I Sedum chairs?

I love sedum... and I love garden art... but I've never done anything to marry those two loves... until now.

When a painted, weathered porch chair lost its seat. That'll happen if you water a basket of geraniums on it all summer long for four years straight. And then, ahem, you use the chair as a stepstool to hang a banner for a yard party.

So the seat parted ways with the rest of the chair... and met up with some scraps of chicken wire. Cutting the chicken wire to size was the hardest part of the project. It helps if you take time to find wire snips instead of figuring the kitchen shears are "close enough." Don't ask how I know.

My lovely assistants gathered moss and carefully lined the chicken wire with a cushy planting area for sedum, which will love the airy drainage. I hope.

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And on a side note, does it seem that my sorta-kinda-how-to is really more of a "how not to"?

Case in point. Moss and chicken wire will not support actual sitting.

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I'll share pictures after I plant the sedum, which I have to dig up from between rocks and in a wheelbarrow I planted last year. Then I'll place the whole sculpture (artfully?) in the garden.

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This was a fun, free project and it feels good to be back to making something out of nothing. Very farmgirl frugal of me.

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Also? I know my puns are not that funny. But I crack myself up. And not just when falling through a porch chair.

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What projects are you planning? Planting? Falling into?

Tan lines and tutus

barefoot ballerinas

blackberries on the vine

baby in a basket

summer closes its doors softly

autumn peeks through textbook pages

produce and memories preserved

Sweet cousin visits, tastes country life

My nephew Rio was here for a dose of cousin corruption this weekend. We made sure to feed him lots of things he probably doesn't eat at home.

And Laura did her best to confuse him about the concept of an umbrella.

(Unrelated photos of Salvador (this one with Grandpa) are going to be a staple around here for a while.)

But my favorite incident of cousin corruption is this one. If you can't read the title of that irreverent book, count yourself lucky. Madeleine read it to Rio and he giggled. A lot.

Sorry about that, Jess. We didn't mean to be a bad influence. Truly.

Seven wonders of the weekend

1. The blackberries are finally ripening.

2. My sister-in-law and precious nephew are visiting for the weekend.

3. Salvador is seven weeks of smiliness...

4. ...and recovering well from a minor surgery that threw us all in a controlled tizzy this week.

5. I have made it thus far in the summer without thrifting once! (Amazing what you can save when you don't spend on bargains.)

6. My garden is alive and thriving, though the tomatoes are still green.

7. McMansions are no longer the gold standard. I didn't make this up. My little house is now average-sized. Whodathunk?

After the hay

Why does hay always coincide with a hot (read: heat stroke hot) spell?

Why do children like to climb in the haystacks?

Why does a nap in the shade feel oh-so-good after hard labor?

Smiles and miles

Early this week we drove to our state capitol for a field trip.

One hundred and fifty years ago or so,
a journey on the Oregon Trail required a lot more
than the loaf of challah and water bottles we took along.

That paver says, to reference my source, that the six-month journey would require more than 400 pounds of food per person.

"200 pounds of flour, 75 pounds of bacon, 10 pounds of rice, 5 pounds of coffee, 2 pounds of tea, 25 pounds of sugar...."

(And I thought my pantry was stocked.)

Less than 100 years after making that journey, Oregonians reportedly
looked like the 1938 mural above. Wheat and apples and overalls. I'm liking it.

We learned that the "respectable" folks of 1845 and 1846
were going right past our house on the Applegate Trail.

I did not make this up.

(Does it lend me any respectability?)

The rotunda of the capitol building is beautiful.

I nursed the baby on a marble bench underneath that gorgeous sight.

As I sat on that bench I thought about the women who nursed their babies
on wagon seats and under trees and while stirring cornmeal dinner
over a campfire.

We sure have an easier life today.

Meanwhile the girls dabbled in a little politics.

