Winter

Red-Tailed Hawk perched on a grapevine covered tree.


We have had a very mild winter so far. Nights may drop below freezing but day time temperatures rise above the ice-making threshhold of 32F. Yet, it still feels like Winter. Winter is about darkness. This part doesn't change from year to year. The sun peaks above our horizon after 7am (7:09am to be exact for 12/15/11) and sets before 5pm (4:16pm for 12/15/11). The darkness seems to come on suddenly but I think it's because I'm not paying attention. Shadows begin to lengthen by 2pm and the sun loses it's strength shortly afterward. On a cloudy day, it feels like day  has hardly arrived when the gloomy grey begins to become darker.
Preparing for the "Winter Holidays" helps us wade through the enclosing darkness. We must stay busy or else the darkness enthralls our thoughts and we can only think of our losses and misgivings. So, we prepare for celebration at the point of the deepest and longest night knowing that this is the very last one before the days lengthen, one day at a time until it's peak in June.  It is reason to rejoice.
"The light of man" carries deeper spiritual meanings. Where do we journey when we seek "the light" through our own darkness? Is it to a manger, or through the forest, or up to the stars, or over to grandma's house?

Grapevine wreaths made from the vines pulled from the trees about the property.

* "For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light", (Psalm 36:9) says David from the Old Testament.

* "Does Santa Claus exist?" asked Victoria. "He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy", says Francis Church (from the Sun editor's letter to Victoria; 1897).

* "Divine love makes us true to ourselves and to others. . . Divine love is the solution to our difficulties and problems. It frees us from every kind of binding. It makes us speak truly, think truly, and act truly. It makes us feel one with the whole universe. Divine love purifies our hearts and glorifies our being". says, Meher Baba, Indian Mystic (20th century).

"Nothing is lost in the circle of love" sings the Marie Sisters (from their song "Circle of Love" 2002)

Peace be with you.

Old Fashioned Gingerbread Cookie Ornaments

Ingredients:

Unbleached white flour

Molasses

Brown Sugar
Butter
Baking Soda
Ginger
Cinnamon
Salt
Cloves
Candied Cinnamon Dots or Raisins for buttons
Each of the cookies has a little jute or ribbon tie so it can be hung from a tree.

Christmas is a Season

Christmas is a season. A season come quietly and unnoticed. A season then shows signs of coming. Small at first, these signs grow and build and draw us closer to its presence and meaning. The antithesis of this understanding was "Black Friday", the designated first Christmas shopping day after Thanksgiving. This "first day",  instead, came in as an explosion of buying frenzy at the start of the bell of midnight. Too sadly,  it ended with pepper spray and police brigades by sunrise. Wow, what a way to start any holiday that is celebrative, meaningful, loving or giving. My dog behaves better than this no matter what is put in front of her. Isn't there a better way for us to behave, think and feel? Is this what has become of the "True Meaning of Christmas"?

For many of us what is "true" is defined by each of us in our own way, ultimately. It doesn't matter if I follow you or a profit or my own heart. The truth is only perceived by what I can comprehend and accept as true.  Anyway, storming WalMart for cheap electronics must have defined the "true meaning" for so many of these over zealous people for products, while providing them with one of our most elemental American experiences: buying power. Who am I to say that they "don't get it"?

What is true for me? I really don't know, to tell you the truth! What I can tell you is that the days become shorter and the nights become longer each day as we come closer and closer to the winter solstice. I can tell you that the forests now appear barren and the stone walls along the fields can be seen again. The evidence of global warming has given us an usually warm "long and late fall" but, despite this, winter is still coming. I have found that the increasing darkness makes us look inward, reflect, but also anticipate while we wait for light to return. For me, the Christmas Season is about waiting and watching. I don't believe that we must believe in objects and beings to help us understand what is true. However, is there any one common truth left for us to share? Is there anything that can make us find unity with each other, or with other living things or with this planet? Right now, it seems like achieving a purchase at WalMart is one popular wow moment. It definitely is not mine.  The wow moment is what we all must seek.

