Food Rant Friday

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Growing Food in Protest

 

My initial intention was that Food Rand Friday would be a one time thing, apparently I have just too much to say about it.

I’ve been seeing a lot of info this week about the nationwide march against Monsanto and wonder to myself what this is really going to accomplish.  A group of basically like-minded people will get together and rant about what Monsanto is doing to our collective good health.  Marching against anything these days doesn’t seem to have the impact it once had.  Our legislators are not going to change their ways of voting on the farm bill or anything else because thousands of citizens got together to voice their disapproval of big ag’s farming practices.  Most will vote with whoever is funding their bids for reelection, plain and simple.  The sooner the population realizes this the sooner we can deal with it in a more constructive way.

Michael Pollan is my hero if for no other reason than to tell people to read labels and if there is more than five ingredients on it or there are ingredients that you don’t understand don’t eat it.  That’s pretty simple.  It doesn’t take much to read the label on that bag of Cheetos to know that they probably aren’t that good for you and that you are supporting big ag by buying and consuming them.  There are so many other reasons not to eat processed food but honestly I’ve said enough about that.

Today I have two articles to share the first is about the possible effects of Roundup on our guts and potentially our very lives (like we didn’t really already know that).  Gut Punch: Monsanto Could Be Destroying Your Microbiome was an article I read this morning that I thought was interesting but just one more reason not to eat food produced by large agriculture.  This article led me to Michael Pollan’s piece in the NYT – Some of My Best Friends are Germs.  This is a lengthy piece which is typical for Pollan only because when he makes a case for something he gives you as much information as he can.  Read it, it’s fascinating and more than a little scary.

Our food, in my humble opinion, has become one of the biggest political issues of our time.  I feel like there are so few people who are even aware of it that the idea of changing what is happening to the everyday American is all but impossible.  We are bombarded everyday with news of terrorism and tragedy that the danger of the food you buy in your grocery store takes a very back seat to the tragedy du jour.  Let’s put armed guards in every elementary school in the country to keep our children safe, let’s make sure there’s a safe room in each school as well to ensure in case of a tornado they’ll have somewhere safe to go.  Okay, I get it, but how about increasing the food budgets and finding access to organic fresh foods in every cafeteria across the country.  How about putting home economics back into the school curriculum to give our children the knowledge they need to cook a meal from scratch or help them to read the ingredient labels on their food.  How about teaching them where their food comes from?

Honestly, kids need to know more about farm animals than the cow says moo and the chicken says cluck.  They need to know the cow means milk and burgers and the chicken is eggs and McNuggets (maybe).  I worked at Old Sturbridge Village as an interpreter for a few years, fortunately for the kids I was in textiles.  Early on though I worked as a gardener. One year we were harvesting carrots and I had a little girl help pull some up – she was amazed, she didn’t know they came out of the ground!  I also had an experience of stopping kids from harassing one of the roosters in the barnyard.  He thought it was just a stupid bird, I told him that if he continued to corner and harass that bird it would attack him and then we’d have to kill him and eat him.  The kid looked at me like I was nuts and I told him that that was where his chicken nuggets came from – then he really thought I was crazy.  These kids were typically in the fourth grade.  I’m beginning to think that we’ve crossed the Rubicon with food education because the vast majority of parents don’t know where their food comes from either.  Talk about the dumbing down of America.

I will continue to use the poster at the beginning of every food rant because I am convinced the only way we are going to get ourselves out of our collective health problems is to grow our own food or source it, know where it comes from and what is in it.  If it makes you feel better go march against Monsanto on Saturday, while you’re there talk about what you are growing this year or what farmer’s market is near the person you’re talking to.   I’m hoping that in addition to being a protest it can be an education and an avenue for people to know where they can get good, healthy food for themselves and their families.

 

 

 

 

Jacks

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130523 Jacks

 

Arisaema triphyllum (Jack-in-the-pulpit, Bog onion, Brown dragon, Indian turnip, American wake robin,[1] or Wild turnip) is a herbaceousperennial plant growing from a corm. It is a highly variable species typically growing from 30 to 65 cm in height with three parted leaves and flowers contained in a spadix that is covered by a hood. It is native to eastern North America, occurring in moist woodlands and thickets from Nova Scotia west to Minnesota, and south to southern Florida.

