Also, please remember to switch your subscription if you haven’t already.

Thanks so much!

In:joy

I am going to take down this blog and create a new and improved blog!

You will still have fun insights about food, parenting, life and love.  I will not be moving the whole blog, but will be keeping some of the posts when I move.  Unfortunately, that means that we will lose the comments, but I know we will be able to have great and broader conversations at the new blog.

It also means that if you have subscribed (thank you to all of you!) that you will have to resubscribe at the new blog, which I will ensure will be easy.

I feel like this is the best decision so that I can create the best content for you and create the most success for me, and hopefully some of you too!

Thanks for your patience as I recreate the new blog.  It will be worth it.

In:joy

It tasted a little like salsa, which seemed strange as there were no tomatoes in it.  I ate it tonight with my dear friend BloodBeard on a beautiful omelette.  Between the two of us, we finished about 2/3 of the batch.  So, needless to say, it was a total hit and I will make more again.  YAY!

This week, has been lovely: super hot during the days and cool at night.  The day time heat inspired me to cook less and try more cooling foods.  As I am rather abundant in the world of cucumbers these days, I decided to try something that was mentioned in the book “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver (who is one of my inspirations in life).

Searching on the net I found a wonderful Martha Stewart recipe (of all things… really!).  I changed it around a bit and omitted the roasted beets because there was NO way that I was having the oven on 400 for 45 minutes.  Not even a little bit.

Here’s what I made

Meme’s Cool Cucumber Soup:

2T olive oil (for frying onions)

1 small and one medium onion, diced (you could use two small I’m sure, but I didn’t have any)

1 cube ground, frozen garlic scapes (you could use 2 cloves, or 6-8 fresh scapes too, but this is what I had around)

4 1/2 cups of sliced cucumbers, fresh from the garden if possible

1/2 cup water

1 organic lemon

1 1/2 cups non-homogenized, whole, organic yogurt (this is so freakin’ yummy!)

Instructions:

1. Saute onions and garlic (in whatever form you have it) in oil until translucent and soft, about 5 minutes.  Let these cool.

2. In a blender, whiz up yogurt, water, cucumbers and onion mixture.  I put the yogurt and water in the bottom of the blender because it allows for easier blending. This may need to be done in batches, depending on the size of your blender.

3. Put this mixture in a bowl in your fridge for at least a couple of hours.  I did mine all afternoon.

4. Add lemon juice and serve.

5. Bask in the refreshing tang of cool cucumber soup.

I fed this to three other people who all loved it.  It was not such a hit with little A, but she’s a little picky these days.  What can you do?

This, in all, took about 15 minutes to prepare and lasted me, and my friends, about four meals.  It is such a cool, refreshing snack too.  Did I mention it was cool and refreshing?   because it really is!

In:joy this summer’s heat!

Blessings

(credit for this image from this site: http://www.scottscales.com/ which is an MLM site, but, I like the picture)

So, I have been researching how to actually do this, because I am a firm believer in NOT reinventing the wheel, though I am also stubborn enough to actually try to every time.

However, it is much easier not to get the urge to reinvent the wheel when I know absolutely nothing about how to go about doing something, like say, making a living from blogging.

Luckily, there are people out there, like Leo Babauta, from Zen Habits, who actually do.  Better yet, they are willing to share their experience with others!  Isn’t that nice? I think it is, very nice indeed.

The reason why I’ve picked up on researching what Mr Babauta is doing is because his blog reached Time magazine’s top 25 blog list, with over 150K subscribers, and, he seems to be quite open about actually informing others what he perceives as keys to his success.

So, without further ado, this is what I have learned, thus far, about how to make a living blogging:

1. Write for your readers.  Make good quality posts that interests the people that you want to read your blog.

If you’re the kind of person who writes about music, then make your blog geared towards musicians.  For me, however, this is an interesting point.  I’m writing about my life.  Who is interested in my life, other than my family and friends?  How do I attract more people to be interested in my life?

