Year in Review, Part 2 - Adventures

Right now we're looking forward to Christmas and the quiet week between the year.  Winter usually brings some peaceful days at the start of the new year, too.  Time to reflect on the past year, think about plans and pray for wisdom for the year ahead.  As we get older we recognize the need to steward our strength and invest well in those we love.  Here's a quick recap of some of the things we invested in this past year and the adventures we had.

Three times a week we are at the gym for Rock Steady boxing with our Silver Gloves class.

Sheep-shearing definitely qualifies as an adventure!

We built 11 raised garden beds for our daughter at her new home.  She had an amazing garden this year but getting those beds filled with soil was NO JOKE!

Pete and I attended an apple grafting workshop at Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa.  We grafted 6 heirloom trees there and then 5 more when we got home with our new skills.  We had a good success rate and are getting the old orchard repopulated.

We had the annual Easter Egg hunt on the farm for the grandsons.

It was Joshie's first egg hunt and he was very enthusiastic about it.

Auntie MiMi excels at hiding eggs.

Late April and May saw Pete and me heading to Maine and Prince Edward Island.  That is a loooooong drive but it was a long-time wish fulfilled.

My bridge phobia....ugh.  But I made it over and back.

Farm life:  Chicken butchering day at a friend's house.  Now that's commitment for someone who doesn't eat meat!  It's part of life in a farm community.

 We attended a Parkinson's Disease Victory Summit in Indianapolis.  Always on the quest to network and learn new things.

Social events from church and the neighborhood.  A great part of life in a great community.

A HUGE social event at the farm - K-Fit Farm Fest!  120 people for a potluck to end potlucks and a great evening on the farm.  And praise God the weather was great!  PHEW.

Family birthday celebrations are so important!  Lucas turned 9 and Micah turned 12.  Oma can still turn out a respectable birthday cake to mark the milestones.

Anne and I had our annual Labor Day Getaway, this time in Cedarburg, Wisconsin.

How many hydrangea plants can you fit in a Prius???  We always come home from these getaways with treasures of some kind.  This time it was thrift store, garage sale and plant nursery finds.  The car was STUFFED.

We started a monthly Parkinson's Support Group this year and it's been a huge encouragement to all involved.

I entered hooked rug pieces in the Sandwich Fair for the very first time.

We had to celebrate winning prizes with pie at the Methodist Church pavilion.

Day 2 of the fair:  Joshie loved the petting zoo and the train ride.

Annual Senior Citizen Luncheon at church - a big job to organize and carry out but a good time for everyone involved.

Harvest time on the farm and Joshie's first combine ride, thanks to Farmer Steve.

Throughout the fall Pete made four trips of varying length to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN to help my brother who is having serious health problems.  One more trip is scheduled before Christmas and I'm going along this time.  It's a lovely drive across Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Lunch at the Walnut Room with Anne and Kenji and a failed trip to the Christkindlmarkt in Chicago (closed due to high winds the day we were there).  We always make a day for a downtown Chicago adventure sometime during Advent to see the lights and decorations.

A beautiful Thanksgiving celebration (and believe it or not, except for the turkey for the carnivores among us everything was PLANT-BASED!  And DELICIOUS!)  Kenji was super proud of his vegan pecan pies.

Christmas cookie making with Micah

Support group had a Christmas potluck and year end celebration with ukulele carols!

A mild December day let us button up work in the garden for the year and put Christmas lights on the barn just before the cold weather came back.

All the beds have been put to sleep for the winter to dream of spring.

Year in review - the garden, orchard and beehive

Well, this year went by in a blink!  Posting to Instagram became a substitute for "real" content.  The garden and orchard are kind of the centerpiece of my year so when I look back, these photos represent a lot of my hours over the months.

Dark vegetables, high in anthocyanin (antioxidants) were the theme this year.

Merlot lettuce - definitely a keeper.  Slow to bolt and very delicious, not to mention beautiful.

Black Beauty tomatoes.  Not sure I'll plant them again - beautiful but really hard to tell when they are ripe.  My old standby Cherokee Purple are still my favorite but these did bear heavily.

Purple podded pole beans.  Say that ten times fast.  Also grew Borlotto Nano and Dragon's tongue beans.  All beautiful and delicious.

Not a heavy crop of blackberries this year but oh my, what beauties!

I love seeing the bees in the garden.  The sunflowers were volunteers from spilled birdseed and popped up in random places.  I let them grow where they wished.  Every garden needs a little chaos.  And they just make me happy.

Not a great apple year but enough to make 9 gallons of cider and lots of applesauce.

A friend shared her bumper crop of Concord grapes.  50+ quarts of grape juice - yikes!

A good crop of crabapples from the Dolgo crabapple tree.  Harvesting the little apples is no joke.  We had help.  And it makes the best jelly in the WORLD!

Pete had his expert helper for pressing cider.  Becca and I chopped the apples, they pressed the cider.

One new hive of bees this year so not a huge crop - 3 gallons but lovely honey.

