Keeping it Real

This morning was unproductive... at least physically. I got up at 6:20 with my youngest two. They always begin their day early and are soon whining for food. I usually try to hold breakfast off until the girls wake. I made a batch of French toast for breakfast this morning when they did.

As I made a steady stream of pieces, two at a time, the children bickered and whined about how the next one should be for them as I poured syrup and cut bite sized pieces for the littlest between flips. Eventually their hunger was assuaged and after wiping off sticky faces and fingers, they trotted off to get ready for the day and to play until things were cleaned up.

Finally the dishes were cleared, the syrup was wiped up, etc. But just as I turned the corner to walk out of the kitchen, my oldest walked in. Lately I feed my husband after the kids and then my oldest either joins in at the end of his father's breakfast or he eats breakfast leftovers whenever he wakes up while I am busy schooling the other children.

This is a new development, as he was always in the kitchen for breakfast by 8:30 sharp in the past. But seeing as I only have a handful of months left with him before he leaves for college, he's been traveling a great deal, working hard to maintain his grades this last semester, up late with activities many nights, and devoting countless hours to his robotics team, I've felt indulgent and let him sleep. After all, nobody skates through when earning an engineering degree, and he IS currently pursuing admission to the Webb institute where in 4 years you earn a double major in marine engineering and naval architecture, as well as graduate with 8 months of on-the-job work experience after 4 internships. He'd better get all the sleep he can get now.

Anyway, as I fired up the skillet and whipped up a new batch of French toast, my youngest daughter called down that she was going to get my youngest child dressed for me if that was okay. I called back my thanks and proceeded to feed my young giant. When breakfast was cleared up for the second time, I stopped by the laundry room on the way upstairs. I had a load of laundry to switch before getting the rest of the day rolling.

To my surprise, I nearly wiped out. My foot shot out from under me and I found myself hydroplaning on about 2 inches of laundry detergent. Here's what happened. My thoughtful daughter was trying to help out, so she stripped my youngest of his PJs, took off his wet pull-up, and proceeded to get him dressed. (Side note: I am currently failing at potty training my fifth kid.) Then, considerate child that she is, she trotted the wet diaper down to the laundry room where I put soiled diapers in a special can.

Unfortunately, I had set a new container of laundry detergent on the trash can lid the night before after using up the previous jug. (The can is next to the washer.) My daughter lifted it off and put it on top of the running washing machine to put the pull-up in the can. She left the laundry soap on the washer. When the machine hit the spin cycle, it shook the container (a large one for a family of 7) off. It fell to the floor and exploded. The lid and the spout popped off, splattering detergent all up the wall, on unpacked boxes of filing that were waiting in an out-of-the-way place, and onto a box of tools that I keep handy for small household jobs. Then the detergent glugged out- all of it!

So I spent the rest of the morning cleaning it up. I started by scooping up big dustpans-full, as if the dustpan was a shovel, and dumping them into my mopping bucket. This took a lot of "doing." And rinsing it out of the bucket and off of the dustpan was no small task either. It was concentrated detergent for our HE machine.

After that joy, I began wiping up what I could with paper towels, as it would take too long to rinse and wring out cloths, and it was too much to just throw into the washer, which had warnings about not using too much detergent. Luckily I had just purchased a huge pack of paper towel! Soap had seeped under the washer and dryer, under the trash can, under the cardboard file boxes. It had splashed onto a drill battery and charger, onto tools, on the baseboard, wall, and appliance fronts. I used every roll but one.

After that I had to rinse everything and wipe it down, repeatedly, until the lathering stopped. In some places the remaining detergent had begun to dry in thick, clotted streaks. So I spent hours either on my knees, or trotting to the wash tub in the basement to rinse.

Eventually, I had remediated the disaster as best as I could. It was nearly noon. I headed upstairs to smell that my youngest had pooped in his new pull-up already. He had proceeded to sit in his own filth playing. He was alone in his room happily modifying a lovely Duplo house with multiple stories. I assumed that since I was hearing all of the kids' voices and that they had asked for crayons, that they were coloring together. Plus, they knew what I was doing and were old enough to entertain a 4 year old.

