I made lentil soup for dinner last night. With a slice of bread, it made a satisfying meal. What distinguished this pot of soup from more generic vegetable soups I make was the restricted number of ingredients. Here’s how I made it.
I covered the bottom of the Dutch oven with tomato juice and brought it to temperature: enough juice to steam fry the vegetables. We use tomato juice instead of oil to reduce our consumption of cooking oil. My tomato juice is a byproduct of making tomato sauce from the garden.
Next came finely diced onions, carrots, and celery, the mainstays of any soup. I added three bay leaves and salted. Then I diced three medium potatoes and added them.
From the pantry I added one and a half cups of dried lentils and three quarters cup pearled barley. Cover with tomato juice and set to medium heat.
From the freezer I added two one-cup bags of shredded zucchini and two frozen disks of fresh parsley. By now, the lentils and barley were absorbing the liquid so I added tomato juice and one quart of water to cover. I used a total of three quarts of tomato juice and one quart of water.
Two or three cups of chopped, fresh leafy green vegetables from the garden. I had collards for this pot of soup, but kale, collards or others will serve. Frozen is fine also.
Once the pot boils, reduce the heat and let it simmer until the lentils, barley and potatoes are tender. This process yielded a meal for two people plus three and a half extra quarts of soup for leftovers.
It is the kind of meal regular folks like us appreciate.
Saturday the snow stopped and I blew the driveway for the fifth or sixth time this week. Yes, that’s right, I can’t remember how many times. The work went quickly and with the snow finished for now, all I’ll have to deal with is wind-blown drifts.
Attire is a thing during a blizzard. For outdoors work, I donned my Star Wars Mos Eisley t-shirt, my Chicago Bulls sweat shirt from when Michael Jordan was playing, relatively new Levis blue jeans and J.C. Penney rubberized boots, a scarf Mother knitted me while I served in the military, a stocking cap from that same era, and a Carhartt jacket bought on sale when I worked at the home, farm, and auto supply store before the coronavirus pandemic. Working together, it all kept me warm as the snow flew around my electric snow blower. I did feel a bit like a walking logo store, yet I’m not going to get rid of serviceable clothing.
Sunday started with ambient outdoor temperatures below minus ten degrees Fahrenheit. With no reason to go outdoors, I kept the garage door closed while we regulated indoors temperatures. The new furnace worked well and the space heater took the chill off my downstairs work room. There was a two-hour planning session with our child and the rest of the day is for planning the beginning of the year for me. In a stable environment, what the weather does is less of a worry than running out of time.
We take days like these in stride. Without a paying job, what the weather does has less impact. The blizzard provided a reason to stay indoors and work on long delayed projects. Later today I must venture to town to lead our precinct caucus. The blizzard will keep all but the most devoted from participating. Some years it is like that, blizzard or not.
Driveway covered with snow a few hours after clearing it. Jan. 9, 2024.
A blizzard is welcome these days, especially when one works from home. They remove most temptation to leave the property and go to town. We become isolated as much as is possible in the time of broadband access and mobile telephones. Diet changes based on what is in the pantry and freezer. Like most modern middle class families we keep a lot of extra food on hand, so we are ready to survive, come what may.
Is there gasoline for the generator? Check. Is there enough store-bought bread? Check. Is the snow blower positioned near the garage door with extension cords? Check. Is there extra drinking water in case the well goes down? Check.
Wednesday morning I made ramen my own way. I bought a 24-package box of Maruchan brand ramen noodle soup. After looking at available options, I picked soy sauce flavor, hoping it was vegetarian. It wasn’t. One of the ingredients in the flavoring packet was “beef extract,” whatever that is. I discarded the packet and made my own with one cup tomato juice, and a combination of white miso paste, vegetarian worcerstershire sauce, and home made hot sauce. It was surprisingly sweet and delicious.
My neighbor came over to help clear the end of the driveway where the plow pushed snow from the street. The two of us made quick work of it and decided we didn’t need further exercise for the day. We are both retired and need daily exercise for health reasons. The blizzard broke up the routine of trail walking.
I recently read a book titled, Blizzard by Phil Stong, written in 1955. The story is of a farm family in southeastern Iowa during a blizzard. So many neighbors and friends stopped by during the storm, it seemed very communal. I suppose that’s the way it was on a farm back in the pre-internet days. For the most part, today it’s the two of us alone in the house making do.
On day two of the storm I drove across the lakes to Costco and wore a mask indoors. There were others doing so, although very few customers were inside. Staff was talking about who would be released first to go home. The risk of contracting the coronavirus seemed minimal. I wore a mask anyway.
The car radio was filled to the max with commercials promoting 45 and Nikki Haley, but no one else. Absent adequate and recent publicly released polling it’s hard to say who will win the Republican caucus vote. It will be one of those two, I believe. Of course, the Democrats are not voting for president on caucus day.
