first church of dirt : salvation this way

Saturday, July 31, 2010

settling

hi there. just a quick update to reassure the faithful that the first church of dirt still exists and is paying attention.

we're calling the new campus flavor country. we like flavors, and it's in a country. or the country. or something.

some ongoing missions that will get their own treatment here in the future:

poo and pee toilets - with real photos or childish drawings of actual poo!
greywater system
rammed earth wall
outdoor shower
horizontal top bar beehive
goats - did you know that goats whisper lewd sentences in the ears of saints?
more - really, there will be more. with pictures! almost certainly!

keep hanging in there. weekly services should be starting up soon-ish.

Posted By reverend tel At 8:28 AM • Comments (0)

Sunday, June 20, 2010

annex

well, folks, I'll soon be retiring from the less-than-full-time, seasonal, and only mildly strenuous grind in order to focus more energy on my ministry with the first church of dirt. I won't be eligible for the old Social Security for quite some time, though. and while my position at the church is one of authority and prestige, I am not compensated with a salary. all this is to say that I'll be getting poor. or poorer, rather. I hope that my descent further into poverty will be enjoyable to observe.

I would also like to announce the opening of a new campus for the first church of dirt. the second church of dirt? how about first church of dirt east? keeping with the theme of mooching on family, the property for the new campus is owned by my parents. it's just a little over four miles from the first first church of dirt by paved road, and slightly further by river. let's hope for some friendly rivalry between the two, hey?

more details to follow, but there should be a lot more to post about in the coming months. you can look forward to learning about our shitting arrangements, for example. also, there's a good chance that the first church of dirt will begin holding weekly services in the near future. I do hope you'll join us.

life in paradise.jpg

(www.xfamily.org)

Posted By reverend tel At 7:48 AM • Comments (1)

Saturday, June 05, 2010

the conqueror

folks, the first church of dirt is now selling worm bins. if you like, think of them as alters to Äkräs, the Finnish god of fertility and protector of plants. or think of them as boxes full of worms and rotting food.

worm bins are great for folks living in apartments who likely don't have chickens or pigs to feed kitchen scraps to. keeping worms allows some good contact with healthy and dirty life that is often missing from urban homes.

but worm bins are typically either rather expensive or a lot of trouble to maintain. we at the first church of dirt don't believe things should be expensive or troubling. so some intellectual property was abused and an easy and more affordable option resulted.

worms bin.jpg

we're selling a three-tray bin for $40, just about half the price of the model we ripped off. extra trays are $5 each. still not chump change for most folks, but a lot better. it's fine to stack up to ten trays on these things, but more than about seven can be difficult to work with.

if you would rather build your own, it will probably cost you about $35 for materials for a three-tray bin. you'll need:

five deep propagation flats.
a plastic spigot.
a drill and bit to make a hole for the spigot.
something to seal the base.
something for a lid.
a few small nuts and bolts to build the base.

all that's pretty readily available at your local hardware store, except for the propagation flats, which you'll probably have to order over the internets. I bought some HDPE sheets and some silicone caulk to seal the base. the lid is made of 1/4" plywood cut to 14" square and treated with several coats of shellac, though there are probably better ways to seal it. a short section of wood dowel was screwed to the lid for a handle.

you'll also need some worms and bedding. hardware stores and garden stores sometimes sell worms (red wigglers, not night crawlers) and you'll make bedding out of something on hand: newspaper, shredded confidential documents, old dry leaves. an internet search for "worm composting" will yield all the instructions you need.

so build it. or, if you're in or near Seattle or Portland, buy one from the first church of dirt. either way, on the off chance that he actually exists, Äkräs will certainly be pleased.

conquerer worm.jpg

Posted By reverend tel At 8:47 AM • Comments (0)

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

hereafter

the first church of dirt is confident that you do not know what will become of you after you die. you may have some plans, but which Better Business Bureau are you going to complain to if your reservations for the streets of gold aren't honored? don't feel bad, though: the first church of dirt doesn't know what will happen, either.

