this moment
{this moment}
A Friday Ritual; a moment to savor and remember from the week.
* what is it about fathers and daughters?
* have you entered the giveaway yet?
When I had a baby and toddler—a baby who wanted nothing more than to squirm back into my soundproof uterus and a toddler who wanted nothing more than to live on a chugging, clanging steam train—I wondered, regularly, if simply remembering to floss my own teeth really counted as a sign of “coping well.”
Before children, I managed an herb shop and wrote for several regional magazines. Now, I was a stay at home mom, managing naps, deciphering poops and compulsively scribbling thoughts and observations on random scraps of paper. Recently, I found this note, from 2007, “Just went into Col’s room where he was supposed to be napping but was dismantling his shelves instead. He held up a board and said “Don’t let Rosie in! This is chokeable!”
It’s possible that I was a teensy bit depressed.
And, not surprisingly, it was writing that pulled me out of the trenches (or at least gave me something to do during nap time). I began writing a bi-monthly column just before Rose turned one, called Adventures in Motherhood, for my local newspaper (which, four years later, I still write). Dan would often ask, worried, “honey? You’re with the kids all day and then you write about them too?”
Giving my stories a voice frees me from being buried by them, helps me to unravel deeper meanings, and allows me to press pause on the fast-moving train that is our lives.
And today, I’m passing onto all you Mama writers, two opportunities to win a copy of Kate Hopper’s recently published book, use your words: a writing guide for mothers.
Kate Hopper teaches writing online and at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, where she lives with her husband and two daughters. Kate holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota and has been the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, a Minnesota State Arts Board Grant, and a Sustainable Arts Grant. Her writing has appeared in a number of journals, including Brevity, Literary Mama, and The New York Times online. She is an editor at Literary Mama. For more information about Kate’s writing and classes, visit www.katehopper.com.
Use your words is a treasure for any mother who wants to write. Kate Hopper, who has taught writing classes for nearly a decade, guides her reader through topics such as Using humor as a tool, Writing the hard stuff, Keeping the momentum going, Publishing: from blogs to books. Each chapter contains practical tips, exercises and powerful writing examples from writers such as (my favorites) Beth Kephart, Catherine Newman and Anne Lamott.
Use your words meets you exactly where you are. If you’re just finding your voice and need help generating ideas and creating writerly habits; if you’ve published your work and want help refining and polishing; if you simply want to create some stories about life, now, that your kids can someday appreciate. There is something in this book for you.
To win a book:
1) Leave a comment on this post (okay, that was easy)
and/or
2) Write an essay (600 words or less) using this writing prompt:
Character Sketch
Think of your child (or one of your children if you have more than one). Try to convey his personality by using dialogue, gestures, and facial features. Ground your writing in detail. It may help to think in terms of objects—what your child eats, what he likes to play with, his hobbies. What does her face look like when she is absorbed in a task? What does she look like when she doesn’t realize that you’re watching?
Note: Some of my students who have twins have found that they cannot write about one without writing about the other. If you have multiples and feel this way, go ahead and write them together in a scene. Think in terms of differences and similarities. When are they most alike, most different?
E-mail me your essay by May 3oth and I will choose my favorite, which will be passed onto Kate Hopper, along with the other winners from the use your words book tour. Kate will select a winner, whose essay will be published on Literary Mama, and who will also receive (in addition to the book), a 1-hour writing consultation with Kate via skype or phone.
Go forth and write!
D.I.Y. Kitchen: Energy Nuggets
pina-colada energy nuggets
almond-joy energy nuggets
Last week, prepping for camping, I asked Col what meals we should pack.
“Um, beans, tortillas, noodles, bread, apples, carrots, peanut butter and…” he stopped, shrugged and said “lets just pick acorns and Daddy can shoot a squirrel.”*
I know what he’s talking about. All this shopping and cooking and swiping peanut butter across bread; all this cheering the kids on to eat vegetables, and then sliding the dregs of those uneaten vegetables into the bucket of chicken scraps; all this washing of breakfast dishes while the kids are already lobbying for a morning snack. Sometimes it seems our life occurs in the brief recesses between eating, or maybe our life is the eating.
