As the new year begins, I’m retooling how I write here. The main goal is improved content related to society beyond the geographical confines of Big Grove Township.
While I need a place to journal, this isn’t it. There are too many concerns about what I say in public to make it as useful a venue as I need. I’m using a Moleskine plain notebook for journaling.
There has been clear interest in my experiences in aging. More people are living longer and how septuagenarians will live going forward is an unwritten book. I can write part of it.
My attitude about local food and food preparation is changing. There will be posts about that.
Even though Iowa’s politics has gotten increasingly conservative, there will be new things to say about it. Not all of them will be positive. I expect to evolve from being an advocate for a candidate or particular idea to something else. My destination is presently unknown.
Local politics has been one of the most popular topics for this blog. Specifically, no one is adequately covering the school board or its elections and we have another coming up this year. Because it has been one of the most popular topics, I plan to do more during the coming election.
My posting may be a bit irregular for a while. As I work through the retooling, I hope you’ll stay with me. I believe the writing will get better in 2023.
Thursday’s 60-degree ambient temperature was weird. The seventy-degree, one-week swing from ten below zero was bad enough. It won’t be good for our fruit trees. They are already weirded out by double leafing last year. Hopefully cold weather returns soon.
I don’t make “New Year’s Resolutions” any more yet there are activities upon which to focus in 2023. Here’s a brief list:
Last winter I finished writing in February. This year I want my off-line writing, mainly of my autobiography, to continue throughout the year.
More than 300 books have been donated from my library to charity this winter. I set aside 30 minutes each week to work on my library. The goal is to organize it by project and to make the book display more useful to my life and writing. Hundreds of additional books will be donated in 2023.
This year’s iteration of a kitchen garden will continue toward growing things we use and expanding the varieties and quality of plants. How produce grown is used in meal preparation is also a consideration for improvement.
Regular exercise is important to health. I seek to take advantage of the trail system surrounding us by using it more and in different ways.
As suggested in my post about budget, I seek to supplement income to enable new things beyond basic living.
We made a home project list of things to fix, make, or do to improve the quality of our home’s physical structure.
With Republicans dominating the state legislature and having exclusive control of our federal delegation, we’ll be playing defense in politics. My letters to the editor during the recent campaign were mostly critical of the two Republicans who will now represent me at the state house. To get anything other than defense done will require more work. This is a new reality with which to cope.
I need to sort through advocacy issues and pick one. Climate change has been the go to, yet I’m not sure it will be in 2023 when so many other issues beg for attention. I plan to sort through this as we approach the beginning of the 90th Iowa General Assembly on January 9.
This list does not represent significant change from previous years. If anything, activities have been distilled for clarity and reduced in number. That should make life in 2023 more livable.
For a few years I over-wintered garlic. Since then, there has been something going on in the garden year-round. Yesterday I planted onion seeds and situated them on the heating pad. If they sprout, I’ll have a couple hundred starts to transplant into the ground this spring.
It seems early to plant anything, yet I checked with a vegetable farmer and they agreed Dec. 28 was just fine for onions. Their farm needs to get things rolling for their much larger onion and herb operation. But first, the person who is staying in the onion room needs relocating.
I had very few onions last year. I couldn’t keep up with the weeding. There is a better plan this season. We eat part of an onion almost every day, so it’s an important crop to successfully grow at home.
Between Christmas and the new year is a quiet time. We decided on a menu for this coming weekend when we expect visitors. Today I plan to provision to match the menu. There are a few errands to run as well.
Ambient outdoors temperature is already up to 45 degrees. It appears it will be another weird weather January. For now, I enjoy the quiet and take each day as it comes. I relish the last of the quiet days before the new year.
Each year I put together a budget. When I say “budget,” I mean “expense budget.” Sometimes I follow it, other times not so much. I’ve been unwilling to accept the constraints of living on a pension, so when unexpected things happened — furnace repair, yard tractor repair, or auto replacement — our debt increased each month beginning in April. We’ve been unable to pay it off from cash flow. It’s time for a reckoning.
In the budget spreadsheet I compare income against projected expenses. There is not a lot left at the end of the year.
Paying the car loan and addressing some long-standing home maintenance issues are part of it. There will be unexpected expenses again this year combined with a project list to accomplish. Any income beyond our pensions can readily find a home. Our current income is spent on basic living.
What to do?
We need more income for things beyond basic living.
Some parts of a budget are not complicated. If we take the time to step back and examine what we are doing, the answer seems obvious. Now that the need has been identified, how do we meet it?
This is the part of budgeting at which most people never arrive.
A light snow-cover greeted me on the final day of this personal retreat. It will take about 15 minutes to clear the driveway, which I will do once snowfall slows later this morning. It should be a good day.
