The Joys (and one annoyance) of Spring

We now have lettuce in abundance!  I'm so glad I discovered fall planted lettuce.  It doesn't give us many greens in the spring, but I'm now able to pick full heads of lettuce.  By the time we're done eating this, the spring planted lettuce will be ready to harvest too.

We might, actually, get blueberries this year.  I'm holding my breath.  We planted this blueberry bush when we moved here (10 years ago).  It's finally loaded with berries.  I grew up with tons, and tons of blueberries, but my mom's bushes finally stopped producing a few years ago.  It's been hard to do without the past few years.  I have high hopes.

These are not our birds.  Our nest is on a windchime under our deck. We get to watch the action every night while eating dinner.   It was too dark under the overhang to get a good shot, but our babies look exactly the same.
 Check out Mon@rch's Nature Blog for some fantastic nature photography!

It's been such an warm winter than the Phoebes have already hatched out three nestlings.  I wonder if they're going to lay two clutches of eggs this year?  We don't usually see baby birds until mid June. 

On a negative note - the GNATS are back in full swing. Blech!  At least it means there is plenty of food for the swallows.  They have to be my very least favorite part of living in the woods. 

Win Some, Lose Some

This weekend has been one of joy and sorrow.  We celebrated the Woodsman's endurance by cheering him on in his second marathon.  This one was his second and it was much more difficult than the first.  He finished in 4 hours and 19 minutes.  Fantastic job!  This was a better time than his first marathon.  We all enjoyed cheering for him. 

However, this has also been a sad weekend. My grandfather passed away on Saturday afternoon. I will miss him greatly. I'm so glad that I spent so much time listening (and recording) to his stories over the past few years. They were precious before, but they are even more so now. Time spent with the people you love is the most precious time of all.

Whoa!

Can you imagine living totally without money?  This is an amazing story.  I'm all about living simply, but this is truly admirable. 

"Daniel Suelo is 51 years old and broke. Happily broke. Consciously, deliberately, blessedly broke."

Life without money - imagine that.

Ninety-Nine

My 99 year old grandfather is in the hospital again, and his prognosis is not good.  He has an autoimmune blood disease, and then has had complications from the medicine and from a prologed hospital stay.  Currently he is being treated for CDIFF (an intestinal bacterial infection), low blood sugar (from the steroids he's on to treat the blood disease), and is very confused.  He hasn't known my Dad the past few times he's been in to visit with him. 

I feel sad for myself, of course.  But I also hurt for my Dad.  I want him to be able to have a real good-bye with my Pap.  I want my grandfather to die in his own room, surrounded by the people he loves.  I don't want him to die this way - confused and in the hospital. 

I also hurt for my kids.  They love him.  They appreciate his humor and they look forward to his stories.  I've talked to them about him being so sick.  I've tried to prepare them, but this will be the first person they love to die.  I suppose you can't ever really prepare anyone for that.  How do you help your kids, and father mourn while still mourning yourself? 

Pap on his 99th birthday. 

My Pap and I talk a lot about our family history.  With every story he tells I realize how much of the farmer in me comes from my ancestors.  I come from a long line (we can trace back to the 1720s in Pennsylvania) of farmers.  It's in my blood and in my heart.  I know that he'll be in my heart forever.  But still, letting go is hard.  I get my humor from his as well.  Here is a poem he taught to my kids.

A Teddy Bear sleeps in his little bear skin.
He sleeps very well I am told.
One night I slept in my bare skin.
Brrr..  all I got was cold.

I love you Pap!

Digging Up the Past

I've been reading a lot about writing lately, and my hands have been in the dirt a lot too.  Growing things and growing words are both gifts I get from my father.  While planting the new raspberry canes this evening I found myself with a clear memory of helping my dad plant new pine trees in our Christmas tree patch.  Last week I helped Readlyn plant a Sugar Maple she'd brought home in honor of Arbor Day. 

My grandfather is 99, and is nearing the end.  It is a strange and unsettling thing indeed to see the generations so clearly shift places.  Although my dad is still extremely strong, he will one day be frail and weak like my Pap.  So thankful for the memories I have, and the ones we're still creating. 

The Woodsman and I are now the ones who plant the memories with our children.  What will my kids remember?  So, in honor of the best farmer I know and the heart of all of my crazy homesteading lifestyle choices - a poem about the most important thing we grow in life - love.

Dig in Deep

 I sink the spade into the soft, dark earth
 and become a girl of six. 
 Dad's work worn heel
against smooth metal.
The scrape of stone and iron
spark present and past.
Knees damp in the tender spring evening -
scarred, calloused hands
- cuts and burns like badges of honor -
guide small ones
cradle the roots, tuck in the soil
One foot
strong and booted
the other 
small, dirty and bare
tamp in the soil together.
Growing more than trees.

Garden Almanac - Early May

The garden is looking considerably less weedy.  I took the spade out tonight and dug out all of the burdock and dandelions. I also removed the blackberry bushes that were invading from the berry patch and covered a section that was totally weed filled in black plastic.  They'll all die until I'm ready to plant there.   Dandelions I don't mind so much, but burdock is so hard to eliminate.  I also cleaned out some of the smaller beds in preparation for the big planting in two weeks.  We're almost at frost free here and I want to be ready. 

