Leaves of potatoes burst through the surface of the soil revealing robust growth and hope for a crop.
During last night’s inspection I realized why many of us garden — we are born of the soil and all it produces.
Recent rain boosted everything.
I’ve been seasoning seedlings outside and am ready to plant them all. The question is weather and availability. There is slight chance of rain today so the soil should be dry enough to work. I have a couple of hours of daylight when I finish at the home, farm and auto supply store. If all goes well, another plot can be planted with kale, cucumbers and beans tonight.
In A Sugar Creek Chronicle: Observing Climate Change from a Midwestern Woodland Connie Mutel produced an engaging narrative of her efforts to cope with change while living on a parcel of Oak – Hickory forest in Northern Johnson County, Iowa.
The narrative is about climate change as the title suggests. It is also rich with descriptions of the flora and fauna of the region and how her life as a Midwestern ecologist, wife, mother, and cancer survivor has changed and is changing because of our warming planet.
It was hard to put the book down once I started reading.
The narrative is a combination of autobiography, new journalism, scientific research and advocacy for the political will to take action to mitigate the causes of anthropogenic global warming and its impact on our climate before it’s too late.
What makes the book important is less the scientific discussions about climate change, and more how Mutel copes with a life she believed held stability and predictability as key components. In telling her story Mutel articulates a personal perspective of current scientific research about climate change in a way that should provide easy to grab handles on a complex topic.
The idea that carbon dioxide causes global warming is not new. Around 1850, physicist John Tyndall discovered that carbon dioxide traps heat in our atmosphere, producing the greenhouse effect, which enables all of creation as we know it to live on Earth. That story has been told time and again.
The benefit of reading Mutel’s observations is one finds a lot in common with her life, on many levels. Her inquiry into global warming and climate change provides us a window not only to her world, but to ours.
Suffice it that under my Carhartt overalls, Oracle T-shirt, Dickies socks, Calvin Klein underwear, University Square Industries cap, Rugged Wear ventilated gloves and government-issued army boots my nakedness kept its own sensible and properly hidden vigil.
I worked our small plot of land the whole day. By the end of the shift I was drained with no energy left to drive 30 minutes each way to a political event in Coralville.
Onions Between the Compost and Daylillies
Contrary to the advertisements, I don’t think “nature” intended anything regarding humans wearing clothing to garden. In fact, there is not much “natural” about gardening. We have specific intent as to what will happen in each plot we plant. We cultivate things the same way we do with any aspect of human culture. “Gardening” is a human creation. The idea of taking off clothing to weed thistles borders masochism. The idea of turning soil with a spade and without shoes would be nutty.
Row of Peas
A lot of gardening got done despite the clothing.
Except for driving my car from the garage to an impromptu parking spot on the lawn, and collecting grass clippings for the garden, my direct use of internal combustion engines yesterday was minimal.
I worry a bit about the nuclear reactor generated electricity stored in the batteries for my trimmer, but other than that, it was a low impact day.
The lettuce planted March 2 is ready to harvest. Too closely planted turnip seeds are producing leaves an inch long. They are tender and require thinning if I want any turnip roots from the row. There are some carrots in my sunken containers, but not as many germinated as expected. There is plenty of lettuce for salads and tacos, and the prospect of turnip greens both for salads and a batch of soup stock. Those things are going well in the garden.
Belgian Lettuce
What’s going less well is the spring garlic. After producing in abundance for many years, this year’s crop will be less. I’m not sure why. Too, the extra warm weather is slowing growth of radishes. Hopefully the first row will mature in the next week or so. Both of these crops will be donated for charity sales planned for next weekend — that is, if they produce by then.
Thinking horizontally, and having great hope, I planted broccoli in two rows. Last year brassica oleracea cultivar didn’t produce, despite many efforts to protect the plants. Using a batch of old tomato cages as support, I buried chicken wire about an inch deep in the soil around each seedling. The cages are tall enough to keep deer away while the plants are young, and hopefully the rodents and rabbits won’t find their way through the chicken wire. Once the plants take off, I’ll high-fence the rows. Fingers crossed, since home-grown broccoli is the best and we missed out on it last year.
