Blossoming journal: it happened one night

We went from frost warnings to highs in the 80s in a matter of hours.

The bloodroot appeared on May 6th, while I still needed to wear a jacket while walking Zeke.

Then an amazing storm blew through. It smashed more than blossoms, but we avoided major damage.

The next day the marsh marigolds were out in force.

Trillium! White trout lilies! Violets! Pussy toes! Anemones! Blue hepatica! Yellow trout lilies! White hepatica!

Dandelions.

Green leaves! (We may have suffered more tree damage if the leaves had been out.)

Frogs, toads and turtles!

Chicks!

It’s enough to make a body tired. We will be working on gardens as soon as they dry out enough. No drought here. I pray for rain in those places that need it.

Celebration journal: Getting to 90!

Age has its privileges. One is having your cake brought to you. Another is dressing any way you want. But the best is seeing the fruit of your labor taking root, growing, and blossoming.

It’s having and seeing good friends.

It is eating your favorite cake.

It is letting others take care of the babies.

But having the time to spend with the youngsters, creating a permanent place in their hearts where you will live forever.

Weather journal: getting to May

April came in like a polar bear.

And left like a squid.

The trees still have no leaves. The upside: we are no longer in drought status.

Our pond overflowed its banks just a bit. The wild ducks are loving it. Due to the chance of the bird flu going around, we are not keeping any of our birds in the pond pasture or feeding wild birds.

The ducklings spent April inside, finally growing large enough to venture out by May 1.

In order to house our new ducks, Michael is fencing in “Area 51.” He hit water at 3 feet. We left that sward open to allow access to the septic system from the driveway. We will put in gates to allow trucks to cross when needed. We will also put a gate into the area next to the deck. We will be able to herd ducks out of Area 51 and will increase their pasture space.

The horsetail reeds showed up May 1. They are late, as is everything else. Brrrrr.

The rhubarb keeps trying and keeps getting burned off. Good thing they have monster root stock.

We have started to turn over gardens. We haven’t finished. Haven’t planted potatoes, which should go in by mid-April. Digging mud. Not fun. It doesn’t loosen the soil for planting. We have enough to keep us busy.

Like cuddling Beanie Boy and cooking for his parents! Irene turns 90 on the 5th. We are having a wing ding of a party.

Most people just clean. We do construction! I’m sitting at the airport waiting for my mom to arrive as I post this.

Let the party begin!

Season journal: the hallelujah chorus

Pussy willows. Irene’s favorite. They appeared yesterday, along with the first chorus of frogs.

The St. Croix runs high, covering the sand bar at the Nevers Dam boat ramp. The first loon of the season flew over Zeke and me this morning. I realized that a Sand Hill Crane sounds like a loon, only on a different scale; an oboe to a loon’s clarinet.

The ducklings peep with piccolo insistence-Food! Water! Food! Grow! Step foot into the coop and they clump and pretend to be moss.

They need more practice.

Cumulus clouds rain on us, easing the frost out of the ground. You can almost hear the increase in tempo: trees budding, grass growing, insects buzzing.

Michael ran into blocks of frost turning over the first garden plot. The chickens make quiet but excited clucks, as if saying “See, there’s a worm. Hush. Don’t scare it. Yum.” Thrum scritch scratch thrum drum.

Warm enough to spend time on the deck, taking in the show.

Livestock journal:Ducks on pasture

Michael filled water buckets for ducks last night. This morning they were glazed with ice. We are due below freezing temperatures still, but the ducks needed to go to pasture.

Every year we carry them, one by one, between the duck mansion and summer pasture. We carried 29 down this year, leaving Gracie in the mansion due to her arthritis. Arthur died in March while I was at my mom’s, leaving Gracie and the Khaki Campbells as the last of our original ducks. The Khakis remain spry and so made the trek to summer pasture.