"Didn't you notice that he had pooped?" I asked.

"Yes," replied my oldest daughter disgustedly, "Why do you think we're all out here?!"

-And yet she did not think to tell me. This statement pretty much sums up her usual attitude, which is why I let my younger daughter, who is thoughtful, although inept, try her hand at helping me.

When changing my littlest's diaper, I found that my silly girl had put the pull-up on crooked, so all of the feces had been forced out of a leg hole and had become embedded in his pants leg, etc. It was another disaster that put cleaning up a detergent spill into context, and made it seem much more pleasant in retrospect.

When the poo-splosion was all cleaned up and the room aired out, it was time to start cooking lunch. This, folks, is why I get so little help at home. It usually turns out badly. Hopefully you have enjoyed the humorous word-pictures that I have painted for you. I, on the other hand, although I DO see the humor, am enjoying the lovely citrus scent of detergent that is still lingering in my home and the very, very clean laundry room floor. (My little son's bum is no longer clean, however. I am not enjoying that.)  :)

Freezing Fog

Things have been an endless onslaught since moving to Colorado. It's a little un-real really. But I will spare you the crazy details of our move and home purchase, the litany of hardships and tasks, and the boring details that will come off as kvetching. Instead, I will share with you an afternoon's beauty.

Up here at over 6400 feet elevation, we often get freezing fogs. I headed out with my middle boy for a brief walkabout one afternoon after one such fog. We marveled at the crystal encrusted scenery. 

The grass was coated in ice.

The frost slipped off of each blade, a frozen straw.

In the moments when the sun slipped through the clouds, everything shimmered and sparkled.

The wild, unkempt yard glittered.

Everything was covered in a shiny, sugar-like glaze. 

Each drop of fog was frozen like a pearl and melded to the frozen droplets next to it.

The broken-down fences filmed with frozen fog were shining silver in the sunlight.  

Small icicles were strung on their drooping wires like sparkling Christmas lights.

Leaning weeds were luminescent.

Wide-bladed grasses were furry with frost. 

Old, sagging gates in overgrown pastures and adorned with rusty barbed wire wreathes were made lovely. 

Even the little ramshackle workshop was picturesque when framed with silvery branches.

Rocky Mountain Low

I mentioned in my last post that my husband accepted a new job. I sort of glossed over the details and tried to be lighthearted, but things don't feel that way at all. It's been a summer of big change and big loss for me. I went straight from the frenetic spring full of my kids' activities, visitors, and traveling, to the news of my mother's unexpected death. I'm still reeling from that really. I haven't had time to process it properly.

I was hosting my in-laws the Sunday Mom died. (My dad had just left our house a few short days before. And my mom and sister had been with us just the previous weekend too. We even attended a family reunion together in the southern part of our state when they were here.) The final performance of my oldest daughter's most recent theatrical production had just ended that afternoon after a week of late rehearsals and performances. My husband was facilitating a fishing excursion on our lake for his parents and some of the kids, and I was with my daughter when my father's call came. It was a shock. It still is.

I traveled to my hometown with my kids as fast as I was reasonably able. As I was spending time with my family and trying to help make arrangements for Mom's funeral and burial, my husband was traveling and interviewing. He'd been forced into it by a lack of paychecks from the start-up for which he worked, and not every interview could be rescheduled. Besides, we were burning through money and he needed to accept a job as soon as possible.

After the harrowing whirlwind week, laying my mom to rest, and the return home, the interviewing continued. There was much weighing of facts and late night conversations. We didn't really like the results. The only rock-solid offer came from a place in Denver. It meant that I'd have to move over 12 hours away from my nearest blood relative... over 12 hours away from my Dad, whom I wanted to support and be near. Not only was I going to lose the homestead I'd come to love deeply (just as my son was about to launch) and the well-known comfort of living in this area of the country for 16 years, but I was going to move even farther from my family at a time that makes the move feel even heavier than it already would have.

