birthday boy

we had a little birthday party for cosmo at PDO (parent's day out, his pre-school) yesterday. later, at bath time...

cosmo: i was quiet at PDO today.

carl: oh yeah, why's that?

cosmo: because i was so famous.

november

tom waits has a song about it.
many significant, life changing events have occurred for me, in the month of november. one year, my apartment caught on fire, and i had to move out. oh, and four years ago, in november, i had a baby! this november, i'm writing 50,000 words in thirty days. i have my doubts that the collection of letters, arranged into words, placed together haphazardly into sentences, over the next few weeks, is going to resemble anything close to what anyone would call a novel, but at least i'll have something to work with. i'll have 50k words that i didn't have before. and, i must say, i love nanowrimo. it's just the kick in the pants i needed to get this crazy story onto the page. i am writing every day, over 2000 words, and i am not editing. i am not reading what i have written. ahhh. it is so freeing.

cosmo had fun trick-or-treating, but seems to enjoy, even more, playing with the candy. he likes to sort it, arrange it, catapult it with a yard stick, move it from one container to another, build with boxes of dots and milk duds, toss laffy-taffy into a cut-out flap in a card board box, count hershey's kisses, and make letters out of skinny tootsie rolls. he never eats any without permission, and when he is allowed to have a piece or two, he just can't. decide. which. one. he wants. so, we showed him how to do "eeny meeny miney mo," "bubble gum, bubble gum, in a dish," and "engine engine number nine," so that the decision making is left to chance. he loves this process, and will line up six (or nine, or thirty-seven) pieces of halloween candy, and then, through a long, arduous process of elimination, pick the one piece he will have. he alternates between the three rhymes, and says, "the one that wins, i will eat." he is always thrilled with the winner, even if a milkyway gets eliminated in the first round, and the piece left standing is one, solitary dot. i love the way he says, "MY mother says to pick the VERY best one, and YOU are not IT!"

speaking of tootsie rolls, cosmo looked better in my borrowed costume than i did, but he couldn't walk in it-- just roll. i loved the costume though, for its ease. no make up, no wig, no special clothes, just put it on, and you have an instant, and rather impressive, costume. "cheers!" to whomever crafted it, and "thanks!" to my good neighbors for letting me wear it. cosmo's ghostly cheesecloth kept drifting off his hoodie, but he didn't seem to care, one way or another. the costume was incidental to him. he still can't get over the fact that one day a year, you go out at night, knock on people's doors, they open them, and hand you candy. how can this be? he doesn't run around excitedly, but rather wanders from house to house, sort of stunned, and amazed. he says his obligatory "thank-you," but no smiles. carl called his own, last-minute costume "the haunted shepherd," he was wearing a sheep-herder's hat, from kyrgyzstan.

back at home, we were greeted by these jack-o-lanterns that cosmo and i made out of plastic water bottles. i hope to do a tutorial on those, in another post.

we checked out an awesome book from the library called "applesauce season." it's all about making applesauce, which is something carl especially loves to do. so this time, we got cosmo involved in it from start to finish, including picking out the apples at the farmer's market, and running the cooked apples through the food mill. he really got into it, in part, i suspect, because it is one of his favorite foods.

cosmo has been surprising us, on a regular basis, with his reading skills. i catch myself saying, "you can read that? so, you're a reader? you read now? okay then..." and, i have been saying this for months and months. i guess i have to face the fact that he's learning to read! very exciting. i have even seen him in his room, quietly turning the pages, and reading simple books, all the way through. gasp! he seems to get a lot of satisfaction from it, and tries to read words everywhere we go. he also made a huge leap last week, in his grasp of addition and subtraction. it started with one of the pbs kids games he plays online, but he needed help. i grabbed 5 pens, and showed him how to figure out the answer to a simple addition problem, using the pens, and counting. he was absolutely giddy when he got it. witnessing his little brain grow and expand is one of the greatest pleasures of my life.

