Weekend at the Benner Bump and a Birth

The following weekend after we hosted family here, our family planned to travel to Jason's childhood home in PA. When the weekend was scheduled, I knew it was at the end of my "on call window" for a family. I'm slowly learning that very few birthing people go into labor before their EDD (estimated due date) and 41-42 weeks seems to be more the norm. So as it turned out, I remained back in VA welcoming new life into the world while the rest of the family traveled north in two waves. The kids left on Thursday the 8th as the remnants of a hurricane came our way. Jason ended up not leaving until very early Saturday morning as there was some extra work to wrap up following the over FIVE INCHES of rain we got from that storm front. We had no major damage and the rain was such a gift after the long drought, but the pigs did have a close call when a tree dropped one of its trunks perpendicular to their roving pen and the other parallel to it. It could have been a lot worse than a tree clean up job! We hadn't had standing water in the fire ring for who knows how long!

I really should not be writing this post on the PA portion of that weekend since I was not there, but I also know that it won't be noted in this space if I do not! And there aren't very many photos since I was not along to take them!! Photo credit to Emily for a few included here that I just snagged from her google photos since the only ones I have from Jason are graveyard and sky photos! While I was at the hospital for what turned out to be a very long induction with a wonderful outcome but some stressful moments, Jason's family was visiting a local cemetery where some of their relatives are buried.  He sent me a text that said, "Can you imagine?" with this gravestone. This felt particularly poignant since one of the things mentioned after the birth I was at was her partner noting that we could probably count the ways she would have died in childbirth if this was 100 years ago! I'm so so grateful for medical advances and the additional tools we have in our toolbox for childbirth (even if I think some of the tools are pulled out too often).

It also felt poignant to come home for a rest in the middle of the induction and hold that not one but two of our neighbors (an elderly mother and her son) had died just days apart. I gathered some flowers from Alida's garden and walked them down the road to our neighbor who was holding both the loss of her spouse and mother-in-law. 

Those kinds of losses AND the experience of birth accompaniment are pretty poignant reminders to me that my ability to make a difference is there AND what I can do is relatively small in the scheme of things. I've been pondering the wisdom of choosing a line of work that has very little control and ability to plan built into it, as someone who loves to plan and relaxes more when I feel in control. But I also love personal growth, and there is ample room for that, not to mention that I love birth!!! 

I've been so grateful for how the medical care providers at the hospitals I've been at have received me so warmly. They always include me when they ask if there is anything we need and this time I even enjoyed some hospital chicken pot pie when there were a few extra trays on the unit. It was actually a lovely diversion from popping a cookie or a few nuts in my mouth!

The sun set in PA...

...and set in Harrisonburg!

I also got to see the sun come up twice!!

The morning that we welcomed a new little life, I popped on email while still at the hospital. I had forgotten what day/date it was and so was not even thinking about what I might find in my inbox. It felt like sweet timing to get the email confirming that I had been accepted into the fall 2024 cohort of the Evidence Based Birth instructor program. I'm both very excited and a little daunted by the prospects of adding another hat (student) to my pile of hats! I'm gonna be extra eager for frost and longer darker evenings this fall!! I'm really eager to increase my own knowledge and tools for coming alongside families during pregnancy and birth, as well as equipping birthing people to prepare for and have  supportive empowering beautiful birth experiences and birth professionals to advocate for and provide evidence-based care to birthing people as well. Here's to walking through this door and seeing where it takes me! 

Speaking of walks, I missed one around a lake in PA suggested by my great niece. But I enjoyed the photos!

Jason arrived home on Monday, and the girls followed on Tuesday (coming back with Emily, Jonas and Ivy). They dropped off the girls and we said our goodbyes as they are now gallivanting around Europe for two months!

My very first mommy responsibility after they arrived home was pulling Terah's tooth for her. As you can imagine from the photo, it was not a hard job!!

