the soulstead

the tea is fresh in bangladesh

2009-04-13T02:57:00.000-07:00

greetings from sunny bangladesh! we have been here at the teatulia tea estate, which is called the kazi & kazi tea estate (KKTE) in bangladesh, for a little over two weeks now. it is 180 degrees different from where we were in india - and i don't just mean because it's that much hotter.

for one thing, this was what walking looked like in makaibari:

maggie, standing up straight. not trick photography, just the himalayas

meanwhile, everywhere here is as flat as can be, for as far as the eye can see.

after a long, grueling trek from makaibari, including a 3km walk uphill (see previous photo), a 1.5-hour shared jeep ride down to the plains, 2 hours of lugging our stuff all over hot, crowded Siliguri trying to find a bus, a 2 hour bus ride, a 20 minute flatbed cycle rickshaw ride, a cup of tea with money exchangers, 20 minutes filling out immigration forms, getting our passports stamped at multiple tables and seth telling the Indian border officials that his favorite movie is City Lights , we made it to the bangladesh border, which we walked across.

maggie on the flatbed cycle rickshaw as we neared the border

how they expect us to quickly drink, let alone hold, a glass filled to the brim with piping hot tea, i don't know. not that i'm complaining, though - try getting some free fresh tea at a currency exchange office in the US!

the border

we were met at the border by two representatives from KKTE, who instantly recognized us. not surprising as we were quite likely the only two white people to walk across that border in a long time. one of the representatives was dhali bha (brother dhali), the division manager at the tea estate, who has been our host since we've been here. he's awesome.

dhali bhai in action, cruisin' through the tea

we've since spent our time soaking up everything we can about organic tea production in bangladesh (this is the only organic tea estate in BD, by the way), and everything else this amazing company is involved in. we've got a ton to say, and you can bet we'll say it, but for now we're finishing up our last couple days here before heading down to dhaka, the capital city of bangladesh, to see the tea's first destination once it leaves the factory. wish us luck!

sikkim the most eco state of india

2009-04-09T05:46:00.000-07:00

31 march 2009

or is that just because it is the least populus and most remote? sikkim, the indian state just to the north of where we've been staying in the Darjeeling Region, was it's own country up until 1975.

in darjeeling we thought we were at the cross roads of the world. this is even more true in sikkim, which borders nepal to the west, bhutan to the east and tibet (on some maps we've just seen it identified as china) to the north. and speaking of china, they do not recognize that sikkim is now part of india.

after 3 hours spent in darjeeling getting our permits to allow us to enter sikkim we were ready to begin the 1 1/2 hr shared jeep (like a bus but smaller to pass on these narrow windy mountainous roads) ride to the north. getting back to these permits-they are only required for foreigners. they do not cost money-just time.

it involves going to the magistrates office and filling out a form. the person at the window transcribes (by hand-at government offices i rarely see any computers) all of our personal information into a large ledger book and then stamps our form. we then walk our form across town to the foreigner's registration office, where another man transcribes all of our personal information into a large ledger book (again by hand!) and then stamps our form. we now walk the 30 minute walk across town back to the magistrates's office and in exchange for our form we are given our permit. oh india.

complaint and suggestion boxes in the magistrates office building. i wonder if anyone ever checks these boxes?

with our permits in hand we decided to refuel before beginning the journey north so we went to hotel lunar for lunch. this was one of several general listings in our guide book and by far one of the best meals we've had in a restaurant on this whole trip. the service was attentive while giving us space and time to enjoy our food and conversation. i love how many restaurants have personalized tableware

gobi parantha, aloo gobi, chana masala, rice and crazy indian pickles (which maggie likes and seth doesn't)

after we ate they gave us each little bowls of warm water with lemon wedges to wash our fingers. feels so nice!

we made our way back down to the shared jeep area. all of these narrow windy unpaved roads would be even more treacherous in a bus so most of the public transportation is in large jeeps. this would be safer for everyone except more often than not the outside is covered with men. you usually don't have to pay if you hang onto the back or ride on the top. a nice bonus since you'd probably be instantaneously killed in case of an accident. it is good to see the efficiency of travelling with so many people in (and on) one vehicle. the highest we experienced (on another ride) was 21 people.

