Yesterday was the day that two of us got a bit lighter! It was starting to feel like time to pass some hair along to others that need it more. Kali donated last June and Jason last November, so it was Alida's and my turn. Terah, of course, wanted in on the fun but was only able to donate hers to the birds for their nests. She had just recently gotten into braids and so we were all worried she didn't understand what she was asking for when she kept wanting us to cut more and go shorter. We need not have worried - she loves it and seemed to think that she could jump higher and run faster with a little less hair on her head.
Alida was excited but also a tad nervous. It seemed her flower petal ritual helped to prepare her for the big moment! And she also is not looking back. The hair cut seemed to infuse her with energy and she was bouncing off the walls for much of the afternoon. She seems to really like short hair and it also suits her well. She and Kali were talking later in the day and Alida was commenting how she might want to keep her hair short but still wants to be able to donate. She came asking me if Wigs4Kids accepts money donations as she was thinking that maybe every time she cuts her hair, she would send them a monetary donation. What a kid!
It's funny how on the one hand I was nervous and on the other hand not really at all. It's just hair and it grows. And my sister has done the honors many times and I trust her with a scissors near my head! My biggest worry is always "will it be low maintenance!" And, especially at this time of year, can I get my hair off my neck. Both goals seem to have been met! And we have 7 thick sections of hair to mail off as soon as we can get to the post office. I'm still a fan of my personal hair plan - grow it to donate, chop it off, grow it to donate, chop it off. Works for me and I don't have to think about it in the two or so years between donations (April 2017 was my last donation And Alida's was July of that year).
Here's a few more before and after shots. I don't think I've ever felt a thicker braid than the one Alida and I shared for a few minutes.
So that about sums up the hair cutting fun in our home. Interspersed into the same day was some fun hanging out and game playing with Aunt Karen. We also had afternoon thunderstorms, including a bolt of lightening and impressive crack of thunder right as I stood by the pig paddock with their evening slop. The girls were at the window watching for me as I ran up to the house. Let's just say the slop barrels did not get stirred last evening. The lingering clouds on the mountain following the storm were beautiful! The storms brought Jason inside and he worked on garlic processing until his hands were sore.
That left us with the rare experience of all being inside before dark on a summer evening. Music time! Terah was already overly tired so I was having to really "practice what I preach" (or sing as it were) as I sang about being grateful at the end of the day with her fussing in the background. It was super fun to be working on a song with Jason AND Kali. Doing music together as a family is something we haven't done much and would love to do more. Alida and Terah did enjoy dancing some while we played and Terah was much happier once she had the mandolin in her hands!
So what's new in the kitchen? I was hoping you'd ask! Here's three recent experiments, with only one of those ready for testing and reporting on.
Yesterday I made our first batch of jam for the year (we have some left from other years so I haven't felt very inclined to use fruit that way). But some of the blueberries are starting to get soft (thanks to the spotted winged drosophila) and so it seemed like the time for some berry preserves. And I got the inspiration to try blueberry ginger with our homegrown ginger. It's a winner!!!! 8 cups of mashed blueberries, 1 cup of shredded ginger and 3/4 cup raw honey from our friend's hives. Yum!
I'm happy to report that the first onion experiment is underway. I kicked off this season's fermenting with our first crock of fermented dill pickles yesterday, and also got a crock of sweet onions going. Looks and smells good but only time will tell if that one is a winner or not! Hoping to get some onions drying soon, but weather doesn't look like consistent sunshine for a spell now.
And why not close with another picture of cheese! The new shelving in the root cellar is slowly filling up with aging blocks of cheddar. This is particularly intended to be an update on the dill cheddar that I talked about in a previous post (see 2nd row to the far right, appropriately right by the dilly canned goods!). It's looking great so far! Still feeling rather amazed at milk and bacteria and time. It does some amazing things to food! Speaking of food, it's time to get some breakfast underway, though Terah had another bad dream in her big girl bed last night so is sleeping somewhat restlessly next to me. Will I be able to slip out?
