This week, I’m grateful for many things – the excitement in the air at the bakery with all the students returning to town, delicious new jam and mustards from Patti on the shelf at Wheatberry, our new tradition at home of veggie pizza on Sundays (so good! and so easy), the chance to help a friend clear some clutter, and many wonderful moments spent with Ben and Ella.

I’ve been practicing some serious gratitude lately, as I try to when life seems overwhelming.  One of the Yoga Sutras urges us to consider the opposite of our first reaction, and I’ve found this to be extremely challenging, and extremely gratifying.  Yesterday, I really needed to get our car inspected.  My usual thought is, “Ugh, I don’t have time for this, I don’t want to do this,” etc etc.  But I stopped myself and said (mentally, in a very cheerful voice), “How delightful!  I get to have the car inspected today.  How lucky I am to have a car, and to live in a place where we inspect them for safety.”

And you know what?  It was delightful.  I walked across the street and got a cold drink, I sat and read a book, and ten minutes later, it was done.  How lucky.

May luck and gratitude find you this weekend, friends.

of school at home.  Ella’s been very, very interested in school lately.  Luckily, my inner fire was kindled a month or so ago by some of Carrie’s fabulous planning posts, so I had gotten a planner from A Little Garden Flower, and started putting our year together.  When I told her school would start yesterday, she was so excited!  She jumped out of bed and wanted to put on her fanciest dress.

“School” right now, is mostly just our usual rhythm, but with a weekly theme (an idea I garnered from Little Acorn Learning).  This week is babies, so we’re reading books about babies, yesterday we made a baby collage (and then made it again), and the story I’m telling this week is about the Rainbow Bridge (from Beyond the Rainbow Bridge).  Coming up weeks include: apples/Rosh Hashannah, nuts, sheep/wool, squash, gnomes. I’m not sure who’s more excited, me or Ella!

Happy start of the new school year everyone, at home or elsewhere!

(our 2009 PVHG grain share)

Has it really been a whole week? Before we go further – we’re very grateful this week for this kind mention in The New York Times.

This week, I’d like to linger in some gratitude for books.  Those who know me probably know that I’m a big bibliophile.  A friend once told me that when she pictured my house, she pictured no furniture, just stacks of books – everywhere.  (Which has been close to the truth at times!)

Somewhere, I had a photo of a stack of books.  Not on this computer, apparently!  So we’ll just have to make do with an old-fashioned list, of some of the wonderful books bringing light to my life right now:

Vintage Baby Knits, by Kristen Rengren

Turning the Mind Into an Ally, by Sakyong Mipham

All Year Round, by Ann Druitt, Christine Fynes-Clinton, and Marije Rowling

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

Kindergarten with Your Three to Six Year Old, by Donna Simmons

Before the Journey by Melisa Nielsen

Grow Your Own Drugs, by James Wong

Buddhism for Mothers of Young Children, by Sarah Napthali

May they bring joy to you as well!  Have a great weekend everyone.

Grateful to have moved past my fears, and made this new open banner (at last!)

Grateful for this book that’s got me fired up about socks – here we go!

Grateful for the rains that came in the night.

Grateful for visitors, and the chance to visit others.

Grateful for finally making a sewing card, instead of just thinking about making a sewing card. Grateful to share handwork with my little lady.

Grateful for good books on my shelf, fun projects on my knitting needles, a clean sewing room (amazing how that sparks my creativity!), and tonight, a good meal with family and friends.

Blessings on your weekend, friends.

It doesn’t work . . .

yet.

(And in case you’re wondering, why a treadle?  Because it can sew through almost anything, it’s quiet enough to sew while I talk with my love, it’s beautiful enough to be in the living room, and if we ever have a life with no electricity, I can still clothe my family.  So why not?)

Grateful to be back in the habit of gratitude.

(Seth working on the horse-drawn harrow)

So very, very grateful for the beautiful birth of our dear friends Seth & Bethany’s new baby boy, Case.  Welcome, Case!

And grateful, for this, which came like a gift.

The Turning

And now, I begin to turn home.

That simple,

that hard.

Wood stacked and ready,

knives sharpened,

fabric, yarn waiting

patiently for me to choose

this – bare toes in the garden,

work that does not end

as we, too, shall not pass

completely -

the stone wall trembles but remains,

we have married the earth

and she

will carry us.

