In Search of the Perfect Bag
I am in a seemingly never ending search for the perfect bag. At the farmer’s market, the renaissance faire, REI, I gravitate to those vendors or to those sections of the store that sell bags.
But I have since realized that there is no perfect bag. It isn’t that perfect bags don’t exist. Rather, it is that my idea of perfection is a moving target. What is perfect today may not be perfect tomorrow.
What I need in my “perfect” bag has changed over the years.
Back in my college and graduate school days, I had few needs. I needed to carry some cash and my school ID card. I only had two keys, the key to my apartment building and the key to my apartment. To carry these items, all I needed was a very small bag.
This tiny leather bag was perfect. My keys and change went into the front zippered compartment. My cards slid into the pocket. My (very small) wallet went into the main zippered compartment. The strap was long enough that I could wear it as a cross body bag. Everything was secure and everything fit.
But then my needs changed. In addition to apartment keys, I now had a car key. My wallet got thicker. In it, I had a driver’s license, a couple of credit cards, a library card, a bank card, a grocery store card. It was no longer that easy to cram the thicker wallet into my tiny bag. At another renaissance faire, I found the “perfect” replacement for my little bag.
My new waist bag had the added advantage of being hands-free. When I got my first cell phone, a tiny little thing that was about the size of a lighter, it fit nicely in the smaller outside pocket. My second cell phone, a slightly larger flip phone, also fit in that same pocket. Things were perfect.
But then I got more technology: a smart phone, a iPad. My perfect bag no longer worked so well. I needed to find something else.
Enter the Ristretto by Tom Bihn (my newest favorite bag maker). It had so many organizer pockets: a padded pocket for the iPad, two pockets that were perfect sizes for my little to-do notebook and my iPhone, a couple of pen pockets, a zippered pocket where I put my wallet, a main compartment which could hold a book or notebook, and a back pocket perfect for loose papers or a magazine. It also had several o-rings onto which I could tether my keys.
This new bag held much promise to become my Every Day Carry Bag. However, I soon discovered the main problem with this bag. Because it fit so many things, I tried to make it my one and only bag. But with everything that I wanted to carry at times, the bag became much too heavy. Even with its padded cross body strap, one shoulder was carrying more weight than was comfortable.
Maybe one bag will never be my perfect “Every Day Carry Bag”. My solution now is to have two bags.
- a backpack for my MacBook and/or iPad, books, and binders; all those heavy things that were weighing down my Ristratto.
- a smaller bag for all the other sundry items that I carry: wallet, keys, a pen and a pencil and my little to-do notebook, the iPhone, my earbuds,
I pulled out my absolute favorite backpack, my 40+ year old Jansport. They do NOT make backpacks like this any more. A piece of leather secures the straps in back. The buckles are metal – they will never break like plastic ones do. And Jansport, true to its lifetime guarantee, replaced my broken zipper for free about twelve years ago.
And I purchased a smaller bag, the Sidekick, from Tom Bihn.
My Jansport is a relatively small backpack. It will hold my laptop, a textbook, and a thin binder. So it never gets too terribly heavy. Carrying a backpack is easier on my shoulders than carrying a cross-body shoulder bag.
The Sidekick is a perfect small bag. It has lots of organization. An outer zipped pocket has my keys, tethered nicely by the o-rings and key-straps. Inside are more o-rings and multiple pockets. The interior o-rings tether my Tom Bihn wallet and other organizational pouches. This means I will never accidentally leave my wallet somewhere ever again. There are pockets for my phone, to-do notebook, a pen, a pencil, sunglasses, and more. I can nicely fit a paperback in the main compartment.
So for now, I don’t have a perfect bag, but I do have a perfect bag combination. The operative word is “for now”. Things might change. Who knows what I will need in a year or two?
Holding a Dream … Lightly
Bucket List
–noun
a list of things that one has not done before but wants to do before dying
Merriam–Webster
It doesn’t seem as if it were that long ago that I started hearing about bucket lists. People would ask me what was on my bucket list. I could not answer. There are always lots of things that I want to do. Did I have to choose? If I tried to enumerate every idea that came to my mind, I would have a list that no one could accomplish in a lifetime.
The notion of keeping a bucket list seems too inflexible to me. My hopes and aspirations are fluid. Circumstances change and I want to be able to change my dreams accordingly. So I think it is good to have dreams, but to hold them lightly.
