ECO ACTION: Disconnecting / Reconnecting

The photo I took earlier today of the cables under the desk in my studio, shows that there's a lot left to do to finish "disassembling all the recording and audio equipment."

With an eye toward conservation, I've decided to rearrange all the electrical connections in the studio, too.

The goal is to eliminate the unnecessary consumption of electricity used in standby mode when the computers, printers, and music gear are off.  (AKA all those little glowing power lights that make the studio look like Christmas even after I've turned everything off and flipped the light switch at the end of the day.)

The solution is to put segments of the studio on separate power strips with ON/OFF switches, to be turned on only when needed.

• one power strip for the studio equipment I use for teaching and my own practicing/songwriting activities
• one power strip for the computer and frequently used peripherals
• one power strip for my recording equipment
• one power strip--that stays on all the time--for my studio phone/answering machine and cellphone charger

That ought to do it.

I can't stop using electricity and still record my music, but I can reduce what I consume.  This is one step toward making my music studio/office more eco-friendly.

Time Between Years

Each year for the past several I've taken the week between Christmas and New Years to dive into the process of cleaning and reorganizing my studio, and other parts of the house, with an eye toward what I envision accomplishing in the coming year.

It's always a time of reflection, a shifting of energy from past ways of being and doing toward ways that are a better fit for where the new year finds me and where I hope it will take me.

This is one of the few times of year when I don't have music students coming and going on a daily basis, or weekly rehearsals in our home with the 20 or more kids in our ensemble.  I'm able to shift my focus from helping others define and achieve their goals toward looking at and working toward my own, without distractions.

It's always a relaxed, playful and intense time.

Here are some of the results from previous years:

Little New Year's Things - JAN 2006

Time Between Years - DEC 2006

Don't know what I did between Christmas and New Years last year at this time (12/07-1/08). Maybe I'll dig back and see if I can figure that out.

This past year has been a bit of a bumpy ride, with the bumpy bits that I hope will not repeat in the year ahead, or any other for that matter.  4 months of less than optimal health, plus another encounter with the darker side of the human condition, are things to be left in the past, if at all possible.

We don't always get to choose what happens to us, but we can choose to continue making plans and working to make them real.  I'm actively choosing to move forward into the coming year, making my plans based on the likely assumption that these difficult things won't repeat in 2009.

And even if they do, or some other challenges come along, well ... here I am anyway.  And here are the ones I love and the life we have together.

Here's to making life simpler.  

Here's to enjoying what is.

Started last night disassembling all the recording and audio equipment in my studio, to be simplified and rearranged.

I've removed the things I no longer use (maybe never used) and the things that have worn out or broken from frequent use (an old amplifier, a CD changer/player and a cassette tape deck), and have  begun to arrange the few things needed for my new set up in a way that will make for easier work flow.  And maybe some actual recordings.

Between each thing that gets moved or removed there's pausing, looking, thinking, wiping up dust and grime, imagining whether this is the best way.  

It's hard work to rearrange.

I'm trying to keep in mind that "good enough" and done is far better than the perpetual struggle for an ideal "best" that's forever incomplete.  (Same goes for the editing/re-editing of this blog post.)

Now, back to it.  

Powering down.  Disconnecting.

Reconnecting in a new way.  Powering back up again.

RECIPE: Boston Baked Beans-LESS SODIUM

This is a new original recipe from Kay's Kreative Kitchen.*  (Also made the pottery bowl and the bread in the photo by hand, but not today.)

I cooked this for lunch today, putting the pot of beans in the oven (Step #4 below) first thing this morning (Steps #1-3 prepared last night).  

The house smelled wonderful while I boxed up belated Christmas presents to send to family living on the other side of the US.  I removed the cover from the pot in the oven (Step #5) before heading out to the post office.  The baked beans were ready to eat when I got back.

Served along with some homemade sourdough bread, baked yesterday, this made a hardy lunch.  Comfort food for a gray winter day.