Oh, let's just get the confession part out of the way. I was pondering whether to include anything about this on the blog and so I figured I'd asked two of the ones that will likely benefit the most from this writing down the road (Alida and Terah). They said I should. This could be a post in and of itself and I have no pictures to spice it up (nor would you want them) and I'm still reflecting on it and cringing when I think about it (it's one of those scenarios with so many unpleasant what ifs that I can be tempted to let my mind and emotions dwell on). So this will be a very abbreviated version.
Two nights ago we decided to watch one of the documentaries I got from the library while we ate dinner. It was a pretty intense movie with some wonderful informative content and some tragic sad content. At the end, I really felt the need to debrief a bit as a family, especially for Alida's benefit - Kali has read about the beauty and hatefulness we humans hold within us and I think a lot of it was beyond Terah's comprehension. But, by that point, Terah was resisting sleep and was oh so tired. I was trying to snuggle her and she was in one of those persistent, impatient moods where even finishing a sentence was not going to happen - she wanted lie prostrate in bed. This, as you might guess, is not my favorite aspect of this age/stage for Terah - it actually drives me batty when I'm trying to focus on something with Jason or Kali or Alida and just can't have a minute to finish a thought. We even bought a new Elephant and Piggie book called Waiting is Not Easy to see if that might be inspirational.
So, in a moment of frustration, I just gave up on the conversation and got up abruptly with Terah in my arms and took off for the bedroom. What I did not see in the dark of the room was that one of our stools was right in my path. I tripped over it, falling face first with Terah onto the tile pad around our wood stove. It was one of those scary awful moments where you have no idea if life has just changed dramatically because of a my moment of rash action. My knee took the brunt of the fall but I knew Terah's head had gotten its share of the impact and that was all I could think about. I think all of us other than Jason (we needed his calm non-anxious presence!) were crying and scared. I definitely didn't feel deserving when Terah through her tears said, "I love you mommy."
Terah calmed relatively quickly and was asleep soon after. She had a bump on her head and marks that outlined the tile grout lines of the floor. A quick consult with Jason's sister who is a PA assured us that we could let her sleep and just keep checking on her - I knew I would not be sleeping very soundly or anytime soon so "checking on her" would not be a problem. Now the hard work of trying to glean the lessons to be learned from this experience without accepting the load of shame and guilt that would be easy to pour upon myself. I'm happy to talk about my reflections to date, but they are still relatively fresh and not very processed. As I type I'm sitting at the swingset watching Alida and Terah swing and I feel a new determination to "slow down" and to "savor" life. The "how to" part is still being figured out.
When I asked Terah if there was anything that she wanted me to include on the blog about the fall she piped up, "that I got a goose bump!" I think this was her first experience of a goose egg and she mixed it up with goose bumps. :) I feel so grateful that her goose bump/egg has more or less disappeared, she has had no lingering physical symptoms and that other than a purple tender knee neither do I!
Yay, we can now move on to beauty and cuteness and abundant harvests! I told Jason this morning that I have to look away from the ducklings after a bit because they are almost too cute to take in. They love their water pan and the treats of clover we bring them from time to time. The pictures don't do them justice. Neither do videos, but I have included three at the end of this post if you want to see them in action. We are enjoying them so much and are happy that the little family of 10 seems to be co-existing peacefully and that all the ducklings are spunky and healthy. It's great when our experiments work out this beautifully!
We liked this as one of their first family photos. It's harder than you might think to get all 10 in the same picture frame.
There is no end to the beauty around us right now. I love when the girls get a hold of the camera and I get to see some of their creativity expressed in what they choose to photograph. Alida loves flowers and was putting them between her fingers the other day and got great photos. I especially loved this one with the lines on her hand so distinct!
The other day when Jason was away doing a day long chicken workshop at Allegheny Mountain Institute, I helped Alida weed her flower garden. It's such a vibrant splash of color out our side door. She loves going out to check what new things are blooming. As we were weeding I uncovered a very tiny turtle. It was so cute! We couldn't tell for sure what kind but Jason is pretty sure it's a baby box turtle and that makes us very happy. It box turtles can reproduce on this piece of land we live on and love, it seems like that's some small indication that we are doing something well!
