Categories
Environment Kitchen Garden

Climate Changed Locally

Seedlings
Seedlings

RURAL CEDAR TOWNSHIP— A co-worker was asked when the last rain fell. The answer was July. In a community supported agriculture project, there is no option other than to irrigate when drought comes, and that means a series of hydrants spread throughout the farm, and frequent draws on the underground reservoirs. So far, there has been enough water.

In the list of 2014 legislative priorities recently sent to our state representative, I wrote the following paragraph,

Once again Iowa was short on rainfall, especially the last 6-8 weeks. If the dry weather and drought continues, there will be pressure to irrigate row crops in a place where traditionally we have had enough rainfall to do without. In late July, I traveled to Chicago and along Interstate 88 they are already irrigating corn. Water use will be a key issue for Iowa going forward, and if irrigation of Iowa corn and beans starts, I’m not sure how management would be structured, but more attention to water use would be needed. The legislature should play a role, in evaluating the science, and taking appropriate preventive action. Evaluating the science doesn’t mean just calling the folks at Farm Bureau, asking for an opinionaire from their members.

That there is a connection between human activity, climate change and the current drought can be a matter of some discussion in Iowa. For the most part, industrial agricultural producers see the climate changing, but do not attribute it to anthropogenic origins. It is just another thing to deal with while farming. Those of us more familiar with the science of climate change see the direct connection. The two positions haven’t yet been reconciled.

June 2013 was the 340th consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th century average. 2012 was the 36th consecutive year with a global temperature above the 20th century average. On a local level, here in Cedar Township, this translates into wanting rain and wondering what would happen if the well runs dry. The answer to that question, is farmers may give up, especially small scale local producers like the one where I work.

There is a connection between the global climate crisis and extreme weather events like this year’s drought. As global CO2 levels have increased above 400 parts per million, global temperatures rose in tandem. As temperatures increase, the atmosphere can hold more water vapor. This makes rainfall and flooding more frequent and intense like spring 2013 was in our area.

The effect of global warming, and the hydrological cycle’s absorption of water vapor, also creates longer intervals between rainfalls, making droughts even worse. Because of the atmosphere’s increased capacity for hold water vapor, the land can become parched without irrigation.

People who live from the land, have to do something, and in Iowa we have relied upon abundant rainfall to grow crops without irrigation. As climate changes, that means considering how to make the land productive absent the conditions that led us to be what we are. It requires us to to adapt to the changing climate, and take action to mitigate the causes of this year’s flooding and drought. Before we begin large scale irrigation, Iowa should consider the consequences of increased water usage.

Locally, the climate changed, when we least needed or expected it. There is little to do now, other than adapt and mitigate the human causes of climate change.

Categories
Home Life Kitchen Garden

Pesto Pasta

Apple Pile
Apple Pile

LAKE MACBRIDE— In 100 degree temperatures the walk to the garden to pick yellow cherry tomatoes and basil for dinner didn’t seem hot. Perhaps I am adapted to the unseasonably hot weather… intensified by climate change. We can’t recall the last rainfall. According to the state climatologist, “Iowa temperatures averaged 72.1° or 0.6° above normal while precipitation totaled 1.57 inches or 2.63 inches less than normal. This ranks as the 7th driest and 65th warmest August among 141 years of records.” It has been exceptionally dry in Big Grove. However, life goes on, and having a house guest provides a special reason to used locally grown food to prepare meals for the table.

That we would have a salad was determined when a co-worker at the farm carried a crate full of freshly picked lettuce from the field to the cooler yesterday morning. Mixed greens, washed and spun dry, topped with zucchini, cucumber, orange bell pepper, red onions, wedges of red tomatoes and sliced carrots were topped with a dressing of choice. Balsamic vinegar and olive oil with salt and pepper is my favorite.

We also served pesto pasta. During early summer I made and froze half a dozen jars of pesto, using various ingredients. Slicing the yellow cherry tomatoes in half and putting them in a small bowl along with a chiffonade of basil leaves, I cooked six cups of bow tie pasta to al dente. The pasta, tomatoes and basil, half a pint of pesto and a roughly measured cup of Romano and Parmesan cheese were mixed thoroughly in a large bowl and served alongside a one-inch thick tomato slice topped with kosher salt and strips of fresh basil. A simple late summer feast.

