Today I am starting to get my arse in gear. I have had a flu and it has knocked me down for the better of 3 - 3 1/2 weeks. My love took great care of me, even working from home several days. The furries kept their distance for several days. Mommy had a temp of 102.5, guess I was too hot to lie on. Loki whined alot, I didn't have the strength to hold him for several day, and his nervousness turned into a couple episodes of is IBS exhibiting itself. Ming stared at me for several days and wouldn't eat. she still follows me everywhere. I wasn't very safe walking, and she still isn't sure about me. My love made puppy food, yogurt, did laundry, meals for himself (I had no willingness for food) and was just generally absolutely wonderful!
We are going to the big city on Sunday to visit friends, hubby's best person from the wedding, her sister and a mutual friend of theirs. We haven't been to the city in forever. He is salavating on coffee shops and buffets.
I am trying to cook more and more of our food. Getting back in the swing is taking some time though. But before I regress again - what I am learning about food.
The making of food is taking an order and making sense. If I take the milk, and I make yogurt I can make a gallon of yogurt for the price of a gallon of milk. This is 4 times less than buying it. I can take a fourth of the made yogurt and make Greek yogurt, just by straining off the whey.
Then I can take the whey and use it instead of water in making the bread. If I make enough for 4 - 8 loaves I can flavor the bread, make it more "sourdough" and can freeze either the dough or made bread and always have some available.
I can take milk and make 2 kinds of starters to make cheese. Basically all of cheese, that is practical to make in the home, is either made from a yogurt starter or a buttermilk starter. I can make soft cheese for cooking, melting, crackers and make a hard cheese to put back and have available for sandwiches and company.
I am learning about having deserts and snacks ready. I can make the starter for Amish Friendship Bread and then freeze and have available. I still have the goal of cookies in the freezer, ready for anytime and visitors. I would love to make English Muffins, just to see if I can. And also because we eat so much of them, it would be handy.
Life has changed so much for me in the kitchen, from the single girl eating melted cheese over the sink, from the microwave. I want to cook wonderful suppers for my husand and I love to sit down together to eat a meal! This is very special to me. Summer is the hardest time to figure food, it is so hot you don't want alot, but by 9pm, man are we hungry. In the 1st few months I cried over trying to figure what to cook, especially mixing vegetarian (I've been one for about 25 years now) and carnivore. But I have come to some standards of fixing a vegetarian meal and adding meat as a side.
I am not really into following recipes, but using them as guides. And I like to be creative. Last week I made a lovely supper with a field green salad with fruit, a yogurt Indian salad and a desert with strawberries, blueberries, 1/2 a muffin and cinnamon and sugar with sweet yogurt. But unfortunately I used all my creativity in one meal. My husand is soooooooo sweet. I also do a mean fried rice, but man that can be hot to cook! in this weather.
Also I am still struggling to keep up with other things. I have started making Christmas gifts and would love time each nite to knit, crochet, quilt - but alas, that doesn't always work. But I have also noticed how much I enjoy getting the kitchen in order, how doing dishes has become meditative and how cooking and fixing meals, is such an act of giving to your family each day.
Musings from a Housewife,
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Diary Update
Today is just a mish mash, but wanted to be in the habit of writing.
Went with a good girl friend, to another's to talk quilting, gardening, and general life. Was a really good time. Left the house before my husband did, that always makes me feel strange. The conversation was good and the garden and the quilt squares she had made, were really fun.
I got many things done before I left the house today which surprised me, since I left before 9:30 am. I finished all the morning chores and got the dog food cooking before I left. After I got home I worked on potted plants. I repotted the Orchids, my husband got me a while back, the living stone my mom had gotten me, pruned our big potted plant minagerie, but a rambling rose start in a potato, re-filled the bird feeder, and watered everything.
Yesterday was garden working day. The sunflowers, corn, beans and peas seem to be doing fine. The potatoes are doing excellent and I rewarded them with 80 more pds of topsoil. I thought that the peanuts had not come up at all, but 2 plants look healthy, so I put in another planting with crossed fingers.
I also planted many seeds. I know it may seem too late, but if I had planted them earlier, this would be the 2nd planting to keep the harvest coming, so we will just call it that. Curry plant and orange tree got transplanted yesterday in the process. Rosemary and lavender, squash, cucs, zucs, watermelon, radishes, 5 color swiss chard, 5 kinds of tomatoes, various peppers - bell and hot. The onions and garlic look like they also are coming along fine.