It would be cruel to leave a flock bird alone. Gracie has plenty of company. We incubated 42 duck eggs this year. 39 of them were fertile. We lost a hatchling who could not quite make it out of his eggshell in a timely manner, leaving us 38 tiny birds. We purchased another 16 ducklings: new Pekins and more Khakis (shown in the above photo).

We fostered them in plastic tubs in the basement until they outgrew that space. Their growth rate drove us to advance taking the mature ducks to pasture, even if we have to haul water by hand for a few days. (We hope it doesn’t stay cold!)

New ducklings are so entrancing.

More than half of the old ducks (not Gracie or the Khakis) will be harvested this year. I brought a variety of potato sausages (duck, smoked chicken, and venison-pork) to my mom’s house so we could do a comparative tasting. The duck won hands-down.

We love our ducks. We love to cuddle them. We love to care for them. We love to eat them. It is an interesting and amazing process. Not for everyone. Perfect for us.

Phenology journal: the firsts that last

A neighbor dubbed me the local phenologist, which means I note when things first appear. I also like to celebrate annual rituals. The juxtaposition of the two makes for wonderment.

For instance, I have been waiting to see the first blossoms of spring, which in these parts tend to be the mosses sending up their ephemeral shoots, which they did today. I also heard the first Great Blue Herons in their nesting grove.

I had the privilege of witnessing the apricot trees in my mother’s yard in New Mexico turn from barren branches to boughs of blossoms on March 25.

I try to travel to make her cake. A small return for all the cakes she has made me, and others, over the 89 years she has been traveling around the sun. I missed the past two years due to the pandemic, which itself is a first of sorts. This was my first foray into crowded spaces. I sailed through and landed safely.

To commemorate the years of absence, we had an extra celebration, and an extra cake.

My mother lives within walking distance of the Rio Grande. The river runs low this year. Wild mallards made the most of what water there is.

I live within walking distance of the St. Croix River. It has seen fuller days. I saw my first Bufflehead Ducks on their fly-by. About an inch of rain fell today. The river should be higher tomorrow.

Even though I left in snow on March 24, and came back to snow on March 31, yesterday I noted my garlic had sprouted.

Our first incubated egg hatched the evening I returned. Irene’s lip is bloody in this April Fool’s photo because we found her on the floor when we returned from the airport. She refused to use a walker before I left. This is her first acceptance of a mechanical assist. Our ADA efforts have paid off, as she can negotiate the bathroom and shower. She has a recurring malady that returned shortly before I did. We hope to get to the bottom of the problem soon and get her back on her own two feet.

Speaking of feet, Grand Girl #2 sprouted her bottom two teeth: all the better to nibble toes!

The Grand Boy learned to sit on his own in my absence.

My first surviving Grand Niece arrived unreasonably early on March 11. At 3 lbs, 11 oz., she wins the tiniest tot prize. She is a fighter and is expected to go home in days. When she arrives, she will have her first meeting with her Abuelo, my brother. Her name, appropriately, is Violet. We hope to celebrate her first appearance for many years to come!

Equinox journal: signs of spring

We awaken to early sun shining through the eastern windows, lighting the kitchen and our bedroom where before there lay darkness. More sun. More warmth. More water.

On March 16 I heard my first Sand Hill Crane. I haven’t seen any yet, but the song is unmistakable.

The swans, geese and teal congregate en masse at the river, but fly away in pairs.

Sugaring taps appeared on the 13th. We need to prune our fruit trees soon and let the sap heal their wounds.

The earth warms, melts snow, re-freezes overnight, leaving lace by the roadside.

Snowmelt flows to the river to wend to the Gulf, waving to friends in New Orleans as it goes by. Hello Caroline!

Hollows become ponds again, holding the melt until the frost comes out and water can seep back into the ground, filling gaps and holes and crevasses to seep back up through root and branch and leaf.

This barred owl was up late yesterday, hiding in plain sight. We often hear its hoot, but rarely see its grace.

