Tuesday Happenings: To Do List

Oh, a Spring to-do list, how it gets the homestead juices flowing. We are both invigorated and a little overwhelmed this year by the different directions we are pulled in. Though, to be honest, we are also very excited. This really feels like the first year in many where I am able to participate in many things, or at least feel good about what I do get done.

Lyme disease (and all of its many deep burrowing friends/co-infections) are no joke. I have been in and out of remission/commission for nearly 12 years now – sure, I have had super productive pushes despite the long crashes that came with it but this last round of insanity (resplendent with my 2nd bout of Shingles, this time with Ramsey-Hunt, which awakened the Bartonella with a fierce and debilitating roar which I was almost sure I was going to succumb to invalidity with) was particularly hard. Thanks to a few (horrible and painful) rounds of homeopathic chemical therapy and the persistent patience and care of my practitioners (thank you Full Circle Wellness – Lyme literacy, body alignment, and pillar healing are so crucial, together – holistically) and my lovely little family, I feel better than I have in years. Years. The healing also managed to give me a sense of well-being I have never had in all of my life. The person I am today is a new person (well, I am a new person every day but now I am a different/better person). Though, I am certainly not a perfect person – and everyday is a day to work toward my own goals.

With that said, we are excited about deepening our homestead plans this year. The last couple of years, we have expanded in a couple of ways, but now we are ready to deepen. J has been caring for D and me so much that some focus has been shifted and it is now time for reassessment. First, we must address the orchard – between the deer, the voles, the borers, the eastern tent and browntail caterpillars, and the oppossum (it’s likely I’m forgetting some creatures – and then just failure to thrive, disease, and water issues, as well), the apples (and pears/peaches/plums and cornelian cherries) are struggling. An orchard, as Michael Phillips and John Bunker, would tell us – is an everyday relationship. One which we have been unable to maintain. So, reestablising some relations, pruning, feeding, and maybe some caging have to be implemented.

Speaking of fruit, the blackberry swathe of our backfield also needs to be addressed. Rows cut in, perhaps some staking with rows of twine, and removal of old canes. The elderberry (which for some reason, we cannot grow) patch needs to be fed, fenced, and a couple of new elderberries (already ordered) need to be planted. The white grapes need to be espaliered (better), the rhubarb needs to be protected, and the beds for the garden/Fall raspberries and ground cherries need to be shaped/protected. The field red & black raspberries are on their own.

And speaking of trees, this might be the last year we can consider moving (which needs to happen) the chestnut saplings and hazelnut hedge. Fortunately, the hawthorne and witch hazel look amazing.

But for now, my garden to-do list is simple: start some darn seeds! We’ve been so busy with the store, sugaring, and the writing that seeds have not yet been started. I don’t have much to focus on in the 2-season-porch/greenhouse but I’d like to get my eggplants and some flowers started. Some require more season than our little Northside garden can give.

Our immediate to-do list is thus: finish boiling (he has a long day ahead of him but would like to be done today, come on over and see!), work on dissertation (for me, of course), make an apple/rhubarb coffeecake (’cause why not – I need cake!), make mushroom/barley/turkey soup (to have with our Stone Broke Parmesan Bread!), tomorrow night go to a lovely poetry reading at The Table Bar, and breathe in and out.

Here are some flowers to help with this:

Recipe Thursday – Bread Book: Stromboli

I might be giving away my Pennsylvania secrets here (even though this southern kind of PA didn’t hit my life until my pre-teens/early teens) but Stromboli is a blessed thing. A very small regional pocket of goodness (other areas try to mimic or claim, but it’s just not the same), and yes, my mom makes the best ones. As a later teen, hosting some significant parties, my mom would crank out stromboli like nobody’s business and appreciating teens would inhale them. Every now and again, I get a mean need.

What exactly is a stromboli, you might ask – or perhaps you think you know, and maybe you even do, but just in case: it’s generally a long giant hot pocket of cured meats, cheeses, and for us a little olive salad. Your mama might argue with my mama about sauce inside, or how ‘poofy’ the crust should be, or exactly what meats and veg should be in it, but this is what ours is like. What makes it different than say, a calzone? Well, again – you could argue all this, but a calzone in my experience has at least ricotta and is definitely poofier and is shaped different. Living with a full on bread maker now has taught me that shaping is sometimes a remarkable difference between one thing and another (shaping changes crust, crumb, and your mouth’s ability to taste flavor in different ways making it an entirely different bread between shapes). But some folk get a little pizza sauce for dipping.

