Category: Home Life

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Home Life

Thanksgiving 2018

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

There’s a lot for which to be thankful this Thanksgiving.

None of who I am would be possible without the strong support of family and friends. I don’t often write about them in public and that’s by design. They are there, rock solid, behind the twists and turns of my days while sustaining a life in a turbulent world.

There are other thanks to give.

I am thankful for Social Security. Fifty years ago, when I made my first contributions, I did not like the deductions from my paycheck. I rationalized them by saying when I reach retirement age the program would be there for me. It lived up to that long ago promise. Whether Social Security will continue is uncertain. The band of grifters currently leading us in Washington wants to cut the program. The more extreme among them and their supporters would eliminate it entirely. I thank Franklin Delano Roosevelt for creating the program and for the many who have stood up for it over the years. I’ve worked hard during my life and because of Social Security we’ll be able to subsist as we age.

I am thankful to be a member of the Democratic Party. In Johnson County, Iowa we have a diverse membership. When we gather, as we did on Tuesday, the conversations are meaningful and our shared history relevant to our daily lives. Set aside the polarizing depiction of liberals by right wing organizations and media and we are plain folk working to live decent lives. I admit I do like organically grown turnips out of my garden. That’s hardly political as a right wing commentator recently suggested. My friends in the Democratic Party know that.

I am thankful to have good health. A co-worker at the home, farm and auto supply store told me yesterday I looked well-preserved. By that I hope he meant I looked younger than my age and not already partly embalmed. My longevity is more likely due to not smoking, drinking only a couple ounces of alcohol per month, avoiding most animal meat in my diet, and staying engaged in society. We never know when our lives might end. I am thankful to have made it thus far.

I am thankful to live in Iowa. Despite recent changes in our governance, how we live is so much better than being a slave in the Thai seafood industry, being a war refugee in the Middle East, being a climate refugee as deserts grow in Sub-Saharan Africa, or being a person without means living on the draw in Southwestern Virginia where my father’s family came up.  On our worst days an Iowan can have hope and for that I am thankful.

I am thankful for the farming community to which I belong. My life in rural Iowa creates a lens through which I see the world more clearly. It ties me to the weather, land use, water quality, food production, and skills and techniques that make me a better gardener. My work with our home owners association and as a township trustee familiarized me with public drinking water, sewer and sanitation, emergency services, managing cemeteries, tax levies, and how people get along with each other. I’m in pretty deep and expect to remain so. Life would be less if I weren’t.

There are more thanks to give and before closing I thank my readers. Your views, likes and comments mean a lot. They encourage me to continue. Without a readership, a writer is little more than a dog barking at the moon. I’m thankful to have seen the full moon setting this morning, behind trees I planted two decades ago. Soon the sun will rise on another day and I want to be part of it.

Categories
Home Life Kitchen Garden

Into the 2018 Holidays

Wild Turkeys in the Johnson County Lake District

This year’s holiday season is just beginning. I’ve been reluctant to turn the page on a year of transition and hesitate still.

We’re writing a Thanksgiving Day menu together and thus far know there will be our special recipes for wild rice and cranberry relish, along with sweet potatoes, green peas and an extensive relish tray split between crudités for her and pickles for me. There are roasted pumpkin seeds.

Yesterday I went to the orchard to buy Gold Rush apples for the cranberry dish. It was the last chance to catch up with my orchard co-workers until mid-December. I bought frozen Montmorency cherries from Michigan. The retail merchandise on display is dwindling down, soon to be placed in storage until next year. Should I get another frozen pie or two to last through winter? I don’t know but we have peach, cherry and apple already and once we get past the holidays anything that’s left will likely rest in the freezer. We are not dessert people and potluck season is drawing to a close.

Seventeen degree weather ended the kale run. I cut the number of plants in half this season and we still had more than could be used in a single household. We have fresh kale in the ice box and will use it in some to be determined dish on Thanksgiving. The point of all the food is the leftovers, and not having to cook for a few days.

My orchard supervisor asked me what I was doing with my weekends now that the season is finished. I didn’t have a good answer. I’ve been napping more, reading too, and preserving the abundance that still lives in our ice box. At some point I must turn the page. She asked how many we were having for Thanksgiving dinner. Like always, it’s just the two of us.

