Friday I planted the first seeds in trays at home. They were,
Onions
Talon, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, 104 days.
Red Burgundy, Ferry-Morse, 100 days.
Shallots
Matador, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, 105 days.
I’m experimenting with shallots this year. My friend Simone grew them so I know they can be grown in Iowa. I’m also planting them both at the farm and at home using different techniques.
It is now gardening season.
The Iowa Democratic Party website reports caucus results from 100 percent of precincts this morning. My precinct results are still wrong.
Our four delegates will get seated at the March 21 county convention because of the paper trail, so no worries. It still bugs me.
I don’t have time to dwell on it. I reported the errors to our county party chair and to my state senator. The two campaigns showing zero people after the second alignment and no delegates have copies of the caucus math sheet. In the bigger scheme of things, Super Tuesday should be the shakeout we need in this Democratic presidential nominating process. The mixed Iowa results should deprive campaigns and the media from making sweeping statements about which candidate was the winner. It is likely a good thing.
That there is a statistical tie for top delegate-getters Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders in the first complete reporting isn’t surprising as the electorate of caucus-goers is not of one mind. If this were a race for U.S. Senate or U.S. House of Representatives, the nomination would go to a convention to be decided because neither had garnered 35 percent. In the presidential nominating process, the district and state conventions will simply elect a proportional number of delegates to the Democratic National Convention for each candidate. The national convention is the ultimate decider.
Before I move on from the caucus, one last comment on the erosion of registered Democrats in our precinct.
The decline in registered Democrats in Big Grove precinct is about 20 percent since 2008. Then we had five delegates to the county convention, this year we had four. Then there were six candidates in the first alignment (Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Obama and Richardson). Monday there were nine. What’s bothersome is the number of Republican registrants stayed about the same over 12 years and no preference registrations grew. We registered some new Democrats at our caucus, but not enough to offset the trend to less people who identify as Democrats.
People ask should Iowa have a first in the nation precinct caucus. The better question is what will we do to convince like minded people to join us in taking our government back from moneyed interests? Because we’re publicly debating the wrong question our efforts to grow the party are stymied.
This year is the U.S. Census and in 2022 the first election after redistricting. Republicans have repeatedly said they aren’t going to change Iowa’s non-partisan redistricting process. Many feel they can’t be trusted.
I see growth of the county where I live and a likelihood that Big Grove precinct will become more Democratic after redistricting. If that happens it will make my political life more tolerable but it doesn’t address the underlying trend toward an exodus of partisan Democrats.
We don’t know the half of what’s going on in our government, nor have we in my lifetime. I don’t have a crystal ball to tell the future. I do have confidence our country will correct course. It might be too late to make a difference.
Our industrial age exploits natural resources as if they were an endless commodity. They aren’t. Global warming and the unpredictable impact it is having everywhere is science. The success of our political system is it requires engagement from people who have a stake in its outcomes. We are getting better at it in Big Grove precinct. Here’s hoping the same thing is happening in the other states and territories… and all over the world.
I’m running behind because I slept until 4:20 a.m. this morning. I’m usually up getting dressed about 3:30.
It’s not because I still tired from the run up to the Iowa Democratic precinct caucuses, although that is a factor. It’s because I woke before midnight and couldn’t get back to sleep, thinking about the phone application we used to report our results to the Iowa Democratic Party.
This post is not about the process that kept me up last night. I learned a lot about the application over the last few days, but have little more to say than what I’ve already posted in social media. I thought this would be a short post before I get ready for my shift at the home, farm and auto supply store.
It’s about how campaigns organized in our precinct.
We had nine groups after the first alignment. Let’s call the bottom four the second tier (Bennet, Bloomberg, Steyer and Yang). The top tier, each of which have had substantial showing in Iowa polls, was Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Sanders and Warren. Second tier first.
None of the second tier had much ground game here. They benefited from nearby rallies, mailings, and media coverage. The Steyer group created the largest number of spoiled ballots after they weren’t viable, crossed out his name and wrote Biden over it. A strong local network is necessary to be viable in our precinct and the lower tier didn’t have one. For perspective, in 2008, Bill Richardson, Biden and Chris Dodd all had local caucus organizers. Tulsi Gabbard was the only candidate who held an event in our precinct so it was surprising she had no alignment group. Her host was snow birding in Florida and not on my satellite caucus list.
