Red Delicious and Earliblaze apple trees in bloom, May 3, 2023.
Four days into the main apple tree bloom it looks to be a banner year. No hint of frost since blossoms opened and plenty of native pollinators work the flowers. Yesterday flower petals began to fall to the ground, indicating successful pollination.
I planted these trees on Earth Day in 1995. It was a roll of the dice because a gardener never knows how they will fare in Iowa. The Red Delicious was a cultivar taken from the original one discovered in Iowa. For $18.75 each in 1995, the trees have returned many times the purchase price. They already exceeded their life expectancy of around 25 years for a semi-dwarf tree, so anything else is a bonus.
The goal this year is to put up at least 24 quarts of apple sauce, a dozen pints of apple butter, Refill the half-gallon jars of apple cider vinegar, make a couple of gallons of sweet cider, and fill the refrigerator drawer with the best of the crop for storage.
A lot can happen between now and harvest, with wind storms representing the biggest threat. The Red Delicious tree lost several major limbs, including the northern half of the tree during the Aug. 10, 2020 derecho. It is blooming today like there is no tomorrow. One never knows if that is a reaction to imminent death, or just another year. In any case, the new Zestar! and Crimson Crisp trees planted in 2020 are coming along. I might get a real crop from them this year.
Yesterday I planted the row of herbs and vegetables with row cover. From time to time, I looked up at the blooming apples trees and what they represent: another year’s spring promise.
Gordon Lightfoot passed on Monday. Early Morning Rain was on my playlist when I performed on the guitar. It is one of my favorite songs of any artist. May he rest in peace.
Should a person be sensible and find a job, or follow their passions? This is a false choice, although one many feel compelled to make. I’m not sure those two options often exist concurrently.
My insight into this choice may be the result of getting a new eyeglasses prescription filled. On Friday they were ready at the warehouse club, the first prescription I filled since before the pandemic. I can see clearly now and it’s a revelation. Well, no. That’s not it. Maybe it’s something else.
At our tenth high school class reunion in 1980, I described myself as a writer. Here’s the entire passage from the booklet the organizing committee issued:
Paul lives in Iowa City and attended U of I, BA 1974, and the United States Army Infantry School. He is a writer. He is also a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserves. M.A. candidate in American Studies at U of I.
Unpublished journal, Summer 1980.
It was out there. I was a writer. Decision made! Not so fast!!
One of the last nights I spent in Davenport in 1980 was with two friends at a bar called The Mad Hatter. We walked to the Palmer Student Union where another friend was performing with his guitar. We had a discussion about how a person had to give up her artwork after taking a job at John Deere. She was tired after work, raising a child, and found little time or desire to make art. I knew if I took a full time job after graduate school I might find myself in the same situation. I had just declared myself to be a writer! I decided to stick it out at least until I finished graduate school.
I had enough money saved to pay for graduate school with help from the G.I. Bill. After graduation I wanted to remain in Iowa City, so I got an apartment and found a low-level job without benefits working for the university. One thing led to another and I met someone, got married, and together decided we needed more money to afford a house and everything else involved in a long-term relationship. Things happen. I didn’t put my writing on hold.
During that first year after we married I made an earnest attempt to write the book about which I had been talking for so many years. The working title was Going Home, and I summarized it in a journal entry:
Going Home will begin with a descent from high culture – Vienna – to low culture – Davenport – á la William Carlos Williams. Then will come a rebuilding – a putting together of a new life from the pieces. A new ascent, with both feet placed firmly on the ground. So, from Vienna, to Davenport, to Iowa City, to Northeastern Iowa. Descent to the ground, but then both feet planted firmly, beginning a step at a time, making a new beginning.
Personal Journal, Iowa City, June 17, 1983.
I’m not sure today what exactly that meant. The image of “both feet planted on the ground” recurred in my journals. It would also be an argument for a common life, free from external structures. At various times, I called the book the 1969 Novel or Going Home, yet it never became much more than an idea about Iowa contrasted with Europe… or something. I made outlines and wrote passages. I made reading lists and trip itineraries. I made research notes for much of 1983.
In each section of Going Home, I want to provide the reader with two things. First, I want them to be able to relate to the personal experience from which each scene is written, enabling them to say, “I’ve been there.” Second, I want them to be able to see that the given experience functions ideologically in the novel, giving the characters some sort of influence. Too, I want the sections to teach the reader a way of life.
