Sunday, July 28, 2019

To PA and WV and back!

So we've spent a lot more time in the car in the last two weeks since I last wrote than is typical of our family. And some of us feel the effects of that! Let's just say that the middle gal pictured here is not the most stellar car traveler. About two hours or so into our trip to the Benner bump (Jason's childhood home), Terah piped up amidst her grumbles and whining, "It's not worth it." Last evening she was talking about taking a trip to the farthest city away and she pondered, "then would my butt be really sore?" She just gets super antsy in the car and unless she is in the right mood or it's dark out or she has some clear motivation for taking a nap, sleep doesn't come easily. So we still pick our trips and the frequency of them with great care - for the health of our relationships with each other if not also for the planet!

But this was the long awaited summer trip to Jason's home place and we were pretty sure once we got there it would be worth it! It was!! The days leading up to our departure were as they always are - that is when I normally muse, "Is this going to be worth it?" We were leaving the homestead in the most capable of hands - my parents' - but we also wanted things to be as ready for them as possible (so we were busy getting the chickens, pigs and ducks to the point of just needing regular chores but nothing additional for dad to tackle, and doing a final harvest and food processing push before leaving the harvests to mom for the week.

We are into the summer every other day harvest schedule and as of right now the things we are picking regularly include: okra, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, trombone squash and blackberries. We also have nettles, herbs, lambsquarter, collards, kale, potatoes, sweet potato greens and cabbage that we can harvest as needed/desired. Terah ate the first sweet pepper today - one of the few we'll get this year. The blackberries have been a major success this year and I've canned a lot of blackberry jam (no pectin, just berries and raw honey!). While our cucumber patch is not wowing us (and the chickens got in the garden a lot while we are away and had a grand time messing things up), we are getting to make some pickles (canned and fermented) and are also doing some dilly beans AND pickled okra. My favorite food processing times are when all three gals join me in the kitchen. Better yet is when Jason can also join but we are still so far behind on the outdoor lists that we haven't enjoyed the luxury of doing a canning project all together. The time will come, I hope! There is actually a large bin of beans waiting to be snipped as I type.
So this is how we are eating a lot these days: seeing how many veggies can we fit on a plate - accented by some source of protein (often eggs). So very colorful and delicious!
So two Thursdays ago after tanking up on Tangly Woods veggies and eggs, we were northward bound for Pennsburg - stopping in the Lancaster area to enjoy dinner out with my nephews, niece and my one nephew's girlfriend and daughters. Thanks to my parents being willing to tend the place for nearly a week, we were able to enjoy 3 full days and 4 nights with Jason's family. Despite my body utterly crashing (landed both a UTI and a migraine on the same day), it was really a lovely visit (I'm still trying to figure out if I'm battling a virus or the symptoms of stress/anxiety or something else, but I'd rather focus here on the enjoyable times we've had of late). Here's a just a few highlights:

Alida has been getting into ballet and offered ballet lessons. She had some takers. She offered a series of lessons over the days we were there and even had a little graduation ceremony with 3 of her pupils towards the end of our visit. Highly entertaining! I'm not sure if Jason dropped out too early for a diploma or Alida didn't think he was ready for one, but I laughed harder than I have in awhile watching his do his best to follow his daughter's instructions. It was one of the many great indoor activities during the HOT days. By mid-morning, it was not enjoyable to be outside much and so we filled the days with visiting, playing with kids, reading and lots of games - I got my fill of Boggle, which I seldom get to play as much as I'd like!

