You wondered why something that sounds so simple, like “label all foods that contain Genetically Modified Organisms” isn’t passing at the state level? We assumed it was just because Monsanto was threatening lawsuits and pumping bazillions of dollars into the lawmakers’ pockets. Uh uh. It’s because a whole lot more of the foods on the shelves have GMO products than you ever imagined.

There are currently only three fruits or vegetables that are GMO: the “Sunset” papaya, the New Leaf potato (which even McDonald’s wouldn’t buy so it’s been scratched), and some zucchini (although why anyone would buy this at the grocery is a question…).

However…. (this should be in 72 point type…)

Corn

In your cereal, snack goods, muffins, pancake mix, pizza, baby foods, meat products, taco shells, corn chips, tortillas, and BEER. Also the prime ingredient in many of the popular dog foods (which is interesting because dogs can’t process corn unless it’s very finely processed, which turns it into a glycemic nightmare).

Soy

Find this in salad dressing, soup, cheese, non-dairy creamer, whipped topping, infant formula, bread, cereals, pasta. Then there’s the soy protein isolates — manufactured by Glidden (yeah, think about that one…) — that are added to meat products to increase the protein values. Soy protein concentrates are added to most baked good and breakfast cereals for the same protein numbers. You read the label, see it’s higher in protein, ta-da you buy the product. Oh, and if you’re looking for gluten free? It’s GMO soybeans. Can’t win.

Oils

Oils are added to nearly everything baked, prepared, processed. Where does the oil come from? GMO corn, soybeans, canola, and cotton. Time to stick to imported olive oil?

Fructose, glucose syrups, and high fructose syrup

GMO corn and GMO beets.

Sugar

GMO beets (about half of all sugar in the US is from sugarcane, which is not GMO so far.)

Meat

Okay, what do you think they feed cattle? Yup. GMO corn.

So, back to the first paragraph. Who is paying to block the labelling of GMO in our foods? Nearly every food processor in the U.S. I’ve always said when you want to know why someone is pushing something at you to ‘follow the money.’ In this case you can just walk down the grocery aisles and see who is paying to stop the legislation. On every shelf.

Transparency is a bugger, isn’t it?

“a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction” — Virginia Woolf

Woolf’s lament that women get caught up in the day to day stuff and, because they have no money of their own (depending on men to provide), no place to work (as the “home” often belongs to someone else) can apply even today.  I depend on Kip to feed, house, and clothe me and in return I cook, garden, feed the dogs, and all the other daily things that keep us going. 

My stepmother, Judy, has a room of her own tucked in the woods behind their house. My Dad and brother built it several years ago with glass all around and windows that open it to the sounds and smells of the Michigan woods. She has a bed for guests, a few chairs, music, a little heater, and I think she has her loom out there now, too. It’s cozy in spite of all the glass. At night you don’t feel that anyone is looking in at you– did I mention there are no drapes or curtains? — as the dark becomes your walls. Peaceful. A lovely spot to curl up with a book. Good dreams happen there.

So, I want a room of my own.  I like the feel of the little house in my previous post and I’m wondering if I could build it myself. It would have to be from recycled materials as there is nothing in the budget for this fantasy. I think I’d make the windows bigger to take in the views on the pond  (time out while I pray for rain…), and I’d like a little porch for my rocker.

What’s it like inside?  I’d like a tiny wood stove to warm it in the winter. A little gas stove to make tea or soup. A really comfortable chair for reading or thinking or napping. A work table that folds up for storage, and a stool to go with it. Shelves for books. The bench by the door and the hanging basket (see the photo). A little split rail fence around it. A tiny flower bed. A total get-away without leaving the farm.

I think I’ll start collecting boards…

background….

so can I!

Our friend Nancy, of Cordero Farms, has pledged to post more this year.  She reads this blog and we read her blog, so maybe the two of us can nudge each other to write more this year.

