How to sum up these days?

There is just a hint of light left in the sky. Another day is winding to a close. I often have to remind myself what day of the week it is. I figured I probably ought to bring some balance to our scrapbook and share a picture that more accurately reflect the reality of many hours of many of my days. On my "office days" I've been clocking 10-12+ hours in front of my computer, and many of those hours staring at myself in a whole smattering of zoom meetings. I try to break things up a bit by moving from living room to dining room to kitchen to guest bedroom to in-law quarters to swing set to picnic table. 

The screen time is wearing on me, but I think I'm slowly finding ways to build in some rejuvenation. You will see snippets of that in the words and pictures below. I am not wanting to complain about the state of my work life, only to say that I'm still definitely trying to find my way - the learning curve on many fronts is very steep and figuring out how to contribute what I can and also maintain my sanity such that I can be useful for the long haul. I'm definitely learning that taking my work outside when I can is a good choice!

So before I get too far into this post, I promised those that are landing here from Facebook that I would share a "Tangly Woods tip!" Folks don't have to know us for long to observe ways that we live that are counter to the dominant culture around us. The list is long and it is intentional. Often, even while being deeply committed to the choices we have made, it can make us feel a bit odd. We can often chuckle and find humor in it - like when Jason is cutting the driveway with a grass whip while a neighbor buzzes by on a riding lawnmower - but at other times, it would only be honest to admit that it feels a bit lonely or alienating. But, all of us a sudden, some of these ways of living don't seem so odd, and I'm even inclined to invite others to join us. So here goes: use cloth wipes when you pee in place of toilet paper and to blow your nose in place of tissues!

It was years ago when we had babies in cloth diapers that this practice emerged naturally for us. Cloth diapering websites charged many dollars for little packs of cloth wipes. A tip from another frugal Mennonite gal (which I still am at my core), helped me see this was entirely unnecessary. A trip to Goodwill netted a handful of baby blankets for 50 cents each. A few moments to cut them into squares and we were ready to roll. So we found ourselves washing cloth diapers and baby wipes - why couldn't the rest of us use them and cut down on our toilet paper? In fact, we could! We started then and have to this day and I recommend it wholeheartedly! Are you intrigued? Here's a few more tips and benefits:

• Thin cotton blankets work great but we also used things like old pajamas. Anything soft that you can cut into squares. Flannel is ideal.
• I strongly recommend squares that are at least 6x6 inches. Smaller has its pitfalls.
• We only use them when we pee or to blow our nose and throw them into a small bucket next to our toilet that we then dump into any load of laundry.
• Gone are the battles of kids using too much toilet paper - just grab one wipe and you've got what you need!
• Our noses are much less raw when we have colds - the cloth is much gentler on our skin.
• In the dead of winter, you may wish to hand them on drying rack inside or at least shake them out before you take them out to hang or you will be trying to shake out little frozen balls of cloth.
• To save on clothespins, hang two wipes with one pin in a double layer

And for our remaining TP needs, we enjoy supporting Who Gives a Crap. They provide TP we feel good about using AND their emails and TP wrappers are very entertaining. That said, right now the best you can do is get on their wait list!

Thus concludes Tangly Woods Tip #1. Now for what is sustaining and nourishing me these days: garden time, growing things, cute kiddos, fresh foods, family work time and hikes in no particular order:

We are often pretty busy and moving at a pretty fast clip when we are outside on the farm. Sometimes having the camera out with me is a distraction and sometimes it helps me to pause and notice the beauty and sweetness right in front of me. There has been a lot of that recently! Probably my most favorite moment in the last week was when we were filling potato trenches with biochar, covering the biochar, planting potatoes and then covering them. Terah got inspired to help cover with her little hoe and she was dedicated and giving us updates by the minute of how far she had gotten. When I looked up and saw this I had one of those heart melting moments. She kept shouting, "Did you ever think I would get this far?" That may also have been the work session where out of the blue she shouted out to us,"When we die, do we become dust?" Oh the conversations that we have in the garden!!

We've spent a lot of time as a family in the root patch lately. First there was the aforementioned potato planting. It is worth noting that we had EXACTLY the number of potatoes that we needed. That was just a bit too close for comfort - so note to us that we need to keep at least 2 very full (plastic, to retard moisture loss, but leave a hole for breathability) shopping bags full of seed potatoes for next year.

