Free Food

Every spring I am rewarded for my laziness. While many gardeners and farmers clean up their gardens before the first frost, I become my usual slothful self and decide that I would rather spend what little energy I have left freezing and canning my garden's bounty and skip clean up all together.

It pays off in the spring.

But you have to be patient and pay attention.

All too often in the early spring, I would be in such a hurry to get the garden clean and tilled and ready to plant that I would miss all the food just waiting for me.  I would plow it under before it even showed itself.

Every fall, that lettuce that you didn't take the time to uproot....it goes to seed.
Those cucumbers that you neglected after you had enough pickles made and stored....they went to seed.
That spinach that bolted and became too bitter to eat....it went to seed
That somewhat rotten onion that you didn't want - it sprouted again and is now beautiful
The garlic that you didn't pull....it's back and bigger than last year.
The parsnip you forgot to dig up - they are sweeter than ever now and ready to eat.
And so is that carrot!

And not only that, but Mother Nature is the best almanac for when to plant things you will ever find.  In general, when seeds are naturally sprouting outside in the cold spring, it means those seeds can handle it, so if you want to start neat and tidy rows of food, you probably can - even though the almanac and the seed packets may say otherwise.

There are all kinds of wives tales about "what is the best time to plant _____?"  For corn it is when oak leaves are the size of a squirrel's ear.  I don't know how many people have actually even seen a squirrel's ear?  I tend to just wait for the random forgotten ear of corn to suddenly sprout into action.  Even after a long, sub-zero winter, it will happen.

This is, of course, provided you use seeds that haven't been genetically modified to only sprout once.  Heirloom quality seeds or organic seeds cost more, but they will more than pay you back in their ability to produce fantastic quality foods with minimal work (or in this case, no work), year after year .







So, while other enterprising gardeners are busy cleaning, tilling and planting, I am busy harvesting the fresh spinach and lettuce from the garden - the first crop of greens so long awaited in the many months of cold.

 What we don't immediately harvest and eat, I transplant into more recognizable and organized rows.  The transplanting slows it down a bit and extends the season for a few more weeks.

So many times while gardening I have marveled at man's belief that we know what we are doing and are "in charge" of growing food.  While it is true that we are the caretakers of the produce, Mother Nature already has the system down and knows the perfect timing and temperature for it all.

Sometimes It's Cold

It's cold.

It's freakishly cold, and what is worse are the people who keep saying "It's cold!" as though this is something that they can't fathom happening in February in Iowa.

"No kidding?" I say as I go out for a run, or clean a barn in the sub zero weather. "Well, we had better get used to it.  And while we are getting used to the cold, we better be good with draughts, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, and tsunamis as well."

I think my patience for people is running very thin right now.  I have moments when I can see how people completely snap and feel the need to cause a scene, if only to have their message finally get out there.  Individually, most people seem to get it, but collectively we are a bunch of dunces when it comes to figuring out how to make a change.

An example that pops into my head this morning came from a client of mine.  He and his wife run a small business in our local town and are two very wonderful people, kind, and well versed in supporting the community. Myself, being the veterinarian for their pets, gave them a recommendation for a medication that can drastically help their pet and the offer to have that medication filled immediately at my office, they opt instead to go shopping on-line.  Now don't get me wrong, I understand the desire to save a few bucks as much as the next guy, but here's the thing….when faced with small business owners struggling to make ends meet (which, you will remember, these clients are as well) or big box stores that undercut us in costs and monopolize all the product so that we end up having it back ordered for months at a time….which one is likely going to help the local economy more?  Seems pretty simple right? You go with the small business owner.  But time and time again, people know what needs to be done on a larger scale, but when it boils down to the individual they think, 'I'm sure there are others buying locally so if I save a few dollars, it won't be a problem'.

It's a problem.
It's a big problem and it is only getting bigger.

Every dollar spent is a vote for how we want the world to be….every dollar.

The increase in farmer's markets, healthy food, and small cooperative grocery stores has been a bright spot, but the blow back from the large food companies has been huge - the advertising and marketing campaigns alone have been enough to boggle the minds of the average consumer to the point of throwing up their hands and saying, "Oh, what the heck! I don't know what to eat anymore so I will just go get a McRib and a shamrock shake!" …..game, set, and match for big agriculture right there and quietly another organic farmer goes bankrupt.  People vote with their forks three times every day, and every meal counts….every meal.

Is it that people understand it, but just don't think it applies to them?  Or are they so easily confused and mesmerized by fancy advertising? Or maybe they are just too tired from working their three part time jobs to make ends meet that they just don't have the time to do the necessary research to understand the issues.

