road trip from Sequim, WA to Whitefish, MT

(For you, Tamie, the oftenest requester of blogs...)

Break for lunch! We're on Hwy 18, about to hit I90, which we'll take most of the way. I have no appreciative companions, so it is up to the world wide web to hear those thoughts and questions that inevitably arise on road trips.

1. There is a super cute 10ish year old kid who is in the Playland here, helping his younger siblings. He took one's shoes off and said, "Yay! There you go! Go play! Yayyy!" just like a bonified parent.

2. Why, when a person switches the wind shield wipers to OFF, do they insist on wiping one last time? I said off, you know? Sometimes there's a reason for wanting them off right now, like a pebble or large bug being stuck in one or the windshield already being painfully dry.

3. So, in thinking about this idea of judging, what about this? When we judge an individual act, we're probably not taking into account a ton of useful information. But with time, we can look at patterns in our lives, a friend's life, or in society, and see their usefulness or un-. Then we're in a better place. So, patterns tell lots more than individual acts. But lots of individual acts are part of larger patterns.

4. I'm sure I've vented about this before, but can we go back to manually flushing toilets in public restrooms? We can be smart about it and use our feet to flush, but my anecdotal evidence, after using hundreds of these things, is that they flush when you don't want them to (splashing all over your bum), and don't flush when you want them to (requiring you to push a germy button anyway).

5. Is there any major religion or philosophy that doesn't espouse self-control (even self-denial at times) on the path to maturity and enlightenment?

6. DVD players for road trips are worth their weight in whatever precious metal turns your crank.

7. My husband has had this concept of Pocket People for nearly as long as I've known him. There are certain people you wish could also be in pocket form so that you could take them out and have them just be themselves for a few minutes. Say their classic phrases, make their personal facial expressions. All that. It is occuring to me that the cell phone is pretty much fitting that bill. Boy, do I wish we were millionaires right about now. We would so be on an airplane. 

It's 11:31 p.m., and we're all still getting over the flu, but you know what? I'm gonna post a little blog.

One good friend recently quit facebook, and one undertook it. That doesn't have a whole lot to do with this post other than a couple of facts:

First, the one who quit facebook (Tamie) keeps encouraging me to get back to writing, and since she can't now otherwise know that our whole family has the flu, it seems as good of a reason as any to post at least a little something. I would like for her (and all of you who love us and whom we love) to know that Ziah and I apparently got the same strain, with fewer bouts of puking and a quicker recovery, and Zora and Jason seem to have gotten the same strain, with more pukes and stomach cramps. There is a fair mountain of laundry's been building over this 3 days, I'll tell ya that much.

And I'd like you to know that Zoralee said to me today, and I quote her exactly, "Every once in awhile, I learn something from you."

The knowing thing. When Rachel and Bennett visited us in September, sure, we all got sick and didn't do 80% of what we planned to do, but she saw our daily lives, or at least a version of it, the Having Company Version, which after a week or so kind of falls apart like tender roast into the Regular Version. She saw that I have one utensil drawer (near the stove) that has our most used cooking utensils, like spatulas and wooden stirring spoons, and another drawer with lesser used items, like a lime squeezer and a baster brush. And in each of those utensil drawers, there resides an identical soup ladle. Two ladles, but not in the same drawer? Yes! Because we frequently use a single ladle, but only occasionally use both at the same time.

So, it is important, I feel, for a few other people to know such details of a person's life. And since we live out of town and get approximately .4 visitors each week, hello blog world again.

Speaking of visitors, the other day, one of Jason's work buddies stopped by, and I think we traumatized him. He doesn't have children and never wants them. And we did a lovely job of shooing him on down that childless path. He pulled in to the drive, and there were toys and trash all over the yard. When he got out of his car, our dog ran up to him and tried to make his freshly pressed uniform as hairy as she could. Then Jason brought him into the house, where he was greeted by unusually exhuberant, half-naked cave children and a floor full of toys, laundry and crud. I watched his eyes dart about, and I saw the wheels inside his head turning. They were formulating the sentence he would utter to his wife that very night when they lay together on their marriage bed: "You are current on your birth control, aren't you, Dear?"