life on the wild side. note the tea growing along the side of the road.

our time in sikkim was limited, so we decided to head to the less tourist-visited areas in the western part of the country. here are just some of the highlights-

orchids are so plentiful here that restaurants used long stalks full of them on each table as centerpieces.

we spent our first night in Namchi. everything we had read about Sikkim hyped it up as the cleaner smarter cousin of India. we were still shocked to see when we arrived that towns actually were cleaner. the town center had a lovely fountain and aquarium-it felt strangely european. plastic bags are banned in Sikkim ('though we did see some) and they have plans that all vegetables grown there will be done so organically by 2010.

one weird thing we discovered about Sikkim is that many restaurant names begin with the word 'hotel', so it makes it a bit misleading when looking for lodging.

the town of Namchi is putting itself on the map with the construction of large Buddhist and Hindu monuments.
first we visited Samdruptse, the world's largest statue of the Buddha, an impressive 138' of pure happiness. His Holiness (himself) the Dalai Lama laid the foundation stone on 22 oct 1997.

and what makes the Buddha so happy? the longhorns, that's right!

on the hill across town is Solophok, the sprawling Hindu complex still under construction. while he is 'only' 102 tall, there will be many more buildings than the Buddhist neighbor across the way. we were amazed that at a site under so much construction we were just able to wander around on our own. no one wore hardhats, i dont even remember seeing all of the workers wearing shoes. it was fascinating to see such detailed architecture in progress.

maggie with Lord Shiva the destroyer. let's hope all of this construction isn't for naught.

from Namchi we headed further northwest to Pelling, the land of hotels. and these were actually lodging hotels, who also had restaurants, and not just restaurants called hotels. we stayed at the Hotel Garuda, which had delicious local cuisine (stay tuned for more in a future posting). we had to know what to ask for and look on the last page of the menu as most travellers (disappointingly) don't have any interest in the local fare, said the hotel staff.

the main attraction of Pelling are breathtaking views of the Himalayas, however this time of year there is a lot of haze so we were only able to get a couple of small glimpses. those alone were very impressive and we would love to come back in the fall when the sky is clear. we imagine it would be like Montana Big Sky Country but with massive mountains instead of sky.

a few kilometers from town is Pemayangtse, the second oldest Buddhist monastery in Sikkim. there are 3 floors and as we climbed higher the detail of the paintings, sculptures and adornments increased as well.

Buddhist prayer flags in honor of victims of 9/11, coalition forces in iraq afghanistan and innocent civilians, late karma ishering and sonam zangmoo, sergio-de-lemo (UN Envoy) and Anna Lindh, madrid train blast, iran 2003 earthquake, and victims of genocide, mass murder ethnic cleansing around the world.

happy seth after spinning a ~12' tall prayer wheel. we have a video of this and when we can get a faster internet connection we'll put that up!

apparently seth's shoes are not made for walking because they have been falling apart at the seams. we'd been seeing shoe repairmen (never women-they are too busy carrying heavy things on their heads) in our travels and we finally had the time to have the work done. in the end it took about 25 minutes and it cost 60 Rupees (that's $1.20). it was beautiful to watch this man's hands at work.

the most environmental way to be - repair it, don't just throw it out and buy new.

when we read that there were hot springs in Sikkim we knew that no trip would be complete without a visit. fortunately our guidebook didn't give any more information than a passing mention. so when we eventually arrived we were the only non-locals. it was way more low-key that what we had been expecting. a line of sandbags pooled up the warm sulfury water from flowing into the adjacent Rangit River. i made sure to be well covered wearing a swim suit, under a t-shirt and long flowy pants. meanwhile local women already soaking away when we arrived were ready for the S. Padre Island Spring Break wet t-shirt contest.

seth in tato pani (tato=hot, pani=water) having cold river water poured onto him by a naked little boy.

