Cold Comforts

 

Rasta on the comfy chair; socks and blankies ready

I don’t live on a farm, but I do live down a long dirt driveway in a story-and-a-half log Cape set in the middle of an old cow pasture, with woods behind and to the side. I also am part of that generation that grew up in rural New England – one town over from where I now live, in fact – when all the old folks, and all the younger folks who weren’t well-off --- which was pretty much everyone --- had large gardens, did a lot of canning and freezing, had a root cellar in the corner of the house cellar, cut a lot of wood for heating, and often kept a few chickens, and maybe a milk cow. My rural grandparents, who I grew up next to, kept the chickens; and there was a dairy farmer up the road, so no one local kept cows.

So I’m the child of the not-well-off child-rearing generation of that time. I married a city boy – what was I thinking??? – and we’re the not-well-off rural folks who are now grandparental – or in our case, grand-auntal and granduncle-al age. I don’t live on a farm, but the way we live is still reminiscent of that lifestyle I grew up in. I have a giant garden, and can and freeze and store most the vegetables we eat all year; we bake bread weekly; we don’t have a root cellar, but make do with baskets in our tiny walk-in pantry and cellar; we burn wood (and the Husband cuts wood – pretty good for a city boy!)) to stay warm. When winter nears, we stock up on all the things my parents and grandparents did: candles, kerosene for the oil lamps, food staples like flour, maple syrup, honey, sugar, mustards, some exotic sauces, ginger beer, vinegars, and jams (which I no longer make), and chocolate – yes, chocolate is a food staple. It’s one of the four main food groups, which are: Red, Green, Garlic, and Oily. Chocolate fits into the Oily category.

Some of the things we stock up on weren’t available up here in the north country when I was a kid: olive oil, tomato paste, chili sauce, decent coffee, mushrooms that aren’t slimy in a tiny little can, really good cheeses - many made locally, and spices that aren’t just salt and pepper but from many different cultures, among other things. Back then, we made our own fermented foods in great crocks in the cellar, but now we can buy locally made stuff with spices we’d never even heard of when I was a kid. And fruits – then we had frozen or canned blueberries and if we were lucky, a few frozen or canned sour cherries, strawberries, and blackberries, and rhubarb sauce. We had baskets of apples, of course, and sometimes a few pears. Now we grow and preserve all those, plus peaches and raspberries, and we can buy so many fruits I rarely or never saw when I was a kid. I was an adult before I ever saw, or tasted, a mango or avocado or persimmon or Clementine or Meyer lemon. Amazing! 

Tarp-covered rows of wood; snow shovel ready

In our backyard are many cords of wood piled up, because we heat with it, mostly. And nowadays we also stock up on cat food, cat litter (the cats of my childhood used the great outdoors whether they wanted to or not, no matter how deep the snow), cat treats, and birdseed and suet.

By kitchen and back doors, all winter reside containers of ice melt, and in the garage is ice melt and clay cat litter for spreading on the icy days; in the woodstove room, which we call the Chapel because we put a stained-glass window in the gable end, live my plants: potted bay and kafir lime trees, which live outside in the summer; a pot of “cat grass” – which is just oat grass, also used as a green mulch in these parts – for the furries; Christmas cacti, one of which belonged to my grandmother, and amaryllis that usually decide not to bloom, plus pots of freesia and Canna lilies that will bloom, sooner or later. Orchids, which will bloom from time to time, live on the cabinet counter in the cooler dining room, in the west window.

We keep a big pot of water on the woodstove, plus a Japanese iron teakettle, and we have a huge water fountain on the floor. Capes have small rooms, and the air dries out fast when the woodstove is cranking. And yes, during periods of no electricity, we stay warm, can melt snow for flushing and cleaning, and I have many times cooked on the top of the stove – it’s excellent for making soup, cooking rice. Every time a big storm threatens, the kitchen shelves get covered, just in case, with numerous pitchers and jugs of water for cooking and drinking, and the bathtub is filled with pails of water for flushing – something I’m told city dwellers with city water don’t have to think about.

