LAKE MACBRIDE— UPDATE Aug. 2, 2013. Organizers have delayed this event due to scheduling conflicts. Email me if you want a notification of the new date/time.
Lifting the ban on boat motors larger than ten horsepower on Lake Macbride has been a perennial issue in the Iowa legislature. The issue for opponents, including former Iowa state senator Swati Dandekar, has been Iowans can’t afford to own a second motor for their boats to use the lake. It seems a lame reason when there are so many other boating opportunities in the state, and nearby.
The Lake Macbride Conservancy is a group of area property owners that works to conserve Lake Macbride and environs. They have posted about the horsepower restriction on their web site. A neighbor sent this note from them yesterday.
Dear Lake Macbride Friends and Neighbors,
Our local legislators (Senator Dvorsky and Representative Kaufmann), along with members of the Senate Natural Resources and Environment Committee (Senators Dearden, Zumbach and Seng) will be joining us on Sunday, Aug. 4, for a tour of Lake Macbride.
Our plan is to tour the lake on a single pontoon (boat), starting on the North arm and ending on the South at the U of I Sailing Club dock. We hope to start the lake tour at about 1:15 p.m. and end at about 3:30 p.m. This tour will be a great opportunity to explain the history of Lake Macbride and describe environmental and safety concerns around the park and lake. We think it will strengthen our message to these legislators when they see, first hand, the number of individuals who use the lake and the number of different types of crafts employed.
Organizers indicated, “it’d be great to have a good showing of association watercraft use during the tour.”
Our family does not include regular boaters, but supports the efforts of the group.
LAKE MACBRIDE— The summer weather has been as good as it gets, a reminder of what it was like as a child, with endless days to play in the sunlight, safe and without worry. This summer has been unforgettable. Besides the weather, it has been a different and somewhat tribal life after turning to those with whom we live out our lives in the neighborhood.
A quick garden update. Removing the green caterpillars with a medical grade forceps did the trick of removing the pest, and the new leaves are growing bug free. The white butterflies are around, so there may be more, and I lost one plant, but the new growth looks great.
Cucumber Seedlings
Today, I harvested the rest of the green beans, composted the plants, and planted a row of cucumbers from seedlings. I planted the seed in pots on July 13, so they are two weeks from seed to seedling. The benefit of growing them this way is with the wet root ball, they can tolerate diverse conditions better to get off to a good start in the ground. They bring their own moisture with them to the initial planting. I watered them well and mulched. With my newly developed pickle addiction, I may plant more before summer is gone. There were some seedlings leftover from planting a row, so maybe next weekend.
Three Rows of Lettuce
The current crop of lettuce is suffering. Not from the heat, or lack of water, but from disappearing. There used to be three full rows here, and some plants are missing. Not sure what is the pest, but it seems doubtful deer are jumping the fence as there are no deer footprints inside. Perhaps a rabbit, or something else. Whatever is left, will be enjoyed by the humans. The leaves are big enough to pick, so when I return from my trip, we’ll bring some in for a tasting.
Green Tomatoes
Finally, the tomatoes are maturing and three varieties have begun to ripen: two cherry tomatoes and Roma. Tomatoes have been the continuous crop in our garden, since the first duplex where we lived after our wedding ceremony. Perhaps there was a gap in Cedar Rapids, but not much of one. This year’s crop was the first I planted as seeds, and based on the results, I’ll do that next year as well.
Roma Tomatoes
The primary concern this year is to finish processing tomatoes before the apples come in. There are a lot of apples. I know what I want from the tomatoes: 12 quarts and 12 pints of tomato sauce, the leftover juice, 24 pints of diced tomatoes, and maybe a dozen pints of hot sauce using the cayenne and jalapeno peppers. Knowing how to approach it is half the battle.
Tonight for dinner, I made a pizza. Thin, wheat crust with tomato sauce I canned in 2011 mixed with fresh basil and salt. Toppings were half an onion from the CSA, thinly sliced zucchini, diced green peppers, sliced green olives with pimiento, halved cherry tomatoes and 6 ounces of mozzarella cheese. It is out of the oven, so I had better go sample.
LAKE MACBRIDE— There’s a lot to get ready before departing Big Grove on Tuesday to attend the Climate Reality Leadership Corps training in Chicago. The week’s posts on Blog for Iowa need to be wrapped up, financial matters put in order, a major work session in the garden completed, and logistical things like reading the course materials and packing are prerequisites. This in addition to my usual responsibilities at the newspaper and CSA. The next eight days will be busy.
My friend Dick Schwab decided to run for another term on the community school board. Being on the board is a thankless, unpaid job made more contentious by the negative community reaction to standards based grading. I have been reading about the new program in our local newspaper for about two years, so I don’t get why there is a reaction when the long planned program is being implemented. That is, only to say that while there has been complete transparency, like in most locations in the U.S., the public tuned out until it dawned on them the discussion actually affected their lives. I’m also helping Dick get petition signatures for the Sept. 10 school board election before leaving for Chicago.
