him lead. God's design is for men and women to marry and for gifted men and women to lead. To change behaviors, those comfortable living in same-sex union, as well as those comfortable living in same-sex leadership, must subdue personal desires to God's design.

Indeed! OK, time to tread lightly. First, why Trump is bad for prolife (HT: Jim E.). Read it. Second, Ron Sider asks what would happen if pro- and anti-Trump Christians would pray together.

It’s obvious that we are not doing that. Regularly, we have reports of Christian families intensely and painfully divided over politics. “Not-Trump!” and “Yes-Trump!” Christians too often say nasty things about each other. It seems very difficult (although we should keep trying) to do what I said in my last blog--namely gather discussion groups together with substantial numbers of Democrats, Republicans and Independents and listen respectfully and reflect together on the 2020 elections.

But what if we just came together to pray? What if all we did together was to pray, asking God to guide all Christians (and all American citizens) as they ponder how to vote this year?

Go for it! Revivals break out when people pray. And that's really what real Christians should really desire, isn't it? (Looking back at Scot's post on statism.)

Don't worry, I'm winding down here. Two last posts, the first on the cheapness of life if you are a bicyclist. Killed two, injured others in a clear case of inattentive driving. Gets off with a small fine. Now, I'm not into retributive justice, but this does send a clear message:

“My club isn’t like it was before,” Delacruz-Tuason said. “A lot of our club members don’t ride on the road anymore. We are trying to continue with our lives, but it’s hard. … It’s difficult to help others when I am still trying to keep it together for myself and my family.”

Moments like this are every cyclist’s worst nightmare, but are becoming increasingly commonplace, especially in Florida. Bicycling fatalities are higher in the Sunshine State than any other state, with the Orlando Sentinel calling it “a killing field for cyclists.” But despite that, there aren’t enough laws on the books to protect riders’ rights, said Miami attorney Eli Stiers who represents six of the victims.

Yep. Message: Cars rule, everybody else is a target (including motorcycles, bicycles, and pedestrians). I ride nearly two thousand miles a year (down from when I was bike commuting, but still a good number of miles), and Debbie and I walk about five miles a day. Since moving to Red Wing a little over two years ago, while walking we have nearly been hit by drivers three times. In each case, we clearly had the right of way. They just didn't see us because they weren't expecting to see a pedestrian. Bicycling here seems safer. I haven't had any close calls yet. But I'm always expecting them and I wear a high visibility yellow jersey and have a flashing taillight that is visible 1/2 mile away in daylight.

But, I'm not going to end on that sad note. Instead, read this one, on the state of the publishing industry. A very well-written essay worth pondering.

For the first time since 2011, when Borders shut down, or 2007, when Amazon launched the Kindle, or maybe 1455, when Johannes Gutenberg went bankrupt immediately upon printing his game-changing best seller The Bible, the news about book publishing has seemed less than dire.

Of course, there's far more to the essay than that, keep reading.

Until next weekend, enjoy! Meanwhile, I'm going to order my garden seeds. This year, the orders to go Fedco, Johnny's, and Baker Creek. What about you?

Update: I forgot to post it last week, and now I forgot this week, too. In sad news, Christopher Tolkien died at age 95. He really did a service to us all by editing his dad's notes and publishing them in twelve volumes, as well as the Silmarillion. Read the article to get an idea of how important his work is to his father's legacy.

Round the 'net

We were traveling this last week, hence the lack of posts, but I still found time to read a bit. Here are some links I found of interest:

Roger Olson asks if it is ever wrong to forgive:

Now I know that someone will say “That’s easy for you to say because you’re white.” Well, I heard an African-American theologian and ethicist say it yesterday. And I have very close loved ones who are black. And I am personally outraged at the epidemic of unjustified shootings of black people in America. I am outraged at juries who have declined to convict some of the police officers who shot unarmed black men and women and at least one child that I know of (and saw it on television).

But as a theologian and as an ethicist, I have to affirm forgiveness even if I am not sure I could do it.

For the record, I'm with him.