Which brings me to the next point

2. Create a “brand”.

Not like, say, Coca-cola, but something that people come to know as “you”.  If you are writing about lawn ornaments, then you are the “lawn ornament person” and you need to establish yourself as such, not just within the lawn ornament community, but also the gardening, home-making and decorating communities as well.  To the point where if someone wants information about lawn ornaments on the web, they come to your blog, because it’s so darn informative and is consistent with what the readership believes they are coming to read about.

3. Read other people’s blogs and comment on them, linking back to your own site.

I like doing this, but sometimes fear getting lost in the blogosphere, because there are just so many amazing and interesting people in the world.

4. Try to engage with other bloggers in your “field”.

I put “field” in quotations, because I don’t really like looking at it that way.  I prefer the word community, but field is the word that is generally used.  So, if your “field” is personal development, then try to engage some well-known personal development bloggers who might think you’re neat-o and link to one of your posts.

5. Be kind and open to your readers.

This, for me, is a no brainer.  Even if/when people start saying mean things, they are still your readers and have at least taken the time to read your post.  Always reply with your voice in mind.  If you are writing a meditation blog, don’t tell someone off if they don’t like what you say.  It discredits your “brand”.

This is what I have learned so far.  There are other things, like design, ways to make your blogs more readable and all that jazz.  All of it can be found through this handy site that Leo Babauto and Mary Jaksch, called: A-list Blogging Bootcamp.  Most of it is free, and then there is some pay-for-membership stuff, that is community oriented.  I haven’t even got through the non-pay stuff yet, so haven’t signed up yet.  I encourage all of you to check it out, if you’re wanting to write a blog that makes you an income.

And, in light of all that, I am doing some serious soul-searching about what structure, focus, lay-out and image I want to have for this site.  I want it to be authentic and I also want it to be my financial sustenance. I hope to keep it personal enough that family and friends still want to come by, but informative and interesting enough that new people will want to stop for a visit too.

You can help with that by sharing this via Facebook, or Twitter.

Thank you for reading!
Blessings

The sad news is, unsurprisingly, my cucumber plants did not overcome downy mildew and are now in the final stages of the disease and will, most likely, be completely dead by the end of the week.  The happy part is, the cucumbers hadn’t all been affected yet, and so I got to harvest a giant bowl of them!  Most of them are too big for pickling, but I feel like I will probably ferment some relish instead and maybe make a nice, cool, cucumber soup.

(my dying cucumber plants, next to a healthy nasturtium and a healthy, but completely unproductive broccoli. I think it was planted too late)

The most exciting news is, after gorging on nitrogen and growing into bushes, with no fruits, one of my pepper plants has a glorious, baby pepper growing on it!  Hopefully it will be able to mature before the end of the growing season.

Another piece of exciting news is that my squash are reproducing now and I have at least two squash growing.  The sad news is it looks like they may have powdery mildew.  All this humidity is a real excitement for the fungi family this year.

(a baby squash with its glorious flower still attached)

My carrots, beets and peas have all sprouted, as have my basil seeds.  Calendula is still blooming, though I was able to pull up some plants that had obviously completed their life cycle.  If they have their way, my whole garden will be calendula next year too! Zucchini is easing up a little on the crazy production of fruits, which is fine by me as I’ve eaten more zucchini this year than ever before. 

(peas on the left and beets and carrots on the right)

The potatoes are seeming pretty happy and my fig tree is putting on foliage like crazy, which is awesome considering it got sunburned badly earlier this spring and lost ALL of its foliage.  So, maybe next year we’ll be able to get a good harvest of figs from it….

Another sad loss was my coriander seeds which seemed to have been removed/”maintained” by someone in my absence.  Instead of a beautiful bounty of many seeds, I came home to a small handful that was left on a seriously trimmed stalk.  So, I planted them in the space they were before and maybe I’ll get some cilantro out of it.

