Holy Hot Pepper Sauce

Yesterday the big bowl came out to accommodate the big bag of hot peppers generously gifted by a family member. Organically grown, and so beautiful. I could feel the heat around my eyes just looking at them, and that intensified with washing... and I was actually sweating around my eyes when chopping them. It was a generous heap of hot peppers, and I'm grateful for them.

I made a quick hot sauce in the blender with horseradish-infused apple cider vinegar, salt and garlic. Half of that was sweetened with a touch of honey, the rest kept basic, with potential for additions after it melds and mellows. It's already tasty, and hot, but the flavor will improve after a week or so, when I'll be able to make more meaningful adjustments.

The rest was packed into a half-gallon jar layered with onion, garlic and kosher salt. I packed it down with my cedar "tool" throughout the day, until it produced its own liqueur to cover the peppers, which had shrunk by volume a third. And here it will continue to ferment on the kitchen counter (or thereabouts) until it reaches the flavor I'm after... or whenever I get around to using it. And I may add some other flavor-makers for the garden (the basils, shiso, chives...). When I'm ready to use it I puree it, bottle it, and label. Just like with botanical creations: Label. Label. Label. 

Last year I made an end-of-season ferment for sauce, with hot and sweet peppers, and just a bunch of whatever from the gardens. I forgot about until I noticed it in the spring. It was the best sauce ever. I'll be repeating the process again this year, for sure. I LoVe this kind of creative use-what-ya-got process, and fermenting is so accommodating to it, and I'm rarely - if ever - disappointed with the outcome. 

Peace. 🕊

...What Awaits...

Autumn arrives and with it a bump-up in harvesting and preserving (as you may already know). There's still plenty in the gardens and wild places to keep me busy. And that sense of urgency intensifies with each day. And I collaborate with this verve, as I countdown to the coming frosts, the arboreal color show and falling leaves, the planting of garlic, the hay-bailing of crops to harvest in winter, and the eventual exhale that comes with the waxing silence of the evenings, the wintering sky, the first fire in the fireplace, and the hunkering down for the season. Familiar patterns, one and all.

This heART journal page is shared with my creative friends at Art Journal Journey, Mix it Monthly, and Moo Mania. Head over to see what other creative souls are making manifest!

Peace. 🕊

This Year's Farmer's Wine

Yesterday I bottled two gallons of 2018/2019 farmer’s wine.

This sweet, organic, cane sugar wine was made with black currant, rhubarb, wild grape, rosehips, elderberry, bilberry, hibiscus, all coaxed to life with the first blooms of elder.

And there’s lots of love in there too.

I make this wine most every summer when the elders start to bloom. I pull all the suitable fruit from the prior year from the freezer, add it to the fermentation container with organic cane sugar, water, add an herb or two or three or more, and stir in the elderflowers to get the fermentation started. Once it gets going and the fruit is strained out, I continue to add sugar until the fermentation is done. No specific gravity readings, just keep adding sugar 'til the faeries are full. Then it rests and its carboy until autumn, when it gets bottled.

Being a wild fermentation, it’s a gamble, as you can never be certain as to how it will behave, and it’s typically sweeter than I prefer, but always spirited and so far has always been drinkable, and often quite delightful. Like this year. 

This batch is already drinkable, and quite nice for gentle, sweet sipping, and it makes an exceptional spritzer. ::nods::

Sláinte! 🕊

Another heART journal flip

Here's another heART journal, this one from 2013, a year of big Medicine for me. Peace. 🕊 rose

September Tomatoes

Judging by this year‘s tomato harvest so far, it’s kinda hard to believe that I planted fewer tomato plants this year. But I did.

I’ve already canned two batches of crushed tomatoes, salsa, and dried countless trays. And they're still producing.

Mind you, I’m not complaining. We won’t have these too much longer, and I’m gonna enjoy every fresh slice!

Peace.

PS  I went out to harvest beans and discovered a few more tomatoes that I missed. And I really need to harvest the cherry tomatoes too! 

More 2012 heART journal memories

Here's another journal flip through yet another heART journal from 2012 (not 2013, as I erroneously say in the vid).

I may be busy right now creating journals for others, yet I still make a mark in one of my current journals most every day... and I'm enjoying these journal journeys as well. I hope you are too.

Peace. 🕊

Buzzin' Haiku

My little systers.
Honey, Carpenter, Bumble.
Doing the good work.

Peace. 🕊

heART journal memories 2012

I'll be going through some of my old heART journals in an effort to catalogue them for ease in exploring their contents for the various reasons we go through our old journals. Sometimes it's to seek a specific memory, or experience... or style, design, or technique, or simply to seek patterns, and explore past Medicine for present applications.

My practice of heART journaling is Medicine to me. Ever since I was a little girl, making art has been integral to my wellness, to my personal evolution. And I recognize this Medicine in all creative expression, be it poetry, prose, dance, music, theater, whatever! Yet for me, the visual arts have always been my go-to Medicine.

As I video my journals for this purpose I'll be sharing them with you, and I hope this adds some value beyond my own.

Peace. 🕊

Welcome September

Even as aspects of The Garden are past 'n' waning, there's still plenty to tend 'n' harvest well into autumn. And autumn's not here yet. And I am grateful for these final days of summer.

August flitted, I blinked, and linear time has delivered September. Given this dashing verve, meshed with some solitary immersion and inner work, I've found myself in a place to stay for a while. That may sound cryptic, but it's not. It's simple, though not without nuance, and it's the nuance that's gnawing at me. And so it is that some plans have shifted so that I may do the work I'm called to do, and face the challenges I'm called to face.

I'll be staying in The Garden for a while; the one you see, and the one I know. This fits with this transitional month in ordinary and extraordinary ways. I feel a tug - a tug for all of us - to nurture the Gardens, the communities and the wisdom that reside right in our own backyards. We are being called to honor the places where our roots sink, and as we do, we will re-cultivate honor for the earth, the soil, the water, the air, the plants, all life - everywhere - with our behaviors, choices and actions. Actions that may nourish and sustain life, near and far, rather than starve and deplete it. 

This is the Medicine we are called to make manifest.

I pray we are all up to the challenge.

Peace. 🕊