"Estivate" is so interesting, thank you. I had no idea it was a thing, yet it makes perfect sense to my experience. I now feel like how I felt after reading Susan Cain's "Quiet" - one of those special Look, That's Me moments.
(I find warm summer months slow me down, put lead in my boots and concrete in my neural pathways. Winter (and cold) is where I feel like I can really *try*, which is why I'm excited about the upcoming Scottish winter. And maybe also explains why living in Costa Rica for a year in 2017, as fabulous as it was, was also a time where I struggled to string two thoughts together. I realised now attuned to non-equatorial latitudes I am, even though I grew up in Cyprus.)
So interesting. I need to think about this more.
>>"what if no amount of digital tech, no matter how deeply embedded, will ever be able to compare to what we can experience if we connect fully with the world we already live in?"
I wonder this too. But if it's true, we're in the fray now, and the only way out is through. I saw a smart suggestion a while back for a digital prompt in the form of an alarm that goes off every hour, a recording of yourself asking "Hey! Where are you?" As in - where are your throughts right now -lost in the past or future, or appreciating the richness of this moment, right now? That feels worth trying.
I had no idea what a chokeberry was until this post. In terms of new wonders per sentence, your writing is excellent value.
I was living in Boston when I learned "estivate" and it was a revelation. It's a hot, humid place in the summer and I just wilted every day. This fellow copy editor told me she basically took off work for two months in the summer (she lived very frugally) to escape to a cabin by a lake because her body and brain seemed to shut down when it got hot.
I agree -- the only way out is through. Though part of my non-writing on-the-ground work is to help protect as much non-motorized wild places as possible, so that we at least have the option to connect to the world in other ways. I don't know what I would be without those opportunities, and I don't want future generations to lose out on them.
If Covid ever stops being a thing and you come to Montana and it happens to be late August or early September, I'll show you the chokecherries! Almost nobody likes to just eat them (I do, but it's not normal). They have a very strong tannin flavor, like if you let a teabag steep for 20 minutes and then tried to drink whatever beverage that creates. But that flavor is what makes great jam.
Use only straight sided jars. No shoulders. Fill only to the freeze line - which is the narrow line below the jar threads. If you only have shoulder jars they need three inches of space to expand, which is a super waste.
my Mom uses all sorts of recycled jars -peanut butter, jam, vodka - to freeze things in the freezer and they never break. I’ve also never had a jar break!
I do have straight-sided -- the pint-sized wide mouth jars -- but I'm hesitant to risk them (Good Ian will be sad if I kill anymore jars). Seriously, how do you and your mom do it?! I can see vodka jars because vodka should be kept in the freezer anyway ☺️ but peanut butter? Is it just because of the straight sides?
My observation is that for humans, our delight is proportional to rarity and ephemerality. We become immune to the charms of whatever is always there, always the same, no matter how wonderful and beautiful. Edges and transitions make up the ephemeral and rare, as do brief appearances. Things that mark the change of seasons get our attention because they are ephemeral; the mountains are always there, but the first dusting of snow on their peaks, like powdered sugar, catch our eye for their promise of more change, new arrivals, a return of the winter mode. Our digital captures of changes, phenomena, black swans turn them into the always available and eventually mundane. This is why direct experience and travel still bring the most joy and magic to our experience: rare and ephemeral remain so. They are harder to come by and make their imprint on our memories where we can relive them with all our sense impression. They are beyond a mere flat (however artfully done) reproduction, always accessible by a few clicks. That's not to belittle the work of the nature photographers and cinematographers. Their work in documenting the rare is important. They bring the unseen to us, allowing us to know them as having value and raising our consciousness and caring. But sight of and interaction with a rare species or environment still delight us all the more.
This is absolutely beautiful. This line says it all: "Things that mark the change of seasons get our attention because they are ephemeral; the mountains are always there, but the first dusting of snow on their peaks, like powdered sugar, catch our eye for their promise of more change, new arrivals, a return of the winter mode."
Also explains why my first visit to the Empire State Building felt so blah. I'd seen it in too many movies.
