Wild Visitors

We were visited by three wild creatures this weekend (perhaps they heard about the two souls who have high hopes for pets).

This is the only one that held still long enough for a clear photo:

This painted turtle wandered across our driveway Saturday afternoon (it was hanging out on third base in our kickball diamond when C found it).

Later Saturday evening M went out to find a pileated woodpecker chuffing at loose bark on a dead tree near our deck. Every time I clicked the shutter, though, it flew off to the next tree (this was the closest I've seen one of those birds--huge).

Then Sunday, E and Z discovered a mole wandering around the front yard and managed to herd it far from the hole it had dug near our front walk. I told them to leave it alone, but later saw from the kitchen window Z carrying a big metal bucket to show E something. Of course he'd scooped up the mole and was planning on keeping it for a pet, "just for a few days." I guess all those times I said he could keep a squirrel or a snowshoe hare for a pet if he could catch it were coming back to bite me! I convinced him that it would not be very happy to be above ground, even for a few days, and we nudged it out of the bucket near its hole, which it immediately paddled down.

A turtle, a woodpecker and a mole. Auspicious sign for the coming season? (Certainly more auspicious than the skunk that's been hanging around all summer--though the skunk has proved itself useful in digging up and dispatching hornet nests).

Tea and Books

I spent two-and-half days last week curled up on the couch in a blanket with a bad cold, a pot of mint tea with honey and a stack of library books.

I've gotten into the habit of ordering a book through interlibrary loan whenever I read a review online that sounds good. This usually results in pleasant surprises when I pick up the books (I rarely remember any titles once I've clicked "request"), but sometimes they pile up faster than I can read them. Just such a situation was threatening last week until I was laid low and given the rare opportunity to read in peace for hours each day (broken only by making more tea and naps).

Three of the books explored the mistreatment of women in three different historic periods and settings (witch trials of the Reformation, insane asylums of the Victorian period, and American textile mills early last century). Truly, I eat this stuff up; I think it's such a valuable role for literature to shine a bright light on the darker parts of our history--especially those parts that tend to get ignored or glossed over in our history classes. I'm also stunned and amazed by the research that went into writing these books (two were based on actual events, the third was based on a renowned work of literature from the era).

Triangle by Katharine Weber tells the story of the last living survivor of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in interview transcripts alternating with scenes of her granddaughter and her fiance/husband. I have to admit to rushing through the parts about the granddaughter, and especially her fiance's music to get on to more about Esther's experience of the fire, which is horrific and, as it turns out, a bit of a mystery.

Daughters of the Witching Hill by Mary Sharratt is the fictionalized story of the lives of the women of Pendle Forest who were tried as witches in 1613. I'm endlessly fascinated/horrified by this era of history, and found this book very well done. In fact, I think it's my favorite of the four.

Dracula in Love by Karen Essex is the Dracula story recast in feminist clothes. I have to admit to being too illiterate to having read Stoker's original, but I found this version (told in the voice of Mina) to be a fascinating look into both life in Victorian times for women and the history and mythology around vampires. Stoker plays a walk-on role, which is amusing. I only wish it had been a bit scarier...I would have liked more suspense...and that some of the characters that were introduced earlier on (e.g. Kate Reed) had been carried through the narrative in some way. Otherwise, very well done and I might just go read the original.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender departs from the other three books I read in that it takes place in the now-ish era. It is the strange tale of a woman who can taste people's emotions in their cooking. As she grows up and begins to find a way to cope with her strange skill, she discovers that other members of her family have unusual skills as well.

What are you reading?

Men's Work

Last Saturday I took a little break from my day to sit outside and do a little hand-sewing on a small project. E joined me and tried his hand at blanket stitch, then decided he wanted to work on his knitting. In May, when my mom was here and knitting up a storm, E decided it was time to graduate from finger knitting and try the real thing. At first he just sat on my mom's lap and held the needles while she did the knitting. Over the summer he's picked it up off and on, taking over a little more of the actual knitting each time, to the point that last weekend, he was doing it all, I just held the needles to keep them from sliding out of the stitches (he's a loose knitter).

