Summer Garden Beef Pot Roast (GFCF) recipe

I must say that after about nine months of composting, it is still very satisfying.  It’s satisfying to mix in homemade compost into my garden, and satisfying that those veggie kitchen scraps are going to good use, and not just thrown in the trash.

I was thinking about that this morning as I was peeling carrots. 

I was also thinking about a recent visit to allrecipes.com, a site which I really like, and seeing “recipes” for chicken whose sole ingredients were:

• A chicken
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tsp paprika

That’s it.  The recipe in question has received more than 1,000 reviews (average of 4.5 stars, out of 5), and nearly 71,000 people have saved it as a favorite. 

Call me a snob, but I just don’t consider that a recipe.

My sweet friend Daja blogged about this cultural phenomenon recently:  Recipes that aren’t, which she entitled They just don’t make ‘em like they used to, in which she contrasted old fashioned recipes with newer “recipes”.

Or how about this gem: specific instructions on spreading marshmallow cream and peanut butter on bread.  Silly me, I thought that was something we didn’t admit to eating, not something we outlined in great detail.

Lots of good, fresh recipes on the site from which this pic was taken! The Seasonal Gourmet. Perfect.

So, anyway.  I was thinking about all of this, considering whether or not what I was making this morning qualifies as a true recipe.  I decided that, yes, it does, even though I almost never actually use recipes for dinner.  I pretty much just buy what’s on sale and in season (and now, what I can reap from my garden, or what was in my weekly CSA basket), look in the fridge and assess what I have, and come up with a plan that matches what I have on hand.  That’s what I did, this morning.  Since it’s summertime, I used ingredients that I probably wouldn’t have on hand in the winter, like red bells, fresh basil, and zucchini.  And, of course, if you’re going to make a pot roast in the summer, you must use a Crockpot.  Heating up the whole house just makes no sense.

Here ya go:

Summer Garden Beef Pot Roast

serves 6-8
(click here for pdf:  Summer Garden Beef Pot Roast pdf)

• 3-5 lb beef chuck roast, bone-in
• 8 medium carrots (about 1 pound)
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 large onion
• 1 large zucchini (about 1 pound)
• 4 stalks celery, with leaves
• 1 – 28 oz can diced tomatoes OR about 3 cups chopped fresh tomatoes
• 2 Tbsp sweet California chili powder OR paprika
• 1 tsp dry, rubbed sage
• ¼ cup chopped fresh basil (about 10 – 15 large leaves)
• 8 cloves garlic, rough chopped
• 2 tsp sea salt
• ½ tsp fresh cracked pepper
• IF you have a very large (8+ quart) Crockpot, 3 lbs Yukon gold and/or red-skinned potatoes.

1. Place the roast in the bottom of a 6 or 7 quart Crockpot (usually oval-shaped, rather than round).  No need to cut it up.
2. As you prepare each veggie, just throw it in, atop the roast.
3. Peel the carrots and slice lengthwise.  Cut each “stick” into 3-4 pieces.
4. Core and seed the red bell pepper, cut into pieces approximately 1″ x 1″.
5. Peel and slice the onion into about 16 sections.
6. Cut the zucchini lengthwise into quarters and chop into pieces about ½” wide.
7. Chop the celery into pieces about ½” wide.  (Leave the leaves.  They add more flavor!  Or, just do what I do:  Cut off the dried ends of a bunch of celery, then chop from there until you have about 1 cup of pieces.)
8. Add the tomatoes, chili powder (or paprika), sage, basil, garlic, salt, and pepper.
9. If you used canned tomatoes, add some water to the can to rinse out the remaining tomatoes and add to the Crockpot.  If you used fresh tomatoes, add 1 cup water.
10. If you still have room remaining in your Crockpot, cut each potato into 4-6 pieces and continue adding until Crockpot is full.
11. Gently stir contents of the Crockpot with a wooden spoon (or just plunge your hands in and mix).
12. Cook on low for 8-10 hours or on high for 6-7 hours until meat is fall-apart tender.
13. If you added potatoes, you have a complete, one-dish meal.  If you did not add potatoes, serve over mashed potatoes or rice.
14. Enjoy!

Glutton for punishment

As a glutton for punishment, even though my summer garden was/is far from successful, I am still very much looking forward to August 1st, when, according to a Maricopa County planting calendar put out by the University of Arizona, it’s the right time to start putting up (as my Midwest family calls it) green onion and carrot seeds.*  I have them purchased — Seeds of Change this time.  Heirloom and organic, but not native.

Parade Bunching Onion

I’m hoping that amending my soil MORE will help.  I’m continuing to make compost.  I have another batch about ready to mix into the garden with my fall planting.  I think I will also add more sand and some gypsum, though it seems like the jury is still out on whether or not gypsum is really of benefit to clay soil.  AND I will follow the garden calendar.  I’m not really sorry I didn’t follow it (or anything like it) when I did the initial planting;  I just needed to DO IT, to get myself started…  Sometimes one learns best from poor decisions, right? 