Woodstove and fountain

Whenever I’m home – not working, not running errands – at least once a week there’s a big pot of soup cooking on the stove, or chicken bones boiling down to broth. This happens year round, but in winter it’s a fragrant and comforting smell and sound, and the kitchen – at the far end of the house from the woodstove room – gets warm and moist, and the weekly bread rises well in spite of the temperature outside. The cats often perch on the counter next to the orchids to keep an eye on the birds eating seed and suet off the porch railings. If I’m lucky, I’ll see the raven swoop down to snatch a hunk of suet, then fly to the pine tree across the driveway to laugh at me. When I bring the bird’s food out in the morning, he shouts from the big maple at the end of the driveway, alerting the blue jays and others that breakfast has arrived. The mourning doves, in their gray-brown coats, arrive mornings after the jays, and again late afternoon, which is also when the cardinals arrive. They all make a comforting knocking sound as they feed from the railings – as if wild winter sprites were knocking at my kitchen door.

In our living room is a big chair, big enough for me and two cats, that faces the double doors to the Chapel, where we can watch the woodstove flames dance (there’s glass in the front door of the stove), and get a stream of warm air passing through to us. This time of year, the low-lying sun also hits a solar-powered device hanging in the south windows, which turns a couple of crystals, which in turn send rainbow patches dancing across the walls and floor. My old Christmas cactus bloomed, as usual, at Hallowe’en; but the smaller one is setting up buds, and one of the freesias has sent out a flower bud stalk, as has one of the orchids. The plant with the purple shamrock-shaped leaves is abloom after its summer outdoors; and the lime tree has produced two blossoms, and has two tiny limes growing slowly. Its blossoms are incredibly fragrant, making up for its fruits, which are pretty much inedible!

Lime blossom, tiny fruit, bay in back

This time of year, even more comforting things arise: I remember to put cardamom in my coffee, which is lovely; and once a day I allow myself a quarter mug of eggnog (also local – there’s not much point in not eating local, when the local stuff here is sooooo good and better for us and our neighbors who produce it) in my coffee, then filled to the brim with local raw milk. Oh, my, yum! And it only lasts a little over a month. To sit in that warm chair with cats and fuzzy fleece blankies, fuzzy socks on feet, a mug of eggnog/milk/coffee at hand, and a couple of good books in lap --- true comfort. It usually results in a nap…

Which is, after all, what our bodies and minds crave most at this time of year.

I plan the upcoming mid-winter foods: lamb koftas with minted yogurt with lemon, for sauce; French-Canadian corton, redolent with garlic and cloves, to eat for breakfast on toast, and its near cousin, tortiere, the pie we eat for Christmas Eve; muhammara, the middle eastern dip made with roasted red peppers, olive oil, garlic, cumin, pomegranate concentrate, and walnuts all ground up together, sometimes with a few grilled olives added, and harissa strewn across the top…Oh, the comforts of the savory exotic foods we eat at this time of year!

Bright lights

This year, we have no snow, and I got soaked through yesterday running errands. The brook and the marsh it feeds across the street, and the little ponds and the brook, that runs from the larger brook that empties into the marsh, under the road, then around my house and back into the marsh, putting me and neighbors on a tiny island, were all running high and fast – it was almost like spring. But today, after repairing some wind-caused damage, and discovering that my garden shed got soaked, indoors, from the driving rain and wicked big wind that also knocked over my wellhead go-around and moved a large rock that helps hold it in place --- again – sorta like spring --- I was happy to come back in, to the woodstove, the smell of soup simmering on the stove, the happy purry kitties ensconced in the big chair, and my eggnog-coffee. 

In two days, it will be Winter Solstice. The sun will slowly, slowly, start to stay out a little longer every day. We won’t notice it for some time; but in the meantime, we have the little shining rainbow lights during the day, the shiny eyes of our furry buddies, the shine of the colored lights hanging from one of my house’s corner posts, the shining evergreen between my house and that of my close neighbor, that she drapes in lights this time of year.

It’s cold and dark, but we have comforts. Snuggle down. Enjoy.

For the blog: 19 December 2023    herondragonwrites.blogspot.com

All photos Deb Marshall

Orchids, west window