bee creative

playing, but not

 

To return to the On Being conversation with Christiana Figures, she introduced me to a new to me word...glocalization;

"think global, act local."

Thinking about that as I move pigment dots around...

local color, sharing globally.

The two small circles are the pigments that I made from rocks. The moment that I hit the rock and it shattered...I don't know that I've shared how that felt. 

Amazement, awe...a sense of gratitude.

Rocks are so old. 

To transform a rock to something else, it's something to do with respect.

 

And here, a little something different. 

Pigment made with willow leaves +  pressed leaves from high bush cranberry (viburnum family) and red twig dogwood.  The willow not native to this area, the other two are.

Looking closer gives a better sense of the willow pigment,

there along the edge...liminal space.

 

 

#110 unfinished thoughts

Another scrappy tank. 

Bottom made from a table cloth with stain. 

Heading for an onion skin dye bath.

I wasn't paying attention.

I felt bad.

Consistently getting good results with the sourdough.

It's been on the to do list forever, fixing the gate. 

I think I am going to weave twine through the slates to hold it together better. 

Pasta + garbanzo beans + veggies from Mom and Dad + veggies from my garden + veggies from a CSA. 

*

None of these are from today...today was not quite as planned.

Yesterday someone told me on the way home that my break lights were out, so that had to be taken care of.

I started reading Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood and spent over two hours pondering the beauty of well crafted sentences. 

 

at the kitchen table: dehydrate

I use my dehydrator so much it stays on the counter.

I have dried: blueberries, strawberries, prunes, apricots, apples, pears, peaches, grapes, cherries (both sweet and sour), kale, celery (leaves and stalk), carrots, zucchini, onions, shallots, corn, spinach, tomatoes, peppers, sweet potatoes, ginger, garlic, lemons, oranges, nuts, herbs, roses, calendula, tomato sauce, applesauce, apricot sauce and plum sauce. 

I've made "raw" snacks, cheese, yogurt, and granola bars in it.

dehydrated tomato sauce

A dehydrator is great for gardeners, for people who want to eat local year round, or for those that like to play with their food.

pizza, of course!

Some things I've learned:

*It's worth it to have a good dehydrator with a temperature control.  Mine is an Excalibur with 5 trays. 

*It takes practice to learn when something is dry enough. If I'm worried something might mold I put it in the freezer. Grapes/raisins always go in the freezer now.

*A small cookie scoop is marvelous for pouring sauces on to a drying mat (mine came with two for things like fruit leather).

*Cut things as small as possible. For example I slice apricots and prunes rather than drying them in halves, carrots are chopped in a food processor, and zucchini is run through a spiralizer.

*Foods dehydrated too much can be made into a "flour" using a food processor or a coffee grinder.

*Home dehydrated foods won't look the same as those from the store and that's okay!

Unless something is going directly into a soup, most of the time I reconstitute vegetables and sauces in a bit of boiling water before adding to foods. The soaking water can be used as well.

For lunch today I added the soaking water, carrots, corn, tomatoes, and zucchini to my leftover gratin potatoes and added grated cheddar cheese.

Yum!

I'll post a few more ideas about using dehydrated food this month. 

Dehydrated foods are in season!

committing can be the hardest part

Home today working on projects, mostly sewing. 

I've been using the facing patterns that I made for my favorite tank top as guidelines for necklines and armholes for more free-form cutting like the top below that is based on a square.

First time round this was too wide for the weight of the fabric.  Much better now.

This is the favorite tank top pattern made to dress length. I'm trying to make my wardrobe more cohesive and this shade of red matches a skirt  perfectly...so it's a tunic length now.

This jacket was started during Jude's Boro class. I finally made a decision regarding fabric for sleeves. Just a little more lining to go and then I will sew up the side seams.

I think it might be time to make jeans....

r is for rest and record

It rained this morning...

My sense is that there has been more rain this summer than usual.

There was knitting on the porch.

A lot of repetition.

At the moment I plan to stop knitting on Sunday, harvest some of the indigo and dye this.

There were vegetables (romano beans, zucchini and onions) in red sauce (roasted red peppers, onions, and tomatoes) for dinner. 

Topped with paneer. 

Sometimes I buy paneer, made by one of the local cheese makers; other times I make it (recipe). 

Tomorrow I'll have to prep a few things for the next few days.

The weather report is temps in the 80's (F).

Salad weather...

vegetable love

 

 From the farmer's market, transformed into meals...

Potato burrito: corn, peppers, onions, potatoes and a yogurt/blue cheese dressing.  We have some lovely local blue cheeses now. 

Broccoli pasta: broccoli, pasta, homemade tomato sauce and Parmigiano-Reggiano ('cause I'm not perfect).

It's Eat Local Month where I live. 

Mostly I do. 

 

at the kitchen table

From today's winter market. 

Also purchased bacon and bread. 

On the menu this week:

1. Apple/beet soup. Never tried it before and am curious.
2. Hash.
3. Kale raab cooked in olive oil, served with pasta probably. 

A very simple soup with the last of the carrots I've been storing. Onions(about 1/2 cup) cooked in olive oil + carrots (about 2 1/2 cups sliced) + water (approximately 3-4 cups). Boiled until soft and then blended.  Topped with preserved lemon cooked in butter and mashed with a fork plus a tiny bit of thyme from the garden. Bread cheese on the side.  

 

words

Five things:

1.  I have been reminded of one of the reasons why I like to work with toddlers. The stage where they seem to learn at least one new word a day is magic.
2. Thinking about how we learn words, through labeling things or in context. How subtle they can be.
3. The words I chose as I worked my way through the alphabet define who I am and what matters to me. There were a few words that I left out, not sure how to define them or write about them on that given day. A few words that I forgot.
4. My thoughts are clearer and more organized in the morning; but the end of the day brings it’s own truths.
5. Limits and structure can help things continue.

...

Today's lunch, about 90% local.

Wheat berries + roasted beets + kale raab + kumquats + hazelnuts + feta + olive oil and honey

k

knit, kitchen, kumquat, keep

Knit: making fabric by interlocking loops together.

Knitting soothes me. The flow of yarn from hand to needle, watching fabric grow. Second sock syndrome...the inability to finish the second sock because it is boring, just doesn't happen to me. I just want to keep knitting....

I haven't gotten this bad...yet. 

 

 

Kitchen: A room in a house or a building where food is prepared. This week I have cooked lentils, tamales (not from scratch, but locally made), snickerdoodles, and eggs. Other things happen in kitchen too, like trying out new rotary cutters. 

Cutting bias tape. 

Kumquats:  The smallest of citrus fruits, the peels are the sweetest part of the fruit.

I'd like to try growing a kumquat tree in a pot, moving it from outside to inside as needed.

Keep:  To continue, to hold on to, where something is placed. 

I keep trying to grow Bay but don't have much luck.  If I keep it in a pot and bring it inside it gets scale. If I try to find a sheltered spot outside, it eventually dies during a colder winter or gets wind burned.  My mother has much better luck growing bay in her hoop house. Maybe I'll just have to keep getting it from her?

learning through play

It's going to be a dark and stormy night...

Perfect for cookies,

(Cleaning out the pantry: pumpkin, dried cherries, candied ginger and walnuts.)

knitting,

(On row 31 of the sweater.)

stitching,

and a book to read.

Returning to reading Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit. 

While trying to figure out where I stopped, a caption I'd made for a bulletin board at work fell out of the book.  It was probably for a photo of children on one of the climbers.