Saturday, October 17, 2009

We didn't feel deprived

A hill of beans. The seeds with their germ eaten out are peas.
All of these will be frozen and eaten over the winter.


In my spare time, over the last few days, I have sorted beans and potatoes and tomatoes mostly, and, weather permitting, raked the mulch from the garden paths onto the beds and am covering them with cardboard and straw; Beloved has made applesauce bread, borscht and ratatouille and maintained her flocks.

There are more tomatoes, shaken from vines I've pulled up, lying about than I will ever pick up. I'm afraid they will make quite a lot of volunteers. I'm still finding green pumpkins as I put the beds to bed, and I cut them up with a machete and hand them over to the flocks, who seem to greatly appreciate them.

Today it rained a fair bit, but yesterday was hot. I worked in shorts and sandals, sunglasses, and straw hat. In fact, a fair amount of housework got done, because I kept coming in to hide from the sun and the dishes and floors called to me. I put some Greek Orthodox choruses on the CD player and did sink time and broom time, and finally got up the courage to take away one chair from the crowded living room and rearrange the furnishings.

I thought it looked pretty good, but the test would be Beloved's arrival.

She came in from work, put down her things, checked phone messages, went across the living room to go see the chickens, and froze.

"Hmm."

She walked over to one of the remaining chairs, sat in it , and looked about her.

(I waited, barely breathing.)

She broke into a smile.

"This works. It works. I haven't liked this room for years, and now I do!"

(Hallelujah!)

"'Course, it's a bit too crowded in the musical instruments corner ... "

(Relief. That we can work out.)

:::

The beans looked like being a disaster, as they grew up and made pods, a first, second, and third crop, but more than half the pods never browned as I used to seeing them do. I should, I suppose, have just picked a day and cut them all off at the ground.

So a week ago I gathered just about as many pods as I could, brown, yellow, green, or spotted, and have been shelling all alike. The varieties of green beans had all proved rather long-season, and several were not to our taste for a variety of reasons -- so we think we will start over with our favorite, var. Helda.

So we're only keeping runner beans for seed. Each pod, as I came to it, was judged on its own merits, and the purple-with-brown-specks mature, dried beans mostly went to safekeeping, and the pink, wrinkled, misshapen or only-one-was-in-the-pod ones added to the freezing or drying piles.

Six quarts made the seed bean grade. If all had matured as they did last year, there would be fifteen quarts. It's a good thing we're not doing this as a money business!

:::

Our family responded to the oil embargo in the 70s by moving to the country and homesteading. We were interested in raising our own food, providing our own power, building our own house, exploring simplicity, and finding ways to lighten our impact. Sometimes we've backslid from the goals that we had then, but we always thought there was too much junk in the atmosphere, and that there would be a reckoning someday for digging up so much poisonous stuff and burning it, spewing it into the atmosphere and soil and sea in order to achieve speed and convenience without consideration for others and other living things.

We're back to basics -- trying to learn how to manage on one acre -- even with more than 35 years experience in gardening and homesteading we feel there's not much we know that we need to know. We grew enough food and to spare this year to live for a year and plant from our own seed for the following year, as well. That was the first time we could really say that -- but it was a lot of work.

It was a lot of work. And we're not, ahem, getting younger.

How was this done?

We basically pretty much quit going to concerts or plays or movies or watching TV, and didn't go away on vacation. Our entertainment consisted of bringing each other solar tea for sit-down breaks in the garden. We sipped, absorbed sunshine, and remarked on the hummingbirds who'd built a nest in the plum tree.

So we didn't feel deprived.

6 comments:

  1. I had to show your comments regarding re-arranging the furnature to 'my Beloved'. We both got a huge laugh over the "Instrument corner", as this is an issue for us as well. One of the ways we have been able to deal with the musical clutter is to attach hooks to the walls (near the front door for us) and hang as many of them as we could hang. Makes for interesting wall art!

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  2. This is a great idea but I'm not sure we could use it -- we are wood heat (in another room) and outer walls throw everything out of tune, hence the corner that is a safe haven in the interior of the house.

    It contain, btw:
    Epiphone steel-string guitar
    Half-size nylon string guitar
    5 string banjo
    autoharp
    dulcimer
    bohdran
    Couple of rain sticks
    maracas
    clarinet
    3/4 size violin
    flute
    tambourine
    assorted recorders and pennywhistles

    We're only really any good with guitar (she) and dulcimer (me). She does musical storytimes and puppetry. I stay home and do impromptu four-string reveries. Oh, and I'm okay on Marine Band harmonica -- upside down and backwards. Clarinet, autoharp and pennywhistle, I'd be okay with enough practice to get back into form. Her singing voice is still the real thing; mine has gone the way of the winds.

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  3. Hi Risa. I love reading your stories, the little snippets of your day to day, your gorgeous pictures and some of your whys and wherefores.
    Always brings a smile to my face. Thank you. Amber

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  4. I love your list of instruments. We sat here at the computer and, to our best recollections, came up with this list for our house (and no, they are not all in one place)...and the list may not be altogether complete:

    Two guitars (one Fender 12-string and one Martin Backpacker)
    Electric Bass (Fender)
    Strum stick
    Piano
    Electric piano
    Two violins (one ¾, one full and non-operational)
    Three kalimbas
    Washboard
    Assorted pennywhistles
    Concertina
    Fife
    Two trumpets
    Cornet
    Two trombones
    French horn
    Baritone
    Autoharp
    Zither (non-operational)
    Conga
    Bongos
    Talking drum
    Two bodhrans
    Hand drum
    Tambourine
    Two ukuleles
    Bagpipes (cheap, starter set)

    The brass, non-operational violin, tambourine, zither and a few of the drums make up out 'wall decorations'. The others are scattered about. I am reasonably proficient on the Uke, daughter is taking piano and baritone, and beloved is proficient in varying degrees with just about all of them.

    Yes, we can certainly relate!

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  5. Y'welcome, Amber.

    Erin: wonderful list! You will not lack for things to do after TEOTWAWKI. ;)

    Oh, yes, and we do have a washboard. How could I forget? :D

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  6. Holy cow, ya'll have a lot of instruments! We've only got one guitar, a mandolin, and a tambourine-kind of thing from some other country. Dog bellies also work in a pinch as drums.

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Stony Run Farm: Life on One Acre