Time

               Maybe it is because I am shut off from the world of teaching, or because I have been re-reading The Hollow Hills by Mary Stewart, but I have been thinking about my sophomore year of high school this week.  My English teacher, Mrs. Sarner, assigned us The Once and Future King by T.H. White, a tome of a novel, written in Britain during World War Two. I loved the book, even the dark, dark sections when the Round Table was collapsing because men value Might over Right.  As a tenth grader, I picked up on some of the underlying fears and ideas for world peace and the removal of boundaries, and the hints of the United Nations, a future historian in the making.  When I was done, I began an hunt for all of the other versions of the King Arthur legend, which led me to the Hallow Hills, and John Steinbeck’s and Mark Twain’s  takes on the story,  and then back to some of the original work by Malory.  Then I moved outward to the Elder Edda, and Welsh mythology, and Conan the Barbarian.  

                What I had, even in my very excellent high school, was the gift of time. Sure, I had chores at home—I was in charge of cleaning the apartment and doing the laundry in our wringer washing machine every Saturday while my mother worked—and homework, which I did with various degrees of enthusiasm, but I still had time to read, and think, and dream of worlds far beyond Hampstead, New Hampshire. I had no scheduled lessons, or teams, or activities. Many of my friends lived half an hour away, because of the nature of consolidated high schools in semi-rural New England.  When we visited, we took our pillows, our books, our notebooks, and spent the night. Time.

                With time comes self-directed learning. When I wanted to know more about King Arthur, I had time to read as many books as I wanted, as long as the dishes were done when my mother came home. After I graduated from college, I realized I had not read many nineteenth century novels, so I spent a long, hot  summer with weird afternoon dreams of Dickens. I had time. Long hikes and road trips lead to self-discovery and education; we read Walden while walking around Mt. Rainier. My partner had the same experiences—he grew up roaming the woods, examining things under a microscope, and learning calculus in the back of his classroom. Different subjects, maybe, but the same concept.  Time.

                And so, many of us have time right now. My students certainly do, as school is still closed and I hope they have caught up on their sleep. Maybe some self-directed learning is in order. Mark has set up his microscope on the living room bench. During the downpours, I am taking another whack at learning perspective in drawing. I am looking for books on urban design for the 21^st century, rethinking the way we design communities. And, if I can get access to sources on-line, I want to answer the question: did people in 1930 know how bad it was going to get? because I think it will help me understand this time right now. Time. What do you want to learn?

The Cards Speak

                At Winter Solstice this year, I made a resolution: pull one tarot card every six weeks to mark the circle of the year and ask for guidance. That night, I shuffled the deck and pulled The Emperor, the rules and laws of society.  The question associated with the card was: What is the source of your authority?  Interestingly, I had been considering that question as relates to city council and continued to ponder it for the next six weeks. In that time, I had to speak out for several groups I represent and exercise authority by asking direct questions. When I did, my spine grew longer and straighter, my voice changed; I was focused.

                Then Candlemas, the beginning of pre-spring here in Oregon.  Shuffle. Pull. The Moon. Fears of wildness, madness, the unknown. The question: What natural rhythms are out of harmony? My first response was—Climate Change. That natural rhythm is clearly out of balance. My response was to keep working to bring that balance back, both in my backyard and gardens, and on a larger scale. We were working on how to implement the city’s Climate Action plan, hard work, hard questions to answer. A few weeks later, my thinking changed. The Corona virus is a natural rhythm out of balance, bringing forth many deep and dark fears and actions.  Climate change and the virus are related, two signs that the human world is deeply out of balance with the natural world.

                So, I will confess, I was a little worried to see what would emerge on the Spring Equinox.  I even put it off a day. But it was a warm and sunny afternoon, so I wandered inside, found my deck, sat on the front steps, and shuffled. Paused. Shuffled again.  Pulled the Ace of Cups: the chalice overflowing with love and life. The question: How are you being called to receive and grow? In the next six weeks, as Spring blooms all around us, we are being told to stay inside, to stay away from others, to restrict our circles tighter and tighter. How do we grow under these circumstances? We all need to move deeper within ourselves, maybe see what is really important to us all—like family, friends, our planet’s survival. We can grow, and change, and survive—or not.

               

Watching the Spring

               Yesterday, Mark and I walked up to Chip Ross Park. It’s about six miles, round trip, through neighborhoods and then fields as we climb the hill. We passed a field of naturalized daffodils—thousands of them—growing under invasive Scotch Broom, a broken stone watering tank, and a path under a patch of Douglas Fir. Toothwort and buttercups bloomed on the hillside.

 When we crested the hill and emerged near the park, a man on a bike rolled by us. “At Least we can still go outside!” he called back to us. “And eat dinner,” I called back and we all laughed. And that was the tone of the entire park. Families strolled up the gravel paths to the peak, small children stopping to look at the water streaming downhill. Couples sat on the benches, looking out over the valley. One woman tried to capture the beauty of the bare branches against the deep blue sky. Everyone made eye contact and smiled. Mark and I pointed out the Fawn Lily budding out next to the trail. It was a celebration of the beauty of the day.

