Toughsledding

Place and Friendship

2006-11-03T23:08:03Z

Recently, I entertained a houseguest for several days, a dear friend and sculptor from the San Francisco area.

As I ferried him around town showing him the sights, introduced him to my friends and family, I realized once again just how pleasant a town Pocatello is, as well as how much of my life is now embedded and defined by these last 12 years living in southeast Idaho.

My friend and I toured the sculpture on the Greenway, particularly those at Benton Street and Arthur Avenue, as well as the sculpture garden under construction by Idaho State University students at the former bicycle shop site on South Arthur.

We toured all the art galleries, those at ISU as well as Main Street: Tara-James, The Gallows and Lori Piccolo’s new one in the pink building.

My friend marveled at the Stairway to Nowhere on South Lincoln, a landmark we Pocatellans affectionately protect. He enjoyed the Center Street underpass, how cars sometimes beep to each other as they enter, and those with fast engines rev them up turning the tunnel into an echo chamber.

On Friday, we attended Theatre ISU’s production of MacBeth and were delighted by the incredible witches’ costumes, the troupe’s energy and dedication, and enchanted by the venue itself, the Bistline Theatre in the new Performing Arts Center.

From there we attended a blue grass concert, a band from Colorado called Whitewater Ramble, at the Portneuf Valley Brewery. Great beer. Great music. Great gathering of friends and acquaintances.

Saturday, we drove the “old road” south of town through Black Rock and Inkom to Lava Hot Springs where we explored the town and drank a beer at the Blue Moon.

All weekend my kitchen was filled with fresh aromas. My friend is a gourmet cook. Just so he could flex his expertise, we bought fresh salmon at the Butcher Block, along with aged cheddar and herbed goat cheese.

We cruised the Farmer’s market for fresh vegetables and apple/rosemary sausages.

Meals included baked salmon with lemon and herbs, tomato salad with fresh basil and goat cheese, a tagine of mixed vegetables and sausage using garlic that magically appeared at my door, as well as the last summer squash from my own tiny garden.

One breakfast consisted of a puffy, baked German pancake made with Tony the Boyfriend’s fresh pullet eggs with deep orange yolks. We filled the pancake with homemade vanilla custard and fresh raspberries, the last of the season.

Sunday morning, while church bells chimed, we turned the leftover tagine into a delicious frittata with café mocha on the side made with a bar of cinnamon-flavored Mexican chocolate.

The weekend ended all too quickly, but thanks to an afternoon of merely hanging out at home working on projects (me weaving, he cutting and bending wires), an old light fixture in my house was transformed into a wire and glass sculpture, a lovely memento of a good time and a toast to the inestimable value of friendship.

Three-Legged, One-Armed Woman

2006-11-03T23:04:43Z

What creature walks on four legs in the morning
Two legs in the afternoon
And three legs at night?
—Riddle of the Sphinx

POCATELLO — There’s a significant new addition to my life, a 37-inch long metal stick with a plastic handle.
It’s not pretty, but it’s a marvel of technology in that it supports a considerable amount of weight and relieves the painful pressure on my ailing hip joint.
I’ve reached the point in my life when the forces of gravity have begun pulling me more strongly toward the grave.
Gravity/grave/pushing up daisies. I think I get it now, the laws of physics becoming more clear with age.
The gravity of the situation is that I can no longer run freely in the wind or dance as if to defy the forces of nature. I have difficulty picking up my toddler grandson or carrying my kitchen garbage to the bin, never mind pushing the container down my front steps to the street once a week.
If the city’s trucks weren’t mechanized, I could leave the container in a stationary position in the alley -- a technology that does wonders for the garbagemen’s backs, but nearly kills mine painfully, one concrete step at a time.
Nearly overnight, I have become a three-legged, one-armed woman.
While wielding my marvelous stick, I cannot carry a cup of coffee and a plate from the kitchen to my dining table unless I stack them precariously on top of each other or make two trips.
My handbag slips off my shoulder as I struggle to carry books and student papers with my one free arm, and I am helpless to catch it.
Space, time and distance, have higher positions in my consciousness these days. I plan my time carefully knowing that I will not be able to quicken my lumbering walk to make up for delays, that I will probably not be able to make a “run” to the Student Union between classes for a bite to eat, or to catch a noon-time lecture.
I also consider how much pain I am willing to endure to get somewhere. Such considerations cause one to slough off the kinds of events for which one merely “makes an appearance.”
I now spend more time doing just what I want to do, what I quite literally FEEL like doing, which is quite a lot.
My homely cane has other advantages beyond keeping me upright, mobile and independent.
While wielding the stick, people are more likely to hold doors open for me and speak to me politely. Others in similar stages of mobility talk to me in elevators and while waiting in lines.
Before the cane, I spent a year or more unsteady on my feet, quite literally staggering about at times. I’m sure mothers gathered up their children and stayed clear believing I was drunk or crazy.
I had nightmares of being stopped by police, being unable to walk a straight line and them not believing my story.
A cane is a visible sign of a problem; no explanation is required. And in some cases the stick can add an air of dignity to a less than desirable situation.
I think of author James Joyce’s ashplant accessory, TV’s character Dr. House’s cane that he uses as a pointer or golf club, old photos of poet/playwright Oscar Wilde, his stick the mark of a gentleman.
Of course, female equivalents are few. The ones I recall from literature are witches or hags leaning on their canes dishing out advice or casting spells. But even then, the canes had an element of power as magic wands or weapons that keep thieves at bay.
My artist friends, however, insist I need a more colorful extra appendage, one with a rapier hidden in its hollow core perhaps, one sporting a carefully carved antique ivory handle, or a naturally twisted piece of wood.
Hollowness, antique, twisted -- all fitting the stage of life at hand -- more color . . .
All in good time.

