Killing Frost

Death comes in on little cold feet, and strikes down the last of all that is green and growing.  Halloween was previously known as, more aptly, The Day of the Dead, and for us in the Midwest it is true to form.  The potatoes have been stored, the tomatoes have been canned, the beans are picked, the garlic is buried deep in the garden to prepare for its resurrection in the spring.  The garden is done for the year and now it is Death's turn to rule for a while.

People generally fear death.  It is a common enough thing really, but no one is ever completely prepared for it when it does come. We try our best to avoid it, we mourn when it happens and we share our grief with others in the form of funerals and wakes.  And always it remains a mystery - what happens when we "shuffle off the mortal coil?"  It does give us pause.

Being a member of the medical field as a veterinarian, I have had entirely too much association with Death.  We are the only medical professionals that are routinely allowed to take a life, and not only allowed, but sometimes required to.  It can be a very heavy load to carry at times.  Death starts to take on a new guise - almost as that of another person you find yourself talking to at odd moments.  There are times when I feel that I gamble for a patient's life with Death as the other player....sometimes Death wins....sometimes I do.  There are even times that I invite Death in as a last and final means of ending suffering and it dawns on me that we are kinder to our pets than we sometimes are to each other in this respect.  I have seen too many people slowly withering away, and am only left with the hope that I either die very quickly, or that by the time of am of an age to be sick and old, that we will have advanced enough to allow directives for a means to end a life with dignity.

As such, I have developed a very weird and twisted view of Death.  It really isn't so bad, nor is it  necessarily to be feared.  Death is quiet and contemplative.  It leaves those around it touched with sadness, love, loss, memories, but mostly it strikes a cord down deep inside that reminds us all that, at some point, it comes for us too, and in the meantime all we can do is live as fully as possible. 

Funerals kind of freak me out though - almost too much pomp and circumstance.  Funerals, in my opinion, are more about doing "what is expected" than about celebrating a person's life.  To that end, I have directed my kids to never have a funeral for me - only a wake sometime after I am gone, and they are to have it at a bar and serve the best whiskey they can afford and play the music loudly and dance.  Clearly, my social graces are lacking, but I come from a long line of people who felt that we are only a mere blip on the radar of the universe and death is only a small moment of that time and then the circle of life rolls around and keeps moving on. 

It is sometimes interesting to talk with people about their pets and their views of death.  They are often more open than they would be if it were a person because the rules of society are very lax when it comes to a pet's death and burial, and yet we often feel as strongly (or, in many cases, more strongly) about the loss of a pet than the loss of a beloved person.  I had one client explain to me that he really hates the idea of caskets and doesn't want to be buried in one.  He wants to be buried standing straight up somewhere near a tree "like a fertilizer stick" he said.  Oh, if only society could be so open as to allow that to happen.

I really don't quite understand the whole casket and embalming thing myself.  When did this become the standard?  We want to be preserved for what? Our wake?  Does our vanity really extend past death?  The arguments that really get me are when people say it isn't sanitary to bury people in the ground without a casket....are you kidding me?  It is worse to put people in the ground with all those chemicals on board and inside of a hermetically sealed casket made from whatever non-biodegradable material we have most recently manufactured so that, at some future date, someone that doesn't know us has to deal with our hideous remains when they decide the cemetery should now be a shopping mall.

Happy Day of the Dead

Garlic Greatness

About four years ago I realized that garlic was something that I could actually grow in Iowa.  For some reason, I had been under the impression that garlic was a tropical crop, but upon making my discovery, I launched into production.

I ordered four bulbs from Seed Savers and then was rather surprised when it showed up on my door in October.  What?! 

Turns out you start garlic in the fall and it over winters rather nicely.  Broke those four bulbs of garlic up into roughly 20 cloves and planted them 4 inches down in well tilled soil.  Then covered them with another 3 or 4 inches of straw.

And then I worried

Seriously? They can stand temperatures that reach well below zero for weeks at a time?  I was a little skeptical. 

When March finally rolled around I started patrolling the garlic patch.....and patrolling.....and patrolling.......and just about the time that I was convinced that all was lost, the garlic poked its head out of the straw and started reaching for the sky with its long green stems. 