tastes like dragon

2009-04-02T22:50:00.001-07:00

the next couple of weeks were spent learning the ins-and-outs of cultivating and maintaining a 150-year-old (this year!) mountainside tea estate. we saw bamboo bigger than we'd ever seen before (it's freakin' HUGE), learned about the permaculture principles applied on the tea estate, made momos (tibetan dumplings) learned about the proper application of compost and mulch, made momos, learned the secrets of the biodynamic process, made more momos, and learned about proper pruning and "rejuvenation" techniques. hopefully one day we'll have enough bandwidth and be on a computer with a new enough version of internet explorer to make a couple posts on these experiences possible, but for now, you get the reader's digest version. (for the record, the fact that we are in rural southern asia and there is any internet access at all is amazing, so don't think we're complaining).

which brings us to our final week at makaibari. with the rajah in calcutta for family reasons, we were left to make our own schedule, and we decided to focus on the processing and tasting sides of things. so we got to the factory at 5 am to watch the final stages of the withering process of tea that was plucked the afternoon before. we followed the leaves from the withering troughs, where they are dumped after being brought in from the field, to the rolling machines, to the drying machine, and finally to the sorting room, where the processed tea is separated into countless different classes and grades of finished tea.

leaves wither from 12-18 hours, depending on moisture levels. a 15-minute difference in withering can mean a huge difference in taste.

that afternoon, we set up a tasting session with mr. sanjoy, the asst. manager of the factory. we met in the tasting room, where the woman who makes tea for visitors (i forget the nepali word for this position...) steeped 2 grams of 6 different kinds of tea for exactly five minutes each. they had prepared for us a sampling of their 6 main types of tea - first flush, second flush (muscatel), oolong, silver green, bai mu dan (white tea), and silver tips imperial.

we were invited to first look at the color (liquor) of the tea, then to look at the dried leaves, then to look at and smell the steeped leaves, and finally to taste the tea, using a specific slurping method to send the tea all around your mouth and open up the flavors (hoity-toity as it may sound, it really does help). we figure if we're ever going to make tea, we need to train our palates so we know if it's any good.

see how different the colors of these cups of tea are - all just through slight variations of processing.

mr. sanjoy was very helpful and informative, and after he left, we lingered for a while longer, inspecting the leaves and quizzing each other with blind taste tests. we left feeling exhilarated, alive, and ready to drink more tea.

white tea leaves

makaibari's silver tips imperial tea is by many accounts the most expensive tea in the world. seth thinks it tastes like licking a dragon, which he swears is a good thing.

maggie inspecting the bounty

seth blindly tasting

Makaibari Tea Estate

2009-03-17T21:57:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Darjeeling! Well, technically, we're in Kurseong. Actually, we're in a village called Makaibari, which is a bit south of Kurseong, which is 29 Km south of the town of Darjeeling. But it's all in the Darjeeling district, so who's keeping track? And it's India so do you really expect anything to be straightforward (insert head wobble)!

After a hair-riaising taxi ride - our first of many - up here from the train station, we arrived at the Makaibari Tea Estate (www.makaibari.com), our home for the next month or so.

maggie arriving at the estate

Seth used to serve and enjoy Makaibari tea many years ago when he worked at Tealuxe, and we both had been planning for this moment a long time, so it was an incredible experience to actually show up at the place where it's all grown an processed.

a bird's eye view of the factory and surrounding village

The people here are wonderful - everyone is extremely nice and welcoming, and all of the village children are eager to practice their English on a couple of fair-skinned folks passing by. It is weird to think that we are still in India - the people here are an ethnic mix of Indian, Tibetan, and, especially, Nepali. Most people here are fluent in Nepali, Hindi, and Bengali, and a lot are pretty good at English. We're doing our best to learn a few basics of Nepali.

