February Journey - Life Force is Rising!

We are so happy to welcome twin baby boys to our lives, born to my step-daughter on the 8th of this month. I was honored to host her Mother Blessing ceremony - an opportunity to gather women friends and family and acknowledge  the blossoming of the mother-to-be, her morphing into a new person. This ceremony seemed so familiar to me, with many of my own women-friends celebrating their own becoming in that way, asking for strength and beauty in the upcoming birth, drawing in the love and support from their women's circle. With song and poetry, with story and crafts, a special day to elevate and behold the expecting mother. For my dear step-daughter circle of friends that expression was not so-familiar yet became an opportunity to offer an afternoon of something very sweet and supportive. We were blessed with the presence of the 12-year old niece, and a beloved Aunt came for the day too.

                                                   

With candles, flowers, gorgeous silk outfits, hair brushing and rose petal foot bath we were enjoying the day of anticipation, the day when the Mother-to-be was still alone yet holding the life within. She was like the Sun and the Moon, when she entered the room in her glow, in her lei. Today she is nursing and dreaming, and sleeping and gazing at her little ones. She got two sweet peas in a pod, one is smaller and one is bigger - two boys who are still only few days old! 

Rhythm of Life, Wheel of the Year

"Monday is rice day" - a statement familiar to many Waldorf homes, where families attempt to craft and follow  rhythmical life.  Following a rhythm is not only something that parents of young children discover, often with initial dismay ("Too boring!") and later with firmness and comfort ("Today is our park day!"). Rhythmical life naturally evolves around animals or farm activities - rhythmical life is synonymous with engaged life.  Seasonal rhythms lead us through the cycles of inhale (winter) and exhale (summer), stillness (Winter Solstice) and expansion (Summer Solstice), through breathing in of the late fall, and breathing out with excitement, anticipation, tender joy of spring. The dial of the year must go through the incredible stillness of Christmastide, emerging with new energy of resolutions, year planning and quickening of pace that follows return of sun light in the early days of January. 

Crafting, cooking and winter farm life

 The  sweetness of felted creatures on the fir tree - animals and fairy folk gathered to celebrate the dark of the year. Hiding in the green fuzziness, picking out of the deep nest of fir branches they go from the Christmas tree back to our nature table, to the fairy tale basket, to the pretend farm.

Sustainable Living in December - Stillness

Stillness is something that is very hard for many of us to embrace or practice. Often we wish for it, search for it but still fail to create space for stillness in our busy fast-paced lives.
Stillness of quiet wonder, observation, inhale.

The earth around us is asleep in December - the days are short, nights are long, and the life force of the world is being drawn in, inhaled by the earth - into its depth. Tree sap has drained to the roots, creatures are hibernating, leaves returned to the ground to cover it with a soft blanket and to give back nutrients and organic matter that was previously held high on branches.

The winds blow low now. They carry snow, leaves. The movement of living things are inward, towards containment. That observation of the living world is something to learn from - and use as a guide both in our own lives and in our work on the land, with living things and other beings.

Cucumber Over-abundance and Refrigerator Pickles

When the garden (or farmers' market) is overflowing with fresh seasonal cucumbers, consider this easy and tasty recipe to enjoy the bounty - refrigerator pickles. These are not canned, they are fermented to give them their lovely flavor and to increase their palatability and nutrient content. Summertime fermentation goes so fast, that these pickles can be done as fast as in two days! 

Gardening with Herbs - Tea Time!

 What a delight for senses, all the herbs that come out of the garden all season long - starting in springtime with Nettle harvest, and moving right along with the rich bounty of leaves and blossoms of such garden favorites as Lemon Balm, Strawberry, Rose petals, Lavender and a whole list of plants!

Windowsill Garden - Winter Harvest

Early Fruit Compote - Green Apples, Tart Plums and Unripe Peaches Medley!