Secondly, the reason facebook has something to do with me blogging tonight is that I spoke today with the friend who finally did get herself a facebook identity (hello, 2012!). She will remain anonymous in case she doesn't want a bunch of new friend requests - heh heh. I realized in talking with her that with each of us being loosely committed to time on the web, the best way for us to connect more deeply is still going to be blogger. It just is. Because actual, news-worthy (well...) posts and photos stay here indefinitely in chronological order, and they aren't clouded by the game scores or random musings of 300 other people. Nothing wrong with game scores or random musings, but if you initially go to the computer for heartfelt connection with a far-off friend, you *might* get distracted. I do, anyway.

And folks, that there is the intro to whatever blog I thought I was going to post. And it's too late to do anything more. I bid you a fare night, my friends.

fly-over update

Hey there! I have not abandoned this blog in the long term sense of things, but because we have no home internet and I do now have a smart phone, it has been easiest to post photos and quick little status updates to facebook instead. I miss the blog world immensely though, the ability to say more and to connect more deeply with a specific community, and I want to jump back in soon-ish. But since we don't always get what we want, it's tough to say when that will be.

Meanwhile, the fly over news is that we have completed what we're viewing as Phase 1 of our farm house renovation project. Well, almost completed. We still have the final living room window and wall trim pieces to install, a bit of painting in the bathroom, the medicine cabinet and towel racks to hang, a few kitchen items like a spice rack and a pan ceiling pan rack to hang, etc. So, actually, when I put it that way, we are not done with Phase 1. But! We have completed the major safety improvements we had to do as a condition of our home loan. Repainted the delapitated garage (a really silly endeavor, as we hope to burn it down some time), repainted some other places on the outside of the house that most likely had lead-based paint on them, replaced an upstairs window that was being held up only by rotten wall, and so forth. Additionally, Jason, with my dad's trusty assistance, fixed a bunch of the surprise problems we encountered upon the deeper inspection that can only happen when the house is yours to tear into. He then renovated the entire living room area, combining two rooms into one, adding ceiling soffits, and hmmm, I think I already wrote about this a few months ago, so I won't go on too much.

When either of the kids would swing around this magic wand, I couldn't help but wish it would work to suddenly make the house be done.  

Speaking of the kids, since this project is being done with two small children in tow, between the already long hours of Jason's real job, we have both felt the effects. In fact, some time mid-way, we were standing outside one morning, and Jason noticed with what I can only describe as gingerly-expressed shock that I had a whole new head of gray hairs. And he was right.

In late May, Jason injured his knee and back on the job, so that brought house renovation to a screeching halt. His mom visited us in June, which was fantastic, and then we all headed to Montana for a family reunion in early July. We only intended to be there for about 12 days, but Jason's back pain turned into sciatica. Since it was taking him 10 minutes to make his way from one room to another at my folks' house, we decided he was pretty well unable to sit in a car for a 14 hour trip back to ND. Plus, we had access to more doctors in MT as well as family support for the kids, etc. so that our 12 day stay turned into a solid month! This was an unexpected joy amidst not so great of circumstances.

Of course, the kids have changed SO MUCH in the last several months, as kids tend to do, that I can't even begin to do a just summation of them. Plus, Ziah will not leave the motel phone alone and Zoralee is screeching around half dressed, so I've got a couple things to attend to.

Oh, real quick - - back in March, just as we were moving in to the house, we had gotten a batch of Barred Plymouth Rock chickens for layers and a batch of Cornish Rock cross chickens for meat. We went with the same breeds we had a few years ago in Montana, but this time were armed with more wisdom and experience! We had some friends interested in farm fresh eggs, so we ordered up another batch of the layers sometime in April or May. Anyway, our most mature hens are just starting to lay eggs, so we're thrilled about that, and before long, we should have about 25 laying hens. Unfortunately, we've ended up with 6 roosters, so some of those may end up on other farms or in our freezer, depending. Pics are over at facebook, but sometime I hope to update this blog, since it's a family journal for us.

By now we've been back in ND for a few weeks, reconnecting with friends and our community here, with a fresh perspective on the old house. At this exact moment that I'm writing, we're finishing up a long weekend away to Bismarck and Medora. I have internet access at the motel, so hello blog...and goodbye again!

message by wagon

A very happy Mother's Day to my kids' Grandma Rena, Nana Barbara, Grandma Louise, and the aunties and other special women in our lives who love, nourish and nurture Zoralee and Ziah, both when we are near by and when we are far away.

