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The plan this morning was for an early morning walk. I still plan to walk, but it is not yet safe:
My neighborhood is fairly quiet and there is not much traffic, but there are no sidewalks. Here at the top of the hill, visibility is perhaps 200 feet, but the hollow, dense with fog, is less than a quarter mile's walk and the fog is growing more dense as I write.
The backbone of the watering system is in place. Next comes planting.
A small community of plants are waiting at the transfer station (my driveway) looking forward to their relocating to their new homes.
All remains in transition and I am once again struggling to keep on track. It is not that I do not have enough time, there is enough time for what needs to be done, and what isn't done is not truly important. But still I struggle. I am not good at the day to day routine stuff, keeping everything together and neat and orderly; or more exactly I am organized and I can be good at that, but it is a background activity, a support structure as it were for my more free-flying thoughts and inspirations. And I am in free-flying visionary mode right now, filled with ideas and plans and not therefore very efficient at the mundane day to day details. Not that I am actually a detail oriented person by nature. I only do details when they capture my fancy, relate to a specific vision or goal, are a means to an end.
And so, here I am with a plan for the activities over the next few days, and a schedule of what must be done by when, but in the meantime I am easily distracted by other things, and there are piles on the dining table and my desk, which would drive me to distraction except that at the moment I am ignoring them.
Far more important was noticing the sky yesterday late-afternoon/early evening, about 2 hours before sunset. The sky was a deep cerulean blue, lightening and brightening toward the horizon, but still saturated with color. It was a painterly sky, filled with puffs of painterly clouds. Although the play of light highlighted texture and color and the clouds had weight and presence in the air, they also seemed so bouyant and light, ephemeral even. Is it possible to be simultaneiously weighty and ephemeral?. It popped into my head that if you crossed cotton candy with popcorn and let the result float freely in the air like a balloon, this is what you would have. It is not profound image. I apologize for that. I tried to take a picture with my phone from my car. Mistake. I really need to learn more about photography, take more time, pay more attention. The artifact from the car windows, the assorted telephone poles and wires, had more life than the sky behind them. Of course this too could be a metaphor, how sometimes we need to look beyond the everyday clutter of our lives, and see the perfection of the sky that lies just beyond the fringes of our attention. It was one of those moments when reality looked more like a painting than it normally does, one of those moments where art and life coincide, were the real and the ideal align for just a moment, and if we are looking capture our breath and reward us wtih infinite possibilities.
Oh my, here it is Thursday again! My schedule has been pretty much off-track all week, but at least the train is still running. So what am I thankful for today?
1. Autumn. Even though the temperature is still warm, or once again warm, I love the cooler nights, the colors of the changing leaves, the different scent in the air and the shift in the angle of the light. Fall is my favorite time year. Not surprising for a person who's favorite liturgical season is Lent. Both make me want to pull inward, reassess, reaffirm. Both make me seek purpose and intentionality.
2. Apples. Fresh apples in all their many varieties are one of the joys of fall. I never liked apples growing up. All I knew were standard grocery store apples, red delicious I think they were, still my least favorite variety. I didn't learn to love apples until I moved to apple country. Although there are a wider variety of apples available in the grocery store today, I am happy to live in a place where there are apple orchards nearby.
3. Homemade yogurt. I can buy yogurt, even good yogurt, although not every store in town carries plain, unsweetened & unflavored, whole milk yogurt, much less organic whole milk yogurt. I buy organic milk from pastured cows. I make my own yogurt. It is still cheaper than the stuff I buy, but that is not why I make it. I make yogurt because I can, because it easy, because I can strain it to the thickness I like. I make my own yogurt because I can choose the cultures to make my yogurt the way I like it, creamy and rich, with a subtle tartness and sweetness, although I suspect much of that is due more to the quality of the milk than any effort of mine. I make my own yogurt because it brings me joy.
