Laundry Line Divine

This post is dedicated to my treasured readers, Mary McGinn, Kathy Drue and Tammy McLeod. Otherwise known as Kitty Cavalier, Lake Superior Spirit and AgriGirl, busy blogging women with busy bodacious lives.
Your comments and support make me very very happy.

There are so many of you who sometimes comment or not at all, I know you have your reasons, and these I respect.
You must know that I am honored that you stop here at all to rest your thoughts and sup inspiration.
At least, that is what I hope you do.

From the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, where I am arting about with my German family and my own brood, looking forward to tossing a skillet at the Orleans County Fair this week. I will keep you posted on what happens, just after the harness racing in the infield.
I am hoping to come home with another blue ribbon.

Tons of rainy love with magnificent sunsets,
S

Do you know where your food comes from?
Do you grow your own lettuce?
Do you like salad?
Do you wonder sometimes, how Olivia gets all those organic greens in to those neat plastic boxes we buy at the food coop?

Here at my house, June signals the start of our farm pick-ups at Indian Line Farm. This farm is run by the capable Elizabeth Keen, with her husband Al Thorp and their 2 children. They have 2 steady farm hands and a bunch of volunteers. But worrying over the killdeer nests in the eggplant field or counting garlic heads is Liz, who, if you look at her strong brown elegant hands, you wonder- is she a sculptor or a chef? And maybe, as the head of a community supported agriculture farm (CSA) she is a little bit of both.

Today we picked sugar snap peas out in the field. The 2 teen-agers I had with me kept track of what they ate as we picked, since our allotment was one quart. Hard to tell exactly, but a few handfuls equaled half a quart by my eye. The grins on their satisfied faces washed away the grumps at being coaxed out of the car and into the misty rain. Fresh snacks are always the best.

Tonight we will sauté the braising greens, mizuna, and several different varieties of kale, mustard greens and chard. There is spinach for salad on another night and kohlrabi and scarlet turnips for snacks or salads. We get a fruit share, so strawberries are there. Quite a bounty for a rainy week in mid June.

If you search the web for local farms running CSAs you may still be able to join for this season. New York City has a group of farms within the Greenmarket system that offer CSA memberships. Really, if you poke around a bit, you may find a CSA that will change the way you look at produce forever.

Here is a link to my friend Tammy McLeod’s Agrigirl Blog. She supplies recipes and great discussion about seasonal foods and CSAs. And here is a link to Indian Line Farm. Liz lists recipes there, so even if you don’t have a CSA but can purchase seasonal fresh produce where you live, you can try some of her recipes. We have been circulating a raw kale salad in the past few years that has my kids’ hearts. I can cook almost anything as long as there is raw kale salad to eat. Here is a link to my friend Alana Chernila’s popular food blog. She started writing Eating from the Ground Up as a result of working at the Indian Line farm stand. All that good work is resulting in her first cookbook about to be published! Go Alana!

We have had rain and more rain in the Berkshires, so things are very green.
I hope wherever you live, the bounty of summer is making itself known.
In contrast to green, my son is skiing on Mount Hood this week.
Amazing to think of him up and on a mountain at 7:30 am.
Hope he is eating his greens!

Love, S

This may startle you a bit. I have been keeping a journal since I was 14. I am 51, about to be 52 in September. That means the heavy selves of spiral bound notebooks that take up a bit of real estate here in my studio contain pages and pages of my scratchy handwriting.

I began keeping a journal steadily in Mr. Dedic’s Junior English class. He was just one of the many fine teachers I had at Escanaba Area Public High School. I have the notebook right here. We wrote on Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoonriver Anthology, he allowed us to write ‘tho’ instead of ‘though’ and assigned us to make daily entries. That was all the impetus I needed. As a jumpstart for those early pages, I started keeping lists. I was years away from encountering Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way” with her perspective on journal keeping.

I just plowed through several stacks of journals to find the page you see below. This list was written in the year of my 21st birthday. I was still working at Bay Cliff in the summer and in the heart of my years at Northern Michigan University, doing theatre, dance and working with kids doing both of those activities. Judging from what I wrote, I had a sense of the world ahead.

On the facing page to this journal entry are cellophane taped-in magazine pictures of fresh fruits, pasta with basil, kefir in clear pitchers and beautifully arranged vegetables. This particular notebook is full of stuff I stuck in-poems by friends, church bulletins, newspaper clippings, notes from my college boyfriend who I was madly and a bit sadly in love with at the time, photos and letters. I wrote lots of lists- food I’d like to try, places to go, music I’d like to hear, presents I’d love to have which included things like a diamond ring, new tennies, and to swim in a river. The “we” I allude to in this list must mean me and BZ, that boyfriend. Hmm. I have long lost him, but gained so many other gifts. There are many things I have accomplished in these 30 years.

Over at my pal Jennifer Gandin Le’s website, she posted her “Mighty Life List”. You will find her in my blogroll. Jennifer’s writing is what got me thinking about the miles and miles of lists I have kept. I am going to post a new “Mighty Life” list here on the Laundry Line. But before I do that, I want to take a moment to value and offer gratitude for what I have attained.

This is what jumps off the page today:

We- and here I mean me and my husband- have a hammock that swings under tall trees, namely a linden and an oak.
I have a sewing room that is also an ironing room, yarn storage and closet for winter clothing and Jonathan’s hanging clothes.
Just this year I bought a pair of Frye boots. Nice timing.
I live in New England and don’t really hanker after brown bread anymore.
I went to a mountain spa in Steamboat Springs this winter- Strawberry Hot Springs, which is heaven.
I have sat under and sketched many palm trees in many different locations.

There are many things I have done, but mainly, I brag I do have kids- I love many kids more than the 2 who call me Mom. We do own our own home and it has a big, clean kitchen, though I share it freely with the rest of my family!

My life is filled with so many blessings. Today most of all, a year after a tumultous health passage for me and just 2 days after a smaller but traumatic moment for Jonathan, I can say we are all blessed with good health. And the finest of friends all over the world. Looking at this list reminds me of all I have lived in these 30 years. Offering gratitude for this cornucopia of blessings, experiences, challenges and joy keeps me in touch with the Sacred with every breath. Thank you Goddess, I will take more.

As I write this I got a notification from Tammy McLeod’s blog “AgriGirl”- she is writing about journalling today too. You can link to her over in my blogroll.

Jennifer posted a photo of herself as a young girl as a reminder to be gentle on herself as she scribes her desires for the future. This is a photo of me from the month I wrote that list 30 years ago. Pretty hopeful bundle of hair I had there.

In light of all the earthly events making the news this week, of losses my friends are having like dear Martha Burkes dying on Wednesday, of Haiti, of all that oil…I cannot stop living the life I have here today. I send my love to each of those hearts of need, all over the planet. And as a pledge to the Divine, I will live this one Mighty Life, right here in the shade of the Laundry Line.

I am heading out to the garden to ponder my Mighty Life List. I will fill the bird baths and sing a song of gratitude for all I have done since I wrote that list of ‘Temptations’ back in Big Bay.

How about you? Got a Mighty Life List to share?
I’d love to read it.
Yours, S