Twit Crit - Twin Peaks

Dear Reader, do you enjoy TELEVISION? Your poor correspondent does, since he was about three years old. And having moved out to this cattle ranch, I find myself with the best TV setup I have had since the days of 24 hour pirated theatrical releases at Cloyne Court Hotel. In my office here we find a 36 inch HD screen with a DirectTV Basic package. There is some deep connection between rural working areas and sophisticated TV service. In fact, cable TV was originally developed to serve rural customers who were unable to receive a regular analog signal. A good friend of mine told me that when he moved to Cut Bank, Montana for a legal services internship, he told locals that he had no TV because he wanted that authentic hardscrabble experience. The locals called him stupid and crazy and by the middle of that cold ass Cut Bank winter my friend had ordered cable with the NBA League Pass option.

On Saturday I indulged myself by watching a few hours of the all day Twin Peaks marathon on the Sleuth network. Do you remember this show? I barely do, it was the ABC primetime drama created by avant guard director David Lynch. Yeah, yeah, I know it has a cult following, and those hipsters in high school all got together to watch it in marathons, but I wasn't cool enough, so I never took note of the show until yesterday, even though I love Lynch. In the one episode that I watched reel to reel were some motifs that were shamelessly co-opted by subsequent auteurs. You might think that spending my time and yours discussing how a 20 year old tv show and its genius creator were ripped off by later aspiring artists is quite trivial, and I might agree with you. But if it was good enough for David Foster Wallace then I guess a little Lynch worship is good enough for your poor correspondent.

The show centers around a law enforcement official who is sent to Pacific Northwest to investigate a case. Apparently this sort of thing is not infrequent even in the so called real world. I myself was randomly stationed in the temperate rainforest of the Oregon Coast range as an intern for a federal land manager, so I relate to Twin Peaks' Special Agent Cooper. Also in this club of East Coast transplants to Doug fir country is Dr. Joel Fleishman, central character in CBS's Northern Exposure, a show that debuted about 6 months after Twin Peaks. My family and I spent many Wednesday nights in the early nineties huddled in front of the CRT watching Northern Exposure together, and I remember the experience fondly. But we were watching only a feel-good, drama lite version of Twin Peaks, cobbled together by studio execs who knew they could garner a hit by toning down the Lynch's edgy wierdness and offering it to the masses.

The episode that I watched featured a fund raiser to help conserve habitat for the pine weasel, an imaginary endangered animal. I can attest that here the show captures a true experience of the rural west where charismatic animals become the lynchpin (ha!) for legalistic wrangling that pits townsmen against one another. During the benefit a live weasel, a sort of ferret, is released to wreak havoc on the black tie crowd. This was an offhand gag for Lynch, but it was nakedly appropriated by the Cohen brothers eight years later and made into a central scene in a little movie called The Big Lebowski. So again, cultural opportunists are mining Lynchiana and cashing in.

Twin Peaks also features a number of young actors whose fame was ascendent at the time of filming. Lara Flynn Boyle, Billy Zane, and Heather Graham were all leads or guests in the show I saw. Although these names now figure as past dated cheddar in the Hollywood icebox, still there appearance on Twin Peaks shows that Lynch was a keen judge of young talent.

Twit Crit - Heroic Labors

I'm reading Gustav Schwab's compendium of Greek mythology, first published in English in 1946. Another German scholar closes the introduction with a quote from Aristotle, "the master of pure reason," who says that the more he becomes a hermit, the more he enjoys mythology. The quote was foreboding to me when I read it three weeks ago, situated as I am in a relatively farflung locale with limited opportunities for social interaction. Or better said, a need to find creative ways to interact socially.

