Vacation, Day One

Today is the first full day of our winter vacation. Right now I should be up to my knees in the Gulf of Mexico, or on a rented bike pedaling myself along a sandy Sanibel road. But I am not. I am still in Massachusetts, drowning in that white stuff we all know I love so well, wondering what the reason is for the storm that ended my vacation plans. There always is one, you know. There is always a reason for everything. When the flight canceled it was almost a relief because it meant we didn't have to drive to Hartford in sleet and freezing rain on snow and slush covered highways. And although I am working very hard on remembering the positives - we are alive, we are grateful to even have had the chance to take a vacation, I can get the puppy early now, Delta gave us a full refund - I still am sad at the loss of what was to be our first non-Disney Florida vacation. Well, less Disney anyway. It was to be about beaches and the everglades and rented bikes and kayaks and beaches and seashells with a little dose of Mickey Mouse slapped onto the very end. I can't help noticing that this hotel seems to be a lot like home. In fact it IS home, right down to the 12 new inches of vacation killing snow outside my front door which rest on top of the 50 inches we had already received this season.

I have sworn off work at least until Monday. I am on a UFO quest - finishing the plethora of unfinished objects I discovered during my pre-puppy stash clean out.  I found a Bobbi Bear sans pattern or yarn that Girl had started and never finished. I gave him pink and gray nose and arms.

I knit 2 crate mats for the puppy using the Valley Yarns Nantucket Felted Rug (FREE!) pattern; the striped one is in Berkshire Bulky leftover from when I knit this rug for Kathy, and the other in Schaefer Esperanza that was left over from this last book.

I finished the Brambling from Rowan's Story Book of Little Knits that I started for April a million years ago - that now will never fit her and so will be stashed.

I seamed up a languishing Winecozy, began 2 years ago for a Christmas gift that ultimately was delivered naked. Maybe this year. It needs to be embellished once it dries.

I put faces on six Owls and Tigers and Zebras, Oh My! hats.

In the spare moments I've planned out some work projects that I will start next week. I want to finish Gene's Dale sweater. Saturday we get the puppy, a week ahead of schedule which is a nice thing. Unless you consider that between now and then I should be on an island in the Gulf of Mexico under an umbrella, or kayaking around the mangroves. Bitter? Moi? What made you think that?

Every year I threaten to move to a warmer climate, but I never do. I am supposed, by virtue of birth and genetics, to be a tough Yankee; a hardy New Englander. I am supposed to suck it up and make the best of it, supposed to get out there and enjoy the variety. Well, forget it. This place, this climate, feels like it is killing me by inches. It's never been much of a secret that I dislike winter. Since I was young I've just never been happy with this season. I was the kid who had to be forcibly bundled and shoved out into it, and then stood there wondering what the point was. I had a beautiful little toboggan, my own runner sled, and my sister's flying saucers at my disposal, but my favorite thing to do was curl up in a snowbank with an icicle and wait for my mother to grant me a reprieve so I could return to my books. As an adult I invested in snowshoes, and I went shoeing - and even had fun - except for the painfully frozen extremities and the chapped, red face and cracked lips it was great. We once climbed to the tree line of Mount Monadnock in January. In the end it was all useless, this attempt to make me embrace winter. The white fingers and toes that burn and ache almost constantly, the depression that comes with short days and endless dark, the "bundling up" making me claustrophobic and cranky, the endless mounds of snow needing to be moved - it's just not my thing and it never will be. Of all the things I will miss when I leave New England (and I will leave New England) winter will not be one of them. I wasn't made to be here. It's an accident of birth that I haven't yet corrected. But I will!
Not a very cheerful way to end my vacation report is it? I'll be better in a day or two. And definitely better by Saturday evening!

I am coming, small furry happiness. I'm coming!