I’ve made turkey stromboli and veggie stromboli (think mushrooms, peppers, maybe thinly sliced eggplant but nothing too wet like zucchini unless you’ve cooked it first, I might even cook my mushrooms and peppers first – if nothing else would deepen the flavors) but classic is our favorite. It used to be really hard to find (synthetic) nitrate-free cold cuts but now Hannaford makes some (Nature’s Promise) and Fiorucci makes the Italian meats. We serve it with a lightly tossed vinaigrette salad (’cause we feel a little guilty without the roughage). Stromboli is just as good cold the next day.

Stromboli
Serves 3

  • 1 – 1lb pizza dough, stretched out on a big baking sheet with parchment paper and a little cornmeal to about a 12″x18″ rectangle, airbake pans work great but having an edge for any juicy meat/veg run off is better in my opinion – could also work on a baking stone if you are really good at the peel (preheat oven stones)
  • 1/4 lb Genoa (soft) Salami (not too thick, not too thin)
  • 1/4 lb Capicola
  • 1/4 lb Ham (not honey ham, could sub Turkey here, too)
  • 1/4 lb Provolone
  • 1- 8 oz bag of Shredded Mozzarella (we use Cabot Rustic Cut)
  • 1 jar of Manzanilla Olives
  • 1 can of Black Olives (any size)
  • 1/2 jar of Roasted Red Peppers
  • 1 small Onion or medium Shallot, peeled and halved (optional)
  • Pizza sauce for dipping (optional), consider warming (can put in an oven dish and into the oven for last 5 minutes of cooking stromboli)
  • 1 egg white or a little olive oil for glazing (optional)
    Instructions:
  • Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  • In a little food processor, chop (not too finely, not puree), the olives and roasted red pepper (and halved onion, if using), set aside
  • Stretch out dough and layer up the center (leaving 2-3″ either side naked) the salami, then capicola, then ham, and provolone in alternating rows (like scalloping)
  • Then spread the olive salad over the meats, again, up center of dough.
  • Top olive salad with shredded mozzarella.
  • Then fold one long side of dough to at least halfway across – stretching slightly – over the top of the center layers of meats/cheeses/olives. Fold one end in over the edge of this ‘envelope’, then the other side to meet or just over the previously folded long side. And then the last end, folded over to complete the package. Pinch in any holes along the way (don’t stretch so thin that the dough breaks, but if it does a bit, pinch the dough back together). The dough should be sticky enough it all sticks together easily. The whole thing at this point should be about 6-7″ wide and 16″ long (ish).
  • At this point, if you think you like a hard crusty top, egg wash over it lightly before baking. If you like a more traditional pizza type top, brush a little olive oil over it. Or you can opt out of either.
  • With a sharp knife, score 3-4 slashes down center of stromboli diagonally, to let the steam escape (so it doesn’t explode – ha!).
  • Pop in the oven for 15-20 minutes at 375 degrees or until the top looks golden and crusty. Remove from oven and let rest for 5 minutes.
  • Slice into 2-2.5″ strips across the short end so that everyone gets about 2 slices of meaty goodness and people can generally fight over the bready ends. Dip in warmed pizza sauce, if desired. Refrigerate any leftovers and have for breakfast or picnic!

Tuesday Happenings: when we’re not looking

Last night I woke up and tiptoed downstairs, my beautiful tulips were sleeping deep sleeps. The moon was 99% full according to my Moon Phase app – hazy in the thin cloud cover but still illuminating across the homestead. I could make out the grape arbor, the late lilac, the burning bush and hard lines of the chicken coop, sugar shack, and pea trellis. I saw movement out under the willow tree. It wasn’t a shadow or a silouette but the shape of a deer grazing the peeking grass from the run that leads under the road and into the swamp across the street.

I watched for awhile, not sure if I was seeing young antlers or just alert ears in the dusky moonlight. They hopped over the snowpile, struggling a bit and perused the driveway. A car drove by scaring them back under the arbor vitae where I know they like to come down and nibble. They know they need their Vitamin C – between the deer and the birds, the tiny rosehips have disappeared, too. They have to fight ticks as much as the rest of us and keep their immune systems up for good health. I’m less thrilled when they nibble down young apple tree tips, and when they decimated my Fall peas and calendula last year but that is partially our fault when we do nothing to discourage them (y’know, like fences?!). They gotta do what they gotta do.