however, it's a good idea to assume that what happens won't be terribly interesting. basically: don't count on getting any second chances to tell your dead friends and family anything. likewise, don't count on your eleventh hour repenting to absolve you of all the nastiness you're responsible for.

what I'm trying to say is this: get your shit done now. spend time with the folks you love. spend time loving the folks you love. love some dirt while you're at it. eat more grapes. if you have to cut some other things out of your life to make time for these things, do it.

or go ahead and fall back on your plan to be reincarnated as a beluga whale. your call.

oh hi, beluga.jpg

Posted By reverend tel At 6:43 PM • Comments (0)

Saturday, May 01, 2010

juhla

hyvää vappua. and please remember: sima is not the same as Zima.
Posted By reverend tel At 6:35 AM • Comments (1)

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

errata

And to the man He said, "Because you listened to your wife, and you ate from the tree from which I commanded you saying, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed be the ground for your sake; with toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. And it will cause thorns and thistles to grow for you, and you shall eat the herbs of the field. With the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, until you return to the ground, for you were taken therefrom, for dust you are, and to dust you will return.
Bereishit 3:17-19, Torah

oh, dear. where to start? let's ignore the justification of misogyny for the time being and focus on the dirty parts.

I'm guessing this little gem of scripture was written to explain why growing food is so unpleasant. and I suppose that if a person is prone to believe in petty gods and conniving snakes, it could accomplish that goal reasonably well.

trouble is, the assumption underlying the whole thing (that nobody likes to garden or farm or forage or hunt or et cetera and that all those things are difficult) doesn't reflect reality very well.

how about a quick example: my sister took some cuttings from a couple of grape vines last year. she stuck them in some dirt where she wanted to grow more grapes. a couple of months passed, and the cuttings started to grow. this year, they'll probably make a few grapes. next year, they'll make more grapes. and so on for the next two hundred years or so, assuming nobody digs them up (cutting them down wouldn't be enough to kill them). I'm guessing it took Hillary about a minute and a half to plant those things. it takes me about two seconds to break off a bunch of grapes when they're ripe. and they are so very delicious. there is nothing sweaty or toilsome about any part of this process. there is only tasty ease.

up river, at my parents' place, there are many mature American chestnut (Castanea dentata) trees. hundreds of pounds of healthy carbohydrate drop from the sky every fall in the form of delicious chestnuts. some homesteader a hundred or more years ago (probably going by the surname of Dufer) might have spent a fair chunk of resources obtaining and planting the few original chestnut trees, but they've thrived on neglect since then and multiplied.

you should try Merry Jensen's smoked chestnut gnocchi. I don't think anybody ejaculates gnocchi. that's too bad.

you should try Merry Jensen's smoked chestnut gnocchi. I don't think anybody ejaculates gnocchi. that's too bad.

of course, certain approaches to growing food are less pleasant than others, and us humans have frequently gone about that particular occupation in ways that aren't at all appropriate for the climate or dirt conditions we're saddled with. so maybe this passage is more about passing the buck all the way back to Adam, Eve, Sneaky Snake, and Elohim instead of taking responsibility for fucking up local ecologies. north Africa and southwest Asia can certainly be harsher places than the Pacific Northwest coast of North America, but it seems likely that human activity has made them rather harsher when it could have done quite the opposite (see Geoff Lawton, et alia for modern examples of making good; examples of how not to do it are much easier to find throughout human history in the area).

and how about those thorns and thistles? thorny plants tend toward delicious- and nutritiousness, right? blackberries, for one example. so tasty. and thistles? milk thistle seed (Silybum marianum) is excellent medicine for our livers. I'm not really seeing the problem with thorns and thistles.

as far as the dust-to-dust bit goes, I fully intend and expect to end up as dirt-enriching humus with the roots of some delicious fruit tree wrapped around and cradling my finally tired bones. the only dust involved will be the pollen floating around when all the flowers are in full bloom and folks are enjoying how pleasant and easy growing food is.

I suppose my objections could all stem from a problem with translation. not having access to any Dead Sea Scrolls or the Septuagint, or the linguistic means to make any sense of them, I'm not able to speak to that possibility. instead, I'm going to go ahead and call shenanigans on Moses, or whoever it actually was who first wrote this pablum down. and on all the stooges since then who have repeated it. the ruse is up.