INGREDIENTS
1-2 lb Small Red Beans, Dry (or Navy Beans)
1/2 lb Low Sodium Bacon (1/4 inch dice with kitchen shears)
1/2 cup Dark Molasses
1/2 cup Maple Syrup
1 cup Hot Water
1 Tbs Cider Vinegar
1/8 cup Dried Chopped Onion
1 tsp Dry Mustard
1/4 cup Dark Brown Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Black Pepper
1/8 tsp Ground Cloves

INSTRUCTIONS

1) Quick soak beans. (Cover with water equal to 3 times volume of beans. Boil 3 minutes, remove from heat and allow to soak 1 hour.) Drain and rinse. (Quick soaking, draining and rinsing reduces the amount of indigestible starch in the beans, thereby reducing those well known after effects that give beans such a bad reputation.) Replace water and cook until tender, 1-1 ½ hrs. Can be done a day ahead.

2) In a bowl, stir together: molasses, maple syrup, water, vinegar, onion, mustard, brown sugar, salt and spices. Can refrigerate overnight to blend flavors and hydrate dried onions.

3) Layer beans and bacon in 4-quart or larger, oven safe cooking pot, in 3 layers ending with bacon on top. Pour liquid mixture over layers. Add enough hot water to just reach top of beans.

4) Cover and bake 4 hours in 300F oven, or 6-8 hours at 250F, until beans are tender. Add water as needed to keep moist. Stir only once or twice.

5) Uncover last 30 minutes of cooking to brown. If excess liquid remains, cook uncovered until boiled away.

*Though the primary ingredients and methods in this recipe were combined from several sources, my own original twists include: small red beans substituted for navy beans, low sodium bacon in place of salt pork, half the amount of salt called for in other recipes, dried onions instead of fresh chopped, replacing half the volume of molasses in other recipes with maple syrup, and a hint of ground cloves.

COST:  Less than $0.50 USD per serving.  Haven't figured it out exactly.

QUOTES: "Miracles" from "Leaves of Grass"

WHAT shall I give? and which are my miracles?

Realism is mine—my miracles—Take freely,
Take without end—I offer them to you wherever your
feet can carry you, or your eyes reach.

Why! who makes much of a miracle?
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the
sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the
edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love—or sleep in the
bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at the table at dinner with my mother,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of a sum-
mer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds—or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sun-down—or of stars
shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new-moon
in spring;

To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread
with the same,
Every cubic foot of the interior swarms with the same;
Every spear of grass—the frames, limbs, organs, of
men and women, and all that concerns them,
All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.

~ Walt Whitman, from Leaves of Grass, 1867 edition

[excerpted, read the poem in its entirety HERE]

VIDEO: Me Singing "Time at the Table"

"Time at the Table"
Words and Music by Kay Pere and Bill Pere

Performed at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven, CT

Kay Pere with Bill Pere and the LUNCH Ensemble

Check back soon for lyrics.

:-), Kay

ECO ACTION: Sustainable Happiness

The pursuit of happiness has been transformed into the pursuit of consumer goods and energy hungry lifestyles that damage our planet.

Visit HERE to browse a large selection of articles about pursuing lasting happiness while consuming fewer resources and reducing your environmental impact.

It's a lot more fun than it sounds!

I hear the politicians talk a lot about "getting our economy moving again."  Does a "healthy economy" automatically mean, by definition, that they expect us to resume our old habits of consumption?  If so, we need to rewrite the definitions.  We need a new vision.

We've grown used to a world bulked up on the steroids of excess consumption.  Like a weight lifter who's steroid built muscles are damaging his liver and heart, we can't expect to keep this up over the long term.

Someone needs to rewrite the economics textbooks and redefine the tools by which we measure the health of our economy to take into account the long view of things.

I wonder:  Can we find a way to shifting our world economy and our individual lives toward a more sustainable and equitable model?

What would that look like?

ECO ACTION: No Impact Man Blog

As a self proclaimed Eco Geek, I love to read the No Impact Man blog.

It gives a clear picture of just how much one person can do to live more sustainably, how one persons actions can inspire others.

I'll never be able to alter my lifestyle to the extent described there, but it's a wonderful source of information and ideas about what might be the next step beyond those I've already taken.

VIDEO: Funny Hat

Oh, the fun you can have with someone else's hat!

No wonder I've been dizzy!

Hanover, VT, USA

CREATIVE OATMEAL: other things to think about #2

[free or nearly-free happy things]

Perhaps not the most exciting subject, but a favorite breakfast for cold weather.  And it provides many options.

Here's my recipe.  It makes about 6 servings.  I eat one immediately and refrigerate the remainder to reheat on subsequent days.

Basic:

• 2 cups Old Fashioned Rolled Oats (slow cooking)
• 4-5 cups Water
• 1/4 tsp Salt (adds approx. 100 mg sodium per serving)

Bring to a boil.  Cook about 5 minutes over medium heat or until thickened.  Stir occasionally.

Additions:

• Dried Fruit, chopped (If you want them plumped, add at the beginning of cooking with oats.)
• Frozen Fruit, thawed while cooking
• Nuts, chopped (If you want them crunchy, add at the end of cooking.)
• Flavorings:  cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg, cloves ... use your imagination
• Sweeteners:  brown sugar, maple syrup, honey, molasses, jam, fruit juice

Once it's served up on a bowl, I also pour on a little soymilk to make complete proteins.  (legumes + whole grains)

Cost:

• 15 cup container uncooked Store Brand Rolled Oats = $1.75 US (on sale)
  
• 3 Servings per cup (with additions)
  
• $1.75 US for 45 servings per container
  
• $0.04 US per serving + cost of optional additions and soymilk!
  

Time:

• 10-15 minutes once a week to cook 6 days worth of servings.  
• 2 minutes once a week to packaging in a resealable container for the frig
• 2 minutes each day doing other things while the microwave reheats (stir in a little water to thin)
  
• 1 minute once a week to scrub out the pan (if I don't remember to let it soak it takes longer)
• less than 1 minute once a week to wash the resealable container

Favorite Creative Addition Combos:

• chopped dried apples, brown sugar or maple syrup, cinnamon, vanilla, chopped walnuts
• chopped dates, chopped pecans, cinnamon, vanilla
• chopped dried apricots, honey, slivered almonds, almond extract (tiny amount)
• frozen blueberries, maple syrup
• frozen raspberries, honey
• strawberry jam, almonds
• blond raisins, pecans, cinnamon, vanilla, maple syrup

Yum!  Now you can tell someone they are as interesting as oatmeal and mean it as a compliment.

And Mom was right.  It does "stick to your ribs."

STUDIO WINDOW: other things to think about #1

Because life is not all gloom and doom, not all health concerns and financial contraction. ..

I'm going to make an effort to post quick snippets about happy everyday things, as an antidote.

#1 OUTSIDE MY STUDIO WINDOW

There is a dogwood tree right outside my studio window who keeps me company as the seasons change. In the past few weeks it has lost all its vermilion leaves. A fine filigree of branches remains, outlined against the sky.

All day squirrels use its branches as a highway from one tree to the next. Fat grey clowns in flannel suits, they carrying nuts too big for their mouths to hold, performing acrobatic feats as they hurrying past on their way to some secret cache.

Occasionally one will catch sight of me watching through the window and freeze in place, as if hoping to become instantly invisible. This is usually followed by loud, menacing chirping sounds and wild waving of a long fluffy tail. The cat may be intimidated by such antics--I just smile.

My studio window faces west, with my computer monitor on a desk in front of it. This morning, over the top if my screen, I watched the last quarter moon on her way toward the horizon. This evening, if I'm lucky, I'll catch sight of a brilliant sunset sky behind the silhouette of my companion dogwood tree's branches.

These are my simple joys today.

:-), Kay

QUOTES: "To say that she had a book..."

"To say that she had a book is to say that her solitude did not press upon her; for her love of knowledge had a fertilising quality and her imagination was strong."

~ Henry James, "The Portrait of a Lady", Chapter III (1881)

RECIPE: Toasted Almond Butter-NO SALT

"Training is everything.  

The peach was once a bitter almond; 

cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education." 

~Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894)

I made nut butter from scratch for the first time today.  Very easy and yummy!

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb Whole Almonds

2 Tbs Almond Oil (or other oil) as needed

1)   Toast almonds in 350F oven for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to toast evenly.  Allow to cool.

2)  Add almonds to food processor, stopping and scraping sides frequently, until paste forms.  If the nut butter is too firm, add oil one tablespoon at a time while continuing to process.  Length of processing time depends on the processor power/speed and oil content of the nuts.

Other nuts or mixtures of nuts can be substituted using the same method.

COMMENTS:

• I've stored mine in a repurposed 16 oz glass peanut butter jar.  
• One pound of nuts filled the jar exactly.  
• Processing was done in an 11-cup Cuisinart I got at a yard sale for $15.  
• The nuts were purchased on sale from the grocery store, at a savings of several dollars over the cost of a store-bought jar of almond butter, and without the salt.  

All very simple and the house now smells like roasted almonds.

GAIA LUNA: Harvesting What Isn't

Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub;

It is the centre hole that makes it useful.

Shape clay into a vessel;

It is the space within that makes it useful.

Cut doors and windows for a room;

It is the holes that make it useful.

Therefore profit comes from what is there;

Usefulness from what is not there

~ Lao Tsu, From Tao-Te Ching

Health brings life filled with activity.  Illness empties time to its barest essence.

Health allows forward motion.  Illness stops the wheel in mid-rotation.

It was the emptying, the resting, that brought clarity about the perpetual motion of my healthy life.  This was the useful outcome of two months of illness;  once I was able to get past the first heat of frustration and anger (at not being able to do everything I'd planned for myself), I began to see with vividness and gratitude the small things that could happen.

Back before I got sick, I'd planted corn from seed for the first time, started indoors before the soil had warmed, then planted out in early June.  When the corn went untended, with little rain for many weeks, I gave up hope of growing anything more than bare stalks.

Even so, in late August I harvested a dozen perfectly formed ears of corn.  The stalks where spindly and short, but they had overcome adverse conditions to fulfill their potential.

The lesson learned: Plant the seeds.

Don't worry.  Just do it.

Within each seed is a powerful will to become.

Even if you're unable to tend it something will still come of it.  If nothing else, you'll learn that you can plant a seed and watch it grow.  You'll get the joy of experience.  And you'll either learn what it takes to make it produce, or what can stunt it.  

Knowledge is the most valuable harvest.  It's yours to keep no matter what the outcome.

Ideas are an artist's seeds. An artists plants ideas by beginning the process of realization.

Even when the process of realization is interrupted,  the artist may return to find the idea has produced something useful.

It's up to me to begin.  It's up to me to do what I can.  And I've also seen clearly that things can become what they're meant to be even without my direct involvement.  

I can let go and my dreams won't fall apart.

At times, my role in the creative process must be simply to sit still and watch the seeds of planted ideas unfold and grow as they will.

GAIA LUNA: Fall Harvest 08

Happy Autumnal Equinox, to those in the Northern Hemisphere.  It's a day to celebrate our creative harvest.

The picture above is the last big harvest from Gaia Luna: one spaghetti squash, half-a-dozen each sweet italian banana peppers and bell peppers (red and green), a few jalapeno peppers, several acorn squash, and an arm-load of under-sized delicata squash, all topped by a bunch of pink cosmos.

This is far more than I thought the garden would produce with so little water and weeding during the height of summer.  It falls far short of what I had envisioned last spring, but vastly exceeds my most desperate hopes during the many weeks I was confined to the house.

The only credit I can take for this harvest is in minimally preparing the soil, planting the seeds and erecting a fence to protect them from deer, all prior to the first weeks of June.  Everything else, quite literally, was done by the sun and the wind and the rain.  At the end of it all, I simply walked out with my clippers and gathered what the plants chose to supply.

Other things didn't go so well.

The zucchini, yellow crook-neck, and patty pan squash plants I'd grown from seed were stunted when I mistakenly pealed off their paper pots before planting, damaging their tiny new roots.  This and the lack of water yielded only a handful of summer squash.  This was a blessing in disguise.  They produced just the amount I could deal with.

I planted three kinds of cucumbers.  Because I couldn't get the rabbit fencing up, groundhogs and rabbits got into the garden and ate the growth tips off each.  Two varieties died from this and lack of water.  The third, the lemon cucumbers, produced prolifically enough for many salads plus a large jar of refrigerator dill pickles.

I planted tomatoes, too, but didn't get nets over them.  Bluejays and crows carried away each tomato before it had ripened.

