Dandilion Diversity

I am convinced that if you were actually trying  to grow dandelions, they would be the hardest flowers to grow.  Right now, they are everywhere, and what is worse - the seeds are everywhere.  I just spent part of the morning pulling dandelions with my favorite of all garden tools (my wicked dandelion puller) while simultaneously being horrified at the literal carpet of dandelion seeds that are spread on the ground like a shag rug.  Clearly, it is never ending.  It is probably a good thing that I don't live in town or my neighbors would hate me.  I refuse to use chemical spray on my lawn or garden regardless of how many dandelions emerge.  As much as I dislike them, I highly prefer them to the chemicals that we tend to haphazardly spray around. When comparing dandelion to weed killer my list goes something like this:

Dandelion pros -

• green,
• pretty yellow flowers,
• white puffs of seeds that kids like to make wishes on,
• good to eat,
• can make into wine. 

Weed killer pros -

• fewer weeds, 
•  able to keep up with the Jones. 

Dandelion cons -

• dandelions growing everywhere you don't want them, namely the gardens. 

Weed killer cons -

• chemicals in the environment,
• monoculture lawns that provide no beneficial value to pollinators,
• chemicals in the kids and pets that play on the lawn,
• Chemicals in the worms that live in the lawn...and then in the birds that eat the worms...and then the cats that eat the birds that ate the worm that absorbed the chemical that lives in the house that Jack built....

Looking at that list, it makes the decision not to spray a simple one for me.  Are they unsightly? Depends upon how you look at it.  Watching my seven-year-old run laughing and kicking all the dandelion seed heads into the air until she is surrounded by a veritable mist of floating seeds...I don't think they are unsightly at all.  The dandelions also provide my children a much needed way of earning allowance or time on the computer - 30 seconds computer time or 1 cent for every dandelion pulled out of my gardens and it only counts if the entire root is there.  This has been known to keep several kids busy for quite some time and it cleans up the garden nicely. 

It fascinates me to see the amount of money and time that people spend on having the perfect carpet of lawn.  Seriously? This is what we focus on?  Waste of time, energy and water in my opinion.  I love the current move to change over lawns into vegetable gardens - more interesting to look at and clearly better for the environment and our health.  We need to get over our obsession with having a perfect golf course lawn surrounding our houses. 

I am reminded of an anecdote that I read sometime last fall:

"Imagine the conversation The Creator might have had with St. Francis on the subject of lawns:

God: Hey St. Francis, you know all about gardens and nature. What in the world is going on down there in the Midwest? What happened to the dandelions, violets, thistle and stuff I started eons ago? I had a perfect "no maintenance" garden plan. Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought and multiply with abandon. The nectar from the long lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honey bees and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of colors by now. But all I see are these green rectangles.

St. Francis: It's the tribes that settled there, Lord. The Suburbanites. They started calling your flowers "weeds" and went to great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.

God: Grass? But it's so boring. It's not colorful. It doesn't attract butterflies, birds and bees, only grubs and sod worms. It's temperamental with temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want all that grass growing there?

St. Francis: Apparently so, Lord. They go to great pains to grow it and keep it green. The begin each spring by fertilizing grass and poisoning any other plant that crops up in the lawn.

God: The spring rains and warm weather probably make grass grow really fast. That must make the Suburbanites happy.

St. Francis: Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it grows a little, they cut it... sometimes twice a week.

God: They cut it? Do they then bail it like hay?

St. Francis: Not exactly, Lord. Most of them rake it up and put it in bags.

God: They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?

St. Francis: No Sir. Just the opposite. They pay to throw it away.

God: Now let me get this straight. They fertilize grass so when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?

St. Francis: Yes, Sir.
 
God: These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we cut back on the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the growth and saves them a lot of work.

St. Francis: You are not going to believe this Lord. When the grass stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.

God: What nonsense. At least they kept some of the trees. That was a sheer stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. The trees grow leaves in the spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer. In the autumn they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. Plus, as they rot, the leaves form compost to enhance the soil. It's a natural circle of life.

St. Francis: You better sit down, Lord. The Suburbanites have drawn a new circle. As soon as the leaves fall, they rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.

God: No. What do they do to protect the shrub and tree roots in the winter and to keep the soil moist and loose?

St. Francis: After throwing away the leaves, they go out and buy something which they call mulch. The haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.

