Sunday, November 30, 2008

A Real Find

I picked up a biography of George Washington Carver at a used bookstore yesterday. The book is unabashedly hero-worshipful toward the man, but he did so much for so many that it is hard to argue with the approach. I found the Bulletins of the Tuskegee Agricultural and Normal Institute (where he worked for 47 years) today in Google books. He authored a series of bulletins listing hundreds of ways to use peanuts, cowpeas, tomatoes, and other common Southern agricultural products. His express goal was to lift as many people out of poverty and want as possible, BY SHOWING THEM HOW TO HELP THEMSELVES!!! He dedicated himself completely to that goal- never married, lived on campus, worked incessantly.He even advised how to build up "worn-out" soil with cheaply-obtained composting mterials and green manures-in 1905. He wanted to find ways for the "One-horse farmer" to prosper. He helped countless people and demanded little in return, turning down incredible offers of industry jobs (one potential boss offered $100,000 per year, another a blank check) to abide in (as it says on his epitaph) "being helpful to the world". May we all aspire to help our neighbors as well as he did.

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Eat Your Greens

Tonight I made a BIG pot of potato-turkey-kale soup, with emphasis on the kale. Green leafy veggies are VERY important to reduce the risk of the three major causes of blindness in the elderly:
1. Cataracts- I know we can have surgery for them, but look: A June 2008 article by KV Tarwadi, et al. in Clinical Nutrition stated that dietary deficiency of vitamin C, folic acid (as in foliage), and other antioxidants could explain 59.7% of the differences between the patient group and the control group (no cataracts). Intake of fried food and animal food was higher in those with cataracts, while fruit and veggie consumption was lower than in people without cataracts. Food for thought.
2. Glaucoma-In a study by A.L. Coleman, et al., in the American Journal of Opthalmology from June 2008, at least one serving of collards or kale a month could reduce the risk of glaucoma by 64%. More than 2 servings of carrots a week or some canned or dried peaches once a week also reduced risk considerably.
3. Macular degeneration- In people with the highest level of consumption of lutein and xeoxanthin (from leafy greens), risk of AMD was 35% of the risk in people who ate less greens. Zinc was also protective. This in a study by J.S. Tan, et al. in Opthalmology, February 2008.
So add some greens to soups and stews, or as an underlayer (steamed first) on pizza. You don't have to eat them bare unless you like them like that. As your mother told you to do, eat your greens!

Friday, November 28, 2008

Tomatoes Today!

Before my parents headed home, we had a breakfast of buckwheat-orange waffles (yes, the buckwheat flour was from Delta Grind) with real maple syrup and omelets with mushrooms and broccoli and salsa. And sliced tomatoes! They were good! I guess I obsess over tomatoes, but many a True Southern Girl would understand why.
I had a great day afterward- feeding cells at work, doing a bit of grocery shopping (the store was almost deserted), fixing lunch (leftovers), redistributing some mums and irises, sewing, and sharing a cocoa with Husband at the local cafe. Nice. Then some online Christmas shopping, this, dinner, more sewing, and bed. That's a great day off. 
I like the work of being at home. So does Husband. We're descended from long lines of farmers who tended to like living on the frontier (his) or building communities (mine), so that makes sense. You can provide for those you love both in a material sense and in the sense of actually being physically present. A paycheck is fine, but if you are never home to enjoy the fruits of your labor, what is the point? People want your time and effort and affection, not just the cash. I have more work to do. Must go.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Spot Likes Turkey, and I Do, Too

Lunch today was a big success. We ate the menu mentioned before. I put the 13-lb (minus the ice in the cavity) bird in the oven after completing the thaw (it was supposed to be fresh, according to the package) at about 4 AM. It was done by 10. I use a probe thermometer to make sure the meat gets up to 180 degrees F. We don't roast ours; it is oven braised, half-submerged in chicken broth and the liquid that cooks off the turkey. Soup material after the broth is strained. We don't carve our turkey; it falls off the bone. Mom and Dad came in just as I was removing the dressing and the sweet potato casserole from the 2 ovens. Brussels sprouts went in, veggies went on the stove, and we ate a little after 1 PM. I gave Spot a leg with some meat adhering to one end, and she was licking her lips over it when I went back inside. She did not run away when Mom and Dad were outside! She's a tame kitty after all, though she would not let Dad pet her.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Being Grateful


We have a lot to thank God for this year. I'm on my way to (hopefully) getting a grant at work to pay for my salary. Husband has a really nice corner office with lots of windows, where he can work in comfort. No dress code, and lunch is whenever and however long he wants. The garden was great this year, and the plans for next year are looking good. Experimenting in your own backyard is fun. We had a beautiful day today, and Husband opened the windows to freshen the house. So things are fresh and nice. And the last tomatoes are looking good! Thanks be to God! Now I must go cook and sew and clean. Have a joyful Thanksgiving.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Family's Coming!

