tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43539609682242062142024-03-04T21:12:06.015-08:00farm suiteIt's not the penthouse nor a pigpen (very often), but it does come with an ensuite bath and a built-in minibar (peanut butter crackers and apple juice, anyone?).Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.comBlogger607125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-60926351253772672402021-04-12T14:06:00.002-07:002021-04-12T14:06:33.485-07:00<p>Small and likely irrelevant secret: I have 48 posts in draft from the missing five-plus years. The short(er) version: In five years, two of our beautiful children have become adults and made new adventures for themselves performing and choreographing and photographing around the world. One of our children became an athlete in ways I never could have expected, lettering in the foreign worlds of cross country running and swimming. Our youngest, it turns out, is a baseball player. Never fear, though, the theatres are still our home, because our youngest girl is a dancer and performer still. ALSO in that five years, I was lucky enough to see Paris and Amsterdam. Right after that I made a huge change from homeschooling mom and became a library director at the prettiest little library I know. That change meant our three kids still at home started to attend public school in our small town. My husband made a huge change too, and closed his consulting business to become an engineer for that small town. We finished the attic into a "home library" that actually sees a lot of use as a sewing room and game room. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2d_tlRgkKAvN40wQVpEcXDEpDaOW_UCick9ZABQQkgzciV7XlZ815d2YdteNBe4YCg560ub1sekClMcpZ5AqI6CElPyC2GhAWf5hpbXS63Zr_QUse4JaNgAjosXJbLGXEvaqKlqyA3AE/s1785/sal+staircase.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1785" data-original-width="1123" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2d_tlRgkKAvN40wQVpEcXDEpDaOW_UCick9ZABQQkgzciV7XlZ815d2YdteNBe4YCg560ub1sekClMcpZ5AqI6CElPyC2GhAWf5hpbXS63Zr_QUse4JaNgAjosXJbLGXEvaqKlqyA3AE/s320/sal+staircase.jpg" /></a></p><p>In five years, our farm has lost a pony, a beloved ewe, and three dogs to that disappointment known as "animals don't live long enough." There's too much heartbreak in the passing of Dolly, JJane, Molly, Murphy, and Lucy. Samwise the Morgan gelding holds court with a newer generation of hens. We await new goats and lambs. This last year's wildfires and pandemic meant no spring chicks but our little flock of orpingtons cluck and peck their brave way. My garden is smaller and more productive. I have a notebook full of plans for permaculture beds, fruit tree guilds, and old-fashioned hedgerows. We planted oak and fir trees and a crabapple just this fall.</p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjatUwAMEk0W0z_gGhNc6bEpwIqblPQUkxqFRtT_PeH2dvzQp10fr5xpE-weWTMeOFfXnyF0KIGJwCol1vybMmiOMee_2r3aVb6EUnKF7QzVoea-eM0O1oeioQtA2lGbvVp5LUtQuChI3E/s2016/cuppa.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2016" data-original-width="1512" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjatUwAMEk0W0z_gGhNc6bEpwIqblPQUkxqFRtT_PeH2dvzQp10fr5xpE-weWTMeOFfXnyF0KIGJwCol1vybMmiOMee_2r3aVb6EUnKF7QzVoea-eM0O1oeioQtA2lGbvVp5LUtQuChI3E/s320/cuppa.jpg" /></a></p><p>Since we last visited here, the world has changed as have we all. Blogging seems to have found a new purpose, though, and I'm here for it. I'm here for the hope of connection and the hope of figuring things out via keystrokes.</p><p>In a pandemic time: My world travels consist of upstairs to downstairs, passing the maps, British mystery shows, novels set in foreign lands.</p><p>School is made of books, virtual D&D, coffee on couches and political discussions at the breakfast table. There is more to say about this unlikely return to homeschool, but that's a series of posts.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Days are less busy. Dance and theatre and sports are on the longest pause of our lives.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilKmOVlOlCmlfqLNgiroJvgabbcigMGL7eJrgq0iFPym9ZZJa9Z4SL1MqgubMeYsuztYKFyCQnVmlRZAZVHJPuJKf2HDLLMo7UsyOSSV5JRlA2AdFlcV_JJX85gk9pdVcGQWNw9XykoyY/s1704/frosty+morning.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1704" data-original-width="1489" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilKmOVlOlCmlfqLNgiroJvgabbcigMGL7eJrgq0iFPym9ZZJa9Z4SL1MqgubMeYsuztYKFyCQnVmlRZAZVHJPuJKf2HDLLMo7UsyOSSV5JRlA2AdFlcV_JJX85gk9pdVcGQWNw9XykoyY/s320/frosty+morning.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDI038hskyeQgso4EDiNudN5C3HSuNMe8rVsVZpxvJehNsHAZEBj9RQi9bp-qvJjMCP0UkURdtgBcAPjKr5v3bOpdwKUpCQHK0NOhiVPsQlN2En6bk305L-M_5VfJlMFXROn2G4hYehHw/s1783/bellfountain.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="924" data-original-width="1783" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDI038hskyeQgso4EDiNudN5C3HSuNMe8rVsVZpxvJehNsHAZEBj9RQi9bp-qvJjMCP0UkURdtgBcAPjKr5v3bOpdwKUpCQHK0NOhiVPsQlN2En6bk305L-M_5VfJlMFXROn2G4hYehHw/s320/bellfountain.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>We will emerge changed.<div><br /></div><div>We will emerge.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p></div>Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-45406351571610868802015-04-13T11:34:00.002-07:002015-04-13T11:34:50.682-07:00Because I Wish You Were Here<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-1106617491341372232015-02-05T11:31:00.001-08:002015-02-05T11:31:27.063-08:00First frost, two teens, public school defended, other shocking points of interest<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This year our first frost took me by surprise. Everything in the garden turned out okay, tucked in under manure and coffee grounds and maple leaves, thanks to my amazing team (of child labor, a-hem). I do have to remember to wrap the resurrected fig tree though, before temperatures dip much lower at night.<br />
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When last year's hard winter apparently killed my fig tree I shed a wee tear (sobbed like a baby). When it sprouted anew late in the summer I rejoiced! And then when I accidentally hacked it off with the weedeater I cried again while all of my children and my husband assured me it would grow back, which it obligingly DID. That tree deserves better but it has me; it's put down roots and we've been through a lot together.<br />
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Similarly my Meyer lemon is blooming with incredible vigor. I painstakingly pollinated it via paintbrush (say that ten times fast) because although the book <i>says "</i>hardy to 17 degrees," the ghosts of my three prior Meyers decline to testify. The fig would live inside too if only the farmhouse weren't, you know, a pair of tiny former logging camp cabins cleverly joined with hand milled fir planks and lumberjack artistry to make a home for seven.<br />
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Despite the trials of the tropical plants, the rest of us are settling in to a routine. Three years at the "new" little farm. Three years of watching the light weave patterns through the forest, watching leaves clog the stone culverts, watching the horses figure out the zoo-worthy fencing in order to break into the pond. Three years of making hay and driving to dance. That about sums it up.<br />
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I think we just started our sixth year of having school at home. I don't write very much about "homeschool." Polarizing issues paralyze the blog writer in me. And recently I came to understand, again, how damaging any sort of label can be. Homeschooler. Gifted. Special needs. But I get ahead of myself.<br />
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We jumped into the deep end of teaching our children at home <b>without a philosophy</b> beyond what we knew of ourselves as parents and what we knew of our individual children's needs. For three years <i>after </i>Madeleine, Sarah and Grace were sitting at the kitchen table (and couch and car) with their books I still volunteered in the community school and my husband still chaired a committee dedicated to helping our tiny rural school survive. And then when we moved away from that area our love of community and our belief in the power of education didn't fade away. Of course not.<br />
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Members of my family and so many people I deeply respect work in public education. Our nation is so <i>lucky, fortunate, ridiculously blessed </i>to have access to free school. I hope we, corporately, don't take that for granted. You know what else we are lucky to have? Choices.<br />
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My children are amazing. Ask anyone. They are also beautiful, and sensitive, and gifted, and different. A couple of them might do fine or even exceptionally well in traditional brick-and-mortar school. One of them would likely spend more time in the hospital than in the classroom. Hospital, "resource room" and school nurse in rotation? Or home? Which would you choose, if you could? And then, when you were choosing, would you reflect on how privileged you were to be able to have that time with each of your little people? Watching them change and grow is one of my miracles. Being present for them is a gift to me.<br />
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And we know families whose choices to teach their children at home are as different from ours as night from day. Perhaps they have strong political or religious beliefs and are passionate about remaining separate from the world. Perhaps they have very exacting academic standards and are dedicated to high achievement. Their home might be too remote and the commute too taxing. The list goes on and it even includes those who think young people shouldn't spend time with the opposite gender outside of parental chaperoning.<br />
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We don't have school at home for any of those reasons. And our reasons have evolved as these years have passed. What started as a medical necessity and an academic convenience (one of our children was so far ahead of her grade level that the school ran out of ideas/patience/books and threw up its administrative/educational hands, leaving her to "help" in class (read: "be tortured by the bigger, tougher children from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.") (and <b>then </b>note my double parenthetical statement and feel sorry for the twisting logical meanderings of me, again)) morphed into a lifestyle of joy in learning together.<br />
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Theatre and dance are so consuming for our older girls; having flexible school hours allows them to read and write and learn on their own schedules. The time to form ideas and act upon them is a gift. The time to take a trail ride after school and before rehearsal is a gift. Time, it passes, and the spending of it is a lesson too. Or can be.<br />
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Somebody is going to say we are not even a true "homeschool" family because some of our children are enrolled in public, virtual charter schools that allow us to choose and design our own curricula. Somebody is going to believe it's less-than, or selling out. I respect that opinion too but I have to say I am grateful for the option, choice, the gift of time. I'm grateful that my children will be able to choose universities, or not, and that <i>their </i>choices won't be limited by mine.<br />
