the big snow

february skies

We have almost eight inches of snow tonight. This was the sunset a few nights ago. The kids went out sledding just before dark, and we may be looking at up to eighteen inches of snow.

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missus big daddy to you

Time reveals that Big Daddy is a Buff Brahma hen.

all it takes is a few warm days

a dinner party for chickens

in the woods

in the new year

Things have been pretty quiet around here. A friend of mine closed her blog at the end of the year, and that seemed like a novel idea. Then someone stole a few old pictures from this blog and used them on a CafeMom message board. She used some pictures of John, and then told all the people on her board that her baby had died. She had a huge community of women very upset. Luckily, a few of them were savvy enough to see through some of her story and did some investigating on their own, and they were very happy to learn that that little baby is eight years old now and doing just fine.


Christmas did me in a little.

So I gave it a month.

Here I am, taking pictures this morning of the nearly one hour process to make a cup of coffee. The power went off right after I finished making the kid's lunches. I took them to school, and it was up to five degrees by the time I got home. That fire did not want to get going, and we have been challenged by some gorgeous yet perhaps not seasoned oak. It looks like we are at the tail end of some cold weeks, but we are going to need more wood if we are going to make it through April.

April sounds good.

january grey

January is such a sweet relief, a quick shift to grey and the desire to rid my life of the "stuff". I finally got all the Christmas things packed into the basement this afternoon, and I'm eyeing boxes and piles with fresh eyes. What can go? What don't we need, and what don't we love? I'm feeling unsentimental in my quest to stop being a slave to the things we own. It is crazy that I can't mop under my bed because there are a thousand pounds of comic books under there. How much fabric is enough? I've been cleaning deep in the kitchen drawers and cabinets. I have white paint for the utility room and the downstairs bath. I'm almost ready to start painting the kitchen white. Yes, the red wall stays.

The polar vortex was an experiment here in the 128 year old house. The upstairs cold water pipes froze for a few hours, but I think we were saved by the morning sun. My biggest fear was the chickens, but apparently they are resilient creatures. I did add extra bedding and wrapped the coop with a tarp. We pushed a few trees through the stove and made it through the coldest days without losing power.

I'm thinking about seeds, compost, and bonfires.

at home

rave on John Donne

“A Nocturnal Upon St. Lucy’s Day, Being the Shortest Day”

TIS the year's midnight, and it is the day's,
Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;
    The sun is spent, and now his flasks
    Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;
            The world's whole sap is sunk;
The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed's-feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr'd; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compared with me, who am their epitaph.

Study me then, you who shall lovers be
At the next world, that is, at the next spring;
    For I am every dead thing,
    In whom Love wrought new alchemy.
            For his art did express
A quintessence even from nothingness,
From dull privations, and lean emptiness;
He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darkness, death—things which are not.

All others, from all things, draw all that's good,
Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have;
    I, by Love's limbec, am the grave
    Of all, that's nothing. Oft a flood
            Have we two wept, and so
Drown'd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow,
To be two chaoses, when we did show
Care to aught else; and often absences
Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.

But I am by her death—which word wrongs her—
Of the first nothing the elixir grown;
    Were I a man, that I were one
    I needs must know; I should prefer,
            If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means ; yea plants, yea stones detest,
And love; all, all some properties invest.
If I an ordinary nothing were,
As shadow, a light, and body must be here.

But I am none; nor will my sun renew.
You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun
    At this time to the Goat is run
    To fetch new lust, and give it you,
            Enjoy your summer all,
Since she enjoys her long night's festival.
Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this
Both the year's and the day's deep midnight is.

getting ready

 

This is little John kissing Santa Claus many years ago. The kids are getting very excited and enjoying their small Christmas preparations. My room looks like Santa's workshop, and I need to transform it into a guest bedroom in the next two days. One thing about a hundred year old house is the lack of any storage space. I have no hiding places.

