Looking Ahead

As a person who is chronically jumping from one unfinished job to the next exciting new prospect, the act of looking ahead is always tinged with a bit of guilt and doubt. 

"Is it really time to focus on that upcoming task?"
"What have I left undone?"
"Am I afraid of whatever I'm leaving behind?"
"Will anyone really notice that I have one black and one dark brown crock on, really?"

But the end of summer is all looking ahead for me.  The summer is so exhausting (in a wonderful way, of course) that by the time it comes to its close I am ready and willing.  The fall brings such new cozy and inward-looking adventures, and the change is so clear in its coming, that I can't help but look forward.  It's not like the other seasonal changes that seem to sneak up on you, where you find yourself wondering, "When did it get cold enough to snow? " Or you find yourself walking through a forest that just days before was bleak and desolate, the only sign of green the frosty lichen on the trees, and now it is suddenly bursting with little green shoots of life.  Fall comes charging in, red banners unfurled, blazing in the last heat waves of summer.
"I am coming!" says Fall, "And I'm bringing a mess-load of pumpkins!"

I live in New England.  That's how Fall talks over here. 

This fall is bringing a lot of changes to our household.  But the thing I think I am looking forward to the most is the blessed, beautiful, benevolent Schedule.  Oh my lovely, how I've missed you!  I never thought I'd say those words, but I tell you I have been a little lost without it.  I type it out, put it on the fridge, and follow it's directives like a love-sick slave.  Tell me what to do, tell me what to do, tell me what to do....

No unplanned early vegetables to process and hide away.  No more impromptu sojourns to the beach.  Just wonderful stability. 

Now, it is entirely possible that I am romanticizing this just a little.  The same way, in February, I romanticized the bounty of the harvest.  But for now, before I actually have to obey my Schedule Master, it does seem worth looking forward to.  Predictability, and that mess-load of pumpkins.   

Tomatoes

If August were a woman she would be draped in red, with long red hair, and a fiery temper.  I'm pretty sure she just stormed into my house dumped a bunch of tomatoes and zucchini on my kitchen floor, looked at me lovingly, and, just as I was getting used to having her around, said she was about ready to leave.  Sigh.  That is the way of passionate love affairs, I guess.  When it goes that way, you can usually console your self with a zip-up hoodie your fiery-tempered lover has left behind in their haste.  In this way August's leaving me is similar.  She is leaving her bounty for me to savor while she slips out the door and the slow, cool comfort of Autumn takes her place. 

Last year, with the blight, there was scarcely a tomato around.  I bought a box of sauce tomatoes from a local farm and made a batch of ketchup that wasn't very good.  Well, it was good, but it wasn't ketchup.  If you thought of it as tomato spread, or something like that it was alright. But if you sat there with your french fry and thought, "I can't wait to have some ketchup," you would find yourself disappointed.  The spices were too strong and all wrong.    It did, however, make a mean BBQ Sauce. 

This year there are tomatoes! It is very exciting. So far, I have preserved them by:

1. Roasting and Freezing:  Set your oven to 200 degrees, cut Tomatoes in half and line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and place tomatoes on the sheet cut side down.  Roast for 2 hours.  When they come out of the oven, let them cool so you can touch them.  The skins with just slip right off.  Pack a mason jar 2/3 full only! (the jar will crack in the freezer if it's more than that), and pop it in the freezer.  These can be used later for sauce or soup.  The roasting makes the flavor absolutely incredible. 

2. "Sun Dry" (dehydrate):  I sliced the big tomatoes into thirds and dehydrated them in my electric dehydrator for about a day.  The plum tomatoes I sliced in half and dehydrated them for longer.  The manual says it shouldn't take this long, but that's how long it took.  I am still having trouble finding the right consistency.  I know they should be leathery, but when they are they still seem wet, and I don't want them to mold.   So the truth is some of them are a little crisper than usual.  I'll have to soften them in water before I use them.  I have also dehydrated the cherry tomatoes. We had an abundance, and I couldn't figure out what to do with them.  We sliced them in half and dehydrated them (they are doing this right now) and I will pack them in olive oil in jelly jars. 

3. Tomato Jam:  What's tomato jam?  I don't really know.  It seems like it's similar to ketchup bu not as thick.  My two-and-a-half-year-old says, "I yike dis tomato jam, Mama."  I took the recipe from The Big Book Preserving the Harvest. 