It was so nice to come home to the bounty of my garden.  I love it.  I love the picking, the weeding, the growth and the death.  All of it reminds me of how precious our food is, and how much effort goes into growing good, organic produce.  Today, I spent the morning with little A out there and came home with a big bowl of goodies.

(so, this would look better, but little A insisted that most of the cucumbers be photographed inside an unused dog poo bag.  so, imagine the bag brimming with luscious cucumbers.  Also, imagine a REALLY happy toddler, brimming with joy from the bag full of cucumbers)

Also, this year, I am learning SOOO much about gardening.  Books are great, but until you actually throw seeds into the dirt, there’s not much learning going on.  I am already planning my gardens for next year in my head, based on what I learned this year, and how much of what I actually like to have and eat.

Today, I learned how to make dogs out of balloons, with my daughter, my step mom and her sister.  it’s things like this that remind me of the pure joy of mothering. (We did, indeed take pictures, but not on my camera, so, until tomorrow, there are no pics… sorry!)

I love the pure experience of play.  Just being totally involved with the journey of playing, without any expectation of true outcome.  The balloons were blown and truly, the dog creation was quite secondary to the act of pumping the balloons, tying them and then playing with them without tying them to look like anything.

We seem to lose this in adulthood, looking towards results rather than experiences, goals instead of journeys.

I give so much thanks to my daughter for the experience of motherhood, the journey that it is, knowing that the true results will never be shown, as I will, hopefully, be long gone before she ends her life, and her children’s children will go on, all part of the journey we are experiencing now.

I like the free form of the journey, rather than the structure of results, for most things.  Definitely, little A’s life is so much based on experience rather than goals.  I find that when the I put goals in front of her, for many things, I find that she either forgets about the goal, or, once it is accomplished, she is fairly non-plussed about it, because it means that the game is over.

She knows that the game doesn’t end.  And she teaches me this all the time.

Blessings!

So, maybe Salt n Peppa didn’t ever think that their lyrics would be changed to talk about the exact opposite of their song “let’s talk about sex”.  However, I find it appropriate as the reason they wrote their song was to get something that no one talked about into the limelight.  The song was saying “HEY! this is something that everyone does and no one ever talks about it, let’s change that.”

I feel the same way about death.  It’s something that EVERYONE (and I mean everyone) does, and no one wants to talk about ever.

I like talking about death.  I like telling my daughter that her food came from the dying of plants and animals.  I like when we find road kill in the city and look at it.  I like explaining to little A about why the cats at grandpa’s house aren’t there anymore.

Is that weird? Unhealthy?

For me, talking about it all the time, integrating it into my everyday life, helps me cope with the inevitability of it.  It helps me process it so that when death of a loved one happens, I’m not so traumatized.  It helps me understand that this is not something that spontaneously happens in a sudden surprise, but is, in fact, happening all around us all the time.

(photo is copyright Neil Gaiman from his Sandman series)

I listened to an interview on CBC the other day, with someone from a village in some impoverished area of the world (missed the beginning on the radio).  It was heart-wrenching to me, but the woman was not traumatized.  She was, in fact, seemingly, happy.  One thing she said about all the death, when asked, was that she was surrounded by death everyday, it was nothing new.  For the interviewer, this was a horrible tragedy.  For me, however, I wondered at the mental health benefits of actually being surrounded by death everyday.

We are, of course, already surrounded by death.  We can’t escape death.  It is inevitable.  However, in our North American culture, people are put into hospitals and nursing homes to die, alone, without family.  Our meat is slaughtered away from us, in large factories, and packaged into nice little bundles that look nothing like the death that brought it to us.  Wars are fought far away, where our leaders can convince us that nothing but heroes and help is being administered by those benevolent soldiers carrying automatic weapons.

We do a very effective job of pretending it doesn’t exist, and then, when it suddenly happens near us, we are surprised, traumatized and unable to deal with it.