Alida got to enjoy a double sleepover with a friend this past weekend. There was A LOT of giggling in our home over those 48 hours! Ivy got to join us for a few hours of the time together and I had the privilege of braiding four heads of hair! I credit this friend, and the sleepovers, with Terah's growing interest in sleeping in her own bed. She did it for the first time on the first sleepover a few weeks back. She talked about doing it this time but then didn't last too long. We don't expect that she'll actually stay until she is sound asleep. Last night on her own she chose her big girl bed. I soon heard a pitter patter and thought, "well, that was that for tonight." She came in and said she needed me and I said that was fine. She then said, "I forgot to tell you goodnight." She said goodnight and took herself back to bed and we didn't hear from her again until 9 this morning. Not getting used to it yet but it seems the transition is at least beginning...
Terah has been enjoying joining me sometimes for parts of "harvest days." Every other day we do the rounds and there are new things all the time. The excitement of the week was the first cucumbers. Eaten in style here by Terah! And Alida wanted a photo with a cucumber smile!
We have such mammoth amounts of dill this year that I can hardly bear to pull out such that the cucumbers are being shaded. So we'll see what the harvest is like. So far we've picked 5 on two different days for us to each enjoy one. The other "first" was sauteeing our purple cabbage (in coconut oil). There's really nothing like it! It was gone well before we wanted to be done savoring it. Thankfully there are a lot more heads out there ready to be enjoyed! Alida is hoping some will be made into sauerkraut. So we'll have to reign in our tendency to eat them all sauteed!
On a recent free (and dry) evening, we decided to get our shallots out of the ground and onto drying racks and then had enough time and space on the racks to also harvest the white onions and the walla wallas. We didn't have enough of our own onions this year. so we bought some sets of new kinds and have never had such huge onions. Stay tuned, but we hope to ferment some slices of sweet onion and also to dry some onion. When? Not sure! But it's a dream project... For now the racks are full of garlic, shallots and part of the onion crop. We have a lot more onions to pull and hope they won't flop before we can process and remove some of the other things!
Well the sun is getting less intense and the day is cooling, so I think it's time for some family raking and mulching the hay Jason has just cut the last few mornings. He's never had the potato (and black bean and watermelon) patch looking so pristine (nor has so much time ever been dedicated to said patch). Now it's time to get it mulched before the next round of weeds spring forth! And before that, it's time to move the pigs to their new paddock - a job made much easier by an extra set of hands so off I go.
In closing, here are three videos of the ducklings with their mama chickens. Enjoy (and know that there are lots more where these came from!):
We love how the mamas are sitting in the corner just watching their little ones dubiously!
It cracks us up that the free ranging ducks came into their side of the pen and so if you aren't paying attention you might wonder if the mama chickens have starting quacking!
Phew! 3 p.m. and I've already made 3 trips to town - not my idea of a fun day. Lunch has finally been accomplished but dishes will wait since Alida and Terah are playing school happily. I can do dishes with kids griping in the background but a blog post is much more challenging with that backdrop! But for now all is happy and peaceful - Kali is with friends this afternoon but Alida is determined to have more fun than Kali is having with her friends so she is having a pretty creative burst of play with Terah, for which I'm grateful...
So we'd been noticing when driving our car around that sometimes we were having to push the clutch in really hard to get the car started or had to try to start it a few times. Jason was thinking something was going bad with the clutch. But it seemed to happen when we were doing a string of errands with lots of stops and starts. Yesterday we were all in town together to do errands and dentist appointments for the whole family. We had the trailer loaded with buckets of scraps and a trunk full of bread for the pigs. We had stopped by my work to deliver eggs and milk. It was at that moment that no amount of trying could get the car started. Ugh! On a hot day, 20 minutes from home with loaded car and trailer and 30 minutes from our dentist appointments. Jason decided to find something to bang on the starter with. I am so glad he was with us and glad he knows car tricks that I don't. It worked and we were off! It started pouring on our way to the dentist, cooling things down enough to allow Jason to remain in the car while Terah napped and poured through a number of our appointments. It had stopped by the time we left and the car started fine after 2 plus hours of cooling off. It also started fine this morning when we took it to the shop and so we were worried maybe it wouldn't act up for them. But around 1 p.m. they called to confirm our diagnosis - it was indeed the starter and it would cost us $0. They had just replaced it last year and saw it looked new, checked and it was still under warranty. Have I mentioned how much we appreciate our mechanics? I still don't quite understand why they didn't charge us anything for labor - as the paperwork to be reimbursed for labor on warranty products is apparently so arduous that they don't even bother. But enough about the car! I'm just grateful it's in working condition before Jason's solo trip to Allegheny Mountain Institute tomorrow to lead his yearly chicken workshop. And I'm glad we didn't get stranded in town with the kids on a hot day, glad we didn't have to reschedule dental appointments, glad Emily and Jonas willingly let us borrow their car for the shuttling back and forth, glad it wasn't a large repair bill etc... Could have been so much worse!
