slow living – October

October went by quickly, but I am happy that it has been the start of the slow season for us. Once we get all of the vehicles that have been dropped off in the storage yard put away and our place starts looking more like home again and less like a used boat and trailer dealership, we will start to settle down for the winter and enjoy the quiet.

I’m following the example at Slow Living Essentials again this month, and using her categories to summarize my month and list some things I’d like to accomplish.

{Nourish}:

We’ve been eating too well around here lately. Which means that we should probably try eating lighter, especially since I put on my protective layer of winter fat early this year. Like, in May (I know, I just said like. I’ve been spending too much time around tween girls. I used to have perfect grammar – similar to perfect pitch, but without the talent. Now I talk in sentence fragments. A lot.).

I wrote about Pumpkin Granola, Pumpkin Pie Muffins, Apple Pie Spice, (Almost) Buttermilk Drop Biscuits, and some Halloween Chocolate Spiders to make for a sweet Halloween treat.

{Prepare}:

I spent a weekend this month doing some advance cooking for hockey nights and stocked the freezer with bags of hamburger cooked with onion, carrot, zucchini, green pepper and garlic. They make it easy to make a quick meal of nachos, spaghetti or baked pasta – only a little extra assembly required. We even like the hamburger as a pizza topping on occasion. I also made some soups and chili to fill up the freezer. The only problem with doing the advance work is now I feel like I need a good excuse to raid my stash. I want to hoard it – and the husband has to provide a suitably hamburger worthy reason to take some from the freezer.

I managed to cut the last of the jalapeños in half and put them in the freezer until I can manage do something with them. I’d like to make some Louisiana style hot sauce, but I kinda came down with making-things-with-stuff-from-the-garden fatigue halfway through the month and just gave up. That also led to the rotting of several cabbages from the garden. I feel guilty, but I’ll work through it.

Fortunately, the rest of the pumpkin and squash can wait until I have time to do something with them.

Before I hit the garden produce wall, I wrote instructions for making and canning some easy applesauce and an easy way to roast and puree pumpkins, plus some pumpkin pie spice to use with the puree.

{Reduce/Reuse/Repurpose/Repair}:

We had plans for a new efficient furnace for this month, but we are at the mercy of the furnace man (who hasn’t shown up yet), so I guess it will be put off until next month. Not much else has been done along those lines, but then, nothing really was needed. We weren’t in need of anything new, and things continue to be used and re-used around here.

{Green}:

This is where I am supposed to write about any new green practices, cleaners or health and beauty products that I have made this month. I continue to use laundry powder that I made (though I also used store-bought when I ran out) and I attempted that cleaner that people seem to be making by leaving orange peels in vinegar for a few weeks, but the smell of it put me off so much that I’d rather just use plain vinegar.

I did make a cinnamon, orange and brown sugar body scrub. I’d like to make some other scrubs that would be suitable for Christmas gifts, but don’t require any refrigeration. Maybe in November.

{Grow}:

We’ve harvested cabbage, red jalapeno peppers, the last of the tomatoes and the pumpkins and squash this month. I also managed to use the last of the basil just after the frost hit. One part of the plant remained green, so we picked the rest of it and enjoyed it in a baked rigatoni and again in some tomato basil pesto for on top of pizza. The garden is now pulled up and plowed under. Whew.

{Create}:

I’m still working on the sweater for the tall kid. Actually, no I’m not. It’s gathering dust in my basket at the moment, but I did finish a cowl to keep me warm this winter, and I am currently working on my first ever pair of socks.

{Discover}:

I’ve been doing a bit more reading this month, though I didn’t take any photos this time around. I’m currently browsing through the Ina Garten Back to Basics cookbook that a co-worker thought I might like. I’ve got a bunch of sticky notes marking pages to try.

{Enhance – community}:

The dad continues to volunteer as a hockey coach and as a member of the local Ducks Unlimited committee. We continue to purchase locally when we have the opportunity - some apples and a pumpkin from a local orchard (yes, I know that we grew pumpkins, but none were big enough to carve).

{Enjoy}:

We’ve had some time to visit with friends this month, we had Thanksgiving over at my in-law’s farm with the city cousins and we’ve spent a couple of weekends with the girl’s friends here on sleep-overs.

This time of year is busy for our boat/RV/trailer storage business, so someone is constantly at the door or calling about drop-off times. Once the dad gets it all put away for the winter, we will be able to settle down and enjoy the peace once again. I’m looking forward to a little bit of hibernation.

Another busy, but interesting month.

Linked to GNOWFGLINS, FOY Update, Frugally Sustainable

slow living – september

I’m not sure what we did slowly this month - it went by so fast it blurred. September is always more like the start of the year for us; everything begins at the same time and none of it feels particularly slow. The beginning of the school year was the biggest event.

I’m following the example at Slow Living Essentials again this month, and using her categories to summarize my month and list some things I’d like to accomplish.

