What am I saving it for: Linens

As I was getting the beds ready for our guests a few weeks ago, I was looking, specifically, for a few more of my Gram’s embroidered pillowcases. I love using them in general, but really wanted to have them out for my mom and my niece.

“A crust that’s shared is finer food that a banquet served in solitude”

I enjoy the things that I have from my parents and my grandparents. I enjoy things that I have picked up at estate sales and yard sales. Things from the “past.”  Some of these things have stories to tell, others have memories attached.

When I was 10 years old, we moved from Wisconsin to Minnesota and my Gram moved with us and lived with us for several years. After Gram moved out and I got older I spent more time with her and learned to crochet and tat and knit.

I remember my Gram always had some sort of handwork she was doing. Whether it was knitting, crocheting, tatting. sewing, quilting or embroidery, there was always something to work on in the evening after the dinner was served. After the dishes were washed.  After we were in bed.

As I went into the drawers in search of more pillowcases I found other beautifully made items from Gram and my other grandmother. I also came across things they had collected over the years. I already have a number of linens out and on top of dressers and tables, but I decided to change a few of them so I could enjoy more of the beautifully handwork.

I am always amazed at the quality and beauty of each piece as I look at them. They make me think of my Gram, Grandma and the other people that made them. I wish I could turn back the clock to questions about each item, but I can’t. There are so many varying styles, I just don’t know who made what.

I know that the card table cloth in this last photo was made by Gram. As I look at each of the fabric circles I wonder where they came from. An old dress, an old shirt, my dad’s pajamas? I am sure if she was sitting right her, I could hear the stories.

Going through these linens from time to time always gives me a glimpse into the past and makes me smile. I had hoped when my mom and niece were her that we would have had time to sit down and look at them all together and talk about some of them so that my niece would have a glimpse into the past also, but there just didn’t ever seem to be enough time. We will get to it one day.

Do you have linens that cherish from the past? Do you use them?

Sincerely, Emily

You can see what else I am up to over at Sincerely, Emily. The topics are varied, as I jump around from gardening to sewing to making bread or lotion and many things in between.

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Deprivation

I fasted this year for Ramadan.

Well, I fasted the first day of Ramadan.

Okay, I ate breakfast around 7:30 a.m. (well after sunrise), and then did not eat or drink anything until about 6:30 that evening (well before sunset). So I didn’t even do it right, and it was hard.

I’ve been trying to do this for several years (on the theory that I’m not Christian, and yet celebrate Christmas, nor Jewish yet attend Seders, nor Wiccan and yet spout nonsense. You get the idea.)

I’ve never made it past 3 p.m. before. It’s not so much going without food–that’s easy. No drinking, however, is murderously hard. I found myself thinking, hmmm if I take a shower and water flows into my mouth–who’s to know? (God, Xan. God will know.)  I figure, hey, if 1.3 billion people can fast for a month, I can do it for a day. And should– one should understand 22% of the world’s population I think. Next year I’ll add the prayers if I can figure out what they are, and maybe an Eid feast. Not sure I’ll ever make it a full month, even with the promise of a blow-out feast at the end.

Holiday rituals have always been an impenetrable mystery to me, growing up as I did in a household that maintained holiday externals, like decorations, while excoriating the religious underpinning (like God). Ritual is lacking in the lives of seculars like me. And rituals involving deprivation– Lent, Ramadan, Passover, Yom Kippur, are especially unavailable-it’s hard to deprive yourself in isolation. Deprivation binds you with the others thus afflicted; on one’s own it can seem a little silly. I guess this is what makes Weight Watchers work.

Next up on the deprivation list? There’s always No Buy February, but closer in the calendar is Yom Kippur. So–no activities “exercising control over one’s environment” on Yom Kippur? Impractical for me to follow that one every week, although weekly Shabbot proscriptions are a rather lovely binding ritual if done in community.  And then there’s Lent– surely I can deprive myself of something that I get to choose for a month? Even if it’s just me?

