Dill Seeds

One more thing to love about Wisconsin...

2009-08-04T20:27:00.000-07:00

Got stuck behind this on the way home from the Kickapoo Country Fair the other weekend.

The can-can

2009-07-09T20:52:00.000-07:00

Home food preservation. What ehs it ohl about? (Okay, switch out of Ali G voice.)

Since I moved here and got accustomed to the crazy growing season followed by months of, um, not-growing, I've been saying I should can stuff but have never followed through. But this summer, this year really, is all about follow-through. It's also all about Patrick and me completing projects together. We already bought, cleaned, sliced and frozen 2 gallons of strawberries, and prepared and frozen more cream-of-broccoli soup that I care to think about. Not to mention PestoFest '09, which could happen any week. I've jumped on the Patrick train and he's jumped on the Alex train, and that train is going through some home food preservation territory.

My writing is feeling really gimmicky right now, but it's too late turn back. I apologize. The point is, I just got my 5-piece home canning kit in the mail (including jar lifter, magnetic lid lifter, tongs, funnel, and jar wrench), as well as my copy of the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. And you better believe I am ready to can some chipotle tomatillo salsa, some cherry pie filling, and some dilly beans. So if you come visit me this winter I'll still have the taste of summer waiting for you. I am, as the Ball cookbook puts it, "Preserving the Good Things in Life Because You Can!" But who knew this whole endeavor would be so loaded with puns?

The babes of summer

2009-06-19T05:31:00.000-07:00

There's a baby bunny living in our yard. Actually there's probably several sibling baby bunnies living in our yard, but I think of them all as one. It likes to sit in the lawn and eat clover one stem at a time. If you enter the backyard slowly and quietly enough it will keep eating for a while, watching you nervously, before dashing back into the tall weeds. I'm afraid it will grow up and not be cute anymore before I manage to a picture of it, so I went looking for a picture online that looks like it. This is the closest I got, but our baby bunny is much cuter:

If this is Wednesday, I'm bunching radishes.

2009-06-10T20:03:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. Isn't the internet weird? One day I stop writing in my blog, or rather, I put off writing in my blog so long that nearly a year goes by, and yet here it is, waiting like a cat at a window. Maybe you've come by and looked at it. Probably you've given up on it. I more or less did.

But then in the last few months I've been thinking about it again. Other people I like kept blogging, or started, or started again. I decided to go look at ye olde blogge, and saw that one of my last entries was about ramps. And...holy passage of time! It's ramp season again here! Actually, it's past that. It's past asparagus season, and breezing by rhubarb straight in to lettuce, turnips, and garlic scapes. Where have I been?

I'll get to that. I just wanted to get your attention. I'm back.

Beer and antelope

2008-07-17T12:46:00.000-07:00

I don't know if I've written before about Patrick's adviser, Volker, and his wife Anna. They are one of those power couples of academia, basically running Volker's lab together. Anna specializes in ornithology, Volker in forest ecology. They are warm, welcoming people, so much so that all sorts of significant-others like myself end up getting involved in lab events.

They are also avid hunters, their freezer well-stocked with game meat. In fact Anna only eats hunted meat out of distaste for the cruelty of feedlots and many slaughterhouses. Volker is the one who, when Patrick got his rifle, took us to the range to help site it in, and when Patick got his doe last fall we brought the carcass to Volker and Anna's place, where Volker hung it up in the barn and showed how to butcher it with little more than a pocket knife.

It's the time of year when some students have gotten their degrees and are moving on to new lives in different places, so Volker and Anna planned a send-off party. The whole point of this post being that I got an email invitation to a gathering at their house, with the instructions to bring "something that will go with beer and antelope."

It made me laugh, and it made me really grateful for the community I've fallen in with here, a social group in which ecologists invite me over for beer and antelope. And it also made me wonder...what goes with antelope?

A whole new pie world

2008-07-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I discovered something new about myself: I can bake a pretty damn good pie. When you've been living for years under the assumption that baking pies is just something you can't do, this discovery is rather thrilling. Not to mention an important social skill here in Madison, where over the last year it has seemed like all the cool kids are baking pies--one of my friends has already stepped up the competition by including locally produced, pasture-raised lard in his crust. That's right, we're bringing lard back.

This was a cherry-strawberry-rhubarb pie, a combination suggested by the farmer who sold me all three ingredients. I have to give him credit for a great marketing scheme. Invite impressionable young shoppers to taste a sour cherry, then, while their minds are still blown from overpowering sourness and cherry flavor, drop the idea that they should bake the best sounding pie ever, slyly presenting the other ingredients they need. I wouldn't be surprised if he had an agreement with the kitchen-wares shop downtown, where I had to go immediately to get a pie dish.

And now I will go back to baking my thesis. I mean writing my thesis.

The Birds

2008-05-13T08:29:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post about a number of things, including Springtime and my newfound success in sourdough bread, but in the meantime here are some pictures from our bird-banding adventure last weekend. Patrick is on a mission to see more birds these days, as his labmates are all competing for most species seen in WI in 2008. From our second story window he has identified a handful of different kinds of warblers, nuthatches, chickadees, and today a scarlet tanager. Bird banding near Baraboo him the opportunity to see more species, and gave me the opportunity to oggle some birds, enjoy a beautiful spring morning and all the meadow wildflowers, and eat the rhubarb pie someone brought for lunch. We also heard a ruffed grouse drumming, a first for me.

Leeks gone wild

2008-04-29T20:32:00.000-07:00

I mentioned picking up some ramps at the farmers' market. I believe most of my readership is California natives, so I thought I would further introduce this pungent spring darling of Appalachia, the Eastern U.S., the upper Midwest, and much of Canada. Ramps (Allium tricoccum) are relatives of leeks, onions and garlic, all known to farmyard hipsters as "the Allium family." To my understanding (Wisconsin readers--I know there are at least two of you--correct me if I'm wrong) ramps are not cultivated, but rather gathered from the woods like morel mushrooms, another wild Wisconsin delicacy. They are some of the first edible plants to appear through the dead leaves, thus heralding rebirth, the cleansing of the blood, the coming respite from potatos and parsnips, and all that crazy romantic spring stuff. Especially in Appalachia, ramps inspire a folkloric devotion evidenced in "ramp feeds" such as this one.

Patrick and I made them into a glowing green puree which went on top of a creamy potato soup (okay, so potato season is never really over). But look how pretty they are here in the sink! Don't you just want to put one on your Easter bonnet?

I am going to marry this sandwich.

2008-04-27T11:56:00.000-07:00

The Dane County Farmers' Market has moved back outdoors, and little tasty spring vegetables are beginning to appear, such as radishes, ramps, spring garlic shoots, spinach, and the feature of today's lunch--watercress. I've been a big fan of watercress since childhood, when Mom and I used to pick it out of various creeks. Gathering watercress this way is a great excuse to wade into a creek up to your knees and dig your feet into the mud, a sensation that is both gross and delightful. If you did that around here this time of year, your toes would probably freeze off, but that's another story.

This sandwich showcases all the strongpoints of watercress--crunchy, juicy stems, buttery leaves, earthy overtones and a clean, spicy kick. You should make one right way.

True Love in a Sandwich

1 handful watercress
half an onion
1 egg
2 slices wheat bread
whole grain mustard
tartar sauce or mayo (Okay, I happened to have only tartar sauce, but it was great.)
butter for frying

1. Slice the onion into thin half rings. Melt a little pat of butter in a frying pan and cook the onion slowly over medium heat, tossing frequently, until it is soft, sweet, and golden brown. Remove it from the pan and set it aside.

2. Add a little more butter to the pan and, also over medium heat, fry an egg. While it is frying, toast the bread.

3. Okay, assembly time. Spread tartar sauce on one piece of bread and mustard on the other. On one piece, place the egg, then a thick layer of fried onions, then good handful of raw watercress. Close the sandwich.

4. Slice it in half just before eating. The yolk will run out a bit and you can soak it up with your sandwich half. Think about wiggling your toes in some mud. Live happily ever after.

You're welcome.

Como permanecer tranquila (How to Remain Calm)

2008-04-22T19:19:00.000-07:00

This is the title of the second chapter of a Spanish-language booklet that my mom wrote for expectant mothers to help them understand birth and labor. The booklet gives no information about how it was published, but I think it was after she finished her Master's in Public Health and was working at Cal-State Northridge. I remember her saying something once about women who didn't know how to tell from their contractions when to go to the hospital, and would end up going too early or too late, and then have a hard time communicating with the hospital staff.

The drawings are by Jonathan Curtis (Copyright 1980), who was my parents' neighbor in Venice Beach, and later drew a picture for my birth announcements. There are diagrams here of a pregnant woman, showing her in partial cross-section with a happy-looking fetus inside, and the model was clearly my mother. The woman in the drawings has her exact facial profile, and her hair long and straight, exactly as it was in the early eighties. She looks peaceful and content--she clearly knows como permanecer tranquila.

Here's the first paragraph, in my translation:

"When labor pains begin, many women feel excited and content that their baby will finally be born, but they also feel nervous and afraid. If you feel nervous and tense, your contractions will seem more uncomfortable. If you can put aside your fears and remain calm, your contractions will be easier to bear. It helps a lot to have someone by your side who can help you remain calm with conversation or just with their company. Think of happy and calming things. Rest. Rest. Rest. This is not always easy, but the following suggestions may help."

She goes on to recommend taking a warm bath, and to note that walking a bit can actually help by moving the baby's head lower in the pelvis. And the drawings show the woman walking, now revealing her spinal column and tail bone in cross section. The hand-drawn lines and hatch-mark shading are so loving, and the type is navy on pages of creamy card stock. The whole booklet feels like a reassuring touch on the shoulder from a confident nurse--someone who can help you put aside your fears and remain calm.

Microgreens come cheap around here.

2008-04-13T21:34:00.000-07:00

The student gardening club was thinning their seedlings this week, and I came home with the outfall, the year's first harvest. Thinning is such cruel and tender work: having purposefully planted more than we need (in case some don't germinate) we now strain our eyes and backs over the crowded flats, in each cell leaving one strong plant standing and uprooting all the rest. We only mimic nature's habit of making extras in case disaster strikes, and then ensuring that it will. But what looks like waste is always food someone. I walked away with 2 quart-sized buckets of baby greens: chard, broccoli, basil, lettuce, kale, and kolrabi. It took forever to wash all the potting mix out of those little roots, but it was worth it for the first taste of the season ahead.

The Joy of Asian Midway Foods

2008-04-08T11:14:00.000-07:00

Several blocks east of my house and across a major intersection is a unremarkable brick building with the words "ASIAN MIDWAY FOODS" on one side and, "MIDWAY ASIAN FOODS" on the other. In just-Spring, when the snow has melted and my appetite for wintersquash is long gone but no new crops yet grow, I slip through the fishy entrance of this grocery establishment and indulge myself in cheap bok-choi and fresh lichees from halfway around the world. I may be racking up food miles, I reason with myself, but at least I'm supporting an independent, family-owned (as far as I can tell) business.

One thing I love about Asian Midway Foods is that it draws more generous boundaries around "Asia" than many Asian food stores I've shopped in. While much of it's inventory is of a Hmong/Thai/Laotian bent (reflecting Madison's population), an entire wall is dedicated to Middle Eastern, hallal-certified goods, and another aisle covers Mexico and South America in a broad sweep. In fact, this particular blog reverie is inspired by a jar I just finished of Ziyad brand Baba Ghanouj, Made in Turkey. My favorite thing about this jar, besides it's delicious contents, is its nutritional facts: Serving Size 1/2 cup, 10 calories per serving, 33 of them from fat. Something tells me the USDA did not check this label. But the ingredients are stellar: fire roasted eggplant, lemon juice, tahini, garlic, salt, olive oil.

How fire-roasted are the eggplants? After eating at least a serving, I turned to say something to Patrick and he asked, "Have you been smoking? You smell like an ashtray." That fire-roasted.

mindboggling

2008-04-07T18:48:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while I read a piece of news being passed around on the email servers of various graduate departments, and I wonder whether it will ever make it into the mainstream press. The following was so dumbfounding to me that I had to post it in full.

In case it isn't clear, this is a projection about how much land currently enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) will be tilled in the coming years. For decades, farmers have been enrolling their marginal, erodible land in the USDA's CRP program, which pays them restore wildlife habitat instead of planting crops. Increasingly, though, Midwestern farmers are taking their land out of the CRP program, tilling it, and planting it back to crops like corn and soybeans. When the soil is tilled, stored soil carbon is released into the atmosphere as CO2, resulting in the second projection below. Why are farmers doing this at a time when everyone is interested in sequestering carbon to slow global warming? Oh, because corn prices and other grain prices are through the roof. Why's that? Because of the predicted ethanol boom, which our politicians are currently promoting as our answer to global warming. Ingenious.

Ducks Unlimited says CRP loss over next four years may be more than five million acres

Carbon released will be equivalent of 15 million more cars on the road

BISMARCK, ND, January 24, 2008 – Ducks Unlimited says the amount of carbon that will be released in the Prairie Pothole Region the next four years from plowing up Conservation Reserve Program grassland will equal 15 million new cars on the road.

Nearly 820,000 acres of CRP grassland disappeared in the Dakotas and Montana in 2007. But DU says this is a drop in the bucket compared to what will be lost over the next four years. New US Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency data shows that nearly 5.6 million acres, or two-thirds of the current CRP in these states, will expire by October 2012.

“This magnitude of CRP loss hurts more than waterfowl populations, it will have a large impact on efforts to fight global warming,” said Scott McLeod, Farm Bill specialist with DU’s Great Plains Regional Office. “This is an absolutely staggering amount of grassland to be losing in such a short period of time and impacts on wildlife will be disastrous.”

CRP grasslands have the ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in the soil. The 5.6 million acres of expiring CRP will have removed and stored more than 172 billion pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over the past 10 years. Conversion of CRP to cropland releases stored carbon back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

“Tillage of these acres makes no sense, especially at a time when now, more than ever, the world is focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” McLeod said. “Conservation and sequestered carbon will be lost in an unsustainable rush to produce more ethanol.”

North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana will lose nearly 2.3 million, 1.1 million, and 2.2 million acres, respectively. Portions of these three states make up the bulk of the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) in the US, an area renowned for its importance to breeding waterfowl.

The US Fish and Wildlife Services credits CRP with producing more than 2 million ducks a year. Habitat loss of this magnitude will mean significantly lower production of ducks that migrate through or winter in all of the contiguous 48 states and provide and an important part of the hunters’ bags in those states. Ring-necked pheasants and other grassland dependent wildlife will suffer significant declines as well.

Continued high commodity prices driven by demand for ethanol production, low CRP rental rates and no new CRP general sign-ups have Ducks Unlimited and other conservation groups convinced that a “perfect storm” is leading to the demise of the most successful conservation program ever in the U.S.

“Rental rates for enrolling in CRP are too low and need to better reflect the market. Right now, farmers can make more money by farming those acres, and CRP won’t be a viable option for farmers until rental rates are competitive with cash rent,” McLeod said.

McLeod says that a general sign-up was not held in 2007, and the USDA has indicated that one will not be held in 2008 either. General sign-ups offer the best opportunity to enroll a large number of acres to replace some of the expiring CRP. “If this trend holds beyond 2008, it will be nearly impossible to maintain the population levels that many wildlife species are experiencing today and we’ll go backwards on many other fronts also,” he said.

With more than a million supporters, Ducks Unlimited is the world’s largest and most effective wetland and waterfowl conservation organization with almost 12 million acres conserved. The United States alone has lost more than half of its original wetlands − nature’s most productive ecosystem − and continues to lose more than 80,000 wetland acres each year.

P.S.--Since I'm on my soapbox anyway, I wanted t point out that the group that published this report, Ducks Unlimited, is a great conservation organization dedicated to preserving wetlands and waterfowl habitat, and one of their primary interests is hunting. Just another example of how the interests of hunters and nature-lovers overlap.