I made the planned Christmas dinner with the exception of the chick pea snacks. I decided there was enough food without them, and in any case, they would better serve any New Year’s Eve celebration. There are leftovers for today and tomorrow.
It has been challenging to shed obligations of our Big Grove life long enough to gain some perspective. I did the best I could, and yesterday went well. While I would like to live only for my writing and creativity, that seems a bit romantic (like Coleridge, Shelley and Keats) for someone with deep American roots. It is especially true when confronted with the existential worry about whether the village well will continue to work, the furnace plant will operate as designed, the snow plow crew will arrive as scheduled, and major appliances will continue to work until we are ready to replace them. Everything held over the holiday.
The coronavirus pandemic has not relented. People I know are administering home tests, with some contracting the virus. It is no badge of honor to have had COVID. On the contrary, we tend to look down on someone who got it, the way we look down on someone who got cancer. Having had COVID gives us pause when the science about masking and vaccines is so clear. The basic starting point is answering the question, “What did you do wrong?” It seems very accusative. As far as I know, I have not contracted COVID, although it is ubiquitous and I likely will.
Today will be organizing for a return to work as normal. I have a good idea of what must come next in my autobiography. I’m writing a budget for 2023. I crave outdoors activity and if the weather relents, I’ll get some today. Now that holiday feasting is done, I must design a menu that will support health. It will be a busy day.
Thanks for following my journey this holiday season.
Wind blew snow into drifts across the driveway. I spent 20 minutes removing them with the snow blower so the surface would be flat and ready to collect the coming snowstorm tonight. That is the extent of outside work for today.
It continues to be quiet in the neighborhood. The president said it as well as anyone:
There is a certain stillness at the center of the Christmas story: a silent night when all the world goes quiet. And all the clamor, everything that divides us, fades away in the stillness of a winter’s evening. I wish you that peace this Christmas Eve.
One memory of Christmas is walking to Midnight Mass at the Catholic Church where my parents wed and I was baptized and confirmed. I remember that one night, everything was still while large flakes of snow fell to cover the sidewalk. I felt an urgent purpose as I made my way to the North entrance of the church.
Midnight Mass was one of the most attended events in the liturgical calendar. Even Father, who was not particularly religious, attended that night.
Last night I wrote a menu for my solitary dinner tonight.
On first glance, it looks like quite a feast. It looks fancier than it is when one writes it up that way. Basically, I’m using up leftover rice and getting some pickles, applesauce and other canned goods used up. The meal should be satisfying, with leftovers for tomorrow and beyond.
The plan for today is to relax and take it easy. There are some phone calls planned and that’s about it. A day to rest before tonight’s storm.
Christmas Eve changed into a quiet time. It has always been that — for as long as I can remember — yet it seems quieter today than it has been. I heard the wind howling in the neighborhood, rattling our windows while I was reading. This cold snap is beginning to break with wind speed slowing overnight and warmer ambient temperatures forecast, beginning today.
Yesterday the garage got colder than I wanted. I scraped snow and ice from the rubber seal on the door and piled rags where the door met the concrete to keep wind out. In the afternoon, I warmed the garage with a space heater until it got closer to freezing. I turned the space heater off when I went to bed and this morning the temperature had stabilized at 30 degrees.
I phoned my sister on Friday. Part of our discussion was Mother’s cooking. I don’t remember much of the food we ate at home while I was in K-12 schools. I made a list of main dishes: meatloaf, liver and onions, roast beef, baked ham, tacos, vegetable beef soup, salmon patties, and hamburgers and hot dogs came to mind. Mother would make red-eye gravy for Father because of his rural, Southern roots. It was usually all for him, so we kids didn’t get any. We ordered takeout pizza from time to time from the Chicken Delight restaurant on Locust Street. I have some of Mother’s recipes yet don’t prepare them after my conversion to being mostly vegetarian.
I have forgotten how to make bread. In my second attempt during this retreat, it was good tasting, yet didn’t have the crumb I wanted. After posting a photo on Facebook someone commented, “Eat your failures, no evidence. We will not speak of this again.” I do need to eat some of the bread, and then I want to do it again until I produce a decent loaf. I also baked a batch of 12 almond cookies for Christmas Day (unless I eat them sooner). They are simple and good.
Yesterday the U.S. Congress sent an omnibus spending bill to the president for his signature. They funded the government until Sept. 30, 2023, the end of the fiscal year. Democrats didn’t have the votes to address the debt ceiling, so that remains an open question. The bill signals the end of Biden’s successful years with the 117th Congress. With Republicans holding a slim majority in the U.S. House after the midterm elections, we expect to see big successes slow down. If it is like the Obama administration was after the 2010 conservative tsunami, very little will get done. I hope I’m wrong, yet I’ve been paying attention.