The Christmas Season, for me, evokes my desire to experience true meaning. Though, when I raise my eyes to the top of a tree and see the giant GosHawk or catch the shy presence of our resisdent Piliated Woodpecker, or take a walk in between the empty garden beds to pick the hardy parsley, I find true meaning - i.e. that wow moment. Through, spring, summer and fall, I can find true meaning. Through, the planting, weeding, watering and  harvesting, there is found meaning in the dirt and compost that gave me that tomato. Through, the giving of time, effort and help to others in need, creates true meaning. The Christmas Season allows me to organize all those moments into one story of what is the true meaning of my human existance.

A long time ago when my oldest children were young, I wrote a little children's song that summed it all up quite nicely. It goes like this:

I hold a stone in my hand, I hold a stone in my hand,
I hold a stone in my hand, crystalline formed though made from sand.
It is crystalline formed though made from sand.

I hold a plant in my hand, I hold a plant in my hand,
I hold a plant in my hand, green is the earth, the gift of the plants.
Yes, green is the earth, the gift of the plants.

I hold an animal in my hand, I hold an animal in my hand,
I hold an animal in my hand, but why do they run, but to greet the sun.
But, why do they run, but to greet the sun!

I hold a star in my hand, I hold a star in my hand,
I hold a star in my hand, with hand, and heart and mind I stand.
With hand, and heart and mind I stand.

Enjoy the Season.

Just as I finished this blog, a large buck wandered into our yard and over to the apple tree behind the garden. We tried to get a better picture but he was quite shy, picking his head up with every slight sound while making a stance to flee. The rain blurred our windows and stepping outside would have chased him away. I know deer and apple trees are not friends but he seemed only interested in the old apples that I had collected and dumped outside of the fenced garden near the brush pile.

Peace.

Getting to the roots, the last of the apple butter and winter isn't here yet.

It is December but it doesn't feel like it. Our November has had more days above  normal temperatures than expected for this time. People are describing our weather as a "prolonged fall season".  (Nice way to put global warming and irreversable climate change.) I confess, that it has been graceful to those of us who have procrastinated on our fall chores. It has been great, I admit, that I can still work the unfrozen soil and walk about with only a heavy sweater. One gardener once wrote that the gardening season starts in the fall, however. Oh boy, I say. I'm already behind then. I'm still marveling over what we have produced this season, and the "prolonged" gentle fall tempertures that have allowed kale, spinach and fall carrots and parsnips to remain in the ground. But, the guy is right. There is a lot of preparing this time of year. Maybe "it", the preparing for next year's garden, that is, starts when we have finally gotten "to the roots".
Getting to the roots has to happen before the ground is frozen. I mean by this that one should collect the root crops out of the soil before it freezes. It helps, anyway, if you want them before spring. (I don't know what would happen if you left them over winter. Would they turn to mush when the ground thaws?)
I have watched and waited through the weeks for the temperature to gradually drop and drop to finally bring us in this gradual way, day by day, toward the entry way of winter. Then, I thought, I would know, that it is finally time to pull everything that I want from the garden.
But, it hasn't happened. So, I decided to pull all the root crops anyway because it is December, and by now it only seems weird to leave them in the ground, rather than impractical to leave them.

Washed carrots and unwashed parsnips.

A lovely washed parsnip and carrot.

Another shot of one lovely well washed parsnip with carrots

The apple butter was a great success. I made labels and tied them up on the jars. With a loss for ideas, I came up with "Side of the Hill" Apple Butter, since the apple trees and our home, as well as the garden, sit on the 'side of the hill' .  Honestly, I wish we didn't. Anyway, that's what the labels say, if you can't make it out. The ingredients are listed with the blog post address and my phone number which is required for "residential kitchen" jams and jellies that are sold directly to consumers by the Department of Agriculture.
Inside the label reads: "Ingredients: apples grown without pesticides, organic sugar, apple cider, cinnamon, cloves and allspice." I posted on the WPI website:  "It is delicious spread on buttered homemade bread or used, instead of jam, on a peanut butter sandwich. It is also delicious as a unique glaze on grilled salmon."

I had 8pints and about 20, 1/2 pints. Kent put up a notice on his WPI classified site that apple butter was for sale with the above ingredients and comments. I was more than amazed that ALL of the butters that I had made up were gone before lunch.