Living in the midst of agriculture gives me a new ear for ancient Greek stories. Many of them deal with the needs of pastoral people. Take the labors of Heracles, for example, many of which provide some aspect of service in the interest of farmers and herdsman [I feel like a nerd saying the Gr. name "Heracles" even though I know the Roman versions of the myths were ostentatious bastardizations. So be it.] The labors of the hero include stable cleaning (a.k.a. shitkicking), cattle rustling, and predator control, as well as more predictable feats like dragon slaying. When I was first reviewing these tales I wanted to compose a 13th labor where Heracles has to corral 1500 chickens who have jumped their coop, but to my delight the story is already there, in his quest to disperse the Stymphalian birds. Schwab describes these monstrous avains as capable of "piercing even a brazen curiass with their beaks." I can only interpret this flock to be an unruly mob of barnyard cocks, only recently bred from East Asian jungle fowl. So the hero Heracles was merely inflating the experience of your typical farm kid who is assaulted by his family's rooster when he goes to throw out grain.

To finish this post, allow me to share my observation that the Greeks had a strong inclination to go out and subdue the wilderness rather than harmonize with it. The labors of Heracles and exploits of other heros are motivated by an impulse to control and dominate wild life. I should hardly be surprised by this since it is the general thrust of our whole Western culture of which ancient Greece is one major wellspring. However up to this reading of Schwab I had typically thought of the wilderness conquistador mentality as something that came to us mainly through the xxxxxxxx Bible. It is hard to reconcile my disdain for this mindset with the admiration I have for the archetypical personae of some of the Olympian gods, especially Dionysus, Apollo, and Athena, whose image I hang around my neck.

Dirt Farmer

In the interest of not getting to stilted I'm gonna try to play this post a little bit loose and freestyle. My entries lately I think have been short and sweet, focussed on small nuts and bolts of what goes on on this ranch. I want to strike a balance with this blog between sharing details of my experience here in coastal dairyland that you won't always find in the urban professional world, but also just to have fun with writing and throw out some wacky ideas brain borne like so much sea froth.

If your parents were not born here, you are not a local in Tillamook County. I heard a story about this recently. Some years back a local dairywoman married someone from out of the area. They were together for decades, but he was always called "the dirt farmer from Idaho." "Dirt farmer" is a name that cattle- and dairymen give to guys that farm for vegetables. At the end of the Folsom Prison Blues album, the guard/MC says, "and now let me bring to the stage a dirt farmer from Arkansas, Johnny's dad, Mr. Ray Cash!" So "dirt farmer" is what all these local guys called this other out of town guy. I enjoy listening in my mind's ear and hearing them say with sneering respect, "Well, hell, he's just a dirt farmer from Idaho, but he's hung in there milkin' cows for a right long time." In the context of this ranch, where, btw, the rain is hellacious at this very minute, I guess the dirt farmer is your poor correspondent.

Have you ever, dear reader, found some products on your supermarket shelf certified organic by Oregon Tilth? You may well have, even if you live in the hinterlands of Chicago or New York, because they are one of the more prominent organic labelers. I spoke with their farm program rep by phone yesterday and had an initial phone consultation about getting our pasture and my market plot certified. The conversation was helpful. I was going to say interesting, but interesting is such a bland word, paradoxically. O. Tilth has a demonstration farm somewhere at the north end of the Yamhill Valley, I think. A seasoned hay farmer and I drove past it one day this summer. He looked at the gorgeously groomed rows of vibrant crops and said "damn, that is a statement." He was right, especially when compared with all of the dullish farms that the typical American auto journey will lead you through.

Rotomatic

On Friday I tilled up one third of an acre to make my garden plot. Now the question is how best to groom and care for it through the winter rainy season, which came on with a spirit of divine wrath this weekend. Bare tilled soil is vulnerable to erosion, among other things, which is a reason why mechanical cultivation is not always ideal, but I went ahead and did it anyway. So should I use plastic covering? Cardboard sheet mulch? Cover crop? Most likely I will try a bit of all of the above. My goal right now in this and other questions is to try a variety of strategies and see what works best.

Racing the Rain

First, please take a look at this photo mashup of former and current Chicago Cubs managers. It was created by Cam Anhalt and Len Perez, inspired by the character Quato from Total Recall, whose name sounds kinda like Quade, the new skipper.

Now to farming. After several weeks of summery weather we are finally getting some rain, starting with a light shower this evening. The heavy stuff is forecasted to come on Saturday. Do you know what they say in Oregon when it rains hard? They say, "It's raining so hard it sounds like a cow pissing on a flat rock."

