Morgan Creek Chronicles

Mystery of History

2012-01-22T19:37:00.000-05:00

This chimney stands in the middle of the woods completely overgrown now by trees. The stone monolith stands near one of the oldest roads running across the land that surrounds us. They say it was an old postal road that ran from the western side of Orange County into Chapel Hill. I think it likely passed the mill that once stood on Morgan Creek downstream from here. What I do believe is that many a wagon and cart traveled that road over time, most likely in the 1800's and the wheels and rains wore a rut in the earth 8 feet deep or more in places. Now it's a green moss and fern lined track. Like the chimney- I don't know when that road went out of use, but most likely it was back in the early 1900's.

I like to visit the chimney now and then during the winter. I wander around it imagining who might have lived there, how old it is, what happened and how long ago. Did it burn? Most likely, there is no sign of any other part of the structure. Just stones that formed the foundation, all buried under a foot or more of pine needles. h
Here you can see them piled in the fireplace.

I wonder if the second story was added later, the tiny upstairs fireplace and the top of the chimney made of bricks, did they come later? It's a massive structure that anchored what was a cabin measuring no more than 16 by 20. The hilltop all around the site is covered with periwinkle (vinca minor) in its usual invasive fashion it has spread slowly but deliberately out from the house site only being kept in check by the shade and heavy pine needles that cover the ground.

I would love to do an excavation around the cabin site to see what I might unearth, if anything. What must it have been like to live there, 4 or 5 miles from town, in that tiny cabin, possibly no neighbors for several miles and scratch out an existence off the land? I can only imagine. Whoever built that chimney certainly built it to last and it has stood now for 10 or 15 decades or more. I've pondered researching the history of that parcel of land back in time, but its tricky to figure out how I might actually do that successfully. Any suggestions?

2012 Is Off To A Good Start

2012-01-09T20:48:00.000-05:00

This handsome red-shouldered hawk showed up the other day, landed just outside the kitchen window scoping out the yard for a smaller bird or rodent to eat for breakfast. I was amazed I got such a clear picture as I had to zoom in to get this close and shoot through the window glass to boot. A little later as I walked out to hang the laundry s/he swooped right in front of me squawking and flapped across the yard to land at the top of the gateway down into the woods.

Later the same day as I was working in the garden I heard the unmistakable call of a red-tailed hawk, you know the one- the long lonely scree they dub into movies and TV at a critical moment in the plot. I looked up and spied the hawk, high in the air flying away to the north, then it circled back and soared right over me and the yard and house, circled over the farm and then flapped its way back across our yard and off to the north again and out of sight.

I take these hawk sitings as good omens for the new year.

It's been unseasonably warm and as a result the prunus mume is blooming about two months earlier than normal. Apparently they can bloom anytime in the winter. I'm not complaining, the pink cloud of blossoms outside my desk window has been very cheery over the past few weeks. The delicate cupped flowers are to me the epitome of Asian floral splendor.

I've been cooking loads of soups, cleaning out all the leftovers from the fridge, tonight I made a curried butternut squash soup using the last of the peppers, yes, fresh peppers from our garden picked back around Thanksgiving These were the last handful that had been green when picked and failed to ripen up in the paper bag with the others so got tossed into the fridge. It was time for them to go into the pot with lots of onions, carrots, garlic, celery, butternut, tomatoes, red lentils, coriander, cumin, cardamon, curry powder, cayenne, a little saffron and a bay leaf. All cooked together and pureed, quite tasty garnished with some fresh yogurt and toasted pumpkin seeds for supper tonight.

Yesterday we took apart the holiday tree, packed all the treasures carefully away and put the boxes back up in the attic along with the now empty cookie tins, cleaned the whole house and put the furniture back to normal. I was a bit sad to see the beauty go, but it was time to move on into the new year and leave the holiday season behind. 2011 was a good year and the holidays memorable, but I'm ready to embark now on 2012.

Happy New Year

2012-01-02T22:21:00.000-05:00

I always like to welcome the new year with a walk around the land and a visit to some of my favorite places. I've read, (but can't find the reference), that at this time of year, certain cultures honor the spirits that reside in powerful trees and rocks. As I've walked the woods the past few weeks I've been connecting with that custom as the tree trunks, roots and rock formations really stand out now that all the leaves are down.

There are certain places that feel very powerful to me and this rock outcrop is one of them. I like to climb to the top and look down over the creek. Huge sycamores cling to the far bank, their roots merging with the stones on the edge of the stream. I took time out yesterday to stroll the creek, visit these special spots and meditate a while at each. I've even been caught tree-hugging from time to time. You only need to study the trunks of beech trees to believe that they are endowed with spirits.

Today I celebrated the new year with lots of writing and organizing in my office. I baked bread and made a brilliant purple pot of borscht using all vegetables we've grown; beets, cabbage, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, onions and dill. I wish all my readers a joyous and bountiful 2012. May we all be healthy and happy.

TREE!

2011-12-26T21:58:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year when some people bring trees inside the house. We are no exception, though it has been several years since we had a holiday tree. Last year we were traveling to surprise my brother Jonny for his 60th birthday. The year before I was in Oaxaca, Mexico for the entire month of December. So it was high time for us to tromp around the woods in search of just the right cedar tree to drag home and erect in the living room.

Over the years we have had all kinds of strange trees, one year so large it reached the peak of our 16 foot ceiling, that was really too much, you could barely get into the room with the thing. Another year we had one with a big hole on one side so you could more or less walk into the tree, that was unique. I think this years tree is one of our best but it is really hard to do it justice in a single photo, it just seems impossible to capture the grandure of the thing. In this picture it looks kind of scrawny, it's really anything but.

The beauty of a cedar is the airiness of the branches and needles. You can hang ornaments deep within the branches and see into the center and out the other side.
To me this makes a cedar tree more special than a fir tree which tends to be thick and all the ornaments sort of perch on the outside of the tree. At night the tips cast a filigree shadow against the ceiling around the bevy of hand made angels.

We have some very large ornaments and many handmade ones as well. I consider this guy, Sterling Frog, to be the master of ceremonies.

Unpacking the boxes and rediscovering the many treasures prompts us to say "it's just like Christmas! Oh right, it is Christmas!" As we pull out items that were given to us by friends, tin ornaments from Mexico, painted ceramic birds from Guatemala, remembering the many seasons, and trips and times with friends and family as we unwrap and hang the various treasures.

This little elf was one of my parents ornaments, a favorite from my girlhood, I hung him so he's looking down on me as I sit admiring the tree. It's so nice to be home this time of year, not traveling for a change and just able to enjoy the tree. We turn on its lights first thing when we get out of bed in the morning, watching it twinkle as we drink our morning coffee, nibbling on cookies or some other holiday treat. And again at the end of the day, we spend some time soaking in the beauty and basking in the strangeness of having a tree inside the house, decked out as my father used to say "like and old whore".

Christmas Stollen

2011-12-21T14:58:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I mentioned the stollen. My friend Claudia asked for the recipe so I thought I would put that up here. Stollen isn't one of our family traditions, although we do have some German ancestry. I baked it for the first time a few years ago and it was so yummy I thought I would try again this year. It is expensive to make, loaded with dried fruits, nuts, eggs and butter, but it's even more expensive to buy, so worth the effort.

I did a little research, looking at some other recipes, and learned all sorts of interesting facts about Stollen along the way. Stollen is a traditional bread from Dresden, Germany. Stories vary on when it was first baked, 1300's or 1400's, but most accounts agree that the original stollen was a bland affair made of flour, oats and water because of the ban by the Catholic Church on the use of butter during advent. At some point-again records vary- some say 1400's others 1700's- a plea was sent to the Pope asking for butter to be used to bake the traditional Christmas bread. At some point, one of the Popes finally agreed and sent what is now known as "the butter letter" allowing the use of butter, but only by the family that made the request. All others were required to pay a tribute to the church if they would use butter during advent, oh those wily Catholics.

Over the years the stollens were made larger and larger and special giant stollens were baked for the church and political dignitaries, some weighing over a ton. Since 1994 Dresden has held a Stollen Festival that features a giant stollen baked by multiple bakers in many pieces and patched together to create a stollen weighing several tons. The largest on record was baked for the 2000 stollen festival and weighed 4,200 kilos! That's one big loaf of bread. They construct it on a special cart, bring it to the town square and cut it with a special stollen knife, then sell the pieces to the crowd. They also have a stollen maiden. It's a big tourism and publicity affair for Dresden. You can read all about it here.

I wondered why the loaves were supposed to be so big and now I understand. The recipe I use says to make 3 or 4 loaves, I made 6 and even then I had trouble fitting them all into my oven at once. I had to split the dough into 2 parts at kneading just to manage it all and then let it rise in two separate bowls, so if you're going to try making it, you might want to split the recipe in half unless you are having a party or want to give loaves to friends. They do make a very pretty gift. So with out further ado- here's the recipe from A World of Breads by Dolores Casella. This is an excellent book that I use often, it has many variations and recipes for every kind of bread including biscuits, scones, quick breads, pancakes, yeast breads and more.

Stollen

2 cups milk, scalded and cooled
1 teaspoon of sugar
2 teaspoons of salt
11 cups of flour or more
2 cakes or packages of yeast (2 T active dried) dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water
1 pound butter
1 1/2 cup sugar
6 large eggs
1/4 cup rum or brandy
grated rind of 1 lemon
1 pound slivered, blanched almonds
1 pound assorted candied fruits (I candied my own orange peel- I don't like the commercial candied fruit)
1 pound golden raisins or currants (I combined the candied orange with dried cherries, cranberries, golden and dark raisins and currants to total 2 pounds)
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 t mace

Combine the scalded and cooled milk, 1 t of sugar, 2 t of salt, 1 cup of flour and the dissolved yeast. Blend, cover and let stand until the sponge is bubbly. Cream the butter and 1 1/2 cups of sugar until fluffy, then add the eggs and the rum or brandy and beat thoroughly. Stir in 5 cups of the flour and the yeast mixture. Blend 1 cup of the flour into the nuts and fruits. (This was about all my kitchen aid mixer could hold, so from here I transferred to a very large bowl and mixed by hand). Add the rest of the flour and the other ingredients to the dough, using enough flour to make a firm dough. Turn out onto a floured breadboard and knead quite thoroughly. ( I split the dough in half here to work it - need until its silky and the dried fruits begin to pop out as you turn it, roughly 5-10 minutes). Place in two large bowls, brush with butter, cover and let rise until doubled (this took almost 2 hours of rising time). Then punch the dough down and turn out onto a floured board again. Divide the dough into 3 or 4 parts and shape each part into a thick oval shape (I made 6 oval loaves). Some recipes have you fold the dough here, or put a layer of marzipan or other things in the center. Place on buttered cookie sheets and let the loaves rise until doubled. Brush with melted butter or cream. Bake at 350 for about an hour to an hour and 20 minutes, depending on the size of the loaves (mine were done in under an hour because they were smaller and got a little too dark on the bottom because the oven was so crowded.). If the tops brown too fast, lay a piece of foil over them. While the loaves are still hot, brush them liberally with melted butter, allow to soak in, then if you like, spoon rum or brandy over the tops of the loaves and let that soak in and then sprinkle thickly with powdered sugar.

Total time was about 5 hours- mostly rising and baking- work time was about an hour I guess- not including the candied orange peel which was another couple of hours. This isn't a quick or easy bread, but its well worth it. It keeps well, Casella recommends storing it a couple of days to mellow before cutting it. I have quartered 2 of the loaves and wrapped them tightly for the freezer, a perfect size for us for breakfast. It's also very good toasted with more butter- swoon.

Five out of six loaves, they look like they've been snowed on. The tradition of powdered sugar is supposed to represent Christ in diapers!

Eat Your Butter

2011-12-20T21:19:00.000-05:00

The Groaning Board

We moved four pounds of butter and five pounds of sugar through our kitchen last week in the form of 8 kinds of cookies, 6 loaves of stollen, and a pint of chicken liver pate. Why you might ask were we baking so much? No, we have not opened our own catering business, though we felt like that's what had hit us as we baked batch after batch, day after day. Well yes, its Christmas time, and we decided to host a winter open house for 40 friends. Hence the baking commenced. In addition to the cookies and the bread, we also made a batch of peanut brittle and candied fresh ginger, orange rind and lemon rind, then dipped it in dark chocolate. The candied fruit was the top hit of the day, especially since the ginger was grown one county over by my brother and sister-in-law, super fresh, super delish.

We had a mighty fine time as we gorged on cookies, drank a gallon of hot cider, two gallons of eggnog and several bottles of wine. Nothing says winter holidays like eggnog and our local Maple View Dairy makes a very fine version, rich and thick with a nice level of nutmeg. In a review of the liquor cabinet which we don't frequent that often, I discovered we possessed 7 bottles of different kinds of rum! Barbados, Costa Rican, Guatemalan, Virgin Islands, Jamaican...so that was what I was pushing to spike the eggnog to those who were partaking. The house was packed with folks and it was great to have so many friends around us enjoying good food and friendship.

Stollen with homemade orange-flavored butter, the next most popular item on the table.

We did have a good time getting everything ready, and our house is now super clean. The only problem is all the leftover cookies, I might as well be spreading that butter directly on my hips. David was worried we wouldn't have enough so got up and baked two more batches Sunday morning, needless to say, we had plenty.

Eat Your Veggies

2011-12-11T20:21:00.000-05:00

In an effort to combat the onslaught of calories that have already begun to creep into my diet and thereafter inevitably onto my waistline, I'm making a vow to take a long walk every single day and eat more veggies.

It's hard to go wrong with carrots like these at the ready. These were sweet, tender, crisp and thin skinned. I gave them a good scrub and down they went with lunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. Bugs would have been jealous. I could dig another 20 bunches like this before we eat all that are in the garden. In addition, I added a few large handfuls of fresh spinach and some side shoots of broccoli to leftover pasta at lunch time and felt like my halo was tight.

Tonight we'll be having roasted peppers and shrimp over pasta and a green salad with radishes. It's amazing that we are still eating fresh peppers though we are getting down to the dregs. The plants finally took it on the chin before Thanksgiving, when the temperature dropped into the 20's, that was the death knoll. We picked all that were of size and put them in a paper bag closed at the top. Over the past 2 weeks they've slowly been ripening up. We've lost a few, and some have gotten a little dried out and shriveled, but overall they turn red and are still sweet and good to eat. When we finally run out of those we'll have lots in the freezer, both fresh chopped and roasted and peeled, to get us through the cold months. Today I cut down the plants and put them in the compost pile, pulled out their cages and put those away, raked up all the dead leaves and piled those in the bin to rot down and become more food for the garden next summer.

As long as I've been gardening in this climate it still floors me that on December 11th we can still be harvesting lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, collards, beets, carrots, kale, chard, bok choy and cilantro. Very little has needed protection. There is one gorgeous head of cauliflower growing out there, always a challenge for me, only a few of the plants survived and only one has a decent sized head at this point. We've covered those plants for the 20 degree nights of this week and hope they will put on a bit more growth.

I've joined the 10% Campaign sponsored by the NC Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS). Each Sunday I try to remember/estimate, how much money we spent on local food in the past week and how much money I saved by eating homegrown. This is a bit of a challenge but also rather eye opening as to how much we are actually saving, or what it might cost us to buy all the stuff we grow if we were purchasing organic from the store or market. For the 2 of us, it's working out to between $30-$40 a week and I think I actually tend to low ball. I don't count all the fresh herbs for example. So the goal is to eat/buy at least 10% locally each week, I think we are at about 40-50% because of the garden.

I feel sure that if we didn't have the garden, we would not be eating nearly as well as we are. And on that note- I'm off to prepare another in a long line of excellent meals featuring loads of local food, including the shrimp.

Thankful for Oysters

2011-11-30T22:53:00.000-05:00

Thought I better squeak in one more post before November whooshed on by.

My life has been a whirlwind over the past 2 weeks. The weekend of November 18th-20th I went up to Asheville to attend the NC Writers Network Conference. I've just recently joined the organization and this was my first conference. It was exciting to be with so many other writers and hear and learn about the many genres and styles that everyone was writing in. There were folks working on non-fiction and memoir, fiction and poetry too. The weekend was action packed, I learned a lot, got some good feedback and critique and got inspired about writing. I was reminded that to truly sell yourself as a writer is tons of work and lots of self-promotion is required plus the actual time to write-oh yeah-don't forget the writing part!

I was wiped out by the time I got home but there was no rest for the weary with Thanksgiving on the horizon. My brother Jon and his wife Candy came to town for the week so there was much merry making, visiting, and long walks together. And as it was Thanksgiving, we cooked and cooked and cooked some more, which meant endless dish washing, and eating too, can't complain about the eating.

Remains of the oyster fest

I had the bright idea of getting a half bushel of oysters through our Community Supported Fishery. I learned a few lessons about oysters:

A half bushel of oysters in the shell equals well over 100, that is a lot of oysters.
People from the mid-west (half our guests that night) don't eat a lot of oysters, if any at all.
Oysters are hard to shuck

But I did remember how much I love raw oysters, they are juicy with brine and biting into one with a squeeze of lemon on top is like eating the sea. The oyster fans on hand enjoyed them. I discovered after the party that the best tool for shucking is an old fashioned "church key" -a bottle opener on one end, can opener on the other. We possess three of these but didn't make the discovery til later, when we were shucking the second half and wondering what the two of us were going to do with all those oysters. Well we had some fried, we had some more raw, and we put the last into a delicious oyster stew cooked up with the oysters of the woods we came across on one of the walks we took together.

Oyster mushrooms carefully tucked into a shawl to carry home

The weather was spectacular and we spent much time outside when we were not busy cooking and eating. Over the weekend David and I worked in the garden for hours, transplanting and moving things around before the rain and cold set in. The creeks are slowly filling again and here you can see the brilliant sky reflected from above.

It's always good to be with family especially at holiday time, but also nice to get back into the normal routine after everyone has gone. I've got a busy work week coming up and then looking forward to some slower days as December rolls along.

