LAKE MACBRIDE— A neighbor posted this message to our community email list last night,
Dear Neighbors,
Our garden has produced tons of great tomatoes this year, more then we can or can. Tomorrow I will pull my trailer up to the road with some of the surplus tomatoes on it. If you would like some home grown organic heirloom tomatoes help yourself.
It was a generous gesture, the kind of which we need more in this dog-eat-dog world, where the Darwinian struggle for existence is taken literally and has also taken a turn toward the coarser side of human nature. He posted before the storm rolled in.
One neighbor called the brief storm, “(the) worst in 20 years.” He and his family built about the same time we did, during the early 1990s. The rain was intense and the wind sharp. With the climate crisis, one expects this sort of storm, and seeing how it plays out is never a pleasant experience.
We lost a tree, some lilac bushes and a big branch from our favorite tree, the autumn blaze maple in front. The apple crop was mostly knocked from the trees. When the sun rises we’ll see what is left to finish ripening, and whether there was any structural damage. I won’t be going to the farm today while spending time with post-storm cleanup. It could have been a lot worse.
Next steps are to finish coffee and breakfast, make a list and start doing things on it when the sun rises. There’s a song about that.
LAKE MACBRIDE— After arriving at the farm, I took this photo and headed to the high tunnel to plant lettuce. The western sky was illuminated by the sun, a harbinger of rain, which came, along with lightning and thunder, within the hour. I continued planting while the drops pattered against the heavy gauge plastic and nature’s light show played in the distance. We need rain, but not much fell. There are only three more weeks in the CSA and already we are preparing the farm for winter.
Part of the work was setting up irrigation in the high tunnel, repairing the drip line where it leaked and making sure it aligned closely to the rows of newly planted seedlings. It is more time consuming than one would think. When people depend on a vegetable crop, there is no choice but to irrigate when drought comes. It is difficult to budget for the extra labor of irrigation— one more uncertainty in the life of a farmer.
Using a margin trowel, I dug five or six holes in a row and then planted seedlings, covering each over the top of the soil block. By the end of the day, my shoulder was sore, so one flat remained from the job— perhaps tomorrow on that one.
There was a sense of connection today. Not only to the cycle of planting and harvest, but to everyone else. While I may have been alone, the presence of everyone I have known was with me. It’s hard to explain, but being protected from the storm in the high tunnel was part of it as I labored in the field of an indeterminate future— hopefully one with lettuce.
LAKE MACBRIDE— Yesterday’s presentation to a group of university students went well. In 30 minutes and 70 slides, a story of the climate crisis and its relationship to food systems unfolded in what felt like my most confident public speaking to date. The students seemed engaged in the narrative, and the questions at the end were thoughtful. Perhaps I have found my sweet spot.
One of the hopes for On Our Own: Sustainability in a Turbulent World has been to work through ideas and practices in local food systems. This included real world experience working on four farms, maintaining a large garden at home, and networking with people who play various roles in our local food system. The question has been, can one more person make a living producing, selling and promoting local food? The answer is yes, but I enjoy writing and speaking about it more, leaving a quandary regarding how to go forward.
My work with the Climate Reality Project requires a certain amount of public speaking and writing, but it is volunteer work. Local food system work, like any paid labor requires full attention and is physically challenging, leaving little room for other things. Balancing the two, and resolving the quandary, may be possible, but the path is not clear yet. That’s good news for readers of this blog as I reflect on this year’s local food system experience and work through how to spend next year during the coming weeks.
LAKE MACBRIDE— The abundance of this year’s local food system has been remarkable. The more than adequate spring rain, combined with a late growing season, had everything producing, including the author. The term “local food system,” in this context, means how an individual home cook acquires and produces food for the table.
This year, our food was mostly organic, and if we grew celery, lemons and limes here, we would have little reason to visit the produce aisle at the grocery store, except to compare our produce with theirs.
But the season is ending. Talk turns to cover crops and preparing the fields for winter. Gleaning will begin soon, plot by plot, uprooting the plants and taking the last bits of produce. The gleaning process wrecks the garden, making way for a fall turning of the soil. Seldom have I gotten the garden plots turned before winter arrives. Maybe this year, but I doubt it.
The red delicious apples are ripening, not ready yet, but soon. And so begins the vortex into fall’s final push into winter. Working four part time jobs has been a grind from multiple perspectives, not the least of which has been the wearying effect on my bones and muscles. Four more weeks at the orchard, maybe a job or two at one CSA, and work into October at the other. The four to five hours per week at the newspaper is the only constant: I complete two years there in October.
Whatever the challenges of this life, they are much better than the office work I did for so many years. The sense of creation, and contribution is tangible, even if the pay isn’t adequate to live. There is more work to do before this harvest is closed. I relish its opportunity and the life it engenders.