As soon as the sun's intensity lessened (making sunscreen unnecessary), we headed for the pool. The water was almost too warm, but it was still the place to be. The girls loved it and by the end Alida had gotten up her courage to dunk her head under entirely and Terah almost went all the way under. She is a force to reckon with in the pool - having very little sense of how bad it would be if an adult was not monitoring her closely as she jumped from the ladder or wiggled off an inner tube. I think we might benefit from some swim lessons early for this gal!
It was not easy to pull the girls away on Monday when it came time to head to along on our next adventure. We spent Monday to Wednesday in the Lancaster area and packed a lot of fun into a few days. The first evening we got to see my sister's place, which happens to be right next to the home of a close childhood friend. Despite the clouds not being sure if they wanted to clear away or dump on us, we enjoyed some wonderful grilled food and scratched the surface on catching up. The kids were just starting to warm up when we needed to head out. 
We spent two nights with one of my cousins and his family. They have two daughters that our girls have always enjoyed connecting with - though it hasn't happened nearly as frequently as we would like! Both nights we stayed up really late playing games - making it feel very much like a vacation. I didn't mention that I had also left my computer at home for a true break from both personal and work emails. I needed it! It was nice to feel fully present to the people and activities during our travels and my only (good) distraction was getting to catch up on some of the Sun magazines I was far behind on.

Tuesday we enjoyed our first visit to Fiddle Creek dairy. It was great to see friends who are working hard to make a go of it on a small dairy farm. Their yogurt is the best and I could have hung out in the yogurt room for a long time - I could enjoy being part of such an operation. We got to walk around the farm and help with a mulching project before enjoying lunch together in their little gazebo. I must admit that it is always somewhat of a relief and really enjoyable to go to someone else's working farm and visit and lend a hand for a bit but know that their project and to do list is not mine to stress about. Ours is long enough for my lifetime!
On Wednesday, we had no easier time getting our kids to leave my cousin's home. I thought there might be tears (Terah) or an outright rebellion (Alida), but we managed to pull ourselves away mostly peacefully. It was fun to be there long enough for the girls to warm up and have lots of great play time. It was fun to see them making up games and being creative with flower picking/arranging - the sounds of laughter while us adults visited made it a super enjoyable time for all. I think one of the things that made this trip (other than the car time) more relaxed and fun for all of us is that our kids are definitely getting to less physically demanding ages. They are more independent in their play and everywhere we went there were fun things for them to do. So I enjoyed getting to finish my sentences and have meaningful points of connection with people along the way!
 
We landed home Wednesday afternoon and the settling back in and getting ready for the next trip started in earnest. We could not have asked for better caretakers - our home was in much better shape when we returned than when we left it (thanks, Mom!). The pigs magically had an additional food pan that was not cracked (thanks, Dad - oh, I mean tooth fairy...). The day's harvests were all in and cleaned making dinner that first evening easy! Yes, we were spoiled!! The chickens did take advantage of our absence and their growing in wings to explore the garden and the hawks also benefited from having us gone so they could pick off a few meals from our flocks. We weren't home for long before Jason chased off a baby bear, but it hadn't caused any harm other than alarming the birds.

So yesterday we packed up after lunch and headed over 4 mountains to Harman, WV. We were delivering our 2 eldest to my parents for the yearly week with Grandma and Grandpa at the Mountain House. They will enjoy a few days with two of their cousins and then Terah will get to go for the last two days before we are all reunited for an extended family reunion back there. Since we were making the day trip, Jason, Terah and I lingered for the annual Music on the Mountain event my aunt and uncle host each year. We got to see and visit with family and enjoy good food and music before getting back on the road. Terah sacked out before we were at the top of the first mountain. I felt very glad to get home just before midnight and the pillow was a welcome spot for my head!

 
So it will be a different kind of week at Tangly Woods. Terah will no doubt miss her older sisters (as will I), but to date she seems to kind of enjoying having her parents all to herself. And she enjoyed a morning of being my little side kick! We did a lot of out and back in with various containers of various beautiful and fresh foods to enjoy. Speaking of food, it's time to get the blackberry crisp in the oven and start another veggie egg bake to go with the tomatoes and shallots that have been cooking down on the stove all day! I also better get the pickled okra and dilly beans underway...

The one other piece of news is that Kali has successfully integrated her 2 free range ducks with the 3 mama hens and 7 ducklings. The free range ducks seem to not know exactly what to think of expanding their flock by 10, but it has been surprisingly easy and peaceful. And the ducklings are growing so fast!