This compote is very timely for in late July when gardens are overflowing with fruit, some it still unripe. Birds are beginning to peck at peaches before they are ready and tasty; racoons are raiding trees for the ripest fruit; plums are showering on the ground - some fleshy and sweet, others still tart and hard. Apples are nowhere near being palatable, yet trees are so heavy with fruit that fruit thinning is needed badly to avoid overproduction. All that fruit and not much to do with it! In permaculture this is called "The Problem is The Solution" - so here is one way to use all the unripe bounty - Fruit Compote for a tasty summer  drink.

Winter Life with Beeswax Candle Light

Christmastide is over and the spring dreams rush in the void left by the end of the holiday season. The lull of the season, January and February are quite uneventful in our cold climate. The daily rhythm is composed of making fire, feeding goats, harvesting eggs, collecting firewood, and filling bird feeders. The ground is hard frozen, and sheep's bellies are swelling with lambs. In late evenings and early mornings and at meal times we use tall beeswax candles, to transition us to and from the darkness of the night and to offer its warm delicate glow.

Toddler at work, washing dishes in early evening.

All Souls Day, Firewood and Tea

With Halloween and All Souls Day upon us, we think about dear ones that are no longer with us, about their experiences in life, about their understanding of nature, seasons, life forces, and life realities. Though Grandmother was an educated woman who insisted on wearing matching gloves and shoes, she knew more about workings of nature that most of people interested in sustainable living in my generation. She knew how to brine seemingly random mushrooms that Grandfather brought from the forest each fall. She knew how to put up enough food to last us all winter - in an urban apartment size of a postage stamp. She mended clothes, washed them by hand, sewn her own dresses and managed to serve a hot meal made from scratch three times per day while working full time away from home.

Sustainble Living in October - Replenishing

The air ringing with blue and golden light, first frost on its way - and harvest is all around us.  And what we take from the land, must be returned and replenished - so as squashes, tomatoes, tomatillos, beets and potatoes are leaving the ground, compost and mulch are coming it. In gardening we depend on animals to bring fertility to the soil - and it is impossible to maintain fertile soils sustainably otherwise. Manure and feathers bring nitrogen and phosphorus and other micro-elements needed in soil. Organic matter comes from animal bedding. What comes out after cleaning the shed goes in the garden - mostly in the fall and winter months, to have a good long time to decompose and integrate in the soil in time for the growing season. For those who live without animals, it is worth figuring out how to bring in an occasional load of goat (or lama/sheep/rabbit) manure - other manures may be very weedy (i.e. horse manure) or event contain salt (i.e. commercial cow manure is quite toxic to soil). Attracting song birds to your garden is another approach, though of course their contribution to manuring your garden will be rather small.
Worms are good creatures to have, of course, and to encourage worms we occasionally put our kitchen waste under the mulch in the garden, cover it with large metal lid (such as trash can lid) and place a heavy rock on top - to discourage skunks and racoons from exploring. Earth worms get a very good in-situ meal that way, and all nutrients are delivered directly to the garden, none are lost to leaching like they are in a typical compost pile.

Storing garden bounty is another seasonal challenge - and we just happily converted a vacant corner in the well house to  root cellar. Not an ideal setting, but good enough with stable temperatures (currently in the low 50-s) and moderate humidity (70%) it is adequate for potatoes, squash, pumpkins, onions and garlic. A bucket of water is readily available so it can poured on the cement floor to increase humidity to a more desirable 80+%
Now is also busy time for knitting and sewing - all the warm things needed for winter, especially for children! Woolens, a European invention, lovely, very pricey, oh-so-wonderful warm and thin - this year are to be home-made from scratch using merino wool fabric - a project a bit too ambitious but hopefully doable. Sweaters for early morning forays to the goats, to the wetlands, to the clothes line... Mittens, felted for added warmth - and knitted thick wool pants to keep the little one shielded from the wind and nippy temperatures. A wealth of free patterns for knitters from Drops Design; including wonderfully warm and practical children patterns.

