The End [of Summer] is Near!

yellow tomatoes and basil

more tomatoes, and jalapenos to stuff

Apparently, Ray and I are prepping for the End Times.

This thought occurs to me as I look over some of the un-done chores on today’s to-do list (lesson-planning and grading are a given on EVERY list, so I never need to write them down):

(1) find space for another 14 quarts of canned tomatoes in the pantry;

butterflies are stocking up, too

(2) inventory and rearrange items in two freezers (one small chest freezer is full to the brim with parrot food and gooseberries), to see if we need a third small freezer for the 50 lbs. of local grass-fed beef we’re picking up this weekend;

(3) roast a bucket of Roma tomatoes and blend them into sauce for the freezer (see #2); and

(4) make this soup before the cauliflower goes bad: http://iowagirleats.com/2012/09/25/bacon-cheddar-cauliflower-chowder-a-low-carb-alternative-to-baked-potato-soup/

Just in time for my first enormous pile of papers to grade, our garden is easing up. The cuke vines are dying back, and the acorn squash is hardening. There are still plenty of tomatoes out there, and today’s high 80’s should help them ripen. I’ve already put up enough pesto and basil cubes (http://www.fatandhappyblog.com/2011/10/basil-cubes-how-to-freeze-fresh-basil.html) to supply the Upper Midwest for the winter, but it keeps coming, so I’ll have to dry some this weekend. I hope to get one more big meal of cream cheese and venison stuffed jalapenos before the peppers are done. And the guy with the amazing grass-fed lamb will be at the farmer’s market tomorrow—what’s a crazy [food] prepper girl to do?

we'll soon be knee-deep in these

roasted veggies to blend into sauce

Except for a brief warm up today, the weather here at the Row has been coolish and damp, in the 60’s. Soybean fields are yellowing, the apples are ripe, and our honey locust tree is a gorgeous disaster of a bajillion pods. These subtle signals trigger obsessive gathering and “putting by” here on the SoDakian tundra, because there’s only one thing prairie folk truly trust, and that’s a full larder. By the time we get our first whiff of autumn—a mixture of late-lingering dew, turned earth from a farmer’s early harvest, smoke from someone’s first wood-stove fire, and a delicious hint of decay—we’re already tacking plastic on the windows. We’re stockpiling canned tomatoes and Colorado peaches, Trader Joe’s mixed nuts, Café Altura Italian Roast beans, crossword puzzles, longjohns, and good toilet paper. We’re hanging the down jackets on the line to air.

It’s survival, plain & simple. These signs of brief, beautiful autumn remind us that we’ve been living in the Happy Bubble since last May. But it can’t last. Winter is just out of sight, waiting, with his pointy little icicle.

pickled whatever's-still-growing

we could live on peaches

Ray & I aren’t prepping to the point where we’re putting up rooftop sniper perches or razor wire, but I WILL rearrange the venison and coffee beans in the freezer today. And we’ll need a few more wool hats and fingerless gloves in the 30-gallon Rubbermaid tub o’ knitted outerwear.  And maybe I’ll haul some wood up to the back porch. But right now, while the low-carb venison chili is simmering in the crockpot, I’ll take a nap. Because if the End Times are coming, I need to rest up.

Roadtesting the New Brain

Mortar-less flint walls are everywhere

Last weekend, we had Summer’s first mini-vacation. We drove to the Flint Hills of Kansas for my nephew’s high school graduation gathering at my brother’s lake cabin, and to spend a couple of lazy days on the water – a treat, since we’re fairly land-locked in our corner of the prairie.

Girl & Chessie share hair color gene

I was a little worried about such a long (it’s a 7-hour drive), high-stimulation trip, but I did surprisingly well.  The visit was excellent physical therapy—hauling stuff from the car to the cabin, walking up and down the small hill from cabin to dock and back, climbing into and out of a large jet ski tube tied to the dock, etc. There were 7 adult-ish people (plus one extra on the last night) and 3 dogs (a small poodle and two very large Chessies) in the 2-bedroom cabin, which seems like potential disaster, but it worked out fine.  We spent lots of time outdoors, which is the point of a lake cabin anyway. And my sister-in-love brought her espresso machine to the cabin and made us lattes every morning. And my brother strung blue sparkly lights absolutely everywhere. A wee slice of paradise.

Lest you think it was picture-perfect, though, BS (my brainsplosion) did toss a couple of minor monkey wrenches in the works: 

Supermom jets off

(1) New Circuits/Misfires – Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had occasional, sudden intense pain in my left big toe, shooting up my leg, but only when barefoot. One day, I had fleeting jolts of fire, as if someone was jabbing my left shoulder blade with a fork (testing for doneness, perhaps). Another day, my left eye twitched sporadically. These sensations are momentary and come & go with no pattern or regularity. So either random nerves are waking up, clicking back online & off again, or someone has a voodoo doll made from my old socks. 

