September Days

I've probably mentioned it before, but I do love turning the calendar from August to September. September has brought cooler mornings and evenings which I savor after the heat of July and August. And the semester is underway so my work days are less grueling. And the tomatoes are waning, the cucumber beds are now seeded with carrots, and there are less things to can and freeze. There starts to be a tiny bit more wiggle room for the zillion things that have moved from to do list to to do list for many weeks now. A recent example was me giving most of yesterday to that onerous task of getting all the clothes/shoes down from the attic and sorting through them with Alida and Terah to get them the next size up for their dresser drawers and then going through all their existing clothing/shoes to pull out too small things or things that just aren't their "style" (as Terah was apt to say). Jason exerted a lot more physical energy working at clearing the fence row at the bottom of our land, but I think I might have been able to compete with him on who was most exhausted by the end of the day! 

Jason has also been squeezing into the cracks a few projects between harvests and starting in on the fall cover cropping. He finished up the sweet potato curing room in our crawl space and I haven't even been down to see it and photograph it. He also finished up making a large set of various sized corn/bean/grain/seed drying trays that we'll use in our back kitchen this fall for drying things before putting in storage. When I can focus on the progress on those items, there are moments of satisfaction that we are continuing to refine various systems around here. But mostly right now I am often consumed with what we are not managing to get done in any given day or week. Sigh!

In one of Jason's workshop times, Terah joined him. She had been wanting some "shop time with Daddy" and that seemed a good opportunity. So in addition to the seed trays, she finished up with Jason a little table that Kali had started ages ago. To say she was proud of it upon completion would be an understatement!

We have also managed to squeeze in some fun which most recently included sneaking out after dark and decorating my parents' car on the even of their 56th wedding anniversary. My children, and I also learned husband, had never decorated a car after a wedding. So it was high time they learned. Once my parents had left for a day of hiking and time with friends, the younger gals and I also had fun remaking their bed in an alternate way that did not promote ease in climbing in at day's end. It's fun to have their house so handy for such pranks! Though I do fear that I might have some things coming back at me, as it is kind of dangerous to teach one's children these things!

When September rolled around, it was emotionally challenging to take our first family photo without Tala. So instead we all picked something to hold or wear that reminded us of Tala's presence in our home. My dad chose a broom, since Tala so graciously and at her own initiative spent many hours helping to keep our homes clean. Do not ask how it's going downstairs since she left! My mom chose a puzzle to represent the fun of puzzling together. Jason grabbed the orchid Tala had given us when she moved in and which never stopped blooming during her entire time with us. When I looked at it this morning I realized that the many blooms are shriveling and falling. I'm holding a mug of iced coffee, which represents so many things. Kali is holding Rook cards, which she doesn't need any more to play with Tala, though they still play online most nights. Alida is wearing the beautifully handwoven dress made for Tala for her graduation which she gifted to Alida before she left. And Terah is holding Jusr, Tala's bunny entrusted to her that she snuggles with most nights now. We miss her!

After a long dry summer, we've had rain. Inches of it. We have been fortunate to get plenty of rain but mostly not too much. And in doses that have mostly soaked in. We realize that many places have not been nearly so fortunate...We haven't needed to irrigate now for some time. And the rain brings the kind of mist and clouds on the mountain that I love. Thankfully there has also been sufficient sunshine for drying things back out and enabling us to keep up with most of the harvests. Here's just a small sampling of what's growing out there and what's coming in the door!

I do love the look of amaranth heads forming!

We are having a good pepper year!! After a good number of awful pepper years in a row, we are bringing in many sweet red peppers - enough for lots of fresh eating, cooking in recipes and for salsa/sauce and we are even freezing some for winter. Yay! Jason is pretty sure what has been ailing them in recent years was broad mites. 

As things come in the door for processing, I'm so glad the number of helpers who can work with sharp knives keeps increasing. One day Alida and Terah chopped more or less all the tomatoes for canning diced tomatoes. 

While we have more or less decided that we need to give up on growing peaches, we were gifted a large crate full from one of my colleagues. I was able to can 14 pints, we've been eating them fresh for days, I froze a few and tonight we will enjoy peach kuchen that Alida made this morning with the last of them. 