I spent the evening last night watching Brooklyn Castle with my kids.  A documentary about kids in a 'below the poverty line' school learning chess and winning national championships.  Sounds crazy, but it was impressive and such a fantastic way to keep these kids engaged and learning in all of their subjects.  But like so many schools these days, their funding is being cut. Why? Where does this funding go? ….to pay off wars?, to cover for the many bad decisions of bankers?  Cutting educational funding is the most ridiculous thing a country could possibly do. It is like having the makings of a star athlete and then cutting off his legs.  Children are the investment in all of our futures, and we can't stand idly by with our hands in our pockets and say, "but I don't want to pay taxes anymore! We need a tax break!" What we need is an equitable tax that helps support education to its fullest degree. And please don't hit me up with the "charter and private school" theory or we are right back to the top paragraph with the "big box stores/ controlled by corporations" discussion because eventually, that is where a lot of those schools end up - funding coming from large corporations or sponsors that can foot the bill and control what the kids ultimately end up learning.  Public school - as in sponsored by all of us, for the education of all our children is still the best and most broad base start we can give them.  Every kid will one day have a say in how this country runs…..every kid.

Okay, so my little rant is over, call it cabin fever, call it my pressure valve so I don't go out and completely loose it with the population at large.

When it comes to this weather, we get what we asked for, in my opinion.  I know I can send off any number of letters to Congress and the President, I can shut off any unnecessary lights in my house, I can contact the utility company and opt to pay more for the renewable energy, but until
every single person stands up and says, "No more coal and oil! No more fossil fuels! Renewable energy only!" - until that point, there will be enough muddying of the water by the coal/oil/gas industries to keep people confused and questioning, there will continue to be lobbyist money that gets passed across (or under) the table to our "elected leaders" and there will continue to be environmental changes that we are not equipped to handle.  Who knows, before long maybe Hell really will freeze over.

Until then….bundle up and stop complaining.

Gardening In The Rain

It has been a while since I have felt like writing.  This happens.  I wouldn't call it writer's block per se,  rather just a lack of interesting thoughts or farm updates to impart.

This spring has been a crazy one already.  School trips and extracurriculars kept us all on the go, and then there was the Boston Marathon....

Boston is a whole post traumatic blog of its own, so we will just leave it at that.  Time moves forward and the scary stuff slowly fades... a little.

But now we have run into a patch of rather rainy weather which is a nice change from the drought of last year.  Everything is extremely green and lush.  So lush that I have been out in the rain pulling weeds in a futile attempt at keeping ahead of the mid summer jungle.  Now it is bordering on so wet that I may have to move my potted plants in out of the rain to prevent them from drowning and the flood reports are sounding the alarm for people in low lying areas.

It's a messed up weather pattern.

Which is probably why I haven't written in a while.  I recently had someone tell me that, as much as they like what I write, it depresses them....

What do you say in response to that? "I'm sorry." "Then don't read it." "The truth is depressing"  But they are right.  What I write about does have a depressing aspect to it. There hasn't been a lot of good news on the farming/environmental front recently.

Imagine what it is like to live inside my head all the time.

 It is only my feisty, "anxious to take on the world", children that keep me sane most of the time. I was enthralled the other day while listening to my son enthusiastically recount is discussion with classmates about politics and how he is trying to decide how best to get people to use electric cars that use only clean energy and whether or not he wants to run for Congress someday.  I have GOT to see how this turns out!

But, while awaiting for my progeny to inherit this country and planet, I have been haunted by a single number.

350 ppm.

 That is the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at which the systems on the planet can be sustained.

What worries me more is the current number.

>400 ppm ....and climbing.

The last time the world had this much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we weren't here....as in, we didn't exist.

That's not to say that an equilibrium can't or won't be found, but the $64,000 question is, "At what expense?"

This is what I ponder while I walk around pulling weeds, transplanting tomatoes, mulching potatoes, cultivating corn, picking lettuce.  This is what I think about as I check the blossoms on the apple trees and realize that there are approximately 1/4 the number of bees there than there had been previously.  This is what paralyzes my mind as I watch a large chemical sprayer enter the field next to me and start spraying away with the petroleum based herbicides that will allow my farming neighbor to raise subsidized crops on hundreds of acres of land. This is what crosses my mind as I see news reports of an F5 tornado that completely devastates a town and kills dozens of people. 400 ppm.

