Looking Back:

Billy the Blogging Poet ruminated in October about The Most Important Thing I’ve Ever Done.

From The View From the Cheap Seats, Justin celebrates an accomplishment to wrap up a year of major events in That’s Mr. Justin C. Thibault, PE to You!.

Looking Forward:

Coturnix at A Blog Around the Clock is clearly looking forward to the candidacy of John Edwards for president in 2007. In The Netroots Candidate, he points out that John is totally in touch with the new blogging reality.

Catchy Pseudonym is not so enthusiastic about the former North Carolina senator over at Scrutiny Hooligans, as he brings his authoritative skepticism to bear on the John Edwards candidacy in Let’s Waste Some Money.

Looking Both Ways:

Even though I chose the theme for this New Year’s Eve Tavern, and then adjusted it when I wasn’t visited by the blogging muse, I still felt that I had been given an assignment to turn in by the toughest schoolmarm - me. I’m glad that I did turn in my assignment to Miz O’Neill though, because it made me feel a lot better: Looking Back, Looking Forward.

No Time Like the Present:

At Moomin Light, the focus in on the present in My Favorite Week, a celebration of the quiet time after Christmas.

Please remember that Ron is hosting the first 2007 Tar Heel Tavern next Sunday at 2sides2ron. And as always, we desperately need volunteer hosts!

I wish you all peace and success, however you define it, in 2007.

The present is a bit drizzly and a bit too early on a Sunday to bother the neighbors with my drill, so why not sit back with a cup of coffee and think about the past and the future? I’ve had a lot of negative feelings about my life bubble up this week, and hopefully dwelling on the positive will perk me up.

When I went to a Food Lion at Sunset Beach, I realized that I have not visited a regular grocery store here at home in a couple of months. I have reached my goal of growing or buying the majority of my food locally, organically, or both, either (in preferential order) at the farmers’ market, at Deep Roots Market, our local natural foods co-op, or at Earth Fare. (Technically, Earth Fare is a grocery, as is Deep Roots, but since they specialize in organic foods I don’t think of them as “regular.”) About four years ago I began down this road by committing to buy at least one organic item on every grocery shopping trip. I thought that it would be tough, since my husband was job-hunting and employed part-time without benefits and we had just sunk our savings into buying this house. What I found was that it was not so difficult or expensive, at least in this area, and after I became involved with Slow Food I shifted my focus to local foods. What has helped the most has been the support of a nationwide web of bloggers dedicated to making these changes in their own lives and communities as well.

Another food-related goal: I canned and preserved and dried lots of goodies this year, and gave away bright jars of pickled okra, cherries, and peaches as Christmas gifts. I may have canned enough tomatoes to get us through another month or so of winter, and I definitely froze enough basil cubes to last us until summer. The community garden row was immensely helpful in the production of the tomatoes and okra, but I will be relying on the Back Forty for my gardening needs in 2007.

The other major difference I can see in my life this past year has been in my mental health. I’ve been moving over my old blog bit by bit to this new one, and even though I deleted some of the worst stuff back in the spring of 2005, I left enough that I can see a huge improvement in my state of mind in 2006. The panic attacks subsided this year and my general outlook has been rosier. For a large part of the year, I stopped taking my anxiety medication and I was fine. I found that I was driving around by myself with no sense of dread or fear, only realizing the absence of it later. Flying to Italy was a major step for a recovering agoraphobic, and while I had a little medical help to get me on the plane and through the rough spots, I did it well enough that I plan to go back by myself (to join a class) in 2007.

2006 was the year of the camera. Documenting visits to Lake Waccamaw, Levering Orchard, Italy, and Sunset Beach added to the pleasure of these journeys. I loved having a visual record of my progress with the Back Forty and the community garden row. That will continue in 2007.

Hopefully 2007 will bring three things for me: a master’s degree in liberal studies, the development of Slow Turn Micro-Farm, and a foray into papermaking, bookbinding, and basketry. The trip to Spannocchia for the book arts class may not materialize, but if it doesn’t, that’s okay. I will continue to save for it, and if it doesn’t happen, I’ll look into going to John C. Campbell Folk School or Penland for a class.

So I say goodbye to 2006 with some wistfulness. I can honestly say that it may have been one of the best years of my life. If 2007 brings me as much joy, I will be a very lucky woman indeed.

Christmas moved from Chapel Hill, North Carolina to Marietta, North Carolina to Sunset Beach, North Carolina this year. This has become our Christmas family tradition.

Christmas Day in Chapel Hill brought three inches of rain. By the time my sister and I arrived at my mother’s that afternoon, the clouds parted to reveal this sunset reflection in the flooded field behind her house.