We are told to do all we can to avoid death. To live our lives carefully and without risk.  We sanitize and isolate our children from anything that might hurt them.  Often, we spend the end of our days sitting and watching life pass by so that we don’t fall over and die faster. With our fear of death, we can take the joy out of Life.  And then, what are we living for?

I intend that my daughter is raised understanding the cycles that we live in on Earth.  I want her to understand about death and rebirth.  I want her to understand that death an ending, but also a beginning.  That taking life gives life. And, ultimately, I want her to understand that it’s going to happen and we don’t have to be afraid of it, because we have our entire lives to come to terms with it.

How do you live with death?

Blessings!

(Photo credit: http://creative.ly/item/163223/2XtqM)

When expressed that way, I understand why there is so much fear around menstruating.

In our society where death is terrifying, definitely NOT acceptable, the monthly cycle of little death can conjure up some pretty intense reactions in people.

I remember when I got it my mother said something like “welcome to womanhood and the Curse.”  yup, the Curse.

Because womyn, in traditional Christian mythologies have done something horribly wrong and so they must bleed every month.

I believed that, for about 10 years of my bleeding life.  I had cysts on my ovaries, big balls of pain that rose and fell with my cycle, and so my first moon was in a hospital.  The following cycles were equally traumatic, though not with hospital visits, as I knew that the incredible pain was from inside my body and would not be going away.  The pain was monitored with slimy ultrasound sticks over bloated bladder and kept in check, at age 14, by the birth control pill.

Because I really didn’t receive much education about my body as a child, like most of my generation, and those previous, I figured that all of this was just good and normal and that I would be condemned to suffer, excruciatingly, every month, at the hands of my procreative system.  My mother and I coalesced into an ooze of sympathy for each other’s plight, as womyn, and that was it.

When I was 22, I was off the birth control pill for a couple years, based on discovering that it was actually a horrible thing to do to one’s body for prolonged periods of time.  I had been experiencing pain so intense, every month, that I was drugging myself with codeine just so I could function, even nominally.

That was around the time I met Elsa.  She was an empowered woman, studying Women’s Studies in University and was a wellspring of feminine empowerment.  She asked me if I would let her throw me a menarche party.

“A menarche party?” I asked.

And she went on to explain to me that in many cultures, a female bleeding was celebrated.  It meant fertility for the tribe, another person able to carry on the traditions and customs through childbirth.  It meant fertility for the land, as the blood would nourish the Earth and help the crops grow.  It meant, in some cultures, gained wisdom and insight.  A menarche party, then, was a celebration of all things bloody and menstrual, feminine and powerful.

My mind, as they say, was blown.

(not so much a mind being blown, but isn’t this a cute photo?  photo credit: http://livinglaboratory.blogspot.com/2007/03/period-period-period-you-are-ellipsis.html)

So, at age 22, I attended my menarche party.  We wore red, ate red food, talked about blood and bleeding while sitting inside a glorious womb that Elsa had create from deep red fabrics in her attic.

My perspective, thereafter, surrounding my body’s necessary expulsion of uterine lining every month shifted.  I remembered to celebrate my body, instead of curse it.  I remembered to focus on what this blood gave me, and my life, instead of what it took away.

Since then, I have come a long way. I still have cramps, but they aren’t nearly as bad; they haven’t been since that party.  I still get grumpy and tired and all the other things, but now I recognize it as part of a miraculous cycle. I still get anti-social and “bitchy”, but realize this is the urge to go inwards and learn from the little death that comes every month.

I love bleeding now. I am grateful every month that my moon blood greets me.  I gather it in my diva cup and feed it to my plants.  I sleep with a moon blanket to gather my blood off my bed.  I eat delicious chocolates and make love to myself to thank myself for the wonders of what my body does.

My friend Sarah says “Thank you.” every time she knows a womyn is bleeding.  Why? Because she knows that we all go, for those few days, to a place of darkness, where death is ever-present.  She knows that we walk, with our blood, through intense lessons, to bring them back an offer them to those willing to hear.  Because we offer our blood to the Earth.  Because we are moving through cycles so that human life can continue.

