After a glorious 3+ days in WV at my parents' Mountain House of Hope, it is time for the girls and I to head home to Tangly Woods. I'm very eager to see Jason, to do the chores again, to sleep in my own bed and get back into the rhythms and routines of our life in Keezletown together. That said, I'm not all that eager to depart. It's been another special winter trip over the mountains and Mom and Dad have filled the time with fun and relaxation for us all!
My goals and hopes for the time were all met and fulfilled beyond my expectations: to do some reading for pleasure, to play games, to enjoy some walks outside in the invigorating mountain air, to do our taxes and to not spend a lot of time on work stuff. I read a novel a day for the first 3 days and then when I had lived in the lives of others for enough hours for awhile (and cried enough tears - my mom sure can pick out tear-jerker love stories well!!), I decided to leave the last novel for another time and focus more on my own love story. I definitely soaked up the preciousness of our three gals as we hiked up the mountain together, played around the ice covered pond, enjoyed indoor games, and as I observed them loving their time here and with Grandma and Grandpa. This place is a place full of special memories and we keep creating more!
We just tanked up on a pancake brunch and Terah is happily putting together a puzzle with Grandpa. They were so excited to get in the car and head to the mountains. This was our first car trip since Terah stopped nursing/napping. She has never been a great car sleeper so I didn't think about even trying to make the trip aligned with any previous afternoon nap times. As it turned out Terah was sacked out before the first mountain and slept over all four, waking upon our arrival. That seems to be the story of much of my parenting experience - working hard to get kids to fit into some prescribed schedule and as soon as I relax about it what I had worked for with much effort and little success happens effortlessly. :)
Here's just a few additional memory-jogging pictures for the girls and I to enjoy looking back upon, and for you, whoever our readers are, to get a taste of our time away:
The girls went to the library with Grandma on day one to stock up on books and puzzles. I was already deep in my first novel!
And we were headed back to the library on day two as all the puzzles of the day before had already been put together!
I got a lot of reading done while Monopoly and Birdopoly were being played. Thanks to dad for playing it probably two times too many (I think he played it twice)! It's hard for me to remember the days when I could enjoy that game for hours without ceasing - Alida is smack dab in the middle of that phase!
A few of these pictures are ones my dad took and some of these activities I wasn't even aware of until seeing the photos - yes, I can get that lost in a book!!!
Here's one of the times I resurfaced for some game playing. I missed having my hubby as my Upwords buddy, but I also didn't have to worry about being a grouch if I lost as I don't seem to mind whether I win or lose unless I'm playing with Jason!
The girls and I enjoyed a hike just the four of us up to my uncle's cabin the first full day, complete with some hilarious games of tether-ball. Another day we enjoyed a walk up to Mom and Dad's pond, which provided for some great ice breaking play, which thankfully did not end in any child breaking through the ice with their body! I was holding on pretty tight to Terah! These little stints were the only quiet times in the house I think! I'm sure Mom and Dad will be glad for the quiet when we leave today and will soon after miss the chatter!
I'll have to do another post soon after we get home - or have Jason do a guest post on his days while we were gone. The days leading up to our departure were busy with finishing up the carpentry on the back kitchen cabinets, oiling them all, doing the back kitchen demolition and then waxing and buffing all the cabinets. I delayed our departure by a day to have the getting ready to vacation not be so stressful AND so that I could help Jason get the upper cabinets hung. I didn't want to leave and have him throw his back out on day one! So here's a few photos of the pre-departure fun that we got to work together on. The credit for this woodworking project goes largely to Jason's amazing carpentry skills, but it was fun for us to all get our hands on it towards the end. The girls also enjoyed there few stints going over to the garage with Jason to work on it. Another great homeschooling activity for all (me included).
I should probably give a bit of an Alida-update as far as the back kitchen project is concerned (this is for her to laugh at down the road when she reads it). She has been quite resistant to this whole project - everything was as it should be in the back kitchen and now it would never be the same and the new cabinets would be horrible and.... She sure knows how to make a fuss about something! That said, she was still always eager to help Jason when she could, but would just remind us on and off that she did not like the changes.
