Molly Fisk's Blog, page 11

Fertilize with Bird Song?

Sometimes I wake in the morning and it's still dark. I can't tell which cat is curled against my ribs, nor see the outline of the windows yet, and except for the engine of a truck whose headlights angle through the room as it speeds past my mailbox, there's total silence. The calm, as they say, before the storm.

If I don't fall back to sleep, I like to lie there and wait for my favorite band to start playing. Sweeter than the Grateful Dead, more raucous than the Gipsy Kings, and even older than the Rolling Stones, the dawn chorus of song birds begins before I can see any light at all, and lasts until every blossom on every branch is clearly visible. It's a wonderful melee, a beautiful cacophony, both melodic and chaotic, a crazy din. It reminds me of the way Utah Phillips sometimes ended his concerts. He'd announce it was time to sing the People's National Anthem, and before his audience could get ready to protest, he'd have everyone standing up singing their own favorite song at the top of their lungs, in unison. The noise went beyond horrible into some unexpected joyous place, and that's where the bird chorus goes, too.

The average bird has a wide range and repertoire. No one quite knows why dawn is the designated hour for birdsong bliss, although they think singing has to do with claiming territory and attracting mates. Sound carries almost twenty times farther at dawn than at midday, so it's an effective broadcasting hour, and because it isn't light yet, birds can't start foraging, so there isn't that distraction.

Yesterday I heard a marvelous thing I'm still trying to find out more about. Supposedly, when birdsong begins at dawn, the small cells on the undersides of plant leaves, called stomata, open in response to the sound. Plants absorb nutrients through their leaves this way, so the more open the stomata, the more food they'll take in, and the larger they'll grow. If you cut down bird habitat around a garden or farm, thereby reducing the bird population, your plants won't grow as large, lush, and productively as they otherwise would.

Some curious human being, of course, worked out a replication of bird song to see what happens if you play MORE sounds and convince the stomata to stay open longer. Using a cassette that included Vivaldi's Spring movement from The Four Seasons, Indian ragas, and Bach's E-major concerto for violin, this guy claims to increase growth by 500 - 700% this way. Ottawa University researchers broadcast Bach's violin concertos to a wheat field during one experiment, and reportedly increased the size of the wheat grains by 66%.

While I love the idea that birdsong influences plant health and productivity, the jury's still out here at my house. The grass is a little taller, and my peonies are huge this year, but the lavender looks sort of puny.

The cats, I'm happy to report, are the same size they've always been.

Meeting Your Reincarnation

During my twenties, I was good friends with an elderly woman named Margit Bensen. Margit had been a mid-wife in her hometown of Ytterstad, Norway, population 35. She emigrated here in 1922, ending up in Boston, and was eventually able to find work as a lady's maid. A few years later, she met Aarne Bensen, a Norwegian bricklayer, and married him.

When I met Margit, in my senior year of college, she was 76 and I was 21. She worked at the Harvard Biology labs, sterilizing the glassware that scientists and grad students used for their experimenting in a huge centrifuge. She wore enormous gloves made of some heat-resistant material, and, with silver braids pinned up on her head, looked angelic and demonic in about the same proportion. My boyfriend was studying mushrooms, and he kept telling me I had to meet his friend Margit. He was so insistent I thought it was weird, especially when he told me how old she was, but when I finally agreed, Margit and I fell in love at first sight. Not romantic love. We instantly had that mysterious connection you get with some people — we recognized each other. We also looked eerily alike. It sometimes felt as though she had been reincarnated early, in me, and was getting the rare experience of meeting herself the next time around.

My boyfriend went off to medical school and married the next woman he found, and I spent a decade seeing Margit once a week. She taught me Norwegian and we mixed it with English back and forth in a random pattern, so pretty much no one else could understand us. I lived in Norway after college, and then came back and told her stories about her family, whom I had visited way above the Arctic Circle in the Lofoten Islands.

Margit had hundreds of friends and was in touch with most of the grad students who'd passed through her lab, but she and Aarne hadn't had children. I ended up standing in as her next generation. She got older, and I balanced her checkbook and took her to doctor appointments. When the time came, we drove around Boston looking at what were then called “old-folks' homes” until she chose the least dreadful one to move to. While downsizing, she gave me her Norwegian-English dictionaries, a small plate that says “smør” (butter in Norwegian) and a bloodstone ring she said she'd “made Aarne buy” for her in 1930.

She died when she was 89 and I was 33. Now that I've ended up not having children either, sometimes I look around and wonder if anyone will appear out of the blue to balance my checkbook. I'm a little young for that still, but maybe I've met them already. Will it be one of my nieces? A friend's kid? Maybe it will be Margit herself again: someone who looks a lot like me and feels so familiar, she might be my reincarnation.

