I kinda got on an "e word" roll there... It helped me narrow down my descriptors for life of late. Buckle your seatbelts for a rapid-fire pass through the last few weeks at Tangly Woods. Somehow it doesn't feel quite as chaotic when laid out here in words and pictures as it does in real time. I'm on the clock here to churn this post out quickly while Terah scoops roasted PA dutch squash flesh into containers, Alida clears the table, Jason does the supper dishes and Kali shuts in all the animals. The goal is to watch a Prehistoric Planet episode together before our heads hit our pillows. While I might prefer sleep, Terah has been trying to be patient about when we'll get to watch the next episode...
The general flow of many of our days lately has been similar: Jason has been working at Jonathan and Christen's about 3 days a week and on those days I'm normally mostly keeping up (or trying to) with home/farm stuff - we are into the every other day harvest schedule, cutting weeds for pigs daily, slowly getting into more food processing things here and there, making cheeses again, and then the animals!!! Between me and Dad sharing the morning chores, Jason seldom gets to do the morning chore routine that I know he really enjoys (I think he feels more out of touch with the birds than he would like)! On the days he is not working construction, he is chipping away as fast as is comfortable at the list of "home/farm things that only Jason can do!" Nope, we have not had any grand visions for how to make things a bit saner on the schedule front. A recent podcast guest I was listening to was proposing something about if you say you are busy then your life is out of control. Hmmm...The other back drop to the last few weeks has been unsettled feelings when we are out and about on the land. We went from crispy grass due to the drought, to getting nearly 5 inches of rain in a week, to a hailstorm, to smoke from the wildfires in Canada reaching us for a second time. We've been so used to wearing masks inside that it's a shift to wear them outside and take them off when coming in!
So now that I've named both the unsettled feelings and the continued overwhelm, feel free to enjoy whatever aspects of the beautiful chaos of our days that you want to from the comfort of your screens! I ended my last post with Tala's arrival back to her Shenandoah Valley home with us! It was good to have all 8 of us around the table again. And the visit flew by so fast. She had some meetings and a conference presentation, but was able to spend a good portion of her 10 days in the Harrisonburg area with us! We fit a lot into a short time together, as you will see some evidence of below. The one day I was curious if the girls and Tala would ever tire of Rook and Dutch Blitz - they literally played most of an entire day. I do love puttering in the kitchen to the sound of their laughter in the front room.
To keep myself straight, I'm just gonna do some highlights of the past few weeks in chronological order - anything more creative would be too taxing for my tired brain at this moment!
Tuesday, June 13 was barley harvest day! Kali and Jason did it together and spiced it up a bit by doing a time lapse video of the work. It's a very fun watch (for those of us that get a kick out of watching barley being harvested and shocked by hand at something like 32 times the normal speed). Terah and Alida had their annual homeschool evaluations - it was Kali's first year without one and Terah's first year with one. After we got off the video chat, Terah said, "I want to have another homeschool evaluation." So I guess it went pretty well! It's hard to sum up your year for someone in 30 minutes! It's fun to me to observe the things that the girls choose to talk about.
That was also Terah's first cooking night since officially getting on the cooking schedule. And she set the bar pretty high for herself. She made a layered refried beans dish that was delicious!
I am honestly not positive if it was this night or not, but sometime during Tala's visit we shared our tiny pineapple. Now we wait a few years for our next one!
Wednesday, June 14 - I spent most of this day cooking large vats of food (when I wasn't "nap trapped" by Luca snuggling in my arms). We were having small group that evening and helping one of the families with some final moving. I was making the main dishes, and I am not good at making small amounts of food. So they I decided to drop dinner by for the family I was to be accompanying next in birth. As it turned out, I sent the bulk of the food and my love with my family and I never made it to small group. Instead I spent the night bearing witness to the power and beauty and pain and strength and messiness and sweetness of birth (and doing counter pressure (i.e. hip squeezes) for hours straight!). I returned home as the birds were starting to sing and a little light was returning to the sky.It never gets old! Little Alida Ann is two weeks old today and is not wasting any time growing and changing and taking in her world, including the deep love of her parents and big sister!