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It's a dance and not a ballet. We all waltz this way, parents. We make the most careful choices we are able to make and we thank God for the blessings we have and can share.<br />
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*just a note: I wrote this in November and have been immersed in all of that living-spending-time-learning stuff since. I still think about polarizing issues and have cold sweats over controversy or the whiff of it. I still love you if your children are in public school or private school or hacking school from the internet. I especially love you if you read this far.Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-56090992915408118632014-09-17T12:22:00.000-07:002014-09-17T12:22:10.290-07:00Autumn at the ocean<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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September is the beginning of our favorite time to visit the Oregon coast. Saltwater and sunshine and sandy feet combine in an alchemy of pure joy. The winds are slow and so is time.<br />
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This particular September we are choosing rest. Is this possible in the midst of ballet, tap, jazz, modern, Guys and Dolls, piano, voice, sewing... farm work... and schoolwork? I submit that it is possible. At least it's worth trying.</div>
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Dear Mr. Suite and I talk a lot about finding balance. He runs an engineering business and serves as a planning commissioner for our county government. He fences (and re-fences) and hauls hay and fixes the farmhouse. I teach school to five students of hugely varied learning styles and giftedness and I keep the house (mostly) and garden (sadly small this year but still) and meals and carpool schedule. I also write grants for a few non-profits and squeeze in the occasional writing and photography that fills my heart. So there's that.</div>
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Our teens are intensely involved in community and children's and public school theaters. They dance at two different studios that are 25 miles apart. One is dedicated to ballet and one loves modern and tap. One is training horses and dogs and one is showing rabbits. Our younger children have pets and piano lessons and passions of their own. The Lego budget. The book budget. The gas budget. </div>
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And the time and energy budget. I'm just saying.</div>
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We used to have an unofficial family motto, spoken somewhat in jest: "Work hard, play hard." Most famously, my exceedingly hardworking husband once declared in a time of exhaustion, before a 9-hour-drive to see a baseball game: "We. Will. Recreate."<br />
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In a slight divergence from that I propose: "We. Will. Rest."<br />
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We will rest in the moments between tap and rehearsal. We will rest in the knowledge that a great thirst for knowledge and discovery is a much better educator than is a proficient lecturer. We will rest and realize that sometimes good enough is truly enough, that perfectionism is a pit that separates us from joy and from others. We will rest knowing that the waves come in, the waves go out. The wind calms in autumn.<br />
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And there is a season for rest.<br />
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How do you find rest? Is it a principle or a practice? Or both?Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-33677556537537826692014-08-27T10:06:00.001-07:002014-08-27T10:06:15.982-07:00Playing catch (up)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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How was your summer vacation?<br />
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I'm taking it as a sign of a good summer that I am, once again, not ready. Last week at the swimming hole I sat with a friend watching the children splash about picking blackberries from the overhanging vines. Feet in the cool water, with pebbles massaging our toes and the laughter of eight or nine swimmers entertaining our ears, we watched the first of the turning leaves float to the water's surface and skim downstream. Our shady spot will be exposed to the autumn sky in a month or two.<br />
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But we'll be inside with books and tablets and schedules to make the gas gauge sigh.<br />
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How not to make a two-month catch-up letter a series of "been there, done that?' How to capture the feeling of summer? We took some drives. We splashed in the creek and swam in our "secret" swimming hole. We went to a big family wedding in the redwoods and we went to the movies with friends.<br />
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Madeleine stretched her musical theatre skills with singing/dancing/acting camps and Sarah attended a ballet intensive and a melodrama performance camp. The big girls were in our local heritage parade too, on the Storybook Theatre float. Sarah was the blue fairy from Pinocchio, reprising her role from last spring's performance. Maddy was Tiger Lily and Grace was a mermaid, both from Peter Pan. I broke three sewing machine needles on Grace's costume but she glittered like an undersea princess. Salvador and Laura caught a lot of candy and waved at all the floats. I ran after the Storybook float with my camera and Mr. Suite was impressed with my speed in pursuit of the photo.<br />
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Then! Grace worked on a new quilt top and on her model horse barn. Mr. Suite bought her a miter saw and she uses it with more confidence than do I. Grace and Laura won ribbons at the fair. Grace exhibited a blue-ribbon bookhouse and her handmade puppet collection, also a blue ribbon winner. Laura showed a Lego coffee delivery boat of her own design (blue!) and her pony collection (red).<br />
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The whole family plus some friends hung out at the fair and watched the steam engine demonstrations. We ate caramel corn and drank lemonade and I regretted that but not in the baking hot moment.<br />
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Mr. Suite and I had a few date nights. We celebrated our anniversary -- 22 years -- with a Tom Petty concert where almost every song made me feel younger. We hiked the mountain above our house a few times and took photos at the river bar where he grew up and learned to drive. We drove over a floating bridge and visited farm stands and old haunts and longtime friends.<br />
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On the pet front, Laura has two guinea pigs. I am informed they are not rodents. Charlie the Spaniel took a brief vacation with another family whose mama works at the self-sustainability workshop on our road. He went camping by the lake and then came home and we were very, very glad. Murphy the Bernese went up the mountain with Maddy and Mr. Suite on a hike and came back down in the Suburban. I understand the hip joint pain.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh91aGjPiFPNODPMqJujQgItlT7uBt41L4O6xs1RWpFtUl_hDr8AHfUoawuRrMjWX77DnUqnYCNas6PNJeoo4XJB8lv4vl_fTsKcet1mWhAvFDCvCcoNhkTC5k8uNmQoOU9dwJjzVlNiNk/s1600/DSC_0078.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh91aGjPiFPNODPMqJujQgItlT7uBt41L4O6xs1RWpFtUl_hDr8AHfUoawuRrMjWX77DnUqnYCNas6PNJeoo4XJB8lv4vl_fTsKcet1mWhAvFDCvCcoNhkTC5k8uNmQoOU9dwJjzVlNiNk/s1600/DSC_0078.JPG" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
Maddy and Sam cut new trails in the woods above our pasture. We made hay in record amounts and two teen boys with more energy and bigger appetites than imaginable helped get all eight tons in the loft before it rained. We picked blackberries and visited friends. We hosted a mini craft and swimming day camp for friends. We took some more drives. I am gathering rose hips for wreaths and tea. I am gathering the school books and calendars and my wits for another year of sharp pencils and sharper minds.Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-47130043339652885192014-06-18T10:22:00.002-07:002014-06-18T10:24:26.695-07:00And they danced<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo_Ls_Gm1vlqxk0Oxn4W0RhrDdYfV7vTvK7rJzOVCezAE_C0iEYMpfCtl-J30kFUcDQJvxmymRAWmF_SjRxiwv73JAZ5cHDoY7kojakvYrpirh5EZJzxOD96A74Q89ksjcsQ7ofPMulhA/s1600/DSC_5321.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo_Ls_Gm1vlqxk0Oxn4W0RhrDdYfV7vTvK7rJzOVCezAE_C0iEYMpfCtl-J30kFUcDQJvxmymRAWmF_SjRxiwv73JAZ5cHDoY7kojakvYrpirh5EZJzxOD96A74Q89ksjcsQ7ofPMulhA/s1600/DSC_5321.JPG" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
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The girls finished nine months of six-day-a-week dance classes with this thing called a recital.</div>
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I cried through nearly the entire thing.</div>
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From the second row the click of the Nikon shutter<br />
punctuated their steps.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Madeleine was in ten different pieces.</div>
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Sarah and Maddy both had their first pointe performance.</div>
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Hip hop was a surprise favorite.</div>
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Tap was a crowd pleaser.</div>
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I love this stuff.</div>
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And I try not to count the recitals we have left</div>
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stretching before us in beauty.</div>
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(When classically trained ballet dancers</div>
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go hip hop it <i>will </i>surprise you.)</div>
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Grace was a bookish ballerina.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixlV7NrAOzQi6dGDx9dmWstaJz8kxIeGGAgeLKE0jXA_MngQtKzEwjqhgWA-aZoIJcSZMt37K7N8ejip3yDHn0qyfMPYgOo11MCIa93PER2uKGPvvA1Y7xHOG8zTo6QNdwan9KMZFtOic/s1600/DSC_5315.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixlV7NrAOzQi6dGDx9dmWstaJz8kxIeGGAgeLKE0jXA_MngQtKzEwjqhgWA-aZoIJcSZMt37K7N8ejip3yDHn0qyfMPYgOo11MCIa93PER2uKGPvvA1Y7xHOG8zTo6QNdwan9KMZFtOic/s1600/DSC_5315.JPG" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
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Considering carefully a year of quiet work.</div>
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Laura was a ballet diamond in the cutest deck of cards.</div>
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And a teddy bear tap dancer.</div>
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Grace also got jazzy.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAn-2A00qoPR26aPWHuthmTbClcBmNgZFuKklAq-EbNa0kJoZIeh1GYqAZvbDdLOpTja5MjeJgMwuUoCswZuzBcvgLdQNdHCRKorH4MewmzHLxANQ4XEg-JZUhyW9aG4z0QiSloSfACgw/s1600/DSC_5350.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAn-2A00qoPR26aPWHuthmTbClcBmNgZFuKklAq-EbNa0kJoZIeh1GYqAZvbDdLOpTja5MjeJgMwuUoCswZuzBcvgLdQNdHCRKorH4MewmzHLxANQ4XEg-JZUhyW9aG4z0QiSloSfACgw/s1600/DSC_5350.JPG" height="320" width="212" /></a></div>
