Monthly Archives: May 2007

When you first read wine making books, you get the impression that you need a degree in chemistry to undertake the task. Above is the display my weekend class put out for others to see after our course. Now I know wine making is remarkably easy and there’s a great deal of room for creativity. It is like all forms of cooking. All you need is the basics and a voracious appetite for experimentation and you are ready to go.
 
This weekend, I learned about making country wines, which are blends made with fruits, vegetables and herbs. The only difficulty I imagine from this point on is remembering the details about how to proceed successfully, because the class started sampling wines in different stages of fermentation at 9am, and we kept at it until five, which does not bode well for an academic mindset or clear memory.  I was shocked by how good homemade country wines can be, such as dandelion-chamomile, or kiwi, or strawberry sweetened with fresh lemonade before the final racking. My teacher was wonderfully prepared, and had set things up in advance so we could sample batches of wine right after we made them, then taste what they should be like six days later, then six months. He then gave us a tasting of what those same recipes would taste like in one year. This gave us the full gamete of the process and helps us to know what to look for. Can’t imagine how to cover the subject in a single weekend any other way.

Nearly everyone in the class had made wine before, mostly from kits. I’ve considered starting with a kit, but held off be cause I felt they were cheating somehow. In a kit, all the ingredients are given you in little pre-measured packets and you are guided day by day in what to do to make what will turn out to be foolproof wine. Sort of a no-brainer. Seemed to me as if this would be going through the motions, but not really learning to make wine from scratch. But I feel differently now, because I realize kits allow people to go through the motions to learn basics, and afterwords, they are prepared to strike out on their own to try a different recipes without the pre-measured ingredients or day to day instructions, but at least an idea of what to expect and how to proceed (and some basic tools).

We made strawberry wine and kiwi chardonnay in the class, learned how to bottle it, and make fancy personalized labels. We learned how to cork those bottles and put spiffy gold seal locks on top for a pretty presentation.

We learned all about fermentation and how to sweeten wine and how one batch can deliver bottles of dry wine, as well as sweeter wines if you have a taste for them.  Someone had brought in 10 gallons of wine gone bad, and we learned how to fix it. That was a great “extra” beyond the syllabus, thanks to the fellow with the cloudy, tangy wine who was not too proud to bring it in and withstand jokes about his questionable wine making talent.

Here are the bottles I came away with this weekend. One was designated for Denver, because yesterday was her 21st birthday. What better way to make the day than by giving her a (now) legal beverage made to honor her adulthood?

If you look closely, you can see I put “Hendry Private Reserve” on the lable. La-ti-da!

By around 3:00 in the afternoon, we had finished most of the wine making, and were in sampling mode. This was our designated happy hour, and my teacher had invited friends in from his band (he plays in a bluegrass band and is a songwriter too.) They did a rip-roaring stand up comedy act for us filed with backcountry wine jokes, then played music while we all sampled wine. It was great, casual fun. Two of the friends he invited make mead, so they gave a short lecture on that division of wine making too and let us sample different flavored meads. I was fascinated, because as a beekeeper, I’m already looking for special ways to use the honey I will harvest next year (mead is made with honey).

I must say that learning to make wine hit a hot note deep inside me. I thought, “This is my calling” because there is something so lovely about taking natural ingredients and working with them for a year or so to create something to special to share with friends. My teacher said the greatest thing about homemade wine is the fact that people rarely turn it down. Even non-drinkers will visit will say, “Well, if it is homemade, I guess I’ll try some.” As if homemade wine doesn’t count as drinking. Ha.

As we sampled wines, we kept categorizing them by use . . .”I’d call this a luncheon wine,” we’d say as we samples something fruity and light. “This is definitely a campfire wine,” we’d say about something with a raw kick. And in my mind, I started thinking about what I really like and what kind of wines I would enjoy serving at home adhering to our lifestyle and taste preferences. I love the idea that there is no right or wrong, you can develop wine to your personal idea of what tastes good. 
Here is my teacher. Although he has won some awards for his country wines and meads, he had this great down to earth attitude. He said, “What I want all you to think after this class is not what a great wine maker I am, but that if this simple guy can make wine, anyone can!” 

