Crochet

 

If you don't know how to crochet, learn.  MaryJane has excellent instructions in her Stitching Room book.  

She does have excellent instructions, but I found I needed to watch a video rather than compare my work to stills to reassure myself I was doing it correctly.  If you are similarly wired, Bella Coco has you covered and her series is blocked out in short videos for easy digestion if you are leading a frequently interrupted lifestyle.  

If you are learning how to crochet, start with a simple straight scarf.  If  you already know how to crochet, pick a simple project...   There is a 3 hour minimum time investment.

I am a beginner, yes, but we live in a place that barely has sweater weather and my utilitarian aesthetic would not let me embark on a scarf.  I have since read Edward Gorey's Doubtful Guest and could be persuaded to make a scarf for my newly-shod-in-Converse Young Cultivator as a very obscure allusion.  

Instead, I settled for a pumpkin with plans to send it along to a friend as seasonal sistermail.  This is pretty much entirely "half double crochet through the back loop only" undertaking and gave me an excuse to buy ombre yarn which was fun to watch color change as the rows slowly spooled out.  An experienced crocheter(?) crochetier? would probably be able to knock this out in under 3 hours but I was following along with Bella Coco at half speed, and "frogging" frequently (undoing your work, because you rip it-rip it-rip it).  In fact, the abandoned first draft is stuffed into the center of this project in lieu of polyfil because the yarn got so snagged I was unable to completely undo it by ripping.  I eventually landed on the strategy of counting every row I finished (en espanol) to determine I had the requisite veinte stitches.     

Even with a stuffing stimulus, my orange tube was looking pretty flat.  I consulted with my Young Cultivator who in turn consulted with her 40 stuffies but returned with bad news.  No one was ready to donate their body to stitching and crafting.  Not even the Happy Meal toys which were well past their expected lifespan.  A giant husband backrest pillow, "Doggy" was willing to consider a more modest transfusion but I was not sure I would be able to stitch her up in a way that would hasten a speedy recovery rather than a slow deflationary decline.  So I corralled all the flower fabric scraps YC had been using to make her "hospital gown" fashion line for the stuffies (lots of ill-fitting smocks secured with staples that still exposed teddy bear derriers) and stuffed the pumpkin with that as a sort of reverse nod to Cinderella and her fairy godmother's outfits.  This was a satisfying way to punctuate the lulls of a few days and after a bit of practice, I felt competent enough to take it on the road and be seen in public working on it while YC learned gymnastics and piano.  

Put Me In, Coach!

 

Cut out TV time by joining a sports team for a season or taking lessons in baseball, soccer, horseback riding, karate, bowling, or tennis.

Fallon has built a foundation in the 4 basic strokes through 4+ years of swimming lessons and was looking for fun ways to apply those skills.  This year and last year, we explored water polo/splashball.  Our part of the country has a reputation for fielding very strong players.  Higher education institutions also have a reputation for providing more generous scholarships for decent players of this niche sport.  While her parents had no water polo experience, we figured, "When in Rome..."  

Last year, Fallon participated in splashball with an organization that emphasized learning the "egg beater" kick and dribbling the ball across lengths of a deep, chilly high school pool.  While this was a great way to limit screen time and accrue "PE minutes," Fallon quickly let her parents know that this wasn't a particularly fun way to spend 3 evenings a week.  Besides, it significantly cut into our parallel project of having more sit-down dinners together as a family.    

This season, we focused on "rediscovering the fun" and found that Blue Buoy followed an abbreviated season (4 total sessions across 1 month).  They packed a ton of learning and fun into each session.  The ratio of instructors to players was much higher (1:3) and the experience level of the instructors was sky-high.  The coach pictured above is a water polo Olympian!  The pool they met in was heated to 90 degrees and was mostly shallow.  This allowed the beginners to touch the bottom rather than egg beater and focus on scrimmaging to learn where to move to be open, block, and pass and catch one-handed.  The abundance of coaches kept the 3 player teams balanced and fun for differing ability levels.  The time seemed to fly by.  Fallon had so much fun she recruited her dad to do extra practice sessions in our home pool.  We can't wait for the spring season!

Languages/Culture

"Choose a culture to research and learn more about.   If they speak a different language, research that language.  Learn how to count to 10 in that language and say a traditional greeting. "

Me voy a aprender sobre la cultura de Sudamerica.  La mayoria de esos paises hablan Espanol.  Puedo contar a veinte porque estoy aprendiendo hacer crochet tambien y si no conto las puntadas, tengo problemas!  Cuando caminamos en las calles de California sur (o Alta California, dependiente de tu punto de vista), puedo dicir, "Buenos dias," "Buen'dia," "Buenos'" en la manana.  "Buenas tardes" es mejor despues del almuerzo.  No estoy fuera despues de atardecer para decir, "Buenas noches."  Algunas veces con mi amiga, digo, "Que tal?" o "Hola!" pero esos son un poco informal por extranos.  

How did I do?  Let's see what google translates... 

I'm going to learn about South American culture. Most of those countries speak Spanish. I can count to twenty because I'm learning to crochet too, and if I don't count the stitches, I'm in trouble! When walking down the streets of Southern California (or Alta California, depending on your point of view), I can say, "Buenos dias," "Buen'dia," "Buenos" in the morning. "Buenas tardes" is best after lunch. I'm not out after dark to say, "Buenas noches." Sometimes with my friend, I'll say, "Que tal?" or "Hola!" but those are a bit informal for strangers.

Farmgirl Shutterbugs

 "Research the following terms and how they relate to photography...."  

Exposure

Correct exposure is determined by the combination of aperture (f-stop), shutter speed, and ISO.  

f-stop:  f stands for the focal length of the lens the slash means "divided by."  So if your lens is 50 mm and the f-stop setting is 1.4 = 50/1.4 =35.7mm diameter actual lens opening.    The full f-stops are at f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, etc.  Each step down from one f-stop to the next full stop, you half the volume of light entering the lens (i.e. going from f/4 to f/5.6).     

shutter speed: controls the amount of time the light is allowed to stay on the media or film in the camera.  Every full stop down on your shutter speed doubles the volume of light on the film (i.e. going from 1/500 sec to 1/250 sec).  

ISO (film speed): ISO is like worker bees or horsepower.  Higher ISO means you can use a faster shutter speed and/or smaller aperture to get the same result.  This can be helpful if you want to convey motion in your photo by using a longer exposure (then use a lower ISO).  If your subjects are mostly stationary, you could use a shorter exposure (and higher ISO).  

Depth of field:  Area of sharpness within a photo.  You can increase the depth of field by using a smaller aperture/larger f-stop to let less light in (sort of like pouring paint into a can using a funnel is tidier than splashing it in with a "wide open" aperture).  But you might sometimes want a small depth of field and a "messier" look that is achieved with a larger aperture/smaller f-stop to encourage your audience to focus on a small area and blur a distracting background.  

(sourced from Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson)

Composition

Framing: using elements in the foreground, middle ground, or background to "frame" around the main subject, directing the viewer's eye and adding depth and interest to the image

Rule of thirds: don't just put your subject in dead center, imagine a 3x3 grid of 9 equal over your photo and place the main subject at one of the 4 intersections or along one of the lines to balance the subject with negative space and make a more dynamic and aesthetically pleasing photo.  

Leading lines:  elements within the photo which guide the viewer to a specific focal point (i.e. roads, fences, rivers).  

"Take at least 20 photos that demonstrate how you are living the farmgirl lifestyle and share them..."

Intermediate Level

"Look up some famous photographers and find one whose style you prefer."  

(curators speculate Vivian shot this in one take through the window of a moving bus!)

