sewing round-up part 3

Behold my beloved sewing machine! It is a Singer model 401a from the late 1950s, which I've been told is the best machine Singer ever made. I purchased it in perfect condition for $25 at a retirement community yard sale about 10 years ago. I didn't realize what I was getting; I only picked this sewing machine out of dozens at the yard sale because the drawers were completely full of scissors, thread, and various attachments. The machine itself has all kinds of special functions, although not computerized like today's models. Just when I think I've found the limits of this machine and desire a new one, I find a way to overcome the problem. I recently found a used walking foot (a special attachment), and it's opened up a whole new world of sewing possibilities.

My "sewing corner" exists in our bedroom and pretty much takes over the whole room whenever I've got a work in progress. Poor Denis has to wrestle with the ironing board just to reach his dresser, and even walking into the room is an obstacle course of cutting mats, rulers, and piles of scraps. Someday I will have a bigger space, but for now I'm just grateful I don't have to sew in the living room like in our last house. Anyway, over the summer I made a little dust cover for the sewing machine, much prettier than the vinyl thing it came with.


And finally, bringing us up to date on my completed projects (except the 2 headscarves I just couldn't photograph well), I made this camo bucket last weekend as a (late) birthday present for my brother.


The pattern is from the etsy shop of the blogger maya*made. She envisioned the bucket made out of upcycled burlap coffee sacks, which I would also like to try making. Actually I have plans to make a whole bunch of these in different heavyweight fabrics. I just love things that are beautiful as well as utilitarian.

candy? what candy?

Wrapping up Halloween coverage 2009, I bring you the awesome jack-o-lanterns carved by Denis, with creative input from Sam Giraffe.

Also an action shot of Sam ringing our neighbor's doorbell. We went to about a dozen houses in our neighborhood for tricks-or-treats.


There were also a few houses where nobody answered the door (our neighborhood is not big on Halloween apparently--we only got 3 groups at our door), and Sam generously suggested that the inhabitants were "sleeping." Sam's favorite neighbor presented him with a glowing ghost and goldfish crackers.

His costume was a hit, and despite the many sewing flaws, I'm pretty happy with it (another view here). I couldn't find a giraffe sewing pattern, so I had to adapt a lion pattern and improvise those giraffe antlers (or whatever they're called) as well as the tail. I know, I know, where's the long neck, right? Whatever... I'm not that good and everyone knew what he was just fine.


All in all, it was a great Halloween. Sam loved trick-or-treating! In fact, though he's asked a couple times if we could go trick-or-treating again, he hasn't once asked for more candy! We let him pick out one piece to eat on Halloween night before bed (he chose M&Ms, which he recognized as an early potty-training reward [we now use yogurt raisins]), but he seemed to forget all about candy after that. Today I took pity on him and showed him what he was missing. The glowing ghost just observed.

Happy Halloween!

another fall crop

Leeks! Nights this week have been downright cold, so it was quite appropriate to have our first fireplace fires of the season, as well as our first fall soup. Potato Leek Soup, made with homegrown leeks, some yukon gold potatoes, onion, garlic, celery, carrot, homegrown red bell pepper, dino kale, thyme, bay, white pepper, salt, oil, lemon juice, butter and whole milk, all mixed up with an immersion blender. All three of us, plus our dinner guest, had second helpings. Delicious!

great-grandma's piano

Here Sam plays his great-grandma's piano, which now graces our living room. She was a piano teacher in San Francisco in the 40's and 50's, and we inherited a boxful of wonderful sheet music from her as well. Sam not only enjoys "playing" piano, he also likes to play a single note before singing a song, just like our teacher does on her violin before a song in class. Denis informs me that he and Sam have jam sessions on piano and guitar together, usually songs about animals, with elephants represented by the lowest notes, and a mouse represented by the highest notes. Today I was treated to many verses of 'Crawdad', a catchy bluegrass tune from our music class.

embracing fall

Today was a beautiful California fall day: warm enough to hang out laundry, with the smell of fallen leaves in the air, and golden fall colors all around. I recently harvested most of our butternut squash to save it from drowning in the 2.74" rain that fell in our first storm. I hadn't grown winter squash--apart from pumpkins--since I worked on farms managed by other people. This year, my butternuts are reminding me of my grandfather, who grew these in his backyard every year for us to eat over the holidays. Butternut squash was my favorite vegetable when I was a kid, and my grandfather made sure I had some homegrown every fall. At 94 he hasn't gardened in several years, but I think he will be pleased to hear that the tradition continues.


