Kali's 17th, food processing galore and piglets no more...

There are reasons to not wait nearly another month before "scrapbooking." It felt daunting as I downloaded about 200 pictures this morning from past weeks and thought about how to sum up another full - logistically and emotionally - month! But, keeping in mind that this is a family scrapbook and not my journal, here's my best attempt at it. I am writing while pausing to play Rook with Kali, Alida and Terah so this is hardly uninterrupted writing time. But it is, after all, Sunday and I'm signed off work emails after doing a 50-60 hour week of standstill sprinting at my computer to prepare for the fall semester. So there will be some games in the day, NO food processing or harvesting, hopefully a nap, and NO office work. 

It's typical for me to start using "September is coming" as my mantra sometime in the month of August! I can also now confidently add a second sentence to my mantra as needed, which is "...and you have made it through many Augusts now!" As many are doing in their work settings, the program I work for has pivoted to online learning this fall and therefore my work is shifting to an online orientation. So much of my work is the same (supporting students and faculty) AND so much is different - it's disorienting and overwhelming and I know that's something so many are feeling these days; I don't mention it to complain but instead to name something that is infusing so much of life lately - this and all the other very disturbing things happening in our world. It can easily make one despair.

Yet, here at Tangly Woods, life is abundant and sweet and comical and full of laughter and growth and some tears and lots of learning every single day! And, as is always true of August, we are very busy putting up food for the winter. So enjoy some glimpses of August:

Two of the very bright spots in August have been that my parents have been with us all month, except for one short little jaunt to their Mountain House for two days. And we did not have to say goodbye to Tala at the end of July, so our dining room table has often had every seat filled with our pod of 8 and that has filled my heart! The very first time that Mom and Dad made the "long journey" from upstairs to downstairs, the girls got excited about welcoming them. They coined our home the 'Rhino Resort Restaurant" and told Grandma and Grandpa that they were to dress up. They were very good sports!

So, I'll preface the next big thing with a little dose of sisterly sweetness. I love when these two are in their cuddly, adoring each other moods. It comes around pretty often and you catch them like this. The upcoming piglet story really has nothing to do with sister cuddling on the couch, other than to remind me that life is a huge swirling mix of sweetness and sorrow, loving and loss... It's hard to hold that mix sometimes, this month included! For months we had waited in hopeful anticipating of early August and the possibilities of piglets at Tangly Woods again. 

And piglets we got...for a few days! Rosie birthed right on her due date. Initially we thought there were at least four, and by the end of the ordeal we learned that she had birthed seven piglets total. It was several very hard days here, as we lost one piglet after another. It was a mixture of piglets that were still-born (never fully developed), and some with other deformities who maybe were not as agile to get away from their mammoth mama when she went to lay down, and finally the dreadful crushing that is so common for first time mothers in those early days. As you can see by the photos, she is hundreds of times their size and despite trying to set the paddock up with the "tricks" we had been told, it was clearly not enough. There were feelings both of loss and for me also of failure - did we not give her and them the necessary environment for them to thrive? On the edge already emotionally, I sunk rather low. I got one little snuggle with a piglet and I treasure that memory. As the girls and I looked at photos this morning, the loss felt more present again but I also felt glad that we have the memory of those early hours and now the goal is to learn all we can to avoid it happening again. We were excited about supporting a new breed of pig that is being developed but in this case the inbreeding may have precipitated some of the genetic problems. We have much to learn and what I struggle to be at peace with is when our learning has negative outcomes. I'm observant enough to know this is true in many facets of life and in many ways the grief and despair I was feeling as the piglets died was much bigger than what was happening inside that paddock.

So time to interject a more cheery story. It involves animals but with a less dramatic ending. It's one we are all chuckling about - ok, maybe all of us but my dad! You see, for some reasons our free range ducks and chickens really like porches. No sooner have I swept the front walk or cleaned the porch but there they come to mingle and visit with each other. I would not mind that so much if that also didn't come with them pooping on our walk and porch. It's hardly welcoming for the humans that frequent those places. I normally shoo them away, which is pointless, or grumble at them, which also does little good. My dad was more committed to fixing the problem and went to great lengths to acquire and install a little "duck fence" on their porch. It has mostly worked, but soon after it's installation the ducks showed up on the other side of the house for a little visit on their deck. :) And the hen who was determined to lay her egg in the window well found a way!