Okay, so that’s probably more than you need to know right now about this plant but let me tell you why this plant is special to me.  When we moved to Fort Pelham Farm in 1967 there was what remained of the front porch still attached to the house.  It was a cement topped stone slab of sorts that went the entire length of the front of the house.  There were stairs (crumbling) on each end and in the center in front of the door – all about the symmetry here.  Along the road were 4 huge sugar maple trees.  I’m assuming they had been planted around the time the house was built.  This was wonderful in the summer because it completely shaded the front of the house which faces west.  When houses were built back in the day they were oriented to the sun in such a way that in the winter passive solar helped heat the house at well as giving maximum light.  The trees were planted to keep the house cooler in the summer.  The site wasn’t chosen for where the road was but the road went by the house.  Today’s building rarely takes orientation into consideration because they are always building planned “communities” around streets and cul-de-sacs.

Back to the Jacks.  Spring, summer and fall the front of the house was always moist and very shady.  The plantings along what remained of the porch were overgrown and filled in with years of mulched leaves.  From the first spring that we were here my mother cleaned out the beds and discovered the jack in the pulpits.  She would always bend over, lift the hood of the plant and exclaim “There’s Jack!”  I don’t remember a spring she didn’t do that – and she especially like showing it to my girls when they were little.  It gave the plant just a little more magic.

Years later, long after my mother was gone, my father decided to remove what remained of that porch during one summer.  The trees had all fallen, been cut up and taken away and the sun was shining full force on the front of the house.  I dug up the corms of the jacks and moved them to the north corner of the house where the shed meets the ell.  I was surprised at what little there is to them once the leaves have died back.  I was reluctant to do it but knew if I didn’t try to move them they would be lost. Then I waited.

It’s a long wait from July until the following May.  The spot where I planted them has snow on it that is the absolute last to melt.  Sure enough they popped out of the ground like that have every other year for who knows how long.  I was so happy to see them.

They are the protected species on my property, I watch them, make sure any repairs being done or painting doesn’t disturb them.  And every spring like this one I go out, lift up their hoods and think “There’s Jack!”

Weaving Wednesday 8 – Maltese Cross

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130521 Maltese Cross (2)I finished warping last night and began weaving a dry run to see if there were any mistakes with some different yarn than I have to weave the throw.  Pretty cool isn’t it?  Well, not as cool as you might think because there WAS a threading error and we narrowed it down to the 15 or 20 threads.  Now it has to be fixed.  This is always amazing to me – you thread four harnesses in a certain way, weave with your treadling a certain way and this is what happens.  All I can say is WOW.  I am sooo hooked.

 

Another Photobomb

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130519 Photobomb 2Chester spent the entire time getting into my photographs on Sunday – I kid you not.  It was raining and he was just thrilled that someone was outside to follow around.  This is one of the side gardens at the house.  In the background is the stump of a large pine tree that came down a few years ago.  Changed the whole makeup of that garden, what was once completely shaded came into the sun.  Right now it’s full of weeds.  That’s on the list for this week, fortunately it’s fairly well established and I can get it done in a couple of hours.  I’m thinking this may be a good spot for the gas plant.

I had to leave Chester at work yesterday with Bill.  On the way home I thought “I hope he remembers he’s there”.  Sure enough Bill drove in the yard and walked into the house without Chester.  He’d turned off the lights and locked up the shop with Chester sleeping in his crate.  Bill turned around and went back to get him, he said he was calm and cool, like nothing had happened.  Guess we’ve turned a corner on the separation anxiety thing.

 

Little Patch of Tilled Earth

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130519 Tilled GardenThis past weekend was a rather productive one considering it rained most of Sunday.  I made my way to the Shelburne Farm and Garden early on Saturday morning picking up a few plants, mostly for the newer perennial garden.  I completely weeded out the raspberries and the garlic patches plus planting all of my new plants by noon.  The dock growing in every bed is beginning to get to me since I have to use a shovel to get each one out.  The roots are all about a foot long now.  Dandelions everywhere, but when there are so many of them it’s rather pretty.

Cleomes were planted in the perennial bed, my all time favorite annual.  The garden center had some nice ones so I planted them in with the Echinacea .  I was disappointed with things not coming up but I think I’ve just been impatient.  Everything in the perennial beds is up as I remembered it being planted and it’s beginning to fill in.  I have been checking for the jack-in-a-pulpits on the north side of the house for a couple of weeks now and hadn’t seen them until yesterday.  They have been there the entire time we’ve been at the house so I would be disappointed if they were gone.

I bought an eggplant because I had never even seen one grown before last summer.  It’s been planted in a flower bed.  I will be putting asparagus into the north end of the vegetable garden this year, probably planting it on Wednesday.  I either had to plant it there or start an entirely new bed.  I couldn’t figure out where to put a new bed and figured committing space in the garden for the asparagus was worthwhile (it’s a 20 year commitment).  I’ll just have to till the rest of the garden with that in mind.