Week of the Ginko Leaf Drop

2011-11-15T21:51:00.000-05:00

The Ginko Biloba, also known as the Maidenhair Tree, is apparently a living fossil. Living fossil is an informal term for any living species which appears similar to a species otherwise only known from fossils and which has no close living relatives. The one we are familiar with, that has fan shaped leaves, is the only variety left growing on the earth, although there were many other ginkos in earlier times and they're preserved in the fossil record. You may have heard that Ginko can be taken to enhance memory and slow dementia but there is apparently little scientific evidence to back up this claim.

The Ginko is an unusual tree and is apparently more closely related to ferns than to trees because it reproduces through sperm which actually "swim" to the flowers for fertilization, much like ferns, mosses and algae. You can read more about the tree and this amazing form of reproduction here.

The slide show below is of our ginko tree, which was planted about 8 years ago. These photos were taken over a period of two weeks. The last two pictures were taken in the past two days. It's another interesting thing about ginkos, they tend to drop all of their leaves rapidly, within just a few days. When I was a student at UNC Chapel Hill in the late 70's there was an ancient ginko tree on campus and each fall there was a contest to guess "when will the ginko drop its leaves?" Aside from the unique fan shaped leaves, my favorite thing about this tree is its transition from deep green to gold, sometimes it seemed it turned more golden over the course of a single day. And the pale yellow field of leaves on the ground once the tree is bare is almost as lovely as the sight of the tree as its turning.

Wired for Sound

2011-11-14T21:14:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure if I've voiced it here, but I have been absolutely on fire lately. Kind of like that flaming maple leaf up above. Electric, wired for sound as we used to say. I could blame it on the moon but I've been this way for over a month now. I could attribute it to the change in the weather from hot to comfortable, which has me outside more and enjoying the world again, no longer trapped inside an air conditioned house wishing the fall would come. But more than that, I just think I am finally figuring out what it is I'm supposed to do with the rest of my life and I'm really excited about it. Ideas are pouring into my psyche almost faster than I can process them. It's a little scary sometimes, and at extreme moments I wonder if I'm suffering from some sort of mania, but all in all, I feel fabulous and fired up about my future and whats to come.

Now this might seem strange in a time when the world is really struggling on many levels. And until recently I'll admit I was pretty down myself wondering what else could go wrong with the economy, our political system, wars, drought and famine, climate change and all the other problems on the planet. And it's not that I have stopped worrying about all those things, but some how, I'm feeling better, like there is a shift in the universe, critical mass working towards a revolution that will bring us around before the cataclysm. Maybe its the Occupy folks and the recognition of the 99%, or the discovery in searching around the web of all kinds of groups and websites dedicated to good news, right and simple living and how we can still save the world and take care of everyone at the same time.

This week I came across the concept of Plenitude Economics or as Tree Hugger defines it: Work Less, Play More and Stop Screwing the Planet . Hop on over there and watch this 5 minute video based on the book and concepts of Juliet Schor. The basic premise is that if we all worked a little less, there would be more jobs to go around, we would all be happier and we would have more time to dedicate to our families and friends and to sustainable ways of being, like growing gardens and taking care of our communities and the earth. Its worth taking a look at.

This video and concept struck a chord with me. Over the past few years I've been able to work part-time, doing work I enjoy and that I find meaningful. As a result I've had more time to pay attention to the world around me, to be in my space, spend more time on the vegetable garden, take more walks in the woods. I enjoy walking out to hang the wash on the line, experiencing the day, paying attention to the weather. Before I would have used the dryer because I didn't have time to hang-up the clothes and take them back down, but now, I have the time, and I find enjoyment in the very act of carrying the clothes out and back, feeling the air and sun on my skin, smelling that fresh scent on the sheets when I climb into bed at night. And I'm saving a few kilowatts off the power bill.

These are the small and simple things that really make life worth living. We should all have the opportunity to have these moments. I want to keep having them and figure out how to help other people live freer and more simply too.

PS: I've added a gadget to my home page, over there on the right, where you can put in your e-mail address and you'll get a notice when I've posted to the blog so you don't have to keep checking all the time for something new. If you're so inclined, check it out and sign up, it's easy to do. And thanks to all of you that have commented and written about the blog since my plea for feedback a few weeks ago, that has helped me immensely to feel better about moving forward and blogging more. I appreciate all my readers. Thanks.

A Week of Delicious Food

2011-11-13T20:28:00.000-05:00

Kneading the sour dough

You may wonder how my efforts with the sourdough have been going since I procured some starter a couple of weeks ago. The rye I remembered so fondly was a bit heavy, but the flavor was nice, caraway is so distinctive. I tried pancakes and thought they were a little thin, we normally make a multi-grain buttermilk pancake and they are hard to top. The sourdough pancakes did have a stretchy texture that was interesting and the flavor was nice, we were thinking they would be good as crepes, or probably similar to the injera bread that they serve with Ethiopian food. Today I tried the french bread recipe in the Tassajara Bread Book and the loaves turned out enormous and lighter than I would expect french bread to be. I think in future I will make the loaves smaller and not let them rise quite so long. They did have a crisp crust and good sourdough flavor.

Seems we have been cooking and eating up a storm. Last week we made butternut squash ravioli and served them with garlic-herb butter, topped with pecans and fresh Parmesan. They were stupendous and not that hard to make. And bonus- half the batch went into the freezer for a super easy dinner sometime soon. We are still eating all kinds of fresh things from the garden, loads of salads, spinach, the last of the green beans, red peppers, sweet potatoes and herbs. The shitake logs are sprouting again, the food just keeps coming.

This was also our week to receive our Community Supported Fishery share from Core Sound Seafood. Here David is basting the scored flounder with hot oil. Not a diet dish, but WOW! this fried flounder topped with a Thai garlic sauce was spectacular. Beautiful and tasty too. We served it with a side of shitake mushrooms sauteed with red peppers, purple onion scallions and green beans over udon noodles.

Tomorrow starts another week that promises more glorious weather and hopefully the first head of fall broccoli from our patch. The woods have gone all golden brown and the leaves are coming down. Soon it will be time to break out the rakes and tidy up. I'm trying to get in as many bike rides as I can before the weather turns to winter. I hope autumn can hang on for a little while longer.

A Banner Birthday Celebration

2011-11-09T16:31:00.000-05:00

It's been a good week on Trout Lily Lane. The weather has been glorious; warm, sunny and the leaves are hitting peak. I've been working outside, cleaning up the front garden, weeding and cutting things back.

Yesterday was my birthday and it was an excellent day from start to finish. I met my friend Alison for what has become our regular morning swim on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Such a great way to start the day. We went out for a swell breakfast, I went to vote and then came home to spend the afternoon puttering outside. Dinner with our buddies John and Michele; homemade pizza, fresh salad and champagne. Then off to Playmakers theater to see The Parchman Hour. An excellent play about a group of Freedom Riders in the 60's who were arrested and incarcerated in the notorious Parchman penitentiary in Mississippi. To maintain their sanity, they organized nightly variety shows from their cells, singing and telling stories and jokes to get through the long nights. Good music, singing, choreography and historical references. Enjoyed by all. We topped off the night with dessert at the Lantern where I had a warm chocolate cake with roasted peanut ice cream, very tasty, but the star dessert was a coffee creme caramel.

If the quality of yesterday was any indication, I think its going to be a banner year.

In the yard the little Japanese maples have really come into their prime this week. We have several that David dug from my fathers yard, seedlings of uncertain parentage, they have all developed quite well, some turning red others coppery at this time of year. I look forward to seeing them mature over time.

Fall Back Into Darkness

2011-11-06T12:15:00.001-05:00

The time changed last night, always a weird thing. And I woke up at 5:00 new time, 6:00 old time and I couldn't go back to sleep. After coffee and writing my morning pages I wandered up to the corner to watch the light move over the land and sky. The cows were still hunkered down from the night, birds were beginning to twitter and twitch in the hedgerows. The air was very still and I could hear a great horned owl hoo hoo hoo-hoo off in the distance. A flock of geese honked across the morning sky looking for breakfast. Three planes took off from RDU, the first one catching the sun from below the horizon, making it look like a huge shooting start. I could hear the traffic on I-40 even at 7 AM on Sunday morning- the cars never stop moving down that road, 7 miles from us and I can hear it still.

I decided today must be the day to deal with these purple onions gone awry. I've been watching them sprout for weeks and saying, "I need to do something with those, I really do" The purples are the first to go, followed by the whites, the yellows are built for storage and should hold well into the winter. But these, I couldn't let them sit another day or I knew they would be wasted. So I cleaned them up, saved the sprouting greens to use as scallions, and sliced all the rest into rings.

With one pound I made these lovely pickles. They were easy and are crisp and mild. I poured boiling water over them in a colander and then set them to steep in the vinegar with herbs and peppercorns. The remaining three pounds are caramelizing on the stove as I write. I want to get outside and enjoy the beautiful day but those onions need my attention at the critical moment of reducing and browning, they should be done soon and then I'll be set free from my onion penitence. I only had to throw a few into the compost, too far gone.

Tonight dark will come early, it will be a shock. But hopefully I will rest well and adjust easily to the new schedule. I do appreciate having earlier morning light, but it is a trade-off. About 6 weeks still until the winter solstice, days continuing to shorten until that point. I hope the energy and joy I've been feeling lately can remain with me during the dark days to come.

GREENS!

2011-11-02T18:16:00.001-04:00

First mess of collards, last bowl of tomatoes

We have been eating greens every night and it's such a pleasure. Good and good for you, after a summer of eating beans, squash, tomatoes, corn and cabbage, it's a treat to be back to good old greens in so many forms. I've been sauteing kale and beet thinnings, spinach and chard. Tonight I'm going to shred that pile of collards above and saute them up in some olive oil with garlic and red pepper flakes, toss in a little water and put on the lid to let them steam until they are tender. We'll have a squash casserole that I froze in July and a chicken breast to round out the meal.

Tender mesclun in the garden ready to cut

A lettuce salad is pretty much required daily to stay on top of the crop. Ripe peppers, tomatoes, blanched and chilled green beans and radishes dress them up. I also buy those giant storage beets this time of year. I don't think you could ever grow one that big in NC. You can find organic ones at the grocery, they are ridiculously expensive, but who knows how long it took them to get that big. I'm talking about beets that weigh a pound and a half. Wash and dry and rub with oil and wrap tightly in tin foil. Roast in a 375 oven for about an hour to an hour and a half or until a small sharp knife sticks easily in. Cool and peel, they are tender and deep purple and sweet as candy. And one 24 ounce beet can cover a lot of salads, so don't blanch when it rings up as $4 or $5 at the store!

Fall Clean-up

2011-10-31T16:17:00.000-04:00

Stained Glass Dogwood

The power went out this morning just as I was sitting down to write an e-mail to my friends asking them to read my blog and leave me some comments. So instead, I bundled up and headed out into the chill morning to work on the veggie patch. I spent 5 hours and made fantastic progress. I picked the last of the green tomatoes, pulled down the vines, took down the trellis's, the posts, pulled up the landscape fabric, worked up the beds and sowed clover. I cut back the asparagus and weeded them. The oxalis had been creeping in all summer from the path. It will be back, already having gone to seed, but it looks better. I raked leaves from the pathways and added lots of stuff to the compost pile. I also squeezed in a load of wash that was almost dry by the time the rain started this afternoon.

Tidy Garden

Now I'm settled inside and am going to write that e-mail, so if you're reading this, hey, leave me a comment, it helps me know you're out there and liking what you see. A hot bath is in my future thanks to all the bending, digging and hauling I did today.

Coral bark maple, aglow even in the rain

First Frost and Flowers Still in Bloom

2011-10-30T18:39:00.000-04:00

Peppers wrapped up in their blanket for the night

We had our first frost last night with a temp of 33 this morning at dawn. It's supposed to be 29 tonight so we broke out the remay again and tucked in the pepper plants to keep them snug as they are still laden with fruit. With chilly nights the leaves are hitting their peak; hickories golden, dogwoods and sourwoods deep red and maple leaves, that look like licking red and yellow flames, litter the ground. The fig tree will now drop its leaves and give off a scent of coconut as you pass by. The ginko will start its slow transformation from green, to lime, to pale yellow, to gold.

There are still a few flowers in bloom, the asters and mums will fade soon now, they've been putting on a show for several weeks. The Nelly Moser Clematis above has cheered me with a nice set of late flowers. And a new plant that David brought home, already spectacular with its purple flowers, has leaves that have now started turning from a velvety greenish-gray to crimson. I don't know its name but it promises to be a highlight in the garden, a tender perennial that supposedly dies back in the winter and regrows to 2-3 feet in the spring.

We had a swell brunch with our good friends John and Michele; prosecco mimosas, whole grain pancakes, maple syrup, soysage and an apple-walnut salad. Afterwards we took a long walk around the land and up the mountain, marveling at the turning leaves like stained glass against the blue sky. I relish the change in the season, the coming long nights, fires in the stove, making the house feel toasty, safe and secure.

It's good to be alive.

On Bread and Cooking

2011-10-28T16:16:00.000-04:00

I’ve been having a hankering for the sourdough rye bread I baked years ago from the Tassajara Bread Book. We’ve been baking the New York Times no knead bread for several years. It’s so easy and with a miraculous crust thanks to the trick of baking it in a very hot oven in a heavy enameled pot for half an hour with the lid on so it steams and then a half an hour without the lid to finish the perfect crispy crust.

In search of starter, I called up my friend and neighbor Karen Barker of Magnolia Grill fame, where David and I worked way back in 1986 when they first opened. She gifted me with a couple of cups of her sourdough starter that she told me they've been using for bread at the Grill for 18 years. Now that’s a tradition and I think there is nothing like longevity when it comes to food.

With a cold gray forecast on the horizon for today it seemed the right moment for baking. Last night I pulled out my grandmothers’ chipped, sienna brown, crockery bread bowl and mixed together flour, water and starter and set it on top of the freezer, constantly warm, to steep, stew and ferment. This morning I took a cup of starter out of the sponge, the whole batch now stretchy and with a mud like consistency, to keep for next time. I added the rye and wheat flour, salt, oil and caraway seed, kneaded the dough and set it to rise.

This is not bread machine bread, I never understood the appeal of those machines that churn out a strange square loaf. My father bought one in the 80’s and went on a bread baking craze, trying all kinds of recipes out on willing visitors. But that bread was never right to me, the crust and shape all wrong. I would prefer an uneven loaf any day. I think he finally came to the same conclusion and eventually stowed the machine in the back of a cupboard where it gathered dust for the rest of his life.

When I pulled out my old Tassajara book, published in 1970, it brought back fond memories from my youth. It was from this book that I taught myself to bake bread as a teen. The thorough instructions of kneading and rising made all the difference. While the no knead bread is easy, I missed the feel of dough under the palms of my hands, pushing and folding, pushing and folding until the dough takes on a smooth and resistant quality. Only by doing it again and again can you know the perfect feel, that you’ve added just the right amount of flour and worked the dough long enough to develop the gluten that promises a nice loaf with good crumb.

The simple paperback book is stained brown with age, pieces of oatmeal stuck to the pages, a flip through them reminded me of the many recipes I’d tried, successes and failures in my early years of baking. It was from bread that I launched into my career in food. I first worked as a baker at the Pyewacket Cafe, Chapel Hill’s original vegetarian restaurant that recently folded after a long and happy life of over 2 decades.

In 1980 I took it on the road, moving to Austin where I worked my way up through several restaurants finishing with a four year run with Sweetish Hill Bakery and Restaurant. There I worked with other young chefs under the tutelage of Patricia Bauer-Slate. She was generous with the sharing of her knowledge gleaned from cooking school in Belgium. It was there I established my base of classic French cuisine, poring over the pages of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French cooking, perfecting the mother sauces; Hollandaise, Béarnaise, veloute and béchamel, demi-glace made from beef bones browned with vegetables in the oven and then boiled into a rich stock, later reduced with tomato to a sweet, dark glace.

Patricia held weekly classes for her chefs teaching us how to bone a duck, make a galantine, prepare sweetbreads, pates and sausages. In 1980 no one was talking about cholesterol. We kept a 5 gallon stock pot on the back burner of the 10 burner stove with clarified butter cut from chunks out of a 50 pound block. The bakery there was famous for its crusty French loaves and authentic croissant and Danish made from freshly rolled dough filled with more slabs of butter.

When I returned to Chapel Hill in 1986 I went to work for the Barkers. I first found them at the Fearrington House restaurant and then went on to Durham and the newly opened Magnolia Grill. Watching and working with Ben and Karen I honed my skills in the new American cuisine. This food was intricate, multi-layered in flavors and ingredients with a focus on fresh and locally grown. I developed a new appreciation for my family’s southern roots and my French cooking background as I learned from Ben ways to take the old standards in a whole different direction.

My professional cooking days ended in 1989 when I returned to school, tired of the long hours and low pay of restaurant work. It’s not the glamorous world it’s cracked up to be these days with so many famous chefs, restaurants and cooking shows. They say the average American only spends 25 minutes a day preparing food, though they may watch 2 hours of cooking TV per day! I have no regrets about my years spent in kitchens. I learned to love food and to prepare it in every way imaginable and from that foundation I continue today to appreciate food, now more simply prepared than in the days of yore, but fresher than ever, much of it straight from the garden. Most days we spend more than 2 hours cooking, and without TV, I never watch food shows anymore.

I pay homage to Patricia, Karen and Ben today as I sit down to a lunch of vichyssoise made from our homegrown leeks and potatoes, finished with cream from the dairy up the road and topped with fresh chives snipped from just outside the kitchen door. Topping it off, a fat slice of freshly baked sourdough bread, spread with homemade butter. What better way to spend a somewhat gloomy October afternoon.

The Year in Vegetables

2011-10-27T20:32:00.000-04:00

Georgia Streak, a new tomato for this year. We will definitely grow them again. Like a sunburst inside and out, sweet and meaty and more prolific than many heirlooms we've tried.

I thought since the vegetable season was winding down it was time for a reckoning of how much food we grew and put by this year. Not that the season is really over, but all the major crops are in and I'm pretty impressed with what we managed to grow in our roughly 40 by 60 square feet of garden space.