Ok, let's talk about food! I need to actually work on our waffles with chicken gravy lunch here shortly, but let me share some highlights!

We are LOVING having a watermelon patch again! We gave up half of our cucumber patch this year for watermelon, after trying to tuck watermelon here and there unsuccessfully. We have had plenty of cucumbers and are savoring the melons.

We are in the thick of tomatoes! The Hungarian Paste are mostly over and we probably just had our best picking of Marianas. What does that mean? SALSA making time (and sauce, and paste, and juice, and diced). How happy I am for all the sets of helpful hands around this place now. Terah can now peel tomatoes and garlic, Alida is now able to participate in most aspects of the process including chopping tomatoes, and Kali pitches in once she is up and done duck chores (which is often afternoon). Mom is now able to be up and about a bit more and normally has garlic and onions ready for us before the sun is fully up. And Tala seems to just know what needs to be done next and is so very skilled with her hands. One day I had both Tala and my mom with me in the kitchen briefly and it was marvelous! 

We were also able to go glean (for a fraction of the market cost) 40 dozen ears of organic sweet corn so our freezer and Mom and Dad's is stocked for the year. What a sticky, messy, fun job! Again, "many hands made light [or at least more spread out and more fun] work!"

Even when not every Tangly Woods' member is working at food processing, even the littlest can now fully entertain herself. The only interruption as I scurried in and out between propane burner and kitchen was to ask if I would want to take a picture of her tower. Of course I do!

Even if Terah isn't able to do all parts of the food processing projects we get into at this time of year, and even if she looses steam fast and takes breaks often, it is clear that she has absorbed that food processing = fun times! 

On one of my 12-14+ hour computer days, Jason, with the help of Dad and Tala, butchered 26 chickens. They are now tucked away in the freezer in various forms (roasting birds, stewing birds, breast meat fillets, chicken sausage) and the broth is about to be tucked into the root cellar. We have enjoyed roasted chicken for one meal, Tala made a delicious meal with chicken and veggies that will feed us another time before it is gone, and she introduced us to chicken intestines. We have so much to learn about how to use the various parts of the animals we harvest. 

We have done a bit of experimenting this year as our freezers filled and we needed to get creative with how to put up food without purchasing a third freezer! We think we have two new winners. The first is dried okra! Just cut it in short sections and dry for less than a day and you've got okra crisps. We might even try tossing them in salt and drying, as they are tasty alone and would probably be scrumptious salted. Mind you, we haven't tried them in recipes yet but if that works we have ourselves a winner. 

The other is fruit leather. Blackberries don't freeze well. They actually get pink/red and are more tart than when they went in. So we normally make jam and eat them fresh. But we only need so much jam. I tried drying them (without blanching) and that took forever and wasn't done evenly. In my minimal (2 minutes) research it was clear they are not recommended for drying but make great fruit leather. Indeed they do! Blended with blueberries is a nice version. With a little maple syrup is good. Alone even works, if a little tart! Terah calls the sheets of dried berries "blackberry crisp" and is making a rather large dent in the previously full container. Yay for helpful new discoveries!

And then there was yesterday! By the day's end there were cans of chicken broth, diced tomatoes, salsa, tomato juice, dilly beans and 25 quarts of applesauce. It was my kind of August Saturday! I fit a little office work in the cracks, but not enough to be too much of a distraction to the delicious smelling kitchen mess we were making. I felt very successful at the end of the day when I finally got down on my hands and knees and washed the layers off the floor from corn freezing, salsa and applesauce making!

For much of the day we had both burners going on the outdoor stove and most of our burners going full steam on the indoor stove!

Last but not least: we have a 17 year old in our home. Gone are the days of fun number combinations of our kids. We went from 4,8,16 to 4,9,16, which were both fun mathematically. We haven't thought of anything for 4,9,17, so Kali will just have to embrace being a prime number this year! She seems to have adjusted to the completion of another year of life and she also seemed to feel well loved and celebrated despite COVID restrictions changing the nature of our celebrations significantly. We avoided the Rockingham County Fair this year and didn't hold a big in-person celebration with lots of friends and family. But another way of looking at it is: We got to spread out the fun and engage people at a farther distance geographically from us! Here's how we celebrated our eldest:

Celebration #1: We enjoyed a gathering with Emily, Jonas, Ivy, Christen and Jonathan two days before Kali's bday. This was a surprise until about 30 minutes ahead of time. We made popcorn over the fire and shared the no-bake cookies Kali had made (for the occasion without knowing it)! We played the game Contact, which is an elaborate and fun word guessing game that requires no game pieces and (ironically) no physical contact. Perfect for these times!

Celebration #2: We enjoyed an evening swim at a friend's pool in town. This was also a surprise until until the day of. 

Celebration #3: her actual birthday was a special day for all of us! We started the day all together with a nutty sweet potato waffle brunch and my dad even sported his corn silk wig for the occasion!

Then there was plenty of game playing (interspersed with some salsa-making). We did have to bail on idea of having pizza pockets over the outdoor fire, and had to settle for delicious indoor pizzas, followed by homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream. We did get in some family badminton before the rain settled in! Tala added a special memorable twist to the day with gifting Kali with a variety of tropical fruits none of us had ever tried before. 

The ducks' present to Kali at the end of the day was to be entirely uncooperative going back to their coop when it was after dark and raining. I guess they wanted to make the evening memorable!

Celebration #4: The day after Kali's birthday we surprised her with another little "outing." We hiked with friends to Hensley's Pond and enjoyed a picnic there. 

Celebration #5: A Kali Kahoot surprise party! I thought it was so funny that on multiple days when surprises were planned, Kali never asked me, "So what's happening for the rest of today?" She asks me that almost every day at some point, and I kept waiting to have to lie on some of those days and she never asked. Then on Monday (two days after her birthday), she asked me what was happening in the evening (about 15 minutes before the surprise). I laughed and told her she had to be in the guest room in 15 minutes. She was so surprised, assuming the birthday things were all done. Little did she know! 

I had been inspired at a recent wedding zoom call where they did a trivia game about the couple. It was way more fun than I expected and it got my wheels spinning. So Jason, Terah, Alida and I crafted a trivia game about Kali and invited family and friends to join us on Zoom. And many did!! It had been a long time since I had had that sore feeling around the mouth from smiling so much. 

Well, it is time to be serving lunch and I haven't even started it yet! So here I go. I'm hoping then there will be some games and a nap yet on this Sabbath day before we have an outdoor get together with friends this evening. There have been LOTS of Dutch Blitz tournaments happening. I've missed most of them but maybe I'll get in on some today?!

My closing thought and something I've been thinking and feeling a lot recently, is: "We need each other." I have felt that so keenly at Tangly Woods this month. And I'm so very grateful for every person and their unique and beautiful contributions to our home here! The journey is easier when we do it together!

A month's worth of news!!

Wow, I knew it had been awhile but a MONTH?! Jason is doing the bedtime routine so another day doesn't go by before I share some words/photos from the last few weeks. I just commented while we were all brushing our teeth how long it had been and Alida noted, "Well you better get to some posting." So here I am!

There is just no easy way to sum up the last number of weeks, and I would be up all night if I attempted to not only share all that has happened but the array of emotions that has accompanied the various happenings. So consider this just a sampling of snippets that are each true but also potentially horribly inadequate at giving the reader a more nuanced and complex view of our lives - the "blog scrapbook" is starting to feel incredibly inadequate in those ways!

We've been listening to a fair amount of the Indigo Girls of late - good dish washing, butter shaking and/or food processing music. Recently the song "Hammer and a Nail" was stuck in my head and I finally looked at the lyrics. I was disappointed to learn that my favorite line, "gotta tend the earth if you want to grow" was actually "gotta tend the earth if you want a rose." But otherwise, I've been rolling around a lot of parts of that song as I go about my days. The second half of the song has connected the most with my emotional state:

I had a lot of good intentions

Sit around for fifty years (or 42) and then collect a pension,

Started seeing the road to hell and just where it starts.

But my life is more than a vision

The sweetest part is acting after making a decision

I started seeing the whole as a sum of its parts

My life is part of the global life

I'd found myself becoming more immobile

When I'd think a little girl in the world can't do anything.

A distant nation my community

A street person my responsibility

If I have a care in the world I have a gift to bring. 