Categories
Writing

Apples and Arctic® Apples

LAKE MACBRIDE— Only time for a brief post before heading out to job three of a four job day. Already this morning I finished proof reading the newspaper and worked on preserving bell peppers. Next the orchard, followed by work on the farm and then canning if I am still up to it. Sunday is anything but a day of rest in Big Grove.

My biggest ever crop of apples is turning into something of a bust because I can’t make time to harvest and preserve the first two trees. Then yesterday I read about Arctic® Apples, the genetically modified organism that is designed to repress creation of the enzyme that turns apples brown when exposed to air (after cutting or biting into) or bruised. In other words, the traditional way of knowing an apple is going bad is repressed, and this creates a longer shelf life for the fruit.

Not an issue here, where in the race against nature’s clock, I hope to eke out one or two dozen more pints of apple butter before the first picks go bad. I need the browning action to know where I stand. But in the industrial food supply chain, shelf life matters… a lot.

The new cultivar is going through the regulatory process in Canada and the U.S. presently. Friends of the Earth created an on-line petition to encourage Gerbers to continue to use non GMO apples to make applesauce and other products. From the perspective of having my own supply, and working in a large local orchard that produces cultivars going back to the  17th century, what the hell?

Gotta run off to the orchard!

Categories
Living in Society Social Commentary

Hope for a Small Town

Onion Work
Onion Work

Whether it was the high school football game between Regina and Solon, or the new restaurant and microbrewery, Main Street was hopping when I returned from the political fundraiser in Coralville. Cars lined the streets and people were standing at the intersection of Main and Iowa Streets. That hasn’t happened for a long time. Perhaps there is hope for the future of small towns.

My state senator’s birthday party/fundraiser has been an annual event for 27 years. 90 minutes dovetailed with some necessary errands, it was a great way to catch up with friends made during past political campaigns. We learned our U.S. representative is now a Costco member, and he and his spouse were planning to go there after the event. No talk of Syria, or really anything political from the congressman. This group is his home constituency, and we get it that there is more to life than politics. There has to be since the 113th U.S. Congress isn’t doing much. Senator Bob Dvorsky announced he was running for another term.

Onions
Onions

My day was spent at the farm cleaning onions. The work was not complicated, removing the top and roots, inspecting and sorting. The day passed quickly, and afterward, at the convenience store in town, the clerk called me, “hun.” Short for honey and a term of familiarity for locals, one of which I have become.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Township before Dawn

Dolgo Crab Apples
Dolgo Crab Apples

LAKE MACBRIDE— Today begins with two Tylenol® for the headache caused by I don’t know what. Perhaps it was the lack of fresh vegetables and protein in meals made of potato bread purchased once a year from the grocery store, evenly toasted and  spread with salad dressing, topped with thick, red slices of tomato. An annual ritual of the tomato harvest in Big Grove Township. With coffee and writing, the headache is receding. It’s 4 a.m.

There was no harbinger of how it would in the local food system this fall. Farmers need help for harvest: picking kale, squash and tomatoes, selling apples, and cleaning onions and garlic. Add the work of preserving some of the harvest, gardening and just living, and it is a full life. Suddenly, I’m working four paid jobs, and a lot that aren’t paid.

More than the pay, which certainly isn’t a living wage, is the value of the experiences. Some of which I’ll recount here to provide a flavor of an Iowa life in September.

Last Sunday I sampled Dolgo Crab Apples and liked them so much, I made five pounds of them into Dolgo Crab Apple Butter.

Picked the pears from our tree. There was about a bushel of them.

A branch broke on the Golden Delicious apple tree. The fruit was ripe, so I picked it from the branches.

Perhaps the best tomato harvest from my garden in a single day.

Canned diced tomatoes, four quarts and 27 pints. Plus about three gallons of juice.

Roasted peppers and marinated them in olive oil with a clove of garlic.

Froze bell peppers for a farmer friend.

Put up a dozen ears of corn in the freezer.

It all takes time, with little reflection, which perhaps will come when the work is done, if ever.

Categories
Living in Society

Letter to Dave Loebsack

Dear Congressman Loebsack,

I took your poll regarding what the United States should do about the violation of international law and crime against humanity that was the chemical weapons attack in Syria. The choice of answers in the poll seemed to lead us to war, and nowhere else.