(c) 2010 Adrie Lester

It’s been a strange week (in a strange summer) here.  I must confess that I’ve got a serious case of the crankies.  So let’s talk about something else!

(new apron for the bakery, baby vest, child’s Waffle hat)

I often get asked “How do you find the time to do so many things?” (or a similar question).  I’ve thought the same thing myself, when looking at other people’s blogs.  I think the deeper point here is that we’re all given the same number of hours in a day, and we have to choose how we use them.  This is obvious, and also, not always so easy to remember.  I think the biggest time saver I have is that we don’t have a TV (no, we don’t watch TV on the computer, either).  I watched TV and movies most of my life, and really loved movies, in particular.

Or thought I did.  I didn’t like feeling like I’d wasted hours watching a junky movie, or standing in the video store trying in vain to find something that looked decent.  When we moved to this house, there was no TV reception, so we switched to Netflix.  No ads, thankfully, but still, a lot of time spent selecting, watching.  After Ella was born, and I started to really think (and learn) about the effect of TV on children, I pushed hard for us to get rid of the TV altogether.  (I highly recommend You Are Your Child’s First Teacher, and also Heaven on Earth for their info on this.)  Ben agreed, bless him, so our TV sits unplugged in a spare closet, waiting for the few times he watches Weed the Soil, Not the Crop, or horse driving videos.  I turned off the TV for my daughter, but I’ve definitely benefited hugely.  (And the few times Ella saw even short little videos on the computer, it had a very noticeable effect on her behavior.)

The thing I’ve noticed recently is not just the time I used to spend actually watching, but all the time (and mental space) taken up by thinking about what I’d seen.  Replaying scenes, wondering why this happened instead of that, being haunted by some of the more traumatic ones.  I still have these things come into my mind sometimes, and it’s been nearly three years since I last saw a TV show or movie.  They are tenacious.

TV is very deceptive – it feels like you are relaxing, but it’s actually making your mind whirr.  It drains your life force, instead of nourishing it.  Sometimes activities which seem like they use more energy (yoga, creative arts), actually end up replenishing more than they take.  TV just takes.

So there you go  – make some space in your life, if you choose.  I mention this, particularly, because I’ve been surprised (and delighted) to see a number of folks giving up their TVs this summer (folks I wouldn’t have imagined watched TV!).  So there’s my biggest tip for making the time – take the industrial, advertising machine out of your life.  And then, who knows what you might do?

and now I’ll teach you. Here’s how to make creamed corn, which contains no actual cream, but tastes creamy and delicious (and so simple to make). This is one of my early food memories, and something my grandmother would freeze and send home with us from their huge home garden.
First, while sweet corn is here, eat yourself silly. Next, use this nifty trick I picked up from our dear friend Seth – each time you buy some corn, buy a few extra ears to put up. Proceed to make creamed corn – eat some, freeze some.
To make creamed corn, use your knife to cut the kernels off the cob, but don’t try to cut them all the way down to the cob. After you’ve cut off all the kernels, flip your knife over, and use the blunt end of your knife to scrape along the cob, top to bottom. A milky substance will come out (this only works with fresh corn, so get thee to a farmer’s market!). Once you’ve scraped your cob clean, chuck it in the compost, and proceed with the rest of your corn the same way.
Now, saute the kernels and corn milk over gentle-medium heat for 2-5 minutes. It will thicken and turn creamy delicious. Salt to taste, add some cracked pepper if you like, and serve immediately or pop into some mason jars and put into your freezer for a delightful winter surprise.

Also this weekend, we started our big crock going with lacto-fermented pickles.  Five years ago, I had no idea there was any kind of pickles except the ones made with vinegar (the kind you find in grocery stores and most preserving books).  Then I had some Real Pickles (which we serve at the bakery) and began, in my wanderings, to learn about lacto-fermentation.  One of the original methods of food preservation, lacto-fermentation is what brings us yogurt, saurkraut and, yes, pickles.  So last year we made our first fermented cukes, and this year, onward!  We used the recipe from my latest favorite preserving book, Putting It Up With Honey (it’s from the 70s, and amazing, and no, there’s no honey in the pickles!)  The grape leaves on top help preserve the crunchiness.  No grape vine?  Explore your neighborhood a bit – you may find that, like us, there are wild grapes growing that won’t mind if you harvest a few leaves.

