the EPIC week...

So, last Monday the urchins got on a school bus, waved good-bye to me, and began their first week of school. On Tuesday, they experienced an Emergency Evacuation of their school after an earthquake rocked their classroom (Big C reports that two kids in his class went to the ambulance after getting hit in the head with books that fell from a bookcase in his class, while the girls indicated that the falling ceiling tiles - and crying classmates - were the extent of the damage over in their classroom). They literally disembarked from the bus that afternoon with nothing but the clothes on their backs - no backpacks, no lunch boxes, no coats, nothing. Seems that, once the Evacuation of the school took place, they weren't allow to re-enter the building.

Which brings us to Wednesday.
Wednesday school was canceled so that all school buildings could be inspected and deemed safe after the earthquake.
So we went to a local orchard and picked apples. And peaches. And Asian pears.

On Thursday, the children were told by a fellow classmate about the impending hurricane. On Friday, they watched as millions of stressed out adults prepared for the upcoming hurricane by rushing about like brainless twits, purchasing bottles of over-priced water and shiny generators...(in my defense, I did neither. Although I DID buy extra wine for the pantry and a new chain for the chainsaw).

It was rather an Epic First Week of School.

And as a completely anticlimactic denouement to this fine drama, the much-ballyhooed hurricane was a non-event in our part of the world. We've had worse storms - with ZERO media coverage - in the past, that took down more trees and did more damage than Hurricane Irene. Our loss last night was one large tree down by the creek, and a bunch of branches from some of the older black walnut trees. Our power line, which runs snakily through the woods for half a mile before reaching the relative safety of our side road, remained unscathed. So you might say that we dodged at least one bullet...

Alternatively, you might say that I shall never watch the alarmist show known as "The Weather Channel" ever again. Either way.....

yo, chicken little, it ain't the sky....

The earthquake was quite epic. I was in my car, and pulled over because I was certain that the engine was falling out and I was about to irately and self-righteously piss-dial my mechanic and give him a "piece of my mind"...how else to explain the sudden shaking sensation of the vehicle???? Then a dude pulled up beside me in a pickup truck and informed me that the earth had moved....(for all of us, actually) and, well, the whole thing was a little embarrassing. I sped home - while futilely trying to call and text on my now completely USELESS cell phone (all the cell towers immediately jammed in the area). Grace, the au pair, was standing in the doorway of the house looking more than a little freaked out....I had assured her, over a year ago, BEFORE SHE CAME TO VIRGINIA, that we NEVER EVER had silly things like tornadoes or earthquakes in THIS part of the world....I am now batting two for two....let's see, there was that tornado a few months ago that swept past the house and now....THIS.

She was in the farmhouse and when the whole place started shaking, she wisely exited the building and stood outside while listening to the sound of things smashing in the house. Good call on her part. My au pair proves yet again that she keeps her wits about her when the rest of us are busy, erm, inspecting their undercarriage...

Damage to the house was mostly annoying and cosmetic, I think. Our well water is coming up funky brown, which is a little disturbing.....all of the bookshelves in the rooms upstairs were emptied of their contents, as was the medicine cabinet shelf in my bathroom, and some of the shelves in the pantry. When the glass containers hit the ground they made a nice mess of shattered glass and sticky/liquidy contents, so there was plenty of clean up to do. We have some Very Impressive Cracks in the plaster walls and ceilings in the old part of the house. All the pictures on the walls look like they were hung by a bunch of one-armed drunks....and things in the cabinets crept perilously close to the edge, so we're sort of wandering around adjusting stuff as we go....note to self : post earthquake, open all cabinet doors SLOWLY AND CAUTIOUSLY!!!

The urchins were at school and were completely traumatized. They had an emergency evacuation and were sent home on the buses with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Today, in lieu of a "snow day" we have a "post earthquake day", while all schools are inspected and deemed safe for - hopefully - return tomorrow. Shall write more about THAT, later!!

Just when I think life cannot possibly get any nuttier, well, it does. I clearly need to STOP having thoughts like "can this get any *&^%$# Nuttier?" because it displays a massive lack of imagination on my part. The simple answer is, yes, yes it CAN get nuttier, sweetheart. Just WAIT AND SEE.

Kindergarten, and first grade. Started today. First time for ANYBODY to take a school bus. First time for ANYBODY to spend an entire FREAKING day at school. First time for Muma to say "bye bye" to a school bus with some strange old dude driving away with her three precious sweet babies on it. GAHHHHHHHHHHH.