 

good night, folks

There's a scene in the delicious mockumentary, "A Mighty Wind," where the Folksmen have ended their song but are cued to stand up there and kill time because a member of the next act is missing. Harry Shearer's character starts giving a history lesson in a very low, scholarly voice. But when the next act is suddenly ready to perform and the Folksmen are signaled to get off the stage, Shearer stops mid-sentence and says brightly, "Good night, folks!" It's a very funny moment.

And that's how I feel right now. I have a dozen blogs building up in my head, and if I don't get 'em out there, I just may burst. But alas, I instead must say brightly, "Good night, folks!" and promise to come again to the internet another day or week or month. I received a text from Verizon yesterday that we've used up 50% of our monthly data allowance in our first week of service. Turns out you can watch like 8 or 9 hours of Netflix on a 5GB plan. Weird, because I had a long conversation with the Verizon salesman about how watching Netflix might affect our data, and he reassured me that we would be fine, just fine.

So by now, because the first device they sent us was defective and the second didn't work with our laptop, and their suggested fixes for my laptop didn't work, and setting up J's phone as a mobile hotspot for my laptop didn't work, and blah-dippity-do, I am now past the 2 week trial period and will probably have to claw my way out of this contract. Because, yes, the 2 week trial period starts the day you receive the first device, even if it's defective. But I've generally been happy with our Verizon phone service (other than their prices), and their customer service is pretty good, so maybe they'll play nice.

See ya around the block. Thanks for tuning in this last couple days anyway!

love is strange

At the grocery store a few weeks ago, Ziah was standing in the back of the cart while Zoralee rode up front. That's how we roll (literally), because our store doesn't have double seat carts. Zora was in charge of feeding Ziah bits of snack to keep them both busy. All at once he grabbed at her, probably because she wasn't moving bits toward his mouth fast enough. This annoyed her, and she hollared out at him. There was a grand pause in time as realization crossed his face. I mean, I witnessed the moment he realized he could purposely do this to elicit a response. And on he went, grabbing and annoying Zoralee.

*  *   *

Zoralee interrupted me as I was saying bed time prayers last week and said with honest incredulity, "Why are you thanking God for Ziah?!"

BUT! 

One of my all time best mothering moments also came this month. We were out for a walk, and I peeked into the jogger to see this. I didn't want to open the screen and risk them moving.

It's perfect that Zoralee has recently been choosing to play on our computer the song, "Love is Strange," as performed by Everything But The Girl, and she has been asking what it means that love is strange. Ahhh, little pickle.

back on the world wide web

Hi!

It has been a solid month of zero blogging and zero catching up on others' blogs (other than visiting Rachel's once via Jason's iPhone). I seriously feel out, out, out of the loop! Is everybody still alive? Does anybody live in a new country or have a new child I don't know about? Sheesh. But yeeeeeah, we've had a series of set backs getting internet hooked up at this new place. And viewing the web from Jason's iPhone, I dunno, I just can't get into it. Plus, the phone itself isn't very accessible on account of his schedule. The times he's home just aren't great for me to be hunkered over a tiny screen, taking 20 minutes to leave a three sentence comment.

But I'll be checking in on you, friends. And I'll be posting too, I think/hope.

The kids are fine. We're getting more chickens. The dog we were dog-sitting, Shasta, was found on a Canadian farm, and she has now been purchased by some Canadian cousins of that family. If you want the whole story, come by for tea. It really is a doozy. Our house is "coming along" (or this is what we hear from people who go weeks between seeing it - it feels like half an eternity to us). Evidently I sprouted a whole head of gray hairs overnight last night, like tripling what I already had. So, that's fun. I cooked up a Jicama for the first time tonight. Jicamas are members of the potato family, and we're fans of the yam, so it worked out just fine. Made french fries out of it, along with a yam. Coated them in coconut oil, rosemary, and garlic salt. But first fried the spices in the oil on the stove top, to really soften the rosemary and bring out the flavors.


