Monday, October 30, 2006

October 30 2006 007

This is a little hot water bottle holder I made this weekend. It's very grandmaish but my feet get cold since I am not capable of producing heat with my body. And anyway, I'm pretty grandmaish to begin with so no use fighting it. I saw the knitted hot water bottle holders around and liked them but didn't see myself actually knitting so I did it this way with a little quilted cover, lined, and leftover snaptape from my duvet cover for the closure. Here's the back.

Monday, October 23, 2006

article about e.coli and industrial meat by Michael Pollan
Wendell Berry once wrote that when we took animals off farms and put them onto feedlots, we had, in effect, taken an old solution — the one where crops feed animals and animals’ waste feeds crops — and neatly divided it into two new problems: a fertility problem on the farm, and a pollution problem on the feedlot. Rather than return to that elegant solution, however, industrial agriculture came up with a technological fix for the first problem — chemical fertilizers on the farm. As yet, there is no good fix for the second problem, unless you count irradiation and Haccp plans and overcooking your burgers and, now, staying away from spinach. All of these solutions treat E. coli 0157:H7 as an unavoidable fact of life rather than what it is: a fact of industrial agriculture.
This weekend I was very proud of myself! I took care of many chores and made a few savory and healthy soups for us to have for lunches through the week. My biggest triumph was cleaning out my vegetable garden and harvesting all of the tomatoes that had been languishing including a couple pounds of Sungold cherry tomatoes and several giant sized Amish Paste plum tomatoes. These are great varieties for this region and I will plant both again, they succeeded incredibly against insurmountable odds: no water and almost complete neglect. It was basically a Tour de Force. I ground up all of the ripe tomatoes in a food mill and cooked them up with some chicken broth I made last week (from the leftovers of our organic free range roasted chicken) seasoned with rosemary from the front planter. I threw in a can of some garbanzo beans (would have done dried but I didn't know I had so many tomatoes left) and it was good and made me feel like a soup making goddess! Thaddy and I have agreed that next weekend we will do absolutely nothing since we were so productive this weekend to celebrate the end of daylight savings time.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

I liked to read this blog post about how it feels to finally have a home. Waiting to move I have been maintaining a static status quo that no longer gives me that sublime feeling of home. There are small things I could do though, to spark some happy at home feelings like burning incense or lighting more than one candle. I will work on it.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Picture 113

I confirmed that Venice is still the most magical city I've ever been to and discovered an abiding love of the cafe latte, the coffee my grandma made for me as a child given legitimacy with an Italian name. It was nice to know that I can still use most of my Italian and could probably get very proficient with a teeny bit of study next time. Good to be home though and we've roasted a chicken, also confirmed that our bed is the most comfortable place I can imagine. I made a big stride already upon homecoming by finishing a project that had been languishing for a year: put snap tape on the duvet cover I made for the couch snuggling blanket. Project completed and snuggles in progress!