I once discussed the Wild Sky Wilderness with my aunt's Texas relatives. Her brother-in-law wanted to dig for coal in the Cascades. I told him it would be over my dead body. I wish wild spaces didn't need a defense from our own rapaciousness, but they do.
On this Earth Day, Ed Abbey's ghost is haunting me and won't let me rest. What does it mean to defend the wilderness? And does the need to defend it somehow make it less wild? Are there still truly wild spaces left on this earth?
I plan on writing more on this later, after I have done my homework for the day. I found an essay I wrote for a class I took on environmental radicalism. It is my own passionate defense of Lesser Seattle, wild spaces, and small towns. I stumbled across an "accidental farm" on the Redmond-Fall City road, and it provided the inspiration for this essay. Your thoughts, as always, are welcomed.
The Accidental Farm
Some days, I want to be a member of the Earth Liberation Front. New housing developments are encroaching upon my favorite bike route – up Five Mile Road, around the foothills of the Blue Mountains, and back to Walla Walla via Russell Creek Road. The decadent, overbearing houses sit just before I reach Walla Walla, on a hill overlooking the trails of Rooks Park. I can see them from five miles away, hideous blots in a valley of farms. I wish to destroy them, ripping them apart board by board, piece by piece.
I want to be a one-woman wrecking crew, and save Olympia, Tacoma, Seattle, and Bellingham from merging into Pugetopolis. Urban growth already threatens the Cascade foothills. I can remember when Redmond was considered “the boonies” instead of being a ritzy Seattle suburb. The place where I used to ride horses is now covered with gaudy, overpriced houses. Rural, two-lane highways that used to wind through forest are now choked with cars.
I want to be like Emmett Watson, a cantankerous Seattle reporter who predicted many of the region’s growth problems. In the 1970s, Watson and a group of other Puget Sound locals founded Lesser Seattle in response to the work of Greater Seattle – a group of businessmen dedicated to publicly promoting the virtues of the Puget Sound region. Watson believed that Seattle would lose something of its character, if city boosters could not manage urban growth. He dedicated his Seattle Post-Intelligencer column to railing against California transplants, city leaders, and any big project (like the Kingdome) that threatened what he saw as Seattle’s character – a sleepy, literate, rain-drenched city that wanted to remain an unknown haven. All you Californians must leave Seattle, Watson wrote. It rains for nearly six months straight in winter. You won’t like it. Trust us. Go back.
Go back, and maybe the forest that used to cover my urban neighborhood would still exist. I used to play among the giant hemlocks and Douglas firs. Go back, and maybe we wouldn’t need two bridges across Lake Washington. Leave, and maybe we wouldn’t need to create the Wild Sky Wilderness in the Cascades, because it would all be wild. Just. Go. Back.
While I support the creation of the Wild Sky Wilderness, the need for it stems from a larger social issue regarding our current relations with the natural world. We control, we manage, and we use nature, and many in our society (like our current president) do not believe in preserving wild spaces because of their inherent value. For many, wilderness is a barrier, the repository of precious commodities that could be used if only they were unprotected.
Thoreau argued for the preservation of wild spaces long before the Wilderness Act. He noticed nineteenth century New England settlements pushing nature away, pushing wildness out in the drive to civilize. Thoreau, perhaps fearing the loss of natural spaces, wrote that the preservation of the world lay in wildness. Not wilderness. Over a century later, writers like Paul Shepard and Gary Snyder took this idea further, articulating the distinction between wildness and wilderness. According to Shepard, wilderness areas are becoming commodified parks, little biological islands of wildness in the midst of human civilization. Snyder did not believe that wildness was confined to wilderness and other protected areas, instead stating that the wild is all around us. All we have to do is look.
I wish we did not need the Wild Sky Wilderness. I like Snyder’s vision – human settlements integrated within wild spaces – because it allows space for a city to exist in balance with nature. Snyder feels that an ecological city is possible, and that there are degrees of wild. Even though I sympathize with Shepard’s view, and understand that in the creation of wilderness we are commodifying the wild, I think we need protected lands. It took a century before Thoreau’s wilderness idea became law. Revolutionizing the way we interact with the natural world will take time. I will risk the commodification of wilderness in order so that, one day, we may participate in and interact with it. This may happen sooner than planned, as the dwindling supply of oil and continuing rise of gas prices forces us to take a hard look at our lifestyle.
As for Emmett Watson and his defense of Seattle – I think we now need to defend the towns and natural areas surrounding the city from becoming the latest casualties of Pugetopolis. In order to know the wild, we must protect it – at least for a while. The suburbs and rural towns that daily become closer and closer to the Pugetopolis beast – they should write growth management plans, preserving a way of life from the forces of urbanization and change. We need to ensure that towns like North Bend and Fall City remain twenty miles away from the urban beast, and do not become suburbs like the former rural towns of Issaquah and Redmond.
Just outside Redmond exists a little hope. Over a large hill and past the upscale strip malls of the Redmond-Fall City Road, there is a farm. The fields are overgrown, and the buildings are in decay. It sits in the middle of a slough of planned housing developments, placed there almost accidentally, somehow forgotten in the drive for growth. Behind the farm is a forest. I do not know how far it stretches.
The Redmond-Fall City Road separates the farm from what will soon be suburban space. Our defense of the land surrounding Seattle should begin here. A group of concerned Puget Sound citizens, holding true to the principles of Lesser Seattle should post a sign that directly faces the gaudy new houses. “Go away,” it will read.