God: And where do they get this mulch?

St. Francis: They cut down trees and grind them up to make the mulch.
 
God: Enough. I don't want to think about this anymore. Sister Catherine, you're in charge of the arts. What movie have you scheduled for us tonight?

Sister Catherine: "Dumb and Dumber", Lord. It's a real stupid movie about.....

God: Never mind, I think I just heard the whole story from St. Francis."

I think of this a lot when I go into garden centers and DIY stores and smell the chemicals that line the aisles and see the bags of mulch.  What a screwed up world we live in these days when maintaining our perfectly green lawns is more important than the millions of people worldwide could use that $38.95 we just spent on weed killer to actually grow a useful crop that could feed them and their whole family. Where are the priorities?  I try my best to find a silver lining in some things, but when it comes to this....it is simply depressing.

I think I will make a few wishes that humanity will someday actually pay attention to this world and what we do to it, and go blow some dandelion seeds around.

The Broody Hen

Every once in a while, for reasons that are not entirely clear to anyone save maybe the chicken herself, one of the hens decides to become broody.  What this generally means is that, what was yesterday a normal strolling, pecking, scratching, egg laying chicken now becomes the equivalent of a chicken zombie.  They pull out the feathers on their belly to provide warmth to eggs (whether there are any or not) and then they sit.  You can attempt to pick them up and shoo them out the door and sometimes they will seem to snap out of it for a few minutes and act like a normal chicken again, but the minute you look away....they are back on the nest and sitting with that glassy-eyed stare of internal concentration.

Some pure bred chickens have had the "broodiness" bred out of them - programed only to lay eggs and then walk away from them without a second thought.  Essentially, genetically programed infanticide.  But there are other breeds, and often mixed breed chickens, that revert back to the "wild type" and will sit on a clutch of eggs. Some even have enough wits about them to actually hatch them out.  I can  honestly say that chickens are not always the brightest of animals.  The current broody hen that I have been monitoring will get off the nest typically once or twice a day and then seems to forget which nest is hers despite the fact that her nest is the only one with eggs in it.  The state of broodiness seems to be contagious as well.  When one chicken starts it, others are likely sure to follow, which is the case at the moment.  Good thing too, because as one crazy zombie bird gets off her nest the other one will often be at the point of trying to remember where her nest is and will trade nests....again, not the brightest light bulbs in the room, but they (eventually) get the job done.

When the eggs do hatch however, there is an amazing transformation that takes place in a hen. They go from being an easily frightened, squawking, fleeing chicken into a bold, ruthless, and intimidating mother hen.  I have seen hens stand up to (and make cower) pigs, cats, dogs, and even my children. They puff out every feather until they are twice their usual size and will tackle whatever evil obstacle threatens their young.   I credit the last mother hen with teaching our current pig to have a little respect for the lowly chickens in the barn - while watching the hen and chicks one day strolling around the pig pen, I was convinced that they were all about to be snacks for the pigs- pigs being the indescriminate eaters they are, but mama hen took after the pigs with feet, beak and feathers flying and sent all three pigs racing away from her small flock of babies. I have not seen them bothered since and our pig will happily allow the chickens to eat out of her bowl with her. 

This transformation in motherhood is really not all that unusual - most mother animals would likely walk through fire and fend off whatever evil beast is threatening their young...I know I would.  But what amazes me is a chicken who, the week before, couldn't remember which nest was hers, suddenly has it together enough to defend and protect these small balls of fluff that are all running in different directions.  She keeps track of them, teaches them the best scratching areas and techniques, calls them away from danger, and keeps a wary eye out for any possible marauders.  If the weather turns cold, or at night when it is time to roost, she takes them under her wing to keep them safe and warm.  I have seen human children with mothers that are nowhere near this attentive and a human's instinctual ability for child rearing has been severely diluted over the centuries as compared to that of a chicken.  I am not sure if that is a insult to humans or a compliment to chickens, but needless to say, I keep a wary eye out for the mother hens.

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.

When It Points To The East......

http://cs.astronomy.com/asycs/media/p/449739.aspx

"The night walked down the sky with the moon in her hand"

~Frederic Lawrence Knowles

I never paid much attention to the moon.  All the while I grew up, I would play outside at night and stargaze late into the night, but the moon never entered into my sphere of awareness other than as a way to light my way on dark nights or as an obstruction to my sight of the Milky Way with its quiet ethereal glow.  And then, when I moved into town for college and work, it all but disappeared from my life entirely. 