I'm really a summer person, but there are at least a couple things to love about fall besides butternut squash...such as comfy sweaters and corduroys,


boots left on the porch, the angle of sunlight in our backyard,


and the feeling of things slowing down, just a little bit.

sewing round-up part 2

Here is another birthday gift I sewed for a friend. This project was inspired by a collection of fabrics from P&B Textiles, which I found so charming and reminded me of my friend's style. The only issue with this project was that it intimidated me for an entire year, so instead of getting this to her for her 2008 birthday, I only managed to complete it for her birthday this year!


It's a notepad holder. I had seen a couple of handmade objects like this and decided that I could recreate it myself. I basically drafted the pattern from scratch, not even sure that my machine (a late 1950's era model) could handle it (thus the confidence problem). I didn't even own a rotary cutter last year when I cut out the fabric, so it was pretty awesome to feel how far I had come when I finally finished it.



The button is glass, the tie closure is sewn-up bias binding tape (which wraps around the button), and there are two layers of flannel between the outer and inner fabrics for body. Inside there is a sleeve for a 5x7 notepad, a slim pocket for writing implement, a small pocket for post-its or stamps, and a larger pocket for mail or papers or whatever. Sewing through all the layers gave me almost no trouble (I had feared worse), and truly this was so fun and satisfying to put together. I am quite pleased with how it turned out!

sewing round-up part 1

Sam's preschool schedule has provided me with a little extra time for some sewing. I've completed several projects since I last updated, the biggest of which was this skirt, the first 'successful' garment I have made for myself. Every fall I love the look of skirts and boots, but I have never been able to justify buying the expensive leather riding-style boots that I love. The truth is, I'm not much of a skirt girl, and rubber garden boots are closer to my reality.

I drafted the pattern myself using instructions in the book Sew What! Skirts, by Francesca DenHartog. It is a simple cotton A-line skirt with a side zipper, no waistband, and bias binding trim. It's still a bit big and low-riding on me, though I took it in twice. Next time I'll know how to use my measurements better. The "sideways squares" patches idea came from a skirt pattern in Seams to Me, by Anna Maria Horner.


I'm not sure if this skirt is really working for me though...proof being that I have yet to wear it out of the house. I still call it a successful first garment, at least compared to the patternless skirts and shorts I attempted in my younger days. Luckily I had the foresight to use cheap fabric for this, so the whole thing only cost me about $8 to make.

I made another trio of baby bibs, from the same pattern as last time. These cuties will go to a new baby girl from Denis' office.


My best friend had a birthday recently so I made her some napkins from reproduction 1890's fabric. These are simple hemmed squares of fabric with mitered corners, easy and elegant.


Then I made a drawstring "travel bag" from the book Weekend Sewing, by Heather Ross, to use as a giftbag. I love the tiny toile fabric, and I love not using wrapping paper! Best of all, travelling with cloth drawstring bags is much nicer than packing shoes or laundry in a plastic bag from the grocery store. I'll be making more of these for Holiday gift-wrapping.


That's not all! I have a few more projects to share soon.

boys camping trip

The weekend before last, Denis took Sam camping with a friend and his son. This is my favorite photo from the trip: Sam playing with a flashlight inside the tent. I love that Denis thought to provide Sam with his own flashlight for his first camping trip. (It's actually a flashlight I purchased for myself on the coast of Maine while camping at Acadia a few years ago.) I also love that it was a boys trip (though I would love to go too-as soon as we upgrade to a 3-person tent), and that I got over 24 hours at home by myself. As for the details, and more pictures, I will leave those to Denis to share. I just wanted to remember a bit of end-of-summer goodness while it rains buckets here during the first (welcome) storm of the rainy season.

pick a peck

We don't quite have a peck of home-grown peppers, but we do have the best crop I have personally grown. LOVE this inland climate! With greater coastal influence in other locations, my peppers were small, thin-walled, and stayed green, barely worth growing and eating. This year, further inland (with some shade), I chose three varieties and planted them in two different locations in our garden.

