{"id":119318,"date":"2020-07-01T19:44:59","date_gmt":"2020-07-02T00:44:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/?p=119318"},"modified":"2020-07-01T19:44:59","modified_gmt":"2020-07-02T00:44:59","slug":"weeds-by-randy-krzmarzick-earth-day-important-to-all-of-us-living-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/weeds-by-randy-krzmarzick-earth-day-important-to-all-of-us-living-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Weeds by Randy Krzmarzick: Earth Day important to all of us living here"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>At the beginning of the growing season, farmers talk about getting out in the fields and \u201cscratching around in the dirt.\u201d\u00a0 We anticipate that all winter.\u00a0 The dirt is our paint brush, the seed is our paint.\u00a0 Or something like that.<\/p>\n

Dirt, soil, earth, ground are all words we use for that stuff we look forward to digging around in.<\/p>\n

Residents of cities are surrounded by lots of pavement.\u00a0 Out here, the dirt-to-pavement ratio is high.\u00a0 Besides farmers getting to know their dirt, most everyone grows a garden or bed of flowers.\u00a0 Spring is the season of planting for farmers and townies alike.\u00a0 Getting our hands \u201cdirty\u201d feels good after months when the ground is frozen.<\/p>\n

Farmers think in terms of acres and fields.\u00a0 Town folks have a yard and a garden.\u00a0 Regardless whether you\u2019re planting corn or petunias, there are things we share: working with whatever the weather gives us that day, satisfaction or frustration when things do or don\u2019t grow as planned, that cheery feeling when sprouts come up.<\/p>\n

You probably heard that farmers had a wonderful planting season this year.\u00a0 I told Pam it almost felt like cheating.\u00a0 Temperatures, sun, and wind all conspired to aid us in getting our seeds in the ground in near perfect conditions.\u00a0 That we would be granted this during otherwise troubled times was a blessing.<\/p>\n

I put the planter in the shed on May 4. Last year that was June 8.\u00a0 When the fields were planted, I turned my attention to our garden.\u00a0 It was hard to find tomato plants.\u00a0 Others were taking advantage of the fine weather in this Spring of the Quarantine.\u00a0 When I finally located some tomato plants, I put in eight.\u00a0 You know, just in case seven die.<\/p>\n

Now it\u2019s entirely possible this perfect spring leads to an oversupply of corn, soybeans, and tomatoes.\u00a0 I can eat my way through the excess tomatoes.\u00a0 Corn and soybeans are more problematic.\u00a0 The thing about the busyness of spring is that farmers don\u2019t think about burdensome supplies and prices that are below the cost-of-production.\u00a0 Maybe we should.\u00a0 But that\u2019s a topic for another day.<\/p>\n

April 22 was the first day we planted corn.\u00a0 I was already feeling quite buoyant when I heard on the radio that was Earth Day.\u00a0 Perfect! \u00a0Earth Day doesn\u2019t get a lot of attention.\u00a0 It\u2019s like Arbor Day, one of those holidays that kids in school recognize with some activity out on the playground.\u00a0 Maybe they plant a tree, which is always a hopeful thing.<\/p>\n

This spring we celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of Earth Day.\u00a0 Big E, Earth the third planet from the sun, is the home we all share.\u00a0 Little e, earth is the surface of that planet, the ground I was planting into.<\/p>\n

I remember the first Earth Day.\u00a0 In 1970 the environment was large news. It blends with Vietnam and civil rights in my memory of a volatile time.\u00a0 Some extreme examples of harm caused by humans were getting attention: factory sludge piped directly into rivers, smog blanketing cities, species disappearing.\u00a0 When the Cuyahoga River flowing through Cleveland lit on fire, that was a symbolic tipping point that cried out for change.<\/p>\n

Some improvements have been made since.\u00a0 They are ones where you wonder, \u201cWhat were we thinking?\u201d\u00a0 The work is not done.\u00a0 Having seven billion human beings inhabit a planet is a great experiment we are taking part in.\u00a0 If we get it wrong, our posterity will suffer.\u00a0 Posterity is a fancy word for our grandkids.\u00a0 There is no Plan B.\u00a0 In science fiction, our species can flee to some distant planet.\u00a0 Alas, we shouldn\u2019t count on that.<\/p>\n

A microscopic virus reminds us that in the end nature will have her say.\u00a0 We like to think we\u2019re in control.\u00a0 We all want to be in control at our job or in our house.\u00a0 But we\u2019re ultimately dependent on air to breathe, water to drink, and soil to grow food.\u00a0 Air, water, and soil are things that we don\u2019t \u201ccontrol.\u201d\u00a0 They are the Earth\u2019s.\u00a0 We share them.<\/p>\n

We are always limited in our vision to what is in front of us.\u00a0 We see to the horizon.\u00a0 It takes imagination to \u201csee\u201d what is beyond the curve of the Earth.\u00a0 It takes foresight to \u201csee\u201d into the future.\u00a0 If we are only concerned about what is best for us here and today, our species is in trouble.<\/p>\n

I grow corn and soybeans.\u00a0 I love growing corn and soybeans.\u00a0 There is nothing I like more than an even, weed-free field.\u00a0 At the same time, I know that growing those crops comes with environmental costs.\u00a0 My carbon footprint is large.\u00a0 Water that drains through tile causes problems downstream.\u00a0 Chemicals I use are far from natural.<\/p>\n

There are things I do now that are better than when I started farming with tillage, fertility, and weed control.\u00a0 At the same time, there are things worse than when my dad had more diverse crops and livestock here.<\/p>\n

Farmers hopefully are open to new ideas.\u00a0 There might be better ways to grow corn and soybeans for the environment, and there might be different crops that fit in the future.\u00a0 We shouldn\u2019t be afraid of environmentalists looking at what we do.\u00a0 We should welcome discussion and even criticism.\u00a0 We learn that way.<\/p>\n

We shouldn\u2019t be afraid of regulations.\u00a0 In some quarters that is an unpopular thing to say.\u00a0 There are people who will tell you we are overburdened by regulations written by zealot environmentalists.\u00a0 But I can say that in forty years of doing this, I have never had a single time when some regulation kept me from doing what I wanted.<\/p>\n

The notion that regulations are inherently bad is crazy.\u00a0 Just because I \u201cown\u201d these acres, doesn\u2019t mean I get to do whatever I want.\u00a0 I don\u2019t own the air above and the water that flows through.\u00a0 I share these with seven billion others.<\/p>\n

Certainly, farmers should be involved in creating rules and standards for agriculture.\u00a0 I belong to several farm organizations to do just that.\u00a0 In my experience of talking with consumers of food (which is everybody) farmers are respected and welcome at the table where these things are discussed.<\/p>\n

Of course, farmers are going to be on different sides of issues in some cases.\u00a0 But most of us want to do right by the Earth.\u00a0 We understand generations will follow us.\u00a0 We don\u2019t want to leave a mess.<\/p>\n

I wrote that we are limited to what we can see.\u00a0 But we are the first generation to see amazing pictures from space of this planet.\u00a0 Astronauts report how beautiful and yet vulnerable it looks from up there.\u00a0 It\u2019s a great planet.\u00a0 Happy belated Earth Day.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the beginning of the growing season, farmers talk about getting out in the fields and \u201cscratching around in the dirt.\u201d\u00a0 We anticipate that all winter.\u00a0 The dirt is our paint brush, the seed is our paint.\u00a0 Or something like that. Dirt, soil, earth, ground are all words we use for that stuff we look …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[162],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weeds-by-randy-krzmarzick"],"aioseo_notices":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-22 10:37:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119318"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119320,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119318\/revisions\/119320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}