the friday feed: food for the soul and food for the bees

Last week, Aullwood MetroPark looked like a fairytale, with thousands and thousands of bluebells in bloom. Aullwood was once home to the Miami Valley’s own “godmother of the environmental movement,” Marie Aull, who lived an extraordinary life from 1897 to 2002. 

In 1957, she approached former National Audubon Society president John H. Baker with the idea of creating Aullwood. It would take another twelve years before the Cuyahoga River fire in Cleveland, a bold symbol of industrial pollution, to help ignite the modern environmental movement. Even then, conservation was only beginning to take root. Marie Aull was already ahead of her time, a true visionary.

"This is a valley where nothing ever happens, where people simply live, where there is sun and slow peacefulness of day following day. Walk gently...and may some of its peace be yours."

~ Aullwood Garden MetroPark

The bees were very busy flitting from flower to flower to collect pollen and nectar.

"It was the small things she took pleasure in. The faint hum of a huge furry bumble bee busily flitting from one flower to another, oblivious to the fact that it was completing a task on which the entire human race depended." ~ Kathryn Hughes

 

poetry month: april rain song

As they say, April showers bring May flowers.

Raindrops and smiles on beautiful Lake Hallstatt, Austrian Alps (2019).

April Rain Song

Let the rain kiss you

Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops

Let the rain sing you a lullaby

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk

The rain makes running pools in the gutter

The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night

And I love the rain.

~ Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes was an early innovator of jazz poetry and is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance centered in Harlem, New York City in the 1920s and 1930s, it redefined Black identity, and blended African culture with urban American culture. Langston Hughes grew up in the Midwest and became a prolific writer at an early age. As a matter of fact, he attended Central High School in Cleveland, Ohio, where he began writing poetry in the eighth grade. (I'll give Ohio a shout out whenever the opportunity arises).

I enjoy taking walks in the rain, with or without an umbrella. There’s something deeply satisfying about it. The soft, earthy scent that rises when raindrops meet dry ground, the steady rhythm of water tapping against leaves and pavement, it all creates a quiet kind of calm. It lifts my mood and settles my thoughts.

I’m drawn to the way puddles mirror the world, turning sidewalks into fleeting works of art. And every now and then, the kid in me insists on splashing right through them.

There’s a saying that "there’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing." I take that to heart. A raincoat, a hood, and a willingness to step outside are all it takes. A little rain never hurt anyone, and sometimes, it’s exactly what one needs.

be back soon

In Cleveland visiting my little sweethearts 💙 💗 and their wonderful parents.

monday's mulling: the moon

Today is Monday - the Moon's Day. 

What does the word mon look like to you? If you said moon, you’re right.

While the Latin word for moon is luna (and Monday is dies lunae), the name Monday comes from “Moon’s day” after the Norse moon god Máni. (https://www.yourdictionary.com/articles/weekdays-weekend-evolution).

On April 1, Artemis II took humans the furthest they have ever been from Earth and past the far side of the moon. Humans had not been near the moon since 1972, when NASA's Apollo program ended. The journey spanned ten days and 694,481 miles from its launch at the Kennedy Space Center to its landing in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego.

As big as Earth is, all of humanity looks at the same moon. It's like a collective third eye. It shows us our common identity without borders. It gives us a sense of oneness, a constant reminder that we are all tied together in an intricate web, whether we believe it or not.  

a new piece of art

After my Chicago grandson was born, I stayed with my daughter and her husband to help them settle into their new life as parents. My daughter had delivered by C-section and my son-in-law never left his wife and son during their hospital stay. By the time they brought the little guy home, they were already running on fumes.

About a week later, the walls started to feel a little too close. Cabin fever had set in and we all needed a breath of fresh air. So we bundled the baby up and headed out for lunch and a stroll, a debut to city life for the new little Chicagoan. The first-time parents chose Wicker Park, a neighborhood bustling with restaurants and an ever-growing arts scene.

Lauren and Anthony suggested we stop by the Jackson Junge Gallery, a place they had visited before. Inside, we discovered the work of artist Anastasia Mak, and it stopped us in our tracks. Her paintings pulsed with color and movement, each piece filled with its own kind of joy.

One painting in particular held our attention. The original, a striking 36-by-48-inch piece, anchored the exhibit. Lauren and Anthony chose a few of Anastasia's prints to take home that day. I didn’t, but that image sure stayed with me.

It took a little over a year, but I finally ordered a print of "Red Rebellion" from her website. I took it to my favorite frame shop, where, after some searching, we found a frame that looked and felt just right. Now it hangs among my collection of red flowers and bird artwork, a sweet reminder of that day when my little grandson met his city for the first time.

 

6 years ago

A picture of a trash truck...who would have thought it was important? 

"Excitement for the day: Hearing the trash truck drive onto the street and rushing to the window to watch that arm reach out, grab the receptacle, and dump the trash into the collection bin. Woohoo! 😂 😷"

A Facebook memory.

This was the beginning of the pandemic, a couple weeks after Ohio's governor issued the "Stay at Home" order. At the beginning stages of SaH we could leave the house to go to the grocery store and to take walks around the neighborhood. Trash day was a reminder that some routines wouldn't change and normal would return...at some point. And we survived.

the friday feed: easy, cheesy bean bake

Recently I’ve been on a bit of a spring-cleaning kick in my pantry. You know how it goes...cans get shoved to the back, forgotten about, and then suddenly they’ve expired and they're headed for the trash. With grocery prices creeping up, I’m trying to be mindful about using what I already have before it gets bad.

The other night, I took stock and found a couple cans of beans (black and cannellini) and a can of tomato paste in the pantry, and in the fridge, a half a carton of chicken broth and a container of burrata cheese. That little lineup ended up inspiring dinner. I loosely followed Ali Slagle’s Cheesy White Bean Tomato Bake from NYT Cooking, but made a few swaps and added my own spins, including sautéed onions and chopped collard greens. 

There have been times when my husband gives me the side-eye that says, "Really? That's for dinner?" I thought this might be one of those nights but nope...he liked it!

1. Cheesy White Bean Tomato Bake

   
   

   ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

   3 fat garlic cloves, thinly sliced

   3 tablespoons tomato paste (I used the whole can)

   2 (15-ounce) cans white beans (such as cannellini or Great Northern...black beans were fine) 

   ½ cup boiling water (chicken broth was tasty and I added more to make a generous sauce for the beans)

   Salt and black pepper

   ⅓ pound mozzarella, coarsely grated (about 1⅓ cups) (I chunked the whole ball of burrata and used it all)

   
   Heat oven to 475 degrees. In a 10-inch ovenproof skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high. Fry the garlic until it’s lightly golden, about 1 minute. (This is where I sauteed the garlic, chopped onion, and chopped bunch of collard greens all together). Stir in the tomato paste (be careful of splattering) and fry for 30 seconds, reducing the heat as needed to prevent the garlic from burning.
   
   Add the beans, water (chicken broth) and generous pinches of salt and pepper and stir to combine. Sprinkle the cheese evenly over the top, then bake until the cheese has melted and browned in spots, 5 to 10 minutes. If the top is not as toasted as you’d like, run the skillet under the broiler for a minute or 2. Serve at once.