2008-02-18T11:52:00.000-08:00

It was snowing again today, but against better judgement I left my office after lunch to go for a short walk. Wind blew bits of ice into my face and I almost headed back, but I decided just to circle around the mirobiology building, and by the time I reached the corner the sun had come out. I went straight instead of turning and headed down to the lake, where a long, well-plowed but empty path traces the shoreline.

Yesterday morning's rain had coated all the tree branches and then frozen there, incasing every tiny twig with clear ice which glinted when the sun hit it. And when the wind moved the branches the ice sheaths began to crack, making a papery, wind-chimey clatter through the woods. I walked fast and began to build up heat, my nose re-warmed itself somehow and I had to unzip my jacket a little. I stopped at a wood landing overlooking the lake, which was totally blank with no tracks or fishing shacks in the latest snow. Out in the middle the wind was stirring the dry snow around, creating what looked like a layer of fog.

I've been cranky and unmotivated all week, largely due to the sudden, staggering realization that I have to finish my thesis by June. I even started complaining about the weather, something I'd avoided doing so far this winter. Going out for a walk in the cold was one of the best decisions I'd made in a while. It is so easy to underestimate the power of going out to the woods, or brush, or desert, and remembering: this is what I love. This is what I have always loved.

Stop reading my blog and start reading this one:

2008-02-16T13:07:00.000-08:00

Bitten: Mark Bittman on Food

It's prettier, funnier, more informative, and generally a better use of your time. Have fun.

Obama in Madison

2008-02-13T06:24:00.000-08:00

The crowd was a little loony at the Kohl Center last night, probably because 17,000 people had been waiting in the cold in nothing that even resembled a line, just to get a half-hour glimpse and some sound bytes from this man. Was it worth it? Absolutely. He's as inspiring and intelligent a speaker as they all say he is. Even more, seeing that kind of crowd of mainly college students gathered for a political cause felt great. It made me feel like this generation isn't just the hopeless slackers and cynics that the media paints us to be. We do care and we are paying attention. As Obama said, "Cynicism is a sorry kind of wisdom," but it's been the natural result of the last eight years. Nomatter who wins the primaries, I hope this election will put an end to some of the cynicism about politics that has gripped us.

With WI Governor Jim Doyle, who has endorsed him.

Snow Home

2008-02-10T20:25:00.000-08:00

Not the most rugged quinzee, we dug it into a snowbank the snow plow had left. Digging was hard until we made enough room in there to move the shovel around. You'd take a few hacks at it, get some snow in your mouth, and then back out and let others clear the floor before going in again.

My boot in the entrance shows how tall the opening was. It opens up more inside.

I realize that to read my blog you'd think I never do any work. I swear I do, but I've been having a lot of fun on the weekends. This weekend a friend and I went to a workshop/camp up north called Becoming An Outdoors-Woman. As my college years proved well, I love me an all-female learning environment. So when I wanted to learn more about guns, bows, and hunting, where else would I turn but a program for increasing women's participation in outdoor sports? But the weekend wasn't just about the hunting stuff--I took a cross-country ski workshop and one about winter camping, in which we learned to build a quinzee, a dug-out snow shelter as seen above. This one was about 6' x 6', with a ceiling just tall enough to sit up in. Plus two bodies, three sleeping bags, two hot water nalgenes, and eight wool blankets, it is a toasty little home, even when the temperature dropped to -16 F, as it did last night. In fact I woke up in the middle of the night and had to peel off my socks and fleece layer, sleeping in just my long underwear and undershirt made out of some kind of techy, moisture wicking fabric.

I missed out on the dogsledding workshop, but just hearing the pack of sled dogs yelping at sunrise and evening was thrilling enough. The first night we had a talk from a wolf biologist who took told us how he helps count the wolf population by going out in the woods and howling, and then recording the responses. There are now nearly 1,000 wolves in Wisconsin, a number that stirs amazement in some people and concern in others. After a talk inside, he led us silently out onto the dark, frozen lake, where we stood shin-deep in snow. After a full ten minutes of silence, he howled a series of eerie, melodic wails and let them echo through the forest.

No wolves answered back that night, but three deer on the edge of the lake spooked and ran into the forest. As we stood there waiting, big snowflakes collecting on our hats and shoulders, it occurred to me that reading The Collected Short Stories of Jack London so many times as a girl may have set me on some mysterious trajectory that I am only now beginning to realize. But when stuck in sub-zero, at least I'll know not to try to start a fire, just to eat a Snickers bar and start digging.

Family Fun with Pirates!

2008-02-03T18:08:00.000-08:00

Last weekend was my Uncle Charlie's 60th birthday, and my cousin Lori from Arizona instigated an impromptu family reunion by convincing me to go to Florida to surprise him. It's been three years since I've seen that part of the family--last time I was there to bury Mom's ashes in the family cemetary plot--so I had been planning to go for spring break but hadn't bought tickets yet. A last minute rescheduling got me there for my uncle's birthday, AND the Gasparilla Festival, an annual commemoration of the time when pirates took over the city of Tampa. It was the perfect visit, all goofy fun on the surface, but really meaningful underneath. On a day-to-day basis, I often forget about how much family I really have, what good people they are, and how much they care about me. Being in Florida, where I can easily fill up two full cars with cousins any day of the week, gave me this sense of belonging and security that I haven't felt for a long time. And a feeling like that can only be properly honored with a photo montage.

The parade begins, with floats of pirates throwing beads to the crowd.

Just a few of my many cousins, chillin' by the bay as the pirate ships come in.

With my cousin Charles. I watched this kid grow up, and now he's a college student, knows how to make tarragon poached chicken, and can tuck me under his arm.

My cousin Lori, laughing it up with her pirate beads.

The visit concluded with a family trip out to the cemetary, where we placed flowers around the headstones of my mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, and my great-grandfather, who all lie together under a big mossy live oak. It was the first time I'd visited since the burial, and I was afraid I wouldn't cry. My experience has always been that tears come forcefully at totally inappropriate times--like a crowded shopping mall three days before Christmas--but on formal occasions my eyes are dry. So when I got out of the car, knelt down in front of her grave, and immediately began to cry, my first thought was, "Phew," but that soon faded away, as did the voices of people around me, and I was just there. As if aware of the opportunity for cliche, a mourning dove flew into the branches of the oak and began to coo.

Going on a trip on the first weekend of the semester messed up my schedule a little, and I still haven't readjusted to the cold, but it was worth it to remember what I'm part of, that nomatter how far away I go, my family won't go away.

The next generation's oil crisis

2008-01-19T09:11:00.000-08:00

I just read this New York Times article which speaks to the multiple, rippling effects of increased demand for biofuels. Huge swaths of rain forest cleared for oil palm plantations, while cooking oil prices increase by 70% for families who depend on palm oil for calories. Meanwhile developed countries drive that price even higher by demanding palm oil as substitute for trans-fats, so that we can keep eating the same amount of junk food.

Politicians keep talking about ethanol with the rhetoric of patriotism and independence. We'll kick the petroleum problem with corn produced by hardworking American farmers! But farmers I've talked to have a common sense understanding of the land that never seems to make it to Washington. We can plant this nation in corn from sea to shining sea, and let all our good soil wash down the Mississippi, and we'd still have to purchase biomass from Brazil, Borneo, and Malaysia to even approach our current energy needs with ethanol. How long, then, would it be until we go to war to ensure stability in countries that produce biomass for us? Producing green stuff, after all, takes water, a limited resource, and there are already the beginnings of international conflict over who gets how much of it.

I really don't want to make the argument that we are better off with petroleum than with biofuels. It is a false argument, I think, and futile because we will doubtless run out of petroleum. I think Bill McKibben probably has the best idea when he envisions a complex grid drawing from as many kinds of energy as possible. (I'm pretty sure he said that, anyway, in a lecture in Madison, but now I can't even find an article about it so I'm hope I'm not misquoting.) Everyone in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas should probably have solar panels on their roofs and sell energy back to the grid on sunny days. We should probably have windmills in our cow pastures and rangeland, and we should switchgrass once we figure out cellulosic ethanol. Most of the Democratic candidates have outlined some sort of plan for increasing reliance on "renewables," which seems like it could include a picture like McKibben paints, which gives me some optimism.

I just hope I don't have to look at my kids someday and say, "Well, we thought this would work, but it didn't."

the great time-out

2008-01-17T07:40:00.000-08:00

I'm back at Little Sugar River Farm, a b&b south of Madison owned by a professor and her husband. If you've been reading my blog long enough you'll know that Patrick and I stayed here last year during finals period and took care of the chickens while the owners were on vacation. Same gig again, now at the end of winter break. I have books and files folders spread out all over the big oak table in the guest cabin and am trying to finish a paper.

The living room of the little cabin has more windows than wall space, so that on three sides of me I can see thick snow falling with a calm mesmerizing rhythm. Beyond the porch, the snow falls on a tall beige-blond prairie grasses and two greenhouses. Beyond that is a barbed wire fence, and then the snow drapes a curtain in front of gray-brown woods. White, blond, and dark gray, with a brush of red here and there from dogwood branches.

To the south of the little farm the woods are thin, and I can see through them to the neighbor's property. Yesterday, when it wasn't snowing and the sun brought the temperature up, I could see the neighbor's cows moving like shadows beyond the trees. To the west is a small
wildlife area and hunting grounds, with some tangled oak groves and a frozen marsh. We went walking there yesterday, noting signs of other travelers: tracks of deer, mouse, raccoon, squirrel, two shotgun shells on the path near the marsh and, far from the trail, was it dog or coyote running alone? But now that will all be gone under yet another layer of snow.

The chickens don't like the feeling of snow on their feet, so Patrick or I will need to go out and put down a layer of straw for them to walk on, and throw down some cracked corn to give them some incentive to venture outside. Last night I made a frittata from their eggs, with spinach, cheese and potatoes in it. Tonight, a custard?

On the flight from Minneapolis to Madison I sat next a woman from Ventura County who had taken an assistant professor job at the UW and had been in here for the same amount of time as me. She asked me how I deal with the winter and when I said that I actually kind of like it her eyes grew big. But it's true--each snowfall still seems like a miracle to me. In winter here, nature gives everyone a time-out, and I am glad to obey, to get a fire going in the stove, bake something, eat some more cabbage, and do quite work.

grandparents

2007-11-27T17:43:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking of my grandparents tonight. My grandfather, when I knew him, was likely to be a fussy, embarrassing old man, always telling the wrong dirty story at the wrong time and emitting terrifying sounds at the dinner table. But long then, back when men never went outside without a dress hat on, my Grandpa Arthur was stylish guy. How do I know this? The look my grandmother sometimes got when she talked about him, for one thing, and his record collection for another.

Grandpa Arthur's record collection is now just a fraction of its onetime glory, I think it's been split up over the years, but some little bit of it has ended up with me here, on the bookshelf next to my desk. It consists basically of classical and jazz, and is now mixed in with my dad's country fiddle music and my mom's Ray Charles and Al Green. But you can tell Grandpa Arthur's records because each has a little white sticker with a handwritten number, both on the record itself and on the cover. After Grandpa Arther died and my dad began going through his belongings, we found a Roladex with these numbers. The whole record collection was neatly cataloged, titles and songs recorded on cards.

A few years ago, my dad got some kind of software that let him digitize records, and he began to put Grandpa Arthur's records onto his computer. One time when I was visiting him he showed me what he was up to, and how he had organized them all by artist and genre. He said he was halfway through the job when he realized he was just redoing what his father had done with the Roladex.

So tonight I have put on one of my favorites--"Ella and Louis." When I listened to this as a kid, not having any idea what Louis Armstrong looked like, I always pictured my grandfather singing his lyrics. The gravelly voice was exactly the same.

In my mind, it seems like a decade went by between Grandpa Arthur's funeral and Granny Franny's but really it was only two years. He was buried in Fallbrook, and Dad found a New Orleans-style jazz band to come play at his funeral--slow and mournful on the way in and celebratory as we left the grave site. I remember looking at my grandmother and thinking, even though she was just standing there, maybe tapping her fingers, that really she was dancing with him.

I was too absorbed in myself then to really think about what was going on for her--divorced from him, and then widowed twice. Her first love, he had never really let her go, but always hung around her life, stopping in for dinner, making a spectacle. And in the end he was the last to go. Funny how the melodrama of a century can unfold right in front of us and we don't even pay attention.

I've told this story before, and I'll tell it again:
My grandmother wanted to be buried at Lake Tahoe, where she'd lived with her second husband, so the family convened there a couple months after her death to bury her ashes. I was in an existential crisis, as I was wont to be that year, and in order to get there I drove by myself through the desert in our old white Volvo. I stopped at road stops, walked out into the sagebrush, and just lied down in the sand, muttering things into a tape recorder about sun and wind, timelessness and death.

But somehow I made it to the burial on time, met my grandmother's beatnik friend from long ago, and followed everyone to a restaurant afterwards. My uncle ordered a Manhattan, announcing to everyone that it was Granny's drink. This was surprise to me, and I didn't even know what was in a Manhattan. I was barely 21. Uncle Ron raised the tipsy glass, called me over to him, and with an arm around my shoulder said, "The torch has been passed to you, young lady. Tough shit."

Even though I've never been that close to my Uncle Ron, this phrase has become one of the more important mottoes of my life. I think it applies to my whole generation. The torch has been passed to us. Tough shit.

So recently I've learned how to make a really good Manhattan. One secret is good whiskey, and other is that it should be shaken and served like a martini, straight up, not on the rocks. There should be a cherry in the bottom, and I don't know if this is orthodox but I like a little splash of cherry juice too. I don't make them very often--it's a strong drink--but when I do I toast my grandmother, who changed her name to Frances when she was just a girl, who wore her white hair up in a French roll with red lipstick and blue eyes, and who for better or worse married a gravelly-voiced man named Arthur, who even now, in my memory, is singing:

We may never never meet again on the bumpy road to love
Still I'll always, always keep the memory of
The way you hold your knife, the way we danced till three
The way you changed my life--no, no, they can't take that away from me.

Swing it, boys.

Dread fifty above more than fifty below

2007-11-08T18:20:00.000-08:00

Daylight savings plunged us so quickly into darkness, and the temperature has been dropping past freezing every night this week. A few trees are still bright and golden yellow, but the wind is working on them. Partly because I am taking a forage class in which we are learning about winter hardiness, I keep thinking about all the grasses and shrubs that have pulled their carbohydrates into their roots and gotten the free water out of their cells to keep their tissue from damage when all water freezes. They tuck their lives away for a bit, and rely on winter to blanket them with snow. They trust warm temperatures not to wake them until spring has really arrived. I am more like them this year, accepting winter with expectation and preparation rather than surprise. As I came home in the dark this evening, I remembered a Robert Frost poem I like. It's a good one for thinking about the importance of climate, and the vulnerability of a landscape that depends on the cold.

GOOD-BY AND KEEP COLD

This saying good-by on the edge of the dark
And the cold to an orchard so young in the bark
Reminds me of all that can happen to harm
An orchard away at the end of the farm
All winter, cut off by a hill from the house.
I don't want it girdled by rabbit and mouse,
I don't want it dreamily nibbled for browse
By deer, and I don't want it budded by grouse.
(If certain it wouldn't be idle to call
I'd summon grouse, rabbit, and deer to the wall
And warn them away with a stick for a gun.)
I don't want it stirred by the heat of the sun.
(We made it secure against being, I hope,
By setting it out on a northerly slope.)
No orchard's the worse for the wintriest storm;
But one thing about it, it mustn't get warm.
'How often already you've had to be told,
Keep cold, young orchard. Good-by and keep cold.
Dread fifty above more than fifty below.'
I have to be gone for a season or so.
My business awhile is with different trees,
Less carefully nurtured, less fruitful than these,
And such as is done to their wood with an ax--
Maples and birches and tamaracks.
I wish I could promise to lie in the night
And think of an orchard's arboreal plight
When slowly (and nobody comes with a light)
Its heart sinks lower into the sod.
But something has to be left to God.