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We have a vocal recital before summer starts in earnest.</div>
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Then a few dance intensives and a couple of theatre camps</div>
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and a lot of backyard camping.</div>
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A wedding.</div>
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Swimming in the creek.</div>
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Playing with the ponies.</div>
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Summer.</div>
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<br /></div>
Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-67850409410778629032014-06-05T12:06:00.000-07:002014-06-05T12:06:54.115-07:00It's a coffee table book<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0cnz4AuKjqeU7ZrnJGHHBC57IMXO1Bfczj1XIqup6KIUGa0ODOC2nE5_9ycKMjjSaQoC3faCMIc3tT8kHIlfg2dpqPrleMxb4MgRyCu1obID1b8h_1SLs_xA3igPTxDumTfxzxRV9kHM/s1600/DSC_0047.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0cnz4AuKjqeU7ZrnJGHHBC57IMXO1Bfczj1XIqup6KIUGa0ODOC2nE5_9ycKMjjSaQoC3faCMIc3tT8kHIlfg2dpqPrleMxb4MgRyCu1obID1b8h_1SLs_xA3igPTxDumTfxzxRV9kHM/s1600/DSC_0047.JPG" height="320" width="212" /></a></div>
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Today I felt that need to look for beauty -- does that happen to you? -- <br />and where better to turn than my photo files of this past month? </div>
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(Well. I could have gone outside, but weeds are lurking there, creeping ever closer to farm domination.)</div>
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And one of my other favorite diversions is to drive over that-there bridge on my way to town and back.</div>
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Alas it is under construction until September.</div>
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September!</div>
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<br /></div>
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So photo journal it is.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmD2cJ87ZLBI3f4OzaDFJ_FrdHdEF8gRBH76GuIuWoYddBtMltQeL15OEk6FKMy-VL5cWUcHQBjTjf2gpWrv0QGF_OT4TZbfYJhFXU0YxMSOsHrdaEha3R_hDmkiyZnRxP_62WD1w1h7E/s1600/DSC_0058.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmD2cJ87ZLBI3f4OzaDFJ_FrdHdEF8gRBH76GuIuWoYddBtMltQeL15OEk6FKMy-VL5cWUcHQBjTjf2gpWrv0QGF_OT4TZbfYJhFXU0YxMSOsHrdaEha3R_hDmkiyZnRxP_62WD1w1h7E/s1600/DSC_0058.JPG" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
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The barnyard is stomped-down packed mud, the hay field is sodden but gloriously tall and green. </div>
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The pond is finally fenced off from horse and/or sheep invasion and just a little prettier already.</div>
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Mr. Suite planted some trees. <br />The skunk cabbage and cattails (such lovely names!) grow unmolested.</div>
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A grey heron rests there between fishing trips to the river. </div>
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A pair of Mallard ducks made a nest immediately after the fence went up but are gone now.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I hope they come back.</div>
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Frogs and toads of the green and noisy variety make music we can hear all the way to the house.<br />The flowerbeds and garden beds are overrun with chickweed, crabgrass and clover. </div>
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I'm going with it on the theory that nature knows what to do with itself.</div>
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We pick lettuce and peas from the beds and a little grass sneaks its way in the salad.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Most is edible.</div>
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</div>
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Fiddler on the Roof, a sold-out run. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Maddy had "Fiddler prom" backstage with friends<br />while other high school friends rode in a limousine <br />to dance that was decidedly not Russian nor Jewish.</div>
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Sarah sang Matchmaker.<br />And Anatevka was weepingly beautiful.</div>
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Pinocchio, a sold-out run.</div>
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Grace was the prettiest puppet I have ever seen. Or sewn.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Sarah wore blue hair and a beautiful gown to convince Pinocchio</div>
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becoming a real boy takes bravery and honesty.</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
On top of the hill, a neighbor's barn less used than ours, with a view to Blue Mountain.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I would let you think I hiked up there but it is very, very high. So I drove.</div>
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Salvador got his hair cut after Easter. <br />The barber was smoking a cigarette so we went to the salon.</div>
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I explained the haircut preferences: <br />scissor cut, whitewall around the ears, side part, </div>
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you know, LEAVE THE CURLS.</div>
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And the stylist pulled out her clippers and buzzed his hair right off faster than I could gasp.</div>
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"This is better," she declared.</div>
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Okay.</div>
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The forest wants to take over my back yard. See those weeds of which I speak?<br />When we bought this place I loved the back yard's "shabby" fence <br />and asked Mr. Suite to leave it a while.</div>
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Its time has probably come.</div>
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The creek flows through the trees back there<br />and it is good to have a little barrier<br />so we don't worry about Charlie swimming away.</div>
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Fencing off the pond was a family affair.</div>
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Mr. Suite has been engineering a lot of hours.</div>
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The development and building trade is picking back up.</div>
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We are catching up.</div>
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Madeleine was given a lovely vintage dotted swiss dress.</div>
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Great-grandma remarked "it looks just like a dress from the 1940s."</div>
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It is!</div>
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The lawnmower was broken. </div>
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Too many trips to the river pulling inner tubes and children in its trailer perhaps.</div>
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We replaced it but not before the horses had lawn duty.</div>
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What can a girl say about columbines? They self sow and are a favorite.</div>
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I only took a dozen pictures at Easter and each one is a testament to ...</div>
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something about the difficulty of herding cats.</div>
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And every time I see one of these posed sillinesses</div>
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I hear the Beatles singing "All Together Now"<br />and that makes me giggle.</div>
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If I were not the parent of teens now I'd say<br />I'm just grateful no one is picking his or her nose.</div>
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You can, however, see a bit of Salvador's hair pre-buzz-cut.</div>
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So there's that.</div>
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I feel better after that chatty update. </div>
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Is it just me or do you too sometimes need to <br />focus on your beauty to press a reset button on gratitude?</div>
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<br /></div>
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I'm also participating in #100happydays. Don't let the hashtag stop you.</div>
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I don't understand hashtags either!</div>
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But I do understand happy.</div>
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Blessings from farmsuite. <br />I hope you are surrounded and lifted up by joy.</div>
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Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-2402298569296941812014-04-22T12:20:00.003-07:002014-04-22T12:20:58.349-07:00Next.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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If ever I thought I'd arrived, I was wrong.</div>
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Did you, ever?</div>
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Hike and climb and fix your eyes on that highest point<br />--sometimes it seemed to move further away--</div>
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to flop down on nearest apex boulder<br />or raise your hands in amazement <br />of the crisp<br />clean air</div>
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up there.</div>
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The bear went over the mountain<br />to see what he could see.</div>
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Me?</div>
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The view an enticement, surely, but the promise of rest</div>
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...</div>
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that idea of repose kept me moving<br />eyes on the prize<br />picnic in sight.</div>
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The light is clear enough to see the next mountain.</div>
Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-67742225344940196482014-03-25T14:15:00.001-07:002014-03-25T14:15:26.038-07:00The middlest is 10. The middlest is full of Grace.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When you are the artistic, quiet middle child in a boisterous family your tenth birthday might be an opportunity to take a weekend trip to a favorite bookish getaway at the Oregon Coast. You might take hundreds of pictures on your camera -- architectural details from your four-foot perspective and portraits of your dolls on the beach and funny plants you've never seen and even pictures of your traveling companions to be funny -- and you <i>might </i>pose once or twice for your mom and grandma to take a couple of pictures of you. You might explore the library and the attic of the hotel and eavesdrop on the other guest's conversation and completely dissolve into giggles remembering later what you heard while they thought you were just looking at the ocean.<br />
