A truly white Christmas!

Bailey enjoying the snow

I have now lived in Iowa for a full year! And, upon that year mark, we finally got snow - just in time for the Christmas season. I love Christmas - the music, decorations, and warm fuzzy feelings. I often forget that it's centered around religious reasons until I find myself in a church or at a Christmas concert at Luther College. Christmas, to me, is not about baby Jesus. It's the time leading up to the actual day that I get to spend with friends, spreading love and cheer.

To aide in these efforts, I started the season by purchasing 15 pounds of butter. The sale price, ordered as a case, saved me $25. And it's delicious, creamy, excellent organic Wisconsin butter. With some of the butter, I made several batches of cookies to share and to gift - Italian Christmas Cookies for an exchange (they have ricotta in them and taste like mini cakes!), gingerbread folks to decorate with Lauren, pfeffernusse for the challenge and to have something different (they're german cookies that have anise seed and cardamom in them), and oatmeal cookies for Tor. I love baking, and what better excuse to bake for friends then Christmas?

And with cookies and friends, December was great. Our work party was a lot of fun, I had plenty of time to have parties and potlucks with friends, and several people made me feel warm and fuzzy with thoughtful and special gifts. I also managed to watch several Christmas classics that I had never seen before. But! Christmas season is not complete without an actual Christmas, right? And so, off to Minnesota I went!

Sully climbing the mountain of presents at Grandma Nelson's

Cristina's in-laws invited me to stay with them for the holiday back at her wedding in July, and since the idea seemed fun and I had no other plans, I headed up to Grand Rapids, Minnesota on Saturday. The drive is gorgeous, and only about six hours from Decorah. Bailey came with, and we had a fabulous time in the snow and country.

Drilling the holes ...

On Sunday we went on a short hike around the woods across the street, and later went to Grandma Nelson's for the Christmas get together. Around 35 people packed into a tiny house to eat delicious food and treats, chat, and play games. I spent a lot of time with the kids outside, wrestling in the snow and pushing them around on sleds. Kids and snow are a great combination, and I have come to find they make them much stronger and bounce-able up north.

On Monday, we started the day ice fishing on a local lake. We drilled four holes into the ice, popped a tent over them, then waited for the fish to ignore us. It's quite cozy inside the tent, with a little heater and plenty of tasty provisions. Without any luck, we afterwards went to a service at the local church and had family over in the evening for dinner and good company. After folks left, we watched a movie and went to midnight mass. Christmas carols!

And now we can fish! 

On Christmas morning, Patrick took Cristina and I sledding around the woods. And by sledding, I mean to say he dragged us in a sled behind his four-wheeler. We attempted to dodge branches and twigs, and quite naturally he flipped our sled a few times. It was fantastic. In the afternoon, all of Patrick's siblings and subsequent kids came over. We played outside, had a bonfire, blew things up, and ate delicious food. After gifts, we stayed out with the kids under a gorgeous moon until it was -8F. Patrick's parents got me a really nice sweatshirt  and sent me home with a bunch of meat. I was really touched, and I love the sweater!

After a very chilly sledding adventure.

The day after, we slept in, enjoyed coffee and conversation, then visited Cristina's brother-in-law and family. They have a gorgeous house they built themselves and two adorable little guys. We ate lunch, chatted, then went spearing. Different than ice fishing, spear houses are set up on a more permanent basis for the winter. The hole is a large rectangle, and one uses sucker fish or lures to bring great northerns in. We didn't see any big enough to actually spear, but if we did, one would aim and throw a big, heavy, pronged and barbed spear at the fish. It was also quite cozy and relaxing inside the little house. After catching no fish, we had dinner in town before I headed back to Decorah.

I picked up Steffen at the airport on my way through Minneapolis, and made it back to Decorah a little after 1am. A few Christmas packages from the family were waiting on my doorstep, and a few surprises from friends as well. I went to sleep fully relaxed from my vacation and full of love from family and friends.