It took the usual two plus hours for the spring harvest of grass clippings. I cut the lawn short, collect the clippings using the bagging attachment, and piled them up for use in the next week or so. For one of the few time during the growing season, my lawn is shorter than the neighbors — not that I’m paying attention to that. Mulch is critical to minimizing well water use, and grass clippings are free but for the labor of collecting them. Today’s plan is to spread them around.
Garden Viewed from the North
Determined to capture new images, I took some photographs before going inside for the day. Our 0.62 acre lot is not big, but there is a diversity of habitat here. The rodents are free to leave any time they wish, and I attempt symbiosis with deer who have been traveling through our lot for much longer than our home has been here. Here’s a short gallery of some favorite new photos from Saturday.
New Growth on the Blue SpruceBird’s Nest in the Golden Delicious Apple Tree StumpApple Tree After Subzero Weather Pruning
Mexican Wolf – Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons Colin Burnett
As bad as the Ronald Reagan presidency was for middle and low wage earners, a Donald J. Trump presidency could be worse.
Last week’s tit for tat about jobs for West Virginia coal miners is an example of how Reagan’s policies resulted in decimation of an industry, people forgot, and then Trump asserted he could bring those jobs back.
With a peculiar presentism Hillary Clinton became the villain because she spoke the truth about coal mining.
“We’re going to put a lot of coal companies and coal miners out of business,” she said.
Clinton walked her statement back while campaigning in West Virginia last week, however, its urgent reality stands: a majority of fossil fuels need to stay in the ground.
Not only is Trump the presumptive Republican nominee for president, there is a path to him becoming president. As progressive Thom Hartmann has said, his campaign should not be taken lightly.
His candidacy strips away everything we thought we knew about how the world works, about how people do things in society. Like a wind of rage blowing throughout the continent, it desiccates the landscape, and sets the stage for an extended and devastating wildfire season in which wage earners would take the brunt of change. The ongoing wildfire in Fort McMurray, Alberta is emblematic of this.
Trump would be Reagan on steroids and a lot of people wouldn’t mind.
It is time for folks to reduce the attention given to each outrageous statement made in social media or during interviews and speeches, and work to stop the rise of the mogul. It’s time to treat his candidacy less as a source of jokes and more as a threat to an already eroded way of life.
Tomorrow’s 142nd running of the Kentucky Derby serves notice the race is on to finish spring garden planting.
Planting is never completely done.
What I mean is putting seeds in the ground and moving the 10 trays of seedlings from our bedroom to the garden soil by Memorial Day.
The coming weekend will be prime time for planting.
Our warehouse club sent a notice of a fruit and vegetable recall yesterday. Here’s the scary first paragraph the company posted on their web site:
As a precaution, CRF Frozen Foods of Pasco, Washington is expanding its voluntary recall of frozen organic and traditional fruits and vegetables. We are performing this voluntary recall in cooperation with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) because these products have the potential to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes. The organism can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Although healthy individuals may suffer only short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain, and diarrhea, Listeria infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women.
We checked all of the noted items in our freezer and there were no recalled items. The recall renewed interest in growing as much of our own food as we can and knowing the farmer on the rest. It is hard to avoid consumer products produced in large quantities, but the Listeria hysteria is a reason to minimize their use. The perfect attitude adjustment going into the garden work weekend.
There is a lot of work to do during the next three weeks. I’ve been reviewing weather forecasts since Monday and it looks like a chance of rain Saturday afternoon, but otherwise, clear.
It will be a rush of digging, raking, planting and mulching. A pivot point toward summer.
We are blinded and forever changed by our experiences if we are lucky.
Insights and epiphanies are few in life’s span. They can shape who we are and the choices we make in profound ways.
Some become passions and border on enthusiasm. Enthusiasm as in close to spiritual ecstasy, or possession by a god or the devil.
It began when I was three years old.
In the basement of our home at 919 Madison Street in Davenport, I was playing on a swing set my parents set up. It collapsed and the next thing I knew I was laying in a pool of my own blood. Mother rushed me to Mercy Hospital where the physician made me breathe ether poured in a funnel before stitching me some 50 times to close the wound on my forehead. I stayed in the hospital for what seemed like a long time. My parents visited every day at least once.