On the way downhill, I stopped to examine a pussy willow in bloom and realized that the universe has given me a huge gift of time. I have time this year to watch the spring come into the Willamette Valley, to track blooms and garden growth, watch buds swell on the trees, to turn the earth over to see what is happening underneath. Time.  Would I rather be teaching my classes, attending meetings, not worried about the public health crisis? Yes, of course. But, I can’t. So I am going outside to watch the spring coming in. Feel free to come along.

Self Brining Sauerkraut

Probiotics, vitamin C, red pepper and garlic….what’s not to love in an era when we are all looking to boost our immune  systems? We’ll be eating some every day until late spring.

1.       Weigh your cabbage in kilograms. One pound of cabbage equals one tablespoon of salt.

2.       Shred the cabbage as thinly as possible and toss it into a big bowl.

3.       Sprinkle the salt over the veg and massage with your clean hands. Massaging  breaks down the cell walls and draws out the moisture. It squeaks and scrunches and shrinks down by half. This takes between five and ten minutes.

4.       Add 2-3 teaspoons of red pepper flakes and three to four garlic cloves and mix.

5.       Pack very firmly into a canning jar. Half a cabbage fills a quart jar; a full head packs into a larger one. Use your hands to really pack the cabbage down. The brine will slowly ease out and fill the gaps.

6.  

     Put the jar on the top of the fridge. Over the next few days, the ferment will begin to fizz and bubble.

7.        Watch the brine increase and decrease as the temperature changes. Open the jar every day to release the gasses.

8.       Taste after seven or eight days. Is it done? Not yet? Put it back up. We let ours sit for about two weeks, then put it in the fridge to eat. This is a very potent brew!

Kitchen History

   

             My kitchen is small, just enough room for a table and two chairs, the big old stove, a small refrigerator, and one person making dinner. The counter holds the electric kettle, the toaster, and my kitchen-aide mixer on one side of the sink, the cutting boards and compost bin (the classic yogurt container!) on the other.  There is not room for fancy gadgets and new equipment. We keep the Crockpot and microwave—both ancient—in the back hall. Cooking, in our home, has not changed much since the house was built. Nor has the room. Every night, I stand  in the same spot, using the same knife and cutting board, chop veggies, turn 180 degrees to the stove to sauté them in the cast iron pan, bake bread, drain pasta….the simple rituals of food preparation. Some days, there is a frenzy in the kitchen, as I prep bread dough, yogurt,  and soup for the week, balancing sheet pans on the step stool and washing dishes as I go, because there is no room to stack them up.  In summer, I make jam and pickles, can tomatoes and beans. A lot of food moves through this small space. There’s a skill and an art to daily cooking that we learn by doing, day after day.

      

          And I wonder how many people have stood chopping onions, taken the same steps, before me? Will someone else follow me?

Corona Virus Prep List...

With the outbreak of the corona virus, and one case of a teacher in Oregon, there is a decent chance that I will be looking at a school closure in the coming weeks. I hope not. It would create havoc on my ninth grader’s community service project and well as the juniors and AP testing, but, given the general germy behavior of high school students and how they are constantly eating each other’s snacks and sharing water bottles, school closure feels inevitable.  

So, I am preparing. First, I am making a new batch of sauerkraut packed with garlic and hot peppers to ward off germs—no one will come near us!—and support our immune systems. I’ve been considering food stores in the basement and ordered another box of whole wheat pasta on Saturday. Mark bought some emergency soup. We have winter stores of potatoes, onions, dried fruit, and canned tomatoes, as well as connections for greens. The chickens are starting to lay again. We won’t starve.

More importantly, I have been thinking about what I would do at home for a couple of weeks. City business would also be curtailed, I suspect, so I will have time on my hands. I can go for long walks in the woods and work in the garden, but that will only go so far. I’ve made a list of projects that have to be done some time soon, complete with possible purchases for the next week.  

1.       Repaint bedroom trim to sage green—get paint!

2.       Wash living room walls.

3.       Hang blue gate in garden—purchase wood for post and rings to hang.

4.       Prep house for painting—scrape, patch, prime. Primer and patching, sandpaper.

5.       Replace cracked windows. Glass and glazing.

6.       Knit sweater vests? Investigate grey wool in the closet.

7.       Repair garden beds—new posts? Brackets?

8.       Clean the basement! No new purchases, but maybe something goes away?

9.       Read: Strong Towns, some possible young adult fiction….stock up on books!

10.   Can more local beans. Do we have lids?

11.   Finish rewiring the stove. Mark reminds me that he will still be working, even if from home. Check the wire supply anyways.

12.   Give the Ark a good bath and prep for summer camping.

A couple of weeks off now could lead to more time for camping this summer….a mixed blessing, indeed.