Some photos from the garden taken Friday, July 10.
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Iowa Summer Pandemic Politics
Independence Day is over! Time to get rolling on the fall campaign to elect Democrats! Not so fast…
The 2020 general election cycle has been like no other. Iowa didn’t stand a chance of influencing the national debate after the precinct caucuses yielded a field of five candidates who were awarded national delegates. Joe Biden, the presumptive nominee, placed fourth with six of 41 delegates, according to the Iowa Democratic Party website. A botched reporting process took Iowa out of the limelight as we didn’t certify caucus results until the race had moved on to New Hampshire and South Carolina.
Then the coronavirus hit the state. On March 9, Governor Kim Reynolds signed a disaster emergency proclamation regarding COVID-19. Political campaigns moved on line, conducting fundraising, voter contact, forums, and other events via telephone, text, email, and video conferencing. We got to know Zoom.
The impact of the coronavirus pandemic on political campaigning is far from over. There is expected to be little door-to-door canvassing, few in person events, and forget about the usual slate of county and state fairs, parades, pancake breakfasts, fish fries, and chili suppers. Politics in the pandemic seems much less significant than the public health emergency coupled inextricably with the economic downturn the pandemic is causing, to be honest. Whatever our federal and state governments are doing to mitigate the pandemic, it’s not working. The president’s recent guidance, parroted by the Iowa governor, is, “we need to live with it.”
On June 2 Theresa Greenfield became our nominee for U.S. Senate and all Democratic attention could turn to defeating incumbent Joni Ernst. In the age of Trump it seems possible to defeat the incumbent senator who had a solid win against Democrat Bruce Braley in 2014. The race will be tight and a lot of money will be spent by the candidates and political action committees.
In Iowa’s four congressional districts we have a slate of outstanding candidates in Abby Finkenauer (IA-01), Rita Hart (IA-02), Cindy Axne (IA-03) and J.D. Scholten (IA-04). They are working their campaigns and appear to have resources to do so. We can also expect each of them to be underdogs in the campaign cash department as Republicans have an unlimited supply of big dollar donors and political action committees just as in the U.S. Senate race.
The Iowa Senate seems out of reach for Democrats this cycle but we could make headway in the 18-32 minority, setting the stage for a majority in 2022. In the House of Representatives, flipping the majority to Democratic is within reach in 2020. If we could gain a House majority that would buffer the worst impulses of the Republican Senate and governor.
What’s an active Democrat to do? Get involved with electing Democrats.
While the way we support Democratic political campaigns may differ this cycle, the endgame is the same. Keeping track of voter contacts and make sure we reach out to everyone possible. In the pandemic that means participating where one can in virtual phone and text banks, and staying in touch with candidates through Facebook pages and virtual events. It also means adding politics to the list of things one discusses with friends and relatives. We each need our own list of people we seek to convince to vote Democratic whether it is provided by the party or not.
Politics has been weird this cycle. I’m okay with change yet the lack of person to person contact at events, door knocking, and fund raisers is unsettling. I have been walking in parades with Democrats and Democratic candidates for 20 years. Partly, I am involved in politics for this type of in person interaction. It’s hard to get fired up about a Zoom call the way it is to obtain a fresh list for door knocking.
The Iowa Democratic Party is being cautious about the risk of campaigning in the pandemic. An IDP employee explained it this way in an email.
The fear is that we might alienate Dems who are being extra cautious right now if we start showing up at their doors. The phones are the best option we have without in person contact being on the table, but hopefully it will become an option again soon.
Rank and file Democrats like me have little choice but to support what the state party and campaigns want to do. The thing is, we need to get everyone possible to vote for Democrats.
It’s clear no preference voters, along with some Republicans can be persuaded to vote for Joe Biden. They may not be willing to vote Democratic in federal and down-ticket races so we need to be nuanced in our approach to potential ticket splitters. We want those Biden votes for sure. If they are willing to pull the lever for Theresa Greenfield as well, that’s better. The secret sauce of Dave Loebsack’s long tenure is appealing to this type of ticket-splitting voter. A one size fits all campaign as we’ve run them previously hasn’t been as nuanced as 2020 demands.
