Sitting in a Wisconsin bus station

Mississippi River, alongside the La Crosse Center.

 After finally securing a good night's sleep (10 hrs!), I can look back on the last three days and honestly say that the MOSES organic farming conference was time well spent. The sessions were rich with meaty information, with titles like "Crop Diversification" and "Farming With Native Plants, "Introduction to the Farm Bill" and "Working Your Holistic Fruit Orchard." Honestly? So much was way over my head but that's what happens when you jump in head first.

All the free chocolate milk...HEAVEN.

It's going to take me a while to process everything I heard and all the wonderful people I met. With 3300 attendees, it was North America's largest gathering of organic farmers ever. Such a funny mix too - young, bright-eyed students, traditional farmers in overall and John Deere caps, plus dreadlocked hippies and tons of Amish. I even dined with a table of charming lesbians and more than one woman in her 40s who had never farmed before but was taking a crack at it. Inspiration all around.

But it wasn't all happiness and joy, especially during the "GMO Contamination" session, which laid out exactly what all the GMO crops are doing to our land, our food, our environment and our children. Why people are not freaking out about this is a mystery to me.

The exhibition hall.

 While we were there, Monsanto was ordered by a judge to pay $93M (a pittance for them) to the town of Nitro, West Virginia to clean up their Agent Orange mess. This is the same chemical that is used to create 2, 4-D corn, which they plan to implement en masse here in the U.S.

Cheese! Including squeaky curds on the right.

So, the same chemical that we used to destroy the enemy in WWII is now being repackaged and sold to farmers and consumers as perfectly healthy food. Meanwhile, the rise of autism, obesity, infertility and obesity continues to rise.

This session was so packed, I sat on the floor.

Truth is: Cheap food, in the long run, is the most expensive thing you can buy.  As one speaker said to the audience, "Though you guys don't earn a physician's paycheck, you are working in preventative health care."

Recently, Monsanto was found guilty of poisoning a farmer in France with their damaging products. This is what the average consumer is eating! And this is why, GMO products must be labeled in every other Western nation on the planet....except for ours. A typical joke:

"What do they call organic food in Europe?"
"Food." 

My thoughts are all scrambled on this right now but I feel like my mission is more empowered and supported than ever. I'll try to be more coherent in this next post.

Okay, my bus is here, gotta motor to Minneapolis but you can be sure I'll have more to say on this later.

Holy MOSES, I'm off to farm..

On our North Dakota farm land.

Tomorrow, I leave for the MOSES Organic Farming Conference in La Crosse, Wisconsin. (MOSES stands for Midwest Organic & Sustainable Education Service.) I'll be stopping over in the Twin Cities to visit my cousin, Carol, which will be a hoot. I used to follow her around as a kid so not much has changed there.

The other day at church, I asked a nice lady to help me do a prayer about this trip. I told her what it was for, that I was all too aware of how little I knew about organic farming and nervous/anxious to get educated. Her response:

"You already know everything you need to know about organic farming. It's just a matter of remembering." 

I like that.

I am...The WORM LADY

One of the benefits of earning my latest title - Denver Master Composter - is that I am occasionally called in to service. For the past few months, it has been my great pleasure to visit second and third grade classrooms to introduce the joys of vermicomposting - as in, composting with worms.

It is impossible to exaggerate how much fun this is for me. I am always so impressed by the kids' enthusiasm, honesty and strangely brilliant questions. Among my favorites:

Do worms eat spaghetti? (Yes.)
Do worms eat other worms? (Not really.)
Do the worms try to escape? (Not unless they are very uncomfortable - too hot.)
How do worms make babies? (Worms are genderless and lay fertilized eggs.)

On this last question, one young boy offered, "I know how they make babies!" Grateful for the help, I let him tell the story to a rapt audience while I held my breath:

"Um, they squirm around each other and...um, then, they, um, pull apart and make a big heart (he demonstrates with his fingers) and then they are in love and babies come." 

They all looked at me for confirmation. "That is.... absolutely CORRECT, Evan! Well done." Whew!

