Photo updates

I've been posting on Instagram (http://instagram.com/homeontheridge) photos I take throughout the day, so that's a good place to check or follow us if you want to keep updated in a visual way. But I'll share a few good ones here.

Liam looking up a friend who works for UPS to see if we could arrange a tour of the warehouse.  He was going crazy asking- when will my package be here! and tired of saying, 'i don't have any effing idea!' I suggested we see if we can go down there and find out how the whole thing works. It's an outing still in the making, but we have a call in.

Raelin received a calligraphy kit for Christmas. She practices.

Family jam! This was Raelin's first try at just playing along with Kevin. I have a little recording. So sweet! And at times, so good! :)

Last week we took the new cross country skis out to Pineland Farms in New Glouster, knowing that the rains were coming this week. An awesome outing! Great groomed trails and the kids both did fantastic on the skis. We did about 2.5 miles, up and down lots of hills. They were champs.

We've been going to Sweet Tree Arts in Hope for Monday open studios. This week they had a monotype printing station.

Soft- dodgeball upstairs at Sweet Tree

still life drawing of airplane

coding, take one

Researching 'how to build a laser' 

In which Liam finds his flow..

Yesterday we joined a few other homeschool families for skiing at our great little Camden Snowbowl. The Snowbowl hosts 4th grade classes during the school day, and many schools join in the group program afterschool which offers discounted tickets, rentals, and lessons to students and their families. In the past, we have taken part with the school; this year we're going on Wednesday mornings as part of the homeschool group.

Liam took up snowboarding the winter he was 4; we put Raelin on skis when she was 3. She's been skiing all over the mountain for a couple of years, while Liam has been paying his dues on the little MiteyMite, taking the tow up a gentle slope and trying to hone some snowboarding skills before heading up the mountain.

The progress from his first to second winter was huge- last year you could see how much more confident and strong he was in his body. I felt pretty sure that this was the year that he would make it onto the lift. Of course, I planned to sign him up for a lesson. The morning we arrived, he refused the lesson. What? What do you mean, no lesson? To me, he needed more instruction on his turns, being able to slow down and move around other skiers. And stopping- important stuff. But nope. He absolutely did not want a lesson. Er, uh, ok. Fine. No lesson. I didn't want to make a scene, and I thought, hey- maybe he'll realize himself that he could use a lesson.

I could sense a place in myself of needing to let go and trust him to make his own decision. But of course, I still thought that what he would experience would deliver him to acquiesce to my own opinion: you need to be taught. As I watched him during the morning, his progress was obvious. He fell a lot, got right back up, was able to maneuver around obstacles and cruise in control to the tow line.
Ok, fine, i was happy. But surely... before he went up on the lift, he would need a lesson?

This week, we arrived and my intention was to work on my own snowboarding with Liam on the MiteyMite, but a strained wrist relegated me to skis. Liam was fine to do his MiteyMite laps on his own, so I took the lift up with Raelin to ski down. As I watched a beginner lesson of snowboarders on the hill and skied the terrain myself I thought... I think he might be ready to do this! Surely if he took a lesson, an instructor could give him just a few pointers and he'd be fine! I greeted Liam at the bottom and shared my thought.
What do you think, Liam? You ready to go up?
Yeah!
Ok, well, how about next week we get you a lesson and I bet the instructor will bring you up.
No, i want to go today.
Look, Liam, you've gotten much better, but I really think that you need an instructor... I'm not a           snowboarder...I don't think I can give you the best tips as you come down.
I don't care, I want to go today.

At this point, I thought, what's the worst that can happen? He scooches down on his butt? he falls a couple of times?

Ok- let's go!

We got in line for the lift, hopped on without a hitch, and managed to exit with little mishap.
As we headed down, I cautioned him to go slow- slower that you think you need to, I said, remembering his straight-down approach on the bunny hill. It was the longest continuous stretch he'd ever been on his board, and he fell often, wobbling and overcorrecting. But he stayed in control, and when we reached the final steep slope, he edged his way down without a problem.

He headed straight back to the lift line. Up again!

What happened between the first run and the second was one of the coolest things I have ever seen in one of my kids. He found his flow- that sweet spot between challenge and skill set and energized focus. It was clear that on the MiteyMite, he wasn't progressing because he wasn't challenged. He had to stop before he found his flow and get back on the tow again. With the whole mountain to ride, he could get continuous feedback to correct and experiment and put his skills to work.

It was awesome, and it blew me away.

Not just because it turned out that he's a way better snowboarder than I thought or had seen, but because *he knew what he needed.* Here I was, harping away at how someone else needed to teach him,  needed to tell him when he was ready to move forward, and to give him tips along the way.

He didn't need that at all. He needed the space, the time and then the opportunity to follow his own understanding of what he was ready for.

We finished off the day with a total of about 7 runs, most of them going through the mini-terrain park. He rode the lift with his buddies. He commented on his own success.

This is an experience that I will carry with me through our homeschooling- particularly when I find myself going back to that old standby 'But you need someone to teach you that!  Sometimes, it may be true. But it doesn't need to come from me. If I am supporting and allowing, then the kids will know.

To distract myself from thinking about confined whales...

I will post a bit about our first day. Seems like I should; there were a few sweet moments that I took careful note of, and there rest of it was just a nice, mellow flow.

Before the snow started in earnest, we made a trek down to our lovely Appleton Library.  We haven't been for months.  It gets back to that time thing. The Rockport and Camden libraries have more open hours, and being in town for afterschool activities, it was more convenient to stop there. It was great to get back to our local library, though, and Angie is so helpful. Liam is a great reader, and he loves books, but I have realized that he doesn't know how to choose one. How to meander the shelves, pull out one that looks interesting, and either accept it, or put it back. We talked a bit about that. Mostly he went for his old Star Wars graphic novel stand-bys. Which is fine. I put a few on his pile to take I thought he might like, but I am trying to hold back from this, honestly. If I keep feeding him books- how will he learn to do the browsing and choosing? I took out The Theif Lord by Cornelia Funke because they didn't have InkDeath (3rd of the InkHeart trilogy).  By mid-afternoon, Liam had me reading it aloud to him and so that was a win.

Raelin goes for the old books. She hauled over about 4 big guys about 2 inches thick apiece, each a treatise on an ancient civilization. I pointed out that it seemed a tall order to get through all 4 of them in three weeks, maybe. Maybe not. The final stack was a mixture of books she's read, Babysitter's Club, an Italian dictionary, and several old books on various non-fiction subjects.

Then she spent the afternoon beginning her study of Italian on a free kindle app she found. The coolest part of this was what I heard about it. She told me about why she liked this app; what was more appealing about it than the website she found earlier, and how she preferred to learn phrases over the vocabulary she had been learning in Spanish. And then she translated beginning Italian phrases for the better part of 2 hours.