So, how 'bout them primaries?

2007-11-07T20:36:00.000-08:00

Well folks? What are we thinking? I know you're reading this, so speak up!

Let me just say this: I wrote an email to Hillary asking for more details about her renewable energy plan. I pointed out the corn ethanol, while politically expedient, is not technically sustainable, and when it's all said and done the net energy gains are debatable at best. She didn't get back to me on that, but she did send me a coupon for a free bumper sticker. My bumper doesn't get around much these days, if you know what I mean, so I never cashed in on that offer.

So then to be fair I thought I'd better give Barack an opportunity to answer my energy query. But whoa! Right there under "Issues" I found the following:

Corn ethanol is the most successful alternative fuel commercially available in the U.S. today, and we should fight the efforts of big oil and big agri-business to undermine this emerging industry. But it represents only a drop in the bucket of our energy demands and making ethanol from corn has some significant limitations. Today we produce about 5 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol per year while we use about 140 billion gallons of gasoline. Even if we are able to double -- or even triple -- production of ethanol from corn this will still offset only about 10 percent of our gasoline demand. There are also real concerns about bringing set aside lands into corn production as well as concerns about an increase in the use of pesticides, water use and upward pressure on the cost of food for people and livestock alike. These constraints reveal the scope and scale of our energy and environmental challenges.

(By the way, yes, I just discovered the "block quote" feature on Blogspot.) He goes on to say the we have to develop cellulosic ethanol, which still seems like kind of a toss-up to me, but better than corn. The really adorable thing, though, is that he wants to make sure that more ethanol refineries are locally owned by farmers, so that they actually benefit rural communities. You'd think he had sat in on the Agroecology lecture series last semester!

Okay, so just because a candidate thinks a thing doesn't mean they can get it done. And I guess corn v. cellulosic ethanol might not be the biggest issue facing the nation today. But it's that nuance, that openness about the details of his view, that I like. So I'm definitely not decided yet, but let's just say I'm glancing in a particular direction.

I've heard that there are other candidates in the Democratic primary besides Obama and Clinton. I even hear that there are entire other political parties, running primaries of their own! Do you have a favorite? The Dill Seeds straw pole opens now.

All-weather leek wrangling

2007-11-06T07:42:00.000-08:00

I thought yesterday would be a pretty normal Monday. I had a test in the morning, a class in the afternoon, and I was going to work on a paper for the rest of the day. But when I got into the office, two of the new agroecology were hanging out, and they had different plans. Overnight we had all gotten an email from a nearby CSA farm that needed help getting the last crops out of the fields. The temperatures were predicted to drop to freezing on Monday night and down to 20 on Tuesday night, and root crops left in the ground could be lost. Two of the full-time workers had been injured recently, leaving Mike, the primary farmer, trying to do everything himself.

So even though we all had plenty to do, Chris, Matt and I decided that saving the crops was more important that school work. I had a special interest in these crops to, as Patrick and I have been getting a bi-weekly share from this very farm this fall. About an hour later, after I had changed into long underwear, ski socks, and overalls, we squeezed into the cab of Matt's truck and headed out, meaning to spend about 2 hours helping. We hadn't been pulling beets for long, though, when I commented, "You know, I really doubt that anything that interesting is going to happen in my next class."

And so we ended up staying all day. Chris as sent off to help with the brussel sprouts, while Matt and I pulled and cleaned leeks with another girl who'd come to help. Leeks are a particular love of mine, but they are also a stubborn, finicky vegetable to harvest. Even after you've turned them up with a digging fork their abundant roots cling to big, heavy clods of soil. Pull at them too hard and the stem will break off higher up, ruining the leek. I developed a method of kicking at the rootball a few times to start dislodging the soil, and then whapping the whole thing rapidly against the top of my boot. I ended up with all kinds dirt in my teeth and hair.

We finished the day with a bed of storage carrots, many of them as fat as my wrist. By now the temperatures were really dropping, and we watched as dark clouds gathered and moved towards us, and suddenly a gust of wind brought on something that was half snow, half sleet--little compact pieces of ice that blew sideways in swirls across the field. We all started laughing.

The sleet didn't last long but the cold did. I came and stood in the kitchen with my dirty boots and my huge jacket on, demanding hot buttered rum. Something Mike said stayed with me--I asked if he wanted carrots that were damaged a little--chewed on by animals or split by growing--and he said, "Sure, it's better than nothing come April." The carrots we were pulling yesterday will keep through till April. As the last snow melts, I might get some in my CSA box. It's going to be a good winter.

First Hunt

2007-11-04T20:55:00.000-08:00

As if to defy whatever stereotypes my last post might have invited, Patrick and I got up early this morning and headed out of the city...to go squirrel hunting. I'll end the suspense now: not only did we not bag any, we didn't even see any. But even though coming home with some meat seems like the point of whole thing, I think the lesson of my first hunt was that it really isn't. The essence of hunting, from what I can tell so far, is to walk into the woods, find yourself a good little hollow to set up in, and then sit there, for hours, saying nothing and moving as little as possible. Which is something I can definitely get into.

Really, when I go hiking, or backpacking, or biking or whatever, the moving around is great--and getting to remote places on foot is wonderful--but the best part of the day is always when you can sit down and look around, just experiencing a natural setting as if you were part of it. The really profound thing about hunting--and I know I'm not the only one who feels this way--is that you aren't just experiencing nature as a removed observer, which is how we humans have come to see ourselves. Instead you are there playing an ecological role that fits both the place and your animal habit--you are being a predator. And as a predator you listen and watch and experience in a way we hardly do anymore.

Sitting in our one spot, we watched a flicker move from one tree trunk to another, combing the bark for insects. I got used to the movement of dry leaves as they floated downwards. There were some crashes in the brambles behind us and I turned to glimpse the tan side of a deer as it bounded away. On the way out we came across a man and his son, out for squirrels too. They hadn't seen any either. "Nice day to be out though," the man said, unphased. And it was.

Freedom on a Hot Planet

2007-11-03T16:18:00.002-07:00

And now, friends, two items.

Item One.

Last night I went to the screening of Everything's Cool, a documentary about global warming by Judith Helfand and Dan Gold (also creators of Blue Vinyl). Judith Helfand was there to introduce her film, and so was Bill McKibben, who also appears in it. Over the past year, McKibben (author of The End of Nature and, most recently, Deep Economy) has stopped writing and started devoting his time to building a movement around the issue of global warming. If you have a couple minutes, familiarize yourself with his argument here and here. And in case you don't want to read all of that, let me post a few sentences:

Consider the news from the real world, the one where change is measured with satellites and thermometers, not focus groups: Arctic ice is melting on an unbelievable scale -- an area the size of Britain disappeared each week in late summer as the record for minimum ice cover, set in 2005, was shattered by more than 400,000 square miles, meaning about a 27 percent loss. Forget the Petraeus report -- what historians will note about September 2007 is that the Northwest Passage was free of ice for the first time since humans started keeping track.
Shaken scientists see every prediction about the future surpassed by events. As Martin Parry, co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told reporters this month, "We are all used to talking about these impacts coming in the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren. Now we know that it's us."

Right. But the film, Everything's Cool, wasn't just about scary global warming. It was about how the American public came to think that human-induced climate change is a theory up for debate rather than a scientific consensus. A key figure in the film is Rick Piltz, the former senior associate of the U.S. government Climate Change Science Program who resigned in 2005 after a Bush administration appointee demanded he censor scientific reports. Here is an excerpt of an interview by PBS (Piltz is speaking):

It happened really starting in the first year of the new administration. At the same time that the president was pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol negotiations, the White House science office was telling us to start deleting all references to the National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts, a major study that we had just completed.

And then it got worse. Starting in 2002, '03, '04, the White House Council on Environmental Quality [CEQ], which is a political office represented by their chief of staff, Phil Cooney, started exercising a kind of political policing function in directing the program not to even make any reference to the existence of the National Assessment, marking up reports to Congress to play down the global warming problem and so forth.

I continued to work there because I love that program. It's a very strong program as a research operation; it's really a national treasure. We were concerned with trying to buffer it from political influence, and the immediate working environment of the career professional people was a very high-quality experience. But it finally got to the point where I felt like to continue in that position was to be complicit somehow in what I saw to be a conspiracy of silence about how the administration had abused the science program.

Now, let's put those these two exerts together. Global warming threatens humanity in a way we have never been threatened before. We are already seeing it's effects, and those of my generation who live a normal lifespan can expect to see much more, even if we change things today. That change is possible, though, and we can still avert some of the misery our children might have to face. But the Clinton administration didn't act strongly enough, and the Bush administrated subverted the truth, causing us to lose time that we could not afford to lose.

Alright, Item Two.

I woke up this morning with all this on my mind, to read an email from my aunt in Florida. It announced to the family that one of my second cousins will be shipping off to Baghdad in a week. The last time I saw this cousin he was in middle school, but now he is 19--not old enough to have voted for anyone but old enough to serve his country. My aunt's email ended with a request that we pray for this cousin "as he goes to protect our freedom."

I probably will pray for my cousin's safety, and for the safety of all the soldiers and civilians wrapped up in this trouble. But let's not kid ourselves about where the threats to our freedom lie. Those threats are right here at home, with a government that holds our freedom, and our long-term safety, in such low regard that it can distort science for the sake of politics. How about freedom from fear of natural disasters that will get worse and worse in each coming decade? The freedom to sow crops and expect the seasons to treat them more or less like they have before?

Usually I don't get very political on this blog. And in person or in writing I try not to make sweeping generalizations about the war, since I know very little about it and am sure everything is more complicated than it seems. But I have come to see it as my responsibility to speak out and stir up debate, and to act. No amount of talk or prayer will reverse global warming. Unfortunately, neither will changing all the lightbulbs in my house, or riding my bike instead of driving. Institutions, governments, and businesses must be held responsible, and we must do it, now. I'm not completely sure what that means, but I'm going to keep posting about it, and I'm not, dear readers, going to let you forget about it.

www.stepitup2007.org

Go watch the Everything's Cool. Keep talking about global warming.

The flight of fall

2007-10-28T15:32:00.000-07:00

It sounds ridiculously selfish to say that the fires in California threw my whole week off course, but then, blogging is a peculiarly selfish enterprise. I didn't do an ounce of work Monday through Wednesday, instead hopping from one news website to another trying to figure out what was going on. In an instant it was clear to me that whatever distance I think exists between me and hometown, it is a complete illusion. The place is in my blood. And now, even though I am exceedingly glad that none of my closest friends suffered any damage, I know that my town has been hurt, and it is completely frustrating that I can't be there right now, helping my de facto family clean the ashes out of their yards.

But instead I am here, and here it is really beautiful these days, the trees in full glory from a couple weeks of extended fall. By Halloween last year I think it had frozen already, so I have been trying to soak up these weeks of cool but sunny weather, and gobbling up the last tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. This past Friday night I experience a whole new kind of Halloween fun--on a cloudy night, a group of friends and I went out to a giant corn maze. And by giant, I do mean giant--eight acres. The dry corn stalks rose several feet above our heads, and if it hadn't been for a floodlight on one end of the field we would have quickly lost all sense of direction. Luckily, someone had thought to bring along an aerial photograph of the maze, but we still ended up going in a lot of little circles before the night was over.

The picture below is from a few weekends ago, when I went on an organized bike ride in Richland Center, the home of one of my classmates. The ride cruised up and down the ridges of this county in the Driftless Area--Wisconsin's hill country--and stopped for cider from apple orchards along the way. I took the picture from the car window as we drove to the starting point of the ride, and was surprised when I got home to find that it was actually recognizable. It says all I want to say about this fall: a green blur of alfalfa in the foreground, a thin stripe of white-gold corn, and a hazy forest of hills, treetops all ablaze. All of it flying by, almost too fast to capture.

Wish me luck!

2007-09-28T16:59:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I will be taking part in Bike the Barns, a 60 mile "Tour de CSA" put on by the Madison Area Coalition for Community Supported Agriculture. The ride raises money for Partner Shares, a program that helps provide CSA shares to low income families. A few years ago, I worked for a summer at Organic Planet, a CSA farm in Fallbrook--and the combination of hard work, good people, and beautiful produce got me through hands-down the most difficult time of my life. So, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is an idea close to my heart, because of personal experience and because it provides an option for those kind of small, vibrant farms.

Which is why I am getting my non-competitive, un-sporty self onto a bike tomorrow. It doesn't hurt that we will be stopping at three different farms for snacks of goat cheese, chocolate, and local, grass-fed, roast beef sandwiches. I just hope I can still ride after lunch...

Books for Dinner

2007-09-18T10:20:00.001-07:00

Adam recently put out a call to his readers for five books they would recommend from their field of work. I've got mine, taking my field to be, more or less, "What's up with agriculture, food, and the environment?"

1. Farming for Us All
by Michael Mayerfeld Bell
I'm plugging my advisor's book here because it's a great, accessible piece of rural sociology, and will make it clear why I'm lucky to be working with him. Actually, if you read just one from this list, this would be the one that will best help you understand what my master's degree is about. Mike Bell wrote this about sustainable farmers in Iowa, asking the questions, "Why do some farmers break away from the conventional mode of farming, while others don't?" For coasties like me, this book is a great eye opener to the surprising agricultural realities of the America's heartland. A sample reading is available here.

1a. An Invitation to Environmental Sociology
by Micheal Mayerfeld Bell
So this is where I cheat on the Five Books limit--this one I see as background or extension to the last one. This is used on many campuses as a textbook for environmental sociology, but it is easier to read than most textbooks. A good introduction, excuse me, invitation, to basic theoretical concepts about how society interacts with the environment.

2. A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There
by Aldo Leopold
A classic by one of the fathers of American environmentalism. I can't believe they let me graduate from college without reading this book. If you've never heard of Aldo Leopold, get acquainted now. This book comes in three parts: first, a collection of essays recording a year on the Leopolds' wooded property in one of the "Sand Counties" of Wisconsin. Second, accounts of Leopold's travels in and out of the U.S., documenting such marvels as the Colorado River Delta back when that river actually flowed to the sea. Finally, the last section contains The Land Ethic, the culmination of Leopold's thinking about humans' role in the environment. Read the whole book because it is lovely, but read The Land Ethic because it is vitally important.

3. Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Agriculture in California
by Julie Guthman
This one is more challenging reading, and more academic, than the others, but I am including it because it contains a fascinating history of farming in California and raises troubling, important questions about how the organic movement has replicated some of what it set out to overthrow. By no means abandoning the organic idea, Guthman outlines some of the difficult problems that stand in the way of a real, sustainable food system.

4. The Land Remembers
by Ben Logan
Ben Logan is a gem of a human being, and here he pours his heart into telling his childhood on a hilltop farm in Southern Wisconsin in the 1930's and 40's. I saw him read from this book before I had ever read it, at an art gallery here in Madison. He read from the last chapter, and when you get there you will understand how I was overcome, how I had to hide my face and take slow deep breaths. The Land Remembers is moving, funny and enthralling, a quick read perfect for a short vacation, but it is also a valuable record of a family farm, told with the voice of a naturalist and historian. Logan recalls how people once lived in the countryside, recognizing the faults of farming past while also remembering it's sweetness.

5. Ear to the Ground, a podcast from the Land Stewardship Project
Because I am so hip that one of my books is a podcast. Ear to the Ground regularly features interviews with agroecological movers-and-shakers like Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, and Bill McKibben, as well as farmers who are employing innovative, sustainable practices. For instance, a couple growing salad greens all through the Minnesota winter by using a highly insulated, solar-powered greenhouse that gets up to 80 degrees without any inputs of man-made energy. Listen to some of the archived episodes here--they are all great. Land Stewardship Project, by the way, is a great organization dedicated to promoting sustainable agriculture.