I had a really great Christmas this year, and I feel so much more settled and content then last year this time. And while I'm not quite looking forward to 2013 yet, I'm growing confident that I can handle what it will bring, and have started to formulate some plans to make it what I want it to be. Hopefully I'll be better about posting about it because big things are afoot (and great things have passed these past few months - I'll try my best to catch you all up!)

Cheers and love to you, and best wishes for 2013!

Allergic to Iowa.

Who the fuck is allergic to an entire state?!

I used to always brag that I didn't have allergies. I was allergic to stuff, sure - specifically cats, smoke, and dust. But these things are easily avoidable. And so seasonal allergies came and went, and I was fine.

Until I came to Iowa.

Isn't this place beautiful?

In the spring, I went to Urgent Care when my inhaler stopped working and my asthma was bad. They gave me a daily inhaler. Eventually, I had another asthma attack that wouldn't get better, so the doctor did more tests types of things and warned me that corn wasn't going to work out. Corn made me sneeze and was otherwise fine, yet my breathing still wasn't great. After seeing several different doctors that didn't know how to treat asthma, I asked to see an allergist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota (only an hour and a half away).

At Mayo, they tested my breathing, the effectiveness of abuterol (fast-acting inhaler for asthmatics), and did a skin test. After looking into my nose as most doctors do, they did a more intensive rhinoscopy - where they put a fiber optic camera in your nose. They even checked out my vocal chords ... from my nose. Slightly uncomfortable, but still kind of neat.

From these tests, I learned several things. First - at some point I probably busted my nose. There's a bone spur on one side that touches the membrane stuff, and the bone on the other side has been pushed really closely to the membrane stuff ... which means that any slight allergy problems I have will make it impossible to breathe out of my nose. I sort of knew this as a life-long mouth breather, but now there's some science behind it. Second - I am allergic to everything. Well, not everything - but rather, many things. All of the grasses, pigweed, walnut trees, several molds and fungal spores, dust mites of all kinds, and cats.

My allergist was most excited about the dust mites, and I think this makes sense since it was one of the bigger reactions on my arm. Essentially, he said that at night our cortisone and adrenaline levels are pretty low because we're sleeping - and this is a good thing. However, if one is exposed to any sort of allergens at night, the low levels of natural steroids means that allergen exposure is heightened, and that makes one 400x more likely to be sensitive to allergens during the day. If one were to remove all allergen exposure during the night, then eventually those daytime allergens wouldn't really be a bother. The trouble with this is ... well, a lot. First, he recommended bed encasements to prevent dust mites and dust mite things from getting out, which is pretty easy. But then, I am to wash all of my bedding every two weeks in extremely hot water in order to neutralize any dust mite and dust mite particles. This requires a special washer that will sanitize - a washer I do not have, nor do any of the laundromats around town. Furthermore, carpet is bad, of which (of course!) I have. I shouldn't have clothes in my room, where my awesomely large closet is. All air ducts should be sealed off, window frames sealed. Animals shouldn't be allowed in my room, let alone the house (they bring in allergens on the fur). And all of this will maybe, maybe make a difference in three years.

On top of this, he prescribed several medications - singular, nasonex, allegra, and zantac as well as a sinus lavage.

I left quite overwhelmed. The doctor had just told me that my dog shouldn't live in my house, that I need to buy a new washer to wash my sheets (and that, essentially, the new comforter I bought to feel like an adult needs to go away), and that I am allergic to everything. Harvest time around Iowa is pretty bad for me since it stirs up dust, grass, and all sorts of spores - and harvest plumes can travel up to two miles. So on top of all that, I can go nowhere to be safe from harvest plumes.