(Gratuitous picture of Salvador smiling.
He slept in the sling throughout our capitol walk.
Yep, I was the baby-wearing homeschool mama shepherding four girls
past a marble statue of Sacajawea,
past crowds of attorneys and statesmen and journalists.
20 years ago I was one of those with a press badge
and high heels and high expectations.
It was fun back then. But it was awesome being on the other side of the badge.

Wearing my baby and my sandals.
Kinda makes me smile just thinking about it.)

The girls were excited to find our little village
-- really an unincorporated rural one-stop-sign junction --
on an antique map of the state.

We don't generally show up on modern maps

except for the maps we made
in geography lessons last year.

Our house was built in 1880s as the area's first church. It didn't have a resident pastor, as many remote churches didn't. So a traveling preacher would visit once a quarter or so and the community members would take turn teaching most weeks.

Living in a historical landmark -- albeit a small, stone-foundation, stick-built landmark -- may have fostered the girls' interest in Oregon's history.

Or maybe it was that golden pioneer statue on the top of the building.

(Laura wanted to take him home.)

Instead our souvenirs are pictures. And remembered smiles.

Am I too late?

I wanted to write a wonderful post about our community's annual ice cream social and fire hall fundraiser but I was too busy nursing the baby and changing diapers and cooking from scratch after weeks of blessed freezer and neighbor-delivered meals and just this week returning to our twice-a-month volunteer stint at the food pantry and endlessly watering and weeding and fertilizing the garden and oh, yeah, breathing.


So am I too late for a wordless Wednesday of my own design?


You know, where there are a lot of words (but not very many for me) and a few pictures that don't have a lot to do with the words... a post that can still serve as a scrapbook page of my kids' summer in this little rural village we call home.

The place we're glad to entertain our cousins and friends. The place we water our garden and change the baby and, you know, breathe.

If I were to get even the slightest bit metaphorical I'd add: The place we put out fires.
And more importantly the place we fill our tanks.

Home.

Big love

The girls and baby and I are off to the lake with friends today.

It's been the most eventful season any newborn of ours has ever seen.

And there's still more to come.

Paradoxically I feel more protective of our time and energy than I ever have.

Rolling around in my head and heart are thoughts of the family dynamic as it changes with each child. I don't quite have words for the blended blessings and adjustments and what those mean to us so far. The best I can describe it right now is this: I want each and every one of our children to know fundamentally that they are loved, cherished. I want each of them to know their passions are supported and their needs are met.

Our pediatrician -- a family friend -- told us upon learning of our third pregnancy that we were fools to let ourselves become "outnumbered." Of course he spoke in jest. A large family means there are more hands to hold. And that goes both ways.

Clothesline unplugged

Y'all know how much I love my whirligig clothesline, right?

So do the children.

Slow parenting

Thursday I predicted a 10-pound weigh-in for Salvador's one-month appointment.

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At two weeks he weighed 8 pounds 2 ounces and he ate without ceasing for the two weeks following that. So at one month old he weighs 10 pounds, 9 ounces. Is this some kind of record? I am pretty sure it is, in our family anyway.

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Also? His belly button is a perfect little cinnamon roll. He sleeps like such a boy with his arms flung up and his t-shirt riding high. His hair is spiky and wavy after a bath. He's a precocious smiler and cuddly as can be.

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Another thing I know: I won't always be this exclusive in my focus. One day, fairly soon, I'll remember that I have a garden to tend (or put to bed, at this rate) and a bunch of animals to work with and school curriculum to choose and laundry to do. But for today, and probably tomorrow too, I'll keep watching the baby's eyelashes grow. I'll measure his growth by ounces in my arms.

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Blink and he'll be 20 pounds. Blink once more and he'll be reading Tom Sawyer.

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So I'll try to blink slowly. Like the slow food movement, only for parenting.

