"Filling You In" Top Ten and a Goodbye

I have been pretty bad about posting to the old blog lately but I'll try to update you in Top Ten fashion. Here are the Top Ten things that have transpired over the course of the summer, with a gratuitous kid pic thrown in at the end to reward you for reading!

1) Our garden took on a life of its own and kept us very busy. We could have spent every single day weeding, tying up tomatoes, putting more plants in the ground, etc. Tomatoes, squash, beans, peas, carrots, beets, eggplants, cucumbers and peppers did very well. Flowers did well in some areas and not in others, but it didn't matter because no one was into buying flowers this year. My watermelon/pumpkin patch may have finally shriveled up and died, which is a bummer because I wanted to try the yellow watermelon.

2) We did okay at the Farmer's Market, but it never got terribly busy and we did better selling directly to restaurants. On our busiest month we did pay our mortgage through our garden which just bears repeating: we paid our mortgage by gardening. I will never, ever, ever eat a morsel of food again without silently thanking the farmer who goodness knows put a lot of work and sweat into that bean, or slice of eggplant, or cherry tomato. This summer has changed my appreciation forever when it comes to food because damn that was a lot of work.

3) Mayla graduated from preschool. The second she graduated she suddenly started reading again and writing lists and letters and novels (I'm serious, she tapes together the pages and there's sort of a plot). I was a little worried during this past school year because she had stopped doing these things, but I also thought, oh well, she's not even in freaking kindergarten yet so who cares. And I knew she was, for the first time, mixed in with a gang of fellow preschoolers and was totally living it up playing Bad Buys and Castle and she needed those fancy socialization skills. She blossomed socially. But enough of that touchy feely stuff for her now that preschool is over--time to hit the books! (Just kidding).

4) We sold a lot of goats. This was a tough decision for us. We have had goats now for about four years and have really enjoyed them. They were fun year round, but especially at kidding time. I will never forget kneeling in the barn at night watching a kid be born with our children in our laps. But times are tight and when we put it down on paper we realized that the goats were very expensive pets! We would have to sell 30 babies a year to fully pay for the hay, feed and medicine we need to raise them. If we had more pasture and therefore needed to feed them less it might be possible. We sold them to a very nice family who plans to continue breeding them, but it was a sad day when we saw them loaded up. We still have three mothers and babies, and we'll keep our bottle fed baby Hazel and a companion for her.

5) We still have plenty of laying hens, sheep, two new pigs (couldn't resist), pigeons, turkeys, ducks, quail, pheasant and rabbits. So we're not giving up farming!

6) Ibby is starting preschool in the fall. She is very excited about it, which surprises me because she has been such a Mama's Girl and has never been away from me for long. But she is thrilled to be going to a school where there is a trampoline featured prominently in the "gross motor" section of the classroom. I mean, what else could you possibly need? She has suddenly gotten very tall and can make all kinds of goofy facial expressions, as well as speak in funny accents and voices. I am all nostalgic for my days staying home with them, though, because...

7) I have a job! I'm going to be teaching pre-K this year! I am very, very excited about it in some ways. It is the perfect age for me to teach right now (I have taught infants through 3rd grade with the sole exception of pre-K!), the kids are really amazing, and I get out at 2pm and can still have ever afternoon with my girls. But...

8) I am totally nostalgic for my years of early motherhood. I keep thinking about when Mayla was a newborn and how much I adored her. We had no schedule whatsoever but just enjoyed the world hour by hour together. Then came Ibby and the chaos of having two, but such a good kind of chaos with the house always full of projects and toys and half-eaten meals, and a baby right on my hip where she liked it best. I wish I could keep living the past six years over and over and over again. But it seems like just when I think, "It can't get better than this!" it does. So I have high hopes for us this year. Especially because...

9) Today I got home from my first day of work. I spent 11 hours setting up the classroom to be a really amazing place for my new scientists, artists, authors and explorers. When I got home, pretty exhausted, my girls rushed out of the house like two beams of light, glorious faces, full of beauty. They jumped on me, smothering me with kisses, talking excitedly about their day spent helping dad. I felt like I was appreciating their beauty in a completely novel way. And actually, it felt pretty good. So, I think we're going to be okay. Which leads me to my last item on my Top Ten...

10) I don't think I'm going to be able to keep this blog up. Between the work of the farm, trying to give my best to my two children and husband, and creating a really fascinating world for my pre-K kids, there is no way I'm going to be able to also write anything worth reading in our blog. I am sad in some ways because it's been so nice to chronicle our adventures and I've really appreciated getting to know some of you and getting to show my friends and family our life in greater detail. Perhaps I will come back to it at a later point. But for now, thanks so much for reading about our lives and I hope we made you smile now and then!

Lynnie

We're Still Hanging On!

We have been having some fun around here!
Carnivals, parties, campfires, visits from friends, farmer's markets, and lots and lots of good food from our garden!

But for the most part we've been working. There is never a second in the day when there aren't 40 thousand things to do. Weeding, harvesting, building cages, cleaning, planting grass, mowing, shoveling, etc. Not to mention just wanting to take the time to infuse our beautiful kids with tons of good old-fashioned love!

