Summer of pests!

I planned this summer’s vegetable garden carefully last spring.  I've mostly grown vegetables in pots before but made a raised bed this year on the side of the house where it gets a lot of summer sun, and even ordered some different seed varieties from a Burpee catalog.  And after reading some books about organic gardening I tried to go easy on chemical fertilizers and pesticides, but the results were disappointing.  Apparently I'm not the only one who wants to eat what I'm growing!  Here's the run-down of what I grew and the problems I had.

Burpee calls the "Oasis hybrid turnip" a "salad turnip," and they taste like radishes only milder.  Jamie liked them better than I did (I thought they had a bit of an aftertaste) but maybe I'll try them again this fall.

Some carrots and parsnips from spring were very slow growing and still ended up small, but they were delicious oven-roasted with rosemary fresh from the garden and store-bought potatoes and red onions.  This fall I'll try a shorter parsnip (and plant earlier) and see if that works any better.

I was really looking forward to the "Purple Dragon" carrots.  The picture in the catalog shows the purple color almost into the center, but mine only had purple skin and were either orange or yellow inside.  They tasted kind of bitter when eaten raw, but were better steamed.

I forgot to take a picture of the "Sweet Zuke” zucchini.  They tasted good (roasted, above) but weren't as slender as what I've grown before.  I might include one "Sweet Zuke" plant next year, but I'll probably go back to planting a couple of the regular zucchini.

I was also looking forward to the "Fortex" green beans.  They grow about 8" long, are fatter and meatier, and have a really good flavor.  I don't think they bear as heavily as some newer varieties but unfortunately the pests beat me to them most of the time.

The Fortex beans are the bigger ones on the left.  I also planted some tricolor bush beans from a Renee's Garden packet.

Although they didn't eat the actual beans, caterpillars were out of control.  I'm definitely picking up a Bt spray before my fall garden gets growing.

Lot's of these little worms...

... and a few of these monsters.
 

Maddie and I fed the caterpillars we found to the 'blue-belly' lizards.

This 'alligator' lizard was missing part of his tail.  Some had really pretty red markings.

 

The worst pest turned out to be rats!  Not only did they eat a LOT of beans but ALL the tomatoes!  They're not the big Norway rats but a smaller (and cuter) variety I've heard called "tree rats."  I killed 7 or 8 but the snap traps only worked for a little while, and the Rat Zapper was a total failure – except as a rat feeder!  I don't want to use poison because of the neighbor's dog (and the owls we sometimes see), so I'm open to suggestions.

I love you Remy, but Emile and the others are NOT welcome!
 

Why read history?

"I am skeptical about the idea that we can learn much from history, at least in the sense that knowledge of past follies will prevent us from making similar blunders in the future...  And yet it is important to know what happened before, and to try and make sense of it.  For if we don't, we cannot understand our own times."

I was surprised to see such a statement at the beginning of a book about history.  We often think 'those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it,' and yet it seems pretty obvious we're not learning the lessons history teaches.  To see it put so profoundly in writing was a pleasant affirmation, for me at least.  And making some sense of what happened seems to be a recurrent theme in Year Zero: A History of 1945 by Ian Buruma (which I received from Amazon Vine).

The world was a very different place after the Second World War.  Not only had the conflict touched so many places around the globe, but news of the atrocities committed deeply shocked and embarrassed people.  Some had cause to celebrate and others to fear and mourn.  Cities lay in ruins and people were starving.  Governments were changed – not just in Germany and Japan – but all of Continental Europe and most of Asia, colonies teetered on the brink of collapse, and the United Nations was created.  Buruma looks around the world and catalogs what happened by topic: hunger, revenge, displaced persons, what became of collaborators, reeducation, and sex (not just rape but also prostitution, which was sometimes engaged in for profit and sometimes to feed starving children at home).  It's not always a celebratory view with the victors, but often a detailing of the suffering and uncertainty of those whose lives had been upended by such a world-wide calamity.