Not pictured are the Gypsy peppers, an earlier, pale yellow-green, pointed tip sweet pepper, supposedly with wonderful flavor, though I did not find them very tasty and will not grow them again.

Pictured above are some Corn Di Torro, an elongated heirloom stuffing pepper which ripens to red. They taste good fresh or lightly stir-fried, which is how we eat most peppers. The other night I also roasted some for a pasta dish, and they were so delicious I think I will do more roasting next year. A farmer colleague of mine told me years ago that he would freeze roasted peppers to preserve for winter eating. With greater production we could do that too.

Also pictured are a few ripe Ace bell peppers. This is a popular hybrid variety, ripening to red, and very good fresh, stir-fried, or roasted. And no less important, the green-red striped one is so pretty! The plant did not get very big, and had some significant competition from a vining squash and drooping tomato, but it kept popping out peppers seemingly too big for itself (there is one still ripening right now). Definitely will grow these again, and more too.

happy

I have story to tell, but it's a long one. You might want to get a snack before we start, and I, for one, will be keeping a tissue handy.

As you may remember, Sam and I have been taking a music class together. We are now in a new fall session with different kids and new songs, but with the same amazing teacher. I just cannot stress how much Sam loves this class. We have been playing the cd at home and in the car to learn the new songs, and Sam not only sings along, but "reads" along in the accompanying songbook. He also sings the songs on his own without the cd, while playing or eating or in the bath.

Often I will sing too, and Sam loves it when I make up new lyrics which correspond to what we are doing; for example one of the songs goes "apples and cherries, peaches blueberries, grapes and bananas, dee dee deedee dee..." so one night when I wanted him to stay focused on eating dinner, I changed the words to the food in his bowl, "noodles and tofu, carrot cabbage, tahini yogurt, dee dee deedee dee..." Sam thought this was the funniest thing, and kept eating and laughing---a dangerous combination I realize---even making up his own silly lyrics and cracking himself up. And really, that is one of the objectives of this particular music program: to completely integrate music with daily life.

When we are in class, Sam is very focused on Helen, our teacher (and he still calls himself Helen out of deep love for her sometimes), participates in the dancing and movement with boundless enthusiasm, and plays the instruments (his favorites are tiny cymbals and a tiny drum), but despite knowing the songs quite well, has not sung along to the songs in class. Actually most of the children don't sing along (the babies obviously don't, but even most of the older verbal children as well) although they clearly know the songs and enjoy class.

So, two of Sam's favorite songs are the Hello and Goodbye songs. These are the two songs that open and close class and which remain the same from session to session. The lyrics are happy and upbeat and consist of singing hello (or goodbye) to each child in the class by name, "Hello to Sam, we're so glad to see you! Hello to Ella, we're so glad to see you too..." If you told me 10 years ago that I was going to be sitting in a circle with a bunch of parents and little kids singing sickenly happy songs while clapping my hands with a huge smile on my face, I probably would have scowled, picked up a wheelbarrow full of dirt and run away from you up a steep hill. I am so ridiculously happy singing that damn song with a roomful of people who all smile at my son and sing his name and sing how happy they are to see him, and knowing the thrill he gets from that is enough to make my voice crack.

Well, this week, for the very first time, Sam sang in class. As usual, all of us parents and Helen started clapping our knees and singing "Hello everybody, we're so glad to see you! Hello to Joseph, we're so glad to see you too! Hello..." And then right away, rising up from the sound of the group, was one distinctive voice, one young little voice, singing with the right words and the right rhythm but a bit higher and slightly out of tune, one confident happy voice singing along, clapping his knees to the beat, singing how happy he was to see everyone. One voice, Sam's voice, singing along with the adults in the room. Helen noticed and gave him big smiles, other parents noticed and smiled at him too. I---I was bursting and grinning and giggling and tearing up and choking on the lump in my throat. All I could hear was this one clear high little-boy off-key happy happy voice.