Obviously, I cannot do everything he suggested. And I don't want to take four medications a day, on top of my daily inhaler. So after sitting down with my options, I've decided to get bed encasements, be careful about dust in my room, and put Bailey's crate outside of my bedroom. I'll do the nasal lavage (which is just a neti pot/sinus wash), possibly take singular, and if I don't think that's working - some nasonex. The doctor said that unless I do everything and remove 90% of the allergens in my room, it won't make a lick of a difference. But I can't do 90% and sleep in some airtight bubble, and really something must be better than nothing.

It's good to know what's going on. What I thought was asthma turns out to be allergies too. The only downside to this is that the allergies constrict my throat and make me feel like I can't breathe. An inhaler can help this a bit, but not completely - so the big downside is that I haven't anything to stop my throat from constricting should I run into something allergy inducing. Which is fun, if you think about it. Thank you, Iowa.

Since I know ya'll miss her more.

In other news, I welcomed the First Frost (well, second - but the first deep frost of a blustery Autumn day) dancing to the awesome Bitterroot Band at an outdoor bar, reveling in the cold breeze in my hair while jumping around with my friends. And the next day as I did random things downtown, I walked along the Luther Homecoming parade for a bit, had a nice conversation with the Librarian, ran into more friends at the coffee shop while writing letters, and simply enjoyed this Decorah life. So yes, allergies suck - and I can't breathe well right now much at all. But all the other parts are going quite swimmingly, so it's really okay.

The end of summer, and finally autumn.

Can you sense the excitement?

The leaves are changing colors, the air is crisp and cool, and most wonderfully I've landed in my favorite time of year ... just a bit early. September 22nd was the first day of autumn - and also the first of many morning patchy-frosts to come. While I'm ridiculously excited for the perfect-tea-and-sweater-weather, the bittersweet edge is that all the tomatoes and frost-sensitive crops aren't producing anymore. However, I did my canning, I've frozen my other goods, and I make peace with the end of the summer.

To start the season off, I had the most perfect Autumn Equinox day. I made an all-day-simmering sauce for lasagna with fresh tomatoes, applesauce from Seed Savers Exchange apples (picked from the historic apple orchard), and roasted apple spice cake. In the late afternoon, I headed to my friend John's farm where we took the remainder of the apples and ran them through his father's fancy apple press for fresh cider. It tasted amazing. And with a potluck and a movie night amongst wonderful company, I was brimming over with warm-fuzzy happiness.

September has been pretty good.

Birthday dinosaur learning. Notice flip flops.

The month (well, the prelude to the month), started off with a Dinosaur Party for Kate's birthday on John's Farm. I'm using this as an excuse to explain to you how awesome my friends are, and how fantastic this farm is. John's mother is a market gardener, and they have chickens, goats, sheep, geese, guinea fowl, cats, and dogs that literally roam the farm free (well, not the goats and sheep I guess). Chickens roost in trees and old school buses, geese lay their eggs wherever they please, and the guinea fowl leave pretty feathers in their wake - wild animals not to be tamed. Surrounded by grassland and trees, this farm is absolutely beautiful. John set up a bunch of brush for a bonfire and taught birthday-girl-Kate how to drive a tractor. When it got dark, we lit the fire, danced around in dinosaur costumes, drank beer, and took part in the St. Olaf tradition of 'Shirts-Off-O'Clock. It was fantastic.

I don't like posing, so here's ... 'dancing'.

Two weekends ago, I headed up to Minneapolis with Laura and Tor. We first watched Sleepwalk With Me, with a Q&A after starring Mike Birbiglia. Later, we saw David Byrne and St. Vincent in concert at the State Theater ... which was awesome. During the day, we enjoyed delicious food - such as a somali meal made special order for us, famous carmel-vanilla malts, and pizza. And after the shows we walked the city that night - for maybe three hours - enjoying the views, the noise, everything. I loved it. Walking Minneapolis at night has inspired evening walks with Bailey to enjoy deserted downtown Decorah.