During a phone call with my mother we talked about the food storage cabinet in her basement. It looks home made, and was built to store a year’s worth of canned goods in Mason jars. On grocery day, one of the tasks I shared was hauling bags of canned goods to the basement and arranging them on its shelves. The cabinet was in the house when we moved there the summer before I entered second grade. For a while, I wanted it in Big Grove to store my own canned goods, but changed my mind. I favor a better arranged pantry close to the kitchen over an artifact designed for another era.
Dawn has broken on another glorious summer day in Iowa, and soon I’ll be off to the newspaper for a long morning’s work. This summer has been what we expect of summer days, full of life and belle weather on the Iowa prairie.
BUSSEY– Trish Nelson is enjoying RAGBRAI and sent a brief note with a couple of photos. Trish wrote on her mobile device, “another shot of the tomato sandwiches being made. Very Iowa. Selling like hotcakes at 2 bucks apiece as fast as they could make them. I haven’t experienced a more flavorful red juicy tomato like that since I was a kid.”
LAKE MACBRIDE— As July draws to a close, much needed rain came last night, tapping lightly on the bedroom windows. Predawn, the driveway was wet, and the clouds had opened to reveal the waning gibbous moon which illuminated the landscape, reflecting its silvery light in pools of rainwater.
It seems halfway through the gardening season, and the spring abundance has turned to waiting— for the late lettuce to mature, tomatoes to ripen, and four or five varieties of peppers to fruit. The apple and pear trees are laden with fruit, weighing the branches so that I can’t get under them with the riding mower. Biting into a fallen apple, there was sweetness, but also the sourness of immature fruit. Not ready yet, but soon.
One Japanese beetle was spotted on an indicator plant I let grow in the garden, a weed the bugs favor. There was only one, and otherwise, the invasive species has left my apple trees and garden alone this year. Other gardeners and farmers in the area report the same thing. The only thing that changed from years they swarmed is that no one planted winter wheat in our area, favoring corn. This is anecdotal, but there seems to be a connection between winter wheat and an abundance of Japanese beetles showing up in our yard after the wheat is harvested from nearby fields. We dodged the bullet this year, and the apple harvest will be one of the best we have had.
The drama of a great gardening year has paused. We never know what today, or tomorrow might bring, and look forward to seeing how it unfolds as we reach toward winter. Winter. An unlikely topic now. Invoking it reminds us to live as best we can in the moonlight after rain has fallen.
Trish Nelson, regular editor of Blog for Iowa, posted this photo on the Internet, reminding us that there is a world outside the confines of what Al Gore described as “the worldwide digital communications, Internet, and computer revolutions (which) have led to the emergence of ‘the Global Mind,’ which links the thoughts and feelings of billions of people and connects intelligent machines, robots, ubiquitous sensors, and databases.” That is, outside blogs, Facebook, twitter, the World Wide Web and cable TV.
On the real world front, while Governor Branstad was participating in RAGBRAI, his staff was meeting behind closed doors with regional Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) staff regarding Iowa’s compliance with the Clean Water Act. Read the community organizing group Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (Iowa CCI) article here.
Putting the best face on it, the governor is managing mandatory compliance with the EPA on a number of fronts, including the Clean Water Act. Elections matter, and Iowa chose Terry Branstad, along with his views on EPA compliance, in 2010. To put the Iowa CCI face on it, they recirculated their frequent meme, “…the Farm Bureau does not run this state,” and demanded transparency. Both points have some validity, and there is no surprise by any of this as both party’s positions regarding concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are well known and have been.
Here’s the rub. In the May 31 letter from EPA staffer Karl Brooks to governor Branstad, Brooks wrote, “I respectfully suggest that those regulated parties with the most interest in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation Clean Water Act permitting and evaluation should be invited to this conversation.” While some members of Iowa CCI may be “regulated parties,” the governor was under no obligation to hold public hearings on the matter and didn’t. The Iowa Farm Bureau response, with recommended revisions to the CAFO program work plan, was not only expected, it was, for the most part, the purpose of the meeting. The Iowa CCI response to the meeting was, like so many of their news releases, a red herring that gained some press coverage but diluted their effectiveness. I appreciate Iowa CCI making the information readily available, but there is no news here for anyone who follows water and air quality issues in Iowa. This meeting was predictable, and consistent with the Branstad administration outlook on EPA compliance.
For most Iowans who participate in RAGBRAI, it is a chance to get away from the daily grind for a while. The governor and thousands of others are participating in RAGBRAI, and for Branstad, as a politician, it was a photo opportunity. For Iowa CCI, RAGBRAI was a news hook to beat the drum on one of their core issues, one they know well. One of my groups, Veterans for Peace, uses RAGBRAI to publicize the true cost of our wars, as do a host of groups with their pet issues. All of it is good in what remains of our democracy.
