A Case of the Hives

I have something of a bull-headed streak. Probably stems from being born in the year of the ox, but if I get something in my mind that I would like to do, or imagine myself doing, it tends to eventually happen.  That is just the way that I have always been and likely always will be- sometimes to my benefit, sometimes to my detriment, and very often to the consternation of my husband, but at least I am consistent.  I see things in my head that just seem right and if I feel strongly enough about them, then Fate seem to help me out on many occasions - such is the case of the hives.

Over a year ago I mentioned that it would be nice to get some bee hives and start collecting honey.  We looked at trying to find some used hives from people that were getting out of it, but they are somewhat hard to come by.  We checked into ordering some from a catalog, but it just never quite seemed to be the right time for it, they were too expensive, or both....we shuffled our feet.

Then I mentioned it to one of my friends at work who also happens to be a mail carrier.  Let me digress here for just a minute and say, if you ever need to know something about the neighborhood that you live in.....ask a mail carrier!  I am constantly amazed at the amount of information that they carry around in their brains that has been accumulated from years of delivering mail to the same houses.  I once had a stray dog show up and managed to find his home simply by asking the mail carrier.  After describing the dog to him he said, "oh yeah! That's Toby. He lives at such and so address.  Noticed he wasn't there today to bark at me when I dropped off the mail.  The owner won't be home though until sometime after 6 pm because he works in town."  Then, thirty minutes after talking to the mail man, someone drives up to get the dog because the mail man had called the owner and the owner had sent his cousin out to retrieve the dog.  Wow!  Seriously, we should make better use of these people and pay them more for their abilities.  Anyway, I happened to mention to my co-worker/mail carrier that we were looking for bee hives to get us started.  She paused for a minute and then said, "You know, I think Hans used to have bees out at his place.  I have delivered supplies to him in the past."  And from there, as all good grapevines go, I tracked down the person to contact about Hans's used bee hives.

Contacted......No response.

Tried again......No response.

And then, Fate stepped in, as it often does.  Hans had been rather ill for quite some time and then rather suddenly passed away.  As always happens when people pass away, there is the process of sorting out all the stuff of their life and deciding what to do with it.  Someone in the group remembered that I had been looking for bee hives and called my office. 

But I was on vacation and out of range to be called.

My very astute assistant, however, knew that I was looking for hives and made the deal for me, and picked them up herself. The hives, beekeeping suits, a smoker, a honey centrifuge, and enough books to keep me happily busy all winter long.

And so, we have hives - two full hives to be exact and all the accoutrements  They will need a little cleaning and fixing here and there, but they are hives none-the-less.  Next up.....bees.

 Most of the texts on the subject recommend getting to know the local bee keepers, so I hopped on the Internet to see what I could find.  Eastern Iowa Beekeepers Association proved local and rich in information.  Shot off an e-mail to the person in charge and within an hour or so was notified that the following day they were due to have one of their meetings.  They only have four meetings per year - one for each of the seasons - and a day or two later and I would have missed it entirely.  Again, Fate seemed to step in and see me through.

I am not one to like going to meetings, especially meetings in which I know absolutely no one, but I felt compelled to tackle this one. When Fate had handed me so much all ready it seemed like a snub to not make the effort at going to the meeting.  I came in slightly late and sat in the back of the meeting room.  There were approximately 30 people there, most of whom were somewhere in their late 60s.  The main topic of conversation was to highlight some of the findings that had been discussed at the state wide bee keepers convention that had taken place in November.  Many of their facts were somewhat worrisome.....There used to be 6 million bee keepers in the U.S and now it is down to roughly 2 million.  Well over half of all the honey in the U.S. is imported from oversees.  Over half of the hives in the U.S.  have been dying over the winter- unable to produce enough honey to support themselves.  Many bee keepers are not even able to collect honey from the hives because the bees are having a hard time making enough.  Colony Collapse Disorder is all too prevalent and no one, as yet, has a good handle on why.  It wasn't encouraging information, and I found myself sitting there thinking that maybe this is a little more than I might be up for this spring. 

