Sliding toward Summer

Today is the last day of this Minnesota legislative session. The evening weather forecast for today is full of thunderstorms. Some of us don't think that's coincidental. Democrats have a one vote edge in the senate and the house is evenly split with a Republican speaker. Will we ever grow up enough to elect those who believe solving problems is more important than win-lose? Should we only vote for those with knowledge about Multi-solving?

One of my long-time favorite authors has a (relatively) new book. Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass and The Serviceberry, has written Bud Finds Her Gift. I'm planning on sharing it with our five year old granddaughter soon. Meanwhile, Ive been enjoying it myself. (Evidence I'm just an aged kid? Perhaps!)

Large-flowered Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

Locally the trees are mostly leafed out with few bare branches visible. Lilac buds have developed on our bushes. It's about time to look for trillium in bloom. The rain we're supposed to get over the next several days should help bring some additional flowers into bloom but may make planting season messy and muddy for farmers in the area.

Yesterday, I baked a round loaf of sourdough bread full of blueberry jammies. The jammies turned the dough into a slippery, sticky mess, perhaps aided and abetted by suboptimal starter. The crust is darker than I like and the crumb more moist than I prefer. The bread is edible but I need to work on my technique. I'm not baking regularly enough to stay in shape; actually, to keep my loaves in shape. Time to adopt Samuel Beckett's perspective: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better."

For the Children

by Gary Snyder

The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us,
the steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down.

In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.

To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:

stay together
learn the flowers
go light

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If at first ..., play it again!

As I measured water and flour to refresh my sourdough starter this morning, I realized that an adjustment of perspective was in order. I wasn’t doing a necessary, but annoying, task. I was playing with one of my toys. It would have been even better if I had felt like I was feeding a pet, but our two dogs are demanding enough that I doubt there’s room for another pet in my life at the moment. In any event, yesterday I had made a refresher batch using white whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour and then made the mistake of putting it outside to gather more air-borne yeast. The damp towel I used to cover the starter dried out quickly, leading to the starter drying out. This morning’s play was to rectify and recover from yesterday’s errors. It seems to be working.🤞

[Pretend there’s a picture of my best loaf here. For the second day in a row, Blogger’s malfunctioning on inserting pictures.]

As a side dish to refreshing the starter, we made up a levain which is rising nicely. It looks like we may be able to assemble some sourdough this evening, let it do a bulk rise overnight, shape and bake tomorrow before it gets too hot. The last loaf we baked rose ok, but the favor was off. Hence, the refreshing the starter and related actions. It was frustrating, since the prior loaf had come as close to perfect as any I’ve managed to get in a decade’s worth of sourdoughing.

Ode to bread

Bread, 
you rise
from flour, 
water
and fire.
Dense or light,
flattened or round,
you duplicate
the mother's
rounded womb,
and earth's
twice-yearly
swelling.
How simple
you are, bread,
and how profound!
You line up
on the baker's 
powdered trays
like silverware or plates
or pieces of paper
and suddenly
life washes 
over you,
there's the joining of seed
and fire,
and you're growing, growing
all at once
like
hips, mouths, breasts,
mounds of earth,
or people's lives.
The temperature rises, you're overwhelmed
by fullness, the roar
of fertility,
and suddenly 
your golden color is fixed.
And when your little wombs
were seeded,
a brown scar
laid its burn the length
of your two halves'
toasted
juncture.
Now, 
whole,
you are 
mankind's energy,
a miracle often admired,
the will to live itself.

O bread familiar to every mouth,
we will not kneel before you:
men
do no
implore
unclear gods
or obscure angels:
we will make our own bread
out of sea and soil,
we will plant wheat
on our earth and the planets,
bread for every mouth, 
for every person,
our daily bread. 
Because we plant its seed
and grow it
not for one man
but for all,
there will be enough:
there will be bread
for all the peoples of the earth.
And we will also share with one another
whatever has
the shape and the flavor of bread:
the earth itself,
beauty
and love--
all
taste like bread
and have its shape,
the germination of wheat.
Everything
exists to be shared,
to be freely given,
to multiply.

This is why, bread,
if you flee
from mankind's houses,
if they hide you away
or deny you,
if the greedy man
pimps for you or 
the rich man 
takes you over,
if the wheat
does not yearn for the furrow and the soil:
then, bread, 
we will refuse to pray:
bread
we will refuse to beg.
We will fight for you instead, side by side with the others,
with everyone who knows hunger.
We will go after you
in every river and in the air.
We will divide the entire earth among ourselves
so that you may germinate,
and the earth will go forward
with us:
water, fire, and mankind
fighting at our side.
Crowned
with sheafs of wheat, 
we  will win
earth and bread for everyone.
Then 
life itself
will have the shape of bread,
deep and simple, 
immeasurable and pure.
Every living thing
will have its share
of soil and life,
and the bread we eat each morning,
everyone's daily bread,
will be hallowed
and sacred,
because it will have been won
by the longest and costliest
of human struggles.

This earthly Victory
does not have wings:
she wears bread on her shoulders instead.
Courageously she soars,
setting the world free,
like a baker
born aloft on the wind.

