Look what Billy gave me for my birthday! His name is Wallace.

The fall and winter plants I started in mid-July are now healthy teenagers and have been transplanted into their winter beds, which had previously been the spring beds of the peas and red potatoes. The first bed has Dwarf Siberian kale, Nero di Toscana kale, collards, and Apollo broccoli. The second bed has cabbage (I forget which variety and don’t have my gardening notes at hand) and purple sprouting broccoli, which is a raab and will be ready to eat in early spring when we’re damn sick of kale and collards and cabbage.

The winter stuff I started a couple weeks ago (spinach, beets, a few more cabbages and broccoli) will go in where the storage potatoes are now when they’re ready to be dug. Yes, I know beets aren’t supposed to like to be transplanted. We’ll just see how it works out. Their space is full of potatoes at the moment. If we get no beets of our own this winter, that’s fine. They’re cheap enough at the farmer’s market when we simply must have some.

My guys, harvesting the red potatoes:

In pots (a few seen in the main garden pic, but most of them unpictured on the patio because they want partial shade) I’ve started mixed mustards, miner’s lettuce, braising greens, and carrots. All the pots will nestle under cloche once the weather turns. Also cloched will be our two 4X4 raised beds: the one you can see in that photo with spinach (Winter Giant) and one (not pictured) with lettuces (Arctic Tundra mix from Territorial Seeds, and some winter romaine whose name now escapes me. It’s also from Territorial, as are all our seeds). Last year our cloche system failed due to crappy engineering on my part, so all we had in the garden after a week and a half of deep freeze in December (or was it January?) was a ton of kale and Brussels sprouts. I’m optimistic that we’ve got it figured out this year and will eat quite well from the garden all winter. If it goes to plan (heh), we won’t need to buy any produce but fruit (storage apples).

We’re not buying any produce but fruit right now, but that’s easy in summer. We’ve got kale, green beans, artichokes (though I think the four I harvested on Monday were probably the last for the season), those red potatoes, and three varieties of cucumbers right now. And finally, FINALLY, the tomatoes are ripening. We’ve got this gorgeous stand of tomato plants this year–the best yet, because I planted them in the ground instead of pots this year–and they’ve set an embarrassment of fruit, but it’s only now, at the ass end of August, that we’re eating any. Ah, Portland. June was so damn cold that it’s a miracle we’re even getting the cucumbers we are. And the winter squash all got stunted, so it looks like we’re only going to get one or two squash from each plant. I didn’t even bother with eggplant this year. This just isn’t the right climate to count on the heat lovers growing worth a damn. At least not in my yard’s particular climate.

The jungle that is our beans, tomatoes, cukes, and squash. I love to let the summer plants get all unruly like this.

Mystery squash. It was an unlabeled start leftover from the kid's school's garden.

Still, I think I like the spring garden the best. All my favorites are around then: asparagus, spinach, lettuce, peas, broccoli raab…

Gah. I’m making myself hungry. Tonight we will be eating kale and potatoes and garlic* from the garden, along with the farm-raised pork chops that Heather passed me over the back fence the other day to welcome me to the omnivorous fold. Pork chops were the last meat I ate in ‘88. I can’t wait to try them again.

Yes, it’s going well. My body is liking the meat very, very much. That’s a post in itself, though, so I’ll save it for another day soon.

*The garlic! I forgot to show you the garlic! We harvested it in mid-July and cured it in the basement, and here it is! Isn’t it gorgeous?!

Fifty-one heads. That should last us about nine or ten months, maybe a little less. Then we’ve also got a bunch of shallots, now curing in the basement, and I’ll show you those when we’re done. We’re going to plant a bit more of each this fall. I wish I’d gotten it together to do storage onions from seed, but it’s too late now (I think?) and onion sets are so pricey. Next year.

Yes, you read that right. Yes, you’re at the right blog. Last night, for the first time in nearly 22 years, I ate meat. I ate it on purpose, and I liked it.

I became a lacto-ovo vegetarian in 1988, when I was fifteen. My reasons at the time were entirely ethical. I was opposed to factory farming and wanted no part of it. A fine reason. Factory farming is a nightmare for animals, for us, for the environment. As I got older, I added health as a reason for not eating meat. And surely it’s better to go without meat that’s pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics.

But the food choices now readily available are quite different than they were in 1988. I kept on with my tofu and tempeh ways mostly, I must admit, because being a vegetarian was a huge part of my identity. It was a label I’d chosen, and clung to with the usual fierce vegetarian righteousness.

