10 Years With a Guy I know

Today is the first day of the 11th year of my partnership with Dave.
From the very first day, our relationship was our own, to do as we pleased with.
In spite of the rough patches, I believe we have done that.
Those familiar with me know of my tendency to process via the written word, so here are my thoughts after a decade, take 'em or leave 'em.

We are married, but because we didn't seek permission from anyone, not a church or a government or a parental unit, we are Common Law married, and so there's no certificate or church register or any of that bullshit. I should thank my digital calendar, I think I would have forgotten our anniversary date a dozen times by now if it didn't remind me every year! LOL I loved our little ceremony at Ledges, with family and friends and food. It was a great start.

It hasn't gone all to plan, of course. In fact, the plan didn't even last the first week. We certainly didn't plan on getting pregnant with our eldest child before we even had our honeymoon. That honeymoon is still waiting to happen. I won't say I regret it's lack, a marriage is not the honeymoon. I wonder sometimes though, what a honeymoon would be like.
I digress.

We've loved, we've fought, we've forgiven, grown and loved some more. We had one kid, and thought, "that was intense, but cool, lets do it again!" And had a second. That effectively cured that bit of madness, and we've stopped.

The kids are pretty cute, if I do say so. Expensive fuckers though. America has lost it's damn mind, and every pregnancy and birth set us back so far economically, that it's not an exaggeration to say we've still not recovered, and they are 6 and 9 now. That's added stress to our marriage, in ways I've not enjoyed. It was tempting to take the frustration out on my partner, "If you just made more money, if our insurance was better...." But the truth was always that the deck was stacked, and not in our favor. #SinglePayerNow

In spite of that, we kept on. Whether it was walking off a job, pregnant and on the other side of the Mississippi, or starting a small organic farm with toddlers strapped to me, I always knew Dave had my back. Because he always does. That's not nothing.

We chose to keep our own names, for various reasons. The kids have the my last name, it's come up in discussions with them as they've come into contact with other families and learned about the "norms." The youngest has indicated he may change his last name to Dave's one of these days. He's got time yet to think it over and make the best decision for himself, we'll support him either way.
(No, kindergarden isn't too young, I changed my name in Kindergarden and have never gone back, but I never legally changed it.) Anyway, I highly recommend keeping your name, for anyone considering it.  Neither of us had the hassle of a name change, which it is a hassle ladies, don't believe for a second you'll get it changed and things will go smoothly and you'll never have to think about it again. I entered into a contract with another adult, there is no legal reason to change names to do that. The common practice of changing names to do that seems weird to me.

Our contract is unique to us. Another practice I highly recommend.
"Love is patient, love is kind.."
*BARF*
Here's a snippet of our vows:
BECKY: David, will you cause her anger?
DAVE: I may
BECKY: Is that your intent?
DAVE: No
BECKY: Jennie, will you cause him anger?
JENNIE: I may
BECKY: Is that your intent?
JENNIE: No
BECKY: *To Both* Will you take the heat of anger and use it to temper the strength of this union?
BOTH: We Will
BECKY: And so the binding is made.

We promised to cause pain and add burdens to each other. We have done so. We promised also to ease the burdens and share the laughter and love of life with one another. We have done so. Privately we promised to stand back to back against zombie hordes if the end of the world comes. Don't mess with us, we're both trained in weapons.

I speak lightly of pain and violence, but I want to be clear that we have never let our anger spill into physical violence. One or the other of us may walk away, far away. But we always circle around and come back and talk some more. That's not nothing.

I will say we've definitely gone to bed mad.
Hi, my name is Jennie, I have a temper and hold a grudge forever, (Leo.)
We go to bed mad all the fucking time. Usually though, it's the same bed. From the twin mattress on the floor of our first house, through co-sleeping with milk/pee covered babies, through surgeries, illnesses and fights and everything else, we sleep together. Sometimes, I wake up still mad, *shrug* I don't owe anyone de-escalation, and if it's not right, it's not right, and I'll hold on to my anger till it is.
I thought I was marrying someone who could handle the heat. And mostly, I was right. Sometimes, I wake no longer mad. Love has a way of crowding anger out of a heart when it blossoms. And sleep has a way of showing the absurdities of arguments based on toddler-parents-being-tired.

I'm trying to think of other tips to share. Our arrangement is so unique in some ways...
Most of our baby-time was spent with Dave as our stay-at-home-parent. I feel like American society has come a long way in that department. The kids' docters and schools have always handled it gracefully, I thought, Dave may have other impressions. If anything, it was parenting support groups that didn't support the arrangement. So many were "Mom" specific, that Dave often felt isolated. Reach out to your Dad friends, they could probably use a kind word from a friend.

We eat together a lot, as a family as often as we can. Although, this is another spot where America stacks the deck against us. Most of the time there's only one of us feeding the children the meal in question, and the other of us is working. Dave feeds them Breakfast and first lunch, I feed them second lunch and Dinner. Because, the only way we can make ends meet is to work opposite shifts. That reached its peak right before Logan started school, with Dave working overnights and me working days. I cannot stress enough how horrible that was. If there's anything the past 10 years that I can unequivocally say it almost ended our  marriage, it was that period. If you are considering such an arrangement, don't do it. Find any other way possible, and don't do it.  I'll go even farther and say that as a country we need to seriously reconsider how many of our workers we're asking to work overnights. It's not just emergency folks anymore, and it's not healthy for a society to stress so many workers in this way. But I was speaking of dinner. Our family dinners don't look like the ones I had as a child, but we work with what we've got. And if I walk the kids down to Dave's store for dessert afterwards and good night hugs, that's America for ya.

We don't get a lot of date nights. All the marriage advice says to make time for them. We would have loved more dates, but there was often not enough money to pay for a sitter and a meal out. So they often didn't happen. I'd like to say, we did stay-at-home dates! They were wonderful! But it's not true. If we stayed at home we had an often-interrupted tv show, perhaps a drink for one of us, and one or both of us passed out asleep before finishing either the drink or the show. That's not a date, that's Tuesday night. This continues to be a challenge as we pass the decade mark. America doesn't value child care or parenting breaks, so as a society it supports neither. When the high schoolers want 10$ an hour to watch the kids, and one of us doesn't make much more than that at work, it quickly becomes absurd to try to go out when we realize we are spending most of a week's pay to go out for an evening. We joke that it would be nice to get a divorce, so we could go out more often. But it's half way not a joke either. The parents we know that have time for dates, have an ex-spouse (or two) to drop the kids with. (Or retired, healthy and close parents.) That's not a sustainable way to save a marriage. It's a struggle.
I'd love to explore more non-nuclear-family living arrangement and see if my hypothesis about more adults bears out. Co-house with another family. Add another adult to our marriage. Live with an adult sibling or cousin or nephew.  Something, anything, that increases that adult to child ratio and see if that eases the raising-children burden enough to allow for healthy marriage upkeep. If I get the opportunity I'll keep y'all in the loop.



Finally, speaking of family arrangements, I know some of you clicked through because you are curious if I would say anything about the open part of our marriage. We consider ourselves Polyamorous. We've both had other partners over the last 10 years. Some more serious than others. I was poly before I started dating Dave, and he had had poly relationships before me. I've never really been monogamous as an adult. More than that, I am a woman who spends most of her time with men. I work as an engineer in the construction field, it's a rare day when I'm *not* the only woman on the job site. I'm the only woman on my engineering team. I'm a dancer, and I mostly dance with men. This was true before my marriage and I was clear that all of that would continue to be true after marriage. So jealousy and possessiveness are not traits I have the time or inclination to deal with. I love freely, bigly, and muchly. My love for my second child doesn't decrease the love for my first born. It's the same with my adult relationships. Does it make things more complicated? Yes, it occasionally does. Is it worth it? Yes, I believe so. Love is always worth it. It has gotten more interesting as the kids age. Now they ask questions and want to know what's going on and they form their own relationships with our metamours. I find it endlessly fascinating.