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You might be camera shy but your mom probably took a few pictures of you over your ten completely unique and beautiful years.<br />
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Sometimes you might take your mother's breath away.<br />
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You are so very brave, my Grace girl. Being in the background, intensely observant and then jumping in with help when your talents or opinions are needed.</div>
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I like the funny stories from when you were "little." I like to remember your finger friends, all ten of them with names and personalities to keep you company on long car rides and while waiting for big sisters' dance and lessons and activities.I like to remember you making your own language with words we'd never heard and I like to remember when you made poetry about rocks. Now you collect rocks and are a bit, um, passionate about geology. Now you concentrate on a puzzle and can't hear a person repeating your name from two feet away, so focused are you.<br />
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You shine.<br />
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On the stage dancing and acting. At the piano. In designing and sewing (remember the ribbon at the fair on your first quilt this past year!) and in perseverance beyond your years.<br />
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You're fun.<br />
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You might have more fun than anyone.<br />
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I like how you can be absolutely silent throughout an entire group activity, for hours. And then when it's over and the crowds are gone you overflow with bubbly observations. I like how you speak up in those groups when someone isn't kind. You are sensitive for others as well as within yourself.<br />
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I like how you redesigned the Tolkein room for the Sylvia Beach Hotel and then painstakingly wrote a letter of suggestion, bordering it with thanks.<br />
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I like how loyal you are to your siblings and your friends.<br />
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I like all these qualities. And I love you.<br />
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<br />Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-25152351421200067462014-02-26T13:10:00.000-08:002014-02-26T13:10:36.128-08:00Thawing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Over the weekend we hosted a quinceanera for Madeleine. Her great-grandmother and grandparents were there and her teenage friends helped the smaller children break the world's sturdiest pinata. It was full of sweets and the babies raked them up and carried them in their shirt tails and skirts. The renovated theater where we played was lit with twinkle lights and spotlights and Latin music and my daughter wore polka dot Converse with her dress.<br />
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Over the weekend Madeleine and many of her friends also danced in the incomparable local Rhythm and Blues Revue. My baby danced the mambo in a flirty purple dress. She tapped to live jazz music and danced to live singing -- one of our favorite playwright's -- a rendition of "It's Not Unusual."<br />
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It was full of sweets.<br />
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Over the month Madeleine and Sarah have begun evening rehearsals for "Fiddler on the Roof" while Sarah and Grace started rehearsing a children's "Pinocchio." I have been moved to tears by the rehearsals, people. My girls will tell you I cry easily and this is true.<br />
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I cried this morning in the grocery store line (I hope it wasn't noticeable) while the young, very young, couple and their infant in front of me bought a peanut butter chocolate cake and a bouquet of flowers for a friend's wedding. I cried (pretty noticeably) when Laura unearthed video of my wedding and we watched babies of 21 years ago scraping up candy from the fluffy pinata at the reception.<br />
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It was full of sweets.<br />
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Winter is coming to an end at the Suite farm. The daffodils are barely yellow in bud but the violets of one hundred years of homesteading are spread all the way to the creek. It took a while for that proliferation to be sure. I am so grateful after the icy winter we had that it is time to put in the peas. My raised beds are not even properly cleaned as I was taken by surprise by the first hard frost but we are still harvesting leeks and chard.<br />
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The tractor transmission, rebuilt last year, encountered a rock it couldn't conquer and so we may hire the tilling of the rows. We moved one horse into the barn with short turn out times but everyone else has grown fuzzy and fat with winter grain. A sure sign of spring is when the fence posts are covered with their shedding and the birds flock to steal tufts for lining nests.<br />
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We have a new family member! I can't believe I forgot to mention Charlie the Cocker Spaniel.<br />
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He's no stranger to us as we've been his dogsitter for a couple of years. Now he is officially our house dog on the farm. Murphy, our behemoth Bernese Mountain Dog, doesn't like to come inside. He prefers to romp the pastures and plunge in the pond in even frozen weather. He waits for Charlie to come outside and they run, big and little, companion and protector, each with their jobs on the farm.<br />
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Still raising kids and vegetables and a ruckus.<br />
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Full of sweets.Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-1930492007307585822014-01-14T20:32:00.001-08:002014-01-14T20:45:46.706-08:00Now We Are Six, Laura Edition<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-66918100871607348692014-01-09T22:52:00.000-08:002014-01-09T22:53:17.914-08:00A romanticized view of winter storms, but it's my view<div style="text-align: center;">
Did you imagine yourself in The Long Winter with the Ingalls family?</div>
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And then when you grew up did you search <br />
(ever so anachronistically, on the interwebs)<br />
for a small coffee grinder, powered by hand,</div>
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the kind that Ma and the girls used for wheat -- <br />
the seed wheat for next year<br />
that became, painstakingly, flour <br />
and then bread for the coldest days?</div>
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Did you imagine running a rope line to the barn for safety's sake?</div>
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In case a whiteout kept Pa from seeing the house?</div>
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Did you read by gas lamp or firelight<br />
and sigh with the thrill of the word:<br />
<i>blizzard</i><br />
?</div>
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A snow day or two can bring that out in me.</div>
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The Suite family is busy with school this January.<br />
Our last snowstorm is reduced<br />
to these photos and the murky piles of ice<br />
in mall parking lots.<br />
The big yellow bus traverses our road twice a day again.<br />
The horse trough no longer steams in a sigh of relative warmth.<br />
But we still read by candlelight for fun.<br />
Little House Seven Miles from Small Town<br />
...that's us...</div>
Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-16894044694906633682013-12-31T15:27:00.002-08:002013-12-31T15:32:27.703-08:00Merry and bright... <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigo2qhd0S67aqJpCxL8GC6ykXk3flfoSthL1_iAFcqATlo8Ni7-FY57cNf9Vqkga1ifCabdqZv7a1_916HSHtE1XQ_MTySo3G0Fm87Q0e5ZpukbGUlyRf0KdA1Q72AjpHoAtr5VXqnPag/s1600/lolo+christmas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigo2qhd0S67aqJpCxL8GC6ykXk3flfoSthL1_iAFcqATlo8Ni7-FY57cNf9Vqkga1ifCabdqZv7a1_916HSHtE1XQ_MTySo3G0Fm87Q0e5ZpukbGUlyRf0KdA1Q72AjpHoAtr5VXqnPag/s320/lolo+christmas.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
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When the light twinkles just so.</div>
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And the performances are all done. <br />
<i>(Nutcracker </i>and <i>It's a Wonderful Life</i>, two icons of Christmas, checked off our list.)</div>
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Time for silly cousins to have some fun.</div>
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Remembering the reason we love, the reason we live.</div>
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It's quiet at the farm. <br />
For two weeks (minus a day or two) we had no drama, no dance, no classes.</div>
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Just scrumptious board games and naps and archery practice in our little woods.</div>
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Oh! And I read several books that have been on my list including<br />Morton's "Forgotten Garden" -- lovely; and Smiley's "Barn Blind" -- an author who amazed me again.</div>
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We, like many of you, opened some gifts.</div>
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That girl does not like her bear. She <i>loves </i>it. <br />
And her nightgown, sewn with love by her grandma and passed down by her sister.</div>
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It's been a deliciously slow end to another fast-paced wonderful year.</div>
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I am not making resolutions but I do like to reflect and redirect at this time of year.</div>
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How about you?<br />
I wish you a beautiful 2014.</div>
Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-7062210316454367792013-12-07T20:30:00.000-08:002013-12-07T20:30:19.745-08:00Funny how my world rearranges itself for weather<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This weekend, first in December, forecast for the Suite family a flurry... of Nutcracker and It's a Wonderful Life. Dancing and tech rehearsals and opening nights were predicted to swirl about and sweep us into a vortex of holiday rush.<br />
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And then the weather decided to slow us down.<br />
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In our corner of the world, snow is cute and fluffy and <i>always </i>melts by noon. A three-day snow and ice storm with temps in the single digits? Unheard of.<br />
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So this year, our dance and theatre plans were laid aside and postponed and generally, blissfully, stalled in the high drifts of white space.<br />
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Oh impassable roads how I do love you. As do I my little white picket fence by the creek. It serves no purpose except to say <i>I live in the house by the side of the road... with the white picket fence</i>.<br />
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Recently the picket fence spoke hospitality to a pair of lost mushroom hunters who had been in the woods all of a wet, wintry night. So it's doing its job of advertising our friendliness.<br />
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At least one of our neighbors, one who lives about a mile away, thought us plumb cuckoo to have offered hot coffee and a ride to the young couple.<br />
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I don't know. Most of your garden-variety psychopaths aren't going to knock on the door at 6:45 in the morning with blue hands, chattering teeth and soaked jeans. I'm thinking not anyway.<br />
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It looks lovely to walk through that gate to the creek. Except under a foot of snow lies a sheet of ice and one might go down the hill sled style without the equipment. Don't ask how I know.<br />
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The horses' tank has a floating heater that makes their water steam in this weather. They still ventured to the pond and broke the ice with their front hooves. Refreshing drink anyone?<br />
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Murphy the dog was born for this weather. He and Madeleine explored the pastures and hillsides like it was a North Pole expedition. The rest of us were on the second pot of hot chocolate by the time she came in, stomping snow from her boots and pink-cheeked.<br />
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We still have another day of being homebound, if the forecast is correct. I'm trying not to plan ahead. If suddenly the roads are safe tomorrow is the matinee opening of "It's a Wonderful Life" at our local theater. And if the snow and ice remain, it's a wonderful life chez farm suite.<br />
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<br />Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-55180808449254513142013-10-28T12:52:00.002-07:002013-10-28T12:54:04.802-07:00Pictures of a (legendary?) fall <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg200d7YnT5J4wUfLS_Ev1k72Rist68Cn8ngsS0y61yfSmxF-fEfO8iBpVqrrL1LulILAovd94HJ2hRw_uQ5Y8Kwjo27WXKUiFBGks5uxQSi8HBkD_pfpUB0r8bj_afTwWY44QRxhmAeLw/s1600/autumn+fields.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg200d7YnT5J4wUfLS_Ev1k72Rist68Cn8ngsS0y61yfSmxF-fEfO8iBpVqrrL1LulILAovd94HJ2hRw_uQ5Y8Kwjo27WXKUiFBGks5uxQSi8HBkD_pfpUB0r8bj_afTwWY44QRxhmAeLw/s320/autumn+fields.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I bought a little secondhand espresso machine over the weekend.</div>
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I'm going to save money. It's been bad for the budget, Dutch Bros. moving to town, and the girls' dance classes six days a week and the lack of sleep and all.</div>
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I grit my teeth and choose contentment, sticking fingers in ears to deny a negative word. La la la <i>I can't hear you.</i> Because I'm mature like that.</div>
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Not long after, not so very much later, forced smiles relax into reality. I see the beauty directly in front of me.<br />
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Oh, Jane. Your portrait does not do you justice.<br />
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The man whose sign proclaims irrigation automation. His name is Greene. And that makes me smile bigger.<br />
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We stomp down the leaves after they've fallen. Our grass is so green here! Even in a drought year we didn't use the irrigation system in the front lawn at all. (Apologies to Mr. Greene.) Then the leaves head for the compost mountain.<br />
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Sal and Laura and I get a lot of time to appreciate the bajillion of covered bridges around here while the big girls are at dance. I (used to) carry a Dutch Bros. mocha while we played. Covered Bridge Capitol they say. There's a plaque and a sign and everything.<br />
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The hens don't venture out until the mist leaves the hillside. See that little, itty bitty hop vine there? So much for covering the henhouse in one season. I also planted lavender. But Jane thinks lavender and geraniums are for her. Breakfast lunch and dinner. Baaaaad sheep.</div>
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Shades of grey. Rated G.</div>
(Have not read those books. I just think I'm funny. Don't mind me; acting ridiculous cheers me up when I have to make my own mochas.)<br />
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I have a soft spot for pumpkins on ladders. Funnily enough some of my ladders I pulled out of burn piles and trash heaps. Repeatedly. A-hem. Then the cucumbers climb them all summer before the autumn squash take up residence. We also use old dry-rotted wooden ladders for roosting rungs in the chicken yard and henhouse. I have seen some clever people make rustic - shabby? farmchic? steampunk? what is this steampunk? - bookcases. I can never. never. never have enough bookcases. But I also like to stay married so the wooden ladders stay outside.<br />
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We are building a library, which will decidedly NOT have rustic ladder shelving, up in the attic. Got a little sidetracked by plumbing disasters between the pump and the house. And again between the pump and the barn. Then most recently by some cottage-style built-in beds for the teen girls. Oh and we can't forget the stair rail, the upstairs bath reno, the tiny back yard studio remodel. Multitasking makes for a lot of projects nearly there. And the library is the furthest from "there."<br />
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We never have enough photos of Madeleine and Sarah anymore.<br />
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And I thought I might bore you with sunflower pictures this summer -- I took hundreds! We cut down dozens and dozens to dry but left a few for the birds, who flit around and weigh the blossoms down while they have an October snack. I walk as quietly as I can but they don't stay for a portrait. Sort of like my teenagers.<br />
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Can you tell I'm overcaffeinated? The unintended side effect of frugality, my friends.Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-67668571837975459212013-10-24T08:48:00.000-07:002013-10-24T08:48:55.683-07:00The long way<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-62774712398064637832013-10-15T14:18:00.000-07:002013-10-15T14:18:17.464-07:00Filters<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Things these weeks have seemed a little fuzzy and out of focus.<br />
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But then I decided my "forgettyhead" self (5-year-old Laura's word for me, thankyouverymuch), otherwise known as scatterbrained and/or distracted easily by the light through a forgotten red chard plant, can also be described as creative and spontaneous.<br />
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Madeleine went to her first school dance and looked ah-mazing. Her group of friends is a blessing and I know this word is somewhat overused but I really, truly mean it: each of those girls and guys makes me giddy with gratitude that we get to know them and watch them move through their own teen years. Because really, it's healing to know that friendship and loyalty survive the texting-crazed generation.<br />
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I rewrote a bit of my own biography in my head, watching my daughter walk confidently in heels and a little black dress. Where do they get these pieces of themselves so apparently foreign to nature or nurture? The confidence, I'm telling you, it kills me.<br />
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You know what else slays me?<br />
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Foggy October mornings. Six dentist appointments in one week. Being out of loose tea. Sudden urges to tear up carpet <i>during history class</i> at the home school table.<br />
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You know, the unexamined life would probably benefit me a little.<br />
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Is that out of focus or just dreamy? Still deciding. Which reminds me, this week brings three doctor appointments and a new optometrist appointment in addition to the twelve dance classes, two singing lessons (rescheduled and I can't remember why), one flute and one piano lesson. Last week was the dentist. I'm pretty sure. You can't overestimate my forgettyhead.<br />
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In theory I love this time of year.<br />
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The true New Year of academics, this autumn time. Also not the time to be out of soothing herbal tea.Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-55229276823966387102013-09-24T14:12:00.002-07:002013-09-24T14:12:56.269-07:00The "getting real" post<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It happens, every so often, that I read a flurry of articles and blog posts imploring mommy bloggers and fashion bloggers and farming bloggers and faith bloggers to <i>just get real</i>. (Political bloggers need not fuss with this stricture as there is no getting around the real ugly.)<br />
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In case you missed the memo(s): Others' Facebook happiness makes us depressed, Pinterest as a whole makes us dissatisfied with our mere human crafting/cooking/skydiving abilities, and the rosy lives pictured in weblogs are akin to Photoshopped models in fashion ads, creating a rarified air that none of us can really breathe. Focusing on the positive can smother a person, apparently.<br />
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Pshaw.<br />
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If y'all want <i>ugly </i>there's always mainstream media. And the cupboard to the left of the sink. And screen-time-limit meltdowns and arriving a month early (or a month late!) to the orthodontist-whose-bill-comes-anyway, or an aching shoulder and a little bit of arthritis in that hand that makes you inadvertently drop a pot full of stewed tomatoes. Talk about a hot mess. The satellite internet limit that is exceeded by streaming school classes two weeks into the month. And the neighbor who left cookies in your mailbox and then got upset when the mail lady thanked <i>you </i>for them when they were so obviously for your kids from the neighbor (Follow? Me neither!). Someone from your church facing divorce, someone in your family facing cancer.<br />
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I kinda got on a roll there just thinking about the "real" of this week. It's only Tuesday.<br />
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You know, these are the everyday and bigger uglinesses that just don't bear talking about.<br />
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Let's encourage each other with thankfulness and prettiness and focus on <i>that</i>. Won't you? I am aware that on your blogs and facebook pages, most of you edit out the schmutz. And I'm good with that. Not because I don't want you to be real! I do! I am so achingly glad you a real human being on this journey with me, and I want to walk with you through whatever you want to share.<br />