When it got too cold and we went inside, I found Z in the kitchen doing this:

He helped C make homemade pasta and sauce from start to finish. I love that these boys, despite having rather strong feelings about pink and purple NOT being colors they like (at least one of them has a strong opposition to "girl" colors), and despite HATING flowers (except when they forget and pick me a bouquet), are eager knitters and sewers and cooks, and in fact have no gendered associations with those activities.

Hurray for boys who knit and sew and cook!

Autumn Equinox, Observed

We welcomed the season this weekend by cleaning and rearranging the living room. E and Z have been asking for ages to "rerrange the riveryroom" and the turn of season seemed like as good a time as any to get dust out of the corners and change the view. E helped me dust and vacuum and move furniture and then I gave the boys free artistic control over setting up the Nature Table.

They seem to favor the well-populated look. Hiding in there somewhere is this sweet woodland animal set from Anne Moze that I couldn't resist buying a while back and tucking away for the autumn (you can see the hedgehog as half of the chimera M put together).

We also brought out our fall book basket (some of our favorites: Fall Leaves Fall; Child of Faerie, Child of Earth; Hist Whist; Flower Faeries of the Autumn (OK, that's my favorite, not the boys'); Stone Wall Secrets; Woody Hazel and Little Pip; The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin; You and Me Little Bear).

For dinner we made an autumn feast of vegetable soup, pain d'epi and a rustic apple tart. I usually make pumpkin soup for the first day of fall, and had even bought a ridiculously overpriced buttercup squash at the health food store for the purpose (our winter squashes are still hanging out on the vine in the hopes of gaining in size or ripeness), but our cornucopia runneth over with green beans, tomatoes, broccoli, and potatoes just now, so I made a more harvest-appropriate soup with all of the above plus some carrots from neighbor's garden.

I was reading a book the other day about Celtic festivals, which said that the Celts celebrated the beginning of the harvest in early August (Lughnasa) and the end of the agricultural year around October 31 (Samhain), but did not do much to mark the autumn equinox because they were too busy harvesting and storing away the year's crops. I think I can relate; truly I never thought I'd say this, but I'm looking forward to the end of tomato season--C harvested all of our own this weekend starting up more rounds of baking, skinning, blending and freezing.

How are you welcoming the season?

Pet, For a Day

I have two little boys who want more than anything in the whole wide world (well, maybe not anything, but most things) something furry and soft and alive to call their own. The trouble is, C and I are just not pet people. I know that probably sounds awful, but I feel like I'm hanging on by my fingernails just to keep everything together most of the time...to add another heartbeat to our home would truly send me over the edge . Plus I'm allergic to many furry things. And neither of us wants to clean up after another animal (other than the three bipedal ones we already have). Or figure out what to do with it when we go away.

We may some day get something farmish and useful, like chickens or a goat, but for now we are petless.

But those boys love animals. So much that they regularly offer to trade me in for a dog or cat (my allergies being the scapegoat and cover for our petless condition). Last weekend, C was scything the overgrown weeds around our "yard" and accidentally injured a mouse. Z brought me to see it, curled in some dry grass, nose bloodied--whether from a cut or a blow I do not know.

Now I admit I get a little squeamish around mice. They do kind of ick me out. And I'll also admit that when they invade my house or car I do not hesitate to give the orders that snap traps be installed. But here was this injured creature, and here was my boy who has shown moments of aggression lately, concerned for the welfare of this tiny ball of fur. So I found a container and we filled it with dry grass and scooped in the mouse (heebie-jeebie) and gave it little dishes of water and grated apple and cheese (what else?), and brought it into the house.

I fully expected it to die overnight from its wounds...it was after all bleeding from its mouth and nose, but by morning, when I got up to make breakfast, I could hear it rustling around in its enclosure. I couldn't tell if it had eaten or drunk anything, but it was moving and no longer bloody. The boys came down to see it first thing when they woke up, and wouldn't let it alone for all their holding and touching. Let me tell you, despite my deep reservations about caged animals--especially caged wild animals--and despite having trapped this one's cousin in our house just months ago, I had a brief vision of going up to pet smart and getting an aquarium and wood chips and mouse pellets and a water bottle for the thing.

Happily, that vision passed before I did anything rash, and after the sun came out and the air warmed up in the afternoon, we returned little mousy (we didn't even have it long enough to give it a name) back to nature. Immediately it disappeared down a tunnel of dried grass that must be part of network crisscrossing all our land (except the lawn), and that we never even knew existed. Z was not happy that it took off so quickly before he got a chance to hold it, but I was happy that it seemed fully recovered and hope that the boys learned something about kindness, in seeing their mother open her heart to a creature that just makes her want to shake all over.

Tomato Jam

In addition to all the solar cooked tomato largesse, I made these four tiny jars of tomato jam.

The recipe is Mark Bittman's, and it is divine. Truly.

I got the idea from a little deli in South Portland that has a sandwich with pesto, fresh mozzarella and some sort of substance that could only be described as tomato jam. So I looked it up, and there was a recipe right there in the New York Times.

I told a friend about it and she thought it would be good with cream cheese on crackers, so for a little get-together with my knitting buddies, I made some nutty crackers and some yogurt cheese (I did want to make real cream cheese, to get started on my autumn to-do list, but didn't have all the necessary ingredients) and placed a dollop of jam on top.

Yummy.

I have this weird thing about liking to make a whole meal from scratch...I have visions of some day making a spanikopita from homemade filo dough, with home-grown spinach and homemade feta. I know it will never happen (I would never, ever have the patience to roll out filo), but the idea of the gritty authenticity of having to make it all appeals to me in a weird way. My crackers were on the dry, abrasive side and my yogurt cheese a little grainy a tad too tart, but the overall effect...so satisfying. I know...weird.

Table Runner Accomplished!

Among my list of autumn-to-do's was to make this table runner, which I got inspired to do last weekend, jumping the gun a bit on the season. Though as I was making it, it occurred to me that the colors are a bit more summery, with that buttery yellow and those blossoms, so I may need to make a more autumney one yet.

Now I could tell you a long boring story as I am wont to do, about how I fell in love with the sparrow fabric when I first saw it, but was in the midst of my Buy Nothing Year, and then decided to get some to make living room curtains last year, but by then it had been discontinued, and all I could get my hands on was a single fat quarter the complimentary "rose" design (as it turned out, the decorator weight and width that I ended up using was a much better choice for curtains), then last Thanksgiving while visiting friends, I found a bolt of the sparrows in a tiny little gift shop that just happened to sell a few fabrics and bought a single, precious yard, to hang onto until the right project came along, and then, by chance discovered the tangerine wood grain at a huge discount store that is about 15,000 square feet of garbage and 500 square feet of really great fabric at super cheap prices, and then the idea and design for the runner just came together and clicked, and how the vase my mom sent for my birthday (it arrived the exact day after I brought home flowers from the farmer's market and thought, "I need an in-between-sized vase" and pictured in my mind the very one you see here) matches exactly.

But I won't...instead I'll just ask, how much do you love those colors? They make me happy just looking at them. On third thought, perhaps this should be a winter table runner, to offer color and cheer during those dark months.

I do admit to taking it off the table when we sat down for dinner after taking this picture, 'cause I didn't want it to get all messy, but since then I have left it on the table and it's gotten its share of milk splatters and sprinklings from the flowers and pepper shaker...it will fare worse over time, no doubt. We have all really yucky plastic place mats that do it no justice at all...I am contemplating the trip to Marden's to buy up the last of the orange wood grain and make a dozen or so (hmm...but then we'll need complimentary napkins!)