Shortly after we arrived, we were introduced to Pasan, whose house we are staying at while we are here. It's a wonderful slice of Makaibari life. We share the house with Pasan, his wife Sonju, their 5-year old son Sonam, his two parents, his cousin-brother (male cousin) Rupak, 4 goats, about 8 chickens, a dog, a cat, and an 11' x 12' cherry tomato plant.

seth in front of the house where we're staying. it's the green one.

the giant tomato plant coming in through the kitchen window

In our first week we had a quick crash course in the whole operation, and got to spend an entire day plucking tea, learning the proper "two leaves and a bud" technique. There's definitely more of that to come. By the end of the week, we were sat down at a meeting with all of the field managers and grilled by them as to our future plans with tea. At the end of the meeting, all of the managers, as well as the owner of Makaibari (more on him soon) applauded us and our plans. Incredible.

typical sight.

even more typical sight.

tea!

our new friend lila showing us the proper pluck.

maggie plucking properly.

The Darjeeling Limited (with unlimited food)

2009-03-12T06:48:00.000-07:00

Our final day in Delhi was a bit hectic, with a couple tourist-y things on the agenda while making sure we got to the train station in time to catch the 2424 Rajdhani Express out to New Jalpaiguri, our stopping point at the foothills of the Himalayas. Before we left, though, we wanted to make sure to visit Gandhi Smriti, the place where Mahatma Gandhi was living when he was assassinated in 1948 and where he was shot.

gandhi smriti.

footsteps showing gandhi's final path before his assassination.

Then we took a quick rickshaw ride around the block to the Indira Gandhi museum, which is situated around the house she lived in and the place where she was assassinated by her bodyguards in 1984 (pretty amazing that she and Mahatma - no relation - were assassinated so close to one another.

Then we took our final rickshaw in Delhi to the New Delhi Train Station (for those IHPers reading who know there's a difference...), where we joined the throbbing mass of people heading towards their trains.

seth in the train station.

Finally we found ourselves situated in our 3-tier AC cabin, surrounded by people from all over India (and 3 Japanese teenagers on spring break - woohoo! India! Spring Break!) - our home for the next 24 hours. We'll let the pictures (and their captions) tell the rest of the story...

view of the mighty ganges from the train.

the bank of the ganges.

maggie bein' productive on the train.

meals on wheels!

the meal on wheels!

i wasn't getting enough tea on the train, so i jumped off the train at a stop to get some chai from a little stall.

breakfast.

ingenious water bottle holder beneath the little table between seats. very discreet. so discreet that maggie left her bottle on the train.

a list of animals we saw in delhi

2009-03-07T00:08:00.000-08:00

many dogs (stray)
many cows (also stray)
an elephant (being ridden down the highway)
several chickens
a few big mice (under our feet in a little food stall. we left.)
several goats (stray?)
many parrots (wild)
several monkeys (in the rafters at the train station)

where the **** is DHL?

2009-03-02T18:32:00.000-08:00

our time here in delhi has been great. we are in constant amazement at how many people there are. there seems to be a constant stream of people moving throughout the city. not surprising since the population is over 13 million people!

we've seen many of the important landmarks that are to be seen here, which by the way is the site of no fewer than 8 successive cities. several of these i saw when i was here on IHP (the International Honors Program, www.ihp.edu), but it has been wonderful to revisit them and to share them with Seth.
just down the block from our hotel is the Lotus Temple, a Baha'i Temple. the architecture is breath-taking, and as you get close to the building, especially near the steps to the reflecting pools it feels like you're in the middle of Logan's Run. that's a shout out to all you Texans reading along!

we've ridden on many of the transportation options available in delhi, not all by a long shot. the city is in the process of building a METRO. this is scheduled to be completed no sooner than 2021 -this could become India's Big Dig Project. we've been in taxis and auto rickshaws.

and today for the first time we rode in a cycle rickshaw.

unfortunately the Indian postal service, especially with packages is incredibly unreliable. today after walking the streets back and forth and asking directions from five different people we finally found DHL where I was able to mail the fabric

i purchased for my wedding dress.

tomorrow we leave for darjeeling. buying the tickets was true india. a man desperately trying to convince us that we should leave the train station and follow him across the street to the foreign ticket office. try as he may we made it to the real ticket office for foreigners and man was it worth it! not only did we hassle free purchase our tickets, we got to see Indian design at it's best. check out the relief wall map

that giant ridge on the upper right of the country? that's the himalayas. we'll be going partially up that to get to darjeeling, where we'll be living and working for the next month. my favorite, though, is the map of the room telling me where i'm at.

