Oat Harvest

The garden has some potential, as I last posted. Mostly it lies in the oats. Right now they are at the perfect time for harvest. They're easily picked off the plant by running your hands over the stalk. There are other ways to harvest oats than hand picking the grain from the stalk. Another way is to cut the stalk at a uniform length. This was traditionally done with a scythe. Picking by hand takes longer, however you're eliminating the need then separate the grain from the stalk.

 Me, hand picking oats

 It's one step closer to oatmeal! 

The process is never ending. 

The oats were perfect to pick, but they needed to dry for a few days before we could remove the hard shell (chaff) from the inner grain (oat). We brought them inside where we laid them on a sheet. 

Oats with the chaff still on.

Drying oats

So many oats...

The next step in the process is to let them dry until the oat kernel is rock hard. From there we go about threshing the oats. Threshing is removing the chaff (that hard outer layer) from the grain. Once you thresh the oats, depending on your method of threshing, you may have to winnow the oats. When one threshes grain sometimes the chaff and the grain are mixed in a big pile. The point is getting the grain away from the chaff. Nobody likes to eat the chaff. Winnowing is traditionally done on a windy day and the grain is poured from one bowl to another and the wind pushes the lighter chaff and the grain continues to fall straight. After winnowing there should (cross your fingers) be a pile of oat groats ready to eat! I've been thinking about making oat flour and using it in bread or pancakes. Honey bread made with oat flour, or having a few oat groats for texture sounds delicious to me. 

Keep in mind this whole oat business is an experiment. We are still have a long way to go to pick all the oats, and probably won't get to all of them. The idea is that we want to try to get some oats and hopefully be able to make a few things in the kitchen for groups. The plan is to never have the oats milled, and they will always remain oat groats. The reason for this is to save on cost. You can buy a grain mill for about $100. This is a great purchase if you know you're going to be harvesting oats every year. But for our trial run I think that it's best if we harvest oats using hard work and brain power rather than buying expensive, but helpful, products. 

Sense of Place: The Garden

In keeping with my sense of place theme, I've been working in the garden. The garden is a great place to bring students to start connections. Taking part in the entire process is immensely rewarding. Getting a garden ready for spring, planting seeds, weeding, watering, harvesting and eating the food gives ownership to those who took part in the work. Gardening also teaches those who work on it patience and not to rely on instant gratification. Food tastes better not only when it's fresh but when you know how much work you put into it. Waiting for a tomato to ripen or a pumpkin to grow is fun. It takes time to watch the change, but it happens.

Those who have anxiety about connecting with natural areas might have an easier time connecting to a garden. While the garden isn't wild it teaches people how to care for other living things, and in response the garden grows. It can also teaches people what happens when it isn't cared for. Knowing where food comes from isn't always apparent to people. Summer squash, lettuce and green beans aren't magically grown in the store but instead outside. Just as chicken doesn't come from the Styrofoam it sits in or the factory that packaged it, it came from a real live chicken. More opportunities to connect to where food comes from means people are more thoughtful about the food they buy. For this exact reason, I love farmers markets.

Garden where I grew up in Vermont

The place I work has a garden. It unfortunately wasn't taken care of, and so the first emotional connection I have to the garden is one of sympathy. The beds were overgrown, some didn't even come up they were so choked with weeds. About the only things that were OK were some tomatoes, broccoli, and squash. I saw that there were some dried pea and bean plants, but mostly everything was grass. The year before when there was someone to care for it they had taken 450 pounds of food out the garden. This food when then used in the kitchen and served to the students who were staying at the facility. This year they had only taken out about 4 pounds. Not enough to make a significant impact. The garden itself was in a sad state visually. Grass was everywhere. When we started to work on it, the best idea we had was to use a lawn mower and mow some of the beds.

But there was a glimmer of hope. They didn't plant the whole garden, be it for crop rotation or because they figured it might be too much work. Instead of trying to weed half a garden for no good reason an entire season, they planted oats instead. Many people use oats as crop cover. As a plant they need almost zero maintenance, they cover the ground and don't allow for weeds to come in, and then they die back about the right time. I thought to myself 'What does one do with whole oats?' I found out that once you separate the grain from the chaff they are called oat groats and can be eaten very similarly to oatmeal. It doesn't need to be milled, another thing that surprised me is that you can buy them just like that. I always thought of oats as needing to be milled. Apparently not. My hobby this fall I think will be trying to get oats to a state where they can be eaten. I will have more posts about my experiments with this process. Stay tuned!

