According to weather sources, In April 2026 we had 5.69 inches of rain through the 17th. That is between 65% to 95% higher than average. We felt it on our homestead as precipitation kept me from most gardening until Friday when I attempted to put in a plot of cruciferous vegetables—curses, foiled again. A weird combination of changing air pressure, lightning, thunder, hail, rain, and wind persisted from 1:30 p.m. until dusk.
I did get the bed tilled and weed barrier applied. Saturday we had high winds, so I didn’t plant and pulled up fencing instead. On Sunday, I finished laying ground cover and put in the fence posts. Based on the weather forecast, I will plant cruciferous vegetables later today.
Cruciferous vegetable plot on April 17, 2026.
Big trees are leafing out. Both of these have cracks in the main trunk from the 2020 derecho, and eventually will be goners.
Pin Oak Tree on April 17, 2026Autumn Blaze Maple tree on April 17, 2026.
Radishes and turnips broke ground. Here are the radishes.
Radishes on April 17, 2026.
Temps dropped into the 30s over the weekend, so I put a space heater in the portable greenhouse Saturday night. The cold spell lasted through Monday.
I started what I believe will be the last indoors plants this week: cucumbers, squash, collards, and some more cauliflower and Asian greens. From here on, almost everything goes into the ground.
Finally, I cleared the burned plastic off this year’s tomato patch. The weed burn was a problem, as I couldn’t control which plot it burned and fire took out four of them, some with plastic weed barrier. Luckily, the scorched garlic plants have already recovered. Second week in and I’m making progress.
The rise of a shadow workforce—workers who perform essential labor without full rights or protections—is not a side issue in the American economy. It is rapidly becoming the model that reshapes work for everyone.
During an April 2020 interview with Kimberly Graham about her U.S Senate race, she laid a framework,
We are some of the hardest working people on the planet. Americans are very productive. We work hard but we are not seeing the rewards of that. We are falling further and further behind financially. More of us are hurting financially. We may have jobs, but yeah, we have two jobs because we can’t make it on one. There’s all the gig economy. We have fewer and fewer unions, fewer and fewer union jobs that come with benefits and come with a pension and all of that. (Blog for Iowa, Kimberly Graham – A Voice For ‘Us,‘ April 2, 2020).
Not much has changed for the better since Graham said this. Increasingly, a shadow workforce performs work, yet are not counted as employees on payrolls. This includes legally present independent contractors, freelancers, gig workers, temporary agency workers, and part-timers. It also includes undocumented workers who are not legally in the country. The work they do is real, yet legal protections are partial, inconsistent, or absent. There are risks in this.
In a discussion with local writer Joel Wells, he said in an email, “We are actively allowing the creation of a permanent underclass of workers with fewer rights, fewer protections, and no real voice. That is not speculation; it is already happening.”
Businesses are designed primarily to generate profit not jobs. That is why public policy must set the rules that protect workers.
Democrats must take the mantle in establishing and maintaining worker protections through policy. What is needed is a clear, understandable framework that voters can grasp and defend. Things like health insurance, retirement contributions, child care, and paid leave are a beginning. There should also be strong penalties for wage theft, labor standards enforcement regardless of immigration status, and whistleblower protections for vulnerable workers. Democrats should bring these issues to the forefront of policy discussions. Since FDR, Democrats have stood firmly with labor. That relationship needs revisiting.
If neglected, the shadow workforce can be normalized, lowering standards for everyone. It has begun to spread… to everyone.
When work is pushed into the shadows, rights disappear first—wages and standards follow. Bringing that work back into the light is not just about fairness for some workers. It is about protecting the future of work for all.
Cookbook by Suzanne Ormond, Mary Irvine and Denyse Cantin.
