Ep 183. Honorable Harvest - Downsize and Do Over

Mary Stone describes the last of her late-season garden bounty and reflects on the guidelines of an Honorable Harvest, referencing the Native American tradition as outlined by Robin Wall Kimmerer's book Braiding Sweetgrass.

A humorous bounceback about the Birds and Bees of Zucchini leads to Mary Stone's sharing a personal story (Downsize and Do-Over) from her book underway (The Lesson of the Leaf), the impact of addiction on her marriage, and the pivotal moments that imparted change that involved her golden retriever Sara; her faithful four paws.

She reflects on healing and the importance of letting go of shame and embracing forgiveness and thankfulness for the gifts of life, family, friends, and nature's bounty.

Thank you for tuning in!
 
Links to related Episodes and Blog Posts:

An Honorable Harvest 

Lessons from Braiding Sweetgrass – Blog Post

Ep 165. Lessons from Braiding Sweetgrass

Ep 181. Don't Be a Fig Pig - Give a Fig

Birds & Bees of Zucchini Flowers – Blog Post

Ep 02. Field of Clover - The Birds and Bees of Zucchini

I'd love to hear your garden and nature stories and your thoughts about topics for future podcast episodes. You can email me at AskMaryStone@gmail.com.

You can Follow Garden Dilemmas on Facebook and Instagram #MaryElaineStone.
Episode web page —Garden Dilemmas Podcast Page

Thank you for sharing the Garden of Life,
Mary Stone, Columnist & Garden Designer
                                        AskMaryStone.com  

More about the Podcast and Column:

Welcome to Garden Dilemmas, Delights, and Discoveries.

It's not only about gardens; it's about nature's inspirations, about grasping the glories of the world around us, gathering what we learned from mother nature, and carrying these lessons into our garden of life. So, let's jump in in the spirit of learning from each other. We have lots to talk about.

Thanks for tuning in, Mary Stone
Garden Dilemmas? AskMaryStone.com
Direct Link to Podcast Page

