Author Archives: maya

on feeding a family

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When it comes to feeding myself and my family, I have high ambitions. I want us to eat super nutrient-dense meals based on fresh vegetables. I want starches to mostly come from perennials (tree food). I want high quality meat & fat, bone broth, and ferments. And I want all this to have variety, taste really good (so my 5-year-old will eat it*), be simple & quick to prepare, and not cost 90% of my household income. Do you have similar ambitions? But it’s hard! It got to the point where deciding what to make for meals each day was a significant source of stress. Stressing about the abundant, high-quality food we get to eat is embarrassing. Talk about first-world problems. But if you are the primary cook in your family, I’m sure you can relate.

For some time now, I’ve been trying to crack this code and design a system (it’s always about designing a system in this house of permaculture fanatics). I’ve been watching my new neighbor/old friend Sarabeth feed her hungry family of six, one-pot, gut healing, meals three times a day (outside on her camp stove, no less! My hat goes off to you, Sara!). One day Sarabeth casually mentioned that they eat eggs for lunch everyday. That was an ah-ha moment for me, having lunch be the same thing everyday. Back in the fall, Damian & I started having a big green smoothie every morning, and it made a huge difference in my day -because it has a ridiculous amount of fiber and micronutrients, so feels great in my body, and also because I no longer had to decide what was for breakfast (a teacher once told me that “trying to decide” is basically the worst mental state you can be in). If we have our smoothie for breakfast, and eggs for lunch, we can eat some meat with dinner and all I have to decide is how to flavor my meal! I don’t know if I’m accurately conveying what a revelation this is for me.

In case you are curious, here’s how it plays out:

Breakfast for me and Damian: Giant green smoothie. Oliver is not yet a fan of this smoothie, so he gets some combination of fruit, nuts, yogurt & sometimes grain.

Lunch: best eggs in town (from our permaculture chickens)! I usually serve them fried or poached on a bed of arugula salad (from the garden). Oliver will eat arugula if there’s a balsamic dressing, so that’s nice. In theory a dried fig and a sprinkle of nuts in the salad are enough carbs, but in practice we usually want a little more and will have a chunk of acorn bread or a little rice. My other go-to egg meal right now is what I call “picnic” I boil the eggs and pack containers (or small plates) of olives, cheese cubes, carrot sticks, toasted nuts, mesquite crackers, sometimes hummus, sometimes nori… you get the idea. It tastes better outside. (apologies to my readers who are currently buried in snow). I like the idea that I can do quiche or okinamyaki or any number of other egg dishes, if I get sick of eggs as themselves.

Dinner: I like to make a potroast or roast a whole chicken and then eat it over the course of several days. Sometimes we’ll do ground beef patties or a can of sardines or a fish curry (in which case we eat rice). With some cooked sweet potato or winter squash and a big pile of sauteed greens (from the garden), some kraut, and a cup of broth with miso, it doesn’t take much meat to feel satisfied. If I’m feeling creative I’ll take the meat from the chicken or potroast and saute it with some aromatics or make a sauce so it tastes Mexican or Indian or whatever. These meals feel easy to put together and taste really good.

I’ve always tried to meal-plan, but the world of recipes is overwhelming. I really like this structure and how it goes along with the permaculture** principle of “limitations create abundance” this framework with a few fill-in-the-blanks to allow creativity (or stay super simple if I’m busy or tired) feels like I’ve finally cracked the code. Eating only a modest portion of meat at one meal a day helps our budget a lot. Having a huge garden and laying chickens makes a huge difference too.

*A note on kid eating: Oliver won’t eat a big pile of sauteed greens, but he’ll sometimes eat a few bites. He eats the seaweed in his miso. He’ll eat carrots, and piles of sauerkraut and sometimes broccoli… generally I just serve up nutrient dense food that tastes good to me and don’t sweat it if he doesn’t eat parts of it.