I can think of probably a dozen more books that don't quite make it onto The Five but are excellent resources. There has been quite a crop lately of "eat local/buy local" books, and any one of them is well worth a read if you are unfamiliar with that idea. The first I read and liked a lot, the rest I have only heard about in detail. They include:
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver,
Harvest for Hope by Jane Goodall,
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Micheal Pollan,
Deep Economy by Bill McKibben, and
Hopes Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet by Francis Moore Lappe and Anne Lappe.

Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

Coming back around.

2007-09-17T20:07:00.000-07:00

A season has changed since I last wrote, and I'm not sure how to come back to you, my readers. A million or so little visions I might have recorded, a dozen or two perfect days, several long-afternoons worth of musings--you write them down, or you don't, and then they're gone and you're left sitting in front of the window on a Monday night, September now halfway out the door, trying to figure out where summer has left you.

For one thing it left me in a new apartment, which reminds me to remind you to ask for my new address. Just like the August before it, last month had me packing my things, this time to move not across the country but down the street, into a second-floor apartment of an old white house. Here Patrick and I each have our own little offices, a sunny living room, and a pantry where his dozens of boxes of breakfast cereal (because it was on sale!) and my oversized jars of odd flour (because I might make rye bread!) are learning to live with each other.

Summer completed my education on the year's cycle of vegetable ripening and disappearance, both from the garden I helped tend and from the great food fashion show of the central farmers' market. I took part in the inevitable, luxurious, wasted bounty of zucchini, basil, blackberries, cucumbers. I froze some pesto and roasted peppers, but did not, after all, learn to can. The great flood of the season's tomatoes escaped me, and I head into winter knowing I'll be getting tomato sauce from elsewhere if I want it. Oh well. There will be beets and spinach and parsnips here yet, and the same fine meats and cheeses. And some new skills have to be left for next year.

The morning that classes started felt as lazy as any other until I got to campus, and then I could have sworn I heard Bill Atkinson quoting a favorite movie: "Things change, Kundun!" Students were everywhere, mobbing the sidewalks that had been empty last week. I could barely ride through the crosswalk between the groups of hip young people, demonstrating to me en masse what is cool this year. Though classes have started, but my summer's work isn't over. I'll be gathering interviews through the fall and into the winter. But now there are classes to regulate my weeks.

The final signal that the season has changed was the arrival of Rosh Hashanah last week. Though I have no more conviction than last year about the Big Questions of life, I am culturally more Jewish now than I was a year ago. I even learned a little Hebrew. Connecting with a Jewish congregation and learning a bit about this faith has helped me understand my family a little, and brings back sweet memories of my Granny Franny on a Friday night, holding her hands to her eyes in front of a pair of candles. Which seems like as good a reason as any to get religion.

Apples are in season now, and I am craving crisp, spicy, acidic ones. I will dip them in honey and think of you, my dear friends and family, and I will wish you shanah tovah, a sweet and prosperous new year.

Going native.

2007-07-25T21:11:00.000-07:00

Yes, last weekend I took up another local Wisconsin pastime. I got up on water skis on Lake Tainter, where Patrick's folks live. Later on that evening we went out again on the pontoon boat, with Gretta, the miniature schnauzer. A good time was had by all.

Foraging for Dessert

2007-07-05T13:25:00.000-07:00

As I write, the last mulberries are dropping from trees around Madison. I had recognized the three-lobed leaves of mulberry trees growing in the woods along two of my bike routes, but had assumed that they, like most mulberry trees you see in cities, were male and thus fruitless. But in mid-June, deep purple, honey-flavored berries quietly appeared, tucked under leaves. Most people don't seem to notice them--they do not garner the attention of the strawberries that came before them or the raspberries that are coming after. So for a few weeks I have felt like part of a secret society: the mulberry pickers. Mulberry pickers walk the woods and streets with a special eye, looking for dark stains on the sidewalk, branches that from afar look somehow full. Sometimes I see other mulberry pickers, absorbed in the branches of some tree, eating as fast as they pick. For the most part I have just been stopping to munch a few on my way from here to there, but last week took a bag over to a particularly laden tree I had noticed, and came back with purple fingernails and a couple pounds of fruit. Delicious on ice cream, or with milk for breakfast. I thought I would save some to freeze, but I was kidding myself.

Blackmail!

2007-06-22T09:47:00.000-07:00

Back when I lived in the Mediterranean climate of Fallbrook, CA, I had a little bay tree in a pot on my patio. I had raised it from a sweet little seedling to a multi-branched teenager, pruning it strategically and waiting patiently for some spare leaves for my stews. I had to leave my bay tree behind when I moved to Wisconsin, but I brought with me a handful of its leaves, which ran out a few months ago. The story gets complicated here, when I asked a "friend" (read, "spy") who was visiting if she could bring me some bay leaves from home. It became clear that I had forgotten where I had left the tree.

Now, last week, I receive this sinister note in the mail, with only a P.O. Box for a return address. "We have your t[r]ee," it read, and to prove it was a bundle of leaves wrapped in plastic! Who are these people and what do they want? I won't name my suspicions here, but I think their last name rhymes with "Bats Can Sun." Anyone who can provide me with more information about the whereabouts and well being of my sweet bay tree will be rewarded with some really fine vegetable broth.

Dilled radish pickles in a mason jar

2007-06-14T20:46:00.000-07:00

We'll see how they turn out this time, pickled raw in salt, red wine vinegar and apple cider vinegar. Radishes from the student garden. Based on a taste test tonight, I think more salt less vinegar would have been better, not that I was measuring. I really just wanted to post because they are pretty.

Living quarters

2007-06-11T22:18:00.000-07:00

One of my housemates went to Kenya for research (my life is so grad school), so we offered up her room for sublet. Now I have a new housemate for the summer, and it is a man. This is the first non-relative, non-boyfriend male I have shared close quarters with, so I was curious how things would go. So far, awesome. New Housemate is:

1.) Nice, in a way that only the Midwest can do Nice. When I came down for breakfast today, he made me a cup of coffee even though he had already put away the French press. Also, drinks both beer and coffee on a regular basis, which heretofore I have been the only one doing that. Two thumbs up.

2.) TIDY. As I sat there eating my bowl of cereal with slightly passed-prime strawberries, I saw him get a paper towel and wipe up some drips he had made on the stove. If I had another hand he'd get three thumbs up.

Al's Amazing Oregano Trout

2007-06-11T10:34:00.000-07:00

I made this for Patrick a few weeks ago and it blew his mind.

5 or 6 sprigs very fresh oregano
2 or 3 scallions
olive oil
1 heaping tsp. mustard
salt and pepper
2 fillets of trout (I used farm raised rainbow trout, from the farmers market)
wine
crusty bread

Preheat the oven to 425 F. Pour yourself a glass of wine. Seperate oregano leaves from their stems, and coursely chop. Should be about 1/4 cup chopped, or more. Thinly dice the scallions. Mix oregano and scallions with enough olive oil to make a thick, paste-like sauce. Add some mustard, salt, and peppar. In a baking dish, coat the fish with a generous layer of the herb mixture. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until done. You will want to soak up some of the baking juices with crusty bread.

Visits.

2007-06-06T21:00:00.001-07:00

So much has happened since classes finished that I probably won't write about all of it. Most importantly, I saw Adam graduate from West Point and Claire came to visit me in Madison. I have a lot to say about the graduation, it was crazy and amazing and left me feeling all gushy and even patriotic. I had insights about the national anthem and contemplated my duties as a citizen. I came home vowing to be more brave in my life. But Claire's visit came more recently, so I can capture it better. Pictures, and perhaps more words, to follow.

Acting consistently with the long tradition of our friendship, Claire and I proceeded to rock this town and most of Minneapolis like they have never been rocked before. Really though, if I had made a checklist of Things To Do With Claire, I would have checked off every single one except for "Get ice cream from campus dairy store," which wasn't really that important and "Prevent her from ever going home," which was a lost cause anyway. We went to the farmers market, where they were conveniently displaying a dozen breeds of dairy cows that day, saw a movie, had a potluck, went to a country show, got caught in the rain.

The best part, to me, was the four hour drive from Madison up to Minneapolis, where we hung out with Caroline. It had rained hard, and storm had left a herd of tiny little cloud puffs that made the sky look very blue. Here and there, cows spotted the hillsides in a similar pattern. It was my first time taking a long trip since moving out here where I've done most of the driving, and everything looked different. Then I realized that part of the difference was that everything is green now, as opposed to winter browns.

Claire and I had both just narrowly escaped hangovers from the night before, and now we listened to our favorite songs, ate gummy bears, and tried to figure out what's up with our lives, batting about the kind of questions that could wear you out but don't because someone remembers something hilarious and so you end up laughing instead. In Minneapolis we admired Caro's adorable, grown-up house. While she went to work in her grown-up sky scraper, we got pedicures, bought crazy thrift-store shoes, looked at art, drank one cocktail each at some rooftop bar we discovered. Then Caroline got back from work and we took some goofy pictures which I will post soon, and placed bets about when our friends will get married. No, I'm not telling who bet what about what.

Then I left Claire there, turned up some music to forget how sad it was, and drove all the way home by midnight last night. I woke up the today happy and determined, dressed over-optimistically for the weather, and had a cold but productive day of sorting out my summer research plans. Aside from the usual doubts and confusion that are not place-dependent, and aside from missing all the dear folks back home, I am almost embarrassingly happy here. Especially after having some old friends around to remind me who I really am.

Eating spring.

2007-05-19T19:33:00.000-07:00

Spring's riot came and went. If I had stopped to blog about it I would have missed most of it. Suffice it to say that for about three weeks the whole city smelled like a perfumery as lilacs and then lillies of the valley bloomed on every block. I blinked and dandelions had all gone to seed, I blinked again and the trees had leafed out, closing a dense canopy over the backyard.

I am still learning what to expect from Wisconsin. What grows here when? Spring has brought an array of new foods: I had morels for the first time, and ramps--wild leeks that look like broad, flat-leaved scallions and smell like very strong garlic and dirt. So many vegetables can be grown at any time of year in California that I had never considered seasonal foods as sharply has I do here. For instance, I had never thought much about when asparagus comes up, but now it seems obvious that its tender shoots are spring made edible.

The farmers market moved back outside, and all sorts of leafy things joined the potatoes, parsnips and cheeses that had been there all winter. Today I couldn't resist the radishes. In a workshop once, I heard a farmer say that radishes are the best crop for bringing people to her market booth. Customers see the bunches of red and purple and can't walk away. I thought this was funny because I actually never know what to do with radishes. After eating a few raw my taste for that kind of burning crunch is satisfied, and the rest are doomed to rot in the crisper.

But spring is the season for doing what you know better than to do, so today I came home with a little bunch of hot pink radishes, small as marbles, tied together like so many rosebuds. This time I subjected them to what has become my default preparation for challenging veggies: blanch in boiling water until the color brightens, then drain and let marinate in a mixture of red wine and balsamic vinegars, olive oil, and some salt. They were delicious this way! The blanching took the sting out and made them a little tender, and the marinade brought out their sweetness and juiciness. I left the greens on, which was an excellent choice because they soaked up more of the vinegar bath and looked very nice. I ended up eating the whole bunch at dinner.

Meanwhile, at the student garden rhubarb is up. I have never cooked rhubarb because as far as I know it only goes in pies, and I am intimidated by all baking and especially pie crusts. If the recipe calls for a mixer, I generally skip it. But there was the rhubarb, and someone told me it will be stringy and tough by the time strawberries are ripe, so you have to freeze it now and wait to make strawberry-rhubarb desserts. I think the time window put the pressure on--don't miss this once-in-a-lifetime sale on rhubarb! I ended up biking home with an armful of it, which is now chopped up and beginning to freeze. I will report again on what I do with it when the strawberries come up.

What happened to Mothers' Day?

2007-05-14T19:45:00.000-07:00

According to this piece in Ms. Magazine, Julia Ward Howe meant it to be a day of protest for peace, in the wake of the Civil War. Nearly a century and a half and we are, if anything, farther from her vision than ever:

Mother's Day Proclamation - 1870

by Julia Ward Howe

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Literary

2007-04-11T19:08:00.000-07:00

In high school Barbara Kingsolver was my idol. The Bean Trees was the most hilarious thing I'd ever read. I loved Taylor, the main character, who escaped from her provincial hometown in a beat-up car and eventually made a weird and bright new life in the desert Southwest. I wanted to do exactly the same. Then came the sort-of sequels, Animal Dreams and Pigs in Heaven, each more sexually explicit than the last. I was seventeen. I read them twice. In the used book store under the Fallbrook Library, I found Another America/Otra America, which I think is Kingsolver's only book of poetry. I memorized a poem about not shaving one's legs, and another about the School of the Americas. Senior year I read The Poisonwood Bible, an introduction to the perpetual problems of colonialism. It would be a couple more years before I started taking anthropology classes about world development.

After my first year of college, Prodigal Summer was out. It was indeed summer, and the leafy woods of Massachusetts looked exactly like the photograph on the book jacket. I read it on the plane flying home. By this time, though, I was pretty steeped in her writing style and some elements started to sound familiar, even gimmicky: references to Emily Dickinson, hope having feathers. An attractive man's hair glistening like the pelt of an endangered animal. I felt like I'd outgrown her a little bit. I went back to The Bean Trees and found it more stilted than hilarious. But there was something going on in Prodigal Summer that I liked: Barbara Kingsolver had gotten interested in farmers. Though I found the book's plot lines somewhat forced, they conspired to speak about farming and land, community and wilderness, family and seasons. I wouldn't say it influenced my interest in agriculture, as that was developing on its own, but there was a strange synchronism about it.

And now? Now Barbara Kingsolver is farming in southwestern Virginia and writing nonfiction about local foods and agrarianism. And publishing on similar subjects is my other favorite scientist and writer, Jane Goodall. What's the deal? Are local food systems the cause of the decade? Did all those books in my formative years insidiously predestine me romanticize rural life? I think it's that these writers both like hope, and investing in local sustainable farming is a very hopeful response to overwhelming environmental degradation and human suffering. That is, after all, what drew me to this field.

Poems

2007-03-28T18:00:00.000-07:00

We all probably need more poems in our lives, and I don't have much to say, so I bring you one I liked recently.

The Long Voyage

Not that the pines were darker there,
nor mid-May dogwood brighter there,
nor swifts more swift in summer air;
it was my own country,

having its thunderclap of spring,
its long midsummer ripening,
its corn hoar-stiff at harvesting,
almost like any country,

yet being mine; its face, its speech,
its hills bent low within my reach,
its river birch and upland beech
were mine, of my own country.

Now the dark waters at the bow
fold back, like earth against the plow;
foam brightens like the dogwood now
at home, in my own country.

--Malcom Cowley

Maple sappy!

2007-03-25T12:56:00.000-07:00

This weekend one of my Agroecology colleagues invited everyone out to his family's farm, about an hour and a half west of Madison. It's maple sugaring time, and his parents had been tapping their trees all week, collecting it in big plastic barrels, and then using a horse to help haul it up to the boiling stove. For a few years, apparently, they've turned this into a big party, which not only makes it more fun, but provides a little extra help with the labor of hauling sap to the stove and boiling it for hours and hours to reduce it into syrup.

The pan sits on top of a wood stove, which had to be stoked every hour or so while the sap was boiling. Someone also has to keep an eye on the level of liquid in the pan, making sure to keep topping it off with new sap every so often, and making sure to take the syrup off before it burns. We arrived on Saturday afternoon and his parents had already been boiling it for a day.

