Tag: homelife

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Creative Life

It’s Still Spring

Pre-dawn light on the state park trail.

Signs of spring are everywhere: First sets of goslings on the lake with their parents, songbirds throughout the forested area, and earlier morning sunrises. During my at-home retreat, I have been keeping irregular hours and changing most everything about my daily schedule. On Tuesday I slept until first light, immediately dressed, and headed out for my morning walk without any of the normal daily regimen. It felt weird, but I did it. Behind all the schedules and regimen, I’m still me.

I came across what appeared to be a molted feather of a Barred Owl on the trail. Because I hear owls high in the tree canopy in the predawn light, there is ample additional evidence they are around. The feather confirms the species of owl. While researching the feather, I discovered the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which governs such findings. The common outdoor saying, “take only pictures, leave only footprints,” applies here.

Barred Owl feather on the state park trail. The rules, according to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, are to not touch them, tempting as it may be to pick it up and take it home. I took this photo and left it where I found it.

If you’ve been in the spice aisle of a grocery store, the high prices are quite noticeable. A jar of organic dried basil costs $7.75 per ounce at a local chain grocery store. If one buys bulk via mail order, the cost of a pound of the same product is $0.86 per ounce. I bought bulk of basil, marjoram, and parsley and shared the savings by giving some of it away to family.

Dried herbs bought in bulk and then broken down for a gift.

The big spring project is planting the garden. For now, I can stand all the work and hope to continue at least another ten years. Indeed the fresh produce—where I control the inputs—is of high value in our household. The year-to-date expense is running 73.4 percent of 2025. Lower costs have to do with purchases made last year, and reusing fencing, plastic ground cover, and the covered row. I’m not finished spending money but the trend is hopeful. Every pound of home-grown produce displaces money I would have to spend at the grocer or farmers’ market. It is a good way to live.

There was a chance of rain, but not much of a chance. We need rain, but the deep soil moisture is probably sufficient. The recent sunny and windy days have been drying the garden’s surface soil. That’s another spring worry—getting sufficient rain to produce a garden crop. Officials at the National Weather Service say we are near normal. That is good enough for today.

Categories
Living in Society

A Spring Retreat

First gosling spotted on May 6, 2026.

Once or twice a year, my spouse visits her sister in Des Moines. That means, at least in part, I have the house to myself for a week or so, and can cook how I want—more meals that include capsaicin in its varied forms. During these times, I seek to better bind my activities with intent, simplify them, and break existing habits by changing the daily, physical markers that prompt them. If possible, I would re-invent my regimen. That may be a lot for a week.

A primary consideration is that while home alone, everything has new rules. Rules regarding noise, kitchen activities, and access to the washer and dryer. We get along on these topics most of the time, yet I cut loose during the absences: I got caught up on laundry by day two! I made a spicy version of rice and greens! This time there is more intent on my part during our period of separation.

The house is quiet when I wake, so I can walk to the kitchen for a drink of water in my underwear. I’ve been able to move my morning reading to the living room when during normal conditions, she is using it. I frequently wonder what she is doing, then recall she is not here. It is another aspect of breaking set habits. It is surprising how much depends upon her physical presence.

On what was a “normal day,” everything was structured around productivity blocks and task completion. During this retreat, I don’t want a lighter version of that. A different process is at work with fewer work switches, fewer obligations, and more sustained, intentional engagement with one thing at a time. Less planning and more doing. I break loose from the compartments of reading, chores, errands, food prep and writing that occupied my active mind.

Food is a large part of a retreat. Two days after she was gone, I decided to have a two-day fast during which I limited caloric intake, and structured meals so there are more fruits and vegetables in the morning along with two main meals at lunch and dinner. The idea was to stick with the caloric limits, the hope being to help my body with digestion and maintenance.

During a retreat things naturally settle into a pattern. I resist that. I wake early, read in the living room, exercise, then spend long uninterrupted stretches in the garden. By afternoon my clothes are stained with with soil and sweat. The rhythm of digging, planting, and weeding replaces the compartmentalized routines that usually govern the day. Tasks that once felt separate — cooking, watering, reading, laundry, writing — begin to fold into one another.

Habits become visible when I am alone. When the dishes are done before bedtime, I see the empty sinks in the morning and feel ready to fill them again. Unawares, I notice how often I expect to hear another person moving through the house, or delay entering a room because I assume it is occupied. It reveals how much of ordinary life is built from quiet interactions and repeated physical cues rather than conscious decisions.

