Everyday Life for Four Seasons

Invariably our kitchen table becomes a showcase for all that Mother Nature has to offer each season. Right now our display includes green, red and yellow leaves, milk weed pods, and a bowl full of acorns, birch bark and pinecones.

'A' just informed me that I've spent a lot of time at home with her and 'H' and now it's my turn to go to work and Jeff's turn to stay home with them. I bet if he stayed home the house would look like this more often:


Today is sewing day. 'A' wants to be a princess for Halloween and I'm making her a very cute dress to wear. I sat down to start putting it together today and while I worked, the girls worked on their own sewing and cutting projects. 'A' suggested to 'H' that she make a mobile for Aunt Emily's baby (Emily isn't pregnant and probably won't be for a while, but hey, why not plan ahead?), so 'H' got to work on cutting up the paper pieces.

I started the morning with two very grown up girls and I am so proud of them! I heard 'A' get out of bed this morning but didn't see her for a bit. She came downstairs completely dressed in a shirt and skirt and tights that all kind of matched - same color scheme, if not the same pattern. She took it upon herself to get up and get dressed for the day. We sat down to breakfast and in the middle of eating, 'H' got down from her chair (her big kid chair - we got rid of her booster seat over the weekend) and said, "I be right back." A minute later she was in the bathroom, taking care of business all by herself. I was so proud! My approach to potty training her is pretty much "hands off." She has enough role models around, and when she's ready, she'll figure out how it all works.

Today's events are a reminder that my girls are so old and so young all at the same time. I guess that's true of all of us.

This year, to help us deal with the cold winter (and to help me ease into late fall and winter in a better mood....), we've decided to have a pellet stove installed in our home. We currently have forced air heat powered by a gas furnace, and we have a wood fireplace in our family room. The fireplace is situated so that the heat doesn't radiate very far, so unfortunately we don't get as much use out of it as we would like. As far as the forced air heat goes, in order to keep our gas bill at a reasonable level, we have two settings: cold during the day and colder at night. It would be nice to feel warm during the winter, instead of chilled to the bone.

We should have our stove up and running soon, and hopefully then we won't wake up to the sight of this (above) anymore - the room temperature is so low today that it doesn't register on the thermometer. Warmth, come to us soon!

We spent the afternoon at a "new" farm today. Last week at our farmer's market one of the vendors gave out an invitation to visit their farm today. We forgot all about it until this afternoon, and were wavering on whether or not to go (the farm is an hour away). But when we looked on the website (www.kilpatrickfamilyfarm.com) we saw that they offer fall and winter CSA shares with pick-up at the farmer's market and we decided to check them out to see if we would want to join for these next two seasons.


I'm so happy we went. For some reason that is yet unknown to me, I get so much satisfaction from meeting the people who grow the food we eat. They do all the work, all the planning and planting, the coaxing and weeding, the picking and packing. Meet Michael:


He's young, and he started the farm a few years ago with his brother. It's not a multi-generational family operation, which surprised us because the farm is doing well and seems to be older than a few years. He uses all organic farming methods and his ways of coaxing the best out of Mother Nature are impressive.


Organic farmers inevitably get around to showing you their soil...


After we saw the veggies and the bee hives, we went to visit the animals. When Jeff and I saw the movable chicken coop, we instantly recognized it as something modeled after Joel Salatin's Eggmobile. It's a way to move the chickens around the field to give them fresh pasture. The cow (singular), goats and sheep are also moved around the same field. Movable fencing keeps them contained.


All in all, it was a great day.

I have the life I always thought I would have.

Library today. We took home some good books, including a few rhyming storybooks and a few decorating books about fireplace mantels. We've been reading and watching a lot of Madeline lately and 'A' likes how it rhymes, so much so that she is practicing speaking in rhymes, and it's really cute. As for the fireplace books, those are for me, to give me some inspiration for our mantel.

