just a few cherries, thank you

Ah it is cherry time around here. I have to say, however, this colander represents the sum total of all the cherries I am purchasing this year. After last year's cherry-box-panic, where in which I spent two days pitting cherries by hand with a paring knife, this season I decided I would by one pint and eat them fresh that day and that would be that. Maybe I'll get a cherry pitter before next season and my courage will return. If so I should get one early - my friend Hannah asked the only store in driving distance that still had one in stock to hold it for her and they had to turn away 3 or 4 other potential buyers in the hour it took her to pop over. Wow. Apparently the money is in cherry pitters this season - who knew?

fire pit

While we were digging in the garden bed we kept hitting stones. Big stones. Stones that broke a shovel and two forks in the process of putting in our kitchen garden. It seemed only fitting to find some pleasure in them so Andy took to the task of making a fire pit for us.

So far it's just been used twice for after-supper s'mores but I'm looking forward to trying out some kebabs and stick-bread as well.

In the back of this picture you can see a big pile of stones - that isn't even half of what we dug out. We have to repair our stone wall and I'm hoping to us as many of these as we can. After this, I really understand why New England farms are bordered by stones walls. The joke always that rock is what New England grows best and I'll tell you we had a bumper year!

the cape

Someone very dear to us has recently been diagnosed with cancer. We spent a week, as a family, in Maryland staying with them during surgery, and spent a week at home without papa while he helped them transition home from the hospital. We are very optimistic but it has caused a lot of upset in our routine and rhythm. The next round of treatment should be starting soon so while we had the time we escaped to Cape Cod for a week by the ocean to soothe our souls and take a step outside of the trials of life.

We rented a cottage with my mom, uncle and niece in Truro, our favorite outer-cape town. The beach there is like none other. The dunes are dramatic and protected so there is only an occasional weathered-shingle house up on the hill - the rest is sand and grasses and the sea.






We came home rested and rejuvenated, and happy to sleep in our own beds again.

rhubarb yogurt

rhubarb yogurt, originally uploaded by birchmama.

The drink of early last summer was rhubarb soda with vodka (I added a lot less water and sugar than this recipe though). This summer we decided to try rhubarb bellini. I quite liked them though Andy couldn't get by the texture. I would have taken a photo of it but they looked, to be honest, like glasses of gravy! The batch of rhubarb wasn't very pink so the puree wasn't very colorful - more like apple sauce. Instead, here is my breakfast the day after - left over puree spooned over yogurt. I think this may be my favorite yogurt flavor now. Rhubarb freezes so well that I can make this when it is out of season. I already have a gallon of it chopped and frozen now but I think I'll do some more while I still can.

I'm trying to eat rhubarb and asparagus as often as possible because it is such a fleeting season. Already some of the asparagus fields have gone to seed, but I can feel the abundance of summer coming over the horizon. Soon the farmers' markets and roadside stands will be full and we'll have more choices than we know what to do with. Such bliss.

collected this morning

collected, originally uploaded by birchmama.

We had a lovely sunny day today and so the children and I spent the morning out in the yard. Inspired by this lovely blog we decided to pick what plants we could find in the grass. Truth be told, we don't have much grass in the back of the house - most of it is chickweed and plantain - which I really don't mind. The front yard is all torn up and, because we won't really use it and so I don't want to waste water and mowing energy on a big empty lawn, we are looking into planting it with wild flowers in the style of a Lammas Field that is mowed down in August as fodder for the animals. Mowing once or twice a year is much more my style.

We found, from left to right, chickweed, buttercups, purple fleabane, bluets, bugleweed, white clover. The is also some yarrow in the front yard but it needs a bit longer before the flowers open. I'm having fun sharing some common plant knowledge with Miryam that I learned while apprenticing with an herbalist before she was born. While we were collecting I was reminded of a book that I'll have to dig out and revisit with her called The Herbalist of Yarrow. Scattered throughout the book are sidebars with recipes for the herbal preparations used in the story. We've just finished two readings of the Lauren Child illustrated Pippi so we're starting to move into books with less and less pictures which opens up our bedtime reading choices, thankfully. It will be nice to start having my little one help wildcraft and mix up remedies. This is knowledge that I have worked, and am working, so hard to learn that she will grow up knowing from childhood. Such a gift.

And such a lovely day.

asparagus soup

The past two days have been rainy and cold. Wet, damp, cold that feels even chillier coming after some 90 degree days last week. We've been eating asparagus almost everyday since it arrived at the roadside stands and this weather seemed the perfect time to try asparagus soup. The recipe is from my current favorite Jamie at Home. I've always liked his books but I like him especially now that he is a papa and grows his own food. The book is laid out seasonally and includes a recipe for Rhubarb Bellini which I have on the menu for the next sunny weekend.