Rotting Rhubarb and Sour Milk

Great blog title, I know, but that's what we're on about today. I've decided that this blog is no longer a knitting blog, but a whole life blog. I find it ironic that it's been this way for a long time now and I am just getting around to making it official. But I digress.
If you recall in my last post, or maybe the one before, I said that I had started my very first ever batch of homemade wine. I started with rhubarb utterly without intent. There was no plan. The kit was here, discussions were underway about what kind of wine to begin with. Ideally I wanted the first batch to come from the yard. We have berries a-plenty. Strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, black raspberries and blueberries grace our place, along with currents and gooseberries. But "patient" is not a word in my vocabulary, and when a trip to the farmer's market yielded some large number of pounds of fresh, organic rhubarb; well, the decision was made. Chopped, mixed with golden raisins, orange juice, cane sugar and after a time, Pasteur Champagne yeast, the blend began the process known as primary fermentation. When you open it (as you must ever few days to stir it up) it looks like this.
It smells like a blend of rhubarb, alcohol, and yeast with a citrus tinge. And it sounds a lot like Rice Krispies in milk. It is very much alive.After stirring it bubbles and foams, and the lid is snapped back on with the airlock firmly in place - gas may exit, nothing may enter. A week from today it will be racked, which means the solids will be sieved off and the remaining liquid will enter secondary fermentation in a 1 gallon jug. Somewhere in there it will be racked a second and possibly a third time depending on sediment levels and clarity. Eventually, in about six months, it will be bottled, and six months after that opened and hopefully not turned to vinegar. Only time can tell.
Now about that sour milk. The idea of making my own yogurt has always been appealing to me. I also have a thing for making my own tofu, but that has yet to reach fruition. I've studied up on yogurt makers, watched Alton's "Good Milk Gone Bad" episode over and over, but it just seemed like such effort, or expense. Basic and not well recommended yogurt makers run about $30; good ones are closer to $60. A.B.'s method (love ya truly, A.B., but...) has you adding honey and powdered milk and fussing over a thermometer which must be kept at 115 degrees F with the use of a heating pad - meaning constant electricity use.
Then I found out about crock pot yogurt, thanks to a posting by Tipper on Facebook about her yogurt experience. She made reference to the blog "A Year of CrockPotting", wherein there is a simple recipe for making yogurt at home in the crock pot. No additives, just milk and a half a cup of yogurt. No fussing - just cook the milk for a while, add your yogurt starter, and insulate the crock for a day. My love of my crock pot and slow cooker are known. Not the obsessive 'use it every day' sort of love but a deep and abiding respect for fresh scotch oats at 7am that cooked all night, soups and stews of mixed and varied cultural heritage and (today) braised ribs just like my grandmother made. Could I add yet another favorite to this multi-tasker's repertoire? I am in deep need of yogurt right now, and the more live things in it the better. Having been recently diagnosed with Lyme disease (more on that later) and put on a pretty intense antibiotic regimen Lactobacillis acidophilus and Acidophilis bifidus are my new best friends. We've always been close, but the ante in our relationship has been upped by the death of ever possible good and healthy flora in my body. The cost of organic yogurt is not small. $3.99 buys a 32-ounce container of Stoneyfield Organic. And we're not even going to talk about Fage, for which I swoon. Running low on yogurt I made a decision. One phone call, and Mr. Wonderful brought home a gallon of local organic milk which cost, he thinks, "around $5.00". I think this may be a high estimate. Regardless, that's 128 ounces of milk. The crock pot recipe calls for 64 ounces; a half-gallon. At that price, if the experiment were a success, I would get roughly 64 ounces of organic, fresh, whole milk yogurt, loaded with L. Acidophilus and A. bifidus for a whopping $2.50. That's a savings of about $5.50. So if this worked, it'd be a win all the way around. Well. Guess what?IT WORKED! And it is wonderful. A bit more tang than the average yogurt, which is perfectly ok by me since I like the sour. I will play with longer and shorter fermentation in the future to see if I can reduce that sourness a bit for the sake of Girl. But still; smooth, creamy, and made right here - not to mention the longer fermentation time of home yogurt versus store bought means a higher concentration of the healthy flora I seek to slurp up. The only thing better would be if the cow were mine.Mmmm.
I put half of it into the recycled Stoneyfield container, and the remainder in a strainer wrapped in a loosely woven 100% cotton dish towel (with chickens on it). Ideally this would be a couple of layers of cheese cloth, but as my cheese cloth has left the building this worked.After about an hour, during which time I checked it, squeezed it, and rigged it to hang I had this:which is about the consistency of sour cream, still with the creamy richness and flavor of the thinner stuff. Much closer to Greek yogurt, though still not as sweet. I saved the liquid run-off (whey) and added a bit of yogurt and honey to it, blended it well with my stick blender, and drank a high-protein all-natural fresh and local breakfast.
So there you have it. Rotting rhubarb and sour milk, both of which fill be with delight. Fermentation Rocks!