And then after Jason spent considerable time and energy weeding the garlic (with a little family assistance but we can't take too much credit), we side dressed it with compost from the composting chicken coop. Yes, all 6 rows with 96 feet of garlic in each - we use it by the bulb in this household!

Now not everyone stays on the job the entire time, especially when the sprinkler is on the next rotation and it's sunny out. And a common diversion for Alida is taking a weeder and bucket and popping out dandelions for the pigs. They love to see her coming - for both the treats and belly rubs!

We pushed pretty hard this past week through Saturday night, determined to make Sunday a true day off - no CJP work for Janelle, no heavy farm work for Jason. I feel confident I would not have been in a very good space at this moment had it not been for the sense of having a true sabbath break. It was such a lovely day, with the highlight definitely being packing up and heading up our woods trail to the top of hill behind our home with a picnic, blanket, books and drawing materials. Good food, beautiful people, time to read and a short snooze.

Before we headed back down through the May Apples, we started the clean up project on the old bench someone placed there years ago that is disintegrating up there and some animal has shredded apart. We made a good dent and will be back for more.

Sabbath day or no, we are trying to eat outside as much as possible right now. My mom says that food always tastes better outside and our family unanimously agrees with her! So lunches are often on the concrete pad under the shade of the pine trees - which today had a few of us shivering. Supper tends to be at the picnic table right by Nora's garden. The chickens normally find us at either location, hoping for some droppings. Tonight Alida was training a chicken to jump up to her hand for a bread crumb - it was better than any Netflix show. :) 

Whether eating inside or out, we are savoring spinach salads daily. We are in the thick of violet-season, red-bud season, and hard-boiled egg season! We then recommend that you top it off with some soaked dehydrated pecans from Koinonia Farms! I don't tire of this combination and always feel this desire to find a way to "freeze" or "can" this time of year (we have yet to find any way to preserve red buds or violets and so we just savor them and eat a lot of salad). And my kids remind me often that you don't have to make a spinach salad to eat red buds.

What else is growing at Tangly Woods other than plants? Chicks! They have ravenous appetites and a very protective mama. I've been enjoying doing chores a few times a week and look forward to this stop on the rounds. The last few times, though, it's been hard to get the feeder out without the chicks practically jumping out of the coop out of eagerness for breakfast (which would be about a 4 ft drop). Today my care in one area, led to tragedy in another. It's so hard to even type this as my stomach turns all over again thinking about it. 

Terah and Alida were with me and were eager to see the feisty little birds. I managed to get the feeder and was pulling it out carefully and trying to close the door so none fell. My lack of experience and in my haste, I never saw that one little chick had its head out and I felt some resistance as I closed the door, opened it immediately and to my horror saw one of the chicks flopping around clearly not ok. I wanted to take that second back but the best I could do was get it into my hands before it got trampled on. By the time that I got to Jason, it had died in my hands. I felt its little warm body and stroked its just emerging wing feathers on the walk to the compost. There I was assured again that my tear ducts do still work and I stood crying while Terah and Alida hugged me. There was nothing to do but acknowledge how heart breaking it is when you are trying to care for creatures and you end up causing harm. My daughters were the greatest gift to me - I was pretty upset at myself and all I felt from them was unconditional acceptance and their full presence with me while grief washed over me. 

In brighter news, but still chicken related, Terah has decided she wants her own chickens. It's not the time for building chicken coops, so the outcome of a recent family meeting was that she could "adopt" one of the roving pens as hers for now. We figured this could help determine if this is a passing whim or is around to last. So far she has enjoyed it and I think they are a fan, as they now get popcorn treats (chickens love the duds). Most days, Alida willingly does her own chores and then helps Terah with hers. When those girls don't get along it is not pretty, but the vast majority of the time it's so very sweet!

In closing, while most in-person social gatherings are but distant memories, we are still enjoying weekly hikes with Jonathan and Christen to Hensley's Pond. We all do everything we can to honor being 6 ft apart, yet maintain emotional closeness. It's good to have some outside perspectives and to process how life is unfolding for us and those around us. To do that while hiking and enjoying the unfolding of spring around us is a gift I treasure, and a privilege I know that many are not able to enjoy presently. 

In light of the above thoughts and on Easter weekend approaching, maybe I'll leave you with a Wendell Berry quote: “So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute … Give your approval to all you cannot understand … Ask the questions that have no answers. Put your faith in two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years … Laugh. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts … Practice resurrection.”