We got a nice big head of napa cabbage at the farm this week so I'm making up an Asian-inspired dinner tonight. Rice noodles with tofu and vegetables, wontons stuffed with cabbage and veggies, and a cabbage, carrot and zucchini salad. Gosh that's a lot of cabbage!

Today is probably one of our last 60 degree days this year. I'm still savoring it... this afternoon the girls enjoyed popsicles and water play outside before coming in (soaking wet) to cut up some puzzles from the empty popsicle box. We've got Lucinda Williams on the radio and Indian food in the works for dinner. Life couldn't be better.


'H' slept in her all-grown-up bed last night for the first time (thank you Grandma and Grandpa again!) and she loves it. She's such a big girl in some ways. And best of all - I don't want to say this too loudly or too proudly because I don't want to jinx it - she's sleeping all night long now. What, you say, she didn't learn to sleep through the night after the infant stage? Sadly, no. This is a child who wakes 2, sometimes 3 times every night. We never let her "self soothe" (a fancy phrase for letting her cry) because she just can't get there on her own. I figured she would eventually start sleeping all night at some point, I just didn't know when. Now I think I know when.

So you can see, life is not only good today, it's extra good. I'm sleeping great after four and a half years of "nighttime parenting".

The girls are watching a movie about Madeline at the Louvre. I am loving it for a few reasons: I have an enormous soft spot for Paris, because I did my year abroad in college there; and because I love art. Now that 'A' is 4 years old, it's time to start her formal art history schooling. We're lucky to have an art gem so close to us - the Hyde Collection - and we'll start there.


Windy today!

I'm having an "I love my kids" kind of day, and it's not hard to see why on a day like today. We woke early and lolly gagged through our breakfast and morning clean-up, and finally moseyed out of the house close to 10 o'clock to meet friends at the pumpkin patch. The girls loved the pumpkin patch, just as they did last year, and were all smiles and giggles.


They pulled wagons and watched miniature trains speed through imaginary villages...


...and enjoyed a ride on a "big kid" train too.


On my list for the rest of the day:

butternut squash muffin bread
clean 'H's room to get ready for her new bed (thank you grandma and grandpa!)
cut the fabric for 'A's princess dress
turnip greens for dinner

Happening right now:

cutting paper mobiles
"watch your fingers!"

I'm still easing into autumn reluctantly, eyes and senses open to anything that makes this transition more gentle for me this year. Some of the things that help:

* the sun hangs lower in the sky at this time of year and stretches in through the windows to my living room just a little bit farther than it does in the summer. Nice.

* apples are ready and waiting to be picked!

* a ride with a lakeside sunset view on one side and the full harvest moon on the other to a welcoming barn-turned-home to meet with some genuine, gentle, and generous Unitarians.

* apple cider (the sweet kind)

* and, of course, the changing leaves



I've been neglecting the papers on my desk (the mail, the little items that somehow need to get done...) and I've also been neglecting the food in my kitchen. I've got butternut squash puree that's ready for some muffins; lots and lots of salad greens; swiss chard, which I usually turn into veggie burgers but may use for something new this week; another zucchini that wants to become a batch of muffins; and more beets and potatoes than I can handle. And now I've got a half-bushel of apples that want to be made into apple sauce and crisp. Oh, and I can't forget about the ears of corn I got with my CSA share last week.

I sense a roasted root vegetable dinner coming soon.


May all of our troubles every day be as sensible and insignificant as the ones I have today.

local eating. slow food. authentic food.


At this point in time, I'm more committed to eating locally and eating purposefully than ever before. I've been building up to this point. I still have so much to learn about the food that's grown close to me, but it feels good, and it feels right. When I get my weekly CSA share, I have no idea what will be in it, but I do know that everything I get is "in-season," local, organic food. When I go to the farmer's market, I have no idea what I'll find and I look forward to being delighted. I recognize that this feeling of newness and discovery won't last forever, and I'm savoring it. I savor the surprise of finding out what is in season each week. This feeling won't last long. Years from now, I'll be more familiar with the farming seasons of this part of New York, and I'll know what to expect each week.