Along about August and September when there is endless harvesting, canning, jelly making, cider pressing, honey extracting, applesauce making (and on and on) I always ask myself, "WHY do I do this?"  I don't think there's a good answer to that.  It's just who I am and what I love to do here.  On the farm.  Every summer.  Good for the soul as well as the body.  And somehow an act of faith...plant the seed, reap the harvest, share the bounty.

A Year of Eating Plants

It was just over a year ago that Pete and I switched rather drastically to a whole foods plant based diet (WFPB).  The first question people ask (after they've looked at me like we're crazy) is "Why on earth would you do that?"  I've always been a huge fan of whole grains and have milled my own wheat and made our bread from the flour for over 37 years.  Why take it a step further and stop eating meat, dairy, eggs, refined flour, sugar, fats and oils?  

As we've aged things began creeping up on us - our weight, our cholesterol, our fasting blood sugar.  If we continued to eat the standard American diet we'd be fighting weight, taking statins for our cholesterol and facing pre-diabetes.  Not to mention the risk of cancers associated with eating meat and dairy.  Why go there when it's preventable through diet?  And probably the most compelling reason for us was and remains that we are staring down the barrel of the Parkinson's Disease gun:  if there is anything we can reasonably do to strengthen our bodies and give Pete the best chance he has for fighting the effects of a degenerative disease it seemed like a no-brainer to pursue it.

So for the past year I've been un-learning the cooking habits of 50+ years and pursuing the adventure of cooking a whole new way.  I've been surprised at how easy it's been (I thought not cooking with oils would be hard but it hasn't been!) and frankly, although our tastes are simple, we feel that we eat like kings!  I don't make fancy recipes.  I usually look in the fridge to see what's on hand and decide what I can make with it.  We rarely eat the same thing twice!  Grocery shopping has been hugely simplified - once around the outside aisles of the store is all it takes.

What do we eat?  ALL the fruits and vegetables available from our garden or the store, LOTS of grains (whole grain oats, rice, barley, flax meal, quinoa, pasta), nuts and seeds, lots of beans of every shape, color and variety and you'd be surprised at how many beautiful kinds there are!  We use almond milk instead of dairy and maple syrup or honey for sweeteners (but not much of either).

We are NOT fanatics about it.  If someone invites us over for a meal and serves meat and cheese, we will eat and enjoy it with thanksgiving.  Our bodies have a remarkable ability to recover from an occasional lapse if our normal diet is healthy.  We don't eat out often but we've been surprised at how many options there are at the restaurants we frequent that align with WFPB.  And every couple of weeks we really enjoy a vegetarian pizza from the local pizza place!   Food is one of the good gifts God has given us and we thankfully enjoy it as close to the form He made it as we can.

Has it changed our lives?  It's hard to measure.  We feel great.  We've both lost 30 pounds without feeling deprived.  I haven't had my cholesterol measured yet this year but at least I know I'm not feeding my body any cholesterol so if my liver is producing it, I don't think it will be dangerously high.  Pete's doctors have told him it is a great diet ("if you can stick to it" and "it might be saving your life").  So after a year we evaluated and think this is the way we'll eat going forward.  We don't miss the meat or dairy.  We don't feel deprived.  We love the food we eat.  We're not trying to live forever but we want to be as healthy as we can in the years God gives us.  A healthy diet and regular hard workouts at the gym have made us stronger and healthier than we've been in many years, in spite of the PD.  How many people can say that at age 68 and 67?

Beets, beets and more beets - delicious in salads and such a great source of healthy anthocyanins!

Yummy vegetable barley soup.  

These veggies are shiny, not from oil but from broth!

Look at those beautiful "Christmas lima" beans!

Life is good with whole grain blueberry pancakes!

Breakfast of champions - whole oats (raw), fruits and nuts.  Oh, and COFFEE of course!

Whole wheat bread from freshly ground flour.  A real staff of life.

The one area that has been difficult is hospitality.  I feel that since most people eat and expect meat at a meal I end up cooking two different things if we have guests in and sometimes that daunts me.  But I'm learning ways to cope with that issue, too.  A delicious vegetable soup and homemade bread is something most people won't turn up their noses at so that's always a good option.  A wise woman once told me, "NEVER apologize for what God has given you to share at the table with others."  

Breaking winter's back

Everyone is probably sick of hearing the term "polar vortex".  I don't remember a winter like this since January 1985 when we were back here in IL on furlough from Germany and the temperature went down to -27.  That's what it was here last night.  But the mercury should climb back up to zero today and hopefully from here on out we'll have broken winter's back.  Even if it's cold, anything above zero will feel balmy after this stretch.  

It was -20 or below the last few mornings when we've gone out to do chores.  When there's no wind it isn't bad if you're dressed for it.  The vortex has given us gorgeous sunshine and blue skies so with appropriate clothing it has been invigorating to be out.  Here's what being "dressed for it" looks like.  The water hydrant by the barn has been frozen for a couple weeks so we're hand carrying jugs of water to the animals every time we go out.

