Parents and gardening

Half of Mom's garden at sunset.

Every year in late July, I am reminded of my Dad.  He has been gone 12 years now and though I think of him often, late-July is when he seems to be with me the most. The reason? Tomatoes. My Dad grew great tomatoes. They were everything a tomato should be red, juicy, sweet, the heat of the sun in the scent of the fruit.  We ate them every night growing up until the frost hit.
My parents both grew up on farms. Mom, on a Southern California Dairy and Dad, on a St. Helena vineyard. When Mom was born, a cow was set aside for her. Dad learned to drive a tractor when his father bought one after the mule died. Dad already knew a lot about agriculture when we went to Cal Poly for college.
As my brothers and I were forced to work in the garden, we learned the value of using land well. We learned from Dad about rotating crops, beneficial insects, and conservation before it became popular culture. When Dad retired, he tried new gardening methods to get healthier fruit and earlier tomatoes. He taught me the value of learning by improving himself and using new ideas every season. He taught me the value of the earth.
When the grandkids arrived, they sat in the garden with Dad first as toddlers then school age kids. He'd munch on a vegetable and ask the kid, "You don't want any of this, do you?" Without fail, the kid wanted the carrot, bean, tomato, plum, walnut, radish that my Dad seemed to reluctantly offer. Dad's grandkids were the only toddlers I knew who ate fresh vegies with no complaint.
My Mom now has a garden that surpasses anything Dad had imagined. His gardens were kind of messy, yet very functional, with leggy vines and weeds. Mom's is neat, tidy and colorful. She has incorporated flowers into her garden. Mom has taken Dad's garden and translated it into a showplace. Not only does she have tomatoes before July 4, she has eggplant, peppers and cucumbers too. Her melons are the talk of the family. We fight over cantaloupes and watermelons, all of us planning a visit just to get the spoils of her harvest. When she arrives at my door with a box, I always hope for a melon. Talking on the phone, I get the daily melon update.
The Brothers and I keep gardens also. Three raised beds and a pluot tree makes up my city garden. I also have pots of dwarf lemon and lime trees, flowers, roses, herbs. I learned it all from Dad and continue to reap the benefits of Mom's harvest.
Incorporating these lessons into what I teach makes the teaching all that more enjoyable. I have worked on a school wide garden, used a grow lab in the classroom and done many other activities that directly relate to what I learned from Dad. I want students to see the value of keeping the earth healthy and understand their connection to it. Gardens are always a great teaching tool.
Gardening and good soil is my family legacy. Mom is planning on expanding her garden to include more pomegranates and lavender. Her intention is to build a garden empire with these products. I know she can do it. In her mid-70's, the earth is in her blood.

Education- Free for all

The district I work for agreed Wednesday, July 13, to honor the agreement they made with the teachers back in May of 2010. In this agreement, the teachers took a pay cut, the school year was shortened by 5 days, and no one was laid off. This school year has been a tug of war between district officials who were convinced that lay-offs, larger class sizes, and further cuts to the classroom were necessary and teachers who simply wanted to stick to the May 2010 agreement. Over four hundred teachers finished the school year not knowing until last week if they had a job or not. The source of all this turmoil? The uncertainties in the budget for the State of California.
Eleven years ago, I started teaching in Elk Grove. I had grown up here, left, came back. I graduated from Elk Grove High in '77. My daughter graduated from Elk Grove High in 2007. I wanted to teach in Elk Grove because the district and school board had a commitment to students. They sought the best teachers, and got them through a competitive salary schedule and cooperative management. Teachers and management worked together.
That all changed with Dr. Ladd's arrival. Was it him? Or did he arrive just when the state started to short schools on funding? I'm not sure which came first. Now we seem stuck with management who sees teachers as commodities. The attitude is, "well, if you don't like it, you can always go somewhere else". They know we can't go anywhere else. There are too many teacher lay-offs everywhere.
And what about the kids? You know; the consumers of education who can't vote? What about them? In the middle of the shortage of funding and arguments over cuts in the system, the kids are still here! They continue to need an education and they need teachers to provide it. We don' t often hear about the students. When anti-teacher sentiment is rampant and everywhere you turn teachers are blamed, I do not often see students at the center of the conversation.
I propose a change. If you feel compelled to blame, please stop and think a minute about how students will be educated without teachers to do the job. The reality is, without us, there is no school. With fewer teachers, the classes are larger. Thomas Jefferson believed that education should be under the control of the government, free from religious biases, and available to all people irrespective of their status in society. We need teachers to make that happen. We need adequate funding from the State to make that happen. The idea of Free education for all is an American idea. I believe like Jefferson did, that every student should have access to a free education. I hope our conversations around education can focus on that end.