Not all of our cucumbers (from Red Fire Farm) fit into the crock, so Ben also made some instant vinegar pickles in the fridge.  I saved our liquid from last year’s Dilly Beans, and he poured that over the remaining cukes and some carrots, then stuck it in the fridge.  Yummy!

Have a great week everyone!  I’m off to try to make one of these . . .

(us, circa 2007 – Ella was three months old when we opened this space!)

That’s right friends, this month marks three years on Main St in Amherst!  We have the most amazing customers, and we’re so proud to be part of this thriving, beautiful community.  To celebrate, we’ve had free birthday cake in past years, but this time we’re doing something even better (in our humble opinion)!  To celebrate our birthday and harvest time, for this Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, all of our breads will be the regular price and flavors, but they’ll be made with 100 % locally grown grains!  Ben’s become quite the milling master, and we’re both excited to share this incredibly delicious, nourishing, alive grain with you!

Seriously now, it’s crazy good.  I’m just telling you because I love you, and I don’t want you to miss it.

At home, we’re trying to soak up the abundance and not go crazy trying to capture it all.  Here we are in our Three Sisters Field – last year the crows ate our corn planting twice, but this year, it’s thriving.  The Bloody Butcher corn is now a foot taller than me, and the squash is like a jungle!  (Three Sisters are a traditional Native American planting of beans, squash, and corn.  The beans fix nitrogen into the soil for the corn, which is a heavy feeder, and the squash makes a great ground cover, keeping down the weeds.  Apparently the raccoons don’t like to walk on the prickly squash leaves, either, protecting your harvest!  Pretty incredible.)  Our other garden is, um, weedier than I’d like to admit, but this field is heaven.

Oh, and while you’re at it, hop over and read Broadturn Farm’s post “Put Your Big Girl Panties On, Get Out There and Farm.” Amen.

Happy Lamas (Harvest Festival) everyone!

This weekend brought some serious harvest bounty from farms here in our blessed Valley.  Ella and I managed to drive an hour out to Benson Place in Heath to pick up our wild blueberries, and on the way we stopped at the Greenfield Farmer’s Market.  We got ripe peaches, the first apples of the year, and a box of heirloom tomatoes for canning from our friends at The Kitchen Garden.  Because even though in about a week we’re going to have tomatoes pouring in from our garden (those ones I slow roasted last week were from our fabulous neighbors Birch Moon Herbals), and getting them meant that I was going to have to attempt canning them by myself with a three year old, I could not resist.

Seriously.  When you live in New England, and the growing season is brief but glorious, you don’t walk past ripe peaches and tomatoes.  Nope, you put that toddler onto one hip and the box of tomatoes on the other, and you get it done!  After we got our blueberries and drove home (without either of us freaking out), we fed the animals, had dinner, and when I started cutting up the tomatoes, Ella asked for her knife and joined in.  My favorite lazy lady method is this: take out the stem, cut them into big chunks.  No skinning or seeding – that’s all good fiber!  We got our our jars, tongs, and ladle boiling, got our lids ready, and then I sat down and squeezed lemons while Ella splashed in her bath.

I was planning to do the actual canning after she went to sleep, but she wasn’t sleepy, so we came down together and got the tomatoes boiling while she spooned a teaspoon of salt into each jar and I spooned in two teaspoons of lemon juice.  (No photographic evidence here, sorry, too busy trying not to burn anyone or contaminate the canning!)  Once the tomatoes were boiling, I ladled them into the jars, sealed them, put them into the water bath, and brought that up to a boil.  We did crack one jar somehow, and tragically lost a whole quart of tomatoes into the water bath – ack!  Still, I count this a major success – canning solo with a toddler and no tears!  Clearly a miraculous event.

Once the water began to boil, we set a 15 minute timer and sat down to read Catch Me and Kiss Me and Say it Again (a favorite of ours).  Timer beeped, jars came out, little one went to sleep, and Mama cleaned up.

Here’s hoping you had a weekend filled with all the small miracles in your own blessed place, whatever they may be.