Clean.

Big news (it's a book!)

In case any of you missed the memo, there's a BIG announcement up on my new blog today!

Find all the details about my new book here.

(Squee!)

My blog is moving!

Big news, my friends! I'm moving my blog from here to my shiny new site, rachelwolfclean.com.

I think you'll find my new blog is nicer to look at, easier to navigate, and more mobile-friendly. Do tell me what you think! Then update your favorites folders, and head over to explore and subscribe.

I don't want to lose you in the switch, so I've added an email link to the front page to simplify you keeping up-to-date on new posts. 

See you there!

 

Love,

Rachel

Around the maple fire

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If the photos above are any indicator, we'd have twice as much syrup in the pantry if we hadn't developed such a taste for hot sap at all stages of cooking.

In truth, this ritual is more of our spring celebration than the one that involves hidden eggs and bunnies. This is the one that draws us out, year after year, as the snow retreats. 

I'm so glad.

And I'm happy to give up some syrup for the feeling that it creates.

Because after the long winter cozied before the fire, it awakens us at our core to go out into the chill and spend all of the day, reading aloud, sipping sap, and trading stories as the geese and cranes soar above us.

And so last week, while Pete was busy with bookkeeping and taxes for LüSa, the kids and I headed outside to cook the first of our sap. 

"Bring three mugs!" Sage called from the yard, gathering kindling. I grabbed four, knowing full well that maple cooking was more enticing than taxes in Pete's book. I was right. We weren't outside for 15 minutes before he emerged to fill his cup. (In more ways than one.)

It was also the first run of the new cooker that he made, and I couldn't imagine he'd want to miss that.

It is welded of two steel drums (food-grade drums that our organic coconut oil and other organic oils are delivered in for soap-making) and two stainless steel chafing dishes from a restaurant supply store. It worked brilliantly, and we were so glad to have him join us.

There we spent the day, cooking sap, making syrup, and welcoming spring.

I'll even forget for the moment that there's snow in the forecast for tomorrow. 

 

 

 

When we grow up

When I was 15 a well-intentioned woman in a business suit told me, "Someday you'll grow up and have to get a real job and wear a suit." 

I laughed.

"Mark my words," I told her, "I will never have a job where I need to wear a suit."

She was unconvinced. I was not.

I forgot entirely about this conversation for a decade. And then, as a naturalist working at a field station (my very first job out of college), I stopped mid-stride on the trail, remembering. I was walking through the woods, so happy, so grateful, listening to a pileated woodpecker weaving through the branches overhead. The sun was streaming through the trees. I was at work! In the woods! This was my life.

And standing there in my t-shirt, blue jeans, and hiking boots, I remembered her words. "Someday you'll grow up and have to get a real job and wear a suit." 

Or, maybe not.

I thought of her comment again yesterday, as I sat in knee-high muck boots beside a campfire on a Wednesday morning. (I was here on Monday, too, possibly wearing the same clothes.)

I am a homeschooling parent, a writer, a photographer, a teacher, and a small business owner of 15 years. And still - no suit. 

I think of her comment and how my own kids would feel as they move steadily toward adulthood to get the message that "someday you'll need to suck it up and live that life you don't want to because that's what growing up means." 

But does it? 

What if instead we gave our kids the message that whatever it is they love can be a central part of their world - yes, even in adulthood? What if we encouraged them to find their passions and discover their joy now, instead of arriving in adulthood lost and wondering what makes their soul sing?

I think that message would fall on hungry, welcoming hearts.

All that I wanted at 15 (or 9, or 40) was to be a photographer. And now I take pictures everyday. That was my singular dream from 4th grade onward, and now it is a part of my daily joy. 

Am I the exception or the rule?

And if I am the exception, why?

I hope my kids land on the same side that I have - knowing and living their joy.

And so yesterday, instead of talking about suits or futures or jobs they won't love, my kids and I headed back to the woods.

Like everyday this week.

Because October and childhood only lasts so long.

The first thing my kids do when we get into the woods is take off their shoes. They stalk quietly barefoot through the leaves, they listen, they are still.

They are building forts right now, one dug into the cool forest floor and the other woven of invasive honeysuckle we have cleared. I pull garlic mustard and listen to woodpeckers in the branches above us while they work.

On this day we built a campfire, then began carving spoons from a freshly felled hickory. It was delightful and if we had brought lunch I doubt we would have headed home before dinnertime. Sure, back home there were other lessons and tasks to attend to, but for the morning anyway, nothing was more important than this.

Barefoot, dirty, and smelling of woodsmoke, they learn. They discover and explore things that they love. They learn to value silence, stillness, and nature. They ground themselves in the quiet wonder of the woods.

And me right along with them.

Will my kids grow up someday, put on shoes, buy suits, and go to work?

Perhaps.

But only if it is the thing that speaks to their hearts with the clearest song. Because if I have done my work properly, they will both grow up knowing the value of hard work, yes, but also the value of people and feelings and forests and joy, and of following their own path - not the one they are told to take.

 

I may have earned more dollars in a business suit, but at what cost to my heart?

Because life, I believe, is about so much more than just paychecks. 