A Sense of Place

There is a movement happening within schools, both public and private, to encourage children to connect with their immediate environment. This has come as a result because when a school does environmental curriculum they learn about far away places and their problems. Kids effectively connect more to penguins and tigers than they do animals that might live in their own back yard. They also learn more about destruction of the rain forest or desertification on the outskirts of the Sahara than they do about clean groundwater in their community. This leads to some huge disconnects. First of all, once the curriculum about the rain forest is over the kids are going to be more challenged to continue to connect to a place that is thousands of miles away and completely different from what they're used to. Second of all, once they loose that connection why should they care, how does the extinction of the polar bear affect them?

Now instead imagine northern New England. A place where there are oak, maple, aspen, fir and pine, rolling hills, deer, moose, bobcat, lynx, and coyote. Children from this area can learn about the forest in their back yard. Learning about the trees and making maple syrup will build stronger connections to the environment. Their woods are no more or less important than the rain forest. They can also learn about environmental problems such as honey bee die back, which has been proven to be caused by pesticides. The idea is that these things they can touch, smell, taste, see, and hear. It has been proven time and time again that anyone learns better when they use more senses to learn. Also when the curriculum is over, they will continue to see the forest, or even better visit the forest. Learning about the fall and why the leaves change or spring when the leaves come back out isn't an intangible topic, because in the kids minds IT REALLY HAPPENS!

Children up until almost 8th grade have a hard time with abstract concepts and so starting an environmental unit with 10 year olds 'Ok kids imagine a place thousands of miles away in the middle of the ocean...' you've already lost your class. If a kid has never even seen the ocean, this isn't an effective way to connect kids to that place. It works so much better when you start your lesson with 'Ok kids, we're going outside where you're not going to have to imagine anything because we are studying maple trees you can touch them, see them, measure them, and then we're going to make maple syrup!'

Giving children, or adults, a sense of place is very important. It means that they feel as if they belong and are connected to a place, be it in the forest, one spot, or a trail system. They feel as if they are part of the interactions that take place there. I have been working to feel a sense of place in Wisconsin. Going out and being somewhere, looking closely, sitting, listening, and setting down roots in just one place is important. Those who care and are deeply connected to a place are more likely to hold on to their understanding of that place than those who learn about a place they aren't connected to.

What's in a Name?

You may, or may not have noticed that I changed the name of my blog. It was originally Mal Integre which when translated from french means 'poorly integrated'. I realized that this wasn't how I felt anymore. After returning from Benin I did feel that I was poorly integrated into American culture. I still don't feel that I'm a run of the mill blue collar american, but I also feel much more at home here. So I've changed only one letter, Mel Integre, I have found my own integration and place to belong.

Fear not the web address will not change it will still be malintegre.blogspot.com

The Hodag

In Wisconsin there is a mythical beast. Much like Sasquatch, The Jersey Devil or Chupacabra, this creature spends the vast majority of it's time in the imaginations of the people who live there. Locals dream about them, they 'see' them and give them human attributes. Some are just creatures seen in passing, others seem to have motives. The Pope Lick Monster lures young people to cross a high trestle only to meet their death when the train crosses the trestle. Most cultures have local legends which are part of their culture. Those who study these mythical creatures call their science cryptozoology. Now before you criticize and scoff remember, the Giant Squid and the Okapi were both animals that were only thought to be myths for a time.

Wisconsin has the Hodag. The Hodag was seen in the woods around Rhinelander it apparently was found and then blow up with dynamite after the hunting party was terrified by it, in 1893.

The Hodag has had a few sightings since one was used as an experiment with explosives. The image above was a hoax in 1896. I'm sure some people had a grand time putting this guy together. It is said to be extinct as it's main diet of all white bulldogs (thank god Woody and Buster are black AND white) ran out. What was the Hodag eating before there were all white bull dogs around? Seems to me that the Hodag has a very limited pallet.  

While the actual species may or may not be extinct, the Hodag lives on in the imaginations and hearts of Rhinelander residents. He is the mascot for the local high school, a country music festival is named after him and the local farmers market got it's name from him. There are several sculptures of the Hodag around Rhinelander. Making him a friendly welcoming beast to the town. 

I think that's it's great when a town embraces their culture no matter how quirky. Vermont has two lake monsters Champ and Memphre. It only adds to the appeal of an area. So if you're ever in Rhinelander, Wisconsin be sure to look for the Hodag, or go see the numerous artistic representations.  

The Students are Here!

All 61 students arrived yesterday. 40 girls, 21 boys, and each brought approximately 2 parents/ friends/ siblings. This meant that approximately 180 people were shuffled through the registration process, and the dorms. They got their students moved in and set up for a semester. I, along with two other graduate students were responsible for meeting, greeting, and directing 120 of those people from 9am until 5pm. They're walking around, still have the stars in their eyes and are all interested in making new friends and finding their place here.

Looking at this from the perspective as a student this is perhaps what the day might have gone like:

5am: Wake up and drive for about 6-10 hours. You planned to sleep during this time but you can't because you're so excited.
11am: Still with mom, dad, and little brother walk around and register. Lots of forms and paper pushing which mom sorted out before you even got here. You and your parents gawk open mouthed at the facility
noon: Lunch time! Eat lunch with other students and their families. Feel overwhelmed
1pm: Health screening! For 15 minutes talk to the nurse, potentially about embarrassing things you might have such as asthma, your medications, and have to listen to your mom say 'I don't feel comfortable with you giving my child such and such'
1:30: Go see your room! Be greeted by a graduate fellow (me!) and be shown your room, be asked the usual questions "do you have any contraband items?" or my personal favorite "do you have any questions" and while you're trying to process the HUGE amount of information that is in your head and thinking of a good one your mom instead says 'I have some."
1:30-2pm: Take a tour of the building with mom while dad and little brother lug things upstairs and pile them in no semblance of order outside your room completely in the way. Your mom is asking lots of embarrassing questions which you don't care about like 'where is the laundry?' 'can they cook?' 'What will the food be like?' or making statements like 'oh hunny look! a drying rack so you can air dry your bras!'
2-3pm: Mom helps you unpack your things, she makes your bed nice (the ONLY time it will look like this), puts your toothbrush in the toothbrush holder, and folds the clothes in the drawer. Dad and little brother are sitting on the common area couches.
3-5pm: During this time you're all unpacked, and now lots of other girls have arrived and they want to meet you, to talk to you. Your parents and little brother are going to tour the facility and make you know where you're going. They also leave during this time.
After they leave and before anything else happens: You're stuck. You don't know anyone. You try to be nice, cool and accepting during this time. You look at the other girls dorms and assess their sense of style by what they're wearing and how they've decorated their rooms.
5-7pm You do an opening ice breaker with the whole group which makes everyone feel uncomfortable, awkward and potentially a little inadequate. You eat dinner and everyone makes small talk with each other.
After that opening ceremony and bed!

While looking at it from this perspective the kids are still on information overload and we're trying to squeeze in as much as we can. They still walk around with stars in their eyes, they don't see themselves as part of place yet and they're curious to get the year started. I could see myself in the students. When I was a freshman in college I remembered leaving my parents and having that same scared but excited look on my face. I'm looking forward to seeing how these students learn and grow throughout the semester.

Dyscalculia

How many people have you heard ever say 'oh I have number dyslexia'? I bet there are a few people. Guess what? It's its own thing. It is called dyscalculia, I know it kind of sounds like Dracula, but trust me it's not a vampire related learning disability. If you haven't put a face to this learning disability yet, I have dyscalculia.

I have struggled with math all my life. This is not an exaggeration, I really have. In high school I understood the processes and what to do to solve problems, but on tests and homework I would do all the right work, but my answer would be wrong. I know many of you are saying 'Well there are lots of kids who do that' but do they transpose numbers much like someone who has dyslexia would transpose letters? Do decimal places come and go? Do negative signs pop up and disappear in places they shouldn't? I was often told to double check my work. I would solve the same problem the same exact way six different times and end up with six different answers. I was also told to work slower, but no matter how fast or slow I worked it didn't matter. I could retake tests multiple times, but still nothing really helped. My teacher in high school once told me, 'Melissa, your work is all correct, you're doing it right, it's just the answer that you're having the problem with. I don't understand it'.