It's the time of year where we are shifting from the summer gardens to fall. Here the cucumbers (which did ok) and watermelon (which did horrible this year) are now out and we have seeded carrots. As soon as I finish this post, I'll head down to give them their daily sprinkling until the seeds germinate.

And then there was the potato harvest! Now with 4 potato forks in the garden shed, we can use lots of help. And the digging was delightful as the soil has changed so much in recent years. Now only if there were a lot of potatoes. It was funny as we got started because I was just so taken with how easy the digging was that I hardly noticed that I wasn't finding many potatoes. 

So the yield was pretty bad. We looked back over recent years and 3 years ago we dug 4.5 bushels, 2 years ago it was 4 bushels, last year it was 3.5 and this year 3. We are clearly going in the wrong direction. We'll savor every potato we eat this year!

To ease the disappointment in the potato harvest, I stopped to take a picture of the cardinal climber vine that is abundant in one of the strips in the root patch. The hummingbirds love it too!

And then we celebrated finishing up potato digging by harvesting the first of two pineapples. We get a pineapple every few years and this year had TWO! As of this morning, they have both been savored and the tops are now in new pots to grow a pineapple each that we'll enjoy a few years hence. They were so delicious!

Alright, I now have an antsy 5 year old (ALMOST 6) on my lap who is going to come with me to water the carrot beds. And I think it's time to turn my attention to other things. I'll end with a fun experiment my mom did recently that was a hit. She made a round of tomato cocktail with all yellow slicer tomatoes. I loved it! And think it was lower in acid such that my taste buds could enjoy it and my mouth not feel raw afterwards. Yum! She also made a mega-batch of relish using trombone squash. We need to make some burgers now to try it out on. The root cellar is looking very colorful!

Tala, the "dash" in Myers-Benner!

While I have not exactly had a surplus of available moments where I could have written this post sooner, I also recognize some common patterns of procrastination in myself today as I gear us to finish catching up on our scrapbook. I think it is just that my thoughts and feelings don't want to be confined to some words or select pictures on a page. I also have this desire to not cheapen what is such a sacred shared experience, so I want to choose with care things that honor this intense time of transition in our home and what came before it.

As I sit down to write, the remnants of Ida are soaking the earth outside, just as our tears soaked many a cloth in the weeks leading up to our goodbyes last Tuesday. And we have turned the calendar to a new month today, which means it is the day to take our monthly family photo. But there is an ache that rises in me as it will be the first family photo without our "dash" present. When Tala joined us at Tangly Woods last July, we were looking forward to enjoying a short month's visit from her before she took off for her next adventures. We are so glad that plans changed such that our month together turned into almost 14. It also means that the saying goodbye was at least 14x as hard as it would have been after one month. In a very deep way, Tala became family!

As Tala reflected on Facebook recently, our year plus together was a big mix of both quality time and "garbage time." We shared lots of quality time focused on our relationships, but also just shared the joys and pains and laughter and tears and hard work and sleepovers and games and weeding and all the other aspects of daily living (oh, I must mention dishes - Tala washed SO MANY DISHES in her time with us - I know because of how many dishes I have done in the last week since her departure!!). Early in our time together I had a sense that the personal healing journeys that both Tala and I were engaged in were linked in a beautiful and profound (and as time went on I would add messy) ways. And I also began to see more clearly how our individual healing journeys were intricately woven into collective healing that is so badly needed in our world as well. And how the individual harms we have experienced in our lives are nested within collective and systemic harms. In other words, my world because even more complex, more beautiful, more connected... And I'm being invited again to embrace mystery and messiness, brokenness and wholeness, and so much more.

As the time of Tala's return home to the Philippines approached, we packed a lot of quality time into our final days together. As many Rook, Upwords, Farming Game, and Dutch Blitz rounds as possible were squeezed in, up to Kali and Tala playing Rook in the car on the way to Dulles. Tala and I savored a last hike up to Hensley's Pond together, sharing the gifts we received from each other, the lessons learned, as well as reflecting on the times of joy and of pain. We shared meals (and lots of ice cream!). We celebrated what we love and appreciate about each other. We enjoyed an evening partially around the fire (before being stormed in), as well as rituals of naming messages and things we have carried for too long that were never ours to hold or carry. We did a lot of hugging and some of us did a lot of crying. Here's a few photos of those last days together.

