• letting go

    For the past couple months, my younger son diligently tended to Chomper. He fixed him up with a variety of homes, researched turtles (sometimes obsessively), and plied him with raw liver and oatmeal and lettuce. Although Chomper seemed to be doing just fine — burrowing in the sand, swimming in the water, scampering about and exploring — never once did we see him eat. And then I noticed that he seemed to be getting smaller.

    “You should probably set him free,” I said.

    My son did not like that idea, not one little bit. So we did more research, learning about special lights and water filtration. He begged to be allowed to buy the necessary equipment, but I said no. “If you want a pet turtle, you need to get set up first and then get a turtle.” Because I wasn’t about to let him spend lots of money on a pet that probably wouldn’t make it.

    When my son persisted in digging in his heels — but I wanted a pet turtle! — I turned blunt. “He’s going to die,” I said. “The kind thing to do is to set him free. That’s the only way he’ll stand a chance.”

    For several days, my younger son was tearful and sullen, and then, one day last week, he finally agreed to set Chomper free.

    We drove over to my parents’ place, my son holding the wriggly (a good sign!) Chomper in his hands the whole way there, and parked the van by the little creek at the foot of their drive.

    When my son set Chomper down, the little guy immediately made a beeline for the water. Of course, the current tossed him upside down and carried him off, but my son scooped him back up, found a nice muddy spot along the shore, and set him on a sunny leaf.

    While Chomper sunned himself, my son fixed a little shelter out of leaves and twigs. The house finished, Chomper crawled right into it.

    We stood there for a bit, watching. My son cried. He agreed that he knew he was doing the right thing, but still, he was so sad.

    And then, after a few minutes more, my brave little boy waved good-bye to his pet, and we scrambled back up the creek bank and drove home.

    This same time, years previous: growing it out, the quotidian (10.25.11), tales of terror and woe, buttermilk pancakes, apple tart with cider rosemary glaze.

  • 2017 garden stats and notes

    This year, I had every intention of doing a better-than-normal gardento save on money! to reduce our carbon footprint! to cut down on our pesticide consumption!but it didn’t go so great. We planted green beans not once, not twice, not thrice, but four times, and even then, only bits and pieces of a few rows made it. We plodded along, picking a little here and a little there. It wasn’t nothing, but it wasn’t great, either.

    And then we didn’t pick the sweet corn in time. (Alice was decimating the corn patch, but we thought she was just picking it young because she didn’t know what corn was supposed to taste like. Turns out, the corn was ripe.) Also, the peppers, basil, and tomatoes got frost-bitten (I planted too early, my bad), the kale got eaten, the tomatoes got a fungus, and the strawberries drowned in weeds.

    So, all in all, it was a fairly ordinary year.

    Sigh.

    Stats:
    Rhubarb, chopped and frozen: 1½ gallons
    Strawberries, sliced with sugar: 19 quarts and 2 pints
    Strawberry freezer jam (4 batches): 9 pints and 4 half-pints
    Sour cherries from our trees, frozen: 20 one-cup bags and 8 quarts
    Sweet cherries (picked 33 pounds for a total of $61): 7 quarts canned with sugar, and 9 quarts frozen with sugar
    Zucchini relish: 7 pints
    Swiss Chard, steamed: 7 eight-ounce bags
    Green beans, frozen: 36 quarts and 1 pint
    Sweet pickles: 6 quarts and 2 pints
    Corn (overripe), frozen: 28 quarts
    Roasted Tomato and Garlic Pizza sauce: 25 pints, 1 half-pint
    Blueberries (ordered from afar, 4 scant gallons for a total $80), frozen: 27 pints
    Nectarines (4 bushels at $32/bushel): 41 quarts canned, 5 quarts frozen, 12 pint bags dried
    Tomatoes: 31 quarts, 5 pints
    Peaches, Glohaven (2 bushels at $32/bushel): 23 quarts
    Salsa: 49 quarts, 6 pints, 1 half-pint
    Roasted tomato sauce: 33 pints
    Grape jelly: 9 pints (weak), 7 pints and 17 quarts (good)
    Grape juice with (⅓ cup per quart) sugar: 6 quarts
    Grape puree: 7 three-cup freezer boxes
    Applesauce: 2 bushels Lodi for 40 quarts, maybe (I forgot to record this) and 2 bushels of Super Gold, Golden Delicious, and Stayman for 39 quarts

    Oh yeah, and TWO BEEF.

    Notes:
    *The children are at the age where they can be counted on to do much of the picking. My older daughter, especially, picked a huge portion of the sour cherries, green beans, and strawberries.
    *Skip the fancy heirloom cucumbers and get one basic kind. Plant a lot of them, in a row (as opposed to mounds). And then do at least 14 quarts of sweet pickles. Because potato salad is so much better when loaded with tons of chopped sweet pickles.
    *Hopefully we’ll have enough salsa! (My husband thinks we should reduce the garlic a little. I don’t agree.)
    *Finally, we like our grape juice, because I’m adding plenty of sugar (in the form of a simple sugar syrup) to the jars before topping them off with juice.
    *Next year, buy four bushels of Lodi apples to turn into sauce. It’s our favorite, now and forever, amen.
    *The strawberries are slowly killing us. We can’t seem to stay on top of the weeds. It feels like a losing battle. Are we doing something wrong?
    *I didn’t do any pesto because I had a bunch left from last year. Even had about a whole pesto torte left over!
    *Our tomatoes, especially the juice ones, get hard white spots. A fungus, yes? They are still edible, and perfectly fine for canning, but they’re not the most attractive. Maybe we should plant in a different part of the garden next year?
    *Peppers got nipped by a frost. Totally underwhelming.
    *On recommendation from a friend, I planted Red Russian kale. It was deliciousso sweet!but then it got utterly destroyed by some super-aggressive bugs. Oh well, the chard, at least, never wavered.
    *Next year, watch the dogswhen they start stealing the corn, it’s time to pick.
    *I LOVE BEEF.

    This same time, years previous: the quotidian (10.24.17), our cracking whip, aging, boy in a blue dress, brown sugar syrup, love, the Tooth Fairy.

  • the quotidian (10.23.17)

    Quotidian: daily, usual or customary; 
    everyday; ordinary; commonplace



    The last piece.

    Mystery photo: can you guess?

    My older son gave this to me for my birthday. 
    And then my younger son quipped,
    You should drink your coffee from that mug, Mama. It will help you focus.
    She doesn’t always glower.

    Just most of the time.

    Blue (the color, not the mood). 
    “Reasons why I love you” birthday sign, from the youngest to the oldest.

    Look at me! I’m on the cover of Time!
    Sunday morning.

    Hot air, directed.

    This same time, years previous: impressing us, three feet, winter squash soup with corn relish, field work, the reading week, random, the quotidian (10.22.12), breaking news, a silly supper, how to have a donut party, part III, moments of silence.