Planting the Corn

 

The garden is planted. The last bed went in this afternoon—and it might have been the worst of the season. It is the edge of chicken run, so it has a six foot high fence attached to the side. And I planted the corn, which requires extra protection. The afternoon went like this:

1.       Turn over the bed, pull out all of the apple mint that has crept in, and break up the clumps. The ground is still remarkably wet. Have a long conversation with the chickens on the other side of the fence about all of the worms in the bed. Toss a few their way.

2.       Consider the soaker hose. Someone cut the hose in half last fall during an energetic session with the loppers and the sunflower stalks that once ran along the back fence. Of course we did not fix it then—or any other time in the last six months.  Find the last ½ inch hose repair kit, the screwdriver in the basement, and commence repairs. Brush off ants which have decided that the hose is an excellent nesting spot. Lots of ants. So many ants. Lay the repaired hose down. Brush off the last of the ants (I hope).

3.       Consider being done for the day. Decide that, really, the corn is not getting any younger in the six packs that it sprouted in and it can’t wait until Thursday. And the birds might find it….

4.       Find the pole bean and sunflower seeds. Hunt for the digging fork and fail. Bring out the fertilizer and spread it for the beans. Use your hands to work it into the soil. Long reaches and balances. Awkward.

5.       Long reach across the four foot bed because the beans go against the fence as a trellis. So awkward. Consider taking the fence down, but remember that you are alone and there is no one else to chase the chickens out of the garden beds when they make a run for it.  Continue the long reach. Beans planted. Sunflowers tucked in.

6.       Bring the corn over to be planted. Lay down three rows of fertilizer and plant. Try and keep the lines straight. Fail. Pat the corn into place.

7.       Because birds love to swoop down and dig up the corn, find five hoops and the really big piece of plastic in the shed. Cover the bed. Wrestle the clamps into place through the chicken fence. Catch a chicken making a run through the gate.

8.  

     Once the hoops are up, consider the rabbit fence. Might as well. Unroll the two foot wire fence that surrounds every bed in the garden, staple it in place. It just fits.

9.       Step back and consider the project completed.

Mighty Wild Yeasties

 

   

             After I graduated from college, I went through a bread baking extravaganza. I had time. I made bagels, pita bread, experimented with various grains….and I read somewhere that there was enough wild  yeast in the air of a house that baked bread regularly to cause bread to rise without yeast. I was in New Hampshire—not the heart of sourdough country, which was on the wild and weird west coast. I did not try it. I suspected our house was too cold.  And then I went to graduate school while working  and just making our daily bread was enough to take on. I went back to buying bagels and pita bread.

                When the pandemic hit, I had already checked out a book on various methods of fermentation to learn how to make sauerkraut. And then there was the Great Yeast shortage. It was clearly time to see how much wild yeast I had in my air and, according to my book, on my hands.  I set out some flour and water on the top of the fridge and observed. Apparently, we had a lot; the mixture began to bubble quickly. A couple of weeks later, we had a sourdough starter. I made bread. It was great! I made pancakes. I made flatbreads. All excellent. It took a little longer to rise, but I had time. When school started up again, I tucked the starter in the back of the fridge and hauled it out every couple of weeks for care, feeding, and exercise, and returned to my old, yeast based recipes for daily bread.

                This weekend, Mark cleaned out the fridge and found the starter. It had been ignored for at least two months and it looked gnarly. But I smelled it and it smelled clean and yeasty, so I gave it some flour and water and set it on the stove. An hour later, Mark came out to the garden. “Have you looked at the starter?” he asked. “It’s bubbling over.” And so it was. I prepped sourdough pancakes for breakfast, fed it once more, and tucked it back into the fridge until we need another loaf of bread. Clearly, we have a lot of wild yeasties partying in our kitchen.

 

Sourdough pancakes:

2 eggs

1.25 c milk

.25 c honey (or just a good gulg…)

1 t vanilla

4T oil

1 c of starter

2 c flour (half whole wheat in our house)

1 t salt

 

Mix everything together, cover, and leave out overnight. They are a little slower to cook than baking powder pancakes.

