"Wooded Acres: Townhomes and Condos for sale and rent"

They'll probably name the development something like that.  It makes me feel nauseous to even think about it. 

The land upon which Treeman's rented Civil-War-era farmhouse sits is being sold and parceled up by its owner, to be turned into 67 homes.  The house itself can't be bulldozed because it's considered "historic"... but it will only be left with 0.4 acres of land. 

The road through the development will plow right through the workshed and the garden beds surrounding it, filled with flowers... it will run up the hill and into the woods, probably taking out the tree in which they've built the platform at the start of their ridiculously high and long zipline.

On Friday night while sleeping under the bright moon, I dreamt about foxes.  On Saturday night, Action Figure Bob trekked off into the woods with his gun because a rabbit being killed by a fox had been screaming for 20 minutes and they couldn't stand to hear it anymore (he wasn't able to find the pathetic creature before it finally stopped screaming). 

On Saturday afternoon, Jeremiah and I chased a herd of deer, a dozen or more of them, through the woods in our bare feet, giggling as we ran over fallen branches and acorns. 

Where will all of these creatures go?  Where will the fox hunt the rabbit, and where will the rabbit run to hide from the fox? 

It's heartbreaking to think of.  The garden, the outdoor shower that I've enjoyed by torchlight, the firepit and the field in which two gentle giants of plow horses once grazed... this is the place where I've celebrated the Spring Equinox for the past three years, where I first lit up a fire hoop... Soon it will all be paved and landscaped, probably with that horrible red mulch, and torn down and built up and made to look like every other place...

Treeman will be moving this winter, before they break ground next Spring.  He can't stand the thought of seeing it happen, and neither can I.

Playa dreams and jelly.

... and here I am, awake.  I tried to sleep, got in a few hours maybe before waking myself up by talking in my sleep about "water dripping in through the roof of the tent".  I'm having Burning Man dreams on the regular lately.  Part of me longs to be out on the playa, with its spectacular sunrises and sunsets, it's vast open emptiness in contrast with the buzz and hum and burn of the city that emerges from the dust each year.  But, the other half of me breathes a sigh of relief at being home when I think of the dust, the heat, the dryness of that place... and of all the work it takes to get out there and survive it.  This weekend, we're going to visit Treeman, where we will cook delicious food, climb old trees, take a bubble bath in his clawfoot tub (we have no bathtub at our place... the hot tub helps but it's just not the same!), and be lazy like it's our job.  I can't wait.

I worked a 12-hour shift last night, and was pleasantly surprised to find that I really liked it.  Sure, waking up earlier and hardly even seeing my Honeybunch before going in at 7pm was a little rough... but it was really a pleasure to get to know my patients while they were awake.  I felt like I had so much more information to work with, such a greater understanding of the "big picture" surrounding my patients' current illnesses.  What a difference four hours makes!  Of course, by the end of it I felt like I'd been beaten with a baseball bat... but not so much more than I usually do to deter me from wanting to work 12's on a regular basis.

Tomorrow my To-Do list is as long as my arm, and includes making jelly from the fallen apples provided by my mom's trees, and finishing the green pepper jelly I have cooling its heels in the fridge.  I've never made (nor tasted) green pepper jelly, but Honeybunch claims to like it, and having bought a giant box of green peppers for ten bucks at the farm down the way and filled the dehydrator twice over already, I need to do SOMETHING with them besides munch on them with hummus.  I am not planning to add green food coloring, however.  I think that awful color is the main reason I've never tried the stuff!

Today, I...

... canned 6 more quarts of tomatoes.
... bought parsley when I meant to buy cilantro, and therefore got halfway through making salsa.
... dyed my hair flaming orange, just 'cause.
... found Samosa sleeping in the fruit bowl.
... gave a little lesson in vegetarian cooking to a lovely young lady who is new to the non-flesh way o' life.
... slept about two hours.
... found myself really looking forward to the end of summer (and the end of mosquitos).

Keep your fingers crossed...

...I'm requesting to be transferred to a new position at my hospital.  It is the Holy Grail of nursing positions.  Two days/week floating on the floors, doing things like admitting new patients, helping out the other nurses with random tasks, but not actually taking a patient assignment of my own, from 11am-11:30pm... plus one day/week taking an assignment on telemetry from 7am-7:30pm.  I wants it, oh do I wants it!!   