High Tides & Green Fields grows about 125 different pepper varieties each year. Some are just for fresh eating, like Golden Summer Bells, Cubanelle, and Sweet Cayenne. Many are grown for drying and then grinding into gourmet pepper powders.<BR>

Pepper powders can be very mild heat — like Paprika — or very, very hot like Smoked Habanero or Serrano. Each has a unique flavor to complement your cooking style. If you make inspired stir-fry, Shishito and Kung Pao may work; if you’re into TexMex, you’ll want to try Cochiti or Chipotle. <BR>

This past year we have started to develop spice mixes (that we use at home) for you to try. We think you’ll get lots of “Wow!” using our Cacao Rubs (we source the cacao nibs from KAF coffee), and our new Taco Seasoning (contains blue cornmeal from P Bar Farms). <BR>

 

(end background)

Now to the winter seed ordering…

I think I posted about seeds and seed packets a while back.  It hasn’t changed. I still love the shiny catalogs, the stacks of seed packs, making lists, sending orders, waiting for the packages to start filling the mailbox. Too fun.  I’ve ordered about a dozen peppers we’ve never tried before:  Pueblo Pepper, Petit Marseillais, Tunisian Balouti, and Ampuis are a few of them.  Also have sent a request to the national seed bank looking for a particular Syrian pepper before it disappears in Syria. I’ll do a comparison of peppers in the entire region.

New this year– we’re adding another farmers’ market, the OK Food Co-op market in the old Farmers Market building on South Klein. The Co-op market is set up in the former Sterling’s Market.  Good location and we’re looking forward to joining in the growth in that area of OKC.

Old this year — We still haven’t put up the “last” hoophouse or built the Nobel Foundation raised beds.  I think those are the two biggest projects this year. If the hot weather holds off, maybe we can get something rolling this summer. These two lead me to my annual wish list (I don’t do resolutions — just wish lists…)

ANNUAL WISH LIST

A “room of her own” on the edge of the pond

Quadcopter with camera

corner base cabinet

flour mill– hand crank Victorio

broadfork

Finish scanning photo project

Bookshelf/tv wall in living room

stove pipe for workshop

A/C for workshop

A/C for living room

Ikea upgrades

RV A/C cover

 

I’m going to leave this list without explanations.  It’ll give me incentive to write the next post!

 

“Way back here, where no one will look, I’ll sign my name to close this book.”

This week, my ex-husband, Neil, passed away. He had not had an easy life the last few years– he had had a series of strokes that left him with less and less brain power, less of who had once been, less patience for the world he was reduced to. He was difficult to deal with and stubborn and insistent on getting his way. He was no longer “Neil”, but someone else in Neil’s body.

This week has been interesting for me as I came to support my sons, cook some meals, wash some dishes, play with my grandson, offer a little advice. I’ve introduced myself as Neil’s first wife a couple of times, but will try harder now to introduce myself as the boys’ mother. I find that I don’t want to be known as an ex-wife — first one or not — as the years I spent as Mrs. Neil were a tad more painful to remember than a 30 year separation should have provided.

Yesterday I was asking Neil’s old friends to help at the funeral– be ushers, pour coffee — and remembering that these people turned their backs on me 30 years ago and chose the abuser’s version instead. There was a note on the newspaper obits page from the very woman who was instrumental in breaking up my marriage– sweetly written, but dang it! I know that the service tomorrow will also be difficult and I’m not looking forward to it. (Well, one doesn’t look forward to funeral services anyway, does one?) hmmmm…

Back at the farm, my kitchen is getting painted without me, the gardens are burning up in 100 degree heat, Kip and my dogs and cats are missing me. I’ll be sorry to go home because it means I won’t see my youngest and his wife and baby for many months. I’ll also be sorry to leave this lushly green state with reasonable summer temperatures. But I also find that this place, which was my home for a third of my life, doesn’t need me any more and I’m thinking that home isn’t so much where you hang your hat, but more where you’re needed. I’m missing home-home.

