Two weeks ago I wrote that spring was here, and then winter thumbed her bitter nose at me and there were two more weeks of cold, including snow and full on storms and awfulness. Now, a better and more nervous person than I previously was, I'm going to say it again. Spring is here.
*ducks*
It's chilly, but sunny, and it warms up enough in the afternoon that I can hang laundry and send the children outside and the snow is leaving us very quickly. Plus all the other non-weather springish signs are appearing. The red squirrels are chasing each other around and around the pine trees at the end of the street, the sandhill cranes are making an ungodly racket down by the lake...
Now that it's warmer I feel more inclined to work on being frugal and healthy again. There's something about winter that just makes you (me) want to curl up in a ball with a warm cat on me and eat all of the food, so the warmth is definitely helping me to get away from that and back into the swing of projects. I'm reintroducing a lot of the whole foods oriented cooking methods I used to use as a matter of course, before my husband became incredibly focused on school and our lives got a lot busier with the church. If you have been reading my blog since the beginning you will remember that I used to make everything that could be made. I would make bone broth weekly and soak grains and make yogurt and bake breads...I did it all. Somehow a lot of that stopped in the past few years and I don't think there's one specific reason why - lots of things contributed. Adding a third child to our family, working full time in ministry, all the school, a new town without a lot of connections and without a farmer's market in town, lots of elements changed our eating style. And I'm a big proponent of Doing What You Gotta Do - no judgement here if you eat frozen lasagna every day and use disposable diapers and take antibiotics monthly. You do what you gotta do. And certainly this past few years we have done what we had to do to make it work with three little children and the lifestyle we found ourselves living.
But I'd be foolish not to say I missed it, because I did. I missed the work sessions in the kitchen, making lots of healthy real food and finding ways to trim the budget and learning new recipes. I missed the research, with friends and family and books. I missed talking to like minded people about what we were all doing to improve our health and our knowledge. I loved that area of life; I've always loved food and keeping house, and I wanted to be GOOD at it and I was good at it. I was really good for a while, and then I wasn't so much anymore and I'm okay with that - seasons of life and all - but I'm excited to get back into it.
Last night I made apple, pear, cranberry sauce with cinnamon in the slow cooker, set two big jars of sliced beets to lacto-ferment on the counter into pickles, roasted another tray of beets, made a jug of iced pomegranate green tea and started an experimental batch of a lentil and barley meat replacement to extend some ground beef. It was soothing, puttering around in my kitchen, doing the sorts of daily tasks that used to make up such a large portion of my days - it was like lapsing back into your mother tongue.
I don't want to make elaborate plans on what to do because I don't want to be disappointed if things don't move as smoothly as I'd like them to but I feel optimistic. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go make some bread.
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