Tag: winter

Categories
Living in Society Social Commentary Writing

Brief Respite and T.V. Culture

Snowy Sunday in the Garden

The farmer sent a long text message. We delayed soil blocking because the forecast is cold overnight temperatures for the next week. The seedlings we might have planted would be at risk.

Lambing at the farm added a complication. Her sister posted a photo of a blanketed newborn near the furnace vent inside the house. If you didn’t know, farmers continue to bring livestock inside the house when needed and lambing is always a stressful time.

My Sunday schedule is now open and it is snowing.

Between two and three inches fell with more coming. I had planned to secure provisions in the county seat, but now I’m not sure. Even if I go, errands can wait until snow stops and roads are cleared in a few hours.

For breakfast I made an omelette using leftover taco filling. Except for the prep work it takes 20-30 seconds to cook an omelette. It’s so easy anyone can do it. On my first cup of hot cocoa, showered, shaved and nourished, I’m ready to turn to another day.

Unintentionally, I spend an early morning hour watching a 2003 documentary titled, Inside the Marx Brothers. The white-washed story recounted historical facts about the six brothers, leaving out the racism inherent in much of their work. I was a fan of the Marx Brothers before I left home to attend university. It wasn’t until later I realized the prejudices toward blacks and women contained in their films. I have VHS copies of most of their films, beginning with Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers, written by George S. Kaufmann and Morrie Ryskind. These were adaptations of the Marx Brothers successful Broadway shows with the same name. I can hardly stand to view them today. Like many of the acts that emerged from vaudeville, neither the actors nor the audiences were cognizant of their biases the way we can be today.

Marx Brothers films aired on television Sunday mornings in the 1960s. We watched the newspaper guide to see when the next one would air and looked forward to them. It was during that ten-year period from 1960 until 1970 that we became a T.V. family, with everything that meant at the time. On the playground before school my friends and I would play marbles or four square and discuss what was on television the previous night. It was formative in a way that moved us from the physicality of neighborhood play to an intellectual approach to abstractions in the world. It made part of who I am.

We didn’t think much about network commentary on current events. The Huntley-Brinkley Report was our daily source of news and we tried not to miss it. Fifteen minutes seemed an adequate amount of time to present the news. Our focus at home was more on the style of the co-anchors and the closure we found in their signature sign off each night, “Good night, Chet. Good night, David. And good night, for NBC News.” The report expanded to thirty minutes on Sept. 9, 1963, following the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite which did it first. At the time we didn’t understand how they were going to fill an extra fifteen minutes.

A couple hours after sunrise and snowfall stopped. Time to chart the rest of the day while cultural memories of the Marx Brothers, Walter Cronkite, and the Huntley-Brinkley Report circulate in the tribal background. Considering the role television played in the 1960s, I wonder why we abandoned it, almost never turning a T.V. on, except to watch the weather during a storm.

Food for thought while I dig out a lane to get to the county seat and complete errands.

Categories
Environment

Out of the Polar Vortex

Snow Melted First over the Septic Tank

The ambient temperature is 45 degrees, a 73 degree swing since early Thursday morning. Warming is part of the polar vortex, just as the cold was. Temperatures are forecast to return closer to normal after tomorrow.

I had planned to prune trees today but am concerned about rapidly changing temperatures. If the sap starts flowing the purpose of waiting until winter to prune would be defeated. Maybe next week will be better once temperatures stabilize below freezing for a week or so.

Feb. 5 is the Iowa Environmental Council’s lobby day in Des Moines, followed by the Sierra Club’s lobby day the 6th. I noticed IEC scheduled 30 minutes for discussions with legislators. That’s about right because very little gets decided in one-on-one lobbying sessions, regardless of whether one’s legislators are supportive of climate action. What’s needed for change is a broad coalition and a dominant issue.

With the polar vortex we are living in a changed climate. Mitigating its effects is beyond the scope of the Iowa legislature. What can be done?

“In my view, the actions we take over the next 2-3 years are critical,” State Senator Rob Hogg wrote in an email. “The need for climate action has never been more urgent. Please take action personally and in public. Invite more people to get more informed, more involved, and do more.”

