It's our Thursday date night, which clearly begs the question, "Why are you on the computer?" I'll get to that momentarily. The girls are likely having the time of their lives at the waterpark, thanks to the library for the free passes connected to the summer reading program and Aunt Emily and Uncle Jonas for sparing us a trip there! We happily came home to a quiet house and enjoyed a leisurely dinner, the highlight of which was sauteed garlic scapes, snow peas and mustard greens. We are rolling in green stuff these days. The ones that come to mind immediately include: garlic scapes, onions, cilantro, parsley, snow peas, hull peas, sugar snap peas, apple mint, peppermint, lemonbalm, amaranth, lambsquarter, stinging nettle, lettuce, spinach, mustard greens, and kale.
This last week we have not had much time at home and so we have had a few small windows of time (at least once with a thunderstorm brewing) where we were out with bowls and baskets harvesting as quickly as we could. Last evening was one of those times. We got all the peas picked - hull, sugarsnap and snowpeas - and then Jason had just enough time to get the eggs collected and the chickens shut in before the storm hit. Thankfully the friends joining us for the evening and overnight arrived moments before the rain started pouring down. I was glad to have all "my people" safely tucked inside. As the wind picked up, I suggested that we start to think through our power outage plan. Jason headed off to the back kitchen to draw water right as the power flickered and then went off. 
Before too long we sat down to a kerosene-lamplit dinner of rice, lentils, sugarsnap peas, strawberries and goat meat in peanut sauce. We had not planned for our first try of the goat we butchered to be so memorable, but it sure was - not just in that it was delicious but the atmosphere was delightful and we enjoyed our meal at a leisurely pace (since there is a limited number of things that we can easily accomplish with no electricity - a sobering realization). It may have been harder for me to eat the goat dish if I was not feeling some days like the two goats we still have are going to make me completely lose my mind. I know that sounds extreme but both Jason and I are at our wits' end some days. They have learned to cry the most pathetic, pitiful cries for attention. And we have sometimes confirmed that they have ample food to eat and clean water and what they clearly want is someone to be with them. I just don't have it in me - I have enough emotional needs to attend to among the humans that I love and to be completely frank am not interested in dividing that more to have a share for the goats. I often feel these days that we are not the best home for them - they want to be pets or they want to be with a large herd of goats where they have lots of company and freedom to roam farther. But clearly more than just Jason and I are invested in this decision. We can laugh about it when we talk about it with others but I could write a long blog post just about this dilemma as it has definitely been coloring my enjoyment of home and compromising the comfort that I so depend on in my home space. But lest I never get to the point of this post, I'll move on!
By the end of the meal the huge bowl of sugar snaps were history. I had already snipped the ends to the snow peas in preparation for blanching and freezing them but that clearly was not going to happen. So Alida and I got busy shelling hull peas while Kali and her friend C were playing in the living room. All of a sudden, Kali piped up, "Mommy, there's a bear cub on our porch." Honestly, my mind took a few seconds to process the information, but I knew from her voice that this was no joke. Alida almost freaked out as we all bolted towards the door. Jason ran back to get her and assure her that we were all going to be fine, we just didn't want to miss it.
Sure enough, there on our porch with its little nose up at our window was a bear cub. It looked in at us, came over to the door, and walked to the edge of the porch. It was still raining out and it clearly looked like it wanted nothing more than a dry place out of the rain. I pushed the window open further to see if I could get a better picture and this startled the little fellow enough that he made his exit. We watched as the cub took off through the yard and out of sight. While we were definitely surprised by the sighting, we were slightly less shocked than we might have been had we not heard from several neighbors about recent bear sightings. Jason had also seen it out in the cornfield a few days prior and wondered if maybe it was motherless, since it was behaving in ways atypical to a bear with good training. Our neighbors called us the other day to say it was in a tree on their driveway if we wanted to come see it. We also learned from the same neighbors that others along our road had used their four wheeler to deliver a bucket of dog food to the bear. Bad idea!
So once the bear drama had subsided we got to work on the other dilemma - Kali's duck eggs (set to hatch in a matter of days). The eggs can cool down for a bit of time (like when the mama duck would leave to get food or water) but we didn't want to risk having too much time pass so we called some friends until we figured out who was the closest to us but still with electrical service. So Kali, her friend and Jason took a little field trip down the road to make the emergency delivery. Have we mentioned liking using broody hens better than incubators? Yay for things you don't have to plug in!
Just before they arrived home the power flipped back on. By this time it was after 10 p.m. and there were dishes strewn everywhere and we had not even started prepping for the following day. It wasn't until a few moments into dishwashing that I formulated words to go with my strange feelings about what had just transpired. It was more striking to me than ever before. When the power went off we all visibly slowed down. What else could you do? I lingered at the table after dinner and at a relaxed pace shelled peas and when they were done just chatted. The second the lights came on, I was in high gear again getting dishes done, packing lunch, getting our things together for the morning. It was all things that needed to be done and of course I was hurrying because it was already late and we were all tired. But I found myself yearning for that lamplit table filled with beautiful faces to look at and wonderful people to converse with and the internal slowing down that accompanied that time. So some Lent ideas are brewing in this household! Maybe we'll have to turn off the main breaker to our house at a certain time each day or for a few days or... It is definitely in the times when we lose power where it is so blatantly apparent how dependent we are on having electricity at our fingertips. I don't like it, but it is good to be reminded of it and I would like to practice being more prepared to do without. At a minimum I think we each need a good working headlamp!...well the almost full moon is only getting higher up in the sky. The girls are now home and Alida is sacked out beside me and I don't think Kali lasted long after her head hit the pillow. I need to engage in another little flurry of activity as supper dishes still await my attention and I need to pack things up for one final day in town. It's been quite a week for all four of us, but most changed from normal routines for Jason. After me working with the Summer Peacebuilding Institute for about 14 years, Jason is taking a class! It was on a recent trip to PA that I mentioned to him that there is a class being held this year that seems like if there was ever going to be a perfect fit this was it. It's called Peace by Design and I'm happy to report that my hunch was correct. He's loving it, and I imagine you will get in on some of the musings once he is able to catch his breath and we get caught up on things around the farm. His absence has been felt! It's 7 full days of class and it comes to a close tomorrow.
The girls have done superbly with our crazy schedule this week. Alida is so adjusted that the other day she talked about going to "Daddy's school." We literally chose to "go for it" days before the start of the class, we had to scramble to figure out where Kali and Alida would be on his class days when I was working and we had not proactively made our schedules lighter in that time. So we still had things most evenings, as well as long days in town for all of us. But the girls have enjoyed playdates almost every day (the artwork was from a playdate here at our home earlier this week) and the last two days they have joined me in my office for a few hours (thankfully Alida slept most of the time she was there). Speaking of sleep, I'm going to have to end this abruptly because I'm not wanting to see in the new day and I'm headed that way if I don't get moving!
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