Month: May 2013

Weaving Wednesday 9

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130528 Weaving (1)My weaving instructor rethreaded the mistake in my warp over the weekend – have I mentioned just how awesome she is?  I began to weave this throw in earnest last night.  It’s a lot of fun.  I love a complicated pattern and overshot really fills that bill.  The draft is hanging from the castle of the loom at the top of the photo (well part of it is).  I was able to get through 3 1/2 repeats and probably wove 15 inches or so.

I’m still a little bit in awe of the whole process.  It amazes me that something that looks this incredibly complicated can be quite simple if you break it into small steps, sort of like life’s problems.  Weaving could really be used as a metaphor for life with all of its steps in process, problems to be figured out, moving through it with some mundane work interspersed with possible broken threads or mistakes.

As you weave you become intimate with the pattern, you know every jog and curve.  The draw down on the draft tells me exactly where I have left off in the treadling.  It’s a good thing because I have to rewind the bobbin with the red yarn about a third of the way through each repeat.  I’m always coming back to my bench and thinking, “Hmmmm, where was I?”  I’m happy to report that it became much easier to figure out the third time through.  I think the best part about this pattern is by the time I’m sick of weaving the repeats I’ll be done!  Win, win.

130528 Weaving (2)

 

When A Plan Comes Together

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130527 TillerAs most people know the holiday weekend began rainy and very cold for this time of the year.  When the sun came over the horizon on Monday morning I immediately got up, had coffee, dressed and went out to the garden.  I felt like I now had one day to do what I had planned on doing in three.  I spent the first couple of hours spreading fertilizer and tilling.  The photo above is what I looked at for quite a while.  I have to say in spite of the noise it’s quite meditative, especially walking behind it in the soft, tilled earth (smells great too).

The next chore was planting my asparagus (finally).  I was using bone meal and had to keep careful watch of the new bed – Chester thinks it smells heavenly and is sure if he digs something fantastic will come up.

I then got out my fence posts and paced off my garden design.  I put the teepee up in the center of the plot.  Then I divided up either end of the garden into the spaces I was planning for crops I would be planting.  I planted onions – red and yellow – on the north end along with the start of the tomatoes with the ones that Bill had bought from the flower gypsy.  I raked the soil for the four corners in the center where the corn will go and realized that I had a lot more space for other plants so made the decision to plant hills of squash and long pie pumkins.  So in essence it will be 3 sisters planting but in a more mannerly fashion.

I also planted the four pepper plants that Bill brought home next to the garage wall with the garlic.  There was space and it’s a nice warm, sunny spot, I thought they’d be happy there.

Later, while mowing some of my sister’s field (her mower broke last week), I saw her out planting her seeds and I have to tell you that my head was screaming “Go back and plant those seeds!” It’s May 27th though and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve planted things too early pushed by warm weather and sunshine.  The urge to plant something when it starts to warm up is powerful.  I remembered how many times I’ve had to replant things (2 and 3 times) because I was impatient and planted too early.  My seed will go in this coming weekend in what portends to be blistering heat and humidity but I’ll know the soil is warm enough.

With the lawn mowed and the garden structure there I took a couple of photos and thought about how nice it is when a plan comes together.  This is going to be a great garden.

130527 Garden

 

The Ruby Rocket

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Ruby RocketI was at The Blue Rock restaurant last night.  I went on a mission really because even though it is one of my favorite restaurants I had heard a rumor that the Ruby Rocket cocktail was to die for.  Strawberry Rhubarb pie filling in a glass.  I’m in, all in.

This cocktail was soooooo good I had to know how to make it and our waiter was also the cocktail master. Best happy accident EVER!  Although truth be told I would have hunted down the brains behind this cocktail before I left the restaurant (maybe because I’d had two who knows).

This cocktail is made with a rhubarb infused vodka, strawberry simple syrup and lime.  Today I’m on a mission to make the infused vodka.  When the strawberries are ready the simple syrup will be made and Fourth of July week will be nothing but these delightful martinis all around.

This is slow food at its best in my opinion.  I will update as the process goes along.

 

Beginning in Earnest

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130526 (2) Garden PlanYesterday in the cold, rainy, windy weather I went through my seeds and actually drew up the garden plan.  It had been in my head for  a while just finally put pen to paper.  Today I plant the crowns and bulbs, put up the bean teepee and get out the seed potatoes.  Last night it was cold by any standard but the forecast for the rest of the week is warm and sunny.  By the 31st I should be able to put my seeds in the ground if the forecast holds true.  All of my seed comes from High Mowing Seeds in Vermont.  They are organic, non-GMO and many are open pollinated.  Honestly the best seed I have ever used.