Still calm and composed...waiting...waiting at the end of the lane way....
Look! The bus! Here it is!

I am about to put the Three Most Important Human Beings in The Entire World on some giant yellow tin-can on wheels with no car-seats, no seat-belts, and driven by a man I have never met. Suddenly, this allllll seems like a Very Bad Idea. (Reminds me of this one time at a Dead show....but I digress....)

And then, they hopped on, waved merrily good-bye, and it seemed terribly terribly quiet on the homestead.



The good news is, they returned safe and sound and exhausted at the end of the day...and they tell me they want to do it again, tomorrow!

But I keep reminding them...My babies will always be my babies, no matter how many buses they ride...

your happy place.....

The best part about going to your Happy Place? Finding out somebody built a Happy Pavilion. How awesome is that? Now to find the Happy Bar.....

A long while...

Apologies for the long time since a post. Summer was a blur of activity, with camps and friends and waaaaay too much heat and lots of craziness. But now that fall is closing in, and now - more importantly - that the urchins are headed to school, I'm hoping to get back a little more time to do things that need doing. Attending to this blog, for starters...and working on the farm and looking for paid work, too...(anybody know anybody in the Park Service in Virginia? Please hire me.)

So, that said, there are many many pictures to post!
Let's get started, shall we?

One of the more crazybatshit ideas that the au pair and I came up with this summer was running our own camp at the farm for a week. It was a ridiculous amount of prep work (given that we were unpaid, unskilled and pretty much looking to just provide a bunch of kids with something to do to make their minds NOT TURN TO PUDDING), but I am absolutely certain that my urchins enjoyed it beyond belief...and the other kiddos who joined us seemed to have a pretty wonderful time, too. Each day had a theme, and each theme had lots of activities and arts and crafts and outdoor time. The coolest part? We all learned! And while I often suspect that the urchins are tuning me out entirely, I am shocked to report that they actually absorbed a lot about forest ecosystems and trees and how plants work.
I know, astounding, right?
And the only reason I know they learned ANYTHING is because - a few weeks later - we attended a camp out in the Shenandoahs for a week. A camp that included a hike with a park ranger from the George Washington National Forest...and the urchins actually ANSWERED the park ranger's questions. And my heart burst with equal parts pride and astonishment.

Frightening, really.

The urchins are listening....

Farm camp photos:




Lunch on the trail in the Shenandoahs:

Thanks to Uncle R.

Grene and Grandstan and Uncle Richard and Auntie Lynn came to visit a little while ago. It was beyond wonderful to see them all, and it was beyond wonderful to walk around my farm with my Dad and show him what I've done with the place since he last saw it (ummm, when there still weren't even walls inside, and outside was utter chaos - I don't think the windows were even in yet).

We also played tourist and visited our local Jail Museum, where Uncle Richard snapped this shot of the kiddos with Grace. Just had to share it with you all.....

Yeah, baby.
And it tastes spectacular.

Sunday morning was a brilliant day of sunshine and promising warmth, with nothing on the docket. So, I made an executive decision to haul the urchins and the visiting good friend Chad off for a little local berry-picking. Since we still haven't figured out the "best" places to go to pick-our-own produce, I simply googled, took a wild guess, and set off to find a nearby berry patch. We have utterly missed strawberry season(which means, sniff, no strawberry jam this year, sob, sniff) but we found raspberries and blueberries at a little spot about half-an-hour west of town. Enough for raspberry jam and several bags of frozen blueberries, whose destiny is almost certain to be the crowning glory of our homemade pancakes...

Yum.

Chad also found this absolutely fascinating little chrysalis. It looks for all the world like a little gold and silver jewel - extremely beautiful. It also started to jig and jump most mysteriously after we brought it into the car with us for the journey back home.
This morning, as we sat down to breakfast (toast with LOTS of homemade raspberry jam being the centerpiece), the urchins suddenly realized that the chrysalis was now a butterfly!!!! How cool is THAT?
While Chad and I had hoped to have discovered a whole new species of butterfly (and thus enshrine our names in the annals of scientific journals for all time) I am afraid further research reveals it to likely be a Variegated Fritillary butterfly.

I tried to download my pictures to the most awesome website "www.whatsthatbug.com" but couldn't seem to get my computer to obey my commands...so my bestest-googled-guess will have to be the Fritillary. Which I am now struggling to pronounce.

Is it three syllables, like, frit-till-larry? Or more like a two syllable word, like "fri-tillery"? Anybody? Any ideas?

