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April 2013 - Skagit Valley Food Co-op

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From the Editor<br />

A Close Look<br />

by Beverly Faxon<br />

To tell this story, I must confess a phobia, fueled by the media and my natural fear of<br />

hard-to-resolve problems that can multiply exponentially and make you itch. The idea<br />

of bedbugs drives me wild. I’ve never had a bedbug, never seen a bedbug, but I keep<br />

a sharp eye out. My fear is not completely unreasonable—my family is no stranger<br />

to hotels, and without going into gruesome detail, the bedbug is apparently a wily<br />

hitchhiker with a long, sneaky, and fertile lifespan.<br />

And so, one Saturday morning when I noticed a small, brown, apple seed-sized<br />

thing in my bed, I investigated. The thing was too small for me to clearly identify with<br />

my naked eye, and it wasn’t moving. I got my magnifier. (Yes, this is where the crazylady<br />

part of the story fully emerges.) I once bought a sweet little magnifier, like an<br />

old-fashioned monocle, that I keep on a green ribbon. I bought it so I could delight in<br />

the details of found butterfly wings and seashell whorls and feathers, but now I just use<br />

it to identify bugs.<br />

Often, on magnified examination, what I see are not bugs, but pieces of lint.<br />

But this was a bug. And unlike other bugs I’ve seen close up, this looked a lot like a<br />

bedbug. A lot. The panic set in. Instead of settling in with a cup of tea, a waffle and<br />

NPR, I spent the morning bouncing between the computer--please, if you have never<br />

looked up bedbugs on the web, don’t do it now--and the magnifier. I spent the afternoon<br />

vacuuming and tearing apart my bedroom.<br />

Because I’ve looked at a lot of websites, including all the sites that show the<br />

difference between bedbugs and bedbug wannabes, I knew in my heart that this was a<br />

bedbug. Its legs were gone, but it had all the body attributes: shape, color, size, markings.<br />

Still I wanted outside confirmation, so I found a tiny box, lined it with tissue, laid out<br />

my dead bug, and sent it to <strong>Co</strong>rnell University, where, for a small fee, the entomology<br />

department will identify any insect you send them--a good thing to know.<br />

I would not say that we are old friends, anxiety and I. Although that suggests<br />

the right degree of intimacy between us, it also suggests an affection that I don’t feel.<br />

Anxiety piles up like a wave and grabs the chest. It makes a deep breath hard to take and<br />

flutters around in the throat like a swallowed butterfly. It wreaks havoc on the stomach<br />

and intestines, roiling around like—forgive this simile—a can of worms. And it takes<br />

a seat in the brain, where it instigates self-dialogue like this:<br />

“There’s no point in worrying until you know there’s something to worry about.”<br />

“Well, that’s true UNLESS you’re VERY (fill in the blank—“good”, “careful”,<br />

“smart, “proactive”). Then you could somehow avert this crisis with (fill in the blank—<br />

“the septic system”, “that mole on your back”, ”invading weasels”, “BEDBUGS”).<br />

Anxiety self-talk usually backfires. At my best, I try to just ride the wave, hang on<br />

tight, and wait for the waters to calm.<br />

And so, once the bug was tenderly packaged and securely taped into its tissue-lined<br />

coffin and mailed off to <strong>Co</strong>rnell, it was just anxiety and me, hanging out. I was wanting,<br />

like usual, to know what was going to happen next—how big a hassle or disturbance or<br />

fear this problem was going to be. How I was going to handle it. How much it might<br />

disrupt my life or derail my plans. Whether or not it would ever be resolved.<br />

Then, a surprising thing happened. I had a thought that wasn’t counterproductive.<br />

I think my thought was brought on by reading Wendell Berry’s New <strong>Co</strong>llected Poems.<br />

Berry, like A.A. Milne, can somehow make me feel that everything is going to be all<br />

right. Such lines gently turn the world on its head:<br />

Seventy Years<br />

Well, anyhow, I am<br />

not going to die young.<br />

Reading Berry, I see the continuum: life is a good story, and where would we rather<br />

be than in the midst of it?<br />

This was my thought: “We don’t know how this story is going to end.”<br />

I’m not sure why it was so comforting, but it was. I like being in the middle of a<br />

good story—one I might be able to tell later. I like being alive, and who wants to know,<br />

prematurely, how any of it is going to end? I’ve been testing out this new mantra, and<br />

although it is not an anxiety cure-all, it helps.<br />

But I will tell you how this story ends, in case you ever come over for dinner.<br />

