I wish there was a recipe

This picture, which I love, is a sort of a metaphor for this blog. Because when I press “enhance” in iphoto, which is my craftiest photo trick to date, the juniper tree becomes a gorgeous deep green but the robin becomes something dark and smeary. Which can be taken many ways, but I’m just saying I’m not that good with technology. Further evidence is that I put up a post Wednesday and instead of it appearing on my homepage as a new post should, it slunk way down in the old posts like it was in hiding. Which, maybe it was. I was a little nervous about posting it, a little vulnerable about sharing some of my more difficult moments.

And then I had a great talk with Erin Goodman about how perhaps people are craving vulnerability and realness even more than perfect sewing (and fermenting) projects.

This was on the heels of my friend Steph telling me the response of a successful life coach, who, when asked about her biggest regret of the past 30 years responded, “speaking negatively to myself.” When Steph told me that we both paused in the slushy snow of our stroll, because holy shit, who would we be and what could we do if we didn’t engage in any negative self talk?

So, I’m trying to interpret the subtle nuances between negativity and vulnerability. I think it goes sort of like this: I suck = negativity. I don’t know what I’m doing = vulnerability.

Thank you for your insightful comments (and e-mails) thus far on more like a labyrinth. Maybe I haven’t let on but this homeschooling gig requires a dumptruck-load of trust, daily. Do I seem fearless? Because I’m not. Sometimes I need 10 chiropractic adjustments an hour, my neck gets so jacked with tension as I’m helping Col write one sentence in his journal. This may be when I start imagining him as a 43-year old illiterate lego-savant.

I’d love to open my door each morning to the dumptruck depositing a load of trust on my lawn. But trust is manufactured on the inside. I just wish there was a recipe.

Also, in announcements:

* My next writing class starts 3/12 and there are still some spaces open.

* Fun new 6512 sidebar feature: good stuff on the worldwide web. Not sure if you can see this on your phone or rss feed.

* Ginger ale is done! Bubbly and sweet and disappearing fast down sweet little mouths.

Have a wonderful weekend!

weekending: the reason I go to bed at 9pm

5:25 am

(from outside our room) pitter patter pitter patter thump thump pitter patter slam.

5:26 am

(from inside our room) old bones creakily turning over, groaning, pillows placed over heads.

5:31 am

(inside our room) Col: (whispering) Mama? Can me and Rosie share that piece of chocolate Terrance gave me for Valentines Day?

Me: (calculating in head: the geometry of splitting mini chocolate bar into equal halves + hearty snarfing of previous contraband = 5 more minutes). Okay, just be quiet out there.

Col: (running out of room, shouting) She said yes!

5:34 am

The kids climb into our bed, chocolatey mouthed and having sprouted several more elbows.

Rose: (breathing hotly on my face) Mama, what’re you doing?

Me: Ummmnnnhhhm.

Col: Where does wind come from?

Me: Hmmmhhhmmnh.

Col: Does it come from planets?

Rose: Somebody tickle me!

Col: I think it comes from when gravity pushes up the snow and it flows really fast and makes wind.

Me: Honey, gravity holds things down, it doesn’t push things up.

Col: (huffily) Well sometimes it does.

Rose: Do you know my three most ticklish spots?

Me: Hmmmphmmmnnn.

Rose: Col woke me up.

Col: No I didn’t.

Rose: Yeah. Cause you kept flushing the toilet.

Col: Oh yeah.

Me: You purposely flushed the toilet to wake Rosie up?

Col: I wanted someone to play with.

Dan: (adjusts pillow on head) Can you guys talk about this somewhere else?

Rose: So. First there’s my neck, then my middle and do you want to know the very most ticklish place?

Dan: Maybe I should get up and go scour the neighborhood for antlers.

(first antlerless buck spotted in the hood yesterday!)

Me: Could you make coffee first, honey?

Rose: And tickle me?

8:15am:

Two days ago, still attached to this guy:

* if you’re new around here, you can catch up on antler-mania by reading about the antler collector and the great antler giveaway.

Also, an NPR spot I wrote on why deer and elk grow and then drop their antlers.

*** ** *** ** *** ** *** ** ***

What’re all the kids listening to these days? Ipods? Izods? After our old hand-me-down boombox from my grandmother broke last fall, we finally bought a new one with a few wooden nickels and some confederate dollars.

It plays my mixed tapes from 1988 and only weighs 300 pounds!