My parents are coming to see us for Thanksgiving! First time in our house here. It will definitely take some time to get ready. I'll have to wash some of the "nice" dishes, cook, clean, etc.
Here's the menu:
Jerk Turkey (Turkey with a marinade/rub of Jamaican spice so you don't miss the salt)
green beans
corn 
sweet potato casserole (the one with the brown sugar-pecan topping- NO MARSHMALLOWS!!)
roasted Brussels sprouts with mushrooms and caramelized onions
whole wheat-brown rice dressing with apples and cashews (husband is allergic to sage, and likes cashews)
cranberry sauce
peach-blackberry crisp (from farmer's market products frozen over the summer) with home-made vanilla ice cream.
Yummy. And made with lots of fruits and vegetables. We'll have gravy for the meat, too. I like cooking like this once in a while. It will be fun.


Monday, November 24, 2008

Pleasure Reading While Sewing

Back in the old days, a well-spoken reader would be chosen to read from the newspaper or a book while family members sewed or did other quiet handiwork-tasks in the evening. I have nobody here but Husband watching Monday Night Football, so how do I get my reading fix when I need to sew? My computer has a speech service that will "read" what it recognizes as text. None of those old-book scanned PDFs work, but other articles and blogposts do. So I can make Christmas presents while Gene Logsdon tells me some things about starting a fire in a woodstove we could have used growing up, or the value of a wooded lot. I can hear poetry or preaching or gardening tips. Pretty fun! 

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Digging In


I've started putting the garden to rest. The main bed before cleaning is shown above. Warning: after Malabar spinach freezes, it exudes purple juice all over things and turns rather mushy. The juice comes off pretty easily if you wash the fence (and your hands) fast. I spread my compost today, and buried the main bed under a thick layer of leaves. The other beds will wait until later in the week. I found a LOT of green tomatoes out there, and dug them in with the compost in the main bed today. I wound up not digging in the vines- I would need a chipper to chop them up finely first. They filled both my composting containers, but they are out of the way for now. Here they are before stuffing into the cans. No "after" shots yet- it got dark.

Friday, November 21, 2008

God's Megaphone

These are some plums picked from a tree in the community back in the spring. They were good, and a pleasant reward for a few minutes of picking. They were spoiling otherwise.
I read C.S. Lewis's works a long time ago, including The Problem of Pain. I remember what he said about pain being God's megaphone to a deaf world. He's given me bursitis in one hip that gets irritated if I sit for very long, especially on hard surfaces like chairs or floors. So I have to get up and move. He's given me a joint condition that raises the probability of developing severe osteoarthritis in the next 10-15 years, so I always thought I would have to sit a lot more as time went by. Curiously enough, it hurts to be idle. I can walk for miles, but sitting for more than an hour, even on a padded surface, can really hurt. Providence is strange sometimes, but God is faithful. He evidently wants me to stay busy.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Time to Put it to Sleep

No, I'm not talking about the cats. The temperatures were in the 20s last night, and a north wind was blowing all day. I got out my long down coat, because the wind seems to accelerate through the canyons formed by the buildings where I work. That icy wind seems to blow in your face no matter which way you are walking. You feel it in your bones. I'm making soup and cornbread tonight.
 The garden is dead now, though some green leaves persist. I'll dig everything in on Saturday, photo the process, cover it all with a thick blanket of leaves, and sew and plan until spring. I have plenty to post from the past year here, plus quotes from old gardening books, and I like the discipline of posting even if nobody reads it, so I'll keep writing. 

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Who is Responsible?


Have you felt disturbed lately by the news of financial, environmental, and other crises? Everything seems to be a crisis of epic proportions. As my husband often says, the journalists seem to be rather "geeked out" lately, turning every new revelation into a Happening that will Change our Country Forever. We've never seen this before, but our great-grandparents would probably just smile, nod, and hand us a hoe and some seeds and canning jars. They and their politicians probably didn't mess up with quite so many zeroes, but it has happened before. As Solomon said, there is nothing new under the sun.
Today in a seminar about blood pressure I thought,"Who is really responsible for my health? Is the doctor? Is the mechanic responsible for keeping my car in good shape? The plumber and roofers for my house?" They all share in the responsibility, and are liable for any shoddy work they may do, but I only call them in for things I cannot repair myself. I am ultimately responsible for all the above- no mechanic stands by my car every morning to make sure I start it correctly or to remind me to get the oil changed. The doctor does not control what I eat or drink. The plumber does not come unless called. It is up to me, as far as God grants ability, to take care of the things under my control, and recognize when I need help. The doctors in these seminars sometimes act as if patients ought to be like rats, and should passively take drugs in ever-increasing amounts until the "clinical outcome" (which is all too often the adjustment of a number, and not necessarily restoration of true health) is reached. Thank God people are not rats! Let's get busy and help fix the things we can. Speaking of which... gotta go.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Home as a Fortress