4. Tomato Sauce:  This recipe I took from Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving.  It is a water bath recipe, which means that it doesn't have to be pressure canned.  It has lemon juice added to boost the acidity so we don't get botulism.  I also boiled the ever-living life out of that stuff.  So hopefully we won't all die from a home cooked spaghetti dinner. 

I am hoping to make some salsa, some real ketchup, and some more tomato sauce.  I don't really have enough right now to make it through winter.  I think more than likely I will be spending the weekend gathering sauce tomatoes and canning.  Which is fine, really.  Now that the summer is coming to an end, my panicky feelings that it won't be enough are (mostly) turning into contended feelings of having done the best I could.  And after last year, I'm grateful for any tomatoes.

The Monarch

I love seeing images in field guides of cool, lesser noticed bugs, the really big ones, or the ones that have more colors than most, or even the ones that live for a brief moment in time and then go on their journey into death and beyond.  It makes it all seem something like a treasure hunt.  In all my (relatively) brief years, I have never seen an actual monarch caterpillar.  They are so big and so yellow, that it seems amazing that I've never come across one, but there you have it.

"MOM! Come quick!"
I hear this a lot.  It is usually followed by "See what Hunter did!"
(Her mischievous younger sister)

But this time it was followed by, "See what I found!"

'Lo and behold my daughter had found a bona-fide monarch caterpillar that was huge, and most likely in its last instar before going into it's pupal stage.  She found it chomping away on our milkweed plants right next to the front porch (which is, of course, exactly why we planted them).

Inspired by this momma here, I thought we would make an environment for her and watch this miracle happen.  I had a large glass biscotti jar I got at a yard sale, got some sticks and milkweed leaves, a piece of screen and a rubber band and got to work. I found a lot of helpful information here at the Butterfly School.  Did you know that caterpillars don't need water in their "house" because they get all the water they need from the plants they eat?  Did you know that caterpillar poop is called frass?  Did you know how loud the term "pupa" will make a four-year-old laugh? Well, neither did I. Look how much smarter we are already. 

At first the little one ate.

And ate.

And ate some more. 

It was the very hungry caterpillar all over again.

Then it stopped.  I got freaked out and called the Audubon society.  They informed me (without even laughing a little bit) they they don't eat continuously without stopping ever, and that it probably just needed a rest.  She was right.  It ate and ate a bit after that. 

Toward the evening it started to climb up the side of the jar.  This was really amazing to watch.  As she climbed she was swaying her head back and forth, kind of like she was questing for something.  As I sat (the girls were heading off to bed at this point) with my arms folded on the table and my head resting upon them, I saw that she was actually weaving a silky ladder for herself.  It seemed the jar was too slippery for her to hang on without some help.  So she made this ladder, and slept there on the side of the jar.  When my husband came downstairs after putting the kids to sleep, he asked if I was going to watch it all night and that it seemed like it was probably sleeping. 

The next morning we gave it fresh leaves and it seemed to just sort of putz around.  By the next day it was hanging from the screen in the tell-tale "J" shape!  We were headed out that day, and I was so afraid that we would miss the magical chrysalis transformation into the pupal stage (hahahaha). 

When we came home there was a bright green thing coming from the head area, and some liquid dripping.  I immediately thought it was dead.  But after my previous folly into freakedoutedness, before calling the authorities I decided to wait.  And then we waited one more day.  It was dead. 

When I had spoken to the Audubon lady she talked a bit about how sometimes they die.  She said, "People get so fussy about them and monitor their every move.  But sometimes they die.  It's just the way it is."

I was heartbroken.  And I was so sad to have to tall my kids.  Athena asked if we could wait another day, and so we did.  By this time it was beginning to shrivel and dry up.  When I told her it was really dead her response was, "Can I hold it now?" I hadn't let her handle it again since I learned that we have bacteria on our hands that can kill it, and I was afraid her little sister would crush it by accident. 

Her response blows my mind.  She's a really different kind of kid than I was (am).  If I had gone through something like this at her age I would have been inconsolable for days.  Possibly years.  Really, there is still some lame stuff that still gives me pangs.  Like that time I threw my Chatty Cathy Doll off the second story balcony to see what would happen.  It breaks.  (pang).  But Athena just moves on to the next truth. It's dead now, so we can't hurt it, I can hold it.  Just like that.  Don't think she's cold either, she loves all living things, and they love her.  I seriously just watched a lobster fall asleep in her arms the other day.  A lobster. But she has a very matter-of-fact was of looking at things.  She inherits this handy skill from her father, and not from me.  I am still honing my matter-of-fact skills. 

Later that week we were by the tomatoes and I heard, "MOM! Come Quick!"
I hurried over, checking to make sure the little one was in view. 
"Look! Frass!"
She had found a pile of frass identical to the one the monarch left behind.  We rooted around to see if we could get another, but it was long gone. 

So our butterfly adventure didn't turn out the way we (or the Monarch) hoped, but we learned a little.  My kid has a sharper, keener eye for the nature around her, and her momma learned to enjoy the beauty of what is, whether it falls in with my expectations or not.  Thanks, Kid.

Toothpaste

I am on a mission to reduce my consumption.  I have tightened the screws, and as supplies run out, I am looking for less wasteful or reusable ways to replace them.  I have been patiently waiting for the toothpaste to run out completely to motivate me to try out some recipes. 

When I began my inquires to the Internet about how to make toothpaste, I came across a few interesting things.  One was the information that toothpaste usually has aspartame in it.  This is apparently what make toothpaste so sweet.  I am a little embarrassed to say that I had never even thought about toothpaste being sweet, let alone what makes it that way.  Needless to say, I'm glad we won't be having any more of that before breakfast.  Another ingredient in commercial toothpaste is glycerin.  This is also makes it sweet and it gives toothpaste its pasty consistency.  Many natural recipes also use vegetable glycerin.  I had to look up glycerin to find out what it actually is.  I do have some I got at the pharmacy because it is needed in the task of making snow globes (it helps suspend the glitter flakes in the water, making their decent delightfully slower).  I found that "Glycerin is a thick liquid that is colorless and sweet tasting. It has a high boiling point and freezes to a paste. Glycerin's most common use is in soap and other beauty products like lotions, though it is also used, in the form of nitroglycerin, to create dynamite." Oh. Wait, what?!  

So, I read more.  Basically, glycerin is a chemical that is derived from the soap making process.  It comes from fats which can be vegetable or animal.  It's sweet, syrupy, and pulls moisture to itself, which is why it is used in a lot of lotions.  Now, without making my degree in fine arts and not in science painfully clear, I will try to explain why it is controversial.  I read some information that suggests the reason why it hydrates the skin so well is because it is actually pulling the moisture from your own skin's deeper layers, drying your body from the inside out.  It also is a dubious toothpaste ingredient because it appears to leave a film on the teeth for days, preventing remineralization of the teeth.  

When in doubt--Leave it out.  So I did.  

Don't even get me started on fluoride.  Seriously, I don't want you to think I really belong on a compound in Montana with a sniper rifle strapped to my back.  But, "The fluoride added to 90% of drinking water is hydrofluoric acid which is a compound of fluorine that is a chemical byproduct of aluminum, steel, cement, phosphate, and nuclear weapons manufacturing.  Such fluoride is man made. In this form, fluoride has no nutrient value whatsoever. It is one of the most caustic of industrial chemicals. Fluoride is the active toxin in rat poisons and cockroach powder.  Hydrofluoric acid is used to refine high octane gasoline, to make fluorocarbons and chlorofluorocarbons for freezers and air conditioners, and to manufacture computer screens, fluorescent light bulbs, semiconductors, plastics, herbicides, -- and toothpaste."  I don't want fluoride in my toothpaste either.  

So what did I do instead?  I made m'self some toothpaste out of coconut oil, baking soda, peppermint essential oil, and stevia.  

See? This stuff comes from the kitchen.

Why these things?  Well, apparently we don't need much more than flossing, gentle brushing and a mild plaque-sanding abrasive to keep our teeth healthy (not to mention plenty of dark, leafy greens filled with calcium).  The baking soda is the abrasive, the stevia is to make it a little sweeter (it's a plant extract you can use as a calorie-free sugar substitute), the peppermint is to freshen your breath and hide the unpleasant taste of baking soda, and the coconut oil is to make it pasty.  I saw a lot of recipes that included things like hydrogen peroxide and tea tree oil.  These ingredients would be added to kill bacteria, but that's a little too much chemical for me.  Tea tree essential oil is natural and everything, but it's pretty serious.  I was thinking of adding a little bit of sage tincture to the toothpaste, but I ended up just adding it to my mouthwash instead.  Sage in an anti-viral and had been used to treat gingivitis, so I figured I was in good shape to use this.  

But back to the toothpaste.  First I used equal parts coconut oil and baking soda (2 Tablespoons each):

Then I added 1 more tablespoon of  baking soda:

Then a little more....

Then one more.

In the end I used 2 tablespoons coconut oil to 4 tablespoons baking soda.

Then I added 35 drops of stevia to the mix.  Stevia has a sweetness equivalent that is something like 2 drops stevia to 1 tsp sugar.  it's pretty sweet, but it has nothing in it to rot your teeth, add pounds or cause cancer in lab rats in the state of California.  After that I added about 10 drops peppermint oil.  Both of these ingredients are about personal taste. 

It came out pretty good.  My oldest daughter loves it, my youngest, not so much.  But they both use it.  We have been using it for maybe a month now, no problems.  Except the dispensing. I tried to get a small squeeze bottle but it didn't work.  Someone somewhere on the Internet had the idea of taking an empty toothpaste tube, cutting off the end, filling it that way and using one of those toothpaste pushers to seal the end.  This seems fairly brilliant and I plan to try it out just as soon as I get my hands on one of those things and an empty toothpaste tube.  For now we just kind of scoop a little bit out of an amber glass jar.  Not ideal, but it works.  

This is my final recipe:


2 Tbsp Coconut oil
4 Tbsp Baking Soda
35 Drops Stevia Extract
10 Drops Peppermint Essential Oil


Mix.  Brush.  Feel Free. 

It's Busy Here!

Summer is in full swing and things have been moving at a quick pace.  I haven't had a moment to sit down and write about the projects, recipes and adventures we're having, but they are happening none-the-less. Here is a sneak preview in pictures of some of the things I've been up to.  Details to follow....

Caterpillars and Worms

Toothpaste and Tinctures

Herbs

Art Spaces

 and dubious parenting (that's right, she's asleep standing up)

Fall Crops, Time To Learn

We basically missed the boat for many plantings for the summer.  We started some tomatoes indoors, as well as basil, zinnias, and a bunch of herbs.  We direct sowed peas, mustard greens, chard, carrots, radishes, endive, kale, leeks, broccoli and cabbage.  Some of these things we sowed into a cold frame that were then to be transplanted.  Much of these things grew, don't get me wrong.  Many of them failed to get transplanted by me, when I was too busy mothering.  We did eat a bunch of lettuce, have pesto from the basil, froze and ate some kale and mustard greens, snacked on carrots, and will actually get a few tomatoes off of the plants that are growing great despite being all crammed together.

The tomatoes here are resting on the center piece of the cold frame above.  Those were our neat little rows of seedlings, all happy-like and filled with promise.  Some grew and were eaten, but as you can see we just let the tomatoes stay in the other side and get messy.  When I finally thought to transplant some of them it was too late and they were a little too big to get moved around in the hot sun and they died, so I left the rest as they were.

I'm not feeling too down on my little family, we did our best, and we're learning.  But, I am determined to get better at this, and that means practice.  I consulted the Oracle of Homesteading and Sustainable Living (that would be Mother Earth News) and found their "what to plant now" page, so I could find out what to pant now.  It turns out I was just about to miss planting a bunch of stuff...again!  I prepared the garden beds, and so far have planted turnips, chard, kale, carrots, dry beans, and lettuce.  I did this about a week a go and couldn't write about it because my husband was away in Oregon learning how to build earthen bread ovens, and it was something of a surprise for his homecoming.  They have already started coming up and they look wonderful! I am really excited, maybe more than I should be, but I feel like I finally did something right with this gardening on time thing.

 Calipso Dry Beans (they look like yin yangs!)

We also built two cold frames so we could do some winter gardening.  According to Elliot Coleman, we can be planting some crops as late as October and get food all the way through December or later!  The idea of having fresh spinach and lettuce all the way until December is so exciting that I can't even think about it lest my little heart burst with hope and longing. 

I'm starting to watch the clock a little as August approaches.  I know a lot of crops ripen in the next two months, but I am looking at my pantry and my freezer, and I find myself feeling like it's not going to work.  What will I do!?  (I should probably start with breathing).  The tomatoes still haven't come in, the peppers are just starting, the potatoes aren't up and the winter squash is still months away...I will be fine, people. Don't worry about me.  I won't starve.

Turnips! I think I'm most excited about these.

But the farm share we have been members of since our oldest daughter started eating (her first foods were from this farm) has stopped, for now, giving out the extras to the shareholders.  This is a reaction to some people being pushy at "extra pick-up times."  Our farm share is only a farm share and so their extras don't get sold at a farmer's market.  They give some to the employees, people take them to food pantries and they do sell a little at the nature camp they run, but there is always more.  Up until this year they have offered extras a couple of days a week.  This results in a bunch of Prius driving vultures standing around the distribution table, reusable bags clenched in their hands waiting for the "go" signal and then snatching up what they can.  It really wasn't all that cut throat, but I guess that last year some people were being rude and greedy.  My husband experienced this and really didn't want to bother picking up the extras.  After that we kind of just hung back and took everything that was left.  Seriously, we took it all.  All those tiny, topless carrots mixed in the the greens at the bottom of the bin, we washed, peeled, shredded and dehydrated them.  Bins and Bins of huge eggplants?  You know I canned them.  Contractor grade bags of tat soi?  We washed and froze the hell out of it and ate it for two years!    Without the ability to get huge quantities of produce for (basically) free, my little homesteading dream kind of falls apart.

Carrots! I know I could have sowed more into this area and thinned them out, but I find it really tricky to think carrots, and I thought if I had small rows it would be easier for me to thin them...we'll see.

We are taking steps to make our yard more hospitable to gardening on a larger scale.  But there could be all the space in the world, and if I still don't know what I'm doing it won't matter.  Is my panic palpable?  Can you feel it oozing thorough your keyboard to grab you by the wrists?  I think the thing I have the hardest time with in all this earth living, is the time frame.  I am a procrastinator, I am a little scatter-brained at times and I am a job jumper (I bounce from one project to the next without actually finishing what I started).  All of these traits have been with me for a long time and we are all very cozy.  I am in the process of freeing myself from these balls and chains, but it's a long, slow, break-up.  In the mean time, when I don't get something done because "I'll do it tomorrow," tomorrow comes full of seedlings that have died because they did actually want to be watered yesterday.  I think it's very good for me and my personal development and all that, but it's like nails on a chalkboard to slowly reform the well-grooved ridges of my brain. 

That said, I'd better get into the kitchen to process the 30 pounds of zucchini into things that I will eat in the winter before tomorrow comes correct with rotten produce.

Simple Summer Squash Sauce

My family has quit eating dairy for a number of reasons.  It gives my oldest daughter and myself a stuffy nose, makes us cranky, and is one of the very few foods we had to actually go to the grocery store for at this point.  We figured by cutting it out we might enjoy better health and have one less thing to rely on The Man for.  We are in the midst of a 30-day clean out, and I have seen real changes in my oldest daughter's behavior.  It's really amazing.  I had realized I was sensitive to dairy after Christmas when the cheese was free flowing and I finally couldn't breath at all.  I thought I'd give quitting dairy a shot and cleaned out my body for 30 days and felt a world of difference.  When I asked my husband if he noticed any difference in me, he avoided eye contact and said "Yes..."
"What is it?"  I prodded, assuming he was just having trouble putting into words the amazing change in my now glowing complexion.
"You're, well..you're nicer."
"What do you mean by that!" I asked (very nicely).

So that's how I learned that dairy gives me a stuffy nose, and possibly makes me cranky. 

This has changed our menu quite a bit.  We don't eat a lot of meat and relied pretty heavily on the creamy, protein-filled goodness of cheese, whole milk and butter.   It's proving to be a bit of a learning curve in the kitchen.  One thing I have noticed recently is that my older girl especially is always hungry. I think she's suffering from a lack of fat in her diet.  I'm trying to step up the fat content of our dinners.  This dish is not an example of that, but I did manage to make a fairly "creamy" sauce for our homemade whole wheat egg noodles. 

Summer Squash sauce

3 Summer Squash  (I used the deep golden summer squash, not zucchini or crookneck.  Either of these could be substituted, but they just won't give the same color.)
1 medium onion
olive oil
2 Tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 cup cool water
1/4 tsp nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste.


Slice up the squash and steam until tender.  While that's steaming, dice the onion and saute in the oil until tender. Puree the squash and add to the skillet with the onions. (You could puree the onions with the squash if you have picky eaters who will let their dinner get ice cold while they carefully pick out all the onion pieces).  Dissolve the cornstarch in cool water and add to the pan.  Cook over med/low heat while stirring until it thickens up.  Add salt, pepper and nutmeg.  Mix in some pasta and enjoy!