Making Misery Into A Memorable Christmas

flickr.com/photos/tiffanyday

One year it seemed we were having the worst Christmas ever. That autumn my husband had been in a car accident. His broken neck was healing, but it left him with severe migraines and what doctors thought might be a seizure disorder. Because he wasn’t medically cleared to return to work, we had to pay for health insurance (which cost more than our mortgage) while not receiving a paycheck. In addition, my mother was fighting cancer, my brother-in-law was recovering from open heart surgery, and my son was struggling with asthma so severe that his oxygen intake regularly hovered at the “go to emergency room” level.

We were broke and worried. But I insisted on a normal Christmas. I put up our usual decorations, baked the same goodies, and managed to wrap plenty of inexpensive gifts for our kids. Everyone else on my list would be getting something homemade.

Each night after getting my four children tucked in, I sat at the sewing machine making gifts for friends and family. The evening of December 23rd as I was finishing up the last few sewing projects I realized I didn’t have a single item for the kid’s stockings and absolutely no funds to buy even a pack of gum. I put my head down, too tired to cry. I was so overwhelmed by the bigger issues going on that the stocking problem pushed me right to the edge. I don’t know how long I sat there unable to get back to sewing, but when I lifted my head my eleven-year-old daughter stood next to me. When she asked what was wrong I admitted that I had nothing for any of their stockings and couldn’t help but tell her how downhearted I felt at letting them down. Her response lightened up my mood then and still does every time I think of it.

“All that matters is we’re a family,” she said. “I don’t care if you squat over my stocking and poop in it.”

I laughed so loudly and for so long that something cleared out in me. I felt better than I had in months. She and I stayed up at least another hour together, restarting the giggles with just a look or more hilariously, a squatting motion.

When I woke up the next morning I still felt good. Until the phone rang. It was Katy* who said she needed to talk to someone. The mother of one of my children’s friends, she always seemed like a super women who did everything with panache. It was hard to imagine her with anything but a big smile. She said she didn’t want to tell anyone who might feel obligated to help her but, oddly, said she felt free to talk to me because she knew of my family’s dire financial straits. “We’re in the same boat I guess,” she said, “sinking.”

Katy revealed that her husband had been abusive and she’d finally worked up the courage to ask him to leave. He did, but not before emptying their bank accounts, turning off their utilities, disabling her car, and taking every single Christmas gift for their four children. Utility companies had promised to restore power to their cold, dark home but she was left with no money for groceries and no gifts for her kids. Katy said she was going to talk to her priest, hoping he’d find someone willing to pick up her family for the Christmas service. She said her problems would be public knowledge soon enough. The neighbors would notice something was wrong since her husband punched a hole in the front door on his way out.

Heartsick at her situation, my husband and I agreed we had to do something. I spent that day in eager anticipation of the plan we hatched. I went through the gifts I’d wrapped for our kids and took out about a third, putting on new gift tags for Katy’s children. I rewrapped gifts that friends and relatives had given me, putting Katy’s name on them. While I was happily engaged, my friend Rachel* called, someone who didn’t know Katy. I told her about the situation without revealing Katy’s identity. A few hours later Rachel showed up at my door with a tin of homemade cookies and a card with $100 tucked inside. She said she’d told her mother about the situation, and her mother insisted on supplying grocery bags full of holiday treats including a large ham.

Close to midnight my husband and I loaded up our car and drove quietly to Katy’s street. Snow was falling and the moon was full, like a movie set Christmas Eve. He cut the engine as we coasted into her drive. We quietly stacked groceries and piles of gifts on her porch, then pounded on her door yelling “Merry Christmas!” before dashing to make our getaway. By the time our car was a few houses down I could see that Katy had opened the door. Her hands were up in the air in a classic gesture of surprise and delight.

Katy called the next day. She told me there’d been a late night interruption. She thought to herself, what now, but when she got to her door her porch was full of gifts and groceries.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” she said. “The gifts had the kids’ names on them and were just right for their ages and there were even gifts for me. We can’t figure out who might have done that. Why wouldn’t someone leave their name so I could thank them?”

I could only tell her that whoever left her porch that night must have wanted the gesture to remain a simple gift of love. She said her kids were calling it their Christmas miracle.

