MamaStories

Amie and I spent the whole day at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. They had special kids’ activities - crafting, a scavenger hunt, a Chinese lion dance demonstration - for the holiday week. We took our time, sauntering from one activity to the other, taking frequent snack breaks, only stopping at those art works that caught her eye.

Here Amie is sketching a ceramic horse. She was very careful about the knees - one of which had to be lengthened so the horse could “nibble at it” as in the original. I love the way she drew the saddle.

Here we plonked down in front of one of the Melendez still lives. We first looked at all of them and she chose the cauliflower. We discussed the painting, how one thing is in front of the other, but when she started drawing she started left to right, the metal flask first (notice the line of light), then the pewter bowl. Then she found she had too little room for the cauliflower, but that was okay since she doesn’t like cauliflower anyway. The large brown blotch on top is actually the background, which she says she’ll fill in “later” (not going to happen).

One of the tasks in the scavenger hunt was sketching this Babylonian lion with the help of a grid. That grid really threw her off.

In the same room we found the oldest art work in the museum: a vessel in the shape of a hare from neolithic times. She was intrigued by its age and insisted on drawing it and annotating the drawing. For its age, I asked to write 8 first, then add a 0, another one, and another one. “It is so old it is very delicate and you can’t reach through the glass to reach it” (sigh of relief from Mama here) “and because it is so old it is also very tired.”

We kept the Create a Creature with clay for last. I’m afraid Mama had to get her hands dirty as well: she had to make that turtle.

I got my pieces back yesterday!

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And here is Amie, “throwing” a pot, and then inspecting.

She can’t wait to take a pottery class with my teacher!

Today is warming up into the 60s, like yesterday, but yesterday I was cowering in the pit of the second round of this darned cold. Today I feel much better. I’m baking a second bread from the dough I made earlier,  opening all the windows to air out the house, doing loads of laundry and hoping my lines will hold the weight (sheets and blankets). Maybe I’ll even get to put compost and straw on the beds. All that fresh air will do me good.

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One thing I absolutely must do today is carve the vase I made in my pottery class. I had a lot of help from my lovely teacher, so now I need to “make it mine,” as she puts it, by carving it. It will make for a lovely present, and I’m happy it will be kilned, glazed and ready before the holidays. I’m thinking a fine botanical pattern winding all around…

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Here’s a thing I like  a lot, how life, family (multi-generational too), work and business share one smallish space (1200 sq.f.).

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{later}

1. carve pot - v
2. laundry - v
3. bread - v
4. air house - v
5. rake tons of leaves - v
6. compost and straw on beds - nope

After being slowed down for the so-manieth time when running out the door by having to collect all of Amie’s desired art materials, I decided to make a field bag, like the one on Camp Creek Blog. One of DH’s ruined khakis served just fine, and the sewing machine cooperated.

I just cut out a piece of a leg to the height we wanted (the largest sketchbook) plus extra for the seams. I turned it inside out, stitched the bottom together and seamed up the top all around. I cut a back pocket out of the pants and sewed that onto the front. Then I cut a narrow strip along the seam of the other leg for the shoulder strap, stitched along the other side, then turned it inside out, and sewed each end to the bag.

What’s in it?

Maybe I can make one for a girl whose sixth birthday party we’re invited to, to stuff with art materials like these. That would make a neat homemade Christmas present for kids and adults alike. I could embroider something special but simple on the front to make up for the messy seams. And I’m going to need one too. I like the second bag Lori made, which integrates the back and the side pockets: I’ll try that next!

My first attempt at making a costume or even a piece of clothing. Amie chose the fabrics for the cape and the skirt and patiently tried it on at several stages. I sewed it together on my machine, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying, but mostly laughing. If there was a prize for the crookedest hem… But it all held together through much dancing, crawling and getting up and sitting down again.

The hat was going to be the trickiest part, as all our fabric was so flimsy. A friend, hearing of my predicament, gave us this hat (with hair attached) as a backup, in case the one I made failed to pass muster. DH however showed it  to Amie before I could even attempt it, and that was that.

I figure I’ll be fine with my one-stitch machine and improvisation skills as long as Amie wants to be a witch or (even easier) a ghost.  Anything beyond that, I’ll have to get some sewing lessons.

I also baked about 30 big cookies in the shape of pumpkins for the kids at Amie’s school to decorate. And Amie and DH carved the first of the big pumpkins, and we roasted the seeds.

Can you believe it’s that time of year again?