You hear, now an again, about odd moon moments, the "blue moons" that happen every so often when there are more than one full moon in a month, a lunar eclipse, and periodically an exceptionally large full moon will slowly rise on the horizon with an orange glow that takes the breath away, but the day to day moon changes are completely missing from most people's awareness.

 The moon has always been used to track time.  The Native Americans have a name for every month's full moon to keep track of the time of year and signal when to harvest, when to hunt, when to fish.  We have just passed the Full Pink Moon - which is in reference to all the pink blossoms that fill the fruit trees this time of year. The almanac has all but made a science of using the moon to predict when to plant seeds to obtain the best harvest. The "moon" dates that are best to plant crops for root production or fruit production, the best time to breed animals and set eggs based on the stage of the moon.  Does it work?  I can't say that I know for sure, but I know now of the moon's pull in my own life.

Since moving to this farm, the moon as been an ever present time piece.  She moves about the sky with such precision that I have fallen under her spell.  I have come to find that I can relate better to the moon's constant change- sometimes bright and illuminating, sometimes dark and brooding - than I can to the sun's constant effervescent illumination.  Her moods wax and wane much like my own.  Every twenty-eighth day I know that I will spend the night in a state of wakefulness because of the brightness of the full moon, and in the winter when the snow is on the fields, I know that I will be able to look out and track the deer and coyote that move about under her gaze.  I have come to expect the moonrise just as some anticipate the sunrise.  I know enough now to take a small break after the sun sets during the days surrounding a full moon because, after the moon rises in the east, it will be possible to go back to work in the garden for a while under the pale glow of her illumination.  I have come to realize that it is possible to start the days very early under a waning and waxing moon because the glow from the moon augments the early light of the sunrise.  And if it is the stars that you seek, it is best to wait for the new moon to examine star charts and tell the stories of the constellations. 

For many, the moon is merely something to be studied in science and astronomy classes.  The satellite to our humble planet, a remnant from the formation of the earth, the ugly step-sister to our beautiful blue orb.  However, in true sibling nature, she keeps track of us, she marks our days and months and years.  In quiet counter point to the brash sun that religiously keeps track of the days, she marks the nights.  Even under a thick blanket of clouds, I can often tell just where the moon should be and at what stage.  Like the ocean, I feel the ebb and flow of the tides within my own blood.

This is the question that I ask my children, "Is it getting larger or smaller?"  "Closer to full or closer to dark?"  If your head can spin in astronomical circles fast enough, you can likely figure it out, but my dad taught me a saying that has never steered me wrong, although it took a little practice to figure out.  "When it points to the east - may your light increase.  When it points to the west - wane be at rest."  The "points" being the points of the  crescent moon - if they point to the east, it is getting larger (hence, increasing light) and if the points of the crescent are to the west, then it is waning.  I can tell you, without even looking at it tonight, that it is waning and will be a new moon in the next ten days or so and then we will be slowly waxing toward May's full flower moon.

"Every one is a moon, and has a dark side

which he never shows to anybody."

 ~ Mark Twain

Come Walk With Me.....I Would Love My Flowers To Meet You.

After a long and crazy day of work - either as a veterinarian, or a mother/wife/farmer - there is one time of day that I look forward to - the evening constitutional, my stroll through the gardens,... my walkabout. There are many evenings when I get home and drop all my stuff on the steps to the porch and quietly stroll around the flowers for five or ten minutes. It lets me forget the day's disappointments and frustrations and brings me back to earth....literally. I have built my flower gardens all the way around my house to allow for a leisurely walk before I enter the house and am greeted by my mob. I could spend hours trying to describe the loveliness, peace and tranquility, but my words would fail miserably. Better simply to allow the pictures to speak their thousands of words for me.

To Russia (And Elsewhere) With Love

One of the most fascinating things that I have found about writing a blog is tracking its audience.  Don't get me wrong, this system is in no way exact - I have no idea of who actually is reading, but only a very general idea of where they are from.  I have noticed that for some time now I have had readers (or reader) located in Russia, some in Germany, some in England, and a few here and there scattered over the globe.  It would be wonderful to have some comments posted from readers from other countries and if you are concerned that your English isn't very good....no worries, because I guarantee that my Russian, German, Portuguese and Thai are much worse than your English ever could be.  We are one global nation thanks to this lovely Internet, and I, for one, like to know my neighbors.

