That Good Ole Space Twang

Evan Dando sat by himself across the stage from me smoking cigarettes and clearly enjoying that he and his band had stumbled upon some fine country music happening at John and Peter's in New Hope, PA. I never saw the Lemonheads in person so I wouldn't have known it was him except that the lead singer of the Wallace Bros., who were by this time well into their 2 1/2 hr. set, exclaimed to me, his wild eyes popping with joy, "Holy shit! The Lemonheads are here!" Huh. I could see that early 90's grunge look was still with their (heads) singer along with the stringy blonde hair. That much I could tell hadn't changed a bit. It was a truly great evening of music at John and Peter's and the slow ballad by Dando just put the icing on the cake. I kept thinking to myself, there just can't be many real live music venues like this one left in Southeast PA. Let alone the whole country. Cheers to you New Hope, PA. Thanks for all the great music over the years. After all, it's not just the home of Dean and Gene.

Autumn Meditation

All hail the mighty Red Oak! Thank him for his long lasting units of heat. All HAIL!

Soil Amending

The first rule for producing healthy vegetable plants is to feed the soil. Read any organic or naturally grown manual on raising veg and this golden rule will be right there at the beginning. The soil needs to be amended just as the body needs replenishing of organic matter. For all the micro nutrients, organisms, and structure of the soil to remain strong, some inputs by the grower is unavoidable. In the fall most growers, at some point or another, add limestone to raise pH and calcium levels. This need be done only every 3 years in most circumstances. Having never added anything but organic matter to my soil, the pH is significantly lower than I would like. Horse manure will grow the soil's body and nitrogen content but to raise the pH it'll need calcitic lime or something similar. I chose aragonite which I have been told is roughly 3 times stronger than the lime and helps to add even more calcium. Like anything in growing it's to a certain degree an experiment. The reaction time of lime or aragonite is supposed to be around 6 months. I'll see in the spring if my veg grows better and my soil structure seems improved.

The Meat Puppets

Welcome back to the sonic circus revelry. Conjuring up all that is guitar laden and desert washed.

Folk Hero

Where did the Summer go?

It's raining. Again. It's raining. . .er. . .again.

For those of us in the growing community (no, not OWSers--vegetable producers) it may seem that summer never happened at all. Or if it was back there in August, it came without sun for half of its annual reign. Today is another humid, wet, sticky, August. . .wait. . .it's October!?. . .day in the good old growing season of 2011. Surely a victor over the last wettest of the 2000's, 2006.







And surely by a long shot. Two hurricanes and many thunderstorms later, the tropical summer fatigue has now invaded even the autumn. Stealing my favorite season's cool lucidity and replacing it with dank mugginess. Bah. Humbug.

For what it's worth, let us look back on some of those few sunny days of July and August and remember that before the rains came we thought we'd headed into a down right drought of a summer season.




Ah but such is the fickle weather and her daughter Nina! Thank you summer for your Cercospora and for your theft of the second half of the tomato season and lastly your mildewed blankets that ended the lives of many a winter squash and harvest pumpkin. Be gone and don't come wafting through next year!

Art in Tamaqua, PA

John O' Hara leans heavily on the town of Tamaqua, in the coal region of northern Pennsylvania, for the literary backdrop of his novels. While never surpassing his use of the fictional Gibbsville aka. Pottsville, "Taqua" looks like a miniature version of Pottsville. With an old train station at the center of town and a red brick flat iron building just off to the right of the convergence of rt 209, rt 309, and Broad St., the town is an atypically historical one. Indeed, as one drives through town its almost as if all the buildings, parks, and churches are life-size train set models.

A bunch of us drove up to Tamaqua from Berks and Schuylkill Counties to celebrate the work of our scene's much beloved 'patriarch' at his gallery opening on Friday night. He had told us many anecdotes of Tamaqua's St. Patty's parades and night time haunts. It's plethora of gin joints, speak easies, and old time neighborhood bars that hadn't really changed since Prohibition ended. But this night wasn't centered on spirits of that sort as much as on the art work of three generations of the Rimm family. Hailing from Hometown, a small suburb of Tamaqua, Mr. Rimm Sr. and his wife, their two sons, and, if only represented in her bright orange paintings, one granddaughter, were all in attendance. We strolled around the gallery in among the wooden blue fishes, priests, naked women, and suns, that hung in the form of 'dream' mobiles. The sculptures seemed like they could only have been made by this particular artist. Having known him for years I could see his whole personality in the objects. This is folk art, I thought. Icons of Michael Rimm's mindscape. On the walls were black and white photos of street chess players in Reading, Pa. Old trucks and fall foliage montages with trains on sky high tracks passing through the leaves. Couples sharing laughs and moods in the night. Life shots of the region.

In the back room were most of this family communing together, their heritage oozing from their bodies in smiles and good conversation. I spoke with the elder Rimm about last deer season and the most perfect buck I had ever seen. The delicious flavors of halushki, macaroni salad, angel food cupcakes filled with white icing, and ham sandwhiches to wash down with red wine. Everything so simply laid out for the guests with the subtle care that seemed so much a family affair. We were partaking of this cultural line. Soaking it all up in the old Polish, Ukrainian, Catholic coal town that time may have forgotten if it weren't for the arts that now had to supplant industry for the peoples' life blood.