We'll get to Terah's birthday celebrations but a few other tidbits before getting to her special day!
The other night I found Ivy and Terah playing doctor - actually Ivy was playing doctor and Terah was trying to avoid a check up. But for a moment, Ivy had the stethoscope on Terah's heart and it was almost an exact replica of a photo we have in my baby book of me with a little friend playing doctor. It was just one of those heartwarming moments, that I was unable to recreate for a photo opp!
The clouds...my oh my! I'm feeling more than a tad frustrated with the rain pouring down right now (which was not on our radar - or on the weather radars we had checked when making our plan to plant garlic today), but the cloud patterns with the rain and sun the last number of weeks has been impressive!
I don't know who most looks forward to our little neighbor Aria's visits. She is about as cute as they come and this past visit she was cracking both Alida and Terah up - she was especially fond of grabbing hair and noses.
The year has been going along at a pretty fast clip and we were in danger of not keeping our Adopt-A-Highway commitment if we didn't get a second road pick up done before the end of the year! It seems that large cans of Natty Datty won the not wished for "prize" of being the most littered item along our road. Just days after completing our trash walk Sara and I saw three "fresh cans" on the road. We are still hoping for a day we work ourselves out of this job! In the meantime, Terah is pretty cute in her reflective vest!
More fun than picking up trash is definitely digging sweet potatoes. Each hill holds surprises - great or small! And there were some pretty impressive ones!! Mom and Dad's 3-season room has been temporarily turned into a curing room and we've got ours in there and harvests from two friends making use of the space. Many wintertime meals in that room! Mom and Dad, I hope you will accept rent pay in sweet potatoes. :)
Sometimes when I'm out with the camera I stop over in Nora's garden to catch a glimpse of what is blooming. The canna has captivated my attention this year, but the marigolds are a close second right now. I love the fall colors!
They are lovely, but not as lovely as my little helpers. That is, when they are in "we want to be helpful" moods. Here they were eager to get in on my new experiment which I'm pretty excited about. How is it that we have had spicebush as one of the main understory trees in our woods for years and have never experimented with the berries? You can dry them and grind them up as a pepper and/or allspice substitute. I did one small batch with a tree that didn't get harvested when a friend came to pick them. Next year, we will still share some with the pigs but we'll be drying a lot more!!
And now the birthday festivities! Terah was really anticipating this birthday for some time! Her day started by opening a present from me and Alida and immediately following enjoying a birthday pre-brunch snack of her multi-grain squares. She has amazed me with her generosity - happily giving out portions of her various treats to others (especially Alida, who always wants to know if she might like to share...and she normally does!).
With a little snack in her belly, she and Alida helped me work on the birthday brunch while others were doing morning chores. She had requested waffles, chicken sausage AND bacon. No one in this family complained about her menu choices at all! At breakfast there was more present opening, as she had very little interest in "spreading it out." So we didn't - she was the birthday girl after all! And she then had the day to snuggle up in her new fuzzy blanket and take pictures with her camera and munch on her birthday cereals, rice cakes and chocolate.
I did a marathon nursing session and finally got her a birthday nap - I knew how much more she would enjoy her party! She was raring to go upon waking and happily helped her sisters decide what to wear for her party. Somehow this has become a transition in this household - that the birthday girl gets to choose what her sisters wear on her birthday. Thankfully it hasn't transferred to dressing the parents too!
We were sad the her cousin Ivy wasn't feeling well enough to join, but we still had a table filled with friends ready to celebrate with Terah. She planned another menu that went over well: roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, corn and green beans and then folks help cranked vanilla ice cream to go with dessert. There was also chocolate frozen mousse, frozen wineberries and blueberries and pecans. I don't think anyone went away hungry and Terah was probably most excited about everyone singing happy birthday to her. I think my favorite part of the evening was her choosing "You've Got a Place at the Welcome Table" for the meal time blessing and wanting us to sing a verse of "The birthday girl's got a place..." It was a touching moment for me to hear this chorus of voices singing to Terah - what a powerful message for this little gal to take in! I hope she always feels that way!!
The evening ended with a game Terah really wanted to play that we learned at Ivy's called "Peacock," or that's what she calls it. One person goes out of the room and everyone else chooses a peacock. When the person comes back in they close their eyes and everyone says "1, 2, 3, squawk" except the peacock shouts, "peacock." The person with their eyes closed has to guess the peacock. Lots of noise and laughter and a funny way to end her special day!
She has been trying to milk "the birthday card" a bit in the days since - noting that it is still close to her birthday. :) She does get to anticipate the fun of one more celebration with my folks later this month. I'm REALLY hoping that she'll be sleeping normally again then and not hacking half the night each night. She is completely fine all day but as soon as she falls asleep she coughs and coughs. She is doing just that on my chest right now as I type. Even when she can sleep through it, I cannot!
Well, I better close this for now and try to lay her down so I can get a few more things done before bringing this day to a close. We are sure hoping the weather might cooperate tomorrow to allow us to get garlic and spinach planted. I am taking a vacation day since I miraculously didn't have any meetings planned and seem to not be finding time to use my vacation time right now...
I LOVE working on the farm at this time of year. There is something so satisfying about tidying up the gardens, doing the final harvests and planting cover crops. Sara and I chopped up lots of trombone vines the other day and I did remember to take a before and after photo of the trellis. My only regret was not wearing gloves - I'll write it down here so that maybe I'll better cement in my mind that not wearing gloves means my hands will be very irritated for a few days, and feels like they are burning up when in hot water (which I have my hands in a lot each day). Did I learn my lesson? We'll see if I remember a year from now...I just get so eager to get rolling on a project and if I'm finally in the garden with happy children, I just can't bear to go back up the hill for gloves. I should know better by now...
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