UPDATE: It’s over. I stayed home and some kids did brave our long and winding and dark driveway for our treats. Amie and DH went out together into the balmy and windy night, under the full moon playing hide and seek behind the clouds.  They were gone for abut two hours. Amie came home expressing her disappointment that she hadn’t managed to scare anyone. She has about 20 pieces of candy - she took one at each house - and she is so excited about them, but I know half of them won’t even get eaten. DH is putting her to bed at the moment. I can hear her constant chatter. It’ll be a long night.

I am very fortunate to have handmade items in my home. Many of them are Amie’s, of course, most of which I’ve already shown here. There are also  those made by strangers and mostly presented to us as gifts, a lot from India. The ones I want to show you here are two quilts made by my Mom and my mother-in-law (MIL). Both are fantastic crafters with needle and thread.

My Mom made this quilt a long time ago. I always covered Amie with it, in the stroller, when we went out on a chilly day. I dug it out a week ago, sewed back the plain strips on the three sides (for tucking in), and hung it in our bedroom.

This quilt was a collaboration between my MIL and her MIL, Amie’s great-grandmother, who lives in Kolkatta, India. It was made from my husband’s baby clothes and blankets that my MIL had saved. The border on the other side has “Hit Tima Tim Tim,” a Bengali nursery rhyme embroidered on it, in Bengali script and transliterated in Latin script.

Together they add cheer and warmth to our small bedroom .

Some day I hope I will have the peace and quiet - in my life as well as my spirit - to sit down and make a quilt, or an embroidery. Though I have never had the patience for any kind of needlework, and in my youth was known to look down upon it, it appeals to me now, especially if the picture in my head also has Amie in it, sitting next to me, working on her own thing. Maybe in winter we’ll attempt it.

sewing machine in bedroom

I finally managed to sow the row covers together. I used these 5′ wide spun covers to shield the beds from the downpours over Summer, but they were a pain to position because they were too narrow for the 4′ wide beds. Some end of it was always coming undone, and because we couldn’t stretch them, they sagged and billowed in the wind. The solution was to sow two strips together into one comfortably wide one that would stretch over the hoops and have some left over on the sides for anchoring.

Not wanting to sew about 40 feet by hand, I got out our sewing machine. It is a hand-me-down from my aunt and makes only one stitch, but that is sufficient for most of our purposes. Both my mom and MIL used it when they were here, and they showed me how to thread it. Many times over. But, not having a head like that, I forgot. So imagine my horror when I opened the lovely red suitcase to find it… threadless!

Well, after a lot of messing about, sighing, cursing, and some foot stomping, I got it done, mostly with the help of DH - okay, he got it done. I got to reflect again on my unkindness to machinery. You should see me kick the vacuum cleaner when it gets stuck behind the corner of some furniture. When my laptop does something weird, I take care to immediately hand it off to DH.

DH was also reflecting on this, but aloud:

- You really have no patience, do you? How come you have no patience with this? Etc. etc.

You know, that kind of commentary. Oh, those poor machines. Lucky for all of us I struck upon the following reaction:

- I have a lot of pity for the machines in this house. But no mercy.

That kind of thing always cracks us up.

Amie cans a quart of water

The Indian summer came, went, and came again. Last Friday we hit 37 F - cutting it pretty close - but yesterday it was 70F. It’s going to get cold again soon, though.

Plant. Moved (replanted) the 2 rhubarb plants, because in the end we chose their first bed as one of the beds to be covered by our winter hoop house. Planted 50 or so garlic cloves (3 varieties) next to the rhubarb. Sowed peas and planted onion sets for overwintering and early spring germination in outside beds. I’m investigating more winter sowing in containers here.

some onions at least made it to scallion stage, the celery is thin but tasty, the carrots are small but super sweet

Harvest. From plants still going strong: Swiss chard, kale, peas, green beans, potatoes, parsley, basil, scallions, carrots and all the culinary herbs. Last ones: cucumber, eggplant, cherry tomatoes. Pulled most of the celery for mirepoix (with own and Farmers Market carrots and Farmers Market onions).

Mirepoix in the Dutch oven

Preserve. 6 quarts of green beans, 3 pints of pickled cucumbers, 6 pints of peach pie filling  making the (preliminary) total of jars to 101… PLUS (just in) 5 pints of Caribbean peach chutney - and that’s the end of the peaches. So 106. Froze 5 lbs of mirepoix (I first cook it in butter, until just soft; I just love chopping it up; and I could cook it every day just for the smell of it). Froze 2 quarts of vegetable stock made form scrap (mainly celery leaves).