Summer Swim

I don't remember the exact moment I learned to swim. I am told by my mother that, when I was barely a toddler, I fell into the swimming pool at home and - despite all expectations - failed to bob to the surface...instead, apparently, I curled up in the fetal position at the bottom of the pool and just hung out there. Until my panic-stricken Mum jumped in - fully clothed - and hauled me out. Ummm, thanks, Mum.

But there are many amazing memories of swimming that I DO carry with me...from the countless lakes in Algonquin Park to the Eel River in Humboldt County...from the USVI turquoise warmth to the intensely mind-numbing water in Alaska, with lots of territory in-between. So you might say that swimming is an important part of my life experience.
And I want the urchins to share that. I want them to experience the joy of splashing around in the waters of the world. And of course, I want them to be safe around the water - if they fall in, I want them to be able to swim like a little fish, and get to where it's safe. Right? Right.

Hence our Second Summer of Swim Lessons.
Sigh.
It's modestly epic in that Big C. isn't at ALL keen to get his face/eyes/ears/hair wet. At all.
Period.
This, as you might imagine, makes Swim Lessons a tad challenging.
For ALL concerned.
Kindly send your most potent Learn To Swim Vibes our way this summer, won't you?
I'd be ever so grateful.....

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

-william carlos williams




So, when your life starts to reflect back to you in poetry, that's a good thing, right?
(Well, ALMOST, but not quite....the chickens weren't agreeable to having their photo shoot with a wheelbarrow...they're kinda cranky that way...).

Front row, second in from the left, with the up-swept dark hair, looking a little like Audrey Hepburn?...that's Chelsea. My niece. She's amazing.

She's graduating from high school this year, and we had the opportunity to go see her final production - singing and dancing the night away - as a high schooler. Her solo was brilliant. What can I say? She's headed to college in the fall, and although I've only known her for 8 years, I stand in awe of the little girl who has grown into this incredible woman.

Also? Ohmigod I'm feeling old.....

The Graduates...

My girls have officially graduated from Preschool!!! Not only was there a ceremony, replete with "mortarboards" and marching down the chapel aisle, but we also got to have a picnic afterwards,in the school playground. In the fall, we will start Kindergarten! Whoot!
This means ALL the urchins will be at school full time....and if one more person says "what will you do with your time?" I'm gonna haul off and smack'em. I'm thinking rest. And then work the 60 acre farm I own. And work on the 200 year old farmhouse I live in. And get a part-time job to make some money and get health insurance...and continue to raise the three little ones so that this will be the first of MANY graduations (yes, I do expect PhDs from all of them. Got a problem with that?). So, yeah, I'm pretty sure I'll keep busy....

Dinosaur?

The children went to collect eggs....and came back with three normal eggs and one GIGANTOR. We have a theory that, whilst we were sleeping, a dinosaur came by, and, needing a place to lay her eggs, peered into our coop and found it to be Just The Place. We have Very Friendly Hens. So, they offered up one of their nesting boxes to use, and promised to take good care of the egg until morning.
Quinn has suggested we run some "experiments" on Gigantor.
Very inquisitive....not sure if this will lead to a career in paleontology, ornithology or mad science...stay tuned....

Farewell to Peonies...

The last of the peonies...until next year, then....

Morning dew on the asparagus ferns....soooooo pretty.
The urchins tell me the fairies use these for Christmas trees....

The Strawberry Fairy

In February, Caden and I planted a bunch of sorry looking rootlets in one of the raised beds in our vegetable garden. The rootlets had arrived via mail, bunched with a rubber band and tossed into a box, and they looked Very Unpromising. You see, I was lured, nay, seduced, by pictures of luscious red strawberries on the Gurney's website ( what can I say? I'm easily seduced when there's nothing but dead trees out my window and snow on the ground....) So, I ordered strawberry plants...online....and when they arrived I was MORE than skeptical...

The catalog patiently explains that a real crop of strawberries can take two to three years ( a fact I guess I had overlooked in my enthusiasm to have strawberries! In my garden! And they looked so pretty!!!).
But miracle of miracles, those scrawny little roots grew leaves, and flowers...and we actually got our first little wee crop of strawberries yesterday morning - just 4 months after planting them - and the best part? They taste AMAZING!

My strawberry-picking crew is now VERY motivated to collect more!