(pictured is a small bowl of yogurt, almond butter, and syrupy black-walnut balsamic vinegar)
Driving home from Florida, we stopped in North Carolina and bought apples. We had been discussing applesauce, and although I hadn't actually made applesauce since I left New York state, I was game, so we split a half-bushel of Cortlands.
A large part of yesterday's general busywork revolved around tasks in the kitchen. I made a pot of chicken soup, which was pretty much a guaranteed success. Then there were my experiments: applesauce and lemon meringue pie.
I ended up with a little over 3 quarts of applesauce with enough leftover apples for a pie. I am freezing the pie filling for future use, as I plan some experimentation to perfect my gluten-free crust. The applesauce is being frozen in pint jars, although I only had 3 on hand, so the rest of the applesauce is in a bowl in the refrigerator, waiting for me to pick up more jars this afternoon. That is, if I manage to avoid eating it before I get the jars in the house. I hadn't forgotten how superior homemade applesauce is to the store-bought stuff, but I guess I had forgotten how utterly delicious it really is.
Even using only one kind of apple in this batch, I was impressed with the depth of flavor in the finished applesauce as well as the subtle sweetness (I added spices but no sugar). My applesauce is darker than some because I simply wash and quarter the apples before cooking. I am a lazy cook and I'd rather run the cooked apples through a food mill than peel and core the apples, especially considering that these apples were on the small side. The skins enhance the flavor and even though my apple skins were not deeply red, they still added depth to the color of the finished applesauce.
The lemon meringue pie was a less successful experiment. I used to make this pie all the time but I had never really written down the adaptations I had made to the original recipe to make it successfully gluten-free. I knew I used a cookie crumb crust, made from ready-made gingersnaps, but I had not written down the proportions and a few other details. I was hoping to make the pie again this weekend for a dinner party, but thought a test run was in order since it has been about 4 or 5 years since I have made this pie.
The pie looked beautiful although I knew there were a few issues even before the first cut was made. First of all, I had the proportion of butter to cookie crumb wrong. Butter melted all over the oven while the pie baked and made a mess. The resulting cookie crust was too dense and a little oily, although the flavor was good. Since the dripping butter made a lot of smoke, I took the pie out of the oven too early. This wasn't evident until I cut into it, when it became apparent that the center was still just a touch too soft; another 5 to 8 minutes of cooking time would do the trick.
The bigger problem is my own ambivalence. It is not really a question of taste, the lemon part of the pie is nicely tart and lemony and it sets off the sweetness of the meringue nicely. Even so, the pie was just too sweet for me. This surprised me. I've been plagued with a sweet tooth all my life. It was a good thing my mother didn't keep sweets and desserts in the house when I was a child because I would have been sneaking around stealing them. I always had a stash of candy under my bed. In 7th grade I took my lunch money and bought a hot-fudge sunday for lunch every day for at least half the year. Even 4 years ago, although I ate sweets rarely, once I started I couldn't stop.
Now, it is not that I never crave something sweet; I do, but a small piece was enough. A small piece of this pie however was too much. I always assumed I would bake things for others if not for myself. Now I wonder. I wonder even if I want to make dessert for Sunday. Perhaps store-bought cookes and ice cream would be enough. Personally I would probably prefer some cheese, a little fruit, and some coffee or dessert wine. I wonder how that would go over. What is the worst thing that could happen? People would think I am weird and not come back?
I think I need to reconsider my menu.
The backhoe person is here today and my patchy grass is quicky becoming nothng but a memory. Strange as it may sound, I think the bare ground actually looks better than the scraggly grass. I suppose this is good since scheduling conflicts have delayed the sod until after October 6th. I reserve the right to change my mind if it becomes a sea of mud, however I think at this point even mud is filled with promise.
Not that activity will stop: the sprinkler system goes in this week and after that new trees will appear and the flower beds will start to take shape.
