Tag Archive | drought

Real Food

Oct28

Blessed rain came after midnight, dressing the high country in snow. It’s rained down here off and on all day, deepening snow cover in the mountains all the while.

I indulged in a decaf vanilla latté with French toast made from the heel of the last sourdough loaf, topped with yogurt, apricot jam, and pure maple syrup. I’m grateful for real food, even if some of it is sugar. But that’s not foaming milk above, that’s how I clean the milk frother after frothing milk: a small squirt of dish soap and warm water and press go. Then just shake and rinse, air dry, and it’s ready for the next time.

The maple syrup jug slipped a little as I poured it on…

I’ve waited awhile for this syrup. I usually buy a gallon at a time and it lasts me around a year, I think, though I haven’t really kept track. Neighbor Mary turned me onto this wonderful Vermont company and I’ve been buying maple syrup from them for years now. I like to wait til it’s on sale, but this summer I’d run out and they offered a ‘Generosity Bottle‘ to benefit people who suffered losses during torrential floods in the state last July. One hundred percent of profits from these bottles go to flood relief. I hope it’s enough to tide me over until their winter sale. Today was my first taste in months.

I did some work after breakfast and before I knew it it was time for lunch. I mixed the glaze from last night with a little mayo and dolloped it onto the remaining six salmon cupcakes. What a delicious, nutritious, and filling lunch!

After lunch it hailed outside briefly, before going back to rain. I worked some more, read a little, built a small fire in the woodstove, mixed some Trail Mix cookies, and started a new loaf of bread. I’m grateful to have enjoyed a cold, rainy Saturday. Next thing I knew it was time for dinner. I tossed a healthy salad and garnished it with my share of the cauliflower harvest.

When I posted the other day about the dangers of highly processed food-not-food to individual, societal, and planetary health, the irony wasn’t lost on me that my plate contained processed cheese puffs and a commercially baked bun, as well as numerous dyes on the M&Ms. It got me thinking about cleaning up my own eating habits, which are already better than many, living in this valley of abundant organic fresh produce and ethically raised animals for meat, supplemented by my own garden. I’m grateful for Real Food, which is a value I’m going to pay more attention to going forward.

Eating Colors

Sep21

This little yellowjacket didn’t want to budge from the base of a chimayo pepper, so I let her stay, happy to share sustenance. She won’t eat much, the pepper will ripen and soon join the harvest basket. Just a handful of yellow beans, jalapeños and a few other peppers this morning, but enough new arugula to make another batch of pesto. There are still loads of green tomatoes and unripe peppers to come, but with this cool spell everything has slowed down. I’m grateful for a rainy day predicted tomorrow. I’m through teaching on Thursdays for awhile, and love the prospect of an empty day in front of me to catch up in the kitchen, and hopefully to start a pet project on the computer that I’ve been procrastinating on for years. We’ll know more later!

A few jigsaw peppers and three small onions will go into the next batch of salsa tomorrow, along with a few super hot peppers and another nine pounds of tomatoes.

I’ve read about cabbage steaks and finally decided to try some. I had a couple old pieces of sourdough bread, and plenty of chickpeas on hand, so I made this, and wow! Next time I’ll use less salt, but otherwise this was a delicious and healthy dinner. I burned most of the croutons but that was just as well, who needs the carbs. Chickpeas roasted to perfection, and the mild seasoning with cumin and coriander went well with the lemony mayo dressing. I chopped up the leftover roasted cabbage, grated a carrot into it, and put in the fridge for coleslaw for the week.

For dessert, a fat scoop of vanilla ice cream drizzled with raspberry syrup, my favorite thing today. So simple, so delicious. I’m grateful for eating colors.
I’m grateful for a cloudy day, for mist over the mountains, rabbitbrush suddenly in full bloom, and a soft trail into the woods.The 1.5 inches of rain predicted a few days ago had diminished to half that by midday and keeps falling each time I check the forecast. We’ll be lucky to get a half inch out of this ‘storm.’ But some moisture is better than no moisture in this dire drought.