Transcript

Ep 183 Honorable Harvest - Downsize Do-over

Keywords
garden dilemmas, nature's lessons, hard frost, silver maples, honorable harvest, green tomatoes, sweet grass, indigenous wisdom, renewable energy, downsize do-over, binge drinking, addiction struggles, Thanksgiving gratitude, screen porch, garden bounty
Speakers
Mary (100%)
MS
Mary Stone
0:00
Hello, fellow lovers of all things green. I'm Mary stone, and welcome to garden dilemmas, delights, and discoveries. It's not only about gardens. It's about nature's inspirations, about grasping the glories of the world around us, gathering what we learn from Mother Nature, and carrying these lessons into our garden of life. So let's jump in, the spirit of learning from each other, we have lots to talk about. 
MS
Mary Stone
0:26
Hello there. It's Mary stone on the screen porch. Welcome to a very cold screen porch. The Fall chill is back, and I have to say that warm weather anomaly turned into our first hard frost. Last night, I woke up to 28 degrees, and as you would guess, I didn't sleep on the screen porch as much as I loved to. And I'm sure during spells of warm weather in the winter, I will be out here again. I appreciate those who reached back after the last episode - Silver Maples - Pushing Hands of Peace. A special thanks to Marlene and Chris, who shared that the trees along the roadsides in Cape May were Silver Poplar, not Silver Maple, as I had thought. We have much to learn in the Garden of Life, and I am grateful, kind listeners, for all you continue to share.
MS
Mary Stone
1:14
In the Don't Be a Fig Pig- Give a Fig, Episode 181, we spoke about not taking what isn't ours to take and if we could add not taking more than you need. The Native Americans thanked God for the plants and the animals that provided food. Everything was used, the pelts and the bones, but they also had a moment of sorrow for the animal whose life was given, leading to the story about an Honorable Harvest sent to The Press a few weeks ago, before our first hard frost. And it starts like this. 
MS
Mary Stone
1:47
Hello, fellow lovers of all things geen, Nights are dipping to freezing, although we haven't had our first hard frost yet. Bell peppers and young zucchini are still in the garden. Having had only one zucchini this growing season, despite two planting cycles, I am wishful that the baby zucchinis will mature enough to eat. And there are green tomatoes left on the vines. Each day, I check to see if there is a color shift. When tomatoes turn lighter and have a gel-like substance inside, two growth hormones change and cause the production of ethylene gas, which ages the cells, resulting in ripening. Then you can ripen them indoors. But if the baby zucchini don't mature, or only green tomatoes remain (I am not a fan of fried green tomatoes, although I adore the movie,) I'll open the netting before tidying things up and invite the deer and other animals to dine. Sharing the bounty during the growing season is a routine, too, by tossing green beans into the yard too mature for my taste or tomatoes pecked by our feathered friends or nibbled by insects. 
MS
Mary Stone
2:53
Native Americans believed in the honorable harvest, as Robin Wall Kimmerer, the author of Braiding Sweetgrass, eloquently describes. Dr Kimmerer, Associate Professor of Environmental and Forest Biology at the State University of New York, combines her heritage as a Potawatomi with her passion for science and the environment. Hence the subtitle of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom scientific knowledge and the teaching of plants. 
MS
Mary Stone
3:24
Sweet Grass, the botanical name Hierochloe meaning holy grass, odorata, meaning fragrant, is native to North America. It is part of Native American rituals and healing braiding. Sweet Grass is a metaphor for respecting and being grateful for our earth and the interconnection of all living things. we've shared lessons from Braiding Sweet Grass in episode 165 when we spoke about Restoring our Dear Earth. There are so many other treasures and wisdoms in her book, it's really one of my favorites. 
MS
Mary Stone
3:58
Kimmerer lists the guidelines for the honorable harvest. Though our indigenous peoples did not write or regularly speak them, they are reinforced in small acts of daily life. But if you were to list them, they may look something like this. Know the ways of the ones who take care of you so that you can take care of them. Introduce yourself being accountable as the one who comes asking for life, ask permission before taking, abide by the answer. And what she means by that is, if you're out hunting and you look at a deer that you intend to harvest, ask if you can and get the energy; if maybe you shouldn't, maybe there's a baby nearby. 
MS
Mary Stone
4:42
Later in the section, I adore how she used the example that as a child, you'd thank your grandma if she made cookies and offered you a few and wouldn't later go into the pantry and take them all without permission. Kimmerer adds to the list of guidelines: never take the first. Never take the last. Take only what you need. Take only that which is given. Never take more than half. Leave some for others. She goes on to say that harvest is a way that minimizes harm. Use it respectfully. Never waste what you've taken. Share. Give thanks for what you've been given. Give a gift of reciprocity for what you have taken. Sustain the ones who sustain you, and the earth will last forever. 
MS
Mary Stone
5:33