Posted By reverend tel At 7:00 AM • Comments (3)

Thursday, April 01, 2010

lotophagi

time to get wet. you can consider it a baptism of sorts, if you like.

ponds have the potential to produce a much larger amount of food than an equivalent area of terra firma. a wide variety of creatures thrive in and around large and small ponds; some of those creatures are tasty, if you're into that sort of thing. there are also a large number of plants suitable for growing in and around small and large ponds. the most productive pond would have a full complement of diverse plants and animals, but for now let's stick to one particularly nice pond-dweller that the pious would do well to cultivate: water lotus.

800px-Nelumno_nucifera_open_flower_-_botanic_garden_adelaide2[1].jpg

800px-Nelumno_nucifera_open_flower_-_botanic_garden_adelaide2[1].jpg

(wikipedia)

actually, we'll talk about two species, but they're very similar. Nelumbo nucifera, the sacred lotus, and Nelumbo lutea, American lotus.

the common name, sacred lotus, might tip you off that the first church of dirt is not the first to have a fondness for this plant. Vishnu and Brahma and some of their contemporaries sat on lotus flowers, or had them sprouting from their bellies or eyeballs or held them. so, Hindus like the lotus. Jains do, too.

Buddha frequently hangs around on lotus flowers. I don't know if the flowers these folks sit on are huge, or if Asian deities are real little. those sluts for religion, the Bahá'í, went so far as to build a Lotus Temple in Bahapur, India. that lotus is huge.

at the first church of dirt, we don't sit on a lotus very often, and lotus flowers don't sprout in our footsteps, and we don't have any lotus-inspired temples. we just like to grow lotus and eat lotus and look at lotus and isn't it a handsome plant?

Nelumbo lutea blossom.jpeg

(wikipedia)

they're easy enough to grow: scarify the seeds with some sort of file if you've got one. a nail file works in a pinch. so does sandpaper. you've got to file through the seed coat until you can just see a little bit of white. too much and you'll damage the embryo, but it's pretty resilient. then drop it in a glass of water and wait for it to sprout. if the water gets cloudy, change it. seeds should take anywhere from one to two weeks to germinate and they're adorable when they do. a couple of notes: consecrating your file before scarification and sprouting the seed in holy water are both acceptable, but not required.

IMG_0079[1].JPG

(took this one myself, actually)

there's enough good magic in the seed to get the new plant through about thirty days in just water, but you'll be better off planting it earlier than that. you can also direct seed in the permanent position after scarifying if you're not one to get googly-eyed for an infant lotus. but what's wrong with you? either way, setting a rock on top of the seed will keep it from floating away. a couple inches of water is enough and it's probably best to keep it shallower than two feet. lotus can grow in six feet of water or more, but they tend to creep there from established plants instead of starting deep as seedlings. some folks grow them in kiddie pools just fine, too.

being a considerate companion, lotus will not want to blow your mind all at once, so the first year you'll just get leaves. if you put it in a nice sunny spot, you'll be rewarded with flowers in the second or third year. and the flowers are great: to attract pollinating insects and pint-sized gods, they keep their temperature right around 90° Fahrenheit, even if the ambient air temperature is much colder. nice.

American lotus is quite a bit hardier than most sacred lotus, but they'll both do fine so long as the bottom of the pond they're in doesn't freeze. if you think it might freeze that deep, it's best to bring them someplace protected for the winter. either plant them in a container you can move, or dig up the root and put it in some mud in a cool place. there's a subspecies of sacred lotus, N. nucifera komarovii, from northeast Russia that's maybe a little bit hardier than the American lotus, to -43° Fahrenheit. it just needs 110 days with temperatures above freezing.

