Fishing

I took the children fishing today. I like fishing and would enjoy doing it more often, but when I tried before, I found it to be a tremendous amount of work. First there was the time spent gathering and loading rods and tackle and bait and water and a snack and something to carry fish in. Then there was the unloading of all these things and the three children. Go ahead and throw in a bit of a hike in which I carried most of the gear and Sylvie. Finally, once everyone's hook was baited and everyone had a snack and no one had a tangled line and I finally cast into the water, the children were done fishing.

A week or two ago, a man wash fishing off the dam where we like to swim. Sylvie got him to show her how it was done. Since then, there has been no peace because all she wanted in the whole wide world was to go fishing. This time the difference was obvious. Ezra found the fishing gear, and Jason bought the extra rods since everyone is now old enough for their own line and an actual reel. The children loaded the car. Sylvie dug the worms. We all put on swimsuits. I did have to get a fishing license, but that was no big deal.

When we got to the dam, the children carried their own gear. I felt like I might actually get to fish. Sylvie wanted to learn to cast, but the wind was blowing so hard I did most of her casting for her. She switched to the cane pole so she could just drop her line in. Ezra and Phaedra alternated between fishing and swimming, but everyone seemed to enjoy the fishing part, in spite of the wind and all my admonitions to mind their hooks.

When we were done, we had caught three perch, all of which we released. I did actually get to drop a line in a couple of times, and I figure with a bit of practice, I will get to do more fishing. We've left the gear handy to facilitate some spontaneous trips.

Quarantine

The children are all sick. Ezra has pretty much spent three days like this, Phaedra two, and yesterday was Sylvie's first. I've read aloud from Kipling, made chicken soup and banana bread, played a few games, and tried to keep the peace. I have been thinking on how my own parents would have had trouble leaving us home so many days; there would definitely have been pressure to go back to school.

One reason would be the fear that we might fall behind. The other is that neither of them would have been able to stay home with us, and they felt better when we were not home alone so many hours a day. So, I've also been thinking about how impossible it would be to handle an illness like this if I also had to earn money. It helps me feel sympathy for people dragging around obviously sick children.

A Flexible Schedule

I homeschool the children in a way that means I rarely get a week day off during the school year, so I'm pretty tied up with them until after lunch Monday through Friday. Then, five afternoons a week, we have enrichment activities. This works for us, except for one thing.

I still have a million things to do outdoors. I actually plan the work load to be heavier between now and March, so that I can have more time to begin gardening. Fall sneaked up on us this year; Jason has been so busy with one thing and another, that he has not taken up the slack the way I have come to count on. Some things were outright errors, like I planted green beans so late that they were only barely coming on when we started school.

Fortunately, I have learned a bit of flexibility through the years, and the newest contortion is that Monday is not a "real" school day until probably snowfall.

The children handled it pretty well yesterday. Ezra is quite independent in his studies, relying on me primarily to follow up on readings or edit writing. Phaedra likes to have me in the neighborhood when she does math, but she managed with only a little nudging from Ezra. Sylvie did only a few things, as she still relies heavily on me to provide structure to her school day; still, she can have a few four-day-weeks in second grade.

I delighted in pulling up the eight-foot tall pole beans that hung dead and slimy from frost. I raked leaves and raked leaves and raked leaves. Do you have any idea how many leaves it takes to fill a 50' by 3' path? I only filled one of them, but I did hit some trouble spots around the ends of rows with cardboard and leaves. I layered hay onto three green bean beds, as well as the cucumber and chard beds. It doesn't sound like much, I know, but it took 6 hours. And I haven't even started on the new garden.

Screen Time

We have seen so many movies since we cancelled the internet. It is the season we are most likely to watch movies, but it still seems suspicious. This past week, I have felt fed up with all this movie watching, and I think we’re done with it for the time being. I don’t mean we’ll quit movies, just that we might switch back to one or two per month instead of one or two per week.

What I’m realizing is how screen time sucks us in; we do not even seem to know what we’re not doing as we gaze at the flickering light. We need to talk about money or getting the cow inseminated or how to handle some discipline problem or Jason’s latest brilliant idea or what to do with the greenhouse, and it seems like we just can’t get around to it. It seems like we don’t have time in the evening to do a touch of painting or shelf building or trim work. Heck, we’re tired; why should we keep working in the evening? Why have those big discussions at the end of the day when everyone is fagged out?

Well, when ARE we going to do it?