We enjoyed a big family “dinner” the day after Christmas (in the country, “dinner” is the city “lunch”) and then half of us headed to Sunset Beach, where my sister rented half of a oceanfront duplex for family and friends to get together and relax.

I spent a lot of time reading (finally finished the Omnivore’s Dilemma), sleeping, perusing seed catalogs, and weaving two baskets on the back porch, looking out over the ocean. On Thursday, I cooked a great breakfast with the awesome sweet Italian-style sausage I bought from Back Woods Family Farms at the farmers’ market in Greensboro and “cage-free” eggs from the grocery store, and then I made chicken and dumplings for lunch with a chicken from Back Woods Family Farms again. Oh, and I took a few photos.

Loved the textures of the area between the houses and the beach.

Close-up of the berries on the wild bay trees off the boardwalk to the beach.

Because I came back from home and the beach feeling tired and cranky, I decided to stick my tongue out at my theme for the Tar Heel Tavern. And since I figure that there might be a few of you out there that feel the same way, I present this alternative to the “Looking Forward” theme. “Looking Backward”: Send me a link to your best post of 2006. Or say goodbye to 2006 however you wish. Send your permalinks to lponeill AT att DOT net by 8 a.m. Sunday morning (to accommodate you night owl writers).

Thank you kindly. Now back to the regular show.

I’ll be incommunicado, away from all things computer, until Friday evening. Please go ahead and send me your Tar Heel Tavern submissions when you’re ready. The email address is to the right. The theme - Looking Forward: What are your plans, hopes, dreams, or expectations for 2007? As always, if you’ve got something not on topic that you’d rather send, it is welcome, too.

Until then, Happy Holidays!

The Christmas edition of the Tar Heel Tavern is up at Billy the Blogging Poet’s place. Check it out!

It’s December 23, and that means that it’s Festivus, the holiday for the rest of us.

The Festivus season actually begins on Buy Nothing Day, the day after Thanksgiving.

The sacred text can be accessed at this site.

The Festivus pole, an unadorned aluminum pole, represents the anti-materalist philosophy of the holiday. This tradition has been sullied by the commercialization of the sacred pole.

Now, that’s just wrong.

Tonight we will pin Miss Jazz, the head of our household, in the Feats of Strength after our Festivus dinner. Let us now move on to the Airing of the Grievances.

• “Happy Holidays” vs. “Merry Christmas.” Who cares? Find a real issue to complain about. Like that fake cheese in the knock-off Hickory Farms gift boxes at K-Mart. What IS that stuff?
• You idiots with the CELL PHONES glued to your ears every where you go. You’re killing me! You’re killing me! Well, you almost killed me.
• Plastic packaging. What, do I have to get a blowtorch to get into this thing? Can we send some of this stuff to Iraq so the soldiers can have some protection?
• Attention, developers who ruin historic properties and farms and name your modern condominiums and housing developments after them: There will be a special place in hell for you.
• Other than those, I’ve got nothin. It’s been a pretty good year.

Happy Festivus, everybody!

I’m ready for Christmas, almost, except for my part of the cooking. Sounds like I’m only being called upon for asparagus casserole. I’ll post that recipe soon - I just need to go through the steps and jot down some measurements, which I seldom do unless I’m posting the recipe.

There’s a cool rain outside that is just right, giving the plants a good soaking. I walked through the Back Forty after work and the collards look great. The leeks got a good boost from that incredible warm spell last week too. I had a nice salad from my lettuce day before yesterday. The garlic and onions are still hiding though.

Sandy and I got off a little early today, so we went downtown and I bought a couple of paint brushes, a tube of Burnt Sienna paint, and a plastic travel palette with a lid from Davis Design. I tried to go the traditional route on this palette thing, but I’ve decided that I’d rather have less mess and be able to keep my oils from drying up, especially since I’ve also decided to take my paints to the beach. Every time I go to the lake I haul along my paints and easel, but I never end up doing anything with them. I don’t know if I’ll do much better this time, but at least they’ll be there if the mood strikes.

We have started a new Christmas tradition - I guess it is officially a tradition after three years in a row. My sister, her husband, my cousin, his wife, and usually the both of us go to Sunset Beach after Christmas for a few days and relax. Most of us have the week off after Christmas, but unfortunately this year Sandy has to be on call, and my brother can never get time off from his evil workpit. So this year, I’ll be down there Tuesday night through Friday morning, when a group of my cousin’s friends come in and round off the week. It doesn’t cost so much to rent a house or duplex this time of year, especially when you split it with a bunch of people, and we mainly eat leftovers from Christmas. Last year the weather was gorgeous. This year the grand-nephew will be along, so I’m not sure how much relaxing or painting will be going on. I’m taking Fedco Seeds and Seeds From Italy catalogs that I printed off the Internet and Four Season Harvest to read, among other books. We’ll probably set up a jigsaw puzzle and there will be poker and football.

