Out In The Back Of Beyond/Editor’s Notebook W
hile we were eating breakfast the other day, looking out across the lake, my wife said, “Did you ever notice that the woods gets green from the bottom up?” I can’t say that I had. Come to think of it, a lot of things are like that. Water boils from the bottom up. Ladders are another thing that start from the bottom up. Wouldn’t it be nice if our government worked that way… While putting together this issue of Posey Magazine, we got to meet a whole lot of new people in the county. Horse people. One thing we noticed is how well they treat their animals, and most of the time it seems to rub off on how they treat the humans they come in contact with. I don’t suppose everyone can keep a horse — but I think if we could, it might change how we approach the folks we meet along the way. In the last issue of Posey Magazine, I used this space to write about “Things I think I think.” I was amazed at how many people responded to that column. It came from the heart, and the impressions really are things I think about. Most of the time, we don’t bother to make a list of what occupies our minds when we’re not busy concentrating on something else. We rarely share these random thoughts with anyone, but you might want to try making your own list sometime. If nothing else, it will help you define who you really are. The cover story on Donnie Martin, “The Woodcarver from Solitude”, and Sharon Sorenson’s in-depth look at the eastern bluebird generated a lot of interest with readers. Together, those two articles comprised almost half of the magazine— © Photograph by J. Bruce Baumann
making it, I guess, our unofficial “bird issue.” If you missed it, check out the archives on the home page for those stories and the rest of the magazines we’ve published since last August. For the student photographers in Posey County, we are going to give you a shot at the “I’m just sayin’” space in the September/ October issue of the magazine. See the rules for submitting your work on this month’s “I’m just sayin’“ pages. Posey County is a beautiful place and offers many opportunities to express your vision. Good luck. I saw a quote the other day that will come in handy with another political campaign season coming up: “I’d agree with you — but then we’d both be wrong.” Finally, a few years ago when we were planting a garden, it occurred to me that every
support structure we’d tried for pole beans sagged, fell over in the wind, or needed some kind of tying up or extra support as the beans grew and added weight to the poles. It only took about 40 years of gardening to come up with a solution. The picture below shows how you can use some leftover hog fencing to make an arch for the beans to climb on. As the beans ripen, you just walk under the arch and pick without stooping. It may be the only creative thing I’ve ever done in a garden. What with the new hybrid bean varieties and all the horse manure we dig into the soil, we might have to ask St. Louis if we can borrow their arch this year. J. Bruce Baumann is the editor of Posey Magazine. He can be contacted at: poseymagazine@aol.com