LAKE MACBRIDE— Labor Day means a work day in Big Grove, and that’s fine with me.
Today began by finishing and filing two articles for the newspaper. After a session of garden work, and making juice from some apples I picked two days ago, I’ll work a shift at the orchard. Then, the CSA share will be ready for pickup, as they are working today as well. The new vegetables will need processing, so there will be a lot more to do before sleep comes again.
During my transportation career I made a point to go into the office on Labor Day. I felt that was my job, and a day to get caught up on work the exigencies of managing a multimillion dollar operation blocked out. Any more, it is a day to do work that in another life would just be called living.
This summer pushed the envelope of how much formal work can be crammed into a schedule. As many as eight paid jobs needed doing, and still they didn’t generate enough income to get past regular bills, a few emergency expenses, and paying down a small amount of debt. While it has been a struggle, worklife is also about framing.
I reject the class frame. Neither am I middle class nor working class, although if I were, the latter seems more appropriate. We’re not serfs either. Those frames belong to others. I look at myself as a writer in an Iowa City the City of Literature sort of way. Here’s what I mean.
What I do more now than ever is spend time writing. Everything else supports that work. A small bit of my income comes from writing, but alone, it is not sustainable. So I sign on to do specific part time or temporary work for pay. The few hours each morning at my desk it supports are what matters most.
Fame or notoriety will escape me most likely. The challenge these days is to find meaningful venues for my writing. For Labor Day, though, I just plan to work.
LAKE MACBRIDE— From the moment an apple falls from a tree, deterioration begins. Over 20 years of tending our small orchard, I learned to keep the ground under the trees picked up to discourage bugs and worms from spreading throughout the trees. Before the main crop is ready, there has been usable fruit on the ground. One recognizes when it is time to pick based on how many apples fall in a day. I brought about five pounds of apples to the kitchen to make vinegar.
Making vinegar is pretty simple. Core and cut away bad spots, including bruises, from a bowl of apples and juice them with a kitchen juicer. (One can also make apple cider, but securing and using a cider mill is a big production not suitable for small baskets of fallen apples). Strain the juice and pour it into a half gallon canning jar. Add part of the mother from the last batch, or a small amount of last year’s vinegar, and cover with a cotton cloth to allow it to breathe. I use a scrap of our daughter’s diaper, as the warp and woof is just right to let air out and prevent bugs from entering. Set the jar in a dark cupboard and leave it alone for a couple of months, inspecting it occasionally to see if the process is working.
A process byproduct is straining and bottling the last batch. A lot of mother was produced in last year’s effort, and what I couldn’t use went into the compost. The jars in the photo have vinegar from apple cider, the new batch and from apples juiced in the kitchen. The latter is by far the best tasting and most acidic.
Cucumbers and onions are in, so maybe a batch of refrigerator pickles to recipe test the results.
This week, the Great March for Climate Action headed east through Iowa and Blog for Iowa marched a small part of the route with them. About 150 people gathered in Coralville on Wednesday, Aug. 20, and marched leisurely to the Iowa City pedestrian mall. We marched down the Coralville Strip, past Carver-Hawkeye arena, the University of Iowa Colleges of Medicine and Nursing, the Veterans Administration Hospital, the university’s coal-fired power plant, Old Capitol, and ended in front of the Sheraton Hotel in the pedestrian mall where we were greeted with applause upon arrival. Speeches followed.
It was a chance to meet some of the marchers, and here are some of the people BFIA interviewed and heard:
Ed Fallon, “People need to be thinking of what changes they can make in their own life.”Berenice Tompkins and Andre Nunez. She’s walking barefoot (mostly) and he’s not speaking.Blair Frank “I’m here because of the shift that’s happening around the planet in climate change.Miriam Kashia, Mayor. “Imagine the audacity of a small group of ordinary citizens who believe they have to power to change the course of history.”Ed Fallon, Jeffrey Czerwiec, Miriam Kashia and John Abbe at the marshaling area in CoralvilleRosella Lala Palazzolo selling raffle tickets. Rosella is a veteran of the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament in 1986Mike Carberry, “How we deal with climate change is the defining issue of our generation,” with Jimmy BettsJeffrey Czerwiec, “I’m walking every step of the way.”David Osterberg, “We need to make renewable energy 100 percent.”State Senators Rob Hogg and Joe Bolkcom
And finally, here’s the whole gang crossing Burlington Street on Iowa Avenue in Iowa City.