My First Food Swap

Last weekend I went to my town's new food swap with 15 jars of strawberry-merlot jam. I was a little nervous.

These are organic strawberries bought at the grocers (it's too early for them up here). The package was Driscoll, based in Watsonville, CA. I don't know if they're grown there or somewhere farther south. They did say "Product of U.S.A."

Wash, cut the tops off, crush. (I'm using the Sure-Jell low-sugar pectin recipe out of the box, with one crucial change.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you measure out the fruit, use one cup less than they call for, and substitute a cup of wine instead. You can play around with combinations here. I like Merlot or Zinfandel with strawberries, and in this case used Smoking Loon Merlot, 2009 (because it was reputable but cheap).

Meanwhile, you've boiled up your jars and lids in a big pot of water and put your tops into a dish of water that was boiling but is now off the heat. Just before the jam's ready, use tongs to get the jars and lids out but leave the tops in still. Everything will dry while you're finishing the jam. I'm assuming you already know how to make jam?

Once it's done, ladle the liquid into the jars, up to a quarter inch from the rim. Take the tops from the hot bath with tongs and position them on the jars, screw on the lids and immediately turn them upside down. Leave them inverted for five minutes or so, then right them and wait for the "pings" to happen as the jars seal. This might take half an hour but it's kind of the fun part and you don't have to stand around and watch, you can be washing up or eating lunch or something...

Voila! Strawberry-Merlot jam, batch one of two. Now, after two hours of silent auction-type bidding and general merriment, look what I got in return:

 

 

 

 

 

 

From right, clockwise: a strawberry-rhubarb galette made by Nikiya and her daughters Maya and Poppy, a loaf of wheat/polenta bread made by Mark, a bottle of fresh violets from Alex, a bottle of fresh-squeezed orange juice from Wendie, Susan's Salad Sauce, Caesar dressing and croutons from Shannon and her daughters, tahini dressing, hot fudge sauce made by Mae, aged 8, gluten-free bagels made by Janet, home-made mayonnaise by Sarah, organic ketchup made by Noah, aged 8 also, lemon-rosemary marmalade from Jackie, lemon curd from Talei, lavender honey-butter, and 7 Meyer lemons. I feel as rich as a lord!

And that was true across the board: almost everyone felt as though they'd won the lottery. Even though really, it was simple: I brought 15 things and I came home with 15 things (if two bagels and seven lemons are each a "thing"). One friend who doesn't eat dairy or gluten or eggs felt as though the pickings were a little lean for her, so if that's true for you, and you're interested in joining or starting a food swap in your town, you might keep it in mind.

There is a slight element of competition when you're swapping — if someone has only four jars of kale pesto and you want one, you have to be standing right next to her ready to swap. And she has to want what you're swapping, too. Sometimes it's hard to say no: I took the violets because they were so beautiful, but I've phototraphed them and since given them to a friend who's going to crystallize them for decorations on a cake. I traded for ketchup even though I rarely eat it because my friend Noah is 8 and I didn't want to disappoint him. I'll enjoy making a hamburger and using it, too, so there is some serendipity involved that's kind of nice.

We're doing this again in six weeks. I'm going to participate a second time, probably bringing two things to swap rather than just one. One is simpler, but sometimes another person will have more than one thing and not want two jars of jam or whatever you have. I can see that my mental tasks will be not to get too "foodie" about it all and try to wow everyone — although I am looking at blood-orange curd recipes on-line. And also not to get competitive in the moment of swapping. The marketplace — even this friendly mostly organic one — can engender a kind of ambition and slight panic, even when you're really trying not to get attached to it all. It's actually an interesting project, to remain calm among all that high energy and not worry about the outcome. Sort of a mid--term in my on-going graduate program of detachment...

For more about my town's swap, visit their Facebook page: Nevada City Food Swap

For more about national food swapping, check out the Food Swap Network.

Let me know if you try it, and what you think.

More Than Your John Hancock (#262)

Yesterday, I paid my bills. I took them to the café I like best, sat at the counter and wrote twelve checks. Stuck on my return address labels, slapped on some colorful Latin Music stamps and put the envelopes in size order. Then I ran a few errands and stopped by the P.O. on the way home to drop them into the outside box.

I know this is old-fashioned of me, but I love writing my checks. I put “exactly” before a round amount like forty dollars, the way my mother did. My dates read “19 April, 2012.” I love the idea that humans have carried paper letters from sender to recipient for centuries. It makes me feel part of a long chain of humanity that includes the Pony Express riders. Call me nostalgic and sentimental, I don't care.

