Well, I guess it's about time. I've only been reading other people's blogs for YEARS now. That's about par for my adoption of new technology - dip a toe in the water periodically for years before finally stepping in up to the ankle.
Anyway, it seems like a good time to do this. We've been up here for a year now, but it seems appropriate to catalogue the differences and keep some sort of record for what has been (and continues to be) a major change and learning experience. In addition, I'm suddenly (and delightedly) revisiting interests and skills that were in the forefront years ago, before more children, the reality of life and the necessity of steady employment encroached on my time. Namely, quilting and other "old school" crafts and skills.
Where to start? Just over a year ago we moved from inner city Richmond, Virginia to about as far north in Northern New York as it is possible to be without crossing the St. Lawrence into Canada. It's very rural and we live on a few acres at the top of a hill outside of town. To clarify: We're further north than Toronto, the nearest airports are Ottowa, Burlington VT or Syracuse (all a couple of hours away), and the nearest interstates are almost that far. We're on the northwestern edge of the Adirondack Mountains in one of the least populated counties in NY (there is only one city here - of about 12,000 people - and that's about 30 miles away as the crow flies but takes close to an hour to get there on our 2-lane back roads). Despite the isolation, however, there are 4 universities within a 20-mile radius of us.
Now that I no longer commute from one side of the city to the other to get to work, daycare, etc., there is more time to do other things and I have taken up quilting again. I last did so approximately 15 years ago and so much has changed that I hardly believe it. The internet and the various quilting blogs that I follow have excited such interest in projects that I shelved so many years ago, but would still like to do, and ideas for new projects that I can hardly wait to try. (Ooops, mis-statement, I'm not waiting for much of anything, I started quilting again just this past winter and how many new WIPs do I have now? Oh, yes, that number is 14!!!!) NOTE TO SELF: Striving for honesty and accuracy in a journal is GOOD thing.
Where was I? Oh, yes, quilting. Well, that is currently on hiatus as the garden is coming in now. This garden was an experiment. We had gotten used to our urban garden WAY down south. We heard tales of shorter growing season, deer and rabbit predations, too much rain, etc. So we dreamed big, planted smaller, did not fence anything and waited to see what happened with very little in the way of expectation. The locals laughed at the DF's tales of 6' tomato plants down south. HAH! We live on a hill ("The Hill" from now on) and drainage is good. Nobody's grown anything in those fields for decades. The deer (for some reason) don't like our tomatoes, (although they don't mind sampling the squash). We are on the DF's family land and the other houses on the Hill are inhabited by sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins, grandmas, etc., but most are older so they haven't utilized the local voluntary abundance very much in years and most has run wild.
RESULTS? I've made LOTS of pints of applesauce, grape jam, plum apple jam, and raspberry apple jam. I froze about 10 lbs of corn (OFF the cob). I'm STILL canning tomato sauce (past 30 quarts now and still counting) and making tomato juice. I've been picking 1-2 five-gallon buckets of tomatoes every 2-3 days. Some of the squash ran rampant, which I didn't discover until I tripped over a 5-lb zucchini and followed the vine trail to 3 more just like it. I also just found out that there are potatoes down in the lower field that I wasn't even aware of. At the moment, I'm looking FORWARD to the cold snap that's coming so I can STOP canning and get back to quilting!
Last but in no way least, the children I brought with me are THRIVING up here. (Alas, I left two grown children behind in the south.) The youngest started school up here, and the older has now started high school up here. They both have had opportunities to participate in summer and after-school activities that were not possible in our previous inner city setting. On top of that, there are trees and woods and a pond with fish just outside our back door. They live on the Hill surrounded by family, instead of inner city tenements, gangstas and drug addicts. The relief we feel for their sale alone at being up here is unbelievable!
So, now that I've started this project, I hope I'll continue and I hope that continuing will keep me working on others of my WIPs. There's too much going on to let anything slide for long and living the life we live up here is too marvelous not to enjoy it to the fullest and to memorialize it as best I can. So, ta ta for now. :-)
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