Yellow

Jul5

Growing up, yellow was my favorite color. I had a yellow bedspread, yellow ruffled curtains, a yellow abstract painting that I commissioned from the artist, Ed Duggan, when I was around twelve. He was a friend of my mom’s at the Art League who painted through the years increasingly finer and more intricate renditions of topo maps, which might be hard to visualize if you’ve never seen a topo map. Just the elevation lines, in various color schemes. I had no idea what a topo map was at the time, but was transfixed with the harmonious images. I wonder where that painting ended up. I’m grateful that simply thinking just now about the color yellow and my childhood bedroom brought to mind that painting. Somewhere along the way I gave up on having a favorite color: I love them all equally (and there’s some equanimity! Now, if I could only expand that to love all humans equally). Anyway, I’m grateful today for yellow, and especially for this spectacular cluster of giant yellow columbines that accidentally ended up in the vegetable garden and is now one of its highlights. I actually took the time the other day to snip off all the seedheads, in order to encourage more new blooms. So little is blooming in the garden this year that I’m going to nurse this beauty for as long as I can.

Rain

Jul23

At last! Though probably barely measurable, we have rain. I’m grateful for a little rain with a lot of thunder and lightning.

Grateful for this year’s apricot harvest, more than I thought it would be after freezes last fall and this spring. There are still some on the tree for the birds, but a shirtful is about all I’ll get. Oh well! Better some than none at all.
Grateful for another day with this dog, grateful that he can still get ahead of me, and grateful that he’s always, always, stopped to look back.

Apricot Tree

Jul14

A resilient survivor, this apricot tree! She suffered the same brutal freeze last October as the almond tree who died, and the peach tree who lost half her limbs, and the desert willow, who has emerged finally this summer like a Dr. Seuss tree. The apricot tree simply curtailed her blossoms and turned her attention to her leaves, filling out beautifully.

And not only her leaves! She did make maybe a tenth of the blossoms as last year, maybe fewer, and now has some nice fat fruits. In the whole canopy, though, this is the densest concentration I found. But most of them are still green, and smaller, so she could surprise me. I doubt I’ll be making jam; and the Raspberry Queen down in Hotchkiss has only harvested a cup or two of berries from her prolific patch. Indeed, the fruit trees and shrubs have suffered this past year, from erratic weather in this new climate of extremes.

Today I’m grateful for the first few apricots, ripening on the resilient tree.

Support

Jul13
I am grateful for the first okra harvested this season, and hope my three plants will give me more.
I am grateful for the gifts my father gave me, his interests in gardening and cameras.

Above all, I am grateful today for the support of my friend who came to help me pack my old cameras and accessories, to ship to B&H Photo in New York. They take trade-ins of certain models, it turns out, and not just any old thing. I’m grateful that the sorting queen lives down the road, and she came to help me pack these trade-ins. It was a lengthy and complicated process, during which we enjoyed coffee and conversation, but finally she had the box packed perfectly. Every single camera I owned from the past 80 years or more was securely bubble-wrapped and precisely fitted into a large cardboard box. With the last of the packing tape, we sealed it and she hauled it to my car, for me to drop off at the PackShak in town.

Stellar helped, of course. And then I went online and shopped for the new camera system. I called to talk about my order and the trade-ins, and learned to my dismay that they only take certain models, not any old thing. And so I have to unpack the perfectly packed box, sort again into acceptable and not acceptable trade-ins, then re-pack a smaller box. But that’s OK!

She said when I told her, “It doesn’t diminish my satisfaction at having packed it perfectly at all that you have to unpack it.” And I said, “It doesn’t diminish my gratitude at your packing it, at all, that I have to repack it.” Despite the fact that it needs to be undone, it’s already half done; and I’m grateful for her cheerful, generous, efficient support.

And finally today, I am grateful for a 10th of an inch of rain.

Fun

Jun12

Fun is different for everyone, but I think everyone on the Canary Committee had some kind of fun today walking in the Pioneer Days Parade. I’m grateful for the strong women and two men who made our showing an effective message. As I returned to my car afterward, a porch sitter nearby said, “Y’all sure did a lot of chirping out there!”

