Barbara K. Richardson
  • Books
  • Info
  • Blog

The Chard Has It

11/1/2013

1 Comment

 
Picture
Not Chardonnay. No, rainbow chard won the heart of this urban gardener in her first year's planting in Boulder, Colorado. I had no idea of chard's dutiful beautiful productivity. It started producing in early June. And it still beckons on November 1. Still adorns soups and quiches. Which go well with Chardonnay . . .

Before winter clamps down on my little 10' x 10' patch of dirt, let me recall the sweaty progress  

Picture
Picture

from here                                             to here!



After two weeks of digging out sod, we measured, dug, whacked and configured.

Picture

Then came the planting of seeds.
Picture
Few things in life rival bare dirt. I am afraid to read the new research that claims no till gardening is the salvation of this planet. I just plain love to be near the promise and smell and texture and color of blank dirt. 

Which converts to green harmony each summer.

Picture
Picture
Picture


We had mothball-sized hail, and still the garden flourished. We had drowning rains and 1,000 year floods and my chard continues in spite of or actually, truthfully, in collusion with it all.


The spirit in soil can save us. 


Stop what you're doing and go meet some dirt.
1 Comment

Happy Happy Birthday, Baby

9/3/2013

2 Comments

 
Picture

Tomorrow, my novel Tributary is one year old. Cake, candles and Doo Wops? Nope, we're going to float sunflowers down Boulder Creek just as we did to launch her.

She won the WILLA Finalist Award for 2013 in historical fiction, so thanks are in order. I'm feeling grateful she's out on bookstore shelves, and relieved that a new book's in the oven. 

What new book? It's a dirty secret. I'm cooking up mud pies. Planting little cupcake flags in the soul of soil. I did love taking a break from blogging to get this new book begun. But here's the real dirt on what else happened this summer . . .


A fuzzy browed baby house finch took up residence in the newly dug garden patch, to recover from a nest fall. Four days of friendship, shared watermelon, mashed up dog kibble and sharp peeps of hello, and that bird flew off across the neighbor's long backyard once we'd all assembled to marvel and wish her well. We nicknamed her Brandi after Ms. Carlile.



The 10' x 10' garden feeds us and nearby neighbors a fine smattering of "plant to plate" vegetables. I borrow that phrase from author Kayann Short, whose nearby ten acre CSA farm has its own memoir. Or ecobiography, to use Kayann's term. 

Her lovely 2013 book A Bushel's Worth has me dreaming like a farmer. "Fresh is a flavor," Kayann tells the visitors to her radish beds. "This is what fresh tastes like." They crunch and swoon.

She plants her roses in a circle and her crops in lines. "A circle says, 'Come in. Be embraced. Be enthralled.' A row says, 'Pay attention. Be serious. Be productive.' Both lend beauty to the farm."

Picture
Picture
I feel like I should save this book for winter, read it like a seed catalog to warm my imagination. But that ain't happening! It's inspiring. We all do grassroots activism, yes? Well, Kayann takes you to its source: "a vast web of fibrous grass roots" that anchor her farm's soil with tentacles ten feet deep! Even though this particular prairie grass would swallow up her whole farm in a heartbeat if they stopped cultivating, and even though Smooth Brome Grass is a thuggish Eurasian invader, she finds it comforting. This grass that "thumbs its nose at all things human." (A fine metaphor, as some environmental activists have been know to do that, too.)

So I am celebrating the toddlerhood of my novel with great reading . . .

Picture
suburban gardening, and trips to the neighborhood Oz on my old five speed Schwinn.
Picture
I hope your end of summer blooms as abundantly!

2 Comments

Nutmeg to the Rescue

3/26/2013

2 Comments

 
Picture

It all started with a head cold. And nine inches of new snow. And the desire to make a birthday present for my favorite one-year-old friend Maddie.

I found this adorable dog online.

Rummaged through my fabric scraps.

Cut out rectangle pattern pieces on tracing paper, cut out all the fabric bits, and started sewing things together.