I even did my once annual compost turning and dig out.  I am a very hands off composter.  I dump things in as I have them, and then in the spring turn the pile to the new bin.  The Woodsman built double compost bins for me years ago out of dead standing pines from our property.  Simple and effective.  I just take off a few logs, shovel out the good stuff and then turn the left hand bin over into the right.  I love seeing trash turn into black gold. 
The potatoes are finally starting to come through the soil.  I tried a new deep planting method this year and was beginning to think that it hadn't worked - they were planted a month ago!  I'm hoping that this method yields a bigger harvest than my traditional hilling method.  I'll let you know at harvest time.

I have a love hate relationship with chickens in the garden.  I love that they eat weed seeds, till the compost pile, eat bugs and provide lovely companionship when weeding.  I hate that I've replanted my peas, lettuce, spinach, beets and onions several times due to chicken havoc.  Only two of my girls (Americanas) are light enough to fly over the fence - they usually don't do too much damage.  But, when someone forgets to shut the fence the whole flock can create major problems in minutes.  I row covered the most tender crops, and the peas and onions are tall enough now that they'll probably rally.

The rest of the garden looks good.  I'm still picking fall planted lettuce, chard and mustard.  The cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli plants are growin happily under row cover where they'll stay protected from cabbage moths the rest of the season.  The carrots and radishes are all up, and the greens and early radishes will be ready for picking soon.  I'm still harvesting some asparagus, and the new crowns have sent up shoots.  The only pest I'm dealing with at the moment are slugs and I'm eliminating them with a little bit of Sluggo, which is a great organic, pet, child and chicken friendly slug and snail control.  It works much better than the dishes of beer.  Personally, I'd rather drink the beer.

Several blueberry bushes have tiny berries on them, the black raspberries are covered in flowers and the peach tree is loaded.   I'll be picking strawberries at the berry farm this year though.  The Woodsman was over zealous in his application of fall mulch on the berry bed - most of them didn't survive, so I've replanted, but won't get much from them this year.  The tomatoes have been moved to the cold frame.  The eggplants, peppers and basil are under the grow lights and are looking good.   

I love being in the garden in the evening.  It is such a peaceful and purposeful place.  It is a time to reflect and renew from my busy day.  It is a time to have solitude and serenity.  One of my other favorite Martin Luther quotes says ( and I paraphrase here) that the best way to pray is to go stick your hands in the dirt.  I certainly agree.

Just Playing Around

Jane and her family were here over the weekend.  I've always enjoyed watching our creative and bright kids play and explore, but as they get older it's getting to be even more enjoyable and precious.  For several years they have been creating, practicing and then performing (for the adults after dinner) an original play.  The plays used to consist of a lot of giggling on the part of the kids, almost no plot, and confusion on the part of the parents.  Recently, however, they have achieved a much higher level of sophistication and entertainment. 

Last night's feature was well thought out, involved all five kids, had a clear plot (with conflict and resolution) and even contained mood music.  There was a king, a robber (who had several costume changes), a baby, a mother, and a sound effects manager.  All of the kids had truly amusing facial expressions and voice delivery.  It was delightful.  I'm so thankful for friends who parent their children in a similar creativity encouraging environment. 

The majority of my students don't know how to imagine.  It is a skill they havn't ever been encouraged to develop.  Several forms of electronic entertainment are on in their homes at almost all times.  They don't know how to pretend, and they find anything that isn't fast past electronic entertainment to be "boring." 

It may sometimes seem that creative, collaborative play is just that, play.  But truly, shaping our children's lives so that electronic forms of entertainment are limited is giving them valuable life skills in the areas of inferencing, problem solving and interpersonal collaboration. 

Don't get me wrong.  I'm certainly not totally anti-T.V. or computer.  The kids watch a little bit of PBS kids (at the moment it's Wild Kratts) if they're ready for school early in the morning; and we usually allow them an hour or two of T.V. time over the weekend.  They're allowed to get on the computer for about 30 minutes during the week to play educational games or to do research (but only if the weather is too hot, too cold, or too wet to play outside). 

Children in the U. S.  watch an average of three to four hours of T.V. a day.  A DAY!  That's astounding.  My kids typically don't even watch that much in a whole week.  No wonder most of my students aren't reading or doing their homework when they go home.  No wonder they complain and cry when they have to run the mile for P.E. at school.  They're too busy on the couch!

I simply can't fathom why you would want to lose so much quality time with your children.   I  look forward to summer for the same reason I look forward to the weekend and to 3:15 each day.  It's time I get to spend with my children.  I can't imagine giving up that time so that they could sit in front of a mind sucking black box for four hours a day. 

What would happen to the independent reading time they have after school? How about piano lessons, soccer practice, Karate class?  Gone, gone, gone.   What would happen to our nightly cuddle and story time?  What would happen to family dinners and game nights?  They would disappear. 

Children who are parented by electronics also have a poor work ethic.  Most of my students have no responsibilities at home.  And, if they do, the responsibilities include simple tasks like cleaning their rooms.  My kids (ages 7 and 9) fold all the laundry, put away most of the clothes, clean up their own clutter, take care of the floors (vacuum and sweeping), take out the trash, compost and recycling, help with the chickens, and even occasionally dust and mop.  This is not a violation of child labor.  This is real life, real responsibility and real expectations.  When my kids go out into the world they'll actually know how to take care of themselves. 

So thanks to all of you who have the courage and the energy to parent your children with creativity.  If you're still tied to the plug, turn off the tube, unplay the Playstation, read a book, play a game of soccer together, cook together, work outside together, play together, read together.  You, and your children, will be healthier, happier, smarter and more creative.

Now, if you'll excuse me, the Woodsman is waiting for the computer.  I've been on here long enough.  Time to collect the eggs, feed the chickens and sit on the deck to watch the sun go down.