Merry Holidays....All of Them

December 2023

Happy Holidays to you and yours. 

    I have been contemplating a letter or a card now for some time and only when the time has now grown so short that there is not a chance that this will make it to anyone before Christmas...or New Year's….only then, does it feel like the right time to sit and ponder on the year’s events and antics. As much fun as a card or pictures might be to send, I feel sometimes that social media has taken away the actual events of life and left us all with only a few saccharinely sweet highlights.
    So, to avoid the lack of context that often comes with social media, I am embarking upon a “Holiday Letter” - and by "Holiday" I mean this might not actually get out to anyone until sometime in the early part of 2024 - Happy Valentine’s, Happy Saint Patrick’s day and maybe even Happy Easter for all I know.  Also, if you want the abbreviated form, here it is:
We are all fine, life is weird, carry on. 
If you have read this far, by all means carry on if you feel so inclined. 

Last year I made a resolution. I even think I said it out loud to people, which by all definitions makes it harder to pretend that you were only kidding. The resolution was to move closer to selling my practice to the young associate that I so fortunately stumbled upon while ranting on-line about not being able to find a young vet that wants to own a business. 

 There are times when the universe seems to smile on me and I do my best to pay attention to those moments and not screw it up. So, after 5 years of organizing, employing, appraising, re-organizing, and re-appraising, I am finally selling my practice to another woman veterinarian to carry on the Family Pet Vet business.

It has been 16 years of income and 5 kids that my business provided for, but it is time to pass it off to the next generation of veterinarian that can continue to move it forward.  

I know being a veterinarian is often in the top 5 things of what people want to do when they grow up, but what isn’t widely known is that most vets I know should be awarded an honorary degree in psychology and grief counseling.  As rewarding of a job as it is at times, it eventually wears a person down. 

I will still be working at the clinic - just more or less swapping positions with my associate so she can take on the income as well as the nitty gritty of business ownership and I can just go to work in the morning and focus on the animals. I am looking to do that for the next year at least and then see what happens from there. 

Keith is busy working on various projects around the house. There are enough here to keep him busy for several more years, but with my bowing out of the business ownership scenario, he will likely be looking for something a little more full time that keeps us out of the poor house at least for the near future.

He has also been busy this summer helping my mom move into her new condo and helping to organize the sale of my parent’s property. He is like a one man force of nature when he gets down to doing things. 

    Amid several adventures this last year, Keith and I took a wonderful trip through Canada this summer. Flew to Maine, rented a car and then essentially drove home while stopping to see the sites in Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, and many small towns along the way. During the trip, we left accommodations completely up to chance and had a great time trading off between camping and staying in available AirBNBs - our good fortune found us staying one night in a Geodesic dome, one night in a Yurt and our last night in a haunted Ringling Brothers mansion. Keith and I travel fairly well together and I wouldn’t mind a few longer sojourns in the future.

Meg is our last and final hurrah at parenting. I like to pretend that we finally got it figured out, but I think she would be the first to point out our many parental flaws. She is a senior at Solon and (as of this moment) considering going to University of South Dakota in Vermillion or maybe today it is ISU in Ames? If she does go to SD, she will be the only kid of ours to have ventured out of state…or maybe she just needs to get that little bit further away from us since her dad and I have been double teaming her this year. Her senior year has been a good one - inducted into the National Honor Society, played Rizo in the school musical Grease, holding down two part time jobs, and excelling at League of Legends where she can often be found gaming with her sister Ella late into the night. 

Jaime (whom many of you have known as Mara) has finished the first semester at the University of Iowa majoring in Anthropology and taken on many new challenges in embracing the person he most wants to be. New friends, new subjects of study, new adventures all seem to be suiting Jaime well, despite the occasional blown fuse or bedbug infestation in the dorms.  It is the crazy events that make college so memorable.

Ella is down to only one more semester at Iowa State University and then she will graduate with her degree in Animal Ecology in May. Not sure yet what is on her horizon, but I suspect it will involve both her boyfriend, Seth (who just graduated this December) and finding a few cats to adopt. Ella spent

her summer in Kenya, Africa studying Baboons and their family systems while simultaneously dodging being trampled by the elephants in the area that have a serious dislike of humans thanks to too many poachers in the past. Thankfully, she waited until she was home in our kitchen before regaling us with her near death encounter with a trumpeting elephant that chased her and her cohorts down a hill.  Kinda hoping that whatever is on her horizon is a little less death defying than her Africa adventures. Ella is the only kid (so far) that has ended a phone conversation with us by saying, “I have to go now, there are lions outside.” 

Duluth, northern Minnesota, and her boyfriend, Justin have captured Faye’s heart. She is working as a sustainability coordinator for the city of Duluth and pondering getting a masters in Education in the next few years.  She is currently bent on talking Keith and I into moving up to Duluth and much of our time on the phone is spent expressing to us all the

wonders of Minnesota, which, being a Minnesotan myself, doesn’t take a lot of convincing. I sometimes have to remind her that I was the one that originally took her into the north woods and boundary waters of Minnesota.   Faye spent last winter shoveling her way out of record snow falls in California when she was teaching at the Pali Institute and then hopped a flight to Argentina to spend some time hiking around South America with Justin prior to his graduation from Luther last May. 

