Concord, an American Bloomsbury

Lidian’s Harp, named after the boundlessly generous and creative woman whose music is rarely heard. Sculpture, bronze and gold leaf, LH

Lidian Emerson was the wife of Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose life is chronicled in Susan Cheever’s delightful book, American Bloomsbury along with Concord friends, Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, and Henry David Thoreau. Cheever writes about their jealousies, passions, hurts, and joys. It’s a fascinating picture of mid-nineteenth century Concord, and the lives of these families who populated its now historical houses; a sweet glimpse into the real lives of these larger-than-life people.

There are lovely moments such as when we see Louisa, a student at Thoreau’s school, floating down the Concord River with Henry — falling in love with a silent schoolgirl crush. We learn of Emerson’s admiration and love for Margaret Fuller, much to the consternation of Lidian, as well as the jealous fury of Hawthorne, who was also in love with Margaret, and modeled his strong women protagonists after Margaret Fuller, not his own wife, Sophia, a talented painter, but whose health was uncertain, the result of mercury administered as treatment for severe headaches when she was a teenager.

The Hawthornes came and went from Concord. They were chased out of Salem after the publication of the ‘scandalous’ book, The Scarlet Letter; and they had to leave the Berkshires for ‘stealing’ the landlord’s apples. But they always returned to Concord, and always with Emerson’s help. Ralph Waldo Emerson was the kingpin of the community — and he financially supported just about everyone, especially the Alcotts who always needed money. Bronson Alcott’s efforts to support his family were often fruitless, (like his experiment in intentional living, Fruitlands).

In Cheever’s portrayal of Concord Bloomsbury, we witness a circle of friends struggling with their health and the daily necessities of life, while at the same time devoted to their art and to each other. What we now call The Transcendentalist Movement can be seen as a medley of casual interactions. No transcending; only a certain self-reliance, a belief in the individual, and a grounding in the reality of everyday life —bird calls, wildflowers, and rent to pay. Some of the friends would go to Europe, or to Washington, but they always came home to Concord. Except Margaret Fuller. After several years in Europe, the first woman foreign correspondent for The New York Tribune, she was sailing on the boat, Elizabeth, to return to her New England roots with an Italian count husband and infant son, when their boat hit a sandbar and sank off of Fire Island, New York. The Concord Bloomsbury group had suffered death and illness before. Waldo, Ralph Waldo and Lidian’s beloved young son died, and the Alcott’s lost their youngest sister; but this was a big shock to the community — the loss of the unstoppable, trailblazing Margaret Fuller.

Thoreau wrote his experimental paean to nature, Walden, as well as the many volumes of writing we treasure today. Sophie Hawthorne and Lidian Emerson put their own artistic and intellectual pursuits aside to take on the more traditional family roles. Louisa May Alcott taught and wrote because it was the one way she could earn money to help feed her family. Apparently, she never wanted to write intimately about her family life, but her father and his publisher friend demanded it — thus we have Little Women.

With hindsight we can see that Louisa May Alcott’s writing about the everyday thoughts and occupations of women was revolutionary. She made this unseen domestic world of women as important as the world of politics and philosophy. In fact, along with Thoreau, she ignited the popularity of the genre we now call ‘memoir.’  They both made everyday moments significant, and through them revealed transcendent truths.

When it came to politics they were sometimes wrong — praising the likes of John Brown who, with his sons, murdered in cold blood to further their cause against slavery, mistaking the end and the means. They were human, frail, vulnerable, and passionate. I can only cheer and thank them for the legacy they left behind. And apples, oh yes, there are apples sprinkled here and there. Cheever writes, the day of “Hawthorne’s funeral at the end of May back in Concord was white with apple blossoms . . . .” 