One of the first things that I asked a few people was, "where do you get your bees" and several of them gave me different names of companies that sell Queens and a few pounds of bees.  One bee keeper swore by a company out of Texas that he buys bees from every year, and then it dawned on me to ask why he had to buy bees all the time.  He was having about 70% die off each year, and I thought 'well, if these bees are so great why are they dying off?'.....on to the next person.

Finally, I worked my way forward in the crowd to talk to Floyd - he had been one of the speakers that had gone to the convention and had given much of the information on what had been discussed and some of his own tips for helping hives to make it through the winter.  A quiet, soft spoken man, probably more comfortable in the company of bees than he is around people, but he was happy enough to answer my questions.  I knew that maybe, once again, Fate had thrown the right person into my path when I asked him the standard question, "where do you buy your bees" and he looked a me with a slight smile and said, " I haven't bought bees in over 9 years.  I have nucs (short for nucleus) that I raise up"  So, of course my second question was, "Do you ever sell those nucs?"  to which his response was "Yeah.  I will have 30 of them to sell come this spring."

My psyche, at this point, heaved a huge sigh of relief - here was a person who knew what he was doing and apparently did it well since he had several dozens of bee hives all over the county and in my local area.  In fact, he suspected that I was probably driving right by several of them on a daily basis.  Fate has a funny way of eventually making things happen.  I like to think that if I am open to Fate and the possibilities that come with it, and then bull-headed enough to stick it out, my plans eventually come to fruition in most cases- not always, but I have found that even failing miserably at something has always served to teach me something as well.  You never know just when Fate will reach out a hand and help you along, however, it is my belief that most people are simply to scared to grab hold and run with it.  I very much agree with the Serendipity sentiment that "life is not merely a series of meaningless accidents or coincidences...But rather, its a tapestry of events that culminate in an exquisite, sublime plan....that if we are to live life in harmony with the universe, we must all possess a powerful faith in what the ancients used to call "fatum", what we currently refer to as destiny."
Floyd and I talked a little more about various start up tips and then I asked him when he starts checking his hives in the spring...."First week in April.  Give me a call and you can tag along."

Tag along I will.  See you in April, Floyd.

An Open Letter to My Alma Mater

Dear Iowa State College of Veterinary Medicine,

 Thank you for the sound education you gave me regarding anatomy, physiology, bacteriology, dermatology, pharmacology, internal medicine, surgery, histopathology and any number of other 'ologies' that I am sure I have forgotten more of than I ever imagined I would learn.  I am, however, most unhappy with the status of education of production animal medicine. The thing that always sparks me off in this regard is typically a comment or article in the quarterly published Gentle Doctor magazine that I receive since I am supposed to be a happy alumna of the college. This month, it was one of the bullet points in the Dean's Letter p.3 (#4 to be exact)
     

 "Establishment of the Swine Medicine Education Center, a collaborative effort that provides unmatched access to a modern production system that includes 90,000 sows and nearly two million pigs and complements our swine, beef and dairy summer programs, and our rejuvenated food animal field services unit." [emphasis is my own] 

You are supposed to be perceived as the "leader in production medicine" also known as "food animal medicine" or to those lay people that may be reading this, "meat".  You are a land grant college in the very middle of the American Heartland, dedicated to the science an innovation involved in feeding the masses, and yet the system is terribly broken and you are all busy trying to fix the system using more of the same technology that broke it in the first place.  

 Stop.  Look around you. 

The world is slowly waking up to the food that they eat and what it is doing to us.  This is clearly evidenced by books like The Omnivore's Dilemma by Pollan and movies such as Food Inc.  You may have not read or watched them yourselves, but you should.  The research being expressed by these people is sound and, what's more important, makes good sense.  You taught me to look at research objectively and I have....theirs is better than yours.  It shouldn't take more antibiotics to grow our meat, it shouldn't take chemicals to sterilize our food, it shouldn't take people dying from food borne illnesses for you to wake up and realize that maybe nature might have a better way. 

Is it because the large pharmaceutical companies won't pump millions into the coffers that you so desperately need to keep going?  Is it because big businesses like Monsanto, Cargill and Pfizer will leave you high and dry if you actually do what is right and study the differences between organically grown, sustainably managed, pasture fed animals and the high stress, GMO corn-eating, pseudo-food animals that are currently being produced by IBP and Tyson?   For shame.

