Homecoming...

Yesterday afternoon, after being fed marvelously (again) by my mother, we all climbed into our car and headed back over the mountains. Kali expressed that it had been too short, Jason and I both could have used another luxurious day hiding away in the cabin, and Alida had to be literally plunked into the car and strapped in before she escaped and clung to Grandma like a little monkey. She said she was never coming home...  All those feelings recognized, I think we all felt gratitude and excitement when we pulled up our driveway and about as soon as the car and some of its contents were unpacked, we all headed outside with bowls and containers!

We spent the next few hours picking things, depositing them on the dining room table, picking, depositing, repeated multiple times (except for Jason who stuck it out and picked pretty much all the hull peas solo!).  In the end our table was overflowing with over a bushel of hull peas, a bucket of sugar snaps, snow peas, lettuce, probably the last picking of spinach, beets and beet greens, lemon thyme, flat and curly leaf parsley, red currants, red raspberries, probably the last strawberry picking, the first three (and maybe only three) white cherries from Alida's cherry bushes and the first two goumi fruits we've ever eaten. We then got down to business.  First line of business was to make dinner which consisted of shredded steamed beets and then an egg mixture with parsley, thyme, beet greens, shallot flower stalks and garlic chives. I only made one mistake. I didn't make enough!  Poor Alida wanted more and it had all been consumed so dinner may have to be a repeat tonight!

Then while Jason and the girls (Kali helping, Alida kind of participating) shelled peas, we fired up Emma (a movie based on a Jane Austen book) and I did some shelling but also worked on the other tasks: freezing parsley, getting the rest ready for eating and drying, stringing and freezing the sugar and snow peas, capping strawberries and mashing with raspberries and currants to make a 3 berry jam to go on sourdough bread for a bedtime snack, and then after that moving to tackling the mountains of dishes strewn about!  It was about midnight when Jason and I were able to lay prostrate and boy did it feel good!  After 36 hours of complete relaxation, it was a minor shock to the system but the time away also had us rejuvenated enough that we went to bed tired but feeling energized by all the happenings of the afternoon and evening and the last few days.


I guess I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself.  Jason is on deck to do a blog post about our first ever chicken workshop, but just to put some context around it!  We had a busy week leading up to leaving for West Virginia on Thursday.  I think we all know full well that we would not have made it to our departure time (at least not nearly as gracefully) without my mom's presence with us for a good part of the week. I had to work Monday through Thursday and on three of the four days carpooled in with our neighbor at 4:45 a.m. (no, that is not a typo).  That, on top of having evening evening things every night before we left, had us all feeling a bit strapped with getting things done on the home front before leaving.  Thanks, Mom!!

On Thursday the girls and Mom headed off to Harman, while Jason and I headed to Allegheny Mountain Institute (AMI). It was a rough start to our trip, getting a phone call from Mom right before leaving that about half the chicks we had sent with Mom for my aunt and uncle hadn't survived the trek. It was a really hard thing to swallow and definitely put a damper on our ride through the mountains.  There was much to process, things to learn, regrets for how things had been done in the rush of packing up, and a pretty clear decision that when needing to transport chickens, it needs to be done when they are tiny and not so vulnerable to overheating.  The 21 chicks we had in our car for AMI arrived in perfect condition (our car, however, was covered in wood shavings by the time we arrived!).

We got settled in at AMI and not too long after dinner and some workshop preparations decided to turn in for the night.  It had been a long week and the upcoming day was a big one.  From all the feedback received, the workshop went splendidly well and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. It was a wonderful experience of Jason and I both working in our strengths to coordinate such an event.  Jason did a fabulous job presenting the content of the day and it would be hard to not feel energized and excited about chickens after spending 6 hours with Jason on that topic!  We enjoyed working with a group of 8 fellows who are in their first year at AMI.  There was talk of them making a field trip to Keezletown to see our entire homestead operation sometime, which would be really fun!

Friday evening, after all was said and done, Jason and I felt like something had run over us!  If one can feel depleted and energized all at the same time, I think that would describe us.  What a gift that we had postponed our 16th anniversary getaway and rather than returning straight home to the work awaiting us, we headed to Harman to my family's cabin there and enjoyed a two-night anniversary weekend alone.  It was luxurious and the only tension in those hours at all was me losing (for the first time) Upwords two times to Jason. I pulled out two wins also, but was a bit chagrined to realize how much I really did care about winning. I guess our four year old does in fact take after me!  I got over the second loss better than the first, so I'm going to chalk that up to some slight maturing that may have taken place. :)

We joined Mom and the girls for dinner Saturday evening and then again for Sunday lunch before heading off. They had packed their three days full of fun - doing art projects, reading stories, going to the Harman library, playing in the stream, picking flowers, playing at the swing set, making sourdough bread, cooking meals together, playing games inside and out and just enjoying time together.  Alida initially said she didn't miss us at all but when we came for supper I had a little leech on my arm most of the evening and then she admitted that she had lied!  It felt good to be missed (if only a little) and good to know they were also so very happy and content without us.

So now to dive back into a work week and a big week for us.  Our ultrasound is coming up on Friday so the excitement (and probably some apprehension, though right now the excitement dominates) will be building in our household as the week goes along.  Spark made sure we were very conscious of his/her presence throughout our travels - getting stronger and more active by the day. It's fun to now even be able to see my belly move and Jason has gotten a good number of kicks every day recently.  We've done a bit of rearranging in the house by moving the changing table into the bathroom and getting books moved around to have baby books available for diaper changes.  We are all so very much looking forward to welcoming this new little one into our crazy and wonderful life here at Tangly Woods!