The nice thing about a lack of screen diversions is that “work” can look more like a hobby. It’s funny how much more appealing a little bit of painting while we chat and listen to music can seem when we don’t have a movie sitting on the counter, waiting for us. Before, when Jason was gone on trips or worked lots of hours in winter, I did quite a bit of painting and knitting and kitchen experimentation. It was really pleasant to do this “work” with no children around, with the dark pressing against the windows, and a bit of music I save for adult ears.

Also, when I’m working side by side with Jason, we have lots if time to talk. Sometimes, we talk about the movie we saw or about why “Horehound” is better than “Sea of Cowards”. We get a chance to be friends working together, and that camaraderie makes our relationship stronger. We also get a relaxed time to have the big talks, the rhythm of the work giving us more time to consider our words or the impact of a decision.

Sometimes, the truth is, we’re just too tired to do another darn thing in the evening. Sometimes, I cannot read a page of a really great book without dozing off. What that means is that we need to go to bed. I know that if we turned on a movie, or if the internet were available, I could and would stay awake, but why? If I am really too tired to do things I love like painting, knitting or reading, then I should probably be asleep anyway, not handing my consciousness over to some mindless “entertainment”.

Social Time

When I was younger, my mom had a couple of friends she would go spend a Saturday with. She and her friends would just sit and drink coffee, sometimes smoke cigarettes, and talk. They would talk for hours, and really, all they would do is sit and talk. It seems like occasionally, someone would feed the children, but even that was a hit or miss affair.

I was reflecting on this today, because there is a friend I would like to go visit, but I do not have a current knitting project, and there isn’t much in the way of shared work to do at her house in winter. So, I’m doing this blog post instead.

I cannot imagine just parking myself on a friend’s couch or at her kitchen table, and just talking. I could easily knit, even inefficiently, for hours while we chat. I had one friend who always had something to do, like stacking wood or cooking or hiking or building things, and visiting her was very easy. I would show up with some food, and between the two of us we would busily feed children and leave various projects incomplete. We had the best time.

It seems I am not very good at sitting still socially. And maybe, my mom wasn’t that good at it either- she just did not have much choice. Maybe the social smoking, and the unfinished crochet projects she dragged around, and her hands moving in a fidgety way around her coffee cup manifested her desire to do. Maybe she was too hemmed in by her suburban life, her 40-hour a week job, and her handicap to have the emotional, mental, or physical space to just do something. Her silence on the matter leaves me free to wonder.

I Am Not Agoraphobic

I just like to be at home.

I can even see how it’s unfair of me. I can see how many of the people I love share this trait of liking home best of all. But when I weigh pottering about in my garden- or reading in my blue chair or rearranging the garage or hanging laundry or running the mower- against standing around at someone else’s house, I am often sorely tempted to stay home.

I have a couple of friends whose houses are easy for me, because I can do little jobs in their houses or I can knit without seeming rude. But when I meet new people (and I’ve met many in the past couple of years) it feels like I ought to visit with them in a having tea kind of way. A surprising number of people want to watch children playing when we get together. While I love my children and delight in their ways, I think we all enjoy ourselves more when they do not have an audience. Heck, I’ll even admit that I quickly get bored just watching them play.

It was easier for me to go visiting when I had less work to do, or when I was nursing a baby and therefore confined to a chair many hours of the day. Now, there is always something I could be doing, and I like almost all of it more than sitting still with a polite smile plastered on my face.

However, that polite smile is worth having old and new friends. Invite me over, and I’ll come, but if you haven’t heard from me, just assume I’m in the garden.

A Long Weekend

Jason had a three day weekend and we got lots of small stuff done. In fact, it was such small stuff that it kind of looks like nothing.

Jason dismantled the cool box gifted to us by a friend. It was made of some oak and insulation, and we hope to reuse the materials on a smaller box to fit our space. The current idea is to take the defunct freezer out, build some shelves and insulate the middle ones to act as a cool box. We just have to figure out how to deal with the condensation and then build it. No big deal...

Jason and I cleaned out the barn some more. It really had been pretty thoroughly cleaned out last summer when we were getting the previous owners' stuff out. However, there are still some jars of used oil and some bits and hunks of metal (WHY?) and our things that still don't have a home. I organized my beekeeping things and I think I'll add bees within the next two years. I got the door mirror out and Jason hung it in the bathroom. I listed the dresser, extra bike, and extra energy-hog freezer on Craigslist. We found the hooks to hang the bikes. We put all of our lumber together. And now- we can pick up the rest of the hay we need to make it through next April.