LAKE MACBRIDE— A co-worker and I were talking about the weather on the farm. For city-folk readers, people who work in agriculture do that a lot. I asked her, “when was the last rain?” Without hesitation, she answered, “in July.” And except for a couple of sprinkles, last night’s rain was the first since then. It was luxuriant.
My job at the orchard is related to the u-pick operation, and the rain meant customer activity would be suppressed after a very busy Saturday of temperatures in the 70s and clear skies. No orchard work for me today, so, to the grocery store to pick up some necessities and soon I’ll be at work in the kitchen preserving food.
There is a lot of food to work on. The first crop of apples is ready to be used today or never, so that will happen. It will either be juice or apple butter. Not sure yet. The pears are also in, so I’ll use 4-5 pounds to make a batch of pear butter while the rest ripen.
I have half a gallon of Concord grapes, from which I will make jelly.
From the aging hot and bell peppers, I’ll make pepper sauce with onion, tomato and garlic. Anything tomato-y or onion-y will get added to the pot. It is a variation on my traditional hot sauce mix, and designed to use up produce in the refrigerator. This will be run through the food mill and processed in pint jars.
Tomatoes are everywhere in the kitchen and garden. Some will be canned, some cooked into a batch of chili, and not sure what else. The vines are really producing this year, in my garden and at other local food sources.
So with this tentative plan in place, off to the kitchen and the work of sustaining a life on the Iowa prairie.
Update: 9:19 p.m. The stove was on most of the day, and I made chili and fruit salad for dinner, seven pints of pear butter, three pints of concord grape jelly, two pints of diced tomatoes, and six quarts, one pint and one half pint of hot pepper sauce. Did two loads of dishes and cleaned all the pots and pans before retiring to bed.
LAKE MACBRIDE— Hydration is important while working in the field, and water is the preferred beverage. Water drawn from the well at one of the hydrants on the property. What else would it be?
Once in a while, I stop at a convenience store in town, and buy a plastic bottle of sweetened soft drink. It’s a very expensive treat. I drank so many this year that two bags of empties accumulated to drop at a local octogenarian’s garage where they are process for the bottle deposits and donated to a local non-profit organization. I’d rather stick to water for a lot of reasons.
Why would first lady Michelle Obama catch flak for saying, “water is so basic, and because it is so plentiful, sometimes we just forget about it amid all the ads we watch on television and all the messages we receive every day about what to eat and drink. The truth is, water just gets drowned out?” Drinking more water, instead of sugary drinks, is something we just do on the farm, albeit things are different in the city, where most people live.
When I got home from deliveries for the local CSA, I made a farm worker’s dinner of caramelized onions and peppers, potatoes with rosemary and garlic and scrambled eggs. For beverage, a glass of chilled tap water, without prompting. It’s just the best thing to drink.
NORTH LIBERTY— Craig Hill, Iowa Farm Bureau Federation president, spoke last night at the annual Johnson County Farm Bureau meeting. What he said was surprising. He acknowledged that the lack of adequate regulation of air and water quality in China was problematic if people wanted to breathe and drink clean water. Specifically, he pointed to the pollution of coal-fired power plants in and around major population centers. He also commented on the poor water quality. He didn’t go so far as to say more regulation was needed, but for him to acknowledge these problems with this audience of anti-EPA folks seemed remarkable to me. One can only ignore the pollution of our air and water for so long, until action eventually will be required. If he didn’t say it that way, it was only a matter of degrees of separation of our positions.
The annual meeting is the only place I go where we take time to hear introductions of an organization’s insurance sales staff. They all seem nice, and competent, but seriously, there is only so much time and so much to do, why this? The answer is that my health insurance premiums through the Iowa Farm Bureau are the single biggest household expense we have. It is important to tune into what the organization is doing at least once a year. There is also a free meal, which is distinctive in its roots on Iowa farms. Too, as the years add up, I am getting to know more people who attend this event. Attending the annual Johnson County Farm Bureau meeting has become a part of living in rural Iowa.
RURAL CEDAR TOWNSHIP— A co-worker was asked when the last rain fell. The answer was July. In a community supported agriculture project, there is no option other than to irrigate when drought comes, and that means a series of hydrants spread throughout the farm, and frequent draws on the underground reservoirs. So far, there has been enough water.
