bee creative

cooking with quince

Those of us that have cooked with quince will appreciate this trick (I realize we are few). 

Cut quince into chunks and place in water, bring to a boil and simmer until a fork can pierce the fruit but not so long that it gets mushy.

Cool.  Strain and reserve cooking water. Peel and Core, save all parts.

Add peeled fruit back to the cooking water and continue.

In my case, I was making quince paste. This is the tiny bit I scrapped out of the pot to put on a piece of french bread toasted with cheddar cheese. 

What happened to the peels and cores? They went back in the pot with more water and were cooked until the water thickened due to the remaining pectin and turned pinkish.  Quince are very high in pectin.  The fluid was strained from the pulp and reserved as a "nectar." I added a bit of honey for sweetener.  Perfect for a sore throat. The tip about making nectar is from Deborah Madison's cookbook, Local Flavors. 

hope filled day

7:06 AM, just about sunrise, out opening the hatch for the chickens.

It's icy. 

Forecast is 4 days of sunshine and then rain, rain, rain. 

Today I will make sure there is nothing holding water or that can gather winter rain.  I tend to forget to empty things before a freeze and then they crack. 

I will plant garlic and a few bulbs.

I will mulch things...especially the mini bog garden. 

I will clean the leaves off the deck and tidy up.

I will strain off the water, smash the cones to see if I can find some seeds, add the cones back to the water and then heat to see if a deeper color will result.

Inspiration from this photo by Sasha Duerr. 

I will think of Grace wandering among the animals that need love. How beautifully she shares a tragic situation.  Of the word "empathy."

I will read some more and plant paper whites.

The first sentence... "I am stockpiling antibiotics for the apocalypse, even as I await the blossoming of paperwhites on the windowsill in the kitchen."

Along with approximately 1500 other people (a sold out venue), I listened to Anne Lamott read from her book, talk and answer audience questions.  She is funny in the smartest way, in the saddest way.  I have yet to finish any of her books completely but know that I want to read many of them. Her TED talk is here.

It was a beautiful night.

I will also knit some more.  This is my current, bus-lunch break-middle of the night when I can't sleep knitting.

And I will go to the farmer's market because that's what I do on Saturday's. 

7:57 AM, the sun is coming up now over the horizon. 

silence

I fell into silence again.

Maybe it's the darkness. The days are definitely shorter.  I am very aware this time round that we are in the dark of the moon. 

There is a small garbage can full of walnuts fermenting away on the back deck.  Lid tightly closed to keep the squirrels out. 

Silk shirt (purchased at thrift store for 5 dollars) dyed in sumac. 

I also found a pair of white jeans that promptly went into a not working so well indigo vat, followed by a dip in the walnuts, and then after drying out a bit; is now back in the walnut vat. 

On the left is a tank top that I made, dyed in the indigo vat (with better results but splotchy) that also took a dip in the walnuts.  It's still drying on the line and will be washed soon. 

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Several years ago I bought a copy of A Book of Silence by Sara Maitland.  I've dived in and out of it but haven't read the whole thing yet.  I think it's time to start.  A part that caught my attention...

"But the horizon line of the hills abided...  Whenever I sat to meditate, there was the clear, clean line that divides earth and sky and also unites them.  That line was constant.  It emerged out of the dark in the first dawn light and was swallowed back into the dark at nightfall.  Above the line, infinity, below the line, mortality.  But the line itself was both and held them both, and the wind blew along it, fresh and free like the passage of the spirit." 

This wasn't the quote that I went looking for this morning, but after seeing Jude's post today, seemed most appropriate. 

 

goodbye summer

"Everyone is an artist. Each person brings sound out of silence and coaxes the invisible to become visible." John O'Donohue, Anam Cara

Sometimes it's easy to get lost in silence but really there are still things to say.

 

fieldnote #52

Red toned fabric is cotton soaked in whey and dyed with shallot skins. The brown fabrics are cotton and silk soaked in an aluminum pot with raspberry leaves.  Experimenting with the Butterfly bush next.