Dragon carrot

Seriously, this garden has been a real test of character for me.  It has become a daily effort to persevere even though the fun and most of the hope is gone for this summer’s crop.  “Keep weeding, keep learning, stay attentive, don’t give up just because it wasn’t an instant success,” I have to encourage myself.  I’m trying to take a longer view — which is also difficult for me — and place my hopes on future crops which will benefit from this summer’s failures.  ~sigh~

But, like I said…  I must be a glutton for punishment because hope — while not quite as abundant as it was fourish months ago — springs eternal, and I really am looking forward to better success next time.

In semi-related news, my love for butterflies and a homeschooling opportunity came into direct opposition to my gardening efforts this weekend.  In my Amazon cart, unpurchased, is a “butterfly garden“, which is really a pop-up mesh-sided habitat for butterflies.  I was rather excited to see a money-saving, real-life large green caterpillar on one of my tomatillo plants.  (Here in the desert, we rarely see caterpillars!)  I called out all the kids, and we watched the guy munching his way along…  I was much less excited when one caterpillar had turned into two, and together, they had absolutely decimated one plant and were well on their way to demolishing a second.  My husband pulled them off for me last night, and against his wishes to dump them in the trash, he deposited them, at my pleading, into a bush in the front yard.  In the meantime, I went to pick up our son Grant, who had spent the afternoon at a friend’s house.  As I briefly described Caterpillar-Gate to her, she went to the cupboard and pulled out a butterfly garden!  I happily took it home.  Though the two caterpillars were “gone”, I was pretty confident that more may show up.  Sure enough, there was another chubby green muncher on my largest tomatillo plant this morning.  I collected five different kinds of leaves from around the yard and plunked them and the caterpillar inside.  We’ll see if he weathers the change.

———-

*This is a really long run-on sentence, isn’t it?

 

The best-kept secret of the Grand Canyon

I’m torn.

Have you ever visited somewhere so amazing, so wonderful that you want to share it with others, so they can experience your joy?  Then, you think, “But if I tell anyone, it’ll become overrun.”

Well, friends, I’m running that risk of beautiful-site-overpopulation and the risk of you thinking I’ve crossed the line into hyperbole to tell you about a place that is beauteous in the micro and in the macro.  I mean, things up close to wonder at and turn over in one’s hand, and sights to see that stretch beyond the horizon, where you feel like you are a part of eternity.

Part of why I find myself so willing to share is because my camera really isn’t that great, so you’ll probably look at the pics and think, “Hmm… looks nice,” but since the majestic splendor of the place is not quite captured in pixels, you just can’t understand how much you MUST visit here. 

First, you enter through a little drive we called The Enchanted Forest, where the aspens and firs are dense, close to the road, and hang overhead, creating a tunnel:

The Enchanted Forest

Then, you park your truck under a huge tree:

Ethan with Grandma Detta

At the edge of the field, where the trees are, evidence of campers abound…  GOOD campers.  Campers who are appropriately in awe, and don’t wreck the place.  Campers who have not — bless God — come out to this lonely and beautiful spot to swill beer and break their glass bottles on the rocks, but campers who make a fire ring out of boulders, leave firewood for the next family who comes along, and pack out every scrap of trash.  I guess this would be due to the fact that if you come out here, it’s not to fish.  It’s not really to hike, even (though hikers tend to be tidier campers than beer-swilling fishermen).  It’s just to be gather in the sights grander than one’s eye can behold, breathing deep the breath of God.  And possibly to collect fossils.  (More on that in a bit.)

We haven’t camped there.  I must admit, I’m partial to water.  I mean, a water spigot from which one can get the essential liquid for washing dishes and dirty hands.  I’m OK with pit toilets, and I can do without a shower, but I really need water.  We’ve never camped anywhere without water, but we’re sure considering it, now.

After the truck is parked, you race to the edge of the pebble-strewn, high-altitude Indian Paintbrush colored field, and look out.  The Grand Canyon is grand.  It’s close by to this spot, and it is beyond beautiful.  But no where else did the breath catch in my throat and tears spring to my eyes.  It’s just that beautiful.

To the north, miles away and far below you, you see the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument and the Paria Canyon Wilderness.

The day was a little misty, sprinkled with showers, which made it a bit hazy (and made us appreciate our jackets).  In real life, though, the cliffs are a striking shade of deep orange-red.

To the northeast, divided from the Vermilion Cliffs by the Colorado River and Marble Canyon, lie the Echo Cliffs, almost matching the Vermilions in splendor.  Due east is actually the Grand Canyon, which makes a jog to the north, turning from the East Rim up through Marble Canyon.  Below this point — which, by the way, is called Marble Viewpoint — between you and the canyon, lies House Rock Valley and House Rock Wildlife Area.  It’s cut by only a very few dirt tracks…  Most of the scenery appears pristine clean, remote, gorgeous.

Grant is there, in the middle, dwarfed by the grandeur

That is the Grand Canyon in the background... where it's (comparatively) smaller. Martin and Audrey kneel on the right.

It’s difficult to explain Marble Viewpoint.  It just out to the north, a narrow finger of land, perhaps a couple of hundred yards wide and an eighth mile?  quarter mile? long.  Along the edges are dropoffs of a couple thousand feet, leading down from the Kaibab Plateau.