A large net was thrown over the blueberry bushes, but it had unnoticed holes in it this year.I hadn't the strength to fix it.  Catbirds got in and ate all the blueberries.  There will be no frozen blueberries from the garden for my breakfast cereal this winter, no blueberry jam.  Very sad, but ...

There was another solution.  Once I was feeling better again I went to a pick-your-own orchard and brought home fruit to freeze and can.  I brought peaches, to eat fresh and preserve, home from vacation and from a local farm stand.  I made friends with someone who had more zucchini than she knew what to do with so I could make bread-and-butter pickles.

More soon about the meaning all this has communicated to me, in the world of gardening as metaphor.

HEALTHY: Cup Much More Than Half Full

Cup says:

The Way I See It #291:

"In a world where celebrity equals talent, and where make-believe is called reality, it is most important to have real love, truth and stability in your life." 

~ Bernie Brillstein

Film and television producer.

Tiny print at the bottom says (ironically):

"This is the author's opinion, not necessarily that of Starbucks.  To read more or respond, go to www.starbucks.com/wayiseeit."

Though I'm not a big fan of Starbuck's as a corporate entity and would rather patronize a locally owned establishment, this is what's available.  After exercising several times this week (yeah!) I've stopped in for a cup of Tazo herbal tea (very cool website) and some writing time away from the distractions of home.  Somehow, writing in a public place has allowed me to dive deeper on the page, saying and hearing things that I might not have gotten to otherwise.

Cup quote, above, relates directly to one of the life's lessons brought into sharp focus this summer.  Real love, truth and stability really are the most important things in life.  Everything else is frosting.

As an artist/musician, when I'm working on a project I can become highly focused and goal oriented, to the exclusion of other things, like eating and getting enough rest.  Being sick this summer forced me to stop everything completely, to let it all go and realize that I wasn't really falling behind.  There is no behind or ahead, only now.

All we really have is the way we treat each other.  Money is a useful illusion, necessary, but temporary.  Accomplishment, the same.  Even health will sooner or later fail each of us.

What we ultimately leave behind us are the small ways our lives have touched each other's, for the better or not.  Even trying to do good for another may have unintended consequences.  We can only do the best we know how.  The rest is up to Someone greater than ourselves.

Think of it this way:  when you're not feeling well you may long to get back to doing the things you enjoy, the things that give a sense of accomplishment and offer a chance to make a useful contribution to others through your skills, but mostly you long for kindness and tender companionship, you long for someone who will share their strength with you until yours is restored.

It all gets whittled down to this--the way we treat each other.

Kindness is the most lasting and most needed form of art we can create.

PS-If you visit the Tazo website, try out "Consult the Tea Leaves".   Fun!

HEALTHY: Best Foot Forward

I'm back.  Dipping my toes back into the pool.  Toes painted with hearts (I did this myself) in celebration of health restored.

What a summer it was!

Didn't go at all as planned.  I planned and planted, but fate had other designs.

I won't go into details here.  Enough to say I was very sick for over two months.  Couldn't garden.  Couldn't do much of anything but read, sleep, teach my lessons, stay out of the heat, and try to figure out how to get well.

In both the literal and figurative sense, weeds overtook the garden while I was dealing with this extended illness. 

My greatest emotion now is gratitude.  Gratitude that I'm well again and able to do the ordinary things of life, like laundry and grocery shopping, without a struggle.

My heart goes out to those who live with chronic illness.  My struggles are just a shadow by comparison.

Coincidentally (or maybe not) an artist friend, Sarah, recently had something to say about both weeds and illness on her Art Calling blog, in two separate, lovely articles/reflections on these topics.  

After reading what she had written, I thought it might be of value to jump back in here and, over time, share some of the things I've discovered during this recent detour.

It's easy to post when things are going well.  Not so comfortable to write for public view when all my best intentions and efforts are lost in a tangle of weeds.  

The choices I make for many years to come are likely to be influenced by the lessons learned from this difficult time, now past.

Not going to say it all today.  Just glad to be back.

Peace!

Kay

QUOTES: Done with Great Things

"I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man's pride."

~ William James

BOOKS: Library Sale

I love books.  Especially good used books that can be had for next to nothing.