(2) Not-Drowning – Last Sunday, I’d been sunning on the tube and decided to roll off into the water for a swim. Quell surprise! Apparently, in my post-stroke brain, the proper sequence of holding one’s breath BEFORE going under water is no longer instinctual. Fortunately, the tube blocked me from everyone’s view, so there will be no FoolTube video of the uncoordinated chubby redhead gasping, choking, and flailing for the dock ladder.

This non-swimming revelation kept me from riding my brother’s new jet ski, but my 77-year-old mom braved it and looked positively sporty & fetching cruising around the lake. I think Mom is secretly sneaking up on my 80-ish aunt’s para sailing record, to which I say (in begging, whiny tone), “Please please please let these genes be in me too.”

lake at dusk

When we got home, Ray’s sister, who’d been house/pet sitting, had cleaned, weeded, pruned houseplants, tended to our dog’s sore nose, and left us an old wooden ladder she’d painted and turned into a work of art. It’s now a gorgeous garden trellis. It was like coming home after the shoemaker’s elves had been there.

ladder trellis art

The trip was fun, but it also tested my recovery progress and zapped me good. (When I get tired, I transform from a seemingly normal woman to a lame, stammering, Kwasimoto with advanced dementia.) So I’ve been recuperating for the past week—physical therapy, low-stim days, lots and lots of rest. Mom and I are planning a short trip in June to Louisiana to see her new great-grandchildren, so for the next couple of weeks, I’ll be perfecting my 15-minute power nap. Beautiful bayou, Pain perdu and café au lait...here I come!

The Summer Blur

My granddaughter, the Butterfly Whisperer

Lately, I’ve been contemplating (while on the run) the human inability to remain still. My long summer to-do list, which includes writing, daily meditation, long stretches of contemplative silence, writing, Xtreme relaxation, self-reflection and re-centering, and writing, remains on my fridge with nary an item checked off. Instead, summer has been a blur of perpetual motion…

1. As soon as Semester uncurled its fist and let me loose, we headed to Milwaukee, where Ray and Little Henry played a wedding dance for the daughter of one of the geetar players. It was a beautiful, joyous occasion. And how cool is it for the bride to have her dad rock the house at her wedding, then for the bride and her sister to sit in with the band? Very cool.

Three Graces

2. Next stop, Madison, where we visited my two dear friends, Emma and Ruby, and their families. It was a 24-hour whirlwind of garden tours, knitting shop & food co-op runs, an incredible lasagna dinner, wine & philosophy, and smiling till my face hurt.

3. When we got back from WI, Mom and I headed to the Black Hills to hear my oldest son, Ryan Kickland (www.kickland.com) play a gig. The music was stellar, with special guests Jami Lynn and Josh Hilpert, and it was wonderful to see so many former Little Town friends show up to support Ryan.

Ryan and Jami Lynn

4. In early June, four of us took off for our WAC-y (Women’s Annual Campout) getaway. This year, we went to Kansas, west of Topeka, to my brother’s lake cabin. We spent several glorious days drinking coffee on the patio and wine on the dock, playing in the water, reading, overanalyzing our lives, learning to speak Great Blue Heron and, with 4 geetars along, serenading the neighbors.

5. On our last WAC-y evening, we got the news of our friend’s suicide back home. He was a local legend and a larger-than-life character—waist-length rattail he refused to cut, silver star embedded in a front tooth—who sometimes went about town in a tux & spats. He was a talented songwriter, musician and artist, and a person who rarely compromised. He was also gravely ill and facing a steady downward spiral. We went to his memorial, a sweet celebration of his life. And I know some people feel suicide is selfish, but I quickly realized my anger at his choice was really about my own pain in missing him—I was the selfish one. So now I’m simply wishing him freedom, peace, and great love in his next adventure.

WAC-y Women

5. Then the grandkids came to stay at the farm for a few days. This, too, was a whirlwind that included soccer games, a day at the beach, and a day in the Big City, shopping, visiting the Butterfly House, and hanging out at the skatepark.

6. In between trips, we’ve been scrambling to save our little peaflock. Between last summer and this one, we lost 18 peacocks to predation (and 1 to fast cars on I-29). Judging from the killer MO’s, we’re dealing with more than one kind of varmint – raptors, weasels/minks, coyotes, and possibly a badger. So for Father’s Day this year, the kids got Ray a rifle they dubbed “The Farm Protector.” I’m very conflicted, as we’ve never had guns on the premises, and I’m a devout peacenik, treehugging, varmint-sweater-knitting hyper-nurturer. But after discovering the most recent (possibly badger) kill site, which looked like a scene in a low-budget slasher flick, I might be mad enough to sit up in a lawn chair all night in my jammies and headlamp, rifle at the ready.

Howard Jones. So, so cool.

7. My next road trip was back down to KS to leave Mom at the cabin for some well-earned lake R & R. I stayed for a couple days, and we sunned, floated, toured local towns, and prissied up the cabin with solar lights and hanging petunias. Then back home, a 7-8-our drive.

8. Soon after getting home, Ray and I headed out again to Minneapolis, to visit the oldest Remund kid, hear Howard Jones at the Varsity Theatre, and catch a Twins/White Sox game. Howard was—and yes, I hate this word too—awesome! And driving around the Cities always reminds me: You can take the city out of the girl, but…you can’t put it back.

9. Next, we drove to Omaha to rendezvous with my brother and bring Mom home. Omaha is my hometown, but in spite of my thrill over shopping at the Asian Market and Whole Foods, I was glad to get back on the road the same day and head back to the farm.

Uncle Don at Linoma Beach

10. This past weekend we learned of my uncle’s death. He was my dad’s brother, making my dad the last of three siblings, and he’d been in a nursing home for a while. He was another larger-than-life character, a sometimes rude, crude, arse-pinching, cussing Bohunk. He was also an old-school family doctor who treated folks whether or not they could pay, and who doctored for free a passel of cousins, neighbors, friends, friends of friends, etc., often at his kitchen table. He pierced my ears, stitched me up after a car wreck, delivered my first baby, and set that baby’s broken arm four years later. So, we’re off to Omaha again this week to bid my uncle farewell.

At this point, I feel like I’ve spent the summer in the car, and we still have my Big Fat Bohunk Family Reunion coming up in late July, an 8+-hour road trip each way. All four of our kids are going for the first time ever, and our giant extended family (65-ish of us last year) will be honoring my dad’s 80^th birthday and taking into the Giant Family Fold the two babies born since last summer.

We humans come and go. Literally. Figuratively. So before I pack for the next trip, I’m going outside in the yard. I will hold aloft the peacock egg I found on the front steps. Ray will softly play his congas in the background. I will sing several choruses of “The Circle of Life.” Sure...you're scoffing now. But you’ll come around. Literally. Figuratively.

Summer Swan Song

Summer’s winding down. Wanda and Debbie’s chicks are getting big (Mitzi’s, hatched later than usual, are still dangerously small for this late in the season), Snowball’s been out in the pasture teaching kitten Snowflake to hunt baby rabbits, Yogi’s 3 months old now and a very naughty toddler, Jada’s busy herding her delinquent canine brother, and the hollyhocks are withering.

Speaking of withering, I worked all week at a workshop to assess freshman writing, and I can tell you, the English language is down on the ground, battered & bleeding, calling out for Mama. Big Brother had better quash this texting and emailing debacle, or soon we’ll all be reduced to grunts and clicks.

Speaking of guttural language, I was out mowing one morning on the rider, when a passel of peacocks fell in formation behind, feasting on cut grass and displaced bugs. Peahens teach their young what to eat (grass, flowers, grains, and occasional insects) by picking at something delicious while making a hollow clicking sound deep in their throats that sounds like hitting a wood block with a rubber mallet. So there I was, twisted Pied Piper, with Ike & Tina, Junior, Ramon, Wanda, Mitzi, Debbie and all seven chicks stringing along. When the engine killed in wet grass by the windmill, the click click clicking hens sounded like a Latin percussion section.

Speaking of hot percussion, I went out last night to hear Ray’s band (he’s the drummer and STILL won’t oil up & wear a torn black muscle shirt when he plays, in spite of my incessant begging), and to dance off some thigh poundage. Vermillion has an odd and wonderful cast of characters, and the oddest among us (myself and practically everyone I know included) come crawling out of the crevices when the band plays. It’s a musical tribal gathering of friends, relatives, enemies, secret lovers, exes, and a small contingent of folks who are mentally floating away from the rest of us, though we try to hold on. Millie had a prefunct (a function before a function) with wine/whine & cheese, then we headed downtown to the bar. Mom showed up, Millie danced in spite of her soon-to-be-replaced knee, Janine said she was only staying an hour then danced all night long, the Wild Girls put the Shindig dancers to shame, and Glenda and I got to sit in and be band chicks on a few songs. And although I adore these occasions, my recovery time from a late night out is getting longer and longer and longer…

Speaking of wild things, our first garden here, which went unplanted last year and was quickly overrun with sunflowers, is lush. We’ve picked asparagus, tomatoes, cukes, dill, four kinds of peppers, fennel, and basil. I’m making kosher dills today (what’s that slice of rye bread in the jar for??), and sometime this week I’ll freeze as much pesto—food of the garden gods—as I can manage. Tomatoes were once called “love apples”; they were also once believed to be poisonous. Anyone who’s had trouble ending a bad relationship can readily see how the two might be connected.

Speaking of endings, we’re back to the melancholy of summer’s farewell. I didn’t get to a number of things on my summer to-do list, like mulching trails out to the meditation tower, rigging up rain barrels, or finding the actual yellow brick road (more a path, really) that someone who knows the house swears is overgrown but still out in the woods on the north side of the property. If the cicadas are telling the truth, a hard freeze is due mid-September. If they’re lying, I’ll try to get to some of these projects before winter—I figure we could all use a little more yellow brick road.