So, there are many tasks to do before the rain, more than I can accomplish in the short time left. The highest priorities are, in my view, rototilling my garden plot, splitting and stacking firewood, and replacing some tarps that go over the hay. Today's work on these projects was productive and satisfying and I get another crack (like the sound of the axe hitting the bucked logs) tomorrow.

Last night I had dinner with two good friends at Montage underneath the Morrison Bridge in Portland. One companion was curious about where they source their alligator meat. The waiter told us that it comes from Louisiana, and when queried further he said, "A gator farm is like a cattle ranch, but with more ponds."

Farmhouse Dialouge

Sage: Tomas, would you like to register for the composting class with Brian and I?

Tomas: No, if you are both going, just give me the notes.

Brian: Maybe we should send funds for Roger to register [Roger is an adorable black lamb who suffered from rickets in his first days and so is being cuddled and raised in the house.]

Sage: They would have to pay to have Roger come.

Tomas: Roger's goal is to avoid being composted.

Sage: [laughs] Right. Roger wants to keep from being composted for as long as he can!

Brian: Tomas has a clear view of reality.

Tomas: Well, I guess that's all of our goal, to delay the compost process for as long as possible.

Shipments and packages

Sage arrived back from her friend's with a shipment of meat last night, and Brian and I put it away in the freezers. This was the first time that I have seen a group of animals walk onto a truck and return a few weeks later cut up in neat little packages. Seeing so much world class meat made me giddy. Mostly lamb, leg steaks, sirloin chops, ground, stew and kabob meat. And a bunch of little hearts and kidneys that got stacked in the door of our freezer.

Country Dining

Yesterday was fruit and vegetable picking day here at Meadow Harvest organic meats. A meager but nevertheless blessed bounty: four squarish apples and for ears of half-kerneled corn cobs. According to Brian the rest of the corn was gobbled by Bernie the ram and his cohort. As Prince Hamlet says, "'Tis an unweeded garden that grows to seed, things rank and gross possess it merely." Hopefully we can do something about that next year.

In any case, I used the corn in a dish that I am calling Tillamook Taco Salad, prepared as follows

100% Grassfed ground beef in various states of freshness from fridge

Remains of pint of random supermarket aritichoke dip, 2 days past dated

Grated cheddar cheese

Four ears of corn

Corn tortillas

Vegetable oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Brown ground beef in skillet. Add artichoke dip, cheese, and corn kernels shaved from cobs. Slice tortillas into wedges and fry in a separate pan with salt until crispy and delicious. Add chips to beef mix. If you are a baller fry an egg or two onto this mix and serve to your friends with cerveza.

Roots and Ruts

I spent the weekend on and around the ranch, and it was minimally eventful. Cara, Lindsay, and I went out and hunted Chanterelle mushrooms without success. Later on they were the first guests on my hillbilly golf course. Shagging balls out of the cedars, Cara found a King Bolete, aka Porcini, aka Boletus edulus. They went home to key it and eat it.

The weather here is eerily nice. Bernie the ram reopened the gash on his head while scratching it on his wire mesh enclosure, so we figured what the hell, just let him out and he can get on with his work of sniffing ewes. The bull Ulysses is bellowing tonight because a cow is in heat across the electric fence. So the animals are in sexual frenzy and yours truly is working out his energy by splitting wood for the fire.

Stretchin' it out

Sage took off this morning to help a friend in Madras, so Brian and I are two hombres lookin' after the ranch. I made potato lentil curry for supper. Living with so much meat manifests decadence when trying to stretch out various dishes that one prepares. Under normal conditions, I would add beans or spuds to a leftover bit of steak to make it last longer. Here, we plan to simmer a london broil in what's left of my stew for tomorrow's tasty lunch

Leagues, Hectares, & Feeds

A friend said to me recently, "I am more interested in wild animals than farm animals." I have a lot of sympathy for this position. Wild animals are, after all, more resourceful, unpredictable, less uniform, less domestic." On the other hand, someone I read said, "think of domesticated animals as kin to their wild brothers and sisters, rather than what you own." That way you think more critically about what the critter's needs are and ultimately treat her with more respect.