By the end of the week, I doubt I will have reinvented myself. I will be thankful for the brief chance to examine my life while habits loosened. Retreat enables me to eat differently, work differently, move differently through the house, and remember that habits are not permanent fixtures so much as paths worn into the carpet by repetition. Some days I want to vacuum it all up and start over.

Categories
Creative Life

Time Management While Aging

Footbridge over a field runoff creek into Lake Macbride.

I spent time Sunday working on how to use my time. The two parts were structuring days into time blocks and working to better define tasks listed for accomplishment. This post details some of what I did.

The natural breaks in my days at home are by time.

  • From waking at or before 4 a.m., I have a combination of routine morning things (calisthenics, breakfast, exercise, reading, writing), and unstructured creative time.
  • There are three pomodoros of 50 minutes each, beginning at 8 a.m. Each ends with a ten-minute break. I schedule activities for these pomodoros the day prior.
  • A break at 11 a.m. to have lunch, run errands, and perform household chores. Check social media, email, blog performance. This breaks up the day.
  • At 1 p.m., two pomodoros of 50 minutes each with a ten minute break in between.
  • Once the pomodoros are finished, I head to the kitchen to do dishes and begin preparing dinner.
  • 5 p.m. is a social hour with my spouse plus dinner, usually together.
  • Evening check in on social media, email, household tasks, and chores. Followed by sleep.

These time periods follow a natural rhythm developed since the coronavirus pandemic. While I need to watch the clock sometimes, there is a flow from one activity to the next that sometimes runs over. Almost always, I follow the seam toward completion if I can.

I need to learn to be more outcome oriented than task oriented. For example, clear one garden plot of debris from last season and till represents an outcome. It provides more structure than simply writing on the planner to spend time in the garden. Deliverables matter.

A main question is how will I structure more complex projects that span multiple days, weeks, and months? The good thing about the pomodoros structure is they force breaking complex tasks into do-able work units. This will be another learning process.

I was already using this structure unawares. We all need to maintain productivity and keep our daily routines fresh. When it seems like work, the system requires corrective action.

Categories
Home Life

2026 Walkabout

Mulberry tree lost some additional branches over winter, yet will still leaf out.

Last week I made my annual inspection of trees, bushes, and plants growing on our property. The large ones continue to deteriorate after the 2020 derecho damage. My rule is as long as they leaf out, I will leave them for another year. There will be an all-day project of cutting dead branches and making firewood from them.

The Pin Oak is in the best shape of the old ones, and the two new apple trees are coming right along. After cutting lilacs back dramatically, they are almost fully recovered. The legacy apple trees continue to die out, with only three of six left. The Red Delicious tree lost major branches during the derecho, and another large branch died over winter. There may be a harvest next year if it makes it that long.

I like the open spaces I created in the yard. The main pathway from the 25-acre woods to points west of our home is frequently used by deer. They leave their footprints all along the way. There don’t seem to be as many nesting songbirds in the row of trees with apple, pear, spruce, and mulberry. They seem to have moved across the yard to the neighbor’s patch of scrub growth. Maybe the nestlings are better shielded from predators there.

Due to moles and voles, our yard looks pretty disreputable. I have never been one to invest time or money in maintaining a lawn. Maybe it’s time to turn everything into an edible garden if I have the energy for that scale of work. In the meanwhile, the first mowing will reveal if there is anything positive about the lawn.

The next part of walkabout is climbing on the roof to inspect the shingles. I’ll wait until the maple tree begins to distribute seeds and clean the gutters at the same time.

This spring ritual has become a part of me. Here are a few photos from walkabout.

Autumn Blaze Maple Damage.
Autumn Blaze Maple leafing out.
Major crack in the Pin Oak tree trunk.
Healing on the Pin Oak where I cut of a dead branch.
The Red Delicious apple tree is a goner, yet there may be another harvest in 2027.
The Blue Spruce is losing needles on the side toward an Earliblaze apple tree.
Categories
Living in Society

Immigrants on an Iowa Roof

Ready to Install the New Roof in 2011.

Since making this post on May 1, 2011, society’s view of ICE has deteriorated for good reason. The problem with illegal workers runs right up to a home owner’s front door where choices are made. This post is unchanged.

