love and food and words

love.  this girl.  I will not pretend that she doesn't drive me insane sometimes and that often I come up short in the patience department.  of course, if I'm thinking about owning my own emotions I suppose it's that I choose to allow myself to feel overwhelmed and frustrated by things she does when I could choose otherwise, but it's so much easier to just say "they made me feel.......".  anyway.  gosh, that love.  papa worked two nights in a row and she snuggled in bed with me both nights after we read our  Little House chapters (we're currently reading These Happy Golden Years) and both nights after she fell asleep I nearly woke her by holding her so close and trying to smell a little bit of that long gone baby smell.  I thanked the stars and all above that I had her close and that I was warm and safe and dry with a full belly and loads of love.  and not floating adrift in the Mediterranean or cowering in fear in my war-torn neighborhood.  goodness, this world.   I look at her sometimes and feel myself teetering near tears with gratitude.

food. on the counter.  apple rings.  sprouts.  fermented carrots.  here I will admit something that is maybe a little gross.  maybe a little 'she took thrifty a bit far, yeah?'.  so we have the rental house.  people often leave groceries they don't finish and sometimes, depending on what it is, we eat it.  (that's not the gross part.  if you think that's gross then read no more.)  so there's a compost bin at the rental and recently a nice woman left and when I went over to clean I found a whole produce bag of odds and ends in the compost bin.  beneath a few half cucumbers and lettuce leaves was a pile of about a dozen (very clean, really!) already topped and peeled whole carrots.  and well, there you go. that became our next batch of fermented carrots.  also, I am hereby soliciting ideas for delicious fall crockpot meals.  any ideas?

words.  for a while this year I had a hard time finding my groove reading.  I started off with several good novels and then was floundering around for a while feeling a bit 'meh' about my selections.  lately I've been back on track and have been enjoying having both a novel and a nonfiction going at the same time.  some of my favorites so far this year have been The Grapes of Wrath, A Tale for the Time Being,  and Life from Scratch.  and I am loving, loving, LOVING Ben Hewitt's new book, The Nourishing Homestead.  I don't often get a book from the library and then go on to purchase it, but I'll definitely be getting my own copy of this excellent book.  and now I am again dreaming of land......