Meanwhile, the sap begins to flow, the wild seeds retrace their collective growing memory, and the salamander who lives in our basement hides and seeks. The birds – I’ve been spying titmouse, nuthatches, chicka-dee-dee-dees, crows, and even a small flock of robins, they snuggle down in the night. The fire turns to warm coals. I return to sleep for a family dream where the full moon keeps us connected.

Duendesday: Active Engagements

{life with a curious and crazy 12 yr old}

So many activities lately. We are not the type of family that is heavily scheduled. In fact, we cannot fathom that kind of life. The to-ing and fro-ing and the faux relationships that somehow have to be forged to make it happen. We are pretty discerning with our events and the events of our child. That said, many stars aligned this week for her to attend some things she aspired to – theater camp, roller skating, pottery class – things that we did not take part in with her (also a rarity for our family). We can count on one hand how many times we have dropped our child off somewhere and drove away.

But she is getting older now, more independent and engaged with the world outside of us. Organized sports will never be a thing for our family, but she is finding things to open her up a bit. I think, for me, my views are not interested in competition or of single-age engagements for her – I find them both pretty limiting and potentially damaging but co-operative and knowledge building scenarios sound fun, and I want her to learn and have fun (sure, some will argue the co-operative nature of sports, but you won’t sell me, it is its own microcosm of relations that do not interest our family, and to be honest, my child is already competetive by nature and I don’t need to enhance that…).

She had a great time with her theater camp (thank you, Nana!) learning improvisational techniques, group dynamics, and honing her juggling career (ha! there are worse things, I suppose). It was mostly made of kids who were on some sort of school break so I’m sure their social cues were very different from hers but she enjoyed it. We went to a final ‘performance’ to see what they had been up to all week. It was supercute and boosted her general theatrics.

She also has her pottery class at Kennebec Clay Works; this is her third (I think) set of sessions with them and she has been enjoying them. The amazing Goddard gal who runs the joint says that D has been progressing and has good skills at the wheel. She seems to like going so we keep signing her up.

And then the Homeschool Field Trip group organized a roller skating day in Westbrook and our other homeschooling family friends were gracious enough to take D with them (a mini van overrun with littles!) since we had to open the store. She loves roller skating and now has her own skates (and vintage bag we scored at the Swap Shop). We don’t get to go to the rink very often but in the clear weather she skates often at the park (when she was smaller it was always in the house!).

But right now we have loads of snow – powdery, deep, sparkly snow! And more on the way – letting the snow child run free!

Happenings on a Tuesday

What happens around here on Tuesdays? Lately, J gets up early (not as early as on Monday when he hits the shop at 3:15, on Tuesdays he sleeps in until 5…whoa – ha!) and heads to the shop to bake for our Community Supported Bakery members (which will now be a Saturday thing, too). I get up a little later and he comes to get me so I can open the bookshop at 10. The child generally comes in with me but goes on deliveries to the Portland area with the baker. He’s out of the shop by 11 ish, generally and I’m left to sell some delicious bready goods and (hopefully) stimulating books to the public.

But Tuesdays are a little sleepy in Gardiner, ME. People have not figured out that I have all this bread! And it needs to be eaten! Today I have gorgeous naturally leavened sandwich loaves – Honey Oat, Cinnamon Raisin, and the fluffy White along with small yummy boules of Parmesan bread, some fresh bagels and a few odds and ends. But I haven’t seen a human in hours. I’ve drank all the hot fresh coffee, cleaned many things, blogged, wrote grant proposals, made some publisher connections, and even considered some homework. Where are the people?! They are sad when they don’t have the bread, but we have the bread today…

And where will this bread go? I just don’t know. There are no food pantry’s available to take it (we’ve tried and tried to find someone). People need food and there is food available but somehow no way to get it to them. I have Oprah fantasies of chucking free bread out the store door – and bread for you! And a bread for you!

Upcoming for us is a membership promotion – 20% off during March, to increase the ability to move this extra batch bread – so tell your friends, family, co-workers, neighbors! If you love our bread, help us make sure it sticks around and gets into the right mouths! Otherwise, events, new books, the seed orders are in (and soon time to plant them!). This week also begins sugaring season for us – the man and child will be boiling sap and playing games, come check out the process or hang out a bit around the sweet fire!