Sometimes living in a brick house with iron doors and bars on the windows, this house feels like  a physical fortress, but that is not quite what I mean. A neighbor who tended my garden during a summer trip said it felt like a quiet little refuge from the world. That's what our temporary "homes" here should be- a place to get away from the cacophony and noise of modern life if we choose to do so. A place to work hard, sleep deeply, and love well. To open a gate from the bustle of the city into another world of coolness and green and silence, except for the mosquitoes and birds and cats. 
Advertisers like to call the traditional wife the "gatekeeper" of the home, and try to find ways to get bad stuff past her, by disguising it or convincing her it really isn't that bad, and besides it saves time and effort. Time and effort are exactly what we need to spend at home. It takes time to man the gates, and effort to see through the disguises of the polluters and thieves, whether they come through the door, the television, or the computer. And "gatekeeping", when guarding that gate is your most important job, is an honor. In a positive sense it means opening that gate when a ragged fugitive flees the battering of a terribly evil world, and comforting him or her with soup  and silence while slamming that gate in the very face of the abuser. It means creating a sunny pool of warm joy in a gray and wintry landscape. It is hard, but it is worth every effort you can make.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Coming Home

Early, when possible, is highly recommended on a sky-blue, breezy, crisp-leaf day. We had a magnificent walk this afternoon, and a pork chop casserole is in the oven now (with onions and potatoes, to be accompanied by veggies presently). City life has its disadvantages, from the bars on the windows to the sirens wailing woe to the loud airplane conventions at night, but those fall walks on sidewalks instead of in leaf-mucky ditches sure are nice. You can shuffle through the leaves proudly, and we do.
And I picked three green tomatoes, a small handful of green beans, and four lima beans today. After mid-November. All-season gardening here is looking more and more plausible. Wish I had more land...

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Back to Business

Spent a few pleasant days with Husband and his family, to celebrate his Dad's 80th birthday. Lots of traditional Thanksgiving food and sweets were had by all. 
We're going to be doing Veggie Penance for a while. What's veggie penance?
Veggie penance simply makes up for the lack of balance in our diet during those over-indulgent holiday feasts. But I still try to keep it tasting good, so it really isn't penance in the truest sense. Anytime we go out to eat with friends or to someone's house and have an overly indulgent, salty, or meaty meal, we eat a bit MORE carefully than usual afterward for the next few days, to get back on track.
I saw some ornamental kale growing outside the hotel window before we started back this morning. One more day and I would have been out there sampling it! It looked really good! Anyway, the rice is ready. See you later!

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Homemade Christmas Starts Early

When my brother's children were born, I promised myself I would do my best not to buy them anything made in China (Chinese kids should play with Chinese toys, unless there's something the kids here can learn about China from the toy), anything requiring batteries, or anything that makes annoying noises. The last two tend to go together. So I'm making Christmas presents for them. They're from www.buggabugs.etsy.com. Serious cuteness combined with a rare chance to work on my small-scale sewing skills. And she delivers the patterns to your e-mail box! That's service. My rough fingers snag the felt a little, but if I keep them moisturized, it's O.K. I'll take pics if they're picture-worthy when I'm done. My side of the family seems to be doing Homemade Christmas all around. When times get tight, the prepared woman gets out the fabric stash (or in my case buys some cheap felt) and gets sewing!
I'll be away from the computer for the next few days. I'll be back online Monday. 

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Old-Time Gardening Resource On The Cheap

Have you ever wondered if pre-WWII farming and gardening were really the idyllic organic paradise that modern nostalgia paints? 100 years ago market gardeners AND backyard vegetable growers were using lead arsenates as pesticides. Lead and arsenic! I kid you not! Here's a quote from Ida Bennett, The Vegetable Garden, 1909:
"If a cabbage is clean and bright, the outer leaves clean and fresh, what more could one ask? Well, to the initiated there sometimes does arise a question as to how all this immaculate crispness and freedom from the trail of the worm was attained. After even a few years' experience in the growing of cabbages and allied plants, one comes to know that their growing on any large scale, especially on old land, is not the simple or always the cleanly thing it seems."
They worried about overly-perfect-looking produce just like modern moms do, and for similar reasons. They knew lead and arsenic were poisons.
How did I learn this? Go to Google Books. Google "vegetable gardening" or your topic of choice, full view. You'll find public domain books, scanned for your convenience into PDF files. They tell how it was really done in the old days. And you can find valuable hints about how to revive skills you are too young to remember.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