Scot McKnight excerpted from Michael Gorman's new book, Participating in Christ (I'm going to have to pick that one up!):

Gorman’s thesis then is that the resurrection life of the Christian is cruciformity because cruciformity is suffused with resurrection. The cross is the pattern of life while the resurrection is the power of that life. The church, then, is faithful to the resurrection when it is cruciform.

Yep.

In an attempt to salvage what's left of any decent connotations to the word "evangelical," the National Association of Evangelicals appointed a new leader—and it isn't a white male. Granted, it is a male, but it's a start. You can read about it more on the Anxious Bench:

Last week Kim, 51, was named president of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), a venerable organization founded in 1942. Kim, a Korean American who grew up in Appalachia, is the first person of color to lead the NAE.

Personally, I think it's too little, too late, but you never know...

Wondering about 1 Cor 14:34? Take a look at this post. Here's the summary paragraph:

7. This explanation accounts for all the available evidential data, both external and internal. It does not conflict with any credible evidence. It resolves every historical and interpretive problem associated with these verses, including all the relevant features of the evidence from the manuscripts. No other explanation fulfils these criteria.

I know, if you aren't willing to be convinced, nothing will persuade you.

Speaking of that, Ken Schenck has some thoughts on the arch of history, ending with this zinger:

What is the right thing? I think it is clear that the last three years have been a major step back in the move toward justice. Has America become more loving toward its neighbors and the world in these last three years? The self-deception of the evangelical church has been astounding.

The attitude and comments of John MacArthur on Beth Moore this past week are representative of the heart of the evangelical church in general in America. It thinks it is standing up for God when in fact God's Spirit has left the room. I wish I could say, "Let them wither on the vine." God's truth is marching on. I hope that's true.

I can only hope along with him, but his comments on MacArthur are on the money. I used to be on his mailing list, why and how I have no idea, and he was always railing against something and saying he needed more cash in order to keep up the fight for the kingdom. I feel sorry for Peter, John, Paul, etc., because they didn't have a huge mailing list to solicit for cash. Wonder how they managed?

Claude Mariottini also weighed in on women in ministry from an Old Testament point of view, concluding with this:

Thus, the calling of women in the Old Testament to be prophets was not a fluke. It was part of God’s plan to save humanity. With the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, the idea of gender, age, and social status is eliminated; now both men and women can prophesy.

This is what Paul meant when he wrote: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Joel’s prophecy and the outpouring of the Spirit reveal that God is no respecter of persons. God calls men and women to the prophetic ministry.

Beth Moore, don’t go home. God needs you in the public square proclaiming the message of hope and salvation in the name of Christ.

Amen and amen! Still on that subject, the Anxious Bench has an open letter to MacArthur, looking at the history of translation, specifically citing an early 20th century scholar named Kate Bushnell:

What was foundational to Bushnell’s entire project was her understanding of power. After a careful study of the Scriptures, she concluded that the bulk of evidence establishing men as authorities in the household, and in the church, could be traced not to the Greek Testament, but rather to English translations. Moreover, it became clear to her that no Christian man would ever seek such exaltation. Jesus himself emptied himself, became human, suffered, and died. Why, then, would men who claimed to follow Jesus seek to assert power over others? Such men who sought power over others did so in exact proportion to the sinfulness of their own hearts, she surmised.

Chew on that for a while, considering the cruciform shape of the Christian life.

Not to beat a dead horse, but Missio Alliance takes a look at the phrase "Go home":

They used to be innocent words, previously spoken billions of times by tired men and women at the end of a workday, or cheered at a baseball game as a baserunner rounded third, or offered as a salutation by college students as a holiday approached. But in an instant, these two words were magnified by the context in which they were uttered and injected with the snide meaning behind them.

Perhaps the best response was by Beth Moore herself, from the Twitter:

Here’s the beautiful thing about it & I mean this with absolute respect. You don’t have to let me serve you. That gets to be your choice. Whether or not I serve Jesus is not up to you. Whether I serve you certainly is. One way or the other, I esteem you as my sibling in Christ.