As a parting gift for Terah, Tala had decided to leave her treasured bunny Jusr for Terah to have. Terah doesn't understand now all that this bunny has been through with Tala, but she certainly is being well loved and cherished. She has already provided comfort to Terah too, when she needed to have a good cry the night we took Tala to the airport. And she has joined a meal, when on one occasion Kali mistakenly set the table for 6. Jusr has been introduced to many of the other stuffed bunnies in the house, so has acquired a lot of stuffed friends. And Jusr joins in on various other family activities and often comes to the screen to say hi to Tala when we video chat. Terah is quickly learning what Jusr does and doesn't like. We hope she finds Tangly Woods to her liking for the long haul!

Last Tuesday, we stretched the time together as long as we could but eventually had to take off for DC. 

We were grateful for safe travels to the airport AND the unexpected gift of being able to go in with Tala until she checked in successfully. This enabled me and Kali to help her repack and lower the weight in her bags so she didn't have to pay extra for her luggage. So we have a little stash of things here that hopefully Kali can take when her long anticipated visit becomes a reality! We could not help but chuckle when Tala pulled out some ketchup packets from one of her suitcases. We aren't sure how those made the cut, but removing them also didn't help much on weight. It was all the beloved books (that were truly also friends) that were weighing things down!

It was really hard to drive away. I realized that I hadn't felt that kind of ache or experienced the unstoppable flow of tears since Nora died. While not a death, we also knew we were saying goodbye to a very precious way of being together that would not likely happen in the same way again. It also struck me then and many times since that moment: even goodbyes are not fair or equitable. While all of our hearts ached with this separation, I still had 6 other people to hug at home. And my daily routine was not about to be upended. Tala had to say goodbye to all 7 of us at one time, along with many other dear friends. And she had to cross time zones and navigate airports and paperwork, only to end up in a small hotel room under Covid quarantine regulations for 10 days. Sigh! But we've never been so grateful for technology! How wonderful it was to have that first video chat and to see her safely in her home country! And following along with her photos and reflections on Facebook, I'm also grateful that her memories did not weigh anything and that she could take all of those with her, along with our love. And I also see how many people have been eagerly anticipating her return. We are just so very thankful for the gift of Tala becoming part of our family. No matter who else comes in and out of our lives, she will never be replaced (she'll always be "our dash!"). 

In honor of one of the ways Tala rubbed off on me, I've got coffee brewing for an afternoon iced coffee. Maybe I'll have my mug of that join me for our September family photo. That will help her feel closer!!

Our eldest is legally an adult...

 ...and she will always be our first baby and hopefully retains all the wonderful things of her childhood long into her time of legal adulthood! As an unschooling family, and a mom still in the process of deschooling, we aren't big on these standard and set milestones (or at least I try not to pay much attention to the external pressures that place ages next to specific things that "should" happen in a certain time frame). That said, should Kali wish to, there are some things she could do now without getting into trouble that she could not a mere two weeks ago... 

But enough about that! I mostly wanted to give you a rundown on the various ways we chose to celebrate this dearly beloved human! I should probably start by giving a quick update on the long dreamed of trip to the Philippines - as I'm getting some questions about why Tala has gone home without Kali. That was, most certainly, not by Kali or Tala's choosing - but instead due to the Philippine government's regulations. Thankfully we came to this realization weeks before the set departure date, giving time for all to adjust to the idea of a postponement of this dream. The hope, assuming Covid regulations change to make it possible, is that Kali could go next spring during fruit and festival season! So it's not a cancellation, just a delay. 

Maybe for starters, I'll share the ways that some things have changed and others have not. Kids have clearly grown. But they still love to be goofy. One of the fun aspects of Kali's small outdoor bday gathering this year was an attempted reenactment of a birthday party photo from 4 years ago. I think they did pretty well:

It was fun to have a few additions to this year's picture. Maybe this one can be reenacted 4 years from now?!

It is still relatively uncommon for Kali and her parents to be sleeping much at the same time in any 24 hour period. She is still much more a night owl than us, which we discovered (much to our dismay initially) almost from the start. 

She is very much like her father in a number of ways - not that he likes to spend time reading in a laundry basket. They both can easily get lost in a book and are both highly distractible (note the book she chose to read on this particular occasion - Driven to Distraction).