What does a person do with this sort of crippling information?  We do what we can locally to minimize our carbon footprint, but against the corporate giants that just don't care, it is hard to know where to start.  So I write and look for a way to express my concerns in a way that might bring it home to people who otherwise just didn't get the message that we are in trouble here - you, me, our kids, our grandkids. And this isn't really something that we can just put on the back burner and not think of for a while in the hope that it will go away.

And then I look for news articles that point out the positive changes that are ever so slowly starting to take hold.  I write a Congressman (or two,... or twenty), sign a few petitions, send some money if I have any, and then I go outside....

and garden in the rain.

Weathering the Weather

It seems to me that the climate truly is changing. There is a distinct difference to be made between the weather and the climate.  Weather will change day to day - one day unseasonably hot, another day 40 inches of snow may fall, but climate is the overall averages that change slowly over time in different areas of the country and world....maybe overall it is hotter one place and colder somewhere else.  Personally, I am starting to feel like the Midwest is where the toilet bowl vortex meets the drain.

Maybe this change is some fictitious thing that my mind has dreamt up, but it seems to me that the wind used to blow more from the west, storms blew in from the west.  Now, the wind can often be found blowing from the south and sometimes the east as well.  The other day, I went out for a run around the block and was met with a northeasterly wind that threw me all off pace. The radar has as most storms swirling around from the southeast like a giant whirlpool just waiting to haul us under.   The spring used to be a time of "April showers bringing May flowers" but now it seems more like "April tornadoes bring May FEMA and Red Cross trucks".  I, like Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, gather all the news I need on the weather report....and that news isn't looking so good.

I catch myself sometimes being so angry about our complete apathy of the environment and what we are doing to it, and then at other times I find myself almost hysterically laughing because we are so far past the tipping point already that it really doesn't matter what we do ....we are screwed.  I am often reminded of Ruby in the movie Cold Mountain when she explains the current events, "They call this [weather] a cloud over the land. But they made the weather and then they stand in the rain and say 'Shit, it's raining!'"  We are all aghast that the massive destruction with the tornadoes that takes place and then placidly climb back into SUVs and fill up with gas.  The disconnect in people's mind is completely staggering.

This last weekend has been an especially wild one with regards to the weather.  I didn't sleep much last night because the radio was left on in the hopes that maybe I would hear the Severe Weather Alerts that come up just before a tornado blows you off the face of the earth.  This, of course, only works as long as there is electricity and, given that the electricity went out three times last night before the storm even hit, I also left my window open by my bed so that I might then hear when debris started flying around or the rain would splash in and wake me up.  Night time storms have really started freaking me out.

Personally, I rely most on my dog barometer.  Gina is a very good predictor of what is coming.  I know that when I let her out at night to roam the farm and check for vermin, that if she makes a bee-line for the porch and crawls under it to hide in her ever deepening den, that I had better get inside and pay attention to what is on the horizon because it isn't likely to be anything good.  But, if she strolls off into the pasture and checks out the perimeter of the farm, then the weather will likely be fine for that night.  Now... if I could just teach her to be a barometer for human intelligence with respect to the environment and climate...that might be useful.  My guess, however, would be that she would simply crawl under the porch and dig her hole even deeper.

In Like a Lion

March is upon us and seems to be coming in like a lion....at least from the perspective of my emotions.  
March usually marks the point of "Spring" in my mind and I will likely start becoming overly anxious to be outside every waking moment.  I become cagey and frustrated every day that I have to go to work when the weather is beautiful. And, it never fails, the worst days are always the ones that I am at home.  There will likely be much gnashing of teeth from now until April and I have a tendency, I'm afraid, of turning into a bearcat with my family due to the confounding weather of March.

I am still up to my eyebrows in trying to redo one of the bedrooms in the house.....namely mine, and this will likely manage to keep me preoccupied until the ground warms up enough to start moving flowers around and planting seeds in the ground, but that doesn't mean that I won't be staring out the window with my face pressed up against the glass to peer into the gardens throughout the day in the hopes of seeing tulips and daffodils on the rise. 

There were also seeds planted indoors today to help reduce the early spring gardening anxiety.  One hundred and ten onions,  23 tomato, 12 red peppers, 6 leaks and countless lettuce plants were all started today in organic potting soil and will need to be monitored closely and protected from the threat of house cat destruction until such time as the greenhouse becomes more hospitable (and enclosed) to harbor tender plants.  Their planting is like a promise that in the next six to eight weeks the weather will be nice enough to move them outside.  Planting them is sometimes a more hopeful predictor of spring than judging whether or not a groundhog can identify his shadow. Watching them sprout and then take root in their small pots is a moving pep talk that, indeed, spring is on its way.