Vivian Maier Developed:  The Untold Story of the Photographer Nanny.  At first, I thought I could relate because my "career" this season is also as a nanny (of my own kid).  I also aspire to choose quality possessions over quantity.  Vivian has arresting photos in both color and black and white.  She has alpine landscapes in her portfolio but where she really shines is urban street photography and portraiture.  I love her sense of humor, capturing a generous derrière precariously perched on a too-small park bench.  I love her social commentary in capturing the simmering racial tension in the streets of New York and Chicago and memorializing the sentiments of the era by photographing graffiti.  I love the sweet moments of storytelling, elderly couples holding hands, a little girl swinging between the handholds of two nearly identically dressed women shot from the back.  Her experiments with using reflective surfaces or lighting to capture herself in distorted, duplicated and shadow form are a trip.  

I envy Vivian's reputation for quickly seeing and capturing the shot without much set up or a learning curve.  No one divides her work into early "rough around the edges" era and her mature work.  Perhaps because it was all munged together, undated, in storage repo auction crates?  It seems like she was born an intuitive photographer and I want to believe that I can grind my way to competence with 10,000 hours of practice and a lot of crappy early work.  But am I willing to grind it out to achieve this particular style?  I wouldn't cut in lines or jump in front of a motorcade to get a good shot of a celebrity, I wouldn't break into crime scenes, stalk mourners to capture their grief, or approach strangers and snap their portrait at close range with no preamble.  I also wouldn't fill my living quarters with a hoard of newspapers, engage the services of storage units, or allow myself to routinely lapse into past due on those bills if I did.  I am a far more entrenched people-pleaser.  Yet the author weaves a story connecting all these less desirable behaviors to a singularly traumatic childhood, which I also did not have to compensate for.    

"I couldn't believe it when the horse showed up.  It looked like Arnold.  Arnold's thigh in those white pants looked like the horse's thigh."

Annie Leibovitz At Work

The thing about Annie is she has a 40+ year career with very little of it in obscurity because she of her early notoriety of getting in at the ground floor of Rolling Stone.  In reading her autobiography immediately after Maier's biography, it struck me that while some of this was luck, a lot of this was being a flexible, reliable operator.  This came to the fore in her segment about taking the queen's portrait "I'm rather proud of being in control of a complicated shoot," she begins and proceeds to regale her audience with 9 pages of detail about how little autonomy the queen's handlers afforded her.  In her 10 most-asked questions, she refuses to dish about people who are a pain to work with, "I'd be crazy to name them.  You can't be indiscreet in this business."  40 years of experience allows her to comment on how the technology has evolved from black and white, to color, to digital.  She is more of a collaborative learner and planner than Maier.  Describing her formative years at the SF Art Institute, "Since the prints were washed in communal trays and everybody's pictures were lying there with everybody else's, you tried hard to come back with something good."  Because of her process, you get a short list of other artists and photographers she respects and what she considers admirable about them, Arbus, Avedon, Helmut Newton to expand your own education.  

The areas she broached that I am still chewing on are the idea of using digital to add subjects or change backgrounds asynchronously.  I understand that this is a powerful advantage of digital and allows for flexibility when working with subjects who are celebrities, but I couldn't help thinking back to her critique of the photojournalists on war fronts rearranging the guns for a more dramatic shot on a slow day being disingenuous.  I also found myself wishing she would have pushed a bit further into commenting on video vs. stills, how the landscape has changed with photography technology available in phones to amateurs, and what if anything she would do to be a more agile photographer.  It seems even with culling the variety of films, lighting apparati, and tripod that she is still a bit of a maximalist in terms of the equipment she packs.  While I love that she seems to have a growth mindset philosophy toward photography skills, they are something you can work on and develop, I was then disheartened to learn that she felt being photogenic was innate and that some of her success was in working with people who are arresting no matter who photographs them.  With that in mind, maybe my place really is better behind the camera than in the frame!      

   

Is this social commentary?  Pinning NRA "We do our part" sign to a cigar store Indian.  

Ansel Adams 400 Photographs

Landscape photography isn't particularly intriguing to me, even if it is beautifully executed.  Paging through this book in a day only made matters worse-- another picture of Half Dome, another of El Cap -- all the while realizing Ansel had taken these shots years apart.  There is admiration that he probably had to hike into these snowy redoubts, that he didn't have strobes and was likely capturing even his moonscapes with just natural light, that he probably didn't even have much immediate feedback on how it had all gone until he got back to his dark room.  I wonder if it struck him as cruel at any point to be taking black and white photos of rainbows in the mist or rock formations called Painted Lady?  Maybe that was the point, to leave the viewer slightly dissatisfied and motivated to go out and see these monuments for themselves, or at least support their conservation.  In a way, our family has.  We have a framed without glass map of the Sierras we mark with dates of our camping trips as we accumulate them.  

An advantage to swallowing an entire career of work in a few hours is that I began to appreciate symmetries in the close up and long views of nature.  A zoomed in shot of a creek could have ripples that could have been plausible as an elevated shot of a canyon.  Chunks of dead trees and their grain looked like uncanny rock formations.  I also admired his portraits, as they were often other famous artists and it made it feel like there was some sort of American Bloomsbury club that got together and shared ideas.  Oh, he's hanging out with Georgia O'Keefe and who is this Orville she looks so amused by?  Wasn't there another photographer that was in love with her?  Scandalous!      

Hold Still Sally Mann

I was gobsmacked with Sally's verbal acuity in this "memoir with photographs."  Every page was riddled with interesting vocabulary and wry sense of humor.  Part of me is tempted to go back through and highlight each ten dollar word to relish them again.  But a larger part of me has no interest in wading through images of scantily clad tweens frozen with eerily worldly expressions and dangling candy cigarette butts or the end pages of decomposing bodies just to gather these verbal pearls.  I also wish Sally had consulted with Annie Liebowitz about how pictures render differently on different paper types and textures and made some better presentation choices to make it easier to see with full force what she described so beautifully in text.  The effort felt a bit reminiscent of a rough punk rock 'zine without a redeeming cultural call to action.    

But presentation aside, I admired that here is a philosopher photographer, sharing her observation that photography seems to unwittingly rob us of high fidelity memory of the subject, yet ironically, how a singular surviving picture might be uncharacteristic of its subject and yet still come to stand in for their entire personality when that is all that survives.  

Without knowing much about her, I first judged her initial two works harshly as the sort of sensationalist content that would make a fitting cover for Nabokov's Lolita.  Hold Still, such a fitting double entendre of a title.  Could it be a triple entendre if you also factor in the morbid interest in aging and death?  Eventually, I mellowed into the view that these were shot pre-pervasive internet and the ramifications it has for the photographed subjects, however willing they might be at the time and that this sort of material is not worthy to aspire to now but shouldn't be judged too harshly with the benefit of some hindsight.  While I wouldn't say this is a style or subject I aspire to, this has been the most thought-provoking photography book I've read so far.    

Humans of New York - Brandon Stanton

Contemporary street art portraits and from the captions, it sounds as if he is asking permission first.  The short quotes and captions for these portraits are delightful.  I wonder how hard it is to keep records of those to cross reference if you are taking hundreds of photos a day?  Stanton has a great eye for composing a humorous portrait without making his subject the brunt of the joke.  Most of these portraits look like they could be the start of a character sheet for a quirky dungeons and dragons personality.  It seems like "humans" are so singular a feature for NYC, I wonder if he could have done it in other cities?  He summarized his earlier stops at Pittsburgh as "yellow steel bridges," and Philly as "bricks and flags," so maybe we would have seen more architecture and less humanity if he had settled elsewhere.  He wrote that he had planned to continue traveling to the west coast, but he never made it out here.  If he had, what would his compositions look like? It is interesting how social media can give much more rapid feedback to the artist and impact where they focus than those publishing posthumously.  The Leibovitz book had a similar comment, indignant she had been "scooped" on a shot of a celebrity getting his hair done in a beauty parlor by a photographer working for faster-to-market tabloid.  Having watched a standup comedy bit where the black comedian, Josh Johnson clues white friends in that the default camera settings are not friendly to melanin and to take this into consideration with group selfies.  This was something that hadn't occurred to me, but now makes the range of skin tones of Stanton's subjects, all flatteringly captured, more impressive.    

