growing curious

busy in the kitchen...

 
Yesterday D poured the concrete for the chicken coop.  Now we have a 10' x 11' slab out there for square dances.  In the spring, we'll build the coop itself and then get our chickens.  This daydream suddenly became more concrete (ahem) with the delivery of the concrete.  I guess we'll be getting chickens then.  Real ones.

While out there, waiting for D to need my help, I picked the rest of the tomatoes so that we can start putting the garden to bed.  I know you can see the tomatoes up above, but look...  there are more green ones...

It's sort of like a bad dream to have all of these green tomatoes again because I haven't properly recovered from last year (chronicled here, here, here, here, and here ).  But I'm a good sport, yes?  And I have done a good job of minimizing the waste of perfectly edible produce from the garden this year so I was game to give it another go.  Green tomatoes are my friends.  No one understands them as deeply as I do...

So I put them all in the Harsch crock, and we'll hope that they turn into the real pickled green tomatoes I remember from New York City.  No vinegar.  No canning.  Real, fermented, crispy green tomatoes.  At least that's the hope.  They look pretty in the crock, don't they?  They're waiting to get splashed with brine.  In a week, they should be ready!

Actually, there are two Harsch crocks that are bubbling away right now.  The left one holds the green tomatoes, and one on the right is making Beet Kvass.  This is my first attempt and the first time I've used whey in my fermenting.  I looked at hundreds of recipes for Beet Kvass, and I was unable to find one that didn't use whey so I figured it must be important.  Beet Kvass is a fermented beet juice made with whey, salt, filtered water.  I put ginger in mine and used much less salt than often suggested.  It is supposed to be very healthy and very satisifying.  I love beets and have a feeling I'll love this.  We'll see in a couple of days.

But there were pretty red tomatoes out in the garden, too...

 
E doesn't eat tomato sauce on noodles so I wondered about making vegetable juice with these.  Then I realized I could make the job quite easy if I used the new strainer from the estate sale.  It worked magic!  How did I live without this tool?  (And, Stephanie, I really wonder if this would have helped make your grape project a lot easier?  Please borrow this anytime!)

The jars of juice look so pretty.  I used the recipe in the Ball Blue Book for Vegetable Juice and used less salt, and I think I could have even used less salt because the celery, onions, and lemon gave the tomatoes a nice twang.

The jar with the white cap is the pulp from the juicing.  It tasted so good that I added some lime juice and hot peppers to it so that I have some salsa to use for the next couple of weeks.  I didn't process this -- just froze some and put the rest in a jar in the fridge.  I'm happy that even this bit of garden bounty didn't get wasted.  It's satsifying to make the effort to turn leftovers into goodness.

So, yesterday:  chicken coop/square dancing platform, picked tomatoes, made beet kvass, maked pickled green tomatoes, made tomato juice and salsa.  Good, eh?

back

This is the view from our porch in Maui:

I swam a lot right out there.  In the afternoons, the wind picked up and made the water a little more rough.  In the mornings, it was very calm.  I also spent a lot of time reading out on this porch, enjoying the view and the breeze.

When we came home, after just a week, we found all of this in the garden:

When E and I picked up our dog from the kennel on Sauvie Island, we stopped into Kruger's for these:

They should be ready on Sunday or Monday.  I'm thrilled that my last batch of pickles turned out so well and still are receiving rave reviews.  I probably will get two more batches in before cucumbers are done for the season, and then I'll start another batch of kimchi. 

Three or four people are waiting to come to my house the next time I make kimchi...  I keep trying to figure out how to make a living teaching and doing this fermenting, but I also want to just share.  I guess I'll figure it out in the next few months.  Today D, E and I passed a boutique catering kitchen, and I thought again about the process of getting a food handler's license and of finding commercial kitchen space.  I don't know how to begin those projects until E is in first grade so that I have full mornings free. 

carrots and onions

the garden giveth...

