From the Iroquois Confederacy of the East to the Nez Perce of the Pacific North West, the remarkable TV miniseries, How The West Was Lost tells the authentic story of American history through the eyes of the Native Peoples who lost their lands to the wave of European immigrants that swept across the country as a force which forever changed Indigenous lives. This is the story they ‘forgot’ to teach you in American public schools, and it is the understanding I would most wish to see passed on to future generations as the truth about our joint national history.

What Is The Series Like?
In 12 unforgettable episodes, How The West Was Lost details the experiences of a few specific tribes including the Lakotahs, Cheyennes, Modocs, Iroquois League, Utes, Nez Perce, Apaches, Navajos, Cherokees and Seminoles. While this list covers only a few pages in the whole of the Native story, it takes a resolute heart and strong stomach to sit quietly watching the unfolding of tragic events like the massacre of Chief Big Foot’s band, the Sand Creek Massacre, Wounded Knee and the exile of the Navajos to the miseries of Bosque Redondo. This is precisely why I would advocate that this series become required viewing in school history classes and in homes across America; this is the information every American needs to have if he wishes to avoid the very real dangers of ignorance and misunderstanding.

The producers of How The West Was Lost made a unique effort to gather the descendants of some of the best known figures in Indigenous history, combine that with a truthful narrative and an incredible archive of photography coupled with stunningly beautiful film of the precious lands that were stolen from Indian people. Memorable music by the celebrated Native flute player, R. Carlos Nakai, enhances the intense emotional value of the stories. The end result is a series of programs I find unequaled on this subject in the documentary genre.

By watching this series, you will not only have made a start towards a vital understanding of American history, but I believe you will be drawn into a position of lasting empathy with Indigenous people, having heard their accounts and seen with your own eyes the grassy plains, wooded mountains, clear lakes, mesas and rivers that the different tribes cherished and cared for. You will begin to understand what it means to lose a landscape that is not only the stuff of daily sustenance, but, as was common amongst American Indians, is the center of your religious beliefs and lifeways. You will gain a new sensitivity to what it meant to lose the west, as westward expansion rolls across the land from the 13 colonies to the Pacific. Perhaps, most importantly if you are of non-Native descent, your new education about this subject will be part of the change that needs to happen in white society in regards to comprehension of exactly how the American government has dealt with Native peoples, and why things are the way they are for Indigenous peoples today.

My family first encountered How The West Was Lost at the local library, and proceeded to check out the episodes over and over again, we were so impressed with this body of work. This year, we saved up enough money to purchase ex-library copies of the whole series on eBay. It was expensive, but absolutely worth it. We don’t have much money for frivolities, but as a family of mixed Native/European roots, we are constantly working to improve our education about our ancestors in hopes of becoming stewards of the land these ancestors would approve of, and we felt that it was good for us to have these programs in our home. It’s important for my husband to be able to contemplate the Trail of Tears and what the meant to his forebears. It’s important for me to be able to listen to stories of the Southwest, to look at the land and contemplate what my people suffered. This is part of who we are, and we want to live in a way that respects and honors the dreams of those who came before us. We highly prize this series for providing a new way to get in touch with the past and to view the present and future.

Why Understanding Of Indian People Is So Crucial In Modern Times
If you read any Native newspapers, such as Indian Country Today, and you look at the comments on any post that deals with pain and distress in Indian communities, you will quickly notice that public comments are nearly always left that contain scathingly racist views of all white people. While these types of comments only represent the views of some individuals, I have repeatedly encountered this attitude of reverse racism towards non-Natives. Who can blame such commenters? If you were living on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, making less than $3500 a year, surrounded by an 80% alcoholic population, shocking suicide rates amongst young people, preventable disease, intolerable living conditions and staggering episodes of violent crime, you might just look outside the chain link fence at the rest of country, knowing full well that your people once lived in great plenty and freedom, and point a damning finger at all of white society.

Yes, there is truth in that pointed finger, but only partial truth. It is certainly true that plenty of immigrants and pioneers crossed the country brainwashed by the nonsense of manifest destiny, infected with a genocidal ideology towards Indian people, ready to kill, lie and steal in order to get their hands on the land. But, it is also true that so many of these people were simply pulled along through the days of their lives, hardly understanding what was going on, simply trying to live. Think of the countless women and children, capable only of understanding that their husbands were trying to support them. I sincerely doubt that the majority of them crossed the country and settled in former Indian lands out of wickedness…they did it, like so many people throughout history around the globe, because that was what was ‘going on’ at the time. I think you have to lump this large segment of white society in with all of the not-terribly-aware people who have lived under dictators in all countries at any time in human history. Living day to day, not really seeing the big picture. It’s often only in retrospect that we can understand what was really going on in the past. Only truly deep-thinking people generally perceive the truth of their own times.

And what about now? Again, I feel that the greatest barrier to truth and humanity in the dealings between Native and non-native Americans is education. I don’t believe, as many commenters appear to, that most white Americans are now prejudiced against Indians. Instead, I’ve come to believe that most white Americans give almost no thought whatsoever to American Indians and if they did, they would apply the general feeling that is now present in much of the country of race not having a place in our dealings with others. A white person in a moderate part of the country would likely feel towards Indians as they do towards Asians or Afro-Americans – that everyone is basically the same and deserved of equal treatment and consideration.

There are very glaring exceptions to this moderate thinking, in parts of the country where racial hatred continues to boil on high, further retarding our evolution as a whole people into a society enlightened enough to see deeper than the color of people’s skin. Let no one underestimate the horrible attitude of entitlement, greed and bigotry that is still clung to by certain segments of the population. In the main, however, the country now knows it isn’t ‘cool’ to make Westerns about ‘murderous savages’ and I don’t think we beat tom toms whenever Indian people walk across a stage or a television screen anymore. We are growing past this childishness, and I honestly believe that most modern white people have no specific feelings, positive or negative, about Indian people at all.

The tragedy here is that we ought to have feelings…feelings not of bigotry, but of tremendous concern and regard for our precious Indigenous population. But this is not encouraged. Our government-funded public schools have failed American youth by not making Native history a critical piece of education for all American citizens. They teach something about slavery, and dwell on the atrocities of WWII, but where in the United States are young people being taught what we now know – that researchers estimate that early European perceptions of this country as being an empty land were fueled by the 90% dieoff of Indigenous people due to European disease and that the managed food systems of the Indians were so skillfully created, they were mistaken for ‘wilderness’. Where in California is it being taught that government subsidized the murder of Indian peoples by insane gold miners and profiteers? Do children in Washington D.C. get taught that the Haudenosaunee’s name for George Washington was ‘Destroyer Of Towns’? I doubt it. The truth about how white society came to be dominant in America is systematically withheld from the very young people who will be the future of this country and this, to me, is tragic.

Fortunately, this dismal educational picture is not black-and-white. Those young people who make it to college often meet with new perspectives in the form of countless Native American study courses offered at the nation’s top universities. Perhaps they will even be lucky enough to attend lectures given by brilliant Indian speakers, and this may be the starting point for the understanding that needs to grow. Yes, white people are very much to blame for the historic disaster that befell Native Peoples in the unintentional form of disease and then the intentional genocide, but I believe that the modern failing of today’s non-Native peoples is one of ignorance and not of hatred.

Programs like How The West Was Lost give formerly-unaware people a chance to become educated, and out of that education comes something a lot better than vague apathy. Out of that education can come the view that Martin Luther King Jr. reached toward the end of his life: that our problems go deeper than skin color. Our problems are about power and poverty. Just before his assassination, King was organizing a movement of poor people of all colors that was going to march on Washington. He hadn’t given up on civil rights, but he had slowly realized that the most egregious sufferings in this country, whether experienced on the outskirts of suburbia, in the ghetto or on the reservation, are the result of a violent and greedy government that refuses to recognize basic human dignity and rights.

The same government that brought slaves from Africa stole Indian lands and corralled Indians onto reservations. This same government has now leagued itself with the world’s most abusive and powerful corporations – the insurance people, the banks, the chemical industries and other monsters of power that view human life without dignity. Though the Indian story is unique and specific, modern Indian life hangs in the balance that weighs the lives of all poor people. As poor people, we fear government agencies, languish for lack of health care and decent homes, are laughed out of court rooms and are barred from the special treatment afforded to the financially-potent criminals who are abusing power daily without retribution.

And it isn’t just an American thing. Whether you look at Ancient Rome or the tyranny afflicting so many South American countries today, you see this same breed of power-hungry people overturning the cherished lifeways and lives of poor people who live as if they are without a voice. In the destruction of the Indigenous golden age of America, you will also see the desecration of Aboriginal Australia, the obliteration of the modern Middle East and the persecution of poor, humble bands of early Christians who were thrown to the lions by the sadistic Roman government. Racism has played a terrible part in our history, but I have come to feel that the lesson beneath it all is the oppression of the weak by the strong, and American Indian society, decimated by small pox and other diseases, was not strong enough to hold off the American government and its subjects. It could have happened to anyone…making the Indian story your story, whether you are Native or not. So long as you are poor, so long as you are not the one in power, I think you can relate.

And being excluded from that small band of men and women that has turned its back on humanity in order to grab the money and rule the world, you can watch something remarkable like How The West Was Lost and find yourself standing in solidarity with the admirable American Indians who have come through so much and are still going strong. And you can look at their poverty. You can read those statistics from the rez, read Indian news publications and start asking yourself if there is anything you can do.

Maybe you don’t have money to donate to the various Indigenous organizations that bring relief to blighted places like Pine Ridge, but you have a voice in your own life, amongst your own people, and you can use your voice to tell the truth you’ve learned about what the American government and past generations of non-Native citizens have done to the Indigenous people. You can relate the lies that were told, the violence that stained the pages of history, the losses that were suffered by the people who originally greeted newcomers at the shores of this country with open arms and a welcome that exemplified true brotherly love in an almost unparalleled manner. And, by passing on this gained education, we can move beyond apathy together about this and insist on the truth being told. I’m not sure what can be done for that segment of society that holds to racism here in the 21st century, but we can do something where simple education is lacking. I defy anyone to tell a reasonable white youngster about the Sand Creek Massacre and not see that child respond with genuine outrage and caring. Unlike most of television these days, How The West Was Lost took up this much-needed educational challenge and poses an opportunity to all viewers to grow in compassion, love and understanding.

Why not stop by your local library today and see if they can find you a copy? I consider this especially important homework for all family farmers, now caring for lands once so cherished by Indigenous people. As part of our Reskills work, it’s up to us treat the land with love and to honor all the people who loved this land before us. May we be drawn together, as humble people, by this love of the land and enduring respect for one another.