Zeke pulls me along in the red morning light. The agates shine on roadsides again.

We hope to see these darling girls and their guy in about 6 weeks, when they will come and help Irene celebrate 90 years of springtimes.

They will find security in Michael’s arms, as do I.

They will go to “See Summa,” bringing the joy of growing things with them.

Construction journal: United at last!

Okay. So we could get from the old house to the new addition all along, but the two houses always felt separated. No longer.

The roof didn’t fall on my head! I can walk from the present kitchen directly into the addition! Can I use any more exclamation points?!?!??!!!

A week ago we started moving the kitchen furniture around to make room for this project. Moving kitchen furniture took two days.

We put a nailer in the corner (a board to which we can eventually attach wallboard), moved insulation from the future entryway to the corner, and put up plastic so we don’t have to live with insulation dust forever. Or until we wallboard this wall, which might feel like forever.

We took a day off to play with the Grand Boy and feed his parents. He makes us so cheerful!

We removed wallboard.

We removed part of the window framing that wouldn’t make the roof fall down.

Michael rerouted all of the wiring and then we installed wallboard in the half of the old window that will not be part of the walkway.

I removed all the nails, screws and staples from a beam gifted to us by friends when they were rehabbing their house in Minneapolis. Thank you Danica and Zack!!!

Michael devised a system to keep the roof from falling on our heads while we took out the studs and installed the header for the new entryway.

We used the old studs to supplement the beam to create an 11 inch header, which is more than what was needed to support the trusses for the roof. My daddy taught me that over-building is a good thing. Michaels daddy taught me that under-building causes problems. Clyde also taught Michael everything he knows about small engine repair, so it balances out.

We now need to stabilize the edge of the flooring exposed by our efforts. It was rotting from leakage from the window. This is why we will replace all the windows and doors eventually. But today, we celebrate uniting the old house with the new.

Construction journal meets weather journal: outrunning the rain

We awoke to wet. And slippery. Zeke will have to wait for his walk until things thaw.

We watch weather. Our lives depend on it. I learned to love weather apps from Michael. I grew up deprived of weather sense, fostered in places where a thin coating of ice on puddles constituted severe cold. Snow fell far away. Now we stockpile sand against those times, like today, where it is another tool allowing you to get water and feed over ice covered walkways.

Weather dictates the order of priorities. Michael stands before a box containing our new water heater. His experiment of taking out the filter from our water line resulted in sand and grit coming and clogging many of our appliances. Some have their own filters we can flush. Others do not. The on-demand heater my brother gifted us is one that does not. Since we may be hosting our daughter and her family this summer, we needed a reliable source of hot water.

This closet looking space is a future stairwell. That big box would not fit down the current stairs, so Michael cleared this space and made a ramp to the basement.

I got to push the box over the edge, blindly trusting Michael to catch it.

Safe!

We will build a platform for it to stand on, but this is its new home. Midway between bathrooms and close to the future kitchen. Now to run a water supply line! Oh, and install a water filter too…

We bought the water heater in March 2. We unloaded it and loaded my trike and a used screen door into the Suburban. The ice and snow came On March 5 and 6th.

Zeke finally did get his walk. This doe waited until we were almost level with her before running to the woods. The turkeys huffed off reluctantly as well.

I give the swans and geese leeway. We all rejoice in open water.

Despite continuing cold, Michael began gathering eggs on March 7. They should begin to hatch on April 7. We have confidence that spring will come again!

In the meantime I am removing this last bit of old siding while Michael accompanies his mom to a doctor visit. This is where the screen door came from. It will replace a screen door that failed at my daughter’s house. Recycling at its best.

I am so looking forward to being able to set up my saws and making more cabinets. It is my reward and/or curative for/from the frustration of dealing with federal courts. I work for chicken feed…and lumber on.

