The last branches of the Golden Delicious apple tree blew over in a gust of wind during an intense thunderstorm.
I hoped there would be fruit again but not now, not ever from that tree.
I’ll chain-saw the stump for the fall burn pile, finishing the work time brought.
When I planted six trees on the day of my mother-in-law’s funeral I had no idea about apples. The second Red Delicious tree was the first to go, and the Lodi was felled by another storm. Three trees remain and I know a lot more about apples today.
The storm blew over the row of six-foot cherry tomato plants and some of the hot pepper and kale plants. The cucumber cages were also blown around. I straightened everything as best I could. There was some damage, but not ruinous. The wind exposed a generous crop of slicing tomatoes under the leaves. Here’s hoping everything makes it to maturity.
Cherry tomatoes, Fairy Tale eggplant, green beans and a pickling cucumber harvested July 16, 2016
Photographs of kale can only be interesting for so long.
The leafy green and purple leaves are producing in abundance — so much so I pick only what is needed, removing imperfect leaves from the plants to the compost heap.
Seven kale leaves stand in a jar of water on the counter to keep them fresh and ready to use.
If summer were only about kale, this one would be an unmitigated success.
Something else is going on.
This week I conversed with a group of twenty-somethings about the new application for smart phones, Pokémon Go. It was the most animated they had ever been. I asserted the application represented the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. They didn’t dispute it. One had already tried the game and moved on to something else. Apparently there are not that many Pokémon to find in rural Iowa.
The continuous stream of violence manifest its latest event Thursday with a terrorist attack in Nice, France. More than eighty people were killed and as many as 300 injured as a lone driver drove a large truck through a crowd gathered to view a Bastille Day fireworks display. The terrorist made it two kilometers before he was shot dead by law enforcement. French President Francois Hollande seeks to extend the existing state of emergency put in place after the November 2015 attacks in Paris.
In American political news, the Republican top of the ticket is set with Indiana Governor Mike Pence named presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump’s running mate. The less said about this pair the better. Suffice it that I disagree with them on just about everything. The national political conventions are imminent, with the Republicans this week and Democrats the following. Something unexpected might happen at either convention.
In a strange turn of events, twice failed U.S. Senate candidate Tom Fiegen made a post on Facebook that blogger Laura Belin re-posted:
Belin makes sense if Fiegen, not so much. The episode represents further coarsening of Iowa politics. Fiegen likening an effort to persuade him on his presidential vote to sexual advances is plain weird. I know I wouldn’t want to get in the back seat with him on a dark gravel road. Whatever virtue he may have had vaporized after he quit being his own person and hitched his campaign wagon to Bernie Sanders. His current, post being a Democrat, rants serve as an example of how low politics has gotten. I know my mother said if you don’t have something nice to say about someone, don’t say anything, but Fiegen lives in our house district and may foment more ill will. I hope not.
Lastly, this week Deadhorse, Alaska set a record high for any Arctic Ocean location. Is it climate change? How could it not be.
At least for now there is plenty to eat and fewer photographs of cruciferous vegetables.
My work as fill-in editor at Blog for Iowa begins in three weeks.
It has been easy to fill a story board with post ideas. What’s hard is picking what matters from flotsam and jetsam in a sea of social media.
A goal of Blog for Iowa is to “harness the power of the Internet to continue to build our Iowa grassroots communication network.” Our blog has its roots in the 2004 Howard Dean campaign, which innovated use of the Internet to organize and raise money in politics. Internet use has evolved since then with most news outlets having a presence. I don’t think we had today’s social media — Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube — in mind ten years ago.
That social media would be a source of stories is still new, but has gone mainstream. Often the stories I read in our local newspaper have their roots in an Internet discussion. If a person wants to write a decent blog post, at least one toe should be dipped in life to be grounded in reality. It would be better to immerse oneself totally in life and eschew the Internet as a primary source of stories.
To the extent writers do this, their work is more readable and that’s what I hope to accomplish in 23 posts this August.
The topics will be familiar. Publicize the campaigns of candidates for election to congress; the presidential election campaign; climate change; the local food movement; nuclear weapons modernization; voting rights; civil rights; drug abuse; working poor; and the Iowa legislature quickly fill the slots. The challenge is saying something others haven’t — grounded in conversations that take place in the course of daily lives.