Sometimes interests change. Back when I was in my early thirties, I bicycled with three friends as far as I could go in a week. Two of them were bicycling across the country. I had only a week’s worth of vacation time, so I went with them from Seattle, WA to Libby, MT. For a long time after that, I had the dream of one day bicycling across the country. That dream got modified – taking an entire summer off did not seem feasible – maybe I would bicycle across the country in stages, a week at a time. Pete even offered to be my sag support. When we moved to the midwest, the thought of driving out west to spend a week bicycling seemed like too much effort – too much driving, too much time away with both the driving and the bicycling. So I didn’t pursue the dream. For a while, a long while, I felt badly about abandoning that dream. Was I was just giving up? Was I not persistent enough? But, in fact, my interests had changed. Holding tightly to that dream brought about feelings of guilt and shame. I’m glad I realized that I’m in a different place now and I don’t have to be tied down to that dream. I’m happy to just go bicycling along the roads and bicycle paths in Albuquerque.
I don’t want to hold on to a dream so tightly that I would be devastated if, for some reason, I could no longer pursue it. I have hobbies that give me a great deal of pleasure and that I’ve always thought I would continue doing for the rest of my life. I love to spin and knit and play the recorder. But my thumb joints are giving me problems. They ache when I overuse them in any kind of gripping motion. Right now, I’m trying to figure out if there are modifications that I can do (hand position, equipment, materials) to alleviate the problems. I know that my thumbs are likely to continue to get worse. So I am also thinking of other activities that I can do that won’t put strain on my poor thumbs. I want to be able to transition (and plan that transition) from one dream to another.
Sometimes, holding on to a dream too tightly blinds us to other possibilities. For many, many, years, I’ve held the dream of, one day, having a little residential–sized pipe organ. Such things do exist. I’ve played on little pipe organs in practice rooms at music schools and dreamed of having one of my own someday. Being a bit of an organ snob, I didn’t even consider anything other than a pipe organ. Then, a year ago, when I actually had the opportunity to buy a small pipe organ (albeit a bit bigger than I had envisioned), I started re-evaluating that dream. Though I now have tall enough ceilings that a small pipe organ would fit the space, I live in an apartment building now. I have neighbors who share walls, ceilings, floors. I realized that I wasn’t playing the piano very much because I did not want to disturb my neighbors, especially at odd times of the day or night. Only then did I start to think that a digital organ, with headphones, would be much more practical. Technology has improved a lot and I found a digital organ that I really liked. I had to let go of that dream of a pipe organ to fulfill my dream of just getting an organ of my very own. Holding on tightly to that dream of a pipe organ had not allowed me to think of any other possibilities that would have given me joy and fulfillment.
Do I still have dreams? Oh, yes. Pete and I think about going to France for a year. But that may morph into something else. Perhaps exploring all the Amtrak routes, stopping off at places we’ve never been to and then hopping on the train again to go to the next place. Perhaps it will be buying a little camper van (an old VW would be perfect!) and traveling around the country for a year. France is still a dream – but one that I am holding on to lightly. And, in the meantime, we can go to Paris for a few days on a vacation.
I’m fortunate to have many interests. I’m fortunate that I get excited about the prospect of doing many different things. If accomplishing one of my dreams does not work out, there are a number of other dreams that can take its place.
So hold on to those dreams … but lightly.
Mum’s Legacy of Canning Tomatoes
This year, I once again have many tomato plants in my garden, tomato plants that I started from seed. And I’m looking forward to having enough of a tomato harvest to be able to can some tomatoes for the upcoming winter.
It was my mum that taught me how to can tomatoes. Until the last year of her life, she helped me with the fall canning. I miss her.
First published on goshencommons.org on December 15, 2012
I come to her apartment and find her trying to stand at the sink, legs shaking a bit, and then sinking back to her wheelchair. I wheel her to her desk and see her hands fumbling as she tries to open Christmas cards. She starts asking me a question but has a hard time remembering the words. And I wonder. Will my mama be able to can tomatoes with me next fall?
I didn’t start canning until my mum, Nina, moved to Goshen in the spring of 2000. She was the one who had the equipment: large pots to cook the tomatoes, the canning pot, the brilliantly designed jar lifter such as I’ve never seen anywhere else, and the all important Ball Book of food preserving. Most importantly, she had the experience, so she could guide me in the ways of canning tomatoes.
Before the deep freezer came into our lives, my mum and aunt canned blueberries, cherries and tomatoes. After the freezer, the blueberries my family picked went into the freezer. Other fruit became more readily available all seasons at the grocery store year round. But they still canned tomatoes. Later, they stopped canning altogether as tomatoes, fresh and in tins, could be purchased as well. But my mum still kept all the canning tools and equipment and that equipment moved with her from Washington to Indiana.
We developed a system and it hummed like a well-tuned production line. We all had tasks to do. All of us, Pete, my mum, and I, would peel the tomatoes. While the tomatoes were cooking I would set up the table for filling the jars. And then the canning production would begin.
- I would bring a hot jar to Pete.
- Pete would fill it and pass it to my mum.
- My mum would make sure that the jar was filled to the correct level, run the rubber spatula to get rid of air bubbles, wipe down the edge of the jar and put on the lid and band.