One of the best wines we tried was wild blackberry. Dave (the teacher) said the problem about making blackberry wine was that it takes so long to pick the amount of blackberries needed. Ha. No problem. I looked at his 4 pounds of blackberries and thought it was nary a morning’s work for Neva and I. We are a blackberry-picking machine in July.

On the way home from the class, Mark took me to see a local wine supply store nestled in a small stone cottage out in the middle of nowhere. Funny how he discovers these kinds of places and stores them in the back of his mind for just when you need them. We went in and met this burly old man who growled that all homemade wine tastes like gasoline . . . then he said, “What do I need to get started?” Yes, he was quite the salesman. We bought all the basic supplies, and I threw in a kit for Pinot Grigio too. I am planning to make some strawberry wine while the strawberries are still in season and get it racked in time for blackberry in a few months. But I will make a sure proven, name brand white wine too for those who are wine palate snobs and will turn up their noses at the idea of country wines. (I will woo them with my kit wine and having won their confidence, I’ll seduce them into trying my experimental lowbrow country wines. I have a plan, you see.) 

Once I was home, I went on line to pick up some basic acid blends and tannins and other wine making ingredients so I can springboard off from the basics and start experimenting with fruit, flower and herb recipes. I also bought a book on homemade vinegars and cordials and I plan to start making those as well. Yes, it is only a matter of time until I have a liquor still hidden back behind my barn.  I even have a hankering to make beer, even though no one in this family drinks it. Nevertheless, hey, I have friends I can use as beer-ginnie-pigs. At this rate, I’ll be all ready to move to a quiet village in Italy to buy that wine vineyard in the next stage of life (a secret destiny Mark and I always joke about when we are stressed out and wish we could disappear where no one could find us.)

The most poignant thing about this weekend was laughing and talking with people who take the time to pursue an interest, whatever it may be. The world is filled with fascinating people who are full of life, a sense of adventure, and who are simply dang interesting, if you pause long enough to ask them questions and let conversation roll naturally. I think my world has been filled with one-dimensional people for way too long. Not that they were not interesting people in their own way, but they were not necessarily diversified and so many years of conversations centered only on theater and dance began to feel like I was living the movie Groundhog day. It made me feel an awful lot of living was passing everyone by, due to his or her tunnel (dance) vision. 
Here are my wine-making friends, all trying something new with a vengeance and such humor it made the experience quite a hoot.

Since sharing my interest in making wine, I’ve discovered many friends have tried it (even my sister – who knew?) Our friend, Vicki, always gave us Kaluaha for Christmas, and I knew she made it herself, but I never paused to consider just how this represented her diverse interest as a person. There were other things she did (ride a motorcycle etc…) which reminded me she was (is) more than a dancer. How many others kept dance in perspective and lived a life beyond? I wouldn’t know, because in my presence, they rarely brought up anything else, forever picking my brain and returning to the subject of dance no matter how I tried to discover who these people were. Perhaps, everyone ‘s life was diversified but mine. Sad reality.

Anyway, I’m very grateful now that I have the time to be more than a dancer myself and  I can see now that the only way to do that was to leave the obsessive environment we had created. Not that I didn’t have interests beyond dance before, or that I didn’t secretly pursue them. I’ve always been a voracious cook, a runner, a crafter, a reader, etc… And although I didn’t share this fact with others, I was writing historical romance novels while running the dance empire for some time. However, there was always this guilt that spending time on anything other than work was cheating someone of something – as if I was not allowed to be anything other than the dance person.  And time was so precious that rarely could we invest it in anything non dance oriented. Even weekends were reserved for rehearsals or competitions as we strove to meet the needs of group after group of dancers. But now,  I feel I have permission to dive head first into any interest that calls to me, and I don’t fret that a weekend playing is taking away from my (self-appointed) role as dance guru. This fills me with a profound sense of freedom. 