You had me at chokecherries. My mom was a working mom in the 1970s, so she made the usual adjustments that gals had to make back then: Schwan's for dinner, that kind of thing. But! We ate chokecherry jelly year round. There were jars and jars of it in the pantry. To this day I have no idea where they came from. I don't recall her canning. But the labels were in her handwriting! Anyway, I attempt something every summer in tribute to her using fruit from our community garden. Elderberries went ... OK, but they're better suited to syrup. Grape jelly ... that DID come out as syrup.
Regarding Mason jars and freezing, may I suggest a half measure? That is, freeze it in something else until it is slush, THEN ladle it into the Mason jars (which have been either chilling or freezing)?
The depth of that story about your mom ... now I can't stop wondering when she made the jelly, and what the making of it fulfilled in her. My mom also made chokecherry jelly every year, which is why I make it. We had a tree right in front of our front porch.
I haven't worked with elderberries before, but we planted two bushes last year because my spouse really wants to try making elderberry champagne (an English thing I guess), and in England elderberry presse, a kind of fizzy sweet drink, is very popular. I can see the berries wouldn't lend well to jam. Sometimes berries surprise me. Like one year I made huckleberry jam with honey (which is my usual sweetener), and the honey totally overwhelmed the huckleberry flavor. Such a waste! And dandelion jelly tastes exactly like honey, oddly.
I might try the slush but I'd have to set a timer. I'd never manage fruit leather successfully if the dehydrator didn't have a self-shut off timer. Sounds like a good experiment for the slower months!
Chokecherries! They're wonderful, a much under-appreciated fruit (berry? I'm not sure). They're native to parts of Montana, and I really like eating them but most people don't. They're not bitter exactly -- they have a strong tannin taste, like if you let a black tea bag steep for way too long and then let the tea get cold. That kind of flavor. They make great jelly and syrup but are honestly hard to deal with because of the large pits. They're pea-sized and I think the pit is at least half of that.
Bookmarked the Medium piece to read later! Thank you. I love that conditions resulted in turkeys and other animals evolving to be ridiculous. I mean, humans are, too. We have no fur! How wild is that?
10,000 geek points awarded for opening quote.
"Estivate" is so interesting, thank you. I had no idea it was a thing, yet it makes perfect sense to my experience. I now feel like how I felt after reading Susan Cain's "Quiet" - one of those special Look, That's Me moments.
(I find warm summer months slow me down, put lead in my boots and concrete in my neural pathways. Winter (and cold) is where I feel like I can really *try*, which is why I'm excited about the upcoming Scottish winter. And maybe also explains why living in Costa Rica for a year in 2017, as fabulous as it was, was also a time where I struggled to string two thoughts together. I realised now attuned to non-equatorial latitudes I am, even though I grew up in Cyprus.)
So interesting. I need to think about this more.
>>"what if no amount of digital tech, no matter how deeply embedded, will ever be able to compare to what we can experience if we connect fully with the world we already live in?"
I wonder this too. But if it's true, we're in the fray now, and the only way out is through. I saw a smart suggestion a while back for a digital prompt in the form of an alarm that goes off every hour, a recording of yourself asking "Hey! Where are you?" As in - where are your throughts right now -lost in the past or future, or appreciating the richness of this moment, right now? That feels worth trying.
I had no idea what a chokeberry was until this post. In terms of new wonders per sentence, your writing is excellent value.
I'll take all the geek points!
I was living in Boston when I learned "estivate" and it was a revelation. It's a hot, humid place in the summer and I just wilted every day. This fellow copy editor told me she basically took off work for two months in the summer (she lived very frugally) to escape to a cabin by a lake because her body and brain seemed to shut down when it got hot.
I agree -- the only way out is through. Though part of my non-writing on-the-ground work is to help protect as much non-motorized wild places as possible, so that we at least have the option to connect to the world in other ways. I don't know what I would be without those opportunities, and I don't want future generations to lose out on them.
If Covid ever stops being a thing and you come to Montana and it happens to be late August or early September, I'll show you the chokecherries! Almost nobody likes to just eat them (I do, but it's not normal). They have a very strong tannin flavor, like if you let a teabag steep for 20 minutes and then tried to drink whatever beverage that creates. But that flavor is what makes great jam.
Use only straight sided jars. No shoulders. Fill only to the freeze line - which is the narrow line below the jar threads. If you only have shoulder jars they need three inches of space to expand, which is a super waste.
my Mom uses all sorts of recycled jars -peanut butter, jam, vodka - to freeze things in the freezer and they never break. I’ve also never had a jar break!
I didn't know any of this!
I do have straight-sided -- the pint-sized wide mouth jars -- but I'm hesitant to risk them (Good Ian will be sad if I kill anymore jars). Seriously, how do you and your mom do it?! I can see vodka jars because vodka should be kept in the freezer anyway ☺️ but peanut butter? Is it just because of the straight sides?
My observation is that for humans, our delight is proportional to rarity and ephemerality. We become immune to the charms of whatever is always there, always the same, no matter how wonderful and beautiful. Edges and transitions make up the ephemeral and rare, as do brief appearances. Things that mark the change of seasons get our attention because they are ephemeral; the mountains are always there, but the first dusting of snow on their peaks, like powdered sugar, catch our eye for their promise of more change, new arrivals, a return of the winter mode. Our digital captures of changes, phenomena, black swans turn them into the always available and eventually mundane. This is why direct experience and travel still bring the most joy and magic to our experience: rare and ephemeral remain so. They are harder to come by and make their imprint on our memories where we can relive them with all our sense impression. They are beyond a mere flat (however artfully done) reproduction, always accessible by a few clicks. That's not to belittle the work of the nature photographers and cinematographers. Their work in documenting the rare is important. They bring the unseen to us, allowing us to know them as having value and raising our consciousness and caring. But sight of and interaction with a rare species or environment still delight us all the more.
This is absolutely beautiful. This line says it all: "Things that mark the change of seasons get our attention because they are ephemeral; the mountains are always there, but the first dusting of snow on their peaks, like powdered sugar, catch our eye for their promise of more change, new arrivals, a return of the winter mode."
Also explains why my first visit to the Empire State Building felt so blah. I'd seen it in too many movies.
Remember when Pooh-bear saw the first leaf fall and exclaimed, "Autumn?!"
Well, I do now!
You had me at chokecherries. My mom was a working mom in the 1970s, so she made the usual adjustments that gals had to make back then: Schwan's for dinner, that kind of thing. But! We ate chokecherry jelly year round. There were jars and jars of it in the pantry. To this day I have no idea where they came from. I don't recall her canning. But the labels were in her handwriting! Anyway, I attempt something every summer in tribute to her using fruit from our community garden. Elderberries went ... OK, but they're better suited to syrup. Grape jelly ... that DID come out as syrup.
Regarding Mason jars and freezing, may I suggest a half measure? That is, freeze it in something else until it is slush, THEN ladle it into the Mason jars (which have been either chilling or freezing)?
The depth of that story about your mom ... now I can't stop wondering when she made the jelly, and what the making of it fulfilled in her. My mom also made chokecherry jelly every year, which is why I make it. We had a tree right in front of our front porch.
I haven't worked with elderberries before, but we planted two bushes last year because my spouse really wants to try making elderberry champagne (an English thing I guess), and in England elderberry presse, a kind of fizzy sweet drink, is very popular. I can see the berries wouldn't lend well to jam. Sometimes berries surprise me. Like one year I made huckleberry jam with honey (which is my usual sweetener), and the honey totally overwhelmed the huckleberry flavor. Such a waste! And dandelion jelly tastes exactly like honey, oddly.
I might try the slush but I'd have to set a timer. I'd never manage fruit leather successfully if the dehydrator didn't have a self-shut off timer. Sounds like a good experiment for the slower months!
Chokecherries! They're wonderful, a much under-appreciated fruit (berry? I'm not sure). They're native to parts of Montana, and I really like eating them but most people don't. They're not bitter exactly -- they have a strong tannin taste, like if you let a black tea bag steep for way too long and then let the tea get cold. That kind of flavor. They make great jelly and syrup but are honestly hard to deal with because of the large pits. They're pea-sized and I think the pit is at least half of that.
Bookmarked the Medium piece to read later! Thank you. I love that conditions resulted in turkeys and other animals evolving to be ridiculous. I mean, humans are, too. We have no fur! How wild is that?