Housekeeping

 A quick watercolor painting I did a couple years back. I took this with my camera, which is why it's sort of off-kilter.  Scanning would probably do a better job. But one step at a time, right?

This is more of an interlude than a post. I have a few updates, all of which are fun, but none of which had enough wheat-meat to warrant a separate post.

VeganBlogs

The first is that SSW is now listed on VeganBlogs. This gives the site much more coverage online.

The purpose of starting this blog over a year ago was to help family and friends better understand why I suddenly eschewed all animal products, what that looked like, what the health and environmental benefits were, and what animal agriculture business looked like to individual animals. I think too that often when one makes an overnight change like that, it can look a little cultish (and cultish ain't my bag). But the truth is, I just don't want to hurt animals. It's as simple as that. And the animal agriculture industries hurt them, no matter how many pretty humane/cage-free/organic/grass-fed labels you slap on the neatly packaged meat/eggs/dairy. 

Along the way, though, I found that readership was increasing to people I had not met (yet) and that as my circle widened, I was learning from them and joining a community of enthusiastic and creative people.

Since joining veganblogs, I've seen hits on SSW increase substantially, which is exciting! If you want to help out, you can go to this link and hit the "Boost" button. There's also a link on the right side of this page. The more boosts SSW gets, the greater its visibility online. You can even boost once every twenty-four hours, should your little heart desire to do so! But simpler would be to just press "boost" after you've read a new post. And if you're up for it, any comments you can add in that link's comment section would be immensely helpful. Thank you in advance!

Vegbooks

I've recently become a contributing writer to Vegbooks, which describes itself as "a resource for parents and teachers who want to support the vegan and vegetarian kids in their lives." To learn more about how Vegbooks started, read here. This site is a great place to learn about new (and old) books and movies for kids. (I first heard about it from the lovely gals from the Our Hen House podcast.) Here is my first post on the Lorax. I'm currently working on my second which should come out soon. I'm excited to be writing for such a fantastic website!

Vida Vegan Con (Say it three times fast.)

"See? I told you she joined a cult. I just knew it."

It does sound funny, doesn't it? Almost like a Star Trek convention or something. (Nothing against Star Trek, of course.)

In fact, it's a three-day conference of vegan bloggers in Portland, Oregon in May 2013, and yours truly will be there! (I'm bummed I can't stay longer, as my brother and his gorgeous family live in Bend, but I'm going to be taking red eyes to and from the conference so that I don't miss work. Being a teacher doesn't allow you to take long trips outside of our scheduled breaks. I'm not complaining, mind you -- that's just how it is.) I cannot express how excited I am to be meeting so many cool bloggers in person and to be attending workshops run by the superstars I've come to admire so much.

Legality, paintings, and photographs

As I mentioned before, this blog was started as an easy way to share with friends and family. I didn't anticipate it going anywhere beyond the borders of those I knew. But I did want to entertain, because good writing should do that. I'd often copy cool photos or videos I found online onto the site, never thinking about copyrights or such, since I wasn't making a dime off of it. I recently came to the realization -- particularly since the readership increased -- that I needed to be more mindful of what I was putting on here in order to be respectful to the owners of said photos and videos. To be frank, I feel like a schmuck for not having given it more thought before. (insert chagrined face) Thus, I've gone back and taken off a lot of images, and I'm starting to work on the videos. So you might notice some changes to past posts.

What you will see added shortly are sketches and watercolor paintings I've done to flesh out posts and add some personal zest.  I'm looking forward to it! In the past, I put a great deal of effort into each piece I've done.  It will be refreshing to do more whimsical drawings and paintings. (see above painting to get a glimpse.)

As well, I'm learning how to use our camera so I can include more photographs with posts.

One Lovely Award

Recently, SSW was awarded the One Lovely Blog Award from the equally lovely Epicurean Vegan, so I'll soon be doing a post on that to pass on the love to the many blogs I frequent and admire.

Oh, praise be, she's almost finished this endless drone of babble

And finally, I'm starting to think about creating an actual independent SSW website. I've barely scratched the surface, so any advice from more experienced bloggers would be very welcome!

