Growing Food

What I am really interested in these days is growing food for us to eat. I am interested in this, of course, in a political and ethical way. I want to eat locally and diminish our carbon footprint. I want to eat foods that are organically grown and are environmentally correct and taste great. And right now we are harvesting from our small garden all the vegetables we need. We never have to buy anything from the supermarket except meat and toilet paper and detergents and milk. We get eggs from a local person (four years old).
Every day I go out and tweak the vegetable garden. I nip off the suckers from the tomatoes, peel off the leaves from the brussel sprouts, and water the lettuces I want to keep on producing into the hot weather and check the beets. I cut many broccoli sprouts and heads, pick the beans and swiss chard, examine the collard leaves for the dreaded caterpillars and squash them into the ground. I marvel at the many gourds climbing the fence and already fruiting. I look up to enjoy the morning glory blossoms in all colors threading through the cucumber vines and the hummingbirds at the feeder and I look down to pull a few weeds and throw them into my weed bucket. And the tomatoes! I have at least thirty plants, mostly heirlooms I grew from seed. They are all potential right now but they are robust and have no bugs or blight. There are several interesting holes in the earth- not armadillos, thank god. These small holes belong to the black racers and the toads and those interesting bees who help pollinate the squash and gourds and tomatoes.I know this because when you have time to be quietly weeding and tweaking in the garden you are not alone and can see and enjoy these creatures as they emerge. Heaven!
I love to grow flowers as well, but vegetables are king to me, always an interesting challenge. I think that an abundance of home grown organic vegetables are so tasty! I love to bring a basket of this day's produce to my husband, the cook, and he uses what's there today. Admittedly, we have to eat a LOT of broccoli right now, and then a LOT of green beans, and then I see beets and brussels sprouts on the horizon. I can hardly wait until the tomatoes kick in. They are in blossom.

It appalls me to think that environmental science would be "controversial" in our public schools. Probably not in Oregon, but here in Florida, where we are still debating whether creationism should be taught in science class, educators must step softly. (or not at all) There are always the rules and procedures and rubrics and limited time for everything. The FCAT tests drive everything. Does no one have passion or ideas? Does no one love these amazing kids who will inherit the earth?
I am a volunteer in two public schools, and sure, I am not there every day and I do not know everything.. But I observe.
These public schools were built twenty years ago when no one thought anything about carbon footprints. They are dismal buildings in glorious settings of rural Florida. There are no windows and few walls. In warm weather the air conditioning is blasting away so that everyone can wear a sweater. In the few days of the cold season, the rooms are too warm. Everyone whispers.
I would love to be alive when one of these principals calls in her fifth graders and presents to them the challenge of how they can make this school energy efficient. The kids will come up with goofy ideas, and some good ones. Whack out some of the walls and put in windows that open. Put solar panels on the roof. Install a wind turbine. At the very least, turn down the a/c several degrees. Have outdoor classes, plant trees, install a pond, grow a vegetable garden for the whole community. And the kids will be learning science all the while because it's real and because their very lives depend on it.
The science fairs are generally crap. Kids do poor science about what hair spray or diaper is best. It would be a whole lot more effective if these good kids could be involved in the life ahead and start out doing real things and thinking critically about what their world will be. For openers I would love to see kids outside lying in the grass observing bugs with magnifying glasses, getting used to the sense of wonder in the natural world.
Last week when my grandchildren were here we walked out in the night woods and saw the thousands of fireflies in the palmettos, and echoing them, the stars in the sky. We held hands and were amazed at the beauty of this world we inhabit. It's a step.