Dawn 5:41 AM Dusk 8:52

The first bird that I heard this morning, just before dawn was a hummingbird. I wonder if she is sleeping in the butterfly bush? She has been there the last couple hours of the day. Sometimes a second hummingbird. They chatter a lot.

“Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, the world is meant to be celebrated.” Terry Tempest Williams

If I ever had to choose 5 books that were my “must keep”, When Women Were Birds would be one of them. Just don’t make me choose the other four....

 

New at the farmer's market this week: artichokes and apples

Meals prepared, projects made, what is happening in the garden. It’s in the noticing, making and mending that field notes are documented.  

I'm done with the online conference, still processing all the wonderful ideas and information.  I"ll start sharing some of my reflections tomorrow because play is for adults too.  

field notes #47

Food for thought:

"No one likes to lose, and most healthy people live their lives to win. The only variation is the score we use.  For some it's money, for others it's fame or awards.  For some it's power, love, a family or spiritual fulfillment.  The metric is relative, but the desire is the same."

Simon Sinek

 

Noticing more Swallowtail butterflies this year.

Wouldn't it be nice to keep score in raspberries, flower petals, butterflies, and chickadees?

I'm reading Simon Sinek's book Start with Why as a bit of a homework assignment. Thinking a lot about why.

P.S. I'm pretty sure if someone asked me to describe what clean smells like to me I'd say honeysuckle...

 

joy

Of course I loved it.

This weekend I listened to an On Being podcast with naturalist/writer Michael McCarthy.

Well, in fact, you’re right. If we look, what is joy, I say it’s an intense happiness; yes, it is. But it’s somehow one that is set apart. It’s not the same as fun, or even delight. We don’t use it to define our pleasure in eating a particularly well-made pizza. But we might well think it was appropriate to describe the feelings of a parent finding a missing child, finding them safe and well, or the feelings of a lover whose love for another person has long been unrequited but who, at last, finds it being returned. All I say is that joy looks outward to another person, to another purpose; and I say that joy has a component, if not of morality, then at least of seriousness. It signifies a happiness, which is a serious business.

 

Last weekend I saw this wheelhouse of an aging fishing boat.

Thinking about how ferns and moss, among other things, will often grow on nurse logs...

 

 

 

 

in general

Just started reading Creativity by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.  In chapter one he brings up specialized knowledge and generalized knowledge. 

Specialization scares me a bit.  I don't think it brings much to sustainability and resiliency.  It's part of my motivation to...

Sew...mostly practical stuff. I've now made at least one item of every piece of clothing that I wear. Still adjusting fit on the last sewing project so not quite ready to put it all together in one outfit. 

Make and work with yarn.

(Done with the increases, half way through this sweater!)

Garden...for food, medicinal plants, color/dye, wildlife and joy. Eventually for baskets too. 

Beet/apple soup, pretty & tastes good if you like beets and apples.

Calendula salve

Cook and make other care-giving items from the garden hopefully, or locally and/or from small businesses.

And find joy and beauty where I can. 

r

One of the words I cherish most is resiliency, the ability to cope and survive, both on an environmental level and an emotional level. Resiliency speaks of flexibility and learning to work with what is available.

It’s about survival.

Resiliency resembles sustainability but is not quite the same.

Local seed company, Uprising Seeds

Resources: What resources are available to us? How do we use our resources? More questions...

Recipes: Recipes are suggestions only, guidelines. An opportunity for a creative act.

love that this recipe calls for a slow oven...

Red: "Roses are red, violets are blue.  Sugar is sweet and so are you!" Most of my roses are actually pink. 

Rain: It’s that time of year when one of the most popular things to do is complain about the rain. I’m working on resisting this and remembering all the good things it brings us. So glad there is sunshine in the forecast for Saturday though!

 

o

Organize, orange, olive, oregano, onion, organic

Organize: to arrange things, usually by type or in an order.

Sometimes it is a challenge to get dinner organized.

Clockwise from top: orange, olive, onion, oregano. 

Organic: grown without chemicals. 

Plus whole wheat pasta, feta, walnuts, and olive oil.

Oh my, I want more! 

In honor of "O" tonight I'll read the first chapter of The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery