Crash landed in the tall grass

Today is the 30th anniversary of the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger, a sad date of remembrance but a lifetime ago for most of us. For me, it was a date that, more than any other, changed the course of my life and sent it into a completely different direction than it had been going in.

At the time of the Challenger disaster, I was an astrophysics student, going to classes and working at a local observatory and plugging my way through electromagnetism, physics, astronomy, and chemistry coursework.  My hope was to someday enter the space program, ideally as as astronaut candidate, less ideally (but still acceptably) in some behind-the-scenes research or technical capacity.

73 seconds into what was thought to be a very routine launch that morning, there was an explosion which brought those dreams crashing to the ground, just as surely as The Challenger itself crashed back to earth.

In the days and months that followed the explosion of Challenger, there was a lot of talk in the aerospace community (which I was on the edges of) about the future of space travel. There was no question it would be at least a couple of years before another launch happened -- maybe. It was also speculated the entire program might be scrapped. 

Friends I knew, who were already working on various science payloads scheduled to go up on future shuttle flights, had been laid off indefinitely. There was even talk that NASA would phase out manned spaceflight altogether as it was just too dangerous (both from a physical as well as a public relations perspective). And that they'd never again launch a non-military, civilian type astronaut into space, as it was just too risky if something went wrong. (This, on the idea that sworn military servicemen and women vow to give their lives, if required, in service to their country. Teachers, scientists, and journalists take no such vow.)

It's ironic that in the end none of those dire scenarios happened, but you know, talk is talk and these future predictions seemed rooted in reality at the time.

And so, anyway, in light of all those things, I did what any self-respecting third year astrophysics student would do, which was leave school, take a year off and backpack around Europe in order to give myself time to reassess my priorities and decide what to do next. It was actually less expensive than staying in school and graduating with no hope of employment would have been.

When I got back eight months later, I knew what I needed to do. I changed my major to journalism in the hopes of becoming a science writer. And 30 years later, I've been done science writing,  and in addition, been a science and writing school teacher. Ultimately it was my love for science that led me towards discovering a more healthful way of eating and living, which led me to be interested in our ecosystem and how we can live lightly within it, and led me to investigate new ways of doing that. Or, long story short, homesteading.

And it occurs to me that every glory and tragedy has the power to affect not just the principal players involved, but also has a ripple effect that changes outcomes for those on the edges of the event as well. Were the Challenger accident never to have happened, I can honestly tell you I don't think my life would be where it is now. And so today I not only remember the seven lives lost on that cold January morning, but also remember everyone, either in the space industry at the time or who were slated to go into it, who ended up in places they never would have thought possible then.

I landed in the tall grass in the years after Challenger -- literally -- and I hope for the same, in some way, for everyone who experiences a moment when everything changes and the compass suddenly swings in a whole different direction. 

This is a poem I wrote soon after the accident, which was published in "Under The Stars" magazine, a division of Jason Scientific, as I began my new career in writing:

Challenger

Once we had a bird, white

edged in black around her wings

and nose

who cut the breeze

gracefully, and without fanfare

Our bird

flew between the stars 

known as one of them

My friends and I thought the bird was ours

and would wait for her to fly over at night

in the company of those close,

comforting stars

and we would watch when, with a booming double-cry

she would gleefully return to us at dawn

the newspapermen took pictures

others waved flags

but we know, really, that she had returned for us alone.

Now,

a twisted treasury of morning flame

she rests, emptied of dreams

in waters heavy with

history and gravity

The newspapermen took pictures

others talked about it

but we knew we'd never see her fly

again, with nose pointed true towards

whatever most reachable and infinite

Tonight the breeze, undisturbed

flutters leaves aloft

stars rise rank and file behind them

alone, as we are

now separated from them by parsecs

which seem much greater tonight

unable to comfort

even the closest of them.