Is that all there is?

2006-09-19T15:15:09Z

POCATELLO — This year the end of the garden season holds a different meaning. This 2006 garden may literally be my last great effort.
These days (I should have done this sooner) I’m hiring help to weed, prune and trim, all things I used to do myself, but a deteriorating hip joint now prevents me. Those I’ve hired are doing a wonderful job. Their deft and skillful bodies relieve me of considerable stress, as well as guilt.
My physical predicament isn’t jibing with my preconceived vision of what these middle-later years would be like. I imagined wrinkles, gray hair and some weight gain, but not this level of physical discomfort.
After all, I have my mother and her sisters as role models. They are all in their 80s, slowing down, but going strong. My mother is 83, and this is the first year she’s hired help for yard maintenance.
Because I imagined only my looks would change, with maybe a minimum of minor aches that could be fixed with a good night’s sleep, I prepared myself to replace any elements of youthful beauty I may have had by developing my eccentricities.
I covered my little Westside hovel in vines, turned my entire house into a weaving studio draped in red mosquito netting, the windows are hung with handwoven window rugs, and the walls decorated with posters of Bob Dylan and Jack&Neal.
I have lots of books collected over the last half century. I painted a mural of bright red flowers on my dining room wall, and I not-so-secretly ferment fruity concoctions in a dark cupboard and store them in crystal decanters.
I keep a supply of champagne in the fridge for visitors, and my weavings have taken on a Gypsy theme, colorful wanderings from the status quo.
Lately, I’ve taken to playing 1960s music almost exclusively: John Sebastian, Jesse Winchester, Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins . . . Their golden voices cast a nostalgic pall throughout my rooms, memories of the olden days when I was a hippie poet living in the East Village in NYC and could march for many blocks in anti-war rallies.
Then there were the 1970s and 1980s at the Central Idaho ranch when I could cross country ski, ride horses, run after my kids, climb stairs two at a time, dance, scale ladders in an apple orchard, grow 100 cabbages in my garden, ferment and preserve huge crocks of sauerkraut. . .
This morning I brought my potted herbs into the house, bay, rosemary and basil. I can still handle this flavorful level of digging in the dirt.
When I finish writing this column, I will chop onions and garlic, saute them in olive oil, add garden produce: tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, summer squash, and chard to make a healthy fall soup. Bay and rosemary add depth to the flavor.
Some of these vegetables were given to me by gardening friends whose bodies are more spry than mine, and I am very appreciative of each healthy mouthful. I am also pleased to peruse our local Farmer’s Market, a joyful place that makes it possible to regret my gardening abdication much less.
Change is about the only thing we peculiar humans can count on; the trick is learning how to accept the universe as it shrinks and expands, accept the earth as it crumbles and groans under our feet, pulling us under to nurture future generations -- you know, like the dead Hiawatha pushing up that famous corn patch . . .an early garden that predates those Puritan ergot-inspired witch burnings . . .