Bernie Sanders was not viable on Monday. Their group posted a respectable 23 in the first alignment but were unable to persuade others to join them in the second alignment. Viability was 26, so it was a heart breaker. Sanders had a telephone campaign, but as I told one of the county campaign leaders, I hadn’t heard of anyone supporting Sanders. They assured me they would win our precinct and the state. Support didn’t materialize. They parachuted an organizer in the week before the caucus and without a perceptible ground game it was game over. Sanders’ numbers were halved from 2016 when Hillary Clinton dominated the caucus here.
The Biden campaign was similar to Sanders. A long time activist said they were the precinct captain for Biden and proceeded to take a two-week trip out of state before the last weekend. Biden parachuted a precinct captain in for the last week and they achieved viability in the first alignment getting 26 of 26 needed. In 2004 the parachute method of campaigning worked for John Kerry, but in 2020 it was a failing tactic.
The lesson here is a local organizing presence makes a difference. Some of us learned that from Howard Dean. While Dean had few, or maybe zero supporters in the 2004 Big Grove caucus, it was clear some campaigns learned the lesson of his and campaign manager Joe Trippi’s work since then.
The top three in the first alignment had strong local organizers and finished in a narrow band. Warren led first alignment with 39, Buttigieg was second with 35, and Klobuchar was third with 34. In second alignment no one joined Buttigieg or Warren and five joined Klobuchar who was the second choice of many. End result was Klobuchar and Warren on top with a delegate each, and Biden and Buttigieg also getting delegates.
A Warren organizer was working in the precinct for more than six months before the caucus. The top three were in a tight band but their support was strong and if there is a winner, Warren won our caucus. The numbers show it.
A couple notes. The Klobuchar precinct captain was a strong leader who started early in the Warren camp but switched to Klobuchar. She knows who to call and called me to say I should switch to Klobuchar like she did. Her efforts are the reason Klobuchar tied Warren with the largest number of people in their group. The two of us faced off in 2008 when I was precinct captain for the John Edwards campaign and she was precinct captain for Hillary Clinton. We tied at 75 people in each of our groups and they won the coin toss to determine who would get a second delegate. Barack Obama had 97 that year. The precinct had more Democrats and delegates to award back in the day.
There was a surge in support for Klobuchar here in the final month. She started with a base of people who knew her already or had relatives in Minnesota, and grew that base. As Klobuchar said on caucus night, she was punching above her weight.
This needs to be addressed: Our precinct has some of what one of my Facebook friends called functional homophobia, “which means straight folks who are just fine hanging around gay folks — as long as said gay folks know their place, which isn’t in the White House.” A few Democrats railed about the gay candidate during the long run up to caucus night, saying to me, “I’m not going to vote for a homosexual.” I don’t know what this means except our prejudices run deep and even long-time Democrats can be biased or bigoted.
The Buttigieg and Warren precinct captains represent the next generation in Democratic politics. It was their first time getting so active and each had a strong organization behind them. If they are our future, I’m ready for it.
Gotta get ready for work. More on the caucus coming soon.
I am tired and borderline sick.
Tired because I didn’t get to sleep Monday night until 1 a.m. Tuesday morning, messaging back and forth at midnight with a local reporter.
Sick because a good friend was sick, came to our Democratic precinct caucus, and spent a few minutes with me.
The Big Grove Democratic precinct caucus was some fun and a lot of what I expected. I will provide analytics in a future post but here’s what was important: attendees were engaged and respectful. While everyone didn’t get the outcome they wanted, many did.
This was my first time as caucus chair for a large group. In 2016 I was Hillary Clinton’s precinct captain. In 2012 I was chair of Cedar and Graham precincts in a consolidated caucus. In 2008 and 2004 I was caucus secretary. Because of years of public speaking experience dating back to my time in the military I felt comfortable at the microphone and dealing with issues that arose during the event.
I had a great team of volunteers for secretary, registration and crowd control. We started registration a little after 6 p.m. and the line was gone a couple of minutes before our 7 p.m. starting time. I estimated 50 minutes for check in during my planning, which was about right.
Many pixels have been spilled about the new reporting application used by the Iowa Democratic Party. It took me a couple of days to figure out the process, however, by Monday morning I was running test scenarios to familiarize myself with it. I reported our results using it at about 10 p.m. without any issue.