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One of the ways I survive the ugly is to post the pretty.<br />
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Y'all know it's bad if you can't look around and find some beauty. </div>
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There's my one-time farmhouse. It is so very pretty in each season. Finally sale pending and approaching closure, not that I want to jinx anything, after seven escrows. <i>Seven</i>. I haven't blogged adequately about the heart-wrenching decision to move to this new farm two years ago. I haven't shared in any small part how I feel about the quality of light at that house, about how I left behind community and struck out for something new and found myself not just alone in the wilderness but lonely here. It took more than a year to understand that the light filtering through forest is its own kind of golden green. There's a glow from the barn when the stars are the only other light, and when you drive past the spaces between the barn boards look twinkly. My garden is amazing -- and overwhelming! -- and friendships once easily maintained by a stroll down the lane and a cup of coffee remain, and that spending time with those loved ones on the once-dreaded phone and internet is a new kind of beauty.<br />
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My new farmhouse takes more careful framing to find the photo-worthy. So I focus carefully because otherwise I'd live in a puddle on the floor. Truly. I thank you for your positive, for your gratitude, for your rose-colored glasses where the world wide web is concerned. Because I think the more we zoom in on beauty, the more we find.<br />
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Yesterday I realized my husband's dog Jake died five years ago. And my dog Bonnie Belle died nearly three years ago. So we got Murphy and Molly two years ago and now Molly is gone. Guess what? I never blogged adequately about the vomit and the accidents and the geriatric care that each of those pets required in their final days. Do you know how I got on this subject? I happened upon an old photo of sweet Bonnie Belle on the forbidden couch, and then laughed as I scrolled through that album to see all of the dogs fully owning the couch at one time or another. I remembered that Jake's last trip around the property was in pursuit of sitting by Laura in the stroller, down by the barn where I was watching the big girls ride ponies. I remembered that Bonnie Belle would ever so genteelly accept treats at the coffee drive-through even though she would never, ever ingest them because she was above the crunchy bone-shaped weirdness and she knew enough to wait for homemade peanut-butter-filled jerky treats at home. Molly? Molly loved the children so much that she let them dress her in hats and scarves. She would paw around in the dress-up bin for a favorite wool (dog slobbery) beret. Which is more true? The embarrassing bodily functions of aging pets or the photographed and internet-shared memories that cast them in best light?<br />
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I'd rather watch for the prettiness on the internet and hold your hand in person when we're having a crisis, big or small. I want to be "real" with you, but not so much on the internet. I'm just sayin'.<br />
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<br />Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-82202139756721202622013-09-13T19:25:00.000-07:002013-09-13T19:25:09.662-07:00Oh, my friends...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We are deep into school now but my heart is a little bit back at summer.</div>
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Recurring theme: <i>I'm not ready</i>.<br />
For the facetime (?) and skype sessions (?!)<br />with <i>homeroom </i>teachers.<br />
For the twelve-class-per-week dance year<br />to sweep us off our feet and onto our toes.<br />
For doctors and dentists and library days.<br />
Schedule schmedule.</div>
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So I take some deep breaths and focus on now, <br />
but not with the camera lens,<br />
because it's hard to teach <br />United States government <br />and shoot at the same time.</div>
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I can't recall having this particular angst before, <br />
and believe me I thought I'd worried them all</div>
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to the bone, those worry-worthy subjects<br />
of children who grow and change and,</div>
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you know,</div>
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get lives and governmental theories of their own.</div>
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This week Madeleine and I met with her high school adviser.</div>
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I considered canceling but unfurling leaves keep reaching for sunshine.</div>
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This week Sarah started algebra.<br />
I considered helping.<br />
I offered to help.<br />
But she let me know she is fine<br />as she went about solving for <i>x</i>,<br />that timeless question of an unnamed quantity.<br />
Quality.</div>
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This week Grace cracked herself up <br />while reading Alice in Wonderland<br />and Laura explained the difference between<br />a letter and a phonogram<br />
to Salvador.<br />
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This week I lost my coffee cup approximately seven times per day.<br />
Not everything is different from last year.<br />
Just to be clear.<br />
Some things remain known.<br />
While I'm solving for <i>x</i><br />when change remains constant.</div>
Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-79825624178429919702013-08-28T20:03:00.002-07:002013-08-28T20:03:55.880-07:00Here a little, there a little<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Oh, look! My father- and mother-in-loves' house is so very scrumptious. Just pulling in to their farm for a family reunion makes a person happy.<br />
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A close second in the world of wonderful is that pie sign at the county fair. I didn't even have to eat any to get a sense of sweet satisfaction.<br />
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While we were in the great county of Humboldt we fed the pigeons in Eureka Old Town. <br />This was a first for my farm children.</div>
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They loved it.</div>
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Little ol' Victorian Ferndale is our favorite. The Mercantile, the Meat Market, the hat and shoe stores. It's like a Hollywood movie version of a small town but for real, because everyone there knows one another and stops to chat. And to figure out which of my husband's bajillion first cousins they went to high school with.<br />
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Yes, little Ferndale is our favorite. Unless it's <i>littler </i>Scotia with its big history, bigger timber and tiny houses all in a row.</div>
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The town of Scotia, as of this writing no longer a "company town" but not yet incorporated as a city, is a storybook of swept streets and pastel bungalows. My husband grew up here when everything was owned by the legendary (some say infamous now) Pacific Lumber Company.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ex4TJRAd4gnpzq3lw0rB1qOauJTF_3l4KA1Zh54NePtmhnYJQy2beHsXumcF7c0WgqbOaSBbEK_4ZUwdf2YoLMsyWEhZ5LdfbH09cURLly-n7WH51nHMUF2UAOohvigKCAd1t5V87GI/s1600/winema+at+scotia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ex4TJRAd4gnpzq3lw0rB1qOauJTF_3l4KA1Zh54NePtmhnYJQy2beHsXumcF7c0WgqbOaSBbEK_4ZUwdf2YoLMsyWEhZ5LdfbH09cURLly-n7WH51nHMUF2UAOohvigKCAd1t5V87GI/s320/winema+at+scotia.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5utWzozeguG4mAPkUdwa1wd20HsAGlRyLUKEJ9RQlTPAKsuOiWRmj47-ZiGVAlWF0DClbfWrTdIEUeiAtxemnXBDZ883Wre5kTOj5IMy2-wQ8HeEEfP4YOmDNxkmcU8GAjfnI3wZAHr8/s1600/winema+close+up.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5utWzozeguG4mAPkUdwa1wd20HsAGlRyLUKEJ9RQlTPAKsuOiWRmj47-ZiGVAlWF0DClbfWrTdIEUeiAtxemnXBDZ883Wre5kTOj5IMy2-wQ8HeEEfP4YOmDNxkmcU8GAjfnI3wZAHr8/s320/winema+close+up.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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Inside the Winema Theatre at Scotia is a staggering amount of unfinished, massive redwood timber framing and trim work. We wandered around in the cool and dark for 20 minutes, feeling like time travelers. Also feeling a little like trespassers because we had merely accidentally followed a paid tour group whose guide did not lock up. Or close the doors. Oops. And hey.</div>
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Back home the sunflowers didn't miss us at all.<br />
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Gee it was nice to come home again.</div>
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Tomatoes and green beans are heaping up waiting their turn in the canner as I type. I've said it before and brace yourselves because I'm going to say it again:<br />
<br />
Is there anything sweeter than coming home again?<br />
<br />
No, nothing sweeter than coming home again when the whole valley smells like a blackberry pie and the memories you just made will carry you through a lot of days of standing over the pressure canner, a lot of days of driving to ballet, a lot of days of your oldest child starting high school (!) and your others teaching the 3-year-old to read when you're not looking so then you have to put down the green beans and cry because that's your baby.<br />
<br />
We take the sweet with the tart now and then. We move through our own history like we know it won't always be swept streets and pastel house fronts; sometimes it's carpool and craziness but it's, as they say, all good.<br />
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<br />Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-69483527744329990032013-08-08T21:37:00.000-07:002013-08-08T21:38:36.030-07:00If I Were August<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioih86vrsBnmO9EQl9U4q3QRnUnAV_qAqoVazKG4Be2X0qec6V4_WMSv9_Zi82I79WmtBkl5QAIvxt8g7R_kN7aKBt2opBr_cNf7vK9kMvzBqHrC7TbcGVi1NG3BjldFYt_a1ClXrAWZY/s1600/ballet+flower.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" jsa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioih86vrsBnmO9EQl9U4q3QRnUnAV_qAqoVazKG4Be2X0qec6V4_WMSv9_Zi82I79WmtBkl5QAIvxt8g7R_kN7aKBt2opBr_cNf7vK9kMvzBqHrC7TbcGVi1NG3BjldFYt_a1ClXrAWZY/s320/ballet+flower.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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If I were August I'd make a note.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxhl6V63iqm1rOHMfbCG8MY_cBcyVPfdnDjMhNWKwnmFt5PTgA9JzeQcy71DeYwlUg3K1VZpKvddnjUPee9-FYcD4tyYfmfzSivjsTQO0tiUPf0DiaXNBjgAtnMY3wB8qLyKWPj9YJWdM/s1600/sal+baseball.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxhl6V63iqm1rOHMfbCG8MY_cBcyVPfdnDjMhNWKwnmFt5PTgA9JzeQcy71DeYwlUg3K1VZpKvddnjUPee9-FYcD4tyYfmfzSivjsTQO0tiUPf0DiaXNBjgAtnMY3wB8qLyKWPj9YJWdM/s320/sal+baseball.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Summer is notoriously fleeting.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR3l0K9h1efEChshVUTqWU3pSB5m85saGbDq89oz0wiExx9S_mdBzWSb61coO22YJ_5edFFQIuKgUwNIhGYFWk2U_RuaYFB9wkJ8ICJ3qqhZ3IwiADmjIaULcMg6dZmMPZocUl1K2Xerc/s1600/baseball+twilight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" jsa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR3l0K9h1efEChshVUTqWU3pSB5m85saGbDq89oz0wiExx9S_mdBzWSb61coO22YJ_5edFFQIuKgUwNIhGYFWk2U_RuaYFB9wkJ8ICJ3qqhZ3IwiADmjIaULcMg6dZmMPZocUl1K2Xerc/s320/baseball+twilight.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