Chicken yard drama

 

                Backyard mysteries….why is the cat spending 23.5 hours a day in the greenhouse? What does the rabbit eat dandelion greens in the hutch, but not in the ground? Will it ever stop raining? Why are the chickens so loud? They have just spent eight months on the sitting on garden beds, confined by fencing, to a four by ten foot space with bit of straw and leaf mulch. They were fine—peaceful, quiet, inwardly focused, wintering. Yesterday, we moved the coop to the back run. Now they have a quarter of the back yard to move around in, three compost piles to toss, places to hide from each other….and they have been complaining all day. Loudly. They stand by the back gate, looking into the garden, and squawk. I need to be there, not here.  There, not here. They work on Labor Coaching, yelling at whomever is on nest to get off, now, because I need to lay my egg now. Now, I say. Now. They call for one another, where are you? Where are you? Where are you? The cacophony is constant. Why? Why do we all fuss more when our lives are improved, rather than when the situation is more limited?  Why?

Sick Leave and the Shop and Save Deli

 

                I am home for two days of work. I had a slight fever that broke Sunday night, and a positive covid test, so I am following the protocols and staying out of work for 48 hours, post fever. I am feeling better; I am growing restless. Growing restless because of sick leave is a luxury.

                Right after college, I worked at the Shop and Save deli department. It was a decent job. Thirty five or so hours week—although they occasionally cut you back so that you knew you were not an officially Full Time employee, entitled to real benefits—within a five minute walk of home, that paid better than average wages. The deli team was a bunch of people in their 20s, some recent college graduates, like me, and some local Dover folks who had graduated from high school, married, and had a kid or two. We got along. We had each other’s backs, covered for each other, had preferred nasty tasks (mine was putting the walk in freezer in order) that we did, even if it was not officially our job that week. No one was mad when you accidently dropped a gallon of Italian dressing in the cooler; they just directed you in the best clean up techniques. There was some flirting with Produce. It was not unusual to hear the phone ring at six thirty in the morning, asking you to cover an early shift because someone was sick (or hung over), but agreeing to do so gave you leverage later on schedule changes. The system worked because we were all healthy and did not abuse it.

                But then, a really nasty flu season hit Dover. People came into work looking kind of pale and exhausted, but they needed the hours. It was winter, with high heating bills. No one could afford a week off. We all worked the deli counter, shouting over each other, trying to distract the couple who started making out half way through ordering their thinly sliced imported ham for the week. We all handled the food—sliced meat, crab salad, salad bar fixings—all day, every day. We were constantly washing deli juice off of our hands, but it was not an official scrubbing. It was tight quarters back there, too. After a couple of days of powering through, the first people called in sick. Could not get out of bed. Had no choice. Others filled in for them. What could you do? People want their ham. The second wave of employees powered through a few days and fell ill. One or two from the first wave came back to fill in, but they were still sick. Just less sick than their peers. We rotated through that flu for several weeks, short-handed and exhausted, until we were finally back to normal.

                The store had no back up plans for a wave of illness. I am sure the front end cashiers and the other departments were also hit hard; we all shared the same windowless break room in the basement. I don’t know if it occurred to them to bring in people from other stores in the area—if other stores were also hammered by the same virus. But I have always felt like the grocery store, specifically the deli department, was the center of that wave of illness. We were all sick and working. We had no choice.

                And that has been the story of some many people during this pandemic, from the very beginning. People still want their ham, so others have gone to work, even when ill. Bills need to be paid, so people go to work, even when they are infectious. I have the absolute luxury of sick leave—even if I do have to wrestle the online system for a sub and set up lesson plans, knowing only about half of what I say will be done—I can take a day or two off without destroying the family budget or letting down my team. Huge chunks of the country can not. And that is both unhealthy for us all and morally wrong.