Discovery

2006-08-09T13:57:42Z

Near the end of the spring planting season, I purchased a couple of cucumber plants and set them in a flower bed under my kitchen window. I didn't expect much -- never do from cucumber plants because of the excess shade in my gardening area. However, this year I have been pleasantly surprised. I've harvested four lovely plump, delicious cucumbers which I've eaten in raw chunks accompanied by chilled glasses of champagne and the company of friends.

Years ago I read a report in a literary magazine from a writer visiting a poet in Soviet Russia. The poet produced chilled bottles of beer then ran out of the house to the street market returning with cucumbers and tomatoes. They drank their dark Russian beer with cucumber and tomato chunks and furthered releasing the grasp of oppressive governments on freedom of speech.

It's sort of odd the things that stay with us, the simple things that make for lasting impressions, like the comical vision of my father wearing a pith helmet, plaid bermudas and hip boots as he worked in our garden in Western Washington. He sang while he worked, sea chanties and old songs like "Juanita". To this day, I associate those songs with cucumbers, string beans and carrots. I save the corn memories for Shane, my sister's horse, who desimated the corn patch the morning my father left on another of many sea voyages. We never told him.

This week is the anniversary of my baby sister's death two years ago from a long miserable bout of cancer. I remember her gardens, a lush one in Wenatchee, Washington: summer squash by the bushel and fresh blueberry jam. Her last garden was a zen garden in the backyard of her new house in Twin Falls, Idaho. She was always meticulous about her spaces, and her loved ones knew it was the end when the garden's edges became shaggy, then overgrown, then choked with weeds like her body.

Humans are more like plants than we admit. We do, afterall, desire to set out roots and harvest friends and lovers. We return to the earth, compost, fertilize the future.

Heat

2006-07-29T15:13:32Z

It's too hot to think much less work in the garden. Once the temperature moves above 90, I go into slow motion. I am managing to keep plants watered, although I nearly killed my basil plants and resusitated them just in the nick of time.

The irony is, I now have fresh vegetables and an un-airconditioned house, so I don't feel much like preparing them. I even find myself wishing for winter's sub-zero weather during which firing up the oven is a pleasureable warmth.

The thought of making jam or canning sounds like torture today. I am saved from dealing with a small batch of apricots -- the first ones my little tree as produced -- the squirrels ate them all, all at once one morning when I wasn't looking.

My grape vines are trying to take over the world. There are several luscious bunches of grapes. I hope there are more than the squirrels can eat.

Garden Tour

2006-07-11T16:05:01Z

POCATELLO — Recently, I’ve had the privilege of touring a couple of local gardens.
One was perfection, neat rows, completely weedless, and the plants tall and healthy.
Corn, not quite as high as an elephant’s eye, bobbed happily in the Southeast Idaho afternoon gale; individual heads of red and green lettuce had just reached reached their peak; several varieties of onions pushed the earth aside with their exuberant growth, and peas bloomed profusely as they climbed harmonious lattice work.
Squash and melon plants emerged from their black plastic mulch with every hope of bearing fruit before summer’s end, and the gardener himself beamed with full confidence.
I was enchanted, so much so, that the experience has challenged my entire concept of gardening.
Why do I do it?
My tiny backyard plot pales in comparison. It’s overcrowded, full of quackgrass and weeds. I allow volunteer plants to further crowd those already crowded because I’m too curious to pull them.
A certain level of vermin always attack some of my plants every season, while none appeared to have devoured any of the plants on my garden tour.
My lettuce, in comparison, although planted early, was just beginning to be harvestable, and my onions were as thin as pencils. And although half of my zucchini plants survived an infestation of slugs, I will be overwhelmed with joy if I get to harvest a few.
I’ve yet to experience the abundance of zucchini that causes people to lock their cars during harvest season lest gardeners fill up the backseats with “gifts” of the lusty fruit.
Other people’s tomato plants are loaded with green tomatoes by mid-end of June, while mine are blooming, but no fruit is setting on. The plants are wind pollinated, the book says, and there has been plenty of wind sailing through my garden. What’s the problem?
Last fall I toured the Franciscan Sisters’ garden during their harvest festival. Their tomato plants were amazing, beyond anything I’ve ever seen: thick lovely stems on the plants and a plethora of huge Roma-style fruits hanging like giant clusters of grapes, each fruit the size of baseballs in all stages of ripeness.
I’ve not recovered from the experience.
It appears that what each of these gardens has that mine hasn’t is full sun. Being in the city, sunlight is limited by neighboring trees and buildings. In fact, some of my plants literally grow sideways in a fruitless effort to reach full sun and become leggy in the process.
I guess I could sell my little westside hovel and search for a better location, but these past 8 years I’ve put down some rather solid roots, literally and metaphorically, in the neighborhood.
And some plants are quite successful; for instance, my grapes are lush and prolific; their presence fulfills a long-standing dream. My pleached apple arbor is just now becoming what I envisioned after seeing an example in a garden magazine.
Vines are beginning to cover my house and fences, fulfilling another longing after years of living on a high prairie where none of these things would grow, where I had to content myself with growing 100 short-season cabbages and onions so strong in flavor it was difficult to eat them raw.
On the prairie, a crab apple tree I planted when my daughter was born, finally bore one tiny apple the year we left the ranch when my daughter was 13, and then a wind storm whipped the tree about until it split the trunk vertically.
Another Pocatello acquaintance didn’t plant his garden until mid-June with every confidence that his plants will mature.
Perhaps I jump the gun too early every year, anxious after a winter’s confinement to see green, harvest fresh herbs to fuel a soup or chicken fricassee, eat that first heaping bowl of wilted lettuce.
Afterall, there are only so many gardens possible in a lifetime, and now that I’ve reached my 59th year hobbling about on a bad hip with a cane, I’m wondering just how many gardens the cosmos will continue to grant me.