One of the things that bummed me out was never hearing about what happened at school. I would get snippets, but not much. I heard some stuff from other parents, I gleaned a bit from homework. But i would never get- from Raelin, or Liam- a detailed review of what was being studied and what was great about it or hard about it or any variation in-between. It was just home- snack- leave me alone- homework- the day was fine... you get the idea. To actually have her volunteer information about what she's getting into and why and what she thinks about it? Priceless, really.

And so our day was pretty much that. A couple of thank-you cards were written. There was much lounging between reading sessions and Lego building. Toward the end of the day, Liam and I took on Khet (awesome laser/Egyptian inspired strategy game) he got for Christmas. After a few rounds of using the pre-sets, he started making up his own configurations and trumped me soundly several times.

In the meantime, I'm reading John Taylor Gatto's Dumbing Us Down, which I had back in my own stacks from college days. It's not for the faint-hearted. He doesn't mince words, and I had forgotten a lot of it, but its the perfect book to be re-reading as we are wading into this new way of being. He has a lot of good stuff to say and stuff you can take away, whether you have kids in school or not. But, more on that another day!

Three Years Later...

Holy moly, has it been 3 years? Why, yes, yes it has. I have to say, being able to just get right back on the blog bandwagon is a cyber-marvel that i deeply appreciate.

I'm going to just jump right in here and forgo the catch up. It's 42 minutes before the clock turns to 2014, and the rest of the family is already sleeping and has been for a couple of hours yet. We invited folks over tomorrow, and I popped some squash in to roast for soup and have some chicken stock going on the stove. It's late, but I am appreciating the quiet, solo time.

2014 is already shaping up to be a year for the books (or er, blogs) for us. The biggest developments are the fact that our kids aren't returning to school on Thursday and instead will homeschool. Kevin has set his sights on a Masters program for Positive Organizational Development. Luckily, these two beginnings are staggered :)

I have said to many people that if you had told me even 6 months ago that we would be on the eve of homeschooling right now, I probably would have laughed. I have been deep in launching and building my private homeopathy practice. I committed to traveling to Sweden three times a year (for the next 3 years) to do advanced studies. And I desperately love my alone time. My kids were in a lovely little small rural school. They came home pretty happy and the complaining wasn't even a dull roar.

so, why?

Time.
Depth.
Creativity.
Connection.
Exploration.
Relationships.
Time.
Creativity
Depth.

It all began with a spark of watching my son play with a couple of other friends who homeschool, and witnessing the pure joy and abandon and motivation on his face as they engaged in a kind of play (ok, it was with fire, which *most* if not *all* boys are pretty enthralled with. and YES it was a totally safe situation) that he rarely gets time for. Even in weekends and summer, i saw immediately that this kind of play and exploration needed intention and it needed space. You cannot fit that kind of intention and space into the precious few hours between afterschool and bedtime when there's homework, after school activities and dinner. Weekends are filled with visiting, catching up on household chores, events, and the occasional days to re-coup. Summers? We barely get in the swing of those long, free days when school is right around the corner. Oh yeah, and those days are broken up by camps, vacations (not the same), and rushing to fit in everything you want to get done before the weather turns... and the kids go back to school.

I have had the good fortune to observe various homeschool families in my community. I've lurked on various websites and done a lot of reading. I've had time to formulate my thoughts and tease out what felt right, and what didn't. Most of this I did while my kids were going to school with no thought that they wouldn't, but now that we are, I realize that so many ideas have been percolating and simmering in the recesses of my mind, it feels familiar. (Catch me in a few weeks and I am sure I will be at the other extreme!) And we've taken months to ease into this, many conversations with the kids, many conversations between Kevin and I, as we talked pros and cons and theory and philosophy and approach.

It also feels like the third leg to a stool. Kevin and I both are building careers that are built firmly on the value of the individual, and the individual's experience. As a homeopath, I look for the right medicine for each individual who comes to me. If I only treated asthma, I would still give each person a different remedy. Kevin's work draws on the unique strengths of people to work together and find the best possible solutions for *them*- not for the company next door. It becomes harder and harder to send your kids to learn in a system that is standardized and cannot accommodate the individual very well by design- when your Work in the world, is the opposite. Especially when you see that Work- tapping into the strength of the individual- is amazing... you watch people shine, become happy, healthy, and more focused and grounded in the world. You want that for your kids. We want that for our kids. And all excuses and arguments to the contrary begin to breakdown.

Finally, the bit about Time. If there is one thing that almost every family will say is one of the most rewarding aspects homeschooling, it's time. As someone who struggled when the kids were small, and I just wanted and needed my own 'time,' I now look at my 7 and 10 year old and feel a bit of disbelief- like where?when?how? And we are not people who over-schedule. We are not excessively social. And yet, the school schedule carved up our life into little bits- the morning bit, the afternoon bit, the weekend bits. Each of these bits had begun to feel a bit shallow and disjointed because there wasn't really time to connect deeply- those times were spent getting ready for school, hustling through homework, rushing home from activities to get dinner and get to bed on time so we aren't exhausted to do it again the next day. This is a huge subject in itself, with many layers to sift. We don't get time back- either as a parent to be with our children- or as a child, to lose oneself in play and discovery and invention and creativity. Children are not immune to the reality of life- that time and money are valuable and in demand. Put in the position, they will adhere to it easily... to the detriment of their own development, I think. And as parents, we want our children to find work that will not only support them, but will draw on their talents and gifts, work they can give themselves to, be inspired by, and will fill them up. How will they recognize that feeling, that sense of flow, that yes! this is it! if they have never had the opportunity to explore?

There are always questions about these things, and there is no way to answer them in one post, which is why I am re-starting this blog... as a place to muse and share and journal.

To close, I will share a couple of TED talks that have been popular and are pretty inspiring along the lines of homeschooling. There are so many resources, good reads and such. I'll be linking to those along the way as appropriate.

Sir Ken Robinson:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html

An amazing 13 year-old who homeschools:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h11u3vtcpaY

With that- enjoy! Happy New Year and thanks for your support-

Gardens- a 3 year biography

The first summer we moved to the Ridge, we didn't have a chance to garden. Actually, in early August of that summer I dug up a small rectangular plot between the house and barn and planted some late season greens. There was something missing for me, not being able to sow and weed and harvest regularly. That season lost probably facilitated a bit of overproduction the next summer, when my neighbor and I ordered over $100 worth of seeds for our co-garden. Now, that's probably small potatoes to a farm, but for a kitchen garden feeding 2 families? A bit overkill. We ordered through the Good Tern and Tim, the manager at the time, said, 'so, how many acres you farming?' A more accurate question would have been, 'so, how many seasons will these seeds last you?'
We' re going on 3, and i have a feeling there will still be some left for next year.