My advice if you are reading this post is do three things: 1. Set a monthly budget to contribute to your favorite Democratic candidate. Almost anyone can afford a recurring small donation to the Iowa Democratic Party; 2. Make a personal list of people — friends, family, neighbors, and social groups — to contact about the election and then do it. Some may be resolute about their support for a candidate we do not prefer. Don’t beat them over the head with it but have that conversation; and 3. Get involved with formal party activities virtually or in person if they exist. The basic needs of the coronavirus pandemic — washing hands, social distancing, wearing a mask or shield in public, staying home if sick — are straight forward. If events support these precautions, they are worth considering for participation.
Summer is here, as is the pandemic. Democratic politics will adjust and move forward, hopefully toward victory in November.
~ Written for Blog for Iowa
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Getting Over the Kennedys
When I think of politics I think of the Kennedys. That is, I did. I’m over it now. This was first posted on Dec. 15, 2012. It’s been significantly edited.
The end of year holidays are something I associate with the Kennedy family. Our family wasn’t of the Kennedy clan, yet didn’t seem that far removed. My framework was formed while being Kennedy-like.
Our family moved into a new home the summer after I finished first grade. It was an American Foursquare built in the late 19th Century in Northwest Davenport. By the time of the 1960 general election we were beginning to have a sense of neighborhood and local culture.
Father worked diligently to organize our neighborhood and elect John F. Kennedy as president. I still have copies of the mimeographed 8-1/2 by 14 inch sheets he used, with generic city blocks marked in purple ink, waiting to be completed with the names of voters. Father was from Virginia, the part where politics is a daily passion. His political engagement was infectious. His work for the Kennedy campaign expanded to include neighborhoods besides ours where he took the purple sheets and helped organize the effort.
When JFK won the election, it was a big deal for our family. The oral history is Dad and Mom were invited to the inauguration. We followed the Kennedy Administration, as much as grade schoolers could. In that context my association of the holidays with the Kennedys was formed.
We understood patriarch Joe Kennedy had earned enough money for his children to be free of financial worry to devote their time to public service. We also knew we would not have any such freedom. We were a mostly Catholic family on my mother’s side, so we looked on the Kennedy lifestyle, particularly their family life in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts as framed through press coverage, as something to emulate as best we could. Perhaps it was a dim reflection, but it was there.
Mostly, life centered around school, family, neighborhood friends and television. We weren’t poor, but we weren’t rich either. We lived close to the means of production. We played touch football in the back yard, like the Kennedys did.
Television was a strong influence. After finishing our homework and outdoor play, we watched news, variety, westerns, and comedy programs, almost daily. In the 1960s television was viewed as a vast wasteland by FCC Chairman Newton Minow, and maybe it was. Life was not always about participating in the nascent consumer society.
That is where the connection between the Kennedys and the holidays came in. At Christmas, from Advent through the Epiphany, we set aside much of mass culture and re-enacted family behavior that was our connection to society. To some extent we emulated what we heard about the Kennedys: siblings in a large family looking after each other, and participating in a life in retreat from the broad concerns of society, at least for a while. For us, there would be discussions, meals and home entertainment. Family members would come in and out of our home with our lives intersecting with others during visits at our home and at theirs. We would attend midnight Mass on Christmas eve.
It was a tribal time of friends and family, removed from external pressures, and a dim echo of what we believed society should be. I look back on those times with the nostalgia only separation in time can create.
What I know now, and only am beginning to realize, is that the bubble of that family life was popped when Father died in 1969. It would never be the same. Whatever cultural resonances of a faux Kennedy lifestyle remained after that, proved to be vaporous in the long run.
I caucused for Ted Kennedy in 1980, and remember his concession speech at the Democratic National Convention. I heard Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speak in Iowa City one recent evening. Throughout my life, I continued to touch them, or thought I did, even if I realized there had been no Camelot. I read the newspaper article about them selling the Palm Beach home in 1995 and the disputes over the final disposition of the compound at Hyannis Port after Ted Kennedy’s death in 2009. As time passes, the Kennedys seem less relevant.
What I realize now is life has always been mine to live. I have been over the Kennedys for a long time.
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New Potatoes
The idea of new potatoes is to harvest them two weeks after the flowers are finished. This is what they look like with thin skins and creamy potato goodness inside.
I boiled a pound for dinner and served with butter, salt and pepper. Keeping it simple with condiment flexibility is a characteristic of our kitchen garden. Diners can take cooked vegetables and finish them how they will.
When I worked at the home, farm and auto supply store I bought seed potatoes as soon as they came in. Planting is within a radius of Good Friday, although not necessarily on the day. I planted early this year. A few years back rodents ate our potatoes in the ground so I moved them to a container. Container growing is working, likely helped by the two stray cats who hang out in our garden.
Our main sources of potatoes are from our garden and a bartered fall share of the community supported agriculture project. When there are potatoes we eat them and seldom buy outside spuds. We follow the season.
The soil in the containers needs recycling for next year. There are too many roots and not enough nutrients. This year the containers were more than half empty when I planted. As the vines grew I added more soil and compost until the container was full. The result was potatoes grew in layers and there were more of them in each container.
The photograph represents the yield from one container, about five pounds. There are four containers this year so they will last until the fall share begins in September. Together they should keep us in potatoes until Thanksgiving after which we’ll wait for more next year.
In addition to boiling potatoes, I’ll roast some with other root vegetables and onions when they are available. We make potato salad, escalloped potatoes, leek and potato soup, parsley potatoes, mashed potatoes, and add them to vegetable soup.
The harvest of new potatoes is another marker in the gardening season. Such markers help us keep our sanity in the chaotic world of the coronavirus.
It’s been 12 days of riding my Puch Cavalier 10-speed bicycle.
I’ve had it since 1980, one of the last built in Austria. When we married, my wife had a women’s Puch 10-speed in the same color. When not being used they hang together in the garage.
Taking up bicycling again is a treatment for diabetes. My medical practitioner explained the health benefits of exercise in a way his predecessors at the clinic did not. Now I’m regularly riding 4.875 miles daily, weather permitting.
Why 4.875 miles? At first I just went out and rode. We live near the midpoint of a five-mile trail in the state park. I took turns riding from our home to either end and back. I figured it was a five-mile ride. Then I got an SY Bicycle Speedometer and Odometer. Once it was installed and adjusted I gained precision. Each day since then the odometer had the same reading, 4.875 miles.
Work was completed on another trail that leads from here to Waterloo in one direction, and to West Branch, Iowa City and Coralville in the other. A fellow gets tired of riding the same route every day so I’ve been exploring.
My current ride takes me from the garage down to the state park trail, then west until a road leading to the highway intersects. I pedal up that long, gentle incline to the highway and turn east. I ride along the highway until it intersects with the new trail at the roundabout. Then I follow the trail until it returns to the state park trail and turn west back to my entry point and home. The long initial incline gives me a workout, as does the long descent during which I see how fast I can go. My average speed is 10 miles per hour and the fastest just at 22. It takes about 27 minutes to make the route.
Hopefully the exercise will help my A1C, which measures what percent of my hemoglobin is glycosylated. The goal is to reduce it to less than 5.7 percent by the time I go back for a follow up in September.
A younger version of me wouldn’t be satisfied with 4.875 miles. I’ll get tired of the same route after a while, once it becomes too easy. The next goal will be to ride over to Ely on the new trail. For now my heart beats faster and I work up a sustained sweat. Doing that daily for an extended period of time is goal enough for now.
