This is how I started off my Labor Day weekend on Friday: canning 8 quarts of tomatoes (one is missing from the picture because I can only fit 7 in my canner, so the last one was processing all by its lonesome), 5 quarts and 1 pint of peaches in honeyed syrup, 9 jars of blueberry jam, 8 jars of raspberry jam, 10 jars of salsa, and 8 jars of crushed tomatoes. They join jars of strawberry jam, strawberry rhubarb jam, cherry jam, cherry jelly, and cherry chutney to form a pretty respectable store of preserved fruits and vegetables, all from local Michigan farmers. Once fall arrives and the apple harvest is in, I will put up applesauce and apple pie filling. I may even make mint jelly, not because I really have much use for it, but because I have mint.
A close look at this picture and you may notice a sort of watered-down-mustard colored door behind the shelves. You're not seeing things. It's there. You see, in our basement there are three rooms, but for some reason there are five doors within about a five-foot radius when you stand at the bottom of the steps. Zach turned this door into pantry shelves. Another door is our DVD shelving (which is a bit more stylish and completely full).
This morning I told Zach about my big plans for turning part of the backyard gardens into tiered raised beds in which to grow more of our own produce. He's on board. Excellent! Now I simply need to find the time to go price lumber and compost. It will be a lot of work moving plants and hundreds of large rocks, but I need the exercise anyway.
Now for my big announcement. No, I'm not pregnant (thank goodness). I had an epiphany Thursday while driving home from Grand Rapids. I get most of my best ideas while driving to and from my Grand Rapids office once a week. My muse was working overtime this past week, probably because she knew that come next week I will be carpooling with a friend and our conversation will likely drown her out a bit.
One of my many ideas involved my blog. I realized that when I started this blog, I envisioned it as a place where I could write shortish essays about things that interested me but would never warrant actually being published anywhere, partly because of their brevity and partly because they would largely be centered on me and my life. So I called the blog Stuff No One Would Publish. As I work in publishing, I thought this was sort of clever.
But over the past two years it has morphed into something slightly different. I do occasionally post a more thoughtful entry (and those are some of my favorites to look back to) but I also post a lot about things I do. Hobbies, mostly. And driving home from work Thursday I realized that my blog needed a new name. My lovely idea was The Consummate Amateur.
But just throwing a new header up top doesn't work, because the web address would have to remain the same. So I've started a new blog, which will really be this blog but under a new name and with a new address. I know this causes some annoyances. If I'm on your blog roll (which would make me super happy) you will have to change the address and name. If you follow me here (also makes me super happy) you'll have to start following the new blog.
I will keep Stuff No One Would Publish up and link to it on the new blog in case you ever want to look back at my old posts. But I think the new name really epitomizes what this blog is all about. And it's shorter.
I'm posting this exact same post on The Consummate Amateur to help smooth the transition. I really hope you will join me there!
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It's *possible* that I may have overdone it at the farmer's market today. But perhaps not. A friend will likely take some of the peaches off my hands, and almost everything is getting canned. Pesticide-free Michigan raspberries and blueberries will be made into jam (though I may freeze some of those blueberries for pancakes), peaches will be canned sliced and made into jam, and tomatoes will be canned whole for later use in salsa, chili, marinara sauce, and more. The sweet corn we will eat for the next few days at dinner. And the watermelon is for Calvin, at his request.
Now I just need some quart-size jars and a big bag of sugar.
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As the spots on this fawn, summer is very slowly fading away. Soon it will give way completely to autumn. The grasses will yellow and dry, the leaves will bronze and fall, the fawn will seek shelter and warmth with its herd as it puzzles out the white substance floating from cloud to earth and crunching under its delicate hooves.
It is nearly the last day of August and we are on day two of a 3-day heat wave. Yesterday it was 93 degrees. But mid-week we expect thunderstorms, those blessed harbingers of cooler weather, and by next weekend we should be enjoying the upper 60s and possibly touching 70 degrees—the temperature of heaven, I'm sure. My windows will be open as the house is in desperate need of airing out after a long, hot, sticky summer during which we must have racked up an impressive electric bill due to our near-constant use of air conditioning.
Soon we will be enjoying our new patio furniture, which we got at 50% - 75% off at World Market (though I did have to gather chairs from three different cities in order to fill up the set this late in the season). Soon we will be sitting by the fire bowl in the ever darkening evenings, enjoying each other's company and conversation while Calvin slumbers upstairs.
Ah, yes. There is nothing quite like anticipating autumn.