Brian and I are trying to implement Intensively Managed Rotational Grazing (IMRG) on this ranch. This is the simple idea that the natural tendency for grazing animals is to move, on a daily basis, away from browsed forage and waste and towards fresh pasture. So the manager's goal is to make the pasture size equal to one day's eating capacity of the herd. Yesterday morning we put about 44 cows on 1.5 acres of 5"-7" grass. By this afternoon they had chewed through all this and were dry humping each other out of boredom. So while we had predicted the field would last three days, in fact they were eating faster, and my rough cut grazing coefficient is that 10 cows of mixed age can eat 1/3 of an acre of 5"-7" grass in one day.

As I draw this post to a close I am struck by how much I enjoy this simple exercise of mathematics applied to the agricultural system in which I am living. Now I am thinking about an experiment that would query for a similar grazing coefficient for wild elk, and I'll be danged if I don't recall a former field partner saying that he actually did something like that in Washington State. So the western empirical mind of science is being applied to both wild and domestic animals. But this is reductive, and I have now converted both from grunting foragers to abstract mental concepts. Since I can recognize the false logic employed therein, I have the opportunity to pause and see the creatures for what they are, whatever that is.

Ounce of Prevention

Yesterday I travelled from Portland back to the ranch in Nehalem with Sage and Brian, who had appointments in town. When I arrived here I was unmotivated to work, but so many lambs have been born that we are backlogged and had to dive right in to doing nuts, tails, and tags. On the subject of castrating, you may or may not know that the most common current practice is to snug a rubber band, called an elastrator, around the nutsack, using a stainless steel caliper. After a few days the nuts just drop off, and an open wound is less likely to develop. So it seems less torturous. As Brian said, "I'd hate to go back to the days when they were biting them off."

While I was absent, an odd medical condition led to a change in the regimen for newborns. Apparently the lamb known as Ann Bronte was suffering from rickets, but recovered with vitamin A/D treatment, so now it's a standard preventative treatment for new lambs in the form of a subcutaneous injection. If you're like me, you probably thought that rickets went out with English buccaneers in the 18th century. But no, a trio of factors - the lack of sun here on the Oregon coast, the leaching effect of grass (?), and the impenetrability of mothers' wool to what dim light is available - make young sheep susceptible to D deficiency and thus rickets.

Twit Crit - Nuevos Mutantes

A certain Tibetan meditation master wrote that the enlightened warrior does not need to read comic books to entertain himself. If this is the case I think that I am doomed to while out my earthly days in a dross of ignorance and confusion. I spent yesterday afternoon at a teahouse with a graphic novel from the library and I cannot think of a more enjoyable pastime. What follows are my thoughts on a Marvel Comics subplot from the 1980's, and you are fairly warned, dear reader, that if you don't want to geek out in that direction, maybe try another post?

The New Mutants are the young superheros who moved into Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters after their elders the X-Men graduated (cf. DeGrassi: The New Class). I was introduced to the series about eight years ago by my friend Kiril, who loaned me his copy of the Inferno saga, a convoluted multi issue crossover between the two teams. With this book I spent a few afternoons huddled in my room in Cloyne Court Hotel, reading obsessively and occasionally thrusting my torso out the window for a breath of fresh air. Later on I bought some back issues from Revolution Comix on Davis St. in Evanston. The title ran from about '83 to '90, a timeframe that commends it to my heart, on which more below. By the time I started reading Marvel, around '91, most of the heroes of the Silver Age - Spider Man, X-Men, etc. - had long gotten a bit stilted, and so deadly serious, bearing the weight of the world on their shoulders. The writers were aware of this and deliberately brought out a teenage x team to freshen up the atmosphere. Reading the book I get the sense of youth and exploration. The finest Marvel characters continue to be embalmed and entombed in copious piles of celluloid. The fact the there will never be a New Mutants movie makes the team more ephemeral and endearing.

