My tomato crop was pretty much a bust this year. The combination of a) wet, wet summer and b) failing to purchase baby plant varieties resistant to blight meant I only harvested about 25 pounds of decent-quality tomatoes from 11 plants. (Normally the yield would have been 6-7 times that ( Read more... )

At my food buying club my friend Renee's son, Josh, and his little brother were running and shouting. She was on the phone but used finger-snapping and hand gestures to tell the boys she wanted them to be stiller and quieter. Then she handed Josh a pencil and what appeared to be a workbook. He took them, looking pained. I was near enough to see ( Read more... )

My sister turned me on to Mad Men (the TV show) awhile back. I've enjoyed the first 3 seasons using DVDs and thought I'd try downloading the new season via iTunes. I bought a season pass for $30 ( Read more... )

Nicole Reising is an intern at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Children's Health Protection. She's also a sophomore at Indiana University studying non-profit management ( Read more... )

My dad has once again changed his mind on just where he might want to live, should his Parkinson's disease require more assistance with his ADLs (a medical term for Activities of Daily Living...things like dressing, bathing, fixing a sandwich, etc.) than my step-mom already provides for him. Essentially, he's been mentally adjusting to the idea of ( Read more... )

Check 'em out!  www.flickr.com/photos/relishtray

Spent the first week of August in Baja California Sur with some extended family members and their friends. We stayed at a rustic fishing resort on the east coast of the peninsula, on the Sea of Cortez--some call it the Gulf of California. The guys did their big game fishing thing, but the usual deal is catch-and-release, which was mostly adhered to ( Read more... )

My niece recently allowed her six-year-old son to accompany her boyfriend, who's a trucker, on a three-week haul all over the eastern half of the country ( Read more... )

We bought six young steers in April. (We've been buying five or six feeder calves each spring for many years now; this is the first year they were all boys ( Read more... )

This is as good a time as any to begin journaling about my activist side. We think we have a minor win at the moment, and those are rare, so it feels good to tell about it.

One day I'll expand on the over-a-dozen years I've already spent working on these issues. But the latest episode is enough for now.

This spring the Iowa Senate passed a bill that ( Read more... )