And I already know those prayers.

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REAL Local: The Three Sisters

I grew up on the prairie. Our house in central Illinois was literally the last house in town when I lived there, with a cornfield across the street. We walked through it, skated on it, rode through it on combines pulling tassels off every other row. Although my personal mythology maintains that I am from Philadelphia (where I actually only lived for 9 years as a child), in fact I’m a daughter of the corn. The other day some east coast transplant was “charmed” by my midwesternisms.

Blame it on the corn.

Corn is an amazing plant. For one thing, there is no wild corn. It is possibly the most domesticated organism on the planet. Archeologists have identified domesticated corn as old as the oldest identified human settlement in the Americas, but have never found its wild parent.

I first planted corn in my backyard garden 6 years ago for the  Growing Challenge, which is to plant something new every year. (This year it’s celery.) I made the classic corn newbie mistake–having grown up in corn country I naturally planted a row of corn. However, in a small backyard, you can’t plant corn in rows. It won’t pollinate properly.

Enter the Three Sisters, which is corn, beans and squash, planted together. It is a traditional First Nations companion planting technique (planting compatible plants together), using the attributes of each plant to strengthen all three. This is the grandmother of companion planting. Some plants go well together –carrots and onions love everybody; strawberries love borage; and of course the Three Sisters. Just google “companion planting” to find examples.

Some reasons to companion plant: nutrient enrichment, pest control, mechanical. (Um, mechanical?) Back to the Three Sisters: the beans are there because they restore nitrogen to the soil. But the corn and the squash also have “mechanical” purposes– the corn stalks act as bean trellises, and the squash acts as a mulch, keeping the weeds down.

Here’s the How To:

Corn

• Make a mound, about 12 to 15” across. Corn will send out “adventitious” roots, these are roots that crow from the stalk, sideways into the soil, strengthening the plant.

• Plant seeds or starts (corn starts shouldn’t be taller than about 5”) around the ring, about a hand span apart

• When you plant corn in a raised bed or other small area, it needs to be very dense to pollinate properly.

• Corn can be planted anytime from early May to early/mid June. Best are varieties that mature in 85 to 110 days.

• Corn is ripe when the silks are very dark and a little dried-out looking. You can tell corn has been properly pollinated because the silks will turn pale pink, and then gradually a deep mahogany.

Squash

• Plant seeds or starts directly into the center of the mound. I usually plant 3, and then thin them when the plants are about 3 weeks old, to get the strongest plant.

•It’s best to plant out squash after June 10, even seeds, because late May and early June is when the squash vine borer  (SVB)moths lay their eggs.

• In small gardens, you’ll want to train your squash. In large gardens you can let it go crazy.
• Squash will be the last thing to get ripe.
• You can use summer or winter squash. If you do a summer squash make sure it’s a vining one like Patypan, not a bush one like zucchini.

Beans

• Plant pole bean seeds directly when the corn is 8” to 10” high. If you plant your beans too early, it will get taller than the corn very quickly.

• Purple beans, with purple vines, are easier to see on the green corn stalks

Variations:

• If you have SVB then you shouldn’t plant squash for two years. Use bush beans as the third sister.

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Cooking with mom

“Mom” is Mei, my mother-in-law. After literally decades of resisting to teach me how to cook like the old country (China), she up and calls me so she can come over and show me how to make lo bak gao, Chinese turnip cakes. Who knows how her mind works.

I picked her up and brought her home, where she was aMAZED to find out that we have rice flour. Yes, Mom, Chinese people live here, of course we have rice flour.

You have to understand that my mother-in-law is VERY old country. She does not hold with new-fangled inventions like vegetable peelers to peel the lo bak (daikons or Korean radish). “Take off too much! Scrape with knife! Is better!” She also wouldn’t let me use my grater, instead insisting that I chop the lo bak with a knife because “too much cleaning up.” Of course, then she criticized the size of the pieces– too big! Yes, Mom, if you let me use a grater to, um, grate the vegetables then they get, how can I put this…,um, grated.

