slowly she turned

Living the Slow life in North Carolina

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  • A few words and photos about our Charleston trip

    Lush greenness. I snagged some palmetto fronds that had been cut and left on the sidewalk, which I later cooked and blended into beautiful handmade paper.

    Considering the photos I’ve seen of this area after the Civil War bombardment of the city, I’m amazed that there are any 18th century tombstones intact. I love old graveyards.

    This aviary on a balcony in the South Carolina Aquarium was a home for turtles and injured or rehabilitating birds. They have an albino alligator inside the aquarium. I also got to pet a small alligator about two feet long, but didn’t get a photo because of all the children who ran up to us.

    Of course we took a ferry out to Fort Sumter. My husband should have been a historian. He also toured the Yorktown while I sat in the park under a tree and gratefully read a book in the sea breeze. Fort Sumter was a very interesting place for lines and textures as well as history.


    We stayed in the Vendue Inn in the French Quarter. I highly recommend it. We stayed in the least expensive room, and it was wonderful. You can’t get a room in the historic district for less than about $130 a night, and this one was $165 for Sunday and Monday nights. We had to stay in the Red Roof Inn in Mount Pleasant on Saturday night, and it was fine. But the Vendue was in walking distance of everything great about Charleston. We parked the car and didn’t need it again until we left. The waterfront park and pier was at the end of the street. After all the walking we did, the whirlpool bath was a blessing at the end of the day. I felt pampered and slept like a log.

    I didn’t get to go into nearly as many galleries and antique stores as I would have liked. It will be a good excuse to go back. Especially during the next Charleston Friends of the Library sale. We got some amazing deals – filled two large tote bags with books for $30. One book I picked up is a weaving classic that sells for $35. I also have to go back because we never took a carriage ride.

    Hank’s was highly recommended to us. Ummm, yeah. Maybe the best seafood meal I’ve ever had: Seafood a la Wando. The Vendue has a superb restaurant named the Library, but it was closed the two nights that we were there. Breakfast was wonderful though.

  • Greens Galore!

    (cross-posted at www.gfcmarket.com)

    tuscankaleGreens galore! This is the time of year when CSA bags are stuffed full of them. Some people love ‘em, some hate ‘em. I kind of walk the line – I like to have some collard or tendergreens now and then, but they wear out their welcome soon for me. I love to grow Tuscan kale in my backyard garden over the winter, but the critters in our neighborhood love it too. And Lucy, our produce inspector that you can see in a photo a couple of posts ago, is nuts about turnip greens. I always have to give her some for her to leave me alone so that I can prepare them for the human eaters of the house.

    So. My CSA bag from Handance Farms has had lots of greens each weekend. What to do? The tender young collard greens were excellent cooked with a splash of olive oil and chopped garlic, using just the water that clung to them after washing. Since we are trying to cut our cholesterol in this house, I use Liquid Smoke to get the flavor of traditional Southern hamhocks or fatback without the fat, but sometimes I buy certified humanely-raised bacon from Deep Roots Market.

    Kale is good cooked the same way, and white navy beans makes the dish a meal. My favorite, though, is Kale Chips. I’d read about them, but didn’t try cooking them on purpose. Instead, I set a saute pan with the barely cooked kale and garlic on the back burner over my oven vent when I was baking something. Ten minutes later I noticed that the kale was crispy. Hmmm. One taste and I was gobbling them up. So if you don’t think you like kale and would like to get it into your diet, try drizzling a tray of kale pieces with olive oil and chopped garlic and bake them in a low oven. That’s what I’m doing with this week’s kale, and for the first time I am looking forward to it!

    For lunch, I decided to make an improvised soup with the turnips, mixed greens, and shiitake mushrooms in my CSA bag. I can’t promise that these are the exact amounts of ingredients. You’ll have to taste and experiment – make sure that you have some sweetness to offset the tartness of the greens. My husband and I both found that this was tasty.

    1/2 chopped large sweet onion
    2 smashed minced cloves of garlic
    1 cup of chopped little white turnips
    A couple of big handfuls of torn, destemmed mixed greens
    1/2 pound of chopped shiitake mushrooms (save those stems for stock later!)
    Corn scraped off a leftover cooked ear (save that cob for stock!)
    6 cups of chicken stock (4 cups were fake chicken stock)
    Egg noodles
    1 teaspoon five spice powder
    Splash of Asian fish sauce
    Splash of tamari sauce
    Salt and pepper
    A little cornstarch

    Saute the onion and garlic in oil (I used olive) on low heat. Add the next four ingredients, turn up the heat a little and cook a few more minutes. Add the stock and cook until the turnips are tender. Add the seasonings, then the noodles, and cook until the noodles are done. Mix about a tablespoon of cornstarch with some hot broth and add to the soup during the last minute of boiling.