There and Back: Photographs from the Edge - Jimmy Chin

Chin is an iceberg.  There is so much unspoken foundation behind his work.  Not only did he capture the most breathtaking landscapes and action shots I have come across so far, it took years of training to be able to follow these ground-breaking friends to the edge of the world and back.  It takes a certain alchemy to forge partnerships while sharing a claustrophobic portaledge suspended thousands of feet up in subzero temperatures on rationed food waiting for the weather and avalanches to clear.  The fact the same partners continued to seek him out for future trips and introduce him to their up and coming colleagues speaks volumes.  He reminds me of Leibovitz in the prestige and star power he brings to the work after earning Nat Geo credentials and documenting Free Solo.  Yet the power of his party's story-- summiting a demanding piece of geography or skiing down it-- removes the need to come up with a gimmicky concept to direct the shoot.  There isn't furniture or ephemera to move when the scene only contains the carefully curated items people were willing to pack in on their backs.  

I am still mulling over how these photos feel so much more immediate and compelling than other scenic views.  I think part has to do with the fact he is in the middle of such extreme locations that even if some of the steepness and precarity is muted in the photo, it still feels like a cliff hanger in a way snapping a sunset from a scenic overlook on the highway never could.  I think part might have to do with phenomenal editing available on digital capture, as he credits several editors on his time.  Part might have to do with the technique of putting a human (often miniscule) in the middle of the composition for scale.  Part might have to do with climbing at all hours and in particular those golden hours of dawn and dusk.  Part might have to do with spreading these photos on glossy paper wall to wall and sometimes across the fold of a massive coffee table book with no margins.  Although he isn't as much of a lyrical wizard with words as Sally Mann, I found myself impressed with his terse captions and brief essays setting the scene for the shots.  It seemed that facing the near possibility of death carved away almost everything but the esteem he held for the terrain and his climbing subjects and maybe the occasional self-deprecating understated joke.    

Her-story: Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo

Let's take a moment to admire our southern neighbor, the first Mexican Presidenta, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo and her outspoken advocacy for human rights to health, education, and environmental protection.   

In response to accusations that she was a "Bulgarian Jew" from political detractors during the presidential election, she released her birth certificate, establishing she was born in 1962 in Mexico City, the same city she would eventually spend a half decade serving as the head the government.  Her parents were leftist faculty whose families had immigrated to escape WWII conflict.  She followed in their academic footsteps, abandoning ballet for a degree in physics and going on to earn a Ph.D. in energy engineering while at Berkeley Lab, in California, where she had relocated for 4 years with her husband and two kids.  

In 2000, she was appointed by Obrador (AMLO) as Secretary of the Environment, originally tasked to decrease urban air pollution, she was also roped into improving mass transit infrastructure in Mexico City when AMLO began a public works project constructing a "second floor" to the perimeter highway.  She also found time to collaborate with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), writing a chapter of the report which went on to win a Nobel peace prize.  All the while, worrying as a mother of two about childcare pickup and drop off logistics.  When Obrador narrowly lost his bid for the 2006 presidential election, Claudia further endeared herself to him by assembling a team to use her mathematical skills to investigate how the electoral fraud was accomplished.  Then she returned to her research post at her Mexican alma mater (UNAM), publishing what would eventually amount to of over 100 co-authored articles and 2 books about energy, the environment, and sustainable development.  These publications centered on the value of mass transit and investment in human rights to healthcare and education.    

When Obrador's 2012 presidential bid was also defeated, he formed a leftist splinter party which Claudia joined, canvassing door to door.  In Sheinbaum's case, the acronym for this new party was particularly fitting, "Morena" literally signifies a dark haired female.  It can be a pet name or term of endearment and generally has neutral connotations.  Morena the party nominated Claudia for mayor of the Tlalpan borough of Mexico city which she had called home for the past 30 years.  She won and held the position for 2 years before resigning to run for jefa of the whole city.    

In 2018, she took office as the first elected female head of government in Mexico City.  Yet that may sound like more of a victory for feminism than it really was.  Five of the 7 candidates in the race were women and they collectively carried 86% of the popular vote.  Nineteen years prior, Rosario Robles had also held the position for 14 months, but she was an appointee and became embroiled in her party's corruption scandals causing her to sit out the subsequent election rather than win by popular vote.  This paved the way for AMLO to hold the position; presiding over Mexico City until he moved onto his 2 failed and third successful presidential bids.  

With Obrador presiding over the country, jefa Claudia extended the Mexico City projects she had begun 18 years prior under his appointment, following the guidance of the research articles she had published.  She introduced a unified mass transit pass, extended and electrified mass transit, introduced bike lanes, bike sharing.  She aspired to reduce air pollution by 30% during her term, plant 15 million trees, ban single-use plastic, build a new waste separation plant, bring water service to all residences, and install solar panels and water heaters.  

Meanwhile, she nearly halved the homicide rate in Mexico city during her term by encarcerating corrupt cops, empowering the police and enhancing their coordination with the district attorney.  Her cash for firearms program took 6,500 weapons off the street.  She created a hotline and 700 km of safe corridors to improve security for women in public spaces.  She also worked toward a universal basic income for pensioners.  She showed her support for LGTBQ as the first head of government to participate in a pride march and by mandating gender neutral uniforms in state schools.  She further established scholarships for 1.2 million students and established two tuition-free colleges which enroll more than 55,000.  She also established pilares or community cultural centers in marginalized neighborhoods which helped level the academic playing field between rich and poor which earned a UNESCO award.  Not bad for 6 years in office, don't you think? 

Her track record with governing Mexico City was so strong that as AMLO reached the end of his single term limit as the president of Mexico, her party nominated her to take his place in 2024.  Once again, she became the first woman elected to the position (although the nation seemed more ready for it than us Americans, her strongest rival for the position was also a woman).  But Claudia won by a landslide, carrying 31/32 states and 60% of the vote which is the highest percentage ever recorded since free and fair elections began.  

Her platform ran on expanding the successes she had achieved in Mexico City more broadly.  Homicides dropped 25% in the first months she was in office and she shrewdly noted to American leadership that 74% of those reclaimed cartel weapons were sourced from the US.  Her empowered national guard confiscated 178 tons of narcotics including 3 million doses of fentanyl.  These efforts and savvy negotiation tactics enabled her to indefinitely delay US tariff threats.  Domestically, she committed to extending train lines and modernizing ports, to devoting 1% of the military budget towards reforestation, and lowering oil generation targets by 10% while increasing state control of electricity generation enterprises.  She is increased school investment across the board and innovatively called for additional retraining opportunities for women in their 60's.  She also spearheaded house-to-house healthcare services for the elderly and disabled.  From her own term-limited position, she pushes for single term limits on other elected positions and advocating that judges be selected by popular vote rather than appointment to address concerns of political corruption.    

While Claudia is wise to downplay her personal life, what little that is published inspires me.  Imagine becoming a stepmother at only 20 years old!  Yet somehow she managed to stay on such good terms, even after the marriage (of 30 years!) dissolved, that she was informed by her stepson that she would soon be a grandmother.  How sweet to then reconnect with a college sweetheart and embark on a second marriage after a 7 year engagement.  To get a better sense of this legendary lady, or just to brush up on your Spanish, I recommend the 40 minute Youtube documentary, Claudia.    

Maybe when she reaches her term limit in 2030, she can share her expertise to make life a little better up here in Alta California!  

Leave It Better Than You Found It

 

Why is stewardship of the Earth important to you?  

My brief career as an Insta influencer was spent documenting the items that materialized overnight on our sidewalk with the hashtag "trashfairies."  The thing about trash fairies was the quicker you responsibly disposed of their treasures, the less likely they were to leave you extra.  Stewardship was initially an act of self-preservation, lest we take a peek at our sidewalk one day and find a Sarah Cynthia Silvia Stout-sized berg leaving us no hope of driveway egress.  Now that I'm a parent and deadpan insisting that the tooth fairy doesn't pay as much for teeth with cavities, I find Earth stewardship has broadened into a general concern about legacy.  Last I checked, our short-term odds for planetary egress weren't that great.  I want my epitaph to read, "She left it better than she found it."  