But let me not gloss entirely over the dentist appointments. So for the one or two of you that have been reading our blog for years now, you may remember that Alida's first teeth cleaning was a bit of an ordeal - complete with her refusing to open her mouth! I didn't remember that Alida was 4 going on 5 at the time. Terah is 3 going on 4 and whether it is an age thing or personality difference, she was an absolute delight. I need not have worried. A few days ahead of time she revealed her fears that this was a hurting kind of thing (she was thinking shots) and I was able to reassure her ahead of time that they would be gentle and it might feel funny but it should not hurt. We got to talk through what they would do and by the day of she was mostly excited about it. She got to watch Alida's appointment, which enabled me to talk through what was happening. When it was her turn, she hopped right up in the chair and had her mouth open before her seat was all the way reclined (her two older sisters were also there in the audience - they find her as cute as Jason and I do). She smiled at the hygienist and opened her mouth big and wide the whole time. We left with bouncy balls prizes for the kids and clean bills of dental health for all 5 of us - other than my ongoing implant issues for which there is no good long term solution...
Now on to more exciting topics. This morning Jason shared a quote by May Sarton with me from the most recent Sun magazine. It resonated with both of us: "A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself."
We are getting into our late spring/summer/early fall routine of every other day being "harvest day." Right now, a brief meander around the property can net a beautiful bowl of assorted berries. White raspberries are definitely among the triumphs! In order to get to the various berry patches, we can't avoid taking a peak at the sad looking peppers and the squash patches that are struggling so much this year. I'm not sure if we'll chalk them up to complete losses but they will certainly be places of much learning this year. We are preparing to send in our first soil samples for testing. It seems it is time for some help analyzing what is causing some things to thrive and other things to not. Our observations are good and important, but we are needing some additional assistance!
It would be very easy to focus on the losses and the things not going well (I'm pretty good at that), so for me it is a good discipline to look around for the triumphs and successes. We had a good barley harvest this year and thanks to some help from our trio, it is now all threshed, winnowed and doing its final drying in pans on the racks in the garage. And the straw shed is loaded up with barley straw. I loved getting a peek of Terah out there with Jason the other day using the flail to thresh out barley. I love that for that 3 year old, it was a perfectly normal and fun activity to do with her daddy.
Speaking of her daddy, it's that time of year where one of Kali's quotes early on at our time at Tangly Woods always comes to mind: "He's a hard workin' daddy." We are trying to find good "hot weather work" for the middle of the days as the temps creep up towards 90 this week. But right now there is grass to mow, hay to scythe, dry beans to plant, squash to weed, the June cut back and pruning to accomplish, and the list goes on. This past week, our second patch of potatoes (since we could not find another home for the extra seed potatoes we had purchased) needed to be found among the weeds, so he spend a good chunk of two days hill those. It now looks like a potato patch again! We'll take a bumper crop of potatoes to make up for the squash patches! I'm still getting out regularly to do chores which is my favorite way to start the day when I can get out first thing, but it is the time of year that I'm not so horribly disappointed when I'm needed inside (or at least in the shade) in the hours between about 10-11 a.m. and 4-5 p.m.
I'm sad that peas are coming to an end already (I never feel ready for that season to come to an end), but it's time to get those vines out of there to let the beans enjoy the sunshine and rain without competition. And I can't mourn the peas for too long when there are gorgeous looking beets ready to be pulled and the cucumbers are flowering and red cabbage is forming nice heads. We just enjoyed the last beet chick pea patties from the freezer for lunch today with a fresh dill sauce from the abundance of dill growing in our gardens this year (the lunch menu was another -- successful -- attempt to soften the blow of Kali being away for Alida - we'll have to make a fresh batch soon for Kali to enjoy with us!).
