Archive for June, 2009

A rough draft of the raised bed and drip watering layout I made last winter.

Over the weekend, I took a financial planning course that emphasized setting goals for yourself as a way of getting where you want to be.  Interestingly, this morning as I was cleaning off my desk, I found a plan I had drawn up for what I wanted to do with the garden. I found it remarkable when I looked at it and saw that I had donw almost exactly what I had planned back in January. Meanwhile, the rest of the garden, which I had not planned what to do with, remained pretty much what it had been before.

This made me reflect: how much of gardening success is planning? The answer is a great deal. The idea I have always had, that you can just add plants as you go, is actually a very bad one, if you look at how it’s gone over the years. Think about the great gardens of the world or your neighborhood, and you’ll come to the conclusion that none of them just grew spontaneously on a whim. All of them were planned.

Cilantro, basil, and in the back tomatoes have grown a great deal from their seedling days back in February.

Part of the reason is that garden infrastructure — paths, fences, raised beds, trellises, and fountains — have to be in place before you grow the actual plants. But part of it is horticultural as well. The truth is, if you really think through what’s likely to work, and only put effort into that which you’ve carefully considered, you’re saving time. A lot of time. As one who only started doing this recently, I’m telling you from experience.

Although spring gardening is over, it is getting close to time now to plan the fall garden. If my experience this spring is worth anything (and it is) it’s more than time to think about fall. I looked around for suggestions on how to plan a fall garden, and after reading about a dozen, I chose these:

Fall Gardening article from Mississippi State University

Plan a Fall and Winter Garden from eHow

Planning for a Great Fall Garden from About.com

To see those large tomatoes in the image above when they were just beginning their growth, click here.

The question of how much children need fathers has been bandied about quite a bit during the years of my lifetime. Much of this has been promulgated by feminists who want to suggest that they can do everything themselves, thank you, and don’t “need” a man. Resentment against overbearing fathers turned into the 60′s and the claim that “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” seemed to trickle down to “a child just needs a caring family of some configuration, not specifically a dad.”

There was a time when I would have asked what we needed fathers for as well. All around me were households headed by women, including at one point when I was the head of my own all-girl family (me, a four year old, and a two year old).  I was preparing for a career in teaching, and trying to be brave. We didn’t need a man around here.  But then my husband showed up, filled the vacant position of dad of the family and changed everything.

Now I’ve always been worried about whether you can trust men. My father gave up on raising me when I was 16, though he’d tell you I was too rebellious to handle, and fair enough, and my first husband had moved out, so I was a little bit cynical about fatherhood when I met Dean. I used to see young couples holding hands and get irritated.

But the natural order has a way of falling into place, and in truth Dean showed up, volunteered for the job, and took over the position of dad with total willingness, something which you don’t see very much in a modern guy — he helped with the two girls, carrying them on his shoulders and teaching them prayers — and soon we were expecting our own child.

When our son was born, all was not well, and he went straight to intensive care, a horrible shock for me who had major medical phobias — my son was on a ventilator! Three days later, Dean and I went to church by ourselves, and as I stood in the pew crying, he told “stop that crying, or everyone will think our baby died.”

It was a shot of reality on several levels. Perhaps I did feel sorry for myself, did think I should have too perfect a life. And how could I complain, really? Our son would get better. I needed a father to remind me of that.

Pain is that crucible in which awareness often begins, and as time went on I was to reflect more than once that it was a good thing our household was headed by a father. I need only observe my now-teenaged son back down from some of his more florid displays of strength and energy when his father comes in the room. I can’t call him to task anymore, but still he respects his father’s wishes.

Yesterday my daughter had her first communion my husband and I were there together in church again, and I do think I caught a jealous eye from a pew where only women were sitting  – as if they wanted to ask me, how did you keep the father in the picture?

I don’t know the answer. Certainly it has not been smooth sailing the whole voyage. But I do think that refusing to give up and quit was the primary reason we are able to continue. Certainly Dean stayed at times when I think some would have taken off. Perhaps he stayed because his own father disappeared before he was born, and so you can’t lie to him, he knows that fathers matter.

While teaching recently, a 2nd grade boy told me sorrowfully, “I don’t have a dad.”

“You do have a dad, everyone has a dad,” I said. “you may not know where he is, but he’s out there.”

“Well I don’t know where he is.”

“Then when you grow up, do it differently.”

