Planting's done

This year we got some free dirt from the same place people drop off their yard waste, and we tripled the size of our garden. We also bought more pots for the patio plus weeded out an old flower bed for even more vegetable space. Then we got seeds from a variety of places ranging from heirloom varieties through Decorah’s Seed Saver Exchange to ready-to-plant vegetables from a variety of sales. Here’s what we have planted in the ground (or greenhouse) as of today. Numbers represent plants; lack of number indicates planted from seed and still needing to be thinned out.

Peas (Mammoth Melting)
Spinach
Peppers (Lady Bell) (4)
Peppers (Hungarian) (2)
Swiss Chard
Cauliflower (4)
Early Snowball Cauliflower
Cantaloupe (Amish)
Celery (4)
Premium Crop Broccoli (4)
Butternut Squash (1)
Green Cabbage (1)
Heartland Tomato (1)
Roma Tomatoes (4)
Brussel Sprouts (3)
Pink Tomatoes (2)
Mary Washington Asparagus (24)
Matt’s Wild Cherry Tomato (1)
Moskvich Heirloom Tomato (1)
June bearing Strawberries (9)
Acorn Squash (4)
Radishes
Tomatilloes
Cilantro (1)
Salad (Mesclun Mix)
Rhubarb (2)
Blue & White Potatoes (4)
And an Olive Tree

What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

This is a chance to rethink your life and re-vision what you want the rest of it to look like.

Maybe you've seen the movie Bucket List. Don't worry if you haven't--it's not that good. But the point of it was worth talking about: what do you want to accomplish in this short life of yours? Or in the words of the poet Mary Oliver, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

This week I was reminded again of making a "bucket list" by an article in Esquire. Sure, the list had a lot of crazy things on it and some that didn't interest me in the least, but it got me thinking about my own again. For starters, I don't want some random number of things to do, like 50 or 75. My list needs to have 104 things because that is how long I intend to live. (It's a long story) Also, since it is such a long list I decided it's ok to pad the first 37---that's how old I am--with things I've already done. Besides helping me reach 104, it's also serving to remind me of what I've already seen and accomplished.

However you choose to make your list, just make it. You don't have to show anyone. You may choose to show everyone. It may be 8 items or 80. The point is: do it. Make the list. Remind yourself why you get up and continue to get up each day. It may just be fun, and it may just show you a thing or two about yourself.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, here are my first 37.

Matt

1. Be the "best man" (twice)
2. Have child named after me (twice)
3. Jet ski on the Gulf of Mexico
4. Camp outside in the winter (-80 windchill)
5. Write and publish a book (Butterfly Teardrops)
6. Be a radio DJ (KFSI 1990-1995)
7. Own a Jeep Wrangler and drive it top down, doors off (twice)
8. Kill, dress, and eat a deer
9. Visit Jim Morrison's grave
10. Drink and be drunk on Bourbon Street in New Orleans
11. Open and close a butterfly knife the correct way
12. Snorkel on a coral reef
13. Be a carnival worker (for a week)
14. Graduate from a 4-year college (B.S. 1996)
15. Own and drive a motorcycle (1990-1995)
16. Teach my little sister how to drive a stick shift car (1991)
17. Dance with my grandmother at my wedding (1992)
18. See the Northern Lights dance across the sky
19. Live on an Indian Reservation
20. Backpack across Italy for two weeks
21. Visit the Louvre
22. Visit the Van Gogh Museum
23. Visit the Anne Frank house (secret annex)
24. Take college class with my mother
25. Buy a house
26. Mow lawn with my grandfather using reel mowers
27. Build pinewood derby car with father and win all-city
28. See Niagara Falls in summer
29. Visit MLK's birthplace and church
30. Attend centennial Olympic Games
31. Run a 5k and not come in last
32. Meet founder of world famous Wall Drug
33. Tour the White House (twice)
34. Train with military and police and pass firearms qualification test
35. Sleep under the stars without tent and listen to coyotes howl in the Whitewater valley
36. Have article and photos published in The Onion
37. Hear Santana play live

Now is the time for change

My first teaching job was on the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe Reservation. When I arrived in late August they told me that the high school was brand new. Almost as quickly they reported that they had built one earlier in the year but that because of improper construction, it had fallen down almost immediately. Thankfully no one was hurt.