The point is that involvement in a specific cause, regardless of how vocal one is, does not equate political change. There is a lot to hate about the Branstad’s approach to clean water, clean air and compliance with the Environmental Protection Agency. To effect political change means getting involved and working for political candidates, most of whom are subject to influence by moneyed interests like the Iowa Farm Bureau. Any candidate who dismisses as irrelevant the Farm Bureau, the livestock producers and row crop associations won’t be elected to statewide office in Iowa. It’s not going to happen in 2014.
Groups like Iowa CCI make political results more difficult when they throw out red meat as bait for their members and supporters, when most people are tuned out. For one, I’d like to see Iowa CCI less divisive and more involved with electing candidates that support progressive views, as many of their members are, and less focused on braggadocio after hammering the same nail once again.
RAGBRAI is happening, the summer weather has been unusually nice, and most people I know are unplugged from the global mind and living in the real world under Branstad until we can do better. For me, I prefer not to dip even a bicycle in the contaminated Mississippi River, long bike ride or not. Whether we as a state will do better on water quality and compliance with EPA depends a lot on whether people get together to elect a new governor in 2014. The work of doing so should begin now.
The U.S. Congressman from Iowa’s fourth district made some comments about immigration recently. Actually, he’s made a lot of them over the years. We can’t let him frame the discussion or worse, re-distribute his memes. For why, read Mark Karlin’s interview with George Lakoff, “Progressives Need to Use Language That Reflects Moral Values.”
The idea of building a fence around the U.S. border is as lame as a joke about corn at a 4-H meeting, funny though those jokes may be. Proponents of what Senator John McCain of Arizona called the “dang fence” across the southern U.S. border, don’t get the humor. In 2010, I wrote about immigration,
The author believes that as long as we maintain borders, we create a form of apartheid where the haves (in the U.S.) will use the have-nots (in Mexico, China, India and Africa) to do their menial work here or in their countries, largely without social justice. The borders serve to keep them out, when we should be letting them in. America will grow stronger with open borders, even if most Americans and some Arizonans don’t believe it.
Troll activity on Blog for Iowa was heavy after that post, mostly from organized groups who favored restricting immigration, illegal immigration particularly. The same folks who gave us Arizona’s SB 1070.
To deny the global reality of population growth is plain dumb. To think the U.S. can keep everything to ourselves reflects a lack of understanding about who we are as a people, and how we fit into the global village.
To deny the effects of our wars on the creation of conflict migration is to ignore the vast amount of U.S. blood and treasure invested in our endless wars.
To deny climate change is to lack an understanding that it will impact not only small island nations like Tuvalu and the Maldives, but will result in tens of millions of people needing someplace to go.
To deny the economic reasons why undocumented people from Mexico, Guatemala, and other places in central America come north is evidence of a misunderstanding of the role U.S. policy and the North American Free Trade Agreement played in creating economic reasons for the migration.
There is nothing new in these denials and a lot to learn.
What we learned in grade school that applies is from the Great Wall of China. Our teachers taught us that while the wall may have been successful in keeping nomadic groups and warlike people out of China, the unintended consequence was that Chinese culture calcified during the period. Whether what our teachers taught us is historically accurate, I can’t say, but it makes sense. The United States will be the less for building a fence to keep people out.
So as we hear outrageous comments about immigration in the media, and in conversations in society, I urge you to refrain from repeating their memes. Instead, work toward solutions. There is no single resolution to the need for immigration reform in this country. But it begins with each of us, individually and collectively.
While you’re at it, and while I’m being a bit preachy, read Derrick Jensen’s article in Orion Magazine, “Forget Shorter Showers: Why personal change does not equal political change,” and get involved in local politics.
Writing in The Nation, John Nichols put the best possible face on what he described in as, “the broad-based national campaign to enact a constitutional amendment to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court rulings that ushered in a new era of big-money politics.” He was referring to the high court’s decision in Citizens United versus the Federal Election Commission.
Public Citizen, Move to Amend and others have organized, launched petitions, and convinced legislators in 16 states, the District of Columbia, and about 500 municipalities to support overturning Citizens United. There is tangible evidence in the form of resolutions and referendum results. As Nichols indicated, 2013 has been a banner year for efforts to overturn Citizens United.
At the same time, virtually no one I encounter in rural Iowa knows of this movement specifically. People can agree on generalities: that money is property, that humans are people, that corporations have property, and despite Mitt Romney’s assertion at the Iowa State Fair, corporations are not people.