And yet, in spite of the often dismal history it recounts, Buruma does a fascinating job of telling the story and showing all sides such that you gain a better understanding of the time and place.  His judgments are always tempered by an explanation of the conditions and why things happened the way they did – right or wrong – and is a more balanced and global view than The Bitter Road to Freedom: A New History of the Liberation of Europe (which I should review soon).  And while this is ostensibly “a history of 1945,” Buruma expands his scope where appropriate and necessary.  The narrative is replete with individual stories of those who lived it, as well as that of his Dutch father who was forced into labor by the Germans, and serves to personalize the tragedy in small ways.  I found it to be a sobering yet worthwhile account, and yet it not only helps to make sense of the world that was built on the ruins, but sometimes I think I see even more modern parallels.

Your worst nightmare?

Do you like scary movies?  I do, but I don't care for the 'slasher' movies that are so common and rely mostly on gore.  I much prefer a clever movie that creeps you out with something that's vague and unknown, kind of like "The Village" or "The Grudge;" or a good ghost story like "Poltergeist."  "Jaws" is another great scary movie, because – although highly unlikely – it is possible, and you don't always see the shark coming.  But watching a movie is safe.  You watch from the couch or a seat in the theater, and the fright will all be over in a couple of hours.  It's the real world that is a scary place.  And I'm not talking about sharks or ghosts or even crazy people.

One of the smallest things in the world is a virus.  Some scientists don't even consider viruses to be truly alive, because they need the right host to do anything.  But when a virus gets inside it can cause big problems.  We're most familiar with viruses like influenza, which can kill but seldom does, and usually just makes you feel lousy for a week.  But others, like filoviruses (thread viruses), are truly scary and there's no vaccine or cure, and many researchers are afraid to even work with them.  They go by names like Marburg and Ebola, and they'll do to your body in a week or two what it takes the AIDS virus 10 years – and you never saw it coming.

Richard Preston explains what it's like to get Marburg in his book The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story, through the story of "Charles Monet" (a pseudonym) who likely got the virus while visiting the amazing Kitum Cave on Mount Elgon in Kenya.  It starts with a severe headache and backache, and progresses to vomiting, diarrhea, and red eye.  It ends particularly horribly in what is called "crash and bleed out" about ten days later, and I'll spare you the details of that.  In addition to Marburg, Preston describes the closely-related viruses Ebola Zaire and Ebola Sudan, and death rates for these tiny monsters range from 50% to 90% and have wiped out entire villages in central Africa even though it doesn't appear they can spread through the air.  But Africa is a long ways away.  Could a filovirus end up here?  In October 1989 one was found only 15 miles outside Washington DC.  The Reston virus, as it is known, appeared to be 100% fatal in monkeys that were imported from the Philippines and were destined for laboratories around the country.  Most frightening, it appears that the virus easily became airborne and even spread to people.

Preston has a novelist's flair in his writing, and some critics accuse him of sensationalizing and exaggerating the history, but it's considered non-fiction.  And just like his book The Demon in the Freezer (about the smallpox virus), I could hardly put it down and finished in just a couple of days.  And it's scary enough that even horror-writer Stephen King said "The first chapter... is one of the most horrifying things I've ever read in my whole life... and then it gets worse.  That's what I keep marveling over: it keeps getting worse."  So, if you like a good scare once in a while this book will provide it for you.  And hopefully you'll recover after a few weeks.

Hero worship, sports, and Mormons

Sports is often a big part of youth and sometimes adulthood – at least for boys and men.  Growing up in Salt Lake we didn't have any professional teams, so for various reasons I became a fan of the Cowboys (football) and the Astros (baseball) and I practically worshipped guys like Roger Staubach, Tony Dorsett, Harvey Martin, Nolan Ryan, and of course – my hero – J. R. Richard.  It wasn't until the Jazz moved to Utah that we had a pro basketball team, and it wasn't until the mid 90s that they became a great team with guys like Karl Malone, John Stockton, Jeff Hornacek, and Mark Eaton.  And it was a lot of fun following them – very stressful, at times, too! – but I remember one place I worked, every morning after a game, we'd all stand up and discuss the game over the cubicle walls.  We felt like the team put Utah on the map and it gave us a lot of pride.

