There are mixed messages out there. Some saying Climate Change is a hoax, while seventeen year old Greta Thunberg is saying clearly as possible: Our house is on fire and your inaction fuels the flames, and  you should panic as if you loved your children above all else.

Your house may not be on fire right now like Australia is burning, but your house may have other issues affecting the safety of your children.

We have known for a long time that lead can be harmful to your health and harms children quicker, because their growing bodies absorb more lead than adults do, and their brains and nervous systems are more sensitive to the damaging effects of lead. They are smaller and closer to the source and for our homes that would be the floor.

Starting this week, EPA has changed the amount of dust on floors it takes to be dangerous. The standard  used to be 40 micrograms of lead per square foot (µg/ft2) but it is  now down to 10 µg/ft2 on floors and from 250 µg/ft2 to 100 µg/ft2 on window sills. The concern has been focused on housing built before 1978 and might have lead based paint, but also includes child care facilities and hospitals across the country. But our dust might be from our environment, too.

What does that mean? This information should convince parents to take measures to reduce risks in their homes.
What are we doing? If you currently have a lead poisoned child in your home, LEAD Agency would like to give you a dust mat for the door you go in and out of. What can you do? You could ask EPA why in the latest Press Release on these standards, bare soil in children's play areas should not be higher than 400 parts per million (ppm) of lead, yet the cleanup level for Ottawa County is 500 parts per million (ppm).

You could get your child's blood checked for lead, sign up to get your yard tested by DEQ (for free) and if contaminated with lead, get it removed and replaced (for free).

What can we do? What can one person do? Use door mats, take your shoes off when you come into your house, or even leave them on the front porch. Wet dust and mop. We are encouraging everyone to use door mats to help keep lead out of your house so it will stay out of you and your children. Think your house is clean? watch the sunlight coming in your window or turn on a flashlight at night to see "ten thousand particles, turning softly, twinkling” as Anthony Doerr, described dust.
 
You can learn to speak up, you can be brave, even courageous. That is what Representative Adam Schiff asked US Senators to do, have courage to think for yourself, as it pertained to the trial occurring in the Capitol this week.
You can be brave and ask your landlords if your home or apartment is lead safe, especially now that we know the dust level for lead has been reduced so very low. It changed slowly but the change is official now, as a measure that will be more protective of children. Especially children who are crawling all over their floors.

'It only takes a little lead to contaminate a room.

For example, imagine each granule of sweetener in a sweetener package represents a tiny piece of lead. If only two of these 'lead' granules were placed in a one square-foot area of floor, enough lead would be present to exceed the EPA guidance for lead-contaminated dust.' EPA Lead Sampling Technician Training Course Trainer Manual pp. 3-2
Surely you remember Justin Brown? He sent a couple of journal articles recently showing how of course lead can affect I.Q., we have known that, but also it can make our brains actually smaller and certain areas of lead poisoned children's brains we need for successes in life can be affected, they found, especially for the poor, changing the futures of children and our society.

As poet Gabriel Gadfly has said, “Sometimes I grow so tired of speaking my emotions to you. I open my mouth and dust spills out instead of feelings.”

I guess you can say sometimes I talk dirty. Dust is a dirty deal and a dangerous one for the little ones. We are in a superfund site where the contaminant of concern is lead. Whether you live in a home built before 1978, or have one in your neighborhood, you and your neighbors have yards that may have lead in the soil to be tracked into your home. But Ami Zota's study of air quality found lead in the air throughout our area, perhaps not much on a single day, but it accumulates and it doesn't take much to harm our children.

Your house may not be on fire, but it's a good time to begin doing what you can there and then work outward.

Respectfully submitted ~ Rebecca Jim

There is something special about a hand-me-down cookbook. Being the repository of the most cherished items of my mom, and 2 of her sisters has had me end up with 3 copies of the very same cookbook. My Aunt Sylvia Bradshaw's copy has neatly cut out newspaper and magazine recipes slipped inside. Her sister, Jewel's copy was absolutely spotless, but my mother's copy? the one I grew up using? Stains throughout. My mom and I marked recipes to try again and big X's on ones that just didn't work  and should never be tried again.