So, to all womyn, I say “thank you” for your blood.  May you all find ways that allow you to honour it, as the glorious gift it is.

Blessings.

I love the bounty of summer and I intend, this year, to preserve it more than ever before.  And, so far, I’m well on my way to that.  I am also trying to avoid the new, commercially inspired methods of preservation: canning with lots of sugar, pickling with vinegar, dehydrating with sulphites etc.

Last year, I was introduced to a magical book called “Nourishing Traditions” by Sally Fallon.  It changed the way I looked at food, and inspired me towards more traditional foods and methods of preparation.  One of the big changes is fermentation, which is incredibly exciting.

Fermenting foods, rather than preserving them in vinegar, enhances the nutritional value, populates your belly with amazing beneficial bacteria and tastes pretty delicious.  I started my experiments last summer in fermentation and, after reading “Wild Fermentation” by Sandor Katz, I was inspired to experiment even more!

Having discovered, last year, on the last week of pickling cucumber season at the farmer’s market that, indeed, fermented cucumbers are the most delicious pickles ever to exist.  Unfortunately, it was the last week, and I only got to experience one jar of the delicious tang of those lovely cukes.  I pledged that I would not suffer the same fate this year and planted three hills of pickling cucumbers this year with a vow to ferment as many as possible.

Curcubits, the family that squash, zucchini and cucumbers are a part of, are a prolific family, as I mentioned before.  They like to shoot out babies as fast as they can, and bless us with their bounty.  So, not only am I overwhelmed with pickling cucumbers, but also zucchini.

I like picking zucchini young, while they still have that tender flavour that melts in the mouth.  Too big and they become tough and watery, not really good for much other than zucchini bread, or, zucchini relish.  So, I decided that I would try some fermented zucchini relish with the one zucchini that evaded my eyes and grew past the tender point, and a little end of a zucchini that I had.

I started with the pickles and decided to add some garlic this time, from my dad’s neighbour’s garden.  HUGE bulbs (!) all organically grown and gifted to me (thank you Ralph).

The next thing you need to do is wash the cucumbers. Make sure all the spikey parts are off and that there is no left-over blossom clinging on to the end.

Now, because I live with a small person, who is generally not going to eat an entire fermented pickle, I cut the pickles into slices.  I also find that this makes it more efficient for space, as you can fit more sliced cucumbers into a mason jar than whole ones.  But, there is no reason you have to slice them, I just prefer to.  I also cut off the end, but, again, as long as they are clean and not with stem, you can put them whole into the jar.

After I sliced them, I stuffed them in a jar, in a clove of garlic and an oak leaf.  I have heard that oak leaves, cherry leaves and grape leaves can help fermented things from getting too mushy due to their high tannin content.  So, I threw one in, because mushy cucumbers are yucky. The oak leaf is not necessary either, but I thought I would see what difference it makes, versus my non-oak leaf cucumbers.

Next, I mixed cold water with about two tablespoons of salt into a pitcher, mixed and poured over the cucumbers until they cover the jars by about 1 inch.  It is important to note that, whenever you are working with ferments and water, your water must be non-chlorinated.  I am very lucky to be at my dad’s where non-chlorinated water comes out of the tap, but most of us either have to leave the water out for 24 hours, or boil it and let it cool, to allow the chlorine to evaporate.

Now, when I did this at home, I used smaller jars on top of the bigger jars as weights, to keep the cukes under the brine, but I don’t have those here, and they are really not necessary.  It’s good to check on them every so often while they ferment on your counter to ensure they are under the brine, otherwise they start growing lactobacillus on the top and it looks kind of gross, though is still edible. So, I just put the lid on, left it loose and put it on a corner of the counter, where they will ferment until I leave.

