I LOVE Lewis Mumford

An excerpt from a book that I am currently reading, entitled “The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects.” (1961) By Lewis Mumford

“The ultimate outcome of the suburb’s alienation from the city became visible only in the twentieth century. . . . In the mass movement into suburban areas a new kind of community was produced, which caricatured both the historic city and the archetypal suburban refuge: a multitude of uniform, unidentifiable houses, lined up inflexibly, at uniform distances, on uniform roads, in a treeless communal waste, inhabited by people of the same class, the same income, the same age group, witnessing the same television performances, eating the same tasteless pre-fabricated foods, from the same freezers, conforming in every outward and inward respect to a common mold, manufactured in the central metropolis. Thus the ultimate effect of the suburban escape in our time is, ironically, a low-grade uniform environment from which escape is impossible. What has happened to the suburban exodus in the United States now threatens, through the same mechanical instrumentalities, to take place, at an equally accelerating rate, everywhere else–unless the most vigorous countermeasures are taken. . . .

Under the present dispensation we have sold our urban birthright for a sorry mess of motor cars. As poor a bargain as Esau’s pottage. Future generations will perhaps wonder at our willingness, indeed our eagerness, to sacrifice the education of our children, the care of the ill and aged, the development of the arts, to say nothing of ready access to nature, for the lopsided system of mono-transportation, going through low density areas at sixty miles an hour, but reduced in high density areas to a bare six. But our descendents will perhaps understand our curious willingness to expend billions of dollars to shoot a sacrificial victim into planetary orbit, if they realize that our cities are being destroyed for the same superstitious religious ritual: the worship of speed and empty space. Lacking sufficient municipal budgets to deal adequately with all of life’s requirements that can be concentrated in the city, we have settled for a single function, transportation, or rather for a single part of an adequate transportation system, locomotion by private motor car. . . .

The absurd belief that space and rapid locomotion are the chief ingredients of a good life has been fostered by the agents of mass suburbia. The reductio ad absurdum of this myth is, notoriously, Los Angeles. Here the suburban standards of open space, with free standing houses, often as few as five houses to the acre, has been maintained: likewise the private motor car, as the major means of transportation has supplanted what was only a generation or so ago an extremely efficient system of public transportation.

Los Angeles has now become an undifferentiated mass of houses, walled off into sectors by many-laned expressways, with ramps and viaducts that create special bottlenecks of their own. These expressways move but a small fraction of the traffic per hour once carried by public transportation, at a much lower rate of speed, in an environment befouled by smog, itself produced by the lethal exhausts of the technologically backward motor cars. More than a third of the Los Angeles area is consumed by these grotesque transportation facilities; two-thirds of central Los Angeles are occupied by streets, freeways, parking facilities, garages. This is space-eating with a vengeance. The last stage of the process already beckons truly progressive minds–to evict the remaining inhabitants and turn the entire area over to automatically propelled vehicles, completely emancipated from any rational human purpose. . . .

As it has worked out under the impact of the present religion and myth of the machine, mass Suburbia has done away with most of the freedoms and delights that the original disciples of Rousseau sought to find through their exodus from the city. Instead of centering attention on the child in the garden, we now have the image of ‘Families in Space.’ For the wider the scattering of the population, the greater the isolation of the individual household, and the more effort it takes to do privately, even with the aid of many machines and automatic devices, what used to be done in company often with conversation, song, and the enjoyment of the physical presence of others.

The town housewife, who half a century ago knew her butcher, her grocer, her dairyman, her various other local tradesmen, as individual persons, with histories and biographies that impinged on her own, in a daily interchange, now has the benefit of a single weekly expedition to an impersonal supermarket, where only by accident is she likely to encounter a neighbor. If she is well-to-do, she is surrounded with electric or electronic devices that take place of flesh and blood companions: her real companions, her friends, her mentors, her lovers, her fillers-up of unlived life, are shadows on the television screen, or even less embodied voices. She may answer them, but she cannot make herself heard: as it has worked out, this is a one-way system. The greater the area of expansion, the greater the dependence upon a distant supply center and remote control.

On the fringe of mass Suburbia, even the advantages of the primary neighborhood group disappear. The cost of this detachment in space from other men is out of all proportion to its supposed benefits. The end product is an encapsulated life, spent more and more either in a motor car or within the cabin of darkness before a television set: soon, with a little more automation of traffic, mostly in a motor car, travelling even greater distances, under remote control, so that the one-time driver may occupy himself with a television set, having lost even the freedom of steering wheel. Every part of this life, indeed, will come through official channels and be under supervision. Untouched by human hand at one end: untouched by human spirit at the other. Those who accept this existence might as well be encased in a rocket hurtling through space, so narrow are their choices, so limited and deficient their permitted responses.  Here indeed we find ‘The Lonely Crowd.'”

My Latest Obsession

Homemade french bread with homemade herbed goat cheese!

I begin by first making the goat cheese according to this method that I blogged about before.  I flavor the cheese with salt, pepper, finely minced garlic and onions and herbs de provence and let sit in the fridge to allow the flavors to mingle while I make the bread.

I then take the whey that I drained off from the cheese and use it to make homemade french bread.  My recipe comes from Jeff Smith “The Frugal Gourmet”  (I used to love watching his show on PBS, also loved watching Bob Ross paint and Bob Villa fix up old houses on my little black and white TV in my bedroom when I was a kid LOL).  I found the book “The Frugal Gourmet” for a whole $1 at the thrift store, many old and wonderful recipes it contains!

Here it is, “Classic French Bread” adapted to what I do 😀

2 1/2 cups whey leftover from cheesemaking

2 tsp. yeast

2 lb. 3 oz. hard wheat flour (I use about 3 cups freshly ground hard spring wheat flour and about 2 cups unbleached bread flour…but you really should weigh it, it does make a difference!)

1 tbsp. unrefined moist grey seas salt

First I measure the whey into a huge bowl and then sprinkle the yeast over the surface of the whey and let sit for about 20-30 minutes until it starts to look foamy.  During that 20-30 minutes I grind my whole wheat flour (it takes me about 8 minutes to grind 3 cups of flour by hand).

I then weigh out all my flour and add it one cup at a time until I’ve added about 1/2 the flour.  The dough is really more of a wet batter at this point.  I let it sit, and let my arms resting from grinding and mixing and go do something else.

After a little while I come back to it and mix in the 1 tbsp. of salt and more flour until in forms a soft dough.  By this point, my arms have had enough so I cover the bowl with a towel and let sit in a cool place all night to let it ferment slightly and allow the flavors to develop.

In the morning I knead in the rest of the flour and continuously knead the bread until it feels right.  You know the feeling, where the dough just sort of comes “alive” in a way.

shaped into loaves with slits cut into it with a boning knife

I shape it into loaves and put it on a pan and put the pan into the turned off oven with a pie plate full of hot water on the bottom rack to help keep the bread hydrated as it rises.

Here’s a quick little youtube video that shows how to shape the bread:

Once it’s fully risen I bake it at 550 degrees with the “convection oven” setting turned on for about 8 minutes and then I turn the temp. down to 450 and bake for another 5 minutes or so until a thermometer inserted into the bottom of the loaf reads 180 degrees.

I then brush the loaves with melted butter and wait for them to cool, once cool I slice and spread with homemade goat cheese…and everybody gets a slice and we all eat!

For the past couple of weeks I have been making fresh cheese and then fresh bread every 3 days or so and it’s very quickly become everybody’s favorite snack 😀

What is a Luddite?

Luddite.  It’s an old term, one dating all the way back to 1811.  According to wikipedia:

“The Luddites were 19th-century English textile artisans who violently protested against the machinery introduced during the Industrial Revolution that made it possible to replace them with less-skilled, low-wage labourers, leaving them without work. Historian Eric Hobsbawm has called their machine wrecking “collective bargaining by riot”, which had been a tactic used in Britain since the Restoration, as the scattering of manufactories throughout the country made large-scale strikes impractical.
Although the origin of the name Luddite is uncertain, a popular theory is that the movement was named after Ned Ludd, allegedly a youth who had smashed two stocking frames 30 years earlier, and whose name had become emblematic of machine destroyers.  The name evolved into the imaginary General Ludd or King Ludd, a figure who, like Robin Hood, was reputed to live in Sherwood Forest.

The movement emerged during the harsh economic climate of the Napoleonic Wars, which saw a rise in difficult working conditions in the new textile factories. The principal objection of the Luddites was the introduction of new wide-framed automated looms that could be operated by cheaper, relatively low-to-unskilled labour, resulting in unemployment among the skilled textile workers. The movement began in Nottingham in 1811 and spread rapidly throughout England over the following two years. Handloom weavers burned mills and pieces of factory machinery, and for a short time the Luddites were so strong that they clashed in battles with the British Army. Many wool and cotton mills were destroyed before the British government suppressed the movement.

In modern usage, “Luddite” is a term describing those opposed to industrialisation, automation, computerisation or new technologies in general.”

I remember the first time someone called me a “Luddite”, and at the time I had no idea what it meant, I had to look it up and do a bit of research, but they were exactly right and they paid me a very high honor by referring to me as such…although I’m pretty sure they meant it as an insult 😉

After “Luddite” comes the word “Hypocrite” because here I am using a computer 🙄

Hypocrisy, however, is the default setting of humanity…we ALL hold ideals that we can never live up to in full…but a hypocrite is one who takes his own standards and ideals, that he cannot live up to, and places them upon another, excepting them to do what he cannot or will not do himself.

I do not do that, I do not care what others do as I am not responsible for the consequences of their decisions…so, why should I care?

No, I may be a Luddite, but I am not a hypocrite.  I am another term altogether, one lost and forgotten, I am an “idealist”.

I think about what I do before I do it, I entertain the possible consequences and ramifications of every decision that I may or may not make and then I determine the best course of action to take (my ideal) and then I proceed to live as close to that ideal as I possibly can, always failing of course, because, after all, that is what we humans do…

“Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.

But they said, We will not walk therein.” ~Jeremiah 6:16 

An ideal is a principle and it has to do with one’s foundational belief system.  I, for one, do not believe that so-called “progress” is necessarily such (and the opposite is called “congress” 😉 )  that most of the technological inventions since the advent of the industrial revolution have actually caused more HARM than good.

I do not believe that work is evil and something to be avoided at all costs.  I do not believe that just because something can be done “faster” that it is necessarily always the better way.  Because I already know the ending, I am more concerned with the process of life than with the so-called “results”.

Life on earth is all about processes, everything is constantly changing, even those things that on the surface still appear the same, everything is in a constant state of degrading and dying…everything on this planet from the moment it is formed begins to decay…it is through these natural cycles of birth and death, of grasping and letting go, that we learn the true spiritual lessons of reality.

“Technology” and machines thwart this natural way of things and that is precisely why mankind, as a whole, loves it so!  But the “natural way of things” (The Old Path, The Good Way) is there for our benefit and for our learning.  The average person in our day and age has the mentality of a toddler though fully grown, just listening to the popular songs on the radio I come across lyrics such as “all eyes on us, all eyes on us” – “I want it, I want it, I want it all” and “I wanna scream and shout and let it all out” and I get the feeling that I’m listening to songs written by toddlers, which is so very telling when looking at the mentality of the population as a whole.

Having been born into a mushy, comfortable, bland existence where they’ve sat on their asses and watched TV for the majority of their lives, being always well fed and well clothed, not having to actually work for anything or even witness the process of work that went on to keep their bellies filled and their backs clothed, having everything they ever wanted and more at the touch of a button or the flick of a switch.

Not even allowed to be able to come to a proper understanding of the most basic process and spiritual principle, that of sowing and reaping, which is in real time learned through the process of planting and growing food, food which is the most basic and intrinsic human need that we all share…it really shouldn’t surprise me that the lyrics of the most popular songs sound like they have been written by toddlers, because the people writing them have never been allowed to develop past the mentality of toddlerhood.

And why?

Because it is through hardship and difficulty that people learn to not be selfish toddlers, and because of technology life has become too easy, so people are never allowed to encounter the necessary struggles and dilemmas that cause a person to grow beyond themselves.  Growth is never achieved willingly, we are too much creatures of comfort for that 🙄

When I was a kid, I had all kinds of questions all of the time, and I was not trying to be rude or annoying with those questions.  On the contrary, what I was trying to do, in the most basic and efficient way possible, was learn of the processes of life that make up this planet.  I remember as a kid, feeling like I got jipped somehow, that I was put on this planet under false pretenses.  I always remember thinking to myself, “this is not the experience that I was promised” of course I never said a word of that to anyone because no one would understand.

When I became an adult, and was finally fully in control of my own life, I decided within myself that I wanted the full “earth experience” ..blood, and guts, and sweat, and tears, and pain, and sorrow, but in the midst of it all the amazing love and beauty and joy and peace and satisfaction that can be found…that is the paradox of Earth.  God said “ask for the old paths, the good ways” and if that is what HE suggested then, in my mind, that was the best way to go!  Up till that point, my earth experience had SUCKED, there was nothing to do but sit on your ass and watch TV.

I wanted to be an active participant, not an interested spectator.  I wanted to get my hands dirty in the dirt and plant things and watch in amazement and delight as these little inconspicuous seeds became a plant, and each one different, and each one unique on it’s own producing fruit that could be used a myriad of ways to delight my tastebuds and nourish my body.  Living in concert with the animal life, getting my eggs from real chickens, my milk from a goat, with the animal benefiting from my care to the point of even creating my own breed of goat or chicken someday.

I wanted to chop wood and fashion and build from it.  I wanted to take stones from the land and create a firepit or a stone wall.  I wanted to hunt an animal and eat it’s meat and use it’s skins to create leather from which I could make clothing or shoes or tools.  I wanted to create my own pottery and decorations, make my own art, work with my own hands.

I wanted to experience what it was like for me, as a woman, to love one man, truly love and know him for one lifetime.  I wanted to know how it felt to have another human grow inside me, live inside me for 9 months and then experience the fruition of this most amazing process by naturally birthing forth this human and all the sensations and feelings that come with it…for this is the very definition of what it means to be human!

If I can’t feel, I’m not mine, I’m not REAL.

Here’s to the TRUE Earth Experience! 😀

Eleven Years Together

Nathan and me, my mother in law snapped this pic right after we told her of our engagement

Today, Valentine’s Day, is the 11th Anniversary of my first kiss with my husband, Nathan 😎

We met on December 14th, 2001.  I was 18 years old and had just came back from a trip to Canada, I was going to move there, I was born in Canada on a Navy base in Newfoundland where my parents were stationed, and I have dual citizenship…but that didn’t work out, for a number of reasons, the most important being that my husband was back home and I had left him behind (although I didn’t realize it at the time) so I came home.

And I got a job working the front counter at McDonald’s and that is where I met my husband, he was working the grill, basically in charge of the grill.  I was the new girl and the boss was introducing me to everyone, when she got to Nathan he nodded his head and said a polite “Hello”.  The moment I saw him I thought he was quite handsome, and already I had developed a little bit of a crush…

I remember the first real conversation we had.  He drank A LOT of coffee and the crew basically had unlimited access to as much coffee and other drinks as they wanted, I took note of that and found out from my coworkers what times of the day he normally came to the front of the restaurant and got coffee, and so I always made sure, as much as I was able, to get over to the coffeemaker and start a new pot for him when I knew that is was close to his time.

One day, while he was putting cream and sugar in his coffee, and our co-workers were ragging on him for his serious caffeine addiction, I asked him “how much caffeine do you consume a day?” and he thought about it for a few seconds and then looked up from his coffee, right into my eyes and said “around 475 mg” in a very matter of fact kind of way.  “Oh”, I responded, “well that isn’t so bad.”  He smiled at me, and picking up his coffee, went to the grill and got back to work.  I, however, was instantly smitten.  For, while I love to look at a handsome man, it is intelligence that attracts me most…and if he happens to be handsome too, well that’s just a double win! 😉

We shared little snippets of conversation here and there over the course of the next two months.  Until one day, I believe it was February 6th, a Wednesday, I was in the breakroom, having just finished my sandwich, and sitting in the corner using my remaining break time to read a book, when he snuck in from the grill and asked me out on a date for that Saturday, February 9th, my first date ever lol.  A late lunch at Chili’s Restaurant and then a walk together at the nearby park.

I said Yes, of course.

After our date and walk together in the park, where we held hands for the first time…we went back to his apartment and he took me over to his computer and pulled out a chair and asked me to sit, then he brought up a computer program and said to me “I want you to hear some of my music.”  and I was like “Ok cool, you make music?” and he replied “Yeah, I make it using a computer program.” “Really??” I said, “I didn’t know that was possible”….and he proceeded to play song after song after song for me, and I liked every single one, of course 😀

From that moment forth, we have been inseparable, we have spent every.single.day.together.

(except for one day, when we were moving from Maryland to West Virginia.  He and a few of his friends loaded up the moving truck while me and our 2 sons, at the time, went on ahead in a fully packed car, to get to the house and open it up and do some last minute cleaning and stuff before he and his friends arrived with the moving truck, we were separated for nearly 24 hours, the worst day of my life lol 😉 )

We got off work at the same time, and I would rush home and shower and dress and then drive over to his apartment and then we would leave in his car and go do stuff.  Get a bite to eat, maybe go hang out at the bookstore and read and sip coffee together and when it got warm in the Spring he started taking me fishing (he taught me how to fish and I caught my first, a yellow perch) and hiking together in the woods.  We would watch movies together and play video games against each other, and every Sunday he and I would go over to his friend’s house and watch the Nascar Race together.  And it’s been that way for 11 years now, everyday, together.

Three months later, a few days after my 19th birthday, he asked me to marry him.

I said Yes, of course.

We had originally planned to wait till October of that year for a wedding, but couldn’t wait that long.  He had a bit of money saved up, so one month later, we procured an apartment (a little 300 sq.ft. efficiency apartment where the bed folded out of the wall, for $500/month) and then went up to the courthouse and made it all “official” lol…it mattered not to me, I just wanted to be his wife in the quickest and most efficient way possible! 😀

We then ate at Chili’s afterward and went back to our apartment, our whole wedding cost about $80 total, and that included the price of the marriage license lol…looking back I am very happy that we did things the way we did, people kept telling me “you’ll regret not having a beautiful white dress or a tasty white cake that you can smash into each other’s faces” etc. etc.  But I have never once felt that way,  I am glad that we didn’t waste time and money and resources on superficial ceremonies and pompous circumstances and for what? really??

My First Date, My First Kiss, My First Everything…My Best Friend, The Love Of My Life…

We just wanted to be married, didn’t really matter what everyone else thought about it.

And so here we are today, 11 years and 5 children later, and I can truly say that I am satisfied, overjoyed happy, and so grateful to God for what he has given me and for where I am in life.  I would have it no other way!

Happy Valentine’s Day! 😀

Wordless Wednesday: Forest Photos

The Objective Situation

I’ll tell you right now, I live under a rock.  I rarely, if ever, pay much attention to the news.

Oh I used too, but I changed…and it had a lot to do with the 11 day electrical outage that we experienced when the Derecho came through during the summer of 2012.  I was without power, without internet (which means no videos to watch or anything to listen to, we don’t have cable or satellite TV, just the internet) without any connection to the outside world for 11 days and I learned a very powerful lesson from that: Everything is meaningless! LOL

We have these continuously running stories that we like to pass around and tell to each other and gawk at and argue over and get all stressed out about, but it’s just a story…how do you know it’s even for real?

I remember as a teen, this was always my issue with “the news”, with the history books etc.  I even asked my 12th grade U.S. History teacher “how do you know that all of this is even true?” and he didn’t have an answer, other than some generic “because this is what the historical experts have agreed upon as true” …EXACTLY!

During that 11 day electrical outage, everything that I experienced was “for real”, concrete and tangible.  And I realized, about 5 days into it, how much of our lives are just wasted thinking about some thing that happened to some person we don’t even know in some place half way ’round the world and we let that concern us.  Meanwhile, in our own lives, we are distanced from each other and our children and our spouses, not even to mention the land and the animals, whom we have a responsibility towards also.

No, we just sit on our asses and flip the channel or clickety click click the mouse and be told what to think, what to say, how to view the world and we LOVE IT!

Naturally, we don’t out and out say this, we never fully admit to ourselves:

I want propaganda.

Most people consider themselves “above” such things, a free and mature objective thinker LOL…and everybody does this! 😆

But look at the basic situation of the average individual in our society.  He is powerless, a simple man with a very basic education, working a simple job all day long, he comes home, and there is all of this STUFF happening all over the world screaming at him from the TV and PC screens, demanding that he asses the information presented and posses an “informed opinion” on the matter, any matter.  He needs to know about foreign policy and economic data and political debate etc. etc….but, in reality, he just can’t…not really..

Faced with such matters he feels his own weakness, his on inconsistency, his own ineffectiveness and on top of that, the very fact that there are things, BIG things, happening in the world, decisions being made for him, that effect him and his family, and over which he has no control, and that realization scares him and drives him to despair.  But he cannot, will not, stay in this situation for too long, he needs a “mythology”, an ideological veil to cover this harsh reality…to offer him consolation and comfort.  And, since man as a whole, has for the most part, rejected God, that leaves only propaganda to offer a remedy for what is basically an intolerable situation.

He’s just a simple man with a basic education and a simple job whose in way over his head.  But he wants to participate, wants to “appear” educated and informed and intelligent…he is caught between his desire and his inability to be what he desires…and he refuses to accept it, for no man will ever believe about himself that he cannot have an opinion on something.  The majority of people prefer expressing stupidities to not expressing any opinion at all…and it is this that gives them the “feeling” of participation, of “belonging” to the group.

And this is where the media propaganda machines come into the picture.  They tell the stories, they dictate the accepted “norms”, they keep the mythology going…telling you exactly what to think and how to think it.  Even the so-called “alternative media” has their accepted and agreed upon as true “reality”…and so the vicious cycle continues…

And I realized all of this during that 11 day electrical outage.  That what was real and true was what was happening right there at that instant in front of my very eyes, in my little family on my little plot of land, actual people with authentic problems and genuine needs… and there was no world looming out there telling me of all of it’s problems and what I should think of them.

The chill of the morning air, the crowing of a rooster, the first faint light of the rising sun, the smell of woodsmoke, the crackling of a fire, the warmth on my cheeks and the flicker of light on my eyes, the smell of good earth surrounding me, the hum of happy plants, wind moving through trees caressing my face, the comforting smell of hay and loyal animals whom I can lean my head against and breath in the smell of their soft fur, comforting…

…the pitter patter of tiny feet racing across the floor, the laughter and squealing delight of children at play, the feel of a small warm hand enveloped inside my own…

…the satisfied smile of my husband, the touch of his hand at the small of my back, the mingling of certainty and purpose with a bemused mischievousness that lights his eyes as he tousles the hair of his son…it is these things that are real and tangible, these are not meaningless but the true ingredients of LIFE.

It matters not what is happening to some person, some where, doing some thing, in his own life that has nothing to do with me and I saw his picture, heard him say five words on a screen …what does that mean??  And why should I care??

I don’t.

Signs of LIFE in progress

As I type this, it is currently 6:30 am on the nose.

Was up at 5:00 am with the rooster’s crow (we decided to name him Rolex 😉 ) made coffee, went and milked my goats, came back and put milk in fridge, filled water buckets and carried to goats, got them hay too, came back to the house, got more coffee, signed onto internet, puttered around on Facebook for about 15 minutes and now I’m typing this blog post.

I’ve moved around my schedule a bit and I am very happy with how it is right now.  After I do the blog post, while everyone is still asleep, I go for a quick 15 minute hike in the woods…up  to the top of our property and back down, it’s about 1/2 mile one way and all uphill.  I felt like I haven’t been getting out in the woods enough, so lately I’ve been trying to get out there everyday with a morning hike.  After coming back, there is breakfast and morning chores then work to do, then break for lunch, then it’s school time till about 4:00 pm when the kids get a snack and get to go outside and play.  I milk at 6:00 pm and dinner’s at 7:00 pm and then the kids are usually in bed by 10:00 pm.  And then it starts all over again, but I am liking it!

It’s WARM out there, already 40 degrees Fahrenheit with a high of nearly 60 predicted for today!  Which is much better for me, I find it so much easier to get out of bed when the weather is warmer.  Will be planting peas today, a variety called “Carouby de Maussane” from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, they’re going on the tall trellis.  Also plan to sow a few token radish seeds (French Breakfast, my favorite) since I think that the worst of the cold is probably over and done with for the year and radishes are a good way to test that out.

I’m really hoping for an early Spring like last year when our last frost was April 1st.  Our “micro-climate” is very unique because we have a rather large creek that runs by our house and it seems to have a sort of  enhancing effect on the temperatures.  Also, we live on a western facing slope, and with no leaves on the trees, we get all the late afternoon and evening sun which warms us up quite nicely.  So, for example, when the weather is on a warming trend it seems to warm up faster and stronger..  I don’t quite understand it myself, but I am grateful for the effect that it seems to have and I think it is what protected us from frost last year, because it got close a couple of times at the end of April last year, but it didn’t happen.

I also have a new garden plot in the back garden to dig.  I plan to start with sod removal today.  It’s a big plot, about 20′ x 8′ and it’s going to be my new very deeply and doubly dug “potato pit”.  The sod will be used to build up the bank of the creek where it overflowed and eroded when we had 3-4 inches of rain a couple of weeks ago.  I am going to build a levee of sorts, using big stones from the bank of the creek with the sod between them, like a mud stone wall, because if it erodes any further it will start to encroach on the garden plot over there (the water was lapping at the fence posts during the flooding!) and we can’t have that…

The Broad Windsor Fava Beans that I planted on December 12th are sprouting!  and I’m so very happy about that!  That was an experiment to test the cold hardiness of the seeds.  I overwintered four “teenager” age plants of the purple variety “Extra Precoce A Grano Violetto” with the idea of saving seeds from them, but, even with protection, they did not like the 2 degree weather we had.  They look very burnt and wilted by frost and cold right now, but they are still alive and should quickly begin to regrow leaves as the weather (hopefully) warms up.  Favas are very cold hardy but will not tolerate temps below 10 or 12 degrees.  I was hoping that the plants would survive fully intact and that I would be able to get an extreme jump-start on the growing season by growing Favas as a Fall crop to mature in early Spring but apparently we get too cold for that.  I am very happy about the seeds sprouting however, as I do not see us getting below 10 or 12 degrees Fahrenheit for the rest of this winter.  So, as it stands now, late winter planting seems to be ideal for them.

With the warm-up also comes the possibility of sugaring time!  As soon as it is lighter outside I’ll be hiking up to check on my “test tree” as I call it.  A very old maple, with a deep fissure along the side, I think from a lightening strike, the tree is too old to heal itself and slowly dying, but when the sap starts running it starts leaking out of the fissure and that is my sign that other trees are more than likely running also.  And then it’s time to tap them!  It’s all about the timing 😀