Tag: environment

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Kitchen Garden

Kitchen Garden Day

d’Avignon Radishes

Plants and seeds are going into the ground — the main spring event in a kitchen garden.

Harvest is ramping up with d’Avignon radishes, spinach, cilantro and chives heading to the kitchen.

I planned cilantro for my gardener’s lunch, and the spinach has been cleaned — some frozen and some in a big, recycled plastic clam shell chilling in the ice box. Chives will be for dinner and the radishes for snacks and salads.

This is why we have a kitchen garden.

Yesterday I spent ten hours working in the garden. Big projects were making a space for zucchini and Marketmore cucumber seedlings, and mowing the lawn for the grass clipping mulch. I removed seedling rings from the kale, mulched garlic with a bale of wheat straw, and studied small sprouts to determine which were from planted seeds and which weeds. It’s not clear. Weeding and mulching are so commonplace it’s almost not worth recounting. It’s assumed.

Garlic Patch

Weather was perfect for being outdoors.

The harvest began before the garden is fully planted. Tomato and pepper seedlings mature in the greenhouse while celery plants are ready to go into the ground as soon as I can find time and a space. There are pickling cucumbers and green beans to go somewhere, winter squash to plant. The combination of planting, harvesting and cooking — kitchen gardening — will continue throughout the growing season.

I stopped around noon and made lunch — fresh cilantro tacos.

Fresh Cilantro Tacos

Using pantry ingredients — storage onions, garlic, recipe crumbles, salt and home blended seasonings — I made a filling. I cooked tortillas in a large frying pan, and finely cut cilantro stems and ribboned the leaves. I topped the filling with halved grape tomatoes from California and fresh cilantro, which made the dish.

I bartered for a spring share at the farm so there are bags of greens in the ice box. We had a tub of firm tofu, so I decided on stir fry for dinner. Making stir fry is a way to use up vegetables.

I started two cups of raw brown rice in a quart of home made vegetable broth. I fried the tofu in olive oil, cut in half-inch by one and a half inch square slabs, then set them aside.

Included in the stir fry were baby kale (stems and leaves), carrots, onion, celery, garlic, pine nuts, halved grape tomatoes, red cabbage, a teaspoon of lemon juice and salt. Once the vegetables were soft, I spooned the mixture over a bed of rice and topped with spring onions and chives. It made four servings.

I texted Carmen to get the work forecast at the farm on Sunday. A light load of seedling trays is planned. After farm work, it’s back to the kitchen garden.

Categories
Kitchen Garden Living in Society

Farmers Talk Land Use

Ready to Exit Stage Left if Proceedings get Dull

The room was packed for the Johnson County Board of Supervisors public hearing on the County’s comprehensive plan. Current and would-be farmers were present and spoke about their profession. The hearing took two and a half hours.

Supervisors have been working on the plan for two years and would like to finish it and move on to what matters more, the Unified Development Ordinance, which codifies how the plan will be implemented. Last night’s public hearing brought the county closer to closure, even if the subject of land use will continue to be debated well beyond my years of walking the earth.

The main points were the 40-acre rule for definition of a farm is an obstacle to beginning farmers, and there is a wide difference of opinion regarding the role of animal feeding operations in producing the beef, pork and chicken non-vegetarians love to eat.

The Frequently Asked Questions page of the plan website addressed the first issue, “Will the new Comprehensive plan change the 40-acre rule?” Short answer is no. While officials expressed a desire to accommodate smaller farms during the process of developing the comprehensive plan, one expects the 40-acre rule to remain intact. A farmer can make a living on less than ten acres, especially if they can benefit from the State Code’s agricultural exemption from county zoning regulations. The path is unclear to enable farmers to acquire smaller parcels that would be zoned as ag exempt. There may not be a path, except by supervisors establishing special criteria and deciding each parcel individually on its merits. That’s no way to go. Not only is it labor intensive the politics of the board can and will change over time. People have spoken on the issue. Now it’s time to see what supervisors do.

If people want meat and meat products, livestock will be raised to meet demand. The words “concentrated animal feeding operation” have become a lightening rod of tumult about livestock production. Many do eat meat and few non-farmers want to live next to a livestock production facility. In any case, the State of Iowa maintains preemption over concentrated animal feeding operations. Under Republican control of government, preemption is here to stay. I doubt that would change under Democratic governance. People like their pulled pork, fried chicken, hamburgers and steaks, and it has to come from somewhere. Environmentally it would be better for humans to source protein from plants. If you believe they will over the near term, stand on your head.