I want to like Creole cuisine as I had when visiting New Orleans. I even bought Suzanne Ormond, Mary Irvine, and Denyse Cantin’s book Favorite New Orleans Recipes as a souvenir to make it myself in Iowa. The trouble is I became vegetarian since then, and none of the 119 recipes is a fit. Every once in a while I make my version of red beans and rice–using the holy trinity–but the available vegetarian sausages are not the same and by the time I finish, it isn’t really Creole.
Before sending the cookbook to the public library used book sale I reviewed the recipes again. The only thing remotely doable was some version of egg salad. I set the recipe aside and took pen to paper and made my own Creole-inspired egg salad starting with three hard-cooked eggs.
Trinity Egg Salad
I prepared the eggs as per usual: placing them in cold water in a saucepan, bringing it to a boil, turning it off, letting them sit in the hot water for 12-15 minutes, then dunking them in an ice water bath for 5-10 minutes.
Egg salad is sauce and diced ingredients mixed together. For the sauce, I put the egg yolks in a bowl, and added about three tablespoons Duke’s Mayonnaise, one teaspoon stone ground mustard, two tablespoons finely diced homemade sweet pickles, one teaspoon of pickle juice, one half teaspoon garlic puree, a teaspoon of home made apple cider vinegar, and a few dashes of my hot pepper powder. I mixed until incorporated.
Next I added the dice: 1 tbs red onion, 1 tbs red bell pepper, and 1-2 tbs celery, along with the whites of the eggs. Fold everything together with salt and black pepper to taste. Refrigerate until ready to use, at least 15 minutes.
Except for the holy trinity, there is not much to make this a Creole recipe.
I do know the flavor was take off your hat and sit down good. I hope you will try it.
When the heat pads, LED light positions, and folding table in the dining room are full of trays of seedlings, it is time to move the garden outdoors. That means setting up the portable greenhouse. A round of indoor planting has been completed. All that is left is breaking down peppers and tomatoes from channel trays into individual soil blocks, and starting squash and cucumbers indoors when the seeds arrive. From here on, the focus is on planting garden soil.
It took me about 90 minutes to reassemble the greenhouse. I let it sit overnight, then began moving plants from indoors. The forecast is for no freezing overnight temperatures the rest of the week, so it was as good a time to get it up. The forecast Monday and Tuesday is highs in the 80s. Yikes! It’s April 13!
I finished the plot where I started potatoes. Next moving southward are leeks, onions, turnips and radishes. I fenced these in, although I don’t have mulch so I will return soon with the hoop hoe to weed and fertilize.
The roots of the locust tree that blew over in the derecho were finally deteriorated enough to dig them up. Last year I set two brush fires over the stump in an attempt to burn it out. Now the large pieces of root are stacked next to the composter, awaiting disposition. They are rotted enough, and most likely I will take the four-pound sledge to them and work them into the compost. Planting the trees there and leaving them was a mistake that years later has been rectified.
While I was turning soil in the plot for cruciferous vegetables and digging up tree roots, a neighbor walked down the hill toward me from their home on an adjacent lot. She carried a package with pieces of focaccia and sourdough as a gift. We chatted about spring—and the moles in our yards. Moles and voles have spread throughout the neighborhood. It makes no sense to eliminate them in a single yard without eliminating them everywhere. In our country setting, it’s not certain any approach would rid us of them permanently, so live and let live, I say. It’s another part of the habitat.
While moving seedlings to the greenhouse I had a good look at them all. The February plantings are getting big, and this week is time for them to go into the ground. I planted five collard seeds and only four survived, so I planted six more on Sunday. Everything else can use more time in the greenhouse.
I took measurements and decided on a 90″ x 246″ space for the first cruciferous vegetables. That makes four rows spaced 22.5 inches apart with 13 plants per row. Next steps here are to fertilize and till the soil, lay down plastic ground cover and get the seedlings in the ground. There are not enough kale and collard plants to fill all the spots, so I may make two rows of either broccoli or cauliflower or both. I need to count seedlings. However this turns out, the area will get fenced in before nightfall on planting day.