Tuesday I was contacted about a potential on-air interview about the reporting application. MSNBC Field Producer Dan Gallo had obtained a copy of an email thread in which county caucus chairs discussed the application and I was on it. I phoned and told him my story. It turned out to be a nothing burger because from a user standpoint, it worked as expected. That’s pretty boring for television and the on-air interview didn’t happen.
Most of my friends who were caucus chairs in other precincts were tired Tuesday as well. The six and a half hours from arrival at the high school to returning home from turning in my materials to the county party weren’t long. They were intense. Recovery will take a few days.
Tuesday I gave an interview to a student from Northwestern about the caucus. He asked a couple of questions about the application which I said worked from my end. He asked about all the news stories and the then unreported results. I said it’s not my fault the national media had plane tickets booked to New Hampshire and a filing deadline they couldn’t meet. They may have planned to write about the outcomes, but the outcome they decided to write about became there were no results. The narrative was a bucket of malarkey.
People said they wanted more transparency with what went on at the Iowa caucuses. The state party worked toward that end. The new process was complicated and is taking more time for state-wide results to be tabulated. It is transparent. What do you want? This isn’t Burger King where you can have it your way.
The count of presidential preference groups was accurate. We counted four times in our precinct, and reported results in the application and on paper. If it takes more time to report aggregated results accurately, so be it. Accuracy and the paper trail are what matters more than feeding a media narrative.
Attendees in our precinct watched the process unfold and when it was finished, ratified the numbers and slate of delegates to the county convention and our new central committee members. To a person people with whom I spoke left caucus with a feeling they had contributed to the Democratic process. In the end that’s what the Iowa caucuses are about and will continue to be about for as long as we hold them.
I’m feeling better as I write. This campaign is finished and another has already begun as our eyes turn toward the general election. Being tired and sick will pass, it is passing as a new day begins.
I spent most of the last three days understanding and preparing for my role as chair of our 2020 Iowa precinct caucus tonight. I’m ready.
According to the voter rolls we have 462 registered Democrats in Big Grove precinct. More are expected to register at the caucus. Our party affiliations will likely decline from the 562 we had in 2008.
We never know who will show up. In 2008 we had 247, a record number. With the loss of Democrats in the precinct I expect less. We won’t know until registration closes after everyone in line at 7 p.m. is checked in.
I’m seeing a couple of articles saying you shouldn’t “vote” for Elizabeth Warren because then Biden wins. Malarkey!
Reasons people support Elizabeth Warren as I do are complicated. For one night we should stand with our candidate, the one we want to advance in this way too long nomination process, and let the chips fall.
By mid March we’ll know who are the contenders for the nomination. Iowa will have faded into the background. If our candidate is not viable tonight, that’s another thing… one that will be decided in the dynamics of those rooms.
Since I began preparation for my role I’ve been thinking about what Obama said: Respect. Empower. Include.
Those are my guideposts in the crazy politics of the Iowa caucuses.
In 1974, when I arrived in London, I had a short list of European places to visit.
Most of my list was the result of an art history class taken the fall semester of 1973 in the then new art museum of the University of Iowa. The art collection was removed during the 2008 flood and never came back to that building.
I wasn’t a good art student, and elected a pass-fail grade versus A – F. My teacher was disappointed when he discovered my choice. I passed the elective course.
Despite my chary engagement as an undergraduate student, there I was in London beginning a 1970s version of the Grand Tour. It was a rite of passage to elevate myself from the blood, slop, bacteria, and gore of two college summers working in a slaughterhouse. It was the same plant in which Father died in an accident. I had rejected the post-college job the company recruiter offered me that spring. It was time to break loose from my local moorings. Once I got to Europe it became clear there were hoards of young people doing the same thing.
A wad of American Express travelers checks was tucked inside the baby blue bag Grandmother made for me, about $2,000. The money came from selling the band equipment and the Volkswagen micro bus used to haul it around. It turned out to be enough cash for the trip.
On the list were the Byzantine mosaics in Ravenna, Italy. Our art history teacher marveled at them and inspired enough enthusiasm to pique my interest. It was that way for many of the places I visited. It was also an easy side trip enroute to Vienna, Austria where a student I met in Stratford at a performance of Twelfth Night had invited me to stay.