During the time of indecision, my brother pulled off a jazz fest he organized and he had surgery for a hernia. My son spent a couple weeks at sailing camp and at a robotics workshop. A high school friend committed suicide. A homebound lady to whom I bring food had a health emergency and was diagnosed with cancer. Giant earth movers were repairing the dam. And I was trying to get a new school year rolling for my kids while preparing to sell our home and to say goodbye to my husband for a while.

Providence has been kind to us though. Our neighbors, upon hearing of our impending move, made an offer on our house before we even listed it. And another family in the area is already on the waiting list if the deal falls through. So, while separated from my husband these last weeks, things are rolling along, and it won't be too much longer before we attempt to resettle in a different part of the country.

Since the news of our impending move to Colorado, my in-laws came back for several days. My cousins visited. We took a family trip to Lake Michigan for the last time. My dad was hospitalized for a couple days (we didn't know it was minor at the time.) My sister accepted an offer for a new job and faced lots of other stress as well. And my Dad and sister visited for a couple days just this past week. I've also spent sorted the barn contents. Later I spent hours with an auctioneer loading our belongings on his trailer so as to clear out our barn. And there have been things like the visit of the appraiser yesterday, as well as the usual activities of schooling, piano lessons, horseback riding lessons, robotics team meetings, etc. There have also been late night calls and attempts to orchestrate a graceful exit- juggling the moving company, a temporary rental, and keeping an eye on the Denver housing market. And last, but not least, has been the mad scramble at the last minute to reassess my oldest boy's college choices, given our move. There have been applications, transcript requests, requests for counselor referrals, and recommendation letter requests sent out in the past week. And I'm already feeling the hole that my son will leave in our family when he goes away to school next year. This is a terrible and incomplete summary, and I'm glossing over many worrisome details. And it all felt just SO crushing tonight.

So after the littlest two were in bed, I walked down to the lake. My goal was to see how the dam was faring after the last round of rains. It's been raining so much since it was finished that it's been hard to establish grass and some erosion has set in. But the weather, which had been hovering in the 80's (along with stupid-high humidity) broke yesterday, and today it only got up to 64 degrees! It still rained, but it was suddenly fall weather, and I felt the need to get outside.

On the way to the dam, I mechanically picked up sticks from the hayfield as I walked along the board fence. I shut the cattle gate on the paddock behind the pole barn. My oldest son had left it open when mowing. Then I cut though the ravine with the waterfall, thinking that it may be the last time I do so.

I stood for a time in the dim woods. I marveled at the gnarled trees whose roots were thwarted by the stone over which the water poured. I gazed into the pools of water that burbled over into the next pool of water. I admired the lush moss, the delicate ferns, the soothing sound of rustling leaves and running water. My heart ached.

After climbing out of the ravine, I walked past the riding ring. I closed that gate too. It was left open a few weeks ago when the last harvest of hay was cut. Soon, I was standing on the dam. The water level had risen substantially. Already the pond looked healthier. There was still about half a foot left for it to fill before it would reach the new drain pipe. Grass in some areas was lush, but some areas were still bare. Some of the washouts were becoming alarming, and I made a mental note to get on filling them and seeding them again right away if we didn't close on the house soon.

I wandered across the dam, thinking how my children would have loved to sled down the back of it this winter now that it is cleared, relatively smooth, and the creek at the bottom has been redirected, thinking that our neighbors will be able to fish right off the dam soon and launch themselves on ice skates from there this winter. Frogs jumped in the water all along the dam as I walked. Further out, fish jumped, making rippling circles that disturbed the reflection of the trees on the opposite bank.

Once across the dam, I stepped just inside one of the back doors of the hay barn that lies on the other side. I stood in the dim sweetness and breathed deeply, letting the fragrance of hay, the smell of summer, fill my lungs. I thought to myself that I might not ever put up hay again, let alone stand in my own hay barn reveling in the wholesome scent. I nearly cried.

Outside again, I sat on the bench next to the barn and watched the sun set through the trees on the other side of the lake. My mind wandered. I tried to pray. I keep thinking that I should be praying for my mother more, that I should be asking for her intercession more, that I should be thinking about her more than I am, but the tasks and worries are so thick and I'm so tired that I haven't been doing justice to her memory. So I sat with my scattered thoughts as my heart raced and my throat tightened. I felt like a failure. Not only could I not pray, I couldn't just sit and enjoy what may be the last night down at the lake either.