Here and there when Jason and I have moments to talk and process (on those rare early morning walks mostly...), our conversations this past month went a lot to what reparations, mutual aid, and balancing things means for us personally. Anyone who knows us, knows well that we can process things extensively (or should I say excessively). I guess that may connect to another part of the song: "Learn how to use my hands, not just my head I think myself into jail..." 

I have found myself playing around with a cushion or pillow metaphor in some of my ponderings. What does it mean for some of us to have a lot of cushions (e.g. education, land ownership/paid mortgage, family members with resources, health insurance, car, savings, seeds and soil) and others to have very few. And add to that, what if you also have various identities that add to the cushioning you experience in life (e.g. being white, middle class, heterosexual, U.S. citizen). And what if your ancestors' wealth is attributed in large part to systems that favored them and harmed others?

There are not easy answers. But a big part of this last month for us was engaging in a process where we faced a lot of these questions together as a couple and in communication with some close to us. And we took an action that felt right to us at this time to give back some of our unearned cushions. We hope it is a first step of many - a start, not a "now we've done it" kind of step. And we will keep asking these questions and invite others to join us!

Two other major things will mark July 2020 as unique in some beautiful and some challenging ways.

A recent graduate from CJP and dear friend, Tala, joined our family here at Tangly Woods for the month of July. I cannot begin to count the ways that our time together as been life-giving, joyful, inspiring, grounding, fun, meaningful and so full of life lessons I hope will remain with me for a very long time - ideally forever! I am dreading this Friday, which marks the end of our month together. We hope to pack the week with some final games and many meals together (we have more things we want to cook for each other than we have meals for!). Tala's perspective as an indigenous woman from the Philippines has graced our home with fresh perspective and a deeper connection to land and all living things. I feel so very grateful. We have enjoyed walking together, breathing together, picking blueberries together, weeding together, pulling onions and processing garlic together, playing games, eating meals, watching fireworks and the moon rise, picking green beans and berries, sharing stories, laughing, etc... She has untangled more honeysuckle in this time than we often do in a year and has helped lower the amount of poison ivy we have around. We all have treasured this month! For the first two weeks, we attempted to stay apart physically to have a quarantine time due to COVID-19. And we all counted the days until we could interact "normally" - i.e. HUGS!! We managed to still have lovely times together - outside and physically apart...

...But we celebrated the end of those two weeks:

Right in the middle of those two weeks, I got a call from my dad one morning. When I said, "Good morning," he breathlessly replied that it was not a good morning at that moment. They had been hiking on the hill behind their home in WV when Mom had slipped and falling. They heard a crack that dad initially thought might have been her walking stick, but quickly learned it was Mom's ankle. What has transpired since: their transition to Keezletown, Mom needing to recline with her foot elevated, appointments, Mom needing to recline with her foot elevated, surgery, lots of pain, Mom needing to recline with her foot elevated... Oh, there's been lots of bean snipping, game playing, story reading, puzzling, and some butter shaking too. But this is no small challenge for my dear Mom who seldom sits still for more than a few minutes at a time. And none of us can fix it or take away the grief and loss that comes with this time. We are, however, so glad to be able to be present and it's the first time that I've felt so deeply grateful for the in-law quarters being right here and ready for them when they needed that space.

Our girls have been amazing. It has not been easy to see Grandma hurting so much - I think most especially for Terah. But even she tries to do whatever she can - being Grandma's little gopher or offering to distract her from her discomfort or decorating her toes. Alida has been a little kitchen helper, eager for any opportunity to bake something! And, of course, they are all on standby for when she wants to play games. My Mom has often repeated this quote to me, "There is no great loss without some small gain." And, for us, having Mom and Dad here is always a gain! And we have enjoyed many more meals together in this time, and I have loved that too. We will welcome Mom's healing as it comes, and her increased mobility. And we hope to support her in that healing process - which, to date, has mostly been to try to continue to remind her that her main job right now is just that.  

Sprinkled in this month have been some other special times - we have continued to try to navigate ways to connect and be together safely in person with some of those nearest and dearest to us.

On one of the nights that we had our Movement Generation class, Jonathan and Christen came over and we watched the class together outside on the lawn. We shared homemade donuts, one of the "vacation food items" that we never had a chance on our staycation to make (we had too many ideas for the meals/snacks available that week). 