Thursday, June 15 - I slept for a few hours after arriving home, but have a hard time sleeping in the day so I gave up around 10 a.m. and then I think I snagged a short nap later in the day. Thankfully the only farm task we had planned to do together (seeding the PA dutch) took a silly (short) amount of time with Tala, Kali and I working together. And Tala treated us to one of her delicious meals, so I was able to be kinda out of it for the day. I don't even know all of what others did that day but I'm sure game playing was happening here and there. It was also really good I didn't need to do too much as I definitely discovered that the muscles I used for low back/hip massage were not ones I was accustomed to working in that manner for a night... (i.e. my arms were VERY sore for a few days - but I'm all recovered now and ready to go at it again, hopefully any day now).
Friday, June 16 - This was mostly a day of running errands but Terah and Alida joined me which always spices up a town trip (and Alida got her first opportunity to hold baby Alida). In the evening, our dear friend, Katie, joined us for dinner and time together. While there was some tiredness, headaches, and heaviness dealing with hard news from loved ones, we still managed some laughter in a few rounds of Ransom Notes together. That box of little magnets is getting some good use lately!
Saturday, June 17 - We had another lovely evening gathering with friends on Saturday when Vernon and Dot joined us for dinner. We started the evening with "fancy drinks," using some of the red and black currant juice I had made that day. Later in the evening, Kali and Tala shared some about Kali's visit there a year ago along with photos. My favorite moment of the evening definitely came towards the end. Vernon had been sharing stories from his childhood and about how his dad was always tinkering with things. Jason brought out our popcorn maker that had recently broken and the tiny bolts he had bought with the intention of fixing it. He asked Vernon if he thought it would work. Without missing a beat, Vernon said, "Well you can't lose more than 3 or 4 hours trying!" What a perfect response! Jason will happily report that he was able to successfully fix it in less than an hour!!
Sunday, June 18 - Ivy was happy to get to be at Tangly Woods a few times while Tala was visiting. And we also had an evening of snacks and games with the whole family. Yes, Ransom Notes came out again!
Monday, June 19 - This was the first of what ended up being two barley threshing days. In the morning, Jason helped me with some chicken shuffling. We are NEARING the end of chick hatching season here at Tangly Woods, but to date we keep slipping fertile eggs under broody hens. I'd say we are nearing full capacity, or have maybe exceeded it! But I'm probably enjoying the chickens more than I ever have - maybe it is because I'm getting to know them better. There aren't any pictures of me with chickens, even though I'm often out there caring for them. But here's some others enjoying them! Chick taming, as you can see, is going pretty well for Alida and Terah!
Tuesday, June 20 - Tala and I slipped away for a walk to Hensley's pond (got that in right before the "rainy season" hit here). Whenever we are at the house, the girls don't want to share Tala, so going out for a walk just the two of us was a way to get a little time to ourselves!
Jason and I had routine eye appointments in the afternoon - with good reports for both of us (Jason's eyesight even being better than last time). The doctor also thought he knew the cause of Jason's cornea ulcer (demodex mites). So now Jason has an eye care routine to add to his daily flow! While at the eye doctor Jason (gently) roped me into stopping off at Lowe's to look at a stove that he had been eyeing that was on sale. We came home having bought a stove. I joke that he caught me in a moment of weakness, or at least one with my eyes dilated. It's true that we were limping along with ours and that there was a chance it was becoming a bit of a safety hazard. But it felt like a rather impulsive purchase for the way we normally roll! The evening included another of Tala's yummy meals and our first blueberry picking all together. I didn't want Tala to miss out on blueberry picking and since she missed strawberry season we tried out blueberry shortcake (why have we never done that before?)!
Wednesday, June 21 - More time with friends, more games, more Luca time...AND the rain set in!
Thursday, June 22 - It was not easy for that last evening with Tala to come around, for anyone! It was hard for the kids to say goodbye and go to bed knowing she would depart in the morning well before they would wake up (though Terah did wake up to say goodbye and eventually fell back to sleep)... There's just not virtual replacement for being together in person and the closeness that makes possible!
Friday, June 23 - Since I am on call for a birth, Jason took Tala to DC leaving around 5:30 that morning. I had a full day of errands including spending time with both my recent doula babies/families and my final "official" meeting with the dear friends eager to welcome their little one any day now. I also had my first taste of the Red Wing Roots Music Festival. After hearing about it for years, I got an inside peek by going and hanging out to baby Jordi and his mama while his dad was working hard to coordinate the whole thing. What a production! I got out right before the first big storm rolled through. My favorite part of the whole time was watching Jordi be completely mesmerized looking up at the trees.