The final word is to anyone wandering around without a will. DO IT TODAY. This isn’t about you, Bucky, this is so the people you’re leaving behind can get everything sorted out with minimal cost and strain. People do not reason well when they’re mourning. Leave another piece of paper with a list of your accounts — even telephone and cable — and what banks you do business with. Who is your best friend — the one that would come and help your family? And, as Neil did, write a brief history of your life. What would you like to be remembered for? What events made a difference in your life?

Yes, this man made a huge difference in my life — actually two differences — my sons. And for these, I will say goodbye with grace and gratitude.

– Burlington, VT. July 13, 2011

Late? You mean the magic garden and its errant gardener are LATE this year? Egad. Oh my. Whatever are we going to do. Geegollygosh.

Well, I can’t say as the weather has been very helpful. I could also say that I’ve been up to my elbows transplanting plants. I could tell you about the loss of a gardener, cutting us back to just two.  I could also add that with nearly no rain this year, what’s the point. There are lots of reasons and excuses and whyfors and wherehows, but the simple truth is that by the calendar, I’m late getting my peppers and tomatoes in.

Yesterday I planted the second batch of peppers – 240 plus – with the bells planted last week, I’m at 360ish. Only 900 to go! Progress. Tomorrow I’ll try to get another row installed after picking for the Co-op delivery. I’m pretty sure where my limited number of tomatoes are going to go, but I can see it’ll be another week before they’re in. This is the END of May and they should have been in by the first of the month. Dang it.

Well, maybe I’ll plant more in the hoophouses and keep them growing until Thanksgiving or Christmas? Hmmmm…. maybe I’m not as “late” as I think today…

What is it about being a farmer?  This is not my first career, nor my second or third. I’ve actually had several careers in my life: graphic designer/typesetter, newspaper publisher, professional secretary, office manager, as well as sheep farming, cab driving, office temping.  I’ve worked in groceries, restaurants, radio stations, engineering firms, banks, retail stores, warehouses, brokerage firms, law offices, law and business schools — really, Harvard no less. One summer, I even drove the little clown car at the race track. Yes, in a clown suit.

I’ve called this current phase my retirement job, and I guess it is.  Kip is now retired from his 35 year career and we’re growing vegetables not just for ourselves, but for two farmers’ markets each week, for the Oklahoma Food Co-op, for sales to small markets and restaurants. Last summer we also supplied vegetables to a CSA with 30 members. We call ourselves “market gardeners” which means that we sell what we grow. But we could as easily be called truck farmers or veg growers. The label doesn’t really matter, I guess, just the output.

So, back to the title of this piece– “It happened again…”  someone assumed that because I’m a farmer that I’m an uneducated, impolite boob. He thought it was perfectly awful of me to insist that our farm name be removed from an advertising piece he was displaying on his website. We had never given our consent for the use of our farm name and I asked that it be removed. Yes, I was forceful.  I asked that it be removed immediately. So, now I’m an ignorant farmer who doesn’t know how to compose a business letter, forceful or not. :::sigh::::

Good thing they didn’t know that at Harvard Business School, eh?

I just sent my tomato list to the Tomatomania Yahoo group and it hit me how nuts this list really is.  I need to scale it back, I know…

Maybe next year?

Here it is:

