Tag: homelife

Categories
Home Life Living in Society Social Commentary

Processing Vegetables Before Independence Day

Shocking Green Beans After Parboiling
Shocking Green Beans After Parboiling

It takes longer to process vegetables from the garden than it does to harvest them.

That means a lot of summer spent in the kitchen.

I focus on each job — sorting kale leaves, parboiling and freezing green beans, cutting turnips for storage — yet the mind wanders along paths hidden in a day’s activities.

We opened the house and listened to birds at the feeder. From time to time we watched as rabbit, squirrel, chipmunk, and a variety of birds sought seeds. The weather was perfect for anything and my choice was to preserve some of the harvest for later in the year.

Birds scattered when I opened the screen door and cast sunflower seeds in the grass. Eventually they returned to forage for them. It is a predictable behavior that encourages their proximity and my seed-buying. That’s not what was on my mind as I made pesto, bagged kale leaves and prepared luncheon of vegetable soup served on rice.

We live in a violent world and acceptance of such violence is part of who we are.

The list of recent bombings and killings is long, getting longer: Orlando, Florida; Istanbul, Turkey; Quetta, Pakistan; Baghdad, Iraq; Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. These violent and regrettable incidents in the last month may seem bad, and are. What is worse is the long history of genocide embedded in our civilization. The ability to tolerate genocide is a passive crime and a forgotten legacy.

The web site United to End Genocide lists our recent genocides: Armenia (1915), the Holocaust (1933), Cambodia (1975), Rwanda (1990), Bosnia (1995), and Darfur (2003). The passing this weekend of Elie Wiesel reminds us of the need to remember humanity’s crimes and do something to prevent them going forward. For Wiesel, and for many, this process begins by telling the story.

Immaculée Ilibagiza’s memoir, Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust, tells a story of how personal genocide is to those involved. She recounts specific incidents of machete killings too graphic to repeat. Her purpose is similar to that of other holocaust survivors.

“I believe that our lives are interconnected,” Ilibagiza wrote. “that we’re meant to learn from one another’s experiences. I wrote this book hoping that others may benefit from my story.”

The history of genocide against the first people in the Americas is under-recognized and little discussed. The common story is of colonial conflict, disease, specific atrocities and policies of discrimination, according to United to End Genocide. Last week an ailing and imprisoned Leonard Peltier released a letter in which he told a different story.

As the First Peoples of Turtle Island, we live with daily reminders of the centuries of efforts to terminate our nations, eliminate our cultures, and destroy our relatives and families. To this day, everywhere we go there are reminders — souvenirs and monuments of the near extermination of a glorious population of Indigenous Peoples. Native Peoples as mascots, the disproportionately high incarceration of our relatives, the appropriation of our culture, the never-ending efforts to take even more of Native Peoples’ land, and the poisoning of that land all serve as reminders of our history as survivors of a massive genocide. We live with this trauma every day. We breathe, eat and drink it. We pass it on to our children. And we struggle to overcome it.

Today the United States celebrates the signing of a declaration of independence from England with parades, barbecue, family gatherings, food, fireworks, music, travel and intoxication. The opportunity for such revelry came at a high cost.

With each cut of the knife and batch of green beans placed in the freezer I focus on the task at hand. Partly to make something that wasn’t here, and partly to forget the stains on the soul of American society.

I’m processing a lot more than vegetables.

Categories
Home Life Living in Society Social Commentary

Weekend Reckoning

Garage Rags
Garage Rags

Supper was a leftover jar of bean soup, sage and cheddar biscuits, and apple crisp from last year’s crop.

It was delicious… an apple joke.

I set my alarm for 4 p.m. to begin two hours of cooking. I also wanted to hear Garrison Keillor’s radio show from Tanglewood. He’s retiring in July.

Keillor lucked into radio.

“Through a series of coincidences, I lucked onto this show, for which I had no aptitude to speak of, sort of like a kid in Port-au-Prince who’s never seen ice becoming captain of the Haitian Olympic hockey team,” Keillor wrote in an email sent Saturday afternoon. “I was never in theater, never sang in public, but I had grown up at the end of the radio era so I had some ideas about how it might sound. I was a plodder, but persistent.”

So did I luck into a pattern of preparing Saturday dinner with A Prairie Home Companion in the background. All of my other favorite Saturday shows on public radio are gone – likely as a result of budget cuts. Soon Keillor will be gone too. New times require new patterns and I’m okay with that.

