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.