It rains for nearly six months straight in winter. You won’t like it. Trust us. Leave. Sincerely, the farm across the highway.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
On beer, plants, Zoo Doo, and endings
I am sitting on my front porch, drinking a beer, enjoying the end to a rather lovely day. That's right, my friends, I am drinking a beer. Football and baseball buddies rejoice, for I have rediscovered Fat Tire, and it is good. I am looking forward to further exploring the world of barley, hops, and microbrews. My tastebuds must have changed in the last couple of years.
Beer is good. And now that I have tasted what my friend Brian calls the "gateway beer," it's going to be all downhill from here. Who wants to go to Hopscotch in Fremont next weekend?
My guy friends who are reading this are probably cracking up. I can see Jeremy, Ryan, and Steve all saying "well duh. We could have told you beer is good a long time ago." I always just thought I didn't like it. I rediscovered beer at a Mountaineers event a couple of weeks ago. They were out of hard cider, so, in typical Anna fashion, I asked the bartender what he had that was closest to Fat Tire.
"Fat Tire," he responded. Thank God I know how to laugh at myself. This comes in handy on many occasions. He poured me a tall glass of Fat Tire, and I got hooked.
But I digress. This is supposed to be a blog about gardening, yet it really has turned into a blog about life, the universe, and everything.
Yesterday, I put some carrots in the ground, reseeded my chard, and put a few more radishes in as a succession crop. If I haven't added the pictures yet, I will soon. My fava beans are getting pretty tall, and I am wondering how soon they will yield real beans. The peas are reaching for the trellis. They send out small tendrils, searching for the twine. The oregano is growing like crazy, and a ladybug has taken up residence on the plant. I really like ladybugs. Not only do they eat things like aphids, but they're also pretty. The one radish I did not pick for a salad last week has turned into a giant radish. I am planning on pulling it up tonight and putting it on a salad. Although I kind of want to see whether or not radishes act like zucchini and just keep growing.
I met Dr. Doo the Prince of Poo (no joke) at the Woodland Park Zoo today. I picked up my Zoo Doo this afternoon. They still have an amazing pile of compost left. It makes me smile, thinking that what was once elephant poo will be fertilizing my garden. The Zoo Doo program is fantastic. They take poop from all the vegetarian animals and turn it into compost, which they then sell to happy gardeners like myself for incredibly cheap. Believe it or not, there are more gardeners who want the compost than there is compost available! Dr. Doo called me on Monday to let me know that I could buy Zoo Doo this year, and now there are three garbage bags of it sitting in my backyard.
My parents have this great story involving using manure as fertilizer. When they started dating, my mom had a garden. Dad had an old truck, which my brother and I have nicknamed "The Grapes of Wrath." (He still has the truck, but it no longer runs.) Anyway, Mom wanted to grow some zucchini, and thought that cow manure would be the perfect fertilizer. Dad fired up The Grapes of Wrath, and he and mom drove out to Duvall to get some manure from a farmer. The guy put two tractor scoops of manure in the truck's bed. On the way back, they had the windows down, oblivious to the smell. It was a hot day in Seattle, and everyone around them also had their windows down. Dad said that he started to notice, at stop lights, people pinching their noses and rolling up their windows. They drove The Grapes of Wrath all the way to Mom's house in Greenlake. Mom's backyard may have smelled like crap all summer, but she grew some gigantic zucchini!
After my trip to the zoo, I went over to the P-Patch to take out the strawberries, pull up the crops, and put my garden to bed for the next person to use. I felt a little sad. As I wrote in the last post, I'm a terrible quitter. I like to finish what I've started. Yet I could also tell that I was getting in over my head. I need some free time to follow my heart and really step into my next adventures. It's spring, and the mountains I can see from my back window call out to me each day. I need free time to go find something to climb, to find a new trail to love, to get back to nature. And it's a lot easier caring for a garden next to my house.
So now, my little 4x8 raised bed is all I have. But I think it will be plenty. With the addition of the strawberry plants, my raised bed is now full. I hope my landlord doesn't mind all of the containers I am surrounding it with. Giving up the P-Patch all but ensures that I started way too many tomato plants, so if you would like one, let me know. Otherwise, my porch will be covered in tomatoes this summer. Although that's not sounding like such a bad thing right now.
And on that note, it is time for some food! I'll let you know how the big radish tastes. (And guys -- I did, in fact, finish my beer.)
Beer is good. And now that I have tasted what my friend Brian calls the "gateway beer," it's going to be all downhill from here. Who wants to go to Hopscotch in Fremont next weekend?
My guy friends who are reading this are probably cracking up. I can see Jeremy, Ryan, and Steve all saying "well duh. We could have told you beer is good a long time ago." I always just thought I didn't like it. I rediscovered beer at a Mountaineers event a couple of weeks ago. They were out of hard cider, so, in typical Anna fashion, I asked the bartender what he had that was closest to Fat Tire.
"Fat Tire," he responded. Thank God I know how to laugh at myself. This comes in handy on many occasions. He poured me a tall glass of Fat Tire, and I got hooked.
But I digress. This is supposed to be a blog about gardening, yet it really has turned into a blog about life, the universe, and everything.
Yesterday, I put some carrots in the ground, reseeded my chard, and put a few more radishes in as a succession crop. If I haven't added the pictures yet, I will soon. My fava beans are getting pretty tall, and I am wondering how soon they will yield real beans. The peas are reaching for the trellis. They send out small tendrils, searching for the twine. The oregano is growing like crazy, and a ladybug has taken up residence on the plant. I really like ladybugs. Not only do they eat things like aphids, but they're also pretty. The one radish I did not pick for a salad last week has turned into a giant radish. I am planning on pulling it up tonight and putting it on a salad. Although I kind of want to see whether or not radishes act like zucchini and just keep growing.
