FOY (First-of-Year)

For those who watch birds avidly, FOY stands for First-of-Year. My first Great Blue Heron of the year, seen on a bike ride on the Erie Canal, near Lock 33.

Every Spring, we go out to a special spot in the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge. If you go at the right time, you'll hear a chorus of frogs singing their mating song. It's kind of eerie (made a bit more so this year by a rather intoxicated man circling the trail and talking loudly and angrily, but he was harmless). Hearing the frogs was worth it. Here's a picture taken just before the song began (which intensifies right as darkness falls).

Yesterday, T. and I went to Highland Park to look for FOY warblers. We saw the following: black and white, black-throated green, yellow-rumped, and lots more. Plus a blue-headed vireo, the first I have seen (that's called a "lifebird" if you're an aspiring bird nerd like me).

I couldn't resist the magnolia blossoms which had fallen to the ground.

Up next, my FOY flower bouquet from my garden--forsythia, the last daffodil and some other things whose names I don't know.

And it was the FOY South Wedge Farmers Market. You really should go to the website and watch the short video of the festivities, including DD, dear friends Hillary and Vicki, and favorite kids Max, Quinn, and Katie, among others, dancing around the maypole.

I picked up some Asian greens at the Market from Freshwise, and I already had some feta and chevre from Lively Run, so I modified a recipe from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone to make a double-crusted fresh spring greens tart. It will be tomorrow's dinner.

And by the way, my 45th birthday nears. I have completed the hand-made objects, although they may not get uploaded right away as my time is limited due to end-of-the-semester grad. school and work stuff. (I realize it probably doesn't seem like that, since I sound like nature girl in this post. This stuff has happened over the last 2-3 weeks, interspersed with bursts of research, writing, and conversations where I use words like "pedagogy" "theoretical" and "retention" as though I were talking about my children.)

The bike ride is coming soon...stay tuned!

How much are you willing to pay for cheap food?

Michael Pollan in the New York Times asks if modern food factories are related to the recent epidemic of MRSA, the antibiotic-resistant form of staph infection which now kills more people in the U.S. than AIDS. And just why are all those bees dying and what does it have to do with the monocultural mode of modern agriculture?

And just what does sustainable mean, anyway?

Go here for the article.

Handcrafters' holidays meme

Sew Mama Sew is promoting handcrafted holidays through its meme, wherein bloggers answer some questions about their own giftgiving. Here are some of mine.

Do you have a favorite gift that you love to give?

Every year I make jams, sauces, pickles, and relishes all throughout the summer. This year, I made more than ever. They're all from fruits and veggies that are organic and locally grown, and many of the fruits are picked by my very own hands!

As an example...plums and peaches (picked at Hurd Orchard) are so easy to pick, that I got a whole refrigerator-full back in July.

If you’re making gifts this year, what are you making?

Oh, I can't tell because they might read this...but every immediate family member gets something that's handmade!

Do you have any good stories about handcrafted gifts you’ve given or received?

My very favorite requires a bit of background. My DS is deeply averse to knitwear. He is more a fan of the torn t-shirt and khakis from Goodwill look, pretty much regardless of the season. Knitting is my main crafting passion, so this has been a source of great consternation. In addition to handmade gifts, we are big promoters of "gifts of time" in our family, where you promise to do something nice for the other family member.

So, three years ago, I got a paper certificate, denoting a gift of time, from him to me. I opened it up, and it was a certificate which gave ME the gift of making HIM a pair of gloves, which he promised to wear, WHEN the weather was appropriate.

What could I do? I made the gloves, he loved them and wore them all winter, and he promptly lost them at the end of the season. Those were replaced by another pair, which we are still searching for as this winter season is upon us!

Do you have any great gift compilation ideas (a grouping of gifts just perfect for certain recipients?)

I do, but I can't share it! Let's see if you can guess. ______ has just discovered a passion for ________, but needs a ______ to call her/his own. Along with the _______, s/he needs a ________to put it in, and a __________ would be a really nice aid in unwinding. (I'll fill in the blanks after Christmas!)

That's all for now! I'll do more questions from the meme as the season progresses.

(More) Small and Sweet Pleasures

Keeping up with the blog has made me much more aware of these moments of pleasure, and, since gratitude doesn't always come easily...it's important to take note when it does...

--going to the Rochester Public Market with DD (at HER insistence), where we talked to a local farmer with this charming sign

--the smell of basil from last week's harvest, finally turned into pesto and herbal vinegar

--the last fresh flowers of the season (I think!) to be put into Mary Barringer's vase

--an autumn that won't end (pictures taken in Mt. Hope Cemetery)

--with a dog that loves nothing more than rolling around in the leaves

Frost warning

Sunday morning I learned that there was a freeze warning for the night. That meant I put aside some of my other plans for the day in order to bring in the harvest (but not without finishing that little pumpkin, from Curly Purly, that I felt compelled to make over the last couple of days.)