Ravenna was significant for more than mosaics. On the train rides from Barcelona to Rome, along the Mediterranean coast, I met several Italians. They insisted I learn to speak Italian if I would visit Italy. I studied French in college and had reasonable fluency. Learning another Romance language wouldn’t be too hard, I thought. I searched a book store in Genoa for an English-Italian phrase book and found none. I settled for a French-Italian phrase book which served. By the time I got to Ravenna I was able to check into the hostel, order meals, and converse on a limited level without speaking English a single time.
I was concerned about funding the rest of my European trip while in Ravenna and sent the pictured note to Mother. She came through with an American Express travelers check which was waiting for me when I arrived in Amsterdam. It turned out I didn’t need the cash. I don’t recall whether I gave it back to Mom when I returned to Iowa. She kept the note.
No regrets about spending most of the money I had in 1974 on a trip to Europe. A return to the continent seems unlikely today. At least I escaped the slaughterhouse. That will have to be enough.
Eight years ago I attended a local food summit in Iowa City with more than 80 people. It was an event designed to connect local meat and vegetable growers with customers.
Among the speakers was Andy Dunham of Grinnell Heritage Farm. He spoke about the challenges of scaling his carrot production to meet consumer demand at New Pioneer Food Coop in Iowa City. It made no sense at the time they couldn’t produce more, although eventually they did.
Yesterday Dunham revealed New Pioneer and other grocers weren’t buying as much organic produce as they had. Because of decreasing grocery sales and Iowa’s unpredictable weather made worse by climate change, they are exiting their community supported agriculture business and what they characterize as a broken local food system.
It was a surprising decision from a farm many considered to be vibrant and sustainable.
For the full story about changes at Grinnell Heritage Farm read Cindy Hadish’s post on Homegrown Iowan here.
The idea there is a functional “local food system” is a story we tell ourselves to get through the challenges of raising and marketing locally grown meat, vegetables, fruit and flowers. The challenges of sustainability for a community supported agriculture project don’t go away be saying these three magical words. It’s hard work, subject to the vagaries of weather, cultural adaptation, marketing, and endemic farming challenges.
Each farm runs differently with unique revenue streams from CSA shares, meat sales, restaurant and grocery store sales, farmers market sales, government programs, pasture rentals and more. In the world of big agriculture operators carve a niche of customers and product lines to keep themselves financially sound. It doesn’t always work.
Grinnell Heritage Farm is a USDA certified organic fruit and vegetable farm. Most local food producers are not certified organic because of the expense. Many follow organic practices but can’t afford, don’t want, or don’t feel a need to get certified. Most consumers can’t tell the difference in farm products. For Grinnell Heritage Farm to downsize is a bad sign for the future of organic farming in Iowa. If they can’t make it, who will?
Climate change is real, it is happening now, and we haven’t seen the worst of it. The last two years were hell for local food farmers used to predictable growing seasons. Variation from year to year is expected, but not like this. Larger operations like Grinnell Heritage Farm feel the brunt of changing climate.
Consumers are a fickle lot. Yesterday I calculated spending about 24 percent of our 2019 food budget on locally sourced fruit and vegetables. We buy more local produce than most regional consumers. We also have a large garden not included in my calculation. A bag of locally grown carrots is stored in the crisper drawer of our ice box yet I buy USDA certified organic carrots at the wholesale club as well. I haven’t been able to grown enough carrots to meet our needs and the ones from the store are cheap and serve culinary purposes. I know the face of the farmer on the local food I buy but they and I combined can’t supply our household with enough carrots.
The changes at Grinnell Heritage Farm were surprising, but not completely unexpected. With growth in the market share of organic produce, large corporations are getting involved and comparatively smaller operations are being pushed out. Whatever arguments one might have with Dunham’s characterizations of the marketplace or his assessment of the impacts of climate change, he and his family are doing what they believe will save their farm. That’s what all insurgent local food producers do.
As consumers we need to be ready to support local food farmers or decide we don’t care. Either choice has ramifications for our local food environment. I can’t call it a system today because a big part of it will be lost with the exit of Grinnell Heritage Farm from the marketplace.
We had hoped for and worked toward a local food system and could imagine it. The dream hasn’t proven to be sustainable yet.
On Thursday, Jan. 23, the Johnson County Supervisors appointed me to fill a vacancy on the Food Policy Council.
There were eight applications for the position according to county records. Supervisor Janelle Rettig made the motion to approve, with Supervisor Lisa Green-Douglass seconding. All five supervisors voted for my appointment.
