Now we are Three!

Maybe it's been the weather- a cruddy, cold and rainy kind of summer, thick with horrendous mosquitoes and breeding the blight that destroyed all of my heirloom tomatoes. Maybe it's been how rough things have been since Zack lost his job, even though he had a flawless record with his previous employer doing the same job for the same company. Maybe it's just been total ennui, but I haven't wanted to write and for that, dear reader, I apologize.

Since last we spoke, the garden has done a combination of boom and die, the herbs and eggplant are happy and huge, and the tomatoes were doing wonderfully until the blight set in. Now I have no tomatoes, and I'm terribly sad.

See how pretty they were?

Anyway, we haven't been outside much, we haven't been doing much of anything, much. Ro's third birthday came and went with three separate celebrations, we had visits from out of town friends, but it's mostly been quiet. I spent a long morning looking through old magazines- Martha Stewart Living, Everyday with Rachael Ray, etc, and tearing out recipes to keep and recycling the rest, and I gotta say, I am stoked for the fall. And then the winter. And then Christmas!

First time in four years, I can barely contain myself. Mom asked me where we were supposed to put the tree, which, in this house as it currently stands, is a very good question. But it doesn't matter, because my kid is going to get to play in the snow, and that? That is fantastic.

Going to camp! Be back on Sunday!

A little cooking on the side.

To some, this may be the most horrifying sentence you ever read:
I love pickled eggs.

I do! My Nana used to make them constantly when I was little, always with a can of beets in the pickling liquid. Who wouldn't want to bite into a bright magenta egg, all sweet-sour and garlicky, taking just a moment to behold the beauty of that deep pink against the bright yellow of the yolk before finishing it off- three bites! Yum.

So when Nana brought us four dozen eggs from the Ferris farm in Schoharie Valley, and we balked and asked her what we were supposed to do with them, she gestured to an enormous jar we had on hand and insisted I pickle them.

Brown ones with speckles, blue ones from Arucana hens, all of them, into the pot.

(Alas, I had no beets.)

I don't think I can wait the two months to taste them!

A slapdash alteration:

I bought this bag from Old Navy because I find more and more that I favor two things: cross-body bags (I have no shoulders!) and linen. However, when it arrived I realized the strap was TOO short- I'd have to practically put my hand in my armpit to reach in- and there were no extraneous pockets.

Ignoring the mortifying quality of this photo (and the fact that that pocket is only gaping because it was FULL of stuff,) what I did was take a cotton print from India I had kicking around and extended the strap so that it was adjustable by tying it through loops, and cut open a welt pocket on the front of the bag (it was lined and interfaced, so it was easy to slip a pocket under the top layer of linen without it feeling funny on the inside.) I lined the pocket with the same fabric as the strap so that it matched, and used the same dark vermillion-red thread when I did my topstitching. A button and a loop to close, and the bag is perfect now.

Great for trekking into the woods with snacks and trekking back out with feathers, pinecones and stones!

When they ask to see your gods

your book of prayers
show them lines
drawn delicately with veins
on the underside of a bird's wing
tell them you believe
in giant sycamores mottled
and stark against a winter sky
and in nights so frozen
stars crack open spilling streams of molten ice to earth
and tell them how you drank
the holy wine of honeysuckle
on a warm spring day
and of the softness
of your mother
who never taught you
death was life's reward
but who believed in the earth
and the sun
and a million, million light years
of being.

Catechism for a Witch's Child
by J.L. Stanley

Clova Ann Hollowell
Shown holding Ro the morning she was born.
March 1948 - July 2009

My mother in law passed away on Thursday after a three year downhill struggle with brain cancer. We found out she was sick on our wedding night, when Ro was two months old. She was blessed with premonition as her mother and grandmother were before her. In November of 2005 she dreamed that her mother, Thelma, came to her cradling a baby with brown eyes and curly hair. Four days later I found out I was pregnant with Ro, my brown eyed, curly haired girl.

I'm very glad she got to know her, if only for a little while.

Some Summer for a Second

The Greenness

I've never tried to evaluate just how green I am, but I found myself thinking about it today while sitting outside and reading an issue of MSO's Body & Soul. It's a great magazine which I awesomely get for free as a hand-me-down from Nana.

I found myself thinking about what I do to be eco-friendly and body-friendly, what I'm working on doing more and more, and what I'd like to do eventually.

What I do:

• We used cloth diapers for two and a half years, saving about 4,500 disposable diapers and $2,000.
• All of Ro's drinking cups are glass.
• All of Ro's toys are wood or cloth.
  
• We use all natural soaps on Ro, without SLS, Parabens, DMDM or artificial dyes or fragrances.
  
• We have omitted HFCS and artificial coloring from Ro's diet.
• We started a small garden, growing tomatoes, strawberries, herbs, eggplant, garlic and peppers.
• We forage black raspberries from the surrounding forest.
  
• 95% of our wardrobe is cotton, wool or silk.
• We recycle everything we can.
• We compost anything we can.
• All dish and laundry detergent we buy is bio and eco-friendly.
• Instead of paper towels, we have a hoard of tea towels and cloth napkins. We use the old, holey and stained ones for cleaning counters/stovetops/etc and we use the nicer condition ones for wiping faces/hands. I use TP instead of paper towels when cleaning the toilets, then flush the mess.
  
• We spend a lot of time in nature, and I believe that witnessing helps with respecting.
  

What I'm working on:

• Ro's snack bowls and silverware are plastic. I'd like to get small, lightweight metal bowls for her. She's almost old enough to use grown-up silverware without a problem.
• Our garden is small, I'd like to expand it to provide produce for a family of 4.
• I'd like to remove all unnatural fibers from our wardrobes.
• Reducing, because recycling is only slightly better than throwing away.
• Cleaning up litter where I find it in the woods or bodies of water.
• Eating only local or kindly raised meats.
• Omitting as much meat and cow dairy as possible.
• Eating a plant-protein based diet instead of an animal-protein based diet.
  

What I'd like to do:

• Buy a Brita pitcher or Pur faucet attachment and a stainless steel drinking bottle for each member of the household, omitting the use of plastic bottles.
  
• Find ways to incorporate solar power into our home.
• Purchase compact hybrid cars.
• Contact the local company who owns the free-for-all pond behind our house and ask them if I can make "No Littering" signs.
• Omit the use of plastic storage containers and collect vintage glass refrigerator boxes.

This list is very partial! I know there's more I can do, want to do, and am doing. I'll use it as a missive and add to it as I think of things.

More photos from the 4th.