Simon continues to thrive in Colorado with his fiance (yes, you read that correctly) Clarie!  He works remotely for REG while Claire is finishing up a Masters degree in Bison nutrition. Simon surprised Claire with a proposal over Thanksgiving this year while they were out finding a Christmas tree and they are contemplating a wedding sometime in the fall of 2025.  Between skydiving, running ultramarathons, and climbing, he seems to have taken a special interest in freaking his mother out on a routine basis. Thank goodness he sometimes has to fix cars - it keeps his feet on the ground. 

So, that is the general run down of all the family happenings. Kids are great, life is amazing, yada, yada, yada…except for those times that I catch myself suddenly wondering where my kids have all gone, because it seems like just yesterday that they were all racing around here as toddlers and tweens. 

 And I have to stop and think about all the veterinarians that I have worked with and for over the years and what it likely felt for them to sell off the business they had worked so hard to build - it’s good, don’t get me wrong- but it is also a difficult transition and I don’t think I ever totally understood how much of themselves they invested into something until I am on the “seller” end of the long legal paragraphs and the tangled mess it can be to unravel all of the machinations of a business and make sure it gets picked up mostly intact. 

 I told Stacy it is a little like she is trying to catch a train mid-flight and I am trying to jump off of it.  Her’s is the technically more involved situation, but my situation likely hurts more.  

Haven’t been running much of late, but have high hopes of training for another marathon in the fall of this year.. I will likely never be able to match my best time and that, in and of itself, has taken some mental readjustments. As my grandfather noted so eloquently, “It’s a great life if you don’t weaken” and I am starting to sense the age-related weakening of joints and muscles. But  the challenge of training and the hurdle of surviving a race is enough to keep me moving and focusing on other things other than my existential anxieties that creep into my daily thoughts. 

Concerns over the environment, US politics and the world in general feel like a pot on a slow boil at the back of my mind and it feels like it is rapidly running out of water and will likely burst into flame. I then have to go out to my garden and walk amid all the perennial crops that happily bring themselves forward again and again to provide sustenance to the insects, animals and humans around them and am reminded that even after all the humans have managed to muck up the place, the planet itself will likely go on quite contentedly without us.

Reading and listening to books is my go-to for focusing my otherwise worried mind. I managed to flog through 69 books this year, not counting the three or four I am in the midst of. My favorites were (in no particular order): “Wellness” by Nathan Hill, “Mad Honey” by Jodi Picoult, “Lessons in Chemistry” by Bonnie Garmus,  “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” by Gabrielle Zevin, and “I’ll Show Myself Out” by Jessi Klein.

And with that, I am off to finish maybe one or two of those other books to round out the year. 

I hope the New Year brings to you whatever you need most - a break, an old friend, a new start, and exciting adventure, a good cup of coffee, a great book….

Cheers!

A microcosm of life

Just staggered in today from running a marathon.  Grandma's marathon to be exact.  After a grueling 6+ hour drive after a short 4 hour sleep and 26.2 miles of all that life can throw at a person.

I don't know exactly what it is about a marathon that draws me in.  It is a loooonnnnggg way and it sucks 98% of the time you are running it.  Every. single. time. I stand at the starting line and think, "what the hell was I thinking?" and then the horn sounds and that thought gets replaced by a million others.

Most of my long runs are done on my own, so running in a crowd of 8,700 people is a big change. There are people of every sort there - tall, short, old, young, black, white.  All 50 states were represented this year.

And then there are the volunteers - 6,000 of them that might otherwise have been happily enjoying their coffee at home, but were instead dealing with a lot of humanity in various stages of nerves and preparedness.

So what is it about the marathon, exactly?

One thing that is always striking to me is that we are running in the same race and the same course as whatever elite runner is at the head of the pack.  Look at most runners....some of them are in incredible shape, but the majority of us are just your average Joe that is somehow able to roll out of bed enough times to get in the necessary training runs to make it 26.2 miles.  The playing field is the same.  What other sport, anywhere, can boast that?

A marathon requires some training.  I have seen the occasional masochist sign up for (and run) a half marathon without training, but a marathon will exact a price on you - on your body, on your mind, on your soul - I have seen some of the strongest looking runners drop out right in front of me due to muscles that cease up or a heart that simply breaks.  I have faced down my own inner demons that have told me to just cash in the chips and be done...."it is sssoooo much easier than running the next 17 miles" they purr in my head, "just stop and they will come transport you to the end"....

It is a self inflicted crucible. You go in, knowing that it is a long way and that you will hurt when you are done, and still you stand with your toe on the line waiting for the start.  You know that you will fight off attacks from the voices in your head that cry out to stop, you will look up and set a point 200 ft, 100 ft, 40 ft, ......5 more feet ahead of where you are and focus on that. And then you get to 13 miles and you take a mental assessment of how things are going.....and they are going bad....and you have to rally....and so mile by mile you only focus on that one and pretty soon the lady running next to you looks over and says, "what mile was that?" and in all seriousness you have no idea either because you have all stopped focusing on anything other than putting one foot in front of another.