we will be travelling by train-it is scheduled to be about a 20 hour trip. onwards and upwards (literally), to darjeeling!

kosher delhi

2009-03-02T18:22:00.000-08:00

namaste! here we are at the end of our first full day in delhi, and our spirits are up, up, up. we've had a wonderful day. delhi is like everyone says - huge and crowded. on the road from the airport to our hotel (from 3-3:45 am), we saw: auto- and cycle-rickshaws everywhere, a newlywed couple's car covered in flowers, people making a fire along the side of the road, every kind of traffic violation imaginable, and a bunch of cows along the side of and in the road.

this morning in our first 5 minutes out in the city, we saw an elephant on the highway. (by morning, i mean mid-afternoon, by the way. we got to the hotel at 4 am - cut us some slack!).

we spent a busy day today looking for fabric for maggie's wedding dress and generally getting acquainted with the city. in some ways the most exciting part was the price of the food: lunch - $5; dinner - $4. that was for both of us, after tax and tip. try to find THAT on chowhound USA.

we ended the night with an auto-rickshaw ride back to the hotel. these are a lot cheaper than taxis, and very cute looking. and they all run on compressed natural gas now, which is nice!

now here are some pictures:

aloo gobhi - $1; bangan bharta - $1; free plate of raw onions and half a lemon - priceless

view from an auto rickshaw

us in rickshaw

us in front of the India Gate

when we got back to our hotel, there was a wedding festivity taking place in the parking lot, which we stood and watched for a while. right next to the rightmost bright light is the groom on a horse.

i ate a berliner in frankfurt

2009-02-28T19:12:00.000-08:00

i'd rather do that than eat a frankfurter in berlin!

it is now saturday, 28 february. we began our journey on thursday, 26 february in philadelphia, and couldn't get through to delhi without a quick stop in frankfurt, germany. so did we while away the hours at an airport resto-bar? heck no! we took the convenient train into the heart of frankfurt, walked around the beautiful city, went to the amazing Museum fur Kommunikation (a museum meant mainly for children, documenting forms of communication throughout the ages - complete with a room dedicated to 70's German stop-motion animation), and bought a jelly doughnut (and a couple bagels...).

telephone sheep - note the feet!

this is the famous "sandmannchen" ready for outer space

on the way back to the train station, i re-proposed to maggie as we crossed the Main river - named after Frankfurt-Am-Main, we presume. It was our 6th anniversary (which is now also the 1st anniversary of me proposing to her), and she left her real engagement ring at home so as not to look too flashy in india, so it was very clever and romantic of me. we like to think that a bunch of germans driving by thought they were witnessing the real deal. achtung! achtung! ein proposal!

maggie standing amongst the suess-like trees that lined the riverside

view from bridge

then, we made it back to the airport in time for our flight. onwards to india!

our favorite station

have your jack o'lantern and eat it, too

2008-11-10T13:42:00.000-08:00

so these are the pumpkins maggie and i carved for halloween this year. normally, halloween is a kind of symbol to me of how decadent we've let ourselves be in this culture - taking a perfectly good piece of food, cutting it up, and displaying it in front of your house, for all the world to see it rot. scary, indeed.

but there's no reason you need to just let 'em go to waste! we were able to cook every part of these pumpkins that we normally would (roasted the seeds, cooked every piece of the flesh), and join in on a fun carving tradition. with just these pumpkins (ok, and a little more donated from cutouts from other friends' creations), we made a pumpkin-quinoa risotto, have a quart of roasted pumpkin puree in the freezer, and made over 11 pints of tasty, tasty, pumpkin butter.

pumpkin butter recipe (adapted from allrecipes):

INGREDIENTS

4 cups pumpkin puree
3/4 cup apple juice (we used local cider)
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup white sugar
a healthy splash of maple syrup
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
a squeeze of lemon

DIRECTIONS

combine pumpkin, apple juice, spices, syrup, and sugar in a large saucepan; stir well. bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes or until thickened. stir frequently, or else lava-hot spurts of pumpkin will shoot out of the pot and all over you and your kitchen.
transfer to sterile containers and chill in the refrigerator until serving.

you are getting sleepy...

