Rain fell from the roof to the downspout then to the semi-frozen ground below. The sound of trickling raindrops was background for Christmas Day at home.
We did things together, and talked, sharing ideas, sharing video clips from the internet, and deciding a menu. Christmas dinner ended up being bowls of vegetable soup with cornbread left from our special Christmas Eve supper. We had Christmas cookies for dessert — Nestle Toll House cookies made with the recipe on the bag. Simple fare for plain folks.
It was a peaceful day in a dark year. Nonetheless, days are getting longer. New hope springs, bringing with it growth, new life, and new work beginning today.
I embrace the new days ahead and so should readers. What else is there to do?
Anthony Sells built the first sawmill in Big Grove Township in 1839. There were a lot of nearby trees, hence the name. Things changed.
Farm fields, and eventually subdivisions, replaced the Oak-Hickory forest. Except for the state park and a few scattered parcels, the change has been decisive and permanent.
Memory of trees persists as a place to retreat during the end of year holidays.
Like during much of our lives, food is a holiday consideration — special menus using favorite recipes. We secured fresh cranberries, oranges, Gold Rush apples, sweet potatoes, broccoli, cookie ingredients, apple cider, and a frozen cherry pie from the orchard for the season. Yesterday’s purchases included dark roasted Sumatran coffee (Arabica beans), 64 fluid ounces of half and half for ice cream, special crackers and cream cheese. Planned recipes include cranberry sauce, shortbread cookies, apple crisp, and wild rice. It’s a lot of food for a special meal tomorrow. We’ll eat leftovers for days.
There is more to life than food.
That’s where the camera fades to black and a window into my life is obscured.
The idea of old trees now gone provides solace. Outside living memory, there is no going back to the time before Sells’ sawmill. For most who live here, it is already forgotten.
On this ground we make our own history. Because it lives today, it dominates our outlook and activities. The recipe is not specific and we challenge today what we did yesterday in hope of a better tomorrow.
There is something about the trees. Some linger as Sells’ lumber in structures in the nearby town. What matter more is the idea here was once a different ecosystem. One has to ask, “will what we replaced it with be sustainable?”
Holiday tradition in our house includes cleaning and decorating beginning mid-December.
Dec. 18 is our wedding anniversary. This year we plan to celebrate 34 years of marriage with a meal at a local restaurant.
Our wedding anniversary is also when the Christmas tree goes up with decorating to be finished by Christmas Eve.
As we cleaned, I made soup using bits and pieces of leftover vegetables and pantry items. It was thick and savory — the way soup is supposed to taste.
The process for soup-making is simple.
Turn the heat to medium high and place a Dutch oven on the burner.
Drain the juice from a pint of canned, diced tomatoes into the Dutch oven and bring to a boil.
Add a generous amount of diced onions (2 cups or more), three or four peeled and sliced carrots, two stalks of sliced celery, and three bay leaves. Salt generously and steam-saute until the vegetables begin to soften.
Add the diced tomatoes.
Next steps depend upon what is on hand.
For this batch I put a quart of turnip broth from the pantry in the blender and added cooked Brussels sprout leaves, and fresh Swiss chard and kale, all from the ice box. I blended thoroughly and added the mixture to the Dutch oven.
Next was a can each of prepared black beans and whole corn from the grocery store.
I found an old box of marjoram in the spice rack and added what was left — about a tablespoon. They don’t sell marjoram loosely packed in boxes any more so it must have been 20 years old or more.
Peeled and diced three red potatoes from the counter and added them to the Dutch oven. I also added the thinly sliced the stalks of kale and Swiss chard.
From the pantry I took a cup of lentils, and a quarter cup each of quinoa and pearled barley and added them.
I submerged the vegetables in filtered water from the ice box.
The rest of the process was to bring to a boil, turn the heat down to a simmer, and cook until it is soup — adjusting seasonings until it tastes good, and making sure the vegetables are covered in liquid.
The effort produced enough for a meal with a gallon stored in the ice box in quart Mason jars. We’ll be eating on that until Christmas day.
Today is my first day on Medicare. It’s no time for rejoicing.
This category of mandatory spending by the federal government garners renewed attention with each new congress. With Republicans having majorities in the House of Representative and Senate, it will continue to be under attack from conservatives and wing nuts. There is little comfort having made it to the next milestone on the road to full retirement.
As with any health insurance, one hopes never to have to use it.