The HR department called me today to offer me full-time work... they wanted me to do three 8-hour shifts plus one 12-hour shift/week on nights.  I declined.  My commute to work is long, and ultimately I don't want to give up the flexibility that comes with working three shifts/week unless it's for the perfect job.  And to be quite honest... anything on night shift is automatically imperfect.  I'm tired of nights.  I'll keep doing it as long as I have to, but I can't tell you how much I miss sunlight, sleeping with my Honeybunch, and being able to relax with him over a glass of homemade wine when he comes home from work in the evenings. 

Plus, everything is just more difficult at night.  We only have one physician on staff in the whole hospital at night.  Our patient loads are enormous.  It's more difficult to get a hold of the supplies and help you need, should something be amiss.  There are fewer opportunities to teach, to get to know your patients.  They either don't want anything to do with you because they're sleeping, or they want everything from you all night because they're demented and frightened. 

So I'll put in for this position, and hope that they'll overlook my relative inexperience and choose to focus on the fact that I have awesome people skills that are being wasted during the nighttime hours. 

In other news, I'm hauling in loads of hot peppers from the garden... more sahuaros than I know what to do with.  Looks like I'd better get the dehydrator running again...

And so it ends...

... our tomato plants are officially dead.
Their withered brown stalks are dropping unripe fruit, and I have to give in and pull them out this week.  Sigh.  The heat and lack of rain this summer really killed 'em good.  One of the many lessons I've learned from this year's garden: use a soaker hose in the tomato plot. 

Facing Me

An experiment in self portraits from the Old Nichols Farm blog...

A change in perspective: winter.

I'm finding myself to feel differently about the seasons as I become more in tune with the natural cycle of the year.  I find my attitude changed most notably in regards to winter.  As I lay here in bed trying to stay cool with three fans blowing air around in our little Cave, I think about the sense of dread I've always felt as the summer ends... Fall moves in, but never stays long enough... and the bitterness of winter creeps up on the heels of October and kills all joy and light.  Winter has always meant death to me. 

Now, as the heavy harvest work of climbing fig trees and canning tomatoes peaks, I find myself looking ahead to winter with a sort of prepared anticipation.  I know that come February I'll be itching to have my hands in black soil again, with the sun beating down upon my back and the chickens panting in the shade of the fig tree.  But right now, I can see myself beginning to view the months of cold and dark as a time of rest. 

What will I do on my days off when there are no weeds to pull?  How will I fill the hours when our meals do not require the filling of a compost bucket with peels, cores and seeds?  Yes, I admit that as I spend these afternoons sweating in my kitchen and putting pounds of prepped fruits and vegetables in the freezer/canner/dehydrator, I find myself looking forward to the time when I pull out these stores, throw them in a slow cooker and call it dinner. 

I do not consider myself a lazy woman, but I do enjoy my hours of leisure, and the idea of having more of them is almost worth having fewer hours of sunlight.

Chip.

I deal with illness all the time, with dying, with coronary arteries and clots and S-T segment changes showing the suffocating death of those precious cells of heart muscle.  I observe, analyze, and act based on protocol and instinct, keeping calm above the clamor of it all, knowing that seconds are critical and that life hangs in the balance.  And then I go home, pour myself a glass of milk, feed the chickens, laugh with my Honeybunch, and play with my cats.  Life goes on for me, largely unchanged, after some person's body wages the battle of its lifetime against the inevitable.

And then it comes home.  It's an altogether different experience when those little waveform changes on the telemetry strip usher a friend of your found-family into their next life. 

He was a kind man, generous with his affection, treating us like long-lost niece and nephew, planning a piece of stained glass as a wedding gift, lending me books on conservative political ideology, ever reading, ever learning.  He'll be remembered, and his characteristic limp will missed when we gather around the bonfire to share stories, music and wine.  We raised our glasses of whiskey in your honor this morning, friend.

Friday Peach Party

I have a long weekend off from work, and yesterday I brought home a giant box of local peaches from the farm down the way.  They were super sweet, dead ripe and filled my car with a heavenly fragrance on the way home.  Knowing that they'd be mush in a matter of a day or two, I set about the hot, sticky work of preserving them.

