Shore birds

This morning I walked down to the rocks overlooking the place where the marsh creek drains into the harbor, and sat for a while watching the birds. A flock of gulls hovered over the water, diving, hitting the surface, and swooping away. Perhaps there was a school of small fish in the creek. Whatever it was, those gulls were pretty excited.

I wondered: what percentage of dives were successful? How many fish per day did these gulls need to survive? Was this a demanding schedule, or were the pickings easy? Of course, conditions would vary. Today there was a school of fish, tomorrow maybe not. Skill levels must vary, too.

The lives of these shore birds makes me think about the economics of food and work. When you see sandpipers running along the water’s edge, you wonder how the calories gleaned from their pickings in the sand could possibly equal the energy expended by their little stick legs. The mandate to constantly seek food seems so unrelenting for birds. Unlike other species, they don’t store a lot of fat, and don’t keep a stash in reserve for an off day. There are no holidays, no weekends, no time off at all. How can they stand it?

I bring this up because it’s Sunday, a day when I feel most strongly the pull between the need to be working (a 24/7 demand for small business owners) and the need to just BE, i.e., sit by the water, do a little yoga, write this blog. Perhaps the pressure to be doing all the time is no more and no less than the survival instinct talking to me. But what about the survival of the soul? That needs to be fed too, right?

I think a Zen master would tell me that I’m making a false split between Being and Doing, one of many delusions concocted by the human mind. Birds don’t make this problem. They have many of the same feelings we have: pain, fear, anger, desire, and probably even something that resembles despair. But they probably never feel resistance to the conditions of their lives. They don’t complain, Why me? It’s not fair! I shouldn’t have to do this! I don’t feel like it! They just do what needs to be done in every moment. So simple!  And for us, so difficult.

The Sunrise Breakfast Club

The sky was just beginning to lighten yesterday when I arrived at the Sandy Neck Beach parking lot for the first ever meeting of the Sunrise Breakfast Club. Six of us gathered on the beach to toast the sunrise with fresh squeezed orange juice followed by coffee, eggs and hash browns. The wind was whipping and it was cold, but the sunrise was beautiful. What you can’t see in the pictures is the sand in our teeth!

Oysters, oysters, oysters

Eating oysters feels just like eating the ocean, don’t you think? I indulged in a briny dozen or so last weekend at the Wellfleet Oyster Festival, a colorful street party that’s held in Wellfleet each October, rain or shine. We were one of the many craft vendors that lined Main Street on Saturday. It was windy and threatening but the rains kindly held off till closing time. We sold lots of soap to a boisterous crowd of locals, day-trippers, and just enough oddballs to give the festival its special flavor. There was music, an oyster shucking contest and all manner of food and drink…it was a wonderful celebration of the Cape’s shellfishing tradition. Sunday it did rain – torentially – so the festival went on without us. I hear the shuckers and musicians carried on, proving that Cape folks are a hardy lot.

Hail to the Harvest

It never fails…autumn brings out the pioneer in me. As soon as the weather turns chilly and the leaves begin to turn, a call comes from somewhere deep in my DNA to start Putting Things By for winter.

These days, my efforts in this department are more symbolic than practical. I don’t aspire to a cellar full of jars like my grandmother’s, because frankly, I’m not all that wild about canned carrots and beans. But cooking up a dozen pints of jam or spicy chutney…ah, now that’s a fine way to spend a fall afternoon.

Two of my favorite recipes are Roasted Garlic and Onion Jam, which is wonderful slathered on salmon or a roast beef sandwich, and Indian Pear Chutney, which is the perfect accompaniment for roast chicken. Both are great to have in the cupboard (stir a few spoonfuls of either into a pan sauce to really punch up the flavor) and they also make nice gifts. Since I’m trying to buy local these days, I’m planning to make mine with fresh garlic I bought from from Ben Chung at the Orleans Farmer’s Market, and some gorgeous Butter Pears from Crow Farm in Sandwich.

Roasted Garlic and Onion Jam
makes 6 half-pints

3 heads of garlic
7 cups thinly sliced Vidalia onions
1 TBSP olive oil
3/4 cup cider vinegar
1/4 tsp. dried thyme
1/4 tsp. hot pepper flakes
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
3 1/2 cups sugar
1 package Sure-Jell Light (not regular Sure-Jell)

Trim the tops off the garlic, drizzle with olive oil, wrap in foil and roast in a 300 degree until soft. After they cool, squeeze the soft garlic paste out of the peels.

Heat olive oil in a large non-stick pan over medium heat, then add onions, and vinegar. Cover and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until onions are soft and golden, about 20 minutes. Add thyme, red and black pepper and galic  and whirl the mixture in a food processor or blender. Measure out 5 cups of the mixture. If you’re short, add a little water to make up the difference. Now follow the directions on the Sure-Jell Light package for peach jam, using the onion mixture and 3 1/2 cups of sugar. Ladle the hot jelly into hot, sterilized half-pint jars, leaving 1/2 inch headroom. Wipe rims, cap. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Adapted from Sage Cottage Herb Garden Cookbook by Dorry Baird Norris

Indian Pear Chutney
makes 6 half-pints

juice, pulp, and peel of 1 lemon, finely chopped
2 cups cider vinegar
2 1/2 cups dark brown sugar
1 clove garlic, minced
pinch of cayenne pepper
pinch of chili powder
1 1/2 tsp. salt
5 1/2 cups coarsely chopped firm pears, peeled and cored (about 3 lbs)
3/4 cup crystalized giner, cut small
1 1/2 cups raisins

Chop the lemon, removing the seeds and saving the juice and put all in a  heavy pot with the sugar, vinegar, garlic, salt, cayenne pepper, and chili powder. Boil the mixture over medium heat for 30 minutes, sirring occasionally.  Add the pears, raisins, and ginger to the syrup. Boil slowly, stirring to prevent scorching, until the fruit is tender but not mushy and the syrup is thick, about 30 to 45 minutes longer. Ladle the boiling-hot chutney into hot sterilized pint or 1/2 pint jars, leaving 1/4 inch headroom. Wipe the  rims and cap.  Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Remove. Cool upright and naturally.

from Putting Foods By by Green, Hertzber, and Vaughan

Sand dollars

Another week of clouds and rain on Cape Cod. Then Thursday evening the sun began to break through, so John and I drove to Mayflower Beach to see the sunset. The tide was way out, creating a vast sweep of sand and sea. The
sinking sun sparkled off the retreating waters and illuminated a light fog that hovered over the sand. Distant figures rose out of the glowing mist as if they were souls newly arrived on a celestial shore. It was otherworldly.

Down by the water’s edge, there was a family collecting something in buckets.  I asked the woman what she was gathering, and she demonstrated. Finding a dimple in the wet sand, she scratched with her foot and flipped out a rust-colored disk. “Sand dollar,” she said, dropping it into her bucket.

“Is it alive?”

“Yeah. You dry them and use them to decorate wreaths.  If you bought one of these in a store, it would cost a dollar.”

Taken aback, I looked at her nearly-full bucket, and the buckets of her husband and avidly collecting children. There were dozens and dozens of sentient beings there, about to be dried out and used as decorations.

But who was I to judge? If I’d encountered a family gathering oysters, I would have smiled approvingly. Living off the land and all that. I eat beings every day with far more going on in the consciousness department than a sand dollar. Even so, the words of the Metta Sutra kept running through my head.

Whatever beings there may be
Whether they be weak or strong
Omitting none
The great and the mighty
The medium short and small
The seen and the unseen
Those living near and far away
Those born, and to be born
Let all beings be at ease.

I scratched up a sand dollar myself. “Here buddy. You’d better get out of here.” Carrying it further down the shore, I placed it gently in the water.

Starting seeds

I started seeds today: tomatoes, chanterais melons, zucchini, eggplant, and brussels sprouts. I pushed the seeds into peat pellets and set them out in two lasagna pans covered with saran wrap. Once they sprout, I’ll put them in a sunny window. Come August, I hope my tiny seeds will have turned into a bounty of fruits and vegetables.

Starting seeds is a springtime ritual, a tiny miracle, and a rich metaphor. When we came back from the New York Gift Show last month, we told people, “We wrote some good orders and planted a lot of seeds.” Of course, those seeds have to be watered and cared for. We can’t expect good results if we don’t create the right conditions for our seeds to grow.

I always start way more seedlings than I need because I know not all of them will sprout and flourish. It’s a life lesson I try to impart to my son, who is currently looking for a summer job: “Don’t just apply to a couple of places and and then sit back and wait…put in lots of applications. You just don’t know where the opening is going to be.”

And seeds remind me that, in spite of my best efforts, I can’t really control the outcome with a garden or anything else in life. The groundhogs may trash my garden again this year. My kids may not be happy all the time. I can work hard and plan well, but a recession may whack my business anyway. This isn’t pessimism…it’s just truth, and it’s liberating to know it deeply.

When I feel my shoulders pulling up to my chin in tension, I pause and see if I’m trying too hard to control the uncontrollable. Then, just maybe, I can relax about outcomes and focus back on the process and the present. As I push those tiny seeds into the soil, I can’t know for sure which ones will bear fruit, but chances are good that some of them will.

I like mud

I like mud. I always have, judging from this picture of me at the age of three. (That’s my sister in the background, looking appalled.) To play in the mud is to embrace the funky side of life, getting dirty, wet, and cold, and loving it.

Today, I thought about my lifelong affinity for mud as I dug a big hole in the backyard. It’s been raining for weeks, and the soil is pure squishy, squelchy clay, the kind that sticks to your shovel and pulls your boots off when you try to take a step. By the time I was done, my boots, pants, and jacket were caked and soaked.  Inside, I peeled off my muddy things and took a long hot shower, feeling marvelously contented.

The hole is for an ornamental pool I’m installing in the shade garden that borders a small stream on the edge of the yard. The garden has two things I like very much: lots of rocks and the music of running water. It might seem redundant to put a pool next to a stream, but I want to see the sky reflecting in the still pool surface. An old cement Buddha will sit on the edge of the pool, adding his contemplative air to the scene.

I used to be a mad keen gardener, maintaining several large, sunny, flower-filled perennial beds. A lot of edging, mulching, weeding and dividing went into those gardens. When we moved to the Cape, I thought I would continue gardening, but no – I discovered that I didn’t want to.  The Cape has so much natural beauty — available with no work all – that it just seems silly to exert a lot of effort creating beauty in such a place.

The only part of the yard that drew me was the shady area along the stream, where I planted ferns, moss, and big-leaved hostas. I like the way this garden marks the boundary between the civilized lawn and the wildness beyond. On the other side of the stream, multiflora roses, catbriar, horsetail and skunk cabbage grow rampant, just waiting for a chance to jump the stream and take over the planet. I give this garden just enough attention to keep chaos at bay. The other day a friend suggested it needed some flowers for color, but I disagreed. I’m happy with greenness, water, and stone.

The Japanese have a word I like: wabi-sabi, which refers to the beauty of things that are irregular, disordered, imperfect, decaying. Children instinctively understand this, but as adults, we tend to go for the clean, sunny, colorful, and well-ordered. Then we begin to age, and rediscover the appeal of wabi-sabi. It’s not that we don’t appreciate a garden in full flower, but we also find appeal in places that are damp, shady, and subtle. Even the appeal of mud season. Wherever you are, take off your shoes and squish some mud between your toes. It might be just what you need.

Learning to tweet

Last week, John and I met a couple of friends for dinner at the West End Lounge in Cambridge. Of all our old friends, Phil has arguably been the most successful. He has built from scratch an advertising agency that now has offices on two coasts, and currently writes a blog for Advertising Age about using social media for marketing. http://tinyurl.com/6hw33w. When Phil gives me advice about promoting my business, I listen.  Here’s what Phil told me, with all the intensity of Mr. Robinson telling Dustin Hoffman, “plastics!” Phil said, “You must go home and immediately sign up for Twitter!!”

Consequently, a day or two later I set up a twitter account. I signed on to “follow” a few celebrities, friends, and friends-o-friends. And then, suddenly, I had a few people following me. Eeek!! I was on stage in the spotlight (albeit with only four people in the audience.) Hadn’t I better start tap dancing?

But I still didn’t “get” Twitter. What were these “tweets” supposed to be about? Surely not “What are you doing now?” the official topic of twitter. (Cue Roland Hendley of Doonsbury: “Bad morning breath. Better use extra-strength mouthwash.”) I could understand why close friends might desire such a minute-by-minute update, or why we might want to follow Martha Stewart around as she went about her day (Lunch yesterday with rap star Ludacris. 40,000 followers.) But what about the other six million of us? More investigation was needed. I poked around and found the twitter posts of a soap business competitor of mine. Holy Cow! She had 1480 followers! I’d better get going!

The trouble is, the feeling of “I’d better get going!” is already an affliction in my life. I live with a chronic, anxious sense of falling behind on some vast, cosmic things-to-do list. Now I was racing to catch up with a moving train that I barely knew existed two weeks ago.

The internet has made possible a level of connection I couldn’t have imagined a few years ago. This has brought many riches to my life, but also much stress as I struggle to keep up with the evolving technology and the rising tide of messages from an ever-larger network of contacts. Social media like Facebook have added new demands.(Friends: please don’t send me any more “plants” for my Facebook “garden.”) And now, with Twitter, speed and frequency have made another leap. Can I keep up? Why even try?

Why indeed? Even as I ask the question, some answers appear. We are wired for human connection. We all want to be part of the Great Conversation. It can be creative. It plays to our sense of self-importance. We all think we have something to say and now there’s someone to say it to. Not keeping up is no longer really an option in our society unless we plan to die soon. And finally, the most American of motives, because it’s a way of promoting ourselves, our businesses, and ultimately, making money. Reasons enough to give it a try I guess. So off I go. Tweet, tweet.

My Excellent NYC Adventure

Just came back from a week in New York at the NY International Gift Fair. This was the first time we took our products to New York. It feels like the Big Time, but a bit scary! The show costs big bucks, and you have to deal with big unions, and those crazy big apple drivers, and all it takes is one big blizzard for all the money you’ve invested to go down the toilet. Still, the buyers were there, in spite of the chill weather and dismal economy. We wrote some good orders and planted lots of seeds. Now we just have to keep watering them giving them sunlight.

Spending a week in New York was a blast. I rented an apartment in a great Chelsea neighborhood full of inexpensive but hip restaurants and attractive people walking their little dogs. I spent an evening meditating at The New York Insight Center, which was right down the street, and another one checking out the Asian art at the Rubin Museum, also right around the corner. Mostly, though, I was ready to crash after a long day at the show. It would be fun do spend a week in NYC without having to do any work!

Many thanks to Elaine and Ginny and Kate for helping me out at the show!

Antibacterial soap and the war on germs

The other day, one of my customers asked me if any of our soaps had deodorant action. It seems that her husband, a builder, was a bit aromatic when he came home from work. She though he needed a deodorant soap such as Dial to keep fresh.I wondered what gave Dial its deodorant properties so I went to the store to check it out. There is quite a list of ingredients in a bar of Dial……Pentasoduim pentetate, BHT, Tetrasodium etidronate, Peg-6 methyl ether……Ah! Triclocarban! That’s the ingredient that “targets gram-positive bacteria which cause body odor,” according to the manufacturer. You can imagine how much of this bacteria-killing ingredient has to linger on the skin in order to fight odor all day long!

Anti-bacterials have really taken over the soap aisle. As I looked at the other bar and liquid soaps on the shelf, I saw that half to two-thirds were labeled antibacterial, all little foot-soldiers in our society’s war against germs. With the cold and flu season coming on, frequent hand scrubbing with antibacterial soaps might sound like a good idea. But get this: in 2002, the National Institutes for Health funded a double-blind controlled clinical trial to compare antimicrobial soaps and regular soap. The results? Antibacterial soaps are no more effective than regular soap and water in reducing microbes.

Far from preventing the spread of illness, these antibacterial additives may actually be doing harm. The relatively harsh detergent action of antibacterial soaps can strip away naturally protective fatty acids, moisture, and amino acids from the skin, leaving it more vulnerable to skin problems such as eczema. In addition, the excessive use of triclocarban and other antimicrobial agents may be contributing to the emergence of bacteria-resistant superbugs. The jury is still out on this question, but some lab studies suggest that such products kill off the more sensitive bacteria, leaving behind hardier bacteria such as e. coli and staphylococcus aureus.

The debate will no doubt continue. In the meantime, we can do our skins and the planet a favor by skipping the antibacterials in favor of warm water and good old-fashioned soap. Handcrafted soap especially, with its nourishing olive oil and 25% naturally occuring glycerine, is a gentle non-drying and perfectly effective way to wash your hands!