It never occurred to me that hospitals existed, or that so many people outside our home were employed with systems that nurtured the sick and injured. It gave me comfort and curiosity, then, and now.
I began Kindergarten while we lived on Madison Street. Mother had me walking about three quarters of a mile to school for the half-day sessions.
One day I got lost.
The way was to walk North on Madison and then East on 10th Street until I reached the stairs on the steep hill that was Riverview Terrace Park. From there I not sure, but believe I walked North on Washington Street to Twelfth Street, then over to Marquette where I turned South until Jefferson Elementary School was on my left. It was a long trip for a Kindergartner.
One day I took a shortcut on the way home and got lost. My homecoming was delayed much so my mother came out to look for me. She set out on foot and eventually found me on the steps of the park. It was a scary thing for a young person. It taught me to persist in the face of the unknown.
When I entered the seventh grade, we occupied a new school the parish built a block from our home. It was a terrible separating from my childhood friends as I was selected to join other seventh and eighth graders in an advanced class. The nun told us we were college bound and needed to begin preparing. I didn’t like the separation from my neighborhood pals, and occasionally I would hang with them at the Cue and Cushion, a local pool hall. That wasn’t meant to last. It was a blessing and a curse that we were separated. Less fun, more studies and some isolation from the roots I had formed with neighborhood kids as a grader.
My father’s death in 1969 was sudden and jolting. I had begun to consider college, and during a conversation with Mother after Dad’s death offered to give up those plans to help her adjust. She encouraged me to go to college and that forever broke me from the home where I’d lived in childhood. Once I left home, I would never really return.
My college years, military service and graduate school were a long transition from homelife in Davenport to living in the broader world. I experienced the world’s diversity during those 11 years and became a global citizen. In the end, I decided to stay in Iowa where Jacque and I met while working for the University of Iowa. We married in 1982 and to say it was a life-changer is an understatement. I hope we will remain married until death do us part.
The arrival of our daughter in 1985 was another formative experience, one that changed everything in a positive way. Having been lucky enough to be a parent, I discovered the tremendous opportunities and challenges of providing a home life so they could become a responsible citizen. It gives me a great deal of pride to see how she has grown and changed over the years since she entered the world. If all the world’s a stage, her entrance was notable and her performance enduring.
The decision to leave the transportation business after more than 25 years shaped how my life has played out. With that decision came a new world of engagement in society. For the first time, I’ve been able to concentrate on living how I want, writing, distracted only by the existential demands of society. I don’t know what enduring writing will be produced, but without the commitment that began July 3, 2009, nothing of my current life would be possible.
In reasonably good health, in a safe environment, much is possible. Where shall I go? I hope to be on the road to some usefulness in society.
That scholars would publish newly found material written by Walt Whitman is not surprising.
In a time where old newspapers are being digitized and new methods of scholarship seine existing publications like factory ships trawl the Bering Sea, Whitman’s voluminous work shows up.
My relationship with Whitman is comprised mostly of the 1983 visit my wife, her brother, and I made to Whitman’s home in Camden, N.J. It is a simple place, much neglected over the years. By then it was restored to be a fitting remembrance of his last days. It is the only home Whitman owned.
Whitman’s Last Home
It was easy to imagine supplicants waiting downstairs for their turn to meet with Whitman in his parlor/bedroom up the narrow stairway. More than the host of American writers who preceded him, Walt Whitman was tangible, with footprints in society. He left them everywhere.
I hope to return to reading Whitman’s work, even this newest publication.
Yet there is so much to do and take in — and even in good health, life is short. Nonetheless, a new Whitman book is news, and in the digital age, it is available for free to anyone with access to the internet. A type of democratization Whitman may have appreciated.
The Bernie Sanders campaign is laying off hundreds of staff members, indicating either he is planning to throw in the towel after California, or that he won’t be placing people currently on his staff in local political organizations for the fall campaign. Maybe both.
The presidential nominating party may not be over, but most of the guests have left and the hosts have begun cleaning up the mess, getting ready for a return to normalcy, which in Iowa means organizing for the June 7 primary elections where there are contested races, and the fall campaign beginning after the Labor Day weekend.
Political campaigns will work through the summer, and there is a filing period in August, but each year, regular people engage in the election cycle later and closer to the election. For folks like me, politics takes a holiday after the primary elections until the fall campaign. We have lives to live.
