As you know if you read the post back in late July, we left our very forlorn children in WV for a few days after the Mininger reunion. You can see here what an absolutely "miserable" time they had without their parents!!
It was a very (too) full time on the home front for me and Jason and was confirmed again that if we really want relaxed time together without our kiddos, it needs to happen somewhere other than Tangly Woods (esp. in the summer!). We did enjoy a lovely few hours with Karen and Sue one day, enjoying some time together just the four of us (something we hadn't done for a very very long time...).
In the weeks since, there have been many sweet summer moments (some routine and some out of the ordinary). Here's a little smattering of ones that feel worth sharing!
We normally get our weekly pig scraps at the co-op on Fridays but a few weeks back we got a call on an off day that they had a load of watermelon if we wanted it. I made a run to town and came home with a trunk loaded full along with much of the back seat. It made for some very happy pigs and chickens, not to mention humans! Here Olivia is experiencing the delight of watermelon!
We seldom make use of all the coupons the summer reading program dishes out to the younger girls or make much use of the free friday wrist bands, but here the girls are trying out the various climbing walls at Horizon's Edge. Terah and Kali thought it was fun. Alida hadn't gotten fully comfortable falling before their free 1/2 hour was up.
Alida IS comfortable dog sitting! And, yes, the Myers-Benners have dog sat for a 2nd (and now 3rd) time!!! What is this world coming to?! Alida is definitely the one of the family that Zoe has warmed up to the most. This was a very common sight in our house when she was with us.
This cutie pie is already counting the days until her birthday - and not just the one where she turns 9 this fall but the following one when she turns over to double digits!
The 2024 garlic harvest is processed and tucked away in its various categories (seed quality, storage quality and first use). This year we are trying a new thing and that is putting the first use in the fridge to slow down the bugs and deterioration process. Oh the joys of that extra fridge upstairs - it is working beautifully and I'm loving using garlic by the bulb!
Speaking of bugs, we have garden chickens again and they are delighting in scratching around in the garden and finding prime dust bathing spots. Olivia is on Alida's shoulder and I believe she is carrying Buddy. They know the drill now and come to her when she goes to their coop. Olivia hops right up and stays on Alida's shoulder until they are in the garden.
Terah has become our burger maker and none of us are disappointed about that! She doesn't mind working with raw meat, though does have to put her safety glasses on for working with onions (the girls all take after their daddy with very sensitive eyes). Anyway, she makes a DELICIOUS burger...
...but one that is very hard to fit in one's mouth with all the toppings!
In other news, we grew another pineapple. It's been a few years! I don't even want to admit it, but this one was kinda disappointing to me. It just wasn't the sweet succulent melt in your mouth fruit that some previous ones have been. Not sure if we should have let it ripen even more or what. We are hardly pineapple growing experts!
We got our August 1 family photo in the bean patch when Jason was still hauling in large quantities of beans. It is now official: the bean beetles have taken over. We are still enjoying the small dregs of the patch, but the end is easily in sight now. And that's more than ok with me!!
This has been a common counter look in recent weeks - produce everywhere and my doula bag packed and ready to go!
I am not someone who likes to do things halfway and so the experiment of being a civic scientist (along with Terah and Alida) for the Perennial Atlas Project through the Land Institute has been a bit of a challenge. I feel like we are just doing the bare minimum and even that feels like a stretch some days. And I know we are contributing to a larger body of research so I want to do a good job of it but... We've enjoyed the annual sunflowers a lot and watching other things flower. But there are also disappointments, like watching the lentils come up so cutely and grow well and then slowly yellow and ALL die. I guess that's data!
When not in the gardens, you might find us sporting our fancy dermatology gowns at our annual mole checks - all cleared for another year. Yay!
Are you feeling whip lash yet? The gardens are calling (it's harvest day) so I'm not working very hard to make connections between the photos I chose for this post. So now we move to the kitchen where I'll report on the girls making a quadruple batch of bagels for the PA trip. I've learned that if I buy cream cheese, they will make bagels. I think that's a pretty good deal!