Life will of course continue on. Our eldest will hit 10 next spring, the crushing weight of baby care and toddler raising are behind us. (While my body may occasionally ache for another baby, I refer you to the previous mention of the economic disaster that is childbirth in America. As science is my witness we will be having no more babies.) The more cerebral challenges of middle school and teens are ahead of us. Hopefully we have at least another decade of loving and laughing together to look forward to. Even if we don't, if one or both of us grow away from this partnership, I have no regrets about loving Dave.

It's been a hell of a ride babe. 💓💖😍

Shampooing Less

Some light fare for y'all today. I want to share a little experiment with you, that I'm a month into.

I have really really fine hair. Light colored and long and super straight. One of the biggest problems I've had with it, as an adult, is that it gets really oily, really fast, and it's really obvious. For most of the past 20 years, I've been washing it every day. With a variety of shampoos, trending towards more and more of the dandruff control shampoos because itching and flaking were getting worse.
If I ever skipped a shower I could count on my hair looking like an oil slick and being itchy and flaky to boot.

This state of affairs was becoming something I was not happy with.  I did some research and came across some interesting points.  Modern Americans wash their hair more than any other culture, pretty much all the way back to when we climbed out of the trees. That's great for companies like Unilever, they make big bucks off of that. They make massive profits off convincing people they should be doing this daily, if not more.  I'm reminded of a story my mother told me about her sister washing her hair once in the morning for the pep-rally then washing it again that afternoon before the game.

So what's a gal to do? Well if you're a hippy like me, the obvious answer is to stop doing that. :-D I already make my own deodorant, and now I'm strongly considering making my own shampoo.  I thought there might need to be an intermediate step though.  Just like my homemade deodorant can't handle my stink when I've been eating eating too much processed food, I doubt a homemade shampoo could handle the crazy oil slick that is my hair 24 hours after the last shampoo.

The reason for this, I think, is that my scalp oil glands are like a PID loop. They want to keep a certain amount of oil on my hair, to protect it from UV, wind, heat, etc. Everytime I strip the oils out with my modern shampoo, they freak out and pump out more oil to replace it. Literally rinse and repeat every day and these oil glands are on overdrive trying to keep up with me.

So my working hypothesis right now is, can I wash my hair with less frequency and calm down these oil glands?  These aren't the smartest glands in the world, I should give them some time to adjust, after 20 years of the previous pattern.

The experiment:

• Wash hair only 3 times per week, as opposed to the 6-7 I have been doing. (M/W/F mornings is what I decided on.)
• Use conditioner on the bottom 2/3rds of my long hair after I shampoo. (While the roots are an oily mess, the bottom 2/3rds of my really long hair tends towards frizzy dryness.)
• Do this for 3 months, using the same shampoo I've been using most often for the past 5 years. (To limit the number of variables I'm testing at once.)

The results so far?  Well, the first week was awful. I worked from home a couple of days, and felt really self conscious about the oil slick.  The second week, it seemed a little better. I was able to do some up-do's that masked the mess a bit. I also used a bit of my homemade powder deodorant, which is mostly corn starch, to calm down a couple of troublesome areas and keep things looking presentable. The third week, last week, seemed even better still. Itch and flake were both down. My hair seemed not as oily on the no wash days, I didn't have to use any corn starch. It also had a bit more body since every other day it was a "second day" hair and had kinks and waves in it from the first day hair style.  It's definitely been enough positive improvement that I'll be finishing out the experiment.  Maybe even after the first 2 months see if I can go even lower on the washings for the 3rd month.  But, we'll see.

Once I feel like the oil problem is under control I can try making my own shampoo and transitioning away from the dandruff shampoo and see how that goes. I'll also have to see how summer exercise fits in with things, but maybe sweat and dirt can be rinsed out with water and I can still avoid the oil stripping shampoos most days. Again, we'll see.

On a positive note, if anyone noticed my extra oily tresses, they never said anything. Maybe they just chalked it up to Mom-of-toddlers. :-D

I'll let you know the final results later this year.  Has anyone else tried something similar? How did it go for you?
-Jennie

Why I Won't Move to Oklahoma, or Kansas, or Texas..

The list is actually quite long, of states I won't be moving to in this great country I call home. Some folks might be curious about why. So here's the break down.

Some are for religious reasons. Did you know 6 states still have laws on their books that bar atheists from holding office? I'm not going to fake an interest in a make-believe being just to get involved in civic governance as is my right as an American citizen. So that takes the following states off my list.

• Texas
• Tennesse
• South Carolina
• Mississippi
• Maryland
• Arkansas

Oklahoma gets a special mention in this category because GOP lawmakers there have recently introduced a bill that would restrict marriage to Christians and Jews. HB1125, check it out. As in, atheists, muslims, etc need not apply for marriage; so sad, too bad, you weren't needing that status for health insurance or tax purposes were you? Better find yourself some jesus and get to a church. Because, in addition, the bill would bar all judges and other secular officials from performing marriages in Oklahoma. So people who just need a quiet, quick ceremony are out of luck too.  That does not endear the state to me, no matter how many of my relatives are there.
Kansas likes to shove religious nonsense into school curriculum so they get an honorable mention too.

Some are off the list for reasons that are tangential to religious reasons, namely their war against women's reproductive rights. And, no, I don't buy for one precious second that these abhorrent laws are based on safety for women. You want to look at women's safety? Check out the rates of death by botched abortion and note the point on the graph where women finally had court mandated access to safe legal abortions. (Hint: Roe v Wade was decided in 1973.)
Women's safety is certainly not maintained when researchers say nearly 200,000 Texas women have lost access to contraception, cancer screenings, and basic preventive care, especially in low-income, rural parts of the state. All in the name of "safety." So spare me that.

So, with that little bit of clarity behind us, here are the states that I won't move to because I'm a woman of reproductive age and controlling my fertility is of vital importance to my economic and physical well being.

•  Oklahoma - Yes, unfortunatly OK tops this list, as it has the highest number of laws restricting women's access to abortion and that has affected the number of women's clinics, making all other health services hard to come by.
• Kansas is high on this list too, so in spite of its close proximity to family, it's out.
• Louisiana has family in it, but again it's out. (Plus, they like to elect felons, what is up with that?)
• Missouri climbed this particular graph in a dramatic way this past year, it was in consideration before that happened. Oh well, too bad. 
• Texas .. oh Texas.   When I say this state is a war-zone, I'm not just talking about the 100 mile radius surrounding the border. They are waging war against the health of half their population. Texas Health and Human Services estimates that the state will see almost 24,000 unplanned births in the coming year because of the cuts to services.  That will cost taxpayers a pretty penny, up to $273 Million is what the THHS says.  I'm so not interested in joining that party.

(The data in this chart is primarily sourced to the Guttmacher Institute).


 It's really too bad. I wish I could move closer to extended family, there are a lot of them I really miss, but I'm not interested in rewarding the lawmakers of these states. If they are going to pass laws hostile to women, and/or hostile to secular Americans, this woman is not going to move there. Period.

They don't deserve my brain power, they don't deserve my skills or my payroll taxes. They don't deserve my sales taxes, my fees, fines or permit dollars. Fuck 'em. 

It's perhaps a small thing in the larger picture of state budgets, but they are my small things, and I still have control over them, so I'll decide where they go.

Oregon, Vermont and Washington, why do you have to be so far away?
-Jennie

Does it Matter How I Pay the Bills?

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Right now I work (indirectly) for a large multi-national corporation. One of the largest. You know their name, and you know the pet food that the plants I support produce. They are interchangeable with any number of other large corporations, producing goods that I largely avoid, so I'll keep their name to myself, it's not germane to this discussion. So why do I work for them? I don't care about their products. I don't care about their brand. In fact, I think the corporation represents a lot about what's wrong with the current situation in America.
The short answer is I needed to pay the bills.