Most appointments and activities have been cancelled so it's been cozy to stay at home.  I've tackled some projects that seem low priority during a normal schedule - deep cleaning and some sewing alterations.  Then in the long evenings Pete has been writing and I've been rug hooking.  This is my latest work-in-progress (WIP), rabbits dancing by the light of the moon.

On fresh snow in the mornings there are rabbit tracks all over the farm so I can tell they've been out leaping and scampering when no one is there to see them.

This winter I put up a bird feeder right outside a large window next to the loveseat in the living room.  It's a sheltered spot and has the added advantage that I can open the window and fill the feeders without trudging through the snow.  The cat and I can sit and watch the birds for hours.  I'm surprised they are surviving this weather but they come and gorge themselves all day at the feeder so I hope that is keeping them alive.  It's better than any movie just to sit and watch them.  Downy woodpeckers, cardinals, blue jays, chickadees, juncoes, finches and house sparrows - we're an equal opportunity feeder.  Come one, come all.  Occasionally a hawk swoops in to try to capture a smaller bird but so far we haven't seen murder being done.  The hawk has bonked his head on the windows a couple of times, though.

I planted some seeds about 10 days ago and the parsley and one hollyhock have sprouted on the windowsill.  Seeing new green stirs my gardener's blood and reminds me spring will come, even when it's 20 below zero right now.  I am always deeply thrilled at the miracle of life springing from seeds.  Who but God could think of doing things that way?

My brother has come out lately to learn to hook rugs.  Hooking is definitely not just a woman's hobby.  Here Mark's taking a break from hooking, possibly because the cat is making it difficult for him to hook...???

He tends to hinder my hooking, too.

Speaking of Whit, he's loved having us home all day and having the woodstove going.  Here he is next to the fire last night.  It's a cat's life.

Winter can be brutal but we do love the seasons and the changing rhythms each one brings.  And we're so aware of God's care for us and his creatures through it all.  

  

The "sky is blue" is just a myth ...

I've been rereading Bruce Waltke's An Old Testament Theology. This book was recognized with the 'Christian Book of the Year Award' in 2008 in the category Bible Reference and Study. It is a wonderful book when it comes to understanding the Old Testament but at 1040 pages not for the faint of heart (or eyes).

Waltke has taken a lot of flak for being an evangelical who does not argue for interpreting Genesis 1 as simple history. He sees Genesis 1 more as a polemic against the polytheistic mythologies in the cultures surrounding the nation of Israel at the time that the Creator God YHWH led them out of Egypt into the land of Canaan. Through the creation story in Genesis 1 God provides a corrective for the false cosmogonies of both Mesopotamia, where Abraham and his family had originated, and Egypt, where they had been exposed to the mythologies of the dominant culture for 430 years.

So what does this have to do with blue skies? We're coming to that ... slowly.

Referring to the creation story in Genesis 1:1-2:4A (page 189 of An introduction to Old Testament Theology) Waltke writes:

"I will argue below that Genesis 1 is an ancient Near Eastern cosmogony, but let me emphasize here that its content is essentially historical, not mythological."

Waltke points out that Rudolf Bultmann, a 20th century German theologian who became famous for insisting that we need to "demythologize the Bible", thought that biblical writers, in describing the world as consisting of 3 tiers (1: water above - i.e. clouds in the sky, 2: a flat earth and 3: water below - water in the seas) were not presenting the world as it really is. In Bultmann's view, they were subscribing to a mythological (i.e. non-scientific) view of the world, from which we need to distance ourselves. Waltke comments: 

"Is it not, however, just as plausible that the biblical writers invoked a three tiered vision of the world because that is the way it objectively appears, not because of mythological thinking?

Phenomenally we still invoke a vision of the stars as in the sky, of the sun as rising and setting, and the sky as blue. From a scientific perspective the sky is violet, not blue; it appears as blue because in the daytime, human vision is eight times less sensitive to violet than to blue light."

If you're still with me at this point, you probably hiccuped at the statement that "the sky is violet" like I did. I googled this to see the explanation and found an article in that (being facetious here) famous basic physics and theology journal known as Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/briankoberlein/2017/01/11/earths-skies-are-violet-we-just-see-them-as-blue/. Sure enough, strictly speaking the sky is violet (not violent - though that occurs occasionally, too).

Does describing the sky as blue mean that I am subscribing to some pre-scientific, mythological cosmogony? No, it simply means I am using commonly accepted, everyday language to denote the color of the sky. In fact, I am probably also expressing a number of positive connotations that are associated with the beauty of a bright sunny day in the midwestern United States or in western Germany, where we also lived for many years. (Having also lived in the L.A. basin for 8 years, I'm aware that people there might have some less enthusiastic associations with sunny days during the long dry summers!) And if I said, "What a lovely, bright violet sky!", people would think my Parkinson's had spread to other areas of my brain than just motor control.

So, whenever you look up at a bright blue sky and smile, say to yourself:

What were you just thinking, you poor deluded soul!

... and chuckle.