LotusRoot[1].JPG

(stole this image from here)

but I do prattle on. I won't bother you with the details, but roughly every part of this plant is edible, but take it easy or you may live to be a thousand years old. the root is the most commonly-eaten part. recipes are easy to find. if you do plan on eating your lotus, be sure the water it grows in is pure, both spiritually and actually, or the lotus will concentrate whatever nastiness is present.

lotus is also good medicine (no surprise there), but the first church of dirt is not yet familiar with the specifics.

we buy lotus seeds from Horizon Herbs, but I'm sure there are other places to find them. if you're filthy rich, you can buy a mature plant at a nursery, but I'll cut your time in purgatory down substantially if you donate your fortune to the first church of dirt instead. and I'll even throw in some lotus seedlings.

so go on, join the ranks of the lotophagi* in holy communion with lotus (take your cellular telephone out of your pocket first. for cell phones, dropping in a pond is like seeing the face of Yahweh: blows their little e-lectronic minds).

*the Lotus-eaters of the Odyssey were eating a different lotus. it's a common name for a bunch of unrelated plants, and Odysseus was apparently in too much of a hurry to leave to specify which plant it was. not such an ethnobotanist, Odysseus.

Posted By reverend tel At 10:28 AM • Comments (2)

Sunday, March 14, 2010

veneration

think of some root crops.

beets
potatoes
parsnips
rutabagas
radishes
yams
carrots

those are all good, tasty plants. the roots we're interested in, however, are not quite so familiar. perhaps they're a bit more unusual. please, don't be frightened.

Stachys affinis - crosne du Japon, Chinese artichoke, chorogi, artichoke betony, knotroot.
wichity grubs.BMP

yes, they look like wichetty grubs, which may also be good food. they're crunchy, though, not squishy like a grub. tasty raw or cooked, this is a very easy to grow and quite productive plant. not easy to get rid of, though, so careful where you put it.

next up: Helianthus tuberosus, Jerusalem artichoke, sunchoke, sunroot, earth apple, topinambur.

this one's gaining popularity, so you may be familiar with it already. also very productive and difficult to get rid of. there's a liquor made of sunroot called Rossler. sounds vile to me, but sunchokes taste good. they sweeten up significantly after frost, but the sugar involved is inulin. this is good for diabetic folks, as humans aren't able to digest inulin, so it doesn't contribute to blood glucose.

one more: Apios americana, the groundnut (or potato bean, hopniss, Indian potato, hog potato).

groundnuts are nitrogen-fixing legumes. the tubers grow at intervals along roots and they're both tasty and abundantly produced. groundnut seeds and seed pods are also a good source of protein, though not produced in large quantities. there are a couple of universities with groundnut breeding programs and their improved varieties are sometimes available to purchase.

all of these plants are reliably perennial and have compatible requirements. about all they're picky about is moist, well-drained soil and being in a relatively sunny spot. they'll all grow in poor dirt, and are pretty flexible with pH. the crosne is the least hardy: to zone 5.

so why not plant them all together? planted in a large pot for the city-dwellers, or right in the ground if you've got access, these three together* comprise a suitable shrine to dirt. the crosne provides a high groundcover, the sunchokes form a higher canopy, and the groundnut enriches the soil and climbs up the sunchokes.

together, they will remind us to respect dirt and the mysteries it hides. and, given periodic offerings of clean water, your shrine will provide an abundant harvest to share with those around you.

*substitutions and additions are just fine, but do take into consideration growth habits. replacing sunchokes (your scaffold for the groundnuts) with another climber such as mashua or a yam, for example, wouldn't be ideal.

Posted By reverend tel At 8:14 AM • Comments (0)

Saturday, March 06, 2010

seeking

has ritual cannibalism got you down? maybe you're tired of praying all the god damned time? perhaps you fancy being composted instead of being picked apart by vultures. do you find the weight of your uncut hair oppressive? do you find that fasting isn't any fun at all? would you prefer to keep the genitals of your male children free of undue attention? are you tired of your dead ancestors consistently refusing to eat the elaborate meals you prepare for them?*

well, folks, I've got some good news. being a part of the first church of dirt is so very much easier than all of that. all you have to do is be considerate of dirt. hopefully that will lead to some more tangible action, but you don't have to worry yourself with that just yet. so how about it? it's easy to get your hands dirty, why not get your soul dirty?

if you're into dirt but also want to keep up the funny stuff from your current or previous religious affiliation, well, dirt isn't jealous: feel free to practice religion polyamory.