(that's 813 words, FYI)

last gasp

a honey bee gathers the last of the nectar from the asters

i guess i titled one of my gardening blog posts "last gasp" last year. sorry, but that's what it feels like around here. last burst of gardening energy, before winter sets in, and a mish-mash of a blog post, to cover a lot of ground before i dive into national novel writing month, tonight at midnight.


the last cosmo of the season and the view from our window, one week ago.

let's start with the garden:
the rye cover crop is now a lovely green blanket over what was once the sprawling cherry tomato bed. we are still plucking perfect tomatillos off the vine, and i have made two batches of salsa verde (for canning) and countless batches of quick fresh green salsa. and still, there's more.



i've been enjoying the herbs we still have flourishing in the garden, and was astonished at the bounty i brought in last week, as i was preparing dinner for some friends. not all of our fall carrots have matured, but some have, and they are lovely. we are cherishing the last of the beets. the candy-striped ones are called chioggia.



we harvested another armload of leeks and made the memorable leek and goat cheese galette. since another blogger has already documented this process beautifully, i won't repeat it here. this time, i chose to make 4 individual galettes, instead of one big one. it looks so lovely on the plate, surrounded by a wreath of fresh water-cress. since it was just for carl and i (cosmo rarely eats what we eat for dinner), we got two full meals out of it. i think this might be my favorite dish right now. at least my favorite of dishes that come out of our kitchen. and i swear it tastes better with leeks, thyme and parsley from our own garden.



in other garden news, my friend stephanie, garden-educator-extraordinaire, taught me how to create our newest garden bed. first i spread out some cardboard, then a layer of our compost, a thicker layer of leaf-mold from last year's autumn leaves, then a layer of straw. it took me a couple of hours to complete, and it's huge! cosmo had a lot of fun "helping" me. in the spring, we'll dig some holes for transplants, add a little compost or soil to each hole, and that's it. the following year, it should all be broken down, and soil-like, and can just be dug and worked like our other garden beds. i am so thrilled.



we still have lettuce, arugula, and a tiny bit of spinach, which i hope will over-winter with some straw on top. apparently the carrots can stay in the ground too, with a layer of mulch, and they'll come back in the spring.



on to gleaning, and other topics:
we ended up making pear fruit leather, and a pear/cranberry chutney for canning, with the rest of our gleaned pears. one of our neighbors has a particularly nice crab apple tree, with large fruit, that tastes good right off the tree. she told us to help ourselves, and we did.



nothing like starting the morning trimming little tiny apples. but aren't they beautiful?



then carl made this glowing jelly while i was busy shopping at the free swap out at bloomingfoods (they used the truckload-sale-tent to house a glorious exchange of useful stuff, all free of charge! crazy, huh?). there was a littlecrab apple juice left over--tart, and nectar-like. we sipped it from tiny crystal goblets.



take a gander at that incredible tromboncino squash! it was a gift from our neighbor jack, whose son is a farmer. they say you can use it just like butternut, but i found it to be more stringy and watery than a butternut, and lacking in that brilliant orange color. the soup-in-progress (shown below) features a true butternut, and a garden herb bundle.



i managed to get the basement into a somewhat presentable and inhabitable space--in time for our housewarming party, and in time for the crafting frenzy, which has already begun. since some potential recipients of my creations may read this blog, i cannot reveal all the particulars of the crafted goodies that are being churned out of this space, but after the holidays, i'll try to do a re-cap.




we took a short drive to the hoosier national forest last weekend, to climb the fire tower for the ultimate autumnal view. i failed to bring the camera to the top of the tower, but my wimpy little lens wouldn't have even come close to capturing that spectacular vista-- so, it's probably better left to the imagination. cosmo enjoyed the short nature walk, and the lady bug explosion that happens here every fall.





cosmo was down for a few days with some virus, other than the flu. it was quite mild, and luckily, he's over it in time for halloween. hope yours is fun.

as winter approaches...

the garlic is in the ground. maybe too early? i don't know. it rained for days. the garlic arrived,

the sun came out, i planted the garlic. couldn't help it.

also dragged the cold frame over from our old yard and plopped it over some beets and leeks that are still in the ground. i had wanted to put in some kale and broccoli starts, but i guess i waited too late because i can't find them anywhere. one of my permaculture friends said it would be worth a try to stick some seeds in the ground right now. apparently, brassicas love to germinate in this kind of weather, and while they probably won't grow much over the winter, i might get some baby kale leaves, and we may have early broccoli in the spring. it was tough finding even seeds at the local nurseries. i finally found some bulk seeds at the farm-and-feed co-op, and went a little nuts. i planted cabbage, broccoli, kale and arugula seeds in the cold frame. so far, the kale, broccoli and arugula have germinated. we had our first frost last night. i got the windows on the cold frame just in time. i'm excited to see how the cold frame works when it actually sits in the sun all winter!

