Still Life with Wood Stove

Take risks! jump in!

2010-05-06T09:13:00.000-07:00

I'm going in! The forecast has no frosts through May 15th, which is the average last frost date - so I'm going to plant my tomatoes and everything that I was going to plant indoors last week (like marigolds) outdoors today or tomorrow (depending on the weather). Then I will pray. And possibly find out who has extra floating row cover (a white, floaty mesh covering for plants in case of late frosts - it has to be hooped up over the plants with pvc piping). I only need a little bit, so it would be a shame to buy a whole row.

My tomatoes are tall enough to be staked at this point. The peppers didn't respond well to hardening off, so I lost 2 plants in the cold frame, but that's okay. the few calendula and daisies the survived the dampening off epidemic that hit this spring are going strong. The leeks are spindly and never quite grew well. I can't tell why, but I'll try to transplant them and see how they do. I've decided I'm going to grow several of the smaller tomato varieties (Garden peach and also the ground cherries) in pots so as to have them right at my doorstep. I'm also going to try to keep the black krim in a pot, though I don't know how much they like that, seeing as they're big plants. the sauce tomatoes will be fine in the garden. I have a steady supply of chives, oregano, sage, marjoram, and rhubarb from my landlord's garden

Lettuce, chard, kale, chives, and chamomile have all germinated. More calendula has been direct seeded in the garden, which will be coming up soon. The peas are going strong and climbing up the trellis. Everything has been thinned. I'm doing basic weeding, but keeping off until the little veggies get a bit bigger so I don't weed them by mistake (and because weeds are easier to pull when they have 4 leaves). My constant weed struggle currently is with the morning glory vines that insist on popping up everywhere and grow faster than humanly imaginable. The thistle in the northwest corner of the garden is, sadly, growing strong. I might take a scythe to it to keep it from flowering.

Sorry for the lack of updating. I'v been too busy lounging outside and enjoying the weather.

Wool Dusters vs. Swiffer Nation, and other old timey cleaning suggestions

2010-04-26T08:28:00.000-07:00

It's Monday and I have the strange sense that going back to work is actually going to be like taking time off. This weekend I embarked on the great journey that is Spring Cleaning.

For the uninitiated, spring cleaning is different than your regular ho hum sweep-and-mop cleaning. It is moving everything (yes, including the couch and the dresser), getting the dust out of the corners and high-up places, throwing stuff out, reorganizing closets and pantries, and really getting the settled winter grime OUT! Two days and two absolutely exhausted evening foot baths later, my living room is still upside-down, books are sprawled everywhere, the fridge is pretty much empty, and the cat is utterly confused about the new state of things. however, the floors are spotless, the pantry is finally sensible, all of the winter's mouse holes in the walls are stopped up with steel wool, and I finally have enough drawer space for my clothing upstairs (read - my clothing's default home is no longer on the floor).

Over the weekend I have, unfortunately, discovered that the world no longer believes in proper wool dusters. Apparently, everyone uses Swiffers now. To be honest, I only know what Swiffers are thanks to a year spent living in college dorms, but I know them well enough to know that they are tacky and disposable, so I am opposed to them on principal. Nothing, in my experience, has ever worked so well as a proper wool duster (on an extendable pole for high-up windows or under the bed). The duster just needs a good shake outside to clean it, and it's good for a generation or so with no need to replace anything. The Swiffer, on the other hand, is just a ploy to get us to buy baby-wipes for the bottom of a fake mop that "dusts" while releasing noxious "Hawaiian Breeze" scent into an otherwise decent-smelling living room. My grumpy old lady tendencies aside, suffice it to say that I truly regret the sacrifice of useful and long-lasting cleaning tools to the god of profitability in the form of disposable parts. If I can't find a nice wool duster at my local barn sale, I'm going to buy myself one at Lehman's, a lovely Mennonite catalogue, and I'll still be using it in 20 years, thankyouverymuch.

For those of you who are about to embark on that gratifying and hilarious task of spring cleaning, I have a few suggestions:

Cleaning Sinks
The best way to clean a sinks while keeping drains open is with that great marvel of second great science experiments - baking soda and vinegar. Scrub down the sink with a good helping of baking soda. Add some extra soda to the drain for good measure, then upend a quarter to a half gallon of cheap, white vinegar over the soda, rinsing it off of the sides of the sink and down the drain for a good ten minutes. In the mean time, boil a full kettle of water. After the bubbling has stopped, dump the boiling water into the drain. I clean out my sinks this way every other week, rinsing with very hot tap water instead of boiling water. I reserve a double course of boiling water for thorough cleanings once a season or when my drains start backing up.

Brooms
It was to my utter surprise that I discovered that proper broom corn brooms are quaint and old fashioned (a good friend let me know by laughing at my broom as if my life were a quaint caricature of old timey living). For those of you who use plastic brooms instead of proper grass ones, let me tell you, you are missing out! Nothing sweeps like a good, wide broom corn broom (it's called broom corn for a reason!). They last longer and are much more effective than their plastic alternatives when paired with a standard dustpan and small dust broom (or a whisk broom if you are so inclined - though even I use a plastic broom for my dustpan). Store your broom by hanging it off a hook or nail or standing it upside-down. if you stand any broom on its sweeping end, it will bend and become useless very soon. If you vacuum rather than sweeping, I highly suggest trying out sweeping. It's quiet, calm, and just as fast and effective. Vacuuming is an assault on ears and the senses. It was invented by that horror that is wall-to-wall carpeting which should really be ashamed of itself for all of the horror and tackiness it has brought into this world. Go and get out some tension by hanging your rugs on a line or over a sturdy tree branch and beating the hell out of them with the broom handle. It really is the best part of spring cleaning, especially if there's someone you'd rather beat the hell out of for not helping out enough.

Laundry separation
As I'm sure you already know, there are 5 (not 2, 3, or 7) baskets for laundry needing attention in the bedroom (listed from largest to smallest basket) - colors, whites, hand wash, fix (for clothing that needs sewing or patching), and dry clean. It helps to also have a kitchen laundry area for tablecloths, towels, and napkins and a utility room laundry basket for rags (in my case, the "utility room" is under the sink). Despite this careful separation, I tend to wash my whites and colors together in cold water, reserving a "whites only" hot and bleached wash (though I use hydrogen perozide instead of bleach) once a year when things get noticeably dingy (the exception being new colored clothing - which tends to leach color and is always washed separately its first time). I also hand wash my dry-clean only clothes but this has more to do with the fact that there are no decent dry cleaning places around here than anything else.

Washing floors
I don't know who told anyone otherwise, but there is only one way to wash floors - mop, bucket, and soap (usually floor soup). anything else, including Swiffers or floor sprays are gimmicks and they'll probably kill your cat they're so toxic. The reason is quite simple - if your floor isn't wet, forcing you to sit still and not walk, it can't possibly be clean and you can't possibly take a break. Just make sure to sweep before moping (this should go unsaid, but with folks "mopping" with Swiffers I just can't trust what people know and don't know anymore) and carefully plan your route around the house so you don't mop yourself into a corner. I like to hang the rugs on the line, sweep everything, and then mop myself out of the house, thus forcing myself to beat the hell out of my rugs and then either hang the laundry or take a nice long break while waiting for the floors to dry with iced tea in hand. I've also been known to mop myself onto my couch during winter days, where i am forced to lounge while the floor dries. See? Swiffers really were made up by the devil - and they have such a tacky name!

Take a break
At around 6 o'clock, when you've gone through 3 handkerchiefs (translation = half a box of tissues) thanks to all that dust, but before you get terribly hungry, put on something simple to simmer for dinner (rice and green lentils with lots of onion and garlic is my favorite cleaning day dish) and get yourself outside! The fresh air and sunlight helps like nothing else. Just sitting on a bench outside with a cold beer or a pre-dinner bowl of ice cream does wonders to rejuvenate a dustier, more splattered version of myself than I am used to. Taking a break really gives me that kick of energy to follow-through on the dinner dishes and a little evening cleaning before I collapse into a foot bath with a post-dinner bowl of ice cream, tea, and a good book.

I would say this spring cleaning weekend has been a huge (if as yet unfinished) success. it has been utterly lovely, full of gratifying moments (cleaning out under the sink was momentous), and with only one break down moment where I questioned what the hell I was doing with my life, sobbing to a friend that I'm 23 and how can I possibly live such a dull and drab life that housecleaning is one of the most gratifying things I do? I could be traveling, or throwing money to the wind not caring about saving, or doing some other fun and youthful thing that other people my age do who don't even know how to properly mop a floor! I blame this breakdown on exhaustion and spending my whole weekend without company and without a single night later than 11:00 PM. After all, I am only 23 and would love to go out dancing or spend a late night with friends at least once a week. That being said, I have since pulled myself together and reminded myself that it's okay to genuinely enjoy spring cleaning and sedentary life.

In garden news, my ground cherries have started to sprout, tomatoes and peppers all have several leaves, and that's about it.

beautiful, beautiful spring!

2010-04-22T08:56:00.000-07:00

For those of you up here in the Hudson Valley you, like I, are probably luxuriating in the most unbelievably beautiful spring these parts have seen in years and years. Thanks to record temperatures everything is blooming all at once, some things months early - like lilacs. What I've always termed "mud season" has turned into the most wonderful season I could have imagined. Those of us who are blessed with the most magical autumn aren't usually blessed with so magical a spring.

I like to think that it's the world's way of apologizing for last summer (and for the most snowless winter I have ever lived through around here). But I'm also painfully aware of how much danger those beautiful blossoms are in. We're still almost a month from the average last frost and a hard frost could kill off our apples, our apricots, our cherries - all of it! But given the choice between worrying and luxuriating in the beauty, I easily choose the latter option. It's not hard. it is so incredibly beautiful outside.

Unfortunately, my cold frame is buried in the barn and i have not been able to get it out. I also discovered that the hinges broke off of the frame, so I'll have to reattach the windows to the frame, whenever I can lift off the residue of winter and take the cold frame out of its winter hiding.

This weekend marks 3 weeks before the last frost, so I will be planting a ton of things Indoors and outdoors. I'll let you know what's on the list for planting soon! For now, enjoy the spring!

2010-04-20T13:43:00.000-07:00

Spring! Usually, it's called mud season around here. But this year it's just beautiful! Everything is blooming all at once thanks to an incredibly warm spring. Even the lilacs are blooming! Lilacs! those usually wait for late May, at least. And, someone has already found morels in the Hudson Valley.

I am going to go morel hunting today and then pray that a hard frost doesn't come through and freeze all of the early fruit blossoms that seem to think it's late May.

Building a Cold Frame!

2010-04-16T09:10:00.000-07:00

One of the luxuries of the early spring for the hobby gardener is that this isn't a particularly stressful time. with 2-3 hours of investment, at most, per week, it's relatively easy to be right on path. I keep the light on over my seedlings, water about every other day, plant the seeds I need, and generally keep things going. Perhaps the hardest thing is keeping the temperature in my house consistently warm enough for new seeds to germinate. The ground cherries I just planted, which are a nightshade - a relative of the tomatillo - require fairly warm temperatures to germinate. With frosts still rolling through the region every few nights and with wamr sunny days, my indoor temperature is in a constant state of flux which averages around 55*, not the ideal 70, but still workable. Heat mats, unfortunately, make for a more expensive tomato than I am willing to dish out for. Maybe next year I'll finally dish out the cash for a few.

I decided that i will bring out the cold frame for my calendula this weekend. The process of moving seedlings from an indoor seed-starting set up to a cold frame is called "hardening off." I typically do it 2-3 weeks before transplanting. It's a step between the total ease and comfort of indoor living and the harsh reality of life in the garden that helps to acclimate your seedlings before the shock of transplanting. Plop your seedlings into the cold frame and -prop it open during the day for ventilation (otherwise you risk burning your plants). Close the cold frame at sunset to lock in the heat. This will keep temperatures moderated and protect plants from hard rains while exposing them to being outdoors. If there's a hard frost coming your way, throw a blanket on top of the closed cold frame to keep the heat in.

If you don't have a cold frame, you could bring your plants outside on nice days and take them in every night. However, building one is fairly easy, and I would recommend it. I built mine with friends, a hand saw, a power drill (though I could have used a hammer), and some old windows I picked up from the side of the road, and a couple of old hinges and drawer pulls. We used old 2"X10" planks. The procedure is absurdly easy.

Build a cold frame
Cold frames are a really great home building project, especially given how much people will charge for a pre-fab one. I would definitely recommend building your own. Start out by studying what you're building so that you understand the concept. If you've built anything before, the basics of this project will be fairly obvious. If you haven't, you might want to consult instructions in this book or on the web. The type of cold frame I outline below is like this one, but made with only one row of panels in the front and two in back. While building, keep in mind that cold frames are sloped, facing south, so as to maximize the amount of sole exposure and minimize shading. Also keep in mind that any part of your coldframe that isn't flush or properly fitted will let out precious heat on cold nights.

Materials
- Salvaged window, glass door, shower door, or frame with plastic. Storm windows are best, but not necessary.
- Salvaged 2x8 - 2x14 boards (just make sure they're not pressure-treated)
- Scrap wood (preferably 2" square) for bracing, 2 cut to the width of a single board (8-14"), 3 cut a hair shorter than double that length, and 2 cut to a middle length (doesn't have to be exact)
- Screws and drill or hammer and nails
- 2-3 hinges and screws
- A Drawer-pull
- Hand saw, chop saw, circular saw, whatever.
- a chisel
- Shims, Weather stripping, and/or caulk (if you need it)

The procedure
- The first part of any building project is the math. First measure (twice!) the length and width of your window and write this down. Your longer front and back panels will be the exact size of the length of your windows. Mark this length for 3 boards, keeping in mind that the saw will turn a few millimeters of solid wood into dust. That 1 board for the front and 2 for the back.

- Next, measure the width of your windows (twice). Write this down and then measure the height of your boards, which should be just shy of 2 inches (and jot it down). The shorter panels for the sides of your cold frame will fit inside the long panels, and therefore need to be measured to the width of your window minus 2 times the height of the boards. Therefore, if your window is 28" wide and your boards are 1.75" high, your boards should be cut to 28-(2*1.75), or 24.5".
Again, mark out and measure 3 boards of this length. That's 1 for either side plus a third that will make the slope on both sides.

- Now that you've measured and marked everything twice, cut your panels - 3 long ones, 3 short ones.

- Now comes the Hard part. Draw a diagonal line that bisects one of your short, side boards and forms two long triangles. Take into account the width of the saw to make sure that, when cut, the triangles will be identical. These two triangles will form the slope of your cold frame. Take a deep breath and cut the board on the diagonal, so that you have two triangles.

- Phew! Now let's assemble. You're basically building a sloped box in two teirs. Use 4 of your pre-cut bracing wood on the interior 4 corners (the two short ones in front and 2 of the longest ones in back, making sure the long ones are flush with the bottom of the boards and stick up in the air). Attach the bottom four pieces by screwing/nailing the boards into the 4 corner braces - remember, the sides fit inside the front and back boards.

- Next, Add bracing wood to the middle interior of each side except the front so that everything on the bottom is flush. The 3rd long piece should be in the center of the back sticking up and the two middle-length ones should be halfway along the sides sticking up (make sure they're in a place where they won't stick up over the sloping side panels). Add the top boards on the sides and back of the cold frame by drilling or screwing them into the bracing wood. You can add toeholds into the bottom boards, but this isn't necessary. Make sure everything is tight and together. Lift the frame to make sure it's sturdy.

- Now that you have the frame done, set your window on top and make sure everything fits. Make sure the window sits flush and tight against the top of the box. Attach the window to the frame by attaching hinges to the top of the cold frame and the window - making sure to keep it it as flush as possible. It wouldn't hurt to chisel out a small depression in which to set the hinge to prevent the window from lifting off of the back by the width of the hinge. If you don't have a chisel handy, you'll probably end up having to add weather stripping to the back seam. If you've never attached a hinge before, make sure you have someone there who knows how to do it or else really spend some time with that hinge to figure out the right side, the wrong side, and how it wants to be attached. Hinges are trickier than they appear. Once attached, lift the door to make sure they're on properly.

- Finally, attach the drawer pull to the center front of the window so that you can lift it easily.

- Check for any holes and add weather stripping or caulk where needed. If you want, paint it with a light, nontoxic paint to help it weather better and to reflect light back onto the plants.

Congratulations! You have a cold frame!

Garden Journal, Sleep, etc.

2010-04-14T06:23:00.000-07:00

Monday night I went over to my garden at the co-op (aka my former house, aka my friends' house), prepped another bed (by forking out all the weeds, aerating the soil with a garden fork, and raking the surface smooth) and planted another round of lettuce and kale plus a border of chives, and a clump of chamomile on the edge of the bed along the central, large path running down the center of the garden. i did this without a real plan - just leaving room for additional, staggered plantings of kale and lettuce. We're having a garden meeting and work day in the garden on Sunday, so I'll have a follow-up design that day. with 2 15-foot beds that are 4 feet across plus plenty of additional space, I anticipate that the design won't change much.

In other indicators that the summer is nigh, I have started waking up at 7, a full hour before my winter wake-up time of 8. This is partially because of the sun, which start streaming into my east-facing windows around 6 AM, partially due to my cat, who has taken to standing on my pillow and batting at my alarm clock (I assume to wake me up sooner), and partially due to more physical work going into a regular day (whether work in the garden or just more walking during my lunch break) which results in me falling asleep quickly and sleeping better. I really think lethargic days lead to bad sleep lead to oversleeping lead to feeling tired all the time.

Now I need to figure out what I'm going to do with the spare hour of awake time I have in the mornings. I think I might go back to making myself delicious lattes with honey and working on my book. Yay!

Garden Journal - 5 weeks Before Last Frost

2010-04-12T13:44:00.000-07:00

I planted my ground cherries, finally. And I separated my seeds into separate envelopes, as is my habit, organized by planting times. That way I can reach for my packet that says "3 weeks before last frost - indoors" and plant all of those seeds in one go next week without consulting which seeds I need to plant or where I need to plant them, or searching through all my other seeds for them.

In other news, I thought my rosemary was a lost cause, but it germinated! yay!

Things seem to be doing well. Some damping off of daisies and calendula, but the repotting has helped with the mold, which seemingly cleared up. Most everything has a second pair of leaves on it.

Time to get out the cold frame and start hardening off some of my lovely little seedlings.

Soil Nutrition

2010-04-09T07:32:00.000-07:00

We're on the cusp of 5 weeks before the last frost here in the Hudson Valley! Have you planted all that stuff you said you'd plant indoors (oops...no!)? Are your peas in the ground (yes!)? Garlic come up (yes!)? are you preparing your beds, repairing fencing (and garden tools and hats and hoses), adding nutrients, and finalizing plans (err...mostly)?

Preparing rich beds for Spring - soil nutrition and amendments
It's easy to see the larger picture when you look at your garden soil. Rich, black soil with lots of worms, easy-to-work texture, lots of air, and a soft, sweet, earthy smell are the obvious markers of good soil. What's hard to see is the details - who know how much Nitrogen or Potassium you have in there? Or what the pH is?

You want to make sure your plants are healthy and well fed this summer. If you haven't tested your soil for pH and basic nutrient levels, I would go ahead and send in a sample to Cornell co-operative extension (if you're in New York. In Jersey it's Rutgers, in Massachusetts it's UMass). You can also find diy soil pH tests at most nurseries, though I suggest building a relationship with your extension office - they're a huge help and a wonderful resource. To get a sample, dig up a good 6-inch deep cross-section of soil from your garden, put it in a mason jar or a plastic bag, and drop it off or mail it too the nearest extension office, asking for a basic soil test (they probably have a form on their website to fill out). It'll take 2-6 weeks to get the results back, during which time you can ask any gardening/farming neighbor what they add to their soil. Asking neighbors is a great way to find out what your soil will need, and just about everything else about gardening in your area.

The most common soil nutrient folks add to their soil here is lime to neutralize acidic soil. It's important to have a balanced soil pH because many dangerous soil chemicals dissolve in solution at an excessively low or high pH causing the plant to uptake them more easily, while good chemicals and elements, which a plant needs to survive, cannot be taken up by the plants in extremes of pH. pH stands for "parts Hydrogen," low pH is acidic while high pH values are alkaline or basic, a pH of 7 is neutral. Ideal soil pH is between 6.3-6.8. If you find that your soil is acidic (a pH lower than 6), add lime (follow instructions on the bag) or wood ash (I would just spread it liberally on the beds, which is what we do in my landlord's garden all winter). Since soil acidity is determined by the bedrock in your area, it will be a pervasive and consistent feature of your garden, and adding lime will be an annual endeavor (unless you build really effective raised beds).

After incorporating lime, you want to make sure that your plants have the nutrients they need for the coming year. The best soil amendment is finished compost (or fully composted manure). Not only does it add organic material and living nutrients, it also improves soil texture, pH, color (and therefore heat retention), beneficial bacteria, and is an all-around wonder drug for your garden soil. do NOT add raw compost or manure to spring garden beds (the one exception to this rule is rabbit manure, and if you have access to that, you've struck gold). Raw manure will burn delicate plant roots while raw compost will take hold up nutrients in its decomposition that you want to go to the plants. (In the fall, the rules are different, but we're not in the fall, are we?). If you don't have finished compost, go get yourself a bunch of manure, straw/mulch hay/leaves, and raw food scraps and promise yourself that next year at this time you will have at least some finished compost. In the mean time, if your soil is depleted (simple test - have you grown a heavy-feeder vegetable crop there last year? If so, your soil is depleted), you can use blood meal, bone meal, soy meal, etc etc etc to increase nutrient levels in the soil. Go to the nursery and get a well-balanced, organic soil additive and spread as per directions. Note that peas and beans are, in their own right, soil nutrients, and beds that will be planted with peas or beans can go without a heavy dose of additional nutrients, though I would add a little bit if you think your soil is very depleted (a 3-year rotation with beans is a classic rotation for soil nutrition).

phew! Got all that? Now that you know what spring is like, there's a lot of good reasons to put your garden to rest properly in the fall (namely that it saves you a lot of trouble come spring). Start asking around at local farms now to see if you can take one or a few pick-up truck loads of manure (1 pick-up load per 1-2 people being fed out of the garden is an easy estimate) so that you have it on hand when you put your beds to rest this fall. The longer it sits composting, the better.

As a side-note: P-K-N ratios seen on fertilizers, often just listed as 20-10-20 or something like that, stands for the amount of Potassium-Phosphorous (usually in the form of Potash)-Nitrogen in a fertilizer.

Also, I'll get around to kombucha one of these days, I promise.

Don't Let the Cool Farm Kids Get You Down

2010-04-08T13:17:00.000-07:00

When you spend a lot of time talking vegetables in the Hudson Valley, you're bound to meet a bunch of 20-somethings who are just too cool for you. At least, that's how I've felt for years. I've been known to find kids decked out in anarchist-y, rural fashionista-type clothing absolutely terrifying. I have a name for the fashion style that is the domain of hip, carhart-and-suspender-wearing farmers I so often find myself sharing venison chili with - liederhosen chic (these types can also be found all over Brooklyn, on rafts on the Mississippi, and pretty much anywhere else where activists can find suspenders, carharts, muck boots, and clothes you might otherwise see a cabaret-announcer wearing). For years I was downright terrified of all the cool on the local farm scene.

Let's get a few things straight. I've experimented with patches and holes in my clothing (though never suspenders). However, I am thoroughly uncreative and mainstream by Hudson Valley farm kids fashion and music standards. I absolutely dread the idea of clothes mended with embroidery floss or dental floss, and always feel vaguely guilty about my shoes being dirty and scuffed. I do not listen to punk. I rarely get around to actually mending my clothing, but you won't catch me wearing clothes with holes unless it's my favorite sweater and I just haven't gotten around to that little hole in the armpit. And you will never, ever catch me in air pilot goggles.

My journey of getting over not being the cool-kid food activist-type was a long and winding one. It took me a year of trying on being anarchist-cool (right down to tight black jeans and back patches), followed by realizing I wasn't at all interested in that kind of fashion statement, followed by two solid years of shivering in a corner terrified of anyone who looked at all cooler than me, then another year of just standing around awkwardly. Finally, someone had the mercy to clue me into the fact that most folks are socially awkward, not cold. Just like me! Even with this clarity it took me another whole year of repeating that line to myself like a mantra (and coming to understand that I might be coming off as cold too) to finally, finally let go of my terror of folks who seemed so much cooler than me and just talk. Say hello, hold up conversations, and just relax. Now, I'm proud to say that I can talk to even the coolest farming kids without feeling absolutely wretched.

Sometimes I do run into a genuinely cold person who actually thinks they're too cool to be caught dead talking to someone who is so unashamedly bourgeois as to wear regular clothes (unlike them, who have the decency to try and hide the money they come from). These people were born rich and have a guilt complex. They should be pitied or ignored. if neither will do and you find yourself being looked down upon by one, slip in that you can't afford to have a whole spare wardrobe aside from your work clothes. this will point out that you work for a living and that they live off of a trust fund. Given how cool poverty is with this bizarre subset of farm kids, they should instantly shut up and sulk away or else try to befriend you.

Everyone else, surprisingly enough, will understand that you, like they, grew up nowhere near a farm and won't blame you for not knowing that all the cool city-cum-farmer kids are really fucking radical and wear it on their sleeves. At worst, they might assume you've never been to Brooklyn, don't know how to contra dance, or don't know what consensus means. No fear! Just explain to them that tight jeans make you feel bloated and that you weren't allowed to buy Human-i-tees t-shirts in high school and they'll understand. Bonus points for being from Vermont, having lived communally before, or having a badass prison story.

Repotting, fighting fungus

2010-04-08T08:41:00.000-07:00

I repotted all of my nightshades yesterday into plastic pots, composting the newspaper ones into my weeds-only compost. The mold was clearly growing in the newspaper itself, and only then spreading to the soil. Hopefully, the move will help with the fungus problem. I haven't found my book on organic disease-curing in the garden (probably lost in the move, alas!)

Please feel free to ask questions - I'm always happy to answer. Leave a comment and I'll let you know all about it if I can!

More later (about kombucha). For now, endless amounts of data entry.

Rainbows

2010-04-06T07:28:00.000-07:00

Most years spring creeps up on me in an exciting, but not altogether novel way. The crocuses are beautiful but unsurprising. Ditto with the warmth. The feeling of "it's spring again, already!" is usually at the fore of my thoughts. This year, something is different. Spring feels new somehow, as if the heat is a shock, the warm rain and the smell of asphalt a rare blessing; The yellow-green willow over the lake the height of beauty, supple and breathtaking in her earliest of robes. Even the forsythias, which I usually find mediocre at best strike me as breathtaking, with a deep and lovely color. I do not feel like spring has come again already. Rather, it seems as though I cannot remember another spring, that this thing called spring is so distant and from such a different life that it may as well have never happened. The red winged blackbirds reappear for the first time, and everything is new, it seems, except the rainbow.

The rainbow which spanned the sky yesterday beckoned to me. I heard the rain start down with the sun still gleaming and I knew that there must be a rainbow. I stood in the warm, sun-filled rain in my apron, looking up at the wonderful and awe-inspiring rainbow remembering. that first time I saw a rainbow at the county fair with friends and managed to hold it for years, a precious omen in my thoughts. The full double, then triple rainbow that arched in the dark, mountainous skies over Lake Issyk-Kul, the most beautiful of landscapes suddenly linked by the bright and glowing arch to the incredible darkness of the gleaming summer skies. I think it is impossible to see a rainbow and not remember. Whether it is God promising no more killing floods or an omen of good luck, it is an incredibly magical experience - and no matter how we think of light breaking through the prisms of tiny droplets, the wonder and beauty of a rainbow in the half-dark spring sky cannot be quantified or explained without appealing to omens.

Garden Journal
In other news, it turns out there was no need to give up hope - my peppers have just germinated after all this time! However, the mold has crept up onto my seedlings. I blame the newspaper pots - all of the other seedlings are just fine, but the ones in newspaper have this mold on them! I will be repotting into plastic soon, and whenever I find my favorite book on dealing with garden pests, I will be concocting a tea to spray on the leaves of the seedlings to ward off the mold and keep them strong. I'll keep you posted

Perfect Soil

2010-04-05T13:24:00.000-07:00

I went to help friends at my old house in my old garden - the one I built out of youthful ambition, naivete, sweat, and the odd garden tool three springs ago - and had the unparalleled experience of pure bliss. I would not call myself an accomplished gardener. I am simply too erratic to make a garden beautiful, or to let all of my plants grow. For example, I did not plant ground cherries in their little pots this weekend. My cold frame is still in the ice shed. But when I walked into the garden and slipped (yes - slipped!) a garden fork into the first bed - the one that had tomatoes in it 2 years ago and lettuce last year - and turned the soil, I did what i do every year, and bent to check the soil. My arm slipped into perfect, dark, moist, and crumbly soil right up to the elbow.

After 3 years of gardening in clay and gravel, 2 of them in this very garden, I wanted to cry with joy. There was no way I was abandoning this perfect soil - so dark in color and light in weight - to spend another year in dirt and mud. Maybe I'll plant my onions and leaks and some lettuce at my house - just to have something there. the beds, after all, are tilled. I could add some good compost and call it a day. Which means, of course, that my garden plans were for nothing (though now that I remember it, my beds at the co-op are also 4' by 20'. and there are 3 of them. But I don't think I'll be able to just take up 3 beds even though there are 10+ beds roughly that size), but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter one bit because this success - having created such beautiful, dark, rich, and deep garden soil in 2 years - is a huge achievement. Far better than growing more garlic than I could possibly need for one winter, or making beautiful garden plans.