*have I left out your favorite nutty religious practice? sorry. there are so many, you know?

Posted By reverend tel At 12:22 PM • Comments (2)

Saturday, February 20, 2010

building the temple

I will give in the wilderness the cedar, acacia, myrtle, and oleaster; I will set in the desert the cypress, pine, and box-tree together;
Isaiah 41:19 Darby Bible

we, the faithful, are obligated to care for dirt, but we have not been left without the means to do so. the oleaster family, the Elaeagnaceae, are powerful allies in this task.

these plants grow well in a wide variety of soils and climates. many are quite drought tolerant. some are tolerant of saline conditions. through holy symbiosis with actinomycetes of the genus Frankia, oleasters fix atmospheric nitrogen, thereby enriching the dirt in which they grow.

these attributes recommend the Elaeagnaceae for interplanting with fruit and nut trees. in such a setting, they increase food production and decrease the time before first cropping. planted in saline conditions, appropriate oleasters will add organic material to dirt, allowing other plants to thrive and produce food on land that might otherwise be barren.

further, many oleasters provide delicious and nutritious fruit. these fruits are rich sources of vitamins and minerals, including vitamins A, C, and E, and the recently revered carotenoid pigment lycopene, among many others.

oleaster flowers are of benefit to many of our insect allies, including the beloved parasitoid wasps. a few species flower in the Autumn and mature fruit in the Spring, providing much needed nectar for the bugs late in the year and much needed fresh fruit for us early in the year.

armed with formidable thorns, oleasters are a good choice to include in a dense hedge.

for all these reasons, plants of the Elaeagnaceae occupy an important place in many food forests, the holy temples of dirt. they are truly a great boon.

here are a few of the oleasters growing at the pikkumaatila, home of the first church of dirt:

Elaeagnus umbellata, the Autumn olive
Elaeagnus pungens, silverberry
Elaeagnus multiflora, goumi
Hippophae rhamnoides, sea buckthorn

goumi bears, bouncing here and there and everywhere

goumi bears, bouncing here and there and everywhere

(photograph taken from wikipedia)

an incomplete list of plant species growing at the pikkumaatila can be found here.

Posted By reverend tel At 7:21 PM • Comments (0)

Monday, February 15, 2010

cinema

on March 6, the SIFF Cinema is screening the film dirt! free of charge as part of the Independent Television Service Community Cinema series. it behooves the pious in Seattle and thereabouts to attend.
Posted By reverend tel At 4:01 PM • Comments (3)

offering

in order to better serve the cause of dirt, this church must frequently rely on the generosity of the community. such is the nature of our earthly ministry. but such generosity needn't go unrewarded. please take note of some items we need and help us fill the collection basket.

also, you may have noticed some changes we made to the website recently. the church was finally able to acquire a sacred symbol of our holy dirt and we would, quite naturally, like to show it off.

also, we're calling the weblog "clods" now. you know, like dirt clods. or stupid people. added a couple new links as well. any objections should be voiced at the next congregational meeting.

Posted By reverend tel At 11:56 AM • Comments (0)

Thursday, December 31, 2009

augury

as adherents of the first church of dirt, it is our duty to attempt ritual purity at all times. it is understood that the perfection of this task is not plausible during the present Kali Yuga^*, but the attempt is still required. we are, however, not alone in this task: consult the augur, who will take the auspices on your behalf and reveal occulted sources of bodily pollution to you. do not take for granted such mundane substances as the water you drink. even activities fundamental as interpersonal communication are demonstrated to originate vile filth. the balms and lotions that soften your skin also profane the temple of your body with foul contaminants. success is not guaranteed, but vigilance will be rewarded.

^*"Kali Yuga" as used here refers to the toxic environment we currently inhabit, not to the 432,000 years beginning on February 18, 3102 BCE. apologies for any confusion.