LAKE MACBRIDE— Long term, long distance bicyclists will notice my bike is resting on the derailleur. A big no-no, which has now been corrected. Live and learn and roll on.
Having made three round trips to my favorite spot on the lake trail, it is easy to feel progress. Slowly locating tools of the trade around the house: first, a bicycling helmet older than dirt, used on a century ride in Iowa City back in 1981. Next, a pair of bicycling gloves which came in handy when I fell in the driveway. Water bottles and bags to carry groceries back from town when I start riding in all need to be located and situated. I’ve started biking for real.
The bicycle is a Cannondale borrowed from a friend until I settle on whether to revitalize my old Puch ten speed, or purchase a new one. The bike in the photo has traveled RAGBRAI a number of times, and I may yet ride in the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa. Perhaps as soon as next year.
Usually work is away from home, so today is an exception. One thing that will happen is another bike ride to begin to get conditioned for a longer ride soon.
LAKE MACBRIDE— It’s June and Credit Island on the Mississippi River is expected to flood. Our U.S. Congressman was there yesterday to fill sandbags as part of an effort to prevent damage. Thing is, Credit Island has been flooding for as long as I can remember, and likely always will. People with businesses there should be used to it by now.
Part of the War of 1812 was fought on Credit Island, but I remember it more for the very flat golf course where my father, friends and I played from time to time. We would stop to hit a few balls into the river on the back nine.
Sandbagging on Credit Island
Our CSA had an old walnut tree knocked over by the storms. It rests on the electrical wire, waiting for the electric company to come turn off the juice so the tree can be chainsawed and removed from the main entryway.
The report isn’t published yet, but the state climatologist said yesterday that Iowa had its third highest June rainfall since record keeping began. What was bad about the recent storms was their intensity— made worse by our changing climate.
Locally there was not much damage. Last year’s extreme storms took out the weak trees and shrubs, so besides straightening a few tomato cages, there was little work to do in the yard. The rain is feeding a jungle that needs mowing soon.
Conditions look perfect for getting outside. Something one hopes to do soon.
LAKE MACBRIDE— My patience is worn out with the talk of minimum wages, living wages, and all else hourly wage related. Depending on what one wants to do in life, the discussion matters a little or a lot. For me, not so much, as I previously explained.
I’ve written about worker engagement and dealing with low wages. A post illuminated low wages, and I wrote about my experiences assembling kits for Whirlpool Corporation for a very low wage, no benefit job in North Liberty. The practical result of all this thinking, writing and doing has been a focus on finding enough work to keep me busy and aggregate enough income in the form of wages, fees and bartered goods to sustain our lives on the Iowa prairie. I’ve found there are plenty of jobs.
Farm work
Working on farms and in our garden eliminates hunger. We continue to purchase dairy products, bakery-made bread, rice and sundry items from merchants, but since beginning work on two community supported agriculture projects there has been plenty to eat and enough to share with friends and neighbors in a micro-culture of food. There is a shortage of people willing to work on farms, and this creates an opportunity to meet a basic need.
Farm work can also be flexible. My sawyering work illustrates the point. There is a quarter mile fence line to clear of dead trees, and my initial estimate was a job of more than 225 hours. The property owner is not in a hurry, so I can work as I have time and weather permits. This job is paid in cash, but its flexibility provides a premium that fits into the broader picture of sustainability I am trying to paint.
Warehouse work
Large corporations have plenty of opportunities for low wage, part time help. Finding the right situation, one that provides a steady, reliable paycheck and accommodates my aging frame, took a while, but finally materialized in the form of warehouse work.
The physical demands of building kits for Whirlpool were too much. The minor supervisory role I now play at a warehouse club is better suited physically, and provides the flexibility I need to put the rest of a sustainable job portfolio together. One has to love the constant interaction with warehouse club members as a perquisite of the job.
Presently the wages from warehouse work make a substantial contribution to paying monthly bills like utilities, communications, fuel and debt servicing, accounting for more than half of our cash income needs. The long range plan is to replace this work with a better opportunity for income. Because the work is flexible, regularly and predictably paid, and has considerable social interaction with members and co-workers, it provides a stable platform for change.
Non-governmental organization work
I’ll sign a fourth contract with Iowa Physicians for Social Responsibility on Monday. The first was almost five years ago, shortly after exiting my highly paid, full time work in transportation and logistics. The work functions at a high intellectual level and is engaging in a way few other jobs are. For that reason, the project will receive high value in my jobs portfolio.