Since that first year, I have gained more confidence in my garlic - and I have gained more garlic.  The first year we ate all but the 4 bulbs I saved back for seed in a matter of weeks, so I started saving back more bulbs each year.  Now, I am up to saving approximately 7-8  bulbs which, when split into cloves, equals approximately 40-50 bulbs of garlic.  Not to mention that I have started some from seed - these, of course, take about 2 years to get up to edible size, but they help to supplement the constant garlic cravings. 

Garlic is one of those herb/vegetable/seasoning plants that can go in just about everything.  I use it when I pickle cucumbers, I even just pickled some of the garlic by itself this year to be used later in things like salad dressings.  Every pizza gets topped with it, every jar of salsa contains it, and when in doubt it gets added to just about everything. 

The health benefits of garlic are touted to be many, and personally, I really don't doubt any of them.  My one main medicinal use of garlic however involves its use in ear aches.  Don't ask me why this works, but it has now - twice.  Slivers of garlic warmed in a tablespoon of olive oil on the stove - I take a sliver of the garlic and wrap it in a cotton ball and then place that in the ear with a little of the warm (not hot) oil that it was sauteed in. Leave it in overnight and replace in the morning if needed.....so far haven't needed to because the ear ache has been gone.   When I did this to my 9 year old, I had looked in her ears first with my otoscope and been somewhat horrified at how red they were and how much fluid was present behind the ear drum - "doctor visit for sure" I thought, but tried the garlic and the next morning she woke up happy and ear ache free.......weird, but wonderful.  

I am also convinced of garlic's ability to repel mosquitoes and other biting insects.  I haven't actually put on bug spray for a few years now because they just don't bite anymore.  Other people will be over and are constantly slapping at them so I know they still exist and are around, but I haven't had more than  two or three bites all summer.  Then again, it could be that I really smell like garlic all the time (to more than just the bugs) and have become so immune to the smell, that I no longer notice.

So, now, as the leaves all fall to the ground and the days start getting colder and shorter, I prep the soil for next year's crop of garlic, tuck it in and cover it with a warm blanket of straw.  Knowing that it is out there, huddled under the snow and straw and soil just waiting for Spring's resurrection, helps to make the quickly approaching winter a little more bearable.

Hair of the Dog

Of the many things that I have discovered during this whole "grow your own food" thing, saged brandy or "brandy elixir" has to be one of the best.  I picked up a preserves book at the local public library about a year ago that was written by some guru in England.  In it were many notable recipes that have since been tried in one form or another, but the one that caught my eye and won my heart was her Brandy Elixir. 

I had never been much of a fan of Brandy.  Actually didn't register the difference between it and Whiskey for quite some time, but after making my first small batch of this.....well....suffice it to say.there are no more small batches, only large ones. 

This is entirely too simple:

• Large quantity of inexpensive brandy
• Sage leaves
• Jar
• Sunlit window for about 1 month
• Sugar
• Water

I mix the entire jar of Brandy and approximately 2 oz ( or as much as I feel I can reasonably pick off my sage plant) into a quart canning jar, tighten the lid and place it on a sunny windowsill for a month.

I shake it any time I walk by it and remember that it is there.

After 1 month or so, I make a sugar solution by mixing 1 cup of sugar with 3/4 cup of water and I boil that for one minute and then let it come to room temperature.  I strain out the sage leaves and combine the Brandy with the sugar solution and mix well.  This, then, gets poured into sterilized jars (usually the original Brandy jar works well along with a smaller jar (say, the flask that gets carried around to rather cold sporting events in the winter)

This sage brandy works well as a cough suppressant, a sleep aid, or (as suggested in the original English Preserves book) as a "restorative"....whatever that might mean.  My husband and I have since taken liberties with that suggestion and are rather good at "restoring" ourselves with a cap full in the coffee in the morning. 

This one favorite has now led to experimenting with "cordials" of raspberry and pear.  They are all still aging in the canning cupboard, but with any luck they will be ready for sharing by the solstice.

Occupy Iowa

There is a movement afoot.  People of all walks of life are occupying everywhere - Wall Street, Boston,  San Fransisco, Dallas......you name it and there are people starting to line the streets that are angry, unsettled, out of work, out of faith...just out.   The main theme, although somewhat unestablished, seems to be a general loss of trust in the system.  Wall Street has bought out our government and We The People are tired of it.....and it is about time. 

