Category Archives: Special Interests

Yesterday, Mark and I found ourselves in that rare and wonderful state of having no kids. Neva was spending the night with a friend and Kent was invited to Six Flags with Denver. There was a time when a quiet house meant our fancy would immediately turn to romance, but in this case we gleefully said, “Let’s DO something.” (Sad isn’t it.)

 I’ve been wanting to go to Atlanta to the High Museum of Art every since we moved here, a concept that gets painful winces from the kids. The museum is currently featuring an exhibit from the Louvre in Paris – a three year cultural exchange with different elements of the exhibit arriving each October. I keep telling Mark that if he doesn’t get me there to see it, he will be honor bound to take me to France to see the exhibit in its entirety. We actually enjoy art museums, so he was the one who suggested we take advantage of the day to go. I was thrilled.

 I happen to adore European painting and sculpture from the sixteenth through eighteenth century, because not only is it romantic and soulful, but I’m fascinated that the work has been preserved so long, through wars and changes in social attitudes and just physically surviving wear and tear and decay. Further, I’m impressed with artists doing such miraculous work considering the limitations of the times. They didn’t have electricity to light their way, glasses to help them see if they were older than 40, factories producing canvases or acrylic paints. They didn’t even have dyes to color those paints, but used ingredients from the earth. The tapestries are so detailed with such fine threads, I can’t help but stare, imagining someone sitting on a hard stool set upon a dirt floor, leaning over a hand made loom, threading the machine hour after painstaking hour with delicate, hand spun wool threads which already represent hundreds of hours of creative labor. I stare at the marble statues, so elegant and sexual, imagining a man chipping away without power sanders or progressive tools to do the job. Heck, the printing press wasn’t even invented to provide written instruction – each artist learned from others spending years as apprentices and/or a student supported by the crown.

 People did these stunning works with only base methods at their disposal, producing representations of humanity and their culture in such painstakingly detail – at a time when even the simple act of making dinner or getting something to wear was a huge, cumbersome task. The idea that mankind made art a priority back when survival alone took huge effort, says allot about the role of art in their society. They were not nourished with an expansive arrangement of foods to provide balanced vitamins as we are today– and in fact, may have been riddled with disease. And their fingers were no doubt frozen half the year, slick with sweat the other half considering the barbaric living conditions of the world.

 The respect artists earned (and the cushier life) says a great deal about the social castes and the imbalance in wealth too. My mind spins with curiosity about how we got from a starting the point where we were all equal Neanderthals pounding each other over the head with a club, to a world where select individuals became Monarchs making the rules and living so extravagantly it makes Bill Gates look common, while the masses were poor, lived a subsistence lifestyle and accepted their inferiority to the ruling class.

 History reveals just how strange humans are at the core.  

 Anyway, we enjoyed the exhibit. Bought a season’s pass so we could take our time and see the entire museum over the course of months. We did check out about two floors of the museum in addition to the Louvre exhibit. One floor was contemporary art – neither of us like that style much. We simply can’t appreciate a huge white room that features four canvases’ that are nothing but squares painted the primary colors. I mean, I can read the meaning of the display and understand the symbolism intellectually, but I don’t buy it as true art. If contemporary art is something I can do without training or talent, it just doesn’t impress me. There were LOTS of pieces in this area of the museum that look less complicated or developed than the work our former preschool students produced. Contemporary art is just not our thing, I guess.

 I love early American Art, with bronze sculptures of American Indians and paintings of the west and Victorian furniture and glassware and art. But just as we were enjoying this wing, the museum closed. Sigh, next time.

 On our way out, a renowned Atlanta jazz band was playing under a canapé for museum guests. It was part of a “family day” celebration at the museum. Since it was starting to drizzle, we ducked under the tent, took a seat and listened for awhile. The only thing I love more than old art is great, vintage jazz. I was in heaven, but a half hour later, the set was over and the band started packing up. It was time to head for the car.

