tea and lilies

hot tea and the sweet, subtle, crisp fragrance of lilies of the valley~ that's nice

yesterday/today

yesterday~  crazy downpour, thunder, lightening, high wind.....

today~

Aside from reveling in the beauty that is today, we are enjoying a visit from Claire's uncle Kevin, drinking good coffee, listening to the birds, playing in the garden and trying to convince the hens that laying strikes are not where it's at.  Oh, and car shopping.  Not as pleasant as the other things, but unfortunately necessary.  My little Saturn wagon that could has kicked the bucket, I fear, with a cracked cylinder and head gasket, and other things as well.  Hmph.  If you know of a wagon or roomy hatchback with many miles left to go and 30mpg or better, I'd love a heads up!

For now, back to the birdsong and sunshine.

cheers~

keeping it in perspective

So we've been in this house, our home, for about 16 months now.  We closed at the end of October (2009) and moved in just before New Year's.

We have done A LOT.  By which I mean some skilled and experienced tradesmen have done a bit, Mike has done a ton, and I have done a bit here and there.

But somehow, sometimes, it is so easy to forget about all that has been accomplished and focus way too much on the little things that remain on the lengthy list.  Things like light fixtures being put in place, switch plate covers attached, drywall putty sanded for (hopefully) one last time and walls painted, floors finished, insulation tended to, etc, etc, etc.  Things that really, when it comes down to it, don't matter all that much but when you spend so much time at home staring at them it is sometimes difficult to ignore.

Did you hear that, self?  I just wrote that these things really don't matter.  Those were my words.  Let it sink in......


But oh, the things we have accomplished.  A new roof, new windows with the exception of three that we hope to one day replace with doors opening onto a deck (uh huh... one day), gravel added to the driveway, wood floors refinished (thanks Nana and Grandpop), fully rewired electrical (thanks Dave and Kevin), updated plumbing, fenced in yard, new bathroom plumbed (and now being used as storage), mudroom added, insulated, sided and stained, new front step railings, new paint on almost all the walls, south side of the house stained to match the rest, new tile floor and tub surround in the bathroom, new sink and medicine cabinet, woodshed built, raised beds built, chimney lined and woodstove insert installed, added hens to the family and soon, bees...... it's an impressive list, really.

Oh, and something else that we've accomplished in those 16 months (well, nearly 15 of them anyway)?  Loving and raising and enjoying our beautiful daughter.  That's got to count for something.  A whole lot of somethings.  I'd say that really, we could throw out the other lists and still be sitting in a house painted like Easter eggs with a faulty electrical system and plumbing running against gravity and a nasty bathroom floor and even then, because of her, we'd be doing alright.  Perhaps slightly more frustrated about the state of things, but most definitely alright.  Better than alright.

On the days I find myself fretting over switch plates and peeling trim I need only slow down, look around with gratitude, and remind myself that I already have everything I need.  Right here.  Right now.  And when I find myself thinking about how life will be so much nicer and easier when this, that, or the other happens, is finished, or can be afforded..... well that is when I really have to give myself a kick in the arse and remember to keep things in perspective.  Life, for me, is about living.  About loving and smiling and laughing, sometimes crying, and about just being.  Sometimes on my own, but especially with those who mean the most to me.  Life is not about freshly painted kitchen cabinets, french doors opening onto a deck with a hot tub, a new bathroom and resurfaced walkways.  Sure, things like that are nice.  Very nice.  But they don't make or break our days and lives.

