Tired of Wood and Grateful for Many Little (and not so little)Things

Forgive me if you're friends with me on Facebook and have seen some of these before. I'd much rather blog than post on FB, but it's always a time thing and how little there seems to be on any given day (and that's all right!). I love this picture of M- picking/eating strawberries and looking the epitome of summer and good eats. 

 On July 2 (our E's seventh birthday!), we had a crazy, violent summer storm blow through that made the sky various shades of Superman ice cream and trees to bend literally sideways- that is, until one tree in particular broke clear in half. It fell directly on our potatoes and I was just beginning to moan about my precious potatoes until I realized how much was spared in the actually very good landing of that tree. We've got a deep back yard but it's fairly packed full. The tree could have:

• fallen on the nearly complete tree house
• fallen on the power line that runs over the tree house, causing God only knows kind of damage/fire
• fallen on the wooden swing set
• fallen on the chicken run

When you look at that picture above, it's hard to see, but it's the yellowish spot half way up the tree trunk that marks the break. You can see the tree next to it continues well out of the frame. This tree was just as tall.

 Above is the top half of the tree. It did also manage to knock down my two pole bean teepees and uproot a couple bean plants, but I just replanted them and stuck the teepees deep in the ground again. Our neighbors were over the fence in a second, in the rain, with a chainsaw cutting the tree up to get them off my potatoes. Is that sweet, or what?! Really, we're surrounded by such good people. 

The potatoes were mostly okay. Some plants were broken off at ground level, but most just squashed a bit. We've let them be and everything looks to be sprucing back up nicely. And again, for all the things that could have been hit, I have no complaints.

 Last week I harvested the garlic. We got around 60-70 heads of mostly good size. Again, feeling super grateful for how well they grew. My friend A at Dragonwood Farm gave me the garlic to plant last fall. I'm a little wary of saving too many downstairs in our cool, though sometimes damp basement. Once we're well into October, the humidity is low enough for storage down there. I've never grown soft neck garlic varieties, but I'm told they store longer and better than hard neck types. Maybe I'll try those next year. At any rate, I wanted to see what I could do to preserve them a little longer. I decided to try dehydrating several cloves to use later in winter meals. Peeling fresh garlic is surprisingly easy and sitting on the kitchen floor for two hours doing so felt like meditation (similar to shelling peas?). Once I had a bowl of garlic cloves peeled, I sliced them in the Cuisinart processor and placed the slices single-layer in the dehydrator.

 It only took around 10-12 hours and then I had nearly a quart jar full of beautiful, dried garlic slices and pieces. It smells amazing! I think I'll do more, as I have plenty more garlic heads to use this way. This morning I roasted three full heads to add to a white bean dip with fresh basil and parsley. So simple, so good. Totally worth it to heat up the kitchen for a short while!

Here's Greg chopping down the rest of that mostly dead tree. We spent a good 5-6 hours outside yesterday dealing with all that tree stuff. It was hot as blazes but it felt good to work together to clear all that wood and branches and leaves. I often think about the pros and cons of city vs. country living. I day dream about moving to a farm in Vermont where it is legal and supportive to practice midwifery and to also eat/grow whatever and wherever.Yesterday as we worked in our urban/suburban back yard, it felt an awful lot like working on a farm. Sawing, bundling, carrying heavy pieces of wood while being covered in sweat and carrying around about a cup and half of itchy wood chips in my bra while children and chickens clucked all around us. It partly sucked, of course. But then you'd think, Well, who else would do this work? We can't pay someone to deal with all of this. Besides, their equipment would likely mess up the garden! I felt very grateful for the gift of labor yesterday. For the gift of our own little slice of earth to care for and maintain while also minding all the growing food out there. 

This will just have to do. 

And it does just fine.