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.