When we ended up having an unplanned evening recently (our colds caused a get together cancellation), we realized it was time to seize the day and harvest the garlic! How encouraging compared to last year. Last year there was more first use garlic (rotted roots) than good storing garlic. This year, again, we had LOTS of water in the patch for a long time. But, due to last year's lessons, Jason had worked hard to have the bed raised higher and it paid off. There was water running out the channels between beds, but for the most part the garlic did not suffer and we have a lot of beautiful garlic on the drying rack in the garage.
It was exciting work for 3/5 of our family for the whole time. The younger two's enthusiasm came and went, but when it went it at least did not detract from us continuing on the harvest. Terah got into taking pictures, so there are a lot of the garlic harvest from her vantage point. Alida also took a turn at photographing the evening. I love that I was so focused on the ground that I didn't even know Terah had noticed a beautiful sky full of clouds above us!
A few other random tidbits before I close with two other major happenings. I'm enjoying watching the bees on flowers all over the place. I wish we were seeing more monarchs. After many last year, Jason has seen two this year and no caterpillars yet.
The younger girls' popcorn is tasseling. We were feeling so confident we were ahead of the neighbor's GMO corn patch across the road but some of last year's corn re-sprouted for them (the pesticides didn't kill it all) and we saw the first tassel today. It is hard to not feel a lot of strong emotions about the fact that we can't grow corn freely at Tangly Woods without worrying about it crossing with GMO corn. Looks like we might have some extra work ahead of us if we want to try to protect some for seed saving. Sigh! I'll try to think of it as a great homeschool activity - learning out to pollinate corn! It's been a number of years now that we have tried to time our planting either way before or after the field across the road, but to date we haven't gotten it right and maybe will just have to assume that for seed saving we'll have to manage the pollination more carefully. Maybe if the girls learn this year, they can take this on!
So it was a big day on Saturday here at Tangly Woods. After being on an excavator's list for a year or two, he finally admitted to us that he had no idea when our job would be at the top of his list. So Jason contacted others he knew could do the initial clearing job and that happened this past weekend! We've needed to work on the fence row between us and our neighbors. That part of the property has received very little attention and was a thick mix of brushy stuff and large trees. It would have taken weeks of work to do what their machine and about 15 gallons of diesel did in 8 hours or so.
The girls and I went down to check on the project at various points in the day, but mostly heard the machine and the crack of trees being pushed over. To be honest, I wish we had figured out some kind of ritual to do together before the clearing. It felt like such a destructive day. And while I think the end result will hopefully be a net benefit to the land and the creatures that also call Tangly Woods home, it was no doubt a pretty disorienting day for many! I will say that walking around our place is less disorienting for me currently, as we can now walk a loop from driveway up into the woods and Alida is happy that she has a good view to our neighbor's flower patch now from the fence!
This was not only clearing for another travel path but also to dig a test hole for a possible future pond. Before investing time and money into a pond, we wanted to get a sense of our chances of having a pond hold water. We learned that there is clay but it is about 4.5 feet down. So the pond decision is still on the horizon... In the meantime, the girls enjoy exploring down there and were finding little forts in the underbrush that they were eager to check out. Alida had fun using her new knowledge about trees from a book she is reading to tell us things about the stumps we looked at. I was not thrilled by the increase in mosquitoes in the middle of the day down in those areas. We do need a pond for ducks and frogs and other mosquito eating creatures!
Ok, I saved the best for last! It's been a number of years since we have had new ducklings around here. Last year Kali had one duck go broody but none of the eggs hatched. This spring, none of her ducks went broody, despite her encouraging them by leaving eggs for days on end for them to sit on. She was collecting hatching eggs just in case and all the while more and more of our chickens are going broody (sometimes more than one hen on a nest). We'd love to have more ducks and Kali wanted to hatch ducklings from her pet duck Duckie. Honestly, if you ever want a little thrill, feed ducks lettuce. So what to do to get some of Duckie's offspring hatched without an incubator and needing to brood them inside?