Once in a while a hand on the sideline goes out for a high five, or a sign catches your eye and provides a little cheer. There are sometimes the kind souls on the sidelines that know how to inspire, whether it be with a focused cheer just for you, or a few sips of brewed coffee, or a free slice of bacon.  You focus on these small acts of kindness, you draw from them the will to go on.

This whole event is a metaphor for life.  There are some - the elites- that seem to fly along and it can sometimes feel unfair that they have been gifted with this ability until you remember that this is their day job and they have a coach waking them up in the morning and demanding the pound of flesh from them every single day. So they may be elite, but they have also paid the price.  For the rest of us, it's hard work.  You have prepared, but there are dark times to face down out there on the road.....and there is help too.

I would like to say that it is all amazing after you cross the finish line, but it isn't....Happy to be done, yes! Happy to take a shower and take a nap, absolutely!  But the pain and challenges aren't over yet.  The physiology of the long distance runner is that you will run until you are out of glycogen and have burned through all the available carbohydrates that you have and then you start to burn off fat and that fat burning is a very inefficient process and it leads to more and more lactic acid build up and that acid does just what any other acid will do....it burns.  I lay in bed this morning and could actually just feel both of my legs pounding in pain.  All the muscles are swollen and the ligaments are strained.  The run may be over, but the recovery is just beginning and that can be almost as grueling and painful as the run itself.  I watched as a first time marathoner got up from the sitting position he had been in - a young kid, full of youthful vitality, but he looked about 60 years old trying to get off the ground.  He said, "Oh, it is just so hard to move."  I could only look at him and say, "wait until tomorrow....and the day after that. " before I smiled and shuffled off.

So why? Because all of life's emotions are here in one spot.  The hero's journey is within reach of us all with just this one race: The departure, the crucible, the return.  I saw a shirt yesterday that read, "Anything that is worth doing, is worth over doing." That is the marathon.

In A Pickle

It has been some time since I have posted anything to this blog.  Life got in the way.  Kids graduated high school, job overtook me, life just happened....that and I was starting to feel as though I was writing about the same things year after year, but then that happens when you focus on the seasons, I suppose. 

We are now all up to our eyebrows in Pandemic - avoiding people, wearing masks (or not, if that is what your quack science is telling you) - sorry honey, it's my blog and I can call people out here if I want - the current major stressor is attempting to send our kids back to school, or (as I like to call it) sending our kids and their teachers into the petri dish of virus and see how they do. 

My main ways of combating the general stress of the current political idiocy, worldwide pandemic, job burnout, and climate crisis implosion that hovers on the horizon is to spend time in my garden....a lot of time in my garden.  I know that I have probably written about pickles before, but honestly I can't remember and I am honestly just too lazy to go back and check out all the posts I have had before, so I will just bring pickles up again because they seem fitting to the current strife we are all suffering. 

I have always sort of had a love/hate relationship with making pickles.  Originally, when I would plant cucumbers I would make vinegar pickles and they would be alright, but nothing like the hard, crunchy Gherkins I grew up eating all the time.  And then somewhere along the line, I thought it might be fun to do fermented pickles  - the original way of making a pickle that involved putting it in a salt brine and waiting for it to "pickle" itself using the yeast present in the very air we breathe. I did a little research and obtained a few "crocks" that I used and then proceeded to fill them with garlic, cucumbers and dill heads and wait....

Often that waiting lead to some amount of mold on top of my crocks that was simply too scary to venture into in order to taste the pickles.  The long and short of it was that I let them sit too long in the crock. 

Pickles are incredibly easy when you really get down to it - even easier than making the vinegar type that you will typically see recipes for because humanity has either forgotten or lost all trust in things that are naturally fermented on their own kitchen counters. So let me break it down for anyone that wants to give it a go. 

Cucumbers:  Not every Cucumber is the same.  There are "pickling" cucumbers and "Slicing" cucumbers.  If your goal is to make a good pickle, you will want the "pickling" type.  This is analogous to politics in some ways - sorry to do this to all you that just wanted a pickle recipe, but really, it is important.  If you want a good government (pickle) you have to pick the appropriate type - you don't want to pick someone who doesn't have any confidence in government and would rather "shrink it down to the size that could be drowned in a bathtub"  as Grover Norquist was noted for saying - you want to pick the person that actually believes in the premise of the Constitution that says, "for the people, by the people"  Pick your seeds carefully because at the end of the season, they will definitely influence the taste and quality of the pickle you have. 

Tannins: These are the things that give a pickle its "crunch" and save them from being mushy after pickling.  These are often found in leaves with some "stiffness" to them, such as grape, horseradish, oak or bay leaves.  These leaves might be considered analogous to one's education - if it is full and robust, it makes for a better pickle - without an education (or tannin containing leaves) all you are left with is mush. 

Salt: A salt brine helps to prevent bacterial takeover of your pickles.  For generations salt has been used as a preservative for many foods and, similar to sugar, its high percentage prevents bacteria from getting a foothold.  Since we are currently on a political bent

Dear Hillary Clinton Supporters,

I live in Iowa.  I was at the caucus.  My local precinct contained all of 56 people and we argued over who would win our one delegate for almost an hour before it finally fell to Bernie by one person.  Emotions ran high on both sides and the debate was fierce, but it was clear at some point that there would be no swaying the Hillary camp and there would be no swaying the Bernie camp.  It would come down to the three O’Malley supporters and the one undecided to make or break it for one candidate.  