That's the news for today. Thanks for reading!

Hot town, summer in the suburb! (back of my neck gettin' dirty and "pretty")

Sergio, braving the carpeted cat bed.

Kaci prefers the the cool flat expanse of the coffee table.

It's warm out there, folks. At least it is in Massachusetts.

The cats aren't too crazy about the heat and spend their days trying to stay as comfortable as possible, experimenting with various surfaces and laying on their backs in front of the fan when it's on.

My garden, on the other hand, is completely loving this weather. The heat has been especially kind to the tomatoes.

Last year, you may remember, I paid homage to my vegetable garden. This year, I continue to be wonderstruck by the simple daily changes in this rectangle of goodness, and I couldn't hold back from sharing how things are shaping up thus far.

Here is our first-ever crop in a small raspberry patch I've been tending to for almost two years. I was starting to give up on it when it just exploded in red sweetness this year! The fruits seem to ripen hourly.

Last year, I moved our mint to a section by the house because it was valiantly attempting to take over the garden.

Spearmint

Believe it or not, this is chocolate mint. It tastes like an Andes Candies.

Here's sage (a perennial, I discovered!) that I transplanted along with the two types of mint. 

 I planted a variety of tomatoes this year, all of which shouldn't take too long to ripen. (The cherries have already started!) I used to order beautiful heirloom seedlings in the mail, but they needed a longer summer than we typically get here. So now I shoot for tomatoes that have a shorter growing season.

Just yesterday, I pruned all the tomato plants, as they were getting out of control. I don't know a whole lot about pruning, so I just basically go by instinct. I was told a few years back that if you don't prune them, all their growing energy mainly goes into the leaves and stems rather than into the fruit itself.

Speckled Romans

Either Speckled Romans or Romas...

Either Speckled Romans or Romas...

Romas ... Already have one close to ripe!

Sungold. Impossibly sweet! If you ever want to start a small garden, this is a great variety that will give you instant results. I love the way they grow like grapes!

These had a fancy name, but I can't recall it. I call them Little Reds. 

There's a great product in garden stores that helps keep your tomatoes growing in the cages. It looks like a spool of thick green ribbon, but it's velcro. You just cut off a bit and then velcro the stem to the cage so that the plant doesn't sprawl across the ground. You can reuse these year after year. I kept losing them, though. Just this morning, it occurred to me that I could keep them on the fence when I was done using them, and have them ready for next year.

The last of the sugar snap peas. We have been eating these like they're going out of style. Just trim the strings off, put them in a steamer basket, and let them steam for just a minute or two. Then, if you're feeling fancy, put them in a bowl with a tiny bit of toasted sesame oil and salt. 

As the peas start to leave us, the string beans are emerging. How cute is that thing? It's like a string bean ultrasound.

Cabbage. Does it get any more artistic? I mean, look at the way that thing grows! Gorgeous! Thanks to my sister-in-law Ida for gifting me with four cabbage plants -- something I had never tried growing before. (That's why it's good to have gardening buddies. They expand your horizons.)

Kale alert! If you want to start your own garden or a small container garden, kale is one of the easiest things to grow. And it LOVES the cold, so you'll be harvesting it well into the fall. I tried three kinds this year.

I should mention here that when we first dug up the garden and put the fence around, we put chicken wire about a foot and a half under the ground. It was a pain, truly, but well worth it since we now have a family of groundhogs who eyes our garden hopefully. One of them (when it was still small enough) squeaked through the space where the gate opens and had a fun time inside. In fact, both s/he and a baby bunny got in at the same time  -- who are friends, I swear. They're always hanging out together -- and demolished our lettuce and some of the peas. They didn't touch the curly kale or lacinato kale, but made sweet love to the purple kale. Who knew?

Curly kale! One of two patches of it we have, because you can never have enough of this stuff. (The Thai Basil to the left, is not as hardy as it's been in the past. Usually it becomes a monstrous shrub. The leaves are delicious with green curry.)

"Nom, nom, nom," said the hungry groundhog.