An Alien From a Small Planet Far, Far Away


That's how I feel sometimes. My co-workers talk about wives who love to shop, wear jewelry, go to Cancun with girlfriends for a prolonged salon session, etc. I like to garden and cook. I have (and wear) 20-year-old clothing. I don't wear makeup, and a wedding band is my only jewelry worn regularly. I have working hands complete with big knuckles and rough fingers that snag silk. Digging and harvesting and shelling beans (above) does that. Decorating those work-roughened hands would contradict their purpose. I find my friends among other women like myself. Few and far between. The quiet band who roll up their (well-worn) sleeves and get the job done. It's fun to walk by a neighborhood yard and see a kindred spirit, putting in just a few MORE bulbs, or picking the last tomatoes in the twilight. God bless the workers out there tonight.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Fork in the Road


As Yogi Berra said, when you come to one, take it.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Home Cooking

I cook a lot. Husband prepares oatmeal on weekdays (kindly) for breakfast, but except for a few week-end meals, I cook everything else. Today we came home from church to some Farmer's market (frozen and thawed) pork chops sauteed and braised with onions and apples, green beans (from the backyard), fresh-sliced tomatoes (ditto), and corn (from freezer, from grocery store). The pork chops were fabulous, and I credit that to the guy selling them from a freezer in the back of his truck. He seemed really proud of them. I buy frozen veggies in the winter, because they are frozen at the height of freshness, so nutrients are preserved. Many times they're better than the veggies you buy "fresh" which have been slowly decaying on a water-sprinkled shelf for a few weeks.
Tonight we had spinach-mushroom-black bean enchiladas (how to make THAT low sodium? Cook your own beans. Use Frog Ranch salsa (low sodium and really GOOD). Use low-sodium cheeses and wraps. It works. We also had tomato-basil soup with corn (yes, my tomatoes and basil). Good stuff. No pics tonight- I do not have good luck uploading on Sunday nights.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Overton Park

Today we hiked in Overton Park. It was beautiful, despite the cold wind from the West. Leaves were falling, the sky was a brilliant blue, and we were NOT eaten, or even nibbled! We split a hot dog at the golf-course clubhouse, walked around the Old Forest Trail (200 year old trees) and the pond, and came home. Here's the walk.
Here are the trees. Beautiful!

Friday, November 7, 2008

Roses Like Cool Weather


We bought some double knockout rose bushes in the spring. "Double knockout" is not some kind of genetic manipulation (a double knockout mouse has both copies of a gene eliminated to see what the lack of the gene will do). "Double" refers to the number of petals. I wondered what was knocked out, but the "knockout" part is just a name as well. They're fungus resistant (important in this climate) and grew A LOT more than the nursery guy said they would. They were maybe 18 inches tall when we got them. Now each bush has a diameter and height of about 4 feet. They're loaded with blooms and beautiful. You can see that our mums are prospering, too. We are truly blessed.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

The Leaves Are Falling


What if they all fell at once instead of gradually? That would be interesting (some parts of the country would have to close schools and get out the snowplows for leaves), but things would get bare and gray fast. We don't get much snow here, and what we get melts fast, so winter tends to be gray and brown and wet, and surprisingly windier here than in Nashville. I guess that's why we like to light up our houses so much at Christmas. Winter is still fun- dreaming of enough snow to stay home, warm and snug under a down comforter with a good book and some hot chocolate, then going out in the tingly cold to crunch your way through a world whose defects are temporarily hidden under a merciful white blanket. Mmm...
Did you know Lima beans could imitate kudzu? Look at this. My garden is still a jungle.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Indoor Gardening-Mint


I'm going to do a little indoor gardening for the winter. I took some mint to an Indian friend at work last week to use in a chutney. Unfortunately, it was not the RIGHT mint. Their cuisine is so much more complicated than ours! She bought some better mint, and told me to take some home and plant it in pots for the winter. I looked online, and there was a suggestion to put the sprigs in water to grow roots, them carefully plant them in soil. I stripped the lower leaves from the sprigs and put them in water. The roots are growing well. Evidently mint is the kind of thing you plant around here by throwing it down and running, so it sounds like the kind of plant I can overwinter successfully :).

