Only one day left

What do you think?  How will we remember 2012, this year of extremes...?

Will we remember hurricane Sandy? (Answer: yes, definitely.)



Will we remember the nor'easter named Athena, that arrived a few days after Sandy? (Answer: probably not, we have a lot of early snowstorms these days...)


Will we remember the crazy election with Romney vs. Obama, and all the money that was wasted on political ads instead of putting to good use for a better world?



Will I remember the year I started growing weeds on purpose? (Maybe not, but others might.)


My Agent Orange Hot Sauce with habaneros and carrots?  Yes, that is among the best ever made in this house.  A memory that has to be repeated next year, and this is probably the spiciest hot sauce I have made.


I do know what I will remember:

The robin chicks in our garden:


The poison hemlock that decided to grow in my raised bed (which is pretty funny since I just decided to learn more about weeds):


Seeing the original fossil of Tiktaalik, the missing link between lake-living amphibians and terrestrial tetrapods:


Feeling strangely 'at home' in a tiny town in Vermont, a place that reminded me so much of the good parts of rural Sweden.


I also think this was the year when the climate change opinion changed; I can feel it in the air, in the media, among my neighbors.  Nobody is arguing about the weather becoming wetter, windier, drier, stranger anymore.  Not here. Not after blooming flowers in January, snowstorms in April, drought and 'the-sky-just-opened'-rain showers in August, the superstorm/hurricane Sandy and then the snowstorms after that.  The weather just is crazy, and you can see it with your own eyes.

Time to face the facts and do something about it, people. And don't rebuild where it will flood again...  Do you think the stone age people rebuilt when the land rise changed the coastlines?  No, they were smart, they moved. It doesn't work to be stubborn when nature's forces are against you. How will we adapt?  (And for the record, all but 0.17% of scientific reports agree, the current climate change is caused by the human species. That debate is over.  Now it is time to decide what do to.)


So, taking a census of the year, what were the highlights?  

Well, I saw a lot of things that was interesting: Ground Zero, the abandoned railroad terminal at Liberty State Park, Washington Monument, Edison Labs, the green mountains of Vermont (injured after hurricane Irene), shapes at Grounds of Sculpture, a rare pink gentian, Ken Hamilton's models, crocodiles and leafcutter ants in Costa Rica, the rescued SAAB museum, and Ai Wei Wei's exhibit in Stockholm. I also made some things I am proud of, like this scarf and about 70 jars of canned food.

But the highlights must have been all the good food we made from mostly locally grown meat and vegetables, eating fresh tomatoes from the reinvigorated and redesigned kitchen garden with blue highlights, teaching fun classes with great students and co-teachers on really interesting subjects (evolution can never be a boring subject), seeing my relatives in Sweden, learning about weeds that are beautiful and neglected, getting an art quilt by Erin Wilson, that the cats survived another year outside (even during Sandy), and getting AREA off to art college.

2012 was also the year where I gave in and got an iPhone, despite my severe reservations and horror at other people's addiction to this piece of technology. Honestly, I think it can be a good thing, but you have to learn to turn it off, and set all signals and notifications but the phone calls to silent. There is nothing more annoying than someone that has a phone on vibrate or buzz while doing other things so they and you (and the people around you) get interrupted all the time.  And don't take it to bed (as if I ever would do that... my phone lives in another room.) I wanted the GPS and a way to get news during the next storm that hits us, since all power and internet will be out again then for days, I am sure. Another day I will rant about Facebook etc., don't you worry.  As my brother says about me, 'you are certainly not an early adopter'. :)

And the people, art, and books this year that have had the most influence on how I think and what I do, are probably the author Cheryl Strayed (book reviews will come!), Anu Tuominen's art (the blogpost about her is here), and the book The War of Art (half of which is good about procrastination and getting things done, while the rest is mumbo-jumbo about spiritual inspiration). 

And with that - Happy New Year, Happy 2013!, with a photo taken exactly a year ago in the forests around here.  This is the fruit of a tulip tree, Liriodendron tulipifera.