That first true season, the summer of '08 was pretty impressive. H and I hand- turned and created beds for a field about 1/4 acre. We planted pretty much everything but corn. We brought endless wheelbarrows of composted manure down from the driveway- maybe only a distance of 30 yds., luckily downhill with a full barrel and empty on the return, but still. We were dedicated haulers. While it was satisfying and impressive even to ourselves to see our work (with 4 children between the ages of 2-5) and our harvest was pretty awesome, it was too much work. By the end of the season, we were burned out. Having never gardened on such a scale before, we made mistakes like planting 3 rows, about 12 ft. long, of cucumbers. The majority of those fruits were either eaten by our chickens- until they boycotted- or offered for free on the road. Hundreds of pounds of cucumbers. We nearly lost our squash harvest to cucumber beetles. We lost most of our onions to weeds. We learned that you have to trellis tomatoes. Really, you do. You know what happens if you don't? Tomato jungle, impossible to pass and hence... many rotted tomatoes. Our mistakes weren't for lack of knowledge, i mean, i think it's widely accepted that yes, you do cage tomatoes. This is not a hot gardener's debate. But, pressed for time, it's easy to throw the plants in the ground and figure they'll be ok for a week or so and in the mean time get caught up in saving your squash and harvesting and then....it's too late. Jungle.

Last year, our second season, was better on the planning and implementation front. We halved the size. We caged the tomatoes immediately. We planted peas once the trellis' were already installed. We weeded the onions. We planted ONE row of cucumbers. We covered all squashes immediately after planting. I felt pretty good about our skills, but the weather worked against us. The rainiest season in memory meant that many crops just failed. Several were put in late. A bit demoralizing, really.

This year, we've gone our separate ways. What's true is that if you can't see your garden from the windows of your home, you are less likely to tend it well. For our neighbors, it was a walk to come over to do anything- plant, tend, harvest. Even for us, living just 25 yards away, tops, it was out of sight out of mind. And worse of all, the size took the magic out of it. There was no time to baby the plants, to observe the growth, to experiment. It was all catch-up and crisis.

So, we've scaled back but already, I'm loving what we have going. We've fenced in an area roughly 35x20 ft, but more oblong shape than rectangular. I'm having to re-create beds that were previously random and haphazard for perennials, but this week thanks to a visit from kevin's folks, it got a big boost. We've got in broccoli and cauliflower, cabbage and brussel sprouts, kale, chard, spinach, lettuce, carrots and radishes. Today i planted a first round of beets, kohlrabi, and turnips. One end is being sacrificed for the kids sand palace (truly, it's nicer than our house), and I'm planning a little stone patio for some chairs and small table. I place to lounge, enjoy, and observe the garden instead of rushing around all the time trying to save everything from going to seed, weed, or pest.

It would be easy to look back on the past 3 years and feel frustration that yet again, we're starting over. Having established beds that you mulch and rotate and build fertility in is 1/2 the work of getting good quality produce. But I'm coming to realize that this process has really been a relationship building exercise with our land. When we first moved here, I had a whole slew of assumptions about where the kids would most like to play and what we would grow and create here. Very little of that has come to pass. Instead, it's been an organic unfolding and we've abandoned things I was pretty hell-bent on, and started creating spaces I hadn't remotely envisioned when we first step foot here. Going slow has so many advantages, and this year I'm hoping that by taking the 'less is more' approach, more will be revealed.

We're here!!

Wow. the blogs. It's been so long since I've read these posts and from my previous blog, pottyparty.blogspot, that it was almost like reading about someone else's life! Major head trip.

If you know us, and you are reading this, then you probably know we are still on the Ridge. It's been 3 years, we're going into our 4th summer here and getting ready to pull the roof off our house and do some major renovation. For 3 years, we've been hemming and hawing about how to live here, get the space we need (3 bedrooms for 4 people instead of 1 bedroom for 4 people), achieve energy efficiency and continue to bring this place to it's potential. I've wanted to walk a few times. Too much money. Too much time. Too much work.

But out here, along with the 'too much' of work, money and time, you also get much green, much silence, many frogs and perhaps a few too many (hungry foxes); many birds and much wind, endless stars and many hills, many wonderful neighbors and much, much, much peace. I know that there are many places where I could live with the too much work/time/money and fewer and fewer that include the green/silence/frogs/birds/wind/stars/hills/and peace. So here we stay.

I hope to write more, again. I hope you'll visit.

My God We Suck

OK, this blog is more or less pooched...its authors are wasting lots of time on Facebook where there's photos and easy updates and shit. So if you're not on facebook, git on it. If you are, ask to be our friends; you know who we are ;)

Speaks for Itself...

Just Another Day in the Life

OK, so it was a fun one. While I was sleeping in (since today was my every-other-day-turn ;) and Kelly was outside enjoying her coffee, one of the hens decided to enter the verboten human domain and come inside the house. Luckily for us, our trusty attack cat Reggie was guarding the door. Kelly's report was being shaken out of a rare moment of morning relaxation by the Reggie hissing and spitting and Gloria (the hen) clucking loudly...from inside the house. By the time she responded Gloria was running out of the house and Reggie was needing to be picked up by the scruff of his neck. Not the first time, though the typical victims are friends' (and very occasionally neighbors') dogs that come over...at our old house the local police even showed up to talk to be about our cat's behavior, though the officer barely kept a straight face through the whole thing and ended it with "well I'm not sure what I'm supposed to tell you to do, though just thought you should know..."

Fast forward to a while later after I had gotten up, gotten coffee, and was off to the barn to get something or other. As I walked by the corner of the house there was a 12" or so garter snake sliding along the sun-warmed foundation, so I picked it up and gave a holler and everyone came out to see the little guy as it crapped all over my hands. Nothing like snake shit to stick up the mitts.

Then down into the gardens for the first big push in getting things ready for the coming fall: pulling all the cucumbers and beans. And of course, as part of pulling is the final harvest. No shit I think there's about 150 pounds of cukes out in our front yard...that's 2 full wheel barrow loads. Then there's a bags of beans, buckets of tomatoes, some peppers, the zucchini and pattapan squashes. Turnips and Kohlrabi have already all been pulled and either eaten or prepped for storage. And there's the bags of blackberries picked from the woods, and the batch of jam I made last night from the latest round Raelin and I picked. Melons are still ripening; popped a watermelon open this evening to see how it looked...not nearly there though the ripe bit was soooo good ;) Also lifted some small potatoes and had some early brussels sprouts. Oh man it was good.

Anyhow, mid-day we all took a break to drive to China (Maine, that is ;) to pick up a free picnic table and get some ice cream at John's Ice Cream in Liberty, which is reputed to be the best in the state. It was pretty tasty. On the way there we spotted a large turtle crossing the road. So being a nature lover and all that I stopped the truck to give the little guy a hand. This turned out to be not such a good idea; as soon as I tried to pick the thing up it did its best to whip around and bite me. Snapping turtles, even small ones, are very strong, very fast, and get very pissed off. I was more than happy to leave it out in the road and honestly, wouldn't have been that bummed if the thing got run over. I had half a mind to bring it home and eat it since I've heard turtle is actually quite good, though we were going the other way, I had no way to quickly dispatch it, etc, etc. Will have to look up what kind it is, though I must say that I'm not super excited about the prospect of my bare feet having a run in with one of those in one of our local ponds...last summer a fisherman hooked one at one of the most popular swimming spots at the big pond just up the road...willies!!!

Anyhow, so we got our free table, which needs a bit of work, got our ice cream, then came home and whupped the smaller garden into shape. This included pulling the volunteer squash vines that had emerged from the old compost pile and taken over a good part of the garden. Ended up picking over 30 pumpkins ranging from a few inches to over a foot across and a couple immature butternut squash. All will be used for fall decorations since we have more reliable food selections growing in the big garden. Photos of much of this are on my facebook page...ask to friend me if you're not already if you're interested in some photos!!!

Early August Update

First, some Liam-isms from the last couple days:

While the kids are coming into the bedroom in the morning to get clothes: "I can't put on any underwear, I'm wearing a diaper, dammit"

To Raelin and me: "you're not little enough to pee in your pants, but I is"

Anyhow, Kelly returned today from a 5 day trip out west to see some pals. Gotta love those jetBlue free flights ;) It's the longest she's been away from the kiddos, so a big jump for all of us, especially little Liam. I took vacation time from work and we had a blast. Hit the free day at the Lobstah festival, got rained out of getting a hot dog from any of the stands, finished out R's swimming lessons, helped a buddy install a set of French doors in our dining room, spent a bunch of time in the garden, and got a good start on the year's blueberries ;)

From the garden specifically I picked a wheelbarrow load (literally!!!) of cukes, and that wasn't even all of them from the first of 3 rows. Also picked about 3 gallons of string beans and a generous bag of chard. Lots of all of it still out there. The tomato jungle is starting to get ripe as well, the late strawberries are set, and the squashes and melons are all on the vines or heavy with blossoms. Potatoes are all strong though one row is battling (and thus we're in there, too) potato bugs. Gross little things, especially the bigger ones that you can really feel pop between your fingers.

Lots of toads have been spotted out in the garden, as well as predatory insects. Hopefully they're all out there eating their fill.

On the berry front, my goal for this year is to have 12 gallons in the freezer and then dole out a gallon for each month. A gallon of berries is roughly 5 pounds worth. The only drag is that this year all the berries we have access to were sprayed, so I have to wait until I get back to the house and wash them to eat more than one or two. Also means the kids have to stay home, though that's not so bad as it's a longish walk to the fields and picking with them is less about actually picking and more about doing something together. No, when I pick berries, I pick berries. Barefoot and silent. The fields are far from the roads and in the middle of dense woods so there's no road noise and lots of birds calling. Even heard a grouse drumming the other day, which took me a bit by surprise.

So the garden's humming along, the house is slowly getting things done to it, the shed->office is still utterly stalled out (though not for long), and summer here continues to be a dreamy time...

Anyhoo, signing off for now, don't pee in your pants.

Quick post...

Just some Liam-isms...

garong: sarong
gatoto: pototo
gomato: totmato
wunderstorm: thunderstorm
apple spider: apple cider

Hawk Migration

Well there's lots and lots of birds showing up and making all kinds of good ruckus these days. Finally figured out that what I thought was an old tractor trying to start up down in the valley is actually a grouse call. Also seen and heard tons of woodcocks, woodpeckers, and woodjohnsons (just kidding about that last one...formal apology for junior high humor, I thought it was funny...still laughing).

Aaaaannnyyway, yeah, lots and lots of songbirds flitting about. Raelin calls them all titmouses (or is it titmice?). Also seen a lot of raptors about, which are my favorites. To date this spring: several bald eagles, sharp-shinned hawk, coopers hawk, northern goshawk (finally!!!! and what a sighting as it dove into the chicken flock ;), merlin, kestrel (I think), and today a small kettle of 3 broad winged hawks riding thermals north.

On another note, the cat seems to have caught all the slow unaware rodents around. For awhile there he was coming home with 2 or 3 a day, and I saw him more than once eating them away from the house as well, so who knows how many mice, rats, and squirrels he was nailing. He does seem to have given up on ever catching one particular gopher that he wore a spot into the grass waiting for. Hunted that thing every day for over 2 weeks, just sitting under a maple waiting. Cat 0, gopher 1.

Also found some sort of burrow out in the orchard. Looks a bit abandoned, though work keeping an eye on just in case.

Project update: gardens are going, going, going. Kelly's got around 200 strawberrys planted, and many of the starts are getting ready to be transplanted. She also got a bunch of seeds planted for beans, peas, and greens. Sprouts are coming up. And we still have a massive box of seeds to go.

The chicken coop got an expansion last weekend since with all the planting the girls are no longer allowed to range (and poop) all over the place. Should be a lot less chicken shit on shoes and clothes this summer, plus the birds get a nice big pen to roam in. They seem pretty happy about it.

While I was building said coop I realized that the seepy, mushy area down in the pines is a vernal spring. So I started digging and found 5 outlets, though at this point with all the dry weather 3 of them have stopped flowing. The other 2 are still going though so we've now got a nice little creek down there. Hoping that as I put in more drainage like that there will be less habitat for mosquitoes near the house. It's worth a shot.

Kelly also found a couple local sources of free composted horse manure. That's like finding gold! So the truck's loaded up from her first run last night to pick some up.

Oh yes, I have some Raelin quotes to share:

One morning she was sitting on the floor in the living room wistfully digging into her nostril with an index finger. She stopped and looked at me and simply said "I spend a lot of time picking my nose."

One early sign of spring is that all the ladybugs that congregate inside for the winter wake up and start making their way outside. Out of the blue one day Raelin told me "did you know that ladybugs have little feathers that come out of the bums when they fly?" I did, in fact, not know that's how beetles fly ;)

She likes to make up songs, at one point I heard the following lyric drifting out of the living room "...it's so funny when you go poo..."

We both, though Kelly especially, uses "Jesus" as an expression of exhasperation and disbelief. Not toward the kids, though they've heard it plenty. So it was with great amusement that as I was walking in front of Raelin to show her something in the shed-to-office project she flatly stated "well Jesus! Why'd you do it *that* way?!"