               -Pablo Neruda

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the moon in June is the berries

Yesterday’s full moon, which was completely cloud covered around here, is called the Strawberry Moon by the Ojibwe and the Good Berries Moon by the Lakota. The community supported agriculture [CSA] share we picked up this morning included the season’s first container of strawberries. Coincidence? I think not!!

Strawberry moon of 2013

Photo by J. Harrington

Here’s a full list of this week’s CSA share:

• RHUBARB
• STRAWBERRIES
• ASPARAGUS
• GARLIC SCAPES, and
• LETTUCE

We almost collected a load of venison on the way to the farm. Just after we had rounded a sharp curve on a township gravel road, a couple of whitetail does came barreling out of the brush on the right-hand side of the road. Fortunately, the curve had caused us to slow enough that we could promptly brake and let the critters safely pass in front of the Jeep. In fact, there were surprising numbers of deer standing at or near the side of various roads this morning.

The day length today is 6 seconds shorter than yesterday, which was 1 second less than the solstice. It will take awhile before we really notice, but the days are getting shorter already. For those trapped under a heat dome, autumn probably can’t come soon enough. Some of us beleaguered by mosquitos and teeny little flies are already looking forward to the first frost. Plus, grocers this summer are selling peaches that look ripe but are firm as a rock and don’t soften sitting on the counter at home. Another case of mis- or dis-information?

I am pleased to announce that I baked a boule of high-hydration sourdough and it turned out to be one of the best loaves I’ve baked in a long time. If you’re looking for some good guidance on baking sourdough, let me recommend (again) Emilie Raffa’s Artisan Sourdough Made Simple.

Strawberrying

May Swenson
1913 – 1989

My hands are murder-red. Many a plump head
drops on the heap in the basket. Or, ripe
to bursting, they might be hearts, matching
the blackbird’s wing-fleck. Gripped to a reed
he shrieks his ko-ka-ree in the next field.
He’s left his peck in some juicy cheeks, when
at first blush and mostly white, they showed
streaks of sweetness to the marauder.

We’re picking near the shore, the morning
sunny, a slight wind moving rough-veined leaves
our hands rumple among. Fingers find by feel
the ready fruit in clusters. Here and there,
their squishy wounds . . . . Flesh was perfect
yesterday . . . . June was for gorging . . . .
sweet hearts young and firm before decay.

“Take only the biggest, and not too ripe,”
a mother calls to her girl and boy, barefoot
in the furrows. “Don’t step on any. Don’t
change rows. Don’t eat too many.” Mesmerized
by the largesse, the children squat and pull
and pick handfuls of rich scarlets, half
for the baskets, half for avid mouths.
Soon, whole faces are stained.

A crop this thick begs for plunder. Ripeness
wants to be ravished, as udders of cows when hard,
the blue-veined bags distended, ache to be stripped.
Hunkered in mud between the rows, sun burning
the backs of our necks, we grope for, and rip loose
soft nippled heads. If they bleed—too soft—
let them stay. Let them rot in the heat.

When, hidden away in a damp hollow under moldy
leaves, I come upon a clump of heart-shapes
once red, now spiderspit-gray, intact but empty,
still attached to their dead stems—
families smothered as at Pompeii—I rise
and stretch. I eat one more big ripe lopped
head. Red-handed, I leave the field.

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Making hay while ...?

It rained (again) this morning. Thunderstorms are in tomorrow afternoon’s forecast. Lots of hay fields around here have their first cutting of hay lying in rows to dry or sitting in round bales. All of the above makes me glad I’m not a farmer trying to make hay, cause the sun isn’t shining much these days.

farmer baling hay

Photo by J. Harrington

Cornfields look happy, though it’s dicey if corn will be knee high by the Fourth of July. According to recent reports from the mosquito control district, this is becoming (has become?) a banner year for mosquitos. If the “hot sports” are several counties south of us, I don’t want to know how thick the flocks of the “state bird” are down there.

Since weather is, tragically😉, limiting today’s outdoor chore possibilities, I mixed up a batch of sourdough that’s now rising. Early tomorrow, before the day heats up, we’ll bake a loaf of artisan sourdough using a recipe we’ve neglected for a couple of years now. Slices of that’ll serve as breakfast for several days and help keep me away from too many cookies.

Haymaking

By Edward Thomas

Aftear night’s thunder far away had rolled

The fiery day had a kernel sweet of cold,

And in the perfect blue the clouds uncurled,

Like the first gods before they made the world

And misery, swimming the stormless sea

In beauty and in divine gaiety.

The smooth white empty road was lightly strewn

With leaves—the holly’s Autumn falls in June—

And fir cones standing stiff up in the heat.

The mill-foot water tumbled white and lit

With tossing crystals, happier than any crowd

Of children pouring out of school aloud.

And in the little thickets where a sleeper

For ever might lie lost, the nettle-creeper

And garden warbler sang unceasingly;

While over them shrill shrieked in his fierce glee

The swift with wings and tail as sharp and narrow

As if the bow had flown off with the arrow.

Only the scent of woodbine and hay new-mown

Travelled the road. In the field sloping down,

Park-like, to where its willows showed the brook,

Haymakers rested. The tosser lay forsook

Out in the sun; and the long waggon stood

Without its team, it seemed it never would

Move from the shadow of that single yew.

