I have heard the voice of the people crying out for a profile. Very well, filthy unwashed masses, here’s your profile.
This is me. You will note my well-formed ears. I often forget to shave. I have large hands.
The garden obsession, I think, comes from an odd background of coming from North Dakota with a family history deeply tied to the earth and not being able to remember growing so much as a tomato as a kid while growing up in Northern Minnesota. I do recall that we had raspberries for a time on the back fence of our (lawn) yard. I don’t know how they got there, and since we had know idea what to do with them, they didn’t last.
All I remember about gardening or being outside was smoking the little straws that were left behind by the grasses in the empty field next to our house. We did have a nice rhubarb patch for a while. I have to imagine my mom planted that before Gloria Steinem threw the whole place into chaos. Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet though, eh?
My family will read this and say that I’m crazy and that we all lived happily outside and self-sufficiently farmed our yard and maybe raised sheep. Who knows. All I remember is blowing up anthills with firecrackers and trapping robins under cardboard boxes propped up with a stick tied to a string. I thought that what we called “food” back then came from a store. I mean, originally. And I am not mentally retarded.
I hate everything Monsanto stands for and am disheartened that they are allowed and encouraged to do what they do. I feel similarly about people talking about drilling off the coast for more oil when the oil companies are making record profits. Americans don’t want to deal with reality sometimes. If you keep buying all the oil, it will continue to cost more. Eventually, it will start to run out. Making oil into fertilizer, spreading it on genetically engineered corn, and then turning that into ethanol is moronic. Judging the attractiveness of your food purely on the basis of cost is similarly ill-advised. I don’t WANT a $.99 hamburger, thanks.
I want to part ways with the industrial food system to the degree possible. I try to grow a lot of our food. I raise chickens. I bake. I buy locally and organically when it’s reasonable. However, I am not a religious zealot, though my friends may disagree. The older I get, the more I talk like a hippie. I know say things like “industrial food system” and debate the merits of biointensive gardening over permaculture food forests. Like, groovy, man!
Finally, I’m married with two kids. I’ve lived in Minnesota, California, Japan, and Oregon. I’ve got a degree in electrical engineering and an MBA (you’re surprised, right?) I’m 40ish. 6′ tall and putting on weight due to lack of the ability to muster enthusiasm for exercise anymore. If I have that time, I’ll work in the garden. Oh, and beer.
And I don’t like raw celery.
I think that’s it.
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9 responses so far ↓
1 Rian // Jul 17, 2008 at 11:00 am
You’ll be happy to know that since writing that a few weeks back, I’ve resumed regular exercise and have dropped five pounds. By ‘you’, I mean ‘I’.
2 Farmgirl_dk // Jul 18, 2008 at 9:06 am
If you’re up to it, send me an email please. I’ve got something to tell you.
3 Rian // Jul 18, 2008 at 9:58 am
Oh boy… I’m in trouble for saying “donkey nuts” on your blog, right?
4 Farmgirl_dk // Jul 18, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Pretty much, yeah. Don’t let it go to your head, but your popularity is growing because you say stuff like that, you jerk.
5 Roy Senior // May 2, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Hi Rian,
Roy just told me about his visit with you. He was impressed with your VAST knowledge - not easy to impress that boy!!!
Say Hi to Andrea and the boys.
Best,
Papa Vella
6 Aunt Carol // Jun 21, 2009 at 11:43 am
Rian, Lets face it, back to the earth was not a real exciting prospect for young people from the midwest in the fifties and sixties. We were all trying to get the hell away from it We wanted sidewalks and paved driveways, and you know, lawns. Oh well. We found out that wasn’t the answer to life either.
I have two questions. 1.) Do you know anything about Tomatoe pruning? And what is a good safe spray to kill bugs on Bell Pepper plants? Love the blog.
P.S. Everything I know about gardening I learned from your gramma in North Dakota. I learned how to hoe, pull weeds, and pick potato bugs. Is there anything else I need to know?
Love, Aunt Carol and kisses to Andrea and the boys
7 Rian // Jun 21, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Aunty C,
Oh yeah, I’ve TOTALLY got your historical context. And mine was a prepackaged childhood wearing polyester leisure suits on nylon shag carpet watching six hours of TV while eating Quality Chek’d “ice cream” in a soup of Hershey’s syrup… pretty much every day.
I’d guess that my kids are going to be laughing about how we all thought we were so green with our chickens (just before the bird flu epidemic) and bees (that eventually got Africanized and started attacking children). We were so smug as we drove our huge carbon footprint Priuses to pick up our depleting peat moss, strip-mined minerals, and ocean pillaged fish and kelp meal to dump on our stupid little plots of carrots.
So it goes, as they say…
I moved your questions over to a new post… cuz they’re good ones that people ask me a lot.
Anyway, good luck, and thanks for stopping by!
8 Darren // Jun 22, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Why did you have that leisure suit anyway? You must have advocated for purchase of said suit, no? In which case you’d have to acknowledge being both oppressed and oppressor. Regardless, it can’t be disputed that Hershey’s stains wash out from polyester leisure suits with very little effort.
9 Aunt Carol // Jun 23, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Rian,
Didn’t mean to make you feel bad about your childhood. Sorry about the ice cream quality and TV. that was before Breyer’s and cable wasn’t it? But think of a childhood with no TV and no ice cream. Just hoeing, weeding, etc. Took all the fun out of gardening.
Thanks for info. I pruned my tomatoes like I prune my roses. Didn’t cut any branches with flowers or fruit on, but whacked a lot of the non-productive ones. Am trying to get oxygen to the fruit which is prolific but seems to be staying green longer than necessary. We will see. Will follow your advice next time. I think the Bell Pepper bugs are your standard aphids and mites, but will look closer. Probably the potasium soap thing you mentioned will work. Will check it out.
`Also don’t know if being your favorite mother’s sister means, my sister is your favorite mother or I am her favorite sister. But given I am her only sister, I am forced to just take it as a complement. We got to take our goodies where we can get ‘em. Am totally jealous of your Oregan weather. it is ninety degrees and humid here. Miserable for humans, but it sure grows tomatoes.
Love again, Aunt Carol
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