Pickles and Toadstools

Finally we made pickles.

Canning food is very important to me; it symbolizes many intangible things made tangible in a glowing jar: providing, caretaking, making beautiful things out of fruits and veggies, being independent, honoring the Little House on the Prairie series of books I grew up on, being an organized, practical sturdy mother and weirdly, somehow, surviving even if the world goes to hell.
(I can just see me clutching a jar of homemade jam as I run to the basement and seal the family in, using duct tape and plastic as the nearby nuclear plant's informative calander tells me to do. Ugggg. More on that in another post, I guess)

I bought all the supplies and had my first go at it last year. All I did was make a batch of dilly beans (pickled green beans) although I had bought tons of jars in many sizes.

During last year's canning episode, the family was kicked out of the kitchen and I could be heard swearing from the steamy room. I had some questions, "Why do the jars tip over and fall on top of one another? Why does boiling hot water sneak down this canning-specific tool I have bought and scald me when I try to move the jars that have fallen? Why are the beans floating and making it difficult to assess my 1/4 inch headspace? Will I kill the people who eat these at Christmas time? Will it be a slow death in the ER or will they just be found sitting around my jar at their kitchen table, cold and stiff?" After I finished the process I emerged, hot and burned onto the porch. Rob asked one of those questions you sometimes ask your spouse when they are totally crazy but you can't directly mention it. He looked at me seriously and wondered "Was that fun for you?" I swore at him.

He was not looking forward to canning season this year.

Tragically, my dilly beans failed last year. Salt somehow appeared on the outside of the jars after they had cooled. My canning friend called her expert canning mother in Alaska . She gently told me the verdict; I had to refrigerate them and eat them all in the next week. I was frustrated; it took time, precision (well, a goal of precision), sweat, and lots of beans to make dilly beans and I ended up throwing most of them out.

Thankfully, yesterday I talked to Jenny, the farmer at our CSA (as I was greedily packing pickling cukes into a plastic bag to make pickles, wondering when I could steal 3 hours of kitchen swearing time during the busy coming week) She said, "Oh you don't want to do all that work and have mushy pickles. Make sun pickles. We've got the recipe on this week's website." She was right. I did not want mushy pickles. (That horror had never occurred to me.) I made sun pickles with the children. We did not burn each other. They look gorgeous on the windowsill where they are to sit for 2 days in the sun. Rob said, upon entering the kitchen after work, "Those are beautiful. Did you get a picture?" Why, thank you, yes I did.
I'll let you know how they taste!


SUN PICKLES1 gallon jar
sliced cukes to fill it
Two thirds water to one third vinegar (6 1/2 C water, 3 1/4 C vinegar)
1/2 C - 2/3 C pickling salt
garlic - one clove, or more
dill heads or fresh dill
other spices you like

Fill the jar with cukes, top with other ingredients, Then leave it in the sun for 2 days, 3 if cloudy. Refrigerate and eat for up to 2 weeks.

Feeling fresh after our quick and painless pickle experience we all headed out to do "trail maintenance" on a trail Rob had discovered. (He is training for an intense cylocross seaon come fall and he needs a place to ride in the woods and I'd like somewhere to jog off-pavement.)


We were all astonished by the mushrooms. They were amazing; all over the place. I took photos of only a tiny fraction of what we saw growing.

Lily spray painted the roots that stuck out in odd places. Rob had a hatchet and clippers to cut branches that had overgrown the trail. Georgia and I spotted and admired mushrooms.

It was lovely and quiet; I felt a tiny bit of trepidation. Although I have deep cravings to spend time in the woods, I usually don't. It is the same hushed woods where I saw the Luna Moth and the Scarlet Tanager earlier in the summer (that I wrote about in here). It has a feeling of deep thrumming energy. I kept looking up to see if there was something there, moving behind the tress, just past where we stood. Georgia was also was reticent to enter and demanded I hold her hand the entire time, but again, we don't spend much time in the woods when evening is coming....

The mushrooms were bright and welcoming and made me think of the mushroom researcher who believes all the interconnected fungi beneath the ground has its own sort of consciousness.

His name is Paul Stamets and his book is: Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World. The article I read in The Sun about him was really crazy and cool.

http://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/386/going_underground

There was a quote from it I liked:

"Biological systems are so complex that they far exceed our cognitive abilities and our linear logic. We are essentially children when it comes to our understanding of the natural world."
















Anyway, we had a good time outside and enjoyed the mushroom's company. The mosquitos finally swarmed and we all ran for the car and the creamie.

Mass MOCA outing

My parents, the girls and I went to Mass MOCA in North Adams today for a belated Mother's Day gift to my mother.
We saw the Sol LeWitt's wall drawing retrospective.

http://www.massmoca.org/event_details.php?id=27

The girls were mighty unruly in the exhibit. A child's instinct is to sprint around the open bright rooms, running their hand along the colorful walls, which, of course, is not allowed. So there wasn't that much contemplative gazing. I didn't read any of the information provided, we just moved quickly through the rooms and between the decorated walls.
It was beautiful, odd and interesting
It will be there for 20 years so we'll go again someday when writhing has decreased as a frequent behavior.


Here they are at the end of the day, finally eating the ice cream I held over their heads the whole time. They are not in the best of moods. The ride home with all of us squished into my CRV was taxing.
But once we got home and I saw the photos, I was happy wed had an adventure.

A Tiny Plum

from our tiny plum tree. Georgia really likes plums right now so she sneaks down there and picks them while they're still sour.

Herniated Disk

I got an MRI yesterday. (Pain and numbness have been shooting down my right leg for the last month)
Crazy.
That's not me in the photo. I was turned around the other way, but this photo makes it look kind of holy and serene. It is not. Luckily, as I was sauntering in with my book and my coffee I made a call to my friend who said, "Oh shit!" when I told her I was just popping in for an MRI. At least I had some warning that I would be placed in a tube with really loud noises around my head. (I apparently never thought I would need an MRI so I never paid any attention to what they entailed.)

Everyone was kind and calm at the facility but they ask the same questions over and over again. I'm sure this was for my safety but when I am asked 4 times (twice on paper and twice in person) if I have ever had anything metal stuck in my eye and I say emphatically "no" and they keep asking me; I start to question myself.
"Hmmm, I don't think I've had anything stuck in my eye. Maybe I did and I don't remember. Maybe, when I was a baby. I would know, though; right?"

A nice woman in white laid me on clean pillows and knowingly placed support under my knees so I could lie down without pain. She gave me large headphones covered in white cloth to listen to classical music. It felt like a spa. She said nothing about being trapped with my face in a tube (I figured because it was an MRI of my lower back My head would stick out) but she did quietly mention with a smile that some of the time I would not be able to hear the classical music I had requested due to the jackhammer noise. Hmmm.

Then into the tube I went and, yikes, there I was with my whole body inside, feeling like I barely fit. The inside of the tube was an inch or so above my nose. Ooh, some latent claustrophobia definitely emerged. I couldn't open my eyes; I felt if I did; I would surely freak out. She had gently told me not to move for the half hour procedure so I lay as still as I could, scared to breathe. I felt on the verge of panicking and then I realized it would probably be ok to take a good sized breath. Once I slowed my breathing, I felt better, but to endure the 30 minutes I had to start meditating/praying fervently. I almost burst out laughing from the intensity of the noise around my head. I couldn't hear the music at all; it was like a metallic jackhammer all around my head in a sporadic random beat. The tech's voice came over my headphones a few times to ask if I was doing ok and I mumbled "yup." It was nice to know someone was there, but it interrupted my pretending I wasn't there.

When it was done I emerged slowly from the tube on the mechanical table and declared, "Holy crap!" to a different tech who helped me up, saying, "Yeah, I talk people into going in there, but I have to be medicated to do it myself."
I was glad to get dressed, get out of there and into the sunshine.
I got a call from my doctor's office saying I have a small disk herniation.
She didn't know any more; they're making me an appointment with a spine doctor.
My back has been feeling much better, so I'm not sure what it means.
We'll see.

"The Universe Owes You Nothing

You have everything you need inside of you."

Is what Kellie Finn said to start our yoga class today.
Then she read this poem at the start and at the end of class.
















(Lily jumping off the high dock last week)


SO MANY GIFTS

There are so many gifts
Still unopened from your birthday,
There are so many hand-crafted presents
That have been sent to you by God.
The Beloved does not mind repeating,
"Everything I have is also yours."
Please forgive Hafiz and the Friend
If we break into a sweet laughter
When your heart complains of being thirsty
When ages ago
Every cell in your soul
Capsized forever
Into this infinite golden sea.
Indeed,
A lover's pain is like holding one's breath
Too long In the middle of a vital performance,
In the middle of one of Creation's favorite Songs.
Indeed, a lover's pain is this sleeping,
This sleeping,
When God just rolled over and gave you
Such a big good-morning kiss!
There are so many gifts, my dear,
Still unopened from your birthday.
O, there are so many hand-crafted presents
That have been sent to your life
From God.
~ Hafiz ~
(The Gift - versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)

When we were holding a difficult pose Kellie would say, "What gift can you open today?"

My mind was filled with images of tiny presents wrapped in shimmering paper
bound up with
red and gold string.


Then, as I drove to work, the Tire Warehouse sign had been updated.






























I love the image of
unfurling tight sails,
looking up to see
billowing snapping white
canvas as it catches
the blowing wind.

Mid-Week in Maine

It’s Wednesday and it looks like a second beautiful day.

Exciting things:

Sheiky the African Gray Parrot is staying with us while Ned, who owns both Sheiky and our rental house, goes on a boat trip. Sheiky greeted me with a cheerful hello when I got back from yoga.

Jacqueline Lacoste teaches a yoga class in the beautiful community center, where I love an excuse to go and look at the ceiling; it feels like being in the hull of a big boat. I've been able to go during vacation week for four years now.

The first two years Jacqueline had an old golden retriever who would greet people as they came in and put their mats down, then he would settle quietly during class. Last year, no dog. I hated to ask, but I did. He had died during the winter.

I missed her peaceful dog and my Azalea as I lay there in Savasana at the end of class. I remembered how his gentle stirring and breathing were so welcome at that open time at the end of class.

The writing pages I did (as part of the The Writing Diet by Julia Cameron) just before I went to class were about "Where the hell is what I want? I’m doing everything aren’t I?" I was feeling gypped and frustrated about not having everything I wanted; even on vacation!

The quote Jacqueline read at the end of class took and shook me by the shoulders. I've heard it before, but this time it dropped into just the right place, like a stone.

"Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day."

Rainer Maria Rilke Letters to a Young Poet

I felt like someone took me from where I was fixated on the horizon and turned me around to see what was in front of me. What's on the horizon will come soon enough.

I felt settled and peaceful as I emerged into the sunlight.

There, at the bottom of the steps was an old yellow lab. He looked me right in the eye as he paused in his slow walk home. His mother said kindly to him, "Home stretch." I said, "You can do it Buddy!" But it made me weepy. Sweet old dogs.

Maine Critters

Starfish collected during low tide at Bayside's rocky beach.

Hermit crabs from Kelly's Cove. Georgia feeding the ducks in Camden. Georgia talking to Sheiky with her matted vacation hair. Sand dollars on the dock.



























A Sea Urchin Rob grabbed from under the floating dock and Georgia holding a little green crab.