This weekend, I shared a poem at the Decorah Poetry Slam. I'm no poet. I've never quite liked poetry. But I've tried it out recently, as you know, to explore a way to express and work with my emotions. After struggling with a depressive funk for a few weeks (which also explains the lack of recent blog posts), I wrote a poem about what all those emotions felt like. Some part of me thought it'd be a good idea to share the poem in front of a large group of people (and I won't say strangers here because in a small town no one is a stranger). In a way, it forces me to not give a shit what these people think about the poem and my emotions because it really doesn't matter. And reading the poem aloud challenges me to be more open about my emotions and the darker side of myself. Of course, it also challenges me to do something I find uncomfortable and different for the sheer benefit of growth. So I did it, and with the support of my friends it wasn't too bad at all.

Over the month, I've conqured much in the kitchen: canned whole tomatoes, heirloom salsa, sweet pepper jam. I made chili rellenos, lasagna, and roasted spice apple cake. And I'm excited for the return of baking season. Cooler weather also brings a feverish desire to knit warm things (which my new roommate cultivates as well). Could I get any more domestic sans producing small people? Yes. I'll save these domestic pursuits for another post.

Fall. I love Fall. And this fall, I get to pleasure of the beauty of changing leaves in ways that are much better than California. Pictures can do no justice, so I don't think I'm even going to try.

Inked.

My favorite park in Minneapolis so far.

Minneapolis is a three-hour drive away. With practically no traffic on the same highway most of the way, it seems shorter than it is. So two weekends ago, I headed up to The Cities with Lauren, Jess, and Laura for a girl-weekend adventure.

Lauren's favorite band, Murder by Death, was playing at a club in Minneapolis, so we got a hotel for the night and went to the show. The music was fantastic, the club crowded, and the experience not what I expected. The lead singer voiced my thoughts by explaining that the city is full of Norwegians, and because of this everyone was so quiet and attentive between songs and throughout the set. Everyone just watched the band in a stoic appreciation for the music. I couldn't help but dance around, and swoon at the percussionist (who I'd marry in a heartbeat). It was great.

Laura and I walked from the hotel to the show and back, and I really liked experiencing Minneapolis in that way. Lightening threatened in the background of skyscrapers, the winds were powerful and cool, and the city was a city - something to experience differently than rural Decorah.

The next morning Laura and I went to the Aveda Institute to get our hair cuts by students. A cheap haircut by a fairly talented, passionate and young persons gave me the bangs I've been missing and the haircut Laura can't find in Decorah. So with that we found lunch with our ladies, and headed to the big adventure of the day - getting tattoos.

Now it's apparently rude to ask what a tattoo means to a person, but I'll explain it here so you don't have to worry about asking. My leaf can mean many things, and the idea first came when I was in graduate school. The last year of my Masters was really quite awful, and I struggled with academic and personal life things. I felt I needed something to commemorate finishing, and to always remind myself that I have a Masters, and it does mean something and I should be proud of it. At the time, I wasn't that good at actually feeling that I was worth it or that it was meaningful. However, when I graduated I didn't have money or a job, so I sort of forgot about it for a while.

Well, Lauren wanted to get another tattoo, and the idea was for us all to go to Minneapolis post-Yawping and get tattoos. Lauren draws up an artistic impression of the elm leaf I was thinking of, and it's prettier than I imagined it could be. So I pay my deposit to Saint Sabrinas a week before, and soon enough find myself there. Getting a tattoo.

It didn't hurt all that much, and I absolutely love it. Yes, the placement is weird - but I didn't want anything on my legs or back. I want to see it so that I can actively remember what it means to me. And I don't wear a whole lot of sleeveless things so it's mostly hidden - which I like. And now that I have it, it serves to be a mark of what I went through, how I grew from the experience, and how that melds into where I am now and what I'm doing. A leaf comes with the changing of the seasons, always growing new each season - always dealing with change. This one will stay with me, marking changes in my life, reminding me that some things with always be with me and that I'm still me through all of the changes, but that change will be inevitable and I can weather future changes too.

