a birthday and a mother's day

Sassy had her birthday party this past weekend at the arboretum park. She had a wonderful time, as did I. Thanks to everyone who came! We’ve been busy making projects she received as gifts. So far, she has painted two of four birdhouses, made two cat toys, put together a doll, written some notes on stationery with her new art set, sketched in her sketchbook, fixed her hair with her new barrettes, played snake family, explored a photo album (wow – so many cute pics there), tied string to her new kite, helped Daddy build a Mother’s Day present for me with her new tools, and of course, rationed her chocolate to herself and us. What a great food sharer she is. So very unlike her mother.
















For Mother’s Day, Jeff built me a lean-to to help keep our lawn tractor dry. I had to laugh to myself, thinking how many mothers out there would be happy to have a lean-to for a Mom’s Day gift. I’m quite happy with it myself! I promptly put all my gardening tools under there along with the John Deere.








We worked and worked and worked on the garden Monday & Tuesday. I am still sore! I didn’t get much planted, but we have quite a bit of soil prepped for more planting on our next dry day. I planted all seeds, no starts, and got maybe 4 tomato seeds in, 8 beans, a few squash, a couple cilantro, a couple cabbages. We’ll see what comes up. We had to first lime the soil, since it’s a heavy clay soil. Then we mixed in some cow manure and finished with some leftover topsoil. I thought I’d be able to plant without tilling since the ground had been turned over last year when our septic field went in, but alas, no. So when I went out to plant, I realized how compact the soil was & decided I had to turn it all over first. Unfortunately, we don’t own a tiller, so I had to do it with the shovel. It felt good to go to bed physically exhausted – it’s been awhile, probably since my Magpie was born – and wake up with sore muscles.

What else this week? A woman from our new homeschool group is probably going to give us some older chickens. She said they are no longer laying every day, but usually every other day. She has 12 to unload. I don’t think I need a dozen eggs a day anyway!

We have to get a coop and a run set up within the next 2 weeks to take them, so I’ll be busy on that next week I’m sure.

I made cottage cheese for the first time this week and it turned out really well. I could see it becoming a regular task for awhile. Another homeschool mom up here made some farmer’s cheese that she brought to group last week and I’m excited to try it next.

I visited a farm about 2 miles up the road yesterday that had an organic asparagus sign out. There I met my first organic farm activist out here. The guy has to be pushing 50 years old – his youngest child of 3 is 20 years old, he told me -- but doesn’t look a day over 35. He sells organic veggies and grass-fed beef. He also distributes a newsletter and seems intent on educating the community about “nutrient-dense foods,” his words. Even better, he’s a native to the area so people likely trust him more. How wonderful it would be to get to know him better and do work with him when my Magpie is ready for it.

Oh, and the homeschool group up here had their planning meeting on Tuesday, which I attended. They decided my skills would be best used as a writing teacher for the high school age group. I am so excited. I remember first wanting to be a college writing professor (for English Composition 101) when I was around 12 years old. I’ve designed curricula in my head for years. I tutored English Comp when I was in college myself. I know most professors find 101 to be a burden, with kids in there that would rather not be, nary a writer in the bunch. I think that’s precisely why it’s always appealed to me. I’ve dreamt of turning an intimidating process into an easy one for them, and now I’ll get my chance! Many of the kids in the group are struggling with the essay component of their SAT’s, so I’ll get a chance not only to teach them and use my curriculum ideas, but to also be held accountable by their scores on the SAT test. It’s almost like I’ll be taking the test myself! (And now my true nature as a d-o-r-k shines through, hee, hee.)

I finally feel like we’re about settled in now. I’m back on cloth diapers. No longer allowing myself the convenience of disposables seems to be the defining point. :-)

Our house on James, dare I say, dare I say, is set to close next Friday. DARE I say. The buyers actually asked if they could come in this weekend and start cleaning up the backyard and painting inside. We said no to the painting but heck yeah to the backyard. Why not?

It sounds like they’re pretty certain it’s a go, dare I say.

Hope everyone else had a great week! I’ll be checking everybody’s blogs now to see how many other friends got lean-to’s for Mother’s Day. Ha ha!

maple

We have a new pup! We adopted Maple, a Basset, Jack-Russell mix from our local humane shelter this weekend. Sofie is thrilled. I hear her saying, “You’ve given me a sister!”

They run and tumble, wrestle and play-growl, then trot along together checking out the property. When they’ve had enough, they plop down near the house to rest and ready themselves for the next adventure.

Maple is probably around 4 months old. She still has her baby teeth, but is no longer teeny-tiny. She’s a goofy, stout little thing with a wagging tongue and lots of love to spread. She has made a wonderful addition to our family this week.

Will next week bring chickens? If so, we won’t name them.

Jeff has decided he no longer wants to be a vegetarian. He is going to eat chicken and fish. I believe he might even eat the chicken we raise ourselves. He has decided that chickens are stupid enough and not pet-like enough that chopping off their heads when you’re hungry does not constitute a breach of animal/owner trust.

He has been a vegetarian for as long as we’ve known each other, so this is a big diet (and dogma) change for him. He is citing a desire to get his body clean again. He wants to ditch the processed crap that’s been making him sick, as well as the copious amounts of cheese and beans that he has to consume to get enough protein in to maintain muscle. He thinks a diet of some meat protein, perhaps once/day, plus lots of vegetables, cleaner carbs, and very little fake foods will do the trick. We have agreed to only local, humanely-raised meats with no factory-farmed suffered meat at all.

Sounds good to me, since it makes my life in the kitchen a heck of a lot easier and can make us more self-sufficient, too. It’s darn hard to support the bulk of your family’s diet off your own land unless you include some eggs or poultry, at least. And since he doesn’t like eggs, then dumb chickens it just might be.

And deer meat. My husband, vegetarian for the past 15 years, has decided to start hunting deer. He has always said, for all of those 15 years, that he isn’t against eating meat, but only if you have the cajones to kill it yourself, not distance yourself from it. Now, he’s walking the talk.

He put up some laundry posts for me yesterday and I s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d my clothesline across them today. It was such a beautiful day for it. Reaching high above my head, I would look up and see huge blue sky with big puffy white clouds resting here and there. Nothing but blue and white and bright sun beyond the clothesline. It made me smile. Then I grabbed a sunhat for my Magpie.

My little Magpie…..finally, a screen name. Why Magpie? Like the magpie -- the crow -- she watches. Her little eyes dart here to there to there to here. She is aware. She makes connections. She is knowing and observant.

Tomorrow Jeff will pick up our new washer and Tuesday I can (hopefully) run a load of clothes. Expect a lovely picture of clothes hanging on 4 clotheslines behind our house to follow.

Perhaps I will also include one of Jeff’s first non-vegetarian meal. He’s planning on fried chicken – from Tewes’ of course.