...and I am very grateful, even though it is not fun to wash and process that much kale all at once.

I separated the bug-free kale from the icky and then put it in the sink for a second sort and a first clean.  I saved the kale ribs and washed them again, and now they're bubbling away and giving their good energy to a vegetable stock.  Those two bowls of de-stemmed kale in the picture above will go through two more washings before I make kale pesto (a la Farmer John's Cookbook, which is so helpful when one needs to make smart use of a vegetable bounty).

E just came inside and was talking to me about all sorts of things for ten minutes before I asked her directly, "Why did you come inside even though Daddy is still outside?"

"Oh, I came in to ask you for two bags so that Daddy can put the onions in them!"

"Well, that's very important, and I'm glad I asked you because he needs those right away if he's pulling all the onions!  Take these to him right now!  Thanks for being such a big help, E!  He will be glad for these bags."

So if all goes well, there will be a picture here soon of a bunch of dirty onions and maybe some carrots!  Gotta make carrot cake for Grandma P's birthday on Tuesday!

i like dirt

Look at this glorious pile of steaming compost!

There was a good summer rain last night (lovely to listen to) that left the ground in perfect condition for weeding.  I was out there all morning.  E even helped for an hour. D agreed to order me a truckload of compost so that I can quickly cover up the weeded areas and maximize my hard work.  The nice landscape materials folks must have filled up the truck as soon as we called because they were here lickety-split.

Other pretty things:

The passionflower vine finally surfaced.  It's quite late in the year, and I had given up on it -- assuming the wild winter had killed it.  Not so, and I'm delighted.

These pretty baubles belong to the new apple rose (Rosa villosa) I planted this year.  I love this rose so much.  The flower is sweet, simple, light pink.  These hips taste like candy.  Someday, when the plant is larger and produces more, I'm going to make jam out of the hips.  This year, I'll make some heart-lifting tea from them.  I have another of these roses that I've written about before.  That lovely being is down by the creek.  This one is new, planted just months ago, and I'm happy about how well it's growing.

As The Cottage Smallholder wrote about recently, we're re-engineering our landscaped areas so that they can be used to grow more edibles.  This apple rose will stay, and I'll add another one here and some blueberry bushes.  Yesterday I ripped out a rhododendron that finally died (my fault, a casualty from our big front landscaping project...  I never had time to plant it so it suffered freezing temperatures in its pot...  when the ground thawed, I tried to plant it, and the rhodi sure tried hard, but it finally gave up this year...  lesson learned), and now we'll nourish the soil there and plant three blueberries.  Next year, I want to integrate squash, peppers, and eggplants into the front landscaping, and I also think there might be room for beans to share the same fence with the passionflower.

first figs

My early morning meditations in the garden are going swimmingly.  This morning I noticed that a few of the Desert King figs were drooping in that very sensual way that they droop when they're heavy and ripe.  These plopped into my palm just as I reached for each of them.  Thump. Thump.  Thump.  They make a gentle smacking sound on my palm that sounds like the pat-pat-pat I used to give E on her bottom when she was a babe.

The Desert Kings are funny because they're still green when ripe.  You have to look carefully to notice how they're hanging there.  Another day in the hot sun, and these would have fallen to the ground on their own.

I ate all of these by myself because I am the only one who likes figs here.  E thinks they're too weird.  D thinks they're too ummm...  sensual, I guess.

Also sweet today:  our wonderful neighbors brought over a berry pie to thank me for inviting their granddaughter over to play two late afternoons and a dinner time this week.  She's just a year or so older than E, very sweet, and they play nicely together so it was great for me all around.  But a berry pie?!?  Yes, please!

got aching gardening muscles?

Once one gets past a certain age, gardening feels necessary to the spirit, but a busy day out there when the weather is right (like after several days of 100-plus weather...  well... you have to get out there and do what you can when the thermometer is only at 95...) can make one ache all over.