Mostly herbs (TONS of parsley, also basil, oregano, mint, lemon balm, lemon verbena, rosemary, nasturtium, tarragon)

Also, some green tomatoes, green beans, tomatillos, kale, and Swiss chard.

And (probably) the last of the flowers...

I brought the herbs that I'll eventually move inside, along with a "bowl" of lettuce, into my garage-sale greenhouse.

And I noticed that even at the end of the season, Rebecca still looks fabulous.

Small and sweet pleasures

It really doesn't take a lot to bring me pleasure. No mood-altering chemicals, windfall of money, or adrenaline rush needed...

Here's a non-inclusive list of tidbits from daily living to show you what I mean.

October Dahlia

A walk at Taughannock Falls State Park,

complete with dozens of these miniature cairns in the stream

An impromptu knitting-that-was-supposed-to-be-studying night, after visiting Village Yarn and Fiber Shop with T. I promptly got to work on the Curly Purly pumpkin and RocBike ear warmers.

Making apple pie filling (recipe from Mary Jane--see books sidebar) from apples picked at the aforementioned trip to Hurd Orchards.

Having T. meet me at the University of Rochester library when my class gets out after 9:30 p.m., so that I don't have to bike home by myself.

Walking with T. to Corn Hill Creamery, along the Genesee Riverway Trail, with a great view of the city of Rochester.

Having Marianne, of Marianne's Consignments at 792 South Clinton Avenue, open up even when she was technically closed, because I desperately needed a pair of boots I knew she had in there! (I needed them because my own, which had been in my 12-year-old unlocked car to be taken to have the heels repaired, had been STOLEN! But that is not small, sweet, or a pleasure, so let's move on).

A simultaneously perfect fall sunset to the west

and a full moon to the east

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Break the Bottled Water Habit, Win a Prize and Cut Your Carbon

For Blog Action Day, a challenge to pledge to give up bottled water. To take the pledge, click on the button to the left.

Here's the information from the Carbon Conscious Consumer's ongoing challenge.

When you want pure, healthy drinking water, you should reach for bottled water, right? Surprisingly, on neither a personal nor a global level are you making a healthy choice.

For each gallon of water bottled, two gallons are wasted; producing the plastic wastes the energy equivalent of a quarter-bottle’s worth of oil. And what’s in the bottle could just be tap water.

This October we’re asking you to think about where the water in that bottle came from, and where the plastic is going…take the Carbon Conscious Consumer pledge and drink to a healthy ecosystem.

Each month from July to December, Carbon Conscious Consumer (c3.newdream.org) will highlight a new, simple way each individual can make an impact, plus show the difference each person makes both individually and along with the people they’ve influenced; prizes go to participants who influence the most new pledges.

During October, make a conscious choice to slake your thirst without drying up our planet’s resources. In addition to benefiting the environment, participants will have a chance to win a free condo for a week at a ski resort in Idaho. (Julie's note--although if you have to fly to Idaho, you'll significantly increase your carbon footprint!) Click the button at the left now to get started.

Halfway there

So...in case you haven't noticed (and why not??)...I'm half way to two of my three goals.

I have 21 projects (okay, that's not quite half, but close enough!) and many more under progress.

Clapotis.

Calla Coasters.

Signs of fall-inspired socks and cross-stitch.

The projects have slowed down a bit, but I'm working on a couple argyle-licious designs for Rocbike. Stay tuned as more will be revealed!

I'm also preserving a TON of food, but I'm not counting it as a project unless I picked AND preserved it!

The flowers keep coming, especially the dahlias, zinnias, and now, Jerusalem artichokes.

And I've been LOVING fall, and spending it with some of my favorite young people (and their parents, of whom I'm also a big fan!)

And two weekends ago I rode for twenty-two miles up the Genesee Riverway Trail to Lake Ontario. (For a fuller description of this trail, see the first ever RocBike podcast!)

I hope to do the retreat sometime in the winter, so I need to get my meditation mojo (I think that's an oxymoron) working.

Preserving the Harvest

A dear friend has asked for recipes for preserving. I am happy to oblige by sharing my favorite books. (These are linked to Amazon so you can get a good feel for them, but I encourage you to support your local library/independent bookseller/used bookstore.)

My "bible" (somewhat literally, since the growing and preparing of food is definitely a spiritual practice for me) is Preserving Summer's Bounty by Rodale Press, the same folks that pioneered organic gardening before "organic" was commodified by corporations and codified by the USDA. This book has everything you need to know on canning, freezing, drying, and juicing pretty much every variety of fruit or vegetable, and it has a section on herbs as well.