This may be very un-American to say, but I have been disenfranchised with the system now for quite some time, and by system I mean the system of big business and big lobbyists controlling what bills get passed and which ones conveniently disappear from committee.   I re-read the Declaration of Independence not too long ago and I had a strong desire to reissue it to our present government, put my name up there with John Hancock and Benjamin Franklin and send it via post to the White House.

I have an intense desire to join the mob flowing into the streets, pitch a tent and live there for a while if only to fully state my level of distrust in the system. And then it dawned on me.....I have.  Eight years ago we pulled up stakes from our home in Wisconsin where we were living the life of the average middle class family - 2.5 kids, two jobs, new car, nice house, credit card debit, the whole enchilada.  Cashed it all in and moved to a small, hundred-year-old farmstead in Iowa and set up shop.  

This is our 5 acre protest lot.  Here we raise enough food to feed the seven of us through the winter, raise pigs and chickens to help feed us with pork and eggs and do it all organically and sustainably while all around us are commercial farms that are intensely farmed using all that is wrong in the world of agriculture.  Monsanto, Novartis, and Cargill are the main players as they have roped in the farmers with their "Round-up Ready" genetically modified seeds and their belief that all the soil really needs is another application of ammonia to keep it healthy.

Thankfully, we are on pretty good terms with our neighbors. We try not to rock the boat too hard, but we do try to make ourselves heard, if possible. Initially, it was difficult to come by organic grain for our animals. We would often have to drive down to Kalona, where ironically, the state of farming among the Amish is more sustainably advanced than it is around us. But, with time and persistent asking, our local feed dealer has started ordering and carrying the organic food that we need. And then he was thinking about starting a few fields of his own in organic food....and maybe seeing if others are interested in that also. Small steps, it takes small steps. 

In the last four years I have seen an incredible change in how people obtain their food.  The farmer's markets in cities and towns across the country are starting to take off because people no longer have trust in the food system. No trust in the companies that control the way our food is grown, processed and sold to us.  These big businesses have sold us everything from genetically modified seeds, $.59/lb chicken laced with Salmonella, and T.V. dinners with enough preservatives to never -ever decompose, but what they have sold us the most of is disease.

The level of metabolic disease in people is staggering to witness.  I did my own small survey one day while making the run to the local co-op to get some food.  The people that tend to shop at the co-op, where the food is typically organic, sustainable, locally grown and quite expensive - these people are all in pretty good shape.  Most are healthy and happy individuals.  They don't overfill their shopping baskets because something is a good deal, they pay the going wage for a local farmer to bring in  produce because they appreciate how much work goes into making healthy food.  They are a community of people who are aware of the local infrastructure that keeps the town afloat and they support it as best they can.

Then, frighteningly enough,for reasons I no longer remember, I found myself at a grocery store. Grocery stores depress me. The people are often suffering from metabolic disease (if you don't know what it is, I encourage you to look it up as it effects 1 out of 4 people in the U.S. ), they are often in a hurry and they have their carts stuffed with so much processed food that I have to bite my tongue to keep from pointing out to them that even though it says "low fat" it can still be very bad for you. So, I come home and dig up a few carrots, potatoes and onions and stage a mini food protest in my kitchen. And I blog about it, because that is the type of protest I can do right now while trying to maintain a family of five kids, run a small, struggling business in a horrible economy, and farm my Iowa farm.

Perhaps this has all come about because I am looking for a way to make myself feel better for not taking the time out of freezing and canning produce to go camp out on College Green with the other ticked off Iowans, but a saying came to me the other day, "You must be the change you want to see in the world." (thank you M. Gandhi) and it made me feel good to realize that I am changing, and I am changing my family and the way that my kids view the world, and even the feed mill guy (slowly). Change takes a long time and it is hard work, but it is often worth it in the end.  There will be ebbs and flows to the understanding and progress, but change will come.