Some days, I feel like a blind person who suddenly was given their sight. Because of the path we’ve taken, I am meeting people from all walks of life who have crazy, fascinating interests and who in midlife, have chosen non-traditional paths to pursue, with priorities centered on self-fulfillment and their personal description of happiness. We are not unique in this choice we’ve made, and everyday we meet other couples who one day just up and decided to leave the rat race to seek a more meaningful life. I feel blessed to meet people like this because the siren’s call of work and hanging on to security and making as much money as you can (because that is what we are taught is practical and right) is hard to resist – habit and ingrained social training, I’m afraid. But sitting around that folk school class drinking homemade wine and listening to my teacher sing a song called “Take me away from concrete and greed” while playing his homemade percussion instrument (complete with a tin can, plunger, washboard, bicycle horn and other fine music making instruments attached to a walking stick) reminded me that true joy isn’t found when you are always trying to meet other’s expectations. Happiness is something often found in solitude, where you can discover calm moments of your true self, uninfluenced by others or even your own self-imposed self-definition and/or self-appointed obligations to others.

But then again, maybe all this philosophical mumbo-jumbo is just because I was drinking all day! Ha. I must have polished off several bottles, and lying under a table does make you see things upside down- life takes on a different perspective when you have a lampshade on your head.

Mark joined me at the Campbell school for the weekend, and this time, since there were no other classes that appealed to him; he registered for a class that was entirely different from anything he has ever tried. He usually takes classes working with wood. This time he took blacksmithing and worked with copper.

He liked it more than he expected, and plans to return to learn to make an iron lamp and other metal art. I happen to adore sculpture and I’ve hoped he would venture into the blacksmith shop one of these days, so I was delighted. The Campbell school is renowned for its blacksmithing courses and people come from all over the country to study here.  The problem with that is everyone is so experienced that it makes you feel like a bumpkin to be a beginner. But Mark was willing to try his hand at it.  I myself am quite intimidated by the workshop, because there are huge roaring fires inside and men dunking hot red iron trinkets in buckets where steam rises and hisses. People are in there pounding hammers against anvils so there is noise and heat and loud machinery creating nothing that could be construed as a meditative environment. Everything is covered with black dust – but the most beautiful things come out of there. Blacksmithing done well is such a remarkable art.  
Since this was just a weekend class, they were focusing on flowers made from copper. Mark made a gorgeous rose for Denver (wine and roses for her big 21!). It was so realistic, it was as if he dunked a real rose into a vat of copper and it hardened rahter than being cut from flat copper, fired and pounded into shape. He also made a tabletop sculpture for us with two other flowers. I think it is exquisite for a first attempt. Heck, it is exquisite for any attempt.

He hopes to go back for a week long class to learn more. I am now dreaming of future gift sculptures made from my own horses horseshoes. Talk about something meaningful yet interesting to rest on a desk! It’s a dirty hobby, to be sure. Mark’s hands were black, soot turned the white hair at his temples back to black. When I saw him at lunch, my first thought was to hose him down before giving him the wifely kiss. But hey, I’ve always liked men best when they are dirty and far be it from me to throw a stick at a blacksmith in the bedroom. Call me crazy, but that beats the man in a uniform or any other secret female fantasy, in my humble opinion. 

It was a lovely weekend – and for a moment or two we even got our mind off of the current FLEX crisis. Truthfully, even though we registered for these classes months ago, we almost didn’t go, do to depression. But when you are upset, sometime a change of environment is a very good thing (and a good stiff drink doesn’t hurt either). I think, in this case, spending our weekend in the positive, creative atmosphere of the Campbell Folk School with kind, enthusiastic people was just what we needed.
 
I’ll drink a toast to that in a few months when I crack open those bottles I made. 

This is our garden. I know it just looks like a big patch of dirt, but heck, that’s what it is (was.) This is the “before” picture just after we plowed an area of the field for our future garden . I will post another picture in late July and you will see corn and peas, yellow and green beans, yellow, green and banana peppers, four types of tomato, cucumber, yellow and green squash, assorted herbs, carrots and beets (well, these will be underground, but you will see the tops) lettuce and spinach, and strawberries. That’s all we planted for our first year attempts. It will get us by. Actually, this picture was taken before we actually planted seeds and seedlings. Now, there are some starter plants, stakes and tomato cages stuck into the dirt. Very exciting.  My dogs think so too, and they won’t stop going in there to dig up our carefully nurtured plants or to pull up stakes because they think those markers are chew toys. Grrrrr…. Damn dogs.
We will be putting up a fence next week. We are pretending it’s for the deer and other wildlife, but between you and me, it’s mostly for the dogs.

Putting in a garden from scratch isn’t easy. First, a tractor is used to plow up an area. I marvel at how much work it is to tear up land that has been weed-ridden for years, and I can’t stop thinking about early settlers and how they had to do everything without modern machinery. Mankind’s innovation and determination is remarkable.
Next, we used a hand held tiller (sort of like a push lawn mower) to churn up the dirt. We then used a hoe to devise rows for planting, and I was assigned the lovely job of squatting over to toss rocks and clumps of weed over my shoulder into the field. Gee, that was backbreaking fun.

Finally, we got to plant. Neva is a good help here. She likes to lay a single seed in a small hole and push the dirt on top, then give it her famous little pat. Very cute.
Next, had to water. Of course, we can’t reach a hose this far from the house so we have to do it by hand. We pull buckets up from the creek, fill a watering can,  and carefully water the seeds – NOT the aisles, because we want to control the weeds. Yes, we are at war with weeds already, even though not a single one has peeked it’s head up from the earth as yet. We hired a plumber to put in a water source down near the garden, but it isn’t finished yet. Soon, thank goodness. Watering once is a novelty. Having to do so for a full summer, I think I’d quit.

This is our creek. I will give you a “before” and “after” picture here too. The creek picture overrun by weeds is what our creek looked like when we moved here. The nice open creek picture is the “after” shot of what things look like after Mark uses his tractor to open up the stream and hand places rocks in just such a way it gives the water a cascading effect. This is a great deal of work. He’s accomplished about 20 feet of creek so far. He only has 50 acres more to go. Check back in ten years and we may be almost done with this particular project. Of course, by then, he will have to go back to the beginning to start over.

Believe it or not, I’m loving this entire gardening/farming process.  Mark is delighted because he has always been a gardener, but it’s been a lone pursuit. I’ve never taken much interest other than “ooing” and “ahhing” at the lovely environment he created about our homes. I can tell it is more fun for him to have someone working along side him in the sun. Until now, while I’ve appreciated flowers as much as any girl, I’ve never been inspired to give up my precious free time to tend them. I’m not so hung up on the visual that it was worth devoting every weekend to making a pretty landscape. But a veggie garden is an entirely different thing, because this leads to kitchen fun. I am all about food.

I’ve learned that anything remotely connected to cooking interests me. Face it, the reason I am excited about bee-keeping isn’t because I like bugs. It’s the idea of harvesting my own honey and making baklava and other treats that I can’t resist. I think my chickens are cute, but I seriously doubt I’d have them if it were not for the eggs I collect and how that encourages me to find new ways to cook them. You see, for all that I love the outdoors, it is all about playing in the kitchen in the end.

Tending a food-bearing garden is a thrill, because I envision cooking and canning all the home grown product. I had such a good time last year making jelly and syrup from the berries I picked.  I bought a cook book on gourmet canning and have collected recipes for pickles, relishes and all kinds of exotic vegetable mixes. And spaghetti sauce! Mark kept complaining as I added yet another breed of tomato to our shopping cart, insisting I will never be able to use all the tomatoes I’m going to get. Ha! He underestimates me. I have big plans in the tomato department. And the fact is, if we are overrun with more vegetables than we can use, I have plenty of animals that will eat the extras -even those that are slightly bug ridden or brown about the edges. 

We’ve planted plum, pear. peach and apple trees just for the hundreds of future batches of crisps and pie I aspire to make. I snuck in a few raspberry plants, and grapes, for other dessert options. My sourdough starter sits bubbling in my fridge, beckoning me to make bread even though we are on a bread-ban thanks to diets. Well, if that is off-limits, I can lean how to dry and make tea from scratch from home-grown herbs. Can’t be hard. Might be fun.