Last week the kids and I made a couple gallons of granola and it was so beautiful and satisfying to look at that when everyone tore into it, I caught myself thinking–in a Eeyore-ish way–“Oh, now everyone’s just going to eat it?”
I don’t recall any parenting books mentioning the sheer number of snacks kids require. It’s like day trading on Wall Street, getting a group of kids together at the park with their snacks. We just returned from a wonderful camping trip with four families and every time a parent brought out a new snack it was like feeding frenzy at the fish hatchery with every child edging closer, circling a container of strawberries.
Col and Rose love these energy nuggets, they really do, but I won’t lie and pretend they wouldn’t love them ten times more if they came in a wrapper. I’m the worst at making food appealing for kids. If I can’t find the gumption to shave my legs, it’s unlikely I’ll ever be shaping carrots into flowers. I’ve been known to pack a jar of peanut butter and honey with three spoons and head out to the park because sometimes it’s just about cramming the kids with calories so they can go play and we can stop talking about food.
But these energy nuggets are so good, and crazy-healthy. Dates, almonds, walnuts, coconut, chocolate, pineapple and apricots are all listed in the book, The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth, and those are the ingredients I use, although you could swap many things in or out.
Energy Nuggets
*pina-colada*
makes 20-25
1/2 cup pitted dates
1/2 cup dried pineapple (cut and soaked in water for 10 minutes to soften)
3/4 cup nuts (I use walnuts or almond meal; any nut/seed combo would work)
1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
*almond joy*
makes 20-25
3/4 cup dates, pitted
1/2 cup unsweetened, shredded coconut
1/2 cup dried apricots
1/2 cup nuts
1/2 cup powdered dark, unsweetened chocolate
Mix in food processor (try half batches first to see what your food processor can handle). Shape into balls.
* if your mixture is too dry to shape, add extra dates, honey, or the water the pineapples soaked in.
* if your mixture is too moist, add more nuts or shredded coconut.
* we store these in the fridge if we’re going to eat them in the next 1-2 weeks, any longer, store in freezer.
* although these are the only two flavors I’ve made, I’m sure the combinations are endless.
Pitting dates is a good task for a child.
dates, almonds, coconut and pineapple – still a little dry. I’d add more dates here.
*Almond Joy* – which taste just like an almond joy… if you haven’t actually eaten one since 1998.
That’s a good-looking consistency.
Kati’s beautiful, goo-ball shaping hands.
Break for hugs! And yes, Kati *did* cut off her dreads, and looks fabulous.
Nugs in a jar.
*Dan’s never shot a squirrel, but there was this squirrel supper.
*Parenting E-Course winner announced on original post. I hate that I can’t pick everyone, because I can hear how interested everyone is. But, good news: Natalie is offering 10% off the course for any 6512 reader who signs up by Wednesday, May 16th 8pm. Just put “6512″ in the message section during check out. Natalie will refund you the 10% after check out. Go here to sign up!
what you need to know
It’s 5:37 am; sounds that can only be described as furniture pinball are coming from the kids’ room. I am sitting amongst an assembly line of envelopes, hollyhocks seeds, stamps.
Why are we all up at 5:37 am? Genetics and exuberance, I believe.
My friend Melanie recently asked me if I knew the people who read my blog. And I said something like “well, I know most of them, well not know know, like I’ve actually met them, but know know like I totally know who they are.”
Which clears up nothing. But someday someone will come up with a word for how you can know and like people without actually having ever met them.
And, any day now, 70 of you will be receiving little wheel-shaped hollyhock seeds in the mail – these tiny dry seeds that miraculously contain the potential of 8-foot high plants. Also, in the envelope are a palmful of morning glory seeds rattling around unpackaged, upsetting your mail carrier.
