Bramblings: The unseen and unknown

Photo by Becky Nelson
Summer is over.

Well, unless you have brought all your hanging plants and crops vulnerable to frost and freezes inside.

It has been a mad scramble, as it is every year, to protect whatever shouldn’t freeze before the “big” freeze hits. We had a couple of frosts last week, but this week we had the big one. I now have eight hanging plants displayed in a four season sunroom at home that decorated my store through the summer. It is a beautiful remembrance tribute to the hot and hazy days of summer and the warm and beautiful days of the very mild and long-lasting autumn we enjoyed.

I picked the last 18 pints of raspberries on Thursday, a full two weeks later than I have ever picked quality raspberries late in the fall season. Leaves hung in for much longer than usual around here, even though the shortening daylight hours are thought to have as much to do with the end f foliage season as the cold weather. I can remember many Columbus/Indigenous Peoples’ Days when the leaves were scarce around these parts, and we still have some beautiful foliage in spots and corners as we approach Halloween.

As much as we think we know about “things,” we are constantly reminded that we don’t know much at all. If we were to believe everything we see and hear that experts tell us is real, we would still be living on a flat earth. But then again, if we didn’t believe much of what we have faith in that is unproven in our current travels around the sun, we wouldn’t believe anything at all. There is much that occurs just under our feet and over our heads that we don’t understand, and we need to stop pretending we know everything.

Weather predictions are a great example of this phenomenon. We have studied weather patterns and causes for hundreds of years, but still cannot accurately predict the pattern flow and impacts of hurricanes and cannot predict tornadoes in anything more than a generalized warning.

We make new discoveries here at the farm all the time. Things we didn’t know existed are literally just under our noses and our feet. Just the other day as we were picking up debris around a building, I spied several fast, squiggly, slightly reddish creatures that I thought were maybe the invasive jumping worms we have been warned about. Grabbing one, we soon discovered they weren’t worms at all, but were rarely seen salamanders that avoid light and live under leaves and woods detritus, an important part of the ecosystem that breaks down organic matter into soil that we never knew existed.

The details and natural systems of this planet boggle my mind. I feel like a very insignificant part of the fabric of life when I think of all the living organisms and unseen and unknown forces that swirl all around me every day that I have no idea of how and why they work the way we do. It makes me very cognizant of the fact that we need to be careful with everything that we do and how our actions may affect the lives and systems around us. Our simple act of cleaning up wood around a building disturbed a whole colony of salamanders. What else that we are doing is disrupting one of these little, seemingly insignificant systems? And what is the ripple effect or trickle down or ramping up effect of whatever we are doing?

I worry about these things, perhaps unnecessarily, on a regular basis. I am particularly concerned about how the COVID-19 virus and its recent mutations is changing the very core and fabric of our society — our interactions with each other and our influences and scars of our actions on our children and generations to come. I worry about the effects of space travel and our unforeseen impacts on systems “out there” that we have no idea of their consequences with space junk creating a minefield and a dump around our planet and the affects and effects of interplanetary travel a complete unknown. I worry about the unforeseen and potentially harmful consequences of relying on artificial intelligence and the unseen and unknowable consequences and influences on the natural order around us.

I just worry sometimes.

Perhaps I would better serve my psyche by letting my mind be boggled by the magnificence all around me, having faith that I can protect my own little corner of the natural order and not be overwhelmed by fears of the unknowns and urging my friends and neighbors to just be aware that their actions may have unintended consequences on the people, organisms, and systems around them.

Becky Nelson is co-owner of Beaver Pond Farm in Newport, New Hampshire. You may reach her at [email protected].