I know what you are thinking. It would be a lot less trouble to just go to the farmer’s market and purchase homegrown product in season and I could cook whatever I wanted for allot less trouble and a relatively equal investment. But that isn’t nearly as much fun. Heck, that’s like asking why I raise angora bunnies and spin my own wool to make a scarf when I can buy synthetic yarn at Walmart. Better yet, why not just buy a scarf made in Taiwan at Walmart and avoid making anything at all?
See, the point is not that you can’t get a scarf any other way. It isn’t to avoid effort or save money, but to experience the process of creating something from start to finish – to take pride and make an art of the food I present to those I care about.
And there is also the fact that I write about these experiences. I am working on a memoir about an urbanite midlifer discovering the joy of country living now. And more importantly, I will always write historical fiction. What better way to research how my characters lived years ago than by trying my hand at a few of the former necessary life skills? Since these activities are approached as a hobby and not a part of securing our existence (or paying a farm mortgage) I can always stop anything that turns out to be too much work, no fun, or that ties us down too much. For now, it is great fun to try new things. 

This weekend I’ll be taking my three day seminar at the Campbell folk school on how to make wine. Can’t wait. Mark rolled his eyes and said, “If you like this as much as I’m afraid you will, can we at least wait until another season to put in a vineyard?”
Ha. Of course, Dear. In the meantime, I’ll play with juices and store bought grapes, and even try my hand at mead (made from fermented honey) and country wines (made from fruit like apples, peaches and mulberries.) I might even make some beer, just to see what that is all about. 

I think what I like best about
all we can do now that we no longer spend every moment obsessing on a dance school, is that life is seasonal. This summer, we can use the long lazy days to harvest and cook, work bees and enjoy our land. We can horseback ride and go kayaking or boating and really spend interesting time together. The kids and I will both be out of school, and Mark is done building the house, so we want to spend a few months celebrating our first summer of total freedom.  But in the winter, things will be different. The chickens stop laying. Imust leave the beehive dormant for months. Nothing is growing in the garden. It is too cold to boat or ride (well, you can go out on a horse if you enjoy snow and crisp wind). The kids are in school. The house is quiet and dull. That is when Mark and I will travel a bit, and when home, I will buckle down to do some serious writing. He will hole up in the workshop and crank out furniture. It is when I’ll make bees wax candles for Christmas and open up jars of homemade sauce or pickles to see how they turned out when I want to play little house on the prarie.  And there is the fact that we are seriously considering opening another business. We looked at a building to buy yesterday and got all excited and started brainstorming. But we are in no hurry. Why invite that kind of work focus into your life again any sooner than you must? It is only a matter of time until our attention shifts to the world beyond our little hobby farm.

I like having a rhythm to life, and after years in mild Florida, I look forward to every change in season with newfound appreciation. Weather and the shifts in nature’s bounty make every month different here – each season is filled with it’s own flavor and surprises.  Next summer I may not want a garden, or bees or anything else remotely connected to farming. We may be emmeshed in building a new business. But as it stands now, I feel wonderfully connected to the earth and I am enjoying every bee sting, every broken nail, and every cry for Advil after a day of hauling or digging. Nothing lasts forever. It is important to savor each moment as it comes, and to pause to appreciate what you have before it is gone.






  

   

I talk a great deal about my dance-afterlife. But what is great about expanding your horizons is that life is an accumulative experience, and the impact of living, both the good and bad,  stays with you . You bring what you learned from one experience to the next, and in a case like mine, you don’t easily “let go” and move on without looking back over your shoulder at the same time. Some elements of a person’s personality resonate and fester, and can’t be swept under a carpet, so they ooze out and manifest in tangible ways – sort of a reminder of who you were and deep down, probably always will be.

This is why I thought I’d show you our workout room in the house. It isn’t as large as a dance studio, but it is larger than what most people have for personal use. Currently, it is filled with equipment scattered in corners awaiting better organization and storage. We need to build a rack to hold the workout balls, etc… But still, this gives you a general idea of where we spend some time.    

This is a shot from the treadmill (which is NOT a device designed to hold folded laundry, despite what my friend Cory says). As you can see, we have a TV here so we can watch a movie or show while we walk (to keep us on the machine). The cabinet below is filled with workout DVD’s – everything from yoga and pump to pilates and ball workouts. Of course, Jessica’s workout DVD has a place of honor here.
 