{Nourish}:

This has been a month of rushed meals as we try to adjust to hockey practice on two nights a week. Meals are simple, quick and easy. Occasionally we even eat at the arena, but next month I would like to do some advance cooking to avoid that bellyache. There is not much you can say about food cooked in a hockey arena. Their high-end menu item is sugar coated donut holes called Beaver Balls. Yep, you read it right.

I wrote about trying a kohlrabi slaw and a honey lemon ginger tea mix that is nice for colds and sore throats (or even just mixed into a normal cup of tea for a pleasant drink on a cold evening).

{Prepare}:

We tried hard to keep up with the last of the garden this month, continuing to freeze tomato sauce – roasted, passata and marinara. And then I gave up and froze a bunch of tomatoes whole, gave some more away and let the rest just go. I just can’t look at another tomato and want to do something with it. We’ve also made fermented jalapeno hot sauce, hot pepper jelly, roasted red peppers and caramelized onions that we put in the freezer.

We braided onions from the garden to store them longer term over the winter, froze a mountain of beans and cut up and froze more peppers. Our freezers are pretty much full.

{Reduce/Reuse/Repurpose/Repair}:

There was a lot of reducing going on this month. Unfortunately most of it had to do with our bank balances. New school shoes, school supplies, piano lessons, hockey equipment and hockey fees. Ouch. We did manage to find most of the equipment that we needed at a used sports store – otherwise the impact would have been much worse. We are able to take the outgrown equipment in on trade to offset the cost of new (used) equipment. And when you consider that every inch of their bodies are padded to play hockey, that is a lot of equipment.

{Green}:

I made a natural essential oil febreeze-type spray to deal with some leftover onion cooking smells in the house and attempt to tame the monster smell in the hockey equipment bags. We’ll see how that goes. Those bags really do have a life of their own. The tall kid won’t let me wash anything – it might spoil her team’s current winning streak. If you can call 3 games a winning streak.

{Grow}:

The tall kid grew half an inch this month. My 11-year-old looks down at me, and I’m 5’6″. It must be something in the tomatoes.

We’ve harvested beans, tomatoes, pumpkin, kohlrabi, squash and potatoes. We missed the boat on the cabbages; same as the broccoli, we didn’t pay any attention for a few days and they split and turned brown. Apparently they can’t wait like I thought they could.

{Create}:

I’m still working on the sweater for the tall kid. I haven’t picked it up much this month, but have at least finished the torso and have started on a sleeve. I hadn’t thought about this when I started knitting with a patterned yarn – but the pattern repeats slower in the body than it will in the arms – will this make it look odd when it’s finished? Should I quit now?

{Discover}:

I read a couple of books this month and picked up a few more that I’ve been flipping through. My book club has started up again, but I’ve decided to give it a pass for this year. We are already out of the house several nights a week and I am looking for an excuse to uncomplicate my life.

{Enhance – community}:

The dad has taken on the bulk of this category this month. He is co-coaching the tall kid’s Peewee hockey team and is volunteering once again with Ducks Unlimited.

{Enjoy}:

We’ve been enjoying the company of friends and family again this month. Even with the busy-ness of school and sports, we’ve managed to fit in some visiting and dinners with company.

We attended my brother’s wedding just this past weekend. It was a beautiful day and a lovely wedding in a conservation area setting. The girls had a blast feeding birds out of their hands on the hiking trails, then schooling a bunch of grown ups on the dance floor afterwards.

We had a death in the family this month – not something that would normally go in the enjoy category, but he was young, fun to be around and my husband, his mom and his sister were able to enjoy a visit with him a few weeks before his death. He is missed, but will be well remembered.

Another busy, alternately happy and sad, but interesting month.

Linked to Frugally Sustainable, GNOWFGLINS

a month of slow living – July

July went by so fast, it hardly seemed like slow living at all. So far this summer I’ve enjoyed 3 weeks of holidays from work and I’ll have another week off in August. I had grand plans to reorganize the house and accomplish so much, but instead I’ve found that just sitting still sometimes can be more productive. When I don’t run myself into the ground we are all much happier. So I’ve relaxed most of the time, with a few brief periods of intense activity mixed in.

I’m following the example at Slow Living Essentials again this month, and using her categories to summarize my month and list some things I’d like to accomplish.

{Nourish}:

We’ve been eating out of the garden as much as we possibly can this month, plus enjoying some other local fruits and vegetables as they come available. It feels like this time of year you can make a whole meal of peaches, cherries, tomatoes and cucumbers. Sometimes I do. I wrote about making German Pancakes, sauteed peas with bacon, and tomato, cucumber and basil salad.

{Prepare}:

I made a gallon or two of marinara sauce this month to use up the last of the frozen tomatoes from last year. It’s all been frozen in baggies and stored in the freezer. I hope to add several more bags of sauce, plus some whole frozen tomatoes in August as the tomato plants ripen. I froze some peas from the garden this month before the heat killed them off and also froze some basil and garlic in cubes to use later in soups and sauces.

Oh yeah, and I made pickles too.

{Reduce}:

The garbage reduction battle is ongoing, but this month it seems to be easier because we are eating so much from the garden. There is not a lot of packaging waste when the food is brought directly into the house with dirt still clinging to it.

One lesson learned the hard way; we’ve always thrown our fruit and vegetable scraps in the field to compost on its own but will be moving our compost area well outside the range of the dog’s security collar. Apparently we attract skunks with the food scraps. Ask me how I found out.

We keep missing recycling day around here, so when my husband finally got around to taking everything to the big recycling bins, he had the back of the truck filled with boxes of it. The garage looks so much emptier now. Actually, I think it’s great that all of that was recyclable, because otherwise that amount of stuff would have been trash.

The girls and I also spent an afternoon sorting through their clothes, packing away the oldest kid’s outgrown clothes for the smaller kid, and the smallest kid’s outgrown clothes went to a friend. That friend in turn gave back several bags of clothes to pass down to my neice (be warned, Aunt S).

{Green}:

We’ve been using the air conditioning during the humid days, but the rest of the time we have it shut off. I don’t mind the heat, but the humidity makes my joints stiff and achy, just part of the fun with MS. I avoid going outside on those days. I also haven’t been very good about hanging out the laundry to cut back on dryer usage, because hauling heavy baskets out of the basement and hanging out laundry for 4 people is a huge job, especially when you have to carry it all upstairs afterwards. I find it much easier to do this in the winter when I can just hang it all in the basement in front of the woodstove. I’ll make a bigger effort this month, but the sore back often gets in the way.

As far as homemade products go, I made a Mojito sugar scrub with mint and lime. Both have cooling properties and are nice this time of the year in the shower to keep skin moisturized.

{Grow}:

Our garden is all set to either go crazy or die. We’ve had one day of rain in a month and we are reluctant to water the garden using up well water. We could possibly look into filling up a tank at the lake, but first we’d have to find someone with a tank they weren’t using themselves. Mostly, we’ve adopted a wait and see if it rains approach coupled with occasional brief watering.

We’ve got lots of potatoes, though the plants themselves have crisped up and died, but we still have five rows of small potatoes that we can continue to dig and eat throughout the rest of the season. We’ve planted another 5 rows, but if it doesn’t rain more soon, who knows if they will produce anything. Our tomato plants are heavy with green tomatoes, the occasional one ripens each day, so we’ve been enjoying those with each meal. Same with cucumbers and zucchini. The onions are also doing nicely, but the lettuce is done and the late lettuce that we planted probably won’t grow any further without water. I also don’t think our late peas and beans will do anything. The cabbages seem to have become a meal for worms. At least someone is enjoying them. We seem to have lots of beets, but I’ve forgotten why we planted them. We don’t like beets. Would anyone like some beets?

The kids were excited to find teeny baby watermelons and pumpkins starting to grow, so hopefully the vines will continue to thrive.

My flower beds have all gone into survival mode – absolutely no colour, just green, brown and dust. Oh well, they were spectacular in June for a few weeks.

{Create}:

I finally dug out some knitting needles and my first project was some wrist warmers to wear while reading in bed this winter. I’m starting small to use up some leftover yarns that I found while rummaging through the trunk looking for the knitting supplies. I also made a few dish cloths to use up a couple of balls of cotton that I found. The tall kid has grand plans for a sweater that I should be making her and I bought some homemade cherry wood buttons at the farmer’s market last weekend that I am going to use on a wrap pattern that I’ve found.

{Discover}:

I read a pile of books this month while at the cottage and sitting out on the deck, mostly fiction and mystery, just something to escape into and enjoy. I can’t honestly remember any of them, but currently I’m reading Steve Berry’s The Third Secret and enjoying it so far.

{Enhance – community}:

We’ve been buying lots of local fruits and vegetables this month – it’s easy to do this time of year, we are in a great spot for it. Other than that, most of our community has been busy doing their own things. People are always stopping in for a visit or to borrow the dad to help fix this or that, or over at the farm for a good old farmer gossip.

{Enjoy}:

We had a great 4 days away at the cottage on the island this month. It is a private (tiny) island with just one cottage on it. No running water, no electricity, just a propane stove and propane ceiling lights. It was wonderful over there. So quiet, and you fall asleep to the sound of the waves on the bay. The only thing I didn’t enjoy was 4 days of outhouse in 30+ celcius weather. I’ll let you guess why not.

We had some friends of the girls come and stay one weekend, the city cousins came and stayed again another weekend and the small squeaky kid won a couple of ribbons with her pony at a local fair. The dad had another birthday, we went to a bridal shower for my future sister-in-law, some friends camping nearby stopped in for a visit and a cross-dressing transport driver stopped in (in full drag) to drop off some rent (one of my personal highlights of the month).

As always, another busy, occasionally strange, but always interesting month.

Linked to Frugally Sustainable, A Delightful Home, Simple Lives Thursday