sorta. What they’re really about to do is get permission from the USDA to market GE alfalfa that will contaminate organic alfalfa and thus create huge problems for organic dairy farmers. The full story and a petition/comment form asking the USDA to please apply its own standards (sigh) are here (among many other places).
My own – completely unsubstantiated – theory is that individual letters carry a tiny bit more weight than those aggregated by activist organizations, so I wrote directly to the relevant USDA comment page. My letter follows, in case you’re curious, though I’m not sure why I bothered to make any arguments. It’s highly unlikely anyone will actually read them. But somebody will note whether I’m for or against, and that’s why writing matters. Deadline for comments is 2/16.
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This year’s first to flower, a Butterfly (Hippeastrum papilio), opened about a week ago.
Butterfly amaryllis, photographed yesterday
There are 5 more – 2 papilios and 3 Giant Dutch Hybrids – in various stages of budded up. Also, par for the course, we have 4 in healthy-but-not-promising mode; 1 pot of 3 robust papilios that has “wait ‘till summer” written all over it and 6 bulbs that have refused to green up well and will not be with us much longer.
They may be harboring bulb fly or simply be discouraged by last year’s cold dark spring.( It didn’t get warm and bright enough for them to grow until it was almost time for them to stop.) On the good side, they’ve underlined a lesson I probably should have absorbed some time ago.
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How ’bout dem Saints!!!
Louisiana Iris (a fleur-de-lis for them)
That would be Lafayette, Louisiana, not Lafayette, Indiana. The style would be that of the city’s Junior League, circa1967, and Talk About Good! would be the title of said Junior League’s classic fundraising cookbook, a spiral bound journey to the South that was popular long before the food of New Orleans achieved nationwide cult status.
At this point T.A.G is more of a cultural artifact than a source of great recipe ideas, but there are a few gems that still shine with undiminished luster. A “Congealed Avocado and Chicken salad,” for instance, contributed by Mrs. Jacque Puken, of Eunice, LA, doesn’t sound all that promising, but in fact it’s absolutely delicious and a perfect make-ahead for a crowd. It’s hearty enough to be a main dish, light enough to play well with all the chili, boudin and/or brats, easy to serve and easy to eat – with or without a fork.
Molded and served like pate; no fork needed
Molded into a loaf and sliced; fork needed. Also chips. (Crunch must not be overlooked.)
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Certainly not I, not really, even though I did know they were in the Northeast and, if it comes to that, in both of our home neighborhoods. In Maine, there’s a whole pack of ’em in the woodland right across the road. We hear them often on summer nights, yipping and laughing and howling.
Here in the Hudson Valley we don’t hear them nearly as often – or as close – but we do see them from time to time, including just a couple of weeks ago in a field near our friend Ilana the chicken queen‘s farm.
Eastern coyote (with mangy tail), apparently hunting for voles
And then we saw what looked like coyote tracks while we were out skiing. The post on skunk tracks is a perennial favorite, so I asked Bill if he’d consider doing a guest post guide to reading tracks in the snow.
He did. It’s far more than I bargained for. And so are the quite scary coyotes.
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Now that I’ve got your attention…
The action is speaking out in support of the new, tougher set of organic standards currently under review and the asap is because the review period is almost over. (There’s a comment form provided here by the Cornucopia Institute.) If the standards are adopted, consumers are likely to get better, fresher milk and they’re likely to get it from the sort of small and mid sized farms that come to mind when you hear the word “dairy.”
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Building the desert section of Yale’s new greenhouse has been consuming Eric’s every waking hour, so I guess it’s hardly surprising we’re hearing about the plants that will live there. His last column was devoted to a vicious tropical tree fern, and this time he’s palling around with one of the least friendly cacti in existence. Pretty though (if you like that sort of thing).
Cylindropuntia bigelovii is showing its silvery-grey aura, which is much nicer to view than to touch
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One thing I love about plants is the way they tie the world together, stitching continents and time in an ever-changing tapestry of free association. Eric puts up a post on Cyathea cooperi, a tropical tree fern so unfriendly its keepers need hazmat suits to move it, and next thing you know, in comes a question from Louisa about fiddleheads, the delicious baby fronds of the circumboreal ostrich fern, Matteuccia struthiopteris.
This foragers’ favorite doesn’t appear until mid-spring, roughly in synch with the morels, but it’s never too early to get ready for collecting.
Pasta with fiddleheads, morels and garlic chives
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One more misery for this week: The valiant radicchio that made it through multiple nights down to 5 and 6 degrees was no match for the hungry voles, voles no doubt obscenely cosy in the warm double tunnel that was protecting the row. Wretched creatures have gobbled every single head.
Notice the nibbled edges on this baby and the large dark hole where a full sized head used to be.
I haven’t had the heart to look at the row – on the other side of the garden – that I harvested extra carefully and then left covered in hopes of a super-early spring crop. (Cutting the heads off just slightly above the base often results in regrowth, so if the weather is with you – and the voles aren’t – you get a flush of leaves and sometimes a whole new head as soon as the garden wakes up.)
Complete and utter carnage; somehow the scraps where a healthy root should be cause particular pain.
Too late now for the radicchio, but a good reminder to go out and check the viburnums and plums and
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I was wrong!
Not long ago, I suggested that calling Monsanto “evil” was inaccurate, because Monsanto wasn’t a person capable of moral intention but rather a corporation, with “neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick.” Not sure everybody got it, but my point was that the people who run Monsanto might or might not be despicable, but the corporation itself had no meaning or purpose except to make money for the people who owned shares in it.
As of this morning, however, thanks to a 5 ( guess which 5) to 4 ruling of the Supreme Court, Monsanto IS a person, no different from you or me (except for being considerably less responsible for its actions). So go ahead, feel free, call it evil to your hearts’ content.
