Market Demands...Perfection

The Good Tomatoes - suitable for market.

Every once in a while over the summer, I'll have a realization about real-world agriculture and how it relates to me, as a consumer, and I'll think, "This is exactly the kind of lesson that I've come here for."

I had one of those today.

My edible wares.

So, y'know how we all complain about those hard plastic pink things they sell as "tomatoes" in the big chain supermarkets? "Ugh! So hard and tasteless!" we whine with our back-in-my-day memories. "Remember when tomatoes were red and actually had flavor? Hmph!" 

We mourn the monotony of produce and say that it doesn't need to so uniform, so perfect, so alien. We could stand some imperfection if it meant that the goods didn't have to come all the way from Mexico, Chile or Guam. We could stand a little flavor. It's like dating the most handsome guy in town and discovering he lacks personality.

Well, I think we may be in denial about our own aesthetic behavior, just a wee bit. I realized this when I was getting ready to head to the weekly Farmer's Market at the nearby town of Cavalier (Pop: 1,302) and loading up my garden goods.

Moon & Stars Watermelons

Yellow Pear Tomatoes? Check. (10¢ each!)
Spinach leaves? Check. (5¢ each!)
Basil? Lemon basil? Check and check. (25¢ each!)
Moon & Stars watermelons? Check. ($3 per half!)
Giant pumpkin, plus decorator pumpkins? Um, check.

Now, for the tomatoes...

With somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-30 tomato plants, I have quite a few with end rot, bug squatters or some that were just plain ugly. So, I began sorting out the less attractive ones and favoring the beautifully perfect red ones that could have starred in their own Prego ad.

Beauties on the left, Uglies on the right.

And then it hit me: "This is how it happens! This is how and why our produce has 'evolved' into the Stepford version of its' former self. Holy crap. I get it now." 

Seems like a simple thing but the consumer preference is for physical perfection and the industry delivers exactly that - for your eyes ONLY.

"For the last 50 or more years, tomato breeders have concentrated essentially on one thing and that is yield — they want plants that yield as many or as much as possible. They also want those fruits to be able to stand up to being harvested, packed, artificially turned orange [with ethylene gas] and then shipped away and still be holding together in the supermarket a week or 10 days later.

"As one large Florida farmer said, 'I don't get paid a single cent for flavor.' He said, 'I get paid for weight. And I don't know of any supermarket shopper who tastes her tomatoes before she puts them in her shopping cart.' ... It's not worth commercial plant breeders' while to breed for taste because their customers — the large farmers — don't get paid for it."

--Barry Estabrook, author of Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit 

I'm grateful for the small food/Ag lessons that I keep learning day after day, week after week, month after month, here at SCRANCH. Being on the other side of the market counter sure does broaden the picture. I'm getting all kinds of insight here; that fancy book learnin' can only take you so far, y'know?

"I am NOT an eggplant..."

With all the political conventions going on, I thought it worth noting that Richard Nixon has actually been reincarnated into one of my tomatoes. Sadly, he did not sell at the market, although he did try to buy off all the other tomatoes....

Setbacks and Successes

Today's tomato harvest.

Greetings from a land where there are less than 10 people per square mile. I swear, sometimes a whole day goes by without me seeing another person. Other times, I drive on the road and it's more than 20 minutes before I see another car.

Just sayin', it's QUIET.

What a real tomato is supposed to look like - red inside.

Meanwhile, the garden is chugging along not without its invasions. As you can see from the bucket above, I have a healthy crop of tomatoes but there are many with the dreaded blossom rot, or seed rot. The tomatoes looks perfect from the top but have a horrible rotten bottom half that looks like this:

From what I've read, it comes from a number of things - lack of proper drainage, uneven watering or a lack of calcium in the soil. In my case, I'm guessing uneven watering since that is my main challenge here at SCRANCH. Without consistent rain, an on-site water source and water pressure, not everybody gets the water they deserve. Nevertheless, I have enough that I've been making a ton of delectable spaghetti sauce:

And the little Dakota Yellow Pear tomatoes have been selling well at the Farmer's Market, just 10 cents each!

But this first year has not been without actual enemies, namely, thousands of tiny black souls that infested my kale, attacked my radishes and murdered my brussel sprouts - the flea beetle. Those little bastards certainly left their evil mark on my crops, despite my best efforts at spraying organic bug spray.

Brussel sprouts being ravaged by the flea beetle.

It's downright devastating to see your babies being eaten alive like this. I yelled at them but they paid no mind. I guess this is one of those 'in the field' real-world challenges that I knew would come. Mind you, I wasn't the only one in the region who battled these beetles but I know I lost a lot of ground by traveling so much in August. My own fault, I guess.