Well that changed dramatically when her eyes fell upon the "cute little doors." The upper sink cabinets have a section with two small doors. It was love at first sight! I am not exaggerating - before long she couldn't stop gushing about the cute little doors, she was writing letters to them downstairs and coming up to read them her letters, she sang them songs and before you know it she wanted to add their "birthdays" to the family birthday calendar. I put my foot down. That is, until the family meeting. Then I picked my foot back up...with the promise that the "cute little doors" would be the ONLY non-human, non-animal-pet addition to the family birthday calendar. So the cute little doors share our niece and nephew's Groundhog Day birthdays! What a kid!!
Before we left, we also got the next round of seeds started. It was time for parsley and fennel. I'm hoping for a good crop of fennel this year for all our sausage making!
I know Jason has been very occupied in our absence so he probably has not had a lot of time to miss us. And it had to have been more enjoyable to make noise and dust without worrying about our whereabouts. But I also know he will feel like home is home again when we are in it with him. And I know I will feel more grounded and at home within myself when we are together again!
Well, it's now 10:45 p.m. and Kali and I are the only ones still awake. It seems a tad ridiculous to stay up to put up a third blog post in one day, but I've been wanting to write an entry about cheddar cheese and about Kali's recently published poem. The cheesemaking can wait for another time - as I don't plan to stop making cheddar anytime soon (I'm hooked!!). But it seems worth sharing this while it is still hot off the press. Kali often enjoys sending in entries for various writing and art competitions in her Cricket magazines. The other day she got a 2nd place certificate in the mail noting that her poem was chosen to be printed in the February issue, which arrived the next day!
This particular one was a poetry contest back in October with the theme "mystery." Here's Kali's poem:
They have arrived and a shelf has been chosen for them - but they haven't been placed there yet. So far the girls are having too much fun flipping through them. Terah has named the green one (dedicated to her on the year of her birth) as "her book" and has a bookmark in it where she last left off "reading." Alida is still working her way through last year's. Kali is not going in any particular order but enjoying perusing. Alida is still loving finding my typos. Between these books and our current, almost nightly, practice of watching home videos all snuggled up in our bed together, we have been doing a lot of reminiscing around here. And not only that but something about looking back at the various ages and stages that various ones of us have gone through is great for providing perspective to the younger gals bringing up the rear. I'm so glad we have a few videos of Kali having fits about things changing or being "ruined forever." It is so helpful since Alida is smack dab in the middle of that stage right now! She is very much resisting the back kitchen cabinetry project, even though she knows her protests are futile.
So a recap on some highlights from the month of January!
We really enjoyed spreading out the holiday fun this year and hosted our last holiday gathering on January 18th - giving the girls a very good rationale for keeping up some of the Christmas decorations and lights until then. We did our final white elephant gift exchange (the 4th of the season) at that gathering and Terah is already asking when Christmas is coming around again. Due to coupons and the gift of many chocolate bars, the celebrations continue with sharing squares of dark chocolate with each other and Jason and Alida just finished planning her flower garden and ordering the seeds so now we all get to anticipate many colorful bouquets in our home this summer!
Sometimes homeschooling feels too good to be true. So much of the time it just happens so seamlessly, with joy and fun and ease. The other day, Alida and Terah wanted to paint. When I came by them busy at work, there was Alida painting and Terah on the other side learning how to paint a rainbow and a carrot. It was so sweet. Alida is really enjoying being the one with many things to teach someone. She is credited for working with Terah to write her name, writing the letters in little boxes and making boxes for Terah to try to copy her sample letters.
While on the subject of art projects, there was a lot of fun had the other day when Ivy came to spend the day with us and the girls were busy for some time making Emily birthday cards. The girls had so much fun together - it was a trial day of seeing how it would go for Ivy to be with us for a day. We started it around 10 since our girls are not early risers and Ivy integrated into the day without a hitch. I was not sure how nap time would go but she was sacked out before I even got the doors closed to keep things quiet so she would be able to fall asleep. And she remain zonked for a good 3 hours or so! I guess we tuckered her out. She has now slept longer in Terah's bed than Terah has ever slept in it - which is 0 hours! As well as the day went, I felt a different kind of tired at the end of it. It reminded me of what my mom said when we got back from the VABF conference. The girls had done so well with them but they were still glad to have us home. It's something about being responsible for someone else's child's well-being. That said, it definitely won't be the last time and I can see it getting easier and easier over time as the girls all get even more independent!