Her sweet and kind nature can still bring joy and fun to any space that she is in. 

She is not afraid to be goofy (and very orange) - she actually relishes it! She is also eager to embrace new experiences and challenges when she sets her mind to it - like moving from being an orange-dressed supporter at blood drives to donating blood herself.

She is a patient, sensitive, caring big sister and cousin. She takes delight in little people and honors their dignity, respecting them even when their requests or needs may seem unreasonable or inconvenient. She will speak up if she feels Alida and Terah have not been heard out (trust me, I've been called on this on multiple occasions and am so grateful for her accountability).

From little on up she has been interested in being involved in what the rest of us are doing. And "helping" has now become helping! But she has been a delight to include in home and farm and family projects (if we can get her out of bed in time to join us!). I remember early on marveling at how fun it was to do errands with Kali. She made a string of 12 stops around town more enjoyable! 

She is very generous and has very little attachment to material things (now anyway - there were the days where she was very sentimentally attached to every little shred of paper she had touched and become attached to. But I'm more and more convinced with each child that that must be some very important developmental stage that many children naturally go through and make it, along with their parents, to the other side). 

And, finally, she is eager to stretch her wings and fly (while she had been hoping that would be in a plane over the ocean, she will have to seek out some other ways to stretch her horizons and embrace new experiences until that time is possible).

In the meantime, we are going to savor all the times we have together. And here's some of the ways we soaked up fun times on and around Kali's 18th birthday!

While not exactly for her birthday, a fun road trip kicked off her birthday week. She, along with Tala and our dear friend, David, did a little two day jaunt to Cape Charles. They were able to stay at the same small cottage that we stayed for a much needed getaway by water soon after Nora died and returned the summer marking 10 years since her death, that time introducing Alida and Terah to that special place. It was really sweet envisioning Kali there with other loved ones. I'm glad she made it safely as she successfully held her breath through half of the Bay Bridge Tunnel. They also took a lengthy detour so she would "wade" in the ocean. One thing about Kali: wading in water, no matter the time of year or temperature of water, normally ends in swimming - this time was no different!

The days right around Kali's birthday are all getting really fuzzy in my mind. Kali couldn't even be very helpful with the chronology. I know this much - we had a lot of special meals together and played games (and did fit in some canning and salsa making and green bean processing in the cracks). We had a T.W. birthday meal early on the Thursday before Kali's birthday since my parents were headed out for a long WV stint before the actual anniversary of her birth. For that meal we enjoyed fried eggplant and okra and fresh corn on the cob! I'm always so glad when she chooses fried eggplant for one of her birthday meals. :) And clearly she has enjoyed corn on the cob for a long time now!

The first of several Smiley's ice cream cakes came out later in the evening! We just finished off the last of those cakes tonight and I think all concurred that the ice cream cakes were yummy but going forward we would just pick the delicious ice cream and choose our own toppings. 

We then had a T.W. birthday meal (minus my parents) on the eve of Kali's birthday. This featured Tala's delicious burgers at Kali's request - another menu choice stamped with the approval of all of us. This was planned for her actual birthday but weather had us move her gathering with friends to allow for an outdoor get together. 

I'm chuckling that I have very few pictures of Kali's birthday celebrations that don't involve us sitting around the table with a spread of food. She requested potato crusted quiches for her birthday brunch and I added in some pumpkin cranberry chocolate muffins for good measure. 

The game highlight of the day was playing Elusis. No, I'm not going to even try to explain it here. Suffice it to say, it takes a lot of cards (especially if the pattern chosen is very complicated or the people trying to figure it out are very tired). Both were true in the instance pictured here. 

The day featured a fun zoom call with one of Kali's two birthday buddies. Years ago around the table with friends we realized that 3 of them all had the same birthday. 

Then a very typical birthday celebration commenced with a few close (and thankfully fully vaccinated) friends: an evening around the fire making pizza pockets, roasting the last corn on the cob of the year, laughing and playing games. 

While Covid made for a 2nd year without the tradition of a trip to the Rockingham County Fair and it also had us reign in the number of people joining for birthday festivities, I think (hope) that Kali still felt well loved and celebrated. Because she is!!