In Which I Have Not Decamped to a Deserted Isle

It's a good thing that I mentioned in my previous post that I might not be posting much, because, well, I haven't been posting much. I have however, given up my beloved twice-monthly cleaning service in lieu of DSL for the home computer connection. At least, I hope we will have DSL; we are still in that bizarre waiting period in which we would love to give our local phone company more money for a service that they have been promoting heavily, but they are not yet sure that they can provide said service. It's almost as if we made it up in our minds and then called them to pitch their service reps on a really cool product that we'd like to sell to them.

So I'm keeping my fingers crossed about that whole DSL, joining-the-modern-world thing, but patience isn't a virtue that I possess in spades. I have not yet taken to following the company's shiny red vans to see if they are going to my house (please!?), but I'm not far off.

October has been a mite better than September, on the home front. No one has been dropping any unauthorized bombs in my domestic sphere, and I think we all know that bomb-dropping is the quickest way to piss-off a Virgo. That and forgetting to sweep or flush. This past weekend involved a lot of unexpected mucking about underneath the kitchen sink to fix a few odd leaks, but there were no catastrophic floods, so we all coped pretty well. We also get to replace more floor tiles, which means perhaps a fourth pattern in our collection of temporary stick-on vinyl tiles. I swear, one day I would like to actually live in a house that we aren't in the process of demolishing and rebuilding.

The flock has seen some changes as of late. We both had and then lost two very sweet ducklings in the first two weeks of the month, but I had prepared The Young Man (and myself) for the inevitable. We tried to support the out-of-season hatching, but it's awfully hard to do without removing the ducklings, and I was not ready for another experience like that of raising 5 chickens in my utility room. So we let Mama Duck do her best, and she was pretty good. Not good enough to raise two ducklings in October, but close enough that I would let her sit on a nest again. However, I would also isolate her from the flock, and try harder to get her to accept some sort of shelter. Miles and I picked up eight two-year old chickens on Saturday morning from some friends who operate a small organic farm, and so far the new ladies look a bit stunned but seem to be integrating well. They are Rhode Island Reds and Black Stars, and are already laying again. They wouldn't lay enough over the winter or next year for the farm to justify feeding them, but for free chickens, I'm willing to give them a go. My previous experience with a more production-type breed (Golden Comets) was mixed ... the hens lay heavily through their third year, and then started to wear out and die off the following winter. I now have one Golden Comet (Blondie) out of the ten I took in. So, they initially scored well for thrift, temperament, and laying, but I would not personally run out and buy them, as I know I tend to keep hens around. The die-off is also pretty depressing. But the good news is eight new chickens, with perhaps more to come.

I've chosen my next read in the 1% Well-Read challenge, although I have not started it. I'll be reading Doris Lessing's The Grass is Singing, which I have a sneaking suspicion I may have already read. If not, I may go for The Golden Notebook, even if it isn't on the list. In the meantime, an evil work-friend has introduced me to the Twilight series, and I may just have to stop eating or sleeping until I finish all four books. It's like I'm reading Harry Potter, only with less whining from male characters. I've heard that the third and fourth books are not as good, but I don't want to know. Lalalalala ... I cannot hear you because my fingers are in my ears.

While on (or at least near) the topic of challenges, I am contemplating signing on for Stash and Burn's Socktober. I think there's a board on Ravelry that I could keep up with ... I have mentioned previously how I hate knitting socks, but that isn't quite accurate. I actually like knitting one sock ... it's the second sock that does me in every time. So, with a gift card to Borders I purchased Two-At-A-Time Socks by Melissa Morga-Oakes. Rebbecca first mentioned this technique to me, and since then I've been very, very curious. So we'll see. By the time I make up my mind, Socktober may be passed.

The garden is in the last stages of producing ... I harvested a stroller-full (what? you don't measure produce in terms of strollers, sand buckets and the carrying capacity of your T-shirt?) of Roma tomatoes yesterday, and the mint, nasturtiums and husk-tomatoes seem to be doing well. Pears are winding down but still pretty prolific, and I'd like to do more with the chestnuts this year. The perennial garden also need care, but I seem to be deaf to its pleas.

Miss T has learned how to say "No!" and "Mine!" and uses both words to great effect. She is also working on sentences, but so far only if one word of two is "Mine!"

We are still working on Miles' tantrums, but with a bit more compassion and a lot better planning for hunger, exhaustion and difficult transition times, we are all treating one another a bit better. With assistance from his beloved Uncle Conor, Miles learned how to ride his bike without training wheels last week. There is no stopping him now, and yesterday we went to a recreational trail for a family outing and he pedaled for about 3 miles. Pics to come, when I get them off the camera, and it hopefully doesn't take me three hours to upload. Look, there goes a shiny red van now ...

Harvest

The pears on our lone tree are starting to ripen. The tree suffered last winter, and I really didn't expect anything this year. I have been surprised. It isn't the overwhelming harvest of the past several years, but it is more than enough for our family. Miles, Teija and I ventured out yesterday to see if it is time to pick.Pears ripen off the tree, so I judge by the willingness of small children to gnaw away at the still slightly hard fruit.

I think the pears are ready.

Happy Dog

Multimedia message, originally uploaded by twitchycat.