Éamonn went down for a nice long afternoon nap so Miryam and I had some time to work together in the kitchen. I did the onion chopping and she handled the asparagus - weighing out the bunch, snapping off the ends and cutting off the tips to be added later after the soup is blended. They cook perfectly in the soup and are these little surprising nibbles of yummy. I highly recommend the soup. If we get a sunny day we can try it the alternate way - cold with lemon juice - which sounds like a perfect lunch.

sabbatical

the kitchen garden we have been working on during any spare moments

Parenting creates interesting paradoxes. Being a mama or papa makes you aware of your values, the vision you have for the family you want your child to grow in, who you want to be as a person, how you want to act and model to your children, and the way you want to spend your valuable time. It also takes a lot of work with few breaks which makes it difficult to get the healthy dinner on the table, keep your patience, stop washing the dishes to sing songs, and act with intention.

That last thought has come up for me a lot since Miryam was born - acting with intention. Often when I am feeling down I will scribble on some scrap paper Kerouac style with no punctuation or breaks about my vision. When we were despairing to find a house to buy I would write for a while about what I want in a house, what I would do in it, how it would feel, what things would fill it, who would visit. It helped to purge the disappointment and also to clarify the vision.

Some days I have "low mojo" and just can't get anything going, or I feel like I am just not walking the right path. That I have a vision for the person I would like to be, the life I would like to live, the family culture I would like to create, and that I am falling short. We're close but not quite there. They are hard days especially with the littles underfoot - there's less time to ponder and mother yourself and help regain your footing. The only thing I usually have time for is my scribbles - just to get it out somewhere. I don't journal - I don't save these, it's just a process - when it's done, I'm done.

This past year there have been many of these days. I have more clarity about what I want for my life than I did before becoming a mother and it feels more important to attain my vision now while my children are still young. So I tried to think about what hurdles are standing in the way of the life I envision and the big obstacle that came up again and again was Andy's working. He was lucky enough to have a friend get him started tutoring in the evenings. The pay is wonderful and there is very little prep work needed. Because we needed the extra money to buy the house it was hard to turn the work away but at 70 hours or so a week of work between school and tutoring he was turning clients away. The hours were too much but the per-hour rate for tutoring was so good in comparison to teaching that we kept adding and hour here and an hour there.
I've been very inspired by Rhonda's blog Down To Earth. She shares her story without judgement of where her readers are on their path or how they define "simple living" but the most moving thing about her blog, for me, is the very obvious joy and contentment she can created for herself. The sense of giving each activity her attention and commitment, to cultivating the things that are important to her and to being intentional in every choice. When I found it originally I went down the hole and read through the archives and thought and thought about the control I have over my life. That the life that I wanted was a simple life but a simple life takes time - something that was very scarce this past year. That the life I wanted was the one in which I acted with intention. When the family was on a reasonable schedule we ate fantastic home-cooked meals, we read books and played and had friends over for supper. I sewed clothes and mended them. We kept the house clean and relaxed. As soon as things got busy again everything was a reaction. We were hungry so we had to get something to eat - it wasn't already made so we would have burritos downtown. The laundry wasn't done, the dishes were dirty and I was so busy trying to get caught up that I didn't want to play. The children would finally get in bed and Andy and I would crash in front of a DVD and slump until we went to bed. The contrast was so great between our two patterns that it might have been comical if we hadn't been living it. I felt like we were doing all we could do create the life we wanted but something was always getting slighted.

I started thinking about what kind of a change we could make. Something bold and authentic. Something that felt like we were taking back control of our time and embuing it with the value it deserved. I started throwing out the idea of taking some time off from teaching and just tutoring. Good money, less hours, no stress, flexible schedule. Andy thought I was crazy. I kept thinking and trying my best to make the pieces come together. To make the yummy dinner and still have a tidy house, happy children, friend's to visit, time to relax and enough energy at the end of the night to play cards or chat with Andy instead of zoning out. It wasn't happening. I brought my idea up again and Andy thought I was crazy - thats what people do, they go to work and come home at night and we should feel blessed that I get to stay at home with the children. I took a long hard look and my vision. Was it realistic? Was it as likely as me getting a large estate in the English countryside to reside it? No. This was something that, although currently rare, should be completely realistic. Papa's should see their children for more than 2 hours before they go to bed at night. There should be time to rest when the work is done.

During spring break - a week of vacation from school but with the normal amount of tutoring - I kept noting how much smoother things ran when were in less of a rush and had more time to act with intention. We ate well, we played, we worked, we relaxed, we talked. The children were cooperative, we were patient. The rough moments were easier to weather because we were all on the same page.I brought up this contrast after the first week back to school was particularly trying. "Why are we doing this?" I asked. "This life doesn't feel like "us". It feels like we are letting circumstances make our choices for us". And Andy agreed. "Why not" he said. "Why shouldn't we try this?" And so we held our breath, held hands and jumped. Andy went into work the next day and asked for a sabbatical. And they said yes. The commended him for his commitment to his family and asked him to stay on as a department head for 3 days a month. He accepted.

Just knowing that, come July, we'll be able to make our reality that much closer to our vision makes it easier to get through these last busy weeks. I feel so blessed to have a husband who shares my vision and is willing to figure out how to make a good idea work.