Today is my day off. My day off falls exactly 9 days after the President of the United States declared his most recent federal emergency. This time the White House proclamation reads:
‘NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, including section 318 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended, and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, do hereby declare an emergency to exist with respect to the threats to the availability of sufficient supplies of fertilizers to meet expected agricultural demand’ (Full proclamation can be found here).
In other words… a nation-wide food shortage in America.
My journey for today begins immediately upon leaving the driveway by bicycle. Before I can gain much speed, I am greeted by my favorite neighbor at the mailboxes. She was in the middle of picking up her mail from her same spot off the side of the road, like she has done for 30 years. She’s my favorite and in the last few years has made it a ritual to bring us a platter of homemade holiday cookies during the winter season. We exchange greetings and I tell her that I just witnessed the killing of 5 mature cherry trees bordering a plot someone is clearing. She knows the land I am referencing because she also passes it heading into town to run errands. For the last few months we’ve all witnessed a vendor crashing urgently through a mini-forest with a bulldozer, stopping only inches from someone’s home. I tell her they haven’t stopped and that when I drove into town the cherry trees were still standing but on my return 60 minutes later, all had been felled. The first thing she did was exclaim ‘NO!’ and then she said ‘Did you see that the president is going to cut down ALL the cherry tree’s he can in D.C and put in a golf course?!’’
No, I had not heard this yet…
We both feel exasperated and depart in opposite directions. Marielle is headed home to make herself a cup of coffee and I am headed down to the cleared lot to see if I can collect 2 buckets of free fruit. I play and replay the scene of all the small red globes of fruit scattered as far as the eye can see. They had been soaking up the sun in peak ripeness, ready to be picked, but instead destroyed.
I pedal as fast I can and make it down the road in 30 minutes. There, on the left hand side of the one way street I find the aftermath of their chainsaw and intolerance. The ground looks like Christmas in a truly sad way. July fruit tree green and pounds and pounds of bright red cherries everywhere. If you are unfamiliar with what Cherry tree’s look like on the ground, imagine 20,000 red traffic lights laying at unnatural and brutalized angles all over the earth. I have seen this before with countless orchards that have been bulldozed under the soil in the Willamette Valley of Oregon to make room for warehouses. The disease is now spreading north; humans. I slowly walk my bike back around the lot they are clearing so I’m not impaled by their limb work up high in the last remaining Douglas Fir trees. Their work here is almost done. As I am about to cross the street and speak with them, a native man drives by me who is the neighbor to this destruction and we make eye contact that speaks volumes. We both are holding a lot as the noise the vendor makes becomes deafening.
I approach the group wielding chainsaws and before I can speak the short heavyset one in the middle barks “Yeah! They are ALL coming down!!” I look at him strongly but soundless. Fighters are my specialty. I know this. And he is about to find out. I say ‘I’m not here for that. Do you mind if I pick some of those cherries on the corner?’ He de-escalates immediately. He yells some more to impress his buddies ‘Sure! But they aint for eatin - way too sour’. I think to myself ‘Oh, this one’s violent and stupid’.
When people start telling you food is not food, what do you do? Today I found out that I pick the fruit and count the moments to their self annihilation. I pray for the toppled trees. And then I write this post on Substack.
If we attempt to pitch in and stop deforestation we will need to truly begin a lot farther back in our work than common sense could predict. First we must start with why food is indecipherable to certain humans. Infantile steps we must take to counteract this:
I pick and I pick and I pick some more.
Beautifully ripened fruit surrounds me on all sides. Someone planted these trees. Someone watered them and cared for them in the heat of the sun. Kids swung from their branches before washing up for dinner. Generations of birds knew to stop off in their canopies and fuel up for their migrations back across the sea. Countless barn raisings were topped off with this desert, baked between thin layers of homemade pie crust.
The chainsaw bearers are raising hell again. I listen to their banter, their joy at doing something they know is wrong. One little man is hanging 80 feet up in the air and is about to top another magnificent Douglas Fir tree. He screams to his buddies ‘Yeah! I’m going to go get another tree!!’ The chorus of laughter and cars braking at the sudden destruction in their neighborhood collide in my ears. These four men would not enjoy it if it was right; they in fact LOVE their short term thrill because they know it’s wrong. This point can’t be argued because his first words to me approaching a mass murder site was to rant at the audacity of what I might say against his actions. There are many sections devoted to the behaviors and inclinations I witnessed today in the DSM -V TR (Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). I close up my containers, snap photos I am not supposed to take and gently speak to the trees. I run my fingers through their limbs and branches covered in ripened fruit for the last time. I am 40 years old and have not been able to see a fruit tree I have planted reach even half the lifespan of what now lays at my feet. I zip up my bag and hop back on the saddle.
Joel Salatin’s book title echoes in my head as I point my bicycle in the direction of home and our stovetop. I imagine all of the food my wife is going to be stoked to bake and me to eat…How many gallon bags of fruit we will sort and pack into the freezer for winter…Which neighbors will want to hear this miserable story and share in the unexpected bounty of my day off.
My fingers are sticky with perspiration and sweet cherry juice as I grip the handle bars and race against the sun.
Thank you for sharing what I witnessed today as more trees topple at the hands of archaic rituals during this time of collapse.
Inedible cherries are featured below:
Love this one. You speak to all the emotions and reactions happening around this destruction, both small and loud. It’s sad and insane.