Anniversary journal: here’s to the anti-romantics

Michael and I married on a Tuesday. I went to school that morning, then came back to our efficiency apartment to clean it up to host a wedding party. That was 35 years ago. We’ve had a great time before and since. Our celebrations have usually been somewhat anti-romantic.

Rather we have devoted our time to working together on projects. Right now, that is taking down the siding on the wall that separates the addition from the original house. The next step will be re-routing the electricity so we can cut two passages between the original house and the addition.

I feel that I channeled some predecessor when I took a hammer and pry bar to the siding this morning. I had an hour before I had to leave to take Irene to her cardiologist appointment.

Michael continued on after I had to leave. He accomplished much more than I hoped. As usual. My hands were already failing at this point.

After Irene and I returned from her appointment, we went out to dinner at our local dive. Tater tots. We love tater tots. We love each other. Celebrating together is the absolute best.

We hope to teach the small ones the importance of work. To tell each other every day, and not only on special occasions, that they are cherished and appreciated. To spread the catechism of daily devotions, mixing the prosaic and divine. Marriage is a long conversation, according to Fred. The more voices, the more complex the harmony. Here’s to adding to the music of the universe.

Birthday Journal: Best. Cornbread. Ever.

Michael has been wanting a grain mill, so I got him one for his birthday. It came today.

Specifically, he’s been wanting to grind popcorn into cornmeal.

He shelled out some of our strawberry popcorn.

He put it through the grinder several times.

Melting butter in the 10” cast iron pan before baking is one of my secret tricks for making good cornbread.

The red cornmeal expanded the horizons of cornbread to another level. Michael says that it would not be a sacrifice if we never ate wheat bread again…and he is the baker in this family!

The cornbread paired well with cream of chicken soup. Eating from a Willi Eggerman bowl kicked the delightfulness factor up a notch. Having a layer of almost-orange chicken fat reminded me of lush green grass and caterpillars on this cold, snowy day.

We live where the wild things are, and some of those things make it onto our plate. Others are not so wild, but still are not products of industrial farming. Slow food includes slow cooking as well as slow growing. One can argue that food is food and why should anyone put so much time and effort into grinding meal? You cannot buy red corn meal and orange chicken fat…not even at the French Laundry.

These two are beginning to teethe and soon will be mumbling apple sauce and winter squash. Michael says we need to plant more popcorn. I agree. It may be a while before they are noshing on it popped, but we can feed them red cornmeal mush!

We also need to hatch ducklings this year, as we will have the Shepherdess here for a while this summer. So much work, and all of it good.

It’s what makes for a Happy Birthday Boy!

Dark days journal: brightening things up

Dark and cold have been the themes for the past several weeks. Both Michael and I notice that we move less and want to eat more. I think it has something to do with 20° below and wind: the perfect time to become creative!

My mother has gifted my girls baby blankets made from odds and ends of leftover sock yarn. She gets to the end of a project and knits squares out of the leftovers, thus having a ready supply to crochet together into a blanket. I haven’t knit anything in ages (except hats…I love hats) and so decided to try the same to clear out a bit of my yarn stash. I also cannibalized some socks with holes in them. I made different shapes to keep boredom at bay. I then sent the blanket to a woman who might appreciate a blanket “that doesn’t have colors usual for a baby.” I hope her baby likes it as much as the Grand Girl loves hers.

Michael moved a brush pile onto our garden, stacked the deer carcasses on top and then added more brush. I cleared the farolito bags and candle ends and added them to the mix. It made for a hot and fast burn. Ashes to ashes. Dust to carrots and cabbage.

The eastern windows catch more and more light, whenever the sun does come out. I haven’t tumbled more rocks, as cleaning them of grit must be done outside to preserve the plumbing. I like to save those types of projects for above freezing weather.

Michael unearthed my jewelry supplies, allowing me to experiment with wrapping the agates I tumbled last year. I hope to crochet valences to support wrapped rocks, so I will have time and space to admire them daily…and not have to worry about the cat knocking them around.

