November 5th
Our Vibrant Friends
The counting continues.
At the farm yesterday we begin the day with sorrow, with confusion.
How can so many of our nation vote for racism, misogyny, homophobia, violent
response to free speech, fascism, prioritization of the wealthy, denial of those in
need, denial of climate change, denial of the virus, relentless pontification of insular
nationalism, endless onslaught of selfish buffoonery?
We all are feeling shell-shocked. We make special emphasis in our morning meeting
on kindness to ourselves and one another. We discuss allowance of space to feel and
say or not say whatever may swirl up within.
Then we take to task, good tasks, of harvest, organization, heavy lifting, squash
shining, celeriac cleaning, onion counting… We keep apologizing to each other amid
these tasks, sorry, my head is just so foggy. Sorry, I’m a little weepy. Sorry, I didn’t
mean to snap at you, I’m just so deeply angry right now.
The geese fly overhead in their endless victorious Vs. Our dear farm dog boyfriend
Chonky, back from death’s door last week for further hurrahs, makes his way
around the farm, checking in. What was supposed to be a rainy day of cold and wet
and colder still somehow has become dry, and… warm? The sky opens to reveal
sunny shafts of light unfolding down. The air is crisp. We cannot deny the beauty of
the day and the magic of this place, and our gratitude for tasks at hand and one
another.
And then?
The red tide begins to turn. The numbers are changing. States are shifting! And a
hope within us spreads outward across the farm, a hoot and holler in the far field
reaches the middle field, reaches the wash house.
Some of us renew the hope they felt the night before. Some of us allow the brilliant
burning heat of hope to alight within for the very first time.
Hope. What a campaign was run upon 12 years ago. Hope. What has been
increasingly hard to find this past year. Hope. Essential to our survival. Hope. A true
resistance.
We still don’t know who our president will be, and likely won’t know for days or
even weeks to come. But we revel in this HOPE. We bathe in it. We ask ourselves to
remember this feeling, so we can know how to find it again even if the road once
again falls dark.
We will need hope to rebuild. We will need it to resist. We will need hope as the
days get shorter and colder and wetter, and the virus continues to bloom around us.
Each day that we are kind to ourselves and to others we earn the right to have hope.
We must protect this hope at all costs and inspire it in one another.
We must trade it back and forth like stories we heard in our youth, holding our
hands outward towards the fire, warming us against the night.
I leave you with a poem by my Daddio, Kim Stafford.
~
CREATION WEATHER
By Kim Stafford
Sometimes inspiration comes by flash, gust,
festival of rain, mind on fire, hands in frenzy,
the work storming into being before your eyes.
Other times it wakes from a great stillness,
hunched up from earth out of nowhere slowly
licked by moonlight like mushrooms after rain.
Who can forecast which for the shaping of a soul –
sometimes battered into being by hardship’s hammering,
other times wrought by silent music, yearning, thirst?
So shall our nation be reborn by revolution,
some great clash of opposites… or shall we wake
as one – storm survivors, faces wet with rain?
~
Until next week, with love and gratitude to you and yours,
-- Rosemary Stafford for Vibrant Valley Farm
ROSE’S RECIPE IDEA OF THE WEEK:
OLD FASHIONED PUMPKIN PIE!
https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/suzannes_old_fashioned_pumpkin_pie/
Ingredients
o 2 cups pie pumpkin pulp puree
o 2 large eggs plus the yolk of a third egg
o ½ cup packed dark brown sugar
o ½ teaspoon salt
o 1/3 cup white sugar
o 2 teaspoons cinnamon
o 1 teaspoon ground ginger
o ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
o ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
o ½ teaspoon lemon zest
o 1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
o 1 ½ cup heavy cream or one 12 oz can of evaporated milk
o 1 good pie crust, chilled or frozen
Preparation
1) Cut a medium small pie pumpkin in half. Scrape out the insides, reserving the
seeds to salt and roast! Line a baking sheet with foil. Place the pumpkin
halves cut side down on the lined baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees until
a fork can easily pierce them, about an hour and a half. Remove from oven, let
cool, scoop out the pulp.
2) Make the filling: beat the eggs in a large bowl. Mix in the brown sugar, white
sugar, salt, and all spices including lemon zest.
3) Mix in the pumpkin puree. Stir in the cream. Beat together until everything is
well mixed.
4) Pour mixture into your pre prepared or store bought pie shell and bake. Shell
can either be chilled or frozen. Bake at 425 for 15 minutes.
5) After 15 minutes, lower the temperature to 350 degrees. Bake for 45-55
minutes more. The pie is done when a knife tip inserted in the center comes
out wet but relatively clean. The center should be just barely jiggly.
6) Note! About halfway through the baking, if the edges are getting too
browned, you can put some foil or a pie protector around the edges.
7) After the pie has finished baking, cool the pie on a wire rack for 2 hours.
Following baking, the pie will be all puffed up in the center. As it cools, it will
deflate.
8) Serve with whipped cream and enjoy!!