Holiday Tales

My darling husband, Bud and I (and Belle) just arrived back from a pleasant visit to Boston to see my folks and brothers.  It was great fun to catch up with everybody in the middle of a blizzard.  We managed to see the Nutcracker (Bud enjoyed the production, but he was a little shocked to see the Nutcracker in such tight white tights), go sledding, venture out using the T (Boston's public transportation system) which Bud loved, and visit the Harvard Musuem of Natural History which not only has the unique glass flower collection, but is also a taxidermist's haven.  I could have spent all day looking at the glass flowers (they really do look absolutely real--you could never tell they were made from glass) but Bud was enjoying looking at all the stuffed animals.  Darling husband was interested to see if I would write a post about how the Rich White Man was able (Is Still Able?) to go to Exotic Places and Exploit their Resources and bring back Specimens to Stuff, but I think that is a post that deserves its own space, which is not right now.

The blizzard dumped about a foot of snow in the city of Cambridge.  It is curious to witness how city people deal with snow.  True, there really is no place to put it.  And the plows really do plow in cars that are parked on the streets.  The four adults in our party spent a good hour digging out the cars mid-morning.  But walking the dog as the sun was setting, there were still folks just starting to attempt the chore.  While there were some conentiuous moments in the neighborhood about the legality of "saving" dug out parking spaces with lawn chairs, trash cans etc (and the city of Boston does have a law on the books saying that one has 48 after the snow emergency ends to remove lawn chairs from parking spaces), it was heartening to see a group of teenangers walking around offering to help shovel out folks. 

One of the highlights of the visit, aside from the storm, was a drawing for my older brother's canned goods that he and his fiancee canned last summer.  I myself freeze or dry more than can (something about not having a lot of time or patience prevents me from canning much), but Bro and his sweetheart canned cherries, made ketchup, peach butter, tomato sauce, apple butter, pickles from summer squash, among other goodies.  Last year, they sent us canned vegetable bouillion, relish and peaches. I am truly envious of all their preserving.  His sweetheart also works for a botanical soap company out in Montana so we now have organic soap to last all year (did you think we smelled that bad?!) and our own soap making kit in case we run out!  You can check out her soap here.

My younger brother was also very thoughtful and supplied me with an awesome pair of moutaineering gloves from Eddie Bauer (I could actually care less about where they come from as long as they keep my hands warm). They are probably the most high-tech pair of gloves I've seen, let alone owned, and are made of leather (including little grippy things) but obviously include a super warm lining and there is even a "snot band" on the thumb to wipe away that 5:30am cold snot (yes, it happens).  I have never climbed a real mountain (I stick with big hills), but I'm thinking if these gloves can keep a moutaineer warm, they can keep me warm doing the morning feedings.   

Since my darling husband and I bought each other a fully functional door for Christmas along with two storm doors and some professional weatherstripping (our farmhouse has 5 entrances), we didn't really exchange gifts.  My parents were thoughtful enough to give us a deep dish pie/quiche dish, which is fabulous, since I only have an apparently very small pie dish.  Quiche is usually a mainstay in the family (and apple pie is a dessert staple in the fall when we have oodles of apples), although now our chickens have stopped laying and we no longer have a supply of eggs.  Luckily, the Natural Foods store down the road does.  Along that line, it looks like we're going to dispatch most of our hens this weekend (the Buff Orpingtons were originally a friend's and I promised we wouldn't send them to "camp" so they will stay along with the rooster).  As my darling husband says, it may be an ominious way to start the New Year but you have to take advantage of the warm weather when we have it.

As we head towards the dusk of this year and the dawn of another, I will not burden you with reflections of the past or resolutions for the future.  I wish everyone a blessed New Year and to remember the words of Julian of Norwich,  "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well."

The Story of Cricket

It's only Wednesday, but it has felt like it should be Friday since Monday (does that make sense?).  We continue to have two to four inches of snow daily--enough to stress out my Civic (and me) on the drive to school, but not enough to actually have a snow day.  Last week, when we were also get a few inches of snow every day, I didn't think to clear the collected ice from "Cricket's" tires (yes, we name our cars...more on that later).  Our home is situated in such a way that I turn out of the driveway onto an incline on a County Highway.  Cricket was not happy about the snow and ice in its tires (the car is androgynous) and was difficult to control.  I thought I could get to the church two miles down the road to pull over and clear the tires, but I ended up spinning out (right next to a student's home).  Fortunately, there was no traffic in the other direction, I didn't hit anything, and I was able to clear out the ice and move on.  Now, I religiously check the tires each morning. 