To close, I'm including a video here of evening slop time for the pigs. The chickens now know there is good stuff to be had and they coming running from all corners when they see us with the feed bucket. They are pretty brave ducking in and among the pigs for a scrap of bread to run off with. It's one of my favorite activities of the day!

Sunday, July 14, 2019

Fridley Gap unplugging, S'mores and swimming, ducklings are growing!

"How's your summer going?" That seems to be a common question for July. This year, I find myself not knowing how to even attempt to answer that question. Some possible answers include, but are not limited to:
  • It's so wonderful to be home more and able to do the morning chicken and pig chores on a regular basis.
  • The peppers depress me every time I walk past them but it looks like we have enough okra to fry, pickle and freeze.
  • There is something so beautiful about a pottery bowl with fresh blackberries on the dining room table, with a bouquet of Alida's zinnias behind it.
  • Everywhere I look there are projects desperately wanting our attention and this is very wearing on this perfectionist.
  • I feel sad that we did not prioritize a family vacation for this summer, and on the occasions recently when Jason and I have taken a few minutes to read and have coffee together in the morning, I've been transported (longingly) back to our total unplug in Cape Charles last summer.
  • My attempt at "no email days" hasn't gone so well to date - I succeeded at one but the second was thwarted by Terah dropping our cell phone and it dying (thus email now being our only means of communication until the new phone comes).
  • My favorite summer hours are 6-8 a.m. outdoors and thanks to Kali laying with Terah in those hours, I have gotten to be outside many mornings getting chores and the harvesting done before the sun is beating down on us.
  • Right now our soils have me perplexed and I'm wanting to know how to respond to what we are observing and I feel inadequate - some things are thriving and some things are struggling. We have so much to learn.
  • My life, as this blog attests to, is so much what I've always wanted and longed for and still my insides are pretty scrambled up right now. 
I continue to question this blog. I felt re-inspired upon seeing how much the girls love looking back through the blog books. But if scrapbooking is the only purpose, then I could transition it to a private site that is not out there for anyone in the world to land on. Would anyone (other than my mother, who I could invite to the private version) miss it? Would not having the blog inspire more people to connect with us personally (rather than popping in here if they want to see what is happening in our lives?). Does the blog actually contribute to feelings of loneliness and disconnection since it tends to be mostly a one way street and I'm a fan of two-way relationships? So I'm putting my misgivings out there. If any of you that may find yourself reading this have any thoughts, please share them. I like writing and I like being genuine. I like processing life with others and I like keeping track of family adventures for our girls. But I don't feel like this blog can serve all those purposes. It's not been a good mechanism for engagement with others and it also feels like if anyone is reading this and thinking this is all our life is, it gives a pretty skewed image of it! Comments on the blog are always welcome, but I also would be happy for personal emails (bennerj@emu.edu) or facebook messages if any of this inspires something in you that you'd be open to sharing. Or, take this as an invitation: if you are reading this and enjoy hearing some snippets from our lives know that I would like nothing more than to hear a few snippets from yours! 

So the snippets from our life in reverse order of the subject line:

My how ducklings grow! We are not tiring of them in the least. A favorite evening activity now is to all go down and let them out for a little play time and foraging before bed. They also love anytime one of us comes down and puts some clover or smartweed in their water pan. They are getting better at eating large green leaves/stems but in the video at the end of this post you can see that sometimes one still gets too big a piece of clover in their mouth and has to be a lot of head gymnastics to get it down. They are so cute! We managed to usher them to our little pond the other night and they were big fans but the mama hens were not. The ducklings were all dabbling and the mamas went back up the bank and called them. At first we weren't sure if the ducklings were going to listen but sure enough they tore themselves away from their grand fun so as to not be separated from their mamas!

