Happy 2012 to ya!

Hey hos! Happy New Year!

What up with you?

Me? I'm getting shit D-O-N-E.

It's been a pretty productive season following Hallowe'en. Here's my quick wrap up of the Fall of 2011:

• I cleaned up Hallowe'en, which took for-fucking-ever (about a week). It was a big Hallowe'en.
• I severely f'ed up my foot, which I am working on fixing.  Did you know they have little tiny blood pressure cuffs for your toes? They are so cute!!! Next time I'll take photos.
• Hired someone to replace me and am training him, slowly, but surely.
• I started my new job which is going very well. I am enjoying the anticipation of really getting the program off the ground.
• A very quiet Thanksgiving with the in-laws
• Lots and lots of crocheting for holiday gifts
• And the last three weeks have been a slew of parties for Hanukkah, Christmas, my 41st birthday and the New Year

Whew! In all of that, I have been getting a ton accomplished. The crocheting, yes, but also quite a lot of cleaning out of excess stuff.

Sometimes I feel like I don't get as much accomplished as I could because I have more than I need. For example: I have supplies for crafts from now until the next millennium. While I like having these supplies, sometimes they distract me from the things I really want to be doing. It's almost paralyzing to have so many choices! So, to focus a bit, I am slowly giving away or selling the things that seem excessive. I can still have 10 pairs of scissors if I really need them, because I use them all, but perhaps, since I've never done anything with the needlefelting kit, I could lose that. And the drop spindle. And the Big Ass Book of Crafts (which is super cute, but I've never used anything in it!).

So I've been getting rid of about 10 things a day for the last week. It's been pretty restorative. Whether it's a magazine, a marble or something much larger, it seems not only manageable but it also doesn't seem forced. If I only get to 8 in one day, that's fine. Perhaps I'll get 12 the next day.

Why am I getting rid of all of this stuff? What does simplifying do for me?
I feel freer the less stuff I have. It's true. I used to take these vacations in the Grand Canyon and I would rent a cabin that had a bed, a desk, two chairs and two lamps.  I always left my 4 days there feeling like I could live like that forever.  Of course, that's a little extreme, but if I romanticize living simply, there's obviously something to that.

Also, it gets me to a place where I am more focused on my current love, which is the little Bluestocking Farm. This has been a super cold start to winter (except this week which has been over 80 degrees F EVERY DAY!). The cold bit a bunch of my herbs, especially my chives which had previously been doing pretty well. So now I'm planning the spring garden, which will be here and ready for planting before I know it.

Anyone know of a good Southern California spring planting guide? I'd like to get this year right!

Pump up the jam, pump it up!!!!

So, when I realized that julienning orange peel for four hours was a relaxing way to spend an afternoon, I discovered that jam making and canning might just be for me.

In the last 6 months, I have canned over 150 jars of jam, marmalade and jellies.  I have had some spectacular successes (see Apricot Jam [OMG] and Loquat Jelly) and some miserable failures (actually just one this year, the Rainier Cherry Vanilla Bean Jam). But now a lovely woman named Piper Goldstein, proprietress of the new Atwater Village Farm, is giving me my first start in the real world, selling jam at the Pickle Pop Up this Thursday night in Atwater Village!!!!

What is Atwater Village Farm, you ask?

It is a brilliant idea!  Piper is a chef with a dream of opening a market that provides both a community environment and an opportunity to purchase fresh, organic local produce at an affordable price.  Piper is collaborating with local farmers and food artisans (that's me!) to provide affordable and sustainable food and knowledge.  She is going to be offering classes on having your own little urban farm and how to use what you produce (or buy from her!).

Atwater Village Farm isn't open yet, but I'm anticipating their opening in the Fall, my favorite season.

How can you be involved? Well, you can go to Kickstarter and donate anything from $1 to $5,000 to help Piper meet her goal. Or....you can come out to the Atwater Village Summer Nights on the Boulevard where AVF is hosting the Pickle Pop Up this Thursday night and buy some jam. Preferably from the table of BluestockingFarm!!!! 10% of the proceeds will go directly to the Kickstarter campaign!  

So what's a bluestocking?

The term was first coined around 1790, in reference to the blue, worsted wool stockings that were considered "casual wear" as opposed to the more formal black silk stockings. It traces to a London literary salon founded circa 1750 and led by Elizabeth Montagu and was used as a derisive word for a woman considered too educated or with a scholarly, literary, or intellectual ability. 


I've loved this term since the first time I heard it and always identified with it. While it used to be somewhat akin to calling someone a "strident, harpy feminist", which I've certainly been called in its various forms, I'd always hoped to use the term in some way.  

Farming too, has been ridiculed and maligned. While we used to understand that we relied on farming for our very sustenance, most of us have become so far removed from the sources of our food as to believe that everything is picked clean and waxed from a sanitized patch of air. 

Making has always been something appealing to me. Whether it's farming, baking, sewing, crocheting or building.  There is something so wonderfully rewarding about planting a seed and being able to use the results. Starting from scratch and eventually having a finished product. Building beds, hauling straw, amending soil, harvesting vegetables and serving them to the people you love is so satisfying to me.  None of this takes me away from feminism, but closer to it. When reading, learning, studying, I am in my head.  A place I am infinitely comfortable. When planting, digging, making, I am in my body; a place I am lacking familiarity, but I learn with every shovelful.  

The best part about it, is it makes me giddy. I laugh when I accomplish something and you should see how hard I laugh when I screw something up. It's all a journey.