The longer answer brings up my massive student loan debt, my need to prove (to myself) that the Computer Engineering degree wasn't a waste of money and time; and really, isn't germane.

I don't want to do it anymore. I don't want my brainpower to go to a large corporation. I don't want my entire life's work to boil down to "I kept 5 pet food plants running 24/7."  Because, let's face it, a lack of efficiently produced pet food is not one of the larger problems facing my generation and those that follow.

There are problems that I see clearly and feel strongly and passionately about solving.  Problems of food production, food access and food security.  Problems that I don't want to relegate to the 3 hours of free time I have every week. When I find myself doing research or reading, it's rarely tech related, or automation related. 9 out 10 times, I'm researching a farming or food question. Farming is suffering from the same population problem that the rest of the country is facing, aging quickly with not enough young working-age people to keep things going. It's one thing to have not enough automation professionals, it's a whole nother thing for a country to have it's food production experts age out without replacement. Demand is not going to wane for food, and without enough producers we'll end up with more and more of the hellish confinement feeding style operations as the few remaining farmers try to produce enough food for all of us. This country needs more young people to take up hoes and get on tractors. I think I can answer that call.  I think I can do it and make a living too. So I'm going to try.

I can see myself getting involved in the on-farm research that Iowa State University and Practical Farmers of Iowa help organize and fund. Mostly though I just want to grow vegetables. Wholesale is an option, farmers's markets are too, so is a CSA model if I can get people excited for my brand of organic food. Of course, this is all assuming I can grow the food. I manage to largely meet my family's vegetable needs with only the spare time I have between my other two jobs. I'm hoping that with more hours a week to dedicate to it, my output will scale up accordingly. I'll have new obstacles, and I'll need to learn a new skill set as I cross that boundary between gardener and farmer. I'm aware of that. I can't shake the feeling though that now's the time. Social safety nets are in place, I have a good chunk of my youth and health still, and I want to set my family on a path that will mesh better with our life goals and quality of life needs. It doesn't even mean that I have to leave my technical skills behind. Modern greenhouses use a bit of automation, as do most aquaculture setups. Both of which I could see myself getting into. Or tablet/phone applications to help farmers keep track of which field got planted when, with what, cross referenced with expected output vs actual production numbers. Anyway, the business plan has been started. Budgets for the next 3-5 years have been started. I have 3 acres of tillable land near Boone, IA that my best friend owns and wants to grow vegetables on. I have been accepted into the PFI Beginning Farmer Savings Incentive Plan, (more on that in another post.) So, now is the time to DO THIS THING!

But, yes, this will be a change in our lives. A large change. That's sorta the point.  There are aspects we don't like in our life right now. And change is not scary to me. Risk can be scary, and there is some risk here. But, I know what the risks are if I don't change anything. I have a pretty good idea of what the outcome will be if I choose cubicals and factories for the next 25 years. All I have to do is look around the office at the people who have been programming for 15+ years. I'll become adapted to the life of cubical fauna and gradually lose my health and fitness. It's not a hard stretch to see where that leads.

Metabolic disorders have become the #1 killer of adults.  High blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes, these sorts of things now kill more people than all the communicable things like flu and pneumonia.

I'm so not interested in going down that path.

Can I try to live my life by a different metric? Instead of worrying about billable hours and corporate facetime? Can I work hard and measure success by happiness levels?  Because it's not the hard work that's the problem, it's the metric I'm currently using to define a successful week that's a problem. I'm one of those people that goes crazy if I'm not working, but it's also become apparent these past 5 years that I go a little crazy if I don't get enough outside time, and time with my hands dirty.

"There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot.  These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot.  Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them.  Now we face the question whether a still higher 'standard of living' is worth its cost in things natural, wild, and free.  For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech." - Aldo Leopold 

It's also become clear to me that I go a little crazy if I feel my work doesn't have enough meaning.  I do care where my brainpower goes, it's not an insignificant thing to me. I place great value on this strong, logical, crazy, creative, never-still brain of mine and the problems I solve day in and day out need to be worthy of it, or I feel like I'm slacking off.

A lot of words since the title question, but the gist is: It matters to me.

Some of you might be wondering, am I doing all of this because I'm a doomer?
Yes and no. All of the reasons above would still be here even if I thought the bright modern world wasn't about to come crashing down on us. I do think that it's all going to come crashing down though.  A stable successful automation career depends on cheap reliable grid energy. None of the plants I've done work in could operate on spotty power, generator power, etc. And since our country has an electrical grid that's old and in desperate need of re-organizing, strengthening and 10 years worth of maintenance, that makes me nervous. Our Civil Engineers rank our grid and energy infrastructure at a D+ in 2013. (link) Why would I risk getting specialized in a field that our country seems unwilling to support? Why put my family's wellbeing on the line by staying in a career path with prerequisites that are a few points away from failing? The pendulum has swung a long ways towards automation; employing fewer people, using more energy and machines to do what hands used to. I think we've reached the zenith though, and the pendulum will be swinging back the other way. I really honestly think we're headed towards the point where human power will be much cheaper and much more reliable than grid power. Automation won't make sense in that environment, not like we see today. I'm not going to stick around to wait and see if my predictions are right though. I'll be specializing in a skill set that won't need as much grid power to make a product, and won't need as many rare earth minerals or travel by air for a successful career.  If I happen to be wrong, I may make less money, but I'll probably be healthier and happier. If I'm right, I've dodged a canonball that will destroy the careers of many a tech worker.

 One of the hard facts of our present predicament is that the steps that have to be taken to get ready for the future bearing down on us all require letting go of the privileges and perquisites that most Americans consider theirs by right. A few years ago, I coined the acronym LESS—Less Energy, Stuff, and Stimulation—to summarize the changes that we’re all going to have to make as things proceed, and began pointing out that any response to our predicament that doesn’t start with using LESS simply isn’t serious.

I’m pleased to say that a certain fraction of my readers have taken that advice seriously, and tackled the uncomfortable job of downsizing their dependence on the absurd amounts of energy, stuff, and artificial stimulation that are involved in an ordinary American lifestyle these days. I’m equally pleased to say that an even larger number of people who don’t read The Archdruid Report and don’t know me from Hu Gadarn’s off ox have gotten to work doing the same thing. Those people are going to be in a much better position not merely to weather the crises ahead, but to help their loved ones, friends and neighbors do the same thing, and potentially also contribute to the preservation of the more useful achievements of the last few centuries. Still, it’s hard work, and it also requires a willingness to step outside the conventional wisdom of our society, which claims to be open to new and innovative ideas but in practice tolerates only endless rehashings of the same old notions.  -Archdruid

I, of course, have no proof that this is the right choice to make right now.  Nobody I know has a working crystal ball right now.  Maybe in 30 years time I'll be selling carrots to the next crop of tech millionaires and wishing I'd stayed at my computer. Right now, I'm betting not though.

Living boldly is also not being forever strong and fearless. You can live boldly and still have weak moments, emotional meltdowns, failures, self-doubts and plenty of 3:00 a.m. fears for the future. (Ask me how I know.) Living boldly is what you do in spite of all that.
Living boldly is creating your own life in your own way, even if you’re depressed, discouraged, defeated, and downtrodden. Even if you fear — or are downright dead-solid certain — that the whole damn world is doomed.    -Claire Wolfe

Is it really a good time to get into food production?
Stay tuned, I have a post that answers that question too.
-Jennie

Why I Don't Care About "Your" Sports Team, and Why You Shouldn't Either.

Sports song from Garfunkel and Oates.