To get the scale of it, somewhat, that’s my 9-year-old son, Wesley, one arm raised, in the middle of this picture:

Here, my 11-year-old and mother-in-law venture out with an umbrella (which was quickly abandoned):

The view due east:

Of all the places we roamed in our camping trip, Marble Overlook was by far the favorite of our dog, Tally.  She ran and ran and ran, joy in her step and excitement in her eyes.

Grandma Detta, Ethan, and Tally

Run, Tally, run!

I was delighting in the flowers — penstemon and Indian paintbrush of unknown varieties…

Penstemon

Indian paintbrush and some sort of scrubby grass and all variety of small plants carpet the floor of the overlook.

When I looked down and exclaimed, “Hey!  That’s a fossil!”  Suddenly, we were all hunched over or on our knees, or sitting and sifting through pebbles.  Fossils were EVERYWHERE!

And… since were in the Kaibab National Forest, and not within the boundaries of the Grand Canyon National Park, I already knew the rules:  One may take specimens home — including minerals — for one’s own enjoyment, but may not sell them.  So, we took samples.    And you may not buy any from me.

Me 'n' my mountain man

We capped off the trip with a photo of everyone in the waning light.

If you go, enjoy it.  Keep it clean.    And take lots of pictures for me.

To find Marble Overlook:  Take Arizona 67 south from Jacob Lake.  Just south of the Kaibab Lodge and General Store, take forest road 610 east.  Continue on 610, following the signs for Marble Viewpoint.  Travel for… ten miles or so until you reach the turnoff for forest road 219, which will be on your left, leading north.  The number of the road is signed, but there is no additional sign that tells you that this is the way to Marble Viewpoint.  Continue on 219 about four miles.  Towards the end, there will be an area on the left/west that even has a sign proclaiming “Marble Viewpoint”.  DO NOT BE FOOLED.  This is not the true viewpoint.  To reach the viewpoint, continue to travel north about 1/4 mile to the north (through the above-pictured “Enchanted Forest”) until the road ends at the true Marble Viewpoint.

(By the way, for long-time readers, if this sounds familiar, I blogged about a similar adventure in June 2007, when I visited the viewpoint with my mom and children.  Unfortunately, I was swayed by the sign, and we stayed almost the entire time at the not-really-a-viewpoint, and didn’t see the actual viewpoint until it was almost dark.)

Fire Point (including my fave pic of all the vacation)

In our ten days in the vicinity of the Grand Canyon, we spent less than half the time on the grounds of the National Park, proper.  The rest of the time, we toodled around on the roads north of the park, often right up to the rim, but actually in the Kaibab National Forest.  I learned a couple of things:

• It is really helpful to have a resident with you.  Since my mother-in-law works at the Kaibab Lodge, she had a resident pass.  No $25 fee to enter the GCNP!
• Surprisingly, the National Forest system maintains its dirt roads a LOT — I mean a LOT!! — better than the National Park system.  The paved roads in the GCNP (like to the lodge itself, and the paved roads out to Cape Royal and Point Imperial, etc.) were fine.  But, the minute your vehicle’s tires touch dirt that is part of the park, it’ll be a bumpy ride.  The dirt roads of the National Forest are regularly graded, graveled, cleared of debris, etc.  I found the contrast interesting.  Seems like the National Forest and the National Park systems could come up with some sort of agreement to maintain roads together.

On Saturday, July 2nd, our last viewpoint for the day was called Fire Point.  We took the forest road 223 west, and about a half mile from the end, one actually enters the property of the Grand Canyon National Park.  So, we went from smooth sailing to a pot-holed, ill-maintained ride.  It was worth it, though.  Fire Point is supposed to be one of the best places to see a sunset.  Unlike some of the other viewpoints, Fire Point isn’t actually a peninsula jutting out like a thumb of land into the Canyon.  It’s just a west-facing point that looks out over where the Colorado River takes a curve so that it’s going from north to south.  Because the orientation of the land, it’s a great place to see the sun set as it drops over the Canyon.  Since the day was cloudless, the sunset wasn’t spectacular, but it was still very worth seeing…  It’s just that on subsequent partially cloudy evenings, when the sky was lit up in pinks, purples, and golds, I kept thinking, “This would be amazing out at Fire Point.”  Makes me wanna go back. 

 

Going...

Going...

Going...

Gone!

My fave pic. Audrey and Wesley. I love the love and comradery in this pic, with the setting sun adding a soft glow... Wes and Audrey watch the sunset together, sitting on a little ledge/outcrop by themselves. I rather had vision of all of the fam watching the sun go down, together, but the two of them were so enjoying each other's company that I couldn't call them over to where the rest of us were.

 

 

Camping at the North Rim (and NOT California)

I have so much to post about, I feel a wee bit overwhelmed.  I’m the sort who likes to do it right or not do it at all, and that, frankly, is not an entirely helpful outlook on life, because too many times, I assess a situation, big or small, and predetermine that I won’t be able to do it right or well, or excel in it, so I don’t even start.  How this affects blogging is that I know that, in the past, I’ve posted part one of what is supposed to be a fabulous series, and then it ends with part one;  I just never get back to the rest of it.  So, here I’m faced with a mass amount of information and pictures I want to share, knowing I can’t do it all in one sitting, but unsure of my ability/availability to do a proper series.