In the list of 2014 legislative priorities recently sent to our state representative, I wrote the following paragraph,
Once again Iowa was short on rainfall, especially the last 6-8 weeks. If the dry weather and drought continues, there will be pressure to irrigate row crops in a place where traditionally we have had enough rainfall to do without. In late July, I traveled to Chicago and along Interstate 88 they are already irrigating corn. Water use will be a key issue for Iowa going forward, and if irrigation of Iowa corn and beans starts, I’m not sure how management would be structured, but more attention to water use would be needed. The legislature should play a role, in evaluating the science, and taking appropriate preventive action. Evaluating the science doesn’t mean just calling the folks at Farm Bureau, asking for an opinionaire from their members.
That there is a connection between human activity, climate change and the current drought can be a matter of some discussion in Iowa. For the most part, industrial agricultural producers see the climate changing, but do not attribute it to anthropogenic origins. It is just another thing to deal with while farming. Those of us more familiar with the science of climate change see the direct connection. The two positions haven’t yet been reconciled.
June 2013 was the 340th consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th century average. 2012 was the 36th consecutive year with a global temperature above the 20th century average. On a local level, here in Cedar Township, this translates into wanting rain and wondering what would happen if the well runs dry. The answer to that question, is farmers may give up, especially small scale local producers like the one where I work.
There is a connection between the global climate crisis and extreme weather events like this year’s drought. As global CO2 levels have increased above 400 parts per million, global temperatures rose in tandem. As temperatures increase, the atmosphere can hold more water vapor. This makes rainfall and flooding more frequent and intense like spring 2013 was in our area.
The effect of global warming, and the hydrological cycle’s absorption of water vapor, also creates longer intervals between rainfalls, making droughts even worse. Because of the atmosphere’s increased capacity for hold water vapor, the land can become parched without irrigation.
People who live from the land, have to do something, and in Iowa we have relied upon abundant rainfall to grow crops without irrigation. As climate changes, that means considering how to make the land productive absent the conditions that led us to be what we are. It requires us to to adapt to the changing climate, and take action to mitigate the causes of this year’s flooding and drought. Before we begin large scale irrigation, Iowa should consider the consequences of increased water usage.
Locally, the climate changed, when we least needed or expected it. There is little to do now, other than adapt and mitigate the human causes of climate change.
LAKE MACBRIDE— In 100 degree temperatures the walk to the garden to pick yellow cherry tomatoes and basil for dinner didn’t seem hot. Perhaps I am adapted to the unseasonably hot weather… intensified by climate change. We can’t recall the last rainfall. According to the state climatologist, “Iowa temperatures averaged 72.1° or 0.6° above normal while precipitation totaled 1.57 inches or 2.63 inches less than normal. This ranks as the 7th driest and 65th warmest August among 141 years of records.” It has been exceptionally dry in Big Grove. However, life goes on, and having a house guest provides a special reason to used locally grown food to prepare meals for the table.
That we would have a salad was determined when a co-worker at the farm carried a crate full of freshly picked lettuce from the field to the cooler yesterday morning. Mixed greens, washed and spun dry, topped with zucchini, cucumber, orange bell pepper, red onions, wedges of red tomatoes and sliced carrots were topped with a dressing of choice. Balsamic vinegar and olive oil with salt and pepper is my favorite.
We also served pesto pasta. During early summer I made and froze half a dozen jars of pesto, using various ingredients. Slicing the yellow cherry tomatoes in half and putting them in a small bowl along with a chiffonade of basil leaves, I cooked six cups of bow tie pasta to al dente. The pasta, tomatoes and basil, half a pint of pesto and a roughly measured cup of Romano and Parmesan cheese were mixed thoroughly in a large bowl and served alongside a one-inch thick tomato slice topped with kosher salt and strips of fresh basil. A simple late summer feast.
LAKE MACBRIDE— Only time for a brief post before heading out to job three of a four job day. Already this morning I finished proof reading the newspaper and worked on preserving bell peppers. Next the orchard, followed by work on the farm and then canning if I am still up to it. Sunday is anything but a day of rest in Big Grove.
My biggest ever crop of apples is turning into something of a bust because I can’t make time to harvest and preserve the first two trees. Then yesterday I read about Arctic® Apples, the genetically modified organism that is designed to repress creation of the enzyme that turns apples brown when exposed to air (after cutting or biting into) or bruised. In other words, the traditional way of knowing an apple is going bad is repressed, and this creates a longer shelf life for the fruit.
Not an issue here, where in the race against nature’s clock, I hope to eke out one or two dozen more pints of apple butter before the first picks go bad. I need the browning action to know where I stand. But in the industrial food supply chain, shelf life matters… a lot.
The new cultivar is going through the regulatory process in Canada and the U.S. presently. Friends of the Earth created an on-line petition to encourage Gerbers to continue to use non GMO apples to make applesauce and other products. From the perspective of having my own supply, and working in a large local orchard that produces cultivars going back to the 17th century, what the hell?
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