I’m heading out in the morning (early!) to take a servsafe class. I’m trying to work up some enthusiasm but it isn’t easy. I just returned from a very cool slide show given by a local artist who has just gotten home form a trip to Poland. The show was followed by a Polish pot luck feast and I’m so stuffed I can hardly breath. I’m intrigued by polish peasant food as it comes from a region that so closely resembles my own in terms of climate. We too raise cabbage and potatoes, beets and carrots. Onions and pork, dill and sour cream feature heavily in our dishes. The good thing about these foods is that they are also the things that are the easiest to preserve. Most require nothing more than a basket and a root cellar. I would think that all of us could find preserving food easier if we went back to the roots of our cultures.

We managed to have enough sun today to make it possible to get the garlic and the multiplier onions in the ground. I had saved the best of the garlic for seed and, if I do say so myself, it was the best garlic ever. The heads were huge with thick, meaty cloves. This is my third year with this particular stock and it’s finally adapting. I did add some greensand to the soil but it looks so healthy, teaming with earthworms and such, that I don’t see it needing much else.

The sewing center has a new home. I’ve had some questions about it so I want to give some background. It began as an attempt to make our little store single use bag free. We got donated fabric and sewing machines, put them in some space that our church had available and the sewing center was born. The bag share took off as an independent project that spread far and wide and donations continued to pour in. We held some clothing repair clinics and some general sewing lessons but what we really needed was space where we could spread out and display our awesome collection of fabric and notions. The machines have multiplied too. We have two serge machines, two commercial models that will sew vinyl, canvas and leather, a treadle machine and loads of others. This weekend out community house held a huge clean out and let us have the now empty space in the basement. It’s perfect. I can’t wait to get it set up and ready to sew. It even has space for the GIANT quilting frame I inherited from Bruce’s aunt. My good friends, Leni and Barbara, have been the heart of the sewing center. It was really born from their committment to keep as much stuff out of landfills as possible. We honestly never buy anything. It’s all stuff we are reusing.

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