Well, just so we are clear, this is one veterinarian that you trained that will not be contributing to your college unless it is to train the next generation of veterinarians to think for themselves and wake up to what is happening to our animals.  We take an oath at the completion of our vet school education, an oath to protect the welfare of the animals we treat, to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves and yet here we are locking them up in confinement operations that are clearly NOT in their best interest.  I would like to see any one of you live one day in a space confined such that you couldn't all lay down at the same time and there was so much fecal material in the air around you that it was difficult to breathe.  Or maybe you should all be housed over your own excrement for a while and in such a noisy environment that you can't sleep unless you are completely exhausted.  We have all heard what stress does to our own systems and yet we expect our animals - those that will give their lives so that we may eat - to endure such conditions so that our clients can make the most money per unit.  We have lost track of the fact that those units are, in fact, animals.  Veterinarians should be leaders in this area....we know better and yet we are following - following the big Ag money.   Being led along by our noses in the hopes that we, too, might make a bigger piece of the pie at the expense of all those that we are supposed to be minding the welfare of - the animals and, as a result of that, the people that eat them.

Take a stand.  Will it mean money lost? Probably! Will it mean healthier animals and people? Absolutely! And the people that are waking up to this monstrosity will flock to your doors and beg to learn what you can teach them, or beg for the services of the veterinarians that you graduate.  Be the leader again, please, so that I can once again feel pride at calling you my Alma mater rather than cringing when someone points out that, once again, there is a food recall or thousands of eggs that have been contaminated and the only option is to simply throw more antibiotics or more federal regulations at them. 

We need small farmers in Iowa - not corporate giants.  Iowa is a dying state.  Most of these students that you are teaching right now will likely flee these borders like so many rats from a sinking ship. Wonder why there are a dwindling number of food animal veterinarians? I don't. With corporate giants running the show, how many vets do they really need? There are more large production units and more CAFOs in Iowa than in several of the surrounding states, there is more transgenic corn and soybeans grown here than almost anywhere else.  We need to diversify. 



My own role in this has been to conduct some of my own experiments. Once again you taught me to pay attention and keep records and for this, I thank you.  I can honestly say that there is a clear, distinguishable difference between the eggs that are raised in confined "caged batteries of birds" vs those from my flock of free range hens. I also raise a few pigs, a dairy cow and we buy all our beef from a local farmer that raises them on pasture.  The differences in our food quality and thus our health are substantial. And by supporting local farmers I am helping to ensure that small town Iowa actually has a chance to survive.

I realize that I will very likely not be high on the list to win any of the prestigious awards distributed to the "good soldiers" of the veterinary profession, but it is my honest belief that if you don't periodically stir the pot, all the scum rises to the top. I feel it is my obligation, as outlined by the oath, to continue the improvement of my professional knowledge and competence and so I put this challenge to you as directly as possible.....Lead, don't cave into big agriculture corporations that threaten to undermine this profession and ruin the trust that the populace has previously had in the veterinary community.  Lead, find a better way, a more humane way, a more sustainable way to raise the food that we need to live on.  Lead, so that others will actually want to follow. 

The Darkest Day

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_102.html

We are quickly approaching that time of year again.  And, no, I don't mean the time of year that involves elves in red suits, flying reindeer, nativity scenes, bell ringers or carols.  I mean the time of year when the terra firma that we stand on every single day is angled as far away from the sun (or toward it if you are below the equator) as it will be for the entire year.  The day is as dark as it will be for this year's race around the sun. 

Every day, whether we think of it or not, we are cruising through space at a fairly consistent pace of roughly 67,062 miles per hour, not to mention that the Earth itself is rotating at the same time at roughly 1100 miles per hour (this, of course, depends upon your particular latitude, but for middle America, it is roughly 1100 miles per hour).  Taking those two speeds and revolutions into consideration suddenly makes even the wildest rides at the amusement park seem like child's play.

Now, add in the fact that it has all been going on for approximately 4.5 billion years without significant change or alterations and I find myself standing outside at night looking at the stars with  my mouth agape in complete amazement.  The concept of time is completely lost on humans.  We have no grasp of what billions of years means.  One year?.... yeah, that's understandable.  Ten years?....well, most of us can look back that far and, ironically most of the time we say something like, "Wow! Where did all that time go?"  or "If only I knew then what I know now."  Fifty years? ....We see marriages that have lasted that long and, if you are like me, you say "I wonder how they did it?"  A hundred years?.....This is about the level that humans can reasonably be expected to comprehend on a personal level.  Beyond this point, it becomes antiquity, mystery, mythical.  We may know stories and have a few artifacts, but we really have absolutely no physical idea of how life was several hundreds of years ago much less 4 billion.  I would even hazard to say that the average person, if tossed back in time a few hundred years, would not have the first clue about how to survive using only their wits and the tools afforded them by the Earth itself.  The learning curve in the wild is pretty ruthless.

We, as humans, have lost touch with the Earth.  Oh, we use it daily - we drag coal and oil out of its depths and we haul the fish from its sea and crowd cows, chickens and pigs into insanely small spaces and force the Earth to grow crops that we then rob for our own uses.  We get the Earth to do our bidding and then we all happily go home to our houses, warmed during these cold, dark months with all the oil and coal, turn on our televisions to yet another ridiculous reality show, eat our overly processed, artificially raised food, and then go to bed so we can do it all again the next day. 

Pretty depressing, isn't it?  Sorry about that.  And, to be fair, there are more and more people doing what they can to help the cause, but many days it seems woefully ineffective.

I battle with this "woefully ineffective" thing myself.....all the time.  Sometimes I chalk it up to seasonal effective disorder, but mainly it is just do to the world in general.  Regardless of my mental state, I try to remember that this change in the seasons is a good thing.  Winter is a time for reflection and hibernation which seems to eventually eliminate the depression and readies a person for spring.  I find I can read and digest more books in the winter months than any other time of year. 

One especially good one that I have been working my way through is Folks, This Ain't Normal  by Joel Salatin.  If anyone thinks that I am hard core about living on a farm sustainably, Joel puts me to shame.  I honestly wish I could convince everyone to read this book because he not only understands and talks about farming sustainably, but he does it and proves that it can work on a larger scale.  Much of his emphasis is on treating the earth with respect and being creative in how we solve problems such as energy, food production, water conservation and housing.  There are a few New Year's resolutions that are forming based on this book alone. 

Another book that I am reading is The Joys of Beekeeping by Richard Taylor.  I have been reading a few bee books, but upon opening this one and reading, "The thrill and fascination that filled me then as I watched large swarms stream into hives has never weakened....It follows exactly the pattern established millions of years ago...We see only a small part of the surface of things.  The rest will be forever hidden from us, to be appreciated for its felt but unfathomed presence."  In short, he had me at 'hello'.

I realize that my choice of writers has a lot to do with the level of connectedness that they feel - not just to the subject that they are talking about, but to the earth as a whole.  Emma Restall Orr wrote:  "Perceiving the world as a web of connectedness helps us to overcome the feelings of separation that hold us back and cloud our vision. This connection with all life increases our sense of responsibility for every move, every attitude, allowing us to see clearly that each soul does indeed make a difference to the whole.”  

Those "feelings of separation" are one of the problems with today's society. People no longer feel connected.....to anything.  Ironically, despite e-mail and twitter and facebook, we are all much more disconnected from each other and from nature.  It really isn't natural to sit in front of a computer screen all day and remotely learn about things happening somewhere else when our world - the only one that we will be able to actually touch and physically interact with - lives outside of our house.  

People live for connection with the world around them - eye contact, hugs, relationships.  Without it we are only so much protoplasm walking around without aim or purpose.  It costs nothing to pay attention to other living beings that share this Earth as well- animals, trees, insects - and often these connections prove to be sometimes deeper and more profound than our human ones.  So, as the earth rounds the corner yet again and makes its way back into the hours of daylight, my hope for everyone this year is this.... May you find a connection with some part of the earth around you - be it a roof top garden somewhere in the city, a farmer at a local market, a stray cat that adopts you, the bees in an apiary, the moon coursing through the night sky, or your neighbor next door.  Make this year count because you just never know......maybe the Mayans were right.

Guarding the Night

Of course I always have ideas of blog posts in the middle of the night.  This one came to me sometime deep in the night as I heard my faithful dog barking at the unknown entity in the darkness, keeping watch.

There are many dark and scary beings that roam the countryside.  Many people have visions of the idyllic country life and all the fun farm animals that are raised in green pastures with white trimmed fences, but at night the landscape changes quite a little and now the advantage goes to those animals that were bred for the night.  Around here we have it pretty easy - coyotes, raccoons, skunks, opossums, fox, eagles, owls and the very occasional mountain lion that roams through.....those comprise most of the predator animals that we have to contend with.  Deer, although technically not a predator animal, are fairly predatory when it comes to vegetable gardens.   We, however, have a secret weapon against those beings that reign in the darkness. 

Gina.

Gina came to us under some amount of duress - Keith didn't want her around and I did - and so has it continued for the last four years, but with some amount of compromise, it all works out.  Gina works the third shift around our farm.  When the rest of us are heading in for the night, she goes on duty and then, as the sun comes up, she heads for her kennel where she sleeps the day away in the straw and sunshine.  She is a breed of dog that was bred for guard duty - half Pyrenees and half Golden Retriever she has a thick coat that protects her even in the worst of the weather.  She is at her happiest when there is new snow on the ground. 

Unless it is raining, I really have no idea what Gina does all night.  I know that she probably goes walkabout once in a while and I know for a fact that she sometimes brings home what she considers a tasty treat, but by any human standards (including mine) it would turn your stomach.   Once I even came across a raccoon that apparently met its doom at Gina's jaws. Many times she will be asleep on our porch, but any noise at all will send her rocketing off in full alarm mode any hour of the night....unless it rains.    When it is raining, I know right where she is....under the porch.

Gina hates thunderstorms and has carved out quite a den for herself under our porch where she rides out the flashing and booming.  When it is really cold out, she crawls under the porch and sleeps in the window well next to the wood burning stove - the window there likely stays very warm and it isn't unusual to see her and a few cats piled up enjoying the warmth.  On the very coldest of nights, when it dips into the double digits below zero, Gina gets to spend the night in the shop in the garage where the temp is kept a stable 32 degrees throughout the winter. 

Being a veterinarian, I personally know several people that would consider this horrible treatment of a dog.  I know many a pampered pooch that gets the prime sleeping spot on the bed and gets fed entirely too many table scraps.  I know dogs that are people's children and, from a business perspective, this is just fine by me, but dogs and humans have a very long, complex and symbiotic relationship that has allowed both of us to move forward. 

Wolves, in their domestication of man....because yes, it really did work that way in my mind....they trained us that if they hung out and kept danger away and worked to help us round up animals while hunting, then they too would benefit by having a place to sleep and some food tossed their way once in a while. Suddenly, dogs opened whole new avenues of life up for people - we could hunt better, we could control grazing animals better, we could avoid being eaten by cave bears better. But don't get me wrong - these were the dogs that could take or leave us - they didn't need us to survive, we were just a helpful ally with opposable thumbs to them.  Today's dog is much more dependent.  We have bred them to maintain their juvenile qualities longer, thereby never gaining their complete adult independence from us.  We have tamed the wildness down quite a lot.  In the case of the Pug....maybe a little too much.  But then again, they have domesticated us as well - we now have dogs that are members of the family and enjoy all the privileges that go along with that.  Good food, soft bed, warm house, drives in the car, walks in the park........  Something gained, something lost - there are always trade offs.  Gina, however, has a fairly good mix of domestication and wildness about her.

Gina has a job to do.  This is important in the dog community.  All too often I will see pampered pets that have every convenience given to them get themselves in huge trouble with their happy homeowner because they destroy things in the house, or eat things, or jump on people, or bark.  This is a dog's way of saying "I'm bored and I want something to do."  Gina takes her job very seriously - she is the mobile fence on our farm.  If I had to build a 6 foot fence around everything I grow to keep it safe from the deer - the farm would look like a penitentiary.  Just having her around to let the riff raff know
there is a dog on the premises is enough to make them keep a respectable distance.

