Coming out of the heat wave, the morning was cool, and the breeze took the dew from the grass. It was quiet, silent, except for the hen announcing her egg. The dog skirted the pond, stopping abruptly where she knew the black snake sunned. They have a relationship. Each morning she checks in with the snake. She used to bark at it, but now they are too familiar. She’s happy enough to approach it and force it into the water. Good excitement. On to the knoll, where she can see if the deer are approaching the greenhouse.

I took a moment to climb the grassland hill and check on the mustard. I planted the brassica as a cover-crop on the garlic field. The seed has sprouted well. The last tilling removed most of the thistle. A good, one-inch rain every fourth day is all we need. I am thinking of taking up the latest bags of cleaned-up chicken manure and spreading them by hand, with the attendant wood chips, on part of the field as an experiment. I don’t think the manure will be heavy enough to burn the young plants. At least not many of them. The seeding was thick. Yellow mustard brassica is part of the cabbage family which includes Brussel sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, etc. I hope the mustard has enough time to mature to yellow flowers. Then, before it goes to seed, I will brush hog it, till it under and compress it. The decomposition of the mustard not only provides a green manure, but it also fumigates the soil, and this is what I am looking for after having lost so much of my crop to pathogens.

The grasshoppers were thick in the field. They jumped on everything as a made my way. They opened a path. Butterflies were numerous as confetti. I would think with the insect life vibrant in the grass, birds would be right behind. But nothing. Not a bird in sight. Except for the wings of the grasshoppers, the world was soundless. Where are the birds? Last year, the flocks were weak, this year there are NO FLOCKS AT ALL. The void is ominous. The migrations should be visible. Our own fields yielded a few nests here and there, but the bird counts were low and they, apparently, have fled. A family of gold finches near the fence line is not enough to dispel the eerie gloom of a silent fall.

Industry propels our society. On the local level, we see we can do little-to-nothing about it. We have not developed a solar utility in our industrial zones. Every warehouse should have solar panels on the roof, end to end, and in the parking lots, solar panels should equal the acreage of blacktop, and all the energy should be linked into a utility to benefit the town’s population. It’s simple enough to accomplish. Just takes vision and desire and good planning. We give away taxable “improvements” in the form of PILOTS (payments in lieu of taxes) to industries moving into town but get nothing in return. How much energy could a 27-acre warehouse roof like Medline’s be producing for the town? That one warehouse roof, if equipped with the right equipment, could right now be producing enough energy to power 843 homes. Putting solar panels over the parking lots of Medline would have powered another 1000 homes. Neeleytown Road, one of the town’s industrial zones, could be providing free power to all town residents. A shocking thought.

The Earth is being crushed. Even with the Covid slow down, and recent efforts to convert our conveyor belt of production to more earth-friendly consumptions, estimates are the hydrocarbon industry with produce a record breaking 101 million barrels of oil per day in the year 2022 -- next year. Our own country will remain the single largest producer of hydrocarbons per day on the planet.

Where is the comprehensive study linking the right upward sloping hydrocarbon production graph to the declining bird population chart? There is no such study. Fast forward on all cylinders. The grasshoppers fiddle.