Author: Paul Deaton

Categories
Living in Society

Chance Encounters

Lake trail in late summer.

While clearing brush in the front yard I picked up something that caused a rash. My arm is red and it itches. I happened to already have a clinic appointment this week so I asked them about the rash. They prescribed a cream, and messaged it to the pharmacy approved by my insurance company. It’s not the closest pharmacy to our house.

I like having a nearby pharmacy so anything health-related, not covered by insurance, I buy at the one in town if they have it. While there yesterday, I ran into a friend with whom I worked on the John Kerry for president campaign. As people do in a small town, we chatted outside the pharmacy for a while and talked about meeting for coffee next week.

When aging, chance meetings like this take on more meaning.

If I go to the wholesale club on a Monday morning, one of my fellow bloggers is usually there provisioning. When I walk on the trail, I encounter people from the neighborhood. When I visit the grocery store in the county seat I invariably see someone I know. With the isolation of aging comes a need to speak with other humans. I attempt to be brief and meaningful when I encounter someone in the wild.

Maintaining a single family dwelling is part of the reason for this. When Grandmother took a room at a women’s club in Davenport, it provided many socialization opportunities. When they later allowed men to reside there, some of the socialization was unwelcome. Decades of writing have formed my personality and I don’t mind being alone most of the time. Living alone frees me to explore what life presents where it leads… or not.

It took the coronavirus pandemic for me to realize that chance encounters happen and to recognize them as a thing. Now that I do, I relish each one as a way to reconnect with the broader society. I am becoming a master of polite conversation and embrace it. There is a life beyond the walls of a home and I need the connection to go on writing.

I don’t know when it will be, yet I look forward to my next chance encounter. I’m ready for it.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Home Breakfast

Breakfast made for guests and for myself once in a while.

If a person overnights at our home they are likely to be offered a breakfast of hash browned potatoes, scrambled eggs, and fruit in season. Add some coffee or homemade juice and it makes a fine breakfast. The meal in the photo includes tomato, a pear, and potatoes, all grown in our garden.

We haven’t had any overnight guests in a while, so I made the classic breakfast for myself. It seldom fails to satisfy and is a great beginning to a day.

Some mornings I have just toasted bread with apple butter or fruit preserves. Others, I re-heat leftover soup or make tacos. When bananas are ripening, I make a smoothie with aronia berries, kale, plant milk, protein powder and Greek yogurt. I don’t give much thought to breakfast until I’m preparing it. Patterns are well established and I know what to do.

Today I worked on a care package for our child. Mainly, we went back and forth via email with ideas and requests. While that was happening, I made half a dozen jars of applesauce to include.

Applesauce made Friday, Sept. 22, 2023.

It rained off and on all day today. I managed to get in my half-hour walk along the lake shore. None of the outdoors work got done. There was plenty of indoors work to replace it.

Saturday is the first day of autumn. I’d ask where did summer go? That would be a bit ridiculous because I know where it went. It went into the garden, which produced food for the kitchen. I ate well this summer, including our home breakfasts.

Categories
Environment

The Climate Crisis Remains

Lake Macbride drying around the edges on Sept. 17, 2023 due to an extended drought.

Contrary to what letters in this newspaper reported, the climate crisis remains. It is a crisis. It is peculiar to our time since the Industrial Revolution. Readers of the Gazette should know about it.

Media stories covering the impact of a changing climate continue to appear: Canadian wildfires, heated ocean temperatures off the Florida coast, abnormal melting sea ice, Hurricane Hilary in California, Maui wildfires, the Midwestern drought… you know the list. It is as if the Gazette was live blogging the end times with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse nearby.

Our community is at risk due to the changing climate. Our family conserves water from our public well on the Silurian Aquifer because it is faltering with increased usage. A deep and extended drought means surface waters have not been able to recharge the aquifer to meet demand. The water supply is not endless.

Society should do something to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Here’s the rub. People enjoy current life in society, and we don’t want to change, even when inconvenienced by extreme weather.

Environmental activism seems unlikely to solve the climate crisis. All the talk about climate change distracts us from the fundamental problem: the effect of unmitigated capitalist growth ravaging the resources and systems of the earth and its atmosphere.

Maybe we should forget about the climate crisis to focus on what matters more: conserving Earth’s resources for future generations. I’m on board.

Published on Sept. 21, 2023 in the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Late Summer Kale

Kale leaves from a single plant harvested Sept. 17, 2023.

