September birthdays and more!

Today is my final day off work email, so I better share some of the happenings of the last week or it may not happen for awhile! There's been a lot of celebrating life happening around here, and that feels worth sharing about. Intertwined in the birthday festivities has been a good deal of fall harvests and transplanting and preparing for tucking the gardens in for winter. And for me, mixed together with the wonderful celebrations of life and love and our connections to one other, has been a significant splash of grief and anger and anxiety about the state of our world.

Let's start off with what's been happening in the some of the gardens! I didn't get in on any of the black bean harvesting this year as that occurred when I was frantically trying to prepare to shut down my work email for a week. But it's drying on racks in the garage and black bean threshing is on the docket for tomorrow! We always have to try to choose the optimal time for harvesting where we'll get the most dry beans before things start deteriorating in the patch. That means, of course, that there is a mixture of mature dry beans and then a bunch of what we call "shelly beans." It's a good thing those are a hit around here as we had a lot of shelly beans this year - enough to eat a bunch and freeze some as well!

Once the patch was free of dry beans, we could get in there to dig white potatoes. Initially it felt like we were digging them much earlier than normal and that the harvest was really paltry. In the end, we were digging them on the exact same day as last year and it was really only about 1/2 a bushel less. Though we are moving in the wrong direction with 3.5 bushels of white potatoes this year, 4 last year and 4.5 the year before. That said, the quality of the harvest was better - with very little damage and hardly any green potatoes - and we had also transitioned last year to a 3 bed system instead of 4. We normally will take quality over quantity - in this case we are grateful for quality and will keep working on quantity!

This little gal wanted to dig as many as she could her "silly way!" The white potatoes are not quite as easy as the sweet potatoes for that, but it was hard to turn her down as her excitement was bubbling over!

...I've had a brief interlude in my writing. I had to take a "time out" from working on this post as blogger's recent "upgrade" is similar to most computer upgrades in that it has made the whole thing less user-friendly for me. I can't figure out simple things like embedding photos which used to work without a hitch. So I was ready to throw my computer across the room, which is always when it is time for a break! So I'm back after breathing in some wonderful fall fresh air while cleaning the cooking tomato patch to prepare for putting wheat seed in the ground. I'm eager to get back out there and am still "fighting" with the blog set up changes so this may be less thoughtful or thorough than I might have hoped! 

Fall includes lots of "cleaning up" in the gardens and I find those tasks particular fulfilling to do! Recently we chopped up all the okra plants, over a series of days took all the sweet potato vines to the pigs, and as of moments ago, Tala deemed the patch ready for planting (she has been working hard on both the vines and also getting rocks out the patch!!). So that might be this afternoon's project. Jason and I made a commitment to taking a few days off from major farm work this week and the rainy day yesterday prolonged that time off by a welcome bit. But now we are feeling eager to get seeds in the ground so we don't leave soil bare much longer. 

But lest I not get ahead of myself, here's some images from the birthday fun from this week! We kicked off the celebrations with a trip to Shenandoah River State Park with our "Cub Runts" crew (as we call ourselves). Jonathan and Christen introduced our family, along with Emily, Jonas and Ivy, to the paw paw groves along the river, there was lots of splashing (with or without clothing), fun with paint rocks, a physically distanced picnic (complete with paw paw ice cream in honor of my and Jason's upcoming birthdays) and a few daring persons even went for a swim (while some of us snuggled under blankets). 

The very next day with kicked off the string of birthdays in our household with Tala's birthday. There was some puzzling, LOTS of Dutch Blitz and other game playing, and homemade noodle making (it's a tradition to eat noodles on birthdays in the Philippines, as they represent longevity). We also learned a fun little birthday song in Filipino for the occasion and my mom made and decorated a cake! One of our gifts to Tala was an expanded Dutch Blitz game with 8 decks so more people can play at one time. So there was additional laughter as some of us playing that day seemed to go deeper into the negative numbers than positive (I won't name any names but will say it was the only male member of the downstairs household). :)

Sunday we headed to the Blake's to celebrate the 4th birthday of my birthday buddy and niece, Ivy! She was still sleeping when we arrived so we went out and waited in/by the trampoline for her to come out. It was very cute to see her happy and surprised at our presence there! And what a fun time we had - Emily and Jonas have done a lot to prepare their space for fun physically distanced times with others - there are now two trampolines, two stomp rockets, two screened tents, etc... So there was fun "together" without being close to one another. I think the highlight for me and Jason was playing whiffle ball. Wow, that had been awhile!

Then on to my 42nd birthday, followed the next day by Jason's 44th! Common themes of all these days of celebration included amazing special foods, time relaxing, game playing, more naps than we normally get in several months, and just enjoying being together. Probably the most notable thing from my birthday was how I was more or less kicked out of the kitchen and forbade from doing any chores. I got away with some transplant watering and a few other tiny outdoor animal chore-related items (but probably only because I was out of Tala's sight for those moments!). Jason and I started the day with a hike to Hensley's Pond with coffee in hand and books to read. I'm reading Communion: the Female Search for Love with a few work colleagues and friends. It seemed a fitting day (my birth day) to start a deep dive into love (particularly self love). When we returned, there was a lot of activity in both kitchens. We soon sat down to a birthday feast, a team effort by my mom, Tala and the girls. Even Kali woke at 7:45 a.m. to make the potato crusted quiches! There was a delicious trombone squash soup and biscuits too. Yum! To keep me out of "trouble" following the meal, the younger gals pampered me by brushing my hair and giving me a foot rub. That is a sure way to keep me still. 

After a game of Upwords, in which I did horribly, it was time for a snooze and then the hope had been to cook burgers over an outdoor fire for our dinner. It was actually a food request from Jason, but the weather looked better on my bday for that meal. Well, the rain set in right as we were playing some badminton just before getting the fire started. And it didn't seem to be going anywhere. We played 7 Up 7 Down on the deck while we "waited it out" and then gave up on that and cooked inside. It was still delicious!!

We ended the day enjoying pumpkin pie (for Jason) and frozen pumpkin squares with gingersnaps (for me), while we watched the first episode of the current season of the Great British Baking Show. The celebrating didn't feel over that evening, since Jason's birthday was up next! We also received a variety of birthday coupons that will be gifts that keep on giving!

Jason and I almost didn't have our alone start to the day when Terah woke right as we were about to sit down to coffee and reading. Thankfully Alida woke around the same time and they were willing to snuggle together for long enough for us to read a chapter in Collapsing Consciously before they "crashed" our funny cake pie party. Most times we are open to kids joining us and proceeding with our reading, but while this is an excellent read, it is also heavy and would need extended processing were we to incorporate little people. We recommend it for all human adults. It's stirring our emotions and thinking and contributing to important conversations between us - that we hope to expand to others in our lives! But that could be a blogpost all of it's own (and not when kids are chattering in the background and I need to get lunch in the oven)!

The day (another with napping, reading, game playing and some music making) concluded with yet another feast (this one made by Tala, that also incorporated noodles). We have eaten well, played hard, rested a lot, and connected with each other. I'm grateful for this week...

And there's a little birthday chain now hanging in our front room from the one in our household that is so very excited to be turning 5 soon! We look forward to celebrating with her in wild, wonderful West Virginia!