I’ve written about the county supervisors race which has been reduced to a series of special interest forums in Iowa City and Coralville, along with fund raisers and whatever else each campaign sees fit to do.
I missed the first forum last night. Bottom line was I couldn’t afford the $5 in gasoline and an hour of driving on a work night. Stephen Gruber-Miller covered the forum for the Iowa City Press Citizen and here’s a link to his article. They say people in the county seat can access video of the event on their local cable television channel, but the service does not include Big Grove Township.
My trouble with picking three candidates for supervisor is besides the incumbents, I don’t share a view of the county with any of them. My relationship with the county seat is tenuous at best, although I likely benefit from the economic engine that is the University of Iowa. I’ll pick one of the two business people for my third vote and see what decision the urban centers make for me. No need to decide until late in the race, early June most likely.
The other primary election that matters is for U.S. Senate and I support State Senator Rob Hogg over three other candidates.
Politicization of our lives has become a detriment to living, so the compulsion I felt toward campaigns during the George W. Bush years is in remission. I work on issues, but like with the climate crisis, they represent human values and shame on those who politicize them or frame them in the false paradigm that is conservative vs. progressive. People like billionaire Tom Steyer is who I have in mind, but it applies equally to all of the billionaire class members.
My summer will be eking out a living on the margins of society, hopefully making enough money to live on, reducing debt, and finding joy in simple pleasures. We don’t need politics for that.
Yesterday was a spring day as good as it gets. I took advantage of it and worked outside.
The kale seedlings have been slow-developing, so I put them in direct sunlight. The day’s growth was noticeable. I transplanted the scarlet variety into bigger pots to give them room to grow. They were laggards of the three varieties and best liked in my distribution network. Indoor bedroom germination has never been optimal, but a few hours in sunlight made a difference. More seedling sunning is planned today.
Yesterday’s garden work included planting three kinds of onions, basil seeds, Easter egg radishes, leaf spinach and arugula. I’m moving on to conditioning the soil for everything else.
A sign of the times, I planted the last seeds in pots: zucchini to get a head start for early May transplanting. It won’t be long before the danger of frost is past and everything can go into the ground.
Something is growing in the carrot planters, but I’m not sure it is carrots. Will wait until the leaves show what they are.
The first cut of lawn is the best. The unevenness of early growth gets smoothed over to produce a transient, semi-manicured look. There is a lot of trim work to do, with minor clean-up. The clippings fell where they may providing mulch for the expected long and dry spell. I’m first to admit I don’t care for lawn mowing. The restrictive covenants require me to do it about twice a month.
The apple trees won’t have a good year. Two of them have zero blooms and the Red Delicious has only a couple dozen. The pear tree should bear fruit based on the abundance of blooms. There were plenty of pollinators flying around, including a bumblebee trying to fly up my pants leg.
I gave some excess onion sets to a neighbor and she reciprocated with some “walking onions.” They were ready to eat, but I stuck them in the ground next to one of the composters.
There is always more to do in a garden. We are thankful for each day of clement weather and sunlight.
The next non-internet writing project will be an autobiography in 10,000 words — taking the relative success of Autobiography in 1,000 words and expanding it to twenty 500-word parts as follows:
Birth and parents (1951 – 1954)
Earliest memories (Through 1957)
Kindergarten (1957 – 1958)
First Grade (1958-1959)
Marquette Street (1959 – 1970)
College (1970 – 1974)
Military service (1975 – 1980)
Graduate school (1980 – 1981)
Marriage (1982 – 1985)
A daughter (1985)
Cedar Rapids (1985 – 1987)
Indiana (1987 – 1993)
Living in Big Grove – Family (1993 – present)
Living in Big Grove – Career (1993 – 2009)
Living in Big Grove – Gardening (1993 – present)
Living in Big Grove – Empty nesters (2003 – present)
Living in Big Grove – Retirement from transportation (2009)
Visiting Colorado
Visiting Florida
Second Retirement
I’ve learned to keep the scope of things large enough to say something meaningful and small enough so the project can be accomplished. Using a short form requires focus. Focus brings clarity if I’m lucky.
Journey Home 
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