The cats, however, take some liberties and move in for a quick bite at the kibble bowl once in a while.  Gina tolerates this with a certain amount of aplomb.  She acknowledges the cat while quietly wagging her tail and then promptly eats the entire bowl of food to prevent any more cat shenanigans

She has free reign.  Dogs are smart - very smart.  They know where home is - where the food bowl lives, so I don't worry about her wandering off too far. But she does love to ride in cars.  Recently, one morning when I was due to put her in the kennel for the day, I couldn't find her anywhere.  Walked and called, walked and called.  Drove around the block looking for signs of her.  Walked through the woods looking for her.  Nothing.   Finally, just about at the point of calling the shelters, neighbors, and surrounding vet clinics, I realized that my sister's car was parked across the road at her business and that the back hatch was open.  On a whim, I went to inspect.  Sure enough, she was sitting up in the driver's seat looking at me with her dog grin, panting, "Come on! I have been waiting to go for ride for hours! What took you so long." 

Gina also gets to commune with the wild side of the canine family.  We have entirely  too many coyotes that roam the area, but thankfully, she is large enough that no coyote in its right mind would take her on in a fight, and they give her wide berth by staying out of her territory, but they do have an odd sort of communication.  Listening to a pack of coyotes on any night is enough to give a person the chills, but listening to your own dog raise her nose to the sky and howl in one long, plaintive cry back at them will make every hair stand on end - it is so eerie, primordial and, in some ways, heart wrenching. 

I believe that a dog, at least once a day, should be told that they are a "good dog"  - it keeps their tail limber with the wagging that you receive in return.  My kids have a chore (although it hardly classifies as a chore) to go out and let Gina out during the day for a while so she gets a little human interaction.  Watching her romp and play with the kids and watching them throw their arms around her shaggy neck and bury their faces in her fur is one of the highlights of my day....and her's....and my kid's.  Dogs have a wonderful, sponge-like ability to absolve you of your worse moods.  They are always happy to see you no matter what a rotten day it has been.  They don't notice the scowl that you might wear on your face that sends your family running the other direction - or if they do, they don't care.  They still come up to you, tail wagging and eager to give love and attention without  expecting anything in return.  I think it is this guilelessness, this simplicity of a dog that makes them the object of so much attention and love - people always want something in return.  If only people could learn one more thing from a dog...become just a little more domesticated themselves....this would be a good thing to learn.

It is getting late.  My dog alarm has set out barking several times already as I have finished typing this up, no doubt to send whatever small carnivores scurrying in the other direction away from our farm.  I will rest easy tonight knowing that we are guarded faithfully by my furry comrade and that, come morning, I will be met with a wagging tail and excessive gratitude at receiving her bowl of food and the five small words that make her day...."Good dog, Gina.  Good dog."

Like a Nut-Seeking Squirrel

One of the biggest challenges that we have, storing all the food that we do, is keeping track of  it all.  It can get to be a little bit like a squirrel burying nuts in the yard - a little bit here, a little over there- until we find ourselves in the kitchen wondering whether or not we actually do have any corn for the dinner and, if so, where might it be?

We have come up with a solution to this problem and it is remarkably easy.  It requires paper (graph paper is nice), some tape and a pencil (or pen)

One of these posted at each of the freezers and at the cupboards that hold the canned food, and we can quite easily keep track to what goes in and what comes out.  Something new goes into the freezer - another square is added.  Something gets taken out to be used and a square gets crossed off.  Keeping a pen or pencil attached to the list ensures that no one can use the excuse of "there wasn't anything to mark it off with."

We try to make sure that all of last year's stuff gets used up first ,so that is typically somewhere on the top of the freezer to avoid having to unpack the entire thing.....but I am still trying to find that one quart of 2010 corn that is supposedly in there somewhere. 

Civil Disobedience and Fearlessness

I wonder what Thoreau would say about today's political/environmental/social situation?  Probably just what he wrote about the Mexican war and slavery in his own time.

"A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight." - Thoreau 

Thoreau's writing of Civil Disobedience is what has led to countless non-violent revolutions around the world - Gandhi, King, , Apartheid in South Africa, anti-war demonstrations in the U.S. in the 70s...and it is what keeps the people camped out in tents at College Green in Iowa City in the Occupy movement.