Picture
Thank heavens my resident college student on spring break knew how to zigzag for the facial features! No button eyes for a one year old. This face had to stand up to the toddler test.
Picture
I must say the aqua colored thread adds personality to Nutmeg's blue eye patch.
Picture
I sewed the little arm and leg tubes, turned them inside out with no swearing whatsoever, and stuffed them with a little fiberfill batting. The blunt end of a pencil and the pokey end of a pen helped convince the batting to enter such small spaces.

Then I sewed the ears and arms and legs on the back of Nutmeg's body, and folded them all inward for the final big sew.
Picture
Picture
Put front and back body pieces together, right sides in, stitching carefully to leave the ears and appendages free of my seaming.

Turned the whole thing inside out, stuffed Nutmeg's box-shaped body with fiberfill, and hand stitched the opening at the bottom.
Picture
Since my head cold prevented me from delivering Nutmeg on Maddie's birthday, my crew and I
made a video for her.
Maddie watches it often! Like her own Sesame Street routine. And when I delivered Nutmeg to Maddie, she was watching the video right then. In a doctor's office, with a bad case of stomach flu. She finished the happy birthday song, took the real Nutmeg in her hands and pressed her new pal into her face in sad greeting. Maddie held on tight to Nutmeg through the ear and eye exams, the throat exam. She even watched the video again when the doc tested for strep throat. Then Maddie slept with Nutmeg guarding her from the overhead florescent lights.
Picture







I hope they are pals forever. The "M" is for Maddie, superstar.


Thanks to Jeff and Michele and Kristy and Dan and Maddie and Pinterest for this post.

Here's another great set of animal friends I almost made. But really, Nutmeg was meant to be.
Picture
2 Comments

Gluten Freedom

2/21/2013

2 Comments

 
Picture
I avoided it for years, the gluten issue. How many allergies can a gal dial into? How could I give up wheat when at times the only things I dared to eat were plain bagels and Saltine crackers? It's so very difficult knowing what keeps a digestive system steady when it's topsy turvy much of the time.

But here's the scoop. Having just spent six days gluten-free, I'm beginning to listen to the gluten free call. I feel so steady. I don't crave sweets. My digestion is quiet and calm. I rounded up every item with gluten in it—crackers, breads, pastas, soups, soy sauce, cereals, tortellini, ravioli—and gave them to our neighbors. I didn't give them the six packs of Stella Artois. But I did banish our beer to the garage.

Courage comes in handy-pack sizes. I'll offload the beer when I'm sure about this new way of eating. And being.

Picture
Ringing in freedom meant a fairly thorough kitchen cleaning. Along with glutinous items, I tossed out high-sugar fruits, too. Bye-bye beloved bananas and mangos. Now, it's berries only, and unsweetened applesauce. These two fairly simple changes—eating a no gluten, and low-sugar fruit diet—seem to mean freedom. From pesky exhaustion, from energy swings, and from my formerly tender digestion.

That does not mean I'm eating poorly. On the contrary, it's an adventure finding delicious new eats.
Picture
First stop: Great Harvest Bread Company, who make outrageously tasty gluten free bread on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It's called Gluten Gone Buckwheat. The loaf is so dense Jeff cuts it with an electric carving knife, and so delicious we're glad we switched.
Picture

We also found these crunchy corn crackers that make sturdy bookends for smaller sandwiches. Spread with avocado, they just don't break.



Bored at breakfast? Try Bob's Mighty Tasty GF Cereal, which truly and mysteriously tastes buttery good.
Picture
Purists will say if the label does not say GLUTEN FREE, it's not. Sometimes corn and oats have gluten, so the GF label ensures they're 100% gluten free. But if you don't live in a town high on gluten free eating (Boulder, Colorado is the capital of no-glue food), just eat other grains instead of wheat for awhile, and see if it makes a difference.

Why claim gluten freedom? Joint pain and digestive woes decrease. Alertness and steadiness increase. Naps have almost vanished. The money I save on dark chocolate alone could almost pay the rent!
Picture

If you need more enticement, it is called gluten BECAUSE IT'S GLUE. Or it functions like glue. That's why breads stick together. Think elastic pizza dough.

Did you ever make paste out of white flour and water as a kid? GLUE.