I had taken all of my annuals in pots into the shed on Friday night, this morning I will go see how my lonely little eggplant fared. I will be mixing beans on the poles this year, I’ve planted just a green bean in the past couple of years but I really have missed the scarlet runners – and I’m assuming so have the birds.  I will also plant sunflowers in the corners with the popcorn.  I’m kind of taking for granted the popcorn will end up being fodder for raccoons but you never know.  This variety is Tom Thumb and only grows to a maximum height of 3 feet, I’m more than a little excited about this experiment.

We have a guy in Enfield we refer to as the flower gypsy.  He’s a wholesaler who has a van and goes from shop to shop selling cut flowers – this time of year annual pots and vegetables.  He comes around every other week or so with what he figures will sell for the season.  During the winter it’s always long stem roses from Ecuador.  Easter it’s lilies, cut flowers for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I was pleasantly surprised when I walked into the shop the other day to four pepper plants and four tomatoes.  Bill always buys me flowers but apparently he’s been listening and bought food.  Hehehe, excellent, my plan is working, one person at a time.

Survival

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130526 (1)It’s cold, wet, did I mention cold?  Right now it’s 41 degrees, it’s raining and the wind is blowing.  I had grand plans for gardening this weekend and the only thing I’ve accomplished is going through my seeds and drawing out a garden plan.  I had to take all my pots in last night because it was so cold.

Of course I haven’t mentioned all of the indoor projects I could be doing – but it’s Memorial Day weekend, I should be in the garden.  I guess I will just keep the fire going until tomorrow morning and hope it dawns sunny, warm and dry.

 

For Your Kids

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If you have small children this is perfect!

Mr. Zee’s Apple Factory – A children’s story about factory food

Yeah, yeah, I know I’m a pest but this is also entertaining.

Food Rant Friday

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Growing Food in Protest

 

My initial intention was that Food Rand Friday would be a one time thing, apparently I have just too much to say about it.

I’ve been seeing a lot of info this week about the nationwide march against Monsanto and wonder to myself what this is really going to accomplish.  A group of basically like-minded people will get together and rant about what Monsanto is doing to our collective good health.  Marching against anything these days doesn’t seem to have the impact it once had.  Our legislators are not going to change their ways of voting on the farm bill or anything else because thousands of citizens got together to voice their disapproval of big ag’s farming practices.  Most will vote with whoever is funding their bids for reelection, plain and simple.  The sooner the population realizes this the sooner we can deal with it in a more constructive way.

Michael Pollan is my hero if for no other reason than to tell people to read labels and if there is more than five ingredients on it or there are ingredients that you don’t understand don’t eat it.  That’s pretty simple.  It doesn’t take much to read the label on that bag of Cheetos to know that they probably aren’t that good for you and that you are supporting big ag by buying and consuming them.  There are so many other reasons not to eat processed food but honestly I’ve said enough about that.

Today I have two articles to share the first is about the possible effects of Roundup on our guts and potentially our very lives (like we didn’t really already know that).  Gut Punch: Monsanto Could Be Destroying Your Microbiome was an article I read this morning that I thought was interesting but just one more reason not to eat food produced by large agriculture.  This article led me to Michael Pollan’s piece in the NYT – Some of My Best Friends are Germs.  This is a lengthy piece which is typical for Pollan only because when he makes a case for something he gives you as much information as he can.  Read it, it’s fascinating and more than a little scary.

Our food, in my humble opinion, has become one of the biggest political issues of our time.  I feel like there are so few people who are even aware of it that the idea of changing what is happening to the everyday American is all but impossible.  We are bombarded everyday with news of terrorism and tragedy that the danger of the food you buy in your grocery store takes a very back seat to the tragedy du jour.  Let’s put armed guards in every elementary school in the country to keep our children safe, let’s make sure there’s a safe room in each school as well to ensure in case of a tornado they’ll have somewhere safe to go.  Okay, I get it, but how about increasing the food budgets and finding access to organic fresh foods in every cafeteria across the country.  How about putting home economics back into the school curriculum to give our children the knowledge they need to cook a meal from scratch or help them to read the ingredient labels on their food.  How about teaching them where their food comes from?

Honestly, kids need to know more about farm animals than the cow says moo and the chicken says cluck.  They need to know the cow means milk and burgers and the chicken is eggs and McNuggets (maybe).  I worked at Old Sturbridge Village as an interpreter for a few years, fortunately for the kids I was in textiles.  Early on though I worked as a gardener. One year we were harvesting carrots and I had a little girl help pull some up – she was amazed, she didn’t know they came out of the ground!  I also had an experience of stopping kids from harassing one of the roosters in the barnyard.  He thought it was just a stupid bird, I told him that if he continued to corner and harass that bird it would attack him and then we’d have to kill him and eat him.  The kid looked at me like I was nuts and I told him that that was where his chicken nuggets came from – then he really thought I was crazy.  These kids were typically in the fourth grade.  I’m beginning to think that we’ve crossed the Rubicon with food education because the vast majority of parents don’t know where their food comes from either.  Talk about the dumbing down of America.