Posted By reverend tel At 6:09 PM • Comments (0)

Monday, December 28, 2009

service

what follows is an untimely public service announcement:

folks, don't hyperventilate before you dive into some water. you're liable to give yourself some hypocapnia followed by hypoxia followed by syncope followed by you drown and you're dead. in vernacular, that's a shallow water blackout we're trying to avoid. seriously, don't drown.

if you're wondering what this has to do with dirt, well, I'll tell you when you're older.

Posted By reverend tel At 6:19 PM • Comments (1)

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

false prophets

the United Nations Environment Programme recently issued a press release about a report by UNEP's International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management called Assessing Biofuels. the report largely concerns the climate impacts of various biofuels but also covers impacts on water quality and quantity and biodiversity.

I haven't finished reading the full report just yet (the press release is rather more concise than the whole report, but if that's still too long for you, this article gives a shorter summary), but I believe it boils down to this: biofuels aren't so great as folks seem to think.

clearing and draining tropical peat forests to plant oil palms (Elaeis oleifera and E. guineensis) is the worst practice the report mentions, saying it creates 2000% more greenhouse gases than using fossil energy would. clearing any land for fuel crops is obviously a pretty stupid idea (this is being done, by the way, and at an alarming rate, in Indonesia, Brazil, and elsewhere). the other option for growing fuel crops is to use existing farmland, thereby displacing food crops. also probably not a good idea, given our planet's rapidly increasing human population and that population's rapidly increasing appetite for land-intensive animal foods.

the report points out a number of other problems resulting from production of biofuels that have not been evaluated as extensively as greenhouse gas emissions. these include acidification and eutrophication of water, toxicity potential, smog creation, ozone depletion, abiotic resource depletion, and impacts on biodiversity. many of these are linked to agricultural practices used to grow fuel crops.

agricultural and industrial wastes and residues are also examined as possible feedstocks for biofuel operations. these options fare better from a greenhouse gas perspective, but they are also not without negative consequences.

the picture I get from this report isn't so much about biofuels, though, as it is about folks. affluent folks the world over are slowly becoming aware that their consumption has many extremely negative consequences. instead of changing their way of life in any substantive way, however, these folks are seeking technological fixes. this is unfortunate. switching the fuel used to power always-accelerating and rampantly destructive economies will not solve our problems. it will exacerbate existing problems and create new problems. dirt, along with the life it supports, will suffer.

Posted By reverend tel At 12:16 PM • Comments (0)

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

evil

you are most likely familiar with the phrase "money is the root of all evil". it's from the Christian bible. specifically the First Epistle to Timothy, chapter six, verse ten:

For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

that's the King James Version of the Christian bible, in case you're curious.

7-4Time[1].jpg

whoever it was writing to Timothy (Paul? Polycarp? the pneuma?) seems to have gotten it backwards. the truncated malapropism most of us are familiar with is likewise mixed up: money, or the love of it, isn't the root of evil. rather, it seems to this church, evil is the root of money and greed. or maybe neither caused the other; they just happen to make a really good team.

how about some multimedia? this video is a decent primer on some major issues with the modern monetary system. it's a bit cutesy and of course a gross simplification, but a decent primer. pay special attention to the importance of exponential growth. if you've got the slightly longer attention span for it, there's also sort of a sequel (learn some Finnish while you watch!). if you're up for some, uh, light reading on the topic, The Lost Science of Money isn't a bad place to start. if your local library doesn't have it, they can almost certainly track a copy down and get it to you through an interlibrary loan.

those animations and book only address them briefly, but the negative social, health, and environmental consequences resulting inevitably from the modern money system are relatively well documented, if not well known or acknowledged. this church is concerned, first and foremost, with the impact of the prevailing money system on dirt. that impact is too vast to adequately elaborate here, so a very brief summary will have to do: in order to function, the money system requires an always increasing rate of consumption of finite resources. that consumption necessarily harms dirt and at an always increasing rate. for such a system to continue indefinitely is an impossibility. to believe otherwise is folly. to accept the truth but do nothing to change things is a selfishness that future generations will not and should not forgive.

but do not despair; there are alternatives. for today, we'll limit ourselves to discussion of the evil status quo, but take comfort in the knowledge that there are ways out. there are people who can help. whether you notice them or not, they are all around you.