Hogg was trained by Al Gore as a Climate Reality Leader in 2008. He enumerated ideas with which to approach legislators for climate action, including “energy efficiency, renewable energy, electric vehicles, forests, prairies, soil conservation, and pre-disaster hazard mitigation to safeguard our people and our property.” Each of these items has its own constituency and many of the groups supporting them will be at Tuesday’s lobby day. What will get done?

There is a stability of operations among IEC members that works against substantial change. Some organizations, including some to which I belong, seem caught in a rut around a specific solution to the climate crisis. These formal, recurring events seem ineffective to me. I wrote about a 2015 trip I made to a similar lobby day in the Iowa City Press Citizen here. I’m not sure what, if anything was accomplished.

Some advocates believe climate denial among members of the legislature and elsewhere stands in the way of changing human behavior regarding climate change. I believe it is something different.

“I’m convinced that the greatest threat we face isn’t climate change denial,” climatologist and geophysicist Michael Mann wrote. “It is the weaponization of ignorance and apathy that is at its core…”

The weaponization of ignorance and apathy is something better to work on than any pet project. How does one do that when calcified lobbyists and citizen advocates petition the legislature for such issues? We need a more diverse group of stake holders than are in the IEC. Something bigger needs to happen to bring people together. I don’t know if the polar vortex is big enough even if it should be. What I know is if we wait to address climate change until it is too late the question will be moot.

This polar vortex is drawing to a close but it’s easy to predict there will be others. Many will have forgotten the polar vortex as they get absorbed in the big football game this afternoon. It is up to us to remind people of our common interest in sustaining our lives in a turbulent world. If we don’t, who will?

Categories
Environment

Dispatch from the Polar Vortex

Winter in Iowa

Editor’s Note: This email was sent to members of our home owners association at the beginning of the polar vortex of 2019. As I write this note, the outdoors ambient temperature is 26 degrees below zero and one person in the county seat has died from exposure.

Member,

As you likely know, ambient temperatures are forecast to get down to -25 degrees by 8 a.m. tomorrow morning and to -30 degrees overnight tomorrow. After that temperatures are expected to warm through Saturday and Sunday when it is forecast to be in the 40s.

That’s a seventy degree swing in a couple of days, which can be hard on things like water and sewer lines.

19th century British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli said, “Be prepared for the worst and hope for the best.”

We will do everything reasonable to get service back up as soon as possible if it is interrupted. Asking a contractor to work in wind chills like we haven’t seen since we moved here is not reasonable. I plan to contact our main contractor Wednesday and discuss the situation so we know our options in the event of a breakage.

What you can do to prepare for a potential outage is keep a temporary water supply if you don’t already.

In our household we keep a large Rubbermaid beverage container filled with water to use for washing hands and cooking in case we lose water.

We used to buy bottled water to have on hand but quit doing that over the years. It is an option.

If we know there will be an outage ahead of time, we fill up our two stock pots and keep them on the stove to be boiled and used to wash up in lieu of a shower, or as otherwise needed. We have also filled up coolers in the bathtub to use to flush the toilet.

Fingers crossed we will make it through the cold spell without a line breakage.

If something does happen, the procedures for reporting a water problem are below.

I hope this is helpful.

Paul Deaton
President

Categories
Kitchen Garden Writing

Soup for the Polar Vortex

Vegetable Soup on a Wintry Day

Monday I made a big pot of vegetable soup using what has become a standard process.

Mirepoix of onion, celery, carrot and salt sautéed in a couple tablespoons of vegetable broth.

Potatoes peeled and cut in large chunks, a 15 ounce can of rinsed, prepared beans, a pint of diced tomatoes, a quarter cup of barley, a half cup of dried lentils, a few bay leaves, two cups frozen sweet corn, a quart of home made tomato juice and vegetable broth to cover. I added lots of potatoes and carrots for texture and flavor. Toward the end of cooking I added a cup of frozen peas.

The soup cooks up thick and hearty, just the thing for subzero temperatures the polar vortex is bringing our way tonight and tomorrow.