Dusty grows huge in the dark days. He sees no reason to do anything more than eat, sleep, and harass Zeke.

Zeke will go out in all weather. He did cut short a walk in the wind one day, but mostly revels in being out and about. Here he found a drift of oak leaves. This, he says, means springtime.

Irene improved her hearing to the point where she can appreciate music again. She reclaimed her keyboard, but the music stand got lost in the shuffle. Michael created a new one from a broken flag holder from my trike. We hope she will have honed her skills enough to play herself “Happy Birthday” (ala Grisman?) by her 90th in May.

The turkeys high tailed it for the woods a few moments after I snapped this photo this morning. I took the snowmobile trail, confident that the snowmobiles wouldn’t be using it yet. I trekked across the field to rescue the heater from the stand: the last task to clean up from hunting season. Now to start spring cleaning! We need space to incubate chicks and ducklings.

Did I mention my love of hats?

Hats: a fun way to make the dark days brighter!

Harvest journal: the soybean effect

We count anywhere from 15 to 25 deer in our field in the evenings. The turkeys flock in groups from 10 to 30. Pheasants create large scrapes. Mice, voles, rabbits and squirrels abound. Hawks, falcons and eagles follow. Having the soy beans harvested, but the field untilled, leaves sufficient food to attract birds and beasts of every stripe.

The eagles would not say no to a chicken dinner. The chickens, on the other hand, have kept the hair on their chinny chin chins inside.

We harvested 4 deer off our land this year, and a neighbor gifted us one more. This allowed us to make 115 lbs of sausages. Brats. Potato sausage, smoked and unsmoked. Kielbasa. The chickens contributed to the brat pile. We bought pork to add to the potato sausage and kielbasa. I really like our home made sausage, even if we have more to learn.

Lightly smoked potato sausage. The unsmoked version eats well too.

Smoked kielbasa. We found a batch Michael missed when running the smoker, so we have a few unsmoked kielbasa to compare. They are better smoked! We will save the unsmoked to grill in the summer. His missing a huge bowl of sausages tells you how tired we got.

Bratwurst in process. The brats made with broiler meat turned out noticeably lighter in color than the ones made with slower growing chickens. They are all tasty.

This is the chest freezer after taking out the sausage meat. It isn’t empty! Roasts and chicken and soup bones fill the bottom layer.

Getting to that bottom layer will now be a challenge. It took us about a week of early mornings and late nights to refill the freezer.

The untilled soybean field not only sustains the wildlife. It allows us to feed these growing families too. We began over-producing meat due to the pandemic, and now continue due to inflation. It all gets eaten. Even so, Michael and I continue to lose weight and gain strength. Work and the cycles of life are good.

Grand journal: looking back and looking forward

I had my first daughter on the first day of my last semester of law school, by C Section. I missed a whole month then nursed my newborn in class and changed her on desktops while teaching classes myself. I took the bar exam as a nursing mother. July. Chicago. She was hot and hungry. I developed mastitis. We survived.
I had my second daughter while clerking for a federal judge. I missed two weeks of work and then brought my baby into chambers for the five months left on my clerkship. The accommodation allowed me to have a baby and still do the work that needed to be done. It was unusual at the time and remains uncommon today. I was extraordinarily lucky. The challenges I faced as a new mother were not the same as those of my mother or grandmothers. I have always drawn strength from knowing they overcame everything life threw at them and succeeded in fostering a new generation.
Michael took over as primary care giver when I started lawyering full time. We made it work, but I have more attention available to focus on my Grands.

A house full of babies. Not as full as my mom’s or my grandmothers’, but fuller than I could possibly hope.

At four and a half, the Grand Girl not only is a competent cookie cutter, but has the attention span and coordination to roll tamales. She noticed when I put sprinkles on the Christmas Birthday cake. Who knew sprinkles could cause such wonder? Could I have forgotten how much my girls loved to decorate with sprinkles? It is good to have reminders.

