What We Need Is Here

Oxalis:Another Wild Edible Right Outside the Door

I've always liked these little plants. Big ones, with purple flowers are growing by the front door; tiny ones with yellow flowers all over the garden. They pop up in early spring around St. Patrick's Day - like little shamrocks.

Now I know you can eat them!  They are also called Wood Sorrel and taste very lemony - like the French Sorrel growing in the garden. Funny how often I have thrown the pesky things in the compost (their little roots are hard to get at sometimes) while praising and watering the domesticated sorrel.  No more. They are delicious and beautiful - and plentiful in early spring. And they help make a very pretty salad.

 

Body Clutter

I kind of hate to write this; there is so much thinking and talking about weight and weight loss and diet, etc., - especially among women of a certain age (mine). But when I was writing about the cost of clutter and its relationship to the low price of cheap mass-produced “stuff,” I couldn’t help thinking about a book I recently read about food.  In The Defense of Food, Michael Pollan suggests that eating with health in mind (not necessarily weight loss and buff bodies) is quite simple: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. His book talks about how nutrition science and big food corporations have led us astray by encouraging people to eat too much cheap, processed food.  He says we should be spending more, consuming less.  The connection is obvious.  We’ve got too much stuff – everywhere.

I thought I had avoided weight loss obsession in my adult life.  Busy with four kids, and concerned about feeding them well, I stayed around my high school weight range, give or take ten pounds.   But over the last few years, the weight crept on.  Ben’s cancer treatment, which at one point caused him to lose 30 pounds, magically transferred that bulk to me.  Treatments done, Ben looks pretty much back to normal.  I am not. Or at least I don't think so. 

I suffered from anorexia as a teen – a food obsession that seems to be passed down through the women of my family. And my fear of passing that on to my daughters or other young women in my life has made me a poor dieter as an adult.  I wanted it to stop with me.  But my revulsion toward dieting hasn’t protected me from feeling guilty about my health as my weight has crept up.  I am out of the healthy weight range, and I would like to get back in. Michael Pollen’s advice really resonates with me as a way back to health by acting healthy – both physically, mentally, and in the world at large.  So.  Starting today I am going to follow his advice and see what happens:

·         Eat fewer processed foods: esp. white flour, white sugar, and corn syrup.

·         Eat three meals a day, no snacks.

·         Eat mostly plants (local of course). 

·         And to keep myself from sliding down the slippery slope of obsession, I will eat a bagel on Sunday and dessert once/week if I want it.

And I will strive not to obsess about the number on the scale, only checking it in a, ahem, detached and curious way.  Maybe the weight that I am now is exactly what I am supposed to be as I approach fifty.  Maybe the extra fluff makes me more cuddly to grandchildren.  Or, being a seventh-generation Floridian, perhaps I have developed a beneficial genetic mutation – a built-in flotation device around my middle parts. Maybe I will stay exactly the same, regardless of what I eat.

Maybe not.  Either way, I believe I’ll feel better about the weight I am if I feel like it’s the result of eating well with health in mind, mine and the food system's.

Clutter: The Local Connection

My house was built in 1964; it was a “Parade Home” back then (homes shown by the builder to entice new buyers), so had some extras. It has a two-car garage and seven closets (four bedrooms). The upstairs closets are roomy, one is a walk-in. Then there's a linen closet, a coat closet and an under-the-stairs closet (we use it for toys). 

Growing up, my grandmother’s house, which was built in the 30s and had two bedrooms, had two closets. Those closets were about 1/3 the size of our bedroom closets and would hold about 10 items of clothing each.

The Gainesville Catholic Worker House was built at the turn of the 20^th century. It was once quite “upscale;” It has zero closets. 

I know of new homes now that boast three-car garages and two walk-in closets in the master bedroom.  I confess; I could probably fill those extra storage spaces in a heartbeat.

But with what? If I live “locally,” and buy necessities from locally-owned stores, how much “stuff” will I accumulate? After my first child was born, we moved to the small North Florida town where my parents had grown-up. They had moved away after high-school, never to return except for visits to grandparents.  I was delighted to be able to shop at “Bruce’s”, the store owned by the parents of my mother’s best friend in high school, and at “The Lovely Shop” where she bought her homecoming gown. I bought my daughter’s first shoes at “The Children’s Shop” where my grandmother bought my first shoes. There was always a salesperson handy to find what you needed and they would alter it if needed too, for free. When a friend pointed out that I could have bought three shirts for the same price at the new K-Mart that had just been built on some old farmland, I remember thinking that I actually only needed the one shirt.