Here's to keeping it in perspective, to recognizing the beauty in what we already have and what we've surrounded ourselves with.  Most likely, it's more than enough.  As is.

simply ten

10 things, simply ten things, bringing me joy right now

*the sounds coming out of Claire's mouth these days.... she is so clearly sure of exactly what she's saying
*enjoying breakfast with my girl as we watch the world wake up through the dining room window
*getting my hands in the dirt again.  and again.  and again.
*Pandora stations (lately it's been a lot of the Lisa Loeb & Elizabeth Mitchell children's station, Van Morrison, and Madeleine Peyroux....)
*a good cup of coffee (or tea, preferably English Breakfast or some homemade chai)
*a day spent watching the rain and listening to thunder, followed by a day of sunshine on my shoulders
*the sweet sound of fiddles, bluegrass style, that makes me wanna skip around a meadow barefoot
(inspired by a Foghorn Stringband song that is now playing on the Avett Brothers station)
*talking and laughing, really talking and laughing, with my love
*anxiously awaiting our honeybees
*daydreaming of trips to come



thanks, Amanda for inspiring this post

a beautiful weekend~

Following a dreary and rainy end of the week, we were blessed with a gorgeous weekend here in Western NC.  I spent a fair amount of time in the garden filling the new raised bed, planting bean seeds, seeding a flat of flowers, starting some cucumbers and squash (only 3, I was good) and seeding a bed of native wildflowers and grasses on the south side of the house.  Laundry was hung, walks were taken, toes were dipped in the creek, and Easter eggs were hunted.

On Saturday we took Claire to her first Easter egg hunt, a big community event at the primary school that is conveniently located at the other end of the greenway that has it's terminus just a few blocks from our home.  I wondered how she would be able to find eggs and whether they would get all smushed and gross in her basket.  And then we saw the playground where the 4 and under crowd were to do their hunting and it was clear that 1) it wouldn't be so hard for her to find them after all,

and 2) they wouldn't get all smushed because they were plastic eggs (of course they were! what was I thinking? that they were going to boil and dye 4,000 real eggs? Needless to say, this was my first big Easter egg hunt)

We handed her a basket and she took off and stood right at the gate, cutting in line and cutely swinging her basket around.  Maybe it's intuitive, the finding of the portal into the egg hunt... I don't know.

Once the time came to open the gate I scooped her up so as not to have her trampled by the coming wave of 2-3 year olds, and safely placed her on the hunting grounds.  She figured it out pretty quickly and ended up with 7 little eggs in her basket and several trips taken down the various slides.  Afterwards, Mike and I snagged the smarties and tootsie rolls out of the eggs (and the teeny tiny little erasers that I decided I'd rather not find on their way out, if you know what I mean) and watched as she explored and wandered a bit.

An Easter basket from Nana and Grandpop surprised us in the mail and contained the perfect little trio of gifts for Claire~ bubbles, hair clips, and a cute little outfit.  She loves watching bubbles.  Almost as much as she loves shaking the container.  And the hair clips?  Well, all I can say is it's about dang time I started harnessing that girl's bangs!  She looks so different with them pulled back~ so grown up, so cute.  Sigh.

That night the three of us went out to dinner.  We do that so very infrequently and I enjoyed it so very much.  We sat outside, we laughed and talked, stress from the week seemed to melt away a bit, Claire worked hard to keep the older gentleman next to us in the game of peek-a-boo that he started not knowing just what he'd gotten himself into, we ate some really delicious food, and followed it with a little playing around in the grass nearby.  (I can't help but reread that line and think how, before baby, it would have meant something else entirely...)

On Sunday afternoon Claire and I met up with her little buddy Keegan down by the creek and the mamas caught up while the little ones got their toes (or in his case, entire body) in the water, played with sticks, threw rocks into the creek and ran around.  I know, I'm probably supposed to be teaching her not to play with sticks and throw rocks, but she's my girl and well, those are just things we're gonna be doing.  Yes, I will teach her not to poke sticks into people's eyes and not to throw rocks at any living things, but seriously, sticks and rocks are way more fun than most of the crap out there, dontcha think?