I have sauce to make up more butter. So, I'm going to get busy over these next few days.
It is delicious, as I have been spreading it on homemade toasted honey wheat bread ever since I made my first jar this year. Yum, yum. It is soooo good! I'm done with Cheerios!

Thanksgiving - a celebration of the gifts from our local foods and wildlife.

What would you like to read about first? What local foods we ate, or what wildlife we witnessed, while they ate our local "foods"? Got it. Write about what we saw eat, what we have not eaten. Does this make any sense?
I was originally going to post my Thanksgiving menu, first. It is my most unique, yet it is the most simple of any year. I was thinking about posting this unusual menu list as I was putting together the dinner this past Thursday. It was a two day process with pie baking and chestnut boiling started the day before followed by opening a few jars of red cabbage sauerkraut, apple sauce and bread and butter pickles the next. We used our own butternut squash, potatoes, carrots, onions, parsnip and green beans. The cranberries came from Hardwick, a few towns west of here. I had ordered a "farm fresh" turkey from the  Jordon Farm, literally, just over the hill, in Rutland and picked it up on Wednesday. By Thursday, the chestnut stuffing was already made, along with a homemade pumpkin and apple pie. And, yes, these too, came from the garden- that is, the pumpkin and the apples. A homemade bread that I had used ground wheat from Four Star Farm out in western Massachusetts was warmed and sliced to go along with the meal.

Our dinner was almost ready to go on the table as it was becoming dusk. I was standing over the kitchen sink looking out over the garden as I love to do while my hands are doing something else in the sink. Kent happened to be looking outside at the time and called out to me that he had just seen a coyote near the northeast corner of the garden. For a moment, I thought I saw a slinking creature, but then it disappeared. When it reappeared out from the forest edge, it's features were not of a coyote, at all. Quietly it turned back, and then it turned again toward the garden. It's short little tail was the "tell tale" of who came to visit. It was a Bobcat! He was one very large Bobcat with a handsome cat face and large furry coat with huge paws. He became our Thanksgiving Day surprise. There seems to be always something. Last year, I decided to run at the local 'turkey trot' that started at 8am, the day before. The guys were all set to go and begged that I give it a try. I fell for the "last minute" decision.

I've seen Bobcat here before. They come around for the rabbits, mice and squirrel, I suspect. Rabbit is their favorite, I have read. We do have all those lovely rabbit families as neighbors.  The news about the shortage of acorns in the region, is also true for our Oak trees. The nuts are almost non-existent.  I can see the squirrels scrambling after the fallen rotted apples. I wonder if they are going after the apples because there is really not much else. I don't know. Any apples that have fallen inside of the garden fence are thrown back out for any of the creatures looking for food for the winter. However, the squirrels don't mind the fence. They'll climb up and down it for a rotten apple in a flash. The Bobcat didn't seem to be hunting at the moment that we saw him. He seemed like he was checking out the place for perhaps future hunts. He quietly slinked back into the woods. I waited until I couldn't see him anymore and then called everyone for Thanksgiving Dinner!

Thanksgiving is always lively and filling. We become filled with good company and good food. We don't want either to end.  Kevin said today (Sunday), that we should have Thanksgiving every Thursday so that we could have left overs to last long enough to the next Thursday and then we could start over again! I never thought of that one.

Starting with the end of the story, first.

My brother once played a joke on me when he asked me one day; "Wanna hear the shortest story ever told?" "Sure!", I piped back as I looked up at him enthusiastically.  Even though, I was younger than he was by 7 years, I still could tell something wasn't going to be straight about his answer. "It goes like this," he started; "Once upon a time, there was an end!" Ha! Ha! We did both laugh. That was the silliest thing I had ever heard. Until now, it had no meaning.

The End of this story is; Here is the compost heap, now.  Here is what should be the last picture, first.