Fly on The Wall

First, a bit about the chocolate bash. The concept is, loosely, "a Tupperware party, but with chocolate". It's Dove Chocolate Discoveries. A hostess (me) invites a bunch of friends and a 'chocolatier', in this case Linda, brings chocolate. There is sampling, ordering, and just general fun. And, since it's my house, there was an "after party". But more on that in a minute.
Although I don't have pictures, because I forgot my camera for hours, in attendance were Malea (see her stuff THIS weekend at Twist Fair!), Dena, Mary, Linda, Jacinda, GL, Katy-with-Lindsey The Bat Wrangler, Kristen, Mary Alice, Sara, Rue...and if there's anyone I missed, I apologize. It was kind of hectic in here for a little while, but a lot of fun with good friends and good food and a little bit of the grape. And the potato.
First, Jacinda won the game. She made 49 words from the word chocolate. This is a big score for homeschoolers everywhere, in my oh so humble opinion.We sampled chocolate things, and some people ordered chocolate things. There were chocolate martinis, and chocolate trifle, and chocolate cupcakes, and chocolate macaroons. Linda did a splendid job.
As the evening wore on some folks headed home, and others stayed behind. Dazee recovered from her long day of Divadom.We got the Grill Master into the game, cooking up chocolate chicken two ways; one spicy, one not so much.Kristen got "the wrong one". Totally not my fault. I swear it didn't seem hot to me. And this was on top of Mervin making a hole in her foot with his evil claws...Poor woman will never come back between cat assaults and spicy chicken.
Rue was happy, and so were Barb and Jacinda. We toasted the Springdelle Farm lambs in honor of the other Barb who could not be with us because ewes, like people-moms, do things in their own good time. We toasted chocolate. We toasted.The sun went down and the stars came out.
Eventually I brought out a lamp, so we could see who we were talking to.Mary Alice was very impressed that we have stars here. Rue used to be, but now she has stars at her house.I hope we can do this again soon. I am planning already.
This week I've been working on a One-Skein project that seemed to defy me. It wasn't the planning or the writing. It was the knitting. I just wasn't committed, which is sad. I adore the yarn, love the colorway and love the project. Sometimes I just get snotty about "work" knitting and become obsessed with non-work, like potholders or socks for Gene or baby things.But today I managed to complete this, which you can't see yet. The yarn is Schaefer Anne in the colorway Elizabeth Zimmerman, which I adore (both yarn and colorway!). The project, if it does not appear where I hope it will, will eventually make a reappearance here. Dazee continues to recover from her wild weekendand so does Mel.If I am honest, I must say that this has much less to do with the weekend and much more to do with the heat which has been oddly high for April in Massachusetts since Saturday. A cold front is coming in this evening, and I am very glad. The heat has had some good benefits. The daffodils, of which there are many here, have all come out.Some have also gone away a bit faster than usual, but are lovely while they are here. We walked across the road this evening to look at an oddity in a tree that turned out to be nothing more than a growth. I love walking over there because it gives me different perspective on my own space.And I get to spend time with the barn.One good strong storm, and I think it would fall right over. It's been there for a long, long time.But time has a way of changing things, even barns.It's not really good for much more than having it's picture taken anymore. But sometimes I can feel it's history, and imagine the lowing of the milk cows who once inhabited it. The cupola has fallen in. The dairy has collapsed. But the post and beam main structure defies age and gravity, and carries on.
We came home to discover that someone had managed to get into the garden.Just one someone, and happily not as destructive as he might have been, as he stayed in the garlic box near the fence. Woe to him if he gets into the asparagus, or the peas. I assisted him to make a better choice of location.
The chocolate party, however, had nothing on today's Big Event. In a stellar display of genius, I decided to redecorate my kitchen.With chocolate. What do you think? Tres chic, no?
2T Hershey's cocoa powder + 2 tsp Agave nectar + reheated leftover coffee + ice cubes + five pounds of "duh." = beverage FAIL. I am pretty sure there's chocolate in my ears still.

