Our Busy Busy Life

Bye bye station wagon. We are still awaiting diagnosis, a third opinion. The second opinion was that the car model was junk and we should junk it. I hate driving the truck. I hate driving Dearests car. I hope there is something we can do and not junk it just yet.


Sisters asleep.
Lots of color. The new orange.

Fried zucchini cakes with fresh local goat feta, a little salty but perfect with fresh sliced tomatoes.

This is Wilbur the pig. Her pig. She tells people we have 5 pigs, 1 pet, 4 for bacon.


My little swamp elf setting crawfish traps off our dock. Grampa T. made these for us. She is warming up to him quickly and we are enjoying his visits a lot!

Pawpaw painting the old house the new blue. This blue is the color of the sky on a perfect day. It is also the color that I painted our first house when we were first married. It was a color scheme I loved on a house in the Drake neighborhood, one day I pulled over and knocked on their door and asked them what colors they used, the paint chip names. They gave the old cans and I went to the paint store and got the colors exactly. Newport Blue and Academic Navy. Now that Drake house is purple and our old house is a different blue with white trim.

But something about these colors moved me then and what better than to color our home with the memories of how our marriage began!


And last, but not least...queso blanco. Yum. I'll post more when I figure out what I am going to eat this with.......

Iowa State Fair 2009- in pictures

Pick a Peck of Pickles......

The lovely dress

Abby of Sugar Creek made this beautiful dress for Holly. Last night while watching the Firefly episode, The Message I noticed that Jayne's cap that his mom sends him matches this dress exactly. How cool is that? So cool.

I love how versatile the dress is, she'll wear it through the fall and winter too. Thank you Abby!

Blueberry Summer

Dye a-Lot

The New Blue in Progress Plus Bonus Chainsaw Action

Blogging

Soon Lil'Bug will be reporting to the state for our homeschooling requirements. Not this year, but soon. In the last month I have met up with about 6 families new to unschooling/homeschooling and they all have 4 or 5 yo's. What I am getting good at is translating our experiences into school speak for the purpose of the schooly types trying to understand that what we do has value.

Many of those on the unschool journey hit a huge blockage in their path when it comes to explaining it to those who are trying to understand. Knowing the language helps.

So what is unfloding in my thoughts is two fold. One, we have to record a portfolio of Lil'Bug's learning to meet our state's legal requirements. Two, in doing so we will make the blog public to assist others on a similar path. Thrown in will be discussions on some of the struggles too.

So then that led to another idea. We'll be filling out a page weekly for that blog, or more often if any one thing seems to need more documentation (ie I take lots of good pictures). Locally, lots of other families are starting up the same type of record. Why not have a second blog that feeds/links from all the others, to gather the ideas in the same place? An online friend had started doing something similar in Utah, but not quite the same (so I don't think we are copying- Stephanie?).

So that will be brewing in the coming weeks. I'll send out invites once I get it up and running. Viva la Life Learning!

Ps.... now that my summer teaching fiasco is almost over, I will have more time to blog. Sorry about that!

Displacement

My heritage is Cajun. I learned French as a kid and can still understand most of it now, used to write poetry about missing the great big waters during my teen angst years. That bit is ironic given my anxiety over being on a boat in deep water.

Perhaps it is in my blood though to long for a homeland. The Cajuns were themselves displaced from France and then Acadia.It is an interesting history. The few times I have felt at home have been in Louisiana, now and then I will get a whiff of the air and long for the damp chill of a Louisiana Christmas, or end up cooking chicken stock overnight and long for a pot of slow cooked gumbo.

I have BeauSoleil Avec Michael Doucet on Pandora right now. This music makes me feel at ease and creative and so many other things.

I know that one of the things that made me fall in love with our farm was that to get to it the highway rolls through a marsh and a river greenbelt that is very swamp like. There are crawfish mounds in the pasture and a flat bottom boat put up near the dock. I feel at home here in a way that I did not in the city, but a meme I was tagged for on facebook asked, "if you could live anywhere, move there, where?" Immediately I thought of the swamps with the dark, shadowy pines and cypress near Iowa, Louisiana. Ironic. It is pronounced (I-Oh-Way not I-Oh-Wah.)

So as I am up late again while my employers server is down AGAIN, I got to thinking about displacement. I carry this place in my heart, home is where the heart is, and I make my home where I am, where my family is. Luckily we have facebook and the Internet to stay connected, to strengthen bonds faint from distance. There is much to be grateful for.

Tomorrow: Gumbo.