Then I read Farm City, on Rachael’s recommendation (and thanks to a gift certificate from her. Thanks again, lovey!). I read about Novella Carpenter raising her own chickens and turkeys and rabbits and pigs for meat, and I started to feel…hungry. But I was a vegetarian. I stuffed that impulse down.

I enjoyed Farm City so much (really. Great book. Pick it up) that I finally moved on to The Omnivore’s Dilemma, about a hundred years after you all had already read it. See, I didn’t think it applied to me because I “wasn’t an omnivore.” If you’ve already read the book, you’re smiling at that, most likely. I just didn’t get it yet. The Omnivore’s Dilemma led to In Defense of Food, which lead to watching Food, Inc.

Then I picked up The Vegetarian Myth, got angry, put it down, gave it a bad rating on Goodreads, and went to buy some more tofu.

A couple months went by.

I fed the vegetable garden some steer manure, some bone meal. My garden isn’t vegetarian. I bought some more tofu.

I finished reading a novel and wanted some nonfiction, so I started reading the copy of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle that I’d snagged at a neighbor’s book swap last winter. That was what finally tipped the scales. Well, that and my thirty-seventh birthday on August 20th. I suppose I lean more toward the reflective around birthdays.

I’d become a vegetarian at fifteen in good faith, for good reasons. But then I’d put that decision on cruise control for twenty-two years. It was time to revisit it. If my reasons were still valid–for me personally, of course. I didn’t judge those who ate meat before and I do not judge those who don’t eat it now–then I would continue as I’d been. If they weren’t valid, I’d consider adding some pastured meat to my diet.

So the factory farming thing. Factory farming is destroying our health and our environment, and it’s undeniably cruel to animals. Factory farmed meat is still out. But I’m not fifteen anymore and it’s not 1988. I can very, very easily buy meat directly from local farms where the chickens, cows, pigs, turkeys, and maybe even bunnies (not sure yet if I can eat bunnies) were allowed to live as they are meant to, the cows grazing on grass, the chickens eating bugs, the pigs rooting around and being…well…piglike. I have easy access to clean meat from animals raised humanely and sustainably. We’ve been getting our eggs from just such a farm for a few months now (ever since I read The Omnivore’s Dilemma) and it would just be a matter of adding a bit of meat to the order we’re already putting in each week.

There’s also this: I’ve been opting out of the factory-farm economy but in terms of food dollars I haven’t been doing anything to help the situation. Not eating meat isn’t a vote against factory farms–it’s like sitting out an election because you don’t like the political system, letting your vote go to waste. By supporting local, sustainable farms who treat their animals well, I’m voting with those food dollars. I’m helping to ensure that such farms continue to exist.

So the factory farm reason got crossed out. Now how about my being a vegetarian because it’s healthier. With factory farmed meat, I think that’s true. But with pastured meat I’m not at all sure it is. I was in the habit of telling people I felt better without meat, that my body ran better without it and everyone’s system is different. Everyone’s system is different, sure, but now that I’m looking at my choices totally honestly, that was a load of bullshit on my part. I have no idea if my body runs better with or without meat because I haven’t had a bite of it since I was FIFTEEN.

And you know what? I wasn’t one of those pizzaterians. I had studied vegetarian nutrition and chose my food with care. I was never once anemic, even during my pregnancies. But still…I get sick really easily. I never manage to fight off any cold or flu that’s going around. That started when I was 21, but I don’t know if that is because of the vegetarian diet, because I had Lyme disease when I was 21, or because I have shitty luck. Basically, I’m saying I’m not sure one way or the other about the health issue.

There went my reasons for not eating meat, but did I have any solid reasons FOR eating it? It comes back to that steer manure and bone meal in the garden. When I was fifteen I thought, with all the arrogance of youth, that it was possible to lower my position on the food chain. That I could remove myself from the cruelty of nature. After all, Morrissey taught me that Meat is Murder, yeah? But the food chain isn’t so much a chain as a circle, is it? And we can’t remove ourselves from nature. Why would you want to? I’m not above the natural world. I am an animal and I am part of it. I want to take my place again.

Okay…and maybe I’m also a little bit curious about what rabbit and duck taste like.

I will only eat pastured meat. I’m going to take it slowly, and only eat it in moderation. And we’ll see how it goes. I’m not going to say I will now always eat meat. The change is flexibility. I’m open to it. We’ll see how it goes.

