Apologies

I have no earthly idea what's going on with my fonts.  Please forgive me.

Berkshire Botanical Garden, 2009

Need to luxuriate in gorgeous gardens but don't have time to go all the way to the Bronx? Berkshire Botanical Garden is a short drive from Amenia (realize that a short drive from Amenia is about 45 minutes) and sits in the heart of Stockbridge, MA, home of several other historical, educational, and beautiful tourist sites, like The Norman Rockwell Museum, Shakespeare & Company, and Naumkeag. Any combination of those destinations makes for a lovely summer day trip.

Jamie and I have been to Berkshire Botanical Garden a few times; we even considered getting married there. Last year, we enjoyed an exhibit of sculptures from MassMoCA. This year, we headed there to see "Gone With the Wind:  The Kinetic Art of Tim Prentice." I continue to have mixed feelings about that kind of modern art juxtaposed with more classical gardens; however, I like gardens, I like sculpture, and I like to think I have an open mind, especially about art. Although the pieces appeared metallic and architectural in and of themselves, their movement achieved an organic quality that surprised me.  It turned out that the gardens were a perfect backdrop.  

Even if you don't agree with the modern sculpture, the gardens are always photo worthy. There's a perennial bed, an herb garden, a vegetable garden, a rose garden, a lily garden, and pond garden, all tucked into a little acreage in Stockbridge. Other exhibits include Contained Exuberance: A Fresh Look at Gardening in Pots and Guest Gardens by Martha Stewart, Jack Staub, and Page Dickey. If you live nearby, consider a trip to the gardens; you won't be sorry you did.

Green Grass

It's the little things my husband says and does that really matter. This is my new love song:  "I just want a lawn mower that doesn't require fossil fuel."

More later on why we even need a lawn mower since we live in campus housing, and the maintenance crew "cuts" our lawn...for now, I will simply revel in the beauty of making a difference.

Rhymes With...

It tickles me that Duncan loves to rhyme. It's just plain cute, to begin with, but the ability to rhyme at this age is a good predictor of future reading ability. I feel pretty secure that Duncan will have no difficulty learning to read. Tonight, after a particularly naughty day (we're all tired and cranky as we catch up on our camping sleep), he rhymed all through dinner and his bath. He rhymes real words and loves creating nonsense words. "Did you know _______ rhymes with ______?" He even created his own game that went something like this. "What would we do if we had no chair?" The other player needs to create a funny answer that ends in a word that rhymes with the key word. "We'd have to sit with the bear." I was pretty impressed that he created this language puzzle and enjoyed it so much. 

My favorite rhyme this evening: "Door rhymes with boar and whore!"

(Note:  We are really NOT using the word whore around our house. Duncan created it as a nonsense word. Just in case you were concerned...)

Chubby Bunny Update

We are slowly adjusting to being shareholders. We have figured out how to work our trips to the farm into our weekly grocery routine, and I'm becoming more accustomed to planning a week's worth of menus around the produce. 

It's not a perfect setup. We receive an e-mail early in the week that tells us what will be in this week's share, and then when we get there, there are inevitably four or five things I haven't planned for, and I need to scramble to find a way to use them. There is still more salad than we need, more swiss chard than we care for, and not enough broccoli. The first week or two, we found we were having refrigeration issues. Our vegetables were going bad before we got to them, which was curious since they were freshly picked. We are learning what needs to be used right away, what needs to be stored in the vegetable bin in the fridge, and at what temperature and humidity we need to maintain the conditions.  We learned that the lovely cotton, drawstring produce bags I purchased are not working for us (though they're working fine for Karl). What has been far more successful are those "as seen on T.V." Debbie Meyer produce bags that are said to absorb the gases that make fruits and vegetables go bad. I didn't believe in them but heard from several people how great they are, and so they have been for us. We are still wasting things; there is an entire cabbage hiding in there, half from two weeks ago and half from last week. I don't know what we'll do with it but hope we'll actually use it. All in all, we have adjusted to getting the food in the house, but what have we been eating?

Salad, and a lot of it.  I can't keep up with the salad. I was not saddened today to find out that this week's rains reduced the salad share. How much salad can you eat, really? One pound of greens is a LOT for two people (Duncan won't eat salad). The salad has been great, however, with the turnips, which I continue to enjoy, with the radishes, and with the broccoli. Scallions have come in handy. Some surprises included kale, which we enjoyed in a kale and corn salad (pictured with veggie burger), that caused Jamie to declare that of all the new things we had tried, it was his favorite. Much to my surprise, I also liked beets, broiled with a sauce of butter, maple syrup, and soy sauce. The little, purple, alien kohlrabi were my favorite. By the time we shared them with Karl, there weren't a lot, but they were sort of sweet with the texture of a potato. I look forward to having them again. We have not yet been won over by swiss chard, which we have tried in a number of different ways. In polenta, it was miserable. I liked it best with raisins and pine nuts; Jamie liked it best with a sweet and sour sauce with ginger and hot pepper. "Liked" is a relative term though. Of all the things we have tried, chard is the one I would not purchase in the grocery store. Last week and this week brought us some old favorites; green beans, carrots, raspberries, garlic. It's refreshing not to have to think of what to do with them, but that comfort comes at the expense of losing that little bit of excitement in trying something new.

