First week without office work hasn't been boring...

Phew! What a "week off work" this has been!! Thank goodness I was not wearing my CJP hat in addition to all the other happenings of the week. That was a definite relief AND I'm glad that all the weeks coming up will not be quite as full as this past one was. 

To mark the start of my work break, we planned a Tangly Woods outing and the 8 of us took off for a day of fun together Monday morning. First stop was Storybook Trail. We had hoped to take Tala way back in September around her birthday, but had to cancel due to bad weather. That was the first leg of our journey and the only one that Jason led the way on. I think it might have also be the only leg of our trip that we did not take some kind of detour/circuitous route (this must be mentioned since my dear father, who was the leader of our caravan for the rest of the day, will never ever let Jason and I forget the time we took 222S rather than 222N and almost ended up in the wrong state). 

Back to Storybook Trail - it's such a great place for bike riding for our kiddos, who don't have much by way of straight and flat areas to ride at our home. We had only brought bikes for the three girls but at one point it appeared that someone was having a little tricycle envy!

When Terah was up high on a rock, Grandma took the opportunity to take off on Terah's trike. It was definitely a highlight of my day watching Terah take off after my mom.

Terah was happy to hitch a ride for awhile. It seems my mom is getting a year younger each year rather than the other way around - maybe it's keeping up with these growing grandchildren!

When bellies were starting to rumble and we had gone back and forth on the trail a few times, we headed on our way. We enjoyed a yummy picnic at the Camp Roosevelt Recreation area in George Washington National Forest. I was in the lead car with my parents and Terah, where Terah kept wondering aloud if we would EVER get there. We did go "around the block" once before arriving. It was a lovely spot, but didn't seem to be used that often based on the layer we needed to sweep off the picnic tables. We lingered there for some frisbee play, snoozing and several rounds of Rook. We were grateful for the cloud cover that kept an otherwise warm day comfortable.

We continued our drive up Fort Valley and stopped for a short hike to Woodstock Tower where you supposedly could see the 7 bends of the North Fork of the Shenandoah River. We'll have to come back in winter when the leaves aren't on the trees, as we only got glimpses of parts of 3. But that hike was notable in that it was only time any of us have been in range of the cicadas. I know for some the novelty might be wearing off, but I was glad to hear and see them!

As we explored around, we enjoyed the blooming mountain laurel and snacked on serviceberries, the very first black raspberries and wild sweet cherries. It was a feast for the eyes and taste buds!

Our final stop of the day was Seven Bends State Park, which I'd say is a "park in progress." We were laughing by the time we arrived because the GPS took us through about "seven bends" in a housing development before we arrived. We were welcomed by a peacock, which was the biggest feature to date. It's clear that when the little trees grow up, it will be a lovely picnic area right near the river. It was also clear by this point in the day that our youngest was about done with our adventures. The sun had peaked out from behind the clouds and it was toasty. We sat by the river for just a few minutes and Terah was ready to go. It's nothing like an impatient child to nix any chance of a meditative relaxed moment! 

It was really fun to be out and about together and away from the many farm projects that are always in front of us when we are at home. The positive memories of that day away have been pretty profoundly affected by what we found when we arrived home. It wasn't long before Jason found the first chicken carcass. In the unfolding 24 hours or so, the extent of the loss became clear. During the 8 hours or so that we vacated Tangly Woods, it appears that a family of foxes took full advantage of the absence of humans. We'll never know an exact count, but it appears they took about two dozen chickens, gutting the compost coop of Massanutten hens and getting several birds from most of the other free range coops. We found a handful of carcasses, meaning they were on a killing spree but then couldn't carry them all back to their den. While I am very aware that I should not conflate us taking a break and this loss, emotionally it's been hard to not have moments where the thought "we can never go away..." dominates. It meant some fast chicken shuffling to make it manageable to keep all the chickens in for awhile. I don't think they "understand" why they have literally been cooped up all week, but it seemed the only wise thing to do. Last evening was the first time we let them range for a bit before dark when we were sure we could be outside the whole time. I've never seen such happy chickens, scarfing grass and clover as fast as they could!

Well, let's not end on that sad note! Much more could be said on that, but here are some other snippets from our week:

As Covid numbers remain low (our areas 7-day average of late has been 0!), we have been enjoying some additional social engagements INSIDE! One of the best parts of this has been a resurgence of play dates for the girls with their cousin Ivy and aunt Emily. Most weeks they come to us on Wednesdays and the girls go to them on Fridays. Now that the weather is hot AND we are getting summer thunderstorms pretty often, having the option for playing indoors has been a big hit! They come home with stories of riding unicorns and magic carpets, playing space or restaurant or jungle or hospital or hide-and-seek, and all kinds of other fun.

This week we also did something in our home that we have not done for over 15 months! We had fully vaccinated friends in our home for a meal around our table and needed to add one of our extra tables to make room. I had not pulled our tables apart to add extra seats for well over a year. It felt strange and familiar and so very good! We felt like we needed to have some kind of ceremony as dear friends crossed the threshold of our indoor home space.

The other little outing this week was just yesterday when, after a full day of gardening, we went out for ice cream. Sadly I was working hard to eat my delicious java chip ice cream fast enough before it melted all over me that I completely forgot to even take a picture. So this crew were good sports trying to re-enact it with red hot poker ice cream cones!

In other, completely unrelated news, sometimes chickens lay eggs that are very different in size. 

And, back to the aforementioned full gardening day, it was our last big summer planting push. With the barley and crimson clover harvested, it was time to get the PA Dutch and Delicata squash patches seeded, the red flour corn, the remainder of Kali's popcorn and the bronze flint corn planted. Also, since the squirrels claimed our strawberry patch as their own, we bailed on that season too and got the brown beans planted in several of our small strawberry beds as we prepare for the next year's cycle.

When we aren't busy planting, there is plenty of harvesting and weeding to keep every moment filled that we wish to fill. The weeding feels particularly daunting these days as things are growing so fast with the inches of rain we have gotten recently. We've got lots of helping hands, and we are thankful for that.

And the lush growth is not just in weeds. We are savoring an abundance of lettuce, garlic scapes, teas of all kinds, collards, many different fresh herbs, lambsquarters AND the first peas!!

And berry season is a comin' with currants, gooseberries, black and red raspberries just getting started.

To end, a very quick update on our yearslong attempt to get giant orange poppies to flourish at Tangly Woods. The seeds from a neighbor that we thought would net us giant poppies are delighting us with sweet delicate pink and red poppies. Beautiful and decidedly not what we were aiming for. So the search continues...

P.s. I was just about to have Jason review this post when his parents arrived! We are so happy to have Grandma and Grandpa Benner here for a few days (their first visit to our home since pre-Covid). And when I sat back down to post this, I realized I had forgotten a rather major part of this week. I guess it is partly because I don't have any photos of it and partly because I'm still processing many parts of the experience. But it is definitely worth nothing that I kick-started my birth doula certification process this week by engaging in a 3 day long zoom training. So that train has left the station!! Not sure where it will take me, but I'm ready for the ride!