Origins of food....food for thought.....

So, tonight as I sit reflecting on our day of family with Nanna and Granpa, food and fun, I find myself still licking my fingers from the days leftovers. I realize how much of a Southern gal I still am at heart; I love good food. Now, if you aren't Southern, you may not understand the full impact of this statement. I mean, I LOVE good food! Such as a conversation with my Mom on the phone, "So Mom, how was your day?" "OH! Why it's been sooo good! We cooked up some ham for lunch in the frying pan with some of your Daddy's pear preserve's and some terriyaki sauce. Then had some green beans (coca-cola & garlic, salt & butter)." And, so, I grew into adult-hood and realized that to an extent my Mom and Dad associated their well-being with what kind of (good) food they had experienced that day. Now, I have tried as hard as I can since I came to this realization (and following that this is how I had been raised...), not to define myself by my food..... but ~ I have come to an epiphany tonight.... (insert drumroll, here)

Food not only defines you, but your culture as well; though, it does not define your over all well-being (though contributes greatly to it.).

Yeah, I know, not original - I just had to come to terms with my love of good food. This does not mean I define myself and my well-being ~ but, it's ok to admit it. :)

So, then this led me to wondering about the origins of our favorite foods. I would love to study more about this subject. As a dedicated heirloom veggie gardener, I love finding out the stories of the seed varieties that I grow and pass along to community members here in Northfield. My Purple Peruvian Potatoes, French La Rattes (potatoes), Cherokee Trail of Tears (beans), Hidatsa Shield Figure beans, Dutch Bullet beans, etc. All my garden friends have a story, an ancestry to share. And, thanks to someone, somewhere along the way passing them on to another friend or neighbor ~ they were eventually available for me to put in my garden.

So - how did the Purple Peruvian potatoes spread originally? How about the first potatoes that were 'domesticated' and taken to Europe and became such a staple for the Irish? How did they get from South America to Europe and when? With the Spanish explorers? Taken back at the same time as chocolate? And, as I licked the peanut butter off my fingers and took my nano-second to process the above train of thought.... I wondered... peanuts came from Africa - how did they migrate to Asia? (We all know how they arrived in the US... but... Asia?) Overland trade routes - spice roads? Tomatoes - North America to Europe to Italy or straight to Italy? How do we have naturally occuring (I'm presuming) mango's in Mexico and India? Cilantro - Tamarind - lime - same thing... Mexico to India. I realize that a lot has to do with it just being the same tropical growing zone....but, yet so many of the plants are in common 1/2 a world away - there had to be some shared growing time/seed dispersal to have such a large group of overlapping common plants. (Again, just a presumption, but otherwise, if the two were in total seperation/isolation there wouldn't be any overlap. Would there? And birds, humans and other mammals couldn't bring and naturalize that many foreign plants in such short evolutionary time period.) Someone out there with a brain more giant than mine, knows these answers.

If I had one super power - just for fun.... it might be the ability to hear the full ancestry and 'migration' story of each little veggie/fruit/spice if I got to hold it in my hot little hands. :)

Miscellaneous photos from Spring 09

Boy! I've been so busy, I've been backlogged on getting photos uploaded and blogged about! But, the good news in a nutshell.... Spring finally came to Minnesota, the river stayed in it's banks (Hurray!), and the migratory birds and spring ephemerals have been incredible at the new cabin on the Cannon.

So, here in no particular order are some of my favorite spring photos....

Willow Ann with her frybread & pwdrd sugar

Bell of Mindfulness

As I was watching my beautiful husband cook pancakes for the family this morning, I got to chase the kids around creating all kinds of mayhem under foot! It was great fun! Our fun only multiplied as Willow found one of Chris' antique Tibetan/Budhist handbell's and started ringing it with every toddle-run back and forth thru the house, screeching with delight. I thought Chris just might loose his marbles with the noise, but thankfully, there had been enough time and real coffee in him to loosen him up and he joined in as well. "A-YA-YA! A-YA-YA!!!", and stomp your feet and chase is all that is required to be part of this group of barnstormers. After several runs thru the house, we pretty well fell into a heap of laughing pile-o-toddlers and the kids took off for something else that had caught their attention.

This left me pondering the moment we'd had as a family with this item once used to call people to prayer and remind them of the Greater Power around them.... Sacriledge or honor? What had we done? How could such a wonderful moment of enjoyment of children not be an honor ~ I don't believe my Creator would see that as disrespectful.... And, as much as I know of our wonderful Tibetan friends/culture, I really can't imagine they would be offended either. We Americans seem to be one of the few cultures that have lost the sacredness and honoring of children and older ones in our society. What a poor culture, a poor society, that places priorities of building monetary gain over raising your own children.... These days is times, especially now, it is near impossible to survive without at least both parents working, at least one job each ~ if they are lucky enough to be employed. Where does that leave our children and older generation? Who is there to cherish and encourage their speech, their bonding with family, their intellect, their growth, and development? They learn to compete with other babies for the attention and toys before they are even a year old in a daycare setting. I wonder what the long-term outcome for our American society will be with the generational break that has occurred. With the ringing of the hand-bell, I'm brought to the ringing of our alarm bells on our societies' family unit decline.... however you choose to define your family unit.