Marin Agricultural Commissioner Stacy Carlsen has just played Judas in his county by negotiating a contract with the state that will give him nearly $150,000 for continuing to foist the ludicrous light brown apple moth (LBAM) eradication program on the community he is supposed to serve. If you live in Marin, you’ve already seen the toxic, white, triangular traps hanging from trees everywhere, from neighborhoods to precious wild lands, endangering coastal waters, animals, birds and insects. Be on the lookout for the toxic twist ties that will now follow, thanks to Carlsen’s egregiously bad plan.

Carlsen gets a fat $10,000 bonus for himself (a sum vaguely described as his reward for ‘spearheading’ the program) and the rest of the money will be used for twist ties and inspections. All for nothing! The light brown apple moth fiasco continues to be one of the phoniest, most underhanded and dangerous grabs for state and federal funding anyone has ever attempted to pull off in California, and newspapers like the Point Reyes Light continue to make matters worse by re-printing the misleading speil of the California Department of Agriculture regarding the toxicity of the chemicals contained in their twist ties and traps.

This recent article by Kyle Cashulin is a perfect example of how easy it is for state ag officials to get non-diligent reporters to use their chosen marketing language for describing what is, in fact, a dangerous substance. Calling pheromone-pesticides ‘perfumes’ does not magically turn them into Old Spice cologne, but if people choose not to think too deeply about what they are reading, words like these do a truly magical job of creating apathy and ignorance. When West Marin’s primary newspaper can’t do better than this, I’d say this special county, with its high proportion of environmentally-minded residents, is in trouble.

For actual facts about the contents of the toxic twist ties, please refer to this article which describes the danger these chemicals pose to people, animals and the water supply. Considering the fact that no one can swim at Samuel P. Taylor park any more because of the poisonous water and that the coho salmon are barely managing to hang on throughout their historic waterway through the San Geronimo Valley out to sea, West Marin citizens have every reason to refuse to allow Stacy Carlsen to further pollute local water by introducing chemicals into the area which are specifically prohibited from being used near water. West Marin has water everywhere, from roadside ditches to creeks, rivers and the Nicassio Reservoir. Then there is Tomales Bay, and, of course, the Pacific Ocean. Rain on the twist ties will cause the chemicals to get into the water (against the law) and these chemicals will cause harm…all for a tiny moth that has never done any damage to anything in California despite decades of existence here.

So far, the LBAM program has been cited as:

-Sickenening hundreds of Central Coast families and putting children in the hospital
-Killing thousands of sea birds including the federally protected endangered Brown Pelican
-Killing domestic animals, pets and honey bees
-being illegally conducted, as was ruled by two courts in California
-Using pesticides that were subsequently banned by the EPA after being sprayed on human beings
-Causing incalculable amounts of stress to California citizens
-Turning formerly pro-government citizens against government agencies
-Draining California’s drastically troubled budget

But Ag Commissioner Carlsen wants to continue this scandalous charade in West Marin, with big money for him and his department and a further dose of toxins for a community which is still reeling from the news that the county ag commissioners have violated Marin’s own pesticide use laws 90 times in the past decade. East Marin suffers from one of the highest cancer rates in the world. West Marin struggles to build a name for itself as a GMO-free, organic farming community. Add all these things up and I think Carlsen’s deal with the government can easily be viewed in the light of betrayal in which the critically ill people of the east county and the valiantly environmental people of the west county will be needlessly exposed to further doses of toxins and ‘secret’ ingredients, unless this greedy, bad, unwanted plan is stopped. Please, if you live in Marin, tune into this issue to find out about what community efforts will be made to stop Carlsen’s plan. Your health, and the health of beautiful Marin County, is riding on it.

Three to five times a day, 365 days a year, you will find us in the kitchen on our organic family farm, preparing good vegan meals and snacks from scratch. Growing and preparing utterly fresh, delicious foods occupies a major portion of our time and, for us, provides the surest route for finding joy in being alive. Yet, not once, never once has anything in our kitchen ever tasted like the food we’ve been served in vegetarian/vegan restaurants. With the land to care for and a tendency towards homebody-ness, our attempts to dine out are truly few, but there have been those occasions on which we’ve been traveling or when we’ve felt curious about a restaurant we’ve seen that we have brushed the compost from our shoes and the tomato seeds from our hair in an effort to go stepping out on the town.

The outcomes haven’t been good.

In fact, we have encountered 3 repeat scenarios at vegan/vegetarian restaurants that have left us bewildered and disgruntled and out a half a weeks’ worth of what might be our typical spend on food, and if you dine out at these ‘alternative’ eateries, I bet you’ll recognize these experiences:

Vegan Restaurant Problem 1
No, buttermilk is not vegan

Vegan diners all take risks when dining at conventional restaurants and trying to order from the one or two choices that don’t seem to contain animal products. I remember going to a pizza place once after making absolutely sure that the pizza crust did not have any type of dairy in it and eating a pizza with some tomato sauce and vegetables on it…only to find out after this meal that, well, yes, the pizza crust did have milk in it. More fool me for trying to eat at a pizza restaurant. But, contrast this to the scenario of the first restaurant I ever ate at with my husband – an establishment touting it’s vegan food as well as all kinds of other things I didn’t exactly understand about macrobiotics and fermentation. On the menu was an item I was rather excited about – Vegan Pancakes. Now, as any vegan will tell you, making good pancakes without eggs is something of a prized accomplishment, so I asked the waitress what kind of vegan pancakes these were.

“Oh,” she smiled, “they are buttermilk pancakes.”
“Buttermilk?”
“Mmm hmm.”
“I’m sorry, I’m a little confused. How is that vegan?” I asked with tremendous curiosity.
“I’ll go check,” she said and disappeared into a back room, only to return a few minutes later with the non sequitur reply, “They are made with powdered buttermilk.”

And there you have it. This restaurant promoting itself as vastly vegan-friendly had somehow concluded that dehydrating buttermilk magically turned it into a vegan product. As I recall, we ordered some french fries, prayed they hadn’t been cooked in powdered lard and went home hungry…and laughing.

Vegan Restaurant Problem 2
Veggie burgers with a side of nose rings

Go to a fancy restaurant in New Orleans and you will be served by solemn, formally-clothed elderly gentlemen who look as if they have been pressed, polished and shined within an inch of their lives. Tremendous care for patron comfort is evinced in every word, gesture and appointment. Spotless tables and graceful, respectful service are hallmarks. Now, go to a veggie restaurant in California and try very hard not to notice the tattoos covering your server’s shaved skull and the large metal rings impaling his eyebrows, nostrils and lips. Try not to wonder whether those nose rings leak while he is serving your meal…try not to wonder what the cook looks like behind that swinging door.

To each his own; I truly believe that, but I also believe that public service carries a small duty of respect. Basic good hygiene is appetizing and the sight of excessive snarled hair and self impalement do not activate the gastric juices necessary to proper digestion, at least for me. What is this all about? Is there something about being vegan I don’t understand, some mantra that states, “Yes, we don’t eat animals, and we also never take a bath. Ha-ha!”

We take the trouble to tidy up out of respect for the special event of eating out, but time and again, I have been less-than-impressed by the lack of respect alternative restaurants show for diners by hiring servers who are so self-absorbed with expressing their personal style that they are oblivious to concepts of serving the public in a cleanly-looking manner. Where food is present, sanitation is key, and tattered t-shirts and scabby nose rings do not suggest cleanly restaurant practices.

By contrast, my husband and I once went to a veggie/vegan restaurant that was so beautiful, so elegant, so thoughtfully cared for that we were literally amazed. This was a unique experience for us, sitting at a pretty table overlooking the ocean, being deftly served by skilled waiters in black pants and white shirts. It wasn’t anything excessive, but the evident care that had been put into patron comfort made this one dining out experience a pleasant and memorable one, and so different from what we’d seen at other places that seemed to have confused vegan dining with the mosh pit at a punk concert in 1982.

Vegan Restaurant Problem 3
Man does not live by portabello mushrooms alone

Problem #3 is the big one for me: what is with the weird, weird, food served at veg-oriented restaurants? I mentioned this at the beginning of this article. Nothing I have ever prepared in our farm’s kitchen remotely resembles the entrees presented at any of the public eateries we’ve patronized.

Let’s say you’re on the road. You’ve spent the day hiking through the woods, playing on the beach, working up a huge appetite. You may even be starting to feel a little head-achy for need of a good, nourishing supper. You go to the veggie restaurant and they set before your famished eyes…a plate of portabello mushrooms. Like thick slabs of chewy kitchen sponge, this is the restaurant’s solution to your nutritional needs.

Now, I love mushrooms. We’re like hobbits around here and can’t get enough of little button mushrooms, added to other ingredients in filling, hearty fare. But who is going to be able to satisfy their stomach, let alone their body’s needs, with a giant piece of fungus? Even if it’s adorned with a nasturtium blossom. I ask you.

Then there are all of the faux dishes. Now, there a people who can do faux and people who can’t, and I’ve come to the conclusion that alternative type restaurants just can’t. I can make a ‘chicken’ stew that you’d pay me a fistful of bills for, but at the last veggie restaurant my family went to, I was served a ‘taco’ made of raw dough with ‘cheese’ on it that looked and tasted exactly like shaving cream. I literally couldn’t eat it.

Is it the California cuisine culture, infested as it is with $75 entrees consisting of a quail egg on an arugula leaf, that is responsible for the weird, weird food at alternative eateries? I don’t know, but I’d like to blame someone or something, wouldn’t you? Every time I think of this plate of 5 tasteless raviolis swimming in a giant dish of melted New Balance margarine that was supposed to pass for beurre blanc sauce, I get queasy all over again.

Let me say it once and for all: Vegan Food Is Not Weird Food. And, while we’re on the subject, nowhere in the description of a vegan diet will you find that salt, oil or any of the other non-animal spices of life are prohibited. People who have managed to be vegan for decades (count me amongst them) cannot be living on cardboard and flower blossoms…they can’t!

