• Glad to find so much chicory in the barnyard this year. #
• Feeding my little tomato and pepper seedlings some well-rotted cow manure. #
• Braised beef heart is lovely on a cool, rainy day. #
• Oh, my, bamboo shoot season is here in earnest! Here’s what I did with them last year: http://bit.ly/X5dAd (That and some mustard pickles.) #
• Off to the farmers market! #

• Dandelions, dandelions, dandelions. Wine, syrup, oil, tincture… yum! #
• Redbud! Dogwood! Honeysuckle! Glory be to springtime! #
• Trying to find the time to write a real blogpost. #
• Out of homemade sourdough… making rolled up “sandwiches” with huge spinach leaves. Yum! #
• Brought my tomato seedlings inside. (That wind is fierce!) #
• Ethicurean’s “Aporkalypse now!”: http://tinyurl.com/c6fxfn #
• Theorizing the obvious about swine flu, Mexico, and antibiotics. #

Everyone seems to wonder why people are dying from the “swine flu” in Mexico, but not in other countries where the virus has been confirmed. (The one US death was a little boy visiting from Mexico with unidentified “underlying health issues.”)

I have a theory. Or an idea. Or a question.

It is common practice in Mexico to self-medicate with antibiotics at the first sign of illness. (Antibiotics are widely available there without a prescription.)

Antibiotics kill bacteria, including commensal bacteria. 

Commensal bacteria are an important component of the human immune system.

So, are people who self-prescribe antibiotics for a viral illness compromising their immune reponse to that illness?

Hm?

 

(If you’re interested in coverage of swine flu, especially as it relates to factory farming, check out The Ethicurean‘s Aporkalypse Now series.)

• Drinking bee balm tea, and trying to be patient about planting by the signs. #
• Adoring bee balm, which has saved my poor frayed nerves once again. #
• Enjoying this crazy weather! Sunshine, black sky, hail, sunshine, showers, blue sky… what next? #
• The sequel to yesterday’s crazy weather? Snow! #
• Down a few hundred feet in elevation… fast forward Spring! #
• Preparing for the plant explosion that will come with the warm weather. #
• Crabapple blossoms on the mountain. http://twitpic.com/3wuil #
• Making mayonnaise with duck eggs. Wow, that stuff is thick. #
• Dandelion wine strained off into the carboy. Such a lovely, sunny color! #

• Simmering reishi… such a satisfying, earthy bitter. (The boy does not agree. “Can you make it into a liqueur?”) #
• Locked out of my blog by a wordpress upgrade. Grrr. New posts as soon as I can get back in. #
• Admiring our tiny tomato seedlings! (Black Plum, Blue Beech, Federle, Hungarian Heart, Rose de Berne, Nyagous, Principe Borghese.) #
• Our little sweet pepper starts are up! (Roasters: Buran, Chervena Chushka, Sweet Chocolate. Fryers: Jimmy Nardello, Marconi) #
• I have access to my blog again! (Sorry if there were display issues this morning. I had to disable and update all my plugins.) #
• Excited to start a new batch of honey wine! http://tinyurl.com/cx6e5g #
• Hot pepper babies are up! Barely hot at all: Alma Paprika. Hotter: Georgia Flame, Joe’s Round, Cilegia Piccante. Rather very hot: Fatalii. #
• Just heard “Monsanto, committed to sustainable agriculture” as a sponsor-ad on NPR. Greenwashing knows no bounds. #
• Excited about the new ramp patch our neighbor said he’d show us. #
• Brought my little tomato seedlings out to meet the sun! #
• Going to gather some creasy greens flowers (aka “wild broccoli”). #
• Tell the state of WV to allow a religious or philosophical exemption from compulsory immunization: http://www.wvve.info/ #
• Off to the farmers market! #
• Cold baked potatoes with ramp aïoli. Nettle and rice frittata. Garden arugula with more ramp aïoli. Spring. #

Follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/crabapple

I know you’ve gotten one of the email forwards:

“It’s the end of the world! Organic farmers will all go to prison! It will be illegal to garden in your own backyard!”

Well, let me just tell you, that’s ridiculous. That kind of absurd scare-mongering only makes it easy for lawmakers to dismiss the people with real concerns about several food- and farm-related bills in congress right now.

Food and Water Watch has a good summary of the situation here.

The bottom line: Don’t get hysterical. Do call your senators and congresspeople. Do tell them you’re concerned about the effects of food-safety regulation on small farms. Tell them it’s important for any legislation to take into account the different needs of different kinds of farms. And while you’re at it, tell them they need to outlaw the dangerous and unsafe factory farming methods that brought us things like E. Coli hamburgers.

The Organic Consumers Association says this: “write to Congress to urge it to enact food safety legislation that addresses the inherent dangers of our industrialized food system without burdening certified organic and farm-to-consumer operations.” Makes sense to me.

I am so glad to be home.

San Francisco is paradise, but paradise makes me nervous.

I am very glad to be back in a place where the only meyer lemon marmalade I can find is the one I made myself!

Glory, Hallelujah, I am in possession of a functional computer!

As soon as I finish transferring my data from the old hard drive, I’ll be posting all my pretty pictures from the last few weeks of One Local Summer.

In the meantime, remember my posts on the human ecosystem, way back when? I was going on about how the human body is not an isolated organism, but a complex ecosystem (think gut bacteria) as well as an element in larger ecosystems (think kaleidoscope).

Well, lately I’ve been thinking about the absurdity of the term “immune system.” Immune to what? There’s so much baggage tied up in that name. It assumes human bodies are at war with their surroundings, that a healthy human interface with the world is based on staying pure, “immune” to the non-human. Ridiculous.

We really have only the fuzziest idea how the human ecosystem works. And the more scientists investigate, the less it looks like humans are at war with the non-human. Scientists used to think that “germs” were universally dangerous. A lot of people still think this way. Hence (dangerous) antibacterial soaps. Thing is, your skin is covered with helpful bacteria — they’re calling them “commensals” now — and if you kill them, you throw the whole ecosystem out of balance.

We really have no idea what the consequences are when we alter these complicated systems. I bet it never occurred to you that your gut bacteria might make you less likely to get kidney stones.

And what about worms? They’ve been in the news lately as a potential treatment for “autoimmune diseases” of all sorts.

We evolved as groups of critters, not as separate entities.

So. Any suggestions for a new name for the system that governs human ecological balance? “Interaction system?” “Interface system?” I can’t think of anything that sounds right.

Hello.

I am back.

I hope.

(I have been having a personality conflict with my computer.)

(So far, the computer is winning.)