Saturday’s harvest included a head of cauliflower, carrots, turnips, an onion, two bunches of celery, and lots of kale for the kitchen and to give to library employees. The herb garden is coming along. I didn’t pick basil but will need to soon.

Planting included an acorn squash seedling and some dill, both given to me by a library worker. The Swiss chard seedlings went into the ground, as did some more jalapeno peppers. I planted lettuce where the carrots grew. The overnight thunderstorm provided needed rain.

Turk's Turban Squash Plant
Turk’s Turban Squash Plant

The harvest was shortly after sunrise. I was out in time to see dew around the edges of the Turk’s Turban heirloom squash plant leaves. It’s as if the leaf was a large moisture collection device, and the drops waiting to get big enough to roll to the ground and provide moisture to the roots. Summer Saturday harvest is becoming one of my favorite times.

After lunch I organized and cleaned the garage, which is to say I put things away, swept the floor and laundered the rags. I decided to leave the bagging attachment on the John Deere for another pass at collecting garden mulch. It’s debatable whether more is needed. It can always be composted if not used.

It’s been a couple of tough weeks in the news, making it difficult to process what’s happened in society. The murders at Pulse Orlando kicked off a series of news cycles that have been enervating at best, at worst a beginning of the end of society as we know it.

There’s a lot to write about. The futile efforts of the U.S. Congress to call attention to gun violence and do something about it, the referendum in Great Britain about whether to leave the European Union, a slate of Supreme Court decision announcements, the peace agreement between the FARC rebels and the Colombian government, and more.

What caught my attention midst the swirl of current events was yesterday’s 140th anniversary of Custer’s last stand during the battle of Little Bighorn in southeastern Montana. During a visit to the battlefield it occurred to me Custer was a fool. The idea the Seventh U.S. Cavalry Regiment could prevail in that open terrain was ridiculous.

Little Big Horn was part of a genocide that began shortly after arrival of Europeans in the west. It found it’s last practical expression 14 years later in 1890 on the Pine Ridge Reservation at Wounded Knee. Leonard Peltier’s case notwithstanding, our war with native populations in the Americas is finished.

The removal of cultures is in many ways the history of the country. We removed native populations, trees and wildlife and called it “settling.” Surveyors laid out a pattern of land use that enabled us to settle the prairie and forget what once was here. Oak-hickory forests, tall grasses and bison as far as human eyes could see have been relegated to special heritage sites. It’s not all been good but it is what we live with.

As rain falls, reminding me to clean the gutters, it’s hard to miss the need to engage in society outside a surveyed lot in Big Grove. To sustain a single life requires engagement in everything around us and many things that no longer are here. At least that’s how I cope with American violence and sustain the will to do something more about it.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Garden is In

Garden Spinach
Garden Spinach

With planting of Fairy Tale eggplant, Turk’s Turban squash, a sweet potato that sprouted on the counter and 18 bell pepper plants, I declare the initial garden planting finished.

Food is growing in six plots this year and all that remains is the weeding, water management and harvesting.

The days get longer for another week when summer begins.

Yesterday morning was soil blocking at the CSA for the fall crop — blocks for 2,160 seedlings. Afterward I walked the farm to inspect the progress of the crops. I’m not sure how often I will make it back now that my work is done for the season. The crops look fine as the farm transitions from one owner to the next.

What’s next?

With all the produce, cooking will be part of it, but that’s not really what I mean. Politics has devolved to hearing more than a person can stand about the 2016 presidential race. Not that either. My next significant gig is editing Blog for Iowa in August, so there’s time for a break in the action — a focus on maintenance of the house and my small circle of family and friends.

It’s a time to look at the garden I’ve planted and make plans for next year.

Categories
Home Life

Easter Rising

Sunrise Over Lake Macbride
Sunrise Over Lake Macbride

Yesterday was a punk day.

We called the day between Good Friday and Easter Holy Saturday when I was a grader. It was not as important as Easter’s main event in the liturgical year.

On Easter Sunday we dressed in our best clothes to attend Mass with Grandmother. We’d return home for Easter dinner and talk around the table. I remember Grandmother helping wash dishes in the kitchen. It was the most significant holiday of the year, for her, and in our insular Catholic community.

No longer.

It was a punk Saturday because of the stitches in my right hand. Restricted from activity, I stayed indoors, managing to cook dinner, water seedlings, do laundry, make the bed, and read. I would have preferred to get my hands dirty in the soil but it wasn’t meant to be. It was a day of healing if not repentance. Of contemplation, not work.