This approach presumes a level of participation in society. The material is there. The trick is to harvest the stories, both positive and negative, without creating unnecessary friction, then tell them.
It can be done and it’s what I have in mind for August.
My friends Carmen and Susan are hosting a Practical Farmers of Iowa field day called “ZJ to Sundog: Sharing Knowledge and Passing on the Farm” at Sundog Farm on Sunday, July 17, from 2 until 5 p.m.
The transition in farm ownership has been a long time coming and Sundog Farm is finally here.
Susan Jutz began Local Harvest CSA on ZJ Farm in 1996. After almost 20 years building a successful business and farm, she began looking for an opportunity to transition her farm to the next generation. The process was completed in May 2016, when Susan sold her farm and business to Carmen Black.
Carmen grew up nearby, was friends with Susan’s children, and had Susan as her 4-H leader. She has worked on the farm with Susan for five years. ZJ Farm has been the site for numerous Practical Farmers field day programs; this event will be the farm’s first as Sundog Farm.
The event will include a field tour and discussion with Susan and Carmen about their systems for pest management in vegetable production, including cabbage worms, cucumber beetles, flea beetles and tomato blight. They will discuss field scouting, cultural pest management, products they’ve tried and those they prefer. During the second part of the program, they will share their farm transition story.
Carmen has been part of the farm since I began working there in 2013. She called Friday to ask for help to begin the clean up in preparation for the field day. I spent part of Saturday removing weeds from around the old grain silos and barns and edging some of the fields. I was reminded of how far the farm had come since its days of being a conventional livestock operation before Susan began farming there. Sundog Farm should look good by next Sunday, so come to the field day, learn a small part about Iowa’s ongoing farm land ownership transfer, and wish Carmen well.
A potluck follows the program; bring a dish to share and your own table service. Please RSVP for the meal by July 14 to Lauren Zastrow at (515) 232-5661 or lauren@practicalfarmers.org.
Hosts:
Susan Jutz and Carmen Black
ZJ Farm and Sundog Farm
5025 120th St. NE • Solon • 52333
(319) 331-3957 • localharvestcsa@southslope.net solonsundogfarm.com
More specifically, why don’t more Community Supported Agriculture projects produce it for members and local food farmers for restaurants and markets?
I’ve been asking this question of growers and the reaction has been surprise at my results and maybe an assertion they will try it. There is substantial demand for the aromatic vegetable in kitchens and restaurants yet the perception is celery doesn’t grow well in Iowa, so farmers mostly don’t.
Celery from my garden tastes better than regular or organic available at the grocery store. In addition, celery is in the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen fruits and vegetables for use of pesticides, ranking #5. Why buy California celery when we can produce our own at least part of the year? Having the best possible flavor is important to everything cooked with celery.
Celery takes about 120 days and requires adequate water, more than most vegetables. That means seeding trays planted in late February to produce the crop being harvested this weekend. I use Conquistador OG seeds from Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Winslow, Maine. (OG stands for organic). It took me a couple of years to get successfully from seedlings to the ground to a crop as I experimented with growing. This year’s crop has been the best ever.
I attribute success to using 4-inch drainage tile cut into 8-inch lengths to protect and support young seedlings. I mulch with grass clippings and weed regularly. Each morning I make sure a substantial dose of water is applied. Larger scale farmers shun this extra work, focusing more on crops that can be mechanized (like potatoes) or are popular among customers (like cabbage, tomatoes and peppers). The flavor of local celery, and growing it pesticide-free, make the extra work worth it.
Every head of celery will be used fresh this year. There were only a dozen from the garden in this experimental year and I shared some with library workers in town. Next year I plan to double production and if there is more than can be used fresh, preserve part of it.
In June at the Global Foods Market in Kirkwood, Missouri, I bought a jar of celery salad in a glass jar. The preparation uses celery, apple juice, walnut extract and vinegar and is an example of a shelf-stable item for winter consumption. For the time being, I expect to use everything fresh in soups, stir fry and Louisiana-style beans and rice.
If the local foods movement doesn’t wake up to celery, there is a market for sales to restaurants to pursue. If they don’t exploit it, I will.