While walking in the neighborhood last fall it was hard not to notice a gang of 21 roofers working on a neighbor’s house. The job of removing and replacing the shingles took about 5 hours. It looked like there was not enough room for all of them up on that roof.  I tracked down the foreman and asked him to price my roof and after a few measurements, he quoted a very low price. He worked as a subcontractor during the week and on weekends he sought additional direct work to keep his crew busy.

On Wednesday, nine people were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement Officers in Hiawatha, Iowa at a roofing job site. They could not produce paperwork indicating their immigration status, were detained, and then charged with immigration violations. All of them were from Mexico. We have yet to hear about what may be the real crime in this incident.

According to the news story, Eastern Iowa Construction (EIC) sub-contracted the Hiawatha roofing job to a business in Iowa City. What this means is that EIC made a sales commission on the job and did not perform the actual work. Photographs in the news story showed that the equipment on the site belonged to EIC. They likely received financial consideration for that as well. Nothing wrong here as that is what business is about, buying low and selling dear. Did EIC know the sub-contractor engaged undocumented workers to perform the labor? Hard to image they did not.

The question is about the sub-contractor. Did he comply with Federal Immigration law? Obviously not adequately. Did the sub-contractor pay the minimum wage? Maybe. But do the math on a roofing job. There is not enough to pay for the supplies, disposal of the old shingles, the sales commission, the subcontractor’s gross margin and a living wage for nine workers. This is the untold crime in the news story, the exploitation of undocumented workers.

While negotiating a new roof on our house, the author refused to sign a contract as long as the roofer kept language that he could sub-contract the work. He told me he needed to keep this option open, and it seemed most of his customers did not question that provision. I gave the job to someone who would do the work themselves without subcontracting.

We live in a society of law and crimes should be punished. Some portray ICE agents as the bad guys, when they are doing their job. Where are the unions in this picture? Where are the home owners to specify contractors who comply with the law instead of taking a lowest price based on worker exploitation?

One hopes the nine workers arrested by ICE make it home safely, and that in Iowa, home owners will start being concerned with the rights of workers as much as they are concerned with trying to maintain a life style in a time of austerity. It is easy to blame our problems on undocumented immigrants, on ICE, and on a host of others. These problems can literally be solved much closer to home.

Categories
Living in Society

Books, Too Many Books

Tired woman in the library.
Photo by Ron Lach on Pexels.com

We are out of storage space in the house, so something has to go.

Before the library’s March 7, annual used book sale, I donated more than 600 books. It was pleasurable seeing them laying on tables in the main meeting room while people browsed through them. I hadn’t realized how many French language books I had until I saw them together in a box on a table. The donation process continues. I named it “The Great Book Sort” and made an entry on my daily planner with no ending date.

This is a form of curation unlike others I began. My process is developing, yet the main activities were to clear my five-foot-squared sorting table and place a box or two at a time on it. As I take them out of the box, some go directly into the stacks in my writing space, others into a box for donation. The rest are divided into piles to keep, maybe to keep, books that can easily be checked out from the library, and those relegated to the garage or to the bedside table. By the time I’m done, the 3,000 spaces in my writing room will reflect my reading life, and part of my intellectual history.

I did some advance work. First, I decided the only authors whose works I will keep in their entirety are Saul Bellow, Joan Didion, William Carlos Williams, and John Irving. They rest on the top shelf to my left, watching over my every activity.

I mentioned my nine shelves of poetry in another post. There is a presidential history section which needs curating. Same with art books, regional history, reference books, farming-related books, and American Studies topics (native, black, women, and pioneer culture).

I began culling cookbooks. The two remaining shelves are ones I expect to use and the rest are either gone or in several boxes in the stacks to be reviewed once more, then likely donated. We have a project list that includes a new cabinet in the dining room for cookbooks. We are a distance from actually getting that. The recipes I keep in the kitchen are handwritten in spiral bound books and a collection of papers clipped together. Mostly this system works.

Part of this curation will be to refine the categories of what is on the shelves. Right now there are too many categories.

A home library is personal. My story in books is evolving from random collections into something more usable in daily life. I will never read everything again, yet the comfort of good books, carefully curated and surrounding me is a net positive. The Great Book Sort is a project worth doing.

Categories
Living in Society

Miles Toward Spring

At the Belvidere Oasis on March 6, 2026.

I listened to WBBM Newsradio on the drive into Chicago, just as I’ve done since the 1980s. The steady patter of headlines, weather, and traffic “on the eights” prepares you for the city — by the time the skyline is near, you’re already in tune with heavy traffic. That morning they were running a contest for tickets to Madama Butterfly at the Lyric Opera House, a bit of high culture drifting through the stream of brake lights, engine noise, and honking horns.

