Puppa Child Magic.

Last night was a rough night, there's no doubt, a very growing/teething/upset girl all night. She was only content and lulled back to sleep when walked around by sleepy Mumma and Puppa. Hard on everyone for sure, but out of these difficult moments I saw one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen. My dear husband, and my beautiful girl linked as one nurturing being. The way his back arched, and legs bent to support her. The way her body was limp, melting into the form of her father, long legs hanging, head heavy, shoulders relaxed. Their bodies curved and supported one another beautifully as Raf bent and swayed under her weight. Such beauty in this exhausting moment.

On Tour With The Girl

Up and down the coast of Maine. Popping in and out of stores. Trying on shoes. Being patient while Mom buys new underpants, and bulk grains, and coffee. Sitting in a diner booth eating a scone together. Making new friends at the Ellsworth Library. Crying in the car. Laughing as our knees get tickled. Holding hands on the sidewalks of Belfast. Running around in circles with friends in Calais. Running in the sprinkler in Brunswick. Running through the orchard in Freeport. Sticking out tongues, naming body parts and poking belly buttons. Cuddling and missing Puppa. Calling Puppa, Mumma. Kissing and hugging and animal that will let us. Being companions and friends and Mother and Daughter.

Love that girl of mine.

Catering Part 3

So I've had my third catering gig of the Summer, this one a 2-day retreat for CCLC staff and board. Lunch 2 days. Half local/half more affordable. One-third veg, Two-thirds meat. It felt really easy to organize these lunches. I was immediately able to jot down meal ideas, establish costs and factor in my hours. I felt official, and it felt great. I loved it, crafting my time, and knowing how long it would take me. I loved the idea of nourishing friends and strangers with delicious food in the middle of their day, and knowing it would be a treat for them! I felt knowledgeable, I felt like I was helping out, and I felt like I was doing something that made a lot of sense to me.

Every time I do business providing food service I feel like I'm living my calling, a thought that scares me a bit. Raf and I always discuss a day in which we run a restaurant, and then we immediately laugh off the idea, saying "if we were ever silly enough to go into business, in Eastport running food service! That's crazy!" However more and more the idea becomes unlaughable because this store is one that I want, it's a place I can see myself inhabiting and it's a place in which I can see many people from the community spending their time. And before I get too wrapped up in any one idea I remind myself to... Inhale, Exhale, see what the future brings!

Life in Image

Eat Local Eastport Lady with her wares!
Miss. C, Miss. Independent.
Family faces up at Shackford Head.
I feel much safer with these goodies put away in my basement.
The Green Juice Fast.

How About Some Garlic-Ginger Green Beans?

Make sure you make some grain (rice or millet) to go along with this recipe, because you will want something to soak up the yummy sauce.

Prep your veggies:
roughly mince 2-3 cloves of garlic
grate or rough chop 1-2 inch chunk of ginger
cut stem ends off 1 pound of green beans

In saucepan on Medium-High Heat:
generously coat the bottom of the pan with a think layer of canola, olive or sesame oil,
add a triple glug of tamari or soy sauce,
then a healthy splash of rice wine or apple cider vinegar,
also add a tablespoon of honey or sugar,
add your garlic and ginger and allow to simmer 1 minute.

Turn the Heat down to Medium:
Now add the raw prepped green beans, plus a 1/4 cup of water.
Stir to coat veggies in sauce.
Allow to steam, covered until beans are tender.
Stir once more, if sauce seems too thin allow to simmer, uncovered an additional 1-2 minutes.

Serve, enjoy, eat the chunks of garlic and ginger. YUM!

Growth Spurts.

I'm starting to pull the 18 month clothes out of the dresser in the guest room. I'm checking for fall coats and hats in the warm clothes drawer too. The girl is getting long! She is so tall and smart, her comprehension rate is soaring. Questions like "where is your shoe" normally result in a shoe being found these days. Her vocabulary is becoming clearer, perhaps only to Mumma and Puppa, but she says versions of all these words now: Hi Kitty, Banana, Ball, Chicken, Baby, Yummy. There is also the mimicking, she wants to learn words and as I say words that she can imitate she repeats back to me over and over again. She is pretty incredible stuff.