Sometimes it makes me feel pretty badass too.

Laura got two tattoos that look spectacular. Her placements were harder, so after finishing we distracted her with embarrassing and hilarious stories. Now happily tattooed, we wandered toward ice cream and stopped at The Lowery instead to enjoy oysters and beer ... they had Deschutes and Lagunitas, which I haven't had since California.

With that, Laura and I came back to town freshly tatted, drank whiskey until late with Tor, and I began my weekend on a happily upbeat note.

Nothing Compares.

As you've probably come to learn, Tor-planned adventures make up a great deal of the ridiculously awesome things I do around Iowa and Minnesota. So when it came to going to the Iowa State Fair, Tor was charged with making it a great adventure for myself, Tor, Laura, and Steffen. And of course, he delivered.

We headed out of Decorah on Friday after work. Des Moines, where the State Fair is held, is about four hours away, and we were planning on camping at a lake about thirty minutes Northeast from Des Moines. Along the way we drove through Toledo, home to little Tor memories and the 'Butter Cow Lady'. Tor toured us around, showing us his old house and various other parts of town while sharing stories. While in town, we stopped to enjoy ice cream at the Butter Cow (a shop that took over the much-disliked DQ of Tor's childhood that put a better, local ice cream shop out of business). Since we were getting hungry and Tor's birthday was coming up (along with both Tor and Steffen getting promotions at work), we felt red meat was warrented and stopped at Rube's Steakhouse for dinner. This 'Grill-Your-Own' Steakhouse is exactly what it sounds like - you purchase a cut of meat and you grill it on a massive grill with friends. While waiting for the meat to cook, we made copious amounts of Wonderbread-delicious Texas Toast. They make extra thick slices just for Texas Toast. Potatoes came with the purchase of steak, and dinner ended up being delicious. Having little time after steak to actually make it to Des Moines, we stopped in Grinnell and camped at this gorgeous little lake outside of town. Making it just before sunset, we scrounged for firewood from neighbor campers and drank whiskey while attempting to wait for the meteor shower that we all ended up sleeping through.

The next morning we headed to Des Moines for the State Fair. We found parking in some guy's backyard for $5, which was quite awesome given his backyard ends at the fairgrounds. A quick walk to the gates and we were there - The Iowa State Fair, where "Nothing Compares".

An incredibly bizarre looking chicken.

Fastest sheep shearer!

First we saw various animals - chickens and various poultry. We said hello to dairy cows, and visited hogs. We saw some sheep, and watched a really awesome sheep shearing contest. We spent a lot of time with baby animals, and watched a baby goat being born. We toured the grounds, which are actually quite nice (and historic). We went into various Industry buildings, and saw the life-size butter cow and various agricultural pursuits. We saw the arts and handicrafts, and everyone much obliged to accompany me to the knits and amazing quilts. We rode Ye Old Mill, which turned out to be fantastic and completely worth $3. And best of all, we ate a lot of food. Afterall, a Christy blogpost wouldn't be complete without food, right?

We tried all the various fried items - deep fried oreoes, cupcake, and twinke. We shared Laura's delicious turkey leg. We had bacon dipped in chocolate. We ate various lamb items for lunch. We had ribbon-tates for dinner, and overall - ate fair food in delicious excess.

For our evening entertainment, we watched a horse pull. What is a horse pull, you ask? Well, funny enough - I didn't even know what a horse pull was before going either. A horse pulls is a contest in which a team of horses pull an increasingly heavier sled of blocks until one horse team rules them all in strength and ability. It was pretty entertaining and impressive, especially with our arbitrary picks for who would win.