We figured out a way to get fence across the drive so we can work the cows carefully around the fruit trees. The grass is pretty good over there, and we need all the grass we can get. I sure hope the pasture improves quickly.

I harvested the pumpkins. It's early, but we needed them out of the way for the cow to graze. I'm not sure how well they'll store when picked this early, but we'll let them cure at least a month and then decide whether to store them whole or puree and dry them.

We killed two chickens. We actually killed two two weeks ago. Then, it was because I am sick to death of them pecking eggs. We had seven older hens, but they were pecking one or two eggs every day. Also, one of them layed an egg with a soft part that cracked if it got stepped on. I think once that one was open, the hens got the idea to open a few more. I finally caught one in the act two weeks ago, so we killed her and the one I thought was responsible for the soft-tipped egg. Since then, we have had one or two pecked eggs total and no more soft eggs. Those ladies were getting a bit aged, so they went into pot pie. The two we killed today were meat birds (read: heavier) and we fried them. Yum! Company joined us for dinner.

We had a burn pile this morning from the bits of wood we hauled out of the barn. That's always fun.

We ate dinner last night at Parker Pie. If you ever come visit, we'll at least drive out there. It must be one of the prettiest drives I know of. It is not startlingly pretty; it's all soft edges and wide views and mountains in the distance. There are long shadows and small lakes and not very many people. Usually, when we go there, we run into at least a couple of people we know, but lastnight, we did not see anyone. There were some out-of-staters complaining about the atmosphere. But the atmosphere is what makes it feel so Vermont to me. It's this pizza place attached to a convenience store. We even get our sodas at the store so that we can have the cane sugar, no dye kind. Then, there's this patched screen door and not many tables and grass and another couple of tables outside. It is, notably, fly season in Vermont. That means millions of flies and they all want in the house or building so that they can fly around your head and land on your legs. It's part of the charm. I guess they don't have flies in Massachusetts.

And that's what we did this weekend. Not bad- but not much to show for it.

The Milking Curve part 2

Here we are in the barn, and it's time for Jason to put the chain on Violet's collar to discourage any changes of mind. It's a tense moment. It's a point which Violet can make difficult with a pushy toss of her head. If Clover wanders from sight, Violet will turn to see where she's gone inside the 20x15 space, and it's very nice if Clover has not actually wandered directly behind her, because Violet will want to turn around and see and then we're kind of back to square one in a 20x15 space with an 800-pound anxious mother. 20x15 can feel oppressively small when you have an electric fence behind you and a cow with her horns down in front of you.

So, once Violet is on the chain and Clover has agreed to stay in roughly one corner Violet can see easily, Jason begins to croon to her and stroke her jaw. She loves for her jaw to be petted; we figure all that chewing must getting tiring, even if you're built for it.

While Jason soothes the dear lady, I use the warm water to clean each teat (there are four on a cow's udder), and I use a clean rag to dry off the water. One thing I've learned is to leave the milk pail out of the cow's reach because if she can reach it, she will stick her nose in it. She has to check out everything, and her investigations do not leave the bucket quite as clean as I like.

Once her udder is clean one of two things happen. If Violet has been in the barn, she has not pooped. She doesn't seem to prefer to poop in the barn, but we do not prefer for her and Clover to run out of the barn for her constitutional because the chase is much more difficult than the poop removal. So, she poops sometime during the first three minutes of the chore time, and she pees shortly thereafter. We know this now. I do not sit down with my clean bucket to milk her until she has done her business.

The other thing that could happen is she could have pooped and peed while we were leading her to the barn and corralling Clover. In that case, I can sit right down to milk her.

It's pretty easy to milk a cow and pretty freaking hard, too. As I sit there, hands and forearms burning with the effort, it's amazing to see this milk pour out of this cow who's just standing there. And it just keeps coming and coming, until I'm ready to cry uncle, because my arms are so tired. Fortunately, only a week into our milking adventures, my arms are definitely stronger and my technique is definitely improving.

While we're milking, Violet stands pretty still with Jason acting as her stanchion. She usually moves just enough that I have to put one knee or another into the puddle of pee or right on a stone. There is some shifting, but she is remarkably tolerant, sidestepping the bucket and keeping one foot kind of back and out of the way. If Clover gets up, she moos softly to her, which I think is cow for, "Get your butt back into that bed!"

When I'm finished, there is a scramble. I have to take out the milk, go get the second carrot (a treat for being such a good cow), wipe down her udder and put a little marigold ointment on. Jason then feeds her the carrot and unfastens the chain. We bow out of the barn, leaving them in, while we freshen the water and check on the chickens. Then we open the barn, but they mostly choose to stay inside for awhile.