There are days, when I feel like I'm the only person in America who doesn't follow sports or claim a team. Coworkers look at me funny when I tell them that the only thing I hate more than golf is professional sports, and that my feelings towards collegiate sports are souring.

The NFL, a 25 billion dollar industry somehow also enjoys a tax exempt non-profit status. Their giant corporate-named monstrosities of stadiums, enjoy hefty amounts of tax payer support to build. In turn said taxpayers get to enjoy the bread and circus, I mean the Frito-Lay Championship Bowl Game. Normal Christian Americans, happily devour hours upon hours of this mindless violence. Never once worrying about their immortal souls as they support the Golden Calf du-jour. I know I'm a long way from my Southern Baptist roots, but it seems to me a fairly obvious worship of violence, greed, and fame.  As an atheist I'm appalled by the hyper and toxic masculinity on display and the cozy relationships with corporate entities, which force viewers to sit through corporate-named replays, corporate-named half time shows and then straight up corporate commercials in the many breaks.  One of the weirdest things I ever experienced was watching an ISU game, in person, at the field and being told that the break in play we were waiting through was to allow the tv stations to play commercials. My in person experience was being interrupted by tv commercials.  And ask yourself, sports fans, have your ticket prices dropped with all this increased revenue the teams enjoy by whoring out the naming rights to everything? Nope, didn't think so.

I don't understand the folks that feel they have a team. I want to tell them; "this money-making entity, of which you have no control over and for which you spend lots of money, isn't 'yours.' If anything, that team owns you. It controls your TV watching, your spending and your self image." What do these people get in return? A chance to cheer when one of the sportsers sports hard enough to get a ball in the goal? How does that improve their life?

I don't get it.  I don't care.  I strongly suspect that it's yet another opium for the masses.

-Jennie

Je suis desole

What a shitty week for free speech. Getting bullets to the face for cartoon drawings. Getting 1000 lashes for a website. These things make me despair for our survival as a race of thinking beings.

Don't sit there, dear reader, smug in your belief that these things are examples of problems that Muslims alone bring to the table.

Christians in this country routinely murder doctors, some have been killed while attending Christian worship service.  Christians routinely harm trans-folks, queer-folks, and people of color, in some cases trying to modify local laws to justify their hatred and ill-treatment. Christian culture has embraced the gun culture that's rotting America, with the usual sorts of results. Timothy McVey was a Christian, as was Adam Lanza and probably everyone at the Bundy Ranch. Guns have become a "GOD given right." And somehow different from the guns that every other religious extremist totes.

If your ideas require a gun to defend them, they're probably shitty ideas. Period. It doesn't matter which flag you drape on it, or which holy book you cherry pick some nice sounding quotes out of.

-Jennie

1st Day of Kindergarten - Rowen

He's going to do great.  He walked in to his classroom with his usual big smile. He gave the teacher a big hug, then hung up his backpack and found his seat.  I'm sure he's making lots of friends, because really, he's never met a person he didn't like.

There's always that worry, did we do enough? Will he thrive?
Here's hoping he does. 

Send him good vibes today and tomorrow. He's out in the big world.  Expanding his horizons.
Go baby go!
-Jennie

Fall crops are up!

When I pulled the garlic from my kitchen garden, at the end of July, I immediately started prepping that space for fall crops. Garlic harvests best when the soil is dry, so that soil was very dry. I added a couple of buckets of compost, and roughly hoed that in a little. Then a bunch of water, (the kids wanted to play in a sprinkler, it was a win-win operation.)  Then I  seeded Swiss Chard, Red Russian Kale, the last of the onion sets that were still in a plantable state, some green beans, white turnips and Cylindra beets. It might sound like a lot, but there's only 2-3 feet of each one.

Thanks to a week of rain and a waxing super moon, I had GREAT germination on all of them, and with any luck, it will be a welcome wave of fresh veggies at the end of the season.  I'll be curious to see if the beans will have enough time to produce, they are bush beans, so I only need them to put on that first big flush.

Worst case, they'll shade out some weeds and be interesting from a research/trial-and-error stance.  But I'm betting at least half will give me food. That Swiss Chard and Kale will probably give me food well into winter, they are both super hardy.

Some notes for future reference. No onion sets for sale this late in the season. Keep more onion sets in a dry dark location after spring plantings. That means I have to buy enough in the spring so I'll have leftovers that I can plant in fall. And actually get them into a safe place. I had probably 3 little bags of sets this year leftover, but one got wet during a watering "incident" that soaked my whole gardening basket, so it rotted. One was left in a sunny place and sprouted, then rotted.  Only one was in a dry dark place, and of course, that was totally by accident.

Other food related things going on, include a bunch of canning. Dave has really stepped into the lead on preservation work, but we still work together on most batches.  We've done a couple rounds of zucchini relish. Bread and Butter pickles are still to do this week.  Some sweet corn next week. We've dried a lot of herbs. Tons of oregano, some mint and parsley.

I don't know if we'll get a tomato glut this year, it's been so mild, there are barely enough heat units to ripen anything. I'll just have to wait and see how the rest of August plays out.

Beautiful Bits

I know, I'm a worrier.  I'm a downer. I see the world through my doomer glasses, most all of the time.  That doesn't mean I don't have beauty in my life. It doesn't stop me from enjoying that beauty. And today, it won't stop me from sharing some with y'all.  Enjoy. (I'm sure the next post will be back to doom and gloom and atheism.)

Here are a few of my creations this spring/summer. The bits of beauty I try to fit into a hectic life.

I'm working on some sandwich board signs for my market stall. Here's the first one done. This is two quarter sheets of outdoor grade plywood. Sanded, primed, painted with 4 layers of chalkboard paint, and some exterior "patio paint."  I have screwed in hinges at the top, and a chain to keep it from sliding all the way open.  The chalkboard was a pain to paint, it was never going to get as smooth as I wanted it. But even so I think it turned out ok. Very pretty, and functional.

Here are some pretty garden shots. This is the view from my newest garden.  Peaceful, in an Iowa monocrop sort of way. :-)

 And the kitchen garden has a pretty new addition, thanks Mom!

Some of the garlic, looking fresh. This garlic has now been harvested, and is on my front porch curing.

Here are some cute kids, I helped make them, so it counts.

Of course I let him chalk on the new sign board. :-) He helped paint a couple parts.

Some of my recent Mixed Media work.  This one is an oil painting with fabric decoupage so far. May do a bit more painting on it. Some falling Matrix like symbols in gold? Some mehndi style swirls? Still trying to make up my mind.

 This medium sized square one is meant to pair with the larger one above. It too is an oil painting with fabric, but yo-yos this time. Still a WIP, but you can maybe see where I'm going with it.

The itty bitty one is going to pair with a painting I won in a silent auction this spring.  All four together should give us enough to shake up the art work in a couple of rooms.

I'll have to find a new place to get my art supplies, before I embark on the next round.  All of my canvases came from the local Hobby Lobby store a year or so ago. You can guess how often I'll be returning there.  Anybody got any good internet craft suppliers? 

How are you incorporating beauty into your life? Share in the comments if you like.
-Jennie

Collecting Children

I've had the urge to adopt for awhile now. I know I love children, I know I'd love to raise a little girl and I know I don't have the time to play roulette with another pregnancy, hoping it's a girl. Thus the urge to adopt. So I follow a few adoption oriented blogs. One of which recently posted with some thoughts about the Marion IA gal with 15 kids, 8 of whom were adopted from Africa, who just died in a car accident. It shouldn't surprise me, the adoption community, especially the uber-Christian one, is kind of a small world.  

After reading the post, about the shock the adoption community felt to have lost a mother, I wondered, are there any among the adoption community that sees this as the terrible situation it really is? That husband now has 15 children, a couple of which are special needs, and no one to stay home with them and raise them, as he has to work.  Is there any talk in the adoption community about the morality of continually adopting, past the point of a dozen children? It's only possible from 3rd world nations where they don't care about things. And only possible with the encouragement and financial assistance of Christian organizations. No adoption agency in America would let another child go to a home that already had 14 youngsters. For just this reason, among others. 