I met Dr. Doo the Prince of Poo (no joke) at the Woodland Park Zoo today. I picked up my Zoo Doo this afternoon. They still have an amazing pile of compost left. It makes me smile, thinking that what was once elephant poo will be fertilizing my garden. The Zoo Doo program is fantastic. They take poop from all the vegetarian animals and turn it into compost, which they then sell to happy gardeners like myself for incredibly cheap. Believe it or not, there are more gardeners who want the compost than there is compost available! Dr. Doo called me on Monday to let me know that I could buy Zoo Doo this year, and now there are three garbage bags of it sitting in my backyard.
My parents have this great story involving using manure as fertilizer. When they started dating, my mom had a garden. Dad had an old truck, which my brother and I have nicknamed "The Grapes of Wrath." (He still has the truck, but it no longer runs.) Anyway, Mom wanted to grow some zucchini, and thought that cow manure would be the perfect fertilizer. Dad fired up The Grapes of Wrath, and he and mom drove out to Duvall to get some manure from a farmer. The guy put two tractor scoops of manure in the truck's bed. On the way back, they had the windows down, oblivious to the smell. It was a hot day in Seattle, and everyone around them also had their windows down. Dad said that he started to notice, at stop lights, people pinching their noses and rolling up their windows. They drove The Grapes of Wrath all the way to Mom's house in Greenlake. Mom's backyard may have smelled like crap all summer, but she grew some gigantic zucchini!
After my trip to the zoo, I went over to the P-Patch to take out the strawberries, pull up the crops, and put my garden to bed for the next person to use. I felt a little sad. As I wrote in the last post, I'm a terrible quitter. I like to finish what I've started. Yet I could also tell that I was getting in over my head. I need some free time to follow my heart and really step into my next adventures. It's spring, and the mountains I can see from my back window call out to me each day. I need free time to go find something to climb, to find a new trail to love, to get back to nature. And it's a lot easier caring for a garden next to my house.
So now, my little 4x8 raised bed is all I have. But I think it will be plenty. With the addition of the strawberry plants, my raised bed is now full. I hope my landlord doesn't mind all of the containers I am surrounding it with. Giving up the P-Patch all but ensures that I started way too many tomato plants, so if you would like one, let me know. Otherwise, my porch will be covered in tomatoes this summer. Although that's not sounding like such a bad thing right now.
And on that note, it is time for some food! I'll let you know how the big radish tastes. (And guys -- I did, in fact, finish my beer.)
Saturday, April 17, 2010
On Quitting
I am a terrible quitter. I stay on the path I have chosen until it becomes clear that I am unhappy. The path I had chosen for myself should have revealed itself to be the wrong one long ago -- and yet I miss all the warning signs. This is why I am still in graduate school. I thought I could stick it out -- I thought I really wanted to be Dr. Anna and teach sociology at a liberal arts school. And then I found myself wandering around the streets of Dubrovnik, crying. I didn't know when I had started. I realized I needed a change, and I thought that being a professor of Eastern European history would provide the answer. It didn't. I ignored the small voice inside of me whispering, "Teach middle school. That's where you belong." It had been whispering for years. That voice had been telling me what to do since I took high school students to Morocco. But I thought I had to stay on the path I had chosen.
Sometimes I think maybe I'm trying to be too much like my dad. My dad weighs the pros and cons of any major decision before making it. But when I try to do this, inevitably, that little voice pops up and tells me to do what my dad would think illogical. My friend Jessica once referred to me as a "free spirit." I thought "I can't be a free spirit -- I plan too much." Yet I'm starting to realize that she's right.
My Balkan summer taught me that I am a person who is happiest living passionately. I think I've written about this here before -- I throw myself into life without really thinking about the consequences. Rather than test the waters, I go for a swim. I get excited about everything -- new people, new food, plants, and books. I wear my heart on my sleeve -- or, as the Serbs say "my soul on my face," and I know it. When I am unhappy about something, I feel it deeply. I don't sleep. I have to fix whatever it is that is wrong first. But it's funny -- when trying to fix what is wrong, I never think that it's the path I'm on itself. I always think that I just need to tweak a few things, and everything will be fine. Right?
Well, as I have learned in these heady days full of new passions, new beginnings, and renewal, sometimes I need to be a better quitter. I keep reminding myself that it's okay to stop. It's okay to fail. It's never too late to change your mind. Because my "stick-to-it" nature is in conflict with the part of me that craves new adventures, new places, new people, and what is unknown. To me, the known is familiar and comfortable. The unknown is exciting and beautiful. I am in a period of my life where I am about to step into the unknown. I am following a passion for teaching -- the one that has always been there. The one I had been fighting for years.
By this point, you're probably wondering "so what does this have to do with gardening?" I'm getting there, I promise. A week of sleepless nights and worrying over the P-Patch has made me realize that I have to give up my plot. This may sound selfish, but I don't want to be part of a gardening community. I garden in order to spend time alone with plants -- like how Thoreau went to the woods in order to be alone. The solitude of being in my garden, feeling the good dirt under my hands, watching my plants grow and become food -- that's what I want. Gardening, for me, shouldn't involve meetings and planning. I'd rather it be just me, weeding in my raised bed, singing.
So I gave up my plot today. I apologized to everyone. I admitted that I'd taken on too much. I am walking away because I need gardening to be my alone time. And I need time to spend with the communities I'm already a part of -- grad school, volunteering, neighborhood, and The Mountaineers. I need some time to be a free spirit. And in my garden, the mountains, and in my beautiful city -- with old friends and new friends, or alone, I will do what I have always done during these times of transition.
