Sunday Song Day: Anniversary 2020 Camp Edition, "Perth", "Wildflowers"

In an arc of Wednesday to Sunday, this household swept from a whirl of working late (<—Ian’s helping his company move), full-day remote learning, environmental activism, the flurry of pre-camp cooking/packing, and a business-buzzing morning of mentor meetings and Crystal launching a Facebook page showcasing some of what we’ll be offering through Your Kind Kitchen (<—I’ll be working on the website soon!); to the serenity and yearly respite of celebrating our anniversary at Stony Brook State Park.

Spring and Summer have a way of ratcheting themselves up with compounded maintenance/yard/life projects, and this yearly jaunt always falls at just the right time to take a good deep breath and wander around waterfalls, before approaching the roar of the year’s end.

Continue for (a condensed offering so I can wrap up this family weekend with my family): a photo project that has been going for 9 years now; photos from a park we’ve been visiting/loving every September for a decade; a song we all love, and one that forever makes me think of Q; a family living their healthiest/most energetic/strongest/happiest lives after now a full-year of plant-based feasting (<—this includes the 2-weeks-out-from-a-delayed-hernia-surgery Mama Bear who hiked 4 miles up and down stairs, and didn’t feel a speck of soreness the following morning when she got up to do another gorge hike); and examples of what this Plant-Based family feasts on while camping and how we do so zero-waste.

Live Kindly, Feast Kindly, Grow Forward.

Ian and I were married at Stony Brook in 2011 between these trees. We did the wedding at noon so we could have all the festivities early, and then continue the celebrating in the group campground with friends.

We now go back every year and take a picture in the same spot and continue the yearly camping. In some ways we’re the same old souls, in others we are complete opposites; but the laughter is more frequent, the love deeper, and surprisingly the health vastly bettered from that first shot to now. <3

Anniversary Shot 2020 / 15 Years together, 9 Married

When Ian and I started out, there was a lot of stumbling around while we figured out footing, and these days there is a steady wave of laughter, love, and learning. Not only is it good for own own hearts and growth, it’s best for Q who has to learn from us.

In a year where we’ve been with eachother more than ever, we found ourselves reveling in even closer proximity and time, and that’s saying something. <3 I’d ride out a pandemic with these two and happily sign up for more time to boot.

This tent is from 2010 and has seen many a forest and beach, and it always tugs at my heart a bit to see Q helping with its set-up now.

15 years ago, our camping meal would have been some manner of processed/cured animal product, chips + highly processed bread, and a hoard of sugary delights. It’s as much as a surprise to ourselves (as it is I’m sure the bulk of people who knew us in college), that there is now a picture of me fixing healthy plates (swiss chard, quick-pickled cabbage, balsamic tomatoes, beets, roasted red peppers, and whole-grain bread I’d made myself that morning) while Ian roasts up sweet potatoes and veggie burgers.

We keep this all zero-waste by bringing our food in glass containers that are oven safe (<—they are also grill safe, when done right), and we bring along dishes and camp gear than can be rinsed clean and used again. The glory of Beyond Beef products? They come in either a cardboard than can be burned or a plastic sheet than can be recycled at home (<— in fact, the only thing in our “garbage” was that wrapper!)

Everything else is a plant or something I made (<—all zero-waste as they come from a CSA loop and/or bulk and recyclable.)

Also of note: every year before this year we woke up sluggish, stiff, and sore. This year we were all limber, energetic, and clear-headed… and we’ve never waxed on about what we were eating as much as we did this year. We loved every dang thing we ate every moment we were eating it.

Flexibility: letting Q stay up a little later to enjoy the thrill of camp-life…even if “thrill” means testing out what dirt looks like through the beam of a headlamp. :-)

Routine: reading every night before bed (even when camping). :-)

Early morning camp coffee prep. <3 Neither of us are sure why, but both mornings this process created some of the best coffee we’ve had EVER (<—and Ian’s the kind of soul who really loves coffee, so we’ve been to a lot of big-name cafes in our day) and it was through a camping french press and Aldi organic/fair-trade-single-origin Nicaraguan. (<—less than $4.)

Camp Kiddo Breakfast: Peanut butter, cashew cream, and jam sandwich on homemade whole-grain bread.

Stony Brook had some changes in trail availability this year due to construction and COVID (they had a one-way process posted for the gorge), so we tried the rim trails for the first time and were afforded some stirring views.

And also a llllllllot of stairs. :-) At first this made me worried because I am 2 weeks out from abdominal surgery and last week I was still moving at a snail-pace, but I took them carefully and didn’t a lot of diastasis recti breathing while navigating them.

Stairs going up and stairs going down. :-)

On our way back, we noticed that the gorge trail had been opened (it’d had been shut —with a lot of prosecutorial signage— with additional sounds of construction earlier in the morning), so we ate a quick brunch and headed back out to get time in the gorge.