**sorry I keep preaching permaculture, I can’t help it.

 

 

on walking

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my family is pretty big into health. lately we’ve all been reading a ton of the lovable biomechanist, katy bowman. her book, move your dna, is definitely worth the read, but she has other books, a blog, and instagram, too. her advice is pretty much what we’ve been hearing from every health advocate ever; being sedentary is really, really bad for you. moving your body in lots of different ways for lots of the day is good for you. not exactly earth shattering, but getting more movement into my day has proved harder than i thought. i had this idea that since i do a lot of my living outdoors, i’m ahead of the game on the movement front. that may be true if i’m comparing my self to other people suburban america, but not so much if we are comparing anybody else in the world. i walk from my washer to the laundry line, i dump a 5 gallon bucket of greywater a few times a day, move hoses, and randomly putter on the property. but when i got a pedometer at the beginning of january, i discovered that even a more active than average day for me is less than 7000 steps. most days i top out a little over 5000. you’ve all heard of the 10,000 steps thing, right?  i’m pretty sure that when i lived in vancouver i got a lot closer to 10,000 steps without even trying, because i enjoyed walking the half mile to work, and it was the path of least resistance to run errands by foot & public transportation. here, i walk around my property, or will go for a hike nearby, but never walk for transportation.

yesterday oliver (age 4.5) and i decided to have an “adventure” by walking to our weekly homeschooling gathering. we made snacks and filled up our camelbaks and ventured out to trek the 1.6 miles. we both enjoyed the stroll very much and now i’m just kind of embarrassed that after living here for more than 10 years, i’ve walked to town only one other time. and that walking a mile and a half felt like an adventure. it’s just weird that using our legs as transportation has gotten so novel. i think i might even prefer walking over biking here. because soft sand and steep hills are no problem when going by foot, we could take a more direct route, and didn’t see a car the whole way. oliver had no trouble walking the whole way on his own, and had plenty of energy left over to play hard with his friends for several hours. maybe we’ll get super ambitious and walk to the library one of these days, or the post office! look out world!

there’s a way that walking for transportation here feels like a radical act. i guess because NOBODY does it. there are a handful of people who bike, and we are generally seen as either impoverished or crazy. people seen walking are assumed to be even more impoverished and/or crazy. honestly, if i see somebody walking along the street here, my first thought is, i wonder what’s wrong? should i give them a ride? but there is something liberating in leaving the car keys in their basket and just walking out the door to go somewhere. plus we can feel super smug about the fossil fuels we aren’t burning and the long term health benefits of fresh air and exercise. holding hands and conversation is easier when walking than biking or driving too.

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my letter to caltrans

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Dear CalTrans,

I am writing to request a widening of the shoulder to 4 feet on Sunburst Avenue in Joshua Tree. I am a mother of a preschooler. I live just off of Sunburst and the recent tragic death of Tim Kelly as he was cycling North on Sunburst happened less than 1 mile from my house. I believe biking is an excellent mode of transportation. It cuts down on traffic congestion, creates no fuel emissions, limits wear and tear on roads, and promotes an active, healthy lifestyle. I have invested in a mountain bike and bike trailer for my four-year-old son, and we often ride the 2 or 3 miles to play at Sunburst Park or attend Story Time at the Joshua Tree library. Every time we go anywhere on bike, we suit up with helmets, safety vests, and and a big orange flag. But even with all these precautions, I don’t feel safe riding in the road. There is simply not enough room for a car to safely pass a bike because there is no paved shoulder. I ride on the dirt shoulder going down the hill until we get to the paved bike path between the old elementary school and highway 62. But the dirt shoulder is soft sand and hard to ride on, it’s nearly impossible for me coming back up the hill pulling a 40lb kid trailer. A widened shoulder or extension of the bike path would make walking and biking between the community center and elementary school much safer, and I believe a lot more people would choose to walk or bike their kids to school if they could do so without fearing for their lives.

Thank you for your consideration of this topic, and thank you for all you already do to help our community stay safe.