So, I salute all the people out on the public parks and Wall Street - occupy!  Occupy every corner that you can, and make a stand for all that needs changing - from the banking system to the way that our food is supplied and our children taught in schools.  I celebrate a country where, with small steps, 99% of the people are waking up to what big business and government has been cramming down our throats (figuratively and literally) for far too long.  And I?  I will maintain my 5 acres of protest, and there is always an extra place at my table for anyone willing to make a change.

The Not-So-Secret, Secret Family Sauce

Tomatoes......they are everywhere this time of year.  This year, for whatever reason, it seems to be taking them an inordinately long amount of time to ripen on the vine....but then perhaps they are all about building tension and suspense.  They are walking a fine line between ripening and being killed each night by frost and I refuse to play their game and cover them....at least for now while the temperatures still linger in the forties at night.  But we rely too heavily on them to not get the full harvest from these beauties.  Two years ago, I planted 10 Amish Paste tomato plants, then last year I planted 13, now this year I have planted 18 and they are killing me with this ripening suspense.  The usual routine is to go out with a bushel basket every 3 days and pick somewhere between 30 and 40 pounds of them at a time to process into the most wonderful marinara imaginable.  This year....my twice weekly trips to harvest have only been yielding about 20 pounds, but they are still given center stage for the day as they are processed and slowly cooked down and canned.

The recipe, although spectacular, is not one I developed.  I fell in love with it while reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle  by Barbara Kingsolver.  I had often wondered how to prepare and can tomatoes - they are one of those somewhat frightening vegetables, in my book, that can potentially lead to botulism and sending the entire family to the hospital if not canned properly, but when given a straight forward recipe and easy to follow guidelines, it has quickly become a staple at our house. 

Initially, I bought all the spices it required and then realized very quickly that most of them I can grow myself.  With a little planning and drying, now everything that goes into this sauce is grown on my farm except for the black pepper, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and lemon peel. 

Tomatoes that are grown and ripen on the vine are spectacular.  I am not a huge fan of eating raw tomatoes....it is a texture thing, but heirloom tomatoes, home grown and still warm from the sun....they do taste good.  When you go to the grocery store for tomatoes, you can certainly find beautiful, round red things that look similar, but have zero of the actual taste of a tomato.  It is unfortunate, because they are so pretty.  They are actually working on the science needed to infuse store tomatoes with the "tomato taste".  That seems so wrong on so many levels when nature does that all by itself if given a little time.  A lot of what is missing from the store tomatoes is what they develop in the last weeks of ripening.  Store tomatoes are picked early and then artificially ripened later so they will last while being shipped all over the world....I know, sad but very true.

The tomatoes that I adore the most are the really big, really ripe ones.  But when you grow them yourself, they are not always "pretty" tomatoes.  The ones that I adore tend to look a little like a prize fighter - big, beefy and with scars.  I will actually pick the seeds from these the most because it is clear to me that they know how to grow and they know how to survive in a rather hostile garden world.  Most people would probably throw out the tomatoes that I use the most.  With a sharp knife, even the most pathetic tomato can offer some amount of flesh to the pot and if they are entirely too far past their prime, there is a wonderful disposal system in place a my house that answers readily to the name, "Pig, Pig"  She comes running for any and all left over garden scraps, but I have to admit that rotten tomatoes appear to be a particular favorite of hers. 

In a typical batch, 30 pounds of tomatoes can typically yield about 10 quarts of puree.  That combined with 4 onions, 1 cup of dried basil, 1/2 cup of honey,  and various amounts of oregano, thyme, salt, lemon peel, parsley, cinnamon, pepper, nutmeg, and garlic powder all help to yield a concoction that fills the entire house with a wonderful smell and has one wondering what sort of pasta might be in the cupboard that can be cooked up before the sauce ever makes it into the jar.  

I know that for some, this would seem like a terribly monotonous thing to do - being a slave to the tomato plants for weeks on end, but honestly, the process is what makes it such a wonderful tradition.  Drying herbs that will be used takes time, patience and planning, onions are planted early to ensure that there will be enough big ones to add to the pot, tomato plants are planted, staked, weeded, and rescued from Tomato Horn Worms that look very much like the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland.  All these things come together in the kitchen on September and October days to create a sauce that will feed my family at least once a week.  There really is no better reminder of the warm late summer days than homemade marinara when you are deep in the grip of winter.