The baby comes with spring

I wrote this while waiting to have a baby, our third.

Due at easter
before the lillies?
before the lilacs.
but there may be crocuses,
fiddleheads, stretching up in curls
out of papery-brackeney nests,
out of damp dark dirt and leaves
the beginnings of lacy green on the trees?

Will the baby come with wet sidewalks,
nights warm enough for noise on the streets?
open windows?

even rain?
Thank God, thank God! The babe came. He sent us this baby--oh, I am filled with wonder--
and he carried me through that birth!
He answered my call and delivered me from my distress. Oh, I thank him with all my heart. God is my only treasure, and my great reward. He has been so good, so good to me.

The Only Salt Seas in Northern Lake Country

Written while waiting to give birth.

Small Whale
surfaces near my boat as I stand watching, waiting.
A fin slides along, just under the skin,
rides the length of the keel.
Sometimes bumps--push--
against the gunwhale.
Sitting astern, on my knees,
I wait for another sighting.
This silent companion,
more felt than seen,
glides along with us.
My paddle in hands, grasped firmly
to pull as hard as I can,
forward in great surges against the water.
We will slice though the grey,
splashes echoing against and under the small boat.

Perchance, if the wind picks up,
under this lowering sky,
we will ride peaks curdled with warm white foam,
slapping hard from one grey glassy hill
to another.
At our backs wind drives us,
faster than a runner to the far shore.

In our faces, we pull straight into the wind,
riding up and down the great swells,
now nigh four feet high,
one at a time, straight through and over
each solid hill of water,
nose high in the air,
pulling to the utmost,
from deep and low in our bodies,
in unison, singing strategy and courage to one another,
stroke and stroke and stroke and pull
across the long windy open water.

Or, given calm skies,
we may enjoy the gentle shelter of the quiet sunsteeped bay.
Along fingers of lake reaching through mats of hairy grassy rooty turf,
gentle through the sliding lillies,
sitting queenly open to the sun,
even slip, easy as a carved toy boat
past the narrow steep rocks,
right on by hidden tearing rocks,
under a low snag;
just around submerged deadheads
glide out into the open calm of the next lake.

Then--breathe easy,
rub our eyes
refill our water bottles from the deep still
open water
drink deep and long.

Overheard

Ezra: Wanna go adventuring in the woods?!
Fiona: I like the woods. I have a picture of me with my friends in the willow tree and we were in the woods.
Ezra: It's special when someone gives you a picture.
Fiona: No, my picture is something that really happened to me.

Basket of Eggs

Baby, you were so worth it! I worried so much. That birth was so hard.
You are so beautiful. I love you.
I wrote this while pregnant, hopeful and wondering about the child to come, trying not to count my chick before he hatched.


Crafted slowly, tenderly thoughtfully
this one is gilded, beauty-bright

This, covered in sugared violets, sparkles
in the Easter breakfast light.

Here, fern-green, unfurling fronds wrap around
this one, dark red, a soaking, velvet crimson.
This plain one, warm, hums like a honey bee.
One dew-damp from the morning chill,
another ringed with a quadrille of curliques

They nestle in the straw
in a circle softly mother-lined.

Behold! Tokens of inner wealth
glory-filled
vigil-waited
sunrise-light---

yet what's inside,
the treasure lasting,
is not ours yet,
till in our hand.

Sup with me: Honey Baked Lentils

Hrmmph. Dislike cooking?

I'm not a gourmand, and this is no Smitten Kitchen, but I think I might do some posts of cheap, healthy, easy quick dinners. Recipe at the bottom of post--skip down if you don't want my rambling commentary.

This one can be made, for me, without a trip to the store. It's because of our well stocked pantry, which could just as easily be a cupboard. Here's how it works: I always have onions, (I don't know how anyone functions if you don't have a couple of onions waiting for you!) garlic, spices, and the grains and oils and baking stuff I use all the time, on hand. When I use up one of these ingredients, I just write it on the grocery list that we keep running, on the fridge. I have tied a pencil to the magnet that holds the list, because otherwise I can't find anything to write with when I use up the ingredient, and I forget about it and don't have it the next time I need it. Things that are sold in bulk at the coop where we shop, like lentils and honey, I write a b next to, with a little circle around it, so Paul, who does the grocery shopping, will be alerted to bring the appropriate container. If I were really organized, I would put the empty container in a certain place, like the grocery bag, so he wouldn't have to hunt around to find it!
I haven't planned this recipe into this week, but if I needed to, I could go downstairs and make it right now. It can be baked in the oven, or a crock pot (which I don't have) or in a solar oven if it's too hot to heat the house.

I think the key to not loathing cooking is only making food that you personally like to eat! I don't even try cooking things that seem weird or gross to me. When I have, it is invariably a disaster.
I enjoy preparing meals for the family infinitely more if I know where my food came from, and can feel good about serving them something delicious and nourishing. I also like touching good fresh food. I am a bit like a preschooler--my favorite thing about this recipe, is running the lentils through my hands when I put them in the dish! (If the kids aren't too messy, one could let them play with the dried beans while one gets the rest of the ingredients together. It's like a sensory bin in the nursery school! My kids like to put their plastic snakes and dinosaurs in grain and make little diorama scenes! Afterwards they want to help put everything together, and then they have a better chance of liking the food, since they helped cook it.)

Also, a sharp knife, and a good wooden butcher block. It's no fun to cut an onion with a dull knife. That makes me cry. And then I'm liable to cut myself, or go ballistic when the kids flip the lentils I gave them all over the kitchen floor. Life with little children is really more enjoyable with a good sharp knife. I have one plain good chef's knife that I use for almost everything. I sharpen it with a round steel I keep right next to the knife. I haven't taken a class in sharpening, (I know, I'm really just straightening the edge, Imad!) but it stays keen enough for me. I use a wooden butcher block to cut, for everything. A damp towel under the cutting board can keep it from sliding around if that's a problem.

This is the recipe that got me started tolerating beans. I first found it on HappyFoody. For some reason, I grew up loathing them. But this is so tasty, I like to lick out the pot after it's all gone! I brought this to a church dinner once, and people who claimed they hated lentils had seconds and asked for the recipe. No guarantees that you or yours will like it, but I and mine do! I find that my hungry children like almost anything, whereas my children who've had their fill of crackers and sweets are bound to complain about even their favorite dishes!

Honey Baked Lentils
Good for the cooler months. Serve with good rice, or pitas, or fresh whole wheat bread and butter, or as a soup, with a spoon! Great with a nutty or grainy bread. This does take some time in the oven, so it's not a last-minute dish, but it is low effort! Good with carrots or winter squash or sweet potatoes. Winter vegetables could be cooked into it. But honestly I just make it plain and simple.

I cup Lentils, I use brown
Onion, chopped
2 Tbsp Honey, could also be made with maple syrup
2 Tbsp Soy sauce or tamari
2 Tbsp Olive oil
1/2 tsp Ginger: grated fresh or the powdered spice is fine too
2 cups Water
Salt and pepper to taste

Put all the ingredients in a covered dish, in a 350F oven, and bake until fragrant and tender, about 1 1/2 hours. Lentils should be very soft.
If desired, blend or run through a food mill to make it smooth; for some reason my kids like smooth things best.

Contentment and the Cardinal Virtues

Pretty:
I love that life springs up everywhere! This is a patch of sweet green sprouting in something--ahem--mostly dead, in our backyard. I love that this is what god does in the lives of his people; make life grow where all was dead.
I don't want to say it too loud, lest I incur the wrath of neighborly weed-haters, but I cherish a secret love of creeping charlie. As a kid, I mourned when Dad cut all the lovely purple flowers in the lawn just when they were starting to get nice. I like to lie in it, and I love it's charming fragrance. I don't like it in my vegetable garden, though you couldn't tell that by looking! So lush, verdant, and luxuriously green.

Happy: I am happy to have good friends in our neighborhood. I am happy my kids have sweet pals. Look at them! The tutu! The sword! The hands held, the valiant smile and the determined chins! Doesn't the picture of childhood in summer just warm the cockles of your heart?

I am happy we are learning so much together. These are great kids, and we love learning together!