Once again, I will fall in love with the world.
Sometimes I think maybe I'm trying to be too much like my dad. My dad weighs the pros and cons of any major decision before making it. But when I try to do this, inevitably, that little voice pops up and tells me to do what my dad would think illogical. My friend Jessica once referred to me as a "free spirit." I thought "I can't be a free spirit -- I plan too much." Yet I'm starting to realize that she's right.
My Balkan summer taught me that I am a person who is happiest living passionately. I think I've written about this here before -- I throw myself into life without really thinking about the consequences. Rather than test the waters, I go for a swim. I get excited about everything -- new people, new food, plants, and books. I wear my heart on my sleeve -- or, as the Serbs say "my soul on my face," and I know it. When I am unhappy about something, I feel it deeply. I don't sleep. I have to fix whatever it is that is wrong first. But it's funny -- when trying to fix what is wrong, I never think that it's the path I'm on itself. I always think that I just need to tweak a few things, and everything will be fine. Right?
Well, as I have learned in these heady days full of new passions, new beginnings, and renewal, sometimes I need to be a better quitter. I keep reminding myself that it's okay to stop. It's okay to fail. It's never too late to change your mind. Because my "stick-to-it" nature is in conflict with the part of me that craves new adventures, new places, new people, and what is unknown. To me, the known is familiar and comfortable. The unknown is exciting and beautiful. I am in a period of my life where I am about to step into the unknown. I am following a passion for teaching -- the one that has always been there. The one I had been fighting for years.
By this point, you're probably wondering "so what does this have to do with gardening?" I'm getting there, I promise. A week of sleepless nights and worrying over the P-Patch has made me realize that I have to give up my plot. This may sound selfish, but I don't want to be part of a gardening community. I garden in order to spend time alone with plants -- like how Thoreau went to the woods in order to be alone. The solitude of being in my garden, feeling the good dirt under my hands, watching my plants grow and become food -- that's what I want. Gardening, for me, shouldn't involve meetings and planning. I'd rather it be just me, weeding in my raised bed, singing.
So I gave up my plot today. I apologized to everyone. I admitted that I'd taken on too much. I am walking away because I need gardening to be my alone time. And I need time to spend with the communities I'm already a part of -- grad school, volunteering, neighborhood, and The Mountaineers. I need some time to be a free spirit. And in my garden, the mountains, and in my beautiful city -- with old friends and new friends, or alone, I will do what I have always done during these times of transition.
Once again, I will fall in love with the world.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Gardening and Baseball -- anything in common?
Before getting into my main topic, guess who just called me? Dr. Doo the Prince of Poo! Now before you think I've gone crazy, let me explain. I sent a postcard to Zoo Doo in March, requesting to be entered into their contest to purchase the high quality compost they make out of the zoo animals' poop. My postcard got drawn, and I can purchase two large cans of Zoo Doo! Awesome. I'll go pick it up on Sunday, if Dad's truck is free. Anyone want to help? :)
Alright, now I can start. Y'all know I love gardening, and since most of you who read this are my friends, most of you probably know that I love baseball. I am a true blue Mariners fan. I have been ever since I was little, when my grandfather took me and my dad to a game at the Kingdome. I remember when the Ms went to the playoffs for the first time in 1995, and jumped ten feet into the air when Edgar Martinez hit that beautiful double down the left-field line, and Junior sprinted from first to home in the bottom of the 9th, Game 5, American League Division Series. I was 13. We ran up and down my block clanging pots and pans, celebrating the victory. I didn't have homework for a week.
When great or bad things happen, I either go to a baseball game, or to the woods. It's where I find solace. My bachelor's thesis was a sociological look at Mariners fans, where I came up with my own theory about how baseball creates a sense of community -- not just among those who are at the game, but also among those who listen and watch at home. I got to interview Hall of Fame broadcaster Dave Niehaus as part of this project, and I've saved the tape. It was like talking to one of baseball's grandfathers. For me, it was really special. Baseball has been my constant, and has kept me company through my travels, my triumphs, and my losses.
My uncle, who died a little over a year ago, used to save anything with a Mariners logo on it for me. He saved newspaper articles, and really anything he could find for me. He didn't have a lot of money, but every time he was at Value Village or Goodwill, he'd bring home an old Mariners hat, a shirt, or a bobblehead of a traded player. We were very different. He was an alcoholic who lived in a trailer park, and I'm a grad student who travels the world. We didn't have a whole lot we could talk about together, except baseball. My quiet uncle and I could have a lively conversation about players, great plays, and the game the night before. I really miss him.
I'm thinking about the connections between baseball and gardening today because I'm sitting at home, listening to the Mariners home opener. I know that not all the things I love have to be connected, but sometimes I try to figure out if there's a common thread running between different activities and things I enjoy. Could baseball and gardening be connected? And could this also be connected to my love of the Balkans? That last one may be a bit of a stretch, but we'll see.
In Seattle, we start our vegetable gardens at the beginning of Spring Training. When all the players have reported to camp, that's when peas and fava beans go into the ground, in February. Throughout Spring Training in March, I was planting spring veggies. All of these will ripen and be replaced by summer veggies by the end of June, before the All-Star break. The main summer harvest is in September, and as I scramble to harvest, freeze, and can tomatoes, peppers, and zucchini, my Mariners will hopefully be scrambling towards the finish line and a playoff spot. And in October, as the baseball season winds towards a glorious finish, so does my garden. I harvest the last of the veggies and put the garden to bed as a World Series winner is crowned. Hopefully it'll be anyone BUT the Yankees this year.