Why is it important to keep our highways, public places, and outdoor recreational areas litter free?  

My top 2 reasons for keeping areas litter free are:  

(1) Litter eventually ends up the ocean where it contributes to all the microplastics floating around in the continent-sized garbage gyre, poisoning wildlife and eventually poisoning ourselves. 

(2)  No one wants to spend time in ugly spaces.  Research says spending time outside makes us healthier.  Why not do everything we can to Make Outside Attractive Again?    

What adverse effects can the presence of litter have on the environment and wildlife?  Tell us about these problems in three different areas of the world, such as roads, nature, waterways, urban spaces, etc.

Urban:  Provides harborage for pests.  Mosquitoes can lay eggs in the amount of water pooled in a discarded soda cap.  

Roads:  Litter can block storm drains and increase the risk of flooding.  It can also create accidents if it causes drivers to swerve to avoid it.  

Waterways:  Litter that washes out to the ocean can harm wildlife.  Plastic bags look like jellyfish, a delicacy for some turtles.  

Waste Removal Sorties:  (intermediate level)

1.  

2. 

3. 

4.

5.  

70.3 Oregon '25

Logistics: 

We waffled on fly vs. drive and what that would mean for our hotel reservation dates.  This was driven by concern about how to get the bike there.  Tri-bike transport was no longer operating and it looked like a road trip to see all the parks on the way would be a substantial detour.  

By mid-March, we couldn't find any hotel rooms at any price in Salem.  We found a peaceful lavender farm on Airbnb a scenic 30 minute drive away outside Silverton.  Fri check in, Mon check out.  If I were going back, I would try to reserve the tiny home on the property for a night in addition to the guest house because sleeping in a tiny is on my bucket list and it could let me get into an even more reclusive monk mode since my sherpa entourage (Jens and Fallon) stay up later and don't need to wake up as early.  

We flew (LAX-PDX, Fri AM-Mon mid-day).  We lucked out in that Coach Ingrid had a soft-sided Scion bike bag she was willing to lend.  Wayne had experience with it and helpful tips to ensconce it in pipe insulation/pool noodles and remove the derailleur and even shared his packing material.  Sherpa Jens elaborated on this approach with zip ties vs. painter's tape (don't forget to pack something to snip them open).  He used dynema string to rotate the derailleur into a safer spot within the bike frame and ziptied it secure without needing to remove it.  Bike went through oversized luggage undamaged both directions.  The gear bags that came with it and wedge into the frame are slick, I could fit my entire transition kit in there.  If you fly and there is a Fearless contingent driving, see if they can bring your co2 cartridges for flats ($5/ in expo).   

Group check in was an unexpected upgrade.  14 Fearless training buddies "flash mobbed" race check in at 4PM Friday and a helpful volunteer captain was able to assign us numbers next to each other so we would be bike rack neighbors.  I was worried I wouldn't be able to find my transition Ikea Bag because everyone on Fearless would be following the same Ingrid tip, but it wasn't an issue.  Saturday morning, Fallon ran an Ironkids half mile while Jens assembled the bike (too bulky to fit in a Subaru Forrester rental car fully assembled), did a test ride to check the shifters left it in low gear, and staged the gear bag.  It turns out they want you to tie your transition gear to the bike/rack bar overnight but thankfully, the Fearless teammates who came through later in the day could get my bag off the ground.  

I wanted to see the swim start, so I walked there.  It took almost half an hour each way.  If I were new and doing it again, I would suggest biking over to look at it to save time.  Some folks were actually swimming the whole route as a preview.  If that is you, find one of those high viz swim buoys that doubles as a dry bag so you can drag your phone/minimal gear with you.  You will swim it faster than a sherpa friend will need to walk your stuff back.  People were also doing check out swims off the dock that is the end of the swim.  The current isn't ripping too badly to swim against there.  If I were doing it again, I would make sure to have water, a good sunscreen base, and/or Judene's parasol on hand.  It was surprisingly hot and sunny and I got a little cooked and dehydrated during the race setup.  Saturday, my crew headed to a Salem board game cafe for lunch and entertainment in the shade.  I'm glad they didn't serve coffee because I would have partaken and had trouble going to sleep that evening.        

25:10 Swim  get up at 4AM, shellac self with Zealios sunscreen, choke down a muffin/cold coffee/chocolate espresso beans, leave Silverton 4:30 with a frozen water bottle for T2, sunglasses and my running shoes.  Get to transition at 5:15, fill my aero waterbottle, wiggle into a wetsuit.  I didn't pack Trislide because I thought aerosols weren't allowed on the plane.  Untrue.  Probably could have borrowed from a Fearless neighbor if things were really tight.  I wore sacrificial socks for the walk to the swim start with a partial water bottle and a honeystinger.  Worked great-- my toe was peeking out a new hole right around the last call trash cans and I didn't need to use/track down a morning clothes bag at the end.  One thing I hadn't appreciated is that the seeded time sign people left transition at 5:45 and if you don't immediately attach yourself to "the fast group" per Ingrid instructions at departure, you are going to need to hot foot through the gravelly shoulder to get to the front.  Not advisable in bare feet.  Fortunately, Julia, Diane and Tony were in a similar predicament and we ended up in the 37-40? min group together.  It did create some confusion for the rest of the race-- seeing Fearless and not knowing if they were 40 minutes deeper into their race or behind you based on where they had ended up in the swim line up.  Swim itself was fast.  We dropped in in groups of 4 and were spaced so far apart I only bumped into one person.  There is kelpy stuff toward the finish and I climbed out feeling a little bit like swamp thing.           

3:34:02 Bike  My fueling plan was an aerobar bottle of water, and an entire 11-serving box of date coconut rolls (should hit 250 cals/hour target and I need to eat 1 roll every 20 mins or so).  I don't have a power meter and Ingrid gave me basic instructions (stay over 13mph, HR in low 140s).  Course was straightforward, not too hilly.  Outside of a little stress about whether I was drafting and some TMI issues (wishing I had tied on the bandana for discrete snot management, Coeur shorts generous liner helping a lot with chafe but not completely eliminating it past mile 40 and should I have reapplied vaseline/buttr after the swim?) this was smooth sailing.  I remembered the race reports from last year emphasizing wishing they had fueled more on the bike and was feeling pretty proud of myself having finished everything about 10 miles from the bike dismount.  If I were doing this again, I would practice grabbing bottles out of the cages, refilling aerobottle on the wing, and passing/throwing out stuff at a simulated aid station.  I had experimented once in training with tailwind in a bottle but the logistics of managing two hydration systems without being confident grabbing stuff out of cages was too much to bother with.  I skipped the aid stations and biked self-supported.      

2:23:56 Run We were lucky this year and it stayed relatively cool/overcast compared to the previous day and previous year's race stats.  Overheating was still my main concern.  I grabbed an oversized sport top bottle we had stashed in the freezer from my transition bag to start the run.  I drank what I could of the melt and bowled the remainder to Jens and Fallon shortly out of transition.  I like Ingrid's idea of chugging Pedialyte to start the run ("you are a raisin and you want to be a grape") but I hadn't trained with that and I wasn't sure what its freeze-thaw properties would be.  I had a dry pack of LMNT I carried as emergency salt (and ended up licking some off my hand to break up a side stitch at mile 12).  I tried to reach for the race day electrolytes (Mortal) at the first couple aid stations but went easy because I hadn't sampled these in training and even so, things got a bit sloshy/burpy.  I was delighted to find the aid stations had ice and my routine settled into filling the shelf bra of my Fearless top with ice and then crunching a cube on the walk breaks.  Generally, I had trained at 1:30 run, :30 walk but the course felt congested at the start and with athletes running two loops.  I ended up running through "a handful" of 30 sec alerts (2:30)  and walking :30 to just not feel like I was constantly passing people and then walking in front of them.  This worked for the most part for 11 miles, but if running is not your happy place, I wouldn't recommend this experiment.  I was delighted to stumble across Stephanie as we entered the finisher chute.  I had no idea she was so close (the confusion of the staggered swim start) or I would've pushed myself a little harder to catch up with her earlier on the run.  The run was largely in Minto Park so it was a quiet-run-through-a-cathedral-of-trees sort of vibe, not the sort of run where there is music blasting at you for the duration to keep your spirits up and your mind distracted.  Company for some of it would have been good.        