Late summer is settling in. Around this college town we are seeing pick-ups filled to overflowing with futons and mini refrigerators and area rugs as students begin to move in at Michigan State University. We have finally gotten our cooler nights back and have been sleeping with open windows. And with a couple cooler days (with temps in the upper 70s) I've managed to get the weeding mostly done at church (with help from my friend Kim) and at home.
There was a bit of excitement when I got home from Denver Sunday and read my email from the weekend. Many of you know I'm a docent at Potter Park Zoo and I work with some raptors (not the dinosaurs, the birds of prey). Well, the peregrine falcon apparently got loose from a handler on Saturday and by Sunday night he had still had not been recovered. The bird has lived its entire life in captivity, and while he has all the instincts of a wild bird, he does not have hunting experience and he was still wearing the jesses (leather strips) on his ankles, which could get tangled in a branch and cause injury.
I spent some time on Monday tying falconer's snares to put on live traps and I also went out south of the zoo along the river trail where there are a couple open spaces that might be attractive to him. I never spotted him, but later that evening a cyclist along the river trail did. He was captured Monday evening around 6 pm when he landed on the zoo van and took a nice plump (dead) mouse from a zoo staff member. We didn't even need the traps.
While I was looking for this falcon, I did spot a number of other birds, as well as other wildlife. I had taken my camera to aid my search since I couldn't find our binoculars. So I snapped some pictures of these creatures enjoying the late summer:
Goldfinch
Great Blue Heron
Differential Grasshopper
Cabbage White Butterfly
Gorgone Checkerspot or Pearl Crescent Butterfly (currently being debated)
In a few weeks, storytime at the library will start up again for the fall. In the meantime, Calvin has been busy playing in the sandbox; playing trains; going on bike rides; watching his new favorite show, Bob the Builder; and lining his cars up for races.
Yes, I realize that rug needs vacuuming. That is something else about late summer; the dog is shedding her summer coat. In chunks. All over. Why? Why not just keep that fur for the coming winter rather than shedding and then growing a bunch more fur? I don't know. One of the dumb mysteries of nature.
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Good morning, Denver. I woke at 6am (8am my time) to a clear sunrise causing the skyscrapers to glow. It was going to be a beautiful day for a wedding. I spent an hour or so reading in bed because I knew nothing in town would be open so early. Then I started to get ready for the day. When I had packed my carry-on luggage I of course had to comply with TSA regulations against liquids in bottles lager than 3 oz, so I left all of my hair products at home. I fretted about how to style my hair, but there was no need. When you dry your hair in a dry climate, it actually does what you tell it to! Who knew?
Despite not being a fan of Starbucks, they are everywhere, including at my hotel, and they were open early. So I popped in for a latte and some sustenance. I was going to get a slice of pumpkin loaf, but then I saw what the three skinny women ahead of me were buying, and I got that instead. It's a good rule of thumb when one is trying to watch one's weight; eat what the skinny people eat.
And actually it was really good, satisfying, and nutritious. I've never seen this little protein pack at a Michigan Starbucks. Just pastries. Maybe we wouldn't be so fat if things like this were routinely offered.
I had a lot of time to kill before a friend of the groom was supposed to pick me up to go get the cakes and bring them to the wedding location, so I went down to 16th street (passing no fewer than 3 other Starbucks in just three blocks) and sat on a bench until Ross was open. Ross is like TJMaxx and other discount stores, except there is enough room on the racks so that you can actually see the clothes, rather than stuffing them so full that you can't slide the hangars around. There I bought two dresses, two shirts, a tablecloth, two dress shirts for Zach, and a shirt and coat for Calvin.
When Ben's friend Nicole picked me up we got the cakes and headed for the church. We were enlisted by the lovely ladies below to help prepare some of the food, so we washed, chopped, and skewered fruit for kabobs then manned our official posts. I was at the gift table and Nicole did name tags.
Here are a couple great ideas for weddings that I got from this one. Gifts: Use numbered stickers to match cards and gifts so that when cards inevitably get separated from gifts, the couple can match up the numbers. Then mark just cards with a "C" so they know that there is no separate gift it should go with. Favors: Tina and Ben had their engagement pictures (which were gorgeous) printed out and they wrote personal notes to every guest on the back of them. This made the event more personal for guests, let Tina and Ben say the nice things they wanted to say without having to make sure they spent tons of time with each guest at the reception (which helped them enjoy the dancing and fun better), and was a nice way to keep wedding crashers at bay; no favor? better watch that person to make sure he/she doesn't make off with a gift or a guest's purse, especially since the wedding was outdoors in not the best of neighborhoods.