Sustain the ones who sustain you, and the earth will last forever. Powerful words of truth. Robin describes that the dishonorable harvest has become a way of life. We take what doesn't belong to us and destroy it beyond repair: Onondaga Lake, the rain forests of Malaysia, the list is endless. They are gifts from our sweet Grandmother Earth, which we take without asking. How do we find the honorable harvest again? 
MS
Mary Stone
6:02
Throughout her book, there are sentiments of hope, just as I believe we can exercise the wisdom of our ancestors and nurture the land plants and wildlife to ensure a bounty for generations to come. There are initiatives for what we call renewable energy, or clean energy, taking advantage of the wind that blows, the sun that shines, the ocean waves, and the Earth's warmth. But are we doing so without negatively affecting our planet? What about mining minerals to make batteries? And what do we do with the old batteries? Then, there are the dead whales that are washing ashore. The list goes on. 
MS
Mary Stone
6:40
We know tragedies are happening despite our good intentions, yet without answers and solutions, we continue with our heads in the sand, ignoring the impact. May big business and each one of us find the honorable harvest again? It seems overwhelming, but we can start in our backyards. Garden Dilemmas? AskMaryStone.com.
MS
Mary Stone
7:06
A week ago, I picked the baby zucchini, and they were delicious, each about six inches long and an inch wide. A few smaller ones still had blooms on the fruit. I also picked a half a dozen of the green peppers, some of which were mature enough to eat. Others are maybe a little small but still good enough to fry. Plus, a few tomatoes made the color shift. One is ripening ever so slowly. It's such fun to watch. 
MS
Mary Stone
7:32
I removed the netting on two of the three sections of the vegetable garden. And deer have enjoyed their harvest. Last night, I headed up to the garden before the first hard frost to see if other tomatoes made the color shift. There were about eight in varying sizes and shapes, some with wounds I tossed out for the wildlife to enjoy. We'll see if the others ripen. If not, I'll toss them out for them to eat as well. 
MS
Mary Stone
7:58
By the way, did you know that a hard frost, also known as a freeze, happens when the temperatures drop to 28 degrees or below for four hours or more in a row? I also turned off the hose bibs while I was out there draining the water that remained. I don't want to tell you that one time, it did not do that, and it caused some major damage. So it's a good tip for all of us. 
MS
Mary Stone
8:18
As I picked the last of the vegetables, I thanked them for the bounty. May we always live in gratitude. So again, during the summer months, my zucchini were not bearing fruit. I was trying to figure out why and had some theories that, indeed, the humidity of the summer impacted the foliage. There was a lot of evidence of fungus and leaves wilting and so forth. And I also discovered a spring nearby that likely kept the soil too moist. So it's interesting, during the dry spell we've had, and it's been literally two months of time where we've not had appreciable rain. So it's essentially a drought that we're having here and wildfires, which has been very difficult for many farmers. We had a bit of rain on Sunday, but not enough to really turn things around, just enough for the dust to settle. Anyway, it made me think about the Birds and Bees of Zucchini, a story I shared way back in Episode Two. And I just love this story because it was early in my tenure of doing the weekly column in The Press. And there was a woman whose husband pulled over in this black sedan. She came running out, an older lady of Italian descent and asked me about her zucchini that were not bearing fruit. And then she went on to tell me that they were so delicious the flowers, and she was enjoying them, but there was no zucchini. And of course, I'm thinking to myself, well, you have to have flowers in order to have zucchini, so I didn't say that then. But, you know, I asked a few more questions about how she planted them and so forth, and it turned into the column that I do adore the Birds and Bees of Zucchini. So I was revisiting it, trying to figure out again why my zucchini were not bearing fruit.
MS
Mary Stone
9:59
Yeah, so I wanted to say that in the last few episodes, I've shared tidbits of my book underway, The Lesson of the Leaf, and I thought I could share one of the excerpts here, which I'm a little bit hesitant to do because it divulges some secrets about my life that I'm not terribly proud of. But I have healed and grown since then, so I'm just going to do it. I'm going to share a section titled Downsize and Do Over, which has to do with the birds and bees in a way. 
MS
Mary Stone
10:30
Downsize and Do Over. We downsized and moved over to the country, close to the Delaware Water Gap on the Jersey side. The serenity of living on a property buffered by woods and laced with hemlocks is glorious. The beefy brook running through it races like a river after heavy rains and during the spring thaw. Even the cement pond, as we coined it, is a functional buffer to manage the mountain runoff has its charm with a covered footbridge made of refurbished barn wood. The Appalachian Trail is just up the road a piece and is frequented often by my canine kid and me. I'll never forget when we came to consider moving here, when we stumbled upon the Mohican Outdoor Center, part of the Appalachian Mountain Club, thier resident collie met Sara, and the two played like the couple of puppies once did. My landscape and garden design business began to grow, as did our new start-up marketing company, where I served as an account executive, ensuring to clean the dirt from under my fingernails before switching back to my suited role. 