And human digestive systems don't know what to make of it. They either let it pass harmlessly out of the body, if you're lucky, or get all funkified when gluten visits. Fermentation and distress. The list of physical woes includes gas, indigestion, diarrhea, achy joints...

Are you eating glue, Andy? I remember a kid in my first grade class who ate glue paste straight from the jar. Like, forget the lunch sack, just pass the glue paste. (The lids had those cool stick/paddles with a brush on the end for swiping too much glue onto construction paper. Which got all over your hands. And yes, I did a bit of licking to see what Andy was grooving on. Yetch.)


So when you sit down to a plate of linguini, you are opening the paste jar.

On to tastier pastures! Because you needn't sacrifice flavor in this new gluten free world. Cutting out breads and pastas means you make more room for other great foods.

Picture
Here is an outlandishly tasty recipe that no one would ever guess is lacking in anything! Adapted from Emeril Lagasse's Smoked Salmon Quiche with Crispy Potato Crust, I lowered the fat content and went with fresh potatoes and acorn squash, and ditched nearly all the dairy. Yum.
Picture

Ingredients:

3 1/4 cups coarsely mashed potatoes & acorn squash (partway peel, chop and boil till tender)

1 T butter

2 T olive oil

1/4 c finely grated Parmesan cheese

2 medium leeks or one small onion, halved and thinly sliced (1/2-2/3 c)

1/2 t minced garlic

4-6 oz fake sour cream, at room temperature (soy/Tofu sour cream)

2 t fresh lemon juice

3 eggs (eggwhites from a carton are fine; I used one whole egg and the rest eggwhites)


1/3 c rice milk

1/4 c shredded fake mozzarella (almond cheese)

4-6 oz smoked salmon, diced (4 seems like plenty to me)

2 T chopped fresh dill (I used 2 t dried dill)

1/2 t freshly ground black pepper

Creole Essence Ingredients:

1 t paprika                              sprinkle of cayenne

1/2 t salt                                  1/2 t dried oregano

1 t garlic powder                     1/2 t dried thyme

1/2 t black pepper                   1/2 t onion powder  (I didn't have onion or garlic, still great!)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Oil a 9" glass pie plate.

In a bowl, toss and combine the potatoes and squash with butter and the Creole Essence (recipe below). Add Parmesan and combine. Press the potato mixture into the pie plate, spreading evenly to cover the bottom and up the sides. Bake until golden, 25-30 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

Reduce the oven to 350 degrees.

Saute the leeks/onions in olive oil over medium heat. When they're soft, about four minutes, add the garlic and cook for one minute. Remove from the heat.

Put "sour cream" and leeks/onions and lemon juice in a large bowl and stir everything together. Add the eggs, one at a time, stirring just until combined. Add the rice milk, salmon, dill and pepper. Mix well.

Pour the salmon mixture into the cooled potato crust and bake for 40-45 minutes, until golden and the batter is set. Cool quiche awhile before serving. Fight over the spatula.

Only serves four. It's that great.

Go to Gluten Free Goddess for a great sampling of recipes and advice.

2 Comments

Monkey Business

1/24/2013

2 Comments

 
Picture
Kent Nerburn's Neither Wolf nor Dog is a great read with checkered origins. I enjoyed the book immensely. Nerburn's writing can be both simple as dirt and poetic as hell when it needs to be. His description of a massive storm in the Badlands towards the end of the book — gorgeous.

I started out loving this book. It was exactly what I'd been hoping to find since reading Lisa Jones' Broken: A Love Story, an exploration of Native American spirituality that was gritty and real. Nerburn can certainly write. But reading his last pages, I felt a slight suspicion and did a bit of research. The book is not non-fiction; Nerburn carefully chose and constructed this tale, populating it with people and events to suit his aim: to inspire in Anglo hearts a real understanding of Native points of view. He could have written this story of Dan and Grover, the Lakota road warriors, and their seemingly humble white amanuensis as a novel. It could have been a smashing novel. Apparently, it's being made into a movie soon. I have no comment on that.