During the first week of gardening, the work simply presents itself. There is no written plan. The seasons of gardening I’ve conditioned into myself over 43 years of growing things on our property guide me, almost unawares.
Trail walking before sunrise on April 9, 2026.Spring flowers.Spring garlic.Zestar! apple buds.Bluebell buds.Leeks, onions, turnips, and radishes planted on April 9, 2026.
The next step in the garden is planting onions and leeks. It began Wednesday with burning brush on the plot where they are planned. The weather has been funky, with rain one day, cool ambient temperatures the next, and an 80+ degree day thrown in for good measure. I work in a t-shirt in 45 degree weather, but don’t stay at it for long.
If leeks grow successfully there will be a bumper crop. They are great for soup and freeze well if there are extra. I bought started plants this year, so there is a good chance for a harvest. Onions have been hit or miss for me, although any that grow will find a place in our meals.
Kale, collards, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kohlrabi, and chard are getting big enough to go into the ground. The plot where they will be planted has desiccated fox tail which needs burning off. It was too windy for that on Wednesday, yet I cleared all the fencing and fabric so the burn would be clean when it happens.
Garlic is up and I crawled through the rows to make sure the sprouts that were not pushing through the mulch were exposed to sunlight. That was not a big job, yet important to having a full crop. Only one or two cloves did not sprout. Perhaps half a dozen had trouble pushing through the matted grass clippings.
Some volunteer garlic sprouted and I used it in making taco filling Tuesday night. There is another bunch and I’m waiting for the right dish to use it.
The two new apple trees are getting big enough I removed the caged and pruned them. It looks like there will be a decent crop on one, and it’s too early to tel on the other. The remaining three legacy trees are in their off-year in 2026. That’s okay because I put up plenty of apple products when fruit was in abundance last year. The pear tree will have blooms again this year. We mostly eat those fresh.
I was fussing around with the extra dirt around the potato tubs. I left it piled up to use in hilling the potatoes once they poke through the surface of the soil and grow a few inches.This year I am going strictly by the book in hope of bigger spuds.
A hill of ants appeared yesterday in the yard. One of them got inside last night, so the problem continues. If we kill them all, they eventually subside. We don’t like using poisons in the kitchen.
On April 1, it’s no joke there is a lot of garden work to do. I keep at it daily in hope of having a crop.
Last six apples from 2025 season in the refrigerator.
Sunday I finished reading A Basket of Apples: Recipes and Paintings from a Country Orchard by Val Archer. I wrote a brief review: “The paintings are gorgeous. The recipes very British, heavy on dairy and animal flesh. If you cook like that, give it a go!”
Planting apple trees on our lot in 1996 was a defining moment in my life. I remember the family gathering at our house after my mother-in-law’s funeral, then leaving for Ames with my father-in-law while I stayed behind to plant the orchard before joining them. Over the years, some trees were lost to windstorms and a derecho, but three of the original six still produce. Today, the pantry is full of apple cider vinegar, dried apples, applesauce and apple butter… plus these six fresh apples.
At a political event on Saturday, a long-time friend arrived with a car emblazoned with promotions of veganism. It got me thinking about why I settled on being ovo-lacto vegetarian. Sunday night our household had a conversation about that and I reached some conclusions:
I won’t give up butter but can limit myself to one tablespoon per day, and some days have none.
There is no reason I can’t limit the amount of hard cheese I consume to one or two ounces per day, or seven ounces per week.
Cottage cheese is less offensive than hard cheese when it comes to encouraging LDL cholesterol production. I consume the regular product, so should limit myself to no more than one cup per day and try low-fat.
Fluid milk is basic in my diet, and I will measure how much I consume. Not sure of a limit, yet drinking 16 ounces per day seems like a start.
