65 Degrees in January

I did not call in sick today, though it was awfully difficult not to with the weather being such a temptress. I managed to get out of the office once for a brisk walk in the parking lot (five times around the building equals one mile.) I left the office early and dashed over to Sharon Woods to get in a quick walk around the lake before dark. I was nearly caught speeding in my car past a park patrol officer, but slowed down in time to escape notice. Which is a good thing, because getting a speeding ticket for being in a hurry to take a walk would be really embarrassing.

Yesterday I cooked a nice casserole, which I brought for lunch today. I received the recipe in an email from Vegetarian Times. It's called Three Sisters Casserole (it needs a hot chili or two in the filling) and the name is derived from the staple Native American crops of corn (or maize), beans and squash. The corn was planted in a small mound and would serve as a living pole for the support of the bean vines while the squash grew at the base, its large leaves acting as living mulch to keep out weeds.

I never stopped to wonder why the corn I see in the Ohio fields these years is not as tall as the corn I saw on my way to school in the sixties and seventies. I had assumed it was the usual distortion of time and age, a product of me remembering the corn as taller than it actually was. But according to Bill Bryson, the corn grown today in the Midwest today is a shorter and better producing hybrid. I've never been to a corn maze, but I wonder if the farmers who create them grow the old ten foot tall varieties of corn especially for their labyrinths.