Peoples’ Coalition at the Coralville Independence Day Parade
When someone waves at a parade, wave back.
It is the polite thing to do, and every act of kindness and consideration adds to a tasty soup of life.
If one doesn’t do things with friends and colleagues relationships can wither. Engaging in society, including the thousands of people participating in and watching Independence Day parades is an important common denominator.
We did our part yesterday in Coralville.
Group Shot at the Coralville, Iowa Independence Day Parade Photo Credit: Ed Flaherty
Once August arrives every day will be a work day outside home. July is becoming a month of re-tooling before my work at Blog for Iowa and Wilson’s Orchard begins. I’m looking forward to it.
Here are some focus points:
1. Home and yard maintenance.
2. Develop a story board for the blog.
3. Tend the garden and preserve the harvest.
4. Increase financial margins on our economic life.
5. Maintain physical and spiritual health.
Many thanks to my friends and colleagues for yesterday’s conversations.
It takes longer to process vegetables from the garden than it does to harvest them.
That means a lot of summer spent in the kitchen.
I focus on each job — sorting kale leaves, parboiling and freezing green beans, cutting turnips for storage — yet the mind wanders along paths hidden in a day’s activities.
We opened the house and listened to birds at the feeder. From time to time we watched as rabbit, squirrel, chipmunk, and a variety of birds sought seeds. The weather was perfect for anything and my choice was to preserve some of the harvest for later in the year.
Birds scattered when I opened the screen door and cast sunflower seeds in the grass. Eventually they returned to forage for them. It is a predictable behavior that encourages their proximity and my seed-buying. That’s not what was on my mind as I made pesto, bagged kale leaves and prepared luncheon of vegetable soup served on rice.
We live in a violent world and acceptance of such violence is part of who we are.
The list of recent bombings and killings is long, getting longer: Orlando, Florida; Istanbul, Turkey; Quetta, Pakistan; Baghdad, Iraq; Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. These violent and regrettable incidents in the last month may seem bad, and are. What is worse is the long history of genocide embedded in our civilization. The ability to tolerate genocide is a passive crime and a forgotten legacy.
The web site United to End Genocide lists our recent genocides: Armenia (1915), the Holocaust (1933), Cambodia (1975), Rwanda (1990), Bosnia (1995), and Darfur (2003). The passing this weekend of Elie Wiesel reminds us of the need to remember humanity’s crimes and do something to prevent them going forward. For Wiesel, and for many, this process begins by telling the story.
Immaculée Ilibagiza’s memoir, Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust, tells a story of how personal genocide is to those involved. She recounts specific incidents of machete killings too graphic to repeat. Her purpose is similar to that of other holocaust survivors.
“I believe that our lives are interconnected,” Ilibagiza wrote. “that we’re meant to learn from one another’s experiences. I wrote this book hoping that others may benefit from my story.”
The history of genocide against the first people in the Americas is under-recognized and little discussed. The common story is of colonial conflict, disease, specific atrocities and policies of discrimination, according to United to End Genocide. Last week an ailing and imprisoned Leonard Peltier released a letter in which he told a different story.
As the First Peoples of Turtle Island, we live with daily reminders of the centuries of efforts to terminate our nations, eliminate our cultures, and destroy our relatives and families. To this day, everywhere we go there are reminders — souvenirs and monuments of the near extermination of a glorious population of Indigenous Peoples. Native Peoples as mascots, the disproportionately high incarceration of our relatives, the appropriation of our culture, the never-ending efforts to take even more of Native Peoples’ land, and the poisoning of that land all serve as reminders of our history as survivors of a massive genocide. We live with this trauma every day. We breathe, eat and drink it. We pass it on to our children. And we struggle to overcome it.
Today the United States celebrates the signing of a declaration of independence from England with parades, barbecue, family gatherings, food, fireworks, music, travel and intoxication. The opportunity for such revelry came at a high cost.
With each cut of the knife and batch of green beans placed in the freezer I focus on the task at hand. Partly to make something that wasn’t here, and partly to forget the stains on the soul of American society.
As the garden produces more food than we can eat fresh, attention turns toward the kitchen where preservation, along with preparation of tasty fresh food meals, are the priorities.
