From Where I Sit.

There's a toddler happily rearranging her kitchen, fill bin up, bring to living room, dump out, repeat.

There's a Puppa mastering the latte machine, almost out of beans, where's the vinegar, hummmm.

Sunlight on the stove.

My sweater shielding the brewing beer.

Costumes at the ready.

Plenty, oh plenty to tidy up in the house (always it seems).

A huge catering gig to prepare for, roast beef open-face sandwiches, squash tarts, pickle platter, cheese platter, apple sweet.

Cats leaping across gates.

No snow on the ground in Eastport.

Life in Image

The Hole.
The People.
The Beans.
The Land.
The Girl.

Work

All of a sudden I have all this work I'm doing this week. Eat Local Eastport, 2 catering gigs, plus stringing 100's of glass ornaments for a glass artisan in town. I'm also taking a business class on Wednesday mornings, not to mention my normal job of caring for Cecilia. It is an interesting feeling to go from having one job of leisurely caring for a daughter and a home to adding on bits and pieces in your spare moments. Filling breakfast time with making sandwiches, filling errands with extra errands, filling post bedtime with emails and ordering systems. Having a patient and flexible husband makes his all the more possible. I think about a week from now, a month from now, a year from now and five years from now which are nice/overwhelming things to think about, however I try to think about today's to-do list most of all. Inhale, Exhale and do.

A Success Is Shared:

I'm very pleased, I did something that a year ago I was not confident was possible. With Cecilia at nearly 18 months I fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans! I was desperate for a pair of pants on Saturday afternoon so in a very off chance I went up to my box of clothes in the attic. I dug through and found a pair of jeans, held them up, questioned my judgment in even trying to fit them over my hips, but then I did. Right there in the attic. I wobbled on one leg putting myself into the cold old pants. My legs felt alright and I scooted the material up my thighs and held my breath a little as I got to my hips (I was convinced my skeleton had gotten wider). And there it was, that graceful slide of jeans over butt, a quick button later and there I was in something that had not fit me for exactly 2 years. I remember it was my trip to New York at the end of October in 2009 that I first felt the feeling of my baby belly being too big for my pants.

So here I am doing something I thought may have been impossible. There IS grace in the universe. Thank You!

Bean Hole Bean Day

We woke not too early on Bean Hole Bean Day in chilly cabins. Our little family was quite cuddly and Miss Ce was pretty excited to wake up in The Sunshine Cabin. Puppa hopped out of bed and walked down to the sauna to light it off for a high-tide sweat. Ce and I dressed ourselves, made the bed and she pointed out the window shouting "Ba!" at all the apples on the ground. We found Lissy and Jake back at the Pond House feeling the ground on each hole, which was warm! A warm Bean Hole is a good sign! Coffee, Mate and Chai were all made and Bacon Ends were fried and Rafi's World Famous Doughnut Pancakes were cooked. Lissy and I sat and chatted and knitted. It was a nice lazy morning feeling, with periodic trips down to stoke the sauna.

I took Ce for a walk in the Ergo and she swiftly fell asleep on my back, we created a little nest for her in the sauna foyer and she snoozed while we all had several rounds of sweat and bay dipping. The sun was shining and the water was not as cold as it can be! Really nice. Really relaxing.

As noon arrived we migrated back up the hill and people began to arrive. We brought a small table outside to hold all the food and dug up the Veg hole! It was easy to dig those beans out! and they were warm! and soft! and needed salt! We went over to bean Hole number 1 next and made quick work of unearthing the pot, this one was hot! And oh my how those Marfax had softened and melted into the pork fat, and the water level we got just right on this pot. We brought our beans to the table and they were joined by cornbread and baguettes and butter and kimchi and jellies and pickles. And then we all stood and sat in a circle around the table and feasted. Bowl after bowl of delicious goodie. As we scraped the bottom of the Marfax pot we decided to go shovel out bean hole number 3, and my they were as beautiful as the last! I'm fully convinced that the most delicious baked beans come out of a bean hole now.

As we all began wanting to lay down on the grass we decided to take a walk, so 13 of us plus a dog went for a walk down the old logging trail. We stopped at the Old Elm and then continued on to Little Birch Point overlooking Straight Bay. Some ventured along the shore, some chatted on the large boulders, but all were enjoying the day. Homemade, homegrown food in our bellies, tradition of the ages on our minds. Wholesome fun and activity enriching our souls and spirits. Bean Hole Bean Day was beautiful.