Happy campers return

Gracie said she didn't miss them. And it's true that while Madeleine, 11, and Sarah, 10, were gone to camp Grace, 6, was princessa numero uno of the household. She happily took over chicken and kitty cat duties while I was in charge of horses and rabbits and the big girls' gardening chores in addition to whatever else I could squeeze in between Salvador's nonstop nursing nonschedule.

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That boy will weigh 10 pounds at his one-month check in today. You heard it here first.

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I missed the big girls so much, and not just when I was stalking them. I mean delivering care packages to camp. I recognized, not for the first time, how much they do at our mini farm and I appreciate even more who they are as fantastic individuals. My favorite part of picking kids up from camp is the chattering that goes on from the moment they disembark the bus. Sarah didn't stop talking for 36 hours and Madeleine corrected every single story she told. It's wonderful and hilarious, this stage of girlhood. How did I get so lucky?

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Since returning home tan and exhausted they have suffered through their chores once again so I have even more time for feeding the unfillable newborn. They've returned to their art notebooks with a vengeance. Madeleine's got a short story going on but I'm not supposed to know about it. The neighbor children have all been over for a run through the sprinkler and our children have all trekked down the road to those neighbors' new pool. Exciting times in the boondocks.

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We were planning a big blueberry outing with friends this morning but we have to take Salvador in for his appointment this afternoon and I am finding myself still a little handicapped in the multi-event day category so we're home instead. Let's just say there are no triathlons in my summer schedule. In fact we're calling it a banner day when we're fully dressed. (There's an embarrassing story in there about my famous drop-in house and being braless in the afternoon, but I'll not cause you to suffer through.)

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So that's all the news that's fit to blog around the Suite place. How are you passing your summer?

Inspiration point

Do you have a place you go to reconnect with your self? A thinking rock, a cozy chair, a pond in your backyard? The driver's seat of your car, the corner table at Starbucks?



Sometimes this reconnection requires a journey. Sometimes it's too noisy, even in the wingback chair in the back of your den. Sometimes the pull of a to-do list is too strong in your own house, hometown, county.

Sometimes it's a road trip that's called for. Almonds and dried cherries and chocolate chips in a little paper sack. Licorice too maybe. A huge iced tea and a full tank of unleaded complete the preparation.

(Of course in my particular situation there's also a diaper bag or three, sand toys, color crayons and books for the back rows, a camera and lenses, a baby sling, a cooler stacked with yogurts and bananas, and a zipper baggie full of allergy medications. You pack according to your needs andmayGodblessyouifthey'reanythinglikemine.)

I find my inspiration where I can. But when I can choose, it's the ocean that unfailingly fills that cup. For my husband, who grew up at the ocean, it's rugged mountain terrain or high desert that he craves.

This last weekend our whole family visited the ocean thanks to Mr. Suite's new contract at the coast. The girls and I lounged at the public library and walked the tourist routes while he conducted site visits and presentations. It was a perfect mini-vacation with a three-week-old baby in a sling.

Clam chowder in a bread bowl. New literature stacked high in my bookbag. The sound of crashing waves recorded in my heart.

My children in Saltwater sandals and my ever-driven compulsive and compelled self left behind for just a day. This is inspiration, spirit breathed into everyday life and tranquility overflowing for the crazy days that follow: Nurse the baby sixteen times a day. Change diapers at least that many times. Remember rural art camp. Remember to sign up for swim lessons. Fertilize. Water the garden. Feed the horses, the chickens, the bunnies, the children. Fill out a 22-page form. Return a call. Pay the electricity bill. These tasks, simple and pleasurable each on their own, can easily create traffic jams at the intersection of peace and calm.

A little time at inspiration point was called for.

How do you recharge?

Hay. It's hot.

Our haying season in Western Oregon suffered from a very, very wet spring and early summer.

My photography season suffered from a very, very long pregnancy.

But the ground and skies dried and the baby was born and, hey, there's hay on the ground and more importantly in the barns. And it's hot outside.

So of course I'm headed for the ocean today. Isn't that what everyone does when haying season is about done? (Not that I bucked a single bale, steered a tractor for a scant moment, or stacked anything whatsoever. I didn't even have time to take pictures of the sweaty workers. You know me and the postpartum excuses.)

Have a beautiful weekend!

They are partying

Did I mention that Madeleine and Sarah are at camp for a week?

I miss them. I am fairly sure they don't miss me, although Madeleine's letters will profess otherwise. She is the mom pleaser in this aspect. Sarah will likely fail to write to me at all. That's how much she'll miss me.

They left on that party bus and a couple of days later I stalked them.

No, really.

My good friend KL and I imposed on our good friend Cara's husband to give us the top-secret directions to the girls' hideout. (Or to print a Google map to the camp.) The errand was ostensibly about delivering care packages ... I had forgotten to mail things ahead of time and would hate for the girls to be mailless. After all, as I mentioned, they miss me so terribly.

Even with the aid of insider information we managed to get lost. That was okay, though, because it was beautiful countryside. We saw actual bison and bison babies. Except I called them "buffalo" and they got offended. Did you know it's so totally not okay to call them buffalo? Yeah. Me neither.

And then we saw swans, a real live pair of swans on a gorgeous pond on what was definitely not on the camp's private road. Oops. Sorry 'bout that, nice ranch dwellers there in the close-to-camp but not-camp bajillion-acre spread.

When I'm stalking my daughters, I'm all stealth like that. Disturbing the livestock and trespassing and all.

So then we finally found the camp (right about where the dozens of big "camp" signs were), drove in on the proper private road, delivered the mail and skulked outta there for ice cream with the little children.

Don't tell my big girls but I miss them.

Tiny toes and baby bums

Weeks two and one-half are past, passed, over in the way that makes new and hormonal mommies misty. And not just from lack of sleep. It's that eternal conflict: looking for new milestones while striving to live in the moment.

Madeleine and Sarah are gone to camp for a week. They are shooting arrows at the bull's eye and jumping off the diving board and in general having the time of their lives.

I'm still in the back yard, metaphorically speaking, and most days I'm literally lounging there as well.

I move pretty slowly in decision-making and I find I move pretty slowly physically too. This may be age. It may be postpartum. It may be a new me. A more peaceful, less driven kinda me.

Or! Maybe I've gained a tiny measure of that patience I was trying to learn in waiting for a past-due baby. (Hmmph. Ask me again in a couple of months maybe.)

Oh. And: Why is it that three children seems so vastly fewer than five? (Vastly fewer? Did I ever really work as an editor?)

Discuss amongst yourselves. I'm going for the jar of sun tea.

The dog days?

During our recent hot spell it became evident that Jake the dog was a little too aromatic for mixed company.

No time for the groomer. No interest in infecting the Suburban with his royal stinkiness. (And, frankly, no $60 for the groomer either.) The only problem, er, challenge, with this set of circumstances was that I was not interested in either of the bathrooms getting covered in dog hair nor in the lingering wet dog scent that would of course follow an indoor canine bath.

At farmsuite we can meet these challenges with a rusty clawfoot tub, the garden hose, and some intrepid junior groomer types in colorful outfits and rubber boots:

Thanks, Laura, Grace and Mr. Suite, for taking care of that little dog days of summer problem. (Er, challenge.)

Spunky and the gang take a walk

My girls and our favorite neighbor boys like to take Laura, the two-year-old also known as "Spunky," for walks in her wagon.

Until little Ryan gets tired and decides the two-seater wagon has room for him too.

And that's when Spunky shows her stuff: Without a fast shutter speed you'd never know he didn't walk the whole way; he was only in the wagon a split second. And if only I'd had a longer lens on the Nikon you'd be treated to a glimpse of the patented FACE that bid him back afoot in a hurry.

Oh, friends, what's a mom of five to do when her fourth is so clearly another firstborn?