Until soil blocking begins at the farm in late February my weeks are two days at the home, farm and auto supply store and five days to do what I will. Three months to make progress on home projects among which writing is most important to me. To begin planning would be turning the page on life, something I’m not ready to do.

By Wednesday I should feel more in the holiday spirits as I have dinner planned with a friend. I’m not one to linger in uncertainty, at least I didn’t used to be. I’ll take these days into the 2018 holidays one at a time. Focused on the present, rooted in the past, and hoping for a better life afterward. Sustaining a life in a turbulent world.

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Home Life Juke Box Writing

Landslide

We don’t have mountains in Iowa. There are only so many cliffs. The idea of a landslide conjures something abstract and usage is mostly related to politics and the hope of a big win in the November general election.

Politics is not what I have in mind.

I’m on a bit of hiatus. Not sure when I’ll return but for the time being here’s a video for your entertainment.

Here’s hoping to well survive the landslide.

Categories
Home Life

September Slides into Plain Life

September Tomatoes

What happened in September?

We are in peak apple season at the orchard where I’ve been working more hours compared to August. Time at the home farm and auto supply store continues to be predictable work and a regular paycheck. I’m working more volunteer hours in politics as the general election is just six weeks away. The garden is finishing with some plots ready to be cleared.

September was a month of plain living.

People don’t often use the phrase “plain living.” Most don’t want to be plain. I embrace it. I don’t know why I’m walking this blue-green sphere, but I am, and want to get along as I get by. Maybe that’s enough of a goal. It makes a life.

On Wednesday I read Anthony Bourdain’s “Appetites: A Cookbook” from cover to cover. I needed to get away. Many of his anecdotes have been out there, although there is always something new to learn. While meat is not on my bucket list of culinary adventures, there are a dozen Bourdain recipes I’ll try and hopefully adapt to our kitchen.

I’m usually on my own for Thursday dinner and had Bourdain in mind as I prepared a burger. It began after work at the home, farm and auto supply store with a trip to the warehouse club. I selected S. Rosen’s Plain Mary Ann hamburger buns. This bun is not a wonder of nutritional value. Like me, it’s plain. The warehouse club sells them in bags of 16 for a couple of bucks, which means I froze most of them to use later. Bourdain said bun selection is very important. This made in Chicago and trucked to Coralville bun fit the bill.

Our burgers are commercial veggie patties and like the bun, plain and utilitarian. They fill in for “burger” in the iconography of consumer life. I cooked the patty, and prepared the bun with Dijon mustard on the bottom, ketchup on the top, thinly sliced onion from the CSA and a thinly sliced tomato from the garden. As the burger warmed, I put a piece of Swiss cheese on top to melt. The goal in ingredient selection is to make the burger so it can be eaten without a bib. Served with a side of corn chips and salsa and apple cider it made a meal. It reminded me of childhood.

September was also the month I harvested my best crop of tomatoes, ever. There were enough to free me from any single preparation so I have several variations of tomato sauce in the ice box and freezer. Enough to last most of the next year. A few remain on the kitchen counter but they won’t last long. I have salsa with the abundant crop of Jalapeno peppers in mind.

One could do a lot worse than to live a plain life with plain folk. That of itself can be extraordinary. Especially with a burger for dinner.

Categories
Home Life

Returning to the Trail

Jewelweed on the Lake Macbride Trail

I view trail hiking with trepidation.

Since entering a low-wage work world a few years ago, where standing for long shifts on concrete floors contributed to plantar fasciitis, I haven’t jogged and reduced the amount of trail hiking I do. Now that I’m semi-retired, my feet appear to be healing. I’d like to get back out on the trail on a regular basis.

We live near an entry point to the Lake Macbride State Park trail system.

The hard-packed gravel trail runs from the state park entry, five miles east to the City of Solon. It is well used by hikers, bicyclists, joggers and locals, and soon will be connected to a much larger trail system. Over the years I’ve used it a lot, notably as a jogging trail where in peak condition I’d jog five miles each day before heading into Cedar Rapids for work.

Friday I hiked home from Solon after dropping my automobile at the repair shop, then hiked back to town once it was repaired: six miles.

The trail is changing.