2008-11-07T06:27:00.000-08:00

ingredients:
1 local chioggia beet, cut into discs
1 digital camera
a pinch of extra time

quince-anera

2008-11-06T08:04:00.000-08:00

no, i'm not talking about latin american coming-of-age parties. i'm talkin' 'bout quince, the winter-hardy almost-an-apple, not-quite-a-pear that Pliny the Elder liked to eat raw.

maggie has been doing some work with a friend of ours who's a landscaper/gardener, and one of the benefits is that we get to eat things that the clients don't want. these have included sorrel, lamb's quarters, oregano, nasturtiums, and now, quince. she came home the other day with about 15 quinces (yes, that's quince quinces for the spanish speakers) that had fallen on the ground, and instantly we knew what to do: quince butter.

we got out our copy of putting food by, chopped up the quince, heated 'em for a while, then ran 'em through the old-timey food mill we borrowed from our friends down the street. boil a lot more, add a couple spices, and you've got thick, thick butter (ours is almost like a paste). and water vapor clinging to all of your walls.

specific recipe comin' soon...

next year in jerusalem (artichokes)

2008-11-03T08:08:00.000-08:00

ahh, the sunchoke. long regarded by maggie and i as an excellent root vegetable, to be bought on rare occasions in small amounts when it was available at our local co-op (by "local" i mean a 45-minute drive away, the nearest co-op since Whole Foods bought out the one in Portland). but this year, i bought a pound of waldspinel (austrian-german for "gem of the woods") sunchokes at the fedco tree sale.

so far, they've proven to be the best and most rewarding thing to come out of our garden. i've only harvested a handful, for one meal, but it was so satifsfying to dig into the soil and pluck out these juicy red beauties.

cooking note: we harvested these really as early as you should - they were quite delicate and got too soft with very little cooking (we roasted 'em). really, we should let them overwinter underground, but we won't be here once the ground unfreezes, so we have to get 'em while we can. when they're young, seems best to 'eat 'em raw.

the revolution will not be fertilized

2008-10-30T06:45:00.000-07:00

chemically, that is.

a few nights ago, maggie and i were lucky enough to go see michael pollan (author of the botany of desire, the omnivore's dilemma, in defense of food, and this amazing recent NYTimes article) speak at bates college, about 35 minutes away from us. he was speaking for free, and it was open to the public. good thing we got there over half an hour early - we were some of the last people to get a seat before the audience surged into every open nook and cranny in the old chapel. eventually, it was clear that a terrible fire hazard had been created and dozens of people were forced to leave. for his part, MP offered to give the same talk the next morning for anyone who couldn't stay.

the bigger point is this - it's awesome that we've come to a point in which that many people are trying to cram themselves into a building to listen to a guy speak about changing our food system, and encouraging more sustainable and healthy ways of eating. amen to that, mr. pollan.

neither of us has posted on here in quite a while, but this has inspired me to get back on the blog horse and get crackin'. there's lots to tell.

buckwheat blossom farm - part 1

2008-05-13T06:31:00.000-07:00

a few days ago, our friends and farmers amy and jeff (from buckwheat blossom farm) told us they needed some help. not wanting to pass up the opportunity for a small amount of money, plus a worthwhile day spent doing good stuff outdoors (and - oh yeah helping our friends), we drove on up to wiscasset to put in our day's work.

we got there at 7:30 and it was cold and raining, so we were put to the task of washing, sorting, and packaging eggs. TONS of eggs. they come out of the hen perfectly clean, but then random bedding and other detritus get stuck onto the shells. the egg inside is perfectly fine, but when buying eggs at a store or far-mar, customers want a consistently clean-looking egg.

also, with over 250 laying hens of different species, there are all sorts of colors of eggs (different shades of brown, white, and...green). we separated them by color, so when packing dozens, we could more easily make a pleasing color mix.

here's maggie washing eggs. did i mention she's vegan?