So, where are our 'Bells-of-Mindfulness' today? These calls to prayer that migrated with the shipping trade from the Far East, to be 'borrowed' by other religious traditions until they were fully integrated; church bells becoming a symbol of Christianity, no less, used on ships to ward off who-knows-what, and eventually used to open session in our early schools.... now just used to announce class change. Where are our bells today? We no longer use them to announce the ringing of a phone call. We no longer have the hourly church bells ringing across the countryside. Do we have anything in our society to remind us throughout the day that we (or the pursuit of money) are not the top of the theoretical food chain? I guess I'm not too picky... I don't really care who your Higher Power is, as long as you believe in one. To me, believing otherwise is "really quite presumptuous and rude." (To quote Willy Wonka) It's up to you to pick the right one for you; not me to sit in judgment.

How much richer a society would we be if we were occasionally reminded throughout our day, every day, that we did have a Higher Power watching over us...? How many of us would make different decisions...........how differently would people live?

A taste of Spring.

"I grew up in a backpack!"
That's what I'd love to hear my kids' brag to their friends about one day, in the future. To have them hold dear to memories of adventures in a child carrier backpack, view from parents' shoulder, (usually over mom's "handkerchief hair"), and having an apple and water bottle passed over the shoulder for snack is one of my fondest desires. In this footprint, I have raised all three of my children; holding them close for all our adventures outdoors. Maddy was only 3 days old when my Dakota Sioux friend took her in to her first sweat lodge for a blessing, and went hiking in the mountains when she was less than a month old. The adventures continued, when, even before Ture was born, we were caught at 14,000 ft in the Rockies in Colorado when our Jeep got a flat tire with a blizzard coming in thru the pass.... I was 5 months pregnant and there was NO way I was hiking down the Forest Service fire road! His love of the outdoors continued even after his arrival, in fact, his first year of life, we called him "Moon Boy" as he would never go down for the night without his ritual star walk wrapped in a blanket with his father down the driveway. It was a wonderful late summer evening tradition, that crept into fall. The evenings got earlier as the temperatures dropped, and the blankets got heavier. The next thing we knew, the boys were coming back in with snow powdered on the blankets; Moon Boy, still cooing over his stars and the joy of talking the moon to sleep. As I write this, Moon Boy - now 4 - is sacked out on the couch on his Star Quilt, having worn himself out playing outside during one of the first nice days of Spring today. (He rode his bike til his wheels fell off. No, really! Well, just one training wheel... but, that took some serious riding from a little guy!) Today, we came full circle and he passed his 'moon' torch on to his little sister as she noticed the moon in the sky for the first time while we were on our walk. She kept looking at me and saying 'Ball-ball'...and I couldn't figure it out... Sometimes Mom is just slow on the uptake! (Well, distracted by the Cedar Waxwings feeding in the hackberry!) I finally GOT it, and we all had a great time pointing and talking about the 'Moon-ball'.

We have had a couple of days of nice weather to tease us, and another blizzard is on the way this weekend. At first they were calling for 3" - 5", now having worked themselves all the way up to at least a foot expected for our area. (We'll see.) I wouldn't mind, but it's already April and I've already got my seeds out on the table and more ordered from Seed Savers! :) Moon-boy/Hawk/Frog/Stays-in-Camp/Mack (all of my son's nicknames) and I spent hours the other day playing a great game of sort the seed beans. As a four year old, he had the best time learning about the pretty beans with names like 'Good Mother Stallard', 'Hidatsa Shield', 'Dutch Bullet's', and his favorite..... 'Painted Pony' beans. Every bean - I mean EVERY bean he sorted he had to have an acknowledge comment like, "Oh, look at THIS little Pony bean! Isn't it just soooo cute!!" Then he would drop it with a sharp clink into the baby food jar and tell me he was winning the race! About every 10 beans, he would have to climb down for a break and go do something else and I'd swap baby food jars with him so that his jars would be more full than mine when he'd get back. I thought it might not be noticed, or at least be a time or two before he did...but, that little guy caught on the very first time he came back to the table! Then he really let out the 'whoot-whoot' cry as he was really winning. Remind me sometime to tell you about where our family picked up the 'whoot-whoot' .... It's become an integral part of our family and is really pretty funny!

A Frosty Morning on the Cannon

The other morning, we awoke to the most beautiful sight... the hoar frost was thickly layered over every little twig and leftover leaf and fall berry still left on the branches, with the sunrise, bright and warm, highlighting every tree into a surreal architectural sculpture. I quickly grabbed my camera off the windowsill and started snapping pictures before the warmth of the sunlight melted the ice and morphed the scene into a different landscape. I've only seen a handful of mornings like this one, and consider myself really blessed to have experienced this beauty again along the river at the new house. The frost on the trees was short-lived that morning; and the sunrise on the frost, only 'just right' for about 15 minutes.... I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

A period in the Confessional...