Earth Day

I feel kind of like Andy Rooney with my curmudgeonly objections to so much packaging that comes with everything we buy. But here's a suggestion for everyone to try on Earth Day. I do it all the time. At the check out counter, remove unnecessary packaging and give it back to the clerk. You don't need those plastic hangers that come with cheap clothing we all wear. You don't need shoe boxes with the crumpled tissue paper and toe fillers. You don't need the boxes containing the toothpaste or the ibuprofen. Toiletries are the worst. You certainly don't need that dangerous clamshell rig on the batteries you buy. You don't need all that ingenious Chinese packing foam that comes when you buy a small lamp or electronics. Be real now, you'll never have to return it, and if you did you could never figure out how to get it back in the box (if you could find it).
Food items are harder. You don't want to go out of the store with breakfast cereal stuffed in your pockets or bald fried chicken in your purse, but you can eschew the plastic or paper bags for those nifty ones sold everywhere for under a dollar. Each one can contain what would be placed in FOUR plastic bags! So much easier.
I know you are thinking about the loss of jobs if we reduced packaging. There's no end to political correctness, is there? But even from a selfish view of closets, we know that less packaging means more room for what we already have. Not to mention the dreaded carbon footprint.
Today I went to a website www.catalogchoice.org , and canceled with ease all those catalogs that clog my mailbox. It's easy, it's free. You know you don't need that catalog about cattle insemination products, or the fifteenth one about 'window treatments', especially if you don't have any curtains and prefer it that way. Lighten the load to the recycling center (You DO recycle?)
And, last but not unimportant, try growing some of your own food. Fill containers with herbs and salad greens. For us tonight we have enough fresh broccoli, green beans and swiss chard to stagger sextillions of infidels, not to mention the guests.

"We go home now"

When we took Quincy on the historical trolley ride in our small town yesterday, he was enthralled by it all. He sat in the window seat next to Grandpa, taking in everything the guide said. I enjoyed watching him from the seat behind, his chubby cheeks pink and his red hair flying in the sun. It was a ninety minute tour of historical homes and landmarks and even I, the grown-up, was getting antsy, wishing I could put the pedal to the metal and get on with it. Quincy, however, was the dignified and polite three year old, occasionally commenting on cats or trucks he saw. He very much liked when the guide reached up to pull the trolley bell. He knew when that would happen and he reached up in imitation. He leaned over to Grandpa and said, "We go home now! Time for lunch!"
Yes! Time to go home. And what a home we have! This evening, the three teenagers and Quincy have gone to their real homes and I have a few hours all alone except for the small dog. The moon is almost full and the fireflies are out in full force. Coyotes are singing.
I am working on the last quilt of my project of four. I knew this last one would be the most challenging. For all these years my husband has dragged a large woodcut I made when I was very young from place to place as we moved. And now, I want to print it again on this quilt. It is the first stanza of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, and I was in love with it at the time. It is perfect, I think, for the young person who is to receive this quilt. The large wood block is old and dried up (as am I!), cantankerous and not wanting to receive the ink as I want it to. I am wetting it down constantly and pulling trial prints. I am not discouraged that the ink won't adhere as it should in my mind's eye. I am thinking of changing the fabric, maybe dyeing muslin and using that instead of the fabric I had originally planned. And there is plan B, and C, probably D too.
What is fun is to have the time to do this. Also fun is having a collaborator quilter nearby who will actually quilt the three pieces of the sandwich together on her long arm quilting machine. We spend hours deciding on the thread colors, the design of the quilting as it embraces my quilt tops.
I never thought I would be this happy as a retired person. I loved my work as a teacher and school director. But the time came when I knew I needed to get out of the way and let others do it. I was tired of telling kids what to do, and I still don't want to do this anymore.
Kids are still a large part of my life. I am loving the role of being the wildly idiosyncratic grandma person to many kids. I think of last night with my teenage grandson when we put in hours processing the amazing photos he made while he was here. It was just so easy and companionable being with this creative young person I was teaching in a low key way. No agenda beyond the task at hand. Fifty three years difference in age we are, but no matter! The students in the school where I volunteered today were the same: we had a project to do and we got right down to business. (After hugs, of course.)
The nagging little dog is warming my bed, waiting for me.

My Space

My space has been invaded by my grandsons, especially the fourteen year old, who love having a building (my studio) where they can make art, use their computer, and just hang out all day. I can easily take this for a couple of days, and we are compatible in my space. Diego is making collages (to die for), and I am completing a project of four quilts. Everything hums with activity, and we are even fairly o.k. with the music we listen to.

But I find that I cannot really do my best thinking and creating with another person at my elbow. Tonight I have one hour alone in the studio, and then I have promised my appearance at the evening card game in fifteen minutes.

'My Space': do kids today really know anything about having their own space? Are we all to become Japanese type persons having to share tiny spaces, never being alone? Is 'My Space' only to be something online? For me, my space is in my studio, alone with my thoughts and art, or outdoors walking in the woods and fields. I appreciate that my wonderful grandsons truly love the freedom they have here, the space to create, think, and just be themselves. What a gift for us all.