So I can relate completely to John Moody when he writes about the team of his youth in Kiss It Good-Bye: The Mystery, The Mormon, and the Moral of the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates.  The Pirates hadn't been a winning team until they won the World Series in 1960, beating the Yankees, and a big part of their success that season was due to a pitcher named Vernon Law.  Law was a Mormon from Idaho whose fastball and clean living set a great example – especially for a boy like Moody – and the hard-working "iron man" once pitched 18 innings in a single game.  But in the revelry following winning the National League pennant, some drunken and rough-housing teammates injured Law's ankle.  In spite of the painful injury he won Games 1 and 4 of the Series, but by Game 7 it became apparent that it was affecting his pitching.  Because he had to adjust his delivery, it also caused him a torn rotator cuff in his shoulder, and his career never really recovered.

First let me clarify that Moody is not a Mormon; he is simply a great admirer of Vernon Law.  He explains a lot about the Mormon Church, and not only does he get it right, he is also very admiring of Law's religious beliefs.  But in spite of his hero-worship, the book is about more than just Law; it's about a team that pulled together and did something unexpected, as well as a story about the smoky town of Pittsburgh which didn't get a lot of respect back then.  It's also his own story of growing up in "Steel-town," and it all comes together in a book that anyone who's ever had a sports hero can relate to.  At first, his condescending comparisons of players and kids then and now was annoying, but he had some valid points.  And the chapter where he chronicles the Series was told with such excitement that I could barely put the book down.  I'm not sure how important or well-known of a "mystery" it was over who caused the injury to Law, but I found the book to be a fun, easy, and nostalgic read.  Even though 1960 was way before my time, I could easily relate to the worship of a sports hero, and the way a favorite team gave a small city something to cheer for.

Three words you never want to hear

As a teenager I never would have guessed history could be so interesting. I've enjoyed a lot of books about events like the American Revolution and World War II, but was surprised at how interesting the history of a disease could be. Wars might affect a large group of people, but sickness and disease can affect almost anyone at any time. I've previously reviewed some histories about smallpox, tuberculosis, and the discovery of insulin as well as a couple that dealt with cancer, but the most recent was The Cancer Chronicles: Unlocking Medicine's Deepest Mystery (which I received from Amazon Vine).

Science-writer George Johnson and his wife heard three words that changed their lives – "you have cancer" – when she was diagnosed with a metastatic uterine form of the disease. As a result, Johnson embarked on a quest to learn everything he could about cancer and has written an interesting overview of what is known, which turns out to be less than you might hope. Cancer has been around a very long time, and evidence of it has even been found in dinosaur fossils. In fact, it has been with mankind as long as we've been here, but if it seems to be increasing more recently it's only because we're living longer. With some cruel exceptions, cancer is mostly a disease of older people but, beyond age, the only other reliable factors that can be said to cause cancer are smoking and obesity.

If you're looking for a positive, upbeat, "let's beat cancer!" kind of book, this probably isn't it. Johnson says that while we've made significant strides, our understanding of why it happens and how to treat it still has a long way to go. The never-ending parade of stories we see in the news reporting the latest "cancer-busting superfood" are usually taking results from research out of context. Often studies are flawed and inconclusive, and even conclusions that eating more fruits and vegetables will prevent cancer do not hold up under more rigorous testing. There is some positive correlation that exercise and maintaining a healthy body and diet helps, but the benefits are often small. And as he discusses the effects of drinking water tainted with chemical pollutants he illustrates very well why it is so difficult to prove causation. Even if a specific chemical or activity can be linked to a 30% increase in cancer (which sounds very dramatic), if your odds were only 1.2% in the beginning it only translates to new odds of 1.56%, which is still within normal and random variations. (See the Toms River book for an excellent account of why it is so difficult to conclusively link environmental concerns with cancer.) Even exposure to radiation isn't as cut and dried as you might think and he says that predictions of mass cancer following Chernobyl didn't happen.

This is an informative book but often the information is thrown at the reader in a rapid-fire listing of facts and figures that make it hard to absorb much, and I frequently felt like I was in a whirlwind of data trying to make sense of too much random information. Still, it's a sobering overview of the current status of cancer research and isn't a bad introduction, and the story of his wife's cancer added a human element to the narrative. I still have Siddhartha Mukherjee's book on my reading list, and I'll let you know how that one is once I get around to it, but for now this one was pretty good.