I like maraschino cherries. I like them in cocktails, I like them in coke. Kelly abhors them and think they are one of the most foul things around. It's a perfect little parental battleground. So anyway, Raelin's always trying to get a handle on why Kelly doesn't like them, so Kelly ticks off the list: too much sugar, food coloring, corn syrup, food coloring, and food coloring. Raelin now calls them "food coloring cherries" and likes them as much as I. Liam on the other hand, acted like I was trying to slip him something. Raelin was clamoring for a food coloring cherry, so Liam started clamoring for one, too. Raelin happily popped hers in her mouth and ate it. Liam more hesitantly put his in, though it wasn't long before it landed on the floor with a splat and his general mark of disapproval "don't like it".

Of course, the meal we all eat in the morning is still "brefkast", and the car we drive is a "Subaru Backout" after the enzyme-based stain remover.

Anyhow, that's about it for now, it's a stunning day out and I need to get back to work so I can cut out a bit early and enjoy it!

"What if..." and other random thoughts

With the turn of the weather it's become comfortable to just go outside and sit. The last few mornings have found me catching some alone time out in the woods. Yesterday what started as a short stroll down to the boundary of our new acreage turned into 90 wander around full of wonder and discovery.

This morning I pulled my first cappuccino and headed back to a little waterfall I'd checked out yesterday; a perfect little sheet of water coming off a rock. I could tell that the level's already dropped from where it was a couple weeks ago when I brought the kids down to splash around...

Anyhow, I ended up finding a patch of dry grass on the edge of this little singing brook; there was a soft depression that my hip fit into just perfectly. So I laid there in the warming spring sun, not a bug in sight, and watched the water come over this little rock, sending splashes up onto the surrounding dry stalks from last years meadow. In the corner of shadow there was ice clinging to clumps of this grass where through the cold night stray drops built up. While I was there the sun was high enough to be shining on the ice, and it sparkled and shimmered against the dark mossy wet rocks.

You see, in the 15+ years I've been wandering into wilderness, it's always struck me "what if I lived in a place like this?" "what if I got to be here every day; this was what I woke and slept to?" I now live in such a place. And the answers to that question of "what if..." have been stunning in their beauty; cliche as it may be, it is like a flower slowly blooming; its secrets opening to the world.

I could go on and on, about the color of the stones in the creek, or the striking green of a moss-covered rock against the grays and muted browns of early deciduous spring. Of the leaf carpet just after the snow has melted, and the weight and water and pressed the jumble of leaves and branches into a smooth undulating fabric over the earth. Then there are the trees, the old maples and oaks that the old timers left to mark the edges of their fields, the stone walls, the ledges scraped bare by glaciers that left small boulders in the middle of the forest. Nestled into this is our little corner of home, our orchard, pond, buildings, and now garden. Each place coming alive in the spring.

I never knew spring could be so sweet. When we lived down in town I remember feeling like April and May would never end, out here though, I'm content to let them slowly roll on, watching the buds on trees thicken, hearing the songs of the first frogs to wake up. Seeing the pond just after the ice has melted in its crystal clarity before the algae and all the animals go nuts. And there's no bugs. Did I mention there's no bugs? No bugs. So blissful to just be able to be still.

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So I've got the serious itch to start spinning music. Spinning's sort of a silly descriptor for it since I'll be spinning a hard drive rather than records or even cds. Yup, it's all digital now, baby, and for less than the cost of a single decent cd deck, let alone turn table I can be totally outfitted with a console, new headphones, and a new external hard drive.

See, the thing I realized today is: electronic music is to my generation what folk was to the 60's. Burning Man is the current day Woodstock. Electronic music is everywhere, it moves across borders and languages; getting set up to produce it can be done for less that a nice accoustic instrument (let alone all the recording gear or studio time) would cost. In other words, it's a democratic music, and for the most part it is community-driven rather than corporate-commodified. I can go to BeatPort or Fiberline Audio and find brand new tracks from some folks that are just getting out there, and I can pick them up for less than a couple bucks each. That's pretty friggin' cool.

And then there's the whole DJ-as-bard (or folk musician). As a budding DJ, I've spent the last many years, almost a decade, collecting tracks, finding out what I like and then attempting to follow the thread through a maze of underground connections to find more music like it. There's been a lot of dead ends, there's a lot of noise. The flip side of the medium being so democratic is that there's a low signal to noise ratio; there's a lot of mediocre crap out there to wade through to find those really stunning nuggets. Though when those pearls are found, and then strung together...wow. It moves me, and moves my body. So like any other era's traveling storyteller, DJ's cast their nets, and while many do actually travel in the physical world, I think a lot more of us do our traveling in the digital one, surfing the net and iTunes for the next pearl to share....

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I've actually started journaling for the first time in over a decade. For a long time, I thought of my blog(s) as my journal. Though there's something magical about writing on a page. Last night while Kelly was out and the kids slept I wrote by candle light; the house silent. It was one of those moments where I connected to a long line of ancestry; perhaps the only other comparison that comes to mind is of picking berries by hand. It's just something that has been done countless times by an infinite number of hands. Sitting by candle light in silence; an archetypal human experience that hooked me into something greater than my life, in a moment something longer than memory...

my achin' back!

if i wanted spring to hasten it's arrival a few weeks ago and perhaps go south until it landed... i'm now thanking my stars at the slow, inching progress that is a Maine spring.

why the change of heart? one look at my garden list, and you would understand.

I have an infastructure list that includes:
-enlarging the chicken's fenced in yard... and keeping them there. Little to they know that their free-range days are nearly over. My babied seedlings and new sprouts will not become poultry fodder...
-scavenge barriers for upper garden beds (picture to follow... you'll get what i mean)
- build third and final greenhouse box (picture also to follow...)

I have a planting list that includes (in the next week):
- transplant next 100 strawberry plants (between yesterday and today, i got in 100... i have 100 more to go. 150 if i can't pawn 50 off on some other gardening friends. i overshot the strawberries a bit... in fact, i overshot the whole garden. that's my theme for the year. )
- seed first round of peas on wednesday
-seed first round of lettuce, spinach, radish, beets... other assorted greens... maybe broccoli
-plant remaining seed packets of flowers that need to be started indoors
-all above planting follows bed preparation: turning, rock-hocking, composting...

Misc. important tasks:
-FIND COW MANURE! in bulk
- begin to install deer netting

So, as you can see, i have plenty to be doing in 45-50 degree weather with leaves yet to emerge and night still leaving a frosty sparkle by morning.

But i love it! I love that my body is achy and every time i scan the property i see another chunk to work on. yes, it's a bit overwhelming and maddening when i'm trying to do something that is not paticularly kid friendly (i'm no longer planting small seeds with children present. not happening)... but WOW! i have always wanted to garden and grow on this scale and now it's happening.

It's a bit like parenting your first child really... all my other gardening experiences are like mere babysitting in comparison. Like the new parent i was, i'm reading voraciously and buying new products (yesterday... MooDoo (bagged composted cow manure) and fabric row covers)... constantly wondering if what i'm doing is the right thing and Googling suspicious or confusing behavior (yellow tomato seedlings? wilting broccoli seedlings?) I have no idea what i'm doing right and what i am completely flailing at. The proof will be in the harvest... or not... i suppose.

