We do have chicks!

Yes, they hatched! Not super percentages, but much better than our previous two clutches. They are peeping in the background as I write. They will make the move from house to coop sometime this week, but in the meantime I enjoy their presence and overhearing their conversations. We once again have two "miracle" chicks that took an incredibly long time to hatch and one looked deathly ill from the start. They are from Kali's chicken, Henny Hen, and while they won't be "breeders" in all likelihood they are fun to have around. They started their first night in the basin that was my Dad's bathtub as a baby. Fun!

Our garden is in a "lull" and I told Jason I'm not sure I want to see it when it is going full force if a lull still includes bringing in bowls of produce every few days. I picked our first yellow squash and zucchini last evening, as I munched on a few of the last peas. Our garlic is pulled and drying, as well as a portion of the onions. More potatoes are ready to dig, as well as more onions. We are enjoying a slow but steady supply of kale and now swiss chard, as well as basil for pesto and cooking. Jason is in awe of his over 3 foot high roma plants that are loaded with green fruit. I imagine when we return from vacation, it will be a good thing if we are well rested!!

Ready for the "dig date"

This week is to be the big ground breaking week around here. We had our work cut out for us last weekend getting the site cleared after having 6 trees felled. A few pictures of before/after and the in between. Camping in Dolly Sods wilderness with good friends and chilly nights was a perfect way to recuperate!! It was hot but good work and meaningful to do together. Kali worked by our side in short stints with lots of reading in the hammock, working on her "nest" in the woods and getting good and dirty.

I still love lamb's quarter

During our four day stint at tree clearing for the in-law quarters, Kali and I took a break one day to head up the hill to pick bowls full of lamb's quarter before it was mowed down in S's chicken runs. Such abundance! Within an hour I had picked enough to cook down, blend to fill and freeze many containers with 10 lbs of bright green slurry that will color and add nutrition to lots of pasta and bread this winter. And my "green bread" was tried out this past weekend over the campfire in our pizza pocket makers - a smashing success!! I'm surprised at how much I find now that I prefer the moist, smooth texture of this bread to other "non-green" bread. It feels like a pretty big win-win all around. I'm grateful to my folks for swapping freezers with us. The extra space this afforded us is quickly filling up with veggies and berries that will be treats come winter (which is hard to even imagine this week as we near the triple digits on the thermometer).

Losing teeth & growing up....

Pictures speak for themselves here! Her voice is extra cute right now, and corn on the cob isn't happening! She was extra happy to lose one of them in WV a few weeks back and have a visit from both the Keezletown and WV tooth fairy. It's hard to keep up with how fast she is growing and changing! She has become a regular book worm and sometimes I'll think she is ignoring me from another room in the house until I peek out and find her completely absorbed in the story she is reading. She is taking part in a summer reading program with the library, but she hardly needs any incentive to read 25 books. What I'm excited about is that somehow it helped flip the switch for her and now she gets eager to read me books ALOUD! I've been pining for that - somehow one of those little things I have always looked forward to.

Catching up...

We've had a camera for a few weeks but no card reader or battery charger. When we were reunited to those two things this weekend, I downloaded over 200 pictures of the adventures of the last two weeks. Right now I find myself sitting on the futon, alone in the house, with Garth Brooks playing in the background. Jason is inoculating logs with mushroom spawn with a neighbor from down the road who is eager to take a percentage of the logs home with him in exchange for the spawn plugs, a lesson in how to do it, and getting us started. Now I just need to get beyond enjoying cooking with mushrooms to actually enjoying consuming them.

I'm alone here in the house since Kali is four mountains from us in WV with Grandma and Grandpa Myers. I'm quite certain that I'm missing her a lot more than she is missing me. The house doesn't feel the same without her and I have to get through a little period of feeling disoriented and out of sorts. This morning Jason and I headed out for an early morning walk and I kept thinking about what would happen if she would wake up (not that we would have been going for a walk if she had been sleeping) and then as we ate breakfast, I found myself waiting to hear "Mommmmmmmy." I realize in these times how I appreciate the early morning walks alone with Jason, being "allowed" to play music whenever I want, and being able to decide when and in what order I want to go through my day's activities (including going to bed!). Yet, overwhelmingly, these times are mostly a complete confirmation of how absolutely in love I am with Kali and with being her mom and with the home that Jason, Kali and I are creating here the three of us, along with our memories of Nora.