Jason, the nice guy from <strong>Co</strong>rnell, emailed me to say that my bedbug was not. It was<br />

a pseudoscorpion. Jason was kind enough to send me a lot of information about these<br />

insects, including photos. I have seen pseudoscorpions before; they don’t look like<br />

bedbugs. Unless their legs and pincers are gone. Check. Jason, a true entomologist who<br />

probably didn’t want me to randomly squash things, assured me they are “considered<br />

beneficial”. They don’t bite pe<strong>op</strong>le; they mostly live outside and eat things like flies<br />

and mites. This was good news. I once had a run-in with mites that had me out in the<br />

chicken co<strong>op</strong> at 10:30 p.m. with a flashlight and a mason jar. But that’s another story.<br />

From the Board<br />

Board Declares 2012<br />

Patronage Refund<br />

Look for details in your mailbox the first week<br />

of May Refunds available at the registers,<br />

May 1-July 29, <strong>2013</strong>.<br />

Earth Day at the <strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong><br />

We’re celebrating<br />

Earth Day,<br />

Monday <strong>April</strong> 22,<br />

by giving away<br />

free trees and<br />

seeds!<br />

Salmonberry <strong>Co</strong>mmunity Land<br />

Trust will join us for the day to<br />

share <strong>op</strong>en-pollinated heirloom<br />

seeds with our customers, as part<br />

of their seed distribution project,<br />

and we’ll have four varieties of tree<br />

saplings from Brooks Tree Farm in<br />

Oregon. This year we’re sending you home with Giant Sequoia, Red Osier Dogwood,<br />

Vine Maple, or Noble Fir starts. We will also be packing some of your groceries in<br />

Earth Day bags decorated for us special by the kids at West View Elementary School.<br />

Also on Earth Day, st<strong>op</strong><br />

by in the morning and<br />

talk with local beekeeper<br />

Bruce Vilders,<br />

owner of B.V.’s Bees, a local back yard pollination service. He is a WSU certified<br />

beekeeper and will be available to discuss and answer questions dealing with honey<br />

bees and pollination. We’ll put up a tent in the parking lot where he’ll be from 9am-12<br />

noon.<br />

<strong>Skagit</strong> <strong>Valley</strong> <strong>Food</strong> <strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong> Mission Statement<br />

The <strong>Skagit</strong> <strong>Valley</strong> <strong>Food</strong> <strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong> is a not-for-profit organization whose purpose is<br />

to provide good food at a low price. As stated in the <strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong> By-Laws: “The <strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong><br />

shall promote member welfare by utilizing their united funds and their united efforts<br />

for the purchase and distribution of commodities in accordance with the following<br />

criteria:<br />

A. Maintaining the non-for-profit status of the <strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong>;<br />

B. Offering high quality products which contribute to good nutrition;<br />

C. Supporting a low impact, non-harmful approach to the environment;<br />

D. Supporting local suppliers and producers;<br />

E. A commitment to building a co<strong>op</strong>erative economy and supporting others who<br />

share that commitment;<br />

F. A commitment to educational programs relevant to members and non-members<br />

in the community.”<br />

The <strong>Skagit</strong> <strong>Valley</strong> <strong>Food</strong> <strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong> Natural<br />

Enquirer is a bimonthly publication of<br />

the <strong>Skagit</strong> <strong>Valley</strong> <strong>Food</strong> <strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong>. Opinions<br />

expressed are those of the writers and<br />

may not reflect <strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong> policy. No articles<br />

are meant to be used for diagnosis or<br />

treatment of illness. The <strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong> does<br />

not endorse the products or services of<br />

advertisers.<br />

Editor: Beverly Faxon<br />

Staff <strong>Co</strong>ntributors: nancylee bouscher,<br />

Jodie Buller, Claire Harlock Garber,<br />

Baiyu Mukai, Neil Soderstrom, Todd<br />

Wood<br />

Board of Trustees: Steve Bluhm,<br />

nancylee bouscher, Kristen Ekstran,<br />

Mariana Foliart, Donna Hegstad,<br />

Patricia Sneeringer & Tom Theisen<br />

<strong>Co</strong>pyright <strong>2013</strong>:<br />

Reprints with permission<br />

Phoebe Carpenter Eells<br />

Open 8-9 Monday-Saturday<br />

9-8 Sunday<br />

202 So. 1 st Mount Vernon, Washington<br />

98273<br />

360-336-9777<br />

www.skagitfoodco<strong>op</strong>.com<br />

2<br />

<strong>Skagit</strong> <strong>Valley</strong> <strong>Food</strong> <strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong> The Natural Enquirer <strong>April</strong>/May <strong>2013</strong>

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