I imagined the angry mother of this boy at home, telling him “you don’t have a father,” and hating the man who left. But I also know that the little boy needs to know that yes, he has a dad. Somewhere. The closer the better, really. On father’s day, our goal could be to take one step closer to the man who is our dad, with a visit, a phone call, a gift, or if there’s no other way, a prayer. Don’t believe the lies: fathers do matter.

And one last thought, for those dads who disappeared: I know part of why they did it. In many cases, it’s not because they were cruel and heartless and didn’t care about their children. It’s because they were not strong enough at the moment of crisis to continue on a difficult path. It is hard to be a father. The responsibilities can seem huge and the return intangible and distant. So what can the rest of us do to help with the situation? Support and strengthen and encourage fathers at all times. Today, Father’s Day, would be a good time to start.

Stepfather displays the gourmet hamburger we'd all been waiting for.

Last weekend, we were invited to my mother’s house for hamburgers cooked by my stepfather, David. Now an invitation to go over there for dinner is not to be taken lightly, particularly when the barbecue is out.

Some in this family love to eat lamb and steaks cooked on a grill, but I personally prefer something simple — hamburgers and hotdogs. Perhaps I ate too many of these when I was a kid, and now it’s too late to aclimate myself to more rich fare, but the fact is of meat dishes, the hamburger is probably my favorite.

As the burgers were brought to the table, each in a bakery-produced bun and each covered with a slice of melting cheddar, everyone commented in anticipation.

“Now these aren’t just any hamburgers,” my mother said. “These are the $20 hamburgers. They have everything in them. He got the recipe off the web.”

The hamburgers were fragrant with herbs and spices, crisp on the outside, tender inside, with a zinging hotsauce afterbite. Really, they were the best hamburgers I’d had for a while, and I rushed home to find the so-called “$20 hamburgers” on the web.

When I typed in “$20 hamburgers” instead of a recipe I was referred to a promotion by the Michigan Whitecaps minor league baseball team, who were offering a 1.666 lb 6 slice of cheese monster burger with a bottom  layer of chili for $20 as a promotion. This was not the answer. It was the kind of excess you’d expect from people who like to sit around in stands drinking beer. But finally I was able to find the recipe by asking for which specific website it came from, which was AllRecipes.com. So, here’s the link to the $20 hamburger.

It is billed at “A hamburger so good you’d pay $20 for it.” Were the ones we ate worth $20? Possibly. At the very least I, the cheapest of the cheap, would be willing to shell out $20 for the ingredients to make 6 of them.

On the other hand, I’d have no interest eating one of those monsters the Michigan Whitecaps were selling. Or paying $20 for any food available inside a stadium.

Special tips on cooking these burgers? David said that he wasn’t too careful about the ingredient amounts, you can modify them to your liking. You could even add or subtract something from the list if you wanted. I think he also said he added horseradish. One good thing about hamburgers is the infinite potential variety.

Dinner, from my standpoint, just don’t get much better than this. Especially when it’s cooked by someone else.

Yahoo News caught my eye this morning with a link to Kiplinger’s “Ten Quirky Economic Indicators” showing the effects of the economic downturn, which said, among other things, that alligator farmers in Louisiana are going bust because no one is buying alligator skin purses. Meanwhile gardening has become far more popular, as people try to grow their own food as a hedge against inflation, and mosquito populations in Arizona are out of control, living in the swimming pools of foreclosed homes.

I had to ask myself: are any of these phenomena hitting this house?

Well — gardening is way up here, because we took time to prepare and plant we now have huge tomatoes, boudacious basil, and blooming squash plants.

I have not bought an alligator bag in years … in fact, the last non-cowhide purse I bought was eelskin, back in in the 80′s … since that time, eelskin has gone “out” and eels have breathed a sigh of relief … but I haven’t bought any other new bags or shoes, except for work, in 6 months.

I said this before, but the quality of stuff you can get at garage sales is down and the price is up. People are wearing their old furniture and clothes out instead of selling them and buying new ones. I can’t really blame them, but since 15 or so years ago, when you could basically go out on Saturday morning and get brand new things for free, the garage sale situation has really gone down. To tell you the truth I no longer like to go, to me it’s depressing.

The biggest economic concern around here, however, is the possible lack of teaching jobs … it seems people aren’t retiring, or quitting, as much as in most years and so there aren’t as many jobs opening up as in past years, and my colleagues in our certification program can be discribed as somewhere between concerned and panicky, including me. Of course, looking for a job is always a difficult and unsettling experience, I tell myself. And you only need one, you don’t need to set the world on fire. But still …

The most important economic indicator this week was my mother. I had a slew of repairs done in the last 2 weeks — over $1000 of unbudgeted money — and I was telling my mother I felt insecure about funds.