- I would take the filled jar back to the stove and the boiling water canner and bring another empty hot jar to Pete.
As I grew other vegetables in the garden, we introduced my mum to other canning recipes, and she gamely went along with all of our experiments. All our canning occurred at her house, using her pots and canning tools. There was the year of the cucumber. Who knew that planting one row of cucumber plants would yield more cucumbers than we could possibly eat? So we made dill pickles, sweet pickles, cucumber chips, bread and butter pickles. 
Three years later, we are still eating some of those pickles. We made blueberry, cherry and raspberry jam.We bought a Victorio strainer and made tomato sauce. We made pear chutney one year and pear sauce two years later. We canned habernero peppers. We made a sweet hot sauce and salsa.
Over the last couple of years, my mum started slowing down. She spent more and more time resting. But she still wanted to be part of the canning process. Last year we did about three runs of canning tomatoes and she did her part.
I’ve only ever canned with my mum. I think she has taught me well what to do. But as I see her now, I wonder whether she will can tomatoes again. And I wonder also, will I?
Categories: Lifestyle
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Pints of Pickles
In 2009 and 2010, I made a serious gardening mistake. I planted, not one, not two, not three, …
… altogether too many cucumber plants!
The result was 52 pints of pickles (and quite a few quarts of pickles as well).
It is 2017 and we still have some of those pickles!
And yet, this year I planted cucumbers. Why? Alas, we had eaten all of the bread and butter pickles.
And so it begins, with a mere 7 pints of bread and butter pickles.
The question is, when, and after how many more pints, will it end?
Categories: Garden, Lifestyle
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Drawn to Spinning in Spite of a Mind Made Up
Challenge Yourself. 
Spin.
Have fun.
While there are no hard and fast rules, there are a few basic guidelines:
- Spin every day that the Tour rides and rest on the rest days.
- Spin something challenging on days when the Tour is tackling the challenging mountain stages.
- Wear yellow on the final day to announce victory!
I’ve always thought this would be fun to do. So this year, I’ve joined a team and am trying to spin every day of the tour. My local yarn store (LYS), The Yarn Store at Nob Hill, is helping our team, Team Spinsters of Nob Hill, by providing incentive gifts (cycling caps and water bottles) and spinning fiber, as well as hosting our weekly Sunday gatherings.
I haven’t been spinning much in the past few months, but spinning is something I really do love. And yet, many years ago, I was dragged into this hobby quite reluctantly.
The story, first published in 2013 on the Goshen Commons website, tells that story.
To turn, turn
will be our delight,
‘Till by turning, turning
we come ’round right.
“Simple Gifts”
On Saturday, as this post is being published, I will be at Lindenwood Retreat Center with about 20 other people. Something will be turning — much to my delight. I will be spinning. Not spinning as in a form of exercise on a stationary bicycle at a gym, but spinning as in making yarn from fiber. Some day, the yarn I am spinning will become something warm and wooly.
Spinning seems an appropriate interest for a modern homesteader. After growing my own produce, making my own clothes is a natural extension. (By that reasoning, I should really be sewing as well, but that only happens rarely.) Taking this even further, I would be raising the sheep from which I get my fiber, but I can’t really do that on a city lot. So, I do the next best thing and buy fiber from some of my spinning sisters at this retreat who do raise sheep.
I got into spinning quite reluctantly. As a teenager, I had decided never to do anything remotely resembling traditional household work. So I didn’t cook. While in graduate school, I subsisted solely on cheese sandwiches and ice cream. I did manage to keep the apartment somewhat clean and I did do my laundry. But I certainly didn’t do any crafts: be it sewing, or knitting or crocheting.
One day, a friend told me about a spinning class she had taken at a local yarn store. She was eager to show me what she had learned. She assured me that I would love learning to spin. She was insistent and she was a good friend, so I decided to humor her and let her show me. But I had already decided that I would definitely not like it.
We got together one evening and she showed me what to do. It’s a complicated process in which you have to coordinate hands and feet. You draw out of the fibers (drafting), letting them feed onto the bobbin, all the while treadling to keep the drive wheel moving. But, maybe because I am an organist, I picked up on the rhythm of the movements quite easily. And, in spite of all my internal efforts to reject the entire endeavor, I fell in love with it.
A month later, we moved from Chicago to Seattle. In my first week in Seattle, I found a yarn and fiber store. Before the week was up, I was carrying home a box with a disassembled spinning wheel. That evening, I put it together. And I have been using that spinning wheel ever since – for 23 years.
Spinning is an activity in which I relax. It is the perfect remedy for a hectic day. When I start a spinning project, I usually have no finished product in mind, so I don’t feel driven to get something done. I can easily just sit down and spin for a few minutes or for an entire evening. It is meditative. I concentrate on the rhythm of my hands and my feet. I feel the wool sliding through my hands, the lanolin acting as a natural hand lotion. I hear the whir of the wheel, often the only background noise. It is a time to just be.