Before Emerson left for a long tour in Europe, at Lidian’s request, he asked Thoreau to leave his cabin near Walden Pond and stay at their home to help Lidian with running the house, and taking care of the children and grounds. Thoreau obliged, and Lidian and Henry David found solace with each other. He was still mourning the tragic loss of his brother a few years earlier to lockjaw from a small cut. When Emerson returned, Thoreau moved out, and the two men’s relationship became distant. Thoreau turned all his attention to his meticulous study and writing about nature, publishing his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, and five years later, Walden. Thoreau died of Tuberculosis, a disease he first contracted when he was a teenager. Thoreau’s funeral was on May ninth. As with Hawthorne’s, the apple trees may have been in bloom. Emerson, in his eulogy said, “The country knows not yet, or in the least part, how great a son it has lost.”  I imagine Lidian must have been truly saddened by his death. With Thoreau, she shared her sharp wit, intelligence, and passionate, liberal views.

The original wood for my tribute sculpture, Lidian’s Harp, came from a pile of felled trees in Walden Woods destined for firewood, a gift from the caretaker of the property. He knew I was on the lookout for tree harps, the name for these spiral shapes formed by trees.

Carving the wood to create a smooth interior.

I always credited Thoreau with the term, however, when I looked through Thoreau’s writing for the reference, it didn’t exist.  After discussion with the director of the Thoreau library, I finally accepted that I must have been thinking of Thoreau’s love for the ‘Aeolian harp,’ the harp that plays music when you put your ear to a telegraph pole and listen to the sounds made by the wind playing the wires. Tree Harp, I guess, is my own invention, but it feels more like the mystical influence of the Concord Bloomsbury.

The World Is Bonkers — Shall I Laugh or Cry?

The World is Bonkers, 2017, bronze: Sculpture LH

Last week I wrote about Bonkers, the revolutionary apple – but unknown to me – the Atlantic, two weeks earlier, published an article, Why So Much is Bonkers Right Now. The Atlantic mentioned at least ten references to this imported British word. For example, Mother Jones had recently reassured its readers: “It’s Not Just You . . . This Week Was Bonkers,” referring to the latest Trump charades. And Vox used the word to describe Netflix’s newest film, Okja: “a bonkers corporate satire staring Tilda Swinton and a superpig.” I saw a two-page spread advertising the film in the New Yorker magazine. The image, a young woman leading a giant creature with a factory building as its saddle spewing out pollution from one of three smokestacks, was so fascinating I looked it up on Rotten Tomatoes and found that it is a story of an extraordinary human animal bond threatened by capitalist consumers. 

The Atlantic article also mentions the word Bonkers’ first use on American soil in 1965, when an American film reviewer of the film Paranoia used the word to describe “Marcello Mastroianni as going slowly bonkers while sharing a bath, bed, and Bedouin with three co-stars.” In the 1980s, there was a candy named Bonkers. Its commercial takes the prize for worst of its kind, but you can watch it here. And there is a recent memoir by the comedian Jennifer Saunders, Bonkers: My Life in Laughs. What is the appeal of this Bonkers everyone is using? Zany, crazy, madcap, screwy, wacky? The Atlantic article ended with an appreciatory note, saying that this British word is “uniquely suited to this American moment: a time when news can be so often confusing, and overwhelming, and, all in all, a little bit bonkers.” 

Yet to describe our world as Bonkers doesn’t feel right. After the Manchester killings and the London Bridge savagery, the world is not Bonkers, but alarming. Withdrawing America from the Paris Climate Accord is equally horrifying. Bonkers is a non-judgmental adjective; it resists condemnation. Faced with the harsh reality of innocent lives lost, the continued devastation of people’s homes from war and terrorism, and the loss of species and habitat because of climate change, Bonkers doesn’t describe the depth of suffering in our world.

Yet, at the same moment that devastation is happening all around, I watch young children skip merrily before climbing aboard a big yellow school bus and bike down our street with fishing rods tucked under their arms, knowing nothing about the follies of their parents’ generation. I feel similarly protective of the spotted brown and white eggs in a small nest high in a branch of the Saturn peach. These birds will know nothing of the perils facing the earth. This contrast between the news and what is happening in my backyard does make me feel like this world is Bonkers.

