Lately I forgot to take photos while out trail walking. I carry my mobile device with me. Maybe I’m distracted. Maybe the sight of Canadian Geese sunning themselves on a jetty is too commonplace. I did, however, have pleasant walks on the trail before rain started again on Friday. I used an old photo on this post and it serves.
Senate Republicans rejected the strongest, most comprehensive bipartisan border bill we’ve seen in decades. They do not want to solve problems at the Southern border. Period.
The New York Times has been reporting Trump edging Biden in polls for about eight months. Here’s the rub. They have a squishy way of saying who they polled. First it is registered voters, and then it is voters who cast a ballot in the 2020 general election — two very different parts of the electorate. As Nate Cohen reported for the Times, “President Biden has actually led the last three New York Times/Siena national polls among those who voted in the 2020 election, even as he has trailed among registered voters overall. And looking back over the last few years, almost all of Trump’s gains came from these less engaged voters.” An unbiased news outlet would put all this information out in front. The Times buries it and therefore, their reporting is not trustworthy.
Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court published a decision in Alexander vs. South Carolina Conference of the NAACP, about political gerrymandering. The headline in the Cedar Rapids Gazette read, “Justices find no racial gerrymandering in S.C.” It is political gerrymandering, the high court said, and that is apparently okay because drawing districts is a political process. If you believe that, stand on your head. The majority opinion was written by George W. Bush appointee Samuel Alito who has been in the news this week for his flag-displaying propensities.
We woke early this morning to the sounds of local sirens warning about a tornado watch. We followed our standard procedure of gathering electronic communications devices downstairs and monitoring the process of the storms. At one point we had a desktop, two laptops and two phones in action. It’s how we Iowans do when it comes to severe weather.
In Iowa when the local severe weather sirens go off, we gather on the lower level with all the electronic communications devices. Friday, May 24, 2024.
I possess a personality yet expend little effort in knowing or cultivating it. I avoid considering a self-concept when I can. When I feel I have one, I try not to impose it on others. Most times I don’t pay much attention to who I am to focus on others. People appreciate someone who takes a sincere interest in them, according to Dale Carnegie.
What combination of qualities defines personality? It’s not an answer I sought or even thought about much. Search the internet for personality traits and five are returned in the top results: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. I have a vague idea what these mean. I am a confident public speaker who tries to be conscientious about what I say, and agreeable when I can be. I am open to consideration of new ideas yet immovable in my beliefs. I don’t tolerate bullshit well. Not sure where that lands me on the personality spectrum.
Neurotic people experience anxiety, worry, fear, anger, frustration, envy, jealousy, pessimism, guilt, depressed mood, and loneliness, according to Wikipedia. If asked, I would deny experiencing these feelings. For example, I am often alone yet don’t feel loneliness. My denials are not believed. I accept at face value what is, and don’t trouble myself with feelings about it. I may be an odd duck, yet that analysis may be a form of quackery. If pressed to put a name on my personality, I’d have to get professional help.
What brought all this up? I would like to be a person where people say they know who I am.
I have given the topic of personal influences more than a little thought, especially before my retirement from transportation and logistics in 2009. Here is a short list of personal attributes that might be considered qualities of a personality.
I accept the Cartesian version of reality.
I am not a hugger, except with close family.
I know how to evaluate risks and am willing to take chances.
I depend upon systems, like a kitchen garden.
I depend upon organizations, like hospitals and retailers.
I am not always listening and need to work at being a better listener.
I continuously learn, or believe I do.
I am frugal in most areas of daily life.
I have no idea how to style my clothing.
I am a creature of habit, and despise habitual behavior.
Someone might be able to put a name on this personality. For every attribute listed, one was left out. No system of reckoning is perfect.
The two things I’m most often recognized for are my public writing and gardening. Maybe I should better embrace those identities.
We were doing introductions at an event and someone said, “I read him,” referring to me. I took the compliment. A person could do a lot worse than describe themselves as a writer. Because I was prominent in the local food movement for some years, I’m recognized as a gardener. Gardening is something in which many people take interest. Talking about gardening doesn’t get me as far as talking about being a writer, yet it is a very common interest. We may have to have a multi-dimensional personality. At least two aspects, anyway
Part of my issue is I don’t share a lot of the most common interests. I have trouble carrying on a conversation about movies, TV shows, radio, and music. I don’t care much for sports, travel, and fine dining. I am interested in health and fitness, yet feel that is too personal for discussion with those outside family. Fashion and beauty? See #9 above.