The Library

The library wasn't exactly a "library" in the beginning....when I first laid eyes on my house, this room was Uncle Larry's Indoor Shed, replete with the "artifactual" history of farm equipment from the 1900s to about 1965. The rats and squirrels had added their own unique collection to the display as well, and because there was no glass in the window, the room had a certain patina of bird poo which, while fragrant, added very little to the overall charm of the room. Motor oil (and other liquids of dubious origin) were deeply absorbed into the hardwood floors here, and I was assured by the floor-refinishing guys that there was "no way" they could save it. Thankfully, they were wrong....

The Kitchen

The kitchen....wasn't actually the kitchen when we first got to the farm...I think this was - once upon a time - the "dining room".


(The actual kitchen was in the brick addition to the right of the main body of the house...termed a "summer kitchen", it was in an advanced state of disrepair and had to be torn down early on in the renovation process.)

So, here's the kitchen now:



The only thing that "made the cut" was the floorboards...and, yes, the kitchen is cluttered full of crap in this picture, but this really is what it looks like everyday...and besides, I'm not exactly doing a "Better Homes and Gardens" spread here...

One of these things....

So, a few more "before and after" shots sounded kind of amusing....here's Uncle Larry's front room BEFORE we renovated the house....Uncle Larry had a sort of "collector's chic/pack rat" decorative flair, don't you think?





And here is the same room, after we tarted it up a bit, added glass to the windows, added heating/plumbing/electricity and got rid of the snakes/rats/squirrels/insects....the three urchins deeply engrossed in their Leapster games were an added bonus that I thought gave the room a certain "je ne sais quoi"...

Anniversary

Hullo World!
Today marks a notable event in the history of the farm...we have officially been living here now for one, whole, year. Three hundred and sixty-five days - more or less - have elapsed since Josie, the kids and I walked through the front door and set fire to the stove (it was an exciting first day at the farmhouse, I assure you).

Time does funny things these days for me....sometimes it goes by so achingly slowly,it's as if The Great Someone has put everything on Pause and I can't quite seem to find the LIFE remote....and then, suddenly, as only Time can do, I look behind me and there are a million days gone, like a string of traffic with their lights on at night, blinking in the rearview mirror....and I think - whoa, wait a minute, what just happened? How did I get HERE so quickly?
So, here I am.

I suppose now would be the time to reflect upon all the good things that have happened here over the past year - there have been many, many blessings...many wonderful friends who have helped and nurtured and loved us, many fine moments sharing food and laughter and dammit all, joy. I think, perhaps, that joy is made all the richer because, let's face it, there have been some dark moments this year, too. It's hard to write about what it feels like to be left walking down life's path on your own, with three children as your cohort (and yes, I DO mean as a "group of warriors" - look it up for yourself, if you must)...but we are THAT, and more....

So, that said, thank you to all of you who have helped us to be more, to be here, to be able to take this path, live on this farm, and face all our battles with wit and courage...and thanks to those of you who are rolling your eyes at the gross sentimentality of this whole damn thing. You're the ones who keep me grounded!

Peony

I love peonies. They smell divine - seriously, if heaven exists, it probably smells like peonies - and they are beautiful to behold. Their blooms don't last too far into the season, and they are often difficult to grow - but once they get established, they are the prettiest things spring has to offer. Serendipitously, two peony bushes were amongst some of the very very few things to survive from the era of Uncle Larry, and the era of The Monstrous Renovation. (A handful of irises, two scrawny Rose of Sharon sticks and the daffodils I wrote about earlier were the only other survivors...).






I almost hate to cut them, but seeing this on my windowsill every morning just makes the world seem a better place. Maybe the world just needs more peonies on it's windowsills....

This is my tractor.
For those of you who care about these things (and therefore are likely to be Somebody I Don't Know - Hi ! I know nothing about tractors, but thanks for dropping by!)it is a Kioti KL 401. One actually pronounces it "coyote" - see, they were being all cute and kinda gangsta-rap-like by spelling the word incorrectly, but utilizing phonetics. Isn't that nifty?
In keeping with the whole ignore-rules-of-correct grammar, the Owner's Manual is an absolute delight of incomprehensible directions, obfuscation, discombobulation and drunken syntax.
This makes learning how to operate (a piece of machinery that will happily chew you up for breakfast in one of a dozen unpleasant ways, and is Therefore Worthy Of Respect) just a tad challenging.

So, in the interest of educational awareness, I am going to make up my own bloody manual. I shall call it "My Own Bloody Manual". Catchy, no?




