Good Reads

Need things in my life that are low-maintenance. I can't deal with much else at the moment. With what little time I have for myself, I'm reading a book on the effects of chronic stress on our bodies and health. So I'm trying to slow down (hard in a fast-paced city) and take time out to rest. My recent trip to California visiting family and friends made me realize how NOT relaxed I've been. When overwhelmed, I tend to withdraw so reading and watching things (Mad Men has been so good lately!!) are what I take comfort in. The books I've read recently:

• Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail by Cheryl Strayed
• This Life Is in Your Hands by Melissa Coleman
• Wandering Home: A Long Walk Across America's Most Hopeful Landscape: Vermont's Champlain Valley and New York's Adirondacks by Bill McKibben

This is just what I've finished... forget about all the other books I'm trying to get through!

One of my baskets of leftovers from our harvest this week. Lots of kaleidescope carrots, giant zucchinis, some okra, fennel, and very fragrant lemon verbena which I am using for tea everyday.

Over the weekend, I went back home to Toronto. It was a really short trip, mainly took care of some errands with my grandfather, went to church and a BBQ with family friends. I also managed to squeeze in some time to go raspberry picking in Markham. 

I had no idea we were so close to all these farms. One side of Major Mackenzie are housing developments and small shopping centers 

And on the other side of the street are farms

Anyways, we went to Organics Farm just in time for the last of their raspberries. They were really good but I still made some of it into jam. My sister also brought home the most amazing wild blueberries. If it sounds like I'm obsessed with berries, it's because I totally am! All summer fruits really. They're only available during such a short window. 

Speaking of the farm, we've been having some issues with the tomato hornworm the last couple of weeks. Since we're not spraying, we spent a good amount of time last week searching for them, then collecting them in a jar (so gross), which we fed to the chickens. But we missed one of them and it turned into a huge moth. We spent more time trying to eliminate it than we should have. Water does not work, and neither does bleach. I don't even want to say what we ended up doing with it. Also, we caught a woodchuck. (I have pictures of all of these but I don't know if I can put them up or if anyone would want to see them anyways!) 

All this made me think of the book I'm reading, Eating Animals. One of the main reasons he cites for being a vegetarian is that he doesn't want to hurt any creature, that we should treat fish the same way we treat dogs and cats. Well, now I see that we have to kill quite a few creatures in order to produce vegetables, herbs, and fruit. Aren't they alive too, have nociceptors like us and are frightened when locked up in a small cage?

So what people normally do when they encounter a woodchuck in their garden is shoot it. It finds ways inside the garden gates, eats and destroys a lot of the vegetables, and probably tells all its friends and family about it. I don't know if it's because it was only the three of us girls trying to figure out what to do with this woodchuck and we didn't really have the heart to shoot it or allow anyone else to, but we ended up driving it a couple miles away and releasing it. May not have been entirely legal, and it will probably end up getting killed by some predator in its disorientation, but it was the best we could come up with. I wonder what we'll have to deal with in the weeks to come! 

"Animal agriculture makes a 40% greater contribution to global warming than all transportation in the world combined; it is the number one cause of climate change."

From Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. 

Also interesting is this recent article on global warming by Al Gore in the Rolling Stone.

So many choices to make on a daily basis...

Also catching up on my weekly farm readings, excerpts from:

1) Fertility From the Ocean Deep -- explains how nutrients from the ocean benefit plants.

2) From the Soil Up -- basic science of soil and managing soil aeration, water, and residue decay.

3) The Unsettling of America -- Wendell Berry mourns the decline of small farmers and describes his views on 'modern' agriculture and how it has corrupted our culture and caused an ecological crisis. 

Driving on the Taconic, all I saw were cops and deer. Makes for a cautious drive, even if the scenery is gorgeous. This week at the farm/garden, I learned how to prune tomatoes. It's so satisfying, I could prune all day! I'll have to tend to my own tomato plants today. What else did we do... trellised the peas, harvested lettuces and kale, transplanted rows of pistou basil for the herb garden, weeded of course. The time just passes so fast while I'm there, always lots to do.

Neil cooked hamburgers with shoestring fries last night, very satisfying after a long day. He had gone to the Union Square Greenmarket yesterday and met Keith Stewart of Keith's Farm. He told him what I was doing and he gave me a free copy of his book! I've wanted to read It's a Long Road to a Tomato for a while now, especially after I saw his posting for internship positions. I didn't want to live somewhere else for an entire season though, but I'm sure it would be a wonderful experience. Anyways, I'm very happy to have his book now. And his tomatoes were really good with the hamburger! 

Also, first blueberries of the season were at the Greenmarket. So much good fruit during the summer!

"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man''s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."

Christopher McCandless, from Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild

Note that this was written by someone who ironically died pursuing his great "Alaskan Odyssey" adventure... but something to think about nonetheless. Good book so far.

Finally finished reading Ishiguro's "Never Let Me Go" and can now go see the movie-- which of course is no longer playing anymore.

A great find at the thrift store-- a pair of old Bass loafers.

This yogurt is so good. I can't stop eating it.

Reading a book on the train home from work this morning made me laugh to myself: "I admit I have an ugly fondness for generalizations, so perhaps I may be forgiven when I declare that there is always something weird about a girl who majors in French... She has been betrayed into the study of French, heedless of the terrible consequences, by her enchantment with this language, which has ruined more young American women than any other foreign tongue." -- The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

I am studying French on my own. Oh, why lie. I'm not studying anything-- I'm watching American Idol (what would I do without DVR?!) It's my favorite week... country!!!

Happy New Year!

Instead of coming up with New Year's resolutions, here are a few of the things I'd like to finish this month: 1.) Our Save the Dates that we started making but had to stop because we ran out of ink and paper. Still waiting for both to be shipped.














2.) I wanted to wait for the paperback edition of The Rest is Noise to come out because hardcovers are just too heavy to carry in my work bag! I was so happy to get this for Christmas, but first I have to finish In Defense of Food.














3.) We brought my sister to the Brooklyn General in Red Hook yesterday so she could exchange some sock yarn and have it wound. I had no intention of buying anything but ended up walking out of the store with new size 9 Colonial Rosewood needles, 2 balls of handspun wool yarn, and a new project in my hands.