Already, I am making a list of "fired" crops - ones that won't be planted next year - beets and brussel sprouts top the list.

But the real heartbreaker has been the sad state of the Dakota Black Popcorn. It has a number of problems, most of which have to do with the uneven watering scenario. Also, they are too crowded thanks to my inept planting and the plant's tendency to shoot out "tillers" - extra stalks from one seed.

Sad, thirsty corn.

Also, thanks to some hungry, curious deer, several cobs were lost to their munching and a subsequent fungus that set in like an infection in a wound:

And I don't even want to talk about the cut worm....

Trying to look cute but they are green pods of EVIL.

But all is not lost. As I mentioned, the tomato crop is bounding ahead, despite a few rotton bottoms, while the basil and the Lemon basil continue to be big sellers at the market.

In fact, my watermelon - both Sweet Crimson and Moon & Stars varieties - are a success! I sold a half at the market last week. Doesn't sound like much but considering how few customers there are - maybe 20? - I'm celebrating.

And my purple Cosmic carrots have made an appearance, although they need some more time in the ground and a good frost to make them more sweet, less woody:

And in carrying on with the orange theme to match the Tonka Truck, my pumpkins have arrived!

Despite the setbacks the worrisome lack of rain, it looks like this first year might be somewhat of a mild success - still too early to call. I still have huge eggplant, pepper and chili plants with no fruit on them, which is frustrating, but the season isn't over yet.

Customized pumpkins, compliments of my cousin, Royce.

PLEASE SEND RAIN.

Crop Tours

After talking to my father, sister-in-law and brother along Mississippi's Gulf Coast and absolutely NOT worrying about Hurricane Isaac bearing down on them, I thought I'd describe one of my favorite bits of my new farm life: Crop tours.

Maybe once or twice a week, about a hour before sunset, Brent pulls up in one of his many pick-ups (usually the black beater) and says, "Maybe take a crop tour?"

"Looks like the (weed) sprayer wasn't turned on yet."

This is where we drive around "in squares" and get intimate with the produce while measuring the progress of other farmers. This is really when the teacher-student relationship blossoms and the fields become my classroom.

"Seeder wasn't turn on yet", hence, the big empty spot.

Although automation has definitely taken a hold of agriculture, there are still some old school measurements that Brent, and farmers of his generation, live by. Namely, "If the ground cracks enough that you can drop a 12" wrench - and not get it back - you got trouble."

We need rain!

"Kelly Mac's got a nice, even field. See how most of the beans are yellow with only a little bit of green? That's what you want," Brent tells me. "If it's too green, the beans aren't formed yet. If the pods are too dry, the combine might rattle 'em and they'll pop. You have to pick the right time to harvest." 

Soybean field, just off County 1, near Walhalla.

Brent's soybeans, nearly ready for harvest.

Soybean pods, in their youth.

 We go down back roads, along culverts, through cooleys and border fences. At least once, he'll pull right alongside a wall of corn and reach in from where he sits in the pick-up, and pull in a few ears.  

"Count the rows," he says. I count 19. "Nope. Count 'em again." Ah, I was mistaken, there were 18 rows. "Yup. He says. Always 18 rows."

 The corn he is talking about is GMO, grown for ethanol and/or livestock feed, not for you and I to eat. In fact, I don't even think our mouths or digestive systems could handle it.

"Edible corn," he once told me, "is a niche market."

He's dead right. When you hear the word "corn" you think of summer sweet corn on the cob, right? But that romantic variety doesn't even register on this recent graph from Big Picture Agriculture:

Fact is, corn is used in so many ways, we're surrounded by it. I remember Curt Ellis, one of the co-directors of the documentary, "King Corn" speaking at the MOSES conference earlier this year. He recalled a '80s-era bit by comedian Steve Martin that was prescient.

"In this routine, he theorized that when you go to a McDonald's or any fast food joint, the food is really just different shaped forms of the same stuff and they just truck in tubes of 'food matter', ready for sculpting," said Curt. "Turns out, he was predicting the future. Today, it's all corn, just in different forms." Here's a brief snapshot of corn products:


* Food: Cereals, snack foods, salad dressings, soft drink sweeteners, chewing gum, peanut butter, hominy grits, taco shells and other flour products, specialty corn including white corn, blue corn and popcorn.
* Animal feeds: Distiller's dried grain, gluten feed and meal, high-oil feed corn for cattle, swine, poultry and fish.
* Industrial products: Soaps, paints, corks, linoleum, polish, adhesives, rubber substitutes, wallboard, dry-cell batteries, textile finishings, cosmetic powders, candles, dyes, pharmaceuticals, lubricants, insulation, wallpaper and other starch products.
* Fermentation products and byproducts: industrial alcohols, fuel ethanol, recyclable plastics, industrial enzymes, fuel octane enhancers, fuel oxygenates and solvents.