And, so, my plea to all good people going into the veg restaurant business: give us something real to eat. How about cooking up a pot of beans, making some homemade tortillas, giving us some fresh guacamole and topping that with tomatoes and lettuce from your restaurant garden? How about a pot of yellow split pea soup or a steaming, veggie-loaded minestrone. How about hummus and tabbouleh? How about some fresh tamales, scalloped potatoes or a heaping helping of black-eyed peas and savory johnny cakes? Look, I’m afraid you’ll just have to come to my house and I’ll show you what I’m talking about. I’ll even give your waiter a clean shirt to wear and buy him a comb…

Maybe, I’m being a little silly here. The truth is, going to restaurants just isn’t a habit with us. They are expensive and something of an ordeal to get to in contrast to walking into our own kitchen and having something really satisfying to eat right now. But maybe, if the veg restaurants could eradicate the 3 common problems I’ve listed, we’d find ourselves a little more tempted to dine out. As things are, when we go on a trip, we literally pack our car with food and only stay at lodgings that have a kitchenette so that we can cook well wherever we go. The psychological and physical importance of proper eating is truly vital to us and to all people. You’d think that, in going to the unusual trouble of opening a vegan restaurant, the owner would have that fact set in stone as rule number one.

So, pass me the beans my veggie friends, but allow me to pass on the grilled portabellos.

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Flickr Photo Credit>

If you grew up in the 70′s-80′s decades, chances are, you may have run into High Feather in the classroom or on summer vacation. Let me give your memory a little jog. High Feather was produced by the Bureau of Mass Communications and the New York State Education Department and chronicled the experiences of eight children at a summer camp in Peekskill, NY in 10, half-hour episodes. The four boys (Leo, Stan, Tom and Domingo) and four girls (Cathy, Leslie, Ann and Suzanne) have a variety of adventures, chiefly centering on nutrition. They learn to care about their health as it relates to eating and fitness and come to be good friends by the end of the summer.

High Feather Episode Guide

Welcome To Camp
In this episode, the children arrive, meet one another and meet their counselors, Kim and Sharon. Many of the kids are disturbed by the food they encounter, both because it’s different than what their mothers cook at home and because the camp doesn’t offer salt on the tables, sugar cereals, etc. The children also have to turn in any supplements they’ve brought to camp with them because the camp provides balanced meals from which they expect the campers to derive total nutrition. The main action in this first episode revolves around Domingo avoiding swimming tests because he can’t swim. He feels ashamed and takes to the lake alone one afternoon with a leaky inner tube. He is saved from drowning by his peers who show concern and friendship for him.

Stan’s Secret
In this episode, some of the boys think Stan is stuck up because he acts possessive about his belongings. Soon, they discover that he has a health condition and everyone strives to help him with this. The main theme of this episode is a lesson in reading labels to discover what’s really in processed foods. The children throw a party for counselor, Sharon, and bake her a carrot cake and make mango sherbet from scratch.

Swifty
This episode centers on Tom’s weight problem. The main characters bet that they can beat a group of mean kids in the upcoming foot races, but the mean kids (and they really are mean kids) stipulate that if Tom doesn’t run, they automatically win the bet. Tom struggles to keep up with the others while trying to stop eating junk food, but loses heart and decides he won’t compete. At the last moment, he changes his mind and helps his team win the race.

Nose For News
Leo voluteers his friends’ time to publish an edition of the school paper. After a temporary falling out, they agree to help him, out of friendship, but all of the children struggle to find topics to write about. Tom witnesses the camp chef, Manuel Rios, fighting with the head of the camp, Mrs. Riggs. When the chef quits, Tom decides he has a scoop for the paper, but soon discovers that Chef Rios is just a bit temperamental and truly cares about the quality of the food he is providing the campers. Some of the children spend a day going to truck farms and pick-it-yourself farms with Chef Rios while the others experiment with doing Mrs. Riggs’ weekly shopping for her. They learn lessons about looking for local food (yes, locavores, even back then) that is of the highest quality at the best prices and not blowing their budget on junk food. The episode ends with Leo yet again volunteering his friends’ time to start a camp vegetable garden.

Ballerina
Leslie begins exhibiting signs of anorexia when she decides to stop eating and live on vitamins in preparation for an up-coming dance tryout. She becomes grumpy and fights with her peers. Counselor, Sharon, becomes concerned that Leslie is isolating herself. She suggests that Leslie work with Tom in the ceramics shop, making mugs, and the two have fun together. However, Tom’s feelings are hurt when Leslie continuously talks about weight and accidentally breaks some special mugs they were working on. Leslie faints during her dance tryout and her parents threaten to take her home from camp until Camp Nurse Rodriguez has a serious talk with them all about nutrition. Leslie learns that calories are like the fuel a car needs to run and she promises to eat heathily in future. She makes up with Tom by making a new tray of mugs for him and the children have a party with healthy foods.

Lost In The Woods
In this memorable episode, the campers go on a long hike in the woods. Stan and Ann break the rules by straying from the group to go bird watching and get lost. Then Cathy and Leo get lost trying to find them. The children discuss edible foods in the wilderness and not drinking untreated water. Finally, they all arrive at the McKillens’ farm late at night and the couple feed them supper while they wait for counselor, Kim, to come fetch them. While eating, the children learn that the farming couple is worried because their usual help can’t come bring in the harvest. Kim is very angry with the children and tells them that they cannot go on an upcoming backpacking trip because they can’t be trusted to obey rules. The children ask if they can go help the McKillens bring in the harvest and they have a very educational day, picking vegetables and learning about cows and chickens.

Going Home
This episode (the one I remembered most clearly from childhood) centers on Tommy who is sent home from camp because his parents can’t afford to pay for a second term there after Tommy’s father loses his job. Tommy becomes seriously depressed and immediately returns to his junk food diet, even using the family’s precious grocery money to fill a shopping cart with junk food. Then, the lessons Tom learned at camp kick in and he decides to help his Aunt Elinor cook. They serve up an inexpensive and nutritious meal of rice and beans which Tommy’s comically dysfunctional family greets with something less than enthusiasm. However, the whole family comes to feel proud of Tommy when he earns money doing odd jobs in order to buy seeds and plant a vegetable garden. Though Tommy misses camp, he has found something to do that helps him to feel good about himself again.

County Fair
In this episode, Suzanne’s older cousin Jeff arrives at the camp as a counselor. The children are trying to figure out a way to participate in the county fair, but Jeff ruins their plans by irresponsibly going to a party and forgetting to turn in their fair application. The children are very disappointed because they’ve all created healthy dishes to display at the fair. Even Stan has overcome his beliefs that cooking is for women and has taken cooking lessons from Camp Chef Rios. In the end, Jeff makes good by convincing the fair officials to let the kids set up a table anyway and he apologizes for his mistakes. The kids have a nice day at the fair after all.

Lost Dog
In this episode, some of the campers are busy trying to take care of a dog that was abandoned by an irresponsible owner. Meanwhile, Leo offers guidance to a messy little boy who won’t eat. He encourages the boy to shape up and play tennis with him. Counselor, Sharon, finds out about the hidden dog and a trip to the vet ensues. The children learn that, just like people, dogs have to have the right nutrition to function properly.

Camp Show
Counselor Kim tells the children that his relatives back in Korea are suffering from hunger because a drought destroyed their crops. The children are trying to think of a program to put on for the camp show in which the winning act will receive an award of money to put towards a charity of their choice. They meet a group of elders at a senior lunch center and discover that many older people can’t survive on social security money. An ex-Vaudeville actor named Danny offers to help the kids put together an act and other elders volunteer to make costumes and make healthy refreshments to sell at the show. The children learn that many elders are lonely, and Domingo forges a special friendship with a grumpy man who comes to see that not all kids are a pain in the neck. The children win the award by singing the theme song from High Feather and decide to split their winnings between Kim’s village and the senior center.

Interesting Facts And Funny Things About High Feather

- High Feather was filmed at a real summer camp called Camp Madison Felicia that was active throughout the 20th century as a camp for underprivileged children from urban areas.

- The wonderful music in this series, including the theme song, was composed by Peter Link who is still an active songwriter. In addition to writing the High Feather score, memorable for its marvelously fuzzy analog keyboards, harmonica and whistling, Link wrote the theme for another well-loved educational series called Vegetable Soup. Link also contributed to Sesame Street, Big Blue Marble and The Electric Company. A few years ago, I sent Peter Link an email through his website, telling him how much I had always enjoyed the High Feather music. Sadly, I didn’t receive a reply, but I’m glad I wrote, anyway. I’ve actually figured out how to play a number of the songs from this show on my piano.

- Speaking of music, I think one of the funniest parts in this whole series is when Tommy has to go to a party with his sister in the ‘Going Home’ episode. Seriously, the music the kids are listening to at the party is hilarious.

- Another funny thing – no one in the show seems to know what the Chef’s correct surname is. Some of them call him ‘Chef Rios’ and others call him ‘Mr. Rio’. Oops.

- I find the fact that this show suggests you can make a blueberry pie without sweetener of any kind a little hard to swallow. Fresh berries are sweet, but the minute you cook them, they lose nearly all of their sweetness. I’m afraid the sugar-free blueberry pie Cathy takes to the county fair would gag anyone who tried it. And while we’re talking about the fair, what exactly are the children doing to participate? They seem to be standing a table saying the names of healthy foods they’ve cooked, but how is the public supposed to interact with this rather vague display?

- This show was prone to go slightly overboard on occasion regarding nutritional propaganda, and I find it humorous that the most oft-repeated tidbit of advice is that potatoes aren’t fattening unless you drown them in butter. This is stated in numerous episodes. Did a national potato growers’ organization have a hand in High Feather?

- And, speaking of national organizations, this show is becoming quickly dated by its insistence that people need to drink milk to have healthy bones. That was definitely the spiel of the 80′s, but these days, controversy surrounding milk paints it as more of a health hazard than a help. Meat and other animal products are also fairly heavily promoted in the show, but any modern viewer will have to give credit to the makers of High Feather for its promotion of rice and beans and other vegetable-based forms of nutrition, even if they refer to them as ‘supplemental protein’.

- In the ‘Lost In The Woods’ episode, why does Mrs. McKillen yell at the children at the top of her voice to come to dinner when they are all sitting in the same room with her? What a very loud woman. This part always makes me laugh.

- And, finally, if ‘High Feather’ is a health camp, why do they have a vending machine full of candy bars? I’ve always wondered that.

Why Am I Writing About High Feather on VeganReader.com?
We’re no fans of television. In fact, we don’t have any type of TV reception here, though we do have a very old TV set we keep for occasional use with tapes. Nevertheless, I have always viewed television as a miraculous form of media. Sitting in my home, I can be transported to China, to 18th century America, into a kitchen where someone is cooking, into a story where I may learn something new about how other people live. I was raised in a house where TV viewing was strictly monitored and limited. However, each summer the local public television station would run shows like High Feather, Vegetable Soup with its emphasis on celebrating diverse cultures, The Voyage of the Mimi in which a group of children were monitoring whales while sailing in an old ship, Getting To Know Me which I recall being about taking pride in African-American roots and a variety of other short shows that promoted social harmony, health and creativity. My parents felt okay about we children watching these programs, and I absolutely loved them and continue to look at them fondly to this day.