I'm still happy about experimenting with Community Supported Agriculture. As with any other part of life, it has its ups and downs, but the positives far outweigh the negatives. Sure, I'm trying some strange things, and learning what to do with them is a lot of work. Sure, the swiss chard keeps coming, and I just don't like it. Sure, I don't know if locally grown, organic kohlrabi really tastes better than it does from the supermarket because I have no basis for comparison. But it's just plain better for us. I've read enough now about pesticides to be concerned. I've read enough about how far the average item in the grocery store travels, at the price of expensive, nonrenewable, polluting fossil fuels. I KNOW where my vegetables come from and how they are grown. If I have a question, I can e-mail the farmer. 

Here's what else I like though. I like standing next to my son in a field picking green beans. I LOVE that he got into the car and wanted to eat a raw green bean, warm from the sun. I LOVE that one of the things he wants to be when he grows up is a farmer (well, I hope he gets over that, but I like the idea that it's a sustainable industry). I LOVE that he has gotten closer to the source of his food and knows what it looks like when it's in the dirt. It makes me feel better about our future, as individuals and as a population that is sharing the planet with so many others. Today, what made my day was this quote from Jamie: "I have to admit that when I look at the produce in the grocery store now, I'm slightly repulsed by it - especially the fruit. All the wax and preservatives." There has to be a better way, and there is.

Ghosts at the House That Ruth Built

Bitter...sweet.

Yankee Stadium '09

It was bittersweet: walking around The House That Ruth Built to get to the new Yankee Stadium. With the newness, fortunately, came an incredible ease at managing security. If you don't remember the trials we faced trying to get into Yankee Stadium with Duncan last summer, please revisit that post. We were better prepared for this trip, to be sure. We didn't even attempt to take in a diaper bag. Duncan's spare clothes were packaged in individual Zip-Loc bags, and remembering having our spray-on sunscreen thrown away last year, we took wipe-on sunscreen in individual, disposable packages. Everything was contained in a disposable, plastic grocery bag in case we had to surrender it. Happily, it was all easy. Sure, we had to turn on our cell phones and cameras to get in, but the security staff was quick, efficient, and pleasant.  

Yankee Stadium is notorious for its ticket prices, which have only increased with the move across the street. Our seats were pretty high up because that's what we could afford, but those seats are not as steep as the old stadium, and they are grouped in smaller sections. The end result was that I was only slightly uncomfortable being so high up because I could only really envision myself falling down 10 rows. The last time we sat that high up I wouldn't leave my seat. We sat high up once for a subway series and once for a game we attended with John and Kathy. When we were that high, I wouldn't even get up to go to the bathroom. Luckily, we also sat on the end of the row, which came in handy as we took Duncan on walks to keep him from getting bored. It was furiously hot up there, but we were only steps away from the concourse, which is covered but open, creating a nice wind tunnel that dropped the temperature at least 10 degrees. 

Concession stands were plentiful and lines reasonable. One of my favorite features of the new ball park is the calorie count listed next to all the food products. It turns out that a hot dog is about one of the lowest calorie items you can buy at a ball park at about 275 calories. A soft pretzel tops in at abut 600, slightly more than ice cream (530 - 590, depending on flavor). Some people are probably finding this excess of information disturbing; I find it comforting. I like knowing exactly what damage I'm doing to my diet. I liked thinking that ice cream was a better choice than a pretzel. Another feature I appreciated was the garbage. No, really. Yankee Stadium composts. No joke. Each bank of garbage bins has one can for trash, one for recyclables, and one for compost. They could use some signs to explain what people can compost, but it's a great start. I happened to notice that my plastic cup was compostable as well as the cardboard try they put our food in. I've been told that the new stadium is a fairly green structure, right down to the low flow toilets, and I was happy to hear it. But composting at Yankee Stadium...who would have thunk it.  

Duncan had a lot of fun. Granted, he told us later that his favorite part of the day was the train ride, and he did need to wander quite a bit during the game, but we made it through six innings, double how long we lasted last year. There was plenty for him to watch, and he enjoyed clapping and cheering with the crowd. He told us he was a Blue Jays fan, which is a step up. Last we knew, he supported the Red Sox. I don't think any of us watched much of the game. I watched Joe Girardi get ejected for contesting Jeter being called out stealing third when there was no tag. Jamie and Duncan were out walking. I missed some big action too while Duncan and I were walking down the ramps and up the stairs, but we enjoyed the atmosphere.

I'm not sure when we'll get back to Yankee Stadium again, probably not until Duncan will remember and appreciate it, but we're proud to say he saw the old stadium in its last season and the first season in the new one. The old and the new, the young and the old; life is good.