Well, Jason moved 3 broody chicken hens that were all sharing a nest into one nest box in one half of Kali's duck cook. They stayed put and so he and Kali put 10 duck eggs under the broody chickens. They still stayed put. At two weeks, all three hens were sitting tight and a candling showed that all 10 eggs were fertile. Yesterday morning Kali noticed an egg shell out of the nest. Did an egg break or did a duckling hatch? Despite multiple checks throughout the day, the hens were sitting tight and she didn't want to disturb them so she didn't know what was up (one must think carefully before reaching a hand under a broody hen).
First thing this morning Alida and Kali went to look and came back with the good news of ducklings! Before long all five of us were congregated at the coop, looking at the adorable sight of 3 mama chickens with ducklings poking out in various places! They were still hatching so we don't know the final count, but we know for sure there were 5 plus perky ducklings. So fun! We knew it could be done but also knew it was a bit of a risk. So to have not 1 or 2 but 3 chickens accepting their babies in duck form feels pretty amazing. It will be fun to watch them find their way in co-parenting their brood!
ps. Time to close but for those itching for a video, I'll include three here. The first is of the ducks enjoying the bolting lettuce I took them this morning. They are so fun to watch! The second is blurry but it was the best one I got of Terah's made up song the other evening. Could be a good theme song for the Massanutten Regional Library's summer reading program. :) And, finally, come visit us and walk the path yourself, but if you can't, here's a little walk through the new woods path. I liked how many birds were singing.
Yesterday was the day that two of us got a bit lighter! It was starting to feel like time to pass some hair along to others that need it more. Kali donated last June and Jason last November, so it was Alida's and my turn. Terah, of course, wanted in on the fun but was only able to donate hers to the birds for their nests. She had just recently gotten into braids and so we were all worried she didn't understand what she was asking for when she kept wanting us to cut more and go shorter. We need not have worried - she loves it and seemed to think that she could jump higher and run faster with a little less hair on her head.
Alida was excited but also a tad nervous. It seemed her flower petal ritual helped to prepare her for the big moment! And she also is not looking back. The hair cut seemed to infuse her with energy and she was bouncing off the walls for much of the afternoon. She seems to really like short hair and it also suits her well. She and Kali were talking later in the day and Alida was commenting how she might want to keep her hair short but still wants to be able to donate. She came asking me if Wigs4Kids accepts money donations as she was thinking that maybe every time she cuts her hair, she would send them a monetary donation. What a kid! 
It's funny how on the one hand I was nervous and on the other hand not really at all. It's just hair and it grows. And my sister has done the honors many times and I trust her with a scissors near my head! My biggest worry is always "will it be low maintenance!" And, especially at this time of year, can I get my hair off my neck. Both goals seem to have been met! And we have 7 thick sections of hair to mail off as soon as we can get to the post office. I'm still a fan of my personal hair plan - grow it to donate, chop it off, grow it to donate, chop it off. Works for me and I don't have to think about it in the two or so years between donations (April 2017 was my last donation And Alida's was July of that year).
So that about sums up the hair cutting fun in our home. Interspersed into the same day was some fun hanging out and game playing with Aunt Karen. We also had afternoon thunderstorms, including a bolt of lightening and impressive crack of thunder right as I stood by the pig paddock with their evening slop. The girls were at the window watching for me as I ran up to the house. Let's just say the slop barrels did not get stirred last evening. The lingering clouds on the mountain following the storm were beautiful! The storms brought Jason inside and he worked on garlic processing until his hands were sore.
That left us with the rare experience of all being inside before dark on a summer evening. Music time! Terah was already overly tired so I was having to really "practice what I preach" (or sing as it were) as I sang about being grateful at the end of the day with her fussing in the background. It was super fun to be working on a song with Jason AND Kali. Doing music together as a family is something we haven't done much and would love to do more. Alida and Terah did enjoy dancing some while we played and Terah was much happier once she had the mandolin in her hands!
And why not close with another picture of cheese! The new shelving in the root cellar is slowly filling up with aging blocks of cheddar. This is particularly intended to be an update on the dill cheddar that I talked about in a previous post (see 2nd row to the far right, appropriately right by the dilly canned goods!). It's looking great so far! Still feeling rather amazed at milk and bacteria and time. It does some amazing things to food! Speaking of food, it's time to get some breakfast underway, though Terah had another bad dream in her big girl bed last night so is sleeping somewhat restlessly next to me. Will I be able to slip out?