Standing Stones

Nature in all its many facets is astounding.  In Spring I revel at all the new flowers and plants that bloom, I sit mesmerized while watching honey bees and other insects going about their busy lives with no thought for us whatsoever, I am fascinated by watching migratory birds return year after year to nests that only they know how to find, and I even harbor great affection for the rocks. 

Perhaps the quietest members of my garden, there are many rocks that line my flower beds and get moved slightly from place to place as I weed around them throughout the year.  I like the feel of them, their heft, their rough edges and sharp angles.  They are the oldest things here - limestone, granite, sandstone, quartz, geodes- they speak of a time that I will never know.  A time of heat and turmoil.  Pressure and seemingly infinite spans of time.  There are small trilobites that I find embedded in the limestone rocks, whole generations of a species that, at one point, thought they were the height of civilization as we do now.

For whatever reason, I have a fascination with standing rocks up - a change of perspective for them, I imagine. When I find a small pile of them lying around, even though they may have odd angles, I take on the inherent challenge of balancing one upon the other.  It takes a little time and patience to get them to all work together, and not enough can be said to praise a small amount of sand that helps create the all important friction that holds the odd-angled rock in place, but when they are all in harmony and supporting one another, they almost seem enlivened somehow.  Even a rock wants to be something - whether it be a quiet meditative being lying in the midst of a field, a part of a building's foundation , or a member of a cairn.  Perhaps that is being overly anthropomorphic, but then I try to imagine what the animal world looks like to a stone - we all must be in high speed motion to them, flitting from place to place, growing, aging, dying within a blink of a rock's eye.  How ridiculous must the work-a-day world seem to a rock.

Sometimes they fall.  Gravity, rain and wind work their change on the rocks just as they have for millions of years and I will come across the dismantled pile looking like so many pieces of puzzle and stoop to rebuild them again as I take a break from the endless pulling of weeds.  No two piles are ever the same, but then it is fun to hear people's remarks that have seen a group of stones together and then realize that they are subtly different, as though by magic they have shifted themselves.  Sometimes, I think they do.

A Most Unusual Cat

"...He had been gardening again and held in one hand the kind of wide-bladed, lime-green grass that grows at the untended edges of sidewalks and lawns.  He shook the dirt free, pulled out a half dozen of the longer strands, smoothed them, then twisted them into a flimsy green braid.
     'Time', he said, holding up the braid to me.  He indicated one end, then the other, 'Maybe one thousand year.' He touched the individual stalks of grass tenderly. 'Souls, Spirits. You see?  You, your father, your mother, sister, wife, children, you see? Your spirit is together with their spirits like this, tight against each other. That is why you were born into this [l]ife together.  He pulled one strand out and tossed it up into the sunlight.  'Maybe one of these people, or two, not so close after this [l]ife.  But people you really love, spirits that are close to your spirit, you see? They tie around tight to you,  [l]ife after [l]ife."

-Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo


I read this book several years ago, but this was a part from the book that entered into my mind upon getting to know Vincent.  Vincent is a cat and I am quite sure that he has become one of the strands of grass in my braid of time.

Vincent came to the farm slightly over a year ago.  A feral cat, wild and frightened of anything and everything human.  Only enticed closer by the lure of food that is left out nightly for the resident clowder of cats.  He would wait until we had put the food down and then would warily creep into the mob of cats and grab a few furtive bites before any move on our part would send him flying.  Skinny, crumpled ears, and starving, night after night he would get just ever so slightly braver until finally, after many months of very slow and patient work by my kids, he let one of them touch him.  Always only afraid, never mean.  Cats have two defense mechanisms that they work from when they are in over their heads - they become incredibly ferocious, or they do everything in their power to flee - Vincent was always the second.

At our farm, when a new cat arrives, it is given a certain amount of "breaking in" period before the local vet - that's me- steps in and insists on said cat being a more socially acceptable pet, by which I mean neutered/spayed and vaccinated. Vincent was having none of me anywhere near him even with food available, and carrying a net looked especially worrisome to him.  I left the net in the care of my son and within a few days of trial and escape, Vincent came to the door of the house, trapped in the net under much duress just as I was in the process of making pizza on a Sunday night.  Time and tide may wait for no man, but neither does a cat in a net.  In short order Vincent was anesthetized via an injection in the muscle, tested for several nasty cat viruses by doing a simple blood test, vaccinated and neutered.  All while laying on my front porch surrounded by four (and sometimes five) curious kids - my son opted out of watching the neutering process.   Anesthetic reversed and by the time the pizza was done, he was completely recovered and had staggered off in the direction of the barn.