The team, as still, until their task was due,

Beside the labourers enjoyed the shade

That three squat oaks mid-field together made

Upon a circle of grass and weed uncut,

And on the hollow, once a chalk-pit, but

Now brimmed with nut and elder-flower so clean.

The men leaned on their rakes, about to begin,

But still. And all were silent. All was old,

This morning time, with a great age untold,

Older than Clare and Cobbett, Morland and Crome,

Than, at the field’s far edge, the farmer’s home,

A white house crouched at the foot of a great tree.

Under the heavens that know not what years be

The men, the beasts, the trees, the implements

Uttered even what they will in times far hence—

All of us gone out of the reach of change—

Immortal in a picture of an old grange.

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The reign of rain

Things the Better Half has heard me say in the past few days:

• We need the moisture to recover from the drought
• At least it’s not snow
• It’ll cut down on the wild grass fire danger
•  I hope this keeps up (then it won’t come down)

I can almost see the leaves growing as I look out the windows. The freshly opened buds glow with vibrant color. Come summer, green tree crowns will be old hat, but for now a transition from bare branches is new and refreshing. Our neighborhood is starting to look like this.

Spring leaf out and green up

Photo by J. Harrington

The wet spot in our back yard shows more water than is has for months (and months). Once the ground dries out a little, I’ll start to do a little tidying outside and hope for gentle breezes rather than howling ones. In the quarter century plus that we’ve lived here, the wind has been out of the east about a dozen times, four or five of them during the past couple of weeks. After a very unusual winter, spring has added a few surprises too.

Meanwhile, today’s sourdough boule has come out of the oven looking good. We’ll taste it shortly after this is posted since it should be cooled enough by then. For years I’ve been trying to create a much more open crumb in my bread. Last week I bought a loaf from a local bakery. The crumb was so open the when I toast a slice, the butter drips through the holes. I’m reconsidering my wishes about a more open crumb. It’s a classic challenge of “be careful what you wish for, you may get it.”

The Call of the Wild 

Alexander Posey
1873 – 1908

I’m tired of the gloom  

In a four-walled room;  

Heart-weary, I sigh  

For the open sky,  

And the solitude  

Of the greening wood;  

Where the bluebirds call,  

And the sunbeams fall,  

And the daisies lure 

The soul to be pure.  

 

I’m tired of the life 

In the ways of strife;  

Heart-weary, I long  

For the river’s song,  

And the murmur of rills  

In the breezy hills;  

Where the pipe of Pan— 

The hairy half-man— 

The bright silence breaks  

By the sleeping lakes.   

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It’s out and poke about time

This may be (one of) the nicest February days ever in the North Country. Blue skies, sunshine, temperatures in the mid-40’s, little breeze and lots of melting have historically been rare during this month. Perhaps not so in the future. I hope and pray we don’t end up with more freezing rain instead of snow in our winter patterns.

time to look for British soldier lichen?

Photo by J. Harrington

I’ve already gotten antsy to get out and poke about. That directly conflicts with feeling catlike lazy and wanting to curl up in a warm sunny spot and, although not as much, with reactivating my sourdough artisan bread baking cycle. I can sometimes multi-task but only in one place at a time. I’ve got a couple of pounds of King Arthur Climate Blend regeneratively grown flour I want to try out. Plus, the local flour mill, Sunrise Flour Mill, has some new products from heritage wheat I want to check out. A long, slow, spring this year may be just what I need to fit in all my play time. Wonder what we’ll get.

The dogs and I enjoyed an early morning peek at the almost full, ivory-colored, moon today. It’s almost beautiful enough to make it worthwhile to get up and out a little after 4 am. You’re probably thinking I’ve been reading too much Ben Franklin if that’s when I get up. (“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”) I wonder if Ben had dogs with large stomachs that needed feeding and small bladders that needed emptying.

I’m not sure how I ended up on his distribution list, but I’m glad I did. A Vermont legislator, Tristan Roberts, newsletter yesterday makes me, and the Better Half, wonder if we could convince him to run for president. You can get a feel for what we’re talking about here. I wish Minnesota had a bunch of legislators that think like him.

Late February

By Ted Kooser

The first warm day,

and by mid-afternoon

the snow is no more

than a washing

strewn over the yards,

the bedding rolled in knots

and leaking water,

the white shirts lying

under the evergreens.

Through the heaviest drifts

rise autumn’s fallen

bicycles, small carnivals

of paint and chrome,

the Octopus

and Tilt-A-Whirl

beginning to turn

in the sun. Now children,

stiffened by winter

and dressed, somehow,

like old men, mutter

and bend to the work

of building dams.

But such a spring is brief;

by five o’clock

the chill of sundown,

darkness, the blue TVs

flashing like storms

in the picture windows,

the yards gone gray,

the wet dogs barking

at nothing. Far off

across the cornfields

staked for streets and sewers,

the body of a farmer

missing since fall

will show up

in his garden tomorrow,

as unexpected

as a tulip.

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Wanna play baker?