Billy’s birthday. Jujuba in a park in North Portland. Picnic, sun, lots and lots of dancing with my guys (with the babe in the Ergo and her head well supported by my hand, I assure you). (Yes, you can TOO dance while wearing a baby. You just have to dance a bit more carefully.)

A day trip to Big Cedars:

Gardening:

And just kinda hanging out:

My friend Lisa Unger’s new novel, Fragile, comes out today. I’m very much looking forward to reading it.

The wonderful Caroline Leavitt did a great interview with her here, and Lisa did a guest post on Caroline’s blog here. The guest post is quite a good one, and you should especially read it if you’re surprised to find me blogging about “this kind of book.”

Enjoy!

I wish I could tell you that Madame Bovary was as wonderful as I remembered it being. I can’t tell you that. As you already know if we’re friends on Goodreads (and if we aren’t yet, feel free to send a friend request), I did not enjoy Bovary on this second reading. It dragged. All the characters were irritating–Emma Bovary most of all. I cheered when she died. I don’t remember ever before cheering a character’s death. Awful. I have no idea what it was that I loved about it when I was eighteen.

The Scarlet Letter was equally surprising in that I enjoyed it much more than I expected I would. I liked it when I read it as a high school freshman, but I hadn’t given it much thought, if any, in the past 22 years. Then a neighbor told me she loved it and reread it all the time, that it was so much better as an adult. She was right. It’s a great book. Beautifully written. Give it another try if you haven’t read it since high school either.

I’ve got a few more classics that I downloaded to my Kindle for free, but I’m craving something contemporary next. There’s no room in the budget for something new on the Kindle right now (if only I could somehow cram my shelves full of already purchased paper books onto the Kindle!), since we’re saving to replace my poor dead laptop. That means I’ll have to cowboy up and read a regular old paper book or two one-handed while nursing, risking a sore wrist to do so. Yes, I’m very brave.

Next up, I plan to finish Already Dead by Denis Johnson. I started it ages ago–maybe even a year ago–but life intervened and even though I loved it, I never got past the first 100 or so pages. I’m going to start it again. After that, I’m thinking I’ll finally finish Gilead, which I’ve started and stopped twice already. Life was weird for the past two years, what with all the pregnancies and miscarriages, and I think that affected my reading, so I’m not going to automatically dismiss any book that didn’t hold my attention during that time.

When I can buy a new book or two for the Kindle again, I’m got my eye on this and this.

What are you reading this summer? I’m always open to suggestions.

Here’s the thing. We all know what a vaginal delivery looks like, right? We’ve seen plenty of images of them, plus it’s as natural an event as you can get so it’s not hard to imagine how it works.

A c-section? Not so much.

I was born by c-section. My two children were both born by c-section. Even so, I had no idea before I saw these photos–taken by Billy, at the wonderful anesthesiologist’s urging, during Ladybug’s delivery–what a c-section looked like. I didn’t give much thought to the particulars of the surgery before Thumper’s birth because I was going to have a drug-free natural delivery with no medical interventions, thankyouverymuch. And after his birth, I couldn’t bear to think too much about the particulars of the surgery because I felt so traumatized by the way the labor and delivery had gone.

If Billy had photographed my first c-section, I would not have been able to look at those photos. No way.

But the thing is…bloody and medicalized and brutal as it is…this is the way my two beautiful children came into the world. It’s the way I came into the world, and my brother after me. That is the reality of birth for so many of us. (Yes, probably too many, but I’m not interested in debating c-section rates or birth politics here.)

It’s not pretty. It’s not romantic. But it’s birth. It counts.

It turns out that once I no longer needed to fear toxoplasmosis in my cat-contaminated garden soil blinding my fetus, my I Love Cats button got reactivated. I found myself really, really, really wishing we had a cat. It didn’t hurt that Thumper has been asking for a cat for months now. On Tuesday the kids and I headed over to the Oregon Humane Society and brought Benny home. (Thumper picked out the name. Good one, hunh? Billy and I have been calling the cat Benny Hill, but truth be told the kiddo named him after Benny the Bull in Dora.)

It’s so nice to have an animal in the family again. It’s been weird since Diego died in February. This was the longest I’d gone in my entire life without a pet of some kind. He’s nine days younger than Ladybug. Super sweet and affectionate, and very good (and tolerant!) with the kids. Yay Benny!

