Today, I am...

...feeling the first whisper of fall.

...dying dingy whites to give them new life.


...bleaching faded sheets.

...taking down New Chicken's pen (for good!).

...marveling at the first egg laid by New Chicken!

(yes, that is a golf ball in the background. We had read that it's one way to get a chicken to stop eating eggs, which the new girl did the first time Sally laid with her around. So far, it has worked!)

...finishing up last year's homemade hard cider.

...making homemade bug spray.


...reading this year's farm school student bios.

...blocking knitting projects.


...enjoying kitty enjoying shoebox.


....hoping for some good news.

Brittany

I love my bike! Aaron and I have been really trying to take advantage of the fact that we live so close to a very nice bike trail right now (and not dwell too much on the fact that we were supposed to move already).

We've been trying to take different routes and trails often to keep it interesting. Aaron got me this bike when we still lived in Somerville. It is the perfect bike for me! Small, fast, and cute. Plus, it has a basket. I've named her Brittany, because that's the kind of bike she is (a Brittany Free Spirit).

Me and Brittany on Nantucket

Aaron got me some really cool bike gear for my birthday this year because we've been biking so much. He got me some awesome rainbow streamers, which look so great as I'm zipping along the trail! Also, he made me a proper farm produce box to go on the back. I plan to use my new wood burning kit to decorate it with "our" farm logo.

Clematis on the front porch

Sigh. There are many things I will miss about this little house. My beautiful clematis is certainly one of them.

Local Meal

As we were sitting down to lunch recently, I realized that the meal we were eating was almost entirely made of local ingredients. I snapped a few pictures for an obligatory and probably boring "this is what I had for lunch" post.

The Menu:
Quiche
Roasted Radishes
Pickled Ramps

I'll admit that the crust on the quiche is not local. I have yet to find a local flour source. It is homemade, however, so that counts for something! The eggs, of course, are from our two favorite chickens on the block, so they are ultra-local. The quiche also contains some sausage that we got from a local farmer.

We bought the radishes at one of the first farmer's markets of the season. They were only $1.50 a bunch and so beautiful. We bought a few bunches and decided to experiment with some, so we roasted them. I know it sounds weird to roast radishes, but they are phenomenal. Just put them in a casserole dish, use a little butter, salt and pepper, and some balsamic vinegar and let them broil for a few minutes. They come out really caramelized and sweet, not at all strong like a raw radish.

I talk about the ramps here, but this meal was prepared a few weeks later, when our pickles had had enough time in the brine for us to try them. They were REALLY great! Wow! The coriander in the brine produced a nice lemony taste.

So, there you have it. A pretty quick and painless (mostly) local meal. If we all ate this once a week, we would save 1.1 MILLION BARRELS OF OIL PER WEEK. And it was all so delicious.

Rose in Bloom

I just had to take some pictures of our rose bushes, which are currently in full and beautiful bloom. When my mom was here the yellow rose bush in the front yard was just beginning to bud and she couldn't believe how big it was. You see, she got me this little rose bush a few years ago and it was no bigger than my two fists put together. I didn't even take very good care of it and here it is, just bursting with roses at least twice a year. I really want to transplant this bush and take it with me but I am also terrified to uproot it.



In other rose-related news, today Aaron built a couple of quick trellises for the backyard rose garden. Of course, we do not deserve to enjoy such things ourselves, we only do them when we are poised to move. The roses were literally falling into the pathway, thorns sticking into any skirt or petticoat that came near. I think that they will enjoy their new support and train up the trellises very nicely. Plus, it makes the yard look all the more Secret-Gardenish for perspective buyers, so $10 and a couple of hours seems worth it.

Fallingwater

My mother came to visit a couple of weeks ago. We had marathon house cleaning and packing sessions, which was such a huge help. Sometimes you need someone there to help you get started on such a huge project. We did find a little time to take the drive up to Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob, two houses designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Both are only about a 30 minute drive from our house, so it was nice to go one last time before we move.


Fallingwater is an incredible piece of art. If you are driving through Western Pennsylvania, I highly recommend seeing this. I love going there and imagining what it was like to live there. I think going there a few times in different seasons is one of the best things we've done since we moved here. You see new details each time you visit.


It was our first time seeing Kentuck Knob, another Frank Lloyd Wright house just a few minutes from Fallingwater. It was really neat, as well. The kitchen is an octagon in the middle of the house and the hallways are narrow. I kept imagining what it would be like to live there in winter and decided that it wouldn't be a bad place to hibernate.

Pickled Ramps

My first canning experiment of the season was also my first attempt at pickling. I decided to try this recipe for pickled ramps to use up the rest of our bucketful. We have yet to taste them, but the recipe was easy-peasy and it gave me a chance to get out my canner, which I admit I was a little too excited to do. Canning is fun, though. Now that I have been properly guided through a couple of different canning projects (thanks, grandma!), I have started to do a little bit of canning on my own and it is not so scary as I thought. In fact, it is a blast. I am looking forward to canning all kinds of new stuff this year (even sans-garden) and pickled ramps seem like a good starting point.