Along with my worm partner, Everett, we instruct the teachers and/or parents to provide the following:

• Big, plastic bin (Rubbermaid or the like) with holes drilled in on the sides and bottom
• Lots of newspapers
• Bags of dead leaves
• Bricks or wood for the bin to sit on (needs to be off the ground, for drainage) 
• Water jug and water source
• Tarp or something we can put down for demonstration to avoid making a huge mess. 

What I bring:

• Bulging ziploc bag of my food scraps
• Two pieces of bread
• Cutting board
• Knife
• Container of Red Wiggler worms

From the moment we step into the room, there is a hush of excitement. Every kid that can get to me wants to know only one thing: "WHERE ARE THE WORMS????"  I feel like a celebrity handler or the guy with the PricewaterhouseCoopers briefcase at the Oscars.

The show begins with the teachers organizing them in a circle and reminding them of their manners. I have yet to meet a rude kid in these classrooms and if anything, fall madly in love with each one. I then start asking them questions like, "Who likes worms?", "Are worms our friends?" and "What do worms do for us?" 

I dazzle them with random worm knowledge, such as "Did you know that worms have five hearts? or "Name the one state where worms don't live." (Hawaii.) Occasionally, I'll mention that there are over 4400 species of worms but, honestly, I don't know if that number is beyond them at this age.

Then, we start relating the preparation of the worm bin to their own lives. They live in a house so we are going to put the worms in their own 'house.' When they go to bed at night, the kids sleep in sheets and blankets; the worms will be sleeping in shredded newspaper and leaves. And so on.

Everett takes over the even distribution of newspaper among the kidlets and gently instructs them how to efficiently rip them into neat strips. They are so precise, it's adorable. Then, we gather up the paper strips and divide the class into teams. We call each team up one by one to add leaves and water to the bin and mix around with their bare hands. At this point, I ask them about what it smells like. They usually say, "Dirt!" and we talk about how paper is made of trees, which come from dirt.

When the 'bed' is damp like a wrung-out sponge, I bring out the food scraps. So many of these kids compost at home, that they generally have an idea how it works. (I'm so impressed by this. Kudos to their parents.) I try to stick to what they should NOT be putting in the scrap bag, namely, meat, cheese and bones. Seeds too. The other day, a young boy asked, "What about alcohol?" Um, no. Ditto for citrus and spicy peppers or jalapenos.

Ideally, one would take two moldy slices of bread to make a Worm Sandwich but I don't let that happen in my house so I come in with two clean slices. I put one on the cutting board, then dump some of the rotting food scraps on the bread and then add the other slice. There's lots of "Ewwww! Gross! I wouldn't eat that!" excitement going on during this so I like to slice it up like a proper sandwich and offer it to the kids. More squealing ensues. Then, I place the food in the bin as a "welcome meal" to the worms.

At long last, the time comes to reveal the stars of the show. They are all crowding around me now, eager to see and touch a worm. I ask each child to have a leaf in their open palms and I will place a worm on the leaf. They are to avoid "petting" the worm but instead gently welcome it to their classroom and tell the worm they are grateful for them. ("Denver Police? Yes, there's a pagan lady loose in the public school system and she's infecting our children....")

One girl got so excited about holding a worm the other day that she screamed and immediately dropped it. I had to stifle a laugh and advise: "If you think you're going to drop the worm, do not take one, okay?" Then, we ask them to put the worms in the bin.

Then, Everett and I discuss with the teacher what they need to know - feed the worms once a week, keep it moist and dark, then wait for spring!

 Watching these precious angels look at these worms and thank them with such seriousness...my heart just explodes with joy. Every single time I do this, I feel markedly better about the state of the world.

 If these kids can truly grasp and appreciate the natural order of things and the profound contributions of the tiniest being, then maybe the human race has a chance.