More recently the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis collapsed. This time the human toll wasn't so fortunate. 13 died, 145 were injured. People grieved, turned angry, turned to the courts. And rightfully so. It was known as early as 1990 that the bridge was structurally deficient. So are 75,000 other bridges.

You get what you pay for.

It seemed quite obvious in the time immediately after the bridge disaster that more attention--and money--is needed to build our nation's infrastructure. For some it seemed to strengthen their resolve that we should invest in building at home, not destruction abroad. And it took 13 lives wasted to make the point.

For less than $10 you can stuff yourself at a buffet within five minutes of my house. You can go by yourself, go back for "seconds" as many times as you like, and most likely no one will even look at you twice. Or for $10 you can have a slice of vegetarian lasagna and small salad at the local co-op.

You get what you pay for.

What exactly do we get for the cheap food in this country? Well, we now have about the same amount of people dying from food and non-activity related illnesses as we do from smoking (about 400,000 per year). We get diabetes and obesity. We get farm animals raised in such a manner that if your neighbor treated his dog like that you would call the police. We get a ton of chemicals added to our soils and waters. We get what we pay for.

The election may be over (well, not counting the Minnesota senate), but now is the time to vote for real: with our money.

"But I can't afford to eat organic."

"It costs too much to eat meat that isn't treated cruelly."

"Does it really make any difference?"

Now is the time to stop the excuses. Now is the time to do what you know is right. Stop whining and just get on with it. You get what you pay for, and if you continue to support cheap, fast, non-nutritious, non-sustainable, non-ethical food, your body and our environment will pay.

Thou Shall Not Covet

We were all driving 60 mph, speeding down that stretch of I-94 between St. Paul and Minneapolis. Then we saw it, up ahead on the right: two disabled cars were off on the side of the road, their occupants on cell phones calling in the crash to insurance companies, family members, etc. This is when I noticed one of them, a young woman, pretty, really pretty. My relationship of four plus years had about run its course and seeing this beauty was good medicine for the....

Oh my God! They're stopped! Brake lights! Hit the brakes--I can't stop in time....

BAM.

When my eyes opened up I found that I had been rear-ended so hard that the seat in my huge 1996 Plymouth Grand Voyager had snapped backwards. My van was now stopped in the middle of the freeway. I had avoided hitting the car in front of me (its driver had seen me coming and had swerved to the right) but the old Ford Tempo behind me couldn't stop in time. I looked behind me and saw the car that had hit me was also stalled, smashed up to its front wheels.

I assessed my condition. There was pain, but no paralysis, no bleeding, no signs of injury. I drove to the side of the road and I too got on my cell phone to make the appropriate calls.

Last week I finished a class called Total Dynamic Living. In our last week we had an all-day retreat devoted to mediation, yoga, mindfulness, and walking meditation. During our period of walking meditation I strolled through one of Minneapolis' most beautiful neighborhoods. Picture homes that cost $2-10 million dollars, arranged on a hill near the most sought-after real estate in the Twin Cities. Then consider our assignment. Walk mindfully. Take each step as if your foot were planting beautiful flowers. If you want to look at something, stop and take a look. Then when you are finished begin walking again. Although I did try stopping to look, I found myself reverting back to walking and looking at the same time--until my feet came upon an icy stretch of sidewalk and my body had to suddenly twist and jerk to catch myself from falling.

In mindfulness, we are to notice what we think about and simply make a note of it, without judgment or trying to change anything. So my first note was that I thought the houses were beautiful. But I quickly realized there was something else going on inside me. Seeing the beautiful homes also gave me a negative feeling. I could never own those homes. In my current financial situation and foreseeable future, there is simply no way I could ever afford to live like that. I took a few more steps and it suddenly dawned on me what I was doing: I was coveting that which is my neighbor's.

Now of course in zen-speak we don't say "covet." My zen priestess teacher would probably tell me that in Buddhism I was "attaching." But now that I had noted what was going on inside me, it didn't' really matter what I called it. I was longing for things that were not mine.