More storms are lining up the rest of the week and we shouldn’t have to go out until they finish. For now, it’s a matter of getting the mail and seeing whether delivery trucks make it through. It’s the newest version of Iowa winter during a blizzard.
We celebrated a minimalist Christmas this year. My spouse and I left the holiday decorations in their boxes, did not plan a special menu, and made some cards to send to a few friends. Ambient temperature was 53 degrees Fahrenheit at 3 a.m. on Christmas Day, and rain is in the forecast. It will be a time for reflection.
The first Christmas I think of is when I was in first grade. I had a discussion with Mother about whether Santa Claus was a real person, and that year imagined I saw him flying through the sky with his reindeer. Father spend a lot of time in the basement of our rented home near Wonder Bakery on River Drive. He was building me a desk to keep in my room for school studies. I rapidly outgrew it and still have it. Our child indicated they don’t want it when I’m gone. I’m okay with finding another home for it.
Midnight Mass was an annual Christmas activity after we moved to Marquette Street in 1959. I remember walking the block and a half to the church as snow fell upon us. It was one of the best-attended services of the year, so we had to go early to ensure getting a seat. My maternal grandmother was the main force of religion in our family and she herded us along. Holy Family Catholic Church was a center of our family life. Mother and Father were married there, Grandmother worked as a housekeeper in the rectory. Mother worked in the school cafeteria. I was baptized and confirmed there, as were my siblings, and we kids attended grade school at the parish school.
When I left home in 1970, Christmas became mostly a time of traveling home for the holiday. At university, I didn’t want to stay in the dorm over the long Christmas break, so I went home. I do not have living memory of those Christmases. It was never the same after Father died in 1969. When I enlisted in the military in 1976, I came home for Christmas maybe once. It was a long way from Germany where I was stationed.
After our wedding we split holiday time between Ames and Davenport where our parents lived. When our child was born, it felt important for grandparents and great grandparents to have time with them and the end of year holidays were a good time to do that. It was never our holiday because of the travel. It was an important duty of parenting we fulfilled as best we could.
Since our child left Iowa in 2007, Christmas has been hit or miss. There were good ones, and average ones. At some point we stopped doing anything special. We haven’t unboxed the decorations in a few years. We make an effort to call important people in our lives, yet that gets spread over the time between Dec. 18 (our wedding anniversary) and New Year’s Day. Christmas Day is no longer as special as it once was.
According to the Social Security life expectancy calculator, a reasonable expectation is I will have 14 more Christmases and my spouse will have 16. I expect to do everything possible to make them the best we can. Merry Christmas dear readers. Have a happy 2024!
I basically wear a uniform: jeans, t-shirts, sweatshirts, socks, underwear, footwear, and that’s pretty much it. I own a couple of woven shirts with a collar, and I kept one blue blazer from when I worked in transportation and logistics ending in 2009. I am a plain dresser these days.
Among issues discovered during the year-end budget reconciliation was an unexpected $451.52 spent on clothing for me. I was stunned. Clothing. For me. I researched each transaction and purchases were my basic wardrobe: three pair of jeans, three pair of footwear, t-shirts and underwear. These were not designer items, although I bought them new. I’ll be getting the broad axe out for this budget item.
The single wardrobe change this year was buying longer t-shirts to cover my behind when bending over in the garden. It was with a sense of social responsibility that I now possess seven “tall sized” t-shirts with logos like The Legend of Zelda, NASA, Smokey the Bear and Star Wars. I bought the cheapest cotton ones available and they should last a long while unless I get into something while working in the garage or outdoors.
The problem with blue jeans began when I started buying inexpensive Lee jeans while working at the home, farm and auto supply store. They fit well but were poorly constructed and wore out quickly. Now I’m buying Levis which in their current iteration as a company are durable and should last. Levis cost double the price of Lee, yet represent the better value.
Footwear wears out. I bought a pair of rubberized boots to wear while removing snow from the driveway. The soles fell off my previous pair. I also got a new pair of slippers for $13.28 to wear in the lower level of the house where I do my writing. I don’t want to track things from the unfinished lower level to upstairs and the old ones wore out. I got an inexpensive pair of red Skechers for fancy when my walking shoes wore out and my “fancy” Nikes changed to walking shoes.
I continue to use my Army-issued combat boots when digging in the garden. I walked all over the Fulda Gap in Germany in them, and have run hundreds of miles in them while in the military. What should I say? They are well broken in and nowhere near end of life. They are good shoes to last almost 50 years.
I don’t do a lot of styling around here, not even with scarves. The outerwear is pretty old, and the caps I wear are mostly advertising for tires, farms, seed companies, a Twitch stream, and The Climate Reality Project. Some of the caps date back to the 20th Century. I get a lot of wear out of these items.