And then he sang the next song and the next one. I could barely get the words out myself. I kept wiping the corners of my eyes, and I could barely contain my giggles. I should have remembered to take deep breaths--that might have helped. After singing along for three or four songs, Sam stopped singing and resumed his usual engaged but mute participation in class. Perhaps, sadly, my odd reaction to his singing suppressed him. Next time I must concentrate and not get worked up. Bad Mommy. Bad sappy Mommy.

Towards the end of every class, right before the Goodbye song, Helen dims the lights and we all make the sound of a gentle wind. Then we sing one of the quiet lullabies as babies and toddlers cuddle in their parents' laps. It's a sweet and tender time, babies often nurse, parents and children snuggle, the voices of a quiet lullaby fill the room. As for Sam, he decides, every time, that he needs to run pell-mell around the room. He throws himself at me, runs away, runs back, throws himself at me again, runs circles around me, darts between other people in the circle, and all the while I am dutifully singing the sweet lullaby and hoping he doesn't hurt anybody.

It's not that I wish Sam would act any differently during lullaby-time. Sam is a lover and I get plenty of cuddles and kisses with him. No, his wildness, his running around, his utter refusal to be touched with tenderness right then, his independence, is just so funny that it's absolutely perfect. I mean really, the singing, the clapping, the running? I hadn't laughed that hard telling Denis about our day in a long time. Couldn't have been more perfect.

Taking it all in, that's what this story is about. Taking it all in and reminding myself to breathe.

parenting interlude

Lest you think this has become a strictly gardening blog, I bring you Elmo underpants, size 2T. We now have over 20 pairs of tiny boys underwear; I just can't stop buying them even though somebody with a 2T bum still isn't consistenly interested in wearing them. I really thought Elmo would do it! Somebody picked them out himself! At least I thought that he would never poop on his happy red friend, but I was wrong there too.

Now I've done it. I wrote the word poop on this nice blog. In my farmer life, poop was practically daily dinner conversation...though that was chicken, goat or horse poop usually. Cycles of life: everything is food for someone, and poop is food for microbes who convert it into food for plants. But this is a parenting post, not a gardening one.

Poop is very present in our lives still, but no, there has not been much progress potty training. I backed off for awhile, then became more suggestive about it, and now I'm backing way off again. When it's time for a diaper change, I hold up a few pairs of Big Bird or train or soccer ball or Elmo underwear along with a diaper and ask him, as neutrally as possible, which one he'd like to wear. Mostly it's a diaper. What are you gonna do?

canning tomatoes part 2

I'm a bit overdue in writing this post as a followup to Operation Tomato Part One a couple weeks ago. Immediately after canning the sungold cherry tomato sauce, we worked on sauce of the regular slicing and paste tomatoes. Even with a LOT of fresh eating, we had plenty for canning. Pace yourself Sam!


Canning is a big undertaking. I've done it alone, with one other person, and with groups of all sizes. It was one of the most popular workshops I taught at my old job, and I find interest and enthusiasm whenever I talk about it. Harvesting, gathering jars, washing jars and produce, cutting, coring, straining fruit, boiling down sauce for 4-6 hours, sterilizing jars and lids, ladling sauce into jars, screwing on lids, placing filled jars into boiling water, boiling jars for 45 minutes, lifting them out and waiting for the seal to pop.... it takes a lot of time, care, and patience.


But it's all so fun, especially when you get into a rhythm with your co-canners, everyone doing whatever job needs to be done. Even Sam got into the action pushing cut tomatoes into the hopper...


...alternated with sipping tomato juice from a mug (see red mustache).


Final yield two weeks ago: 7 quarts of delicious tomato sauce. And the best part? We did this all again yesterday with an equal amount of tomatoes, boiled it down to a thicker sauce, and got 4 more quarts of yumminess. We should have enough for one more (probably smaller) canning session soon. I love growing my own food!

longer shorter days

It is officially fall now. I have been noticing the lowering of the sun for awhile, though the weather continues to be mostly summery and perfect. The days may be shorter, but in some ways they feel longer now that Sam is no longer napping. When Denis has a heavy week, and I am doing most or all childcare for days at a time, I am so spent after putting him to bed. Last night I sat on the front stoop with a mudslide and noticed signs of fall as twilight descended.