'twas a beautiful Easter weekend indeed.

cheers!

this moment

this moment: A Friday tradition with Soulemama. One moment from this week, one that you want to hang onto and not forget. No words. 

two of the beautiful flowers in our yard;

taking the lettuce drawer out of the fridge

A different kind of produce drawer, or, what to do with an old under-the-oven drawer that has seen better days:

drill some holes, sit it on a bed of gravel, fill it with soil, plant some lettuce mix in it and voila! a handy little extension of a raised bed

also in our garden these days:

growing tomato seedlings,

a happy strawberry bed,

one of our two new heirloom and native to Western NC apple trees,

the little grapevine that could,

another bed on it's way,

a curious Margaret wanting to know just what that silly black eye on my face is,

a slowly dwindling pile of logs being turned into next year's wood pile, currently taking up about 1/3 of our driveway,

and an iris ready to burst amidst a jungle of day lilies.

Spring.  Far and away my most anticipated season.  Autumn is, I think, my favorite of all, but I don't long for it the way I do spring.  I know I'm not alone on this.

I'm thinking my focus for the next week will likely be on what's going on out of doors around here, since that's where I'm spending most of my time.  On the immediate list: plant our fig trees, transplant peonies, seed a perennial wildflower and native grasses bed, hook up the rain barrels, fill the new bed and add two more smaller ones, start more seeds, work on the wood pile, sift some compost...... that should keep us busy for a bit!

Inside, we're doing some rearranging in anticipation of readying a room for our little lass.  It's a slow and steady process, one I'm not really in a hurry to complete.  I know she'll still be spending a lot of time in our room with us for a while yet, but think it'll be good for her to start feeling out a space of her own.  I'm having a lot of fun thinking about fun things to do in that space, reading about creative ideas, and imagining how it will all take shape.  And, I'm always open to ideas.

cheers~

lice are species specific

Oh yes, indeed they are.  I made sure.  About six hundred million times.  But I'm still itchy just thinking about it.

Our new hen has lice.  Avian lice.  Oh joy.

The solution?  A cleaning of the roost and coop, new bedding, and a dousing of both the living quarters and the girls with food grade diatomaceous earth.  What fun.  I certainly wasn't going to powder them all up with Sevin dust like some of the books recommend.  For many reasons, for sure, but if you can't eat your hens' eggs for a week after putting some nasty powder on them, do you really think you should be using it in the first place?  Come on folks, this isn't rocket science here.  Stuff like that has no place in our food system.  How did we ever let them get there anyway?  But that's a whole other post....

I discovered the lice because I found a little bugger crawling on me (!) after handling our new hen.  She seems to prefer humankind over her own, so she and I have been hanging out a lot.  If Claire or I sit down in their fenced in area, she comes right up and sticks her cute little chicken face right in ours and cocks her head from side to side like she's waiting for us to do something.  Something that seems obvious to her, but not so much to us silly humans.

By the way, her name is Margaret.

Does everyone name their birds?  I mean, I know it isn't generally recommended if you plan on eating them, but these girls are just for eggs.  For now, anyway.  I have a lot of fun picking out names for just about anything, but I had a particularly good time with these ladies.  Pearl, Mabel and Margaret.  Can't you just see them in their silly aprons and perfectly styled bobs running around the house getting things in order before good ol' Mr. Rooster comes home for the evening expecting a dinner plate hot and ready?

So anyway, back to those pesky lice.

The hens and I got real intimate for this diatomaceous earth dusting.  I was definitely in their personal space.  Mike felt the need to capture the moment on film.  Here I am, in all my dust mask hen bathing glory.

And no, I'm not about 16 weeks pregnant..... I just have poor posture.  Yes, that's it, poor posture.  (a completely, ahem, unrelated aside....making a chocolate sheet cake for your husband when you aren't having a party and it's just going to sit there until the two of you eat it?  Not so great for 'posture')

Claire wasn't sure what to make of mama in that silly mask, running around the hen yard trying to catch Pearl.....

But we all turned out alright in the end.  Hopefully those little creepy crawlies are well on their way to be completely dessicated right about now.

a quick trip south

We just got back from a few days spent in Florida with my grandmother and aunt.  It was a long drive for such a brief visit, but Claire needs to see her people, you know?  Especially her great grandparents.  My grandmother is magical, and Claire just loved her to pieces~

We relaxed, ate a lot of good food, took the little boat out onto the lake, and that was about it.....

Some photos, to sum it up: