2008 Begins in the Heap

Ah, it's been a busy couple of months...I havent posted anything in months, and now that Winter is setting in I'm ready to garden again !
But the gardens need serious cleaning up, and I need to wait for Spring to come back around.
I did start a new compost heap today, seemed like the perfect way to start the New Year. We'd been tossing all of our veggie scraps, coffee and tea leavings in a loose pile of straw and leaves, waiting for there to be enough to build a big enough pile to contain the heat that the microbes give off while living their lives. Too small a mound and the warmth dissipates too soon, leaving the colony subject to freezing. Make it big enough and the heap will live on and work all through the winter and reward you with nice compost and worms aplenty in the Spring. I love our compost heap :)

I've been reading a lot lately about food. The history of American food production ( Kitchen Literacy by Ann Viselis), world food issues ( Feeding People is Easy by Colin Tudge ), Feeding your family on strictly local viands ( Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by B Kingsolver ), and of course all the food related issues in the news ( that I can find time to read ! ). Several new vegan cookbooks have come out, including The Joy Of Vegan baking by Colleen Patrick Goudreau and Veganomicon by Isa Chandra...both very inspiring cooks and human beings.
And who knew that global warming was caused in large part by our shamefully wasteful and cruel methods of animal containment, torture and consumption of their body parts and excretions? Including transporting said body parts, "by-products" and other food stuffs around the globe. I guess we should have seen it coming. The reports have been out for several years now, and still it barely gets attention. "Try to eat less meat", is about the strongest message you'll hear on the subject. Sigh.
I remain hopeful though.

Because I don't know how else to stay sane.

Going and staying vegan has been incredibly easy, rewarding and fascinating. The hardest part is busting old habits and myths, and keeping an open mind. For instance: I just yesterday got around to making almond milk from scratch. I could not believe how easy it was. I've been vegan for over a year and still felt like milk ( rice, almond or soy milk you can buy in stores ) had to come from some factory and packaged in a carton. Like some magic made it "milk" behind factory doors. Jeez ! So you soak raw almonds in water for some hours, grind it up, strain it, and there is : nut milk ! The almond milk was very white ( even using unblanched nuts ) and barely tasted of almonds...perfect to splash on cereal or make into a chocolate pudding ( this afternoon's delish experiment ). So everyday I learn something new and wonderful that has been out there for years and years. And there's the hope : that others will catch on and look around, and realize that going vegan is so worthwhile, on so many levels.

Hamish Passes

Our Americana hen, Hamish, died today. She was 7 years old on June June 19th. We've lost several others in the last month, but her passing seems like the end of a family era. She laid gorgeous big bluish-greenish eggs....was still laying up until about a month ago, when they all stopped laying. J buried her in the Fenced Garden saying that the garden was as much hers as ours. She spent many happy hours in there with the others, scratching for bugs and bits. Hard to believes she's gone....so robust and smart we figured she'd be the last hen standing out of their flock.

The hens started out as something our daughter wanted to do in her senior year in high school...actually she wanted to rescue a bunch of chicks that were hatched at school ,( in one of those misguided class projects ), but I said, "no"...let's order some from a hatchery ( ugh...that was before I became vegan ! ), and before we knew it, there we were, in love with the little peeps that arrived via the post office, in a cardboard box. I think we always gave them good care...lots of room to run about and explore, good food, fresh water, and we even built a nice hen house which has become a focal point of our yard.
When our daughter went off to college, the hens needed me to take care of them and I loved the rhythm they brought to my day. The girls would be crowding the door to be the first out to start the day's bug hunt. Just before dusk they would amble back in to the house and arrange themselves on the roost, fussing about who would sleep where. Some of the smaller ones worked their bodies up under the wings of the two big Cochins, some would roost apart from the others, all murmuring ancient chicken songs to themselves and each other. Rain they hated. Falling snow was intriguing, but accumulated snow was a problem. One year snow drifted 3 feet deep in the hen yard. I shoveled high-walled alleys so they could get outside and stretch their legs and watched them parade single-file down the blue corridors.
Only three hens left. Who will I bake giant pans cornbread for in the bleak dark days of Winter ?

Mom's Birthday Butterflies

This chrysalis all but opened on my Mom's 79th Birthday, she LOVES butterflies.... especially Monarchs, so I'm calling it her's ! It did open and fly away the next day. Next year I'd like to get some pictures of one as it's emerging from the gold speckled cellophane envelope. I'm still seeing lots of Monarchs, and still reading Four Wings and a Prayer. It's getting a little tedious and disappointing to keep reading how petty some of the early researchers were about sharing their information with other researchers, both citizen and degree-ed scientists. More writing about the natural history and migration of the insect would be welcome. But I guess this way I'm getting the whole picture on how the information that we do have came about...so I'll quit gripping !

Summer's End

Wow...here it is already...the last full day of this Summer.
I walked down our gravel road towards the setting sun late yesterday afternoon and found myself in a sea of airborne plankton...winged motes of life, swimming, floating, wind-driven...lending dimensionality to the invisible. Threads of cast spider webs, yards long, caught the light twisting and turning, spinning in the currents. All constant motion, lit from behind by the gold of the sun.
Earlier in the day a Monarch butterfly hatched out of its chrysalis in the hen house. I missed its departure, but didnt see it in the hen house, so I'm thinking that it got out and into the world to start its journey South. I'm reading Four Wings and a Prayer, by Sue Halpern, about one woman's experience with Monarchs, and now I would like to tag some butterflies next Summer....hopefully in our yard. tiny little stickers you adhere to a hind wing...amazing. I've seen more Monarchs than ever before this year, which is odd....Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy reported a very low year for that species. I see them EVERYWHERE...not in big numbers, but everywhere I go...even parking lots and highways. Maybe I'm just suddenly attuned to seeing them, like when someone you know gets a new car, and suddenly you notice just how many of that kind are on the road !

Deep Hot Summer Day

Wow. What a day. I was out in the yard, watering, weeding, and just hanging with the plants at 6:45am. Spent a nice, solid 3 hours engrossed in everything Plant. Did a light cleaning of the hen house too, and realized that I could add the poopy straw to the Very Neglected Compost Heap. So the heap itself became a mini-project...hmmm...need to weed around it, straighten up the end panels...ok, so layer the goodies on with helpings from the rotting mass of veggie scraps, weeds, and Willow Oak leaves from last fall that havent really broken down much. Water it from the hose to get it all nice and damp for the microbes and macro-life to multiply and work their composting magic. Ah, I love a good heap.
The chickens got weeds and over-ripe tomatoes to nibble on. Wish I could let them run free, but they would not last a day. They've got a pretty large fenced area to roam around ina nd I try and supply interesting things for them to peck and scratch at. The 5 hens are 7 years old now and seem content to just stroll around their fenced areas and take siestas in the shade when the sun is hot. We are getting from 0-3 eggs a day at the moment.
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Picked a bunch of Hillbilly tomatoes, a few Brandy Boys and a Mortgage Lifter. The Hillbillies are really a gorgeous tomato...brilliant streaky sunsets within. The San Marzanos look like they might be a bust...many are getting the dreaded Blossom End Rot. The first Mr. Stripey might get picked this weekend. Oh, and some extra sweet Sun Gold cherry tomatoes. The Swiss Chard plant is still doing great...I'm still picking 4-5 big leaves off of it every ten days or so. picked up a neighbor's CSA for her, since she and her family went out of town. Got to pick out peppers, tomatoes ( ! ), cucumbers, eggplant, squash, chard, peaches, and a cute little yellow rind watermelon that I dropped off at their house for them to enjoy when they get back.


It is J's Bday today. 54! For the dinner I made tacos, complete with the fried corn tortillas , guacamole, salsa and other goodies. also made a fabulous vegan Pineapple Upside Down Cake...really yummy, and the cake part of it was perfect...I'll have to remember that recipe ...from vegcooking.com. Oh, and we ate the cake with a scoop of coconut ice cream ( vegan of course ! ).
Listened to a heartbreaking podcast on Compassionate Cooks....about motherhood and maternal instincts. I cried out of pure sadness and pure frustration for the animals and for the willful blindness that perpetuates all of the unnecessary suffering imposed on the creatures we enslave and then slaughter. How did we get this deep into such a nightmare ?

Sunflower Serendipity

Weeks and weeks ago i transplanted a 3" tall volunteer sunflower seedling from between stones on the Stone Patio to the Kitchen Garden, about ten feet away. It has since thrived and shot up to over 6'. Four days ago I settled sunflower seeds into vermiculite-filled soy yogurt cups and gave them a good soak. This afternoon, the first flowerhead on the Volunteer is unfolding just as the Yogurt Cup guys are emerging. The YC sunflowers I started especially for my son and his fiance's September wedding...I'll try to communicate ( to the seedlings ) the importance of timing their blooming to the wedding date, and see what happens :>
I also started some Morning Glories a few weeks ago and now have those in the ground and in a big pot...they have really taken off in the last day, with the heat ( and extra water)...Heavenly Blue...wonderfully cool crisp , fraglie flowers. The unexpected pleasure of re-using the yogurt cups over and over ...tomatoes, Cardinal Climbers ( up to 9 feet today, but no blossoms yet ), MGs, Sunflowers... has been fun. They're the perfect size, and with little slits cut into their bottoms, they soak up water from tubs, and drain off nicely.
I've been seeing a few 2" long Praying Mantis' energetically skipping among the tomato plants...hope they're finding lots to eat ! I rescued a 3/4" brown one from the kitchen counter the other day ...not sure how he got there, but I was so happy to get him/her out the door undamaged.
I've put off posting this till the sunflower seedlings were big enought to show...and here they are ! The tall leafy vine in the Silk cup is one of the Morning Glories, still waiting to get planted. As you can see, there are several brands of soy yogurt available... Trader Joe's , Whole Soy, Stonyfield and Silk are represented here. Not seen is the Wildwood brand, which has the advantage of coming in the quart size, unsweetened and unflavored...very nice to have on hand for uses other than the morning's first bite ! Some grocery stores carry a few brands, some carry none...you do have to do your homework to stay staocked up as a vegan !

Summer Solstice Afternoon

What better way to end the longest day of the year than with a double rainbow ? Our next door neighbor alerted us to the gorgeous event unfolding outside our door, off to the south east. Too bad the rainbow doesnt offer any magical properties to the cows and calves on the farm, such as exemption from ending theirs lives as living , breathing beings and going to slaughter, but still...what a beautiful sight.