Food and Faith

Homemade and homegrown; this is going to be the theme of my summer.  I've been drawing inspiration from Mary Jane Butters, the ultimate farm chick (I got a surprise subscription to Mary Jane's Farm in the mail).  So far I've started off with a bang.  This week my shadow and I made two loaves of Struan and vanilla ice cream.  You simply can not beat homemade....such flavor, such gratification.  I've been telling Evangeline this over and over again.  

We got real local this week with a trip to our egg lady, the meat locker, and our first CSA pick up from White Violet Center.  Since I've resigned myself to the fact that I can't grow anything in the middle of the woods I decided to invest in a crop share.  Our first collection exceeded my expectations.  We got kale, strawberries, mustard greens, turnips, carrots, radishes, head lettuce, some other kind of leafy mix and rainbow chard. 

First of all, the whole experience of picking up our share was wonderful.  Evangeline and I got to St. Mary's earlier than we needed to so that we could take a walk on the grounds, which is one of my favorite places in the world.  We visited the stations of the cross and the cemetery for the nuns.  Oh my goodness, you could just see the little wheels turning in Evangeline's mind.  We used to come here last summer, but she is understanding a lot more now that she's a little older.  She has been having a struggle excepting anything to do with death and she is full of questions on the subject.  She is so sensitive about it.  It's so hard for me to decide what to tell her.  I want to protect her from the thoughts of pain and loss.  I'm trying to focus on the positive side of death.  Anyway, as we were walking around the cemetery we happened upon an older woman (a nun) that asked if we had seen a few Sisters in full habits walking around.  We spotted them headed to the Shell Chapel.  She invited me and Evangeline to visit the Shell Chapel of St. Ann along with them.  Like an idiot I asked her who St. Ann was and she had to explain to me that she was the mother of Mary.  (I'm not sure that factoid is in the protestant Bible.  If so, I've totally missed it.)  We entered the Shell Chapel and there were the three nuns praying on their knees.  I could feel Evangeline's hand tightening around mine.  She wasn't sure what was going on.  The shell chapel was amazing.  It was very small and entirely covered in shells....from the Wabash River no less- they were big shells too, huge bivalves!  The sweet woman explained that Mother Theodor prayed to St. Ann for a safe passage across the sea.  If they made it safely they would build a shrine to her, hence the Shell Chapel.  She also gave us a relic of Mother Theodore.  I looked at it closely and it said that it was made from linin that touched a bone from Mother Theodore.  There is so much about Catholicism I can not wrap my head around, yet it fascinates me.  Evangeline's mind was blown.  As soon as we left the sisters their was question after question.  I didn't have the answers to many of them and if I did it just lead to more difficult questions that were nearly impossible to explain to a 4 year old.  She loved the whole experience though.  I can't wait to go back.  St. Mary's is a special place.

 

E.B. decided she wanted to give tumbling a try this summer.  She had her first class Wednesday afternoon.  She had a great time.  It's just her and another little girl, so there is no waiting in line time.  She was non-stop from the second it started.  

 

I started tapping with the dance instructor at Fusion on Monday nights. I feel very awkward and out of practice, but what fun!!  Next week I'm bringing Evangeline to watch her rusty, old mom in action.