It would not be a complete update without mentioning that we have some serious puzzlers in this house! Terah has been taking apart and putting together, over and over, a puzzle that my folks had upstairs. She loves it and can do it all by herself which is a big hit. She is also getting better at putting harder puzzles together with Alida as her coach and assistant. It is a pretty common scene these days to have several puzzles out and started in front of the wood stove! And they aren't the only one working on puzzles. I imagine Jason would not call it a puzzle, but to me it feels about like Alida putting pieces effortlessly into a puzzle: I can't figure out how Jason can take boards and then come home with cabinets. Tonight he brought home the last of the cabinets. There is still a tiny bit of gluing, carpentry and sanding to do but we hope to be oiling by sometime tomorrow! We are not quite where we hoped to be by this evening, but we'll see what the next few days bring.
Alida is acquiring a love of photography - one that seems more sustained than Terah's. She gets her camera out now and again and talks about it sometimes, but it seems that Alida really loves to be named the "photographer" for a particular event or for a period of time. Today it probably took 45 minutes to download all the pictures and videos and I think I deleted about half of the 350 or so items. That said, interspersed in there with blurry and dark photos are some fun treasures. She's even getting into selfies:
She also seems to get good shots of normal life and facial expressions:
And photographs things that are so commonplace that I forget that we might want to remember that Kali heads for the recliner with a book pretty much every morning when she first makes her appearance:
The girls continue to treasure times with good friends. Looking back at old pictures and videos has inspired me to try to remember to bring my camera out every now and again when friends are over. Kids are changing so fast and I often have the thought that I'll never forget a particular moment but then the next moment seems equally momentous... A recent sleepover included about a four hour game of Monopoly. I used to love that game. Now it is about the last thing I would want to do for half a day. Right now the outdoors is calling me. If I'm feeling that way in January, when some days the high is not much over 20 degrees, what is April and May going to feel like. I just love the changing light on the mountain at different times of day.
I have no idea what I was doing when Alida got this picture without me knowing, but it's how I've been feeling when outdoors. She had the camera on our jaunt around yesterday collecting eggs and I won't include even a fraction here of what she took, but it was fun to see what grabbed her attention.
Terah is very excited about being able to go into some of the coops and collect the eggs from the nestboxes. Today she even collected the 3rd hatching egg and brought it all the way to the house, talking about how we might have baby chickies. She is so excited about the first chicks of the year and keeps talking about what a good mama our broody hen is. She doesn't miss much and is often repeating what she has heard me, Jason or her big sisters talk about. At this point, I think 4 p.m. is one of our favorite points in the day where Terah and I get bundled up (and normally Alida is eager to join also) and head out. It seems it is really clicking for both of them how much better they too feel after a dose of fresh air. It has helped us hit the reset button on more than one occasion!
Ok, time to bring this post to a close. I started it earlier and then we enjoyed a long evening with friends - introducing them to sweet potatoes with sausage gravy. Alida sacked out while the conversations were still going strong. Terah is still awake here beside me at 10:30 p.m. with no nap (she has gone cold turkey with nursing and naps amazingly well). Jason has read many books and she is exhausted but so far hasn't been able to let her body check out - maybe James Herriot is a bit too exciting for her!
I'll end with two of the pictures I took of plants at the end of taking our monthly property pictures this morning. I feel like I'm rooting for these little plants that are hanging in there in the cold and waiting for warmer temperatures. Most namely, I'm cheering on our garlic and spinach. We have just a few bulbs of garlic left from last year that I'm savoring. And as of today we have 6 cups of frozen spinach left. It's getting to the time of year where the green veggies are becoming sparser in the freezer and we'll be eating a lot more squash and potatoes (and meat) in the coming months!
Setting the scene: As I type Jason and the older two girls are (hopefully) finish up the carpentry on our back kitchen cabinets and doing the final sanding and clean up. That means I'm home alone with Terah as my afternoon sidekick and she is currently making me play-dough eggs to eat. That will be the level of concentration and reflection that this piece will afford me today!