Weekend of Loss

This weekend ended beautifully but before reaching the Sunday night finish line, I received three pieces of bad news:

One of my favorite writers died.
Jeffrey Zaslow, staff writer for The Wall Street Journal, was killed when his car lost control on an icy Michigan road last Friday. As a WSJ subscriber, I was an ardent fan of his writing. We even exchanged some emails on the topic of Phyllis Diller after he'd written a brilliant piece about clean comedy. He wrote with such humor and tenderness, it was striking. As a writer, I looked up to him, and as a reader, I appreciated him.

Let's put it this way, when the time came to have their stories told, these people turned to Mr. Zaslow:

Capt. Chesley 'Sulley' Sullenberger (who spoke at Zaslow's funeral) with his book, 'Highest Duty: My Search For What Really Matters'
 
Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon professor who famously passed on his life's wisdom to his students before he died of cancer in an online video (14.5 million views, so far) and best-selling book, "The Last Lecture", co-authored by Zaslow

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her astronaut husband, Mark Kelly, co-authored the book, "Gabby" (due out Nov. 15) with Zaslow - it details the long hard fight to recovery after the tragic Tuscon shooting.

Great writers are not easily replaced. Godspeed Jeffrey Zaslow. My heart goes out to his wife and three daughters.

***

Whitney Houston. 
By now, there's been so much press coverage that there's not much more I can add here except to say that her loss is a real tragedy. Not as much for us (her voice and her sparkle died a long time ago) but for her teenaged daughter, Bobbi Kristina, who lost her mother at the most crucial time in her life.

I am so worried for that young girl.

And yes, this still gives me chills, lip-synced or not.

***

The Shed burned down. 
"Get Fed at The Shed", a mantra that I live by whenever I visit Mississippi. In fact, during my recent visit over the holidays, I insisted on a visit to The Shed on my final night in town. I remember my nephew, Robbie, looking up at all the dollar bills hanging from the ceiling and said, "If this place burns down, they're going to lose a lot of dollars." Ah, out of the mouths of babes...

My very favorite thing to do in the summer in Mississippi is to ride in my brother's boat through the gorgeous bayou waterways right on up to the tiny pier at The Shed. We hop out and enjoy the best BBQ I've ever had while taking in an awesome outdoor blues show. Then, on the way home in the dark, we scout for alligators. That's down-home fun, is what that is.

Other than my mother's meatloaf, The Shed is the one thing that makes me toss my vegetarianism right out the window. My order never changed: Pulled Pork with a side of beans and potato salad with a cold bottle of Pabst. DEE-LISH!

The owners say they'll be up and running again soon. Sticky fingers crossed. 

Homemade Vanilla Extract

I'm all about the DIY lately - deodorant, bread, yogurt - you name it, I'll scratch it on out. It's become my form of protest against the consumer mentality and I find it liberating. Messy, but liberating.

Taking a tip from Jennifer Reese's funny and insightful book, 'Bake the Bread, Buy the Butter', I made my own vanilla extract today. Started it, really.

The book gave me a new awareness of the vanilla bean racket that goes on at the local grocery store. If you buy a jar of McCormick's vanilla beans (which contains 2 beans), you pay something like $11 at Safeway. As advised, I ordered a packet of 10 Tahitian vanilla beans from Amazon and ended up paying $14, including shipping. Big difference. Plus it's fun to get an incredible-smelling package in the mail.

The recipe called for 9 beans, so I had a spare. As luck would have it, I was also making vanilla ice cream. (Mainly because we're having a fancy dinner tomorrow night but mostly because this is the best $50 I have EVER spent.) So, I slyly scraped the #10 pod seeds into the creamy, white batch of heaven and thanked the kitchen gods for a happy coincidence.

HOT TIP: You should absolutely go cut your fingernails before you begin this recipe. The 'seeds' are really a very fine black dust and there isn't much of it, so don't waste it on your nail beds.

Once properly groomed, I cut each pod in half and thoroughly scraped the contents of each into a large Mason jar. Once the pod was more or less empty, I dropped the pod into the same jar. This took awhile and it can be hard to make sure you got all you can out of it. I used a small paring knife, which helped.

After the pod gutting, I measured out 1.5 cups of vodka (cheap is fine, I'm told) or rum, dark or light. (I chose light rum.) You pour the booze into the jar, secure the lid and shake the shit out of it until it looks like murky bong water.

Then, you set the jar on your pantry shelf for the next three months, shaking it now and again, whenever you feel like it. If you are the impatient sort, take your frustrations out on the slow process by picking up the jar, shaking it and yelling at it. This might help.

So, come May 19th, I'll have a yummy batch of vanilla extract at a fraction of the market price - HA!

Another sweet victory....

Matisse

Though my life is so fun and cushy, it's almost embarrassing, there are a few big pieces missing. Namely, a dog. Beyond my childhood family dog, Frisky (known officially as 'The Horniest Dog That Ever Lived'), I have not had a canine companion to call my own. Sad, no? 

Where we live now, the landlords asked us not have a dog to protect all the hardwood floors in the home. I can understand this, but it doesn't mean I like it.

As a result, I'm forced to develop relationships with other people's dogs and pour gobs of love into them whenever I can. One such dog is Matisse, pictured above with me last fall. She belongs to my neighbors, Helen and Annika, and every so often, I get her all to myself. (Matisse is shared by Helen and her ex, so I get her when she's on this side of town - when Helen is at work and Annika at school.)

When we see each other, there's is a lot of whining and moaning from both parties. I generally take her with me to nearby Sloan's Lake, where we jog, walk, sniff things or roll around in the snow together. At least one of us also gets to pick up poop! Sometimes, I even take her off-lease (gasp!) because she's so adamant about sticking close by and is a terrific pace-setter.

Though I've been an animal lover all my life, I'm still astounded at how much my heart expands during my time with Matisse. We both get so much out of it and I'm quite proud how much of her black hair can be found inside my truck.

Maybe someday soon I'll have my own doggie to get dirty with but until then, Matisse is my best canine friend. 

And yes, that may be the dorkiest thing I have ever posted here in this space. I am getting more and more sappy each year so expect more of the same....

Exciting Times, Indeed

Oh, how this job calls to me.

While I spend timer-clocked hours digging away in the boring-but-lucrative technology salt mines, my soul craves the crazy adventure that would undoubtedly pay just enough to scrape by. And despite the endless forms of communication that now exists, I still miss the small town community newspaper, the last bastion of Old Journalism.

I've got a feeling that I'll likely end up at the same place I began, and that'd be just fine.

An Honest Post

Last Thursday, my friend, Kate, came over so I could share my teensy bit of tech knowledge with her. Counting Kate Armstrong as a friend isn't just like meeting somebody nice, it's like discovering plutonium. Very. Powerful. Stuff.

Kate is a force of nature and amidst all her declarations of power and intentions for 2012, she asked if I would like to join her "Dream Team."


"What's that?" I asked.

"It's people sharing their dreams and holding each other accountable for the tiny goals leading up to the realization of that dream," she explained, eyes wide with excitement.


"Um, okay." It seemed easier than signing up for Team in Training, that's for sure.


"So, in one week, what tiny thing are you going to accomplish toward your dream?"

"Uhhh..."

"C'mon, WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO?"


"Well, I haven't written an honest blog post in months." 


"Do that then. You have one week."

So, here it is, on deadline eve. I've struggled with sharing in this space for a number of reasons. Mainly, because I've created this self-branding problem where I'm fairly visible on the web and yet, for all my self-promotion, my innards have suddenly turned shy and serious. Also, despite all the amazing things I experience, I have never felt more boring.

Truth is, change is afoot in 2012. Big stuff. Scary stuff. Changes that would be hard to explain without a blog, so I've vowed to come clean. My life is wonderful but it also includes pain. I tried getting pregnant last year and it didn't take so motherhood still eludes me.

To compound this ache, there are no animals in my charge. With the exception of Kirk's handsome cat, Boudreaux, and the neighbor's dog, Matisse, I am beast-less, which saddens me deeply. I am responsible for not a single being in this world, save myself. Freedom and loneliness - two sides of the same independent coin.

Perhaps this is my mid-life crisis?

Certainly, there is a predictable experience of asking myself, 'Just what have you accomplished? What good are you? Do you even have anything worthwhile to say?' For months, I have harbored serious doubts about the latter question.

So, this is the state of things. One of my part-time gigs has me reading others' blog posts day after day. Let me tell you, there's a lot of nonsensical rambling out there (similar to this post) but there's also a tremendous amount of well-written insight, brave admissions and hilarious storytelling.

And it's about time I rejoined the party.

Wild Animal Sanctuary

Back in late October, Laura, Kirk and I went to the Wild Animal Sanctuary east of Denver. Way out on the flat prairie, a kind soul named Pat Craig corralled 720 acres and the non-profit now hosts nearly 300 wild animals, including lions, tigers, bears, leopards, mountain lions and wolves. After months of promising myself to go, I finally made it.

At the information hut, I read a ton about every wild animal out there but do I remember anything? Nope. However, there is one thing that stuck in my head: Mountain Lions are the largest feline that purrs. There's your Large Kitty Trivia of the week.

Naturally, I took many a photo but there's only so much you can shoot of a cat-from-above.

I liked these two - they frantically paced in unison the entire time. I wonder what made them so nervous?

It was hard to tell how much of that large acreage was actually being used but the happy volunteers excitedly told us about plans to expand. Animal sanctuaries, as necessary as they may be, are sad places. Unlike zoos, circuses or marine mammal parks, these animals are done 'working.' Nearly every animal has a similar story about either escaping abuse, neglect or at the very least, no knowledge of their wild birthright whatsoever. Places like this one take a ton of space, lots of people who care and a boat load of cash to keep them running.

This is Eddy the Black leopard. He had his own show on Animal Planet, "Growing Up Black Leopard." Fortunately, he was born at the sanctuary and grew up literally in the Craig home with tons of love and care. He's a lucky boy.

We saw a few bears and wolves too.

And, on our way out, a single camel with a bunch of livestock - horses, cows and sheep, I'm guessing? Perhaps it was the herbivore section.

'Twas a beautiful day. I'm grateful for places like this.

Conquering Red Rocks

I attended a recent comedy show here in Denver where the touring headliner made a joke about how people don't like to walk anymore. Dead silence. Crickets chirped. He looked puzzled and did not understand why the joke fell flat.

He'd failed to grasp a basic Colorado philosophy: All forms of outside movement are taken very seriously. Not only do we walk with great zeal, we hike, run, cycle, ski, board and climb. For this, I am forever grateful to the Centennial State because without significant peer pressure, I am quite the lazy ass.

The above photo was taken last Sunday from an entrance ramp at Red Rocks Amphitheater - THE best place to see a concert on the planet, or even a classic film. It also happens to be the very same place where folks go hiking and conduct grueling exercise regimes.

Although one can certainly park at the top and walk down, the great majority of locals tend to park at the bottom and hoof it up. I once heard a KBCO DJ scoff when he'd heard a visitor complain: "Hey, if you can't make it, you don't deserve to be at Red Rocks." They are not kidding. (Seriously, they have suggested exercise routines posted on their website.)

So, when guests visit, we inevitably end up at RR, where they 'oooh' and 'aaaah' and point to the tiny Denver prairie-opolis in the distance. It's not just the intense reds and pinks of the rocks, it's the entire natural grandeur of the place. (We think the rocks resemble melted Neopolitan ice cream or super stripey bacon.)

Even performers gush. When Tom Petty launched his Mojo tour last summer, he chose Red Rocks and thankfully, we were there too. Lyle Lovett makes no bones about RR being his favorite venue and plays every summer. Then there's Steve Martin during his comedy tour, who, after coming out on stage, looked around and deadpanned: "What a shithole. I'm gonna have to fire my manager."

And I don't think I need to even mention U2. (After Pollstar magazine awarded Red Rocks Best Small Outdoor Venue for the 11th time, they finally just gave up and renamed it The Red Rocks Award while permanently removing RR from the running.)

Anyhoo, when my dad visited in August, we took him to Red Rocks and we watched people work out there - running the bleachers, upside down push ups, stair climbing - you name it. It all looked painful to me until I saw a woman jogging back and forth, working up the venue, one row at a time. 'Hey,' I thought, 'I could probably pull that off sometime.'

