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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Part of yesterday was spent outside — in the garden, working compost, cleaning buckets, collecting the bits of drainage tile used to support celery plants, tending the garlic, planting turnips and radishes.
Using a bag of shredded office paper and a match, I started the burn pile created in the aftermath of an unusual wind storm last year. An arborist cut down the big branches and I sawed them into smaller logs and branches. The wood was dry and burned quickly even though it was covered with snow a couple days ago.
The first spring burn pile marks the beginning of gardening season.
I didn’t connect the garden hose as we are expecting freezing temperatures again this weekend. There is plenty of moisture in the ground to give the seeds a start.
A week ago I got a haircut. Partly it was too shaggy and in my eyes while working outside at the home, farm and auto supply store. Partly it was about casting aside the experience it represents for a new start.
My retirement March 16 has been something of a crash landing. Long anticipated, I know the major themes — writing, gardening, farm work, home maintenance and community organizing. I’ve had to add a need to deal with my aging frame and life systems. I made an appointment to see a medical doctor for a physical next week.
Even though I have more time, there never seems like enough to get what I want accomplished. With that in mind, I’ve come to believe what I said in February, that low income workers and retirees can’t afford social media. I posted this on Facebook this morning:
I’ve decided to end my relationship with the Facebook application on or about April 30. I joined in 2008 to follow our daughter and she deleted her account a couple of years ago. It’s not you fair reader, it’s me.
I listened to Mark Zuckerberg testify to Congress yesterday and his plans for dealing with public issues here. I have no interest in artificial intelligence reading my every post to determine if it is worthy according to Facebook criteria.
That said, I will miss the exchanges, likes and shares and appreciate your interest in what I’ve been doing. Facebook has been a creative outlet for me and I plan to channel those impulses elsewhere.
You are invited to continue to follow me elsewhere. I plan to keep my twitter account @PaulDeaton_IA and my WordPress account pauldeaton.com. If you are on WordPress click the button on my home page to add me to your reader, or click on the Follow Via Email button if you are not.
So that’s it. Hope to see you around… literally.
The burn pile was hot and I had to keep my distance while using a hoe to move partly burned branches to the top of it. By supper time it was a pile of white ashes with minerals returned to the ground and carbon released into the atmosphere. I plan to add another garden plot where the burn pile was.
We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. A burn pile reminds us all of the natural world is in transition. In a burn pile there’s no judgment, just the heat of released energy and beautiful, ever changing orange-yellow-blue flames.
In this moment that’s all we require to sustain ourselves.
A thick, wet snow blanketed the landscape overnight. Being a lifelong Iowan, driving on snowy roads across the lakes to today’s political convention shouldn’t be an issue if I take it slowly.
I am on the arrangements committee and have to be there at 6 a.m.
My mind is not on that, or the myriad other activities that filled my days since entering retirement a week ago.
After 50 years of work a person needs healing. That’s going to take longer than I thought.
On Monday I dropped my car for repairs in town and walked the three miles home along the Lake Macbride trail. The trail was pretty beat up with deep ruts from construction equipment along the entryway from town. Iowa Department of Natural Resources must be up to something. It looked like hell. Walking home was a mistake.
My plantar fasciitis has been in abeyance but the day after the walk, my heels started to hurt. It was exacerbated by standing to soil block at the farm yesterday, reminding me there is no such thing as “good as new” for a sixty-something.
More than physical ailments I need to heal my mind. When I entered the low-wage workforce back in 2013 it was hard to focus on bigger issues. Perspective was reduced to a few inches beyond my nose. Interaction with newly met people was framed by the idea I didn’t really want to be there. It tainted my perception, hopefully not permanently. It too will take time to heal.
There is a lot to get done during our brief time on earth. Sometimes we need to stop and just breathe. If we can manage that, perhaps our bodies and minds will heal.
BIG GROVE TOWNSHIP — It’s a little crazy for a 66 year old male to make plans.
It would be easy to “go on the draw” as people I know have done. This framing comes from relatives and friends in Appalachia, where my father’s family came up, who found a way to collect a monthly payment from the government in the post-FDR era. It seems universal in American society to expect the rewards of a life of work and trouble in order to take it easy. Going on the draw has a subtext of relinquishing part of the self-reliance that has come to characterize being American.
There is plenty in society to engage our mind, heart and soul, without adding a layer to it. Social groups abound. Paid and volunteer work create human relationships. There’s shopping, movies and restaurants. Central to many are public libraries — one of the few remaining places with no expectation patrons have money. As much as I’d like to self-identify as a “retiree” and take advantage of all this, the feeling “I want,” as Saul Bellow aptly described it in Henderson the Rain King, nags at me. We may not know what we seek, but are always looking.
Is it hubris? Ecclesiastes instructs.
Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun?
One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. (Ecclesiastes 1, 2-4, King James)
When we live our bodies break down from use. We are broken through trauma, physical and emotional. What we need more than treatment for symptoms is healing. Such healing falls to the care of a network of family and friends who look after us when we are broken. Health care is so often more about family and friends, home remedies and rest, than the health care and health insurance which takes an increasing proportion of our income.
Once we accept the underlying fragility of the human condition, many make plans and that’s positive. Our lives have meaning only if we find it in useful, social activity. Once we cease engagement in life and society, the truth that we might die tonight is rendered moot.
Journey Home 
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