Nerburn has defended the authenticity of the book as a work of art, a carrier of spiritual truths. But his defense showed no humility. And his fabrications have undercut the trust of this reader.

All authors are liars. Novelists lie blatantly, it's our trade. We lie to get at truth. Writers of non-fiction... well, I hope they still have standards of truthfulness. Neither Wolf nor Dog is a hybrid, it's spiritual road fiction, certainly not the first of its kind. But because the long haul tale was told and sold as truth, I stopped hitching. I'm actually kind of angry, the book was that good. I don't know which parts to trust.

Is Neither Wolf nor Dog worth reading? I think so. Fools gold shines like gold, just don't bite it.

On a lighter note, a great way to pass a winter's day--

Picture


Make baby bibs.

I took one to my dear pal Maddie last week, and her mom said, "I want a dozen more!" Her dad said, "We need a million of 'em." Maddie is one enthusiastic eater.

The monkeys started the whole project. I couldn't leave them all alone at JoAnn's among their flannel buddies.

I chose a handsome houndstooth check for the ties. You can use Velcro or ties at the neck, but Maddie is so strong Velcro is no match for her.

I could not resist the yellow rick rack, which actually catches spills!





I found the adorable pattern here.

I think the designer knocked it out of the park with her great fabric choices, including a soft chenille back. I just used good old flannel front and back. And muslin instead of interfacing.
Picture
When the literary world seems like a jungle, there's no better business than makin' monkey bibs.
2 Comments

Rest, Convalesce and Practice Napitation

10/26/2012

0 Comments

 

Nothing says winter is a-comin' in like a few snowstorms, a new knitting project, and three great essays on the benefits of slowing down. Thanks, New York Times, Jana Richman and Pam Stone. Bears are not the only creatures who thrive on slow rhythms and deep relaxation!

Picture

Meanwhile, Jana Richman—devoted writer and lover of trees—contracted a head cold last week that effectively shut down her entire life and demanded she do nothing but contemplate. 

And convalesce. 

And make like her black walnut tree.

We all drop our leaves now and then. Now's a better time than then, she tells us.

Be still and embrace that restoration.


Picture

Strivers take note! This New York Times article says long life is achieved through sleeping in late, eating food from the dirt nearby, gardening all day, napping, and passing the evenings with friends. The small town lack of privacy might drive me wild on this Greek island. "It's not a 'me' place, it's a 'we' place." And that contributes to happiness and low crime rates. 

Unemployment is at 40%, but all are cared for. All are fed. All fit in. No rushing anywhere. "We simply don't care about clocks here."

An eye-opening study of the absolute value of local foods and daily rest!


Picture

And Pam Stone shows us how.

If you've toyed with meditation and mindful slowing down, but always jumped right back into busy, give the techniques in her blog a try.

So many of my friends have reached the "I'm not invincible" phase. Where do you turn to refresh and recharge? How do you learn new skills when your whole life has been directed at achievement?!

Pam says find time each day to rest in acceptance. Napitation. Anyone can do that!
0 Comments

My Go Go Went

10/11/2012

16 Comments

 
Picture



I used to be a tireless worker. 

Tirelessly creative. 

Tirelessly inventive. 

Is it any wonder, then, that now I am just tired? 

Here’s the good news: 

my body has been telling me this for years, 
and now that I literally pace myself like a 
majestic elephant, all things stay in balance.

The majestic elephant took over about two months ago when I started seeing an acupuncturist. She simply refused to let my yang energy run amok. 


Picture
Running amok creates suffering and personal havoc. While I thought I was busy moving mountains, I was actually driving my body wild. Shrieking monkey wild. Breakdown in the desert without water wild. Again and again and again. I am now 56, and I've laid down my arms.




Do you believe the beauty and balance 
of this woman? 

I took a dozen photos of her at the Denver 
Airport where she resides.

 
Picture
Picture
I love her buttocks. 

I love her arms. 

I love the man I’ve never met who created this amazing woman.

I want to be that woman.

If I can only get this majestic elephant to learn yoga!
Picture
It is good to have a breakdown when it leads you to deep water.