My mother-in-law does not let anyone in very often. It is very difficult to get her to talk about the old country, where she lived through two wars, may have been a bartered bride (we’re a little unclear on this), and spent many years as a refugee. But every now and then she decides I need to learn something, and we get to sit and work together. The stories come out, and she answers questions about China and her childhood.

Sadly, her lo bak gao is not very good. I now know why. She wouldn’t let me salt the water (but then complained that the finished product needed salt). She wouldn’t let me grate the vegetables. She used hot water to create the batter (this makes it sticky). She let the batter sit too long (ditto). Here is the modified recipe:

Toisanese Lo Bak Gao (Turnip cakes)

1 large Lo Bak, Daikon, or Korean Radish
1 Chinese sausage (This is a very fatty, sweet, pork sausage. Get these in Chinatown. The ones from the specialty market are not the same)
1/2 c. pork, any cut, cubed
1/2 c. each rice and corn flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups cold water
Salt to taste

Peel and grate the lo bok. Boil until soft in a large pot of SALTED water. Drain and set aside. (I may do a test to see if I use this water for the batter, if that helps the texture of the finished product– someone experiment with this for me!) Cube the pork and sausage, and saute in a large pan in a tablespoon of vegetable oil. Add the lo bak and saute until very soft (pictured is the cubed lo bak–this is not cut small enough). The lo bak should be well coated with the oil and drippings from the pork and sausage.

Oil or spray a square or round baking dish, and fill to halfway with the lo bak mixture. Set aside. Mix the flours, salt and cold water to form a thin batter; pour over the lo bak until just covered.

Steam until firm, about 15 minutes. I use a vegetable steamer from the Chinese market; you can also steam them in a wok with a steamer insert, or just rig a large pot or frying pan.

Allow to cool. Cut into slices or slabs and eat as is, or you can brown it a little by frying it lightly in oil for a minute or two.

We had left-over lo-bak mixture and used it the next day over rice with a little soy sauce. Delicious.

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DIY Tooth Powder

Although I have posted this recipe at both my other blogs, and I know i have a few overlapping followers with Not Dabbling – i think this recipe is worth sharing as much as possible!  If you don’t mind, I’d also like to introduce to you all my new blog: Bathtime. I’ve been blogging for my soap company, Nude Soap for a while, but mostly just promotional stuff. I’ve decided that it would be fun to write more posts about wellness, herbs, DIY bath and body care and other bath and natural living related topics – similar to those posts sometimes found here and back at my other blog, An Austin Homestead. I would love it if you’d check out Bathtime, which will be a “weekly” with just one post per week.

In other personal blogging news, i’ve been hard at work trying to transition An Austin Homestead to its new location and title… and things are NOT going well. Sometimes the internet can be extremely aggravating. So for now, enjoy this post here at Not Dabbling in Normal, and maybe check it out over at Bathtime as well. You can also find some cool resources over there and i think you’ll enjoy the future posts. Happy Friday!

I like to save money and packaging by making all natural alternatives to common and oft-used around the house products. I make all our soap, of course and i also i try to can or freeze most of our preserved foods. I buy in bulk and use reusable handmade bags, and i especially like to keep my family healthy by keeping almost all commercially made body products out of our house. Products like toothpaste.