The falling darkness drove me back across the dam, back through the upper hay field, and back to the pole barn. With some difficulty I extricated the log cart from the stall full of the outside stuff we set aside to move (and to keep separate from the auction items) and began loading it with wood from the first face cord in our wood stash. I flicked off the lights and wheeled the heavy load to the house, contemplating whether or not to light the wood stove tonight or to wait until the morning, thinking that it may be hard to get good fire wood in Colorado.

Everything around me was green. The twilight was lovely. The crickets sang. My heart hurt. And for some reason it struck me that this blog, named for this homestead, and however sparse and lacking in coherence, would be ending when I left this place.

I've been trying to put on a happy face and not worsen the kids' already trepidatious attitudes toward this move. One of the ways in which I've attempted to keep their spirits up these days is to play songs with a Colorado theme. It started with The Samples song entitled, "Indiana." I played it for my husband while I cooked breakfast on the morning he set out on his drive cross-country to his new job. There's a verse in that song that made me think of it...

"I remember the first time I drove through Indiana
Watching semis hauling grain to the west.
They're gonna make it all the way to Colorado
Where the mountains touch the sky and rivers bend."

When my dad visited last week, he reminded me of John Denver's song, "Rocky Mountain High." It was doubly appropriate because the job is in Denver and "Colorado" is part of each refrain. The kids like it okay. I even caught my oldest girl singing it the other day. But I must admit, for me it's not a "rocky mountain high." It's been a rocky mountain low. And I'm hoping that it's only going to be up from here for a while, because I'm not sure how much more I can take.

For example, this morning, as I sorted the mail, my three year old pointed to some cookies in a grocery store advertisement and said, "Look, Mom, funeral home cookies." And this afternoon, as I tried to correct my oldest's test on Beowulf while my middle boy harassed his siblings and vied for my attention, and apropos of nothing, my three year old asked me why his sister's rabbit died. (It died a few weeks before my mom's death in the middle of June, if I remember correctly. My youngest daughter made a grave marker and laid flowers at the grave of her beloved pet daily for a long time after I buried it for her.) I explained to him, gently, that every living thing dies eventually. He looked puzzled and then said, "But then there won't be anybody left!" So I explained that although there is always someone dying, there is always someone being born. He looked satisfied and wandered off, but it hurt my heart to know that he is still thinking about loss, about death, and about his grandma. And now we'll be adding the loss of his home and everything he knows to what he is already trying to process. I guess if nothing else we're moving to the "mile high city," so even if things aren't looking up for me figuratively, it'll be going up literally, if nothing else.

Old Art

My husband will be starting a new job next Monday. This means that all of the items from his old office are stacked on a desk in my "stone room." Among his things are some framed pieces of art that I made years ago. Having a conversation about gray hair and 'possums with a friend made me think to look through the stack for an old pointillism of an opossum that I did (too many years ago to even contemplate) because in 2012 I promised to post it sometime. Well, it's been an awfully long time, but I like to keep my word, so here's a poorly lit, from a bad angle photo of this old piece of mine. Enjoy!

Strength, Fragility, Beauty

"Humanity is like an enormous spider web, so that if you touch it anywhere, you set the whole thing trembling... Our lives are linked together." 

-Frederick Buechner

There's been so much loss in my life lately. The news of an acquaintance's suicide is adding extra weight and heartache. As I talked on the phone to my dad today, talking business and mentioning Mom with forced casualness, I glanced out the window and saw this orb web. I haphazardly snapped a photo through the window glass with one hand as I held the phone with the other and continued to converse with my father. Providence saw fit to let me capture what I saw. And as I look at it now, I contemplate on what slender threads our lives and fortunes hang! But like spider silk (which is 5 times stronger than the same weight of steel) we are each shining, sturdy, and hold so much potential and beauty despite our corresponding fragility and capacity for destruction. Please remember that. Let love be the invisible thread that binds us and never doubt your worth or potential!