Other soups I make are similar, adding every kind of vegetable we have on hand — after harvest or after cleaning the refrigerator. The limited number of ingredients in this recipe standardizes the outcome into something recognizable and delicious. Importantly, it is repeatable.

Over the weekend I sorted recipes, an act of curation. I found I’m much less attached to dessert recipes. Over the course of a year I make a few batches of cookies, an apple crisp or two, maybe a spiced raisin or applesauce cake. Those recipes are well used and written in my red book. I love dessert, but not that much.

The dessert recipes I kept included blueberry buckle, a seasonal item we serve at the orchard after the first blueberries come in from Michigan. The recipe our bakers use is called “Betty’s Blueberry Buckle,” but the one I have will serve.

While in graduate school I conducted a series of interviews with a subject for a class on aging. She had a letter from William F. Cody inquiring about his legacy in Davenport. I kept her recipe for custard for the memory, although I’m not sure if and when I might use it.

I find it hard to dispose of artifacts of consumption, although about half of the unsorted pile of recipes went into the paper recycling bin. That I got rid of anything is a sign of progress. So many things compete for attention that piles of artifacts, like these recipes, sit around indefinitely.

Winter is a great time to enjoy a bowl of soup and sort through the detritus of a life on the prairie. I look forward to spring.

Categories
Living in Society

Stability Should Matter

Snowfall in Big Grove

Between three and four inches of snow fell overnight. It’s still coming down. I have 80 feet of driveway and a shovel to deal with when the sun comes up. The first buckets of salt and sand were emptied yesterday — there is plenty in reserve.

It’s not our first winter in Big Grove.

I filled the bird feeder for the first time this year and expect birds to find it this morning. Deer, used to the cultural resonance of last year’s seeds, have been stopping by to check the feeder since hunting season began.

Despite the unbroken crystalline sheet of snow it’s not a blanket, that clichéd word. We need a new vocabulary. Neighborhood sounds are muffled in pre-dawn hours yet we know global tensions have increased rendering nothing comforting about newly fallen snow this January.

President Trump’s “America first” slogan and the actions behind it are unraveling what global order existed before his rise to power. We all know it and the dissonant, unwelcome noise of his administration conditions us with its absurdity. Columnist George Will characterized the effect in the Washington Post,

Half or a quarter of the way through this interesting experiment with an incessantly splenetic presidency, much of the nation has become accustomed to daily mortifications. Or has lost its capacity for embarrassment, which is even worse.

I’m interested in U.S. foreign affairs. The last two years have been exhausting.

Step-by-step, we withdrew our leadership from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

There’s talk about withdrawal from the INF treaty, the New START treaty, and even from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization which our country helped found.

Trump’s meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un was a head scratcher. After decades of unsuccessful negotiations regarding North Korea’s nuclear weapons ambition, the president held a brief meeting in Singapore then declared in social media, “There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.”

It is hard to describe the instability we created in the Middle East where we’ve engaged third string envoys like Mike Pompeo and John Bolton to do our work, in Pomeo’s case, only until the Rapture.

Last week the president introduced his Missile Defense Review which is certain to destabilize relationships with China and Russia, potentially fueling a new nuclear arms race.

By these actions and more, the United States under Trump created a vacuum of leadership which China in particular, but Russia as well, are ready to fill. What is lost in “America first” is the American people benefit from international stability. This president and Republicans who back him apparently could care less.

We understand there will be a 46th president. The U.S. House of Representatives is poised to check this one. The only question is when he will exit the office. In the meanwhile, it is time to clear snow from the driveway and get out in society, to sustain our lives while the absurdity continues.

I don’t like the national disgrace under which we currently live and the instability this president created. Few I know do. Time and good work will cure some of it. At least that’s what I hope now that we’re getting into winter.

Categories
Environment

A Winter Sort

Garden Seeds

A majority of the garden seeds wait in a corner on the lower level of our home.

I cleared a sorting table and next month will plant celery and kale at the first greenhouse shift. There is no immediate need to plan more.