Living a boy's adventure tale part II – the musical

For my last post I used a title which seemed appropriate for the book I was reviewing, but actually I ripped it off from a song which I've had it stuck in my head since then. You might remember a band called A-ha that made a big splash back in 1985? They were a trio of Norwegian pretty boys with a cool video for their song "Take On Me" which reached #1 in the US and won a bunch of music awards. In 2002 they were ranked #8 on VH1's Greatest One Hit Wonders. But that's misleading.

Although their popularity in America waned after their first album, it grew in a lot of other countries – especially Brazil. They actually had lots of hits and went on to record 8 more albums, sold an estimated 80 million records, and are ranked in the top 50 highest earning bands of all time. They hold the Guinness World Record for the largest paying pop concert audience (nearly 200,000 people!) at a Rio de Janeiro stadium in 1991. They actually had another US hit from that first album, "The Sun Always Shines on TV," which reached #20, and their song "The Living Daylights" was a James Bond theme song. They only just stopped touring a few years ago. I only know a handful of songs beyond Hunting High And Low, but I still listen to it now and then and I thought I'd share “Living A Boy's Adventure Tale.” I always thought it was a little unusual, but it's still one of my favorites. (Sorry, no official video – just a collage of pictures from some female admirer.)

Living a boy's adventure tale

One of the things I love most about living in California is going to the beach with my family. One of the places I hoped to go when I served my LDS mission over 26 years ago was somewhere in the islands of the South Pacific (instead I went to southern Brazil and loved it!). I used to have a 50 gallon saltwater reef aquarium, and it was amazing! (I hope to set one up again sometime when I have more time.) One old movie I love watching with the kids is "Swiss Family Robinson," and I'm probably one of the few people who really liked "Castaway" with Tom Hanks. Heck, I even got into watching the TV series "Lost" for a little while (and I'm not a TV-watcher). And I've already mentioned that a couple of my favorite books are Robinson Crusoe and The Mysterious Island. I even enjoyed Lord of the Flies. Notice any pattern? Me neither.

Just kidding! Of course I love the beach and love the idea of living on a tropical island (this is probably because I grew up where it was really cold in the winter). But since getting shipwrecked on one doesn't look very likely in my case I can at least keep reading books about people who are so lucky, and the latest one is The Coral Island by R. M. Ballantyne. Written in 1858, this book is NOT in the same class as the literary classics I mentioned above but it's still a classic – it's just more of a children's classic (with a caveat, as I'll explain). In fact, it was the inspiration for Lord of the Flies and Treasure Island.

The story is told by 15 year old Ralph of his adventure being shipwrecked on a small island in the South Seas with two other young shipmates, Jack (18) and Peterkin (14). They quickly make themselves at home, and even though they have very little in the way of materials scavenged from the wreck, they find fruits, roots, fish, ducks, and even wild pigs to eat. And it's very idyllic for a while, exploring the island and swimming in the warm ocean and hunting and just living a boy’s adventure tale. Even when a couple of large canoes land on shore and two groups of Polynesians get out and have a battle, they're having a great time. (Of course, the boys intervene and help defeat the attackers, but they still choose to stay on the island. Alone. And I can't say I blame them.)

But things take a much darker turn when pirates arrive, and this marks a change where the story becomes quite violent. Nowadays we tend to look down on filling our children's minds with violence (unless it's from video games, of course) and some parents might be a little surprised at some of the savage customs that apparently used to be quite widespread among Polynesians (like smashing their enemies skulls, eating their enemies, sacrificing babies to eel gods, and surfing). Also, an overriding theme throughout the book is the civilizing influence of Christianity, and although I'm a Christian I had to roll my eyes at how often Ralph speaks of praying and the goodness of God and thankfulness for salvation. If you think Robinson Crusoe overdoes it, you won't after reading this one! But Ballantyne was deeply religious and felt it was his duty to provide boys with an uplifting story. Fair enough.

And, honestly, I actually enjoyed it for the most part. Of course, I like a little cannibalism now and then. Besides, if I ever actually ended up on a desert island in real life I'd probably die. If not from eating something I shouldn't have then certainly from the world's worst sunburn! So it's probably just as well that I stick with the stories in books.

Cows save the planet

One of my favorite story lines in The Wonder Years was about Kevin's math teacher, Mr. Collins. He wasn't very personable but was a focused and demanding teacher who took his job seriously. He was there to teach his students the subject matter yet was wise enough to know how to handle adolescent problems, like the episode where Kevin is struggling and resorts to cheating on quizzes when he sees other kids getting away with it ("Every problem contains its own solution, Mr. Arnold.").