Then there's my own growth spurt, less physical and more on the spiritual/emotional plane. I've been asking for a few months to come back in to myself after 2 years of my body primarily being a catalyst for Miss Ce to grow from. However with the weaning process complete I find myself syncing up with myself once again, especially with the help of my most recent 4 day green juice fast. My body feels like my own and best of all my spirit feels in my body again. I feel so blessed and thankful for the role of mother. I love giving birth and breastfeeding and being pregnant and I also love not doing all of those things. I'm adjusting to the amazement of what this female body can do, and I'm regaining my strength, one breath at a time.

I think it's been about 3 years now.

That's right, about 3 years ago I met Mr. Rafi Eric Hopkins. We were at a big party and met in passing, it would be another month and half until we really noticed each other. Now I notice him everyday. I would say we're even quite wrapped up in one another. I think he's really great and I've been considering what it is I like about him so much...

That he can just pick-up concrete work and do it so well.
When he holds our daughter I see his heart swell. (unintentional rhyme)
He always always takes the trash out, takes the compost out and feeds the chickens.
I see him so happy to have friends and family in our home.
He feels he could always do more to care for said friends and family.
That he loves his new beer brewing hobby so much and is motivated to do more!
He washes all the laundry and never gets upset with me for taking a week to put it away.
We hold hands at dinner every night., and then enjoy eating together so very much!

What a partner, isn't Rafi the best!?!

Pickles, Beans, Relish and Corn.

It's food preservation season! You probably already knew that!

Thursday night I cut 10 pounds of beans to length to fit into my canning jars for dilly beans, the rest I cut into bits for freezing. I then took my pickling cucumbers and separated them by size, the biggest ones I cut into quarters for bread and butter pickles, the mediums I split down the middle for dill pickles and the very tiniest I left whole for bringing pickles. I then put all the canning cukes into a brine overnight, to insure they'd be crisp once pickled. To make the brining pickles I placed several grape leaves into my 1 gallon crock, a few heads worth of garlic cloves and 2 dill blossoms, plus cucumbers and brine. Those are hanging out in my basement with a cloth over them, and doing their thing.

Friday was a day of canning... 6 pints of bread and butter pickles, 10 pints of dill pickles and 10 pints of dilly beans. It took ALL day and was interspersed with meetings, house painter aggravation, fussy baby and my wonderful mother's helper. It was also my 1st day of juice fast. After canning all those pickles, I see why people would make bringing pickles... they're much less work on the front end!

On Saturday we went mackerel fishing on the breakwater, I caught my first fish! I actually caught lots of fish! It was quite exciting... Rafi brought them home and smoked them that evening. While we were fishing I also managed to shuck 60 ears of corn, which I then cut off the kernels, blanched and froze that evening! I also put away those green bean off cuts while I was at it! Phew! On Day 2 of my juice fast, exhausting! But we have A LOT of corn in our freezer now, which is reassuring. And then yesterday morning I made 20 half pints of zucchini relish! which we'll eat on crackers! In winter! Yum!

Phooo... So much preservation feels good, a pat on my back. Though I have one regret... that I didn't grow the food myself, I try to keep in perspective that my garden's small, I've been overwhelmed for much of the year with house and baby, but it's something I want, to have big gardens which we eat from.... perhaps I can do more next year! I also feel so secure, and proud to be putting all of this food on shelves in the basement and into my freezer, because it means we'll be eating vegetables, locally for so much more of the year! And that feels wonderful to me, I feel as though I'm really serving my family well with this gift of my time now, which will enable us to eat healthy (free) meals when things are the tightest, we're paying our oil bill and we don't want to leave the house in winter... Plus it will be delicious.

Next... broccoli, kale and sauerkraut!

Life in Image.

Our 16 month old fireside apple tree with volunteer squash.
Ceci eats watermelon.
The crew at Race Point enjoying a late lunch together.
Look how little paint is on that house!
Big Chicken and Baby Chickens.

