Sunday, August 31, 2008

Huckleberries - August Delight

Funny how certain aromas conjure up vivid mental images of days gone by.

Huckleberries bring my grandparents right back to me - lucid day dreaming.

I cherish the experience. Every time.

Huckleberry picking yielded berries enough for muffins along with a good conversation with Grandma and Grandpa.

The berries did most of the talking.

Sweet!

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Ratatouille

Simple pleasures...

...from the garden...


...to the kitchen...


...to the belly!

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Summer Wane

Basil from my garden...

...becomes pesto for my family!


The bounty of harvest continues.

Whole, slow food.

Boy am I going to miss summer!

Monday, August 18, 2008

First Things

Live and breathe. Experience. PAY ATTENTION. Learn.

Then impart wisdom if it comes your way. Then talk or write or in other ways share.

But first, yes, first let life be lived.

The day-to-day easy and hard.

The phases.

Joy and crashing defeat.

Understanding and bitter confusion.

Out there...or in here.

But please, please, please when comfort is needed, answers cried for don't spurt forth pretty sounding words, cleverly constructed phrases, or miles of blather from a frozen moment from which you cannot escape and call it helpful wisdom. It is trifle. It is granulated sugar. It is sickening. It nurtures not but suffocates, stifles, retards growth.

Fresh life requires fresh telling - potent observation gleaned the hard way. Wisdom which alters a course, understanding which enlightens, words which aid, silence which emboldens.

First live life. Robustly. Enthusiastically. Courageously, nearly with abandon opening the way for experience in mad doses uplifting and then submerging, wrapping jewels within episodic existence.

Wisdom is born.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Witchy Woman

As I tend to my herbs - pruning them, drying the flowers and leaves, using them in recipes and salads - memories of the fictional character Peg Bowen of Avonlea linger in my mind.

Peg was an herbalist but the townspeople thought she was a witch.

Didn't the pioneers, the native people, and the ancients know the healing and medicinal properties of plants and roots?

Sure they did.

I know a little bit, just a very little bit.

I remember Peg and Archie Gillis butting heads over and over. He called her a witch. She played to his prejudice for fun, "A curse on you, Archie Gillis!" He'd blanch, tuck tail, and hurry away from her and her curse.

How something preciously harmless can be misconstrued as menacing is a sad telling of the ignorance we all possess in one form or another.

If it's witchy to adore the calming scent of lavender, or the pungent taste of basil, to be soothed by camomile tea, or induced to eat hearty from rosemary's aroma in a stew then call me a witch.

I won't curse you.

I promise.

It's encouraging to witness the return of herbalism, not that it ever really went away. It's gaining favor with a wider slice of the population, with those of us who are leery - read scared to death - of all the fine print/side effects of modern medicine.

Perhaps if we can overcome our preconceived notions about God's natural remedies as we re-evaluate our dependance on the drug industry we may not only become healthier, wealthier, and wiser, but we might live more balanced lives for treating nature with nature as much as we are able.

Friday, August 8, 2008

Day One

The work on the addition is officially completed. Of course there's still work to be done around the house. That's normal.

So I guess we are normal again.

Feels......odd.

:D