 On our way home, we were going through Marietta, so we met up with some good friends for Dinner – thus rounding out the art theme of the day. The wife, Patti, is a basket artist (we met her when she was our teacher in a class at the Campbell school, but she eventually became a good buddy of Mark’s. They go to basket conventions together now and share all kinds of enthusiasm for wood and basket art. She is taking a soap making class at the Campbell school with me in Sept., but really, she is Mark’s best buddy. She introduces him to others as “my twin” which is comical because he is 6/2” and square, and she is 5/2” and round. ) Her husband, Mark, happens to be the one and only artist who draws Spiderman for Marvel Comics. He actually travels the globe to sign autographs and represent and promote the company and their current projects. He primarily stays home drawing all the time. It takes effort to get him to go out – usually this involves luring him with the potential game of pool and/or a cold beer – his obsessions.  His primary obsession, however, is his work as a cartoonist – yesterday he mentioned that he is happy his character isn’t someone lowly like Stretch man, but a bonafide superhero everyone knows and loves. (And no, the hit movie did not boost sales or secure his job in any way – I couldn’t help but ask.)

 We had a nice time. I couldn’t help but ask him about this work (which I’m told he likes to talk about, thank goodness, because it is an endless fascination to me and while I think it bores his wife, I can’t resist asking him questions). We had a rousing conversation about the new Harry Potter movie (we all don’t like the new Dumbledore) and talked about their last trip to Italy (Mark and I are going to Italy next fall,– we were considering France, but have heard such negative things about the local’s attitude towards Americans, we’ve decided it is probably not the best place to go for a FIRST trip abroad. We’ll wait until we are more travel savvy to tackle that one).We talked of raising kids and grandkids and our dreams and ambitions and everyday likes and dislikes. It was natural and simple and lovely – but we stayed too long considering the long line awaiting tables outside. Oops. 

 Anyway, it was a good day – good art, good friends, good music and a good meal. Laughter, wonder and NO KIDS. Doesn’t get any better.

 Today – well, that is a different story. I’m cleaning up after animals, and weeding and cooking (that part is not bad) and doing laundry. But somehow I am distracted so the work goes by with ease. I am thinking about Louis the IVX through VIX and how spoiled Marie Antoinette was and how she must have been frightened and indignant and furious when the lowly peasants dragged her up to the gallows to decapitate her. I’m thinking of those tapestries and the meaning in their design, and wishing the nameless people who made them (and some with names we learned) could have known how, hundreds of years after they died, their creations hang in a place of honor where thousands of people admire them – and not just royalty. Bet it would have made them proud.

 History is better than any fictional story – because if you really consider the details, not just the general facts, it is simply a collection of stories of individual people. And their stories are so authentic and remarkable it moves you beyond description. At least, that’s what it does for me.

I live in a dry county, one of those darling “perks” that come with living in the Bible belt. For those of you who don’t know what that means, it means you can not buy liquor here – not in restaurants or stores – no bars, no cocktail hours, not even a simple glass of wine to accompany a fine dining experience (if you can call a night at Papa’s Pizza “fine dining” – not like we have many gourmet options in this quaint place.) Actually, you can buy beer and wine at the grocery store, but the check out girl usually lifts a “there’s one of them true sinners” eyebrow when you do so. And people wonder why I want to make my own!

I can (and do) drive 40 minutes to a town that has successfully lifted this ban. There, we can order a drink with dinner (as long as it isn’t Sunday) and can visit an honest to God, real live liquor store to buy brandy or vodka or what have you. We are not big drinkers, but I often need liquor for cooking, vodka to top off homemade wine or as a base for homemade cordials. On occation, I get a hanker’ in for a specialty drink to round out a meal. (I currently need Oriental Saki for a recipe for slow braised Chinese barbequed pork that I want to try.)  When we entertain, we want a full bar available for guests, and on holidays or for parties I enjoy making a spiked punch. I guess years of being a bartender made me “drink of choice” conscious, even though I myself only like wine – preferably white. Mark rarely drinks at all. 

The problem with living in a dry county and having too many non-drinking friends (because they were born in this world of serious eyebrow-lifters) is that it makes the used wine bottle a rare find. When you make wine at home, scrounging for wine bottles is the greatest challange. Most all home wine makers recycle. They collect wine bottles from friends (who often have a delightful “please fill one up for me” mentality) or from area restaurants. These bottles are soaked to remove labels, sterilized, and later, filed with homemade brew. You must buy new corks from a wine supply store because of bacteria issues, and you can actually buy the bottles too, but the shipping costs more than the bottles, and this drives up the cost of the hobby. Besides which, half the fun is the recycling part and having an eclectic arrangement of bottles holding your nectar of joy.

Every batch of wine makes 30 bottles, and I am making three batches this week. That means I’ll need 90 empty bottles by Christmas when I am done racking these big carboys and the liquid is ready to bottle so it can age another 8 months or so. I currently have 8 bottles. (I’m drinking as fast as I can – but it is a lonely pursuit around here.) I can’t even ask my drinking friends to save bottles for me, because they are all in Florida and I am here in dry county Georgia. It’s a dilemma, I tell ya.

I was complaining about this the other day, when Kent actually slipped downstairs to his room and came up with an empty wine bottle that he wanted to contribute to the cause. This time it was ME with the lifted “there’s one of them true sinner” eyebrows.
“Hummm…. Why do you have a wine bottle in your room, dear underage, innocent child?”
“It’s a souvenir from my last band field trip,” he said. “Fill ‘er up.”
Sometimes it is better not to ask, so I didn’t.

Mark and I went to a wine testing a month ago and we did cart home a box of empty bottles. The host of the program graciously told us to go ahead and take what we wanted, and as we were packing them up, a woman slipped up to us with a grin and said, “I bet you are a winemaker.”
“Actually, I’m just starting,” I said.
“Wish I’d known you sooner.  My husband and I just threw out hundreds of bottles from our basement, and some were even great antiques. We always saved them for a friend who made wine, but she moved, so we finally decided it was time to get rid of them.”
I was jealous. Why can’t I find a friend like that! 

Anyway, I am on a quest for wine bottles now, so if anyone comes to visit, pack up the trunk . . . . . 
I have plenty of mason jars for pickles and such, but really, that won’t do for wine because presentation is everything, and they just don’t make corks 8 inches wide. 

I think the only option I have to is force my husband to take me to more wine tastings and perhaps more trips into Atlanta to visit expensive restaurants with extensive wine lists, don’t you? It’s not that I’m indulgent. Just being practical.

I guess when your idea of a difficult life challenge is collecting wine bottles, you really have nothing to complain about. So I will stop whining about wine-ing. At the rate this area is growing and changing, it is only a matter of time until the ban is lifted. Who knows, I may even be sorry when that happens. There is something to be said about contrast, and being a wine maker in a liquor-free town can be fun – makes a surface “good” girl into a sexy “bad girl” in theory . . .and she doesn’t even have to pierce anything or dye her hair Goth black to get “the eyebrow” from Betty Jane at the Piggly Wiggly.   

It is 7Am. Must go. The roar of the blackberries calling cannot be ignored. . .

“Hurt me once, shame on you. Hurt me twice. Shame on me.”
That is all I have to say to the blackberry bush!

It’s that time of year. The blackberries are starting to turn. Time to plan some serious picking. 

I went out this morning on the four wheeler with Neva on a pre-picking excursion. I had this brilliant idea to bring my loppers to cut down some of the awful pricker plants that are growing with the blackberries. These killer weeds make harvesting a painful experience, so I was determined to remove those stalks now, early in the season, so we could approach the wild bushes with less danger the rest of the season.  I was convinced the thorny stalks were unnecessary, some kind of blackberry sidekick, probably opposite sexed bushes, the kind of plant that exists for cross pollination purposes but doesn’t bear fruit. In other words, I imagined they were lowly boy blackberry bushes, while the girls were out there producing the baby berries we all cherish.

I must have cut down a hundred big stalks in one of our prime blackberry spots. Then, my neighbor informed me that I was cutting down all of next year’s crop, because the year before they bear fruit, the wild blackberry bush begins as one of those deadly blank stalks. Blackberry bushes have no sexual orientation, you see. Duh.

 NOW you tell me? Dammit.

Well, I’ve only done damage to one small blackberry picking area. I have the other hundred bushes still intact and thorny as all get-out. Another learning curve highlight in the ongoing reality series, Hendry’s on the Farm.

Neva and I sampled a few berries, then picked a bowl full of random dark, sweet fruits. Unfortunately, most of the fruits on the vine are still red – a week or two away from peaking and turning  plump and purple . Nevertheless, I will begin my daily foraging now, because I can’t bear to miss a single free, wild berry even if they are currently spaced randomly on the vine.

While picking, you always encounter bees. Last year, I swatted them away with a curse, thinking the last thing I needed on top of scratches was bee stings.
This year I paused to say, “Oh, hello there, buddy.” (After all, my beehive is not far away, so it is a pretty good guess that these are my bees. “Take what you need and leave the rest,” I said, thinking that while I am very greedy regarding blackberries, I covet honey as well. A mutually beneficial aspect like that makes sharing easy, and everyone knows the surest way to overcome prejudice is to really get to know the one you fear. I understand and respect the bees now.  We’re buds.

