Author: Paul Deaton

Categories
Kitchen Garden

The Corn Harvest has Begun

`Setting Sun
Setting Sun

LAKE MACBRIDE— Combines are in the field, just beginning the corn harvest. There are a lot of brown corn plants standing in the field… another sign that winter is coming. The Farm Journal reported that 11 days ago, so this is not news. It is just that to read something in the media is one thing, and to see life actually unfolding is quite another.

There is a lot to write about from the farm, and then again, there isn’t. Working on a vegetable farm has been a rich experience. It has been a month since I began working most weekdays, and it is physically and mentally rewarding work. There is an endless succession of visitors and workers to the farm, and always something going on in the neighborhood. On Thursdays I deliver directly to our customers in North Liberty. When we talk about farm to market, there is no middleman and they see the face of the farmer as it is with soil from the field stuck to my clothes.

Last night I dreamed about where we spent my preschool years. The Clifton Hill area of Davenport has not changed much since the early 1950s when our family lived there. It is a scrappy neighborhood where people don’t spend a lot on education, and spend more disposable income on tobacco products than anything according to one survey. The crime rate is high compared to the national average, with rape and assault being the most frequent. On the plus side, the number of murders scores below the national average.

Clifton Hills is a blue collar neighborhood, but since the time we lived there, the blue collar jobs fled the Quad Cities, and 65 percent of those employed are now white collar workers. It is past time when the type of work is designated by the color of shirt a worker wears, as it is a meaningless appellation.

The home where I grew up sold for $58,000 in 2010 according to the assessor’s office. Visually, it hasn’t changed much, and in dreams and memories my recollections of life there are clear. Why I would remember last night’s dream of the old neighborhood, when my life is so different, is hard to understand. Nor is it important to remember. I accept the origins of my life in society. It’s just another thing in the cycles of time. Not unlike the corn harvest, it comes on schedule when conditions are right.

Categories
Writing

Domain Renewed for 2014

Harvesting Fallen Apples
Harvesting Fallen Apples

LAKE MACBRIDE— During the more than four years since retirement, writing 300 to 750 word posts each morning has become a way of life— something to start the day, clearing the path for engagement and productivity. As the seasonal farm work ends in October, I hope to regroup and refocus here, but what the hell: it is hard to predict what will happen.

I do know this. The website pauldeaton.com will continue for another year, as I renewed my agreement with WordPress. It has been worth the $18 per year for the domain name registration and mapping. Now comes the task of writing something worth reading. I hope readers will hang in as the process works.

Categories
Writing

Salt Fork Kitchen Debut

Salt Fork KitchenSOLON— Readers have asked for a review of Salt Fork Kitchen. While I did attend the grand opening on Sunday, I’m not ready to give the new restaurant a full review after only one visit.

Salt Fork Kitchen will struggle with the fact that it occupies space where restaurants have continuously failed since our family moved to the area 20 years ago. When one walks in the door, the experience is dejá vu, and all the work done by the new proprietors competes with memories of meals and experiences past. The bar is in the same place, the tables appear the same as the last go-around, and while the framed images on the wall are different, the look is as it has been. Strike one.

Huevos Borrachos
Huevos Borrachos

There is often a thick looking man leaning on the railing outside the main entrance smoking a cigarette. He was there Monday, day two of the restaurant, and one presumes he is affiliated with the business. There is a reason Iowa went smoke-free, and his presence and the aroma of burning tobacco in the air is not inviting. Strike two.

On the positive side, the wait staff was friendly and helpful, and my breakfast of huevos borrachos, or drunken eggs, was different and tasty. The coffee was good.

The bill was reasonable. I was the cashier’s first customer, and she handled the transaction cheerfully. Percentage-wise, I left a big tip, with hopes that next time first impressions can be set aside to take stock of what has the potential to be a great local eatery.

Salt Fork Kitchen didn’t win me over the first time, but this is a small community, and a person has to eat breakfast or lunch in town from time to time. I’ll be back, with a more balanced view of Salt Fork Kitchen.

UPDATE: 10/22/13 The Solon Economist wrote an article about the opening of Salt Fork Kitchen. Find it here.

Categories
Writing

Inventory of Local Producers

LAKE MACBRIDE— During 2013, in addition to our own garden, I spent time working with or studying the following fruit and vegetable producers that are part of the local food system in our area. They are listed in alphabetical order.