Here seen: whole-grain bread, buffalo-seasoned hempeh, roasted red pepper, quick-pickled cabbage, and cashew queso.

And back out to do some more stairs. :-D

What I love about gorge hiking is that it will always be different, so there are always new things to discover. Nature is powerful and unrelenting, thus the views in this canyon are every year different due to the battering of life it has endured. It’s like us: always changing.

“Mama, I found you an M for ‘Mama’!”

A week ago, I purchased a cot for this trip because I was concerned I’d still be too difficult for me to get up and down from the ground. I thought maybe I’d walk from the camp-opening to the first waterfall, and then Ian and Q would carry on because I’d still be recovering; but within the week I started feeling more and more limber.

Somehow we hiked more (longer and more elevation) this year than we have any year we’ve ever come to Stony Brook. Usually we do a back-and-forth circuit of the gorge trail, and this year we did an up and down circuit of the West Rim, back down the gorge trail, and did the East Rim.

What was expected to be limited and restful, ended up being energizing and full of fresh views…and stairs. :-D

Signs of humanity that made us all wail. You’d think up in the middle of a forest that you could get away from humanity’s lack of care for the planet, but nope!

Q filled the air with tales of Hogwarts’ Forbidden Forest and hopes of running into Aragog.

Additional yearly visit: the Dansville used bookstore. Ian loves a used bookstore, and it’s become a tradition to hike hard in the early day and then head into town to let Ian peruse old books.

Camp-Site Life 2020: Q on a loop between the fire and his hill, Ian using his camp-fire wizardry to heat up a big glass container of chili.

Me - “Dinner’s Ready!”
Q - “That can’t be ready. There’s nothing green on the plate!”

Here seen, a rare greenless-meal: Cappello Chili (<— has green lentils, though :-) ). quick-pickled cabbage, cashew queso, cornbread (made with blue cornmeal), and sweet potatoes.

Ian’s heating up brownies! <3

Camp Dessert: fire toasted brownie, cashew cream, almond butter, berry sauce, banana, and crushed up graham cracker.

Love <3 (<—The sounds associated with these two are either laughter, Q telling some tale, Ian amiably acting out whatever character has been assigned to him, or Ian teaching Q something.)

Camp-Life 2020: 36 degrees at night (airing our the drool and steam puddle from Quill) and the added benefit of that post-surgical cot making storage space and a far more manageable tent. (<—small joys)

It was a bright, crispy-cold (mid 30s) morning and headed back onto the trail early.

Prepping camp brunch & flipping through Chamber of Secrets.

This was delicious and a total “treat”, yet I still found myself wishing there was something green on this plate. Given that I used to be able to go months without eating a single green thing, this whole mindset shift continues to astound me.

Here seen Camp Brunch (a lot of camp leftovers): plant-based bacon, 1/2 a Beyond Burger, sweet potato, quick-pickled cabbage, whole-grain bread, banana, and berry sauce.

One last creek trek before leaving. <3

Q conked out soon after we got on the road.

Q woke up (or rather, let us know that he was awake), by asking if we could listen to Bon Iver’s “Perth” one more time, and we happily obliged.

Ian and I have been sharing music back and forth since our first moments together, roadtrips are always paired with music, and memories of seeing those bands live are interwoven with the whole whirl. It’s deeply appreciated that Q shares that love, is thoroughly saturated in mixes of our favorite music, and will tell us how a song makes him feel, a lyric he enjoys, etc.

Something about the way the rhythm of “Perth” buzzes your whole chest (<—Ian and I felt that in-person 9 years ago in Prospect Park and it’s one of our favorite concerts ever) and the way the horns blare in toward the end, always makes my heart feel burst and bettered. There was a time I couldn’t listen to this song loud enough through my headphones, and it’d just get played in a repeating loop as I walked NYC; and there’s a dear tug to the ticker that Q now relays a similar pull and feels the need to listen to it twice over to get the whole emotional whirl.

Traditions and Change

For the last several years, we’ve met my dad out to eat on our journey home (<—a way for him to celebrate our anniversary with us too). For years this was usually some way for us to get a burger into us, and we’d then slump home and thoroughly be laid up.
We changed it up, and continuing on the plant-strong path we met with my dad at Strong Hearts and had a delicious meal.

Local? Their brunch has a lot of the standard delights, but mostly importantly: it has some AMAZING whole fingerling potatoes that have been smashed, fried, and sprinkled with garlic oil and plant-based parm. The skins are super crispy and easy to bite right through, the insides are soft and have that awesome starchy pull of great/tiny potatoes (<—the whole combo reminds me of a donut, but it’s a potato!), and whatever magic they did on the outside was delightful. They serve it with some manner of house-made vegan garlic aoli and ketchup and Q was in Hobbit Heaven. We were too! <3

When your cub is growing so much that he outgrew his fall shoes, and your father sweetly buys him a new pair of boots.