The seven garden plots have stands of seed-spent foxtail and last year’s fencing. Clearing the plots will begin after a long period of subzero temperatures, assuming we have one. The first traditional planting is Belgian lettuce on March 2, although last year there was no early lettuce because of frozen ground during a spell of weird weather. The weird weather was related to global warming. A gardener, like a farmer, must adapt.

The 2018 vegetable growing season was challenging for farmers I know. However, to a person they responded to the challenges of late start, crop failures, uneven moisture, and other farm-related issues to produce an abundant harvest. They meet 2019 with renewed optimism and energy as the new cycle begins with the annual Practical Farmers of Iowa conference Thursday through Saturday in Ames.

Experience tells me not to worry about what might be during the upcoming gardening season. To deal with its actuality is sufficient. So much of what may happen this year is beyond our control. It’s best to deal with it as we go.

This approach is part of sustaining a life in a turbulent world.

Categories
Kitchen Garden Writing

Bunkering in During Snowfall

Last of the Fresh Kale

Snow began overnight and is expected to continue all day — the first real snow this winter.

We need more from winter, a week of subzero temperatures to kill bugs in the ground and to stop the sap flow in trees before pruning. Today’s snowfall gets us started, although the long-range forecast shows ambient temperatures well above zero the rest of the month.

We are ready to bunker in. We have reading piles, plenty of food, an internet connection, and an operational forced air furnace. I expect to drive my spouse into town for work so she doesn’t have to scrape windshields afterward. Having lived in Iowa and the Midwest most of our lives we know what to do.

Breakfast was kale cooked in a style of central Mexico with caramelized onions, finely chopped garlic and red pepper flakes. This recipe is worth trying because it allays the bitterness sometimes associated with kale, making a hearty and delicious vegetarian meal. Here’s what I did.

In a medium sized frying pan warm extra virgin olive oil on medium high heat. Cut three medium onions in half,  slice them into quarter-inch ribbons, and add to the olive oil. Salt generously to taste. Once the mixture is cooking, reduce the heat and caramelize the onions. Finely chop three cloves of garlic and add them to the caramelized onions along with red pepper flakes to taste. Mix and cook just until the garlic loses it’s raw taste. Add one half cup of vegetable broth and a generous amount of kale. Cover the pan with a lid and let it cook for five minutes on medium low heat or until the kale is tender. Mix the ingredients thoroughly. At this point I laid two home made bean burgers from the freezer on top of the kale and covered again until the pre-cooked burgers were warmed through and the moisture evaporated. (If you want to use the kale mixture as a taco filling, the bean burgers aren’t needed). Transfer the kale and a burger to plates and top with Mexican cheese and fresh salsa. If you have it, freshly chopped cilantro would be a nice addition. The breakfast of champions.

Five weeks remain until soil blocking begins at the farms. It’s a chance to garage the car for days at a time and turn inward as if there is just us in the world. The snow is getting deep enough to shovel the driveway before heading to town.

Already it is becoming a productive, mostly indoors day. Winter at its best.

Categories
Home Life

Cabin Fever

Garden in Winter

My to-do list has grown since retiring from my transportation career in 2009. The number of items on it was supposed to decrease yet it’s not.

After retiring that July 3, I engaged in life outside home in a way I hadn’t in a long time. I joined groups working on social issues. I joined the boards of some of those groups. I had a measure of freedom to pick activities from the broad palette found in a region with a large University town and Iowa’s second largest city. Almost ten years later I view that first retirement as a failure. I left a career and job but didn’t stop working.

This time, beginning with leaving full-time work last March and taking my Social Security pension, it is different. The stress of living paycheck to paycheck is relieved yet the to-do list sits quietly, awaiting action. I can’t get started and each day becomes a challenge to gain impetus on it. Why? I blame it on cabin fever.

“Retirement” is a story we tell ourselves in order to live. When I write, “career in transportation,” it stands for working 25 years in a series of jobs in that field. I worked to provide financially for our family. In quiet mornings of 2019 that narrative is stripped away leaving me mired in passing time. I have to work through it and get on track.