So anyway... we're gardening... it's fun :)
Here are those photos, as promised.

Here's the outside "greenhouse box" set up:


inside look:


Side garden views... these beds will be filled mostly with herbs, flowers, and greens for daily cutting: lettuce, spinach, chard, etc... As you can see, they aren't done, but are on my list. A few beds are set in with trunks of trees Kevin has taken down; one is ringed with random cinder block scraps that were in a heap from behind the shed. Today Liam and I picked rocks off the rock wall for another.


Here's that bed:

We also got up a flag pole (another felled tree) to fly our "Pesticide Free-Zone" flag. Saw it at a Farmer's Market the last time we were visiting Santa Barbara... loved it. So cool to finally see it flying! Was hard to get a picture with the wind just right, but it's a lady bug:

Moving to the lower garden.. here's a long view, chicken shack in foreground:
If it looks big, that's because it is. I guesstimate it to be about 1/3 of an acre. There's still a swath to the back and side that havent' been rototilled because it's too wet. The rest is good and ready to go, though.

Here's a closer shot... strawberries are on the far side. Not that you can tell. It's pretty unexciting to look at an open field like this, i understand.
Eventually, this field will be filled with the peas and beans, onionsgarlicshallotsleeks, a huge winter squash, pumpkin and melon patch, tomatoes, cukes, carrots and other roots.

So, thats' the tour, as of now. Going to try and stretch a bit before bed and be asleep by 10pm.

'till next time...

The (Blog) Drought (May Be) Ending

Hey all you 1 or 0 (binary audience, cool ;) faitheful readers. In an attempt to blog after drinking a very stiff vodka cocktail, I mean, keep you up to date in our world, I'm posting again less than 2 weeks (barely, maybe over) than Kelly did. My GOD what has happened. Perhaps it's the fact that spring is here and the coming green (and blackfly) explosion has me inspired. Who knows.

Anyhow, so yes, spring is here in all its slow-to-bloom glory. Seriously though, I'm loving just looking out the window at all the shades of browns, grays, and reds. It's all very stunning. Doesn't hurt that our daytime highs are into the whopping 40's. It has struck me the last couple of years (this is my fifth Maine winter) how the first days of fall when it gets to the 40's it feels so cold, though by the end of winter 40 is just balmy ;)

Anyhow, yeah, it's balmy out there ;) The last few days have found our little family spending lots of time outside. Not like we totally hunkered down through the winter, though it's nice to be outside and walk on the *earth* rather than snow. And have said earth not be frozen solid. When it thaws the whole smell of it changes from the crisp clean air of winter to the, well, earthy smell of spring.

Indeed, I stood outside today and listened to birdsong. Just stood and listened. It's been months since I've heard birds besides chickidees and ravens. And even then, the song of the winter is the wind in the bare branches or just plain silence echoing through the valley.

So yes, now the view is one of deep reds of ripe deciduous leaf buds and quickened blackberry canes, of dried grasses, fallen leaves, and soil. Soon it will be green beyond comprehension.

And with all this spring-ness comes water, water, water. Every vernal spring, seep, and stream is running full-bore. The other day Raelin and I were down by one of said seeps that Kelly and I have talked about turning into more of a stream bed. As Raelin and I stood there, me with shovel meagerly attemping to create a channel for all the water, I called to Liam, who had toddled out of site. He answered and so I figured what the hell, he's in hearing range. Not a moment later he appeared up by the house with ATW (that's "All Terrain Wagon" for you) in tow. And as if in slow motion, I watch as his little toddler body begins running down our front grass towing the wagon. I think to myself "oh shit, he's either going to trip on the grass and run himself over or get into the woods and trip and run himself over." So I start running toward him and the former happens. It's like slow motion. I can still see the image of his blond hair flying as not only he trips, though is pushed down by the empty wagon and then those big balloon tires run him over. When I got to him he was more or less self-extracted, though his head and shoulders were still a bit stuck. Since he wasn't hurt, just scared, it was all quite funny. What wasn't so funny was a couple hours later when I caught Raelin starting to make the same run, though this time with Liam *in* the wagon. It's nice to know that my kids know to stop when I yell that loud to stop ;)

Anyhow, we had another nice walk today. Kelly was off to work, so she dropped the kids off at my shed-to-office conversion project (more on this in a second) in the wagon. They were both calling out for a trip to the creek, so off we went. Took a brief stop by our pond, picked up some trash from our mid-winter roof replacment that had been buried by snow, then down to the creek. We left the wagon on our side of the little bridge (rotting, hence I won't take the wagon across), then up to see the neighbors' goats, then back down along the creek to see a series of waterfalls. At one point the kids took turns throwing rocks while I laid on a patch of thick dry grass. Ahhh, so blissful. As it was getting late I suggested heading home, and we decided at my suggestion to head home through the woods. Not a good suggestion as before too long the open woods turned into a combo of very snowy woods and lots of blackberry cane. By the time we got back to the wagon there was not a warm or dry foot among our little band. Raelin and I had decided earlier that the situation did in fact suck and had ceased to be much fun. Oh well, so it goes.

We also lost a bird, my and Raelin's favorite, to a red fox. There wasn't much left of her, I only found 2 feathers, which clued my in to the fact that we were dealing with a pro. See, other chicken kills I've seen by dogs, racoons, and the attempt by a hawk, have all been accompanied by lots of feathers and evidence of struggle. With this bird it was almost like she just disappeared.

So it wasn't that surprising the next morning when I looked out my office window to see a big red fox slinking around the chicken coop about to have another meal. The fox was stunning; don't think I've ever seen one that close and clear. If it wasn't going for my chickens I would have been a lot more in awe. As it was it was more an mix of anger and irritation. I mean, between the coop and the feed and whatnot we've spent a lot of cash on those birds, and if they're busy feeding the local wildlife (which should be hunting, granted), they're not feeding us with their eggs.

Anyhow, so off I ran out with a gutteral and primitive yell at the poor guy as he loped, make that busted ass, back down into the woods. Haven't seen a sign of it since, and once again the birds are out free ranging. They all seem pretty excited that the ground is thawed and they can actually scratch now.

Another thing that comes with the thaw is frost heaves. This year the roads have been particulary, shall we say nicely, beat to shit by it all. Big dips, cracks, and bumps. Big enough that coming home with the kids in the back "seats" of the truck (in their car seats, of course) I hit was must have been a 10" - 12" heave. The truck got air. I almost shit my pants. The kids hollered to turn around and do it again. Liam happily squealed about the truck going "ka-boing." That's what he does on the bed: "ka-boing."

So the office thing. Yeah, it's slowly coming along. Got a lot of the wiring done today. Almost, really, for reals, truly done with carpentry. Then insulation and sheet rock. Of course, noone's so interested in helping hang 12' sheets of drywall, so I'll likely just cut 'em in half (the sheets, not the people) and hang them myself. Kind of a drag to have so many more seams to tape, though I think less of a drag than having to beg and bribe my buddies to give a hand, and certainly better than paying the dry wallers $1,500 to come do it ;)

OK, off to bed for me, it'll be another early morning with the kids and my turn to get up with them tomorrow. Waffle day; Liam should be pretty excited. Wow, I just typed the last couple sentences with my head back and my eyes closed. Very few typing errors. Not sure if that's a good thing or not ;)

well, thank god there are 2 of us writing here (or supposedly) or the dry spells on this blog would more or less extinguish all life.

so, it's March. ahhhh...March. Undoubtedly the crappiest month of the year. It seems long, even though its' no longer than January, May, July, August, September, October or December. But ask anyone who lives in Maine or any other winter-retarded state, and they'll most likely complain about the unnecessary length of March. The smart (and flush) people leave at this time of year. It also helps if you have a friend or relative who is flush, or thought in advance many, many years ago when things were cheap, and purchased some habitable dwelling in a warm locale. Preferably near a beach.

Ok, so i started this entry weeks ago. But, no change. It's still March and it's still cold. Colder than usual in March, which is saying something. Even last year when we got snow into the second week of April, there were still some great mild days in March. Not so this year. I listened in on the first part of a maple sap tapping workshop this past weekend, and the guy said that up north they have 6-7 feet of snow on the ground and are having to dig out all their tapping lines to hook them up. We're talking thousands of lines. Not fun.

What is fun is getting the garden process going! Yes, even in the frigid temps, the seed starting must go on. Sprouting in the office under lights we have broccoli, cauliflower, onions and leeks. I'm waiting on 2 trays of shallots. Just those little plants make the office so hot and humid! I spent a couple hours at a cafe last week doing up a calendar of all our planting times. Supposedly this week i'm starting chard and head lettuce and peppers. The field is still so frozen, it's hard to get think we could be transplanting within a month, but it does happen. Gotta get my guy, Dana, back out here to turn the ground under and find a decent manure source. I have no idea what we're in for in terms of soil quality down there but... at least we got a winter cover crop in.

in other news... lost another bird today :( Our lovely Rare, the white Delaware, appears to have been picked off somewhere near the spring. Maybe a hawk or eagle? They've dive bombed in the past. So sad. Raelin keeps asking where she might be. Though dying and hunted birds are not new for her, she is particularly attached to this bunch, and Rare was one of her favorites. Good thing it wasnt' Eagle (our Araucana). She's practically a house-bird!

Well, in my mind, i'd love to post weekly pictures of the garden to chronical the progress. Yeah, your'e laughing. Me too.

hey, miracles do happen.

Waffles on YouTube, Chucker Helmets, and Highway Llamas

OK, been too long since the last post; sitting now on my first Virgin America flight blogging offline...think the best way to do this post is just a bunch of fragments to bring you, our steadfast (even in the drought of postings) up to speed on some of the developments out here.

Waffles...Liam's latest thing is waffles. While he likes eating them, he seems even more eamored of making them. Particularly the fact that they come out of the waffle maker. It is not uncommon to find our waffle iron out in the living room in the play kitchen stuffed with plastic beads, wooden toast, or whatever else he fancies "making waffles" out of.

It is also not uncommon that the waffle maker and the game of making waffles is the silver bullet to quell an otherwise tragic moment of toddler emotional upheaval. Typically it goes something like this:


parent: do you want to play trucks?
liam: no
parent: do you want to play with trains?
liam: no
parent: do you want to read a book or do a puzzle?
liam: NO!!!
parent: do you want to play making waffles?
liam: (crying immediately ceases and now smiling) yeah

The other day this went to another level. Kelly and Raelin went off to pick up our weekly share of the winter CSA, though Liam was to stay home with me. Of course this sent him into unhappy fits. I wasn't yet done with my work day, so Liam joined me in the office and as the ladies went out the door I started asking Liam if he wanted to watch videos of trucks, trains, or tractors. All of which were answered with a sobbing "no". Then the idea struck..."I bet YouTube has waffle videos." "Liam, you want to to watch waffle videos?." He did. So we watched the ad for the Cucino Pro Waffle Maker. Over. And over. And over. At some point I couldn't stand that one anymore and we moved onto various other waffle maker videos. We were still watching waffle maker videos when Kelly and Raelin returned...

Chuckers...the other day I was bringing Raelin home from ballet. As we drove past the golf course (sans golfers of course), she asked the inquisitive question "do golfers where helmets?" Having learned that it's often more fun and entertaining to hear the line of logic of a 3 and now 4 year old I innocently asked "why would a golfer need to wear a helmet?" to which she answered in the self-assured way only a 4 year old can: "to protect their heads from the balls they throw with their chuckers." I laughed. And laughed some more. And she laughed to as I explained that even though golf clubs look a lot like the Chuckit we used to throw balls for the dogs with, they actually hit the balls, and that they are also very careful about where they hit them.

On another trip home from town as we zoomed along our local regional highway (highway being a stretch for those of you in more populated areas) only to have traffic come to a sudden halt. 3 big llamas were on the road, looking more than a little bewildered as to how they got there and where they were supposed to be. I pulled over and called 911, mostly so I could report to the dispatch when they asked "what's your emergency?" "there are 3 llamas wandering around in the middle of highway 17." The dispatch took it all in stride, asking such pertinent questions as "have any of them been hit" and such.

Sex and the Ridge

Well, this week has given new meaning to the term 'January Thaw,' a phenomenon that is not uncommon. It *is* uncommon for it to be 60 degrees however. Usually we expect a few days that perhaps touch the low 4os. Our thermometer showed that it was over 50 in the shade yesterday. Crazy!! I sat outside in a light fleece and wrote in my journal while Liam slept, drinking in the sun. It was pretty spectacular in a global-warming kind of way.

is it wrong to enjoy some uncharacteristic warmth knowing its implications?

Discuss.

So, you are probably wondering about the sex part. Well, all that nice warmth has caused quite a snow melt exposing the greatest amount of grass and mud since December. The chickens were pretty psyched and scratched about as a group, under the pines and lilacs, their usual stomping grounds. I herded my own group of 2 out around 3:30 or so... empty the compost, bring a few things in to the barn, disperse the cooped up (pun not intended!) energy, etc...

Raelin, of course, bee-lined for the chickens. Her love of them is something fierce, i have to say. So while I was hanging out with her and the birds under the pines she witnessed the rooster mount of the hens for the first time. She was on it, in an instant.