Today, a friend came by and we spent several hours removing peaches from the Saturn peach tree. Last week it was pruned to about half its size, and now we needed to thin the heavy fruit set. Packed together on the branches like sardines in a tin, the tree had produced a crazy number of apples. When this much fruit grows tightly together, disease spreads, the fruit is small, and it taxes the health of a tree. I heard myself say to her the ‘B’ word, ‘The tree is Bonkers – it has way too much fruit.’

Suffering is all around us, but miraculous beauty is too. Maybe the gift of the word Bonkers is that it describes craziness without being judgmental. We can do so much more to relieve suffering in the world if we don’t wallow in judging thoughts, but take up our lives wholeheartedly. Whether we grow miraculous peaches, listen to another’s pain, or spearhead an activist role to clean up the planet, every day we have the opportunity to hold back our anger, yet take in the grief; to feel the devastation, yet fight for change. Maybe to declare that this world is Bonkers is to bring lightness to the seriousness of our situation, and to let laughter wash over our tears.

Meditator with Acorn, 2017, bronze, Sculpture LH

Bonkers, a Revolutionary Apple

The origin of the word “Bonkers” is British, and refers to being mad or crazy, as in “the crowd went bonkers when the Beatles first appeared on stage.” As a word, it’s alive and fun to say, with the opening bon(g), almost like a deep bell, then the hard ‘k,’ leading to the ‘ssss’ finale. But the best part is that it’s a great apple. My Bonkers apples are bright red, hard, large, and unusually clean, meaning in apple lingo, blemish free. It’s a juicy apple, and while I can’t say I’m struck by its particular subtlety — lemony, or cinnamony woodsy or musky — I do really enjoy it. There’s a thwack sound when you bite it — sharp, clear, and crisp.

I first heard mention of the Bonkers apple at a round table discussion on apples, the twenty-four-hour meeting I attend every year with a group of iconoclast holistic apple growers. Michael Phillips, the organizer and author of the book, The Holistic Apple Grower, said how much he liked the Bonkers apple. I loved the name, so that’s all it took; a few words touting its merits, and I was sold.  

Bonkers apple on June 2, 2017, twice the size of the Stayman in the background. (and all other apples).  It's covered with white clay to protect it from the plum curculio beetle.

I ordered my Bonkers from Cummins Nursery, a small family nursery in Ithaca, New York. It was one among the many dwarf apples I bought for our wall of espaliered trees. Once it fruited, I started recommending it to other apple growing friends. They came back saying they couldn’t find it; the commercial nurseries had never even heard of it. It turns out there is good reason. Cornell’s apple breeding program named it NY73334-35 about fifteen years ago, and sent it around to a few nurseries for testing. Cummins was one of the nurseries that got it and grew it, and they in turn sent a free tree to Michael Phillips, who grew it and liked it, and decided to sell it to his customers. Michael told me that he would go out with his daughter, Gracie, to pick the first fruit, calling it NY followed by a long string of numbers. I can imagine their pleasure making up numbers, saying whatever came to mind, NY63587 or NY7575755, enjoying a certain silliness as father and daughter went out to pick fruit.  

Cornell never did release the apple; and thus it never became an official variety. However, when Michael decided to sell these apples, he needed a real name:

I polled customers and someone suggested Yonkers for the New York connection. I shifted that to Bonkers, in part because these fruit develop parthenocarpically, and so there can be some irregularly shaped fruit. But mostly because it sounded fun.

Are you wondering about the word, ‘parthenocarpically’? I had to look it up, and learned that it’s like bananas and pineapples, when the fruit grows but doesn’t need a seed. I also asked Michael. He told me:

That whole partheno business is akin to seedless watermelons. Fruit can grow without the ovule-pollen connection. It’s absolutely bonkers that this apple does this! Not every flower becomes an apple. And this also explains the irregularly shaped fruit that sometimes I find.

