Slow-Small Media for the Weekend #10

(Above: F and I like to have fires in the backyard, whatever the weather. A recent violet dusk.)

Does it feel to you like the weeks are whizzing by? Friday seems to come around faster and faster lately. Here we are again!

I’ve had some lovely feedback for these Slow-Small Media digests. Thanks to everyone who has been in touch. I’m so glad you’re enjoying them. I really enjoy ‘foraging’ for things to share with you. 

A ‘corny’ song

This week’s addition to the slow-growing Slow-Small Media playlist, is ‘Close My Eyes’ by Arthur Russell. 

I was new to Arthur Russell until I recently watched this fascinating documentary about him. (I love music documentaries even if I don’t know the subject. I find a lot of new-to-me music this way.) 

If you’ve been reading these Friday digests since the beginning, you’ll probably know by now that I love nature-based songs, or songs that reference growing food and tending gardens. This beautiful soft song references a corn field: 

‘Will the corn be growing a little tonight

As I wait in the fields for you

Who knows what grows in the morning light

When we can feel the watery dew.’

(I add one carefully-considered song per week. You can find the whole playlist here. It’s nice to listen to on a weekend morning.)

An ‘Eat the Weeds’ Pesto

I am a massive Nicola Galloway fan so it meant a lot to me that she gave ‘A Forager’s Life’ a little shout-out in this column in ‘Life and Leisure’ magazine. 

In the article she shares a delicious version of a foraged weeds pesto.

Pesto is one of the best ways to ‘sneak’ weeds into your family’s diet if they are weed-resistant. They’ll never know once it’s all blended up and on pasta or some crackers. (Other good ways are soups, smoothies and quiches.) 

Something to watch: a fascinating wild honey bee conservationist making beautiful hives from wood and rushes

In the UK, Wild honey bee conservationist and carpenter, Matt Somerville, has designed a beautiful, natural, handmade hive habitat and over the last 14 years has installed 800 (!) for the wild bees. No honey is ever harvested from these hives – they are installed just to support wild honey bee biodiversity. 

This beautiful 12 minute film about Matt’s work is inspiring in terms of how much of a difference one person with a big passion can make. I so appreciate that he wanted the hives to look appealing as well as being beneficial. 

Some sweet, sweet cakes that are food for the eyes only: 

Artist Heather Rios makes delightful cakes from polymer clay and embroidery.

A feast for the eyes and oddly uplifting to regard, I found.  

 (Above: photograph borrowed from FrogsbyGigi.) 

Affordable Art: 

Felt Shop artist Gigi handknits frogs and dresses them in tiny jerseys or overalls.

They come in under the $50 budge for affordable art and although you might argue they are toys not art, I’ll bet most of them are purchased by adults and then perched on bookshelves and desks…which means they are qualify as works of art. 😉 

Aren’t they adorable?

‘This is the best domestic perfume: an ode to the humble onion

I like how in this week’s poem William Matthews elevates the humble onion to it’s rightful place as the beginning of many things good in the kitchen. 

This poem reminds me how good poems are all about looking at things, even humble things, very closely and being curious about what’s to be found there. Over the years, I have written poems about garlic, pasta sauce, my bicycle, and many other tangible things.

An Anarchist Gardener’s Club on Substack!

I think I know who the writer is behind this fabulous ‘Anarchist Gardener’s Club’ on Substack…

…enjoy their call for collective green-fingered mischief!

“We will cultivate whatever we can.
We will grow flowers in the cracks.
We will seed bomb every desolate corner of the scrub land.
We will enjoy a brew and a biscuit as we do it.”

Count me in!

*

I’m always overly-ambitious for how much I can fit into a weekend.

Here’s my ‘might-do’ list for this weekend.

-make kimchi. We got a beautiful cabbage in our CSA box and it’s calling to become kimchi, I think.

-plant the dahlia bulbs I dug up and divided two weekends ago

-work on my poetry manuscript some more

-do some food prep ahead of the week -mostly washing and chopping vegetables- so we are more likely to eat them in salads and stir-fries

-finish reading this wonderful book by Nadine Hura 

I think that’s enough of a list, hey? If I even get a couple of those things done I will feel content. 

What’s on your ‘might do’ list for the weekend?

Try not to do too much, hey? And always factor in some fun.