Sure she left a legacy of love, the service was standing room only.  But that won't get that family very far, the husband literally can't even transport all the kids by himself, much less raise them on his own. They've all been homeschooled, so none of them have experience with even the simple routines of leaving the house for school, even if the dad could physically get them there. Every one of those children is now stuck in a terrible situation. The eldest are likely going to have to raise the younger kids themselves, probably foregoing the last of their homeschool education to do it, no matter what their transcripts say. What a great thing to do innocent children. Oh...wait.. not really.

The adoption community, and the Christian groups that funnel money into it, really need to see this tragedy as what it is. Christians playing the savior, and collecting children like they get more grace points for it, nevermind the consequences for the children in question when things like death or illness come along.

I don't like to speak ill of the dead, but the enablers of her children collecting are not dead, so I'm directing this at them.  Did they think that with enough children and enough prayer, the family would be spared the normal realities of life, like sickness and death, that make 15 children problematic? Probably, it would match the other crazy things Christians like to believe.  Is the community going to step in to raise those 15 children? Probably not.   I'm sure they'll pray for them though.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Speaking of kids in a bad place, I'm going to boost the signal on this group, a little bit.
1000 kids.  A foundation seeking to open Iowa homes and hearts to 1000 of the unaccompanied minors at the border. If every state would take in 1000, the humanitarian crisis would be well under control.

-Jennie

Is The End Still Nigh?

Jennie, you haven't mentioned the end of the world lately, are we still on for that?

Yes. Yes we are.

Here are some points to consider.
The US is a net importer of natural gas and will remain in that status for the foreseeable future. There will be no exporting of gas to Europe. We are not the next OPEC.  All those oil and gas fracking sites, the science says they'll experience sharp dropoffs in production after their first flush. The Frackers say, "Oh, we'll get more efficient and just keep drilling." Meaning every last unspoiled piece of land in this country will be spoiled in our efforts to feed our addiction.  Those lofty reserve estimates for what's in the ground? Total bunk.  If we want oil independence, we NEED TO GET OFF OF OIL. Period.

Speaking of the stuff in the ground. It really needs to stay there if my grandchildren are going to have enough liveable areas to survive in. Yes, survive.  A 4 degree Celsius warmup would make large
swathes of our planet too warm for humans. Too warm for our crops to grow, too warm during the heat of the day for a human to literally survive in.

In 2012, the writer and activist Bill McKibben published a heart-stopping essay in Rolling Stone titled “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math.” I’ve read hundreds of thousands of words about climate change over the last decade, but that essay haunts me the most.
The piece walks through a fairly straightforward bit of arithmetic that goes as follows. The scientific consensus is that human civilization cannot survive in any recognizable form a temperature increase this century more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). Given that we’ve already warmed the earth about 0.8 degrees Celsius, that means we have 1.2 degrees left—and some of that warming is already in motion. Given the relationship between carbon emissions and global average temperatures, that means we can release about 565 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere by mid-century. Total. That’s all we get to emit if we hope to keep inhabiting the planet in a manner that resembles current conditions.
Now here’s the terrifying part. The Carbon Tracker Initiative, a consortium of financial analysts and environmentalists, set out to tally the amount of carbon contained in the proven fossil fuel reserves of the world’s energy companies and major fossil fuel–producing countries. That is, the total amount of carbon we know is in the ground that we can, with present technology, extract, burn and put into the atmosphere. The number that the Carbon Tracker Initiative came up with is… 2,795 gigatons. Which means the total amount of known, proven extractable fossil fuel in the ground at this very moment is almost five times the amount we can safely burn.
Proceeding from this fact, McKibben leads us inexorably to the staggering conclusion that the work of the climate movement is to find a way to force the powers that be, from the government of Saudi Arabia to the board and shareholders of ExxonMobil, to leave 80 percent of the carbon they have claims on in the ground. That stuff you own, that property you’re counting on and pricing into your stocks? You can’t have it. -source

Here's some of the salient parts from that Bill McKibben piece linked above.

In fact, study after study predicts that carbon emissions will keep growing by roughly three percent a year – and at that rate, we'll blow through our 565-gigaton allowance in 16 years, around the time today's preschoolers will be graduating from high school. "The new data provide further evidence that the door to a two-degree trajectory is about to close," said Fatih Birol, the IEA's chief economist. In fact, he continued, "When I look at this data, the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of about six degrees." That's almost 11 degrees Fahrenheit, which would create a planet straight out of science fiction.

-

If you told Exxon or Lukoil that, in order to avoid wrecking the climate, they couldn't pump out their reserves, the value of their companies would plummet. John Fullerton, a former managing director at JP Morgan who now runs the Capital Institute, calculates that at today's market value, those 2,795 gigatons of carbon emissions are worth about $27 trillion. Which is to say, if you paid attention to the scientists and kept 80 percent of it underground, you'd be writing off $20 trillion in assets. The numbers aren't exact, of course, but that carbon bubble makes the housing bubble look small by comparison. It won't necessarily burst – we might well burn all that carbon, in which case investors will do fine. But if we do, the planet will crater. You can have a healthy fossil-fuel balance sheet, or a relatively healthy planet – but now that we know the numbers, it looks like you can't have both. Do the math: 2,795 is five times 565. That's how the story ends.

-

The numbers are simply staggering – this industry, and this industry alone, holds the power to change the physics and chemistry of our planet, and they're planning to use it. They're clearly cognizant of global warming – they employ some of the world's best scientists, after all, and they're bidding on all those oil leases made possible by the staggering melt of Arctic ice. And yet they relentlessly search for more hydrocarbons – in early March, Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson told Wall Street analysts that the company plans to spend $37 billion a year through 2016 (about $100 million a day) searching for yet more oil and gas.

There's not a more reckless man on the planet than Tillerson. Late last month, on the same day the Colorado fires reached their height, he told a New York audience that global warming is real, but dismissed it as an "engineering problem" that has "engineering solutions." Such as? "Changes to weather patterns that move crop-production areas around – we'll adapt to that." This in a week when Kentucky farmers were reporting that corn kernels were "aborting" in record heat, threatening a spike in global food prices. "The fear factor that people want to throw out there to say, 'We just have to stop this,' I do not accept," Tillerson said. Of course not – if he did accept it, he'd have to keep his reserves in the ground. Which would cost him money. It's not an engineering problem, in other words – it's a greed problem.

There's disagreement as to whether 2 degrees actually is a safe level of warming. "Two degrees is actually too much for ecosystems," wrote George Mason University's Thomas Lovejoy in the New York Times. "A 2-degree world will be one without coral reefs (on which millions of human beings depend for their well-being)." Certain island nations will disappear at 2 degrees by the rising oceans.
Either way, we've waited so long to begin cutting emissions that two degrees looks flatly impossible. We're on track for 4°C of warming — which is nearly the temperature difference between the world now and the Ice Age. That's a nightmare for the planet. The World Bank tried to model it and realized that they had no idea what would happen — or whether humans could manage. There's "no certainty that adaptation to a 4°C world is possible," they concluded.

Our crops, like ourselves, are adapted to the climate we have now. Temperatures too hot will keep corn from pollinating. Weather patterns that change too much, too quickly will most certainly cause crop failures.  Oh, and our global stockpile of emergency grain? Already at the lowest levels possible. Our domesticated animals won't get off free either, rising temperatures will most certainly mean increasing frequencies of disease and parasites. Water supplies are already feeling the crunch in Western and SW states, another 4-11 °F of warming will only take that crisis to higher levels.  There's no way we can "engineer" our way out of all these problems simultaneously. We'll be too busy putting out the fires (literally) and trying to keep our basic (and aging) infrastructure from melting in the heat and washing away in the floods.

