Page 29 - Flathead Beacon // 8.17.16

UNCOMMON GROUND MIKE JOPEK GRATEFUL
GUEST COLUMN INA ALBERT ENCOURAGING FEAR
WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR makes. Last week’s air was refreshing, cool and crisp. Our summertime rains have returned to the Flathead, this year anyway.
Our garlic is now curing, in hanks, in the barn. The hanging crop looks great, big bulbs with keeper skins. It won’t seem long before we replant the biggest and best cloves into the ground. It’s a sign to end this farm season.
The chokecherries turned red, our raspberries are done, and the currants are picked as time allows.
The apples, plums, and pears are plumping fast. So far I’ve eaten a couple just to see how far the season has pro- gressed. If our current yield is any indi- cation of what other stone fruit growers may experience, expect a bumper crop.
We’ve mostly eaten the Flathead cher- ries we procured this season and are well into consuming the lugs of peaches we got from down on the lake. Both the cherries and peaches taste great; they’re juicy, mostly stable and quite delicious.
In our eld the sweet onions, torpedo onions, leeks, chives, green and red scal- lions are having a great time with the rain. The showers with their atmospheric nitrogen help keep allium leaves green while fall rains plump the bulbs.
Many broccoli heads are even bigger than human heads.
Some crops like tomatoes, peppers and eggplants are slower to mature this sea- son, it’s just not as hot as last August. But to most anyone who spends all day out- doors during the growing season, cool rain is nice after blazing sunshine.
This season, so far, proved a steady combination of sunshine, clouds and rain. That sweet rain that helps all things grow. It’s given the lettuce eaters among us much joy by keeping the tradition- ally late August bitters at bay. Lettuce, like spinach, doesn’t much like really hot days. Sunshine can turn some red-leaved lettuce as bitter as the nest of the new aged pale ales.
This Augusts’ hornets, wasps and yel- low jackets are plentiful. Hopefully they will remain far more docile than our national politics have suddenly become.
This is our 26th season growing food. Every year seems unpredictable. It’s like the one constant is change. Last season’s excessive heat produced many chal- lenges, yet so may the return of tradi- tional summertime rains.
Luckily for local pale ale enjoyers the valley’s hop buds are now maturing fast, soon ready for harvest. Our hops coned up nicely after last week’s rain.
Students must be headed back to school soon; even the Mountain Ash ber- ries are orange.
The winter’s rewood is in the wood- shed. It’s a solid indicator; like purple plums and “hanked” garlic that the grow- ing season will soon end. Some would even say it’s time to take stock of the plentitude of pinecones hanging on trees. Looks like lots.
But before then, harvest. It’s time for tomatoes, cucumbers, tomatillos, and winter squash. Garlic needs planting; the gardens need to be put to bed. Win- ter sounds so close on paper, but in real- ity it’s months of hard work away. Yet, the transition has started.
Fall will be here soon enough. Those hungry ghosts that frost away heat lov- ing crops like sweet basil and white cucumbers will soon haunt us. It’ll prove another bittersweet reminder to the cycle of life.
I’m grateful for rain, while at the wrong time may cause trouble for some growers. Soon the water from the sky may be displaced by sunshine, as the long days of August produce the last and nest of the growing season.
Thankfully for growers and eaters, the tireless volunteers at the local farm- ers markets in White sh, Kalispell and Columbia Falls are doing a great job assuring that locals and tourists alike have access to some of the nest crops grown right here in the Flathead.
TAKING A DEEPER, MORE PENE- trating look at the presidential campaign is di cult. I can’t seem to get away from the emotion of it to get beneath the surface to the meaty issues we need to consider. I keep asking myself how and why Donald Trump supporters are so angry and fearful that they don’t recognize that he is a threat to the dem- ocratic process and all it stands for – the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, treaties and international alliances, the Supreme Court and the tradition of immigration that made this nation pos- sible in the rst place. Why not feel grat- itude for what we have and compassion for those struggling to survive?
The original settlers of our country ed tyranny. How can closing our bor- ders to legitimate Mexicans and Mus- lims, sending 11 million back to their country of origin without evidence that they are a threat, be any di erent than what England did under King George in Colonial times? How are bombing, murdering and water boarding any less cruel than the treatment immigrants have endured at the hands of tyrants? We are blessed with the people who come here to escape that treatment and seek freedom to build a meaningful life. America has pro ted from immigration throughout its history. Their/our tal- ents, inventions, hard labor and entre- preneurism built this country. It is our di erences that created our success, not our similarities.
This is a deeply personal issue for most Americans who came here seek- ing freedom. Had America not wel- comed refugees from Russia and East- ern Europe in the late 1800s and early 1900s, my husband and I would have been murdered in the Holocaust. If the Irish immigration never happened, thousands would have perished because of the potato famine. Italians came here after the Civil War eeing poverty and government repression. They helped rebuild this country by replacing the labor force of a half million Americans who died in the war. Chinese immi- grants helped build our railroads. The list is endless.
Yes, some earlier settlers felt threat- ened by each of these migrations. But we came together to build a stronger nation that o ered, and still o ers, the best liv- ing standards in the world.
Are Trump’s supporters re ecting the same anger that some of our forefathers displayed at each new wave of settlers in
America? Or is this just another passing phase of rebellion that will disappear as they assimilate?
No! Because Trump can’t a ord an expanding ow of newcomers to Amer- ica. More immigrants mean more people to control.
No! Because he wants to be the sole authority.
“I am your voice.”
“I am the only one who can x our problems.”
If his is the only voice that matters, we are left voiceless and powerless.
No! Because he is supported by White Nationalists who are
intolerant of anyone who isn’t a White Christian of Western European descent. Immigrants are the last thing these peo- ple want.
No! Because people are fooled into thinking that he really means what he promises. Economically disenfran- chised men and women believe he will solve their problems, make the world a safer place, and create the jobs and opportunities that they long for.
They say:
“He speaks my language.”
“He tells it like it is.”
“He’s not politically correct.”
“He’s just like me.”
No! Because he’s not just like you!
He’s a huckster who will promise you the moon and leave you cold and hungry on a dark night. You will be suckered just like the business people in Atlantic City and the students of Trump University. And there is no worse feeling than being had.
No! Because this is the rst time a presidential candidate is running for dictatorship, not to represent the people.
No! Because Trump encourages us to fear our neighbors, destroy relation- ships with allies and suggests nuclear solutions rather than negotiations with foreign governments.
Trump is a danger to us all. His encouragement of anger will not solve our problems. It will only increase them. And the fear he inspires is paralyzing. It makes cowards of us all and produces isolation, anger, separation and resent- ment. Rather than being pulled apart, let’s come together to make America an open and compassionate haven in which we all can thrive together.
No! Because Trump is not the stu of America.
America is and has always been so much more!
“THIS SEASON, SO FAR, PROVED A STEADY COMBINATION OF SUNSHINE, CLOUDS AND RAIN.”
Mike (Uncommon Ground) Jopek and Dave (Closing Range) Skinner often fall on opposite sides of the fence when it comes to political and outdoor issues. Their columns alternate each week in the Flathead Beacon.
Ina Albert lives in White sh.
AUGUST 17, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
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