Berry Crazy

(photos: wild raspberries, making turnovers, finally eating the HOT turnovers, a pre-consumption photo)
We've gone a little berry crazy here. Blueberries, raspberries, blackberries -- they all seem to love the red soil and regular rain. Wild or domestic, they thrive. Sunday we went exploring for a "pick your own" adventure. The place selected ended up being what I'm coming to think of as an Asheville-area specialty. Acres of land, beautiful and partially domesticated, sprinkled with roaming babyboomers finding their new way in the world. This particular berry wonderland was also home to handmade solar water heaters, a variety of composting strategies, a well-stocked trout pond, and a host of organic-looking living structures. A friendly if somewhat reclusive volunteer (separated, divorced, finding his way through physical labor and organic living) directs us to the community center and sign-in, points out the recycled containers and gestures in the direction of raspberry and blueberry patches.

The kids think it's a little piece of heaven on earth. "These are the best berries I've ever tasted!" Never mind that the raspberries are almost done and the blueberries will peak in a couple weeks. Enough treats were found to fill a couple pint baskets and to stain four lips a lovely shade of pinkish-purple.

Once home, the surviving berries needed to be folded into turnovers and popped in the oven. The results may never grace the front of Gourmet - but they earned a five-star review.

Today we checked on the wild berries on our property. Lovely little jewels beckoned us to overlook the scratched shins and poison ivy threat. We're heading back tomorrow properly attired! Think there may be more turnovers on the menu.

Buying happiness

This week marked the first big tears about our move. Late Thursday night, after a busy day including a trip to our local library (to escape the rain) and several hours of biking and playing in Cane Creek, Dexter came into our room in tears. Despite our busy schedule, he misses his friends. "I hate my life!" Are there any harsher words spoken by a child to his parents? Nothing much to do but comfort him and agree that leaving friends behind sucks.

About five or ten minutes into this teary event, the subject of a much-desired bow and arrow set comes up (trust me, it didn't come from my mouth). Upon eliciting a tenuous "we'll see about that tomorrow", Dex is done with the tears. He still misses his friends of course, but he's set his price for happiness. $50. Available at Wal-Mart.

About a week or so ago, during our inaugural week of "mom camp" (as I've dubbed this summer excursion extravaganza), Bella and Dexter are gleefully noting they have had ice cream three days in a row. Not just any ice cream, but DQ and two days of Biltmore Estate shakes and root beer floats. Add to that snacks from the Y, treats from the farmer's market, sodas at dinner.....I decide enough is enough. I announce I will no longer be buying daily "goodies" at the gym, and they shouldn't expect ice cream sundaes either. Bella, always quick with a quip, says "Just like normal." I prod, a little. What does she mean, just like normal? She elaborates. "Mom (that's Mo-om, with two syllables), I mean just like California. You hardly ever bought us anything. "

Yes, I see the pattern. Yes, I know we should get back to "normal". Yes, I realize that my goal is a simpler, less possession-driven life. And yes, I know that you can't really buy happiness.

But maybe, just for a little while, the credit card ad is right. An hour on the property, broken arrows and missed targets and all? Priceless.

Simple Pleasures

Fourth of July weekend. Our first holiday in North Carolina, and one devoted to family and friend barbeques and gatherings. We missed our friends in California, but had a lovely weekend in our new home.

First up -- camping on the property. What the site lacked in rustic beauty it more than made up for in satisfaction of spending a night on land we own. And while camping in the backyard is sort of cheating - aside from the construction toilet and one temporary electrical outlet, our backyard is pretty unimproved. Kirk did insist on an air mattress. I had my doubts but he fit it in. We all cozied up. And though coffee was available just a couple miles down the road, we brewed our own onsite. Campfire coffee -- much better than Starbucks anyday!

Next up -- some river kayaking. We found a place to push off just a couple miles from the house, and the boys spent a few hours paddling down the river. Bella joined in for some fun in the gentlest part. The French Broad provides quite a range of kayaking options but we're skipping the white water for now. There is plenty of time for that.