Oregon- Washington coast

We're on vacation! Hubby and I went north a few days ago and landed in Astoria. This is a part of the country we have never been. Have you seen the Columbia River where it meets the sea? Beautiful. We have been drinking a lot of coffee, which leads to a lot of conversations with locals and others. We're staying at the Astoria Inn, a B and B with only 4 rooms. The forest greets us at the back of the house. Endless green, with the scent of rain always on the edge of the breeze.
On the other side of the Columbia river is Washington state. The bridges all seem to be small, skinny and high over the river. Its like a ride at Magic Mountain going across the river! Two lighthouses on Cape Disappointment frame the cape for oncoming boats and ships. The Columbia River has a huge sand bar that has been the ruin of many ships since before Lewis and Clark arrived on this side of the continent. The history of ship wrecks and life on the Columbia is well documented at the Maritime Museum in Astoria. On this lovely day in July, one can hardly believe the tales of rough water and peril faced by the seafarers, fishermen and loggers of long ago.
We traveled East through Portland and found the Columbia river gorge. As some would say, "Gorgeous". Several waterfalls are found on a ten mile stretch of historic Oregon highway 30. We stayed in Bridal Veil at the lodge that has been there since 1926. Across the street is the Bridal Veil fall. A lovely place, so quiet at night.
It was a relaxing time.

College Tuition

It's that time when parents of college age students are writing checks for tuition!! When my daughter, N, signed up for San Francisco State the semester tuition was $2500. By June 27, it had climbed to $2844. July 7 she paid $2960. She was told that she would receive an e-mail telling her that her tuition would increase 14% before school even started.
Remember when college in California was affordable? We went to State Universities for a solid education at a reasonable cost. This generation is being thrown to the wolves with fee hikes and tuition increases that seem to come from no where; unless you follow the state budget.
Ahhh, the State budget! The bane of everyone's existence working or having to live with education in California. Though the government has decided not to touch K-12 education for this year, the UC and CSU system has been hit, yet again, with budget cuts. So many young people have to drop out or delay their degrees due to the cost of college.
I see N. struggling with money issues. She is good with her money. She has worked hard, attended community college to make the whole thing more affordable, shared housing, saved money. God, I love that girl's practicality! But, she is 22 and just starting the University phase. The money I had saved for her to attend a 4 year college was not enough by the time she was ready to enter. It was demoralizing to us both. Then came the market crash, and we were further behind. As a teacher, I received a 9% pay cut around the same time. Because she attend a community college, we were able to recoup our losses.
The thing that gets me is, the funding for all education, K-college, is contingent on the economy's recovery. If California does not raise enough in revenue, everything will change -again- K-12 education will lose days, University tuition will rise again. I wonder if any one of the Republican legislators thinks about the impact of their actions, their refusal to grant the tax extensions and how it affects us. Probably not, they have other ways to pay for college.

Moms and zucchini

My mother is 73 years old . In September, she'll be 74. She is a freak for zucchini. Because she lives on 20 acres, mom has plenty of space for a garden. Every year, she works to have a ripe tomato before July 4. Most vegetable gardeners consider a ripe tomato before July 4 the ultimate in vegetable achievement.
The weather in the Sacramento valley this year has given all gardeners a headache, but my mom has been persistent in her planting. Since I have a small yard, she considers it her duty to plant enough zucchini for me. What she ends up doing is planting enough zucchini for me, my neighbors, and everyone I work with. Sometime in August I will begin to receive bags of zucchini on my porch in the night. I will awaken to the sound of a car door slamming, an engine revving to pull away, and find several grocery bags left clandestinely on my porch. I'll call her at a reasonable hour.
"Mom. You left zucchini on my porch this morning. Why didn't you come in for a visit?" I ask when she answers the phone.
"Well, dear, I didn't want to wake you," she always replies sheepishly. But see, I know what this really means. " I didn't want to wake you" is code for "I didn't want you to tell me I couldn't leave all that zucchini with you".
This year it started early. Last week, she pulled up at 7:30 p.m. on a Tuesday in a state of nervous excitement. She had the tell-tale beer cooler in her hand. I knew there was no beer, just zucchini.
"Lisa, you must try this zucchini. It's a hybrid. I got the seeds at Capitol Nursery when I was looking for the Italian zucchini I love. You must tell me what you think."
She pulled three medium sized squash out of the cooler. They were pale green, looking like unripe zucchini. I asked, "Are these ripe?"
"Of course they are ripe. Everyone knows you do not let zucchini grow too large."
"Have you eaten them?"
"No. That's why I bring them to you. You have to try them."
"OK."
"I gave a few to Lou also. You girls are my test kitchen."
I asked her to come in for a glass of wine, but she had to go. So in a whirlwind of energy, she left me with the beer cooler.
About 45 minutes later, the phone rang. It was Mom asking me if I had tried the zucchini yet. I said, "Mom it's 8:15 p.m. We ate dinner already."
"Oh. Are you going to bed?"
"No. Did you want me to cook the zucchini NOW?"
"Do what you want. I just called to tell you that Lou tried it and said it tastes like mud. I tried it yesterday and couldn't tell what it tasted it like. I put so much stuff on it. You don't have to cook it if you don't want to."
"Ok. I'll cook it if you want me too."
"That's OK. I'm going to go out into the garden and pull up all these plants right now. I found some of the Italian zucchini seeds when we were in Fort Bragg. I'll plant those tonight."
So, from what I can tell, she went out into her garden at 8:30 p.m. on a Tuesday. She pulled up four of the suspected mud-tasting vegetables and planted only God knows how many zucchini seeds. More to come....