I rose Easter morning for the first time in a long time without the pain of plantar fasciitis in my feet. Hopefully this condition persists.

Matthew 16:24-25 says, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.“

If I’m not ready to walk those footsteps, today’s healing is a signpost. Healing is possible. Healing can come. Healing can set us free.

The large bandage on my thumb is a reminder healing is not done.

As darkness yields to dawn and sunlight, one can’t help but be comforted by the possibilities each day brings. Days of work lie ahead until that final night and its return to Earth which engendered us.

The journey ahead beckons, on this Easter rising.

Categories
Home Life Work Life

Re-inventing Le Weekend

Burn Pile
Burn Pile

The family-owned home, farm and auto supply store put me on a Monday through Friday schedule this year. It created something rare — a regular weekend off.

As winter ends, work at home and at the farm returns to center stage. It was possible to feel I got something done this weekend.

I did — indoors and out.

Le weekend began Friday with a time clock punch. After work, I bought provisions at the warehouse club on the way home. After putting food and sundries away, I repaired one of our two cars in the garage. I drove the repaired vehicle to pick up Jacque after work, reading a book checked out from the library on my phone’s Kindle app while waiting in the parking lot.

That evening at home I made a to-do list on the white board and continued reading. I hope to finish Slavery in the Upper Mississippi Valley 1787 – 1865: A History of Human Bondage in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin by Christopher P. Lehman before returning to work on Monday. It’s due back to the digital library in seven days.

At home I watered the trays in the south-facing window. The basil, lettuce and celery seedlings are coming along. I burned the brush pile and prepared containers for raised beds of root vegetables planned for early planting. Making sure I had five buckets of sand for next winter, I swept the remainder into the ditch from the road in front of our house. Each task accomplished added to a positive, hopeful attitude.

Embers of the Burn Pile
Embers of the Burn Pile

Sunday I’ll soil block at the farm. We’ve been having a problem with invasive species in the seedling trays. That needs discussion and resolution before we get too far along. The schedule is 28 trays of 120 blocks, or 3,360 seedlings, so addressing the problem quickly matters.

Set this aside. Saturday made the weekend.

Saturday cooking included a bowl of steel cut oats for breakfast, chick pea curry to use up the last of the big batch of them, and chili with cornbread for dinner. Since Jacque works on Saturday afternoon, and seldom knows how long the work will take, I always prepare something that can be re-heated easily while listening to A Prairie Home Companion on the radio.

Earlier Saturday I made a trip to the grocery store to buy some organic celery, raisins and onions, then returned to the kitchen and made three jars of lemon flavored iced tea for the week. The food was all good although I forgot the garlic in the curry.

These things seem simple, but framed by a regularly scheduled weekend off, they have the potential to become a way of life. What ever happened to that in our 24-hour, non-stop social media, highly complex, yet unfulfilled lives?

While we won’t get rich living like this, it is rewarding in so many other ways. It’s past time to re-invent Le Weekend.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Too Many Falafel

Veggie Burgers
Veggie Burgers

Hope of spring arrived with warm ambient temperatures last weekend. It prompted me to clean the garage, roll up the garden fencing left out after making the burn pile, consider locations to plant Belgian lettuce, and inspect the compost piles and bins.

It won’t be long before gardening begins. It has begun.

In the meanwhile, we continue to cook and eat the stores from gardens and shopping trips past.

A jar of dried chick peas had been sitting on the counter.

I hydrated and boiled them, making enough to fill two plastic tubs — normally that many would last a couple of months. The idea was to use them up.

First I baked falafel. It was a lot of food with the second tub of chick peas leftover. Breakfast has been four or five falafel ever since, making a different sauce for each small batch. There were too many falafel.

Next came veggie burgers. I used chick peas, black beans, oatmeal and a mixture of cooked garlic, onion and bell pepper. Seasoned with parsley, celery salt and herbs from the pantry, with an egg as a binder, there were three extra patties which I froze for future use.

I also made a big batch of flavored iced tea. Using tea bags found in a canning jar in the cupboard, I put four in a teapot and poured boiling water over them to steep. In the back of the ice box I found a quart jar of simple syrup and a bottle of organic lemon juice.

On the bottom of three-cup canning jars I measured a quarter cup each of lemon juice and simple syrup. I poured hot tea on top, screwed on the lid and put them in the ice box. The cost was much lower than the Arnold Palmer – Arizona Iced Tea brand iced tea – lemonade drinks sold in convenience stores everywhere. It tasted much better too.