The character on whom many of the book's stories hinge is Ilyana, sister of X Man Colossus, teleporter, demon sorceress. The typical plot involves a villain coercing Ilyana, ever striving to be pure and good, into falling in thrall to her bad witch nature and then terrorizing her teammates, until they regroup and find a way to subvert whatever malefactor is pulling her strings. Her captors tend to display her in lurid poses, for example, wearing xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The repetitive scenario reminds me of the game of vacillation from good girl to bad that Britney Spears ran on pop music when I was in University. For whatever reason I relate to the New Mutants exploration of the madonna-whore more than I do the Mickey Mouse Club starlet, but I acknowledge that they are of a piece.

That's a'Spicy

Returning to omnivory has made me giddy to eat all of the delicious treats made from various parts of our farmyard friends that I denied myself as a vegetarian. My gut reaction, so to speak, is that I am overindulging in meat, and so I have to overcorrect with high fiber veggies. Nevertheless, Friday night, when I was just returned from a week in the field, found me eating an Italian hoagie at two separate Portland locations within a span of three hours.

The first stop was Michael's Sandwiches at 11th and Sandy Blvd. I read in the local press that Michael himself is a curmudgeon, and there are some officious signs tacked up around the place. But how much truck can you have with a guy who flies Cubs and Bears pennants in his restaurant and serves up authentic Chicago style Italian subs? Options are peppers, hot or mild, and onions, raw or sauteed. I was the only guy in line at 4:30 on Friday and my sandwich arrived practically before the order was out of my mouth. The beef is tender and savory with a fresh taste and aroma. There could have been a little more jus on the sub to lubricate the baguette. I ordered the half sandwich, and wondered why I had made such a paltry offering to my bottomless pit.

The reason for temperance became clear later when I found myself at the bar of the Brickhouse Pizzeria on northeast Sandy Blvd. I had just sidled up there to drink a few pints and watch the San Francisco Giants in what was ultimately a losing effort. But then I thought back to my eighth grade gym coach's advice on what a poor idea it is to drink on an empty stomach. So when the accomodating proprietor Thanna made a case for the Italian sausage, I ordered my second hoagie of the night. It was creamy meat with aromatic fennel. The taste took me back to youthful days of inhaling square-cut pies at kids' birthday parties, and the sausage compares favorably to any I can remember in classic Chicago pizzerias.

While I'm talkin' sandwich, I gotta give it up to the cubano at Bunk on SE Morrison. This is just a slab of pork belly (the uncured raw material of bacon) wrapped in a slice of ham and served with swiss and mayo on a baguette. Rolling pork in ham is the kind of audacity you need to distinguish yourself in the culinary playground of Portland, and I was patting my belly for hours after my trip to Bunk Sandwiches.

It is a joy to sample the fine cuisine that is available and to appreciate the many flavors that the earth and sunshine bring forth. But I feel that if I continue to binge in the way described I am at risk of the gout and midlife coronaries. So this morning I return soberly to rolled oats and the greenest bananas this side of Ecuador.

Open Season

The quarry's throat opens, and out spill scarlet berries, unripe and swallowed whole, garnished with tender green herb tips; harvest bouquet from a grouse's gullet.

Peter had shot a brace of two birds early one morning before we left for surveys. Strangled game in hand, he asked me if I wanted to clean them. I had never cleaned a bird before. This was his advice: "Take a few big pinches of feathers off the chest to expose the skin. With the skin exposed, tear it apart at the mid breast. Pull it off of the bird like a jacket. Hold both legs in one hand and break through the muscle with your thumb at the base of the breast, and then again at the top. Then just pull the two skinned breasts away from the body."

Without too much difficulty we got the breast and leg meat bagged in a ziploc. The evening found us at Lee's Gourmet Garden, fine Sezchuan cuisine, Oakridge. The Chef there is Jeff. He will cook anything you bring him: grouse, sturgeon, venison, mushrooms, etc. I never knew a restaurant to do this before, but it is not surprising for the former personal chef of the legendary Jackie Chan. Ours was served with pepper and black bean sauce, and it was delicious. If you are in Oakridge, see Jeff.

Destination Fat City

Peter and I will be working down in Oakridge, OR, this week. The town is notable for being a mountain bike mecca discovered by Gary Fisher during his freewheeling career. The adventure sport's influence is evident from the fact that, when I was there in the summer, about 1/3 of the people were disproportionately muscular in the lower body. It made me think back to teenage days when I aspired to be a fattire gearhead. The other thing Oakridge has in abundance is poison oak, so wish me luck not catching a case.