I tilled the garden on Sunday morning in between a couple of showers and swarms of black flies.  I had to get it done.  I also did a little soil test to see where the ph was and was pleased to see it was in a tolerable range.  I’d been worried that I was trying to grow plants that were just too unhappy with the soil conditions but it would appear that things are much better than I had thought.  I’ll hit it with some composted manure before I plant and continue rotating my plants every year.  Rotation works well for me because I bore so easily, each year feels like a new garden (well it is but I try to make the layout completely different).  Last year I had mostly rows going east/west, this year I will probably have more of a potager type.  The new, experimental crops will be a dwarf popcorn and some purple string beans.  For pole beans this year I will be interspersing Scarlet Runners with Kentucky Wonder I think.  I love the flowers and so do the birds, bees and hummingbird moths. Sharing my garden with these creatures is really what it’s all about for me.  Of course ask me again right after the raccoons destroy my corn.  Still unsure if I will do teepees for the pole beans or do a long trellis like I did a few years ago.  I will have to see what kind of saplings I can find in the woods.

The only things that will planted in the next week or so will be the asparagus, potatoes and onions.  Everything else will wait until the weekend of June 1st.  I’m always so over-anxious to get things into the ground I often put seeds in earth that is just too cold.  One more week won’t make that much of a difference.  I will be starting basil and nasturtiums in pots to scatter around the gardens.  I usually plant the nasturtiums in the garden but have found that they are difficult to weed around as they get going and they look great cascading over the sides of pedestal pots.

The photograph really makes my garden look rather small, in reality it is about 20′ x 50′, so it’s a pretty good size.  I haven’t put up the fence posts yet for my caution tape fence.  Chester spent a good deal of time yesterday in that fine tilled soil – he loves it.  You can imagine what he looked like after rolling around in it while it was raining.  And once again he has photobombed my pictures – he sincerely thinks he should be in every shot.

 

 

Copilot

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Sadly, this is true for my copilot as well . . .

Raud Kennedy's avatarGnawing the Bone

Raud Kennedy - CopilotI was crawling through traffic behind a bumper sticker that read, “God is my Copilot.”

I looked over at Nut Breath, sitting in my copilot seat, and asked what he thought about this. He was far too busy with his personal hygiene to answer.

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Food Rant Friday

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Growing Food in Protest

 

Okay, so there are a few friends and relatives that know how pissed off I get when yet another article crosses my path about Monsanto and their GMO’s.  This week was the motherload in reading about various lawsuits that Monsanto has brought against everyone in the world from the small farmer to the state of VT.  Apparently the money stream is so important to them they are willing to take on any state in the union that would try to label food as containing GMO products.  Hmmmm, doesn’t it make you wonder what they are trying to hide?  I believe in informed consent.

There are now apps available to help you boycott all kinds of products as you peruse the groceries in the store, just scan the barcodes and voila you know what subsidiary that food is coming from and can make your choices with a little more knowledge.  I’m thinking that’s all well and good if what you are eating is processed but it’s really not going to help you in the produce section.   I read today that one of the country’s leading suppliers of French fries is asking the federal government to approve genetically modified potatoes.  This is to prevent those unsightly brown spots.  Really?

You know that lawn that you hate mowing every week?  Why not use part of it to put in a raised bed and plant some tomatoes there she goes talking about those tomatoes again?  Put a few potatoes in your little plot or grow a few carrots to eat right out of the garden.  I promise you the seeds that you grow will surprise and delight you. You will have such a feeling of accomplishment and be astonished at the money you save over the summer on some of your favorite things.  It’s also FUN.

I baked a batch of cookies the other day, shared them with sister Sue.  They are a delicious soft molasses cookie encrusted with course grain sugar, crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy in the middle.  Spicy and delicious they are the ultimate comfort food for me.  Then I started to think about the ingredient list – what’s gmo and what’s not.  Yeah, I know, but I’m always thinking about where my food comes from or what’s in it.  That doesn’t mean I don’t eat what’s put in front of me but I’m always aware – so is my sister.  After she ate those cookies with me and brought some home I texted her about all the potentially bad things that were in them.  Today in the interest of science and my guilty conscience I decided to actually look up what went into them.  I was pleased to find out that the things that were a little sketchy for me were all within my tolerance level for food weirdness.  So I’d have to say that if you are going to eat cookies bake your own and source your ingredients.  Now I can email Sue and tell her that those treats were really much more okay than I had led her to believe (and maybe she’ll stop sending me all that email about Monsanto).

 

 

Gardens

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130515 Rhubarb

 

The first edible plant to arrive in my garden is rhubarb.  We eagerly look forward to it thinking about pies all winter long.  I have found no really effective way to preserve rhubarb that allows me to bake with it in the off season so we enjoy as much as we can while we can.

This particular rhubarb came from Bill’s grandfather’s property.  After he died and we were cleaning out the house for sale I walked the yard to see if there was anything I could transplant.  His back yard was very shaded and there was a very anemic patch of rhubarb in the back corner of the garage.  I dug it up and brought it to Rowe.  I planted it in front of a huge rock – it faces west.  The plants are shaded until noon during the growing season and I’ve found that really works well, it keeps it from bolting early in the season.  Last year I made a rhubarb pie in September and it was awesome.  I always thought if you didn’t get it in the spring that was it.

Being able to go out and pick something edible this time of year is a blessing.  Gives you hope for the rest of the season even if you haven’t planted anything yet.  I have garlic that looks amazing this year but I know I didn’t plant enough.  I will be tilling the garden this weekend barring any bad weather. I will set it up in anticipation of the ground warming to a temperature where I can plant most of my vegetables.  We had three nights below freezing this past week so I make it a rule to never plant before Memorial Day.

I’ve had a vegetable garden for about 8 years now in varying sizes and layouts.  I’m getting a grip on what grows and what will not and have had gardens through summers dry and hot, cool and rainy.  I think everyone should have a garden where they can grow something of their own to eat.  Our healthy choices are being taken away from us at a breathless pace.  I don’t believe if you go into a grocery store right now that you can have any clue where your food comes from or what goes into it.  You are being lied to on a daily basis about what’s organic or natural.  I figure if it says that on a package than it’s probably not.  Start using your farmers gardens.  They are springing up everywhere this time of year.  There may not be a lot of variety but soon there will be.  You’ll know that your veggies and herbs haven’t spent days in a truck coming to you from parts unknown.

The other thing I would add is if you plan on ever growing any of your food now is the time to start.  Gardens are slow motion works in progress, they can take years.  What works one year may not the next but those experiences are what help you to be a better gardener.  So many people I talk to think they can just put one in one year and it’ll be fine so they wait until they think they “really” need it.  Don’t wait, do it now, even if it’s just pots of tomatoes and basil.

Weaving Wednesday 7

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130514 Weaving (1)

Pam, our instructor, lashing a warp for a Navajo rug.

I left early yesterday thinking that with an extra hour I would be able to finish threading it and possibly sley the reed.  Ahhhh, the best laid plans.  Last week when I started threading my warp I was on fire.  Everything went in order, no mistakes, perfection.  I only had time to thread the first half so with the extra time I figured this should be easy.  I threaded, rethreaded and threaded again the last half of that warp.  Three hours into it I had 25 to 30 threads left over at the end.  Count, count, count, rethread, count, count count, thread again, still wrong, ugh.  Sometimes your head is in the game, sometimes it’s not, last night it definitely was not.  I got there at 5:00 and by 8:30 I had the reed on ready to start that but really didn’t have enough time so it will be waiting for me next week.  Bummer.

When I first arrived at the studio I went around and took a few photographs of the other weaving projects going on.  It’s all fascinating to me and there is just so much you can do (although the just gives me weaving ADD).  Since my loom looks almost exactly the way it did last week I’ll share some of the other weaving – without description since I’m not sure of the proper terminology.

130514 Weaving (4)

I have my class on Tuesday evenings so there are only a couple of other women that I actually weave with.

130514 Weaving (3)

We do have weaving “theory” classes once a month where all of Pam’s students get together to learn about drafting, structure and color. Now I can put the names and projects with the faces.

130514 Weaving (2)

It has been an amazing experience playing with these women who are all at different places in their weaving education.

130514 Weaving (5)

All of the weavers that I have met are very generous people.  They are open, honest and giving.  It’s like going to therapy every week.  We are all around the same age with wildly diverse backgrounds but we come together to create beautiful things.  You see everyone’s tastes are so different in their color choices or even their projects.  Pam steers people in the direction of their capabilities and gives direction when needed.  She encourages each of us to work on our own so when we leave we can go home, warp our own looms and weave without her assistance. It’s nice to know that she’s only a phone call away though, I’m not all grown up yet.

130514 Weaving (6) The photo above is of a double weave rug (I know this much).  It is one of the most stunning things I have ever seen.  Makes me think a rug is in my future.