all in all, we hand-washed, sorted, and boxed 120 DOZEN eggs, one by one. you do the math. and that was all before noon.

far-mar

2008-05-12T14:06:00.000-07:00

the day after the great fedco sale, our local saturday farmer's market started up. hot dog! this time of year, we're running out of storage onions and squash, our freezer is getting pretty derned low, but it still feels really weird to go out and just buy some produce from who knows where (definitely not maine!). so luckily, even though it's mostly seedlings and canned goods at this point, there are a few brave farmers out there who can offer us some good arugula, lettuce, leeks, and overwintered carrots. yum!

also, we can pet a llama.

fedco tree sale

2008-05-10T13:39:00.000-07:00

ahh, fedco. purveyor of all things righteous. one beautiful spring day not too long ago, fedco seeds had their once-yearly tree sale - where they sell off a ton of trees, as well as greenhouse/garden/farm equipment, and any and all seedlings that they have leftover from their massive catalog sales. i've been itching to go since last year (when i couldn't go), and it was a treat. every kind of tree that you could possibly want, organic and locally grown. and thousands of different kinds of seeds, all from small growers. below is a quick snippet of how they did the trees - just lined up, roots shoved into some kinda mulch-y stuff. there must've been 30 different kinds of apples.

amaranth seedlings are beautiful

2008-04-23T09:18:00.000-07:00

this is our first time growing amaranth, and so far it's lookin' great! i just transplanted these above seedlings to a larger pot, to see how it grows differently from others that i'm leaving in the lil' greenhouse-type setup we've got a bit longer. when you've got a sea of little green shoots stickin' up, it's such a treat for these strong little reddish aliens to be in the mix.

here's what the fedco seeds catalog has to say about this variety of amaranth, which we got from them:

008HO Hopi Red Dye Amaranth OG (46 days) Amaranthus cruentus Hopi was the best of the nine amaranths in our trial, displaying the deepest burgundies. Stately plant grows to 6' with a 1-2' inflorescence. Eat the young leaves in salads or slightly steamed, admire them young or old. The tiny black seeds are also edible, used in breakfast cereal to accentuate the taste and fragrance of honey. The Hopis make a scarlet food dye from the flower bract to color their ceremonial piki bread. Yanna Fishman of Union Mills, NC, suggests using Hopi in your floral arrangements. “When added to a flower bouquet it makes an ordinary clear jar look like an elegant purple-tinted vase as it colors the water.”

seeds we've got goin'

2008-04-16T14:12:00.000-07:00

historically, i've had a pretty rough time with starting plants from seed - they always are smaller and weaker than their seedling counterparts from nurseries and farmers' markets, and often die young or don't really produce. i'm going to try to take this year to make a few seed experiments, trying out the same seeds with different starting soils, different light conditions, and see what works best.

also, since our season is so short up here in maine, i'm trying to start some that would generally be sown (sowed?) right outdoors a few weeks ahead of time indoors, to give 'em a head start. we'll see what happens.

below is a list of all the seeds we've got started so far. those in italics have shown their faces, those not in bold are still percolatin' in the soil:

hopi "red dye" amaranth
arugula
bicolor corn
black seeded simpson lettuce
bright lights chard (though all but one of the seedlings has since died...)
chinese lantern
dahlias
eggplant
hungarian hot wax pepper
long pie pumpkin
luffa gourd
sugar snap peas
sunflowers (various)
vermont cranberry bean
watercress (tons of lil' sprouts, but they all look so weak!)

a video we made!