A small act of kindness hardly makes up for what Katy’s family endured that Christmas. But as we drove away, my husband and I felt a lift of euphoria that our own circumstances couldn’t diminish. That feeling stuck with us. It held us through problems that got worse before they got better. Even when our situation seemed intractable my husband and I could easily summon the sense of complete peace we felt in those moments at Katy’s door. I’m not sure if a word has been coined that encompasses that feeling: a mix of peace, and possibility, and complete happiness. But it’s far more precious than any wrapped package.

Oh, and that Christmas my brother gave my daughter, who at that time was an aspiring paleontologist, the perfect gift. Coprolite. Basically a hunk of fossilized poop. He thought it was a funny present but never understood why seeing it made me laugh until tears came to my eyes.

This is a re-post from Farm Wench’s main blog. 

*Names changed to protect privacy.

flickr.com/photos/mytdx_4

Buy American Sources

The cart stops here. (Image by Mike “Dakinewavamon” Kline)

Shopping is cheaper and more convenient at big box stores. And on that giant site that shares its name with South America’s longest river. But we know more all the time about the environmental and economic impact of our spending choices. Our wallets really do change the marketplace.

Yes, it’s more complicated than making an effort to buy what’s produced in our own country. We live in a globally interdependent world. What we use to communicate, fuel, and enhance our lives is a combination of innovation and resources from around the globe. Plus, I’ve read convincing articles about why people in the developing world need factory jobs to pull their families toward greater prosperity. I just have trouble reconciling that concept with the millions of child laborers still at work today, the grim details about sweatshops turning out electronics and shoes, the conditions at textile factories like those in Pakistan where hundreds of workers died in a fire two months ago behind barred windows and locked doors, and again last week in a factory fire in Bangledesh. Besides, that gotta-have outfit on sale doesn’t feel like a great bargain when we look at wages. Most clothes coming to the US are made in China where the minimum wage is 93 cents an hour. Second largest importer is Vietnam, where wages are 52 cents an hour. Third largest is Bangladesh, where it’s 21 cents an hour. Ouch. Gotta have more fairness.

I’m not a fanatic, heck, I buy wonderful imports on purpose, but I’ve also walked out of Bed, Bath, and Beyond when I couldn’t find a single thing on a wedding registry that wasn’t imported from places in the world where working conditions and environmental standards are appalling. And I admit to a personal bias. My husband was unemployed for nearly three and a half years, his job loss related to outsourcing. He’s lucky to be back at work, considering the the US trade deficit recently set a new record.

In my house, we make our own or repurpose whenever possible. When we can’t, we do our best to buy from artists, craftspeople, and from ethical companies.  We also try to search for products locally as well as in our home country. Buying quality items means we need to purchase fewer goods. It’s a simple effort, really.

Here’s a handy list of companies that are not only based in the U.S., but also maintain production here as well.

Purses, bags, belts, backpacks, computer cases, and more

Fox Creek Leather 

Phunny Bags

Maple Leather

Bailey Works

Cilo Gear

Green Guru

Custom Hide

Libaire

North Star Leather

Luggage, travel accessories, cases

Tough Traveler 

Drifter Sport

Fuerte Cases

Clothes & other necessities

Kate Boggiano women’s clothes

Bamboosa bamboo fiber clothing for all ages

SOS From Texas organic cotton clothes for all ages

Little Capers superhero t’s and capes

Akwa men and women

Texas Jeans men and women

Squeezy Tees shapewear t’s

Green 3  clothes and goods for all ages

Justice Clothing employee-controlled cooperative

Montauk Tackle performance shirts and hoodies

American Apparel

Ibex wool performance wear

Diamond Apparel cotton shirts

Race Ready performance wear

GreenEdgeKids

Belevation maternity wear to support the belly

Sweet Dreams Maternity Wear

Aero Tech cycle wear

Soark running apparel

Chuck Roast flame resistant fleece

Esperanza Threads clothes made by a fair-wage cooperative

Baby

Rock Me baby clothes

Bamboo Baby clothes

Rock-a-Thigh Baby thigh high stay-up socks

Twinkle Baby bonding dolls, hats, blankets

Thirsties cloth diapers

Tidbit wool diaper covers and blankets

BottomBumpers all-in-one diapers

Castle Wear organic clothing and bedding

Cade & Co. slip-on baby shoes, clothes

Bear Feet Shoes

Carousel Designs baby and toddler bedding, nursery decor

Naturepedic organic crib-sized and other mattresses

California Baby skin care products

Heavenly Hold baby sling

Belle Baby Carriers

Boots, shoes, & socks

Wigwam socks

Point 6 socks

Okabashi shoes

Danner boots

CYDWOQ shoes

Solmate Socks lively socks

Wheelhouse Designs novelty socks

Oakstreet Bootmakers

Wright Sock

Vintage Shoes

Toys

Artifact Puzzles artistic wooden puzzles for all ages

RoyToy natural wood building sets

Eco Kids non-toxic art supplies

Green Toys durable, recycled plastic toys

Wiffle

LockRobots interlocking sets

King Dirt tricycles

Fractiles magnetic tile toys

Uncle Goose wooden blocks, including foreign language and special needs

Hand Trux make your hand a backhoe

Taurus Toy make-a-marble maze

ZomeTool building systems

Step2 preschool-age toys

Skullduggery kits and sets

Big Wheel yup, the one you rode

Kitchen

VitaMix 

Champion Juicer

Regal Ware pots and pans

360 Cookware pots and pans

Lodge Cast Iron cast iron and stainless steel

Anchor Hocking baking and serving glassware

Liberty Tabletop flatware

Warther cutlery

Lamson & Goodnow cutlery

Rada cutlery

Hartstone Pottery stoneware dishes

Vermont Bowl Company wooden bowls

Mosser Glass pressed glass

Handcrafted Wooden Spoons

Fuller Brush Company cleaning products, cleaning tools

Green Clean cleaning products

Active Lifestyle

Darkfin webbed gloves for water sports (also awesome for costuming)

Equinox camping gear

Nomadic Stoves camp stoves

Nunatak sleeping bags, down jackets

Enlightened Equipment backpacking quilts

ZPacks ultralight backpacking gear

Bike Friday folding and travel bikes

Bowery Lane Bicycles

Eco Speed bike assist

Lite Speed bikes

Cohort USA skateboards

Never Summer snowboards

Unity Snowboards

Northern Lites snowshoes

Body Care

Daybreak Lavender Farm soaps, lotions, spa products

Dr. Bronner soaps

Beecology shampoo, soaps, creams

Fruit of the Earth aloe-based products

Garland Road Soap Company 

The Soap Lady

Man Stuff lotion, shampoo

Have other suggestions? Add them in the comments!

Leaving Our Bees In Peace

This has been an unusual year. Drought, extreme heat, storms. The pressure, felt by humans in temperature controlled buildings, is nothing compared to the impact nature experiences. Specifically, honeybees. I’ve been concerned about our bees since early spring. They don’t benefit from my extra attention, delivered mostly by my visits outside their hives where I stand respectfully, watching them fly from their hives, singing songs in a humble attempt to honor them.

I’ve noticed more bees on our flowering plants than in other years. I thought that was a hopeful sign. But we kept hearing dire reports from beekeeping friends. Hives lost to foul brood, to colony collapse, to mites, beetles, disease. We put off harvesting honey until late autumn.

I see the bees every day in the garden. I still harvest broccoli, although many of my plants have gone to bloom. Normally I cut those blooms to feed the cows but I can’t bear to do so when so many bees cluster in the yellow flowers, still busy collecting nectar despite the chill. I greet them as insect sisters, then move on to pluck some Brussels sprouts, some chard, some kale, a few more shelling beans.

When we finally get around to harvesting honey, late I know, we find our honeybee friends are not faring as well as we hoped. Several hives are nearly dead, the queens gone and worker bees doomed. Our top bar hive is strong, a few other colonies thrive, but the loss of those few hives feels like the loss of friends. They’d been with us for years only to perish now. I wish we could hear what bees are telling us.

We choose to harvest no honey. We will winterize with bales of straw, letting them keep every bit of honey and pollen to help them through the winter. Maybe the memory of flowers and sunshine will help them. Maybe not. But bees are a blessing that we can’t ignore in this era of genetic modification and pesticide application. They need all the help we can give them.

This winter they will cluster in a ball around their queen, moving from inside to outside to share the suffering freezing temperatures bring them. I hope we learn from our friends the bees. I hope it’s not too late.

Tangling & Interweaving

The Seven Of Pentacles
Under a sky the color of pea soup
she is looking at her work growing away there
actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans
as things grow in the real world, slowly enough.
If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water,
if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food,
if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars,
if the praying mantis comes and the ladybugs and the bees,
then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock.

Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.

Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving.
Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,
a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us
interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.

Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after
the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.

~ Marge Piercy ~

Gathering Handfuls of Autumn

These are precious days. Everywhere there’s beauty to please the spirit. Broccoli gone to bloom, filled with grateful bees. A halo of red maple leaves fallen onto green grass. Blackbirds rising and swooping in tides from treetop to grass to field. Bright yellow and orange trees waving against blue skies. I’ll find any excuse to spend more time outside to savor these days.

I picked the rest of the shelling beans, all lovely shades of pink and purple. Unsure exactly how to dry them to use later, I blanched and froze them instead after saving some for next year’s seed. The drying procedure probably isn’t all that complicated. Maybe next fall I’ll have my act together.

I grabbed all the green tomatoes I could before the first hard frost.  There must be forty pounds of them, ripening fast in the basement. Probably tomato soup for dinner tonight.

The chard is still going strong, four rows deep, enough that my family is weary of it appearing in different guises. I eat some most days and pick the larger, older stalks for my friends the bovines who are more grateful than my human family.

The Brussels sprout plants are nearly as tall as I am, although the seeds I tucked in the ground just a few months ago were so tiny they threatened to blow away in a breeze. The amount of biomass the plant creates, thick stalk and huge leaves for those small sprouts, always surprises me. Some of us love them roasted with garlic and butter. Certain other family members call them “Satan’s tiny cabbages.”

Although we’ve had a few frosts I’m still gathering roses to scent the house, herbs for sauces, veggies for meals. I don’t know if the second planting of peas will have time to mature. Their flowers are only beginning to open as November looms.

We have a few bushels of apples here waiting to be canned into sauce (I think my family is tired of pies) and a few pumpkins waiting to be carved (I’m eager to roast their seeds). but right now I’m not going to stand in the kitchen ignoring this day I’ll be heading outside for a windswept walk, saving every bit of autumn before it folds into winter.

Held Hostage By Fruit Flies

I’m being held hostage by fruit flies. Yes, those .11 inch dots of fluttering insubstantiality are more powerful than I had imagined.

I woke this morning planning to attend my monthly book group. It’s a lovely excuse to hang out with friends for a few hours, talking about books and everything tangentially related to books. It gets me reading things I don’t normally read and gives me new insight into how differently each one of us experiences what’s printed on the page.

Then I saw the fruit flies. I’d picked about 8 to 10 gallons of tomatoes last night, planning to do the last of our tomato-related canning this weekend. But the fruit flies discovered them first. They seem to emerge from nowhere, reproduce in seconds, and are reluctant to leave. If you immediately eliminate the source of their initial food source, perhaps the banana that’s quietly going bad in the fruit bowl without your notice, they depart as quickly as they appeared,. No tiny corpses left behind, nothing.  But if you don’t eliminate that initial food source right away, they take over. One overlooked nasty banana inspires a legion of fruit flies. Oh sure, you disposed of it as soon as you could but now it’s too late. Those tiny flocks are plotting to take over.You’ll find them trapped in the fridge, clinging with chilled resoluteness to your ketchup bottle till the door opens and they’re freed back into the kitchen’s warmth. You’ll notice them lift with annoyance from the trash can each time you lift the lid.  They hover on the edge of the morning’s glass of orange juice and the evening’s glass of wine as if begging for another rotting banana.

I knew this was their battle plan when I saw how many had appeared on the buckets brimming with tomatoes. Apparently one tomato, somewhere in those stacks, is split open. If I was gone all day, as planned, it might be all over. So, my arm twisted by Drosophiloidea, I decided to stay home from book group. I’d skin those tomatoes in no time and still make it to help out at the afternoon Fair Trade event.

But then, being me, I thought maybe I’d surprise my family by making apple pie. We have nearly three bushels waiting to turn into applesauce. I rolled out the dough thinking happily that I no longer cry when doing so (my first Thanksgiving away from home was a sobfest due to pie crust failure). But, culinary experimenter that I am, I had to mess up somehow. Take it from me. Don’t use ground flax instead of flour when rolling out pie crust. The resulting crust looks like the victim of pie pox.

