election fatigue? take a spoonful of fall

 

this perfect (but inedible) pumpkin volunteered in my herb garden this year

Fall is well upon us, and not a word from me.  That just shows you the power of Mitt Romney to distract, because I love this time of year, and I haven’t been enjoying it nearly as much as I should. 
 

 

Even though the election has distracted me from the more introspective aspects of the season, I have still been incredibly busy with the preparation that October requires.  I have tomatoes, beans and fruit put up, herbs drying, and green stuff like broccoli, kale and collards moving weekly into my freezer. 

out of focus - i couldn't hold my camer still while standing on a chair!

 

the new word in window treatments!



boring apple picture

 

If I must have gray hovering around my doorstep in just a few weeks, at least I know I have color bottled up in jars, boxed up in cool storage, and vacuum packed in my freezer.  Meanwhile, we'll make the most of the arugula that's prime in the fridge, dappling it with walnuts and pear from the market.  We know the salad won’t last, but we don’t dwell on it.  There's something deeply satisfying in the box of pale fleshy sweet potatoes that stands a hero’s guard against winter in the corner of my kitchen.

 

An even surer sign of the season, we had soup for dinner last night! Black bean: the first official soup of these coming cooler months.  

 

As it happens, I have a confession to make about those beans. 

 

Remember when I posted Earth:Full, Pantry: Empty?  Well, feeling that the bar of soap I bought might make an inadequate store for civilization's coming seige, I eventually ordered some beans. 

 

Yes.  Yes, I did. 

 

You see, I already order wheat in bulk because I grind it to make my own flour.  So it wasn’t a stretch by any means to venture into the bean section of the website and click the number “one” under the description “black beans-6 gallon bucket.”  

Then I forgot about it.  Imagine my surprise when the order came in six weeks later.  I opened my bucket of “wheat,” only to discover a surprise guest:  a mountain of black beans, all shiny, new, and expectant. 

 

Six gallons.  I think that amounts to about 96 cups of beans (94, if you subtract what I used for the soup).

Steve doesn’t know. 

If you live in a small house, how do you hide 96 cups of black beans from your husband?  

 

You put them in the laundry room and stack other stuff on top of them.  Then you hope he doesn’t trip on the bucket when putting the bath towels in the dryer.  While he’s there, you might as well cross your fingers that he doesn’t look in the freezer, because you probably haven’t yet told him about the chickens…

Other women hide new stuff like Jimmy Choo pumps or Prada handbags.  Me? I don't really even know what those things are (I googled "fashionable shoes" to find cool names).  I have 6 gallons of dried beans lurking in my laundry room and approximately 20 covert chickens stuffed into a “new” freezer we inherited from my parents. 

It’s not that Steve doesn’t know that I store our food for winter.  It’s just that I don’t tell him about the bill when it happens (if he was a more faithful reader I could worry about outing myself but…that’s not a problem!).  It’s OK.  The cost will work itself out later, in the minimal grocery bill we’ll enjoy all winter.  For now, I plan to stay mum on the chickens and play oblivious to the beans.

Meanwhile, I need a break.  I think I have food storage fatigue.  I know I have election fatigue.  And I'm missing the fall. 

So tonight we went for a walk.

 

steve and my block-headed
but lovable dog named Maybe





posing

 

 

The in between seasons teach us to pay attention, because whatever pleasures they offer, are fleeting.
 

a bee showing up for "last call"

Winter and summer can drag on.  Too much snow gives us cabin fever; too much sun gives us heat stroke.  The extremes wear us out, and by the end, we appeal for change. But not so with the in between.  I mean, when was the last time you heard someone say they were tired of fall?  Or sick of spring?  

 

a pink mum

 

summer marigolds still hanging on

 

In the moderate temperatures of fall, we can stop sweating and sit back to watch and listen as a timpani of clouds rolls in over the fiery hills, a trumpeting wind blusters leaves into fountains of sky, and color comes oozing out of the planet like music.  

 

decay is part of the beauty of fall

 

But be sure to tune in.  If you get distracted, you'll miss the show. 

waiting for the Lorax

Builders began construction on a house around the corner from us a few weeks ago.  It started with the tying of ribbons.  Orange ones around the trees.  When we drove by, Olivia asked me, does a ribbon mean save it or cut it?  We did a quick accounting and discovered it didn’t look to matter—with the ratio of marked to unmarked trees being about equal, half of them would go.