What happened to that cat during that process, I have no idea.  From that point on he is always around.  He sits just outside the door on the stoop so that you almost step on him when going outside - even in the very coldest of weather.  When I go anywhere on the farm, he trots along beside me as though he is a dog trained to heel.  When I cook in the kitchen, he sits on the small table just outside my window and monitors closely.  The other cats on the farm will drift by and briefly interact with me while on their own personal missions of self satisfaction, but for whatever reason, Vincent seems to have appointed himself as my personal entourage while at home. He loves attention and will purr and roll affectionately around your feet and legs.  Gina, my typically cat-intolerant dog, loves him and will actually allow him to eat out of her bowl right under her nose. 

And so I ask myself, who is this little soul that seems to have adopted me?  I sometimes peer into his round, furry face as he loyally sits by my side while I garden and think, "Who are you?" and more often, "Who am I to deserve this affection and loyalty?"  How can something that was absolutely terrified of all things even remotely related to me, suddenly change and appear to love with such complete abandon?  Human beings don't have the monopoly on souls, as far as I am concerned.  An animal's ability to love unconditionally so far outstrips our own that at times it is shameful.  Whatever the reason, from where ever he came,  I hope his soul is one of those that stays with mine for all time. 

Pi Day

This late winter day finds me completely preoccupied digging in the dirt.  I type now with sixty four thousand scratches on my hands from weeding flower beds, smelling of leaf smoke, and my lower back is sunburned from spending the day happily bent over perennial flowers that are starting to emerge.  Many thoughts made their way into my head, but most of them were directed at the plants, the earthworms, the birds....no time today to sit and write them all down, but pictures speak volumes.

Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things,

man will not himself find peace.

~Albert Schweitzer

The clever men at Oxford, know all that there is to be knowed.

But they none of them know one half as much, as intelligent Mr. Toad.

~Kenneth Grahame

The grand show is eternal.  It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising.  Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.

~John Muir

All through the long winter, I dream of my garden. On the first day of spring,

I dig my fingers deep into the soft earth. I can feel its energy, and my spirits soar.

~Helen Hayes

The Benefit of Boredom

One of my favorite things to hear from my children is, "I'm bored."  I can usually tell when it is coming because they will hang around me and offer to do jobs for more screen time to play on the computer or watch a movie, which I will often deny.  Then they hassle their siblings, pester me more, and then finally it comes out...."I'm bored."  To which my only reply is "Good."

This may seem rather cruel - to enjoy the boredom of your children - but there is an amazing thing that happens to a bored kid....they eventually find something to do.  It sometimes takes a while.  Usually it goes through the common routine of driving me crazy, driving siblings crazy, driving the pets crazy and then...finally, they launch into something completely original and creative.  As a parent, it takes a little fortitude to survive through these stages, but the results are often amazing to observe. 

Today, as an example, I was a horrible slug of a parent. Unwilling to even engage my 6 and 7 year old in sorting out their conflicts with one another, I simply listened to their arguments run their course and when I checked in with them this afternoon, the entire table was covered with a mosaic of playing cards to look like a garden and the dominoes had been constructed into some kind of castle.  The game that they had devised had rules that only they completely understood, but they were happy as larks to be playing it together.  It continued  until sometime after dinner (we simply slid it down to one end of the table to allow a place for us to eat) and then they happily picked it all up before bed. At other times I have evicted all of my children from the house to sort out their boredom outside and then watch happily as one of them happens to find a Frisbee and a whole new sort of 'ninja Frisbee-kicking' game is born that eventually involves all five of them in a sort of strange one-on-one-on-three sort of set up with modified two hand touch tackling.