Bonkers is a cross between Liberty, a tasty modern disease-resistant apple, and Red Delicious, the apple that is so often snubbed today. When our customers tell me that they don’t like Red Delicious, I explain that Red Delicious apples picked right from the tree are nothing like the insipid Red Delicious apples sold at most grocery stores. Ours are crunchy, and not too sweet, with a little lime flavor that I like in an apple. There is a reason that the Red Delicious apple was named, Delicious, and that it was the best-selling apple worldwide for decades. In India, the third largest grower of apples in the world, it’s still the number one apple.

So while production in the United States has dropped considerably, that artful dodger, the Red Delicious apple, is alive and well in its newest guise as Bonkers. It’s an underground revolutionary, making its way slowly throughout New England, from one apple grower to another. If you want to be part of this Bonkers movement, plant a Bonkers apple. And if you can’t find one, let me know. I will graft a few Bonkers apples with scion wood from one of our Bonkers apple trees. However, you’ll have to wait a few years, however, to taste this rebellious fruit.

This spring's apple grafts on M7 rootstocks waiting to go into the orchard.

Guardians of the Swamp

Guardian of the Swamp, Qwkglak, by Anne Eder

When I feel depleted by the chaos in the world, or just my own weariness, I know I need to connect with the work of other artists, writers, and thinkers. I see their art as meridians that connect the darkness of my own psyche with an outward vision of something mysterious, fresh, and true. Anne Eder is an interdisciplinary artist who does just that. Anne created two mythological forest creatures, Qwkglaks, for Old Frog Pond Farm's annual harvest sculpture exhibit last fall. They speak to us directly of the mystery of rain, moss, forest, and deep ecology.

Anne Eder with her newly installed, Qwkglak, the 'King'.

They sit, one poised, like a King on a rotting trunk, the other under the canopy of an upturned root system. The latter, more difficult to find, sits a little way off the main trail, but once spotted, can leave no doubt that some kind of primordial wisdom is being expressed. A young girl with her parents, so taken with this one, stepped off the trail into the bog, her boots sinking, staying behind in the mud as she trod over to it in bare feet. Her parents shyly asked when they returned to the house if they could use the outdoor hose to clean her up before they got into their car. Children are connected to their instincts and are closer to this source of origin.

Baudelaire wrote: “Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recovered at will.” I consider Anne such a genius. When I look at these magical creatures, they are familiar, and I am enamored, appreciative, of their existence. I smile. I feel better just seeing them. I imagine that Anne’s sculptures get up and move when no one is around. They slink around the woods, crossing the swamp and muttering magical incantations among the trees. Not disturbing a growing plant or settled stone, they step lightly and carefully. Around the King’s log, the skunk cabbage is now in its fullest expression with bright green elephant ears, yet not one leaf has been trampled.

Even if you don’t believe in my magical thinking, we all believe in transformation. How else to understand the pointy purplish claws of the skunk cabbage poking through the ground a few months ago becoming a sprawling thick carpet of green waves? Or a bare tree, suddenly sending green shoots from within dry, seemingly solid bark? Nature continuously transforms itself. Spring leaves, so light-filled, are photosynthesizing like mad to flood the tree with sugars. I look at Anne’s creatures and feel that a similar process is happening: she has orchestrated the coming together of forest materials to become wild creatures who nourish us — ageless creations, a union of art and nature, both healing and uncannily witty.

Anne documented the changes of the creatures over the fall and winter. They dozed under deep snow and woke as the first skunk cabbage poked up. The King lost his scepter and his nose! However, last week, Anne came back and restored the royal Qwkglak with fresh moss and flowers, and a new scepter, a giant, unfurled fern.

The other ‘Guardian’, she decided to leave to decompose further, to return to the forest from whence it came. Only the ceramic pieces, a few rib bones, and nails will not decay. In the fall, Anne will return again to enhance the King. She will be leaving artifacts for visitors to pay homage to this creature, and even to create a retinue of creatures of their own. We’re honored to have Anne Eider’s work at the farm where we aspire to encourage creativity at the confluence of Agriculture, Art, and Community. Healthy food feeds the body, nature and art feed the spirit, and in sharing both, we support each other. Take a look at Anne Eder's website and mark Sunday, September 10 for the opening day of our annual outdoor sculpture exhibition.