6:37:11 Total  This surprised me as it was 58 minutes faster than the Santa Rosa time I posted at my last half 8 years ago (pre-kid) and which I had been carefully avoiding looking up lest I feel disappointed that I finished but not as fast.  It wasn't all the swimming with the current.  I took 16 mins off the bike and ran pretty much the same pace (54 seconds slower).  I am super happy with this and the great coaching guidance I got following Ingrid's plan.  Now to find fun ways to maintain the gains for the rest of the season without another race on the horizon... Although Elsinore '26 on summer solstice is a stone's throw from Sweden and sherpa Jens has fond childhood memories of celebrating Midsommar he might want to recreate with Fallon...   

1. Line dry laundry evolution [Expert]

7/14: Embark on my first "full" line dry hang...  I pick an auspicious, misty and overcast day for it, but the sun eventually dries everything out.  

I should time this approach vs. the dryer approach since it feels more tedious but I couldn't quantify by exactly how much.    

This makes me extra motivated to reuse towels rather than getting fresh ones.  They use up so much real estate on our line!  They dry a bit stiff but no family members have complained so far so no need to fall back to plan B (short dryer air fluff).    

It also motivates me to continue to shift my "uniform" over as much as possible to fast drying fabrics (bike shorts, hiking paints, swim tops).  Also to pieces multiple times if they are serviceably clean.  

I should buy more kid-sized hangers for kid clothes since the "hack" of hanging the adult t-shirts on the hangers they would be stored on worked so well.     

This indoor over sink drying rack wasn't ideal.  These were small items like underwear I didn't want to walk out side and display to the neighborhood.  Yet it seemed like there wasn't enough air circulation and
thicker fabrics like socks got funky and went back through the wash after a baking soda pre-treat.  

7/16:  "Perfect is the enemy of the good" attempt #2

Line dry almost all items except small thick items and kid clothes.  There are fewer towels this time.  The line does a great job quasi-pressing hubby's pants to feel slightly stiff.  The indoor rack is not so heavily loaded and since it is a sunnier day, items dry there without issue.    

What few clothes remain in the dryer I can run on a much shorter "minimal dry" cycle and they come out bone dry.  

7/17:  (Thursday) I usually run two+ loads of sheets and sundry on Friday.  I line dry our king-sized flannel duvet and the linen cases and fitted sheet while I'm at it because more often than not, the duvet will get knotted up in a ball in the dryer and "knot" dry anyway.  The second load of kid's twin sheets and enough clothes to make a full load would go straight into the dryer.  I'm moving up the king size laundry load a day so our house sitters have relatively fresh sheets if they opt to stay in our bedroom instead of the guest room.  Maybe in the future I will have different weekly wash days designated for each sheet set so there is sufficient line space to hang them all.  That would probably also more evenly apply greywater to our banana circle as opposed to flooding it with 2-3 loads back to back.  

I found it took about 7 mins to hang rags and assume it will take another 7 to put them away, so this method comes at about a 15 min premium per load (using my current workflow).  But I suppose I could also consider the bonus steps/light activity minutes as a benefit.  I also found I could hang the small items dryer below the fence sightline in hopes of getting greater air circulation with more privacy.  

7/22:  ran two loads coming back from a weekend away.  Innovations were to cut the number of trips outside with some batch processing by dragging the hamper of towels/pants out.  I gave myself permission to sort the socks and non-swim kid clothes into the dryer (combined over two loads and set to "less dry").  Hang shirts in staging area by the washer.  Put delicates/small items on the little drying rack while it was next to washer.  Move the "delicates" rack outside to its more discrete post for better air circulation.  42 minutes of labor including the sort-fold-hanging that I would have incurred using the dryer the old way across 2 loads of laundry.  This also has the summer advantage of not adding extra heat to the living area and keeping the house quieter for more of the day.    [7/25:  17 mins to do a conventional load, so +4 mins/load?] 

Shopping green - packaging audit [Intermediate]

 When shopping, look at the packaging of the products you buy and try to increase the purchases of items that have recyclable/biodegradable packaging.  

This Monday, we did a lunch time grocery shop as a family.  

Wins: 

We brought and used our reusable plastic bags

We recycled extra reusable plastic bags in the plastic film recycling bin

Purchased largest available tubs of spinach which reduces the plastic recycling generated/serving

Purchased "big sheets" format of seaweed snack which has less packaging/serving and no little plastic trays.

Unwittingly purchased the bulk+thick yogurt which uses less plastic packaging than making it from scratch with bottled milk or single serving containers.  

Opted for bulk organic oatmeal and jelly beans using our mesh reusable bags rather than prepackaged servings

Further ways to reduce packaging: 

Reuse the packaging in the home several times before recycling (i.e. pizza kit is a humidity tray for seed starts, yogurt containers can be pots for seedlings, Talenti ice cream containers are now holding our diy yogurt experiments). 

Record what ends up uneaten/composted.  If we overbought an item and end up not eating it, that is doubly wasteful.  

Buy loose at farmer's market and use own reusable packaging: spinach, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, avocados, cucumbers

Grow at home: spinach/climate-appropriate greens equivalents, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, berries, avocados, cucumbers

Buy in bulk and "decant" into easy to use format: cheese tray

Make from scratch/swap to an alternative that is easy/fun/satisfying to make from scratch: mochi desserts, french fries, brioche hot dog buns, bread, pickles, pasta, pizza dough.     

 *There is an art to this.  There are days when making from scratch is a fun satisfying project, there are other days when the convenience of store-bought or its marked down price point are just too good to pass up.

Research ways to clean your home without toxic cleaners.  

Check out the findings of our household cleaners audit in February.  

Commit to using a product that you have found or you hae made for cleaning your home and laundry.

I cleaned several loads of laundry with soap nuts and continue to reach for vinegar as a surface cleaner.  I tried to grow helix/ivy as a soap nut alternative because my husband objected to the smell.  My transplants failed in the wine barrel I put them in, so I will need to go back to the propagation drawing board.  

Experimental Yogurt

 "Start out by making yogurt and/or buttermilk.  Learn about proper milk handling, good aseptic technique with the starter, and proper temperature control."  

This started as a brainstorm to reduce packaging and an aspiration to learn more about the extra functions on my appliances.  

1.  I glugged 96 oz (2 jugs) of Alexandre regenerative milk into my Instantpot and followed the instructions to pasteurize it.  Following this setting should have brought the milk up to at least 161*F to kill any harmful bacteria or pathogens.  The milk was purchased vat-pasteurized and unopened before, so I was curious if this step was actually necessary.  Reddit commenters suggest that bringing the milk to this temperature also denatures protein (commercial pasteurization does not reach the same temperatures) and that denatured protein reduces the amount of whey byproduct and makes for a thicker consistency yogurt.  

2.  I used my temperature gun to allow the temperature to fall to a level where the live cultures in my smidge of store-bought yogurt could survive.  In retrospect, I think I messed this step up.  I thought it was OK at 140*F but I should have let it fall to 110*F.  On the upside, I stirred in more than the suggested 2 Tbl of yogurt/gallon, so that may have cooled the solution a tiny bit and introduced much more culture to potentially survive the scalding.  I will have to try this again with the appropriate temperature drop and see if the yogurt consistency and whey production are different.  When planning a future batch, I should also take some notes on how long it takes for the temperature to fall.  This recipe was largely "dump and go" except for this step and I would hate to botch a batch because it wasn't cool enough before leaving for an outing.  