 
When you walk into our workout space, you encounter a wall covered with dance shots and articles that give a pictorial history of our dance life. Denver calls it the wall of fame. I think for Mark it is the wall of shame, because whenever one of the burly construction cowboys steps in and sees him in tights, they can’t help but make a joke about it.  I happen to love this wall. When I am on the treadmill, these images are right before me. My mind wanders to the wonderful people and experiences I’ve been blessed to know during my dance journey. I have pictures from my years in New York (and my first teachers/mentors – forever on the wall as a way of honoring them), pictures from FLEX and pictures of a few of the students that meant so much to us. I can see pictures of my husband back when he was only a student, long before he became my partner in life. He was such a determined, hard working artist. There is the first article I ever sold to a magazine (about dance) and articles written about us and the programs we created. And all of it deserves recognition, because every facet of dance from the beginning is a part of who we are now.
 
When my parents visited last week, I thought they might make a derogatory comment about this wall, because they get aggravated by the way I continue to care about what happens to our school and the dancers in the aftermath of our leaving. They say dance is no longer our problem, and something is wrong with me because I seem to need to keep one toe in the water. Mark gets annoyed too, as if the fact that I care means I’m going to drag him back into a world that was so hard for us to break free from. It’s true, I ponder creative solutions to problems more than I should. But I don’t know why that would be threatening to anyone. No rule says once I shut a door I’m required to pretend I don’t care, when I do. Frankly, It would be disturbing if it was any easier to turn my back on dance and everything I cared about for so many years. It would mean I spent an awful lot of time on something that was, in fact, dispensable. I prefer knowing that I spent all that time, energy and put an emotional investment into something that still is (and forever will be) important in the big scheme. I’ve moved on, but still, I care about dance and our role in it.
  
Anyway, My mom saw the wall and said “I’m really glad you did this. It is lovely to see this part of you preserved, and nice to think you have remembrances of what you loved around you.”
I appreciated her understanding of these pictures and why I wanted to hang them.
Here’s the wall: I still have Westcoast Dance Project posters to hang  somewhere (WCDP was our non-profit regional dance company from ten years ago). They are special and deserve a place of honor too.
 
There are other pictures around the room too, but I can’t stand back enough to take a shot of the entire room in one swoop. The poster of Mark that hung for years in the FLEX lobby has a place of significance on one wall (Don’t pay attention to the loose balls and the steps and risers – we bought six steps, which is more than one household should need, except that Mark occasionally gives a step class to Denver, Dianne, and whomever else wants to get sweaty with us. Remember – the closest health club is a 50 minute drive.) 

The collage I made way back when I first decided to open FLEX (from old unwanted pix from New York) hangs above the treadmill. This picture has been on the wall of FLEX since the first day it opened – in fact, it was the only picture I could afford to hang (made it from scraps) for about two years. I remember I put it up just so my little new school looked “dancy” way back when. I smile when I see how young I was (and how old the poses and style of dance wear). But it is nice to remember that version of me, nevertheless. I was so passionate about the art. That fire burned hot for such a long time. It still smolders. Perhaps it always will. This collage represents so much to me – my New York years, my FLEX years and my history in general.


The nicest thing about this room is that we can go here and do a warm-up or workout privately. Sometimes we play music and dance. It is a space to work on choreography too – which is something we are going to need soon (We are going to give some master classes and set some competition dances in Sarasota in the fall, for a former student and friend who is opening a new school with our help.) We will want to prepare something really dynamic, so having a mirror and open space to play with in advance will be a great help. (And for those of you who are tweaked by this tidbit, I promise to give you more exciting information about what’s to come later this week.)  

Anyway, this is our workout room. Jessica Smith will be proud (and yes, dear, you are on that wall). You too, Jamie. And this is my open invitation to friends to come up and use our treadmill. We might even stage a little class. Why not? We do have a hot tub to soak the tired, old muscles that will no doubt balk at the effort.

Perhaps someday, I’ll want to turn this room into a library or something. But I doubt it. I may be sorry we hung mirrors, because who are we kidding,  the girl looking back at me isn’t getting any younger. But she is a familuar site, and she’s earned every laugh line and sore muscle earnstly. The mirror image of me may change on the surface, but that girl and I are still friends. I have looked at myself in lots of mirrors in lots of studios in my life. This may be the last studio I ever spend time in. I savor it for that reason.