The highlight of the hearing was a grader and son of a farmer who read an essay titled, My Barn. “I see my cows Jake and Nick coming up to me because they’re excited for me to rub their noses,” he said. “They feel as soft as a teddy bear.” The hearing engaged several livestock farmers. The ones who raised cattle and hogs took issue with persecution of their trade and the appellation “CAFO.” They said treatment of animals was humane on their farms.

There was insider baseball about the new map to accompany the comprehensive plan. My view is “whatever.” Let the supervisors decide based on best practices. There’s no going back to the way the land was before it was settled. It’s already been ruined by development and that happened in the 19th Century. The North Corridor Development Area has been designated as a buildable area in the plan in order to preserve county farmland. When one flies over it, it’s clear it has been settled from the outskirts of Iowa City and Coralville all the way to the county line. Everyone who has a strong opinion on the NCDA has an ox being gored. Speaker and naturalist Connie Mutel made the best case about how the new map was developed using “best practices.” Managing development in the county is like carrying water in a half empty leaking bucket.

Despite the serious nature of the presentations last night was fun. I got a chance to see friends and acquaintances in the context of working together to resolve issues of beginning farmers. That counts for something and in these turbulent times where would we be without that?

Categories
Environment Kitchen Garden

Bringing Food Home

Farmers Market Food

A relationship with food in American society is complicated.

Some don’t have enough. Others are awash in calories. We each have a human need for nourishment and the ways we go about meeting it are as different as the families which engendered us.

A favorite childhood memory is when Mother went to work in the school cafeteria after the Catholic Church built a new grade school near our home. With other women like her, she took a list of ingredients based partly on government programs (including lots of cheese) and partly on a limited budget, and made meals that included such dishes as porcupine meatballs (hamburger and rice) and grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup. Father worked at the meat packing plant which had an employee butcher shop where he could buy beef, pork and meat products at a discount, and did. The idea of stretching hamburger by mixing it with cooked rice was a novelty in our household and eventually we implored Mother to make porcupine meatballs for us at home, just like the ones at school. She did.

This story of external culinary practices coming into our home is essential to understanding the rise of a diverse diet in American society. We see things out there, they look good, and we want them. Most people, including low-wage workers, have or find the means to get them.

Many books, careers and lives have been based on food in society. We are an individualized rather than generalized culture with regard to food acquisition, preparation and consumption. To a large extent, the rise of the modern mega grocery store has shaped our eating habits in ways no one would have expected. Much ink has been spilled about that and I’m less interested in regurgitating my slice of it.

What I do know is local food farmers work hard for the sparse income they garner. All farmers do. The local food movement of which they are a part is based on the hope more people will bring locally produced, raw ingredients produced in a sustainable manner into their kitchens, ice boxes and pantries. Enough people do for a small group of farmers to make a living.

In many ways the increased interest in local food is the same type of behavior that took place in our home in the 1960s. We experience surprise when our CSA share includes Broccoli Raab, Koji or Bok Choy. We learn how to eat and cook them and want more. It’s not that our home nourishment plan is boring. We want and enjoy the experience of creation as it relates to cooking and eating. We want that experience to be personal and shared with family. That is very American.

I concede promotion of local food is a form of consumerism no different from a tomato catsup purveyor who spends dollars on an advertising campaign to enhance sales. The same behavioral forces are at work. I’m okay with that.

Just so you know, I’m not bewitched by the allure of eating a kale salad, at least not yet. Suffice it to say the diversity and behavior regarding food in our household with its kitchen garden, farm sourcing and grocery shopping has some unique qualities that may not be of interest to the authors of the Michelin Guide, but make our lives a little better. That too is very American. That’s part of who I am, who we Americans all are.

Categories
Environment Writing

Earth Day Weekend 2018

Earthrise Dec. 24, 1968

Earth Day is and will always be about this photo taken by the Apollo 8 astronauts on the first manned mission to the moon.

“The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth,” command module pilot Jim Lovell said from lunar orbit.

With a perspective six inches from our noses, we often forget who we are and how we fit into the vast reaches of the universe. We are a speck in a place larger than we can imagine.

When I participated in the first Earth Day as a senior in high school, the idea we should work together for peace, reduce pollution, and care for the environment seemed obvious. Even much reviled President Richard Nixon got it — society had to do something to address clean air, clean water and endangered species.

Earth Day is a chance to revisit this iconic photograph. When we consider a broader perspective, as the photograph encourages us to do, little has changed on Earth since it was taken. Our troubles seem petty compared to the overriding fact Earth is our only home. We are all in this together.