I'd never really understood the commandment regarding coveting. Do Not Murder always made sense to me. Even honoring your father and mother seemed logical. But coveting your neighbor's wife or property? Who's it hurting? Where's the supposed crime here?

This year marks five years since my interstate crash. I still have to see a chiropractor at least monthly. I still have to do yoga and get massages on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to avoid the symptoms of Class II whiplash. How many other people have physical injuries related to coveting? How many (possibly more) people have mental and psychological and relationship injuries due to coveting?

Today is Sunday and I'm not in church. I'm not a Bible thumper and I'm not a dogmatist. But stopping to reconsider this forgotten commandment makes me wonder. How many other commandments are actually for our own good? Have we been reading the Bible wrong all along? Maybe some of its messages were not meant to keep us from having fun, but instead had at their core, powerful messages that, if followed, would bring us more fully into life.

103 Years Ago Today

Joe was born March 3, 1906. The country was a melting pot then, a time when hard work was needed and cultural diversity was not. His parents emigrated from Beirut and Duma and knew what it was like to work hard. Amen was an orphan in Syria's dusty suburb of Damascus. Hard work and moxie brought him up out of the gutter--where he had survived by eating banana peels and anything else he could get his hands on--to business and farm ownership. Nazera probably had an easier upbringing, but most speculations conclude that if her former life in Beirut was any better then she would have had no need to uproot and plant herself in smalltown Minnesota. Fillmore county was the kind of place where if you were to fit in you had better be white, a farmer, and probably a Lutheran. So while Nazera still occasionally made cabbage rolls and baklava, and they both kept in touch with Syrian-Lebanese friends and family in Lacrosse, Wisconsin, slowly the outer signs of being Middle-Eastern descent fell away. By the time Joe reached his 20s,the only outward sign of his heritage was the occasional slip of a phrase that sounds like "teh huzza buteezik" and that I'm told translates as "stick it up your ass." Aside from the rare colorful language, he looked and acted like most other farmers in his area.

Maybe some of the locals knew that "he wasn't really from around these parts," but when they met him and saw the kind of work he did, it didn't really matter. He made a dollar a day, just like everyone else shucking corn, and he lived as honestly as he worked. Somewhat of a late bloomer, he was single until he was 30. Much to Nazera's chagrin, he wasn't interested in any of the Lebanese girls in Lacrosse. "There noses are too big," he'd tell her. Whether or not that was the real reason for his pickiness is impossible to know any more. What we do know is that on July 4, 1936 he met a young--18 years old--Alice Larson at a dance. He didn't dance very well, but rarely does love ever require graceful moves on a dance floor. He walked her home that night--ostensibly against her wishes--and in less than a year Alice and Joe were married.

Alice was fresh out of what they used to call "normal training," and she spent the rest of her life teaching: first in a one-room school, then elementary school, and finally acting as a principal. Joe never went past the 8th grade, and made his living farming and later working for a creamery. But despite his lack of formal education, there was a spark in him unfound in many who are more educated than he was. The greatest example of this is when he got the idea to make a sun dial. He walked up town to the library--he walked everywhere, it seems--and he got a book. Then he assembled some materials he had collected--he was always finding materials on these walks and recycling them--and he built a sun dial. I now teach students to pass their GED tests, which is four years past the education Joe had; I doubt many of them even know what a sun dial is, let alone has the capacity to build one.

Sometimes we may think taking your soul off mute means doing great--as in huge--things with your life. And maybe it does sometimes. Then again, taking your soul off mute can be about how you do the little things. Joe never had a shot at becoming US president, was never going to be rich, was never to travel more than one state away from where he was born. But he was fully himself. When he mowed his lawn--always with a reel mower--he made sure to clean and sharpen the blades, every single time. When his grandchildren came to visit in the winter, he always made sure they had warm enough clothes on. When he took one of them for a walk to the post office, he always made sure that grandson could keep up. "Am I walking too fast?" he'd ask me as we'd walk hand-in-hand. "Nope," I'd tell him. He really wasn't walking too fast. Then again, if he was, would I have said so? I always loved being by his side. Whether he was putzing around the garage or trimming the weeds or a thousand other little chores he did, I was right there with him.