So January was the month for Jason to build our back kitchen cabinets. As many days as we could free him up to do so, he would head over the Emily and Jonas' garage space in Keezletown where he was able to spread out for such a large project. This has meant that many days he is gone from morning until evening (sometimes after dark) and so it was a good opportunity to shake things up around here a bit in terms of our daily homesteading tasks. I had been getting the hankering to do chores again, as it had been nearly 2 years since I had while Jason was on his 40th birthday trip to see the sandhill crane migration. At that time, I was determined to make it a regular occurrence, but life happened...
But I've been feeling the need for it - the need to feel grounded in the outside world, in what we are doing on this little piece of land, in our partnership with our animals and plants here. So Jason gave me the run down and I did it once...then twice...then three times...and now I'm wanting to do it most days that I'm not headed off to the office. I can see why Jason loves it and why my dad is often eager for a turn at chores when he and mom are upstairs. It's such a wonderful way to start the day!
My daily routine when home now includes the morning chores, the midday letting chickens run with Terah tagging along on my back and then the evening pig supper and collecting eggs, followed by shutting in at dusk. Terah and Alida are always eager to join me for the evening rounds and they are both helping me collect eggs, unless the hens are guarding the nests (then I have to be, or try to be, the brave one!). It feels so good to have three times each day that I definitely get outside and get some movement in. In between those bursts of fresh air is much of the same - cheesemaking, attending to kiddo needs, office/computer work, cleaning, laundry, food preparation, etc...
But here's a glimpse at the morning chore routine as it stands winter 2019. It's much simpler right now as we are at our long point on numbers of chickens (and several pens out of commission until the spring hatching begins) and the cold weather means we aren't fermenting feed so it is just dry feed. Oh, and we only have 2 pigs not 6!
First stop is the garage, where I stir the slop barrels and fill a bucket for the pigs. Recently we have been upping there feed little by little as they communicate with us through urgent grunts their increased levels of hunger - are they pregnant? Or just using more calories keeping warm? Of course, I'm hoping for the first of the two options!! I'm so eager to know if we'll be enjoying piglets in April that I wondered the other day if a human pregnancy test would work on pigs. Thinking about trying to get the test under a stream of pig urine was enough to put that idea out of my mind quickly!
What a pleasure to head out of the garage all bundled up to face the elements and head towards the pigpen with a bucket of "waste products" that are about to be relished! I like to see how near the pigpen I can get before they hear (or smell) me. I can never get all the way there. They are always at the fence grunting expectantly and normally the red one will be salivating by the time I can get the slop in their pans. I have finally gotten smart and I take a dipper so I can put a small amount in the pan to occupy them and then I can pour the rest over the fence. Otherwise, inevitably the red one gets a head covered in slop because she is NOT patient. She doesn't seem to mind but it seems unpleasant!
I normally need to stand there and savor the moment for a bit before heading to the garden shed for the coop mover. They seem so content and to be thriving so well on things that would otherwise be headed for a compost pile at best or a manure pit or the trash at worst.
Normally the next step is to move the duck coop forward and let the ducks out. I'm letting the ducks out in recent days but there is no chance of moving their coop. It is frozen solid to the ground. I feel kind of bad as the ducks eagerly quack their way into the outdoor world, only to find the ground and their swimming water icy and hard. But they seem to relish that first wing flap of the day - I envision it feels something like a really great full body stretch! Kali will trade places with me once I'm done chores and take care of her ducks so all I do is let them in their outer pen until she comes to feed and water them.
The range pens in the drainfield get moved forward about half a length and the chickens let out into the run. So far, I have never seen a hen come out first. It seems that the rooster of each coop is the designated bird to come into the run first and assess the lay of the land. Then the hens get brave enough to join him, though sometimes his enthusiasm (at times appearing as aggression) at greetings them is a little too much and they retreat until they are ready to come out in numbers. Even at this time of year, they will eagerly find the clumps of grass that still have green growing tips and enjoy their first course of the day.