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Gardening-and Eating in the Dark

Night comes earlier than it did just last week. And the beans keep right on producing. It is an amazing and instructive phenomenon- can I be productive even when I've been nipped a few times, or even damaged? 
I tend to get home now around sunset, even if I leave work a bit early. The air is cooling; the cats are crunching their evening meal and getting the wild-eyed hunter/ huntress look of a cat at dusk. I wish I had cat-eyes, to see what I want to harvest. What I miss can dry on the plant until tomorrow. For now, it is time to fix dinner.
How do we eat? We eat a low-sodium version of the DASH diet (from a study done in 1999 called Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension). Husband's BP is 20 points lower eating like this, with no drugs. Put simply, eat as many colorful vegetables and fruits as you can, with whole grains, beans, nuts, seeds, lean meats, and dairy to round out your carb/protein needs. Those may vary by individual, but the advice to eat a rainbow of color and flavor every day, mostly vegetables and fruit, is sound. In winter I tend to go for more soups and stews, in summer the salads and stir fries. Viva veggies!

Here is a sample meal: Mrs. Dash mesquite grill braised chicken, microwaved broccoli, sliced tomatoes, roasted beets, red potatoes, and sweet potatoes, and a butternut squash-brown rice risotto. Kind of starchy, but it is winter and we need the energy. It works for us. And we do eat from the salad-sized plates.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Wanna Make Some Biodiesel?

Science, October 24, 2008 issue, has an article about synthetic chemists re-engineering E. coli, algae, and other microbes to produce biofuels. Good work, but did they try looking for organisms capable of doing it without all the engineering? I have composted in a totally wrong manner this year- enclosed plastic container (loose lid, but fastened down), not paying attention to brown/green ratios, etc. Somehow an unbelievable amount of yard and kitchen waste has turned into a large trash can almost full of blackish-green goo. I did seed it with dirt from a part of the yard where a watermelon rind rotted away to nothing in about 2 weeks last summer, but aside from a little mixing and a lot of dumping stuff in it, that was all the care required. At one point this summer the can was alive with beetle larvae (I looked them up- they are harmless), but they are gone now that cooler weather is here. Stuff still rots FAST when I mix it in. It turns black within a few days, then slowly loses its form. I'm not saying any biofuel has actually been generated back there (I rather hope I'm just making some decent fertilizer), but SOMETHING in that soil is capable of breaking things down fast. Kinda creepy, but in a good way.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

A Beautiful Day To Get Eaten Alive


Today we went for a hike in Shelby-Meeman state park after a picnic lunch, after church. Memphis has a LOT of swampland, which makes for interesting scenery in dry weather, but also hordes of mosquitoes! I tied my kerchief over my ears to keep the little buzzers from getting too friendly. Husband did not bring a hat, and he has a buzz cut hairstyle, so he got bit frequently. We had to keep moving, and could not enjoy the scenery as much as I would have liked. The woods were still pretty green for November, despite the frosts last week. We like to hike at this time of year, to commemorate our engagement 8 years ago. 8 years? It seems like yesterday he proposed by putting my ring in a box at the bottom of my sack lunch, at Buzzard's Roost at Fall Creek Falls. I thought it was a box of raisins. I was very happy to find a ring instead. Fall Creek Falls does not have nearly as many mosquitoes, but it would take us all day to drive there now. So we make do with what we have. It is enough.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Secrets of Perfect Happiness

O.K. Nothing is perfect in this life, but some days come close. This morning was one of those times. Slept late, snuggly warm, ate breakfast at the cafe, walked to the store for chips for a hike tomorrow, came home in the warm sunshine, and took a 3-hour nap (I actually have a cold that is sapping my energy) in the sunny south-facing living room.  
These are my secrets of Happiness:
1. Love God. Read the Bible and do what it says. Not the overly- literal old-testament law stuff the media ridicules and misunderstands intentionally, but the real stuff- love God, love your neighbor. That will keep you busy.
2.  Choose your spouse wisely, and Prepare to Serve. My husband is my best friend, which is good when you move from one place to another. We love and serve each other, which helps when times are hard. Think warm, positive thoughts of said spouse intentionally. Make your winter blankets just a little thin, and the room cool, to encourage togetherness.
3. Keep each other well fed. I am happy when my blood sugar is even, crabby when I have to go long without eating. My husband knows when I need a snack, and he likes to make sure I get enough food. Though he loves a verdant green lawn, he let me dig up the back yard to grow a bit of our own food. He knows what I like, and what I need.
4. Be satisfied with simple things. I like being warm (the down, stadium-length coat was a BIG HIT a few Christmases ago), and I like a good supply of very hot water for bathing. Give me food, shelter, warm clothes, a comfortable bed (a little on the hard side), and a hot shower, and I'm happy. A good library helps, too.