Bean Hole Bean Eve

This weekend was the first Bean Hole Bean Day at Race Point. What none of us realized as we were planning our Bean Hole Bean Day is that it requires a Bean Hole Bean Eve, which was perhaps one of the best parts of Bean Hole Bean Day. We arrived late afternoon, Rafi, Cecilia, Elisabeth, Jake and myself. We dug three separate holes for three separate dutch ovens of beans. We scouted the hole locations in preparation for planting apple trees next year, perhaps a walnut tree for my grandchildren. We then brought a wagon down to the shore to collect two loads of rocks to line the holes with. Large fires were built just as darkness came.

We went inside to create dinner, a vegetable soup from our gardens. We all chatted and cozied and checked the fires. There was knitting and candlelight and handholding. The weather was clear and crisp, warm enough for wool, but not too chilly. After dinner Rafi snuggled with the girl at bedtime and we all went out to watch the progress of the fires in our holes. The glow of three pits of flames from across the landscape was a beautiful sight. We ate chocolate around the holes and as the embers burned down I crept into the cabin to bring the beans up to a boil and to rouse Rafi. We did two pots of meat beans and a pot of vegetarian. They all had molasses, maple syrup, pepper, mustard, onions and a wee garlic in them, each meat pot had half a pound of bacon ends rough chopped as well, we put vegetable shortening and butter into the vegetarian beans. (I think next year the veg beans will get extra molasses and the addition of nutritional yeast). We omitted salt as we were nervous about the beans not getting soft; and the water level was ideally about a quarter inch above our beans.

Hole number 1 was our biggest hole, we put the Marfax beans that Jake had grown (Jake grew all the beans!) into that hole. The Veg beans were a variety of a Maine Yellow Eye and I don't quite remember Bean Hole Number 3's variety, it had a ladies name though and beautiful cranberry and white coloring. We covered each pot with tinfoil before lowering it into it's nest of coals. We then used our shovels to nestle in the pots and push the hot rocks in closer to the bean pots, 2 hot rocks went on the lid of each pot. We then shoveled in dirt by the glow of Lissy's headlamp. We blessed our lovely bean holes, brushed our teeth and migrated down to the Sunshine Cabins along the shore to retire for the evening, it was a lovely evening.

And what happened on Bean Hole Bean Day? I'll fill you in tomorrow!

Life in Image

My daughter loves drinking pickle juice.
She also likes to eat cereal with her Grandpa Ed.
Napping on the couch is pretty great too.
She's a popcorn hound, we all are here.
Just another day in the life a squash at 3 Brighton Avenue.

I Like Fall Rain. A Lot.

It feels so cozy to be trapped inside in the rain. To wake up with a little storm outside and cozy under the covers with your family just a bit longer. I love putting slippers on in the morning and feeling like baking just to warm up the house, not that I always do of course... The rain is going to help all the mulch I just put down around all of our trees and shrubs decompose I think that's the biggest reason I'm liking the rain this morning. I also made a sheet mulched bed with hay and seaweed and it's all going to start melting into itself in the rain. Hoorah! I also love not leaving the house all and the rain gives me an excuse to do that.

Those Chickens Of Ours.

The other day I came home to a story from my husband. There had been a fox, in broad daylight in the yard and yes, he got one of our chickens, apparently taking the head and a wing. I was hoping it was one of the chicks that's starting to look like a rooster, but alas it was our smallest little cochin bantam who still gets out of the fencing from time to time. Which is probably how the fox got her. Luckily we've been keeping our girls in their enclosure lately, since the neighbors kindly asked if our wandering brood could stay out of their yard. Probably saved most of our flock.

So now we have 13 chickens and that's too many for our coop in the height of winter. We can tell that at least 3 of the new chicks are roosters and there's probably another one mixed in the lot so I know that before the snow flies we'll be slaughtering here at 3 Brighton Avenue. I've never done this before, but we decided as the baby chicks were hatching we would not be naming them, and that we were going to learn how to care take the full cycle of life. I am interested in understanding the death of the animal that I'll be consuming. So that's a big next step for me. It's something I've been processing more and more as I watch the combs grow on the roosters, watch little alpha fights in the yard and see how crowded the girls are in their coop. I feel myself preparing for a step I do not take lightly and feel some trepidation about, however it's a step closer to my food chain and I am very interested in that.

Changing.

Something has been changing. I think it's me. It's been happening for months, and before that for years, and before that for decades. If you've ever watched a child grow you know how rapidly it can happen, but it seems that when we become adult we expect ourselves to stall out. It's all in the phrase "grown-up" like society anticipates that we'll stop growing. I've been learning that even us parents keep changing. I see it in my own parents, I mean they're Grandparents now, that's a complete identity shift, and aren't your parents people you expect never to change?