OK, enough of that. Let's talk about something edifying, such as what does "freedom" mean? The word gets thrown around, but nobody bothers to define it. More importantly, what is "freedom in Christ"? Andrew Gabriel, a Canadian theologian, attempts to define it:

as a result of this freedom, the Bible emphasizes that Christians:

* are children of God
* have no condemnation
* become slaves of Christ
* become slaves to righteousness, leading to holiness as enabled by the Spirit
* receive other benefits from living according to the Spirit, such as life and peace
* will be resurrected to eternal life.

Now you know.

And here's a long read, with a hat tip to Jim Eisenbraun for the link, on an Evryman retreat (yes, the spelling is correct):

And yet in the waning afternoon light of the retreat center, arm in arm with my Evryman brothers, I am skeptical of dwelling exclusively in the bog of my own sadness. After all, when we shed tears for the veteran Matt, we’re ignoring the extent to which his grief has been caused by his armed service, that his inability to connect with his wife stems from the foreign-policy decisions that we civilians have tacitly endorsed. Or when I lock arms with a smart-home entrepreneur, I’m invited to ignore the fact that the automation of Silicon Valley might eventually put some two million truck drivers out of work, an impending structural shift that no doubt runs the risk of increasing toxic masculinity. It is an insidious habit of our time to assume that personal deprivations don’t have social or political dimensions, that the cure-all can be found in the detour of a retreat or the ablutions of self-care. But what I feel most acutely in this moment, and during the long drive home across the byways of the Midwest, is loneliness. We had talked of an enduring brotherhood, and yet as soon as I leave the retreat center, I realize these men are strangers to me. I try to imagine them making similar journeys home, drawing divergent routes across the country, waiting out layovers in airport lounges, standing under the sickly lights of convenience stores—each man returning to his private grief.

Sad. The only hope is in Jesus and his transforming power. Now, when I say that, I'm thinking of more than just saying a prayer. I'm talking about a life transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit and moving in you to make changes in the same manner as in the Wesleyan revival in the 1700s.

OK. Enough for now. That should give you a good bit to read : )

In related news, my garden is pretty much done for the year. Just brussells sprouts, kohlrabi, chard, beets, kale, and carrots left. Today I'll dig the beets and carrots, and pull the kohlrabi. Giant kohlrabi, by the way. They are probably 8–10 inches in diameter, and really sweet.

Why the two-week silence

We were gone for two weeks, visiting family. Debbie's dad fell and is in rehab. We went to see him and to help her mom. He's doing better and probably will be able to go home again on the eleventh. He's 89 and not very strong anymore.

I've been neglecting this blog terribly this summer, but maybe with the advent of fall I'll be able to spend more time reading—and therefore blogging.

I've been working on some interesting projects, though. I just finished up the NICOT 2 Samuel volume (not on the Eerdmans website yet), which should see the light of day early next year. Before that I did the final volume of the TDOT, covering the Aramaic. That was pretty intense because they were trying to keep consistency with the other volumes, going all the way back to 1974. Needless to say, typography has come a long way since then and standards have changed. It was a challenge, but a lot of fun. I also did an Eisenbrauns Festschrift The Unfolding of Your Words Gives Light, and three SBL books, two of them on the LXX. The collection of essays by Rosel, Tradition and Innovation:English and German Studies on the Septuagint is really good; you should buy it when it comes out—or pick it up at AAR/SBL. Somehow I managed to crowd in The Abu Bakr Cemetery at Giza for B.J. at Lockwood Press, and Biblical Greek Made Simple: All the Basics in One Semester. All while creating a garden (which is doing wonderful! I'll try to post some pictures…), working for PSU Press part-time, and walking 5–8 miles a day.

I'm currently working on the Lexham Geographical Commentary on the New Testament, Acts–Revelation and an Eisenbrauns book in the EANEC series: Life and Mortality in Ugaritic, which should be out next spring or summer (also not on the web yet).

No wonder the blog has suffered!