This was the week of the annual book sale at our local library.  For far less than one might spend on a single, new, hard-cover book, I brought home 17 barely-used, new-to-me books:

COOKBOOKS

• No Salt, No Sugar, No Fat Cookbook, by Jacqueline Williams and Goldie Silverman
  
• Plain & Happy Living: Amish Recipes & Remedies, by Emma Byler
• Better Homes and Gardens Complete Book of Baking
• Herbs are Good Companions: To Vegetable - In the Garden, To Cooks in the Kitchen.  by Adelma Grenier Simmons (founder of Caprilands Herb Farm, Coventry, CT)
• The Pasta Machine Cookbook, by Donna Rathmell German
• The New Book of Favorite Breads from Rose Lane Farm, by Ada Lou Roberts
• Perfect Pasta: 100 Suppers in a Flash.  Rodale Press
• The Complete Guide to Claypot Cooking, by Bridget Jones [seriously!]

GARDEN AND HERB LORE

• The Complete Book of the Greenhouse, by Ian G. Walls
• Crockett's Victory Garden, by James Underwood Crockett
• Dandelion, Pokeweed, and Goosefoot: How the early settlers used plants for food, medicine, and in the home. by Elizabeth Schaeffer
• The Healing Herbs: The Ultimate Guide to the Curative Power of Nature's Medicines, by Michael Castleman

OTHER

• Grandmothers of the Light: A Medicine Woman's Sourcebook, by Paula Gunn Allen
• Field Guide to Gestures: How to Identify and Interpret Virtually Every Gesture Known to Man, by Nancy Armstong and Melissa Wagner
• Blow a Bubble Not a Gasket: 101 Ways to Reduce Stress and Add FUN to Your Life, by Janie Walters [The book actually smells like bubble gum!]
• Cat Massage: A Whiskers-to-Tail Guide to Your Cat's Ultimate Petting Experience, by Maryjean Ballner
• The Mozart Effect: Tapping the Power of Music to Heal the Body, Strengthen the Mind, and Unlock the Creative Spirit, by Don Campbell

ADDITIONAL READING

Also, last Saturday at our great big yard sale, I rescued a copy of "The Wind in the Willows,"by Kenneth Graham, from one of the boxes of kids books we had for sale.  I'd never read it as a child, so I started on it while sitting in the shade during lulls in business that day.  Just finished it yesterday afternoon.

I was surprised by the  poetry of the prose and the sophistication of the vocabulary used in a book intended for children.  It was first published in 1908.  It's heartening to think of the respect given to the intellect of children in a book such as this, discouraging when compare with the mindless entertainment provided for children by today's media.

Today I just returned borrowed library copies of "Northanger Abbey"* and "Persuasion"* by Jane Austin.  I'm in the process of reading through her works, for the first time, this spring and summer.  Read "Emma"* a few weeks ago.  Have checked out "Mansfield Park"* to begin this week.

[*Skip over plot summaries in these links if you don't want to spoil reading the novels for yourself.]

Though Jane Austin's books were written nearly 200 years ago, the characters described within their pages demonstrate that human nature has changed little over the last two centuries, if at all.

In this light, I'm able to view my own encounters with difficult characters less as a matter of personal bad luck and more as the inevitable result of living and interacting with others.

(c)2008 Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

GAIA LUNA: Demure Dogwood

When rain drops grow heavy, the kousa dogwood tree outside our front door bows low in greeting, just as its Japanese ancestors might.

  

Delicate geishas with powdered faces nod politely while I balance on our top step, screen door behind me held open with right elbow and hip.

I am the awkward tourist, camera in hand.

They giggle demurely behind leafy fans.

(c)2008 Kay Pere - Effusive Muse Publishing

GAIA LUNA: Strawberries-First Harvest

Today the strawberry harvest began.  I picked them as the sun was coming up, just enough fresh berries for this morning's breakfast cereal.  A precious taste of spring sunshine.

There have been home-grown berries for breakfast almost every day since last June.

First, at the beginning of June '07, there were the fresh strawberries from the 9-foot circular bed at the center of Gaia Luna, planted the year before.

Then the blueberry harvest followed--enough gathered fresh each day to last through September of last year, enough frozen to last until just this week, all from just three bushes.

Another season of little miracles begins today with this handful of beautiful strawberries.