The small houses in my 60 year old neighborhood have more than big pictures, they have big yards.  Consequently, builders stalk the perimeter of our community, barely able to contain their drooling, as they wait to pounce on the weak and broken down properties that wander innocently from the herd. 

Picture quirky Dr. Seussian rhymes, with quirky Dr. Seussian outlines depicting crooked ramblers that regularly disappear with a slurp, sucked into the earth from which new monstrosities erupt with a succession of imposing 6,000 square foot clunks: bigger, better, crookeder, complete with never-to-be-used rooms, vacuous ceilings, and fuel guzzling heating and cooling units that chug and puff great billowing cartoon clouds of smoke into the azure sky above.

Years ago, builders got their hands on the two properties behind us.  The houses and the trees came down together.  When a three-story wall of siding went up, blocking the sunset we had always soaked in during dinner, the bitterness got the best of me.  

Olivia was just 5.  Gareth 8.  We sat under a tree on sunny days dipping strawberries in confectionary sugar.  It sounds so sweet, but during those picturesque meals, I dripped poison into their innocent little ears.  I stewed about the big bad builders; I seethed about the tree-haters.  Gareth called them “the big house people” with elementary derision. Olivia looked at me with the big eyes of Cindy-Lou Who, asking, “Mommy, why, why are they taking our pretty trees, WHY?”

Over berries, we asked each other, what kind of person would want to live in such a house?  Certainly not someone who shared our values about family, energy and the environment. 

I couldn’t possibly ever have anything in common with them.

Then it hit me:  them.  These presumptuous structures would eventually house people:

Neighbors.

OMG.  I had to change my tune.  What if they had kids?  What if Olivia went up there to play and, in her not-so-innocent-5-year-old-way, asked them why they chopped down all the trees? What if she announced: “My mom says your house is too big!” 

Ugh.  I’d created a monster of the Lorax variety.  But nowhere near as cute, restrained, or profound.     

I began to work on some softer language, some maybes and what ifs that left room for the possibility of decent, well-meaning, neighbors with way more ounces of goodness than I had displayed so far. 

A good thing, because they do have kids, and despite all of my predictions and my many insightful ways of knowing, they are some of the nicest people I know.  I’m not exaggerating.  The nicest. 

And I thought we’d have nothing in common.  These people have a bicycle-powered grain grinder that puts my very electric grain grinder to shame.  Who even has a grain grinder (to make their own bread) besides me and my big-housed neighbors? 

It’s as if they were put there to teach me a lesson I’m already supposed to know, about judging a book by its cover, or a family by its house, or whatever.

Don’t judge.  Got it.       

Until the market turned enough to let the building start again. 

This new construction marks the third tear-down this year. When Olivia and I saw all the trees, marked for execution, I barely paused to adjust my Mrs.-Kravitz-curlers before I called Steve to report the latest neighborhood development.  I stewed.  I muttered.  My kids followed suit.  To lighten our mood, we joked about perching a stuffed Lorax on the mailbox for all to see.

Then, someone put a big sign in the yard that said, “STOP killing trees!”  Olivia gasped (and then gushed, because the girl lives for a little drama).  My mouth just hung open.

Wow.  I immediately recoiled, recognizing that somehow this crossed a line. 

(I didn’t do it.  I promise).

The woman responsible apologized a few days later.  The man who owns the property supposedly told her that he’d been planning to live in the house, but after the sign and a flood of angry phone calls (apparently, although the Lorax never showed, many neighbors had called to “speak for the trees”), he’d decided he didn’t want to live in such an unfriendly neighborhood.

Hmmm…Communities are so confusing. 

I’ve discovered that I can’t just decide to stop feeling my resentment.  I moved here for the trees.  I don’t think it’s reasonable for this guy to be surprised that we haven’t lined up next to his wood chipper with so many homemade banana breads wrapped in bows. 

I think our anger is justified.  But as a community, what do we do with that anger? Do we want the community or the trees?  Well, I want them both, and surely it would be better if people didn’t come and exercise their ironic right to chop down our oxygen producing friends so that they can “biggerer” their houses' CO2 footprints, but once they do that, how should the rest of us react?  If we want to remain a community, I think we may just have to swallow our resentment—accept the change.  You know, get mad and move on, or move out. 