The interesting thing about this message-filled programming was that, as a child, I really didn’t pick up on the fact that very specific axes were being ground by the producers behind the shows. In fact, I watched a show like High Feather more because of interest in the stories of the children’s lives at camp than for the nutritional teachings it packed with so strong a punch. Propaganda of all kinds if often like that. Viewers watch without questioning intent, and this phenomenon can be put to both good and bad use, as we all know so well.

Fortunately, the message behind these 70s and 80s educational shows was overall a positive one. I think that the writers and film makers of that time must have looked around at urban violence, racial tensions, bomb-dropping governments and materialistic segments of society and decided to shine a spotlight on alternative viewpoints. Black kids and Asian kids could be friends while making fry bread with a Native American lady. Chubby kids could take their health into their own hands and plant summer squash. We could all come to empathize with people of all walks of life by learning their stories and their songs. Social harmony was an ideal to be reached for and world peace might just be around the corner. If that sounds hopelessly idealistic, let’s take a look at some of the altered social norms common in people of my generation.

- In contrast to the habits of speech common in my parents’ generation, using racial slurs is not considered acceptable amongst my peers. Those nasty words have come to sound ridiculously antique in modern conversation.

- A live-and-let-live philosophy of life has people of my generation bending over backwards not to judge the religion, politics or chosen lifestyles of others in any way. Sometimes, I worry that we’ve gone too far towards an apathetic confusion of amorality in my generation, but at least we aren’t generally freaked out by the idea of people having a different lifestyle than our own.

- We’ve certainly come closer to seeing our planet as the ‘Big Blue Marble’. We are realizing that the Earth is one unit, despite the diversity of life on it, and that what affects one of us affects all of us. Global consciousness, especially heightened through Internet usage, has become normative thought.

- From public service announcements about littering to classroom lessons about greenhouse gases, my generation was the first to be bombarded with awareness and guilt over the concept of environmental pollution. Sadly, we haven’t done much about this, but we’ve got an awfully young president now, and as the years go by, the kids of the 70s will be the government. I have to wonder, will their principles and ethics be in some way informed by Woodsy The Owl?

I don’t know how deeply our show of outward tolerance runs. We’ve yet to save the world. And, we’ve got the next generations coming up under us and I really don’t know what the kids these days are watching. Does anyone still care about kids enough to produce educational TV for them that encourages brotherly love and environmental stewardship, or is it all mindless, money-making entertainment? Not having television reception, I don’t know, but I do know that if someone asked me to recommend a good program for a youngster to watch, I’d be loaning them something like High Feather which holds a special place in our hearts here at VeganReader.com. Absorbing its memorable promotion of local eating, farms, cooking from scratch and thinking carefully about nutrition, maybe it makes sense that we grew up to write a blog about organic farming, food safety, peace and justice. A 10 part educational TV series is just a drop in the bucket of all the formative experiences of my childhood, but when I think about it, I can see the connection in my life. Can you see it in yours? I’d love to hear how you feel watching this type of programming influenced your life and the person you grew up to be.

Vegetables and herbs are seldom grown for their flowers – but they could be! Every year, I am astonished anew by the unique flowers that come as a bonus of beauty on our family farm. Herb and vegetable flowers offer exquisite color, memorable form and…of course…a life-giving harvest. Sometimes, when my husband is deeply engaged in a task too tough for me, I make a comfortable nest on the warm earth at eye level with our food crops and drink in their aesthetic loveliness. If you’ve never dedicated time to admiring a vegetable flower at close range, I’d like to show you some of the pretty things I see on our farm.

When you think of the bulky, lumpy potato, it may be hard to connect it with such an ethereal fragile bloom as the one pictured above, but this lovely lavender star is indeed a potato flower. Remember, potatoes are part of the nightshade family – the same group as the solanum vines so many people grow on fences and arbors for their starry display. If you’ve got potato vine growing in your flower garden, chances are, you can recognize the relationship between your ornamental and this food-producing vegetable flower from my russet potato crop. When the potato flowers appear, it’s time to start digging up those unforgettable, creamy new potatoes, and there’s nothing better than serving them alongside a jade green dish of succulent snow peas!

Peas are another example of an edible form of a plant that has its ornamental counterpart in many flower gardens. Big difference: snow pea pods are great to eat, but ornamental sweet pea plants are poisonous. Never plant them next to one another, lest you confuse the two. This snow pea flower is as white and gleaming as a summer cloud, and within a few days of blooming, a crisp, delicious pea will grow from it with the finished flower dried up at the bottom tip of it. Amazing!

Here’s something you may never have seen before – a tomatillo flower, looking for all the world like a velvety little butterfly or moth, all spotted and fluttery. What interesting plants tomatillos are. They are related to goose berries, but are most like tomatoes. When their papery husks dry, you can harvest the green, seedy fruits for making unbeatable salsa verde. When fully ripe, they are yellow or purple, depending upon the variety you grow. Plant them once and old farmers say you will have them forever because of their ability to re-seed themselves. My husband loses his head over the salsa I make him, but I am in love with the flowers – truly unique on our farm.

Here’s one that even greenhorn gardeners are sure to recognize: a hybrid tomato flower. This one is from an Early Girl plant – a popular tomato for our semi-coastal climate. This simple yellow star will produce what I think of as a standard, red tomato, super in sandwiches and salads. A healthy tomato plant will produce loads and loads of these pretty little flowers and as soon as we see the first blossom, we start counting the days until we can bite into our first sweet, tangy homegrown tomato.

Here’s one that might be less familiar to you – an heirloom tomato flower. Like a perfect sun symbol in form, the heirloom tomato flower has more petals and is, I think, even more beautiful than the flowers of hybrids. I was really surprised the first time I saw an heirloom tomato blossom, because it looked so different. Best of all, heirloom tomato flowers produce heirloom fruits with seeds that can be saved year after year – an essential part of sustainable farming. The photo shown is of a Pruden’s Purple tomato flower. This is our first year growing this variety and the plants are looking very promising. I love the sunny yellow of these special flowers.

When some vegetables flower, you can’t help but stop to enjoy the display. Look at these charming bi-colored bean flowers on our bush string bean plants. I love those pretty soft shades of pink with the dark green leaves as a foil. I’m not a botanist, but what’s going on in the construction of a green bean flower looks really complex to me and worthy of up-close study. Both bush and pole beans have appealing flowers. Some, like the scarlet runner bean, have really vibrant red blooms and add so much interest to the family farm landscape.

Here’s one of my all-time favorites: the squash blossom. Both summer and winter squash have very similar blossoms in the yellow-orange color range. The trumpet-like shape opens up into a star and here come the bees! In fact, I once had to help a fat, licorice black bumble bee get out of a squash blossom that had closed around him. At least, I think he needed my help. Maybe he could have squeezed back out on his own, but I didn’t want to leave it to chance. Many cooks prize squash blossoms for soups and fried dishes. I love to sit amongst them in their forest of large leaves, where I can sing to them.

Here’s another very pretty flower – that of the bell pepper. The simple, white shape may remind you of impatiens, but make no mistake; when the flower is finished, a big boxy green pepper will appear. In our coastal climate, bell peppers can be hard to grow, but we’re trying them again this year, along with chiles. Because they are chancy, every flower is precious for the hope it represents of fruit to come, but for their flowers alone, they are special.

I’m finishing up our vegetable flower gallery with an herb flower, because on our farm, herbs, vegetables and fruits all grow together, creating a feast for the eyes as well as the belly. Is there anything prettier than a pink chive flower, held aloft above shining emerald green leaves? I’m not sure there is. I love the clover blossom shape of it, and on close inspection, one can see that the round head is made up of dozens of tiny pink stars. All members of the allium family (chives, onions, garlic, various natives and ornamentals) have wonderful flowers, but the diminutive chive is a favorite of mine. In addition to the long, tubular leaves being a peerless herb for countless dishes, the flowers are themselves edible and can be added raw to salads for a really pretty touch and an onion-y snap. Our chives have done so well this year, and with luck, they will keep coming back for us again and again.

I’d like to add more vegetable flower images to this article as I have time, but I hope what I’ve shared here will give you a sense of the variety of blossoms that can be enjoyed on the family farm. Growing food for our loved ones, we spend so many hours amongst the plants, becoming intimately familiar with their habits and needs. If we look closely, we can also derive great enjoyment from their appearance, too. Stars and trumpets, puffballs and mysteriously complicated petals…there is so much to see and learn as we work to re-skill ourselves in caring for man’s primary food plants. To some folks, a weed-free lawn is the height of garden appeal; for me, it is a scene of well-tended land replete with the flowers, leaves and fruits of plants that provide me not only visual delight, but fine organic eating. The blessings here are numberless.

Do you have a favorite vegetable flower? We’d love to hear about it!

What thoughts, words and images come to your mind when you think of 1950′s food? If, like me, you weren’t alive at that time, perhaps your brain conjures up a picture of packaged wonder products, a poor understanding of nutrition and a society-wide preoccupation with conformism, all glossed over with black-and-white scenes of happy, smiling housewives serving meals to happy, generic families. If that descriptions sounds about right, please hold that thought; there is a very good reason why you and I ascribe to this common, yet not especially true, view of the 1950′s food scene and that is the subject of a remarkable book I’ve just read and would like to recommend to all readers. Laura Shapiro’s Something From The Oven is almost guaranteed to provide food for thought to anyone born in the last 50 years – as well as to those who lived through the fifties and remember them well.

Shapiro’s thoroughly-researched and engagingly written book makes it plain that any effort to understand food history in the mid-20th century must include the existence of two very different camps. The first camp belongs to the women – the people who did most home cooking. Newly-liberated from the food rationing of WWII, 50s cooks could walk into the kitchen secure in the knowledge that they could procure and prepare almost any food they could afford to buy. This was an obvious moment for celebration, for reveling in ease and luxury. Simultaneously, we have the camp belonging to industry: the frozen food companies, chemists and growing agribusiness empires, suddenly liberated from the profits of which they had been assured during the war, producing rations for soldiers.

The marketer’s job was clear – he had to find a way to convince the American housewife that new convenience foods were her only hope in coping with the fast pace of modern life and her chronic lack of time.

There was only one problem with this, and this is where Shapiro’s book will take many of us into uncharted territory: few 1950′s housewives felt they didn’t have enough time, and rather than embracing the new packaged foods with the joy depicted in popular media, they viewed them with suspicion.