The Petite Grand looks like a Villa girl. She smiles more than any baby I’ve seen. My uncles always said I looked like their mom, my grandmother, whom I never met. Persephone is the image of Irene when younger, who is the image of her mother. Michael looks eerily like his grandfather. Beanie Boy is cut from the same cloth as his father. We are introduced to our forebears through our children.

Irene is the Great Grand Girl of the bunch. The Grand Girl loves to go and visit Irene in her in-law apartment. If ever I needed to find either one, I knew where to look.

Poor Beanie Boy gets more rough play (being anywhere near Michael’s beard is rough!). He will have to be extra tough with two girl cousins to deal with. There were 5 boys and 3 girls in my family. My dad always said it came out even.

The Grand Girl loved going over the snow jump her dad made for her. She is his shadow.

The Petite Grand has the physical strength and activity level of her sister. Their mom was a floppy child. She chose a partner with coordination and a love of play not common in our family. Good choice!

Beanie Boy, like his Momma, can be both fussy as well as super charming. His father brings a level of calmness and good humor to them all, for which I am ever grateful.
Finding out who your children are is like seeing a flower bloom or any growing thing come to fruition. I can hardly wait to find out who these small people have inside them and what new thing they will become.

Season journal: Happy Solstice!

These are a few of my favorite things: enjoying the snow while cleaning like banshees, readying the house for the arrival of the Grands Girls and their parents.

4” of snow and 18° for those who care to know.

Lilith fell asleep holding Petra’s hand as they rolled down the road.

Felix and baths go together like peas and carrots.

We can light our world enough to have winter roses, but the ducks decided to take a vacation from laying eggs.

We ground burger and have corned roasts, but have yet to make sausage. Our freezers are full!

The Libby pumpkins have saved well and make amazing pies. Or rather, Michael makes amazing pies with these pumpkins!

Unbroken snow. It gives us our aerobics.

We hung wallboard but no mistletoe.

Animals and food. It’s what we do. We are tired, but not grumpy about it. Cleaning is just a constant when you live with and around animals, including us humans. It is all so very worth it. And you just fail to notice that it is dark.

Everything is brighter already.

Season journal: the health and happiness show

We are at 6° at 10 am. The high for today, 17°, happened earlier this morning. We are going nowhere but down today.

Zeke walked us out to the deer stands, snuffling all the way.

A few inches of snow fell yesterday. We have not had any significant snowfall yet. Warm weather lasted until today.

“Warm” being relative: we have had fires since October.

Fires require hauling logs from yon to hither, which in turn inspired us to dust off our weight room and start our winter exercise routines. My left arm became nearly useless after hauling my first load of logs. It is better after the more controlled pumping of iron. My entire upper body aches. The odd thing is that I don’t mind, knowing it to be transient, a step on the way to feeling strongly alive. The word I associate with this feeling is “joy.”

The feeling of holding a Grand baby I describe as “bliss.” It is related to joy; perhaps a sedentary version.

Michael trades walkie and weight lifting days with me. Hauling buckets of water convinced him we really could find time in our day for one more thing. We both lost 30 pounds or more since last January. We both feel more limber and less arthritic. Starting the year with both of us injured convinced us it was time to get serious about losing weight and increasing aerobic capacity. Now we start on recovering muscle mass.

We love seeing turkeys vacuuming soy beans from the field. We hope to keep healthy enough to share the happiness that comes with being close to the land with our children, their children, and if we are very lucky indeed, their children.

This bunch may move back to our area of the Frozen North in the coming year. We look forward to sharing the Greatest Show on Earth with these wee ones!

Happiness journal: welcome Felix!

Felix Dain arrived two weeks earlier than expected. At 6.5 lbs, he’s a cuddly little bean!

I tore myself away from Petra and Lilith on October 25, arriving home on the 27th. I’m still not entirely unpacked….

The weekend before I left we got to carve pumpkins…including my traveling companion.

Lilith’s penguin costume arrived after I left.

We made our rounds, sharing food and stories with our dearly departed. We celebrated the Days of the Dead on Halloween as Persephone and Nate had to work on Monday. Persephone’s water broke just as they were leaving.

She worked very hard for 34 hours. Good job!

Felix’s parents have been exhausted ever since. I remember that level of tired!

We celebrated Felix’s first week by putting up metal siding around the new window. We have interspersed our Felix fixes with getting our chores done.

Michael’s bristle brush beard entertained Felix’s fingers.

My super power is burping babies.

Michael and I both shot our deer opening weekend. Sufficient to share and keep those young people supplied with protein. Sausage making to commence shortly.

We are hoping to see these two before long. It would be great if the cousins could grow up together. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. We are exhausted but really thankful for all our blessings.

Travel Journal: the difference between being a guest and being family

My son-in-law recently mentioned that I was the best guest they ever had (and they’ve had quite a few recently). I let him know that I wasn’t a guest, I was family. Given that I am sleeping in the guest room, what is the difference?

There is nothing like having a tiny morsel snuggled down on you, except maybe having that tiny thing recognize you, your scent, the timber of your voice, because they are essentially familiar.

I am here in Colorado to be a grandmama. Petra came to light on October 4, the Feast of St. Francis, the guardian of all small animals. This particular small animal is strong, active, demanding, yet also oddly patient and aware. She was hungry this morning, but her mother needed to take care of a few things before feeding her. Petra became gradually more upset, until her momma came near. Then she calmed down again. She heard her momma. She smelled her momma. Sure enough, food was on the way. Such confidence in a week old person! That assuredness of care is part of family.

The Grand Girl gets much of her beauty and verve from her father. Her wanting to come and watch the sun rise with me, or letting me brush her hair, or having me to read to her, or helping me pick the last of the green beans, connects her to her mama’s side of the family.

I drove out to Colorado to be an extra pair of hands and arms for these two wee ones. Cooking, cleaning, going shopping…all those grandmotherly functions that cannot be done long distance. Letting my daughter rest and heal. Letting my son in law continue to work on his Master’s thesis. I can slip into their routine and pick up the slack because their patterns are familiar.

Guess who’s holding Petra?

I wish I had these small people closer. Family provides continuity and connectedness. My whole trip has been devoted to seeing family.

I made a long trip shorter by stopping in Iowa to see my niece Alejandra, who has been studying bat mortality due to wind turbines in Iowa. She has grown to be a fascinating, insightful, beautiful person.

The second leg of my journey brought me to Wichita, and meeting a brother from another mother for the very first time. Don has so many of my father’s mannerisms. It was amazing to see him alive in a different body. An afternoon’s visit wasn’t long enough to catch up on two lifetimes apart. Don was born before my mom and dad married. I don’t know if my father knew he had a sixth son before he received notice that Don was looking for him shortly before he died.

The third leg of my journey brought me to my own mommy, the wellspring of all wonder.

My mother has any number of irons in the fire, which is situation normal! I brought her garlic, so we got one of her raised beds cleared, turned over, potting soil added, and bulbs planted.

Does this look like an 88 year old who has just been slinging bags of potting soil? Yes!!!

We harvested amaranth.

I repaired her tin cutter, that had fallen apart before I arrived.

We took early morning walks and enjoyed the neighbors’ gardens.

And we toasted being together! Stepping into a different stream and flowing with the current of her life felt like coming home…because it was.

And then it was time to leave with Pumpkin, who road shotgun throughout the journey.

Driving allowed me to bring some of the bounty of our farmstead with me. I left jam and jelly, if not also garlic and tomatoes and apples, wherever I stopped. Food. It’s what Michael and I do.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, the window arrived and got installed!

Michael has cut and split wood to fill the wood bins.

He harvested rutabagas. They are the magic ingredient in pasties.