I am as happy as the rest of Iowa that the caucus is over.  The spotlight was burning just a little too hot this year, but for a very good reason.  Democracy is in full swing.  Full disclosure, I was a precinct captain for Bernie Sanders.  I was asked early in the campaign to help corral the masses in his corner.  This was a huge leap of faith for me because I am, by nature, a complete introvert bordering on recluse.  It requires a huge amount of energy for me to walk up to people, introduce myself and engage them in conversation, especially political conversation.  On top of that, some of the houses that I walked up too had clearly written notices, “This House Protected by Smith and Wesson” so not only was I outside my comfort zone, but there was a chance that I could have been shot as well, so strong is my support of Bernie.  

I know that Bernie supporters lately have gotten something of a bad rap as being “over the top” a little overzealous, but let me give you a perspective for one such “over the top” supporter.  
Hillary is more than capable.  Of this I have no doubt.  She is vetted, she has survived being First Lady married to Bill, she has been a U.S. Senator, she was Secretary of State.  She has, time and again, proven her worth and would do a fantastic job of running the country in relatively the same way it has been run for the last eight years.

But there is the rub.  I know that Hillary knows how to play by the current rules.  She knows the ins and outs of campaign finance, the rules of engagement when it comes to dealing with Republicans.  She knows how to walk the Wall street walk and talk the lobbyist talk in order to get the financial support that comes in handy to someone running a campaign, but it is at that point that the average Bernie supporter starts to build up a head of steam and launch overboard.

We, the average people, have watched for the last eight years as deals have been made - some good, some bad, but all of them mostly excluding us entirely.  We have watched as the Affordable Care Act became mostly affordable to the large insurance companies that continue to demand high premiums while simultaneously demanding large deductibles.  We have watched while the upper 1% has continued to amass huge sums of money, while we scrape the change off the floors of our cars to give to the local homeless guy - a veteran missing both his legs that panhandles on the corner every day of the week.  Enough is enough.

So along comes an angry, Jewish, Democratic Socialist in the twilight of his career that says simply and straightforwardly, “The system is rigged and this is how”.  There is not one point that he makes that doesn’t ring true in our average person heart.  We are tired of working more than one job and still not being able to make ends meet, we are tired of funding wars that only lead to more terrorism, we are tired of not getting the healthcare we need, we are tired of watching corporations buy politicians and establish whatever loopholes are necessary to line their pockets nicely while simultaneously bleeding us dry.  We are tired of watching the environment get raped while we wonder why it is that people in Flint are being quietly poisoned with water that flows through their pipes.

In short, we are tired.

When something isn’t working you have three options:  You can do nothing and continue on being tired and frustrated, you can backtrack and become fearful and hate-filled (take heed, for beyond this point there be Republicans), or you can move forward and change the system. Bernie Sanders is option number three.  

There is power in progress.  There is power in seeking out solutions to problems and tackling them even when the odds are stacked against you.  There is mastery in reaching for the stars.  It is what starry-eyed people from the 1960s see when they think about what JFK said about going to the moon.

“ This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.
So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this State of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward…” JFK September 12th, 1962.

Forward. To a country that is not ruled by the billionaire class.  Forward to a country where a medical diagnosis doesn’t demand that you sell your house to pay for treatments. Forward to a time when a country doesn’t go to war unless they can pay to take care of the veterans that come home.  Forward to a country whose children can boast of the best education without the mountain of debt.  Forward.
Even Rome in the 1300s understood forward. They built a cathedral in Florence for which they had no idea how to design or build the dome.  For a hundred years it stood with the certainty that it would be built and finally in 1436, a man by the the name of Filippo Brunelleschi engineered and built the dome on what would become the most renowned cathedral in Florence, Italy. Now that is some serious faith.

There are any number of people that will say, “It isn’t possible!”  “It will NEVER, EVER happen!”.  Maybe that is true, but that very thought would have kept the U.S. on the ground in the 1960s, we would have never gone to the moon.  That thought would have torn down the sides of the cathedral decades before the engineer that would eventually build it would even be born.  

It is so easy to give up.  It is, after all, what they want us to do….stay poor, stay dumb, stay sick, stay anesthetized by the latest reality T.V. spectacle while they quietly take away our liberties, our healthcare, our young men to wars to defend their oil interests in the Middle East.  

I say rise up.  Enough is enough.  

So, Dear Hillary supporter, you have before you a populace that is very much awake and aware. Most of us are, for the first times in our lives, really politically involved and energized.  We are not upset with you and your choice of candidate, but we sincerely hope that you can come to understand, if not respect, the anger that many of us are feeling at being duped for so long by the “system” of which Hillary is still very much a part.  “Forward” sometimes requires a push….that is what Bernie (and his supporters) are doing.   Sometimes we are loud and obnoxious, sometimes we post too many Bernie related things to our Facebook pages, sometimes we feel it necessary to point out the differences between the two democratic candidates in such a way that we appear to be attacking Hillary (and there are differences), but it comes down simply to what Martin Luther King Jr so eloquently expressed: “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.” and we are those dedicated individuals.