Oh how I love a colorful summer meal. This was the first meal (of several) in honor of Kali's 21st bday. Jonathan, Christen and Luca joined us and we savored fried eggplant sandwiches and corn on the cob (no, we do not grow eggplant or sweet corn, but I enjoyed a rare trip to the farmer's market!).
And, for dessert, I used the last few peaches from our trees to make peach kuchen. We didn't get a lot of peaches but every one we got we were grateful for!
While on the subject of food (again), Jason's breakfast looked particularly delightful the other morning, so I told him he should really take a photo of it! We are enjoying the first paw paws from our trees.
There is that saying that "many hands make light work!" I certainly have been very grateful for the extra hands on some food processing days, but even more the company. I will be honest to say that food processing is not always so hilarious! But this kiddo sure can make it more fun!
And, I never thought I would see the day, but we are running out of canning jars!!!
This one is still at the "helping" stage of things but he is, hands down, my current favorite baker helper! He was VERY pleased the other day when I put him up on the counter and let him help stir the cookie dough!
So, I'm very happy to report that I am no longer severely anemic. My doctor even gave me the green light to give donating blood a try again (but only a few times a year). So, Jason and I went last Sunday and I gave blood successfully for the first time (it was also the first time I had to answer "yes" to the tattoo question). I don't have any photo proof but I did have the phlebotomist get a photo of Jason. And, I'm happy to report that his blood took a "long" 5 minutes to fill the bag and I clocked in at 4 min 20 sec - but who's competing?! I did wonder if that is why I felt flattened by it this time?
I'm still feeling grateful that amidst the whirl of life, we are still (mostly) keeping Sundays free of big projects and a focus on the "to do list." And part of that is feeling thankful for our Mommy/Daddy time with each of our girls on a rotating basis. It was sweet this past Sunday to walk up the hill with Alida and sit on Samuel's bench at the top for a little bit. It's still one of the most breathtaking views in this area, in my opinion. And it felt good to be up there around the time that we marked 7 years since we lost his physical presence with us. We still miss him a lot!
My heart feels particularly full when we savor moments with loved ones in our lives, especially the little people. These moments are so dear to me and I feel like I'm having more and more times where I stop in my tracks and just try to take it in. Life feels both precious and precarious!
This week, I enjoyed a morning keeping little ones to give parents a few moments together. The youngest is one of "my doula babies" from last summer and my how she has turned into a little monkey in a year's time. I was very grateful to return her in one piece to her parents with not scrapes, bruises or broken bones!
At our family meeting last night we came up with a new set of guidelines for free ranging the chickens to get them out and about again. We've been very cautious with all the fox pressure and Jason continues to see the gray fox around many nights when he is shutting in. We are happy for nighttime foxes, just not ones that wish to hunt poultry in the day! Anyway, there are treasured pets in the mix (Olivia!!!), so this is a difficult topic, But I think we got to a good agreement for the next stint of time. Anyway, the other day I was on a long call with a dear friend in Canada and so I put my blanket in the middle of the area where three coops range from and some chickens were curious about what I was doing there!
Monday of this week we had another meal in honor of Kali's 21st, this time with my parents, Karen and Ezzie!
Kali has enjoyed the opportunity a birthday affords of picking out what game we play. There was a lot of laughter and none of us, other than Alida, got anywhere near cracking the code to her pattern!
And my poor sister was not sure she could be out at our place with Kali and not give away TODAY'S birthday surprise. We jokingly taped her mouth so Kali could understand the level of restraint this was requiring of her! BUT she did it! And over this week Kali has asked for TINY clues, that we have willingly given. And, as of last evening, she figured out where we are taking her today and for what. But now I will leave you in suspense and a slightly more detailed account of Kali turning 21 will be for a future post!