I so enjoyed addressing the envelopes, wondering how the hollyhocks would do in moist North Carolina or flat Ohio, and snickering childishly at the wonky Canadian zip codes (where letters and numbers mix!). And I wanted to write a personal note to each of you, because of how we know and like each other, or at least some planting instructions, but I also needed to go check on the furniture pinball game.
So here are some things to know about planting hollyhocks:
* Cover your Hollyhock seeds in a bit of dirt (any dirt should be fine, considering they grow in my gravel-packed walkways) (in pots or directly in the ground) and keep watered. That’s it! But, do keep them consistently wet until they sprout, so the germination inhibitors (fancy!) on the seed coat will break down.
* Their first “seed leaves” will look like this:
like little hearts holding hands
A week later, they will develop some true leaves and look like this:
Remember, being biennials, they will probably not bloom until their 2nd year, but they also won’t be any trouble either.
* You can water them as much or as little as you want. I don’t purposely water my hollyhocks, but I think they’ve worked out some arrangement with the lettuce that lives nearby.
Enjoy!
xo,
Rachel
* We’ve been on a chard binge lately.
That should be enough for breakfast.
* So many of you sweeties offered me seeds from your stashes. Okay, here’s what I could use: 6 sweet dumpling winter squash seeds, 6 delicata winter squash seeds, and 6 nastursium seeds. (I’m camping this weekend, so can’t respond to e-mails, but my return address is on your hollyhock seed envelope, so if you have seeds to spare, just send!)
* I told my friend Amy yesterday, on Rose’s birthday (THANKS for all the birthday comment love), that I wasn’t nostalgic for anyone’s babyhood, just happy to be where we are. Then I had the startling, breathtaking realization that 5 years ago I pushed a fully-formed baby—my baby!—out of my body. Then I went to Rose’s spring-sing performance, where 40 or so fresh-faced children sang their tirelessly-rehearsed songs, their voices ringing out like angel-poets explaining that at the heartbeat of the world is pure love.
And now I’m a teary mess, sniffling over Lionel Richie songs on the radio, blog posts about boys volunteering at the soup kitchen, and the very luckiness of another day with these kids of mine.
* If you entered the hollyhock giveaway (now closed) and have not received an e-mail from me requesting your address, e-mail me please (unless you know I have your address). And if you gave me your address and don’t receive your seeds by May 20th, let me know. And if you’re local, I’ve got your hollyhock plant. Come on by. (Nasha, I’m going to leave yours on your porch. xo.)
* Parenting E-Course Giveaway still open. Don’t parent without it.
* Still hearing that commenting is difficult on this site. And wordpress won’t talk to any non-paying users right now. So, I’m stumped. And sorry. And wondering if anyone has the skills to transfer me over to self-hosted Thesis site? Maybe we could work out a trade. I could send you 100 pounds of chard chips…or something.
Have a lovely weekend!
Five
Rose’s 2nd birthday May, 2009
Under same tree, May 2012
“Coley, this spot here is for the truffles,” Rose explains, pointing to a nifty folding bench on her lego airplane.
“Truffles?”
“Yes. This is where you keep your truffles. When you’re flying.”
*sound of head-scratching*
Rose decodes our blank faces and asks, ”truffles is what you sometimes call big suitcases, right?”
“Duffles, Rosie,” Col smiles benevolently at his sister, “they’re called duffles.”
Living with Rose is like hosting the new reality show: My Thoughts, Uncensored, in your house. Yesterday morning Rose climbed in bed with me and whispered into my hair, “I’m wearing the smallest socks.” Communication is her currency and she’s a big spender. “I yawned and the gum fell out of my mouth,” she informed me last night.