This is Josie, our older neurotic dog. She's a lab/greyhound cross, best we can tell, and she's a loving, gentle soul (unless you are another dog). She and Miles have had a distant relationship, as Miles is not actually that fond of dogs from what I can deduce, and certainly not ones with big waggy tails that might thwack you. Now that he is above tail-wagging height, however, he has warmed up a bit. On Monday he and his daycare provider made bandanas for her dogs and ours, and he graced Josie with hers that very evening. Normally Josie would pull a face and expressively sigh, indicating how long-suffering she is and that life was so much better before That Other Dog and the hairless screaming puppies showed up.

This time was different.

Our dog, who does not like wearing anything, not collars, not booties to protect her sensitive paws, and certainly not any dog clothing, our dog preened in her boy-made and boy-gifted bandanna. If we had mirrors at dog height at our house, I swear she would have spent the evening gazing at her reflection, murmuring, "He made it for me."

We take the bandanna off when we leave the house and at night, to avoid any unpleasant bandanna-eating episodes. But frankly, if she didn't love it, she would have skulked off and torn it to shreds already. From this bandanna I have observed a subtle thawing in Miles' interactions with Josie: a kiss on the nose here; a lingering caress there; and a good ten minutes of brushing just the other evening. Such, I suppose, is the shared power of a home-made gift, that it enthralls boy and dog alike.

And it makes Josie, who is aging and awkward, with many, many bad habits, a very happy dog indeed.

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By the way, that is plywood in the picture, and yes, it is our floor. So now you know my deep-dark secret. I have plywood for floors, and it doesn't even phase me. I truly spring from the northernmost reaches of Appalachia.

Ack! Panic! Mayhem!

Well, maybe just me freaking out. I have family coming in to town this weekend ... more specifically, in-laws and my husband's elderly and lovely grandmother. My house is a total disaster. One half of the front lawn still needs mowing, and the garden beds are out of hand. The floors are still plywood, and our future living room has bare drywall on the walls.

I will not lose my mind. I will breath in and out, as I do every minute of every day. These are loving people, who care more about us than our stuff and unfortunate chaos. But still, I like to maintain the illusion that we are grown-ups, capable of running our own household.

In reality, I think they already have us made.

Stumbling Around

I think I bummed myself out with my last post, so all I have for today is a quick view into our morning here at the Casa. We all get up far to early for the amount of uninterrupted sleep some of us get. However, The Young Man and Miss T were quite chipper this morning, and as their father and I stumbled around the kitchen in search of green tea and sustenance, we had the following exchange:

Miles (on the floor with something I couldn't focus on yet, in an authoritative tone): Blah, blah, blah ... and then these are the bad Transformers.

Me: ????

The Hubby: The Decepticons?

Me: ???? (catch the theme here?)

Hubby: It took me a minute, but I pulled it out.

How could I not marry this man? Verily, he is a font of pop-culture references.

I Actually Thought That You Could Always Go Home

This is one of those long-simmering blog posts, so bear with me if it rambles a bit. I will probably have to revisit the topic at some point, because I don't think I have this all sorted out in my head yet. But here it goes.

I've never been good at letting go, and seem to have a high capacity for forming attachments. Once, in the depth of therapy related to infertility, miscarriages and adoption, a counselor told me that she thought I could form an attachment to just about any child that came into my life (or cat, or dog, or fish, at that point). However, it seems unfair to also include places in that category, although why I resent this is unclear. Entire epics and religious works are dedicated to separation from significant places.

This isn't about Exodus (or Jeremiah or Ezekiel, my Hebrew Bible chronology is weak), though. In the past year family members have chosen to move, and for very good reasons. This meant gaining access to one house of my childhood, but also losing access to my grandparents' home. The depth of attachment to my grandparents' home surprised me greatly. I don't know why ... when I think about it, it is one of two places in my life that had not changed until recently. The phone number was the first number I ever called, back when you only needed to dial four digits. (No, I'm not that old, it was a very small community). When my parents split, that house was still there. When I came home from college: still there. When I moved back, bringing my future husband and a desire to really live in the place I had for so long called home, but rarely lived in: still there. Now, it will not be there for my children. I have a lot to be thankful for; my grandparents are still alive and we are close. But the place ... the spot where the peach tree was before it died, the garden of the weedy asparagus bed and the never-ending swiss-chard, the mysterious barn attic with boxes of treasure from previous chapters of my aunts, uncle's or parents' lives, the room where I pestered my teenage aunt and asked incessantly about roses from her latest beau, the dock on the lake, the lake itself where my father soaped off after coming home from work (smelling like oil & grease and the mysteries of cars that would not run), where we held night-time campfires and cook-outs and where I saw the smelt run ... it is not there for them, and it is no longer there for me. I feel selfish in wanting to mourn this loss, but that doesn't change the reality of the separation or my longing for a place I can no longer go to.

Part of it also means I feel my age. No longer just out of school or a young adult, I've entered the age of responsibility and moving on. But there will always be a part of me at that house and on that shore, and that part of me is eight, or ten, or six, and doesn't care about what my daily duties are or the very good reasons behind the move, my changed family, or new stages of life. I hope in leaving that place, I don't leave her, or forget the things that made me. And I hope the memories that my children make and that make them can carry them as well and as far.