Lacinato Kale, also called Dinosaur Kale due (I believe) to its ressemblance to dinosaur skin. (We are overrun with dinosaurs in Framingham, so I KNOW.)

Some of the red-speckled lettuce that survived groundhogpalooza.

     

Swiss Chard. Some of the prettiest stuff on the planet. I want to do a painting of Swiss Chard.

Believe it or not, this is a Brussel Sprout plant. I got four tiny plants ($1 each!) back in April as a fun experiment. They're doing great so far!

These are Chioggia Beets. When you slice them, they have a gorgeous red and white striped bullseye throughout. I love how the tops peek out of the ground. It's so cute, I can't stand it. 

Next is the massive, prehistoric rhubarb, which originally came from my grandparents' house. I gave away half of the root to my brother- and sister-in-law this spring, and the thing has STILL spread. This is, by far, Kaci's favorite part of the garden.

And you may have noticed our new hummingbird feeder, given to us by Peg, my mother-in-law. Below is a better view. We have a feeder closer to the house as well. Hummingbird feeders are such great and cheap entertainment. Often the hummingbirds will come when I'm in the garden, reading, writing, or weeding. You'll hear what sounds like an extra large bee, and when you look up you see a tiny, green, glistening little hummingbird, politely dipping into the red plastic flower and then taking off into the sky about a minute later when it is done. (The attached red ribbon helps attract the birds to the feeder. They love red.) To make your own solution, just heat some sugar in water until the sugar is dissolved. Sugar - water; 1:4. So 1/4 cup sugar, for example, and 1 cup water. Just replace it every few days.

And a garden isn't a garden without basil. Mmmm...

We have quite a few pepper plants, both hot and sweet. I forget the names of most of them, but here they are regardless. :)

Green pepper, I think.

Pepperoncini! I got these for Ryan, who goes nuts for them pickled. As to who is going to pickle them, stay tuned...

Ryan's not an eggplant guy, but I always plant a lot of it anyway. They are so gorgeous. Look at this little one, just poking its head out!

And you have to have cucumbers. I just got one kind of plant, and found a cucumber over a foot long this morning! I forgot to take a picture of it, but it's so indecent looking that it's just as well. Here is a less sizable one on the vine.

I planted tons and tons of nasturtium all around the perimeter of the garden. The groundhogs LOVE nasturtium,  and wiped them out from two sides of the garden. We put in a (mild) electric fence which has discouraged them from ravaging all the remaining prettiness. Groundhogs tend to stick very close by their burrows, as they lack speed for getting back quickly. (As Ryan so aptly put it, it's like watching an undulating small carpet run across your lawn.) Thus, they ignored the other two sides because they were too far away for comfort.

Both the flowers and leaves of the nasturtium are edible. They have a light peppery taste to them, reminiscent of radishes, lending themselves beautifully as an accent to a fresh salad.

I have beautiful marigolds planted throughout the garden, as they are a natural pest deterrant.

And here is the overall view of this most happy of places .

Groundhog/Rabbit view. (I just planted some new lettuce and arugula in the bare patch in the foreground.)

So that's the garden so far. Stay tuned for later posts when more things ripen!

P.S. SSW is now on veganblogs.org. If you could click on this link and then click on the "boost" button, it would help substantially in getting more visibility to this blog. I'm told you can go one once a day and boost it. And if you're up for sharing any thoughts, it would be great to get some comments (hopefully favorable!) added below it. The more boosts and comments, the better the visibility online. Thank you!

Anthropomorphize. Hard to say, hard to swallow.

Have you ever said this word? Anthropomorphize. It takes some practice to say it correctly, and I still stumble over it.

I looked up anthropomorphize in dictionary.com and it read as follows: "to ascribe human form or attributes to (an animal, plant, material object, etc)"

Realizing that it's been forever since I've looked anything up in my beautiful hold-it-in-your-hands dictionary, I thought I'd check that too. The definition there was slightly more poetic. "To ascribe human characteristics to things not human."

Now in terms of a book like, say, Peter Rabbit, where the little rabbits wear coats, have tea and jam, and get tucked into bed -- Yes, I think we can all agree that those scenarios are solid examples of anthropomorphization. Wearing clothes and having tea are, as far as I know, uniquely human habits. 