Late season kale takes on a special quality when overnight temperatures get cooler or freeze. Toward autumn, I begin harvesting the whole plant and use the leaves until they are gone. Then I harvest another plant. The same goes for collards. I cut the stalk at ground level and take the plant to the composter where I sort through the leaves to pick the best for the kitchen. It’s another sign the season is turning.

Kale and collards are cold-hearty and can continue producing as late as November. The way things are going with weather, it could be until December this year. Occasionally, kale over winters.

Before joining Local Harvest CSA when we moved back to Iowa, I hardly heard about kale. I had never eaten it. When I worked on the farm beginning in 2013 I learned how to grow it. This year the bugs stayed away better than most years. Early season spraying with an insecticide containing Bacillus thuringiensis kurstaki (Btk), a naturally-occurring bacterium found in soil, suppressed green caterpillars which love kale. 2023 was a great kale year.

I freeze my allocation of kale early in the season. Once the freezer space is full, we eat it fresh from the garden or donate it to the food pantry. The plants produce so many leaves we always have plenty. Most people don’t know about kale and some don’t care for it. Our typical uses are as an ingredient in taco filling, smoothies, and in soups. We consume a lot of those menu items here in Big Grove. There are few better sources of leafy green vegetables than a kale plant. We are supposed to eat more of that than we do.

The cruciferous vegetable patch was a success this year with plenty of cauliflower and broccoli for freezing, a half dozen red and green cabbages stored in the refrigerator, and kale and collards as much as we want. It works better to keep all of those varieties together in the same plot. It helps focus the attention they need for successful growing.

Summer’s end is rapidly approaching. This morning I looked out the dining room window without my glasses and could see fuzzy stars in the clear, dark sky. There was an impulse to get my glasses from the bedroom, yet I resisted and stood there trying to take it all in before summer slips away. The progress of the kale patch is one more marker of summer’s end.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Ready for a Burn Pile

Garden plot cleared for fall burn pile.

Birds may not like it but I mowed the plot where weeds grew after garlic was harvested. They flock in to feed on foxtail seeds. A person can’t see them until they are startled and fly away. Lucky for them, the next plot over, where I plan next year’s crop of garlic, has some weeds gone to seed.

The plot cleared is for a burn pile. Because of the drought, burning brush is not a good idea. Johnson County is not under an official burn ban today, yet I err on the side of caution. Parts of the state just north of me are under a ban. As fall approaches, I need a place to pile brush from the yard. The added benefit is when I am able to burn, minerals from the fuel return to the soil. The plan is to plant tomatoes next year where the burn pile is going.

I’m finished watering the garden. I harvested more tomatoes on Saturday. While the vines are doing well, I rolled up the hose and will put it away once the first frost is forecast, maybe in mid-October. With cooler temperatures, evaporation is less and plants do better on natural moisture, even if there is no rain. A chance of thunderstorms was forecast Saturday afternoon. It didn’t happen. We had a brief, transient mist of rain that failed to penetrate the leaf canopy. Maybe another time. We need rain.

Deer returned to our apple orchard in larger numbers. Last night at dusk, six of them were eating fallen apples, including two young deer. I had noticed their work earlier in the day. Even so, it is reassuring to see them in person. I need to clean up the fallen apples before mowing, yet if they are eating them, I’ll wait and give them time to work. With autumn approaching, there is more food for wildlife. I’m glad to see deer stop by our orchard as a part of nature’s smorgasbord.

I decided to make a dozen pints of apple butter. I don’t need more in the pantry, yet I want to be able to rotate stock and have a supply ready. The apples taste so sweet this year and have minimal bug damage. It would be a shame not to preserve as many as I can. The refrigerator already has as many as there is room. I have half a bushel ready to go over to family in Des Moines. There will be a donation to the food bank. Today’s kitchen work includes more apple butter and apple juice for making apple cider vinegar.

Last year’s cherry tomato plot had some cherry tomatoes growing around the edges. They are particularly sweet. Midweek I made two casseroles, and the cherries served as a welcome side dish for a re-heated supper. The food our kitchen has been producing this summer has been memorable. Still, one tires of days in a row of leftovers.

I stayed busy all day Saturday. There is an urgency to get things done before winter arrives. It will be here before we realize it and I want to be ready.

Categories
Living in Society

School Board Election – 2023 Edition

The Solon Economist reported about the Nov. 7 city and school board elections in its Aug. 31 edition. The article didn’t say much. In particular, the author did not say whether the incumbents were running for re-election.

Local newspapers are under financial stress, yet we rely upon them for coverage of local elections. At the end of the article, the unnamed author informed readers, “Once ballots are finalized with the County Auditor’s office, the Solon Economist will reach out to all of the candidates.” There is a certain economy in covering elections this way. After reading that sentence I immediately felt I wanted to know more.