January spring

It's early spring here on the homestead. Around the central coast, we generally get a long spring and long summer, and late January is generally when we start seeing our first hints of spring. Fall and winter are both extremely brief, which people either love or hate, depending on their general temperament. I'm in between, loving the long spring but hating the long summers. And missing a good fall every year. Someday we will retire and do something about that, but for now, there is plenty here to love. And it seems appropriate to have a lot of green inside, too, to match what's outside.

Anyway, even though the first almond blossoms are starting to appear and the hills are turning emerald green, you don't dare plant anything yet, as frosts and even freezes are still probable.

If summer is the time to be inside in the air conditioning (while all you midwesterners and easterners are outside loving the sunshine and your garden) then late January and February is the time of year for us to be out and about outdoors. It's cool enough to work (65 degrees F this week as a high temperature), sunny enough to be pleasant, and a great time to get things done before the heat comes. Because it's coming. Of that there is no doubt.

Today I pondered what's going to go into my big raised stone flowerbed, other than irises and milkweed. Such endless possibilities! Building this wall was very easy. Now we just have to add the back and fill it up with good soil.

I added some beach pebbles to the metal agave plants and their colorful pots. Decided the gazing ball belonged with its similarly colored siblings, the pots. So now I have some color and interest where I needed some but did not want to add any more plants.

Found this Enrico Coveri scarf at Goodwill for $1.75. Score. Wore it to work last week at the winery and got tons of compliments on it.

We have salads galore and have been using a dressing of Mandarin Orange Oil and Fig White Balsamic to go on them from our local olive oil company, Olivas de Oro. So delicious and refreshing. I planted some more lettuce and spinach this week to keep the greens coming.

All in all, it's been a lovely January spring so far.

Another brick in the wall

Today we are working on the raised bed which will house my irises, milkweed and assorted annuals. This is going to be a focal point of color in the back yard, and we've therefore decided to build a raised bed for it all, using blocks. In the pic above (to the right), you can see the poor irises and some agapanthus struggling in the crappy soil that is our hilltop.

Big Ag is doing the first level, which involves the kind of precise leveling I do not have the willpower for ("it looks close enough" is pretty much the grand theme of my life), but after the first level of blocks is finished, I will be able to do the rest myself. 

I'm excited to get the irises out of the place I stuck them when I moved. It has very poor soil and is under constant threat from gophers as well, so getting them into a secure garden bed (there will be chicken wire under the planter) will bring a good feeling, and of course with spring coming planting some annual color will be fun.

Garden Art, for art's sake.

We've also invested in some pottery and I snagged two metal agave plants at the last auction, planning on using them in the yard. These are the kinds of finishing touches that are always the most fun to do, and I'm really looking forward to adding some interest to the landscape by the pottery elements and annual color.

I'm thinking of putting this big ball in the center of the raised bed. What do you think?

The voice in my head (our marker for the septic tank) said it wanted its own ball. Who am I to argue.

Balsamic Government

I could drink it!

Just typed, "how to make your own white balsamic vinegar" into that magic, invisible university known as Google and discovered there are some things that cannot be easily DIY'd...white balsamic vinegar being one of them. Unless, of course you have access to grapes from the Modena region of Italy, along with master-level winemaking skills.

While I do have the winemaking equipment and posses a novice-level skill at making it, I don't have the grapes or the time. And one out of three ain't good enough in this case.

Daunting to think, however (referencing my previous post) that in the wake of the Collapse of Everything we may have to do without our beloved white balsamic vinegar. How will we eat our post-apocalyptic homegrown watermelons and salads? That alone seems a good enough reason to keep our democracy and basic infrastructure going. So back off, Doomers.

Who would best support continued importing of white balsamic vinegar?

I do make my own laundry detergent, soap, cleaning products and a fair amount of "basics" kind of food, such as tomato paste. But other things are just not worth the time, equipment cost and skill level they take to produce on an individual basis, for one household.