Dear gardeners, please contact Taylor at WebWeavingHerbals.  She made me a special elixir for my aching muscles, and it is magic.  An hour ago, I was on the verge of tears because my feet and hips were in such pain.  What could I do?  Oh!  I could use Taylor's special oil.  Now, I feel renewed.  My feet feel fine.  My hips feel relaxed... like really relaxed...

I won't tell you what she uses in her elixir, but she will, and she may customize it just for you. 

first apples

We planted an apple tree out front three years ago, and this year it fruited.  In fact,there was so much fruit on it that the branches bowed down to the ground, and I worried for the health of the tree.  Other apples were falling off.  I decided to salvage what I could and just left a few apples up on the tree to see how they ripen.  I thought that I could treat the green, unripe apples like crabapples and make hot apple jelly with some chilis I had in the fridge.

And so I did that last night.  I put a whole, dried chili in the jar a la Oded Schwartz in his book Preserving.  I gave a spoonful to D last night, and it took  a minute before the heat hit his tongue, but then I heard the "oh!"

This morning (still going out just as it gets light) I brought in the garlic that I had curing out there in the hot, hot sun.  The kitchen smells like how our next door neighbor's house used to smell.  Mrs. Gashina lived next door in a double-sized lot, and she gardened her whole yard intensively.  She and her husband made wine, and even her apple streudel tasted like garlic because everything in Mrs. Gashina's house was infused with garlic.  I used to love it when she'd take her gray hair out of her bun and brush her hair upside down, down to the floor.  She'd swoop back up, and it would be standing out to her sides, and she'd cackle like a happy witch.

Feeling a little blue today, overwhelmed by summer and hormones, worrying about things I can't seem to fix.

sometimes i amuse myself...

Tonight I'm watching kimchi how-to videos on YouTube.  This video by Maangchi is inspiring and easy.  This one by Julie Hasson is vegan.  My recipe is different from both of theirs!

Also, I'm thinking about chickens and how to keep them happy.  I'm overwhelmed by hot summer days, solo with a four-and-a-half-year-old.  I'm growing a lot of beans.  I feel pride in the celery, which is a crop no one else likes because I'm not blanching it by hiding it from the sun.  I make jam.

Even ten years ago, when I was just getting back from New York,  I never would have guessed I'd be here now.  Back then, I thought I'd be in publishing somehow forever.  These days, I care about children's books, but my energy is used in the garden and the kitchen.  I still haven't figured out how this changes me, but I'm different lately.

summer overwhelm in the garden

To do the garden as we wish we could would be a full-time job, split between D and me.  There are some things he's good at, other things I am.  If we both could spend 6 - 8 hours out there each day in total, during the 6 intensive months of the year, we'd be in good shape with this 2/3 of an acre.  (Please don't laugh...  I realize that some of you work miracles with much more space.)  During the other six months, we both could work on other projects and work less outside (or in the yearly planning for the garden).

We've come a long way since we moved here six years ago.  Each year we get better at what we're doing.  D and I are trying to figure out how we want to garden and develop the property in the near future.

But every year I have a miserable June with hay fever.  I take alternative and allopathic medicine for it, but I pretty much can't go outside and be productive during the entire month of June -- such an important month!

When I finally venture out in July, I hate it out there.  It's overgrown, unruly.  Some plants have been neglected because no one was giving them extra attention.  (LIke, for example, for such an herb enthusiast, I pretty much suck at growing basil because it needs every-other-day attention here in Oregon during June.  It wants to be plucked and pruned so that it can grow bushier.  Sometimes it needs an extra splash of water.)

In July, I hate the garden, and it takes every ounce of courage I have to go out there and face the madness of growth.  (It doesn't help that my mother-in-law chides me about the weeds every time she sees me -- a few times a week.)

I asked some nice people on an organic homesteading mailing list if *they* ever feel overwhelmed and helpless in summer.  Many said yes.  It helped to hear that!

