Beauty, confession, cuteness and abundant harvests!

Oh, let's just get the confession part out of the way. I was pondering whether to include anything about this on the blog and so I figured I'd asked two of the ones that will likely benefit the most from this writing down the road (Alida and Terah). They said I should. This could be a post in and of itself and I have no pictures to spice it up (nor would you want them) and I'm still reflecting on it and cringing when I think about it (it's one of those scenarios with so many unpleasant what ifs that I can be tempted to let my mind and emotions dwell on). So this will be a very abbreviated version.

Two nights ago we decided to watch one of the documentaries I got from the library while we ate dinner. It was a pretty intense movie with some wonderful informative content and some tragic sad content. At the end, I really felt the need to debrief a bit as a family, especially for Alida's benefit - Kali has read about the beauty and hatefulness we humans hold within us and I think a lot of it was beyond Terah's comprehension. But, by that point, Terah was resisting sleep and was oh so tired. I was trying to snuggle her and she was in one of those persistent, impatient moods where even finishing a sentence was not going to happen - she wanted lie prostrate in bed. This, as you might guess, is not my favorite aspect of this age/stage for Terah - it actually drives me batty when I'm trying to focus on something with Jason or Kali or Alida and just can't have a minute to finish a thought. We even bought a new Elephant and Piggie book called Waiting is Not Easy to see if that might be inspirational.

So, in a moment of frustration, I just gave up on the conversation and got up abruptly with Terah in my arms and took off for the bedroom. What I did not see in the dark of the room was that one of our stools was right in my path. I tripped over it, falling face first with Terah onto the tile pad around our wood stove. It was one of those scary awful moments where you have no idea if life has just changed dramatically because of a my moment of rash action. My knee took the brunt of the fall but I knew Terah's head had gotten its share of the impact and that was all I could think about. I think all of us other than Jason (we needed his calm non-anxious presence!) were crying and scared. I definitely didn't feel deserving when Terah through her tears said, "I love you mommy."

Terah calmed relatively quickly and was asleep soon after. She had a bump on her head and marks that outlined the tile grout lines of the floor. A quick consult with Jason's sister who is a PA assured us that we could let her sleep and just keep checking on her - I knew I would not be sleeping very soundly or anytime soon so "checking on her" would not be a problem. Now the hard work of trying to glean the lessons to be learned from this experience without accepting the load of shame and guilt that would be easy to pour upon myself. I'm happy to talk about my reflections to date, but they are still relatively fresh and not very processed. As I type I'm sitting at the swingset watching Alida and Terah swing and I feel a new determination to "slow down" and to "savor" life. The "how to" part is still being figured out.

When I asked Terah if there was anything that she wanted me to include on the blog about the fall she piped up, "that I got a goose bump!" I think this was her first experience of a goose egg and she mixed it up with goose bumps. :) I feel so grateful that her goose bump/egg has more or less disappeared, she has had no lingering physical symptoms and that other than a purple tender knee neither do I!

Yay, we can now move on to beauty and cuteness and abundant harvests! I told Jason this morning that I have to look away from the ducklings after a bit because they are almost too cute to take in. They love their water pan and the treats of clover we bring them from time to time. The pictures don't do them justice. Neither do videos, but I have included three at the end of this post if you want to see them in action. We are enjoying them so much and are happy that the little family of 10 seems to be co-existing peacefully and that all the ducklings are spunky and healthy. It's great when our experiments work out this beautifully!

We liked this as one of their first family photos. It's harder than you might think to get all 10 in the same picture frame.

There is no end to the beauty around us right now. I love when the girls get a hold of the camera and I get to see some of their creativity expressed in what they choose to photograph. Alida loves flowers and was putting them between her fingers the other day and got great photos. I especially loved this one with the lines on her hand so distinct!

The other day when Jason was away doing a day long chicken workshop at Allegheny Mountain Institute, I helped Alida weed her flower garden. It's such a vibrant splash of color out our side door. She loves going out to check what new things are blooming. As we were weeding I uncovered a very tiny turtle. It was so cute! We couldn't tell for sure what kind but Jason is pretty sure it's a baby box turtle and that makes us very happy. It box turtles can reproduce on this piece of land we live on and love, it seems like that's some small indication that we are doing something well! 

 Alida got to enjoy a double sleepover with a friend this past weekend. There was A LOT of giggling in our home over those 48 hours! Ivy got to join us for a few hours of the time together and I had the privilege of braiding four heads of hair! I credit this friend, and the sleepovers, with Terah's growing interest in sleeping in her own bed. She did it for the first time on the first sleepover a few weeks back. She talked about doing it this time but then didn't last too long. We don't expect that she'll actually stay until she is sound asleep. Last night on her own she chose her big girl bed. I soon heard a pitter patter and thought, "well, that was that for tonight." She came in and said she needed me and I said that was fine. She then said, "I forgot to tell you goodnight." She said goodnight and took herself back to bed and we didn't hear from her again until 9 this morning. Not getting used to it yet but it seems the transition is at least beginning...

Terah has been enjoying joining me sometimes for parts of "harvest days." Every other day we do the rounds and there are new things all the time. The excitement of the week was the first cucumbers. Eaten in style here by Terah! And Alida wanted a photo with a cucumber smile!

We have such mammoth amounts of dill this year that I can hardly bear to pull out such that the cucumbers are being shaded. So we'll see what the harvest is like. So far we've picked 5 on two different days for us to each enjoy one. The other "first" was sauteeing our purple cabbage (in coconut oil). There's really nothing like it! It was gone well before we wanted to be done savoring it. Thankfully there are a lot more heads out there ready to be enjoyed! Alida is hoping some will be made into sauerkraut. So we'll have to reign in our tendency to eat them all sauteed!

On a recent free (and dry) evening, we decided to get our shallots out of the ground and onto drying racks and then had enough time and space on the racks to also harvest the white onions and the walla wallas. We didn't have enough of our own onions this year. so we bought some sets of new kinds and have never had such huge onions. Stay tuned, but we hope to ferment some slices of sweet onion and also to dry some onion. When? Not sure! But it's a dream project... For now the racks are full of garlic, shallots and part of the onion crop. We have a lot more onions to pull and hope they won't flop before we can process and remove some of the other things!

 

Well the sun is getting less intense and the day is cooling, so I think it's time for some family raking and mulching the hay Jason has just cut the last few mornings. He's never had the potato (and black bean and watermelon) patch looking so pristine (nor has so much time ever been dedicated to said patch). Now it's time to get it mulched before the next round of weeds spring forth! And before that, it's time to move the pigs to their new paddock - a job made much easier by an extra set of hands so off I go.

In closing, here are three videos of the ducklings with their mama chickens. Enjoy (and know that there are lots more where these came from!):

We love how the mamas are sitting in the corner just watching their little ones dubiously!

It cracks us up that the free ranging ducks came into their side of the pen and so if you aren't paying attention you might wonder if the mama chickens have starting quacking!