Ella had a beautiful hot chocolate bar set up by nine this morning for Solstice. We enjoyed dinner and a bonfire with a few friends, a Leaping Water's Farm fresh ham, lentils with walnuts, currants, and caramelized onions, fresh bread, cheeses, kale salad, and poached pears with salted caramel gelato.

December 19

this little light of mine

We went to the Advent Garden at the Unitarian Church this weekend. After years of seeing pictures of similar events at Waldorf Schools it was wonderful to find this at our own church. Ruby's favorite part was "holding her fire".

thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving at Uncle John's house on Thursday. It was the coldest one in many years, but we had sunshine and a huge bonfire. No one missed the turkey with the grilled pork and venison wrapped in bacon. My brother laughed heartily about the "local" venison as he nodded towards his backyard. My children had never tasted deer, so they had the full Pilgrim experience. They loved Aunt Shelley's pies and salted caramel sauce a lot. They think I need to learn to make my great grandmother's Irish rolls so that they can eat them every day for breakfast, and they have a newfound love of pickled quail eggs.

 The next day we walked my childhood paths and creek and gathered Christmas greenery before heading back to our mountains. Today we are going to the tree farm to cut the tree.

crossing the atlantic

This is John's class today. Of course they aren't sitting in chairs. These Pilgrims are on ships crossing the Atlantic ocean, answering history questions to make their way slowly to the New World. Here they are at the end of the journey planning how they will live once they get off of their ships. What will they live in? What will they plant?

Amazing. Second. Grade.  Tonight John made a pueblo. He really wanted to make it life sized, but he couldn't work out the logistics. He mixed sand with the paint to make it more like adobe, and there are five twig ladders made with a hot glue gun. The boy loves a project.

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We are counting down the days until Friday and a week off from school.

the weight of November

I'm feeling just a little out of it as Christmas decorations start to go up in stores. It is time to carve out some space for the family to enjoy fall. I'm recycling toy catalogs as fast as they come in and taking deep breaths when people start talking about the gifts and the "stuff". Even now, people are feeling the weight of obligations.

I need to make some lists and check them twice as well. My Amazon cart is full, and there are recipes in my head. Portuguese fish stew. Caldo Verde with Sausage. A braided almond and cranberry loaf. I remind the children of what they have, an amazing school, music lessons, beautiful instruments, and rooms full of toys. I am hoping for a holiday full of family time, movies in front of the fire, walks in the woods, and a sparkling tree up through the kitchen rafters.

red sky at night

my fierce little Frida

halloween

Ella had her friends over for a Halloween birthday party last night. I'm still reeling at the thought of having a twelve year old. She has been wanting to have a Halloween party for a few years now, and the time seemed right. They ate pizza, played on the slackline, told stories by the fire, and then brought a keyboard out on the porch and sang together. Then the boys chased the girls around in the dark until all the parents picked them up at eight. Perfect.

fermenting

This is a gallon sized jar, and my huge cabbage had this much liquid in it. The recipe has a whole cabbage, a beet, one and a half tablespoons of sea salt, a few inches of grated ginger, and a quarter teaspoon of ground cardamom. Ruby said her mouth was all puckered up ready to taste it, but I told her it has to sit for a few weeks to get sour.

thrift store chest of drawers chicken coop

I have three six week old chickens in my utility room, and it is time for them to head outside. My big chickens are molting and grumpy and would give them a hard time, so I made them a little coop of their own. I have two fenced runs right next to each other so they can get to know each other for a while.

I saw one of these coops on Pinterest and got an old dresser at Goodwill. The ladder and the roosts are made out of the wood from the drawers. I shingled the top and painted it red. The bottom drawer is left intact for easy pull out cleaning.

dirty little shakori

We went down to the Shakori Hills Festival of Music and Dance for a long weekend of camping. For me it was probably the hardest festival I've ever been to. I had a cold, it rained, and our neighbors never went to bed or stopped saying the f-word. The kids, however, had a great time. Ruby especially. She made herself a powerful magic wand and cast happy spells on everyone in her path.
She sang. She danced. She slept like a stone.