Like with corporations and farm work, NGOs are constantly seeking low wage workers to accomplish the deliverables of grants received each year. Because the work is contractually defined and the pay is predetermined, administrative variables are minimal, enabling a focus on the work.
The new contract is to organize a series of presentations on the humanitarian impacts of nuclear war to Rotary clubs over a six-month period. It is great work if one can get it, and because of the ebb and flow of the work process, there is adequate flexibility to accommodate the rest of my jobs portfolio.
Writing and editing work
Being a writer is a tenuous endeavor in the age of social media. It seems unlikely writing will pay enough to reduce the number of jobs in my portfolio, but there is beer money to be made if one is willing. Such income is still cash income, meager though it may be, and contributes to paying monthly bills not limited to summer beverages.
My main work is the unpaid writing at this site. There are currently three other distinct writing jobs for monetary compensation: proof reading for a local, regional newspaper, correspondent work for the same newspaper, and being summer editor of Blog for Iowa. As with the NGO work, these jobs function at a high intellectual level, and receive high value in my jobs portfolio. The thing about them is with each article I write, my skills improve, so the work feeds upon itself.
Business development work
In March, I described the process of business development and the Sumitomo Quadrant. With the jobs listed in this post, there are enough to plug into the tool to figure out next steps. That is, next steps after figuring out how to get all the work these jobs are expected to generate finished over the coming six months. Business development, like gardening, has become a necessary, but important unpaid job in itself. One that most low wage workers I know don’t give adequate attention.
Conclusion
Plenty of jobs are available if one wants the work. Whether creation of a jobs portfolio will also make life sustainable is an open question. The aggregate monetary compensation of this portfolio is enough to get by. It doesn’t translate easily to a framework of minimum or livable wages and that’s the point. In order to sustain a life, we sometimes need to take chances, and work how the jobs become available. This includes uneven compensatory rates, bartering and organic work like gardening and business development.
To make the paradigm work, jobs that have flexibility and will contribute to financial and intellectual needs take priority. Above all else, a job has to enable me to go on living, or else what’s the point?
LAKE MACBRIDE— The U.S. Drought Monitor shows Big Grove Township to be abnormally dry, even with the recent rainfall. Gardeners and farmers need rain, but this year the cold, unevenly dry conditions of early spring made for late planting and a tough job preparing the soil for transplanting seedlings from bedroom to garden. The weeds have started to take root, requiring some hoe work to break up the clumps of earthworm and bacteria-laden loam.
A gentle rain fell yesterday— the perfect kind for nourishing new seedlings, had they been planted.
“We farmers pray for rain, but it must be the right kind and at the right time and when we need it most,” wrote local farmer Eric Menzel. “When we get it, it’s more than often a torrential storm that washes topsoil and comes with a cold front that stunts growth to new tender annuals, while giving naturally-occurring perennials (a.k.a., weeds) just what they need to thrive.”
While inventorying tomato seedlings, it turned out that some were only lightly connected to their root structure. The rain had me in the garage transplanting them into larger containers for further development before putting them in the ground. It was probably for the best. There are enough extra tomato seedlings to make up for deficiencies, yet I would like the tomato plan outlined in yesterday’s post to come together. All tomato plants are not created equally, nor are the soil conditions in which they germinated uniform. These are challenges of trying to grow a diverse crop of tomatoes.
Turned Over
On Wednesday, former Reagan administration secretary of agriculture turned lobbyist John R. Block published an opinion piece about organic marketing in the Des Moines Register. This thinly veiled advocacy for big agriculture may be well received among fans of the late president, but its vapid positioning was transparent.
“We’ve witnessed a remorseless campaign based on junk science or no-science attacking food grown with modern fertilizers, pesticides, GMOs and other technologies,” Block wrote. His argument failed to recognize that the same corporations that prop up high-tech agriculture have a vested interest in organic marketing— corporations like General Mills that also owns Muir Glen Organic and Cascadian Farm, and recently introduced GMO-free Cheerios. That’s not to mention large organic operations like Earthbound Farm Organic in California that benefits from technology, if not the one Block defends. Block’s ideas could only gain traction among people already drinking the Kool-Aid. There is a strong case to be made for small-scale farming without fossil fuel-based fertilizers and pesticides to solve the world’s food production problem.