Building that garden was back-breaking. it's a huge, no-till garden built on what was, at the time, a thoroughly compacted post-construction lightly sloping hill complete with a hard pan, standing water, and more clay than i wanted to deal with. It was built by broadforking every bed just to aerate the soil, digging out paths (and dumping that soil onto the beds), then layering manure, paper, and 6 inches of straw, and watering the whole thing. It was mostly built in spring, so that year, I watched the bed seep moisture out of my seedlings (direct-seeding was not an option) and copious amounts of slugs (attracted by the straw) do a number on everything but the onions and potatoes (after an evening salt-shaker attack on the slugs). The next year was a little better, though I didn't grow much food at all, only tomatoes and garlic - and we know what happened with tomatoes last year. Most of the garden has been fallow one of the two years. And now - it is perfect.

Given how much work it is to build garden soil, I hope you can understand why i wouldn't want to do it again at a rental where I might not even be gardening next summer.

In conclusion I planted peas, lettuce, and swiss chard. My friend planted some herbs as well. I realized I should have planted chives, though I let my friend's interest get ahead of my own. Oh well. There's plenty of time, and there should be plenty of space.

Spring Weekends are here!

2010-04-02T08:32:00.000-07:00

It's spring. I will be planting peppers, ground cherries, and tomato seeds tomorrow in the glorious sun, putting them on my new heat pad, and praying (peppers will be small and late this year, but oh well). Then I'll be working my newly-tilled garden over with a broad fork, probably bringing some soil over and forking it into the beds, adding some wood ash (in lieu of lime) and maybe even going to pick up finished manure somewhere or leaf mold, if I can find it. Then planting peas and setting up pea trellising. Definitely going for a long walk at my old house and picking a ton of ramps.

Hopefully I'll be pickling beets and root veggies, and maybe even ramps as well.

And, when it all comes down to it, I need to to get all my veggies out of storage and have a Thanksgiving-in-May party to finish the root veggies - though i think I'll plant some parsnips and carrots just for the hell of it - they're biennials and will therefore flower this year. Umbel-shaped flowers are particularly good at attracting beneficial insects into the garden, though the juice from parsnip stalks is very caustic - so be careful not to get it on your skin! I'm sure the parsnips and carrots are both hybrids and therefore I won't be able to save seed (the carrots aren't worth saving seed from anyway - they've gotten horribly woody), but it'll still be a fun little science experiment.

Now it's just a matter of getting out my farming shirts (long-sleeve button-downs) and my big garden hat, and getting to work!

Ramps! Go and get them!

2010-04-01T06:41:00.000-07:00

My dear readers, I hope you will forgive me for totally forgetting myself! The ramps are up! They're up in marshy woods now! Go! Go get them, if it's not so wet as to be impassable.

Ramps are a delicious wild leek that can be used and cooked like a scallion. I hope to pickle some this year. They grow in marshy woods (full shade) in clumps, so if you find one, you'll find a small field (or a large one, if you're lucky). Ramps are a vibrant true green. They have two leaves grwing out of a small, white bulb in the ground, which can either be pure white or with a purple skin. The leaves are smooth, with a single white or purplish vein down the center, and about 6 inches long and 2 inches wide. If you see a plant that fits this description - a bright, deep green (not a light green), single vein, smooth leaves, grows in clusters, about 6 inches tall, tear off the leaf and smell it. If it smells like an onion, you've just met a ramp.

It's good practice to pick no more than half of a cluster, so that you can make sure there will be ramps in that same place next year. take a trowel for stubborn roots (you want to get the whole ramp - bulb and all) and a plastic bag or basket to toss them in. Store in a plastic bag in the fridge or in water like a bouquet (in or out of the fridge).

If you want to transplant ramps, dig up a small cluster of roots with some of the soil they're growing in (which is bound to be muddy), put in a small bucket or a plastic bag, and transplant as soon as possible, making sure to keep roots covered and moist. Transplant to a full-shade location that gets plenty of moisture (outside your kitchen is ideal - ramps taste delicious in omlets!)

They'll be up for the next few weeks, so go and get them!

Planning, thinking, mulling

2010-03-31T07:53:00.000-07:00

Only a minority of my peppers and tomatoes have germinated. I'm worried. I also had my first garden worry dream last night. I dreamed that I was at a local farm and they had large okra and full-grown peas and all sorts of delicious veggies already in the fields, not to mention bearing fruit. I sat up in a tree, oggling the lush, spring fields below me thinking, "How could I get so far behind! My okra isn't even started yet!" Then I woke up. My garden hasn't even been tilled yet!

Mulling, continued

When I start thinking about jobs and career paths I inevitably bump into my freelancing ideas and small business concepts, which, while scarier and much less fail-safe than the jobs I was mulling over yesterday, are actually better suited for my long-term hopes and dreams. The trade-off between short-term security and long-term gain, when it comes with what feels like a significant chunk of risk in the immediate future (my savings, my financial security and stability, my resume) is a lot to wrap my mind around.

So I need to keep mulling. This time, about the summer, and a half-baked plan I keep toying with to work fewer hours this summer in order to focus on starting a home business either making salves and such things or writing more (freelance, etc.)

If I cut back on my hours and work 35 hours a week, I will have to make $50/week (after taxes) to make it worth taking the cut. If I actually committed to starting a small business, that $50 would actually be reflective of many, many more hours than 5 per week. The question is whether the extra 5 hours of personal time would be a big enough time investment in my freelance writing/small business to make the cut pay off.

Let's say, for example, that I take fridays off and work 8:15 - 5:00 (35 hours) Monday-Thursdays. Monday-Thursdays would basically function like normal weekdays, the extra :45 morning minutes wouldn't change much in how I function. Friday, however, would turn into a full, 8-hour (9-5) work day for me, in which I could focus on developing whatever business plans, etc I'd like.

That seems like a good trade, but I think it'll only make sense to make that tradeoff if I start working on the business ideas now so that making money starts happening when I start taking time off from work (Let's say at the beginning of June), rather than that time-off serving as more planning time. Which means that in the next few months I need to see what it feels like to work 2 jobs at once, if that's what I want to do (plus having a garden!)

Now, the question is, do I focus on selling the book and on freelance writing or do I keep the book going in my spare time as my hobby and focus on salves, teas, and products of that nature? Or do I sit tight, keep on working, and take some horticulture classes while waiting to apply for a job that's really in the field I like?

Yesterday's mulling and today's is a conflict that is, inherently, about whether I want to organize my life around career-building or around homemaking. Yesterday's plan is a career-path that would make me happy. Today's plan is a make-money-and-homemake-path that would make me happy. I'm not sure how well I could do yesterday's plan and then switch to this one if and when I decide to have kids and settle down - starting a new and successful business while starting a family sounds about as easy as becoming superwoman (and would require something of the sort). However, an established home business based in the rural lifestyle I love is something that could grow with me. Not contributing to a household income and not continuing to maintain self-sufficiency isn't an option.

I go back and forth. A lot. There is something extremely appealing about just having a job in a field I feel strongly about and not worrying about clients, sudden flare-ups, or anything work-related after 5. I am not particularly ambitious, and I don't know how well that would translate to entrepreneurship. I seriously would love to be a part of a public garden. Furthermore, one of my fatal flaws is a lack of patience - which often translates into me working for a future that is by no means certain and for future desires at which I can only guess. And yet - isn't it foolish to not try and guess and work towards that guess? And, besides that, few things are more appealing to me than being able to define where and how I live. The idea of being able to make it on my own with my own business, and with my own ideas of success is absolutely thrilling.

I think, when it comes down to it, I want a business partner and a part-time job at a public garden.

Mulling

2010-03-30T09:07:00.000-07:00

Garden Jounal
While I was away, the peppers, tomatoes, and leeks have started germinating. The lettuce, daisies and calendula still only have their first two leaves but are getting big. Everything is leggy because of the lack of light. They're happily back home and under a light now, though it might be a bit cold in the house for them. Nothing to do about that at the moment though.

Mulling - jobs I'd love to have
With a total of 12 hours of driving this weekend, I've been thinking a lot about work, careers, school, and working in a field I love. My job is great, and it's giving me a lot of skills that are useful to me and my resume, even though I have no intention of working in theater or arts for long. But I've been mulling. I turned down an interview at a good public horticulture program last year because of where it was (South of Philly), among other things. I still think that was the right choice - school for 2 years after 18-some-odd straight years of school would have been way, way too much, and living in communal housing again would have put me over the edge, not to mention being South-of-Philly for 2 years, in the middle of nowhere, not close to anyone I know or love or want to network with. I don't regret it, but I am aware that i gave up a 2-year sacrifice in exchange for being a shoe-in for most jobs I'd love.

So it's good to remember that the experience I'm getting now is invaluable, not to mention a huge relief and much-needed respite after what feels like a billion years of schooling. It's good to know what working 40 hours a week is like with juggling hobbies, making ends meet, and living on my own. And that I enjoy it way more than I enjoyed school. And what's more, I can still be a shoe-in at jobs I love - I have way more experience and chutzpah than most people my age. It's just going to take some concerted effort and creative thinking about strategic additional coursework and the resume item known as "equivalent experience" to get to the next step. And when I put it that way, I relish the experience and look forward to the coming year or two with a zest I could hardly muster in college - even when looking forward.

So I'm thinking about what's happening next. I'm not going to be an office assistant at a theater forever (obviously! - at some point I'm going to homestead and housewife it up)! I've already arranged to take the next Master Gardener course that Cornell Cooperative Extension is offering in my county (which isn't until next year). That's great knowledge and cred. People are always excited by the "Master Gardener" qualification - if only because it sounds so legit. It'll be good for making contacts, learning awesome gardening stuff, and opening up my opportunities - and who wouldn't want to volunteer by answering gardening questions a few times a month? I do that all the time anyway! Besides, being able to put "Master Gardener" after my name means I can teach more classes and get some things published. It doesn't hurt that a job for the extension is one of the few local jobs I absolutely covet.

And then there's my favorite garden in the world - that place where faeries still exist, even at my age - The New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx, which has the unbelievable benefit of being on Metro North. It has it's own horticulture certificate program (a full time, 2-year program that's affordable, though not really, seeing as you can't really work for 2 years), but also has part-time certificate programs (!!) and gainful employment opportunities. And there's a good botanical garden in the berkshires, not to mention colleges with landscaping that needs maintenance.

So I've been mulling. a lot. That, and I have a book to write, a garden to grow, and a personal life to keep up with! And I need to plant ground cherries! Oh my! At least the rain is coming at the right time this year (even if it's coming down a bit too hard)

Calendula Germinated

2010-03-26T09:19:00.000-07:00

Calendula has germinated. Still no sign of life from the peppers and tomatoes. Still no need to be nervous, I know, but I'm nervous! I just can't help it! I've been keeping the house very warm though, so I should really stop worrying.

I'm very glad I've arranged to bring my seedlings to my sweetie's for tending this weekend (along with the cat - in exchange for leftover seeds for his garden and him probably fattening my cat up trying to get her to love him best - which will never happen). It's going to be a wicked weekend full of frosts and cold days. I'm not sure if I should bring the florescent light over, because I doubt he'll have a place to set it up. In a south-facing window the seedlings should be fine for a few days, so I'll probably leave it at home.

I'll have to plant my ground cherries when I get back from the weekend away. As well as fertilize my lemon tree and think long and hard about repotting it (oy!)

In other news, I have been drinking home-made kombucha for over a week now! When I get home from the weekend away, round 2 should be nearing completion. I made this batch with jasmine tea and sugar and it is divine. Next batch is early grey and honey - we'll see how it goes. I've been diluting it with water, which is less than ideal, but I'm a bit lazy on the iced tea-making front, or juice-buying front, and it's still delicious. Also, I added it to my asian-style dressing and it was divine.

watching seeds germinate (true garden journal begins)

2010-03-25T07:46:00.000-07:00

Turn on grow light when I wake up. water when I get home. keep stove stocked. turn off light at 8 or so. That's been my routine. I'm keeping the stove stocked (at a calm, warm, temperature with small brick-sized logs that have been lying around) to make sure the little seedlings germinate.

My lettuces broke soil yesterday, and the daisies are just starting to do it as well. Nothing else has germinated. I'm worried I kept the house too cold for the first few days - not really stoking up a fire. it was probably just under 60*, which I realize now was a mistake, but I was worried about my wood lasting - though I'm less worried now. I've been watering with water that's about 70* to keep the soil temperatures up. Germination temperatures for daisies are in the 60*s, so if they germinated, everything should be fine. There are more than 1 seed in each pot, so even if I get a 50* germination rate due to lowered temperatures, I should, in theory behind. Either way - it's too soon to worry. Nothing's been in soil for more than a week.

My landlord is going to water the seedlings for me, though I'm worried that it's going to be a cold weekend, so I'm going to try to send my tender nightshades to someone with heating for plant sitting, and put the other seedlings by the south window for the weekend for light and heat. Maybe I'll trade my extra seeds and pots to start them in for seedling-sitting.

I check everything in my Fedco catalogue for now - they have good master charts for germination (side bar also has seed starting charts for flowers and herbs).

Gardening is not farming and cold frames are not greenhouses

2010-03-23T09:34:00.000-07:00

The seedlings are wet and well under their humming florescent light (which has insistently given me a headache and given my living room a bizarre glow for the past few days). I'll be starting ground cherries in a week and Okra, a spattering of herbs, and marigolds right around May Day (I started calendula and daisies already). I haven't decided if I'm going to start sunflowers in pots or try to keep the birds away and direct-seed them.

I am trying hard to figure out a way to stay home more. I have been away every other weekend for the past two months. Aside from what this does to my poor kitty, the result has been very destabilizing to my attempt to chart my desires and my future and get started. There's a certain amount of alone time with myself that I need before my brain starts clicking about certain things. Today I remembered thing I haven't though about in months and shocked myself by the conclusiveness of my decisions over the past year and where they have landed me. I think, all in all, I'm happy about the firm decisions I have made and less happy about the things I have floated through.

So I'm putting my foot down. My home, my garden, and my plans have been put on the back-burner as a result of a routine that has begun to resemble eat-clean-pack-drive-socialize-drive-repeat. It's a three hour drive to Jersey. I cannot, cannot, cannot do it twice a month. I am only leaving for weekends away from home once a month starting in April (I already have a trip planned for April to Jersey). So please, plan ahead with me, way ahead, if you want to see me away from my home. And keep in mind that it's summer, and upstate is beautiful and worth visiting. Friends and family from far away are more then eagerly invited, but it might include some help in the garden.

In other news,
Some suggestions on a theme:

Gardening is not farming and cold frames are not greenhouses. While its true that the lines blur at the edges, it is extremely hard to start seedlings in a coldframe during a typical early spring season and it is equally unwieldy to use standard farming procedures on a typical backyard garden. I learned this the hard way. For example, gardeners have enough room to start seeds in pots rather than trays so as to not bother switching from starting trays to small pots to larger pots, which farmers do to save on room (but not on labor - in fact, it'll take a tone of your time for no good reason if you do it this way).

Gardens really benefit from fencing and they're small enough for this to be possible, unlike farms (seriously).

Greenhouses and cold frames are not interchangeable. there is no heat source in a cold frame (unless you just got really fancy - though i bet you didn't) so beware the freeze and, more specifically, the optimal germination temperatures of the seedlings you will be starting. Also, Cold frames are much more prone to shading some of their contents. There is a reason cold frames are used for hardening off seedlings, rather than starting them. Unless you're willing to schlep all your plants indoors most nights and monitor the temperature and light in your cold frame extremely closely (I'd say every few hours), use the cold frame in the last, not the first, step of preparing seedlings for the garden.

No matter how much light your seedlings are getting, make sure it's enough. Full, day-long sun is key. seriously consider that it costs only $30 for a whole grow-light set up and way more than $30 to purchase all of your seedlings (and that's only for one year) if you mess up. Your window sill probably isn't enough, and please see the warning about cold frames above.

Your time, unlike a farmer's is not being compensated, and you are doing this for you - so be realistic about what you are willing to do. when you save money, you are almost always paying for it in your time - and this is a really important consideration, especially when it comes to how you might wiggle out of your best-made plans after 40 hours of work a week.

When starting 12 tomato plants, if 6 die, it's a catastrophe. When starting 120, it's to be expected. Losing that shaded-out row at the front of your cold frame that's pretending to be a greenhouse is probably not going to be worth it.

That being said, I'd love to hear if you prove me wrong.

How-to Start Seeds, build a sifter

2010-03-18T08:26:00.000-07:00

This weekend is going to be full of gardening. I'm hoping to start seeds with my sweetie today after work in this fine, fine weather. If we have time I also hope to bring out the cold frame and maybe tap a black birch just to see if they're still flowing - black birches give the most divine sap for drinking straight (too much of a pain to boil down to syrup because the sugar ratio is pretty low). Since the season for tapping birch is slightly later than the maple's I'm hoping the sap is still flowing, though this sugaring season has been incredibly short and strange - we haven't even been getting nighttime frosts anymore where I am! And something that's making me giddy is that my animal kick is being totally fixed by my sweetie, who surprised me a few weeks ago by dropping that he will be working at an animal farm this summer! Yay!

Since you too need to start some seeds, here's what you'll be doing over the next few days:

Starting Seeds
Seed starting is an integral part of growing food. if you're going to do gardening the cheap way, you will not be buying seedlings at the nursery for $3 a pop. instead, you'll buy a $3 seed packet and get planting!

Materials
high quality top soil/potting soil/finished compost
a sifter (optional but helps - see below on building your own)
pots, trays, whatever you'll be planting into
water (a lot)
seeds
a seed-growing station (florescent light, surface to place seedlings on)
a bin/wheel barrow for soil
clothes you're going to get wet and dirty
something to mark what's what (Sharpie and masking tape works well)
a rag or something to wipe your hands on
any soil additives (like bone meal or blood meal) that you're using

Procedure
Dump as much soil as you will need (I always err on the side of caution and use extra soil) through your sifter and into a barrow/bin. working in small batches, pour soil over sifter, and shake the soil into the wheel barrow/bin, throwing large chunks that can't be sifted into a separate pile for use in the garden, compost, or with better-established seedlings. Sifting soil provides for the finest soil so your seedlings don't have to fight through rough and chunky soil to get established. Add any additives you're using at this point.

Wet the soil until it's very wet, but not muddy, and mix well. I do this all with my hands.

Next, fill your pots or trays to within a centimeter of the top. Fill all the pots at once, because you'll need to have somewhat cleaner hands for the next step. You want the soil to be packed in enough so it won't settle much more. When you're done, wipe your hands.

Get your seeds and plant them in the pots 2-3 seeds per pot (you can weed out the weakest ones later). Generally, seeds should be planted at a depth of twice their width. Some seeds, however, need light to germinate. Check what the catalogue or seed packet says, or consult a gardening book. Also make sure that your seeds don't require extra treatment like scarification prior to planting. If you're planting seeds that have a very poor germination rate, plant in flats with a lot of seeds and then replant the surviving seedlings into individual pots. In general, starting in trays and then transplanting to pots saves a lot of space if you're doing a large-scale garden.

Cover the seeds with soil and label the pots with plant, variety name, and date started, along with any other relevant details. I'll be keeping a journal (on this blog) about varieties, how they grow, what they taste like, etc.

Bring your seeds your seed-starting station, if you're working outside. Once seeds germinate, keep them in the light for at least 10-12 hours a day, adjusting the height of your lamp to prevent leggy plants. Keep the plants warm (soil needs to be warmer than 55 for a lot of seeds to germinate. Check your specific seed guides for what temperatures you'll need). Water daily with a light stream of water that doesn't displace soil or harm the young seedling. Once the plants have leafed out in their first true leaves, thin to the strongest seedling in each pot.

In a few weeks, you'll need to bring them into your cold frame to harden them up. I'll be posting a cold frame tutorial soon. In the mean time, a sifter:

Building a soil sifter
A soil sifter is pretty much the same thing as a flour sifter. It lets through small particles of soil, fluffs them up, and keeps out larger particles. It's a useful garden tool and extremely easy to make. Keep in mind that you will be pouring the soil into the frame and then shaking the frame to sift the soil while you make your sifter.

Materials
- A window frame or sturdy picture frame (preferably with a middle beam for added sturdiness) that is roughly the size of the bin or wheel barrow you will be sifting soil into.
- 1/4 inch hardware cloth (or 1/2 inch size, or a smaller screen, depending on how fine you want your soil)
- Staple gun
- Wire cutters
- gloves

Procedure
Measure your hardware cloth to be larger that the size of your frame so that you can curl the edges around the frame and over the back of the wood, and cut, using the wire cutters. You'll want to be wearing gloves, because cut wire is sharp and no fun to play with.

laying the hardware cloth under the frame, fold the hardware cloth so that the edges wrap over the top side of the frame. Fold in the edges as if you were wrapping a textbook.

Staple ever few inches down, so that the hardware cloth is firmly attached to the frame. Cut off any excess wire that might hurt you while sifting.

Do a test run to make sure everything works properly, that the hardware cloth is firmly attached, and that there are no sharp wires cutting into you as you sift.

Make sure you keep your sifter out of the rain so it doesn't rust and lasts you for a long, long while. Every year, check to see if the staples or the frame needs reinforcement. It's much easier to fix things while they're only mildly broken.

What is this month doing??

2010-03-17T11:58:00.000-07:00

First of all - HOW did it get to be MARCH 17TH already!? Last time I checked, it was February!

Second - Spring took steroids this year. The crocuses are blooming! The willow over the pond behind my house is that yellowish shade it gets! A flock of red-winged blackbirds followed me in the trees on my walk (which I took without a jacket) yesterday. Sugaring season is already over! WHAT!? Has anyone seen ramps yet? What are the morels going to think about this!? Please, please, weather gone wild, DO NOT kill off the tomatoes again!!

and thus begins the mild insanity we call early spring.

Which means that this weekend/week I will be:

Bringing my cold frame out of winter hiding
Marking out my new garden plot and helping my landlord till it
Going over the tilled plot with a broad fork to aerate the soil (the tiller doesn't go very deep)
planting out lettuce into the prepared soil (if you have spinach you can plant that too)
Picking up a bunch of topsoil from neighbors (anyone have a pickup truck I can borrow?)

I will be doing that on top of what I had planned for this week (err...and earlier), a whole 9 weeks before the last frost:

Starting my nightshades!
Finishing my chicken coop

It's still March and I already feel like the white rabbit! I'm late! I'm late!

In good news - I opened up the cellar and it turns out my veggies were fine. No flooding. And seriously - 5 months later, my veggies are still delicious (except the carrots, which got really woody and are going to the compost, stat), firm, and not sprouting. It has been by far the best root cellaring experience I have ever had. Way easier than the high tech cellars we had in my last house (a really lovely co-op check it out)

Oh, and my darling readers, have I told you that I will be making and selling salves and other things of that sort starting this summer? I haven't figured out the details yet, but if anyone wants to chat with me about it, I'd love to chat. I need a label design - I'll barter salves, gardening advice, garden design, or whatever else we can think up for a label design. Let me know if you can do that for me.

...can you tell that I've had too much coffee today? and one too many little green cupcakes with nothing nutritious in them at all?

Mud Season

2010-03-15T07:59:00.000-07:00

Rain! Rain and flooding and oh my! I still have potatoes and carrots on the bottom step of my root cellar - which floods! Why don't I just go and move it? Oh, because I cannot get the cellar door open on my own - it catches a corner and I can't pull it up without help (as my male guests know - they get used for root cellar access all the time).

In other news, the forsythias are starting to bloom hysterically early. Mud season, my friends, is upon us. I have seen buds on the trees.

If I don't sound that excited, it's because I'm not. Spring is that wondrous season that unveils herself after a cold, snowy, and equally wondrous winter. The contrast of a white, silent, and sleepy winter with the muddy, green, waking humming busyness of spring is the appeal of spring to me. But this year we didn't have a snowed-in winter in the Mid-Hudson Valley. We had a pathetic, broken animal of a winter. The rest felt stolen, unpaid for with shoveling endless walkways, just stolen. With no winter to tail, spring doesn't feel like an unveiling. It's just mud and work and waking green.

I know I'll get excited soon, once the blossoms start blooming and the snow melts off the mountains, replaced by that vibrant, nascent green, that can only mean the start of the busy seasons ahead. The heat and cold will compete for primacy as the seasons kick into high gear and the scurrying of spring with all of the planting and preparing will fade into summer with her glaring heat and constant work and that glorious week, tucked into late June, when everything is planted and the weeds haven't started in earnest yet, and there's nothing to do. And then the weeds will burst up and the summer will be full of swimming off the constant heat of picking weeds, and tomatoes, and the constant, flowing harvest, which will turn itself into hours at the stove canning sauces and jams, freezing everything, and slowly, the tremor of early fall will make me wake in a sweat in the middle of the night fearing a freak early frost until everything is harvested and the frosts start rolling in, and the root cellars are stocked and there's the constant smell of apples and wood smoke in the air. And then, maybe then, we will have a white winter which will remind us why spring is such a magical time.

Newspaper pots (and other things)

2010-03-11T08:47:00.000-08:00

Spring is definitely out in full-force. The sun is waking me up at 6 AM as it shines into the east-facing windows above my bed. The birds are singing, the weather is bright, the dog chased a raccoon all over the property yesterday as i did some outdoor spring cleaning and checked out my garden site, and the weather is wonderful! I come home to plenty of sunshine, haven't been running the wood stove during the day all week, and the space heater in the bathroom (that I keep on a timer so that it's warm in the bathroom the morning and when I get home from work - when the house was coldest in the winter) has been unplugged. I am entirely overjoyed.

I have a gazillion things to do tonight before I leave for a weekend trip to Boston straight from work tomorrow - a bit of necessary house cleaning, making presents for the folks I'm visiting this weekend (my batch of calendula oil is setting 6 weeks today - I had no choice but to put it off until the last minute), as well as cooking for and going to a pot luck! Oh my - that means cabbage salad for the pot luck (with quinoa for extra yum), and probably some late-night cleaning. Which is fine seeing as I just received The Master and Margerita on CD in Russian to listen to while I'm working (why not brush up on Russian literature and Russian language while you work - it's kind of like whistling).

In other ludicrously exciting news - here is a good tutorial on making newspaper pots that makes perfect little 3 inch square pots. If you're using half-sized papers (local papers - anything smaller than the NYTimes, like I did) skip the second and third steps. The only other note I would make for clarity is that in step 13 she means corner, not edge, folded across to the middle crease (I had to really stare down the picture to figure it out). I also added a little staple to the folded-in flaps to keep the pot standing. I have no intention of planting the pot in the soil (in my experience that never works, it just contributes to a root-bound and sad plant). I'll just throw the little pots onto a bonfire and to hell with the staples.

If the soil dries up and stays workable over the next two weeks, chances are good that there will be some tilling going on. Anyone have any finished compost or composted manure I can take off their hands? I need 2 cubic yards, but more would be much appreciated.

March 8th!

2010-03-08T08:56:00.000-08:00

Happy International Women's day! And beautiful, beautiful spring weather! Yay!

This is one of my favorite holidays, mostly because it feels like a family secret. Apparently, Americans don't believe in international holidays like this one and May Day. I'm going to celebrate by scouring the local thrift stores for a nice, large enameled casserole dish and making brisket (using this recipe). I am sick of my simple cast-iron dutch oven, which (among other virtues) is a pain to clean, retains smells, and currently has a lining of burned beef chuck stew that I can't scrape off - a remnant of my one and only tragic dinner burning experience. I have scraped, soaked (I know - I SOAKED my cast iron!), and still haven't successfully detoxed my dutch oven it's so stubborn. It's partially my fault for putting off cleaning it. I was so distraught about burning dinner to a crisp that I just left it and my sweetie and I went out for dinner instead. When I got home, I was still too upset about it to deal with it. I put the burned beef stew on the floor where the cat was overjoyed at the opportunity to pick at it and went to sleep.

The way to get the worst burned-on gunk to unstick from the bottom of your pots and pans is fairly simple. Pour baking soda into the pan just to cover the bottom, then add about an inch or 2 of water and boil for a few minutes. When it's been boiling just long enough for you to have finished whatever other small task you were doing, pour off some of the water (just a precaution so you don't splash yourself with boiling water) and scrape the bottom. Usually one round works.

I will also be starting my lovely little lettuces. I decided I'm going to have to buy a heat pad for my seed starting table - I simply do not keep it warm enough indoors to ensure proper germination of my seeds.

Now What?

2010-03-05T11:36:00.000-08:00

I'm still fixating on raising animals - but I think I'm a bit too scared to actually commit and jump in. There's a lot of upfront cost and work. I've been researching a new animal each day. Today I looked into geese. If it weren't for the fact that people don't really eat goose much it would be perfect. Eggs, down, feathers, quality meat, and really good foragers - plus low rates of disease and good at defending themselves. Kind of sounds too good to be true - which it is, seeing as people seem to think that goose is only good eating for Christmas.

The biggest hurdle to cross for me in starting a small-scale, backyard animal operation is going it alone. Animals, unlike vegetables, require constant vigilance. They require daily human attention, and the infrastructure can be pretty high, depending on the animal (though geese, chickens, and rabbits would only be a little more than putting in a new vegetable garden). Fencing is the most daunting part of the infrastructure. I'd build a little animal house any day, but banging in fence posts in rocky soil is up there on my list of things I really hate doing. Though my landlord wants to fence in the 5 acres behind the orchard anyway, so why not?

It's very conflicting. On the one hand, I want to live in line with my values, and i want to do the things which make me happy. On the other hand, I really don't want to overdo it. I want to be able to go to sleep at night without rattling off everything I have to do until the inside of my head tics like a clock. But I don't want to feel contented and blase in doing very little to move towards my goals - which is how I'm living right now (or at least, it feels like that). Okay, I admit, I've always been an overachiever. I've always started way too many projects, and been in a rush to do it all. I've also always left plenty new tasks undone. It's a pattern of mine, so I'm cautious about taking on anything new - even though I'm less stressed than I have been ever before. And yet, I know I can easily get stuck in this place.