On good days, the days where Rose is so happy she skips from the kitchen to the bathroom, enumerating, singingly, all the things she loves, I think, “she’s so articulate, so expressive!” On days where there’s already an ache in my head that feels a lot like small people who have no “off” button, it’s a little like listening to Roger Ebert flip through his rolodex of “thumbs down moments.”
“Mama, I don’t like chard. Why do you always give me chard? Well, I only like it in macaroni and cheese. But I just like the eency pieces. I definitely don’t like the stem part. At all. Mama, are you listening?”
She straddles two worlds like no one else. She spends all morning making dramatic entrances in sparkly get-ups, and then climbs on her bike (in some poofy prom dress) riding Dan’s backyard obstacle course, which includes: steering through a gauntlet of elk antlers, ducking under PVC pipe hoops, charging up the board-on-a-brick ramp, grabbing a spoon from Dan and tossing it into the hula hoop hanging from the tree. Record time: 23 seconds.
She reigns over Col’s cronies, pitting them against each other in “silence contests,” for which they sit completely mute piecing legos together, for the prize of one measly sticker. Today, in the five minutes we ran into Col’s friend, Braden, at the vetrinarian’s parking lot, she sold him a empty glass-cleaner bottle that had been malingering in our car for one dollar.
She skips up the hiking trail in a victorian gown, cheerfully attracting dirt and mud as if that’s what the lace pinafore was for anyway. Then she stops to give a short discourse on something or other: the state of her right foot, how she’s hungry for cheese (but not the yucky kind that I make, the other kind, in a wrapper), or how she’s soooooo excited to get to the creek.
When I reach down to hug her in bed at night, she pulls me to her and squeezes me, as if she were the mother and I the child.
Happy birthday darling, Rose. May you always blossom.
E-Course Giveaway
I am excited to offer a giveaway today from a new sponsor of 6512 and growing, and the creators of Feeleez: Toys for Emotional Intelligence.
Natalie and Nathan are offering another round of their popular 6-week e-course called, Parenting on the Same Team. If you don’t know these two through their coaching work, blogs or toy business, then, allow me to introduce them:
Natalie writes a blog about parenting with empathy and moving off the roller coaster of punishment and praise, which multiple studies have shown undermine children’s self motivation.
She speaks the same language as Alfie Kohn, who wrote Unconditional Parenting (a parenting game-changer for me), but in a softer, feminine, more “I hear you sister,” way. I’ve become best acquainted with Natalie’s work through her parenting phone consults, in which she’s helped me numerous times (including, but not limited to The Funky Sock Disasters and The Sibling Battlefield). Natalie is fantastic at suggesting a pathway which illuminates my own blind spots and leads me to the sanest, most effective and compassionate trail through the trees of parenting.
With Nathan, who is a Certified Life Coach, they are raising three daughters, inspiring people and spreading the good word.
The Awesomeness of this E-Course (all the details here):
* you can take it alone or with your partner.
* Natalie and Nathan will present ideas and parenting strategies weekly (over 6 weeks) and you will have the opportunity to discuss, inquire more deeply, receive feedback and seek help transposing these ideas into your particular family situation.
* you can participate as much or as little as you want.
* you can participate from wherever you live, at your own pace.
*Natalie and Nathan will be available for unlimited e-mail support during the 6-week course.
*you will learn and grow.
Dan and I took this course last year and loved:
*the momentum of practicing (and practicing, and practicing) your parenting ideals in a community.
*the homework which provides opportunity to catch old patterns and practice new ones.
*Natalie and Nathan’s availability, deep listening and idea-generating for each participant’s particular situation.
*how in learning to treat your children with empathy, you learn to do the same for yourself.
To win a spot in the upcoming E-Course, Parenting on the Same Team, leave a comment below. For an extra chance to win, share this post on Facebook, Twitter, your blog, or your community and leave a second comment.
The winner of the E-Course Giveaway is Andree! Andree, I will forward your e-mail address to Natalie so she can sign you up!