Foraging

It seems so early in the year, but we have been busy outside. I have spent much time doing a bit of foraging lately, in search of wild edibles. Our friend called us up to let us know that the hillside near her house was covered with ripe ramps, a kind of wild leek very popular in West Virginia. So we sped over there and started digging. One bucketful gave us enough to be a little overwhelmed, but we've been eating, preserving and enjoying them all week.

While I was on a roll, I decided to assess the dandelion situation in our yard and pulled quite a few up to use in salads. I'm interested in using the roots, too. Apparently, they make a good tea.

And then there are the violets. Oh, they are gorgeous. Remember this? I'd like to do something with them again this year, but I'm not sure what. They're just too lovely to pass up, though.

Dustin and Julie

Our trip to the Upper Peninsula was so much fun. It snowed and snowed and snowed. I loved being able to celebrate with Dustin and Julie, help them with what they needed before the big day, and just spend time with family during such a happy time. I loved all of the beautiful snow, staying at the cozy hobbit house and the chalet, going to The Bell.

The wedding was lovely. Winter weddings are so cozy feeling. The Bride and Groom both looked great and everyone had a great time. Monica’s cake was so beautiful and everything turned out great.

Thoughts on the New Year

New Year's resolutions are pretty stupid, nevertheless, I find myself hoping for renewal, pushing for change and looking within each January.

Some goals for 2011:

Crafting

• I'd like to do all homemade Christmas gifts. We didn't do that this year and it was stressful. I've already started some projects.

Reading

• I'd like to spend the year reading Virginia Woolf

Eating

• I'd like to make a more serious commitment to eating locally, working toward making the majority of my intake locally produced by October
• I am quitting commercial soda-pop with the help of my new Penguin.
  

Home

• Continued transitions

Soul

• less computer and tv
• more books
• more yoga (I wish there was a yoga studio on my side of town)
  

Christmas Menu

Roast Goose
Butternut Squash and Gruyere Bread Pudding
Roasted Root Vegetables
Individual Yorkshire Puddings with Rosemary
Bitter Greens with Pomegranate Seeds and Goat Cheese with Balsamic Dressing

Raspberry Pie
Mulled Red Wine

Cold/Flu

Celestial Seasonings Echinacea Complete Care tea has found its way into my teacup, so it's fair to say that cold and flu season is here. I generally work really hard to stay healthy through the winter, and I'm usually pretty successful. Though I often feel like I'm catching something, I rarely have a full-blown cold/flu (knock on wood). When I start to feel like I am coming down with something, I've found these precautions to be extremely helpful in fighting it off:

Echinacea: taken at the first twinge of a sore throat or body ache, I think this stuff really works. However, half of the secret is believing, like Santa. It loses its magic if you don't believe.

Emergen-C/Airborne: I think it really tastes gross (Aaron won't even drink it) but I notice improvement within a couple of hours, if I take it early enough.

Gargle: take warm salt water and gargle repeatedly. Swab the inside of your nose with it, too. It helps.

Hot beverages: I think it is related to the warm gargle thing. The steam helps you rid the germs.

Lots of fluids: flush those bad boys out of your system.

soup: At the first sign of feeling a little under the weather, I crack out the miso paste. Aaron knows that if I am in the kitchen standing over a broth he should look out because I don't feel good. I think that this is also related to the gargle, as it is basically hot salt water, when you break it down. I also think that putting as many vitamin-rich things in it as possible and some protein will help you boost your immune system. Adding some noodles for carbs doesn't hurt, either. I find that when I don't feel good, soup is all I want. I put onions, carrots, spinach, seaweed, rice noodles and lots of other stuff into my miso soup. It usually makes me feel better within a few hours. When I'm really sick, it's chicken soup all the way.

Hot shower: kick out those germs.

Washing hands: I try not to touch my face and I usually wash my hands before and after I use the restroom.

A good night's sleep: even if it means taking something to help you stay asleep, sometimes it is what your body needs.

Keeping distance: I feel like Kramer, but I catch myself literally wince and back away when someone coughs around me. I also notice that I'm really bad about giving people dirty looks when they are sick in public. I may have yelled at a lady on an airplane about not wearing a face mask because she was coughing all over the place. I may have made her change seats. *cringe* Whatever, I want to stay healthy. I think that once you have that first cold of the season, it is really hard to get your immune system back in 100% working order, so putting that off for as long as possible is key.

