Archive for October, 2009

The Mayor of Emerald City

October 28, 2009 · Filed under I knit. (and crochet)

UPDATE:  I’ve now written a comprehensive pattern and tutorial for crocheting a rug like this of your very own.  You can find it here.

The Wizard of Oz is on my mind this morning, after sending off The Girl to her Preschool Halloween party not in the Dorothy costume I made for her, but the dragon costume I bought at Goodwill over the weekend for $4.99.  I had bought it as a dress-up costume, for everyday play, but realize now the folly of my timing.  This morning has been a lesson in pride-swallowing and bending to the whims, unpredictable as they are, of this 4 year old.  (Really, a DRAGON costume is not “less pretty” than Dorothy’s dress and ruby red slippers?  Really?)

Thankfully this Boy is loving the Emerald City rag rug I’ve finished, the first of two.  Perhaps you’ll remember when I first posted about the project?  Now, as I reread that, I see that I promised to keep you all updated on the progress.  Well, folks, there hadn’t been much.  Said rug, in all its urgency, was quickly replaced by Painting! and Curtains! and other third-trimester super-human feats.

And then, about a month ago, the real urgency hit:  The Boy needs to move around on the floor – the bare, hardwood, cold floor.  Better get busy with that rug.  So I pulled out the basket of greens and surveyed the scene.  I quickly realized, with some dismay, that one large 8ft by 10ft rug was really not the best solution for the layout of the living room.  (Really – what was I thinking?)  What I needed were two smaller rugs, more flexible in future rearranging schemes.  So I ripped out the crocheted part I had completed last winter in front of the fire.  A few hours of crochet time was undone in about 45 minutes.  Now, before you gasp too loudly, you should know that the most time-consuming part of the process is not in the crocheting, but in cutting the fabric into 1″ strips.  So that work was not lost – as I unraveled it, I rewound the rags into giant balls to re-crochet, this time into a round rug.  And about a month later, I think it’s done, at about 5ft in diameter.  What fun it’s been, too, crocheting it.  A little here, a little there, it’s so gratifying to work on because the progress is so dramatic – one revolution around the circle increases the diameter by about 2 1/2 inches.  Just the thing for my short knitting/crocheting attention span.

And The Boy loves it.  He hasn’t quite cracked the code of crawling yet, though I expect he will in about 10 minutes.  As soon as that happens, this small triumph of a rug will be rendered far less protective, once he leaves its cushioning confines.  Already he’s scooting to the edge, then tipping over to bonk his sweet little head on the maple floor.  I’d better stop reveling in the fruits of my labor and get going on that second rug.

Yeah, I’m talking about YOU, Boy.

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The Annual Garden Report

October 27, 2009 · Filed under We grow things.

After last years’ less than successful Intro to Big Country Gardening, we approached this growing season with a pretty hearty measure of realism.  We had a new baby, only weeks old, not many openings in the calendar, and we could still feel the sting of last years’ lack of success.  So we decided not to put in a garden at all.  That’s right, I told myself,  just let go of the idea that you have to put in a garden and supply all the veggies you want your family to eat for a whole year.  Ok.  Done.  I looked at my fresh-from-the-womb baby and thought, yes, I can let that go.

So I bounced the radical idea off Andrew, who took some coaxing, but then also agreed to let it go.

And then, the weekend before Memorial Day, we found ourselves unexpectedly at home, a WHOLE WEEKEND with no plans; a blank slate.  So, of course, we went to the Farmer’s Market with our newly-acquired (rummage sale!) off-road Radio Flyer wagon and I filled it to the brim with heirloom tomato plants, peppers, cabbages, an eggplant, fennel, onions, collards, and, oh my gosh – CELERIAC!  (I really, really wanted to grow celeriac)  We returned home with a tiller, obliterated the overgrown wasteland that had triumphed over last year’s efforts, and tucked in the last plants and seeds as the first drops of rain arrived, the precursor to a nice, soaking thunderstorm.  We talked about how, for it to work, we had to keep up with the weeds, as a family.  The spring air was swollen with hope and optimism and water-soaked seeds.

Then, of course, Summer hit us with its full force.  We got out to weed a few times in the first couple of weeks and then completely lost control.  But what a strange summer it was – so cool, even cold, much more than it was seasonably warm. We harvested a couple of heads of broccoli.  Come tomato-harvesting time, our tomatoes were lagging behind, firmly stuck in the green and hard stage.  As they slowly started ripening, I realized they were stricken with the blight that was prevalent all over.  I harvested a handful of jalapeno peppers and one bell pepper from the few plants that managed to sneak past the neighboring bully weeds.  The red cabbage has still not formed heads.  The green grew to the size of a softball before I harvested it.  (that is very, very small)

A triumph, though, was the garlic.  Planted late last fall, I again called upon the talents of  my Garlic Girl and we harvested a healthy stash of garlic to carry us through the winter.  Also, there was a lot of popcorn.  I waited patiently to harvest it, letting it dry on the stalks.  Mostly, I forgot all about it, until that day last week, when we set out in the sunshine.

After all that hard work, we shucked the cobs, and laid them out on the picnic table to admire them.

There was a lot more drying that needed to be done, so they were loosely piled in a bushel basket….until they were discovered on Sunday to be molding.  Sigh.  “Popcorn” has been moved from the Garden Success column to the Abysmal Garden Failures, Threatening all Future Garden Plans column.  And that is where this year’s harvest leaves off- frustration and bitter disappointment.

Same mantra for next year:  scale back.  Because we will no doubt try it again; such is the way of gardening, I’m gathering.  We will surely give it another go.  But there will be store-bought popcorn this winter.

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Barn Dance

October 20, 2009 · Filed under We like music.

When I told Isadora that we had gone to a barn dance the night she spent with Grandma and Grandpa, she replied with a puzzled, “isn’t that just for animals?”  Indeed, we had read a book about a midnight barn dance, where the animals paired up and stole out of the barn to partake in some secret midnight dancing.  No, I responded with a laugh, there were no animals, but it was no less magical.  As we lay there snuggling together at bedtime, I described the scene for her.

The night air was that perfect combination of sharp cold and crispness that only October can perfectly conjure.  The barn, a grand old structure, was illuminated with a few simple spotlights.  The windows gave mention of tiny white lights dancing around the vertical beams within.  The magic wafted through the drafty slats of barn wood, drawing us in with wispy tendrils of fiddles, banjo, and guitar.  In we went.  And we were looking sharp, dressed as we imagined appropriate for such an occasion:  beaver skin hat and red square-toe boots.  (unfortunately not picked up by the photographer)

It was actually our third square dance in about as many months.  How great is that???  I don’t think I’ve yet mentioned the Date-Night-to-Define-All-Subsequent-Date-Nights that we shared the first night of the Sugar Maple Music Fest.  I’d better bring you up to speed.  That first night of the Sugar Maple, we had secured a babysitter for the kids and headed out to the fest.  On the way, I mentioned seeing something about an old-time dance later that evening.  Frankly, we were just happy to be going – the specifics of the entertainment were icing on the cake.  At the fest, when they announced that dance lessons for the upcoming dance were being given in a smaller tent, we went, expecting to finally learn how to waltz, maybe, or some other mysterious dance.  I didn’t know what kind of moves were involved in an old-time dance, but we were game for anything.  It was Date Night, after all.  When Dot, our ebullient instructor, lined us up by couples to form a square… the light in my head went on.  I turned to Andrew, my eyes lit up, big as saucers, and exclaimed in as contained of a whisper as I could manage in my excitement, “THIS IS A SQUARE DANCE!!!”  How funny that we had no idea until that very moment.  And what a terrific surprise!  We absolutely loved it.  And we gushed on and on about it to our friends, family, ourselves for weeks after.  Where could we get more of this?  We were hooked.

sqdance

photo courtesy of Wikipedia

When my friend Lily sent an invite to her Square Dance Birthday Party, you know we rearranged our schedule to accommodate it, bringing our camping friends along with us before setting off the next day on the lively camping trip mentioned here.  And that very night, I spied on her fridge the poster for the Barn Dance that became our third dance of the year.  So far.  There’s lots of dancing time left.

This is a shot I snapped on the very last teeny-tiny bit of battery power, right before my camera called it a night.  A collection fit for a living history museum exhibit, these are the Caller’s own collection of dances, a whole index card file of allemandes and promenades and do-se-dos.  The incalculable value of this repository struck a nerve with me.  They’re not unlike Great-Grandma’s recipe cards, a meager bunch of ingredients jotted down on an index card, their dishes coming to life only with the knowing hand of the card’s author, or through someone well versed in Great-Grandma’s method.   These particular cards and dances are almost meaningless to anyone but their author, yet in his knowing hands are worth their weight in gold.

I might add that I haven’t always been so enthusiastic about square dancing.  If you were to time-travel and find my 7th-grade-self amidst the dreaded square dance unit of gym class and hand her a printed copy of this blog entry, she’d no doubt look at you through her hair-spray-encrusted, intricately lofted bangs and smirk, “Yeah, right.”  It’s hard for a girl wearing MC Hammer pants and black patent leather shoes to don the glasses of the future and foresee it holding anything musical but more Milli Vanilli or Vanilla Ice.  I have to think that Mrs. K, who patiently taught us the steps of square dancing way back when, even though it must have seemed a lost cause for our ” too cool” selves, would have a bit more faith in my generation if she could see how her diligence has come back to serve me well.

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Flowers dried.

October 13, 2009 · Filed under We grow things.

Nasturtium flowers, snatched from the garden before Jack Frost descended with his prickly white blanket.  What to do with these?  I haven’t decided.

Calendula blossoms.  These represent only a fraction of the calendula that grew in my garden this summer.  I had intended to harvest much, if not all, of it.  But didn’t.  Which is a shame, because Calendula packs within it a punch that makes illness run for its life.  It brings munitions to keep Immunity well-stocked.  Which would be handy these days, what with the Swine Flu.  I haven’t yet mentioned how the buzz about the porcine illness has got me shaken up a bit.  But it has.  In an effort to protect myself and family, I’ve cut off all contact with pigs.

And I almost left it at that, cut off this post with that closing statement, to  leave you wondering if I was serious.  But you know better than that, right? Right?

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Tomato Math

October 5, 2009 · Filed under We are busy in the kitchen.

Tomatoes have been the thrumming beat moving us steadily through the days of late September and early October.  Some stretches of milling, peeling, or canning have been marathon-like, blocking out all else on the To Do list; others have been snuck into the regular workings of the day like rags plugged into a drafty window.  Now lining the shelves of our pantry are various representatives from the Tomato Clan:  stewed tomatoes, the backbone of the pantry and only repeat visitor, as well as some new visitors -  Tomato Soup, Ketchup, Pizza Sauce, Plain Tomato Sauce.  Slated to arrive shortly:  Spaghetti Sauce.  Three boxes of Grandma’s Roma tomatoes are waiting patiently for their transformation, the final bit of tomato canning for the season.  I hope.  I think that I, too, have participated in the grand tomato metamorphosis:   my blood has no doubt turned tomato, the bouquet of scent that is My Own now carries with it the unmistakeably essences of garlic, onion, and basil.

It should be said that these tomatoes are not from my own garden, for the most part.  The Blight that was pandemic this summer found our overcrowded, not weeded, not-properly-supported tomato plants the perfect place to take up residence.  So I secured 30 lbs from a local grower and stewed them.  And then I bought three bushels (150 lbs) of the biggest tomatoes you’ve ever seen from the farmer’s market.  And we made ketchup, soup, pizza sauce, and running out of steam in the last bushel,  just plain old sauce, unable to chop one more onion or head of garlic.  Somewhere in the second bushel, as we were elbow deep in blanched tomatoes, the phone rang.  It was Mom, wondering if we could use any of Grandma’s surplus.  Andrew laughed as he handed me the phone, that laugh that is a combination of irony and weariness and look-out-here-we-go-again.  Turning away good (free) tomatoes nurtured by Grandma’s magic hands is surely bad karma, and I try to respect the karmic rules at all times.  So they sit right now, a chorus of red voices chanting, whispering, and beckoning, the volume growing ever louder as they reach the peak of ripeness and pull me away from all else but the sink, the mill, and the giant roaster that will turn them into sauce.

Lucky for me, I have help.  Lots of it, in fact – Mom and Grandma teamed up to can 3o quarts of stewed tomatoes for us, securing their spots as Most Prized Mom and Grandma for a long time to come.

So here’s the math:

310 lbs raw tomatoes yield:

6 pints of ketchup

6 pints of pizza sauce

45 quarts of stewed tomatoes

6 quarts of soup

5 quarts of plain sauce

and an estimated 9 or 10 quarts of spaghetti sauce

That’s a lot of tomatoes.

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