Personal Journal, Iowa City, Iowa, June 27, 1983.
I wrote about the book extensively in my journal without getting anything significant down on paper. I had the idea, likely from Emerson, of turning away from the courtly muses to everyday life. I did extensive reading to form a moral framework for the novel. This is all well and good, yet here’s the issue: I had no clue what it meant to be married.
It is significant that at this crossroads there was no real choice between following my passion to be a writer and doing what was sensible. In seeking to write, I sought realization of who I was regardless of any framework for living. The pent up desire to become a writer compelled me to continue to live as best I could: writing, earning money, having a family life, the whole shebang. It would have been easier if Morpheus had offered me a one-time choice between the blue and red pills.
It is important to refrain from framing life as a choice between options. This seems too simplistic. A dilemma means a choice between disagreeable alternatives, yet devising an arbitrary choice is just that: arbitrary. It would be a false choice.
While we might feel good about defining a choice and making a decision, the results seem unlikely to endure. We owe it to ourselves to accept complexity in life and deal with it outright. We can’t settle for second best when both choices are sub-optimal.
It sometimes helps to get a new pair of glasses, to see clearly, even if they are not responsible for choices we make.
My earliest memories of radio are of neighbors across the alley listening to Chicago baseball games. They turned the volume loud enough we could hear the sports announcer yet not make out what they were saying. It created a summer neighborhood ambience in the pre-JFK years.
Today a radio is on when I’m working in the kitchen, garage or garden. I also turn it on in the car. My listening habits are steady: country music in the garden, car and garage, and classical in the kitchen. I no longer like listening to news broadcasts on the radio.
Transistor radios were popular when I was a preteen. We could listen to the AM radio and hear the latest music without parental supervision. I tuned in to KSTT radio in Davenport and remember the songs from 1963 until I went to high school. It felt cool to be able to directly link to the broadcasts. I tried to get a copy of the printed weekly Top 40 list and follow along with the songs.
Radio was important when I lived in Germany. For the most part, I had no television and listened to the Armed Forces Network in my truck or at home. They played a lot of old radio serials, which I enjoyed. News had a Europe-centered slant. I have living memory of a radio announcer reporting from the Vatican during the conclave of the College of Cardinals to elect a new pope. We waited dramatically for the color of the smoke from the Sistine Chapel to be identified and announced.
A Prairie Home Companion first aired on July 6, 1974. I didn’t know about it until after my return from Germany in 1979. After we married, it became a staple on Saturday afternoons. When Garrison Keillor left the show (for the second time), nothing good replaced it and my Saturdays were never the same.
My crank powered radio with a solar panel on it gave up the ghost. The crank spring wore out and the dials wouldn’t turn any more. I bought a new one that can also charge a mobile device. I don’t crank it much, using the solar receptors for my garden radio experience. If there was a night-time power outage, we could keep our mobile devices charged.
When I retired, I moved my clock-radio-alarm from the bedroom to on top of the refrigerator. The device has a 9-volt battery, which when there is a power outage, enables it to keep time. I figured I didn’t need an alarm after retirement. It turns out that figuring was accurate.
When the radio plays a song I recognize it does something to me. I listen and follow along with the lyrics if I know them. It is getting so I do know the lyrics of a lot of songs. I suppose the radio is training me to get addicted to listening. Thing is, I’m usually too busy working on something that requires my attention. Even if I focus on the task at hand, the radio plays in the background. After all these years, I guess I like it that way.
The last few days of April have been marvelous. Rain subsided, ambient temperatures were mild with low humidity. It has been a spring month, as good as they get. No more close friends have died this month, so there has been psychological relief as well. We needed a breather.
Spinach planted in the ground on April 15 is up. Onions are doing well. Yesterday I planted cauliflower, cabbage and kale, and there are two more rows in that plot for broccoli, collards, and other leafy green vegetables.A mad garden rush will be happening in May with the target of getting the initial planting done by Memorial Day, which this year falls on May 29. Gardening is going well.