I accepted and look forward to my first meeting. Now my part of our work begins.
The Food Policy Council was established in 2012. The county website explains its purpose:
The purpose of the Council is to improve dialogue and discussion and provide necessary advice on food and agriculture issues to the county, municipalities, community boards, local agencies, nongovernmental organizations, businesses, and other interested groups. The Council will address food system issues in the county, including the development of the Council’s Governing Principles and strategic goals, data-gathering, research projects, and policies to address food system issues.
On my Aug. 30, 2019 application I listed my reason for applying, “Have long been interested in this voluntary position and there is an opening. I have time and interest sufficient to serve. I have financial resources to be able to do so.” That seems pretty boring, a comment others have made about some of my posts here.
The contributions I hope to make by serving on the council include, “I am particularly interested in learning about and taking action to meet hunger needs in the county. I am also interested in the relationship between food, Type 2 diabetes and poverty.” We’ll see where the work takes us.
What I’ve learned on the county board of health, as a township trustee, and as an officer of our home owners association is listening is the key skill required to get anything done. I approach this new project with an open mind and a bias toward doing the most good for the largest number of people. As soon as the caucuses are done I plan to dig in.
Yesterday was my Monday and today is my Friday at the home, farm and auto supply store.
A two-day work week suits me.
I’m ready to call it quits from an operational standpoint. Spring is coming with its multitude of outdoors work. The two days could readily be used for more productive endeavors. It’s the paycheck that keeps me there. There is always a use for the income.
The Iowa precinct caucuses are Monday, which leaves four days to prepare for my role as temporary chair. I’m pretty well along but little else will get done in the run up to Feb. 3. After that I can focus on pruning fruit trees, getting our income taxes prepared, spring gardening, and everything else that has been delayed by winter.
Spring isn’t here, but it won’t be long.
The boxes of letters written to Mother over 55 years fill gaps in my life’s story. Things I didn’t remember came to life as I began to read them.
I hadn’t thought there was a record of some parts of my life. Now I see a lot was shared with her, more than expected.
The work of opening more than 200 letters is a big task. Reading and considering them will occupy time. Reflecting on what I said will be the crux of an autobiographical work, especially in the period from 1965 until 1974 when I began to keep a journal. When I was in Europe I wrote home a lot.
What about the period between my birth in 1951 and seventh grade when we started at the new school in our Catholic parish, after that first letter from camp?
I remember things from an early age, including visits to my maternal grandmother when she lived on Fillmore Street. Mother took enough photographs to provide a meaningful chapter or two of those early times.
Likewise, there are enough census records and genealogy snippets of public documents to piece together the earliest times. There are a few photographs from those early days, including one of Aunt Stella in her coffin and one of Granny Reed. I remember an explanation of those pictures, although I’m not sure who gave it. The photographic record of my maternal ancestors is equally thin. There is the photograph of Maciej Nadolski on a fishing trip to South Dakota, and that’s pretty much it. However, there is plenty between census records, public documents and snippets of memory to create a narrative of my forebears. There are also legions of shirt tail relatives living in both Minnesota and Virginia if I want to visit.
A question: To what extent do I write about a broader society and how it influenced me? I don’t have a good answer yet.
A case can be made for letting life’s artifacts tell the story. The census records show my grandfather worked as a coal miner, and there is oral narrative of how he started a retail business to compete with the company store. It didn’t work out, and eventually he was convicted as a draft dodger during World War II. He served prison time during which his children were split and went to live with relatives. My uncle explained the charges were a result of a “misunderstanding.” Do I need to broaden the story of mid-20th Century Appalachian economies, resistance to the draft during World War II, and dig deeper into the public record of those times? Do I just need to clarify and tell what I know? Telling what I know is straightforward. Awareness of what I do know and what I can yet learn is a separate issue.
People also have things that are personal and private. My default position is to let those lay. The end result of these efforts will be to create a narrative suitable for a broader audience, something interesting enough to read. Importantly, it will be something our daughter can read to know her own history without reviewing the thousands of documents and artifacts sitting in boxes and albums around our house.
That Mother kept my letters is remarkable. Reading and digesting them will be a welcome experience. I look forward to gaining insight into who I was then and how today’s version came to be. The number of gaps in the narrative has been significantly reduced by this find.
Journey Home
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