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Early Summer
When the electrical power went off I located my portable charger and plugged in my phone. The WiFi was dead yet access to the internet is crucial in an emergency.
A neighbor asked if our power was out via text message. I responded, “Yes, do you need cucumbers?” I walked a bag of freshly picked cukes over to the back door of their house where they were preparing the grill for a cook out.
The rural electric cooperative website reported more than 1,600 homes without power. The plotting of outages on their map was based on reports from customers so I phoned in our report. The operator was patient and helpful. All the information she had was on the website except that crews were working on the problem.
Our association has a Facebook page which was more active than normal. The loss of electricity didn’t have any apparent effect on social media. No new information there, just neighbors asking what up?
The duration of the outage was about 90 minutes. Just as power came on the doorbell rang. One of the well volunteers came down from the well house to report the water pressure was going down and soon they would have to turn on the back up generator. He smiled when I told him the electricity was back on. I made a post on our Facebook page pointing out the well volunteers were monitoring the situation.
In a rural subdivision we rely upon each other for information. Mobile phone technology makes our lives better. Glad I adapted back in 2012.
These summer days are gorgeous. Temperatures are rising to about 90 degrees each day with clear, calm skies. Humidity has been high so I get my outdoors work done early after sunrise and spend most of the day indoors. There is plenty of work.
I harvested the rest of the celery yesterday. Most of the harvest gets chopped into bits and frozen for use in soups and stir fries. The flavor of home grown celery is hard to believe, better than any celery grown for commercial sales. Fresh celery lasts a shorter time than store bought. That’s okay. It is worth the 120 day growing season for the flavor.
I sorted and brought the last of the 2019 onions to the kitchen. They need using up. In the meanwhile the portable greenhouse shelves are filled with this year’s crop, drying so they can be trimmed and stored.
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Garlic Harvest 2020
Planted last October, on July 2 it took about an hour to harvest the crop of 50 head of garlic. It was the biggest garlic harvest we’ve had in our home garden.
The variety comes from my friends Susan and Carmen who in succession, over 25 years, have been growing and selecting seed from the annual crop to produce it. Garlic doesn’t take much more effort than proper planting, weeding, harvesting and curing. The genetics and culture of producing it are everything though.
If everything goes well, I plan to keep the best third of the garlic heads to use for seeding next year’s crop. By doing so I’ll continue the process started so long ago on that nearby farm.
Just so you know, our household doesn’t have any problems with vampires.
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Mink on the Trail
On Thursday I saw an animal eating fallen mulberries on the trail. The state park has an abundance of wildlife — every Iowa species is believed to live here. I didn’t recognize it and posted this photo on Twitter.
An abundance of responses identified it as a mink. I looked it up and it resembled a mink pictured on the internet. Most likely it is an American mink with more of them around the lake shore. Mostly minks are carnivores so the mulberry-eating was unexpected. Harrowing tales of chicken murdering ensued as the post got many engagements.
Every day we find something new is positive. When our curiosity wanes or we feel we’ve seen it all… that’s not good.
The newspaper reported another local theater troupe cancelled the rest of the season because of the coronavirus pandemic. Old Creamery Theatre sent termination letters to ten staff members Thursday night. The creative arts are really taking a hit during the pandemic. In addition to Old Creamery, Riverside Theatre had to give up its performing space, and bigger companies like Cirque du Soleil filed for bankruptcy. Live theater and concerts have been shut down with only a few productions testing a re-opening in the COVID-19 time.
Major theme parks like Walt Disney, where our daughter works, continue to furlough employees. As they begin to open up, the question is whether employees will be recalled, if the furloughs will continue, or will the endgame be being laid off. Live entertainment may never be the same if the coronavirus isn’t mitigated. As we know, that’s not going well in Iowa or in the United States.