I hear a male child upstairs a-fussin.' He went to bed at like 4:30 p.m. and is just now waking up. Ai-yai-yai. Could be a weird night. More gray hairs for me, no doubt. Livin' la vida loca.

just because we keep chickens in the bedroom doesn't mean we can't have a Martha Stewart moment

People are asking how the move is going. I can't exactly look 'em in the eye and say, "Fantastic! Home ownership is where it's at!" I can only look 'em in the kneecap and say, "I get depressed watching fish swim in aquariums. Otter Pop, anyone?" By the way, is it just my family that refers to the plastic tubes of frozen Koolaid as Otter Pops? They go by lots of brand names, so maybe what a person calls them reveals their generation. And since Otter Pops haven't been around all too long, by generation, I mean, what year of your life you ate those things like crazy that also coincided with being very impressionable. I'm sure a computer program could be written that would categorize us by what we personally call frozen sugar water. To quote Jack Handy, how about it, Science?

Our living room and bathroom, the main places we started out to renovate, are stuck back at what was supposed to be early stages. The living room's outer walls have been demolished and furred out an extra 2 inches, insulated much better, and sheet rocked. There are four big, shiny, new windows, a bigger L-shaped living room instead of two small rooms, now that a silly old wall has been removed, and a soffit with can lights that goes all around the edges of that L. It's very snazzy! There's still the old nasty floor, a plastic wall blocking off the kitchen, where another silly wall was removed, boards and power tools and dust and grime everywhere. As for the bathroom, no toilet, no sink, and no working shower yet, though the old hefty tub is nestled back in place, and the walls behind it have been redone, reinsulated, etc. You see, the tub/shower was another interesting surprise. Whoever installed it tucked the tub surround (the plastic walls of the shower) behind the bathtub and didn't caulk it. So, water being liquid and doing what liquid does, every time someone showered, ran down the surround and into the walls of the house. Um. Bottom line, the house is a construction zone, and not a remarkably tidy one. As a side note, we're currently staying in the home of some vacationing friends - win!

Here are some random shots of the house from the old pocket camera, then the story will resume.

Here you can still see lathe, long flat sticks, on the far wall before Jason demo'd it.
That is a new west facing window; it used to be solid wall.

 

 

lunch time

My father, the thug of water systems.

tangled surprises underneath the porch light

Here are re-insulated walls and a bigger south-facing window.
We do like us some daylight and some warmth.
We've talked to several people who had relatives that owned this place 30-50 years ago;
that availability of history is a side benefit of living in a small town.
They describe the house as cold, drafty, and dark.
Hopefully these remedies will help to make the winters here a little cozier 
and a little less frozen wastelandy.

The kids and I were at the house Saturday to start unpacking the kitchen and also to stare at boxes in wonderment that we still have so many when I've supposedly been minimizing for three months. Since the kitchen is the only spot on the main level we haven't demolished, it's Grand Central Station for tools and supplies, and now boxes of dishes and food stuffs. One thing about packing for a cross-town move vs. a cross-country move is that you don't take care to whittle down your food supply. At least, I didn't. So, work in the kitchen is slow and unsteady, especially with You Know Who and You Know Who #2 at my feet. In the late afternoon, we took a break and settled in for Otter Pops. Enthusiasm abounded and all unpacking fatigue was forgotten until Zoralee's hands got cold. What happened next was...wait, I need to build this up more.

Pause and reflect. A dirty child had cold hands. Everywhere was grime and plastic, power tools and boxes of things we don't need. Just around the corner was a kiddy potty chair full of familial piddle [it has been too bitterly cold and windy to run out behind the barn all day], and the chirps of 24 three week old chickens descended from an upstairs bedroom [yes]. I grabbed for our newly drawer'd washrags to wrap around the pops, so that my darling's hands would be comfortable, and by pure happenstance, I wrapped a green rag around the green pop and a orange/salmon colored rag around the pinkish pop. Strange colors, you might say. Right. They came in a set of 12 rags for $3, looking already like they'd been in a car mechanic's shop for one hundred years.

Right then, you guys, I was ON TOP OF IT. Can't you tell by the children's faces that they believed this moment to be brilliant? The fantasy illustration for motivational speakers? Akin to winning the lottery? By the way, who of you would sign a petition that the lottery folks start drawing 640 one million dollar winners rather than one single 640 million dollar winner? Know what I'm saying? Who needs 640 million dollars? Nobody, that's who. But 640 of us could use one million quite readily. Anyway, I just knew there was a camera crew outside the house, waiting to be let in so that they could [traipsing over piles of flooring yet to be installed] ask me how I do it, how I manage to be so organized, so coordinated, so sexy, as to wrap matching wash rags around the children's frozen juice tubes.