Conversation Earlier Today

MMO: "I am stopping at River Valley. I think I am going to see if they have any strawberries yet."
Mr.W: "Why?"
MMO: "Because I want them."
Mr. W: "Waaaant them???" (drawn out operative, implication that 'want' is insufficient reason to buy)
MMO: "What does that mean?"
Mr. W: "Well. You don't need them. We have frozen ones from last year. You just want them."
pause. I am processing.
Mr W: "But...since you're there anyway, can you get me some bananas? I want them for breakfast."
MMO: "Want? So. You don't need them?"
Mr. W. "Well, yes. I need them for my breakfast."
MMO: "We have oats. Rice. Wheat Berries. Cold cereal. So you don't need them. We have a lot of breakfast foods at home already. You want them."
pause. (he is processing? maybe he'll get it.)
Mr. W: "What's your point?"

That's where I quit. I hope he stops for bananas on the way home.

There were no strawberries. But I got Chamomile Mead (which will be interesting as I've only had their Liquid Sunshine) and Pioneer Valley Vineyard Cayuga which is now available there as well. The meadery gets their honey, most of it, from the same place where our bees are coming from, Warm Colors Apiary. Last weekend we assembled the dog kennel to keep the bears out of the hive. Mr. W and I both fully expect to come out some morning to find a very well fed bear locked in a dog kennel with a trashed hive. But we'll see. Chicks come next week, if all goes according to plan. I am very excited. FIFTY new babies!!

No knitting I can show. I'm working on work stuff. Oh wait. How about Wyatt's Baby Surprise with Handy Assistant? I forgot to get a picture of his cabled set - I made a hat to go with. No buttons and not seamed yet. It needs socks and a hat. The yarn is Schaefer Nichole which I am thoroughly in love with. I mean in love. Soft, spongey, squashy washable happiness. Love, love, love. Love. Really.I also love the simple complexity of the BSJ. That's nowhere near as backwards as it sounds. When it comes to this jacket it is truly complex, but simple. It just happens, but you can't read ahead, or you'll spoil the ending. A lot of EZ is like that.
I wandered around a little and found things to look at just now. Chickens, of course, meandering in parts of the yard they haven't seen much of. It's warm here, finally, 70 and partly cloudly so they're getting around a bit more. Gadding really.
I discovered that the snow peas have popped up, although the old fashioned kind are taking a bit longer. That's ok. I like edible pods best anyway.
Chickens like anything green and growing. Fence is a good thing.Daffodils are just everywhere here, which I love. At our old house naturalizing them was a joke. Growing them was a joke. Our soil was too high to be fertile silt, and more resembled "great former beach of monster lake". Sand, sand and more sand. No nutrient value whatever. Here, we grow rocks. But I can build up, and conquer. And the daffodils seem to like the challenge.
And spinach and chard in the cold frame. Look closer. It's there!AHH, SPRING!!!

Staycation

You know, why travel all the way to New York when you can just stay home? Travel is over-rated, right? At least, I'd like to convince myself of that. Due to circumstances beyond my control, we did not head to NY this weekend as originally planned. I am bummed, but believe I shall recover. Maybe there will be time in the fall for a day trip into the city, and we can see and do a few things.
In spite of this terrible change of plans, we managed to have a Staycation sort of a weekend. You've heard of them. Most people do it to save money. We were doing it because we were here, and I didn't want to be here, so we pretended we weren't here. We did things we don't normally do. We ate out three times in three days. We never eat out three times in three days. We went to a movie. We never go to movies. I became the pansy. I was one with the pansy. "BE the pansy", I said.
And I took pictures of chickens and hawks and mushrooms and lilies and - wait for it - KNITTING!! A miracle. (The pansy thing will begin to make sense now.) On Thursday a very intrepid knitter appeared at drop-in questioning her sanity. She was working on Noni #117, Girly Backpack, fall 2007, complete with the most lovely pansies ever knitted. Trouble was, she was having some difficulty knitting them. I read the pattern, and it felt like Greek. Now maybe it was the crowd (it was a very busy drop-in!) or maybe it was the night air (my mind sometimes stops working after...I wake up) but no matter how many times I tried to read the pansy pattern, it made no sense. I know, I just KNEW that if I could sit down with it and knit it, it'd work. But drop-in is not the place to do that, especially on a night when there's 20 - 24 knitters in attendance. I snagged the pansy directions and determined to make it work, no matter what. I gave my grave promise that in 2 weeks' time I would be prepared to assist this student to self-pansying. I figured it would make good train knitting. Since, in the end, there was no train in my weekend I decided it might make good car knitting instead. I toiled for a bit in the car when we went to fetch shavings and soymilk and fresh local produce. Then we stopped driving and I decided maybe it would be good cheap wine on the deck knitting. Soon I had it - an unfelted, but definitely recognizable pansy!The petals are intarsia, so we're talking about a lot of ends to run in. Tedious, since I am not a fan of intarsia or loose ends, but rhythmic once you get going. A second glass of wine and some heavy duty scrubbing in very hot water and soap resulted in a serious pansy. Now all I have to do is make enough of them that I can make this look easy for my Thursday night knitter, who's due to return in two weeks to have a flower lesson. It did, as I moved along, become easier and more understandable. I am serious about 'being the pansy'. As I moved to pick up the next set of stitches off of holders, I asked myself what a pansy would do. Now, I adore pansies which might be cheating, but somehow it all came together and a pansy was formed.
Eating in the Valley - bearing in mind that I am a foodie, and a bit of a snob at times about where and what I eat and the quality thereof - we went for the first time to my former laundromat. I kid you not. I washed diapers in this place until my dad bought me a washer and my ex bought me a dryer. I'd say that this was my laundromat of choice for a good two years. Now it's an Italian place called Ristorante DiPaolo, small and a bit upscale in the middle of a town that's...not. We had a gift certificate that we've been dragging around since Christmas. I am not a big lover of Italian, and neither is Mr. W. But we were curious as we'd heard good things about the place. We were not disappointed. I will say that I felt like the price was a little high - not just because of the unusual location, but also because the food, while good was not what I'd call stellar. We were seated in the exact spot my hairdresser had warned me to avoid; behind a wooden screen close to the bar, front door, and kitchen. This made for a disruptive dining experience with people coming and going, loud kitchen sounds, banging and crashing of trays and dishes and shouting employees. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the meal. I had barramundi, which is so local to this establishment as to be within about 5 miles of where my chair was located. That always makes me smile. I began with a really nice salad topped with gorgonzola and carmelized pine nuts, beets and pears. Mr. Wonderful had pan-seared scallops with mushrooms finished with white truffle oil that were nice, but a bit too seared. My large fillet was a little dry toward the tail end, although I know from personal experience how difficult it is to get even cooking in a piece of fish that ranges in thickness. The jasmine rice was average and a bit under done, but a small pile of kale was very properly cooked - still crispy and bright green. Mr. Wonderful's main course was a shrimp dish that he was not in love with, but since he does not like cream sauces and ordered one, we're not going to go into detail about that one (buyer beware - of you order something you do not like, you do not get to complain!). I had a glass of something red that was good - memorable in large part because the temperature was right and it perfectly complimented my fish, but not memorable enough for me to...remember what it was! I want to say it was a Shiraz. Mr. W went with BBC's Steel Rail Pale Ale (weirdo. who drinks this? it's not even beer. want beer? try BBC's Imperial Stout, or Coffeehouse Porter, or the one with the oatmeal...oatmeal stout...wait...that one's from The Pint. 'pale ale'. uggh.). Hey. Who said that?? Someone broke into my blog. I didn't say that. I would never imply that my dearly beloved spouse is a beer wimp. NEVER!! Anyway, I digress. For dessert he had something with a tart crust that I ignored (crust = diablo). I had...ok...I had (wait I need a drool cloth)...flourless chocolate cake and chocolate mousse in a chocolate ganache dome. With raspberries. I brought half home to Girl. She's old enough now. She was incapable of speech or thought for about ten minutes. It was SO good. Overall it was a good meal, and a nice time, and we would go again if we had another GC to soften the blow. Our other 'big' meal out was last night, at Hope and Olive in Greenfield. We'd heard about this place, owned by the owners of the former Bottle of Bread Pub in Shelburne Falls which met with an untimely end in December 2005. We'd never made it up there claiming it was too out of the way for us, but since Hope and Olive is fifteen minutes away we have no excuse. We'll be back. I had Chicken Tikka that was perfectly complimented by a Key Lime Martini. The chicken was a fantastic balance of flavor, topped with a mint cucumber raita and mango - and oh what music they made! This is Indian rib-sticking food. Good, basic, melded, stew-like and just excellent. It was topped with a great big fresh papadam. I loved loved loved this. Mr. Wonderful had a sirloin which frightened him because it had "sauce". In the end he seemed pleased by it, regardless of the presence of the sauce (it looked a bit mol`e, but I could not taste it since we didn't clear it for gluten content). He fell madly in love with his potato, which was excellent, and after scraping the beets ("taste like dirt...") off of the farmer's salad, he dove into that with relish. Again he had some watery beer thing. I mean. Some lovely local pale ale. Mmm,mmm. Can't get enough of that pale ale. yum.me. Maybe it was the martini. Maybe it was the nice table not next to the kitchen. Maybe it was our very comfortable server, or the relaxed environment, or the excellent food, or the price, or maybe it was a combination of all of those things, but I suspect that Hope and Olive has become my new favorite local restaurant. It's simple lines, bright colors, cheerful staff and great local food with lots of international flair just made for an out-of-the-park dining experience. I'd love to, say, take my sample knitters there. It would be a great place to just sit at the bar for a few hours. A great place to be social and comfortable. Everyone should go! After dinner we walked up the street to see a movie. We chose Wall-E and could not have chosen better (although the theater needs some help...my seat was not attached to the floor and kept shifting wildly, but I did not want to disrupt Mr W or miss anything so stayed put, and the facilities were..less than tidy). I am a bit surprised that Wall-E doing as well critically and with the public as it is, since the underlying subject matter, if you really look at it, is not comforting or sweet or charming. It is, at it's heart, a scary look at what might be the future of man. Can we continue to consume and dispose at our current rate and sustain ourselves on this planet? The answer, really, is "no". And Wall-E does not shy away from that. It does present the possibility of apocalyptic human survivors, drifting far above the earth in a sort of space-station meets staycation. Human contact is obliterated. I am still trying to reason out where the babies came from. Investing the charming and adorable main characters, both robots, with emotion softens the blow against humankind. But if you can come out of the theater unaffected by the underlying message, you need to go watch it again. My guilt level at my overconsumption reached all new highs that were not so easily glossed over in the light of day. We emerged from the theater to a brilliant light show to the north and a wind that increased a good bit as we trotted back to the car. We dodged lightning and gaping puddles all the way home. "Poor Boo. Poor Mervin. Poor House..." But all was mostly well upon our return. There were a lot of leaves and small branches down, but the lights appear to have stayed on, everything seems to work this morning, and the dog only took about an hour to come down from the ceiling.
In other exciting weekend news, the chicks have reached that stage of development that makes me so glad adolescence is over and never to be revisited. They are gawky, geeky, mostly but not quite all feathered.They are clumsy, and adorable as they jump from object to object in their little house, and practice jumping and 'flying'. They really think that if they try hard enough they can. It's a wonderful but ridiculous time. It seems like only yesterday...Then there were lilies:
Proud hens who seem to be a bit too aware of the camera:
Bee Balm visitors:
More 'shrooms (I dig the red ones):
Babies on the move - big time:They've been out of the nest for days now. Mom seems to be calling them here and there and encouraging them to hunt. Sometimes that does not work out so well, and there's mass chaos with lots of noise and distress. In my heart I know their mother is laughing (on the inside) at their failures. Remember the first time you watched your kid pour milk? And you tried not to laugh, and tried not to grab the carton, and the seriousness of their expression and panic at failure was enough to break your heart and leave you in stitches all at once?
I love tails. The fluffiness kills me.And the color, the iridescence that I am still working on catching.Bees, bumble style.Chicken wire. Good fences? They make safe gardens!!
Phew. Man can I talk when I get going.