Herbstalk is this weekend!!

Hi all!

It’s been a crazy spring but here I am, ever so briefly, to tell you about Herbstalk, an event that I am very proud to be a part of.

 

 

Herbstalk is a magical, nourishing, and delicious event created by my friend, herbalist Steph Zabel of Flowerfolk Herbs. In its third year, this celebration of healing plants bursts at the seams with good food, brilliant teachers, lovely music, and…HERBS! Herbs in every incarnation! You’ll find teas! Green salves! Powders! Smoking mixes! Scrubs for your face and body! Soaks for your tiny toes! There will also be live plants brought to you by yours truly, most of which I’ve started from seed and all of which I’ve grown with love at Allandale Farm.

I am also honored to be teaching a class, Growing Urban Herbals, on Sunday from 11 to 12:30. I’ll be covering all the basics (and many of the more advanced techniques) of growing herbs in the city. There will be useful information for the amateur and experienced gardener alike. To get a taste of what I’ll be speaking about, check out my articles at the Herbstalk blog, like this one that focuses on the ecological benefits of growing herbs in the city (or anywhere, for that matter!), and another on growing healing herbs indoors.

I will also be teaching a class on container herb growing at Allandale on Saturday, June 14th. I’d love to see you there as well! Check out the blurb and buy your ticket here.

As you can see my next few weeks are going to be an herbal whirlwind. I am, however, looking forward to getting back into the blog this month. Stay tuned, and feel free to follow me on twitter (@jennykraut) and instagram (@jennyhauf), where it’s a bit easier to keep up with the world in bite-sized bits. (I’ll be livetweeting from Herbstalk, so even if you can’t make to Somerville I can give you a virtual taste of the party!)

See you soon!

 

 

Fenway Park: So good (So good!)

                   I

The Game and the Backdrop

Late October brings one thousand remembrances that creep in through the tasks. It is a time of analytical repose juxtaposed by all the hurry of putting gardens and fields to sleep, of sealing drafts and catching mice, of collecting sawing chopping splitting and stacking. There are apples to bring in, sauces to simmer, cookbooks to pour over in hopes of finding one more reason to keep the oven going.  Coats to be dug out. Mittens slated for darning and knitting needles and patterns fetched from hiding and put to work.

Autumn’s combinations of sitting and sprinting and, you know, this thing called the World Series, have sent my mind a-wandering to Fenway Park.

Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Oh, Fenway. Storied pleasure ground of fathers and sons, fanatics and franks, curses and delight, you are the unofficial last gem in our city’s emerald necklace. Green and lit, mown and chalked, you are our beloved theater, the treasure chest of tricks, our Neil Diamond music box.

Divine Days: A log of a Cape Ann jaunt and the return home.

When last we met I was bidding you adieu so that I could continue the lovely, long weekend that my boyfriend and I were luxuriating in. Now, a quick swing back in time.

On Friday the heavens rained upon us from the moment we left the little studio apartment we were renting to the second we entered a distant cousin’s Gloucester bed and breakfast, The Inn at Babson Court, and fell into cups of coffee and a million stories. 

It was wet enough that, again, the majority of wildlife experienced was in the perfect haddock that I had for dinner. We were surrounded by so many secrets, though, as we soaked up rain along the sea: the jellyfish, the right whales, lobsters, clams, mussels, and sharks. There were hidden tidal pools with hermit crabs, fluttering barnacles, and cities of unbelievable microscopic shapes and means of living. Even when marine life shies away from me I am awed by its certain presence. I grew up on fresh water and visited with it intimately in my youth. Saltwater, of course, is a whole different ballgame. The dead jellyfish floating in Boston Harbor, the tiny, vivacious pools in low-tide Gloucester; they thrill me again and again, even on a day spent without a view of anything marine aside from waves through a window, models of ships, and a whole lot of gulls.

Queens or Kings Necessary

This. Because last year I was spending a large part of my time at home watching my little puppy of a monarch and its milkweed, and this summer I am looking at sometimes dried up milkweed flowers, hoping and praying for one of those bengal-striped beauties.