So the seasons are basically the same. Baseball season is also gardening season. What else?
Well, here's where the Balkan connection may come in. One of the reasons why I travel is to collect stories. I have some great travel stories, many of them involving misadventures. There's nothing I love more than a good book, too. Baseball is all about stories. Dave Niehaus, the Mariners iconic broadcaster, is constantly telling stories. He tells listeners about plays by painting the scene with his voice. He's so good at putting you in the game that people bring Walkmen to Safeco to listen to him. Every baseball fan has a good story, too. Ask any Mariners fan to tell you about 1995, and you'll see.
Gardeners like to tell stories as well. Although our stories are a little different. We tell stories of giant zucchini, good tomato harvests, hunting slugs at midnight, and how we drove off the pesky squirrel stealing strawberries. Get a group of gardeners together and the stories will fly!
That last one might be a little weak, but I thought of one more. Both baseball and gardening involve a lot of thought. Baseball is a thinking person's game. Entire books have been written about the science of baseball. Baseball requires players to make adjustments to different situations. As a fan, it's rare that I zone out during a baseball game. I usually know what's going on, and keep rapt attention on the game in front of me. Gardening is like a giant puzzle. I have to figure out, for example, what my tomatoes with yellowing leaves need. I have to figure out what's eating my plants and how to stop it. Maybe thought's not what I'm getting at -- it's attention. True baseball fans are attentive at the ballpark. True gardeners tend to their gardens well.
That's what I could think of. But maybe baseball and gardening are just different, and I'm reaching to try to make connections. What do you think?
And the score? 1-0 Oakland. Top of the 5th. 2 outs Figgins-to-Wilson-to-Kotchman beautiful double play. May the Mariners be in 1st place in the AL West by the time I'm harvesting tomatoes.
Alright, now I can start. Y'all know I love gardening, and since most of you who read this are my friends, most of you probably know that I love baseball. I am a true blue Mariners fan. I have been ever since I was little, when my grandfather took me and my dad to a game at the Kingdome. I remember when the Ms went to the playoffs for the first time in 1995, and jumped ten feet into the air when Edgar Martinez hit that beautiful double down the left-field line, and Junior sprinted from first to home in the bottom of the 9th, Game 5, American League Division Series. I was 13. We ran up and down my block clanging pots and pans, celebrating the victory. I didn't have homework for a week.
When great or bad things happen, I either go to a baseball game, or to the woods. It's where I find solace. My bachelor's thesis was a sociological look at Mariners fans, where I came up with my own theory about how baseball creates a sense of community -- not just among those who are at the game, but also among those who listen and watch at home. I got to interview Hall of Fame broadcaster Dave Niehaus as part of this project, and I've saved the tape. It was like talking to one of baseball's grandfathers. For me, it was really special. Baseball has been my constant, and has kept me company through my travels, my triumphs, and my losses.
My uncle, who died a little over a year ago, used to save anything with a Mariners logo on it for me. He saved newspaper articles, and really anything he could find for me. He didn't have a lot of money, but every time he was at Value Village or Goodwill, he'd bring home an old Mariners hat, a shirt, or a bobblehead of a traded player. We were very different. He was an alcoholic who lived in a trailer park, and I'm a grad student who travels the world. We didn't have a whole lot we could talk about together, except baseball. My quiet uncle and I could have a lively conversation about players, great plays, and the game the night before. I really miss him.
I'm thinking about the connections between baseball and gardening today because I'm sitting at home, listening to the Mariners home opener. I know that not all the things I love have to be connected, but sometimes I try to figure out if there's a common thread running between different activities and things I enjoy. Could baseball and gardening be connected? And could this also be connected to my love of the Balkans? That last one may be a bit of a stretch, but we'll see.
In Seattle, we start our vegetable gardens at the beginning of Spring Training. When all the players have reported to camp, that's when peas and fava beans go into the ground, in February. Throughout Spring Training in March, I was planting spring veggies. All of these will ripen and be replaced by summer veggies by the end of June, before the All-Star break. The main summer harvest is in September, and as I scramble to harvest, freeze, and can tomatoes, peppers, and zucchini, my Mariners will hopefully be scrambling towards the finish line and a playoff spot. And in October, as the baseball season winds towards a glorious finish, so does my garden. I harvest the last of the veggies and put the garden to bed as a World Series winner is crowned. Hopefully it'll be anyone BUT the Yankees this year.
So the seasons are basically the same. Baseball season is also gardening season. What else?
Well, here's where the Balkan connection may come in. One of the reasons why I travel is to collect stories. I have some great travel stories, many of them involving misadventures. There's nothing I love more than a good book, too. Baseball is all about stories. Dave Niehaus, the Mariners iconic broadcaster, is constantly telling stories. He tells listeners about plays by painting the scene with his voice. He's so good at putting you in the game that people bring Walkmen to Safeco to listen to him. Every baseball fan has a good story, too. Ask any Mariners fan to tell you about 1995, and you'll see.
Gardeners like to tell stories as well. Although our stories are a little different. We tell stories of giant zucchini, good tomato harvests, hunting slugs at midnight, and how we drove off the pesky squirrel stealing strawberries. Get a group of gardeners together and the stories will fly!
That last one might be a little weak, but I thought of one more. Both baseball and gardening involve a lot of thought. Baseball is a thinking person's game. Entire books have been written about the science of baseball. Baseball requires players to make adjustments to different situations. As a fan, it's rare that I zone out during a baseball game. I usually know what's going on, and keep rapt attention on the game in front of me. Gardening is like a giant puzzle. I have to figure out, for example, what my tomatoes with yellowing leaves need. I have to figure out what's eating my plants and how to stop it. Maybe thought's not what I'm getting at -- it's attention. True baseball fans are attentive at the ballpark. True gardeners tend to their gardens well.