First, I packed four quarts of halved peaches in light syrup to be saved for snacking during snowstorms.  Nomnomnom! (Ignore the date stamp on these photos, it is incorrect).

Then, I decided to make peach butter with a touch of vanilla and cinnamon... completely naive to the fact that it would take more than 6 hours of cooking down on the stove to go from 20 cups of this:

...to 14 cups of this:

By the end of the night, I was miserably hot and tired, and not wanting to see another peach ever again.  That's a problem, because even after all of that, there's still this left in the bottom of the box that was once overflowing with peaches:

However, by the time I woke up this morning, my loathing for the fruit had passed.  When it came time to devour my breakfast of french toast (made from homemade oatmeal bread, our girls' eggs, and local raw milk), spread with the bit of extra peach butter that wouldn't fit in the jars, I concluded that it had been indeed worth the heat, time, and effort.  Meals like that make me feel almost like I should be able to walk outside afterwards, hitch up my horse and go riding through the wooded acres of the farm we'll own someday...

The fig tree is pushing out colanders full of ripe fruit on a daily basis.  We're picking every day and freezing them whole to make jam and wine with at a later date.  It's unbelievable how delicious these are... and how I ever got by without a tree in the yard.

Our little rooster, Mr. Ethel, will be going to a new home today.  I was lucky enough to find a lady in need of a rooster to protect her little flock of bantam hens.  I'm very sad to see him go.  He's really a sweetheart, and a beautiful creature to boot.  I have loved watching him court the ladies... and watching him submit to Popcorn... even though she's half his size, she's still the top chicken in the flock and he runs from her if she charges at him! 

I know that at least a few of our younger girls will miss him, despite his very sudden and rude sexual advances.  Here he is with Lady Jane:

And in other chicken news, one of the young ladies has begun laying!  Beautiful little creamy light brown eggs.  They grow up too fast...

Apparently preying mantids also grow up fast... this dude was hanging out on the lemongrass yesterday evening... I'm thinking he was once of the little nymphs that hatched in the garden earlier this Spring, all growed up and purdy...

Incidentally Vegan Pumpkin Lammas Muffins

Today is Lammas, the Harvest Day.  I hadn't even thought about it until I saw a friend post on Facebook about it, but upon reflection I discovered that we were accidentally celebrating it all day long.  Yesterday I filled the vases in our home with sunflowers and Russian sage.  We started our morning with a breakfast of fresh blackberries, eggs from our girls, and freshly baked bread.  We were greeted by the amateur crowing of our flock's little rooster.  And this evening, I welcomed in the harvest season with our first pumpkin creation of the year.  I suppose these things happen when your eating in synchrony with the seasons.

Treeman lives in a small town outside of Baltimore.  It's a quirky place, full of neat little shops and cafes and boutiques.  Whenever we would visit him at his old farmhouse just outside of town, we'd go to a little place called Sarah and Desmond's for breakfast the next morning.  We'd get big mugs of strong coffee, veggie fritattas, and a Vegan Pumpkin Muffins.  The Vegan Pumpkin Muffin deserves capital letters.  It was truly the BEST muffin I have ever had in my life.  Words do not do it justice.  Unfortunately, Sarah and Desmond's closed down, and since we have been Vegan Pumpkin Muffin-less and in despair.  Until today!

Today, I fussed over the first pumpkin of the year from the farmer's market.  A little thing, yielding about 1.5 cups of mashed flesh after I'd chopped, skin and roasted it in the oven.  But the sight and smell of that lovely orange flesh, with its slippery seeds and warty exterior, made my heart skip a beat or two.  Fall is on its way.

I debated whether to make a soup, or a curry, or roast it with potatoes and rosemary.  But then I remembered the Vegan Pumpkin Muffin, and wondered if it would be improper to try to replicate such divinity in my very earthly kitchen.  I did a little research online, comparing existing recipes for pumpkin muffins (all of which called for pumpkin out of a can, which I found both amusing and sad).  Finally, I threw the stuff together in a bowl, filled the last of my muffin tin papers, and waited anxiously for the verdict.