Additionally, we have enjoyed meaningful conversations and amazing skies on some Tuesday evening hikes with Jonathan and Christen. 

We had a fun surprise pizza birthday party for Christen. We had learned that day that Gray Jay Provisions was closing, so savored it even more than usual (to this day, I still have not told our pigs that they will not be enjoying more of Seth's sourdough bread...). 

Just the other day, Mom and Dad's dining room became a hair salon when I chopped nearly 15 inches off of Tala's hair and packed it up to send away to Wigs4Kids (the place in Michigan that Kali, Alida, Jason and I have donated to as well). 

On a rare Saturday recently when I had committed to not checking my email, there was this chunk of time in the afternoon where I had cheddar going so had to stay inside, but wasn't going to do CJP work. I had been itching to deep clean/organize my side of our closet. The moment that wish left my mouth, I had two VERY willing helpers. Before I knew it Alida and Terah had taken off for our bedroom, with Alida stopping to get a pencil and paper. She was ready to start making marks for each item I chose to get rid of. In summary, I said goodbye to at least 50 items and the stack by the end was as tall as Terah. AND that was not the most dramatic part of that activity. Normally going through and trying on clothes leaves me feeling very grouchy and displeased with myself. It's really hard to feel that way when you have two cheerleaders who love you unconditionally and are asking you questions like, "is it comfortable?" and "do you like it?" When one particular item was a bit snug, I decided to be honest and name that my options were to hold onto that piece of clothing and try to work to have their be a little less of me so that it fit more comfortably, or to get rid of the pants and be ok with me as I am. Alida did not think about it for even a second before she offered her strong counsel: get rid of the pants! I did!! If I teach my girls even half as much as they are teaching me, I will be so pleased. They offered me a fresh perspective that I so desperately needed and I ended the time feeling lighter and freer with a huge dose of gratitude for my daughters.

Oh, and then there are the gardens. It's July, things are booming! It was a HOT and DRY month! Our well could not keep up. Thanks to raised beds, improved soils, ground covers, etc... most of our crops did ok. But we could not have been more grateful for the 1.75 inches of rain that came to us this past week over the course of 4 days. We celebrated every rainstorm!

 The garlic is harvested and processed - all 2-3 bushels of it!

Barley and rye are harvested, threshed and winnowed.

Onions and shallots are pulled and currently drying on the racks in the garage, to be processed on future rainy days or in the middle of hot ones.

We enjoyed a much shorter blueberry season (at Hickory Hill Farm next door) this year, but were so very grateful to be able to load up our freezer with some bagfuls for winter.

We are currently harvesting blackberries, cucumbers, beans, okra, trombone squash and tomatoes every other day. We are harvesting various greens, herbs, tea, and peppers as needed.

The days of chopping, chopping and more chopping are back. We are fermenting pickles and beans, canning dill pickles, freezing beans and okra, and cooking veggies about as fast as we can eat them. I feel the abundance and at times the overwhelm!

But at least there is another chopper in this house! This little gal is growing up and eager to be "helpful!" We accept! She is growing in her abilities and her height, but her popcorn is still outpacing her!

We are still anticipating the first watermelons and cantaloupes, buckwheat, squashes, potatoes, beans, etc...

And that is not all we are anticipating. We are also hoping to welcome some RedRoc piglets in less than 2 weeks! So yesterday we moved Red Rosie to the birthing area in the woods. How do we move a 5-600 lb. pig through a wooded area? Especially since she has nearly demolished the portable house we used to use by "throwing it around" (for fun?!). She seems to have a high need to rearrange her sparse furnishings! So, in the end, Jason and I "led her" with a combination of some bread and a slop bucket. It was not lost on me that she had complete power to not follow our coaxing. We were grateful it went smoothly!

And now another "work week" is upon us. As we got ready for bed, I noted what a special Sunday it has been. And wishing that Sunday would follow Sunday. I'll be trying out my new office set up tomorrow in the guest room. When I look straight ahead I'll get to enjoy a photo my Dad took of the sandhill crane migration trip he took with Jason and his Dad for Jason's 40th birthday. And, hopefully, two screens will help me be more efficient on some projects and standing will help some of the aches and pangs I'm having when sitting in chairs.

I hope that the life giving energy drawn by the color and beauty and vibrancy around us right now will sustain and inspire me for whatever this week holds!