The law of unintended consequences

Just ran across this from Bee Culture Magazine: Neonicotinoid Pesticides Foster Spider Mite Outbreaks

Ada Szczepaniec, an agricultural entomologist at Texas A&M University, investigated the outbreak. Her study found that it was not just the elms, but also crops such as corn and soybeans that had been sprayed by the pesticide also showed spider mite outbreaks. When investigating soybeans, she found that exposure to the neonicotinoid pesticides altered their genes involved with the cell wall and defense against pests, and changed them in such a way that the plant became more vulnerable to infestation. Other researchers noticed correlation as well, and recorded spider mite outbreaks on corn and other crops.

As well as spider mite outbreaks, the pesticide has had other quantitative effects as well, like an outbreak of slugs, due to the pesticide killing off their predators.

I hate slugs! The last thing we need is more of those in the garden! Of course, I also am against the use of pesticides in general. We're basically killing ourselves...

Go organic!

Just ran across this, posted by a seed company, not sure which one anymore, but I think it was Baker Seeds. The article is entitled Organic farming beats conventional method, new finding shows Read the whole thing, but this paragraph sums up the mess we are in:

“Results from long-term experiments have shown that continuous use of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides only ensures short term gains in production, but fails to give high yields sustainably in the long-term owing to declining soil fertility as demand for nutrients exceed natural replenishment mechanisms, especially where high yielding varieties are used,” says Dr Anne Muriuki, Centre director KALRO Kabete and technical coordinator of the organic farming trials.

An explosion

Last Saturday put an end to the garden for the year, except for the kale, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, and kohlrabi. They're a bit more cold hardy than others. But the tomatoes, peppers, squash, beans, etc. all bit the dust as the temperature plunged to 21ºF. Even the stuff in the hoop house got bit.

So this week has been garden cleanup. The tomatoes have all been brought inside to the basement to ripen slowly. Last year I ate the last one the week before Christmas. Sure, they don't taste as good as fresh from the vine, but they're still better than those red things in the store that they call tomatoes.

Quite a few of the tomatoes were almost to the point of being ripe, so last night I canned 7 quarts of stewed tomatoes. For those of you who don't know, part of the process of canning is processing the quart jars in a pot of boiling water for about an hour. The instructions say 50 minutes, but I usually prefer to err on the side of caution and give them an hour. Then you pull the jars out and let them seal. Debbie loves to hear the "pop" when they seal.

As I said, I was canning 7 quarts of tomatoes last night. After they went into the boiling water bath, I went into the other room to do some editing. About 50 minutes into the processing, there was a huge Boom! Debbie yelled at me to come quickly because the pot was boiling over.

That's an understatement! I've been canning now for the better part of 40 years, and I've never seen anything like it before. One of the rings holding the lid on had let loose. The jar was intact, but the boiling tomatoes inside had acted like a cannon, shooting the lid and ring into the lid of the pot. The lid had actually moved over about an inch, and tomato was all over the top of the stove and down the front of it, onto the floor, and all over the rug!

Sometimes a jar will have a weak spot in it and break, but then you just get tomatoes (and glass) in the canning water. Sure it's a pain to clean up, but it isn't a mess like this! It took us the better part of 1/2 hour, working together, to clean it up.

The jar is still intact. But I threw that ring away! In feeling it after the fact, I could tell that the threads weren't as deep as normal. What a way to discover that, though! Gardening, hazardous to your health!

Frost!

No, freeze! It didn't just frost last night, if froze. There was ice on the puddles this morning as I went for my bike ride. It got down to about 27ºF, so we are definitely into late fall weather. The wind is from the north and blowing hard, too, so it's not going to get much warmer today. The sun is shining, though, so the hoop house plants should be good. The broccoli, carrots, and kohlrabi should be fine. But the beans are done. I did manage to get one last picking out of them yesterday, just enough for a meal for us.

I've got 20 lettuce plants growing in the south window right now; they're just little seedlings right now. I'm planning on moving them into the basement under lights and then transplanting them into 3 gallon buckets of compost. Part of my never-ending attempt to get fresh produce year round : ) I'm also going to try broccoli again. Last year I didn't start it until later, so it didn't give us broccoli until I put it outside in May, but we had fresh broccoli in early June!

