Ah, diversity!

I've blogged a few times about my preference for diversity in the people around me. During weekdays I mostly see other retirees when I walk in the morning (they're walking their dogs then, but the still-working people aren't around) or swim at the local recreation center. And around here in the winter, the kids go indoors before dark, so I don't see much of them.

I had a couple of encouraging experiences recently. One day last week I had coffee in the morning at Starbucks with a friend. She is younger than I, with two teenagers, but we always have lots to talk about, and we meet for coffee every couple of months. This time she had a major health concern that she'd just found out about. For two hours I sat and listened as she vented and planned and cried. I was one of the first people she'd told, she said.

That same afternoon I met another friend for coffee at a different Starbucks. She has three small children and she talked to me about why she is divorcing her husband. I could tell she had done all she could to salvage the relationship but felt like she had no choice but to leave. I watched her as she talked about her options, feeling sad for the difficulties I know she'll have, but admiring her courage.

And that night I got a call from my nine-months-pregnant neighbor. Would I go for a walk with her? She hoped the exercise would start her labor. We walked for an hour and a half in the darkness, talking and hoping. (It was another ten days before she had her baby; I held Elsa Rayne for the first time just this afternoon.)

All three of these women are friends of my heart, though I am a generation older than they are.  Maybe it means I'm vital and interesting to other people.

Then, this past weekend, I flew to Oregon for the funeral of my ex-husband's brother, who passed away suddenly at 62. It's been nearly 30 years since that marriage ended, but I knew many of the people - all the siblings came, some of the cousins, some of the nieces and nephews including my two sons. As my current husband commented, I'm an "outlaw", but I knew all the siblings when they were teenagers or younger, and now that they're all middle aged I can still have conversations with them. They seemed glad to see me, and three people invited me to attend the next family reunion! It was good to be supportive of the grieving family, and to have my own fond thoughts of my deceased brother-in-law. He was a good husband and father and brother, and he will be missed.

It's times like this when my place in the community is affirmed. I love being part of the wider world.

The man is evolving

My husband Art has had a hip replacement, a knee replacement, two surgeries on his shoulders and one on his thumb. The recuperation for each of these required my help, which he did not want. And each cold or flu or bout of muscle soreness after working too long in the yard (he's 70, after all, not 35), is an ordeal he wants to suffer on his own. He wants me to leave him alone. Ignore him, if you will - but not really.

I, on the other hand, want sympathy and support and a listening ear when I am under the weather in some way physically or mentally or emotionally.

Up until last week, neither of us had been very successful at giving the other person what they need in such circumstances.

But Art is evolving.

I was scheduled for a screening colonoscopy for last Wednesday. The prep required two days of a low-fiber diet, one day of clear liquids only followed, in the evening, by the enchanting laxative experience, and then the morning procedure. During these four days I curtailed my activities as necessary and stayed fairly close to home. I noticed that Art was around a lot also, rather than being out and about as he usually is. He bought me white bread and apple juice and fixed low-fiber meals. He read in the living room or worked around the house on the day of my liquid diet, and he was available to listen when I needed to complain. He drove me to the medical clinic, got a flu shot while I was having my procedure (perfect outcome, "see you again in ten years"), brought me home and napped with me in the afternoon, even skipping an afternoon Creative Retirement Institute class on the history of intelligence and spying in the U.S.

In other words, he gave me sympathy and support and a listening ear. Exactly what I needed.

On Wednesday evening I gave him a hug and thanked him very much for being there for me. He said, "I knew that was what you wanted, and that is what you do for me - even though I hate it."

I had coffee with his niece Colleen on Thursday morning and told her about the support Art had given me. She said, "Uncle Art is so evolved." She remembered when he wasn't!

It's dark out!

Daylight Savings Time ended last weekend and it's dark early now. Like at about 5 p.m. Plus, it's cloudy or raining many of the daylight hours.

Nothing new for us in the Pacific Northwest. What is new is that, for some reason, it's not bothering me much this year.

Maybe it's because I'm sitting in front of a 10,000-lumen light box for 25 minutes each morning when I wake up, and I'm taking 4,000 units of vitamin D3.

Maybe it's because I'm walking two to three miles on the mornings when I don't go to a water aerobics class.

Maybe it's because I'm thinking ahead to December 23, when we leave for Arizona via Oregon and California.