He has been dead now since 1993, but when I remember how he'd never turn down reading me my favorite story, or when I remember the way he'd check to make sure we were wearing warm enough clothes, or remember the sound of his voice or the smell of his hat, it doesn't seem like he's all that far away. And this summer, when I mow my lawn, it'll be his old reel mowers that I use. No, he hasn't gone that far away. On my best days, there is still a bit of him that lives on in me.

Today as we awake and go to our vocations, let us be fully awake. Remember that no matter how big or small our job is that we should do it the very best we can. That means being fully in the moment, caring about who we are working with, and being the best self we can be. 103 years from now we will be gone from this Earth, but there may be some who carry our memory and stories with them. Let's be mindful of the stories we are creating and be mindful that this moment, and each moment today, will only happen once.

Now go and enjoy the day!

Congratulate me: 10 Years!

March 1999. I had just survived a crappy marriage and an even crappier post-marriage-rebound-relationship. I had been living in Rochester, Minnesota, but I couldn't find a decent job. At the time I was working for Rochester Armored Car transporting large amounts of cash for less than $7 an hour. Yeah, they gave me a gun and a badge and put me in charge of up to $10 million at a time and thought $6.40 was a decent wage. So, looking for a change, I decided to move to the Twin Cities.

Some friends said I wouldn't stay long. When you are from a small town of 1200 people, a large metro area like Minneapolis - St. Paul definitely can be less than ideal. While it's true I hated the traffic up in the Cities as much as the next Southeast Minnesotan hates it, I took a chance on a sales job and headed north.

Since then I've never looked back. My life is so different now that it sometimes feels strange to go "home" and see family and friends from my past. Meals used to happen when I pulled up to a drivethru menu and ordered by number. Now I'm shopping at the Farmers' Market and cooking with cilantro, limes, and pasture raised meats. Entertainmet used to be limited to renting a DVD or going out to a movie. Now I frequently enjoy going to the ballet, live theater, the Renaissance Festival, and art musuems. Trips used to mean driving. Now they are just as likely to involve flying, sometimes even to Europe.

This isn't to say I don't enjoy some of the things from my old life. I still enjoy heading to Austin to see stockcar races at the Chateau Speedway. I still enjoy hunting with Tim. And I still, every once in awhile, sneak a trip through the drivethru. The fact is, though, you are more likely these days to see me ordering sushi than Sbarros.

I have changed a great deal during the last 10 years. It's impossible to say exactly how much is because of the move and how much is just the natural progression of my life. However, I believe that much good has come from taking that chance in March 1999. At this moment in life I can say it and really mean it: change is good.

Sometimes Gravity

Sometimes gravity is like a gift from the Earth, a big hug from your Mother to let you know this is your home and you won't be flying off the planet into deep, cold space anytime soon. Occasionally remind yourself that gravity is good and serves an important purpose in your life.

Then other times gravity is like a swift kick in the ass, letting you know you've screwed around too much. Defying your birth mother may get you grounded. Defying Mother Earth (gravity) could leave you with broken bones, paralyzed or even dead.

So as you leave your house today, whether that means walking along icy paths or speeding along on some interstate, be mindful of gravity. Make friends with it now while you still have the chance.

A Year Without Beef

A long time ago when I was a bit more naive--and younger, dumber, and fatter--I started out many-a-day with a cigarette, a Coke and a sausage egg and cheese muffin from the king of fast food restaurants. Then one day, somewhere between that glorious breakfast and a lunch no much healthier, I came across MurderKing.com. On the site I learned of the horrors that chickens in commercial egg laying facilities go through. Since that day I have eaten perfectly and completely ethically.

Yeah, right.

Actually I did try at first. I stopped buying eggs in supermarkets and only bought them from my local co-op, the good ol' Seward Co Op in Minneapolis. But could I buy all my meat at those prices? I quickly started making compromises. My will but not my poverty consents....

