her able hands

That last post brought some people out of the paneling and into the comments! Some delurkers. Some new readers. Some old friends. Thanks so much for your kind words, and apologies for not responding. I was away…I took a cheap flight to MA to surprise my mother for her birthday (which is actually tomorrow). My awesome sister had the idea to get a bunch of broads together for drinks and dinner on Saturday night to celebrate and my terribly handsome brother joined us, as did dear Cathy.

So yummy and a great mix of people. A whirlwind of a visit and right back to Ohio to bang my head against the cubicle wall.

Bookmark It

I was putting together a pot of fish chowder last night when from the corner of my eye I noticed that everything outside was glowing an otherworldly orange. My first thought was of southern California and how on earth could it have made it all the way to the Midwest so fast and wasn’t the wind blowing in the other direction anyway?

The world revolves around me, didn’t you know?

And then I felt bad for grabbing the camera to get some shots of the whole neighborhood ablaze with the setting sun, but goodness, that sky. How could I not? This series of shots may very well be one of the best things in my visual arsenal to help sustain me through the bleak, gray winter. Oh, Maude, winter. She is a comin’. Did I tell you? The sky was so weird on my way home last night and I swear on my first pet bird Itchy’s grave in the landlady’s vegetable garden that it was snowing just a little bit.

And then this sunset and the garish way the light reflected off of the leaves whose color is finally turning now that the nights are dipping down into the low 40s…well, surreal comes to mind. Once again, I think I need to invest in a couple of lenses for this camera so I can get the best effect possible. I love seeing what comes out compared to how I remember it as I looked with my bare eye. These come pretty close. Though they lack the smell-o-vision feature of the mildewing leaves and the sharp cold shocking my nose hairs.

Hey, El, see the two grassy areas on either side of the driveway? That’s where the new garden beds will go. Full sun! Whoot!

And then? I turned back towards the house to get back to the warm pot of chowder and saw this.

And my head exploded in a joyful celebration of color.

No, really. It did.

Bookmark It

I agree with Angelina’s statement that urban homesteading is a movement. A growing and necessary movement—and an excellent way to say screw you to the ridiculous, unsustainable systems our country has put in place to feed and give “comfort” to its citizens. It has become my chosen form of political activism.

I also hear the truth in Angelina’s statement that she doesn’t want or need a farm. Part of me still longs for that possibility, but reality intrudes, thank goodness. I briefly explored that option three years ago when we lived on a piece of land that was certainly large enough to make a small farm and a tiny living. I researched forming a CSA but found that my customer base would have been too far away and not interested in making the trek out to the country to help. Consequently my prices would have had to be a lot higher so I could hire warm bodies to keep up with the work. Those higher prices made it a lot less interesting to that same customer base.

I went the farmer’s market route and while it was an amazing experience that I have sorely missed these two summers since, it wasn’t the most effective way for one person to make a living. I know that time and trial and error would have improved my model, but I also know that I would have hit a ceiling on how much I could earn because I’m only one person. When I did the math at the end of that season of dabbling, I had made about $900 profit, but that worked out to be about 1.80 an hour.

Now I’m trying to apply what I learned out on the “farm” to my life here in the city (rural city, but still city). I know that I (mostly) don’t want to be a farmer. But I also know that I want to grow a lot of my own food and continue to form connections with the other dedicated growers in my community. It’s a slow process because I work full-time outside of the home. One of my biggest complaints about what it takes to collect such a nice paycheck every two weeks is the fact that I have to spend more hours than necessary chained to my desk in a cubicle.

In terms of efficiency, I could get my job done in 3 days most weeks, four during super rush times. That is, if I could just focus on the work and not get sucked into the constant stream of interruption that is endemic in the corporate office culture. I’m trying to not get bitter about the productivity I could have enjoyed at home during those wasted hours at work. About the tomatoes that never made it into canning jars. All in good time, I tell myself, all the while looking back over my shoulder at the looming shadow of change building on the horizon.

I’ll try to drop my jealousy when I see photos of other bloggers’ stocked freezers and pantries this fall and keep my eye on the prize of progress. There’s always next year. Or, at least, I hope there is…

Saturday’s market boomed with activity, such a great thing to see. I should have brought the camera—the light was perfect—long, slanting shadows and a golden hue made all the deeper by the piles and crates of pumpkins and winter squash. Such a boon to our small city to have this market growing exponentially each summer. The fact that I walked away from the second to last market day with this haul is just amazing.

My haul:

2 eggplant
1/2 peck paste tomatoes
2 heads lettuce
1 bag mesclun greens
1 bag mustard spinach
1 large bunch collards
1 large bunch curly kale
1 quart green beans
1 pint edamame
1 pint habaneros
3 sweet yellow peppers
3 yellow crookneck summer squash
onions
2 small loaves of bread from Rafael
1 pint maple syrup
1 pint maple BBQ sauce
1 pie pumpkin
1 bag Black Arkansas Apples
1 giant cabbage
1 quart yams
1 giant frosted pumpkin cookie for Lila
1 big bunch of flowers with purple dahlias for Cheril
and finally…
one pint of raspberries—the last raspberries of the season!

We had dinner at Cheril & Greg’s last night, and I cranked in the kitchen from noon until six. I brought the bulk of dinner because Cheril’s been at a yoga training for the past two days, and also because I felt like cooking for my people, dangit.

I made a big salad of just greens that I tossed some Matt’s Wild Cherry tomatoes into before dressing with a sweet balsamic vinaigrette.

One of the eggplants and a lone zucchini got dredged in flour, egg and breadcrumbs, then fried golden, layered in a casserole with mozzarella and asiago cheese, and the sauce I made of eggplant, onion, garlic, tomato and herbs. End of the season Veggie Parmesan. Without the parm, but still yum.

I also tried the scrumptious looking recipe from Smitten Kitchen, for butternut squash and caramelized onion galette and I must say, it was heavenly.

Finally, I did up a 12 x 9 inch pan with an apple, blueberry, raspberry cobbler. Time to buy new baking powder…the biscuit dough didn’t rise at all. Yuck.

We watched the Indians/Red Sox game 6 and sipped wine after dinner. Chris and Lila both fell asleep on the couch. I enjoyed the quiet, sitting in the dark with my dear friends…their doggies groaning in pleasure from their respective spots of repose. Life is good.

Technorati Tags: eat local, homemade, recipes, farmers’ market, farm, urban homesteading, garden

Bookmark It

I just finished reading M. J. Rose’s The Reincarnationist as part of the MotherTalk blog book tour. Now I’m coming here—even though it has nothing whatsoever to do with gardening or food—to tell you to put this one on your TBR list. What an enjoyable and fast read! I was worried about getting through it because I’ve been on a self-imposed fiction hiatus in an effort to broaden my writerly horizons. It’s been all non-fiction all the time here, and let me tell you, I fall asleep with the book on my face three pages in every night. But, I blazed through The Reincarnationist in a burning ring of cornea fire late at night with the reading lamp holding me steady in its warm glow. It took me three nights and cost me a bit of productivity on the job because my eyeballs were scratched and night-burnt and I couldn’t stop thinking about my own brushes with the possibility of reincarnation.

M. J. clearly did a lot of research for this baby, and I love a good historical novel, but then throw in the bonus of suspense and reincarnation and I’m up all night. The story weaves in and out of present day New York and Rome and ancient Rome at the time of the final put-down of the Vestal Virgins.

I’d never even heard the term Vestal Virgins except in Procol Harum’s A Whiter Shade of Pale Yet another rock and roll song that people spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out the meaning of…is it drugs? Is it sex? Is it the holocaust?

Now I want to read a bunch of the source books cited at the end of this novel to learn more about this point in Roman history. I’m also going to take a peek at some of the non-fiction books on reincarnation study.

Have you ever met someone and felt the slap of recognition that goes way beyond “Hey, haven’t we met somewhere before?” Felt that tingly whaaaaaaa? that goes all the way to the point of “Hey now, we’ve been more than intimate you and me, but that’s not possible is it because I’ve never met you before in my life. Except, I’m pretty sure I know what you like for breakfast and I saw what you did to the fishmonger’s wife when her husband was down at the docks picking up the catch of the day.”?

I don’t know if I believe in reincarnation. But then, I’m not sure what I believe in anymore. I do know that I experienced shockingly deep knowing when meeting one particular person. And that I try not to think about it too much because it kind of freaks me out. A decade later—not having seen or spoken to them—I’m certain of one thing. We’ve known each other before.

Once, about seventeen years ago, in my Brooklyn apartment, I sat in meditation in a Sears, Roebuck and Company reading chair from the early 20th Century. I bought it for $20 at a trading post in Grass Valley, California in another incarnation a few years before. And I will admit to the possible influence of a certain herbal mood enhancer upon my, uh, faculties. But the fact of this afternoon alone in my apartment has stayed with me in crystalline detail all these years. (How on earth is it this many years already?)

I sat breathing deeply with my eyes closed, my legs crossed in lotus, feeling the tingling sensations in my body. The afternoon service ended at the Pentacostal church across the street and the parishioners yelled up and down the street to one another in Spanish. But then I was on my feet running along wooden planks cutting through tall grass and the sun scorched the top of my head and the wind blew fierce against my chest as I ran with all of my strength after a retreating train. I yelled but the sound wasn’t anything I had ever spoken before. It sounded very much like the voices in the fish market on Mott Street, in Chinatown, where I stopped to pick up my herbal enhancement and dinner once a week.

Faces gazed out of the dark doorway on the back of the moving car—one of them yelling to me to hurry. But it didn’t sound like “hurry.” Yet I understood the words. And I was a man, and I was racing to jump on that train that was heading back to the nearest outpost for more building materials. I was afraid I wouldn’t catch up and I would be left out there on that endless Plain to freeze to death in the night. I felt anger shoot through me and saw a woman’s face in my mind’s eye, the face of the woman I loved, who waited with my parents, for me to send money from this job building the rails across the continent. I got close enough to touch the cold metal railing—

—my phone rang and I was in my chair in my apartment in Brooklyn with my body humming a note that filled my mind and the room and maybe even echoed up and down the whole street. My face was hot.

So yeah, I can tell you that I really, really enjoyed M.J. Rose’s The Reincarnationist. And if you dig this kind of fast-paced, eventful, suspenseful, character driven, historical read, then you should definitely get your hands on a copy.

Bookmark It

I managed to get the garlic planted before sundown yesterday. About 150 cloves, I think, in three rows in the bed where the potatoes grew all summer, tucked between the two rows of asparagus. I figure I won’t want to plant anything that needs major maintenance there for next summer because the asparagus will be even more active and I don’t want to have to disturb those babies. The garlic will get a hefty layer of mulched leaves and straw once the sprouts poke up, which will hopefully keep the violets at bay.

I also planted a bunch of the tiny stuff I had from the old house that I may just use as green garlic in the spring. Somewhere around here I have a bag of the tiny flower buds that I had intended to use for green garlic, but I suspect it might have found its way to the trash.

None of my fall plantings made it through the gauntlet of rabbits, drought and heat. Only the arugula is still standing, but that hasn’t grown past the three inch tall mark in a month, so I doubt it will do much more now. I’m wishing I’d planted it in one of the cold frames instead of in the garden, so I could toss a window over the top and give it a better chance. Oh, and I noticed that some mustard seed I scratched into a bare patch is nearly big enough to eat, but there’s so little of it, I’m not sure what I would do other than toss a few leaves in with salad.

The days wind down so quickly now, and the sun is at such an angle that any clouds skidding across the sky create long shadows that dart across my peripheral vision. All weekend I felt as if I was seeing things—catching ghosts sliding in and out of view—but turning to find nothing. Haunted. This was most disconcerting during the hour I was at home alone yesterday, puttering around the kitchen making chicken soup and washing dishes. Several times I swore someone was standing by the back door looking in, but turned and it was just a shadow moving past.

The tall glass of wine I had with dinner helped.

Technorati Tags: garlic, planting garlic, ghosts, autum

Bookmark It