Last Year

Last year
I learned that robins serenade the sunset
and ring in the twilight
     with their lovely, mysterious trills.
A near one calls
and a distant soloist answers like an echo,
     repeating the same refrain.
What do they say?
     There is peace if you look?
     God is near?
     Be still. Be still. Be still....?
I learned that even a lonely song
sung together
can be comforting.

Last year
I learned that winter light glows
over bare, grey trees and dead grass fields.
Almost-sunset-light all day,
the blue-white light of summer bends over,
     leaning, painted gold,
on all the browns of winter's monochrome,
While the sky is still its brilliant blue.
The shadows of tall trees fall long
     at noon,
     painting the country highway with stripes,
     decorations for Winter Solstice.
I learned that dark and bare and stark
hold promise.

Last year
I learned to smell my hands,
A bouquet of hints that tell the story of my day.
Pungent spicy cilantro, chopped for tacos.
Bright, clean, awake tickle of sliced lemon,
     yellow scent of health.
Powdery, fresh cuddle smell of baby shampoo,
     speaking of the last chore today
     long snuggle
     tiny, clean person who wakes so many times
     but says "Hi. Hi. Hi. Mama."
     and fits the curve of my neck so well.
I learned that the stories need telling
and inhaling and exhaling
and it matters how they're told.

Last year
I learned that turning away and turning in
are armor
     from confusion and the startling sting
     sometimes of love, but
are poison.
Poison that feels like strength at first:
     it helps you float
     in turbulent seas.
But sometimes you need to dive to live.
And then the styrofoam pads
     are so tight and numerous that
you are just stuck, immobile, drifting.
Message sent is not message received.
     "This hurts. Please be gentle."
     sounds like
     "I don't care."
And then there are more arrows to invite me to care.
So taking off my armor
     Feels like naked in public.
     Feels risky.
     Feels like target-standing.
But a hug with steel plates on
     doesn't really work, so
I learned to hold on
instead of turn away.

Last year I learned
     to survive.
     to look
     to stop
     to notice
I learned that it's alright to be in winter
     or dusk
     or a busy, messy kitchen.
I learned my armor puts up walls.

This year I will learn a new armor.
And maybe Spring.

    

Grab my Heart

Jesus you grab my heart.
You see the real me
like you saw Matthew the self-consumed tax collector
or Peter, the temperamental fisherman who talked too much,
or Andrew who stayed in the background in silent judgement,
or Mary, the village scandal with no social awareness.
You call out the value,
you understand the dirt and baggage and fears and insecurities.
You remember we are dust.
you count the one step forward
but not the two steps back.
You love it when I need you,
When I spew my agonized questions,
When I open my heart to you, even if it feels risky,
When I take a step that is scary,
except for knowing, hoping, that you will catch me.
You know me better than I know myself
and sing my song to me.
You were there for my story and you know its wounds.
You anticipate what I need
and what others need that I can offer
and what I offer that others need.
You bypass the meanness and hostility and guarded toughness
that grew from abuse or trauma or drama or just life's stuff,
and see and love
the Person of value.
You grab my heart.

Winter Light

Whatever is bubbling up in me
Giddy with contentment
anticipation
--if it's not the coffee I just drank--
must be in the air today.

Because
the dry leaves that fell
and were matted in damp piles
are dancing and cartwheeling
across the road
with unslacking energy.
Golden light
and long, swaying shadows
have painted the brown winter landscape.
Green privet boughs
are bouncing and glittering, silver.
And the bluest of blue skies
is visited by sailing clouds
glowing white
like angel fire
and just enough shadowy grey
to bring out their brilliance.

So many blues:
royal
azure
aquamarine
iris
caribbean
swimming pool

All of us bright
alive, awake,
telling the glory.
(Dec 13, 2015)

Fertilizing My Garden

I'm trying to do this thing right this year.  So I looked up how and when to feed tomatoes.  First thing I noticed is that Tomatoes, Peppers, and Eggplant need similar nutrients and soil conditions. That means when it comes to rotating crops, I'm more limited than I thought. Darn. They should be rotated with legumes, leafy greens, and root vegetables in a four year cycle. But since our garden is 70% tomatoes and peppers that creates a hiccup for me. I guess next year it needs to be 70% green beans. Lettuce doesn't do that well in the hot sun in the summer.  I wonder if growing kale all winter counts...  Growing legumes, particularly, returns nutrients to the soil for tomatoes.

The first fertilization needs to happen when the plants set their first fruit.  That would be now. (Aren't the tomato blossoms pretty?) And then again every 4-6 weeks thereafter.



So while I see the wonderful benefits of MiracleGro, I would prefer to do as much organic gardening as possible.  MiracleGro has an organic fertilizer, but I'm pretty sure it is aged chicken manure and bone and feather meal, and I hate to pay extra for poop--poop I have piles of already, for that matter!  But balance is important.  Unless it is leafy greens you want to harvest, too much nitrogen (in other words, too much manure) makes the plant lush and leafy but doesn't make it produce more fruit.



Tomatoes need a balance of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.  One site recommended a compost tea or comfrey tea to feed with. (Comfrey?  The herb I use in my healing salve? who knew?  I'm pretty sure compost is cheaper though.)  So, what needs to be in my homemade compost tea to have balanced nutrition?  Since I haven't planned ahead, I might have to spring for the organic fertilizer for this feeding and then use the compost tea next time. Espoma Tomato-tone looks like another good option.

Harvesttotable.com says "For higher yields of fruiting crops such as tomatoes and peppers, extra phosphorus and potassium should be given after flowering and fruiting." Hmmm....  

This site also says, "Foliar feeding. Vegetables can take a limited amount of nutrients in through their leaves; this is called foliar feeding. Use a watering can with a fine rose and foliar feed with compost tea, comfrey tea, or seaweed extracts."   Ooh cool!

We mulch with wood mulch to reduce weeds and retain moisture, but mulch has to be pulled aside for fertilizing directly on soil. Dry fertilizer should be watered immediately afterwards.



Apparently bananas have everything a tomato needs. They are the match made in heaven, the id and the ego, the yin and the yang....  Potassium, phosphorus, calcium.  So if you didn't know this and failed, like I did, to save all your banana peels chopped by your food processor in a freezer bag or in a compost pile to add to the soil of your garden before you planted, there is still a way.  You can chop, bake and sprinkle them around the plants like you would dry fertilizer. Or you can make compost tea out of them.  You can add other good stuff like egg shells and coffee grounds.  Basically, you dry your egg shells with a quick bake in the oven, then crumble them. Save tea and coffee solids, and add chopped banana peel.  You can add some liquid kelp or seaweed to give them more microbes for breaking down nutrients quickly.  Let stand 2-3 days then strain and water the plants or spray their leaves with it.

Or here's a fun one: Banana Peel fertilizer spray (with egg shell and epsom salt).  http://www.littlehouseliving.com/banana-peel-plant-fertilizer-spray.html

The Foliar spray options sounds good to me because then I don't have to move any mulch.  I'm pretty sure I have thrown away an entire garden's worth of fertilizer this year. Well, probably most of it went to the chickens or pigs, so it wasn't a total waste.

Guess what we're having for a snack today!

Plantain Healing Salve

Broad leaf plantain. Not a banana.  Psyllium husk, a natural laxative, is that flower on the stem.

Sword leaf plantain.  They both have the same healing properties. and both can be identified by the 5 ribs running parallel down the leaf.

Without getting too technical, plantain contains chemical compounds that offer antibacterial protections for wounds as well as promote new tissue growth. That means the same prevention of infection as something like Neosporin, but healing can be faster.  It also soothes sting and burn from insect bites/stings, sun burn and other burns, pain from scrapes and cuts, and reduces inflammation and bruising.  This is your all-around first aid salve for anything on your skin. It also offers relief from eczema and other rashes, including diaper rash.

This link is for a basic plantain slave recipe: http://www.scratchmommy.com/diy-plantain-salve/ Make sure you follow her instructions about drying the herb.  A fresh herb will cause salve to mold.


I use 2-3 parts plaintain, 1 part Comfrey (for bruising) and 1 part Calendula.  Sometimes I also use 1 part dried lavender. Just be sure to keep your ratio of oil to dried herb the same.  Instead of Tea Tree Essential Oil, you can substitute Rosemary or Lavender or Vit E oil.  All have healing properties. Vit E oil is known for preventing scarring.  All act as preservatives for your salve.

Bees wax pastilles can be ordered at numerous places online, but I like to use Amazon.

Bees wax lets your oil be solid at warm temperatures but not hard as a rock when cold.

Elderberry Syrup

Why reinvent the wheel? Wellness Mama has a great recipe:



http://wellnessmama.com/1888/elderberry-syrup/

Easiest Canned Tomatoes Ever

So processing tomatoes for canning can be a long, juicy process.  And after all that washing and coring and scoring and blanching and peeling and slicing and dicing and dripping and sticking and flooding of tomato juice…. You are left with more juice than tomato.  I have five kids.  NOT an option.  But how about 10-15 minutes on the front end and then the crock pot does most of the work for you, and you end up with jars of stewed tomatoes, not juice?  Sounds doable?  Here ya go.

Rinse, core, and halve your tomatoes.  Feed the cores to your chickens or compost pile.

Fill the crock pot with tomato halves.

Put the lid on and cook on high without stirring until they cook down. I usually put them in in the evening and cook until morning, or start int he morning and they are done by evening.  But having them done in the morning works better.

You will know it has cooked long enough when the tomatoes are sitting level in juice, more or less. If they aren’t pretty juicy it will be harder to remove the peel.  If your crockpot cooks particularly hot and the sides will burn if you don’t stir it, then cook on low.

Unplug the crock pot and let it sit until the tomatoes cool enough to grasp the peel and pull without scalding yourself. Use a slotted spoon to lift them out of the juices. Grasp the wrinkled peels and they should slip right off, usually in tact. After you get all you can see, stir the tomatoes to find any you missed.  If you see what looks like a red toothpick, it is a peel that came off and rolled up, so pick those out

Optional: If it has cooled enough, you can reach in with your clean hand and crush the cooked tomatoes by hand.  If not, mash bigger pieces with your spoon and don’t worry about making them uniform or small. It won’t really matter later.

If all your tomatoes didn’t fit, you can repeat the wash, core, slice step and add more tomatoes until it is full again.

Cook until tomatoes are soft again and pick out the peels. Then turn crock pot to low and continue cooking UNCOVERED.  You can prop the lid to the side or with a large wooden spoon.  This allows the water in the tomato juice to evaporate and reduces the liquid to a thick tomato juice.

When the juice is at a level proportional with the amount of solid tomato, it is ready to can.  There is a lot of leeway here.  You can have a juicier batch of tomatoes or a very thick batch with hardly any liquid that pours off. The thicker is is the darker it will be.

Cover and turn on high again so they will be hot for canning.  Get your water bath canner filled and heating and jars clean and ready.  Just spoon into jars using a funnel, add 1 tsp salt per quart, and stir.  No reason for me to reiterate how to do this when it is already all over the internet.  Here is a great instructional link for the rest of the canning process. Skip steps 3-6.

http://pickyourown.org/canning_tomatoes.htm