In the meantime it is noisy and the cats are piled up on my desk, making work somewhat difficult. They follow me around whereever ago, happy to have me back, probably also reassured that I am here while strange people are making loud noises around the house. The noise disrupts my chain of thoughts as well, and it is a better day for general busywork than for activities that require focus.
I have returned from a brief trip to Florida for a workshop. Although my trip was not, for the most part, relaxing, it was reinvigorating. Sometimes a change in routine is all that is needed, even if that change is simultaneously stimulating and exhausting. My mind worked far too hard trying to absorb loads of information and there was far too little time for movement. I arrived home yesterday and slumped onto the sofa for a nap with two cats artfully draped over me, seeking as much contact as possible.
We did manage one early morning walk on the beach:
After that brief nap I did manage to tend to mail and phone calls, unpack, cook, clean, walk, talk to a friend, and plan my schedule for the coming week. At which point I was more than ready to head to my own bed and my own linen sheets.
I am certainly focused than I was before the trip, and my busy schedule over the next couple of weeks seems a little less daunting. However, although there are many things to do, the ever-present task list is not what has captured my attention this morning. Rather I am focused in what appears to be a subtle shift in the seasons. When I left it still felt mostly like summer. Upon my return it feels more like early fall. The trees are noticeably beginning to turn. It is not cool, exactly (I have not yet shed the residue of nearly 30 years in the northeast) but the air feels different. I took a walk yesterday evening; the evening are smelled different, a little damp after a rain, with perhaps just the smallest hint of crumbling leaves, perhaps the smallest whiff of brownness and decay, as opposed to the summer rainstorm smell of wet earth, mossy greenness and teaming growth. It was very faint, so subtle as to be easily missed, and yet it was there.
Today I am in Florida for the first time in my life, well, not counting the Miami Airport, which is a universe unto itself. I am on the east coast and I can now state that I have seen the Atlantic Ocean from every state on the Eastern Seaboard of the Untied States.
So what am I thankful for?
1. Not surprisingly, fresh seafood; fish and shrimp that have come in right off the boats. Being landlocked now, I miss having truly fresh fish. Tuesday night I had wonderful shrimp and Mahi at my friend Marjorie's, along with great conversation. Yesterday I drove south, picked up a friend at the airport, and found a local spot with a lively crowd, live music, and more great fish. Although I am in town for a workshop, I am also going to enjoy the seafood.
2. Seeing the ocean. Always.
3. On a more prosaic note, almond butter. The best almond butter I have ever tasted, by a rather wide margin, is this Mission Almond Butter from Big Spoon Roasters. By no means cheap, it is definitely a treat. My first taste changed the way I think of nut butters, e
I'm late. Apologies. I'm also traveling. Oh well.
Last year I got bookcases. This Fall I am finally landscaping the yard. My intention had been to start in the Spring, but well, Spring didn't work out the way I planned. Lying in bed, looking out my bedroom window at the bare hill and exposed clay however, helped me to stop equivocating about what to do and move forward.
Before:
The view from my bedroom window. So appealing don't you agree?
The view from the windows in the sun room. Also inpsiring. Begs one to sit curl up and stare out the window, doesn't it?
The view from the street, no so bad really, but not great. Lots of bare patches. The planting beds are really jut piles of clay with mulch on top. The plants do not thrive. I have finally accepted the fact that my back is not going to support digging through clay.
Work begins this week, mostly weed-killing, marking, and preperation for the sprinkler system.
These are the plans, the pictures will enlarge if you click on them, although you still may not be able to fully decipher the writing.
Front yard: same layout of beds, expanded slightly and rearranged. The two River Birches will be removed and replaced with other trees.
A long bed will run along the length of the side of the house. The bare areas on this plan will probably eventually contain a mixture of daffodils and daylillies along with other plants.
The back of the house (first photo of the bare hill). This promises to be much more interesting. It should also discourage my neighbor from driving across my yard in his truck to deliver mulch to his own gardens.