I had a teacher back at West High who was kind of like that.  Mr. Ekberg taught biology classes and was notorious as a hard teacher, and because of that quite a few kids disliked him (like this poor fool).  But I probably learned more from his classes than all the others, and one class I really loved was "Ecology" which is the study of how environments function.  In fact, me and my friend, Todd Bartholomew, liked it so much that we asked Mr. Ekberg one day about careers in ecology.  He told us what kind of jobs there were and when we asked how those jobs paid he admitted that they didn't pay well.  But that was back in the early 80s, and by the mid 90s such jobs were a hot choice when environmental science grew in popularity and importance.  And even though I chose a different career path, I still find myself drawn to ecology and the study of the environment and it's probably why I read Cows Save the Planet: And Other Improbable Ways of Restoring Soil to Heal the Earth by Judith D. Schwartz (which I received from Amazon Vine).

Schwartz argues that the obsessive focus on limiting carbon emissions is somewhat misguided when we should be using nature to pull that carbon out of the air and put it back in the soil where it belongs (what she calls restoring the "carbon cycle").  The primary source of carbon emissions up until the 1970s was agriculture, mainly due to practices which allow carbon in the soil to oxidize into the atmosphere.  But she claims that using the "holistic management" ideas of Allan Savory in the way we farm and use land we can not only reverse that trend but renew the health of our soils.  Cows play a part in this process because undergrazing is as big of a problem as overgrazing, and grazers are a natural part of many ecosystems, especially grasslands (and yes, she touches on the issue of methane from cows).  She explains how this can also solve problems of erosion and desertification and mitigate the damage from both floods and droughts (fixing the "water cycle").  I thought Schwartz did a great job of explaining how grazing would help natural grassland areas and it made sense, but I didn't quite follow how the same thing would apply in a farming situation.  It sounded like leaving bare ground (especially when the soil is tilled) is the biggest problem since that's when oxidation of carbon happens and I think she advocates a method of planting crops right in the natural grass cover – something I'd like to understand better.

She also points out that USDA statistics show the nutrition of our food has been steadily declining – in some cases more that 50% since I was a kid in the 70s – and says this is due to minerals being depleted where most of our food is grown.  Some researchers link this to the health issues of today, and while blaming it for things like cancer seems a bit tenuous, the connection to obesity makes more sense.  If our bodies aren't getting the right nutrients we continue to feel hungry and eat more.  Of course, better soil management principles can replenish the soil and correct such deficiencies and she cites a couple of examples of instances where it has improved health.

Normally I have an allergy to words like "holistic" which (perhaps wrongly) conjures up images of crystals and quack medicine.  In this case, however, holistic refers to ecologically-sound principles that emphasize the natural relationships of microbes, fungi, and worms in the soil with the roots of the plants, and the grazers that preserve the proper balance of plants above the surface and promote healthy soil.  And this natural order makes a lot of sense to me: it's not anti-farming or anti-people like a lot of environmentalist literature, but advocates a balanced and healthy relationship with what many have called our most valuable resource.  I also have to give her credit for offering better explanations than most I've read for why chemical fertilizers and GMO foods can be harmful.

But while it makes a lot of sense in my limited understanding, Schwartz unfortunately offers little tangible evidence like peer-reviewed research and scientific studies to back up her assertions.  There are a total of 3 notes at the end of the book and 2 pages of bibliography which looks more like "further suggested reading" than documentation.  She includes examples of farmers in the book who have changed their practices and have seen greater yields and less problems from flooding or droughts, but unfortunately that's only anecdotal evidence.  I would feel a lot more comfortable with solid evidence even if it's limited, but I'll still recommend the book on the basis that it seems in line with my own reading and experiences with gardening and composting.

Saying goodbye...

I just realized that I've been saying goodbye a lot this year.  Almost two weeks ago we said goodbye to Braiden as we sent him off on his mission.  For weeks Jamie had been getting teary-eyed at the slightest provocation.  Me?  No problem, right?  I served a mission.  I know the drill.  No big deal.

