>Readers, are you old enough to remember MegaTrends? In the early 1980s John Naisbitt wrote a book called Megatrends in which he predicted a global switch to high tech in business and in personal relationships. He balanced the high tech with what he called high touch: the low tech connections still necessary to keep our emotional lives balanced.

Yesterday I had a day that swung from low tech to high tech. High touch, maybe. Let’s take a look, and you can decide.

Morning: prepping strawberries! I bought a flat of strawberries at the downtown farmers’ market. It’s best to prep these right away, but Amigo and I had a high-priority plan: a road trip to Miller Park to watch the Milwaukee Brewers play! Major League Baseball; now there’s high tech and low tech melded into one experience.

But back to Sunday’s tasks. I rinsed the strawberries, cut the tops off, and diced them into smaller pieces. The ripest and softest berries went into one container, and the more solid in another. The bucket of softies will become jam; I flash froze the rest. On top of a baking sheet lined with wax paper, I froze a single layer of berries for about an hour. At that time, I dumped the lightly frozen berries into a bucket. The strawberries are now frozen individually rather than in clumps. When I want one cup of strawberries for a cake or muffins, I’ll thaw exactly one cup. This worked so well for us last winter, I almost wanted a bigger freezer!

While the strawberries were freezing, I composted the tops and buried the juice-soiled containers in the squash section of the garden. Small as they are, they’ll be weed barriers until they decompose. It works for me. In addition, I picked a batch of rhubarb for either jam or cookies, also making the rhubarb plants smaller to simplify their transplanting later on.

So far, we’re looking at low tech. Very low tech. Fresh, organic strawberries, produce straight from the producer. Compost. Natural weed barriers. Rhubarb.

Here’s the first hint of high tech: I used a food processor to dice the rhubarb.

Now the main high tech action of the day; a politically active friend came over and trained me in data entry for the local chapter of Organizing For America. She handed over the data sheets from the area canvassers, and I took over from there. Canvassing, whether door to door or by phone, is not my strength. Data entry is one way I can contribute to the cause. High tech, perhaps! But my convictions remain high touch as I focus on issues that can truly make a difference.

But off the political soapbox for a bit. I finished off the evening with one more low tech, high humidity, hands-on, high touch task. I moved the rhubarb plants to their new home. I worked up a sweat in the muggy weather, but it needed to be done. Now the rhubarb is moved, the mint is gone (well, for now), and the raspberries have all the room they need to grow and spread.

And I’ll be patient; no matter what kind of high tech goodies I have at my disposal, the only tool to make raspberries grow is time.