2016, enough already

Well, my pretties, it's mid-December and honestly, could this year just give its final chew and spit us out already? Doc Ock and Ms. M have promised us the best xmas present: a plywood 2016 that we get to BURN UP COMPLETELY in the farm's meadow on New Year's Eve. Can't wait to see this year go. Let's summarize: job stuff, dog stuff, health stuff, family stuff, oh and of course an
end of the world election

I'm pretty sure there was a survey in Reader's Digest or some such once upon a time that said if you had 1 or 2 of the above-listed life events in one year, you needed to be extra careful because you are UNDER STRESS and vulnerable to illness and decline and possibly lycanthropy. Well, we have the whole list, and I tell Phrodaux every day that I am proud that he is not a) curled in a fetal position, staring at the wall and b) not howling at the moon and/or harvesting livestock for dinner tartare.

We have had other challenging years, though this one may take the cake. (Wait, cake! That would make everyone feel better! I will go make cake!)

(Um, not enough butter in house for cake. I've let us all down).

Back to other hard years: 2011. It wasn't even the whole year, just a clump of weeks where a lot of things conspired to sap our strength, test our wills, try our patience. By mid-July the Fairy Queen was broken and mentally leaking antifreeze and about to break in half. Luckily, we had a road trip in front of us with the amazing S & N.

Based on that trip, we have compiled some advice that we should somehow find a way to take ourselves. So...when in doubt (or pain or existential distress):

1. Drive through a tree. Before you do it, get out and touch some trees that have stood for hundreds of years and truly do remind you that your problems are puny and fleeting.

 2. Drive Highway 1 down the northern California coast for a while. Drink in the scenery and be grateful for every turn and dip on which you do not plummet to your death. For real.

 3. Somewhere along Highway 1, find the world's most perfect B&B, celebrate your tenth anniversary there with a bottle of magnificent champagne supplied by your lovely friends, and watch as the owners do a little happy dance as one last couple pulls in (on Harleys!) and the No Vacancy sign is turned over for the first time ever.

4. See a lot of gardens. Small ones, big ones, famous ones, obscure ones. Look at stuff. Stop and smell things. Sit still for five minutes.

 4. Talk to strangers.Especially if they have done something arty to their house and are right there ready to tell you all about it.

5. Drink in other people's history. This might include falling down buildings, retro Italian restaurants, high-design guest houses, tours of San Francisco given by a native who will show you where he went to kindergarten along with more standard stops, gardens full of chickens, snooty people, and pioneer graves sites. Enjoy the drama from a distance because it is not yours.

6. Most crucial of all, find the tree. You will come upon it unexpectedly in a hidden corner of one of the gardens. It will be vast and white, warm and smooth. It is a sacred beast and you will gently touch it with the palm of your hand, then rest your cheek against it. All the blackness that has been living in you will flow out, subside, be absorbed by the patient bulk of this tree. You will shake and cry and know the sweetness of feeling empty, when your bucket of bad stuff is finally dry.

As a bonus, if it is even slightly possible, find a way to end a road trip with a motel room picnic, snacks and drinks spread out upon the beds, the thrift shop art you bought on the wall, and the coyotes singing right outside. 

Nubie's Book of Living and Dying

I've never read the Tibetan Book of the Dead. I also acknowledge that our beloved boy, Nubie, was nothing much like his namesake, Anubis, jackal-headed Egyptian god of the underworld and/or embalming and maybe weighing your heart against a feather. He was just our big boy, our worrier, our food-driven couch dweller who hated to go out in the rain.

I will stay on the gravel until the grass dries out.

I am waiting for my pillows to be rearranged. Make it snappy.

This is the last time I will ever hold still for a picture.

Underworld ruler or not, Nubie taught us a bunch of really useful things.

For living:
* The answer to "how many blankets or pillows do you need?" is ALWAYS: "One more please."

* Food tastes best when inhaled with barely a chew, giving the illusion that there never was any food in the bowl, with the possibility that some nice human will think they forgot to put food in the bowl and will therefore put MORE food in the bowl.

* Why swim...

 when you can take the mama boat? 

* Little brothers are a pain in the everything but must be endured because clearly, they are never going home.

* Walks are good, but couches are better, even if you have to share them with aforementioned little brothers.

* Everything tastes better when you pick it yourself. Especially raspberries. 

 * Every family needs a lifeguard. It's OK for that to be your job.

*  Always eat the cantaloupe. Even if it hasn't been peeled. You'll be so glad you did.

For dying:
* Don't linger. 3 weeks is long enough for people to come see you and say goodbye.

* Sample ALL the foods on offer. Canned dog food is OK for a day or two, but soon they'll trot out turkey and chicken and ham, scrambled eggs, hamburger, and sweet potato baby food. When push comes to shove, a really nice lady (thank you grandma) will bring bacon.

* Sigh, snore, and fart in your sleep. You've always done it, you can't stop now.

* Stare deeply into your loved ones' eyes. It helps them imprint your face on their memories.

* Let them know, without a shadow of a doubt, when it is time. Close your eyes. Sleep.

Rest in Peace, most beloved boy.

Pretty

Life is kicking us a bit these days. Insane events and stupid happenings and beleaguring circumstances, you know who you are, you don't get any extra press here. {FQ's own sidebar...you heard that song Pompeii that got played endlessly, right? By a band called Bastille? Well go listen to the rest of the album because it's great and in one song you'll hear this: If you give it a name then it's already won. Take that, bad stuff that shall not be named.}

Ahem. Anyway. This is post is meant to be an antidote to that stuff. Self-medicating, as it were. But in print, so not hallucinogenic or anything.

We're careening toward spring around here, but winter isn't giving up without a fight. At the farm that means RAIN (and more rain and a little more rain with maybe some wind and overflowing gutters tacked on just for fun) and a stark quietness to the landscape (apart from our gutters and creek). 

 

I don't hate winter at the farm - winter is when we first saw it and said OURS NOW. The trees are bare, which means you can see the moss and lichens and long shadows (trust me on the shadow thing, it's just hard to capture them because there's something like 37 seconds of actual shiny sunlight in any given day). 

The weather changes sixteen times an hour and once in a while the sun comes out (for 37 seconds). 

 The baby digs trenches in the garden, rolls in things that turn him many shades of not-white, grudgingly submits to a bath, then commandeers all the blankets and almost all the tennis balls.

To sum up...winter is fine. Honest. But right about now my eyes and brain and soul need a little something pretty. I went looking. Here's what I found.

Lovely up the hill neighbors saved all their wildflower seeds for us. The ugly hill of dirt from new pond excavation is sprouting!

Wait a minute. How did that get there?

Over-wintered mustard greens.

 And look at these!

It still gets dark insanely early, so some of our soul-balm pretty is coming from the kitchen. Look at this:

The very end of a small head of Treviso radicchio. It's a flower! Or a Fibonacci sequence.

But the REALLY pretty indoor stuff is in the pasta category. Phrodaux gave me a pasta maker for my birthday and we've been experimenting. Spaghetti and fettucine - fine, fine, no big deal.

But then we were geeking out on the PBS show Mind of a Chef (jeez, that show! It sent us to Charleston last summer to eat at Sean Brock's restaurants and provoked some very ambitious cooking this winter.) The latest season has two parts, Dour Hour California guy and so cool but we're glad we don't work for her NYC woman. There was an episode called Rome in which interesting chef woman watched some old Italian ladies make these enormous ravioli type things. And of course Phrodaux said what he always says: We have to do that!!! (with no recipe or experience or anything, adds FQ under her breath). What a process.

On Friday night you have to make the ricotta.

I know, I know, not so pretty (yet).

Then on Saturday you have to make the pasta (and the filling, which was camera shy, but included the aforementioned ricotta plus spinach and mustard greens and some other savory bits). (Phrodaux- after a day of blacksmithing, just saying. There is something of a balance in spending a day pounding on red hot metal with big hammers, then when you can hardly lift an arm then, and only then making foods)

 Then you compile the things, which is dicey and stressful and made Phrodaux growl a bit. Just a little bit. Not too scary.

 Then you cook them and wonder when they're done and hope for the best and top them with the fancy tomato sauce you made from your chef friend's cookbook. (Phrodaux- not to mention toms that we grew/canned last summer) An actual chef whom we know, honest, not just someone we saw on TV, she has cooked at our house and everything. Would we lie to you? (Phrodaux- We do love her, she cooks and plays the drums for fun, really)

 Then you add parsley and pine nuts for contrast, and hope for the best. How could anything go wrong when the Fairy Queen is wearing her pink/octopus apron AND her leather cuff of power?????

Yum. I mean, holy cats, yum. And you have to admit, it turned out real pretty.

If anyone is actually reading this, can you write something in the comments about something pretty that is getting you through the last days of winter into spring? Pretty please?