Sowing winter rye today:

It was great to walk and sow, walk and sow, on this cloudy day. Get off of the modern human life cycle (which is mostly dictated by holiday sales and election, both of which, as a modern man, I like) and get into the cycle of nature. Soil just quietly lives out there, bearing every spring and getting dry and cold in the fall. All of it started before we came and hopefully will last after we’ll be gone.

Winter rye is called a cover crop. Something that will grow in the soil till next planting of vegetables (aka cash crop) or the next cover crop. It is good for the soil to be covered with something, so the good stuff in it will not blow away or get washed away by rain. Winter rye’s roots will help to keep the moisture, and when tilled in, it will become a green manure, a natural fertilizer.

Last night Kelly and I went to hear the Abbey Road Band, a Beatles tribute band. Four guys who didn’t look like the Beatles, but, like they said and confirmed while playing, they did sound like the legendary boys from Liverpool. Their goal was to master the original sound of the band, imitate every small detail of the Beatles performance. I enjoyed listening to them.

They started with “I want to hold your hand”, and played a lot of love songs from their earliest repertoire at first, which wasn’t what I was waiting for, a kid from a postmodern world, who would rather listen to the White Album or Sgt. Pepper’s, all the weird stuff which made the Beatles an exceptional and universal band to me. But after an an-tract, they played Rocky Raccoon, Something, Imagine, and more! So I was pleased.

The most memorable thing though was that many, many people in the audience were in their seventies plus, and when “George” asked how many of you have seen the Beatles live on the Ed Sullivan Show during their first appearance in the US, there were a bunch of hands in the air. I really regretted I couldn’t have shared that experience. Although sitting by these people, who were waving their hands, clapping and trying to pretend to be the young, noisy crowd during All My Loving, brought me closer to the Beatles than the performing band itself. These people still have that spirit of music of the Beatles, of who they were as charismatic individuals, what they said, what they looked like, and I could feel it.