Some recent topics I discussed are use of plants in a landscape where I find myself. I believe people wearied of hearing me rave about the wisteria growing on a pergola at an event. A recurring topic is how the sociology and language used to describe the coronavirus pandemic has changed. COVID-19 affected and is affecting almost everyone. The new trend in these conversations is “Get ready for bird flu.” These are something.
Part of me holds that if I haven’t figured out who I am by my 70s, then what is the point? At the same time, I don’t seek to be calcified in my self-image, to the extent I admit I have one, or in that people don’t know who I am.
I consider my role models — my maternal grandmother, my second battalion commander, certain high school friends — and, if they were living, they would know my personality. Maybe that’s part of the problem. Important people who know me are dying, leaving me a survivor. As I wrote the other day, I don’t mind the isolation of aging. Perhaps a side effect of that is developing a personality on which people can get a handle. One where I can feel some comfort in their grip. I’ll work on that.
I began following Buffalo Ridge Orchard in Central City this year. In part, that means I am divorcing myself from a local farm where I worked for seven seasons. In truth, Wilson’s Orchard and Farm hired one of the best chefs available to prepare dishes made from local foods and gave him his own venue. They appear to have successfully transitioned from a mostly apple crop to add flowers, strawberries, and other common, locally sustainable produce. They went big into hard apple cider, long the mainstay and chief reason pioneers grew apple orchards on their farms. They continue to experiment and expand. What’s not to be happy about?
I seek a different relationship with local food. I will continue to buy select varieties of apples from Wilson’s as well as in-season sweet apple cider. As a consumer, that has been most of what I bought there through the years. I am more interested in a collaborative approach, like the one on display at Saturday’s pop-up market at Buffalo Ridge Orchard.
Early Saturday morning I received an email notification of the pop-up market that day. Products of nine different farms were available. I know three of those farms very well. While I didn’t make it over for the sale, partly because our pantry is already full of spring goods, it is more attractive than pursuing a basket of strawberries on a large, crowded operation when strawberries are in season.
I grow a large garden and we eat fresh from it from March to November. When I seek outside produce, it’s because I’m not having a good year or choose not to grow certain items. For example, my aging and soon to be goner Red Delicious apple tree produces every other year and I need to source apples somewhere every year. The ones at the grocer are usually not the best quality. Too, I can’t imaging buying someone else’s garlic. I have had a steady, year-around crop since I began planting it ten or so years ago. A certain level of independence is assumed when a person operates a kitchen garden.
Another consideration is our mostly vegetarian household cuisine. We don’t eat meat or consume much dairy in the form of fluid milk, butter and eggs. For the most part, I buy dairy at the wholesale club because their buying power makes it much cheaper than local. Expense does matter, especially with commodities. Maybe I should give up dairy. That’s a conversation for another post.
One day I plan to return to the Iowa City or Cedar Rapids farmers market. I don’t need to shop there, yet I enjoyed the atmosphere when I did and brought home items we used. For years I bartered for a Community Supported Agriculture share at a local farm, although when I increased the size of my garden, the need for that produce diminished. A kitchen garden has been a natural evolution toward independence from the very local growers who inspired me. Some farmers told me such independence is a positive thing, rather than an infringement on their business.
Over the years this blog has posted a number of opinions about local food. What I learned was the idea of local food is constantly evolving. I continue to purchase groceries from a large, retail establishment on a weekly basis. That doesn’t make me any less interested in available local foods. Am I a purist? No, I am not. Nor need I be. It is challenging enough to keep track of what local food is available and where. I leverage it when it makes sense.
Iowa House candidate Jay Gorsh speaking beneath a pergola with wisteria.
Saturday afternoon I attended the campaign kick off meeting for Jay Gorsh in Williamsburg. The event was lovely. Shade in the backyard, combined with a gentle breeze, helped us forget the ambient temperature was 87 degrees. It was a good gathering of new and old friends.
Shorter Shifts, Slower Progress
In between rain and sunshine I spent three solid shifts in the garden. The challenge is always weather, yet this year my stamina has been wanting. Five hours at a time has been my limit, especially when ambient temperatures are above 80 degrees. As I enter the final push before Memorial Day it seems unlikely everything will be planted by then.
Des Moines Neighborhood Sounds
While visiting my sister-in-law we discussed neighborhood sounds. I’ve hear the rooster that lives close by. There are typical yard work and mowing sounds. People tend to fix up their own homes there and the sounds of hammers, saws, and drills can be heard from time to time. She reported a nearby garage band playing. Acclimatizing oneself to neighborhood sounds is a part of fitting in, especially to one that was established more than a century ago in the capital city.