3.  I followed the instructions to ferment the yogurt by holding it at a 110*F temperature for 8 hours. 

4.  After allowing it to cool (overnight), I spooned it through a mesh bag to try to thicken it a bit and captured most of the whey in a separate jar.  I am puzzled about what to do with the whey, but I think I can sub it for buttermilk in baking projects, use it as the liquid base for oatmeal (when I'm not eating yogurt), feed it to my dog, put it in a soup/chili, use it to start another batch of yogurt, or compost it.  It might even be OK as  

5.  The instructions suggested refrigerating the yogurt for 12-24 hours to develop flavors (but I ate some right away as a breakfast parfait).  

6.  (experimental) In one of the pint containers I filled, I also tried adding 3 tableish spoonfuls of milk powder since I prefer the *really thick* style of yogurt and this was pretty runny.  

First round stats: 

milk: 2924 grams yields 1383 grams (runny) yogurt and 1271 of whey (give or take some spills)

recycling generated = 146 grams of plastic (2 milk cartons) vs recycling for 2 containers of store yogurt = 72.47 grams!  

cost = $16.98 vs. grocery store yogurt equivalent (2.03*$7.49) = $15.23 

Surprising!  At face-value, it costs about the same to buy vs. make yogurt.  It also appears that to buy your higher-volume milk input in a plastic container actually doubles the amount of recycling you generate.  If you were looking just to reduce waste created, you should be opting for the bulk containers of very thick, heavily filtered yogurt (i.e. Siggi's) which we were already doing.  This isn't making a compelling case to DIY yogurt unless you feel you cannot find a yogurt brand that uses sufficiently sustainable milk for your standards (untrue in our case, the regenerative dairy makes the yogurt we used as a pricing benchmark); have a way to completely avoid recycling (perhaps via the Strauss bottle exchange program, or running your own dairy); or you find enough worthwhile uses for the whey to offset some of the cost (very possible if this can replace the milk I add to coffee and smoothies).  Finally, there is a nontrivial chance that my newbie mistakes with adding the culture too early generated a lower yield of yogurt than was achievable by a more experienced yogurt-maker and that this would shift the ROI of the entire project more favorably.   

7/16: whey is tasty totally serviceable milk alternative in protein shakes.  ROI is improving.    

7/17: no whey does it taste good in coffee though.  It is too dense and clumps on the bottom.  It is also more acidic so it doesn't seem as effective at mellowing the bitterness of the coffee.  ROI is dubious again.  

Shopping Green

Collect six reusable bags for shopping.  

Commit to using them on your shopping trips.   

In 2016, I voted "Yes" on California proposition 67 which prohibited single use carryout bags (but allowed sale of paper/reusable bags for a fee).  It passed with 53% of the vote.  But  taking stock nine years later, I wouldn't call this a home run.  Sure, plastic bag litter dropped 72% in the first year, but then in following years, plastic bag waste actually increased as shoppers moved over to purchasing 10 cent thicker reusable plastic bags in their stead.  These need to be reused 5-10 times to have a lower environmental impact than single use ones.  We were some of those people, between covid and parenthood, drive up pick up was a siren song we couldn't resist.  In a half year, Senate Bill 1053 will take effect which would phase out these heavier duty plastic bags as a legitimate alternative for shoppers to buy.

I am not sure what process my local grocer will adopt, but I did some research online, learned that some NJ grocers let their drive up customers choose "no bags" and stage the purchase in reusable bins called wacos.  So I sent that into my local grocer as a suggestion for the time-being.  

Here is my bag haul:  

A Postmates courier bag was mistakenly delivered to our address and has become my "go to" cooler because of its mylar liner.  I like the irony of stashing ingredients for home-cooked meals in a meal delivery service bag.  When we overbuy disposable water bottles (parties, camping trips), I stash the extras in the freezer and use them to extend the cooling capability if I know we'll be out in the heat with perishables.  As they thaw, they make delightful thirst quenchers if we are out on a picnic (although I usually reach for my reusable water bottle first).  

The Sierra Club bag is a similar spec with a few more zip pockets and came with an annual membership.  I like that they now give us a "no gift" option for membership renewal.    

The grey bag (with a wolf pattern liner) was a DIY gift from a mother-in-law and is my "every day carry" for miscellaneous stuff that doesn't quite fit in a fanny purse.  It reminds me of an L.L. Bean boat tote, but slightly less structured.  I love the beausage of its fastener button (a piece of broken wooden bowl) falling off and the increased fraying on the perfect length of straps to work as a cross-body bag.  

The 2 mesh bags would be great candidates to make more of for the expert level of this badge "sew in."  I've found myself opting for extra packaging at farmer's markets because I didn't have something like this on hand to keep my cherry tomatoes from commingling with my mushrooms and all getting crushed under the weight of some artisanal jar of honey.  I also love that the bags have their tar weight on a tag if you're really scrutinizing your total.  I also often use these as "delicates" bags in the laundry which is why it feels like I never have quite enough on hand.  

Finally, I've found a tidy way to fold up those heavy-duty plastic bags like little table top footballs.  I've stashed a couple in my car and two in my purse.  

My commitment for the rest 0f 2025 is to:  

(1) Keep the inflow of new "reusable" plastic bags under 3/week from drive up purchases (the amount we are using to line trash cans).  At least until better options arise.  I was tracking at 4-6/week.   

(2) Deploy my stash of reusable bags (now tidy triangles) for in-store shopping.  

(3) Frequent the superior Saturday Farmer's market more often after triathlon training season (and its scheduling conflicts) ends (August) to further reduce packaging waste.  

How cool would it be to roll up to the farmer's market (4.3 miles away) with these cool kitty litter panniers with instructions from REI?  

What's Your Beef?

Research the difference between grass-fed beef and that which is corporately raised.  www.eatwild.com

Unsurprisingly, grass-fed beef has a lower fat percentage which means you get more protein and nutrients with less total calories.  This switch is the caloric equivalent of not having to exercise off 5 extra pounds of fat per year if you were eating a typical amount of beef (2.9oz/day).  Grass beef also has more omega-3's, conjugated linoleic acid, and higher vitamin and mineral content (E, beta carotene, B complex, calcium, magnesium, potassium).  

The challenge with grass fed has more to do with confusing labeling.  "Organic" designation does not guarantee the animal was fed grass.  "Pasture-raised" means the animal spent the last 120 days of its life on grass.  "Grass-fed" is the ideal of cattle who spent their life eating grass.  

Read MaryJane's take on the importance of organic beef at www.maryjanesfarm.org/ieatmeat.asp

Wow, did MJF write this at least 8 years ago?  This post has aged pretty well and it seems public awareness is at a point where this argument isn't that controversial anymore.  I skimmed the Blood Type book cited a few years back and concluded it was more fad than fact, but the fact that we can tell from DNA who is more likely to be able to metabolize dairy, get diabetes more frequently, be heavier than average or dislike cilantro does hint that there may be genetically linked differences in what diets work best for people.  

Write down what you learned and how, if at all, it has changed your mind about the meat you eat.  

I wish there was more discussion about the quantity of meat consumed.  To throw another fad diet into the debate, the high-longevity Blue Zones diets claim their adherents average about 10 oz of meat per month, which is about a tenth of what Jo Robinson believes the average intake of beef is these days.  If we are all largely in agreement that grass-fed is best, would we be willing to cut back our consumption of beef to just the quantity of quality beef our budget could support?  

Within our household, we differ on this point.  I will pre-emptively buy the grass-fed items.  In an effort to not let them spoil, I store them in the freezer, requiring a defrost.  My husband, far more carnivorous, can emerge from his office ravenous often prefers to go to the grocery store over his lunch hour and buy the commercially raised loss leader before considering defrost options.  Now we have leftover mystery meat languishing in our fridge, which out of a mix of guilt and convenience, I find myself eating so as not to waste it.  There is lots of room for improvement in this cycle, don't you think?      