Posted By reverend tel At 6:12 PM • Comments (0)

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

foreign lands

I have returned safely from my travels amongst the infidels of New York City. sadly, said unbelievers did not prove particularly receptive to the dirty truth.

a few of them put on a great play, though. being entirely unqualified to write an actual review of a stage performance, I will simply say that I enjoyed "The Mustard Seed" and I look forward to future work by Chris and Alvin and the rest of the Gadfly gang (careful with that link: the reverend nature of the posterior you may encounter doesn't improve the view).

as for the city itself, well, I have mixed feelings. it was, despite warnings to the contrary, a fairly excellent place to travel by one of the church's preferred means: Carrie Sue's old bicycle. the pedestrians weren't particularly mindful, and double-parking is alarmingly common even in the middle of Manhattan, but in my six days riding, the closest I came to disaster was on a leafy pedestrian/bicycle path at the north end of Riverside Park with nary an automobile in sight.

Central Park did not impress. it is amazing that somebody had the foresight to set aside such a large piece of land in the middle of such a densely built metropolitan area, but it seemed oddly sterile to me. I certainly don't approve of most of the plant choices, but that's true of exactly every public park I've ever been to. it just seems a shame that in such a very large park visited by so very many people that the only edible plants are there by accident (weeds) or for strictly ornamental purposes. the oaks and lindens certainly make an immense amount of food, but not the kind that is likely to be used by any but the savviest visitors. however, I did have some fun there:

Mustard Seed 017.JPG

that is, if it isn't otherwise clear, a minister of the first church of dirt jumping out of a tree into a pile of leaves. other tree-climbers not pictured: Jon, Chris, and Maria. Maria runs Curio Confections, a small business you should patronize. immediately. Jon puts out fires but refuses to save kittens from trees. Chris drinks wine and sodomizes ~~consenting females and also~~ knot-holes, which can't consent.

not much else to say about New York City, really. it is what it is. I'm sure excellent things and awful things go on there that are invisible to the casual visitor.

traveling by train once again proved to be fairly interesting. a sample of folks I met: a fellow who showed me the intricate art he had previously scalpeled into his chest and stomach; a young man moving from Maine back to Marysville, Washington due to his family's destitution; several drunks; and a generous fellow from Minneapolis who left me, among less interesting things, some Chicken of the Sea smoked oysters in oil and some delicious chili lime almonds. I saw a lot of country. I read some books. I ate some chili lime almonds. folks don't give away chili lime almonds on airplanes. folks don't abandon their scotch and sodas in the lounge car for you to drink on airplanes, either. do airplanes even have lounge cars? also, it was a free trip courtesy of Amtrak's Guest Rewards program. sign up for their credit card and you'll get enough points for five free train trips from Seattle to Portland. the first church of dirt does not generally condone the existence of consumer credit, but hey: free train rides.

Posted By reverend tel At 2:17 PM • Comments (0)

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

high holidays

the holiday season is finally here. it's time, at last, to celebrate D.B. Cooper Day.

DB_Cooper_Wanted_Poster[1].jpg

November 24, 1971. carrying $200,000 Dan Cooper jumped out of a Northwest Orient Boeing 727 at the very moment it passed over the first church of dirt. Dan no longer graces us with his presence, but he left some things behind to help us remember.

ten-thousand twenty-dollar bills
aeronautical innovation
stories

if you're reading this too late to arrange a proper celebration today, do not fear. for the convenience of pious pilgrims, D.B. Cooper Day is observed the Saturday after Thanksgiving at the Ariel shrine.

whether you choose to celebrate today or Saturday, at home or at Ariel, please include the appropriate hymn and text.

