Tag: homelife

Categories
Home Life Writing

Moving On to Fall

July 15 Harvest

My supervisor at the orchard called yesterday to ask me to work this weekend. I said yes.

We’ll be selling blueberries from Michigan for a few hours on Saturday and we’ll discuss plans for the upcoming season.

It is my earliest start in six seasons. It’s also a sign the year is on the back slope. Fall will soon arrive.

Being home more has helped make the garden our best ever. Just an hour a day after planting has been enough time. Some of the new techniques: using composted chicken manure for fertilizer, mulching pepper and cucumber plants immediately after planting, using a fence to grow cucumbers, and putting a deer fence around the tomatoes have facilitated Mother Nature’s growth. I still haven’t had to buy a single onion or head of garlic at the store this year. We are eating something fresh from the garden daily.

I’m used to having events to which to look forward. That means I’m not used to the five-day weekends semi-retirement and completion of spring farm work brought this July. I’ve been doing a lot of resting in between activities. I’ve made a conscious effort to reduce the number of activities. So resting outranks doing for the time being.

Based on more than 50 years in the workforce, I’m used to a scheduled shift being the focal point of each day. In retirement, that changes and will take accommodation.The idea is not to replace work shifts with other, different kinds of events. Rather focus on awareness of tasks being required and doing them as needs rise to the surface of our new lives together.

For example, I planted 48 celery plants. Yesterday I harvested five to see how they were growing. I trimmed the heads of bad stalks and used what was salvageable in a stir fry for lunch. The five cores, or what grocery stores call “hearts” I bagged and refrigerated for later. What I learned was celery is about ready for harvest and that means a big project of cleaning, trimming, slicing and freezing for winter use in soup and stir fry. That task is lingering and will rise up soon.

The point of retirement is to perform tasks like this in time, but when fancy deems best. It would be a waste not to get this done, but I’m reluctant to write it on my calendar. I’d rather wait for the right intersection of seasonable temperatures, personal energy and peak vegetable readiness. That time will reveal itself outside the unforgiving tyranny of a calendar.

Milkweed Pods Growing

Even the milkweed plants are doing well this year. I did little other than weed around them and cut away the vines wanting to grow up the stem. Several plants are forming seed pods. I’ll learn a little bit about them and harvest the seeds to grow more in a different spot. Someday I hope to see a butterfly caterpillar on one of them.

It looks like as I’m writing the presser in Helsinki, Finland with Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump is about to begin. A reporter claiming to be from The Nation has been forcibly removed. Neither leader is a fan of a free press, although both use it to their advantage when they can. We also know about the many journalists who “disappeared” under Putin. I’d rather look at butterflies than think about U.S. – Russian relations. It’s hard to avoid, just like it’s hard to stop thinking about my next work shift.

If we’re to change habits, we have to work at it. That may be why I continue to write these posts, work at the orchard, and at the home, farm and auto supply store… for now. My life would be worse without it.

Categories
Home Life Kitchen Garden

Onslaught of the Mechanicals

First Carrots

Having time to garden is helping the results.

It is one thing to know what to do and another to execute according to that knowledge.

For the first time in I can’t remember when weeds did not get the better of me this summer. With plenty of grass clippings for mulch, and plastic to suppress weeds around the cucumbers and peppers, everything looks pretty good.

There is an abundant harvest already. I’m proud of the carrots in the photo, as this is the first year I’ve grown such big ones.

While gardening is going well, mechanical things around our 25-year old house are not.

I don’t know whether it was the dryer or the kitchen sink that had problems first. Then the washer went out… then the refrigerator. Yikes!

At this writing we hired repairmen to fix the washer, dryer and kitchen faucet, ordered a new refrigerator, and have a new freezer — all within eight days. Here’s hoping the onslaught of the mechanicals is finished.

Once the refrigerator arrives from the factory in a couple of weeks, we’ll get back to normal. In the meanwhile I just finished an ice run to town so I can refresh the four coolers in the morning. We’ll use our daughter’s college refrigerator and the coolers until a loaner arrives later this week.