Publicly, I am vegetarian.  My rationale is largely to avoid mystery meats, decrease my ecofootprint and because it is harder to overindulge in less energy dense plant-based entrees.  This started 6 years ago when Covid exposed slaughterhouse supply chain shortages.  I made a game for myself to watch a video about commercial meat production for every meaty meal I ate.  Pretty soon, I was salting my plate with tears and prefering to go without.  I have not done this exercise for dairy and suspect much of my meat consumption was offset by increased cheese consumption.  

Privately, it is more complicated.  I am struggling with body composition in perimenopause.  I've come around to entertaining the idea that increased protein intake (ideally above 100 g/day) will help maintain and build muscle that my excessive cardio was otherwise metabolizing preferentially to body fat.  More protein also seems to help with satiation and avoiding unplanned binges on high carb and processed food that would lay down even more intractable body fat.  I still try to source protein from whole food plant sources (i.e. beans, tofu) first, but supplement with vegetarian protein powders to avoid GI distress when experiencing cravings or too busy to meal prep.  That said, I consider a protein powder and fake meats processed food and am now incorporating carefully sourced meat dishes which have the potential to be less processed.  

For instance, we toured a local cattle ranch that grazes cows in the southern California foothills for fire and flood mitigation.  We have been working through 15 or so pounds of cuts sourced from them.  I converted some of the ground beef into a meat loaf (with home grown celery greens, onions and garlic) we smoked for Father's day yesterday that was surprisingly good.  However, I still prefer to think of ethically sourced meat as a garnish/treat rather than a staple on my plate.  

Get it Together- storage container audit

 

"To be truly able to function on a high level in the kitchen, you need space and organization.  Pull out all your storage containers.  If you don't use them, toss or recycle.  If they don't have a lid, toss or recycle (unless you really do use it lidless), and toss and recycle all those abandoned lids (we all have them!) that don't fit anything left in the cupboard."  

By this point, I've streamlined my storage containers to a few species:  

1.  Wide mouth mason jars - great for dried bulk storage as well as bean/soup easy meal prep

2.  Pyrex 2 cup bowls - double as cereal bowls and everyone seems to have a few of them, so our inventory ebbs and flows with the circulation of potluck dishes and housewarming gifts 

3.  Fit packers (meal prep rounded rectangular containers with see through lids) - go-to for leftovers since we often cook a double batch and can easily eat straight out of the reheated container without dirtying more dishes.  We can stack these 6 or 7 high in our chest fridge without worrying they might fall and break.  They are also the perfect length to span across our chest fridge upper compartment storage baskets to put leftovers that really need to get consumed soon front and center.  

4.  Round deli containers - these are great for sending the kid to the car with a back seat snack and not worrying they will get bobbled and broken along the way.  I also favor these for potluck/hostess type of items when I don't think the recipient will go out of her way to return the empty dish.  The majority of these are retired when my kid turns them into germination stations and bug habitats, for Science!    

5.  Small round plastic snack/condiment containers.  We started with 20 or so of these in order to bring individual materials for an over elaborate preschool snack, perhaps it was single servings of banana ice cream from the surplus that ripened on our trees all at once.  The stock has dwindled to 4 now since these also made great cat food scoops, mini bug habitats, containers for dice and other small toys, etc.    

But even with a limited array of storage containers, there were a few cupboards I had started approaching with dread for fear of a landslide of corroded mason jar lids or the chaos triggered by crowded corner of orphaned lids.  Today was a big day for recycling, plus moving two honey dippers to the donation bin.  I feel lighter.  I will set an annual reminder on my seasonal cleaning lists to reaudit.    

In the future, I also aspire to move away from plastic (did you flinch when you read about reheating the plastic containers and eating straight out of them?) but we haven't yet found anything to beat the stacking convenience of the rectangular fitpackers for leftovers, a drop-friendly serving/"I'm full" (after eating 1 goldfish) storage bowl for little hands, and the plastic mason jar lids have a much longer lifespan because they don't rust and canning isn't really our jam yet (see what I did there?).  

If anyone has any suggestions to level up our storage though, please let me know!    

Buzzing about Bees

**Beginner Level** 

"Watch the trailer of the movie www.vanishingbees.com"  

5/19 - Watched the Vanishing of the Bees trailer.  I couldn't find a source to stream the full length documentary, but I found The Pollinators which explores similar challenges and was filmed 10 years later.  At this point, commercial beekeepers are likened to the last cowboys, herding bees across the country.  Their entire inventory is deployed for the almond bloom.  They are continuing to see losses of 30% per year and say now it is de rigueur to split and re-queen all their hives annually.  The stress of pesticides, herbicides (defoliate apple bloom so only the 1 king apple flower is pollinated for larger more perfect produce), varoa mites and the loss of grassland forage in the midwest to soybeans and corn is unsustainable.  

What can we do?  Opt for local organic produce grown in season, tolerate blemished or otherwise imperfect produce, buy domestic honey even if it is more expensive, avoid the use of pesticides and other "jugs of chemicals" on our own properties, plant flower forage for bees and consider getting into backyard beekeeping ourselves.   

Plant bee-friendly flowers in your garden

4/30 our Girl Scout council hosted a Zoom session with a local beekeeper that young cultivator and I listened to.  Did you know a single honey bee makes 1/12 a teaspoon of honey?!  Savage's book corroborated this finding, but I was so impressed the presenter knew this statistic off the top of her head to answer a young scout's question.  While we listened, YC and I colored in bee finger puppets (see image) and flew them around the yard, mock pollinating.  The lecturing beekeeper also suggested that bees particularly like plants which make small purple flowers.  A UC Davis resource corroborates, featuring mostly purples and a few golden flowers.    

In our yard, they mob lavender, but I am not sure if it the flower color and shape so much as the fact that it is a long-blooming perennial here that offers them a steady supply.  I have had to watch my step on the sidewalks that have jacaranda (another perennial purple flower) because the bees go after this so hard, they are climbing into blooms that have fallen on the ground.  Conversely, our California pepper tree sounds like it is humming with bees but its flowers are tiny white ones, which is a vote for perennial bloomers rather than purples.  That said, our 2+ story house is painted purple and gold so maybe the bees are pulled in just based on the am-bee-ance?  Maybe we should paint it peptobismol pink and see if we draw even more (Secret Life of Bees house (assignment below)).  A Reddit query on this topic and found we have a lot of other favored flowers this year -- zinnias (even saw a big black native bee visit these), sunflowers, fruit tree blossoms.  I am adding a sterile variety butterfly bush to my nursery wish list as this was also upvoted by Redditors but came with the caveat that it is considered invasive because it is so low-maintenance it can outcompete natives...  Gee, I kind of wish they hadn't patented a life form to contain it though, at least it is perennial so you aren't having to repurchase it every year.  

Read... 

Secret Life of Bees

by Sue Monk Kidd

This was delightful.  (spoiler alert next 4 paragraphs)

I loved how with the calendar sisters, Kidd created a black sisterhood that would be considered successful by my New England "waspy" standards.  They have financial independence, academic credentials, an accomplished musician, even an eccentric they care for privately and find cause to appreciate.  However, it was apparent how much hard work and lucky breaks it took to achieve this status; a father who was one of the few high-ranking professions available to him, inherited property, the decisions of the sisters not to marry and disburse.  If a few cards fell in another direction, and the cards likely would for most, they might easily have been in Rosaleen's spot of having a conviction they were not treated fairly, but little recourse to challenge the status quo peacefully or improve their position.  If their business wasn't something which helped local farmers; if their terms for the farmers (free honey and pollination) weren't so generous, would they have been as tolerated in the community?    

I also loved how they had woven together a fellowship, rituals and religion around the masthead and eclectic cultures that really spoke to them and helped them make sense of their struggles and those of their ancestors (slavery, the role/value of women in society).  I found myself thinking it could be helpful to build our own "wailing wall" to process grief, to have an Assumption party if we felt August needed more celebration, to incorporate fruit salad candles into our lunch rotation, to fill our bathroom with sea shells to remind us of the ocean, to give ourselves permission to do the minimum (stay hydrated) on the hottest times of the year.  