Then Tuesday night arrived and we took a break from packing to go to the Stake Center so he could be set apart... and suddenly it became real!  And Wednesday morning in the airport?  Geez, it was harder than I expected.  Luckily, Jamie became the strong one.  Funny how things like that happen when you've been married as long as we have.

We had to get up at 3 AM and the airport was packed by the time we got there at 4 AM.  We hoped for a "terminal pass" so we could all go down with him to the gate (I didn't even know they did such things) but they only gave us one - and of course the mom gets it.

 

Isn't this a cute picture?  We took it at church the Sunday before he left.

And a couple months ago I said goodbye to Grandma Alice.  The timing wasn't good to take off work for an out-of-state funeral, but she was the last of my grandparents and Jamie insisted I go.  And I'm glad I was there to say goodbye, and it was nice to see so many cousins I hadn't seen in years.

The Delta, UT cemetery.

No, they didn't all dress that way for the funeral - they were getting ready to drive home and I guess they wanted to be more comfortable.

And the last goodbye might seem a little silly, but it was hard for me.  For 22 years I've been driving a 1991 Honda CRX.  It wasn't a practical car for a guy with 4 kids, but it was the car I'd loved ever since I was a teenager.  While my friends were wishing for Porsches and Ferarris, I just wanted a CRX.  (Maybe I set my sights a little low but I'm probably the only one who got the car he wanted, too.)  It still got really good mileage and was great for my commute but it wasn't as reliable as it used to be and was having a few problems (and I'm not a "car guy" who can fix problems).  It was surprisingly hard to see it drive away, but having a brand new car helps.

When Hondas are so reliable you can drive one for 22 years with minimal problems, you tend to stick with what works.

Perspective

If you've already read David McCullough's excellent 1776 you might not find a lot of new information in Joseph Ellis' newest book, Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence. In fact, I think Ellis himself has already covered some of the same ground in his other books such as His Excellency, First Family, and Founding Brothers. What Ellis brings to the summer of 1776, however, is perspective.

We get a perspective of John Adams trying to manage a revolution while events quickly spin beyond his control. Adams could see that any attempt at reconcilliation with Britain was pointless, but not everyone in the Continental Congress was as convinced. In May he wrote what has come to be known as the Preamble to The Declaration of Independence. Nonetheless, he orchestrated things as well as he could in Philadelphia, got someone else to write an 'official' Declaration, and as the head of the Board of War and Ordnance was one of the few who knew just how badly things were going with the army. All the while he had to worry about his family in Boston, who was dealing with an enemy even more feared than Great Britain: smallpox.

We get the perspective of George Washington, trying to live up to the expectations of the Continental Congress and assemble an army bearing some semblance of order to face the well-trained and professional army just arrived from overseas. Everyone expected great things after Bunker Hill (which was actually a British victory, but so very costly for them) but New York was a very different situation. The city and its islands were essentially indefensible, and the sympathies of the inhabitants leaned more toward the British. Washington’s attempted defense ended in a costly and embarrassing defeat that had the potential to end the nascent rebellion just as it was beginning.

We get Benjamin Franklin's confidence that "The Cause" would prevail. He even accused King George of being the cause of the rebellion. If not for the way he treated the colonies by sending armies and foreign mercenaries to oppress them, the colonists would have been happy subjects.  The king's actions had effectively started the war according to Franklin's logic.

And we get the perspective of just how close it came to going the other way that summer. Ellis dispels any myths we might still have from our grade-school education that the American Revolution was accomplished with the signing of The Declaration of Independence, or that the war was won handily by a rag-tag bunch of scrappy colonists confidently and enthusiastically backing the American Cause. In fact, few people considered themselves "Americans" at the time; instead they were Virginians, Pennsylvanians, Bostonians, etc. Unity would come, but it was precarious in 1776.

But the best perspective, in my opinion, was why General Howe (and his brother Admiral Howe) failed to deliver a decisive blow in New York that could have destroyed the Continental Army. Having served in America previously and having a feeling of brotherhood for the Americans, General Howe wanted to go softly and play the part of the diplomat – ending the rebellion with minimal loss of life on both sides. It's a surprisingly human perspective we don't usually grant to the "enemy" in the war. And to me that was the main value in this short book, and why I always jump on the opportunity to read a book by Joseph Ellis. (I received an advance copy from Amazon Vine.)