This weekend was of rest, reading, cooking and a bit of garage and garden work. Brief respite before returning to the farm next Sunday for my first session of soil blocking. Homelife in a busy life that generates too little income but rewards our labor in other ways.

Categories
Home Life Kitchen Garden Writing

On Our Own Into 2016

Garage Sign
Garage Sign

“Publishers are not accountable to the laws of heaven and earth in any country and regardless of my opinion, editors and publishers will print what they will.”

I wrote this in a letter to the editor of the Quad City Times in 1980 reacting to a popular feature section called Soundoff.

“(It is) little more than a vanity press for many of the writers,” I wrote. “It gets pictures, letters and opinions into print as a final goal; shouldn’t there be more to public voicing of opinion than that?”

This is more applicable today than it was three and a half decades ago.

What I learned in graduate school is the same statement can be applied to almost everything written in public. Reflecting on the Times experiment to make their pages more open to comments and retain readership, chaos reigned. What has changed since then is the emphasis on viewpoint in media — corporate, social or self published — which has been formalized. It’s not all good.

As I turn to the hard yet fun work of writing this year, I plan to journal my experiences in the food system here. Four years from full retirement, there are bills to pay and a life to live. I may pick other topics from time to time. I need to make the best use of every moment.

I’m writing off line as much as I can. While I don’t like to work for free as long as there is less cash than budget, I may occasionally post about those creative endeavors.

Thanks for reading this blog. Check out the tag cloud for your interests. I hope readers will be back often.

Categories
Writing

Mid-week Hustle

Five-Day Forecast
Five-Day Forecast

It doesn’t appear we will get a solid week of subzero temperatures this winter. Based on the five-day forecast I’m planning to prune the fruit trees on Sunday.

Would that growing food were all there was to worry about.

The challenge has been to assimilate a new work schedule at the home, farm and auto supply store into my writing schedule. Halfway through January, I’m no closer to a plan.

While it may seem self-indulgent, mentioning the word “I” so many times, unless I get this right, it’s curtains for my aspirations as a writer.

I won’t let that happen.

How to use the couple of hours in the morning, my break periods at work, and time in the evenings and on weekends for writing production needs definition. Family, our food system, maintenance on the property, and adding revenue have to be considered as well.

Confident I’ll get there, midweek before the cold it’s not clear how. Something will get figured out. I hope it will be sooner rather than later.

Categories
Home Life Writing

Big Grove 2015 Highlights

Apples
Apples

Having yesterday off work at the home, farm and auto supply store, I made a trip to the grocery store and considered last year. Here are some highlights for interested readers.

Reading list.

A key realization was most of my reading — and I still do a lot — is short articles, mostly on my mobile phone or desktop computers. Of the 10 paper books I read, no regrets — I learned from each of them.

I mentioned in my birthday post, the education and empowerment of women is emerging into a new importance, so the Kristoff/WuDunn book Half the Sky was a better motivator than the others.

Here’s the list with most recently read first.

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn; On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King; This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate by Naomi Klein; Gilead by Marilynne Robinson; The Perils of Prosperity 1914-32 by William E. Leuchtenburg; The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald; 1381: The Year of the Peasants’ Revolt by Juliet Barker; Poetry City: A Literary Remembrance of Iowa City, Iowa by Dave Morice; Jewelweed by David Rhodes; and The Robber Barons by Matthew Josephson.

Blogging

For the third year I edited Blog for Iowa while Trish Nelson took a summer break. I posted about all five Democratic presidential candidates and got a press pass to attend the Iowa Democratic Party Hall of Fame Celebration July 17 where they spoke. The grab bag of political, environmental, labor and other topics can be found here. The writing speaks for itself.

The post that received the most attention was 5 Reasons Jim Webb’s Stock is Up. There was a vacuum of Iowa coverage of the Jim Webb presidential campaign and my post seemed to fill it for a brief while. Even the candidate posted about my article in social media.

The most popular posts at On Our Own: Sustainability in a Turbulent World were ones written in past years. Autobiography in 1,000 Words, written in 2013, gets consistent, daily page views.  Rounding out the top five for the year were my post announcing reasons to caucus for Hillary Clinton in the Feb. 1 Iowa caucus; Climate Change in 200 Words, written in January 2014; my letter to U.S. Senator Joni Ernst advocating for the agreement with Iran over their nuclear weapons program; and a post from 2013 with three photos of some summer pest problems. Readers increasingly recognized me in public because of my writing.