The problem goes so much deeper than oil, we can have a discussion about oil, and most people will agree that we need to get off of it. Every president in the past 50 years has remarked on how critical it is that we get off of oil. But nothing happens, because no one wants to talk about what that would actually mean. No one wants to talk about how stupid our fantasies of infinite growth are on a finite world.

The inescapable failure of a society built upon growth and its destruction of the Earth’s living systems are the overwhelming facts of our existence. As a result they are mentioned almost nowhere. They are the 21st Century’s great taboo, the subjects guaranteed to alienate your friends and neighbours. We live as if trapped inside a Sunday supplement: obsessed with fame, fashion and the three dreary staples of middle class conversation: recipes, renovations and resorts. Anything but the topic that demands our attention.
Statements of the bleeding obvious, the outcomes of basic arithmetic, are treated as exotic and unpardonable distractions, while the impossible proposition by which we live is regarded as so sane and normal and unremarkable that it isn’t worthy of mention. That’s how you measure the depth of this problem: by our inability even to discuss it. -George Monbiot

Your friendly neighborhood doomer, signing off.
Oh, somebody buy me some of these Calamitywares.

- Jennie

What Could Get Me Back in a Church?

Not all of my readers will be interested, but I think some of my readers might be curious.
What follows is based on a response I made to a post on the Patheos blog network, in regards to a book that tries to list the top 7 things that will get young people back into the churches they are leaving in droves. 

I've not read the book. :-D Check out the link above if you want to see a summary of what the 7 things they listed were.

I am a Millennial, and I left the church when I left my parents' house, and I haven't been back since.  If I was to make a list of the 7 things that would get me back into a church, it would look like this:

1) Quit preaching hate. I got so tired of hearing about all the sins and sinners I was supposed to not associate with or participate in. Half of them seemed arbitrary, none of them seemed logical or helpful to living in a pluralistic society.
2) Respect women. Some faiths are better than others with this one. But pretty much any religion that wants me to take back seat, second seat, or any seat other than an equal one, is never going to get a second of my time or a cent of my money. I'm also not interested in hearing how some random part of my body is sinful and should be covered up. Neck, shoulders, ankles, knees, face, elbows, breasts... bah. They are no more sinful than my ears or my knuckles or my forearms.
3) Can you revise the bible? I know, it's supposed to be the "word of god." But, let's be honest, it's not. It was written by men, translated by men, revised by men. Update it for the new millennium already! Drop the bronze age anachronisms, nobody cares about tattoos, seafood or mixed fiber clothing anymore. It would be nice if there were more women's voices in it, telling their stories, perhaps even stories where the women are something other than a whore or a virgin or the "wife of man #3." Some nice warrior women, leader types would more closely match what I strive for in my life.
4) Be more open to those of us who question. I don't believe in deities anymore. But, that in and of itself, is not a part of why I don't go to church. I would still go if it were a welcoming community that accepted me AND my disbelief. I like helping my neighbors, I like living a life of service and kindness and sharing.  I like singing songs with my neighbors and celebrating life's milestones together. Can you divorce all of that from the Thou Must Believe bit? I certainly don't want to go to a church for the community aspects and lie about it, I'm not a liar.
5) Yes to the local point. I'm not going to drive a long distance to get to a church I like. There is a Unitarian church I feel like I might be happy at, but it's an hour drive away, so it's a no go. Every church within walking distance is .... well.. not meeting my criteria.
6) Work to build up the wall of separation between church and state. I'm not interested in living in a theocracy. Not of any stripe. Churches don't pay taxes to the state, so they should have no say in the governing of the state. Period. "Leave unto Caesar" and all that. Quit sending money to PACs that work to implement Sharia law, whoops I mean Christian values into law. Quit preaching from the pulpit on political candidates and their level of acceptableness to the particular brand of faith you practice. Continue that practice and you'll never see me step foot in your building.
7) This is an addendum to the "be local" point. Support locally. Keep service projects local. Mission trips to 3rd world countries look great in the church bulletins, but they aren't really great at helping people. Time and time again, the missionaries leave and the super great technology that they installed works for a while, then breaks and with no who knows how to service or fix it, the people of that village go back to whatever unsanitary, dangerous or inefficient thing they were doing before. There are plenty of people who need help in every community. Young families who could use help with child care, elders in need of food, vets in need of someone to talk to, new comers in need of a friend or a meal, kids in need of a big brother/sister or adopted grandparent. It's not as flashy and exciting, but it would be of more actual help if the church focused locally first.

Non-belief is growing rapidly in my generation. If the only young people you're interested in adding to your church are the ones that already agree 100% with your faith and your rules, you may find those numbers dwindling, no matter how many big fancy worship concerts you plan.  You should maybe look at the actual beliefs of those who are leaving, and ask how you can better align your church with what they actually need and actually believe in.
Or not.
Just don't kid yourselves when the numbers of "Nones" keeps growing and the average age of your congregants continues to rise, while their numbers fall. The Nones are not confused, misguided or "lost souls." We're sick and tired and fed up with the churches.

If you want to find me on Sunday morning, I'll be in my vegetable garden, happy and content, free of divisiveness, free of arbitrary rules, wearing what I like, and making my own decisions, although maybe a little lonely.  All you have to do is match that experience, minus the lonely and you could get me back into a church. Will you?

My bet is no.
-Jennie

Spring Doings and Plannings

Some of y'all might be wondering what I'm up to. 
Some of y'all know what my plans are in general, and some are still in the dark because plans are still close to the vest.

So here are some general things that are going on. Some of you will know how these fit into my larger plan, and some of you will just have to be patient until I can reveal all.

I've got my spring garlic count! 90 made it through our harsh winter.  I lost some, in places where I didn't get enough mulch on top of them.  But 90 is still respectable. If I get 3 big cloves from all 90, planted this fall, that will be around 270 garlic plants up in 2015.  My crazy old lady co-gardener was surprised to see garlic in the plot this year. Most people around here are when I tell them what the plants are.  :-) It just means I'll have a monopoly on the market when the scapes are ready in June.  The scapes may be about all we eat or sell of this crop. Well, those and the smaller cloves I don't want to plant. This crop is meant to be the seed garlic for a larger cash crop next year.
My daddy asked me if there is a large market for Iowa garlic. I believe there is. My farmer friends at Coyote Run Farm, south of Des Moines plant something like a half acre of hardneck garlic every year. They have a picture of baby Rowen and I out for one of their garlic planting parties in 2009, so I know how much they plant. I know I will not be anywhere near that level. I also know they sell out every year.   The trick is nice big bulbs, and tasty varieties. Those two things are impossible to find in grocery store garlic. Get people hooked on the deliciousness that is locally grown hardneck garlic, and they'll never go back to the sad little grocery store garlic.

My cold frame performed well again this year, in all of its DIY glory.  The last frost date is this week, (and true to form for this spring, we have a frost chance for Friday) and my spinach has been producing like crazy since the beginning of May. Another week and we'll be buried in lettuce, some of which was also in the cold frame and is beginning to crowd out the last of the spinach.

My farmers market in town continues it's downward spiral.  This year the Chamber of "Commerce" has decided that it won't start until JULY 2nd!!  For fucks sake!  The other local markets are already starting, we went down to the opening weekend for Sioux City's market this past Saturday. And sure, it's no July market, but people were THERE! Vendors had greens, onions, eggs, meat, transplants and crafted goods. Customers were THERE! Why our Chamber thinks May and June don't deserve market times in our town, I don't know.  I strongly suspect it's because they are fucking morons.