What is the difference in frugality and being cheap? I think it’s the difference between cost and price.  The price of the sweatshop-produced shirt bought cheap and sold by people barely making minimum wage at a big-box store (that was just beginning to take business from the family-owned stores downtown) was low. The actual cost – in human suffering, quality, community cohesiveness, and care - was very high. Within a year of my moving to Lake City, a huge mall was built near the interstate, K-Mart was joined by Wal-Mart, and the downtown shops began to close for good (to be replaced twenty years later with country-style shops and antique stores – a kitschy ode to what was lost).

Frugality is a virtue. Buying what is needed and rewarding good workmanship with your hard-earned dollar is good. Not taking more than you need, “living simply so others may simply live”, is right. But like so many other virtues, “frugality” has been used and warped by advertising that tells us if we’re smart we’ll buy three for the price of one, the conventionally–produced tomato from Holland over the locally raised one that costs pennies more, the plastic toys at a fraction of the price of the handmade ones. We’ll get more for our dollar, if we buy where they tell us to. We’d be stupid to throw away our hard-earned money on less. Meaning fewer. Because what we really, really want is More. Because we don’t have enough as things are, we aren’t enough without more. So buy it, buy it now. And buy more tomorrow. 

And be sure and build more closets. Because how many toys can a child play with anyway? And how many shirts are going to be worn or in the wash at the same time? And how many bright things that catch our eye on a down day shopping will we really put to good use? And how many things have we bought to make us happy or beautiful that didn’t quite do the job? They’re cramming closets everywhere. 

I know they’re cramming mine. And if all goes well, we will be moving into the no-closet house before long. Oh my.   

Smilax:Wild Edibles Right Outside My Back Door

The Resilient Smilax Waving Triumphantly

Literally.  There are two large and annoyingly recurring vines on either side of our back door that I continually hack down. Their huge thorns and proximity to the azalea bush roots make it impossible for me to uproot them once and for all.

The Down Side

I always remember their scientific name because when they were first identified for me years ago on a nature walk, the botanist said that anyone would smile at the chance to use an ax on them.  But she neglected to say that their tender shoots taste like asparagus - and that another name for them is sasparilla. Theirs is the famed root of root beer!

   

The Edible, Tender Shoot

I doubt if I'll ever get at the root of these particular vines, but I will add their shoots to salad tonight and hopefully several times again as I continue to hack back (prune?) this vine of paradox. 

I learned about the smilax' edibility at a class I attended last night given my Susan Marynowski, a local herbalist.  In addition to smilax/sasparilla, I confirmed that we have a number of other wild edibles already growing in the yard - the aforementioned betany and spanish needles as well as oxalis (wood sorrel).  I plan to serve these up soon as well and will let you know what I learn.

What a wonderful thing to know. I am so grateful to Susan for sharing her knowledge with us and very happy that it has been years since I've used herbicides or pesticides in our yard (thus all these wild edibles, formerly known as weeds).  If you're nearby, you can check out classes like these here.  The handout listing local edibles and medicinals is available here.  But Susan gave us much more information than is contained on the handout and warned that some of the plants listed have toxic qualities as well. Good to take the class.

As the weeks go by, I'll highlight each of these plants as they become ready to harvest in my yard. Next up: Wood Sorrel (oxalis).      

Preparing for Hard Times

Jonah House Catholic Worker Food Storage

Lately, every time I unfold the morning newspaper I’m struck by how bleak things are looking. A year ago I had never heard of “Peak Oil,” buying local seemed like a good idea but not a necessity, and our house was worth thousands more than it is now.  There were those that warned that oil prices could top $100/barrel, but not that it would just keep going.  Concerned voices like those of Wendell Berry and Vandana Shiva had prophesied widespread hunger if the WTO and World Bank continued to strong-arm impoverished countries into abandoning growing food for themselves in favor of growing for the world market; but not that the price of grain would sky rocket this year (the price of rice nearly doubled during the first three months of 2008) causing the worst food crisis in over 30 years.  Was anyone predicting grain rationing here in the U.S.? Or the scope of the mortgage crisis?

