Making Compost From Crap

Posted on January 11, 2021 by Ann Lovejoy
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                           Light in the darkness shows us the way forward

Doing Our Part, High Or Humble

This morning, a crowd of supporters Zoom-watched as Tarra Simmons was sworn in to serve as our district representative in the Washington State Legislature. A woman with a remarkable life story most of us can scarcely imagine, Tarra is the first former felon to serve in this office, where she is committed to serving underserved people as they have never been served before. She can and will, because she brings an understanding of the many factors that drag people into the nightmare web of juvie, jail, and prison and keep them there. As a young child, Tarra was herself trafficked and saw family members and friends abused and killed in gang violence before her eyes. After serving her time for drug offenses, she completed law school with honors yet was only allowed to take the bar by a same-day, unanimous ruling of the State Supreme Court. A tireless advocate for legal equity and restorative justice, Tarra is already deeply engaged in legislative work she’s been advocating for for years. The co-founder of the Civil Survival Project, a nonprofit that helps formerly incarcerated people with counsel and legal services, Tarra is actively working for social and legal changes that would help prevent the need for “second chances”.

Tears of pride and wholehearted gratitude dripped down my face as this historic event took place. Those tears were refreshing after the heartbreaking events of last week, the culmination of years of deliberate incitement to violence and equally deliberate blind-eye-turning to that incitement on a national level. A heartsick nation watched in shock as an angry mob of domestic terrorists were encouraged, allowed, and even abetted to invade our nation’s Capitol Building. In the bitter aftermath, one man, Andy Kim, a State Representative from New Jersey and the son of immigrants, shed tears of sorrow as he saw the destruction and chaos left behind when the mob had been evicted. Alone in the huge room, he started to clean up the trash and broken furnishings strewn across the floor. Eventually a few policemen started to help him, but he stayed on, working until 3:00 am in order to leave the place he considers to be the heart of the nation better than he found it.

Hearts Of Stone

The entire nation and the world beyond is struggling to process last week’s historic events. Pretty much everyone I know, whatever their political leanings, is feeling stunned, bereft, and brokenhearted. The phrase “worried sick” keeps coming up; as a people, we are anxious and angry, horrified and scared. If it’s hard to stay openhearted in the wake of recent events, it’s more important than ever to try. Yesterday, a friend hung little bag on my doorknob that held a small heart stone and a note that read, ‘Something to put in your pocket to help you keep your heart open.’ When frustration and fury rise up, holding the heavy little heart helps me move past pain to center on what I DO want to experience and help bring into being; a collaborative culture based on kindness and compassion for all; an equitable society that values the earth and everything that lives upon it; a culture that is not trapped in greedy acquisition and power mongering nor in aversion, hatred and anger.

In short, I want to live in a culture that is not based on racism and capitalism. It’s past time for a national re-set, a reexamination of the very basis of our way of life. If that sounds daunting, it is and it isn’t. While few people get the chance to change to world in major ways, we can all make changes in small ways. I cherish the image of Tarra Simmons wholeheartedly swearing to uphold the constitution. I also treasure the memory of Andy Kim on his hands and knees, patiently bagging up the detritus of the mob attack. By doing our part, humble or high, we can affect our family and friends, our local community, and perhaps more. By holding our hearts open, despite ongoing terrorist attacks on democracy, we can remain strong enough to respond from our hearts with courage and compassion.

Let’s Talk About Everything

This morning, my local Senior Center hosted a Zoom conversation with a biracial young man who recently graduated from the local high school and with his mom, a white woman married to a black man from another country who is always called African-American, as though his country of origin is irrelevant. While in high school, the young man worked with student activist groups to expose the rampant racism hidden beneath the shiny social veneer of our lovely, progressive, wealthy community. His mom decided to do what she can as well, so after the murder of George Floyd, she posted on social media, asking for five people to join her in conversations about race. “In my family, race is something we talk about every single day,” she said, while for most of her friends, it simply never came up.

Her initial conversations became ongoing book study groups, increasing from one group to ten and including teachers and educators eager to learn how to introduce challenging topics like racism into their own schools and businesses. By creating safe, nonjudgmental places to hold exploratory conversations, this one woman influenced people and institutions across the country. Both mother and son stressed that the key to getting people to open their hearts for such conversations is creating those safe spaces and explaining the value of discomfort. Few of us willingly engage in uncomfortable activities or conversations, yet until we do, we will not find the way through the toxic mess our country and our culture are in right now. Just as compost needs air to work its alchemical magic, turning raw manure and garbage into sweet smelling, wholesome, soil nutrients, we must open ourselves up to heartfelt conversations about equity, racism, and social change in order to let the light in. In the light of truth, we can see our way to work on ourselves and with others for the betterment of all. Onward, right?

Posted in composting, Health & Wellbeing, Nutrition, Social Justice, Sustainable Living, Teaching Gardening | 10 Comments

New Year Noticing

Posted on January 4, 2021 by Ann Lovejoy
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Soup as soothing soul food

Shining Light On Seasonal Swings

Happy New Year, right? Or, perhaps, not so much? As the holidays recede, I’m feeling flat, stale, and vaguely sorrowful, restless but lacking energy. Many friends and neighbors are sharing such feelings as well, despite reporting peaceful, mellow holidays that were more enjoyable than expected. All weekend, I’ve been pondering on the past, remembering celebrating as a child and with my own kids; as a young adult alone in a foreign country; with and without family; making merry for aging parents. This pandemic year saw many of us alone or with a very small people-pod during the holiday season and this new experience opened the way for reflection on what we are actually celebrating. For many of us, those peaceful, mellow holidays provided welcome contrasts with the hectic, frantic busyness of past celebrations. Others were left feeling bereft of the cheerful connectedness that made holidays shine.

While post-holiday blues are nothing new, they were certainly exacerbated by the accumulated stresses and distresses of 2020. If ecological destruction and political evils weren’t enough to tip us over the edge, many of us found our security bubble-wrap getting thinner as safety bubbles popped one by one. Here, several friends and neighbors are in hospital, ill or broken and struggling to stay alive. Covert racism is increasingly revealed on my progressive, wealthy island. Waterfront homes sell like hotcakes for multiple millions, while homelessness increases exponentially. A friend in Southern California writes that she’s living in a tiny studio because her daughter and grandkids all have Covid-19, as does her aging mother in Georgia. Another lost her home to wildfire and is struggling to find a safe place to land. Another sold her home and moved two thousand miles to care for her dying brother. With such stories multiplying every day, no wonder we are feeling off balance, discouraged, depleted.

New Year’s Noticing

I’ve been interested to notice that very few people talked about spiritual solace. I’ve always found the annual journey from warmth and light into chilly darkness and back to be healing and hopeful, a potent reminder that, as RBG often said, ‘the pendulum always swings’. Already, so soon after the Solstice, the light is slowly returning, yet we Northerners won’t see 9 hours of daylight until just before the inauguration of our new president. As the word implies, that augers well for our country but with so much restorative work to do, all positive changes will need a lot of energy behind them. Where we find that energy depends less on social and governmental changes than on our own practices, how well we nurture our bruised and weary spirits.

One way NOT to nurture our spirit is by creating daunting lists of Resolutions. There’s a ton of research that demonstrates how ineffectual our annual resolutions tend to be. For starters, most resolutions are a bit stern, reminders of our accumulating failures to be smarter, richer, thinner, more successful at whatever we decide will make us happier. I no longer bother with resolutions as, in my experience, noticing what I’ve learned, gained, discovered, and created is far more rewarding and effective at promoting positive life changes. Instead, I devote time at the beginning of each year to noticing how far I’ve come instead of focussing on my (many) shortcomings.

The Pause That Refreshes

Recently, I’ve listened to quite a few other people who have a similar approach. My darling daughter-in-love spoke tenderly about her renewed appreciation for The Pause; that beneficent moment of thought before we speak. Part of her practice is to ‘cultivate The Pause’; something that definitely resonated. The past year brought me numerous opportunities to practice The Pause fruitfully, and looking back, I’m pleased with my personal Pause progress. The Pause can take various forms; it may keep us silent when we’re tempted to blurt out something better left unsaid, but it’s also a way to make room for reflection rather than reflexive speech or thoughts. My friend Mary Ann is taking a little time to appreciate her increasing ability to acknowledge her own individuality. My friend Peggi is enjoying her deepening relationship with her artwork, finding pleasure in the practice rather than results.

Both my emotional blues and recent restlessness owe a lot to the weather, as Western Washington has been awash in rain for weeks. Since we have been in a state of drought for years, the rain is especially welcome for nurturing native trees and smaller plants as well as the critters that depend on them. Even so, grey skies and chilly winds are not conducive to strolling around, and many of us are sorely missing our daily walks. It’s also been challenging to find enough time between cloudbursts to do some therapeutic gardening, my usual panacea. Much as I enjoy reading and knitting and crafting, I grow weary of the endless sitting. When I put on my raincoat and venture out, I rarely see another human, but happy birds are everywhere, calling and chirping, flitting busily about, swooping in and out of bushes and diving into gardens to find bugs and worms. Unkempt gardens are definitely the favorites, providing seeds as well as insects, so mine, though small, is very busy indeed.