    It would be even better with chicken, but I was using what I had and this low fat healthy soup was delicious!

  • Saturday morning coffee pot post

    I’m back – sorry if I worried anyone with my prolonged absence! A little update then I promise no more talk about my health.

    I have been sick with this coughing crud for weeks, pulled a muscle in my neck, and, after a solid year without a “visit from my friend,” discovered that I am not on the other side of the menopause wall yet. I was miserable and tired of griping. However, the medicine that I’m taking for my neck has done wonders for my hands, so I’m happy about that and hope that if my stomach will handle it long-term and nothing comes out about it causing heart attacks (yes, I took Vioxx at one time) that maybe this is an option I can turn to when nothing else works.

    I also have been very busy at work and not much into being on the computer much when I get home. I’ve worked on the first Friends of the Greensboro Farmers’ Curb Market newsletter, and I am now in the middle of taking a volunteer break for the month. I don’t want to get burned out quickly, and frankly, that’s a possibility.

    Sandy and I spent a long weekend in Charleston, South Carolina this past weekend. I’ll do a separate post about that, but in the meantime I have the photos that I took up on Flickr. I handed over my Canon Rebel camera to Sandy now that I have a pocket-sized Kodak. I had to get used to not having as many settings, but overall I was pleased with the quality of my photos.

    The best news yet is that yesterday I opened my personal email around mid-morning to find that I sold five books that I just re-listed on Etsy to a woman in Alabama, who told me that she had a crew of creative friends that she bought them for. So it is not only a thrill that I made such a big sale, but I am happy that they are going to homes where I hope that they will be lovingly filled with writing and artwork.

    This means that I really have to be disciplined this weekend and next about finishing a few more books for the Indie Market on November 6. I have several that are half finished. My goal is to finish at least three book covers in preparation for binding this coming week and bind and finish the two that are ready for pages.

    I brought back a couple of palmetto fronds from Charleston, cut them into pieces and boiled them in soda ash water for about four hours last night. I’ll take this to Susanne today so that she can make me one last batch of pulp before cold weather brings an end to pulp-beating on her back porch for the year. I hope that they are broken down enough. I soaked them overnight in the soda ash water.

    I’ve been reading a lot lately. I finished “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Steig Larsen, “The Master Butcher’s Singing Club” by Louise Erdrich and began “Year of Wonders” by Geraldine Brooks, and I recommend all of them. Plus I go to my stash of wonderful mixed media and fiber art books again and again for inspiration. I don’t know how people live without books.

    Gotta go – I’m dropping off the package to Alabama on my way to the farmers’ market.

  • Saturday morning coffee pot post

    A quick post so that I can move stuff out of the bedroom and go to the Greensboro Farmers’ Curb Market before the heat of the day sets in.

    This has been such a busy week. I did get some artwork done, especially last Sunday afternoon when I closed myself into a room with all my art stuff and a gluepot. I hope to finish a couple of books this weekend, and I’ll post photos when they are done.

    We walked in Fisher Park again. I didn’t remember it having such huge old beautiful homes. And the front of First Presbyterian. Who knew that my adopted “religion” had such rich members in Greensboro? It looks like a freakin’ cathedral. I thought that Scots were supposed to be tight with their money. You can tell that I’m not much of a Presby because I just struggled so hard to spell it. Anyway, clearly I need to get out more. I made a little folded book with a map of Greensboro to mark off streets as we walk them.

    I went to water aerobics class twice this week. (Pause for applause.) Thank you.

    I ate enough cheesy chocolately things to reverse any good that the previous actions accomplished. Thank you anyway.

    I finished designing and editing a newsletter for Friends of the Greensboro Farmers’ Curb Market. Well, almost. And I’m still working on the web site – hopefully will add a Paypal account for donations and Google doc forms soon. Then I’m taking a break for next week and the whole month of October, in which I will concentrate on artwork to sell (OR NOT, I truly don’t care at this point, other than it justifies buying more art supplies) and going on vacation. We are taking a long weekend in Charleston, SC, and I’ll go to Journalfest in Washington state the last week in October.

    I wanted to spend all day making books, BUT our air conditioning is broken, and I decided to suck it up the last few days of summer, mainly because I don’t want to add to my credit card or take money out of my savings and I’m broke until Thursday. The kicker is that with the heat, my bedroom carpet has ripened with the addition of new cat pee. I’ve had it with keeping the makers of Bac-Out and lately even Clorox in business, and I’m going to rip that ugly pink stinky nasty carpet and padding out of there. It will be nice to breathe at night again.

    I’ll carve out some time to finish those two books and start a third one. Susanne is making corn shuck pulp for me this weekend. It is supposed to rain the next few days (hallelujah) so I may have to freeze and refrigerate as much as I can. Papermaking might have to wait until next Saturday.

  • Miss Lucy, produce inspector

    “Hmm, passes the crunch test, but not very tasty.”

    “Looks good, I’d say go with it.”

    “I’m taking this piece of lettuce back to the lab for analysis.”

  • Saturday morning coffee pot post

    This coffee is so good that I’m going to have to make another pot. Lately I’ve been buying my coffee beans from Fresh Roast at the Greensboro Farmers’ Curb Market. This is the Sumatran Peaberry. I also love the Kenyan Peaberry. Listen, I didn’t used to be a coffee snob. For years I would drink any kind of coffee crap put in front of me, especially if it was free. Instant coffee, coffee out of vending machines. It was all about the caffeine.

    This year a Starbucks opened at work. I don’t like Starbucks coffee. It tastes burnt. I always get confused at the counter. The only reason I was drinking it was that my boss would offer to buy me a cup, or I’d walk over there with him. It was a nice, friendly thing to do. It wasn’t about the coffee, which I think is awful, and I don’t understand the appeal.

    I’ve been blogging about the Greensboro Farmers’ Curb Market at www.gfcmarket.com where I am part of a development team. It’s easy because I blog about the Market here so much. The Friends group has risen above the lie-driven negative political funk caused by a lot of nonsense and a local yellow rag digging for non-existent dirt, the pages of which I use to line the litterbox area and for mulch on my garden beds. We’re moving forward with positive energy, reaching out to everyone, and organizing into an active force. It’s exciting. It reminds me of the early days organizing Slow Food Piedmont Triad, which is now in the capable hands of others.

    Let’s see, I usually recap my week here. I can’t remember yesterday sometimes – it’s a middle-aged thang. I call it my menopause moments. Okay.

    Last Sunday Sandy and I went to breakfast at Smith Street Diner and then we took a long walk around Fisher Park. We’re going back there a little later today after I make us some goat cheese omelets at home. Since I quit Weight Watchers I am trying to ease into regular exercise, tough for me because of hip and hand issues.

    Sandy has inspired me with his regular early morning routine for the past week and a half, so I joined the Campus Recreation Center at UNCG. I was able to sign up for a year as a recent alumni, which is the cheapest rate. Comes out to around $13 bucks a month. There are a couple of water aerobics classes and even though I don’t like swimming in chlorinated water or locker rooms and communal showers, I decided that was the practical way to begin. My first class was Wednesday night and I have just now gotten over the soreness! The classes are on Monday and Wednesday nights, and I’m going to do them and walk on the other days. I’m not trying yoga again yet because it is hard to put weight on my hands and I’m not limber enough to do yoga on my forearms. It’s possible that I might have to get another steroid shot in my hip, which I dread.

    We again have a very small infestation of fleas, and Theo is miserable. I don’t see any on him, or any flea dirt. But I saw a flea last night and Sandy saw a flea on Jazz. We just applied Advantage on August 24-27 on these guys so I wasn’t pleased to spend another @120 dollars so soon. I have to buy a pack for under 9# and one for over 9#. I just hope that we can avoid bombing the house. We haven’t had to do it for several years now.

    Yesterday I cooked corn shucks that I have been saving in the freezer for paper pulp. I cut them into 1-2 inch pieces and boiled them in soda ash water for a couple of hours, then let them sit overnight in the water on the deck.

    I need to make some books but I feel strangely reluctant to do it. I cooked a lot yesterday and will cook a lot again today. I have a lot of produce in the refrigerator and I’m nearly broke after paying off the new fridge and new mattress last month, so I need to take my lunch and eat at home for the rest of the month. Because next month we will be vacationing! We are spending a long weekend in Charleston, SC and then I’ll go to Journalfest in Washington State the last week of October. I can’t wait!