MS
Mary Stone
11:35
But living here amongst the serenity is where the party grew. A few years later, I considered cutting myself with a knife I used to slice peaches a morning after quite a night, a fleeting thought, but it wasn't just one time. There were many times. In a split second, it could happen like it did the night I cut myself with a mat cutter when trying to untangle Sara's knots on her tail. Sara was Sadie's litter mate, my faithful four paws. I cut my finger to the bone. It was an accident. My husband happened to be inside filling up his ice bucket. He was too drunk to drive me for stitches but helped stop the gushing blood with running water in the kitchen sink. The following day was too late for stitches. Butterfly bandages were all they could do. I still have numbness on the tippy top of my index finger. 
MS
Mary Stone
12:30
I'm hurting myself by binge drinking. I confessed one night before the party it was becoming more than an occasional puff of bum smokes. It - I - was out of hand, but partying was the only thing left that we did together. He stopped hiking, skiing, or going out with friends long ago. He resented my friends, other than Marty and Buck, who invested in the new business. Soon after the confession, I stopped my side of the party. He didn't notice for weeks. That's when he migrated to the barn. He no longer joined me for dinner. I'd leave a plate in the fridge topped with a microwave lid. When Sara and I went to bed, it became his intermission. I'd hear the fridge door open, then the ice rattle as he filled his to-go bucket. Sometimes, I listened to the ruckus of a fresh bottle jammed into the ice. The barn had a microwave to heat his dinner. It surprised me that he never added an ice maker to his pot-growing closet. He likely figured he needed to come in for dinner anyway. 
MS
Mary Stone
13:35
Nights were not lonely with my faithful four paws, but I longed to be loved by him. His habits were the priority, not me. Nor having a family, for that matter. I later learned that his habit of smoking weed day after day may have explained the poor swimmers found in fertility checks, which inhibited our ability to have unfuzzy kids. I always imagined having a daughter named Emma, named after my mom. 
MS
Mary Stone
14:03
It was the eve after helping Sarah go home only a week, knowing she had aggressive cancer. I heard him on the phone with my friend and garden design colleague, who knew of our separate lives. She attributed it to him working late hours. He was already buzzed. Marty said I'll have to step up to the plate and start spending time with you. I looked at him as he stared at his computer, a cloud of smoke above his head, the stench of marijuana mixed with stale cigarettes filling the air. You couldn't fill those paws, I said, not in anger or spitefulness, but in truth. 11 years living in the isolation of addiction proved his love was for his indulgences, not for me. It occurred to me I was married to my dog. Sara's goodbye in a magical way, gave me the courage to get off the merry go round, coupled with the arrival of hydroponic equipment for a growing enterprise he tried to smuggle into the barn. I should mention that that was a decade before marijuana was legal in this country. We can make 6000 a month. We could go to jail. My final line in the sand. A recovering alcoholic I met at an Al-Anon meeting shared we alcoholics take prisoners. It never occurred to me till then, I had already done more than enough time. 
MS
Mary Stone
15:33
So, I want to thank you for allowing me to share the tidbits of my book underway. And again, though some of these stories are not something I am proud of, but I am letting go of shame, because shame does not help us, and there is forgiveness in life, as long as we grow and learn from those mistakes, you know. So I invite you to let me know if you want to hear bits of my book ongoing and if you have stories of your own, of journeys in your life you'd like to share. I would love to hear them. You can email me at askmarystone@gmail.com Because together, we are healing and growing in this garden of life, and it means so much to me. And I hope my sharing helps you to think about times in your life you may not be proud of, and the growth that came from it. 
MS
Mary Stone
16:19
And so, fellow listeners, it's Thanksgiving when we give thanks for the gifts of life of family and friends, those here, and those who have passed on. We give thanks for the bounty of food and, shelter and love and for the beauty and lessons of nature. Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving. May we give thanks every day of our lives,.
MS
Mary Stone
16:44
And I thank you again, kind listeners, for joining me each week and for your comments back and your encouragement. It just means so much to me, and I hope more of us will continue to learn and grow in this garden of life by being kind to our Earth and each other. See you next time on the screen porch, hopefully it'll be warmer than today. 
MS
Mary Stone
17:08
You can follow Garden Dilemmas on Facebook or online at Garden Dilemmas.com and on Instagram at hashtag Mary Elaine Stone. Garden Dlemmas Delights and Discoveries is produced by Alex Bartling. Thanks for coming by. I look forward to chatting again from my screen porch and always remember to embrace the unexpected in this garden of life. Have a great day.
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