The evening was full of food, drink, and music. An accordion was pulled out of it's box, polkas were danced. Bongos were bongoed. All the merriment served to keep the crowd up longer, so that people could keep checking on the syrup. One by one people went to bed, and then a few of us stayed up another late hour, from 2 am to 3 am, watching the sap, breathing in the maple steam, talking sleepily and putting more wood in the stove. Finally we went to bed, leaving the one dedicated syrup-maker to wake up each hour and check again.

Before night fell, though, we took a walk around the farm and admired the stand of prairie, formerly corn and tobacco fields, now restored through planting seed and maintained with burns. Since I can't seem to get enough of tall-grass prairie, I post more of it here.

So I guess all of this means that spring is here or coming, and I am about to discover another season in Wisconsin. When I tell people I'm from California, they often ask me how I made it through the winter. I guess I made it through with wonder and curiousity, by paying attemtion to firsts. These methods have served me well so far. Yes, I miss rocky coastline and sagebrush desert, but here I there are red dogwood branches, scraggly spreading oak and these blond grasses, bent in snow. Comparison is beside the point.

More fun with Torah.

2007-03-14T15:33:00.000-07:00

So part of the religious bent of my last post arose from a class I am taking this semester: Introduction to Judaism. It's not through the university, but through the Jewish association of Madison, and taught by a consortium of six rabbis from local congregations ranging from Conservative to Reconstructionist. No Orthodox communities are represented, although we are having a special field trip to meet with an Orthodox rabbi. There are an assortment of religious orientations among the students as well: a handful are engaged or newly married interfaith couples with the non-Jewish partner either considering conversion or just wanting to learn more. Some students are my parents' age and, like my dad, quit learning about Judaism after their bar- or batmitzvah. And I have recently identified two other young women who are more or less in my position--raised with just enough Judaism to think of it as part of our identities, yet not enough to know what's going on in the Hebrew service.

It's pretty exciting. The rabbi from the Reform congregation is a middle-aged man with a classic gray beard, and looks and speaks the way you expect a rabbi to do. When he talks I write down pithy, authoritative-sounding sentences about right and wrong. Then there's the rabbi from the Reconstructionist congregation, the one I've joined. She's a petite woman with short curly hair and a home-made yarmulke. She's openly gay and her partner is also a rabbi. She deconstructs the biblical texts, points out inconsistencies, and talks about how Jewish interpretations of these biblical meanings have always been evolving and changing. I love that these rabbis designed the curriculum together. The point they both are very insistent on is that there is no one Jewish belief about anything. Not even the existence or nature of God. This kind of debate and uncertainty, I find, makes me feel right at home.

And so in my new field of interest I found a delightful companion at Slate.com: David Plotz's Bible Blog, subtitled, "What happens when an ignoramus reads the good book?" Plotz is irreverent, yet thoughtful, and capitalizes well on the Old Testiment's penchant for eye-opening stories. Following along with him not only takes less time than actually reading the bible, I suspect it's more fun.

spring in memory

2007-03-06T17:28:00.000-08:00

I remember the first time I felt that I believed in a God. I was maybe 8 years old, and my parents had taken me hiking at the Santa Rosa Plateau. The day was bright, with the heat of early spring, and I had been given my small backpack to wear. My parents were walking more or less together, quite a few paces in front of me, and I, as I still do, had drifted happily into my own thought-world. I have been to this preserve so many times since that day that the details of the place now mingle with everything I've learned of it over the years, but the particular feeling of this memory is still unique.

The stems of grass were verdant and silky, with tassels beginning to swell but not yet broken from their sheaths. I noticed this intently at that age, because I enjoyed pulling grass stalks carefully from their joints, and chewing on the tender ends as I walked along. When the grass is at this stage at the Preserve, the vernal pools of the mesa top are still full of rain to amply reflect the sky, and two-legged tadpoles thicken the water. It is a time of buttercups, but not yet, as I remember, a time of poppies or lupine. And it is during this fleeting week or so that the chocolate lilies bloom--brown speckled bells, three or four to a stalk, an endangered flower distinct almost exclusively to this bit of land.

My parents were probably looking for the chocolate lilies as we filed down the path from the edge of the plateau down to the old adobe house. There is a tunnel of live oaks, all laced with wild cucumber and mingled with knobby volcanic boulders, and then the path comes into the open and meanders down to the stonewalled rancho. As I walked along this stretch of open, my parents now well up ahead, I had a feeling of delight so strong that even now I remember it as a physical sensation. The sky was blue, the soil was red--in my experience of life so far, this was the most beautiful scene I could imagine. And this speeding up of the blood, this dizzy happiness--I decided this feeling was God.

That revelation did not lead me to articulate a theology and follow it through life. Some years I feel that all is holy--other years I know that nothing is. But I can never turn my back on the child who felt so happy that day--even when I don't believe, I seek out religion for ritual's sake. But all this is fitting, I tell myself lately, for I come from a people that descended from Jacob, and Jacob wrestled with God.

My Pickled Valentine

2007-02-15T15:57:00.000-08:00

I made these lightly pickled, hot pink vegetables for tonight's potluck. Since they are so delicious, and since I can't think of anything better to write about, I will share my recipe with all of you. Good for a Valentine's Day, sweet or sour, or any other time you're feeling pink.

1 head cauliflower
5 or 6 nice fat carrots
2 large beets
good red wine vinegar
sea salt
parsley, finely shopped

Preheat the oven to 450 F and set some water to boil in a pot with a steamer basket. Scrub the beets well, trim off any root hairs or tough-looking skin. Wrap them in foil and place them on a tray in the oven. Let them cook until soft, checking with a skewer. It will take about 30 to 45 minutes, depending on how big they are.

Cut the cauliflower into florets and steam it to desired tenderness. I think a bit crispy is nice. Cut the carrots into attractive bite-sized pieces, and steam them as well. When the beets are soft, remove them from the oven, remove the foil, and cut them into bite-sized slices. Put all the vegetables in a bowl or large flat dish and toss with the parsley and a good amount of salt. Douse with plenty of red wine vinegar. Let sit a few hours, or longer, stirring once in a while to get all the vegetables coated with vinegar. Serve cold or at room temperature.

Extra touch: I accidentally bought this white truffle infused olive oil from Trader Joe's. I say accidentally because I wanted it but thought it was too expensive ($12 for a rather small bottle). But then I dropped it, denting the lid, and felt that buying it was really the only right thing to do. It has a really interesting garlicky taste and aroma. So, if the same thing happened to happen to you, and then you drizzled some of it on the vegetables, it certainly wouldn't hurt anything.

The latest.

2007-02-07T08:47:00.000-08:00

I’ve been doing a lot of transcribing of interviews lately. It’s part of my thesis work. It has the potential for complete tedium, but earlier this week I realized that the craft of transcribing interviews is very related to playwriting. I listen to these recorded conversations and then think, “How will I write this so that if people tried to recreate the event from my writing, the meaning would still come through?” So I’ve started really wielding the parentheses and italics with flourish.

Respondent: So, that’s—that’s kind of how I think of it.
Interviewer: Uh huh.
Respondent: (after a pause) On the other hand…

Isn’t that exciting? Can’t you just feel the weight of the moment, the tension of conversation? Well, anyway. I can.

There’s a rumor going around that the admissions committee met and Agroecology will have 10 or 12 new students next semester. That means almost tripling in size! I have to say, I take a little credit for this. Hannah, Nate and I unofficially appointed ourselves as the recruitment committee last semester. Every time we got wind of a prospective student, we took them out for coffee, walked them around campus, and basically sent the message: We are so awesome, Agroecology is so awesome, and if you come here you will be so awesome too.

Oh yes, and as some of you may have heard, it was below zero for about 5 days straight, with actually temperatures down to -15 and windchills down to -30. Due to some very bad logic, I tried to ride my bike in this weather, and the condensation of my breath made my scarf freeze. But rather than finding this weather depressing or gloomy, I’m actually getting quite a thrill from it. I mean, this weather could really kill me! How cool is that?

Well, for Wednesday, February 07, 2007, this has been my Chipper Little Blog Entry. Over and out.

Agroecology on ice.

2007-01-27T08:23:00.000-08:00

Last night was the Agroecology Winter Potluck, at a professor's house on the edge of Lake Monona. The evening started out with beers in the snow, around a backyard campfire, then moved inside for appetizers. We have two exchange students this semester, both professors of agroecology at the University of Guadalajara, where they work with agave growers. They brought nopales and the best, perhaps only, guacamole I've had out here. The potluck dinner spread ranged from a delicious, rare venison roast to vegan quinoa salad. We had eaten our fill and were just starting to relax when the hosting professor started urging us out of our chairs and into our jackets. The lakes are good and frozen now, and on the ice in front of his house he had carved out a court for playing broomball, which is like hockey but with brooms and a soccer ball. We had all been told to bring brooms for the occasion.

The game started out with everyone sort of blobbing around the ball, then got more organized as people got comfortable on the ice and figured out how to maneuver their brooms. There was continuing confusion as to whether the goalies could block with their feet or had to use brooms as well. I discovered the folly of a screw-on broom head, which sometimes flew off the handle just as I went to hit the ball.

When the game came to a close we grabbed some more drinks (brandy mixed with snow seemed momentarily like a good idea) and went for a walk on top of the lake. It was a clear night with a little more than half a moon, and the endless ice was brushed with a few inches of glowing snow that crunched beneath our boots. Here and there were dark, pie-sized holes cut by ice fishermen. I kicked one with my toe and broke through the thin frozen layer, but the ice next to it was thick and solid. The Mexican exchange students were beside themselves.

Finally we got around a small peninsula of shoreline and could see the Madison skyline, glittering and tiny, all the way on the other side of the lake. On the edge of the lake is Monona Terrace, a Frank Lloyd Wright structure with great white arches that can only be seen from the water. Behind it the capital dome, and then smaller buildings spread out east and west. Professor Bland tried to convince us of which building was which, but from the distance no one was sure.

Then we headed back, spread out in little groups of three and four, conversation continuing to rise and fall and break out in laughter. I was thinking that my new fleece-lined boots really had kept my toes warm, and that maybe by next fall I would have some venison of my own, and that this graduate program, in the new semester, continues to be uniquely awesome.

Kitchen sink

2007-01-18T15:32:00.000-08:00

A week before the house sale closed, my dad and I realized I'd forgotten to empty out the attic when I moved. He went down there to get the stuff out, and took some pictures while he was at it. This my favorite. I like the way the light plays across the scraggly backyard, the few leaves starting to go yellow on the apricot tree in early November. Most of all I like the way that from this angled distance the place already looks like a memory--the clay sunface still left on the wall by the screendoor, empty planters on the picnic table, everything looking like we all might just be inside and about to walk out onto the patio any minute.

My last morning in Fallbrook dragged out forever. Patrick and I had been loading the truck all night, and in the morning we still weren't finished. Little undone details seemed to appear out of nowhere. At some point during those last, frustrating hours I decided that before we left for the trip I needed to clean my pocket knife, which was gummy and stuck with years of built up crud. I took it into the kitchen sink and just kind of stood there, hot water running over my hands. I thought about all the times I'd stood at that sink, sometimes with Mom behind me, chopping something on the cutting table, sometimes with Dad next to me, drying and putting away dishes. When I was really young it was sometimes all three of us, doing chores in the kitchen, listening to radio shows, Dad being goofy and singing songs.

The kitchen was all bare now, it hardly looked with same without all the jars of grains on the shelves, Mom's vases and statue of Qwan Yin on the window sill. The kitchen sink still looked exactly the same though, outdated but sturdy steel faucet crusty from hard water, white ceramic scratched up a little bit at the bottom of the basins. Suddenly the pocket knife snapped back against my fingers, and I watched as a thin line of blood appeared and begin to drip onto the white of the sink. It didn't hurt, but I swore and cried as if I'd lost my whole hand. The whole way across the plains I kept looking at the thin red scab on the pad of my finger. By the time I'd finished moving in to my new place, it was gone.

I've been reflecting recently on how natural my life in Madison feels now. On campus I bump into people I know, and there's always some excitement around the corner. All of the promises of a new place seem to be panning out. But I still feel sometimes like a person with no history. My life as far as my friends here are concerned began when they met me. At first I kept waiting, nervously, for the moment when I'd have to tell them: My mother is dead. My family is gone from my home. But the moment never came, and I stopped waiting. No doubt my new acquaintances have their tragedies and secrets as well. But we're all adults now and it's the present that matters. No need to run every out every ragged story.

Back, with snow.

2007-01-15T14:26:00.000-08:00

Well, the lappy is up and running again, allowing me to do all sorts of convenient things like print documents at home and find out what temperature it is outside. During the Week of No Computer, I went through a painful internet withdrawal but then discovered the wonderful free time created by not hunching over my desk reading Slate for hours. I could spend time learning new recipes, and actually doing some of the yoga I learned back in Fallbrook. I practiced the mandolin, went for walks, caught up on my filing, read a novel, took baths. It was wonderful. I imagine everything will snap back to normal when classes start, but for now I'm trying to break free of the internet beast and not turn my computer on until I really need it for something. What a concept.

It started snowing on Saturday and has been snowing all day today. I shoveled my first sidewalk. On Saturday evening Patrick, my friend Hannah and I went to see Madison's annual cross-country ski tournament around the Capitol building. The city shuts down a street that runs in a square around the Capitol, fills the street with snow, and sets up a cross-country ski course. Anyone who thinks cross-country isn't exciting obviously hasn't seen this, although the doofy announcer was half the fun.

In other recent developments, I am now not only the housemate who drinks the most, swears the most, and plays the most rock and roll, I am also the housemate who set up an air rifle shooting range in the basement. Ah, they love me.

Down for Repairs

2007-01-08T12:42:00.000-08:00

This Sunday, I celebrated the first weekend of the new year by drizzling my keyboard with a celebratory half-mug of coffee. Now it turns on and looks like it's working, but every few minutes the keys type a different set of letters--sometimes "q" comes out "qa" and sometimes "t". Patrick suggests we take it out to a field and shoot it.

I'm at the library now, but I don't like blogging from here so until the keyboard is replaced Dillseeds, and all online Alex applications, will be on a break.

2006: When Christmas Went Country

2007-01-03T20:36:00.000-08:00

I could say so much about each of these pictures. The belt buckle, in all its shiny awesomeness, is from Claire and made out real buffalo nickels. The Daisy air rifle is from Patrick, as are the safety glasses. I was shooting soda cans. To me, these gifts prove that I know how to surround myself with truly the best of people.

Mistress of Science

2006-12-22T08:45:00.000-08:00

And just like that, I finished my first semester of grad school.

Celebrated that and the solstice last night with one of those kind of potlucks where everyone magically brings just the right thing, and a perfectly formed meal emerges.

I woke up this morning well rested, my room in shambles from the hectic week. I'm not quite as elated as I expected to be, maybe because one of my assignments was so large and frustrating that I'm still unsatisfied with the finished product. But oh well. A friend told me that someone told her that if you're making A's in your classes your not spending enough time on your research.

My research is on my mind too, now that I've finished classes. My thesis project has started coming together, my committee members are starting to commit. It's clear that my thesis work will be essentially social science--it is a distinctly rural sociology project. And though I find it really interesting, somehow I'm a little afraid that because it isn't natural science it won't be useful to me. I'll be getting an M.S. degree--shouldn't I be doing species counts of some sort? Shouldn't I have test plots?

I have to back up and remind myself of what I've already decided--that neither social science nor natural science projects alone will solve any problems. Natural science data is no good if no one can implement it, and it's no good for people to want to implement sustainable practices if we don't have that natural science data to show what is sustainable. So I just have to enter into the whole problem with whatever I'm good at and like doing. And that's the question to focus on.

Patrick and I officially decided to forego a visit to California this winter, largely because I waffled about the idea too long and now the ticket prices have gone up. Of course as soon as this was decided I started missing everyone terribly. Guys, come visit me. I'm serious.

