“In 1930, the average American family spent 24.2 percent of its income on food…By 2007, that number had fallen to 9.8 percent…The average European spends nearly 20 percent of his income on food…Of course, it’s almost fashionable to discuss the hidden costs of our “cheap” food diet. They’re real, and they matter, but the truth is most Americans simply don’t have the luxury of looking beyond the tangible metric of money in, money out…You’re not considering its health costs, or the erosion of the topsoil caused by monocropping, or even the backward logic of a subsidy system that pays farmers not to farm; you’re too busy trying to find that Coco Puffs coupon tucked in your wallet.”

—The Town That Food Saved, Ben Hewitt

This year, I paid an undisclosed amount for our family’s Christmas prime rib. It was so expensive that it made me–a girl who believes adamantly about paying paying a fair wage for the food which sustains me–just about bowl over. When I asked the farmer’s daughter, a student of mine, if the holidays were a profitable time for them, the question seemed silly. At that price, how could they not be raking it in? “Welp. If we sell all our cuts, we just about break even.” Break EVEN. As in, they’ll be able to pay the winter heating bill and put new tires on the farmer’s market van. Forget about contributing to the college fund.

So I finally picked up Ben Hewitt’s The Town That Food Saved and devoured it. Hewitt, a farmer, gardener and Gourmet writer, delves into the local food politics of Hardwick, Vermont, and digs into the gritty questions that loll about in my head: what is sustainable, how local is local, is it working if it’s not feeding the immediate community, can should there be profit when it comes to our most basic need, how have we managed to move so far away from this basic need: to feed ourselves?

Hewitt is out to help the average American family. He wants us to find a way to afford fresh strawberries, a healthy cut of beef, and yes, even bacon. If people like me have sticker shock at the true value of meat (granted, my usual veggie status means I’m out of the meat pricing loop) than how can the entire nation buy into–literally–paying fair cost for food? Hewitt’s out to figure out if and how it might be done. Can the magic of Hardwick duplicate itself across the nation, ultimately saving our food system? Would we want a Hardwick to duplicate itself? Would we be able to feed our entire gluttonous nation? (This question from a girl who gorged on two scoops of ice cream and several servings of green curry in one sitting.)

His investigation, basted with humor, ride-alongs and an eye for food equity, kept me flipping pages well past bedtime. The book reminded me that winter lends time to plan my first Washington garden. That my purchase of the Christmas prime rib was necessary to support an alternative system and a family. And Hewitt watered ideas in my head planted long ago on the earthen floors of Pun Pun Farm in Thailand: that I need to find my local foodie community, roll up my sleeves and get dirty.

And you, my dearies, what have you been reading?

Last night, the storm clouds set with the sun. Before I went to bed I could see Orion’s belt. I had a day packed with plans: hit the co-op, make this soup, run this trial and ride this handsome horse.

Echo, the mighty steed

I woke with sleepy eyes and rubbed them once, twice, again as I looked out the window. Soft heaps of white snow capped every surface. I’m not just talking about a dusting of snow; I’m talking about quarter-sized flakes falling from the sky so quickly I could not believe my eyes. My neighbor’s roof had almost a half-foot accumulation. Out my front door the world glistened white.

I knew my CA plates and driving skills would not suffice in this weather. Besides, I wanted to be out IN it. I pulled on my beanie and snow boots, grabbed my canvas bags and headed out. Snow gathered like cotton on bare trees.

A Mount Vernon Cotton Tree!

I watched as cars skidded and slid down our huge hill. I watched snow plows push, busses chain up and people step outside in wonderment. Funny how crisp white looks when you’re used to gray. Cashiers at the co-op said they’d never seen this much snow in the lowlands.

I figured out, first-hand, the cliche: Up hill, in the snow. Make that, up hill, in the snow, with groceries.

The snow was soft and light, and I couldn’t resist the temptation to make snowballs and toss them at passing cars. (Don’t worry, I didn’t heave them at little old ladies in Buicks.) It packed so perfectly I had to make a snowman. I raced inside, hardly putting away my groceries. Snagged a soggy carrot leftover from last night’s broth-making. In earnest, I scooped the snow from behind my car. Two birds, one stone, right? Clear the driveway and have some fun? My snowman woman took shape.

She was a bit petite for my liking. I found an old plastic tub and scoured snow from the entire alley. I darted here and there, packing the fresh power into nooks and crannies, giggling like a kid. In fact, I hadn’t noticed anyone else making a snowman or playing in the snow. I was the only one–the only loony, solo, 31 year-old out in the snow making a friend. And I was having a delightful time.

I squished in my snow woman’s nose and ran back inside to source eyes: who needs coal with you can have shallots? A hat, my newly knitted scarf…voila!

My pants were soaked and my fingers mostly frozen, but I didn’t care. I haven’t made a snow person in, oh, I don’t know, twenty-five years? And somehow, between walking to the store and collecting snow to construct my new neighbor, I had the best few hours I’ve spent in Mount Vernon.

Snow Women of Mount Vernon

Something tells me it’s gonna be a pretty good year.

The best way to predict the future is to create it. –Peter Drucker

My angel, Assisi, and candles gather light

We’re between snow storms here in MV. Can you believe I live in a place that  accumulates three plus inches of snow? That this seems to happen frequently here? I’m not sure I believe it yet.

But guess what? Still loving it. And despite my first trip back to San Diego, despite a walk around Mission Bay just when the sun clacked itself on palm fronds, just when the water turned glassy and the pelican alighted on a buoy to preen her wings–despite that Pacific desert beauty I witnessed, I didn’t feel home. My soul didn’t jump or shout. In fact, I think it rumbled. A hungry-like sound. Growled that it needed smaller highways and a two-lane road to work that heads into a great mountain range, a sky filled with winged creatures, a landscape dotted with lakes and towering trees.

Since this place is home–as much as it can be without N–I guess I ought to make some commitments to it, to me. While these sound like, feel like, dance like New Year’s resolutions, and it is that time of year, I’m thinking of these more as Mount Vernon Resolutions. I’ve spent my first five months here trying to sleep enough and figure out how to drive in pissing rain. Now, it’s time to live here. And what–what shall I undertake?

When I look back at this first year of Washington living, I’d like to say I’ve done this:

Marry the man better than any of my dreams. This one should be easy. He asked, right? More difficult: remembering the day is about sharing our love, joy and vibrancy for life and each other, not cute table runners, monogrammed napkins or a boat-get-away lined by people holding sparklers. But damn, those sparklers are cute.

Get the DSLR camera fixed and take (another) photography course. The light up here is like nothing I’ve seen before. Just yesterday I had to fling open my classroom window and stick my head out to take in the afternoon light. Something about falling sun rays through heavy storm clouds. I took a photography course in college, but I despised my professor, so naturally, I refused to learn a thing. Which of course, was super helpful in the long run.

Pour over another revision of Wild Mustard and harden my ego for another round of soliciting agents. This blog was one attempt to get my writing brain and typing fingers in working order enough to undertake this monster again. She’s a pretty monster, though, and I owe it to us to see this thing through. This scares the absolute crap out of me.

Learn how to make a perfect espresso in my stovetop doo-dad. Maybe if I had bite-sized nibbles of whipping-topped deliciousness like these it would help.

Run a 5-9 mile trail. Without stopping. I know, I know, the range is great, but I’d be happy with any of those numbers, and I’d hate to cap my running abilities. One of the happiest times in my life was on a long, lost (literally) trail run through Mission Gorge with Heather. We must have done seven or so miles, and it set me free.

Eek out 3 sets of 25 perfect-form push-ups. One of my life-long goals has been to perform a 5 minute headstand. I’ve come close, but my upper body always fails me. Instead of setting the headstand as the goal, I’m going to ninja its ass and will work on something else I’ve always wanted to be able to perform: push-ups. Hopefully, I’ll kill 3 asanas with one stone: chatarunga dandasana, sirsasana and adho mukha vrksasana. Cause that’s what yoga’s all about right: kicking the poses’ ass–finally? I know my friend, Bentley, will agree with me on this one.

Make a date with the Olympics. I can only see them some days, but their jagged tops whisper my name. Is it their locale across the water, that their name spurs Atlas and Athena to mind, or their rain forest that lures me?

Figure out how to leave the house before noon. Those who have been here know what I’m talking about. So much to do, so few daylight hours.

T minus 357 days. I expect to hear from you: You: Linsey–how many push-ups you doing? Me: two.  You: Why haven’t you posted that chapter of WM like you said you would? Me: Cause I’m a lazy bum and too busy eating chocolate. You: Have you done anything on your  list yet? Me: No, but I’ve thought a lot about them.

Photo Credit: Bruce Edwards, The Journal

You know when you find yourself laughing–I mean really, like cackle laughing–outloud? And no one else is around but you and what you’re reading is so damn funny that tears form and you spin around, quick-like, to see if this time you are actually laughing your ass off?

In one of the darkest weeks–literally and figuratively–of my year, I stumbled across this site. I am here to report, my ass is half gone.

I dare you to go read it. Better yet, wait till your own dark night is upon you, then head over there and be prepared to buy a skinnier pair of skinny jeans.

Brilliant stuff.

Speaking of long nights, did you know next Tuesday is the Winter Solstice? It happens to coincide with a complete lunar eclipse, a pair of events that hasn’t synced up in 456 years.

Inspired by this article, a heap of grocery bags and my poverty, I took to my roots and said to hell with wrapping paper; opted instead for locally sourced products, like, say, all those brown paper bags under my kitchen sink.

Recycled Bounty

See, from age seven to twelve-ish, I would traipse through my grandmother’s house, procuring “gifts” from drawers, countertops and closets. I’d flitch the newspaper, scissors and tape, and head into Nana’s room, Grettle, the trusty daschund, underfoot. There, in my wrapping kingdom, I’d measure and cut, cut and measure. I’d wrap through a roll of tape and an entire LA Times. With inkprint fingers, I declared it gift giving time: Dad would get a box of Triskets, my brother, a half-eaten dog bone, my sister, a pair of Nana’s earrings. Sundays were best, as my grandmother loved anything wrapped in comics. But it could be any old day. No special occasion needed. My mother always joked I should get a job at the Nordstrom’s wrapping counter.

Since those carefree days, I’ve grown disillusioned with the notion of passing out gifts at Christmas; I hardly purchase any at all, except for my young nieces. But this year, I’d already spent more than I should have on the goods, and I still didn’t have anything to wrap it in. No fear–paper bags near!

I know my sister will laugh and her husband will utter some comment involving the words “dirty hippy.” But Maddie and Brooke? They won’t know the difference between my grocery bags and five-dolla a roll santa paper. See, they still have the spirit of Christmas.

My favorite part is that I cut up a Vanity Fair for embellishments; my only regret: I didn’t have double sided tape to attach the details with. And those little blue circles–oh ya, they’re from the scent strip of a Ralph Lauren cologne advertisement. That’s right, they smell like hot, hunky, gorgeous man. And what six-month-old from Kansas doesn’t want that for Christmas? I’m certainly hoping there’s one under my tree.

Dear Santa...

Me? I’m just slicing up and repurposing in a tiny, tiny way. Check out what this guy is doing. His studio, his whirly-gigs, his nightlights are amazing. When you come for the wedding, be sure to check out the shop, Hutch.

And you–how are you saving money and or making the season more meaningful? Am I the only one resorting to scrounging? Have you recycled any goods into gifts?

Ah! Another run with your imaginary friend? Another lake? Argh! Sorry, kids, a girl’s gotta do…! And let me just fill us in (and by us, I mean me; I’m still getting used to the idea) how killer it is that I could run around a new lake every day for the next year. Hooray, new home!

I’ve wanted to venture out to Anacortes Community Forest Land for some time–in fact, it was were I attempted to take you when we saw all those deer, remember–so when I woke up and saw the glorious sunshine on Saturday, I knew it was the day. We even dared capri leggings!

We got a bit lost finding H Street–it’s the one off the round about as you head into Anacortes, not the dead-end H off Highway 20. We giggle at round abouts, about how there’s a new one in town every week, and how we should christen them by driving–some arbitrary number, we decide…five! Yes, five times around it, honking the whole way. Perhaps we’ll call in some snow geese.

Lap five and we’re off again (did I mention we got lost. It was the dizziness, right?) A minute or two past homes and we’re into forest. A sign points us to Heart Lake, our afternoon destination. We’ve come with three goals: find a quick loop trail, hit up Mount Erie for the blue-bird sunset and grab a pint and pizza at Rockfish Brewery. A delicious day, to be sure.

A mountain biker points the way to the ’round the lake trail, and we take off, stopping to peer at the idyllic lake–we’ll come back and swim it in the summer, we say–and wind around trees on the narrow trail.

The path is well-kept and marked, as many seem to be in the area. We consult each other a few times, secretly wishing we had a map of the 2,800 acres. We’ve been known to get lost once or twice. But we keep to the shallows, by the banks of the lake when we can, and climb a bit, sail down a bit, toes turning over and our breath drawing shallow. Must. Run. Trails. More. we pant.

Despite Friday’s rain, the footing is not mucky and I only partially twist my ankle three times. You only slip on slick rocks twice. Our pounding feet spook lazy Mallards into flight, and we notice how the setting light almost throws itself across the lake: Here, take what’s left of me, I’m yours, the sun pleads.

We dance over roots and skip logs and stop to poke some fungi. I dare you to eat it, you challenge, and I make a mental note to buy a guide to foraging. The trail meanders away from the lake, and I check my watch–will we make it back for the sunset? The path ripples like a set of waves and I’m up while you’re down, you’re up while I’m down, us, ribbioning our way through the forest.

We spit out at the road, and we have to take it the rest of the way around, as the mountain biker instructed us to do. From here, we notice the cracked mirrored-ness of the slightly frozen lake. More mallards jump.

Back at the trail head, we find a group of runners–Skagit Runners–just setting out for a 55k, they mention, ever so causally; said it as if they were taking a shower. “You joining us?” They ask. We giggle. Nope, just finished (our dinky 5k–if that.) But maybe one day we’ll be hard-core enough to run a 55k in the forest in the dark. I said I hope they’d brought extra batteries for their headlamps. (Remember that time we were lost around the Mission Valley “lake” on the hash? One headlamp and a headful of creepy thoughts?)

We find the road up, up, up to Mount Erie, the highest peak in Skagit and get to the top just in time to see a lavender Mount Baker. On the other side of the summit, we scramble down rocks to watch the sky and its Technicolor dreamcoat spin through the sky, over the San Juan Islands.

I remark about how different the sunset is here. How the sun falls behind landscapes, not just into the Pacific. How it fits into the pocket of the Olympics, how it projects amethysts and lilacs and violets onto far-off, snow-capped peaks, how the whole valley awashes in the lingering light, how westward facing barns cast a glittering haziness I thought only possible in The Great Gatsby. How sometimes the islands look like the clouds like the water like the sky and how could you separate one realm from the other? About how we must look so different in the light: softer, diffused, our best, most subtle selves. When our tangerines and mulberries and periwinkles dance for just a few last seconds before the lights go out.

The last few seconds we sit in silence, our butts growing cold and tingly on the granite rock. “Okay. Beer?”