 Early in the season, Brent grabbed a few cobs so I could see how evenly they formed. He showed me what to look for and explained how each strand from the silks leads to a specific kernel, fertilizing and nourishing it along, like a very thin umbilical cord.

You can see which kernels didn't get fertilized.

Inspecting the corn over the weekend, Brent explained, "You want to look for the dents, that's a good sign. It means the corn is almost ready."

Lots o'dents!

"Edible beans", I've come to learn, is Brent's term for Pinto beans. I've only ever seen them in their final form, like most people, but had never seen them as Mama Nature intended:

"Them beans got to be slick and striped."

When the beans themselves accidentally get split open, the split pods get sold at a lower rate to the government, who then sells them as refried beans, mostly in the form of government aid to other countries. 

Every so often on these crop tours, we run across an achingly bored Border Patrol officer. We chatted with one fellow the other night for nearly 30 minutes - he was sad to see us go. He'd once worked along the Mexican border  and was used to catching 1,000 people a month. "We haven't seen anyone trying to cross in years," he sighed. "The only thing we've found was a shoe from last year. Only one. I wonder what the story is there." 

Chatting up the border patrol.

"Oh, that belongs to my grandson," says Brent. "They were running around at the border last year and they came back with one less shoe." 

 "Well, that solves that mystery," said the agent, wistfully. I almost felt bad for him.

Back on the Farm

Sometime in late April, I recall turning to Kirk and saying, "I think this might be the last relaxing day I have until maybe November." 

So far, I'm right.

Since the winds of change started to gather in early May, the gas pedal of my life as been stuck on the floorboard - on cruise control but without that mellow, cruise-y feeling.

***

Yesterday, I arrived back home to SCRANCH a little after 1 a.m., it was so dark (and there are no streetlights way out here) that I had to check the GPS on my iPhone to make sure I was making the right turn onto our property.

After the seven comedy improv shows for Smile Train (final fundraising number will come later this week) and the joy of getting together with old friends, favorite animals and dear family, I was truly whipped. I gave a short speech at the beginning of every show but in some, I performed, while others, I hosted. I also laughed, a LOT. I gave out a ton of energy and got that same energy in return, which I then tried to volley back in the form of gratitude.

All this was exhausting, and I had never really recovered from New York before I left. So naturally, I also got a cold and a visit from Aunt Flo on top of that; it all felt like I was barely hanging on to the tail of a very energetic tiger.

So, on Monday morning, I got up early, eyes still bleary, and tried to get as much done as I could before I had to leave for the airport. 'Don't worry,' I kept telling myself, 'you can sleep all you want on the planes home.'

But there were setbacks. Taking the giant bag of donated bills and change to the bank, I was told: "We don't have a change machine here. You'll need to go the bank on 52nd and Vance." 

"Fine," said I, "but can you tell me why you are taking money out of my savings account?"

I was then ushered into a mini-office where a nice young man did some rearranging for me. It was during this time that I received a text that Phyllis Diller had passed, an incredible woman that I knew. I wouldn't say we were "friends" but friendly acquaintances, at least.

Phyllis was 95 so it was a fantastic run for a life well lived. Still, I knew immediately that there would be no sleeping on the plane - I had put 'dibs' on writing the Phyllis remembrance with our entertainment editor about six months prior. (I had even thought about pre-writing up a tribute 'just in case' she passed, but that felt creepy so I'd have to write it fresh.)

I didn't think I was that upset about her death until, after finally leaving the second bank (the one with the amazing coin machine), I found myself lazily driving the wrong way down a one-way street. All that honking sure woke me up. Then, I listened to a heartfelt voice mail from my buddy, Pete, and the tears came; a legend had passed and her famous laugh would be heard no more.

The 1,000-mile journey home - a shuttle van, a big plane, a small plane and my truck - was a blur. Physically, I felt like a brain on a wobbly stick, with just one eye open and a bunch of dead-weight flesh attached to it.

At the Minneapolis airport, I bought a bunch of Rocky Mountain Chocolate, my attempt at staying awake with an infusion of second-home-state product. When I arrived at Grand Forks Airport, I still had a two-hour drive to SCRANCH. I must give thanks for the BBC, which kept me awake with it's fascinating rendition of world news. I now know everything about Ethiopia's dead prime minister, Meles Zenawi. Quite a fellow, from what I hear.