Kitchen work started Saturday afternoon and continues.
I prepared a simple dinner while listening to A Prairie Home Companion on the radio. For appetizer there was basil pesto spread on a piece of toast, a slice of cheese, and raw carrots. The main course was brown rice cooked in homemade soup stock sprinkled with scallions, steamed green beans, a burger patty topped with home made barbecue sauce, and a Belgian beer. Dessert was fresh cherries mixed in a cup of Greek yogurt. Each plate exuded summer goodness.
A full row of basil produced enough leaves to make pesto. Here is the recipe:
Simple Basil Pesto
2 cups fresh basil leaves (packed)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup pine nuts
3 garlic cloves
Salt and pepper to taste
In the bowl of a food processor take the following steps:
Pour basil leaves in the bottom and add pine nuts.
Pulse for about 30-45 seconds.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Add garlic and cheese.
Pulse for 30-45 seconds.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Stream the olive oil into the bowl while it is running, scraping down the sides from time to time.
Stir in salt and pepper to taste.
Pesto must be used quickly or frozen to prevent oxidation. The plan is to make a pasta dish using pesto as the dressing.
Michigan Cherries
On a working class payday it feels like there is money so I did some shopping, buying some special items: two kinds of bird seed, a case of Stella Artois, a case of brewed root beer, and three pounds of fresh, Michigan sweet cherries. The beverages should last the rest of the summer.
Here’s how I told the story on social media,
After work at the home, farm and auto supply store I bought two kinds of bird seed: straight safflower seeds and a mix of sunflower kernels, peanuts, sunflower seed, safflower seed, hulled pumpkin seed, raisins and dried cranberries. We’ve already tried straight millet, and straight sunflower seeds, plus a traditional mix.
Next I went to the warehouse club up the hill where I bought a big bag of garlic (to make basil pesto on Saturday) and some root beer for the holiday weekend.
After that, to the orchard where I bought these cherries. I met Paul’s brother once at the orchard and these are his cherries, grown in Michigan. Know the face of your farmer is my best advice on eating good food. I also confirmed the start of my employment when the season begins July 30. With my other jobs that will be seven days a week of work until November, but it’s so much fun, it’s not really work. Hope my Facebook friends have a great weekend.
Use of greens turned from turnip tops to kale. I gave library workers a reprieve and have a large plastic bag full of kale in the refrigerator. While not sure what to do with it, it will be revealed when I return to the kitchen. Fresh soup certainly; a kale salad for lunch most likely. Kale freezes well, however, if everything goes well in the garden, plants will continue to produce until November — no need to fill up the freezer with kale today. It is encouragement to pick the best leaves now and compost the rest.
It is sad more people don’t appreciate kale.
Cut stems of oregano are on the drying rack. The herb returns each year and we don’t use much of it. The plan is to dry enough to fill a small jar for winter. Whatever basil is left after another jar of pesto will also go on the drying rack.
Day Lily
One of the deficiencies of our garden is not enough flowers. In fact, the only flowers are some volunteer day lilies and milkweed. After many years of fruit and vegetable growing, I may be proficient enough to plan a flower garden plot. That idea will go into the planning hopper for next year.
We are going home and three events this weekend reminded us of that.
Elie Wiesel died, silencing an important voice for human rights. I will never forget the Holocaust as one of the genocides that make us who we are. While visiting Dachau in 1974 I learned the reason Jews were exterminated with poison gas was bullets were too expensive, according to the Nazis. My visit highlighted the importance of treating every human being with kindness and dignity — a lesson that continues today.
Garrison Keillor performed for the last time as host of A Prairie Home Companion. During a previous “last show” in the 1980s I turned on the cassette recorder and went for a walk with our daughter. I wanted to be with her constantly before she left home for school. As we now know, Keillor’s departure in the ’80s was more hiatus. Preparing dinner with the radio tuned in has become a part of my life, reinforced during the years in Big Grove. I’ll get over the change. I listened to the whole program last night.