The Biden administration announced that it intends to end the presidential declaration of national emergency and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) public health emergency attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic on May 11, 2023. I was at a restaurant last night where a couple of people continued to wear a facial mask. With my full regime of COVID-19 vaccinations, I did not.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been 104,538,730 reported cases of COVID-19, 1,130,662 deaths attributed to it, and 55,743,629 doses of vaccine administered. There are currently 9,167 hospitalizations due to the coronavirus. It was, in no uncertain terms, a public health disaster. The scale of 1.1 million U.S. deaths is difficult to wrap one’s head around as we close in on the end.
The Iowa Legislature has taken up budget bills, which means we are close to the end of session. Thank goodness. There has been so much controversy over bills it had been like drinking from a fire hose trying to understand what is happening. Republicans won super majorities in 2022, and are exercising their power like never before. Democrats are hanging on, trying to get a message out. Democratic messaging has been like trying to light a candle in a derecho: word is not getting out beyond political junkies.
Our blogging group went to dinner Friday night at Royceann’s Soul Food Restaurant in the South District Market in Iowa City. The menu has a fixed number of daily items on it and diners can order a meat and two sides for $18. It is a bit tough for vegetarians to find something on the menu, and tougher for vegans. I ordered cabbage, cornbread, and macaroni and cheese. The preparations were distinct and tasty. I plan to return to try the collards with cornbread. I usually say I can cook better than what I find in restaurants, yet not this time.
Our furnace gave up the ghost this month. We have been discussing which new one to get and have made a decision. When an expensive item hits a household on a fixed income, it takes some wangling to determine how to pay for it. We have it figured out.
I have finished reading seven books in April. Check out what I’ve been reading on the Read Recently page by clicking on it at the top of this page. I got new glasses for the first time since 2019. It’s great to be able to see clearly again. Hope your April was as good as mine. Thanks for reading my post.
I planted peas yesterday. It seems late getting them in, yet like everything in gardening, we sow our seeds and hope for the best. There is nothing like a bowl of sugar snap peas in the refrigerator for snacking.
Cooler ambient temperatures have made it difficult to get in the garden. Meanwhile, seedlings started indoors have used up almost every available space. We need a few days in a row of better weather to get at least the cruciferous vegetables in the ground. Fingers crossed we’ll get that this week.
I finished reading William Styron’s memoir about depression, Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness. It made me think about whether or not I have been depressed. My tendency is to say no, yet after reading Styron, I’m not sure. I certainly haven’t had debilitating depression like he did. When I heard him read from The Long March at university, he had no appearance of being depressed. He recovered from his depression and wrote the memoir. The fame of it eclipsed that of his previous books. Despite depression, Styron achieved a level of success few writers have.
Depression has not played any significant role in my life.
Darkness Visible raises the question of suicide. Styron lists many successful, creative people who took their own lives. He considered suicide himself. I’ve considered what suicide is, yet have not been tempted to take that step in my creative endeavors. I accept that I’m alive, and thanks to my parents I felt valued as a child. That carried me through difficult times in my life. I’m more worried about unintentionally killing myself by things such as falling off the roof during my twice annual inspections, flipping the John Deere tractor while mowing the ditch, or by falling down the stairs because there is no handrail. These situations need resolution soon.
The best news is I continue to crave sugar snap peas grown in our garden. Growing them keeps me engaged with life and chases the blues away. I can’t wait to get back out in the garden… So I can chill a bowl of peas in the refrigerator.
This year I donated roughly 700 books to the public library used book sale and to Goodwill. Goodwill is less picky about what they will accept, so they received the majority of them. Many of my donations still had the Goodwill price tag from when I bought them. Library downsizing has only just begun.
All but The Moviegoer of my collection of Walker Percy novels went into boxes and out the door. I felt a bit sad about that, but as Vonnegut said, “So, it goes.” I had to decide about my collections by author. Other authors, that I worked equally hard to collect, went into bankers boxes with the names and date packed on the outside. Who knows if one will get into the boxes again, yet they are available and take up no precious shelf space. A few — Bellow, Didion, Irving, Morrell, Faulkner, and William Carlos Williams got their own special shelf space. It wouldn’t be my library without those authors.
I wrote previously about poetry and that decision seems solid. The shelves are easily accessible so when I want to read poetry I can get at the stacks.