I worry about independently-owned bookstores. There used to be many places to buy used books. Over the last couple of decades they consolidated, went on line, or went out of business. The selection has gotten worse. The main used bookstore in the county seat is Haunted Bookshop and I’m trying to support them as they continue to operate curbside pickup.
At first I bought a gift certificate to hold until they reopen. When it became clear re-opening was not in the near-term, I devised a poetry buying scheme. On Wednesday I wrote note saying, “Choose and mail me a book of poetry that I don’t already have once a month. Surprise me.”
I had criteria:
- Short works by living poets. Short = around 100 pages or less. Up to 200 pages okay. About the length to read in a couple of sittings.
- Less interested in comprehensive collections. For example, Crow by Ted Hughes but not Collected Poems of Ted Hughes.
- I recently read and enjoyed Mary Oliver, Amy Woolard, Lucia Perillo and W.S. Merwin.
- I’m looking to expand my reading and open to about anything. No Atticus or Rod McKuen.
- Iowa connection would be a bonus, but not necessary.
- Run the title by me before shipping so I can check to make sure I don’t have it.
- These are not strict rules but guidelines. (Except for the part about Atticus and Rod McKuen).
Last night I received a favorable response. We are going to try the arrangement out. I’d rather make a monthly trip to browse the store. Until they are ready, this will have to do. Hopefully I will discover new poets in the process and they will have another small source of revenue.
I watered the garden shortly after sunrise. Our yard is the only one in the neighborhood where clover is allowed to grow. I do this so rabbits have something to eat besides burrowing under the fencing into the garden, and to attract bees and other pollinators. Last time I mowed, I set the deck high enough so all of the flowers wouldn’t be cut. It’s time to mow again and that’s my plan for the weekend.
(Re-blogged from my post on Blog for Iowa, July 4, 2010).
We hear a lot about the founding fathers today, and the truth is who they were, as people, is clouded in the river of time. One admires the portrait of John Adams written by David McCullough, and particularly the personal risk to which Adams put himself on his trip to France in the winter of 1777. In Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia one can find a guide to living that serves in the 21st Century, with the notable exception that labor to maintain a lifestyle, once provided by slaves, must now be sought elsewhere through mechanization or wage laborers. The more we study the opening of the Old Northwest Territory we realize that Benjamin Franklin, George Washington and other founders could easily have fit in with the gang on Wall Street that nearly brought down our economic structure in 2008. But as was said, seeing who they were as people is a murky endeavor at best, so on Independence Day we can refrain from making judgments and be thankful for what we have as a nation.
What can be said is we often neglect to recall the dispossession of the natives in Iowa and further east, which amid today’s flag waving is equally important. Would Black Hawk and Poweshiek have ceded the land of the Black Hawk Purchase if they had fully understood what their signatures meant? We don’t know that either.
So what we are left with is history and documents from the times, all of which have their ideological outlook or viewpoint. Of interest is the following account of an Independence Day celebration in Jones County, Iowa shortly after settlement. Members of our family settled in Jones County shortly after the Black Hawk War, so this is a personal history as well. Happy Independence Day from Blog for Iowa.
An Excerpt from The History of Jones County, Iowa, published Chicago, Western Historical Company in 1879.
A grand county celebration of the Fourth of July, took place in pursuance of the resolutions and suggestions of the Board of Supervisors, made at their June meeting in 1861. The celebration was on Thursday, the 4th of July. 1861.
The perilous condition of the country brought men of all parties together to observe the anniversary of our national birth, and to repeat anew their vows to freedom. Early in the morning, teams, singly and in companies, began to throng from all parts of the county toward the point which had been designated by the Board of Supervisors, near the center of the county. At 10 o’clock, A. M., the scene was the strangest of the kind ever encountered in the West. The road ran along a high ridge, and on both sides of it and on each of the wide and gently sloping spurs, shooting out every few rods, were horses, wagons, buggies, carriages, men, women, children and babies by the thousands; and, in every direction, the American flag floated in the light and refreshing breeze, which, with the shade of the sufficiently abundant oaks, tempered the heat of a warm summer day. Such an assembly in a city is common enough, but this was an assembly in the wilderness. Not a house, not a sign that man had touched nature here was visible, save in the few brief days’ labor of the Committee of Preparation. It was a fitting place wherein to assemble on such a day and for such a purpose, when the nation was in its life and death struggle for existence.