After cleaning up from the pickles, I decided to try zucchini relish.  I have never made regular zucchini relish before so I was at a bit of a loss as to where to start.  Luckily, the collective consciousness…errrr.  internet, exists, and I asked Google and was gifted with this beautiful post to work from.  I have no tolerance for spicy things, so I knew I was going to have to change the recipe to accommodate my personal tastes.  In the end I worked with this:

1 large-ish zucchini (use as many as you want)

1 chunk of red pepper

1 small spanish onion, fresh from the neighbour’s garden

1 clove garlic

mustard, chinese five spice, and all spice

Salt

I scooped out the seeds from the zucchini and cut the garlic, onion and peppers into chunks.  Then, I threw them in the food processor with the grating attachment on it, because, well, it’s SOOOO easy and fast.  You could do it by hand if you feel so inclined.

I then added the salt until it tasted nice and salty and flavourful, about a tablespoon.

I also added in a couple of oak leaves, to keep the texture firm.

Then, I ground up the spices in a mortar and pestle.  As I didn’t really know how much to use, I eye-balled it and am hoping for the best.  You may have noticed that this is how I cook, as there are no real amounts to this recipe at all. This is how much I used, for a reference:

I then added that to the mix and put it all in a plastic yogurt container, pressed on it until the juices come up over the top.  I would use a weight, but I don’t have one.  Weights make life better in ferments, but are not necessary.

In the end, I ended up with three litres of cucumber pickles and a yogurt container of relish.  I will let them rest on my counter until they are bubbly and then I will move them to the fridge (if you have cold storage you can use that instead) and eat them on all the most delicious things I can think of.

I am excited to give you an update as to how they all actually taste.  MMMMMM!!!

And, a special thank you to Dad and Sara for letting me use their fancy new camera.  I forgot mine at home and am glad that I could use theirs to make this post more interesting.

Blessings!

Yup, they are great.  My family is my dad and step mom and my mom and step dad.  My brother too, but he is all the way out in Victoria, so I rarely see him, unfortunately.  And, of course, my daughter.

This is pic of the Top Know Crew, my dad, step mom, little A and I sporting our top knots this spring

The reason they are thrilling is this: when I am with them, I am a better parent in many ways.  When I am with them, they, without asking, take initiative on helping me with parenting.  Instead of shying away with my screaming child, they come in and scoop her up into a thousand giggles.  They teach her things that I don’t, like how to play frisbee or how to play the piano.  Especially my birth parents, reflect to me so much of where I came from, how I can evolve our family and help me along in that evolutionary process.

They do some of the dishes, without ever being asked.  They cook nutritious meals, without ever being asked.

Now, this might not seem like a lot, but it’s the kind of support that I yearn for in a community.  Community has been my Holy Grail.  I have searched for a community that I could run away to the land with and raise our children together for as long as I can remember having independent adult thought.  I have searched all over this great Turtle Rock and have met so many amazing people.

All the galaxies shine with the beauty of the people that I have met, each an infinite star exploding its glorious light into the Universe.  I have learned so much from all of them.  Yet, when it came time for the vision to really ground, ie: when I had a baby, they were as distant as those star systems, only pinpoints of light in my vision, instead of the brilliant and nurturing suns I hoped they would be.

And that is where they were all at.  And I honour that.

And, I realize what a blessing my family truly is, because though they aren’t necessarily the most spiritually nourishing or socially conscious folks I know, they are ready, willing and HAPPY to assist me in the raising of my daughter.  And really, they have wonderful lessons too.

And while I know I can’t live with just them, I want to find some sort of middle ground, where I can be near them and also be with community, of some sort, as I still, naively or not, believe that solid people will actually be able to become a part of my community one day.

So that feels pretty monumentous, because I always thought I wouldn’t want to be near my family, that integrating them into my life would be like oil and water.  I feel like I am coming to a place where I believe that I can integrate family and community like a nice, smooth vinaigrette.

mmmmm creamy!

Blessings!