I reached out to Adam Haluska and Jami Wolf on the school board and both confirmed they were running for re-election. Wolf told me both had filed their paperwork. I covered the six-way race in 2019. That was a defining election that set a direction for the school board. Haluska and Wolf won by a distance and it would take an extraordinary candidate to beat them this year.

The filing period for school board candidates closes at 5 p.m. on Sept. 21. In my reading of the local electorate, if someone else were filing, I’d have heard of it by now. I don’t expect anyone else to file. If that expectation holds, the election will become a low-turnout rubber stamp on continuing with Haluska and Wolf. That would not be bad.

Given the propensity of the Iowa Legislature to overreach and attempt to control school boards with half-baked schemes, the experience gained by these school board members will hopefully make the coming four years less turbulent. There were good alternatives to them in 2019, and the voters made their intent clear.

Friday I spent an hour with Jami Wolf at a coffee shop in Solon. Two things are of note.

She doesn’t see much budgetary impact of Governor Reynolds new voucher program. Solon has closed enrollment and people who want to move their kids have already done so. She said there are not many, if any, private schools in the Solon area where vouchers would do some good. We didn’t discuss home schoolers, but as with people who move kids to other districts, people who want to home school already were before vouchers. She believes the impact of vouchers will be more dominant in larger school districts in urban areas.

No book banning issue has come before the school board. Wolf agreed with me that processes were in place to keep inappropriate material out of some student hands before the legislature got involved. She said there was a lack of specific guidance about how the state law pertaining to reading and curriculum restrictions should be implemented. She emphasized that how those restrictions are interpreted will likely be the key dynamic. Right now, there is no dominant interpretation, that is, everyone has an opinion. We talked about litigating the book ban law and she would prefer to let other districts litigate flaws in the new state law than the Solon District. If the issue has not come to the board, it is likely not an issue here, at least until someone makes it one, or more specific guidance comes from the state.

Since I covered Haluska and Wolf in 2019, I don’t plan to write much about the 2023 election unless someone else files by the deadline. We should know the field by the beginning of autumn on Sept. 23.

UPDATE (Sept. 23, 2023): The filing period closed on Sept. 21 and Adam Haluska and Jami Wolf were the only two candidates who filed. Other than voting, that’s it for me for this election cycle.

Categories
Writing

In Between

I began wearing a mask in high traffic public places this week. Too many local and personal friends recently contracted COVID-19. One died of the virus.

No single narrative describes my or anyone’s life.

That said, I wrote my obituary, a two hundred word narrative intended to communicate generalities of who I was, and meet a specific public need without being too special. I’m not talking about this. I have a few other narratives in mind.

I’m fortunate to have copies of my resumes dating back to 1975. I’m not sure employers do resumes any longer, favoring online applications that protect their legal liabilities. However, almost 50 years of resumes show my changing story. I keep up my LinkedIn profile with accurate jobs and dates of employment. I’m not really talking about these public-facing narratives either.

What is most interesting to me are those times when my personal narrative shifted. There are seven in between times at this writing:

  • The time between graduation from university until enlisting in the U.S. Army, especially the time spent living in an apartment on Mississippi Avenue in Davenport in 1975 (18 months).
  • Living at Five Points in Davenport after military service beginning in 1979 (Eight months).
  • The time between graduate school and getting married, especially the time living in an apartment on Market Street in Iowa City beginning in 1981 (18 months).
  • Working for a large oil company in the Chicago Loop beginning in 1989 (18 months).
  • Retiring from transportation and logistics beginning July 2009 (17 months).
  • Coping with retirement income needs beginning November 2012 (14 months).
  • Dealing with the coronavirus pandemic beginning March 2020 (Two months).

Each of these periods proved important to how my life changed. They contribute more than what fits in a 200-word obituary. They are at the core of my autobiographical writing.

At the moment, I’m researching the third in-between time in Iowa City for my autobiography. Some of that writing will spill over to these pages, so stay tuned.

Categories
Living in Society

Rain Came

Three crates of Red Delicious apples.

Rain fell against my windshield for the entirety of the 2-hour drive from Des Moines Sunday night. We need rain.

The next day, on my walk along the lake shore trail, it was clear the Lake Macbride Watershed absorbed all of the rain without any extra. The culvert that empties from the watershed into the lake continued to be bone dry.

On Tuesday there was a brief thunderstorm with powerful winds. The optimist in me believes the drought has broken. The ten-day forecast shows the potential for some additional rain on Saturday. Fingers crossed!

Today I picked enough apples to get started on the final rounds of processing. The three crates will be sorted into juicers, fresh eaters, and saucers. There are enough here to finish the number of quart jars of sauce we wanted and get started on the rest of the apple cider vinegar. I plan to make an apple crisp for dessert from some of them. There are worse retirement lives to live than mine.

The big news from Washington D.C. was that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, not having enough votes to pursue formal impeachment of President Biden, created an ad hoc “impeachment inquiry” anyway. McCarthy said the probe will be led by House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) in coordination with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OHIO) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO), who have been leading the investigations into Hunter Biden and his father. The reason there are not enough votes to create a formal impeachment inquiry is that Republicans can’t get the goods on the president. They have already been investigating and found no evidence of any wrong-doing.

My congresswoman, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, was quick to jump on the impeachment inquiry band wagon, ignoring what she should be working on — the end of month deadline to fund the government — to give a one-minute speech with a chart titled, “The Bidens’ Influence Peddling Timeline.” Her opponent, Christina Bohannan, was quick to fund raise off the speech, saying in part,

In a few weeks, these extreme Republicans are planning to shut down the government, meaning seniors may not get their Social Security checks, veterans may lose healthcare, our troops may not get paid, and on and on. Iowans’ everyday lives will be severely affected by her political gamesmanship. We must inform our voters of what Miller-Meeks is really up to in Washington.

Email from Christina Bohannan for Congress, Sept. 12, 2023.

What is Miller-Meeks really up to in Washington? Providing cover for the 45th president. For the first 234 years of the nation’s history, no American president or former president had ever been indicted. That changed with Donald J. Trump.

At least there has been rain.

Categories
Writing

Tell It Slant Poetry Festival

Fan of Emily Dickinson? You should know about this upcoming annual Tell It Slant Poetry Festival at the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts. Online participation is enabled! Here is the direct link to learn more about the festival and sign up.

Read Frank Hudson’s post about it below.

Like trains of cars on tracks of plush

Also, consider following Frank Hudson and The Parlando Project here.

Categories
Kitchen Garden Writing

Apple Rush

Apple time 2023. Red Delicious.

My focus in the garden turned to apples. By weight, it is the biggest crop I grow. Doing something useful with them drives me to spend much kitchen time processing them. Zestar! and Earliblaze are finished with Red Delicious remaining to close out the garden season.

Of the four varieties I grow, Red Delicious hang the longest on the tree. When they produce, there are many, many of of them. Our needs for juice, applesauce, apple butter, dried apples, and fresh eating are modest compared to the quantity on the tree. I’m already looking for placement of most of them in a Community Supported Agriculture project.

Tomatoes are finishing and it has been a good season. Because of spring trouble getting seedlings to take, there weren’t as many, or as many different varieties, as I had hoped. The difference this year compared to last is that we used most garden tomatoes in our kitchen instead of giving them away. Tomatoes are a brief delight of summer. Once ours are gone, I expect to buy very few tomatoes at the grocer.

I took down the portable greenhouse and noticed a problem with the zipper at the access point. I don’t know if it will be usable next year but I folded it up and put away the frame. Replacing it will be a spring decision, although I likely will. The portable greenhouses are good for a couple of seasons.

I need to figure out fall garden plot preparation. Where will the burn pile be? Where will the garlic go next month? Where will tomatoes go next year?

The burn pile is important because I move it around to deposit minerals throughout the garden. Because we are in a drought I won’t actually burn anything until rain comes. There needs to be plenty of space to pile it high while we wait.

I plan to plant 100 garlic seeds and it will likely be in the plot where the garden composter currently lives. The pallets used to make the composter are getting old and deteriorated. I will likely move the composter to the west side of the garden. I hang my Practical Farmers of Iowa sign on it, so on that side, it may be more visible from the street.

Finally, there are tomatoes, likely the most important crop I grow. This year, deer were able to jump the fence and eat many small tomato plants. Next year I plan to return to a crowding method of tomato planting. By giving deer no place to land inside the fence, they can’t jump in, and the plants grow better. The issue is it crowds me as well. I liked having four-foot rows between the tomatoes this year. It made it easier for me to get among the plants to weed and harvest. It made it easier for the deer as well. I may have enough fencing to install eight-foot tall chicken wire around them next year. This may be the compromise I choose to keep four foot rows. Which plot will tomatoes go? I’m not sure yet, although I favor following the garlic.

As home life turns to apple processing, I enjoy the sense of closure it brings. In years when there are few apples, gardening doesn’t seem the same. In the coming days I’ll embrace the apple rush. Who knows how many more there will be?