So, I guess the moral of this story is to keep an open mind and never say “never.” You don’t know what you will like until you try it.
Categories: Fiber, Lifestyle
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The 2017 Garden
For a number of years, my gardening endeavors got more and more ambitious.
I started on Vashon Island, WA, with a small strawberry patch and a couple of tomato plants. The strawberry patch got larger. The vegetable garden grew to flank the entire side of the house.
I got carried away my first year in Goshen, IN, bringing home 18 tomato starts from my first trip to a nursery. That afternoon was spent frantically double digging an area in the backyard so that I had some place to plant 18 tomato plants.
In the ensuing years, my garden grew bigger and bigger until I was not only using my own backyard for strawberries, cherries, asparagus, herbs, but also the entire empty lot next door.
In 2015, that empty lot was no longer empty, but filled with all manner of edible plants: perennial and annual vegetables, grains, fruit trees and berry bushes, an amazing hops trellis, and a small greenhouse. The front half of the lot was filled with small fruit and nut trees and a variety of berry bushes some of which I had just purchased from Raintree Nursery. I was at capacity and well underway to becoming a true urban homesteader.
The garden layouts that I had created in prior years no longer sufficed. I purchased an app to keep track of where everything was. With the app, I managed to catalogue the back half of the empty lot.
Layout of the Beriewede Garden 2015
I never did get around to drawing the layout of the front.
That was the year that everything changed. By the middle of the summer, we had purchased a condo in Albuquerque, NM. By the start of 2016, I had moved to the southwest. Living in an apartment, I no longer had a yard of my own to convert into a tiny farm.
But there was a community garden.
In 2016, I had one row.
In 2017, I have two rows.
I’m seeing a pattern here.
In 2018, … ?
Categories: Garden, Lifestyle
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Vegetative vs. Generative – or How to Grow a Better Tomato
In spite of the heat, my garden seems to be thriving. And this year, my tomatoes are doing well so far. I’m trellising the tomatoes using the Florida Weave. Flowers are being pollinated, fruit is setting, and I’m looking forward to a good harvest.
This heat does put stress on the plants in the garden and I’m reminded of the difference between the vegetative and generative stages in the growth of a tomato plant.
In the vegetative stage, the plant is lush with abundant foliage. In the generative stage, the plant starts producing fruit. Stress causes the plant to go into a fruit producing generative stage in an attempt to propagate itself.
The following post was first published on the Goshen Commons website in 2013 and discusses these two stages, particularly for tomatoes.
Enjoy!
I am learning new things all the time working at Clay Bottom Farm. One of the farm’s specialties is its crop of tomatoes: yellow tomatoes, red tomatoes, big juicy and tasty heirloom tomatoes. The tomato plants in my home garden seem to be a bit scrawny. Their stems are thin and weak. I look at the thick stems of the Clay Bottom tomatoes and wonder what I could do better. This post summarizes what I learned last week on the farm.
It is likely that I have not achieved the best balance between the vegetative and the generative stages in a tomato’s growth. A growing tomato produces both leaves (vegetative growth) and fruit (generative growth). A big plant with lots of leaves and little fruit is in a primarily vegetative stage. A plant producing a lot of fruit but with a thin stem near the top and flatter and fewer leaves is primarily generative. There are potential problems if the tomato plant is excessively vegetative or excessively generative.
In a vegetative stage, most of the plant’s energy from photosynthesis is directed toward producing leaves and stem, not fruit. A plant that is excessively vegetative may have delayed development of fruit and when fruit does develop, the fruit is small. In a generative stage, the plant’s energy is directed toward reproduction, creating flowers, buds and fruit. If a plant is overly generative, it may stop growing new leaves at the top, consequently slowing or stopping growth, and, in turn, the production of new fruit.
Balancing the two stages is key for healthy plants with a good yield of fruit.
There is quite a bit of information available about balancing the vegetative and generative stages of a greenhouse-grown tomato. A farmer growing tomatoes in a greenhouse has some control over the environment in which they are grown. My tomatoes are outside in my garden and I don’t have as much control over temperature and humidity. But I still can apply some of the principles (next year, of course) in my own garden.
- Early on in a tomato’s growth, I want to encourage vegetative growth (leaves and stems). That means giving the plant lots of nutrients (from my compost pile) and making sure the plant gets enough water.
- Then, when I see the first little fruit, I want to begin encouraging generative growth. That means stressing the plant by reducing its water supply and depriving it of extra nutrients.
Maybe, if I remember this sequence of steps next year, I will get better looking plants and a good harvest of tomatoes.
References:
- Steering your tomato plants for optimum growth and yield (University of Illinois Extension)
- Vegetative and generative crop steering (Growing for Market)
Categories: Garden
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