Cricket is in its 13th year.  I purchased the car when I was 19, it survived my 20s and is still chugging along. Its original name was "Death Star" due to the two burns in its roof. No, not due to a cigarette (I've never smoked) but to a concave mirror.  I had gone to borrow a few supplies from a fellow teacher when I was first starting out, include a 12 inch concave mirror.  It happened to be a bright spring day and, as I casually placed the mirror in my car, I never thought about possible consequences.  Coming back to the parking lot after picking up some more equipment I opened the door and exclaimed in a not so casual voice, "Gee, what is burning?!"  I looked up and saw that a good patch of the roof upholstery was smoldering.  I did make the connection quickly, and turned the mirror upside down.  For several years in the mid-2000s, the car was known as "Death Star". 

Currently, Cricket has about 170,000 miles on it.  For a couple years due to a broken hood latch and a check engine light that never turned off I didn't drive it beyond a 30 mile radius.  But after a considerable 12th year tune-up (done in installments throughout the course of last year), I wouldn't hesitate to drive it across country (in fair weather).  The car gets great mileage, and is really quite reliable.  It is a standard and as of yet I have not had to replace the clutch. I also have been lucky enough not to have to replace the timing belt. 

My darling husband and I keep saying, year after year, what are we going to do when Cricket dies?  Would we get a pick-up truck so we can transport our animals and farm supplies more easily?  Do we get another compact car (or even a sub-compact?) because we've managed this long without a truck (thanks to gracious friends and neighbors)?  Do we forgo a second vehicle all together (it is possible!)?  I used to be very practical about Cricket's demise.  I had hoped for it to get me through grad school (in 2006).  Now that it has exceeded all expectations, I actually am becoming quite sentimental.  I believe I may be at the point where I will have a difficult time knowing when to "pull the plug".  Cricket has long been paid off and the insurance is minimal at this point.  How much am I willing to spend on its continual survival?  I suppose, at this point, only time will tell!   

Playing with textiles

It's been a retatively quiet week in our small hamlet.  The students are getting excited for the Christmas season and are losing focus, but that is to be expected.  We had four continous days of lake effect snow but, to the chargrin of the students, school was never cancelled. I think we ended up with well over a foot of snow, although much of it is currently getting washed away by the rain. 

On Friday evening, we went out for a celebratory dinner with a friend who just got tenured at one of the colleges in the area.  He's an art history professor and we began to talk about what constitutes art.  We were talking about textiles and folk art, which was particuarly timely as my three bags of wool (no joke!) were sent back to me cleaned and carded, awaiting spinnning and knitting (more on this later). A thesis student of our friend got asked the question (during her defense on samplers) about whether samplers were really pieces of art.  She was able to defend that they are, and thus one would think that quilts and other textiles would also fall into that category.  Extending that, we could say that hand-crafted furniture is as well.  Then we got thinking to what is actually displayed at art musuems such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the MFA etc. and really, are those coats of armor art?  Are the arrowheads art?  The coins?  The mummies?  We can expand it futher... Is cooking art? It is called the culinary arts after all.  But wait, cooking is a science, isn't it?  I mean, there is a procedure and the whole idea behind cooking are the chemical reactions that occur when various ingredients are combined under various conditions.  We simply agreed that western academia is way too specialized and doesn't appreciate the interdisciplinary nature of the real world.

For the rest of the weekend I was working on the art (or science) of wool.  I don't have a working spinning wheel nor any experience spinning, but I do have a drop spindle, and I've been experiementing with techniques to get the best quality yarn.  So far, I haven't had a huge amount of success.   The resulting yarn is certainly knittable, but it's chunky and varies in thickness, so at this point probably only good for making scarves and hats. This winter, I am looking forward to working with some spinners in the area as well as fixing my own spinning wheel.   

In direct opposition with my primitive yarn making, my darling husband and I took a trip to Thistle Hill Weavers on Saturday as they were having an Open House.  The mill is located in the middle of nowhere but we were pleasantly surprised to find the place packed with other like-minded folk.  The mill specializes in 17th, 18th, and 19th century reproductions of fabric and carpet.  We had no clue what to expect, but left with a much greater appreciation of the process that goes into making fabric.  The looms are automated, but setting them up to make the fabric literally takes days, between creating the warp, getting the warp beam set up (and individually knotting hundreds of threads) and creating the chain (in some cases, a punch card of sorts) that will "read" and "translate" the pattern to the loom (nonautomated looms require multiple foot pedals to translate the pattern, a process which can look eerily similar to playing the organ). The finished products are beautiful, obviously made with care, and will last forever.  The website has some movie clips showing parts of the process.

From Thistle Hill Weavers

The mill produces fabric for historical fims, including my favorite non-Austen mini-series John Adams. They also provided fabric for Titanic, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, There Will Be Blood, Narnia, and many others.  As noted in previous posts, I am a huge fan of the early 19th century, and I had fleeting visions of redecorating our home with these gorgeous textiles.  Yes, they are functional (my darling husband was certainly eyeing the wool blankets while I was looking at stair runners) but they are truly pieces of art as well.

The Holiday Circus

I grew up loving the festive traditions of Christmas.  Long after I outgrew Santa, I still forced my brothers to put on cookies and milk with me;  I insisted on building gingerbread houses, decorating them (and later demolishing them);  I worked in the kitchen baking cut-out cookies and frosting them; I made sure all of the white lights went up outside the house and that the tree inside had the multi-colored lights on it.  We had to get an Advent (okay, it was not really an Advent, but a month of December) candle and watch it burn down each evening with anticipation.  Christmas morning, even when I came home after college, we never went downstairs until my father had checked to make sure everything was all set up (actually, that wasn't so difficult in our adult years, as it was my dearest mother who ended up waking up her children at 8am so that presents could be opened).  I have fond memories of all of this. And for a while I tried to recreate these traditions in my own household.  Our first year at the farm (with just a horse and few chickens we couldn't really call it a farm), we were going to construct a  10-foot diameter wreath to hang on the north side of our barn, so that people driving out of the valley could see it.  We never got to that, but for the first three Christmases I wrapped our porch in real garland that I had made, illuminating it with lights;  I put swags over the doorways; I dressed up the mantle with Santas (sent with love from my mom); I insisted we all put up and decorate the tree; I made dozens of cookies--not just the cut-out kind--and breads; I found the perfect family picture and ordered Christmas cards; and I felt constantly out of breath and bewildered.   

Last year, I simply did not get around to putting up the lights, and guess what? Nobody really noticed.  The Christmas spirit was not dampened a bit.  We had a great holiday party with good friends and good food, and the interior of the house was still lovingly decorated.  This year, in a conscience effort not to buy into the insane amount of commercialism that surrounds this time of year, I have compiled a list of "yays" and "nays" for our holiday season.

Nay to:

• Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Internet Monday shopping days (and all other shopping days that are "planned" by the industry)
• Christmas cards (it's a waste of paper as all the cards get thrown out anyway; and I can write little note cards to those I truly want to stay in contact with)
• excessive gift exchanges
• the Christmas tree (we are putting some lights on our shefflera as shown in the photo above; we thought this one might bother Bud, but he's cool with it)
• the outdoor lights and garland
• hosting a Christmas party (we may again in the future)
• the December candle and calendar (falsely advertised as "Advent" candles and calendars, but rarely does Advent actually begin on December 1st!)
• the "I feel obligated to decorate...to bake...to buy..." mentality

Yay to:

• Advent wreaths at church
• Candlelight Evening at the 19th century historical museum in town
• caroling with the students
• listening to traditional holiday music on XM radio
• indoor decorating with Santas on the mantle, various Christmas linens and accents; stockings
• candles on the windowsill (these almost didn't make it up, but alas it was snowing this evening, and the whole winter wonderland bit...)
• Christmas kerchief on the hound (sorry Belle)
• Christmas cookies and goodies
• Christmas Eve service
• Spending a wonderful Christmas Day with my family

Some may call me a Scrooge or a Grinch, but it's not celebrating Christmas that bothers me; it's the huge amount of consumerism that has sneakily found its way into the holiday over the past 1/2 century.  This is a time of faithful anticipation; a time of peace and joy; of spending time with family and friends. When one feels so consistently overwhelmed and bewildered because of the mile long "to-do" list that it is difficult to obtain that peaceful feeling, something ought to give.  It's okay to change your family traditions.  It's okay to step back and trim all of the excesses from your holiday season. 

May you and yours have a healthy, happy and less hectic holiday season.