Sometimes it’s hard not to feel this way…

Giant pesto dinner + oak leaf + first cucumber of the year.

Have two jalapenos that are just about ripe.

Thought: Five-Seven kinds of lettuce in rows would let us eat from each once a week. The idea of sowing lettuce every two weeks is appealing but the heat would make that tough.

Everything in the basement has germinated. Worried that the 80 degree temps (basement is probably 75 and the flourescents kick it up a few degrees in the shelter will make it tough for the spinach to grow. Have to see.

Went out to eat with LC last night — Bobby’s Burger — so had to come home and eat some salad greens. Black-Seeded Simpson and Oak Leaf.

Chopped down a bunch of the front collards and used Mark Bittman’s recipe for flash cooking them. Harvested a bunch of Swiss Chard, which we will eat tomorrow.

Problem with this picture is that it fails to show just how enormous this pile of collards was…

I also started a bunch of seeds, so that I can have some lettuce starts as the weather cools and so that I have some stuff to put in the hydroponics. Arugula — Winter Density — Spinach — Marvel of Four Seasons — and a Burpee Basil packet. Did the same run in rock wool and in an organic seed starting mix.

A new goal for the gardening that is becoming all consuming:

I want my family to eat one green thing that I’ve grown each day. Between extending the season as much as possible and the various hydroponics kits I’ve cooked up, it should be in range.

Today: Kale from the front garden cut into a strawberry/banana/greek yogurt smoothie.

My boy knew immediately that something was up.

Just finished this novel this morning, having read it over the past few weeks while sitting in hospital rooms and waiting for Lisa to heal. It’s a war novel, yes, one that describes the conflict in Vietnam in now recognizable ways — apathy, poor leadership, anguish over loss — but has a few wrinkles I liked:

One, he deals head on with issues of race. The conflict between a foxhole friend and the reality of race in American life serves as a constant throughout the novel; this conflict produces a terrible moment near the end of the book, but in a way I didn’t anticipate. How do you empower a people? How do you fight back against racism in every day interactions and against the racism embedded in the structures that produce that racism? I don’t know if Marlantes is white or black and I wondered if black veterans would recognize the stories he was telling.

Two, it’s a story of functioning within an institution. Maybe it’s the end of the school year, maybe it’s that we’re trying to build a new school, but all of these players were instantly recognizable:

the young, ambitious person serving in a position they see as temporary
the lifer trying to survive and possibly prosper in an institution that is chewing up everyone around them
the accidental mid-level leader whose decisions have life or death impact, whose only real problem is their inability to see past the end of their nose
the glory focused leader who has lost total contact with the day-to-day life of the individuals they’re charged with leading

Karl Marlantes, Matterhorn: a Novel of the Vietnam War (New York; [Berkeley, Calif.]: Grove Press?; Distributed by Publishers Group West, 2011).

Radishes! Thinned the Kale and the Collards and had a microgreen feast of too much garlic, too few onions, and much bitterness.

Backyard

Frontyard

Swiss Chard — Beets — Carrots — Carrots — Beets — Kale — Collards

Sideyard

Peas — Spinach

Ta-Nehisi Coates, with another short essay I’ll likely be using in a classroom someday. In trying to find this article, I found all manner of internet commentary, most of which drew into relief the questions I’d ask a group:

who does this code apply to? what would a code created by young Asian men look like? By Hispanic women? By white lacrosse players living in the suburbs?

And what do these codes mean in the face of how power is distributed in society? Whose behavior gets laughed as “boys-will-be-boys” and whose behavior lands people in jail?”

Then there’s a personal essay by Brittany Griner. This is money:

It’s taken me a long time to figure out exactly where I fit. During that journey, I realized that everyone has a unique place in this world. I also discovered that the more open I was with my family and friends, the more I embraced others, and the more committed I became to doing the things I love, like basketball, skating and, of course, eating bacon (the greatest food of all time), the more love and confidence I received in return.

I just had to hang in there and be myself.

The more open I was with my family and friends, the more I embraced them, and the more committed I became to doing the things I love, the more love and confidence I received in return.