The town of Hendersonville, just down the road, provided great family fireworks and fun. By Monday, we were all tuckered out.

Hope you had a great 4th!

More Worms!

(pictures -- from top: Dexter drilling holes, the worm bedding, the worms, feeding the worms, and a lovely worm salad.)
We finally set up our worm bin today. We quit composting about a month before we moved. We didn't think the new owner of our house would be excited about our worm bins. So we reluctantly returned to throwing our food scraps in the garbage and spread the lovely wormy compost in the garden. We thought it would be a brief break from compost.

Unfortunately our rental house isn't all that compost-friendly. The yard is tiny and completely exposed to the neighbors. The development has lots of rules, some pretty dumb. I'm pretty sure acompost pile in the backyard would not be viewed as appropriate landscaping. I could collect our kitchen scraps and haul them out to our property but I'm a little too lazy for that. And even I am not that excited about decomposing corn cobs in the back of my car.

So we set up a worm bin. Two tupperware tubs with holes punched in them, stacked one in the other. The bottom one will catch the liquid released from the compost. The top one serves as home for our pound of red wigglers. It has drainage and air holes, shredded paper and cardboard, and our fruit and vegetable scraps.

For those of you following the blog -- yes, I did buy worms again. Twice in a week! Once from a vending machine and this time from a guy with a "worm farm". In California our worms were free. But the red wigglers are supposed to be better composters, eating up to their weight in food scraps each day. So I bought a pound.

Kirk says they better be hungry. He was a big fan of our cheap and easy approach to compost in California. We cut holes in two old garbage cans and put just about everything in those cans -- shredded paper from the office, all our coffee grinds and kitchen scraps, old newspapers. We then mostly ignored the whole mess, except once every couple of weeks Kirk and Bella would go out to check on the worms and turn the compost. The system worked fine and we had hundreds of happy, hungry worms.

At least if these worms don't eat much we can always use them as fishing bait. I'll keep you posted.

Our green walls

Yesterday they poured the concrete for the walls. The walls are one of the really "green" things about our house. The ICFs we are using are about 60 percent recycled content, and the concrete contains fly ash to replace some of the cement. The fly ash is a common industrial waste product, and its use reduces landfill waste, saves energy, and reduces CO2 emissions.
Other reasons we chose ICFs for our exterior walls:

• Energy Efficiency - the 11-inch walls (concrete core with insulating foam exterior) keep cold and hot outside and keeps the heated or cooled air inside We hope for pretty significant savings on our energy consumption.
• Durability -- the idea of walls that don't settle, crack, mildew, rot or even shake when doors are slammed is pretty appealing. And with ICFs there is nothing for insects like termites to eat.Strength - ICF wall systems are rated to withstand extreme weather conditions, including tornados and hurricanes. While we should get very few of the former and none of the latter, it's nice to feel secure (especially since we won't have a basement). They can endure winds in excess of 140 miles per hour. And though we've moved away from the high earthquake risk, they are pretty shake-resistant as well.
• Quiet - ICF wall systems decrease the amount of sound that comes in from the outside by over half. It is the quietest building material on the market. Have I mentioned how much we are looking forward to the quiet?
• Solidity -- after living in a prewar coop in New York (with concrete block walls and floors between us and our neighbors) and our older stucco home in California, most tract homes just feel flimsy. The ICFs will do more than mimic that feeling we've come to love -- they should exceed it.
• Cleaner Air - ICF systems prevent draft and air infiltration, meaning less dust (less to clean!) and fewer allergens in the house. Perhaps our daughter's pre-asthma and allergy tendencies will lessen away from the smog and with our cleaner, greener home.
• Environmentally-Friendly - Aside from reducing energy consumption, our walls also reduce construction waste. The forms stay in place instead of ending up in the landfill. And as noted earlier, the ICFs and concrete we are using contain a good bit of recycled content.
• Fire Retardant - ICF systems can resist fires for up to four hours. If our house ever does burn, the smoke is less toxic than burning wood. Again, while we've moved away from the highest fire danger, our years in California make us look at all the trees around as potential fire fodder.
• Bullet Proof - Yeah - this one isn't really a big deal for us. But it's fun to tell the kids that the house makes a pretty good fort.