Physically we all distort from 8 year-olds to 20 year-olds to 50 year-olds to 80 year-olds; our bones get stiffer, our skin stretches, our hair adds grey, our smiles add wrinkles, we injure ourselves and our bodies have pain. These are all physical truths that we see and acknowledge, but would it not only also be true that our emotional minds change at the same rate as our physical bodies, perhaps even faster when we consider the traumas, joys and mundane events we must all constantly relate to?

I feel like I've known this truth for much of my life, I even had the motto of "growth" at one time. So why am I just remembering/realizing now? I suppose I feel like I've just awoken from 2 years of childbearing, a time where my body was selfless. It grew me past 200 pounds, it fed a child for 14 months and it stopped sleeping. The pregnancy was spent catching up our lives and home to Our Glowing Orb's plan and the first year of Cecilia's life was spent in attachment, in love, in giving, in family; time I would trade for nothing in the world. However I feel like I've awoken and am catching up to myself, digging through the extra 50 pounds to find Anne again. This is the new Anne, the mother Anne, the friend Anne, the daughter Anne, the wife Anne. I feel as though I'm an improved model now, but I've been working on the mechanics of the new model.

And here I am and I'm starting to make some sense to myself again. I'm the same creative, enthusiastic and social creature I was before, I just have greater responsibilities now. I also have more life experience which may actually make me a wiser person; I definitely have more grey hairs and stretchier skin. The best part is I feel thankful for my new body and spirit; everyone can see the tactile, but I think they can also feel the emotional shift in me.

Standing on A WIndy Rolling Hill in Dennysville

This weekend the family went out to Kilby Ridge Farm in Dennysville, home of Violet and Mark Willis. It was one of those very very very windy days, but the sun was shining so bright you didn't get cold. You are greeted by a yellow farmhouse with vegetable gardens in the dooryard; Ruby Red Chard, Sage, Parsley all growing around the entrance to their home. As you walk furthur up the hill you hear some light traces of a jazz trio playing in the open barn door and you walk through their long new greenhouse. There is a central aisle and on the left side you see spinach, kale, lettuce, scallions, carrots, all getting ready to be harvested in the coming months and on your right side you see small sprouts of mache, spinach and the like for the winter and spring. Perhaps you run into someone you know and they tell you a story of their day, their summer, their life and you share the same. As you exit the far side of the greenhouse you walk into a cider pressing, and the mouth of the barn. Their are Turkeys in the pasture to your right, Chickens and Ducks to your left, the Icelandic Sheep are in the far pasture. You greet more friends and gather a few children to wander up to the top of the next rise where there is a tent. In that tent there are a few platters of tender sweet lamb meat for sampling and they are just pulling a turkey out of the smoker. We each get a piece of a wing and settle in to clean off the bones. The children begin running, more friends arrive, and the folks chat in loose circles as the children invent chasing games and approach the animals.

I stood atop that hill and noticed the apple trees in the pastures. I took out my new knitting project and plucked away at that, listening and joining into the stories of the day. I enjoyed the freedom I saw in Cecilia as she was able to amble around the farmyard. She explored, sat down and chewed on some turkey meat. The wind was refreshing and without even a hat we were warm in the sunlight. With laughter and ease we enjoyed the day, an excellent reminder of the beauty and joy I feel here in rural agriculture.

Life in Image (belated)

Wedding Cake, fresh out of the freezer.
Morning Storytime with Grumpy.
A girl and the love for her cat.
Seems like a great trade to me.

a fear.

Yesterday I put a case of frost sweetened broccoli in the freezer; this felt really good, tremendously good even. As I was chopping and blanching and cooling and straining yesterday I was daydreaming about my new garden beds for next year and planning on planting one bed full of broccoli. It was a lovely dream and I felt great. I was also thinking of the delicious Thai curries, stir-fries and other dishes I was going to prepare with all of these little trees.

Then I was working on our menu plan for the next week, which is something I've started doing that has relieved a bit of stress for me, it helps me to take things out of the freezer in time, or to make more complicated meals on days when I have more time and save the easy meals for nights when I have yoga or Eat Local Eastport. Rafi likes it too and it seems to keep one conversation smoother; I can also plan for when we have some food item we need to use up. That's right I've become one of those homemakers/mothers who has a menu on the fridge, but it's helpful! Also I'm hoping it will keep us out of the IGA a wee bit.

