The Rising River and an Update

Well, the Shawsheen River has been swelling into the surrounding wetlands for days now. And as of Monday morning had topped the rise down our street and begun to spread out and up the road. This photo, though not the clearest, shows water well up to the third house on either side of the road. I took that at about 5pm Monday evening, well before the river was scheduled to crest. Normally, you cannot see water at all from this spot, and certainly not on the road and in the yards.

We are the seventh house from the river, but it does curve through our neighborhood and swings a bit closer behind. Right after taking this, we stepped around the corner to find the intersection full of water and the neighbor wading in his driveway, wrestling with pump hoses and generators in an effort to stop the flow into his house.

Many homes in our neighborhood were flooded, people evacuated and roads closed. We were truly lucky to avoid any flooding, literally by a few yards! As of this morning the river has begun to subside, the roads are reopening and folks are beginning to dry out and assess the damage.

Today the sun is out, the temperature is warming up to the 60s and things seem a little more cheerful in the neighborhood. A little quieter, fewer pumps running, fewer generators. We started our St. Patrick's Day with a bowl of steel cut Irish oatmeal and a few jigs in the kitchen, before donning our green and heading out for the day. Michael in forest green scrubs and me in shades of sage and pea green paisley.

And an Independence Days Challenge update for the week:

Plant something – Wrote the seeding schedule and organized seeds by planting dates. Got in one of my seed shipments

Harvest something – Nothing yet.

Preserve something – Made a big batch of crispy walnuts.

Waste Not – Just the usual.

Want Not – Cleaned up old seeding trays and recycled pots for this years seed starting.

Build Community Food Systems – Became a member of the Organic Garden Planning Team at our office.

Eat the Food – Made Kale and Sausage soup (adapted from Joan Gussow's book This Organic Life with some of our delicious hot italian sausage from Pete & Jen's sausage sampler from the winter. Made my first few batches of fudge babies...oh my! What a great way to use dried fruit and nuts from food storage!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

music 'round the house

One of the most important elements of our home life is music. Whether it be traditional Celtic or Mountain music, contemporary folk and Americana, rock, pop and theatrical songs from our youth or songs we've written ourselves. We listen to it, make it and participate in it regularly.

We have no TV in our home and making music in the living room is a frequent activity. Sometimes we're rehearsing for a gig, learning some new songs to add to the repertoire or working on a new piece that we're writing. But, sometimes it is for no particular "reason" at all other than the joy of it!

Lately we've been adding back a few Spring songs, now that we're nearing the end of Winter, and we've tucked away the holiday, Christmas, and Mid-winter songs for another year. There is room for "Red Winged-Blackbird" by David Francey, "The Circle", a song Michael wrote, and brushing up on a few Celtic songs for St Patrick's Day. Too bad there was no one to photograph the little jig I was attempting while Michael played the Bodhran!

Here's to songs of Spring and making music with friends and loved ones!

Getting ready for St. Patrick's Day and a bit of green

Well, St. Patrick's Day is nearly upon us! And my mother would never forgive me if I didn't plan a nice Irish meal and some green to wear. We were never much for the green beer drinking, kelly green wearing, rowdy crowd. More of the sage or forest green with some nice tweeds or a gansey sweater to wear, a piping irish stew for supper, with brown bread and a pint or two with some live fiddle tunes or a session going on nearby.

I even remember a year when my mother hastily cut green shamrocks out of felt and pinned them to our clothes since none of us seemed to have a spec of green to wear to school.

Michael and I now live down the street from the local irish/american-ized pub and restaurant, and the kelly green rowdies will come a-parkin' on our lawns and in our driveways come Tuesday night so we'll be pacing the ramparts and watching for the wayward reveler who may inadvertently wander into our garden looking for God only knows...

I'm planning a succulent lamb stew with taties and root vegetables and a slosh of stout to tenderize the lot, accompanied by some whole wheat Irish soda bread (from the Farmer's Almanac) and some more stout to wash it down.

We've got a great new disk to play while we eat (the Green Fields of America with our good friend Robbie O'Connell and other masterful players) and if my fingers hold up a few more days, I'll have my new mistletoe-green raglan hoodie to wear to do my mother proud.



The lamb will be local, sustainably raised and procured through the knitting goddess Kristin Nicholas and her husband "the farmer" from their new endeavor selling lamb directly to the customer at Leydon Glen Farm. It's so nice to have the opportunity to support local agriculture, sustainable practices and purchase healthier food! They are just getting going with this new business, so if you're interested in lamb, I'd recommend that you e-mail Kristin through her blog Getting Stitched on the Farm.

And for a few other bits of green, I've just finished up my first wool soaker for the little goober and I love the pattern, found on Ravelry and available for free.
To check out the size, I've compared it here to a Bummis super brite in size newborn. Just can't wait to see these on a little one.





Enjoy your weekend and St. Patrick's day!

Slainte!