Nostalgia

Today I spent steeped in nostalgia, like a cup of freshly brewed earl grey tea with honey and a piece of hazelnut chocolate.

Lily wanted to know about her name and the day she was born.

Holly wanted to see what she looked like as a baby.

Chad wanted pictures of our first house and garden in Sherman Hill.

Someone asked to see pictures of our Riverbend house.

All of it, brought me to the photograph archive of our pre-farm years. It is pretty interesting to look back and see the mother I was, the kind of friend I was, my ideology on urban blight....all of those things have changed.

This was our city garden.  This was Lily mud-o-potomus. She was a natural from the first day her feet touched earth. She was the driving force behind moving to the farm. Good grief she was adorable. She still is too.

Sometimes I miss the simpler time we had being urban gardeners, homesteading our little backyard. It was much easier than managing the food source for 40 families and my own. Still, I cannot imagine life any other way now. We are farmers.  There is no doubt about that now.

"who strives valiantly; who errs"

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt

Pork Crown Roast, y'all. Followed by the best apple pie ever. 

I came across this quote tonight. I sat hours writing, deleting, writing again only to fall short of what I wanted to say.

This week has been hard. This month has been hard. Fall is our busiest season on the farm, the kids have extra classes for 6 weeks, our vehicles took turns getting tuned up and fixed for winter. Sheep shearing, lambs to locker, sows to locker, sausage for retail sales, Farm Crawl, Sample Sunday, extra things at church, the kids getting sick, canning, drying, harvest, tincturing, my aunt visiting.....goodness. Even typing that out makes me feel tired. Not to mention laundry (washer #2 broke dramatically, only catching on fire would have been more dramatic. I hate front loaders.), dishes (never ending hell of hand washing dishes while canning, baking, and such), and extra laundry and dishes because of kid illness.

Of course the first week of October had to land in the middle of this. This week is a personal anniversary for me, a life changing event 15 years ago, and every year I try something different to get through it. I have diagnosed PSTD and every year it gets a lot better, except for this one week.

So, in the middle of frantic so much to do and the kids getting sick, I took a week off. Cancelled lessons, pick ups, deliveries, appointments. All of it. I snuggled down. I didn't blog. I avoided the computer. I took care of me and my family. I am still battling a cough and the bone aching weariness that happens when October 8th hits and the dark clouds blow away.

A friend asked me to write about how I balance all of this schedule heavy, family intense, activity and not lose my mind and body. I would also like to know. Ha. Then in church I overheard a couple of ladies talking about people who just decide to do something and then do it. That's us to a t.

We wanted an old house, so we bought one. When we decided to farm, we packed up and moved toward that (new to us old house of course!). We wanted bees. We got bees. We wanted to raise pigs, chickens, cow- we worked for that too. It isn't enough to dream, you have to plan and work and prepare for it. We are always learning and most energised when learning something interesting and new to us.

Sure, things have happened that we couldn't or didn't prepare for- coyote predation on the sheep flock, our dog almost dying of screw worm infestation, our son being born with a genetic condition- but we were prepare by the life of doing to keep on doing. We fail. We get up. We try again or try something else. Each day.
 
These last two weeks were hard. Isaac was in the ER overnight with breathing issues when illness hit our house, but we knew what to do and did. We, Chad and I, take care of each others' needs too- he took a day off so I could sleep when I got sick too. He made sure I had extra time and help when I needed it. Lily saw this and stepped up too. Holly saw that, followed by example. Chain reaction set of by love.

So the secret to how we manage the tasks and hustle and bustle and ups and downs? I'm not sure there is a secret, other than just stepping into the day, hit the ground running. Forgiving myself when I fail. Lifting others up when they need it. Knowing I am not alone and putting as much love into the world as I possibly can. Oh, and coffee. Good joe in a sweet mug is a must. 

Saturday Feast and Fish!

Science Experiment: What is this?!

Found this. It rattled and looked like a giant larvae.

Except it has a stem on the end. Clearly botanical.

For scale.
We decided against it being a pine cone. Pine cones don't have insides that rattle. Right?
Do not look up giant larvae that look like pine cones though, unless you have a brave soul.
Really. Don't.
Our earth is totally freaky sometimes.

Decided to break it open and see what evil lurked inside. Lily was sure it was a dragon or a giant wasp.

It was clearly a thing made of wood fiber, or wood like fiber. It smells like rosewood.
We soaked the pod in water. It turned the water bright red and smells strong of roses.
Still have zero idea what it is.
It was most certainly laquered though. So we searched- rattles made of seed pods that look like dehydrated pineapples.
Google was no help.
So we set it on fire. For science.
It is definitely made of wood, but only charred a bit so most of it is now in a jar for further tests.
We know that it isn't plastic though.

Any ideas? Even ideas about how it got in our house are welcome. It was behind the freezers in the porch room.