“Over 5 million people are out of work,” she said, “and another 5 million are working part time out of 85 million. That’s a huge level of underemployement. Things are bad.”

My mother usually thinks things are bad, economically. It was the quickness of recall and the finality of her statistics that got me this time. She was more serious than ever. The bad things she’s talked about for years are now, apparently, even worse.

Somehow this news made me feel better. For some reason, when economic troubles hit the house, I feel all alone. I think everyone else is enjoying a fiesta of spending and I alone am suffering. As they say, misery loves company. And if I’m not alone, maybe I can do this tough economy thing  – maybe we can all do it. We may not think so, but actually, we already are, and have been, and will be. It’s the human condition.

Guess I’ll go out and hoe those vegetables.

A number of FWISD schools have achieved recognition from the Texas Education Agency:

Exemplary (90% or above passed the TAKS statewide standardized test)

• Alice Carlson Applied Learning Center
• Benbrook Elementary
• Burton Hill Elementary
• Diamond Hill Elementary
• Charles Nash Elementary
• North Hi Mount Elementary
• Ridglea Hills Elementary
• Tanglewood Elementary
• Waverly Park Elementary
• Riverside Applied Learning Center
• Westpark Elementary
• Clifford Davis Elementary

Recognized (75% or above passed the TAKS statewide test)

• Applied Learning Academy
• Como Montessori School
• Rosemont 6^th Grade
• McLean 6^th Grade
• Carroll Peak Elementary
• Manuel Jara Elementary
• George C. Clarke Elementary
• Lily B. Clayton Elementary
• E.M. Daggett Elementary
• Rufino Mendoza Sr. Elementary
• De Zavala Elementary
• S.S. Dillow Elementary
• East Handley Elemenary
• Christene C. Moss Elementary
• Glen Park Elementary
• W.M. Green Elementary
• Greenbriar Elementary
• Van Zandt-Guinn Elementary
• Hubbard Elementary
• H.V. Helbing Elementary
• Milton L. Kirkpatrick Elementary
• D. McRae Elementary
• Oakhurst Elementary
• Oaklawn Elementary
• Mary Louise Phillips Elementary
• Luella Merrett Elementary
• Maudrie M. Walton Elementary
• Sagamore Hill Elementary
• Richard J. Wilson Elementary
• South Hi Mount Elementary
• South Hills Elementary
• Springdale Elementary
• W. J. Turner Elementary
• Worth Heights Elementary
• David K. Sellars Elementary
• J.T. Stevens Elementary
• Daggett Montessori School
• Bill Elliott Elementary
• Woodway Elementary
• I.M. Terrell Elementary
• Alice D. Contreras Elementary
• Seminary Hills Park Elementary
• Dolores Huerta Elementary

Most of the rest of the district are rated “acceptable” with 65% or more passing the test.

There is a seemingly infinite number of forms on my table. I took them off my desk because I couldn’t find the new computer, and kids who were trying to test out the new computer’s exciting music creation capabilities (silly kids, machines don’t create music, only people create music) were going to dump important papers over the side along with a bunch of junk.

I am sorry to tell you this but some of the papers are lost. Some need to be copied. Some should have gone out last week. Some have to do with debts. Others demand information that I may or may not be able to lay hands on.

I made some progress on paperwork this year. First, I decreed that any piece of paper I knew was going into the garbage goes now.

Second I made my purse into my “mobile office” that means the health insurance cards, cell phone and money are always kept in one place. Now if I could just find my purse.

I throw away the envelopes.

I make lists of phone calls and make them all at once.

This makes filling in forms much easier. But not completely easy. There’s still the aggrevation factor. Let’s face it: I just don’t want to fill in any forms! But if I don’t, the following bad consquences could happen:

1. Health insurance claims denied.

2. Kids won’t be able to go to camp.

3. Electricity, water or other critical home system shut off.

4. Checks bounce due to bad bookkeeping, have to pay extra charges.

5. Get to end of month, no  money, panic because I didn’t see it coming.

The worst part of all this household record keeping is: no one around here sympathizes with me. While I handle all the records — and I mean all of them — my husband gets away with jobs he enjoys such as cooking and easy stuff such as driving kids to events.

Is this fair?

I think I’ve arrived at that moment when older women tell younger women to “empower themselves.” But since I came out of a household of “empowered women” I don’t think that’s the answer either.