After moving the coops, I head back to the shed to get the feed and water bucket. With a full bucket of feed (and some cracked corn as a special treat), I head to the water hydrant. Many mornings I'll look out to see Jason standing at the hydrant looking out across our land while the water fills the bucket. It seemed so peaceful and indeed it must have been - as it is for me. Standing there with cold rain water coming into the bucket in abundance, I look out over the mountain in front of me and it is hard to not feel the gratitude coursing through me. I can't say that this is the life I always dreamed of - I didn't necessarily know how much I needed it. But here I am out there feeding our animals and am feeling so fed in the process.
This is my favorite part - opening up the coops and being eagerly received with chicken gratefulness. In a few cases there is an overly eager rooster who can't wait until the food is in the receptacle and snatches some from my scoop on the way in. But for the most part there are murmurs and clucks of anticipation and before long they are normally lined up at the feeder or around the water pan. On these mornings the pans are frozen solid so in a number of coops the birds seem almost more eager for the first drink of the day than they are for the food. I can relate - I often think feeling really thirsty is worse than feeling hungry, and I happily watch them satisfy their thirst!
Hands down my favorite coop is saved for last - the A-frame compost coop in the woods. What a wonderful place - Jason often laughs that it seems that I might like to live there. That is probably taking things a bit too far but I think I could sit in there and watch the birds for a good long while. Maybe it would not be too bad to be a broody hen in there after all! And we've got one! She's been a great mother hen a few times over and will likely brood the first clutch of eggs of 2019. I'm proud of her restraint as I throw cracked corn around and all the birds flock to it and she just sits tight. I'm not quite as impressed with her when it is time to extract the eggs out from under her. I only do it with gloves - I'm pretty sure she could draw blood.
Yesterday morning I wasn't quite careful enough with the door and when I was going in a hen slipped out the back. Then when I was leaving a rooster got out to join her. I ended up figuring out that was the best scenario as the rooster could protect the hen until I let the rest of the flock out midday. Here's the mischievous pair - I thought it was cute how the hen was peeking around the corner. There was no chance I was even going to try to catch her!
I have no idea how many birds are in that coop but it's so peaceful. What a great place for a chicken to live. These are the Massanuttens, so these are the birds that Jason is breeding for our particular location and my do they fit in well!
On my way back over to put the buckets away, I visit the pigs one more time to give them some water. Sometimes they are already napping in the sunshine by their house and other days they are still rooting around for the last of their breakfast.
Then it is back to the house to take off some layers and rejoin the girls! I normally leave them at the table eating breakfast and playing a game (and Kali often curled up in the recliner reading to "help her wake up").
When I come back in, breakfast is normally over and they have moved on to any number of other activities! It's a routine that I could get into!!
Speaking of routines, it is after 4 p.m. and I've used up Terah's patience for now and the pigs are waiting for us. So off we go for our afternoon rounds! I'll end here with two videos of my morning rounds. The sounds of contentment in the compost coop and the enthusiastic slurping of the pigs is more than enough thanks from them!
My goals and hopes for the time were all met and fulfilled beyond my expectations: to do some reading for pleasure, to play games, to enjoy some walks outside in the invigorating mountain air, to do our taxes and to not spend a lot of time on work stuff. I read a novel a day for the first 3 days and then when I had lived in the lives of others for enough hours for awhile (and cried enough tears - my mom sure can pick out tear-jerker love stories well!!), I decided to leave the last novel for another time and focus more on my own love story. I definitely soaked up the preciousness of our three gals as we hiked up the mountain together, played around the ice covered pond, enjoyed indoor games, and as I observed them loving their time here and with Grandma and Grandpa. This place is a place full of special memories and we keep creating more!
We just tanked up on a pancake brunch and Terah is happily putting together a puzzle with Grandpa. They were so excited to get in the car and head to the mountains. This was our first car trip since Terah stopped nursing/napping. She has never been a great car sleeper so I didn't think about even trying to make the trip aligned with any previous afternoon nap times. As it turned out Terah was sacked out before the first mountain and slept over all four, waking upon our arrival. That seems to be the story of much of my parenting experience - working hard to get kids to fit into some prescribed schedule and as soon as I relax about it what I had worked for with much effort and little success happens effortlessly. :)