BIG GROVE TOWNSHIP — The ambient temperature outside was 20 degrees this morning. It was time to break out oatmeal for breakfast and dig into the numbers behind our dreams.
At Thanksgiving we turn inward toward family and friends to work on a plan for next year.
That means being with each other and discussing our potential. Life is on auto-pilot as next year’s activities and budget are considered, determined and planned.
I enjoy budgeting as it relates to planning how our lives will change.
2017 will be the last year before I am eligible for “full retirement” with the Social Security Administration. Mainly, this means an influx of monthly cash beginning in 2018. We need to make it to that mile marker without incurring too much debt. I plan to keep my job at the home, farm and auto supply store at least until then.
Like many baby boomers, I plan to work for income long past retirement. The time since leaving my transportation career well prepared us for cutting expenses and making do with less — the new American condition.
Dreams persist in the real world. Writing a budget is tangible evidence of such reality.
It is easier to write an expense budget than a revenue budget. There is a baseline of fixed and variable expenses that doesn’t change much. Basic costs of living change without doing anything differently. The hard part is figuring out how to pay basic expenses to support our dreams and ambitions, hopefully in sufficient quantity to enable dreams made real.
There is a lot to consider and nothing but time during the extended holiday season.
Pumpkin Pancake Topped with Apple Butter and Caramelized Apples
The weekend was a chance to get in the kitchen again.
When memories of a god-awful general election campaign persist, work is the best antidote.
I made a lot of dishes.
First up was a big pot of chili. Onion sorting has become a weekly thing and there was a whole tub of the same white onions to dice and cook in canned tomato juice for chili. I’ve written my chili recipe so many times I won’t repeat it here.
I halved and seeded a pie pumpkin and baked it in a 360 degree oven until fork tender. It made about four cups of pumpkin pulp, half of which I used to make pumpkin bread. The bread recipe was from The King Arthur Flour Bakers Companion cookbook except I omitted the nuts and chocolate chips. A slice of pumpkin bread went well with the chili for supper. There is a second loaf to take to the home, farm and auto supply store for the break room.
Roasted pumpkin seeds are crunchy and delicious especially while still warm. I separated seeds from the pumpkin guts and baked them with a little salt. It was hard not to eat them all.
After dropping my spouse at work, I went to the orchard to spend the $50 gift certificate received during our end of season party. I bought 19 pounds of Gold Rush apples, a long keeper and plenty delicious (apple joke). To make room for them in the ice box, I took the bowl of apples already there and peeled and sliced them for a simple caramelized apple dish. When it was done I put it in a plastic tub in the ice box.
Ice Box
Not to show off or anything, but here is what our ice box looked like when I returned from the orchard and put everything away.
The end of this spate of cooking came at breakfast Sunday morning when I made pumpkin pancakes topped with home made apple butter and the apple dish from Saturday warmed in the microwave oven. I made the batter in a bowl just used to bottle ground habañero and jalapeño peppers so the pancake had a kick.
Days of kitchen cooking seem rare as life accelerates toward year’s end. My advice is two things: grind your hot peppers in the garage, and when you feel blue, get to work. You’ll be glad you did both, especially the former.
Illuminated and bright white, the atmosphere blurred the view in a way vision did not.
Night is coming and with it restlessness and yearning…
For something once held in my hands… now gone.
People I know are disturbed about the election of Donald Trump as president. His transition team is a leaky bucket so we know some of what’s going on in Trumpland. His first steps don’t look good for anyone, including people who rallied around him. They will be freaking out sooner than expected as the president-elect struggles to deliver on campaign promises. It’s only five days after the election.
I live in a privileged enclave the affluence of which is driven by the largest of Iowa’s state universities and a few medium-sized businesses. Since moving to Big Grove Township in 1993 I’ve held the county seat at arms length as best I could. Iowa City is where I attended college, met my wife, got married, and witnessed the birth of our daughter. I have memories of my time there — most of them are good.
Eight of 58 precincts in Johnson County, including ours, voted for Donald Trump. Those who assert the county is monolithic in its liberalism paint with a broad brush. Their canvass looks neat — well contained within its edges. Like all products of imagination and technique such portraiture is more aspiration than reality. I’d rather live midst swing voters, small business operators, low-wage workers, and young men and women with imperfect lives. I’ve been with them so long it seems like home.