Periodically, I feel bad keeping my children in the technological dark ages, but then again, all that technology is always going to be out there.  Like Pandora's box, it has been released into the world and there is no way to contain it again, so they will have access to it and they will have to learn to use it at some point.  Entertainment is easy and always on these days, but boredom....that is harder to come by.  There are times when I, myself, get caught in a rut and spend entirely too much time in front of this screen and find my mind slowly dissolving into so much mush.  Opinions and news stories are all too prevalent, too dramatic, too polarized.  A person hardly has time to think for themselves anymore because they are being told so immediately and constantly what to think by news programs and "experts" who, ironically are employed or paid nicely by whoever or whatever they are advocating.

 I have been reading a fascinating book by one of my favorite authors, Barbara Kingsolver - The Lacuna which is a historical fiction novel about the time period in the 1930-1950s and deals with such characters as Lev Trotsky, Stalin and the McCarthy era in the US.  Her writing is so heartbreakingly beautiful and so thoughtful that there have been times when I simply have to stop and think about what has been said.  One of the points that stood out for me is that, at that time of history, the radio was the new media of the day.  It was the beginning of the constant barrage of 'the truth as other people see it' in which they would express whatever facts were available, and when the facts weren't readily apparent, they would embellish the truth to fill the air time to avoid a lapse in programming.  The whole "Red Communist" scare was mostly a news media fabrication to keep people in a constant state of fear and anxiety and thus listening to the news programing or reading the latest headlines.  Not unlike the news programing today.  Maybe we should have allowed the lapses and dead air as useful time to think and process what facts were actually available.  Maybe we should make time for those lapses now as well.  This is one of the main reasons that we avoid technology around here as much as we do.  What good has come from it, really?  It has made communication easier, but we are so busy with trying to be constantly entertained that we don't effectively communicate with anyone anymore. I love having good debates with people about differing view points - it gets my ire up, but it stretches my thinking, makes me see other sides of the issue, and forces me to state my own opinions as eloquently and succinctly as possible - something the news media doesn't give you a chance to do.

 Writing, reading, assimilating, synthesizing and creating something completely new and different are the hallmarks of a populace that can continue to advance.  Simply being a sponge and absorbing so much bad news and other people's opinions does not help to make a difference in the world. 
And so, at our house, boredom it is.  A lapse in entertainment in which the brain actually has to take in information and do something with it, make something of it, learn something from it.  When the brain is thought of more along the lines of a muscle,(rather than simply being a bundle of fatty neurons) - it requires work outs to become stronger.  And the brain wants and needs things to think about - as evidenced by the way it wanders while we struggle to get to sleep, or the dreams that it comes up with in the middle of the night.  But when we sit in front of a television screen or Wii and are being fed a constant diet of cheap entertainment that requires little more than a rudimentary ability to understand the English language and some kind of reflex activity....well, suffice it to say that the mental muscles are not being flexed.  It depresses me to see language being obliterated by 'texting'.  Beautiful, thoughtful lines of prose reduced down to "lol" or, if it is really good, "lmao".  Our world is now being run on information that is being communicated 140 characters at a time.  This depresses me.  But, as Pandora found Hope in the bottom of her box, I have five kids who never cease to amaze me with their ideas, creativity, energy, and eventual ability to play well together.  They are my hope in this crazy, media driven, entertainment seeking, technological world.

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. 

The Daily Bread

There is a staple in almost every household that just isn't thought about much - bread.  Every week requires a few loaves for the constant peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or the toast with peanut butter supply that my children insist upon.  A piece of toast and cup of tea has helped soothe many an upset stomach over the years, and rarebit would just be so much cheese sauce on a plate without it.

When I was in high school, I had a German exchange partner and one of the things that she found most unusual in the United States was the "soft bread" - it mystified her.  Only after I spent four months in Germany did I fully understand why.  They buy their bread from a local baker typically several times a week and it is a very dense, rich, crusty bread.  We would take sandwiches to school because they didn't serve school lunches there, and it would consist of dry bread and liverwurst.  At first I truly thought I was going to starve to death, but I sometimes now find myself thinking back longingly on those sandwiches because, as it turned out, they were really good and largely due to the bread.

I have always liked making yeast breads and made quite a few loaves during my early days on the farm, but I have to give credit to my husband as being the main "bread maker" of the house.  He took over this job with gusto a few years ago and we haven't seen pre-sliced bread in quite some time now. My husband remarked the other day that we have been eating home made bread for so long that we no longer say, "homemade bread"....it's just "bread".  This homemade bread making started with my daughter's diagnosis of celiac disease.  Suddenly, bread was the enemy - unsafe for her consumption and we had to find an alternative.  There are several gluten free breads that are commercially produced now, but I haven't found any of them that are very tasty, so my husband set out to find a recipe that would work for her and taste good enough for her to want to eat every day at school, because everything (and I do mean everything) in a public school cafeteria has wheat in it one way or another.  He also took on the challenge of making wheat bread for the rest of the family as well. 