Sincerely,

Maya Toccata

Joshua Tree, CA

chestnut applesauce cake (tree cake 2.0)

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you may remember last year i made damian tree cake for his birthday. this year i discovered chestnut flour. have you ever had chestnut flour? it’s so yummy! so sweet and mild! it’s a gluten-free baker’s dream. i got super excited about chestnuts after reading mark shepherd’s book, restoration agriculture. chestnuts will save the world! don’t worry, mesquite will save the world too. think of mesquite as desert chestnut… i don’t hear paleo and gluten free folks raving about chestnuts, but i’m pretty sure it won’t be long until they do. we just need a celebrity chef to make a chestnut bacon doughnut or something and next thing you know it’ll be chestnut everything in all the health food stores. right now it’s still a bit hard to find. i found some chestnut flour at whole foods, and found super affordable bags of organic peeled chestnuts at the korean market. i also found acorn flour at the korean market, which was quite the thrill, let me tell you.

so, the cake. it was so good! so so good. it was very easy to assemble, it held together well, rose nicely, had a moist crumb and great flavor. and the whole double recipe was devoured in minutes. with such wholesome ingredients, i’m thinking of making another just for snacking. sorry i didn’t take any pictures. we ate outside and the sun went down so it was too dark for my crappy phone camera.

chestnut acorn applesauce cake

adapted from fanny farmer’s applesauce cake

1/4 cup melted butter of coconut oil

1/2 cup coconut or date sugar, or honey

1 cup apple sauce

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups chestnut flour

1/2 cup acorn flour (available at asian markets)

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

mix it all up, pour into a greased 9in pan and bake at 350 (in the sun oven, of course) for 40 min, or until a toothpick comes out clean. top with whipped cream if desired.

productivity and parenting

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i recently read a great article about the importance of morning routines on productivity. it echoes and consolidates pretty much all the advice i’ve ever heard about feeling good and getting valuable work done. i’m very much a morning person and have designed my workdays to end at 2pm because my effectiveness pretty much falls off the cliff by 3. so if i was to be my own productivity guru, i’d recommend i get up at 6, exercise, “clock in” at work, then do a bunch of home projects and be officially done with everything goal oriented by 3. the afternoon and evening would be chill, and i’d go to bed early. sounds great, the only trouble is, i have a 3 year old. maybe that’s a big excuse, but i really don’t hear much helpful advice when it comes to being productive while being a full time parent. here’s my situation, tell me what you think:

i work at my job (from a home office) 2 mornings a week while damian is officially on parenting duty. damian also takes oliver for an hour a day while i exercise (in theory this happens everyday, anyway…). the rest of the week i’m full time parent. it’s not that damian doesn’t do any parenting other times, but he mostly works (he’s a permaculture designer and musician) and cleans up after us. as you may be aware, the kind of distraction free focus that productivity experts recommend we create and guard every day is not exactly possible with a 3 year old present.

oliver generally sleeps from 10pm-6:30am and naps from 2:30-5pm. in theory, i could be productive during this nice big chunk of nap time, except that is the time of day that i am the most brain dead. i need a lot of sleep, so if i got up before oliver, i’d need to go to bed before him also, which is not possible most nights because my husband is a musician. i’ve tried napping when oliver naps in hopes of getting up crazy early, but i either can’t fall asleep to nap, or if i do nap, i can’t fall asleep at night, so i’m back to square one. i’ve tried forcing oliver not to nap, but he’s just a wreck all afternoon and is so overtired and miserable that bedtime is long and painful, and he still gets up at the same time in the morning so that extra hour in the evening doesn’t really help me.

i’d love to have productive chunks of time every morning without my kid. i often have more work than will fit into my 8 hour workweek, and i usually end up doing it during nap time or evenings, even though i’m less efficient (sorry grace). and of course there are the 50 million personal projects (like writing blog posts! and designing our chicken tractor!) that i feel like go forever without any progress whatsoever.

so, what do your mornings look like? do you have any tricks to getting anything other than parenting and a couple loads of laundry (if you’re lucky) done in a day?

from conservation to obtaining a yield

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yesterday i read my sister-in-law’s great article about desert homesteading and it reminded me that i have some desert homesteading projects i’ve been meaning to write about. i signed into wordpress and what do you know, it’s been three months since i wrote anything at all, and i haven’t written anything permaculture related since may! oops. it’s been a busy summer and fall… we’ve been digging swales, planting trees, starting a desert plants nursery, doing permaculture design work for neighbors, going on apple and acorn harvesting missions, experimenting with palo verde flour, fermenting stuff, and oh yeah, working at our jobs that pay money. (check out the instagram feed in the side bar for pics of the wicking bed, baby mesquite trees and new swales.)