Cookbooks are impossible. Half of what I gave away was cookbooks. I can’t seem to part with many more. Yet I must. Truth is, I hardly use cookbooks any more. Having learned how to cook, they serve as cultural artifacts related to places and people with which I have some connection. Reference material for the church where I was baptized, or the American Studies department where I got my degree. In seventy years of living, we generate a lot of connections. A cookbook has usually been involved. They also serve as examples of how to prepare a particular dish or ingredient. Keeping many of them takes up space that could be devoted to other topics. This sorting is far from over.
Hundreds of books about Iowa history and by Iowa authors needs reduction to a shelf of about a dozen to hand off to our child when they are ready. I also wrote about this. More of those got boxed up, leaving the first tier to be read and re-considered on the shelf.
The space for books about U.S. presidents is settled at eye level on two long shelves. The ones by or about presidents in my lifetime is sorted. I had two copies of Eisenhower’s White House memoirs and one is on the bench waiting to be packed up for Goodwill. I have a blank space for the second volume of Obama’s presidential memoir. No space was left for a Trump memoir, I mean, you got to be kidding me.
My African-American studies section has grown, and I need a space for American Indian books. I can’t bear to part with all the ancient writings, although the chances of reading some of them are slight. I may get into Plutarch’s Lives, or I may not. Keeping them for now.
Art books take up too much space. Having so many is a function of my interest in certain artists like Picasso, Joan Miró, Georgia O’Keeffe, Warhol, Hopper, and the like. Some I bought at the artist’s retrospective, and some I picked up at used book sales. Until I get to the point of running out of space, most of them will stay right where they now are.
A byproduct of sorting is finding more books to read. The to-read shelves are packed to overflowing. I’ve also found some lost friends, like George McGovern’s autobiography, Grassroots, and Joe Biden’s Promises to Keep. I put Biden’s memoir into a box, thinking he would never be president. Now it’s up in the presidential lineup.
The great book sort is proving to be beneficial. I have a better understanding of what I have, and organized them into projects for future writing. For now, there are some empty shelves. There won’t be for long.
Trail walking at Lake Macbride State Park on April 21, 2023.
There is an official Earth Day website which indicates how far the observance has come since 1970. In addition, there are proclamations by governing bodies, festivals supporting “Mother Earth,” and oil and gas companies touting their actions to capture CO2 emissions and recycle plastics. I’m not sure any of this helps reduce the impact of humans on our shared environment, yet it may be better than a stick in the eye.
Exploitation of the environment has been basic to civilization, especially in the settling of North America. In the early days, North America was about land speculation and extraction of wealth from the so-called “newly discovered” place. It began with production of sugar, rice, cotton, tobacco and indigo, which required cheap land and abundant labor in the form of slaves or indigent white folks forced to migrate from Britain. We had and continue to operate an extractive economy supporting exports and consumers. Few want to give up their handheld mobile device or other modern conveniences to help save the planet, so the extraction part of the economy may grow along with the burgeoning population. By 2100 there are projected to be 10.4 billion people on our blue-green sphere, according to the United Nations.
People should do more to improve the environment than what each of us can do individually. It seems obvious that everyone: every business, organization, government, and individual must pull together to solve the climate crisis. Importantly, our political system must take the lead in climate action, regardless of the political outlook of individual elected officials. This holds true in authoritarian regimes where there are no elected representatives. When I wrote “everyone,” that’s what I meant.
What should we do? That’s an easy answer: support large scale, organized actions that will make a difference. If regulators say we should reduce CO2 emissions in new automotive products, then support it. If the Gulf of Mexico dead zones are a problem, then regulate the chemicals and processes that dump into the Mississippi River watershed. If our air is polluted by emissions from coal and natural gas-powered electricity generation, then convert to wind and solar. Solutions exist to clean up our air, water and land pollution. There are processes to develop new and better solutions to the climate crisis.
Every day I do something small to help mitigate the worst effects of the climate crisis. I reduce water usage, adjust the thermostat a few degrees, turn off lights when not in a room, and minimize the amount of driving I do in our personal vehicle. Every day is Earth Day in our home, so the annual remembrance is not that important to me. What matters more is finding common ground to enable more solutions, reduce pollution, and clean up our land, air and water.
Spend a few minutes reading the Earth Day website, located here. Then talk to someone you know about how important it is we take action today to rescue our much abused planet and make a livable home for our civilization going forward. It could make our lives better in the process.
Republicans in the Iowa legislature are treating children like trash. It is part of their view of the role of children in society. It is not right.
