Sea Foam Candy and A Busy Day

It’s another of those nights here at Wildflower, when the night is dark and deeper than winter during a February blizzard when the temperature outside in the snow is sitting comfortable at about 2 degrees. The darkness falls as rain, which all day sat above us as a threatening grey sky. Here I am in my time by the Christmas tree once again. The house is quiet except for my relaxing softly playing Christmas play list. The harp music soothes me like wind smoothing the surface ripples of a busy pond… It has been a rough day. Beneath my surface strong water currents are moving….

It has been crazy busy today here on the homestead. Lots of pickup and cleanup. Organizing. got the fire going carried in a bunch of extra wood… Did the solemn duty of clearing the dead food out of the greenhouse. Over the weekend we lost the thermostat. We were not sure weather it was the heater or the thermostat and initially believed the brand new heater had conked out and died on us. But soon, when my dad came to take a look when I could get no help from any of the Hvac companies in our area, my husband and dad finally determined it was the thermostat. It has since been fixed but over a third of our winter food supply perished. It was like a funeral in there, as I cleaned out all the plant debri of the dead things that I had poured so much time and energy into for the last few months. I never realized how much a part of us the plants we grow become. How losing them can be like punch in the gut that rips your wind out of your body. I actually broke down and cried for all my deceased vegetable plants. Especially the tomato that arrived here through the mail 2 thirds of the way dead that I brought back to life nursing it like an invalid until it was so very strong. All of it is gone.

Then I went to clear out the dish washer, load it, hand wash stuff, make something to eat. And went to catch the news for 20 minutes… Only to find a school shooting happened in Wisconsin. Children, deserve to be happy and healthy. They deserve to grow up and to have the future that they build for themselves. They deserve to go through life without trauma, a subject I can unfortunately write books about… As a trauma survivor, you bargain with universe/God/Goddess/Spagghetti Monster/Etc, that because you went through it, let no one else ever experience trauma. But somehow in this country every day some jerk seems to be shooting up a school. Then you remember a kid only so long ago, 17 years old carrying a gun in Wisconsin, shooting people Wisconsonites, didn’t like because they had joined a political cult. He shot people on public streets. They acquitted him. Sending their kids a loud clear message while trying to send the nation a message. The message to the nation, “We value guns and racism more than we value human life.” The message they inadvertently appear to have sent to their children, “Go ahead, honey, bring your gun to a public place and blow some folks away. Nothing will happen to you if you do.” Seems a young person took them up on that message today. The media made a big deal out of the event and I don’t understand why since Wisconsin, has already stated quite loudly to the entire nation that they don’t care about kids shooting people in the public square. Still, lives were lost today. Innocent children were traumatized. Human being’s who’s value to society will never be realized, gone… Families in turmoil. Human suffering…. Seeing that as I ate my lunch was just draining.

Then it was upstairs to pick up the bathroom, and strip the bed…. It was just one thing after another all day long. An endless stream of chores. No time for me to even process the day till now. But that is the life of a homesteader. It is lots of hard work. So much work… But in these quiet moments alone in the deep winter night, I know it is all worth it. Even when it all gets blown up like the plants in my greenhouse. That is just the nature of this way of life. The highs are absolutely astonishingly high, and you get the satisfaction too of knowing you built the high moment from blood sweat and tears. Which makes the joy all the more deep and meaningful. I know a zen master or 30, who would say something wise here about the nature of impermanence of the sangha of samsara. On a homestead that sangha is made up of all living beings. Not just the animals and people. But the plants who give us so much throughout their life time. Perhaps someone will do some kwan seum bosal chanting for all the living community members in the greenhouse. It would be appreciated. For all they have given, they deserve a better life then the one they had.

There is a gratitude you learn living as a homesteader. It extends, beyond your partner and those who show up to help when they can, to the living things that make you smile and laugh every day. The same ones that provide you with eggs, or dairy, or fiber for your clothing. It also extends to the wild places that surround you. The forest always has something you can use. You just have to know where to look and to recognize the treasures you find. It extends to the gardens outdoors and to the green food you grow in it. It extends into the greenhouse and to all that lives there through the period you need it the most. I sit here tonight, hoping that one day the families of those that died in Wisconsin today will know peace, hoping that the plants that suffered then perished in my greenhouse too will find peace.

My day ended with helping and supervising some Christmas candy making. We made Sea Foam dipped in chocolate. It came out perfect. I wanted to get this project done today because this is my dad’s favorite Wildflower Farm christmas tradition, the candy making. The sea foam is his favorite candy we make. Thinking about family is hard when you have just heard the news that families in Wisconsin, just lost so much… I should be feeling festive. But I am not. Just spent, tired, and emotionally crushed. Sometimes it is hard to be here and now. It doesn’t matter where you are. In an urban apartment, a suburb, or a little homestead farm in a rural suburb int he middle of nowhere. I know another 30 zen masters who would point out something about how suffering is the human experience, and all we can do is exist and accept it and move through it as the moment changes, and new circumstances arise. Bring it next moment! It’s hard to wait when today has been so sad.