Any farmer who uses organic practices is well aware of the deficiencies of the “USDA Organic” label. If the limited energy and resources of small-scale local food growers were diverted to the straw-man argument about labeling, there wouldn’t be enough time for farm operations. What I know is the quality of vegetables I delivered to CSA customers last night was superb and well received. A CSA is based on a simple concept, that is impossible among producers of fungible crops: know the face of the farmer. More than the land-locked limits of conventional agriculture, this represents the future of feeding the world. My garden is a small part of that.
Student Physicians for Social Responsibility tour Kirkwood Community College
CEDAR RAPIDS– Iowa played host to the national organization Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) from May 6 through 10 at the Hotel at Kirkwood.
Iowa held center stage for meetings convened by national and international leaders of the 52 year old, Nobel peace prize winning organization. Thanks to the kind attention and assistance of the many expert hotel staff and the Kirkwood Community College affiliated training programs, this remarkable, first ever, national PSR gathering concluded a successful meeting on Saturday, May 10.
Those who attended the meetings work to address and reduce the humanitarian and health risks posed by the growing threat of nuclear weapons, the changing climate, and toxic environmental degradation. These first time visitors, initially quite skeptical about Iowa, were especially appreciative of its many unique offerings, both practical and recreational, available in and around the Kirkwood campus and the greater Cedar Rapids area.
The intractable challenges of our times were addressed in the meetings with U.S. Senate staff, Iowa elected officials, and online participants followed by experiences arranged by the Hotel at Kirkwood staff. Participants concerned about sustainability were able to visit and learn from the Kirkwood wind turbine and training center, the new Cedar Rapids LEED certified library with its green roof and inviting community center atmosphere, and the Kirkwood gardens and greenhouse. These tours, combined with the tasty, locally sourced and produced meals at the hotel, and an evening at the Cedar Valley Winery all served to showcase Iowa’s forward looking spirit and renew participants hopes for the future.
The troubled world presents us with so many new dangers and challenges. But the practical and creative talents of Iowans, especially those involved in Kirkwood’s uniquely integrated educational programs, services, entrepreneurship, and hotel partnership, manifest ample reasons for a positive outlook.
Board members, chapter leaders, staff and students from across the country join Iowa PSR in extending our deepest appreciation and gratitude to our hosts in Iowa. A special thanks to Tom Larkin of Senator Tom Harkin’s office, State Senator Rob Hogg of Cedar Rapids and State Representative Sally Stutsman of Johnson County. PSR leaders departed Iowa renewed by the gracious hospitality, insights and new sense of possibility gained by their experience.
LAKE MACBRIDE— The apple trees are in pink, which means the blooms will soon follow. Because my trees were not properly pruned until last winter, the number of blossoms will be low. Last year was the best ever for fruit, and 2014 tree energy is likely to be devoted to forming next year’s buds. Hopefully pruning cleared enough space for sunlight to encourage the fruit that does form.
Neighbors are out mowing lawns, and I am usually the last to make the first cut. I stopped trying to get an even and lush green lawn, eschewing chemical applications ten or more years ago. I bag my Spring clippings to use as mulch in the garden. A former neighbor once told me I should leave it to mulch the grass, but why waste it?
Two years of drought have thinned the grass, leaving a patchy mess before cutting. Where deer droppings fell are mountains of green. Once I mow, it will all even out… at least enough to stay out of the neighbors’ attention.
After a shift at a farm I hope to spend a few hours in the garden fencing the recently germinated spring vegetables. There is a burn pile on top of a tree stump. If winds are calm, I’ll burn it, hopefully taking the stump with it. I bought a bag of “natural charcoal” to use as a stump remover. If the burn pile doesn’t take this stump out, charcoal will be next.
More than 1,000 seedlings are growing in our bedroom, way more than usual. I am re-thinking how to plant everything. Maybe two full plots of tomatoes if we can afford the new cages. With all the varieties, this may be the year to make the most of it. I also want to plant all the germinated bell pepper seedlings to increase yield. Peppers don’t grow uniformly and the more plants, the more chances for decently formed vegetables. The celery is developing, but at this stage looks very delicate. I’m thinking about cucumbers and squash, but I want to wait a bit before planting them until after the squash beetle eggs.
Here’s hoping for some time in the garden and yard squeezed in between paid job in this complicated schedule of a life on the prairie.
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