Reintroduction to Green Juice

I'm in the middle of a late-summer/post-childbirth/post-weaning cleanse. It started 4 weeks ago when I cut meat out of my diet. 3 weeks later I removed alcohol and coffee. Then on Monday I moved to an all raw food diet. In the next few days I will begin my green juice cleanse; dark leafy greens, cucumbers and celery run through my juicer. Thus far I'm feeling really strong, excited and great overall.

This is something I did periodically at the end of the time I lived in New York, and sure, at that time it had an aspect of control to it, but despite that I do know that it helped me to be a much clearer person... maybe even helped me to make the decision to move to Trescott and consequently meet the love of my life and introduce my wonderful chaos maker into the world. So really I have a lot of thanks to give to green juice. And no I don't think the raw foods lifestyle is one I would want to sustain year-round personally, and yes I'm totally stoked to eat lots of cheesy/wheaty/meaty foods again. However for this moment when there are SO MANY fresh vegetables available to me, and my body has been oh so cluttered for the past 2 years growing another person, I am excited to give it a moment to reset! So out comes the Green Juice!

I could already feel my metabolism shifting a few weeks after I weaned Cecilia, and my body began shedding excess on it's own. It felt like overnight my body let go of all this baby fat it had been keeping to help feed Cecilia with. Though I'm normally pretty level headed about my weight/size, I was starting to feel "weighed down" by all the extra I was carrying around, and was quite pleased to let it go. So while my body was releasing anyways, and while lots of fresh, organic, delicious vegetables were becoming increasingly available to me I found I wanted to detox more and chose going vegetarian as a first step. And I began making green juice to have some daily, and then found myself waking one morning and deciding to go raw that very day (and Cecilia even likes the green juice)!

I've been eating bowls of blueberries for breakfast, plates of salads for lunch, avocados, soaked almonds and raisins for snacks, and almond/apricot/southwestern spiced pate with salsa on chard leaves for dinner. Not to mention blended frozen blueberry/strawberry/peach puree as a sorbet for dessert. It's not a rough life at all going raw for a few days!

So next step is to fast with green juice supplying me with all the minerals and nutrients my body needs to sustain itself and help detoxify myself. I'm most excited about the break this is giving to my intestinal track, I often worry about how all the rich heavy foods must build up in my intestines. Mostly I see a real difference in how I'm approaching this particular cleanse then when I lived in New York, at that point I believed that cleansing would be some sort of answer to my life, if I did every component correctly, and followed protocol I would have enlightenment, but no it's so different this time around. I'm so content to use the knowledge that my body is supplying me with to make decisions of when and how to cleanse; I feel as though this is a part of my process of healing my body from childbearing. Mostly it's trust I feel in this organism my soul is living in and feel confident that I'm helping her out! And that is exciting to me.

This Morning...

Was a blueberry pancake kind of morning...

Our Uncle-Brother Jesse leaves...

The baby chicks are becoming so confident at leaving the coop...

Cecilia wants to be outside...

The scraping for our house painting has begun...

We look forward to a social day with kid friends and mama friends...

The beer brewed on Monday evening sounds like a pot of boiling water as the fermenting process creates little bubbles...

We're eating 9am fresh picked greens beans...

Is the 4th morning in a row that Ce has slept until 7(!)...

Planting Seeds In My Dreams!

First there was the image of a gigantic Osprey nest a top a tree, it was as big as an island, sitting in the branches of a bent tree, in the middle of a shoreline.

Then there was an art class I was taking, carving granite and forming plaster. There were friends and members of my Eastport community in the class. The thought was to create a series of sculptures where plaster was poured into a Plexiglas form and seeds were slid in along the plastic, so they were visible from the exterior. I like this idea, the cross-section of germination. I believe I'll explore this today in my personal time for art. The Cross Section of Germination. I imagine a series of drawings with corn, chard, lettuce, cabbage, garlic, potato and nasturtium seeds placed beneath the soil with tendrils of roots coming down and the littlest leaves rising out of the ground. Off to work then!

What creative images do you see in your dreams?

Jumping In!