Agritainment.

2006-12-15T17:40:00.000-08:00

Friends and relations (actually, my relations don't read this, but whatever), I bring you Little Sugar River Farm, a.k.a. "Paradise." This gourmet bed-and-breakfast/hobby farm (the owner jokingly calls it "agritainment) lies about 45 minutes outside of Madison, and fortunately is owned by a professor in Environmental Studies who, with her husband, decided to go to Nebraska for a week during finals this semester. This meant that they needed house-sitters to take care of their rooster and twenty-seven hens of various varieties. And who better to fill that position than me and the boyf? No one, is the answer.

So here we are, in this award-winning farmhouse, hand-built with wood from the site, surrounded by miles of farms and open land, having stoked the wood stove so that it's 72 degrees in here. I've been working all day on my research proposal, and Patrick's been alternately studying for a stats final and getting the chickens to follow him around the yard. There are several crates of homegrown potatoes in the basement and more eggs than we can handle in the fridge. It's completely amazing. I wish I could do my finals this way every semester.

Just wanted you all to know my wherabouts.

Losing it.

2006-12-13T08:06:00.000-08:00

It's been a couple years, and I had forgotten what finals can be like. I mean, this finals period is actually fine--I'm even enjoying some of my assignments. But I've been skimping on the sleep, and the nutritional value of my meals has plummeted. This morning I could tell things are starting to get to me when I found myself swearing at the radio.

It was the local public radio, they were talking about climate change, and some guy called in to ask why the scientific community isn't addressing population change--why scientists are saying its a social issue. And, while driving down the road, I yelled, "Well it is a social issue, you bastard! What exactly do you think science can do about it, asshole? You goddamn fucker, why don't you just go sterilize the poor women of the world and lobotomize them too while you're at it. You make me sick."

Then I changed the channel, and promptly starting mouthing off just as passionately about why the hell 105.5 has to constantly be playing "Hotel California." I mean, Jesus H., if they have to play it every single week, they could at least mix it up with the Gypsy Kings cover. For cryin out loud.

Somebody needs to give me a massage.

Seasonal adjustment.

2006-12-01T15:03:00.001-08:00

December starts off with a beautiful snow, which didn't yet get plowed off the sidestreets, so that I walked to campus in the middle of street with snow crunching under my boots. Claire's last post reminded me of the correct attitude for me to assume about Christmas: a sort of good-natured suspension of irony, the same kind of attitude I adopt about themeparks and my extended family.

With that in mind, here are a few things I forgot to mention to Santa:

1.) Understated, genuine vintage belt buckle in tarnished silver or brass. No rhinestones allowed.
2.) A bottle of really nice tequila.
3.) This book.

What, you ask, is Al trying to pose as a cowboy again? Probably.

I pause to brag.

2006-11-30T19:50:00.000-08:00

I didn't take a single picture over Thanksgiving break, though James got the obligatory one of my with a big smile and my eyes shut tight. That's fine. It was all wonderful and I didn't want to take pictures. Being in Fallbrook made me so grateful again for my family of friends. Little village of my twenty mothers.

I got back on Monday night after a flight full of delays with my brain all swelled out of shape and a strange feeling of having left one home to return to another. I didn't think I'd take Madison to heart so quickly, but I guess I have.

No sooner did I settle back in than the temperature dropped to 20 and my wet hair froze on the way to school. I've got all kinds of overwhelming papers and presentations to do now, but it's alright because every time I start completely stressing out about not knowing how to do all of this and not feeling qualified, something happens to remind me it's just all too fascinating and important to bother worrying whether I'm good at it or not. It also helps that I got an assignment back from a professor with the written comment, "Yummy!" Which rules.

So, that's how things are going right now--basically ruling. I wish the same to all of you, especially my dear readers from that sunny town on the West Coast.

Switcheroo.

2006-11-18T15:23:00.000-08:00

I switched to the New Blogger! So far as I can tell, it is exactly the same as the old blogger, except that when I go onto the homepage there's a flashy little box of What's New! in colors and patterns that will clearly appeal to my generation. Blue and orange, with little arrows and stuff. Gets us every time.

This weekend and the next coming few days I'll be trying topsy turvy to get things done before going home for Thanksgiving. The good news is through the semester I have made and frozen enough soup in serving-sized portions to fulfill my basic nutrition needs for about a month. That's the main thing getting me through right now, that and this lady, who I've been listening to on repeat for weeks.

More meaty meat.

2006-11-09T15:37:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am completely delighted that the democrats swept Congress. I don't think I really need to say that, though.

I am also delighted with this article about steaks that I just read on Slate. Out of all the steaks tasted, the one from a grass-fed cow got the best tasting notes. And rather than having lived out its days at the kind of place that makes Corona, CA so intolerable, a grass-fed cow likely came from a farm like the one run by these wonderful folks who I met at a dinner recently. In case no one's noticed, livestock grazing is one of my biggest interests these days, and I will no doubt be posting yet more about it in the future. For discussion about dairy products from pasture raised cows, see me over the cheese board at Claire's After-Thanksgiving party.

Heckled by Sportsfans!

2006-11-04T12:24:00.000-08:00

Come 11 am on any Saturday morning during football season, and the entire city of Madison is wasted. Why? Because, as far as I can tell, people roll out of bed, pull on their red WISCONSIN hoodies and immediately start tailgating.

I, on the other hand, rolled out of bed this morning, ate the last sapote from California, dressed myself in as many layers of clothing as would fit under my jacket, and headed to the library to do the things I haven't done all week. My neighborhood borders the stadium, and as I waited at a stoplight I watched a group of three guys who were walking along yelling, as if this were a hilarious joke: "I hear it's going to be a BIG GAME!!" "YEAH, it's a BIG GAME!" "Hey, a BIG GAME!!"

I continued to watch the crowd for a bit when a voice from behind me yelled, "Hey YOU on the BIKE! Why aren't you going to the GAME? You should go to the GAME!!"

I considered his argument for a moment, but the light turned green and I headed off to write something about social dynamics in interviews and local knowledge among farmers. You just can't do everything.

What would Aldo Leopold think?

2006-11-01T20:25:00.000-08:00

"We end, I think, at what might be called the standard paradox of the twentieth century: our tools are better than we are, and grow faster than we do. They suffice to crack the atom, to command the tides. But they do not suffice for the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it."

--Aldo Leopold, 1938, in a speech to the UW-Madison Engineering Department entitled "Ecology and Engineering"

Thus began the end of our lecture series on the implications of corn ethanol. I highly recommend that everyone watch some of these lectures on line, here. The last one was the best, and it isn't all the way up yet, but hopefully will be soon.

White tea.

2006-11-01T19:57:00.000-08:00

I think I have found a way to get my thesis research done by following farmers around. Participant observation, it's called. God bless sociology.

I am drinking a delicate white tea that the Fallbrook Bliss Group sent me (see previous post). It is made from the very first leaves to emerge on the end of the tea branches in spring, picked while they are still tiny and covered in fine silver down. At the bottom of my cup I can just barely see the tiny hairs that came off of the leaves in the process of steeping.

With the leaves almost completely off the trees now, I can see much more of my neighborhood. Newfound sunlight graces the windows.

I have made the wonderful, yet somewhat secret discovery that sociologists are really just writers who approach their subject matter with a special care and a scientific mind. At least in the kind of sociology that my advisor does, (that is, participatory sociology), research is largely just an extended conversation. No devising convoluted surveys and then squeezing the results through statistical tests--just talking to people and writing about it. What could be better.

Bwah hah hah....

2006-10-29T21:49:00.000-08:00

They love me!

2006-10-27T22:42:00.000-07:00

Today when I got home from school there was a priority mail package sitting outside my door. The return address read, "Bliss Group, Fallbrook, CA." My yogi friends, the ones I had just written about, had sent me my very first grad school care package. I'm still kind of overwhelmed at how great it is, and all night I have just been congradulating myself on having perhaps the best hippie friends in the world.

So, as you can see, they decorated the inside flaps of the box with pictures of flowers and hearts, and helpful mottos like "Bliss No Rules" and "Life is a Balance." The outside flaps opened onto pink and purple tissue paper, and the tissue paper opened onto a lovingly folded pair of soft red gloves with matching hat and scarf. Beneath this was a treasure trove of whole leaf teas from their tea-importing bussiness, handmade chocolates from the Peruvian chocolatier with whom Holly is interning, and the bright tropical fruits of my hometown: avocados, lemons, sapote, and pink dragonfruit.

There were a couple cards, covered with more writing and drawings. My favorite line: "Alex, You are always with us!...especially when we have gathered together and blissed out!" I wrapped myself up in the soft red garments and thought of times in Ramia's kitchen, everyone radiant and stoned, inventing one extravegant desert after another, spritzing each other with rose water, howling in laughter at the full moon. Bliss No Rules indeed.

It was only later, when I squeezed the lemon over a salad with dinner, when I realized that I haven't had citrus more than a few times since I moved here. I made more or less of a commitment to buy only local produce, and I've had plenty of wonderful apples, pears, and berries, but none of the tropical fruits I used to take for granted in Fallbrook. This lemon was especially juicy and big as a grapefruit. I stood there pressing the fragrant peel to my nose, happy that my buying choices had made this an exotic thing, brought from far away, to be appreciated deeply like sunshine after days of rain.

Weekend outlook.

2006-10-26T21:11:00.000-07:00

Derailed is a horrible, horrible movie. I thought, you know, Jennifer Anniston and Clive Owen--even if it's rediculous at least it will be sexy. But no, it was just awful, in a dull, crude way that I can't even say funny things about. In fact I kind of hate myself right now for having watched the whole thing, but I felt like I had to watch it before sending it back to Netflix. And I have to send it back to Netflix so I can get....a spooky scary gurgly cheezy Halloween movie!! Wooohoo!

So, my boyfriend's on a hunting trip this weekend. Hmm, I find that perversely fun to say. And I am taking my first Midwestern roadtrip, to Chicago for my friend Julie's wedding on Saturday. At the last minute, Julie asked if I could give a ride to another friend of her's who lives in Madison. Apparently this girl was supposed to go to the wedding with her boyfriend, but a few days ago he told her he's met someone else...so now she's functionally single, and needs a ride. Now, if nothing else, a wedding is almost always a great party. If done right, there's a sort of group catharsis to it, in which everyone sort of reflects on life and love, and what it all means to them. Then, immediately afterwards, you are practically obligated to get drunk and dance with strangers, and people's grandmothers. For the recently dumped, it's either the perfect event or the worst event to be at.

And Julie...Julie's a riot just on her own. The kind of person that you feel perfectly fine about her getting married because she's already done pretty much everything there is to do in single life. We became friends in Ecuador, she was on my exchange program. I called Julie a few nights ago to plan things out, and she greeted me in a hushed voice with, "Listen, I'm dealing with a real situation here." The situation was that her new kitten had peed on her boots.

Point is, my weekend promises to be quite blogworthy, but I'm not sure if I'll have time to write about it later, so I'm just saying some of this now.

Earlier I wanted to write about the lecture I went to today, which was the last of a series about corn ethanol. I was going to talk about Aldo Leopold some more, maybe throw down some quotes, and talk again about agriculture and the landscape. But that damn shitty movie has completely distracted me. Derailed is right--it'll derail your evening.

So, I guess next time. Cheers, you know. I love you guys.

Al's infallible rules for success in life.

2006-10-25T21:13:00.000-07:00

Yep, I've been thinking in the shower, and I've figured it all out. Here's what you do:

1. Remember that you may die any day now, so be happy and try to do right by what you love.
2. Define love as broadly as possible.
3. Love as much as you possibly can. Love people, places, practices, moments, ideas, sensations.
4. Remember that anything you love can disappear at any moment, so love it now, and act on that love.
5. And then just don't give up.

To be followed soon by Al's infallible rules for success in grad school.

Garlic butter.

2006-10-25T20:22:00.000-07:00

It's been a good, long day--a little warmer and bright blue skies for a change. The lawns of my neighborhood were all painted yellow with maple leaves this morning, and crispy with frost. I think I'm finally getting the hang of things. I'm made an interesting observation that whether I have a good day or an awful one has absolutely no correlation to how much sleep I get the night before, what I eat fo breakfast, how much caffiene I consume, or any of the other myriad things we are all supposed to be doing each day. This serves as another confirmation of the "rules are overrated" approach to life that I learned from my yogi friends in Fallbrook these last two years. It also relates to one of the messages of my beloved TV show, Six Feet Under: Life is terribly painful, and good deeds are not rewarded. But sort of in reverse. Sometimes life is wonderful, and it's not because you did anything to deserve it.

There's been a surplus of garlic at the student farm. Last time I was there we were all told we couldn't leave without taking some, and I came home with enough garlic for the next few months. They've been selecting for size, and the bulbs are indeed nice and fat, with rather mellow flavor as I suspect big bulbs usually have. Small and spicy, big and mellow. I think that's the way it is with garlic.

I'm starting to get in the habit of cooking a lot whenever I have time to cook. Big trays of roasted beets and carrots, big pots of steamed greens, quarts of frozen soup. I took a few bulbs of garlic and roasted them till they were soft, then squeezed all the cloves into a jar and mashed them up with a little olive oil. When I came home tonight I toasted some bread, then spread it thick with creamy sweet garlic. Makes me feel like a natural woman.

See what I mean?

2006-10-12T15:48:00.000-07:00

That's right, a look out my window this morning revealed snow on my neighbor's roof and car. Sure, it was just a dusting, and most of it was gone an hour later, but at noon I still found puddles frozen solid on the sidewalk. This afternoon it started snowing again, thin, sparse flakes in freezing air as I biked home. I sit in my room now deeply grateful for central heat, and newly aware of all the surface vessels of my face and hands, which tingle with a rush of blood.

The first knife of winter.

2006-10-11T19:28:00.000-07:00

I can feel it in my bones: I'm about start listening to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska on repeat. I need some harmonica, thin acoustic guitar, and some anguished, pent-up lyrics about human failings.

The air felt like snow today, it began to hail around 4:00 as I stood under the shelter of a bus stop, late to a lecture that I never ended up finding. I wasted an hour wandering around in the cold, but I filled in a gap in my mind-map of campus, which was almost worth it. I kind of think I'm getting sick again, but maybe not. Maybe echinacea will work, despite the latest evidence that Patrick always insists on quoting. If echinacea and vitamin C are just placebos, then let me believe.

Claire writes about food today, and I have been thinking about food a lot too. Right now I have this chunk of blue cheese from an Amish dairy. It is creamy and delicious, in that funky blue cheese way. I also have some brussels sprouts that Michelle (my housemate) and I harvested last week. Very very fresh brussels sprouts, it turns out, are amazing when simmered just until barely tender, then tossed with butter and salt. At lunch I was completely engrossed in my blue cheese, which I crumbled on soup, and at dinner I was devoted to my brussels sprouts, as well as some roasted potatoes. Some internal voice is telling me to put on another layer for this winter. Eat more butterfat. Switch to whole milk. Hole up in a small room with plenty blankets.

I've been missing Mom like hell since school started. I had something lucky that most people don't get to have--a mother who was also a colleague. When I was emptying out the file cabinet at home I found several of her papers and what I think was her thesis from her Master's in Public Health. One of her papers was about agriculture and development in the Third World. Why, she asked, were development programs encouraging poor farmers to invest in expensive new seed and equipment, in places where traditional seeds and methods were time-proven and had less environmental impact? We have both asked the same questions, just from different places in time.

I'm so lost right now trying to figure out what it is that I'm supposed to be doing here. I desperately want someone who knows me that well to tell me what to do, even if just so I can reject her advice for some idea of my own. I'll never have that voice again, nomatter how I try to seek it out in friends and memories and some fumbling attempt at prayer. But I am fortunate to have ever had it in the first place. So incredibly blessed.

