I went out back to make preparations for the storm. This included constructing protected space around the basement windows. I’d hesitated for years to give away the sheet plexiglass I’d used in a single artist show in the late 1990s. Every time I did a cleaning, I’d hold on to the plexiglass. Now I know why.
There was a little bit of kale and a few spring onions. They were sweet from having been frozen.
After having at long last (years), had the back sleeping porch and deck repaired and improved, the garden has expanded to the sleeping porch. I’m trying beans, cherry tomatoes, and hops as trailing vines. It will be interesting to participate. Everything except the geranium and the strawberries were volunteers or plants outgrowing their space below.
I’ve given away lots of starts and divides and have plenty more, as well as cuttings. Locals—let me know if you want some. Soon I will be fully vaccinated. If you will be also, we could even do some yoga.
On Wednesday, reluctant to turn on the heat despite the cold, I turned on the oven instead. I already had muffins and bread from the previous weekend in the freezer, so I decided to make granola. I first made granola at Quaker youth camp in the 1970s in upstate New York. It was tasty, but loaded with honey and fat, and we made it in such vast quantities that it was years before it occurred to me I could just make the same amount that would be in a cereal box for myself. If you have never done it, or suffer from the same inhibitions I’d suffered from, give yourself a treat and make your own.
Take a few cups of multigrain flakes (or just oat flakes). Throw in any or all of the following: shredded coconut, chopped nuts, flax seeds, sunflower seeds, hemp seed nuts. If you have them in the house, add a handful of wheat germ and/or flax seed meal, a little salt (makes it taste sweeter) and spices if you like (e.g. cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg). Stir in enough of any of the following liquid sweeteners (my favorit is brown rice syrup because it gives the best clumping with the smallest amount), honey, maple syrup, agave, fruit juice concentrate (thaw first) and a little vegetable or nut oil (my favorite is walnut), that the mixture is a pleasing combination of coated flakes and small clusters. (The more sweetener you use and the stickier the sweetener, the bigger the clumps).
Spread mixture on an oiled cookie sheet. Bake for 20-30 minutes at 325-350F. Let the mixture get golden, but not brown (or to taste). Turn and respread mixture once at about the 12-15 minute mark.
When you take the mixture out of the oven, stir in dried fruit of your choice (raisins, currents, dried blueberries or cranberries; dice larger fruits such as dried apricots or apples).
Use combinations of nuts, spices, sweeteners, and fruits that make sense: apple, walnut, maple syrup; brazil nut, coconut, pineapple juice concentrate, nutmeg; cranberry, raisin, walnut. You get the idea. If you like peanuts, blend some peanut butter in with the sweetener and oil before mixing it with the grains.
Why is this recipe not exact? Because it does not need to be exact to come out delicious. Because breakfast cereal is best if it is the way you like it and not the way someone else likes it. (Just like doing your own asana practice at home).
If you have never done it before and are afraid of picking your own proportions and oven temperature, find a couple of recipes on the internet or in a cookbook and then use the recipes as a basis for experimenting.
For muesli, leave out the sweetener and the oil, omit the baking, add the fruit to the flake and nut mixture and then prepare as you like your muesli (soaked or not soaked, with yoghurt or with milk, etc).
One of the conjectured reasons for the amazingly quick spread of tomato blight in the northeast this year (besides the crazy weather) is the upsurge in home gardeners. It is wonderful that so many people are growing their own tomatoes. If they buy the plants from a “big box” retailer — a retailer that gives less care and attention to the quality and health of the plants and more to easy shipping and cheap prices — then the new plants entering the eco-system are more likely harbingers of disease.
When we do anything, we have to be conscious of how it fits in with the world as a whole. From seed to meal, how we get our food impacts ourselves and our health. I am lucky so far with my tomato plants. I bought seedlings from local, organic farmers. I am checking them every few days for signs of blight. My harvest has been delicious and abundent.
In reading about the blight, I am painfully reminded that what we eat impacts the earth, the animal and plant life that was displaced for the growth of food, the humans that labored to bring it to our table. What we choose to eat, over our life, can dramatically shift our life physically, energetically, and emotionally.
Don’t forego homegrown tomatoes and other easy to grow urban foodstuff, but be careful about where you buy it, how you tend it, and understand that you have entered into the agricultural network.
As Chief Seattle did NOT say, “man does not weave this web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.”
Another day without rain. Please water your trees.
Although under much pressure at work, I still made sure to get outside an enjoy the unseasonably beautiful weather in advance of the wind and storms bringing the cold front. Blossoms–weeks early–everywhere.