The bread I baked this morning is about the best tasting I’ve produced in a decade or so. Unfortunately, it wasn’t on purpose. I’m still challenged by the routine of when and how much to feed the starter and how bubbly it really should be and are there tradeoffs between open crumb and real sourdough flavor? As my mother, if she were still here, would tell you, patience and organization are not my strong points. To which I would reply that I’m trying to be organic and artisanal, not mechanical and industrial. Bottom line is that replication of process doesn’t guarantee replication of results. Isn’t that like most of life?

loafing around and playing last year

Photo by J. Harrington

Perhaps children learn so much through play because, for the most part, they avoid perfectionism. I’m slowly adding a sense of play to my bread baking and accepting that, even if I never “master" sourdough baking, I can still have lots of fun learning, especially if I treat it as play and not as a “major production.” I believe the same philosophy may fit well with fly fishing, too. Didn’t someone, sometime, point out that "life is too short to be taken seriously,” or something like that? I hope so because that’s how I intend to approach lots of things from now on. For example, today I tried, for the first time ever, using a flour stencil on the bread dough before it went in the oven. The results were far less than spectacular. So, when the boule came out of the oven, I brushed off the flour, sliced the bread and really liked the taste and crust.

I’ve learned over the years that it’s unrealistic to expect to catch fish every time I go fishing. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t lots of other things to enjoy on a fishing trip. Have you ever seen the saying that poems are never finished, just abandoned? What else might that apply to?

Playthings

By Rabindranath Tagore

Child, how happy you are sitting in the dust, playing with a broken twig all the morning.

I smile at your play with that little bit of a broken twig.

I am busy with my accounts, adding up figures by the hour.

Perhaps you glance at me and think, "What a stupid game to spoil your morning with!"

Child, I have forgotten the art of being absorbed in sticks and mud-pies.

I seek out costly playthings, and gather lumps of gold and silver.

With whatever you find you create your glad games, I spend both my time and my strength over things I never can obtain.

In my frail canoe I struggle to cross the sea of desire, and forget that I too am playing a game.

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Learning to cope & hope

If “learning experience” is what lies between failure and success, that’s what we’ve had with our first boule of sourdough rye bread. It’s still in the oven and part of what we’ve learned is that rye has nowhere near the spring that wheat flour does. The bread will have to cool for some time before we taste test it. One way or another, we’ll report tomorrow. Depending on how it tastes, we’ll be more or less impatient to try again in a near (tastes great) or distant (tastes meh) future.

It’s too soon to tell if next week’s warmer temperatures will be simply a January thaw or may be the start of an early spring. Unfortunately, spring is one of those seasons Minnesota usually makes a mess of. Maybe one in ten fits a classic pattern of gradual warmth and green-up. All too often we experience an extended period in the 50s, a few days in the 60s and then a jump into summer with temperatures in the upper 80s or low 90s. Of course, at the moment, any of those would be a vast improvement over current conditions.

yellow tulips foretell real spring

Photo by J. Harrington

As long as we’re thinking about spring, I hope you enjoy the picture of the yellow tulips. That’s what they looked like yesterday. They’ll bloom some more and other flowers will follow along. Add in some above freezing temperatures next week and my mood may approach exuberant, regardless of pollitical storms on the horizon.

There’s an old joke about a fellow pounding his head on a brick wall. When asked “Why?” he responded “Because it feels so good when I stop.” That’s how I feel about winter in the North Country.

Thaw

Edward Thomas
1878 – 1917

Over the land freckled with snow half-thawed
The speculating rooks at their nests cawed
And saw from elm-tops, delicate as flowers of grass,
What we below could not see, Winter pass.

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Cast your bread upon the weathers?

In a couple of hours, the dough that’s proofing in the refrigerator will be transferred to a cloche and put in the oven to bake. Fresh artisan sourdough bread with leftover homemade bean soup for dinner has lots of appeal on yet another cloudy, snow-showery day. Yesterday I spent some time poking through a sourdough book I got about a year ago, looking for recipes to try this winter. The book is Sourdough by Science, from Karyn Lynn Newman, PhD. I’ve been practicing on the basics: simple boule, crusty boule, and rustic boule for some months and feel ready to try my wings. The recipes I’ve chosen are for San Francisco sourdough, a rye raisin bread, something called slow and easy and something else titled the bomb, plus a demi-miche. Those options ought to keep me busy through the winter and into early spring since I’m guessing each will require more than one attempt. We’ll report back here from time to time about progress or lack thereof.

rustic, artisan sourdough boule

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday we saw the year’s first dark-eyed junco, a sign that winter has indeed arrived. Still no purple or house finches, nor pileated woodpeckers, and cardinals have been absent for several weeks. Maybe the deep cold that’s on the way come the weekend will bring more visitors to the feeders.

I’m not ready to surrender to “cocooning,” but I am more than ready to reclaim my own focus and severely limit intrusions on my attention, even though (especially because?) it’s an election year. I’ve got my phone set so that calls from those not in my contacts go straight to voicemail. Now I’m getting unsolicited texts soliciting support. Those promptly become “delete and report junk.” I wish I could figure out how to bill folks for trying to claim my attention. I have agency and know how to look around for something I want. Not enough folks these days seem to remember Fritz Perls' wonderful Gestalt prayer:

I do my thing and you do your thing.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
You are you, and I am I,
and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.
If not, it can't be helped.

