Busy Hands Homestead

The sun is shining. The air has a hint of briskness. The ash trees are a multitude of colors; purple, yellow, orange, red with a few stragglers still in the green of summer. It is sandals and sweater weather. I hear phantom dog tags and padding feet behind me everywhere. I am pushing the stroller, hoping desperately that the children will be lolled to sleep. It has been one of those days. After two hours of climbing in and out of bed, drinks of water and trips to the bathroom I finally tell Ivory to put on a pair of shoes and climb into the stroller in an attempt to save what little is left of my sanity. Sylvan drifts off first humming to himself, and I realize Ivory is slumbering as well when the hand clutching her pink leopard finally relaxes. I walk past the tent city that is rising up in front of our court house. The drum circle sneaks a little dance into my step and for the first time today I feel the dark cloud that has been hanging over my head lift ...

Everything is wet. The bright yellow, red and green leaves against the black branches have a psychedelic crispness. The grasses and shrubs brush against our legs and drops splash against us as we push our way along narrow paths winding their way along the river. It has been raining daily, and we piled into the car to check on one of our mushroom spots. We are looking for Shaggy Parasols. And we find – nothing. The pine needles lay wet and undisturbed. We wander on, looking for nothing in particular. We find a white, branching fungus growing like tiny candelabra out of a fallen cottonwood logs. We walk past giant shelf mushrooms, glistening a beautiful red. We see gray fungus reminiscent of coral. From one log to the next we have wandered farther and farther from the official walking trail.  The ferns are all flattened and suddenly we feel that we have strayed a bit too far.  I turn on one of the many forked paths and realize...

So, Tuesday night my thought process was a little like this: Adam is coming home a day early! Did I make enough dinner? SHIT. I am making beet soup for dinner. I grate, measure and stir and slide a baked zuccinni and egg side dish into the oven, and then am left standing there, staring at the soup simmering on the stove top. “Well, this will just have to do”, I think to myself. When Adam walks through the door I hug him, and say slightly apologetically: “We are having beet soup for dinner..... I didn't know you would be home early when I started it.... ?!?.” I usually try to have a slab of meat waiting for him and tonight's dinner is vegetarian through and through. AND IT IS BEETS! Adam – well – reluctantly admitted: “It was good – for a beet dish.” (Which I interpret as success.) Ivory liked it. How could she not? It was fuchsia colored after all. Sylvan loved it, clapping his hands excitedly between spoonfulls. And I, w...

I am in the kitchen canning the last few jars of apple sauce. As soon as my kitchen counter is wiped off, I am going to unload the trunk of my car. My trunk full of tomatoes turned into almost 10 quarts of spiced tomato sauce (think spaghetti or pizza) and 2 1/2 quarts of barbecue sauce. I cleaned my giant pots, stacked my jars and stored all my tools away.  I can't take anymore of this, unless, I find some delicious pears somewhere.  I would love to can a few pints of amaretto pears.  They are a family favorite.

   I pull out my soft scrub, fill up a bucket of water and scour the kitchen floor on my hands and knees. The mop just will not do an adequate job removing the craziness that remains of the last week and a half.  Yes, I have lived with this dirty floor for at least ten days.     I scrape a few stubborn tomato seeds of the floor. Tomatoes.  Red, orange, striped and juicy.  Hiding under leaves. Exploding in our mouths, on shirts and, well, on my floor.  They are squished into jars, to be opened on a dark winter night and add a bit of warmth an sunshine to our dinner plate.      I wipe the sticky streaks that stretch from my counter top to the stove.   Little missiles of juice that coat everything - my knife, my hands and the tops of my toes - as I cut open plum after plum.   They became a spicy plum sauce that is perfect with any kind of meat.  I canned twice the a...