Human activity in the form of development has taken the biggest toll on nature. The Solon Recreation and Nature Area has been encroaching on natural areas near the trail since it was established. Addition of a paved, concrete bike path near the railroad easement has taken even more of the natural area out of the trail. The city end of the trail has been a mess since the construction began and will end up being an industrialized area rather than the nature it purports to be in its naming. I ran into a townie I know who said designers plan to keep the gravel portion of the trail. If that’s true, it is a blessing because there are so few low impact trails in the area.

My trail experience is partly about exercise, partly about viewing the condition and maintenance of the trail. I enjoy finding new wildflowers like the Jewelweed in the image above. When there were more of them I picked wild blackberries, competing with birds for the sweet treat. The good news is my feet didn’t ache Saturday morning and on Sunday they returned to normal. I should be able to hike regularly again… and complain about human activity encroaching on nature right in front of my eyes.

Lake Macbride from the Trail, Sept. 7, 2018

Categories
Home Life

Taking a Deep Dive

Gala Apples

It’s raining as I type on the keyboard. Rain is to relent and I hope it does because one of the farmers for whom I work is getting married today.

In our small family there are not many celebrations. I’m not sure what to do at a wedding, although I’ll figure it out by 3:30 p.m. today.

Jacque is steering me in the right direction. We bought a gift on line and had it sent to the bride’s home. She is making a card. She suggested I refrain from going directly from the orchard in my work clothes as I had planned to do. I looked through the closet to find something to wear and there was my blue shirt and a pair of slacks. I have a pair of dress shoes left over from when I worked in the Chicago loop. I need to pick a tie. My navy blue blazer still fits. Special things for a special day. I’ll change in the employee rest room at the orchard then head down to the county seat for the ceremony. Civilization at work.

It’s still raining.

Since my first retirement nine years ago I’ve kept track of significant activities.

I keep a balance sheet, a list of books I’ve read recently, and record every event, meeting and significant encounter with people outside immediate family who are part of my world.

Early on there was a purpose to this, although I’m not sure now what it was. Three full binders later, I’m ready to give up tracking things so closely. My last full report was in December 2017 as my Social Security pension began. My second retirement seems opportunity enough to let go of details and focus on main tasks at hand. Things like weddings, funerals, birthdays, housekeeping and the like. I expect I’ll get better at it.

September begins the turn toward winter. The garden is in late summer production so there are tomatoes, celery, cucumbers, winter squash, green beans, eggplant and peppers coming in, requiring processing. Fruit is also coming in from the orchards with pears, apples and peaches lined up on the counter waiting to eat. Cooking has taken a fresh flavor with local food dominating most menus. Cucumber salad is happening daily and we’re not tired of it… yet.

2018 is proving to be a year of transition. So aren’t they all?

I’ve been planning garlic planting in late September and haven’t decided whether to use the cloves I grew as seed or to get more from the farm. I picked a place for them and once the cucumbers are done I’ll prep the soil. I think I know the answer. At some point we have to live on our own — I’ll use the cloves I grew this year, hoping they multiply and eventually become self-sustaining. I’m confident they will.

Categories
Environment Home Life Kitchen Garden

Gardening in End Times

Japanese Beetles Enjoying a Pear

I’ve been a gardener since we got married.

We planted a few tomatoes near the duplex we rented in Iowa City the spring after the wedding. As we lived our lives, raised our daughter, and sought economic stability, we either planted a garden or harvested what was there. When we owned a home, first in Merrillville, Indiana, and then in Big Grove, the garden got bigger and I became a better gardener. There is evidence in this year’s abundant harvest.

It didn’t come naturally even though gardening is elemental. The brief narrative of my gardener’s life.

As I step back from the working world to focus on home life what seems clear is society is moving at a startling pace toward disaster. Our industrial society consumes everything useful in nature, leaving us with foul air and water, depleted soil, polluted and acidified oceans devoid of marine life, and a warming world with all the consequences that yields. The earth will survive as it has. We people seem to be on the downside of our prominence. In multiple ways these are end times.

The Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek asserts there is a chance for a new beginning in the terminal crisis in which human society finds ourselves. His arguments are not convincing to us regular humans.

What do we do?

What we have done is argue about approaches. Should we have a carbon tax? Should we ban abortion? Should we ban plastic straws? Is wind, sun, nuclear or natural gas a better source of electricity? Should we cut taxes and reduce government’s role in our lives? Should we become socialists, or even worse, democratic socialists? Should we let go of Hillary’s emails? Should we all just try to get along? Approaches don’t work and we should let go of them all.