"ROOSTER!! STOP THAT! That was NOT NICE!!" and charged at the eager bird who hastily dismounted and fluttered a few paces away. Raelin turned to me, a bit aghast.

"Mommy! Did you see that?! The rooster was pecking that Black Minorca! and he was doing it while STANDING ON HER! That was NOT OK!"

I had to stifle some laughter and just nodded my head, sympathetically. "Yeah, roosters do that sometimes. He's not hurting her... much," i mumbled the 'much' part, because i can't say her clucks were those of satisfaction.

Raelin got a goofy grin on her face. "Why do you think he was DOING that? Was he trying to talk to her? "

me, giggling. "something like that...." Best to keep it simple.

in the meantime... Rooster going to have to watch his back.

The deer have no idea....

where they're going. Seriously.

Have you ever followed deer tracks? In the snow? Today i packed on my snow shoes to take advantage of our latest foot of white goodness and head out to check out the acres that will soon be ours. i pick up some deer tracks just below the house and start on.

Ok, so they usually pick the path of least resistance, which isn't *so * hard in winter when all the non-woody vegetation that usually chokes up the woods has died back. But other than that... um, where are they going? I found none sleeping under what i thought looked like quite cozy little shelters under the arms of snow-weighted pines. I flushed not-a -one from any of the few remaining bushes offering winter berries. Didn't even catch any spacing out on the snowflakes that fell methodically from skinny naked twigs that just couldn't hold it any longer.

I found a few tracks that seemed to pause by one of the *many* (and by many, i mean, hundred or so?) seeps and mini-creeks that run all over the bottom acres. Good drinking there, i suppose. And as i followed their meanders back up toward the top of the ridge I did detect a certain direction. A certain, orchard-ly direction, - if you know what i mean.

Sure enough, the path of least resistance seems to take some deer right to (soon to be) our orchard where it suddenly becomes quite clear that yes, they know exactly where they are going, and it's to the top row of apple trees. With all the tramped down snow circling the trunk out to just beyond the canopy, you can practically imagine those fur-covered, hunger-rumbly bellies lifting up on hind-hooves to stretch just... that...much... further and snag a withered, but still edible and damn tasty in January (!!!) apple for dinner. They methodically spent some serious time pawing at the ground for fallen fruit as well as picked clean every one they could reach. There are a good dozen or so apples encircling the top like a crown. If i go knock them down, would they come back? Something tells me our visitors are repeaters...

And so I passed a pleasant (and physically challenging, if you are a soft mommy like me) hour tramping about the land below us, making note of the big trees, the grown in spots, the especially wet spots, where the sound of Rt. 131 started to get louder so that it felt unpleasant to continue going downhill... But mostly it was a pleasant hour of just me... and winter. A rare combination, (me alone, and a snowy winter like this!) but one i will gladly take as much as i can get.

Tomorrow: snow tunnels!!

Up for Air

Well readers (all 1 or 2 of you, whoever you are ;)...it's been a long stretch of bloglessness on the Ridge. Been pretty busy with a few things. Had a family trip out to CA. While there were certainly lovely moments, the whole thing cost a bundle and fried the kids right out. Fried the parents pretty crispy, too. And then we got home and the whole friggin thing came unwound for, like, another week. So. No more trips for a while. Just too damn hard.

Also been working my backside off on a never-ending project. Well that's not true; it's truly almost done, though there's another heavy one lined up right behind it. Sigh.

Good news is, had a great holiday. Kids received some great gifts, though not too much stuff. And the nice thing is that there wasn't any junk; just high-quality, thoughful, sometimes very personal gifts. Awesome. Plus Liam got a bunch of trucks and stuff that I got to play with ;) As always Kelly knit up a storm for lots of folks, finishing the last piece Christmas Eve. Anyhow, we're still decompressing a bit from that whole thing.

Hopefully, her blogger silence will come to an end here as well; on our trip she checked her laptop in her suitcase, which I always told her was a bad idea. This time I was proven right as on arrival, screen no worky so well. Back home several things lined up and I picked her up a new MacBook for her very own. No more hand-me-down machines. No more waiting for me to finish my work to get a little machine time. No more, ever, packing laptops in suitcases. We'll see now that the knitting's all done and the dust is settling ;)

On another fun note, the Fedco Tree and Seed catalogs are out!!!! W00t!!!! What is Fedco, you might ask? It's a cooperatively owned seed and nursery supply outfit. Not only are they an incredible supplier of organic goodness, especially organic goodness that will thrive in our zone 4/5 boundary, but they're just up the road in Waterville. How cool is that? So we've gone through and marked pears, peaches, cherries, kiwi, plums, strawberries, and grapes so far. No apples. Got too many apples already. Kelly's now working her way through the seeds. Suddenly our planned garden patches aren't looking so big. I mean, we've got 250 strawberry plants alone queued up ;)

Seriously though, looking through the trees got me so fired up about being here. Planning additions to the orchard, and planning about beginning the rehabilitation of trees that are there, gets me pretty emotional. Several times I blinked away tears as I read through the pages of varietals we can grow here. Our own food. Our own land. The blessings run deep. And as I spend time in the woods here, pruning and tending trees, I realize just how much I can do for them; I know how much they do for me...to be able to reciprocate makes the bottom fall out in a good way. Deep, good, soothing medicine, being the hands that trees simply don't have.

On the weather front, we're back to snow. First few weeks of December were down right white; had more than 2' of snow on the ground in places before a warm high pressure brought to bear over the weekend and rained. A bunch. Melted out most of what we had; what was left continued to melt in the balmy sunny 40's of the next few days. Initially I was pretty bummed by the setback in the local snow pack. It'll take the crew at Snow Bowl a fair bit to recover from that melt out unless we get some more big dumps. Today it snowed a couple more inches; nice to be cold out there again. Winter is quite possibly my favorite season...just so incredibly beautiful. And then there's snow boarding...

Went up to Sugarloaf last week for a day. 10 days ago they got 21" of freshies. By the time I got there it had all settled in and been groomed into perfect corduroy. Still some patches of soft stuff here and there, but mostly just big wide open groomers of hero snow. Snow that you can carve every which way. Snow that's deep and firm; holds an edge as hard as you want to carve it in. After a few runs of getting my boarding legs back and remembering all I'd learned last season, I realized that I had crossed into the space of physical prayer. Of moving meditation. Of an expression session. Where the board becomes a brush on a canvas of snow; each carve a stroke. And what shall this stroke become? A link of quick snap turns? a long swooping high speed carve? a pushed out tail? A drop into that little section of powpow I spied from the lift? The whole time grooving to whatever tunes come through the iPod. What a gift; the whole thing. I miss that space. I used to be there all the time on my bike when we lived in Santa Cruz. Out here though, there's just not the same opportunities to play in gravity; so I wait for winter to come, and then take my turns...