I considered the letter to the editor and opinion pieces I submitted to newspapers. I don’t know what future there is in that for me. I became proficient in making a single point and sticking with it in tight, brief sentences. We could call what I did “issue advocacy” where I had a position on an issue and argued my point. Part of the problem with our society is everyone has issues and will argue their point in public spaces while no one is listening to each other. We have to get beyond issues politics. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Thing is, some opinions are plain wrong.
Today is another day of home cooking and reflection. I plan to have some sort of snack tray with pickles, crudites, and prepared snacks. Dinner will be chili with cornbread, which is a home-grown Christmas Eve tradition. If I can figure out the television schedule, I might turn it on and watch a full program or movie. That may be more cultivated than I’m feeling this morning.
On day two of my five-day retreat I feel the first day was a success.
Dinner was tacos using leftover filling with some added hot sauce. I made the sauce using older hot pepper sauces and salsas in the refrigerator and pantry. I also found a jar of “hot vinegar” to add. The pot simmered all day until it reduced in volume by a third. Next I strained out the larger solids and blended them into a paste to store and use separately. The main hot sauce has excellent flavor and displaces any need to buy commercial products well into gardening season. Thumbs way up!
I made a loaf of bread yesterday and it turned out dense. I added too many extras like bulgur wheat, oat bran, and mystery flour, and the yeast wouldn’t rise. I started over this morning with straight all purpose flour and the King Arthur Flour basic recipe. We’ll see how this goes, fingers crossed. If I’m successful, I’ll have a better starting point for using up all the flour-like things in our pantry.
A modest investment in an electric snow blower proved to be wise. I’m of an age where I shouldn’t be out shoveling snow in extreme cold. The electric snow blower is easy and fast. There hasn’t been a lot of snow during this blizzard so I blew the driveway only once. Limited snow is forecast today yet the wind will be continuous, creating drifts. I may go outdoors to shovel the front steps when ambient temperatures get to one degree around 3 p.m. We’ll see.
Organizing was important on day one. I checked the website for used book donations at the public library, and they are pickier than they have been. They recommend books published within the last ten years. Whoever wrote that standard doesn’t understand books. I divided the current culled books into two piles, one for the library used book sale and one to be donated to Goodwill which doesn’t have any criteria on their website. Another hundred books will go out the door once the blizzard relents.
The dining room table is cleared so I brought up my files on medical stuff. They accumulated over the years and I plan to go through them before my spouse returns. Getting that done during these days would be nice.
Overnight we dropped to minus ten degrees. I set the thermostat on 60 and got out the third wool blanket for the bed. My nose was a little cold yet every thing else stayed warm.
I called a friend and we talked about an hour. We have been working on politics together for a long time. I reflected on my favorite political events. Here is a short list of memories revisited:
Stuffing envelopes for the 1964 Lyndon B. Johnson campaign in Davenport.
George McGovern rally at Old Capitol in Iowa City before the 1972 general election.
Standing for Ted Kennedy during the 1980 presidential caucus in Davenport.
Crossing a street in Des Moines when a van load of apparent preachers, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, whizzed by in 1984.
Taking our child into the polling booth with me to vote for Bill Clinton.
Our family attending the 2004 Iowa caucus and standing for John Kerry.
Meeting Barack Obama at the Tom Harkin 2006 Steak Fry near Indianola.
Dave Loebsack’s 2006 campaign.
Being precinct secretary at the 2008 Iowa caucuses.
Seemingly endless Hillary Clinton events in 2016, including getting a selfie with her.
Elizabeth Warren event in Tipton, Iowa in April 2020.
Leading the 2020 precinct caucus and the ensuing reporting snafu..
All these memories are important. I expect to work each of them and more into my autobiography. In addition to politics, there are multiple thematic subjects to include and I haven’t decided how to approach them. This retreat is providing some ideas.
Today is about holiday baking. Bread, an applesauce cake, and at least one batch of cookies are in the works. I donned a stocking cap from the merch store of the Twitch stream I follow and am styling multiple layers this morning. It appears the worst of this blizzard’s cold weather is behind us. The new process of working in the kitchen before arriving at my workspace continues to deliver results. By 10 a.m., I got a lot done.
I decided to make a five day retreat, beginning today, at home. I’m not exactly sure what that means in 2022, yet with our child in Chicago, and my spouse in Des Moines, it’s just me here in Big Grove. It is telling the first thing I did when alone was to create structure.