I will be camping with no computer access, so look for me again, dear readers, around the 10th of October.

Twit Crit

I am almost finished with R.L. Stevenson's novel The Black Arrow, a serialized yarn of youthful swashbuckling in the War of the Roses, 15th century England. What prompted me to read this book, which was gifted to me some years ago but lay uncracked and yellowing until recently, was a review of a new collection of essays by J.L.Borges that was lying in my parents' bathroom at my last visit. Borges was, apparently, a great admirer of Stevenson. The most striking remark that was quoted in the review was Borges' preference to write commentaries on long imaginary novels rather than writing the novels themselves. So in that spirit I offer my thoughts on some literary trivia that I encountered recently.

Last month, idling my time away in the library of the Shambhala Mountain meditation center, I looked through the book called Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, which is a collection of pithy vignettes from the renowned east Asian tradition translated to English and compiled between the 1930's - 50's. Therein is contained a parable of a great general who told his reluctant, outnumbered troops that their victory was assured should a coin flip turn up heads. The toss was lucky and the party carried the day. When it was later revealed that the master had in fact used a double-heads coin, his comment was something like, "Destiny is irresistable."

The other two-faced coin thrower known to me in literature is Two-Face, the acid-scarred enemy of Batman who debuted in the 1942 and has been played recently onscreen by Tommy Lee Jones and Aaron Eckhardt. The coin used by this criminal is an heirloom from his father, who would tell the boy that he was only going to beat him if the toss came up heads. Grown up, Twoface scratched up one side of his dad's old doubleheads and would in fact give potential victims a 50% chance, but I think he used some true double coins as well.

While at first these two characters appear distinct or even opposed - the calm, resolute master of meditation and martial arts contrasting with the flashy, impetuous tommy gun gangster - in fact they share insoluble qualities - fierceness in command of subordinates, unwillingness to be swayed from purpose, etc. So I can only surmise that they are the same character, and the novel that I imagine and would comment on, in the spirit of Jorge Luis Borges is an historical transoceanic epic that fills in the gaps between Japan circa 1000 A.D. and Depression era Gotham City. My first thought sees Twoface as a bucaneer gambling with a slaver for his human cargo, rerouting the newly won ship and leading the men in the sack of a Mediterranean bank, and then losing both men and gold on an ill starred march through the Sahara. There are infinite possibilities for heroism, swagger, slaughter, composure, vanity, mercy, and brutality. Go ahead, think up your own.

P.S. According to Wikipedia Batman editor Bob Kane claims to have been inspired for Twoface by Stevenson's Jeckyl and Hyde, although he hadn't read the novel at the time of the villain's introduction.

Whatever Floats

There were some scenes from yesterday's kayak survey where I made mistakes and found myself in trouble. Two such instances. In both I was breathing hard with fear swelling up around my chest and head. Under such duress, I think that I did an acceptable job of staying cool and correcting bad situations as best I could. The physical risk to my person was not in fact very great, although some equipment was at significant peril. I came away without harm for which I am grateful.

Peter and I were surveying a stretch of Mill Crekk that runs past a minimum security correctional facility. It is one of three that the stream fronts in the area of Salem. The least prominent of the three, it sits a ways out of town and was in former times a 2200 acre working farm. Now much of that property has been sold. A smallish four story cellblock and a few acres of ungrazed pastue remain.

We were both stoked to be doing the survey by boat, and overall we had a lot of fun. It was sobering to float past guys looking down at us from the yard upslope. We both imagined that they felt a sense of longing to see two guys meandering and exploring the gravel bars.

The details of how I got in trouble on the water I am going to spare for now. Ask me about them when you see me. My experience in a kayak is limited, and the routine of hopping in and out of the boat in the shallows, conducting surveys, etc. was hard to get used to. The second go round will find me more proficient and confident.

We had a lovely float back down at the end of the day. I tried to let go of the stress and be in the flow. Riffling water, warm air, trees, sunlight. Keep your nose pointed downstream and you'll be alright.