thus far our permaculture endeavors have mostly cost money, but permaculture principles state “obtain a yield” and “share the surplus” so you could argue that we are not yet successfully doing permaculture. we are ready to change that. we’re brainstorming about value added crops, refreshing our chicken system (the hens we got 9 years ago have quit laying), and aquaponics.

focusing on systems that minimize the stupid use of water and fossil fuels is a good starting place, but now we want to move beyond conservation and see just how abundant we can get this piece of earth.

a letter to my 3-year-old

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dear oliver,

i’ll just tell you right now, this is a love letter. there’s no denying it. i am head over heals in love with you. it’s that crazy kind of love that i want to shout from the mountain top. this love is irrational and all-consuming. i can’t help it. i just think you are the very greatest. when you turned one, i published your birth story. when you were two, i wrote you a somewhat desperate letter. but today, my ollie, today, you are three, and i have nothing but praise. sure, you struggle plenty as you develop that pre-frontal cortex. and i reach the end of my rope often. i loose it sometimes… but more and more you are an utter pleasure to be with. you speak kindly and impress people with your “thank you so much!” and your “excuse me, mama…” people often comment on how verbal you are and we all get such joy out of conversing with you these days. you are full of great ideas like sharing fruit with our neighbors, or mesquite bunny crackers. i love how you pronounce festival, “festibal” and tell your papa to “send me a text.” you give great kisses and hugs, and randomly exclaim that you love us. recently you commented that something was “stress-able.” i asked you what you meant and you said, “you know, like, yelling.” i think you are really smart. you like to riff on words and rhythms. “crack an egg, crocodile.”

i love your physicality and how you move your growing body. you can ride FAST on your balance bike and aren’t afraid to try new challenges at the skate park. you know yourself, though and don’t try anything outright dangerous. generally, when you want to go somewhere, you don’t walk or run, you gallop. -a modified skip that i better get on video before it’s too late.

your focus and patience is increasing every day and you are a joy to work with on projects like paper mache, or even vacuuming or doing the dishes (sometimes). i love how you are using your imagination more and you can tell us stories. you are figuring out so much all the time. you want to know the what-where-why about everything and your questions are getting more complex.

you are starting to learn what is pleasing and displeasing to the people in your life and often choose actions that will please. we are very charmed when you do this! the other day a friend of yours was crying because he wanted a toy that another kid was playing with. once you understood the situation you marched over to the kid and emphatically explained why they should give up the toy “to make jonah feel happy and not cry).

oliver lee, we are so glad that you are here with us!

love,

mama

 

the very impressive system

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just realized you haven’t seen this impressive cooler-washer-tree system that was so impressive to our neighbors. well, here it is, in all it’s glory:

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the top barrel collects the water from the output lines of our 2 evaporative coolers. this water has cycled through the jute cooler pads and is slightly higher in minerals because of evaporation, but is otherwise basically clean. when i do a load of laundry i fill up the washer from this barrel for the wash cycle. i just put the hose straight in the washer. i tried hooking it up to the washer line, but there isn’t enough pressure to fill from there. for the rinse cycle i use fresh water that fills automatically from the washer line. both the wash and the rinse water dumps out into the lower blue barrel. from here we have a spigot and hose and can water pretty much anywhere on the property. one wash is about 45 gallons. i move the hose to a new tree every time i do laundry there are 7 trees that only get watered this way. i do laundry about 3 times a week and this is enough for the jujube trees, but the apricots always look bad before i move the hose back to them.

 

permaculture tour

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permaculture tour

yesterday we had about 30 people show up to check out what we’ve done on the property so far. it was very satisfying to see people taking notes on everything damian said. i also liked it when they oohed and ahhed over our evaporative cooler to washer to trees grey water set up.

the art of house-guestery

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every time we have house guests or are guests in someone’s home, i learn a little something more about myself and how i want to be as a host and/or guest. we just said goodbye to some dream house guests. the pleasure of having them got me thinking about what the differences are between house guest situations that leave me burnt out, and those that leave me inspired.  i came up with the following advice for myself. i’m not sure how universal this advice is, so don’t blame me if your next visit with your japanese grandparents-in-law doesn’t go well because you followed my advice.
on being a host