Abbe Hills Farm, Mount Vernon, Iowa.

Jack Neuzil, Solon, Iowa.

Kroul Farms, Mount Vernon, Iowa.

Rebal’s Sweet Corn Stand, Solon, Iowa.

Turtle Creek Orchard, Solon, Iowa.

Wild Woods Farm, Solon, Iowa.

Wilson’s Orchard, Iowa City, Iowa.

ZJ Farm, Solon, Iowa.

Categories
Writing

Apples on the Move

Livestock Apples
Livestock Apples

LAKE MACBRIDE— Johnny Appleseed’s birthday is on Thursday, and there has been a lot of apple action. The economy of apples is on the move in late September and October.

The windfall of apples in our yard created three groups. I picked the best for out of hand eating and making apple butter and apple crisp. The seconds went into a big cart and down the street, where a neighbor pressed them into four gallons of cider, with the apple pumice planned for livestock. The rest went into large plastic tubs to be traded for eggs. If a person is going to have apple trees, something should be done with the fruit.

Growers no long plant apples from seeds. The use of selective breeding, resulting in cultivars, or branches grafted to root stock has become the norm. Heirloom apples like Red Gravenstein, Wealthy, Cortland and Saint Edmund’s Pippin have given way to Honeycrisp, Jersey Mac and Jonafree. When I chat with modern apple connoisseurs, they eschew my humble Red Delicious apples, discovered in Iowa. More’s the pity, as naturally ripened and off the tree, they are some of the most flavorful apples to be found.

As summer turns to fall, now is the time to harvest the crop and use it. Participating in the apple culture is one of the benefits of living on a planet hospitable to our species. We should take advantage of it.

Categories
Environment Home Life

Storm Damage Update

LAKE MACBRIDE— The sound of chain saws echoed through the neighborhood yesterday, including in our yard where a tree service climbed the Autumn Blaze maple tree and removed the broken branch high in the canopy. They also removed a large branch from the maple tree on the north side of the house. The branch was growing toward the structure, and could have fallen on it should another intense storm come through. It seems increasingly likely another intense storm will hit, sooner rather than later.

The storm peeled back the southwest corner of the metal facing on the roof. From the ground, it appears there is water damage to the underlying wood, it will have to be inspected and repaired. One can accept the reality of intense weather, caused by climate change, but it is much more than words on a web page. The work of recovery absorbs our resources and time, and portends more of the same. Dealing with disasters, even small ones like ours, is not how we intended to spend our life when we were in grade school.

On the plus side, there is a buyer for the firewood the disaster will produce, and finding an inexpensive tree service will be an asset going forward. I bartered some of the cut maple wood with a neighbor who will use it to smoke meat. In return, he will press some apples into cider. The storm’s wake left more neighboring than I can recall in a long time.

According to the U.S. Census, our household is above the median net worth for people our age. Not by much, but enough so that to say we are working poor is inaccurate. Poor people don’t have a net worth. At the same time, trying to make ends meet is challenging.

The reality of working seventy hours per week for less than a living wage, is there is less time, energy and resources for everything else. At the center of this life is the notion that we can maintain priorities and get the most important things done. Add disaster recovery, and the equilibrium is upset.

It’s approaching 5 a.m. in Big Grove, when I’ll depart for the newspaper, hoping to finish the week’s proof reading and catch the grand opening of a new restaurant in town before heading to the orchard for work. In the hour or two of daylight after my shift, I’ll glean a garden plot to make room for the disaster brush pile. Once that is done, organize for our presentation at the library on Sept. 30. We make plans, work the plan, and hope for the best— sustaining our lives in a turbulent world.

Categories
Writing

Salt Fork Kitchen Grand Opening

Salt Fork Kitchen
Salt Fork Kitchen

SOLON— Salt Fork Kitchen, 112 E. Main St., is slated to open for Sunday brunch on Sept. 22 from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m., with jam session. My friend Bill posted this note about the grand opening on Facebook,

I’ve been helping open Salt Fork Kitchen, Solon’s newest restaurant, get up and running. Supplied by it’s own farm (Salt Fork Farm). Chef Jay, and crew sport a great menu. Everything made from scratch from fresh ingredients. Sauces, by Jay, are incredible, as is everything. Home made bread, and biscuits, and yesterday was hummus making. I could go on, and on, so please come by, and enjoy. Grand opening this Sunday, September 22nd, 8:00 to 2:00. Jam session so follow, so bring your fiddle, guitar, or bluegrass bongos.