I don't want to become exhausted, over-worked, or resentful. I don't want to fail miserably by taking on too much, or by taking on projects that aren't well suited for me. I want time to sit in my living room and daydream. And to be honest - I want to play second fiddle sometimes. Being the only person around to clean the house, cook food, start seeds, motivate myself, and tell myself to take a break gets very hum-drum. I'm generally stronger, braver, and more productive when I work alone, but it's tiring to always have to be the brave, motivational one. And that's what I feel most strongly with the animal question. I want to do it with someone - someone I trust and someone with whom I'm on equal footing. I want someone to share the responsibilities, the risk, and the blessings with me.

That's one of the reasons that makes me feel strongest about putting off getting animals for at least another year or so. hopefully by next spring there'll be someone to raise animals with. This year I could easily content myself with helping out my friends at Awesome Farm - which doesn't address that I want extra income, but it'll at least give me some experience - which I know I need. My landlords have their own little farm stand that they've offered me selling space on, and I could easily get some friends to sell home-made products for me if it came down to it - I don't have to focus on animals.

As all the reasoning piles up I still wonder if I'm reasoning myself out of committing myself to something that would be meaningful, important, and exciting out of fear and temerity. It's a strange line to walk - and I can't tell which side of it I'm on.

I don't know. It somehow ties in with how this article about the trade-off of back-to-the-land'ing has been on my mind. I don't find radical all-out homesteading to be terribly appealing, and I don't particularly want to put myself on that road, except I'm not even close to being an all-out homesteader. In fact - I'm farther than I'd like to be. but i want those skills. And i want to know how to make do. I just don't know when and how it makes sense to escalate my commitment to all of this.

I've been gardening for 4 years now. I still love it, but I want more, and I want to see myself moving in the right direction - which includes making some extra money and gaining more land-based skills - and animals seem to be a way to marry the two. It's not like I'd be making much money - but if I started small, I could at least break even, given a good business plan. It's not like I'm looking at buying a flock of 250 birds, or 100 rabbits. I'm thinking more on the order of 10-20 animals for sale at the end of the season, plus a small breeding stock. Enough to cover the costs of putting some of the meat on my own table and maybe to cover one of my minor expenses - like heat - for next year. That would make it plenty worth it.

I just don't know.

Yum!

2010-03-04T09:50:00.000-08:00

Clearly, this is a day for getting my sillies out. Some of you may remember that I have a minor obsession with Sweetened Condensed Milk - the most delicious thing in the world. And look! The New York Times Style section does love me! Milk in a Can Goes Glam

Now that's what I call delicious.

In other news, I set up my seed-starting station. I spent $30 for the whole get-up and 10 minutes measuring, setting up, and hanging the thing.

I still want sheep. or chickens. but really, sheep.

Excuse me for a minute...

2010-03-04T07:05:00.000-08:00

Dearest Self,

You do not actually want to raise a flock of chickens, sheep, goats, alpacas, or anything else. It's just the spring talking. I know it could supplement your income, help you get closer to the things you want to be doing, give you some much-wanted skills, and even give you the best excuse to not go anywhere ever, but do you really want to commit to waking up at 6 AM every day, not traveling at all (including weekends) unless you have a trusted animal-sitter, and otherwise relegating your life to lovable little fluff/feather balls that poop everywhere and do their best to get eaten? I think not. Snap out of it and get some sense! Plus, you do not want to build a fence. I know you don't. You hate building fences.

Love,
Yourself

Dearest Yourself,

What if I stage a coop d'etat and do it anyway?

Love,
Self

Spring Fever!

2010-03-03T13:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was an incredibly beautiful day that smelled like spring! And it really is the season. The sap is beginning to run in the maples, it's time to have started the onion seeds, you could have started your lettuce seeds already, and the hens have been laying for almost a month! I spent yesterday drooling over farm animals on craigslist that I could never afford or take care of. I also picked up some meat at a local farm and found out that they have laying hens I can buy for $15 a pop. Not a great deal, but definitely worth it, seeing as laying hens for sale are pretty hard to find around here - especially 6 of them!

As for me, I don't have onion seeds to start, but friends have started them about a week ago. Im going to start my lettuce seeds today, and hopefully tap a maple tree (if I can find one on the property that my landlord hasn't tapped already).

11 Weeks before the Last Frost
Start Onion seeds (if growing onions from seed)
Tap maples
Start lettuce seeds (just put 2-3 seeds under 3-4 millimeters of moist soil and keep warm and watered until they sprout, then thin to the best one)
prep the coop for hens (if you're me)

Tapping Maples
Tapping a maple tree is fairly easy, and if you have cheap anything to boil the sap on for days, it's a great way to make maple syrup. Maple sap runs when nights fall below freezing but the days are above freezing. That's now, so get started!

Materials
A maple tree that's 10 inches in diameter or more (one tap per 10 inches, no more!)
A drill and bit that's 7/16" (or 1/2" if that's what you have)
Grimm spouts with hooks (or see cheap alternative below)
gallon plastic bottles or buckets with netting to keep insects out
A nice big pot for boiling water near an open window - it's going to get steamy!

The process
The best trees to use are sugar maples, but silver maples and a few others are good to tap. Make sure you have the right tree! It's best to mark your trees in the early fall when they still have leaves. If not, consult a good guide book with bark identification (such as the Audubon guide to North American trees)

Drill a hole with the bit that is angled slightly up at a height that makes sense for you to hang the bucket/jug at. If you have a grimm spout all you have to do is stick it in, hang the bucket off of the hook and let the spout empty into the bucket (on top of the netting is fine), or force a hole into the side hanging jug so that the spout empties into the closed (and therefor bug-free) jug.

If you don't want to buy Grimm spout, here's a cheap alternative - but you're going to lose some sap, so it might be worth investing in the grimm spout and hook - which is pretty cheap as things go. Cut a soda can (or a sardine lid or something similar) to about 4 inches long and 1 inch wide. Roll this into a half-tube and stick this tube into the hole you drilled into the tree as tightly as possible. hammer a small nail into the tree just about the makeshift spout and hang a bucket or jug off of the nail so that the spout runs into the jug or bucket.

Check your sap buckets daily and empty them. If you're not going to start boiling immediately, keep the sap refrigerated. Simmer the sap, being careful not to burn it, until the sap condenses to become as sweet as you want it - it takes about 32 gallons of sap to yield one gallon of syrup - so that boiling will take a while! You can add sap as you collect more in the early stages of the boiling, but once the sap starts boiling down, I'd transfer the syrup to a smaller pot and keep it on a low simmer until finished. YUM! Keep finished syrup refrigerated. any mold that forms can be taken off the top of the syrup which should then be boiled before using.

Make sure to try some raw sap! It tastes like magical water.

Curing an Ear Infection

2010-02-26T08:36:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning so dizzy that it took me 5 minutes to slowly, slowly, get out of bed. I am, unfortunately, ridiculously prone to ear infections. So much so that dizziness doesn't even worry me anymore. However, waking up with such a sudden and intense onset of dizziness is pretty bad, and I have a packed weekend ahead of me. Not being able to focus at the opera tonight or not being able to dance at the David Bowie tribute tomorrow would be a real shame!

Of course, I completely forgot to take care of my ears this morning, so it looks like there will be no way to get around using this smelly, all-purpose fix to ear infections tonight, when I have a date. How embarrassing! (actually this is a lie - given who it is, it's not embarrassing at all - just a bit smelly. It's great to fall in with people who are great and as diy as me - if not more - omg I'm doing the thing I swore to myself I'd never do on this blog).

Now, I unveil the horror! It feels great, but trust me, you do not want to do this for a date

Garlic ear oil
Curing an ear infection is fairly simple, but it doesn't smell good. All you need is a clove of garlic and olive oil (1-2 tablespoons should be fine) and a small pan. heat the olive oil while mincing the garlic. drop the garlic into the hot oil, turn off the heat, and let it sit until it's warm to the touch. scoop some oil into your finger and drop 3-6 drops into one ear. rub it in well, and lie on that side for 30 seconds or so. Then repeat with the other ear. Do this 2-4 times a day.

To save the oil, strain out the garlic. I would make a new batch each day though. When using cooled oil, make sure you rub your ear thoroughly to heat the oil and your ear up.

Some people use mullein-infused olive oil to heat the garlic in - but unless you happened to infuse olive oil with mullein 6 weeks ago, I wouldn't worry.

About that Seed Starting...

2010-02-24T13:31:00.000-08:00

I suddenly remembered (yesterday) that I had planned to figure out the details of my seed starting, buy everything, and set it up by now. Oops. Clearly, I've been a bit distracted. Not that I mind being distracted, but these things need to get done!

So what I did was figure out that I need to start 68 plants (I'm started a third more plants than I need of each variety), and then, given that they will be grown in 3 inch pots, I figured out the dimensions of the space I would need (3 pots by 23 pots is 9"x68", 4 pots by 17 pots is 12"x51" and so on). then I went and measured every available surface I had in the house (I don't want to build shelves) and found that the desk I NEVER use in my bedroom is not only a good bit larger than the necessary area, but is in the warmest spot in the house and is close enough to a low ceiling to easily accommodate a florescent light with adjustable chains for height without any other rigging. As for cat-proofing - we'll just have to hope, for now. if it gets bad, I'll make a chicken wire cage around the plants. I'll cover the surface of the desk with plastic so as not to hurt the pretty wood.

So that means I need to purchase:
1 florescent light fixture and bulb (about 40" long)
2 chains - 40" and 30" (it's a sloped ceiling)
2 ceiling hooks that can take the weight
...which really isn't bad at all.

I will make a bunch of little pots out of newspaper. Tutorial to follow.

Added bonus: that desk was a mess and during the lovely snow day I had this morning, I got a chance to finally (and for the first time, I think) clean it off.

mmm Flowers!

2010-02-22T10:34:00.000-08:00

Quick! It's the season to force flowers indoors! Go out and get those early woody bloomers - forsythia, peach, apple, cherry, or dogwood stick them in a vase with water in a warm spot in the house and wait for them to bloom which they should do in a week or so. It'll feel like spring.

Aquaponics and Fun with Soil

2010-02-18T11:15:00.000-08:00

Two awesome links that have captivated me today.

First, this article on aquaponics (hydroponics meets aquaculture) where fish and plants grow in the same low-impact system. Definitely part of my 5 year plan. I love tilapia! You can read the article (with a lot of great links) HERE

Second, really fun craft time project once the soil thaws. Dorodango shiny balls made of soil! I don't know if I'll have the patience, but aren't they pretty? I definitely want to try making one. The early step is similar to how you would make a seed bomb (you put a bunch of seeds in and then form the ball just until it dries in the second step. Then you throw it where you want seeds to sprout).

Good Ol' Standby

2010-02-18T07:16:00.000-08:00

My dear readers, you're not the only thing I've been neglecting. My cat keeps meowing at me too. She's used to getting a lot of attention and I've been skimping on it lately. Accept, as my apology, this very simple recipe, which is my favorite thing to make when I just want to make something fast because I don't want to or can't focus on cooking. It's my good ol' standby food - always easy, and always reliable. I improvise depending on what I have on hand, or if I want to make a fancier dish. it works with lettuce instead of cabbage too - but I like the crunch of cabbage. We all have those quick and easy recipes that are delicious and come through when you need it, and this is that recipe of mine - also, it's healthy.

Cabbage and bean salad

Ingredients (for one):
Cabbage (for one person less than a quarter of a head is good)
A carrot (if you don't have carrots substitute a beat or parsnip)
1/2 can of beans (my favorite are black soy beans, but chick peas are good too)
scallions and/or cilantro (optional, but delicious)

Dressing:
soy sauce
rice vinegar (if you don't have it lime or apple cider vinegar work too)
toasted sesame oil
a carrier oil like canola or peanut (olive will work in a pinch too)
ginger (optional, but delicious)

Shred the cabbage. To shred cabbage, cut off a slice of cabbage (by cutting off a side), cut the slice in half, and then cut as thin as possible across the slice. Grate the carrot and add beans and whatever else you're using.

To make the dressing, mix equal parts soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and carrier oil. If you're using lime or apple cider vinegar, add about a 1/2 part or less (it;s stronger). grate in 1/4 inch of garlic, cover, and shake it until it's a light brown color).

Dress, toss, and enjoy. this is my favorite quick and easy meal. with rice, it's the best.

Hosting through 3 Delicious Meals

2010-02-15T07:40:00.000-08:00

It's surprisingly rare for me to truly enjoy hosting someone through three daily meals, all cooked at home. It's very rare to share breakfast, lunch, and dinner all homemade with a guest, but that, my dear readers, was something I got the chance to do yesterday, and in the process I learned that it's really easy to cook 3 fast and delicious meals in a day (which is something I rarely do for myself as is). The, trick, it turns out, is to go for delicious yet simple. here was my action plan:

Late Breakfast - Herbed Scrambled eggs with fried parsnips and rutabaga
Late Lunch - Fried tofu with caramelized onions, rice, salad with a ginger vinaigrette
Late and small Dinner - Tomato rice soup

Here's the scoop:

Breakfast (10 minutes prep, 15 minutes cook)
For the root veggies, thinly slice up 2-3 parsnips (as thin as you can get it - circles or half moons depending on the size of your parsnip) and a quarter of a medium rutabaga (you can also use potatoes, sunchokes, celeriac or whatever root veg you have on hand). Thin slice an onion. Sautee, covered, with a lot of butter and rosemary (to smell), you can add a quarter cup of water if things are burning. Add a bunch of salt. It takes about 15 minutes. Serve with sour cream.
For the eggs, beat 4-6 eggs (for two people) with sage, thyme, oregano, and a bit of rosemary (a lot - it should smell well-herbed). Scramble.

Lunch (20 minutes prep, 25 minutes cook, with some overlap)
Drain tofu, cube it, and then cover with 2 parts soy sauce, 1 part rice vinegar, and 1 part sesame oil, plus a grated inch or so of ginger (frozen ginger grates really well) a minced clove of garlic, some chives (if you have them) and a pinch of red pepper. let it sit while you prep a basic green salad, set the rice cooking (enough rice for lunch, and dinner! remember tomato rice soup!), and dice an onion.

For the salad dressing (this is the best part, and really ties the meal together) grate about a half inch of ginger into a dressing that is one part neutral oil (olive is fine), one part sesame oil, one part rice vinegar, and one part (or more even) lime juice salt or tamari to taste. Stir really well and don't let anyone pour it in their salad without stirring it well enough.

throw the diced onion and the tofu (reserve some of the marinade or it will burn) into a hot pan with oil, and sautee for as long as it takes the rice to finish. this should be plenty of time for the onions to caramelize and the tofu to brown. While everything is cooking, you can prep dinner.

Dinner (10 minutes prep, simmer as long as you can)
The trick to dinner is that it has to cook for a long time, so prep it while you're doing lunch, or while your guest is checking voicemail/something of the sort. It's the easiest meal you're going to cook all day. Dice an onion, a carrot, garlic, and some celery or celeriac (I didn't have it so I skipped it) throw that into some chicken stock, add a can of tomatoes (I added a can of tomatoes and a can of sauce for extra yum and so I had plenty for leftovers) and sprinkle in some marjoram and a dash of thyme (if you have it) salt, and pepper, and simmer until you're ready to eat it (yes - like 5 hours - that's the trick, seriously). I simmered mine uncovered because it was so watery and it turned out perfect. Dump in the rice a bit before you're going to start and stir in a cup or more of sour cream, half and half, heavy cream (don't overdo it), milk, or whatever combination thereof you have on hand. Serve hot with bread. if you're going to skimp on the chicken stock and use veg stock, you should sautee the veg before cooking. If you don't think you can leave a pot of soup simmering while you run around town for an hour or two, you're too risk averse, and I recommend trying it (unless you have a dog that will want to know what's cooking).

And that, as they say, is that. Very simple.

Planning for Indoor Seed-Starting

2010-02-12T07:22:00.000-08:00

I'm late! I'm late! The spring season has been ticking closer and the sudden toe-tapping feeling has come over me. Oncoming spring always makes me feel late. I walked into my landlord's house to chat about laundry and thank him for keeping my fire going when I had an unexpectedly long stint away from home last weekend, and saw a fully rigged set up of shelves with florescent lighting to start the lettuces and tomatoes. I haven't even cleared enough space in my living room to start seeds yet! I haven't even ordered my onion sets yet! or discussed my garden plans with my landlord!

But really, it's okay. My farming friends are only starting their onion seeds now (they grow from seeds, not sets - sets are tiny second-year onions started the previous autumn and then over-wintered. They grow faster to ensure nice, fat bulbs, and are easier to maintain for those of us who don't have the faith in our gardening skills to grow onions from seed). They will start tomatoes in March. I will follow their example and chill out. I've already numbered all my weeks in my planner backwards from the last frost for the region (May 20th), so i always know what week it is (The week starting Monday, February 15th is 13 weeks from the last frost). In the mean time, there's a lot to think about.

Here's my plan:

This week I will:
- Design my indoor seed-starting set-up
This includes:
- Figure out how many seeds I will be started and what the system will look like
- Figure out if I need to heat the system (I hope not)
- Figure out how to keep the cat out of the seedlings
- Make a full shopping list for what I need

Also this week I will:
- Actually talk to my landlord about my garden plans and the where and when of it
- Buy onion sets, herb seeds, and other things i don't have! I will buy my next round of seeds from Fedco, which is the cheapest and most responsible northeast seed company with a comprehensive variety of seeds)

next week I will (12 weeks before the last frost):
- Buy the necessary equipment

The following week I will (11 weeks before the last frost)
- rig up the seed-starting system
- run a test-start with lettuces, and possibly okra (i need to do some more research on this Southern, heat-loving plant which grows so anemically here in the Northeast)

9 weeks before the last frost (the third week in March):
I will start my earliest seedlings (tomatoes, peppers, okra, and I'll probably start my herbs and flowers as well)

Sick Days

2010-02-11T07:03:00.000-08:00

My dear readers, sorry for the lag time between posts. Between working weekends and getting sick, I haven't gotten a chance to do much. While tossing and turning in bed all day yesterday (not feeling 100% up to snuff today, but a woman's gotta work!) I re-learned one of my least favorite lessons of adult life. All of the knowledge in the world is useless in the face of sickness and exhaustion. Yes, even though I knew, in theory, what I needed to do to get my sorry ass off of the couch and feeling better, I did none of it, since it took more energy than I had to clear my mind enough to go and pull the fennel off the spice rack and start chewing it.

Between lying on the couch all day watching Planet Earth, and lying on the couch some more and reading The Neverending Story (meh), and When You Reach Me (you should read it) (I'm on a children's book kick), I basically only had the energy to make myself some chicken and rice soup out of desperation (I was hungry). Luckily, I had frozen stock in convenient ziplock bags and I grated up some ginger (if you freeze ginger it's really easy to grate it up and it doesn't come out stringy), chopped some garlic, onions, and carrots into the stock and called it soup. For lunch I mixed in some miso (mix miso into a small amount of the broth in a bowl, then add in the rest of your soup - boiling miso kills the nutrients in it).

If I were fully cognizant, or if I had a mommy available to me on site (Mommy called later and reminded me to chew my fennel) I would have been drinking fennel and ginger tea all day with honey and keeping my stomach occupied with crackers (saltines) and rice.

Instead I lay on the couch all day cursing the medicine that wasn't working, drinking water, and doing little else. Spare energy went to keeping the stove well stocked. I think that's what I'll have the energy for tonight too.

More when I feel 100%.

Saving

2010-02-05T08:03:00.000-08:00

Warning: money talk, but there's a treat at the end of this entry!

I have a tendency to think in terms of 10-year plans. I know, I know, plans never make it past the first engagement, but I can't help it! How else do I know that I'm acting in a way that furthers my goals? Well, my friends, to further my goals, I bring you the next step in my life resolutions. This one is going to be much harder than cutting down on radio time, but it must be done, so onward!

I've been living fairly comfortably barely within my means. Now, I'm afraid, it's time to get on with it and start saving. No more excuses - I know I can do it. What does that mean, realistically? It means I'm no longer going to buy what I can otherwise make or do myself (within reason). Like all of my resolutions, the frugal aspects of this one coincide with its environmental and anti-consumerist ones. But here are the practical details:

First - no more going out for lunch. I will pack a lunch every day. Going out for lunch will be reserved for the once or twice monthly occasion of really needing to get out of the office, SERIOUSLY. I will eat lunch away from my desk, in order to not go absolutely looney with no lunch break. If I forget lunch, I'll have to survive on the leftover pastries and popcorn in the office and since I don't have much of a sweet tooth or any sort of fondness for popcorn or junk food, I'm sure one day of this diet will force me to remember my lunch from that point on. Since I never eat out for dinner except on special occasions, I don't really feel the need to cut down on that expense. I think I'll be freezing little lunchables for myself and buying more deli meats (yum!)

Second - I don't need to purchase certain services. For example - an oil change. Not only do I know how to change my own oil (I've never done it in this car, but I've done it in my old Jeep - and it was surprisingly easy), I find it significantly harder to schedule time to drop off my car or sit and wait for it than to just find time to change my oil myself. Now that it's light out after I get home from work, this will be even more doable (stay tuned - it's time for an oil change - maybe Sunday or Monday?)

Once the summer comes around, both of these will be easier. Winter food takes a long time to cook and that often turns me off to cooking for myself, and diy is always more fun when it's warm out - especially when it involves sliding myself under my car.

if I do this right, it means I'll be saving about $15 a week (about how much I spend on eating lunch out) plus $15 or so on each oil change. Which doesn't mean I'll be able to take that vacation I want to take necessarily, but I might be able to figure something out (Maine instead of Seattle?). And, to further it, does anyone know a high-interest, low-risk savings account option?

Phew! Now that you got through the money talk, here's a treat:

Chai Custard
I made this for dessert yesterday and LOVED it. It is the easiest, most delicious dessert I've made in a long time. The perfect conclusion to a thai-style meal. Also, it was way easier than pie. I made it for two, and didn't follow a recipe, so bear with me. I didn't use a recipe - so you should feel free to estimate also.

You need:

- 3 egg yolks
- 1/3 pint of heavy cream
- 2 Tablespoons whole milk
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 cloves
- a tiny sprinkle of nutmeg
- a pinch of cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp of cardamom (the whole seeds (not pods) or powder)
- a sprinkle of grated ginger (if you haven't put ginger in every other dish that night like I did)

- something to bake it in (I used a mini pie plate, you could use little canning jars, ramikins would be ideal)
- egg beater/wisk
- an oven preheated to 325

separate the yolks and beat them up. add sugar and beat smooth. ad cream and milk and beat some more. add all the spices and beat until mixed. Pour into your baking container and bake for about 8 minutes, or until the sides have set but the center still jiggles.

A Note
I have a sneaking suspicion that if you scald the cream and steep some black tea in it, the custard will come out even tastier.

The Beginning

2010-02-04T06:59:00.000-08:00

There is a holy day lost in the endlessness of days. That day, whether with a mid-winter thaw or the sudden realization that the days are getting longer, when the spring becomes possible. With the thaw that came this January, I suddenly woke to gardening.

Like all holy days that come from a true craving in the human spirit, this implaceable day when winter begets spring is still marked. Groundhog day, though perhaps only marked by the occasional child who longs for more snow days, still reminds us that spring has infiltrated winter. Purim, the Jewish holiday that celebrates the queen Esther bringing hope back to her people who could see nothing but annihilation ahead of them, is the most festive and bacchanal of Jewish holidays - and it falls around this liminal time. In the old Western Euoprean world this holiday of the unquestionable advance of spring was called Imbolc.

It is with this holy day, lost between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, when the gardening year truly begins. Of course I have been pestering myself for weeks and weeks to start on my garden already, to make plans, to order seeds, but until that subtle day when spring breaks her first, premature smile, I am loathe to think of the garden. But once it comes and spring digs itself into me, I am infected. The gardening season has started.

No logic, no science can explain why it is that i garden. No science can hold the incredible miracle of a seed sprouting - a seed I planted in soil I prepared for it. While I claim idealistic and ideological reasons for gardening, the true reason is that I am in love with the inexplainable miracle of it all - the magic of warm soil, of a seed sprouting, and of that day in midwinter when it all infects me. I want to hold the awe of this reason for growing food - hold it and, without explaining it, acknowledge it, bow before it as my only reason (as unreasonable as that may be), and embody it in my writing.

2010-02-03T11:24:00.000-08:00

One good reason for doing your dishes immediately after eating is so that when you learn on wednesday at work that you will, in fact, have company over for dinner on thursday, you don't have to scamper to figure out when you'll do the sink full of dishes between now, the bonfire you're going to tonight, and work tomorrow. However, that does mean I get to turn my old hen that's been sitting in the freezer into stock and make some thai-style winter root veg curry (I'm making up the recipe - leeks were too expensive and pathetic-looking) with lemongrass (cheaper than leeks!) and black soy beans (my new favorite bean for asian-style meals - they absorb flavor so well!), add into that some kraut-cum-kimchi (I'll be adding chilis, ginger, garlic, and thin-sliced turnips to some of my kraut and letting it all sit in brine overnight so the flavors can meld), and some spiced peach cobbler, I say we'll have ourselves a dinner. Whether or not the kitchen will survive, that i don't know.

In other news - I ran out of my lovely local onions yesterday. I probably had 10 pounds or so for the winter, and they were perfect, little single-serving onions. Moral of the story: I'll need double the onions for next year.

I'm also on a mission to have more dinner parties so that i can use up the rest of my winter storage veggies as spring comes upon us. Anyone have some good winter veg recipes you want to share?

This Year's Garden Plan

2010-02-01T17:39:00.000-08:00

Here is my garden plan, drawn out. It's designed to feed just me, with all of my favorite food and plants, taking into account what I can get cheaper and easier from my landlord's farmstand and garden, and what I'd rather grow inside or closer to home (herbs - which will be tucked into the ornamental border planted around my house), and what I'd rather not grow. I just realized that I totally forgot onions. go figure. Also...it's somewhat revised from the plan I described earlier. I'm sure it will be revised even more when I till and plant.

I always draw my garden plans oriented to the South (see the compass rose on the right), and I include the year and where I'm gardening for my records (not shown in this image). This is the last of about 10 drawings I did (most small and in pencil) and it includes planting distance, thinning distance (where applicable), and some notes on plantings as they change (ie - peas followed by beans). On first thought, I'll probably add a small bed south of the garden, I'm thinking 2 feet by 20 feet and plant it full of onions and that way I'll have enough onions for spring and winter (I hope).

Now all I need to do is make a calendar of when I will be planting everything - indoors, transplanting, direct seeding, etc. to finish with this initial planning stage. Getting the planning stage done early means not realizing a week late that you should have planted the corn already.

Feel free to use as much or as little of this garden plan as you'd like, and copy it entirely if you so desire. I hope it helps.

The Planned Garden

2010-01-31T10:20:00.000-08:00

I have finally designed my garden. By comparison to other gardens I've designed, it's tiny. My past life of backyard gardening has been at a housing co-op of ten people and while I never actually grew a garden big enough for 10, I designed and built gardens on the scale (a crazy endeavor I fondly blame on being youth-drunk and excited about the new-found love of my life). I am proud to say that this garden is a model of restraint. Here are the details:

The loveliness of my new garden is in its simplicity. It is designed as one 4' by 20' raised bed and another 4' by 18' rectangle. The bed, which will run East/West and will have a 6' by 4' rectangle of potatoes and bush beans (with sweet peas in the spring), a 4' by 4' square of carrots, parsnips, and beets, a 2' by 4' rectangles each of kale and peppers, and two 2' by 6' rectangles one for okra and one for cabbages. parallel to this bed and just north of it will be my tall plants (north of the other bed so as not to shade anything out). I will have two rows of mixed tomatoes (6' by 4'), then a corn/bean/squash rectangle of 8' by 4', which will have a row of lettuce tucked in behind it (to take advantage of the spring light before the corn grows tall, and then to take advantage of the shade in the high heat of summer), flanked by another double row, 4' square of my paste tomatoes. The beds will be lined with calendula/marigold, daisies, chives (around the caggage and root crops), and borage (around the tomatoes). I'm sure I'll also plant Sunflowers (the decorative kind) along the north and east of the garden.

I've picked out a spot I like by my house, in case the landlords don't have room in their garden for mine. Other than this, I have a beautiful bed of garlic planted at my old house. My rotation plan for next year is to add a bed to the north, rotate everything one plot over and back (potatoes into roots and kale, roots into cabbage, kale into okra, cabbage and kale back into one of the tomato plots, cron/beans/squash back to a new bed, tomatoes into corn/beans/squash bed and back into the new bed).

I made a general plan with dimensions of each plot per vegetable/companion set and then I made a specific planting guide down to planting patterns (traingles or rows) and number of plants, distance of planting, etc. for each section (tomatoes - 8 paste, 10 total mixed, cabbage and okra - 11 plants each, 8 heads of spring lettuces, 6 heads of summer lettuce, etc.)

And that, my friends, is it. Please do tell me about your garden designs and plans this year. I'd love to know!

Designing the Garden

2010-01-28T12:23:00.000-08:00

I've taught many a workshop on designing a garden, and I know from experience that it's hard to know where to start. That said, I have stopped dreaming about perfect gardens. It is enough for me, at this point in my life, simply to garden. A walk through Eden takes much more background work than I'm willing to put in. So, very realistically, here's what I do.

First, I take into account my goals. This includes how many veggies I'd like to grow, ideal harvest (data and tables can be found in this quintessential book ), and anything else I want. This includes dreaming big (if I had it in me)

Then, I observe my landscape. This is the part where I figure out what kind of space I actually have, how much sunlight I get, what my soil is like, where flooding or extra frost or wind damage happens, where roadway runoff may have oversalted my soil, where compacted areas might make it hard to till, where in the yard I never go and probably will never go to tend to a garden either, etc. etc. In reality, I do this at the same time as I figure out my goals. This is the "reality check" part of the project.

I combine my goals and my observations in site assessment, which is where I figure out how to meld my goals and my observations. Thus I pick the perfect general site and size for my garden. This includes basic things like "well...I guess I don't be growing good carrots because of how rocky this soil is" or "I can basically do whatever I want. Sweet."