And Now For Something Completely Different

When I am not busy in the garden, or chasing kids around, or working as a veterinarian to stamp out disease and pestilence.....I am running. Technically, I have been running since I was about 18 months old (as have most humans), but I grew up in a track and cross country family and so the bug bit me early.  This time of year, the running becomes a little more challenging because of the cold and ice, but my beloved treadmill (aka "dreadmill") lives downstairs in my basement and works as an effective hamster wheel throughout the cold months.

Why do I run? Sometimes people ask.  Mostly they just shake their heads and think I am nuts, but at least in this family, I am in good company - my husband runs, my son runs, and now my daughters are taking it up as well.

Marathons are my current distance of choice, and because of that, there are many hours spent running in preparation.  What follows are some of the reasons for "why I run" that my conscious mind has endeavored to latch on to when the potentially more rational parts of my brain try to get me to take a nap on the couch instead.

1. "Just Do It."
    Somewhere out there is a marketing person that has retired and is living large because of that slogan, but honestly, those three words have hauled my sorry butt out of bed in the dark of the morning and have helped me to slog those last agonizing miles home more times than I like to admit. There are thousands of reasons why I shouldn't run or don't need to run, or can't run and my brain will attempt to find them all.  It is only when my brain over rides the nay-saying with "Just Do It" loud enough that I get up and get going.  I have never regretted this phrase because I always feel better after I have Just Done It.

2. The thrill of seeing wildlife
     I see wildlife every day - on the way to work, on the farm, etc.  But there is something sort of magical about running around a bend and suddenly finding a deer and her fawn standing there on the trail, or a raccoon or skunk waddling along.  The occasional turtle and snake to leap over, or the ermine that dodges into the grass.  The herons that take flight and sore across the lake or the eagles that perch and stare down at me while I run by.  Running seems to catch many wild animals off guard because it allows a person to get into their territory quickly before they have the time to skitter away. I have seen more wild animals while running then ever while walking.

3. Seeing people (and pets) I know
    As a veterinarian, I see a lot of the clients and patients that I know while out running.  It is fun to be running toward a dog I know and say, "Hey Spike!" and have the dog stop in it's tracks and try to figure out how this person knows their name.  Same goes for the owners because, out of context I am just another runner passing by on the sidewalk, but when they realize who I am there are usually shouts of "hello!" and wagging tails.  Seeing other runners, whether I know them or not, is also fun.  I feel as though I share some amount of camaraderie with them just because we are both out pounding the same pavement and there are usually waves and hellos whether we know each other or not.

4. My kids
    Yes, I run for my kids.  I run because I want them to see an example of maintaining one's health and vitality as long as possible.  I want to be able to demonstrate for them that a person doesn't have to always win at something to enjoy doing it.  And, who am I kidding, I like to be able to beat them in a race or at least say I have run further than they have.  This is, of course, getting harder and harder, but it is a challenge none-the-less.

5. The distilling power of pain and discomfort.

I won't lie, sometimes running hurts....a lot.  I have had one broken ankle and one severely dislocated ankle in my lifetime and everyday (whether I run or not) one or both ankles will ache at times. Running long distances can be brutal on a person's body, but there is something in that masochistic behavior that is not unlike tempering steel into a honed blade.  I feel like I get fired up, pounded flat, and then folded again and again until I come out hardened and sharp.  I run until the pain is sometimes unbearable.... go a few miles more....and then I know I can stand anything.

6. How my legs look in short skirts
    Vanity is a perfectly legitimate reason for lacing up and heading out as long as it isn't the only reason. Sometimes, when other encouragements are failing, the thought of a new dress or shorts is enough to move me in the right direction.

7. Resting heart rate of 50 beats per minute.
    Studies have found that, in general, a person gets roughly 1 billion heart beats in their life.  So, in other words, the slower your heart beats on average, the longer you may live.  This makes fairly good sense.  When your heart is good at pumping blood and oxygen, when your muscles and organs are resourceful at utilizing energy with less waste, it makes the whole process easier and more efficient.

8. Eating and drinking
    My Hobbit lifestyle of loving food and drink is best served by running.  There is really nothing that I restrict when I am in the middle of training - whatever my body wants to eat or drink, it gets (within reason of course)  That is not a bad way to live, if you ask me.

9. The mental conversations - all the inner voices show themselves
    When I run I will often step outside of my own head and just listen to the voices in my brain battle it out.  For example,
Voice #1  "Why are you doing 12 miles today? You just did 8 yesterday!"
Voice #2, "Why not do 12 miles? You have to run twice that in a few weeks, you had better be able to pull it off."
Voice #1 "Yeah, but you don't want to get injured! Take it easy"
Voice #2 "Whatever! Clear out, we need to go for a run."
And this will continue on for 12 miles if I let it.
   Some might say that this sounds a little schizophrenic, but if you have ever tried meditating, this is what you are instructed to do - let the voices rattle on and recognize them for what they are, your ego attempting to maintain control - and then let them go....no more voices, just quiet clear space in which to run.   Running is my meditation.