Meat.

2006-10-09T19:14:00.000-07:00

Downstairs, my roomates are eating ice cream and watching Supersize Me. There's a joke in there somewhere. I, however, am upstairs and "reading." I'm a little sad not to be downstairs in my comfy chair, but I am glad to concede to livingroom for this, the first use of the TV since we moved in. My roomates, lovely girls though they are, have a strong potential to be Anti-Television, so I'm glad to see this activity.

Everywhere I go these days, my own house included, I see gentle, peace-loving environmentalists chowing down on juicy chops of meat. What is going on? It's a sign of a wonderful development, particurly noticable in Wisconsin, and that is the availability of sustainably grown animal products. Compared to factory-farmed soy, mercury-laden fish, or shrimp gleaned from the distruction of some South East Asian seascape, pasture-raised beef, pork, bison and lamb are looking pretty good. It's not, in fact, an abandonment of our ethical standards, but a fulfillment of them. Our socio-environmental concerns are eased a bit, and we venture out of our vegetariansim. And, novices to meat cooking, start grilling up burgers that set the fire alarm off for hours at a time.

Wisconsin hunters are all over this idea. In a few weeks, Patrick is going on a hunting trip for forestry, funded by the hunting lobby. There is some statistic like 90% of students graduating from UW Forestry have never hunted. This is somewhat of a problem, because in research, education, and policy positions, the work of foresters directly affects and involves hunters who use the forests. In order to better understand the people they're working with, the logic goes, these students should at least have fired a gun in the woods. So Patrick and his friends (apparently the free class isn't really open to ag students, or I would go too) are going to go shoot some pheasants, clean them, and eat them. More peaceful nature lovers chowing down. It's the trend of a generation.

Three people I miss the most.

2006-10-08T19:16:00.000-07:00

Look at these sportsfans. Don't you just want to hug them? I do.

Nerdy academic musing of the evening.

2006-10-07T19:56:00.000-07:00

Preface: Yes, I'm doing homework on a Saturday night, and I feel perfectly fine about it. I partied on Thursday and Friday, so give me a break.

So, as I was going to say, while doing my reading for sociology tonight I had a little revelation. It addresses a lot of the anxiety I've had since getting here about what feels like my dull-headedness, my inability to comprehend scientific papers, grasp academic abstractions. I often feel like the ideas I'm dealing with rest on volumes of volumes of previous knowledge that I have never learned. While more experienced students ask questions that demonstrate a critical understanding, I'm wondering things that have to do with the very surface level of comprehension.

And what I realized is that my bewilderment is actually a valuable thing to remember and hold on to, that when I hear or read something and think, "what the hell?" I should make note of it as something most people don't understand. In a field like agroecology, it is crucial that graduates can communicate their knowledge to everyday people: farmers and agricultural workers as well as scientists and lawmakers. When I attain fluency in the ideas that right now frustrate me so much, it is important to remember that by then I will have strayed from the world of real life.

Heard recently

2006-10-07T06:58:00.000-07:00

Me: I think I'm beginning to have a friend!
Patrick: I hope it's not a boy.
Me: It isn't!
Patrick: Is it a lesbian?

Later that night.

2006-10-05T22:41:00.000-07:00

So, I went out with some Institute for Environmental Studies kids that my roomates are friends with, and we went to the Essenhaus, the over-the-top kitchy German bar where I formerly dance the polka. Yet again, there where two old guys playing drums and accordian, and they sang a song who's lyrics whent like this:

I don't want her,
You can have her,
She's too fat for me.
She's too fat for me.
She's too fat for me.

And then, yes Claire, then they played a little song called "Who Stole the Keishka."

Despite the fact that the beer was in gigantic glass boots, it was pretty good beer. We discovered a dark wheat beer, the dunkelweizen as opposed to heffeweizen, and threw free popcorn at each other all night.

I raise my grade to A-.

Progress Report

2006-10-05T18:35:00.000-07:00

So, lately people I encounter at school have been pointing out how I've "been here for a while now!" I find this observation a little unnerving, as it seems like just last week I was in Fallbrook, desperately trying to find someone to take my crappy futon couch and sobbing uncontrollably over a tiny cut on my finger that I got while packing up the last of the kitchen. Looking at where I am a month and a half into school brings up latent suspicions that I will always be late-bloomer, just a little slower at adjusting than everybody else. On the other hand, I've probably aculturated more than I realize. Let's look at a few of the ways that I have/have not "gotten used to it" yet.

After a lot of swearing and clunking around, I have learned how to quickly lock my bike to any for the half-dozen designs of bike racks found in the city. (With a U-lock, it's harder than it seems.)
On the other hand, I have not been able to avoid unwittingly biking to the grocery store just before a rainstorm. My bike's collapsible side-totes are cool, but not when loaded down with 4 soggy bags of wet groceries. And especially not when dumped out over the sidewalk after I tipped over at a cross walk. Fortunately, only 50 cars full of people saw me.

I have started refering to the streets like Washington and Williamson by their curtailed local nicknames--"Wash" and "Willy."
On the other hand, I have not bought (in fact I refuse to buy) anything with a giant school logo printed across it. I swear that people here make it a point to wear something at least every other day that says "WISCONSIN" giantly across the front. I obviously think Wisconsin's a great school, or else I wouldn't be here, but the logo wear is just not gonna happen.

I have danced the polka on Oktoberfest, to a real live polka band, in the presence of many drunk people, many of them wearing previously mentioned WISCONSIN shirts, most of them drinking beer out of giant glass boots.
On the other hand, I have not eaten a single fried cheese curd.

After a couple weeks of just thinking I had never really learned to look up references in college, I now know that when the librarian talks about "MadCat" it is "Madison Catalogue," not some search engine that any real grad student would already know about.
On the other hand, I am plagued with serious doubts about my ability/desire to do any research at all, that is, to do what is at the heart of the graduate degree.

I have exchanged phone numbers with two (2) potential friends from my classes.
However, we have only communicated outside of class about things relating to our classes or academic programs. Someday I hope that we can get together and share a soda pop, just for the hell of it.

I have figured out and utilized the excellent health insurance provided by the university, and am even on the way to establishing my own primary care physician.
On the other hand, I think I am already showing signs of seasonal depression, and it's only October.

So you see, it's a mixed bag, but I think I should be fairly satisfied with the progress I've made. I give myself a B+. Which is a perfectly fine grade.

Edamame in my pocket

2006-09-27T18:33:00.000-07:00

I went to the newcomer barbeque at the student-run vegetable garden. Rain had been threatening all day but for a few hours just before sunset the whole scene brightened up. The garden is tucked all the way on the edge of campus, a clearing in a patch of woods on a little promontory into Lake Mendota. At the front of the garden were a few picnic tables and some charcoal grills. Some poeple were cutting things up to put on the grills, while some were instructed to take plastic bags and go harvest more raspberries, cherry tomatoes, spinach and parsley.

I helped them clear out some beds that were finished: eggplants, squash, soybeans. I piled the soybeans into a big plastic wheelbarrow and took them over to the compost pile. Later we had some edamame from these plants, and the beans were sweet and crumbly, unlike any I've tasted before. I came home with my pockets full of beans and green tomatoes from the plants we'd ripped out.

There is a personality type that I identify in my mind as "girls who work on farms." The first person in whom I noticed this personality type was a girl named Jessica who worked at the farm in Fallbrook where I interned. She's the one who taught me to make bread, tossing a handful of yeast and flour into some water, never thinking of measuring. They have a certain happy confidence to them, they go about making quick decisions and chirping out orders in this unhurried and practical way that just makes you delighted to have them tell you what to do. They dress in plain, dirty clothes that somehow look stylish anyway, and are always doing a few things at a time, like carrying on a conversation while spraying something off with a hose and carrying a bucket on a hip. I think if I work in a garden often enough I can become one of them, but when I abandon gardening I am just a girl sits in a room with a computer, is confused about life, and gets frustrated too easily.

Anyway, there were plenty of those kind of women there, and men too. Men in rather tight, patched-up Carhart pants with beards that made them look like they'd just come off of a few months on the Appelachian Trail. One of them instructed everyone one wrapping up sweet potatoes, garlic cloves, onions, and parsley in foil packets to be grilled. "If you've never tried broccoli-rab or celeriac," he told the group, "I highly encourage you to take some home when you leave!" These, for better or worse, are my people.

My new habitat, and the creatures found there.

2006-09-19T15:50:00.000-07:00

You got it right, I'm sitting on a bale of hay on a wagon being towed behind an old tractor. The tractor belongs to Dick Cates, a professor at Wisconsin and also a pioneering grass-fed beef farmer and gracious host of many university experiments. Behind us are some Jersey steers happily munching grass in a fresh paddock where Dr. Cates had just moved them.

The group on and around the wagon is composed half of Agroecology students and half of students from other departments who were interested in the field trip. The five who make up this first Agroecology cohort are Jennifer, on the far left, me, Hannah, to the right of me, Nate, standing on the wagon in the orange jacket, and Herika, in the blue and black jacket, leaning against the wagon. Standing just behind me is my advisor and co-head of the program, Mike Bell. I advise my dedicated readers to remember these names and faces, as you will doubtless hear more about them in the future.

This is your blog on drugs.

2006-09-19T06:44:00.000-07:00

Actually I'm not on any drugs at all, but I have this fever and sore throat that are making me cuckoo. Anyway, Claire's right, it's time for some pics of me in my new habitat. First, though, I bring you something from the trip out here. The Beast, in Colorado. We were towing Patrick's car, which is now my car as well. Maybe after a year of only using my bike to get to campus and buy groceries, I'll have made for the disgusting amoung of fossil fuel it took to The Beast out here. One thing this trip did was really make me aware of the lives of truckers. No joke.

Why Saturday was my Heaven.

2006-09-18T14:44:00.000-07:00

Tomato, oregano and aged goat cheese crostini with Cru D'Or organic Belgian ale and internet access.

Just a few questions.

2006-09-12T14:12:00.000-07:00

So, I still don't formally know what my research assignment entails, but one of the department administrators just gave me a a brand new digital voice recorder. How cool does that make me? Say it: sooooo cool.

College, Round Two.

2006-09-09T15:06:00.000-07:00

Just as I was thinking about how to start this post, I observed a conversation happening at the counter of the coffee shop where I sit. The shelves beneath the counter are stocked with Fair Trade coffee, and an old man in a fedora is trying to order espresso.

Old man: "So there are people unfairly trading coffee?"
Be-sweatered coffee shop worker: "Yes, yes there are."
Old man: "Those dirty rascals."

So. The first week or so after I left Fallbrook was characterized by 12-14 hour driving days in an extremely large and cumbersome truck. Patrick and I pulled it up and down the deserts of Nevada, the Rockies of Colorado, and the plains and cornfields of Nebraska and Iowa. As soon as we crossed over into Wisconsin, it seemed, I started seeing valleys again. Little wooded hills started sharing the topography with the corn, soy, and barns. Just past the border a large bird appeared up ahead, and as we got closer we saw that a bald eagle was circling the highway.

As soon as we got here there were many more sweaty hours of moving my stuff into the upstairs bedroom of an old yellow house and moving Patrick's stuff into the downstairs flat of a white house down the street. Katie and Michele, my roommates, are both very sweet, quiet, outdoorsy types who I hope to teach to party more. Among the three of us, there are many doubles of things: Katie has Cadillac Desert, Michele has the same camping stove as me.

The second week or so was occupied by a field trip with the Agroecology students to farms around Wisconsin. Though I consider myself relatively familiar with agriculture in Southern California, learning about farms here was like learning about a foreign country. Many of the students in my classes come from farms in Wisconsin, and at first I felt intimidated, a silly tender-pawed Californian. But by the second day I got over that and started asking questions about everything I saw. Now I know how a milking parlor works, what distinguishes a dry cow and a heifer, how corn and alfalfa are made into a mildly fermented mixture called silage for the cows, why cows live longer when raised on pasture. We didn't only visit dairies--there was also a grass-fed beef operation, a vegetable CSA, and a huge potato farm, but the dairy was for me perhaps the most eye-opening.

This past week, which I am thinking of as the third week but I also think that may be completely wrong, has been my first official week of classes. I'm taking Grasslands Ecology, Qualitative Methods for Sociology (both of which will help with my research, though I won't start on that till at least next week), an Agroecology seminar entitled "The Farm as a Socio-Environmental Endeavor," and a 1 credit lecture series about the issues surrounding corn ethanol. My estimation of my own ability to keep up with all of this varies by the hour, but right now I'm optimistic. My classes seem to span the social science/life science range pretty well, which is the goal of Agroecology. One great aspect of College, Round Two is that this time I knew all my professors before the first day of classes, in fact had had (locally raised) burgers and beer with them the weekend before the semester started. With five students in a brand new program and everyone still trying to work out the details, it feels like something students and professors are all in together. Which is cool.

And, as previously mentioned, I have found my nearest coffee shop, and it rocks. Not only does it sell great fair trade coffee and delicious baked goods and sandwiches, it also offers an array of beers and wine by-the-glass. And it's across the street from a zoo, which pretty much trumps all. It has your requisite collegey-looking employees, including, this afternoon, a loud dykey girl who likes to yell "in your FACE!" every once in a while.

Me: "I'd like the fresh mozzarella and pesto sandwich please."
Girl at register: "Sure, we can make that."
Dykey girl, seemlingly from nowhere: "One fresh mozzarella, in your FACE!"

Internet at my house expected next Friday. Won't you be in for a treat.

Love,
Al

Remember me?

2006-09-08T20:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I know I don't have that many readers to start off with, but I know there are a few of you, and I care about you and miss you. I miss you in real life, now that I am in far-away-land, and when I can't get on the damn internet, I miss blogging to you.

So, I'm going to try to take my laptop to the cafe tomorrow, where I can merrily blog away and tell you what has happened since I dropped off the edge of the earth. And there is plenty to tell.

To give you some idea: right now Patrick has the luck of some poor bastard next door setting up an unsecured wireless network. So tonight, after take out Thai food and several episodes of Six Feet (we're finally on the last season), I'm typing while Patrick and his roomate lounge around.

Okay, that sounds really mundane, and it is, but it's also weird as hell.

Well, more later. The main point being I miss you and please email me. For gods sake.

Old and new

2006-08-12T14:38:00.000-07:00

There's nothing like a good mimosa brunch, especially at Ramia's house on top of the Fire Mountain, where Claire, Holly, Tara, Ramia and I could look out over the whole town and watch the ocean fog recede as we ate our rosemary potatoes. Ramia's balcony on the steep hillside made for the best champagne opening ever, as the cork flew up and out into empty space. Holly managed to capture Tara and me in the moment of surprise as we watched it shoot up into the sky.

It has finally become real to me that I am leaving, and none too soon--we picking up the truck tomorrow. I'm so thankful for the time I've had in Fallbrook. I think my friendships here have helped me learn to be more relaxed about life, not to struggle so much against change but to fully enjoy each new thing as it unfolds. It's sad to leave, but it's good to be reminded of how much a place means to you.

Lyrics

2006-08-07T15:55:00.000-07:00

All afternoon I've been thinning out yet more boxes of my mom's belongings. I thought I'd already dealt with this stuff but still here is a box of what was left in her office at school, all the cards people sent me, some of them still unopened, and stacks upon stacks of her journals and notes. I'm saving the interesting things, which includes a lot of the journals. On the first page of one of them, she starts out with the story of her birth and childhood. Then, triggered by some memory, she recalls one of her mother's favorite songs to play on the ukelele. The lyrics are so unique that I had to share. I only wish I knew the melody.

He told her that he loved her but
Oh how he lied,
Oh how he lied,
Oh how he lied.

Well, he went to Hades and
Sizzled and fried,
Sizzled and fried,
Sizzled and fried.

