Paw paws

or How to Have Fun While Avoiding Chores

The Plan: To stay home last Saturday to catch up on some work around the house.

The Reality: Spent last Saturday at the Paw Paw Festival.

Part 1

It didn't take long for me to change plans once my sister-in-law sent me an email asking if we wanted to meet them at the Paw Paw Festival on Saturday. The festival was held on a permaculture farm which was one of the reasons I wanted to go. I really didn't know much about that and was intrigued by the whole concept. The owner of the farm spent 20 years living in Central and South America and brought back ideas from there to start his farm.

Part of the permaculture farm was made up of food forests, a new concept for me.  During a tour, I learned a food forest is an area that has been planted with plants for food and medicine on varying levels mimicking the different ecosystems of a forest. It has plants from large trees to vines on the ground and everything in between. The idea is that plants come back year after year and are sustainable.

Here are a few pictures of  some of the things we saw on Saturday.

In case you aren't familiar, the paw paw is a fruit tree native to the eastern US. 
The fruit is rarely seen in stores because it only ripens for three weeks 
out of the year and is difficult to transport because of its soft flesh.

Paw paws. These are a cultivated variety and are a little larger (about 4" long) than the wild ones. They also have fewer seeds than the wild ones. 

There were paw paw trees for sale, which by-the-way can grow up to 20' tall. I didn't get one because I decided next year, I'd just go to my sister-in-law's house were they have a lot of paw paw trees in their woods.

This was our tour guide who taught us about food forests. The A-frame behind him is full of paw paw seedlings. They need to spend the first few years in shade before they are planted in full sun.

This food forest is about seven years old. You can see the different levels of plants. There are two basic methods for planting--one is to fill a space with different plants and the other is to plant islands that will eventually grow together. This farmer chose the island method.

One of the things I sampled here were the fruits from this che tree. They were sweet and juicy and I really liked them.

However, I didn't sample these Jerusalem artichokes also know as sun chokes. They are used for their roots but can cause digestive upset if you eat too many. My brother-in-law confirmed this from experience.

And of course, we had to taste some paw paws. Besides the raw fruit we tried the jam you see cooking above as well as some paw paw homemade ice cream. Both were good but I'd say that I liked the ice cream more. That may have had something to do with the fact that it was 90 in the sun.

Next time in Part 2,  I'll show you the straw bale house the farmer lived in.

Thankful Sunday--September 24, 2017

I am thankful for time with Sarah.

You may remember Sarah, my special needs buddy, whom I spend Sunday mornings with while we navigate different Sunday School programs. Sarah is very tuned into nature and has shown me a lot in that area. This last Sunday was no exception.

After eating our fill of bacon and eggs with the youth group, we made our way to the other building for singing. Well, we almost made it to the other building. Along the way we found too many things to explore to leave time for singing. We noticed leaves that were just starting to change and a picnic table that was upside down. We saw big bugs and little bugs and the flowers that were still blooming. She also found "helicopters" (winged maple tree seeds).  Instead of going inside to sing, we decided to stay outside at another picnic table and examine the things she had collected along the way.

A normal two winged seed group, and the unusual three winged

And do you know what we found when we examined them? A triple seed group of maple seeds! They usually come in a pair. Sarah has been picking seeds and leaves from this tree for years, but we have never seen anything like this. In fact, I haven't seen triple seeds among the thousands of winged seeds I've seen over the years. I couldn't even find a reference to them on the internet. To say the least, I was excited.

If you look really hard, on the back of Sarah's hand,
you can see the tiny insect we watched.

I also got another lesson from Sarah about slowing down and being in the moment. A very tiny green bug landed on her arm and she watched it for several minutes. She was careful with her arm movements, so she wouldn't disturb it. We watched as it crawled around her arm and she described the sensations she was feeling to me. When it was time for her to leave, she carefully transferred the bug to a leaf and left it in the grass where she found it. Quite frankly, I'm not sure that I would have even noticed the bug if she hadn't showed it to me. But with her coaching, we had a slow, calm, interesting few minutes of just being in the moment with the bug. Something I need to do more often.

So for getting to spend another morning with Sarah, I am thankful.

A Visit to the Fair

In case you haven't figured it out, I'm a small town girl at heart. I have lived in large cities, small cities, suburbs, and small towns, and the thing that feels the most comfortable to me is the small town. I think that is because that's how I grew up. I now live in the urban sprawl between two large cities, but within that sprawl are pockets of small towns trying to preserve their way of life and I am lucky to be close to two of them. Last weekend one of them had one of those small town events that made me feel at home--the community fair. It's free and fun and close; the perfect combination. If you've been reading here a while, you know that the fair is something I try to participate in every year.

These goats were happy to be petted.

The fair in some ways feels like it is from another time. It's small enough that there's enough room for parking, but big enough that you're bound to see several people you know at any one visit.  The very young to the very old enter things to compete for ribbons. You see vegetables, quilts, photos, Lego creations, eggs, livestock, baked goods, canned goods, etc. all hoping for a ribbon that comes with a cash prize. You can also enter a tractor pull, veggie vehicle races, a pet show, and an ice cream making contest among other things. You can enjoy music from local bands as well as craft demonstrations and a fashion show of homemade outfits. Just picture yourself back with Andy, Opie, and Aunt Bee going to the Mayberry Fair and I think you'll get the idea.