Also weird and kinda funny: As I walked out of the Humane Society, Ladybug strapped to my chest, holding Thumper’s hand, and the cat carrier in my other hand, I felt truly grown up for the first time. I was wondering what it would take, if I would ever feel that way. But don’t worry–the feeling passed.

PS: Thanks to Everette and David for helping me figure out how to get photos up here without the cushy convenience of iPhoto. You’re my very two favorite nerds (and that’s saying something!). AND you’re both now in Seattle. Remind me to introduce you to each other. You need to meet.

Finding a free edition of Anna Karenina for my Kindle inspired me to give it another read. I’m now determined to change that re-reading policy. Better to read fewer books more deeply, I think. I loved Anna Karenina, sure, but I was eighteen years old. I loved it without any true understanding of what I was reading. I found her sympathetic, was caught up in her romance, thrilled to the tragedy of it, and that was it.

This time I found a much more complex book. It’s about the romance between Anna and Vronsky, sure, but it’s also about other marriages, other romances… It explores the themes of love, marriage, motherhood, faith, death, politics, family… This book seems to contain everything. EVERYTHING. It’s titled Anna Karenina, but it’s only partly her story. And within that story of hers, Tolstoy manages to make her sympathetic, then unsympathetic, then sympathetic again–through her love for her son, a clever move there–and then once again unsympathetic and finally, utterly pathetic and pitiable. Which is to say…she’s full and real and human in a way I didn’t appreciate the first time. Ditto for Levin. I didn’t understand why Levin’s storyline even existed the first time I read it. Now I see the book is great thanks to its several story lines and the way they fit together to form the greater argument about love and marriage. I’m also seeing how much the story of my current novel-in-progress (Cold Black Stars, for those of you who’ve been around here for a while) owes to Karenina.

I’m shaking my head and smiling condescendingly toward my younger self and what she thought this book was. And yes, I’m likely to do the same to the reader I am now if I read this book again in eighteen years. All the more reason to re-read. We bring who we are into each book we read. A great book will change as we do, I think. (Which is why, I suspect, the professor with whom I read all of In Search of Lost Time re-reads it every ten years. I promised him I would do the same, and so am scheduled to once again climb that mountain in a little over three years, at forty.)

I finished Karenina last night and now I’ve moved on to Madame Bovary, which I also read and loved that year. After that, The Scarlet Letter, which I haven’t read since I was fourteen.

The summer of infidelity, you see. I’m pretty damn excited about it.

What books did you love when you were younger that maybe merit a re-reading?

The photos you aren’t seeing:

1. Thumper’s fourth birthday party. 18 kids and 16 adults. In our house. Yeah. We’d planned to spill out into the backyard, and then there would have been plenty of room. So of course it rained. Yay Portland. Let’s hear it for the spring that never was. (We skipped spring but now we’ve got nice summer weather so all is forgiven.) Housebound though we were, the party was great. The kids had fun. The adults had fun. It felt crowded, but not unpleasantly so. Festive crowded. We covered a wall in the hallway with paper and let the kids go at it with markers and crayons and glue-on googley eyes and now we’ve got a fantastic mural that you can’t see until I can get the photos off the stupid camera.

I was afraid we were nuts to have invited his whole class plus a few non-school friends once I realized that almost all the parents planned to bring siblings as well as the invited kids. We invited something like 11 kids and got 18. But there were enough cupcakes for everyone and I don’t remember anyone crying or bleeding, so let’s call it a success.

2. The garden. We have way too many snow peas and snap peas. Way too many. We’re seriously sick of them, which I didn’t think would be possible. We’re giving them away to all the neighbors and we’ll still have too many. Anyone know if they freeze well?

Finally. FINALLY. After three years of attempting to grow spinach, we got a glorious spinach crop this spring. I’m sure I’ve got the stupidly wet and cool weather to thank for that. Now that the warm weather is here, it was threatening to bolt. I pulled all of it and now I’ve got a HUGE bunch of spinach that needs to be used up fast. Tonight, pea and saffron risotto with a spinach salad. Tomorrow, spinach fritatta. Sunday, sauteed spinach. With snow peas.

3. The kids. Ladybug is growing like crazy, in the way that babies do. Thumper is a big, gorgeous four-year-old who desperately needs a haircut.

And…speaking of kids… gotta go. Have a great weekend. I think we’re going strawberry picking tomorrow, so there are some more photos you won’t see for a while. It’s gonna be FUN around here.

Happy fourth birthday, love bug! You’re my favorite super hero.