This came up the other night because I was trying to explain to one of my children why we do what we do....it's a form of civil disobedience.  We don't necessarily break laws, but we don't really follow them either, at least with reference to the farm and what is considered "normal".

I waffle almost daily as to where I fit in to the socio/political scheme of things.  It used to be pretty simple....Democrat.  Now.....not so much.  The government has become too polarized and I don't think that enough of my ideas of what is right and good necessarily fit completely into only one category....nor should they.  For entirely too long we have tried to keep the two party thing working for us, but clearly it has ceased to work in any sense of the word.  For all intents and purposes, I am a free thinker.  I don't even like the word "independent" as it implies too much of a party and either the Democrats or Republicans work to coax the Independents into their camp to help achieve the majority.  I want the Independents to be the majority.  A majority of people that think for themselves and find someone electable without the input of corporate money and lobbyists.  Is that even possible anymore?

I saw a research study recently that was very interesting.  It examined the brains of members of the different parties and analyzed what part of the brain was used with relation to their political affiliation.  Liberal thinkers tend to have a larger anterior cingulate cortex, a region of the brain linked with monitoring uncertainty, which could help them cope with conflicting information. Conservatives, on the other hand, have a larger amygdala, an area linked with greater sensitivity to fear and disgust.

There seems to be a lot of "fear and disgust" being thrown around out there lately.  Turn on any T.V. talk show or listen for a few minutes to Fox news and you are made to feel the doom and gloom of the current administration.  I refuse to be this paralysed by fear.....but I am disgusted.  Disgusted that we are a people that are so quickly influenced by people who know how to use our fears to their best advantage. 

So, I stew about what to do.  Move away? - become an ex-patriot somewhere less stupid....less fearful? Or, do you dig in and try to make some kind of difference, however small.  So far, we have gone with the latter of those two options. 

My daughter was expounding the other day about what she wants to do when she grows up.  She wants to "do something"  not just sit around on a farm all day.  I tried to picture what she visualizes me "doing all day" from her 12 -year-old point of view, and granted....it didn't seem like much.  I go to work, I fix animals, I come home, weed things, write, read books, clean things....in short, a pretty quiet existence to a thrill-seeking tween. 

But, in the bigger picture, my husband and I are very busy....busy raising kids. Kids with the knowledge and understanding to be able to see what is going on around them in the world and possibly do something about it to make it a better place.  It is a very slow process to be sure, and often fret with more trials and tribulations than I like to recount, but we try to model for them what we hope will help them to "do something" later on in life- work ethic, patience, perseverance, deductive reasoning, equality, boldness....it is a tough job indeed. 

Of the things that we try to teach the kids, one of the hardest that I have found to teach is fearlessness.  "Don't be afraid."  How many times on dark, stormy nights have I said that to my kids and then found myself laying awake at night with the fear of what the world will eventually become for them.  But fear begets fear and it only paralyses, and it makes us unable to look at a situation rationally and act appropriately.

I remember being a kid and being afraid.  I was afraid of the bogey man that my brother swore lived behind the garage.  I was afraid that the house would catch fire at night and we would all be burned to a crisp in our beds.  I was afraid of being kidnapped because of my mother's constant warnings against "stranger danger".  I was afraid the world was going up in a blast of nuclear energy.   As a kid, you learn fear early and well.  The hard part is un-learning it.  And the even harder part is trying to help your kids unlearn it as well.  What I have come to understand through all the un-learning, is that the opposite of fear is not bravery - that is facing something despite the fact that you are still afraid.  The opposite of fear.....is knowledge. 



So, maybe we are hard wired to be what and who we are, or maybe it is learned from years of our parents teaching us not to talk to stranger danger.  The research study itself wasn't so sure which came first - the fear and then the conservatism or the conservatism and then the fear, but I don't think that we can stand to be stuck in this muddy government anymore, which brings me to another thought...

"...let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." 

-Franklin D. Roosevelt

Personally, I wish he could address that speech again to this nation of prime time, news program zombies that believe every horror story that they hear and then take that fear to the bank and proceed to tear the country asunder with their hatred of all things new and different.

I think the main thing that has conservative people upset about the whole occupy and civil disobedience thing is that it is out of the norm, it pushes the change forward, and for many people that movement of change is a frightening thing.  But it doesn't need to be if the fear can be un-learned. Civil disobedience requires fearlessness, it requires trust and it requires critical thinking.  I am hoping that maybe, by practicing as Thoreau suggested we can help our kids achieve a sense of fearlessness in this crazy world.   A little less of using the amygdala and a little more of using the anterior cingulate cortex would be good for us all.

The Space Between

The space between Halloween and Thanksgiving is quite possibly my least favorite time of the year.  There are many reasons for this:

1.   Halloween is over and the next time there will be this much chocolate in the house is probably Valentine's day, which seems like forever.

2.   There are often elections and I am constantly, unrealistically hopeful that somehow, this time, people will be smart enough to elect individuals that will miraculously save the planet from the horrible tipping point it is about to go over.....and I am completely depressed every time.

3.   All the un-realized expectations for the year come home to roost - the green house that didn't quite happen, the fourth planting of lettuce that didn't happen, moving flowers that desperately need to be thinned and moved. And although, technically it isn't too late.....it's too late.

4.   The weather suddenly turns rainy and cold - not cold enough to snow, just cold enough to be dreary and miserable.

5.   The darkness starts to sink in earlier and earlier as the earth slowly rounds the corner on her mission around the sun and we speed the process with the "fall back" in our attempts at maximizing our sunlight hours.

 6.   I check off another year on my life's calendar.

The final reason is probably the most likely for why I enter into this late fall funk.  I don't remember when birthdays stopped being fun and started to be something that you more or less dread, but it happened a while ago for me. 

I would like to say that I have a great way of working myself out of this funk.....but I don't.  I wallow in it for a while.  Depressed by the dying flowers that hang on the vines, saddened by the small green tomatoes that never did get to the stage of ripening.  Resenting having to start fires to keep the house warm at night, and finding all the kids' coats, hats, boots and mittens that I know will, from now until May, lay all over the entry and drive me crazy.   I, quite honestly, am completely pathetic at this time of year.  I am a car out of gear and I can't seem to shift into anything productive.

Until it snows or Thanksgiving arrives....whichever comes first. 

If they both come together....well, so much the better.  The snow covers over all the brown and wilted and makes it look crisp and clean.  Thanksgiving officially kicks off the holiday season, although to enter into any shopping store around Halloween is to to be inundated with Christmas stuff - it's really kind of depressing.  I was in one craft store over a week ago and it looked as though Christmas had vomited all over one section of it.  I stayed well away from this section.....but, I digress...  By "holiday" I don't mean "shopping"  - I absolutely hate to shop, but I love the feeling of the holidays.  Family and friends near, card games late into the night, blustery snowstorms during which you can camp out in bed with a good book, spiced wine, the smell of pine trees.....  The first part of winter, before the cabin fever sets in and drives everyone crazy -that is the holiday season in my mind. 

Once this season rolls around, it feels as though I am finally in gear again to get something done in the house.  This winter's mission is to finally get a bedroom.  Yes, sad, but true.  We have been living in this house now for almost 9 years and my husband and I have been camping out in what I call "the wreck room"  Our bed is there, along with the computer and until recently a television and a ton of toys.  It was generally where the entire family would congregate at various times to try to watch a movie, play computer games or just generally come to harass me in my vain attempts at sleeping in.   Nightly, I typically crash into a computer chair or two and step on a Lego or Barbie shoe on my way to bed. 

No more.   I have visions in my mind of a quiet place of solitude to which I can retreat as needed and not be disturbed by my pack of children.  Maybe this is a bit of a delusional idea, but it is what I envision to try to help me get back in gear. 

Of course, what is required to make this happen is for me to move everything out of this room so that I (and my husband) can redo the floors, wall and ceiling.  This is a bit daunting to say the least.  Especially now.... at this time of year when I am busy being old and pathetic.....maybe after a few more pieces of Halloween candy, checking the weather report in the hopes of at least one more 70 degree day and sending off a few more letters to my delinquent Congressmen, or maybe.... I will just hold out for the snow.

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.