Only after this point do I design my garden. I lay out beds and rows, I make measurements, I draw diagrams and maps. First I plan out the general size, shape and design of the garden at large, and once I have an idea of the general plan, I figure out what goes where (including an easy rotation pattern for future years (rotation refers to not planting the same veggies in the same place more than once every 3-4 years to ensure that pests and disease don't stay in the soil and attack the plants again and also for nutrient replenishment)), how much of each veggie to plant, and other charming features.

Once I plant my garden, I always make sure to have a detailed map of what I planted where, because next winter it'll be hard to remember what your rotation plan was, and you risk planting carrots in the same spot two years in a row out of sheer carelessness. I have a devoted Gardener's notebook so everything (including seed buying receipts and daydreams) goes into one place where it'll be easy to find. A file folder would serve the same purpose.

Notes
Always design from broad concepts to details. Knowing where the carrots go before knowing how big the garden will be doesn't make sense no matter how you swing it. Also - this will guarantee that your details will work towards an effective and comprehensive broader concept and actually meet your goals. Sewing together scattered details to form a well-design whole rarely works.

If you want the best design possible have fun and play around with it. sketch out several different designs with thick markers first, and then do several renditions with pencils for details. Move things around, try different shapes and patterns, even if you are absolutely sure where the garden will go, try moving it to learn something new about other potential landscape factors or how you might go about designing the layout of the garden itself. You'll be surprised how much fun it is and how much more effective it is to mix and match ideas from different designs than to just plough ahead with the first great thing you thought of.

Housekeeping Secrets

2010-01-27T07:13:00.000-08:00

My landlords need an estimate for the size of the garden I want to build. I have yet to give them an answer. I can't tell if I should make raised beds or rows. I have only ever gardened in beds, but I just don't know if I can commit to the upfront effort of raised beds this year - especially when I'm not sure if I'll be here next year. The size of my garden (as well as how neatly weeded I'm willing to keep it) will be a deciding factor on whether or not my garden will be within the confines of their large garden or somewhere else on the property. It would be very nice to have a pre-tilled, already worked and improved garden spot, but I don't want to impose. Also, he's willing to till up a plot for me, which makes things much easier, though as any seasoned gardener knows, the 10-year garden's soil grows a healthier and happier crop than freshly-turned soil that is sadly low on nutrients and love (though, hopefully, also low on pests and diseases).

I've been pretty low-key on the projects front. I haven't even cooked for myself (besides eggs and canned refried beans) for the past two days. Monday I blame on a migraine, Tuesday I blame on my excitement to see Avatar in 3D (SO much fun!) Also...I've been plotting and planning and scheming books and writing and publicity and roommates.

I hope, therefore, that you will humbly accept these two incredibly smart housekeeping secrets I learned from one of my friends who truly knows most of what there is to know about keeping a frugal house and home. I had the pleasure of living with her and learning from her, and I hope she doesn't mind that I share these two little tidbits with you. She is second only to the women who raised me in people I have learned household secrets from.

A corn straw broom with a wooden handle, while more expensive upfront than those horrifically ugly and ineffective plastic ones with square heads will last you years longer actually work (without forcing you to resort to contraptions such as "Swiffers" which strikes me as a sponge attached to a stick and taken to the more disposable level) given that you know one simple principle and that is - hang you your broom from a hook or nail or simply stand it up upside-down. This prevents the broom from morphing under its own weight and becoming useless. Also, in case you haven't noticed, wooden tool handles are easily interchangeable and useful for a variety of things from limbo sticks to pinata sticks to stick horses.

As your knives get dull, there is something to do before dishing out for a sharpening stone. Flip over a ceramic cup. If it has one of those unfinished ceramic circles on the base as a footing, you can use this as a makeshift sharpener (Most 60's, 70's and even modern mugs should - the heftier and more unfinished the ceramic circle at the bottom, the better). Kitchen knives are sharpened at a 15 degree angel with a sweeping motion from the bottom of the blade to the top, pulled towards you. One hand should hold the hilt and pulling the knife across the surface and the other should be on the flat of the blade holding the blade at the right angle and giving it some pressure. repeat on both sides.

Life Without a Microwave

2010-01-26T07:35:00.000-08:00

Okay folks - first off, you will never see me advocating avoiding anything on this blog because it's scary, going to cause cancer/world war III, or is simply "evil," however, I will advise you avoid things because they use too much energy and are questionable in their safety or the purpose they're billed for. Microwaves easily fall into the questionable category. They are, surprisingly enough, not much more convenient than a standard small pot or pan, and what you loose in taste and texture is so much, that I would suggest that you start phasing yours out. Even I, who deplore doing dishes, prefer to wash a small pot to losing all of the good, hard work I've put into my meal by reheating it in the microwave. Toaster oven or stove top is ALWAYS tastier. Also, if you experience power outages in you kitchen, chances are your energy-guzzling microwave is to blame. At the very most, it's worth considering your microwave a fancy and expensive bread box, or a mouse-proof cabinet.

Here's the how-to on reheating without a microwave:

Rice, other grains, and cooked beans are reheated by adding a bit of water to the bottom and simmering, covered, over a low heat. If you're impatient, turn up the heat and stir the grain every minute or so to make sure it doesn't burn.

Soups are reheated the same way they are cooked. If they're very thick, add some water or stir frequently so the bottom doesn't burn.

Casseroles and pan-fried meals For the sake of expediency and deliciousness, I'd reheat these by frying on a hot pan. Refried meals (like beans) are delicious because you've added oil (or, even better, butter), browned the bottom, and mushed things together, which makes everything taste better. if you don't like things mushed together, add a little liquid to the bottom, cover, and heat over a low flame. If you have a lot of time to kill, throw it into your oven or toaster oven, covered, on 350 degrees and wait.

Anything meant to be cooked in the microwave such as frozen burritos and tv dinners can be cooked (covered) in a pan or in the toaster oven. In the case of TV dinners, transfer to meal to an oven-safe baking dish before melting plastic in the toaster oven. This is the only case in which it will take more time to cook, but burritos are much less soggy when toasted or fried, and tv dinners will thaw very quickly in the frying pan but will still be disappointing. In the case of Ramen noodles and such soups, cover with boiling water until cooked or simmer for a minute.

And please, immediately throw away any recipe books for "microwave cooking." This is not cooking. It is, in fact, a farce. Anyone who thinks their 12-year-old child can't cook a meal without the help of the microwave would do well to wonder how 9-year-olds helped their mothers in the kitchen 100 (or even 70) years ago.

The Opportunity Cost of a Calm Life

2010-01-22T07:27:00.000-08:00

It has been warm enough outside that I have let the stove run cold on occasion so I can clean out the ashes that have piled up and knock the creosote down out of the stove pipe. The warm weather (40 degrees Fahrenheit) makes it harder to cook on the wood stove, since running it hot enough to boil water overheats the house.

Confronted with the calm and constant pace of life I can imagine this warm January slipping into May without a fuss, May fading into the high heat of August slipping into the November chill and back again without so much as a notice or even a reminder to do such things as marvel, or travel, or take a vacation. Wanderlust overtakes my hard-won practicality at times. My desire to save enough for a house and some land, or simply to always have a bit of savings on hand at all is drowned out by the sound of distant mountain streams gurgling through my daydreams reminding me that I long for mountains. And I do. I see photos of distant lands and part of my heart quivers and begs.

That I subsume these desires in working harder for a calm and oft-overlooked daily joy seems necessary, and even important, as to adventure before providing for the things one needs to live sensibly is a childish and self-defeating goal. But the calm and steady enjoyment of daily life does not drown out the sudden shouts of lust for a bigger adventure. It is not so much the risk of failure in big adventures that stops me, so much as that I truly believe that the life that is better lived, in retrospect, is one that doesn't make a particularly good story. Thus I trade adventure for calm. It doesn't always work, I'm afraid, in fooling me into believing that I want a simply calm and joyful life. Sometimes I want adventure. Sometimes I want fame and glory; I want to steal spotlights and be known for eternity. On days such as these my usual conviction that I want nothing more than to bring joy to my small circle of friends and family through a calm, well-lived life full of small and simple courage, cannot keep its flame lit in the gusts of lust for something larger.

I used to walk as a child, with my hand along brick walls, begging one of the bricks to slip under the pressure of my fingers and crumble into a world of magic and adventure. I used to beg my mother for a real magic wand - one that really worked - until I realized I was too old to give voice to such a wish. i did not, however, stop wishing for it. Not for the sake of getting all the dishes done, no, or for curing heartaches, but for allowing adventures to unfold in the middle of a dull day of school, or a long, languishing summer holiday.

It is adventure that I have become suspicious of. More specifically, the stupidity that, in times of adventure, can be misinterpreted as courage. It is the daily, plodding courage which I am truly floored by, and to which I aspire. It is not courageous to give into love and run off with the neighbor. Nor is it courageous to go backpacking in Europe at the expense of one's entire savings account. This courage gives only a short-lived good story and good gossip for the neighborhood. It is the daily type of courage, which necessarily lives through hardship and boredom, glory, and, yes, the occasional adventure, which makes grandparents' feet worth sitting at.

We are not made to fulfill all of our wishes. Our lives are a constant process of balancing the ever-quickening clip at which life trots along with the need for calm, peace, fulfillment, and adventure. This is not a child's birthday. We will not get everything we want and only have to write a thank you note in return. What a disservice we do to children by telling them they can be whatever they want to be when we all want to be more, much more, than just one person can ever aspire to.

Undoing Boredom

2010-01-21T08:11:00.000-08:00

Ah, winter. You really are a blessed, restful time of year. I come home, cook a little, clean a little, read, and enjoy the general calm and freedom of not having much to do. Last night I even played dress-up in anticipation for some parties and events in the near future. The tasks of winter are small on a homestead. They revolve around staying warm and keeping oneself usefully occupied. If you put off for the summer what you could have done in the winter, it will not get done. Thus, staving off boredom should not only never be a problem but cannot be allowed to get in the way of productivity (boredom being self-inflicted laziness, not actually an outcome of having nothing to do). As far as I am concerned, boredom was invented once we found enough things that were just senseless enough to be considered doing something while actually doing nothing at all. As a result, doing nothing became a task rather than a delightful part of the calmer moments in life, and it became something we are now incapable of doing without the help of electronic devices. Just relaxing is no longer possible. In times before TV, internet, radio, and other all-consuming amusements it was typical for a person to find herself with nothing to do and actually enjoy it as a welcome break. Now we call that meditation and market it for incredible amounts of money and status.

When blackouts force us away from the TV and internet, cities suddenly become friendly, almost euphoric places. We suddenly find that there's an incredible range of things to amuse ourselves not the least of which are our neighbors. Also, we learn to calm ourselves without the aid of electronic narcotics. When one does not have a TV or radio (yes, I am guilty for this much of the time) droning on in the background, the brain has moments to relax, wander, and, occasionally, to attain enlightenment, if only for a brief moment. Most importantly, it cannot convince the body to sit still and play solitaire because it's busy listening to the radio and doesn't want to do anything else taxing as it's already doing something, thank you. This creates and encourages boredom and incredible acts of desperately doing nothing useful for weeks on end, simply because one is addicted to the TV or internet, or, heaven forbid, solitaire.

Therefore, I must now commit myself to that which I have dreaded for a while - I must turn the radio off. I am addicted. I have the radio on when I write, when I think, and when I do just about anything, and, to be frank, it gets in the way of my thinking real thoughts. I will permit myself my favorite programs, an hour in the morning, and an hour after work or Marketplace (for the purpose of winding up and winding down, respectively). But I do not need to be so saturated with music and the news. I know more about the daily news than anyone else I know, and it gets in the way of normal, social interaction. Also, it's hard to maintain my own opinions when they're constantly being shouted over. I can still listen to Podcasts of everything at work when doing menial tasks, since I have no choice, at work, but to do boring tasks. However, I am through excusing doing boring, meaningless things at home on my own time.

Living a frugal, seasonal, and self-reliant lifestyle is work, but it's pleasant and useful work. Given enough distractions, however, it becomes impossible. The radio forgives an hour, midday, listening to Late Edition, which I hate anyway, just because it's something to do. This regardless of the fact that I would actually rather chop wood - it's simply the hurdle of actually getting my coat on and starting that gets higher because it would require turning the radio off, which is, after all, already giving me something to do.

I am done!

Entertaining at Home

2010-01-20T09:12:00.000-08:00

Perhaps there are those of you who read this blog for practical, self-reliant living advice. Other may read it for tips on hosting and recipes. In case you were wondering what one has to do with the other, I will let you know.

Though we live in a world where entertaining has come to mean going out to eat or seeing a movie or attending the theater, eating in is not only more charming but cheaper, more self-reliant, better for the environment, better for your health, and more malleable to the hostess's wants and needs. All things being said and done, a conviction in the values of frugality and self-reliance go hand-in-hand with entertaining at home.

Just in case you were wondering.

Cast Iron

2010-01-20T06:51:00.000-08:00

Cast Iron is an old marvel that should never be abandoned. If you have cast iron pans and dutch ovens, you know what I mean. If you don't, I'm about to convince you to get some.

Cast iron is the original non-stick cookware. If treated well the pan remains stick-free and, instead of leaching toxic chemicals into your food as teflon has been known to do, it leaches iron into your food - a supplement that many of us, especially nursing mothers and vegans, need more of. Cast iron is also extremely cheap. I would suggest buying it new, unless you can find used pans (usually at yard sales and barn sales) that aren't completely caked with grease (though there is a method of cleaning these which is fairly easy). My favorite brand is Lodge Logic, which comes pre-seasoned and is a bit thinner than other brands. A new medium sized pan costs $12.00 and it will last you your whole life and then some - which is the other appeal of the stuff - it's indestructible. Don't order cast iron online. It's too heavy to be worth the shipping fee.

I would go ahead and buy a small pan (the perfect size for 2 eggs sunny-side up) and a medium pan (12 inches round is the perfect size for making lunch and dinner for 2-4 people). If you've gotten this far and want more, my next suggestion would be to buy a large pan (if you can lift it) for dinner for 6-10 people, a dutch oven (a deep-dish, lidded pot which is great for baking, stove-top cooking, simmering for long periods of time, and also useful for camping), and a griddle (a low-sided flat pan, either round or rectangular made for cooking pancakes and anything else that likes to be flipped a lot). You can also buy lids (which I wouldn't recommend as it encourages bad habits - see below), all sorts of intermediate sized pans, and pots too. I'd stay away from cast iron pots. They lend a bit or a metallic taste to things that need to simmer for a long time, and heavy-bottomed steel pots work just as well.

How to treat your cast iron
The basic technique for keeping your cast iron stick-free is to rinse it immediately after use with hot water (no soap!), scrub with an abrasive to get the bits out (some people say never to use steel wool, though I do) and then put it right back on a burner so that all the water in it boils off. Turn off the heat and immediately drop a bit of oil in (just enough to lightly coat the entire pan) and rub into the pan with a towel. I keep a special cast-iron-only rag on hand because you will never be able to wash black grease off of your nice towels (some people just use paper towels, I have also used brown paper bag bits).

Bad Habits
If your pan or dutch oven smells, this is because you store it covered for too long, allowing smells to settle. From now on, store food in another container and, when not cooking, do not put a lid on your pan. Store your lid and dutch oven/pan separately. The way to de-funk cast iron is to preheat an oven to 300 degrees and, while it's heating up, rub salt into all of the internal surfaces of the pan. Don't be meager on the salt. When the oven is up to heat, put the cast iron in, close the door, and reduce the heat to 250. Let it sit for at least an hour. Then, while still hot, rinse it out with water. The water should evaporate off on its own, but if not, return to the oven to dry. The next thing you cook in the oven will be too salty which is why the first crepe was said to be "for the pan."

Once your pan is adequately seasoned, you should only have to season it properly with oil once or twice a week, unless you're cooking something acidic (such as tomatoes), which will strip the seasoning. Washing your pan with soap strips the layer of grease that keeps the pan non-stick. Don't do it.

Like all things old and long-used, cast iron is incredibly forgiving. If something goes wrong, all you need to do is to salt the pot, heat it in the oven (if it's really bad, go at it at 200 degrees in an oven for 4-6 hours), however, things probably won't go wrong, and if you occasionally wash it with soap, it'll be fine - just be better about seasoning it with oil that week.

In case you need another reason to go for cast iron, all real cornbread is made in cast iron pans.

The perfect brunch

2010-01-19T10:58:00.000-08:00

One of the surprising joys of heating only by wood is that, when I get home from a weekend away, I can extend my vacation by a few hours as I sit on the couch under a blanket reading while i wait for the house to slowly absorb the heat radiating from the stove. It is a rare and too-often neglected pleasure, I think, to take time off simply to sit at the hearth with a book or with family and enjoy relaxing.

Another rare pleasure is brunch. I grew up with Sunday brunch almost every week. One of my fondest and most enduring memories from childhood was this weekend ritual. I would try my best to remember to wake early on Sundays so I could run downstairs and eat brunch with my favorite adult family friends, the only occasion on which I would stay at the table long enough to see the meal finished. Waking up early had two benefits - the first was that I actually got dressed and downstairs in time to stake a claim on an egg bagel, and the second was that I genuinely enjoyed Sunday mornings' adult company. Waking early backfired when I mixed up what day it was and woke up early on Saturday instead of Sunday, which was the day on which we spent mornings cleaning, or at least being nagged to clean.

This kind of ritual is one that I aspire to. One of my personal heroines, Miss Manners , advises that we do not do enough morning entertaining and err on the side of dinner parties, which are much more ornate as a rule, require more preparation, and have a tendency to fall short of expectations. Since brunch is a rare pleasure for most, it is always charming, and since few people eat as much over brunch (since no one actually comes before eating a small breakfast), it is much easier to prepare for and serve.

Brunch starts between 10 and noon.

My favorite brunch menu:

- Bagels (ONLY if you live within a 100 mile radius of New York City, or within certain other urban centers, which is the only place one can get bagels that are worth eating. Otherwise, stick with toast). Buy bagels fresh in the morning or the night before. Buying bagels in the morning is a perfect task for cohabitants who just get in the way or children who are old enough to drive and managed to wake up early enough.

- A spread of bagel toppers - this includes at minimum cream cheese, butter, and lox (homemade is easy enough (Look out for a recipe soon), but can also include tomatoes and cucumbers (if they're out of season, I'll forgive the absence or the purchasing, whichever you'd rather I forgive), plenty of dill, sprouts, flavored cream cheese, other cheese spreads, and sweet spreads such as jam, Nutella, dulce de leche, and sweetened condensed milk.

- Eggs - If you have bagels these are optional, and if you get into a brunch habit, i'd keep it at bagels and a spread of breakfast toppings, but eggs are a very easy way to impress people. See recipe below for an easy way to do it.

- Potatoes - Only do this if you don't have bagels, otherwise, it's starch overload. If you are going to cook potatoes, I personally like them cut in quarters (for small potatoes) boiled (until they're almost done) and then fried with caramelized onions, salt, and black pepper, preferably so they are slightly burned. Serve with sour cream and dill if you're clever, or with ketchup if you want your guests to walk all over your delicious cooking and top off an herbed souffle with this faux-vegetable so they can't taste anything except for corn syrup, vinegar, and tomatoes. A guest should never ask for ketchup unless the eggs and/or potatoes are too bland to bear (and even then - realize you might be considered very rude).

- Fruit, yogurt, and honey for dessert, though you can also simply put out chocolates, serve hot chocolate, or have fruit only. Don't serve melon after dessert, most guests will have trouble with their digestion if you do so, and you don't want to make them feel rude about not taking any melon. If you must serve melon, just have it out on the table so people can eat it whenever they want to.

-Tea and coffee on the table the whole time (only allowed in the case of brunch, in my opinion)

Herbed souffle

You'll need:
- Fresh or dried sage, oregano, thyme and/or marjoram and rosemary (in that order of most-to least - for 10 eggs - start with two hearty three-fingered pinches of sage , then a single three-fingered pinch of oregano, and a two-fingered pinch of both thyme and rosemary (three-fingered pinches include all fingers except the pinkie and two fingered pinches include the ring finger as well. a pinch refers to just the thumb and the index finger)
- A clove of very throughly minced garlic
- Eggs - 2 per person if there will be bagels, 3 per person if there will not be.
- about a half cup of Heavy Cream per half-dozen eggs (no, you cannot replace this with skim milk, lowfat cream, or half an half. Don't even try). Don't bother measuring the cream. just pour it. Being off by even half the amount won't hurt. Add more if you'd like.
- Salt and pepper
- A cast iron dutch oven or a casserole dish. Individual ramikins are great if you have them, and help keep the souffle hot, and therefore puffy, for longer
- Egg beater or a wisk
- Butter!

Make the souffle
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
- Butter your baking dish, bottom and sides. Go ahead and use a lot of butter.
- Combine eggs, garlic, herbs, salt, pepper, and cream in a deep bowl. Beat the hell out of the mixture until it starts to get frothy.
- Pour the mixture into the baking dish and set in the hot oven It should take between 15 minutes and a half hour depending on the amount of eggs. If it's in ramikins, it could take as little as 5 minutes though. The souffle is done when it has finished puffing up to unbelievable proportions and is slightly browned on top.
- Serve immediately or the souffle will deflate.

Notes
Due to the fact that you want to serve the souffle immediately, I'd go ahead and put it into the oven when brunch is supposed to start, assuming the by the time people sit down and tea and juice is poured the souffle will be done. Don't get up and check on it every second though - that makes for stressed out guests. For 10 eggs, check at the 15 minute point, and then again every 5 minutes if it needs more time.

If you're going to err on the side of adding too few herbs or too many, go for too many. If you make bland food you will forever be seen as someone who cooks bland food and no one will want to brunch with you. Over seasoning, however, is a mistake anyone can make, and it's harder to do in this case than to under-season. Add enough herbs so that it looks appetizing - that's how you know you've got enough. Appetizing means well seasoned, not bland or over-done. In the case of salt, one should always add just enough, or if you don't know how much that is add just short of enough and when you need to add more on the table do so immediately and visibly, perhaps adding "the eggs need some more salt, I'm sorry" so guests don't feel rude about salting their eggs in front of you and so that guests don't think you like, and therefore will continue to cook, bland food. If your food is inedible, admit it immediately and insist that no one eat it. If you're worried you might over season the eggs to this point, try a batch on yourself first.

In case guests forget:
- If you want to continue to be entertained please keep in mind that for all engagements including brunch guests must arrive at the appointed time, or no more than 15 minutes late.
- Once you consent to going (once again, to any engagement, and yes, you must submit a Yes or No response. "maybe" counts as no and you know it, but that gives you no right to say it) you cannot back out unless something major comes along (excuses not allowed include: another engagement that sounds better, a party that went too late the night before, or "I don't feel like it." Excuses that are allowed (I have included all of them): the death of any member of the immediate family or your own, extreme illness ("I feel a cold coming on" doesn't count), or an invitation to have brunch with the queen of England).
- Owning a cell phone does not change the rules, sorry.
- You must offer to help, but should not have to expect to actually do so short of helping to set out the meal or doing some dishes, and only this if you are a very close friend or family
- Thank the host, and, if possible, reciprocate by a similar show of hospitality, or at least offering several times.
- It is brunch, so bringing a present for the host such as wine or chocolate is unnecessary. However, expect to do so at dinner.

A Little Gift

2010-01-15T06:48:00.000-08:00

I've been busy with a few projects, a lot of which involve my friends' kids. My close friends are having a baby, so I'm working on decorating a onesie for the baby (it's the kind of onesie that folds over itself, and the outside is going to have the "Drawing #1" from The Little Prince and the inside is going to have "Drawing #2" shhh don't tell!). On top of this little treasure (and about 4 birthdays coming up in February - ahh!) My landlords have 4 kids, who frequently have birthdays. Their youngest daughter is scheduled to turn 6 on the 21st, which left me scrambling to make a present 2 nights ago. I made her a little bag with a pretty button closure that she can wear around her neck for putting her little finds into. I put a little shell in to start her off on her adventures.

This was a great project seeing as I have yet to fix my sewing machine and it was small enough to easily be done by hand. Also, I used up some pretty fabric scraps I had lying around which I thought were too small to be good for anything. Total, it took me about an hour and a half, including time to search up and down for an appropriate button, ribbon, and strap material.

Here's a quick how-to:

Materials:
Scissors
Thread that matches the color of the purse's exterior fabric
Needle
Pretty outer fabric (it helps if it's a heavy material)
liner fabric that compliments the bag's fabric
a button
a short length of ribbon
yarn

Cut a rectangle twice the size of the finished pouch with seam allowance (about 1/4 inch on all sides) in both the pretty fabric and the liner fabric.

Fold the exterior, pretty fabric in half so the wrong side faces out and sew up both sides, leaving the top open, so you have a little pouch. Leave the top seam unfinished, because first you have to sew the liner.

Sew the liner exactly as you did the pretty fabric, but do not turn it inside out. Since it's the liner, you want the seams to face out, because the interior of the pouch will be the visible part.

Now sew the two together. Do this by flipping the exterior fabric right-side out, stuffing the liner into the purse so it lays flat, and then folding the hems on the top of the purse over the liner. Sew around the entire mouth of the purse so the liner is sewed into the hem and the pouch looks pretty, finished and opens. If you sewed it closed, you did something wrong.

Now get out your pretty button (I used a large, wooden tear-drop shaped bead) and sew it onto the front center of the pouch. If you're careful, you won't sew it into the lining, and will sew only through the back of the main fabric. This is difficult, however, and I did not succeed in this endeavor. If I were practiced at this, I might have suggested you sew the button on before attaching the lining, but I am not so practiced.

Next, attach a pretty bit of ribbon to close the purse. Make a loop with the ribbon just big enough to close around the button when attached to the interior of the purse. Sew the ends of the ribbon into the inside of the back of the purse so that when looped around the button, the ribbon holds the purse closed.

Finally, you're going to make and attach a strap to the whole thing so it can hang from a child's neck. I braided several strands of yarn in a matching color, you can also use ribbon, or a knit cord, or just about anything you have on hand. In order to attach the strap, I sewed the ends into the inside of the bag. If I were neater and more practiced (once again) I might have done this part before sewing the lining as well, so that the sewn-in ends could not be noticed on the inside. Clearly, I have much to aspire to before becoming a professional bag maker. My advice on sewing in the strap is to go ahead and use too much thread, and use it as an excuse to reinforce the side seam. A simple X - pattern will secure the strap if layered a few times. If your pattern and button are simple, you could sew the strap onto the outside of the bag and have hanging yarn tassels.

And, voila! a little purse for a little child. A quick, easy, and have-everything-on-hand type of project. Feel free to put some nice little presents inside if you're so inclined and have little things (like shells or pretty river stones or marbles).

A Note
Since this is for a child, I'd go for reinforcing all seams. Children break things at incredible rates and are not delicate. Therefore, err on the side of building something mildly indestructible if you want it to last more than a week.

But seriously, when will I do this?
If you're wondering how I can go through so many little projects the answer is that procrastination is a powerful force of creativity. Since I have no internet to occupy my time I am left with no choice but to do crafty little things to put off things I should be doing, like cleaning, organizing, and making money on the side. Also, I work a strict 9-5 day, no more (I never put in days until 8 PM) which gives me plenty of evening time to kill, and does not pay me well enough to stifle my creativity through shopping. I hope that when I'm older, making more money, and more practical that I will not be addicted to internet and will save instead of spending.

Notes on Aesthetics

2010-01-13T07:40:00.000-08:00

I'll be the first to admit that I am a fairly shallow person. But wait - don't dismiss me right off the bat - please give me a chance to explain myself. Yes, I make decisions based on aesthetics. In fact, I would go so far as to say aesthetics are a primary driving force in my decision making process. But now I'm going to argue what some may cherish as the indefensible - that decisions based on aesthetics is a practical, and dare I say it, (yes, I dare) sustainable option.

No, I did not go crazy. No, I am not recommending that we all drop everything and go shopping at Neiman Marcus. Quite the opposite. Last night as I was walking back and forth from my neighbors' (aka landlords') cellar-style basement in the 3-hour process of doing several batches of laundry, I had the chance to think about, of all things, my lantern. Yes, I am one of those rare people that uses an old-fashioned kerosene lantern instead of a flashlight. Why? Well, to be completely honest, I think it's just the cutest thing in the world. Also, Flashlights are just so darn loseable!

Now, I freely admit that I chose a lantern over a flashlight (and, for that matter, old family photos over posters, rare and sentimental finds over silly tchotchkes, and second-hand cashmere sweaters over Target brand anything) for aesthetic reasons. Here then is the crux of my argument - things that are aesthetically valuable are not cheap. They are things we want to keep. Therefore, they create less trash by inspiring us to do what mama and papa always told us to do, which is to be respectful and caring towards our things. As you may or may not have caught on yet, this lesson that mama and papa taught you is an environmentally-conscious one as well as a fiscally responsible one. The problem is, cheap and disposable items that are not a pleasure to own and carry encourage wastefulness and disrespect. Why would I want to play nice with an ugly, plastic flashlight? Sure, a lantern is a more expensive up-front purchase than a flashlight, but I promise I will not buy another lantern for at least 20 years and will replace the glass if it breaks, and wicks and kerosene (cheaper than gas by the gallon at the local gas station) as needed. I know that the lantern will save me money and be much less wasteful in the environmental scheme of things. And I get the added pleasure of ice skating with a lantern in a skirt and long winter coat (just for kicks) and walking back and forth with baskets (yes, baskets) of laundry to hang for drying besides the stove. Now doesn't that just sound like a lovely life?

As for the distinction between second-hand and Target brand anything, please, I beg of you - Target brand (or Wal Mart, for that matter) looks cheap. It's horrific, it breaks, and it's mass-manufactured so everyone's seen it before. Nothing screams "abuse me!" quite as much as something that will happily break for you at a moment's notice, was so easy to come by, and whose maker you do not know. Now don't get me wrong, I shop at these places too - but it's for things like the cat's litter box. Instead, I peek into the second hand shops around the area (there are at least 4) at least a few times a month, and make a habit of constantly trading free things with friends and over freecycle. That way not only do I feel lucky to have found the beautiful things in my life, but I can replace my nice, wool sweater after i've patched it one too many times without buying a cheap, acrylic one. I look for things for the house and for myself all the time. The secret to thrifting is that you have to buy things as you see them and can afford to, which will not always be at the right time. If you're moving in 6 months, go ahead and buy that nice set of china. You'll regret it in 6 months if you don't (a note - this only applies to places where there is plenty of storage. Sorry, city folks).

If I've sold you on the lantern concept and there are no good barn sales around you (lanterns are a very rare find at thrift stores), you can find beautiful and affordable ones and all of their replacement parts (including to your old one gathering dust in the barn) here, at my favorite Mennonite-owned store: Lehman's

Seeds!

2010-01-12T09:08:00.000-08:00

I said it about a week ago, and now I've finally gone and done it - It's time to order seeds! So I chose my favorite seed company - our very own Hudson Valley Seed Library and picked my favorites. Not only is the seed library an incredibly exciting local venture into the often nebulous world of seed companies, it is also a lovely and friendly organization. Thanks to buying a membership I got several free seed packs (see below) and discounts on all of my purchases (which is fairly exciting). Being the wonderfully thoughtful and community-oriented business that they are, the Seed Library works with local artists to design art packs for a selection of their seeds which are beautiful and fun to have around. My favorite perk though? - they're small enough to keep me from buying EVERY seed I can possibly think of wanting! Which is important, because even the 20+ seeds I bought will be excessive for my home garden.

Here's a note from their website for the curious:
"We have three kinds of seed packs now to help distinguish between our seed sources. Our Art Packs are the colorful, flower shaped packs that have original artwork from 16 different New York artists. Our Garden Packs feature a design made by us and contain seeds from responsible commercial sources pre-selected by us to do well in the Northeast. Our Library Packs, which feature an image from an antique 1881 New York seed catalog, contain only local seeds- either grown here on our farm, another New York farm, or a mix of seeds from other seed saving members.

Here's my order:

Membership Pack
Garden Pack All American Parsnip -- included with membership
Library Pack Amish Paste Tomato
Library Pack Aunt Molly's Ground Cherry
Garden Pack Benning's Green Tint Patty Pan Squash
Garden Pack Bibb Lettuce -- included with membership
Library Pack Black Krim Tomato
Garden Pack Blue Lake Pole Green Bean -- included with membership
Art Pack Borage
Library Pack Bridge to Paris Pepper -- included with membership
Library Pack Calendula
Art Pack Calico Popcorn
Garden Pack Chives
Garden Pack Clemson Spineless Okra -- included with membership
Garden Pack Danish Ballhead Cabbage -- included with membership
Library Pack Garden Peach Tomato
Art Pack Painted Daisy
Library Pack Purple Podded Pea -- included with membership
Garden Pack Red Russian Kale -- included with membership
Garden Pack Royal Burgandy Bush Beans -- included with membership
Garden Pack Royal Oakleaf Lettuce -- included with membership
Art Pack Ruby Queen Beet
Garden Pack Scarlet Nantes Carrot

My Reasoning
Yum! As you can tell from my selection - I tend to ignore flowers. I try, really I do, but I have trouble focusing on them. This year, I'm giving in to what I've always known to be true about myself and only growing 2 flowers - calendula, which I need for salves, and borage, which is a perennial and is easy.

I have avoided certain productive veggies that are just too easy to come by in the summer. I'm not a huge fan of cucumbers, but when I need them, the local farmstand (aka - my landlord's farm/garden) will always have them - and they're too prolific for my small needs. Plus, I prefer pickled pattypans (seriously) to pickled cucumbers (same goes for zucchinis). My landlords have a large and prolific herbs section of their garden, and I have decided to rely on their surplus rather than to grow my own.

Then there are my splurges - 3 kinds of tomatoes? Absolutely! 1 for canning and drying (Amish paste - which will be the most dominant plant variety in my garden) 1 for fresh eating (Krim) and 1 for fun (peach). I love tomatoes. Love them. And they make summer worth it (which is why last summer was not worth it)

I already have garlic in the ground and potatoes for planting in the cellar, plus the library doesn't sell these. The only thing left is to get onions, some extra herbs, and possibly a few herbal favorites from Fedco, which I will share with you when I buy.

Share your list with me. I'm so excited and invigorated now that I cannot wait to go home and plan my garden!

Also, check out this wonderful and well thought-out article. We need more of this kind of debate in our lives: (I found it on Bitten)

A Woman's Secrets

2010-01-10T10:55:00.000-08:00

Call me old-fashioned (okay, I know you already do) but I think a woman goes from being attractive to deadly with the help of a few simple tools. So boys - just skip this one (okay, I know you won't, but pretend).

I'm not the kind of woman who does my hair. I'm sitting in a cafe right now in clothing I reserve for house work. I didn't know there would be an attractive man playing a guitar. But I do at least have some defenses. And here's a short list.

Most of my feminine secrets have to do with smell. I hate commercial perfumes. I think they smell cheap (even the expensive ones) and make a woman smell like an identifiable product rather than a sensual secret. A woman's scent, in my humble opinion, ought to be elusive and specific. Being part of a short and recognizable list of scents is irritating - especially when you walk by someone wearing your perfume and suddenly realize that in a dark room, you and the woman you just walked past could fool your lover.

My scent is very simple - it is a mix of just two essential oils. No, I will not tell you what it is. I chose it carefully - I wanted to smell vaguely of a comfortable and joyful kitchen and of warmth and femininity. It is a little less than sensual, but it's mine, and I like it. I'll probably add a sensual scent soon, but seeing as Patchouli is absolutely not an acceptable scent to wear unless you want to smell like Woodstock (thank you, 1970's), and I don't much like Ylang Ylang, I'll have to wait to find a better essential oil to throw into the mix.

My soap, my shampoo, and my body oil are all infused with the same scent. I drop a single drop of the pure essential oil mix behind my ears and on my wrists before going out (more than one or two drops is always too much!). My hand salve, however, has a different smell, with only a trace note of one of the oils, because it seems to me that hands, which work, should not smell overly manicured - it just doesn't fit that I am a woman whose hands work.

Body Oil
Body oil is a simple alternative to commercial creams that you slather on after a shower. Oil is super-moisturizing, and if your skin isn't too oily, it will go a long way in softening your skin and making it more radiant. It is a simple blend of one or many oils with some essnetial oils (optional) for scent.

If your skin borders on oily use almond or sesame (not the roasted kind!) oil as a base. These are light oils. I use a blend of St John's Wart infused olive oil (calendula infused oil is also great - find insturctions on infusing oils in this post) in an almond and canola (it's cheap) oil base with a bit of jojoba oil. I keep this in a squeeze bottle in my bathroom. It makes my shower experience much more decadent. You can also use coconut oil, which is convenient because it's solid at room temperature, but melts onto skin. If your skin is really dry, Shea butter is a great oil to use.

Whatever you do, do not use too much cocoa butter, or you will smell like a stripper.

Scents
I'd suggest spending some time with your collection of essential oils before choosing a blend for yourself. My collection is really very small - 6 or so oils, only 3 of which I use exclusively for scenting things, the rest I use for household and other purposes - for more info see this entry). Figure out which oils you gravitate towards for scenting things like baths and footbaths. Figure out what kind of base notes you like, and higher notes when it comes to your own smell. Do you like flowery scents or earthy ones? Combinations or simple, single scents? Start experimenting with a few drops. When you've settled on a scent, mix a small batch and use it for a week.

Once you're sure you love this scent and it's yours, mix it into your body oil, your homemade shampoo, (in Earthly Bodies & Heavenly Hair: Natural and Healthy Personal Care for Every Body - I can't justify handing out so many of her recipes for free, so go and buy the book! It's well worth it) and make a small batch (keep it tightly sealed!) for use as perfume.

Solid Perfume
if you have a small glass jar (1/2 oz would be ideal) that seals tightly you could make a solid perfume. Make a simple salve by mixing two parts olive oil to one part pure beeswax. Put the oil in a double boiler (a small pyrex measuring cup works well and is an easy way to measure beeswax into oil to get the right ratio) with slivers of beeswax. Once the beeswax is melted entirely into the oil, stir with a chopstick or pencil, and pour into the container. add your essential oil mix until it is as strong as you want (30-50 drops, approximately), stir, and cap tightly to keep the essential oils fresh. Reserve the remainder of the unscented salves for other batches or other salves. Tthis makes a very thick salve, which is necessary since you'll be adding so much essential oils. to make a thinner salve, simply add an additional part of oil. You can melt and reconstitute the salve as much as you need without hurting it.

Enjoy smelling like a wonderful, unique version of yourself.

Making our lives easier

2010-01-08T13:09:00.000-08:00

If you're going to buy a book I recommend here through Amazon.com rather than your local bookstore - click directly on the link in the blog to buy it and I'll get a tidbit from Amazon! Also, there's a direct link from which you can search Amazon.com on the bottom of the left sidebar. Search from here and I'll also get a tidbit (so basically - start all you amazon searches here).

Here are some books I've mentioned recently:

(okay...fine...I never recommended The Little Prince...but it's my favorite book!)

Thank you!

Compost - outdoor and worm bins

2010-01-08T12:28:00.001-08:00

A friend asked me a very sensible question about starting to compost in the winter. Here are my 2 cents:

You can start composting at any time, dead of winter or high heat. In the winter, not much will happen, except that you'll keep your food scraps out of the trash. If you're generating a lot of compost, it will stay warm and will most likely attract rodents, so keep that in mind. If it's just you and one or two others adding to an outdoor composting bin (or pile) it'll take you a while to accumulate enough compost for it to heat itself up and start decomposing. If you're hoping to use the compost in the garden, I would suggest bringing in some neighbors into the composting or it'll take you a long while to get enough compost to actually make it decompose fast enough and be usable. Compost likes to be 50% carbon (dry things like leaves, wood shavings, and straw) and 50% nitrogen (wet things like kitchen scraps, lawn clippings, and manure), and damp (though not wet). If it smells badly, add more carbon. In general, you'll tend to be short on carbon.

A sensible urban alternative to outdoor composting is starting a worm bin. here's my tutorial:

Get a large rubbermaid tote (like a big craft bin). Drill 15 or so holes in the bottom and top of the tote. The bottom holes are for drainage and the top for ventilation. Lay down mesh (such as a window screen or you could use cheesecloth or burlap - but you'd have to replace that from time to time) so the worms don't crawl out. Put the bin on bricks or styrofoam blocks or whatever you have lying around and set a tray under the bin to catch excess moisture. Alternatively, you could drill a larger hole (about 1/2 inch to an inch) about 1/4 of an inch up from the bottom of one side of the bin. Cover the hole with mesh and stand the end away from the hole on a brick so that the excess moisture drips into a little try out of the hole. you can use this moisture as fertilizer too. Some people swear by it. My jury, however, is still out. Don't worry about mesh on top. Worms don't like air or light.

Shred some newspaper or brown paper bags, moisten this mixture, and put it in the bottom of the tote. throw in a handful or so of soil and put a wooden or plastic divider with holes big enough for worms to get through in the center of the tub so you have 2 compartments. Put food scraps in one half of the tote and add worms (see below for more info on worms). Store your tub in a warm cabinet or closet. Worms aren't very active in the cold and can die if temperatures drop below freezing.

When all of the food has turned into worm castings (which is basically a nice, clean soil - this should take a week or two depending on your worms), put fresh food scraps in the other side (you can keep a typical compost collecting bin on your counter in the mean time), give the worms a day or two to switch sides, and take out the castings, which are ready for use in a garden or for indoor plants (you can store this in bags, totes, or buckets until the summer). If it starts to smell, drill more ventilation holes - it shouldn't smell. Replace the newspaper from time to time and the screen you're using (if it's burlap or cheesecloth) to keep the worms in.

The best kind of worms for a worm bin are Red Wiggler Worms. Put a post on Craigslist that you want them for free, and someone will be sure to oblige.

And enjoy!

Cat toys

2010-01-08T06:47:00.001-08:00

If you're renting in the country and are being frugal, chances are your most expensive asset after your car is your cat or dog. After vet bills, it's unlikely that there's much money left for toys, and let's face it, pet toys are the aesthetic equivalent of jell-o and they're the fastest way (short of having a baby) to completely ruin your rustic decor, or, if they're squeaky, your sanity.

I made a lovely little cat toy this morning which almost made me late for work. I have trouble justifying buying cat toys not only for the above mentioned reason but also because my cat plays with anything she can get her little paws on. For the past few days her toy of choice has been a turkey feather that she got out of a vase I had moved onto the floor in the process of rearranging. She has been very taken by it, chasing, pouncing, and tumbling with the feather whenever she isn't lounging by the stove. I decide to make her play a little more fitting for a civilized household, so got out another turkey feather, tied them together with a bit of yarn, and hung the feathers from an upper rung of the ladder so the feathers hung at perfect cat height away from the wall but out of the way of foot traffic.

You could do this by hanging feathers (or just about anything - though cats really love feathers) about a foot from the corner of a wide door frame, from the mantel, or anywhere else you can hang a discreet hook or nail that's far enough from a wall to avoid causing damage by clawing. If you don't have feathers lying around try using branches or anything that looks furry or vaguely mouse-like. a little catnip pillow also works (there's a great design for a catnip mouse, if you like sewing, in this wonderful book Country Wisdom & Know-How). Yarn is a great string to use because, doubled or tripled up it is quite strong and it is bouncy - which is fun for the cat - and chances are good that you have some spare yarn lying around the house.

Not enough wood for the winter!

2010-01-07T09:00:00.001-08:00

It seems as though I have come to a point where I have no choice but to acknowledge what I suspected might be true all along - I need more wood. I was told two stories at the start of this winter, from which I drew my own conclusions - one being that two cords was enough to last all winter, and the other being that two cords was enough to last from January through the end of winter. Both stories are probably right depending on who you ask, but I have people over frequently enough and enjoy a warm house enough to fall into the latter category. Unfortunately, i bought two cords to last all winter, considering myself more frugal and less invested in creaturely comforts than it turns out I actually am.

This means that it's time to either buy in another cord of wood, or seriously ration my wood use. I think you can sense the direction in which I am leaning. The only annoying part of buying anther cord will be stacking it - a 3 hour endeavor which isn't too much fun when it's nice out, let alone when it's cold. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of stacking 128 cubic feet of hardwood, suffice it to say that it's a job made especially for burly men and sturdy farm women, and I have much to aspire to before becoming either of those.

I think I realized it at the time, but it behooves me now to inform my formerly frugal self that wood is cheaper in early autumn. It follows that the smart thing to do would have been to err on the side of buying too much wood, just in case this happened.

My dearest readers, what you can learn from my mistake is to buy and/or split 3 cords of wood, not 2, for winter - especially one as cold and full of house guests as this one is proving to be. If you don't use all the wood it will not rot (unless you dig it underground or just leave it in a pile to rot), and you will be more likely to burn early autumn fires during those early cold days when most of us are too cheap to start up the stove - not a bad thing by far. Plus, when you think about how much money you save by heating with wood rather than oil, I think you will agree with me.

****

A quick, personal PS:

I am looking for a roommate. Since there are quite a few of you who read this blog, please let your friends know. It's a beautiful place I live in, though work has a tendency to be scarce. Maybe you have some independently wealthy friends, or friends who go to Bard college (which is nearby), or friends who want to farm, or who are really set on relocating, or who are willing to live cheap and work/trade for rent that you could tip off? Leaving a comment would be a great way to initiate contact. There is a potential for work-trade for some or all of rent/heat costs. I would really appreciate it!

Sprouting Seeds, Dreaming Dreams

2010-01-06T07:56:00.000-08:00

At home last night I could not bring myself to look through the seed catalogues. I am not ready for the decadent laziness of winter to come to an end. Don't get me wrong, I would love to run outside without 7 layers on as much as the next person, and I know that it's still only early January, and I'm nervous I don't have enough wood, but I do find the winter's glorious laziness to be a spa treatment, just as much as I find the meditation of gardening to be a balm for the over-stimulated soul. That being said, I'm nervous and humbled every year before the commitment of gardening. I dream for weeks before planting my first seed about the impossible miracle of a seed sprouting and growing for me. How is it that this tiny seed will grow for me? Am I worthy of its life? Why would she want to grow in my garden? As absurd as it seems, these questions start running through my slowly waking mind as the sun moves toward her longest day. There is nothing left but to be awed and humbled by the miracle of a seed growing for me in my garden.

So if you have the energy to look forward into a new year of garden work and toil, and if the miracle of a sprouting seed doesn't humble you to the point of immobility, check out this awesome blog which tells you all about how to check the germination rates of your old seeds which, it turns out, you don't have to throw out! So if you're prone to overdoing it (like I am) it might not all be for naught. And if you're in the Northeast, do order a few seeds for them. Their artist packs make for great presents, and they're very much worth supporting.

Ah, but my dear readers, I'm worried about the spring. not to the point of immobility, but to the point of vivid dreams. I've worked full time before while having a large garden. It's possible, and even enjoyable, after a day of office work to come home at 5, when the heat has abated, and work until 9, when the sun is just setting, in the garden. But I am worried. What if the potatoes won't grow for me, or the soil turns out to be too rocky to smile on me? What if I really don't want to work full time at this desk through the summer? What if I'd rather be making salves and teas and jams and selling them at farm markets? What if, what if, what if!?

But, my dear readers, we must all work for a living, and that, in itself, is not and cannot be a tragedy. The tragedy, I find, is when it forces us to dream our dreams in secret.

The January Garden To-Do List

2010-01-05T08:34:00.001-08:00

Every year, usually around May, I realize with a sudden flash of fear and clammy palms that it will be another one of those years where I will always be at least one week behind. This year, that happened today, IN JANUARY, the same day I found my favorite seed catalogue in my mailbox.

Thankfully, I am no true homesteader. My life and livelihood doesn't rely on getting onions into seed trays anytime in the near future. In fact, I fully intend to wait until the end of February to do anything along the lines of starting seeds. Hell, I don't even have a garden to speak of! A whole new year of garden planning and seed ordering and seed starting awaits!

So, to keep you from breaking into a cold sweat sometime in March, here's a quick reminder: Gardening starts in the winter. (Other things that homesteaders do in January include ordering hives and bees, hunting small game, and trying not to freeze to death) So start your gardening adventures now and stave off winter boredom. Here's how:

The January Gardener:

Overview:
-Plan garden
-order seeds

Planning your garden
This time of year is when you can day dream all you want. If you don't have a garden, plan your garden now. Helpful tools include John Jeavon's guide: How To Grow More Vegetables, which I would go ahead and buy. I would go ahead and scour your library's garden section and talk to anyone you know who has a garden and ask for tips.

Here are some of my garden-planning tips to live by:

- Don't over do it! (I have always overdone it.) No one person needs, in their first (or even third) garden enough space to have a small farm, unless you intend to sell produce and farm. If you are a part-time gardener, figure out how much time you'd like to spend in your garden and about how much produce you'd like to harvest and plan accordingly. You will never eat a 20 foot row's worth of lettuce, and 20 feet of tomatoes is only plausible if you intend to can them.

- Plan your garden out on paper, and work from concepts to details. First plan out where the garden will be and how big you want it, then move onto how to lay out beds and how to make the beds (double digging, sheet-mulching, etc.), and only then figure out what to plant where. When figuring out what to plant where, your future self will be grateful if you plan in a simple vegetable rotation plan.

- When thinking about where to put your garden, consider important details such as shade (you want good southern exposure), runoff, soil compaction, soil structure, previous gardening in the area, and anything that grows in the area that might thwart the garden (such as a black walnut tree or thistle).

- Plan your garden close to home. A garden in a distant back corner of the yard is not a garden you will ever tend to. put your garden somewhere that will require your attention - preferably on the front lawn staring you down on your walk to your car. That way, you will see every weed popping up and will be compelled to actually work in your garden. If you refuse to plant in the front yard, at least plan your garden next to a path you walk on every other day or so (such as the path to your compost). You will want to be in the garden at least 3-4 times a week (depending on the weather), so plan accordingly.

- Do not lay down anything permanent, like stone paths, for the first few years. Just trust me on this one.

- If there are deer where you live, you will want a fence. The easiest dear fence is wire stretched across posts- one string 2 feet off the ground and another at 6 feet up. If there are rodents, rabbits, and groundhogs (who just don't respect fences), I'd invest in a garden-friendly cat.

Ordering Seeds

-Once again, don't overdo it. (and once again, I always do). Seeds don't last forever (most don't at least), so buy only as much as you need, which is a surprisingly small amount

-Catalogues are always cheaper than buying at nurseries. Fedco, Seed Savers Exchange, and local seed libraries such as Hudson Valley Seed Library are awesome, grass-roots sources for seeds grown, saved, and kept alive by family farmers and the like. Most other seed catalogues carry seeds owned by major conglomerates such as Monsanto without letting you know.

- Quick vocabulary: Organic seed refers to seed grown by certified organic standards. Organic farmers are required to use organic seed. You can grow your plants organically even with conventional (read: non-organic - grown with chemicals and whatnot) seed. Open Pollinated (also known as "OP" or "heirloom") refers to seeds that are bred and saved using traditional seed saving techniques. Seeds saved from plants grown from open pollinated seed will produce a second generation true in kind. You can only save seed from open pollinated plants. Open pollinated plants are not hybrids. Hybrid seeds (commonly listed as "F1" in catalogues) are high-performing seeds made from two very different varieties of plants that were forced to cross. This forced cross creates a seed that will produce a plant in its first generation (F1 refers to the first generation cross) that has certain favorable traits - usually productivity. However, any seed saved from plants grown from hybrid seed will produce a second generation of plants that is completely confused and not true to kind. This is because seed breeding is actually a long and extended process that requires the stabilization of traits over several generations. If you want to know more about seed saving, check out this book. In general, I would buy OP for the variety and the beauty, with the exception of sweet corn, which, in its OP form, isn't actually sweet.

- Don't even bother buying: seeds to commonly found perennial plants that need to be split or grow abundantly. Instead, talk to your friends and neighbors and see if you can split some of their plants. So many people have rhubarb that needs to be split, or bee balm that you can transplant, etc. that it just doesn't make sense to wait 3 years for the plants to mature. Things that fall into this category include: comfrey, mint (which grows so abundantly that it would be a sin to pay for - excepting special varieties) almost all flowering bushes, most perennial herbs (which are easier to propagate by cuttings or transplanting than seed), etc.

-Certain things aren't typically grown from seeds - and so you shouldn't look for the seed. The examples of these are potatoes and garlic (which should have been planted in October anyway). Also, people tend to buy onion sets rather than seed - which are second-year onion bulbs which will grow faster and easier than seed.

Enjoy your garden plans and don't stress too much! We're all in this together.

Progress (ish)

2010-01-04T13:31:00.000-08:00

I have a marvelous friend who has taken on my hopelessly neo-luddite self and this little blog as a marketing project. So, without further ado, I give you my biggest fear: Me. on Twitter.

And, while we're having a meta moment, my father gave me a cute little hand-me-down camera while I was in Jersey visiting, so I might add pictures into the mix, even though I find this very intimidating. To be honest, this blog is already a rather time-consuming hobby, and photos only promise doubling that commitment. but if one of you is a publisher (or with the Times Style section) who wants to publish my book, I'll post pictures, just say the word.

Notes on spices and Delicious Crackers

2010-01-04T06:28:00.001-08:00

Note on spices
It came up this weekend that someone mentioned that they didn't really know how to use spices in their cooking. Since spices define a meal and are the basis by witch we differentiate different styles of cooking, I figured it deserved some space. First off, you will not use your spices if they are not fresh, accessible, and clearly marked. I keep my spices in 1/4 pint jars (they were cheap and easy) on a fairly large spice rack that hangs on the wall right above my stove. Know how you cook - if you measure everything, go for a jar (like the 1/4 pint) which is easy to dig into with a spoon. If you'd rather shake, go out and buy some jars with lids that have holes for shaking. Never keep spices for longer than a year or too, and if they don't smell like much, they won't taste like much either. Have clear labels. Clear jars help because colors are an easy identification key. Keep in an order other than alphabetical - which isn't very sensible (and plus, there are far too many spices that start with the letter C*). Try ordering spices by cuisine or savory/sweet - there's some overlap, but this will keep things easier when you reach for the spices to make your Dhal.

Here are a few tricks of the trade:

- In General most people mess up by not adding enough spices. Especially in highly flavored cuisines like Mexican, Indian, Thai, Cajun, etc., it's really hard to overdo it (except with hot pepper). So go for a lot of spices. for a meal serving 4 people it's not unheard of to add around 2-3 tabelspoons of spices. Go for gold. if you overspice, add more of something to soak up the spice - like beans or rice. If you're scared of overdoing it, add spices gradually, and wait a while for flavors to meld before tasting. Try out a few recipes for high-spiced dishes just to get a sense of ratios and how much spices and herbs to add to different kinds of cooking. In general, dried, powdered spices are added early on in cooking so that the flavors can develop, flavor the oil, seep into the food, and really build character.

- Fresh, leafy herbs such as basil, cilantro, and parsley, should be added towards the end of cooking, because the flavors have a tendency to fade (a major exception to this rule in my kitchen is adding parsley to soups that are watery to develop the veggie stock flavor early on in cooking - some people may say this adds a bitter note to vegetable stock, but I have never found that to be true). Fresh and dried hardy herbs such as oregano, rosemary, thyme, and sage should be added early on or closer to the halfway point in cooking to allow some time to soften and the flavors to meld into the dish.

- Mexican Spices are powdered Cumin, oregano, hot chili, (including commercially mixed chili powders, which usually include cumin, oregano, cayenne or another hot pepper, and paprika for color). Add these spices when sauteeing onions. The flavors for these spices come out best when sauteed and cooked a long time. Onions should be fairly well covered with spices and look brownish-reddish (depending on how much hot pepper and/or paprika is added). At the end, immediately after turning off the heat, add cilantro if desired or called for. Jamaican cooking generally replaces most of the oregano with a lot of thyme. Add thyme closer to the halfway point than you would oregano.

-Indian Spices are a long, long list of things. Go for fresh ginger (an easy way to cut up this annoyingly hairy root is to freeze it and then grate the sucker on the small part of your hand grater). Usually you'll be using less than an inch of the root. The spices you will be reaching for include cumin, coriander, turmeric, cayenne pepper, (which are the ingredients in curry powder), to be added when sauteing onions, and mustard seed. For the slightly sweet dishes you might also reach for cardamom, or the pre-mixed garam massala, which I keep on my spice rack because I just can't figure out the ratio and all of the ingredients in this delicious spice mixture. Less commonly you might reach for Asafetida, fenugreek (which I have never gotten the hang of using) and some other lesser characters like curry leaf. You will be surprised by how much spice you will have to use. it's a lot. The rich flavors of Indian cooking are made up entirely of spices plus a splash of lime, some sides of chutneys and spicy pickles. When adding whole seed spices such as cumin seed or mustard seed, pop the seeds by sautéing them separately in a small pan in very hot oil until they start popping and jumping around. add this to your meal with the hot oil just before the dish is done. Whole seeds add a very different flavor and texture to your final dish than the powdered variety, and they're not really interchangeable.

- Thai I'm no expert by far - but I've found that lemongrass (cut into 1/2-in pieces and simmered for a long time, then removed prior to serving - treat as a bay leaf), a lot of lime, and basil added to the normal curry palate (see Indian spices above) with some extra ginger and coriander and less cumin is the basis of making a satisfying Thai dish. Thai spices, such as galangal are hard to find, so go for extra ginger and lime. A lot of cilantro and basil on top once the dish is done is also a must for most dishes.

- Cajun is a cuisine I haven't come into my own in yet, but I'd love to master it. it's delicious and a surprisingly rare treat to find a hostess serving - especially in this age when Asian cooking is chic. Either buy a commercial spice mix or mix one yourself and pretty much cake whatever it is you're cooking with it. A recipe can be found here. I would not shy away from adding allspice.

-Cayenne in recipes can never be trusted. Figure out just how spicy your cayenne is (it's never the same between years, brands, etc.) and feel free to add more or less than the recipe calls for, or to replace a part or all of what is called for with Paprika, which is less spicy (and frequently not spicy at all) but adds color.

On to the next of today's topics:

Delicious Easy Crackers

I made these crackers for new years since I had a stale baguette to contend with. They're basically croutons in the shape of a cracker - yum! Bakeries throw out bread every night. If you can get in as the workers are sweeping up (just as they're closing) you might be able to snag a few "day olds" which the bakery cannot sell the next day. If you land a few stale baguettes, here's what to do to make absolutely divine crackers. I did this without measurements, so feel free to adjust. I'm approximating from my visual memory

Ingredients:
- 1 stale baguette, cut into slices as thin as you can manage straight across (no need to cut on a bias unless you want long crackers)
- 2 cups olive oil
- 2 Tablespoons dried oregano
- 1 Tablespoon dry sage
- 1 Teaspoon thyme
- 1 1/2 Tabelspoons powdered onion
- 1 large clove garlic, minced
- Black pepper (however much you like)
- Salt (go for salty - 3 generous 3-finger pinches (that's 3 fingers not including the thumb))

The method
Mix olive oils and spices in a large bowl. once thoroughly mixed, add in the baguette slices and mix (with your hands) until all of the bread is well-coated. spread these out evenly on a cookie sheet and put into a hot oven (I'd go for the 450 mark - or on toast in a large toaster oven) for 10 minutes or until the crackers start turning golden brown and are no longer stale in the center. Transfer onto another cookie sheet to get them out of the oil that no doubt will be sitting in the original cookie sheet.

I served the crackers With a sage-y white bean dip (cook cannellini beans, add a lot of sage, and mash with cream and olive oil as you would mashed potatoes), but really, they were delicious enough to eat alone.

*Just for fun - Spices that start with C (let me know if I missed any): Cayenne, cumin, coriander, cardamom, cinnamon, clove, chives, chipotle, and (if you're really an acclaimed Indian chef) Curry leaf.

An (extended) Excuse for Why I Didn't Make Any Resolutions

2009-12-31T07:03:00.000-08:00

I'll tell you a secret - I keep a bag of tupperware that I'm sure will come to life hidden under my sink. I work up my courage and wash it about every three weeks, which is useless, because this final jump into the terror of moldy tupperware usually coincides with rotating in a new bag of similarly terrifying tupperware. These bags of mason jars and pyrex containers come from my car, which would give the most terrifying bachelor pad you've ever seen a run for its money. No, I am not resolving to actually clean the tupperware as soon as I bring it in - what else would keep my bravery sharp, if not the excursion, once or twice a month, into the land of mold monsters?

In case you think I get everything done - I don't. We don't. Not a single one of us is perfect - but that doesn't mean there needs to be much disappointment. not when it comes to small things - like the constancy of dirty tupperware. My own little secret to living joyfully is believing, with all my heart, the beautiful stories that I tell myself. I day dream with the fervor of my nine-year-old self and thank you, I will not stop believing in fairies. What other reason is there for joy besides the stories we tell ourselves in secret that explain love and hardship in a language only we ourselves are privy to? I am hooked on my own stories. I have spun my life into a wonderful tapestry of joy, mystery, and whimsical reasons that explain why I need to do the things that need to get done (and get me to do them). I believe in my stories, and act accordingly because I want to know where my stories lead. I want to know what fruit grows over the paths. I want to know where my stories spin in circles and meet someone else's story and make love and find new paths and new dreams.

A story you don't know the end to is that of my lettuce. It's frozen dead, I'm afraid. Faced with the choice of enduring the draft from the window or killing the seeds, I chose murder. I pulled the curtain closed over the window box each night for the past two weeks, forcing the damp and cold soil to suffer the draft for me. I knew what I was doing; I cannot plead innocence. I'll have to give something else a chance at life when I get to it.

While I'm confessing, I'll admit that the mice have been dancing on the floor of the shed and on its dark and dusty work table every night since the cold set in. The cat and I sit and listen when there's nothing good on the radio and the dishes are done and there's time to just sit. She stares hard and tries to find the magic brick that will slide open the door to the wonderland of food and toys behind the living room wall. I just sit and listen. In the little scratching noises and peeping I am deeply and truly grateful that the mice are not in my kitchen. For this I thank the cat. She and I are allies. I feed her, keep her house warm, and sit on the low bench writing at the coffee table while she keeps the mice in the shed and lays outstretched on the cushion of the chair by the stove - the chair with arm rests perfectly designed for sipping tea warming on the stove and which uses the low bench I'm sitting on as a footstool. The cat, I'm sure, does not appreciate any of this. She lays on the cushion, superior, knowing that without her my bread would be moldy and my store of winter squash devoured long before March came with her warm breezes. I let her keep the chair.

To continue this line of confessions, I frequently push a pile of clothing into the closet when guests are visiting.

I did not get to the borscht, dinner will be late tomorrow, and I'm snacking on chips and sour cream (the perfect combination of beloved childhood flavors. Almost beats Nutella and SCM (sweetened condensed milk, of course!) Did I mention that I keep Google open when I'm updating this blog to spell check every third word?

You see, I'm not making resolutions this year because none of these confessions give me much more than a slight twang of "I wish my parents didn't know." Truth is, I'm happy and doing well. I live within my means (mostly) and my default expression is a smile. Let's be honest, the perfect ideal of the clean house - that one in magazines and our mothers' dreams for our futures - is one that includes hired help. And since you and I (who work for a living and pray in secret) don't have hired help, what is the point of even bothering to attempt to wash the floors more than once every other month? Especially when the floors are old and hopeless anyway and tomorrow's chore of carrying wood will fill the floor with its mud and grit and make the wood look old and worked again?

In conclusion, please accept this excuse for not making any resolutions:

I like sour cream too much to go on a diet
I exercise by dragging 50 pounds of wood a week, and
I do not have hired help and am under no delusions of perfection in the home.

Therefore, if I must resolve to do anything at all in this new year, I resolve only to day dream more, read more children's books, go sledding, learn more of the secrets of joy and love, and fortify my belief in fairies. The rest, as they say, will follow.

We all have our hostess panic moments

2009-12-30T06:19:00.001-08:00

My dearest readers, I woke up this morning at 6:45 sweating and filled with stress. What if no one comes!? I haven't gone shopping! There's no play list! Speakers!?!? It was clear that sleeping long enough to hear my alarm clock wake me at 8:00 was an idle dream. I bundled up in my bath robe and shawl and shuffled downstairs to stoke the fire. Ensconced in my high-backed wooden chair pulled up to the stove, I grabbed my arsenal of notepads and pens to guard off the encroaching stress.

I do not normally put off party planning until the day before a party. Just the thought of such last-minute preparations makes my stomach tense and my mouth dry up. A to-do and to-call list grew from one page to three. My shopping list, though manageable, could have been better managed earlier this week. I reminded myself, as the stove's heat permeated my rough knit shawl, that there was ice skating to be had, games to be played, and that my dearest friends would be coming over to celebrate. Needless to say, my last minute party will be nothing like what Epicurious.com suggests. Hired help!? A fully stocked bar!? You have got to be kidding me! But even if the champagne is cheap and it's the worst party ever (which, of course, it won't be), it will still beat the political misery of this past decade.

And then there are the nagging little questions: where do I by lamp kerosene that doesn't reek like the kerosene for heaters sold at the gas station by the gallon? Will people want to dance, or should I leave the living room for lounging? Do people really expect champagne? What if it's too cold and I can't heat the house through? Hot chocolate or hot mulled cider? I'm leaning towards Spiked Hot Chocolate

But it's going to be a full moon. And it might be snowing a bit (the two don't cancel each other - they offer two equally exciting prospects). And what is better than laughing with good friends? And a fire by the side of a stream frozen solid? And hot chocolate (or mulled cider?)

But now I'm listening to my favorite calm-me-down music - the beautiful harmonies of Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion (also here), and I have plenty to do at work, so it's a simple thing - calming down and trusting that tonight will be fine, will be fine, will be fine, will be fine, for a while. (I choose the rooms that I live in with care)

I didn't realize I was writing a blog on being a hostess...honestly.
Dear New York Times Style Section...just think about how you could sell it...a hip, young, down-to-earth, and green version of Martha Stewart! Get those yuppie-cum-farmer kids in and make a killing!

Plans!

2009-12-29T11:46:00.001-08:00

I'm having a fall-in-love-with-home day. I read this adorable article and, aside from admiring the whimsical nature of many Times writers, actually teared up a little at the end. I am a long-term commitment kind of gal (this notwithstanding that I've never had a relationship longer than a year). I err on the side of over-commitment to the places I live in, the friends in my life, and all things important and sentimental. I have wanted to go to the same place on vacation since I first saw it on a map when I was 8 (Greenland).

As a result, I'm thinking plans. Plans for my little perfect cottage which I will not leave, thankyouverymuch. I need to find a roommate, that's for sure, but for that I'll need to build, and if I'm building anyway, why not dream? I know, I know it's a rental, but I can still dream, can't I?

(yes, daydreaming is one of my all-time favorite things to do)

Needs:
An extra room for privacy for a roommate
storage space (aka - a shed)
Place to keep wood

Potential:

Plan omg I'd die it'd be so perfect:
- Add a second room to the loft. Windows out over the living room in the front room for light, the view of the Catskills, and to let heat in (it would be really cute), floor vents in the back room which would serve as a guest room (except I'm really torn about which I prefer - the view of the pond across the street with the sun rising over it or the view of the Catskills....that I can see from other parts of the house, which isn't true of the pond view). That, or keep the loft intact for now - though that wouldn't allow for much privacy in a roommate situation.
- Shed: Insulate, frame out a door into the living room, add proper flooring, take out old and useless boilers, seriously insulate or board up the exterior door, add 2 windows (one facing north on the stream, one long one facing west towards the mountains), call it a bedroom for my housemate (in the long term - a craft room/office/den/guestroom)
- Add a small lean-to directly north of the shed that will serve as tool storage. Elevated over the flood-line of the stream. Annex a corner of the ice house as a small workshop.
- extend the roof of the ice house to make wood storage possible between the ice house and the driveway (? or actually figure out a good wood shed situation)
- Add a little roof over the main door.
- Level the area between the road and the kitchen (outside) and seed with grass for a little patio. Build a screen with wysteria (grape? kiwi?) vines to block out the road a bit
- (This is the serious kicker) Add a small attached greenhouse to the south side of the living room. this, my friends, would be too perfect to describe.

Plan okay...I'll be realistic...for now:
- Add a second room to the loft for a roommate.
- Clean out the shed, remove the boilers, and make it a more useful workshop space.

An Homage to Home

2009-12-29T06:45:00.000-08:00

My beautiful wooden dish drying rack broke sometime this weekend. No one told me it was collapsing, so one side caved and the second side, held together only by a peg, twisted and pulled the peg out with the force of the uneven weight of drying dishes. With time to kill as a date was running horribly late (to the tune of 3 hours), I tried my options. I whittled down some twigs to use as pegs - which were too weak to hold without twisting while I hammered the thing together. One broke and is now stuck in the hole for the peg - which will be easy enough to dislodge with a sharp knife (I hope). So tonight I'm going to go and buy some pegs. It's a beautiful dish rack that's very fixable and I have no intention of throwing it out.

Most of our waste comes from things not being reused or not being seen as reusable. We seem to generally refuse to accept the possibility that things actually are fixable, and therefore are reusable. Of course, it makes perfect sense that replacing is easier than fixing - things are cheap, and with at least 40 hours of each week going into work, who has time to fix what could just be replaced?

When things around the house break or clothes rip, I feel morally obligated by my own frugality to fix them or sew them up, and not to waste by throwing whatever broke out and getting a new one. As a result of financial need, a tinkering habit, and a deep love of older, well-crafted, simple (and therefore fixable) objects, I have turned frugality into a hobby. This hobby of mine makes living cheap fun and easy, and makes my sense of moral obligation to waste not less preachy - and less central to the point. Morality is far less effective in motivating me than simple pleasures - so I try to combine the two.

***

When my date finally did arrive (I did not turn him away at the door. I'll be honest, a part of me had wanted to, but I was far too excited to see him), he was surprised by my house. He paid me a compliment I had not even considered until the moment. "I have never seen a 23 year-old," he said "with a house this well kept."

My home is an homage to the concept of home in the same way that a poem is an homage to the concept of a poem. My home is a work of art. How could it not be? These walls are the only walls that contain me and all things mine. I have chosen them. Home is a simple and modest shrine made by and in honor of daily tasks. There is a holiness in the home. It is the only holy place I have ever known. It is the sacred heart of the tasks and objects of life, love, and family. If home is not beautiful and well cared for, if our shrines are not places of exaltation, how can we exalt within them? The quest for a life of grace, wonder, and beauty is an uphill battle if a home is not a shrine to the best that we hold inside ourselves - to the holiness of even our most mundane daily tasks. These tasks that are not only necessary, but are themselves an homage to the potential of their own perfection. it is all, on days when the sun shines and the home holds its sacred heart, a poem.

Hosting - for a week straight

2009-12-28T09:58:00.000-08:00

I have never understood why New Years happens a week and a half after the winter solstice. Thanks to Wikipedia my thoughts on the complete arbitrariness of the new year falling in January have been confirmed. January was when the consuls of ancient Rome assumed the government. Traditionally, the Roman calendar started in March, which makes much more sense. The Jewish calendar renews during the harvest season, which also makes sense. Perhaps the only thing a January new year has going for it is that winter is a time of introspection and a time when we spend far too much time trapped indoors and are in need of something to make us feel less caged. Winter could benefit from a party and a nudge in the direction of thinking over the past year, though not, in my over-extended hostess's opinion, a week following Christmas.

I am not prone to thinking over the year at this point in December. While I was a student, the much more obvious time for the was always at the end of the school year in May or June. To me the year always feels as if it is renewing when I pull out the seed catalogues in mid January and start planning the new garden (this year, again, for the third time in four years, I will be digging a new garden). The renewal of our calendar is an imposition on my otherwise fluid experience of the cyclical nature of seasons. It feels rushed, stuck in and overshadowed as it is after the month-long glut of Christmas specials, carols, and advertising.

Since Wednesday evening I have had no time for anything besides driving, catching up with friends, cooking, washing dishes, and cleaning - definitely no time for top-ten lists and memoirs of my 2009 AD/CE experiences. It is a relief to be at work, where I am left relatively alone and no longer frenzied to the point where my body insists on hurting itself through sheer stupidity because otherwise I do not hearing it yelling "slow down and take a break, you maniac!" (I slammed my fingers in the front door right before sitting down to Sunday brunch, a completely idiotic move I haven't successfully pulled off for the better part of a decade)

I take pride in my hosting not because I am a deeply social person who loves having people over. Quite to the contrary. I make hosting a fastidious habit because that is the only way that the whole experience becomes easy and low-stress. Because every step is a habit, drilled into me by endless practice runs since I was old enough to pour tea, I no longer have to think about it. I spend half of my time with my guests going through motions so habitual I could do them with an axe murderer. "Tea or coffee?" "Let's move to the living room, where it's more comfortable." "Candy?" "Of course I don't mind if you take all the books off the shelf. It's about time I reorganize, anyway!" This perfected routine turns 4 hours of hosting into 2 hours of robotic ease and 2 hours of actual interaction, which, I assure you, I cherish.

Seeing as I am actually an antisocial person who likes more than anything to take a foot bath alone except for the company of my cat and Ira Glass, I hope you will excuse my coping mechanisms. I assure you that they are for our mutual benefit - you get tea and slippers as soon as you walk through the door, a set table, and other conveniences most people can't look forward to expecting until their friends are in their 40's and have finally shaken off the oafish habits of college, and I get the security of auto-pilot.

Ice Skating, heating stones, and cole slaw

2009-12-21T06:23:00.000-08:00

The world is miraculous. It is splendid. I had to work saturday a bit, so I moved my weekly cleaning day to Sunday. After a few hours of dishes to Selected Shorts, sweeping, taking out the trash and piles, and setting dinner to cooking, I noticed my neighbor and his daughters pulling an ice sled and their skates to the pond. I peaked out of my living room window, and sure enough, there were two kids, a grown man, and a dog skating circles under my window on a beautifully frozen pond/stream (it's a dammed stream, and under my window, it's pretty narrow, though once it goes under the bridge and across the road it spreads into a lovely acre-sized pond (and nowhere is it deeper than 4 feet - which is great for skating and bad for swimming).

After a week of surprisingly cold temperatures for December never getting up past 23*F (about -5 Celsius to everyone else) and no snow - the blizzard that clobbered the northeast missed us this far north and inland entirely - the weather is perfect for ice skating. over an acre of perfectly frozen water, with no snow to sweep off or ruin the texture. The stream flows down to the pond from areas I've never explored. A house burned down around the bend from the stream last week. I'd like to skate up there one of these days. The fire was so huge and sad and beautiful - it would be good, i think, for me to see its effects.

I ended up going out to skate 3 times. I had hot chocolate and the most pristine spread of cookies all handmade by my landlady with perfectly iced gingerbreads, flower-shaped sugar cookie sandwiches with raspberry and quince jam and powdered sugar, little chocolate cake and jam with ganache cubes, lemon pound cake squares, ginger snaps, and rugellah. I aspire to such domestic perfection. I make a point of never showing up empty handed (for the sake of propriety and general joy and the continuity of the spirit of giving), so I brought over some sour cherry jam, the christmas presents I had made, and a book of paper dolls for the oldest daughter's birthday which is on Christmas (a day after mine!). Then I went out skating again with their 3 girls for at least another hour.

Friends came over for a dinner of root veggies, barley and chicken soup in turkey stock and cole slaw (see recipe below). We went out ice skating with my kerosene lantern. Dressed in fleece leggings and my turmeric-dyed house skirt, with gloves, scarf, and my long winter coat, the stars so bright they were reflected in the perfect ice, it was a wonderful, beautiful sight. Aesthetics are a lovely part of life!

My friends and I figured out a very clever little personal heater. I had a smooth river stone, flat on one side, about 3 inches in diameter. My friend tied cotton kitchen twine around it so it hangs like a necklace. when heated on a brick on the stove (not directly on the stove - that's too hot) it's the perfect temperature to wear around my neck under my sweater but over my long sleeved shirt (it's winter - layers! layers! layers! 2 on legs (including feet) and 3 on top is my standard rule - one of the tops damn well better be a sweater too). It heats right at the core and radiates that heat for well over an hour. It is by far the most magical way of staying warmm - and the most effective! Just keep your eye out for the right sized stone and a boyscout who knows his knots. if you don't have a wood stove, you could probably boil the stone - just be careful that it doesn't burn you!

Life is so magical when it's a winter wonderland! i am so incredibly happy it's hard to describe. it's as if winter is conspiring with me to make everything perfect and wonderful.

New Years' party at my house with ice skating and everything - come on come all (if I actually know you or you're a friend of a friend). It will be a night to remember! Hot stones will be handed out for ice skating. Bring skates, a sled (if there's enough snow), and plenty of warm clothes. I'll provide warm beverages for adults, kids, and designated drivers.

Killer Cole Slaw
I always have cabbage in the house. It;s cheap, it sits in the fridge forever, and it's versatile. So when my one-pot soup had to serve as dinner for four, I had to figure out how to add a side dish. In the fridge: a full array of winter storage veggies and condiments. nothing else. So here goes:

- Finely cut cabbage. You can shred it with a cuisinart, but why, when it's easy to shred cabbage with a knife and the crunch is so much more satisfying? To fine chop cabbage, cut off a chunk and then cut shreds on a diagonal.

- Grate a few carrots to get to the cabbage/carrot ratio you want (or parsnips, or beets - whatever you have that's sweet and can be grated)

- Mix in Mayo - enough to cover everything but not too much. nothing kills a good cole slaw like too much mayo.

- Add in enough pickle brine so that it tastes salty enough and somewhat tangy, and has enough moisture (I just use the leftovers from my store-bought or homemade dill pickles - always leave this on hand when you finish the jar of pickles for soups and slaws. it's a delciious treat). If you pickle brine has garlic in the bottom, add it to the slaw.

- If you have it, add some Dill. This adds an authentic Russian taste to your slaw, which will add a nice ethnic touch.

- Add black pepper, mix it up, and let it sit for a bit so the flavors meld. Taste and adjust seasonings.

Yum! Now you have a side dish to your otherwise scant dinner spread.

Time in wood and Home, among other things

2009-12-18T06:45:00.000-08:00

It is definitely winter. Nights are down in the single digits. I'm facing the choice of living a life of decadent warmth or being conservative with my wood usage. I went for conservative last night and spent all morning huddled by the stove, not even cooking myself a warm breakfast because that would take me out of the living room for too long.

It seems to me that the length of winter is measured in wood. A chord isn't just a measure of stacked, split wood (2 feet by 4 feet by 8 feet), but of heat per day, per week, per month. 2 1/3 chords - which is roughly what I started out with, is shifting, shrinking, and changing very rapidly. In the fall, a chord of wood is endless. One log here and there makes the oncoming winter seem easy, filled with abundance. As the winter comes in with her blizzards and below-zero wind chills, a chord becomes a much smaller measure. 2 months easily becomes a chord and a half. the stack of wood indoors shrinks fast. the amount of heat provided becomes relative to the cold outside, and the stove is always on. A little furnace chewing away split logs, one by one, or two by two, or three by three if the stove is cold and dead and needs to be revived, first hoarding the heat, then slowly radiating it out into the house over the course of hours, until even the kitchen is warm, and the cat and I venture away from the chair pulled right up to the stove for an abbreviated night of chores and tasks.

Last night I made both salves I said I'd make lavender lip balm, lavender baby oil, and shampoo. I used 1/4 pint jars, old travel candle tins, and these little black plastic lidded containers that were used for goat cheese and a friend had saved in her resourcefulness and had given to me. They turned out to be a good size for salve (a bit on the large size - so I filled them halfway, but much better than anything else I had, since I had neglected to buy another flat of 1/4 pint jars - which I go through faster than is at all reasonable).

I hung a blanket over my front door to keep the draft at bay. What looked like a very ugly old blanket actually turned into a cozy entryway because the colors matched and complimented the walls so well. I considered weather stripping, but the space between the door and the frame is so uneven in places, and the process of buying and installing the stripping was so unknown to me, that I went for the simple solution of nailing a blanket to the door (yes - this is what my landlords suggested. I think the door is being replaced come spring anyway - I need a screen).

As the winter encroaches and I am drawn more and more to the hearth I am dreaming of the possibilities of home. I am considering the possibilities of summers and winters. I am considering a little mud room, or at least a covered porchlet. The direct southern exposure would make for a perfect little sunroom or greenhouse. The shed could be insulated, a door could be cut into the living room, and the little room could serve as an office or a small bedroom. with an additional window facing the stream to the north, it would easily be the most beautiful little room in the house.

My landlords mentioned, offhand and semi-joking in the way we all do, that maybe we could switch houses eventually, when their kids all moved and once I had kids. They wouldn't need the big house anymore, and would like the coziness of the cottage, and I would need a larger space and could move into the farm house. it is a fantasy, of course, but to me, in my incredible sedentariness, it is the loveliest of fantasies. Imagine - finding home at 22! This may not be your dream, but it is mine. A stream, a view of the Catskills, a strip of forest, a sledding hill, 30 tilled acres, outbuildings, a barn, a hamlet within a mile with a library and a PO, a city within 10 miles with everything I might need including a direct train into New York City, wonderful neighbors and long-term relationships. Never underestimate the power of a beautiful place.

On not always getting everything done

2009-12-17T06:17:00.000-08:00

We all know that Martha gets all her cookies in on time and her crafts arranged because other people do it for her. I do not have a bevy of assistants and interns planting my lettuce and making salves. In case you're worrying that I'm super-human and that you can't keep up with all of the little tasks, crafts, homemaking, and what have you that I do, let me allay your fears. I write my plans here, and execute them eventually. I mean to get to it right away, but I rarely do. I have a high need for seeing friends after work, especially when I'm upset, and that never fails to interfere with doing dishes, sweeping, and planting winter lettuce.

Last night, on one of my visits to friends (where I live visiting friends means a ten to twenty minute drive no matter how you cut it), I finally picked up the lettuce seed I was looking for about 2 weeks back. I also picked up kale and chard...just in case. My window box has been set up waiting for the moment when I finally lay my hands on seed. In the move I lost all of my millions of seeds I bought in winter after winter of snow-drunk dreams of the perfect summer garden. Friends who garden always have a surplus of seed from the previous summer - we all succumb to our winter plans of long beds of kale and marigolds - so there's rarely a need to buy seeds for the winter months.

I have also been putting off going to the health food store (with what I will always refer to - thanks to its back corner shelves of jars upon jars of dried herbs, shredded roots, and a plethora of whatever you might want for an herbal preparation if you have not wildcrafted the herbs yourself as an apothecary). The salves i'm planning will be (must be) made by the 23rd. I will get to them this week. The dishes are in a constant state of mocking my apparent laziness. I am running low on shampoo, and need to make myself a batch. I need to ask my landlords if they have dried black walnut hulls from the trees in front of my house for the herbal infusion in the shampoo, yet another recipe from Earthly Bodies and Heavenly Hair - which at this point, if you've been following my online meanderings, you're probably realizing you need to own.

All in all - life takes time. I, and you as well, will not get to everything in the plans. At most, we can hope only to try. There is relief in the daily rhythm of work that I would not give up for the world. I get a much-needed feeling of stability and self-sufficiency from going to work every day. i am grateful, even in the tedium, even in the face of an ever-lengthening list of things left until later for my 40-hour job, even though I don't get benefits, paid vacations, or sick days. Those 40 hours represent a lot of salves, jams, mopping, organizing, and wood chopping that must be left for later or someone else. That is fine. We are not perfect. We consume and judge and live lives that are hypocritical despite our attempts at honesty. That is okay. We must forgive ourselves and each other for the fallibility in our humanity, and for the failure inherent in trying. I am not excusing hypocrisy. I am simply saying that we owe ourselves the peace of balanced forgiveness. In the calm and comfort of accepting that we are only human, we can finally appreciate the greatness of our attempts, the truth in our passion, and the power in our hope.

a note on wildcrafted vs. store bought herbs: I don't typically consider myself a spiritual (whatever that word means these days) person, but I do hold onto a breath of my childhood that carries fairies and dreams in the air. I do not and cannot believe that store-bought herbs, sitting in their glass and plastic casings for months in fluorescent corners can heal in the same way herbs picked in the summer with love and intention and stored and prepared into the winter can heal. At a fairly early point in your herbalism and gardening journeys, if you have not bumped into it already, someone will tell you to watch the moon. They might tell you that the moon pulls on the essence of plants. St. John's Wart, if used for the flower, should be harvested on the full moon when its essence flows upward. When harvesting comfrey root, dig on the new moon, when the plant's energy is low in the roots. Biodynamic farming relies heavily on planting and working with the moon. I do not think that we know how the moon affects the power of plants, but I don't think cold science has it right either. Tides aren't just gravity - they're magic and mystery too. They are a larger manifestation of the way all water yearns for the moon. We do not understand the depth of this world, both in terms of its banality and in terms of its layers of wonder and magic. I cannot help but treat my intentions and my interactions as holding real meaning and consequence - even with plants. Though scientifically questitionable, Masaru Emoto's stunning photos of water are enough to make anyone wonder.

Holiday presents - Calendula and St. John's Wart Salves

2009-12-15T07:14:00.000-08:00

Being a Jew, I don't think of Christmas much except to fume about its unfortunate proximity to my birthday. If I had kids I would fume more, of course - what with everything in this area being Christmas-themed all month and every community celebration featuring santa clause and the baby Jesus surrounded by lambs and wise men - there's nothing for Jewish kids to do! And being as I believe that Chanukah is a mediocre charity-holiday created by the marketing conglomerates to make little Jewish kids just as consumer-oriented as little Christian kids, I'm prone to go through December enjoying the pretty lights, wreaths, and garlands and happily avoiding the consumerist hubbub. to be honest, I consider myself lucky (though if I had my druthers, I would move my birthday to some point a bit farther from Christmas when people could actually focus on me, come to my birthday party, and give me presents that weren't afterthoughts at best).

This year, in a great departure from the norm, I am making some Christmas presents. I'm making them for my landlords, who very sweetly sent their daughter over with not one but two homemade Chanukah gifts for me. Seeing as they're my landlord-soulmates, I'm going to make them a Christmas gift. Also, I'll have some on hand for whoever else I need to bestow gifts upon - which is something I generally reserve only for my friends who are giving birth soon, and their children, and, when I think of it and see something they'll love or am making something lovely anyway, my closest friends. Seeing as I have at least 3 birthdays in February for the sweetest little girls, and have infused oils on hand from the summer, the following recipes should do. (taken from Earthly Bodies and Heavenly Hair)

Calendula and St. John's Wart Salves

Salves are super-luscious, concentrated moisturizers and healing balms that can be used all over the body. Calendula, which is an all-purpose skin-healing super flower is many a mother's favorite tool for moisturizing chapped baby skin, keeping cold wind from chafing rosy cheeks, etc. To be honest, I don't know any mother who doesn't have a bit of it on her at all times. Also, it's great for grown-ups. i used it as a lip balm, on cuticles, and the backs of my hands when they get cracked.

St John's Wart is also a super-healing, mildly antimicrobial flower found just about anywhere in mid summer. In tincture form (steeped in alcohol for months) it is frequently used as an anti-depressant. In salve or oil form, it is great for relieving pain in aching joints, and generally soothing minor physical complaints both topical and injury-related. Great for arthritic hands or aching joints brought on by cold or flu. Mixed with some fennel and lavender oils, it has a soothing effect.

Materials
Clandula flowers dried or fresh, olive oil, or calendula-infused oil (6 ozs)
St. John's Wart plants, dried or fresh, olive oil, or infused oil (6 ozs)
Beeswax (4 ozs total for both recipes)
A double-boiler, or a small pot of water and a heat-resistant measuring cup
something to stir with (a chopstick works)
little jars, 1- or 2-oz, or 1/4 pint jars
Labels

The Process
We're making 2 seperate salves here - in my case, on for the parent(s) and one for the kid(s). So follow these instructions twice over - one time with the calendula and another time with the St. John's Wart

If you're lucky, clairvoyant, or have been doing this already, you'll have some olive oil infused with calendula and st john's wart on hand. If not, wait until the summer for a fresh harvest or go to your local health food store that features an apothecary (mine does, for some wonderful reason) and pick up some dried flowers.

Now, if you have time, here's how to do it: Cut up petals (in the case of calendula) or the whole plant (in the case of st john's wart) and place in a jar of olive oil to cover (more or less depending on how strong you want it - for these recipes 6 ozs of finished oil is required). Let sit in a cool, dark place at least a month or more. 6 weeks is ideal, but it can sit for a long time. Mine have been sitting in a closet since the summer.

Strain your oils and put 6 ozs into your double boiler, once the water is boiling. get the oil good and hot, and then chop in 2 ozs of beeswax into small chunks into the oil. stir until assimilated and then pour into your containers. If you're planning on adding essential oils do so at this point (lavender and fennel for calming colic, tangerine for energy, none at all for most salves, since scents are so invasive and define a salve's purpose so strongly). Cover immediately and store in a cool, dark place until they're ready to gift.

If you don't have the time to infuse oil, or don't have infused oil
You probably don't. If this were the book I want it to be, you would have read in May that it's time to plant your calendula and in August you would have read that it's time to dry it and steep it in oil, and on December 15th, having all the ingredients on hand, you'd be reading this. But since that book is still in my brain and not in your hands, here's what I would do if I didn't have infused oils on hand.

Follow the directions above using olive oil and beeswax. If you'd like, replace half of the olive oil with jojoba oil or cocoa butter for extra-moisturizing power. Then, when you pour it off, choose an essential oil mix that's right for the person you're gifting this to. Lavender would make a great "bedtime salve" for lips, temples, chafed noses suffering from colds that would be a sleep-aid. Tea tree oil would be great for a scent-reducing foot salve. Tangerine would be great for a morning or pick-me-up salve, and sandalwood and rosemary would make a great scent for soothing tired hands (also- it's a fairly masculine scent)

Notes
Note on herbs: Really, you can use just about any medicinal herb in this way. Comfrey is good for treating bruising and internal aches. Black Walnut hulls and tea tree oil are great for fungal infections. read up on things and experiment. To make a colored lip gloss, infuse annatto seeds (for an orangeish tint) or alkanet root (a reddish tint). replace 1/2 oz of the infused olive oil in the salve recipe with castor oil for gloss. Replace 1/2 oz of infused oil with jojoba or avocado oil for extra moisturizing. add fragrance if you'd like, but be sparing, this is going right under your nose! in another alternative, you could make a salve-perfume, mixing a lot of essential oils in to make a solid perfume. Be careful though. gifting and making perfumes is a very specific art.

Note on consistency: The recipes above are not hard science. If you want a runnier salve, use less beeswax. If it's summer and you want the salve to hold up better and don't want to risk oils going rancid, use more beeswax.

Enjoy!

Sauerkraut, Okroshka, and guests

2009-12-14T06:21:00.000-08:00

You know how sometimes your weekend gets hijacked by guests who overstay their welcome? Sometimes, even the nicest, friendliest people stay too long. Just a gracious reminder: it is not up to the hostess to kick you out. A good hostess never tells her guests to leave. Instead, she makes hints. Please, take the hints. Offer to leave or, if you absolutely must, ask to stay early on enough that it's still a possibility for you to leave if your hostess tells you she has important plans in the morning (like relaxing because it's Sunday morning). Do so before it becomes necessary for the hostess to offer you the couch and some linens. I don't care how fresh-out-of-college you are, manners are still manners.

Now that we're all clear on that, back to the topic of the day: Sauerkraut (or, as I more commonly spell it to avoid the minefield of german vowel combinations: kraut).

Kraut is the food of the gods. Salt, cabbage, a little weight, and a week or 3 of magic turns into the most delicious, nutritious food you could ever imagine. Eat straight out of the jar (as I was did my whole childhood when my parents weren't looking), on a Reuben, or as a side to just about anything (how my parents would have preferred I ate kraut). My favorite part of sauerkraut (don't knock it till you try it yall) is the brine. I drink it straight or make a variant on a Russian soup (I prefer it as a cold soup) called Okroshka (recipe below) which is traditionally made with Kvass (fermented black bread - eww).

Also, this post includes a basic lesson in Russian

KAPUSTA (aka: cabbage, but generally used to refer to kraut as well)

Seriously - it is this easy.

Materials:

- gallon crock (keep your eyes open at garage sales and flea markets - they're everywhere) or a few wide-mouthed ball jar
- 3 tablespoons canning salt (or any non-iodized salt. Sea salt is expensive. go for Morton's canning salt. it's just as good and cheaper than the iodized stuff)
- 5 pounds (bout 2 small heads) cabbage (green for traditional look. red for a sexy burgundy kraut)
- a lid that is just too small for your crock/jar. The goal is to push the cabbage under the surface of the brine.
- a weight that will fit on top of the lid and into the crock/jar (typically a boiled rock (boiled to sterilize), but you can also use a plastic bag filled with water and rocks if you're using a jar, or a smaller jar filled with water, or whatever)

The process

Chop up your cabbage to the size you like your kraut to be. I like cutting off a chunk and then cutting the chunk into thin ribbon-like slices.

Now layer 1 layer cabbage, 1 layer salt until you've layered all the cabbage and used all the salt. Press down as you go. All of the cabbage should fit into a 1 gallon crock.

Now put the lid you're using (or small plate, etc.) over the kraut, push it down as far as it will go, and put the weight on top. Store it somewhere out of the way. The warmer the spot, the faster the fermentation will go, but the flavors will be less subtle. The colder the spot, the longer the fermentation will take, but the flavors will develop more fully.

Check your kraut after 24 hours to make sure the brine has covered the cabbage. If it hasn't, add a saltwater mixture (about 3 tablespoons salt per quart) to cover, and leave. Taste in about 5 days, and then daily if it's in your room-temperature house, until it's as sour as you want. don't wait to long - or it'll taste off. Once it's done, stick it in the fridge to slow the fermentation (in jars or in the crock if it fits).

Notes:

A note on ingredients: some people put weird things in their kraut, like juniper berries, caraway, coriander, and black pepper. Try it out, but in my humble opinion, nothing beats traditional salt-and-cabbage kraut. A carrot or for color can also be added.

A note on crocks: I found a set of nested crocks with lids. It's perfect for kraut since the medium-sized lid is a perfect kraut lid for the largest crock.

A note on salt content: If you're not into salt, you can soak the kraut overnight in tap water to get a low-sodium kraut for eating the next day. do this rather than making a lower-salt kraut. Salt preserves the kraut, and is needed for the right bacteria to ferment the brine. Traditionally, kraut was made with a lot more salt than we use now, because the main purpose of the salt was to preserve the kraut before refrigeration. Thus crocks were typically held in cold cellars and the kraut needed to be submerged in water overnight or for 24 hours to leach enough salt out of the cabbage to make it edible. The level of salt needed to preserve kraut in brine is 5 tablespoons salt per quart of water. This way, in a cold cellar place, it will take at least a month to ferment, and will last at least a few months, if kept cold.

OKROSHKA

Yes, this is my favorite soup.

This is my personal recipe. It may be blasphemous to my grandma's traditional okroshka made with beef and kvass, but so be it.

ingredients (no quantities because you know how to make soup. Just make soup.)
- The usual suspects: carrots, celery, onions
- Brine (yum)
- potatoes
- optional - meat (if you're into it, I'd go for a chopped up hotdog. That would be traditionally Soviet. If you believe in real food, pork or beef will do, and tofu would be good too)
- garlic
- dill (a lot) parsley if you have some
- black pepper

Chop and saute carrots, celery, onion, and garlic (i'd suggest a medium dice). Substituting celeriac for celery in the winter is great, and I would recommend it in general when you have celeriac in your cellar. If you're using meat, throw it in to saute a bit, then cover with some water or whatever stock you have on hand (use the smallest amount of water/stock possible. This soup is about the brine! you''re going to want a final ratio of about 1-to-1 stock to brine), throw in the potatoes (I'd suggest a medium dice), and simmer until everything is cooked.

Add brine. for hot soup, heat, but do not boil (boiling kills off the good-for-you bacteria). according to my mom, this is a very traditional soup called Sour cabbage soup (kisloy schi). For cold soup, chill. season with black pepper, lots of dill, and parsley if you have it, and adjust the salt by adding more brine or more stock/water. Serve and be happy!

Enjoy!

Life is going to change. No doubt about that.

2009-12-11T07:14:00.001-08:00

I've started drawing sketches to accompany the blog, but I don't have a functioning scanner in my life. The one at work doesn't seem to work, though i spent more time than I should have trying to fix it. Please forgive me, dear readers, for my dislike of digital photos. They just take up way too much time. sketching is much simpler and more satisfying.

Now I must admit a thing that has made me sad and that will definitely impact this blog and the pace of my life, though I have no idea how (who ever knows?). Now that I've finally fallen in love with living alone, I have put out a call for a roommate. there was no way to avoid it. I can't afford to live in my sweet little house alone, and there's no way in hell you could get me to move. I have found my little piece of heaven. I intend to stay here until I have no other choice. So there it is. I wish I were filthy rich, so I could be a real fashion farmer and live wherever I wanted and grow whatever I wanted just for the hell of it - and because it makes me feel good about myself (warning about the link - don't open it if you're an ex-suburbanite-turned-rural-farmer and take yourself too seriously).

As a result of me not being a trust fund baby, you, my dear readers, can expect to find posts about building walls (because i intend to separate the loft into 2 rooms), arranging work-trades, and figuring out how to convince your roommate to do all the dishes (I will think of a worthwhile exchange and appreciate any help in doing so). Also, I will inevitably have to discover how I can listen to NPR as often as i want to with another human being in the house, who probably hates Allen Chartok as much as I do but isn't as fascinated by the constant chatter.

Wish me luck, and if you know anyone who wants to be my roommate, send them my way!

It's the little things

2009-12-10T12:01:00.000-08:00

I have discovered the secret to joy last night and it is this - a foot bath in the chair by the stove once a week with sea salt and essential oils, tea kept perfectly warm on a brick on the stove, and crackers with sweetened condensed milk. After a day of the usual - 8 long and boring hours of work, cooking, shoveling snow, dishes, bringing wood in, and, if I'm lucky, some time on the couch with the cat - it is the perfect sliver of luxury. It is such luxury, that is makes me forget entirely about those boots I've been coveting that are $80 out of my price range. The $.03 foot bath is better than the boots anyway.

I finished the sweetened condensed milk two days ago, so last night I settled for a jar of my admittedly mediocre apricot jam, honey, and butter. It's not perfect, but at least I can afford sweetened condensed milk - now a staple of my diet above and beyond peanut m&m's which come in a now-distant second for top guilty pleasures. I'd give up a lot before I'd give up that little Carnation can. Definitely chocolate (gasp! I know! but seriously, s.c.m. is THAT good), sliced bread, and any $120 pair of boots. My favorite way to eat it is slathered on a very thin cracker that doesn't get in the way. It's also very good over nutella (but really, how could that not be?) I also like dipping my finger into it when it's cold in the the fridge and will stick - ah, the pleasures of living alone!

So in case you too have just discovered that you're not really making all the ends meet and will therefore need to find a roommate or move out, if all your muscles hurt from shoveling the driveway with a very heavy and old snow shovel, if you really can't stand the thought of cleaning, cleaning, cleaning after working, working working all day, and just want to live your own life, even though that's basically impossible - go dip your feet in some hot water and let yourself sit for a half hour. Listen to some music, or the radio, or watch a movie, or write, or read. I promise, you'll feel better. I do.

Snow Day!

2009-12-09T12:20:00.000-08:00

6 inches of snow meant I got to come into work today at noon! In a wonderful, relaxing morning I spent half my time on the couch (which I pulled up to the stove) petting my cat, and the other half helping my landlords switch in a new fridge for the old 1950's one with a breadbox-type freezer that had been in my kitchen, and setting up the lettuce window growing station I promised myself and yall that I would make. I only had one piece of 2x2 long enough, so I made a one-legged window sill extension using the front panel of an old drawer which comes from a set I have used for just about everything from shelves to a spice rack.

I simply cut the 2x2 to the height of the window sill, set the plank of wood from the drawer onto the sill with the 2x2 supporting the overhanging edge, and nailed the shelf down to the 2x2. With the weight of my window box on it, it's actually very sturdy. I'll add a second leg if I get around to it.

I transferred my frozen fruits, herbs, veggies, and meats from the upright freezer in my shed into my new indoor freezer and unplugged the big upright freezer. Half a bushel's worth of frozen peaches wouldn't fit, so tonight (or tomorrow) will be a night of jam and preserves making for gifts.

Essential Oils - A guide

2009-12-08T07:53:00.000-08:00

Every other thing I do at home includes essential oils. They might seem pricey, but they're so concentrated and so useful, that they're 100% worth it, especially if a local co-op is willing to let you order direct from their distributor with them. Housing co-ops (include the one at your local small liberal arts college) and buying clubs are great for this. If there aren't any in your area, ask your food co-op/health food store, though they need to make money somehow, and since you won't be buying oils in bulk, you might have to pay full price.

Essential Oils are highly concentrated medicinals. Keep them in a cool, dark place away from children. Never drink or eat them (unless specifically indicated). This is the distilled essence of the plant. Treat them with the due respect they deserve.

Here's my stash and what I use it for, in order of how much I love it. You can find more info just about anywhere.

Lavender - It's as close as you're going to get to all-purpose. Smells great, calming and uplifting, Lavender is also a great antiseptic. use it on cuts and scrapes to ward off infection, in household cleaners, and in scented anything. I always add lavender to my baths, I run it through my hair to freshen up (just a drop or two), and if anything needs an uplifting scent, I spray it with a bit of lavender water (essential oil mix).

Tea Tree Oil - go ahead and buy the 2 oz bottle. Tea Tree Oil is an outstanding antifungal. It works much better than almost anything else (including many over-the-counter creams). If you have any type of fungal infection including athlete's foot, a yeast infection, or those spreading pink and brown spots anywhere on your skin, keep a mixture of tea tree oil and witch hazel on hand (20-30 drops tea tree oil in a half pint jar filled 3/4 of the way with witch hazel is perfect). Shake the mixture and dip a cotton ball in, squeeze out excess, and apply to the affected area twice a day until infection clears and then at least an additional week. I also include tea tree in all of my household and personal cleaning mixes. I mix 10-15 drops into my deodorant (1 part baking soda and 1 part corn strach - mix thoroughly after every drop. I keep mine in a tightly sealed mason jar and apply with a large powder brush. This is also great for whisking away moisture on feet, in cleavage, etc.)

Lemon - I use lemon essential oil in my dish pans as I do dishes. My water smells very strongly of sulfur, and washing dishes in batches in dish tubs with 4-5 drops of lemon does the trick. It smells so fresh that I can almost convince myself that I enjoy doing dishes.

Sage - Like its fresh and dried counterpart, sage is great for coughs and any sort of congestion. I add sage to my baths if I'm feeling a cold coming on. It is also part of my personal bouquet of scents. it is one of my favorite smells - being earthy and flowery at the same time, and also evoking that edge in the smell of body odor that is so mysteriously sexual, intimate, and calming (at least to my nostrils). I mix 10-15 drops into my deodorant along with tea tree oil (see tea tree section for recipe).

Sandalwood - I just love it. It's a scent thing. Also, all of your musky, wood smells are great in foot baths or regular baths after a hard day of work. They do something to really get in and relax your muscles and your mind. Cedar, Bergamont, Egyptian musk are also great "masculine" scents if you want to mix a scent.

Clove - clove oil is a strong antifungal and antibiotic. Use with tea tree oil if your infection really isn't going well. Also drink clove tea for general systemic candida overgrowth (but not essential oil - boil whole cloves).

Eucalyptus - Eucalyptus is most commonly used for clearing colds and minor congestion. Carry a small vial with you and inhale the scent as needed to help with a common cold.

Echinacea - Mix 10-15 drops into water or juice and drink to boost immune system response.

Oregano - Mix 5-6 drops in water and drink to ward off cold and flu-like symptoms, and to generally boost immune system response.

Garlic oil - This isn't an essential oil, but it is a great medicinal oil. heat up 1-2 tabelspoons of olive oil in a small pan as if to cook. add a clove of minced garlic and turn off the heat. let it sit in the pan until the oil is warm to the touch. strain out garlic and massage the oil into ears to treat ear infections. Lay on each side after applying to each ear to let it seep in.

A note on mixing your own essential oil perfumes:
No one appreciates being bashed over the head with your scent, no matter how good it is. go for subtle. Too much Egyptian Musk makes you smell like a bad male escort. Too much rose makes you smell like an South Asian kitchen before a wedding. Mix small amounts and then add to it, so you don't waste excess on a bad mixture. use two drops, max, on the throat, behind your ears, wrists, and temples. never perfume your cleavage. it's trashy.

Check in with this entry from time to time. I'll be adding more as I think of them.

DIY Household Cleaner

2009-12-08T07:36:00.001-08:00

I don't understand why anyone would spend $5.00 on chic, organic good-for-you house cleaning sprays. First - they smell bad. Second - they're expensive! Third - organic? really?

Make it yourself!

The Tools:

- A dark, plastic bottle (not white or clear - you could use a finished Hydrogen peroxide bottle - that's what I do)
- A spray nozzle that fits your dark bottle (I found a regular household spray bottle in a friend's recycling bin, took out the spray attachment, and cut the end so it fit into my hydrogen peroxide bottle.
- A funnel (unless you have very steady hands)
- Hydrogen Peroxide (this can be found in the pharmacy section of any store. look for a boring brown bottle)
- White vinegar (I generally have 2 gallons of the cheap kind on hand for cleaning at any moment - but you'll only need about 1/2 a cup to a cup depending on your bottle)
- Water (easy 'nuff)
- Essential Oils (once again - I use my old favorites - lavender and tea tree)

The Method:

I'm going to give you a grandma-style recipe. Which means - you can't mess this one up. Seriously.

put your dark bottle on a table. Get a funnel into it, and pour about an inch of hydrogen peroxide into the bottom. If this is going to be a bathroom spray, feel free to be a bit more generous. Hydrogen peroxide is your main antibacterial tool. You can also use your hydrogen peroxide to clean wounds, gargle (use a tiny drop in a cup of warm water), and as a general sanitizer.

Now fill the bottle about 1/4 of the way with white vinegar. Vinegar is anti-fungal. I soak anything that's moldy in a bucket of vinegar and water (1-to-4 vinegar-to-water ratio, once again), my friends soak their cloth diapers in vinegar (same ratio), and after this summer of mold attacks, I am very liberal with my use of vinegar around the house.

Finally, top off you bottle with water (leave enough room to get the spritzer in without overflowing) and add essential oils until you have the smell you want.

And tah-dah! a $0.50 household cleaner that's easy to top-off as needed. Use as a regular household spray. It's really tough stuff that works great. I use mine in the kitchen and the bathroom as well as a final touch on the kitty litter (it's great in cutting smell), and I have no complaints. Just remember - spray cleaners do not replace the scrub power of baking soda or bon ami ever, which work best on anything enamel.

Hosting Friends (and getting them to visit)

2009-12-07T08:59:00.000-08:00

One of the challenges of country living is getting old friends who live in more urban areas to visit. City dwellers are convinced that they are more accessible than you are, and they're right. I am in New York City much more frequently than my City friends are upstate. I take trips into the city for a variety of different reasons, and will frequently make a point of seeing a friend or two on that trip. However - hosting is something I love doing, and it's something I learned to do well from my mother, who is a very talented and innovative hostess.

My approach to getting friends to visit is to turn it into a vacation. I live in a beautiful, and fairly accessible part of upstate new york, which makes my house (and therefore me) a perfect weekend getaway. No one wants to commit to visiting a friend they may have not spent a straight 24 hours with if they're wondering if you'll have enough to talk about to fill the time. This is stressful even with the best of friends, and for those of us who don't have children to distract us, 24 hours of non-stop interacting can be difficult. So I always suggest a few key things to do when I suggest a friend comes to visit.

Winter is perfect for a short and beautiful winter hike (most people never get to see a waterfall completely frozen still, but with the water still loudly flowing through the center of the the great column of ice that is Kaaterskill Falls in January. Just 30 minutes away, this is a perfect hike. Ice skating, cross-country skiing (on the landlord's property), winter farmers' markets, and walking around town are all wonderful things to do with visiting friends. If you have the space, it's also great to have two or three friends over, so there's some variety.

Make it low-stress. Nobody likes a stressed-out hostess. Plan in advanced. Go shopping two days ahead of time, because you'll probably forget something and have to go back the day before as well. If you've forgotten something and you discover it missing day-of, don't stress and make an acceptable substitution. If you don't have lemons, use apple cider vinegar or concentrated sumac juice (press the red point sumac out into water, leave everything in the water, and boil it down until it's good and strong). A good hostess learns how to stay calm and creative when there's no way she's going back to the store. Even if there is only one can of tomatoes left and you're making tomato soup for 10. You would stay calm, pour yourself a cup of tea, and think. Then you'd cut up the bread you were going to use for French grilled cheeses (croque monsieurs), leave it out to go stale overnight (because soup you always make soup a day in advance to let the taste ripen, and because it's easier that way). You would add some beans for thickness and extra vinegar for taste and make an Italian bread soup instead - which can stand alone as a dinner soup. Then, for a side, you'd make cheese crisps out of the cheese you had bought for the croque monsieurs. See? No stress. Just some time with your favorite cookbooks (the original Joy of Cooking, Moosewood, one of Brother Victor's Monastic, seasonal cookbooks are great cookbooks that are easy to be inventive with and don't involve complicated ingredients lists), and a break to think with a warm cup of tea. Always take a break if you're about to panic. even 2 minutes clears your mind enough to actually think clearly, and it will save you time in the end. Consider showering at the moment of stress instead of just before guests come. You're going to shower at some point anyway, why not do it now?

Now that we have no-stress down - plan a dinner meal that will double for lunch. You don't want to be cooking all day when friends are over, unless that's the vacation plan. If you make burritos for dinner, the leftovers will make a wonderful taco salad (just make a dressing, or get out a different can of home-made salsa and have some lettuce on hand to complement this easy self-assembled meal), or, for a more wintery example, Chili at night will make great cheese-and-chili subs for a packed lunch (pack chili separately and assemble when you're ready to eat). Same goes for pasta and meatballs and meatball subs. If you cook well, no one minds eating the same food twice in different combinations - just be creative and don't stress yourself out.

Only make dessert once, but make enough that you'll have leftovers on hand, and have some chocolate or dried fruit. Always keep snacks out and accessible (jam and crackers are easy) and tea on the stove. Leftover dessert is everyone's favorite snack.

let your friends help with dishes. They'll feel better about themselves if they help, and you'll be more likely to avoid stress.

...See? Easy! Now go and invite your friends over. There's no reason for them to stay at home when winter is so beautiful in the country!

A great book, where to find free newspaper, and growing winter lettuce

2009-12-04T06:34:00.000-08:00

If you're looking for a present for yourself or a friend, here's a very cheap and incredibly useful book: Country Wisdom and Know-How for just $20 at you local bookstore, this is a total steal. It's an oversized book printed on newsprint that is full of useful tidbits, recipes, and is an all-around great starter kit for just about everything.

Looking for newspaper for the stove?
If you're looking for newspaper to use as firestarting in your stove and you, like most of the US population, has moved away from daily paper delivery, Here's what I suggest. Go to any local business that you can get free monthlies/weeklies at. The theater I work at has them, so should local eateries, grocery stores, etc. Usually, at the end of the month, the paper distributers will drop off new ones and not pick up last months'. Generally, these get recycled. if you come in and let the business know you'll take the excess papers off their hands, they'd probably be happy to let you. Just come at the right time - generally, the first week of the month.

Home-grown winter lettuce
Next week I'm devoting myself to salad. I love salad. With a bit of chicken or tofu, over some rice or with crispy croutons, nothing makes an easier meal than salad. But in the long winter months the only salad to be had is grown in California, and as you may have noticed, i don't like grocery stores. I have, in my life, had winter seasonal salad replacements (cabbage chopped in very fine strips with grated carrot, turnip, rice and chickpeas is easy and delicious), but it's not the same!

So I'm building myself (perhaps 2 months too late, but still do-able) an indoor salad garden so that I can last the winter.

Ingredients:

South-facing windows and/or a florescent light to rig up over your plants (which is a cheap grow-light - grow lights are a marketing scheme)

A table, or a home-build stand/shelf to keep the plants on - it's going to be dirty and potentially wet. don't use anything too nice. I'm building a standard shelf with L-brackets and e few leftover pieces of boards.

Containers to grow lettuce in - If you're going for individual pots, I'd go for a 6 inch pot - but it's easier, I'd say, to use a planter-type set up. I'm going to use some (ugly) window boxes I found in trash cans here and there. You can also use buckets (drill holes in the bottoms to let water escape), old drawers (just make sure they're not treated with anything), dish pans, troughs, etc. etc. generally anything you find lying around will work. just remember that you're growing food - so it needs to be food-grade. Anything that held petroleum products or was treated with excessive or poisonous chemicals (including pressure-treated lumber) is not food-friendly. I'd use something at least 6 inches deep.

Potting Soil - wherever you get it, just make sure it's not sketchy. You can dig up some of your garden soil, you can buy the bags, whatever. The best would be finished compost. And no matter what, incorporate some finished compost to add some nutrition to your soil. The soil in your container is what your lettuce will be eating all winter.

Something to use for watering - watering is important. Not killing delicate seedlings while watering is also important. If you have a watering can, great! If not, no sweat. get a quart jar and then either poke holes in the lid itself or in plastic that you can secure with the band part of the lid (we're talking canning jars here). Now it's easy to shake some water onto your seedlings.

Lettuce seed - I'd choose a nice winter variety if your house (like mine) is on the cold side - or tends to fluctuate to below-freezing levels (again, like mine). Otherwise, the sky is the limit. I'm sure there's an heirloom indoor winter lettuce variety out there somewhere. If you hear of it, let me know. I'd love to try it.

Now, combine the ingredients! - Pot on shelf, soil in pot, water in soil (very wet for first planting), seed in soil (not too deep. Seed planting is fairly intuitive. Plant the seed at two times the depth of its width). Plant extra seeds, and then, once you can pick out your favorites, thin to about 6 inches apart. If you're growing leaf lettuce (which I would recommend for winter grazing), 6" should be fine. For head lettuce, you'll have to thin out to a bit more, about 1 foot.

All done? keep that tray watered well and keep the cat out of it! I'm going to use a cover of hardware cloth to keep the cat out until the lettuce gets big enough to fight for itself. You can cover the tray in plastic to help keep down watering needs until the seeds germinate.

If the cat really loves plants (mine also like harassing my Meyer Lemon Tree), I'd go ahead and plant a little kitty garden for it with something it can eat - wheatgrass, catnip, whatever (I will be taking my own advice on this soon).

A recipe for a decadent evening

2009-12-03T07:24:00.000-08:00

Last night I came home very upset over a political upheaval here, so i decided to treat myself to a decadent night. I drove over to the nonprofit independent theater in Rhinebeck Upstate Flms and watched the Coen Brothers' new movie, A Serious Man. This gave me a lot of thoughts about being first generation, bilingual, generally confused, American-ish Jewish in rural NY - where very few people are any of the above. While I love living in rural places and daydream about moving up to Vermont or Canada, I know that a need to be able to occasionally escape to a place where "my people" are yelling and carrying on in our typical bruhaha, complete with the simple joys of loudness and sour cream, will keep me tethered to the NYC-bound or Boston-bound Amtrak line.

When I came home, musing on the woman who kept saying "Oh Jeez" through the whole move, I continued the decadence!

I drew up a lovely foot bath with a bath salts recipe from my favorite topical herbal recipe book Earthly Body, Heavenly Hair By Dinah Falcone. It was a very simple recipe - 6 Tablespoons sea salt, 15-30 drops essential oils (I used sage and lavender, though if I had it I would have thrown in some sandalwood too), and a few tablespoons of comfrey-infused olive oil (which is generally healing). I would have used Calendula oil, but I don't have enough to splurge on such frivolities. Calendula oil is strictly for salves for my soon-to-be baby mama friends. I pulled up my chair and my foot bath right next to the stove, put a teapot of evening tea (chamomile and mint) on top of the stove along with my mug (works much better than a tea cozy) and, with incredible luck, got to listen to "Selected Shorts" on NPR (which, tied with "This American Life" is my favorite evening listening program).

All in all, I had myself a lovely evening. Which means tonight I will be cleaning up. a lot.

My other favorite recipe from Dinah's book is a quick pick-me-up for dirty hair. Drop two drops of essential oil onto a comb (I use 1 drop each of lavender and tea tree) and comb it through your hair. It adds a lovely scent and dries out oily hair a little, along with making your hair look, feel, and smell cleaner if you just can't get to washing it that day. My hair is fairly dry, but it works very well. Tea Tree is antifungal and lavender is antibiotic, so it's also great for warding off smells and infections.

Leftovers

2009-11-30T18:35:00.001-08:00

In case you're wondering what to do with all that leftover turkey, here's my suggestion:

stock.

Simmer the carcass (bones, whatever meat you couldn't get off the thing, skin, etc.) for as long as you can stand the smell in your house - I'd go for overnight.

Ladle off the broth and yummy meat bits into ziplock bags (seriously -it's the easiest storage option for the freezer. It won't burst on you and if you forget to get it out to thaw in the morning (which I always do), you'll be able to get the frozen stock out of the bag easily). Then stack them in the freezer and voila!

Now, when you're sick, you have something quick that doesn't come in a can.

Yum!

Hard Cider - the recipe

2009-11-30T17:51:00.000-08:00

Materials

Fresh-pressed, sweet cider. check that there's no preservatives, because that stuff works, and you're trying to rot your cider, not keep it fresh.

The easy way:
A jug
cheesecloth
a rubberband (to hold the cheeseloth over the mouth of the jug)

The fancy way: (you can get it all from a home-brew place)
A brewing bucket/carboy
airlock
campden tablets
yeast nutrient
a gravity-measuring device (for knowing how strong yer drink is!)
wine yeast
siphon (if you're going really fancy)
bottles and associated accouterments

The easy way (taken from the one, the only, Sandor Ellix Katz who brought you the definitive Wild Fermentation*:

Put your cider in a jug/jar/whatever. Cover the mouth of the jug with cheesecloth so nothing but wild yeasties get in, and wait. taste from day to day. Sandor says that in one week you should have a good, alcoholic, bubbly hard cider. But be careful - if you wait too long you'll have no choice but to let it become vinegar because it'll be well on its way. When it's done to your liking (tastes alcoholic but not sour) put a lid on it and put it in the fridge! Share with friends, who will love you a little more after a few cup fulls.

The fancy way (supposedly this comes out better and harder - also, it's more easy to manipulate and keep clean. this is the method I'm using):

A note up-front - know your ingredients. If your campden tablets say one thing, and I'm saying something else, use the information on your tablets. If you're not sure, ask someone who knows. There's bound to be a home brewing store somewhere around you. Ask around and you'll find it. If not, ask a farm stand that has sweet cider. they might home brew their own hard cider and be able to give you pointers.