The Women's Council First Christian Church's Welch, Oklahoma Cookbook is entitled, "The Way to a Man's Heart" helped me learn to cook, if I wanted to cook a rabbit or make Fried Birds without the birds, or Baby Porcupines without the porcupines. The cookbook is a slice of history, though it does not have the date in it, the recipes are dated with types of ingredients used and the frugality of the times, coming out of the Great Depression and right into the rationing that occurred in WWII. The advertizing included Welch Post Office, Patch Coal Mines: Custom Coal, even "If Nott, Why Nott... try NOTT'S GROCERY 604 South Main, Miami, OK Phone 399" while Chet and Gertrude's Cafe in Welch: A Good Friendly Place to Eat, listed the phone number as simply 3-6.

The other 2 things to mention about this remarkable cookbook: There is a quote on the top of every page. I love quotes and love these because none of them come with the author. But absolutely all of the recipes were submitted by women who listed their name under their recipe. Back in the day, when making something, I would have to call out who's recipe it was and would immediately get grief for using it or acclaim for the reputation of the cook.

If wine was called for in a recipe, like the one for Uncooked Fruit Cake, sweet pickle vinegar or of course peach juice could be substituted. Lard, raisins and brown sugar were necessary for the Black Cake. My Mother's Jam Cake (not my mother's) required "Enough flour for stiff batter" allowing you to  judge  how much that was. A few grains of salt, lots of sorghum and molasses were called for, and one cup of hot mashed potatoes went into the Potato Cake. If the cream was sour, use 1/2 teaspoon soda and on more than one occasion directions called to add butter the size of a walnut.

My older brother is a died-in-the-wool vegetarian, so my mother was always looking for ways to add protein to meals without using meat and she found a recipe to make a meat substitute using peanuts as the base ingredient in this very cookbook. I have modified that recipe to make it my own. In fact, there hasn't been any beef cooked in my home for over thirty years.

But lots of burgers have been cooked and eaten here, and most people who consumed them were shocked after learning the meat was made with PECANS.

Why not give pecans a try, simply takes one cup to make a meal for 4.

While my son was in Law school at OCU, clubs and organizations had fundraisers and he used the recipe and made pecan chili, he said, "Man they loved it! I never forgot them saying, what, NO MEAT? We were Hip with the times, before the times."
 
Pecans can be as expensive as beef, but if you GROW pecans, or know a tree that lays them out on the ground for the picking, you might pick them up for free. You can plant a few pecans and grow your own!

Pecans can decrease total as well as LDL or “bad cholesterol” and increase HDL or “good cholesterol” levels in the blood and are excellent sources of vitamin-E and other important nutrients including protein.

We are on the "cusp of the most consequential disruption of agriculture in history." It is predicted in 10 years the U.S. cattle industry will be effectively bankrupt. Unsustainable livestock production will give way to plant-based agriculture movement as farmers adapt to a changing society and an environment under threat. Farmers are transitioning from animals to more plants according to Civil Eats.

Vegetarian is in. Vegan is coming. Get with the times.

Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim (recipe follows)

                                                                                BETTER BURGERS
                1 cup chopped or broken pecans                                    1 large egg (2 if small)
                Oats, corn meal, bran meal, or bread crumbs                1/3 cup cheese, grated or cut in small pieces
 
            Combine pecans, egg, and cheese. Add enough dry ingredients to dampened them. Mold into patties and cook on a lightly oiled skillet, brown both sides. These cook quickly and will be enjoyed warm.
For chili use the same ingredients and add chili powder and cumin to flavor, spread the whole mixture on the skillet and scrabble like eggs. Add more chili powder and cumin to pot of beans for a delightful pot of chili.
For Italian meatballs, add Italian seasoning to the mixture, mold into balls and brown on the lightly oiled skillet.
If you are cooking for a vegan, the egg and cheese can be substituted with steamed okra to bind the dry ingredients.   Use usual method for mixing. Cook until done. 