It honestly warms my heart to see these ducklings so readily accepting their mama, mama and mama. And to see these three mothers working together to care for their babies that are so not like them. I know maybe it seems I'm taking it a bit too far, but it really does make me feel happy and hopeful. Maybe they are a bit of an "odd" looking family, but I think it's about the most beautiful thing happening on our homestead right now! Who knows, maybe those babies will teach their mamas to swim? The mamas seem to want to teach the babies to roost. To date, neither is getting very far but their desire to be with each other is unwavering to date! 
So we have more than just cute ducklings at our home. Last week, a rain storm came through and another threatened enough that we nixed our plans for an evening stroll to the blueberry patch. The girls had friends over for a sleepover so we decided instead to build a fire in our flooded fire ring and use up some old s'more fixings. Friends had come over to see the ducklings and we had gotten stalled by the fire ring while their little girl and Terah slowly lost article after article of clothing. They splashed around having a grand time and before long Terah was attempting to swim around in the few inches of water available to her. She decided to dry off naturally by the fire and why not roast a marshmallow in the process! That was a good time!!
 
Earlier this week the girls and I did one of those massive "town trip days" where our number of stops is in the double digits. We saved the best for last - going to a favorite wineberry picking spot and then when we were hot and tired and out of steam (the youngest two of us anyway!), we went swimming at a friend's. A perfect way to end the day! No pictures of swimming because I was on solo with all the kiddos in the pool so wanted to be vigilant. I also did relax a little!
The only food processing event worth mentioning this week thus far was making a batch of purple sauerkraut from our cabbage. My helpers tuckered out on me very quickly but it was fun while it lasted. It's still fermenting but we'll give it a try tomorrow. I'm hoping to keep my three crocks rotating with fermenting different things - hoping some dilly beans are on the horizon! We just got our first mess of green beans to steam with dinner tonight. I'm grateful we grow a wide diversity of things so we have plenty of fresh stuff, even if some crops are not thriving. I'm not sure how we'd even keep up with the harvesting and food processing if everything was doing well.

Friday was supposed to be a family retreat day. It was late Thursday that our phone broke, which had me in a bit of a funk. I dislike having a cell phone. I dislike researching getting a new cell phone. I dislike trying to figure out repairing an old phone. I dislike decisions where everything I choose feels like it goes against my values. I dislike driving to town for just one thing. So we punted on doing anything until Saturday. Friday morning Jason and I did have to work on office stuff (me) and homestead stuff (me/Jason), but by midday we were ready to transition to some quality time together completely unplugged. And, while we normally have a goal of not setting foot in a car on a family retreat day, we decided to make the short trip to Fiddley Gap. Such a good decision!

I think right now, with the amount of overwhelm I feel on the home front, it can be really good to leave the premises when attempting to fully unplug. Not five minute into our hike, Alida and Terah were exclaiming over and over how much fun this place was - lots of rocks and interesting things to look at! One of our favorite rock structures was where someone decided to try to amuse future hikers by making it look like a tiny twig was holding up the rock. We decided to add to the art installation and added a few more twigs to "hold up" the other boulders!
 
Just a half mile in is a swimming hole which was our main destination. The water was COLD! But the girls had so much fun splashing, sliding, and swimming.They were asking to come back even before we left. I included a video here of them sliding. We would have stayed longer if everyone wasn't starting to get chilled down. It's a perfect spot for a midday adventure in summer with the shade along the trail and all around the swimming area. The only challenge for me was the number of rocks, Terah's adventuresomeness and the slipperiness of said rocks.
Upon arriving home we challenged ourselves to seeing if all 5 of us could get our showers and get dressed in 20 minutes. We did it with time spare and Jason even fed the pigs too! That gave us time to play some rounds of Boggle before heading down the lane for kite flying, baseball playing and probably the last meander through the blueberry patch for a bucket of berries. It was a much needed afternoon and evening together. These humans most definitely nourish my spirit! The feelings of closeness and connection are staying with me as we move on through our week. 

Friday, July 5, 2019

Two hair donations, plus a few food updates of course!