But that's not when I hear that word used. 

Rather, it's when a person remarks that a [insert animal species here] looks guilty, delighted, loving, or depressed,  that they are often gently reminded not to anthropomorphize. I've seen plenty of footage of cows giving birth to their babies, only to have them taken away either immediately or 24 hours after birth. Both animals are panicked and in pain. They only want to be together. And yet I've been told, "Well that's really anthropomorphizing. They're not human, you know. It's just instinct."

I find this kind of comment stunning and telling.

First, we humans are animals. This is a fact to which our species seems very resistant. We want to believe we're separate. Better. Smarter. Not animals. Everything is here for us. And non-human animals, for many people, are the "others" who are here to serve us in some capacity. But for anyone who has a pet or who watches Animal Planet, our behaviors are not so different from those "others."

And building on that, we seem to think we have the monopoly on emotions. Fear, love, pride, grief, jealousy. All human emotions, some say. When an animal grieves the death of another animal, we often caution each other not to project human emotions onto animals. This is where I want to do a Biff and yell, "Hello? Hello? Anybody home? Think McFly, think! We ARE animals. We all experience feelings."

But as I said, it's very telling when a person explains away an animal's emotions as not being true "human emotions," but pure instinct, nothing more. Nothing we should read too much into. To me, a person who makes these claims wants to distance themselves from the thought that non-human animals experience what we experience. And while frustration at traffic might not be an emotion a non-human animal gets rooted in, the bliss of sitting in the sunshine is. Fear of being hurt is. Love for their babies is. Misery and sadness is. And if non-human animals experience what we human animals experience? Well that's just too uncomfortable to contemplate, isn't it?

There's a part of my past that I haven't shared until now because it hasn't really crossed paths with the topics at hand. But it seems appropriate here. Almost five years ago, right after the most wonderful wedding in the history of the world  -- I'm clearly biased --  I got pregnant. I was over the moon. Ryan and I both were. Every passing week, I knew our baby was getting bigger and stronger. I dreamed about meeting her. (I always knew it was a girl.) Her heartbeat was strong. We began playing with names. My sister-in-law gave me a pair of baby socks that I put in my nightstand. We talked to our baby at night and in the morning, telling her how excited we were to have her with us. Everything was perfect.

And then, almost into my second trimester, during a routine exam, we found out that she was gone. It was later explained that she had implanted in a section of the upper uterus that had a limited blood supply. Regardless of the reason, though, the grief was pretty overwhelming. And it was made worse by some rare and unreal complications. (You probably wouldn't believe me if I explained it to you. The team of specialists were mystified by how strange it all was.) Those complications spanned from our miscarriage in October right through the following April. During this time, I had to have what was essentially low-grade chemo. When that didn't work, I had two surgeries to get me back to normal. And despite being in good baby-making shape again, I never conceived. (Which is a whole other topic.)

I can't even begin to explain to you how awful this period was. Did my fluctuating hormones have anything to do with how hard it was to accept and endure? Most likely. Was my sadness just due to motherly "instinct"? Probably. But knowing it was "just animal instinct" to mourn my baby didn't make it any easier. Everything I felt was real. And though I feel as healed as one can be, those tiny socks remain in my sock drawer, almost five years later. I don't think I'll ever be able to part with them.  

When I hear people explain away the dairy industry; explain away the cows being inseminated in "rape racks" -- I'm not joking. That's what some people in the industry call it;  explain away babies being taken from their mothers by force in order to save the milk for human consumption; explain the mothers' heartbreak as "just instinct," I feel angry. Because it may just be instinct and it may just be hormones, but it doesn't make it any less real or painful to them or to any other animal in the animal agriculture industry.

This is the happy ending so many dairy cows don't get to experience. Posted with permission from The Gentle Barn.

Anthropomorphization. Hard to spell. Hard to say. And really hard to swallow. Because it's a word that tries in vain to disguise our discomfort at putting non-human animals through things we'd never want to experience in a million years.