We own nothing, not any of us. That includes the elite.
Not our homes. Not our children. Not our companions. Not our bodies. Not even our own lives. Death owns it all. It merely lets us borrow for a while. So enjoy and love what you have while it lasts, knowing it will not last.
That is not a bad thing. Death cleans up the old, making room for the new. Imagine if there was no death. If you had to carry around with you every piece of clothing you had ever owned, from your first diaper to that ugly pair of shoes you have no idea what you were thinking when you bought. If every relationship lasted forever…your first date was lying in your bed at night, along with every subsequent lover and now yourspouse. If you were stuck with every condo or house you ever bought…or every apartment you ever rented. Still cleaning, repairing, and paying taxes on them all.
Imagine if every human ever born was still here, rotting, decrepit, but still stumbling and bumbling around. Earth would be a pretty overcrowded place, would it not?
So welcome death, and honor it. Death sits on your left shoulder waiting to take it all back. It is a friend, doing you a favor by reminding you that every breath you take is there by its grace. And letting you know that when it does take back, it is only to make room for the new.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Two blunders, three lessons and a reprieve
First, the marshmallow root saga.
This was part and parcel of cleaning up my messy garden before putting it to bed for the winter. Half the backdrop to my garden is my pride and joy, a dozen or so tall and increasingly voluptuous marshmallows that I started from seeds some 6 years ago. For the past two years they’ve reproduced baby marshmallows throughout the garden, which I’ve transplanted into one of the swales that divides my pasture. This year, however, I decided to try modifying a throat-soothing remedy made by simmering thinly sliced marshmallow roots in honey. Having never made this on a conventional stove, you’d think I’d have carefully used just some of my marshmallows and closely tended by pending creation. Instead, disappointed by how little marshmallow root actually came out of the earth once I dug the babies up, I charged ahead with slicing up the entire crop. And emboldened by my early successes, instead of closely monitoring events, I headed as usual with the dogs to the pond.
When I returned, everything looked inviting, with a deep golden brown batch of soaked marshmallow coins nestled at the bottom of the pot. And then I tried to scoop them up and discovered, to my dismay, that you really can cook things right onto the pot with just the heat of the sun.
I attempted to pry the solid mass off the pot with a spoon, to no avail. Fortunately, a brief soaking released chunks of honey-baked marshmallow root. I discovered some of it was even soft enough to chew, only to realize that some of the first year marshmallow was actually second year, with fibrous, inedible tangles of rope. But soaked in honey. Yum.
Thus three lessons:
1. It turns out you really can burn stuff onto pots cooking solar
2. When you’re experimenting with untested recipes, don’t be so sure you can "just head to the lake and let it all take care of itself”
3. When you’re experimenting with untested recipes, don’t shoot the whole wad on the first try. Be patient. Stick to mini-batches and leave yourself something to adjust and work with. Trust, but verify.
And then came bread
With no marshmallows left to harvest, I turned to making bread. I decided to start easy, with a recipe picked up from a co-worker for “Scottish Oat Cakes.” I should have realized I had a problem when I had to modify the recipe to include five times the suggested water. But I forged ahead, and proceeded to cook a salty, dry, crumbly mess. A quick google for Scottish Oat Cakes and I determined that I had stumbled on the correct amount of water – the recipe, apparently written by someone from a far off memory – was a mess. Of course, I’d made the full batch and, being at times overly frugal, I wasted an entire morning’s sun cooking more of the dry, crumbly mess.
And just where have I heard this before?
Oh, that's right:
Lesson #1.When you’re experimenting with untested recipes, don’t shoot the whole wad. Stick to MINI-BATCHES!!!!
There is an upside, however, to eating your disasters. Yes, the first recipe was just awful. But in it, I found the seeds to another oat recipe that I’ll be experimenting with later.
And the reprieve?
While harvesting for a tincture, I discovered one slender stalk of baby marshmallow root hiding in the midst of the St. John’s Wort. And with it, a second chance for the marshmallow-honey lozenges! And in the meantime, I’ve got the Oat Cakes down pat, extended that trial to a sweet treat of Raspberry Oat Cakes, completed a semi-successful first pass at chicken n’dumplings and a totally successful version of solar corn bread.
Onward and upward
As soon as time allows, I’ll be trying some yeast breads. Since it's been 40 years or so since I attempted yeast breads with a "real" oven, this could prove to be interesting and possibly entertaining. Time will tell!
This was part and parcel of cleaning up my messy garden before putting it to bed for the winter. Half the backdrop to my garden is my pride and joy, a dozen or so tall and increasingly voluptuous marshmallows that I started from seeds some 6 years ago. For the past two years they’ve reproduced baby marshmallows throughout the garden, which I’ve transplanted into one of the swales that divides my pasture. This year, however, I decided to try modifying a throat-soothing remedy made by simmering thinly sliced marshmallow roots in honey. Having never made this on a conventional stove, you’d think I’d have carefully used just some of my marshmallows and closely tended by pending creation. Instead, disappointed by how little marshmallow root actually came out of the earth once I dug the babies up, I charged ahead with slicing up the entire crop. And emboldened by my early successes, instead of closely monitoring events, I headed as usual with the dogs to the pond.
When I returned, everything looked inviting, with a deep golden brown batch of soaked marshmallow coins nestled at the bottom of the pot. And then I tried to scoop them up and discovered, to my dismay, that you really can cook things right onto the pot with just the heat of the sun.
I attempted to pry the solid mass off the pot with a spoon, to no avail. Fortunately, a brief soaking released chunks of honey-baked marshmallow root. I discovered some of it was even soft enough to chew, only to realize that some of the first year marshmallow was actually second year, with fibrous, inedible tangles of rope. But soaked in honey. Yum.
Thus three lessons:
1. It turns out you really can burn stuff onto pots cooking solar
2. When you’re experimenting with untested recipes, don’t be so sure you can "just head to the lake and let it all take care of itself”
3. When you’re experimenting with untested recipes, don’t shoot the whole wad on the first try. Be patient. Stick to mini-batches and leave yourself something to adjust and work with. Trust, but verify.
And then came bread
With no marshmallows left to harvest, I turned to making bread. I decided to start easy, with a recipe picked up from a co-worker for “Scottish Oat Cakes.” I should have realized I had a problem when I had to modify the recipe to include five times the suggested water. But I forged ahead, and proceeded to cook a salty, dry, crumbly mess. A quick google for Scottish Oat Cakes and I determined that I had stumbled on the correct amount of water – the recipe, apparently written by someone from a far off memory – was a mess. Of course, I’d made the full batch and, being at times overly frugal, I wasted an entire morning’s sun cooking more of the dry, crumbly mess.
And just where have I heard this before?
Oh, that's right:
Lesson #1.When you’re experimenting with untested recipes, don’t shoot the whole wad. Stick to MINI-BATCHES!!!!
There is an upside, however, to eating your disasters. Yes, the first recipe was just awful. But in it, I found the seeds to another oat recipe that I’ll be experimenting with later.
And the reprieve?
While harvesting for a tincture, I discovered one slender stalk of baby marshmallow root hiding in the midst of the St. John’s Wort. And with it, a second chance for the marshmallow-honey lozenges! And in the meantime, I’ve got the Oat Cakes down pat, extended that trial to a sweet treat of Raspberry Oat Cakes, completed a semi-successful first pass at chicken n’dumplings and a totally successful version of solar corn bread.
Onward and upward
As soon as time allows, I’ll be trying some yeast breads. Since it's been 40 years or so since I attempted yeast breads with a "real" oven, this could prove to be interesting and possibly entertaining. Time will tell!
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