Republicans embrace our forefathers, and seek to make Iowa and America great. They don’t want to hear alternative views of American history, like those presented in The 1619 Project created by Nikole Hannah-Jones of Waterloo. They also don’t want to go back to our founding in 16th Century Britain, although that’s where we seem to find ourselves today.
Today’s Republicans embrace the worst aspects of 16th Century colonization, including the idea of Richard Hakluyt that children of the poor be “brought up in labor and work” so they would not follow in their parents’ footsteps and become “idle rogues.” These Republicans are no different than the British elite who had never set foot in the Americas as they rounded up the poor, indigent, and criminal, as well as children, to send to North America and return riches made with the sweat of their brows.
When I woke at 3 a.m. this morning the Iowa Senate was deadlocked over Senate File 542, a bill to roll back protections for children against inappropriate types and amounts of labor. The bill was written by the governor and a small coterie of restaurant and retail establishment lobbyists seeking to resolve Iowa’s labor shortage. Deadlock was related to the spoken intent of the bill. Republicans didn’t want to say anything about their intent, so they refused to answer direct questions about the bill during debate. This is behavior unworthy of their oath of office.
I worked on the cleanup crew of a large slaughterhouse as an adult, and it’s no place for children regardless of the law. This is common sense.
Children are not something to be used up and thrown into the garbage. Yet that is the effect this legislation could have. Republicans frame this as learning the responsibility to work and saving a little money for higher education or other advancement of personal goals. I see it for what it is: a chance to indoctrinate children to do the bidding of the wealthiest among us and in doing so, give up part of their childhood.
No matter how you look at it, it is a raw deal for children when they are treated like expendable commodities. The Iowa House will debate this bill next.
It was 64 degrees at 3 a.m. Saturday morning. That’s weird.
A gardener contends with weather, so temperature anomalies come with the work. The vegetables I plant in my Midwestern garden have a wide range of tolerance to climate, moisture and light. They have been bred and propagated because of those qualities.
Potatoes and onions should be safe to plant now, and I did. I direct seeded spinach when putting in the onion sets. Garlic is doing fine after being uncovered from winter. There are many apple and pear blossoms in the early formation stage. Pollinators are already abundant, seeking the early purple flowers and dandelions in the lawn. The greenhouse is packed with seedlings. What could be wrong?
Regardless of weird weather, Spring has arrived and it would be difficult not to feel a part of it. I can see leaves on deciduous trees bud and burst into foliage in front of me. All is well in the garden, or at least as good as it gets.
What will weird weather mean this growing season? I don’t know. I am, however, both concerned, and getting used to it. The overall trend does not look good.
If you aren’t following Bill McKibben on the climate crisis, you likely should be. In yesterday’s edition of his substack, The Crucial Years, he wrote,
This week’s Fort Lauderdale rainstorm was, on the one hand, an utter freak of nature (storms ‘trained’ on the same small geography for hours on end, dropping 25 inches of rain in seven hours; the previous record for all of April was 19 inches) and on the other hand utterly predictable. Every degree Celsius that we warm the planet means the atmosphere holds more water vapor; as native Floridian and ace environmental reporter Dinah Voyles Pulver pointed out, “with temperatures in the Gulf running 3 to 4 degrees above normal recently, that’s at least 15% more rainfall piled up on top of a ‘normal’ storm.”
Get ready for far more of it; there are myriad scattered signs that we’re about to go into a phase of particularly steep climbs in global temperature. They’re likely to reach impressive new global records—and that’s certain to produce havoc we’ve not seen before.
The Crucial Years, We’re in for a stretch of heavy climate by Bill McKibben, April 15, 2023.
McKibben is not one to use hyperbole. He must realize the downside of doing so. In social media, instead of seeing McKibben’s work promoted, the right-wing spokesmodel for all things cultural was getting attention. Even climatologist and geophysicist Michael Mann snarked about the Georgia congresswoman’s comments.
It is getting difficult to follow the scientific discussion of the climate crisis. Partly, major news media find it too dull a subject for headlines. Partly, the right-wing media noise machine drowns out serious topics in public discourse. Yet we notice temperature anomalies when they happen, and wonder for how long we can go on the way we are.
While we wonder, we’ll need onions, apples and spinach.
Journey Home 
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