Giveaway ends Monday 5/14/12
* Last fall, The New Yorker published a lovely article on coaching, written by the surgeon/author Atul Gawande. Gawande explores the benefits of employing a professional coach. The results (for teachers, doctors, musicians, singers, athletes) are impressive. Why not parenting?
Weekending: grasshopper cuisine
It was an insanely gorgeous weekend, all the fruit trees converging for the grand finale of blossoms, which fell like pastel confetti all over the garden.
and the garden
I spent most of the weekend having this conversation:
“What a gorgeous day.”
“Insane.”
“Just perfect.”
“It really is.”
As I get older I realize I’m okay with not having anything particularly edgy or interesting to say; being happy about a sunny spring day seems like a fine aspiration.
*** ** *** ** *** ** ***
On a homeschool co-op hike, word leaked that Mathew’s dad, David, promised he would eat a grasshopper if his son caught one. Mathew enlisted Col, who promptly brought David a ginormous grasshopper, all chitinous and squirming, which David, having garnered an audience of small, rapt children, did the only reasonable thing: popped that insect in his mouth and chewed.
He declared the grasshopper “not bad,” and tasting “like sunflower seeds.”
Next thing, Col and Mathew are both clutching grasshoppers, circled by a small cheering crowd.
The boys hemmed and hawed and giggled and stalled until finally someone shouted, “ONE…TWO…THREE!” And those kids, those funny, funny boys popped those suckers, live, into their mouths. Col chewed a bit before seeing Mathew’s grasshopper ejected right out of his mouth, then he too spit his out.
(is this a plug for homeschooling or what?)
I did give Col huge props for being an adventurous eater, formerly bestowed upon him for simply trying eggplant.
Col carried about ten pounds worth of fossils out of the woods.
That camera-clicking hand on the bottom left corner. Oy. They must feel like the paparazzi’s always trailing them.
One of the rocks had a fossilized shark’s tooth embedded in the shale. A shark’s tooth! The excavation and study of which has trumped even legos all weekend.
*** ** *** ** *** ** ***
I finally turned the pinata over to Dan, and he saved it from being a lumpy alien head and turned it into a beautiful Earth.
Col: I *like* messy projects! Me: I like wearing my bathrobe all day!
The rescue.
Dan even had the kids paint the mountain ranges. Here’s the Andes in South America, if you couldn’t tell.
The pinata unified every kid at Rose’s birthday party. From age 3 to 8, they waited, raptly, for their turn while our friend Keith snarked, “wow, I’ve never seen kids so excited about oatmeal and flaxseeds.”
*** ** *** ** *** ** *** ** ***
I hope your weekend was lovely.
Coming soon:
1) A fabulous giveaway!
2) Energy nugget recipe starring Bertha, the manifested food processor!
Bertha’s hanging out with our boom box, another very special machine in our lives.
3) Introductions of Cornelius Bartholomew Sebastian Crow III (guardian/thief of the chicken coop)
homestead happenings: on the brink
We’ve just arrived at the tippy top of the seasonal roller coaster where I’m peering—for a breath-holding second—steeply down at the free-fall of summer. We’ve been cranked up the long, slow incline of spring, scattering lettuce seeds, watching the river swell, marking the calendar with camping trips, knowing that soon summer will zoom on its own momentum. Fast. As it always does.
It’s at this change of seasons, which writer Gretel Ehrlich says, “deserves a separate name so the year might be divided eight ways instead of four,” where something tugs at me. There’s something about being here, again, on the brink of summer. Everything is so familiar—seasons colliding in our mudroom: sandals jumbled with snowboots; me wondering if I have to actually sing to the carrots to get them to germinate; the kids’ limbs browning up—and yet, a whole year has passed. (Also, a year ago we were here. How is this possible?)
I think it’s this passage of time that is most confounding to me as a mother, how slippery and incremental it, how you can’t see it or touch it but it’s the chisel shaping your beautiful children every moment.
