Lately.

I won't comment on how long it's been since I last posted.

But it's time to get back to this thing.  Right now, I'm looking out my window to a coming thunderstorm, a regular thing on a Georgia summer afternoon.  There have been a lot of developments in the Van Wyk household in the past months.  One of the biggest:  David (the husband) has decided to quit his high school teaching job and go full-time with knifemaking, something I've probably only barely mentioned that he does.  The decision sounds crazy, but it actually isn't.  Bloodroot has become more and more viable over the past months.  He and Luke have received some pretty good press -- Southern Living, Food and Wine, Martha Stewart Living -- which has been really exciting to watch.  All that press came from one submission I made last summer to Design Sponge, a blog I read daily and love.  They feature design work by established and new artists and artisans (difference?).  About four days after I emailed them, Luke and David were on Design Sponge, in all their glory.  I almost crapped my pants.  And the next day, they started getting emails from magazines (the ones mentioned above).  So, that all happened.  We're just watching it, jaws on the floor.  Which makes it hard to walk around.

In other news, I have one more year of my PhD, which means I'm working on my dissertation.  But to make that even more exciting/complicated, I got a job teaching high school English here in town.  Which means that David and I don't have to move.  If you're in academia, you know that to get a professorship, you really have to be willing to move anywhere in the country (world).  As David and I became more and more established in Athens, that sounded less and less attractive.  We would have had to move our dogs and chickens across U.S., like the Clampetts, probably several times.  I'm not 22 anymore.  I used to like being mobile.  Now, I like my garden.  So, I'll be teaching and finishing my dissertation simultaneously, like a super hero.

Pictured above:
Cosmos in bloom - all volunteers from last year.  Those suckers reseed like crazy.
The garlic harvest
My first year growing nasturtiums
Tomatoes and peppers, thinking about ripening.  With all this rain, they'll probably be thinking about it for awhile.
Stella in the garden
Sleepy Ivy
David, knife contemplation
I'm learning how to knit!!

David's latest knife

 Look at all the color!

www.bloodrootblades.com

It's autumn

And the chickens have stopped laying.  Which they've never done (stopped laying).  I've heard that chickens' egg laying slacks off when it gets cold, since that process is affected by the light, which in winter, there's less of.  But (ahem) MY chickens have NEVER stopped laying when it gets cold.  Or slowed down.  They just churn on ahead, ovulating at a steady pace.  So, why in the world have we gone down from getting 10 eggs a day to maybe one egg a day?  Is something eating them?  Are the chickens laying somewhere else, randomly?  I've looked everywhere.  And I don't have time for these chicken shenanigans.  So, hopefully things will right themselves without my having to figure anything out.  'Cause I can't figure it out.

We'd been selling our eggs at Daily Grocery, but now, clearly, that's had to stop.

So here are some pictures of the fall here at the Van Wyk house, sans eggs.

 One of the Rhode Islands, not laying an egg  

 The lettuces have come in. 

 Turnips for David!

 Rrradisheshes.

 Lucy, Queen of the Yard.  Protector of Eggless Chickens.

Getting a PhDoctorate

I've been away from this blog because I've been in the process of studying for and taking my comprehensive exams, the exams for which one reads about three hundred books over the course of the year and then is tested on all knowledge.  There is a written portion and an oral portion.  I took and passed the written portion last week.  It was horrible and exhausting.  And the orals are tomorrow.  So clearly, I needed to go out and take pictures of the eggplant and the baby garden and post them here.  I am so ready to get back to "normal" life, whatever that is.  I know exactly what it isn't:  reading hundreds of books and being examined on my knowledge of them.  Gross.

Apparently I signed up for this.

But I also signed up for GARDENING.

And because of comps, I was/am late on planting the fall garden, but as you can see, I've got some baby greens coming up, and I'm hoping to construct some sort of cold frame over them so we can have greens and turnips and such all winter long, yay.  Yay kale!  Nutrients!

And I never over plant (see bottom picture).  Wish me luck on my orals tomorrow.  I'm gonna go study. Thpt.

ps:  Aren't those eggplants sexy?  I know.

You do not have to be good.

I could/should say the first five lines of this poem to myself every day.

"Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

The first fruits.

We came back from Portland to ripening tomatoes.  We knew that would start happening while we were gone.  Look a that monster at the top!  Probably the biggest tomato I've ever pulled out of the garden - it weighed in at a pound and a half!  It is either a Brandywine or an old heirloom called Stump of the World - I think it's the latter.  The second picture is a Cherokee Purple tomato, which always keeps its sexy green shoulders, even when it's ripe.  So pretty.  Of course our first meal w/tomatoes from the garden:  pizza w/ sungold cherry tomatoes, cherokee purples, our basil, homemade 30-minute mozzarella from local milk (Johnson's milk!), trader joes crust, olive oil & balsamic vin.   Trader Joes's frozen pizza dough does come in handy.

Poppies in Portland

David took us to Portland, OR for four days last week, just 'cause.  We never travel like that, so this was a big treat.  And I apparently mostly took pictures of poppies.  We stayed with a great girl who lived near the Mississippi Ave. district on a small urban farm -- we found her through airbnb.com, the greatest thing ever.  Talk about traveling for cheap.  All the houses in the neighborhood had the greatest little flower gardens.  Lavender everywhere, and poppies.  So, here are the pictures:  poppies, Stumptown Coffee (delicious!), a pride parade, and us.  The night we got there, also, Portland was having a naked bike ride.  10,000 people from all over the world biking naked through town.  I, ummm, didn't take any pictures of that.  ;)