The better question to ask is what story do we want to tell? As others have said, notably author Joan Didion, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” What narrative will take us out of the current crisis?

For me it’s “I’m becoming a better gardener.”

Regardless of pending social collapse we must go on with our lives. Partly to keep our sanity, and partly — importantly — to take steps toward a more livable world. We will never go back to the Iowa of 1832 before the great division and clear cutting began. What we can do is plant the seeds of a better life where we live. Our forebears left us a disaster. What can we do about it? Make the best of it with forward-looking narratives for the next generations.

I get it that many people don’t have means to do more than survive. When I see the abundance of our garden it’s hard to believe people go without a meal. Yet they do, in large numbers. We can feed a couple of them, but is that enough? It’s something.

The essence of the narrative is the verb to become. “I seem to be a verb,” R. Buckminster Fuller wrote. I seem to be that verb. We are not predestined to anything except our human span of nine decades, and that only if we are lucky. We live in an imperfect society that beckons engagement. I’m not sure working toward perfection is as good as doing something positive is. Knowing what to do requires a better narrative. One that hasn’t been invented for the 21st Century and beyond.

I plan to work on a better narrative, although garden in end times doesn’t seem too bad.

Categories
Home Life Writing

Staycation 2018

Garden Harvest

There’s plenty to do on the property so this week will be a staycation.

I took paid vacation from the home, farm and auto supply store. On day three of an eight day work hiatus, I left the property twice, visiting the warehouse club both times. I return to work next Saturday when my season at the orchard officially begins.

There are five stops on the staycation itinerary: the garden, the yard, the garage, the kitchen and my storage/study areas. It should be fun.

Yesterday was Mother’s 89th birthday. We had a nice telephone chat. She has trouble moving around because of arthritis, and no longer reads printed books because of macular degeneration. She seemed mentally alert as we reviewed her recent reading from an audio book subscription. We talked about her mother. Busha moved from the farm to Minneapolis at a young age. She took a job in a Chinese restaurant where she learned to prepare chop suey, according to Mother. I’m not sure “Chinese” is accurate, but the dish she learned and taught Mother has a unique flavor I’ve not encountered elsewhere. Mother said she continues to make chop suey from time to time.

It’s getting to be time for a visit.

And so it goes. Time to get outside and take advantage of the temperate weather. While the rest of the world bakes, it is good as it gets here… at least for the moment.

Later I’ll return to the kitchen to prepare a meal with some of the morning harvest. Summer gardening has been pretty good despite Spring’s late start.

Categories
Home Life Milestones

Remembering Donald Kaul in High Summer

Sweet Corn from a Roadside Stand

Sunday was a day to hang out on memory lane.

Sweet corn, tomatoes, cucumbers and Donald Kaul.

I bought sweet corn from a roadside stand and we had it for dinner with tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden, and thin slices of cheddar cheese from Vermont.

At some point after our return to Iowa in 1993, I decided to outsource corn growing. It takes up too much space and what space could be devoted to it produced a small crop. It was a good decision.

I cooked and froze the remainder of three dozen ears in two-cup portions in zip top bags.

We revisited stories of our lives during and after dinner.

How our cat would lick the cobs cleaned of corn kernels.

How putting up corn had been a long tradition — a family project.

How simple and good this year’s corn tasted compared to the past.

The trick to eating sweet corn is knowing how much to eat without getting a belly ache. The first ear was buttered, then sprinkled with lemon pepper seasoning and a little salt. Three ears is a usual portion. I ate four and went light on the salt. There were no ill effects.

Tomatoes

The arrival of sweet corn and tomatoes is the arrival of high summer. A short window — a couple of weeks max — when summer is good and we get a chance to be human again.

That’s something we need in this turbulent world.

In Iowa we also have the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa, more commonly known as RAGBRAI, which began yesterday. Donald Kaul and John Karras were two Des Moines Register reporters behind the annual event. It was expected this year, and Kaul died of prostate cancer Sunday morning.

“On January 11, 2018, Kaul, an agnostic, revealed that the cancer in his prostrate has spread to his skeleton and that he will no longer take treatments,” wrote Des Moines Register columnist Kyle Munson. “He was in the end stages of his battle with cancer and didn’t expect to live beyond the year.”