A pivotal thing to learn is how to operate the wee attachment on the back of the tractor. People in these parts call it a "Brush Hog". As in "I'm brush-hoggin' the field by the woods today" or "what that field needs is a good brush-hoggin'". I call it a Really Frigging Loud Mower, or alternatively, "the-thing-in-the-back".

Given that I spent a better part of yesterday figuring out how to raise and lower the thing-in-the-back, I thought I should share with you the THREE. SEPARATE. GADGETS. That must be toyed with simply to get the damn mower to go up and down.
Clearly, men design tractors. It's time to put a woman on the task, because this is ridiculous.
Behold:

This is one of Quinn's chickens.
They are called "Golden Polish".
And I love them.
I think I had that Exact Same Hairdo in the mid-eighties. I, however, added flair with my Flashdance shirts with the shoulder exposed. Maybe I'll make some for the Polish chicks....

Mother's Day - A Review....

Let's just say that being a single Mom on Mother's Day AND being immersed in a culture that trumpets flowers/breakfast-in-bed/Hallmark cards/Mommy-gets-a-day-off,etc. etc. is just one more myth that I'd like to strap a kilo of dynamite to, and blast into the stratosphere.
Let's be frank, shall we? Orchestrating your own Mother's Day celebration with three cranky urchins who - as individuals - each have their own INDIVIDUAL IDEAS about how the day should proceed equals one f*&^%k of a lot of work for Muma. Period.

Trying to convince them to do Nothing For Me (because really, that would be EASIER on me) resulted in tears. Trying to convince them that we could all go and I'd buy a nice plant from the local nursery, resulted in tears. Trying to explain that making me dinner by themselves might result in an emergency room visit and/or fire and rescue call, resulted in tears. Additional tears were shed for reasons I have now forgotten....

Soooooo, we made necklaces. Baked and decorated cookies. Went to the nursery and got a pomegranate tree to plant in honor of the day (because the Son thought it was a pretty good idea after all). And I made three meals and two snacks, cleaned up three meals,and two snacks, vacuumed up (twice) all the spilled sprinkles from cookie decorating, assisted in the beading process for four necklaces, cleaned spilled beads out from between the floorboard cracks in the breakfast room,pried beads from the salivating mouth of the pug (twice), fed/watered/cleaned chickens and dogs, and finally, bathed, dressed and tucked into bed three Very Tired Urchins...so really, it was a regular kind of Sunday.....

Don't get me wrong. My urchins are wonderful. But Mother's Day is for them, not for me...which, I guess, just makes me a Mother....sigh...

So, when the water is doing THIS to your driveway, that's bad, right?

Or is it worse that you actually think, "hmmm, dude, a few more inches of rain and I could TOTALLY clear that in my canoe...hey, kids? where are your life-jackets?".....

Once again, I'm afraid the Mommy-of-the Year Award is slipping from my grasp....

The Motley Crew - redux.

Tim Horton's for a Donut Fix:


The Butterfly Conservatory - brilliant!

Sigh. I know, I know, MORE group pictures.
Whatever.
It proves we are a social group, even if my siblings are actually only together an average of once every 5 years...also, I would like to add that Tim Horton's really needs to hire themselves an interior decorator - or at least jaunt down to the local Starving Artist Sale and slap a few paintings on the wall....what's with the health code as framed artwork?

Spring Gives Way...

Spring sprung here with the arrival of the daffodils - their green stems pushing up through a late snow or two and their gorgeous yellow blossoms scattered across our front lawn. I'm not sure who might have planted the daffodils, or how long ago that might have been, but they were such a welcome sight after this crap winter we'd had, that I have vowed, this fall, to plant happy-bringing bulbs of my own around the place. There is simply nothing to compare to the feeling of spring flowers appearing - how can spring NOT be the best season of all?

That said, the daffodils are now departing the scene, and we have actual leaves on actual trees here, and actual grass that is in desperate need of mowing (oh,hey, THAT'S what I didn't like about summer...I'm starting to remember, now...). Also? Summer? Means ticks. Voracious, sneaky, underhanded, disease-ridden ticks. They're baaaaack.
Frankly, I think I prefer lingering in daffodil season just a tad longer....

The Firstest Bestest Trinket (with apologies to my English teachers over the years...)

My first-est, best-est trinket is this picture of my folks - with the urchins - from last Christmas. Yes, the lighting was bad, the image is grainy and some of us have expressions even Norman Rockwell wouldn't care to capture, but *I* think it is wonderful.