No Hurry

A good friend and I were talking about the impact of hurrying on our families. Maybe you know this situation: I'm standing at the sink, washing the dishes before I get dinner going. Sylvie has made her usual huge mess in her room and I want her to clean it up before dinner. She cries, because she's five and doesn't want to clean it herself. She just wants some company. I order and threaten and demand and cajole and maybe she ends up cleaning the room and maybe she doesn't.

If I wasn't in such a hurry to get those dishes done, I could probably help her clean her room and get the dishes done in less time than the whole drama described above. This is a drama I've found ways to avoid in many other parenting crisis points, like getting everyone to the car or getting dressed or going on a walk. Still, it comes up again and again. It seems to be something I have to work through.

What has happened is I've learned when I'm the one who needs to hurry and that most of the time, hurrying is unnecessary and even harmful. I don't start asking the children to get ready to leave until I'm ready; otherwise, in my haste to get all my pieces together, I begin herding and harrying the children when all they actually need to do is put on shoes. It also makes it easier for me to delegate; if my things are assembled and I'm waiting by the door for the children to get their shoes, I can hand them things to carry or give them specific chores that will help us get to the car.

I've learned that when I slow down, I almost always have more time than I thought I did. Sylvie and Ezra are much more cooperative when I'm not panicking about time. And let's face it, cooperation is often the fastest way to get anywhere as a family.

School Schedule

I'm ready to be done with school. The children have been swimming twice because the weather is strangely warm and that means school must be over.

I want to go canoeing instead of doing math. I want to hang the hammock and let the children loll about reading whatever they want to read while I weed the garden. I want to tell everyone who wants to make plans, "Yes!" I do not want to drive to anymore supplemental activities. I want the children's friends to spend the night other nights of the week.

I think next year, school will have to be over in early or mid- May. I'm so ready to be done with school.

My Husband and Cars

I really like my husband, I mean really, really. And he just quit commuting. So I'm thinking about my dear, delightful man and the automobile.

When we moved to Fort Worth, Jason's job was driving; he drove to Weatherford and north Dallas and all sorts of places. He drove and he drove and he drove. When we moved to Vermont, he was suddenly able to walk to work, and we noticed immediately how very nice it was that he did not have to drive so much. Then, there were a couple more moves and much longer commutes, and that seemed to work pretty well too. Now, his drive to work could be by bicycle or about a ten minute drive. He is so very happy.

Suddenly, he is giving some sort of cooking lesson almost daily to one child or another; he built a chicken tractor in under two weeks; he makes jokes at dinner and at breakfast. We both really think it's related to not driving so far to work. It also helps that he is home so many more hours of the day, partly because of the shorter commute and also because of the nature of the job.

His change in attitude makes me wonder about my own parents and their very long commutes when we were little. Then there are all the people who spend untold amounts of time in the car not just going back and forth to work, but also to go to the shopping complex or entertainment land. I wonder how our lives are impacted by the hours we spend in the car.

My Bucket Has a Hole

When I laid out our sheet mulch last fall, I got tired, I got cold, and I cut corners. For example, I did not do the nitrogen layer that would make the decomposition go faster and there are places where I just mulched without a weed-suppressing underlayer. Now, it is time to plant in the garden, and I'm wondering what the results of my compromises will be. Whatever happens, last fall is completely gone and I'm well on my way to learning whether lazy/compromised sheet mulching will work in the garden.

This leads me to look at the ground in the stalled hoophouse. A more experienced person explained to me that we should not plan to plant in it until fall, and I was easy to convince. She also said if we want to plant in it in the fall, we should go ahead and sheet mulch to suppress the grass, because you just don't want grass in a hoophouse. Here comes the circle- I do not want Jason to have to work around the sheet mulching while he's building the hoophouse, so I want to wait until the frame is assembled. I do want a nitrogen layer in there before I put down the sheet mulch; that would be easily accomplished by having chickens "prepare" the ground a bit before I start to layer in other stuff. We can't have chickens until we have a chicken coop. The coop must be assembled, so work on the hoophouse has stalled out, so I cannot put down sheet mulch. It's not really a circle, but it feels just as addled.