Leeks were a favorite fall crop back on the farm crew. I loved trimming the long leaves into a tidy 'V' shape with the quick slash of a knife. The fields would be frosty in the mornings, our large summer crew gone, and I would carry a 5-gallon bucket of hot water in the back of the truck to warm up my freezing dewy fingers between harvesting the arugula and whatever else wasn't winter-killed.


Fall, if not my job, is milder here of course. Our winter kale plants are only newly planted seedlings, stretching up from the mulch all green and blue.

weekend in pajaro

This year's Pajaro trip was short but very sweet. We played frisbee and boomerang and had a great visit with Grandma, Fred, and the dogs. Despite Sam's mysterious apprehension with the beach, he had fun every single minute. Crashing surf, big empty beach, nothing to do, even the fog...a beautiful weekend.

operation tomato part 1

Our tomatoes are finally coming in full force, and days of tomato canning are upon us. First up were the cherries, way too many to snack on. For the first time we made sauce and canned these tiny packets of flavor, and for fun we did them separately from our regular tomatoes. I spent over 30 minutes harvesting these (below) this morning, while Sam was at school, from one sweet 100 and 2 sungold plants. Spending that long harvesting one crop makes me feel a bit like a farmer again; I revelled in it.


Sam offered to help when he got home, but he kept getting phonecalls.


So pretty!


To prep the cherry tomatoes for sauce-making, I washed and de-stemmed them out on the back porch. Sam prepped quite a few, but most of his went into his mouth.


(Did you notice the tomato foreman in the yellow hat?)
I filled the 6-quart pot (above, on the left) almost full (adding a few paste tomatoes), boiled it down, strained out the seeds and skins, and then canned the thickened cherry tomato sauce in pint jars.


Final yield (the seeds&skins to flesh ratio a bit surprising): 3.5 pints of summery sungold sauce. Come February, we'll be eating this tiny bit of goodness right up.

half-sour pickles

Our kitchen counter looked like this for weeks this summer (though it was even more blurry with my glasses off). We grew 4 varieties of cucumbers and have been eating amazing cucumber salads almost every day. We also put up a couple batches of both canned and refrigerator bread and butter pickles. Most excitingly for me, we also made two batches of brined half-sours. Yum!


I hadn't tried fermenting pickles for several years, and to be honest my track record was not good before this year. In the past I would make huge crocks of brine only to have something go wrong with the process and end up with a huge crock of cucumber compost. But I just love deli pickles, so this year I tried again, and used a new recipe (from The Joy of Pickling by Linda Ziedrich). This process is small-scale, just a 2-quart jar, and utilizes a brine-filled ziplock bag to seal off air. The brine is seasoned with garlic, coriander, and home-grown dill heads. It was a brilliant success! These half-sours are delicious, perfect for an afternoon snack, on their own or alongside sweet garden tomatoes.

my little platform

As we try to figure out our new problem with downloading photos from the camera, I bring you some picture-free content in the form of a couple interesting articles:

This one, I just read this morning, is Michael Pollan's op-ed piece in the New York Times bringing the huge yet under-noticed issue of food into the national conversation on health care. He cites a study that explains why our health care costs are the highest in the world: it's the great American diet (surprise!). A plan to lower health care costs must include food industry reform, folks. I think we all know where I stand on this issue.

And this one is very long, but riveting, and very disturbing, but important. I don't even know what to say about it except that if you care about capital punishment, no matter which side you're on, I think you should read it.