It took all of my self control to pack up a few of the mini muffins for one of our neighbors.  Really.  It hurt.  These are vegan, but only incidentally so.  If you lack vegetable oil, I'm sure melted butter would be positively decadent in these.  Next time I'll experiment with replacing some of the sugar with honey... if you beat me to it, be sure to reduce the oven temperature by a few degrees to avoid over browning.

Incidentally Vegan Pumpkin Lammas Muffins ala Marlenah but Inspired by Sarah and Desmond's and Adapted from Various Recipes Found Across the Interwebs

1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp cardamom

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup mashed fresh pumpkin

1/3 cup vegetable oil

2 large eggs

1 1/4 cups sugar

A few tablespoons of cinnamon sugar

A few tablespoons of roasted pumpkin seeds for sprinkling on top

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Mix the pumpkin, oil, eggs and sugar together in a bowl until smooth.  Sift the dry ingredients together, then whisk into pumpkin mixture until well blended, but don't over beat!  Spoon into prepared muffin tins, sprinkle with pumpkin seeds and cinnamon sugar, and bake until puffy and golden on top, and a toothpick inserted in the center of each comes out clean.  Try to resist eating every last one in a single sitting.  Do your best.

4am

... and I am awake.
My sleep schedule is all screwed up.
I was awake at 8am yesterday, making breakfast and getting ready to hit the farmer's market up for some berries and greens.
Then I canned tomatoes. 
All.  Day.  Long. 
We now have a total of 16 quarts of tomatoes canned in their own juice.  My kitchen must have been 5000 degrees.  I decided that if I was gonna heat it up, I might as well bake a loaf of sourdough and roast the first pumpkin of the year while I was at it.  Yup, that was one hot kitchen. 

By the time I finished up in there, it was dark outside, and the heat had sapped the life out of me.  I needed water, and I needed sleep.  Just a little nap, before we head out to the party....
I awoke past midnight, and the party was pretty much 6 feet under by then, and my Honeybunch hardly stirred when I turned on the laptop and started perusing the many blogs I follow and haven't had time to read lately.

I ordered "Made from Scratch" by Jenna at Cold Antler Farm http://coldantlerfarm.blogspot.com/.  This woman inspires me on a daily basis, and I can't wait to read her book.  I can't tell you how many times I spend an evening in my apron and think, "Jenna would say that I am 'a very exciting young person' right now". 

The figs are starting to come in now.  We picked a handful or two for breakfast yesterday, and the tree is LOADED with green fruit.  Honeybunch and I are determined to make a serious amount of fig jam this year, as well as another 5 gallons at least of fig wine.  On Friday night, we enjoyed the last existing bottle of the fig wine we'd made at the end of August two years ago, when we were living separately and spent two weeks housesitting for Good Neighbors. 

It was our first experiment in living together, in sharing a kitchen, after only 4 months or so of (blissful) dating.  We baked incredible fig bread, made loads of fig jam, and brewed three gallons of fig wine that matured to a beautiful finish recently.  We dined together in that kitchen for every meal, and found that the two weeks we had together "playing house" ended too quickly.  Upon returning from vacation, Good Neighbor asked how living together had gone... and I told him, "I want to marry that boy."  Our friends toasted our engagement with glasses of that fig wine on Friday night, and everything felt as though it had come full circle.

I quit my second job last week.  Upon realizing that my orientation period would be requiring me to work double shifts (going straight from a night shift at the hospital into a day shift at the rehab) on a weekly basis, I decided that I'd like to keep my brain somewhat in tact and that I have enough going on at the one job right now to keep me quite busy and stressed out as it is.  Plus, I have the opportunity to pick up some 12-hour shifts at the hospital this month, and I'd like to see how I manage that schedule.  Ultimately, I'd love to work the holy grail that is three 12's in a row... so now is the time to start weaseling my way into that position if I can. 

Our rooster has started crowing.  I need to get to work on finding him a new home where roosters can be roosters without having the police called on them.  He thinks that one of the Barred Rock pullets is just about the sexiest thing he's ever seen, and she's taken to roosting in the fig tree at night to get away from him.  Sigh.  It's fun having a rooster in the flock, especially since he's a really sweet and beautiful one, and his pubescent antics do make me laugh... but we're not on a farm (yet), and we have to be pragmatic about these things.  I'll miss him though.