Paul Simon is ready to give up writing and performing music. “Showbiz doesn’t hold any interest for me,” Simon told Jim Dwyer of the New York Times. “None.” If he does give up music after his current world tour, it will have been a great run for the septuagenarian. I was a fan of Simon and Garfunkel in high school and have vinyl of their first album with “Hey School Girl.” On the album jacket it reads, “Contained in this album is a generous sampling of two stars of tomorrow who are the talk of the record world today.” Simon continues to be the talk of the recording world, so cross off the part about the future. Early Paul Simon inspired me to write. Modern day Paul Simon teaches us to keep learning and changing.
Celebrity departures from life in society are one thing, but it’s closer to home. My parents’ generation is dying and so many of my high school classmates have left us. There is a meme going around social media expressing this sentiment. Here is a sample with my response:
Michael Martinez explained why the elves left Middle Earth in the Lord of the Rings. While not exactly the same it articulates a relevant sentiment:
The elves were compelled to leave Middle Earth by a spiritual summons of the Valar, calling them to their ultimate destinies within time and space. In The Simarillion J.R.R. Tolkien explains how the Valar — the guardians of the world — felt that the long-lived elves would be better off living near the Valar in the blessed realm, far from the mortal lands where men were destined to build their civilizations and live out their lives.
It is time to let go and let others build their lives. The kale and basil won’t preserve themselves, so I’m off to the kitchen.
Sunday will mark completion of the seventh year since I retired from transportation. It was a risky decision.
Nonetheless, my blood pressure immediately dropped into the normal range, and I began engaging differently in society with results that mattered more than pursuit of monetary compensation from a private company. Outcomes weren’t always positive, but are they ever?
This Independence Day weekend affirms that decision was the right one. It is a time to enact the future and it begins close to home.
Hillary Clinton Walking to the Stage at S.T. Morrison Park, Coralville, Iowa
As we live through the final month before the national political party conventions, most people I meet know the presumptive presidential nominees but don’t talk about them.
When they do the dynamic is like this, “I can’t see voting for Trump, but Hillary, you know what you get with her, so I don’t know.”
One person’s perspective is not definitive, yet given the people I know, the dynamic among those newly met has some validity.
If the 2016 general election were to be won or lost on the basis of scattered talk in society (or on social media) that would be a thing. What matters more is work done by the campaigns to register and turn out voters — something less visible than talk inside our social enclaves. By all measures Clinton is working harder and devoting more resources to registering and turning out her voters.
NBC News reported yesterday the Hillary Clinton campaign spent $1.2 million in Iowa this June compared to Trump’s zero dollars. The Iowa Democratic Party relies on presidential money to run its campaign, so the spending is two doses of good news for Democrats. Money to fund IDP operations and Trump’s “different” and thus far losing campaign.
Because of Trump’s celebrity he has been able to distribute a message to voters on the cheap. That served him during the primaries and caucuses. As we turn toward the conventions and the general election, Hillary’s campaign is somewhat predictable, using tried and true methods to win votes. Trump’s is a mystery that includes a Twitter account and public speeches, lacking any perceptible effort to close the deal with voters. If one doesn’t close, there will be no victory.
The Democratic primary churned up a lot of ill will toward Hillary Clinton in the electorate. That’s ridiculous, but also something to take seriously. On the one hand, Democrats continue to get whipped up into a froth about a potential indictment of Clinton (over something, they are not sure what). On the other, we look away from the Republican fraud that took the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya and turned them into political footballs. Clinton has weathered many storms in a long public career, yet the idea initiated during her husband’s administration — open up an investigation of political enemies and let it go on forever — is as effective today as it ever was in generating the false appearance of wrong-doing. Rep. Trey Gowdy’s Benghazi investigation, as with Whitewater, is demonstrating nothing is there. Even he couldn’t say Clinton lied about Benghazi during yesterday’s presser.
Political pundits, bloggers and partisans like to talk the strategy of elections. What I’m seeing, and believe is better information, is in scattered talk among ordinary people who still believe a presidential election is a choice to be made. To the extent the Clinton campaign can get to those voters and bring them home she can win in November. While the prospects look good for Clinton today, it appears her campaign is taking nothing for granted to win voters.
As June ends and the days get shorter it is difficult to see any other general election outcome than a Clinton victory. The scattered negative talk about Clinton will be a factor. One Clinton is almost certain to overcome.
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