And you simply nod. Because anything else, in this sanctuary, seems irreverent.

Real-life samples from an essay about how technology affects our lives (10th grade, college-prep):

• “If we didn’t have cars we would have to walk to work or the grocery store or ride horses there, which can get very uncomfortable after time. It’s way easier to just drive to the store or work. It’s better for our safety because we can get hurt by walking too much as we can get severely injured riding horses too, but I’m not saying we can’t get hurt driving cars either I’m just saying that we have more protection in cars.”

• “The internet may have helped us out in many ways, but have you ever had chronic back pain, serious head injuries or deaf implants?”

Here’s to a wonderful Wednesday. Make sure to do your weekly cleaning of your “deaf implants.”

There’s a lot of grey and white in Skagit County this time of year. People keep asking, “How you likin’ the weather?”, usually with a sneer on their face. As in, Hey Little California, whatcha gonna do without your sunshine now?

Look up. That’s what I’m going to do. Yes, the skies may be gray (with bits of respite, like yesterday!) but flecks of white, brown and yellow dart about the heavens also. In fact, this time of year teems with life: fungus under ferns, salmon up rivers and birds in the sky.

The plethora of wildlife–not weather–seems a bit more overwhelming to a city girl like myself. Each day when I head out to the barn I pass fallow fields, channels of mud and mini swamps as far as the eye can see. The fields are filled with snow geese and trumpeter swans. From across the valley, you can watch low V formations, hear them honk across the sky, their streamlined wings cutting through the damp air like slapping  leather, and alight in any given field, landing for a snack.

Last week the trumpeters sat so near the edge of the road, I had to stop to snap a few shots. A great cacophony greeted me. In the swampy field, the long-necked swans tooted and trumpeted, waddling up and down the formerly tilled field. I pondered for a good long while how the birds stay so white despite their muddy quarters. They need to give a few lessons to my horse. Of course, I didn’t witness any of them rolling in the mud as Echo does…

In the stately pine just next to the acreage, a flock of what must have been a hundred or more starlings chipped and chirped down to their larger brethren. We’re louder, they taunted, all gazillion of them. The swans honked back. Chip, chip, chirp! Honk, blow, honk! It was like listening to a face-off between an orchestra’s strings and the brass sections.

What Grey Sky?

The swans, down from Canada and Alaska, have plenty of territory and food as winter sets in. The local farmers entice the long-necked birds to their property by tossing out–what do they eat? Kibbles and Bits? Frosted Flakes? Please pause for a moment of research: ah! Leaves, seeds, tubers, grasses–for them, (okay, I’m figuring out now that the swans love what’s left of the corn stalks next door to the barn) and the plethora of waterways–Skagit, Nooksack, Samish and Cascade Rivers–ensure a winter’s worth of foraging.

It’s not just the big white guys who make a winter appearance, though. Skagit’s famed farmland is notorious for its winged diversity. By the Audubon’s 2009 Christmas bird count, our valley played home to over 72,000 birds, including 1,000 plus Trumpeter Swans, 117 red-tailed hawks, 150 bald eagles, and 5,082 starlings. See, I knew there were a lot in that tree!

This winter, Torrey, Hannah, Megan and I will take the kayaks up the Skagit River and scout out some bald eagles ourselves. Because it was the largest salmon run in history, the sightings should be a-plenty. But one doesn’t even need to head up-river to see the huge predators. When Nikolai was in town a few weeks ago, we saw several eagles mounted on telephone poles and taking wing between lessor known San Juan islands.

So I guess when people ask me how I’m handling the weather I shrug. I don’t have the answer they want to hear: that I’m just as grim about the gray as they are. There are so many new wonders for me to take in, I frequently forget that the sky is some shade of dark. Maybe the nascency will wear off and my SAD will kick in, but for now, I don a smile every time I hear a flock of swans sail–honking and all–over my little house.

Like Air Penguins, Huh?