With thanks to Karen Levine.
16 Comments

Slow is Beautiful Guest Blog

9/9/2012

1 Comment

 
Picture

Visit a great website, Becca's Byline, to read my guest blog and
de-accelerate your day!

Picture
Slow is Beautiful

I remember a Rilke quote, an insight from that wise and sensitive poet, suggesting life is a closed envelope and nearly all of us just pass the envelope along to the next generation. Few open it. Few even try. Almost no one realizes the envelope is addressed to them. To us. To you.

That letter from the universe waits in your hands. You are the recipient. The mystery, of course, is how to open the envelope. Every day. Every minute of every day.

I know one thing that will raise your odds: slow down . . . (click slow down to read the rest)

1 Comment

Clair Martin's Windfall Applesauce

8/23/2012

5 Comments

 
Picture


Nothing says fall like fallen apples.

They certainly make great cider, 
but much easier for the interested 
and lazy cook, windfall apples make wonderful homemade applesauce. 

All you need is a forgotten apple tree, 
a few simple ingredients and a little
home time.



My novel's heroine Clair Martin, 19th century maverick and Brigham City, Utah gardener, herewith gives her recipe for the best applesauce you ever tasted. Use windfall apples, or any apples just getting pink cheeks on the reachable branches. Store bought will not do. Go meet a tree.

Picture
Appletastic! And your kitchen will smell divine!

Adapted from Sarah's Applesauce.
applesaucerecipe_hr.jpg
File Size: 1292 kb
File Type: jpg
Download File



5 Comments

ROOST

8/16/2012

6 Comments

 
Picture
I am going to stick my neck out here in a not very stick-your-neck-out way. I’m going to ask this question: what if are we here to appreciate? what if our place in the natural order is as appreciators? And I am going to say that the answer is yes.

I have been sick for a week, so the simplest things feel miraculous—walking upright, getting muddy feet, scrubbing the kitchen sink, eating chicken soup, everything feels new. I appreciate overcast skies and the vigor of weeds and the hair coming off of my dog’s body in danderous blizzards. She’s losing her summer coat. All the signs out in the world say autumn’s coming. Nothing more poignant than autumn. No better time to step up and appreciate.


The challenge is to save your own life by shifting from consumption to appreciation. If you don’t, you’ve missed your real calling. The human tool we tend to hold dearest, our chatty judgemental greedy mind, is only a servant of other greater tools we rarely use: observation, intuition, awareness, clear seeing, spontanteous generosity and appreciation of the whole.

Since you are here now, why not be here now?

There are thousands of practical ways to be the world’s appreciator. Most are highly pleasant. The world welcomes every one.

Picture
Watch birds

Touch flowers

Draw light and shadow

Investigate open fields

Nap inside a really old barn

Harvest the windfall apples of a forgotten tree

Go homemade, anything

Follow a dog’s meandering trail

See that dog take interest in every scent

Laugh when that dog cavorts with joy

Put your belly on the ground and just relax

Do it again

Send anguish into the earth where it belongs

Gather fresh ingredients for a meal

Smile as cottonwood leaves flap in the wind

Steep tea from wild peppermint

Get bug-level, let go of your agendas and observe

Your life has one request of you: please spend twenty minutes every day interacting with nature. Pleasurable appreciation is the only requirement. Give your monstrously overworked ego a break. 
Ego 

does 

not 

rule 

the 

roost. 


Ego is the ridged black inchworm the chickens eat for supper.
Picture
6 Comments
<<Previous

    All Lit Up:
    love, mayhem, literature
    __________

    Categories

    All
    Environment
    Miscellany
    Reading
    Simple Living
    Spirit
    Trees
    Winter
    Writing


    Favorite quotes:

    "Let your fiction grow out of the land beneath your feet.” 
    —Willa Cather

    "Nothing is as powerful as beauty in a wicked world."
    ​—Amos Lee
    ​

    Favorite place:

    The middle of nowhere.
    ​

    Currently reading:

    Curse of the Pogo Stick
    The Maytrees 

    Just finished reading:

    Finding Stillness in a Noisy World
    ​

    Favorite blog:

    One Woman's Meat: Notes from Escalante

    Picture