Thanks for listening. Regular blogging to resume as soon as we get these technical problems solved.

iraqi bundle of love

Today, at the last minute, I am sending off my Iraqi Bundle of Love. This is a project started by a wonderful man in the army over in Iraq who is returning home soon and simply wants to leave Iraq with a little bit of goodness. As the husband and son of quilters, he came up with the idea of donating fabric and sewing supplies to sewing cooperatives and individuals in Iraq. Yarn and knitting supplies are also welcome. He has called this project Iraqi Bundles of Love (IBOL) and keeps a blog about it here with all the specs for donating a bundle. I regret that I did not do better in spreading the word, because today is the last day to mail off a bundle, but if you are reading this and would like the address from me today, give me a call. I'm going to pick up Sam from school and have him help me pack up our package at the post office, while trying to explain something about giving things away to people who might need them more than we do.

strawberries and delayed gratification

My past experience with Seascape everbearing strawberries has been that the plants are easy to grow, produce abundantly, and that the berries taste magnificent. My CSA members in Berkeley would pronounce our strawberries the best they had ever tasted. This is not a variety widely grown for production because of the fragility of the berries, but when sweetness and flavor are of the utmost importance, usually for a small grower, nothing beats the Seascape in my opinion. So of course when we bought our own house, and with a 2-year-old berry-lover to think of, I planted them again.

Early on in June, I let go control of the harvest and allowed Sam to pick and eat and learn with minimal direction from me. I guided him to look around the whole berry to make sure it was all red and ready, and after picking a few that were barely pink, he now makes sure only to pick ones that are truly ripe. With only 6 container plants, Sam eats almost all of our strawberries himself, which is just fine with me.

Recently Sam has been picking strawberries and declaring that he must "save it for breakfast and put it in the refridgerator." So he runs inside with his berry (or handful of berries) and deposits it on the top shelf of the fridge. The next morning, he eats them cut up in his oatmeal. This has been going on for a few weeks now.

I am reminded of an interesting article I read recently about children and self-control. Simply put, studies show that children who are able to delay gratification early in life can have greater success as adults. If I hadn't provided Sam the guided freedom to pick his own strawberries, I wonder if he would have expressed this ability to save them.

As far as the Seascapes go, I think they do much better in a more coastal climate. I find our productivity and flavor to be not quite as amazing, and the plants that are doing the best are the ones with the longest shade period. I will try some additional varieties next year.

ground cherries

I was excited to see ground cherry starts at my local farm supply nursery this spring. I had only seen the plant once before, on a farm in the Sierras where a friend worked years ago. I visited her one day and tasted this unique fruit for the first time, filing the name away in my head before hopping off a boulder for a luxurious mountain swim.

Ground cherries are in the Solanaceae family (one of my favorites), the same family as tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant, and are closely related to tomatillos. Our plant grew only about a foot tall but spread 3 feet or so in all directions, in a seemingly friendly competition for space with our butternut squash. Flowers are yellow and star-shaped, and the berry-sized fruits hang like little green lanterns. Ground cherries are ripe when the papery skin becomes brown and dry and the fruits drop to the ground. Peel off the papery skin to reveal a small orange fruit with a unique taste--part pineapple, part citrus, part tomato.

The taste is not for everyone, but they are pretty popular around our house. Good thing because they are quite plentiful these days. Sam has said more than once, "I love ground cherries Mommy!" and he searches for them every time we are out in the garden. I think unwrapping the papery skin is a big part of the appeal. One of Sam's Montessori teachers is really into doing tastings of unusual foods with the kids, and she was excited when I told her about our ground cherries. I plan to bring some into his class for a tasting soon.

garden visitors

I ran to the garden to pick a few cherry tomatoes for Sam's lunch today before heading out to pick him up at school. As I was approaching the vines, some movement on a leaf of our tiny orange tree caught my eye. Looking closer, I noticed it was a very large insect. A praying mantis, very nice! I didn't have time to linger, so I continued towards the cherry tomatoes, started picking, and then noticed the droppings of a gigantic tomato hornworm. There it was on the tomato stem, munching away.


I hadn't seen one in many years. Not something you really want to see on your precious plants; these guys have big appetites. I had to leave to get Sam, but found it in the same spot hours later and took these pictures (no such luck with the praying mantis). I picked it off the plant and put it on the ground for Sam to get a closer look. It is fatter and longer than my finger, felt muscular when I grabbed it bare-handed, and writhed with its stubby legs from being disturbed. Small bugs do not bother me; we allow small spiders in our home, but relocate the large ones outside (or down the toilet). I am careful not to instill a fear of insects in Sam. So I swallowed my discomfort, picked up this thing again with a leaf, showed it to our neighbor, and carried it over to our green waste bin where I said a little apology and dropped it inside.