I will continue to use the poster at the beginning of every food rant because I am convinced the only way we are going to get ourselves out of our collective health problems is to grow our own food or source it, know where it comes from and what is in it.  If it makes you feel better go march against Monsanto on Saturday, while you’re there talk about what you are growing this year or what farmer’s market is near the person you’re talking to.   I’m hoping that in addition to being a protest it can be an education and an avenue for people to know where they can get good, healthy food for themselves and their families.

 

 

 

 

Jacks

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130523 Jacks

 

Arisaema triphyllum (Jack-in-the-pulpit, Bog onion, Brown dragon, Indian turnip, American wake robin,[1] or Wild turnip) is a herbaceousperennial plant growing from a corm. It is a highly variable species typically growing from 30 to 65 cm in height with three parted leaves and flowers contained in a spadix that is covered by a hood. It is native to eastern North America, occurring in moist woodlands and thickets from Nova Scotia west to Minnesota, and south to southern Florida.

Okay, so that’s probably more than you need to know right now about this plant but let me tell you why this plant is special to me.  When we moved to Fort Pelham Farm in 1967 there was what remained of the front porch still attached to the house.  It was a cement topped stone slab of sorts that went the entire length of the front of the house.  There were stairs (crumbling) on each end and in the center in front of the door – all about the symmetry here.  Along the road were 4 huge sugar maple trees.  I’m assuming they had been planted around the time the house was built.  This was wonderful in the summer because it completely shaded the front of the house which faces west.  When houses were built back in the day they were oriented to the sun in such a way that in the winter passive solar helped heat the house at well as giving maximum light.  The trees were planted to keep the house cooler in the summer.  The site wasn’t chosen for where the road was but the road went by the house.  Today’s building rarely takes orientation into consideration because they are always building planned “communities” around streets and cul-de-sacs.

Back to the Jacks.  Spring, summer and fall the front of the house was always moist and very shady.  The plantings along what remained of the porch were overgrown and filled in with years of mulched leaves.  From the first spring that we were here my mother cleaned out the beds and discovered the jack in the pulpits.  She would always bend over, lift the hood of the plant and exclaim “There’s Jack!”  I don’t remember a spring she didn’t do that – and she especially like showing it to my girls when they were little.  It gave the plant just a little more magic.

Years later, long after my mother was gone, my father decided to remove what remained of that porch during one summer.  The trees had all fallen, been cut up and taken away and the sun was shining full force on the front of the house.  I dug up the corms of the jacks and moved them to the north corner of the house where the shed meets the ell.  I was surprised at what little there is to them once the leaves have died back.  I was reluctant to do it but knew if I didn’t try to move them they would be lost. Then I waited.

It’s a long wait from July until the following May.  The spot where I planted them has snow on it that is the absolute last to melt.  Sure enough they popped out of the ground like that have every other year for who knows how long.  I was so happy to see them.

They are the protected species on my property, I watch them, make sure any repairs being done or painting doesn’t disturb them.  And every spring like this one I go out, lift up their hoods and think “There’s Jack!”

Weaving Wednesday 8 – Maltese Cross

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130521 Maltese Cross (2)I finished warping last night and began weaving a dry run to see if there were any mistakes with some different yarn than I have to weave the throw.  Pretty cool isn’t it?  Well, not as cool as you might think because there WAS a threading error and we narrowed it down to the 15 or 20 threads.  Now it has to be fixed.  This is always amazing to me – you thread four harnesses in a certain way, weave with your treadling a certain way and this is what happens.  All I can say is WOW.  I am sooo hooked.

 

Another Photobomb

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130519 Photobomb 2Chester spent the entire time getting into my photographs on Sunday – I kid you not.  It was raining and he was just thrilled that someone was outside to follow around.  This is one of the side gardens at the house.  In the background is the stump of a large pine tree that came down a few years ago.  Changed the whole makeup of that garden, what was once completely shaded came into the sun.  Right now it’s full of weeds.  That’s on the list for this week, fortunately it’s fairly well established and I can get it done in a couple of hours.  I’m thinking this may be a good spot for the gas plant.

I had to leave Chester at work yesterday with Bill.  On the way home I thought “I hope he remembers he’s there”.  Sure enough Bill drove in the yard and walked into the house without Chester.  He’d turned off the lights and locked up the shop with Chester sleeping in his crate.  Bill turned around and went back to get him, he said he was calm and cool, like nothing had happened.  Guess we’ve turned a corner on the separation anxiety thing.