Another special weekend at Tangly Woods

With it being nearly a month since I last wrote, I've got some serious catching up to do and I'm going to do it in little chunks so it feels more manageable (it does not take much these days to tip me from general overwhelm to panicky overwhelm, so breaking things into small bites is a helpful strategy for me right now!). 

So for starters, I'm traveling back through my memories to the first weekend of August when we got to host yet another nephew, joined by a niece this time too! It was so special to have them make the trip. It also made me feel kinda old; like so much time has flown by since they were young cousins hanging out together with my parents in West Virginia playing monopoly. It was really sweet for me to observe the kids (now mostly teenagers/young adults) reminiscing together about times together years ago - they were clearly memorable formational experiences to spend chunks of time with Grandma and Grandpa at the Mountain House. 

It was high time that we created some new memories together at these ages and stages of life and that we did!!

I think the room we spent the most time in was honestly the garage. The ping pong table was well utilized throughout the weekend. There were lots of wonderful friendly spunky competitions. Alida and Tyler were about perfectly matched and it was fun hearing who came out on top of each of their nail biter games! We also all got in on some "around the world." In addition to ping pong, Kali had found a tiny table ping pong set at a thrift store just before they came so that also came out for a new  twist on the game. When not playing ping pong, we shared stories about life now or in the past and relived the dreaded visit that was spent largely in our bathroom when we got lice and I occupied myself for hours combing our girls' heads and Christina's while they watched Veggie Tales. This was a much more enjoyable weekend, but that time was certainly memorable too!

We played games, laughed a lot, enjoyed good food (including lots of Smiley's ice cream), laughed some more, had a fun evening with Karen, Sue, Ezzie, Grandma and Grandpa, played more games, and had a pizza supper in which I tried to keep straight 11 people's pizza preferences. I made this elaborate checklist that ended up not being very helpful at all!!! It was a nice idea though...

They promised that they will be back and we all agreed that there must not be such a long block of time between seeing each other!

My baby is 21!!!

Before we head out to "follow Kali's nose" for the day, I thought I would post here Jason's and my reflections on Kali's birth. All the other girls have their birth stories in our printed blog books, but Kali's came before the days of our scrapbook being in this virtual space. So I'm sharing it now, with all the feels that come with reflecting back on that day and all the life that has been traveled since then! It's also fun for me to read it now through my birth worker lens, thinking about all the things I didn't know then, but that didn't keep me from having an incredible experience birthing our first baby. I did have the continuity of labor support that helped me to feel surrounded by loving care for the duration of that very intense experience, which is something I'm now grateful to have the privilege of providing for others. 

Written 8/22/03

Dear Family and Friends,

(after writing this we determined that this is not a letter but an “epistle from the lovers of Kali” – in other words it is long so read as much or as little as you like…)

Today is a special day, as every day has been in the last week. Today is the 1-week birthday of our daughter, Kali Jean Myers.  For those of you who have not received the news yet, Kali was born on August 15th at 2:31am.  She weighed just over 7lbs and was 18 inches long (though we have reason to believe now that her length was not measured correctly in the hospital).  She has already brought so much joy into our home!!

August 10th, my official due date, came and went and the days seemed to drag by very slowly.  Each day I went to work and at the end of the day made sure everything was cleaned up and in place just in case this would be my last day of work.  It got increasingly more difficult to come back the next morning.  It didn’t help that all my co-workers were also eager for something to happen and, though they may have tried to mask it, always seemed a bit disappointed when I showed up in the morning.  The Friday before my due date, I had an appointment with the midwife and had forgotten to write it on my board outside my door.  By the time I arrived at work that morning, the hospital and my home had already been called in search of my whereabouts.  So the anticipation was building all around me. 

I was definitely having tightening of the uterus, but this being our first baby, I wasn’t sure what to call a contraction and what to just chalk up to my uterus trying to get into shape for the task ahead.  For about 3 weeks I had been dilating slightly and my cervix was thinning out nicely. On Friday the 8th, I was about 2 ½ cm dilated, 90% effaced and baby was at station “O.”  The midwife reassured me that she didn’t think it would be very long!  Well, from Friday to the following Friday felt awfully long to this very expectant Mommy!