So I have been trying to figure out how to push through my fear and overwhelm and reconnect with this crazy garden after a month of growth has happened.  Usually, once I'm out there working, I can sink into a small task and then move onto the next.  The problem is getting out there at all when I feel overwhelmed.  Many of those homesteaders suggested I just go out early in the morning, every day, and work for a short while.

When I was talking about this with my mentor/therapist, she thought they had a good idea.  So we spent part of the session figuring out how I could re-engineer mornings around here so that I could get out to the garden before D and E woke up, or how to have good breakfasts ready for them to make themselves while I was outside.

This is what I'm trying to do this week.  I've gotten three painful wasp bites (think that's what they are) in the process, but I'm going to try to go out there again tomorrow morning -- the fourth day in a row it would be.

Today I strung up the tomatoes a bit higher, picked a load of broccoli, and watered the celery and zukes and my mother-in-law's garden bed that isn't on the automatic system.

Tomorrow morning, I should pick some green beans again.  (But I am afraid of the spiders/wasps who are biting me.)

It's like the garden *is* my practice, my space for connecting with spirit and real life.  When I'm gone for a month because of the pollen (and I'm well aware of the significance of my "allergies" in terms of my body-mind-spirit...  like why does my body panic in the middle of the good stuff?), I don't know how to reconnect with myself out there.  My worn hand-tools feel foreign.  I feel shy among the plants.  My first hour of weeding feels shallow because it *is* shallow since I'm not using my whole body to twist and remove the roots of the weeds.

So I am trying to approach the garden as a meditation practice -- every morning for awhile.  We'll see...

first potatoes

There are sweet advantages to having a slightly color-blind husband. 

He motioned with his arm and said, "There's a bag of blue potatoes over there." 

I thought, "We grew blue potatoes again?  Man...  they're so pithy."

But I wandered over to the bag and saw these delicious young red potatoes.  I did a happy dance.  They are goregous and smell like dirt and life.  They smell of hope.

Last year we (he... the potatoes were his domain) managed 300 pounds of potatoes, and we didn't know what we were doing.  This year, we scaled back on planting but hope to make every potato count in our dinners and breakfasts. These will do nicely!

fourth

Do you remember this photo that I posted in April?  I mentioned that I thought the plant in the center with reddish leaves was a volunteer lettuce or a volunteer chickory.  It was chickory.   When it bolts, it sends out curly things with sweet blue flowers all over that the bees love, love, love.  This is what it looks like now:

And here is another photo:

Life still feels electric and heightened.  I'm not up or manic, though.  In fact, I'm feeling quite a bit of physical pain lately.  Everything feels big -- important but hard.

Tonight we're heading up to my mom's house because she's got a good spot for watching fireworks from all over the area.  I made hummus and raita, picked some snap peas from the garden, gathered some other vegetables, and stocked up on whole wheat pitas.  I don't like fireworks (hello?  PTSD and fireworks don't mix), and I feel cranky and hormonal, but my chores are done, and I'm trying to get mellow so that I will be pleasant to be around this evening.  (Isn't it sad when we have to try to be pleasant?  I even put perfume on this morning before walking in a neighborhood parade because I feared I just stunk wretchedness.)

Here is a picture of our zen berry picker.  She just tunes out the whole world, becomes one with the bees, and sinks into the raspberries.  It's pretty amazing to watch her work.  Sadly, the results are always in her belly -- even when she goes out with a container to pick berries for later. 

  

willamette organics

If you live in central or NW Oregon and need help with your soil, call Jim Toler at Willamette Organics.

Every time we hire them to help us nourish our soil, we benefit.  Money well spent.  Nice folks.

visible growth

Do you remember this picture from February?  This is where I planted our peas.

This is what it looks like now:

ladybug orgy

E and I released some ladybugs yesterday.  They're busy already having a party. 

I like ladybugs a lot.  They just seem cheery.   We're beginning to get aphids on the roses so I thought it was time to pull in the red ladies.

Here are a couple more who are busy on the same angelica plant.  I really love angelica.  It's a biennial plant, and this is its second year -- hence the amazing blooms, which are a bee magnet.  I wish I would have planted another this year so that I can have fun with the blooms next year, but I think it's too late.  Last year, this one looked more like a celery plant.  This year, it looks like a goddess in the garden.

kimchi birthday

Why does this make me so happy?  My first batch of kimchi is a success.  I am now a kimchi maker!  (Perhaps I will add this skill to my resume when I dust off the cobwebs soon...) 

(Napa cabbage + bok choi + daikon + radish greens + carrots + green onions + jalepeno + garlic + ginger + aleppo pepper) ^{soaked in salt overnight and drained} x 5 days in the Harsch crock = WOW! 

It tastes clean and bright -- spicy hot enough but not burning hot.  You can taste each of the ingredients and then appreciate how they work together.  I am so proud.  And I'm delighted to learn to make something with a shorter production time in the crock.  If I run out of kraut, I can make a batch of kimchi (healthful, too) and have the crock ready for a round of pickles whenever the cucumbers are ready.  (I was feeling panicky about having kraut going in there when the cucumbers were ready, and last time the kraut just needed another three weeks and it turned out wonderfully, but it was winter, and I could wait...  Now I think I won't get another crock just yet.)

Today was a good day.  D stayed home.  E stayed home, too, because she has a cold (boo!).  The fish came.  We all had time in the garden.  We went to Concentrates to pick up our back-ordered supply of organic compost.  Taylor's package of special super-duper muscle rub arrived!  It was my birthday, and E made me a collage, and D gave me a two-hour foot rub while we watched a movie.  And the kimchi turned out!

vine cage in situ

If all goes well, in two months, I will show you a new picture of this vine cage covered in beans.

All day long, my mind has been going a mile a minute, thinking about garden structures I might create with simple weaving techniques. 

Good morning at home getting things done and working in the garden.  Now it's time to figure out dinner...

tomatoes and crackers

We got the tomatoes in.  If they all grow successfully, we'll be loaded.  We planted more than twenty plants in three rows, and we're going to use the Florida Weave method to stake them.  This lets us plant them closer together yet have room to work with the vines as they grow.

I'm not sure what's going on, but every time we have a big work day in the garden, I can't sleep at night because my legs ache so much.  I was up until 3am last night and then woke up at 6-something this morning to get going on the morning chores.  This sort of exhaustion can take me to the bad place pretty quickly.

I meant to share this photo last week.  Because E really enjoyed her cooking class at the rec center and did more complicated cooking there than she normally does at our house, we realized that she could do more in our kitchen if she wasn't always perched on a stool.  D built her a table/butcher block for the middle of the kitchen -- at just the right height for her.  This is a picture from our last cracker-making adventure.  It worked perfectly and gave her much more control.

I have lots more to say, but I'm too exhausted to write more.  I better just cave in and go rest and let her watch cartoons.  Me = bad mother.

room for more cucumbers

D is home with a cold.  E still has pox.  It's been raining cats and dogs.

During a brief break in the rain, I got them both outside for a look around the garden.  E helped me plant five pepper plants.  I really love planting when I know it will rain soon.  After looking things over, I realized that I have room for two more cucumber plants against a wire fence.  I love it when space opens up like that...  I didn't think there would be room for anything else there, but now I see that there's plenty of room.

Off to take a nap...  I'm doing a valiant job of fighting off the crud, but I'm tired.

throwing things

The May/June 2009 issue of In Good Tilth focuses on new, young farmers.  There's a great article from Katie Kulla, "Want to Farm?  Prepare Today to Grow Tomorrow."  Under the subheading "Know yourself (and your partner)," she writes:

"I am an even-tempered person, and I never thought I would want to throw a tool -- let alone throw a tool directed at my husband.   But, in the midst of building a farm from scratch, the thought has crossed my mind more than once."

I get that.

Yesterday, I had a cow at D because his fancy hose contraption is so fancy that you can't just roll out the hose normally when you want to water.  You have to push buttons and do this and do that, and you need to be careful it won't roll back up on you automatically when you're in the middle of watering.  Why don't we just have a normal hose coiled up on the ground?  I just wanted to water.  Why must I go through so many hoops to accomplish a simple goal?

His mother was over so I asked her why he must always have the fanciest, most complicated contraptions.  She didn't have an answer. 

He bought a seeder that rolls along the ground so that you can plant seeds in straight lines.  I understand why tools like this exist, but our "farm" is quite small.  When he gets out this thing, I want to show him the finger.  My finger.  See this, babe?  This is my seeder.

It's raining this weekend...  I think we're going to go off into the world and play today and give the yard (and our minds) a break.

garden in the evening

This is a gorgeous moment of spring's energy in our garden.  That "lettuce" in the center may be lettuce or some sort of chicory from last year.  The parsley in the back is from last year, too.  The little leaves in front are from a young celery plant.

I went outside tonight to take the yard debris can to the street, but the garden called me.

I just stood out there, plucking the unopened flower buds from the kale, arugula, and mustard plants.  I pinched them off and popped them into my mouth.  Tender, sweet, and spicy.

Here are the peas, climbing happily.  I hope they continue to do well and that I feel like there's enough volume there for me to pick the pea shoots, too.  I sure love those -- sauteed ever so slightly or tossed with a warm dressing so that they just begin to soften.

But where is the asparagus?  Maybe it will come up next year instead.  Little parsley plants line the edge of the bed because I like parsley and have heard that asparagus likes it, too.

potential

Here is a new raised bed in our vegetable garden.  This bed has a complicated history and purpose, but I think it's all going to work out just fine -- despite a tension-filled hour in the garden today.

This bed is for my mother-in-law.  After her husband died, she moved across town and into a condominium less than a mile away from us.  She has a small patio there that gets too much sun so she's not able to garden as she used to.  

My MIL has very particular ideas about everything, and she often comes over here to "help" but micromanages me in my own garden instead.  I know she means well, but the garden is my sacred space.  So I decided that she needed her own well-defined garden plot over here.  I wanted it to be big so that she would be able to grow anything she desired.  I wanted it to be raised enough so that she could work it even when she was feeling tired or sore. I wanted it to "fit" with the other brick beds we've made so I fought D on making sure this bed was made from bricks, too.

So...  here is the new planting bed -- done and filled with a nice mix of manure, old compost, and sand.  Behind the bench in the photo is an area we've always just used for branches and debris, but I reclaimed a 15' x 3' section of that no-man's land for planting more herbs and flowers to attract beneficial insects.  I filled it with extra planting mix from the new raised bed and marked it off with a huge tree branch -- giving the new flower bed a sweet, natural curve.

The frustrating, interesting, weird part of the whole day was when we were out there today, and my MIL could see this *huge* new bed that was made just for her, and she spent the whole time micromanaging me over in this throw-away area of the yard behind the bench.

I put the bench there this year for my MIL, and I wanted to plant some pretty flowers behind it to help the health of the garden and to please my MIL.  But instead of focusing on what I *was* doing for her, she focused on everything I needed to be doing better or differently.

Whatever. 

Here is some pretty kale.  We are going to eat some of that tomorrow.

p + p = p p

President's day in Portland = Plant Peas!

This spot did well last year because the peas got to climb as high as they wanted to.  I expanded the space from 4-feet wide to 12-feet this year because I am greedy.

I feel hopeful. I planted a mixture of sugar snap, shell peas, and snow peas.

Can you believe that I got out in the garden with all that's going on?  It took a massive amount of energy to get myself to accomplish this symbolic welcome to the new growing year.  I really just wanted to hide under the covers.

imaginary dinner conversations

D:  What did you do today, dear, while our sweet child was in school?

C:  Why, thank you for asking me.  I tidied up the back and front gardens and coppiced the artemisia.

D:  Oh marvelous!  You really do keep the gardens looking nice, sweetheart.

In reality, though, I pretty much hacked the artemisia down to a nubby stub and ripped out the bittercress like a crazed woman, dirt flying everywhere.

Also, in reality, D and I don't have dinner conversations.  We are tired, forty-something parents, and we just grunt at one another in the evenings.

I find gardening language amusing sometimes, though.  Coppicing is a way of managing thickets, shrubs, and forests by cutting back plants so that new growth is stimulated.  Artemisias get leggy like some willows so it's how I keep ours round and fluffy.  But a garden writer would never say, "Just hack it down to the stub every January."  I wonder if garden writers are squeamish or if they never take delight in the destructive side of gardening.  It's good therapy for me, and today was my very first chance of the year to hack away at something.  More to come!  Goody goody.

meanwhile... those green tomatoes...

My camera is at E's school today so I can't take a picture for you, but the green tomatoes are still here.  I made two batches of marmalade.  One batch is extra sweet.  One batch is bitter in an authentic, marmalade-y way.  I like the bitter one best, of course, because I'm a bitter old hag.  Or maybe it's because I'm so naturally sweet that I need the bitter to balance things out?  (I wonder which one Jon Stewart would like best?  D likes the sweet one.)

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the rest of the green ones, though.  If I could find some cheap hot peppers, maybe I'd make another batch of salsa verde.

My friend P wondered why I'm wearing myself out with these green tomatoes...  maybe I should just let them go into the compost pile...  I just can't.  I want to "win" this cosmic challenge or "do right" by the energy that went into growing the tomatoes.

I'm not doing a lot this morning.  I need to run off to return some ballet things that E didn't like.  There are good pinto beans cooking on the stove, and the last of the reddish tomatoes are roasting in the oven with onions and peppers.  I think I'll make some chili with them all.  My mother often made chili for Halloween.

After I emptied the compost bucket, I went up to the top of the garden and picked a bowl-ful of figs -- maybe 10 Brown Turkeys -- the most I've ever harvested at one time because the tree is so young. 

even more green tomatoes

How many more green tomatoes?  Another 30 pounds! 

It's hilarious.  It's heartbreaking.  My shoulders still are sore from all of the chopping I did the other week.

There must be some cosmic message in all of this...

more green tomatoes!

I know...  it's becoming a joke, but there truly are more green tomatoes out there in the garden.  See?  I left these vines growing because they were healthier and had more air circulation.  But these tomatoes still haven't begun to ripen.

I guess I'll make a proper jam this time -- no chutney.  My gosh, what am I going to do with all that chutney?

So...  ummm...  big inner changes happening here.  I'm pretty grumpy and discombobulated, trying to make new choices and feel more empowered in my life. 

My cousin will be dying soon.  My father is still ill and keeps going in and out of the hospital (which my brother and I don't hear about until after he's back and brushing his teeth at home).  And I'm still trying to dig myself out of the load of anger my brother dumped on me a couple of weeks ago.  His half-hearted apology ("You didn't deserve it.") doesn't erase the very mean things he said or the entire week I spent confused and sad about it all -- especially when he warns me that he may unload on me again like that (ummm... no, dear tortured brother, that's not okay with me).

I'm still trying to figure out what being a mom is all about.  When does she need all of me?  When is it okay to do some of my own stuff?  I still feel that the best way for me to restore my health and well-being is through art/creativity of some kind.  I keep making exploratory gestures in this realm, but I feel inner urgency to make it a priority.

To this end, I re-arranged the "Creating Room" again.  Remember when I came to the realization that I'd never get time to do my own stuff in my own space unless I figured out how to share the space intentionally with E?

Well, the Creating Room has been working out pretty well in some ways.  I mostly have stopped calling it "my office," and E and I do quite a bit in there -- for her.  This weekend I finally decided to bring more of my stuff -- another bookshelf, books, and some extra art supplies -- into the Creating Room. I don't know why rearranging things helps me so much.  I also feel comforted now to have Rumi, Lynda Barry, Ram Das, Clifford Geertz, and some delicious fairy tale books (mine!) close to me while I go through these mountains of grief and anger.  I've felt so lost lately.  It helps to see these books because they remind me of what matters to my heart.

Meanwhile, those green tomatoes are hanging out there on the fence, taunting me... 

58 pounds of green tomatoes

I guess I have a good eye...  here are 58 pounds of green tomatoes in good shape.  Five or ten pounds only made it as far as the compost pile.

So the issues are...

• What should I do with them?

• Should I just try every recipe that looks interesting because there certainly is enough of them?

• What do I have the energy for?  Seems like it would be nice to make a chutney or jam, some pickles, and a salsa.  That's a lot of work, and my energy has taken a serious nose-dive this weekend.

• If I pickle some, will they get mushy?  I would rather they stay kinda crunchy.

Come on, green tomato lovers, help me out here!

Do you see the white bowl filled with the green romas?  They came from one plant, and the huge tomatoes hung together on the vines like clusters of grapes.  I really wanted to taste these ripe, but not a single one ever made it.

I left four plants growing because they're in a different area that gets a lot of sun and air circulation.  The vines on those plants are still quite healthy so maybe some of those tomatoes will ripen.  (And that is a lesson on tomato placement for next year's garden.)

It was weird to harvest all of these and rip out the plants.  I have felt sad about the dumb tomato year.   My plants suffered from the weather as did many other tomato plants in this area.  Also, I got most of my plants from one nursery, and most of them suffered from some weird leaf curl thing that held back their growth during the last part of spring.  It took a long time for them to recover.

But I tried to keep my focus on the positive.  I'm grateful that I'm learning how to preserve things.  These tough beauties didn't grow in vain.  They will be enjoyed!  (Cynthia --ooops! --, only a pound or two seem as though they might ripen on the counter.  I'll try your trick.  Thanks!)

what should I do with...

...sixty pounds of green tomatoes?

Chutney?  Pickles?  Please help.

With the rain we've had, we can't hang the vines upside down and hope the fruit will ripen.  The vines are rotten, and the fruit must be rescued tomorrow.  60 pounds is a conservative estimate on what's out there.  Yes, some of them will be fried!  (I have some really great butter.)

happy

I am happy because...

• Yesterday I talked with a new mom friend for an hour while our kids were busy, and we had time to find some common ground (including the fact that we both took great classes from a particular professor).

• Last night I spent three hours knitting with four other nice women.  I laughed really hard and realized I'm not a freak.  I am having a normal experience being a parent.

• The sauerkraut crock is coming.  D, E and I will be able to ward off scurvy and keep our intestinal flora happy while the economy tanks. 

• There are 75 pounds or more of green tomatoes on rotting vines that must be dealt with this weekend.  Ideas?  I was sad for a month that our tomato harvest didn't happen. Now I'm done with being sad and am ready to do something fun with the green ones.

• It rained an autumn-in-a-rainforest sort of rain this afternoon, and I loved being able to put E down for her nap while it fell.

• I really, really like the other families at E's preschool.  I like the kids.  I like the parents.  I like the teacher. Every part of it is good -- except for my angst when it's my turn to be parent helper (but there is plenty of fun and joy in that, despite that angst).  It's so good to be sure of something on this parenting journey.

• It's almost a weekend.

• I'm collecting some annoying baby things (plastic!) like plates and cups and things and moving them out of the kitchen before I decide how to donate them.

• I have been moving my small collection of fun cookie cutters to the now-empty drawer (jackrabbit, house, sheep) because they're getting used more these days. 

• I cleaned the laundry room and two bathrooms this week.

• I went outside to pick a few stray greens and found three ripe figs to bring in.

Life is good.