On the homestead:
:: Anyone need some dirt?
Digging has commenced on the root cellar and Col has a new purpose in life. He hangs around the dig site like a groupie waiting for someone to sign his trowel. He’s constantly working his own side projects – avalanches, gullies, dams – on the edges. It’s kind of like having a rebellious employee on your crew. The other day I was giving my carrots a pep talk and overheard Dan telling Col,”now, I like having you here. But you can’t just start absentmindedly hacking away at the root cellar walls.”
You think you’re coming over for a playdate, and next thing you know, there’s a shovel in your hand. Thanks, Chris! The digging is taking place inside our luxurious shed, no need for a shade tarp.
Notice: I dont have an actual *name,* or maybe “Rachel” is too long to spell.
The volume of dirt that is coming out of the ground is a bit startling; it’s like the ground is turning itself inside out. Some of it, mixed with chicken coop bedding, has gone to our new potato bed, which gives me a silly thrill, knowing those potatoes will go back in the hole from whence their dirt came. And incidentally, the “sangre” potatoes we planted (from the San Luis Valley below the Sangre de Christo mountains), are the same potatoes buried in the White House garden this spring.
Our neglected front yard, which the kids refer to as the “back yard” because it feels so remote. Tupperware Heights, baby.
:: Someone left a sweet May Day gift in my car on Tuesday. Who was it? Was it you? We loved it.
This gift has put a new twist on holidays for Rose because someone can just come *leave candy in your car.*
:: In a weird but completely normal deja vu, I found myself shoveling goat manure with the threesome, Col, Rose and their friend Mathew, just like last year. Last year the kids’ project was digging up worms for chickens, this year it was kamikaze hammocking.
:: The other day Col and Rose were pushing each others’ buttons all morning, fighting and crying like they were rehearsing a scene. Okay, let’s try it again from the top, I’ll man-handle your polar bear and you do your jungle scream. I finally sought refuge in the garden only to be begged back inside, tearily, by Rose. When I got back inside the house was quiet and they were reading side by side.
I can’t even begin to understand. In fact, that is often my mantra.
:: Stage 1 of the mother#$%!!@* pinata we are making for Rose’s birthday, which needs 3 more layers and which I look forward to laughing about someday.
:: Books! I am reading Gretel Erlich’s memoir, Solace of Open Spaces, which is absolutely lovely in its descriptions of blinding blizzards, getting struck by lightning, cavernous loneliness and the scouring winds of Wyoming. Really. Have you read it? I am sad that it’s only 130 pages.
The kids and I just finished Witches by Roald Dahl, and I just have to wonder about this guy and his children’s books about horrible creatures eating children. Perhaps things were different in his day, you know, less insipid singing purple dinosaurs and more tingling, engrossing and safe fright. We all loved Witches, even if we had to read it during the day.
Read anything good lately?
:: Lettuce porn:
:: Crabapple porn:
I’m humbled by all your interest in hollyhock seeds. (And I do have enough for everyone) .My blog friend mb, whom I had already sent some seeds to awhile back, e-mailed me a photo of her hollyhocks sprouts, all proper and civilized in greenhouse trays, which made me reconsider my planting instructions, which were like: throw them somewhere and forget about them.
(Rose just told me, “you’re typing fast, and you even get the right letters you want.” And I don’t even have to use loose dirt to write my blog posts).
I hope you’re all enjoying this bridge between seasons.
xo,
Rachel
marching for peace and beauty (a giveaway)
It’s no secret that my gardening style is passionately relaxed. I start with the idea of planting seeds in rows, and then a lettuce colony erupts in the tomato bed, potatoes sprout from the compost I’ve patted onto the grape vine, and volunteer hollyhocks clog the garden walkways like protesters marching for peace and beauty.
And that is how I end up with a garden like this:
There’s a local county extension agent who, I’ve heard, shows a slide of my garden in his gardening class slideshow, remarking that although mine is a very productive garden, its disorganization makes him want to back away very fast. I dig diversity, the way a honeybee is lured in by the tall, flag-waving hollyhocks and stays to wriggle into the yellow skirt of every squash flower below.
Last fall, I gathered up the seeds of yellow, apricot, cream, magenta, white, pink, crimson and purple hollyhocks. This spring, I’d like to send some seeds to you. To all of you! This is the kind of giveaway where everyone wins. All you have to do is leave a comment (be sure to include your e-mail in the comment form – doesn’t have to be in the comment itself) and I’ll contact you to get your address so I can send you some seeds. Locals, for you, I am giving away hollyhock plants!
Ten reasons to grow hollyhocks:
1) Hollyhocks are in the Malvaceae family (aka: mallow family), along with okra, hibiscus and marshmallow (yes, there is a marshmallow plant). Hollyhocks are mucilaginous like okra; the roots and dried leaves are good in a cold tea for sore throats.
2) All parts of the plant are edible. I like adding the stunning flowers to salads, it’s like dropping precious jewels into your dinner.
3) Hollyhocks cross pollinate, creating wild and surprising offspring. One year we had a hollyhock bloom so darkly purple it was almost black, and then was never seen again. Your plants will be my plant’s kin!
4) Cultivate beauty.
5) Hollyhocks are biennials, meaning they have a 2-year life cycle. In the first year they put out a crown of leaves, in the next they send up a flower stalk, set seed and die. To sow a hollyhock seed is to sow patience and hope.
6) Hollyhocks are easy. They’re the bodhisattvas of the garden. Blistering heat? No prob. Icy nights? Oh, fine. No rain for weeks? Okey doke! Monsoonal rains? Bring it.
7) Hollyhocks attract honeybees.
8) Help me liberate a jar.
9) Once they’re established, you’ll never have to plant them again, and they’re easy to pluck if you start feeling like that county extension agent in my yard.
10) Hollyhocks bloom from July through October.
My baby! (Rose at 2)
And bonus: I’ll include some morning glory seeds too, just because they’re fabulous.
morning glories, assorted colors.
Giveaway closes Friday, May 4th
ps: Raw energy nugget recipe coming! I just have to figure out the whole food-processor thing. I can hear Dan’s voice in my head, um, how about you just *buy* one. He knows I’m more inclined to try and manifest a free/used one while mortar and pestling ten tons of nuts by hand.
pps: I’m hearing that it’s still hard for some of you to comment on this site. Darn. My friend MB offers this advice: I think it is just going to happen to any of us out here who have ever logged into wordpress.com, and used the same email address between that and another blog. so… in case this helps anyone else, it is possible to change their settings within the wordpress.com dashboard so that it links to their real blog. you can also change the email address in those personal settings, if you want to add yet another email address to your life (it will detect it if you try to use any emails you have ever used before onwordpress.com). Does that help?
Happy Monday,
Rachel
homestead happenings: spring mania
It’s late; I’m peeing with the bathroom door wide open when Dan comes in from bow-making in his shop. He looks around and raises his eyebrows at the quietness in the house.
“Dude. 7:30,” I say, remarking on when the ship of boisterous children went down.
“Donesville?”
“Yup.”
“Nice.”
“What’s for snack?” I ask, still peeing, though unaware of the dinner stuck greenly between the teeth from which I smile at him.
What’s the right word here? Uncouth? In love?
*** ** *** ** *** ** *** ** ***
Dandelion pesto on deer backstrap. Did I mention in my last post how *delicious* dandelion pesto is? Perhaps I was too busy singing its nutritional praises to note that it is a luscious marriage of rich roastyness (from the nuts) and peppy greenness.
I love this time of year, how spring creeps along methodically—green grass, check; dandelion flowers, check; high arcing sun, check—and then suddenly a peach tree erupts pinkly, and it’s like the space shuttle has landed in our backyard. No one can sleep because THE PEACH IS BLOOMING. Actually, no one can sleep because it’s light out forever. Every night at 7:30 pm Dan closes our curtains, yawns dramatically, and puts a curse on any neighborhood kid who dares to knock on the door and ask if Col and Rose want to come out and play storm troopers.
This peach tree sprouted from our compost pile years ago, and we, as an experiment, planted it, and hoo boy, it has grown. I’m feeling like this will be the year it bears fruit.
We’re all infected with spring mania. Everything seems so shiny and new, even the clucky old ladies who would like to eat every living thing in our yard.
Including your finger. “Did you need that finger?”
You can actually smell the fruit trees blooming all over town. I want to throw a party for each new phase of spring, like: lilacs blooming now, everyone come over with a potluck dish. Everyday I check under the straw mulch for signs of the 300 or so kale, lettuce, arugula and spinach seeds I’ve planted. (My new trick is to seed all the beds with greens, which will translate into 100 salads by the time it’s warm enough to dig the greens under and plant tomatoes, peppers and squash. As if I’ve ever been able to “dig a plant under.”)
Spring is the very definition of potential, containing all the unwritten chapters of summer, which unfold perfectly without typos or weeds, like the brilliant essays I write while riding my bike.
On the homestead:
:: The kids are just happy to be outside. I am increasingly convinced that outside, there is little they need other than time and freedom. Col, like his father, expresses himself through his hands. Inside it’s legos and art. Outside it’s sticks and rocks and dirt.
Col is all about brush shelters these days.
For the ladies’ comfort, of course.
:: Dan’s been trying to get my attention in 5 minute snippets to show me his “antler kiva root cellar” plan.
Can you picture it? Dan’s going to dig a 5 foot deep, 6 foot wide hole, build the walls up with rocks, and then mound antlers and juniper bark on the ceiling, cover the whole thing with a water-proof membrane and 2 feet of backfill dirt. Did I get that right, Dan? All I heard was we’re going to have a place to store apples, carrots and potatoes!
In those 5 minutes of debriefing on the antler kiva root cellar, Rose went from this:
to this:
At least she kept her hat on.
:: Col and Rose and their friend Iris had a garage sale last weekend, in which not a soul walked by, so the kids bought each others junk.
If you happen to be one of Iris’ relatives who reads this blog, here is one of the many things I love about Iris: she manages to be equally Col *and* Rose’s friend, which is rare and special. Also, one thing I love about garage sales is it’s a great way to learn math. In fact, when the kids think of the numeral 5, a nickel undoubtedly pops into their head.
:: Spring beauty is blooming in the pine-oak belt.
Which is also a good place to build nests for birds up in an oak tree. Pre-made nests! All the rage in the avian world. “The bird that finds this will be so happy,” Col says.
Rose handing Col nest material.
:: I’ve been a little obsessed with these raw, energy nuggets we’ve been making. We may have eaten them for dinner while Dan was in New Jersey visiting his Mama. And breakfast. So many permutations and flavors. Anyone interested in a recipe?
:: At the creek, arriving:
10 seconds later:
Rose has been manifesting like some new age diva. First she got a new/borrowed bike with the three things she was “most always wishing for:” kickstand, bell and basket! And then, in a box of hand-me-downs, her fluffy pink bathrobe dreams came true!
Watching Col play, shirtless, in the creek, sun pouring down like rain, made me realize that after everything, we’re luckier than we can ever know. Maybe all of us are always luckier than we can ever know.
Overheard:
*The kids are gazing out the window at the soaring vultures*
Rose: I wish I was a bird.
Col: A vulture?
Rose: Yeah.
Col: If you were a vulture your ice cream would be dead deer meat and your fizzy water would be blood.
Rose: *rethinking*
Love,
Rachel
ps: everyone pees in front of their partners, right?
