Starting in 2005, my sister Sally took over a small farm in northern Maryland, part of an inheritance from our parents. Sally had never farmed full-time before. Her lifelong interest in gardening was scant preparation for this late-middle-age career transition from more sedentary work. Especially the first few years, Sally struggled. She wanted to run the farm as a biodynamic one, paying special attention to the cycles of seasons, sun, and moon. Gradually, she got an acre or two into biodynamic production. She rented the rest of the land to nearby more conventional farmers. She built up a cadre of part-time volunteers. Her work was more than full-time, with scant occasions for the travel she had enjoyed earlier in her varied careers. Her internet access was spotty at best, so we kept in touch through phone calls and letters.
For a biodynamic farmer, “cross-quarter days” are especially important in deciding harvest and planting schedules: Halloween (Samhain), Groundhog Day (Imbolc), May Day (Beltane), and mid-summer, around August 1 (Lammas).
This November, I’m posting six years’ worth of cross-quarter day letters, through multiple changes in government, a global pandemic, and major changes in our respective personal circumstances. Please read along…
Monday, October 31, 2022 (Samhain/Hallowe’en); from Jinny in San Diego, CA to Sally in Taneytown, MD
Dear Sal,
No trick or treaters at all this year, despite a general decline in covid worries. Now have at least a partial explanation, courtesy of one of son Jason’s next-door neighbors who grew up here:
Hallowe’en really is a big deal in the U.S. southwest, especially this close to the border with Mexico. Hallowe’en festivities often get twinned with “Day of the Dead” celebrations that occur during the first few days of November. Families buy Hallowe’en costumes for their young children, alongside the marigolds and chrysanthemums for creating temporary family “altars” for loved ones who have died. In advance of Hallowe’en night, some parents will drive around to “scope out” areas and neighborhoods where the sidewalks are safe and the prospects for bountiful candy are good. Parts of the large housing complex where we live (over 700 single family homes in close proximity) are nearly ideal for trick or treating. There are lots of families with children of their own in the development, hence lots of candy. Also, the streets and alleyways are laid out in such a way that it’s possible to visit lots of houses without crossing any streets.
There are only four entrance streets to our entire complex, with a sort of “ring road” one block in from the entrances and then short, stubby, streets with alleyways between any cross streets, leading to dead ends at a six-acre park at the center of our “Villa.” People who live “inside” the ring road are referred to as being on the “inner loop,” while those outside the ring road are on the “outer loop.” Jason and Kelly and their neighbors are “inner loopers,” very close to the park, while our house is on the “outer loop.” We live along the block leading in from our area high school. Young trick or treaters can cross our alleys with little risk—there’s very little automobile traffic except at rush hour. However, parents are rightly leery about having their children cross any streets.
Once we figured out the “system,” it made sense. When we asked Jason and Kelly this year how many trick or treaters they typically get, they said “hundreds.” On a recent video call, daughter-in-law Morgan recounted how during their Hallowe’en visit last year, they’d had to send somebody out to buy more candy after the 11 pounds Kelly had initially stocked ran out. Morgan and Scott officially married on October 20, with a small ceremony in the nearby town of Findlay, OH. They sent pictures—a nice set of relatives in autumn-colored outfits, with 5-month old Kenley looking especially fetching. One of Morgan’s grandparents, “Grandma Shirley,” is still alive and attended part of the festivities—she’s the matriarch of family redheads.
In this year’s midterm elections, I’ll again participate as an early voting and election day poll worker. The length of the early voting period where I’ll be stationed is a lot shorter than the two-plus weeks I spent in North Carolina in 2020—basically just an extra-long weekend. California has had mail-in ballots for many election cycles already, so the expectation is that a pretty high proportion of ballots will be cast that way, especially since concerns about covid have not yet entirely disappeared.
I’ve been through a two-day training regimen at an area library, along with workers for several other early voting sites. Our site leader seems to be a retired military officer with a good bit of prior experience running elections. We’ll have face masks and hand sanitizer for those who want them, but masking is not mandatory this cycle. The number of languages used for printed ballots is higher than I’m used to, with several Asian languages as well as English and Spanish. Perhaps because I’m new to the temporary electoral workforce, perhaps because I was just too dumb to request a voting site near where we live, I’ll have a long commute for the several days of early voting—to a county park about 20 miles north of Tierrasanta. Should give me more than my fill of freeway driving.
Soon I’ll need to buckle down and research what candidates and issues I want to support via my own ballot. California allows “ballot initiatives,” some generated by the state legislature, others certified if a certain proportion of registered voters request them. Some of the issues seem important to me; others mainly seem like some disgruntled partisan wanted to stroke his/her ego by getting verbiage onto the ballot.
A month or so ago, I became an official member of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Diego, after about a year of intermittent Sunday attendance and a fairly lengthy orientation process. It’s not a perfect fit—I’d prefer something geographically closer to where we live if I could find it, but it’s a good group of people. Like most congregations these days, it trends somewhat older.
Not long after moving to San Diego, Jim and I joined the Tierrasanta Village Movement of San Diego (TVSD). For adults over 50, its membership is centered on the few square miles of this “Island in the Hills” that Tierrasanta calls itself. As I understand it, TVSD aims to strengthen the social and mutual help ties that reduce loneliness and lengthen the interval when we can live mostly-independently rather than becoming part of a “continuing care” facility. Covid has pretty severely limited the activities TVSD can provide for now—outdoor gatherings, some video calls and phone trees.
Tierrasanta is a fairly self-enclosed community, surrounded by freeways and a regional park. Over 3,000 older adults live among a general population nearly 10 times that large. Within TVSD overall, there are neighborhood subgroups—I’ve attended a couple of events for our neighborhood at our complex’s central park. I have a regular TVSD weekly walking partner who lives a couple of blocks away. On good days, I don’t much notice that I’m getting older. On other days, well…
Hope you’re aging gracefully. Please take good care. Lots of virtual hugs!
Love, Jin
