The past 10 days - what is sustaining me!

It seems likely that in the foreseeable future any blog posts that get written will mostly likely happen on Sundays. They will be much cheerier than if they were written on any other day of the week! At one point in the week, I found myself literally shaking from the panicky feelings coursing through me related to all I needed to accomplish sitting in front of my laptop. It was a moment that has stayed with me, as it was a bit of a wake up call that I will be no good to anyone if I completely fall apart. A few friends have emphasized that same lesson on a few physically distanced/socially connected hikes this week!

So the entire focus of this particular "scrapbook entry" is going to be on the bright moments that have colored my life and brought joy since the last time I wrote. As I sit down to write this, there is some impressive block tower construction happening in the background. A massive tower just collapsed, all around and on top of Terah, but thankfully giggling followed. The moods in this home are normally pretty bright on Sundays. Sabbaths - what a grand idea! We all look forward to them so very much. And today was no different in serving a very important function of providing some rest, some play, some rejuvenating connecting times, some hands in the dirt, some exercise, some tasty food and some laughter. 

But let me back up a bit! Last Sunday was Easter and probable rain delayed a planned hike freeing up time to slip an egg hunt into our day. I have to say that my all time favorite hiding spot this year was down in the middle of a mullein plant. I'm also just a general fan of mullein right now, and thrilled to see it popping up in many places around our property - it's a favorite tea in our household when anyone has a cold/cough. But I divert from the Easter egg hunt. The rain held off long enough for us to also enjoy our first family picnic in Terah's turtle shell. That is going to be one sweet spot in the heat of summer! The chickens have been enjoying it too and so they came over to check out who was in their hiding spot. And they were not disappointed as it wasn't long before the girls were sharing our picnic breads with them. 

This is a different breed/group than the ones that crashed our picnic but Alida has now taught many chickens to jump up and get popcorn or bread from her hand.

Food right now is a mix of the abundance of last year and the firsts of this year. We are still taste testing lots of winter squash and need to up our game so we get through the best ones before planting time next month. The trombone squash here did not disappoint! I'm glad for some cool weather that has soups still tasting good. A new favorite too was a sorbet where I just pureed cooked squash with frozen raspberries and maple syrup. Yum! We now also have enough fresh spinach to enjoy it in multiple ways - steamed, in salads, on pizza... Kali has been the spinach harvester to date this year, for which I've been very grateful!

Many things are flowering right now, which is not only exquisitely beautiful but also a promise of things to come. Our over wintered peas are putting on a show! We are pretty excited about this breeding project. We are working on selecting a cross of Austrian Winter Pea and Sugar Snap. Wouldn't it be great to be able to plant peas in the fall, have them over winter without protection and be ready to go in the spring in any warm snap? We are just a few years in and so we don't have seed that we are confident will consistently yield delicious peas but just as soon as we refine it, we hope to share it around!

The turnips are flowering, we are hopeful that we'll have a good seed crop. That will be great, as I have a feeling we'll be growing even more turnips going forward. It was the best raw veggie that we were able to enjoy for most of the winter.

Another exciting new thing that we are hoping to harvest seed from before the voles and/or chipmunks get it all is this Ethiopian naked barley. Yep, a barley without hulls. We were unable to find a winter-ready naked barley, so we're trying to select one. These are the kinds of things that get the Myers-Benners amped up!

That and baby chicks. Terah was jumping up and down all around the back kitchen the other evening as our second incubator of eggs were hatching. It was particularly exciting since, due to not having any reliable broody hens at this time, we were going to need to keep the chicks inside for a bit. This brought sheer joy for our littlest gal who adores them. They are getting lots of human contact - Terah just said "can I go play with the chickies?" as I typed this! The females from this hatch will be going to two other families and so I'd say the girls are doing them a service by hopefully increasing the odds that these birds will be accustomed to people! Other than at night I'm very happy to have them inside. But I feel a little like we have had an infant in the house the last few nights as one will get out from under the brooder and get chilly and peep loudly enough to wake us up. Jason and I have taken turns going and tucking a little one back under its heat source. It's hard to stay upset at all at something so cute!

When Terah is not playing with chicks, which is most of the time right now, she may be found coloring. I don't remember Kali being a big coloring book person at all. Alida maybe a little more so but Terah loves to color. Sometimes we won't hear anything from her for an hour or more as she concentrates on her work. It is really fun to see what sparks the interest and attention of each of our girls. This was one of her recent masterpieces. She has enjoyed sharing it - when she finished it, she told me that I could share it with anyone. That I could share it with my students. :) She had shown a few of them via zoom when it was still in progress. Anyone I was with on zoom, she wanted to share her work with. IF they were people that knew her, I allowed a little show and tell!

Speaking of show and tell, this flower is putting on quite the show on our front windowsill. The tiny Amaryllis seeds leading to these spectacular blooms were given to us by a neighbor and friend before his death. As I look at them today, I feel sadness and gratitude within me. I also find myself thinking of friends who today are journeying through the first anniversary of their daughter Norah's death. I feel so in need of better developing the capacity to hold the seemingly contradictory emotions that fill much of life these days!

Today had a lot of joy in it for our family. We took a hike up the trail behind our home that we had cleared awhile back. We all love it - both the journey and the destination! All photos of our hike below were taken by Alida. One more trip up and back and we'll have the junk pile/remains of a couch cleaned up!

 When we returned home, we did do just a bit of gardening. My work schedule is such that I'm not getting in on much outdoor gardening time right now and I miss it. So it felt wonderful to be outside for a bit together. I got to help fill a basket of weeds for the pigs and then we planted some cole crop seedlings and also transplanted some Cottonwood sapling volunteers and planted out some elderberry cuttings we had rooted inside. The girls found a new fun spot in the process for digging and making clay balls. It was hard to coax them inside, even with the prospect of popcorn and playing games!

So big announcement: Tonight was the final popcorn taste testing of the year. I will admit that I never thought we would get through the hundreds of cups, but we did it! So we will be ready for popcorn planting!

Well, I think that is all for this evening. The daylight is waning and I am determined to get to bed early tonight to set me on a good path at the start of what will be a taxing week with this machine on my lap for much of it! I'm so grateful for a day like today where I was away from it for many hours of the day. I am hoping that in time I can carve out more than one day a week where I'm not glued to a screen. But for now I know that my computer is one of the tools I have available to keep adding "mi granito de arena" (my little grain of sand) to the work that needs to be done. So I hope to keep a mostly friendly relationship with it, which means we also need to have some time apart. With that, I'll sign off!