Part of the challenge is awareness. I’m of an age where every path chosen, every task undertaken, means another is pushed aside, maybe never taken up afterward. Perhaps it’s always been this way and I didn’t see it, wouldn’t acknowledge it. Choices made now have a different meaning — the bucket has limited capacity to hold our tears and sweat and I must choose carefully.

Of course that’s also some bullshit. That the door leading to the garage needs painting doesn’t go away. It will take several hours with buying supplies, prep, undercoating and finish. It can be fit into my schedule adding something positive to the quality of our lives. We only ever have the moment in which we live. There is no bucket of tears.

If I’m feeling cabin fever, not to worry. I’ve arranged start dates at the farms, and warmer weather will spark work on the garden. As warm as it’s been, I could work in the garden now, removing the weeds and fencing, organizing the plots. However, cold weather is coming, I hope. Once it gets below zero for a week, there is winter pruning to do… then a burn pile… then before you know it, back in the swing of things.

If we stay busy, cabin fever disappears. Our only challenge is to get started.

Categories
Writing

So It Begins

The holiday season is over and today I return for a shift at the home, farm and auto supply store. I’m fine… I’ll be fine.

Since the orchard closed for the season it has been two months of reading, writing and cooking in the kitchen. Existential errands have been run. There was a special election Dec. 18. I eschewed the company of anyone but those closest to me plus people I encountered in the world of commerce.

My daily journal of meetings with family, friends and acquaintances is the emptiest it’s been since I began keeping it. It has been the kind of holiday isolation a writer needs and appreciates. I’m ready for the holidays to be over, even as winter has just begun.

It was quiet on New Year’s Day. Using the rest of a jug of sweet cider and a packet of spices from the orchard, I mulled cider which was warm and comforting. The flavor of spices combined with local apples tasted just right.

I curled up with a book, a cup of mulled cider, and dwelt in the narrative that is Bruce Springsteen’s memoir. It was great escape. I wasn’t that familiar with him or his music. It was day to forget about the outside world before the 2019 maelstrom begins. 

Seven or eight weeks remain until soil blocking begins at the farms. With time on my hands one would think I’d have a better plan for the coming year. It’s sketchy at best. Time isn’t waiting for me to catch up.

So it begins, my 67th trip around the sun. Ready or not, here we go.

Categories
Home Life Kitchen Garden

Winter Soup to Relieve Punk Times

Garden in Winter

The end of year has been punk times without relief.

Some blame it on social media.

Social media users post they need a break. They want to cleanse their mind of the drivel, hostility and tumult often found in feeds they scroll.

How is “cleansing” possible? Social media is an addiction and once hooked, that’s it. Few want to make a permanent break from social media, so what’s really the point of a cleanse? A better idea is to exercise moderation when using social media. I think the ancient Greeks said something like this.

Some blame it on our president.

Sequestered in the White House, his spouse in Florida with their son, a phone nearby, he waits for Democrats to call. The current stalemate is the president’s doing, so why would they call? He lashes out with ill-informed, ill-mannered tweets. I don’t know anyone who would object if he took a break from Twitter.

Relief from punk times can be found in getting busy. Today I made a hearty winter soup.

Butternut Squash and Turnip Soup

  • One medium butternut squash, peeled and cut into half inch cubes.
  • Two large turnips peeled and cut into quarter inch cubes.
  • One cup thinly sliced celery.
  • One cup medium dice onions.
  • One quart tomato juice.
  • Vegetable broth to cover.
  • Quarter teaspoon each of ground nutmeg, allspice and coriander.
  • Teaspoon ground cinnamon.
  • One large bay leaf.
  • Salt and pepper to taste.

Cover the bottom of a Dutch oven with vegetable broth and add the celery and onion. Stir until the onions start to soften. Add the turnips and squash. Add a quart of tomato juice and spices with vegetable broth to cover. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to a simmer and cook until the vegetables are soft. Remove and discard the bay leaf. Use a blender to smooth the mixture and serve with a dollop of sour cream and finely chopped parsley or chives.

Warm winter soup to chase away these punk times.