The best part of the evening came after dark. Laura had wanted to win a fair fish. Earlier in the day we had found the carnival game where you could win fish accessories and purchase a fish for $1. So we played the game, got ourselves some points, and decided to come back later for the fish. Given the guy running the stand was young and entertaining, we played some more, got him to give us a deal, and put all of our points together to get a pretty sweet tank with glowing rocks with accessories and five fair fish. Laura was estatic, and two of the fish have survived to now live in a fancy filtered aquarium in her house. We walked away pretty stoaked that we had out-carnied a carnie.

We headed back to our campsite, and woke up the next morning ready to explore Grinnell. To our luck, some art students were giving away free bagels if you contributed to a painting, so I drew a mouse-looking unicorn with an accidentally-painted flesh-colored horn. After hob-nobbing with an old professor, Tor lead us around his campus. It was really pretty, with goregous old brick buildings and trees. We stopped at some swings that were located next to a perfectly climbable tree outside of the main student gathering place, and I realized that if there were accessible swings at UC Davis I would have never made it to class.

After Grinnell we headed back home. Of course, hunger hit, so we decided to try our luck in Waterloo. Our limited Sunday options were Chinese, Mexican, and Pizza ... since the Mexican place was a hole-in-the-wall next to a little grocery store, we thought it would be our best bet towards something authentic. A menu entirely in spanish got our hopes up, so I ordered myself an al pastor burrito.

This burrito was the best burrito I've had since leaving California. It tasted legit. I was full of all kinds of happy after realizing that there was a place, in Iowa, which could make delicious, legit, burritos. Suffice to say, I have no problems driving to Waterloo just for one of these burritos in the future. That's how much I miss Mexican food.

And that was the Iowa State Fair. Way better than the California State Fair. Truly, Nothing Compares.

YAWP.

With a belly full of brunch on a wonderfully perfect Sunday morning, I'm drawn towards introspection.

Recently I've been missing California. The cooler weather and even cooler breezes lack the scent of an ocean, yet feel the same. The ocean is so far away now - and that, of all things, bothers me the most. I don't really care about beaches all that much, but I never realized how the simple sight of that body of water meant so much to me. And now, I cannot drive to see it. I have to fly.

My favorite place to see the ocean, Patrick's Point SP

I still really love Iowa, and no matter how much I miss California every now and again, I don't plan on going back. I've been thinking of my idea of 'Undaunted Conviction' when it comes to living here. I've grown accustomed to things, I feel I don't stick out as much, and the adventure part of it is not as 'exciting' and 'fresh'. And while I do go on adventures and seek fun things to do, it all lacks the shiny-newness this blog was first founded on. I live life in which all things are an adventure, and plan to continue this blog on that idea. But fewer things require an adventure to face, and what does life become when the adventure here is a more settled venture?

What I've come to find an 'Undaunted Conviction' has begun to mean is this hold on life I've slowly grown into because of coming to Iowa. I moved my whole life here, to a place I had no understanding of and where I knew no one. And on the other side, I found I have survived and I have thrived through something I never thought I could do. But moving to Iowa was just a capstone and manifestation of a whole year getting through shitty things and life changing realizations. And I truly mean life changing realizations and shitty things, the sort of things where I can look back and see the person I was before is no where near the person I am now. In the middle of something like that, you can't feel the ground and you can't see the sky, and you're torn between crying and running away and desperately wishing for everything to settle and go away. And then an opportunity in Iowa delivered me to a new start, where I could take the things I had learned and become the person I was always trying to be.

Weekly Game Night, full of things that save my soul.

Not to say that moving to Iowa answered my problems. In fact, your problems follow you no matter where you try to run. But here, I have been able to grow into myself, to live my life with the things I have learned, and to see things differently. I have a supportive group of people that can help me through things, who encourage me to grow, and push me forward to face my life and inner demons with the Undaunted Conviction that brought me here. Because let me tell you, dear friends, the inner workings of my mind are not a place for the weak and the hopeful. I fear facing my inner self so much so that any time spent alone I anxiously try to avoid the darkness full of anger and sadness that resides within my soul. This sounds dramatic, I realize, but it's true - I feel a soul-sucking loneliness at just the thought of being alone because of these inner emotions. Years of bottled up anger, sadness that cannot be solved, self-hatred in every form, and insecurities line the walls of my psyche. The insecurities are the worst lately - they eat away at everything good in my life. They make me question friendships in dark moments, reiterate the fear that I'm unlovable on too great of a frequency, and try their hardest to take away all that I've become now in Iowa.