Though not really complaining, this post helped me calm down about the expense. Any more, peeling myself off the ceiling has become an important part of aging. Hopefully the four and a half c-notes was money well spent and the 2024 expense will be cut at least in half or completely eliminated.
The challenge of winter is to continue exercising at least half an hour each day regardless of weather. Taking a shovel to a couple inches of snow on the driveway is a natural, yet as warm as it’s been, isn’t a consistent source of exercise. Walking the trail is out, although some neighbors do it. I don’t enjoy the slippery surface the snow and ice mixture creates. A few days ago, I was getting a bit panicky as I hadn’t found anything to do.
I ended up searching the internet for ideas and came up with walking in place. I tried it a few days last week and based on how I felt after my half hour sessions, it is a better form of exercise than trail walking. Going forward, when I can get outside, I will. When I can’t, I’ll put on a CD and listen to music while stepping in place for a half hour. It’s something I can do until it’s time to begin working in the garden.
The message of this post is pretty simple. Unless we stick to the idea we need exercise in addition to what we get on an average day, our health will suffer for it. I’ve come to believe keeping at it — doing a set amount of daily exercise — is as important as the exercise we do. So, problem solved — for now.
While in the kitchen making soup this week, Iowa Public Radio announced new weekend news programming. Someone had to be removed to make room in the lineup. It was sad when they announced it was Fiona Ritchie whose Thistle and Shamrock I’ve been following for many years. She has been a mainstay of my weekend radio listening. The only remaining folk music program will be The Folk Tree with local host Karen Impola who arrived in Iowa from the East Coast in 1990.
Since Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion transitioned and then ended, the statewide public radio station had been cutting purchases of outside programming for weekend listening. Today much of the afternoon lineup is locally produced. Some of the replacement programming is good, others not so much.
I could get my Fiona Ritchie fix by streaming her content, yet that’s not the same as live radio: turning on the radio and accepting what is programmed while preparing dinner or doing dishes. To make streaming work, I’d need a device that connects to the internet with me in the kitchen. We have Wi-Fi, yet I’m not ready to give up radio just yet. It means something for the broadcast to be received live while I’m working.
Most public radio news programs are intolerable. While they mastered a format, the content has been less than engaging. The reporters are too familiar with themselves and less focused on listeners. We did donate our last two used automobiles to Iowa Public Radio, so I feel a sense of investment in what they do. It has not been a happy experience of late.
I can live without Fiona Ritchie like I live without Keillor and the rest of the former weekend lineup. Living today isn’t what it was when we moved to Big Grove Township in 1993. It stabilized, yet I can’t say it’s better. Thistle and Shamrock is one more piece of a past life receding into memory. It’s the part of aging I don’t enjoy. Thanks for the time together, Fiona Ritchie. Best wishes for a bright future.
Two days after a full moon, in pre-dawn darkness, it was difficult to see it rained yesterday. It hadn’t rained long, just enough to get the ground wet and start water flowing toward the ditch. It was not enough to seal cracks in the ground caused by a lack of moisture. The ditch near the road has hardly been used for runoff this spring. I hope the dry spell is broken.
After a hiatus, today I return to writing. Garden plot seven remains to be planted yet the hard work of putting in a garden is almost done. Already an abundance of vegetables was harvested even if my favorite hot peppers wait in the greenhouse to be planted.
At the point I realized our yard couldn’t produce enough grass clippings and leaves for garden mulch, and began laying down weed barrier to hold moisture and suppress weeds, everything changed. It was helped along by relenting to the need for fertilizer (composted chicken and turkey manure) and some pesticides used by my organic farming friends. Not everything improves with aging, yet my garden was made better by experience.
May was a month of stuff breaking. We scrambled to cover the expense of new appliances: washer, dryer, range, furnace, and air conditioner. We previously replaced the refrigerator, water heater, water softener, and our 2002 automobile. The new technology is clearly better. I can’t get over how quickly batches of water-bath canning jars come to temperature and boil. Our clothes get cleaner as well. All of this took time in May. We are over the hump, fingers crossed.
The acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk created turbulence in my social media space. The main change is I notice more trolls. I know to block them without question, yet it is an annoyance. I tried Mastodon, Post, and Spoutible and none of them fills the same need as Twitter. Mastodon was too complicated with their decentralized server model. Spoutible and Post have a lot of nice people, yet the depth of relationship is lacking and may become an issue. The other legacy social media accounts (Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook) are doing what they do without issue.
There wasn’t a lot to write about in Iowa Politics this spring. Republicans in the legislature had super majorities and could and did pass what they wanted. The trouble for a political blog writer is getting a handle on the changes and creating an approach that makes sense while Democrats are in the minority. One would have thought logic and reason would be the path, yet no. Republicans now take legislative action based on tropes and whims from the great beyond. To use logic serves their misinformation purposes. Building a story board will require more effort than usual as we prepare for the 2024 and 2026 elections.