Newspaper Writing

I filed 59 stories with the Iowa City Press Citizen in 2015. When my editor, Emily Nelson, left the newspaper July 2 after a long tenure, it was a signal that the end was approaching. This was confirmed when my new editor, Tricia Brown left Sept. 11. My last story ran Oct. 16.

I covered diverse topics by taking whatever assignment was offered at the Press Citizen. By interviewing startup business owners, people working for non-profits, and many others I met new people.

My favorite newspaper article was about Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey’s visit to Local Harvest CSA. It was also the most fun to write. My article about Bobby and Kayla Thompson and their new hair styling salon in downtown Iowa City was the most popular in 2015, receiving more than 2,500 online views after publication. My advance article about the TaxSlayer Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla., published December 2014, garnered the most online views during my one-year tenure with over 3,000. Print circulation of the paper was about 10,000 according to Gannett’s 2014 annual report.

I don’t have a burning desire to do more newspaper work. It was lowly paid for the investment of time. The monetary income, though slight, went to good use. Freelancing with the Press Citizen helped me realize the importance of having an editor.

Working

Checks came in from nine different employers and contracts during the year with the largest share of income (65 percent) being from Club Demonstration Services, a part time, no benefits job I left in September. Income from CDS will be replaced with income from the home, farm and auto supply store, a full-time job with a benefits package that began Nov. 12. Every other income producing activity was much smaller, with Gannett (15 percent), the apple orchard, the community supported agriculture project, freelance writing and editing, and stipends from my elected office work completing the picture. As the new year begins, I receive only one paycheck, with three other seasonal jobs planned along with my last year of elected office. I need another ten grand in contracts or employment to make financial ends meet this year.

Gardening and Farm Work

The 2015 garden was as productive as it’s ever been. My work at the CSA and the apple orchard continued to teach me new things about growing and selling produce. The garden and both farm jobs are part of the 2016 plan. Combined with related kitchen work, local food is becoming a part of daily life.

In October I decided to write a longer piece — a memoir of my time in the local food movement since retiring from my transportation career. In the article On Not Being Vachel Lindsay, I explained:

The first subject will be a memoir about the evolution of my understanding of local food over the last six years. The goal is a 25,000-word essay that can be combined with other short pieces into a self-published book. Book sales will become a way for people to contribute financially to my work at events.

After leaving CDS in September, it was optimistic to believe I could write 1,000 words a day while preoccupied with a search for income. As the year ended, and now that I have an income base with the work at the home, farm and auto supply store, I expect to resume this writing. I drafted about 6,000 words last year and posted a snippet here.

On New Year’s Eve I reviewed my activity diary and found a disproportionate number of personal contacts were related to politics. My work at Blog for Iowa got me involved, and I expect it will continue. Once we get past the Iowa caucuses I hope to reduce my involvement in politics to a more sustainable level.

In 2015 I spent time writing almost every day. With the practice, I’m confident something good will come of it in 2016.

Categories
Home Life

When I’m Sixty Four

Tart Cherry Coffee Cake
Tart Cherry Coffee Cake

As my 65th trip around the sun begins, here are some things about where I’m going.

Without good health, family and friends, and a sound financial system, it will be difficult to do much beyond the lot lines where we spend most of our time. I’m lucky to be in good health and working on the rest.

Global warming is a threat to life as we know it, bigger than any other. Individually and collectively we must take action to mitigate the causes of climate change.

The education and empowerment of women — worldwide — is our best hope for creating an environment to protect the common good. As a privileged American it has been tough to recognize the basic truth of this. I’m working on this blind spot and hope to contribute in a meaningful way.

Methods of learning have changed. Reliant more on the Internet for news and information, mine wants review and a course correction. For the first time in years I will develop a learning plan. Not just reading and viewing video, but while living in society as well.

When we first built our home in Big Grove we did a lot of things right. 22 years in, maintenance and improvement delayed due to time and financial resources must be addressed. That means re-activating our garage as a workplace and picking projects to get started. A five year plan to take the as-is situation and convert it to a place where we can live comfortably is in order. That is, assuming we decide to stay here.

Followers of this blog read about food, cooking, gardening, farming, labor, politics and other topics related to nutrition and health in society. There is enough of this work to be a palette from which to paint a future. I plan to do just that in the coming months. I hope readers will keep clicking along with the journey.