As much as societies seek to delineate metes and bounds, there are no borders on the globe. There is only one society of which we are all a part.

This Earth Day I’ll be working at home in my garden. A late spring created pent up demand for outdoors work. For the last four weeks, one excuse after another delayed needed work, yet now I’m ready to release the floodgates.

Not before I consider this photo one more time.

Categories
Environment Living in Society

Letter to the Johnson County Board of Supervisors

Woman Writing Letter

Dear Lisa, Mike, Kurt, Janelle and Rod,

It’s funny how when one gets all the information the picture looks different.

Since I complained about the purchase of Dick Schwab and Katherine Burford’s property using conservation bond money after partial information was leaked via our local newspaper, I wanted to get back to you now that the purchase has been made public.

The fact Burford/Schwab donated the developed portion of the property mitigates my concern about how bond money is being used. In fact, because of that, the plan, as explained in the Press Citizen, complies with what I said in my March 7 email. “I hope and expect you to vote no on the acquisition of this property using conservation bond money.” My concerns are rendered moot because of the donation.

On reflection, this decision was a good one for which the board should be commended. It is also consistent with conversations I have had with Schwab about how he planned to dispose of his property.

While I continue to be dissatisfied by the partial leakage of information, I have no beef with you.

Thanks for your service on the board of supervisors.

Regards, Paul

Categories
Living in Society

Letter to the Solon Economist

Woman Writing Letter

Someone broke the law to leak information about the county’s potential purchase of property with conservation bond money.

In a closed session of the full board of supervisors, with five staff members present, one or more of them broke the trust of being invited by leaking information about property the conservation board was considering for purchase. He or she broke the law.

The news made its way to the Solon Economist last week in the form of a letter written by two grey-haired Iowa City liberals. They made a case against a potential purchase most of us hadn’t heard about. Their biased opinions fill otherwise empty space about this topic. The letter raised questions about how they got their information.

“Someone flagrantly broke the law,” wrote Supervisor Rod Sullivan on his weekly blog. “She or he ought to face consequences. This was not an accidental slip. This was a purposeful, devious violation of the law.”

I’m all for a robust debate of how the county spends our tax dollars. If last week’s letter is true, I question whether buying the property is an appropriate way to spend conservation bond money.

However, I support the rule of law and the leaker should be sought out and receive due process for committing a crime.

Early and illegal notice about conservation fund spending did not benefit public discussion one bit.

~ Published in the Solon Economist on March 15, 2018

Categories
Environment Living in Society

Letter to the Johnson County Supervisors

Woman Writing Letter

Dear Lisa, Mike, Kurt, Janelle and Rod,

Your vote on the acquisition of Dick Schwab’s property will make it easy for me to determine for whom to vote in this year’s June primary and who to support going forward.

I know the property involved better than most and have worked and spent time with Dick there. In my discussions with him he made it clear he would donate the property to what is now the Bur Oak Trust. I don’t know what changed his mind, but it is human to reap a profit and I’m not surprised he seeks a buyer as he makes his exit from Johnson County.

Maybe I misunderstood his intent. I’m human too.

It is not clear what portions of his property are included in this transaction, as I just found out about it in the newspaper tonight. It isn’t clear what exactly is proposed.

The fact is what I know of this property is well developed and does not seem a good use of the limited conservation bond funds set aside. I hope and expect you to vote no on the acquisition of this property using conservation bond money.

I don’t usually weigh in on your activities, but this one is important enough for me to do so.

Good luck with your decision.

Regards, Paul

Categories
Environment Sustainability

Issues Come Home to Roost

Democratic Committee Volunteers Meeting in North Liberty, Iowa

In September I asserted we should be working to stop nuclear weapons and protect the environment. A year into Trump’s first term it’s clear I understated this need.

The Trump administration rolled out it’s nuclear posture review and oh brother. Obama was bad enough with the $1 trillion modernization plan he negotiated with Arizona Senator Jon Kyl to get the New START Treaty ratified. Our new president is off the charts mad regarding the nuclear complex, or as Rolling Stone‘s Matt Taibbi described him, “insane and ignorant.” There’s a lot to do to resist.

On the environment, it’s as if the Trump administration handed the keys to the front door to the wolves who have been howling and trying to get inside where we live. Ryan Zinke at Interior has reduced the size of some national monuments to make way for exploitation of oil and gas deposits; Scott Pruitt at the Environmental Protection Agency seeks to roll back regulations that protect us to loosen the regulatory chains he claims bind business; Rick Perry at Energy seeks to change the paradigm of growing renewable energy resources to one of increasing stockpiles of coal, oil and uranium. The plan was preconceived and executed with dizzying speed.

