Friday Homestead Dispatch

Four Year Run

Many thanks to all of you for continuing to read my ongoing ramblings! This is my 381st post which began December 28, 2020.

When I started this thing, I wasn’t sure of a direction to go, or if I had (or have) any aptitude for writing. In any case, I’m posting below a repeat of the very first one, which may further shed light on why I’m doing it at all.

2020 Closer

George Orwell identified four motives for writing in which he feels exists in every writer to a certain degree. They are sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose. He also said that good prose is like a windowpane and all writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery.

With that spirit, and with my own love of reading, I decided to give this Substack essay thing a shot. On Facebook I have been known to speak out politically more in the last four years than the previous sixty two of my life, although the first three years or so I was still grappling with more than one or two syllables. I also lean toward injecting some wit into the mix but usually with serious intent. Kidding on the square, as they say.

I’m also interested in the visual art and music worlds with which I’ve wrangled, with a modicum of success, my entire adult life. I will continue my journey as long as I’m physically able – as Pablo Casals famously said at age 95 when asked by a young reporter why he was still practicing as hard as ever, he replied, “Because I think I’m making progress.”

To kick this thing off and to make it light, here is a photo I took of the Sweetwater Wetlands here in Tucson on Christmas Day, with the bonus that it was a beautiful day for a walk with my wife. The Sweetwater Wetlands is one of the most important functional, environmental, and educational components of the City of Tucson's reclaimed water system. The facility was originally constructed in 1996 to handle backwash filter water from the reclaimed water plant. The wetlands now uses reclaimed water exclusively and consists of several ponds surrounded by cattails, willows, and cottonwoods. Ducks visit the ponds while Red-winged, Yellow-headed, and Brewer’s blackbirds frequent the cattails. Thick stands of saltbush provide cover to Song Sparrows, Abert’s Towhees, wrens, and many other species.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this post…more to come!

As I’m looking back at my notes (I have copies of every post written backed up on two hard drives) I noticed that this final line was not included in the published post: I’m sending this to a select few in hopes of getting a few subscribers and just see how it goes. Enjoy and happy fricking new year! I think I sent it out to a half-dozen friends to test the waters…can’t recall why I cut that line.

2025 is going to be an interesting year in many ways, so stay tuned for more sense and nonsense on politics, visual arts, music, and culture. If you’ve been thinking about becoming a paid subscriber (a way to help keep the lights on, the computer humming, the accordion reeds in tune, and purchase the occasional new drum head and sticks) I am offering a special discount now through January 2, 2025. No pressure, as my posts will always be free to read otherwise.

I know we’ve left scars everywhere, and that our obsessive desire to make and have and do and say and go and get—six of the seven most common verbs in English—may ultimately steal away our ability to be, the most common verb in English. Even though we know that none of our marks will truly last, that time is coming not just just for all of us but for all we make, we can’t stop scribbling, can’t stop seeking relief wherever we can find it.
—The Anthropocene Reviewed, John Green

And now…