— Fritz Perls, "Gestalt Therapy Verbatim", 1969

I'm happy to close for today with a report that we are making a little progress in bringing a slight semblance of order to ancient household files and long neglected fly fishing gear. As we sort and file and decide what to keep and what not, we constantly keep in mind the observation from China that "The longest journey is started with a single step.”

Flour Is Firm

By Sandra Beasley

The Traveler’s Vade Mecum, line 4234

Baking two parts flour to one part water 

could stop a bullet. So good soldiers 

carried their hardtack over their hearts. 

Break it down with a rifle butt, flood it, 

fry it in pig fat to make hellfire stew.

Gnaw it raw and praise the juice.

Does wheat prepare for this as it grows,

seeking the light in a half-thawed field?

Do stalks know their strength is merely 

in their number? What is ground down

we name flour in promise that it will be 

made useful. Otherwise, it’s just dust. 

Sheet iron crackers. 

Teeth-dullers.

Would you call it starving, if a man dies

with hardtack still tucked in his pocket?

Can you call it food, if the bullet comes only

at the moment he gives in and swallows?

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Foodie's fun

A week or ten days or so ago, I scattered the dregs of a bag of whole sunflower seeds on the slope behind the house. I had tried filling a bird feeder with them earlier this summer and the birds made a big mess with the shells. I had no idea if the seeds might germinate next spring or all be consumed by wildlife before then. This morning we got a partial answer. A flock of almost a dozen wild turkeys spent half an hour or more picking and pecking their way across the slope. I’lll be surprised if there are any undigested seeds left come spring.

In a bit, we’ll head off to pick up this week’s community supported agriculture share and drop off the Daughter Person’s half share at the abode she shares with her spouse and daughter, who also share the veggies we leave. I’m looking forward to the drive over backroads through farm country mixed with rural residential and a state park along the St. Croix river. I wonder if there’ll be much in the way of fall color showing yet. If so, I expect it to be sparse and scattered. Autumn Equinox is still a week away (locally, Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 1:50 am CDT).

artisan sourdough boule

Photo by J. Harrington

The dough is mixed and rising so we can bake a boulle of kernza/sourdough bread tomorrow. We’re still looking for that happy point at which I think there’s enough kernza flavor in the bread and the Better Half doesn’t think there’s too much kernza flavor. We’ll let you know how it turns out. It does feel good to be getting back into the routine of sourdough bread baking once a week or so.

A Poem Made of Bread

by Ibtisam Barakat

In the middle of bread --
all loaves, all shapes:
American white,
French baguette, or
Arabic flat --
single flour
or multi-grain
there is the word: read.
All that remains if you break
a loaf of bread is: read.
past and present
eternal like rain
falling from the sky
grain by grain. . .
Those who cannot read
are the hunger of this world.
And dinner will not be ready
until they can read.
Dinner will not be served
until all can read
and the young have books
early in life
to sleep on like pillows
after reading so late,
and the passing to have books
to take to the afterlife --
a gift to the reading angels
who long for human bread.

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Weather, Man! Which way’s the wind blow?

We’ve lived in our house at the eastern edge of Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area for a generation (25 years +/-). During our occupancy, we’ve infrequently heard coyotes howling and yipping at night. Today is the first time we’ve seen one on or around the property. Looks like not much more than a pup. It would be great if s/he returns and captures a few of the pocket gophers.

backyard coyote

Photo by J. Harrington

There are several maple trees growing in front of the house. One of them has one leaf that’s turned bright red, plus one or two others that are multicolored. It could be another sign of autumn sneaking up on us, step by step, but the outside temperature of 92+ makes it hard to believe the meteorologists know what they’re doing with their claim that autumn begins September 1. Where we live, it seems it could work as well if they tried Autumn: Oct., Nov., Dec.; Winter: Jan., Feb., Mar.; Spring: Apr., May, Jun.; Summer: Jul., Aug., Sep. That way there would be less divergence (~ 10 days after) from equinoxes etc. than we have now (~ 21 days before). Shall we start a movement to adjust the meteorological calendar to bring it more into alignment with the astronomical calendar?

as a leaf turns

Photo by J. Harrington

I’m trying to rejuvenate my sourdough starter, rather than replace it. It will be interesting, as well as fun, to see if the instructions in Sourdough by Science, pay off. The weekend’s temperatures are too hot to try creating a starter from scratch by parking the mix outside, as I’ve done in the past. If the refresh fails, we’ll start from scratch later in the week. I’m enjoying rereading the book and am looking forward to cooler days and loaves of fresh bread.

Autumn

Alice Cary
1820 – 1871

Shorter and shorter now the twilight clips
   The days, as though the sunset gates they crowd,
And Summer from her golden collar slips
   And strays through stubble-fields, and moans aloud,

Save when by fits the warmer air deceives,
   And, stealing hopeful to some sheltered bower,
She lies on pillows of the yellow leaves,
   And tries the old tunes over for an hour.