Besides wonder and fear, one response among those of us not yet terribly affected is to start thinking about what the world might look like in a few years if we keep going in this direction – and to start planning for it.  Sharon Astyk, of the widely-read Casaubon’s Book is sharing her knowledge of food storage in hopes of helping others be prepared for what seems likely to be continued rising prices and possible scarcity.  In my initial de-cluttering phase a week ago, I came across Chile Chews’ decluttering dilemma – how to figure out what should stay and what should go in light of a future of scarcity. Shouldn’t we be keeping extras of things?  Is now the best time to be selling that hand-mixer clogging the kitchen drawer?  Or getting rid of the extra scrap wood in garage or the outdated coat? 

On a larger scale, the soaring price of food commodities is apparently encouraging some investors to prepare for the future by speculating on commodity futures in a way that is actually tying up food and causing the price to rise higher. For the life of me, I cannot figure out how this works.  Greenpa rants about it eloquently here and has a lot of interesting links to recent articles on the food crisis. As lame as my mind is when it comes to understanding commodities and investments, I do understand this:  Cargill, a major agribusiness firm, reported unprecedented profits earlier this month. How can suppliers and producers be profiting outrageously when people (some as close as a two hour plane trip away from me) are starving?  Even I can put two and two together. It's runaway self-interest, and it's wrong.  

Back to the smaller scale, all this started me thinking about the complications involved in preparing for a bleaker future.  A lot of it depends on what we believe about human beings, and about being human.  When I think about going full steam ahead and canning as many spring vegetables as I can, dessicating buckets of rice, storing water under my bed,  and making sure we have enough chickens to actually feed our family should we actually be entering into an economic depression, I’m faced with a dilemma.  What about the family next door?  What if D and K do not do the same, and their little girls are hungry?  Wouldn’t we quickly deplete our stores by sharing with them?  Would we NOT share with them? Would they build a taller fence to protect their chickens and their fruit trees? I like to think that in hard times, we would pool our resources. D is handy and could build a larger coop and we could let our chickens multiply together; I have a sunny yard for vegetables, they have fruit trees, L and B across the street have a sunny roof, solar power, and a hybrid car, H down the street hunts and fishes…  Could we help each other? Would we? 

If cooperation and sharing is the answer, than building those relationships now is an important component of real security - along with obtaining and sharing needed skills with each other. Learning to preserve food, to grow food for actual sustenance (not primarily for taste and beauty as I do) are part of it - and so is learning how to put our heads together now to solve common problems in preparation for those times when the problems may be a lot bigger.

Is this a naive view of a future in the throes of scarcity?  From a "Christian" bent (I bend that way), folks are supposed to share, trust each other, treat our neighbors like brothers and sisters, and "worry not for the morrow"...  But "Christians" seem to be some of the worst at actually following through on this (my husband's take on this is here).  We're only human we'll say.   

Which points to the biggest question: What does it mean to be fully human? Are we "all in this together? Or is it "every [hu]man for her/himself? The question of "what will become of us" during hard times is deeper than "how will we eat."  Is it possible to follow Gandhi's instruction to be the change you wish to see in the world during hard times? What do you think?

Our Beautiful Backyard - Communally Speaking

I went on another long walk.  I want to take advantage of this weather - and the freedom to walk in the middle of the day - as many times as I can before it gets hot and buggy.  Within less than a mile of my house is a large park where I have brought my children to play since they were little. It’s wooded, but also has a very nice playground, and areas for skate boarding, baseball, and tennis. There's a path around it all for jogging/walking.  It’s an oasis in the middle of a busy area of town.

A short distance from the park is “Loblolly Woods.”  It’s a wetland area, regularly flooded in places during the rainy season, so never “developed.” Paths were carved into the woods by mountain bikers, and many children (mine included) used the area for “adventures.” Several years ago, a group in the city proposed a paved trail - the “Hogtown Greenway” which would allow more people to enjoy it and prevent further damaging erosion; it would have connected to other greenways throughout the city and provided a beautiful, safe alternative for bike commuting as well.  Another group, homeowners whose property backed up to the area, organized quickly and shot the plan down.  Unfortunately, much of their argument was built on misinformation. While they called themselves an environmental group and claimed that the plan for a greenway was akin to “paving paradise,” their real worry was that more people would be enjoying the woods that they thought of as their own.  It was a shame.  Fortunately, an alternate plan of dirt trails and boardwalks was put into place. Although it’s not accessible to wheelchairs or older people without sure-footing, and it isn't well-connected as a greenway system, it is much more accessible to hikers.  I’m glad for the persistence of the folks in town who want to truly preserve and protect natural spaces like these – and make them available to the community. Being able to safely enjoy wild spaces like these can only make folks appreciate and want to protect more of them while we have them. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.