I also explained to Sam that we don't want this caterpillar eating our tomatoes, even if its camouflage is rather elegant. Later I looked it up in my insect books and realized that the horn actually protrudes from the rear end, and that they are sometimes parasitized. Now I wish I'd checked for signs of ovipositor attack, although it really was so fat and muscular that I rather doubt it was being eaten from within.

evening in the garden

Just before dinner we stepped out to the front yard to pick something to eat. Among many other things we put into our harvest basket, we found three paricularly large vegetable-fruits: one Celebrity tomato, unknown green zucchini (we thought we were planting yellow zucchini), and a lovely Armenian cucumber. The tomato was especially welcome, because, although our vines are heavily laden with tomatoes, they are all (except for a handful over the past weeks) eternally green:


Will they ever ripen? At least we still have as many beautiful cherry tomatoes as 3 people can eat, and more:



And I'm still loving all the butternuts ripening everywhere:


Sam's vegetable of choice for dinner tonight? Raw green beans that he picked himself.

first day of school

In the next few minutes Sam will be saying goodbye to his Daddy and entering the new world of Montessori school. We have been preparing him for weeks for this day.

I decided at 4 pm yesterday that I needed to make him a new schoolbag...

...to hold the ceramic mug which will be his water cup at school. Denis gave me this bee mug for our first Christmas/Hanukkah together, after I had admired it at a craft fair. Now it will be Sam's "little piece of home" at school. Comfort, style, and utility, all in one self-chosen object; I love this practice at his school.

Sam chose this bug fabric that I have had in my stash for 12 years. Tiny tote bag pattern from my much-used and always good Bend the Rules Sewing book. Of course everything needs to be labelled now.

We think he's really going to love it there. And I can't wait to pick him up in a couple hours and hear all about it!

drumming

Sometimes you just need to hit something, especially when you have, as your father puts it, a kinetic personality. You may start out hitting with a frustrated passion and a pushed-out lower lip, but a smile soon settles in. It's quite satisfying having an audience as well.

Denis, who owns probably a dozen or more musical instruments, bought this African drum years ago from an old friend of his. This particular friend is a professional drummer, and played in an African drumming/dancing group that often performed at the ranch where I used to live and work, long before Denis and I knew each other. The group fit in well with the hippie-earthy vibe we had at the ranch, though I was rather ambivalent about drum circles myself. When this guy got married, his wedding was at the ranch, and Denis attended, while I observed the festivities from my tiny "elf-house" abode, neither of us aware, of course, that our future spouse was in our midst.

When we moved into our first home together as boyfriend-girlfriend, this drum was part of our bedroom decor. Now it lives in our son's closet, to be pulled out on afternoons when manic energy is running high. More than once this past week, I've been taken down memory lane listening to the new sounds of little hands pounding.

garden for dinner

This is a good example of one of my easy dinners. I don't think I ever made exactly this before last night, but variations of it pop up a lot when I've had a particularly long day.

Put quinoa in the rice cooker; pick green beans and cherry tomatoes from the front yard; trim, slice, and steam green beans al dente; quarter cherry tomatoes; mix veggies with quinoa and add olive oil (plus butter for Sam); season with garlic salt (I turned up my nose at this for years, but recently purchased the 'good' stuff-no additives-and it makes things so easy sometimes) and black pepper; add grated parmesan at the table. It's the parmesan that elevates this dish from bland to yummy, and the complete protein in the quinoa makes it perfectly nutritious. Nothing too special, but the whole thing took less than a half hour to make, and all three of us ate it up. Garden yummies + protein + quick = perfect.

p.t. update

For anyone on the edge of her seat (or his seat), and for posterity, here's the scoop: using the potty clicked for Sam on the third day of at-home nakedness. Transitioning to undies at home has yet to click after more than two weeks. A few successes but mostly accidents. I've been letting him take the lead, with gentle reminders from me, but no forcing him to sit. Lots of accidents. Not the easy kind. Lots of laundry loads consisting of one tiny pair of underwear and one tiny pair of shorts. Part of the problem may have been that we ran out of reward m&m's soon after the transition, which was part of our plan (not wanting to continue the sweets reward for too long), and for which we gave lots of reminders (look, they're almost gone) and provided a substitute reward (stickers). Possibly Sam decided that using the potty was no longer so fun without m&m's, or possibly he is just having trouble recognizing the need to go when he has clothes on. Either way, I soon bought more m&m's for the reward jar. Still the accidents continued.