Maybe it's because we bought a wall-mounted TV this year and we can now have the gas fireplace turned on when we're watching. In previous years we watched an old TV on a rolling cart, which sat right in front of the gas fireplace. Thank goodness it finally fell off the cart and broke!

Maybe it's because we have new windows and the house is warmer, with no drafts.

Or maybe it's the medication I'm finally taking. In spite of its getting-up-to-speed side effects.

Whatever! So far, so good.

Windstorm thoughts

We knew the windstorm was coming. It's November in the Pacific Northwest, after all. The wind gusted and threatened and blew for six hours yesterday, accompanied by rain. My husband Art and grandson Kyle had agreed to put the garden to bed, and so they did - bundled up in raingear and boots. They both love machines, and they put the new rototiller and the old chipper to good use.

I was indoors most of the day. Here's my short list of reflections:

1. There is nothing like the colors of autumn. I experienced them last weekend especially, on the second annual gathering of the Blogging Vashonistas. The six of us met last year at Lavender Hill Farm on Vashon Island - six bloggers who wanted to meet each other in person after reading each other's blogs for a while. We've formed traditions already: DJan drives to my house on Friday and we carpool to the airport to meet Sally's plane and then drive to the ferry dock. We meet Jann, Deb and Sandi at the house. Sandi makes a fabulous dinner. We gather by the fireplace with our laptops and iPads and we talk. On Saturday we breakfast at the Hardware Store, stroll through the Farmer's Market and find a hike or two - still talking. We have another excellent dinner. On Sunday we enjoy another of Sandi's great meals. And we say goodbye "until next year".

2.  I love wind when it hails the arrival of a new weather front. We have two sets of Corinthian chimes,  one on our back deck and one just outside our bedroom window. When I hear their music, I know we're going to have weather.

3. I've struggled with seasonal affective disorder for over a decade, and I'm a worrier as well. Recently I decided to get some help with both issues. Fortunately, I have a compassionate doctor. He has been my doc for 25 years and he knows me well.  

I hate taking meds. I fought taking blood pressure medication for five years. I thought I'd just get more exercise and lose some weight. I did get more exercise but I didn't lose weight; apparently it wasn't important enough to give up my daily mocha or my evening ice cream. Making the decision to accept some help for my blood pressure was a good one. 

So I have decided also to accept help for my winter blues and my worrying. My doc has provided me with information and medication and his continuing encouragement. My sister is a nurse and she is very helpful and supportive. I'm strong and independent, but refusing to accept help is not very smart. As I move forward with this change, I'm hopeful.

4. There is nothing better on a windy afternoon than to read a good book with a cat asleep on your lap.

Iowa unexpected: Fairfield

We spent our last three days in Iowa as the guests of Stacey and Bill Hurlin, in the Abundance Ecovillage near Fairfield. The houses in the sustainable community are off the grid, providing their own wind and solar energy and composting.

I was especially interested in how air is circulated in the houses. Each dwelling has tubes buried eight to ten feet in the earth, where the temperature is about 56 degrees year round. A small fan draws air from outside into the tubes and then into the house, where the temperature is modified by a furnace or an air conditioner as needed. The air is completely replaced several times a day inside the house, so there are no stuffy rooms or stale air.

I hope you'll want to learn more about the ecovillage here.

Here's the kitchen of the Sweetwater Bunkhouse, Stacey and Bill's rental. We shared the space with Jim, who lives in Chicago but commutes to Fairfield for three days each week. Interesting conversations!

Fairfield is a town of about 10,000 in southeast Iowa. A major presence in the town is the Maharishi University of Management, formerly known as Maharishi International University. Transcendental meditation is an important part, and many residents of Fairfield practice it daily. Two domes on the campus were built specifically for group meditation.

Additionally, artists have come from around the world to live in Fairfield. Stacey estimated that 3,000 of the town's population have moved there from somewhere else.

Our conversations about GMO continued in Fairfield, where the people I spoke to were opposed to it. While there we went to see the current movie "GMO OMG". By the time we left town I felt more informed on both sides of the controversy.

Next week Washington residents will be voting on Initiative 522 which would require labeling of GMO foods. Lots of money has been spent by out-of-state companies to defeat the measure. I'm not a TV watcher so I have seen very few of the media ads. I know how I'll vote.  I got educated in Iowa!