So last week, I woke to the sound of demolition. It rattled my windows in their frames.  By the time I picked Olivia up from school, half the trees and all of the little house were gone. 

I registered my disappointment, tried to look the other way, and resolved to wait out my anger.  I’ll get used to the new landscape. Maybe I’ll even be friends with the new neighbors.  We’ll chat pleasantly over potato salad on summer holidays, share a beer on the back deck, or offer a morning salute as we walk our dogs. 

It sounds OK.  But I can’t help but wonder if it will be enough.  We’ll never talk about what used to be, and despite my pleasantries, I won’t stop hoping for that damn Lorax to quit his dilly dallying and make an appearance before we run out of trees.    

“Unless” he’s waiting for me?

big picture

When we tried to move to a bigger house a few years ago, I discovered I couldn’t disentangle myself from this little house.  Like a plant in a small pot, our roots had grown through the bottom, binding us in a tangle I was loathe to rip up. 

So, we renovated.

A little. 

We added almost 200 square feet to the living room, added insulation, replaced our drafty windows and rearranged a few walls to make better use of space.   

Still, it’s true that sometimes we have to wait to use the bathroom.  And if anything untoward happens in there, you can bet that the rest of the fam will find out about it.  No matter where we’re going, we have to step over the dog, and my friends who used to bring their teeny children to dinner, now bring their teen children.  These monsters actually expect to sit on furniture, and in a sprawling and selfish sort of way that seriously challenges our seating capacity. 

With no storage space on the ground level (no garage, no basement, little closets), there’s only one place to put our extra stuff:  out the door and up the ladder to the attic over the carport.  Need a low-usage item like a sleeping bag, an extra lunch box or the fondue pot? Out the door and up the ladder.

BUT, I love that we can find each other without raising our voices. When we lose our cell phones, we can hear the ring from any room.  If I stand in the middle of my kitchen, I can touch my sink, stove, refrigerator, and trash can without taking a step (and at the same time if I had four arms).  From this lucky spot, I can cook dinner without chasing myself silly around an obtrusive kitchen island. 

I hadn’t realized how the house had shaped us, like a meatball, or a cup of brown sugar, packed tight. 

Steve and I sleep in a double bed because anything bigger would turn bedroom to padded playpen.  I know what you’re thinking, but what to do in said playpen after a real knock-down-drag-out? Even after the worst of arguments, it takes a lot of work to stay in one corner of a small bed all night, untouching and untouchable for a ridiculous marital standoff.  Eventually, a toe or a knee goes astray, burrowing into enemy territory without intent. It’s not long before everything else follows.  Then you wake to find yourself thoroughly snuggled and probably drooling on the shoulder of last night’s mortal enemy.  The only way out of that is a quick apology and a new day—or sex.  Neither makes for a bad end to a fight.

Until 3 years ago, the kids shared a room just 5 steps from our main living area.  During those sweet innocent years, they fell asleep to the rustle of each others bed clothes, and to the comforting sounds of their parent’s voices outside the door.  If they feared that an ugly green witch had a leg up on their window sill, we could practically douse her from the couch.  We cook, eat, do homework, watch TV, practice musical instruments, and egad, play soccer, in a large central living area that includes kitchen/dining/living room.  The noise, the clutter, the frenzy is enough to drive a mother mad.  The only thing that could be worse: the quiet of children sequestered in a basement, or an upstairs bedroom. 

The kids do have a small TV room in which to retreat or entertain friends. I don’t spy, but if I need to, I can hear every word they utter in there.  Mostly, however, I don’t listen—I think the house taught us this—to give each other privacy.  Otherwise, we’d never have it.  Don’t listen to other people’s conversations – even when you can hear them; don’t stand outside the bathroom door snickering (we haven’t mastered this one yet—apparently there’s a learning curve); don’t walk into rooms without knocking (none of our bedroom doors lock – is this a characteristic of a small house, or just a broken down one?).  

The house has also taught us about simplicity and moderation: about need.  We quickly learned if there’s no room for it, don’t buy it! Kitchen-Aid? No way.  George Foreman Grill? Uh-uh. Electric can opener? Good-God!  And the bonus: all of these space-eating appliances also eat electricity.  Surely we can open our own cans without plugging in? 

