Author Archives: eflaherty

Corner Store

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I grew up on the East Side of Detroit, post WW2, near the City Airport. Then, Detroit was booming, steel and autos, proud and popular. At the corner of our block, there was a store where, if I had a note from my mum, I could buy her a package of cigarettes. The real grocery shopping though, was done with my dad’s car taking us to Kroger super market about a mile away. And that is how I grew up for some 25 years. Groceries came from a well kept super market. Cigarettes and spur of the moment snacks from the corner store.

Then I found myself living in North Africa. No super markets and lots of corner stores, called bakals. We bought almost all our groceries for daily sustenance at the bakal. Convenient and efficient.

Time travel to the present, in Switzerland–no bakals, no corner stores but there, to serve local small populations, are local mini supermarkets–downsized versions of supermarkets. Very convenient. They are the smallest in scale of stores increasing in size as the surrounding populations increase in size. Yes, there are supermarkets. Yes, there are regional sized superstores.

Yet, even with all that, there exists these days an annual excitement like we use to have 50 years ago in Detroit when we would go downtown once a year for a special shopping festival–like the Christmas season. Here, once a year, end of the harvest season, in the capital city of Bern, there is an onion festival. There are two images in this post. Above is the 2018 festival itself. Below is the content of a shopping bag from the festival. The shopping bag collection of goods can not be found in local stores now, or fifty years ago, or in North African bakals.

Not bragging–just amazed at the range of goods. Pain d’épices from France. Onions and garlic from Germany and France. Decorative garlic, onions and peppers from Switzerland. Honeys and blood orange marmalade from Southern Italy and magenbrot from Switzerland. 

Holiday season is upon us like no corner store could imagine.

Best wishes to all.

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Shopping bag content.

Alpine Goldener Autumn

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I better post this before a serious snowfall. The colorful golden beauty of the first image is that it occurs above the tree line, above 2,000 meters elevation.

The lift, for access to these areas, has already been closed for maintenance prior to the upcoming ski season. So, I screen captured the image from a 24/7/365 webcam, at Jungfrau.ch.

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This golden color arises after the evening temperatures regularly drop below freezing. The color will be hidden any day now when the first snowfall arrives. This is a view of the Grosse Scheidegg pass (2,300 meters elevation) just east of Grindelwald.

The last two images are from the Japanese Ginkgo. It holds its bright yellow gold leaves until the first major frost–then the leaves drop almost all at once. At 600 meters elevation, the first frost arrived this week.

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Ginkgo biloba at 600 meters elevation 20Nov2018, Interlaken, Switzerland.

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Goldener Herbst.

Rising

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I am obsessed with the magic of clouds rising from nothing.

But what is that nothing?

Imagine what you might see, feel, hear underneath that dark, 100 foot tall forest canopy as a cloud just begins to emerge from around you?

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This mixed evergreen and deciduous forest has a canopy that is more than a ten story building, 30 meters (100feet) tall. On the forest floor, it is dark. And the floor is not level. Beneath the canopy is  a steeply varied topography–very exciting–filled with surprising variety of flora and fauna–if you are quiet and patient.

 

Seasoning—is it right?

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Spring, summer, fall and winter…all have their individual tastes and arrive each year with their own uniquenesses.

In the northern hemisphere, now in 2018, we are making the transition between fall and winter. All of you have your own memories and interpretations of these seasonings. I doubt there is a right or wrong.

But the other day, the mountains around my home revealed a certain kind of smorgasbord seasoning, grace to elevation changes. What? What do I mean to say?

On one day, I experienced a very unique variety of seasonings. Full blown winter and full blown fall, completely independent of each other, within less than an hour of each other, again grace to their elevational difference. And, the best for last, something very special above them all.

It is all about the landscape. I hope you can enjoy these images.

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Fall landscape

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Winter landscape

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Heavenly landscape

Probably don’t…

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 …want to hear about this stroke update. That’s ok because you don’t have to read it. I want to put words to what I felt today.

About 18 months ago I was in bed, a vegetable in a windowless and clockless emergency ward. Tubes everywhere. Nothing that worked before was working. 

Gradually things sank in, internal clouds started lifting and I started thinking. Still unable to get out of bed. If only I could speak again. If only I could clean myself again. I dreamed if only I could walk in the country…oh such a dream. Then the rehab began. Then the hard discipline became essential. Little step by little step.

Below is where I walked today. I almost melted with joy and happiness. Wish fulfilled.  So many to thank.

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Who wouldn’t want to take this walk?

To Farm or Not

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I was born and grew up in the urban and suburban Midwest USA—Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland—had to drive for miles to see farms, the places where we could buy fresh corn on the cob and watermelon from small makeshift roadside stands. These were grown on huge extensive plains. A consumer, I was a consumer.

I had no idea what farmers had to do over a 12 month or more cycle so that they would have ‘produce’ to sell to me from their roadside stand.

Decades later, I am still a consumer; but I live in a community that has been for generations small scale farmers. Each and every farm house has apple trees and walnut trees growing close by. Even the generations who have moved into the dense village have planted small fruit and nut trees. Why?

This first image reflects a spiritual understanding that nature is unpredictable and a reverence for a greater power is essential for farmers. So many things can go wrong with weather, climate and the geophysical that a season, a year may come anytime to take away the food necessary for farmer life. Imagine no grocery store with well stocked shelves, imagine no 7-11/24-7-365 convenience. Imagine if you had no access to food. Farmers make plans that their families never have to suffer such a hardship.

This means long hours everyday, year round. Just grab a short bit of relaxation from time to time. Hard life. I can see it all around me these days. Yet, I, as a consumer with a second-hand sympathy for farmers, sometimes feel envious of how much determination, commitment and practical knowledge they bring with them day-in, day-out to solve problems beset on them by nature and changing government regulations.

So this year, I have enjoyed observing the ripening process of fruits and nuts—apples and walnuts.

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The Alphorn is a conduit providing mystic connections between music, people and the landscape.

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Walnut trees on every farm.

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The apple of my eye on every farm.

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Walnuts in green—the husks in first stages of ripening.

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Signs that ripening is progressing—the husk prepares to break open.

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The walnut reveal.

Apple and walnut torte or apple and walnut kuchen…your choice.:)