10. Finishing
      There is really no better feeling than crossing a finish line knowing that you have put forth your best effort on that particular day.  The memory of crossing that line drives me along when I wonder if the tempo runs or hill workouts are really worth it.

11. That little thrill of butterflies just before the gun goes off
      I used to hate this feeling, but I have come to recognize that it is my body's way of saying "I am ready" by giving it that little jolt of epinephrine that can help to override the voice that likes to say, "What are you doing?"

12. Learning to respect my physical boundaries

      This has been a tough lesson to learn and one that has become more common in the last several years.  There is only so much that I, physically, can do.  There are certain records that I will never break, and likely personal records that I will never break again, but each day is new and each race is a new race...."I have never run this half marathon as a 41 year old....only as a 40 year old."  Rather than being depressed about getting older, I have to meet the challenges and accept them from my current point of reference.  Pining for lost youth and lost speed it pointless, and self defeating.  By focusing on doing the best that I can on this day, at this age, at this fitness level - let's just say that this year alone I have managed to pull off three personal records in racing as well as countless others on a daily basis in training.

13. Aging gracefully
      Sometimes it is hard to run knowing that my fastest days are likely behind me.  I see my husband struggling with this as his son has caught and passed him in a 5k earlier this year.  But then I have witnessed people almost twice my age out there tackling a course one hill at a time and I am inspired by them. They have tackled many of the same worries - loss of speed, ability to recover from injury-that I ponder, and they are still out there doing it and it helps to keep them stronger - mentally and physically.  If they can do it, I can too.

14. Weird tan lines
      You have to have a sense of humor when running - you will have weird tan lines.  Sock lines, short lines, sport bra lines, running number lines.  These can make for interesting conversations.  I like to think of them as my proof of absorbing a little Vitamin D and I carry these lines into the winter as a reminder of what spring and summer will bring again.

15. Bragging rights
      You do the work, you earn the right to brag about it if you want to.  You don't do the work, you don't get to brag.  I have decided that the times I feel the need to brag the most is when I am feeling low and overwhelmed by the task that I have carved out for myself.  I know some people really hate to hear about all the miles and runs that people put in, but once in a while just nod and smile and say "Nice job"...that's really all the gratification we are looking for and, for me, may be just the boost I need to tackle the next workout with enough self satisfaction that I won't say a thing.

16. Big crowds of people as crazy (or crazier) than I am

      I love big running races.  Boston takes the cake in my opinion - never have I seen so many people turned out for a running event in all my life - 26.2 miles of cheering crowds.  But even the smaller races with a smaller crowd of people are fun.  The group of people that toe up to any starting line are all in it for a reason that may be similar to yours, or they may be on a totally different running trajectory, but I have yet to meet a runner that laughs at your reasons for running.  More likely they will encourage you - no matter what the reason, cause, goal, pace, or level of expertise.  Runners are simply like that.  I have been in any number of races where someone will fall and, without fail, the runners around them stop, help them up, brush them off, make sure they are okay, and then give them an encouraging word before continuing on. That's the running crowd and I love it.

17. People telling me I am crazy
      I know it, but it is good to be reminded of it now and then anyway.  Running is the most constructive and socially acceptable outlet that I can imagine.  You think I am crazy for running...you should see me if I don't run.

18. Really cold long runs
      These are always the hardest to start because you know it will be painful, but somewhere in all the cold, you start to heat up and, regardless of the number of layers, feel like you really are moving along - snow, ice, and wind be damned.  The greatest part of these runs is finishing them and filling a tub full of hot water to thaw out.

19.  Really hot long runs
       These are the difficult ones to finish.  They start out easy enough - warm day, bright sunshine, but after several hours of this the heat takes a toll.  I have finally figured out the hydration scheme that makes it more tolerable, but coming home and realizing that the puddle around you is due to your own sweat ....let's just say that I think to myself, "this isn't sweat...it is just my fat cells crying"

20. The sense that the rest of my life is superfluous to the time I run

      I often consider some of the other projects or demands on my time as just something to do while I wait to run again.  A person can't run 24  hours a day, so while I am resting I might as well be doing something useful - like going to work - but trust me when I say that I am secretly planning my next running escape.

21. Distances are perceived differently
      I find myself chuckling when someone says, "I can't walk to the store, it's 2 miles!"  Literally running errands is sometimes the most fun a person can have and suddenly 20 miles really doesn't seem that far.

22. Mental montage with all my favorite songs
      Although I don't run with music all that often, once in a while it is great and picking out all your favorite songs allows a person to run with a fantastic montage.  It is like staring in your own personal inspirational video.

23. Running works out the kinks of gardening
      There are many times when I have spent the entire day squatting down in the dirt, or on my knees, or bent over in a deep forward bend.  My arms hurt, my back hurts, my legs hurt...and the best thing I can do to get them all back into place it to go for a run.

24. Church of the Sunday Long Run
      I am not a religious person so Sunday mornings for me are more often spent in running shoes in the open spaces, communing with nature and pondering all the great mysteries of life. Three or four hours spent seeking a higher level of consciousness is above and beyond what many people do for the sake of their souls on a Sunday morning.