It was about a six-mile walk - around the park twice, then through both the north and south sides of the woods (divided by 8th Avenue - a major road).  I enjoyed it so much I wondered why I don’t do it more often.  I think looking through a camera lens provides the minimal distance and perspective needed to see things with a “new eye.”  I was reminded of Joe's friend, Mathilde, a French college student who visited us during Christmas and exclaimed, "You live in a forest!"  It’s true.  But it doesn’t stay that way on its own. Again, we owe a lot ot gratitude to the folks in town who had the foresight – and love of this place – to protect it. They do the hard work of getting laws passed to protect trees (damn tree huggers) and of getting hard cash allocated to preserve urban parks like these.  It doesn’t happen on its own.

 

Spring is Bursting Out - Again!

Oh my, it is just beatiful here.  For the past few weeks, you would be hard-pressed, without a calendar, to guess what season it is.  We keep cycling through them randomly: winter, summer, spring, summer, winter, and now back to early spring. Today I went for a long walk and was in awe of the beauty of the bright green leaves bursting out against a perfectly blue, almost dark blue, sky.  If the sight had an accompanying heart-thunking noise, it would be better than fireworks.

 

The Farmers' Almanac, the National Weather Bureau, and history all agree that this will not last, which makes me love it even more. I want to soak it in.  The vegetables have benefited from the heat and rain and are growing quickly.  Our corn looks like I've heard midwestern corn should look in the summer, "knee high (by the Fourth of July)". The only thing knee high here on July 4 are the weeds that sprouted July 3. 

I'm going back outside now.

Closets - and What Lies Within

There's a lot of talk about "de-cluttering," a natural consequence of living in a consumer society I suppose. I have been inspired by numerous blogs for their motivation and practical guidelines.  Chile Chews' most recent post was a spoof, but she's got tons of helpful hits for making space in your life for... life.  Unclutterer and Fly Lady are quite famous for this in the blog world, and there's Zen Habits  and Project Simplify...  Google "clutter" and you will see.

I am a believer, and I have over the past few years regularly swept through closets and corners and have dutifully hauled off old, unused, and broken things - especially those with bad juju attached.  So why do I still have so much stuff??

I think it has something to do with the juju.  Several closet metaphors spring to mind.  For instance the "skeletons" therein, things I would rather keep "closeted" out of shame or guilt or grief.  Some are not inherently bad, but are still skeletons of the lost past: old college papers (I miss school) and old worksheets and artwork and photos from my children (three are gone; one is going). Then there are stacks of old patterns and piles of fabric that I planned to use someday to sew a dress for another little girl or make a quilt of pieces of ones from the past.  And an unused box of watercolors and lots of baby blankets.  Making decisions about what needs to go, even just facing them sometimes, is sad. At mid-life I am being reminded that there are some things I am never going to do. Touching the remnants of some of these stings. Some just make me miss the old, younger me.

And then there are the other skeletons. I am sure to find debris from my ex-husband scattered in the closets we shared for seven of the fifteen years they've been in my possession.  And there is a huge, black file cabinet filled to the point of the drawers sticking with the massive paperwork that accompanied Ben's cancer journey.  Blood counts, and bills, and x-rays, and print-outs of studies... I want it to just GO AWAY. You get the picture.

I am about as zen about closets as I am about life. Pema Chodron constantly reminds me to not avoid the pain of life, to sit with it, to accept it. (I listen over and over to her Awakening Compassion: Meditation Practices for Difficult Times because Alice Walker recommended it for people who tend to get mired in grief). But I am not good at this at all. I would rather close it behind a door and pretend it never happened (first marriage, divorce, cancer) ...or is still happening (sewing little dresses, wearing little dresses (!), writing papers, dreaming of a future that included quilting up good memories).  I have a feeling I will be working on this for the rest of my life, so engrained is that tendency to not accept the, ummm... "unacceptable."