The first song Q ever declared to be his favorite was decreed at 2, and it’s still the most likely to get a big beam to break across his face like cloud-to-sun: Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers”

On the drive back, this popped up on the mix, we got the usual sigh from the backseat, followed by “My favorite!”, and my mind was flooded with the hundreds of times this song has played in our lives (by repeat and chance) and how very Quillan it is:

You belong among the wildflowers
You belong in a boat out at sea
You belong with your love on your arm
You belong somewhere you feel free

He spent the weekend literally rolling around grass (and continuing on down the slope) on repeat, splashing within a gorge, filling the air with adventurous narratives, and we love the heck out of every moment we get with his sweet soul.

When you get home and wan to get as much bright and whole-food in you as possible.

Plant-Based Family Feasting: a whole bunch of Swiss chard (with diced stalks as well), yellow bell pepper, black rice, quick-pickled cabbage, balsamic tomatoes, kalamata olives, quick-pickled beets Tara gave Ian for his birthday, and topped with Q’s sesame dressing.

This time last year I was preparing for our annual camping trip to our wedding park, wrapping up all the paperwork and heart strings of 7 years working in the developmental disability realm, navigating that sweetly particular American stress of knowing I’d have no health insurance for a several months, and thrilled as heck to be starting work at a beloved greenhouse; this year I am re-navigating my life through the tectonic shifting 2020 has brought to all, recovering from a surgery for a hernia that should have been cared for 5 years ago (<—again, American health care is a calamity!), stumbling through remote learning with my kindergartner, starting a business; and somehow I still feel better now than I did the year before, and the year before that,and on down the line.

I have more energy and passion now than I’ve ever had….which is good because the earth needs more wide-awake & active folks pushing back against environmental collapse.

What’s the most impactful thing you can do as an individual to help your kin, community, millions of species, and planet? Transition as plant-based as possible.🌎♥️

Why? Plant-Based foods are environmentally imperative 🌎. They also promote ideal health💪 (which takes stress off our overburdened health care system), are inexpensive🙌, delicious🤤, & compassionate. 💕  

Why imperative, though? 🤔We’re approaching (& have crossed) climate tipping points that will doom our kin & millions of other species. 😱📣Reducing/eliminating animal products is the *most impactful thing an individual can do* to prevent worse. 🌎🔥

Why? Animal Agriculture creates more emissions than the entire transportation sector combined, it’s tied to water waste/loss/pollution (<-- freshwater is our most precious resource💧), land loss/deforestation (<-- exacerbates climate change by reducing our ability to sequester carbon🔥🌎), ocean acidification (<-- FYI 50-85% of earth’s oxygen originates from oceanic plankton🌊) & vast species loss/extinction/suffering💔📣🌎

Plus, consuming animal products is tied to increased risk of cardiovascular disease❤️‍🩹, diabetes👎, cancer👎, and chronic disease👎; whereas Plant-Based feasting is linked to preventing/reversing some of our most common diseases (<— like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer); plus it promotes ideal health & robust strength (ie Olympians, Weightlifters, Endurance Athletes are thriving via PBWFs too). 🎉🙌♥️

What organizations are promoting plant-based diets for best health and environmental stability? National Institutes of Health,  Mayo Clinic, Yale, the United Nations, Harvard School of Health,  American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, The American Academy of Pediatrics, National Kidney Foundation, even the Parkinson’s Foundation.

We’re all overwhelmed in one way or another, but for the sake of our kin (and the millions of species we share this planet with) we need to start pivoting forward. As someone who once rarely ate green things & used to eat animal products at every meal, I can assure you that is possible, affordable, enjoyable, & purposeful to pivot Plant-Based. In fact, our whole family is now healthier/stronger than ever. 🙌♥️

Anecdotally, our son had failure-to-thrive, was also plagued with perpetual ear-infections/sinus-infections, and had an omnipresent runny nose. What was he eating? Grass-fed milk, organic/antibiotic-free/grass-fed/local meats, eggs from organic-fed/well-loved chickens from a neighbor, every meal came with vegetables, and we limited junkfood. He was healed via a plant-based diet: he’s launched out of that diagnosis and the last time he had a sinus-infection (or was sick at all) was in 2019 when he had some cheese at a school Christmas party. Before shifting to PBWF’s he was sick every month, and how he’s a robust, vital, thriving kiddo. 🙌🎉♥️

If you think any of the above sounds over-reached/absurd/impossible, please go read the links above. I understand the inclination to hackle-raise (<—because I was once totally there) but the science is clear: any step we make forward is imperative (<—and again “STEPS” is the focus. Don’t leap, just start making steps!). It’s as simple as starting with one meal a week and growing from there.💕

We have the ability (deliciously, healthfully, kindly, inexpensively) to *preserve/protect* the planet we share with millions of species & our kin. How are we going to use that power today?✌️🤟🖖