2008-04-16T06:42:00.000-07:00

compost post

2008-04-10T08:29:00.000-07:00

neither maggie nor i have lived in one place long enough in our adult lives to really enjoy the fruits of our composting efforts (i.e. the fruits of our old fruit). this year, that's going to change. we've been composting here for about a year, and the bin is almost full to the top.

now that my cup is brimming over with spring, every day i try to look for another sign that things are starting to grow and that we'll have a successful season, so today i lifted up the sliding bottom compartment where you scoop out compost, and EUREKA! - brown, sludgy goodness. get ready plantitos, that's gonna be all yours soon...

rosemary blossoms

2008-04-08T09:46:00.001-07:00

we have two rosemary plants growing together in one pot (named rose and mary, gotten as seedlings in greensboro, vt, years ago), and a few weeks ago they started popping out these beautiful, tiny purple blossoms. i finally plucked 'em all yesterday, and put them in with some root veggies we were roasting. yum!

support your local breadmaker

2008-04-06T17:04:00.001-07:00

today we went to a great event at frontier cafe, cinema & gallery, a great cafe, cinema and gallery (heh heh) in the old mill building across the river from us, about a 10 minute walk away. a local farmer has an undiagnosed chronic illness that has incapacitated him as a farmer, so the community got together to have a big ol' prix-fixe local foods feast and silent auction in his honor. his name's seth, so we felt extra compelled to help. at the event was barak, who makes the best bread in town out of his home-bakery in freeport, maine. at the end of the event, there were a few of his massive loaves left over, so at his suggestion, we took one home with us. just one of the benefits of supporting your local breadmaker.

spring has sprung

2008-04-02T07:41:00.000-07:00

one of the most exciting things in the world is seeing the first seedlings peekin' through the dirt. at least, i think so. these are the sunflowers, the first peekers:

and this was taken a few days later - we've got a ton more sprouts! very exciting...

the most exciting day of spring

2008-03-24T13:27:00.000-07:00

our seeds came. now we get crackin'. hot dog!

airing out our launrdy

2008-02-06T19:14:00.001-08:00

things i'm loving right now -
our new colorful smartwood socks &
our drying racks!

why pay to dry your clothes in a machine when you can hang them up on wooden dowels and let nature do her thing?

in the winter with the heat going it doesn't take long to dry. at our last place we'd put the drying racks in front of the woodstove. they'd be dry in no time and would be toasty warm, just like out of the dryer.

things i'm not loving right now - the little pills that are forming on our new colorful smartwool socks and that this text is underlined. rrrgh!

the power of the sun, in the palm of my hands...

2007-11-05T08:57:00.001-08:00

yep, that's right - here's the new solar cell phone charger i got with my new plan with working assets. haven't used it yet, but seems like it'll be pretty good. one more step away from the grid...

(note to potential purchasers of said charger - it's like 5 times bigger than it looks on the working assets website. not huge, just bigger than they represent it)

tomatillos

2007-10-30T14:13:00.000-07:00

this plant got huge. it took over a whole section of the garden, shooting out blossoms like they were going out of style. but they never went to fruit - they'd just flower and then fall off. all summer long. then, as the other plants died away and summer started ending, we noticed that little tomatillo casings were popping up all over it! well, now frost has hit the plant and it's dying - so today we harvested what we could before they were ruined. made us a whole lot of tomatillo salsa (mainly using tomatillos from our csa...)! that's nice.

chest freezer!

2007-10-14T16:14:00.000-07:00

after the one we found in someone's driveway ended up not working, we broke down and got a brand-spankin' new one.

you could get one just like it here.

we just transferred a bunch of stuff from our regular freezer to the new chest freezer, and it's very exciting. also, over the next few weeks we're going to buy a ton of local veggies (mainly leafy greens - collards, especially) to freeze, so we can eat local as much as possible during the off season. should be great!

dinner 12 october 2007

2007-10-12T17:57:00.000-07:00

israeli couscous
sauteed with onion, then cooked with cranberry bean water from last night

smart ground
fake ground beef sauteed with tomatoes from our garden, maine garlic, and scallions, spring onions, and small, hot green peppers from buckwheat blossom farm

red leaf lettuce
salad with arugula and sweet yellow carrots (all from buckwheat blossom), and sliced almonds

olive loaf
standard baking company, portland, maine

organic syrah
green bridge, california

fresh garbanzo beans
soulstein garden harvest - we got 11. ate most of 'em green, rather than dry. never had a green chickpea before!

yum!

(writer's note: potted plant in picture is artie, our artichoke that we just dug up from our mostly unsuccessful garden - we're going to try growing it indoors...)