*** ** *** ** *** ** *** ** *** ** ***

A funny thing happened on the way to making pineapple vinegar. The geode I was using to weigh down the pineapple peels started dissolving. Luckily, Col’s buddy Mathew’s dad is a geologist, who assured me it was just the calcium carbonate which reacts with carbon dioxide (fermentation byproduct) to form calcium bicarbonate. Phew. I have a feeling it’s this sort of thing that scares people away from fermentation.

Fortified with calcium! 

*** ** *** ** *** ** *** ** ***

Baba and Nana are here for a week! Having the grandparents here is like a fresh wind blowing through the house carrying new currents of patience, love and gratitude.

The only other notable thing that happened this weekend was that Col and Rose had a dear friend sleep over, who peed voluminously in her bed, the amount of liquid you’d expect an elephant to void in the night. “Wow! I must have peed like three times!” she said, awed and completely unembarrassed.

Oh, and this just in. A text from my friend Kati who was over this afternoon with her son, Remi:  :::ALERT::: Rose may or may not have a clandestine stash of scissors somewhere. Remi’s new haircut looks fabulous, though.

How was your weekend?

ps: Apron giveaway winner announced on giveaway post.

The wild miracle of our lives and sponsor giveaway

Naturally, we like to dress up on the rare occasion that we go out to eat.

note to self: don’t thrust camera into hands of random woman on cell phone, lest she cut Dan’s antlers out of the photo.

How was your Valentines Day? I took Rose to our local candy store to buy some chocolate hearts for her preschool friends, and then like the festive mom I am, whispered to her as she was falling asleep: you have already forgotten the candy store exists. The truffles were enjoyed and Dan got me the watering can I asked for and a bottle of Irish Cream. All he requested for Valentines Day was a creme-filled pastry, which given the accompanying winks, must be a double entendre.

Also, I have another essay published on mamalode.com. It’s about Col turning seven and the improbablity of that sperm joining up with that egg and becoming this family that feels as immutable as stone, but really contains more chance than a night in Vegas. You guys have been great at helping me get paid, y’know, clicking and sharing. Thanks, again!

And, drumroll…new 6512 sponsor: KnitKnot and Gumdrop!

Liz, creatress of KnitKnot and Gumdrop is a Colorado, stay at home mom to 2 kids, 1 wonder mutt and a well loved coffee pot. She loves to create, travels with knitting needles, and can be found sewing during naptime and on evenings, knitting in coffee shops while listening to NPR podcasts. She and her husband hope to someday buy a chunk of land in Oklahoma and open a small-town knitting/craft shop where likeminded, yarn-loving folks can gather to drink coffee, sip wine, and knit.

We LOVE Liz’s aprons. Also, a face like that gets you twenty squeezes, five kisses and innumerable sighs of incredulousness.

Rose calls her apron a “kitchen cape” and feels very professional in it. The pockets are key.

“Coley, you’re supposed to put stuff in the pocket.”

Making bread at a recent homeschool co-op day (studying “hearth and home” because we make up our own subjects! Plus, you wouldn’t believe the opportunity for studying fractions in cooking.)

Knitknot Gumdrop is offering to one lucky commenter a free apron from her etsy shop (or custom made apron from her awesome fabric stash). Also, receive 15% off any item in her shop (the sun bonnets are insanely cute) with the coupon code 6512GROW. Leave a comment below to be entered in the giveaway. Giveaway closes Sunday 19th. 

Comments closed. Winner is Sabrina! Contact Liz via her etsy shop to pick out your apron.

Apricot walnut truffles and other acts of love

Here’s what I’ve noticed about these kids lately. How the world conforms to their beliefs instead of the other way around. It’s like that great quote by Erich Heller: Be careful how you interpret the world; it is like that. 

Which for Rose means there are flying ponies, which is also the animal she most wants to be. Also, being an individual boils down to what your favorite color is. And there is a sticker for every occasion, every single one: for getting out of the bath and helping your Daddy shave and weekend mornings and saying sorry. For Col, there is always an answer you can scrinch out of your brain if you think hard enough. The world contains no orphan questions floating unanchored to the solid port of answers. For example, where does wind comes from? It’s gravity whooshing up all the snow, which flows really fast, thus: wind. Also, parents and children don’t necessarily separate ever. Last week the kids and I were taking a walk and Col asked shyly, “Mama, do kids ever grow up and live in the same town as their parents?” “They do,” I answered, my heart somersaulting as I reached out for his small hand. Then he wondered, “but, do they ever live in the same house?”