So, this past weekend, I did! Took me about 40 minutes but I heard Rocky music at the end, even though I forgot my headphones. This ended up being a blessing as I would have missed a beautiful song by some girl down on the stage in a cowboy hat and jeans. Her voice was angelic and the acoustics were perfect. Less angelic but equally adorable was the old guy who followed with a crusty rendition of 'King of the Road.'

From the ground, post-run.

Meanwhile, every time I passed someone sitting on the bench, I'd ask, "Encouraging words?" This elicited some funny responses, such as:

"Um...It's nice and cool at the top!"
"Only 90 more rows to go!" 
"Whoever is chasing you, you've lost them."
"If you stop, you'll have to do my homework." 
"Great job! Way to go!"

SweaterGod, I thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest so many times but once I got the rhythym, I knew I would not be stopping for anything. Eventually, I conquered 69 really long rows at 6,400-ft. elevation and I felt like a Colorado milestone had been reached.

(No matter that Kirk flew up and down the venue three times - two stairs at a time - with enough leftover time to take a fucking nap - he's a freak of nature, so it does not count.)

  I can't wait to do it again.

Tragedy Hits Home

Photo: Brian Wilkins via Flickr.

So, what's another random shooting from yet another armed enraged man, right? Mass killings such as the one that happened yesterday in Seal Beach, California, have become much too common but this one, this one hit much too close.

When Kirk told me about a shooting in Seal Beach, it made me nervous. I grew up in the very next town, Long Beach, and Seal Beach was one of our many beachy teenage hangouts. My memories there are endless - getting ice cream from Grandma's on the corner, flirting with the lifeguards, bikini shopping along Main Street and happy hours too numerous to count.

Seal Beach Pier

Seal Beach always felt like an old-fashioned, gen-u-ine small town squished between the insanity of LA and shallowness of The OC. A place where flip-flops and Hawaiian shirts were always in fashion, year-round. It was a place where you could always find fish tacos, Irish beer and beach shells for sale. It was one of the few beaches along PCH that had a playground on the sand. People that are from there, stay there, and people that move there....well, they're just plain lucky.

The population count from the 2000 census was 24,157. In 2010, it was 24,168 - 11 more people. And I'm pretty sure I know at least three of those. Not a lot of big changes happen there, which is the crux of the Seal Beach charm. It's nickname? "Mayberry by the Sea."

Sadly, thanks to an angry, deranged ex-husband, Seal Beach became a place of mass murder when Scott Dekraai busted in to a hair salon and killed eight people, including his ex-wife, Michelle Fournier - a girl I knew from high school. It's a sign of modern times that my high school annuals, once kept purely for nostalgia, have now become a reference tool for Facebook invitations and shooting victims.

Michelle Fournier, pictured at left, with Christy Wilson.

But it gets worse. I quickly discovered that Christy Wilson also perished in this horrible event. I didn't know Christy personally but heard so much about her through my close friend, Debbie, who shared many memories with her. Debbie's daughter, Hannah, was also quite fond of Christy and posted this photo of she and Christy together on her Facebook, taken when Hannah was much younger:

Shortly after this, I get an email from my friend, Susie, who informed me that her friend, Laura Webb, also died in the shooting. Laura's mother, Hattie Stretz, was the lone survivor and is currently in the hospital. Hattie was in a chair, getting her hair done while visiting her daughter, when the shooting took place.

There is a candlelight vigil tonight and I so wish I could be there to honor the dead, including the innocence lost in this tiny seaside town. The OC Register is publishing the entire victim list tomorrow and it makes me nervous. As Susie wisely observed in her email today:

"We may have moved away but we come from a village."

I'm keeping so many people in my heart and prayers tonight and in the days going forward, including every single citizen of Seal Beach, California. But mostly, for Michelle's 7-year-old son. Evidently, this gruesome insanity was sparked by a custody battle and the irony is, now that little boy has no parents at all.