But I have more than blogs for inspiration.  My family. My last grandparent died a little over a year ago (for a few months I was smack in the middle of five living generations).  During the dozen or so years that my grandparents were dying, my parents and other relatives were distracted from the dying and grieving process by the enormous amount of "stuff" to sort through.  One set of grandparents had several sheds on their property. When one filled up with stuff, my handy grandfather simply built another.  There were treasures in those sheds that we delighted in. But there were also things decayed beyond recognition or so damaged by rust and/or dry rot to have been rendered unsalvageable.  So much of it could have been used by someone else long ago if they had passed it on instead of saving it - and leaving it to their children to drive unceremoniously to the dump.

Which brings me to a lesson from another family member.  I visited my oldest son, Joe, at college last week. He was giving a talk based on a grant he had worked on about integration of this old southern school. Yes, I am proud of him.  But I was prouder of this:  I needed scissors to cut a piece of yarn off the socks I had just finished for him, but he handed me a knife instead.  The very beautiful, very expensive knife his "French father" from his exchange family in Toulouse had given him.  I had forgotten it and marveled at its beauty. Joe's name was engraved on it.  It reminded me of the goodness of that time and the generosity of this family so far away but so much like our own.  When I commented on it, Joe told me he hoped to give it away this summer and would have last summer except his friend wasn't home when he stopped by with it.  Luis lives in Guatemala and lives near the school Joe has taught at during the last couple summers.  Luis lost both of his legs when he fell from a train he was hitching a ride on when he was slaving as a migrant worker in the US.  He is home now, in a wheelchair, married with a little girl. He teaches basketball (and wisdom and fortitude) at the institute.  He would love that knife. When Joe told me this, I was a little sad at the thought of his giving away such a lovely gift.  (If I owned it, I would put it in a box and keep it on a closet shelf!).  But Joe simply said it was a gift that had brought him joy, that he didn't really need it, and it would give him pleasure to pass it on.  I think I will write that on my hand while I tackle all my stuff:  WWJD:  What would Joe do? 

Is Spring Already Over?

Tickseed - the Florida State Wildflower

You would be tempted to think so, with temperatures reaching the mid-80s lately.  But if you did, you would either have to not be from around these parts or have amnesia - the kind you need to give birth to a second child, or to stay through more than one North Florida summer.  It's hot, but it's not that hot. And it's not yet anywhere near as humid. 

There have been Aprils when we've had frost, and this has not been one of those so far. Almost all the spring veggies are already bolting, getting ready to go to seed.  I may plant some more lettuces in hopes of a cooler May, but cilantro seedlings wouldn't have much of a chance to grow very big before the heat overtakes them.  It was nice while it lasted.

And nice for a little while longer while the cilantro flowers give way to coriander seeds.  Yes, you get coriander from cilantro plants - lots of it. Save them to plant or add them to Indian dishes; they're the last gift of the lovely cilantro plant. My only regret about the whole thing is that, in Florida at least, it's tought to grow tomatoes and cilantro at the same time.  But we'll enjoy them while they're flowering, and so will the bees, butterflies, and tiny wasps.

Gradually, the hay/dried leaves paths are giving way to summer vegetables.  I love this time of year.  Pure potential - when every indication is that it will be a beautiful, bountiful, pest/fungus/flood-free garden. But then, it's not summer yet...

 

Soft Days

It was a rainy weekend - what the Irish call soft days.  We have had such a long period of drought in this area that I welcome it, as do most gardeners in April.  But I think I would welcome it anyway.  During warm periods, rain is a relief, like a fever breaking.  And the pup makes me walk in it, which I don't mind at all really. I used to like to play in the rain. Being forced out into it give me that same giddy feeling.

   

I have noticed when visiting places where it rains a lot that people seem to be a lot more cavalier about getting wet. Seattle, for instance - folks keep walking and biking; they just wear rain gear.  Here, we're running around a lot with newspapers over our heads. And I find myself making excuses not to ride my bike or walk short distances because of the rain.  I imagine the fact that we're one of the lightening capitals of the world might contribute to it, but on a day like this - it's good to be out in.  And there are, in a good year, a lot of days like this. No more excuses.