At long last, I pull into my tree-arched 'garage' and exhaled a bellow of relief. "I did it. I made it. I'm home," I say aloud, and momentarily rest my forehead on the steering wheel. I unload all my luggage and drag it all across the dirt gravel road toward The Mae Flower. For some reason, I look skyward and see a million sparkling diamonds, twinkling at me and a cloudy streak - The Milky Way. The constellations and planets of the night sky were so vivid and clear, something I could never see in an urban setting.

Man, it felt good to be back.

Smile Train Shows: Mid-Week Update

Me with Out of the Basement and Intentionally Left Blank.

This week, I'm in Denver for a string of comedy improv benefit shows for the cleft repair charity Smile Train. My comedy husband, Steve Loukas, and I put these on - this year is the 5th annual - and they get bigger every time. What began with one show at one theater with one group back in 2008 has turned in to 7 shows at 2 theaters with multiple groups and performers. Not including this year, we've raised enough funds for 32+ kids, which is wonderful.

Me and Steve after last year's shows. We're SO TIRED.

Though this whole campaign was originally my idea, Steve is really the lynch pin - securing the venues, herding the performers, printing tickets, updating the sites and always, always, always thinking about how we can improve it next year. I do a lot too but sometimes, it's all I can do to hold on to the tiger's tail. 

Tuesday night's cast of 'Gay v. Str8t' - it was sold out!

Because I'm technically now a North Dakota farmer and not a Denver urbanite, I hired Kirk's super smart daughter, Molly, to be my eyes and ears, arms and legs (only more toned) - which worked out great. I wish I were stinking rich so I could hire her permanently but alas, the world needs her more than I and she's blazing trails in the nursing world.

Me with Awesome Kirk Spawn - Molly and Jay

Meanwhile, we are 3 shows into this year's effort and have already raised $1,420! This will fund facial corrective surgery for at least 5 kids, which makes me happier than I can say. Because I went through so many facial corrective surgeries as a child (approx. 25), this is a very personal issue to me. The world's daunting problems - cancer, hunger, war, disease - overwhelm me sometimes, but this is one problem with a relatively easy fix - 45 minute surgery as low as $250 per kid. DONE.

We still have 4 shows left at the Avenue Theater (I will perform in at least 2 and host at least 1) and tickets are still available here. If you can't come to the shows but would still like to donate, please go
here.

Awesome new logo by Lisa Friedman.

Come next Monday, I head back to the farm. Meantime, pray for rain! 

A Typical (Non) Average Day

My wildflowers have arrived!

I love it when cliches come true. To me, that means there is some small trace of order in the Universe, no matter how accidental it may be. The thing is, I do actually learn something new every day. For example, today I harvested an entire field of barley while operating this bad boy:

It actually growls.

It's terrifying at first, then meditative and then you start to think a combine cab might not make for such a bad office. Technically, it's still a cubicle but with a better view:

Brent had me do an entire field that is in a difficult culvert nearly overcome with weeds, so there really wasn't too much I could mess up. There are too many levers that do big, noisy things so it wasn't a perfect performance (Brent: "Stop. Stop! STOP!") but again, there's that learning curve.

I even had to square up the machine alongside the giant grain truck to unload the barley via the grain augur - the giant tube thing that sticks out the side:

I briefly considered the escape hatch...

And then I thought to myself, "What would John Deere say?"

But it was also a day of contemplation at my second favorite meditational spot, atop the grain bin:

Up there, I birthed thoughts such as, "What am I doing here? Where are the cabs? What do I do with all this food? How am I supposed to have a normal life? Why can't I be normal? What is normal anyway? Where, for the love of God, is my favorite yoga DVD?"

Alas, no answers - only questions today.

I also had to go check in on my neighborhood BFF, Evelyn, otherwise, she gets mad.

From the Hamilton Fair in July - in my cowboy hat.

Off I went so she could say, "Welcome home from New York!" and "Have a safe trip to Denver!" all in the same visit. She's tired of me photographing her so I just took a shot of the various barn cats that I love to cuddle:

KITTIES!

While visiting Evelyn, I decided to bring along my peas to shell. Brent says they are not real peas, only the random fruit of the flower, Sweet Peas, but hey, I grew 'em, so I'm eating 'em. They're my babies and they'll always be peas to me.

I had interrupted Evelyn while she was partaking in that great NoDak pastime - canning. Or, in this case, pickling. She says when I get back from Denver, she will begin lessons in her kitchen, since my kitchen is really an extended hot plate with a tiny sink. Makes me sad. I dream about kitchen counters these days, a lot.

Not many city people know this but cucumbers do in fact become...

....pickles!

And gorgeous sunrises become...

PHOTO NOT AVAILABLE

... beautiful sunsets.