The wind, whose tender whisper in the May
   Set all the young blooms listening through th’ grove,
Sits rustling in the faded boughs to-day
   And makes his cold and unsuccessful love.

The rose has taken off her tire of red—
   The mullein-stalk its yellow stars have lost,
And the proud meadow-pink hangs down her head
   Against earth’s chilly bosom, witched with frost.

The robin, that was busy all the June,
   Before the sun had kissed the topmost bough,
Catching our hearts up in his golden tune,
   Has given place to the brown cricket now.

The very cock crows lonesomely at morn—
   Each flag and fern the shrinking stream divides—
Uneasy cattle low, and lambs forlorn
   Creep to their strawy sheds with nettled sides.

Shut up the door: who loves me must not look
   Upon the withered world, but haste to bring
His lighted candle, and his story-book,
   And live with me the poetry of Spring.

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Remember diseconomies of scale?

Today I find myself pondering how it is that we’ve gone from trying to repress civil rights marches and sit-ins to honoring the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. with a federal holiday to electing creatures such as Sarah Huckabee Sanders and trying to ban the study of critical race theory, all in my lifetime. Cultural whiplash anyone? Alternative facts for sale?

This democracy is facing a number of very significant existential issues while we have state legislatures assigning priority to preventing women from showing bare arms and one House of Congress working to cut Social Security and Medicare payments to seniors who have paid taxes into those programs during their working lives at a tax rate that’s probably higher than the aggregate rate paid by many corporations and billionaires. Meanwhile, Democrats are working to limit the ability of Republicans to further gerrymander districts and repress voting rights. Defending existing rights, even if successful, isn’t progress. Are we approaching a stage at which voting isn’t enough? Some governments are even suppressing public comments.

Are you ready to vote?

Photo by J. Harrington

I remember many times seeing certain politicians opening televised addresses by referring to “My fellow citizens....” As often as not, my reaction was that I wasn’t a fellow citizen-fellow traveler. My recollection, such as it is, is that the states are supposed to function as test cases within a broadly defined federal framework, so that we could determine how democracy works better under some circumstances. According to the History Channel:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Those so-called “reserved” powers include all authority and functions of local and state governments, policing, education, the regulation of trade within a state, the running of elections and many more.

The world in which we are living is vastly different than the world in which the Constitution was drafted and ratified. Many issues we face couldn’t be envisioned by the founders, foremost among them, as I see it, is the creation of a global economy and the almost unconstrained powers found in multinational corporations. I believe that leaves us with two basic premises to restart from. The first was stated some decades ago by Pogo, aided by Walt Kelly: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” The second is becoming more evident by the month and is articulated by David Whyte in his book: “Ecocide – Kill The Corporation Before It Kills Us”

I believe there is much good being accomplished in the world these days, almost exclusively by smaller, more humane entities, most non-profit whether by design or not. Alternatively, consider the recent example of the Fairview / UMN health systems. Corporate giantism is often far from an answer. Plus, there’s the perspective raised by Naomi Klein in her books, especially “The Shock Doctrine.” 

If there is a helpful exposition of the meaning of the phrase “or to the people.” I’d like to read it, It seems as though it might be able to support a popular uprising against all the megapowers that are supporting the 1% that’s sucking up most of the benefits of improved productivity these days. 

Freedom

By Jill McDonough

I talk to the students in jail about freedom, how in America

we obsess over it, write it over flags on T-shirts, spread

it around under eagles. It has something to do with guns

and fireworks, Harley-Davidsons, New Hampshire, living free

until you’re dead. I tell the students I think the people

fetishizing freedom don’t mean it. That they really mean

look over here, away from all the slavery

we did, away from all the jail! I tell them they

are the experts, ask them to write what freedom means:

privacy is freedom and if  you feel held back, afraid

to do something, you’re not completely free.   No fear

of  loss. No fear of  hunger, no fear of  pain.   A body

to call my own, a voice driven by my own mind.

The security of a dry, warm place to sleep.   To own

my own time left here.   Being able to hold my son

at night.   Showering in private.   Freedom to me

is having the choice to walk away from a fight. Freedom

a work in progress. Everyday freedom, the real work for us all.

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Easing into a new year

Driving a local back road late this morning, we saw something unusual, at least something we’ve neither seen before nor read about. There were a couple of flocks of pheasants and wild turkeys mixed together. It looked like they were picking up gravel from the roadside. With the countryside buried under deep snow, it’s not clear what those birds may be finding to eat these days.

wild turkeys in snow field

Photo by J. Harrington

In our yard the songbirds and woodpeckers continue to freeload at the feeders. The hawk that was hanging around a week or ten days ago seems to have moved on. As the latest really cold spell eases, we’ll get out more often and see who’s up to what. Maybe this year we can avoid severe cabin fever and keep bouts of Seasonally Affective Disorder to a minimum. Getting up and out and off our butt will also help keep our legs in shape. It seems that part of the aging process is an intensified battle in the war against gravity, in both meanings of that word.

My last loaf of bread displayed the results of a lack of practice and engagement and a failure to keep my starter properly refreshed. We won’t repeat it today, but pretend you read [here] Beckett’s quotation on “fail better.” The bread is edible but more toward the heavy, crusty side than I prefer.