Moving on. I've decided I will still register as a vendor and go in July-Oct.  I've also decided I'll start when I have the produce to start, and damn their official start date.  I'm making my own sandwich boards to offset the lack of city support for earlier selling dates. (Their limited support of the market includes signage along the main highway through town pointing motorists one block North to the market location.)  A big shout out to my dad, who brainstormed a bit with me on the sandwich boards. I got a start on them this past weekend, and my rusty woodworking skills came back to me. I even remembered to buy sandpaper and sand the boards before applying the primer. *high five* I'm making them really solid so they should last quite awhile. I'll be adding other things to my market stall this year. A scale is top of the list. I scored a big food-grade tray last year in a trade with a fellow market vendor, so that will find uses this summer. If I have enough of the chalkboard paint left when I'm done with my sandwich boards, I might make up some small boards for labeling prices/varieties of veggies.

In the fun news category, I'm signed up to run in another 5k this summer. The Color Run in Omaha in mid July.  I've been out jogging a few times this spring, in between the rains and storms. So far I'm running better than I did at the beginning of last year, much better. So, I didn't lose it all over the winter. Looks like this week might actually let me start the 3 times a week training that I did last year. If things go to plan I'll get to run with my younger brother, the ex-Marine. It sure would be nice to have a good time with him, it's been too long. And knowing that I'll be running with him will certainly keep the pressure on during my training.  Us two, competitive? ....yea.   :-D

So there's what's going on right now. We're keeping busy and holding on. How are things with all y'all?
-Jennie

Strong Women

A bit of poetry for the end of this week.  It's been a rough few weeks. Our savings has been going backwards, my job has been just as stressful as ever and I'm having to break in new ground for my vegetables because of the crazy lady and the girl scouts.
There have been some bright points though, Rowen got a new bike, a tag along that hooks onto Dave's bike, and he LOVES it. He was a happy little kid.
Logan is learning words, more every day, and continues to be just the sweetest little guy.
I've been painting and running and biking and doing some yoga to try and offset the hard work and stress.
Half of the Mother's Day cards are on their way South. Got to finish the last few though.  :-)

This poem spoke to me, and I thought I would share. I know a lot of strong women in my life, and I'm humbled that some consider me one. Enjoy.
-Jennie



"For strong women"

A strong woman is a woman who is straining.
A strong woman is a woman standing
on tiptoe and lifting a barbell
while trying to sing Boris Godunov.
A strong woman is a woman at work
cleaning out the cesspool of the ages,
and while she shovels, she talks about
how she doesn't mind crying, it opens
the ducts of the eyes, and throwing up
develops the stomach muscles, and
she goes on shoveling with tears
in her nose.

A strong woman is a woman in whose head
a voice is repeating, I told you so,
ugly, bad girl, bitch, nag, shrill, witch,
ballbuster, nobody will ever love you back,
why aren't you feminine, why aren't
you soft, why aren't you quiet, why
aren't you dead?

A strong woman is a woman determined
to do something others are determined
not be done. She is pushing up on the bottom
of a lead coffin lid. She is trying to raise
a manhole cover with her head, she is trying
to butt her way through a steel wall.
Her head hurts. People waiting for the hole
to be made say, hurry, you're so strong.

A strong woman is a woman bleeding
inside. A strong woman is a woman making
herself strong every morning while her teeth
loosen and her back throbs. Every baby,
a tooth, midwives used to say, and now
every battle a scar. A strong woman
is a mass of scar tissue that aches
when it rains and wounds that bleed
when you bump them and memories that get up
in the night and pace in boots to and fro.

A strong woman is a woman who craves love
like oxygen or she turns blue choking.
A strong woman is a woman who loves
strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly
terrified and has strong needs. A strong woman is strong
in words, in action, in connection, in feeling;
she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf
suckling her young. Strength is not in her, but she
enacts it as the wind fills a sail.

What comforts her is others loving
her equally for the strength and for the weakness
from which it issues, lightning from a cloud.
Lightning stuns. In rain, the clouds disperse.
Only water of connection remains,
flowing through us. Strong is what we make
each other. Until we are all strong together,
a strong woman is a woman strongly afraid.
-Marge Piercy

Food for Thought

Food for Thought, For Becoming at Home in Our Place, For Thoughtfulness in Producing Food

With future generations in mind, may my family and friends never leave the land we steward poorer, nor its water scarcer than conditions were before we acquired responsibility for their care.
May we keep land meant to be farmed from being de-veloped, and re-envelope it with people dedicated to keep its inherent productivity in tact into perpetuity.
May we work as “greenhorns” to offer dignity, reciprocity and respect to the “grayhorns” willing to offer their land to us, and to never betray our covenant with them and the land itself.
May we seek to enrich the soil, diversify its plant cover and deepen its roots both within and beyond its harvested fields, its grazed pastures, or its orchards.
May we be diligent in learning how our practices affect those who live above and below us in our foodshed and watershed— not only the human lives, but all other-than-human lives as well.
May we participate in the regional culture of this land, and whenever possible, engage in the community rites and calendric rhythms that bind us to our place.
May we work to link the consumers of the food, fiber and timber we produce to the land on which it is produced, so that their values and ours are developed in harmony rather than in completion or in conflict.
May we encourage our members, friends and neighboring consumers to vote for what is best for the land at the polling booth where our choices help determine its governance, and at the table where what we choose to eat can benefit rather than harm the community at large.
May we share with our neighbors not only our successes in stewardship, but cautionary words of wisdom gained from our past failures as well, so that the principles that guide us and the practices that work on the ground are spread throughout this landscape.
May we refrain from solely focusing on increasing the saleable products from the land, but also on investing in the underlying natural processes which generate those products.
May we experiment with ways to control pests, diseases and weeds in a manner that does least harm to pollinators like bees and monarchs, predators, and
May we make long-term decisions about the destiny of the land and the choice of its future caretakers by asking a simple question: “What would the land itself want?” just as some Christian land ethicists often ask, “What would Jesus do if he were a farmer, fisher or forager?”
May we stay as humble as this blessed earth itself.
____________________________________________
Message sent through Brother Coyote, OEF, aka Grayhorn Gary Paul Nabhan, to celebrate the Agrarian Trust forum in Berkeley CA in April of 2014

My Nervous Stomach

Yes, I have problems with my current work situation. The stress is not good for me. And I don't mean that in a may-shorten-my-life-span-someday abstraction. It's not good for me in ways that are immediate, painful and occasionally last days.

I went to my doctor about the problem, thinking maybe I was sick, or maybe there was a way to treat the symptoms so I could ignore them.  (Because that's always a healthy reason to go to a Doctor.. geez...)
He said that stress absolutely could cause the painful gastrointestinal symptoms I'd had. He said the only thing he knows to call it is Nervous Stomach.  He said there's nothing he can give me for it, but over the counters like Imodium could help quiet things. The yoga and running and gardening that I do help, but only in the evenings/mornings when I can do such things, they don't help in acute situations.  Situations where the only thing I can do is stay in my cube and try to code/email/document my way out of the stressful situation.  In between trips to the bathroom that is.

It's not a good situation.  I know I do better with stress when I can move, physically move and exert myself, but that's never the solution to the problems and stressors at my current job. The solutions always involve more screen time, more cube time, and/or travel to places with bad food using uncomfortable company cars.

I know any career I have will involve stress. I push myself too hard for that not to be true. But surely I can find a career that has more physical work to balance out the times I'll need to stare at a screen.Surely I can find a career that has solutions to stress that are physical in nature.

I can see what a career in cube-land often leads to. Most of the programmers here have a less than healthy body weight, and postures that would make my yoga instructor cry.  I literally couldn't take the pain of a sit down cube anymore, a couple of years ago I had to switch to a standing cube in order to lessen the physical pain I experience with the sedentary work style.  Even with the standing cube I still find myself antsy, pacing, occasionally on tip-toe to stare out at the slim swathe of grass and sky I can see over the cube walls.