The choice between an air strike or none, is a false choice. The chemical weapons attack near Aleppo was a crime and the perpetrators should be brought to justice in the International Court of Justice. Period.

As a member of congress, one hopes you have more direct insight to the circumstances of this attack, and by whom it was perpetrated. As a citizen, it is not clear to me who did what to whom, and that makes it difficult to say what the U.S. should do about it.

What is particularly disheartening is the United Nations report released by Russia this afternoon, which indicates the makeup of the chemical weapons used in the attack were not from the Syrian chemical weapons arsenal. The report suggests the possibility that the chemical weapons were used by the rebels supported by the United States. If this U.N. report, and Russia’s analysis of it is accurate, there is even less basis for launching an air attack against Syria.

I trust you will consider these matters when making you decision on how to vote on an air strike on Syria.

Regards, Paul

Categories
Social Commentary

An Iowa View of Syria

War is Not the Answer(UPDATE: Sept. 4, 2013, 3:30 p.m. CDT: A new report from Russia, including a 100-page United Nations report on the chemical attack at Aleppo, Syria, indicates non-standard Syrian chemical weapons used in attack. Russian analysis suggests Syrian rebels may have launched a chemical attack, rather than the Syrian government. Click here to read more).

The horrific use of chemical weapons in Syria is a violation of international law and a crime against humanity. President Obama was right when he said, “in a world with many dangers, this menace must be confronted.” Where he was wrong was when he said, “the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets.”

A couple of things don’t matter about the American response to Syria’s use of chemical warfare against its citizens.

The commentary from the right is the usual anti-Obama anything parade of made up crap. Former U.N. ambassador John Bolton said to FOX News, “the White House candy store is open,” meaning the Syria vote agreed by Democratic and Republican leadership in the U.S. house and senate will become yet another round of congressional political swaps of votes for pork. Some on the fringe even say Obama is using Syria to distract from fake scandals in his administration. The whining voice of the right and its fringe don’t matter because the public is tuning in.

President Obama differentiates between an aerial bombardment and boots on the ground. Only the most cynical or naive among us don’t understand these are two aspects of the same thing. He said, “our action would be designed to be limited in duration and scope.” All wars are, and this one would be no different in that regard.

What matters, that isn’t being said much, is as my colleague at Physicians for Social Responsibility, Dr. Robert Dodge, wrote in the Huntington, W.V. News, “the military intervention being debated is not intended to end the violent conflict that has killed more than 100,000 Syrians. It won’t help the nearly two million Syrian refugees return home or get the more than 6.8 million people in need access to humanitarian aid.” These are real people with real needs, and little assurance that an American air strike will benefit them in tangible ways. Our recent and costly invasion of Iraq stands as an example of how U.S. military adventurism does little for people outside a small group of war profiteers.

It must be tempting to think U.S. intelligence knows where Syrian weapons of mass destruction are located, enabling the targeting and destruction of their government’s capabilities. But things go wrong, more often that we would like.

Individuals in the Syrian government committed a crime when they used chemical weapons against a group of Syrian citizens that included children. We have courts to prosecute such criminals, beginning with the International Court of Justice. The International Court of Justice is where this crime should be confronted.

An invasion of Syria, and that is what a target air strike would be, would perpetrate more violence in an already war torn country. Iowans may be able to tune out the world for a while, but we must resist what our government does in our name. For my part, I join with the Quakers who wrote, as one of 25 non-governmental organizations, this open letter to President Obama reiterating the notion that war is not the answer:

August 28, 2013

Dear President Obama,

We, the undersigned organizations, are writing to express our grave concerns with your reported plans to intervene militarily in Syria. While we unequivocally condemn any use of chemical weapons along with continued indiscriminate killing of civilians and other violations of international humanitarian law, military strikes are not the answer. Rather than bringing an end to the violence that has already cost more than 100,000 lives, they threaten to widen the vicious civil war in Syria and undermine prospects to de-escalate the conflict and eventually reach a negotiated settlement.

In the course of more than 2 years of war, much of Syria has been destroyed and nearly 2 million people- half of them children- have been forced to flee to neighboring countries. We thank you for the generous humanitarian assistance the US has provided to support the nearly 1 in 3 Syrians- 8 million people- in need of aid. But such assistance is not enough.