This past week has been an exciting one, as my dear friends have been at Race Point! Playing with them always involves lets of swimming, singing, hiking, giggling and snacking! But the best thing that happened was finding the perfect high tide jumping in spot along Straight Bay.... Everyday as we began nearing high tide we'd say, "Oup! It's time to go, get ready, put your shoes on, let's go!" And we'd hike along the old woods trail, past The Old Elm and on to Little Birch Point. This point overlooks the entirety of Straight Bay, at high tide it's full of water, right up to the big boulder rocks... and at low tide it's like a seaweed heaven, stretching on and on and on.

At high tide mid-week we were ready to go in the water, but it was so cold! And the air was a bit chilly too! As we tried to find the most wonderful of spa treatments to "break the ice" so to speak we found a new little rock emerging from the water. Although it wasn't such a little rock, it was actually a great big rock, a 6-7 foot drop, perfect for a little skim dive into the bay! And we did! And it was WONDERFUL. And you could climb right back up on that sweet rock and not have to wear water shoes and jump in again! HURRAH! So over and over again everyday we made our pilgrimage to the best swimming spot at Race Point, Mother's Nest Cove.

Life In Image.

Cecilia in the potato field.
Rafi loving mounds the potato rows.
Slicing peaches for freezing.
The Papa and the girl at Race Point.
This week's produce ordered and sold through Eat Local Eastport!

Chores.

DISHES/KITCHEN
First, load the dishwasher. Second, clean out fridge. Third, reload dishwasher. Fourth, pile dirty dishes near sink. Fifth, wipe down dining room table and counters and stove. Sixth, wash dishes. Seventh, Take out compost.

DIAPERS
Pre-rinse cycle. Soapy cycle. Dryer.

CATS/CHICKENS
Feed Cats. Feed New Baby Chicks. Fill Baby Chicks Waterer. Feed Baby Chicks again because their Mama eats all their food!

BLOG ENTRY
You're reading it!

CASH
Go to IGA, buy limes for bean salad, dishwasher soap and get cash back to take the ferry with.

BEAN SALAD
Take farm veggies out of fridge (green beans, rainbow carrots, small zuchinni, red onion, hakurei turnips, fennel fronds, herbs, garlic scapes, tomato) Chop all while Ceci stands on her highchair across the counter, with her own kitchen equipment begging bits of whatever veggie I'm chopping at the moment, she likes the tomato the best and even uses sign language to tell me she'd like some more! Make a dressing from homemade ricotta, pesto, oil, limes, salt, pepper and cayenne. Dress salad and place in jars for boat ride to Lubec.

NOT ON LIST
Picking up Ceci debris room floors. Replacing couch cushions. Sweeping. Eat Local Eastport Accounting.

On Becoming A Toddler

Well Cecilia is really doing it! She's becoming less and less baby-like by the moment. She changes not weekly now, but by the day. She learns new skills so quickly, last week she couldn't use a spoon let alone a fork, and now she's got them both down. With her big teeth (and slowly appearing molars), her bangs and strong lengthening body she can do so much. She points and indicates (and cries and yells) to tell us what she wants. Most everything seems to be called "mum-ma" and she has the hi-wave-kiss combination down for saying hello and goodbye to everyone.

Another special skill that she's developed... climbing! Oh boy! And moving furniture! Hurrah! And testing her limits with her parents! Joy! The recurring struggle is feet and legs and butt on the table. She'll place a toe and then look at us with a big delighted smirk on her face, and we count to 3 and she sits down on her butt. Defying the rules and having discipline is all part of a game for her, as she smiles and delights as she puts her butt in the chair just as we get to 3. This is when I take a big inhale/exhale and ask the universe for patience.

And then there is the speed and agility in which she has conquered staircases. She NEVER went down the stairs backwards on her hands and knees, she's held our hands and then she started to use the banister and now she can go down with no help at all, though she prefers a handhold and to walk down vertically just the same as an adult or big kid. It's pretty remarkable to watch these skills. She's also been walking with us, she'll hold my hand and she can walk quite a ways before getting distracted by a blade of grass or a stone on the sidewalk. Pretty remarkable/helpful stuff!

She also does things that are HYSTERICAL, like every morning as she's waiting for us to wake up she manages to find a pair of my underpants, or her father's underpants if mine are nowhere to be seen, sometimes she claims both of ours, and she immediately puts them over her head and around her neck and trots around pleased as punch with her new wardrobe accessory. She also thinks it's pretty funny to put rainboots on her feet or crocs and stomp around the house.