Besides, the truth is, no one else can handle this paperwork. I am the master. If I let them do it, they will mess it up. We can’t have that. Exegesis? I am stuck with these papers. I might as well enjoy it or at least take satisfaction. Because, as Gilda Radner said, it’s always something, isn’t it?

Arts and Leisure:

Amon Carter Blog has noted an Italian study that says yes, looking at beautiful things does make you feel better.

Trey at the Balcom Ad Agency blog points out that in terms of fashion sense, Crocs are the new fanny packs and Emily says that like me, she likes to get in the car and drive with a friend.

Culture and Food:

Kevin Buchanan gives us a new Fortworthology feature, Excellent Near Southside Story in new Weekly by Dan McGraw, pinging on the story in the Fort Worth weekly of the same name.

Local chef Tim Love of Lonesome Dove restaurant appeared on Top Chef Masters, according to Fort Worth Hole in the Wall, but did not win. But, the blogger says, we will still appreciate you and your work.

Our Veggie Oil Road Trip Blog (which apparently is written by a married couple driving across the U.S. in a 95′ Suburban conversition that runs on used vegetable oil from restaurant kitchens) stopped by for egg rolls and oil at Vin Bihn in Haltom City … they also reviewed Fort Worth’s famous vegan eatery, the Spiral Diner.

Eleiva has blogged on the one-time shellfish peasant food Paella and reflects on how this once-inexpensive dish became a luxury, with links to relevant blogs on the topic.

Rob at How to Make Coffee reviews Starbuck’s Komodo Dragon blend –even more powerful than their usual semi-burnt coffee, apparently (all right, the semi-burnt discription is mine, not Rob’s) –and he also has a recipe for using coffee to fight cellulite.

Dallas Voices:

Bike Friendly Oak Cliff interviews Fort Worth City Planner Dan Koski on Fort Worth’s new bike transit plans. Lewp’s Weblog wrote up the events at the Fort Worth Herd’s ten year celebration last weekend.

Economy:

Desperate home sellers are offering coupons – for as much as $1 million off — on local real estate. This comes from Austin at Fort Worth Real Estate blog.

Politics, etc:

Texas Vox has a story on Fort Worth-based citizen opposition to building two new nuclear reactors at Comanche Peak … In the blogs vs. print media debate, The Whited Supulcher points out how slow conventional media was to pick up the story of unrest in Iran.

Dallas Photoworks has done some more of his signature creative photography, this time visiting the Dallas arboretum.

Education:

In the Extra Credit Blog, Arlington public schools get good news on their TAKS results, upping the number of schools rated “exemplary” and “recognized.”

Social Media:

Richie Escovedo writes about how to twitter for school districts and by extension other public organizations.

The Rocky Mountain toad has a wide range which includes mountain and plains states almost from the northern to the southern borders of the U.S.

Over the weekend, at that party on Saturday night outside Krum, we had the opportunity to meet some people and some creatures that were living on the land. My husband’s dissertation director lives in a nice doublewide mobilehome full of valuable antiques out on the Texas prairie. And all around her, the creatures of the land are crowding in. Thus it was that the kids found a Rocky Mountain Toad crawling up to the metal skirting beside the house, and caught it. They brought it to me in a bucket.

The younger children were up in arms: “Let me hold it! Mom, he (oldest son) won’t let me hold it!”

“Of course I won’t let her hold it, she’s gonna drop it! We just want to show it to you, then we’re letting it go.”

“He held it, and he dropped it too! It’s my turn … ”

I supervised the younger kids holding the toad, very carefully, and then it was released. We washed our hands.  And I went home and, owing to the toad’s large pale dorsal marking, was able to determine that it was a Bufo Woodhousei woodhousei, or, as I said, a Rocky Mountain Toad.

Description: A large, round-bodied toad with cranial crests (ridges on its head) and large spots. The belly is white or yellowish.

Size: From 2.15 to 4 inches in length, and almost as broad as it is long.

Range: The range goes from Montana and North Dakoka down the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains, takes in Arizona and Utah on the other sid of the Rockies, covers most of Texas and all of New Mexico.

Diet: Insects.

Habitat: They frequent many different habitats, but seem to prefer sandy soil and are more active after a rain or in humid weather.  Oftentimes they can be found foraging in early evening under a streetlight, where insects are more prevalent.

Population status: Little attention seems to have been paid to the conservation status of this creature, and I suppose since I’ve seen two this spring, they have to be fairly abundant. But it does seem there has been a reduction in range between the time my book, “A field guide to reptiles and amphibians” was published in 1958, and the current-day range map I found online.