we are still harvesting tomatillas, hot chilies and cilantro (made some yummy salsa verde last night, for our housewarming party). we still have parsley, basil, sage, beets, carrots and LEEKS! most of the leeks are reserved for our most favorite leek and goat cheese galette, but we did harvest a few, and made a simple dish involving a lovely, mustard vinaigrette.



the neighborhood is bursting with brilliant fall color, i'm drying and sorting seeds, and dreaming, already, of next year's garden.

blog action day: climate change*

i'll be frank: i think it's a lost cause. fighting climate change. too late. we've known about the greenhouse effect since i was a little kid--AT LEAST! the situation was dire THEN. drastic action had to be taken immediately to even hope to begin to reverse the trends. instead, it has only gotten worse. and will clearly continue to do so. a new study shows that much of the arctic ice cap will be melted in summer months-- within TEN YEARS, and that the arctic will be an open sea in the next 20-30 years!



so...? that is just the way it is. we are humans, we belong to this earth, we are creatures of this planet, and this is what we do. this is what we have done. if, as creatures of this planet, we take elements of the earth, and manipulate and use them in such a way that they make the earth unlivable for most of the beings that currently in habit it-- if we humans take actions that lead to the destruction of the environment, such that humans can no longer live on earth, so be it. the earth will go on without us, and the adapted ecosystem that evolves will be something else. something we don't get to know about.

it seems arrogant to me, to believe that it is all about us. or, all about our perspective. or, that we think we can control global climate change, or that we think the worst thing in the world would be the extinction of human beings. if we make our planet uninhabitable, then we cease to exist. and i hate to admit it, but i am kind-of okay with that. well, what choice do i have? this is reality. it is simply too late to stop global warming.

i am not at all happy about any of this. i accept it, but it is, nonetheless, still heartbreaking. i dread the loss of the polar bear, the flooding of cities, and i know that the people in the lowest economic classes will suffer first, and suffer the most. it is not fair, it is not just, but it is what we have done, and it seems absurd to think that sticking a piece of newspaper in a recycling bin is going to change this global truth.

but... i still recycle everything that can be recycled, re-use packaging of various sorts, shop almost exclusively at thrift stores and yard sales for clothes and other household items. i buy and glean local food when i can, and preserve much of it for the winter months, in order to eat locally all year. i garden organically, and i compost. i ride my bike for in-town transportation--often (not always), and i bring my own bags to the grocery store.



i figure, as long as humans are still living on this earth, might as well enjoy what we still have.






*i bet i'll never be asked to write about climate change again).

autumnal clichés

there's nothing like living in houston texas, for nearly a decade, to make one appreciate the splendor of the 4 seasons. when we were living in houston, carl's friend michael (of mike & patty's fame) once sent him an email in october that facetiously suggested he must be enjoying all the wonders of fall: bulky sweaters, apple picking, the rosy-cheeks of the school children...
it's still hot and sticky down there, well into october, but now that we live in the mid-west, we actually do get to experience these seasonal markers. for instance, on sunday, we went apple picking.



the trees were low, and easy for little ones to reach, but since the coveted jonathan variety was almost gone, we still got to do a little bit of searching, to find those precious few that remained. then we filled our bag with golden delicious, and red delicious, and topped it all off with a caramel apple from the quaint little country store.



we used most of the bag for applesauce, which we canned last night. cosmo went through so much of that last winter, i think we'll need to do another batch.



it is so simple: just cut apples in quarters, stick 'em in the biggest pot you can find, with a little bit of water. cook until soft enough to mash with a potato masher (stirring to prevent scorching), then run them through your handy-dandy food mill, to remove the skins and seeds. after that, you just ladle the sauce into the sterilized jars, add a little lemon juice on top (to prevent discoloration), seal the jars, and put into the boiling-water canning bath for 20 minutes. that's it. pure, homemade, nothin-but-apples-applesauce. yum.



we have also been gleaning the fallen pears from a lovely neighborhood tree. one night, we made a crisp, from the pears, plus some black raspberries we had from earlier in the season. it was heavenly. we'll probably try some pear chutney, or perhaps pear butter? any other pear ideas out there?