25. Knowing all the running and biking paths by heart 
    That's not to say that I haven't been lost a number of times, but sometimes the only way to find your way is to loose it.  I know all the short cuts, all the cross roads, all the through streets, all the porta-potties, all the drinking fountains in several towns around me.  I have seem more of the state parks and city parks than most people (and sometimes all of them all in one day)  There are beautiful spots that are absolute gems that are often difficult to get to by car, but on foot...no problem.

26. Actually seeing the world and all the wonder that it contains.
     Only when running do I actually have the time to notice people's yards and gardens.  I notice how the river makes a crazy oxbow of a turn.  I run by the Jewish cemetery and see all the small stones placed on top of the head stones to indicate that someone that knew and loved them had been there recently.  Only while running do I notice the progression of housing projects or the completion of a new path.  When I drive in my car, the world goes by so quickly and I am removed from it.  Only running do I notice the subtle changes of the season and smell the different scents of the woods, the river, the lake, the suburbs (hot toast on one particular morning).  "People are on the world and not in it", as John Muir noted.  Running lets me be in it.

0.2  Because I can
       And this reason is perhaps one of the most important of all.  It is the reason that drives my feet in those last 0.2 miles at the finish of a race....because I can.  There are many people that for one reason or another cannot run - cannot stand up on their two legs and sustain the pace needed to run a marathon and so I feel somehow indebted to them and to myself to use this ability and to rejoice in it.  There will come a day when I can no longer do this, but today is not that day....and tomorrow won't be either.

Embracing the Cold

Daylight savings time hits me at a really bad time.  It usually happens a few days before my birthday each year and the sudden change to early darkness combined with the realization that it is, in fact, getting colder and I am getting older sends my mood into a tailspin.

But this year, I decided to adopt my native Minnesotan attitude.

In northern Minnesota there really are only two seasons - summer and winter.  Summer is perfect for canoeing, fishing, hiking, exploring, and swatting mosquitoes but winter....winter is when the fun really happens.  Skiing, snowshoeing, ice fishing, snowmobiling, hockey, ice skating, curling, you name it and they have invented something fun to do in the snow and cold.

Given the recent plunge into this polar weather, my suspicion is that we are in for a long, cold winter and so, with that in mind, rather than dread it, I am embracing it - the cold and all its loveliness, its fun, its challenges, and especially the escape from it into a warm and toasty house with family and friends to cheer the way until Spring.  Each of the following pictures is a reminder of some of the beauty of winter.

Crisp, cold mornings when the smell of wood smoke foretells of a warm house with a cozy fire. 

 Quiet snowfalls when the earth is muffled and the snowflake crystals glimmer in the lights.

Watching in awe as tiny birds fly about in the deepest of snows and frigid temperatures surviving in a way that I cannot begin to fathom. 

The wake of a big snow storm when the digging out brings people and 

neighbors together for help and assistance. 

The thrill of the hill 

with hot chocolate and the recounting of wipeouts that follow.

Hoarfrost mornings

   Animals and their simple

 tolerance for what is

Roadways that are simply made for skiing or snowmobiling, 

but not really driving

The beauty and brutality that is Winter

Magic Beans

It has been a while since I have tackled a keyboard and attempted to jot down much of anything. I could say that I have been busy, or lazy, or apathetic...all would be true and also none of them are true.  Sometimes I just  discontinue projects for a time and then come back when the mood strikes, or winter does....whatever it takes to find myself with a little more time and a few thoughts to ponder.

In this case it is beans.

"Beans, beans, they're good for your heart. 

The more you eat, the more you fart. 

The more you fart, the better you feel. 

We should all eat beans at every meal."

This little rhyme, sadly enough, is what is typically trapped in my head from about June until sometime in September because one of the main focuses of the summer season is.....beans.

I can't say that beans are exactly my favorite crop (that honor goes to garlic), but they certainly are a useful one.

They are good early in the season as green beans  At this stage we pick them and eat them almost as fast as we are able and the ones we don't eat, we freeze for winter's lean months.  But, if you get busy and don't get them picked, they dry well and then you can eat them that way too.
They are a forgiving crop and ridiculously easy to grow, and in my life, that counts for a lot.

Beans come in more varieties than I would ever care to name, but there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 40,000 different varieties of beans.  Of course you wouldn't know that living in Iowa....here there seems to only be one....soybean.

Personally, I grow three different varieties - two of them I plant on purpose (one pole and one bush) and the third one is a freelance pole bean that self seeds and sprouts every year and then I just transplant it to where I want it to grow.  My main producer, however is the bush bean known as Black Valentine.  It is a dual purpose bean that makes nice green beans as well as a wonderful dried black bean.  What is the difference between a bush bean and a pole bean? One grows as a bush and one will trail and spiral its way up a tall pole.  In tight spaces the pole beans are nice, but when you have more space and don't want to have to deal with a pole or trellis, bush beans are optimal.

When asking people today where they get their cooking beans, I am almost universally met with a blank stare followed by some line amounting to, "well, we just use canned beans from the store," and then they look at me as though I am just not quite right in the head, I mean, where else would a person get beans, right?  Once again, people have forgotten how ubiquitous beans used to be.