Saturday, June 24 - It was while I was out and about that day that Kali had reported that Terah said she had a sore throat. I was hoping it was just pollen or some other passing irritant. But, alas, she was wilted when I got home and overnight she was fevered. So I started Saturday off texting anyone I had been in close contact with Friday, noting that I HOPED I hadn't shared anything with them and then begging the universe that I would be spared getting something right before this next birth. This is what Terah was like without Tylenol.
And with it!
She didn't last long, but she perked up enough to come help get her popcorn in the ground. Otherwise the day included a lot of Max and Ruby. Our kids always get high fevers even with minor illnesses, but I still don't like seeing it reach near 103... I was working a bit harder than usual to keep my anxiety at bay and by Saturday evening crumbled and reached out to my sister-in-law for some advice and to make sure there wasn't more we should be doing. There wasn't and by the next morning she had turned the corner and was soon back to her perky self (still no idea where she landed that virus and none of the rest of us got it - phew!).
Sunday, June 25 - The highlight of this particular day was most certainly Kali's amazing meal. She had been hoping for a day where she would have to rush through her supper preparations and I fully support us trying to find such times now and then. We were treated to two delicious quiches, sautéed sugar snap peas and fresh garlic and a double crusted black raspberry pie with rice pudding.
Monday, June 26 - While Jason was working next door, a storm set in during the afternoon. It wasn't long before the rain coming down turned to hail. It was one of those days where I had gotten myself too deep into projects and I was scrambling to keep up with dishes, the oven, the food processing, etc... Then the additional worry about all the plants outside, the blueberries next door, worrying about losing power, etc...felt like a lot. It was not a particularly pleasant hour. The hail didn't last long but they were decent size and since then we have marveled that there was not more damage. The lettuce was pretty shredded but that will grow back. We feel both thankful and fortunate!
It cleared off enough that our friends were still able to come over for a lawn picnic. As we were eating/chatting, we heard distant thunder that slowly got louder and closer. We were walking around the gardens and sampling fruits when the rain started and we had all just gathered on our front porch when a very close strike of lightning followed by a crack of thunder startled all of us. At that point, we only considered briefly how long Terah had been fever free before we all sought shelter inside - and what followed was more Ransom Notes!! We also enjoyed the double rainbow over the mountain after the storm moved along. What a very fun evening!
Tuesday, June 27 - we had some additional time with Luca over before his parents joined him (and us) for dinner. He got to experience the new "egg chalk" I had found at Gift and Thrift. He didn't just color on the front walk!
The picture below is not from that day but from today but I wanted to include it. Look at his little hands! He is starting to really enjoy stories and has his favorite books here that he always chooses.
As part of dinner, I shared my newest experiment (thanks to a recipe from my aunt for red currant cheesecake). It's beautiful and yummy!
Wednesday, June 28 - Good weather and Jason was home! He and Kali mowed after not mowing for over a month! Just when it was time to mow was when it had started raining so it was delayed another week. In the morning when things were still too wet to mow, we taste tested lettuce plants for seed - they had just grown back enough from the groundhog invasion when the hail hit. But they weren't completely decimated so we cleaned off all the shredded leaves, pulled any bitter plants, and now they can hopefully shoot back out.Sometime in the afternoon they delivered our new stove. So we all had to bid farewell to our old stove to make way for the new. There were only minor feeling of sentimental attachment and some of us overplayed those just a bit for kicks. I was already pretty thrilled today at the increased oven capacity and an oven door that closes without make shift clamps that I have to keep screwing in to tighten.
Thursday, June 29 - And that brings us to today! And "today" is actually now over! I took a break to make good on our plan to watch Prehistoric Planet and my eyes are now itching (almost literally) to close! It was a big farm day around here, and a smoky one! Jason was gonna need all his minutes for doing the main barley threshing/winnowing and the crimson clover threshing/winnowing. So we didn't have his help for garlic pulling but my dad joined us for a bit, as did Luca. 6 bushels of garlic are now drying on the racks in the garage and 98 lbs of barley is drying in trays.
I'll close by sharing three photos courtesy of Jason. It's fun with us both having phones now to see dominates my photos (e.g. little people and food!) and what dominates his (e.g. small creatures and grain). He gets some excellent butterfly photos. Enjoy!