Anyways the fear that crept in while planning meals and putting broccoli away is that I have put A LOT of food in the freezer this year. I've put so many vegetables in there that I'm hoping we'll only have to buy salad greens through the winter. My fear is that I won't enjoy cooking with all these frozen vegetables. I don't really know how to use frozen veg, I've never used them before to this extent. I'm afraid I'll be bored by them, think they taste bad or that we'll just end up eating the same mushy vegetable dishes over and over again. I feel some confidence that I'll learn to cook with them, but it will be an adjustment to use wilted kale, green beans and broccoli, and I hold some fear in that.

peeing.

It seems that as of Monday Cecilia became interested in using the potty. I've been asking her for awhile now if she'd like to and she shakes her head no, or when I put her on the toilet seat she arches her hips dramatically and wails. I figured the elimination communication I did when she was an infant had been lost in the shuffle. However! She's starting using the toilet! Little squirts and farts, or big pees. Before bed last night she had a great big pee on the potty with toothbrush in mouth (in fact she went to bed with her toothbrush). Just yesterday after lunch we used the potty together and then she gave me the "more" sign and we went back to the potty and she peed some more!

Now I know there's a learning curve here and I'm sure we will go forward and backward on this whole thing, but I'm just happy that she's interested; that she's excited about it! When I go to the bathroom now, she comes with me and sits on her own potty. This new interest makes lots of sense as she's become so interested in doing things as we do them. For instance, salt on her eggs, she needs it! Steamed milk in her cup, yum! And of course shoes on everyone's feet all the time.

I was just beginning to wonder about potty training, and whether I ought to read a book or something and here she is showing interest on her own! These kids are pretty neat!

One Of The Best.

Yesterday was our anniversary. It's been 1 year since that incredible celebratory party where we all had such a wicked good time. I wouldn't say it's been the easiest year of my life, I'd actually say it's been one of the hardest; a new baby and a new marriage is quite the combination punch to the old responsibility button in your head. It's nice when you spend a hard year with your 2 favorite people in the world though, and that I did. But that's not what I'm writing about today, oh no, I'm writing about food today.

Rafi and I had a truly remarkable meal in St Andrew's by the sea on Sunday evening to celebrate our anniversary at The Rossmount Inn. We had a 3 course dinner which we sort-of turned into a 4 course meal:

chiffonade of romaine lettuce, caesar dressing, bacon custard, parmesan crisp, shared between the 2 of us, the bacon custard was out of this world!

lentil-vegetables + roasted quail salad, chopped eggs, tarragon dressing, local cantaloupe brunoise, anne's choice

seared beef tenderloin carpaccio, truffle-mustard drizzle, crispy capers, pickled shitake, shaved parmesan, rafi's choice (and what a choice it was!!!)

braised "civet" of deer, egg spatzle, sauteed chanterelles, poached apple, cranberry compote, red wine-game reduction, and we both chose this, the poached apple, oh my!

lavendar-citrus creme brulee with a grand marnier sorbet was shared, with an espresso for Rafi

It was a decadent, rich meal and at the very top of my list of food memories in my life, I can still feel the texture and flavor of Rafi's carpaccio in my mouth. The crack and citrus sweet of the creme brulee. The deer meat that needed no knife to cut into pieces. My love of spaetzle. The very overfull belly at the end of the evening. The love between us to share something so special together, and the dream of eating around Italy someday. However even with so much fanfare, and excitement and amazing food, the top meal of my life is still those lamb sandwiches at Maple Tree Farm homemade by my new love and me in 2009.

Life in Image

Our Volunteer Open-Pollinated Squash-Pumpkin Harvest.
Dishtowels waiting to be folded in the sunlight.
A girl and her cat.
That rainy cidering day, note mouth and hand full of apple.
"Just making the morning tea in my new kitchen, would you like some salt on that?"

Thinking About A Budget.

I've been reading about these Grocery Bill Challenges on a few blogs recently. I've also been thinking about our own Grocery Budget and while so much food that we consume I earn with Barter through the farms we also live across the street from the IGA. Do you have any idea how easy and convenient it is to live across the street from the IGA? You can just hop over any time you're out of cat food/bread/lemons/dish soap/chocolate/beer/whipping cream/basil/canning jars and while I try to plan ahead as much as possible for our needs and buy things in bulk and eat locally sometimes you can't contend with a quick trip to the IGA. Don't get me wrong, I love the IGA, they do a great job, wonderful people work there and it's a great outing when the girl needs to get out of the house (or I do for that matter). However when you try to stick to any kind-of budget and aren't very good at it you end of spending too much money at the IGA. That goes across the board...