Blueberry Picking 2010

I love Summer

Though I am typically a winter person, yesterday pretty much confirmed the great things about summer. I picked 24 cherry tomatoes and two bell peppers from the garden. We bought fresh corn from local farmers on the side of the road. We went to the farmer's market and bought a ton of stuff, simply because it was so cheap and so fresh. $1 for a pint of basil (even though we're growing our own...I couldn't pass it up: an extra batch of pesto to have in winter). $2 for a ton of eggplant, promptly made into a caponata and placed in the freezer. 3/$1 cucumbers that are so sweet and snappy. 2/$1 (huge) zucchini that will be stuffed and frozen shortly. 2 pints of fresh, local peaches also came home with us not long ago.

Also, we have been picking apples from our trees like crazy. We'd like to try making cider this time around. The problem is that our trees are too tall. I can't get to most of the apples, even with a ladder and a picker. Now I know that dwarf trees might be the way to go, next time around.

Peas

We're harvesting peas like crazy over here. They're so pretty. I think we would have had more, but our trellis fell down and I never bothered fixing it. We built a very elaborate trellis with bamboo and duct tape and after the first big rain the duct tape decided to give (note to self: duct tape isn't the answer to all of life's problems). I've been a little preoccupied with school. But these lovelies were plump and begging to be picked when I found them.



In other garden news, I'm trying beans for the first time and they are in full bloom. Any tips? I can't remember if they are bush beans or not. Not sure what to do.

Seed Exchange

Yesterday I hosted a seed exchange through work. The idea is simple: if you grow plants, chances are you aren't using the whole packet of seeds. So, why not swap out those extra seeds for something else you'll use? You get something, someone else gets what you don't need. We all celebrate locally grown food. Everyone is happy.

The more significant aspect of this has to do with beliefs that run a little deeper, a little more serious. Hybridization and large-scale agribusiness have ensured that only a fraction of plant species are being consumed in America today. Others are becoming extinct or are on the brink of extinction because no one grows them. This makes our food system very unsustainable and susceptible to devastating disease. So, though all seeds were welcome, the focus of the seed exchange was heirloom varieties, whether the seeds were purchased or saved year after year at harvest time.

I was honored that our favorite seed company, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, out of Missouri, donated an astronomical amount of heirloom seeds specifically for this event. It allowed me the opportunity to make sure that people had a lot (A LOT) to choose from and also it gave me the chance to make sure everyone left with seeds, whether they had something to trade or not. Because, the point is that people plant them and hopefully save the seeds from this crop to plant next year. I need to make sure I properly thank my friends at Baker Creek.

One of the stars of the day was a pack of seeds for the West Virginia 63 tomato, a locally refined heirloom variety. I can't say how I got the seeds, but I worked hard to track them down. I felt it added another dimension to the idea of celebrating locally grown food if we could have a local heirloom present.

I was a little nervous about this event. It seems like there are some very deep-running class issues about growing your own food here for some reason, so I wasn't sure what the response would be. However, I managed to get the word out to the right places and more than 50 people swapped seeds and stories and gardening tips yesterday. They all want to do it again. It was kind of incredible and I have to say, I am so proud that this experiment was such a success. It really confirmed the importance of promoting locally grown food, self-reliance, community action, and etc.

Crazy Hippie Jelly

Aaron: How does it make you feel that, for your first time canning anything, you made crazy hippie jelly?


I feel great about it! Success! We had all of these violets growing in our yard and I had been wondering what I could do with them, if they were edible, etc, etc. And then I stumbled across this recipe and I knew that I should try it. I am sure my neighbors think I'm crazy. I was crawling around on our lawn for an hour and a half picking flowers while two little chickens followed closely behind.


One neighbor even stood out on his deck and asked if I'd been stung by a bee or something. Embarrassing. But it's good to use what grows around you and come winter, these little pots of sugared jewels will be a welcome reminder of spring.

This recipe was very easy, but the canning of it was a little high-stress. I kept wishing that I had a grandma there to show me how it's done. Not quite sure I mastered it. Are you supposed to put it into the jars while it's still boiling or take it off the heat to fill the jars? Help!

Anyway, I have 10 little jars of violet goodness in my pantry, so I guess I did something right!

Picnic No. 1: Easter

We decided to go for an Easter picnic at the last minute. We hadn't planned a fancy meal or anything. Enjoying the weather seemed just the ticket. When we got to the arboretum, we were ecstatic to find the magnolias in bloom! The purple-pink flowers are so pretty, but I swear: they bloom for like a day and then look like brown, depressing death. So, it was nice to catch them while they were here.


I liked the bark on this tree.


Elf always thinks the picnics are just for him. They kind of are.



Best friends.



Aaron and I took turns reading one of our favorite read-aloud books: My Side of the Mountain. Yes, we ate cold pizza.

Menu

Pizza, two kinds
Fresh strawberries
Homemade half-moon cookies

4 Happinesses

1) Oregon

2) Donkey Baby

3) Nice Weather
4) Gardening