A Garden's Purpose

2006-06-04T15:00:54Z

"Our vegetable garden is coming along well, with radishes and beans up, and we are less worried about revolution than we used to be." -- E. B. White

The Great Mower Myth

2006-06-02T20:12:03Z

POCATELLO — There’s a powerful, almost religious, mythology surrounding lawn mowers.
We believe in their innate quality to beautify our living spaces, and we pray over them, albeit somewhat blasphemously.
For instance, we may wake up on a cool, sunny morning and say to ourselves, “This morning I will mow the lawn.” And we may actually believe the job will get done.
But like God, despite our desperate prayers, lawn mowers move in mysterious ways.
Today is such a day. I awakened cheerfully, full of hope, only to have my hopes dashed to despair.
Alas, as I write these words, my mower sits on the long grass sporting a shiny new spark plug, new air filter and fresh, unleaded gasoline. I’ve pushed the appropriate buttons listed in the manual and spent the past half hour tugging on the starter rope to no avail.
I’m pooped. I’m angry. The time I allotted to beautifying my outdoor spaces has come and gone, and my grass is growing longer by the minute, longer than the city’s lawn police allow.
But my intentions are good. I’ve been acting in good faith. My mower is still quite young and is kept out of the elements in my garage over winter with a protective dose of fuel enhancer.
The problem is, the only day it actually worked like it is supposed to is the day I bought it.
Of course, I can’t purchase a new mower every time my little patch of grass needs mowing, so what to do?
I call my son.
Despite my hard won, and somewhat stubborn, independence, in my ancient wisdom I’ve concluded that some things fall more easily within the purview of the male gender and/or a more youthful countenance.
Lawn mower husbandry is one of those things.
And sure enough. Edward shows up, and within minutes, the mower is purring and ready to roar.
I observe this small engine priest carefully. He pushes the same fuel button I pushed, holds the same lever in place I held, and yanks on the starter rope. Voila!
Why won’t it start for me?

Abracadabra: Why Garden?

2006-05-25T14:55:02Z

POCATELLO — As Americans we live in a deftly created illusion of certainty.
Even the atheists among us believe in magic grocery stores that refill automatically like the little porridge pot in a childhood faery tale. We believe in bottomless gas pumps that never run dry like the miraculous oil lamp in that Old Testament Bible story.
The only problem is, on the national scale, we aren’t entertaining weary prophets unaware or doing other selfless works deserving of divinely inspired miracles.
So, what happens when the sorcerer’s magic has run its course, when the cauldron ceases to boil and bubble, when there are no more newts and frogs to plunder for their magical appendages?
These are questions Americans are quite willing to put off and ignore as long as comfort levels aren’t breached.
We’ve been encouraged to “believe” that “they” will take care of “it” and cheap food and fuel will always be available, like magic, because this is America, and by definition: the land of plenty.
Isn’t that why “everybody” wants to come here, why our president believes we must arm our borders so others can’t interfere with the magic?
I could make myself crazy thinking about these issues (and some think I’ve already accomplished this). I might even think up a solution, but I know in this “democratic” nation that no one in power would be interested in a solution, because the greedy few would rather risk creating a pressure cooker of discontent over and above a legitimate humanitarian move simply because there’s more money to be made in chaos than in peace.
These frustrating issues are obviously way beyond my control, so, I garden. I play in the dirt, plant seeds, cruise greenhouses for flowers and herbs, and sink my soul into greenery, edible and ornamental, but it doesn’t keep me entirely from thinking.
For instance, what percentage of our food comes from Mexico and beyond? If those countries exploited that percentage, would the political tables turn?
Could all this fuss at the border be really about keeping a steady stream of strawberries, asparagus and other produce moving northward during off seasons because United Statesian fields are no longer in production?
It’s obvious that foreign laborers in their own fields work for even fewer dollars than in ours keeping U.S. imported food costs low.
Recently, I read that an agricultural “expert” at one of California’s universities thinks the U. S. should stop growing food altogether because it’s more economical to import it.
Such a move would certainly quell much of the immigration “problem” down south, but wouldn’t such a reduction in home food production make our way of life more vulnerable to disintegration? All that would be required to create severe disruption is halt truck, train and air travel.
In other words, cut supply lines, a simple military tactical maneuver.
I remember our president saying that the American lifestyle is not negotiable. What are the ramifications of such a statement?
And what happened to the prevailing mythology that this great agricultural paradise feeds the world?
If that isn’t the case, then what is the function of those vast weedless fields ploughed, disked, seeded, fertilized, treated for pests several times a year by gigantic, petroleum-run, four-wheel-drive tractors?
If these “modern” methods are so wonderful, why are human laborers still a commodity, especially since we’ve developed tomatoes that can be harvested by machine, and our poisons keep weeds at bay so they don’t have to be plucked by hand . . . or do they?
Oh, dear, I’ve done it again. In late afternoon, I fix myself a green salad from my garden, slather it with imported Italian olive oil and red wine vinegar, pour a glass of French Côte du Rhone, and my mind takes off.
As Shakespeare said in “Hamlet,” “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” only whatever is bugging me, it’s not specifically in Denmark, and I can’t shake the idea that food ignorance and manipulation is destined to be the downfall of Rome.

Land and freedom

2006-05-15T15:59:36Z

POCATELLO — I consider myself very fortunate. I own a plot of land.
Land, experts say, is the backbone of democracy, the very root of survival and freedom.
We only have to look at the “uprooting” of peoples caught in the muddle of political conflict or natural disasters to realize the symbiotic relationship of humans to soil.
I did not buy my plot for real estate speculation, that is, as a “starter” home to be traded in on a bigger one when its value increases.
I bought my little house in order to practice traditional American Agrarian Jeffersonian Democracy by planting a vegetable garden.
Pocatello doesn’t possess the best climate for growing vegetables. At this altitude we can expect killing frosts every month during our all too brief growing season, so we keep abreast of temperature warnings in order to cover the beans, tomatoes and peppers when frost threatens.
We start our tomatoes and peppers indoors early so when it comes time to plant (late May usually) the fruits have a chance to ripen before snowfall.
Right now (early May), my tomato plants (a good 15 inches tall) are hardening off beneath a floating row cover under the canopy of my front porch awaiting the magic moment for removal to the garden proper.
I’ve given up on Wall ‘o Water protection. The blue green plastic contraptions are cumbersome, too heavy for me to lift with an aging arthritic hip when it’s time to remove them. I’ll stick with wire cages and easily removable cloth covers.
Another useful adaptation to our northern high altitude climate is the cold frame. Two years ago, I made a simple one by arranging cinder blocks in a rectangle and laying an old window sash on top. Nothing fancy.
In March, on a sunny day, I pull up the window and scratch some mixed lettuce and spinach seeds into the soil, give them some water if the soil seems dry, replace the window and forget about it.
Voilà! I’m eating fresh salad in April and early May.
I garden all winter via books and catalogs. I draw diagrams, order packets of seeds, fantasize about how nice it would be if I owned a large estate and could hire a full-time gardener to do my bidding. Yet I know full well, I’d still insist on playing in the dirt, nursing seedlings and harvesting the vegetables myself.
Planning is almost as much fun as watching the plants grow and preparing meals from the produce.
I come from a long line of gardeners on both sides of the family. In the past if you wanted fresh vegetables, you grew them yourself. In many cases, if you wanted to eat at all, you gardened.
Aside from the obvious survival advantages, tending a garden can be a spiritual experience. Some cherished memories of my childhood include listening to my father sing sea chanties as he worked in our family sweet corn patch.
I recall my father’s father, Frank Croner, and attorney and eventually a judge, leaning on his shovel, relaxed and dreamy, as he irrigated his small summer plot in the tiny high prairie town of Fairfield, Idaho.
And there was my Uncle Jake’s lush garden in wet Western Washington teeming with cucumbers, summer squash, corn and raspberries. I can still recall the earthy smell of his root cellar dug into the side of a hill, a food storage technique becoming lost in our peculiar age of supermarkets.
By some standards, my little garden isn’t much to look at.
It’s small and shaggy; the rows aren’t straight and I often allow volunteer plants to grow unchecked.
But as I pop fresh peas into my mouth, sit down at my outdoor table to feast on a batch of wilted leaf lettuce, snip a handful of thyme to season a roast, or show my delightful grandson where to find a carrot, I feel good and free, alive and connected to this earth that sustains us.

Here’s my idea of a perfect early/mid- summer lunch, my Grandmother Louella (Warner) Croner’s recipe for wilted lettuce:
• Serving bowl full of coarsely chopped or torn leaf lettuces.
• 4-6 fresh green onions, sliced
• 2-4 slices of good bacon, diced
• 2-4 T. red wine or cider vinegar
• 2 tsp. sugar
• Salt and pepper to taste
Arrange sliced onions on top of the lettuce in a serving bowl. Saute bacon and remove excess fat, leaving 2-3 T. in the pan. While the pan is still hot, add the vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper. While boiling, pour over lettuce and serve immediately.

From magic to sustainability

2006-05-07T15:27:58Z

The year’s at the spring.
The day’s at the morn.
Morning’s at seven.
The hillside’s dew-pearled.

The lark’s on the wing.
The snail’s on the thorn.
God’s in his heaven.
All’s right with the world.
—Pippa’s Song, by Robert Browning

POCATELLO — This bright May morning, at last, I sat comfortably at my outdoor table and drank a steaming cup of brew.
All manner of birds twittered and crowed: robins, finches, starlings, chickadees, crows, making their private morning preparations for the day as I had.
My little garden looks rough, but the lettuce, spinach, carrots, radishes, beets, peas and chard I planted a couple of weeks ago have broken through the soil’s crust.
Now that the seeds have sprouted, I’m beginning to believe in the garden. This time of year the idea of seeds becoming vegetables seems impossible, too magical to be real, especially after winter feastings on those fantastic “unreal” images in garden magazines and catalogs.
In early March, I remembered to seed my small cold frame with mixed lettuce and spinach and am now reaping the benefits. I’ve eaten two green salads already, while the lettuce in the garden proper has barely broken the soil’s surface.
Buds are appearing on the grapevines; the apple trees are leafing out; the Nanking cherry bush was covered in blossoms last week; spring is really here.
Gardening is a lifelong learning experience with as many methods and tricks of the trade as there are gardeners.
Recently I’ve been corresponding with gardeners who swear by the “no-till” method proposed by a Japanese farmer, Masanobu Fukuoka in his book “The One Straw Revolution,” Rodale Press, 1978.
Even though I read the book nearly 30 years ago, I’m only just now getting turned on to the concept a year after splurging on a small, powerful rototiller.
I bought the tiller because arthritis makes it difficult for me to use a spading fork or shovel to “dig in” compost and other soil amendments.
The “no till” gardening theory suggests merely piling organic matter on top of the soil every year — triple purpose: to keep weeds at bay, increase friability and add nutrients.
That’s the way soil is built up in nature, isn’t it? Plants die down every fall and decompose, then reseed themselves in the new compost. Perhaps an animal will wander by and add another boost of nitrogen to the mix.
A backyard experiment is on the wind.
These days, after several centuries of depleting farm ground across the continent, even large scale farmers are being encouraged to try “no till” methods.
It’s difficult for a “new” or “different” farming technique to catch on, even when proven efficient. Chemical and implement companies aren’t pleased to lose dependent customers.
But the greatest inhibitor to change is a farmer’s fear of “what the neighbors will think.” Ridicule, teasing, the ancient (mostly unconscious) tribal method of maintaining group identity and security keeps positive changes from occurring even when proven beneficial.
The power of belief in “this is the way we’ve always done it” can’t be underestimated, even when history proves a method has only recently, in one or two generations, been done a certain way.
Humans, especially those who don’t read much, continuously deal with an erroneous idea about history, that anything that came before us was inferior and inefficient.
This is a habit that disallows genuine exploration and revival of gardening and farming methods that may have been more efficient and kinder to the earth.
Some older practices may, in fact, have been “sustainable” -- meaning that if I practice them, my little backyard garden plot, instead of depleting the soil, may actually improve over time and feed succeeding generations in what is/was my private Pocatello.

A Fine Spring Morning

2006-04-20T13:43:08Z

"April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers."
—Edna St. Vincent Millay

"Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it."
—Andre Gide

— It's another fine spring morning in Pocatello, my hometown.
The city's homeless alcoholics are lined up outside the plasma center waiting to score money for their next drink or a decent meal.
Trains squeal through town howling mournfully at intersections, coupling violently, awakening gentle sleepers and out-of-town guests unused to sudden metallic clashes, the sound of commerce of money changing hands.
A murderer and a child molester are sentenced, and an alleged necrophile is charged.
Experts predict the mighty Portneuf may overflow its banks. Officials are worried, say the TV talking heads and newspaper headlines.
Somewhere in the city hearts are breaking, families grieve, couples fall in love. Somewhere in the city, children pretend to read, bullies are bullying, and a dog digs holes in Granny's newly spaded garden.
Somewhere in the city a single mother loses her job. The Food Bank runs low on goods, while on the other side of town contracts are signed that increase one man's wealth.
Despair brings a laboring father to suicide.
Babies cry.
An eager drummer practices, amusing his pianist neighbor; bagpipes blare at an “old country” funeral.
Throughout the city, wise men practice democracy, meet over coffee to cuss out politicians, to straighten out the economy, fix all our social ills with chuckles and guffaws, an occasional fist slammed on the table.
Somewhere in the city politicians plot campaigns, hone their vote-gathering smiles, their plaid responses to serious issues.
A poet writes forbidden words and dreams of saving the world.
A young mother seeks salvation in homemade bread and fresh strawberry jam, in wet towels hung outdoors in the fresh Idaho breeze.
A teacher teaches a pretender to read.
And all the while, spring rains green up the city's parks. Purple and red crocus spike lawns, and forsythia buds make ready to burst forth in splendor

Rainbow Connection

2006-04-05T15:20:21Z

This morning, following a clap of long, rolling thunder and a sudden cloudburst, the sky above my small garden was blessed with a nearly full circle, double rainbow.
The first one was vibrant, well-defined and crystal clear; the second was ethereal.
Double rainbows against a darkened, stormy sky can only mean joy in the midst of chaos, a sign of an abundant harvest, time with good friends, health. . .
The pot of gold sat in a neighbor’s house two blocks west of mine. I hope the household enjoyed the treasure.
When I moved to Pocatello permanently in 1994, a similar rainbow blessed my life and erased uncertainty. A dear friend and poet stopped by my then tiny, rented house one rainy, spring afternoon to bring me a book. As he left, we were greeted with a fantastic double rainbow that gave Kinport Peak a colorful halo.
--a sign that Pocatello was a good move.
Another fantastic rainbow occurred shortly after buying my house when I’d driven to Twin Falls to retrieve my teenage son.
On the way home, near sundown, dark, storm clouds parted revealing sunlight bathing the Idaho desert in gold. As we approached Raft River, a triple, full-circle rainbow appeared in the sky. The colors grazed the earth on the car we were following and continued for several miles.

Rainbows from heaven
Storm clouds parting in gold light
Road trip; precious son.