And so I've come to realize that the Undaunted Conviction that brought me here is becoming a different thing. After spending so much time in the dark - not feeling, emoting, or understanding my life - I was forced to uncover that veneer. And now I'm left to face those exposed demons instead of pretending they don't exist. I have to acknowledge the reality of my past instead of the painted, pretty pictures I used to remember it as. I have to accept myself, and things, as they are. And I need to use that Undaunted Conviction to face my demons, my inner workings and insecurities, to continue to grow and to not fear the loneliness in such a detrimental way. I need the Undaunted Conviction to learn to be okay with myself and to truly love myself in all my manifestations.

Last night, I went to a Yawping. The idea came from a Walt Whitman poem, 'Song of Myself,' with this specific line:
"I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world."

The yawping was created to barbarically sound the ridding of past shitty things and to start life with a new, undaunted conviction. And so I yawped, with the following piece in mind:

I yawp to rid myself of insecurities.
I yawp to learn to love myself - all parts of myself, dark and sad, happy and cheerful, creative and free.
I yawp to accept my past, to no longer yearn for things that cannot be and to not let it define my future.
I yawp to let go of expectations and preconceived notions, to allow things to be as they are, and work from there.
I yawp in celebration of how far I've come, who I've left behind, and what I've grown to become and understand.
I yawp for a fearless future, of a stronger me, undaunted by the unknown, unchained by the past, open for what it may be and ready to be me.

Life isn't always easy. And I've come to find it never will be settled. I'll always have challenges and shitty things, but I know that if I face it with the same Undaunted Conviction that got me here, if I see what I've already come through, then I'll be okay. I'll come out okay in the end. And so I see myself moving forward, knowing what I can accomplish, hesitantly embracing the loneliness, and looking for the sunshine on the other side of this very long and dark road.

Artificial Corn Insemination. Or, Corn Hand-Pollination.

I need to explain something to you. Rather, I need you to understand what summer means for Christy.

Me teaching Corn HP with a co-worker at the latest SSE Conference. Picture taken by SSE photographer, Tim Johnson.

Let's talk corn - specifically, heirloom corn. And growing it in Iowa, a state full of corn. Corn is wind pollinated, which is a problem when corn grows everywhere. Wind pollination means corn pollen will try to get all up in any available corn silks, resulting in the dreaded cross-pollination. So, what does that mean when you need to save seed from heirloom corn? You hand-pollinate it. And since not only is corn wind pollinated, but extremely susceptible to inbreeding depression - you must grow at least 200 individual corn plants per variety. And now we come upon Upper Field North West, where 20 varieties of corn are growing for me to pollinate (and if you've tried out that math, make sure to note we've grown about 300 plants per variety just to be safe, so that's about 6,000 plants).

The first challenge to Corn Hand Pollination is pure survival against deer, raccoons, drought, heat, and thunderstorms. Deer love to eat random parts and tassels, raccoons will tear that shit up regardless of the effort invested on my part, the drought will dry the anthers and stunt the plants, the heat and humidity will challenge anyone attempting to pollinate the corn, and the thunderstorms will blow all that corn over (and even if you attempt to trellis the weak-ass corn, the twine just serves as a handy way to decapitate it!) I haven't even begun to think about crows, fungus, or insects - but I'm told that will come too.

A quick Corn Anatomy lession, thanks to the Plant and Soil Sciences eLibrary. 