June 4 Primary Election
The consequential county races in the June 4 Democratic primary are among the five supervisor candidates. After thought and consideration, I decided on my three and put out their yard signs.
June 4, 2024 primary yard signs.
County primaries are quirky in Johnson County. There are a lot of factions and groups. For example, people in the labor movement favor Royceann Porter. A group of young progressives favor Mandi Remington who lost her bid for Iowa City City Council last November. Long time state legislators Mary Mascher and Kevin Kinney endorsed newcomer Bob Conrad. Rod Sullivan and Lisa Green-Douglass have served and are known entities. Sullivan seems like a shoe-in and it’s jump ball for the other two seats by the other four candidates. As they say, we’ll see what happens.
Black Hawk War
I began a reading project about the Black Hawk War. The first book is John Wakefield’s History of the Black Hawk War. Halfway into the main narrative, I’m not sure what to make of this racist tome. Likewise the inventories of forgotten men who served in military leadership has little relevance in 2024. One note is that a few years after settling in Illinois, a group of white pioneers was surprised that Black Hawk disputed their claim to the land and invaded from west of the Mississippi River to take it back. There are five books in the collection I created.
I need to get cabbages planted as they are growing too big in the greenhouse. Most vegetables in the greenhouse need to go into the ground soon. That will be the work of the coming week.
Row cover for lettuce, bok choy, herbs, spinach, and the like.
I’m okay with increased isolation as I age. I spent so much of my working years with people, I’m ready for a break. Let’s call it a permanent break. For the time being, I still drive, use the internet, and get along in social media. I can do my own shopping and make an occasional long automobile trip. Our personal to-do list is long. Working on such projects while I am healthy and reasonably strong is alright by me. I’m not as strong as I used to be. Sometimes I need help.
I rise from bed early most days. By 2 a.m., sleep is finished. I take my blood pressure and weigh myself, get dressed, and head to the kitchen to make coffee. Most days my spouse is still asleep, so I spend several quiet hours reading, writing, doing chores, and planning the day. I have a full shift in by 7 a.m., by which time I often haven’t spoken to anyone.
When I am with people, I often don’t know what to say. Engrossed in my own thoughts, such meetings force me to realize I’m not alone in the world. I seek to get along without conflict and mostly can navigate that scene. What in the heck is wrong with me that I view such meetings this way?
Yesterday I spent time with some old friends. I was careful in selecting topics for conversation. When young, it seemed we had endless hours to be with each other and do things. Now we see each other less often. When we do meet in person, time seems limited. The event I attended had new friends as well. I consider what brought us together. In most cases, it was politics or a joint project. These are good times, yet they are fleeting. I notice this more as a septuagenarian.
Being able to live in isolation is a privilege of being white, affluent, and located in a free country. In many ways, getting to this point is what I worked for most of my life. I plan to enjoy it. While I readily admit we live inside the context of a vast web of people upon whom we rely–fire fighters, physicians and nurses, grocers, utility companies, and the like–as I age, I don’t want to think about that.
After a long life of hard work, I just want some peace and quiet, isolated from the rest of the world.
Plot #3 needs another row of non cruciferous vegetables yet I don’t know what that is for the moment. While considering it, I plan to move over to Plot #1 and install the covered row next to the garlic. The garlic is standing more than 18 inches tall so it looks to be a great crop. I mowed that strip yesterday, so the garlic really stands out.
Ambient temperatures are expected to reach toward 90 degrees Fahrenheit this afternoon, so as soon as the sun rises, I’ll be back outdoors, taking advantage of early morning coolness. It is already 60 degrees at 5 a.m.
The tomatoes are toughening up in the greenhouse and should soon be ready to plant. I have a batch of tomato seeds I planted late to diversify the crop. They need to move from the starter tray into soil blocks today. There are also bell peppers needing transfer to blocks. After that, the indoors starting operation slows considerably.
I noticed more over wintering collards in one of the patches and today I expect to harvest them. There has been no shortage of leafy green vegetables this spring.
Working a five-hour shift on Friday wore me out. Partly it was ambient temperatures rising into the low eighties. Partly is was still an early foray into the garden when I am not conditioned to it. It’s going to be hot again today as the plot continues.