One of the Christmas cards we received this year was from the Academy of American Poets. It contained a couple of stanzas from a poem that we finally tracked down in its entirety. You’ll find it below. I’m going to keep it in mind all year. I’m also going to check out  more of the  poet’s work and see if one or more of his books would make a find present for Father’s Day, or, perhaps, a Valentine.

Holding the Light

Stuart Kestenbaum

^{for Kait Rhoads}

Gather up whatever is  
glittering in the gutter, 
whatever has tumbled  
in the waves or fallen  
in flames out of the sky, 

for it’s not only our 
hearts that are broken,  
but the heart 
of the world as well. 
Stitch it back together.  

Make a place where 
the day speaks to the night 
and the earth speaks to the sky. 
Whether we created God 
or God created us 

it all comes down to this: 
In our imperfect world 
we are meant to repair 
and stitch together  
what beauty there is, stitch it  

with compassion and wire.  
See how everything  
we have made gathers  
the light inside itself 
and overflows? A blessing. 

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some Christmas ideas for sustainable living

Yesterday’s sourdough bread turned out better than just edible. It went nicely with the french onion soup we reheated for dinner. I’ve noticed that, over the past decade or so, the Better Half and I have been tending more and more to eating “from scratch” meals and looking more and more toward artisanal products as well as those from more sustainable companies such as Patagonia. The incremental changes have been so gradual that I’ve barely noticed until recently, when we received a CSA share box of mostly kernza products from Perennial Pantry.

Tomorrow we’ll go pick up a load of lamb meat. In the past we’ve partnered with the Daughter Person and Son-In-Law to buy a half beef or a whole or half hog, locally raised. Although we don’t avoid all transactions with big box stores, we keep searching for, and finding, more and more ways to support a local, rather than a global, economy. That also means we do more to support local producers and artisans rather than corporate entities. It’s not always convenient. It doesn’t always work, but it is one way we do what we can to help create the kind of world we want the Granddaughter to be able to enjoy.

kernza products

Photo by J. Harrington

We are fortunate, privileged even, to be able to afford to eat more sustainably. If we don’t like something, we don’t have to eat it. That’s the way I understand markets work. Early adopters take risks and if enough folks like a product, more can be and will be produced. Cutting corners to make something inexpensive (cheap) to begin with is more likely to create greenwashing than to actually reduce environmental problems.

If you’re interested in exploring some of the other options we’ve come across, you can take a look at:

• Greener Pastures (look for their Regenerative Gift Guides)


• Land Stewardship Project (look for the Robin Wall Kimmerer event January 20)


• Women’s Environmental Institute (we’ve bought shares in their CSA for years)


• North Woods and Waters of the St. Croix Heritage Area

as well as the options in the righthand sidebar.

One of the regrets I have in life is that I didn't follow through years ago and stick with learning how to tie flies. This winter I won't be ablle to rectify those missed years, but I can sit myself down at the tying vice I have and tie up the flies in a kit I bought months ago. That would be another Christmas present to myself that will be more satisfying than going and buying more toys. I want to learn how to play better with the toys I already have.

Before Christmas

By Landis Everson

Almost

the first reindeer

shipped North by boxcar from Lapland   

but a toy model

got there first.

A dwarf invented reindeer on his own.   

He was Santa’s favorite. He

hadn't known

they already existed.

This discouraged dwarf

was close to taking his life but

Santa showed up

encircled by snow.

He said, “I will use the real reindeer for my sled

always in yoke

to your original invention.”

That night the gears that turned the Pole   

stopped

and began to turn the other way,   

so it be so.

My love is a toy model waiting

for a reindeer to carry me.

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Starter, dough, half-baked, done

A cloudy, dreary day offers a wonderful opportunity to distract myself from gloom and doom by messing with the resurrected sourdough starter and mixing some dough for baking bread tomorrow. Some time back I read something about naming one’s starter, sort of like it's a pet. I’m seriously considering naming mine Lazarus, considering the number of times it’s been brought back from the (near) dead.

home-made starter looking happy

Photo by J. Harrington

The Daughter Person has challenged me to craft gnome bread for this Christmas season. I’m currently contemplating the pros and cons of acquiring an oval dutch oven or an oval baking cloche or simply replacing a baking stone that got broken some months back. The cloche I really like is out of the question because it weighs 22 pounds and that’s gross overkill for my needs and abilities. Anyhow, the challenge now has me engaged, which is much better for me than sitting, sulking, and stewing over the state of the world. Instead, I’m reading and learning from Sourdough by Science. I much  prefer to have at least a slight understanding of why I should do certain things a certain way and that’s a good part of what I’m gaining. Also, it turns out that although I’ve been doing many of the basic steps in the correct sequence and using correct procedures, I’m now learning what those steps are actually called. That’s progress!

As I think back to when I first began baking bread, I kept trying things until I found a pattern that worked and produced bread that I liked the taste of. Then I became hesitant to stray too far from that pattern, which eventually left me in a somewhat boring rut. I’m going to work hard at avoiding a repetition of that pattern and, it seems, a good way to do so it to get a better handle on the basics so I can learn from whatever mistakes I make, rather than being limited to saying “I have no idea what went wrong!” I bet such an approach could improve our lives, if only we could identify what the basics of a happy life are.