  • do what you can do to make things clean, lovely, and welcoming, as long as you are feeling happy and generous while doing it.
  • don’t stress yourself out striving for a level of perfection (or even lack of squalor) in an exhasting cleaning and cooking frenzy. it’s awkward for your guests if they feel like they are making your life difficult.
  • buy/make good food, beer and coffee so it feels abundant and celebratory. (if you can afford to and it feels good.)
  • don’t over extend yourself or think you need to cook every meal, do all the dishes, and be everybody’s mommy.
  • give a little orientation so your guests know the wi-fi password and how you like things done and can make themselves at home.
  • elicit help with cooking, dishes, baby bouncing if your guests haven’t already offered. take them up on the help when they do offer.
  • be clear about what works for you and what doesn’t, don’t expect your guests to read your mind. if you need to go to bed, go to bed. if you need quiet to put the baby down, say so.
  • take a little vacation from everyday life. relax and enjoy your company.

on being a guest

  • give what you got. bring a little something or ask if you can pick anything up on your way. tell stories, give appreciations. if you have a nice camera, take a portrait, if you’re handy, fix a door knob. make it clear that you are glad to be there.
  • keep your phone/computer use at an absolute minimum, especially in common areas. it’s rude to be in your own bubble in someone else’s home.
  • communicate well in advance about your plans and intentions, duration of stay, etc. give a good eta and updates as needed.
  • err on the side of asking permission. “tis better to ask permission than forgiveness” pay close attention to enthusiasm levels if you are asking to stay more than a night or two. a lot of people have deep politeness ingrained in them but will privately feel resentful.
  • except, don’t ask if you can do the dishes. just do them. if you are dealing with overly polite people, they may put up a fuss, but you have to insist on this. do the dishes. they will be so happy.
  • play with the kids. if your hosts are parents and you pay attention to their kids and act like you like their kids… oh, this makes parents so so happy! but do remember you are an adult and it’s your job to de-escalate if you get the kids all crazy rowdy.

case study A: not good
a person I’ve known for quiet a while and i like very much (whom I’ll call Pat since my intention is not to publicly humiliate my friends) contacted me while traveling with their significant other, and asked if they could stay. i said “yes!”
i then proceeded to cook and clean and change sheets and grocery shop in preparation. when pat & co showed up (a couple hours later than they told me they would), they spread out their stuff in my very small living room and asked me for the wi-fi password.  they then both stared at their laptops while i made dinner. we had dinner, i did all the dishes, they went to bed. the next morning i made an elaborate breakfast and they were back in laptop land. we had breakfast and some small talk, i did all the dishes, and they had a conversation with each other. then they left. i felt burnt out and slightly used. if i had it to do over i would say something like, “hey pat, i want to hear about your trip, tell me about it while we clear the dinner dishes.” and i wouldn’t have continued to bend over backwards in hospitality mode for guests who weren’t that excited to be here.

case study B: adrian dolan and his friend, bear. best house guests EVER

i’m using real names because i want to publicly celebrate these gentlemen*

adrian is an old pal from my teenage years in BC. he let me know a week in advance that he’d be in our area with a friend and would like to get together. i said “come stay with us!” he gave me a date and updated me several times with their whereabouts. i made up the beds but didn’t knock myself out on the cleaning. damian and i showed them around and then ollie and i went with them into the national park where we had a grand time. on the way home we stopped for dinner supplies and they insisted on picking up the tab. adrian helped me cook while bear read oliver stories. we drank beer and ate yummy tacos and then adrian and i visited while we cleaned up and bear and nathen chatted and played with ollie. in the morning i made a yummy breakfast and bear kept me company while drawing with ollie. after we ate, adrian spent more than an hour patiently showing ollie all the gear in his sound engineering case. ollie’s comment; “i REALLY like batteries!” bear did the dishes. we hung out a little more and then they left. oliver’s comment; “i really like those mans! i’m sad that they left. i’m sad that they left with that bag…” i was sad that they left too.

*actually, almost all of our house guests are fantastic. it’s an honor and a pleasure to share our space with our friends and i want to do it more.