They learn whether I want them to or not! For instance, I would sort of rather the learning-via-digging-under-the-clotheslines stop pretty soon. Or at least before the clotheslines fall over! But, oh, you wouldn't beleive the discoveries that have been made in this pit! It has been dug and redug. Bones unearthed, floods, mud games, bridges, secrets galore! I haven't had the heart to put a stop to it yet. Today, Ezra went ankle-deep in delight and mud-lusciousness.
Real:
I've been thinking about the four cardinal virtues Leila from Like Mother, Like Daughter talks about: Fortitude, Prudence, Temperance, and Justice. Mostly thinking what a woefully short supply I have of them! Honestly, I had heard of the four cardinal virtues before; my Grandpa Roy liked to extol them. But his weren't the ones listed above-- I won't discuss Grandpa's cardinal virtues in mixed company!
Fortitude, Prudence, Temperance, and Justice. These are solid.
I've done a lot of working on Peace, Joy, Love, and Hope, but they so often elude me. How can one work on peace? I can't generate Joy, you know. I wonder if Fortitude, Prudence, Temperance, and Justice might not give me a handle with which to grasp, to receive the sweet gifts of God.
Fortitude to let go of the doubts and recriminations that steal the joy he's given.

Can I see the beauty, the glory of God in the midst of real life?
Funny: I've seen so many lemonade stands this summer! I love the way they hawk their wares.
I never had the chutzpa to set out my shingle like that, but I think these kids are making bank! My kids far prefer lemonade stand kool-aid to my fresh-squeezed. I think my husband does too! Ha!
Way to go kids!

Miscellany of Frugal Food tips

Our family of five spends $400 a month and I feel like we live like kings. We shop at our co-op or farmers' market. We shoot for local, real food. I say amen to all the folks I meet who want real food! Do you wonder if it's possible to eat fresh, local, ethically grown food without being rich? I think it is!
-planning is huge. I make the most I can out of all our meat. A roast, salad and sandwiches from the leftovers, broth and sauces from the bones, fat, and juices. We look to buy whole birds/small animals and split half or quarter cows/other large animals with neighbors and family. I look at what's leftover when planning the next shopping trip--we buy exactly what we need
-plan ahead for snack food and lunches. I like to have grabbable snacks around for emergencies and busy days. I have found it useful to package up leftovers into meal-sized containers before we eat. Otherwise if it's good, it just gets all eaten, or only
the unpopular bits are leftover.
-when we have beans, I make tortillas the next day. I make a bunch extra, wrap them up and freeze them for good quick meals.
-Gardening! It's not as hard as it seems! The garden gets a little better every year, as I learn from my mistakes. Really, the first year I planted tomatoes, I was amazed that these things grown with next to no assistance. It's like a miracle every year. You plant things, and they grow, and make fruits! What a gift from God!
-we never buy prime cuts. Luckily, our neighbors we are buying beef with this year want exclusively prime cuts! Jack Sprat and his wife, you know.
-we planted strawberries, mullberries, raspberries, blackberries, juneberries. I get blueberry bushes for friends who have better yards for growing them. Berries are so expensive organic, we can never afford to buy them, even locally and pick-your own. Once planted, they get better every year and come back on their own. (did I mention I love perennial foods?!!)
-we have a small yard, so glean from other people's fruit trees. Most people with fruit trees don't seem to know what to do with all the fruit! Some people are happy to let me harvest their whole crop instead of letting it fall on the sidewalk. This has worked for me with apples, pears, crabapples, grapes. One good little tree gives us a year's supply of applesauce and apple butter. Fruit is really important to us! I have gotten fruit from vacant lots.
-We get WIC. I know lots of people qualify for this who would never think of getting assistance--we love the program. they are always very respectful, and we can buy all the food at our coop. they also give vouchers for our local farmers' market.
-we make everything we can from scratch. little by little I've built up skills and habits. for instance, I realized we used a lot of ketchup; when I canned tomatoes I put up a year's supply of ketchup for not much extra work. pickles, jams, sauces--this type of stuff is way more expensive to buy than to make. yogurt, fresh cheeses. I don't know if fermented grains would be better nutritionally for you than other grains, but they are for us. I started a lot of this reading "More With Less", the mennonite cookbook. They also have a seasonal cookbook, "simply in Season".

-seasonal eating. Buy what's cheap when it's cheap, in quantity. We eat a lot of squash and beets in the winter! Mushrooms and beef in fall, chickens, dairy, eggs, and onions in spring. Vegetables galore in the summer. I recommend "Full Moon Feast". and "Midwest Gardener's Cookbook".
-free and cheap garden ideas: buy green onions, save the rootbase and the bottom inch of stalk. Stick these in the ground, and next year enjoy fresh green onions! An herb garden has a big payoff--once planted, perennial herps just come back on their own, with no extra money and harldy any work. I don't ever buy fresh herbs from the coop, but cook with them every day for free!
-I haven't yet successfully started tomatoes and peppers from seed, but all the gardeners I know who do this often have lots of starts they want to give away for free.
-alfalfa sprouts and other bean sprouts: I grow these in a jar with a screen lid on the dish drainer. Great for the winter when fresh greens are so pricey and shipped across the country
-I seed coriander/cilantro from the bulk whole herbs at the coop. also coop garlic is way cheaper for planting. than garden suppliers, and usually open-pollinated, heirloom varieties. Ditto onions and potatoes. If I have some spouting or getting all soft, I just plant them out. I say amen to a lot of what has been posted and will try to only add my extra bits:
-we buy all our food at our co-op or farmers market. we shoot for local, real food.
-We get WIC. I know lots of people qualify for this who would never think of getting assistance--we love the program. they are always very respectful, and we can buy all the food at our coop. they also give vouchers for our local farmers' market.
-planning is huge. I make the most I can out of all our meat. A roast, salad and sandwiches from the leftovers, broth and sauces from the bones, fat, and juices. We look to buy whole birds/small animals and split half or quarter cows/other large animals with neighbors and family. I look at what's leftover when planning the next shopping trip--we buy exactly what we need
-plan ahead for snack food and lunches. I like to have grabbable snacks around for emergencies and busy days. I have found it useful to package up leftovers into meal-sized containers before we eat. Otherwise if it's good, it just gets all eaten, or only the unpopular bits are leftover.
-when we have beans, I make tortillas the next day. I make a bunch extra, wrap them up and freeze them for good quick meals.
-we never buy prime cuts. Luckily, our neighbors we are buying beef with this year want exclusively prime cuts! Jack Sprat and his wife, you know.
-we planted strawberries, mullberries, raspberries, blackberries, juneberries. I give blueberry bushes to friends who have better yards for growing them. Berries are so expensive organic, we can never afford to buy them, even locally and pick-your own. Once planted, they get better every year and come back on their own.
-we have a small yard, so glean from other people's fruit trees. Most people with fruit trees don't seem to know what to do with all the fruit! People are often happy to let me harvest their whole crop instead of letting it fall on the sidewalk. This has worked for me with apples, pears, crabapples, grapes. One good little tree gives us a year's supply of applesauce and apple butter. Fruit is really important to us! I also get fruit from vacant lots
-we make everything we can from scratch. little by little I've built up skills and habits. for instance, I realized we used a lot of ketchup; when I canned tomatoes I put up a year's supply of ketchup for not much extra work. pickles, jams, sauces--this type of stuff is way more expensive to buy than to make. yogurt, fresh cheeses. I don't know if fermented grains would be better nutritionally for you than other grains, but they are for us. I started a lot of this reading "More With Less", the mennonite cookbook. They also have a seasonal cookbook, "simply in Season".
-seasonal eating. I buy what's cheap when it's cheap, in quantity. We eat a lot of squash and beets in the winter! Mushrooms and beef in fall, chickens, dairy, eggs, and onions in spring. Vegetables galore in the summer. I recommend "Full Moon Feast". and "Midwest Gardener's Cookbook".
-free and cheap garden ideas: when I buy green onions, I save the rootbase and the bottom inch of stalk. Stick these in the ground, and next year enjoy fresh green onions. An herb garden has a big payoff--once planted, perennial herps just come back on their own, with no extra money and harldy any work. I wouldn't ever buy fresh herbs from the coop, but cook with them every day for free!
-I haven't yet successfully started tomatoes and peppers from seed, but all the gardeners I know who do this always have lots of starts they want to give away for free.
-alfalfa sprouts and other bean sprouts: I grow these in a jar with a screen lid on the dish drainer. Great for the winter when fresh greens are so pricey and shipped across the country
-I seed coriander/cilantro from the bulk whole herbs at the coop. also coop garlic is way cheaper for planting. than garden suppliers, and usually open-pollinated, heirloom varieties. Ditto onions and potatoes. If I have some spouting or getting all soft, I just plant them out.
-I look for recipes that have just a handful of ingredients, most in my pantry, playing backup to whatever's in season. Simple but really good.
-I don't feel at all bad about being cheap. It is a delight to have good, fresh food. I like my food better since I don't get everything year-round. By the time it finally warms up enough for minnesota greens or chives and peas, or cools off for apples and soups, we're all so hungry for them!