When I went on a retreat in high school, a bunch of us boys crowded into one of the Saint Ambrose College dormitories for an overnight. The key takeaway had little to do with religion. A couple of classmates filched whisky and dandelion wine from their parents’ liquor cabinet and brought it. While I didn’t drink any, the main point of the weekend was doing what our parents wouldn’t let us. Priests supervised us, but, you know, post Vatican II.
A few things are determined the next few days. For one, I’m changing my morning schedule. Instead of making coffee and heading to my writing desk immediately after waking, I plan to work in the kitchen. With only me in the house, I can make as much noise as I like, when I like, without worrying about disturbing someone. I can turn the radio volume up.
After kitchen work will be reading, the usual minimum of 25 pages per day. The book I’m reading is good, so likely more than that. During the snow storm, clearing the driveway will be important. It’s easier if I blow it a couple of inches at a time, multiple times a day, instead of waiting for it all to accumulate. All these activities are intended to restart old habits, develop new ones, and provide fresh perspective. After “morning chores” the day begins. After today’s regimen I got a lot accomplished by 9 a.m.
While bunkered in during the blizzard I’ll pay more attention to food preparation. There are plenty of provisions and an open book on how much hot pepper I can use in cooking. No fancy dishes, just personal favorites on the spicy side made with butter, eggs and other dairy products.
Dinner was simple when I returned from the road last night: a veggie burger made into a cheeseburger with a bagel for a bun, potato chips, and dill pickles on the side. It served.
Soon, maybe tonight, I will make stuffed bell peppers. Saturday, Christmas eve, will be chili and cornbread. After that, I haven’t decided. Some sort of festive, holiday fare, no doubt.
The reason I need a retreat is to get organized for 2023. The big stuff: writing, gardening, home repair, and cooking are all necessary components. To take a step back and review where I find myself is an important part of setting appropriate goals for the coming year.
I’ll definitely write about the experience daily. I hope some readers will follow along.
At the moment of winter solstice, I hope to be returning home for my day trip. About an hour or so later, the first local snow of the coming winter storm is expected to fall. After arriving home, I’ll bunker in for the duration. It is forecast to be a typical Iowa blizzard. Let’s hope it is that.
Solstice is in the pantheon of end of year family holidays that began last Sunday with our wedding anniversary. Following today, there is Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, a birthday, New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day. Normally the holiday season would extend to Super Bowl Sunday, yet I no longer pay attention to the sporting event. January 1 is the end of the holidays.
We more note the passing days than celebrate them. After our child left Iowa in 2007, we haven’t often spent Christmas together. We settled for visits during this extended holiday season when they were able to come.
Before I started school, ours was a religious home. I lived with Mother and Father and with or near my maternal grandmother. She brought devotion to the Catholic Church along from her native Minnesota. Although she is reputed to have been excommunicated over her second marriage, Christmas, and more particularly Easter, remained important.
Father was not a religious man. He left a King James Bible with his name embossed on it. He presumably got it in his youth. Inside there is a hand-written note of uncertain authorship that begins: “America’s Stake in the Christian Home is a Stake in Christ.” There is also a note saying, “98% of truly Christian homes never broken by divorce.” If he believed that, it would have complicated the close relationship between members of our three-generational home during the 1950s.
He began to get religion after graduating from the Palmer College of Chiropractic. If he began a practice, he would need clients. Joining the Catholic Church, where Mother and Grandmother were already well-embedded, was a way to network among the faithful. When I discussed conversion at age 40 with him, it was a utilitarian matter. He hoped to identify people with needs for chiropractic adjustments. Father didn’t live long enough to join the Catholic Church or pass the state boards and begin a practice. The parish pastor noted his intentions toward conversion during the eulogy at his funeral Mass.
I don’t recall an exact moment when I lost the Catholic religion. I remained reasonably faithful through graduation from a Catholic high school. While my church attendance was less frequent at university, my faith was there. The bishop accepted me for study for the priesthood after graduation. I did not pursue it. While serving in the U.S. Army I attended church when we were on field maneuvers. After my discharge, I recall attending Mass in the church where I was baptized and by then the divide had grown too wide to bridge.
From the time of the Roman Empire through today, people celebrated Winter Solstice in difference cultures. Parts of Saturnalia fit right in with the Western idea of December holidays. As mentioned, I note the day and hope for a safe return from today’s trip.
There will be a lot to consider during the blizzard. I’m ready with gasoline for the generator, an extra stock of water, and plenty of food.
Religion is more on my mind in December than in other months. In a conversation with the local Catholic priest during a random meeting on the state park trail, I asked about reconciliation. Based on our conversation, it will not be possible. I’m okay with that.
Journey Home 
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