Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Canning report for 2011
Thanks to B’s willingness to count jars, for once we have an accurate record of all that we canned this year – a hell of a lot! Now that it’s all away in the basement I can breathe a sigh of relief that the big work is done for another year.
So the haul? Here’s what we got going on:
Cherries – 9 quarts
Strawberry-Rhubarb jam – 7 half-pints
Cherry Pie filling – 13 pints
Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie filling – 5 pints
Pickled Red Cabbage – 5 half-pints
Tomatoes – 30 quarts
Tomato salsa – 18 half-pints
Roasted Roma Tomatoes – 9 pints
Dill Pickles – 12 pints + 7 quarts
Pickled Beans – 12 pints
Pickled Jalapenos – 3 half-pints
Peach salsa – 7 pints + 2 half-pints
Brandied Apricot-Cherry sauce – 7 half-pints + 2 pints
Victoria sauce – 6 half-pints
Apricots – 20 pints
Tomato sauce – 4 quarts + 8 pints
Corn selish – 6 pints + 2 half-pints
Apple-Maple jam – 7 half-pints
Apple Pie filling – 2 quarts + 3 pints
Pickled Beets – 3 quarts + 25 pints
Mincemeat – 3 quarts + 3 pints
Peach-Apple jam – 15 half-pints
Zucchini relish – 12 half-pints
If you think that sounds kindof insane – I tend to agree – but some of that is for trading and some is for giving away so I have no worries about getting through it. It was a hell of a lot of work, however, and I’m not sure I want to do as much next year (150 pounds of tomatoes!). Having said that, it’s gratifying to have so much food to put away for winter.
Next project…..
On my way to meet friends for post-work drinks yesterday – after picking up my new student transit pass (!) – I happened through DressSew and found this lovely jacquard for only $7 per metre. The photo does not do this piece justice as it is very subtly shaded and stamped with light floral outlines that give it a remarkable variegated shimmer. Being a mid-weight fabric, it calls out to be turned into outerwear and since I own no autumn jackets beyond my (somewhat ratty) jean jacket, I afforded myself 3 metres and this Burda lined jacket pattern. I haven’t bought the lining yet, but I’m partial to finding something in green rather than the expected black.
Before I get onto this, however, I’ve got a plaid jumper all cut out and waiting to be sewn. I’m aiming to work on it a little tonight and finish on the weekend so I can get on to other autumn wear.
Visions of future schools
He said that all the new universities would consist of only one small room. It would work this way. At the beginning of each semester the entire student body—which would have to number at least five hundred thousand in order to give the computers enough to do—would assemble in a large open space in front of a TV camera. They would be televised and put on videotape. In a separate operation the instructors would also be videotaped, individually. Then two TV sets would be placed in the single room which represented the university. The room would be in a small blockhouse at the edge of a thirty-six-lane freeway; this proximity would help facilitate transmission of electronic equipment. Oh, there might be some banners on the wall and maybe a plaque or two, but aside from these the only things in the room would be the TV sets. At nine o’clock in the morning of the first day of classes, a computer would turn on the two television sets, which would be facing each other. The videotape of the students would then watch the videotape of the instructors. Eventually the system could be refined so that there would be only one university in the whole country.
-Don DeLillo, Americana
Re-branding.
This just seems like such a weird topic for a personal blog – but I am thinking that after eight years of blogging (more than 1300 posts on this blog alone, plus two other blogs) – it might be time for some personal rebranding.
When I started out as Red Cedar in 2003 (first on Livejournal, those early posts have been lost in the interwebs) I was in a pretty different place in my life than I am right now. More serious in some ways, more somber, more earthy – and a lot younger in experience than I feel now. All of that transition has of course been written about here – my thoughts, my moves, my fears and friends’ arrests, my marriage and now my family and home have all graced these pages and looking back I am strangely grateful to have such a complete document of my thirties thus far.
But for the last couple of years I’ve been feeling like “Red Cedar” is a bit too obscure and removed from the image I want to project online. As a result I started “Among the Weeds” last year where I started to document my household exploits – gardening, cooking, and some household sewing, plus I posted a few posts to “Slipperyfish.ca” which consisted of photo-poems. Although I was hoping to provide regular material to each, I’ve found that keeping three blogs up isn’t possible – and what with requirements to keep a reading journal for school in blog format, I’m not expecting to have more blogging hours anytime soon.
So I’m thinking of rolling all three blogs into one and retitling myself Madam Eliza – which is an anagram of my real name – and going with Madam Eliza’s Miss-Adventures. Apparently I can get the domain I want for this, and I would redirect my other domains to the new one so as not to lose readers in the process. I really feel like it’s time to give my blog a more human and energetic face, as well as retract into a single presence in order to ensure daily posting again. I just don’t have the time and energy to build audiences and content for three or four blog-presences – and really, it’s all personal blogging anyway.
I’m not sure anyone out there really cares – but I’m wondering as readers, do any of you have any thoughts on this? Does it matter? Do I have to keep the same online persona forever or is it okay to change? Is Madam Eliza too dorky for words? Let me know if you have any thoughts. I’m impulsive so I might more on this sooner rather than later.
Back to school!
It definitely feels like fall this morning – I’ve switched to wearing greens and browns this week, I popped my umbrella in my purse on the way out the door, the garden is spitting out its last in a furious desire to spread seed – so here we are.
I start Grad School next Wendesday, and for the first time in twelve years I had a back-to-school dream. You know the one I’m sure – showing up for school only to find you aren’t enrolled for the semester, in addition to discovering I had the wrong pre-reading list and so wasn’t at all prepared to start school anyway. It was mercifully brief, a few flashes of confusion and then the dreamscape shifted to something else entirely, but it reminded me just how much new challenges nag at our psyche – that the back to school dream is a script we all know so well.
Outwardly I don’t feel nervous about starting school again – I *have* read most of the reading list over the summer, and I am looking forward to having some intellectual discipline in my life again. I’m also a lot more confident than the last time I started college/university (which for the record, was 17 and a half years ago). The intervening years between then and now have given me a much broader perspective on the world, and a boatload of experiences which give me the surety that I actually have enough mastery of life to earn a Master’s degree. And because the program is exactly what I’m looking for in graduate education – I’m really pretty excited to get started.
But the dream. Is it that school anxieities from childhood are so embedded in us? Or latent imposter syndome just waiting to spring late in the semester giving us an early warning? Or just a nod to the transition from one mode to another – while my professional life is staying the same, I am shifting my intellectual focus towards something entirely new. And I should note also that my lack of graduate degree to date has been the source of some feelings of resentment and inadequacy about my path in the past – so perhaps I am also afraid I won’t resolve this goal for myself even though I’ve taken the first steps by getting into the program.
Despite some of my dreamland misgivings, I take all this as a sign I’m doing the right thing for myself. Challenges are expected to bring some anxiety – and anticipation is a part of the desire quest. So for the first time in twelve years I am back to school and *so* looking forward to it.
Red Cedar 