People also don’t know much about the Citizens United case. They don’t know that it was about a conservative group airing a film critical of Hillary Clinton on television. They don’t know that the McCain-Feingold Act (a.k.a. Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act) prohibited airing the film within 30 days of the 2008 Democratic primaries. They don’t know, and for the most part don’t care, that McCain-Feingold’s regulation of how corporations spend money in campaigns was found to be unconstitutional. What my neighbors do know is a lot of money is spent on politics, and they get sick of television advertisements when it gets close to elections and tune out.
Iowa Move to Amend has had an uphill climb, made more difficult by the departure of Marybeth Gardam, who left the state. Gardam was the grassroots organization’s leader and spark plug. As a grassroots organization, Iowa Move to Amend will proceed without her, but whatever activity there is in Iowa regarding Citizens United will be concentrated in the liberal urban areas, especially Iowa City and Des Moines. The statewide reach that Gardam strove for and could well have organized is on hold with her gone. The Iowa web page on the Move to Amend site hasn’t been updated since 2012.
Groups of citizens pursue the idea of amending the constitution, but saying it is one thing— doing it is a rarity. There have been 27 amendments to the constitution. The last one, related to when pay raises take effect for members of congress, was ratified in 1992— more than 200 years after it was introduced. With an electorate informed by a corporate media owned by a small number of corporations, gaining consensus among three fourths of the states to ratify a constitutional amendment seems improbable without the broad based, bipartisan support for which groups like Move to Amend strive.
Good people are involved with getting corporate money out of politics. Three and a half years after the Citizens United ruling, proponents of a constitutional amendment are less than half way there, which puts any real action beyond the 2016 general election, and maybe further. As Nichols indicated, the cup may be half full, and an amendment may be advanced. However, the political reality is that corporate money will remain in politics for the foreseeable future unless a fire is lit under the movement to amend the constitution. Based on what we see in Iowa, we are a long way from ignition.
BIG GROVE TOWNSHIP— Shares are ready at our community supported agriculture farm late Monday afternoon. When making my pickup, I also help load the truck for the Cedar Rapids distribution. It’s a half hour job and my work for food arrangement continues for another ten weeks or so. Loading coolers and crates full of cucumbers, squash, kale, potatoes, onions, basil, tomatoes and other vegetables is not physically demanding, but it is a two person job. It takes a community to get everything done at a CSA farm.
It rained last night, leaving wet spots on the driveway. When the sun rises we’ll see how much fell. This morning’s clear sky, bright with stars and moonlight was memorable for its predawn tranquility.
Before leaving the landscape illuminated by moonlight, I reached out to touch the sky with its shiny orbs twinkling through the atmosphere. Reaching is one thing, touching quite another. The airy vapors of predawn dew wetted my feet through the clogs, and captured my attention, leaving the moon forsaken. Grounded in this reality, I returned to the house to get on with a life on the Iowa prairie.
LAKE MACBRIDE— More has been written here about zucchini than any vegetable of late. In an effort to figure out more ways to prepare and preserve it, I posted a note on Facebook. It proved to be beneficial.
Not only did I receive good suggestions on how to prepare the vegetable, several ways to dispose of excess were identified. This is an inherent part of a local food system— social networking to resolve issues like an abundance of zucchini.
It’s not that I have been short of recipes, I haven’t. So far, I have prepared crudites, toppings for salads, soup, zucchini fries, baked zucchini, a squash casserole, zucchini lasagna, mandolin sliced zucchini pasta, and as soon as there is eggplant, the classic zucchini dish— ratatouille.
There were new ideas for cooking. A friend wrote, “Oh and re. Zucchini— they’re never to big to stuff! That’s what we do. Cut in half length wise, core out the seeds. In the depression add your favorite things For us that’s lots of walnuts, mushrooms, celery, rice? and what ever else you have laying around— almost anything can make for a fine stuffing. Use favorite spices. Melt Cheese on Top. Enjoy again, and again.”
“A friend had a pretty good recipe for “mock apple pie” that was made with zucchini and a lot of cinnamon.”
“Sliced in half with some olive oil and garlic salt, then grilled. We’re also big fans of zucchini bread.”
“I just shared a thing about oven baked zucchini chips. never heard of them done that way before myself, but could be worth a try.”
What else to do with excess? There were people that wanted some to eat. Also here are some comments:
“Chop them up and feed it to the chickens. They love zucchini.”
“right to the compost”
“Sounds like you have the basis for a cottage industry… upgrade the packaging and sell frozen zucchini for those of us who aren’t in a position to have any in our own freezers!”
“Contact the veterans shelter house in Cedar Rapids, … they have storage and will distribute green grocery items to their homeless veterans.”
…and there is my favorite, trade zucchini as chicken feed for farmer’s eggs.
As we savor the most recent pick of zucchini, we’re far from exhausting the possibilities. And thanks to social networking, we’re better together.
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