Every year we make this candy. We had fun making it. Still close to my heart the tragedies of the day sat heavily. But I did what makes a homesteader a homesteader rather than a quitter. I smiled through it. I laughed. I accepted the moment. It’s sweet candy joy, and it’s harsh tragedy. And somehow, I love what we produced even more as a result of it being in spite of a world and a moment seeking to drag me down. This is a strength you develop homesteading. Standing on the precipice of human suffering and like Macgyver, whipping out a tooth pick, bubble gum, and a piece of string and rigging a swing that allows you to reach the other side of the chasm below without falling into it. While my beans died, and my precious tomato, the rainbow carrots are fine and my micro greens survived. While some families lost everything today in Wisconsin, others are celebrating that their children are alright. I have news for you folks, trauma, follows you and kicks your ass for a lifetime. You don’t realize how under water you are. Soon you will. But through this tragedy some survived. And some of those survivors, will over come the trauma to provide as much to the world as my peas used to offer me. They will go on to live amazing lives in spite of this moment and this tragedy.

Tomorrow, after I sleep in, I too, will over come today’s exhaustion from being over worked. Tomorrow, only thing on my docket aside from the standard daily triage, is replanting my greenhouse full of food. Because that is what homesteaders do when they fall down. They get back up, they dust themselves off and they shout at the world in true Molly Brown, Fashion, “I ain’t down yet!” Then, we keep going. Why? Because we are the impact we have on our world, ourselves, each other, the deep dark winter night, and the natural world around us. We choose that impact. I chose to solve my allergy issue by coming out here, to homestead. Homesteaders are like Goonies, in overalls. We never say die. No matter what tragedy happens. We pick up and begin again.

Perhaps it is time we all take a moment to stop, and ask ourselves who we want to be and what we want our impact to be. Because the way I see it, we have become so very destructive of each other forgetting, that we are all members of the sangha of samsara. We all impact each other. Sometimes by being jerks at school to someone. We don’t know what kind of a moment that person is having outside school hours. We don’t know if they have the strength not to snap. We don’t know what goes on half the time within ourselves and yet we act often cruelly assuming someone else can be a recepticle for our negativity… We do it because we are afraid of who we are. We do it because we fear the parts of ourselves we don’t understand. We do it for so very many reasons… We have to find a way to stop the cycle we are caught in. As I see it, there is only one way out. Compassion, for each other, the plants in the greenhouse, the forest, the darkness of the cold winter night, and ourselves.

Making this moment was a bright moment in a dark and fraught day for me. I could hoard it for myself. Just as I could hoard the candy we made for myself. But we are all here practicing how to live together. So I will share, and it might be that I have shared this recipe here in the past. I don’t remember. Been keeping this blog on and off for some time now. Much of it has been lost. Much of it remains. Every day isn’t a new adventure on the homestead. We live here in cycles. We go round and round through the seasons. We often repeat the tried and true, because, the idea is to survive as independently as possible. There is always the chance something new doesn’t work out. And still, we are always adding at regular intervals to our skill set and the life we live here together. The life we all live here together on this dying world that we have the power to save.

Sea Foam Candy

Materials:
Pot
Candy thermometer
Wooden Spoon
measuring cups
Measuring spoons
Chocolate Pot
Spoon for mixing chocolate
Cookie sheets
9 by 9 pan
baking paper
stove
fridge

Ingredients:
1 cup cane sugar
1 cup dark corn syrup
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 table spoon baking soda
1 lb of chocolate chips
1 teaspoon vegetable shortening.
Colorful holiday decorative sugar optional

Start by lining the 9 by nine pan with making paper to ensure the candy poured into it won’t stick to the pan. Then set up your tray/s and chocolate pot near each other. Make sure to lay baking paper down on the cookie sheet too, for the same reason, preventing sticking.

Pour the sugar, corn syrup, and vinegar, into the pot. Set the stove to medium and mix them together continuously until the sugar dissolves. At this point stop stirring and stick in your thermometer careful to keep it from touching the metal bottom of the pot but ensuring it goes in deep enough to get a good read on the temperature of the liquid. Gradually, over several minutes, you will see the temperature of the liquid rise. Turn off the stove the second it hits 300 degrees, and quickly pour in and mix in the baking soda. It will kind of fizz up. Once you give it a good quick little mix, pour it into the 9 by 9 pan. Allow it to sit a while to harden. Then, chop it up into pieces. It will be crunchy and brittle so cut with care and expect it to shatter in shards a bit. That is ok. Pour the chocolate into the chocolate pot. Add in the shortening. Allow to sit a bit but also stir fairly regularly as it melts to get an even soupiness. Once it is chocolate soup, dip the pieces of sea foam candy in chocolate, then lay them on the papered cookie sheet. Once the cookie sheet is covered in pieces set a few inches apart, if you want sprinkle the decorative holiday sugar over them. Place the tray in the fridge over night so the chocolate can harden. Repeat on the second tray if you still have sea foam candy chunks after the first tray is covered. In the morning, put them in a plastic container kept in the fridge or in a zip lock bag.

I often give them away wrapped in plastic wrap with a ribbon tied round, or in a small collection wrapped in plastic with a ribbon holding the opening of the plastic sheet closed. These make great gifts and they are low cost. Another time I will discuss my philosophy of what Christmas should be, verses what it is. Just know these are something I give away every year and people are always thrilled to receive it. Somehow this candy can brighten the worst day. And it is kind of old fashioned and it is hard to find these days. Still it is wonderful and memorable. So a great gift.

My apologies for being so long tonight…
Just processing some difficult stuff today.
“Tomorrow” as Scarlett O’Hara, once said “is another day.”
Another chance to try to live with more compassion for each other.
Another day to try to understand ourselves better.
Another day to start over in the greenhouse.
Thank you for reading
Amanda Of Wildflower Farm.