A Musing for Monday

book at hand:

“Recently I’ve been thinking about the body and bush aesthetics, or just like Indigenous aesthetics, and spending time thinking about mosquito bits – picking berries and picking tea, and like, paying for them with your blood…I was being chewed up by mosquitoes there and I started wondering, do mosquitoes have blood memory? And I’m wondering if mosquitoes are a way of paying the land? Those mosquitoes’ ancestors had a relationship with my ancestors, literally through blood. I was so grateful to be bitten by mosquitoes and think about the history of my grandmothers in that place, and our history and relationship to the mosquitoes there. Seeing the welts form and watching them dissipate and turn into smaller bumps, and then fade back into my skin. I thought about those bites as an image, as a temporary or fugitive image on the land. Our bodies hold these fugitive images, and hold memory in that way, and that that memory can be a shorter time moment, and these can shift over time like the caribou antler desk images or even the grease print of beadwork on metal smear and shift, rust and change over time. Tattoos on bodies and these skin stitches as lines that have been displaced from our bodies, just like how our people have been displaced from lands.”
~ Jeneen Frei Njootli in conversation with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson,
Ndè Sı̀ı̀ Wet’aɂà: Northern Indigenous Voices on Land, Life, & Art

Tuesday: Sunshine Love

Well, we’re still building it but they are coming: the beekeepers (and charmers), the orchardists, the punks and secret anarchists, the poets, the curious, and the bread lovers; locavores and those who want community connection, responsible world choices, and perceptions shifted. It can be a challenge to readjust to how we expect things. Since the 80’s, Americans have been told that they can get whatever they want, whenever they want – that it all just waits for them (think big grocery stores and shopping centers, all the goods just biding their time until you wake and buy them) but this isn’t necessarily a good thing or a sensible thing. Economy-wise, it generates so much waste (the reason it can just wait for people is because the big stores can afford to throw it out when it has served its time), makes folks feel entitled, and because of this waste it also equals a sacrifice of quality. Many have adjusted to this lack of quality (due to availability, lack of information, and tons of marketing which convinces you otherwise).

We are big believers in using privilege to help others. We’ve worked hard for our privilege but it doesn’t change the role we have to play. Everyone has to come to their own understanding of their privilege, their personal responsibility, and their education in their own time. We certainly don’t ever want to seem like we are telling people how to live but to make available choices we understand as intentional and positive – this economic reality makes negotiations constant for all of us. And everyone can offer what they do best, or share whatever type of life works for them. What we do isn’t for everyone and there are many folks we admire so much for the work they do to make this the kind of world we want to live in and live for.

Happy Sunshine Love Day.

Duendesday: Winterings

{life with a curious and crazy 12 yr old}

Time was (not so long ago), you couldn’t keep our little gal indoors. Especially at the sight of snow (or rain). We called her a little Siberian baby because she’d leap out into the cold – sledding, snow-forting, making snow faeries, climbing trees, journeying around the yard to see the spells of Winter. It didn’t matter how cold, even if it was just for a bit, D wanted to be out. Summer would come and she would pine for snow (Solstice decorating in July was a thing for her).

Now, I have to woo/cajole/bribe her into her warmy gear and get the heck out there! Once she’s out, she stays out for awhile. There have been many snow women, babies, dogs constructed, sledding trails smoothed out, and icicle sculptures (yes, last week, she really did cut her eye getting an icicle down from the side of the house!). Today, she will be out again. We had a stretch of bitter cold – too bitter for me to even let her out, but now there’s a little snow that may not last with the pendulum swings of this Winter’s weather. I’m happy to stay in my slippers, indoors, and take pictures though we always try and go for a couple of family Winter/snow walks while it lasts (I should probably put one of those on the schedule – our woods are so pretty this time of year).

Lately, D has been writing a novel (The War of the Animals, with illustrations), staging rescued Barbie fashion shows (and dance clubs), making bracelets, getting ready for another cycle of her ceramics class, and considering high school (the charter school of the arts is moving its campus closer to us, so we are thinking about it…). I think her to-do list of the day is sledding and learning to make pudding (it’s good to have goals).

Winter on!