The old heap was piled with mostly heavy sod clumps, old tomato vines, and cabbage leaves from the garden. It sat in the middle of the back part of the garden which had been at the end of the garden before the new fence was put up this past spring. Now, the heap was blocking a clear path from one side of the garden to the other. Not only that, it was next to a bee's nest which was discovered when my dear and willing son took on the task to move the old wire fencing that also surrounded this old heap which had to be moved first.
Cleverly, the bees must have found an old rabbit hole and made house in it. They were well hidden during the summer when fence row grasses and goldenrods covered their ground level hideout. When the old fence was pulled up over their hole, they got so riled up that they shot out with the intent to attack anything in site. People went leaping off and bees went whizzing off in frantic directions. It was awful and it took the bees the rest of that day to settle down. The bee stings took longer than that to settle. Oweee! Their sting hurts so intensely.
Anyway, I thought if I could move the heap to the back northeast corner of the garden, it would be the ideal place for it. Being November, the bees were dormant, so digging around them, now, and moving old wire fencing wouldn't be a problem.

 The heap was originally over waist high. I knew it would be a physically demanding job because it was made up of mostly our heavy clay sod clumps. Though, with the garden cart and my pitch fork in hand, I was ready to take on the project. I started by taking off bits of sod and stems from the top of the heap.  I loaded the cart, then took it to the corner about another 15 ft away. Not far. Then, I would do it again and again. Taking from the top reduced the heavy lifting of the sod clumps. I could only take one bit at a time. Slowly, I got closer to the bottom where I could push the pitch fork into the clumps a little deeper because they had started to break down. Then it happened.

Down went the pitch fork, then out and up it went with the composted sod clumps, as I had before. But, not this time. I stared in disbelief. I couldn't believe my eyes at what I had just done. For there skewered by my pitch fork was a mouse! I had blindly and unknowingly bludgeoned a mouse! My mouth dropped. Still in disbelief I edged him off and settled him outside the garden into a bed of leaves. I shook my head. How could I have done such a thing? Me?

I thought to myself, if someone told me that I would get a $1,000 bucks if I could throw my pitch fork into this compost pile and get a mouse with it, I would NEVER be able to make it happen. It wouldn't be. Not because I don't want to skewer a mouse, but because I'm a lousy shot. I would just keep missing or something like that. So, I realized that this was a one time thing and that I really needed to try and let it go. Innocence is virtuous. I truly didn't mean to get the mouse like that. So, I tried to feel better, and got back to my job. Cart load, after card load, I worked through the pile as the sun was falling from the autumn sky. The last slanted rays of the mid-November sun fell on this upper end of the garden. There was the pungent smell of the fallen leaves in the damp grass and sounds of crows taking to wing with that old familiar "caw" caaaaw." It was a beautiful late afternoon.

But, then  you wouldn't believe what happened next.
I did it again! Yes, I did it again! Nooo! How could I do this?? I was completely stunned. This is absolutely impossible! Simply, unheard of.
(I could have made $2,000 bucks,too!)

So, this second little mouse was laid to rest with its family member. Leaves and grasses covered them both outside of the garden where you see the pitch fork in the picture.( That pitch fork looks nasty, doesn't it?) But, who would know what could lie within a compost pile? I, honestly, had NO idea! Now, it seems obvious.

The heap has been moved. It is in its better place. The mice are in their "better" place. The pitch fork has been put back into the shed, and so has the garden cart.
The bees are in their place and they will be down in there for the entire winter.
 (Their hole is marked by the sticks and with one that fell across it.)

The story is about one old tangled wire fence, one hidden bee's nest, two bee stings, two pitch forked mice, and one old compost pile that needed to be moved to the corner of the garden.

This is the story about the end.

Apple Butter

Apple Butter.

+4 lbs apples

local fresh apple cider

raw sugar

cinnamon

cloves

allspice

Cook slowly until thick.

So far, I have put up about a dozen pints. The rich golden brown color is so beautiful. I haven't ever seen commercial apple butter look like this. The flavor is also unbelievable.

I plan to tie the jars lids with jute string that have hand painted labels attached.  I thought these could make lovely gifts for the season coming. Apple butter is tasty alternative to jam or jelly on a peanut butter sandwich. Or, it can be spread on buttered toast. Mmm, good. Kent spread apple butter on salmon the other night and grilled it. That was different. I was surprised, John who is our resident 15 1/2 yr old really liked it spread on a buttered bagel with peanut butter.