As the week progressed I monitored every sensation that passed through my body.  On Thursday, I think I had given up hope of her coming anytime real soon. I also knew that I had made it through over half a week of work so I could make it until the weekend.  I didn’t really notice much all day. At 3pm I went up the faculty/staff conference for the last portion of the meeting for that day.  It seemed like the minute I got into the room, I started feeling “not so great.”  I felt uncomfortable and had sensations that were coming and going regularly, but to be honest I was worried that they were just consistent gas pains so I tried to not get excited.

I headed home soon after 4pm and I continued to feel as if something was different. Jason got home and I hesitated to verbalize what I was feeling, for fear of getting both of our hopes up.  Yet, as the evening progressed, it seemed like something really was happening.  We made supper and ate together, though I wasn’t sure what to eat or how much to eat, and my mind was preoccupied with thoughts of the possible journey ahead of us that night.

After dinner we spent some time getting things together, just in case, and then decided to make a 1st birthday cake.  We had read in one of our books, that making a cake for the baby is a good early labor activity and it seemed fitting for us.  So we made a banana cake and started a game of Yahtzee while the cake was in the oven.  As we played I jotted in the margin every time I felt what I can now say was a contraction.  By this point they were coming every 3-6 minutes apart and lasting for close to a minute.  But they weren’t overly intense, so I didn’t have a good sense of where things were at and how quickly we were progressing.

 

Around 9:30pm I called our friend Melody (who I’ve called often throughout pregnancy to benefit from her expertise as a labor and delivery nurse) for some advice and some consolation that what I was feeling was what could be considered “labor.”  I then called the midwife on call, Marty Jones, and just let her know that she might be seeing me later that evening. Although my contractions met the definition for when they say to come in to the hospital, I didn’t really have a desire to leave home yet and Marty encouraged me to stay at home if I wanted to.  The only reason to come in at this point she said was if I wanted something to help me sleep or for pain. I wasn’t interested in either so we decided to stay put.  I even thought that maybe I would be able to get some sleep.  That changed…

We called both of our families and got them excited about the prospect of our baby finally deciding to make her entrance in the world. Of course I was still worried that this was all “false” labor and before long it would go away.  But that was not to happen.

By about 11:30 contractions were getting closer together and more intense. I tried different positions for each contraction, none of which were working very well. I was starting to get little more interested in heading to RMH (Rockingham Memorial Hospital). I sort of felt like it would be helpful to have some sense of where things were at and whether we were progressing at all, a little or a lot.  But I also didn’t want to get to the hospital and find out I was 3cm.  I had wanted to labor at home in familiar surroundings for as long as possible.  Jason was trying to help me decide what we should do when all of a suddenly my water broke and the decision was made!

After that contractions changed substantially. We called Melody who was going to be accompanying us to the hospital and Ellen Miller who we had also asked to be with me in labor.  Jason got the car packed with all the things we had gotten together for the hospital.  I focused on getting through contractions (which were now closer to 2 or 3 minutes apart).

We arrived at RMH just as Ellen was arriving.  There was no one in sight at the ER when we arrived, which seemed a little odd.  We finally found someone and before too long we were on our way to the 3rd floor, the Family Birth Place.

We got into our room around 12:30am and they started the admission process.  I got a question or two answered between each contraction.  The nurse decided to check me and see where things were at.  The midwife had been called, but I don’t think she had been told to hurry in, since it was the middle of the night and I was a first time laboring mom.

As the nurse checked me she seemed to be a bit puzzled and then exclaimed, “I don’t feel any cervix.”  Well in my current state this was a bit alarming.  No cervix?  What did that mean?  I knew I was dilating last week and I didn’t think things could go backwards.  I asked her what that meant and I think she could tell I sounded a bit worried.  She replied, “That’s good news for you, we just won’t have time to finish our paperwork.”  Apparently, I was completely dilated and our baby was ready to make her way through the birth canal.  At this point contractions also started bringing uncontrollable urges to push.  I think it felt to both of us as if it was all happening pretty fast. I had been gearing myself up for a long night and here we were without time to unpack our bags and get out all the labor helping-devices we had brought along.

I believe at this point another call was made to the midwife in which she was told to come (as quickly as possible).  She arrived around 1am.  She checked me and confirmed that I was indeed fully dilated and she gave me permission to start pushing with the next contraction.  We pushed (and I say we because I definitely had amazing support with Jason, Melody, Ellen, Marty and my nurse right by my side) for the next hour and a half and at 2:31am we heard our little Kali for the first time.

The midwife instructed me to pull her out and onto my chest, which I did. We learned quickly that her lungs were very functional, but soon she quieted down and was alert and eager to take in this new world she had just entered.  We remained in the delivery room for about an hour (time enough for Marty to stitch the few small tears I had and for Kali to get her first bath).  Then we made our way to what would be our room for the next 30 hours or so.

We were so thankful that we were able to have Kali with us in our room. She went to the nursery 3 times – once for her first picture, once for Mom to get an hour or two of sleep when it was the second night without sleep, and once to get a hearing test and other tests done (which was by far her least favorite visit).  Even the doctors were kind enough to come check her both mornings in our room.  We had some anxiety going into the birth about what we would experience at the hospital and left feeling so grateful for our experience there.  We were very well cared for, as was Kali.

It’s hard to believe that that was only 1 week ago. Already it seems that some of the intense emotions are beginning to fade as we completely engross ourselves in loving this new little bundle!!  It feels like birthing Kali was not only the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life but the most rewarding.  I am constantly amazed by her presence in our lives and cannot imagine life without her.

Despite being up many more hours a day than I am used to, it feels like there are never enough hours in the day to soak in her presence.  We have also been blessed with the presence of my Mom here with us since last Friday afternoon.   That has been such a gift – something I dreamed of but also knew may not have been possible.  We have treasured these days!

Of course we worry about everything – is she breathing, is she eating enough, is she having enough wet and poopy diapers daily, is she sleeping too much, is she too hot, is she too cold…  We also worried quite a bit initially about her bilirubin levels (jaundice). When we left the hospital they were at 10.9 and by Monday when Melody came for a home visit, they had risen to 15.9. Dr Nio, her family doctor, called and told us that we needed to take her in to the hospital the next day to get tested again. If it continued to rise and went above 18 we would have to look into her coming back into the hospital to be under the bilirubin lights.  I was told to nurse her frequently to keep her hydrated.  That night I woke her up every 2 hours at least, which was quite a task at times, to nurse and we also tried to get her in the sun as much as possible.  The trip to the hospital was much more traumatic for Mom and Dad than Kali.  We all were exhausted, though, when we returned home. Later that afternoon Dr Nio called with the good news that the levels had dropped to 14.7 and she did not need to be tested anymore. I was SO relieved.

Yesterday Kali had her first doctor’s appointment. We were eager to see how she was doing. I was eager to know if she was gaining weight, which would help me determine if I was feeding her enough.  Well, on reporting the results to my Dad last night Kali was given the title “little piggy” and I “Guernsey cow.”  Kali was discharged at 6lb 11oz and then Monday evening weighed 6lb 12 oz. As of yesterday, 4 days later, she weighed 7lb 6oz (a 10 ounce gain in 4 days).  She also measured 22 inches which is why we are certain that she was not 18 inches at delivery; less than a week prior.

So she is growing and healthy and happy.  She is so alert when awake and completely zonked out when asleep.  She also smiled an awful lot and has convinced all of us in this house (Mom, Jason and I), that they can’t possibly all be reflexes.  Of course each person is more convinced after they have just been smiled at!!  I also am quite convinced that I heard a laugh the other day as I was laying with her on the bed. I looked over and she got the biggest grin on her face and made a sound very unlike anything I had heard from her before and everything like a very contented giggle.

Yes, Jason and I have fallen head over heels in love with her.  Jason wrote the following in his journal the other night while watching her sleep.

Kali

How is it that

   not so long ago

      you were a dream

         impossible to

            imagine.

But now when you

   move your tiny hand

      to rub your face

         I feel a tug in

            my own heart.

This is Jason writing now.  This has been such an amazing experience for us. I’m doing a lot of falling in love just now.  I’m falling in love with our little girl and I’m falling in love with the new Janelle.  It’s interesting to be feeling feelings for both of them that I haven’t felt since I was falling in love with Janelle in Bolivia.  It’s a feeling of being moved beyond myself.  Of being disturbed powerfully from the place I was before, and reaching out of myself to find my new identity intertwined with someone else’s.

Other thoughts I am experiencing are thoughts of wonder.  Things as simple as the fact that she has now breathed on her own for a full week after never having done it before really catch me off guard sometimes and make me drop my inner jaw.  At those times I feel a deep sense of gratitude and awe at the miracle of her, and I am humbled, because all I do is help keep her warm and clean and loved, and life takes care of the rest.  In keeping with those thoughts, let me share one other little piece of writing I did for my journal.

It is certain that we gave you something (I have

   felt it leaving in waves) but

        we did not give you life.

That is not ours to give.  And

        we did not give you breath

You drew that from the swirling sea of air.  And

        we did not give you a mind

Your mind is your own.  And

        we did not give you a body

Life made that for you.  And

        we did not give you a soul

From what deep mystery did you receive your soul?

        we gave you what we had to give:

                                                ourselves.

It is odd to have spent the recent years of my life being almost universally active.  I have had trouble being at peace with myself if I haven’t been making productive use of my time.  Well, this baby is changing everything, and I have been very content to spend many waking, potentially productive hours this week sitting very still with a baby on my lap or in my arms that would have been just as content and sleepy in the cradle.  I could have been getting something else done.  But my desire for anything else but to be still and absorb her little baby energy and sweetness has evaporated; at least for this week.  Thank you all for all of your support and interest throughout this pregnancy and since the birth.  Kali has been worth every bit of energy we (and you) have given her.  She is coming into this world well loved!

Three weeks of summer...

We'll see if I can top the last blog in length and number of photos. Here's goes nothing... I know at least three people got through that one, so kudos to my parents and a dear friend who will receive her Tangly Woods' cookie reward this week! It is a good exercise for me to look back and document. If for no other reason, it helps give me greater understanding for my tiredness (in addition to the fact that my body is currently trying to fight off a viral memento from our recent family reunion)...

Nephew season now feels like somewhat of a distant, but sweet, memory! I think our ping pong table got more use in that week than it has cumulatively for a few years! The kids also interspersed ping pong with "farming" some.

We said goodbye to this dynamic duo on Saturday, July 6th and spent much of the following day in an "extended family meeting" which we called a retreat day!

The day was full of everything from minor schedule conversations to talking about how we can say "no" and not take on other people's feelings or feel unduly responsible for their feelings or actions. It's refreshing to have our 8 year old exploring this now, while her mother is attempting to face this square on in her mid-40's!

We ended our day together in a friend's pool. We hadn't even left when there were requests to come again. It was a gorgeous evening. I was rather distracted by the popping in my shoulder and left feeling kinda discouraged about my foray into PT to try to address my arm numbness and tingling and netting me very "poppy shoulders." But the water still felt good.

We weren't quite done our special visits as the following Monday our normal family farm work day was split apart by enjoying a visit from both my sisters and their partners in the middle of the day. Mom treated us all to a favorite: taco salad, cardamon bread and topped it off with a blueberry cheesescake! It had been a very long time since we had all been together - the time felt like a very big gift to me. The ping pong table got some more use along with both of our wooden marble games (one of which went back up to PA with them). We played with marbles, while reminiscing about playing that game with our Grandpa Bucher using peanut m&m's. Yes, we did eat them after using them as game pieces! 

Even with a 4+ hour break in the middle of the day, our family plowed through the list we had accumulated for that Monday. Our planned family garden days have been a game changer this year. Having a day set aside where I can plunk tasks all week long and then have 5 of us (working at different speeds, abilities and attention spans) out there together feels so good. And we often have some "garden chickens" accompanying us these days!

I'm usually moving too fast to notice all the things happening in the gardens, but I do have to take moments here and there to delight in the row of flowers Alida is growing. Speaking of noticing things, I've initiated a game with Jason called, "Can Janelle notice something before him?" Whether he wants to or not he's playing, as he clearly notices about everything happening around here. I'll see something and get excited about mentioning it and say, for example, "Hey Jason, look at these odd trombone squashes!" Inevitably the reply will be something like, "Oh, yeah, that odd plant that has ones that are a combo of male flowers and female fruits?" So far my best bet is noticing something in the sky, as he is looking down and around more often than up!

Top News Flash: This cutie pie is 1!!!! While I might be inclined to ponder how that happened, I'm sure his parents would mention that is was not just one day at a time but one long night at a time. Bear has brought so much joy and delight into this year for me and I savor our snuggles and play times! It was really special to celebrate with him and his family. Jason, Alida and Terah had fun making him wooden spoons for his birthday. In addition to wooden utensils, he loves berries, watering cans, and cooking with me OR in our play kitchen. Recently he was here a day that Kali was baking and he definitely wanted to be wherever the person with the mixer was! In all instances one must watch out as he is developing quite a little arm - he can clear his coffee table of toys in a few minutes flat! He's also a confident biped now, often choosing walking over crawling. 

Following all our visitors and Bear's birthday, we had a few "normalish" days - garden harvests, food processing, Jason working on his Sassafras cabinetry job, and just keeping up with farm plants and animals. Blackberries are waning now, but not before I was able to make a massive batch of blackberry jam (and not before the first red and white raspberries are coming ripe). We are in the thick of "pickle season" - I've got 21 quarts on the canning shelves and 2 gallon jars of ferments in the fridge AND we haven't had to look elsewhere for dill heads yet. Not sure I'll make it through dilly beans without having the scrounge for fresh dill, but so far so good! Beans have just started and we've been eating lots fresh and I froze my first gallon bag full yesterday! Jason said, "You can't have too many beans in the freezer" and I think that is probably true with our crew. The rattlesnake beans, that I love raw, are just a tad behind so we should be munching on those soon.

I was successful at finding an inside (i.e. cooler) job for Alida one day but it was clearly still daunting. It takes a lot of sage to fill both solar dryer trays and then at the end you have one small jar of dried sage to show for all your labor! She might be playing it up just a tad here...

There's no perfect time to insert a photo of my very distinguished husband, but he has "graduated" to reading glasses. So I'm getting used to seeing him do his (dreaded) business computer work with them on, as well as when reading in bed at night. While he looks much more in his element with a scythe in hand outside, he's pretty cute even when slogging through paperwork...

When not with his eyes glued on the computer, he's been busy keeping up with the grain harvesting, drying, winnowing, and threshing! I believe the barley, wheat, peas and rye are all done, but I honestly haven't been able to keep track of all the drying trays in the common room.

So circling back to speaking of looks, both Jason and I are sporting a new one (in addition to the glasses)! Karen and Ezzie came to hang out with us on the 13th and she did the honors of cutting something shy of a foot of hair off both me and Jason. Despite the length being about the same, mine weighed double his. My head feels much lighter and Jason no longer needs to fear his ponytail getting caught in a machine. There was also plenty of time for some games and to enjoy dinner together. Ezzie was VERY glad that there were some extra scrambled eggs for him! He's so cute and I love trying to earn brownie points from him - I'm not sure I'm still as favored as Grandpa, but I'm working at it!

This past week was NOT a normal week! At some point in the week I found myself MARVELING at any family who manages to maintain their sanity with a school schedule M-F for much of the year. Now granted that doesn't include dousing one's children in sunscreen daily (not my favorite mom job!), but still! Alida and Terah participated in JMU's morning soccer camp for the week and we miraculously got there on time every day. Kali helped with transport, but I was tasked with the daily wake-up-by-starting-sunscreen-application job. They enjoyed it and also weren't pining for more hot sweaty mornings by the time Friday rolled around.