So I probably can't make white balsamic...But I can start using my copious supply of eggs to make my own mayonnaise (very easy) and making ketchup from a jar or two from the store of canned tomatoes (also easy) I have put aside, so those will be projects in the weeks to come.

I'm always looking for ways to make things from scratch using basic ingredients, but the key to success is sometimes to know what do make yourself and what to buy.

And of course support the infrastructure that supports the products you can't live without. I'm willing to put up with a lot of political and governmental crap in order to keep my First World need for chocolate, white balsamic vinegar, bananas and the occasional bar of Halvah coming into the nation.

My vote goes to whomever supports that. And universal healthcare, of course.

A small helping of TEOTWAWKI*, anyone?

New lettuce and spinach are in the ground today here at the homestead, and with the warm El Ninó weather blowing in, it feels a little more like spring than winter around here. 

I spent the morning planting and pruning our roses, and after finishing that, was reading a blog I enjoy. It referenced another blog (one I wasn't familiar with) whose authors have stopped writing due to their belief that a cataclysmic meltdown of society is imminent. The author of the original blog I was reading stated she was also very nervous about things right now, which I took to mean an impending collapse of society, the enforcing of martial law, city types fleeing for rural areas, post-collapse danger, etc.

What some people wish for.

This was a person who, up until today, I considered reasonable -- a fun read on basic homesteading activities. Sometimes you have to wonder where people get these ideas, and what kind of world they live in that leads them to these sorts of conclusions. What could it be? 

I know in some cases it's religious fundamentalism and the belief that we are living in the End Times. The problem with that is, even in Jesus' time, people thought they were living in the End Times. So did folks in the 1800's. So did people during WWII (which I kind of get). 

Honestly,  I think it's a huge warning sign of living a too-small life. I wish I could snatch those doomsday people up for an afternoon and take them to a café on the palazzo in Verona, Italy for some pasta, wine and gelato. People in Europe have an advantage over us in that they can look around them and see 1,800 or more years' worth of evidence of human life in architecture, roads, and art. And  there, subliminally, is the message: life, does in fact go on. Even what seems like the end of the world tends not to be, when it's all said and done.

I also think people sometimes enjoy believing they are living in critical times because it makes them feel more important than being just a blip on the radar screen at the beginning of a very slow and somewhat inevitable decline most civilizations eventually go through. "Not with a bang but with a whimper" and all that, or so the saying goes. It gives their lives  a larger and more immediate purpose to believe they are present at the first shot of a great conflict that quickly destroys everything we are familiar with.

What I wish for.

And so I say, live a rural life, live a quiet life, but also live a balanced life. If you feel like America is headed for some kind of crash, then get outside America and see that despite terrorism, crime and religious extremism, most of the world is still going about their lives as usual, and short of a killer asteroid and combined nuclear strike, the world and indeed our nation will go on as usual, tomorrow, next year, and the day after you die.

TEOTWAWKI? More like COLAWKI (Continuance of Life As We Know It). Have some gelato and rest assured that the sun will probably still come up tomorrow, beginning a day that will probably not be all that different from yesterday or last week, especially if you're on a homestead.

* TEOTWAWKI stands for "the end of the world as we know it."

Last of the Wine

Last night I opened the last bottle of the Dandelion Wine I made back in 2011. Since moving here to wine country I have not made a single batch of wine, mainly because between my job at the winery and the fruits of Big Ag's labor (he grows wine grapes), we need more wine like we need a hole in the head.

But dandelion, carrot, pear and other "country" wine is substantially different from commercially-processed grape wine in a couple of ways. Home fermenting and aging is more imperfect, and therefore country wine tends to be sweeter, with less alcohol. It's probably more like the wine our ancestors would have had on their dinner table. And it's a completely different taste. Rather like a full-bodied brandy, but with much less alcohol and therefore lacking that familiar alcohol "bite" brandy has to it. It's probably closer to a Maneshewitz-type wine, which will either thrill or revolt you, depending on your taste buds and preferences.