Peanuts and peanut butter are a daily menu item. Roasted, salted peanuts for snacks, and Jif-brand peanut butter for meals or evening dessert. Goal is quarter cup peanuts per day and no more than two tablespoons peanut butter in a day, leaning toward one. Natural peanut butter will be for some, but not all of my consumption.
Sodium intake is a constant overage in my diet. Need to continue to reduce how much I consume. That dang brain of mine rewards consumption of salt, so I need to be less “brainy” in that regard.
Promoting veganism.
Sadly this means I won’t be visiting Archer’s book for recipes. From time to time, though, I can remember her beautiful paintings.
It was the day for a drive to Monticello to pick up 150 pounds of composted chicken manure for the garden. I learned to use this fertilizer during eight years working on a friend’s farm where they used organic practices. Most farmers use it on a larger scale, yet 50-pound bags were available for gardeners like me. That is, they did sell them before private equity bought the company.
The first sign of trouble was the telephone number being disconnected. I found another number and asked my question, “Before I drive 40 minutes to Monticello, I want to make sure you have 50-pound bags of composted chicken manure.” In a gruff voice, a lady replied, “I can tell you for sure, they don’t have that in Monticello.” Undaunted, I looked for other options as first planting is approaching.
Life is change, Paul Kantner wrote. How it differs from the rocks.
Midwestern BioAg, the company where I sourced fertilizer for years, operates in the sustainable/biological agriculture sector, helping both conventional and organic farms reduce dependency on synthetic nitrogen and phosphorus, aligning with environmental goals, according to Google. That’s why we used them. The composted chicken manure product they made was perfect for a small gardener. It was uniform in texture, easy to apply, and enhanced yields.
When private equity bought a controlling interest in the firm in 2020, there was no noticeable change in company operations… until this week.
I had to do something. Potato planting is slated for Friday, and after that, Katy bar the door on garden work until Memorial Day. It turned out there are a number of “organic” composted manure products available, most selling for a lot less than the one I was using. A nearby hardware store advertised a 40-bag of “organic composted manure” for $2.79, so I drove to the nearby city and bought five.
On the pallet where I picked them up, one bag was open. I could see the mix was not as uniformly granulated as the other. Adaptation is a key part of home gardening. On Highway One I thought about how to address that. I have a screen with quarter-inch mesh mounted on a frame. I will push each bag through it to create a more uniform texture. I had a plan by the time I got home.
I started digging holes for six planting tubs. The soil was easy to dig and everything is falling into place. I don’t like change, yet the best policy in fertilizer is accept it and move on.
Tub with a layer of sticks in the bottom to keep the openings flowing when it rains.
The best part of a garden is the produce harvested. A close second is the fresh meals made, followed by goods processed and put up in the kitchen, making the whole enterprise a kitchen garden.
I’ve written before, “The goal of having a kitchen garden is to produce food aligned with our culinary habits that helps meet a basic human need. We have to eat, no matter where, no matter how. It may as well be enjoyable. We’ve all eaten our share of food that doesn’t please our palate. A kitchen garden should address that.”
There is more than that.
A garden is a place where decisions accumulate over time. Where the house is positioned, where trees are planted, which ground is left open, where paths form — some by intention, some by use. Over years these choices create habitat where plants, animals, weather, and human routines overlap. The gardener participates in the process but does not control it completely. A deer path appears. Birds sow mulberry trees the gardener did not plant. Wind finds corridors between structures and foliage.
The result is not wilderness. It is something more ordinary and interesting: a lived landscape, worked for food but shared with whatever life finds its way there.
Some days I get up from the writing desk — an heirloom from my father-in-law’s estate — and simply walk to the garden. In late winter desiccated foliage is beaten down, showing the ground covered in plastic and mulch from last year’s growing season. Garlic is already up. Soon weeds will follow. I cleared a plot to bury the potato tubs for Good Friday planting. As soon as I can manage — between rain showers and late winter snowfall — digging begins.