Amish Paste, Amish Salad, Amy’s Sugar Gem, Arkansas Traveller, Aunt Ruby’s German Green, Baxter’s Bush Cherry, Beefsteak, Better Boy, Black Cherry, Black Mauri, Black Plum, Blush, Bolseno F1, Box Car Willie, Brandywine Pink, Burbank Red Slicing, Camp Joy/ Chadwick, Campbell’s 1327, Celebrity, Cherokee Purple, Chocolate Cherry, Chocolate Stripes, Costoluto Fiorentino, Costoluto Genovese, Crimson Cushion/Beefsteak, Cuor de Bue, Debarao, Dr. Carolyn, Early Girl, Early Red Chief, Early Wonder, Evergreen, Fox Cherry, Ghost Cherry, Golden Jubilee, Green Doctors, Green Grape, Green Zebra, Hartman’s Gooseberry, Henderson’s Pink Ponderosa, Homestead, Isis Candy, Ivory Egg, Juliet, Large Red (not cherry), Large Red Cherry, Legend, Lemon Boy, Lime Green Salad, Maglia Rosa Cherry, Margot, Mini Orange, Mortgage Lifter, Mr. Stripey, Mule Team, Orange & Green Zebra, Orange Strawberry, Pantano Romanesco, Pearly Pink Cherry, Pearson, Pierce’s Pride, Prairie Fire, Principe de Borgese, Prize of the Trials, Purple Calabash, Red Pear Cherry, Red Target, Red Zebra, Reif Red Heart, Rio Grande, Roma VF, Rouge d’Irak, Rutger’s Select, Rutgers, San Marzano, Silvery Fir Tree, Sioux, Snow White Cherry, Snowberry, Solar Fire, Sophie’s Choice, Success, Sun Gold, Sungella, Super Suncherry, Sweet Chelsea, Tangella, Taxi/ Yellow Taxi, TC Jones, Thai Pink Cherry, Thai Pink Round, Thai Yellow Egg, Tigerella, Topaz/ Huan U, Unas Yellow Cherry, Violet Jasper/ Tzi Bi U, Virginia Sweets, White Cherry, Wickline Cherry, Window Box Roma, Yellow Pear, Zapotec

My favorites?  Black Plum for sauce and freezing, Cherokee Purple for fresh eating, Sungold for snacking in the garden.

Dev

My name is Dev and I’m a seedaholic.

I love that nature put everything a new plant needs into a tiny little package that can be dropped nearly anywhere, and will only pop open if all the conditions are right for the plant to survive. Engineering and art and biology and meteorology and sex and magic all in one package. Wow.

By Wednesday, all the pepper seeds will be planted in little plastic cells, kept moist and warm, awaiting their germination. When the plants are 2″ tall, they graduate to their own pots and begin the greenhouse phase of their growth. By April 15th they’ll be ready to plant in the garden.  On Friday, we start planting tomato seeds… hundreds and hundreds of tomato seeds. Every year I vow, “Never again,” and every year I plant more.

Seed catalogs are addictive.  Even companies I don’t buy from — and have never bought from — will send me glossy, full-color books in an attempt to sell me packages or pounds of seeds.  The latest from Johnny’s Seeds is 208 pages, and they send me two of each one, so I’m betting they’re glad I spend some of the seed budget in Maine. My stack of 2011 catalogs is about 12″ high, but that doesn’t include the ones in the living room, bathroom, greenhouse, and scattered across my desk. Right around 40 pounds of paper would be a good guess.

It used to be you went to the feed store and stood in front of racks of seed packages. Pretty colors, pretty pictures, glowing words on the back, impossible claims for size and production. The old stand-by varieties, like Blue Lake Beans and Honey & Cream sweet corn, were sold in bulk bins with paper bags and scoops and a sign that said, “scoop your own.” Tall cans of cucumber and radish seed on the shelves. Bags of fertilizer smelling up the aisles was also a smell that said spring was coming.  I’m lucky– there is still such a feed store within 12 miles of the farm.

Maybe that’s what it is? Maybe seeds are the promise of spring– warm sun, soft winds, spring rains, singing birds — that our bodies and minds are craving after a winter spent indoors. Even though I plant seeds year ’round in hoophouses and greenhouses, when I see those first packets with the pretty pictures, I want to take a few home. And I do. Yes, I do.

The collage in the previous post is a PDF, but there’s no preview in the post.  Just took a screen shot to upload as a graphic preview.

It looks pretty positive that we’re going to get another blast of snow this week.  More drifting across the driveway, another request to our neighbor to dig us out. We’ll have to get creative for payment (he won’t take cash) as we polished the home brew over the weekend.

I found a folder of photos from 2010 that pretty much summed up our year. How about a collage?

2010 collage