For storage crops we pulled the following from the ground:
Onions; Yellow, white and red                          70#
Garlic                                                              60 heads
Potatoes; red, yellow and butterball        20#
Sweet potatoes      50#
Butternut squash      10 squash

In the freezer we've put by:
Tomato Sauce     9 quarts
Whole tomatoes                                                2 dozen

Peppers;
    Bell: yellow and red chopped              2 quarts
    Mixed: Roasted and peeled                              3 dozen
    Serrano chili paste                                            1 pint
    Whole serranos                                              1 quart

Snap Beans;
    green and yellow                          4 quarts
    Chinese yard long                                             2 quarts

Shell beans;
    Borlotto       2 quarts
    Black-eye purple hull peas 5 quarts

Leeks, chopped and sauteed         2 pints
Basil Pesto 2 pints

Okra       1 quart
Blueberries      2 quarts

Canned:
Fig preserves        30 half pints
Dill Pickles    6 quarts

On top of that we ate a mountain of veg over the course of the year starting in April with the earliest greens. Spinach, lettuce, arugula, kale, Swiss chard and beet greens filled our plates from April through June. We had cabbage too along with sugar snap peas. I wager we harvested over 30# of asparagus but I wasn't weighing it, just eating it as fast as I could and giving the rest to friends for 5 weeks in April and May. There were root crops; carrots, beets, radishes and turnips. So many we couldn't eat them all. Last night I roasted a big pan of mixed veggies including 5 big turnips that had been in the fridge since June! They were still tasty.

When the warm weather rolled around it was beans, beans, beans; haricot verts, blue lake, yellow wax, Garden of Eden, and an Italian flat variety called Pension. I also grow a small trellis of Chinese yard long beans, so generous and easy and great in stir fries. There were 4 kinds of cucumbers; Diva, Tasty Jade, Suyo Long and a pickling cuke, we were required to eat one or two a day for many weeks. There were 5 kinds of squash, three kinds of okra, 12 varieties of tomatoes, and 4 types of eggplants.
In July we consumed loads of tomatoes and in August the peppers started rolling in along with the shell beans and the second planting of snap beans.

Clockwise from the back, shell and snap beans, tomatoes with pasilla chiles on top, roasted peppers and fresh peppers.

In fruit we picked about 4 or 5 quarts of strawberries in late May from our small 3 by 10 foot patch. The blueberries came next, even with the birds we picked enough to eat all we wanted for at least a month. In July we had some nice fat blackberries. Then in August the figs came on like gangbusters, so fast and furious I had to put up 2 batches of jam. We ate so many we feared for our digestive health :-) July and August also brought the biggest cantaloupes we've ever grown. Several topped 10 pounds and all came up voluntarily from seeds in the compost I put in the beds when I planted the onions in February. They know when to sprout and conveniently take over the onion bed after the onions have been harvested.

The corn was my only real disappointment this year. I hadn't grown any in many years because of raccoons, but David erected an elaborate electric fence to protect both the corn patch and the fig tree so I gave it a whirl. The plants tasseled and released their pollen before the ears had really formed and so the corn was tiny and also kind of starchy. Maybe not a good variety, but I'll probably give it another try next year now that we have a protective enclosure.

An especially swell summer dinner plate

Now the fall crops are coming in, beautiful tender mixed lettuces, spinach, kale and beet greens. The peppers are still loaded with fruit and a few tomatoes continue to trickle in. Broccoli and cabbage are heading up. Beets and carrots are starting to form under ground. The garlic for next year is in the ground and sprouting bright green shoots. All of this food growing is a ton of work, but the rewards are great. How fortunate we are to have more than enough food when so many go hungry. Knowing that it is organic and fresh and nutritious right from our own back yard makes the work worthwhile.

Moment of Wonder

2011-10-11T22:25:00.000-04:00

I had the good fortune of attending the Natural Learning Initiative's Design Institute last week at the North Carolina Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill. Two days of presentations and workshops on getting kids outside, exploring nature and teaching adults how to learn to play again so they can help kids do the same.

It's a sad fact that many kids don't get an opportunity to splash in creeks, play in the mud, search for bugs, climb trees, use their imaginations and take risks in the wild world anymore. NLI's mission is to help create spaces and places where kids can once again explore the natural world and in so doing develop a greater sense of self and stewardship for our fragile planet.

This is my third year attending the design institute and each time I've been struck with an overwhelming combination of sadness and hope. Sadness that the childhood I remember with so much freedom and opportunity to test my limits is outside the framework of most modern kids. Hope that efforts like NLI and their colleagues around the world are making it possible for kids to have these kinds of experiences again.

I heard about a place in the British Isles where children go with school groups and birthday parties for a "barefoot swamp walk" pretty much as it sounds, they take off shoes and slide into a waist deep trench of water and walk, sometimes crawl, through the mud. When they finish they scream for another turn and finally get hosed down before changing into warm dry clothes.

Phil Waters, a play worker at the Eden Project in Cornwall spoke about his latest effort, "Muddy Shorts" an outdoor adventure program for kids with disabilities where they have the same opportunities as children without disabilities to play in mud, build rafts, get wet, climb in nets, sit in old airplanes, toast marshmallows over open fires and enjoy being outside.

When I first heard Phil speak three years ago I thought- though the term play worker feels oxymoronic- I would love to have that as my job title. Don't know if that will every happen but it sure is good to know that there are people in the world who are helping kids to play again. And there are things going on right here in our own community thanks to NLI and BCBSNC and others. More on that in a later post.

For now- suffice it to say that having the chance to have a freshly hatched and tagged monarch butterfly placed on my nose in preparation for flight was a once in a lifetime experience. Having it wander around on my face for 10 minutes was pretty spectacular too. As I stood with my eyes closed and faced the sun to help my friend warm up, I was filled with so much pleasure and joy it brought tears to my eyes. Or was it the tickling feet of the butterfly that made me cry? The cause is not important, the depth of feeling is what counts. I'm so lucky to have the chance to be a part of this movement of bringing kids back outside.

Click photo to enlarge and see the citizen science tracking tag on this butterflies wing

Trout and Ocean

2011-09-22T11:11:00.002-04:00

Once again I am firmly ensconced at the Barrett Cottage, corner of Trout and Ocean, Topsail Island, NC for the third year in a row on the third week of September.

This morning I woke at 6 and peered out the door to see a crescent moon high in the sky, hanging at about 12 o'clock over the ocean. The moon was surrounded by bright stars and the first blushes of orange appeared between the storm clouds piled along the horizon across the ocean. I made a cappucino, grabbed a couple of chocolate chip cookies and headed for the upper deck where I took the top photo.

I then walked over to the beach and took this one. No wires or telephone poles.

I walked towards the pier and watched the sky show. A pair of dolphins fished just past the breakers and they guided me up the beach. The tide was low and the sand was broad and glistening with the red and pink light reflected from the rising sun.

It's day 4 and I'm feeling well entrenched. Swimming, yoga, reading, bike rides, beach walks and lots of fresh seafood for supper.

My companions are 3 fine ladies and we'll be joined today by another. It doesn't get much better than this.

Fire Season is Around the Corner

2011-09-16T23:16:00.000-04:00

Now that its September, we've been working on getting more firewood together, should have done it sooner but its just been too hot.

We started in late spring taking down a 100 year old oak that had died up in the cow pasture. My brother Chris, his father-in-law Ray, David and I worked all one day cutting the smaller tops and starting on the trunk. My brother decided it was too big to mess with and said we could have it. Good hardwood that we can get to easily is hard to come by and David was determined to harvest this tree. He whittled away at it over the summer, working a few hours at a time on cooler mornings, reducing the double trunks- each two feet across-into 16 inch sections, the length of our wood stove. Finally two weekends ago, Ray returned to the scene with D and I and we spent 8 hours with the hydraulic splitter reducing that monster to stove size pieces. Over the course of the next week we hauled it back down to the house, first in the trailer and I finished it up on Wednesday using the pick-up truck for the last two loads. I think all in all it made about 6 truck loads, probably 3 cords, and should get us not only through the coldest weather this season but probably into next fall.

The downed tree had started to rot while it was still standing, so it had a million grubs and beetles and larvae tunneling and eating away at the bark. All around and under the logs were toads and lizards. David said "we upset a few ecosystems" as we dismantled that scene of decay. The splitter popped some of the logs apart in neat slabs, other times it tore at the red fibrous wood of the tree, stretching and pulling at the sinewy grain. As I pushed and pulled the lever of the splitter over and over I thought the wood looked like pot roast or some other red meat. Some logs revealed the ancient core of branches and burls, I could see the strength that lay within the wood, able to hold that tree so tall and solid, but I could also sense the amount of energy that had been captured there, by years of sun and rain and photosynthesis. Now that energy will be translated back into heat to keep us warm this winter.

I always say "You gotta love a project that has you moving heavy objects multiple times". In this case; onto the splitter, onto the trailer, off of the trailer, onto the wood pile and later, into the other wood pile and then finally into the fire. Who needs Curves?

Otters!

2011-09-11T16:03:00.000-04:00

The top experience of my week would be my sighting on Thursday. On my morning walk as I was passing the pond, I was startled by something large slithering through the grass and plopping into the pond, the sound repeated almost immediately. I knew they were too big to be snakes or turtles. As I looked across the water a huge smile crossed my face as out of the ripples two young otters popped their heads up and started huffing and snorting at me as they swished and swirled around in the water. Then I heard a third animal snorting and here came mom. The three hung together, sort of hiding behind the tip of a pine tree downed across the water. They held their heads up and sniffed the air, as curious about me as I was about them. The babies would swim around a bit then go back to mom. We checked each other out for a while and then the babies swam over towards an old beaver lodge in the dam. I walked that way but they disappeared, I think they must have gone up inside the lodge, one minute they were there, then they were gone. I always hope they'll stick around whenever I see them, but its rare to spot them at all and always in the past its been a one time thing. They are gone in search of food or another watery place to swim, play and hunt.

The Frogs Are Happy

2011-09-07T21:26:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the strangest day. Tropical storm Lee passed through here and brought a couple of inches of much needed rain. But it didn't come steady, or all at once, but rather in spurts. The sun would come out for a while, and then there would be a deep long rumbling of rolling thunder, then suddenly hard rain. Then the sun would shine again, then more thunder, then RAIN. And it went on like that for most of the day. A break in the afternoon was followed in the evening by the same pattern repeating itself again.

I was happy for it, we didn''t get much rain at all from Hurricane Irene and the creek is still dry, only now there are some big puddles down there.

If you know me you might know I have an affinity for frogs and have a small collection of froggies. David found the one above in a pile of leaf mulch one day and brought it home for me. We could have uncrumpled it but agreed that the squished nature of this little guy added to his charm. So here he sits on the kitchen window sill, giving me a smile when I'm there at the sink working at something or other. The pattern on that leaf there is pretty groovy too.

Windows are open again and that is also a blissful scene. So quickly we had become accustomed to the air and night sounds that when we closed up again for a couple of nights due to the return of the heat and humidity, despite the AC, we suffered and woke in the wee hours tossing and sweaty from the lack of fresh air in the room. As David says "When the windows are open, the rooms feel so much bigger."

Fall is in the air

2011-09-01T22:32:00.000-04:00

It's the first of September, and I realize I managed to go all the way through August without a single post! August was a busy month that included a camping trip to Grayson Highlands State Park to escape the heat. The altitude there is 4500 feet so we had a few days with cool air and high winds, lots of walks up the gorgeous Wilson Creek. It was almost too cold to swim, but we did.

Later in the month I traveled to NYC to attend the American Community Gardening Association annual meeting and was blown away by all the amazing things people in NYC are doing to bring gardens and fresh food to folks in the inner city that haven't previously had much access to real foods. They're setting up farmers markets, teaching teens and adults in the community to grow food and sell it, providing CSA shares at low-cost and on a pay by the week basis to low-income seniors. I could do a whole post on that trip and should.

Back here at home we have finally gotten a break in the weather- I can feel fall in the air as the temps and humidity have dropped to a much more comfortable level, we've even been opening the windows at night and letting in the cool air and soothing night sounds of crickets, frogs and owls.

In the veg garden it is definitely pepper time. The red bells pictured above are the most spectacular. The Pasilla plants are taller than me and loaded with long, slender, deep green chiles, ready for roasting.

These ragged looking cucumber plants are still putting on a couple of cukes a day! I planted about 12 plants of three varieties, (Tasty Jade, Diva and Suyo Long) back in April and they are still producing. How many cucumbers can you eat?

Today I worked on getting the fall garden going. I planted seeds for carrots, beets, radishes, spinach and lettuce. Also set out broccoli and cauliflower plants. Still have cabbage and collards to get into the ground but need to prepare the beds first.

The summer garden is still going pretty strong, I've pulled out the first plantings of beans but the second planting is looking very good and is about to start producing. I've been harvesting purple hull peas off the first planting already as well. Below is the third patch of beans with purple hull peas on the right half and Italian flat beans on the left. There are also a couple of butternuts that have volunteered and are creeping along the edge of the path. At the back is one of my fall plantings of carrots and beets and beyond that the last of the cantaloupes which are pretty well played out. The tomatoes are finishing up as well. Given the intense heat and lack of rain in July, things look remarkably good

I am thrilled at the break in the weather, the prospect of autumn and the transition to fall crops. I've missed the greens. Going to try and get more consistent about posting.....

Gertie Pays a Visit

2011-07-11T17:43:00.000-04:00

The other day I was sitting at the little table in the shade where I rest between bouts of garden chores. There I write in my journal, sip a cold drink, relax and take in the view. I kept hearing a crunching sound coming from the front garden. I couldn't determine if it was in the trees, perhaps a squirrel or a bird? Or on the ground, lizard or turtle? Eventually Gertie showed herself as she crossed the path near where I was sitting and David fetched a blossom end rotted tomato from the garden for her. She happily chomped away and then headed off to do whatever it is turtles do all day, hunt for slugs and snails I imagine.

It finally rained, hallelujah. We got about 2.5 inches last week- the first rain in about a month. All the plants seem happy and the grass is growing so I'll have to mow again soon- the only down side to rain that I can figure. But following the rain are predicted the hottest days we've seen yet, tomorrow is to hit 101 with a heat index of 105- oh mercy. I'm glad I don't have to be outside much and can hide in the comfort of the AC.

The garden continues to shower us with delicious beans, squash and cukes, the tomatoes are being slow to come on as we got them in late but I think in another week they too will begin to pile up. I made 3 more quarts of dill pickles yesterday to add to the 3 I made a couple of weeks ago and I think that will be enough for one season. The blueberries are hitting their stride and we are picking about a pint a day so I'll probably start to freeze some of those soon as well. There are benefits to summertime in the form of fresh food, I just wish it wasn't quite so hot.

I snapped this photo a week or so ago, we've been enjoying nibbling on these yellow fennel flowers, the bulbs haven't really formed and are tough, but the flowers add a sweet fennel flavor to salads or a breath freshening chew when you pass by out in the garden. The sunflower is a volunteer. Call me common, but I like the look of the laundry as the back drop.

Summer is Official

2011-06-24T21:02:00.000-04:00

HOWDY!
It's been way too long since I've stopped in here. With the solstice last Tuesday summer is official and I thought I better get a post in before June completely passed me by. Don't you love that pink glow from the center of this leek flower? The honey bee seems attracted by it as well.

Life was hectic and then we took a trip to Kentucky and Ohio to visit Davids relatives; living, dying and dead.. By this I mean we visited graveyards and tombstones as well as aging and sickly aunts and uncles and then spent two good days with the siblings and niece and nephew which was a refreshing reprieve. The weather was a refreshing reprieve as well. We drove through a cold front and when we got out of the car in Lexington,Kentucky it felt like April; dry, 70 degrees and breezy. That was truly a blessing.

On the way back home we visited a favorite park, Cave Mountain Lake, though on the weekend it was packed with people, nothing like the time we were there mid week a year or so ago and it was deserted. I must say I prefer the latter.

On the home front we've harvested about 80 pounds of onions and 75 heads of garlic and will be digging potatoes this weekend. Glad to have a good onion harvest after a couple of years of so-so production. We're covered up with squash, beans and cucumbers and the blueberries are just starting to come on but it looks like it will be a good season for them if we can keep putting enough water down there. It's dry and hot, what unfortunately seems to be the typical summer pattern here anymore. I'm praying every day for a thunderstorm to pass our way but we've had nothing in over two weeks and the dirt is like powder.

I'm kinda proud of these fat beets too. Gave them some extra fertilizer a month or so ago and been giving them lots of water and now they are sweet and plump. They are going into lots of salads with cucumbers, purple onions and either fennel flowers or fresh dill. Yeah, that's living brother. The greens are might tasty too.

BOOM! Hot weather is here.

2011-05-31T21:42:00.000-04:00

Summer came on all at once and with a vengeance. We've had a solid week of days in the upper 80's and 90's and there is another one just like it forecast for the days to come. I'm trying not to complain since we had the longest coolest spring I can remember for many years. But I sure hope we get a break and are not going to see temps in the 90's for three straight months. It's enough to make me consider moving further north, for the summer at least.

In the meantime, I'm thinking hard about where I can get to some moving cool water and I have a couple of nearby rivers in mind for later this week.

Today I had to take my car to the shop. When I got in the car on Sunday and cranked up the AC it was painfully obvious that something had died. Stinkola. Sure enough an unfortunate mouse had met its demise in the fan blades of my AC system and with the hot days had gotten quite ripe quite quickly. I hope it won't take too long to get the smell out of there...

On a lighter note, the horsetail (Equisetum hyemale) coming up through the chives in flower was pretty stunning last week. This is the edge of what I call the invasive plants garden. We just try to keep things contained and let them battle it our for superiority and space. Horsetail, mint, painters palette (Persicaria virginiana), traveling ferns and salvia. They look pretty good all together and seem to co-exist somehow. But take heed, do not plant horsetail in your garden, you will be fighting it for the rest of eternity, even the lawnmower can barely keep it at bay. We pull it up wholesale on a regular basis and it just grows right back. The new shoots are cool looking, but I rue the day I planted it in my yard.

The cicadas are still at it though they seem to be easing up some. Lots of dead ones litter the ground and leave a slightly uric smell on the air. The tips of the tree branches are starting to turn brown where the females have cut the bark to lay their eggs and now those tips are drying and will soon fall. I'll be glad when things are quieter again.

The onions are starting to fatten up and their tops fall over signaling harvest time coming soon. The garlic tops are drying and browning too, I've starting pulling a few heads just to cook with, I finally used up the last head from last season a couple of weeks ago. It feels pretty good to have grown enough garlic to get us through a whole year and this years crop promises to be as abundant. The pea crop is peaking, despite the heat. Summer crops look really good; the beans, squash and cukes are some of the healthiest plants I can remember. I hope that continues. We tickled out a handful of new red potatoes the other night and they were super sweet and tasty, I'm leaving the rest to keep on growing. I still haven't gotten my pepper plants in the ground, it's been too darn hot, but maybe tomorrow? As usual, there is no end to the gardening demands this time of year.

It's Mid-May! Where does the time go?

2011-05-17T22:28:00.001-04:00

It's been awhile since I've been here. Ran into some trouble posting photos which frustrated me and just been plain busy with no time to blog. Not that there hasn't been plenty to write about.

Take the cicadas for example. The 13 year periodical magicicadas of the great southern brood XIX. I didn't make that up, that's what they are. And when you walk outside our house it sounds like a spaceship is landing on top of us. I feel like I'm in a sci-fi movie, Day of the Locust perhaps? They are noisy and its predicted to last several weeks, but they are not really a problem like back in the days of plagues of locusts. I read an account from the diary of a western settler who described having locusts fly inside their clothes and eat away their underwear. I should think that might drive me mad if I had lived through it. But the cicadas are LOUD. And everywhere. If you look towards the trees in any direction for more than a minute you'll see their heavy orange bodies, like little footballs with wings, gliding from branch to branch. Walking up the road to get the mail yesterday the gravel was littered with their remains.They're a remarkable phenomenon though and one I won't hear or see again until I'm 65 years old!

I could also talk about the peonies, but I'll just show these photos instead.

They're coming to an end, the softball sized, double pinks have mostly been cut and brought inside or given away as they get so heavy they bend their stems and fall face first into the dirt. Not acceptable, they must be cut and brought in to scent the whole house with their heady perfume.

Maybe you'd like to know what we've been eating from the garden lately. The asparagus are winding down after a solid 5 weeks of heavy bearing. It's a tough job eating all those jade beauties but somebodies got to do it. The strawberries are also coming to a close, their red sweetness gracing my breakfast for several weeks now. I'll have to wait a few more weeks for blueberries, but I'm happy to report the bushes are loaded with plump clusters of green fruit.

We finished the last of the wintered over cabbages this week and the radishes are about gone. We're buried in tender lettuce, spinach, kale, chard and green onions. Peas are about to start happening as are beets and carrots. The cukes, squash and first planting of beans are up. Planted two more varieties of beans yesterday. All of the tomatoes are finally in the ground. Twenty plants, 12 varieties, 3 cherry, 2 plum and various slicers including Cherokee purple, yellow taxi and green zebra. I'm hoping for some very colorful tomato sampler plates and salads this season.

The weather has continued to be remarkably cool and beautiful with fairly plentiful and frequent rains for which I am grateful. It's been one of the nicest and longest springs I can remember having in these parts.

We have been busy and continue to be so, the process of growing and making so much of our own food is a time consuming proposition. The KP alone can sometimes overwhelm. I do understand why lots of people eat fast and pre-processed food, but I'm glad I'm not one of them.

In closing, I share this fantastic pairing of Jackmanii clematis and the pale pink New Dawn rose. I got the idea from the Wayside Gardens catalog and it's a winner. This is even better than I imagined it would be, I can see it from the kitchen window, the flowers softening the many hours I spend at the sink.

April Continues to Blow Me Away

2011-04-26T21:45:00.000-04:00

The front walk this week

Who knew that columbines could become borderline invasive. That's what all the purple is on both sides of the pathway, the result of scattering seeds willy nilly fall after fall. We do have lots of nice hybrid colors, dark purple, blue, pale lavender, plum. But too many of all of them, so this season we'll be removing some plants after they finish blooming and won't be scattering seeds.

It's been a spectacular April. Lots of rain making things lush and happy, enough warm weather to get things blooming, but no so much to make them finish too quick. I continue to revel in the glory of it and am eternally grateful to live in such a fabulous place.

A typical days harvest from the asparagus patch

Needless to say they are daily on the plate. Favorite combos; asparagus and eggs and/or muenster cheese and/or mushrooms. I've been eating piles of them blanched in salads and the skinny ones get munched raw in the garden the moment they are picked.

Illini Warrior, the first peony to bloom

I've waxed poetic in these posts many times on the glories of the peony, my favorite flower, queen of the garden. The next two weeks should be peony filled, I'll try to be better about posting. We planted a lot of new varieties a couple of years ago and they are finally large enough that they should put on a very good show this year. This Illini is so red it looks superimposed in this photo!

Radishes just say spring don't they?

Especially these Easter egg radishes in their fancy colors. Lots of these have been going into the salads along side the asparagus. I'm also fond of slicing them thin and layering them onto home baked crusty white bread spread with fresh butter and sprinkled with salt...

The lilac is in full bloom

It's funny how small this bush looks in this picture. The scent it casts is anything but, you can smell it all over the yard and inside the house. At night the fragrance wafts over and into the windows by our bed, making for sweet dreams. That chair right there in the photo, that is where I want to be sitting as often as possible, surrounded by the glorious soft scent of lilac.

The Endless Work of Spring

2011-04-10T22:47:00.000-04:00

Traveler red bud,and Prairie Fire crab apple, bright even on a dreary day

Spring has taken over my life! Partly too much work associated with my job, I've been recruiting and enrolling and orienting new families at the community gardens and we are now up to 35 families with 77 kids gardening at 2 locations, I only have 3 garden plots left to fill. Between work and having a thousand chores to do here at home, I seem to be paralyzed sometimes, I just want to wander around the yard and soak up the beauty of it all, but that doesn't get work done. Add to that the fact that I haven't been sleeping well, (I think it is a combination of stress and menopause), I am waking up all too many nights at 2:30 and cannot seem to get back to sleep. Sorry, but 3 to 4 hours of sleep just doesn't cut it, too many mights in a row like that and I get a bit crabby, not to mention exhausted.

I did manage to sleep last night and to achieve my one goal for today which was to get my little tomatoes stepped up into larger pots. I now have 46 tomato plants, about 12 varieties. I will start to harden them off by moving them outside during the day and back in at night to prepare for setting out in the garden in about 2 weeks. This is about twice what we need, but I always start too many.

Tonight we had our first batch of asparagus, cooked up with three large spring onions and a half pound of shrimp, simple and sweet, so yummy served over rice. We also had our first spring greens, baby lettuce, arugula, spinach and red Russian kale, all mixed up into a tender and delicious salad to go along side the main dish.

In my not spare time I have been doing things like culturing cream with buttermilk. The yield from 3 quarts of cream; 1 and a half quarts of buttermilk, a cup of creme fraiche and a pound and a half of the best butter I've ever tasted. Tonight we had an appetizer of butter spread on our homemade white bread, topped with thin sliced french breakfast radishes, sprinkled with salt and pepper. Yeah.

So many textures and colors

The dogwoods are in full bloom now, spectacular against the blue, blue sky

These are the images of scenes that stop me in my tracks as I am crossing the yard with another wheelbarrow of mulch, or a shrub to find a place for, we just can't seem to stop bringing plants home even though we are running out of room. Oh the conflicts of springtime, so many plants, so little time...

First Day of Spring

2011-03-20T22:52:00.000-04:00

Weeping Plum

Peonies Bursting Forth

Candelabra Magnolia

Baby Cows

Easter Egg Primroses

Bouquets

A Long Shot

The beauty that surrounds us here leaves me pretty much speechless. All I can say is, I'm so glad to be alive in such a fantastic corner of this world. Spring fills me with joy, hope and awe.

March is almost half over!

2011-03-13T21:32:00.000-04:00

Fragrant plum blossoms

We planted two plum trees last spring. Methley and Ozark Premier. The Methley is self-pollinating the Ozark needs the premier to cross-pollinate its flowers to make fruit. I'm not sure which is which, one of those things I meant to write down... This one is in full bloom, its branches absolutely covered. The other tree has nary a flower on it, not sure if its light or what, but we hope it gets with the program next season so the two will be able to help each other out and we'll actually get some plums on both.

The weather has been conducive to lots of outdoor activities and garden preparation. I planted the spring vegetables a couple of weeks ago and the seeds are slowly starting to sprout, now that we are heading towards the full moon, more begin to emerge. Arugula, as always was the first to sprout, then lettuce, turnips, radishes and kale, now the peas and beets are starting to show too. I'm still waiting on the carrots, they are always the slowest to germinate.

These cabbages, planted late last fall, wintered over and are really starting to head up now. They look so jolly out there, like they are wearing bonnets. We've also been working our way through the flower beds. It's arduous cleaning out the perennials, cutting them back, fertilizing and weeding, mulching and trimming. But when its done it looks so very fine and tidy, like a fresh coat of paint or mowing the lawn, a new layer of dark leaf mulch really spruces the place up. All the young green plants are starting to shoot up, day lilies, columbines, daffodils, phlox, asters and mums. The peonies are sending up there sexy red bud tips. Hostas and ferns are still hiding below, waiting for slightly warmer days before they peek out to find the light.

We'll have to get at least two more truck loads of leaf mulch to finish the job, maybe three. There are too many flower beds, and plantings around here to keep up with, but we are making progress.

Fire Wood Hauling Workout

2011-02-15T20:02:00.000-05:00

The fire season has been the most intense I remember in a while. The cold weather has made us go through our wood stash fast. Today I was gathering kindling again, this time of year we need more as we often let the fire die down during the day. The temps are warmer, and we are low on wood, no point wasting it. If we stoke the stove first thing in the morning and then bank the coals and ash against the side mid to late morning, there will be coals in the evening when we want to fire it up again. But that doesn’t always happen, so more kindling is needed to restart the fire at the end of the day.

Wood hauling has declined this week. Instead of a cartload or two pulled from the far side of the yard to the near side of the yard where a large wood rack sits under the deck and a smaller one up top, this time of year, it’s a wheelbarrow load or two. When we are filling both racks in December and January, we work together loading, hauling, stacking. To get the wood up the ten steps to the deck we use a large burnt orange nylon bag with stout handles that we can fill with 12 or 13 logs and each grab a handle and climb the stairs together to load the rack up top. We switch sides midway to keep from over working one arm.

Now I carry the wood up in my arms by myself, I see the extra trips up the steps with smaller loads as a part of my wood hauling workout; lifting, reaching, toting and moving all those logs. After that activity I think to myself, time to start upping the abdominal work to protect my back from the digging, bending and hauling that will be coming up as we begin to prepare and plant the vegetable garden and clean out the flower beds.

By mid- spring the wheelbarrow will sit at the bottom of the stairs and we'll just run down and get an armful as needed. When there are days and nights with no fire we'll reach a point of running across the yard with the big orange bag and just grabbing enough for bedtime and coffee time on the last cold nights. Soon enough there will be no fire at all.

The promise of spring is in the air, the days are warming, yet after dark it’s still clear and chilly. At the moment, the moon is bright. I’ve been watching it as it rises, before the sun has set, about ¾’s full and so brilliant, even in the blue sky. By Friday it will be full and shining in the bedroom window in the wee hours, pulling on our lunatic instincts, keeping us from a deep sleep as we roll and toss thinking of the projects and chores before us as our sap begins to rise.

Spring is around the corner

2011-02-12T12:36:00.000-05:00

MIA once again- it's been a very busy few weeks since my return from the coast. Work is picking up steam with spring fast approaching so I've been busy with preparations for the fourth season of the Growing Healthy Kids garden project. We have our first big organizational and planning meeting this afternoon with about 25 returning families and a few new folks, it will be a room filled with kids, parents and hopefully lots of energy to plan our upcoming workshops and workdays.

Last weekend I had the good fortune to attend a Growing Communities workshop in Charlottesville, Virginia sponsored by the American Community Gardening Association. An action packed 2 days learning tools and techniques for organizing communities around the development of community gardens. A fantastic group of diverse folks were there, many from Charlottesville but also California, New York and New Jersey! I got a ton of great ideas for doing more leadership development with our garden families as well as ideas for spearheading more community garden work overall in the Chapel Hill area, it was inspiring.

I stopped into Roanoke to visit my friend Carol on the way home and we had a big time dining at a place called Local Roots, specializing- you guessed it- in local ingredients. I enjoyed a slice of head cheese topped with a sunny side up egg as an appetizer and brook trout with parsnips, potatoes, kale and bacon for my entree, oooh yummm. Sunday morning was cool and clear and we walked for about three hours around the Roankoke reservoir, birdwatching and sharing each others company. Pileated and red headed woodpeckers were our companions as we wandered through the hardwood forest.

I wound my way home starting with a section of the Blue Ridge Parkway, the views were spectacular and it was a slow journey as I kept stopping to take in the view.

On the tail end of winter this is a recent scene from the dining table. We've been making lots of slaw and raw veggie type salads, this version had grated raw beets and carrots, green cabbage and fennel, dressed with olive oil and lemon juice; crunchy, colorful and tasty. We served the salad along side a taco of sweet potatoes and zucchini sauteed with onions, chile powder and cumin, topped with sour cream. The stack includes a seed catalog, mushroom catalog, and a book I found at the library on cooking with winter vegetables. I think I read 8 slaw recipes alone! It's got loads of good ideas for using roots.

This week is promising to bring some very spring like weather at last. Warm and sunny days are in the forecast so I'm hoping to get into my own garden for a few hours. It's time to prepare beds for the 180 onion plants and 5 dozen leek plants I am expecting delivery on next week and also it is pea planting time!

The sun is currently shining so I am going to close this post and head out into the day to enjoy a bit of it before the big meeting this afternoon.

Home Again

2011-01-24T12:30:00.001-05:00

The scene on Saturday night outside Marthas, once the snow had stopped

We were tucked up inside, warm and cozy, well fed and watered. I retired to my upstairs parlor and watched a movie. The Dark Knight- Batman, with a very scary Joker played by Heath Ledger. Sunday morning we woke to bright sunshine and clear skies. After a fine breakfast of waffles, turkey bacon and baked bananas, I swept the 4-5 inches of snow off the car and bid a farewell to my kind hosts. Heading out, the roads were still a bit snowy but passable and I ventured forth across the tall bridge and out to Bogue Banks and Fort Macon.

Fort Macon is a state park with a brand new visitor center. I spent more time exploring than I thought I might, I checked out the beach, so strange with snow covered dunes. In the visitor center I watched the film about the forts history, built in 1823 and occupied by both confederate and union soldiers during the Civil War and US troops during WWII. They had a great exhibit about the first doctor at the fort who was also an ornithologist and wrote one of the first comprehensive bird guides of the southeast. There was also an exhibit on barrier islands that included models of all the rails and buttons you could push to hear the clacking, raspy calls of each species. Then I toured the fort proper, a fascinating 5 sided structure with a mote and inner courtyard. More exhibits there of how the soldiers lived during various periods. If you're ever out that way I recommend a visit.

I then headed down island to the Pine Knoll Shores Aquarium and checked out the fishes there. My favorite display was probably the three otters, busily swimming and playing round and round and round their space. I hate to see them captive, but they seemed pretty happy. I could watch them for hours. The rest of the displays were less exciting to me for some reason, perhaps because they are so similar to those at the Fort Fisher Aquarium where I visited last year and which I think has bigger better tanks and slightly more modern exhibits. But I did enjoy it and really liked watching all the kids checking it out, they are so filled with wonder when they can get right up to the glass and watch the big fish swim by. Adults become big kids too as they put their hands into the touch tanks to feel the backs of the rays and skates as they zip by.

Finished with all there was to see at the aquarium and happy to have completed 5 hours of coastal site visits for my EE certification I headed out to walk the beach before getting into the car for the 4 hour trip home. Save one woman playing with her dog I had the whole snowy beach to myself. It wasn't too windy or cold and the ocean was very calm. It was great to just walk and watch the sky and water for a while.

I was tired when I finally arrived home about 8 PM and was so happy to sleep in my own bed again with my babe by my side. More weather is predicted for this week, this winter may well go down as one of the snowiest ever.

Snow Angel Part II, Beaufort

2011-01-22T18:12:00.001-05:00

Sexy chile pepper on the porch at Cousins, Hunka hunka burnin' love?

The forecast said flurries today at the coast, but what we have is 4-5 inches coming down out there! Not exactly what I had in mind for my weekend at the coast. I am going with the flow though. I am so glad that I decided to take a room at a quirky B&B I found on-line called Cousin Martha's. Actually it's Elmo and Martha and they are purveyors of spices as well as rooms, the most famous blend is Satan's Breath which I have yet to taste, but I might be here longer than I planned.... it was the picture of Martha sitting in a front yard of what looked like wild mustard in bloom that sold me on this place, and now that I am literally snowed in I am especially glad not to be sitting in some sterile Hampton Inn over in Morehead City by myself. Instead, I'm in a tropical parlor with gecko green throw rugs and chair, blue, white, yellow and green striped sofa's and nautical blue and yellow throw pillows. There is something insanely perfect about the dichotomy of beach house decor inside and snow mounting up outside. Martha has already started plying me with wine and Elmo is in the kitchen whipping up something for our supper as there is no place open for me to go to dinner even if I wanted to go out and brave the cold and snow.

I did venture out earlier this afternoon and this was the scene. Boats in the snow.

Not much was open and after a good cup of coffee I headed back here for a luxurious hot soak in my fish themed bathroom. Then I lay for a long while in my bed, gazing lazily out the window at the snow coming down against the backdrop of the pink house next door. I felt like I was inside a snow globe, the wind and currents blowing between the two houses making it a very active snowfall, sometimes floating down, other times swirling, often a white out when a big gust blew snow off the rooftops and into the wind tunnel between the two buildings. Now I'm energized, drinking red wine and writing, I think Martha and I might be boogying before the night is through!

Absolutely NO risk of diving in Beaufort today

My course for EE was cut short by the storm, we let out at noon today and as a result I will have to do some homework, which I should think of doing now, but it's become another snow day and you just can't focus on serious things on a snow day, you have to play, you have to be a snow angel.

Snow Angel

2011-01-19T17:08:00.000-05:00

A favorite spot along one of our creek ways, there is always water in this stone pool

My friends I have abandoned you once again! But here I am with a thought or two to share. I did start writing group again last week and it was wonderful to put pen to paper again. So funny, that morning I woke and thought to myself "today I will become a writer again" and then immediately laughed following that thought with this one "I'm always a writer, I just don't write!" But that is an old, old situation for every person involved in any artistic endeavor, the struggle to produce, focus, create. PUT IT OUT THERE.

So I thought I would share something that I wrote in class last week. An except generated by the prompt:

"Snow Angel"

For many seasons our father bought us a new toboggan at Christmas, we always destroyed it within a month or so taking too much "air", cramming too many bodies on board. Eventually he stopped investing. But one of those cold Connecticut Januaries I remember the boys took me sledding at night, to the golf course near our house, out with the big kids, all of us piled on board and when we crashed at the bottom I got pitched into a deep drift. There, under the soft white womb, I could hear muffled voices, laughing, other kids screaming as they flew down the steep hill. I could see a glimpse of night sky through the opening created by my little body when it flew off the sled into the snow. I felt a strange calmness there, insulated and warm, calling out in a tiny voice "help, help me, I'm in here". Soon the boys found me, pulling me up and out, joking, jostling, dragging me back up the hill for another ride, more running, jumping aboard, flying down, tumbling off at the bottom of the slope. All of us on the toboggan, me squeezed between the boys, shrieking as we flew down the hill, again and again, safe in the sandwich of bodies that was me and my brothers, my protectors, my knights in padded armor.

This weekend I'm heading to the coast for a brief retreat and focus on work towards my certificate in Environmental Education. I'll be taking the computer and hope to post from there. Thanks all you faithful readers for continuing to come back for more.

Happy New Year

2011-01-10T16:52:00.000-05:00

Once again the snow is swirling down, though I don't believe we are going to get much accumulation this time, and that is really fine with me. The chickadee's and titmice are zooming in and out to the feeders on all sides, punctuated occasionally by a downy or red-bellied woodpecker or now and then a pine or yellow-rumped warbler pops over for a bit of suet.

My sister-in-law inquired why I hadn't been posting to the blog, not much worth saying was my main answer, that and trying to get busy with the tasks of a new year, planning my life and work for the next few months, trying to get my house in order literally and figuratively. January often finds me with the sensation of having time on my hands but in reality having lots to do, and there is a conflict that can develop in this situation.

But I am trying to get rolling on 2011 and plan so that spring does not sneak up on me as it is want to do and catch me unready for all the chores and projects both home and work related that pop up when the growing season gets underway.

I've also been more than a little preoccupied with creating a new physcial me, not even because of the new year, this actually began after thanksgiving when the excess flesh hanging on me reached a critical mass and I realized something must be done. So I've been exercising like crazy, starting with weight lifting every morning and then walking or swimming as many days as I can muster which seems to be about 5 per week. Top that off with a pilates or yoga class a couple of times a week and this woman has been spending 1.5 to 2 hours a day exercising. Add to that constant monitoring of what's going into the mouth and it starts to feel like a full time job in and of itself!

But progress has been made with the loss of 5.5 pounds and several inches in key areas namely bust, belly and hips, 2 inches gone from each, I'm vanishing as I write and I like it. Yeah me. And here we are again with another boring post about my personal life that no one in particular is probably interested in. Sorry about that, and therefore, as mentioned before- I've not been posting a whole lot lately as I'm very internally focused. Perhaps the tide will turn, I'm returning to work with my good old writing teacher Carol Henderson this week after a long hiatus, this time in a different group and a different format, perhaps this will get me back onto producing something interesting again.

Until then, stay tuned as my brother would say. Speaking of which- I must give him a shout having completed his birders big year with a total of 704 species seen in the lower 48 over the course of a grueling 12 months. Check him out here. He is one of only about 14 people who have ever seen more than 700 birds in a single year in the US. You go buddy.

Marauding Mice

2010-12-30T12:30:00.000-05:00

It is a really good thing that these mice showed up to eat the rest of the Christmas cookies and save us from ourselves.

A White Christmas, Surprise Party and Then Some

2010-12-28T15:34:00.000-05:00

My brother Jonny, back in the day

I've not been posting because there was a plot afoot. We were traveling to Columbia, Missouri- the place of my birth- to pay a surprise visit to my brother Jon on his 60th birthday. David and I drove out with my brother Alex and his wife Betsy and my brother Chris flew in to join the party.

Without a doubt Jon was surprised! What fun for the five of us to walk into a friends winter solstice party, where Jon was hanging out in the kitchen drinking a beer, and render him almost speechless. We spent most of the day on Wednesday cooking a birthday dinner that included a smoked turkey and brussels sprouts raised by Alex and Betsy, leeks, potatoes and salad raised by Jon and Candy.

To break up the cooking we took a walk around Jon and Candy's land. They have an amazing ravine in their backyard, complete with bluffs and caves. Typical of the area, limestone predominates the landscape.

An ice flow in one of the washes.

Several recipes and cooks were called into action to recreate the famous black bottom pie that our mother had made for many years as Jon's favorite and always requested birthday dessert. The original recipe has been lost so there was a bit of discussion about which way to go, we settled on a traditional crust for one and a chocolate cookie crust for the second with same fillings for each. We also all agreed to use the maximum amount of chocolate recommended, 6 ounces per pie, and voted for whipped cream folded into the middle custard layer instead of whipped egg whites. As we say in our family, we were able to choke it down.

Jonny with his birthday pies

In fact, I knew I was truly on holiday when Jon, and I still in my pj's, had pie with our coffee on Thursday morning, December 23rd, his actual birthday.

The sad news was he had to go to work on his birthday. So here he is, dapper in his green ensemble, ready to head off to the clinic.

Turns out the main reason his crew wanted him to work on his birthday was that they too had been hatching a plot. We stopped by his office later to see that they had gone all out in decorating the place with multiple "over the hillville" props. Alex and David try out the hearing aid and cane.

"Tease me about my age and I'll hit you with my cane"

Friday morning we woke up to about 6 inches of snow so we had to go out and play.

It was an action packed week filled with good times, great food and family all together. We drove home in one fell swoop on Christmas day in an effort to beat the snow, somewhat successfully. The same storm that brought 6 inches to Missouri was pounding theVirginia's about the time we got there on Christmas day at dark and we had to drive through the snow for several harrowing hours over the mountains. Fortunately we came through to the other side of the storm right about the time we had to hit the back roads and were able to get Alex and Betsy back to the farm and then drove on reaching our house by 11 PM before the worst of the weather hit central NC. Phew! When we woke up the next morning to 4 inches of snow here and still coming down, I was sure gald to be home in my own bed and not stuck on the highway or somewhere in a cheap motel.

So glad we went, so glad to be back home.

Ramblings

2010-12-15T16:13:00.000-05:00

I find myself at loose ends. Since I'm in the garden business, work slows to almost nothing at this time of year. The cold weather is a drag. I keep thinking, if I lived in a place where I expected it to be this cold for this long I would just deal with it, I would be ready for it, I would go on along with my life like nothing was strange. But it's not supposed to be this cold here and so I take it personally. Being stuck inside is messing with my routine, I want to be outside working on chores. Even being a bit more comfortable inside the house would be nice. About the only place I'm happy lately is either standing right next to the woodstove, under a blanket on the couch or in the bed. Not a good situation for getting much accomplished.

But maybe I'll snap out of it and get moving again on something, anything. The days will start getting longer again next week so that should help. In the meantime, I'm doing things like making yogurt. It's really easy and so delicious and cheaper than buying it for sure. Of course having amazing, delicious fresh jersey milk helps the situation considerably.

I make 2 pints at a time. First I heat four cups of skimmed milk to 185 degrees. This is just before it boils, keep an eye on it, it will boil over quick and make a giant mess if you don't watch out! Take it off the stove and let it cool back down to between 115 and 118. It does help to have a thermometer.

I use pint canning jars and put a tablespoon of yogurt in each jar. I strain the 115 degree milk into the jars, because it forms a skin after cooling. Put the tops on and place the jars into a small playmate cooler. I fill the cooler with the hottest tap water- again - should be around 115-118 degrees which my tap water happens to be, up to just below the tops of the jars.

I put a piece of cardboard and a towel in the top of the cooler, to help hold the heat, close the lid and wrap the whole thing in a bath towel. About mid way through the process, 4 hours, I remove some of the water and add more hot water back in, and wrap it all back up, just to be sure it stays at a constant warm 115-118. In eight hours, voila - yogurt. After that, I just put the jars in the fridge. The jersey milk is so sweet I don't even need to add much to it, though a bit of maple syrup and vanilla are nice, or honey, or fresh fruit, or a dollop of good jam like raspberry pictured here. It's not as thick or smooth as store bought yogurt, but it's tastier.

For starter yogurt get a good plain yogurt with live cultures, I freeze it in ice cube trays- an ice cube is just about a tablespoon, and keep it in the freezer in a plastic bag. Just let the cubes thaw out before you use them. You can use yogurt from your previous batch as long as it lasts, I've read it will eventually get thinner but haven't experienced that yet. If you have a source of good milk I recommend you try making your own yogurt, good luck.

Brief Thaw

2010-12-12T18:15:00.000-05:00

It warmed up enough this weekend for the snow that had lingered in patches for the past week to finally melt away. With the warmth came rain that fell gently all day today. In the late afternoon the rain stopped and the sun peeked out, so we threw on our coats and hats and headed out for some air and exercise before the light vanished.

There was that golden light that strikes just the tops of the trees facing west as the sun drops below the cloud bank and shines warm against the eastern horizon. Down along the creek the blue sky and orange trees were reflected in the clear water flowing below, all the moss and fern were lit a special electric leprecaun green, and by the time we circumnavigated the land the last of the pink was gone from the clouds, the sun had set and only dark branches stood out stark in the twilight.

The sky had opened up, almost all the clouds had blown away, and high above was the nearly half moon kept company by Jupiter. The wind was picking up and the temperature was falling rapidly, bringing in the next cold snap that will settle on us over the next three days.

Glad we got the doorside wood racked filled back up yesterday in anticipation of those chilly days to come. Also glad not to be in Missouri where brother Jon had single digits last night or Minnesota where niece Jess got 2 feet of snow yesterday! Thinking of you all in your colder realms! Keep toasty any way you can.

Some Thoughts on the Season

2010-12-08T21:18:00.000-05:00

I've been pondering the whole holiday madness as I had to go out to look for a present for a friend whose birthday is Dec 14th. The Christmas music is blaring in the mall and people are already starting to hustle and scurry to buy those gifts that say merry, merry.

Since I'm a Pantheist not a Christian I don't celebrate Christmas in the traditional sense and I stopped buying gifts to give years ago so it gets harder each year to get excited about Dec 25th. If you've read this blog long you know I am more connected to the Solstice, December 21st when we celebrate the longest night and the beginning of the return to the light. This year there will be a full moon and an eclipse of that full moon occuring on the morning of the Solstice which seems fairly cosmic indeed.

Just now reading the holiday calendar from Triangle Yoga where I've been taking classes lately, they had this poem which I thought was of good sentiment and inclusive too:

Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Jew,

May joy and peace expand in you,

And light the world so all can see,

The simple truth which sets us free,

The song the angels sing above,

That we are One,

And One is love.

We are one. Hard to believe when you look around the world at all the greed, war and hatred that is inflicted daily, but I do believe its true and if everyone would consider that harm they do to others is harming themselves too, maybe some of it would cease. In the meanwhile, I'll just wish that all the holiday good wishes and warm fuzzies that folks are extending during this time will stretch across more of the year and be recognized as a good way to be all the time. That people will allow those feelings and thoughts to become a regular part of their lives, not just something we put on for a few weeks each December in the name of Jesus Christ.

Scenes From a Frigid Afternoon

2010-12-06T17:45:00.001-05:00

I was getting a bit of cabin fever after lunch so despite the thermometer refusing to rise above 35 degrees, off I went to see what I might find in the world besides rosy cheeks and chilly thighs.

First was a holly tree near the pond decorated with berries and snow.

Then the swirl of ice patterns across the surface of the water.

Further along I revisited this tree of oyster mushrooms that we discovered a couple of days ago and documented the waterfall of caps cascading down the trunk. This is the largest outgrowth of oysters I think I've ever seen.

Last but not least I was taken by this fringe of christmas fern hanging along the edge of a stream bank.

I was glad I braved the cold. At the top of the hill I stopped and leaned against a big tree to feel the sun on my face and catch my breath. I recited to myself the Gayatri:

You who are the source of all power

Whose rays illuminate the earth

Illuminate also my heart

So that it too may do your work

Then I walked back to the house.

The glow of the woodstove is that much more dear when you've been out in the chill air.

And Then...

2010-12-05T17:09:00.000-05:00

It snowed all afternoon and into the evening and this was the scene when we woke up this morning. A nice layer of heavy snow hanging on everything. The silvery light through the trees was magical and every single branch had a layer of white icing running its length. The birds were busy and David saw a small hawk, we think a Merlin, though it was a fleeting glance, we have had them here before. A little while later we spotted a red-tail eating a small bird or rodent for its breakfast in a tree out beyond the garden shed. Puffy tufts at the top of the pine trees were all golden against a brilliant blue sky.

I'm just in from leading a kids hike out at Triangle Land Conservancy's Johnston Mill Nature Preserve. 6 hardy parents and 9 kids ventured forth, even though the temperature never climbed above 40 today. We had a fine time strolling the trails, looking for signs of wildlife and the kids throwing lots of snowballs. A big time was had by all and I was very happy to return to the warm house and a cup of hot tea.

The cold weather is slated to continue right on through the week with a low of 19 predicted for Wednesday night- Brrrrrr.

Snow?!

2010-12-04T14:22:00.000-05:00

The scene out my window right now

Like I said the other day, we are not having normal weather for central North Carolina at all. In the 30 years I've lived here I don't ever remember it snowing in early December and even snow in late December is quite unusual. I doubt it will stick, but the temperature has dropped to 38 from 42 since it started. The light in David's studio window looks so warm doesn't it? I hope he is, I know he's got his little woodstove burning away.

The oyster stew was a big hit last night- so yummy I'm going to share the recipe right now.

Start with a half pint of oysters, strain the oysters and catch the juice, check the oysters for any bits of shell. Then:

1 T butter
1 leek, sliced and washed (I slice and soak in water to make sure to get all the dirt out, then lift into strainer to drain)
1 stalk celery sliced thin
2 large shitake mushrooms sliced (you could use white or cremini mushrooms here)
1-2 large oyster mushrooms sliced (same as above but don't recommend portobello)

Saute above in the butter in a saucepan with some salt and pepper

when the veggies are soft add:

2t of flour and stir for a minute

Add:

liquid from half a pint of oysters
1 cup cream (could use milk but then would need more flour I think)

Simmer for 5-10 minutes, adjust seasoning with a pinch of white and cayenne peppers, more salt as needed

Add:

half pint of oysters
1T each chopped fresh parsley and dill

Cook just till oysters begin to firm 2-3 minutes. Serve in warm bowls with toasted bread or crackers.

Makes 2 servings.

Yum.

As I've been writing the snow is actually sticking and piling up a bit, it's still coming down very hard....

Orchids and Oysters

2010-12-03T20:08:00.000-05:00

We've been waiting I don't know how many years for this orchid to bloom. I've been threatening to toss it on the compost heap every season when it refused to put up a scape. But I didn't, (because the orchids really are David's project, not mine) and finally, here it is. Check out the little drops of nectar at the tips of the lower petals. This photo makes it look like some kind of bat coming in for a landing. And probably wherever it grows naturally there are bats or something else that zip right into that magenta landing strip to drink some nectar and in turn pollinate the flower. There are in fact, three scapes in bloom on this one plant as I write!

I also offer this brilliant yellow calendula that by some amazing powers or fortitude has managed to survive several nights below freezing and generate these astonishing flowers. It reminds me of some story about a weed that grows up in the crack of an urban sidewalk and blooms against all odds. Maybe its the color that gets me so- it just says July, not December.

And the weather here now is saying January or February, not December. Once again we face some of the strangest weather I've ever seen. We have highs in the 40's and nights in the 20's forecast for the next 7 days, this is not normal for December in North Carolina, not normal at all.

The good news is that the sun continues to shine and there is a very large stack of fire wood ready for burning, some of which is just outside the door.

Tonight we'll be enjoying oysters from our last delivery of the season from our community supported fishery Core Sound Seafood. Last night we fried some and had them with slaw made with cabbage, carrot, red bell pepper and fennel; they were sublime. Tonight I'm planning a soup. I was just out in the garden bundled up and sporting a headlamp to harvest a leek, some dill and parsley, I'll add those and some mushrooms to some fresh cream from the dairy and I think we'll be very happy indeed. So I bid you adieu and head for the kitchen and the warm deliciousness that awaits.

A Constellation

2010-11-29T18:52:00.000-05:00

Small sweet gums are some of the last trees to lose their leaves, growing in scruffy lines along the edges of the roads, short and weedy they are protected more from the cold so don't drop their leaves till late. As I take my daily walk the juncos flash their white tail feathers as they dart in and out of the hedge row of young gums, blackberry briar and pines. The Latin name for sweet gum is liquidambar, how magical is that. I think of syrup, of amber holding insects from ancient times frozen in its fossilized resin.

The spectacular leaf colors can range from yellow to orange to red to an almost black purple. Speckled or solid, glossy or flat. Add to their starry shape the fact that the seed balls are also prickly and pointy and you'll undertstand my astronomical reference. I learn from wikipedia that the seed pods, which I've always just called gum balls are also know as "space bugs", "monkey ball", "bommyknocker", "bir ball", "conkleberry", "cukoo-bir" or "sticky ball".

We've finally had a seriously hard freeze with two nights in the upper 20's and so everything tender has at last shriveled and died. Sadly that includes the camellias, what were lovely flowers last week have all gone brown as of today. It is almost December after all. In anticipation of the cold, I broke down on Saturday and picked a peck of bell peppers, but did not pickle them, they are sitting in a closed brown paper bag in hopes they might ripen up since I don't care much for green bells, much preferring the ripe sweet reds.

And so we head now into the last days of autumn with the winter solstice just three weeks away, the days are seriously short, but happily sunny.

Gratitude

2010-11-25T11:56:00.000-05:00

All that’s missing is the fresh whipped cream

So many things to be thankful for today and all days

• A man that loves and respects me and vice versa
• A healthy and happy family that loves and likes one another
• A solid roof over my head that’s paid for
• PLENTY of good food to eat
• Decent health and health insurance
• Good and dear friends
• A job I enjoy that helps other people and the planet too
• No debt and some money in the bank
• A beautiful, quiet place to live with a serene view out my window
• Fine and friendly neighbors including the cows
• A good running car that’s paid for
• A place to grow a garden
• A good running bike

And that’s just the basic stuff.

I’m also grateful that there is no war in my home country, that the majority of my friends and family are also healthy and happy, that we haven’t destroyed the planet completely yet, that I feel safe in my home and in my town, that I can come and go as I please, read and write and say what I want and what I believe without threats or fear. I think it’s fair to say I shouldn’t complain about a thing without feeling like a fool.

And then there are the pies…

Happy Thanksgiving

Blustery

2010-11-23T14:19:00.000-05:00

The oh so generous Camellia sasanqua Winter's Rose

It’s one of those days where the leaves are blowing up almost as much as down, but down they are coming. In just three weeks the woods have gone from green to gold to brown to almost bare. Only the stubborn oaks are still clinging to their tough brown and red leaves, all the rest are nearly empty. The paths are now covered with a crisp multi-colored carpet.

It’s positively hot today, strange, but with the wind will come cooler weather and a chance of rain taking us back to normal November weather. I actually watered the veggies today and found caterpillars on the cabbages- arghh-I shouldn’t have to deal with those buggers so late in the season.

I still can’t speak, whatever bug has attacked my vocal chords persists in holding them hostage. I spent Sunday cocooning on the couch i.e; in my jammies, under a soft blanket, with a good mystery - A Place of Hiding by Elizabeth George. Reading, dozing, eating chicken soup were the only goals of the day. Yesterday started much the same until I finished the book. Then I was up and at it; threw open the windows to air out the bedroom, took the blankets out into the sun, stripped the sheets, started laundry and went for a walk. Determined to get my life back if not my voice!

I’m heading into town in a bit for the pre-Thanksgiving special farmers market where I plan to lay in some eggs for my pies and say howdy to my brother Alex, a trip to the store for some flour and it’ll be home again. I’m glad to have time to just lie low and hope by Turkey day I’ll be able to talk again.

Winter's Rose up close and personal

The blog my only voice today

2010-11-20T12:23:00.000-05:00

Camellia sasanqua Alabama Beauty

It's been a tough week of battling a cold that seems to continue to get the better of me, the latest insult as of yesterday being that I have lost my voice almost completely, whispering, mime and written word are my only current forms of communication! I do feel a little better than I did earlier in the week, but really, the night coughing has taken a toll on my sleep and the loss of voice is disconcerting.

Today is also the final big event for our community garden project, a harvest festival/potluck dinner for the 45 families that have been a part of our three Growing Healthy Kids gardens this year. Always a wild scene with many children running through the space and people speaking three different languages, it's fun, challenging, exhausting all at once. And me unable to speak? I just finished preparing a brief powerpoint of the highlights of the year that another staff member will get to present for me. I'm sure I will arrive home ready to fall into my bed. Tonight may be the night I break out the heavy duty hydrocodone infused cough syrup. Meanwhile, I've got a pot of chicken soup simmering on the stove.

Excitement from a couple of days ago was this golden-crowned kinglet that crashed into the back door. David went out and held it to keep it warm and encouraged it until it was strong and alert enough to hold itself on a branch, and the tiny bird flew away a bit later when D went to take a peek at its progress. Hopefully no permanent damage was done.

We've been thoroughly enjoying the tiny crabapples on the Prairie Fire crab tree this week as they have gotten riper and redder and hang like ornaments from the branches. We are waiting for the day when we may look out and see the tree filled with robins or perhaps waxwings eating them up, so far we've only spied a squirrel clambering around up there.

A bit of cheer on a day of drear

2010-11-16T12:05:00.001-05:00

I looked that up- drear actually is a word, from dreary of course, and it is such a perfect rhyme with cheer. And yes, its been rainy today, got so dark a while ago I had to turn on the light despite its being midday. Here, a photo from a sunny day earlier in the week. A brilliant flower from the Christmas cactus, which always blooms before Thanksgiving so not sure why they call it a Christmas cactus? But its striking all the same.

I've just finished reading A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg and can't recommend it highly enough. It's full of wondeful essays about her family, her father, her husband and each story leads to a fantastic recipe. She is a lover of all things French, crusty bread, good cheese, interesting soups and salads and best of all- dessert. She started as a blogger so of course I am intrigued by that and have been frequenting her blog Orangette, which is very worthwhile for swell writing and good recipes. And she only posts once a week or so, which I find quite civilized. So check her out.

Inspired by Molly, I include also today a photo of this pie, baked by my bestest friends J&M for our party last Saturday night, the now famous ginger apple, garnished with a stunning camellia, the name of which I have forgotten but it's something like "Miss AnnaBelle" or another equally southern sounding ladies name.

Let's hear it for those southern ladies who inspired not only all sorts of gorgeous flowers but damn good pies as well.

Feeling Fiery

2010-11-15T11:54:00.000-05:00

I don’t know if it’s the color all around me, the little flames of maple leaves lying on the ground or the impending cold weather, but I am feeling fiery of late.

Our first outdoor blaze was quite delightful on Saturday, complete with good friends, delicious food and plenty of imbibing of spirits!

I’m looking in the thesaurus under “fire” and see several categories which include the expected “burning, barrage of projectiles, dismiss from responsibilities” and then what speaks to me more given my mood, but that I hadn’t really considered “animation, vigor, excite and arouse! Here I find synonyms that truly embody the fieriness to which I refer, beyond simple flame, the concepts of energy, enthusiasm, enliven, the acts of enlightening, kindling and setting aflame. The change in the weather has given me renewed energy; for life, for writing, for enjoying the world again and exploring nature. Hooray for the season of fire.

Yesterday I finished filling the wood racks and refilled the kindling bin with fallen sticks and branches from around the yard and I’m feeling ready for winter. Granted, I’m hopeful for more of the perfect days we’ve been having of late, mid 60’s, sunny and bright, but I know its inevitable that these days will gradually give way to colder, drearier days as winter is just around the corner.

Still, I am thrilled to look out my window and see the show that continues to brighten with each passing day. Despite having a bit of a cold and laying low, drinking lots of tea with lemon and honey- I hope to be back on track soon. And even being a touch ill, I can feel the fire burning in me, ready to leap into action as soon as I’m feeling better again.

Cool Nights Yield Peak Color

2010-11-13T10:56:00.001-05:00

I think we are seeing our peak autumn color this week, especially in the maples; the oranges and reds are truly spectacular and the forest overall has gone from green to gold just in the past few days.

We have finally had frost, reducing the most tender of plants- cucumbers, ginger lilies, castor beans- to limp shadows of their former selves. But somehow the peppers still march on covered with green fruit.

Finally I see a tiny head of broccoli forming on one of my plants, they are much later than last year, I must have planted them later too.

We are planning the first outdoor fire this evening, it's been perfect before now but finally the stars align. I've got chicken wings marinating in an asian sauce to grill over the coals and am simmerng a pot of black beans for another batch of butternut black bean chili. I made this a couple of weeks ago and it was so scrumptious it warrants repeating. It's also a great way to use a few of the many poblano chiles that are cluttering up the fridge right now demanding roasting and peeling.

Chores this week have included window washing, deck washing, hauling fire wood around to fill the racks, watching the leaves swirl down and wandering through the woods, admiring the deep blue sky as backdrop to brilliant tree tops.

Happy Birthday to me!

2010-11-09T10:42:00.000-05:00

Birthday breakfast: cappucino and pear tart!

Yesterday was my birthday so I've been in celebration mode for the past few days, I believe you have to give yourself some extra good times around the birthdate. Sunday David and I spent the day just playing together, something we rarely do. We started with a stretch and restore yoga class, 45 minutes of gentle stretching followed by 45 minutes of very long, supported poses, something you could do at home but never give yourself time and space for, now why is that? We can easily lay on the couch for 2 hours watching a movie, only to arise with a sore back, but won't consciously do resting yoga poses for even 15 minutes! Go figure.

We then went to brunch at Crooks Corner- I hadn't been there in ages, the food was great but the atmosphere hectic and very loud. From there it was off to the North Carolina Botanical Garden to tour the grounds and view the outdoor sculpture show they put on every fall. The theme was Elements; earth, fire, water, air and spirit. Some of them I liked, some I thought a bit too cutesy. We then took a walk on the trails through the woods there. NCBG is a wonderful resource in the middle of town, before we lived in the country with trails outside our door we often frequented the NCBG trails. I always feel akin to the place as our same Morgan Creek flows through the gardens, albeit wider, deeper and more free flowing coming out from below the lake.

Home again after that for a quiet evening, where David, in the true spirit of birthday celebration baked for me a pear and almond tart so I would have something delish to sink my teeth into into on the morning of my actual, factual birthday (see above). We wound up the day with a lovely supper of crab raviolis we had made and frozen a while back, part of the bounty of our Community Supported Fishery-Core Sound Seafood.

Yesterday I did some work, took a long walk in the woods and went to town for a wonderful massage from my longtime masseuse and friend Pat Kosdan. Knowing it was my B'Day she spoiled me with a hot stone massage and gifts of bath salts and an exfoliating brush- can't wait to put those into action.

Tonight, in the final tryptic of my celebration, we have tickets to see Fences at the Playmakers/Paul Green Theater. So I guess one could say that I'm a very lucky lady who knows how to spoil myself on and around my special day. I can't close without a shout to all those who sent cards, e-mails, packages and made calls to also wish me a happy 52nd year on the planet. Love to you all.

Another Day Dawns Dreary

2010-11-06T11:35:00.000-04:00

I did not expect to wake up to another rainy day but did, fortunately, it being Saturday, I was able to roll over and lay in the bed a while longer. Gazing out the bedroom window into the golden haze of a group of small hickories, I watched the fluttering chickadees and titmice who are there every morning, zipping in and out from the feeders on the front side of the house. I've been greeted for the past couple of weeks by these late blooming Jackmanii clematis just outside the kitchen window. A treat as I prepare the morning coffee.

This coral barked maple glows this time of year, even on a rainy day, the red of the dogwood above setting it off even more. The leaves are green all summer and then this gold slowly comes over the tree. Once the leaves fall, the bark will redden and offer a different form of radiance through the winter months.

First Frost Expected

2010-11-05T18:34:00.000-04:00

Late red peppers reminiscent of an early xmas tree

With the low tonight forecast to be 32 and tomorrow 28, we should finally get our first killing frost. That's about 2 weeks later than normal, par for the year. With cold in mind I've been performing the first frost rituals today; picking peppers, eggplants and cucumbers, cutting a couple more vases of flowers for the house, covering some plants with remay to see if we can stretch the harvest out a few more weeks.

I love the glaucous blue-green of the brassicas. Here a row of cabbage, plants so tidy and round, leaves splayed out from their crowns, if there are cabbages in there they are embryonic, but I know from experience they will grow slowly all winter long and be ready for an early spring harvest. The broccoli is running late, but I'm hopeful we will get a few heads by Thanksgiving.

I took a late day walk, it was so lovely and the sky dramatic with pink tinged clouds piled up, blue heavens behind. I extended my stroll when I came out of the woods to walk along the road and take in a longer glance at the cerulean lid of the earth. This time of year I say I have "sky lust", I just want to be out there under it as much as possible and the evening is one of the best times for light, sun rays and long shadows.

Off now to a warming dinner of fine Indian food with good friends, hahhh.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-11-03T17:17:00.000-04:00

Cukes in November!

2010-11-02T21:09:00.000-04:00

November 2nd and we are picking cucumbers?! How great is that. I went out on a limb and tossed a few seeds in the ground mid-august, a few weeks past the normal time recommended for planting cukes, but we had such a crummy crop in the summer I thought I would give it a whirl, and look, we've been picking these long lovelies for a few weeks now, Tasty Jade are the smooth ones and Suyo Long are the knobby ones. There is a possibility we'll have a killing frost come Friday night but I won't hold my breath after the crazy warm weather we've seen all summer and fall.

Got to take another long walk in the woods today and it was just fabulous, crisp clear air, the blue sky behind green and red tree tops, lots of leaves floating down the creek and the water so clear I could see the rocks on the bottom. What a very lucky girl I am indeed.

This afternoon I tackled organizing the hanging tools in the garden shed, David has been working for a couple of weeks off and on to organize the other side of the shed, cleaning out trash, clearing off counters, reorganizing cupboards and shelves, he even sorted and organized the hundred bags and buckets of screws, nuts, bolts, nails, a lifes collection, it looks so amazing in there I should post a photo to the blog. Maybe tomorrow I will!

Nothing like some fine autumn weather to bring out the desire to do chores, after suffering through the long hot summer it's so refreshing to want to be out side again and even better to have to put on more clothes to stay warm. We've had our first fires in the woodstove too this week, it's snuggle time.

Autumn rekindles a desire to write

2010-11-01T11:37:00.000-04:00

Where you may ask have I been? Forgive me readers, it has been 6 weeks since my last blog post. I'm not a Catholic but feel like I'm here to make a confession. I've been asking myself the same thing, where have I been? The simple answer is, after nearly a month on vacation, I've been playing catch-up on work, chores and life in general.

The more complicated answer is that it was one of the hardest summers I've seen in terms of drought, heat and general discontent with the world. All the things that give me fodder for writing and inspiration to get up and keep going day to day were in jeopardy. The creek was dry from June to September, if David had not been standing behind the hose a couple of hours a day most everything in the yard would have surely died and even with his yeomans effort most plants were looking mighty pitiful by mid-August.

I think I lost my spark and certainly have been searching for my muse the past 6 months. With this post I'm hoping to turn over a new leaf, I think it will be a dogwood, red with yellow veins and edges, they are bursting into flame about now.

I've still got a long list of fall chores before me but with the cool crisp weather and leaves finally offering some colorful cheer, I am feeling more able to get moving with some joy in my heart. The world is still a mess and who knows what the elections tomorrow will bring, but I've got to buck up and get on with it.

The hearts a'bustin (Eonymous americanus) seem an apt analogy to how I've been feeling, they've been putting on a major show the past month, absolutely loaded with purple and orange seed pods.

Now- on to the days to do's, laundry, soup to cook, peppers to process, oh the peppers, will they ever end? Deer fence to mend, windows to wash, long walk in the woods to take....

In the mouth of the gator

2010-09-17T10:30:00.000-04:00

Cell phone photos leave a bit to be desired, but that's me in the mouth of a giant gator that is the entrance to one of the beach chachki shops here at Topsail. We have been having a splendid time. I've been taking long morning swims before the sea picks up, lots of walks on the beach, daily afternoon naps, fabulous seafood nightly for dinner. Last night we had grilled Mahi Mahi tacos, tonight; fish soup with shrimp, scallops and more mahi is on the menu, tomorrow-crab. This is living brother.

Days are spent watching dolphins rolling through the swells, flocks of pelicans cruising overhead, schools of silver fish small and large sparkling through the waves all around us as we swim. Fortunately, the biting flies dissappeared. A couple of days ago the Topsail turtle hospital released about 6 sea turtles right out in front of our house.

They were ready to go

Gently released into the waves, set free to swim again in the wide green sea

At The Beach

2010-09-14T10:23:00.000-04:00

After an amazing 8 day trip to Alaska, (more on that in a later post perhaps), we spent 3 days watering our parched garden and doing laundry, re-packed our stuff, this time into the car and headed to the beach!

Last night we celebrated the birthday of my sister-in-law C Kay with this bodacious chocolate cake and amazing lilies grown by another one of my awesome S-I-L's - Betsy.

For dinner we baked this monster piece of grouper with home grown peppers and onions, taters and haricot verts from our garden. The only downside at the moment is biting black flies forcing us off the beach, but currently folks are reading, playing guitar, making biscuits, chilling. I think we'll survive the flies.

I'm thinking of heading down for a marathon swim before the seas pick-up.

It's Pepper Time

2010-08-30T22:00:00.000-04:00

Oh Boy, the peppers really ripened up this week so today we roasted about 15 whole to peel and freeze and I chopped up another 2 quarts to freeze raw for soups etc. this winter. There will be more and we have already been eating them daily for the past few weeks as they have ripened up. Having a monster bowl full of sweet red peppers is one of those things that makes gardening worthwhile. I can't really tally the value, considering we started the plants from seed, raised them 2 months in the house, then in the garden for another two months before they started to bear ripe fruit, we have a fair amount of time invested in them. But they will put on now until frost and at a couple bucks a piece at the store or market, I guess we probably raise the equivalent of over $150 worth in the end. Abundance.

We're off to Alaska tomorrow and not a minute too soon. The forecast here is for another week in the 90's and a hurricane is bearing down on the east coast. I am really looking forward to some highs in the 50's and don't even mind that it's supposed to rain. Haven't seen a drop around here in weeks.

I am not taking the computer - really feeling a need to unplug, so look for a dispatch about the great north country in a couple of weeks. Adios amigos.

Can't Sleep

2010-08-29T05:47:00.000-04:00

I don't want to become one of those folks that can't sleep so they mess on the computer all night long, but here I am. Been awake since about 3:30 and finally got out of bed around 5, all hope of actually going back to sleep dashed.

We leave Tuesday for vacation in Alaska and I guess I've got lots on my mind to wrap up and take care of before we go. Blogging at 5:45 am is not one of those items on the list but here I am. I must say I couldn't be more ready to go away and just get a true vacay as haven't really had one yet this summer and despite the fact that the forecast for where we are going is rain every single day, I'm still pretty excited about seeing someplace so wild and new.

I really wish I was in my bed sleeping.

Starry Night

2010-08-13T16:39:00.000-04:00

I woke up aroud 4:00 this morning, needing to pee. I remembered it was the peak night for the Perseid meteor shower so I stumbled out onto the deck to check it out. The sky was clear and within a few minutes I had seen 2 shooters, one of good size, so I wandered back inside, grabbed the camping mats and a couple of sheets and whispered softly to David. "Come with me and bring the pillows." He grumbled but staggered out onto the porch with me and helped make our little pallet. We lay there watching the sky and chatting, soaking up the brilliance of all those stars. We said to each other "How long has it been since we looked up at the stars?" Too long. The night sounds were all around us, barred owls called, the chickens were clucking and murmuring up on the farm, coyotes howled off in the distance, a fox barked down at the pond. Around 4:30 we heard the bassets sound their alarm as our neighbor headed out to start milking the cows. We saw several more shooting stars before we dropped back to sleep and the next thing we knew it was morning, but what a delightful interlude that was, snuggling together in the coolish night air, taking in the vastness of the universe.

Atlanta Botanical Garden- ACGA Part 2

2010-08-11T16:02:00.000-04:00

A highlight of the ACGA conference was a visit to the Atlanta Botanical Garden. This is a spectacular garden that shows what cities with money and a big tax and donor base can do if they work at it. There was a canopy walk; a broad steel walkway that wandered through the tree tops, we didn’t get that far but maybe next time. A huge conservatory holds a tropical house and 3 greenhouses of orchids from 3 different climate zones, tropical to mountain.

There were rare frogs that looked like jewels, water gardens and various plant collections. Colorful glass sculptures by the artist Dale Chilhuly adorned fountains and pools.

They used walls for plantings in several areas, an interesting concept for creating greenspace in narrow or small areas. Here is an herb wall growing in the edible gardens.

The ACGA sponsored the evening visit, so we had the whole park to ourselves. There was a showing of the film Dirt, an interesting documentary about the soul of soil and how we are degrading the planet by letting our dirt slip away. It was discouraging but also had a hopeful ending, if we will all work to preserve land, and treat dirt as an important component of life on the planet as we know it, instead of just letting it wash down into rivers and blow away, creating deserts and polluting the air and oceans.

Here I am with Kelly in one entrance to the Japanese garden

Home for 3 days now and finally starting to feel back to normal, the go, go, go of Atlanta and the conference took its toll and left me feeling pretty tapped out. I decided this morning I might be suffering from a reverse form of SAD; Seasonal Affect Disorder, a depression normally brought on by short days and the lack of sunshine, I think I’m down from the hot days and lack of energy and/or desire to do anything outside….

There is hope- I see the forecast has highs in the 80’s for next week, perhaps we will see a break from the relentless series of 90 degree days, today made the 61st day over 90 degrees we have experienced this summer. All I can say is-Phew.

American Community Gardening Association Annual Meeting

2010-08-09T21:26:00.000-04:00

Diving for free seeds, thanks Ferry-Morse

I got back last night exhausted but enthused after 4 days at the ACGA annual meeting in Atlanta. I traveled with my co-worker and garden manager Kelly O. This was my first foray into a meeting of this organization and I was majorly impressed. The title of this years conference was A Holistic Approach to Building Sustainable and Healthy Communities, the Choice is Yours. Not only was the content of the sessions excellent, but the extracurricular activities were outstanding including a visit to the Atlanta Botanical Garden and a throw down at the Atlanta Metro Urban Farm, an effort recently undertaken by the president of ACGA, Bobby Wilson along with other community garden and food security folks in Atlanta. The event was sponsored by Whole Foods Market, and featured:

a pit cooked whole hog, collards and black-eyed peas,

roasted sweet potatoes,

and a low country boil of potatoes, corn, crab and sausage. Banana pudding rounded out the meal washed down by lots of wine from Robert Mondavi and the whole night was made complete with a killer blues band, led by fourth generation bluesman Tony Bryant. OOOO, OO, OO, OOWEE!

But seriously, I came back super inspired by the work that is going on all across the country, and the world for that matter, to bring people back to the land, to provide opportunities for people to grow their own fresh food on public and private lands. Many efforts are underway to provide assistance to the homeless and people who are visiting local food banks and pantries to get access to fresh produce. If you have ever visited a food bank you know that everything is usually in cans and boxes because they don’t have capacity to deal with lots of perishables.

When I have volunteered at our local Inter-Faith Council Food Pantry here in Carrboro I’ve been saddened to only have the occasional fresh potato, onion or bell pepper to offer to the families coming in, fresh foods are a luxury to the poor, and often completely unavailable to people who live in what has been termed “food deserts” places in rural and urban areas that have no decent grocery stores for miles. The only option many families have is the local package store or quickie mart to buy groceries to try and feed the family and the result is the obesity epidemic that we are now dealing with in our country that affects the poor more than other groups. It’s a crazy oxymoronic situation of overweight in the face of food scarcity thanks to the availability of high carbohydrate foods loaded with corn syrup that fill up hungry people but don’t provide nutrition.

But don’t get me started on that. Tours were offered to visit community gardens all over the city. My tour featured four gardens that were organized by various refugee relief organizations and I got to meet people from many places, proud of their gardens.

Ladies from Bhutan

Gentleman from Somalia

I recognized the vegetables grown by the people of Burma that have become familiar to me in our gardens, and saw a small farm that’s working to teach growing and marketing skills among a group of men and women from Burundi, Africa. What a wonderful thing to make land available to people who have been torn from there traditional roots via wars and famine and permit them an opportunity to reconnect to the soil and grow crops that can remind them of home.

Needless to say, we came back tired but excited and filled with ideas about how to make our community gardens better and how to work to advocate for more community gardens in NC. I want to challenge anyone reading this to consider making a contribution to or becoming a member of ACGA- its only $30 for an individual membership- in order to help promote this important work that’s feeding people and creating sustainability across our troubled country. I also encourage folks to get involved in your local food and sustainability movements wherever you are to help improve the health, nutrition and quality of life of all of our neighbors, not just those who can afford the high price that going local sometimes brings.

Bandits!

2010-08-04T18:01:00.000-04:00

The word is out "Maria and David's fig tree is ready for picking!" Every varmint within a couple of miles of the house seems to have discovered our bounty. First we trapped a little possum, took him down the road a ways. Next we caught this baby raccon. We realized this is a losing battle and started to feel bad about uprooting these teenagers from their families and neighborhoods just because they knew a good thing when they smelled it. Besides, we seem to have a surplus of figs and can't really keep up with the crop. I need to make jam but haven't had time so we decided to just quit our trapping and share the wealth.

This little one was mighty happy to be set free!

Eggplants

2010-07-28T22:39:00.000-04:00

Have I mentioned we are having an awesome year for eggplant? The plants look good and they have lots of fruit. A few flea beetles but that seems impossible to avoid. I'm particularly fond of this pale Rosa Bianca.

We've had ratatouille, Asian eggplant salad and tomorrow will be Baba Ganoush. They are super sweet when they are freshly picked, with none of those bitter seeds.

Re-Use

2010-07-26T17:08:00.001-04:00

I couldn't resist snapping this photo the other day of the kitchen counter. I recently purchased a big stack of these plastic cups to bring to the community gardens on workdays. It's been so hot that I felt obligated to provide water for folks, especially the kids, but I was troubled by the notion of all those disposable cups being generated. So for 25 cents a piece, I bought 80 of these cups, enough to use even when we have a potluck dinner or large event for our garden families. I also got a 5 gallon water cooler and just fill it with well water from the house so no disposable bottles are generated either. It's not a big deal for me to wash them at home and I often put them in the dishwasher- even easier.

In addition, we wash and re-use ziploc bags at our house, I'm guessing 10-15 times before they wear out. I don't know, but we really go through them especially at this time of year when there is lots of fresh produce moving through our kitchen from garden to fridge to table or freezer. We often stop and wonder, are there people that use these bags once and throw them away? If we did that we would be buying a box a week. I'm not sure if there is any health risk related to the type of plastic, probably, but they are really handy and we use, and use and use them before they give out.

Just a drop in the bucket of our environmental load/footprint, but it's one thing that reduces our trash equation. Recycling is good, we do lots of it, but re-use is even better I think.

Edible Schoolyard

2010-07-24T19:10:00.001-04:00

I visited the Greensboro Children's Museum last week to attend a workshop on using the curriculum Project Learning Tree. I did this as part of my work to earn a certificate in Environmental Education. It was an action-packed day with experienced teachers and I brought home an excellent activity guide filled with nearly 100 classroom ready programs on environmental topics for grades Pre-K to 8 . An added bonus was getting to check out the newly installed Edible Schoolyard modeled after the original started by Alice Waters in Berkeley, CA.

It's an impressive space full of food. They have a kitchen and are offering a series of summer camps and will be adding various programs as the year moves on. They've got chickens, grains of the world, food crops of the south, an herb garden, fruit trees and berry bushes.

I was especially impressed with these lush teepees of malabar spinach.

I'm glad we have this important resource in North Carolina and wish there was something like it right here in Chapel Hill. Someday perhaps...

Volunteer Veggies

2010-07-18T12:20:00.000-04:00

Plants that show up on their own in the garden we term volunteers. Tomatoes are the most common and I usually pull them up because parentage is unknown and most likely they will be cherry or some other small tomato. Butternut squash on the other hand, are some of the best volunteers we’ve ever had.

Here is a plant that came up on its own and has 5 huge squash on it, better looking than any of those I actually planted this season. They sprout from seeds in the compost pile and we let them roam because they make good fruits with little effort on our part.

The big surprise this year is this bed of cantaloupes, 3 different varieties which all sprouted in the garlic bed and after I harvested the garlic we just left them to grow on. There are at least 6 fat melons in this bed, I am hopeful that they will be tasty, in years past volunteer melons have been squashy and not very sweet but based on their size and shape I’m hoping these volunteer melons will be sweet and fragrant. Should know very soon as this one is looking close to ripe.

We got another nice rain yesterday, 6/10ths of an inch. What an incredible difference it makes to the look of the overall landscape for everything to finally get a good drink several days in a row. Despite the humidity it brings, it also gives me hope that things won’t just burn up before August arrives.

July sullies on

2010-07-16T09:37:00.000-04:00

The tall and diminutive day lily, last to bloom, emerging from behind some painters pallet.

Out in the garden early this morning, feet wet from the deluge of rain that came at dusk last night. It brought 4/10ths of an inch to add to the inch that came on Tuesday night. Blessed rain. I feel so lucky when it lands at our house, it could be dry just a quarter mile away.

Baby hummers were trying to drink nectar from the red tips of new growth on a Japanese maple, they’ve got the color right, just not quite differentiating between leaves and flowers yet. Red-shouldered hawks continue to scree above the house, hunting and claiming turf, I’m sure there is some territorial and familial stuff going on between them these days, how long do the babies stay in the parents territory? Do they chase them away? How far do they go? I have no idea, but that young one has still been around our yard on a regular basis.

Only one bunny left, is it Flopsy or Mopsy? In the yard a week or so ago I came across the pom pom that was a rabbits tail, white on one side, brown on the other, nothing else, all that was left of that bunny was it’s little cotton tail….

A view of one end of the garden, here the squash to the left, hanging in there- I haven’t spied any squash bugs or signs of borers but they seem a little anemic, this end of the garden suffers from poor soil and tree roots robbing the nutrients from the veggies I think. Sweet potato vines march towards the camera.

The beans and cukes on the trellis to the left are slowly dying from the ground up, some kind of funk -viral or soil born that’s causing the leaves to brown and fall off, but they still continue to produce. Fresh beans on the trellis to the right, just beginning to bear. Carrots, beets and chard in between the beans need to be harvested.

The okra are finally getting their heads up above the purple hull peas in my experiment of a shared row, the peas are setting tons of pods and the okra are beginning to bear too. An infestation of aphids settled into the middle section but diligent application of soap spray seems to be slowing them down and keeping them from spreading.

July sullies on, hot and humid, at least we’ve had a spot of rain, but the prospect of 6 more weeks of days in the 90’s is a little bit depressing. Maybe we’ll get a reprieve as we did around July 4th, or perhaps a few days to escape once again to the cool of the mountains.

July Bounty

2010-07-15T15:12:00.000-04:00

The daylilies are winding down but they've been really wonderful for about 6 weeks now so I can't be too sad. There is still one more variety that is blooming late, it is tall, with a small pale yellow flower, maybe I'll snap a pic of it for later this week. This reddish-orange is still one of the faves in our collection and I'm sorry to see it finishing its bloom cycle. The good news about daylilies is, they'll be back, bigger and better every year.

Inside, I've gotten all of the onions and garlic cleaned up and organized for storage, here is the bulk of the haul for this season, I also have about 40 red cippolini onions still curing outside and a basket with about 35 heads of garlic that are "use first" for tomato sauce etc in the coming weeks.

Speaking of tomato sauce, I made the first batch last week yielding 4 rich quarts for the freezer and it looks like its time for batch number two very soon. First though, perhaps a vat of gazpacho since the cukes are coming in and maybe a pot of ratatouille since I've got both squash and eggplants starting to pile up as well. Must be July.

Community Supported Fishery

2010-07-11T18:45:00.000-04:00

We recently joined a Community Supported Fishery (CSF). You’ve probably heard of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) where you buy a share from a farmer in exchange for weekly deliveries of fresh produce and other farm raised items. Well a CSF works similarly. For the very reasonable price of $18.75 per week we receive two pounds of two kinds of fish or shellfish every Thursday. So far our share has included shrimp, flounder, jumping red mullet, and crab and last week we got 24 beautiful clams and 5 fillets of Spanish mackerel. The group organizing this in our area is called Core Sound Seafood and they are bringing fish up every week from the sound of North Carolina. It’s a great opportunity to try out different kinds of fish we might not normally buy and everything has been incredibly fresh and delicious. Furthermore, the money goes straight to the fisherman with no middleman so they get a good price to help support them staying in the fishing business. We never know what we are getting until about a day before and it’s a surprise and a treat. The group sends an e-mail announcing the sea foods of the week and we learn about exactly where it came from and who the fisher people were that caught it for us.

For the mackerel we made a rub of chile powder, cumin, oregano and thyme to put on the fish and then grilled it to juicy perfection. We then topped tostada shells with guacamole, fish, grilled squash and onions, cabbage and fresh made pico de gallo-chopped tomatoes, white onions and Serrano peppers. I didn’t have cilantro so I used Italian parsley, muy delicioso! Finished off with a squeeze of lime and washed down with a cold beer, we were very satisfied indeed.

There are still shares available so if you are in the Carrboro area, check them out!

Our drought and heat wave continue and we are spending multiple hours standing behind the hose so the garden carries on. Made my first batch of tomato sauce last week and the eggplants are starting to come in. The blueberries are really starting to ripen up too. Every day I pray for rain, we were fortunate to get a half an inch in a thunderstorm the other night, but we need much more. Here’s hoping, as everything is burning up, including me.

Two Bodacious Loaves

2010-07-01T17:23:00.000-04:00

I got in late last night and these lovelies were on the kitchen table to greet me! One whole wheat with seeds, one white, both crusty and tasty, my man can sure bake some bread.

The heat wave broke yesterday with cloudy skies and today its like autumn out there, what a treat and just in time, everyone was starting to get kinda cranky about the extended period in the 90's. Forecasters are saying it will be in the 50's the next couple of nights and I couldn't be more delighted. We are heading out to Saxapahaw this evening for a circus performance at Paperhand Puppet, I hope it will be outside?

The windows are thrown open and tonight we'll sleep to the sound of crickets, cicadas and hoot owls once again.

It's the first of July and that marks the mid point of the year, heading down the other side, hoping to be more in control of the wheel for this section of the ride.

It Begins

2010-06-29T13:50:00.001-04:00

What begins you may ask? The serious harvest time where we actually put away quite a bit of food for the coming year. Above on left about a third of our potatoes, the reds are still in the ground and we've been eating these yukon golds baked, boiled and fried up in the skillet with onions, they won't store all year but should last us into the fall anyway. On right, the garlic, spread out and curing/drying in the garden shed, in another week or so I'll clean it up, trim the roots off and make braids, this should actually last us until next year, I just tossed the final head from last year into the compost bin, too dried out and sprouting. With all that delicious juicy fresh garlic ready to eat, why compromise.

The tomatoes are starting to come in nicely, I couldn't believe these two yellow Brandywines, they are monsters, each one the size of my hand, they look like crazy twin embryos. At this stage we are still relishing them in slices, wedges, chopped, with crisp cucumbers and sweet red onions, a little fresh basil strewn over the top, a drizzle of olive oil, a splash of balsamic, S&P. Soon it will be sauce making time and the ingredients; onions, basil and garlic are all ready and abundant.

I dug a couple of pounds of carrots yesterday, had left them in the ground too long, lots of root maggots or something were eating away at the tops, but still got plenty of useable roots. Also pulled another big batch of beets, half of which got slow roasted in the oven last night, they'll be like candy. The eggplants are growing daily along with the squash and beans, soon we'll be overloaded, asking "Who planted all these vegetables!?" and I still need to defrost the freezer...

Onions Curing

The heat is supposed to break tonight and I'm so ready, so many days in a row in the upper 90's really saps my strength and will to get anything done. I went out to the Eno River quarry this morning for the first time this summer to swim with a friend. It was beautiful there as always, had the whole place to ourselves, but the water was dissapointingly hot. I'm longing for that mountain experience of last week and wondering when we can get back up there for another hit of cold water.

Grayson Highlands

2010-06-25T21:58:00.000-04:00

Back last night from four days of loving the cool breezes and clear air in the high country. I understand why people have been escaping to the Blue Ridge for centuries to beat the heat of the muggy south in high summer. We camped at Grayson Highlands State Park and it was absolutely fantastic. This is our 4th try going to GHSP, the other 3 times we were completely in a cloud or it rained the entire time, but finally we hit it right. We did have a rain shower each day we were there and they tend to come up on you with no warning, one minute you hear the thunder and the next it’s raining! But we were all set with a new bigger tent we purchased just before leaving and with our trusty blue tarp stretched over the picnic table we stayed high and dry. We even brought a bunch of flowers from home, had to tie them to the tent pole to keep them from blowing over because it was so breezy up there.

We managed to check out most of the park over the course of the 4 days, two hikes that took us up high for stellar views and two hikes that travelled through fairylands of fern, boulders and grassy glades. It was really enchanted and we enjoyed it immensely. I did not want to come home to the heat! We swam in both Wilson Creek and Cabin Creek.

This is the main water fall on Cabin, the water down there was chillier than on Wilson and the landscape and forest felt completely different than along Wilson on the other side of the mountain, fascinating to see such differences in a small area. On Cabin the rosebay rhododendron covered the steep hillsides, just beginning to open from dark pink buds to pale pink flower clusters. Tumbled boulders filled the creek bed and areas along the creek canyon, everything covered in green moss. I would not have been surprised to encounter a hobbit anywhere along that creek.

We saw several wild ponies grazing in the high meadows, including this foal that was very brazen and came straight up to us hoping for a snack. The fields were filled with wildflowers and dozens of spangled fritillaries danced in circles through the air all around us as we hiked.

We had great food, we are known for going overboard with camp cookery and this trip was no exception. One night we grilled eggplant, squash, peppers, onions and chicken and chopped it up into a pot of pesto pasta, most all of it from the garden back home. Another night we had baby new potatoes sautéed in olive oil with fresh garlic and rosemary to accompany green beans and grilled pork tenderloin. We enjoyed good wine with the meals and good chocolate for dessert. I can’t wait to go back up there again and dip into the water so cold it makes you holler and then head right back in for more.

On the way out we turned down a side road following a sign for Laurel Hill Nursery, a place I had wondered about on previous trips to GHSP. At the bottom of the winding road nestled in a valley was an old homestead with a gigantic garden and a field with daylilies in full bloom. They carry 400 varieties, we knew we were sunk right off the bat. We roamed the rows of lilies despite the hot sun beating down on us, quite a switch from the breezy mountain top we had just left behind. In the end we selected 12 varieties and the son and daughter dug them from the field while we sat in the shade making very pleasant conversation with the mother of the clan. We headed home with the backseat loaded with tall blooming flowers, most of them dark red to purple shades with orange, yellow and green throats, colors we were lacking in our existing collection. We spent almost every last dollar we had in our wallets and laughed about it all the way home.

A bit of this and that

2010-06-20T18:56:00.000-04:00

I’ve been gazing out the kitchen window all week at the spectacle of the daylilies coming into their prime. They are really going to town and I’m especially enamored of this pairing; the cones of the Echinacea flowers are the same color as the deep orange lily, and the purple of the petals provides a fantastic contrast.

This reddish day lily is one of my top faves and I’m glad to see its spreading.

Mr. D came back from the nursery today toting this new Echinacea named “tomato soup”, I think its going to blend in nicely.

As I crossed the lawn to pick a few apples, the young red-shouldered hawk that’s been stalking our yard swooped up and landed in a cedar tree on the edge of the clearing. He let me get very close, taking picture after picture but finally he flew. A few minutes later David spied him on the edge of the woodland path and the bird was completely unperturbed by D. walking past several times. I’m hopeful he might make supper out of Flopsy or Mopsy and relieve us of the task of having to dispatch them.

Here is a little fruit sampler, check out the size of those blackberries, made to look even fatter by the fact that the apples are actually rather small. Our first apples are now beginning to ripen up, this one is called Carolina Red June, they are tart and a little soft, Macintosh like, we are trying to pick them a little early hoping they’ll be crisper, not sure about how to pick apples, never having had them before, but we are excited at the prospect and have 4 other varieties still to ripen up.

Heading out to the mountains tomorrow for a few days in the cool highlands, I’m eager to dip this body into some chilly water. We picked a good time to go, supposed to be scorching hot down here all week long.

Beets!

2010-06-14T21:56:00.000-04:00

I'm sure I've waxed poetic on beets here before but here I go again. I know some people can't stand them but I love em'. The roots are so sweet and tasty, the tops are tender and earthy, together they're a great pair, here with a little onion sauteed in butter and finished with a grating of fresh nutmeg, salt and a grind of black pepper. I'm feeling pretty rich this year as the beet crop is looking like one of the best ever, been harvesting a dozen or so good sized roots every week for about a month now and there are still plenty in the garden. I boil them up, peel and pop them in the fridge to top salads, slice onto sandwiches, or make into a special dish all their own. The other night it was a salad of beets with fresh baby fennel, purple onion and toasted walnuts dressed with balsamic and olive oil. Or how about sliced beets in a pita pocket with ricotta salata cheese, lettuce, fresh dill and walnuts? Those were crazy, looking inside the pocket with all the purple beet juice bleeding into the bread, it looked like a muppet mouth. Think Ernie or Bert. I usually eat a few while I'm peeling them, they are irresistable. I've got enough that I might start branching out, beet muffins, pickled beets, borscht - while there is still plenty of dill to go around. The giant yellow umbles are forming and the swallowtail caterpillars have arrived so the feathery herb will be finished soon.

Tween Seasons

2010-06-11T21:28:00.000-04:00

There are two young bunnies hanging around the yard and though I know they are going to be nothing but trouble, I can’t help myself, I’ve started calling them Flopsy and Mopsy. They are entirely too cute and its going to be a problem I know. Already we have the parents cruising around, I took a shot at one a few weeks back but missed, the folks are big enough to eat and we’ve been contemplating the possibilities of rabbit fricassee. But the babies are too small to eat, too cute to kill, even when I spotted one with a portulaca flower in its little mouth the other day, all I could think was, I wish I could pick you up and scratch you between the ears.…

As we sat outside eating supper the other night, a young red shouldered hawk swooped in and landed on a cedar post where birds perch near the feeders, no more than 10 feet from us, he was completely unfazed by our presence, we imagined he was looking for the little rabbits, they often hide in the flower beds beneath the feeders.

This is a new hydrangea we planted last year, its called Lady in Red, the stems are red but the flowers aren’t at all, guess we need to add something to the soil. It’s a pretty plant all the same and I prefer lace caps over the big round headed ones.

Yesterday I harvested 80 heads of garlic, right on time as the last 3 heads from last year were getting dried out and sprouting. I think I had 60 heads last year but they were larger than this year so it should work out about right. I’m starting to harvest the onions now too, about 30 small purple ones came out yesterday and the whites and yellows will be next. They are better than last years but I’m not sure I’ll ever have onions again like the ones we grew in 2008.

The garden is looking really good thanks to the rains we’ve been having, its transition time, pulled out the lettuce and bok choy and mustard yesterday and will be harvesting the rest of the kale soon too, the cabbage loopers are getting to be too troublesome.

Beans, squash and cukes got planted late so we’ll have a bit of a lull between the spring and summer crops but that’s OK, still have lots of beets and carrots to eat and the chard is coming on nicely now. I’m glad to be finished with the craziness of spring planting and to have a little time to relax before the big summer harvest and tomato madness begins. We’ve been picking a few sungold cherries but it’s going to be July before we see a big red one. I eagerly wait.

Summer starts with a sizzling hot yarrow

2010-05-31T17:31:00.001-04:00

Yarrow "Paprika"

You gotta love Yarrow, it blooms long and re-blooms if you cut it back. This new variety Paprika is especially nice, it starts out a hot red with yellow centers and then fades slowly to an orangey-pink and finishes an antique pale apricot color. It does better with some support, we've got it growing up through a piece of fencing and that helps hold it upright so it doesn't flop over. Its only been open for a week or so and should continue on for at least 3 weeks more. As it fades the daylilies will fill in in front of it.

It's Memorial Day, what I consider to be the political start of summer, as opposed to the summer solstice which would be the astronomical, and for me, true start of summer. I reckon I should have tried to throw myself into a body of water somewhere but didn't want to leave the place. So instead I stuck my head under the hose after I finished mowing the grass in preparation for croquet tonight. I contemplated shucking down and playing in the chilly well water for a bit but opted to come on inside and take a cool shower.

Our best buds are coming over to drink gin and tonics and knock the croquet balls around the yard. We'll be firing up the grill for some pork tenderloin and I slow cooked some baked beans last night that I'll reheat. A big green salad with fresh beets, the last of the sugar snap peas and some baby carrots and fennel all fromt he garden will round out the meal. I'm looking forward to it.

This brings May to a close, I only managed 8 posts instead of a post a day, but hey, 8 is better than none.

Here's where I pledge to more writing in June, we'll see what happens.

Free Time

2010-05-28T16:16:00.000-04:00

Here is an example of what can happen when a person has some extra time again. Lemon-blueberry muffins from the last of last years blues, making room in the freezer for the new crop. It'll be coming along soon now. The berries are beginning to have a blueish cast to their greenness, I can hardly wait.

I have to admit I've been reveling in a bit of freedom for the first time in a while, doing things like swimming laps and walking and going to yoga class again. Cooking, reading, hanging out with my honey.

I finally got some more beans planted this week, about a month later than normal, yellow Roc D'or and flat italian Pension and borlotto beans for shelling. I also put in a row of okra and planted a row of purple hull peas on either side, we'll see how that works out but I think they should be able to co-exist in the wide bed I put them in. I don't plant okra every year as it takes a lot of space. You need a fairly long row to have enough to actually "make a mess'" as they say here in the south, since they only put on one okra per plant at a time and don't store well at all in the fridge. My favorite thing to do is pick them small, about 3 inches long and saute them up whole, quickly in a hot skillet in olive oil with garlic, salt and pepper, just till they are bright green, still a little crunch left and not getting too slippery. If there is a surplus I will pickle them.

It's Memorial Day weekend, the political start of summer, and even though the longest day is still 3 weeks off, it's feeling pretty summery around here, both weather wise and mood wise. Let me just say, I am ready.

Nest in Pocket

2010-05-22T13:23:00.000-04:00

Beware of leaving your clothes hanging on the line too long

Wrens are notorious for building nests anywhere, anytime. We believe it is compulsive behavior on their part. The other day I noticed movement behind a fitted sheet I had hung to dry. They were bringing leaves and putting them in the elastic pocket formed in the edge of the sheet. We have found nests in plastic bags, under towels draped over chairs, in large pots on the patio, in the sleeve of a jacket. This one was in the pocket of some shorts that were left on the line over night.

The nest removed, a fair piece of work for 24 hours

Adolescent Fruit

2010-05-20T21:29:00.000-04:00

Now that the strawberries are finished I’m looking forward to the next fruit crops, it will be a few weeks before the first blueberries are ripe enough to eat, happily we have 5 varieties so the blueberry season continues for a couple of months.

Then the blackberries will come along in July and make me want to bake pies.

The highest hope for the season are our first peaches and apples. We had a few peaches on the tree last year but the pesky squirrels ate them all when they were still green. That was the act that made us take up arms and eliminate 9 squirrels from the yard last summer. They are re-infiltrating of course, but maybe they haven’t discovered the fruit trees yet? That’s doubtful so we’ve already started taking a few shots at them as they graze on bird seed below the feeders, but either our aims went bad over the winter or our scope has gone out of calibration, perhaps a bit of both. We haven’t killed one yet this season but not for lack of trying.

The apples are particularly exciting. We planted five heirloom varieties nearly 4 years ago, they were bare root sticks and we’ve been patiently waiting. This is the first year they have bloomed and set fruit so we are filled with anticipation for their ripening, even if we only get a handful from each tree it will be a thrill.

I check from day to day on the various fruit, since the big rain earlier in the week things have really plumped up and I think we’ll see a decent crop on most things. The pubescent fuzz of the peaches and sheen on the apples fill me with expectancy, give me something to look forward to. Having fruit really lets you know you’ve been in the same place for a while and plan to stay.

We joke about planting pecan trees, but don’t believe we would ever see a nut, and besides, we don’t really have space for those giants. My brother Jonny and his wife Candy just put in fruit at their new house, he said they've been chanting "blueberry, blackberry, raspberry, fig". To that ditty I would add "bake me a pie and dance me a jig!"

Veggie Patch Update

2010-05-19T20:30:00.000-04:00

A couple of recent views of the veg garden reveal plenty to eat and lots still to come. Here looking to the southwest strawberries in the foreground have just played out but this tiny patch yielded well over a gallon including the grand finale of strawberry shortcake for a dinner party of ten. Lots of onions are growing along, they should start to swell soon as the days approach their longest in June. To the right is the garlic, 60 heads to be harvested in about 6 weeks. I'm down to 4 of the 60 heads from last year so I think that worked out pretty well. Towards the back of the photo stellar stands of black kale, beets, turnips, carrots and peas on the fences, all of whch we've been eating recently.

Looking from the west end of the garden east. Near the wooden fence are 13 hills of summer and winter squash and canteloupes. On the trellis are just sprouting cucumbers and Garden of Eden pole beans. Beyond that a shade structure protecting the salad mix from the heat and sun. To the left of that a second planting of beets and carrots and swiss chard to take us through the summer. In the far distance, the asparagus rows are going to fern after 6 weeks of harvest and past them out of site are the tomatoes and peppers. Still have some summer stuff to plant, purple hull peas, okra and more beans including snap and shelling. But I'm getting close to having the garden tucked in for the next seasons round of harvesting, eating and preserving.

Glorious Rain!

2010-05-18T21:44:00.000-04:00

Look close and you can see a ruby-throated hummingbird taking a sip from the pale yellow foxglove. The grand total this morning after 36 hours of rain was 5 and 2/10ths of an inch. Amen.

Spent my day of freedom puttering around the house, baked bread, went for a swim, made a nice supper that included lettuce, beets, radish, sugar snap peas, asparagus, dill and shitake mushrooms all from the garden and eggs from next door. Now that's livin'.

Ask and you shall receive?!

2010-05-17T21:41:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I said I hoped the dry spell of writing and weather were coming to an end and at the last check of the rain gauge we had received 4 inches since yesterday afternoon and its still coming down with verve out there. This is more rain than we've had in the past two or three months combined! The creeks will be out of their banks for sure. I'm very relieved, we had reached a critical point of dry in our garden here at home and all three of the community gardens were almost out of water with no source other than rainwater to rely on. This deluge will definitely be filling up the cisterns and rainbarrels and hopefully carry all the gardens forward for a while now.

In respect to my reference yesterday to creating more time for myself, I gave my notice today at Camellia Forest. After over 3 years of off an on work there, mainly during the busy shipping seasons of spring and fall, I made the decision it was time for me to move on and focus on other priorities, like writing and taking care of my own garden. It's been an interesting chapter in my life, being able to walk to work through the woods, doing physical work outdoors, and learning more than I ever imagined about camellias. I also added lots of exceptional new plants to my garden including some very special trees and shrubs. I made some good new friends with my co-workers there and will miss seeing them on a regular basis. I appreciated the flexibility I was given to take extended leaves to travel, but I won't miss working outside when its 95 and humid or 45 and raining! Another work life chapter draws to a close.

On the home front I'm featuring some peonies today, I'm sure this rain will put the few remaining flowers in the mud but they are my favorite and so I have to share some pics from a bit earlier in the season. At the top is a lovely the name of which I cannot remember. Just above is a new addition called Moonstone. This photo does not do justice to the tranluscent quality of the outer petals upon first opening, the palest of pinks and almost transparent, like vellum. I see where they got the name.

And last up another new variety, Raspberry Sunday. A bit gaudy and well, thats one of the reasons to grow peonies, is it not? This one has an ethereal fragrance; a cross between rose and lemon, scrumptious. My only regret about peonies is the shortness of their bloom season. For about 3 weeks we crowd the house with vases of their giant fragrant pompoms, piles of silky petals fall to the tables and countertops, and we are sad when the last one nods its head for the season. It seems the most fragrant flowers come in springtime; roses, peonies, dianthes, lilies of the valley, bearded iris. The hedgerows have been heavy lately with the scent of honeysuckle, so seductive but sadly, so invasive. If you can recommend any flowers with fragrance that bloom in the heat of a Carolina summer, please send your ideas my way.

Roses!

2010-05-16T13:34:00.000-04:00

I was hoping to break the long dry spell of writing that I’ve been suffering from lately. I had challenged myself to blog “Everyday in May”. Here it is the 16th and this is my first May post. Oy. Maybe from here on out I can try for everyday? It feels like I’ve been working 7 days a week. So when I do have a bit of free time, I’m feeling pressured to get the veggie garden in, typical for mid-April to mid-May in our region when most of the summer garden needs to be started, it seems there’s no time left for writing.

This must change.

I’m planning some cutbacks in the work department and all but the high summer crops of sweet potatoes, okra, purple hull peas and some assorted beans are now in the ground. I’ve got hope that there will be more hours in the day to ponder the world around me, to seek and find my muse again.

Wish me luck.

Meantime- I want to share the delicious roses that have been decorating our yard the past couple of weeks. I’ve never been much on growing roses but these old fashioned varieties seem quite easy and this pink one in particular is lusciously fragrant.

The way this apricot rose is spilling along the top of the garden fence, only in its second year, is just as I had hoped it would be.

The Jackmanii clematis mixed in with the New Dawn rose is a pairing I’ve envisioned ever sense seeing it in the White Flower Farm catalog some years back.

So- look for more writing from me in the very near future, tomorrow if life goes according to plan. I’m off to grab some lunch before heading in to a workday at the community garden. Here's hoping that both my writing dry spell and the dry spell of weather that's been over us for more than a month will break in the next 24 hours!