Honey aside, I have big berry plans this year. Just this week we finished all of the jam I made last summer. Granted, I gave jars and jars of the stuff away, so we certainly didn’t run short,  but this season Georgia had an unexpected late frost that killed all the state’s blueberry and peach crops. As much as I was in denial all of April, the fact is, I am not going to get a single blueberry off of my huge, beloved bush this year. (Been in mourning over that since early march, but I’ve avoided writing about it – to protect my friend Chuck from the painful truth that he ain’t getting any blueberry jam this year.) The great blueberry loss causes my blackberries to take on mythic importance this season, because they will be my only homegrown staple with which to create specialty desserts and such. They will be the prime source for my jam. And don’t forget, I am now also on a quest to make the perfect wild blackberry wine. In fact, I have more than one recipe of blackberry wine awaiting experimentation, and each recipe requires pounds and pounds of fruit.

Not that I have to worry about locating the glut of berries I need. I only have to fret about harvesting the lot.  I discovered a huge thicket of wild blackberries in an abandoned lot at the entrance to our land. Somehow, I missed that windfall last year, but of course, we didn’t live here then, and only visited to feed the horses. I guess I drove by it everyday, totally unaware of the bounty nestled in a ditch a stones throw away. And I kept plenty busy picking on our roads and around our cabin on the mountain as it was. This particular wild berry discovery is located in a thorny maze of overgrown weeds in a marshy dip of land. There is at least an acre of overgrown, fruited wild blackberry bushes taunting me. It is like blackberry heaven – only with hellish thorns.

One day, while passing this area on a walk with Denver and Mark, I stood admiring the white blossoms that are the forerunner to the fruit to come. I paused and said, “It will soon be time. When these bushes bloom, I’m going in.”

Denver said, “Forget it, Mom. You will be torn to shreds. You can’t get in there.”

“I have been formulating a plan,” I explained, as if I was sharing a great conspiracy just between family members. “I think I can suit up to withstand the thorns. I was thinking I could wear my bee suit and cowboy boots. That will protect me.”

“Well, don’t forget to wear your four wheeler helmet to round off the outfit, as long as you are planning to make a fashion statement . . .” She rolled her eyes. “People will see you in that getup and finally know you are nuts. The family secret will be out.”

“Remind me not to share any of my blackberry wine with you, even if you are of age,” I said with a sniff.

Of course, Denver doesn’t understand the limits some people will go to attain a bucket of wild blackberries. She thinks blackberry picking is something you do for an hour as a lazy pastime, the prime purpose being to have a nice conversation with your mom, while dining on the berry bucket. She doesn’t understand the obsessive need to plow through thorns to get to the very back to get those plump juicy perfect specimens hiding in the rear. She can’t comprehend anything eatable worth getting scratched and having pricks burrowed into your skin for the rest of the evening. The cobbler made the next day is nice and all, but hey, you can buy frozen blackberries in the grocery store for a few bucks. Why knock yourself out?

And that, my friends, is proof that the world today has disconnected with the glory of nature and an intimate relationship with our food sources. Don’t believe me? Read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. She will convince you.

 I’m getting sidetracked. Where was I? Oh yeah.

 Mark stared at the blackberry thicket. “You might be able to drive in on the four wheeler. You’d plow down some of the bushes, but there are so many it wouldn’t hurt and at least that would allow you to get close. You could even pick without getting off the ATV.” (Men are always so practical and methodical about conquering nature.)

 I happen to be a real sissy on a four wheeler. I ride it all over the land on the roads, but I don’t like going off-road where ditches and holes and bumps create an obstacle course that can upturn even a cautious gal like me. Ride it blindly through the murky ditch into a forest of thorns? “I’ll just dress for the challenge and make it work,” I said.

When I get back from Boston, I have every intention of doing just that. But first, I will concentrate on those berries on our own land. I will settle for a scant bowl each day until the season gets up and running. Then, I will suck it up and go to war with the thorns for the big kill.

 I plan to freeze my early pickings, because I will use these early berries for wine. When you melt sugar and hot water it is smart to add frozen (though fresh) fruit to the mix to help bring the temperature down to activate the yeast. (I am ever so scientific when cooking now.) Just a helpful tip from a winemaker teacher I know.