~sigh~

Thus ends the Therapy and Disclaimers Section of this blog post.

On to the real thing, which is hopefully part one of several.

We just got back from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, where we camped at the De Motte Campground on USFS land, just north of the North Rim, for nine nights.  That wasn’t quite our initial plan;  we were going to go to Limekiln State Park in the Big Sur area of California’s Central Coast, as well.  But, we had truck trouble.  It turned out to be REALLY minor, but at the time, we weren’t sure what was going on with our vehicle, and didn’t want to risk driving across the Mojave Desert with an unreliable vehicle.

On Saturday, July 2nd, we took the beautiful but arduous drive to Point Sublime — an 18 mile trip that took a full two hours to drive, due to the really rough roads.  It was gorgeous.  But, on the way back, the truck kept losing power…  With a lot of help from a Samaritan camper named Don from Kamloops, British Columbia, and a number of the employees of the Kaibab Lodge, my husband Martin narrowed the problem down to the catalytic converter.  The frustrating part with that was that we had JUST gotten that part replaced before our trip.  All the advisers suggested that Martin beat the bejeebers out of the catalytic converter with a rubber mallet in order to break up the honeycomb material inside, so that the exhaust would pass through unhindered — essentially rendering it useless as a filtering system but theoretically enabling us to drive.  Well, as he pounded, Martin heard a “ting! ting! ting!” and it turned out that a little plug, which had been spot-welded in place, had come loose.  This plug took the place of where a second sensor would be, if we had a larger vehicle.  In other words, it was a completely vestigial part of the truck.  But, because it was loose, the engine wouldn’t work.  Martin borrowed an Allen wrench (metric!  Since when are domestic vehicles using metric sizing??) and tightened up the plug.  Because of Sunday (when small towns are shut down) and Monday (the 4th of July), we had to wait until Tuesday to drive into Kanab, Utah, which was a 67-mile jaunt to the closest reliable vehicle repair shop.  They ran a diagnostic, discovered that our catalytic converter was working admirably (despite the beating it had undergone), but that, indeed, the plug needed attention.  They spent about two minutes welding it back into place, and sent us on our merry way.

Thus ends the Car Trouble Section of this post.

We plan on going to Limekiln next summer, and staying longer, to make up for my disappointment.  I’m mostly OK with the deferment, but trying to explain “next summer” to a 5 year-old girl doesn’t work;  you may as well tell her she’s going to have to wait until she’s 70.  Still, everyone handled the hiccup in our plans mostly with grace.

My mother-in-law works at the Kaibab Lodge, which is in the Kaibab National Forest, directly adjacent to the De Motte Campground, so we got to spend LOTS of time with her, which was wonderful.  Plus, the kids got to stay overnight in her RV many nights, instead of our tent, which was enjoyed by grandma and grandkids alike.

Most of the places we went were off of back roads.  The North Rim, due to its remote access, has only 1/10 of the number of people who visit the South Rim.  Due to our hermit-like natures (Not really.  Well, not entirely.), we decided to hit all the dirt roads and byways…  Most spots we visited had only one or two other vehicles present, if any.  Armed with a stupid-expensive Kaibab Forest map and 4WD, in one day, we visited Parissawampitts Point, Crazy Jug Point, North Timp Point, Timp Point, Locust Point, and ended the day with a sunset over Fire Point.  All that, and we didn’t feel rushed, and didn’t feel that we had had quite enough of the Canyon.  It’s so majestic, so splendid, so… grand… that each new view affords something dynamic and beautiful in a unique way.  Each spot, except for Fire Point, requires a wee bit of hiking — from a couple of hundred feet, to a quarter mile or so.

My faves were Crazy Jug and Fire Point.

In each pic, even if it appears that my children are about to topple off of the edge, and you’re questioning my motherhood responsibility, please know that all (or almost all) of the point overlooks have multiple “layers”, so if anyone would have dropped over the edge, they would have fallen only three feet, or perhaps five.  I didn’t let anyone get too close to anything that would have led to their death.    Still, these backroads views are WAY better than the ones available off of the paved roads, with possible exception of Point Imperial.

Still, my favorite part of the whole trip was not actually at the Grand Canyon proper.  More on that later.  I hope.

Audrey, delighting in the abundance of Sego Lilies. And, since we were in the Kaibab Forest here, and not actually in Grand Canyon National Park, it was not illegal to pick them. So there. Pick away, Audrey!! Our picnic table was continually graced with Sego Lilies, Indian Paintbrush, various daisy-type flowers on unknown variety, lupines... Lovely.

 

Ethan, contemplating the vast view from Crazy Jug viewpoint.

 

Ethan, Grandma Detta, Audrey, and Grant at Crazy Jug

Fiala and me at Crazy Jug Point.

My handsome hubby and his mom, at Crazy Jug.

The view from... either Timp Point or North Timp Point. When you're there, you think you're never forget where *this* view was taken... but when one is faced with 430 pics from a camping trip, the certainty is reduced to pretty much nothing.

Sweet Fi at Timp Point

Audrey, at Locust Point (I think). You may be wishing for more scenic pics and fewer of my children. But, a) I think my kids are darling, and b) my camera isn't of such magnificent quality to catch the depth, beauty, and color of the Canyon, and c) the days were just a tad hazy, so all the long view shots are a bit disappointing.