And the watering has begun. This morning, it took just over an hour to water all the new plants and we go tomorrow to talk to the nice man about fruit trees. Maybe I'm growing cowardly, but as I was carrying my sixth or seventh 30 pound bucket of water this morning, I wondered if we aren't perhaps a little crazy to add 20 fruit trees to this watering regimen. I did establish yesterday that I can carry 60 pounds of water a quarter mile; however, I decided to find a gentler, slower method of moving water. Today, I hooked three water hoses together so that the blueberries and currants and gooseberries and the gardens can get their water straight from the tap. That only leaves 9 trees and 14 berry bushes to actually carry the water to- oh, and the 20 fruit trees.

The Kitchen

The kitchen does not come first if there's daylight and enough dishes to make it through this meal.

That's the new rule at our house in honor of the warm weather. It's kind of amazing to be as uptight as I am about cleaning, and how it just has not happened in the past couple of days. I do what has to be done to get outside or that is time sensitive. For example, I have been washing laundry very deliberately while the weather has been so nice so that everyone has a fresh, sun dried bed and the rugs are clean and the towels are all fresh- smelling. Also, while I had my five hours to myself this morning, I cleaned the floors; that job is SO much easier when I am the only one home.

Besides the floors, I met with the man who delivered our hoop house. It's laying in pieces in the chicken field just begging for us to put it together. We sorted through the mobile storage unit, taking pictures of everything that was too damaged by the fire that we would like our home owners policy to cover. And, we took the children to a friend's house for an Easter egg hunt. And then it was dark.

As I type this, I wonder why the dishes did not get done earlier, but they really did not. There just was not time to do that inside task on this beautiful, strangely warm spring day.

Frustration

At the moment, all of our tools are in a mobile storage unit while the garage is being cleaned. I got another rake last week and I found a shovel, a sharp shooter, and a couple of buckets that were not in the garage at the time of the fire.

I just want to get to work. I want to build a chicken coop and a compost bin. I want to plant things. I want to move stuff around with my garden cart.

What I am actually doing is raking leaves and needles to add to the compost pile. I'm salvaging rock to put around various garden beds. I'm putting more sheet mulch in other places we'll have beds.

Also, I'm waiting for the compost to be delivered. Really, it's a bit early to be fretting over this, except that I want to plant lettuce next week, and the bed I want to put it in would benefit from some compost. And the compost really ought to sit there awhile before I plant anything in it.

I'm not sure when the berries and trees will be delivered, but I'm anticipating that as well.

In the meantime, the parsley is up. The gaillardia is up. As are the peppers, a few tomatillos, the lavender, the feverfew, and the daisies and leeks. Just be patient....

A Treat

We had a lovely day outside. We went to the Amon Carter Museum and then to the Botanic Garden.

I really like the Amon Carter Museum; the permanent collection always surprises me. Today, my favorite painting was one of ships near a sandy coast as a storm is blowing in. I think it was a painting of Narragansett  Bay. I like the light in that painting. The children seemed to unanimously prefer the more "real" looking paintings over the more abstract, modern ones.

At the Botanic Garden, we saw some signs of spring, like the saucer magnolia had blooms beginning to open. We also found the hollow tree sort of like the house in My Side of the Mountain. There was a surprising amount of snow damage; some pathways were even obstructed.

Then, Grammy and Pops were willing to have the children spend the night.

And here's the treat-

I went out to dinner all by myself and I had Mexican food. There was an enchilada and half a taco and some rice with nice spicy salsa over the top and a few beans and some guacamole. That's definitely one thing I miss about Texas. But as I sat there, savoring my solitary meal, I was thinking about Vermont and wondering how well our plan will work and whether we'll get even half through it this year. I was homesick for cold wet, snowy Vermont as I ate Mexican food with the sun blaring in on a 65 degree spring day.

Loss of Late Summer

The crickets are chirping loudly and flies buzz the screens. The blueberries are prime and it's not quite time for apples. The last rays of evening are fanned with a taste of coming fall, but it's not fall yet. Where are your children?

Everyone we know has started school if they're not studying at home. These last days of summer, when so many of us think of final trips to the beach or a camping trip that offers a bit less heat, are lost in the grind of everyday. The bookbags are packed, the children are hustled out of bed, and the houses are silent. Then, in these evenings that beg us to linger, linger over the night noises and the touch of cool, linger over the fireflies and the first twinklings of stars, we must shuttle everyone off to bed so they can be fresh in the morning.

We keep our children home for school, and I watched them prance around the yard in the coming evening, dinner on hold for this final parade, and remembered my late games of hide and seek in this season between. Why must we be in such a hurry for them to learn just a little bit more? Are we sure we aren't robbing them of something more precious?