Did you know that sodium laureth sulfate, the same stuff used to make commercial shampoos rather, is in most toothpaste? Have you read the ingredients on most toothpastes in the store… if you have you’ll see lots of chemicals, flavors, colors and other artificial nastiness. And flouride. I have mixed feelings on flouride, but despite my dentist’s opinion on the stuff, he checked out my teeth as ‘problem free’ in my last visit…. after i’d switched to making my own tooth powder. I’ve been using my tooth powder for about 1.5 years. My last dentist appointment was also about 1.5 years ago, before the tooth powder. I had 2 supposed cavities and gingivitis. Commercial toothpaste: cavities and gingivitis. Homemade tooth powder: no cavities or gingivitis and a clean bill of mouth health. Want to make some for yourself? I thought so:

Homemade Tooth Powder

• Baking Soda
• Course grind salt, preferably sea salt, preferably sea salt with lots of minerals like Real Salt
• Optional (but really great for polishing teeth and clearing up stains) montmorillonite (french) clay
• Essential oils: i highly recommend Clove for its gum healing properties, and tea tree for a great all around antiseptic. Add peppermint if you love the taste.

I store my tooth powder in a small jar and serve it up with a spoon into a spoon rest for daily use. To mix tooth powder, fill your jar about 3/4 of the way full with baking soda. Add salt to almost fill and add a half teaspoon of clay. Pour these ingredients into a larger jar (to facilitate easier shaking) and add about 8 drops cloves and 3-5 drops tea tree. You may end up adding more or less depending on your taste later on. Shake!

Pour back into your storage jar and enjoy clean, healthy teeth and gums for pennies! You may find your teeth feeling cleaner then you’ve noticed in a long time, i sure did the first time i used this. The clay will help get those tea stained teeth back to pearly whites in no time!

Do you make your own bath and body products? How about tooth powder?

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Rendering Fats

If you’ve followed me here on Not Dabbling, you may recall my experience last winter with “harvesting” a pig (vivid butchering photos). Our intent was to get as much product out of the animal, but being our first adventure in such a large butchering job we lost a lot of said product. One of the things I was really looking forward to from our harvest was lard. Animal fats are becoming recognized more and more as a healthier fat than some vegetable, nut, or seed oils that quickly go rancid, oxidize, or contain high amounts of omega-6 fatty acids. Unfortunately while we were busy butchering, the rendering lard got forgotten about and we lost the entire pot.

Since we moved, I’ve lost my local source for fresh rendered fat and have begun to make my own. It’s really a simple process and supports the nose-to-tail way of eating. Most butchers will carry pork fat for lard or beef suet for tallow, and generally it’s pretty inexpensive – especially compared to gourmet nut oils. You can also save fat from trimming meat and store it in your freezer for up to three months before rendering it. Rendered mutton and deer fat is also called tallow, and then there is duck and goose fat which comes from rendering the skin and underlying fat on a bird. We’ve recently had duck, and from just the trimmings I averaged about 3/4 cup of rendered fat from one bird. If I hadn’t seasoned the breasts and legs so heavily, I would have been able to save much more fat. Plus there’s the tasty chicharones or fried (traditionally pork) fat and skin that are the result of rendering.

Whether you’re making soap, salves, candles, schmaltz, confit, or using it in place of hydrogenated shortening, rendering fat is a pretty simple process.