And maybe you couldn’t tell but this post is about Valentines Day. About how easy it is to love these children. How, even though last Wednesday when I exhaustedly and grumpily declared it a nap day and sent the kids to bed with irritation puffing cartoonishly out of my ears, by the time Col woke one hour later I rushed to snuggle him, all the annoyance wiped cleanly away as if by a big, chalkboard eraser.

Because that’s how it is. Love at its best is like this crowbar that keeps prying your heart open wider and wider and you think it could actually burst but really it’s just expanding to contain more than you ever thought possible.

Apricot-walnut Truffles 

This recipe is easy. You don’t even have to turn on your oven. It took the kids and me about half an hour, start to finish. We kicked Dan out of the house because these are our Valentines Day surprise for him and at one point Rose, picturing the “getting kicked out” rather literally said, “I hope Daddy’s not getting too cold outside in the snow.”

Ingredients: (makes 20 – 25)

1/2 cup walnuts

1 1/2 cup apricots

1 tbsp honey

1 tsp cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp vanilla (or 2 tbsp rum)

3-5 oz solid good chocolate

Blend the walnuts in a food processor until crumbly, then add (slowly) apricots, salt, honey, vanilla, cinnamon. Process until well mixed. Roll with your hands into teaspoon-sized balls and place on wax paper lined baking sheet. Melt chocolate on very low heat. Roll apricot balls around in the melted chocolate with a spoon and lift out onto waxed paper. Chill in fridge for 20 minutes. Devour…I mean, save for Valentines Day.

aprons from this new sponsor - giveaway coming soon

naked truffles

the inevitable

I love how fancy they look, and how your mix could include anything: peanut butter and honey, walnuts and dates, coconut and rum, or sauerkraut by gum! Store in fridge or freezer.

How do your children see the world?

you get what you need

The kids are next door at the neighbor’s. I am stirring a pot of soup on the stove – the kind we call “everlasting soup” that gets reinvented every night with a new vegetable. It’s twenty degrees outside and the sun is inching low in the west, poised to inject the clouds with pink magic.

I might as well have selected “melancholy mix” tonight on Pandora, what with Paul Simon crooning “Many’s the time I’ve been mistaken, and many times confused,” while the sun signs off for another night. I can hear Col and Rose and half the neighborhood kids shrieking happily next door while I stir my lonely and spattering melting pot of all the vegetables contained in the nation of our refrigerator. And there’s this cliche whooshing through my mind like wingbeats in a quiet sky. It goes so fast.

Maybe it’s that it’s winter and the outside world is open for business so briefly each day. And even once we’re suited up in our acres of layers, ready to venture outside, I feel a little like a shady real estate agent bringing Col and Rose to the frozen backyard. “Well kids, would you look at how that ice positively shimmers!”

Or maybe it’s that I actually miss the small people who’ve spent much of the day requiring the largest slice of my pie graph of patience. These small people who just traipsed out the door leaving the words, “can we pleeeeease go play with the neighbors,” hanging in the air like a portent of things to come.

“Don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered, or driven to its knees,” Paul Simon ratchets up the sorrowful lament while I stir the soup with the microphone of my spoon. I remember anticipating the day that Col and Rose would be able to run independently with the neighborhood gang. For so long it loomed shinily on the far horizon of motherhood summits. And now it’s here.

And I love it, I do. I love that instead of paying babysitters while Dan and I try to have the cheapest date possible (yes, that was us eating a picnic dinner down by the river this summer), now we simply set up playdates with other families where nobody pays and everyone wins.

And this middle childhood—between the toddler years and the teen years—is like a sunny land-bridge spanning two stormy oceans.  Col and Rose are still so fundamentally sweet. Also, they think I know everything. Recently I was giving them a primer on yogurt-making, going on ecstatically about how the bacteria transform the milk into yogurt, and how—can you believe?—we have the same bacteria in our bodies that makes the yogurt! And then I mentioned that the bacteria were like little animals, but not actually animals, but not really plants either, but certainly alive.

“Well, what are they?” Col stops piecing legos together to ask.

“Well, I don’t actually know, they’re -”

“Of course you know. You studied the human body.”

“No, not really.”

“Sure you did. You taught us about it.”

“Sweetie, I studied blood so I could teach the homeschool co-op. If the human body was a glass of water, I studied one tiny drop.”