I passed math well enough to graduate and go to college and I took my last math class, and struggled once again through chemistry (this can be a story in and of itself so I'll spare you the painful details of my college chemistry experience). In my freshman year in college I took a work study position basically pushing papers around in the Disability Centers office. I said something once to my boss that I hated math and she asked me why and I told her, in jest, that I had number dyslexia. She told me that I should look up dyscalculia because it was a thing that I should develop strategies for if I hadn't already.

Reading the symptoms was like reading a book about my life and math. What kills me is that nobody really knows about it beyond a handful of people. Teachers now still don't know what to look for and how to recognize it. Kids all the time are slipping through the cracks. Apparently the national average of students who have dyscalculia is 1% over half of those students were previously diagnosed with ADHD. I feel that this number is much too low and the reason is because nobody knows that it's a thing to look for and document. Or if they do know to look for it's because the student is already having trouble.

So the reason why I wrote about having dyscalculia is because nobody knows about it. So, now my blog readers, you know. It's a thing.

Wallyball

You might ask... What is Wallyball? I would tell you that it possibly one of the most fun games you can play! Completely absurd and hilarious all at the same time.  I discovered this amazing game here at grad school. I know I should be studying, but wallyball is a great distraction.

So Wallyball is a game much like volleyball. There is a net, players on either side volleying the ball to win points. However, what makes the game more fun is that you play it in a racquetball court and can bounce the ball off the walls. You can also get the ball up and over the net by bouncing it off any part of your body hands, feet, head, shoulder, knee... I'm sure you can see how hilarious the game gets.

My friends and I have found that we really enjoy playing wallyball as a way to unwind from our day. I usually laugh so hard I cry at least twice a game. I've also noticed that it's a great workout. Lots of jumping, arm swinging and moving around all the time. We usually play for a couple of hours. If you ever have the chance to play wallyball you should, so much fun is waiting to be had.

My Parents Came to Visit!

My parents decided that they were going to take a weekend to come see me. I had only one big request. That they bring the dogs. They brought the dogs along with lots of other things that I asked for. 

Woody riding in the car on the way here. Looking out the window.

 

Buster would actually prefer to fall asleep when he gets in the car.

They arrived and I gave them a tour of the place with the dogs.

My dad and I in my kitchen

On Saturday we also toured Bond Falls.

This is my deck. Makes me laugh all those people who would call in at Okemo asking if their room had a 'deck' and would get SUPER mad when it didn't. I didn't even ask for one and I got one! Everyone has some sort of patio/ balcony though.

My room

Laundry room below. 

Living space.

Dining area

My drum found a place above the gas fireplace!

My car Otis has a garage!

 



Fire pit in the common area.

Boat launch.

Recreation Center

Garden, it used to be a softball field.

Dogs were tuckered out!

Walking into my dorm, my apartment is up the stairs to the right. 

Knitting

Many of you may or may not know that I enjoy knitting. I learned to knit from the internet, no joke. I've knit lots of hats, mittens, gloves and scarves.

Friends/ co-workers at Okemo last winter were having a baby. I knew that mom-to-be had admired my knitting for a little while. So I figured I would knit them a baby sweater. It zips in the back so that the little guy can't wiggle out of it too easily. I wasn't able to see the baby in the sweater though as it was knit for a larger than newborn but they did send me pictures of him wearing it. What a cutie!

 

Coincidentally, this is a family knitting pattern. All babies born my generation and after have all received this same sweater knit may times. Glad that I was able to pass on a family tradition! 

Packing in the Porcupines

My friends and I this past weekend decided that we wanted to hike. I'm not talking about a measly two miles in, pitch a tent, get out the 24 pack of beer and have a campfire. I'm talking an 8 mile hike where at the end you have your campfire but your dinner is pasta sides because you didn't want to pack anything else in. I wanted to come home sore, tired and content.