There are advantages to a lower-alcohol wine, the most important being that you can have a couple of glasses with dinner and not be under the table. Since I also add the bare minimum of sulfites, it's also much less likely to give you a stuffy nose. And the full and slightly sweet flavor really does pair well with an lot of different foods.

And you haven't tasted heaven until you've had pears poached in actual pear wine, I'm tellin' ya.

And so I've decided that this year I'm getting back into the home wine-making business, even if it's just a dozen or so bottles. I should have a good enough pear crop to make wine from, possibly even ollalieberries (I made some raspberry wine several years ago that was amazing, so I'm thinking this will be similar) and the cream of the crop, carrot wine, which tastes like the most amazing pinot grigio you've ever had....but at the same time, doesn't.

In vino, veritas is an old saying. In wine, life, whether it's cabernet or carrot. 

End of the Dandelion Wine. *sniffle*

The salvation of country life

I recently re-activated my subscription to Ancestry.com and have once again been spending time with those who came before me. This time around I'm focusing on my U.K. ancestors, since I am a first generation American on that side and have a lot of family over there, past and present.

I came across a heartbreaking story of my third maternal great-grandmother, a lady named Elizabeth Aylward. Her whole branch of the family originally lived their lives in the rural hamlet of Suffolk, England, as well as Essex County. (I've actually been to Suffolk a few times and it's beautiful.) But when the Industrial Revolution began to gain traction, like thousands of others, Elizabeth made her way to London to live in the city and find work.

Over the years, through census documents, I saw her working as a boot-mender, a silk weaver, and as she grew older and presumably less dexterous, a laundress.

Her life went on in what must have been a dreary and difficult way, earning barely enough to survive and, along with her husband, supporting a family. But it was what happened after her children were gone and her husband died that really got me. 

Elizabeth's "Poor Law" removal and resettlement document.

1881 Census for her section of Bethnel Green Work House. The age of most women there was between 50 - 70.

Elizabeth Aylward ended up at age 70 in one of London's most notorious workhouses -- Bethnal Green -- where she lived out her days doing menial labor until she died.

As I read the sad story of her life, I couldn't help wondering if she ever regretted leaving the clean air and green fields of Suffolk. I can't help but feel that somehow, if she could just have stayed in the country, her life would have been far different. There would have been a community to care for her in her old age (no workhouses were needed in the farm communities, it was a city phenomenon) and life might not have been such a struggle.

But I could be wrong. It could be that she left Suffolk for London partly because she needed to find work that would support her.  In the end I will never know, of course, what choices could have changed her life. But I know when I lived in Los Angeles, I was very familiar with the sensation of how it felt to spend everything you have on rent to a point where you're broke at the end of each and every month with no emergency fund and no savings. And while there are no more work houses, there is certainly economic uncertainty for people who live their lives in cities and spend all of what they earn, month after month, year after year. The cities of the world are, in some spots, glamorous and cosmopolitan, but they extract a high price from those who want to live in them.

For me, my salvation came not from a journey into the city, but a journey out of it. And somehow, I feel that if Elizabeth could just have found her way back to the small town she started in, her life might have ended in a rocking chair by a window under a thatched roof somewhere instead of a brick factory work house, being fed crumbs and living in filth while working until the day she finally dropped dead. 

Elizabeth's greatest challenge, in my opinion, was something that was not her fault at all -- she was born into the era that valued the man-made and technological, the brick and the concrete, over a simple country life, considered by most to be antique and passé in the face of the Machine Era.  And it led her away from that country life to a hardscrabble existence in East London, where at the end of that life she had nothing to show for it -- no savings, no home, and no close-knit community to depend on.

I don't know where the soul of Elizabeth Aylward resides today but I only hope that there are a lot of green trees, fragrant flowers, soft breezes and most importantly, eternal and blissful rest. 

God knows she earned it.