Ethan, contemplative again, at Locust Point. It's the hat. His hat led to a lot of rear-view "Contemplative Young Man" shots.

Many of the trails at the various points were similar to this: Brushy and flower-strewn, which then opened up to a grand view. There's such a variety of flora at the North Rim -- It's high in elevation (around 8,000 feet), with a fair bit of rain, so much of it is alpine -- with aspens and fir, but some of the points are so windy and exposed, and the soil is so poor, the landscape and plants are more desert-like. Quite amazing.

This shot was Ethan's idea. Again with the hat. In shadow.

Martin, holding Audrey, looking off into the hazy beauty. We found out later that the wisp of smoke we saw to the left of us (the east) in this picture developed into a full-blown fire. Last I heard, it was "only" 12 acres... Hope they got that under control...

And that’s it, for now.  Out of time.  Hope you enjoyed.    Next up:  Sunset at Fire Point.

 

Housework! Summer soup! Beef jerky! Computer viruses!

• Fourteen upper cabinets.  Twelve lowers.  Fifteen drawers.  All cleaned, inside and out, sorted and re-organized.  Plus, as they don’t go all the way to the kitchen ceiling, the tops are cleaned off, as well as all the decorative items that reside up there.  ~sigh~  That is a sigh of exhaustion.  And relief.  In our nearly six years of living here, I have never done all of the kitchen cabinets in one fell swoop.  It had been nagging at the back of my brain daily, each time I took something out of a cabinet and saw an accumulation of crumbs, dust, and/or greasy grime.  Note:  Gel Gloss looks fabulous for about ten minutes, but then that gleaming shine washes off super-easily with soap and water!  Not great for quartz countertops in a kitchen that gets regular abuse use.  Bummer.  Anyone have a favorite stone countertop product they love??
• Have you ever tried my Thai Chicken Noodle Soup?  I just updated the recipe.  I can’t believe it’s been almost four years since I originally posted the recipe.   The soup –  more of a meal-in-a-bowl than an actual soup — is a staple in our home, even in summer.  Lots of fresh veggies, tasty and fun.  Mmmm…
• I turned seven pounds of London Broil into beef jerky the other day.  Smoky-garlic and soy-garlic.  It’s in preparation for our vacation.  Jerky comes in handy for snacks and meals-while-driving, as well as made into various recipes (which I learned from this fabulous cookbook for hikers/campers — it’s a shame it’s out of print!  One review says “Invaluable!  Wore out library copy — had to buy my own.”  That is exactly what I did!!)…  Anyway.  What wasn’t fit for jerky got put into a pot of what was supposed to be red chile stew.  Which it was, sort of.  But, I got enticed by a Really Big package of dried chile de arbol at the grocery store last week, and thought, “Oooh, those are the chiles in Cholula [my fave hot sauce],” and I bought it, really knowing nothing about them.  Well, it turns out they are REALLY HOT.  I removed the stems, seeds, and… pith (or whatever it’s called), and my hands burned for hours, even though I think I only used five chiles.  Also, the broth was SO HOT that I had to scoop out all the beef chunks and — sadly — drain the broth, which seemed like such a waste, but I knew if I kept it as it was, it would be inedible for my kids.  I added water to cover the remaining beef (to which some crushed chile still clung), added a chopped onion, sea salt, and about eight cloves of chopped garlic.  After it had simmered for nearly three hours, I thickened the cooked-down broth with some corn starch, and served it with some Spanish rice (which I had made earlier in the week) and some refried beans (from Trader Joe’s — my favorite).  It was good.  Still, lesson learned:  very judicious use of chile de arbol in the future.
• My computer contracted a nasty virus, somehow, a few weeks ago.  It died.  Actually, it would power up, but Windows wouldn’t start.  The virus was called Windows Repair Module, which — obviously — was a fake.  How insidious.  I kept getting warnings from Windows, and it turns out that each time I clicked the “OK” button, I was unknowingly activating the .exe file associated with various aspects of the virus.  A friend of my husband’s took my hard drive home with him and worked on it every night for four nights.  He was able to pull most of my documents and pictures (THANK GOD!  I cried when I thought they were unretrievable), and save them to an external hard drive.  Then, he reformatted my hard drive.  Now, I just have to load a bunch of software that got wiped out… but that’s OK.  I then thanked my oldest son, Ethan, who will be 14 later this week.  Why?  Because “…with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”  Ethan worked a hot and hard day at the home of a friend, laying tile and cleaning…  and with that measure of service and giving, it was returned to us, in the form of a repaired computer.
• If you’re still reading… today is my birthday.  I am 38.    The only thing I really love about growing older is the history, the perspective that it brings to my life.  I freak out less, because I can say, “Look.  We had that really rough patch five years ago, and God brought us through.”  When I was younger, everything was new and untested, and every challenge threatened to topple me.  Now, I’ve had years of tasting God’s goodness, and seeing His faithfulness first-hand.  To me, that’s a really, really valuable birthday present.

Wistful: Children’s books vs. Reality

Sometimes, I wonder what God has in mind for me, since He gave me a heart to love the things I do, which are in mighty short supply in the desert:  water, flora, and fauna.