Stay tuned for the results!

Slug motels!

Still no frost! But tonight is forecast to be a serious, hard frost at 29ºF. I'll probably get a last picking of beans today and that will be the end. But my broccoli and cabbage will be fine. The tomatoes are in the hoop house, so they will be ok too.

Yesterday I dug the potatoes. What a disappointment! I think I was growing slug hotels! I lost probably 10 pounds to slug infestation. Yuck! I hadn't thought of it, but straw potatoes make the perfect environment for slugs. Last year I grew them in a gravelly bed, which slugs hate, so I didn't have an issue. This year, I grew them in a bed that I had just built the year before and had filled with fresh compost. Perfect habitat for slugs once you put down 6 inches of straw. Oh well, now I know. Next year I'll try convention potatoes and see what happens.

That's the fun (and at times frustrating) thing about gardening. You're always learning, experimenting, and succeeding—or failing. But the point isn't the success or failure, but the experimenting. Our lives don't depend on my garden, so I can take the failures in stride. That's a major difference between gardening here in the opulent western world and the 2/3 world. For them failure is a matter of life and death. For me, it's the difference between fresh garden produce and a trip to the co-op or grocery store...

Hike in the woods

Well, we went for a hike yesterday to Oberg Mountain. It's about a half hour from us along the lake shore. It was a beautiful drive, the clouds had broken up and the wind had died down. It was crisp, in the low 50s F, just perfect for a fall hike.

As we feared, most of the leaves were on the ground. Of course, that makes for some great leaf-crunching! I've always loved kicking up the leaves in the fall while I walk; I'm almost 60 now, but I still love it! It was still beautiful; there were a few really bright red maples that stood out even more against the mainly bare trees.

If you ever get up here, this is one of the premiere hikes in the fall. Well worth your time.

By the way, it still hasn't frosted here. Got close last night and there was some frost on the shop roof, but the ground was wet but not frozen. I might get another picking of beans yet! And that Delicata squash plant is working hard at maturing those late babies!

Quick summary/update

It's fall. Definitely fall. We still haven't had a frost, which is extremely unusual. The leaves are at/near peak, but today we had winds that blew a good number of them onto the ground. That's disappointing, because we were/are planning on going for a hike this afternoon to see the leaves. Oh well, it will still be in the woods!

This morning, at the beginning of my ride, I was going up the hill and against the wind. The wind was so strong that it blew me against the curb and almost knocked me over. At the same time, it began misting and was blowing it at me. I considered abandoning the ride, but when I looked up, I saw a complete rainbow! It was beautiful! It restored my perspective, and I fought the wind for 10 miles; it was from the north, so it was against me no matter where I rode. But, hey, it was along the lake; what more could you want?

On the way back, I saw a freighter on the horizon, a sure sign that the wind is strong and the waves are big. They normally stay out in the middle of the lake, where the route is more direct, but when the winds get strong, they move closer to shore for protection. Another sign that fall is here.

The cabins are beginning to slow down; today is the first day we don't have anyone in a place since June, but we still have 3 to clean and tomorrow we have 4 coming in. We're full on the weekend, of course. On the whole, it has been a very busy summer, but we've enjoyed it.

We close on October 26, so I'll be draining the lines and we'll be doing final cleaning for a couple of days then. All the blankets get washed and stored away; the places get a thorough cleaning; all the freezable items, like liquid soaps, detergents, etc., get brought in. And then the cabins get locked up and the windows get screwed shut—we had a window blow open one winter and...well, let's just say it wasn't pretty inside. : (

The garden has been slowing down, although with the unusually warm weather, the beans are blooming, the potatoes are still growing, and I even have a winter squash that thinks it can get a few more squash to mature before frost! We'll see about that.

Maybe I'll even have time to begin some serious reading again real soon, in which case you'll see a bit more activity here, so stay tuned.