“Wellllllll,” Rose puts her hands on her hips, “you do know about some animals. You know about monkeys.”

Today the kids interrupted my shower to ask if they could eat their chocolate hearts before breakfast. Well, no. But at least they asked! Someday they’ll be tossing back low-quality booze in ridiculously large bottles in a park, if they’re anything like me at 16.

Rose streaks through the door, gulping huge mouthfuls of air while explaining, “we need our stuffed animals for the party!” She grabs sealy, baby sealy, rammy and polar bear and runs out the door, but her happiness and exuberance linger like perfume.

Paul Simon is followed by The Rolling Stones, warning me, you can’t always get what you want. Yes it’s true, but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.

* Ginger-ale fermenters: 2nd step now up and photographed!

more like a labyrinth

Sometimes I see my kids’ lives as these orderly timelines, where say, potty training is a neat little check mark somewhere between ages 2 and 3. But really it’s more like climbing a mountain called Potty Peak. There you are, your backpack full of extra clothes and plastic bags. You’ve finally reached the alpine zone, that breathtaking treeless expanse from where you can look back on your trail, which includes 2,867 or so diaper changes. You’re so close you can touch the peak, except—whoops!—as a customer at a local cafe announced, loudly, 4 years ago: “soggy bottomed boy in the train room.” Yes, that would be my soggy bottomed boy.

And you know we’re golden with potty training now, but the mountains of childhood keep rising up. And I’m realizing that what looks like a mountain to be climbed is more like a labyrinth to be walked. Labyrinths, unlike mazes, have no dead ends, just a single path leading to the center.

Which is to say that while many things come easily to Col (building traps and drawing sea serpents and caring for his avocado plant), reading and writing do not, which is okay, this is our labyrinth.

Last week the kids were making valentines for their cousin Peter, and Col said, “I’m just going to draw a little picture before I write some words,” which is like cuing the scary music that foreshadows the ream of crayoned-on paper enveloping the house, smothering the mother who is wondering aloud, from underneath an tsunami of paper, “are you ready to write some words now, honey?”

And really what happened is Col made this amazing dragon with 3 sheets of paper that he cut and taped and colored, scissoring a spiky little tail and a mouth full of sharp teeth, and then requested that we hang it from the ceiling.

And part of me is like, “you go on with your artistic self, little guy.” And another part is like, “wow, that was an elaborate undertaking to get out of writing a few sentences.”

And this is how it is right now. Col finds it incredibly frustrating that the double o’s in book are pronounced one way, whereas the double o’s in hoop are pronounced entirely differently. He gets sort of narcoleptic when you put a book to read in front of him, rubbing his eyes and careening into my lap. But, he can build a perfectly accurate and symmetrical lego helicopter without ever referencing a picture. If you gave him 5 random objects from your junk drawer, chances are he could fabricate 10 different things, half of which could be useful, at least to him and his sister. I can’t recall him ever being bored.

I think sometimes homeschooling, or perhaps “unschooling,” is depicted in this way where kids are given complete free reign on their education and thus learn everything they need to know. I pictured Col delving into geometry at 14 while I hung another batch of curds in a cheesecloth and the orchestra played: if it’s not fun, why do it? 

But you know, sometimes the orchestra plays: language arts are stepping stones to entire worlds of learning. Other times the tune is: children bloom in their own time. And both are true. Childhood is not something to rush through, and the joy of discovering new skills has an equally sweet taste as the joy of mastery.

And so, Col works on reading and writing in some form everyday, while I work on relaxing and trusting; and there’s always plenty of time for legos and art.

after the storm: walk in the woods

It hadn’t snowed much this winter, and then pow-pow-pow (so to speak), the snow has been coming down. And it’s funny, aside from the occasional cross country swishabout, I don’t ski, but I cheer for snow just like the multitudes of locals who drop everything (including work) for a powder day.

I love how the snow cinches the town in tight and everything feels smaller and closer. I love how smack in the middle of a snowstorm, it feels warm, the snow glittering down, muting the hard edges. I love the differentness of it – how everything is subtly transformed; and I love that inside every snowflake is the potential of spring growth.

I took a walk, alone, yesterday, and felt giddy and grateful and completely blown over by the way snow settled on the thick branches of a juniper, or the contrast of a snowy hill against the blue sky (it is possible I was a little punchy after spending all day inside with the homeschool co-op).

there’s my house down there!

pinyon pine with lumps of snow!

old mama juniper

wild mustard with flowerbuds!