There is life here in the Sonoran Desert.  There are animals, a few.  And there are plants, hardy and prickly though they may be.  But there sure isn’t much water.

I’ve always longed for greener pastures, literally.

But, God gave me a husband who is a native of this hot, dry, brown Valley of the Sun, and I’ve adjusted my expectations of what might be lying just around the corner, waiting for me.

Acadia National Park is not.  Nor the Oregon coast.  Not even the Mississippi bluff area of western Illinois, where my maternal grandparents had their farm, and — which I recently heard with a yelp of joy — which my Uncle Allyn is farming a bit of, again, with his recovering health.

There are days as I look out at the landscape of 100+ days of 100°+  when I am tempted to despair, and my heart just longs for cooler, greener climes.

So, I pull out a picture book and read to one of my little girls.

Today, my oldest nephew’s girlfriend and I were having a mostly-joking Facebook conversation about her moving (or the two of us taking a road trip) to Maine.  She was up for just about anywhere on the upper reaches of the northeastern United States, but I steered her to Maine.

In this Caldecott Honor book, three- or four-year-old Sal picks blueberries with her mother and gets "all mixed up" with a mother bear and cub eating blueberries of their own.

In my possession, since before any of my children could read, have been three hardcovers, each of which I have loved since my own childhood.  Blueberries for Sal, One Morning in Maine, and Time of Wonder, each written and illustrated by Robert McCloskey.  I freely admit that I can never refuse a sturdy two-year-old toddling with binky inserted, trailing her blankie, barely grasping a picture book, half her size, who pipes up with the hopeful query, “Mowneen i’ Maine??”

For those of you unfamiliar, please check out the books from your local library, or buy them.  Now.  Please.

Also a Caldecott Honor. In which 6yo Sal wishes upon a feather (instead of her first lost tooth, which fell into the muddy pebbles, digging clams with her father) and travels to quaint Buck's Harbor for groceries and the wish-fulfilling cone with her 2yo sister, Jane, and their father.

The books show the progression of the author’s family in the 1950s (when they were written) which spent summers in Maine.  They have beautiful illustrations and apt prose, which shows exactly how adept McCloskey was at thinking with a child’s mind, and seeing with a child’s eyes.

After the Facebook conversation, I read Time of Wonder to Fiala, before her nap.  Looked at the pictures, more than actually read, as Time of Wonder, the Caldecott Medal winner for 1957,  is told in second person, and has a more “grown up” prose than the first two books about Sal and Jane.  It shows both girls, aged about 12 and 8, “manning” their own rowboat and small sailboat (sans life jackets), jumping from rocks along the cove with a bevvy of other children, and weathering a hurricane with their parents, partly by sing-shouting The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

The book mentions several specific place names, which — as I have done on several other occasions — I Googled, to find their location on a map, and pictures as lovely as the illustrations in the book.  And — yet again — I longed for a visit to Acadia National Park, which is in the same exact area as the setting for the trio of McCloskey books.  This time, I found myself especially taken with the sites at Duck Harbor Campground on the minuscule Isle au Hait, described as rugged, remote, inaccessible to automobiles, primitive…  combined with 18 miles of hiking trails, it seems like my kind of place, exactly.  McCloskey’s, too. 

Out of curiosity, as I read

…through the fog you hear Harry Smith over at Blastow’s Cove start the engine of his lobster boat and go out to pull his traps.

I wondered if Harry Smith was a real man.  He was.  I found myself sad to read that one Harry Smith, of Little Deer Island, Maine, was buried in the Blastow’s Cove Cemetery in 1957.  It must have been not long after Time of Wonder was published.

Otter Cliff, Acadia NP

I found myself also remembering the incomparable Calico Bush, whose author, Rachel Field, often wrote poetry, apparent in her Newbery Honor prose.  Calico Bush is set off of the coast of Mount Desert Island, which is home to most of Acadia National Park.

Wait.

Suddenly, this sounds very familiar.

[I do a little search on my own blog and come up with THIS POST from February of 2010.]

Sigh.

My memory is short, but at least I’m consistent, eh?

Dorr Mountain Trail, Acadia NP

I guess my point of this point — similar to the last one on the very same subject — is how I just don’t know how to sort all of these thoughts.  I mean, I know that allowing myself to indulge in discontentment is dangerous.  Letting it sit and percolate in my mind is unwise;  I can easily become really unhappy about just about anything, any situation, and anyone in my life if I allow myself to go there.  So, I don’t.  I don’t live in Maine, and can’t conceive of anything that would lead us to Maine, and I think it would 100% be a fruitless and frustrating endeavor to try to figure out how we could or why we don’t have a summer house on a private island in Maine, like McCloskey’s family did.

Precipice Trail, Acadia NP

But, on the other hand… my Father God created me with a love for that particular kind of beauty, and a wistful longing for that sort of slowed-down, simple life, living in community, surrounded with an achingly beautiful piece of His creation.  Did He do that for nothing?  I mean, did He make my heart to love that so, for no purpose, or just to teach me the Godly discipline of not allowing myself to become frustrated and discontented?  Possibly, but I don’t think so.  I hope not.

Last year about this time, I was dreaming of taking a trip there, someday soon, paid for by the thousands of dollars I’d make, writing.  I have made some, but, golly!  In order to MAKE money writing, you have to have the TIME to devote to it, and fit into someone else’s agenda.  That part was less successful.  I’ve had a few other offers for employment in writing, but it’s just not fair to any perspective client to hire me, then to have me perpetually be unavailable, even if that makes any Maine trip tarry.

My hubby works with a guy, though, who has a house in Maine…  Hmm…  Maybe I should find out where, exactly, that house is…  Thinking, thinking…  I don’t think my hubby would consider that appropriate.  I’m sure he’s right.

One way, though, or another…  but it has to be the right way, in the right time.  I *KNOW* that;  it’s just hard to adjust my thoughts on the matter, especially as these visions dance in my head.

Sigh.

Summer panic… and peace

Right about this time every year, there gets to be a tight feeling in my chest, which I have to fight for… oh, about five months.  It’s a bit like claustrophobia, but it’s more along the lines of heat-o-phobia.  Truly, I despise summer in the desert.  Some people really love the heat and thrive in it.  That, however, is not me.  I have worked hard to find things to appreciate about the place I live so that I’m not living with a crappy attitude and wishing to be elsewhere, half of my life.  My husband is a native, his dad is a native (which is REALLY rare;  the Phoenix area is a valley of transients)…  My mom and stepdad are here, my sister and brother-in-law are here, my niece is here… plus, we truly have the most amazing church where we both serve and are fed.  Not to mention my husband’s fabulous job that he’s been at for 19 years.  It’s highly unlikely that we’ll be leaving any time soon.  I have come to value the benefits to living here, apart from the weather, which, any time I really let myself think about it, I could pretty easily conjure up some tears.  I mean, I really despise summer in the desert.

But, I will not dwell on the endless 110°+ days;  I will, instead, continue to look for things that make the desert tolerable or even pleasant, and fight the heat-o-phobia and its accompanying tears which threaten to steal my peace.

Several things have made the transition into summer easier for me this year:

1. There have only been a handful of 100° days so far.  Today, as I write, we have been the beneficiary of some low-pressure front, or something like that, and the temps are supposed to top out in the 70s.  Yesterday’s high was 80°.  I know that God doesn’t allow these sort of days solely for me, but I like to think of them as Him giving me a bit of hope and reprieve, letting me know that I can make it, and that it’s not ALL oven-like misery.
2. I have been waking earlier.  Much earlier.  A couple of weeks ago, I started hiking a mountain — hill, more like it — that is nearby.  I wake at 5:30 a.m., am on the trail by 6:00, and home by about 7:15 just in time to help my hubby gather his lunch for the day, his to-go mug of coffee, and to kiss him goodbye.  The first day I did the early-morning hike, Martin said, “You could do that every day and it would be OK with me.”  Other than a spunky 2yo who sometimes wakes way too early and won’t stay in bed, and has the power to open the fridge and take out everything she can’t eat and have a surreptitious binge whilst Daddy is in the shower and Mommy is not yet home, it works really well.  And, I have the great feeling of becoming fit and healthier, as well as breathing in the cool, early morning air and being there to (almost) greet the sunrise.  I do a balloon-shaped trail that is about 3.6 miles, savoring the temperatures that are in the 60s or 70s…  It has been wonderful.  And, somehow, it’s SO MUCH EASIER for this night owl to roll out of bed at 5:30 for a hike, instead of, say, the stationary bike.
3. 

   I think ours is taller than this, and it's in bloom.

   Our backyard is now over five years old, and the pathetic little saplings have matured and grown into a lush (for the desert) green oasis.  This may not seem like much, but when I’m surrounded by hot, brown, and dry, it’s such a blessing to be able to walk into my back yard and breathe in a little bit o’ GREEN.  The trees are now climbable, and one of them even has a little rope swing attached.  We have two medium (but lovely) fruitless pistachio trees and two large tipu trees.  Wonderful.

4. My garden.  Again, it’s only May, and I got it in a good month later than I should have, so who knows how fruitful it will actually be.  But for now, it’s medicine to my soul to push the dirt around and coax and nurture little plants into being.  Usually once a day (at least), I pull out my kneeling pad and just sit on it, looking at the garden.  Even when there’s nothing to do in it, I feel good looking at it either up close, or just glancing out the window while working in the kitchen.  Over the weekend, my hubby installed soaker tube for the irrigation and put up a little wire fence to keep our dog (and small children) from romping through the tender growth.  He proclaimed, “Now it looks like a real garden.”  I concur.

Grandpa Conover, learning to persevere, and desert gardening

Gardening in the Phoenix area is almost impossible.  Like I don’t have enough on my plate already, right?  But, it’s in my blood.

Yoeme Purple String Beans

My mother was raised on a farm;  her father farmed until a few years before his death.  My Grandpa Conover was a precious man about as wide as he was high — about 5’5″ in both directions.  No matter the occasion, he was sharply dressed in pair of overalls, a plaid long-sleeved shirt, and a seed-supply “trucker” hat, with tufts of hair sticking straight out the back.  He was hard of hearing but blamed everyone else for the fact that he couldn’t hear.  He never called my grandma by her first name — always some term of endearment, usually culled from songs popular in the 1940s, when they were courting.  (They never really stopped courting;  they usually held hands and flirted everywhere they went.)  Grandpa Conover would frequently break into song with his loud and lovely baritone, or, just as often, start quoting whole stanzas of Shakespeare.  I loved him very much.

