Sunday, October 26, 2008

A Weekend Without the Farmers Market

Since early spring I have milled nearly a ton of grains and baked them into loaves of bread, pizza crusts, pound cakes and more. I decided to take a week off. What a good decision.

We got our tax rebate in the mail the other day and with a portion of that money, Philip bought tickets to a Derek Trucks concert and took me out on a date. We even had Thai food in a restaurant! It is not a normal Friday night for the children to see mom and dad getting on fancy clothes, leaving them to their homemade pizza and an old movie. Maybe not normal, but plenty of fun for all. I love to hear live music. What a rare treat to know that the kids were old enough to babysit themselves, that the farm would not fall apart, and that someone else was going to cook my dinner and even wash the dishes! Toward the end of the concert I realized maybe I should have had a cup of coffee with my meal. What an old fuddy duddy I am turning out to be! I tried really hard to not be too obvious with my yawning during the standing ovation!

The weekend got even better as we all relaxed Saturday morning, did farm chores in pajamas, listened to car talk, read books, and basically hung out until noontime when the housecleaning chores began. We had all forgotten what it was like to have everyone home on a Saturday. The rainy morning turned into a lovely fall afternoon. I organized green tomatoes and ripening tomatoes on the deck. Sorted through hastily picked peppers. Salted the feta cheese, strained the chevre. Decided to know my limits and wait on making mozzarella. Made many cups of warm milk and honey for the kids. CLEANED AND ORGANIZED MY DESK! At least it is clean and organized for my standards, and for those of you who know me personally, you can actually see the surface of the desk, may not last for long, but at least I can enjoy it today.

Nights are dark during this period of the moon. I miss the moon. The wind is picking up occasionally. It blows the yellow leaves around like happy birthday party confetti, leaving them scattered across the ridge and the surface of the pond, detritus from some party we missed. On more gentle mornings and evenings I can hear the music of the wind playing across the tops of the trees on the ridge, just like a brisk mountain stream, then feel it pour down the hill and into our yard, surprising me like a splash of cool water. Much nicer than the ferocious wind that will try to blow us, our house, our barns and trees over, like the big bad wolf.

This is the season for pulling things together. Winter is coming. That wind is going to blow all the leaves off the trees and leave us cold. Now is the time for splitting wood, cleaning out barn, making home cozy. Next week we'll be back to baking, farmer's market, and mozzarella. And will be much happier to do it after a change of pace this week...


"The LORD is my shepherd; I have everything I need. He lets me rest in fields of green grass and leads me to quiet pools of fresh water. He gives me new strength. He guides me in the right paths, as he has promised." Pslam 23:1-3

1 comment:

Laura: One Day At A Time said...

AHHHH. An answer to prayer. Makes me feel relieved just to read about it. :)