And so a hike was planned. We headed a little ways north to the Porcupine Mountains. We started along a river and hiked about 7 miles to the shore of Lake Superior. Coincidentally, we were on the North Country Trail which is where we hiking before while visiting Marquette, Michigan. The Porcupine Mountains are very old growth and the forest feels that way, old. It has history and it commands respect. The trees were mostly deciduous and hemlock, it would be beautiful in the fall. After hiking for 7 miles along the river we saw Lake Superior. Lake Superior looks like an ocean, in fact it has tides.

The Porcupine Mountains have campsites ready to go with bear hangs set up. We got to one we had heard was nice but unfortunately it was taken, along with every other campsite along shore. Thankfully we had a back country permit (necessary when going camping in the Porcupines) which allowed us to camp anywhere we wanted as long as we set up a bear hang and didn't have a campfire. So we set up our camp along the shore. We couldn't find a clear spot because there were so many thimbleberries we ended up just putting the tent right on top. Unlike raspberries or blackberries their stalks don't have thorns and the leaves are real soft, they also don't get really woody stems.

We cooked dinner on the beach and took a swim. The stars were amazing and the moon wasn't out. We stayed up late taking sips of whiskey with apple juice chasers as we watched the shooting stars fly by. The milky way was also out in it's full glory. A rare sight with all the stars out like that. Very few times do you get such a clear view.

Overall we hiked about 17 miles going in and out. We did a loop going back in along a very muddy trail and then visited a waterfall on the way out. Tired and content, just like we planned, we rolled back into school.

Trips like this remind me of why I am out here learning about environmental education. These wild places have immeasurable value, they add in ways that we wouldn't even expect. What kind of price can you put on a weekend like that? What would you pay to see not one, but many shooting stars? The price: 10 mile hike in, sore feet and exhaustion. I feel that's more than fair.

Water Week

My week at grad school has gone something a little like this: becoming a canoe instructor and getting wilderness water safety certified. A week of water training. In and out of canoes, in and out of the lake. Luckily it was sunny for most of it.

I always assumed that canoeing was this lumbering antiquated way to cross a lake. It was really for those who hadn't discovered kayaks yet. I always thought that kayaks were much easier to handle in the water and went better. Steve at River Sport Adventures definitely showed me wrong. Our beginning course went far beyond anything that I had ever learned at summer camp. We were doing figure 8's, going backwards, learning the best techniques to make paddling easier and we were of course having fun. We spent all day in the canoes from about 9am until 4:30. I got a few blisters on my palms from the paddles but with them just about to worn raw I got my certification. We also did tip tests and T- rescues. A tip test is when you try to flood your canoe while still maintaining a level of control if you've done it right you will still be sitting in your sunken canoe. A T- rescue is what you might use when a canoe has capsized and dumped it's passengers. Another canoe, or two canoes that are still upright will come over and link up creating a raft. They will create the top part of a T shape to the sunken canoe. One of the people who dumped their canoe will stand on the end of the swamped canoe away from the rafted ones. This will cause the tip of the canoe to go in the air. The passengers in the upright canoes will drag the canoe onto their own and once it is fully out of the water they will flip it, and put it back in. Now the hard part comes in, getting the dunked canoers back into their now upright canoe. There are a few ways to do this and none of them are graceful. All of them involve your canoe fighting back and giving you lots of bruises. The canoes just had to remind us of how stupid we were to flip them in the first place. However after two very tiring days that was done.

Then we had a day of rest, and did paperwork while our muscles stopped screaming.

It was then time for Wilderness Water Safety! We all basically became backcountry lifeguards. I have never been to a lifeguard certification class before. Honestly the thought of saving someone in the water is downright terrifying. It still is. I've actually avoided getting lifeguard certified so that I wouldn't ever have to feel like I was the responsible one. I learned how to successfully carry another person into shore, how to find them on the bottom of a muddy lake and still I feel that everyone should be wearing their life jacket... even while swimming. 12 people in the water at once is a huge deal. just wear your life jacket and make it easy on me. Thinking back on some of the things I've done makes me cringe.

Overall good week of training and lots of knowledge that was passed on. Thanks grad school for seeing that this was valuable to our training and knowledge bank!