Thanks for indulging all my snow-nerdiness; back soon to our regularly scheduled programming of children and fermenting, or perhaps something completely new: fermenting children!

xo,

Rachel

after (and during) the storm: homestead

 

after the storm

9 large bull elk, morning Feb 3rd

Have a fabulous weekend.

fermented ginger ale

Lets make fermented ginger ale together!

Because it’s fun and easy and sparkly and delicious and delightfully mad scientist-like and you can teach your children about microorganisms (which, incidentally, outnumber our own cells nine to one). This will be an ongoing post and step by step tutorial, which I will update with photos and info as our collective brews ferment.

everything you need: ginger, sugar, lemons (you can use honey, it’ll just take a little longer to complete). *the yeast does eat up much of the sugar.

toasting to a life filled with simple celebration

When you make ferments, it’s like having a trillion back up singers on your kitchen counter gurgling fizzy doo-wops to your good health. I love holding a jar of bubbling ginger ale up to my children’s ears – it’s even more compelling than sticking their ear in a seashell. “It’s alive!” I tell them, lauding my own biochemistry skills, finally redeemed from placing in the high school remedial chemistry class.

Recently—in the middle of teaching our homeschool co-op at my house—I downed a half pint of fermented ginger ale, which had, whoops!, gone alcoholic. (Yeast eat sugar and burp out alcohol. The more sugar consumed, the more alcoholic the brew). This was not an unwelcome error, although Rose, who had been helping me feed the bubbly jar fresh ginger and sugar daily, parked her hands on her hips when she heard the ginger ale was no longer rated G and said, “that’s teasing me, Mama.”

We made this boozy ginger ale in the “you build it they will come” model, trusting that if we left a sweet treat of ginger, sugar and water on the counter, the wild yeasts surfing the air would touch down, like Santa Claus to a plate of cookies. And they did.

This is how:

Fermented Ginger Ale

~makes 1 gallon, takes 2-3 weeks~

Ingredients:

9 tbsp fresh ginger root, 1 1/2 cups sugar, 2 lemons, water

1) Start “ginger bug:” add 2 tsp grated or finely chopped ginger (okay to include skin) and 2 tsp sugar to one cup water. Stir and leave in warm spot (okay to put in direct sun) covered with cheesecloth to allow wild yeasts to enter but not flies. Add this amount of sugar and ginger daily until the bug starts bubbling, about 3-7 days (the warmer it is, the quicker this happens).

it’s such hard work, playing and napping and grating the ginger for the family hooch; actually I’ve only had one batch come out boozy, all the rest have been sparkling, kid-friendly and gingery sweet, but I keep whispering prayers to the wild yeasts to repeat that clever trick.

ginger meets sugar

ginger meets sugar meets water (I used a perforated seed-sprouting lid because my cheesecloth was straining cheese today; I’ve also used a paper coffee filter with some larger holes poked into the paper) 

This is the next step (yes, just two steps!) which we’ll be getting to in about a week:

2) Once bug is active (bubbling lightly), boil 2 quarts of water and add another 4-6 tbsp fresh grated or finely chopped ginger root, and 1 cup sugar. Simmer for ten minutes. Let cool. After mixture has cooled, strain the ginger out and add the juice of 2 lemons and the strained ginger bug (you can also leave a small amount of bug as your starter for your next ginger brew, which we’re pitching some champagne yeast into, right?) and enough water to make a gallon. Place in individual, sealed bottles or one gallon bottle. Let the ginger ale ferment further for 2-3 weeks. Open and enjoy!

For the next week: keep your jar where you’ll see it to remind you to feed the bug, but if you miss a day, that’s okay.

Are you in? Leave a comment letting me know, and feel free to leave questions in the comments too.

UPDATE:

Hi Everyone, how are your little bugs coming along?

When mine looked like this, I decided it was time for Step 2.

subtle bubbles around the edges is what we’re looking for, like so.

Remember to add the lemon in Step 2; it makes it so unique and balances out some of the sweetness.

And there she sits, for the next 2-3 weeks in a warm spot, surrounded by lego friends.

Conclusion:

After 2 weeks of the secondary fermentation process, my brew is bubbly, sweet and gingerlicious. I snuck and used honey instead of sugar in step 2, and it worked great.

Happy fermenting!