Growing, growing, growing!

Everything around us seems to be growing right now: babies, children, chicks, plants, and the to do list!  The only benefit to going a very long time without rain is at least the grass isn't growing too fast right now such that we are putting off the first major mowing just a tad longer.

Ten days is too long to go between postings right now, as it feels like each day is packed full of adventure and new things around here.  But I'll do my best to include some highlights.  First, and most importantly, an update on the little (or not so little) people in our home.

Terah had her 6 month check up this week.  She now weighs 22lb 12oz and her weight is not "chartable" on their handy dandy growth charts, as she is off the chart (and slacking in height: just the 95th percentile).  She was most pleased to swipe the nurse's measuring tape and chomp on that for about half her appointment. Her doctor was more or less unimpressed and not concerned by our list of "pressing" issues and her answer to pretty much all of them was that this little gal is just her own person, charting her own path (and that our older girls had spoiled us)!  She's really a grand baby and so much fun when I'm at least moderately rested. She is also enabling my empathy to grow by leaps and bounds for various parenting challenges that I never got to experience before her. For example, our other girls were excellent "transfer babies." We could go from arms to bed to pack to car and back again when they were asleep.  Not this gal! Yesterday after taking just 2 naps, we headed home from small group last evening a little before 9 p.m. She fell asleep in the car (a big success for her) and was sacked out when we arrived home...until I got her out.  Sigh!  It was then after 10:30 when she finally was able to give way to sleep again - so I guess it was a 3 nap day after all!

Here's Terah enjoying parsley!  She is still not consuming much food but enjoys playing with it - particularly sucking on dill pickles and chomping on leafy things that she can shred and feel the interesting textures in her mouth until she gags and gives them back.



We decided to be efficient with our doctor appointments and do back to back appointments with Alida having her 5 year old check up right alongside Terah's appointment.  It cut the waiting time in half, so we'll be doing that again!  Alida grew over 3 inches this past year, but even more impressive was her growth in other areas.  I don't know what it is about the first time our children are old enough to do the vision tests but I well remember almost crying the first time Kali did it also.  There is something so cute about them standing there with their little hand cupped over one eye, slightly inclined forward and reading off the letters so purposefully (and proudly).  Kali loved the eye test and it seems to run in the family as Alida was pretty impressed with it as well.  But even more than that was here little lesson in mindfulness.  She and Terah both got one vaccine (the same one in fact), and the nurse didn't attempt anything fancy with Terah - just the "get it over with as quickly as possible" route. With Alida, though, she taught her to lay back and close her eyes and take deep breaths. She helped her relax her leg until it was floppy.  I was standing there a bit dubious.  I didn't think Alida would go for these "tricks" at all.  I was wrong.  She followed right along, took all the tips to heart, and only flinched a tiny bit when the needle went in. She then talked about the success of that approach for the rest of the day, as well as the status of her sore (but not very) injection site.

No new doctor stats on Kali, but I can report that she is growing up in so many ways - the one I'm thinking about most this week is the growth in her abilities in the kitchen. She has been cooking regularly now on Monday nights for a few months and is getting more and more skilled with each meal.  This past week I was in the bedroom working while Terah napped and basically came to the table when supper was ready (my help was limited to a few quick consults on cooking time and spices that might be nice in her dish).  I couldn't stop exclaiming about the deliciousness of the meal - it was a hit with all of us: soaked rice/black amaranth combo cooked with a red lentil spinach dish served over top. Simple and scrumptious!  I told her we might have to up number of cooking nights - she is open to the possibility!

Now for some of the other growing things.  Let's first comment on some of the projects that have come off our ever expanding project list:

The potatoes are planted!  And, unlike onions, we even had some seed potatoes left over to share.  I got in on just a little rock picking up and a row of potato planting with Terah in tow.  But mostly this was a project completed by Kali and Jason, with some assistance from Alida.

Our new asparagus bed is complete and the crowns planted!  We had a scare when we realized that our crowns were still in Mom and Dad's fridge when they last came and co-existed there for about 24 hours with a few apples and a banana before Jason realized it.  Those fruits put off gasses that kill living tissue so we were quite concerned.  We have yet to know if any damage was sustained, but I was very pleased to be the first to notice two little sprigs on the one variety shooting up yesterday. I've been obsessed with going down daily and giving them a drink of water. I am yearning for a good asparagus patch!  And we should give credit where credit it due - here you will see that the ducks and chickens are always quite happy to get in there and work on bed preparations with us - the chickens scratching is often "the kind of help we all can do without."

Jason got all the remnants of the fall/winter tree/brush clearing picked up, chipped, put on brush piles for the next biochar burn or stacked in various places for cutting up/splitting for firewood.  We just emptied out one side of our woodshed and so it will be ready to fill when the weather cools and it's the firewood splitting time of year.  For now, in a moment of inspiration, we decided for Jason to move forward with prepping the white raspberry bed below the new garden for fall planting - this used up most of his accumulated chicken feed sacks and several piles of duffy material that we were happy to get cleaned up.

We are having fun watching chicks of various ages growing up.  The first batch will go to my aunt and uncle in WV tomorrow. Part of the second batch will make their way into Keezletown proper for Emily and Jonas and the third batch is currently being brooded for us by a great mama hen.  Round four is split between the incubator and another broody.  When possible, we love using broody hens. It's so fun to watch the mama teaching them the ropes - much cuter than the fake brooder we have in the kiddie swimming pool upstairs. But the kids do like having chicks at the ready for holding and playing with.  Here's the mama unsure of the camera pointing at her and her chicks.  She made a nest and called all the chicks to her. Soon they were mostly underneath her with a few peeking out around the edges:



Terah is now awake so I need to bring this to a close, but a blog post would not be complete without a few food updates.  A few recent finds/successes/experiments!

Jason introduced me to Great Solomon's Seal shoots - better than raw asparagus.  Now I want to spread that all over the place. Super tasty!

I've got a winner for using up dried sweet peppers and tomatoes and my frozen shredded trombone squash.  If I saute chives and then add a quart bag of shredded squash to the pan along with a handful of dried peppers and tomatoes, it works perfectly. Throw in some chopped nettles and pour eggs over and bake with some fresh herbs added and we have a delightful breakfast.  It's great in that the squash is so watery when it thaws but that is beneficial in this application as it helps re-hydrate the dried veggies and nettles also tend to be a bit dry. Yes, I will admit that I'm a bit pleased with myself on this find.

And big news (that is only slightly sad): we used the very last garlic bulb from last year.  It was used with some trout our neighbor gave us and a final round of roasted sweet potatoes.  Thankfully the garlic chives are thriving all over the place and the garlic patch can be thinned of diseased plants that we can use until garlic scapes come in, which should hold us then until the garlic harvest.  Yes, I'll miss garlic cloves for roasting with veggies, but I like to run out of things in time to really feel their absence and welcome their return.  So we won't be buying garlic or onions and will be creative with the various "garlicy" and "oniony" matter we have around until harvest time!

To end, back to that growing to do list. The word that will most frequently appear on that list in the near future is "weed."  There is no end to the areas that are calling for weeding, mulching, and would benefit from an application of compost. We'll get to it as we are able. And sometimes we get to it in little blitz weeding sessions - like the one pictured here on the rare evening when supper is done and cleaned up from before dark and we can all go out and relieve some strawberry plants from their weedy surroundings!  They are flowering and we hope to give them their best shot at replenishing our dwindling strawberry supply. Time will tell!