Busy Bee

Bees- what I noticed when I stood taking pictures of butterflies the other day 

was the buzz of bees. 

The bees were just as prevalent in the clover as the butterflies, 

they were simply smaller, less colorful, and noisier. 

Yesterday I took a few minutes, after collecting eggs, 

to crouch at the edge of the hay and watch the bees. 

Most of the bees I saw were bumble bees and carpenter bees.
They frantically flew from flower to flower, 

raking through each head of blossoms, 

their legs heavy with pollen, 

their wings a blur.

Today I identify with the bees. 

I still feel fragile and vulnerable like the butterflies. 

I still think life is a precious and beautiful struggle, 

but I have been forced to continue on with life.
I have been busy. 

It's both good and sad at the same time. 

On the one hand I feel

 as though my little world and the way I function

 should reflect how profoundly my life has been forever changed 

by my mom's sudden absence from it. 

Shouldn't something about how I go about my daily life be altered forever? 

On the other hand, 

I would probably wallow in sadness, introspection, and feelings of futility 

if I was left to brood on the strange and scattered thoughts 

that assail me in the tired moments of stillness that I steal. 

Providence has seen fit to throw a bunch of "hot coals" in my lap lately, 

and so I juggle them, 

my life a busy blur of worry, whining children, and waiting tasks. 

Just as the worker bees frantically labor
to gather the nectar before the blossoms fade, 

I too am trying to do my job, 

to scrape together what my family needs 

in order to make something sweet
that will get us through the tough days ahead.

Fragile and Beautiful

Ever since we put up our first cutting of hay, the purple clover have been growing vigorously and blooming plentifully. Every day when I walk out to collect eggs, I have noticed the many butterflies flitting from flower to flower. However, I didn't stop to admire their splendor until today. 

I've been busy lately, and distracted. There's too much to mention in that area, but I will say that it's been less than a week since my mother's funeral. So, today, in the week of my birthday, amid my sorrow and confusion of heart, I made time. I took 15 minutes to watch them. I scattered the scratch for the chickens, collected the eggs, and stood at the board fence with my camera in hand.

I saw five different kinds of butterflies. Most of them were Eastern Tiger Swallowtails. Some of them were Eastern Black Swallowtails. I also saw some Great Spangled Fritillary Butterflies, Red Admiral Butterflies, and Checkered White Butterflies. 

There were so many butterflies.

The upper hay field was in constant motion.  The butterflies fluttered from flower to flower. They spiraled around each other in groups. I began snapping pictures to the drone of bees as I stood sweating on this day with heat index warnings.

Soon my 7 year old was at my side. Instead of being awed by the beauty and fragility of the butterflies, instead of contemplating the mysteriousness of life, the frail grace of the frantic flapping, he summed it up as only a little boy could. "It looks like they are fighting," he state matter of factly, pointing to the butterflies rising in spirals around each other.

At first I chuckled. "You think so?" I asked rhetorically,

but then it hit me. "Yes," I thought, "they are fighting. Like all of us, they are persevering. With God's grace, they will persist. And our lives are just as vulnerable, fragile, and beautiful."

Listening and Relaxing

I'm sitting on the screen porch. It's that time of year again. I'm putting off the mountain of today's dishes. I've temporarily gotten off of the laundry treadmill.. one load in the washer...one load in the dryer. Fold the load that just came out of the dryer.... over and over again. The egg collecting will have to wait too. 

I notice that a pair of barn swallows have taken over the nest that the northern rough-winged swallows built last year under the eave of the house next to the porch. They are continuously twittering in their energetic way as they swoop and swerve, taking turns to gather food out over the hay field and return to their nest of clamboring chicks. Occasionally they rest on a nearby branch, twitching their tails up and down, as if impatient.

After a time, I watch a pair of bluebirds that have taken up residence in the house among the day lilies. In turns they silently sit on the board fence, descend rapidly in a flutter of wings to the grass below to scoop up an insect, and fly swiftly to the hole of the house to a chorus of tiny calls. I've been chasing the "new" neighbor's huge calico cat from its vicinity for a month now. I'm glad to know that the eggs have hatched and are now a hungry houseful.