It had been a foggy morning, with Southwest Airlines canceling 113 flights, according to the radio. To bypass toll roads, my map application routed me through rural central Illinois, where farmers were already in the fields. Old-style telephone poles ran parallel to the highway, their double wires fading in and out of the fog. Beyond them lay tan and brown fields waiting for spring.

After reaching my destination in the western suburbs, my host put me directly to work assembling a piece of IKEA furniture. Once you learn to read the pictograms, the parts go together with ease.

It was spring-cleaning time, and I was there to help. After the IKEA project, I adjusted the rolling screen door leading to the patio, unpacked and sorted boxes of personal belongings, and helped assemble a shelving unit. It was a physically busy two days with our child near Chicago. By the time I got home, I was sore in places I didn’t know existed.

The best part of the trip was being with our child, sometimes talking and sometimes not. Working together on projects made the trip worthwhile.

After a day of driving and work, my hosts served a vegetarian curry for dinner. I enjoyed the table conversation — particularly the part about Chicago politics — and we covered how the work environment had changed and is changing. It creates a constant uncertainty, whether it is getting a resume format correct, social behavior at work, or diminished expectations for career advancement. As a member of the boomer generation, I took a bit of good-natured flak about how easy I had it. I didn’t argue. The work paradigm shifted.

I was up early the next day. The instant espresso in my travel bag helps in an unfamiliar place: I can make my own coffee while the household slumbers. The plan that day was a trip to buy groceries when Aldi opened.

Grocery shopping is different when a person doesn’t have a lot of money. When an item attracts interest, there is an immediate query into low-cost grocers like Walmart to compare prices. When the budget is tight, spending a few minutes cost-comparing is time well spent.

We wore face masks into the grocer. When money is tight, it is not worth the risk of exposure to influenza, COVID-19, or other human-transmitted diseases. Being sick means less time to earn income, and that matters.

After groceries were put away, we said our goodbyes and I got into the car — packed with boxes traveling with me into storage — and headed to the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway, westward bound. It is good to be with family, even if only a short while.

I stopped at the Belvidere Oasis which was busy and noisy with commercial drivers talking on Bluetooth devices. There was little social distance between us. I ate a large Caesar salad for lunch, then headed west.

It was raining when I started, yet the sky cleared toward the Mississippi River. WVIK Public Radio in Rock Island came into range, a marker of getting closer to home. Familiar miles passed quickly.

Entering Iowa, I turned off the radio and focused on the road ahead, taking in a landscape on the cusp of spring.

Categories
Home Life

In Mid-Winter

Before sunrise on the state park trail on Feb. 4, 2026.

It’s hard to believe half of winter is gone. Ambient temperature pushed toward freezing Wednesday afternoon, yet it didn’t quite make it. The lake remains frozen.

While I planned for it, political work on Sunday and Monday took a lot of energy. I’ve been recovering ever since. I finished the work by writing a personal note to each voter who attended caucus. The letter carrier just picked those up.

So today is a photo and a couple of paragraphs while I continue regaining energy. Life could be worse than that.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Using Apple Butter

Apple Blossoms

Although 2025 was an “on year” for apples — all five trees bore fruit — I skipped making apple butter because there were more than three dozen pints in the pantry. I need more uses for the thick, sweet, and tasty condiment than spreading on toasted bread and muffins, dolloping on applesauce cake, and spooning it on pancakes. It turns out there are more preparations I hadn’t thought about.

As a vegetarian household, using apple butter in meat cooking, while popular elsewhere, is not viable. That isn’t the end of the discussion. One must change their way of thinking about apple butter. It is good as a spread, yet can be considered as a fruit-based sweetener, thick apple concentrate, or a spiced apple paste. These considerations open a whole new world. It could be used as a replacement for honey, molasses, or applesauce without much recipe variation. Following are some ideas to try.

The first thing I did was to dish up a serving of plain Greek yogurt and swirl two tablespoons of aronia berry apple butter into it. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before, yet after trying it, apple butter will be a recurring breakfast menu item to pair with yogurt.

We already use applesauce as an egg replacement in baking. Our corn muffins, or any other muffins serve as a useful home for it to replace an egg. The texture is always moist, firm and tasty. I will just substitue apple butter and use a bit less.