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I wouldn't want to miss a minute.</div>
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Calendula and yarrow, dance and baseball, sewing and sky watching.</div>
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These notes of August make summer a poem woven of dried grasses and lake days.</div>
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I'd try not to make a paragraph, even.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9l2ffgKO3m8ONEAZVJrJs31PqM6fyWlivPR7j0d_LCpDRjpeyIzInvMXyE7b5SMxBVR_pftlxKzYu0AgQLy-ZNBwMZWdVhNC9aMNlExxYN2GBmrVVzdi-m6qRM70vhkDUDyOSUcZSR1M/s1600/back+yard+tent.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" jsa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9l2ffgKO3m8ONEAZVJrJs31PqM6fyWlivPR7j0d_LCpDRjpeyIzInvMXyE7b5SMxBVR_pftlxKzYu0AgQLy-ZNBwMZWdVhNC9aMNlExxYN2GBmrVVzdi-m6qRM70vhkDUDyOSUcZSR1M/s320/back+yard+tent.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Because in formation of a thesis one could lose the essence, <br />
whole and sweet like a raspberry warm from the vine.</div>
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Rather to jot those notes on whatever paper or palm lies nearby.</div>
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If I were August I'd make a note to revisit on days of mist and cool.</div>
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That the summer, days of wine and roses, could warm that later moment too.</div>
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A time capsule of sunshine.</div>
Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-78855655441332550602013-07-29T11:44:00.000-07:002013-07-29T11:44:31.864-07:00[Lazy?] Days of Summer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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All of our hay is in the barn.</div>
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The drought reduced our yield by about a third.</div>
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<div align="center">
This year's crew was nearly all child labor as Mr. Suite was on deadlines.</div>
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The borrowed hay elevator helped a lot.</div>
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And we paid the children in swimming parties at the river.</div>
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Since putting the hay away it has been all theatre and dance all the time.</div>
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Madeleine, Sarah and Grace were in an original <br />melodrama staged at our community theatre.</div>
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Sal and Laura and I have been busy while the big girls were rehearsing song and dance numbers. We've visited the library, a wading pool in Nearby College Town, the ice cream shop (three times) and the movie theatre. They are loving Mommy Camp.</div>
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Ooh! I forgot to mention that my sweet nieces <br />
spent the better part of two weeks with us, swimming and <br />
feeding the chickens and being the farmgirls they were born to become.</div>
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And we had a sort of big-deal weekend at the dance studio when a celebrity visitor came to town for our free community dance class in the park.</div>
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I wasn't a fan before (I'd never heard of Summer Glau) but I am now.</div>
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She was gracious, and beautiful, and kind.</div>
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And she said she has a dream to be a farmgirl.</div>
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So.</div>
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Dancer, actor, farmgirl. She must be a kindred spirit, right?</div>
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After the theatre and the dance and the swimming and some more dancing...</div>
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we are gardening.</div>
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Canning a little already.</div>
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Loving this crazybusy again.</div>
Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-56063126684666290692013-06-26T21:17:00.001-07:002013-06-26T21:17:25.669-07:00Backup. No, back up.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWRgp3mQuAxL55Fu4Ul4ALG4mKhHGraYCR3RzJIBYba0JQUbunYaCmgKQSvNdGDTnOuf-gp1OvshJtWNGrJkoFEOjvX_1l9XdJxcJ5avm92xFVDt8LBnvoeVJ0vjthkr7yi0xbs9X8EHc/s1600/001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWRgp3mQuAxL55Fu4Ul4ALG4mKhHGraYCR3RzJIBYba0JQUbunYaCmgKQSvNdGDTnOuf-gp1OvshJtWNGrJkoFEOjvX_1l9XdJxcJ5avm92xFVDt8LBnvoeVJ0vjthkr7yi0xbs9X8EHc/s1600/001.JPG" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
I don't write here very often or very regularly but every once in a while I remember the days -- do any of you? -- when I wrote many times a week. When my teens were small and I made a lot of doll clothes and organic purees. Thanks to the "you may also enjoy" feature that I somehow managed to add to the blog I sometimes see a baby picture of a toothless Laura, who is now 5 years old and reading, writing, running (our lives) or a paragraph or two about how Grace, now 9 and a pianist, seamstress and outdoor enthusiast, loved to play "finger family" and had named all of her digits and assigned them specific personalities and habits. Being the middle child in a family of five must make for a creative kid.<br />
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When I blogreminisce like that I get a little frisson of panic, you know? Not just the passing of the years but the sheer volume of digital/electronic/interwebby family history I document here and notsomuch in a physical scrapbook.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoIFZ9lyis1vNf3UM5elR3_aJIzwfT_EZb34WuwezM6Ck0v0yEu3oDcrlnDV80eWqL22_Dlyn5h4PgA-jvxwQ2omAw5Km5pYS2J-B0fP0-BmNBgNkpXA40mL6DlhEC9ZMhsf9I1LrpbKw/s1600/012.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoIFZ9lyis1vNf3UM5elR3_aJIzwfT_EZb34WuwezM6Ck0v0yEu3oDcrlnDV80eWqL22_Dlyn5h4PgA-jvxwQ2omAw5Km5pYS2J-B0fP0-BmNBgNkpXA40mL6DlhEC9ZMhsf9I1LrpbKw/s1600/012.JPG" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
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For instance, Salvador,turning 3 this week, was photographed in the palm of his daddy's hand just days home from the hospital. Now he is a member of the hay crew. Well, with crayons and a hot dog in the tow vehicle. But still. (B)logged here.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpQx_f4wNV5hCJAjuUUCAsaFfiGWzBMAL0LRr2CGcs2VxpBc7U7OkbosNVmxHdMMdBJ42tlwUuSXhpOEYiwvUojEgVE0H7b4_FMEqn5i0PLWPDcwSDJSjf9caOemht_mHpi2bYGpYkv34/s1600/hay+day.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpQx_f4wNV5hCJAjuUUCAsaFfiGWzBMAL0LRr2CGcs2VxpBc7U7OkbosNVmxHdMMdBJ42tlwUuSXhpOEYiwvUojEgVE0H7b4_FMEqn5i0PLWPDcwSDJSjf9caOemht_mHpi2bYGpYkv34/s1600/hay+day.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
Our relationships with dear neighbors at the church-home of my heart, blogged here. Our ups and downs with barrel racing, horses, free range children, penned-up chickens, lonely ewe lambs and dearly departed Golden Retrievers. Blogged here.<br />
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Might I take a side road, just a minor detour, to introduce to you Harold and Linda, our neighbors at the new FarmSuite homestead? He is 86 and still making hay. She is "in her 70s" and still riding along. (Blogworthy.)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGBMhgNAwOxgITwFF4WxO7knNdvDFHwt5kkoVOp5DP1XSgSRbp_oAc7_DPY3ISaR5fukHDz_iy89Whodc3xFkW3DM0ZJstssVpl70SlkIs4s2HUoQZ7wjPVqp4ysgLVdOFZ2a6yKnslDk/s1600/lolo+backstage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGBMhgNAwOxgITwFF4WxO7knNdvDFHwt5kkoVOp5DP1XSgSRbp_oAc7_DPY3ISaR5fukHDz_iy89Whodc3xFkW3DM0ZJstssVpl70SlkIs4s2HUoQZ7wjPVqp4ysgLVdOFZ2a6yKnslDk/s1600/lolo+backstage.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
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My girls' theatrical and dance escapades, all chronicled in photos and a minimum of whining about the price of gas and the late hours of rehearsal.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmrjQPktQTDphEnG4nKcZUJotBqIqo3i54Wa5nJcRN6fNZO6kCDfsGbzhFUTcyaKg7peizRn7Q8URFuJEeoI2IyrQB-pmdJpt6tOUKzA9DsCxdQ1a7uxbDNK_ahhdf__F5RFB3MHYrTzQ/s1600/fabulous.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmrjQPktQTDphEnG4nKcZUJotBqIqo3i54Wa5nJcRN6fNZO6kCDfsGbzhFUTcyaKg7peizRn7Q8URFuJEeoI2IyrQB-pmdJpt6tOUKzA9DsCxdQ1a7uxbDNK_ahhdf__F5RFB3MHYrTzQ/s1600/fabulous.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a><br />
When considering the massive volume of valuable-to-me farmy and not-so-farmy Suite family history I today undertook the BLOG BACKUP. Dun-dun-dunnnnnn.<br />
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It was a three-click procedure that didn't preserve the photos within the posts. But still. Have you backed up your blog lately? I bet your children and your vegetables and your life -- all growing. And if any of y'all or your tech-savvy friends know how to back up the blog without losing the photos, would you be so kind as to share that information with me?<br />
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Because I blogged here about backing up a horse trailer and I might need to refer to that one day.<br />
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In non-technical news, the garden is ENORMOUS. We are eating salads every day, twice a day, and watching the corn and beans grow before our eyes. I am excited about the coming tomato harvest (almost afraid to say it, just a little superstitious) and have set up a canning kitchen on the back patio since our new cooktop is glass. The hay is in and it was a somewhat disappointing bale count compared to last year. We are very grateful to be able to make our own hay but it does look like we'll be buying some to supplement this year as a springtime drought kept the grass from growing.<br />
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Feels like being a farmer.<br />
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Madeleine and Sarah are halfway through a three-week break from ballet and they walk around the house on demi-pointe all day to keep their, what, feet flexible? balance intact? I dunno. We are looking forward to a drama camp and some dance camps and a lot of swimming in the river this summer. Also a lot of garden produce.<br />
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I hope your June is blessed and, backing up a bit, that you make time to back up your blog.Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-54271905407908394432013-05-30T21:45:00.002-07:002013-05-30T21:49:41.896-07:00In the weeds, 2013 edition<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So this year my vegetable garden is <em>enormous</em>. Sixty feet of green beans, thirty feet of carrots. Cabbages and tomatoes and corn oh my. Basil for year-round pesto, if I get my way.<br />