Sustainable Living in August - Natural Cleaners at Home

A realization long overdue - lots of things bought in the store out of habit and tradition can be made at home, from scratch - from pancakes, to cosmetics and cleaning products. The benefits? Better quality, fresher product, control over the ingredients and, to some degree, over their manufacturing process, reduced costs, reduced ecological footprint (less transportation, less packaging, less dependency on someone else for basics) - and the intangible joys of participation in your own life, more fully. The last one, of course is something very subjective, after all we all derive joys from very different things, and give Meaning on very different activities as well.

Sustainable Living in July - Laundry Goes Outdoors

 

A recycled double sink, an old outdoor-appropriate shelf, a nice location in shade of an olive tree, a drain to the garden - and voila, a garden laundromat is borne! The decision to wash by hand at least some portion of our clothes came when our three year old son developed a fondness for mud and water play. There is no way his clothes could go inside of the house, much less directly into the washing machine! At the same time it became abundantly clear that most of this clothes (and some of ours) don't really need any kind of vigorous, best-performed-by-highly-specialized-and-very-professional washing machine wash. A good number of things needs simple refreshing or spot cleaning.

Eating from the Garden

Part of growing a good garden, naturally, is harvest - at time of strangest things, or things that sound good in theory but may be a bit hard to fit in an established routine of cooking and consuming familiar dishes. Cooking from a garden is a subject of its own, with lamb's quarters, garlic scapes, beet greens, cilantro flowers, Jerusalem artichoke roots, zucchini flowers, purslane, dandelion leaves, parsnip roots, day lily flowers and much more to please the palate and to challenge our under-developed capacity to eat new foods. Of course new foods don't stay new for long and soon become as familiar as a store-bought carrot.

Sustainable Living in June - Drying Herbs for Tea

Quite a famous plant, the Stinging Nettle, known for its wonderful medicinal properties, for its strong sting, and invasive behavior in gardens. It is indeed quite a plant to have around! It thrives in dry hot weather just as much as it does in cool shady setting, and its sting seems to be heightened as temperatures climb.

Sustainable Living in May - Gardening

A small addition to the table - young beets planted in February in a protected spot

So much in permaculture is about growing food, working with the land, that it is frequently confused with some type of gardening technique. Naturally, permaculture has lots to offer in that aspect, in addition to such subjects like green building, water harvesting, community building, restoration of diminished landscapes and more. In the month of May, so lovely with its display of life and blossom, our lives revolve around gardening no matter where we live - either though active work with the land, or through passive enjoyment of greenery for those not engaged in planting and yard work. 

Greens on the Windowsill

A lovely gardening season warm-up for all level gardeners - sprouting green onions on your windowsill. You have noticed perhaps that your onions have sensed spring long before our own senses deliver the merry news to us - the life force is rising, the pull of the sun is felt across the living world and the awakening is starting.

Day One: Fun and games finding pretty water jars + adding onions

Candlemas, Imbolc - Life Force is Rising! (Making Beeswax Candles)

Hard to believe on this -18F (-27C) night that transition from winter to spring has begun. We have to trust our ancestors, who saw the signs much more clearly than we can, with our senses protected and dulled by running hot water, central heating systems, space-age fabrics and such. Because our ancestors saw that on this day, February 2nd, a struggle between winter and spring, old and new, death and life took a definite turn towards rebirth and restoration of life force.

Creative Children's Clothing - 2

 Another life for an old wool sweater - children's pants + vest. Try buying pure wool pants for your child and you find the price tag at around $45-50.  Wool is not only warm but it is water resistant - a good option for snow play, or active outdoor time in cold weather. 

Greenhouse in a Swimming Pool - Winter Harvest

 Salad greens, chives and braising greens thrive in this winter growing space, a greenhouse converted from an old swimming pool. Outside temperatures dipped down as low as 3F (-17C); yet this space remains productive without any additional heat. It is heated by the sun during the day, and stays relatively warm (around 32F (0C)) on coldest of nights. Plants are happy and harvest is in full swing.