Soup On The Stoop

This damp, chilly weather brings out the soup maker in all of us. I love eating soup and I love making soup but I seem incapable of making less than a huge batch. One wonderful silver lining in the 2020 storm has been a neighborhood tradition of soup surprises. Membership in my soup circle means that every few days, we’ll find a jar of soup on the stoop, and every few days, we return the jar filled with a different kind of soup. It’s a wonderful way to enjoy new recipes and I’m always struck by the way food we didn’t cook tastes so deliciously different.

One soup sister is vegetarian and thanks to my brother, she attests that my vegetarian soups have been kicked up a notable notch. My vegetarian soups often lacked depth, but Eben’s potent Parmesan broth adds all the rich, deep, umami flavor anyone could wish for. My version is simpler than his (see his blog below) but definitely delicious and well work making. Eben freezes his in a dedicated ice cube tray and adds a dollop to soups, sauces and so on, as this broth is so stout that a little goes a long way.

Savory Vegetarian Parmesan Broth

2 cups chopped Parmesan cheese rinds
8 cups water
1 large yellow onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
4 stalks celery, chopped

Combine in a soup pot, cover and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 3-4 hours, or until cheese rinds are almost entirely melted. Strain through a colander and freeze in small amounts for up to 3 months. Makes about 6 cups broth.

Here’s Eben’s more complex version:

http://urbanmonique.net/tag/parmesan-rinds/

Onward!

 

 

 

Posted in Care & Feeding, Health & Wellbeing, Native Plants, Nutrition, Recipes, Sustainable Gardening, Sustainable Living | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

How To Nurture Hummingbirds

Posted on December 28, 2020 by Ann Lovejoy
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Young artist’s view of beautiful birds

Hummingbird Happiness

Like most people, we have had very quiet holidays, which turn out to suit us surprisingly well. On Friday morning my brother and I companionably texted back and forth, exchanging images and recipes and tips as we prepped and cooked holiday meals for slumbering companions. We reminisced about how our mom considered cooking to be beneath her interest, and we both felt grateful for the gift of appreciation from our dad’s interest in real food. My grandkids love to cook with me and we too have had fun enjoying meals together by live-video on the phone. For the holidays, they shared a recipe for making hummingbird elixir to go with their gift of a lovely vintage-style glass hummingbird feeder. I removed a flagging fuchsia basket with just a few forlorn flowers left, hung my handsome new feeder on the same hook and almost immediately the hummers were buzzing in for a quick snack.

When we humans hunker indoors, staying warm and cozy and eating ridiculous amounts of holiday specialties, the poor birds are working harder to keep themselves fed. They definitely appreciate gardens like mine, where plants are allowed to ripen seed and stalks are left to be cut back as spring arrives. Even a tiny garden like mine is alive with birds, mostly towhees and juncos, sparrows and chickadees, goldfinches and house finches. Bigger birds like to poke around the yard as well, from crows and ravens to Steller’s Jays and the occasional flicker. Apart from the jays, most are fairly drab, and certainly none outshine the gorgeous hummingbirds, which zip and zoom with a buzz of little wings.

Hardy Hummingbirds

By midsummer, hummingbirds are everywhere in the garden. They especially enjoy visiting hanging fuchsia baskets and they return over and over to sip the rich nectar from the long necked flowers. In summer, we get visits from several kinds, notably Rufous hummers, the males sporting bright red bandanas and coppery heads and backs. By winter, only the Anna’s hummingbirds are left in our cold, sometimes snowy region. The males are showboats, with iridescent, shocking pink-to-rosy throats and crowns, the ladies smaller and greeny-gold. Both have prodigious appetites and once they find your feeders, you’ll be refilling them at least a few times a week. I was fascinated to learn from an Audubon post that these charming little jewel birds were first seen over-wintering in Seattle in 1964, though they now nest and breed on Vancouver island and up into Southeastern Alaska. Though climate change may play a part in this migration, it also owes something to humans, as enough of us provide nectar feeders to keep a lot of hummers happy.

Hummingbirds also need protein, which is why they favor unkempt gardens, where insects, spiders and bugs are more often to be found than in sterile, over-manicured landscapes. Throughout the Northwest, I notice with sadness the constant habitat loss. Houses replace forests and roadside sweeps of native vegetation give way to tidied up verges replete with lawns and fruitless trees. It is sad to watch healthy stands of native fruiting trees and shrubs (which nourish native birds and other creatures) be replaced with non-natives and sterile lawns that don’t nourish anybody. As suburbs spread, tidiness destroys the last remnants of the wild. Birds and other creatures suffer hunger and higher death rates when they have no place to live. What can we do? Happily, quite a lot, even in tiny urban spaces.

Sharing Gardens With Birds

Though average lot size is shrinking everywhere, yet yards still host multiple activities and features. Fortunately, it’s easy to provide functional bird habitat along with privacy screening by creating layered perimeter plantings. What makes a garden a good place for birds? Food and water, shelter and nesting opportunities. To provide a steady supply of food, we need to plant both flowers and fruiting shrubs. Native salmonberries, huckleberries, and salal can be supplemented or supplanted with garden plants like raspberries, blueberries and wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens). Many viburnums provide ample bird food, as do crab apples, barberries, and flowering cherries.

It’s also helpful to design more naturalistic, less formal gardens. Layered, unclipped hedges offer privacy and provide places for birds to build safe nests and hide from cats. Tightly sheared hedges don’t work, since dense foliage prevents bird penetration. Avoid shearing by choosing plants that mature to an appropriate size. This simple concept makes less work for you and is far less stressful for the plant. Twiggy dogwoods (Cornus sericea and C. sanguinea) are beautiful screening plants that also give birds plenty of protection. Snowberry and buffalo-berry offer multi-seasonal beauty and bird food. Shrubby California lilacs (Ceanothus) offer shelter for birds and food for bees, butterflies, and other pollinators. Small trees like apples, pears, wild cherries and vine maples and large unsheared shrubs like barberry, escallonia, and Oregon wax myrtle (Myrica californica) all offer good nesting opportunities.

Offer Water Even In Winter

Water bowls will bring in many kinds of birds, especially in winter, when natural streams and puddles may be frozen solid. Change water bowls daily and scrub them out well to avoid creating a health hazard for visiting birds. Always place water features and birdbaths where birds can see marauding cats clearly. Quietly moving water may be more attractive than wild splashing. One friend whose garden is always full of happy birds stuffs her decorative, multi-tiered fountains with moss and water-loving ferns. Instead of gushing, they drip and trickle in a manner that birds find utterly enticing.

As for filling those feeders, always use the classic Audubon-approved recipe. Never use alternative forms of sweeteners, none of which are good for birds (and some of which are outright harmful). Never add red dye, which can be harmful; the feeder’s bright color is attraction enough. Always wash the feeders between fillings, but in winter, dry them well before putting them back outside; one sad day, we found a tiny female Anna’s hanging by her feet from the feeder, frozen to the little perch. We brought the whole thing indoors, set if gently in the sink and spread a towel over the whole business. In a few hours, she thawed out enough to get free and flew straight out the door to the second feeder hanging outside. That’s why it’s wise to wipe the perches dry!

Hummingbird Elixir

4 cups warm water
1 cup cane sugar

Mix well to dissolve sugar and fill feeders immediately. Mix fresh elixir each time you fill your feeders. Onward!

 

Posted in Care & Feeding, Garden Design, Gardening With Children, Health & Wellbeing, Native Plants, Nutrition, Plant Diversity, Pollination Gardens, Sustainable Gardening, Sustainable Living, Winterizing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A Soggy Solstice

Posted on December 21, 2020 by Ann Lovejoy
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Best Ever Gingerbread Critter Recipe

Pandemic Holiday Baking

This has definitely been the soggiest Solstice of my experience, with relentless rain (over an inch by mid-afternoon) and whipping wind lashing the treetops, brisk cannonades of fir cones pounding on the roof. The street is running like a river and the unwary are drenched within minutes of setting out to walk the dog or check the mail. My daughter and I were planning to have a little bonfire-in-a-bowl, filling our small fire bowl with sap-sticky pine cones and cut-up branches saved from several pruning extravaganzas. Alas, there’s no way we can celebrate with fire, as our proposed spot on the gravel parking pad is flooded and the wind is driving the rain sideways up into the porch. Still, we lighted our Solstice lanterns, put candles in all the windows, and strung the house with little lights to soften the gathering darkness. Let there be light!

This is always my favorite day of the year, when the grey and gloom begin their slow retreat. From here on out, the days grow just a little longer and night’s victory starts slipping away. Our inner darkness is lightened by social and political changes as well: with vaccines coming into play, it’s easier to believe that the end of our isolation is drawing nearer. With a new pandemic relief package on the horizon, there’s hope that those suffering financial hardship may avoid evictions and foreclosures that otherwise seem inevitable. Sadly, it seems all too likely that the relief will be too little and too late for the many people already dealing with food and financial insecurity when the pandemic developed. Happily, charitable giving is approaching all time highs, helping nonprofits to keep vital human services available. I’m proud of our Governor for committing to keeping human service levels stable despite budget shortfalls; such awareness of the underserved is refreshingly new and hopeful.