• Cut the fat or bird skin into 1 inch cubes, removing as much meat as possible.
• Use a heavy bottom pan and add about 1 cup water. The fat doesn’t need to be covered with water as long as you stir it often. I like my dutch oven for this process, but if you have a small amount of fat an iron skillet or heavy pan works just as well.
• Start at medium high. This gets the water nice an hot which starts the rendering process. If you didn’t have the water at the beginning you’d likely begin frying the fat too soon, and the fond stuck to the pan would probably burn before you could extract all the lard. Keep stirring every few minutes so that the fat doesn’t brown prematurely.
• As soon as you see oil on the top of the water, turn the heat down to medium low. Continue to stir every ten minutes or so. You can use a lid at this point, especially if you have a lot of product. After about 30 minutes the water you added will have cooked off and the cubes will begin bubbling.
• The cubes should begin to brown within an hour or two depending on the amount of water inside the product. When they are completely browned and the bubbling slows down, you can remove them with a slotted spoon and set them on a plate to drain. I like to use a platter and fold a towel underneath so the plate rests at an angle. I give them a little squeeze with the back of my spoon to get as much extra oil out of them, then use a rubber spatula to scrape all of the precious oil into my pan.
• The lard or tallow gets strained through cheesecloth or a paper towel and poured into a glass jar. The cracklings or chicharones get returned to the warm pan and are allowed to get nice and crispy. You may want to use a splatter screen for this part since any skin left on the fat will “POP” right out of the pan! It’s finally time to let these drain on a cloth and sprinkle them with salt or crushed red pepper. The remaining fat in the pan will be more like bacon drippings and can be used to flavor foods like beans or greens or to be used like schmaltz.
• Store your lard in an airtight container and it should keep for a few months at room temperature without spoiling or oxidizing. You can also keep it in the refrigerator, which is what I like to do just for baking convenience.
• An optional method is to cover the cubes completely with water an allow all the fat to render out over medium to medium high. Remove the cracklings and brown in a separate pan if you like. You can then skim the fat off the top of the water, an easier process done once it’s cooled completely and solidified. The resulting product may have a higher smoke point and a slightly more neutral flavor.

A few little factoids about rendered fats:

McDonald’s previously to use 93% beef tallow to fry their french fries until they switched to 100% vegetable oil.
Tallow can be used to make candles.
Lard and suet have a higher smoking point than vegetable shortening (which you shouldn’t be eating anyway thanks to the hydrogenation process) and are better for frying. Lard begins smoking at approximately 190 °C (374 °F), suet/tallow at approximately 200°C (400°F), while hydrogenated vegetable shortening smokes at 165 °C (329 °F).
Coconut oil is a great substitute for animal fats in general cooking and baking, but high heats require a refined coconut oil which is no where near as healthy as the unrefined stuff. Unless it’s unrefined, you should probably skip it.
Using fat was one of the first ways to preserve food. It’s now a delicacy that we refer to as “Confit”, and it can be sealed and stored for months.
Most commercial lard is hydrogenated.
Lard gives pastries a better, flakier texture than butter.

Do you use rendered fat in any form as a regular part of your diet?

***

I can also be found at Unearthing this Life where I blarg about food, motherhood, and dream of one day returning to rural living. I’m also on Twitter, and Pinterest, and a smattering of other places on the interwebs.

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‘Tis the season

Even in a non-religious household like mine, it’s important to remember the religious, cultural and spiritual underpinnings of this most dear of holiday seasons.  Forgotten in modern consumer focused holidays, is that Christmas is a season and not just a day.

We tend to think of Christmas as happening on December 24 and 25th, and we try to fit so much into that tiny window of time–large meals at a couple of households, religious services, family visits. And who doesn’t have a relative who has felt slighted because they “only” got to host Christmas Eve, and not Christmas Day, as though they are in competition.

But Christmas, like all the winter solstice holidays, isn’t just a day or two. Christmas is a season.

It starts with Advent, the lovely anticipatory holiday that builds to the brilliant apex. When I was a little girl, despite the fact that we aren’t Christians, I LOVED Advent calendars. Mind you, I had no clue what Advent was beyond the vague understanding that something wonderful happened at the end of it, having to do with babies (I was a little unclear on the concept that it was a specific baby). And I loved getting a surprise-a-day.

Today I see that in fact, I did understand Advent on the most important level–that every day brings gifts; sometimes anticipation is a gift in itself; that all you have to do is open the door.

But even Advent, and its end in the birth of the savior, or the rebirth of the world, depending on your spiritual outlook, is not the end of the holy season. We’ve telescoped the celebration to serve our modern idea that things, even things like worship, have an end, and a place, and a time.

Remember that Jesus himself had to wait for the blessing of the wise ones, and they didn’t get there for twelve long days.

My mother had been raised Greek Orthodox, so we stretched the season out, celebrating Christmas Eve and Day, and then again on Epiphany on January 6, the Feast of the Kings, with lovely New Year’s traditions sandwiched in between. We used to make all our friends jealous, bragging that we still had Greek Christmas to look forward to. (Off topic: Don’t get me started on non-religious families celebrating Christmas. That’s worth several years on a therapist’s couch.)

Christmas isn’t just a day. Christmas, or any of the mid-winter celebrations, with all their wonderful seasonal symbolism, celebrates our understanding that the earth is eternal, that winter has an end, that the cycle should be celebrated,  that the earth and its people are worthy of salvation.  Whether you are joyfully celebrating the birth of your Redeemer, or the imminent solstice (December 22 this year) that heralds the return of the goddess, or Chanukah, which celebrates the Almighty’s miracles, (and starts today), remember that neither God nor the goddess exists on only a single day.

Honoring the holy is a daily, and ongoing, act, and after all, the point of the entire exercise.

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Big river

I grew up in Philadelphia, a stone’s throw from Valley Forge. I never really thought about this; we went to Valley Forge often, like going to a city park.

When we moved to Illinois, in 9th grade, none of my new classmates believed me. To them, Valley Forge was a distant myth of the remote past, populated with heroes from history books, not little girls in shorts.

On the other hand, it took me 20 years to realize that I now lived barely 3 hours from the Mississippi.  I had crossed it twice, on various college road trips, before the revelation hit me, that this big river underneath me was the Mississippi. Lewis and Clark’s Mississippi. Mark Twain’s Mississippi. Huck Finn’s Mississippi. As mythic to me, living nearly next to it, as Valley Forge was to my middle school mates. Now I have seen the Mississippi from a levy in West Helena, Arkansas, and a river boat in New Orleans, from bridges in Minnesota, and bluffs in Illinois. I’ve tracked the hills that line it with my eyes, and followed roads that wind along it, knowing the big river is somewhere just around the bend, past the last farm, at the end of this creek.

I think I will never get past the wonder and the awe that I am someone who gets to see the Mississippi River. I’m not sure I could be more impressed by the pyramids.

Like Sam Gamgee, wondering if he and Frodo would be put into songs and tales, we live in myth without even knowing it. I stand regularly where the Mormon trek began. I have followed, without knowing, parts of the Trail of Tears. Pioneer and Potowatomie blood and artifacts fertilize the ground beneath my feet. My line reaches back through my mother and grandmother, through ancestor upon ancestor to the Urmother who birthed us all.

We are part of the tale reaching back into the past and forward into the future. To quote Sam again,

“A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going.”

We all just keep going, never knowing what parts of our lives will move into the myths of our descendents.

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Fighting Complacency

Since moving back to a more inhabited area I find myself enjoying the benefits of living close to so many resources. No longer am I spending entire days running all of my errands so that I can save gas and time. The convenience of town life definitely has its benefits: the farmers market, bakeries, butchers, artisans, shops and stores, and restaurants. I’m reminded of why it’s so easy to sink into more of a consumer mindset. Especially after spending the day at the beach.

For me, the last two weeks has felt a bit like being on vacation. I’ve actually found myself wondering if it’s necessary to start baking my own breads and plan a garden for next year when I have local resources nearby. It’s hard work to grow your own fruits and vegetables with minimum impact on the environment. Baking bread for the week is a lot more time consuming than walking across the street to the bakery and buying a fresh loaf for $4.00. Raising animals seems expensive to start up over the immediate benefit of purchasing local pastured meat and eggs from a butcher or farmer – and the hard work is done for you.

So why should I can and freeze fruits and veggies for later in the year? Why should I spend my spare time sweating and working hard to get a garden started by the last frost date? Why should I invest in fencing, wake up early, and make vacationing difficult in the name of farm-fresh eggs and the like?

Sure the hard work is done for you and you should support your local businesses, but doing some of it yourself – all that growing and raising and working hard – it’s what our societies did long before there were supermarkets, Amazon, and the Green PolkaDot Box. We used to be healthy for all that hard work without use of a treadmill and we didn’t have to worry about high fructose corn syrup or gluten intolerance.

Growing and making some of our own food is 1/3 pride, 1/3 concern for health, 1/3 concern for the environment, with a pinch of fun thrown in there. I’m proud that I am continuing to learn skills that my grandparents needed to survive. I love that I am building a self-sustaining lifestyle with only minor investments. Our health has only increased since growing and preserving our own, with doctors’ papers to show it. However, with all the dining out over the past month my wasteline has admittedly grown. My activity level has decreased since I’m not working my gardens and I spend less time outdoors.

Finally: my concern for the environment. I believe it’s up to each of us to be environmentally responsible. We need to use our brains when we purchase anything. We need to consider what’s better for us – shipping certified organic garlic from Argentina or purchasing non-certified organics from a local gardener whose hand we can shake and discuss the importance of chemical-free farming with. Growing and saving some of my own heirloom vegetables helps keep cost down because I only have to buy seeds once. And past the initial investment of purchasing jars, canning your own goods can save money in the long run. Then there’s the benefit for my immediate environment by planting a variety of produce and flowers and avoiding harmful chemicals. I’m actually improving the ground itself and I see the payoff with an increased amount of wildlife and higher production rates in the food that I’m growing.

Personally I want my money going into the hands of the growers and producers and artisans. Not advertisers and middlemen. And not into gas for shipping. While baking my breads and growing a few crops is time consuming and sometimes hard work, I feel I’m doing better for my everything in my immediate area by growing and making my own. For those things I cannot make and do, I either purchase as close to home as possible or do without. So while I’ve been guilty of complacency the past few weeks, I realize that I am not perfect. I also understand the importance of purchasing locally and using the skills that were taught to me. Yes, I will continue to grow my own, even if it’s in a 5-gallon bucket. Yes, I will continue to can and freeze home grown and locally grown produce to enjoy in the off-season so that I can avoid expensive imports. And yes, I will continue to support the local artisans, farmers, and restaurants to keep money in my pocket and help to limit pollution and reliance on petroleum.

What about you? What do you do to fight complacency and why do you keep going?

Jennifer can also be found blargging at Unearthing this Life and on Twitter as @unearthingthis1.

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Lammas

In the industrial west, we’ve largely forgotten the rhythm of the earth.  On the theory of “it’s 5:00 somewhere,” we eat strawberries in February and tomatoes in May. We think food is fresh if we buy it in the produce aisle instead of in a box, or from Whole Foods instead of Safeway. We paste a tracking label on every blessed apple, for pity’s sake.

Lammastide, August 1, is the traditional celebration of the first harvest. In the northern zones, we’re creeping up to the 90th day since planting. The tomatoes, the peppers, the beans, the corn, the roots, all ripening at once. We’ve been getting dribs and drabs–the berries, the peas, the greens–but now starts the downward slope into winter, when you gather in what you’ve grown, to tide you through the dark days. I just counted my tomatoes–there are about 150 fruits right now, just starting to “pink;” the carrots, parsnips, and turnips are crowning and the corn silk is darkening and drying out.

The festival’s counterpart at the beginning of the summer, Beltane, is, the planting of the crops and the marriage of the god and the goddess. Where Beltane has the joy of promise, Lammas has the joy of bounty, but melancholy too, as the god begins to prepare for his yearly sacrifice and death, and the goddess begins to remember her anger over the yearly loss of her daughters.

In modern patriarchal theology we think of lightning as a phallic manifestation-the god’s weapon- but I think this is a modern confluence of noise with guns. August storms are the fury of a woman, the despair of the goddess who cannot save the earth her daughter from her imminent death, year after year after year. She rages while she brings us daily bounty, more than we can use, as both fruited gift and fruitless bribe.

How do you celebrate the harvest?

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