What to do to resist?

The focus has to be on electing Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections. Reason doesn’t matter to the Trumpkins. They understand political power. All efforts for the next eight months should be toward re-taking the U.S. Senate and/or House of Representatives, and to make inroads in the state of Iowa by electing a Democratic Governor and re-taking the house or senate or both.

It’s really that focused, that simple. Will a Democratic government get us what we want? The Obama administration nationally and the Culver-Judge administration in Iowa stand as examples it won’t. Regaining political power will re-establish our dominance and hold the wolves at bay, and that may be the best we can hope for this year.

It would be something positive in a government currently overrun with pirates seeking to loot the treasury and pillage the commons. As a society we can do better than this. We must pick our battles carefully and from today’s vantage point there is a lot to bring us together to stem the tide against reason. Nuclear abolition and protecting the environment are both worth our efforts. There are broader currents to bring us together during this election cycle.

Categories
Environment Living in Society Social Commentary

Solon City Council Steps Up

Column in the Cedar Rapids Gazette

The City of Solon acted as a good neighbor on Dec. 20 when its city council voted 4-1 to provide water to Gallery Acres West, a subdivision three miles west of the city.

The subdivision sought water service to help resolve its long-standing non-compliance with revised drinking water standards for arsenic published by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Who wants arsenic in their drinking water? It depends.

In 1975, EPA set a standard of 50 ppb of arsenic for public water systems based on a Public Health Service standard established in 1942. In 1999, the National Academy of Sciences concluded 50 ppb did not achieve EPA’s goal of protecting public health and should be lowered as soon as possible to allay long-term risks of low level exposure to arsenic.

EPA now has a goal of zero arsenic in public water systems however the goal is not technically feasible. The agency acknowledged there is a trade off between the cost of removing arsenic and its public health benefits.

“After careful consideration of the benefits and the costs,” an EPA fact sheet issued in 2001 said, “EPA has decided to set the drinking water standard for arsenic higher than the technically feasible level of 3 parts per billion (ppb) because EPA believes that the costs would not justify the benefits at this level.”

After multiple public hearings, EPA set the rule for arsenic at 10 ppb and public water systems were given five years after the arsenic rule was published to comply.

Some of us who manage public water systems took the new rule seriously and endeavored to comply. Others did not, and that leads us to Gallery Acres West. Their water system had its first violation of the new arsenic standard in 2002, failed to take action to reduce arsenic in their water system, and in 2015 was threatened with legal action by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to force compliance.

During an Oct. 30 telephone call, I asked Mark Steiger, president of the Gallery Acres West home owners association, why they had not complied with the 2001 arsenic rule. He told me it was the cost of compliance. With only 14 homes in their association compliance would run thousands of dollars per household. I get it. As president of a home owners association that managed the same compliance issue for our public water system with 85 homes, it cost us $2,823.83 plus interest per household to upgrade our treatment facility to remove arsenic. In Gallery Acres West’s trade off between the cost of arsenic removal and public health, cost trumped health and residents continue to use drinking water with high arsenic content and will until they hook up to Solon.

The proliferation of development in unincorporated areas raises an issue of the quality of management in home owners associations. There are perceived freedoms in living in a small, insular community away from city life. There is also a cost. Things that could be taken for granted in a municipality require attention and potential action in rural Iowa.

It’s a good thing Gallery Acres West is close to a municipality willing to do their work for them.

~ First published on Dec. 27, 2017 in the Cedar Rapids Gazette

Categories
Environment Home Life

Watching it Rain

After the Rain

I’m sitting in the back of my pickup truck, the tailgate is down. Gentle summer rain is falling. The tips of my toes are getting wet but I don’t mind. We need the rain.

In Des Moines political parties are holding their conventions. I followed the action on social media, but not closely.

Breeze from the rain is cooling my forehead. It feels quite good. It is much better than working on a computer, or thinking about politics.

This afternoon I tried pulling weeds in the garden. The ground was so dry they broke off at the surface. Now, after this long gentle rain, the roots should loosen and weeding be done more easily.

Wind is blowing from the west and my knees are getting spattered with rain. I still don’t mind.

Dozens of birds are out in yards around the neighborhood. They don’t mind rain either. All of nature seems to welcome the rain.

Lightning and boomers are starting to roll in. The rain continues to fall gently and steadily.

Some nights it is best to just listen to the rain, and so I will tonight.

~ First posted June 16, 2012