Does the pay I receive for this work mitigate any of that? Do I get paid "enough" to write off the health damage?

No, not in my mind. Maybe others here think differently, would answer affirmative to that. Others probably don't even think about things in that light. But, for me the answer is no.

Knowing that, I'm seeking an exit. I'm not running hysterically towards the nearest exit, but I am exploring what other options could look like.

Losing Ground

One of the main drawbacks to my current style of Urban Farming is that space can disappear. Not like it vanishes, the dirt is still there, but suddenly I find out that my share of it is only 10% of what I expected because now the old gal wants to let a girl scout troupe plant it to earn badges.  Or the church decides they are much more comfortable about spraying Round Up around the food plots than they are about letting me hoe and mulch the weeds into submission.

Oh and the other drawback is having to deal with the crazy. I got a call from the old gal this weekend about the whole scouts-taking-over news, and she was chewing me out because I was planting peas too early.  Didn't I know they are supposed to go in on Good Friday?   O_o

No, lady, I did not know that I had to plant my seed based on the schedule you expect to see from your lifetime of living in this small isolated Christian town.   I thought I would just plant my peas as soon as the soil was workable.

I'll be happy when I have plots of land that I have contractual and agreed upon rights to plant on. Enough space that my succession plantings can be done logically and not squeezed in to any random available space. Peace of mind as I plant my garlic in the fall that I'll still be growing there in the spring.

So I'll be in new ground again this spring. :-) It's good practice for me.  Got some feelers out already.  And of course that better solution is waiting in the wings for next year. As long as my courage and savings don't give out.

Speaking of practice, so far I'm really liking the looks of my tomato and pepper transplants. Still a few more weeks where things could go horribly wrong with them, but I feel like my years practice is finally paying off. I actually have pepper seedlings.  Literally a first for me. I'm trying onion transplants again too.  Been a couple of years since I tried, and I've learned a lot since my last attempt.


I've got big goals for this year. I can't let something like losing half my grow space deter me.   Onwards!
-Jennie

How Have Thigns Been Lately?

I know, I know, the blog has been quiet lately.
There are multiple reasons for this. I've written a couple of posts that didn't get published. They were mostly written for me. But I may publish them later, as certain break points get closer.

The short story is I'm not really happy with how my life and work are aligned right now. Dave and I have exciting goals for this year, in relation to this disconnect. We're going to make some changes. Some changes will be more drastic than others. Some changes I can't talk about yet, because we're not ready for them to be public knowledge. Most of the changes will happen in late fall/winter.

Life is too short to suck it up and deal. Not that I'm not doing some of that. But you know what I mean. If somethings not working, I'm the type that wants to try to fix it.

The high level breakdown is I want job #3 to replace job #1. It will mean turning a hobby into a fully fledged business, my own business. It's a hobby with a decade of practice and a hobby that I find myself more and more passionate about as the years pass. It's a hobby that I'm used to documenting and tracking; numbers and money. The passion will help, and I'm quietly confident in my skills.

I am doing lots of number crunching right now. We have savings goals for the next year, broken down into month goals.
I have business planning to do. I'm taking an online course in the type of business planning I need. (This is another reason the blog has been quiet, my personal online time is more focused on that class and the work I'm doing to set us up for next spring. In fact, I should be working on my homework right now. :-D) New tax forms I need to get familiar with so I document the right things this year and next year.
Moving expenses plus start up expenses. Ouch.

Is it going to be easy? No.  Is it guaranteed to work out? No.

Does any of that mean I'm not going to try? Fuck no.

So, that's how things are right now. :-D

On a lighter note, seeds are already sown for spring, I have onions and leeks in my little greenhouse doing their germination magic.
We bought a new car! Well, new to us anyway. It's a 2011 Subaru Outback. The boys have plenty of foot room, Dave doesn't hit his head on the roof of it, and it will handle more of the things that I like to haul around, and more of our leisure activities.

The boys are growing bigger by the day. Rowen is excelling at his preschool work, and we're trying to figure out how we want to do Kindergarten. We homeschooled the preschool, and since we're probably moving before next spring, we are likely to home-school the kindergarten too.  Logan is practicing all his words, learning new ones every day.

Hope all is well with all of you.
-Jennie

Some of the Delicious Food We've Been Eating

We have been eating well here in NW Iowa. I wanted to share some of the recipes, for anyone interested. As well as a batch of recent pics. Here's a shot from Thanksgiving, we're pretty low key about it.

Roasted Pork. This one was fun because I used dry sherry for the first time. Turned out really good. RECIPE it's called Chinese Roast Pork, probably because of the soy sauce and ginger.  We used a big 4lb tenderloin instead of the shoulder that recipe calls for. Mostly because I thawed the wrong piece of meat. Still good.

Orange Sweet Potatoes
I can't find the recipe we used for this. But we made thick coins out of some long skinny sweet potatoes. (Skins removed) We layered them in a pie dish, (prettily, because this was for Thanksgiving) and put in orange zest, some orange peel, and butter and brown sugar. Then we baked them for 40-50 minutes until the sweet potatoes were soft.

Cranberry and Citrus Salad
I boiled a cup of cranberries in some water and sugar with a cinnamon stick. Not long, just a few minutes. Then I poured the hot syrup and soft cranberries on top of a bowl of nicely cut and arranged citrus slices. I had grapefruits, oranges, and clementines in mine. Put in the fridge to chill.

Of course I've made my annual batch of Pumpkin Chip Cookies. We've had endless varieties of apples/butter/oatmeal. Various soups. I had a GREAT crop of leeks this year. So we've had a couple versions of my usually made up on the spot Potato Leek soup. 

Now Yule is coming up fast. We may need to switch things up and do a chicken for that holiday, I'm a little bit tired of pork. :) Dave has informed me that stuffing is de rigueur if chicken is to appear at a holiday meal.  lol

From NW Iowa, me and the family wish you and yours all the best. May your new year be a bright one! Full of good food and family.
-Jennie

Missouri Vacation!

Well, we made the journey to Hannibal MO over labor day weekend. All 4 of us strapped into the FestivaCivic. lol

And we drove.. and drove.. :-) We arrived so early at the campgrounds we couldn't even get into our cabin. So the boys played on the playground equipment and we had a pleasant picnic lunch.

 The meadow behind the playground had a couple of young deer in it when we showed up, Rowen got a kick out of watching them bound away.  We did eventually get into the cabin. It was a great cabin, I'm so glad we went that route. I didn't get any pictures while Dave's family was with us for swimming and dinner, his sister is a shutterbug, and I'm hoping she shares those pics soon. Here are the boys at breakfast time the next morning.

And here is an exterior shot of the cabin. Mark Twain Lake has GREAT cabins, I can't rave enough about how great it was.

We left the lake on Monday and went to Hannibal for the Mark Twain Caves. I love me some spelunking. I may have abandoned my geology dreams, but my love of rocks and caves and dirt remains. :-D We took the easy hour tour, what with the toddler and 4 year old lacking experience underground. They mostly enjoyed themselves. Logan got bored about 80% of the way through. :-D

 Logan stayed in the sling the whole time, this is one of those caves that's a maze of passages, and our little one is such a fast escape artist, that this was the ONLY way I was going to take him underground. It worked out really well.

 He's chewing on the top to the glow stick necklace, not the glow stick part, just the plastic bit where the stick attached to the necklace. The glow sticks were a good idea, but ruined one of the tour stops where the guide turned off all the lights. :-D Our little group was still glowing. Oh well.

 Logan was telling me something here... who knows what.

Isn't Rowen a cutie in that one. :-D
We had a lovely dinner at a park overlooking the Mississippi river. Again our camera went unused as Julie captured the time with her lens.

A parting shot here of Rowen as Tom Sawyer.

Yay for vacation trips. Hope you enjoyed the pics.

-Jennie