Musings during a summer thunderstorm!

Jason and I were out doing the summer cutback in the welcome garden when the clouds rolled in, along with thunder, lightning and a rain storm. So instead I'm doing some email catch up while Jason also does some writing. An email update from fat activist, Jes Baker, summed up what I feel I'm living into these days. I can't say it better than her: Joy, pleasure, ease, and rest are powerful, and the more we become intimately acquainted with them, the more capacity we have to hold and work with grief, pain, oppression, and trauma. 

While our eldest is seeing and experiencing so much in the Philippines and our younger two are enjoying a double sleepover at Ivy's this weekend, Jason and I savored a Saturday afternoon NAP after also watching a movie (if you haven't seen Her, my goodness what a movie...)! Maybe I'll get good at this "rest thing" yet?! I've got a ways to go and summer on a farm is not the ideal time for practicing it...well, actually, maybe it is the perfect time!? It is a really nice feeling to be enjoying some time here at home just the two of us, knowing what a wonderful time all our children are having in other places. The look of delight on their faces on the pictures coming through to us makes my heart feel all warm and fuzzy! 

But that "summer on the farm thing" is keeping us hopping for most parts of most days, most especially Jason. And he's been working a number of days each week away from home/farm. He's got several jobs he's juggling right now, hoping to finish up one of them - a tile job - this coming week. It seems that those he's working for continue to feel so happy with his work, and he continues so much to want to devote all his time and energy to the work he feels most called to do in this world, i.e., ecological agriculture. So there's some ongoing discernment and exploration happening. It seems easier to find people willing to pay to have their bathrooms tiled than to have an overwinterable sugar snap pea seed developed, despite us having the opinion that one is likely much more valuable for the human population in the long run.

But for the short term, there are bills to be paid and the construction work is fulfilling that need. And some of the bills are unexpected and frustrating ones, which I don't wish to use much scrapbook space for. But for the record, the 2022 scrapbook would not be complete at the end of this year if I did not mention our disastrous unfolding roof nightmare that none of us seem to be waking up from. In short, the metal roof was installed incorrectly 11 years ago when the in-law quarters were being built and unbeknownst to us until Jason discovered it last fall, water was infiltrating the roof cavity and causing a big mess. So there's been a flow of carpenters, insulators, solar installers and roofers here for weeks working on this very expensive repair that no one is ready to take responsibility for at this juncture. And as the rain pours outside, we have once again put the bins under the leaking skylights and are grateful for a mostly dry house and are eager for this saga to be behind us. One paragraph is more than enough on that!

The good summer rains mixed with sunshine and warmth mixed with continued improved and healing soils means that the gardens are booming (our delicata patch is ridiculous this year, in a good way)! We are settling into our "every other day harvest" schedule and keep updating the list of what needs picked. The current list includes green beans, cucumbers, trombone squash, tomatoes, sweet peppers, okra, and blackberries every other day. And then parsley, basil, lettuce, tea, and collards as we want them or when it's time. The canning shelves are starting to have more 2022 contributions, with the first batches of pickles and dilly beans added. And berries and beans are slowly filling the empty crevices in the freezers. And because we can't help ourselves, we also go away from Tangly Woods to harvest things when the opportunity presents itself! Last night that was for peaches up the hill, netting us peaches that need to be processed FAST before the brown rot gets them all so we are eating lots, made peach jam today and am slicing a bunch for freezing. After getting peaches, we went to the blueberry patch since Jason hadn't been there even once this year (he often stayed back to be on "chicken duty" so no foxes took advantage of all leaving while the chickens were free ranging). We deemed it officially our last picking as the bugs are making many of the berries soft now. And, finally, earlier this month it meant an evening excursion to a friends' woods where we filled our cooler with wineberries!

Here's a whole smatterings of other updates from the first three weeks of July:

We started the month with a small chicken (and one duck) butchering that enabled us to retire the "rooster condo" (heaviest clunkiest of our coops!) for the season and also brought more peace to the duck pen (now Duckie is the only male duck which eliminates fighting over the females!). Alida and Terah helped and Terah was especially proud of helping with the evisceration process for the first time. I found her when she was tugging on some internal organ with all her might to extract it. Our next butchering will be in early August and will be a much larger one including the first of the young birds for this year. There are some coops that are in great need of a population reduction!

We enjoyed two unrelated things around the 4th of July. First we got to enjoy the fireworks at Massanutten Resort out our front windows again. It's so lovely how we don't even have to leave home and the noise is lessened by distance (which also means it doesn't match when we see them since sound and light travel at different speeds!). Better than the fireworks was enjoying a short day trip to WV to meet up with my now 50 year old sister for a little birthday surprise get together. Alida and Terah got to go the day before with my parents and enjoy Lookout Cottage for a bit longer. They were still NOT at all ready to leave!

Speaking of time with my parents, there are many times every week (if not every day) that my heart swells with the sweetness of my kids getting to grow up with grandparents nearby. Whenever I can't find Alida or Terah, it's a pretty safe bet they have migrated upstairs. The puzzle table is always the best guess, though if they hear me coming they are more likely to be under it than at it! The planned meals and times together are great, but it's more the simple moments where they see something outside that they want to share with Grandma and Grandpa, or they see them through the window and go up to say hi. That's when I'm awash with warmth by their sweet connection, not to mention that I also get to enjoy those kinds of moments, too. 