 Kevin, who is 11 years old, said that if he gave someone a jar of apple butter, they wouldn't know what to do with it. He believes no one he knows has ever heard of apple butter. I bet he's right.
And, there you have it.

The colors are captivating. Jars of apple butter are peaking through jars of red cabbage saurkraut. I made up 25, 8 oz. jars of apple butter over the weekend.
On Sunday, Kent's parents came over after a soccer game and we all had buttered home made bread spread with our own "falling apples farm" apple butter.
We've got to find a better name that this one!

Ta-Da!
25, 8 oz. jars of Apple Butter.

November - 1 week after the blizzard.

The day that I came home from my call at the hospital, the sun was shining and the temperature had warmed above freezing. The great Blizzard of snow was melting, the frozened water thawing and birds were flying from branch to branch with chirping and chatter as if to say that it wasn't really all that bad.
While I was walking our collie that day, I happened to view a pair of bluebirds. They stunned me, because they are so rare to see but there they were. Their colors are unmistakable. The bluebird blue is the color of a perfect blue sky. It's belly is the warm brown of the earth. To see such a site was a gift admist the fallen branches and trunks of apples that I knew I had to remove before the end of the day. An earlier post documents my efforts to remove the apple tree that turned out to be the most productive tree of any. It grieved me so deeply.
 Later that week, I saw a gorgeous Ring Neck Pheasant  on my way out from our home. It was stately and confident. I didn't know we had such a resident on our property. He took offense that I didn't know that he was here. I didn't have my camera for these beautiful birds. 

Last Sunday we were buried in over 1 ft of snow. This Sunday morning I could capture the frost on the Lemon Thyme and Wild Strawberries.

Most of the snow has melted. There are still leaves on the apple trees. There are still leaves on some of the oaks. It will be warm again. Unseasonably warm. The wild Turkeys love it. They have a favorite place to explore for food here. They walk out from the forest and venture over our property to the closest apples.  They don't mind the stumps and brush. For them the brush provides cover with good morsels to scratch and find.

The weekend is also the time that Kent can saw and split wood. All of our wood for the wood stove comes from the fallen trees from our recent storms.

Even with all this machinery, the amount of labor effort to provide enough wood to heat our house is hard to believe. It takes a huge amount of time and work. The wood that we provide only supplements our needs but the difference is measurable. We have been able to cut our oil consumption in almost half. This alone is motivating. However, we wouldn't have invested in the equipment to take our own trees if it weren't for the storms.  We have enough on our 5 acres to supply us for a very long time.

Wires get put back on poles. Branches do not. Trees lost are gone for good.

I drove off for Lowell General Hospital after the first 2 hours that the snow started to fall. It's usually an hour drive and I wanted to keep it to that. The wind started to come along with the pelting of heavy snow and I felt that if I left for the hospital, one day ahead, for my 24 hrs of call to follow, I would be better off. I was.
There is no point to dwell on all of this now. The damage has been done and like many communities who have experienced devastation, the only thing left to do is move on. Only along the way, and over time, does the story unfold...

We had 16 inches of heavy wet snow. It fell on autumn leaved trees and evergreens. It blanketed the garden which caused its abrupt end for harvesting. Somewhere under there are still parsnips, kale, parsley and carrots. I may still get to see them because much of the snow may melt off this week.
Winter usually means that the garden is "put to bed". It has a peaceful and quiet feel to it. All is well, comes to mind. Leaves are mulched on top of empty garden beds and old vines are pulled and composted among other tasks.

However, this storm ravaged our hillside much like the ice storm had in 2008. Mature trees fully leaved were snapped in two. Others lost branches or branches were so severely bent they were snapped. Shrubs, bushes and plants were weighted down bending or breaking, or so buried that their fate is still unknown.
When I heard through Kent's failing cell phone that we had lost two of our larger apple trees and one of the new ones that I had planted this spring, my heart just broke. Other apple trees had main branches snap. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
 I fell silent from the news. Then, I felt my throat heat as it does before tears well up from that deep place where sadness roots itself. I couldn't see what happened. Kent was worried that his cell phone would soon run out of battery. He didn't want to take a picture. It didn't matter. Grieving is an emotion. I did not need my seeing of this destruction to understand. Did I need to see it? Silly, over trees, I was grieving! Not because they were  trees. I grieved because I had lost APPLE trees.

Apple trees, I have come to learn, are symbolic of the essence of bounty here on the hillside. They are truly the "fruits of the earth". They take time to mature before they will produce apples. So, there is patience involved.  They take on so much weather, infestation and other hardships that when the apples appear, they seem like red juicy miracles. Hmm. This sounds like there is neglect involved, too.  No, no, I do hope to continue to do a better job in the future with helping them out. They need so much. This will take time. So, despite everything that occurs in nature around them, they have survived. They blossom in the spring, set their fruits and grow.
Until yesterday.

That's what hurts so much. That, this one freakish October snow storm took down these tough-it-out New England raised apple trees in one blow. Only one thought remains. This wasn't a New England thing that happened. This storm set records. Jaffrey, New Hampshire, just north of us by about an hour, won the greatest amount of snow award with 30 inches reported. Never mind, the record rainfall for October alone which was almost double its usual average. We have been setting new records almost every other week. But, is this ok? Is this normal?

Time for moving on....It is 50F.  The sun is shining and I can hear water dripping off the roof. There's work to be done.  I plan to put on my boots and salvage the apples off the fallen trees. Clean the young tree. It's stump I'll leave for now. Older ones will have to lay where they are until we can break them down, first branch by branch, and then by chain saw for their trunks. Finally, we will stack what we can burn in our wood stove for the winter months ahead.

Before

after

Apples salvaged through the snow and fallen branches

Snow, ends the season of tender leaves and flowers

Snowing in October! Oh no wait! It's raining. No, again. It's both -ing.

Maybe that title doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense out there either. This is the 27th of October! It has been unseasonably warm most of the month and unseasonably wet but not unseasonably cold. Tonight it is predicted that our rain/snow mix will turn to all snow and drop below freezing. Ugghh.

I knew this was coming and that I would be "post-call" when I would have to face it. I came home this morning through a driving rain and with the need to replenish myself first before taking on what I needed to do.  I couldn't go straight out after I got home around 9:30am. I should have, though. The weather only got worse.

I always put on my knee high red rubber boots to go out, even in the middle of July: Shorts or jeans with rubber boots, coupled with a tank top and my broad-brimmed hat. I might bring a pair of garden gloves to put on but even if I put them on, they come right off only a few minutes after I get started. So, I don't usually put them on unless I know I'll be in poison ivey. There is something about touching the earth directly with my fingers that's very important. Not sure why. Wearing gloves is a disconnecting experience and here I am trying to connect. Maybe that's why.

 Today wasn't too different. Pulled my rubber boots over my jeans, had my thermal long sleev-er on, fleece jacket, rain shell, scarf, but no gloves. Our outdoor thermometer read 36F. Outside it was pelting snow mixed with rain. Our fields are so so wet from the previous rains that boots are essential now to get across the soaked ground to the garden gate.
I grabbed my hand clippers and a larger old plastic plant pot for a basket. "Here goes!", I thought. I felt like I could create a do-it-yourself garden reality show out of this. And, just so I could save our remaining peppers and eggplants? You betcha! I squashed out there, boots, hooded and gloveless into the snow and rain.

I lasted, ohhhh, 15 minutes. My hands were pink with cold and in pain. But, we had beautiful eggplants this year. They have beautiful purple flowers with yellow centers that seem to nod one way or another. Each flower peers up between a gorgeous broad purple tinged green leaf as if to say; "I'm still here". How could I resist from caring?

I grew these mildly sweet stir fry type peppers that are long and skinny. They turn red over time. These were prolific and there were many to get today, too. I only kept going long enough to fill my large plastic bucket then I had to quit because my hands got too cold.

Inside, I cleaned out the woodstove to start a fire to get the chill off.  32F now. There is one heartening observation that I can make. The earth is still warm enough to melt the snow after it has fallen. Perhaps, the peppers and eggplants that I may have missed will be just fine.