To take a quote from one of our favorite movies.... some of you may be wondering, " Now why don't she write?!" I haven't fallen victim to violence on the western plains and lie rotting in a coulee somewhere... (as in Dances with Wolves) I have a hard time writing without speaking what's on my mind, and I haven't been sure whether or not to share what's been in the forefront of my thoughts the most lately. I can't really focus on anything else until I put it out there in the Universe, so, let's get it out and get back to the business of the riverway...

C., my husband, has had kidney disease since he was a youngster - a genetic issue. (This is Not a picture of it to the left; this is my art-sy close-up of a really cool tree down by the river...) It's gotten to the point now that he's on the last medication available to him to try to keep his kidney protected. Of course, our family wants to know - well, what does that mean? Well, it's really EXPENSIVE as it doesn't come in generic! :) We will have his labs again in two weeks to see if they are working to slow down his protein and creatinin dumps... otherwise, I'm not sure what the next stage will be. We're crossing our fingers and hoping that the new medication will work, and then manage his diet. It looks like we'll be going even heavier into the veggies, as a diet including protein goes straight into his kidney and adds to the damaging affects (as does caffeine). We also have to have our two kids tested to see how their kidneys are functioning so far. The good news in all of this, is that if it C's condition is the worst kind - Alport Syndrome - it supposedly can't be passed directly to our son, as it's carried in the X chromosome. Our daughter would at least be a carrier and any son's she has (our grandsons) would be affected.

Okay, so now I can fill you in on the wonders that have been occuring on the river. It's been amazing around here lately! The ice broke up!!! The first undeniable, irrevocable promise of Spring - in February. No more snowmobiles. No more tenative hikes up the middle of the waterway, with the occasional gutwrenching moan and scratching of ice sheets. Now a days, the river stays pretty much open, with just a frosty icing on the top first thing in the morning that melts off by noon or so. We enjoyed a couple nice hikes up the waterway prior to ice-out; here are some picts!




Then, we started seeing just a couple of different species of birds migrating back in - nothing really exciting yet as far as the migrants go... but, we have some really wonderful eagles in the area now. In fact, I've found the local eagle nest. It's on the way to the kids' school, maybe a mile or so downstream from the house! I've been able to get some great pictures of the eagles, but you'll have to wait and see them in the next 'eagle blog'.... :) I also found out about another eagle nest on the Boy Scout Camp a couple miles from here and made contact with the staff. 'Ranger Dave' and 'Ranger Don' are wonderful maintenance guys that care for the camp between seasons... they gave me and the kids permission to go back and get some photos of their nest as well. Very cool!!

Breaking the ice...

Monday~ the house is back to my territory again; just me and the two little ones. It's a day to catch up with snuggles, (now that I'm their favorite again with Daddy back to work) feed the toddler cheeseballs, and spoil myself with a Southern delicacy leftover from the weekend...Brunswick Stew. The birds have been very active this morning, trying to recover some of their energy spent keeping warm last night. 5 O'clock Charley has been making his appearances every day, so we know even he's made it thru these below zero temperatures. The mystery hawk - enormous with white undercarriage - is still flying up and down the riverway a couple times a day. Unfortunately, I typically only get a glimpse as he's flying out of range. It's got to be just a plain old simple Redtail.... I'd just like to get him nailed down for sure.

With these below zero temperatures again, C. had to go back out on the river and break open some spots again for the wildlife to have access to water. I guess historically, there would have been enough deer and other larger fauna (wolf packs hunting deer) and even bison running around these valleys to keep some of the ice open in spots enough for the occasional watering hole for wildlife. Now a days, the aerators on ponds work - but really seem to change the feel of the landscape. We don't really wish to interfere with nature to that extent - just help it along. Fill in the gap in the ecosystem not being provided for and perform some of the 'gaps' functioning.... ???Make sense???

Ok, did you realize that the whole landscape and appearance of our prairies have changed because we don't have bison running/herding any longer? Even in the small percentage of restored prairie areas, we should have bison 'wallows' that catch and collect rainwater - and form a prairie pothole or pond. You end up with a wetter spot on the prairie, wetter veg grows - different varieties of plants emerge, greater diversity - stronger community/ecosystem...that attracts greater insects and on up the food chain.... So, by removing ONE ingredient from the recipe (if you will) you change the whole face and health of the landscape..... So goes it with the river - the bison would have kept a watering hole open that the birds and other wildlife would have used as well. So, to make a long story even longer. C. goes out and opens the river in a couple of spots every other day or so just to give the birds and other small animals a place to come in and drink. Check out the pict's...
The birds are loving it! We've also had fox, red and grey squirrels and even a mink using his water holes. The deer, fox, (cat, of course...) and coyote have also found them and make them part of their nightly rounds. The overwintering Robins have been spotted every morning on their feeding run thru the river valley, stopping and feeding in the hackberries, bathing and drinking. I'd love to know why they are bathing in this freezing weather. If anyone out there knows more about birds than I do - I know birds bathe to keep their feathers groomed, to keep mites down, and to cool off... but it's below freezing! Why...and how.... are they bathing and not freezing their little legs off? One of these days, I'm expecting to find all these little bird legs lined up and frozen, stuck in place around the ledge of my feeders from where it's gotten too cold for them and they just snapped off. Lego birds. Or, maybe it would be Lego-less birds....