As the U.S. government itself has recognized, there is no solution to the crisis other than a political one. Instead of pursuing military strikes and arming parties to the conflict, we urge your administration to intensify diplomatic efforts to stop the bloodshed, before Syria is destroyed and the region further destabilized.

Sincerely,

Friends Committee on National Legislation
American Friends Service Committee
Church of the Brethren
Code Pink
CREDO Action
Democrats.com
Fellowship of Reconciliation
Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Historians Against the War
Institute for Policy Studies
Just Foreign Policy
Oxfam America
Peace Action
Peace Education Fund
Physicians for Social Responsibility
Presbyterian Church, USA
Progressive Democrats of America
RootsAction.org
Shomer Shalom Network for Jewish Nonviolence
United Methodist Church, General Board of Church and Society
USAction
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Veterans for Peace
Voices for Creative Nonviolence
Women’s Action for New Directions

Categories
Home Life Kitchen Garden

Entering September

Unused Silos
Unused Silos

LAKE MACBRIDE— Dust is still settling on life made turbulent by the harvest, new work, writing and commitments with friends and family during August. Top that off with talk about retaliation against Syria for using banned chemical weapons, and summer is ending with a bang, perhaps literally. It’s time to regroup and deal with the challenges.

A neighbor and I did a deal on raspberries yesterday. He provided eight pints to process, half into a spread for his morning toast, and half into what I want, probably the same, or maybe pancake syrup. After a shift at the farm this morning, raspberries, tomatoes and apples will all enter the canning mix. It’s now or never for the ones already picked. An eight hour canning session begins at 1 p.m. and I’ll locate my second canning pot to process two batches at a time. Times like this, I wish we had six or eight burners on our stove.

The garden has been on its own for three or four days. Tomatoes are ready, and not sure what else. When I return from the farm, I’ll empty the compost bucket and find out, picking tomatoes for sure, and likely Anaheim peppers.

There is a lot more to organize, and the food work is in the must-do, nature-can’t-wait category. There’s more work, my presentations on climate change Sept. 17 and 29, particularly. That’s not to mention finding replacement revenue for when the seasonal farm work ends soon. It looks to be a very busy autumn as we enter September.

Categories
Home Life

Summer’s End

Germination House in Late Summer
Germination House in Late Summer

LAKE MACBRIDE— There is a sense that the season has turned. Clutching the harvest, preserving it as best we can for winter, its abundance slips through our hands to compost, and with time, back to the earth.

Bones and joints are weary from farm work, that work displacing time normally spent in the garden, yard and kitchen. Fallen apples line the ground and the branches of the late trees touch the grass, laden with the developing fruit. In nature’s abundance we cut a sliver and sustain ourselves on its freshness.

It’s labor day in the U.S., but that matters little in nature’s calendar. The work of a local food system goes on, and paid work calls me again today.

Soon I’ll finish preparing the onions drying in the germination house for storage. After that, I will be ready for autumn and the acceleration of changing seasons into winter.

Categories
Writing

Egg Salad

LAKE MACBRIDE— There is an idea about egg salad, but I don’t really know how to make it. Peeling three hard-cooked eggs, I halved them to remove the yolks, and minced the whites finely into a bowl. Two slices of home made dill pickle finely minced, and half of a medium onion, also finely diced went into the bowl.

In a separate bowl, adding to the cooked yolks, a teaspoon of celery seed, half a cup of light salad dressing, and a squeeze of yellow mustard, I stirred thoroughly and added it to the rest of the ingredients, mixing as I went. It’s what I call egg salad, but is it really egg salad?

Call it what one will, spread on two slices of bread, and eaten with an ear of corn on the cob, it made dinner.

I may not know much about egg salad, but know less about the situation in Syria. It sounds really bad, and has for a long time. It is something to refrain from comment until a few people much smarter than me weigh in. The Carter Center weighed in, as did Pope Francis, and Bishop Desmond Tutu. Economist Robert Reich weighed in, even though it is not really his bailiwick. Will wait a while and see who else has something to say.

Let’s hope the U.S. doesn’t end up with egg on our face, because no one seems sure how they might make a meal to sustain a life using that.