I didn't get many pictures, but here are a few of the things that I enjoyed this year at the fair.

The fair opens Friday morning to school groups. I worked this year with the children's librarian during their visits.  The kids loved her Man-in-the-Yellow-Hat costume from the Curious George books as well as her monkey puppet.

The inside exhibits are in the Fire Department's activities buildings. I entered green beans, herbs, flowers, and a photo. I got a variety of  ribbons from these entries as well as no ribbons on some. If you squint, you can see my basil in the background that got a second place.

Uncle Billy was on vacation, but he told me it was okay if I entered some onions for him.

I always like looking at the needlework section. In the past I've won ribbons in this department for some of my knitting and x-stitch but this year I did make anything that I could enter. 

The fire department always has a truck or two there for kids to explore until there's a call. Then they're off!

However, the giant John Deere tractor doesn't go anywhere. Most of the people in this crowd are waiting on their kids who are exploring the tractor. They are also looking at the jazz band playing to the right and some are talking to neighbors. This is a fairly typical scene. Later that night it was more crowded, but never uncomfortably so.

I always find the chickens on display interesting because of the variety of bright colors they have.

There were several baby animals on display. Among them were a lamb and its mother.

As well as a donkey foal and its mother.

So there is a brief visit to the fair with me. Maybe next year, I'll show you some of the food traditions. In the meantime, I should get busy making things I can enter next year.

Thankful Sunday, September 10, 2017

I am thankful for shelter.

The hurricane activity this season has been a good reminder of how very lucky I am to be safe and dry with a roof over my head. As we have seen, not all are so lucky. The last few days I have been hearing the story of one of those unlucky families and I've shared some of it below. Communication has been very difficult since the hurricane, so some of the details are sketchy.

Melanie and her sister at my wedding. 

Melanie is the daughter of friends and I was her constant babysitter when I was in college. She was adorable and we had a lot of fun together. Now Melanie is all grown up and married with with 4 children of her own. She lives in the U.S Virgin Islands on St. John. Or she used to. Irma wiped away everything she and her family had. Luckily, no one was hurt, but they had no where to go after the storm except into a van that some how had miraculously survived.

The main concern for them is to get off the island before Jose comes barreling through. Easier said than done. The local airport had some damage making flying iffy at best. The first flight they could possibly get out would be on Tuesday. In the meantime, the family got on a chartered boat with others to Puerto Rico hoping to fly to the US from there. However, Puerto Rico is having enough problems of their own and refused to let them enter. The boat had to turn around in the middle of the night for a 3 hour trip to St. Croix. There they got a hotel room and it was the first time they had a place to sleep and bathe since the hurricane hit. Now they have tickets to fly out of St. Croix on Friday to Texas where her in-laws live. Here's hoping for the best that that actually happens.

What you don't get from my telling of Melanie's story above is the desperation that you hear in her families' pleas for information. The anger and panic you hear when plan after plan falls through. And imagining what it must be like for those four children ages 8 months to 11 years old as they are going through this very scary, difficult situation.

Melanie and her family have survived and will be able to move forward with the good family and friend support they have.*  It's going to be a long road, but they will make it.

So for the shelter I am so lucky to have and the shelter that Melanie and her family found last night, I am thankful.

*Presently, there's a Go Fund Me drive to help buy plane tickets for them. The tickets are about $2-3000 each.

Giving

We are hearing a lot these days about disasters around our country and the help that is needed as a result of them. Front and center are the fires in the west and the hurricanes in the Gulf and Atlantic. The devastation of it all is overwhelming to see and hear about.

A few of the supplies I'm collecting for the hygiene kits.

But that's not all that is catching my attention. I look around and see local children who need things for school and animal shelters that need help to care for abandoned animals. When I turn on the radio, I hear about people around the world dying by the thousands in earthquakes and typhoons, as well as losing their life trying to escape corrupt governments. At home, I see a neighbor who has just lost her husband and the child who needs attention that they aren't getting at home. I see the nursing home residents who could use a visit.

The needs of the world are endless and this overwhelms me. So what do I do when I'm inundated with all of these cries for help? I try to just do something. Tune out the rest and focus on one thing at a time. If I don't do this, I become immobilized and don't do anything.

My current focus is on Hurricane Harvey. I lived in Houston for ten years before moving to Maryland and I still have several friends there. I watched as Harvey wreaked havoc on familiar areas and felt that I needed to help in some way. There are many ways to do that, but I have chosen something concrete.

I am making, with friends and family's help, hygiene kits that have been requested by my church's relief organization, UMCOR. These are standard kits with soap, toothbrush, towel, etc. that are given out around the world and are much needed in the Houston and surrounding areas. I hope there will not be a great need for them with Hurricane Irma, but the kits can also help there.

So besides trying to be kind and respectful to others in every day life, focusing on one thing at a time is how I try to help in my small way. Sometimes it is putting together hygiene kits, sometimes it's making a monetary donation, and sometimes it may be writing a letter to an elderly relative. I try not to overthink things, which is my normal mode of operation. and just take some kind of action. That's what works for me. How do you handle the overwhelming needs of others that surround you?