Root Cellars

I've begun exploring the idea of root cellars in my art work. A tall clapboard house on a hill has been a long standing theme, but suddenly on last week I started seeing this space below the house, below the basement where a family would put away it's goods at harvest time for winter. I find this space intriguing, what do people's root cellars look like? What crops do they put away? What do they use for vessels? The root cellar was also the backbone of the family 100 years ago when most were still growing much of their own food. In this local eating business they are also a necessity for the farmers that keep potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic and so much more available to us all winter. There's also dry storage for grains and beans to keep in mind. I just find my synapses start firing as I think of all the work that goes into this cold damp room to keep food to eat until the next crop starts coming out of the ground. In our modern lifestyle its so foreign, so removed, but it was simply a way of life for so long in our culture. And visually I enjoy the idea of crates of produce being tucked away, waiting to be eaten. I have an idea to start a drawing project of area root cellars, we'll see where I go with it...

Potatoes & Peaches

We heard that it was time to hill the potatoes out at Shore Road, home of Scythe Supply, so we had a hearty oatmeal with Molly & Damon and then all drove out to Carol's together. It was sunny, humid and a lovely morning so we all got down and weeded the rows of potatoes together, I primarily worked on rows of fingerlings and yukons. Miss. Ce fell asleep on the drive out so it was also quiet, grown-up work which is always nice, as it meant Raf and I could both really get something done! After weeding we moved onto hilling, some with hoes, hands, shuffle-hoe or claws and then we put down a generous mulch with the hay we had mowed down at the scything party back in June. Cecilia woke up and helped with the mulching, she sat in the rows drinking water and playing with potatoes or cried out to be held while we put down the mucky hay. Inside for lunch and then onto the A-frame for ice creams just as it started to rain.

I talked to my friend Adam on Saturday morning, he was at the farmer's market in Philadelphia and asked if there were anything I might like for him to bring up to me. I thought a moment and asked... "do they have any peaches?" "Oh boy Anne, DO THEY!" So I said why don't you get us $30 worth of peaches (which turns out to be about half a bushel in Pennsylvania). So Adam and Jesse arrived last night right at dinnertime with all these beautiful, juicy, white Amish peaches! Jesse was very curious as to why we would want peaches at all, not knowing that in Washington County (and Maine!) peaches are not often found and they would not be of the same quality, or low price as in PA. In fact I would say that really freshly picked, truly ripe peaches are a commodity, a luxury, a special treat! So I'll spend some time this morning cutting most of them up and flash freezing them on trays and then putting them away for smoothies and cobblers and oatmeal in winter. And of course I'll leave a generous bowl out on the counter for us to eat up fresh, letting the juice fall down our chins.

Life in Image.

New Mama Blaise with first born chick.
Our freshly harvested garlic.
Miss Ce at the breakfast table!
A painting in progress on my studio table.
The nasturium garden.

New Family Members!

Of the chick variety! Our sweet, sweet little Blaise went totally broody several months ago, she has currently been sitting on a batch of fertilized eggs from Kilby Ridge Farm in Dennysville for 3 weeks! Yesterday just as Ce and I were headed off to Tide Mill Farm (for a fab-u-lous party) I popped my head in the coop to see if Rosie, our bantam alpha chicken, had left any eggs for us. When I reached under Blaise to see if she had hidden the Rosie eggs under her I discovered a brand new little baby chick head! Black, with little white markings! Cute! Blaise was none to happy with me disturbing her and her babies, and quickly tucked little black headed chick back under her. I thought I just caught a flash of some new little crumpled freshly hatched chicky legs, and Blaise was carefully eating shell from the new arrival!

This morning upon checking there are 2 new little heads poking out under Mama, and little cheep cheep sounds emanating from the coop. I held the waterer up for Blaise and she rapidly began drinking from her post, I also put in a few handfuls of feed as I figured she must be getting hungry, I know a fresh Mama would never leave her nest at a time like this. We are so proud of our little Blaisey Girl, who we raised from when she was a day old and now she's a Mid-Summer Mama!