 

Mulberries

Since moving to our farm some five or so years ago, we've fallen in love with mulberries. They grow in abundance on our land and new trees appear every year. Like weeds, some would say! But this sort of weed (like many others) is welcome by me.

Ripening earlier than all of the bramble fruits (like raspberries and blackberries), they catch us before we're buried in produce to can, freeze, or process. And because they grow on thornless trees, the picking is painless!

What's not to love about that? 

Despite my mulberry affections, we found that for every berry we harvested in a rainstorm of ripe berries cascaded down around us, directly onto the ground. Mulberries hang on so tenderly when ripe that it was impossible not to lose more to the grass than we placed in our baskets.

And then someone gave me a tip that involved bedsheets and tree-shaking. And that sounded like just my sort of picking! 

Yesterday we gave it a trial-run. And our results? Well, I'll let the pictures below speak for themselves.

It was the easiest picking ever! We simply spread three large sheets on the ground, then shook like mad to loosen the fruit. And? It worked! Like magic, I tell you. 

For those who want to give it a try, here is the process in four easy steps:

1. Spread out your catching cloths (psst - they're bedsheets)

Choose some large pieces of fabric (king or queen-sized bedsheets work best). Whatever you use will be stained with dark purple juice by the time you are done - especially if you bring young helpers along - so plan ahead. Use your own rejects or pick some up at the second hand store. And please don't freak out about your food on someone else's bedsheets. Actually, just don't think about it. Instead, simply wash them twice in the hottest water your washer can manage, then dry before use. That should do the trick of prepping both your brain and your "catching cloths" nicely.

Overlap your sheets on the ground so you don't lose many berries between them.

2. Shake!

If you can reach the berry-laden limbs of your tree, simply stand on your cloths (we kicked our shoes off first), grab a branch, and give it a vigorous shake. Brake yourself for the rain of berries! If you can't reach (or if climbing sounds like more fun), then up you go!  

3. Gather 

When you've shaken all you can from a particular section, gather your berries up in your sheet. Simply grab the corners and carefully lift so the berries all pool in the center. Then with a stead hand (or four), pour them right into your basket, using the cloth like a fabric funnel. 

4. Repeat

Repeat this process as you work your way around the tree or around the neighborhood.

I promise you it will be the quickest fruit harvest you've ever experienced! 

 

5. Eat!

With your berry stained fingers, hands, and fingernails, eat great handfuls of your glorious harvest. It doesn't get much better than this! 

The part of our harvest that the kids didn't eat right off of the gathering cloths we brought home for jam, and froze the rest for winter smoothies. And truly - it was so fast. We gathered pounds of berries in under 1/2 hour!

That's my kind of foraging.

 

 

Garlic mustard crusaders

Occasionally something rises to the top of the "to do" list that simply can't wait.

In this case that meant pulling an acre or more of garlic mustard that sprung up seemingly overnight in one section of our woods. They had already flowered and were threatening to set seed, so it was now or never. (Perhaps literally.) 

Garlic mustard is an invasive species. Throughout much of the US it is in the midst of a decades-long forest forest floor and forest edge takeover. It chokes out the ephemeral wildflowers and understory and threatens forest diversity. So when we found this patch in full bloom (the seeds washed in on a flood two years ago) we knew we had to deal with it - and fast.

The crazy thing about garlic mustard, however, is that once it has gone to flower it will set seeds even after it's pulled. That means you have to bag it or burn it. Since we were dealing with an acre, bagging was an unreasonable prospect. So the kids each grabbed their fire starter pocket knives and some fire-starting supplies. (Because it's way more fun to pull an acre of invasives if you get to light a flint and steel fire, don't you think?) (I promise not to make a habit of this afflink business, but honestly. We're crazy about these. Each of us has one and loves it.)

I packed a picnic, and off we set. 

I thought we'd pull weeds for an hour or so before the complaining kicked in, but those campfires - and seeing the progress as our happy, healthy woods slowly reemerged - spun some magic. Before I knew it all of us were wet and muddy (with a few too many nettle burns and bramble scratches) and still working. We'd been at it for four hours. The kids took a break to swim in the creek and cool off, and we pulled and burned, pulled and burned all afternoon long.

Bizarrely, Lupine loved it. As in: was in her bliss. Garlic mustard is surprisingly satisfying to pull, with one tug yielding a huge clump of shoots, and she felt like every jack-in-the-pulpit she found beneath the garlic mustard was whispering it's thanks to her. I could hardly get her to stop to head back home for dinner. Sage enjoyed starting one of the fires and helping tend both, feeding it with fallen branches and plenty of garlic mustard. He brought a huge bag of leaves home and plans to spend today making a giant batch of pesto. 

This morning my body is sore, from my shoulders and back to my arms and my legs. But it's a satisfying soreness. It's satisfying to know that the work we did yesterday will protect not only our woods, but the forests and farmyards downstream. There's more work yet to be done, for sure (starting with looking upstream and figure out where the seeds are coming from), but for now I'll just be satisfied in a half-acre cleared and burned, and - at least for the moment - restored to what it was meant to be.

I wrote more about garlic mustard (including some recipes) here.