Who am I: Deep Thoughts

I'm trying to think of a term for myself that sounds right. I inhabit a little non-working farm with my husband.


He is the farmer. He plants the seeds. He weeds and hoes. He sprays organic stuff to get rid of bugs.


He is the farmhand (remember Eb on "Green Acres"?). He lugs the heavy stuff, does the grunt work.


He is the farmer's wife. Forgive me, but he is. He not only picks the berries, he comes in the house sweaty and dirty from picking, and he gets out all the canning equipment and makes jams and jellies, while I sit and read. Well, I help sometimes. But he has all the knowledge, all the drive.


I, who am I?


Sticking with the Green Acres connection (please click on the link for the theme song and opening sequence), I am Lisa. Now she's not the typical farmer's wife, which is why I can say Don is the farmer's wife and I am Lisa.


Unlike Lisa, I can actually bake a real cake (not put a box in the oven and watch it come out a cake). Unlike Lisa, I am not a city girl, and I don't wear evening gowns around the house.


But she is the closest I can come, so far, to discovering who I am.



And oh, see all this pumpkin glory? Yes, my husband's first pumpkin harvest. And yes, it was HE (shall we call him "Ollivah"?) who cut one up (not easy), baked it 1 1/2 hours at 350F, pureed the flesh in the food processor, strained the juice, made homemade pie crust (Carolyn Roehm's recipe; if you look at this link, she looks a little like Lisa), and made pumpkin pie. It's the best darn pumpkin pie I've tasted, so fresh and REAL, unlike canned pumpkin. And he used the recipe for pie that our old friend gave us, who died a couple of weeks ago after a beautiful long life. She used molasses, and that, my friends, is the secret to extraordinary pumpkin pie. You can see it makes the pie dark too.

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loving the oil

Isn't it handy I happen to have pictures of the Board of Water and Light from last year, hehe.

This guy, J. Peter Lark, the general manager of the Board of Water & Light in Lansing, wrote an editorial about how Michigan used to be an industrial giant, the supplier of WWII machinery (whoohoo!), Detroit was considered the “Arsenal of Democracy.” The good old ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s, eh? When the economy was fueled by wars and we were shooting for the moon and the stars.

He says we should sign on, like 24 other US states, and pledge to use wind power and landfill gases to generate electricity. Hey, this is the general manager of the Board of Water & Light talking! He says only 3 percent of the electricity sold in Michigan is from renewable resources. He wants to see that tripled in the next decade.

Mr. Lark is saying Michigan can be the “Arsenal of Green Energy” instead of the “Arsenal of Democracy.” I like that. Envision less dependency on foreign oil. Envision less dependency on foreign oil. Envision less dependency on foreign oil. Envision fewer reasons for you know what. Yep, "protecting our interests"/loving the oil. Oil and blood, both running, one out of, one into, the ground.

Our Michigan auto execs failed us. They decided to nix the electric car. So, we have to keep “protecting our interests” in oil. Remember what that means. (I still haven’t seen “Who Killed the Electric Car?” gotta see it.)

Don and I would buy a wind turban for the farm if we could afford it ($6,000-22,000). Maybe we’ll try to afford it in a few years. Depending on available wind, we could reduce and/or eliminate our need for electricity fueled by oil. And the process of converting methane gas from landfills around here for electricity, that doesn’t break my heart either.

But what I’m getting pretty excited about is a bio-diesel burning car. After my Chevy Aveo I’d like to get one of these. I would go around to restaurants and ask for their frying oil. Hey! Michigan being the state with the highest number of fat people, that means leftover French Fry oil is plentiful! Heather, does Chris know a lot about making biodiesel?


This site talks about biodiesel fuel processors you can buy, but it also says you can build your own if you’re handy. Hey, I’m married to a handy guy.

So here are some benefits of biodiesel according to this site:

* It can be made from almost any vegetable oil. Most restaurants will gladly give you their used oil for this, but it’s best if it hasn’t been used too many times. You can make a batch in a day (6 hours).