One of the things Jason and I hope to do for a portion of our time this week is to do some more writing for a project we are doing with Nora's doctor, who is also the director of Palliative Care at UVA. In the past month since the anniversary of Nora's death, I've been thankful to have many moments of feeling deep gratitude towards Nora and her place in our family, in addition to remembering sweet memories of her and of those that walked with us during that time.

Jason recently shared a Garth Brooks song with me that sums up some of my most dominate thoughts of late. Here are a few of the words. I'll end this post with his words, and get to posting some pictures of what we've been up to...

"And I'm glad I didn't know the way it all would end, the way it all would go. Our lives are better left to chance, I could have missed the pain but I'd of had to miss the dance...Holding you, I held everything. For a moment, wasn't I a king. If I'd only known how the key would fall, who's to say you know I might have changed it all..."

Black Raspberries

10:30pm sitting around the table eating dinner together! Kali said I should write a blog posting entitled "black raspberries" so here I am. What a fun evening the three of us had. After spending some time in the garden tying up tomatoes and peas, covering eggplant, harvesting basil for pesto, peas for eating, and oregano for drying, we headed out for a "family adventure."

The heat of the day was being replaced by a lovely low humidity breeze as we walked up the hill. We spent the next two hours picking black raspberries along the edge of the woods. Kali was our leader and happily scouted out the next "jackpot" spot for us, as she happily chattered about having black raspberry smoothies, frozen raspberries to munch while taking baths and to make black raspberry jam. She highlighted how great it was that they were local, in season, organic AND fair trade. We couldn't agree more!!

The daylight ended our search, after Kali and I took a quick spin to top off the fruit in our bellies with a few handfuls of blueberries. We then tucked 11 containers of berries in the freezer and made a batch of jam, which was tested and proven delicious for dinner just now.

Right now the land around us feels as it if it is just bursting with life and when I'm out on it, I feel full also. The Phoebe bird parents are busy feeding the mouths of birds that are about to outgrow the nest. I caught a black snake attempting to climb our porch post yesterday and Jason (once again my hero) knocked it off and thus far we have seen no reappearances. Hopefully they will have the chance to fledge in peace. How they go from sitting in the nest to flying is still amazing to me. As is the realization that on day 2 of incubation, the chicks inside the eggs in our incubator have beating hearts!!

Happy family, late night!

So it's after midnight. I just turned the canner on with two batches of serviceberry jam in to process. Jason is watering plants, Kali is happily playing the "farming game" by herself after consuming almost an entire quart of canned green beans for her chosen bedtime snack, and I ought to be folding laundry and doing the dishes rather than posting pictures. As I was crushing serviceberries soon after 11pm when we got home from the SPI potluck and dance, I couldn't help feeling incredibly happy to be alive and here and at home on Fruit Farm Lane. Tired, yes, but this is the time of year to be tired. There is abundance all around us!!! We picked several gallons of serviceberries tonight and there is more where that came from. It was fun to be there picking at EMU right in a main area of campus where folks were walking by and occasionally stopping to be informed about what edible thing has been growing right along their walkway without them knowing it. Very fun! And we introduced probably 10 or so folks to the tasty treats!! The birds may not be as thrilled with us passing the information around. So our counters will once again be kept full with jars of canned goods cooling. Today it holds blueberry jam, chicken broth and chicken cubes and before the night is over serviceberry jam. The nights will likely be long. And I hope to soak up every minute that I can!!

Other news worth noting: Jason just loaded up an incubator with hatching eggs. Let's hope we are posting pictures and news of many baby chicks 3 weeks from now...