"It is time to keep a garden"

I have been here before. Not the "time to keep" part but the other part about "a garden". I have had a garden before or attempted to have a garden before. I would pour over the catalogues, buy boxes of seed, draw multiple squares for plots while enlarging the garden in my ever expanding vision of what a family garden should look like. It wouldn't be much later, say, May, one year when I developed a serious back injury from repetative digging, or early one August, a different year, when a needed vacation left the garden too dry and too weeded to recover, that my vision of a prolific mouthwatering garden would end abruptly.

 Reality is not as multidimensional as a vision of what may become with a little imagination. "It is what it is"; says the Earth. Backs do twist, bugs do come, weeds do grow and plants do whither.  Reality brings us "down to earth"? Doesn't it?   Funny the way that works.
 Visioning is what it takes to see where we can go. I can't help it. I still like to dream until I'm out there with only a shovel.  It's a lot of work!! But, other than the hard physical work, I've come to learn that it takes being well organized, attuned to the seasons, and anticipatory of what needs to be done well in advance of the season yet to come. I don't think my "real job" is this difficult.

Over time I have realized that I don't know how to "keep" a garden: i.e. "to cause it to continue..." (online dictionary source). Keeping a garden is a lesson about how our earth breaths, rests, recycles, rejuvinates, lives and has "cause to continue". It's an on going lesson. (No pun intended but I needed to get grounded on how to do this.) Simply put; it requires living it in order to be able to do it.

"Time to keep a garden" is about my humble efforts to try to "keep a garden". It is about what I (hope) to do each month throughout the 4 seasons, here in New England, to maintain, nourish, replenish, grow and harvest what I have sown. That is, on a small scale- a family sized one - without  huge farm equipment or commercial fertilizers.
( Is there such thing as a "family garden", anymore?  What does that look like? It seems like we either become awesome organic farmers or saavy organic food consumers. There's no time to garden. Our patio pot of basil -that we sometimes have to rotate to keep in the sun- may be our only evidence of "a garden". Oh, I don't mean to be critical. I love my patio pot(s) of basil!)
But, why bother???

It is time to keep a garden because it is time to know. It's time to learn and share through experience and observation with keeping: "the action to hold as one's own".  That is we need to know how to keep our gardens, and ultimately, we must learn how to keep our earth. It is time.

 Our earth is crying out. It is changing. Is it from our neglect or abuse? Is there something more happening, that we don't understand? I think we need to just "be there" to know what's happening. I mean go there. Look at the ground you stand on, the forest floor, the soil, it's rocks and the water that flows over them. Go take a hike. How about take a hike around your yard? What animals live there and why? What kind of "bugs" are around there? Where do they come from and why? Do you have worms in your soil?  See any good edible mushrooms? I've noticed that there are more Aminitas, the poisonous ones, than edible ones in our nearby forest. Why are the edible ones not as prolific? What about what we don't see?  What birds live here and choose to visit? What plants, bugs, flowers or seed are they attracted to?  What plants used to grow where your yard is now? I'm asking that question with our soil, here, now, because in some places its very wet with underlying granite and clay and in other places it is sandy hard and dry. Old stone walls line half of our sloping field and it's been cleared for awhile. Likely the field and it's sod supplied animals with grazing rather than vegetables, as a good guess. I need to research this more.

What does ecology have to do with agriculture? Everything. For now, I simply understand that it is interwined. One speaks to the other. The "family farm" was a self-sustaining agro-ecosystem. Here in New England, at one time, and long ago, 40% of our population were family farms. They were small.  We grew locally, for most foods. Perhaps we shipped in, for a few other foods. It worked. Didn't it?

It is time to keep a garden, no matter how big or how small. It doesn't matter where it is; on the deck or next to the sidewalk or in the front yard because that's where the sun is. It's time to take the time.  At least, I'm going to continue to take the time and walk through the seasons day by day. This time I hope to take you along, as an observer, a gardener, a naturalist, a steward of the land, and as a learner of what is. I would love to know what you have observed, discovered, uncovered, dug, staked, wired, caged, composted, grown, pulled, picked, harvested, put up, froze, fermented, squeezed or canned. Never mind all the wildlife that comes around to check it all out. Maybe we'll learn something we didn't know before together.


"October was the time to make cider and pumpkin moonshines. And what exciting Halloween parties we had!" (from; "A Time to Keep" by Tasha Tudor)