On average, there are between two and four loaves of bread consumed by the "wheat eaters" in the house in a given week depending upon the meals we make.  My daughter and I (since I also started to eat gluten free in solidarity with her and found that my allergies and several other chronic health issues completely disappeared as well)...we eat about one or two loaves between us during the week.  That can add up to a lot of bread.

Now.....here's a test....how do you make a loaf of yeast bread?

This is something that for countless generations was just known.  People (typically the women) made bread all the time....daily.  It was probably such a reflex action that I would imagine they would knead the bread in their sleep if they had to, and yet today there are not too many people that would really have the first idea of where to start to make a loaf of bread.  Not that it is imperative that people make all their own bread, but it is usually a good idea to know what should be in it.  Reading a bread label shouldn't take an advanced degree in chemistry.

The other day while riding in the car with one of my daughters, she happened to mention something about a friend eating Wonder bread.  I looked at her and smiled and asked, "You know why it is called 'Wonder' bread'?"  My daughter knows me well enough to know that I was not about to say anything favorable about this highly processed and mostly fake food and said in answer, "because we 'wonder' what is in it?"  To which I could only smile and nod.

The Basics:
Warm water 
Yeast
Sugar
Salt
Oil
Flour

Anything additional and you start making "fancy" breads.  Add some whole wheat flour and make "whole wheat bread", add oatmeal and raisins and you will have "oatmeal, raisin bread"   Bread dough is a very forgiving substance, but it does help if the basics are down.  Knowing how to proof the yeast, for instance - some bread makers swear by it, others, well....we fly by the seat of our pants.  Knowing how and why bread 'rises' or better yet, knowing how to catch and use free-living yeast from the air to make bread is a State Fair trip in the making for any kid.   Bread machines are nice, but really don't provide anything extra that you don't already have on hand.  They do, however, take out the fun parts of bread making that include punching down the dough and kneading it.  One day, while in an especially bad mood, I worked out some aggression on the innocent lump of dough that had been nicely rising.  My son happened by and remarked, "Mom, remind me never to make you mad, okay?"  Making bread can, in some ways, be very therapeutic.

The best part, by far, is how baking bread makes the house smell.  Walking into a house with bread baking in the oven is quite possibly one of the most soothing smells in the world.  Warm bread....the very thought of it can comfort the sorest of souls.

The difficult part, for most people, is finding the time to make bread.  It has to be mixed and kneaded, then it has to rise for one or two hours, then it gets kneaded again and shaped, then rises a second time for another hour, then baked. This can seem like an extensive process for a single loaf of bread, but when thought of in segments it becomes less odious - mix, knead....play a game of Life with the kids....knead, shape.....go for a run or do chores outside....bake while starting dinner.....then enjoy warm bread with dinner.  All together the time spent actually making the bread is about 30 minutes and the time that it has to sit and rise is more of a guideline rather than a set amount of time - if the game of Life goes on for two hours, that's okay because the dough will keep.  As it turns out, Gluten Free bread is actually easier in the sense that it only has to rise once and then be cooked.  There have been instances at this house where we will have three loaves of bread and two pizza crusts all rising at the same time - we almost need a flow chart to figure out which ones go in the oven when.


With the majority of the bread being now made by my husband, I haven't had to think of it often, but periodically I am left in the care of his dough as it is rising while he does a few odd jobs for neighbors in the area or runs one kid or another here or there for band or sports practice.  This is an honor that I do not take lightly, but I do have a tendency to handle my own bread dough a little differently - every baker does, I think.  It becomes more of an art form than food after a while, and we all have our certain way of making sure that it rises as well as it can, doesn't have air holes and stays soft despite being forgotten about by whatever errant child forgets to put it away after carving off a slice. My bread art comes in the form of pizza crust that is made every Sunday evening to be shared while watching whatever family movie we agree upon - our only meal to be eaten while perched in front of the television, but it has become something of a family tradition.  Regardless of who makes it, as an art form, bread in all its many forms is perhaps the tastiest.