The answer, of course, the only true and correct answer, would be, "We-heh-heh-ell, I can't take all the credit. My mom was just visiting us for three weeks, and she is a bright star that all other stars would be smart to align themselves with. And, well folks, I aligned. Somehow, smartly. Subconsciously. Otter Pop, anyone?"

Zoralee and Ziah, Easter 2012

If you happen to be in a tomb, my friends, a tomb of depression or regret, of a fragile or crumbling marriage, loss of home, dream, pregnancy, parent, or child, in a tomb of grief for your youth and your innocence, then my prayer is that you'll see The Christ there in the tomb with you, and that you'll hear Him say, simply, your name. 

You are loved.
You are known.
Happy Easter!
 

But Mary [Magdalene] stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).

John 20:11-16, English Standard Version




(Thanks to Pastor Deb for inspiring this thought.) 

update

Three days left have we in this house. We've gotten most of our things packed up and moved over to the new place. Today Mom and I worked on big meals to freeze so that I'll have some margin for cooking as we get adjusted. It has been unbelievable to have her and Dad here.

Ziah is teething again, and he's a bear! Poor kid. I think it's his two top middle teeth. 

Jason and my dad have been working at the new house for 2 weeks, 10-14 hours a day. As probably happens to anyone who starts poking too deep into the recesses of a 100 year old home, they're running into "problems." Such problems include, but are not limited to, the electrical wiring being a nightmare, parts of the septic system being blocked / utterly inadequate / drain pipes running uphill, and finding that one of the main support beams of the house, located in the basement, was simply sliced in half and moved aside by whoever installed the heating system years ago and didn't have a curvy enough pipe to go around the beam. This house is full of surprises!


The dog we're dog-sitting went missing today. We've had her for several months, and now, three days before we turn her over to her parents, she's gone. Drrr. No sign of her along the roads closest to us. My hope is that she is safe and warm in a neighbor's house, though the closest neighbors are miles away. 


What else...what else.....


I have been pondering unschooling, disciplining (or not) children, and simplifying our kitchen and food systems. The food thing has been a Lent focus for me. One of the best concepts I've gathered is that with traditional cooking you've got to think two dinners in advance. So if you're cooking one dinner, you're soaking beans for the next dinner and maybe soaking grains for the following one. I don't know. As a friend and I were discussing, getting into traditional food prep is a big deal. Some of the concepts I'm already on board with, but others seem like they'd take all day and night. I'm sure it won't seem this way after I've gained more knowledge and developed better habits, but sheesh maneezy. It's back to the basics, but it feels like back to the holy cow, maybe I'll stay in blissful ignorance. And I already value homemade meals and whole foods. I can't imagine coming to this from being a staunch boxed macaroni and cheese eater. I have to plug a website though that has been helpful to me, because the author, Wardeh, makes very accessible print outs and holds webinars and generally tries to make good eating approachable. www.gnowflins.com.


And on that, I sign out for the night.
Happy trailing to you all.


 

clap clap

I feel about 79 years old to say this phrase, but Ziah is such a joy to have as a baby. 

Photo by Grandma Rena

one of Zoralee and Grandma Rena's conversations

[eating lunch together while I was laying Ziah down for a nap]

Grandma: Be sure to eat your chips with cheese, Zoralee. You need the protein!
Zoralee: I'm drinking all of my milk instead, and it has protein.
Grandma: Yes, but the cheese has more protein, so you need to eat it.
Zoralee: Grandma, milk has cheese in it.
Grandma: Well, cheese has milk in it, yes.
Zoralee: No, milk has cheese in it. My mom told me that milk has cheese in it.
     [back and forth dialogue on whether cheese is in milk or milk is in cheese....]
Grandma: Okay, fine; whatever you say. I'm not gonna argue with you. When your mom comes out, we'll ask her.
Zoralee: You came here to be rude!?

from the prairie's edge: sitter, friends, parents, house, rummage, geese

I'm gonna write as much catch up / goings on info as I can before bed, and even if it's short or barely edited, I will hit the publish button; oh yes I will.

My parents should be arriving tomorrow, which is only awesome and a half. They're here to help us make optimum progress on the house renovation and move. We're down to the last two weeks in the rental farmhouse here, so it's delicious timing. While Dad and Jason work on the new place, I've decided Mom can take over a few little things here like cooking, taking care of the kids, and house cleaning, and I'll do everything else the family needs done, like blogging, surfing ebay, and going thrift-store shopping in Minot. Kidding! Duh, I also need to pack up a few more things.

We've been spending a bit of time at the new house. The other night we got a sitter so that I could help Jason put in the 3rd of 4 windows he's replacing on the main level. By the way, getting a sitter, letting someone else be responsible for meeting the kids' needs, is tremendous! We've only had her over while I'm/we're there, so I do wind up meeting a need every now and again, but I'm gonna stick with the adjective tremendous. When you don't live near family for the freedom to be free, you gots to buy your freedom. But we happened upon a gem of a gal, so yip! Anyway, work on the house. Jason has been taking video footage with his phone, and I hope to put the clips together soon to show the progress. (Soon = sometime in 2012)

I am as happy as a clam to have met up with about a dozen moms who are also transplants into this town. We trickled into a play group organized by one of them. About half of their husbands or partners work with mine, about half are in the oil fields, and one or two have other work. I imagine that we cover the entire gamut of perspectives about parenting, politics, faith, and other life issues, but that doesn't seem to deter us from getting along, holding each others' babies, going to lunch and movies and Minot, informing everybody about the presence of cilantro or kale at the stores - the stores here aren't what you'd call predictable - and playing Bunco. I am very thankful for these women. It would be an entirely different existence here without them; that I can see.

It's already rummage sale and goose migration season. It sort of felt like winter was draaaaagggiiiinnng ooooooonnnnnBUH-BAM!springishere! The weather has been ridiculously warm for a week. (Sorry, Alaska and northwest U.S. friends. I know your winter has been horrible. Sorry. I'm so sorry to mention it, but WOW, this is fantastic! You should come visit.) We are in the center of some sort of major migratory path for birds, says my husband. Well, he knows the actual name of the path. I am telling you it's some sort of one. A flock I saw a couple days ago was just phenomenal; hoping to have out my camera for the next big surge.

This weird bug was the exact deep-deep-orange-almost-red of our water bottle.

Steve Martin has a new book out called, "The Ten, Make That Nine, Habits of Very Organized People. Make that Ten." There are a dozen recent examples of how well that title fits my nature, but this photo should be sufficient. I was multifrantic-izing one morning at breakfast time, and when I glanced over to see if Ziah had enough bites at his place, I realized I'd put Zoralee's slippers on him instead of her. He wasn't complaining, but this did precious little for her cold toes - or her confidence in my child-detection skills / eyesight.

I think that'll do it for now. Later I'll update you on the fact that Ziah now has two teeth.

Oh, what the heck. Ziah has two teeth. Good night!

smoothie remnants

Good on Elisha for her quick and correct guess!

You can only get these amazing miniature enchanted forests if you don't do dishes for a few hours or days. It's worth it though, and that's why I sometimes hold off on dishes unless there's a pressing reason for doing them immediately after eating [cough]. I am willing to sacrifice tidiness to the greater ideal of promoting spontaneous art in the home and in the world.

what is this?

(any guesses?)

Brotherly Love and Hair-Pulling

survive and nose dive friday: slow and quick plant deaths and a whole beef miscalculation

(from despair.com)

Today I have several unfortunate incidents to report.


#1) We were initially ecstatic about the high germination rate and quick growth of the plants in our container garden. Our enthusiasm turned to confusion when nearly all the basil and cilantro grew up weak and spindly, dozens of wispy little stems that bent over to form toy train tunnels. Our confusion ended in dismay when we learned that those are symptoms of too little sunlight and that our best bet was to pull them up and start over. The plants had grown so quickly to find light; placing them at a window and supplementing with a full spectrum light bulb were obviously not enough this time of year. (We have a real grow light we should use.)

#2) Aside from the herbs, it appeared that our three or four tomato plants were growing at a more sure and steady rate and developing thicker bases. "Yippee!" we thought, and took care that the light was lovingly and disproportionately focused toward them versus the decorative pea plants and some other random edible leaf thing Jason had planted (which are also faring well). Yesterday morning, while Ziah was taking a leisurely early morning bath at an hour that no other children in the entire earth were awake, I decided to water our container garden. It's in the middle of the bathroom, the warmest room with the best light. When the container's reservoir was full, water began to trickle out the side hole - that's the way we know it's full - so I grabbed for a towel. It came off the door rack hard, and its opposite edge, with the precision of a judo chop, flung backwards toward the container and snapped every one of those tomato plants off at the base. None of the other plants was affected. Just the tomatoes. My jaw was agape. Then it was clenched as I reached for the cell phone to inform my dear husband by text message what I had done. He texted back, "Hmmm." and then, "Oh well." He's a good man, that one. A good man who, should North Dakota be the focus of a nuclear threat in the next month and our family be confined to the house, will sit with us and look over at that container of decorative pea plants, then look over at me, who will shrug my shoulders as we die of starvation, and he won't say two words of meanness.

#3) Late last summer, we got in touch with a local guy who raises and sells grass-fed, hormone-free beef. I talked with him by phone several times, often at length about how the cow is raised, butchered, processed, etc. The term he always used for calculating what we'd pay him and the butcher was "hanging weight." The cow's hanging weight was estimated to be about 750 pounds, so the meat would be around $2.69 a pound - hamburger, steaks, roasts, ribs. How excited was I? I called a couple girlfriends and talked them into the deal, and they likewise talked a couple more people into it. After all, you can't even get cheap-o crap-o hamburger for that price. So we all went in together on a whole cow and placed our order to the butcher for how we wanted it wrapped - how much hamburger per package, how thick of steaks. Then we waited several months until our cow was ready for butcher. Fast forward to a couple weeks ago when we got the call that the beef was available for pickup. One of my friends took four boxes in to pick up her meat, and they filled up two boxes 3/4 of the way full. After some phone calls and google searches, we realized our (MY) mistake: hanging weight and take home weight are two different things. So, any of you who plan to buy a half beef or something, figure on taking home about 60% of the hanging weight.

In the end, the beef cost us just under $5 a pound. That's expensive for hamburger (though currently, the cheap-o hamburger at Wal-mart is just under $4 per pound), but it's a good deal for roasts and steaks and ribs. Plus, we all got several packages of liver, tongue, and other delectables. heh heh. I don't know if I really want to google cow tongue recipes.

Lesson learned on that one was to not rope your friends into something unless you're darn well sure of yourself. We did offer to buy the meat from anyone who wanted out of the deal, but everyone decided to stay in.

Storycorps stories

Have you seen any of these Storycorps stories? I saw one at Matt's blog, and the kids and I have been clicking from one to the next for the last half hour. They're audio recordings of anecdotes from around the country, set to animation.


Here's a great one called "Miss Devine..."



And another that makes me want to submit audio recordings of Aunt Sue's stories to Storycorps.

love is alive

I've been humming a song from childhood for a couple months: "Love is Alive," by the Judds. These three people who share a home with me - I love them. I love them with an exhaustive (and exhausting), living love. And I am loved too. There is nothing better; I am very, very grateful. 

Love is alive and at our breakfast table every day of the week.

Love is alive, and it grows every day and night, even in our sleep.

Love is alive, and it's made a happy woman out of me.

(after Zoralee's birth)

Oh, love is alive
And here by me.

visit to the new house

Last weekend while we were in town, we decided to drive out to the new house. Too bad we hadn't brought the new key, but it allowed us to walk around and see the property from lots of angles without that backbrain drive to get inside the house. Gorgeous day.

We've owned this place for a solid month now but haven't done much with it on account of J's schedule. That has changed now, and he'll have better times available to start work on the main level - several window replacements, back-filling insulation into the walls, replacing the floor, and painting the walls! He wants to do that before we move, then do the upstairs renovations as we live along. We've got a bunch of boxes packed up and ready for transport, so we're itchy itchy itchy.

See the low spots on that top photo, where water has accumulated and frozen? Jason is thinking of how to work with the natural contours of the land in a Sepp Holtzer kind of way, i.e.; pond-building. And yes, we are going to consider any elevation change of six inches or more a contour. Hmm. Better make that three inches.    

We love the trees!

What, if any, of the big main barn is useable?
It looks like it could slide off the foundation at any moment.
There's something decidedly unromantic about sending the children
out in their hard hats to gather eggs.

our precious Viking child

This is a "garage." Rrrrrrrright.
It will be made into a pile of aged barn wood
that we can maybe incorporate into the house
or make oodles of picture frames from.

saturday's frost and fog

wishing she'd come out walking with Ziah and me

tuesday's frost