* It’s actually good for your car’s engine, naturally cleans it.

* Biodiesel is so pure you can drink it! “100 times more biodegradable than petro-diesel, is cleaner burning, does not contribute additional Co2 to the atmosphere when burned" (Don, science teacher explains: regular diesel is made from crude oil that contained trapped carbon for millions of years in the ground, so burning it brings new carbon into the atmosphere. But biodiesel is burning carbon that was already in our atmosphere, so plants have already recycled it and we're not putting additional carbon into the air), "less explosive and less dangerous in a spill or accident, and smells like a deep fryer when it burns instead of the nasty diesel smell.”

* You can make top quality biodiesel for $.50-.90 a gallon.

So, am I right that any diesel burning engine can take biodiesel? I read that you might have to change rubber fittings for Viton, since biodiesel erodes rubber.

I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe converting to these new technologies is that hard. It just takes WILL. JFK said he wanted a man on the moon in 10 years. It happened in 8. Could Al Gore (i.e., President Al Gore) do the same, different goal? Convert dependency to foreign oil to dependency on the available energy from the sun, wind and trash (including trashed oil)? OMG, can you imagine a 10 year goal like that?

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hands that harvested your food

"Strawberries are too delicate to be picked by machine. The perfectly ripe ones bruise even at too heavy a human touch. Every strawberry you have ever eaten has been picked by calloused human hands. Every piece of toast with jelly represents someone's knees, someone's aching backs and hips, someone with a bandanna on her wrist to wipe away the sweat."

—Alison Luterman, quoted in "After the Ecstasy, the Laundry," by Jack Kornfield

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work boots

We have two work days at our family cottage: one in the spring and one in the fall.

In the spring, there is tons to do. Wash all the bed linens (we have beds to sleep almost 30). Wash all the windows. Put the porch screens in. Wash all the walls, cupboards, floors, everything top to bottom. Put the dock out, the raft. Tidy up the yard. Sweep and hose down the house siding.

But in the fall, hehe, there is not much to do. And yesterday was a perfect autumn day to not do much.

We had time to color.



Enjoy the sun.

Crawl around.

Look at each others' faces.


Drink coffee. Cuddle.

Oh, and then we also did some work. Like take out the porch screens.

Wash porch windows.

Find where the windows go. This is the hardest part.

And put them up.

The babies kept themselves occupied.



While their mommies, daddies, grandmas and grandpas worked.

But often the babies also helped.

And then they had to take a break.

Because the loving is the most important part.

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Happy 25th Birthday, Lil Bo

October 14, 1982, Glendale, California. It was a rough trip coming out into the light, you were angry, you cried and cried. And then you slept and slept for hours upon hours. You still like to sleep.


You bonded with your daddy immediately.






Yes, that's your pipe there in the grass. Taking a break from a smoke.





We trusted your sister, just 17 1/2 months older than you, to carry you up the mountains and hold on tight, not let you fall.




She loved you so much. Still does.








And you loved her so much that when she started school in Istanbul, you just waited for her to come home.





But when you began school in the US, we thought it was important for you to feel that you fit in. So we dressed you appropriately.

More bonding with Big Bo.

Oh yeah, this was the best birthday party ever. McDonald's. Stack the Big Mac boxes.

Were you thinking parasailing in this one?

Well, you landed hard.

But it didn't hurt your ability to run fast.

And make us all sing and dance.

I love you so much, my boy. HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

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"I'm your vehicle baby"

. . . says my Chevy Aveo.

"I'll take you anywhere you wanna go

I'm your vehicle woman

By now I'm sure you know

That I love ya (love you)

Need ya (need you)

I want to, got to have you child

Great God in heaven, you know I love you"

-

And I say, I love you too, baby vehicle.

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Click on the post title to see all the words to the Ides of March song "Vehicle" written by Jim Peterik and also hear a short version of the song if you click on download MP3 at that page.

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