And then, because I was already home, I didn’t bother to shower and dress as early as I would have to drive the requisite hour to arrive at book group. Instead I worked in the kitchen in my jammies. Which explains why the UPS guy showed up at the exact same time I was at the door waiting for the dogs to come in. I’m a lot faster than I’d suspected. Turns out I can dash outside, grab three dogs, and dash inside within the time frame it takes for a driver to back his truck in our driveway. If he saw anything in his rearview mirror, I’m sure there’s counseling available.

Now it’s not quite noon and I’m done. I have time to go for a lovely walk on this beautiful day. The leaves are rich tones of burgundy, gold, rust, and red. The light this time of year casts cathedral rays through the trees, making everything ordinary look as if it were painted by the Dutch Masters. Thank you fruit flies. I walk in your honor. Perhaps you’ll do me the favor of moving out by the time I get back.

Alleged Devil Worshipper Takes Sick Day

Lulled into front porch happiness. (Image: vonholdt.deviantart.com)

You never know what people are really thinking.

I was sitting on the front porch peacefully shelling corn into a huge speckled canning pot when it came to my attention that someone thought I was a devil worshipper.

Let me back up. I woke feeling horrible. Headache, clogged ears, lots of coughing.  It was probably due to spending the day before helping a friend unpack at her new house. We had a lovely time talking as we worked. As always, I was impressed by the way she manages to combine deep intelligence with common sense. Unfortunately, workers were there too, sanding and varnishing.. The dust and fumes didn’t bother her but I could barely breathe. With all my sneezing and coughing she probably thought that I was a giant walking germ.

That’s what led to spending most of today, by necessity, away from the swivel chair and computer where I make my paltry living as a freelance writer and editor. My eyes just couldn’t focus on the screen. Instead I tended to quiet tasks that didn’t burden my swimming head. I cut tomatoes for the dehydrator. I washed the dirt off our harvest of new potatoes. I picked and shelled some of our pink beans. Unlike hours spent in front of the computer, where time seems to flash by, the day moved in a lovely slow motion.

Pink beans. Wish they kept their lovely hue when cooked.

By afternoon I’d moved to the porch. I brought out bones we get free from the local butcher, so the dogs sat happily gnawing. The sky was blue. It was quiet and meditative. I sat with a large bucket filled with the parching corn we’d grown. The kernel colors range from pale orange to deep purple. Some are swirled with red and white. They pull from the dry cob with a satisfying klunk into the pot.

Brightly hued parching corn.

I sat there thinking how meditative it was to have my hands engaged and my mind free. We rarely notice the pleasure found in simple work. Until a few generations ago humanity had no electronic distractions. No music playing in the background, no TV or radio, no smartphones or computers. We had a lot more time for contemplation. I’m as guilty as everyone else of cluttering up my head with all these distractions but I found myself enjoying my unexpected sick day.

The mail carrier arrived. Our mail box is on the other side of the street. If he’s got a package for us he pulls in the driveway and honks. I run out in my sock feet, no matter the weather, and we exchange a few pleasantries while he hands over our postal loot. He’s always cheerful. Today he didn’t really look at me. Instead he asked, “What does that moon mean?”

“Oh, that’s been there a few years, did you just notice it?”

“What’s it there for?”

“It’s a mosaic,” I said, feeling strangely silly. There was a long pause.

I could have, I suppose, explained. When my mother died she left behind many beautiful things. Some of her plates and cups were chipped but I couldn’t bear to throw them away. So my husband and son cut a huge half moon for me out of scrap metal and I adhered them to the surface, along with blue glass (her favorite color). I’m not sure why I asked them to cut a moon shape but I remember thinking how my mother and father used to dance after supper when a song they liked came on the radio. She’d take off her apron and they’d swoop back and forth on the linoleum to tunes like Moon River. It has stood in our front flower bed, seven feet tall, ever since.

What we see depends are who we are.

“My daughter says the moon is a sign of devil worshippers,” he informed me. Then he zipped out of the driveway.

I sat back down with my unshelled corn and my headache, deciding I might as well laugh about the joys of rural living. You never do know what people are thinking.

By the way, it turned out to be an excellent day despite the whole sick thing. That evening a burst of rain brought us something we’ve never seen. A rainbow with the beginning and end visible, starting in our yard and ending in our neighbor’s yard. I’m so lucky my daughter ran out to photograph it. At least she was thinking of light, beauty, and things that sparkle only briefly.

Look closely, there’s a rainbow.