Kate’s Garlic Rack

This morning I stopped at the two farms where I work to pick up final settlement checks. We’ll need those and more to pay for the mechanicals. There’s a lot of action at the farms. At Kate’s place the garlic is in the barn and looking great. At a CSA the farmer must grow enough for members plus an additional amount for seed in the fall. It is a big crop and the photo is only part of it.

I caught up with Carmen tilling a field and made arrangements to help with her garlic harvest on Saturday. She has an international crew of students helping us. I asked if there was any dill to make pickles. She said most of it bolted but I could glean what I could. There was plenty to make a gallon batch using yesterday’s cucumber harvest. Those pickles are already in a crock.

Recent days have been like an Indy 500 pit stop of getting things fixed and serviced. Now I’m ready to get back to the track.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Heat Advisory Blues

Rest Area in Polk County, Iowa

It seems like spring was never here.

Big Grove is under a heat advisory until 7 p.m. today. That means hot temperatures and high humidity creating a risk of heat-related illnesses. It barely cooled overnight so the day gets a head start on being oppressive.

There is a three hour gardening window before temperatures rise back into the 80s. As soon as the sun rises, I plan to harvest what’s ready and plant bell peppers and basil seedlings. There’s a lot of gardening and yard work to do. I’ll keep at it as long as I can.

The rest of today I’ll work inside — at my desk, in the kitchen, and folding laundry — getting ready for another busy week.

My shirt was drenched with sweat on the drive home from Des Moines yesterday. I made a pit stop at a state run rest area and bought a 20-ounce cherry Coke to drink on the way home. I can’t recall the last time I had one but couldn’t bear the thought of buying bottled water. Regretfully, I forgot my refillable water bottle at home.

I finished making and canning spring vegetable broth after arriving home. Seven new jars are on the shelf with three and a half more in the ice box, about three gallons. My target is to have two dozen quarts on hand, so another batch of seven will do it. There are plenty of turnip and beet greens plus kale for the broth.

We have a functioning air conditioner and will run it to cool down the house. It takes the edge off the heat and humidity and that’s positive. I learned the oppression of high heat and humidity during the drought of 2012. It felt like there was no escape. Today reminds me of that summer.

Light peeks around the curtain on the east side of my study. It’s time to get out in the garden for a while. And to contemplate what is next.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Farfalle with Arugula and Sugar Snap Peas

Dinner Ingredients

There is little point in growing a garden if one doesn’t use the produce.

Yesterday I made the first pick of arugula and sugar snap peas for a classic dish with farfalle.

Preparation is done while the pasta is cooking and the result makes the effort worth it.

Put six ounces of dry farfalle pasta on the boil for 12 minutes or until al dente.

While the pasta is cooking clean the sugar snap peas, removing the vein, and slice thinly. Next, roughly chop the arugula. Set both aside.

Cut ten grape tomatoes in half and set them aside. We get grape tomatoes from the warehouse club, although the first flowers are appearing on the tomato plants in the garden. It won’t be long before we have home grown cherry and grape tomatoes.

Remaining ingredients include a scant quarter cup of lemon juice, one cup Parmesan cheese, a generous tablespoon of granulated garlic, and 2 knobs of butter.

Cut the butter into small bits and place in a large bowl. Dump in the drained pasta and gently mix to melt the butter. Next add the lemon juice, peas and arugula and mix until incorporated. Finally, add the tomatoes, cheese and garlic mixture and mix together until the cheese coats all of the pasta. Salt and pepper to taste and serve. Makes 2-3 servings.

Seasonal side dishes include a lettuce salad with kohlrabi, spinach and kale or steamed asparagus.

I must be the worst food writer in the world as I neglected to take a photo of the finished dish. Suffice it to say it tasted like spring.

Categories
Home Life Reviews

Waning Lilacs

Fallen Lilac Flowers

Flowers began to fall from lilac bushes. Air is fragrant with sweet smell.