When my son was little, he loved to read, right away, so his favorite book was perfectly: I Want to Read, by Betty Ren Wright, published 1972. Another reason he might have learned to love reading: he grew up with books in every room of our house and his grandparents, and both uncles!

He was devoted to the Lewis Meyer Bookshelf, a Sunday morning show on Channel 6 KOTV, with the host reviewing the latest books in his shop in Tulsa on Peoria. The last thing he said before ending the program was a simple phrase, "The more books you read -- The TALLER you grow."

As the years went by, it was turning out to be literally true. My son, kept reading AND he kept getting taller! Now all these years later, he is bound to be over a foot TALLER than me!

Anyone who ever had a bike of their own remembers how special it was, how it fit, color and usually longs to ride it once more. That was me and my son, Dana Jim. We had those kind of bikes and took them in the back of our pickup when he was in high school to Tulsa to ride the River trails, which on a bike is not far from the Lewis Meyer bookstore, so of course we went there, locked our bikes to a pole outside and went in holding our helmets to enjoy the shop and to shop, knowing no one leaves without buying a book. But as we walked out, both of our bikes were gone. We were helmeted, bike-less people. Mr. Meyer was appropriately shocked at this occurrence. 

Last year, Tony Booth, who had been one of LEAD's board members for years, walked up the ramp to our office 30 years later with one of the bikes, the red Schwinn Mesa Runner with new handlebars. Tony had bought it for $5 at an auction and was donating it to LEAD because we are all about getting people back on bikes. Dana's bike was back like magic you would read at that bookstore. And suddenly we recalled Mr. Meyer saying, "I think people who spend time with their noses in books are the happiest people. "Because books never let you down." And getting your bike back works, too.

Talk about books and someone who loves books that's JoAnn Walkup. She graduated and got the 50 year reunion sweatshirt from Miami High School, and she started a dream career when she worked in that library. Her whole life's work has been in libraries and you have to know books tended to follow her around those 50 years. But this week she decided to lay some on LEAD Agency.

JoAnn recently listed her home, and it sold quickly and reality hit her: she had to empty it right away. She has a giving-heart, so this week she has been "hearting" lots of people and places most of her processions...

And LEAD Agency was on both the "bring a pickup" and the dropping by with a few things lists. Precious children's books, some for our treasured Little Free Library, and some will be kept on our most loved book shelves in the office. Other books she was compelled to gift us were environmental, Indian, birds and garden themed. Think about birds? A stack of books, also binoculars, games, cd's AND actual birdbaths with a heater to keep water from freezing this winter, (if we have a winter) and a Bird Call! It was like that for gardening, too, with plant stand, books, a red azalea and what she called a tulip tree, both in large pots. These required a set of garden chairs and a settee of course to watch birds and rest from the gardening.

Resting from gardening should have been what Jamie Munson and I did today after hours in the beautiful spring like afternoon. Who else to get and proudly wear that blue MHS Wardog sweatshirt, but a "girl" athlete who did all the sports offered to girls back in the day.

JoAnn knows LEAD is always thinking about how to keep the lights on at our office, so among the items she gave might be matched with a good bottle of wine  for a Silent Auction such as the one of a kind book by a MHS alumni,  official Coleman Theater memorabilia and a colorful plate with a motto: until further notice... celebrate everything, which seemed appropriate with the joy she was experiencing while lessening her load with us. 

We are the silent keepers of a set of Pueblo pottery Storytellers her brother Bob Walkup had given her over the years. Keeping until her next home or nest is ready for them. What perfect gifts for his sister, the champion "storyteller" herself. Lots of her stories begin with a book and then take you off to what happened to who read it and what they are doing with the rest of their lives. Books written by then quite classmates she never imagined had a book in them.

And there is balance when the whirlwind of a woman left to find her next gifting, took a moment to sit out by the Little Free Library, made richer with her books.

Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim

A friend of mine, Eric Ferrell, sent an article from the Joplin Globe about lead contamination in Paris after Notre Dame burned last April. Notre Dame is Paris and its beauty is renown.

The roof of that centuries old structure, held up with beams made from 13,000 ancient trees had been coated with between 250  and 440 TONS of lead thought to make it fireproof.  A fire started inside the structure and the beams burned, lead melted and dripped down into the structure and the flames carried the yellow fumes containing lead particles onto the neighborhood.  All these months later Paris is dealing with the massive cleanup that is required to protect human health from lead poisoning. They were finding lead dust levels 500 and 800 times the official safe levels. The levels in Ottawa County is currently 500 ppm of lead in soil would trigger cleanup. Imagine how high they were finding in Paris!
 
Pregnant women and children are being encouraged to have their blood lead checked even as cleanup continues. Some schools were cleaned up quickly but more schools have had to be closed after lead was also discovered there.  Paris is finding out a lot about lead, that it will not dissolve and dissipate, it is poison and it must be removed. We know this and Ottawa County residents are gearing up to make those phone calls to DEQ and get their property tested in 2020, and encouraging their neighbors to get with the program! If we got in gear, we will be cleaned up way before Beautiful Paris gets the lead out.
 
Back in the day, I thought of myself as an artist. My first love, painting took me to Taos, then I turned to beadwork being taught technique and skills on assembly from Betty Pinnecoose who ensured if work was constructed well enough it could be lost in the river and upon being found, it would still hold together. While living in Sapulpa, I took a basketmaking class taught by Hepsey Gilroy and began a lifelong love of making baskets.  My skills in basket making and beadwork allowed me to have the confidence to hang with a fledgling group of Cherokee artists, back in the day. The talent was immediately recognizable with Bill Glass, Jr., Mike Daniels, Anna Bell Mitchell and Knokovtee Scott and they allowed me to join the group in both beading and basket categories.
 
I have become a slacker.  Just today, I sat in my bead-making nook waiting for the beads to yell at me for leaving them to wait so long to become the something else they long to become. And took a walk outside to appraise the buckbrush and honeysuckle vines that claim they long to become baskets.
 And while walking, I thought of two of those original Cherokee artists who have gone on, first Anna Bell Mitchell, who used the clay from our land to create pots, some she actually gave back to us as gifts. The other newly gone. Knokovtee Scott used the purple mussels he found around area lakes to create shell jewelry with Mississippi Mound culture designs that had once been made in the southwestern U.S. a thousand years ago.
 
The latest photos of Knokovtee showed him always wearing a surgical mask around his neck, I thought to help keep the shell dust from entering his lungs when drilling or cutting shells. A comment he made in a 2017 Cherokee Phoenix article became more cryptic since his December death, “I’m in a race against time to make sure this is not lost again.” I have several items he created and I will always wonder if they helped cause his death.
 
But the other thing I never considered to be at issue with local shells is what else they contain. We know there are issues with lead in some of the fish in Grand Lake, Spring River and the Neosho. We have found lead in the teeth of some of our residents. Studies have shown lead in the tissue of mussels. But in the shells? Yes. Mussels filter heavy-metals in contaminated waters and can accumulate toxins in their shells.

Gillian Genser is a sculptor in Canada who learned shells used in her artwork had caused her heavy-metal poisoning only after suffering debilitating symptoms for years. Doctors found high levels of arsenic and lead in her blood. The mussels she had been working with for decades were toxic, likely contaminated from industrial waste. She had sanded, grinded shells for her sculptures but also had eaten the mussels.

Ms Genser hoped her art and suffering might create a sense of connectivity and reverence for the natural world. "I feel grief—both for myself and our planet." But also satisfaction from her art. "That’s how I find my hope. I call [one of her pieces] my beautiful death."

As artists, as natives, as people who want to base back to our culture, or live off the land, we have all expected our environment to be safe but now we know it may not be.

Be cautious but walk in beauty or go create it, "beauty is the promise of the future.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim