MommyCoddle

while I’m not working on the other blog, I’ve been making Christmas presents and working through my list. I guess technically, I’m not really making anything but instead I’m embellishing several gifts.

A horrible picture because I took it on a thick, foggy morning, but you get the idea. Last year, my mother gave a set of towels to emma and mary and they really love having their "own". So, for a set of cousins in Wisconsin, I decided to do a similar gift and add their initial to each towel. The "s" looks pretty wonky in this picture–I think I may have photographed it upside down, now that I look more closely….

I also started one of these this year–a Christmas notebook. My grandmother kept one (she had fifteen children to keep track of), and my mom kept one, too–she still does in fact. I especially remember hers, because it was always soooo tempting to crack it open and read about the gifts I was going to be getting under the tree. Oh, that little black book was so secretive and alluring.
So, I started my own this year and I’m trying to keep it secretive but the funny thing is that emma keeps cracking it open and pretending to read what’s inside–my little non-reader–thankfully, there’s no illustrations.  I looked everywhere for ones similar to what my mother and grandmother had, but they are nowhere to be found. So, I just concocted my own from a large moleskine with graph paper inside. One column is all the people I’m buying for,  the middle column is ideas they give me or I come up with, and the final column is what I actually ending up making/buying in the end.
It has really helped me feel organized and not overwhelmed when I set out to get my shopping and sewing done. And I think it will be helpful (and a little sentimental) to look back over the years at what was waiting under the tree every year.

I’m having a bit of an affair…with another blog project. I’m working on a blog for two local cattle farms that are working together to expand the sale of their beef in our community. The family’s (though I have reason to be biased) are everything you’d want your local farm to be–committed to buying and eating local, committed to responsible environmental farming practices, committed to the humane and healthy care of their herds. In today’s economy it costs farmers a lot of money to wear the prized label of "organic" or "certified humane", but these two farms, though unlabeled, maintain similar high standards. I’ve always heard, when making choices about your eating and your health, first go local, then go organic.
One of Dan’s favorite authors, Wendell Berry, has a lot to say about this. Yesterday, he sent me an email full of quotes to get me inspired as I worked on this project:

Learn the origins of the food you buy, and buy the food that is
produced closest to your home. The idea that every locality should be,
as much as possible, the source of its own food makes several kinds of
sense. The locally produced food supply is the most secure, the
freshest, and the easiest for local consumers to know about and to
influence…

Whenever possible, deal directly with a local farmer, gardener, or
orchardist…by such dealing you eliminate the whole pack of
merchants, transporters, processors, packagers. and advertisers who
thrive at the expense of both producers and consumers. Learn, in
self-defense, as much as you can of the economy and technology of
industrial food production. What is added to food that is not food, and
what do you pay for these additions?

Learn what is involved in the best farming and gardening. Learn as
much as you can, by direct observation and experience…

I hesitated this morning about whether to share the link to the new blog or not because it is very much in the beginning stages. I’m learning SO much more about blogging that I find fascinating–like how to offer an email subscription, and put downloadable pdf files in the sidebar, who knew?? But I’m still working on layout and wording and actually, finding my voice–as my writing represents these farmers. I’m having those same odd feelings that I had when I started this blog one and a half years ago. But this is what I love. This is important and good and healthy and meaningful. And I’m so honored to be working on this project.

Okay, here goes: be gentle. it’s "under construction", as they say….
deercreekbeef.com