This came as a tremendous surprise to me. I was utterly hooked into reading this book once I understood that this was its chief premise. Shapiro’s evidence is ample. Both polls from the times and her contemporary research indicate that women did just the opposite of what advertising has taught us to believe about the taste, discretion, intelligence and critical thinking of 1950′s home cooks. Some few products were welcomed – frozen orange juice concentrate, canned pineapple and, after a lot of work on the part of food corporations, cake mixes. But, these were the exceptions. Here are some facts that might surprise you:

- Despite what you’ve seen in old advertising, sitting down to TV dinners was not the reality for most families. Women thought they were convenient for a few, small scenarios (leaving children with a babysitter while the parents went out at night, or husbands being left at home to feed the family one evening), but those images we all have in our minds of black-and-white family groups sitting down with their compartmentalized trays are nothing more than hopeful industry hype.

- Frozen foods were something of a flop for many years because most Americans who owned freezers were farmers who often held them in cooperatives for freezing their own harvests – not for preserving someone else’s frozen chop suey.

- A surprising majority of 1950′s women, when interviewed, attested that they did not feel they had really cooked anything if they were just opening cans and packages. There was no reason to feel proud, and because of this they looked at processed foods as being guilt-inducing foods.

How different this picture is from the ad and magazine copy of the times which wishfully insists that every woman is harried and frantic, unable to cope with running a household without corporate intervention. The personal recipe files, letters to newspaper cooking columns and small community cookbooks speak of countless women who took tremendous pride in their from-scratch dishes and who certainly weren’t going to give up their arts and skills for canned hamburgers and instant coffee.

For me, the takeaway lesson from Something From The Oven is the one I’ve learned so well from living in my own times, but one I hadn’t known applied with equal accuracy to the 1950′s: beware the mirage of pictures painted by industry and media; find out what real people have to say about themselves and their circumstances.

Every day, each of us finds himself confronted with the spins of industry through major media. It’s only when we dig beneath the surface of symbolic news that we discover the genuine experiences of individual human beings.

After finishing Something from the Oven, I asked my mother about how her mother, aunts and other female role models cooked in the 1950s and her depiction of this was strikingly like Laura Shapiro’s. Most of the adults she knew cooked mainly from scratch. One grandmother, an immigrant from an Ireland ravaged with oppression and hunger, did take a shine to the wonder foods and believed in the media message of convenience, but the rest of the women whom my mother watched cook were fairly skilled in the kitchen and turned out meals from raw ingredients three times a day.

That’s not to say my mother said they cooked deliciously. Her negative memories of food taste and quality in the 1950′s are shared by many, and in fact, Shapiro’s book cites famous chef James Beards’ horror over the rapid decrease in food quality. He complains of tasteless meats and vegetables, remembering their pre-war, pre-industrial-agriculture flavor, as did everyone else in the country. When industry replaced the good harvests of small farms with the pesticide-laden, endless-shelf-life products of agribusiness, Americans’ efforts to eat with health and pleasure suffered a deadly blow, surpassed only by our modern crisis of genetically modified foods.

Within a few decades of the Second World War and the subsequent onslaught of wartime production methods and chemicals into the American food supply, our most intelligent cooks, both male and female, were starting their own gardens and avidly seeking out farmers markets wherever they could find them. In the 21st century, the endless aisles of worthless, processed foods in our supermarkets and the epidemic of obesity in our nation certainly do evince that the marketers successfully caught and held a segment of our population. Some families are now generations deep into gaining their chief sustenance from the package, the can and the microwave. But there is the other side to the story.

A couple of days ago, I spoke with a woman who is organizing the citizens of a local town to set up a local grain mill. Families and farmers will be able to bring their raw grain right to the mill for processing into meals and flours. Imagine that! It’s about as far as you can get from those plastic wrapped, compartmentalized trays corporations would like you to send with your children to school, encouraging you to ‘make fun of lunch’. I see a vision forming in my mind of a next generation of children eating their sandwiches on homegrown, homemade tortillas, and while it’s not the one industry will pay the media to promote, it’s the one I’m going to seek out and grab firm hold of.

As a woman with a very deep interest in everything related to food, I’ve read so many books on the subject, I’ve forgotten half of them. I don’t think I’ll be forgetting Something From The Oven, because it has convinced me that our heritage as food-dependent humans has never really been broken. Not everyone forgot to to cook from whole foods, despite the glaring glamor of advertising. From my kitchen, back, back, back to generations uncounted and unknown, a long and unbroken line of cooks kept the fires burning. If you would like a really entertaining read that is almost sure to hold a few surprises for you, why not give Something From The Oven a try? I am grateful to Shapiro for highlighting some of the women who thought for themselves right through the 1950s, ensuring that a woman of my day need not tread completely unfamiliar ground when I seek out the best from my farm, local farmers or natural foods market to put something really good on the table. We women have been doing this for a long, long time.

Some 50 years have passed since Rachel Carson published Silent Spring – a book heralded by her contemporary society as the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of its era. I have just finished reading Linda Lear’s very thorough biography of Rachel Carson’s life and wonder if anyone could contemplate the story of this remarkable woman without feelings of strong admiration. While fighting the final two years of her battle with cancer, Carson released her landmark book on the ecological devastation being wrought by the pesticide DDT and began speaking publicly on the subject; and the more ill she became, the stronger grew her voice in opposition to man’s mistaken efforts to control nature rather than learning to live gracefully within it.

Like the words of any legitimate prophet, Carson’s continue to ring true in our own day, but during my entire perusal of Lear’s biography, I found myself inwardly railing at the things that haven’t changed, despite the life and work of a human being of Carson’s merit. 10 years after the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, slavery came to its end in the United States. 50 years after the publication of Silent Spring, we continue to befog our nation with billions of pounds of pesticides annually. It would seem that our society is even more dependent upon toxic chemicals than we once were upon slavery. Though DDT was eventually banned in the United States, the ‘peculiar institution’ of self-poisoning with carcinogens, mutagens and endocrine disruptors has only grown since Carson’s lifetime.

What Hasn’t Changed

Essential mindsets
Man as the controller of nature, blind trust in industry and government, and lack of personal accountability for the health of the environment continue to make up the thoughts and mental stances of so many Americans, despite decades of warnings, scandals, failures and disasters. All you have to do is look at the comments section on any news article about any environmental tragedy or disaster to see overwhelming evidence of this. I know I will never forget reading the comments of people during the aerial pesticide spraying of California’s Central Coast in 2007. Someone would write about dead sea birds, children in the hospital or some other tragic outcome of this spraying and there would always be comments insisting that pesticides were safe and the government – the same government that lauded the safety of DDT – would never harm us. These fear-based abdications of reason in the face of abundant evidence to the contrary are as rife as in Rachel’s day when industry and citizenry attacked her as being a communist and hysterical woman.

The Tactics
Having had first-hand experience of industry/government standard operations during the LBAM spray disaster of the past decade, it was almost re-affirming to watch Rachel Carson and her contemporaries face the identical lies, evasions, fact juggling and disregard for human rights that my peers continue to encounter around the issue of pesticides. Proponents of human rights and environmental health continue to be attacked and dismissed as alarmist, anti-government and delusional. In addition to being called a communist, Carson was accused of being – of all things – a ‘peace-nut’. Such a term may sound laughably quaint to us today, but anyone who has worked for peace or justice will easily relate to the ill spirit and underlying threat of slurs like these.

Carson was, in fact, sneered at for what appeared to some people as a ridiculous insistence that there was a careful balance in nature. If you watch this short video documentary about Carson’s work you will see a white-coated scientist explaining that man’s task is to control all nature. This was the very ideology Carson wanted to see abolished and exchanged for a more evolved conception of man’s small place in the grand scheme of the Universe.

Today, when we battle for human rights and environmental protection, we face the same stone-faced government agents who turn deaf ears to our sufferings and pleas to be governed as we wish by the people who are suppose to serve us. We face the same accusations by industry or fellow citizens of being unpatriotic or insane. We sense the same current of danger and threat when we tell the truth. And, we face an industrial-governmental complex even more deeply linked than that of Carson’s day. Industry controls nearly all important areas of our so-called Republic, and when we work for change, we are sharing the experience that Rachel Carson, her editors, publisher, friends and colleagues went through and refused to be discouraged by.

The Players
I groaned inwardly in reading Lear’s biography when the names of Velsicol, DuPont and Monsanto began appearing in the text on the pages of this lengthy book. I was struck with a sudden sense of injustice that Carson is long at rest, but the very corporations who foisted their leftover wartime chemicals on the American people are still very much in business. Monsanto’s absurd parody of Silent Spring – in which bugs are portrayed as the true danger to the earth, rather than DDT – shows up their ethics for what they truly are. Nearly everyone in the chemical industry championed DDT, just as they champion today’s carcinogenic scourges, and though the heads of most of those corporations in Carson’s times are likely in the grave now, company policy remains the same. In a letter to Carson, a colleague wrote:

“There are such powerful adversaries: the U.S Department of Agriculture and the business empires and the ever-increasing practice of monoculture.”

If that sounds familiar, it’s because we continue to whistle the exact same sad tune today.

This summer, Monsanto has elected itself Trojan Horse by attempting to ‘donate’ hundreds of tons of GMO corn seed to the disaster area of Haiti. This corn, which has been cited as a health hazard by numerous independent scientists, will not only contaminate Haiti’s regional heritage corn but would make serfs of Haitian farmers forever, as the non-reproducing corn could not be saved from year to year, but would force the people to re-purchase their seed corn annually from Monsanto. Visions of vultures are dancing in the heads of Americans and Haitians alike over this latest effort of the very same Monstano Corporation that mocked Rachel Carson when she cited DDT as a hazard. It can be painfully disheartening to contemplate the continuing story of corporations like this and the ever-growing, never-ending list of human and environmental tragedies that continues to be written.

What Has Changed
None of what I’ve written above is intended to diminish the very real accomplishments of Rachel Carson’s inspiring life. On a personal level, as a woman with an environmentally-caused chronic illness, I can’t be anything but moved and incredibly grateful to this one special woman who used her days on Earth, despite sickness and pain, to wake up a sector of the public to the dangers of pesticide use. I feel a strong kinship for Carson in that her motivation to protect the environment stemmed from her deep love of the beautiful Earth – a mindset identical to my own.