So I guess I'm wondering how to create a budget. How do you make it happen? What are the strategies you use to manage your household finances? How do you walk the line between frugal and realistic? Is there a way to tighten the belt and spend less money while not limiting yourself? Is it a value shift? How do you get the "I Wants" out of your head?

I Have A Collection...

...and surprisingly enough it keeps growing since I've moved to Eastport! It is LeSportsac handbags. I know, I know I don't seem like the handbag type, I rarely carry one, but I have a small part of my heart that goes woozy for LeSportsacs. As all good things in life this is rooted in nostalgia, you see my Great-Aunt Thea Leni always carried one style, in navy blue across her sturdy little shoulders. She was a practical lady, frugal, sensible not inclined towards expensive things, but she always carried this singular brand name item. I began associating that little zipper strip on the bag with her sensibility. Then I moved to New York.

I remember being in Soho and seeing the LeSportsac store for the first time, I was star-struck, so I wandered in with my jaw slightly dropped, realizing that this brand also had some of the coolest patterned bags I'd ever seen! I coveted each bag I saw, imagining myself carrying it, but looked at the price tag and knew it was something I could only covet at this juncture in life. AND THEN! I went to the department store Century 21, across from the WTC, and realized they always had many a brand name bag at extremely discount prices, so it became a regular stop to see if they had an affordable bag in a pattern and shape that I liked. Then it happened, sophmore year, I bought one! It was a simple shape, perfect for carrying large pads of paper and supplies to Illustration class, a black and grey flowered pattern, and I still use it to this day to carry my art supplies when I'm on the move.

I've had a pink shoulder purse which I used for so long and hard that it became beyond filthy. I've had 2 different small wallets with attached keychains. I bought a shoulder bag at one point that I now use as my knitting bag featuring woodland animals. My biggest and most intentional LeSportsac purchase was The Weekender Bag, black circles on a white background, perfect for weekend getaways with your husband (perhaps I'll use it this weekend!). Most recently I found the smaller version of the weekender bag in red at The New To You, which it turns out my friend Kristin had thrifted, we've been using at as a diaper bag now and love it! Then just yesterday my friend Lindy brought me a little score she'd had at the Brewer Goodwill, a striped laptop bag that she gifted to me, very thoughtful. So much waterproof cute-patterned convenient carrying durable fun in my collection!

Things About Fall.

-Rain Boots, I feel unstoppable in otherwise miserable conditions!

-My Grandma Grant's Sweaters, they are beautiful objects, I get endless compliments on them and they keep me dry and warm.

-Slippers and Wool Socks and Flannel Night Gowns.

-Hot Baths, so comforting.

-Family Time, it's somehow that much more snuggily now that wet cold weather has arrived.

-Cooking Soups and Stews and Roasts all day.

-Singing songs

Rainy Cidering

Saturday was the Perry Harvest Fair, which is an annual fair in which there are many vendors: farmers, crafters, display booths and delicious food (like hot doughnuts!). There are fun homegrown activities like an apple pie contest, scarecrow making, music and dance demonstrations; the best part is seeing everyone you know! Which is SO fun in my opinion! Our friend Regina, who runs The Farms to Schools program in Washington County, was cider pressing and knowing this I loaded up the back of our car with apples to bring down, despite the impending "scattered showers." So I dressed Miss Ce and I in jeans or overalls, long-undy-shirts and wool sweaters (both knitted by my grandmother Miss Janet) we pulled on our rainboots and brought cozy hats and headed down to the fair while Puppa secured the last posts to the porch roof. We were ready for rain, and rain it did!

Our friend Emily Guirl was helping out too as well as 12 year-old Oona and Hailey and we pressed the heck out of those apples. I seemed to be the main cranker of the press and the girls all threw apples in for me, Miss Ce mostly busied herself by rearranging apples, some into containers, but mostly into her mouth! I think for the whole 3 hours we were there she must have been eating apples or splashing in puddles most of the time. When the cider started being pressed and flowing the 12 year-old girls gave Cecilia some cider and she chugged it down, and so they kept giving her more as she was pretty funny drinking that cider. As we went through the cycles for crushing apples and pressing them the girl quickly fell into the rhythms, looking for the moment when the cider would start flowing. It felt nice to me as a mother, because with so many good friends there who knew Cecilia so well I was really feeling that "It takes a village" kind-of feeling. It felt like for that day, for that crowd Cecilia was the perfect age and everyone enjoyed how much Cecilia enjoyed the fair and the rain!