The restaurant grew from Salt Fork Farms and readers can find more information at the website saltforkfarms.com. Here is a snippet,

Salt Fork Kitchen is a long time dream of Eric’s. It will be a locally sourced, made from scratch restaurant providing quality food at a fair price for you, and the farmer.

The article I wrote with background information can be viewed here. If work schedule permits, I plan to stop by for the opening.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Pick a Peck of Peppers

Hot Peppers
Hot Peppers

RURAL CEDAR TOWNSHIP— Part of Thursday’s work was to harvest the hot pepper row at the CSA. We have Anaheim, which is not really hot, Hungarian wax peppers, jalapeno and Serrano. The peppers looked very nice, and the work prepared me to discuss them with customers at the drop site later that afternoon. I am ahead of myself.

The day started by picking kale, as it does on delivery days after the plants mature. The customers like kale, especially young children who anticipate it will be turned into baked kale chips for snack. For every leaf put in the cooler, two are discarded in the field, so there is a lot of marginal quality kale that returns to compost.

On a vegetable farm, there is a lot of marginal food generally: not quite good enough for customers, yet still a fresh and delicious food ingredient. Some is offered as seconds to customers, the farm workers take some home, and some returns to compost. This year I am experimenting with a bartering business of processing labor traded for a share of marginal food. A crate of peppers with bad spots becomes cut pieces in bags to be frozen. This operation included broccoli, tomatoes, bell peppers, hot peppers and eggplant, resulting in a more than adequate household supply for the coming winter.

I harvested eggplant after the kale and before the hot peppers. There is a lot in the field. Eggplant is a global favorite vegetable, but in Iowa a person can only eat so much of it. We offer half a dozen varieties of eggplant, and customers take it with their share. The eggplant from my weekly share was aging, so upon returning home, I baked off half of it and removed the flesh to make babaganoush, some for now, and some to freeze for later.

While I was working, others were bagging potatoes, picking lettuce in the high tunnel, harvesting tomatoes, collecting herbs, counting onions, preparing garlic and doing all that is required to get the Thursday deliveries out to customers. It’s a day in the life of a community supported agriculture project.

Categories
Home Life

Survey of the Storm Damage

The storm prematurely knocked acorns from the Bur Oak
The storm prematurely knocked acorns from the Bur Oak

... and apples from the tree...
… and apples from the tree…

The worst damage was knocking over a locust tree...
The worst damage was knocking over a locust tree…

... which somehow missed most everything,
… which somehow missed most everything,

...except the lilac bushes.
…except the lilac bushes.

The Golden Delicious apple tree lost another branch...
The Golden Delicious apple tree lost another branch…

... the maple tree lost two. One fell to the ground...
… the maple tree lost two. One fell to the ground…

... and one didn't.
… and one didn’t.

Categories
Environment Kitchen Garden

Letter to the Solon Economist

To the editor,

National Farm Bureau’s spokesman Mace Thornton was recently quoted by David Biello in Slate Magazine, “we’re not convinced that the climate change we’re seeing is anthropogenic in origin. We don’t think the science is there to show that in a convincing way.”

That a large national organization with strong Iowa roots would assert such a thing is ridiculous.

First of all, farmers experience the effects of changing climate directly. If they do not connect the dots between the increasing use of fossil fuels and the warming planet, it is the talk of bureaucrats and paid analysis not grounded in the science of the greenhouse effect and its relationship to climate.

Secondly, whether farmers are convinced that climate change is anthropogenic (i.e. caused in part by human activity), has become increasingly irrelevant. The USDA has already begun to incorporate climate change in its projections and outreach. According to Biello, “many American farmers— even those who would question whether climate change is man-made— are already doing exactly what efforts to combat climate change would require: precision agriculture to cut back on fossil fuel use, low or no-till farming, cover crops, biodigesters for animal waste, and the like.”

Climate change is real, and it’s happening now. If you would like to hear more about the science of climate change and what you can do to help remediate its causes, please attend a public meeting with me and Senator Rob Hogg on Monday, Sept. 30 at 6:30 p.m. at the Solon Public Library. All are welcome.

Footnote: Slate Magazine, July 16, 2013, Why Don’t Farmers Believe in Climate Change? by David Biello. Link to article here.