On a public level, Carson has done something of inestimable value for every human being who fights for environmental health. Today, at least where I live, I am able to find plenty of company when working on ecological issues. The people of my generation grew up in a world in which parents were at least concerned about pesticides, pollution, recycling, water quality and similar inter-related issues. This is because the parents grew up hearing about Rachel Carson and her contemporaries. These matters became part of the furniture of the human mind, thanks to the work of pioneering naturalists and environmentalists who started the struggle to bring American society back towards the Native ideals once dominant in this land: ideals of stewardship and appreciation of the Earth. We remain so far from the living practices of this country’s true Native forefathers, but at least, in 2010, not everyone I meet will think I am totally crazy if I suggest that there is a balance in nature. There are signs everywhere that we, as a whole people, are becoming less enchanted with our former obsession with ‘progress’.

Again, on a public level, we have Carson to thank as one of the instigators of modern thought regarding farming. Carson is certainly not responsible for the existence of organic farming practices, but she took inspiration from the testimony being given by an organic gardener whose food supply had been contaminated with DDT in the 1950s. All farms and gardens had been organic until the introduction of chemical pesticides and herbicides, but we had gotten so far away from this tradition in the post-WWII era that to be intentionally running an organic farm was something out of the ordinary in the 1950s. In 2010, where I live, it is not longer queer to farm organically. It is, in fact, seen as positive and modern. Certainly, much of the rest of the country has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to this, but when I look at California, I see evidence everywhere that Rachel Carson’s message ‘took’, at least on a small scale. On a large scale, commercial conventional agriculture still dominates, burdening our people and our land with a never-before-seen mixture of utterly toxic chemicals; but, at least I have the option to go to a local farmer, a farm market, a local grocery store and purchase safe, organic food. Rachel Carson’s work is inherent in this blessing, for certain.

Most importantly, perhaps, Rachel Carson’s gift to us is that of independent thought. Nearly all mid-20th-century Americans were shocked to learn that U.S. drug companies had been allowed to market Thalidomide (a sedative which caused horrendous birth defects) in the United States after the drug companies were fully aware of the effects the drug had caused abroad. People were outraged and stunned. Today, I think that less of us are stunned when our so-called regulating agencies, out of greed, fear or stupidity, fail to protect us from danger.

I think that, thanks to Carson and her peers, more 21st century American have learned to think for themselves, rather than placing unthinking trust in government and industry. We investigate. We weigh evidence. We work to make healthy choices despite the breaking of human rights laws by our politicians and the marketing ploys of big business. We may look one another in the eye for a moment and shake our heads about the rampant abuse we suffer at the hands of a government that has chosen profit over humaneness again and again, we may even try a dry chuckle over the fact that our politicians are supposed to be our servants, but while we make these somewhat jaded and socially acceptable gestures, many of us work to develop a private world in which we think for ourselves, build our own organic gardens, and strive to pass on to the next generation the values of environmental respect.

In geological time, 50 years is the blink of an eye, despite the vast human experience it represents. Who can say, over time, whether Rachel Carson’s clarion call, the voice crying in the wilderness, will eventually result in the environmentalists outnumbering the greedy? We’ve added genetic modification and global warming to our plate since Carson’s time. The odds are likely against us. But this is why I would encourage anyone to read Silent Spring and to look for a biography of this admirable woman’s life.

Time and again, the smallest, gentlest, humblest of people have had the most lasting effect on human society as a whole. If Rachel Carson, hampered with sickness and surrounded by a sleeping public, could put her skills to such good purpose, what can I do, what can you do? Simple folk have always and will always greatly outnumber the mighty and powerful. Take courage in the thought that we are now several generations deep in a society that has heard of the dangers of pesticide – a society that is learning to recognize the disease we have created in our loved ones and ecology – and we can do the work that is ahead of us. I am thinking about this today, looking out the window at my family’s organic farm, wondering what else I can do to carry on the work and move it forward, for love of the Earth.

Is your family working towards better self-sufficiency by creating your first vegetable garden or turning the land around your house into a real, working farm? You’re in good company. Friends of ours in the seed business tell us that vegetable seed sales went through the roof this spring – double or triple what they’ve been in previous years. Americans are coming to the smart and sane realization that food plants in the yard equal dinner on the table, even in the slimmest of times, and here in the Reskills column of VeganReader.com, we are trying to give you as many tips as we can for successful homestead living. Today, let’s talk about safe garden hoses!

So, you’ve got your compost pile, layered with your organic vegetable wastes and cuttings, trimmings, mowings and clippings from your land. You’ve gotten clear on the fact that your soil is your most precious possession. You’ve purchased and planted organic seed or starts. Perhaps you’ve companion planted with herbs and flowers that bring the right birds and insects to your yard while keeping less-wanted visitors in good balance. You’ve turned up your nose at the pesticides, insecticides and fungicides that promise fine living but deliver ruin to the health of all creatures and our environment. You’re learning something new every day and doing all you can to grow the safest, tastiest, most nutritious organic food you’ve ever eaten…and then you take a look at that old green hose in your hand and something gives you pause.

The scenario I’ve just described is the very one in which I found myself some time ago. Here I was, going to all this trouble to raise healthy fruits and vegetables, and I realized I was pouring lead on them every time I watered. Any regular garden hose is likely to contain lead, and this means you are contaminating your food with the very substance that can cause the dreadful outcome of lead poisoning. Chronic exposure to lead causes a host of serious problems: learning disorders, reproductive malfunction, mental disorders, anemia, digestive distress and memory loss. Certainly, this is not what you want to harvest from your labors in painstakingly building an organic family farm! So, what can you do to protect yourself and your loved ones from lead-tainted garden hose water?

Purchase a Drinking Water Approved, Lead-Free hose! That seems like a no-brainer, but I think most of just don’t look critically enough at our garden hoses. All our lives, we’ve seen those typical green hoses. Some of us (not me, as my Mother would never allow it) may even have drunk from garden hoses. It’s not safe to do so, under any circumstances, and replacing your conventional hoses with non toxic drinking water hoses is one of the smartest things you may do this year on your small farm.

Where we live, the local hardware and home improvement stores are well-stocked with regular garden hoses, but shining out amongst them is this special white model, labeled as Drinking Water Approved, FDA sanctioned and RoHS compliant. The fine print reads: contains less than one-tenth of 1% lead by weight in homogeneous material. My research has indicated that this type of hose is the best and safest we can find and I hope you will be able to purchase a similar one locally or on the web. It just makes sense to take every precaution you can to ensure that your method of irrigation is a safe as possible.

And, while we’re on the subject of water…have you got chlorine in yours? Most city water in the United States is chlorinated, and if you’re on a communal well over which you don’t have direct control, chances are, your water may be chlorinated, too. Organic farmers must remove the chlorine from their irrigation water, and if you’re going organic on your little farm, you need to find a way to do this, too. Despite its widespread use, chlorine is incredibly toxic and has been linked to everything from cancer to heart attacks. Unfortunately, few cities in our country have had the knowledge, resources or guts to move beyond chlorine to safer water processing methods. Because of this, I urge you to investigate this issue and discover a way to filter chlorine out of your garden hose water. Chlorine is not only toxic to humans – it kills the vital microbes in your soil that promote plant growth. Pretty crummy!

We purchased a garden hose filter from Pure Water Products when we started our farm here, and we regularly replace the insert in it in order to remove as much of the chlorine as possible from our well water which, unfortunately, the landlord who owns the communal well treats periodically with chlorine. Our landlord is unfortunately unable to see the sense of providing safer water for her tenants, and so we’ve had to take this responsibility on ourselves to ensure that the water coming from the well into our home and onto our farm is as non-toxic as possible.

Regular readers here know that we are modest income family. We definitely do not have money to throw around, but when it comes to safety issues in our growing habits, we will find the money to do what we feel will be the healthiest for ourselves and for everyone who eats our produce. I hope you will give some thought to the safety of your water this week, and that the tips we’ve given will pay off for you on the farm and on the table.

The care we’re taking certainly seems to be paying off for us! Just take a look at these gorgeous raspberries that have ripened this week. We have never seen such HUGE berries anywhere. A single one is a mouthful! It’s nice to know that we’ve removed both lead and chlorine from the picture and that these luscious, home grown fruits are truly safe to eat.

Do you have a safe garden hose or water safety story to share? We’d love to hear it.

If you have only ever eaten packaged tortillas, you have yet to meet the real tortilla – the tortilla that has been the bread of the Americas for thousands of years. Something that has lasted this long has to be uniquely good, but you won’t find it in a sealed plastic package at the supermarket. Those bland, rubbery disks bear almost no relationship to the soft, sweetly fragrant, satisfying corn tortillas you can make so simply at home. This article will teach you how to make corn tortillas that will amaze and delight your five senses and provide your family with an inexpensive, nutritious, naturally gluten free, naturally vegan daily bread for which you will give thanks the rest of your life. Does that claim sound high-flown? Wait until you taste these tortillas and I think you’ll agree!

What You Need For Making Your Own Corn Tortillas

• A cast iron frying pan or iron griddle
• A tortilla press
• A bowl to mix the dough in
• A plastic bag, cut in half
• 1 cup of Organic Masa
• 3/4 cup boiling water
• A pinch of salt

And that’s it! If you are new to corn tortilla making, two of the things on my list may be unfamiliar to you. Let me explain them.

The Tortilla Press

We purchased our beautiful little wood tortilla press for less than $20 at a local Mexican market. Metal models are also available, but we like our trusty wooden one. This device is basically a hinged wooden block with a handle. You put your dough ball in the press, close the lid and depress the handle to flatten the masa dough into a perfectly flat, round circle.

If you aren’t lucky enough to have Mexican mercados in your area, you might try an import store. If that doesn’t get you anywhere, you can purchase a tortilla press online. Or, if you have a woodworker in your family, you might like to check out this super little video that will show you how to handcraft your own wooden tortilla press. The tortilla press is an extremely simple and valuable piece of kitchen equipment. Unlike the pricey and faddish kitchen gadgets so many Americans end up wasting their money on, a tortilla press requires no electricity, is portable and will last a very, very long time.

The Masa
Masa is the flour of soaked, ground dent or flour corn with the addition of a mineral called ‘cal’ or ‘lime’. When you mix dry masa with boiling water and a little salt, you get tortilla dough. In some parts of the the U.S., small communities are beginning to work their way back towards having a local supply of safe flour corn from which to make masa, corn meal, polenta and all of the other good things that come from corn. Until then, it will be necessary for most of us to purchase our masa from a trustworthy source.

Safe and trustworthy. You might have remarked on those words in the last paragraph and they are worth repeating here. For the sake of your health, the health of your loved ones and the security of corn’s future, please purchase only organic masa. Genetic modification (GMOs) of corn is destroying our heritage landraces of corn all over North, Central and South America via contamination through cross pollination. I’ve written about this many times here at VeganReader.com, and when giving a corn tortilla recipe, I want to be sure to reiterate this point: the only safe corn for human consumption is organic corn. It scalds my heart to see the conventional masa sold in the local Mexican market and in most American grocery stores because I know it is very likely contaminated and may bring terrible acute or chronic illness to the countless families who are purchasing it. Please, help protect the sacred and irreplaceable corn crop and the human family by purchasing only organic corn products.