“I think we got our message across, don’t you?” I replied. “Oh yeah!” he and his companions agreed. That was one of the more straightforward comments I heard after the parade. Others carried a tinge of drought denial that confused me. We are so clearly in dire straits here on the western slope, in an area that has already increased 4ºF in the past hundred years, the area in the continental US most affected by the global warming of climate chaos. Extraordinary drought is only one of the symptoms. So it felt antagonistic to me when a woman on the Republican float called out to us, “Then don’t take a bath tonight!”

And while it was kind of clever, it also seemed supremely ignorant when a Mennonite man came up to me and asked, “Are you a canary or Chicken Little?” I’m grateful for the equanimity that mindfulness practice has generated in me. I was able to smile and say, “Oh, but this is real.” He laughed and said, “I’m just kidding.” I hope so, but I wasn’t sure. I hope that the other canaries received more supportive comments, but I didn’t stick around to find out. After being out in the largest crowd I’ve seen in a couple of years, I headed for the serenity of home.

I’m grateful the tender seedlings I transplanted last evening survived the blistering dry heat of their first day in the ground. The worst is over for them, I hope. I’m grateful I can provide some dietary diversity in my yard for this gravid doe, though I did eventually shoo her away from the columbine blossoms she was happily plucking. She stepped off a couple of yards and ate a few honeysuckle buds before meandering back toward the pond.

I’m grateful for the fence around the food garden, or I wouldn’t have anything to harvest! I’m grateful for another handful of radishes and half today’s snap peas on their way to the fridge. The other half of today’s peas I tossed into a skillet with the last of the oyster mushrooms and some chopped scallions (those perennial onions) for my evening snack. So simple, so delicious! I’m grateful to be eating food I’ve grown at the end of a full Saturday that included connection with community and nature, a long talk with my soul sister, sweet time with my beloved animal companions, and a nice long nap: My kind of fun.

Silver Linings

May31
I was grateful first thing (after sleeping in late) to see Bucky back! I’m glad he’s survived to get all grown up.
Grateful to see the first Sego lily this spring, though it looks sad and lonely in this parched clay…
… and even more grateful to see it has company! Some little creatures curled up sleeping in it for the night, awaiting sun’s warming rays to open their bed.
I’m grateful for this silly cat, who won’t jump on a lap to save her life, but will jump up on a bench and rub on my leg; grateful that she so often accompanies us on our rambles through the forest.
Grateful that the pond edge has eroded and the pond overgrown with reeds, so that when Stellar fell in again he didn’t go far. Grateful also that I saw it happen from afar as he was drinking after our morning walk, and was able to get in without falling myself, and help him out; grateful that he saw me coming, relaxed, and waited for me to extricate him.
Grateful for bumblebees, and for gorgeous nasturtiums to feed them.
Grateful for leftovers, and for corn tortillas to hold them, grateful for avocados and all the conditions and people across the miles that it takes to get a perfectly ripe avocado onto my ‘leftover’ taco. Grateful for homemade paprika, and for the little Yakuna savoy leaves I thinned from the patch of greens in the garden; grateful for soil and water and raised garden beds; grateful for cheese, and salmon, and beans and all the people and conditions it took to get them into my fridge and pantry; grateful for having a fridge and pantry, and the time to prepare a healthful meal. And grateful for the awareness to appreciate this lunch that will never be replicated exactly. So simple, so delicious!
Grateful that Stellar’s pond escapade didn’t hamper his ability to hunt for Biko this afternoon as the wind blew madly, and grateful for this lovely claret cup right in my own back yarden. (No, Biko isn’t in the picture, but if he were, you might not be able to recognize him anyway he is so well camouflaged. He’s under the sagebrush just beyond Stellar, who is waiting for his reward treats).
Grateful that this happened when it did, and not just a few minutes earlier. I rescued a hummingbird that got stunned hitting the south window (despite the prayer flags), and set her in a crook of this potted jade near the feeder to recuperate. I checked on her an hour later, and the tiny was perched on a limb; a few minutes later I looked again and she had flown away. A few minutes later from inside I heard CRASH! The mighty, capricious wind had blown the tree down.
And then, for a brief moment, I was deliriously grateful for rain… but this is as much as we got.