Waste not. We had a largish party, during which I was planning to do an experiment: I was going to set out paper napkins and cloth napkins and see which were most popular. Then I noticed I was out of paper napkins, so cloth it was, and the defunct experiment was the talk of the evening. We also used metal cutlery and recycled and compostable paper plates. The ashes from the 7-hour ribs went into a ash-bin for the compost and soil improvement. Filling a large bag of veggie “waste” (e.g., celery leaves) in the fridge: once I have enough I’ll make veggie broth and freeze or can it. For the rest, we continue on with our usual stuff.

Want not. Bought more canning jars (for some reason there weren’t many 8 oz jars in my Freecycle/Craig’s List hauls) - they were on sale this time. Our toothpaste was on sale too, so now we have enough for a year. But nothing else. It’s pathetic - I really want to be better prepared, for flu or power outage or whatever, but my self pep talks on the issue fizzle out so fast. I wish I had a buddy nearby to do this with.

Build community food systems. Chatted with farmers at the Market, getting on a first name basis and getting nice discounts too - I never ask for them, and when they’re offered, I always ask: “Are you sure? I know it’s not easy for you…” Some tell me about how they are just scraping by, and I also get to see how competition among the farmers at the market plays out. It’s very educational. I also went to a Transition Town meeting, and local food is of course a large part of Transition (more on that later).

100% homegrown "shepherd's pie" filling, to be topped with homegrown potato mash

Eat the food. Ate most out of the garden and whatever is left over from canning - one evening when it was just Amie and I, I had only green beans for dinner, almost an entire quart of them. Amie was so impressed: how can anyone eat so many vegetables!? We’ve eaten nothing from our canned stores yet: it will be special, cracking open that first jar.

"See, I can do this, Mama, because I've seen how you do it!"

Life is sweet.

In the mornings when Amie is at preschool I rewrite my book. It’s rather good, if I may say so myself, at least, I like it… In the afternoons Amie and I play, read and make art. We do our chores: filling the buckets with rain water, tending to the garden, canning, general cleanup, laundry and the like, and cooking dinner. Next week my pottery class is back in session, and this time around I plan to be a little more focused, maybe even on making some things that I could sell.

The Whole Mama is satisfied.

Let’s just say that everything is peachy. At yesterday’s Farmers Market I bought half a bushel (24 lbs.) of peaches, on sale ($25). They were almost ripe, so I can process each batch that ripens, day by day. Today I made peach salsa, tomorrow I’ll make peach butter, the day after peach preserves, then peach jelly. I think there will be enough for peaches in syrup and some more of that peach salsa, it smelled so good.

I also bought a couple of large jute bags that coffee beans come in - a local coffee roaster donated them to the local food pantry. I might make something out of those, maybe also for selling later on. I am keen on  exploring the local, handmade, added-value market, and earning a little extra.

As for the garden, yesterday I harvested and fried up two Applegreen eggplants, with some oil, pepper and salt. They were just sumptuous, so much better than the tasteless mush from the supermarket. Each of my two large eggplants will have given me only 3 fruits, though. The six plants that I put in slightly later but that are much smaller have only just started fruiting, and I don’t think those will make it before the first frost. It just hasn’t been a season for warm-weather vegetables. I’ve got only two tiny green peppers…

At the moment I’m cooking this recipe with homegrown carrots, tomatoes (the last), onion (tiny, but very sharp), celery (thin stalks, but also very tasty), parsley, basil, oregano, and thyme. I added some homegrown kale and spinach as well. The house would smell even better if I were also baking some bread…

All that heat from cooking is welcome now. It’s getting nippy. I’m wearing socks, a sweater and a scarf. This evening DH and I will put our first log into the new wood stove. Neither of us has ever tended a fire, whether in a stove, a fireplace, or a fire pit. Time to experiment, before it really gets cold. I’m liking the prospect of winter…

The painting in the banner was made by my MIL - you can read about her exploits in art (and about Amie as well) in her blog: Journey Through Art. The painting was based on the original banner picture:

Isn’t it beautiful? I’ll write about my artistic family soon. Amie is of course artist number one around here, but there is also my Mom who draws, my sister who is into computer graphics, my dad who does photography, and my grandfather who was an accomplished water-colorist. DH is also quite good, and on his side there’s his mom, a Mesho (uncle) who sketches, and a Mami (aunt) who makes movies and Mamu (Uncle) who plays the violin, and their kids in turn who are painters, musicians, actors…  I just realized the danger of making such a list: imagine I forgot someone!