Sound of its Calls: From California Herps, this is a group of Rocky Mountain Toads near an irrigation ditch in Riverside County, east of greater Los Angeles.

Photo credit: traveling.lunas photography from flickr creative commons

As we drove out to someone’s country house for a party yesterday afternoon, I was struck, as I always am, but the incongruousness of a  spanking new group of huge houses, which look like they were rocket lifted directly  from the suburbs, standing apart from eachother, each in their own mown field. What causes people to build these capitally unsustainable structures? Doesn’t it occur to them that there is no reason for there to be a huge house out in a cornfield somewhere outside Sanger or Krum? What is actually going on in their minds?

For years, I have wanted to write these people an open letter. And here it is, at last.

Dear Suburbanite who has for some strange reason built a McMansion in the Country:

Why are you doing this to the countryside? Don’t you realize that your house is as attractive in the pastoral scenery here as a McDonald’s paper hamburger wrapper in a gutter? What do you think we think of you as we drive by and see that you’ve got a small holding (that’s when we call a country plot like yours of 5-20 acres) with no outbuildings? Do you realize that people are shaking their heads, wondering what you are doing out here? Do you realize that you’ve got acreage and no stock, which is the only reason for having a smallholding?  Do you realize this is a waste of good land?

And another thing. That ostentatious house you’ve got, you should have kept it in town. Where is all the energy to run that behemoth being piped from? Houses in the country are supposed to be sustainable. That’s why they look the way they always have, smaller, closer to the ground, sitting in a grove of trees for protection from the elements, with a stack of wood beside them to burn to heat the place in the winter — your house is out of touch with the geography on which it sits.  Also, very few people drive by it out here, so who’s going to be impressed by those faux Grecian columns? A huge number of those who do drive by, they’re like me, people who expect country homes to be sustainable, not a 25-year wonder like you’re living in.

Yes, I called your house a 25 year wonder. That’s because in 25 years, since it’s made with modern, low-durability construction, it will be in need of an expensive upgrade, but with (probably) increasing gas prices, and (probably) growing intollerance of long commutes, no one is going to want to pay the time or the money to drive out here to live in this McMansion, let alone repair it. Plus the energy it takes to run a big house is becoming more and more expensive, so the McMansion could very well be “upside down” by then, and/or unsaleable. That means it could turn into the proverbial albatross around your neck. Is that what you wanted?

I know the upper middle class needs places to live too, but what’s wrong with our old respectable places like Bluebonnet Hills and Monticello?

I know, you wanted a really BIG house. That’s no excuse, however, for putting scars on the land.

I guess there’s nothing you can do now. You’ve already signed your mortage. I suppose I should be addressing this letter to “People who are considering buying a McMansion in the country.”  But would they listen? Or the builders, would they? County zoning boards? Is anyone listening?

So, after a week full of paperwork and two night classes of summer teacher training, this is the first full day of summer school, and I don’t want to go. I’m not up for it. I’m exhausted from the last week of teaching elementary school, the grading, the graduation concert, learning the grading software, and then taking responsibility for my own kids 24/7 and now I have to go to class from 9 to 4 this afternoon and it doesn’t seem bearable. Plus I forgot to order the text books, so I only have one of them, and not the “important” one, which is humiliating.

There’s nothing wrong with the classes, mind you. Actually they’re quite interesting and I probably need to learn these things, about classroom management and making lesson plans, to use on interviews soon. But my level of exhaustion is very great.

I barely succeeded in dragging myslf to the class on Thursday night and then they said today’s class was not a half day but all day and I almost fell over in despair. The next day I went and told my mother:

“I feel like I can’t do it.”

She gave me that old teacher look, that she probably used on kids of her own classrooms before she retired. “Think of the positive results of going.”  She’s talking about having a real job and all the comforts of employment, things like being able to pay your bills and not worrying about if someone has to take a trip to the emergency room.

Okay, I can do something for 12 hours that would appall me if I had to keep it up for a lifetime.  Just because I’m exhausted doesn’t mean I can’t “wing it” one more time.  And again, and again. We all have our problems, don’t we? And it seems to me these days, that we wish they were dramatic, like the ones in movies, so we could get some interest and sympathy. Then they’d be like those of Indiana Jones: a giant ball of cement is rolling down to crush you. But actually, the real problems of life are much more pedestrian.

Not that I don’t feel like a giant ball of cement is rolling down a ramp toward me. I do. But I also know that my chances of getting past this crisis are almost as good as Indy’s chance of getting out of that tomb. And that gives me the strength to continue.  As Woody Allen said, 95% of life is just showing up.