    Oh, and I bought a new camera, a little Kodak C182 point and shoot. I can put it in my pocket and it is easy and lightweight. This makes me very happy.

  • Sunday morning coffee pot post

    We had a nice steady rain yesterday – it helped but I’m sure that we need more. I went out to the Back Forty this morning and picked a handful of butterbeans and field peas, and one large red cayenne pepper. One pepper that is producing like gangbusters for me this year is the habenero. They are way too hot for me, but they are beautiful and I have a co-worker who loves them. I think that next year I’ll plant some sweet banana peppers. I have pulled down branches on the fig tree and enjoyed a few of them, but most of the ripe ones tantalizingly out of reach. We will definitely have to cut this tree way back this fall, so if anyone wants cuttings to root…that’s how we got this tree.

    Last weekend was so delightful that it made it really hard to go back to work on Tuesday, but at least I was super busy all week with tasks that I enjoy, for the most part. Have I mentioned lately that I love my job? I love my job.

    Last Sunday afternoon we went to Grove Winery’s “Crafts at the Grove” and it was a nice event. The artists were there for three afternoons over the weekend. I’m not sure that I’d want to do that, but they were lucky to have beautiful weather. I decided as we tasted wines that I’m changing my superpower wish to having control over the weather. One potter had a funky style that we liked at good prices, so we bought three plates, a big bowl, and a vase between the two of us. Pretty soon we will not have an inch of empty horizontal space left in this house.

    I spent the rest of the weekend making recycled blue paper combined with cotton linter pulp. The cotton adds a needed strength to the recycled paper, which was mostly made up of old transcripts that were to go to the shredder and blue book covers. So I named this my “graduate sweat” paper. I hoped that the red onion skins would add purple splotches, but the red bled out into the soaking water and the pieces showed up as olive green. Still pretty. It was so relaxing and cool doing this out in the gazebo. So nice to finally get back to using my outdoor studio after a record-breaking scorcher of a summer. I now have a nice stack of handmade paper to use, but I realize that I need to concentrate on making as much as I can before it gets too cold for Susanne to use her beater. I can make paper indoors, but afterwards I need to wash out everything outdoors, and I always get soaked!

    Thursday night we went to Vintage 301 and shared a big plate of roasted pork loin, polenta hash, and spinach. We dined outside overlooking the sunset and downtown, and followed it with a chocolate gnocchi dessert that was just heavenly. Then on Friday, I went to Weight Watchers, weighed in, came home, and quit over the web site. Unfortunately it had just automatically renewed, so I’m paid up through Oct. 7. But I’m done. I can’t do it. I love good food, salmon, bread, cheese, beer, pasta…I’m just going to have to figure out a way to get motivated to exercise.

    Sandy got motivated this week. He joined the Y and actually got up at 5:30 Wed-Fri to swim and do yoga at 6 a.m. I’m left wondering who this pod person is. The Sandy I knew was so grumpy and incoherent before 10 a.m. that it was pointless to talk to him. Now I’m the one grunting at him that I am not getting up. He does have a better incentive than I do, but I’m considering joining the Y and going there after work, not before. It is nearby and it is a good one.

    Yesterday was Farmers’ Appreciation Day at the Greensboro Farmers’ Curb Market. I bought lots of veggies and a really yummy new spread that Annah has added to the Zaytoon table – they have a stuffed pepper appetizer that is very popular. She has taken the peppers and made a dip with cream cheese and pecans. I made pita crisps from her whole wheat pitas and had that and marinated goat cheese from Goat Lady Dairy leftover from a potluck party on Friday night, so between quitting WW and those treats I was living in bliss yesterday.

    Yesterday afternoon Sandy and I went to Leon’s Beauty School for haircuts and facials. One of my students was a tattooed boy who was very confident and flirty. When I told him that I was working on growing my hair out into an inverted bob, he said, “Of course you are, baby.” The girl who did my facial later asked me how I liked him – that a lot of the older women asked for him because he made them feel special. I enjoyed it, and he did a good job. I noticed later that the very pretty girl who did my facial seemed to have a slight adam’s apple. Hmmmm. That’s pretty tough to overcome. Anyway, we enjoyed our visit there.

    We cleaned and took books to Ed McKay’s. I cleaned up my studio space in the bedroom so after I take a long walk, I’m going to make some book covers and paint.

    That is all.

  • Saturday afternoon coffee pot post

    Yes, it is cool enough here that I can stand drinking coffee after noon! What a beautiful day – highs in the low 80s, low humidity. We seldom have a summer day like this around here, and certainly not lately.