It won’t last long. It is spring, which continues as it has for millennia, reminding us we are but a speck of dust in time by comparison.

It’s the last day before the end of my hiatus from the home, farm and auto supply store.

Two days a week isn’t much to work. When quitting time on the second day rolls around I feel I accomplished something but am not committed. That’s what I want.

I’m reading Natchez Burning by Greg Iles. Part of me likes it and part doesn’t. What I like is it was checked out from our digital library during recent rainfall and I’m reading it on my mobile device. It’s an easy read, a thriller. The story moves along and while I’m reading it’s easy to finish a chapter. What I don’t like is the obvious handles which are part of the narrative. Characters, settings, the former music store, iconography of popular culture — it all seems too easy a construct and such awareness while reading is a distraction. There are thousands of on line reviews of the book, so it’s easy to find people who agree with me. Many others liked the book. Because of the convenience and quick pace I’ll read on for now. If I don’t finish before the lending period is over, I’m not sure I will renew. Life’s long enough to try it, but too short to follow the novel to its conclusion through sheer determination.

Rain fell and it’s been good. Green up is here and the clean look of leaves and branches before insects get to work is inspiring. Time to weed the garden and harvest spinach and spring onions.

Categories
Home Life

Two Months In

Pin Oak Tree Leaves Emerge

Two months into retirement I’ve learned how to avoid hungry dog syndrome and choose activities that conserve resources and contribute to improving our lives in Big Grove.

During personality tests taken while working in transportation and logistics I was identified with a “driven personality.” In retirement I’ve learned to hold my driving social style in abeyance and let others lead group activities. Part of retirement is moving to the side of the arena and letting others take the spotlight. I’m okay with that.

Stepping back has had positive consequences for our homelife. While I’m still in the mode of letting the turbulence settle in order to assess where we are, a few things stand out.

There are plenty of uses for the extra cash two days a week at the home, farm and auto supply store generates. My Social Security pension pays our basic bills. The extra cash can be applied to debt or go toward occasional shopping trips to improve home operations. Taking things slowly and considering each expenditure created a process to get our material lives in shape.

Through limiting the number of shifts of paid work, my plantar fasciitis is healing. The physical examination by a medical doctor informs what needs doing to maintain my health. Tracking health data helps me keep on my goals.

I remain interested in politics and stay informed about the campaigns in our districts. If needs are identified, I attempt to meet them and feel comfortable in a supporting role limited to within district borders.

There is time to work on things. I just go to one of my half dozen work spots and stay busy as long as I can. Then I rest and try it again while rebuilding my stamina. The process seems haphazard but helps me stay focused on tasks at hand. It’s a work in progress.

There has been more time to read and write. It’s been a slow reveal as to what my creative process will be going forward. I like what I see thus far.

I’m ready for retirement and in the early stage of figuring out what that means. Creative endeavor of youth is transformed into something more tangible and useful as we age. While I’ve been living a long time, I feel like I’m just getting started. That makes all the difference.

Categories
Living in Society

Nuts! I’m Moving to Minnesota

Fishing Trip with Maciej Nadolski (seated with beard)

The political, social and economic environment in Iowa deteriorated substantially over the last few years. What I mean is the 87th Iowa General Assembly was a pisser. What’s a person to do?

First thought was to chuck it all and move near our daughter in Florida. Father attended Leon High School in Tallahassee, and I worked for several months in nearby Ochlocknee, Georgia. I became enamored of the Spanish moss hanging from trees lining Highway 319 as I drove back and forth to the Tallahassee airport. “You and mom wouldn’t like it here,” our daughter wisely said.

If the sunshine state is out, what about Minnesota? It’s not far away and we have family roots there. They also have Democratic U.S. Senators — what’s not to like about that?

Our family doesn’t know much about why great, great grandfather left the Pennsylvania coal mines and moved to Lincoln County, Minnesota in the last decades of the 19th Century. Maciej Nadolski bought land from the railroad and settled a couple miles west of Wilno where he would go to town, drink adult beverages, and sleep in the wagon as the horse took him home. He did so even after his spouse joined him from Poland.