The "bee" theme was also intriguing to follow through the human saga.  In what ways did the analogy hold up?  In what ways did it break down?  The discussion guide queried who the Queen Bee was and that didn't seem entirely clear.  August seemed to be the "leader," but it wasn't like she was directly filling the hive with her own offspring.  And when May, who seemed like a selfless "worker" sister passed, they followed the black veil tradition to notify the bees which seemed to elevate her to more queenly status.  You might be able to see June agreeing to marry as the hive spawning a second queen.  You might also look at Lily's apprenticeship as beekeeper as spawning another queen, perhaps the "queenless" hive was the problematic dynamic the Owens household had with the loss of her mother.  The "drones" also didn't seem to fit as freeloading breeders, the men contributed to the hive as employees and legal counsel.     

The only area that continued to feel a bit distant, implausible, unrelatable to me, was ironically within the white family.  Perhaps because this story opened with a pre-teen narrator who I immediately assumed was angsty and unreliable, I had trouble believing T. Ray was that bad of a father figure.  However by the end when he is disassociating and threatening her with a knife while calling her by her mother's name, my opinion flipped, and judging by contemporary standards I was questioning why he had custody of the girl for so long.  This opened a personal can of worms for me, questioning the efficacy of therapy and mental health-- my hot take is that in some circumstances, therapy can be helpful but in a sad way; that historically this therapy role was probably handled by friends and the community and now we've turned it into a transactional experience.  Instead of investing in training more therapists, we should be investing in social capital so everyone has people they can turn to for support without having to submit an insurance claim.  

So yes, overall, I am glad this was a suggested read for a badge.  It might be worth a re-read and a personal copy so I can dog-ear some of the more thought-provoking insights about the human condition, but I felt like I got the gist from a single read-through.  I am also excited that it looks like there is both a movie and a Spanish audiobook of it available so that if I am inclined, I could experience it in another language or medium.  

**Intermediate Level**

"Research the health difference between raw honey and processed honey"

Processed honey is flash pasteurized and micro-filtered to increase its shelf life because it is less likely to ferment or crystalize.  However, this comes at the expense of several nutritional benefits as outlined by Mann Lake below (a beekeeping supplier):

Benefit	Raw Honey	Processed Honey
Enzymes	Preserved	Destroyed
Antioxidants	High	Reduced?*
Antibacterial	Strong	Weaker
Nutrients	Rich	Less
Pollen	Included	Removed
Flavor & Aroma	Richer	Uniform
Glycemic Index	Lower	Higher**

However!  A study from the National Honey Board (possibly more commercial/processed interests?) was less conclusive.  In their 3 producer samples, they found enzymes dropped an average of 35% which made sense because the heating can break these down.  *This study found that antioxidants actually increased on average 16.4% in the processed honey.

The source plant for honey can have a big impact on its glycemic index independent of how processed it is.  For instance, honeydew honey is 30-35 while manuka is 50.  **The same resource says raw honey has a lower GI than some processed honeys with raw testing in the 30-45 range.  It posits that enzymes in honey could make it less problematic than its GI would indicate (and we conjecture that if there are more enzymes in raw honey, the benefit would be bigger for raw honey than processed).  It suggests that lighter honeys typically have higher GI than darker honeys and reminds diabetics to be mindful of the quantity of honey consumed regardless of GI score.      

My takeaway from this is that raw honey is, if anything, a bit more nutritious, that you can enjoy the unique terroir of small batch sizes, and you can feel good about supporting your local food shelf if you can find a raw honey supplier.  Opt for that option when stocking your pantry, preferably in smaller quantities because you might experience a shorter shelf life and some crystallization.  But there isn't a need to be hyper vigilant about how honey was processed if consuming a treat that you did not make at home.  From the Pollinators documentary, if you find yourself purchasing processed honey from a US supplier, you are still doing some good by providing them with a revenue stream to help offset the losses they take on their core business of renting their pollination services to industrial farms.

Find a local honey vendor. 

Our farmer's market carries Noah's bees brand honey.  This is sort of local, in that it is West Coast.  I will quiz the vendor next Wednesday about the sourcing for her products, maybe there are two Noahs keeping bees, maybe Noah has expanded his operations.  Ideally, we could find a supplier with hives in Southern California.  After a lot of online spelunking, I found Backyard Bees which will sell at the farmer's market a town over.  [update: $14 over venmo scored me raw honey harvested in my city!  I used it as a sweetener for a turmeric tea mix I bought at the same farmer's market]  I might be seeing things, but I believe Janet, its founder was the guest lecturer at the Girl Scout zoom session and might even be the contact my Scout co-lead had made who was offering to host a bee field trip for our girls.  Small world.  This farmer's market inconveniently meets at the same time as my long triathlon training rides, but as soon as I finish the 70.3 race in July (get moving advanced badge), I am looking forward to making the pilgrimage and stocking up.  If anyone else is struggling with where to find local honey, this locator site was very helpful.  

Read:  

Bees: Nature's Little Wonders

by Candace Savage

It took me about a quarter of the book to get comfortable with the "aimless" structure of this slender novel.  Readers are loosely following the bee communication research breakthroughs of two German biologists from WWII to modern times.  However, there are plenty of awe-inspiring interludes to appreciate ancient and contemporary art.  The research itself is humbling as well.  I am picturing the discipline it would take to painstakingly watch one bee for 117 hours to be able to report back she spent 56 of those hours scanning her surroundings for work she already knew how to do.  To faithfully carry out that research takes an attention span and faith in the process I'm not sure many of us could muster.  

Some other random connections that crossed my mind as I leafed through these pages-

*  47% of the observed worker bee's time was spent cruising around looking for work seems pretty similar to my MO when in the house, starting a load of laundry, picking up an abandoned dish, emptying the trash, etc.  And husband does seem to be on more of a drone operating system without the same drive to leave the nest nicer than he found it.  It also crossed my mind that my 6 year old understudy could start picking up the more straightforward tasks before graduating to the more exciting provisioning excursions off the beaten path (i.e. shopping at the farmer's market).  

*  Dancing after finding a particularly rich resource before heading back out to reload gave me pause.  I had been ruminating about "To Do List burn out" and theorizing that adding a little more celebration at task completion would help keep up the momentum.  My less adaptive instinct is to gorge on something sugary or retail therapy.  Maybe instead I could dance or share my "wisdom" with friends.  

*  Resource unload speed gives an indication of hive resource bottlenecks.  I wonder if we might see this in the velocity of money through a checking account if a family is living paycheck to paycheck?  What would be the analog in households who are bottlenecked for other resources like quality time?  What would rapidly unloading someone who came home with a juicy batch of quality time look like?  Materially, this reminds me a bit of the minimalist adage about if you haven't worn/used the thing in a season/year, you didn't need it and should declutter it, that is a worker bee hanging out at the entrance for ages waiting to be unburdened.    

*Hive hunting collective decision-making offers us some help as a collectivist species as well.  Savage notes that it works because (1) The bees have conviction about their first hand observation - so often it seems we gaslight ourselves when our experience doesn't match "the collective" wisdom we glean from prior research or social media.  Another youtuber suggests not doing any/much research until you've actually gone out and attempted the project because it is so easy to elide from preparatory research to procrastination that feels productive.  So now I am pondering how to shift our culture to one that holds space for a discipline of first hand observation and the potential for divergent results.  (2) The bees aren't attempting to compromise, this is a friendly competition.  Too often, we end up worse off than either option by compromising between the two.  I think to make competition friendly, we might need to be more blunt about our interests/observations, more comfortable with the potential conflict this could bring.  I also think we need to do this more often, make it a repeated game, so our sense of identity isn't so closely linked to this singular proposal.  I also think we have to have an appetite to follow the winning pitch, even if we think it is dumb, if only to see if it goes off the rails in the ways we suspect it will.