As of today, we do more diapers and occasional nakedness, but a few days ago I quit the underwear unless he asks for it. I was starting to get frustrated with the messes and didn't want to pass on the negativity to Sam's process. Just a little break for me, I suppose. School starts next week, and they will help with training Sam, along with a few other kids, so hopefully the group experience will help him. Meanwhile I'll do a little research and continue with underwear when I get my mojo back.

sungolds

This is our ridiculously abundant cherry tomato harvest this morning. From two sungold plants. Also a few (red) sweet 100s from one plant. Minus those that Sam kept eating as we picked and photographed. Can you tell that his garden boots are on the wrong feet? He doesn't care. It is interesting to me how many sungolds we are getting, because for the first time I did not do any pruning of suckers this year. They are a sprawling mess and it's challenging to pick them without stepping on branches and fruit clusters, but the bounty is worth it, don't you agree?

early august garden

We have honeybees in the poppies, hummingbirds in the tithonia, and neighbors exalting our bounty and bringing their friends over to see. Even I am amazed at the vigorous growth of every one of our plants. Despite the significant shade cast by our 40' mimosa tree, everything in the garden is thriving. The pole bean teepee is taller than all of us:

This single butternut squash plant is my favorite this year; the vines are still snaking their way onto paths and adjacent garden beds, producing lots of enlarging fruits along their way:

We have harvested only 2 slicing tomatoes so far, but have had many handfuls of sungold cherry tomatoes, most have which have been gobbled up by one eager eater:

Soon we will make our first batch of pickles, using the beautiful dill flowers pictured above in my new blog header. For weeks we've all been eating a high proportion of green beans and cucumbers in our diet (we pick this much every few days):

The last of the beets and carrots will make room for a winter garden bed to be planted next month:

I must mention that all this lush growth is definitely not the result of high water use. We are very aware of water shortages this year and are extremely frugal with our water use. Each garden bed is heavily mulched in straw, and plant spacings are closer than normal (biointensive style), providing a canopy over the soil to minimize moisture loss. We often wait until plants are droopy before watering. On our ornamental plantings, we are almost exclusively using reclaimed water from Sam's bath and our showers, and we do not have a water-thirsty lawn at all. I am proud to say that we are using relatively little additional water this summer, and our garden still kicks ass.

woos-gick class

This summer we've been doing music classes on Thursdays. It is a Music Together program, which is based on the premise that all children are musical. It is a small group class of "music immersion," with strong parent participation (we are considered our children's models--with no time to take pictures btw), and a curriculum of songs each term. We received cds of the songs, including suggestions to bring music into our home life (e.g. Sam playing a flute at home, above). Each class involves singing, movement, and percussion, using a slightly different approach each week to the now-familiar songs.

Sam LOVES woos-gick class! He plays the cds at home, sings along (though not in class for some reason), and we even hear him singing the songs on his own without the cd as well. Every morning he asks if we are going to woos-gick class, and when we are driving there on Thursday mornings, he is very animated discussing our route, especially when we are in view of the parking lot where he practically busts himself out of his carseat with excitement. "There it is! There it is! There's the woos-gick class Mommy! Right there!" In class, he loves all the movement and percussion, and smiles when his name is sung during the hello and goodbye songs. Above all, he adores our wonderful teacher. With Helen, I feel like we got so lucky. She is so engaging and down-to-earth, very fun, keeps the music fresh (and thankfully not cheesy) each week, and most of all really connects with the children.

Today after class, in a perfect display of his shy-but-loves-people personality, Sam ran up to Helen as if to hug her goodbye, then immediately averted his eyes and ran away. Why I love Helen is that she totally got it: she gave Sam a loving smile and told him (from across the room) that she felt special for getting such a nice goodbye from him. I don't know who of the three of us was happiest in that moment.