Beans are one of the crops that have been cultivated the longest.  Native Americans would grow them together with corn and squash in a "three sisters" planting - using each of those three plant's best qualities to help the other two grow well. The colonies, and particularly Boston, perfected the baked bean.  From the colonies they were hauled overland in covered wagons and were a large percentage of the diet of the early pioneers - they were high in protein and fiber, transported well, grew well and could be saved for incredibly long periods of time. No cowboy dinner would be complete without a plate full of beans, and what kind of Mexican restaurant would it be without refried beans on the side?

 But chances are, if I put five beans in the palm of a person's hand today, they wouldn't know where to start with growing or cooking them.

So let's start at the beginning.  Someone gives you five magic beans....what do you do?

These beans - they are a fairly large seed in and of themselves.  Easy for even small children to plant.
1/2 - 1 inch down in the ground and roughly 6 -8 inches apart.

Keep them weeded.  Invite your friends to help.

Pick them green when the pods are long and full, but before the seeds inside start to mature.  They should "snap" easily in half - crisp and tender.  At this stage they can be steamed for 7 - 12 minutes until they are bright green and just slightly tender.  Seasoned with salt and butter, they are likely the first vegetables to be devoured at dinner.

Miss a week or two of picking the green beans, but keep the weeds down and then let the pods start to turn light tan and dry.  If you thought you had a lot of green beans, just wait until the dried beans start to show up.  I usually give myself some sort of limit as to how long I will pick each day.  I typically pick one pillowcase sized sack full any time I have a free hour or so.  This is when that little rhyme sets up shop in my brain and refuses to leave until I find myself simply singing it while kneeling in my bean patch.... this can become a monotonous job, but then again, watching a sun set or watching a summer storm quietly build while picking is more meditative than monotonous. And communing with the bees and the beetles as well as the occasional visit from my ducks waddling through would often make this one of the more contemplative jobs that had to be done.

After each picking, I dump the bag's worth of beans out on my porch to dry. And by dry, I mean the pods have to be so dry that they crack open with relatively little pressure and reveal a dried, black (or brown, or spotted depending on the type) inside. Sometimes this drying takes a day or two and sometimes weeks.  It is also largely dependent on whether or not I have time to deal with them - beans drying in the sun are amazingly patient.

When the time is right, pack them back into the bag you picked them with....I know this sounds redundant, but bear with me.

Jump up and down on the bag and then dump them into a large bowl or pail. (My littlest kids think this is great fun) Set up a large house fan on high and, while standing in front of the fan, slowly dump the beans from one pail into another with the air blowing away the chaff.  This takes time, but slowly, by crushing the remaining pods and winnowing out the chaff, a hill of beans will emerge.  I can usually spend an evening winnowing beans on my porch and end up with 3 - 5 pounds of relatively clean beans by the time the sun sets.

At this point I usually take the bowl of beans into the house and find a movie that I know by heart and sit down to sort through them by hand to pick out the "bad" ones.  This is a completely mindless task, but one that, for one reason or another, is also very soothing - probably because the "finished" beans are so pretty and fun to sink your hands into.

I know....I know....this is a lot of work for a measly hill of beans, but now...those 5 magic beans have become hundreds (if not thousands) of beautiful, protein rich beans that can be saved and eaten through the winter in soups, stews, or even as a most amazing black bean dip.  On average, for a family of 7 people, we will have several gallon jugs filled as well as a 3-4 quart jars.  These, then, become the staple in chili, ham and bean soup, black bean dip and baked beans.

To cook:  Take 1 cup of dried beans and cover with water - place in the fridge overnight to soften. Then, to cook, put in a pot with water and boil until they are soft being sure not to let the water completely boil off.  Drain the beans (or don't - depending on the recipe) and use in whatever bean recipe strikes your fancy.  This really is ridiculously easy but it does require time and a little planning ahead.

Black Bean Dip

   1 cup black beans boiled and soft 

(reserve some of the fluid they were boiled in)

1 -2 cloves of garlic

fresh cilantro

salt to taste

Mix the cooked black beans and roughly 1/2 cup of the water they were boiled in, the garlic cloves, cilantro and salt into a blender or food processor and mix until smooth (adding more water if necessary to make a bean dip consistency)  Salt to taste and eat with tortilla chips.

I make a batch of this and it is gone before it has time to cool off with hungry kids around.

These beans, these magic beans, are magic in so many ways.  Not only do they provide and incredible food source, but while they are growing, their roots bind nitrogen in the soil and help it to become more fertile.  They are a restorative crop and one that I plant in areas where the soil was plundered by other crops the last year - crops such as corn which are horribly greedy plants that strip the ground of its nutrients to produce a huge plant that supplies only 2 small ears of edible goodness.  Beans, relative to their size produce more edible produce than many of the other plants in the garden.

 Yes, they take time to plant, and cultivate, and harvest and dry and process and cook.  But there is some magic in that time as well  - sunsets watched, rain clouds rejoiced, bees observed, kids laughing and playing rhyming games while weeding, a teenager helping to make bean dip- a connection to the earth, each other, the plants and the food that you grow and harvest with your own hands.  There is a strange sort of connectedness in that process.

Not only do they feed the ground and the body ....they feed the soul.  Magic indeed.