We are lucky enough to have a nearby natural food store which vends only organic bulk foods and produce. If you cannot find organic masa locally, search for it at GoldmineNaturalFoods.com. We make our daily tortillas from their organic white masa flour which is available at very fair prices in 1, 5 and 50 lb. bags. 5 pounds of masa makes a ton of tortillas, and at the time of my writing this, the cost of a 5 lb bag is $12.95. When you consider you’d spend about that much on 3 loaves of organic bread, you suddenly realize what a sweet deal you are getting! Keep the opened package of masa in your fridge and it will last for months.

The Corn Tortilla Recipe
Here’s what you’ve been waiting for! This recipe makes about 8 tortillas. Double or triple it for the amount you need. We make ours fresh daily – cooking either a single or double recipe, depending on how many tortillas we want.

Step 1
Put 1 cup of organic masa in a large bowl. Mix in a pinch of salt.

Step 2
Boil 3/4 of a cup of water and mix it thoroughly into the masa. This smells heavenly! I use a wooden spoon for this step. Let the dough sit for 5 minutes. This amount of masa/water is based upon what works with the masa we purchase. The amounts may differ with masa from other sources. The finished dough should be firm and with a clay-like texture. If it’s too sticky, it will stick to the plastic bag when you put it in the press. You may need to experiment with the water to masa ratio a few times before you get the ideal balance.

Step 3
Shape the dough into a ball. Knead the dough with your hands for 10 minutes, as you would with bread dough. Knead it with your knuckles, pick it up in your hands and work it round and round with your palms. Get it good and kneaded. Your hands will have a sweet corn fragrance all morning after doing this – such a calm and good scent.

Step 4
Heat your cast iron frying pan or griddle over high heat until it is really, really hot.

Step 5
Cut a plastic bag in half (a freezer-type bag works well) so that you have two sheets of plastic. Place one sheet on the base of the tortilla press. Form a ball of dough about the size of a large golf ball in your hands. Set it on the press. Lay the second sheet over it. Close the press and bring down the handle. Lift the handle, open the press and there is your flat, round, beautiful tortilla!

Step 6
Peel the plastic off the tortilla, toss it in the frying pan and cook it on one side for 1 minute. Flip it over and cook it on the other side for 1 minute. Some cooks poke the tortilla with their finger (be careful, it’s hot!) or a paper towel while it is cooking to help puffy bubbles to form, creating the little dark spots you have seen on tortillas. Remove the tortilla from the pan and put the next one on to cook. You will develop a rhythm of shaping a ball while one tortilla is cooking so that you can cook the second one as soon as the first is done. In just minutes, you will have a stack of unbelievably good corn tortillas!

More About Corn Tortillas

To me, there is no better snack than a hot corn tortilla spread with a little mashed organic avocado and sprinkled with salt. It satisfies a need in me for something tasty and nutritious at any time of the day. Some people may be more familiar with tortillas with butter and call the avocado ‘the poor man’s butter’. I think they’ve got it the wrong way round! Avocados beat butter all hollow as a creamy, rich spread and, unlike butter, they are totally healthy, cholesterol-free and rich in good, safe fats. And, don’t forget, avocados and corn are real Native American foods – dairy products are a latecomer to the American diet. Avocados are classic! Make yourself a little cup of organic hot chocolate, a couple of avocado tortillas and you’ve got a breakfast that is unsurpassed anywhere on the world food scene.

As mentioned above, corn tortillas are naturally gluten free. I want to make a special note of this because I’ve been running a gluten free kitchen for several years now. I remember being sad that I couldn’t eat flour tortillas, because I always thought of them as the soft, especially tasty ones. This is because I’d only ever eaten those bland, rough, packaged corn tortillas.

Now, flour tortillas are good, but like butter, they are a recent development here. What I want to share is that once I tasted a homemade white corn tortilla, all desire for the wheat-based newcomers instantly left me. Homemade corn tortillas are soft and flexible and if made from good, well-ground masa, their texture is as fine as that of a white flour tortilla. They are not gritty. They are not bland. They are divine! Trust me, when you get one whiff of that toasted corn fragrance coming off the griddle, you will be hooked. No one on a gluten free diet will feel deprived once they have real corn tortillas in their arsenal of foods. In fact, you may decide that you can forget all of those complicated substitute wheat bread recipes that are full of tapioca and a host of other somewhat rare ingredients and just make tortillas the bread in your household. Their uses are myriad.

Corn tortillas are also naturally vegan. In fact, the modern practice of frying foods in lard is an introduction of the Spanish who brought pigs to the Americas. You not only don’t need any animal products to make authentic corn tortillas, you don’t even need any oil. This is the ideal, simple bread.

Another tortilla anecdote I want to share relates to tacos. Now, as a child, I never understood why people would want to eat soft tacos when they could have those crispy, golden fried ones. Again, this childish prejudice stemmed from the fact that I’d never had a freshly made tortilla. If my family went to a Mexican restaurant as a treat, I always ordered crisp tacos. Making my own tortillas has resulted in another epiphany about this: fresh corn tortillas are just so flavorful, it almost seems like a mistake to me now to deep fry them. Yes, they are good deep fried, but I’ve come to feel that they are better just as they are, stuffed with scrumptious fillings of my choice, for the tastiest taco I’ve ever eaten. I like refried beans, brown rice, stir-fried summer squash, salsa and garden-fresh lettuce in my soft tacos and if I eat a couple of these for lunch, I’m good and full for hours afterward.

Of course, you can deep fry your homemade corn tortillas. You can make crisp taco shells. You can make corn chips. You can dip them in tomato sauce, fill them and turn them into amazing enchilladas. You can make tortilla stack (a retro American fav), tostadas (loaded with whatever is freshest on your family farm) or you can just act like a tortilla-loving fool and sit down with a stack of them and some bowls of your favorite dips (guacamole, salsa, hummus, you name it!). Check some Mexican or South American cookbooks out of your local library and you’ll start to see how tortillas have supported some of our most honored Native cultures in thousands of ways for thousands of years.

Nutritional Notes On Tortillas

My research on this subject indicates that corn tortillas provide protein, fiber and iron. I have also come across numerous statistics regarding fortified masa, but our family doesn’t buy a fortified variety because we prefer to depend mainly on foods, rather than supplements, for our total nutrition. If, in your efforts to improve your family’s sustainable and local eating, you are depending mostly on Native American foods and you are eating heartily of corn, beans, squash, potatoes and other Native food crops, your nutritional needs are likely to be abundantly met.

However, in your study of corn, you may have come across mentions of a dreadful disease called pellagra. This condition cropped up when the conquistadors took corn back to the so-called ‘Old World’ and it became a staple where knowledge was lacking as to how to properly prepare it. A corn-dependent diet, when improperly prepared can lead to the niacin deficiency known as pellagra – a deficiency basically unknown in the Americas. This is because the Native peoples who first cultivated and cherished corn knew that it had to be prepared with lime (cal) in order to make the niacin in it nutritionally available. This is why you will see all good corn products labeled as containing a ‘trace of lime’. Bottom line – please don’t worry about pellagra if you are eating properly prepared corn products as part of your balanced diet. It isn’t something to be concerned about, and I wanted to clear this up in case you had heard mention of this and weren’t sure what to think of it. Properly prepared corn has been the staff of life for thousands of years in small villages and some of the world’s largest empires, right here on the American continents. If you live in America, corn is your natural, native choice.

On another health-related topic, I want to talk about the digestibility of corn. As regular readers here already know, I have Crohn’s Disease. Despite decades of organic, healthy living and consuming a diet which my doctors call ‘ideal’, I have this unfortunate condition. For many years, the medical community believed that Crohn’s disease might stem from a poor diet, and you will certainly find people who live on fast food suffering with Crohn’s. However, you will also find people like me with this ailment, too. Crohn’s seems to know no boundaries and afflicts people of all ages from all walks of life. I went gluten free on my doctor’s recommendation because of the Crohn’s disease and a test which showed I have some gluten sensitivity. It really depressed me to give up our homemade wheat bread until we started making homemade corn tortillas, but I’m mentioning this here because of an odd coincidence I noticed with both wheat bread and corn tortillas, and I wanted to make a note of this in case others with this gastrointestinal condition are searching for information about this phenomenon.

Despite the fact that I’m gluten sensitive, wheat has never given me the trouble it would give to a person with Celiac Disease. Rather, I noticed that I could not eat freshly baked bread without it causing severe bloating in my stomach. Day old bread didn’t do this to me. Interestingly, I have found a number of references in books to people serving day old bread to guests being termed as ‘dyspeptic’ (an old term for having indigestion). So, it seems that some people have always had a problem with fresh bread, long before this idea of gluten intolerance came to the fore.

Oddly, if I eat a corn tortilla right off the griddle, I experience the same discomforts of bloating and gas. If I eat a day old tortilla, reheated, I have no problem at all. Why would this be? I have no idea, nor have I been able to turn up a single mention of this peculiar circumstance anywhere. I wanted to include my story about this in this corn tortilla recipe in case you happen to be on a gluten-free diet for one reason or another and your switch to corn as your main grain has given you the same problems you experienced with fresh baked wheat products. If fresh tortillas bother your stomach, let them cool, store them in the fridge and re-heat them the next day. My hope is that, like me, you will find them totally digestible and can fully embrace this wonderful corn-based bread and not miss the old wheat-based one.

On a final note: if you try my recipe and decide that homemade corn tortillas are the big secret you’ve been missing out on all these years, I hope you will be instilled with a sense of solidarity for all Native peoples who have depended on corn for generations. I hope you will consider taking a step beyond delicious enjoyment and appreciation towards resolute advocacy for the banning of genetic modification. Google this issue of GMO corn. Go to YouTube and watch videos. Go to organic farming sites, organic seed sellers’ sites, food security sites and you will quickly see how many voices are being raised against the contamination of our corn with biotech corn.

Though corn has been the friend and supporter of mankind for millennia, our time to protect and save corn is now so limited. Please, if corn is important to you, become educated about this vital issue and spread the word. It’s up to us to make sure that coming generations know the goodness of corn, and perhaps in the simple act of eating your first homemade corn tortilla, you will find the strength to speak out for this sacred grain which shares its story and life with the story and life of mankind. I know of no more important battle, no homier down home cause, no better use of your time.

When it comes to beauty in the garden and flavor on the table, beets are hard to beat! Posting has been light here at VeganReader.com while we’ve been busy with spring planting on our organic family farm. Now, having just set down my fork from eating my first plate of mouthwatering baby beets, I’m ready to share my beet tips with you. This article will teach you how to plant, grow, harvest and cook beets. In addition to beet cultivation tips, you’ll find two absolutely delicious beet recipes: Sweet Baby Beets and Quick Pickled Beets. Beets are so easy to grow and so tasty, I hope you’ll find a spot for them in your garden.

How to Plant Beets
This year, we plan to let some of our beets go to seed so that we can save them, but if you’re just starting out, you’ll need to purchase some safe organic beet seed. Finding safe seed has become especially critical because of the recent illegal approval of genetically modified sugar beets. GMO sugar beets can cross pollinate with your garden beets, contaminating them, so finding safe beet seed from a trusted company is your first step.

We recommend Fedco Seeds as they are, to our knowledge one of the most rigorously tested seeds sources in the United States and they have been part of the lawsuit against Monsanto’s GMO beets. Starting right is so important to your health and the health of everyone who will be enjoying your wonderful beets. This year, we planted Early Wonder Tall Top Beets because they produce both great greens and great sweet beets.

Prepare a garden bed in a sunny spot. We are fans of double digging the bed to get the soil nice and loose and we add in a healthy helping of finished compost from the compost pile. The soil should be fast-draining and as fine-grained as you can make it and as free of rocks as possible so that nothing gets in the way of the beets producing nice round roots for you to eat.

Our farm is located in Northern California, so planting times may differ slightly for your area, but basically we plant our spring crop of beets as soon as the danger of frost has past. Here, beets can be planted any time between April and July.

Plant the small, brown, bumpy seeds about 1/2″ deep. Water in well. Seed packages recommend planting the seeds about 1″ apart in rows about 1′ apart, but we plant more densely than this so that we can thin the sprouts once they are a few inches tall and eat them raw in salads of small early greens. Thin to 2″-4″ apart once the greens are looking leafy so that each plant has dedicated room to produce a fine, round root.

Growing Beets

Beets germinate in about 1-2 weeks. When you see a set of two tiny green leaves on a red stem, you’ll know your beets are coming up. Keep soil moist, but not drenched, with regular watering. This spring, it has rained so much here that we’ve only had to water our beets a couple of times between planting and first harvest.

Keep the beet bed weed free – let those weeds grow and they will engulf and swallow up your young beet plants.

Beets grow remarkably quickly – one of the reasons they are such a good bet for beginning farmers. Within a month of planting, you should be able to thin out the leaves for salad greens. Big, flavorful greens can be picked for sauteeing in about 6 – 8 weeks. Now, my seed packet claims that the beets should be ready to harvest in 48 days, but this company is located in another part of country, and it took our coastal-grown beets from March 22 to today – June 10 to be ready for the first real harvest; that’s more like 70+ days. It will likely vary in your area depending upon the weather and temperature.

How To Harvest Beets

Beets (Beta vulgaris) are a member of the amaranth family. Likely originating in the Mediterranean and under cultivation for at least four thousand years, beets and chard are really the same plant; the one is grown for the crisp, colorful leaves and the other for the root vegetable. It is not recommended that you grow both beets and chard in the same area as they can cross-pollinate into a plant that is neither strong on leaves nor roots. As I mentioned, we felt like lucky ducks hitting upon Early Wonder Tall Top as it produces ‘chard’ every bit as good as the ruby-type chards we love and makes incredibly good beets, too. How can you miss with a combo like that?

Many cooks prefer mature beet greens to all others – collards, spinach, chard, kale, etc. Southern and Soul Food cuisines are strong on beet greens when they can be found and my husband is especially fond of gathering up huge handfuls of these ruby-ribbed leaves and preparing them with a combination of stir-frying and braising. He puts vinegar and hot peppers on them. I think this dish is a little too manly for me, but it’s definitely rich and satisfying if you’re craving something deeply green.

When you see the shoulders of the beets edging up above ground level and they look a good size to you, it’s time to harvest. We prefer that beets eaten hot be small – about 1-3″ in diameter. Big grandaddy beets (and they can get really large!) are best for pickling – that’s our considered opinion. Sometimes, when you are harvesting the early greens, you will get a tiny carrot-like beetroot along with the leaves. Prepare these as given in the Sweet Baby Beets recipe below, only cook them for less time. The roots will get as crunchy as caramelized sugar and they are heavenly!

Our beets just pop out of the ground with a brief tug on the leaves. If yours are giving you a little more trouble, use a trowel. For best flavor, pick beets within as short a time as possible from when you plant to eat them. We pick and eat as we go, harvesting a small basketful right before supper. If you’re dealing with a large harvest, beets will keep well in the fridge for several weeks. The greens, however, have a short shelf life and should be eaten as soon as possible after picking.

Bring the beets in and separate the roots from the leaves. If you’re not going to eat the beets or greens right now, don’t wash them until you are ready to cook them. Wash beets well. I’m always amazed by how clean beets look when you pull them from the earth. They are a little dusty, but they look very tidy. However, they need a good wash and when that layer of fine dust comes off, you’ll see that gleaming gem-like red that makes beets so appealing.

Cooking Beets

As promised, here are my 2 best farm woman beet recipes. Take these to the county fair and you will win prizes! Better yet – don’t let the judges have them – eat them yourself!

Sweet Baby Beets Recipe

Ingredients
Small organic beets
2 T. Organic Olive Oil
1 T. Organic Maple Syrup
Juice from 1/2 Organic Lemon
Salt to taste

Wash and quarter enough beets to feed everyone you’ll be sitting with at table tonight.

Heat olive oil on high heat in a good skillet.

Add beets and stir fry until the tip of your knife can be inserted into the beet with a little pressure. Beets should be just tender…never mushy. I’d say this takes about 3-5 minutes, stirring almost constantly.

Lower heat to medium.

Toss in your syrup and lemon. Stir fry for 1-2 minutes more to caramelize the beet juice/syrup mixture but don’t let it burn or you’ll have bitter beets – yuck!

Sprinkle with salt. Remove from heat and serve piping hot!

What could be more colorful than this appetizing dish? Its sweet and tangy with a soulful core to it. You won’t taste anything beet-ier in your life than this farm-to-table beet recipe. Try it once, and you’ll feel you finally know what beets are all about.

Quick Pickled Beets
My father is a devotee of pickled Harvard Beets, but good luck finding organic ones locally. I was thinking of my dear Daddy when I created my own homemade refrigerator pickled beet recipe and when I gave him his own privately-labeled jar, I think he could taste the chem-free difference between the product of my kitchen and its sad factory cousin.

Now, this is for refrigerator pickles…meant to be made, kept cold in the fridge and consumed within a month or two. You can find fine recipes for sliced pickled beets that have been prepared in the sterile and acidic manner that makes them fit for keeping unrefrigerated in the pantry all winter long. This is not that kind of recipe. Think of it more as almost-instant pickled beet gratification.

There’s a trick involved. If you want that sweet-and-sour goodness to fully penetrate the beets so that you can eat them within 2 days of pickling and really enjoy the flavor, you’ve got to cut the beets down to size. Big chunks won’t do. I hit upon the idea of grating the beets on the large holes of my grater, and this manner of preparation ensures that the Harvard-beet-style savor goes all the way through every bite. Here’s my recipe:

Ingredients
4-5 large organic beets
Salt & Pepper
1 Cup of Organic, Unseasoned Rice Vinegar
1 T. organic dill weed (fresh or dry)
1 t. organic dried powdered ginger
1/8 t. organic powdered cloves
1 T. prepared organic mustard
1/4 C. Organic Maple Syrup
Beet water (explained below)

Boil 2 16 oz. mason jars. Though these are refrigerator pickles, you still want to make sure the jars are as clean as possible. Boil the lids, too. Dry the jars and lids.

Wash and grate your beets on the large holes of a metal grater.

Boil water in the bottom of a pot and set your folding colander/steamer in it. The level of the water should be just below the base of the colander. When it comes to a boil, set the beets in the colander and put the lid on the pot. Steam for 3 minutes.

While the beets are steaming mix up your herbs and spices, salt and pepper, mustard, and maple syrup and divide it equally between the two jars.

Remove beets from heat and spoon into the jars. Pour in the vinegar and finish filling up the jars with some of the pink beet water you will find in the pot underneath your colander.

Cover with a clean dish cloth and let cool. Put on lids securely and refrigerate.

The beets are ready to eat after two days in the fridge and will keep good for a month or two.

To serve, lift the grated beets from the liquid on a fork or slotted spoon so that the pickling liquid runs off and the heap of jewel-toned beets remains. If you’re looking for an extraordinarily good addition to sandwiches, this is it. If you’ve always been a bit partial to those salad bar beets, you’re in for a treat. This is the real thing! Grown on your family farm, prepared in your kitchen and served up as a relish that will delight any lucky beet fan with whom you kindly share it.

A Last Word On Beets
Beets are a heritage crop. Prized in Italian and Middle Eastern cuisines, the friend of thrifty farmers’ wives for generations in the United States, beets have tremendous and irreplaceable value to all of us. Nutritionists praise beets for the vitamin C, B1, B2 and bioflavonoids they provide, and families working towards self sufficiency come to look kindly on this hearty root vegetable for its simple cultivation needs. I’m sure that, like me, you don’t want to lose beets.

Just last month, a group of protesters in the Netherlands shut down a Monstanto seed plant by forming a blockade, demanding that this corporation stop tampering with seed and patenting it. All over the world, small courageous battles are being waged against this agro-business giant in an effort to keep seed and food safe for human consumption. With more and more American families turning to the land for sustenance in hard times, awareness is growing here about food security and genetic modification of food crops.

I love sharing farming tips and fine recipes. Writing here at VeganReader.com helps me to feel a little bit like I get to be your neighbor, leaning on the fence, swapping stories and down home advice. I really enjoy this. But all the while I’m delighting over corn, beets and other vital crops that I’m growing, a worry is always with me. I don’t want to see the day when you and I are looking across the fence rail at one another, wondering why our contaminated food is no longer supporting our health or the lives of those we love most. I don’t want to see that day. To that end, let me urge you at the close of this article to begin researching the issue of biotechnology and the genetic modification of our food plants. Read more, think more, share more of your thoughts about this with the people nearest to you. Knowledge is power and I believe that our dependence on food for life will be our strength in opposing whatever threatens the future of plants. I hope you’re with me on this.