If a person wanted to know how the Iowa landscape changed, a trip along Interstate 80 from Iowa City to Des Moines will provide the information. Thursday, while picking up my spouse, the green of emerging corn and beans was visible under large cumulus clouds set against a vast expanse of blue sky. Nothing remotely like the prairie that was here in 1830 remains. While indigenous people called Iowa “beautiful land,” there is nothing beautiful about the extractive economy of row crops, eggs, hogs, and cattle. It is ironic half the corn crop is used to make ethanol which is blended with gasoline that fueled my vehicle on this trip.
The round trip was uneventful, if the interstate was crowded with Class 8 truck traffic. I was so intent on traffic, I forgot to turn on the BBC News Hour on public radio. No worries. I have plenty of other sources for news.
A news alert hit my inbox in the wee hours of Friday reporting the U.S. military began Gaza aid deliveries from a floating pier President Biden directed be installed in the Mediterranean Sea. That such a facility is needed speaks to the problems in the Hamas-Israel War. There is no logical reason Israel couldn’t let aid vehicles through to Gaza via land routes. In fact, I would argue they are required to do so. However, they won’t.
South Africa asked the International Court of Justice in The Hague to order Israel to cease all military operations in Rafah. Israel’s closure of land routes into Palestinian territory aim to destroy “the essential foundations of Palestinian life,” South Africa asserted. Israel’s belligerence toward the Palestinians has been on display in Gaza for many years. As Al Jazeera said in October 2023, “What is happening in Palestine can no longer be described as genocide, or even ethnic cleansing. It is beyond mass extermination – it is total erasure.” Israel is set to respond to the court.
Most Iowans I know believe the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel was uncalled for. The coordinated armed incursions from the Gaza Strip into the Gaza envelope of southern Israel, the first invasion of Israeli territory since the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, had its reasons according to the combatants. If a person knows anything about Israel, they would be expected to respond. However, that Israel would knowingly uses artificial intelligence to target Hamas operatives in a way that included children and women in their blast zones violates our common humanity.
There are rules in warfare. Article 77 of the Geneva Convention of 1949 states:
Children shall be the object of special respect and shall be protected against any form of indecent assault. The Parties to the conflict shall provide them with the care and aid they require, whether because of their age or for any other reason.
Knowingly targeting Hamas operatives and indiscriminately killing children along with them seems a clear violation of the Geneva Convention. It is also just plain wrong.
Iowans can’t hide from the conflict in Gaza in traditional farm country. It affects us all. What is happening to the Palestinian population may be a war crime. What is the complicity of the U.S. government with Israel in perpetrating this atrocity? People have their opinions. Mine is the U.S. Government should do everything possible to collar Israel’s undo belligerence, including pressing for a change in their government. We can’t let what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people stand.
Plot #3 with seeds planted in the margins between sheets of ground cover.
Rain relented long enough to start planting. May 15 is the normal last frost, and it is Katy bar the door as far as getting things in the ground goes. Plot #1 was garlic planted last year with a strip for a covered row. Plot #2 was potatoes and onions. Plot #3 is radishes, green beans, turnips, Sugar Snap Peas and Snow Peas, along with whatever else I decide to put there from the greenhouse. If the weather holds, I should make fast work of the rest of planting.
This year I’m harvesting more than I can use from what over wintered. Collards, kale, spring garlic, green onions, and cilantro are abundant. Salad greens came from this year’s planting in trays. I haven’t been able to get them in the ground, so I just picked and washed them. Having so much early produce changes the dynamic of a kitchen garden.
For one thing, the season is extended. I enjoy fresh cilantro in my breakfast tacos and I’ve had it for more than a month. Fresh leafy green vegetables are always better than frozen, and we use them in everything. I’ve been using last year’s crop from the freezer to make vegetable broth and plenty remains. Having fresh from the garden vegetables in March and April is a definite treat resulting from just leaving the garden alone last fall.
In Plot #3 I laid down plastic ground cover and planted seeds around the edges. This technique enables me to get a bigger, more diverse crop out of the plot, in addition to easier spacing of crops. Last year this plot was in cruciferous vegetables and I’d like to rotate out of that. Once I inventory the greenhouse, I’ll know to what extent that is possible. For sure, I will place tomatillos, celery, and other types of seedlings. I’ll likely be left with a single row of kale, collards and chard just to fill out the plot. Wherever I plant broccoli and cauliflower in plot #4, I’ll plant more leafy greens. I like to keep cruciferous vegetables in as few spots as possible so I can monitor the little white butterflies and their progeny who like living with them.
Wednesday I got some things done while working up a sweat. My sense of where we are is that it will be a great growing year with healthy plants and an abundance for the kitchen. It’s why we garden.