Using it on grilled cheese sandwiches hadn’t occurred to me. It might pair well with the sharp cheddar cheese I use to make them. I make about one grilled cheese sandwich per month, and next time I will spread some apple butter on it to discover the flavor.

We are not big cake eaters or bakers. We do have a recipe for a spice cake. Next time we make it, we will try substituting apple butter for the oil. Based on the experience with applesauce cake and muffins, I bet it will be moist and delicious, as well as change the spice profile.

I found a recipe for a barbecue sauce or ketchup that includes apple butter, tomato paste, vinegar, onion and garlic powder, and spices. There is nothing to lose by making a batch and trying it.

There was a recipe for a salad dressing made from one tablespoon each of apple butter, extra virgin olive oil, vinegar and mustard. Simple. The way we like our recipes.

Substituting apple butter for the sweetened, condensed oat milk I use when making steel cut oats is a possibility. The spices will add a variation in flavor. I make this dish about twice per month and will try it next time.

The next “on year” for apples is forecast for 2027. Hopefully I will use most of the apple butter in the pantry by then and make new.

Categories
Living in Society

Something Different

Trail Walking on Jan. 12, 2026.

These are tough times for a lot of people I know. Hang in there, folks! The weird weather is causing the ice to melt and maybe some good will come of it. If not, spring is coming.

“Nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land, grew especially strong in spring.” —Vladimir Nabokov

This morning I consider my pancreas. Yes, the mixed-function organ that helps with digestion and regulates blood sugar levels. I am mostly interested because of its role in the latter. The pancreas is a key organ in managing diabetes, with which I was diagnosed in May 2019.

I asked my new acquaintance, for which I have not determined a name, artificial intelligence. (NB: The name HAL has been ruled out). “What are two or three dietary intakes a person can use to promote pancreas health. No more than three.” The machine was uncharacteristically brief, taking my request for brevity literally:

Here are three dietary intakes commonly associated with supporting pancreas health:

  1. High-fiber foods – vegetables, legumes, whole grains; help regulate blood sugar and reduce pancreatic workload.
  2. Healthy fats (especially omega-3s) – fatty fish, flaxseed, walnuts; may reduce inflammation.
  3. Adequate lean protein – fish, poultry, beans; supports tissue repair without excessive fat stress.

AI apparently did not get the word that according to our Secretary of Health and Human Services, the war on protein is over. Nary a cow or hog product on this list of dietary intakes. Perhaps there remains some science on the internet, the domain of artificial intelligence. Perhaps the secretary and his minions have just not gotten this far in their propaganda campaign. In a throwback to when these things mattered, the machine cautioned, “general wellness guidance, not medical advice.”

As a mostly ovo-lacto vegetarian, I find this a good list. I can figure out where dairy fits in, although I know I should control how much of that I eat. Four dozen chicken eggs per year does not seem like a lot. I consume about two gallons of nonfat fluid cow’s milk per week. Cheese consumption is on the radar screen. I am eating more cottage cheese and it is displacing some of the cheddar cheese. I smear some sour cream on tacos instead of cheddar or Mexican-style cheese, although I do that for the flavor and not the fat content, which is higher. I should and likely will switch sour cream for nonfat Greek yogurt on Taco Tuesdays.

Eating more fiber is always a challenge. I have been tracking that number on an app, and in the first 12 days of 2026 I hit or exceeded my goal every day but one. Fiber is also good for my colon, according to physicians.

Regarding healthy fats, I need some work. The first thing I will do is replace the peanuts and raw cashews I eat with almonds, both raw and roasted. I need, or think I need a salted snack each day. I use about one to two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil each day, and that falls into the “healthy” category, although I use water or broth as a cooking medium where it makes sense. I’m not a big seed eater, yet we have ground flax meal on hand and I could, and hopefully will, add it to more things. Chia and hemp seeds are readily available at the wholesale club, so I may get a bag of each and experiment with them. With regard to nut butters, I use Jif peanut butter, full fat-style, and that is that. Moderation is the key with Jif.

I have been able to reduce my A1C with diet since my 2019 diagnosis. The number went a little crazy when I contracted COVID-19, yet since then, my practitioner said it is managed. The thing is, unless deterioration of the pancreas is caught early and treated through diet and exercise to lose weight, the damage is often irreversible.

I have not thought a lot about my pancreas. Now that I’m living in my eighth decade, it is time. We can either get older and die, or we can get older and wiser. I prefer the latter, hence the focus today on the pancreas.