Finally at about 3pm, the ceremony began. Tina looked absolutely gorgeous (as always) and was obviously so very happy. I cried as she walked up with her father, thinking about how this next step in my dear friend's life would change her life in many ways. She and Ben seem so very right for each other and I'm so happy they found one another.
The minister mentioned how both Tina and Ben had had good things and good relationships in their lives prior to meeting one another, but that they had waited through the good in order to get the best, God's intended mate. She also mentioned that Tina and Ben, who are both involved in ministry, had wanted the wedding to be about community, but that the community's role in their lives would now be changing.
They would have to choose each other and give each other their best rather than being at the beck and call of the communities they served, and that the community needed to support this. I thought that was a very important message for a couple marrying in their 30s who had had a decade or more of single life away from their parents in which they gave all their energy to their communities.
One of the nicest moments of the ceremony was when Ben and Tina washed one another's feet in a symbolic act of service to one another. For you non-Christian readers, this act was drawn from Christ's act of service toward his disciples during the Last Supper, the day before He was crucified. A husband and wife are to submit to one another and serve one another.
Tina and Ben started their marriage off with this beautiful picture of submission and I pray that it will follow them throughout their lives, reminding them that their happiness lies not in concerning themselves with their own needs, but with the needs of their spouse. And it's a lovely reminder to all of us who are married, as we do have a tendency to forget that and focus on ourselves to the detriment of our relationships.
It was great to see Tina and Ben so happy, laughing and sharing their infectious joy.
After the ceremony there was food and cake and drinks, of course. There were also lawn games like croquet, horseshoes, and bocce ball, which I thought was a nice touch for an outdoor wedding and reception. It was fun to watch all of the couple's beautiful friends in dresses and ties launching horseshoes and wielding mallets. We forget that all such games used to be played in dress clothes (which weren't considered dress clothes at all!) before we all started slouching around in cargo shorts and t-shirts.
And, of course, there was dancing. I am not a dancer. Now that I'm Baptist, I can use that as an excuse, but really I don't avoid dancing in public because of some moral problem but because I'm fairly self conscious about it. I always danced very well in choreographed numbers for musicals or jazz choir, but just freestyling is not my forte. I dance occasionally at home, but it's to big band music, not dance club music. So I stayed way off on the sidelines, hoping to go unnoticed. No such luck. Tina sniffed me out and pulled me onto the dance floor. And who can say no to a bride on her wedding day? I did try to sneak away a few times, but she always caught me. Oh well. Hopefully I'm not on YouTube right now doing something stupid. I did take off my name tag at that point to avoid recognition. And I wasn't the only one dragged in against her will. Tina's very straight laced mother was as well. And she was not happy that I snapped some photos of the momentous occasion. :)
As the event wound down, we sent the bride and groom off in a shower of rose petals.
And my dear friend Tina, the wild child of my youth, the world traveler, the compassionate, beautiful, and funny friend of my younger days, ran off with her groom to start a new chapter of life.
I hope he knows just how lucky he is.
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After a thankfully uneventful morning of travel, I got into the Denver airport at 3:30ish Mountain Time. But since they built the airport in the middle of nowhere, it does take a significant amount of time to get into the city, so I checked into my hotel around 4:45.
My lovely room at the Denver Grand Hyatt.
My view.
After settling in, I ventured out to walk the 16th Street Mall, a stretch of road lined with restaurants and shops and driven on only by the free mall shuttle that takes you from one end to the other if you find it a strain to walk a dozen blocks. I randomly ran into someone I knew from Bay City who was also in town for the wedding—she used to work with the youth group I went to with Tina—and a friend of hers, so we all had dinner together, which she bought for me! Too fun.
Then we walked around downtown together for a bit, after which we parted ways at their hotel and I kept on walking in the fading pink, purple, and orange light of the evening.
There's a lot of public art in downtown Denver, and even many of the sidewalks are works of at, with beautifully designed brick and tile patterns. This is the art museum, but many of the buildings are imaginatively designed to make an artistic impression.
Yes, that is a three-story dustpan.
There were several brightly painted upright pianos along the 16th Street Mall. Shoppers and diners stopped to play them and some were quite good.
There was a boy juggling to raise money for some Boy Scout thing, a panhandler playing an assortment of silverware with two screwdrivers, a concert, people handing out tracts, skateboarders, hoards of shoppers and diners, bicycle taxis, horse-drawn carriages, and a lone guy in an alley playing an electric guitar.
I loved the enormous planters full of annuals that featured interesting foliage rather than flowers.
As the sun disappeared behind the mountains, I grabbed a mango smoothie from Jamba Juice and headed back to the hotel.
It may have been just 8pm in Denver, but in my body it was 10pm and I was ready to settle down in bed . . . if I could find it under the seven pillows.
I started a new old book on the plane and I spent the next hour or so reading. It was the first time in a long time I've been able to start and finish a book in just a couple days. I'll be blogging about the book on my other blog, The Books I Should Have Read, some time in the very near future.
Then I turned off the light and said goodnight to Denver . . . until tomorrow.
Last night once Calvin was in bed and with Zach at church council meetings I brought my laptop down to the fun room so I could do some mindless busywork in front of a movie I hadn't seen in a while, The Man from Snowy River. I chose this movie partly in honor of my good friend Tina who is getting married this weekend. We used to watch this movie back in junior high school.
The movie is actually based on an 1890 poem by an Australian bushman called Banjo Paterson. To read about the history of the poem and it's modern iterations, click here. I enjoy poems that tell a story, and this one is a nice, simple tale. I've reprinted it at the end of this post for those interested in the story.
Sure, the movie has some slightly cheesy moments and the score is a little melodramatic, but I still love it today. It is essentially a Western set in Australia in the late 1800s with a bit of romance thrown in. And I defy anyone to watch this clip of some of the most incredible horsemanship I've seen on film and not want to be able to ride like that.
At the time in my life when I watched this movie fairly regularly I had big plans to live in Australia when I grew up. I desperately wanted riding lessons, especially since Tina took them and even went to equestrian camp in Colorado in the summer. I was so jealous of her horse riding and the way her family traveled to so many interesting places. But I was also lucky enough to tag along with her very generous family on many excursions to their cottage on Lake Huron, plays at the Bay City Players and the Midland Center for the Arts, Crossroads Village (where Zach and Calvin are going this weekend to meet and ride on Thomas the Tank Engine), and even a trip to Sleeping Bear Dunes.
This weekend Tina is getting married in Denver and I am thrilled to be able to fly out and share in that event. And maybe someday Calvin will want to take riding lessons and I'll be able to join him. :)
Here's the poem by Banjo Paterson:
The Man From Snowy River
There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horses — he was worth a thousand pound,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far
Had mustered at the homestead overnight,
For the bushmen love hard riding where the wild bush horses are,
And the stock-horse snuffs the battle with delight.
There was Harrison, who made his pile when Pardon won the cup,
The old man with his hair as white as snow;
But few could ride beside him when his blood was fairly up
He would go wherever horse and man could go.
And Clancy of the Overflow came down to lend a hand,
No better horseman ever held the reins;
For never horse could throw him while the saddle-girths would stand
He learnt to ride while droving on the plains.
And one was there, a stripling on a small and weedy beast;
He was something like a racehorse undersized,
With a touch of Timor pony—three parts thoroughbred at least
And such as are by mountain horsemen prized.
He was hard and tough and wiry—just the sort that won't say die
There was courage in his quick impatient tread;
And he bore the badge of gameness in his bright and fiery eye,
And the proud and lofty carriage of his head.
But still so slight and weedy, one would doubt his power to stay,
And the old man said, "That horse will never do
For a long and tiring gallop—lad, you'd better stop away,
Those hills are far too rough for such as you."
So he waited, sad and wistful—only Clancy stood his friend
"I think we ought to let him come," he said;
"I warrant he'll be with us when he's wanted at the end,
For both his horse and he are mountain bred.
"He hails from Snowy River, up by Kosciusko's side,
Where the hills are twice as steep and twice as rough;
Where a horse's hoofs strike firelight from the flint stones every stride,
The man that holds his own is good enough.
And the Snowy River riders on the mountains make their home,
Where the river runs those giant hills between;
I have seen full many horsemen since I first commenced to roam,
But nowhere yet such horsemen have I seen."
So he went; they found the horses by the big mimosa clump,
They raced away towards the mountain's brow,
And the old man gave his orders, "Boys, go at them from the jump,
No use to try for fancy riding now.
And, Clancy, you must wheel them, try and wheel them to the right.
Ride boldly, lad, and never fear the spills,
For never yet was rider that could keep the mob in sight,
If once they gain the shelter of those hills."
So Clancy rode to wheel them—he was racing on the wing
Where the best and boldest riders take their place,
And he raced his stock-horse past them, and he made the ranges ring
With the stockwhip, as he met them face to face.
Then they halted for a moment, while he swung the dreaded lash,
But they saw their well-loved mountain full in view,
And they charged beneath the stockwhip with a sharp and sudden dash,
And off into the mountain scrub they flew.
Then fast the horsemen followed, where the gorges deep and black
Resounded to the thunder of their tread,
And the stockwhips woke the echoes, and they fiercely answered back
From cliffs and crags that beetled overhead.
And upward, ever upward, the wild horses held their way,
Where mountain ash and kurrajong grew wide;
And the old man muttered fiercely, "We may bid the mob good day,
no man can hold them down the other side."
When they reached the mountain's summit, even Clancy took a pull
It well might make the boldest hold their breath;
The wild hop scrub grew thickly, and the hidden ground was full
Of wombat holes, and any slip was death.
But the man from Snowy River let the pony have his head,
And he swung his stockwhip round and gave a cheer,
And he raced him down the mountain like a torrent down its bed,
While the others stood and watched in very fear.
He sent the flint-stones flying, but the pony kept his feet,
He cleared the fallen timber in his stride,
And the man from Snowy River never shifted in his seat
It was grand to see that mountain horseman ride.
Through the stringy barks and saplings, on the rough and broken ground,
Down the hillside at a racing pace he went;
And he never drew the bridle till he landed safe and sound,
At the bottom of that terrible descent.
He was right among the horses as they climbed the farther hill,
And the watchers on the mountain, standing mute,
Saw him ply the stockwhip fiercely; he was right among them still,
As he raced across the clearing in pursuit.
They lost him for a moment, where two mountain gullies met
In the ranges—but a final glimpse reveals
On a dim and distant hillside the wild horses racing yet,
With the man from Snowy River at their heels.
And he ran them single-handed till their sides were white with foam;
He followed like a bloodhound on their track,
Till they halted cowed and beaten; then he turned their heads for home,
And alone and unassisted brought them back.
But his hardy mountain pony he could scarcely raise a trot,
He was blood from hip to shoulder from the spur;
But his pluck was still undaunted, and his courage fiery hot,
For never yet was mountain horse a cur.
And down by Kosciusko, where the pine-clad ridges raise
Their torn and rugged battlements on high,
Where the air is clear as crystal, and the white stars fairly blaze
At midnight in the cold and frosty sky,
And where around the Overflow the reed-beds sweep and sway
To the breezes, and the rolling plains are wide,
The Man from Snowy River is a household word today,
And the stockmen tell the story of his ride.
What do you do with a tomato this big? You chop it up to see how much you really have . . .
You stand a moment, amazed that one tomato could yield 2 cups of chopped tomato. Then you add it to other chopped up tomatoes from your garden to make a massive bowl of colorful bruschetta.
Throw in some minced fresh parsley, oregano, and basil from the herb garden, some fresh pressed garlic, a bit of olive oil and balsamic vinegar and you're set for days.
It's this sort of summer "cooking"—as well as the prospect of canning—that has me planning for a backyard garden overhaul this fall. I want to grow far more vegetables, but I have a very small backyard with lots of shade, hard clay soil, and a poisonous black walnut tree lurking at the back fence. What's a girl to do? Put on her thinking cap and improvise! Make it work!
See, I like working in the yard and I need some good hard labor to kick start my weight loss once more. Plus I love the idea of feeding my family fresh, ripe, tasty produce that has never been tainted with pesticides, shipped in trucks that cough exhaust into the air, or handled at the store by some woman who sneezed into her hand and then felt for the ripest tomato, leaving a nice infected one behind for me.
To that end, I will soon be moving perennials, donating some plants to our church gardens, and hauling rocks. I'll be measuring and buying lumber. I'll be adding compost and breaking up soil. All this so that in the spring I have lovely tiered raised beds in which to plant lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, peppers, beans, asparagus, zucchini, acorn squash, and maybe even corn. I huge undertaking? Yes. But one with a potentially very satisfying result.
I'm a writer, a reader, a wife, a mother, a recovering cynic, an observer, a painter, an educator, a nature-lover, a church-goer, a quilter, a gardener, a photographer. I sigh a lot. I get impatient with incompetence. I prefer open windows to air conditioning. I love wood-burning fireplaces, summer storms, and breezy fall days. I rearrange cupboards and reorganize drawers. And I hate to be "sold" something.