Many of my friends pay automatically, through their computers. I can see the benefits: efficiency, trackability, less paper in the recycling bin. But there's one huge downside: no handwriting. Look around your own life. When do you write by hand any more? Parents make lists with their smartphone's note function. VPs write dates in iCal using their thumbs. Postcards are vanishing from the 21st century landscape and letters are pretty much already gone. These days most people just write their names... on credit card signature lines or at the voting booth. Maybe on a birthday card. When was the last time you wrote a complete sentence by hand?

The trouble with progress is that after a certain length of time there are a lot of people in the world who don't understand what they're missing. Good things get lost, and then the people who knew about them grow old and the last, say, roadside telephone booth disappears.

My grandmother, who was born in 1906, stated writing letters to me when I was seven and I still have most of them. She wrote in green ball point and signed them with a little drawing of a seagull. Her writing was legible but you could tell she was thinking fast. She had a rushing-around personality, and her handwriting looked that way: sharp points on it, and lots of width as the pen raced across the page. Not big round grade-school printing like my Mom's, which I admired but could never replicate. The word “signature” isn't metaphoric: both of them expressed character traits through their handwriting, in a way that choosing among ten fonts and using emoticons on a screen just can't compete with. My mom was patient and followed most of the rules. My grandmother was in a hurry to get outside and live her real life, banding birds.

I'm well aware that handwriting, like the phone booth, is doomed. But just like my crusades on behalf of correct grammar and using the word “bottom” instead of that synonym for a donkey when you're speaking in public, it will disappear over my dead body. And I mean that literally.

Class in America: House-Cleaning (#261)

I hate cleaning house. I hate it so much that although I'm not wealthy, I hire someone else to clean mine. I'd rather do almost anything else to make the money to pay my house-cleaner for the four hours it takes. I'd clean her house in a direct trade if that's what she wanted. Other peoples' messes are just so innocent compared to my own.

Suzanne says she'd rather scrub hundreds of toilets than get up on stage and talk, the way I do. When she comes over here, once a month, we have meandering conversations between the roar of the vaccuum and the bathtub faucet's hiss. She tells me what her son is up to, the kid I taught poetry to when he was a sixth grad-er, and I apologize for the tiny bird feathers under the bathtub.

I used to be horribly embarrassed and not admit I had a house-cleaner. Some vestige of growing up with African-American “cleaning ladies,” as they were called in the '60s, tied me up in knots, since I was a white upper-middle-class kid, and felt racial guilt on top of class guilt. I still feel those guilts sometimes, but not about house-cleaning.

My friend Fred, a house-cleaner in Boston, helped me get over it. Seeing a white guy whose brothers were doctors and lawyers zoom around with a dust-cloth changed the game. It made house-cleaning more like an engineering feat than something shameful. Breaking the stereotype of “women's work” was good, and also realizing that cleaning had techniques, inside information, and its own particular skill-set.

Who Are You Calling a Cat Lady? (#260)

Everyone thinks I'm one of those cat ladies. “Crazy” cat ladies, I believe they're called. People with many dogs are called breeders, or Lord and Lady Grantham if they live at Downton Abbey. People with sheep, goats, and cows are farmers. No one calls the aquarium-lover a “crazy fish lady,” no matter how many Siamese fighting bettas she has. And the adjective seems to attach itself to “lady” rather than “gentleman.” Let's be charitable and assume that's because of the rhyme.

I do love cats. They're smart, soft, incredibly funny, and wash themselves — what's not to love?

This is My Life?!? (#259)

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--Even though I'm old enough to be your mother, sometimes I still look around and think, “Is this really my life?!?” How did I end up this far from the ocean? How on earth did I never have children? Where's that husband I was going to share the ups and downs with? I've never even gotten divorced, for Pete's sake, which is practically unAmerican...

Maybe some people step back when they're my age and say: THERE, I did it! I discovered this virus or passed these laws. I built that skyscraper, or even that chicken coop. I raised five kids and now look how great they are! What happens to me is I get floored by minutiae. Squishing toothpaste onto my brush, I suddenly think, “Again? I have to do this AGAIN?!” Washing dishes, I look at a blue glass I bought in Cambridge in 1983 and do the math. “I've been washing this glass for 29 years?! Are you KIDDING me????”

Mollyamory (#258)

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Dear Diary,

Valentine's Day is coming up and once again, I am single. Don't you think my spiritual practice of singleness has been perfected? I'm quite sure I could benefit from being in a relationship. I know it would improve my patience, my compassion, and my tolerance for other people's nutty habits. It would help me be less arrogant and self-righteous, things I always need to work on. I could polish my communication skills, and practice not saving a person who doesn't need to be saved, if you know what I mean.