At intervals, a woodpecker drums on a hollow tree... tap tap ratatata tap.... tat, turap, trrrrRrrrrrrap, tat, tat, tap! The canada geese on the pond announce their landing with raucous honking. A tree frog croaks intermittently. A fox calls regularly. A cow lows across the road. A horse nickers. Above, a small jet whines. 

A tiny wren distracts me with its whistles and trills from the nearby crabapple tree. As I watch his jerky, rushing movements, a pileated woodpecker calls from the edge of the woods. A cardinal chips at intervals. A robin sings his bedtime cheerio. A flicker churrs, and a catbird rehearses his repertoire amid a chorus of woodland birds.

A breeze rustles the trees along the driveway, and suddenly I'm cold. I notice that the swallows have ceased their flitting and chatter now. I look to the bluebirds. In the dimming light, one bluebird sits on the top rail of the fence. The other one is out of sight. The woodpecker's drumming has finished. All the birdsong is slowly fading to an ensemble of frogs and crickets. The peepers' calls grow in volume. It is time that I go check on the chickens and then go in to face the inevitable evening tasks.

Balloon Fest

Twice now my family has attended a regional Balloon Fest in our State. It's a weekend event, but we've only ever gone for an evening. There are competitive flights, tethered rides, balloon launches, and evening balloon "glows," when they fill the balloons get them erect- but don't take off, and keep them intermittently lit with their burners. There is other entertainment too, but we only go for the hot air balloons.

We enjoy the glow events because the kids can get up close to the balloons. 

They can stand next to the gondolas (wicker baskets that the aeronauts ride in) 

filled with strapped-in liquid propane tanks, burners, an other paraphernalia. 

They can watch as the envelopes (balloons) are being laid out on the grass. 

They can ask the owners and pilots questions. 

They can see the high powered fans filling the balloons. 

They can touch the nylon as balloons inflate. 

They can hear the roar of the propane burners.

They can see how the burners are operated.

They can see the giant flames and feel the heat. 

And ultimately, in the dusk and darkness, 

they can see the balloons illuminated like giant fireflies 

as music plays in the background.

This year, the night we went, the ground winds ended up being strong and gusty, 

so the balloons were not able to remain inflated and lit by the time we left. 

They may have been able to later. We didn't stay late enough to find out. 

A few years ago, we saw the full deal though.

There were balloon launches and a spectacular balloon landing.

This is an outing that pleases all my children, regardless of their age.

Colored Queen Anne's Lace

Every year my girls try to pick some of the Queen Anne's Lace that is so prevalent in August. They set up little vases and jars full of colored water and make the flowers, which are usually white, a rainbow if pastels.

These plants are related to the carrot, and are edible, as my father has informed me since my youth. The juice of a crushed leaf or the hairy, wiry stem does have an unmistakable odor of carrot. And like its relative, the roots are edible, but are reportedly best when young, and should be cooked, not eaten raw. To date, I've never eaten them. I came across a recipe for Queen Anne's Lace Jelly recently, though. Maybe next year I can pull it off. For now, I will stick with rainbow bouquets!

Queen Anne's Lace Jelly

Ingredients

 2 cups fresh Queen Anne’s lace flowers
 4 cups water
 1/4 cup lemon juice
 1 package powdered pectin
 3 1/2 cups plus 2 tbsp. organic cane sugar

Instructions

1. Bring water to boil. Remove from heat and let cool 5 minutes.
2. Add flower heads and push them down into the water until fully covered. Cover.
3. Steep one half hour. Strain.
4. Measure 3 cups of the liquid into a pot.
5. Add lemon juice and pectin.
6. Stirring constantly, bring to a rolling boil.
7. Add sugar and stir constantly until mixture comes to a rolling boil then boil one minute longer.
8. Remove from heat. Skim.
9. Pour into sterilized jars leaving 1/4” head space.
10. Process in a hot water bath for 5 minutes.