Pasilla Negro Chiles

Too, I love the land where he was from:  the Mississippi bluff area of west-central Illinois.  Actually, I love all of Illinois.  I feel very much at home there.  Makes me want to cry, just thinking about it.

However, God didn’t see fit to plant me in the Midwest;  I married a native Arizonan who had/has no intentions whatsoever of leaving this great state.  I fought that, more internally than externally, for many years;  my heart longs for green hills, big trees, and slow-moving, peaceful rivers.  I’m now at peace with living in the desert.

Hopi pale-grey squash/pumpkin

Still, there’s more than a bit of farm girl in me, even though I personally never spent more than a couple of months (more often, only a week or two) at a time on the family farm, and then, only once — a few times, twice — yearly.

Farming in the desert, though, takes lots of time, lots of patience, lots of soil amendments, and lots of water.  I usually pine for a garden, but don’t have a convergence of all of those things at once.  I did discover that having a nursing baby AND gardening was just too much for me.  No nursing baby this year…    But, I’ve been working on my compost since late November, and ordered seeds from Native Seeds/SEARCH (Southwest Endangered Aridland Clearing House).  NS/S collects both native and heirloom (think Spanish explorers) seeds that have been prospering for a couple of centuries or more.  So, they have the best chance for really thriving in the desert Southwest.

Maricopa Sweet Corn

Now, in an ideal world — which, frankly, doesn’t exist — I would have had my garden in a month ago.  But, my compost wasn’t ready, and I just didn’t have the time to research my seeds, and… I don’t know what else, but I just wasn’t ready.  Because of that fact alone, I kind of am tempted to throw in the towel and not even try.  BUT… I’m not going to do that.  The Karen of five years ago would have, but lately, I’m trying to agree with God in that He wants to bring more persistence and perseverance to me — and less wilting, freaking out, or depression — in the face of difficulties.

Punta Banda Tomato

So!  All that to say that, today, I got about 40% of my 7′ x 21′ raised-bed garden soaked, tilled (with about half of my compost mixed in), raked, and planted.  Woo hoo!!  Forty percent was enough for 15 corn plants, one mound for squash, and 30 bean plants.  I’ll need to start my chile, tomatillo, and tomato plants (for transplant) ASAP;  I should have had those started a couple of months ago!!

I really don’t know if it will prosper.  I half hope and half am shouldering an impending sense of doom.  Seriously.  ONE DAY of neglect in 110° weather can kill the garden.  We do have an irrigation system, but it’s imperfect, and I just can’t trust it completely.

Mt. Pima Tomatillo

But.  I DID IT, in the face of all the less-than-ideal circumstances.  There are a few things going for it:  I have a good patch for the garden — it’s a raised bed, and is mostly shaded from the most intense late-afternoon sun.  I have compost tilled in.  I purchased native seeds.  I have farming in my blood.

Hopefully, that will be enough.

Poetic birding, summer plans, and a million trips to the potty

• There are Lesser Nighthawks all over my neighborhood, mostly in the summer.   They wheel in the air close to the streetlights, and rest on the road (!), camouflaged on the asphalt, frequently rising in a flurry of feathers as a car drives by.  I went for a walk with my youngest daughter around sunset last night, and heard what seemed to be two different Lessers calling to each other, but I didn’t see them.  (I’m on a birding listserv, and a guy posted about seeing a Lesser Nighthawk last night.  I replied with this, and after I had written it, I re-read it, and it sounded poetic.)
• I am very excited to have booked at least part of our summer
  

  At Limekiln, you get THIS...

  vacation!!  I have wanted to go to California’s Limekiln State Park for a good five years, and this summer it appears that I’m going to get my wish!  My dear hubby is a very linear thinker, and wants to have A, B, and C done and tied neatly with a bow before moving on to D, E, and F.  In other words,he does NOT like to plan ahead, because then there are a million half-done, tentative things hanging around in his brain, and it drives him batty. Additionally,being that we live in the scenic and wonderful state of Arizona, he sees little need to venture out of our borders, with the possible exception of Colorado, since his brother lives there.

  

  ...only a few hundred feet from THIS.

  He’s NOT into driving long distances.  So, my planning has been made with extra thankfulness for him agreeing — well in advance — to plan for and book a trip that he’s not all that sure is going to be worth the tedium of driving for two days…

• Fiala, my 26 month old, is potty-training.  She’s doing well!  Mostly, that is.  She even went to church yesterday without a diaper, and stayed dry all day.  She still has to be taken to the potty every 30 minutes or so, though.  When she says, “I fuh-uhgot to go potty!” that means, “I’m wet!”  This morning, I was doing a school with Wesley, and didn’t want to be interrupted to take yet another trip to the bathroom.  So, on a whim, I asked my four-year-old, Audrey, if she would take her.  A few minutes later, they came back, flushed and grinning with triumph, and both very aware of the novelty.  Next up:  Audrey makes dinner for our family of seven and runs a few loads of laundry.