That's what I could think of. But maybe baseball and gardening are just different, and I'm reaching to try to make connections. What do you think?
And the score? 1-0 Oakland. Top of the 5th. 2 outs Figgins-to-Wilson-to-Kotchman beautiful double play. May the Mariners be in 1st place in the AL West by the time I'm harvesting tomatoes.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Radishes, arugula, and Wallingford moments
You know you've been in the wilderness all day when you're at Hard Rock Cafe for a birthday party, ravenous, thinking "wow, it's really noisy in here." My fatigue from a long day (and from not sleeping well this week) got to me, and I'm home, ensconced in my favorite comfy fleece pants, listening to Rockapella and writing about my plants. I'd be asleep, except one of the neighbors is having a party, and the bass is rattling my windows. Sometimes I don't like living in an old house.
Quick digression. I love Rockapella. There's so much more to them than "Carmen Sandiego" and the Folger's coffee song. I sang in a choir in college, and it's hard to get harmonies as tight as theirs. It's just beautiful music.
My P-Patch is starting to sprout! Hooray! I have little baby kale, lettuce, radishes, and chard! With all the rain, though, my careful labeling of my rows is all for naught. All the pen washed off, so I have no idea what is growing where -- except for the strawberries. I guess I'm going to be surprised once things ripen up!
All of the plants in my raised bed are getting so big! Look at the favas -- they're huge!!! I feel like such a proud gardener. I put some seeds in the ground way back in February, and now I have real, live vegetable plants! I've never grown anything from seed before, so this is awesome.
One set of radishes, as you can see from the picture, is ripe already. Radishes are a nice plant to grow because they tell you when they are ripe. They start poking their little tops out of the ground, saying "Pick me!" I'll eat it in a salad sometime this week.
Now the neighbors appear to have moved from Sublime (I swear they were playing it for the last hour) to something with even more bass. I should counter with Bon Jovi. It will be the epic Wallingford music war.
Speaking of very "Wallingford" moments, I walked into Tweedy & Popp on Friday, and this sentence escaped my lips -- "I need something organic to kill the bugs that are eating my arugula." How Seattle is that? Probably just as Seattle as what I did on Tuesday -- walk around Queen Anne for ten minutes to try to find someone to give my fries to. They gave me free fries at Dicks, and I didn't want them. I couldn't bring myself to throw them away, but it took me ten minutes to find someone to take them!
Anyway, I bought an organic insecticidal soap, and that seems to have done the trick. No more aphids on my arugula. The best part was that the hardware store guy took me to the insecticides, and painstakingly went through the ingredients on all of them with me to make sure I was putting something organic on my plants. Now that's a Seattle moment.
The Garden Hotline got back to me, and the leaves on my tomatoes are yellowing because they likely need more nitrogen. I upped the fish fertilizer in my watering mixture, and that seems to have helped. Except now that corner of the dining room smells strongly of fish goo, and my roommates are probably thinking "that's the last time we let her start tomatoes in here!"
Now my neighbors are distinctly playing "Seven Nation Army." I'm totally going to counter with Bon Jovi, or hair metal, or something else that I'm sure they would find obnoxious. Rockapella at 120 decibels -- bring it on!
I have been listening to Bon Jovi a lot lately. Well, really the Glee cast doing the mashup of "It's
My Life" and Usher's "Confessions." There's a line from the song that just keeps resonating, which is why it has been on repeat. "Better stand tall when they call you out. / Don't bend, don't break, baby don't back down."
I didn't get into Seattle U for teaching. I'm a little bummed, but I was wanting to go to UW Bothell anyway. I was just hoping I would have a choice. I did do a little investigating, and UW Seattle's special ed program lets people in until July 1, if there's space. I'm probably going to put some feelers out and talk to someone about that program this week. I'm volunteering with middle and high school kids with learning disabilities, and I love it. It's a challenge, and I love being able to make a difference. I get to try out new ways of teaching things. It's worth looking at, right? After all, if I can wake up every morning and go do something I love -- well, that's a recipe for a life fulfilled.
And on that note, time for bed.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Tonight's Dinner...
I did my first ever late-night slug watch tonight! The little bastards like to munch on leafy greens after dark. I didn't find any slugs, but I did find bugs. Some bugs are absolutely decimating my arugula, and a few of them are trying to eat my fava bean leaves, too. The nerve. That's going to be my food!
If anyone knows of a small insect that likes to munch on leafy greens, let me know. It was just the arugula and the favas. It's pretty small, with wings, and looked a bit shiny. Bonus points if you can tell me how to kill it.
Bugs and slugs. The bane of the gardener's existence.
Anyway, as you can see from the pictures, I turned the cute little radishes I grew into a yummy salad. I paired it with one of my favorite dishes, sausage & apples. If you ever have too many apples around, this is a great way to get rid of some of them. The salad is my own recipe. For this one, the ingredients are --
Arugula
Mizuna salad greens
Cucumber
Radishes
Trader Joe's Gorgonzola crumbles
Trader Joe's raspberry viniagrette
The radishes have a good flavor. Not too tart, and just spicy enough. I grew French breakfast radishes. It's not quite salad green season up here, but all the veggies came from my CSA, Full Circle Farm. They combine with other farms to give customers more variety. While it's completely local three seasons out of the year, in the winter and early spring, quite a bit of stuff comes from California. Usually I try to pick things that don't grow well in our climate, like oranges, avocados, and lemons.