He tucked our own garlic in for the winter.

He cleared brush around the deer stands.

I could not be here without Michael being there. He anchors me and allows me to float freely at the same time. This grandmama gig is pretty sweet. But part of that gig will be returning home, to continue making that space for people to feel at home, even if they are sleeping in the guest room.

Harvest journal: navigating the cascade

I missed writing on the equinox yesterday. Harvest time is busy under the best of circumstances, and I’ve been moonlighting to support our unsustainable farming practices. The gardens don’t know that.

The popcorn glows in the low September light.

We’ve had bumper crops of most everything, except cherries. The late spring made us replant tomatoes and eggplant and harmed the cherries and apricots, but once frost passed us by, it got hot and dry. Apparently, that’s what gardens like!

The apple blossoms opened after frost.

A small sample of the total harvest.

Luckily, we had willing recruits to help us press the cider fodder…two weekends in a row!

The pay is bad, but the entertainment dividends are great.

This is 1/8th of a head of cabbage. My 14” knife reaches across, but just barely. Braised with a bit of butter and salt, it’s what’s for dinner.

The black walnuts have been plentiful as well.

It takes about a gallon of uncracked nuts to make 3 cups of nut meats.

In amongst everything else, Michael got the outdoor outlet moved so we can put siding up whenever the window arrives. I’m leaving for Colorado and the arrival of Grand Girl # 2 in two days. The window comes today or it won’t get in until November. Le sigh.

Sunrise, sunset, swiftly flow the days…

In spite of ourselves, we’ll be sitting at the end of the rainbow…

The great thing about working with Michael is, no matter if projects aren’t perfect, they tend to turn out pretty well in the end.

And the food really is good, on a number of levels.

Construction journal: tearing down and building up

We have embarked on the maintenance of the oldest part of our house, which was built in 1997. Twenty four years is time enough for wind and water to take its toll.

This door has been leaking for a while. We needed to find out how much damage had been done to the under flooring. Michael took out the door and jamb on July 16th.

We have been sleeping in the living room for 7 years now. The hole on the right is where the electrical box used to be.

Michael took down the wallboard on August 21. We ordered windows and siding in mid-July. The pandemic means it now takes 2 months for delivery rather than the 3 weeks it took in 2016.

August 23 and the insulation is down, revealing the wiring that needs to be moved. That blue box in the lower middle is a code violation installed by Michael’s father. It’s gone now.

Michael had to take off the siding from the original part of the house to follow the wiring and disconnect it from boxes so it could be removed from the area under construction.

Monday August 30 we purchased building supplies. Tuesday August 31 we took the siding off the wall.

Sure enough, the flooring was rotting. But only a patch that was 4”x5”.

I cut a foot length of 2x4 and held it up from the basement so that Michael could clamp it and attach it. This created a 3” wide platform for the 4” wide flooring patch. A 2x6 then covered whatever indiscretion remained, completing the wall sill.

Wall studs removed.

The future window, which will replace the door, is framed in. Again, the hole framed in on the right used to be the electrical box. We moved it downstairs due it’s causing condensation in winter. There was no insulation at that point as the electrical service occupied the depth of the wall. It was late by the time we got this far, so I hung plastic to keep the raccoons at bay.

Today we put up OSB (oriented strand board). It is much stronger than the press board Michael’s father used as both underlayment and siding. The lack of underlayment is why all the seams of the interior wallboard are ripped and buckled. The press board didn’t give sufficient strength to the walls to keep the house from flexing in high winds. It also shouldn’t warp. The press board pulled away from the sill, creating spaces in which insects and mice had access to the house. We hope the window and siding arrive before I leave for Colorado at the end of the month.

We celebrated securing the house from tomorrow’s rain by doing a bit of gardening (more tomatoes!) and rescuing some baby bunnies who became entangled in the chicken wire surrounding the asparagus garden.

Babies! We love babies! They are Grand.