Wilno was the creation of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, the Polish National Alliance and the Catholic Church, according to Wikipedia. It seemed a lot like Iowa. I visited Saint John Cantius Church (established 1883) after Grandmother died and met briefly with the parish priest. He mailed our grandmother’s baptismal record. I drove the route the horse took to the home place where the then current owners let me look around. People in Ivanhoe, the county seat, weren’t wealthy and a bit scrappier than in Iowa. I was related to a number of people I met — shirt tail relatives were everywhere.

A few stories about farm life survived through family oral history. We know farming did not work out for the large Nadolski family. After 20 years in Lincoln County, they moved north near Argyle and tried it again. After ten years in Argyle, most of the family moved near LaSalle, Illinois.

Other parts of Minnesota might not be so bad. Grandmother worked as a maid in Minneapolis when she was young. We don’t like city life so much, but there are small rural cities like the one we live near today. Why not Minnesota?

I’ll tell you why. I was born in Iowa and this is my state. If the political, social and economic climate is not to my liking, I’d better damn well get busy and work to fix it. Thing is, my values are not that different from the values of most people I know. This creates an opportunity for change.

If my first reaction to the 87th Iowa General Assembly was “Nuts! I’m moving to Minnesota,” it is natural to revert to who we are in crisis. Now that we’re home, it’s time to get up from the wagon, sleep off the booze, and get busy building the environment in which we want to live. It can be done, it should be, and we’re up to the task.

Categories
Home Life Living in Society Social Commentary

Shopping in Coralville

From a Shopping Trip in Coralville

I went on a shopping trip yesterday.

What of it, readers may ask. People go shopping all the time and some say our economy is predicated on consumers shopping.

That may be, however, in an hour and 12 minutes I spent 18 percent of our monthly budget on the stuff of living. It was a big deal.

The reason for the shopping trip was I took this week off from the home, farm and auto supply store to work on our garden. I usually dovetail shopping with trips to work. Garden time generated needs like a new 9-pattern spray nozzle to replace the one that began leaking, a dozen five-foot, light gauge fence posts for the garden, 100 feet of 4-foot chicken wire netting, and 50 feet of four-foot, 14 gauge, 2 x 4 welded wire fencing to make some additional tomato cages.

While there, I bought a new Stihl FS 56 R C-E loop handle trimmer. When the old, battery-powered Black and Decker trimmer broke I debated whether or not to acquire a gasoline or battery powered replacement. Two decision points. Even with two batteries the Black and Decker couldn’t trim the whole yard. Where the electricity to charge the trimmer batteries comes from is problematic.

We source electricity from the Linn County Rural Electric Cooperative and their generation partner CIPCO. More than two-thirds of electricity we use is generated by undesirable means: coal and nuclear. While the percentage of wind and solar CIPCO used increased in recent years, the Duane Arnold nuclear plant is a sore spot. The mix will change when the nuclear reactors go off line in the near future. I chose the most fuel-efficient of the Stihl line of household trimmers and expect to burn about two gallons of gasoline per season.

I stuck to my shopping lists even when I deleted the warehouse club list from my mobile device before arriving there. My mission was to find fruit. The selection of organically grown was very limited. Basically apples and bananas which both came at a premium price. I added a Dole pineapple on sale for $1.99 and a four-pound clam shell of grapes. The grapes weren’t the best — imported from Chile and treated — I won’t make that mistake again.

Finally I stopped at a large chain drug store on the way home. I go there three or four times a year to pick up personal hygiene items. The cost of razor blades has me thinking about letting my beard grow.

To acknowledge participation in consumer culture is essential. When I consider a history of my life, for good or ill, shopping has been part of it and an influence. When Father insisted on supporting César Chavez and the United Farm Workers’ grape boycott, we connected to the struggles of people who produce our food and learned a lesson about being a union family. That a gallon of milk cost $1.89 yesterday speaks volumes to the plight of family dairy farmers. That I get a discount for being employed at the home, farm and auto supply store is part of the reason I linger on into retirement.