Anyway, my blackberry picking frenzy is beginning. I can feel the obsessive need to go outside and forage stirring in my gut. For all of June and half of July, it is like I am enchanted by the fruit – under some spell that keeps me at it day and night. I can’t stop.  I want my freezer bursting at the seams with blackberries, carefully proportioned out for future cobblers. I want jars and jars of homemade jam cluttering the shelves. I expect at least two 6 gallon jugs of wine to be fermenting in my mud room for the next few months. (60 bottles.) I will rack them by Christmas, ready as gifts for my brave friends with strong stomachs.

I am already bemoaning the fact that I must go to Boston for eight days next Wednesday. Do you know how many berries I will miss? The birds will fly off with them, or they will shrivel like ugly raisins on the vine because I’m not here to snatch them up at that prime moment when they are ready. Kills me. But I will make up for it by putting in double picking time when I get back. I’ll be a graduate then, so I will come home smarter, right? I’ll probably lift one finger and come up with some brilliant plan to harvest all those berries with nary a scratch, just like the scarecrow started reciting brilliant formulas in the Wizard of Oz moments after the wizard presented him with a diploma.  Yeah, it could happen.

Anyway, today we began blackberry picking. I am in the throws of finishing preparations for my senior seminar next week, working on a full scale business plan and doing reading and research for our future enterprise, writing as always, and concentrating on other grown-up responsibilities. But dang, if I don’t have to put it all aside each day to adhere to the sirens call of the wild blackberry. Guess we all have our weaknesses.  Mine is a tart, morsel that shouts, “I dare you to come in here to get me!”
I never could resist a dare.

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.      

At the risk of turning all the boys on, I thought I’d share a pin up of me, worthy of beekeeper magazine. I’d like to show more skin, but considering the point is to cover as much as you can, I’m afraid this is as sexy as it gets. I am wearing layers under layers here, and wondering how I’m supposed to wear this working with bees, since you can only open beehives in the midday sun on warm days. Alas, they don’t make air-conditioned bee suits. I’ll have to rough it.


This is the group of other daring individuals that took the beekeeper weekend session at the Campbell Folk School along with me. See how normal we all look? Well, looks can be deceiving.


This is our display for the craft show. I think it shows all the bee paraphernalia well. The big tubular can thing is a honey extractor. I don’t have one of those yet, but I won’t need it till next year. Guess it is time to start the Christmas list. The rusty, smaller can with a spout is a smoker. I do have one of those. In this picture, the hive isn’t painted. You must paint them so they don’t rot outside. Mine is white, and I promised Neva she could paint some flowers on the side. The bees may not care about looks, but me and my girl like a nice presentation, don’t ya know.  The metal devices are tools to open the hive when it is glued together by sap. What I wasn’t counting on is how heavy these hives are when they are filled with bees and honey and wax. Sometimes, you are lifting a box that weighs a hundred pounds! Maybe I’ll write a book called the beekeepers workout.



This is one of the trays of bees we removed from a super to see how they operate. I will teach you more about the details later (this is meerly a pictorial story today.) I held a swarm of bees in one hand that had 4000 buzzing bees clinging to a queen. I reached out and ran my hand along them. They are soft, like petting a kitten. Someone took a picture and promised to e-mail it to us, but I haven’t relieved it yet. Darn. 

Bees were everywhere as we put the swarm into the hive we had built the night before. I had bees in my hair, on my jeans, resting on my shoulder. But it was hard to be nervous when the teacher was standing there in shorts and a t-shirt. No one was stung. Apparently, you don’t need the bee suit unless you are collecting honey, for that is considered an attack. I held a drone (no stinger) and got a good gander at the queen. Fascinating.  Most importantly, I lost that undercurrent of anxiety walking into an area housing 120 thousand bees.  When I told my daughter I imagined working with the bees naked, I wasn’t far off. Often beekeepers don’t bother with suiting up. They just work gently with the bees. Love that.

We had to learn to run a smoker and every student had to show they could work it.  It was easy, yet an important skill. Smoke is like a drug to bees – makes them calm. They also get the munchies. Ha. I know some people that respond the same way to smoking, but that is another story.

The weekend had it’s pitfalls. It rained all day Saturday (our big day) and you can’t open a hive in the rain. So most of what we learned was theoretical. We didn’t get to extract honey. Big disappointment. I already had learned all about the remarkable community of bees and how they work together from reading books. What I wanted was hands on experience. Ah well. I will learn as I go. They are just bugs, after all. And whenever you take on a new hobby you risk a few stings (though not usually so literally as in this hobby).  