As we got into July, I started to think about corn and how eager I was to replenish our supply. I reached out to the farmer that we normally glean from and he said I'd be on his radar. I was worried he was going to reach out right during the busiest week of July but then I looked at last year and saw that we froze corn the beginning of August and so I relaxed! Well...Wednesday of camp week my cousin, her husband and two kiddos came for an overnight stay. It was so fun to connect with them again and have our kiddos get to know each other. As we gathered at supper the hoped for (but also dreaded) text came: "would you be available to glean corn in the next few days?" We were headed to the same reunion they were in WV on Friday and so that left the very next day (when I would be caring for Bear all day and Jason was supposedly doing cabinetry work). Long story short: Jason did not do cabinetry work and Bear helped us freeze corn!

We did about 6 bushels last year and did an overflowing 8 this year. We'll see if that lasts us this time around. I feel like we've got our system pretty polished at this point, and it was sweet to add a little one back into the mix (something we did for years but not when we simultaneously had 3 bigger kids who were super helpful). It was a chaotic, busy, sticky and fun day! Dad helped with shucking them in the morning, Mom helped with washing and starting to cut off and Alida and Terah cut off a bunch when they got home from soccer. Jason and I were runners keeping all the systems going, the husks and buckets of cobs distributed to animals and getting the corn into the freezer as quickly as possible. We were ready to start cleaning up by late afternoon (and that was with not starting until after 9 a.m. when Jason got back with the carload of corn). I'm never as excited to wash the floor than I am after freezing corn!

I wonder if anyone else has corn frozen in a bag labeled this way! Kali has taken my love of numbers to a whole new level!!

While corn freezing went supremely well, we still had to clean up, tie up loose ends on the farm and pack so we were ready to leave for WV the next day after chores, soccer camp and town errands. It was after 1 a.m. when I finally crashed! Kali was up beyond me working on her fun project. She hatched the idea of doing a gingerbread replica of The Old Mill (the water powered grist mill my family owned and operated in Harman, WV for many years) for the silent auction at the reunion. She thought of the idea days before leaving, bought the supplies on Wed and started it on Thurs (yes, that was our corn freezing day and the day prior to our departure!!!). 

My kids never cease to amaze me, and this was another one of those times!

Safely over the mountains and posing with her two helpers!

We stopped by the mill so she could pose beside it with its likeness. 

The Mininger Reunion hadn't happened for 5 years and yet it had the same joyful, fun, connecting warmth that this family so often exudes when it comes together. This is far from a homogenous group of humans, but we share something very special together (a sense of shared heritage and the love of a place that has nurtured and tended us in profound ways).

The weekend was full of meaningful conversations, large bubble making, remembering those from our family who are no longer physically present with us, so much delicious food, shuffle board and other outdoor games, a very entertaining silent auction (Terah DID end up with the Skittle disperser for a whopping $39!), a family hike (for those of us not managing the silent auction), a meander through the Old Mill (including ogling an old seed cleaner), and much more. 

This bridge crosses the stream that ran in front of my grandparents' house. Us kids spent MANY hours damming that stream when I was little and I have so many found memories of playing there. The stream doesn't have water in it now since the dam has broken down and is no longer diverting water to the mill pond. It was both good and sad to take the girls by some of these places full of family memories as it highlights the changes (both the positive ones and the ones that feel more like deterioration or loss). 

The reunion ended midday on Sunday and Jason and I left for home, leaving this crew in Harman for a few more days of fun. We got home to a house/farm that had been tended so wonderfully in our absence - our new farm sitter had gone above and beyond, leaving us a loaf of homemade double chocolate zucchini bread. We have already asked her when she wants to farmsit again!!

Well, the crew is now nearing home so I better end this blog post and get ready to be smothered in hugs and kisses!