There's another cool book published by Chelsea Green called Keeping Food Fresh. Actually, it has a different title on the website, but I'm pretty sure it's an updated version of the same book I have. This book has techniques for preserving foods without freezing or canning, by using salt, oil, lactic fermentation, and other methods. I haven't made as much from this one, but the recipes I have used are great, leading to some great pickled veggies for summer potato salad! Many of them are from traditional European methods.

Another favorite, which I found in a used bookstore, is Putting It Up with Honey. I prefer to use local honey whenever possible, rather than sugar which is mostly imported from faraway locations.

And I gotta tell you, I love Mary Jane's farm...her Ideabook, Cookbook, Lifebook, for the Farmgirl in All of Us (don'tcha love that title?) is just that...chapters on preserving, cooking, needlework, and more. It's chock full of ideas!

Now go to your garden/farmers market/u-pick place closest to you, and get busy!

Late Summer Excesses

According to Chinese medicine, my dominant elements are Earth and Water. (Okay, you can stop reading now and skip to the pictures if you find yourself snickering at that first sentence. But, I'll just tell you that principles and treatments from Chinese medicine and ayurveda have changed my quality of life dramatically.)

Aaaaanyway, late summer is associated with Earth, and for me, that manifests as having a ton of energy and a desire to reap the benefits of the harvest, put up a ton of food, and organize, organize. Lucky for me, I'm a full-time educator and a part-time student, which benefit from this high-energy state. Not so lucky, I tend to overdo it, have difficulty sleeping, and find it hard to relax.

This past week was the first week of school for me at graduate school, my place of work, and DD. So, that means my time was spent: admitting, testing, advising, and registering community college students; buying school supplies, including going to 3 different big box stores to find the right color of binder as prescribed by the teacher (okay, we never found one and I said "make do!"); and getting myself geared back up for lots o' reading and writing.

But, there are benefits from all this energy...these

became these.

(There's actually about 5 times that much, but it's in a dark closet.) T. and I picked 34 pounds of peaches and 12 pounds of plums, and I turned them into spiced plums, plum jam, plum butter, peach butter, peach jam, peach preserves, dried peaches, and peach cobbler.

And the piles, bags, shelves, hidden-under-the-bed with god knows what else stashes of yarn (no pictures...I have some dignity)...became neatly organized into this:

And today, tomato and pepper excesses turned into the winter's salsa...

I did take some time, though, to enjoy the view from the hammock.

Life in the garden (and other places)

The garden is alive and it is created to endure just the way a human being comes into the world and lives, suffers, enjoys, and is mortal....Is the cycle any easier to accept in the garden, than in a human life? Both of them are hard to take! In both cases, there is a sense not only of obligation, but of devotion. (Stanley Kunitz, The Wild Braid).

And so, no matter how preoccupied with self this human life, the garden carries on, volunteering big orange pumpkins,

and one perfect carnival squash.

And continuing with its own cycle of life...

(That's a monarch butterfly on the zinnia and a bee coming in for a landing on the morning glory.)

Meanwhile, I finished my paper and promptly got swamped with work, taking DS to college, and preparing and delivering a speaking engagement in the Midwest on a whirlwind one-day trip. By the way, here's the view from DS' (temporary, tripled, intended to be a lounge) room. Not bad...

I have managed some more finished objects, all food-related, as I work to put up as much food as possible before the garden rests. I picked some Saturn peaches and some MORE blueberries at Hurd Orchards a couple of weeks ago, and made peach/blueberry preserves from Gourmet Preserves.

Then, last weekend, T. and I spent some time in Buffalo for her birthday. I can hear you...you're saying, "Why Buffalo?" First, Delaware Park is an amazing place to have a picnic of homemade scones with blueberry jam, pasta salad with fresh tomatoes and home grown tomatillos and herbs, and melon/cherry tomatillo honey fruit salad.

Second, the Albright-Knox Art Museum is a premier contemporary art museum.

Third, the Niagara Riverway bike trail. We biked from Riverside Park in Buffalo, up through Tonawanda to where the Niagara River meets the Erie Canal. Some industrial sections, but mostly very charming.

And fourth...it's rose hip season!

We picked rose hips along the trail, and since I've never used them before, I'm trying out different recipes. A jam with honey recipe from a very old used book...a little too sweet. Then Euell Gibbons' (raise your hand if you're old enough to remember his Grape Nuts commercials) barely cooked recipe, which will be good for getting our Vitamin C in the winter, and definitely tastes like it's good for you, if you know what I mean.

Finally, one from The Neighborhood Forager, still in progress, which looks promising. The rest will be dried for tea. I hope to pick more throughout the fall.

So those are some of the obligations and devotions in my life at the moment...Next time, a knitting-related post...