Last March I was reminded of the sickening way in which animals are treated in this country. Chickens are stuffed into tiny cages, so close to other birds that they cannot even turn around. Their beaks are cut off and their entire life is lived with barely any freedom of movement. Not only can't they pick at the ground or do any other of their natural instincts, but these poor fowl cannot even turn around in their over packed cages. And if they stop laying eggs? Apparently they deprive them of food and water for an extended period of time, something that either starts the egg production or kills the bird. There goes my appetitite for restaurant eggs, mayo, store-bought cookies, and the list goes on.

Meat animals don't have it much better. Most commercial animals are fed grain (like corn), which is not what their bodies have been designed to eat. This causes unfortunate consequences (like death), but no matter, they are fed so much so fast that they won't be alive very long anyway. Forget about images of cows on the open range or pigs nosing around the forest. In modern meat factories, pigs' tails are cut painfully close so that when another pig--weaned too early from its mother--tries to use another pig's tail as a substitute nipple, the sucked-on pig will feel so much pain that it will fight back against the other pig. Kind of hard to enjoy pepperoni after knowing that, isn't it?

Anyway, I knew a lot of that nearly a decade ago when I stopped eating cruelly grown factory farmed eggs, but I continued eating meat anyway. Then last year I came across even more evidence of the evils of our meat industry. All this trucking around of meat, raising the corn to fatten it, the water usage, etc. is causing a major share of our planet's climate change symptoms. Our meat habit is killing the Earth!

That was the last straw. No one messes with my mother. So since last March I have been boycotting beef. Other than the once-a-month allowed splurge, I have been beef-free for a year.

During the last year I've been doing a lot of reading: Omnivore's Dilemma. In Defense of Food. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I've even watched the fascinating documentary Corn. What I've learned is that meat isn't evil. First, meat doesn't have to come from the factory. Local co-ops and farmers' markets have lots of local options. Second, when you buy local you can make sure it's pasture raised. Third, when your meat is pasture raised it's usually a more healthy way for that animal to spend its life and also its meat tends to be healthier for us. For example, research is showing that wild fish and pastured (grass fed) animals tend to have healthier meat (e.g. more Omega 3s) than farmed animals.

So, as February fades into March and the Year Without Beef is over, I will go back to eating beef again. And now, when I buy it from local farmers, I can do so feeling much better about doing so.

Happy Birthday

When I met her she lived on Pepsi, cigarettes, and spite. She drove her Mercury Mystique 90 minutes a day in rush hour traffic, drudgingly driving from her hapless marriage to her miserable job and then back again. She was happiest when she was drinking, traveling, or planning the next time she could drink or travel. But enough about the good old days.

In these last four years I’ve witnessed something of a metamorphosis. The Pepsi vanished and in its place a whole foods vegetarian diet. The cigarettes fell away as her exercise increased. More addictive than the nicotine, her new need for physical endurance has pushed her up 14,000 foot mountains, through the waters and sweat of her first and subsequent triathlons, and running in marathons and adventure racing and whatever other challenges come her way.

Occasionally she still drinks and travels, but now her souvenirs are of a different nature: Louie, her pug. Art she created and displayed at Altered Esthetics. Classic books she has read, now proudly displayed on a shelf. Memories of helping troubled children get a taste of making art.

So, while her job may not be everything of which she has dreamed, and while she is still trying to figure out how to become the person she was born to be, today—on her 29th birthday—I hope she pauses for a moment to contemplate how far she has come, how good she really has things.

Happy birthday my friend.

Chocolate Pancakes

When we visited Amsterdam last year, we enjoyed some Dutch chocolate pancakes with beer. It was such a tasty combination, we couldn't believe it wasn't a part of our weekly routine.

Of course, the trick these days is to make food healthier. And the other trick is making healthy food taste better. This daring recipe does a bit of each. So the next time you're in the mood for pancakes,try this:

1 cup pancake mix

1 cup water (give or take)

2 tablespoons ground flax seed (instead of an egg)

3 handfuls of blueberries (optional)

1 handful of chocolate chips

1-2 tablespoons real butter (for the pan and to melt on top)

1-3 tablespoons real maple syrup