Yesterday was the day that two of us got a bit lighter! It was starting to feel like time to pass some hair along to others that need it more. Kali donated last June and Jason last November, so it was Alida's and my turn. Terah, of course, wanted in on the fun but was only able to donate hers to the birds for their nests. She had just recently gotten into braids and so we were all worried she didn't understand what she was asking for when she kept wanting us to cut more and go shorter. We need not have worried - she loves it and seemed to think that she could jump higher and run faster with a little less hair on her head.
Alida was excited but also a tad nervous. It seemed her flower petal ritual helped to prepare her for the big moment! And she also is not looking back. The hair cut seemed to infuse her with energy and she was bouncing off the walls for much of the afternoon. She seems to really like short hair and it also suits her well. She and Kali were talking later in the day and Alida was commenting how she might want to keep her hair short but still wants to be able to donate. She came asking me if Wigs4Kids accepts money donations as she was thinking that maybe every time she cuts her hair, she would send them a monetary donation. What a kid! 
It's funny how on the one hand I was nervous and on the other hand not really at all. It's just hair and it grows. And my sister has done the honors many times and I trust her with a scissors near my head! My biggest worry is always "will it be low maintenance!" And, especially at this time of year, can I get my hair off my neck. Both goals seem to have been met! And we have 7 thick sections of hair to mail off as soon as we can get to the post office. I'm still a fan of my personal hair plan - grow it to donate, chop it off, grow it to donate, chop it off. Works for me and I don't have to think about it in the two or so years between donations (April 2017 was my last donation And Alida's was July of that year).
Here's a few more before and after shots. I don't think I've ever felt a thicker braid than the one Alida and I shared for a few minutes.
 
So that about sums up the hair cutting fun in our home. Interspersed into the same day was some fun hanging out and game playing with Aunt Karen. We also had afternoon thunderstorms, including a bolt of lightening and impressive crack of thunder right as I stood by the pig paddock with their evening slop. The girls were at the window watching for me as I ran up to the house. Let's just say the slop barrels did not get stirred last evening. The lingering clouds on the mountain following the storm were beautiful! The storms brought Jason inside and he worked on garlic processing until his hands were sore.

That left us with the rare experience of all being inside before dark on a summer evening. Music time! Terah was already overly tired so I was having to really "practice what I preach" (or sing as it were) as I sang about being grateful at the end of the day with her fussing in the background. It was super fun to be working on a song with Jason AND Kali. Doing music together as a family is something we haven't done much and would love to do more. Alida and Terah did enjoy dancing some while we played and Terah was much happier once she had the mandolin in her hands!

So what's new in the kitchen? I was hoping you'd ask! Here's three recent experiments, with only one of those ready for testing and reporting on.

Yesterday I made our first batch of jam for the year (we have some left from other years so I haven't felt very inclined to use fruit that way). But some of the blueberries are starting to get soft (thanks to the spotted winged drosophila) and so it seemed like the time for some berry preserves. And I got the inspiration to try blueberry ginger with our homegrown ginger. It's a winner!!!! 8 cups of mashed blueberries, 1 cup of shredded ginger and 3/4 cup raw honey from our friend's hives. Yum!
I'm happy to report that the first onion experiment is underway. I kicked off this season's fermenting with our first crock of fermented dill pickles yesterday, and also got a crock of sweet onions going. Looks and smells good but only time will tell if that one is a winner or not! Hoping to get some onions drying soon, but weather doesn't look like consistent sunshine for a spell now.
 And why not close with another picture of cheese! The new shelving in the root cellar is slowly filling up with aging blocks of cheddar. This is particularly intended to be an update on the dill cheddar that I talked about in a previous post (see 2nd row to the far right, appropriately right by the dilly canned goods!). It's looking great so far! Still feeling rather amazed at milk and bacteria and time. It does some amazing things to food! Speaking of food, it's time to get some breakfast underway, though Terah had another bad dream in her big girl bed last night so is sleeping somewhat restlessly next to me. Will I be able to slip out?