The Committee of Arrangements had done as well as could be hoped for in the short time allowed them, and better than could have been expected. On the rather steep slope of a spur, north of the road, a staging had been erected facing up the slope, and, in front of this, seats sufficient to accommodate, perhaps, one thousand persons. Back of the stage, and at the bottom of the ravine, a well had been dug some ten or more feet deep, and, at the bottom, a barrel fixed. It was a comical sort of a well, but it served the purpose, in a measure, for some hours.
On another ridge and back of the wall, stood the six-pounder, manned by the Wyoming Artillery Company, in gray shirts, under Capt. Walker. The other military companies were the Canton Company, Capt. Hanna; they wore red military coats, were armed with rifles and were fine looking; the Rough and Ready?, of Rome, Capt. L. A. Roberts, with blue military coats, white pants and glazed caps, sixty-five men, also fine looking; Carpenter’s Company, Rome. Capt. Carpenter, eighty men, with gray coats, likewise made a fine appearance; the Greenfield Company, mounting eighty men, John Sccrist, Commander: these were in frock coats and wore white plumes; they, too, showed well, and still more in drill and fitness for the most desperate fighting; the Scotch Grove Guards, from Scotch Grove. Capt. Magee, formed a large company; these wore no uniforms, but their appearance indicated they were the right men for fighting. There were six companies of young men, all formed and drilled, in the space of three months. It appears that all these entered the army in due time and did good service.
The proceedings at the stand were patriotic and entertaining. During the reading of the Declaration of Independence, the general attention was close, and the responsibilities of the hour seemed to impress all minds. The singing with the Marshal waving the star-spangled banner to the words, was very effective. The address was by a Mr. Utley—a good Union speech, and was very generally approved. Music by the various military bands was abundant and lively. The picnic that followed was much enjoyed by all who partook of the dainties provided for the occasion. The military went through with some of their exercises and then the proceedings of the afternoon began, which consisted of speeches from different persons, when, owing to a want of an abundant supply of water, the vast assembly was dispersed at a much earlier hour than it otherwise would have been.
It was evident that the loyalty of Jones County could be relied upon, and that her citizens were ready to do their full duty in crushing out treason.
Click here to read the entire history of Jones County.
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Garlic Time 2020
The garlic is ready. Yesterday I dug a head from the plot and the cloves are mature. As this image shows, each clove is pulling away from the stem and when I cut into it, the hydrated precursor to the paper had formed around each clove.
I’ll dig up the 50 plants today or over the weekend, rack them in the garage, and cure them until it’s time to remove the stalk.
It’s a nine-month process from planting cloves in October until the July harvest. Done right, the time commitment is worth it.
Garlic is a basic part of our cooking: I can’t imagine being without it. I also can’t recall the last time I had to get some other than at the farms where I work. If the quality is good this year, I’ll save a third of the heads for planting this fall.
In addition to garlic, the zucchini, cucumbers, celery, and onions are ready. Tomatoes are forming but it will be a while before they are mature and ripen. By the calendar it’s time to dig new potatoes from one of the four containers. The garden is turning to peak production whether I’m ready or not.
As it does my attention turns to writing for Blog for Iowa the next four weeks. I will cross post here the following day, although it is more political writing than I usually do. There is a lot to say about that part of society these days and I’m glad for the platform.
The forecast is hot and humid the next ten days… Iowa summer. July will be a mad rush to get everything done as we remain is semi-isolation because of the coronavirus pandemic. There should be less distractions than in the before time. I’ll miss the company.
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