Christmas Eve will be spent at my sister’s house in Chapel Hill, where we will listen out for Santa Claus with Jake, and then on Christmas Day my sister will ride down to my mother’s with me, my husband will return to Greensboro, and Tim and Jake will go to my mother’s on the day after Christmas, when we’ll have a big family dinner. Then we head to Sunset Beach.

Is it crazy that I am jealous of Sandy for getting to stay home in Greensboro? I’m sure I’ll enjoy it once I get there, but right now I’m adjusting to the fact that I will have a lot less time to get my projects done at home than I realized. Tomorrow will probably be a waste because of rain, and I don’t want to start on the greenhouse Sunday and take the risk of leaving it unfinished outside for almost a week. I can lose track of a lot in a few days. Trust me.

I’m such a homebody. Really, I am happier at home than anywhere else. Except maybe Italy. For short periods of time.

By the way, I have nothing to say about this “Merry Christmas” vs “Happy Holidays” crapola except that it pisses me off. Find something important to get upset about, will ya?

And I find that I’m not as enthused about celebrating Festivus tomorrow now that I saw the article in the newspaper about the company selling Festivus poles.

Just when I was polishing up my list of grievances to air. Sheesh. But the MC vs. HH bloggers - yeah, they’re on there.

Tomorrow I hope I’ll be able to buy some more of this incredibly delicious Italian sausage from Back Woods Family Farm at the Greensboro Farmers’ Curb Market. A few nights ago we had a dish that was a combination of local and international - slow food at its best!

1 lb sweet Italian sausage
olive oil
1/2 chopped onion
2 minced cloves of garlic
1 cup cooked white beans
1/2 cup or so of shredded greens - I used ruby chard and collards
2 cups of chopped tomatoes with juice
1 Tbsp tomato paste
Salt and pepper

First, soak 1/2 cup of dried white beans overnight, and cook them for about 45 minutes or until they are tender, adding the greens during the last five minutes. Older beans may take up to two hours to cook.

Cut the sausage into chunks, brown it in a cast iron pan with some olive oil, and drain off the grease. Add the onion and garlic, cook that for a few minutes, add the drained beans and greens, tomatoes, and tomato paste. Simmer until you’re sure that the sausage is done all the way through.

Notes:

• The beans I used were Toscanelli beans that I bought at the Mercato Centrale in Florence, Italy. You could substitute cannellini, great Northern, or navy beans. The tomato paste was from a tube I bought on a whim in a little Italian alimentari (small grocery).
• The tomatoes were ones I canned from my community garden row this summer.
• Cook it the Italian way and don’t measure. It’ll be okay.

Sources:
Sweet Italian sausage: Back Woods Family Farm
Olive oil, salt, pepper: Deep Roots Market
Onion: Dodge Lodge Farm
Garlic, tomatoes, chard, tomatoes: My garden
Toscanelli beans: Mercato Centrale (farmers’ market), Florence, Italy
Tomato paste: store in Florence, Italy

Okay, I know that I’m on the edge of having overdone it when I have trouble typing because of the trembling. We expect heavy rain beginning tonight, so I left work early and put a tarp over the compost pile and then tried to shovel and wheelbarrow the exposed edges back to the back forty. I would like to avoid a muddy mess and loss of compost down the city water drains!

I now have two very nice raised beds in the back and enough compost to make several more AND cover the entire front and back yard with a few inches and fill all the containers for next year. In case you’re wondering, and some people are, I did not intend to get almost 4 tons of compost! I asked for $80 worth which I thought included delivery and got half a dump truck load plus paid extra for delivery. Fortunately two of my neighbors told me this afternoon that if I have some leftover they will buy some from me.

The compost is a long-awaited amendment to the Back Forty project, which is actually less than 1/10th of an acre and has been underway since the spring of 2002. Our back yard is solid clay about 6-8 inches down, so I have been working on raising the levels of the beds and using permaculture principles to build a small urban homestead. I’ve done it slowly, step by step, inch by inch, because of some physical problems and my financial status.

My latest idea has been to develop a micro-farm that concentrates on fall, winter, and early spring harvests, since the mosquitoes make the Back Forty unbearable from May to October. I’m trying to adjust and make the best of my conditions, although I do plan to continue gardening throughout the year, of course.

My goal is to be able to produce enough vegetables and herbs in the off-season to have plenty for us to eat and to sell the surplus at the Greensboro Curb Farmers’ Market, when vendors of local produce mostly take the winter off. You know how I always take the easy path!

I’ll have more to say (and photos) about this project this weekend and afterwards, when, weather and low mechanical skills permitting, I’ll put up a small greenhouse.

What do you think I should name my farm? I was thinking about Slow Turn Eco-Farm. Or Micro-Farm.