And she went to Heaven and
Flip flap, she flied,
Flip flap, she flied,
Flip flap, she flied.

So many things intrigue me about this song. The storyline is hinted at rather than spoken, and almost haiku-like in its brevity. Also, I think that more pop songs should feature the idea that one can be sentenced to Hell for lying to a girl. The whole thing is so chipper and yet so twistedly vengeful at the same time. And the idea of my grandmother plinking it out on a ukelele is just too wonderful for words.

2006-08-04T19:17:00.000-07:00

Everywhere I go, people are giving me bags of homegrown basil. God, I love this time of year.

Room in the Fridge

2006-08-02T14:11:00.000-07:00

If I were to write a short essay about my current kitchen, it would be entitled, "Room in the Fridge." It seems that is what I'm always striving for at the end of the evening: room in the fridge. With it's tiny freezer, short shelves, and lack of door-storage, finding room can be a challenge. My mother chose it from some sort of antique store because it reminded her of the one she grew up with. In addition it is whisper-quiet because it does not have auto-defrost. Every couple months, I have to empty it of food, turn off the cooling system, keep the door open, and let the ice accumalting around the freezer drip into the meat drawer below.

As some of you know, I've been looking for a home for my fridge. It breaks my heart to part with it, but lugging it to and around Madison is equally unappealing. I have never known exactly how old my fridge is, but today I sent in pictures to an antique appliances restorer and was told that it is from 1946. As far as my dad and I know, it has always run perfectly, and has never in sixty years been serviced.

Surely some antiques fanatic, possibly living in Hillcrest, is dying to have my fridge. I hope I find them soon.

Al's picks

2006-07-27T23:04:00.000-07:00

Whether you are planning your own excursion or just can't get enough of my opinions, I thought you might enjoy hearing how some of the gear performed on this trip. I remember the good things more than the bad, which may mean that I am becoming an optimist after all.

The Patogonia Capilene Women's Mesh Bra Top: Whoever designed this undergarments gave a great gift to women. It hugs, it supports, it wicks moisture. It does not chafe, it does not trap heat, it does not bind or flatten. In a pinch, it is a perfectly reasonable swim top. I usually feel claustraphobic in sports bras, but every time I put this one on I want to say, "Oh, Patagonia Capilene Mesh Top, where have you been all my post-pubescent life?"

REI Ultra Light Jacket and Pants: Marketed as waterproof rain gear and seductively presented with their own stuff sacks, this jacket and pants ARE NOT WATERPROOF. They are particularly not waterproof when worn under a pack, but even without, and even in a mild downpour, they will not keep you dry. Lame.

Silk sock liners: I love them and will never backpack without them again. And I got no blisters on me.

Trekking poles: Laugh all you want, kids. I'm a convert. I'm not saying they aren't dorky as all hell, I'm just saying they saved my legs from a world of hurt. Not to mention preventing me from getting swept down a creek. And giving me insta-biceps.

Wild Idea Carbon-Fiber Bear Canister: Now available at a backcountry permit station near you, these canisters are waaay better than the heavier, smaller, and more oddly-shaped Garcia. The Garcia is cheaper to rent, but the Wild Idea is worth it in my opinion. Bears leave these cylindrical canisters alone because they are impossible to pick up without opposable thumbs. However, a sign posted in Yosemite warned that one frustrated bear has been rolling them into the creek.

The Patrique: Now thoroughly road-tested, gets the Alex Thumbs Up for overall handiness and compatibility.

Fourteen dollar Speedo sunglasses from Mervyn's: Mediocre as expected. Kept me from going blind, but also obstructed my vision and were generally annoying. Was not at all sad to accidentally leave them on the trail.

Backpackers' Pantry Lasagna Dinner: A hit with campers and marmots alike. Easy to prepare, satisfying. Expensive, but not as bad if you buy the on-sale flawed ones.

Inyo County and Surrounding Regions Are for Lovers.

2006-07-15T17:55:00.000-07:00

That's right folks, I'm back from the mountains with a several memory discs-full of digital photos, a healthy disregard for modern hygiene, and the best biceps I've had since the semester when I accidentally tried to play rugby. I'll be interspersing the best pictures with future blog entries, once I get them onto my computer. For now, though, I'm just trying to adjust to civilization again, and to the fact that in three short short weeks I'll be kissing Fallbrook goodbye.

As for the trip, though, it was amazing and worthy of all the cliched poetic prose I could possibly dump here. The last six days stand out most clearly in my mind, because they were the days we spent on the Rae Lakes loop. The Kings Canyon was just as deep and breathtaking as I remembered, but more full of water than I'd ever seen it. We got rain three of our five nights on the trail, and some of my things didn't dry out until I put them in Shirley's dryer on the way home, but every wet, smelly, back-aching moment was completely worth it.

The most dramatic day turned out to be our planned rest day at Rae Lakes, when we ditched our packs in the tent and set out over a ridge into the aptly named Sixty Lakes Basin. When the clear blue sky turned cloudy, we got caught without rain gear in a hail/rain storm, soaking our boots and sending us shivering into our sleeping bag while larger and larger rivulets formed on the hillside next to our tent. By nightfall, though, things had cleared up, the kindly Ranger Bob had our wet boots on the stove in his backcountry cabin, and we sat out to watch a riotous sunset. During the storm, a lightning strike had caught up near treeline, about a quarter mile from where we were camped. The night was lit by both the stars and the flames of the fire. It was spreading very slowly, as all the fuel was wet, but Patrick shouted with excitement at the great belching plumes of flame as two trees torched.

To my great satisfaction, we saw no bears in our campsites, but one relatively wild one enthusiastically eating raspberries near the trail on our last day. Other notable wildlife sitings included some deer with nursing fawns, a rattlesnake and a king snake, many mountain bluebirds in the bristlecone pines, a very obstinate marmot, and plenty of crazy European hikers with whom we became fast friends.

To the mountains

2006-07-02T23:33:00.000-07:00

In 1869, John Muir experienced his First Summer in the Sierra, and now Patrick is going to experience his. We're jumping off from my Dad's place on the morning of the 5th, which means leaving here on the morning of the 4th with enough spare time to do the whole Palos Verdes red-white-and-blue pool party scene. We get back to Fallbrook on the 26th, making this the longest road trip I've ever taken. For Patrick, planning this trip has become both a science and an art. I won't go into detail, but let me just say that there are Excel spreadsheets involved.

Our itinerary leads us up Highway 395, meandering towards Tioga Pass and Yosemite with ample stops for the curiosities of the eastern Sierra: the ancient bristlecone pines, Mono Lake, Bodie ghost town. We'll cross into Yosemite, do a 3 day backpacking trip and some car camping, then head down to Sequoia and Kings Canyon. Kings Canyon gave me one of the happiest summers of my life, and I can't wait to be there again. We'll spend some time mozying and acclimating, visit the giant sequoias and my old boss, and then head out on a 6 day backpacking trip along the popular Rae Lakes loop. It's the same trail where, back in 2001, Charlie, Jerika and I took on rain, bears, sore legs and internal mutiny with generous payoff in the form of glassy mountain lakes, sunset-lit peaks, and dizzying expanses of open space.

So, Dill Seeds will be temporarily out of commission. While I'm gone, here's something for my dear readers to start thinking about. I want you to start planning how you will visit me in Madison. What season? How will you get there? Who will you be travelling with? Shall we go exploring by kayak or canoe? I expect full reports when I return home.

The land ethic.

2006-06-29T15:43:00.000-07:00

There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace. --Aldo Leopold

I finally read A Sand County Almanac, the book in which Aldo Leopold set forth his Land Ethic, which still remains, in my view, the basis and salvation of modern environmentalism. I have seen and heard this book referenced many times in environmental literature, but always assumed it would be a dry thing to read, as classics and original pieces of theory sometimes are. Not so at all--every chapter was gripping, and reading it felt like coming home to my own guiding philosophy. I had the strange sense that this book, which was published almost sixty years ago and which I'd never read before, has been influencing me for my whole life.

I'm sure these are not very unique impressions of Aldo Leopold, especially from someone who just enrolled in the same department in the same university where he taught for many years. I don't mind not being unique--I'm glad to join the ranks.

Briefly

2006-06-26T08:07:00.000-07:00

It's been downright balmy here. Humid, overcast, and hot as hell, as if we are living not in an arid coastal desert but some mangrove-filled Florida swamp. I love it, actually.

My evening primrose is finally blooming, after sitting nonchallantly in my herb garden for two years. Suddenly this stubby little plant sends up shoulder-high spikes topped with delicate yellow flowers. Plants--they never cease to amaze me.

I'm off to see Radiohead in San Diego with the old gang. Must locate coffee. More later, of course.

Love,
Al

Everybody loves my 1950's appeal.

2006-06-24T17:03:00.000-07:00

And now, it's time for a housing update.

Young-ish couples continue to trickle through my house at a slow (but not as slow as the rest of the nieghborhood) rate. Today, the my realtor said that the wife "loved the 50's feel" of it. I find it amusing when modern young women admire the "50's feel." It's something I myself admire all the time, but it's a nostalgia that I think must be tempered with a good deal of irony. Would any of us really want to regress that far?

But anyway. As my house quietly works its charms, I have found a housing situation in Madison. I was getting a little desperate, and desperation was making me crabby, when an email came through on the Institute for Environmental Studies listserve. Katie, 27, frisbee and guitar player, future wetlands ecologist from Portland, was moving to Madison this August and looking for 2 roomates to share a house in the neighborhood I want to live in. I contacted her right away and soon discovered other creepy similarities between us. For example, we're both moving to Madison with cat-allergic boyfriends who will not be living with us but will be visiting us sometimes, therefore ruling out any cat-owning households. Katie had already found another roomate, Michelle, a marathon-runner from North Carolina via Wyoming, who is interested in international sustainable development, particularly in southern Africa. We've got a house in mind, a cute old yellow 3-bedroom a few blocks from the campus arboretum. I predict awsome potlucks.

In other news, I'm selling my car. Anyone interested in a 2001 VW Golf previously known as Brando, let me know. Remember, nothing says "I'm young" like a moon roof.

2006-06-23T22:57:00.000-07:00

I just watched The Sound of Music. Seriously.

Happy Birthday, Momma

2006-06-20T22:41:00.000-07:00

She would have been sixty on Monday, and by some kind of miracle I managed to bake a perfect carrot cake for her. My friend Ramia came over and we ate and poured through photos and talked on the patio for a long time.

Just as my birthday falls on Mother's Day every seventh year or something, my mom's birthday falls on or around Father's Day. So on Monday I was in the kitchen all day, pouring my heart into these recipes: first a cake for Mom and then a picnic lunch for Dad which I brought to the Santa Rosa Plateau to share with him and Shirley. It was a hot morning but we hiked a little first, single file through the dry grass, me leading the way because Shirley was afraid of snakes and poison oak. Other Father's Days it would have bothered me to have her there, but now I realize that if I really want to do something unselfish for Dad it means including Shirley, and making her feel comfortable and welcome, so that he can also be at ease. Today I was just grateful to have him alive and here, able to enjoy good food on a bright, peaceful day.

We did see a snake though, a little baby king snake with bold black and white stripes, maybe 14 inches long and barely as thick as my finger. Shirley said she wasn't too afraid of one so little, but my mind was already wandering to another time long ago, at the same preserve, when we came across a snake in the path. It was either a king snake or a gopher snake, a bit bigger than this one. In one quick motion my mother reached out and grabbed it just below the head, held it gently but so that it couldn't hurt her, and brought it over for me to see the strength of its snaky muscles, the smooth sheen of its scales.

My dentist cried

2006-06-09T23:05:00.000-07:00

when I told him I'm leaving town and not coming back.
He's just that happy for me.

My dentist also claimed to have seen my mom sitting in his waiting room a full four months after she died. That annoyed me. If anyone was going to see her, if any human in all of history has ever actually seen a ghost, I would have seen my mother by now.

He does a pretty good job on my teeth though.

You can all breath easy.

2006-06-07T23:17:00.000-07:00

I just wanted everyone to know that I got my grandmother's white fedora back from the drycleaner, and the salsa stains that had been on it since New Year's are finally gone.

Note to self: next time you head out to a drunken brawl, consider leaving the family heirlooms behind.

The hat in question, on the head of one of the suspected offenders.

Ivy Day

2006-06-07T22:15:00.000-07:00

Adam asked me to post some Ivy Day pictures, so here they are below, disclosing this mysterious women's college ritual to the world. The morning starts off with all the graduating seniors lining up along both sides of the road leading into the Quad. Behind them all the alumnae classes organize, with various colors of ribbon sashes according to their graduation year. The oldest class goes first, led by a marching band, and parades through the people lining the road, so that the soon-to-be graduates get to see the ranks of women they are about to join. The signs say all sorts of silly things. Eventually everyone is seated in the Quad and a bunch of speaches are made, with the end result that every alumna leaves resolving to donate more money to the college. I loved it.

This will, God willing, be me someday.

From left to right: Alex, Ilona, Mai, Jennifer, and some other '06 grads. I credit these four frisbee players with nothing short of saving my life during my senior year.

For California Voters Only

2006-06-05T16:02:00.000-07:00

Y'all:

Does anybody have any strong, informed or uninformed opinions about Propositions 81 and 82 on tomorrow's ballot?

Right now I'm leaning Yes on 81, Have No Idea on 82. Providing all four year olds with the option of free preschool by taxing upper income brackets: seems like a good idea, but I understand that good ideas can turn into nightmares through poorly thought out legislation. The Democratic gubernatorial candidates are for it, but the Montesorri teachers are against it! What's an Alex to do?

Also, if you have any fave's among the candidates for the Democratic ticket, please pipe up. Or if you have a good reason why I should join the Green Party instead of the Democratic party when I switch my affiliation from "Independent," please elaborate.

This week in Extravagant Living

2006-06-04T12:27:00.000-07:00

Exhibit 1: Fresh goat cheese rolled in various edible toppings.
I was going to carry out my writings under the headings posted last time in the table of contents, but in the mean time Adam came home. In my world, "Adam's coming home" pretty much translates into "I'm about to drop all my normal routines and start planning delightful social events." This natural tendency was nicely facilitated this time by the hours and hours of free time I have on my hands now that the house is entirely prepared for viewing and on the market. Since I got home from the East Coast, not a drawer has gone unsorted, not a tupperware box unlabeled. So I was in a great position to wake up most mornings this week, do a tiny bit of cleaning, and then get involved in some elaborate food preparation project, or sit on the back patio all afternoon with friends and a spread of wine and sushi.

It's been a great kind of week, though all this partying has unfortunately landed me with a head cold. Next week? I'm thinking I should probably read some Thoreau before I get to Madison.

Exhibit 2: Dianne, Claire, and Adam were having a wonderful time.

2006-05-25T21:37:00.000-07:00

And I'm home! Disconcertingly, "home" now has a For Sale sign standing in the driveway. I wasn't very well prepared for how soon my house would be listed after I got back from my week of frivolity, so tomorrow I will be scrambling to get everything into storage.

I'm rather tired after a day of home inspection, but I know I have duties to fulfill in recounting my adventures. (By the way, the inspector said my house's foundation is "outstanding," which made me surprisingly proud.) There is too much to talk about it one entry, at least tonight's entry, so right now I will simply give you a table of contents. With luck, I will fill these headings out later. Stay tuned to hear about:

I. Smith Reunion: Bad for the Body, Good for the Soul

II. Sascha: The Cousin, the restaurant, the Scallop Ceviche

III. The Unbearable Cuteness of Being Andrew Semich

Each section will be fully illustrated.

Ivy Day!

2006-05-17T04:44:00.000-07:00

I'm going back East for my Smith reunion and Commencement! I'm going to parade around in a white dress holding roses with all the other alumnea! I may or may not be completely washed away in a rainstorm immediately afterwards!

This and much more when I return next week on Wednesday.