Measure your gravity. (do this be reading the instructions on your gravity-measuring device (I'm sure it has a name, but I've forgotten it)). Record it in your homebrew journal, or wherever you keep numbers you'll need to know in two weeks. basically, you're figuring out the sugar-to-water ratio in your cider which will tell you just how alcoholic your brew can get, since yeast converts sugar to alcohol. The more sugar, the more alcohol. Or, if you like bitch drinks, the sweeter and less alcoholic.

Prepare a yeast starter (like you would for bread, but with sugar and no flour). 1 cup warm water, 2 tablespoons sugar, the yeast, and my recipe (from the homebrew store in town) called for citric acid. I had no citric acid, so I used a squeeze of lemon, and it seems to be working fine. Also, I'm skeptical of how much this bit of acid is actually necessary (but don't exclude it just because of my speculations - let me know if you've heard something on this topic). Cover and set aside for 24 hours.

Empty your cider into your brew bucket/carboy. Wherever you're starting your brewing (probably the bucket). Now throw in some yeast nutrient (about 1 teaspoon per gallon of cider) and Campden tablets (crushed). 3 pills for 5 gallons were my instructions. Also, if you're going to add more sugar, now would be the time to do it. Cover and set aside for 24 hours.

...wait 24 hours (remember: a watched pot never boils)...

You're through waiting! Now stir the hell out of your cider until it's frothy on top to get any sulfites that might be hanging around out of it. once it's really stirred up, throw in your yeast nutrient (common-sense yeast etiquette: your liquid should be room-temp - yeast doesn't like the cold), cover your bucket, put on the airlock (don't forget to fill it with water like I did!), and put it somewhere safe and with steady temperatures.

If you don't have steady temperatures (like me), put your brew up on a stool (off the cold floor) and wrap it in a blanket. This will at least moderate the swings in temperatures.

...wait 2 weeks, or until the bubbles stop in your airlock...

Now either rack into bottles and fridge it, or siphon into a carboy for clarification and continuing fermentation. I haven't gotten to this part yet, so I can't tell you how to do it. I'll update you when I get there.

Conclusion:
Painless, no? And you thought home brewing was hard!

*I truly believe that this book will become a must-have classic. Get your limited first editions now! In neon green and hot pink, this ugly little book will be a sure-fire crowd pleaser in twenty or thirty years when they're in multiple editions and have chosen a more attractive cover. the coveted, ugly first edition will be a marvel to behold. That and it's a damn good book - what's stopping you?

Finding the Reasons

2009-11-24T06:47:00.000-08:00

I hope you, my faithful readers, whether you are in New York City or on a farm somewhere, don't fool yourself thinking it's easy or romantic to get home after 8 hours of mind-numbing (but reasonably purposeful) work only to load up firewood into a cold, black, sooty furnace that makes the house smell of slightly rotten baked beans, with a pile of dishes accumulated after 2 days of home-cooked, from-scratch meals, in a kitchen stacked high with vegetables calling me to freeze, brine, or bury them in sawdust. All I want to do when i get home is load up the wood into the stove and sit next to it on the floor with the cat in my lap, in the little halo of its sunspot, drifting in and out of thoughts as the cat and I wait for the warmth to seep in. Sometimes, in the rare moment when I let myself sit like this by the stove - when the thoughts of long to-do lists don't drive me into the kitchen or the shed (after dark), and when loneliness doesn't rouse me to show up unannounced at a friend's door - It all does seem very wonderful and peaceful.

On days when I come home happy and motivated, doing the tasks I love to do, alone, with the hum of the radio in the background, is the simple joy of my life. It is my bread and butter. It doesn't matter that the sun is down and that I've spent 8 hours on someone else's dream.

But on nights like last night, I come home exhausted, incapable of comprehending how, after 8 hours of work, anyone can do anything other than sit with a friend, talk, sigh, and otherwise escape the incessant barrage of thoughts. On these nights the little things I love doing become huge tasks. I don't think we were meant to be solitary creatures. I know i wasn't. I love the time to myself when my thoughts are happy and calm - the decadence of calm and joy when my thoughts haven't been run to exhaustion by the endless project of daily tedium. As much as I love those nights, there are countless nights on which i would happily give it all up for a large-screen TV and enough money to consume my thoughts into submission.

But this project of mine - it's about something inherently different than consumption that drowns out the constant buzzing of my thoughts, the endless self-exploration of my life. As I listen to the steady hum of NPR, I find myself almost believing that the goal of the recession is to get back to the riches and gluttony from which we fumbled into this recession to begin with. Even as environmental groups say that the decrease of consumption is better to our precariously balanced world than rampant wealth. But we're not happy in this recession - even if less is the answer. Less of everything - less wealth, less money, less shopping, less opportunity to still our constantly-fretting minds. We've learned to still our minds with means outside of ourselves - with things we can purchase. Of course we need to still our minds. 8, 10, 15 hours a day of working on someone else's riches can't teach us to enjoy our own company. it's too exhausting, to daunting a task to come home from work, cook, clean, and then put up with our fretting about tomorrow, or next year, or heaven forbid, the tragedy that our lovely world is in. After a day like that - with all of the world to worry about, how do we just sit by the fire and enjoy the calm? We don't know how to anymore. It is too quiets. our thoughts feast on the demons of solitude and silence.

This project of mine, the small, self-contained and self-sustained life of homesteading - as unromantic as it is to admit - is basically a project of finding joy and peace in something other than financial wealth and consumption. To be completely blunt - it is a project of joyful, successful poverty. because what I love so much is doing the small things - and though it's not popular to admit it, I don't love homesteading tasks because they're green, or because they're philosophically fulfilling, but simply because they're what I love doing. Just as people make a career of what they love, I want to find a way to make my life focus around what I love. The only way to do all the things I love doing is to work less - and since the kind of things I do replace work, by providing directly for my needs in lieu of money, that's do-able - if I'm willing to admit to myself the very real trade-off: since I'm no trust-fund baby, working less means being paid less and consuming less. it means spending more time with people and with my thoughts and less time with new things, tv, fashion, magazines, tomatoes in winter, traveling, and stores. The project in this is to find the joy in it. The possibility of success in investing in my own idea of what it means to be happy. And to find a way, somehow, to be at peace in the tedium of daily tasks and work - to be at peace in my own thoughts in the silence of these tasks which occupy hands and hearts, but leave the brain to its humming.

Most of all, I have to learn to be comfortable with not having to apologize for choosing a lifestyle that is either difficult to understand or comes across as moralizing. I don't want my lifestyle to be moralizing. Or make people uncomfortable. I just want it to be how I live. And I hope that someone else enjoys it too, learns from it, and maybe takes part in making this world a bit saner, a bit greener, and more joyful.

(apple cider recipe will be the next blog post - I left it at home by mistake)

Apple Cider

2009-11-23T13:08:00.000-08:00

Sunday was a beautifully warm day (in the 50's), sunny and still. it was a perfect day for the task at hand - pressing cider! My landlords have a beautiful apple press complete with a big ol' grinder. If you've never pressed cider, I really recommend it. We pressed 2 bushels, which gave us 3 1/2 gallons of cider.

I bought a bushel and a half of apple seconds (less-than perfect apples) from my favorite farmstand, and my friends brought over another half bushel. I paid $12 for my apples - a good price in exchange for complete devotion for the past 4 seasons. They're pretty far from me now, but I'm devoted to my farmstand, because they're good to me, because I've come to know them, and because they have wonderful fruit and are lovely people.

The press is in the icehouse (above my sleeping winter vegetables), out of the wind. The three of us women stayed in, quartering the apples, while our one male fellow-presser went out to clean the cider press. There's very little I love more than women gathering over a traditional task. It's easy to talk, hands are occupied, the sun streams in, and it's hard to imagine something more peaceful than performing the basic tasks of sustenance with friends.

When we were done we loaded the apples (in trash bags) into a wheel barrow, brought it to the icehouse, and ran them through the grinder, then moved the bucket over and pressed the juice out of the milled apples. We got the hang of it the second time around. 4 people was the perfect number - one to monitor the flow and keep things steady, one to turn the mechanism, then two to turn once it gets hard (with a much larger stick for leverage) and one person to keep the press steady, since it's not bolted down. With switching and plenty of tasting and standing around it was wonderful. Remember towels (it's messy and wet and hands will get cold!) and gloves for the workers (to ward off blisters, or for heat - make sure they're work gloves. they'll get dirty).

When we were done and the dry apples were in the compost I said goodbye to my friends and took apart the press and washed it in the stream, since I don't know where the hose is, and it was a readily available source of water. It's very easy to wash wood in the deep, dammed up stream, since the water is still and the wood floats, so it's just a matter of dunking and running a rag over everything. The water was terribly cold, but with the sun starting to set (at 4!!) over the catskills and a good day of work and friends to think over, it was a lovely way to put to rest the first part of my day.

I strained the cider through cheesecloth and hung the pulp to drip over the cider so as not to waste anything. The I poured 2 1/2 gallons into a home brewing bucket for hard cider, and reserved a gallon of sweet cider to bring to the family for thanksgiving.

Hard Cider Recipe on the way.

Winter, Again

2009-11-20T13:12:00.000-08:00

The veggies are packed in their boxes, moist, cold, and ready to go into the cellar. they've been ready for two days now. I found out that the other agway nearby is open until 6, so that solved my problem (in case you're wondering - some small woodlots might carry wood shavings, but most sell them now, which is why I buy the stuff rather than sourcing it for free). The veggies going into the cellar tonight with the help of a friend who doesn't know he's going to help me with this task. It's not that I can't carry the boxes. It's that I can't get the cellar door open myself. it's too heavy for me - though I clearly remember opening it once before myself. For future reference - it's actually a bad idea to leave veggies out in the mild temperatures without high humidity for this long - but I had no choice, so I hope they'll be forgiving. In my experience, so long as you don't really mess up, it'll be fine.

When storing veggies, you should expect a 5 - 10% loss of veggies over the course of the winter due to rot or other problems. Check the vegetable regular and cull out bad ones because mold spreads! As for the balance of eating the stuff that's spoiling or eating the fresh stuff - it depends on the mood of the day. sometimes I get sick of eating only the worst veggies, so I let a few go bad and eat the nice ones. Sometimes I'm more sensible and eat the molding ones..

*******
Winter, Again - and poetry:

Excluding me, there's only one other person I can think of off the top of my head whose favorite season is winter. I can understand what's not to like - it's cold, dark, and (most would say, and I would argue it's not so) you're stuck indoors. Driving is difficult.

But to me winter is when the air is the clearest. Winter is bright stars and a clear view of the mountains. It's a dramatically beautiful and changing landscape. Winter is walking through the forest in bright orange without being stopped by underbrush. It is stews, cuddling under heavy blankets, and long nights talking with friends. Winter is incredibly cozy. It's the season to read, bake, and dream. Everyone told me I'd get over winter once I started driving. That kind of sensibility has yet to kick in. Or, rather, that it seems silly to me to hate a season for such an arbitrary and small reason. Plus, getting stuck is an adventure. it's something new.

For me, winter is the season of writing. (Please realize how hard it is for me to just put the poem down without disclaimers - but no disclaimers (except this one)! They don't help!)

Winter, Again
11/20/09

It is winter
again.
The trees have given way to
mountainsides - soft waves -
hips, shoulder blades - pale
beneath the naked trees.

It is impossible not
to lose myself in last
winter. Ice in floes
on the lake, the same smell
of the stove.

When you loved
winter too.
The way you spoke
of you -
subtle silences of breath hanging
in the air.

It is impossible now
to remember what spring was -
how her flowers dried in the
strange heat, when the mountains

dressed themselves, hid
their secret stones beneath young
leaves uncurling, forgetting
that we both loved

winter -
subtle silence
the waves in the hills.

Winter Color

2009-11-18T12:30:00.001-08:00

As fall gives way to winter and the gray gets grayer and the dark gets darker, I start craving color in my life. Short of buying fresh bouquets every week, there is a very easy way to forage up some winter color, and it's a great, covert way to store food.

Foraged winter bouquets:

1 - sumac and goldenrod

My favorite bouquet by far is the one I made of sumac and goldenrod. Find yourself some Staghorn Sumac, which you will find on tree-like shrubs pretty much anywhere on the edge of a forest and a field, including roadsides. You'll know it by the burgundy cluster of tiny, tightly-packed, fuzzy fruit forming an upright point (we call them 'red points' sometimes). Get some pruning sheers and cut the stems with the fruit at the end as long as you can get them (they'll be about 3 feet tall). Then go get some goldenrod which should be taking over an old field or the space right at the edge of a cultivated area. Goldenrod is yellow in late summer, and this time of year it's puffy smoke-color. Cut it to the same length as the sumac.

Bring it inside and arrange! I stood up my bouquet of about 5 branches of sumac (some Y-shaped, some not) and 7-8 goldenrod stems in the corner of my dining nook (it's not really a room) in an extra stand for fireplace tools I had lying around. Don't add water - this is a dry bouquet. Now you have dark red in your life!

Sumac makes a delicious lemonade-like drink if squeezed in water and mixed with sugar. You can also steep it as a tea. I intend to mix some sumac juice into my cranberry sauce this Thanksgiving. And now I have some conveniently lying around, though the bouquet is so pretty I think I'm not going to use that sumac, but harvest some more instead.

2 - rosehips

this one is really easy. Go out into the woods and find a wild rose (aka multiflora). They're EVERYWHERE. cut off some stems with the fattest, redest rosehips (be careful of the thorns). If you want, cut off the thorns for easier handling, and then put as many as you can get in a vase and you're done! Again, no water.

Rosehips are an excellent source of vitamin C. I crack them open into my tea. You can also make a painstakingly annoying jam or jelly out of it, if you're so inclined.

Both bouquets should stand fine through the winter. You can also add color with bright red chili peppers braided in the kitchen, wreaths, and dried flowers.

pictures and the continuation of the root cellar saga soon.

Sawdust

2009-11-17T17:43:00.000-08:00

In case you're wondering where you can buy sawdust to store your veggies in (the kind of sawdust you would find in a hamster cage), the answer is - nowhere that's open after 5. Agway definitely carries it, but they close at 5. Both stores.

I tried the hardware store 30 minutes south that's actually open until 7 - no luck. I tried the large grocery store that has a whole aisle of pet products - ditto. So no vegetable storing tonight. With temperatures going into the upper 20's, I can't figure what to do with the box of parsnips and carrots in my shed. Wrapped in blankets, they were okay last night. Parsnips and carrots both do fine in the garden through the winter, but would they be fine in a box? Having never discovered an accidental frozen carrot, I really have no idea. And I don't even know how to begin googling the question (and none of my books have the information).

So it's cleaning for me. And maybe, just maybe, after all that driving I'll actually get to making pickles. It'll probably just be a short night of knitting though.

Daily Life as Art

2009-11-17T11:30:00.001-08:00

I got home yesterday around 10 PM completely exhausted. But in an unlikely turn of events, I didn't want to go to sleep right away. Instead I stayed up, surveying the mess my projects have left all over the living room and kitchen floor. Hardware cloth and wire lay waiting to be put away in the living room. Two full compost buckets stood awaiting a trip to the garden compost pile. I full bucket of ashes called to be spread over the winter rye growing fast and furious in otherwise sleeping vegetable beds (ashes help to neutralize acidic soil, like lime). When I get home at 5:15, it's already dark out. These things take convincing to do once the sun is down, and there simply isn't enough time - there's a reason why we buy things ready-made!

Instead of cleaning, which I was too tired to convince myself to do, I oiled the kitchen island I made this summer. It's easily the most beautiful thing I own, and I glow with pride when I look at it, or chop veggies on its attached butcher block. I marvel at how it's perfectly built for my height.

In the process of working through the small daily aspects of life, building instead of buying, growing and making from scratch instead of buying, cooking instead of eating out, I am coming to appreciate the artistry of daily life. Cooking has come into vogue over the course of the past few years. The utilitarian, fully mundane act of feeding oneself has become art. Art in the sense that it is practiced simply for the joy of creation and beauty for its own sake.

In the day-to-day tasks of life I am finding that living itself is art. Life is not simply the act of doing tasks to get them done. Life's daily tasks, in their simplicity and necessity, can be done simply for the love of creation and beauty. Why make an island beautiful if it takes more time and energy? Why oil it to bring out the glow of the wood? I do it for the sake of that illusive project of art - the goal of an impossible perfection and the need to create. And so, too, I create the little things that I would otherwise buy - jam, a shelf in the kitchen cabinet, dried apples, cider, a garden bed, boxes of vegetables and sawdust. I do these things out of the desire to live a beautiful life of my own creation.

Is it too silly to think that my calling in life is life itself? Not anything more complicated or grander than the act of feeding myself, my family, and my friends, building, etc.? That I'd rather spend all evening building a dehydrator or putting food by or starting the stove and carrying wood than buying jam and using the extra time to chat with friends online or find the perfect outfit or one of the other million little things we fill our live with?

Today, as I push through 9-5 (which I do not treat as art - I'm not a Buddhist. I practice attachment and I have favorite activities), I can't help but dream about this evening's "chores." I'll get home, start the fire, take out the compost and the ashes, put the veggies in their sawdust (I'll do this outside - it's too messy for the indoors), I'll set things up in the root cellar, make a thick veggie stew from the less-than-perfect carrots and parsnips that won't make it through the winter in the cellar, and then, if there's time, I can go one of two roads - build a dehydrator for over the stove made of window screens, or set the sunchokes and some carrots and parsnips in brine to ferment in the cellar, slowly, surely, and for a long time. I will also clean (I promise!).

Root Cellaring

2009-11-16T08:58:00.000-08:00

I love root cellaring. I kept my first root cellar the winter before I dug my first garden This will be my fourth winter root cellaring, and my first in a real, dug-out-of-the-dirt root cellar. My landlords have a lovely ice house right next to my little house, the musty top floor of which holds a ping pong table, my cold frame, their apple press (I'll be pressing apples this weekend!), and assorted odds and ends. The dug out floor under the storage area is a beautiful, large root cellar originally intended for the storing of ice in sawdust, cut from the stream by the house or, more likely, from the Hudson. Cut in huge chunks, insulated by sawdust, and kept in the chilly, humid cellar, huge blocks of ice (now most commonly seen as converted vodka luges in a frat house near you) would stay solid through summer for ice cream making, lemonade, and the like.

In case you haven't picked up Mike and Nancy Bubel's definitive book Root Cellaring (yes - root cellaring has a definitive book - go buy it now if you ever want to use/find/build a root cellar!), I'll let you in on this secret - the ice house is a PERFECT root cellar. It has all of the key components - it is underground (which stays at the perfect temperature and humidity - just above 32 degrees Fahrenheit and around 90% humidity) and it has good air circulation. The draw back - it's packed earthen floor and general shabby state, makes it a haven for mice and other hungry little critters who couldn't be happier to see you walking down with bushels of carrots, parsnips, and apples for a winter full of meals.

The solution - WRAP EVERYTHING IN HARDWARE CLOTH.

My Thursday night project included cutting hardware cloth (which, if you haven't tried it, is a giant pain - wear gloves!) and wrapping it around all of the boxes I intend to store my veggies in as well as my 50 pound bag of potatoes. each box has a lid that opens for easy access (for me - not the mice!)

In case you're wondering why I go to these lengths to store vegetables and fruits, I'll let you in on the secret.

First, it's the only way to have local produce year round - and local produce, even four months into storage, is better than store-bought stuff. Plus, it's good for the world and your local economy! Second, it's cheap - buying vegetables in bulk and in season is cost effective if you can front the money, plus you don't have to store things in your fridge, which doesn't actually save you money or electricity because you're already running the fridge, but it's pretty exciting. Third - in my past life, I was obviously a squirrel, because I can't get over how much fun it is to put a ton of food into a basement and then dig it out (literally - root veggies are stored in sawdust, sand, or peat moss) as I need it throughout the winter.

***
The Method
***

Root veggies, cabbage, and apples all get stored in cold, humid conditions. A cold basement is probably perfect. If you have a little nook under a porch that extends underground, you could probably insulate that and make it work. Or you could do the genius thing my landlords did - dig a hole in the ground, put a chest freezer or other insulated, rodent-proof box in - or just a support system - insulate the top 12 or so inches between the top of your makeshift veggie box and soil level (the top of the box should be below the frost line) - and figure out how you'll get this contraption open and closed in the winter (my landlords rigged a make-shift, sloped cellar-like door over theirs and have straw between this roof/door and the freezer). Too many apples in too small a space will make your root veggies sprout - but one or two bushels in a large enough, ventilated space should fine.

Store root veggies (except potatoes, which can be left out on a shelf or in a bag) in moist sawdust, sand, or peat. My method is: layer of sawdust, layer of veggies (carefully placed so as not to touch - veggies that touch spread mold to each other and rot faster), layer of sawdust, a thorough misting of water, repeat until the top. Then I mist my veggies every 2 weeks or so to keep them fresh. If you have more than one box of anything, label the boxes 1, 2, 3. You don't want to have to guess which boxes are empty in February. Come spring, this sawdust makes for good carbon for your compost pile or good roosting material for your laying hens.

You might be wondering - what about squashes, pumpkins, sweet potatoes (I know they're a root but they're the exception), onions and garlic? These winter storage veggies like less humid, cool (not as cold - 40 - 50 degrees for garlic and onion, 60 degrees for squash - I find a happy medium because it's too much work to set up 3 storage areas). To store these wonders of the winter kitchen, you'll need an old, drafty house (check!) and somewhere that's unheated (check!) Places that might work: an unheated room in your house, the opposite end of a basement with a heater (the heater dries out the air - thus making the opposite, cool corner ideal for non-humid, warmer storage), the attic (if you'll remember to go up there).

I built a shelf into the corner, bottom cabinet in my kitchen which is the farthest place from the wood stove in my little house and in the Northeast corner of the house - right in the coldest spot, closet in against the warmer kitchen by soon-to-be-insulated cabinet walls. You might point out that kitchens get warm and humid. My kitchen, however, doesn't get hot or humid, and when it does (RARELY - cooking for myself is a fast and somewhat boring activity), the heat rises up above the cupboard in question.

*******

On an unrelated note:

I don't have internet at home (I know: WHAT!? HOW DO YOU LIVE?? ARE YOU IN THE STONE AGE?? YOU MUST GET IT FROM A NEIGHBOR! (answer: no, none of that sort is available), WHAT DO YOU DO WITH YOURSELF!?!?). At first it was simply that I wasn't getting around to it, then that I couldn't really afford it, and now it's because I love it. The thing about internet (and cell phones) is that waking time is constantly about being in contact with other people. So much so, that I forget how to just be alone for hours at a time without thinking about who to talk to next. I've come to really appreciate that silence. So I do my personal internet business (including this blog) at work during my lunch break, at the library, or at local cafes with wifi.

Jumping in - a note on purpose

2009-11-13T12:25:00.000-08:00

When I was a child traveling with my family, we would drive past little homestead farms in Costa Rica or Botswana or Italy and I would think, "This makes sense. It's beautiful." And I would think that this simpler life - working for food rather than working for money that buys food - was perhaps better than our own. From inside the air-conditioned van I'd stare out the window, reasoning with myself in that strangely astute and unselfaware manner of childhood, that this simpler life was not to be had in America. That it was not allowed here. America was where we came to escape poverty and sadness and the demons of the past, and since the past was an infinite beast that blurs and won't sit still long enough to let us see its true nature - where one leg ends and the torso begins - our escape required us to also escape homesteading.

For years I have sworn that I really want to homestead. Every step I took that brought me closer to a simpler way of life has made me happy. But I've never taken more than two or three steps together. I've root cellared, gardened, canned, kept chickens, and dried. I've saved seed and sewed. But the truth is - when everyone tells you that there's a reason people live in cities and suburbs and it really is better and that I'm just being ungrateful - it's hard not to second-guess myself.

*******

When my ex and I moved into this house, we were excited because it was the kind of house that's a constant project. Its beauty lies in its imperfection and how it calls you to work on it. Its success in being a home lay in the work that it required, a work that would come out of love and build love. When he moved out, the house became daunting. He was the one who knew how to use a wood stove. He was the one who could use the circular saw. I'm terrified of circular saws. I staunchly and exclusively use a hand saw, and while I'll use a power chop-saw, I have an old, manual one that I prefer even though it needs a new blade.

So now I'm here, in this house, on this incredibly beautiful farm land, and the only thing keeping me from jumping in is a bit of fear and nagging doubts. So I'm jumping in. Head-first.

I promised myself when I was a child that I would try to live a simpler, soil-based life (I also once pinkie swore myself that I would never work 9-5, but look where that's gotten me), so I'm trying. Because if i don't jump in now, I might never get the chance to do it again. Because somehow I've managed to forget that I can do the things in life that matter - food, friendship, heat, laughter, joy - on my own, in my own house, with only myself for company. And I need to remember that.

2009-11-13T10:49:00.000-08:00

The fruit leather update:

It worked! I transferred the quince leather onto a drying rack and let it sit on the stove and come morning it was tough, chewy, and delicious. more than 24 hours of drying - but it worked. Next time I'll definitely use red wine and I'll remember to turn the fruit leather over onto a drying rack, NOT back onto the cookie sheet!

I'm going to freeze part of the leftover quince butter to use like jam and use the other part for a quince cake (the kind with the fruit spread between two layers of dough and baked in a bunt pan. Yum!

On Quinces

2009-11-12T06:25:00.000-08:00

Imagine a misshapen apple that's as hard as a rock. Now keep in mind that this has been a horrible year for farmers in the Northeast. Quince farmers, peddling that rare fruit now only found in the stalwart homesteader's kitchen and in NYC farmers' markets where it probably sells for a fortune selling to people who don't know better, were no exception. Rain washed off any and all spray, so the whole crop was worm infested.

My landlords ended up with three bushels in their kitchen, which smelled divinely of quinces stewing away for what must have been the past few days. A note about my landlords - I have found my landlord-soulmates. If it weren't for them I would be on Craigslist right now scouring the rentals section. They have the most beautiful kitchen and garden I've ever seen - the two most important places in the world. So here I am, walking into the kitchen piled with quinces to get the recipe for the delicious, beautiful, ruby-colored quince leathers their oldest daughter (9) delivered to me as I pulled in after work. Here's what my landlady tells me after piling me with 10 or so worm-infested quinces.

Quince Leather (the ideal)

Cut out the seeds and cut into small pieces. Leave the skins on.

Add to a large pot with a bit of red wine (1/4 cup for 6-8 quinces), cinnamon, whatever spices you'd like, and some water

Simmer until you're sure it can't get any thicker without burning. At some point into this process, when it feels safe, add some sugar. Not a whole lot, perhaps a 1/2 cup.

Use a hand-blender to get it nice and smooth.

Spread about 1/4 inch (the thicker, the gummier and more delicious it is) onto a wax-papered cookie sheet and set on two bricks over the wood stove until it's hard on top. Then flip it over (this is the messy part) and let it dry all the way through.

Quince leather (in real life)

First off - the suckers are HARD!!! cutting them into pieces and coring them could only be done with a chef's knife. So I had to cut each quince in quarters, then cut the quarters in half cross-wise, then cut out the seeds (no easy task with my dull knife) and then hack out the worm-eaten parts as best I could. an hour and a half later, I had a pot full of quinces, cinnamon, a dash of fresh-grated nutmeg and a few cloves, only to discover I had no red wine! The nearest liquor store being ten miles away and certainly closed, I decided to suck it up and use the white wine that's been sitting in the back of my fridge for 3 weeks. Which brings us to

Number two - the red wine is for the color. White wine adds a pleasant taste, but as the quinces cook down (SLOWLY) they turn into an entirely unappetizing green color. It didn't help that when I tasted it before adding sugar, the whole mushy mess tasted a bit like bile. So I added sugar.

Third - "not a whole lot of sugar" is a blatant lie. I added at least 1 1/2 cups. Which I guess isn't a lot - but is significantly more than 1/2 a cup. They're sour little devils.

Fourth - I watched Wall-E and had an hour-long phone conversation before the quince butter, puke-green as it was, was anywhere near the consistency of a thick apple-butter. Finally, FINALLY at midnight (I like to go to sleep at 10:00 when nothing is stopping me, and usually nothing is stopping me) I mashed the goop with a potato masher which was no easy going (I don't have an immersion blender and my Cuisinart (1970's model that my parents got before they were married) is on loan to friends, where I keep forgetting to pick it up) and spread half of the quince butter onto the cookie sheet. It tasted good, but color means a lot and puke-green is not appetizing. By this point, the stove had to be restocked, so I threw a couple of logs in, closed the contraption up, put the cookie sheet on top, and went to sleep.

This morning, the stove was still hot and going and the quince leather was still green, but the top was hard and dry (YAY!)!! However, since I was already dressed in my work clothes and pre-caffeinated, the thing was unflipable - or so it seemed to me at the time. So I did the unthinkable when the high is in the mid-50's, I'm going to work all day and don't need a warm house, and I only have 2 chords of wood for the winter - I restocked the oven.

Update on the fruit leathers to come after 5.

Welcome

2009-11-11T08:19:00.000-08:00

Two hours north of New York City in beautiful Columbia County, I find myself suddenly single and living alone with my cat. I'm in a guesthouse on a farm amid rolling cornfields and farm stands that dot the landscape like Starbucks in NYC.

The only heat source - a wood stove. It's warm inside, but it's still November.

The view - Catskill mountains, a stream just under my kitchen window, and lots of corn.

The soundtrack - nonstop NPR competing with the kettle.

The smell - quince butter cooking in a touch of wine ready to be transferred onto wax-papered cookie sheets stacked on bricks over the wood stove for drying into fruit leather.

This is the chronicle of what a woman who grew up in the center of suburban New Jersey (recently dubbed the Olive Garden State on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me) does to keep herself occupied in rural New York - a woman who loves making jam, gardening, knitting, cooking stews for hours, and who has never used a wood stove before.

Recipes, patterns, hunting stories, root cellar adventures, homesteading lore, gardening mishaps, and much, much, more to follow.