    I spent Sunday-Wednesday fighting a bad cold. The human body’s ability to sneeze so much always shocks me when this happens to me. Getting sick does explain why I was in a super depressed mood last week, though. Today I feel great!

    Last night I set up a space at First Friday Indie Market in downtown Greensboro, and it was a delightful time. I had been dreading the heat, since this takes place in a parking lot and the high reached the high 90s. However, the humidity was low, there was an occasional breeze, and the organizer put me in a place where I had a little bit of shade to sit in. I barely broke a sweat.

    Susanne joined me and put some of her colorful blank books and marbled papers out for sale. Between her friends and my friends visiting, we had a marvelous time. Our work goes well together because we do the same thing in completely different styles. And we enjoy each other’s company a lot – we are very much alike in personality, and we energize each other.

    So I have already applied to do October First Friday by myself, and Susanne and I have applied for a tent in November and December.

    I’m not really worried about having enough to sell anymore since I don’t sell much anyway! It’s nice not to be focused on the money. Now I can do some fun stuff, and either I’ll put it out for sale or not – makes no difference and my work will probably improve for it.

    I do want to make some small inexpensive books for the kids. Whenever I sell a book to a child, my heart fills up with the thought of what they might do with it.

    I went to the farmers’ market and came home in a much more positive mood. Simply put, I’m just not studying those negative people. I bought a CSA share for the month of October from Handance Farm, marinated goat cheese for me and to take to the department party next Friday night, apricot/pecan/cream cheese spread and organic whole wheat pita bread from Annah at Zaytoon’s table, corn from Clapp Farms and Vern Switzer’s farm, milk from Homeland Creamery, salad mix from Flora Ridge, hamburger from Rocking F Farm, and red onions from Faucette Farm. I scoured the red and yellow onion skins from their baskets to include in the next batch of paper. The red skins will be awesome!

    Sandy and I will take advantage of the gorgeous weather to put down pine needles over the cardboard mulch that I have spread out, weed, and prune. The willow and Carolina Sieva butterbeans are just now producing. They are mostly vines and leaves. The Henderson bush beans were very productive this summer for such small plants. I might plant more of them next year, although I do appreciate the verticality of the pole beans. And peppers – wow, so many different kinds of peppers. The tomatoes seem to be done.

    Now I need to tear up and soak some paper for recycled pulp to mix with the cotton pulp left over from last Sunday. I gotta use it – pulp doesn’t last forever, and I filled up my freezer space when I realized I was getting too sick to deal with it. I’m thinking blue for this batch, with red onion skins. The skins will probably turn the paper purple around them. Yeah.

  • First Friday Indie Market

    september-poster1

    I will have handbound books, matted woodcuts, and a few cards (see below) on handmade paper. Susanne Martin will share my table and she will have handbound books and handmade paper. The event lasts from 4-9 p.m. Since the beach is probably a bad idea, come to downtown Greensboro instead! You’ll be safe from Hurricane Earl and have lots of fun at First Friday!

    “Squirtly”, copyleft Laurie O’Neill, 2010

  • Reflection

    I am living proof that stress and negativity can make you sick. I try to be a duck, but I tend to be a sponge. Usually by the time I realize that I need to protect my open, welcoming pores, I have absorbed the damaging energy. The effects generally show up days later. I seem to be hard-wired this way, and it takes great awareness to avoid it.

    Yesterday was not a good day after a stressful week. I ran into a situation in which I, yet again, overreacted. I realized when I came home that part of the reason I got so upset was that the situation is very much a reflection of our polarized world. I sent out an email to some folks which I have copied here, with a few edits that take that realization into account:

    I have decided that I’m not ready to quit yet. But here are my thoughts on how I can continue. I had a therapist once who gave me the best advice I ever heard. Concentrate on what you can control, not what you can’t.

    We cannot do anything about obsessive, destructive people who are bent upon destroying the country. Paying attention to them sucks our energy away from what we can do and feeds their frenzy. We have nothing to be defensive about. We should not worry about people who are deliberately trying to break our will. We are in the right. Period. Let them spend all their energy on this while we continue to move forward. We know that the majority of the world and its citizens are on our side.

    On the anniversary of Dr. King’s famous speech, I thought about how he exhorted his followers to practice non-violence in the face of beatings and murder. Surely we can overcome this handful of energy vampires. Let them burn themselves out.