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In my heart I think I am a raised-bed-square-foot gardener but as of last year we became (spectacularly badly) farmers. With gorgeous, enormous beds-o-weeds. Because chemicals, not so much. (And don't get me started on genetically modified anything. We cannot afford that rant.)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsHaUpfvBEj3BRMLdbpR8gZV10pcArzbV_ejhemmX6uwJdWASJ_gK-M1kwT8IRQ5yoZyayUamNab47xHHFQ9gXpn1kqL3vKxT5l3kZngRQ-Msm38DN-UGelJe5s3XXRa-BA0voohYUyAA/s1600/garden+mark+one.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" mwa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsHaUpfvBEj3BRMLdbpR8gZV10pcArzbV_ejhemmX6uwJdWASJ_gK-M1kwT8IRQ5yoZyayUamNab47xHHFQ9gXpn1kqL3vKxT5l3kZngRQ-Msm38DN-UGelJe5s3XXRa-BA0voohYUyAA/s320/garden+mark+one.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
So anywhat this year my father-in-law has very diplomatically put himself in charge of weed control. And because of that there is probably some hope for our row crops.<br />
Let's just say that after last year, the expression "hard row to hoe" means a lot to me. I am demoted to the care of my gorgeous raised beds, which I filled with the herbs and tomatoes and peppers after I shoveled on the compost. Mah-self.<br />
Oh and I am also responsible for the two-hundred-square-foot (or so) perennial garden which is packed with heirloom peonies, daylilies, roses and irises and of course weeds. On that front my history is repeating itself to the extent that a neighbor girl stopped and <em>offered to weed it for me</em>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKP0qEYhf9r6btnOhEc7NX34duQ9pbHIqQOiW7KeoMEYvUwEdCb2PaT9FN5FqOjbvVnTuKj82oQNnYZSa1Vn2DMVxrhyjO5ymxGuCXvRziiM4reee9TUXRf_PZAtdnP6NZiy0wQLgpW00/s1600/iris+vase.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" mwa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKP0qEYhf9r6btnOhEc7NX34duQ9pbHIqQOiW7KeoMEYvUwEdCb2PaT9FN5FqOjbvVnTuKj82oQNnYZSa1Vn2DMVxrhyjO5ymxGuCXvRziiM4reee9TUXRf_PZAtdnP6NZiy0wQLgpW00/s320/iris+vase.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I think she might've wanted to be paid. </div>
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And since my own teenagers and pre-teens are much cheaper labor (they work for popsicles) I thanked her kindly but declined, whereupon she proceeded to join my children on the redneck slip-n-slide they made out of a tarp on the hill behind the house. While I went in to put some more juice and yogurt in the popsicle molds just in time for them to freeze for the end of the sprinkler festival. </div>
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So I still have weeds.</div>
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Which brings me to the metaphorical point of this post.</div>
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When a girl, say someone I know well, takes on too much (dance lesson delivery six days a week for four girls; the care and toilet training of one toddler boy; voice, flute, sewing and piano one per customer per week; equestrian and farm animal insanity daily; academics at the table and on the run; "side jobs" of a onetime, long-neglected, true love: writing and editing; occassional clerical and administrative details of her husband's engineering business) and won't admit it that it is too much, or can't edit it down to manageable levels of crazy, when this happens to the extent that she doesn't even care about massive overuse of the comma, well, then, this girl may have cause to understand the phrase "in the weeds."</div>
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Some days I can't see the flowers of my life for the weeds. I'm just sayin'. At those times I know I must sharpen my focus and choose to see only the beauty amongst the chaos. Because the need for a floor-length black gown for a vocal recital shouldn't reduce one to tears. And showing up on the wrong day for a doctor appointment shouldn't cause a panic attack. </div>
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So. Focus on the beauty and let the rest recede into blurry background. Easier said than done, you say? And you'd be correct.</div>
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I started researching panic disorders and adrenal failure and in general regretted having access to the internet before I remembered that when cleaning out a flowerbed, just as in cleaning out a closet, or a schedule, it is best to start with <em>what you want to keep</em>.</div>
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What brings me joy, what can I not do without, what is worthy of my time and the space in my life? These are the questions I have asked myself periodically to regain a sense of margin and peace about our schedules and our lives. NOT "who expects me to continue <em>this</em>" and "what will happen if I don't do <em>that</em>."</div>
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Then, after identifying the keepers, the perennials that bloom, attack it with a sharp hoe. And mulch it all around so the weeds can't creep back in too quickly. Don't forget to ask for help if you need it. Don't let it go for so long that the taproots of busy-ness are impossible to dig.</div>
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Notes to myself on gardening and life.</div>
Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4353960968224206214.post-88717930701265273312013-05-09T22:15:00.000-07:002013-05-09T22:15:10.672-07:00If I were a gardener<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTlzVU99OtOCo8qu26GpmoCH-FQHsX_OxCCWk-sY3mbRWVgcWJTKw3wdm_8N3BLCs6WXS-PK-Zzx7Tx-Fk1FV4aV49up3Tle9Oa_ZLxyvyUojxLVYyPKZtI8vlVn5GXCnPOPuUbcbLFro/s1600/baby+tomato+plant.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" mwa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTlzVU99OtOCo8qu26GpmoCH-FQHsX_OxCCWk-sY3mbRWVgcWJTKw3wdm_8N3BLCs6WXS-PK-Zzx7Tx-Fk1FV4aV49up3Tle9Oa_ZLxyvyUojxLVYyPKZtI8vlVn5GXCnPOPuUbcbLFro/s320/baby+tomato+plant.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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If I were a gardener I'd probably wait until the last frost date to plant those tomatoes.</div>
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But two weeks of 80 degree days and 50 degree nights and I. just. could. not. wait.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhow6Ev61KihgjYTfbLBLePBy5D0E0GABcuSSa9jKzsuoOnBuXM7zRaRpdtQcJxgWkgTNPXUzGCWTj09PKKN4hTUIcEmxi7Ev2BUrc35CHeqnoE74KpMM9rxTJ971vsbrPyfduLiN254CI/s1600/even+more+dirt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" mwa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhow6Ev61KihgjYTfbLBLePBy5D0E0GABcuSSa9jKzsuoOnBuXM7zRaRpdtQcJxgWkgTNPXUzGCWTj09PKKN4hTUIcEmxi7Ev2BUrc35CHeqnoE74KpMM9rxTJ971vsbrPyfduLiN254CI/s320/even+more+dirt.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The garden is bigger this year than last. We (the famous "royal we") <br />tore out the fence between the Hill at Bag End (anyone?)</div>
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and the garden in order to expand into the sunniest areas. </div>
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For reference, the fence used to be on the left side of this photo. </div>
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The fence you still see separates the horse paddock from the garden. </div>
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At least until some equine with a long neck and <br />a lot of determination needs a snack of corn.</div>
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There is really no way to move our garden to another area on the property <br />(at least without a good deal of expense and <br />also shuffling the chicken yard or children's play yard) <br />but we could and did capture a little more sunny footage for the corn and beans. </div>
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A new fence may or may not go up on the west end. I kind of like that open feeling. The deer may like it too.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisfqYLypkpWAFNGO-QASlQBc0skx-_LjIFLQGT5-2JYzGdm0nRZ7hB4rifpNQQ6BNLMQjqkqHNYLw8doTQPp1QO3eJqvhszpgm8xdGXEGWs6cctgPvz3RUjZPSIYsRJ8MPorIKDtlDRQY/s1600/lotta+dirt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" mwa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisfqYLypkpWAFNGO-QASlQBc0skx-_LjIFLQGT5-2JYzGdm0nRZ7hB4rifpNQQ6BNLMQjqkqHNYLw8doTQPp1QO3eJqvhszpgm8xdGXEGWs6cctgPvz3RUjZPSIYsRJ8MPorIKDtlDRQY/s320/lotta+dirt.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The original homesteaders here cleared (read: clear cut) the steep hillside to the back of the garden and horse paddocks. They operated a sawmill on our creek and some of the stumps are so huge (and ugly) that they have not rotted in all those decades. We are slowly replanting that hillside on the "back yard/garden" side but we have not decided what to do about the hill on the "horse" side. </div>
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Stay tuned because a good idea is bound to emerge. </div>
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Between other projects. And dance lessons. A-hem.</div>
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Composted manure enriches our raised beds and traditional tilled gardens. Amazing stuff, and free. Last year we had to purchase soil to fill the newly built raised beds because we weren't ready to use the previous owner's compost. I would not like to have to pay money again for what seemed to be mostly wood fiber.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRrBqnPA9UFAk878vWnEytHoFliKvSpHsKQTuH4d0gjsgg-KqOL4Jn42Sk7gxrsrjsAKJuoORBVfowZIAmjzqFjp1HIu2y-8BoFb6Ii4wYeq_gcjrJiXt-96LCHnaspq_0gGbBRabCZPM/s1600/new+grape.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" mwa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRrBqnPA9UFAk878vWnEytHoFliKvSpHsKQTuH4d0gjsgg-KqOL4Jn42Sk7gxrsrjsAKJuoORBVfowZIAmjzqFjp1HIu2y-8BoFb6Ii4wYeq_gcjrJiXt-96LCHnaspq_0gGbBRabCZPM/s320/new+grape.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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A very old grapevine that we discovered in the mown lawn is flourishing on its one-year-old arbor. Last year we even harvested grapes! That was a blessing to me because I was loathe to leave behind our gorgeous grape arbor at the old farmhouse. Similarly here we uncovered a 40-foot row of raspberries that were choked with grass just beyond the beautiful existing strawberry bed. </div>
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It is a happy report that the raspberries are looking great this spring as are three young blueberry plants that the sweet sellers planted not too long before we moved in. <br />To that berry garden we added three additional blueberry plants, <br />a gift from friends with a nursery, and two currant bushes.</div>
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My lavender at the front door is huge! Last year it was root-bound in a four-inch pot; this year it is competing with the already-in-residence purple columbines. Soon both will fade and be replaced by the squeal-worthy peony show. <br />A girl's gotta have flowers. And the odd Grecian statuette.</div>
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Are you gardening this year?</div>
Mirihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03924043596033516959noreply@blogger.com3