Plus -- the pouring was cool. Three big cement trucks were on-site, with the active truck outfitted with a big crane and chute to pour the concrete. One guy stands on the ground with a little remote box to guide the chute while another person holds the chute in place for the pour. JD, our builder, got a faceful of concrete yesterday - giving the mud facial a whole new slant. The footers and the lower level of the walls are poured then allowed to settle. In all I think they went around the house three or four times, allowing the concrete to settle between each successive pour.

And yes, the sky really was that blue. The weather has been gorgeous almost every day since we arrived. My fears about too much rain for these former Californians have been set aside at least for the present.

Worms in the fridge and my new shoes

We've just tucked the kids in bed after their first real weekend in NC. Though we spent a good bit of time continuing the unpacking, we managed a little exploring. It was hot, so Saturday afternoon we headed out to a few highlights of the nearby Pisgah National Forest -- Looking Glass Falls and Sliding Rock. If the kids hadn't already heard about Sliding Rock, they would have thought the falls -- much bigger than anything we've seen on our California hikes -- were cool. But they had one thing in mind.

Sliding Rock. Just like the name, this is a natural 60-foot water slide down a big rock slab ending with a dunk in a refreshingly-cool (48 degree!) pool. For a $1 (Bella was free) you can slide as many times as you can handle, which in our case was just three before the icy water dampened our enthusiasm for the slide. It's a true hoot though. Everyone queues up in a long line that slowly crosses the river (your first feel of the water) and snakes up to the top of the slide. Along the way you can watch as others make their way down. There are all types of sliders. The barely controlled panicked ones. The cool dudes sliding down on their backs, arms folded behind their heads. The gray-haired granny, a crowd-favorite, eliciting cheers from all as she hit the water.

Today we checked out a local fishing hole. We rented a paddle boat for $5 and headed off. Though more time was spent untangling the lines than actually casting in, the kids had fun. We had fish for dinner, but the better part of candor requires me to admit it came from the market, not the lake.

Which brings me to the worms. At the lake they had a vending machine. Not for Snickers, this one. Live bait. Put your money in and out pops a little Styrofoam tub of worms. So where do the worms go when you finish fishing? I don't think I've ever had worms in my fridge before. Leftovers anyone?

And my new shoes. For my California friends - these are far from Manolas. I've worn them almost every day so far. They're perfect for tromping around the property and traipsing through rivers. And they'll be great when we put the kayak in the river. They even look pretty cute (at least before I spilled catsup on them).

Fear not my friends. I promise not to wear them in LA.

The Best Cookout Ever

We had a cookout tonight. Not just any cookout, but "the Best Cookout Ever". As declared by Bella.

It wasn't fancy. We had hotdogs and S'mores. Cooked on sticks gathered on our property, over a fire built by Kirk and the kids. I forgot the plates and plasticware at home. Not sure what we would have done with them anyway.

Dexter (9 1/2 years old) says he has never roasted a hotdog before. Yup. Bad parenting. We clearly have done better with Bella. She's only 4 1/2 and she has now roasted hotdogs. And S'mores.

We also caught fireflies again. I'm not sure why, but the fireflies on our property more docile than the fireflies at our rental house. You can pretty much stand in their midst while they land on you. In our rental house, you actually have to chase them!

I think we'll spend most of our Friday nights on our property this summer. As we meet people we'll invite them to join us. Once we have a real house, I might forget how great a simple cookout is. I'll start thinking of all the stuff I need...potato salad, fruit salad, a "real" dessert. But really -- hotdogs and s'mores. What more could you possibly need?