Harvest time in Iowa: Riding in the combine

On Thursday I rode in the combine to harvest feed corn; on Saturday the crop was soybeans. Our B&B host, Doug Helm, farms 4000 acres with a crew of four or five. The fields are scattered all over the county. Some of the land is his; some is his dad's; some land he rents from others. I asked lots of questions. Doug taught high school for ten years before he decided to farm. He's patient and a good teacher.

Here's what I learned about the combine in these pictures. The following description may not be entirely accurate, so bear with me if you know farming. The head attached to the front is for harvesting corn. What looks like little missiles from the passenger seat of the cab fit between the rows of corn, drawing the stalks toward the combine. The stalks get separated from the ears and are discarded on the ground; the ears continue on into the combine. There's some kind of drum or wheel rotating very fast; the kernels of corn are spun off the cobs by centrifugal force. The cobs are ejected onto the field and the kernels go into a bin in the combine. The kernels eventually get transferred to a truck bed for hauling to the cooperative.

Doug harvested 12 acres of corn in about an hour. Inside the cab is a GPS, a computer monitor, and a radio. The cab is heated. There is power steering. It was like being in the cab of a large truck.

Here's some of what I learned:

1. In Iowa, the ground is excellent for corn and soybeans.  A lot of the crop goes to feed animals being raised for slaughter. 

2. I asked whether the seeds were GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) and Doug said yes. These seeds have been modified at the genetic level to be resistant to pests and Roundup, an herbicide. So crops can be sprayed midseason to kill all the weeds. Proponents of GMO say the genetic modification is just speeding up what nature would do over time. In nature, plant mutations which provided protection against pests would survive and their seeds would carry on that protection. I've since learned that herbicide-resistant plants and pesticide-resistant insects have evolved in the last 15 years. Not a long time for the effect of the GMO seeds to be neutralized. 

3. The manufacturer of the seeds is Monsanto. Seeds have to be reordered each year. Farmers cannot retain some of the seeds for planting the following year. There have been a couple of lawsuits where Monsanto won. I'm thinking the company says the modified seeds are intellectual property.

4. Doug said, "We have to feed the world. A lot of people will starve to death if we don't produce enough food." We also talked about food as a U.S. export. I didn't think much about CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) at that time. I know about them, but the subject didn't come up in my conversation with Doug. Still, even in the unfortunate conditions of CAFOs, those animals need to be fed.

5. The farmer uses Roundup as a pesticide for weeding between the plants. I told Doug my understanding was that Roundup contains Agent Orange, used as a defoliant during the Vietnam War and later recognized as a health hazard to those exposed to it. Doug said he didn't think Roundup contains Agent Orange. We looked it up on the computer in the cab and found out he was right. Monsanto used to manufacture Agent Orange and DDT but do not produce it any more. Roundup has another chemical, glyphosate, as its main component.

6. In Iowa the crops are not irrigated. Farmers rely upon the rain. This year had a rainy spring, so the planting was late. Once the planting was done, there was hardly any rain all summer. The harvest this year is also late. I rode on the combine on October 17 and October 19. The weather was cooling down - temperatures in the 50s. 

7. If it starts to rain during the harvesting of soybeans, work stops. Rain toughens the soybean stalks and makes them hard to cut. It had rained the day before we arrived in Iowa, so my first day on the combine was harvesting corn.

8. Prices for crops depend on demand and the amount of crop available. This, too, depends on the weather. A farmer's success might be luck; for example, the price of land when they start farming, the price of crops, whether they have family land or rent from family.   

9. A farmer is a businessman. He has to know how to make connections and market his crop. He has to be able to get along with people. There are a lot of dollar numbers involved, supply and demand, prices and weather, equipment and labor.

These next pictures are of the soybean harvesting. Note the tractor and trailer driving alongside the combine, which can keep moving as it unloads the soybeans. This is more efficient than returning to a location where the trailer is waiting. Both drivers have to be talking to each other and know what they are doing.

The head for harvesting soybeans is different from the one used for corn. Instead of little "missiles", the head has tines or teeth. They straighten the soybeans so the plant can be pulled into the combine.

A pheasant was running along in front of the combine, and we were catching up. The tractor driver dismounted from his vehicle and induced the bird to move out of danger. Doug always watches out for animals in the field.