I’ve heard women complain that they need a cleaning person to help them keep up with their big houses. I know they truly feel overwhelmed, because I feel overwhelmed too.   But with less surface area to scrub, I don’t need a cleaning person any more than I need a fat-handled toilet brush.  I also find myself asking: Why do we need a foosball table when we can play soccer in the yard? Why do I need a different glass for every type of cocktail? Who needs last year’s magazines? that sweater I haven’t worn in three years?  That old laptop with the blatzo hard drive…? 

I like battling clutter, buying less, conserving energy, reducing expenses, staying close, and staying close, and … staying close.

Even though we didn't plan this, I'm glad we landed here, and sprouted, and grew.  I confess that there are big things that we need, but they're the kinds of things that come in small houses.

small house

“You have a small house.”

This five years ago from my daughter’s new playmate.  He stood, wedged in the corner of our kitchen and proclaimed his truth with authority. He wasn’t the first candid kindergartener to offer his opinion about our supposed shortage of square footage.  In those heady days of the booming real estate market, oversized houses had popped up like dandelions in my neighborhood. I felt like Gulliver in Brobdingnag.  

In the bigness of Brobdingnag, the ordinary appears small, and my 1940s rambler had suddenly taken on the characteristics of someone else’s walk-in closet.  Each of my two bathrooms, I was sure, could slip right down the drain of my new neighbor’s double Jacuzzi.  And my own closets?—about the size of a modern day medicine cabinet.

Bigness is contagious.  Stores now bulge with bloated household items designed to fill cavernous homes.  Couches and window treatments have swelled up like soaking raisins; wall hangings and coffee tables come bulkier than an athlete on steroids.  I saw a flower pot the size of a bathtub at our local nursery the other day.  Big stuff equals big price tag.  They wanted over $100 for that hunk of clay!  I went for the mini-replica at a whopping $10.  

Most of this big stuff won’t fit in my house.  Literally.  Even the small things have gotten big.  Have you bought a new garlic press lately? Measuring cups? A cheese grater? All of these tools have sprouted bulbous rubber handles that gobble up precious storage space.

I suppose it would be sad to find a skinny little melon-baller lying all alone in the corner of an oversized drawer, like a forgotten toothpick.  But should we pump up the melon baller? Or downsize the drawer?   

When we moved in 16 years ago, we found our 1,650 sq. ft. abode perfectly adequate, and I recognize that by some standards, it's not that small at all.   According to an unevaluated internet source, the average American house currently measures at around 2,800 square feet.  That makes us under average: not little, not teeny, just small.  But everything is relative, and since apparently, we live in Brobdingnag, where the idea of 6,000 square feet doesn’t turn a head, the house can feel teeny. 

A few years ago, I began to think bigger—not 6,000 square feet bigger, just something that could accommodate a modest melon baller.  Steve and I made the big decision to move.  We even picked out a house—a fairly ordinary 4 bedroom colonial with a sort-of-finished basement.  I liked it.  Steve loved it.  But when we tentatively agreed to buy it, I went home and, shockingly, cried for two days.  This had been my idea.  I had said I was frustrated with our lack of storage, tired of squeezing dinner guests into a sardine can for their meal, annoyed at moving the laundry basket so I could open the refrigerator door. 

So why the blubbering? 

I think I sensed something rotten in the state of Brobdingnag.  The market had a teetering quality to it.  Plus, how would we pay a bigger mortgage? How would we afford to heat and air condition so many rooms? And look at all those light bulbs! Did we want to burn that much energy?  How did this house address my concerns about climate change? How would I ride my bike for groceries on that windy road?

I also worried that the new house would stretch our little family too thin; I would become a desperately overreaching Gumby trying to keep a hand on each of three floors.  Would our connections grow thin and tenuous? It would be hard enough to talk to my kids as they approached middle and high school, how would I do it through imposing floors and ceilings?   

We didn’t set out to live in a small house; 16 years ago, we simply bought what we could afford, and we reveled in its unapartmentlikeness.  I expected we would someday “upgrade.”  I didn’t expect that the house would shape us, teach us, hold us.  I didn’t expect that we would stay.