Today, in one hour, I am getting my own bees. It is too late in the season to order them from a bee company, because you must reserve orders by January. So, I approached a fellow selling honey at the farmer’s market. He has an apiary, and he said he would be willing to see me bees. (You buy them by the pound – it costs about 60 dollars for three pounds of bees (which is about 4000. Thats .015 cents a bee for the math-inclined.) The fellow (name is Dennis) is dropping them off this morning with a queen and a few shelves of larva. It is a great way to get started. I’m so excited!

I will share more about bees when I have time. Right now, I must go set up my hive. On top of this, LAST NIGHT ONE OF THE PEACOCKS HATCHED AND TWO baby DUCKLINGS. I keep running downstairs to watch the other eggs. I hear peeping inside. Lordy, nature is remakable.
  
Obviously, I have a lot to share, but no time to sit at the computer this morning. I am busy playing with the birds and the bees. Wish me luck on all fronts today.   

Making life an adventure requires we face our fears. I cannot describe how unnerving it has been to leave dance. I am often overwhelmed with discomfort as I question who the heck I am without that lifelong persona to give reason to my existence. It is like freefalling. You may be wearing a parachute, but until its open and your feet land softly on the ground, there is an unyielding anxiety connected to the thrill of flying. You marvel at the wind on your face, but you also long for the security of standing firmly on familiar ground.
 
Anyway, I am in a stage of life where fears do not faze me so much, because the thing I fear most is being too comfortable, not taking risks, and falling into routine because it is simply too much trouble or too much discomfort to ask for more from life. I am aware of the clock ticking and time running out on my one shot at living. And I guess I’m jealous. I read books or watch movies and feel that if I’m not careful, life will pass me by. The world is full of amazing stories of amazing experiences and amazing people. But I don’t want to be a perpetual audience to life. I want to be a part of the remarkable diversity, and sample life first hand.

Nevertheless, there are days I wonder if my choices are not a sign of some deep seeded frustration, dissatisfaction with life in general for reasons that can’t be easily defined. Luckily, most often, I am excited by the unconventional choices (such as forgoing college to move to New York at eighteen, dancing despite the fact that it was not a “practical career”, getting my degrees later in life, writing despite the odds of success, leaving a business I spent years building and the great income for what is really an unknown… etc.)  Nevertheless, despite the fact that sometimes my choices were difficult to explain and/or defied logic, I’ve always followed my heart. This way, at least life has never been boring. I’ve had lots of practice swallowing doubt as I forged towards something I believed was right for me. Haven’t always been successful, mind you, but I’ve never failed to make a play for something I considered important. Now that I’m in my ripe middle age, I’m glad I have learned the benefits of stepping boldly into areas I’ve never considered before. It isn’t about needing guaranteed success, but about trying. No regrets this way. Moreover, I never think, “I could have been (or had) . . . . ” Honestly, I believe if we have it in us to be “more”, we make it happen. Circumstance, opportunity, or the other people in our life have nothing to do with it. We create our world exactly the way we want it deep down, and you can argue until your blue in the face that  you wish things were different, but that isn’t true. Things can always be different. You just have to want it enough.

Anyway, my attitude about life nowadays, is honoring discovery – not just embracing a new view of life, but a new view of myself as well. It is so difficult to shed our self-definition – We get to a point in life where we insist, “This is who I am and I rather not question it, because it took years to figure out. Take me as I am.” 

However, another (different) attitude can be, “I am what I am because of the influences I’ve encountered in life, and now I will thrust new influences into the mix to see what else is inside.”

The fact is, you don’t have to be “unhappy” to want more. Happiness comes in degrees. I think sometimes being “comfortable” is the worst thing that can happen to a person. It makes putting off action so much easier. And you wake up one day realizing that in the end, it was simply too much trouble to create a more vibrant life. You settled for the familiar because it made you “happy enough”. 

I am on a tangent, and this is a poor introduction to my subject today. Pardon me. I must have woken up with my philosophical gene raging. Where was I going with this? I planned to talk about bees. Perhaps I’ll start again. I’ll close this blog and begin a bee blog from a different angle.

See what I mean? When you discover you are on the wrong path, all you must do is admit the error and change course. What you leave behind may even be good, but that doesn’t mean it is right.