I have been doing more than usual amounts of writing and reading and enjoying. We also have been watching some really fun movies lately. Life is full, and yet pretty relaxed atmosphere most day. Tonite we go to the Mystery Book Club in Newark, and I am starting Middlemarch for the Oprah Book Club. I complained when they weren't using classics, now they are. I devoured the Elm Creek Classic Novel #4, The Runaway Quilt, my husband gifted me and am still thinking about it.
In a couple days we will be celebrating our 1st Year Anniversary. I am so happy! We will go to the wilds on the Eve and hang out the next day, with a few surprises planned.
Went with a good girl friend, to another's to talk quilting, gardening, and general life. Was a really good time. Left the house before my husband did, that always makes me feel strange. The conversation was good and the garden and the quilt squares she had made, were really fun.
I got many things done before I left the house today which surprised me, since I left before 9:30 am. I finished all the morning chores and got the dog food cooking before I left. After I got home I worked on potted plants. I repotted the Orchids, my husband got me a while back, the living stone my mom had gotten me, pruned our big potted plant minagerie, but a rambling rose start in a potato, re-filled the bird feeder, and watered everything.
Yesterday was garden working day. The sunflowers, corn, beans and peas seem to be doing fine. The potatoes are doing excellent and I rewarded them with 80 more pds of topsoil. I thought that the peanuts had not come up at all, but 2 plants look healthy, so I put in another planting with crossed fingers.
I also planted many seeds. I know it may seem too late, but if I had planted them earlier, this would be the 2nd planting to keep the harvest coming, so we will just call it that. Curry plant and orange tree got transplanted yesterday in the process. Rosemary and lavender, squash, cucs, zucs, watermelon, radishes, 5 color swiss chard, 5 kinds of tomatoes, various peppers - bell and hot. The onions and garlic look like they also are coming along fine.
I have been doing more than usual amounts of writing and reading and enjoying. We also have been watching some really fun movies lately. Life is full, and yet pretty relaxed atmosphere most day. Tonite we go to the Mystery Book Club in Newark, and I am starting Middlemarch for the Oprah Book Club. I complained when they weren't using classics, now they are. I devoured the Elm Creek Classic Novel #4, The Runaway Quilt, my husband gifted me and am still thinking about it.
In a couple days we will be celebrating our 1st Year Anniversary. I am so happy! We will go to the wilds on the Eve and hang out the next day, with a few surprises planned.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
The Enlightenment of the 80's
Since the last post and some of the comments, I have been thinking of this path that I have been taking for quite awhile now on finding ways and means to leading more of a handmade life and one that is more diverse, enlightening and fulfilling. So I would like to share a few of my experiences and ways that it has changed my life, and keeps leading back to this passion for living more.
In the eighties I was in the "big city" and involved in a number of organizations that was working to better the lives of others. You all, remember the 80's don't you? In my estimation that were absolutely wonderful. There was money galore available in grants, classes on all sorts of topics sprung up everywhere and people were trying everything from college to journeling, meditation, cooking, the classics. And the wonderful part of all of it, that I remember the most, was that everything was viewed as knowledge and looked on equally - that was a key to the diverseness and fullfillment that we lived during these times.
I spent some time with Catholic Social Services. That was the basic foundation of a new way of life for me, other workers, and hopefully the clients. First of all, we made a commitment to live the way that we wanted to show our clients how they could change their lives. So we didn't have TV or cable and unless we were taking a client somewhere we used the public transit system. Often we used the busses with the clients to show them how they could get around with cost efficiency. We worked with monthly budgeting and at times helped people find cooking classes for diversity and special diets, such as Diabetic, etc. Those things were available then, and we made home visits on regular basis, at least once a week to encourage these changes of life.
About the same time I was volunteering at Rosemont School for Girls. I teamed up with a man named Harry who had spent his career life working with pregnant teens. He had several degrees, spoke quite a few languages, and worked hard to teach these girls survival skills and beyond. This was the fertile ground where I learned the most myself and gained a joy in this way of sharing.
We made trips to the library and encouraged the girls to take out books, books of fun interest and books were they could learn things that they had always wanted to learn. We went to book sales and encouraged them to start libraries of their own interests. If they couldn't read, we wet them up with literacy training. Although most of the girls could read well, but had lost that habit with the pressures of being a single mother. We also looked for places of culture to take the clients. Now let me diverse here to let you know that often they did not want to go. They were scared, they thought it would be boring and they felt they would not be dressed appropriately. So we had to start out small, in some respects.
First, of course, we went for the free stuff. We went to things that we could go to on the bus and places that they could return to on their own. And encouraged that they do so, labeling them as "mini vacations" for themselves. There was free babysitting avaliable at the time, - imagine that! - and it was set aside as an adult time. We went to the conservatory, the art museum on the free day, Shakespeare in the Park and free introductory Symphony concerts. We tried to make them diverse, yet all of the them were geared toward the arts. The trick was to keep going. The more we went, the more everyone felt more comfortable in new situations and relaxed, enjoyed and learned.
The next stage was to set up a paying trip. This was a little harder to sell, but they were more interested now, since we had some positive experiences. So we went to a play, or a concert. We parused 2nd hand stores for skirts and blouses and made an evening of it.
Do you know what? After these programs we was shown that it was easier to get young girls to go back and get their GED's, to look at further education. No longer did they feel trapped. Too simple? Maybe. But think about it for a minute. When you work at learning something new, reading a new genre and push yourself to see that new art exhibit at the museum, don't you feel envigorated? Don't you want to see more? Find books about it, learn a facet of something you saw? Or if you don't like it, doesn't it make you want to explore other avenues then? So why wouldn't everyone else?
Next post, I will explore my experiences in the 90's and then later take it to the present to the culmination of these experiences. Please post your experiences or feelings on this topic, important to me.
In the eighties I was in the "big city" and involved in a number of organizations that was working to better the lives of others. You all, remember the 80's don't you? In my estimation that were absolutely wonderful. There was money galore available in grants, classes on all sorts of topics sprung up everywhere and people were trying everything from college to journeling, meditation, cooking, the classics. And the wonderful part of all of it, that I remember the most, was that everything was viewed as knowledge and looked on equally - that was a key to the diverseness and fullfillment that we lived during these times.
I spent some time with Catholic Social Services. That was the basic foundation of a new way of life for me, other workers, and hopefully the clients. First of all, we made a commitment to live the way that we wanted to show our clients how they could change their lives. So we didn't have TV or cable and unless we were taking a client somewhere we used the public transit system. Often we used the busses with the clients to show them how they could get around with cost efficiency. We worked with monthly budgeting and at times helped people find cooking classes for diversity and special diets, such as Diabetic, etc. Those things were available then, and we made home visits on regular basis, at least once a week to encourage these changes of life.
About the same time I was volunteering at Rosemont School for Girls. I teamed up with a man named Harry who had spent his career life working with pregnant teens. He had several degrees, spoke quite a few languages, and worked hard to teach these girls survival skills and beyond. This was the fertile ground where I learned the most myself and gained a joy in this way of sharing.
We made trips to the library and encouraged the girls to take out books, books of fun interest and books were they could learn things that they had always wanted to learn. We went to book sales and encouraged them to start libraries of their own interests. If they couldn't read, we wet them up with literacy training. Although most of the girls could read well, but had lost that habit with the pressures of being a single mother. We also looked for places of culture to take the clients. Now let me diverse here to let you know that often they did not want to go. They were scared, they thought it would be boring and they felt they would not be dressed appropriately. So we had to start out small, in some respects.
First, of course, we went for the free stuff. We went to things that we could go to on the bus and places that they could return to on their own. And encouraged that they do so, labeling them as "mini vacations" for themselves. There was free babysitting avaliable at the time, - imagine that! - and it was set aside as an adult time. We went to the conservatory, the art museum on the free day, Shakespeare in the Park and free introductory Symphony concerts. We tried to make them diverse, yet all of the them were geared toward the arts. The trick was to keep going. The more we went, the more everyone felt more comfortable in new situations and relaxed, enjoyed and learned.
The next stage was to set up a paying trip. This was a little harder to sell, but they were more interested now, since we had some positive experiences. So we went to a play, or a concert. We parused 2nd hand stores for skirts and blouses and made an evening of it.
Do you know what? After these programs we was shown that it was easier to get young girls to go back and get their GED's, to look at further education. No longer did they feel trapped. Too simple? Maybe. But think about it for a minute. When you work at learning something new, reading a new genre and push yourself to see that new art exhibit at the museum, don't you feel envigorated? Don't you want to see more? Find books about it, learn a facet of something you saw? Or if you don't like it, doesn't it make you want to explore other avenues then? So why wouldn't everyone else?
Next post, I will explore my experiences in the 90's and then later take it to the present to the culmination of these experiences. Please post your experiences or feelings on this topic, important to me.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Things I Have Learned So Far This Spring
In the attempt to write regularly, I decided to start with some of the events that have really rocked my world this spring. By going to a few classes and sticking my neck out a little, and of course a little introspection, I feel that many changes are being made inside and out.
Earlier this year I took a class in plant propagation. It was exciting to be with other plant people and learn how trees and shrubs can be started with, well, "starts". I have followed up my plant training with a class in Bonsai, early this spring. This was even more exhilerating. Not only did I get a bonsai pine tree out of it, (that is still alive, thank you), but it seems to have opened a whole new world to me. Follow this up with videos and books on Botanical Illustration and I am inundated with the beauties, although presently the reality of them is looking better than my renditions.
Suddenly the 2 lots of land we have in the city, looks like it can produce a lot more food than I had originally imagined. With the addition also of the books - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and The After Dinner Gardner, here is what I am slowing making progress doing.
When I cook, I no longer throw away seeds. I am learning to save and store them for next years garden. Everything from avacodos, peppers, tomatoes, lemons, have a place to dry out and then be stored. Granted I cannot use all of these myself, but I can have them available also for swapping and/or gifts. I love to give seeds and bulbs for New Year's gifts - I feel it expresses hope!
Fruit and Nut Trees - Now this has been a confusion for a long time. I have some berry bushes, two grapes, and an apple tree. I attempt to grow peanuts, not many, only ornamental, and competitive with the ground jimmies. But now with the idea of Bonsai, I can see the ability of growing fruit trees and nut trees in miniature, possibly bush form. My first goal with this is the mixed bag of nuts they sell at Christmas to put in your holiday nut bowl, to take some out of there and starting around Thanksgiving to start indoors growing nut trees. Yes, sure, it will take awhile, but isn't that kind of the idea? I also can do this with some of the fruit that we eat during the summer, but I have to remember to do this mostly from local grown, and then I know that they grow in this area. The only fruit tree that I have purchased is a Trifoliate Orange, that is supposed to do fair in this area. The fruit can be bitter, but we have honey.
Next, is the gardening and farming technique of No Till. I am told this is an old German way of farming, and we all know that I go for all things Old German. My husband, who explains regularly, that he is not a dirt farmer, loves his wife way too much, which he proved by tilling my garden this year. I have a new plot, to save the plants from the 2 pups. We had someone dig up the sod, and then with the help of Cousin Betsy's small electric rotatiller, whala!
Last week I spent part of an afternoon with a wonderful lady who shared her garden and gardening secrets with me of No Till, with the promise that I would pass them on. You, my readers, get to be the first to benefit. No till, starts first with that, you just do not till the land. The earth is covered with hay, not straw, and the plants just put into the earth. Hay is for nutrients, for eating, straw is for bedding. Newspapers can be used in the walkways to keep down weeds or to put over pesky weeds, like grass with their intricate root system, until they die. Not all weeds are pulled, some are killed and then used for compost. Others are left to encourage insect life and pollination. Newspapers are also used in a very inventive way for potatoes. The newspapers are laid on the earth, then place the potatoe starts and cover with hay. The roots will work their way through the newspapers and the potatoes are "born" on top of the paper, clean as can be.
Compost is saved in the kitchen and buried in the garden on a regular basis. This I have found we do not have in abundance. I cook many things from scratch, but I never peel hardly anything so as to benefit from the nutrients. Most of our compost is coffee grounds and eggshells. Occasionally skins from onions and tops or cores of fruits and vegetables. Pine needles are saved for plants that need acidity and worms are encouraged and drawn by the compost. We are getting some fishing worms to start the process. This weekend we were very discouraged that none of the groceries we went to sold bait, so we will have to make one more trip!
I am putting flowers betwwen my vegetables to encourage insects, butterflies and bees for pollination etc and will try to harvest milkweed in late summer to encourage the monarch butterfly also. I try seeds from everything that I think we might want to eat and give them a try this year, to get a better handle on what can be done and what needs to be revised.
Two weeks ago I went and spent an afternoon with the same lovely lady and she showed me how to use a rotary cutter. My goodness, they have reinvented the wheel! It is wonderful! For the first time in years I feel free to cut fabric for clothes and to be as creative as I want with quilting, because it does not seem to bother my arthritic hands. It takes practice and you must move your thumb, but it is well worth it. I am starting a sampler and am looking forward to using both rotary cutting and machine assembly - first time for both.
I have also gotten out my quilt that I have been working on forever! I used to have it in a small frame, but my body will not stand for that much. Neither does a standing hoop work. So I have pinned it and am working on the stitching, trying for at least every other day. My husband got me the most wonderful books, The Elm Creek Quilt Series, first 3 books, and because of that I can have been able to see that I need to baste also and more of how the binding will work.
I am crocheting 4 baby blankets, 3 of my former students and one new lady I have met from Friends Meetings. One got sent off today and one started. One needs to be done in August, one in October, one in at the latest, December. I am learning that I need to blog less and be more picky about my blogging in order to be able to do these things which feed me so much.
Time is the subject I am learning the most about. When my husband is home I want to spend my time with him. I will be out of all "officer" positions in groups that I belong to at night and presently that is not soon enough for me. After he works all day, there is an overwhelming feeling not to race out the door, alone or together. With this frame of mind, while he is at work I try to multi-task. As many of you know I cook most of the dog food. Since we have discovered that Loki has IBD he has been taken off dry food, added yogurt each meal and some more exercise. Ming Fou obviously has a cast iron stomach, but I still give her about 80% homemade food, mostly because she loves her 20% crunchies.
So dog food is made 5 - 6 days a week. I am attempting, if it ends up being cost effective to make Greek yogurt for us and regular yogurt for them and the cats for an occasional treat. While I do this cooking I tend to listen to music often, which is fine. But I have been pushing myself to spend at least part of this time with learning videos and tapes. Presently I am doing the Teaching Company course on Understanding and Appreciating Great Music, by Dr. Greenburg. Beautiful and challenging. I listen so far on the DVD's and then follow up with the study guides. It always feels good to me to learn and music is one of my favorite topics.
Reading and writing is taking afore front in my life, pushing its way through. We are in a mystery book club at a nearby library. I am reading several books, including the ones mentioned above and The Working Poor, The Tale of Despeareax, and Middlemarch will be started by both my husband and I for the Oprah Summer classic. Our Y City Writer's Forum is coming up on their October Conference and I am working on registration on that. We also are putting together 3 small publications that I am contributing too. Writing is the hardest event to add to my schedule, it can so easily be pushed aside that I have asked my husband to help keep me accountable. He writes every day, or nearly so, as many of you know at http://dirtyhippylawyer.blogspot.com
so this is an inspiration and a nudge for me. I know that I feel better when I write. I don't understand that much, but I know that it is so.
So, this is my spring so far. It seemed pretty full as I wrote this. Any suggestions are helpful, but for now this is it, and supper has to be readied for!
Earlier this year I took a class in plant propagation. It was exciting to be with other plant people and learn how trees and shrubs can be started with, well, "starts". I have followed up my plant training with a class in Bonsai, early this spring. This was even more exhilerating. Not only did I get a bonsai pine tree out of it, (that is still alive, thank you), but it seems to have opened a whole new world to me. Follow this up with videos and books on Botanical Illustration and I am inundated with the beauties, although presently the reality of them is looking better than my renditions.
Suddenly the 2 lots of land we have in the city, looks like it can produce a lot more food than I had originally imagined. With the addition also of the books - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and The After Dinner Gardner, here is what I am slowing making progress doing.
When I cook, I no longer throw away seeds. I am learning to save and store them for next years garden. Everything from avacodos, peppers, tomatoes, lemons, have a place to dry out and then be stored. Granted I cannot use all of these myself, but I can have them available also for swapping and/or gifts. I love to give seeds and bulbs for New Year's gifts - I feel it expresses hope!
Fruit and Nut Trees - Now this has been a confusion for a long time. I have some berry bushes, two grapes, and an apple tree. I attempt to grow peanuts, not many, only ornamental, and competitive with the ground jimmies. But now with the idea of Bonsai, I can see the ability of growing fruit trees and nut trees in miniature, possibly bush form. My first goal with this is the mixed bag of nuts they sell at Christmas to put in your holiday nut bowl, to take some out of there and starting around Thanksgiving to start indoors growing nut trees. Yes, sure, it will take awhile, but isn't that kind of the idea? I also can do this with some of the fruit that we eat during the summer, but I have to remember to do this mostly from local grown, and then I know that they grow in this area. The only fruit tree that I have purchased is a Trifoliate Orange, that is supposed to do fair in this area. The fruit can be bitter, but we have honey.
Next, is the gardening and farming technique of No Till. I am told this is an old German way of farming, and we all know that I go for all things Old German. My husband, who explains regularly, that he is not a dirt farmer, loves his wife way too much, which he proved by tilling my garden this year. I have a new plot, to save the plants from the 2 pups. We had someone dig up the sod, and then with the help of Cousin Betsy's small electric rotatiller, whala!
Last week I spent part of an afternoon with a wonderful lady who shared her garden and gardening secrets with me of No Till, with the promise that I would pass them on. You, my readers, get to be the first to benefit. No till, starts first with that, you just do not till the land. The earth is covered with hay, not straw, and the plants just put into the earth. Hay is for nutrients, for eating, straw is for bedding. Newspapers can be used in the walkways to keep down weeds or to put over pesky weeds, like grass with their intricate root system, until they die. Not all weeds are pulled, some are killed and then used for compost. Others are left to encourage insect life and pollination. Newspapers are also used in a very inventive way for potatoes. The newspapers are laid on the earth, then place the potatoe starts and cover with hay. The roots will work their way through the newspapers and the potatoes are "born" on top of the paper, clean as can be.
Compost is saved in the kitchen and buried in the garden on a regular basis. This I have found we do not have in abundance. I cook many things from scratch, but I never peel hardly anything so as to benefit from the nutrients. Most of our compost is coffee grounds and eggshells. Occasionally skins from onions and tops or cores of fruits and vegetables. Pine needles are saved for plants that need acidity and worms are encouraged and drawn by the compost. We are getting some fishing worms to start the process. This weekend we were very discouraged that none of the groceries we went to sold bait, so we will have to make one more trip!
I am putting flowers betwwen my vegetables to encourage insects, butterflies and bees for pollination etc and will try to harvest milkweed in late summer to encourage the monarch butterfly also. I try seeds from everything that I think we might want to eat and give them a try this year, to get a better handle on what can be done and what needs to be revised.
Two weeks ago I went and spent an afternoon with the same lovely lady and she showed me how to use a rotary cutter. My goodness, they have reinvented the wheel! It is wonderful! For the first time in years I feel free to cut fabric for clothes and to be as creative as I want with quilting, because it does not seem to bother my arthritic hands. It takes practice and you must move your thumb, but it is well worth it. I am starting a sampler and am looking forward to using both rotary cutting and machine assembly - first time for both.
I have also gotten out my quilt that I have been working on forever! I used to have it in a small frame, but my body will not stand for that much. Neither does a standing hoop work. So I have pinned it and am working on the stitching, trying for at least every other day. My husband got me the most wonderful books, The Elm Creek Quilt Series, first 3 books, and because of that I can have been able to see that I need to baste also and more of how the binding will work.
I am crocheting 4 baby blankets, 3 of my former students and one new lady I have met from Friends Meetings. One got sent off today and one started. One needs to be done in August, one in October, one in at the latest, December. I am learning that I need to blog less and be more picky about my blogging in order to be able to do these things which feed me so much.
Time is the subject I am learning the most about. When my husband is home I want to spend my time with him. I will be out of all "officer" positions in groups that I belong to at night and presently that is not soon enough for me. After he works all day, there is an overwhelming feeling not to race out the door, alone or together. With this frame of mind, while he is at work I try to multi-task. As many of you know I cook most of the dog food. Since we have discovered that Loki has IBD he has been taken off dry food, added yogurt each meal and some more exercise. Ming Fou obviously has a cast iron stomach, but I still give her about 80% homemade food, mostly because she loves her 20% crunchies.
So dog food is made 5 - 6 days a week. I am attempting, if it ends up being cost effective to make Greek yogurt for us and regular yogurt for them and the cats for an occasional treat. While I do this cooking I tend to listen to music often, which is fine. But I have been pushing myself to spend at least part of this time with learning videos and tapes. Presently I am doing the Teaching Company course on Understanding and Appreciating Great Music, by Dr. Greenburg. Beautiful and challenging. I listen so far on the DVD's and then follow up with the study guides. It always feels good to me to learn and music is one of my favorite topics.
Reading and writing is taking afore front in my life, pushing its way through. We are in a mystery book club at a nearby library. I am reading several books, including the ones mentioned above and The Working Poor, The Tale of Despeareax, and Middlemarch will be started by both my husband and I for the Oprah Summer classic. Our Y City Writer's Forum is coming up on their October Conference and I am working on registration on that. We also are putting together 3 small publications that I am contributing too. Writing is the hardest event to add to my schedule, it can so easily be pushed aside that I have asked my husband to help keep me accountable. He writes every day, or nearly so, as many of you know at http://dirtyhippylawyer.blogspot.com
so this is an inspiration and a nudge for me. I know that I feel better when I write. I don't understand that much, but I know that it is so.
So, this is my spring so far. It seemed pretty full as I wrote this. Any suggestions are helpful, but for now this is it, and supper has to be readied for!
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Helga and Her Own
Her name didn't help really. The word alone conjured up all sorts of imaginings. Yet it never seemed to bother her. Helga always knew who and what she was.
I am Frederick. You might not think owls are aware of the goings on with people, but my family can tell her story almost as well as she can. Our family has lived on this land as long as Helga's . Our stories tell each others.
Coming from their old country to this land could not have been easy. So long on the ship, that's where Helga was born. Then the long trek to these hills going into the depths of the woods, farther than anyone had dared. Yet far enough that field and stream and meadow all opened up to only them.
As Helga's grandfather, Benjamin, walked the land while his family set up camp for their first night on their own he saw my grandmother. He outstretched his arm and my grandmother flew to him landing on his forearm and our lives and ways have been intertwined since.
Helga grew and her friends were us - the community of woods, fields, streams and meadows. She was entertained for hours with rabbits and birds. She learned to walk with Wolf pulling her up on her feet, running and exploring with Coyote and napping with Deer.
Now Grandfather Benjamin always went to town alone until the house was built. He brought back Rooster and hens, cows and horses, goats and mules, seed and tools.
Grandma Esther started literally weaving a home. Her and Helgas mother, Jeanette, started making the things that made a structure a home. After mornings of helping with house timber and seeding, they worked in the kitchen garden, wove warm clothes for the coming winter, braided rugs and pieced quilts. And in the earliest hours of morning and the twilight of night the women made lace. Long strands of lace - knotting the wholeness of their lives together.
Finally, the house was done just before harvest. Grandma Esther and Jeanette bundled up Helga to all go to town with Grandfather Benjamin. There was so much to take in the women and Helga were both fascinated and afraid.
As they were coming out of the dry goods store with thread and material they heard a woman screaming, "My Son, please, help my son!"
Helga's family all ran to the woman and the limp body of her young son. The mother could not stop screaming so Benjamin took the child, listened to his chest, turned him upside down and slapped his back. Out came a piece of hard candy. Then Benjamin breathed life into the child. The townspeople had never seen such a wonder.
Grandma Esther and Jeanete now took the child and spoke softly in his ear. His eyes opened wide. Esther took some powder out of a bag in her purse and put some under his tongue while Jeanette rocked him and sang soft songs from their old land.
Esther then gave the same powder to the hysterical mother. Benjamin had found some water and encouraged her to drink it all. Little Helga sat beside the mother patting her wrist. She sang softly also and placed a small piece of lace in her hand and the yound mother almost immediately regained her composure.
As the woman took her son and started thanking the family they nodded and went on their way. There work was done here. Then the townspeople started. "They are a God-send.", "They are witches." But the small family continued to load their wagon and make their way back home, deep into the woods.
Now through the years all of them gave an explanation of that day. Benjamin could hear a whistle sound in the boy's throat so he knew there was something lodged, it had to come out. His breath he hoped would make it easier for the little one to breathe. Ginger under the tongue was a shocking taste and stimulated his system to wakefulness. Everyone knew that right? The songs were lullabyes and folksongs, anything soothing they had thought of in the moment. Helga's words were, "There, there." to the mother. And Jeanette's words to the boy were, "Your momma needs you!", not chants and incantations. The lace was a heartfelt gift, from a little girl to a woman in distress, not a magick charm. But no one heard - good or bad, they were witches.
The ladies' lace sold well in town for many felt it carried protection and luck. Their crops sold well, as people started the rumor of magickal food. When needed some found their way through the woods to Benjamin's house. They came with sick children and animals, questions on how to grow magickal good and man women wished to make magickal lace. The family obliged, but always tried to explain these things were quite ordinary.
Helga loved us best. Those with fur and feather and fins. She helped with many of us in sickness. My father sat on her shoulder while she tended to us and even though it was not always to his liking, he would have rather napped, he stayed there as she tended to the furried and feathered of others brought to the farm.
She never married. She always lived here on our land. So when Benjamin and Esther and Jeanette had all gone back to the earth, that was the town's sole conclusion, she was a witch, good or bad.
She continued to care for all that found their way to Grandfather Benjamin's house, but she had a special gift with furried, feathered and all babies - they trusted her and felt her love. She showed anyone interested how to grow the rich food of Benjamin's legacy and kept herself by selling lace and teaching others how to make the same. She even tried to teach the simple ways of curing others, but they all still saw it as magick.
Some townspeople, or others who homestead in the woods befriended her and became good neighbors through the years. Although I must confess some never got used to "so many critter's under foot, inside and out."
A kindly woman neighbor woman found Helga slumped in her rocker on the porch, my screaching helped bring her. Ginger under the tongue and breaht forced brought no results that day.
Today the neighbors wil return her to the earth and I will go with her - the last of both our families. Her leaving from a weakened heart and I from a broken one.
That is how Frederick the owl told me his last day. And these are their stories now, their lives, their legacy.
(to be continued)
Traci K. Couch, writer
Monday, February 16, 2009
The Cat
"There's a Black Cat out there."
"Where?"
"Right there - see him?"
"There is no cat."
"He is so small."
"There is no cat."
"Can we at least put out some water for him?"
"There is no cat."
"Please!"
"Fine!", the woman says as she puts out the bowl of water for me. She looks just in case I exist, but she doesn't believe in me. The man has seen so many things through his window in the last several months of his long illness. He's either scared or seeing things. He's scared of people and places that have been fixtures in their lives since they were first together, young and so much in love. And he finds solace in the sauch as me, a black cat the woman cannot see.
They are still in love, but they are not young any more and there are more chores and carrying for than laughter. That is why the man can see me. I let him laugh, I let him remember. They have some tender times because of me. A memory is revisited of other four leggeds in their lives, which leads to more stories of family and better healthier times.
The man started sleeping more. He didn't ask the woman to put out the bowl of water as often. She ceased to look for me. He saw me less as the sleep became more of a friend. They talked less and remembered hardly at all. There was only deafening silence.
"Look at the cat, he's playing on the fence."
"There is no cat and the fence came down years ago."
"Look at him!", the man laughed. And for a moment his woman smiled - even though there was also a tear. He laughed and she she looked out the window and lauged too - determined to enjoy his cat, whether she could see it or not. He clasped her hand. She looked in his face and his eyes were so clear. They saw each other and kissed. The first kiss not of habit in so long.
This moment lasted long enough to give her comfort in the coming days. He fell back asleep in time and she rested with him, he still holding her hand.
The woman awoke in a start. She knew. She waited a moment and gave him one last kiss before others would come to take care of things now.
"She will be so lonely." the man told me as we walked away.
"I know."
"Will I miss her too?"
"Yes."
"Will we come back for her together?"
"I will bring you when it is time."
"Since when did a Black Cat become the Angel of Death?"
"Since you found joy in seeing me. Afraid still?"
"No."
As the man looked back and he saw all the ruckus of vehicles and people and his body being removed from the house. I started to walk between his legs making him pay attention to me.
"We will return for her. Race me to t top of the hill?"
The man winked and I let him win - since I am an Angel and all.
Traci K. Couch Feb 13, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
More Tatting
So today after getting my husband off to work, in the level 2 snow and finishing the daily chores I started on my Bev Dillon tatting video again. This time not tatting with her but watching the first 4 chapters. They are a good refresher and the new hand position really speeds up my tatting.
I think it is best to have 4 shuttles ready for tatting. One is for one shuttle lace that you can carry with you anywhere and do anytime. The other 3 are for more involved work. They would be for Shuttle 1, Shuttle 2 and Ball thread. Then you should be prepared for about anything. I still consider myself a beginner, even though I have tatted off and on for quite a few years. I find that having each shuttle in a different color helps. The single shuttle that I carry with me - I love to have it with rainbow varigated thread. If I am doing a one lace project I use an ecru - it will go with about anything.
There are lots of tatting sites and blogs and I appreciate all of the ideas, showing of work and patterns. I especially like Bengel Blog - look her up!
I think it is best to have 4 shuttles ready for tatting. One is for one shuttle lace that you can carry with you anywhere and do anytime. The other 3 are for more involved work. They would be for Shuttle 1, Shuttle 2 and Ball thread. Then you should be prepared for about anything. I still consider myself a beginner, even though I have tatted off and on for quite a few years. I find that having each shuttle in a different color helps. The single shuttle that I carry with me - I love to have it with rainbow varigated thread. If I am doing a one lace project I use an ecru - it will go with about anything.
There are lots of tatting sites and blogs and I appreciate all of the ideas, showing of work and patterns. I especially like Bengel Blog - look her up!
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