Baking For Sharing

It also helps that I’m doing a lot of baking, which always soothes and lifts my spirits. Although our holidays are definitely different this year, the tradition of holiday baking seems stronger than ever. Store shelves are once again emptying of flour and sugar, almost as quickly as they did back in March, when the pandemic stay-home orders began. Baking has been our solace for months now, yet there’s another very energetic burst in progress (around here, anyway). Almost every day, I find little plates of yummies or bags of cookies left on the porch to make us smile with the double delight of being remembered kindly and tasting deliciousness.

Almost every day, I too am making the rounds, delivering spicy cupcakes rich with pecans and dried cherries, tender peanut butter nuggets, or crisp biscotti all over the neighborhood. I’m very grateful to the pundits who pronounced homemade food safe to share, as the daily pleasure of giving and receiving such treats definitely brightens our days. I’m especially grateful that my grandkids are able to join me for holiday baking, something we all enjoy enormously. Today, we made our favorite gingerbread, a fragrant, spicy recipe with the texture of play-dough that never gets tough no matter how much it’s handled,

Sculptable Gingerfolk

When my kids were little, I developed this sculptable gingerbread recipe; instead of rolling the dough out flat and using cookie cutters, kids could roll balls of dough for heads and bodies and roll little logs for arms and legs. My inventive grandkids made dragons, unicorns, mice and snails as well as the usual stars and cats. My original recipe uses butter, but you can make a vegan/dairy-free version with avocado oil, which has a light but subtly butter flavor. This recipe also works with a gluten-free flour mix but you need to add the water carefully to get the right consistency (not sticky, not crumbly). For decorations, I favor raisins or dried currents (smaller, thus better for buttons and eyes) but the kiddos prefer the various brightly colored sprinkle mixtures as well as edible glitter, a new passion of theirs.

Sculptable Gingerbread

3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon each ground ginger, cinnamon and coriander
1/2 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter
OR 1/4 cup avocado oil
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup unsulphured molasses
1/3-1/2 cup water

Preheat oven to 350 degree F. Sift dry ingredients together, set aside. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter or oil with brown sugar and molasses. Add flour in 3 parts, alternating with a few tablespoons of water as needed to make a soft but not sticky dough. Roll dough into a ball, then divide into 12-15 pieces. Use each piece to shape a ginger-person or snow-person or whatever you fancy. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes depending on thickness; when done, cookies will feel slightly springy to the touch. Cool on a rack before frosting. Makes 12-15 ginger-folk.

Better Biscotti

We are very fond of these crisp, crunchy Italian biscuits, though I find most recipes too sweet for my family’s taste. This less-sweet version can be made savory by reducing sugar to 2 tablespoons and adding up to 1/2 cup grated hard cheese (we like Parmesan), 2-3 tablespoons fennel or poppy seeds and/or up to 1 tablespoon dried garlic, and 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper. Interestingly, simple creaming and stirring results in smaller biscotti than if you use a hand mixer, which produces larger, crisper results. You can add lemon, orange, lime or tangerine zest with good results, or leave it out if you aren’t a citrus fan, and you can substitute any kind of nuts or seeds for the almonds as well.

Almond Lemon Biscotti

1/2 cup fine yellow cornmeal
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
zest of one large organic lemon (or orange)
2 large eggs
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup sliced almonds

Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper and preheat oven to 350degrees F. Grind cornmeal in a food processor until very fine, set aside. Sift flour, salt and baking powder, stir in cornmeal, set aside. In a larger bowl, use a standing or hand mixer to cream butter or oil with sugar and zest (if using) for 3 minutes. Add eggs and beat for another 2 minutes, until very creamy. Stir in vanilla and add the dry ingredients, stirring until just blended. Blend in the almonds; dough should be soft and a little sticky. Divide dough in half and gently roll each into a snake about 12 inches long and 1-1/2 inches wide. Put them on the parchment paper several inches apart and pat each into a flat-topped rectangle. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes or until set and lightly golden. Put the baking sheet on a cooling rack for half an hour or so. Turn oven back on to 350 degrees. Slide the parchment onto a cutting board and cut each long loaf into 3/4 inch wide slices with a sharp serrated bread knife. Place each piece back on the baking sheet still in their upright positions (not on their sides) and bake for 15 minutes until golden brown and no longer soft. Cool completely before packaging. Makes about 30 biscotti.

Happy Solstice!

 

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