The recipe for sausage & apples comes from one of my favorite cookbooks. It takes about 40 minutes, start to finish. I highly suggest using Trader Joe's apple chardonnay sausage with this -- it really goes well in this dish.
Sausage and Apples
Adapted from Mary Beth Lind and Cathleen Hockman-Wert, Simply in Season
4-6 links sausage
1/2 cup apple juice or apple cider
1/4 cup apple jelly or hot pepper jelly (I leave this out, as I can never find it at the store)
2 tbsps Dijon mustard
1 medium onion
2 tbsps olive oil
3 firm apples
1 teaspoon dried basil (whoops -- so hungry when it was done that I forgot!)
pinch of pepper
Step 1. Brown or pan fry sausage in a little oil, over medium-high heat. Remove from pan and keep warm.
Step 2. Mix together the apple juice, Dijon mustard, and apple jelly in a small bowl while the sausage is cooking.
Step 3. Cut the onion into vertical slices. (I diced it. This is what an empty stomach will do to a chef!). Add to saucepan you used for the sausage. Add the oil. Cook over medium heat until it starts to brown. Add more oil as needed.
Step 4. Cut the apples into thick wedges. Add it to the onion until starting to brown.
Step 5. Stir in the sauce. Add basil and pepper. Return sausages to pan. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and cook until sausages are done -- about 10 minutes.
Prijatno! (Enjoy!)
-- Anna
Desert reflections
I have always loved deserts. I took my first backpacking trip in Canyonlands National Park when I was 18, and I think that experience made deserts near and dear to my heart. It was three weeks long, and unforgettable. We spent three days solo by a creek. I used to go out and use my water bottle to bathe every morning, taking delight in how cold the water felt on my skin. At night, coyotes howled at the moon, and I curled up in my sleeping bag trying to count the stars until my eyes grew heavy and the next thing I knew it was morning. I emerged from the desert lean and strong, knowing I would return.
I keep finding my way back to deserts. I spent a whole month with high school students in Morocco. Three weeks of that time, I lived in a remote village in the High Atlas Mountains. Every night before I went to sleep, I heard the call to prayer echo from village to village in the valley below. My host sister, Naima, and I had incredible conversations, aided by three dictionaries. We talked about faith in a mixture of French, Arabic, and Berber -- the language only the two of us knew how to speak.
I fell in love with the desert before I fell in love with plants. And I fell in love with baseball before anything else. I was 13 when my Mariners went to the playoffs for the first time. I jumped 10 feet into the air when Edgar Martinez's beautiful double down the left-field line in the Kingdome sent Junior sprinting from first to home. We'd done the impossible. We'd beaten the Yankees.
So, for me, this desert trip to see some baseball was much needed. Both baseball and the desert are good for my soul. I got the chance to relax, go some places I'd never been, and just recharge. I'm back now, happy and refreshed, ready for the next curve ball life throws at me. Show me what you've got and I'll hit it out of the park.
Guess what I kept taking pictures of -- plants! I decided that Saguaro cacti look like little green bandits, and kept taking pictures of them. Desert plants are so alien to me. In the Northwest, we have so much water that most of our plants are in various shades of green. In the desert, things are spiky, colorful, and poisonous. Desert plants have to protect their precious water.
I saw Joshua Tree N.P. and Saguaro. I didn't find a random butte on which to dance, but I did do a great cactus impression while at a rest stop. And I had the best day ever. On the same day, Felix Hernandez and Jay Buhner signed my baseball; Junior hit a walk-off grand slam; and I hit a double bullseye twice playing darts at the cowboy bar.
That's right -- two Mariner all stars signed my baseball. I'm still a little giddy. I have it sitting in a plastic bag on my bookshelf, awaiting the shrine I'm going to buy for it. I will pass it on to my kids -- unless they become Yankees fans. (I'm convinced my children will become Yankees fans just to spite me.)
I caught up with old friends, and made some new ones, too. I spent a wonderful evening lying on a San Diego beach and drinking margaritas with my friend Ben, whom I see not even once a year. I hung out with Cris and Kerry, whom I hadn't seen since college.
I think I need to take advantage of spring break every year.
Anyway, I came back to find that my tomato starts are quite a bit larger, and that I have ripe radishes! Hooray! I plan on picking some this afternoon to put on my evening salad. Perhaps I will take a picture of them once indoors to show you. They're so cute right now -- little green tops peek out of my garden over the radish's pinkness.
Some of the leaves on my tomato starts are yellowing, and I'm trying to figure out why. Hopefully someone from the Garden Hotline will get back to me soon. I think it might be a nitrogen deficiency. I just started watering them with a weak fish fertilizer, so we'll see if that helps. Some of them look great, and I started too many tomato plants anyway.
I had a great idea for this garden blog, based on something I found in the New York Times. Apparently, some of the most popular photo blogs are based on pictures people take of things they eat. My twist on this is to take pictures of things I make out of my homegrown veggies, so y'all can see the end of the journey -- from seed, to plant, to stomach! What do you think? I promise to pair these photos with recipes, so you can make your own, too.
On another note, when moving stuff around on my bookshelf to make room for my baseball, I found the list of stuff I'd decided I was going to do before I turned 30. I was 25 and living in Serbia when I made this list. My first real serious relationship had ended that summer, and I was reflecting on that when I made my list. You would think I'd remember that as a sad time, but I was just so excited by all of the possibilities that had opened up for me that I remember it as a happy time. I wrote in my journal "Mislim da moj život će biti velika aventura. -- I think that my life will be a grand adventure." So far, this has been true. And I don't think it's going to stop anytime soon.