Lack of rain is concerning. The Midwestern garden relies upon a consistent amount of rainfall spaced at predictable intervals. As the atmosphere and our oceans warm, more moisture is stored in the atmosphere. Rainfall we were used to became the exception rather than something upon which gardeners can rely. It leaves us with the unpredictability of life. When the dry spell breaks, we can breathe easier, at least for a little while.
My spouse and I noticed the mulberry tree on walkabout Tuesday afternoon.
The mulberry tree was damaged by the 2020 derecho and has begun to die. Branches high in the canopy are losing bark and not regrowing it. Soon it will need to be cut down and recycled. This is the only tree remaining from when we bought the lot in 1993.
We were discussing what to do with the yard. Mainly, we need to plant the area in front of the house where it was cleared last year. A flower bed of some kind will go there.
We took out the maple tree stump last year. We are considering replacement with some kind of tall bush rather than another tree, a forsythia or hydrangea, maybe.
More than half the Red Delicious apple tree is gone due to wind storms yet it seems very robust. Hard to tell if there will be an apple crop this year, yet under normal circumstances, there should be one.
Finally, the trays of seedlings are now outdoors in the greenhouse. It should be easier to water them. Next into the ground are onion sets, beets, and spinach. Hopefully there will be progress midst ambient temperatures in the 70s today.
Now to close this entry out and head for the lake trail for a morning walk.
Selection of books by Garrison Keillor waiting disposition.
It’s time for decisions… about Garrison Keillor.
Specifically, what should I do with this pile of books? Most were purchased at thrift stores for a dollar or less. I may have purchased the poetry book new, and maybe Homegrown Democrat. I can’t recall. Keillor’s books never made an impression on me the way Saul Bellow, Joan Didion, or John Irving did. He fancied himself a modern day Mark Twain, or something. I didn’t see it. Had I read more of Keillor, it may have been different. It’s getting late to start reading him now.
These nine books have been gathering dust in a row on the bottom shelf of the right-side stacks. They have been within reach for years. I could see them from the chair I bought for a buck from L.P. “Pat” Foster at Sharpless Auctions in the early 1980s. It is my writing chair for Pete’s sake! Keillor is a writer! The collector in me amassed the Keillor volumes back when I was in a more accumulating mood.
Disposing of Keillor’s books is a practical problem. Do I expect to read them? No, not likely. Will I refer to something he wrote in my writing? Maybe, yet it is hard to imagine when the radio show made the dominant impression. Do they have sentimental value? Maybe. Are there more worthy books for retention waiting in the next room for shelf space? Yes definitely and that will be the decider.
Keillor’s allure was when A Prairie Home Companion was live on Saturday night, the signal coming through the clock radio atop the Kenmore refrigerator in our Midwestern home. I did things in the kitchen and listened. In important ways, his show made Saturday nights for a long time. I miss them. Will I miss the stack of books? If I would miss them, I might have picked one of them up over the last ten years.
I remember when he signed off the air in 1987. It felt momentous. Our two-year old child wanted to go for a walk in the neighborhood at the same time. No regrets about going with her instead of hearing Keillor live. We all must make choices.
I rigged my cassette recorder to capture the last show while we were gone. When we returned from our walk, I discovered the tape had run out before the show ended. Keillor never went over, except this time. I was able to re-record it on Sunday when it aired on a different radio station that broadcast from the Quad Cities.
We now know Denmark didn’t work out, nor did his then new marriage. He came back to radio. There were other problems, they said. I’m not sure what happened, or in what order. I didn’t pay much attention to his personal life. The star of the show was always the yarns he spun. It felt like it would never end.
In a June 16, 2016 New York Times article aligning with his second departure from the radio program, Cara Buckley wrote, “Everything about “Prairie Home” — the Guy Noir and Lives of the Cowboys sketches, the spots for Powdermilk Biscuits and the Ketchup Advisory Board, the monologues about the fictional Lake Wobegon — sprang from Mr. Keillor’s imagination. But the man spinning the plates at the center of it all managed to stay a mystery, even to people who know him well.”
These days, I’m spinning my own plates. To use a more local metaphor, I don’t have enough time to card my own wool, and spin my own yarn to make a sweater. Plate-spinners have gone out of fashion.
I wish I could have one of those Saturday nights back. Like the one I shared with our child in Colorado Springs in their first apartment there. We went to the grocer together, prepared dinner, and talked to each other with the sounds of a Prairie Home Companion in the background. Those were golden times whose embrace is fleeting.
I will figure it out. These septuagenarian days are also fleeting. In the universe of things to do with used books, these will likely go to the public library’s used book sale. I may have bought some of them there. It seems likely they will find readers in our community, even if I can’t find the time in our prairie home to be one of them.
Journey Home 
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