Reading catalogs in the spring snow

2006-04-01T20:22:11Z

Recently, I received a garden catalog that made gardening look like nothing more than another expensive hobby rooted in the petrochemical industry.
The company sold plastic raised bed panels, plastic trowels, plastic fencing, plastic greenhouses and cold frames, plastic harvest baskets, plastic rain boots, plastic aprons, plastic lawn furniture, plastic garden sheds, plastic stakes and trellises, plastic lawn and garden ornaments, etc., etc.
The gardens in the catalog’s photographs didn’t look real. From the looks of all that white and wood-colored plastic edging, I half expect those “perfect” vegetables and flowers to be plastic too, along with the rather plastic smile on the models holding the plastic trowels.
Now I don’t consider myself a completely unreasonable, purist Luddite; I don’t disdain everything about the modern world and advocate a return to cave man status, but I found this list of catalog products disheartening. The only plastic items I use in my garden are hoses and waterproof trays for starting plants indoors.
My trellises and bean poles are wood and in many cases are hand-fashioned from tree and willow shoots found on my own property or picked up on a recycling venture through the city’s alleys or country roads. My stakes are bamboo, obviously imported from a warmer climate, and my pots are ceramic (i.e. natural clay), or recycled plastic from having purchased greenhouse plants.
Gardening in the green world is about reaping the benefits of nature, albeit in a more controlled habitat than nature herself allows. Even so, the conscientious gardener must work WITH her in order to reap success. Mother Nature doesn’t care much for plastic. She rejects it when buried in her soil; the stuff simply isn’t biodegradable as are wood, leaves, even iron as it oxidizes.
I know I can’t, or maybe won’t, go completely “natural.”
I recognize that few, if any, of the vegetables we grow here in Idaho are derived from local native species, but by planting heirloom seeds and even some hybrids (seeds developed by “natural” genetic means as opposed to genetic manipulation) the conscientious gardener achieves healthy food. Gardeners manipulate soil structure and water quantity within the confines of his/her particular climate to get the maximum nutritional, taste and aesthetic value from homegrown food.
And such results have been achieved for century upon century without the “help” of petrochemicals, i.e. plastic.
Gardening for nutrition and taste are true luxuries in this mad agribusiness world. Agriculturalists (I can hardly call them farmers these days) practice various forms of monoculture and choose their singular crops based on quantity of yield and the ability to withstand machine harvesting and cross-country shipping. They want their products to look uniformly pleasant and blemish-free, while taste and nutrition are beside the point.
And I haven’t even begun to mention the amount of herbicides, insecticides and fungicides that monoculture requires to prevent crop failure at such a scale.
A home gardener has the luxury of growing a variety of foods in such a way as to minimize damage from insects and other biological means. A gardener can produce a truly delicious tomato, one that may have developed a bumpy lobe (making it unsalable), but when eaten is heavenly. A whole basket of homegrown tomatoes may be anything but uniform except in the uniformly delicious category.
When it comes to aesthetics, those white plastic fence-lets and trellises are not pleasing to my eye. I much prefer rough, curvy sticks straight from the woods for my morning glories and peas to climb.
Plastic may have its uses, but as its popularity and apparent disposability takes over jobs previously held by other substances, it’s created yet another human American dependency on the petrochemical industry.
How many young people know how to keep food fresh in a refrigerator without plastic wrap or Glad® containers? How was bread kept from drying out before plastic bags?
Does anybody remember refillable fountain pens? Or a not-so-long-ago era when “plastic” meant inferior, a cheap replacement for genuine goods?
Should we be thinking about this?

So much depends. . .

2006-04-01T18:48:50Z

Wednesday morning, early, as gentle rainwater glazed my green wheelbarrow, I transplanted pansy plants into large pots near my back door.
I performed the task in bare feet and was still wearing my nightclothes. The rain on my face and neck, my bare feet on the wet grass, felt great.
Whenever water falls out of the sky in dry southern Idaho, we rejoice.
For one thing, rain signals warmth. Rain even in summer months means the beans and tomatoes won't freeze, and we gardeners can relax a bit instead of running about most evenings covering precious plants when sudden temperature drops in clear weather can easily mean the loss of several weeks' work.
Every March and April, I nearly always feel behind before I get going. For instance, right now I have a mound of compost I need to move to my garden proper before I plant my cool weather crops, but age and an old ski injury limit my physical ability. Even so, I'm determined to work slowly and doggedly, like the tortoise in that infamous Aesop tale, to achieve my goal.
The dark moon was Tuesday, according to an Internet moon phase calendar, so planting is fortuitous for the next couple of weeks with the moon waxing. With any luck, this weekend I'll get a section prepared for lettuce, radishes, chard, etc., and get a trellis set up for peas.
Saturday morning: As houseguests and I sip our morning coffee, a snowstorm blows in from the west. Here it is April 1, 2006, and more snow. Why are the gods fooling with us?