Posted By reverend tel At 7:48 AM • Comments (0)

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

sacrament

I think it's high time we sat down for a serious talk about strawberries.

let us assume that you are not one of the three people ever who doesn't like strawberries and that you are likewise not allergic to strawberries. you want some strawberries. this is good. eating strawberries is an important sacrament at the first church of dirt and one of the easiest to participate in. however, it is not well-known among the laity that a hierarchy exists among various strawberries' appropriateness for inclusion in this sacrament.

at the bottom of that hierarchy, the least appropriate, we've got strawberries that look like this:

a pile of strawberries

so delicious, right? wrong. the species is Fragaria x ananassa, the variety is Chandler or another mass market cultivar, they were grown in California, they are most likely contaminated with both pesticides and herbicides harmful to health. perhaps most importantly, they aren't ripe so they don't taste good. these are the strawberries available at grocery stores. commercial strawberries are bred primarily for their ability to maintain a good appearance during extensive shipping; taste barely enters the equation. as these are the only strawberries a large percentage of folks have ever tasted, it's a surprise that so many still like strawberries.

one small step up, commercial strawberries also come in an USDA-certified organic version. these are better than conventionally-grown strawberries, but only because they lack the high levels of toxic chemical residue and the pollution associated with it. this is not inconsequential, but the resource intensive growing, transporting, and marketing is equivalent and sometimes worse than strawberries not labeled organic. they, like the above, were probably grown in a field that looked like this:

plasticulture strawberry field

each year, the plants are replaced, requiring soil-damaging tillage and new plastic mulch.

better by far than the previous two options^* are locally grown strawberries. they will most likely still be garden strawberries (Fragaria x ananassa), but the variety will be something like Tristar or Seascape or any of a large number of other excellent options. being the same species, or the same cross of two species, these strawberries are very similar in appearance to commercial strawberries. but, being produced for local consumption, the focus of breeding will have been flavor instead of appearance and long-keeping. whereas commercial strawberries really need brown sugar and sour cream to be palatable, local strawberries taste like they've got the sugar already on them. whether these are grown at home, picked at a u-pick farm, or purchased from a small farm or farmer's market, they will be very satisfying.

the garden strawberry's main drawback is the short length of it's productive life: two or three years at best. this requires pretty near constant replacement of plants. extra work, yes, but more importantly: extra tillage. frequent disturbance has many negative effects on dirt, and so should be avoided.

the solution is a strawberry with a much longer productive life, the woodland or alpine strawberry (Fragaria vesca):

Fragaria vesca close-up

plants sometimes weaken after a few years, but this is avoided if simple steps are taken to maintain soil fertility. alpine strawberries do suffer from small size, but make up for it in taste: more delicious than even the best garden strawberries.

even tastier than alpine strawberries are musk strawberries (Fragaria moschata):

Fragaria moschata close-up

an adequate description of the taste is beyond me, but they are incredible. similarly long-lived, musk strawberries are day-length sensitive: they produce a brief (but heavy) crop in June into July (in the Northern hemisphere) and sometimes another in the fall. while garden strawberries are completely spent after three years, musk strawberries are much more productive from the third year on. they're also much easier to pick. the berries are borne in clusters on flowering stalks rather than singly and often hidden under leaves like garden strawberries. musk strawberries do require two varieties for pollination, though, but that's not such a very big problem. both musk and alpine strawberries produce well in shade or sun. deep forest shade won't do, but bright shade is sufficient.

one other possibility is the strawberry native to the first church of dirt's neighborhood, the beach strawberry (Fragaria chiloensis):

Fragaria chiloensis close-up

while collecting strawberries from wild plants enhances the sacrament tremendously, this species is also widely used in private and public landscaping. unfortunately, these plants produce only a very few of their excellent berries in a season.

these four options are all appropriate for the strawberry sacrament. a commonly cited drawback is actually an asset: they do not age well. the quality of the strawberry experience is greatly and quickly diminished by time from harvest. ideally less than five seconds from harvest to mouth, this time should be kept under an hour. processing the strawberries is one exception, but that is an entirely different sacrament and will be dealt with at another time.

*the strawberries discussed from this point onward are suitable for the sacrament. there exist other suitable species that are not mentioned, but they are quite rare.

Posted By reverend tel At 4:23 PM • Comments (0)

Friday, October 23, 2009

home

gadfly theatre company would also like to give you a tour of the church's neighborhood:
Posted By reverend tel At 7:29 PM • Comments (0)


All WordsAny WordsPhrase