Inside

By Linda Hogan

How something is made flesh

no one can say. The buffalo soup

becomes a woman

who sings every day to her horses

or summons another to her private body

saying come, touch, this is how

it begins, the path of a newly born

who, salvaged from other lives and worlds,

will grow to become a woman, a man,

with a heart that never rests,

and the gathered berries,

the wild grapes

enter the body,

human wine

which can love,

where nothing created is wasted;

the swallowed grain

takes you through the dreams

of another night,

the deer meat becomes hands

strong enough to work.

 

But I love most

the white-haired creature

eating green leaves;

the sun shines there

swallowed, showing in her face

taking in all the light,

 

and in the end

when the shadow from the ground

enters the body and remains,

in the end, you might say,

This is myself

still unknown, still a mystery.

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Several kinds of food for thought

Tomorrow we pick up the last share for the year of the Community Supported Agriculture [CSA] we participate in. Our final week's box contains:

• BABY PIE PUMPKIN
• BUTTERNUT SQUASH
• CARROTS
• CELERY
• GARLIC
• KALE
• ONIONS and
• POTATOES

As the farm now considers “the work of winterizing the farm. We find ourselves looking forward to slower winter days with ample time for dreaming and visioning for next year,” I think that this weekend and next week may be the last yard work sessions for the year before we switch over to moving snow. I went and got my bivalent COVID booster today so I’m hoping to feel up to getting some exercise while I tidy the place a little, if not tomorrow then the day after.

Although I’ll miss the weekly trip to pick up our CSA veggies, I have to confess that I’ve eaten enough cabbage the past few months to hold me until next St. Patrick’s Day, although I suspect the Better Half may sneak in a New England boiled dinner or two over the winter. She more than compensates for that kind of behavior by baking a couple of kinds of my favorite cookies.

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day

Photo by J. Harrington

Speaking of baking, my new book on Sourdough by Science has a chapter on sourdough starters. I’ve almost finished reading through it. I want to think a little more about it but I believe the care and feeding of starters as the author proposes will work better than the approach I’ve been stumbling through for the past decade although it will require some careful planning of the transition. The author maintains a smaller starter and feeds it smaller amounts than I’ve been doing. I’ll report back as I work through those changes.

I’ve been baking artisan bread for about a decade now, first following the “Five Minutes a Day” program and then moving into artisan sourdough. Mostly it’s been fun and tasty but I’ve grown unhappy with  the volume of starter discards I’ve created and recently have had my dough behaving differently than it used to. Artisan and organic and bacteria and yeast do not make for a mechanical process, but it’s a good learning environment for us Type A control freaks.

Bread Soup: An Old Icelandic Recipe

By Bill Holm

Start with the square heavy loaf 

steamed a whole day in a hot spring 

until the coarse rye, sugar, yeast 

grow dense as a black hole of bread. 

Let it age and dry a little, 

then soak the old loaf for a day 

in warm water flavored 

with raisins and lemon slices. 

Boil it until it is thick as molasses. 

Pour it in a flat white bowl. 

Ladle a good dollop of whipped cream 

to melt in its brown belly. 

This soup is alive as any animal, 

and the yeast and cream and rye 

will sing inside you after eating 

for a long time.

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’Tis prime October

Locally, we’re close to peak color. We’ll probably attain it next week. Over the next couple of weeks we’ll put away the summer toys like the lawn mower and check out the snow blower. The mower deck will come off the tractor and the back blade will go on for the heavy, wet snows that make the blower struggle. But there are still some leaves to mulch and grass to mow before the season's change is done. That fits with the full moon on Sunday, which both the Ojibwe and the Lakota call the Falling Leaves moon.

artisan sourdough bread

Photo by J. Harrington

Sourdough baking is getting back into an autumn / winter schedule, which makes it easier to keep the starter fed, happy and bubbly. A book I ordered recently, Sourdough by Science, arrived today. I’m going to pretend there’s no inconsistency between science and artisanal bread making. It’s part of my effort to practice a “both, and” philosophy instead of the binary “either / or” I’ve been following most of my life.

It’s also the time of year when country mice and spiders are seeking warm, dry spots to spend the winter. Mouse traps are tending to the rodents and a plastic cup and cardboard catch and release routine takes care of most of the spiders.

So far, the most perplexing challenge of the season, whichever one it is on any given day, is managing proper clothing. Mornings near freezing and afternoons at or above 70s covers all but the deepest winter. It seems as though I’m perpetually over- or under-dressed these days. If that’s the biggest problem I have to cope with for the rest of the year, I’ll take it and be grateful.

Neighbors in October

By David Baker

All afternoon his tractor pulls a flat wagon

with bales to the barn, then back to the waiting

chopped field. It trails a feather of smoke.

Down the block we bend with the season:

shoes to polish for a big game,

storm windows to batten or patch.

And how like a field is the whole sky now

that the maples have shed their leaves, too.

It makes us believers—stationed in groups,

leaning on rakes, looking into space. We rub blisters

over billows of leaf smoke. Or stand alone,

bagging gold for the cold days to come.

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