Moonlight in the woods

by Anton Zuiker on January 8, 2020

Back from a meeting of the science writers book club (we discussed Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer) I checked in on my daughters, and found Oliver and Erin already asleep. I went around the house shutting off lights and locking doors, and stepped outside to unplug the string of lights that hang in the carport. It’s not too cold tonight, clear, and the moon will be full soon. It’s bright outside, and so I pulled on my boots and took a walk.

I walk our land as often as I can, in the early mornings or during the day or as dusk settles, always looking for turtles or antlers or snakes or ferns. I love the woods beyond our house. Tonight, and a few nights last month, I walked out in the moonlight halfway down the slope, and stood still for a few minutes, just enjoying a new way to sense the land around me, and marveling at the moon shadows dappling the soft carpet of fallen leaves.

Happy hens

by Anton Zuiker on January 4, 2020

Fresh wood chips for the chicken yard.

My plans for an early Saturday run were canceled by the rain falling at 6 a.m., so I rolled over and fell asleep, and woke again at 8. In the kitchen, as I drank a glass of orange juice, I could hear the hens squawking in their yard. I put on my green rain coat, I pulled on my work boots, and I walked outside to check on the chickens. It was clear they wanted out of their pen. On weekends, when we’re outside working, we open the door and let them out to scratch under the trees. But the pen was a muddy mess, and I didn’t want to be out in the rain, so I promised them I’d be back.

I got into the truck, drove to J.V. Brockwell Trucking in Calvander, and paid $15 for a yard of wood chips. By the time I got home, the rain was mostly mist, and the chickens still clucking loudly, impatiently. I opened the door to let them out, and they went silent as they stepped beyond the pen. I collected five eggs inside the coop, and then used the wheel barrow to transfer the chips to the chicken yard. Within an hour, the sun was out, and the hens had come back inside their pen to explore their clean, tidy yard.

Garden report

by Anton Zuiker on November 14, 2019

An arctic blast reached into North Carolina this week, but the chickens up on their roost inside the coop survived the freezing nights. Right now the temperature is hovering above 32, and there’s a cold rain falling. The growing season is finished.

I wanted to spend more time in the garden this summer. Even so, Erin and I were able to keep it watered, and it had plenty of sun, so the tomatoes did well, and I gathered enough cayenne and habanero chiles to make a couple of batches of hot sauce. The roselle grew tall and I made syrup, which the family enjoyed mixed with soda water. The herbs spread out in their box, and I’ll have thyme and parsley and sage to put into next week’s stuffing. The watermelon vine snaked around and flowered all summer but gave no fruit. A bean grew up the wire wall.

Soon I’ll start to plan for the spring, sketching out the boxes to arrange the plants differently and ordering seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

Chai and my matai mortar

by Anton Zuiker on November 11, 2019

Mortar and pestle from New Zealand

I stopped drinking coffee in early August, and started drinking tea again, though some days I get to early afternoon and realize I have had no caffeine, and what I really need is a cup of cold water.

At home at night I’m back to making masala chai, following the recipe I read long ago in Saveur Magazine. To smash the cinnamon and cloves and cardamom and peppercorn, I use the mortar and pestle, made of matai wood, that I bought in New Zealand when Erin and I vacationed there in 1999. (That was during our Peace Corps service in the Republic of Vanuatu.)

I miss drinking good coffee. I stopped drinking it to save money and to change up my daily routine—not visiting Gray Squirrel every morning gets me to work earlier, and home earlier, and into my running shoes earlier—but I imagine I’ll come to a day when I realize the trusty mortar and pestle will still be here if I give chai a rest.

The slope out back

by Anton Zuiker on November 9, 2019

Today began as a crisp, clear Saturday morning, the first of the fall to start below freezing. Last night I’d shut the door to the chicken coop to trap what heat the hens on their roost might make. Now I stepped into the day and let the hens out into their yard. The early sun was sideways through the trees, and I stood looking across the property, seeing more clearly than ever the way our land slopes to the northeast. I went walking that way, down among the white oaks and yellow poplars and red maples and pignut hickories that have dropped most of their leaves. Liro, our cat, followed, and one squirrel saw him coming and scampered away. A silent morning, and cold, so I returned to the house and the warm bed inside.

Slovenia vodka

by Anton Zuiker on November 7, 2019

On my way home from work this evening, I listened to the Wine & Spirits episode of the From Scatch with Michael Ruhlman podcast. The first half is Michael in his New York City kitchen with chef Brian Polcyn cooking a jus lié (white wine sauce, recipe here), and it made me hungry, and want to spend time in my own kitchen this weekend.

Then, Michael was talking Cabernet Sauvignon with winemaker Dave Phinney and vodka with chef Peter Kelly, who explained how he came to produce Slovenia vodka after visiting that country and discovering the excellent source of buckwheat. Listen to a clip here.

I once had Slovenia vodka in its square bottle, a gift from my good friend and proud Slovenian-American Joe Cimperman. I’m not a regular vodka drinker, but I do remember it as being very good. I think a few other friends discovered it at one of our holiday parties and drained it dry.

At the moment in our freezer is a bottle of Russian Standard vodka. I was introduced that by a Russian friend here in North Carolina.

Styles of communication

by Anton Zuiker on November 6, 2019

I am nearing the ten-year mark in my role as communications director for the Duke Department of Medicine. I’m grateful for the job (and the excellent Duke benefits). I’m proud of how I’ve responded to the needs of the department’s leaders and faculty and medical trainees, and also how I’ve found ways to keep moving forward. The Duke River of News and the Voices of Duke Health listening booth and podcast are two examples.

A couple of years ago, as the department got a new leader (my boss) and big institutional initiatives loomed—workforce well-being, scientific integrity, how healthcare is paid—I recognized an opportunity to push myself to be more effective, creative, and visionary.

One way I’m doing this is by drafting a communications strategic plan to guide my team’s work over the next five years. I’ve worked on this over the last few months, writing and editing and gathering suggestions from colleagues. Many of them highlighted a certain phrase I used on the page describing the styles of communication we follow in our work: “small just, just ahead” was confusing to my colleagues, who clearly weren’t familiar with my blog post, Anticipation, that explains how I developed this perspective. So, I’ve adjusted the punctuation and description in my table of styles.

Here’s what that table now includes:

In my document, I also credit my friend Dave Winer for describing or developing a few of these styles. He’s written extensively about narrating your work, the natural born blogger, and the river of news. Dave recently celebrated 25 years of blogging.

The blogging style also references my own experiences as a blogger.

The park ranger style of communication is another one I’ve described on my blog, in Lone ranger walks again. That post references New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell and his long walks through the boroughs of New York City. I caught another, more-recent reference that suggests the educational role of a park ranger. The NYTimes Travel section last month featured this article about Frederick Law Olmsted’s tours of English parks and how that shaped his vision of landscape design.

In Central Park, Olmsted had established a security system that resembled the policing of city streets. But he returned to New York determined to try a gentler approach to security. Instead of relying on arrests, he blanketed the park with signs listing his rules, which forbade indecent language, throwing stones, picking flowers — even annoying birds. He also assembled a group of so-called park keepers who asserted control with friendly reminders and education.

I was last in Central Park in October 2017 with my family, and before that in May 2016, with Dave.

Back at work, the communications strategic plan has many more pages to reflect our complex and large department and all that we’re planning to communicate in the years ahead.

There will be more to report, I’m sure.

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