The Beauty of Yacon

Yacon in late October

I'm smitten with yacon, an Andean tuber with amazing health benefits. It grows easily in the Willamette Valley. First of all, the taste sweet and crunchy with just the right amount of juiciness when cured. It has been compared to a cross between celery and an apple. It feels good to eat, this may be related to its inulin, which has pre-biotic effect, it helps promote the growth of healthy gut bacteria (and discourages the growth of baddies). The inulin is an undigestible sugar (great for people with diabetes!), so it tastes sweet, but does not mess with your blood sugar. It is only available in the winter (around here ) in farmer's markets and stores that sell organic produce. (I found out after throwing the leaves away, that they are typically eaten in Peru. They can be used to wrap food while cooking, like grape leaves, or cabbage leaves are used in Mediterranean or European cultures. Live and learn, next year we will try eating the leaves, too.)

Secondly, it is so pretty, it belongs in a a flower garden!  The growth habit and the soft, fuzzy leaves remind me of tithonia, or Mexican Sunflower. If the growing season were longer here, we would see yellow daisy like flowers,  but I have not seen them bloom in my garden. I typically do not water my flower gardens much, so unless things changed (a lot), I won't be adding them to a flower border. We'll just have to settle for a more beautiful vegetable garden.

The challenge of growing yacon lies in curing and storage. I harvested late last year and lost the entire crop. This year I harvested early, when the burgundy blush of cold weather kissed the leaves. However, not sure what their needs were, I dried them out, and they require humidity to cure well. Eaten uncured, they are extremely watery and not as sweet as fully cured tubers. They have more inulin when uncured. Curing changes some of the undigestible inulin to other forms of sugar. I'm attempting to correct the humidity problem. We may eat these so fast that we will still end up buying them in the store this winter, after all.

If you do not yet know yacon, you must make her aquaintance. This much yumminess is not to be missed!

Don't Despair - Write Letters!

Leela and Enid in earlier days.

While my mother-in-law, Enid was passing her final months in a nursing facility, secondary to multiple systems not functioning, I decided to start writing her letters. Austin had stories about how people communicated through daily letters back when Enid was young. The letters were written on anything, the back of a receipt, a paper napkin, anything. Often, the letters were just about the weather or other mundane things. Knowing that took the pressure off me finding amazing things to write about. Enid was intelligent, politically tuned in (she was so hopeful that Hillary would win and she would see a female president), and watched a lot of CNN (along with old movies), so I could just discuss politics, nature, my classes, whatever was on my mind.

She died in late April, and we visited Austin in June for her memorial. It was lovely. She was a sweet and well-loved woman. And somewhat fiesty. Austin was tasked with sorting through decades worth of correspondence. I took home all of the letters I had written to her. Yesterday, I was wiping out old messages on my cell phone (I seldom check messages on my cell, so don't leave any there) and found a voicemail from Enid from January. She was thanking me for all of the letters. I had forgotten about that message and was filled with sweet sadness hearing her voice again.

I have been getting emails about a project that involves sending personal letters to people in swing districts who might not vote, and encouraging them to vote. The project is called "Vote Forward," and in the pilot study, people who received letters were more likely to vote, than the control group. The study found an increased voter turnout about 3.4 percentage points higher in districts that got letters! You can find out more and write letters at: http://www.votefwd.org/. Write as many or as few as you like. Personal, heartfelt letters encouraging people who might feel their votes do not count can make a big difference! So, if you are looking for a place to channel all the emotions you are feeling about recent events - write letters. Simple, nothing fancy. Write from the heart. Most of the letters are written for you, and you can write a simple, short note. I can guarantee 100% that Enid would approve of this message.

Bird Riot!!!

A few years ago, I discovered that I could mimic the "wheet" call that a Swainson's Thrush makes and get a response. All this time, I have thought that the call was an "I'm here, where are you?" call. Last weekend, while taking time out from an interactive literature game at CoHo, I went onto a little wooded path to commune with nature and consider my role in the game. In the distance I heard a Swainson's thrush "wheeting," so I began to reply. The distant "wheeting" moved closer and closer, until the bird was perched on a branch about 6 feet up and 8 to 10 feet away, and I could clearly see the spots on it's breast and the little white ring around it's eyes as it looked around expectantly. Almost immediately, a house wren appeared scrambling through the underbrush between the thrush and me making it's scolding sound, as if to say, "Imposter!" The noise from the "wheeting" and the scolding was amplified when a nearby group of chickdees appeared in the trees around the thrush making 'dee-dee' sounds (just double dees, no more).
 Watching the thrush glancing quickly around, looking for a nonexistent buddy bird, I began to feel bad about fooling the bird and stopped "wheeting." The wren, now joined by another wren, got quiet and the chickadees flitted off, and the thrush turned it's back to me and scampered away. Just like that, the racket was over.
  While looking for sounds and information to add to this blog, I discovered that the "whit" (not "wheet" as I hear it) usually expresses alarm or an intention to distract an intruder from the nest. So, what I had started was an alarm, which explains the scolding. When chickadees are very alarmed, they make four, five, or six 'dees' so perhaps they were concerned, but not overly alarmed. After all, I'm not a cat or a hawk.