The end came at 11:50 a.m., according to a local radio station.

The narrative of this year’s RAGBRAI seems already written, and it doesn’t include Kaul. There is time for some show of recognition on the seven-day tour. We’ll see what happens.

For me RAGBRAI was about the summer of 1973 when it started. An artist I met in Davenport invited me to her family’s home near the Catholic orphanage to meet her parents. Her brother was out in the garage when I met him too. He was talking about riding his bicycle across the state with the Des Moines Register. Over the Coffee, Kaul’s column, was popular in this household.

Today people prepare for months for the long endurance test the annual ride has become. Specialized, lightweight bicycles, meal plans, and training. Not in 1973 when the sequence of events was 1. figure out how to get to the Missouri River with the bike; 2. tighten up the hub axle nuts; and 3. air up the tires. I can’t recall, but I don’t believe he even had a derailleur gear on his bike. It was pretty simple then and proved to be enduring.

Kaul’s death on the beginning day of the 46th RAGBRAI is likely coincidence. In any case, he is memorable for his writing more than his promotion of bicycle riding.

In high summer, after our dinner of sweet corn and tomatoes, my wife and I discussed our interactions with Donald Kaul. She got his autograph in a bookstore in Iowa City, and I corresponded with him when he was a Washington, D.C. correspondent for the Register. He was a constant part of our Iowa lives. That will still be true now he succumbed to cancer.

Categories
Home Life Writing

Moving On to Fall

July 15 Harvest

My supervisor at the orchard called yesterday to ask me to work this weekend. I said yes.

We’ll be selling blueberries from Michigan for a few hours on Saturday and we’ll discuss plans for the upcoming season.

It is my earliest start in six seasons. It’s also a sign the year is on the back slope. Fall will soon arrive.

Being home more has helped make the garden our best ever. Just an hour a day after planting has been enough time. Some of the new techniques: using composted chicken manure for fertilizer, mulching pepper and cucumber plants immediately after planting, using a fence to grow cucumbers, and putting a deer fence around the tomatoes have facilitated Mother Nature’s growth. I still haven’t had to buy a single onion or head of garlic at the store this year. We are eating something fresh from the garden daily.

I’m used to having events to which to look forward. That means I’m not used to the five-day weekends semi-retirement and completion of spring farm work brought this July. I’ve been doing a lot of resting in between activities. I’ve made a conscious effort to reduce the number of activities. So resting outranks doing for the time being.

Based on more than 50 years in the workforce, I’m used to a scheduled shift being the focal point of each day. In retirement, that changes and will take accommodation.The idea is not to replace work shifts with other, different kinds of events. Rather focus on awareness of tasks being required and doing them as needs rise to the surface of our new lives together.

For example, I planted 48 celery plants. Yesterday I harvested five to see how they were growing. I trimmed the heads of bad stalks and used what was salvageable in a stir fry for lunch. The five cores, or what grocery stores call “hearts” I bagged and refrigerated for later. What I learned was celery is about ready for harvest and that means a big project of cleaning, trimming, slicing and freezing for winter use in soup and stir fry. That task is lingering and will rise up soon.

The point of retirement is to perform tasks like this in time, but when fancy deems best. It would be a waste not to get this done, but I’m reluctant to write it on my calendar. I’d rather wait for the right intersection of seasonable temperatures, personal energy and peak vegetable readiness. That time will reveal itself outside the unforgiving tyranny of a calendar.

Milkweed Pods Growing

Even the milkweed plants are doing well this year. I did little other than weed around them and cut away the vines wanting to grow up the stem. Several plants are forming seed pods. I’ll learn a little bit about them and harvest the seeds to grow more in a different spot. Someday I hope to see a butterfly caterpillar on one of them.

It looks like as I’m writing the presser in Helsinki, Finland with Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump is about to begin. A reporter claiming to be from The Nation has been forcibly removed. Neither leader is a fan of a free press, although both use it to their advantage when they can. We also know about the many journalists who “disappeared” under Putin. I’d rather look at butterflies than think about U.S. – Russian relations. It’s hard to avoid, just like it’s hard to stop thinking about my next work shift.

If we’re to change habits, we have to work at it. That may be why I continue to write these posts, work at the orchard, and at the home, farm and auto supply store… for now. My life would be worse without it.