This was my first big shopping trip of the year and may be the only one. It’s a small but important part of sustaining a life in a turbulent world.

Categories
Home Life Living in Society Milestones Social Commentary

Layered with Sadness

Sundog Farm

In our neighborhood a preteen found his father collapsed in the yard and ran for help. Despite best efforts by his partner of 30 years, emergency responders, and staff at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, he died Sunday. The funeral is Friday.

A layer of sadness blankets places I go.

It’s not just the death of a neighbor. Cold weather is delaying farmers from getting into the field. Tension permeates everything. We laugh but avoid the reality that something has to give — perhaps delaying the spring share until plants grow. Perhaps something else. We are ready for the weather to break.

Temperatures today are forecast in the low thirties… again. It’s April 18 for goodness sake! The garden should be a third planted by now. It has been difficult to spend time outside, bundled up to keep warm. It’s not the cold as much as it is a nagging hesitancy to venture out into the cold spring.

When we moved to Big Grove, before we put curtains in the living room, I sat on the couch after a long day and watched airplanes make their approach to the nearby Eastern Iowa Airport. Even though my wife and daughter were nearby I felt alone and on my own from time to time. I picked myself up from the couch and engaged in a diverse life. Every so often the quiet in the house is overwhelming, even today. I feel isolated from what matters most. The feeling passes.

I had a physical examination in town, and my arms ache. In my left shoulder I got a pneumonia vaccine and in my right a shingles vaccine. Both require boosters down the line. I had blood drawn for lab tests by a nurse I’ve known more than a dozen years. Achy doesn’t really describe it. I removed the three bandages and piled them up on the night stand this morning. The shingles vaccine is doing its job making me feel sore and unsettled.

Doctor did a depression screening. I passed, that is, I don’t believe I’m clinically depressed… just a bit saddened by the layers of crap we have to live through. It’s partly politics but it’s more than that. It’s as if everything with which we marked boundaries of our lives is being razed, surveyor pins pushed out of place by construction’s bulldozers. All we can do is put the pins back and start over. That’s what I hope to do.

Eventually the weather will break and my farmer friends will get the crop planted. Visitation for my late neighbor is tomorrow. I’m to pick up a sympathy card and a couple of restaurant gift cards to give the family a chance to get out of the house for a while. We all need a break.

The layer of sadness is palpable. At the same time as long as we pick ourselves up and go on living we’ll be alright. at least that is what we hope.

Categories
Home Life Writing

Soft Landing

Burning Embers

It’s been 30 days since retirement and I’m up to my old tricks.

Like a hungry dog, I see things and want to be a part of them. “I’ll do this,” I say to myself and others. I run the risk of over-committing and letting people down. Importantly, I divert attention from priorities. New tricks should replace old but I’m not there yet.

Let the engine of life make a soft landing on this rain-soaked spring day. Focus until leaving for the farm in a few hours. In my second go-around at “retirement,” I’ve learned that lesson.

It’s not like I’ve kicked back in an easy chair. I agreed to stay on at the home, farm and auto supply store two days a week and never planned to give up farm work. I’ve written more and would like to write more still.

I’ve been in transition. Without good health life would be harder. I saw the dentist and tomorrow have an appointment with a physician for a physical. I got my car serviced, hair cut, and am planning a trip to purchase clothes. When I do, I’ll turn tattered attire into rags and recycle the denim and cotton. We’ve been living within our budget and the federal and state taxes are filed. The garden is behind this season, but there are seedlings in the greenhouse and garlic poking through the mulch. There will be a garden when the weather breaks. 2018 is a midterm election year and I plan to be more active this cycle than in recent years.

Days take on a rhythm and I’m no longer sure when a week begins and ends. Mostly, it’s been cold, I’ve felt it through to the bone, and there is so much to do before settling into a sustainable pattern. The weather will break and I feel ready to take off.

Slow down, you move too fast. Good advice for someone with my social style.