Green

May6
I’m grateful for the green leaves of tulips, and for these gorgeous orange tulips some of which are throwing more than one bloom.

Today I’m grateful for green things, and not just the usual like lettuce, kale, spinach; spring leaves on the Amur maple or apple or crabapple tree, or any newly leafing tree; or fleetingly lush green fields; but the unusual, like the green pond goo that nearly camouflages the green and brown spotted back of a big fat lady northern leopard frog who hops into the pond when I startle her from the wet green grass at the edge – and the green on her back as well, and grateful that my choices provide habitat for this precious native amphibian.

And I’m grateful for green limes, and the green glass that holds the first margarita I’ve made in a decade. I used a ‘new’ recipe: 2 oz. tequila, 1 oz. Grand Marnier, 1 oz. fresh lime juice, and a half ounce Agave syrup, shaken hard over ice and poured over ice in a salt-rimmed glass. Drink by the pond with the leopard frogs.

I’m grateful for all the green of early May in the high desert, much of which will fade to brown or tan within a month or two in this extraordinary drought, and grateful that I ‘own’ water enough to keep this little oasis somewhat green and moist and fruitful enough to support a little ecosystem through the year.

Boyz Lunch

May1
Roasted leg of lamb with Indian spices

Of the numerous things I’m grateful for today, including wise teachers and more tulips, I’m grateful for Boyz Lunch. I didn’t raise a family or even marry. There was never anyone I always had to cook for. Without cooking for children (the hasty routine breakfasts day after day, the packed lunches, the weeknight dinners week after week after week for years), I never got in the habit of three meals a day. I’ve just recently learned to cook for myself consistently. But I’ve always loved to cook for other people.

Frying cloves, cardamom pods, peppercorns and cinnamon…
… to pour over the yogurt-spice marinated lamb before slow roasting.

For about five years I’ve been cooking lunch for two friends, older gentlemen, or as they would say, geezers. They were meeting at a restaurant once a week; things changed, I started cooking, and enjoying the meal with them. The last time we dined together without masks was March 11 last year, the day before the country shut down. We put it on hold for a few months as things settled out, and in June we resumed lunches at a distance outside. At our first lunch back, our dear friend Michael was supposed to come too, but he’d been by then two days in the hospital; our next lunch we spent processing the news that he’d died that morning.

We met the rest of the summer two or three times a month and into the early fall while we could still eat outside. But then the big freeze came, killing so many fruit trees in the valley (as we learned this spring) and Boyz Lunch ceased for winter. What a difference a year makes: Many of our trees are dead from that fluke October freeze, including my almond tree. Some of our friends are dead. Many of my beloveds are dead. So much has changed, and I think, I hope, in a beneficial way. We need to learn to live more lightly on the planet, and this novel coronavirus woke many people up to that truth.

I tried my hand at Parathas, a layered Indian bread which looked pretty easy, but they delaminated while frying and ended up more like sturdy tortillas than flaky flatbreads. Oh well!
Tender spicy lamb, garlic mashed potatoes, salad with seared asparagus, avocado, and homemade ranch dressing, and sturdy tortilla…
… followed by cardamom cake with whipped cream for dessert, all enjoyed together on the patio in the incomparable fresh air.

We zoomed sometimes through the winter just to stay in touch, and today I am so grateful that we finally got to gather again outside, around the table, without masks, all of us with some supposed level of immunity. Recently our zoom conversations have focused on drought, and we circled back to that again today. Where would we choose to move if we had to leave here because of no water? John said, “I don’t have to think about it because I’ll be dead.” Philip and I concluded there’s really nowhere on earth we’d rather be. Where will the climate refugees go when it starts being the US southwest? They’ll go northwest, or northeast, north for sure where there will still be water. But we’ll stay here because it’s home, and take our chances. Then we started talking about The Water Knife…

I’m grateful we still have water. I’m grateful that we all made it through Covid – thus far. I’m grateful for the conversation, which is always interesting, and reassuring to me in an odd way. I’m grateful for the friendship, support, and help with firewood. And as much as anything about these lunches, I’m grateful for the opportunity to make delicious food and serve it to people I love who thoroughly enjoy it.