The Three Sisters ...

This is one of the 3 sisters legends that I was thinking about yesterday.  When I was in Baja California, Mexico, the third sister was tomatoes instead of squash.  Since I have not started any corn yet this year, I can't recreate this, but I would definitely like to give it  a try next year.

The three sisters are Corn, Beans, and Squash. They are seen as the three beautiful sisters because they grow in the same mound in the garden. The Corn provides a ladder for the Bean Vine. They together give shade to the Squash. The Cherokee till the mound three times.
The Native American story of the Three Sisters vary from tribe to tribe. This story below is taken from an oral account by Lois Thomas of Cornwall Island, compiled by students at Centennial College and found in "Indian Legends of Eastern Canada."

The Three Sisters

A long time ago there were three sisters who lived together in a field. These sisters were quite different from one another in their size and way of dressing. The little sister was so young that she could only crawl at first, and she was dressed in green.
The second sister wore a bright yellow dress, and she had a way of running off by herself when the sun shone and the soft wind blew in her face.
The third was the eldest sister, standing always very straight and tall above the other sisters and trying to protect them. She wore a pale green shawl, and she had long, yellow hair that tossed about her head in the breeze.
There was one way the sisters were all alike, though. They loved each other dearly, and they always stayed together. This made them very strong.
One day a stranger came to the field of the Three Sisters - a Mohawk boy. He talked to the birds and other animals - this caught the attention of the three sisters.
Late that summer, the youngest and smallest sister disappeared. Her sisters were sad.
Again the Mohawk boy came to the field to gather reeds at the water's edge. The two sisters who were left watched his moccasin trail, and that night the second sister - the one in the yellow dress - disappeared as well.
Now the Elder Sister was the only one left.
She continued to stand tall in her field. When the Mohawk boy saw that she missed her sisters, he brought them all back together and they became stronger together, again.

The Iroquois Legend of the Three Sisters

Erney, Diana. 1996. Long live the Three Sisters. Organic Gardening. November. p. 37-40. The term “Three Sisters” emerged from the Iroquois creation myth. It was said that the earth began when “Sky Woman” who lived in the upper world peered through a hole in the sky and fell through to an endless sea. The animals saw her coming, so they took the soil from the bottom of the sea and spread it onto the back of a giant turtle to provide a safe place for her to land. This “Turtle Island” is now what we call North America. Sky woman had become pregnant before she fell. When she landed, she gave birth to a daughter. When the daughter grew into a young woman, she also became pregnant (by the West wind). She died while giving birth to twin boys. Sky Woman buried her daughter in the “new earth.” From her grave grew three sacred plants—corn, beans, and squash. These plants provided food for her sons, and later, for all of humanity. These special gifts ensured the survival of the Iroquois people.


Taken from: http://www.birdclan.org/threesisters.htm

Earth Day!

Well, its Earth Day/Holy Saturday! :) I've been off all week and had been hoping to get outside way more than I did since I came down with an annoying head cold that pretty much kicked my ass. But I have started some yard work, thanks mostly to John's muscles.  We have 3 terraced little squares, each maybe 6 feet by six feet-ish. He helped me to rake them out, turn the soil, eradicate these annoying magenta weeds.  My seedlings were started inside a few weeks ago and I am excited to see that some of them are actually sprouting.  It has been a miserably rainy spring so far. Hence the delay in the rest of them sprouting. (One can only hope...)  I'm seeing my mesclun mix, beets, beans, chard, cilantro, chives.... but no sign of the peas, cucumbers, cantaloupe, eggplant, basil, parsley, or tomatoes.  I am especially sad/worried about the tomatoes.  They are seeds of an Italian heirloom variety from a friend of John's. Why, o why, aren't they sprouting?? Is it too cold?? I usually end up buying some plants from Home Depot or Walmart but I was looking forward to starting a bunch from seed this year.  The compost is breaking down but I needed to add more brown/nitrogen to it yesterday. During the winter, our long, awful, snowy winter... I was not able to get to any browns so I just kept adding the kitchen waste, so its a little slimy and smelly and unusable right now.  So I added leaves and twigs in layers and hopefully in the next few weeks this starts to correct itself.  In the meantime, I did find a very cool article online about companion planting.  When I was in Baja two summers ago, I learned about the traditional three sisters of beans, corn, and tomatoes. (or squash..) So apparently there are lots of vegs that work well together and some that really don;t do well together.  Keeping this is mind, I have sketched out a plan for all the plants that I have growing this year, assuming that they all do sprout.  I'll take a pic of the space and my plans for what needs to grow next to what in the next few days ...

