This year is different. David, Raquel and I are not travelling for the holiday. It is our first Christmas together at home. It is wonderful. A few days ago, we made our environmentally conscious Christmas tree purchase. We drove a few miles down the road to the Christmas tree farm and cut down our Christmas tree. That's about as local as you can get, short of growing a tree in your back yard, which we tried to do (thanks for the tree last year, Dad, it was doing good until about three weeks ago and it started to die :(. We walked/ran around the field of trees. David said that Raquel was going to choose the tree, but what he really meant was that she was going to say "I want that one" and we were going to say, "I think that one is too big". It was a joyful time and no one got hurt with a hack saw! It helps that the trunk of the tree is only about 4 in. in diameter. I have to say that I feel good about our purchase. It doesn't smell as good as the trees that we had growing up in Minnesota (said with a Minnesota accent), but it is beautiful.
Another thing that I am trying to do this season is bake. I love to bake. I love the feel of the dough in my hands. The only problem is that I am trying to bake "healthily". (Is that a word?) I made an exception to my healthy baking kick when Raquel said that she wanted to bake ginger bread cookies. Actually my first thought was "No way!" because who actually eats those things! But then I said, "Ok" because I love her and I want her to be involved in the holiday traditions. I got my recipe ready, all the ingredients out and little one in her helper position on a chair next to me. All was going well until I put in 1.75 teaspoons of cloves in the mix instead of .75. Now, I have never made ginger bread cookies before, but I smelled that cloves stuff and I knew that either it would be fine, or it would taste terrible. And let's face it, ginger bread cookies taste pretty terrible to begin with. After an internal fit of frustration, I put R in front of Netflix and started over. Who knows if the cookies would have tasted terrible or not, but I wasn't about to go through the whole rest of the process to find out. I am not a "trial and error" sort of person. I want to get it right the first time. One final thought about baking ginger bread cookies is that molasses is a bit disgusting. It smells gross, it is incredibly difficult to clean up and maybe it is the reason that I don't like ginger bread cookies, although I can't be sure. After R's nap, we are going to roll them and bake them so maybe my mind will be changed about these cookies forever. Finger's crossed.
Until next harvest.
4.12.10
And a farm is formed...
Saturday was the first work day at the land that is owned by the "Beaufort Open Land Trust" which will from now on be referred to as "the farm". David and I were very excited and took great care in preparing for this work day. Well David took great care and I mostly tagged along. We had an amazing turn out. Thanks to all of you who broke your backs and braved the hot sun (despite the 50 degree weather, the sun was hot) in order to help us build a community garden. We successfully built 6 raised beds and a huge compost bin (was I supposed to spell out the "6" there?). I personally spent most of the day shoveling. I have one thing to say about shoveling. Who invented the flat shovel? I mean really, I don't get it. I got ready to dig into the dirt and thud, all my net force applied rebounded back on me in a jarring, hurtful way. (When you're a scientist, you think about things like "net force".) The things don't work! If the idea is to dig, then the tool must be able to dig. Right? I braved my shovel inadequacies and worked my fingers to blisters and enjoyed every moment of it.
Thank you David for getting me out there. I don't always think of a morning spent sweating in 50 degree weather as fun, but Saturday was fun. Working along side people that I love made the experience much more enjoyable.
All of this reminiscing on the day is making my body ache all over again so I shall depart.
Until next harvest.
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