Moving the automotive economy toward electric vehicles is a good thing for multiple reasons. An important benefit is to decrease reliance on burning stuff in an internal combustion engine. In the late 19th Century, Rudolph Diesel invented an engine that could burn almost any liquid fuel, including whale oil, tallow, paraffin oil, naphtha, shale oil, and peanut oil. Despite the initial available diversity, the economy followed a track to perfect the gasoline engine and use it for transportation. To a large extent, that’s where we are now, with Diesel’s namesake fuel relegated to trains, buses, heavy trucks, boats, and power generators.
In 2022, we needed a new car and could not confirm a delivery date on available electric vehicle models. They were in high demand and manufacturing could not keep up. We ended up with a three year old used car that got 38 miles per gallon of gasoline. In addition to supply falling short of demand, there are other problems with electric vehicles.
Electric vehicles reduce emissions and are often much kinder to our planet than gasoline and diesel alternatives. Those are positive attributes. The world is not ready for EVs and people experience barriers to using them in the form of charging station infrastructure, insurance, and affordability, in addition to the ability to timely buy one. The federal government has begun to create an environment for the advancement of EVs and Republicans are fighting it tooth and nail.
The latest conflict between doing what’s right for a majority of U.S. citizens, and Republican support for the fossil fuel industry, occurred after March 20, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a new tailpipe rule on vehicle emissions. “Joe Biden has launched a relentless onslaught of regulations infringing on American consumer freedom,” Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks wrote in her weekly newsletter. She decried that the administration’s “heavy-handed mandate forces American automakers to prioritize electric vehicle (EV) production and sales.” Well, yeah. That’s the point, along with preserving a livable world. The member of congress failed to mention all the positive things the president is doing to make EVs affordable for consumers.
The decision to EV or not to EV is not the choice of a single consumer. As individuals we have rights, yet the government must not leave the choice of whether we have a livable world in the hands of personal choice. To move the ball where it is needed regarding EVs, the government can and should be involved in nudging industry and consumers to move toward them. Under Biden, government accepted this role. The scale at which the administration proposes to increase EVs as a percentage of the global fleet is staggering. It is also what is needed to address the climate crisis.
My choice would be to use public transportation for every thing. As long as I have to drive because I live in the country, I expect to eventually convert to an EV and learn to love it. We must support the administration as we can, perfect what is flawed about their approach, and never lose sight of the big picture of slowing the greenhouse effect so we can maintain a livable world. In our current political situation, that means electing Democrats.
However people want to portray their loved ones in a newspaper obituary is fine by me. It is great people continue to use obituaries as a form of expression. I understand the cult followings people have: for a sports team, a political party, a brand of consumer products, and the like. Want your recently deceased loved one in a photo of them wearing a Busch Light logo on a ball cap? You be you. Anymore, anything goes in an obituary.
It is okay to run an obituary in the newspaper without a photo. In fact, that may be the best practice. I’m not big on fakery in presenting a self-image. I have a hard enough time determining what is my own personality, let alone how that should be represented in an obituary photo. It was only the growing number of men donning ball caps in their obituary photos that got me thinking about this.
I own a lot of ball caps. If my survivors print a photo of me in the newspaper with my obituary, I hope it is not one with me wearing one of them. First of all, which one would they choose? I would likely prefer the one from a portrait of my Sears and Roebuck little league baseball team. I suppose people would recognize me. It would speak to the potential of youth.
A current hat wouldn’t be good as I wear them in the yard to absorb sweat while gardening or doing yard work. My current fave is a commemorative cap from when we moved the Standard Oil and Amoco paper archives from Chicago to a salt mine in Oklahoma. That project was a really big deal, yet I wear the cap because it has ventilation for heat from my head to escape. It is not a statement of anything.
I wrote the obituary for my survivors to use. It is 210 words with the briefest of traditional items. There is a sentence about my education, one about military service, one about marriage, and one about my formal career. I wrote a sentence about retirement. Just the facts in tightly written prose. One omission is a photo. I must remedy that so my death is hassle-free for those who survive me, yet am loathe to do so.
The easiest thing would be to visit a professional photographer and have them take a head shot. Maybe fancy it up with a white background so it shows well in a black and white newspaper. The issue causing delay is that living on a pension finds more interesting things on which to spend my limited funds. For example, I could buy a new hoe… something I could actually use. An obituary photo hasn’t even made it to my to-do list. If I do visit a photographer, I won’t be taking any ball caps.
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