Hit & Run Hodgepodge Soup

This winter is killer. I'm a teacher and we've already had five snow days. These will be made up at the end of the year ... and then if we have more, from one of our breaks, probably April.  I'm home today, and not because of the weather.  Around 2 am Sunday morning, some probably drunken' idiot smashed into the rear driver side of my parked car and drove off.  No note, no knock on the door in the morning, nothing.  Insurance company, car rental places, and auto body repair shops are not open, so, alas, I am home today to take care of it all.  Irritating to say the least, especially since I really don't have the extra money for the costs this will incur. Such is life, I suppose. So, in light of being home and annoyed and feeling very financially challenged, I decided to cook.  When I was in college, there was a nearby diner that made the most amazing hearty yummy soup they called  hodgepodge soup. I decided to try my own version, using up some fresh veggies that are sure to go bad soon if they aren't cooked as well as a few healthy ingredients to punch up the nutritional content.  It was originally going to be vegetarian, but keeping my carnivore boyfriend in mind, I decided to add some meat.  We have several "someday" dreams ... one of which is a bed and breakfast with meals made by the both of us centering around my homegrown veggies and herbs as well as locally grown/raised produce and meats.  I can envision making versions of this soup with whatever we have in surplus, adjusting the spices to suit the veggies.  This one has a decidedly Mexican/Latin flair to it.... if anyone gives it a shot, or adjusts reflecting their own refrigerator contents, let me know how it comes out! I'll be trying  a bowl when I'm done writing.  My measurements are approximate, as always ...

• I started with some good olive oil and cooking down 1/4 shallot, 3 garlic cloves, 1/4 roughly chopped white onion, 2 tomatillos, 1/2 a tomato, 1/4 finely chopped jalapeno, and a nice big splash of bud light. 
• Added two thawed out hamburger patties, broken up into chunks with my hands
• About half a container of low sodium chicken broth, Stop & Shop's natural brand
• Can of Goya red beans and 2/3 cup green lentils
• Two big handfuls of baby carrots, chopped into thirds, some more white onion, 1/3 of a red pepper, roughly chopped
• Spices: fresh cilantro, Adobo, red pepper flakes, freshly grated ginger, cinnamon, cumin, fresh thyme, sea salt, black pepper, 3 bay leaves
• whole wheat penne - like 1/4 of a box
• rind from Parmesan cheese (saw this trick on Rachel Ray, I think...)
• added water to fill the pot, and adjusted seasonings to taste

We'll see how it comes out. My apartment smells amazing ...

Let's see how this goes

I'm incredible irritated today for like a million and zero good reasons.  I can't put my finger on the restlessness and angst .. so I'm writing. Maybe I'll get some clarity, maybe I just need to vent. Whatever ... I'm into my second glass of red wine, J is asleep on the couch, the playoffs are on the tv ... blah, blah ... aren't I interesting? I can hear my neighbor downstairs coming home. Married couple, two young kids.  Annoying neighbors in the oddest little ways. They have 2 big ass SUV's and are the only people on the street who didn't feel the need to shovel their cars appropriately out. Well, since they don't own a shovel, and borrow ours late at night when everyone is asleep, attempting to be quasi- ninja about it all with the scrape-scrape-scrape of the shovel against the pavement, ice, my car, what-have-you ... I can understand that they aren't thorough about it.  Shoveling sucks, I get that.  And hey, who am I to talk when my boyfriend is an ANGEL and does it all before I even drag my lazy ass from the bed ... but. still. They shoveled JUST enough BEHIND the 2 trucks so that they can both back out in the same space ... and left a four foot wall of snow where the plows pushed it like, in the middle of the street around their cars.  Looks like absolute shit.  Wish I could draw a picture of it b/c it is so damn hard to describe.  But OUR lovely spot, behind their debacle, our little car, is perfectly, neatly, completely shoveled out, several feet in front, several feet behind, a path through the snow from sidewalk to my passenger side door ... no WALL O' SNOW in the road, thank you very much.  Until today, when maybe they had some issues backing out and had to rev the engines a bit .. and kicked a whole bunch of THEIR mess into our clean spot. My path to the sidewalk, obliterated. WTF? Let's add to this 3 annoying details: 1) When they go out, they move one truck into the MIDDLE of their crappy spot, to prevent neighbors or our company from seizing the prime locale, no doubt. 2) I THINK they have a 3rd car, parked about 2 car lengths behind ours, and about a half-car length from the end of the street, which is utterly buried in snow, totally preventing anyone from plowing the area clean or parking their cars on this side of the street. 3) Lazy-ass could not be bothered to bring his trash out to the garbage cans, because, as expected, they are in the SNOW, so, of course the logical conclusion is to throw barely-closed, stinky bags of garbage right out onto the front porch.  Which, of course, animals have gotten into, so we have orange peels and assorted yuckiness all over the porch, our steps.  Really. I called my landlord, who happens to be my dad. :) J had already pulled a garbage can out of the snow and dumped out the snow, placed it near the porch, (which took all of 2 minutes) so hopefully Grosso-man will clean up his mess and deposit it in the can, hopefully.  UGH. I really want to call public works about the car covered in snow.  Is that the right thing to do? Or should we politely ask him if its his car and if he can move it so we can get someone to plow? No idea what the polite/proper thing is to do when dealing with people who clearly have no problem behaving impolitely and improperly ...