Vegetable Gardening and DOMA

LAKE MACBRIDE— When President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996, it seemed wrong. It was one more in a series of his actions I didn’t like. The political reasons for denying federal employee benefits were easy to understand. The blatant discrimination was not, and time and the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) decision yesterday vindicated the judgment of those who felt like I did.

Yesterday, bills were introduced in the U.S. House and Senate to remove DOMA completely, as some don’t feel SCOTUS went far enough in saying, “DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment.” The decision was good enough for me, although I downloaded the text and will read it— comparing it to Iowa’s Brien v. Varnum, dated April 3, 2009, that held the state’s limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples violated the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution.

After three days of rain, thunder, lightning and hail, I spent time in the garden yesterday. Contrary to my previous post, I found hail damage, particularly on leaves of cucumber and squash plants. The damage was not severe, but a lot of leaves had small punctures.

Food production is outpacing our kitchen’s ability to store and process it. This afternoon’s local food shift at home will include harvesting turnips, preparing and freezing broccoli, planting seedlings and rearranging the fencing in the plot where the green beans are located. With the rain and fair weather, combined with more knowledgeable planting, this year’s garden is already a bin buster. More food will be given away as the week progresses.

At the farm, I soil blocked for the seventeenth week yesterday. The seeds planted are for fall harvest of cucumbers, broccoli and cabbage. While I was working, one crew had finished and was doing bicycle maintenance near the machine shed, and another was processing kohlrabi for share holders. The germination building was completely empty, and when I entered to get trays for soil blocking, the temperature was intensely warm. Seedlings trays were on wagons under a nearby tree to avoid the heat while they waited for planting.

With the rain, trip to Des Moines and farm work, everything is behind this week. Hopefully today will be a catch up day as I endeavor to stay on the property, with nose to the grindstone.