Hence the long pause since my last post. It is hard to find the time now that I'm working so hard in the heat of the day that I no longer seem to have insomnia! But I'll find a few minutes soon to update on how the markets are going, the really awesome writing and drawing the girls have been doing, and how to make a really awesome squash casserole (includes cheese!).

Hope your summer is happy!

Quail Queries

Remember this cute little gal? We ordered her plus some ungodly number more of these cuties a couple months ago. A few people have asked us what happened to them.
Well...
This is what happened! Isn't that a beautiful plump bird? We have over a hundred of them, mostly bobwhite. They started laying eggs after just a few short weeks, which surprised us both by being so early and by being so cute. Here are their eggs:
We have been selling them at our farm stand. Or at least trying to. Most people have no idea what to do with something so small and dainty! The answer, according to a chef who buys from us, is to poach them and put them over salads. Jake also pickles them and eats them as a snack or with dinner. But there's no reason not to just boil them for 2 or 3 minutes (believe me, that's all it takes!) and serve them as a snack.
Simple as could be. A few delicious morsels to see you through the day!

Notes from the Art Studio

Mayla and Ibby have been logging some serious hours here in the Art Studio (also known as our kitchen table). We have an Open Art Cabinet policy around here, which means they have access to markers, crayons, watercolors, paints, blue, play dough, paper, glitter, scissors, etc, all day long as long as they clean up at the end of the day. It does make for a bit of a mess so if you freak out when the carpet is sprinkled with glitter for whole portions of the day then you might not want to have an Open Art Cabinet policy. Creativity is something I believe it strongly though, and I tend not to notices messes until they get ankle-deep, so my kids can get pretty involved.

Anyway, I have been impressed with how much detail Mayla has been adding to her drawings lately. Now well past the head-and-legs phase, she is adding spectacular eyelashes and sequined gowns.
Ibby is going through one of those don't-take-pictures-of-me phases.
But with a mask on she doesn't mind. If you look closely you can see that she is adding teeth, fingers and bodies to her people. The first time she made a body she jumped up excitedly from under the kitchen table waving her drawing over her head and screaming, "Look, Mommy! I made a dress!" It is interesting to me that both Mayla and Ibby started adding bodies at around the same time though they are 2 years apart. Same gender, same parents, radically different kids.

I am now working on ways to display their art more neatly around the house. Up to now I've plastered it on every wall using that gummy blue stuff that claims not to rip paint off the walls. That turned out to be blatantly false advertising, and now that we have freshly painted walls I want to wait at least a year before using a product that I know full well will pull the paint off. If you have any ideas, do share!

Ladybug, Ladybug, Fly Away Home

We had a nice little ladybug release in our garden yesterday! Mayla proudly marched her plastic container into the garden with Ibby dancing excitedly behind her. They started out by picking out individual ladybugs and placing them neatly on particular plants. Not necessarily on plants that showed signs of aphid damage, mind you, but on plants that just looked like they needed some company.
The girls ended up somewhat decorated with ladybugs themselves! They were delighted, of course! Who wouldn't want a little friend coming over to visit?
A little friend tucking in for the night in your sleeve perhaps?
If you look closely below, there's one listening in on a sisterly secret atop Mayla's head.
But in the end, fly away they must!
And that without a doubt is delightful too!

I Love a Good Yard Sale

As I have mentioned before, we are huge Playmobil fans around here! For the longest time the girls were coveting the medical sets. Mayla cut out a picture of the ridiculously expensive hospital ($165!!!) from a catalog and pasted it above her bed the same way teens put up posters of rock stars. It was hospital-this and hospital-that all day long.

But then came the Circus theme, right before Christmas of course!
We indulged in these tightrope walkers and some clowns. But Mayla was eyeballing that fancy circus tent something fierce! The vibrant colors, the eye catching stripes! Still, a hundred dollars is a lot to play for a toy, even a really good one.

So time went on and the Playmobil circus performers took our breaths away with their amazing stunts right out in the open, "topless" so to speak (well Big Top-less). Until...
I found this baby at a yard sale for a dollar fifty. Sure, it's not Playmobil, but the scale is right and so are the colors! It was missing a couple parts, including all the original people and the tightrope, but of course we didn't need those parts. We needed The Big Top.
I had that baby under my arm and paid for in half a second! And, let me tell you, we have been seeing some pretty amazing acts all day out in the yard!

Don't you just love a good yard sale?

The Quail are Multiplying...and so is Ibby

Our quail, purchased only in the last couple months, have started laying beautiful eggs! They are tiny and speckled and pretty darn adorable! I took this picture of a plate of them and then left them on the windowsill for a bit while I worked on other things.
A little while later I heard a sound like clink-clink-clink and wondered what Ibby was up to in the kitchen. I walked in to find that she had pulled a stool up to get her hands on those sweet little eggs (I mean, really, who could resist?) and had then arranged them thusly in our washed out spice containers:
Perfect little sets of four! "Mommy," she said as I approached, "There are four in each of these glasses!" The final egg had been thrown into the sink, poor little "remainder of 1"! What an absolutely lovely way to learn about sets and multiplication, I thought to myself as I checked the eggs for cracks (only 2 eggs sacrificed to my daughter's math skills!). And to think some kids have to use plastic interlocking cubes for this!