A deer path emerged between the wooded acreage a few lots to the east and an apple orchard a quarter mile west of me. I walked those woods and saw deer beds in the thick undergrowth. I followed deer paths because they existed in a place infrequently visited by humans. There is no more direct path for them to the orchard than between my garden and the house. The frozen ground is scattered with hoof prints and deer pellets. I occasionally see them browsing for food near twilight, yet mostly they are unseen. The idea of growing an urban lawn isn’t viable here because of such traffic.
Our garden is a noisy place in late winter. Crows, red wing blackbirds, cardinals, sparrows, and finches welcome spring in loud musicality. The sound of rubber tires on pavement filters across the lake from the road to the commercial district. Neighbors walk dogs in small groups, their voices circulate the way strong winds move on their own path during a wind storm.
What lives here is habitat: a built environment made of decisions about garden plots, landscaping, and use. A permissive structure that allows fruit and vegetables to grow while not impeding local wildlife except to keep them from eating tender young plants. Part of me wants a nice lawn, yet the other part wouldn’t have it any other way than it is.
Spring begins on Friday, a form of rebirth, yet not new. As garlic planted last fall emerges, the world stirs with slow, obvious awakening from winter’s decay. I am ready for it.
Peanut butter cookies made with a recipe created by artificial intelligence.
Suddenly there were three open jars of peanut butter in the house. I had to do something with them, and had been fancying a peanut butter cookie the way Mother used to make them. It started simply enough. I typed “Recipe for vegan peanut butter cookies” in the artificial intelligence chat box. It returned this recipe in a couple of seconds:
Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients
1 cup creamy peanut butter 3/4 cup brown sugar (or coconut sugar) 1/4 cup plant milk (almond, soy, oat, etc.) 1 tsp vanilla extract 1 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/4 tsp salt
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a bowl, mix peanut butter and brown sugar until smooth. Stir in plant milk and vanilla. Add flour, baking soda, and salt and mix until a dough forms. Roll dough into 1-inch balls and place on the baking sheet. Press each with a fork in a crisscross pattern. Bake 10–12 minutes until edges are lightly golden.
Let cool on the pan for about 5 minutes before moving them.
Resisting a temptation to change the recipe, I made them and mentioned in my chat bot: “I tried. Cookies seemed heavy.”
In its “that can happen” way of hiding failure while attempting to placate me, it responded, “Vegan peanut butter cookies can easily turn out heavy or dense. A few small things usually cause it. Here are the most common fixes and a lighter recipe that tends to work better.” With all the large language modeling, couldn’t you have done something to deal with this before posting the recipe? No. AI can’t help itself.
Back and forth we went, refining the recipe I eventually wrote in the workbook with culinary experiments. I will bake them again before putting it in the permanent cookbook. Finally, I said what was on my mind:
To address texture issues, would I be better off to consult cookbooks that place this recipe in the context of a specific culinary culture, such as Regan Daley’s In the Sweet Kitchen: The Definitive Baker’s Companion?
The chat bot immediately searched the internet, presumably to read Daley’s book before answering. There was no indication the machine was stunned by the threat of my leaving its environment to consult actual food authors on the same problem.
In what can only be described as a smarty-pants response, AI came up with this:
Yes — consulting a cookbook like In the Sweet Kitchen: The Definitive Guide to the Baker’s Pantry & Craft by Regan Daley is a very good idea, and your instinct about culinary context is sound. But there are actually two different kinds of cookbooks that solve texture problems, and they help in different ways.
I can’t say how much more I detest the word “but.” It went on to say my whole premise of “vegan peanut butter cookie” was a problem. It responded, “Your specific case (vegan peanut butter cookies) adds another layer.” Didn’t you know that from jump street, I thought.
Artificial intelligence displays little idea how we humans cook. If it were paired with a robot chef, the results could be generic and unsatisfying to the simplest palate.
Next time I’ll know to contact my sister and ask her if there is a copy of Mother’s recipe.
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