If the corns survive (and yes, I say corns - which apparently makes me stand out as a non-midwesterner, but now I'm going with it), then we can begin the actual mating process. First, the emerging silks must be protected from random and prolific in-the-air-and-everywhere corn pollen. Here we use a little wax-lined bag to cover the silks, what I like to call a corn condom (technically, it's called a shoot bag). And if this sounds easy enough, let me clarify the process here. First, one must find emerging shoots before they silk, which in itself is a task. Leaves must be torn off, and one must make sure that the shoot isn't too small, but also not too far gone. Then, the top of the shoot must be trimmed to 'release' those tightly wound silks. The corn condoms must cover this shoot, but one must make sure to slit the leaf a little to ensure the bag stays put and your efforts are not in vain. One must attempt to find two shoots per plant. When silks start showing up, carefully protected in the little corn condoms, then one can begin the next step.

Now pollen must be collected. This involves stapling bigger bags around the tassels of the corn. But not just any tassel will do - oh no. You need an actual shedding tassel, one that's not too spent but one that's not too early. If you find any of these, then you have to staple the bags on in such a way that the wind won't blow them off and the pollen won't fall through. And this must be done as late as possible in the afternoon to ensure the freshest of pollen for morning pollination. If you're preparing to pollinate a variety, you have to go through and double check the shoots and shoot bags, trimming any silks that have gotten too long and releasing silks that may be trapped in shoot leaves. At this point, it helps to mark any bags that are ready.

Come morning time, one must wait for the dew to dry up and for pollen to begin shedding, meaning actual pollination doesn't start until 10am. At this point, tassel bags are carefully collected, all the pollen is consolidated into one bag, and anthers/ants/aphids/etc are filtered out. Hopefully at the end of this, you'll have a bag full of pollen. Now comes the actual pollination part, in which a shoot bag is lifted, pollen is dumped onto it, spread a round a little, and then a used tassel bag is stapled around the shoot and stalk in a specific way that will make sure it doesn't blow off. You have to make sure the silks won't get any other pollen. We also mark each shoot with flagging tape so that if the bags fly off at the end of the season, we'll still know which corn we pollinated.

This all sounds understandable and not that difficult - tedious, but otherwise easy right? Well, there are a few more things to learn. First, corn wants to outbreed - meaning, it really doesn't want to mate with itself. This means it's likely to shed pollen when the shoots aren't ready, or visa versa. And while this may be smart of the plant, you come upon situations in which only 30 of the 300 plants have shoots, but the tassels are at the peak of pollen shedding. So, we have to pollinate just those 30 shoots, and repeat this process until we get as close to 200 as possible. This means we may go through a particular variety 2, 3, or 4 times depending on how asynchronous the pollen-silking is. Which is fun.

What makes it even more fun is that because we're working with heirloom corn, this shit is crazy. Some varieties are only a foot tall, others are incredibly bushy, some have tassel-ears, some need to be cut three inches to release the silks, others will push silks up before you can even see the shoot, and some will just fall over if you look at them wrong. Genetic diversity, at its finest. And with a drought, we have the additional challenge of stunted, short plants ... where several of our varieties are no more than three feet tall. Try pollinating that all day. It's fun. The scarier part of the drought, actually, is the fact that it shortens the window you can pollinate (6-8 days to 2-3), it dries up the silks and pollen quicker, and it forces plants to chose between ears or tassels. Essentially, despite all this hard work, our yield is going to suck.

So, welcome to my summer in Iowa. I do corn all day, and that isn't even enough time. It takes three people 2.5 hours to pollinate just two varieties ... and I have 20 to pollinate. Several times. And just one extra person to help me, maybe two in a week.

We tell a lot of dirty Corn HP jokes.

In the end, Corn Hand Pollination forces me to accept situations as they are, to be at mercy of things outside of my control on an everyday basis, and to work outside during the heat and humidity of Iowa all day. It's building Midwestern character I never thought I'd need. That's a silver lining, isn't it?