In addition to grandparents, the girls continue to savor regular playdates with Ivy. And we can't keep up with how fast Luca is growing and changes. He used to sit and listen excitedly to books. Now he wants to eat them!

Speaking of books, we hit a new record on our last library excursion. Our receipt was to the floor!!! And that was before we used Jason's library card so we could check out more than the DVD limit of 10. I learned my lesson to never leave Jason downstairs with the DVDs to "pick out a few we might like to watch" while getting books with the girls upstairs. We came home with many! That said, we have enjoyed a few, especially the movie Her that Jason and I watched today - so well done and so much to think about! And the girls are getting their fill of Max and Ruby!

So some additional updates on the gardens. Our beet harvest was like none we have had before, or at least not in a very long time! We will be enjoying them for some time to come. I was a little overwhelmed the day I pulled them all but processing them went pretty quick once I dove in. We are storing a bunch in our extra fridge and still have some more beet greens to enjoy in the coming days. I'm feeling particularly pleased that the round of lentils I just made with them pleased Terah's palate. That was a win on two fronts as she hasn't been such a fan of cooked greens or lentils. Her tastebuds and preferences are expanding - I love when that happens!

I'm missing my green bean snipper and tower creator (not just because she helps with food processing!!), but hopefully there will still be beans in a few weeks when she lands home from the Philippines. Alida hasn't made any towers yet, but she enjoyed her one snipping stint. Since then my mom has done most of the snipping - it's kind of magical how we leave bins of beans with her and they return to use with the ends snipped off (except that it is anything but magic - it's her wonderful generous contributions to the daily flow here...additionally, our laundry also often "magically" appears on the line and then disappears and shows up folded in the wash basket at the top of the stairs!). It's definitely the time of year when more sets of hands are welcome... As I walked around looking at the loaded tomato plants, I did have the thought: am I really ready for tomato season again?!

In between rainy times, Jason has gotten to some of the threshing and winnowing. The wheat and pea seed is now drying in trays in the common room.

It's the time of year where I can be found photographing my plates kinda often. I was thinking the other day how I'm almost never inclined to photograph a bowl of ice cream or something that doesn't really have personal significance to me. Trust me, plenty of bowls of ice cream are being savored in this house, but it just doesn't have me reaching for my phone like a plate with the first steamed green beans, the first cucumber dill salad and the first tomatoes in a salad with a parmesan black pepper dressing I just made for the first time which is (was...it's gone) a hit! I do find it's the time of year where we are eating so much roughage that I get full but then don't stay full! Like right now, the Smiley's ice cream is calling, so I better wrap this up!

I'll end on a sentimental note and share something that maybe lots of other people know but was new to me from my current pregnancy/birth book that I'm reading that I LOVE (Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy by Angela Garbes). 

But first: I've been thinking about the people that have been significant in my life and who are no longer with us. I went upstairs recently to ask Mom if she had any cheerios as I really needed to have a bowl of cheerios with fresh blueberries on top (It would be even more authentic eaten with a tiny glass of orange juice to the side) before the season ended. She came to my rescue! That taste combo will forever be associated with my Grandma and Grandpa Myers and visits to their home in the summer when we would have that breakfast and also could crawl under the bird nets in the blueberry patch and eat fresh berries to our hearts' content.

Then last night we were up on the hill picking peaches and taking in the beauty all around us. I always feel close to Samuel up on that hill, knowing his hands and heart were integral to what that hillside became and we continue to benefit from the fruit of his labor, creativity, and passion. 

And then the thing I learned about this week: microchimerism. Am I the main one that has been in the dark about this? In short, I learned that some of Nora's cells may live on in my body and that some of her cells could even be in Alida and Terah. I am overwhelmed by how beautiful this feels to me as I read more about it. Here's a few snippets that I pulled from online that I'll share in closing for those who are curious. 

...Did you know that both mom and baby also share each other’s cells during pregnancy? As early as the second week of pregnancy, there is a two-way flow of cells and DNA between the fetus and the mother. Cells containing DNA from the fetus cross the placenta and enter the mother’s blood circulation... Most of the cells coming from the fetus are destroyed by the mom’s immune system, but some persist and become embedded in various organs, and become a part of the parent. This phenomenon is called microchimerism, from the word “chimera,” referring to a mythical creature made from parts of different animals...The fetus typically transfers more of their cells to the mother than the other way around...The fetal cells have been found to stay in the mother’s body beyond the time of pregnancy, and in some cases for as long as decades after the birth of the baby...In one study, more than half of adults still had maternal cells in their blood. In some cases, even cells from maternal grandmothers – acquired during a mother’s own gestation – can be transferred to the fetus. Because some fetal cells stay in the mom’s body for years, they are also sometimes transferred to future brothers and sisters of the first child. In this way, older siblings can contribute their cells to those of their younger siblings...What happens to these fetal cells once they reach mom’s body? Some studies show that fetal cells are beneficial to moms, and help in healing maternal wounds – interestingly, in mice, fetal cells actively journey to the site of injury. Furthermore, these fetal cells have been found in the healed scars following caesarian section and actively participate in the healing process by producing various skin components, like collagen. The fetal cells in the mother can also transform into cells needed by the mother, including brain cells, heart cells, and various cells of the immune system... what is certain is that mothers and their children carry a piece of each other for many years following pregnancy and birth.