Finding this list was really cool. There are about 20 things on it, and surprisingly, I've already done most of them. These include things like getting a master's degree, singing on stage again, auditioning for an acapella choir and learning yet another language. But there's still some things left, and I've only got about 20 months to go before the big 3-0 is upon me. I need some help deciding which of these things I want to accomplish. Keep in mind that I'm not made of money, so some of these things may be out of my means for a while. Of the things that aren't too esoteric or philosophical, here's what's left :
Summit Mt. Rainier (Probably involves too much cash to do now)
Learn how to dance
Bike the STP
Hike the Wonderland Trail
Go to Ireland and see my family's estate (I do have many frequent flyer miles)
So what do you think? Which one of these goals should I realistically try to accomplish in the next 20 months? What should my next adventure be?
After finding this list, I realized that I did accomplish the biggest thing I promised myself. I am not living a boring life. Every day is full of the promise of adventure.
I keep finding my way back to deserts. I spent a whole month with high school students in Morocco. Three weeks of that time, I lived in a remote village in the High Atlas Mountains. Every night before I went to sleep, I heard the call to prayer echo from village to village in the valley below. My host sister, Naima, and I had incredible conversations, aided by three dictionaries. We talked about faith in a mixture of French, Arabic, and Berber -- the language only the two of us knew how to speak.
I fell in love with the desert before I fell in love with plants. And I fell in love with baseball before anything else. I was 13 when my Mariners went to the playoffs for the first time. I jumped 10 feet into the air when Edgar Martinez's beautiful double down the left-field line in the Kingdome sent Junior sprinting from first to home. We'd done the impossible. We'd beaten the Yankees.
So, for me, this desert trip to see some baseball was much needed. Both baseball and the desert are good for my soul. I got the chance to relax, go some places I'd never been, and just recharge. I'm back now, happy and refreshed, ready for the next curve ball life throws at me. Show me what you've got and I'll hit it out of the park.
Guess what I kept taking pictures of -- plants! I decided that Saguaro cacti look like little green bandits, and kept taking pictures of them. Desert plants are so alien to me. In the Northwest, we have so much water that most of our plants are in various shades of green. In the desert, things are spiky, colorful, and poisonous. Desert plants have to protect their precious water.
I saw Joshua Tree N.P. and Saguaro. I didn't find a random butte on which to dance, but I did do a great cactus impression while at a rest stop. And I had the best day ever. On the same day, Felix Hernandez and Jay Buhner signed my baseball; Junior hit a walk-off grand slam; and I hit a double bullseye twice playing darts at the cowboy bar.
That's right -- two Mariner all stars signed my baseball. I'm still a little giddy. I have it sitting in a plastic bag on my bookshelf, awaiting the shrine I'm going to buy for it. I will pass it on to my kids -- unless they become Yankees fans. (I'm convinced my children will become Yankees fans just to spite me.)
I caught up with old friends, and made some new ones, too. I spent a wonderful evening lying on a San Diego beach and drinking margaritas with my friend Ben, whom I see not even once a year. I hung out with Cris and Kerry, whom I hadn't seen since college.
I think I need to take advantage of spring break every year.
Anyway, I came back to find that my tomato starts are quite a bit larger, and that I have ripe radishes! Hooray! I plan on picking some this afternoon to put on my evening salad. Perhaps I will take a picture of them once indoors to show you. They're so cute right now -- little green tops peek out of my garden over the radish's pinkness.
Some of the leaves on my tomato starts are yellowing, and I'm trying to figure out why. Hopefully someone from the Garden Hotline will get back to me soon. I think it might be a nitrogen deficiency. I just started watering them with a weak fish fertilizer, so we'll see if that helps. Some of them look great, and I started too many tomato plants anyway.
I had a great idea for this garden blog, based on something I found in the New York Times. Apparently, some of the most popular photo blogs are based on pictures people take of things they eat. My twist on this is to take pictures of things I make out of my homegrown veggies, so y'all can see the end of the journey -- from seed, to plant, to stomach! What do you think? I promise to pair these photos with recipes, so you can make your own, too.
On another note, when moving stuff around on my bookshelf to make room for my baseball, I found the list of stuff I'd decided I was going to do before I turned 30. I was 25 and living in Serbia when I made this list. My first real serious relationship had ended that summer, and I was reflecting on that when I made my list. You would think I'd remember that as a sad time, but I was just so excited by all of the possibilities that had opened up for me that I remember it as a happy time. I wrote in my journal "Mislim da moj život će biti velika aventura. -- I think that my life will be a grand adventure." So far, this has been true. And I don't think it's going to stop anytime soon.
Finding this list was really cool. There are about 20 things on it, and surprisingly, I've already done most of them. These include things like getting a master's degree, singing on stage again, auditioning for an acapella choir and learning yet another language. But there's still some things left, and I've only got about 20 months to go before the big 3-0 is upon me. I need some help deciding which of these things I want to accomplish. Keep in mind that I'm not made of money, so some of these things may be out of my means for a while. Of the things that aren't too esoteric or philosophical, here's what's left :
Summit Mt. Rainier (Probably involves too much cash to do now)
Learn how to dance
Bike the STP
Hike the Wonderland Trail
Go to Ireland and see my family's estate (I do have many frequent flyer miles)
So what do you think? Which one of these goals should I realistically try to accomplish in the next 20 months? What should my next adventure be?
After finding this list, I realized that I did accomplish the biggest thing I promised myself. I am not living a boring life. Every day is full of the promise of adventure.
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