Tonight I’m drawn to the moon with its inconstant orbit outside the frame of a 24-hour day. As it sets over my shoulder this morning, giving way to sunrise, I’m reminded of this:
O blessed, blessed night! I am afeard.
Being in night, all this is but a dream,
Too flattering-sweet to be substantial.
~ Romeo and Juliet, Act Two, Scene Two in Capulet’s Orchard
Two hours before my shift at the orchard I was feeling punk. I went to work anyway.
While ringing up a dozen customers I felt light headed and a bit nauseous so my supervisor sent me home. She didn’t want whatever I had to infect other workers. Good call on her part.
After two four-hour sessions of sleep, I feel much better and am ready to head over again later this morning. Before I do, some last thoughts about this 96-hour staycation in Iowa.
I’m lucky to have worked a full career that paid our mortgage and helped put our daughter through college. There are plenty of people who work low-paid jobs like mine who don’t have that kind of financial platform for support. To make up the difference between income and operating expenses we’ve taken on some debt. We feel it’s manageable and have a plan to pay it off. Like most anyone should, we watch our cash flow. We also have been able to weather multiple challenges in recent years that would have sent others to the poor house if such a thing still exists.
Everything on my “deal-with list” has been addressed. Some things — car repairs, understanding and signing up for Medicare, writing about the Cedar River flood — came easily. Others — financial planning, longer writing projects, producing value from life as a sixty-something — present longer term challenges. What I wrote on Sept. 11 proved to be useful.
The key to dealing with this and everything else on my deal-with list is to take care of myself and not freak out. That I have this blog helps with the not freaking out part. There is solace in work.
I haven’t freaked out and am taking better care of myself as the staycation ends.
Sliced Red Zeppelin Onions
Canned goods were moved to the lower level where the storage rack is once again full. The production was less than in previous years, but focused on items we will use well over the coming months. Gardening is a perpetual process and this year produced in abundance. The trouble was August when I worked four jobs without adequate time to reap what I sowed. It was a learning point more than disaster and local farmers helped me make up for what was missed at home.
Remaining is fall yard work, home maintenance, financial planning, and most importantly writing. The reason for retiring in July 2009 was to enable my writing. I’ve gotten better at it and am ready for something longer, maybe book-length, which can be promulgated. That and ensuring our sustainability in a turbulent world remain on the deal-with deescalated to to-do list on my white board.
Better prepared to tackle today’s challenges, I’m hopeful. Hopeful about the lives of family members. Hopeful about the community of friends and acquaintances we’ve built here in Big Grove. Hopeful our country will make sound decisions during the Nov. 8 election.
Whatever the outcomes, the brief vacation this week helped get me back to who I am. I’m thankful for that and ready to engage in society again.
Only after a couple of days away from daily routine can a person begin to be themselves.
That’s where I am this morning.
I crave a place to work.
Desire is a blessing and a curse. When we want something, we set ourselves up for disappointment. We may get it, but can’t always get what we want.
It is a difficult path to nirvana. I do my best to void consciousness of self. It persists. There are selfies.
Like Eugene Henderson we feel restless and unfulfilled, harboring a spiritual void that manifests itself as an inner voice crying out I want, I want, I want.
Work is a cure for that.
Busy hands make happy children and happy children build a new world.
A political meet up, dinner using orchard-fresh apples, watching the presidential political debate on my phone, and five hours of sleep highlighted the first 12 of 96 hours of vacation this week.
I need to get more rest, but not now. Not today.
Awake and writing, soon to be picking detritus from the yard, I expect to spend most of the day outside. According to my weather widget, sunrise is three hours away with zero percent chance of precipitation until after sundown.
The beginning of soup is on the stove — three jars of tomato-y liquid from the ice box and a bag of onions. I’ll add vegetables and seasonings from the garden, ice box and pantry through the day, progressing toward a peasant’s meal tonight.
In the United States we aren’t peasants and homegrown vegetables owe fealty to no one. Raising vegetables is a revolt against those who would enslave us.
I paid my taxes so the land is ours… at least for now. Property rights are an American common denominator stronger than any political party. Having dispossessed those who lived here before, we are free until someone dispossesses us.
A long list of tasks resides on my phone. I left the device on the night stand while I bask in this window of freedom before sunup. Feeling the breeze from the lake, and for a brief moment, being myself against the wind — resisting for a while, then giving way to its cool waves in the predawn darkness.
Journey Home 
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