We loved our four days in Montezuma. The hardest part was dinnertime. We were staying at the bed and breakfast, so we ate in the farmhouse every morning. We usually had lunch with the harvest crew. For dinners we were on our own. Montezuma is a small town with limited dining opportunities. We ended up three nights at the Monte Tap Room, a bar with a newly opened restaurant attached. We had burgers one night, catfish/shrimp on another, and split a rib eye dinner the last night. With a couple of sides, we were good. The servers remembered us each night - we were the only out of towners in the place - and wished us well as we left after our last meal there.  

Iowa: Search for the pioneer cemetery

A volunteer at the Tama County Genealogical Museum had sent me a typewritten list of people buried in the Butlerville Pioneer Cemetery, seven miles west of Tama. My great great grandmother Rebecca was not on the list. But the volunteer had also sent Rebecca's obituary, which indicated she had been buried there. So I wanted to visit the cemetery even if I couldn't find her grave.

The Butlerville Cemetery description included its location: about 3/4 mile north of Highway 30 on T17, "surrounded by the farmland of Burton Benson".  I knew it was near the village of Montour. From our B&B in Montezuma, we set the GPS for "shortest distance" to Montour and started the 30-mile drive north.

We got lost at mile 28. The paved road turned to gravel. We came to a Native American housing project and turned in. I asked a woman at the office for help. She directed me to Highway 30, "just past the casino on your left. You can't miss it."

We didn't miss the casino with its enormous, nearly empty parking lot. But we did turn the wrong direction on Highway 30 and drove three miles before realizing T17 was behind us and turning around. Once on that road we drove the 3/4 mile north as directed and found no cemetery. We turned into the driveway of an apple farm and asked for directions from a woman working amid apple crates. She said, "I think Burton Benson's farm is south of 30, not north." We thanked her and returned to Highway 30. Contrary to the map, T17 did not continue on the other side of the highway. We meandered on side roads, searching, and came upon a sign that said "Pioneer Cemetery". We followed five offshoot roads from there, winding up on a faint trail through high grass along a creek. After a mile the trail disappeared. I thought about how we have no cellphone service here -- apparently AT&T does not have an active presence in this area -- and we had no way to notify AAA where we were. Fortunately, Art is a courageous off-road driver, even in a rented vehicle, and he backed us out and returned us to the road. I tried not to think about possible scratches on the side of the vehicle from the bushes and shrubs we scraped by.

Finally I turned on my iPad Maps app and entered "Butlerville Cemetery". And there it was - three miles away, 3/4 mile south of Highway 30 off T17. We found it - another "Pioneer Cemetery" sign. Drove up Burton Benson's driveway, turned right just past the barn, and followed a road through harvested soybeans to the fenced cemetery at the top of the hill. The grass inside the cemetery hadn't been mown this year. It was chest high and full of burrs, which clung to my jeans and my fleece vest. We opened the gate to the cemetery.



Art walked ahead of me. That's him, between the trees.

I looked back at Burton Benson's farm.

It was about 55 degrees out, with a slight breeze. A really peaceful and pretty cemetery location.  As I stood there in the quiet, I heard my great great grandmother Rebecca's voice in my head. She said, "Hello, Dearie." I hadn't expected it, but I wasn't surprised. Two years ago, in the Gordon cemetery in western Nebraska, Art and I cleaned the tombstones of Rebecca's daughter and son-in-law, Mary Catherine and Samuel Wallace. As I worked, I heard my great grandfather Samuel's voice: "You're using the wrong tool for the job, Girl." I love it when that happens. See, I don't use the word "Dearie" and I don't use "Girl". So I'm figuring it was my great great grandmother Rebecca and my great grandfather Samuel greeting me.

We drove to the genealogical museum. I handed the sheet to the volunteer and said, "You might want to change the directions to the Butlerville Pioneer Cemetery. It's 3/4 miles south of Highway 30, not 3/4 miles north." She said, "Oh, that's right. They moved Highway 30 since these directions were written."!!

I said, "Rebecca's obituary says she was buried in the cemetery, but the sheet doesn't list her." The volunteer said,  "The names were gathered by someone walking through the cemetery years ago, looking at headstones and writing down the names.  If the grave had been marked with a wooden cross instead of a headstone, it would have decayed."

"Hello, Dearie."

Hello, Rebecca.