still walking and waking

saturday's frost and fog

2012-02-06T16:53:00.000-07:00

wishing she'd come out walking with Ziah and me

tuesday's frost

2012-02-03T19:45:00.001-07:00

survive and thrive friday: getting rid of stuff, container garden, fresh food, deer meat wrap-up

2012-02-02T23:26:00.005-07:00

There's a lot to sum up this time around for my remarkably popular (hi, Mom!) "Survive and Thrive" series. I know some of this stuff is as boring as all git-out, so if you make it to the bottom of the post, you are a real patriot. Of whatever country you choose.

Looming largest before us, both in our minds' eyes and in our basement, are our mountains of crap. Down-sizing possessions has been an ongoing process for the last, I don't know, 7 or 8 years. But this time we're serious. We no longer want to keep anything that's not on the slimmed down list of our truest interests. Moving into our first real home is the impetus for this newest manifestation of an old resolve. We lived in a one room cabin in Alaska for a couple years and a pickup camper in Maryland for a few months, but sadly, though we had the appearance and scent of minimalists, we always still owned our stuff; it was out of sight - in storage, or at Mom and Dad's house. This time, we're whittling down the piles in every single category, including the sacred cow of books. It's really something for us to get rid of books. We love books. Our collection is our history, our identity, in a form you can hold in your hands. But you know what? Any books we haven't referenced for years and that are readily available at the library, why haul them around? They make for very heavy shelf decor. We'll keep the practical, how-to books for when/if the internet isn't available. And a few sentimental books. And maybe a joke book or two for when we're super bored not owning any possessions. And some classic series' that we want the kids to read. And a few that are signed. And maybe some we wouldn't want to bother hunting down at the library. Dangit. This is hard.

One of my proudest sorting feats was getting the kids' clothes down to three cat litter boxes or roasting pans apiece. Give me a break, those are the only cheap containers that would fit into this weird closet thingy. Anyway, pride. And then I read the account of my friend, Kim, who lives in a hut in Sudan. She showed lovely pictures of the villagers in their new Christmas outfits. Very colorful, sturdy outfits (lucky, right?)....which they'll wear nearly exclusively until next Christmas, when they each get one new outfit to wear all year. Doh.

By the way, is this not the cutest dress on God's green earth?
Rachel made it for Z for Christmas. It's reversible.
Don't be distracted by one pink and one gray sock.

*********************************************

Jason is trying his hand at this particular style of container garden. (Resource: this PFD instruction link at www.seattleoil.com.) Jason and Zoralee planted tomatoes, peppers, peas, basil, and cilantro, and I think maybe a little flower that fixes nitrogen in the soil. I can't recall exactly, but we should know soon enough! This container is pretty neat. You keep water in the bottom reservoir, and then the soil pulls it up as it needs it, through the column of soil that sits down into the water.


Jason cut the edges off of the bin's lid so it would sit down inside the bin, making a floor or shelf for the soil. He cut a hole in the center for a small bucket. Dirt will fill the bin, including the bucket, making a column of dirt that pulls water up by capillary action. (I remembered that term off hand. Kidding. Thank you, google.)

The soil floor is held solid by four legs of PVC pipe.
They, and the bucket bottom, sit on the bin's actual bottom.

Holes are poked throughout the bucket! Muy importante, so the water can come through.
They are poked into the floor/shelf too for soil aeration.
Once the bucket is foil of soil, you fill the lower reservoir by pouring water into the pipe.

They laid down cheesecloth so the soil wouldn't fall out of the holes and into the water,
but the water could still come in to the soil.
How useful you are, oh cheesecloth, despite your name being really awkward
when there is no cheese involved.

Day 1: January 16

We started getting some sprouts within a few days. It was fabulously rewarding! (no pics of those little guys)

Day 14: January 29

Day 18: February 2
Jason will do another round of thinning out those foreground herbs.
The germination rate on our seeds was super high.

We've had a couple of casualties. One pea plant was voted off the container garden by a certain young girl when she wondered what would happen if she picked the leaves, the only two tiny leaves by which the dear plant could obtain light and grow. A couple of herbs won't make it because a baby dropped a ball into the bin and it rolled all over the delicate sprouts. Oh, what the heck. I'll just tell you - it was Zoralee and Ziah, those rascals.

*********************************************

In food news, Jason was on a week + long vegetable and fruit juice fast, after watching the documentary, "Sick, Fat, and Nearly Dead." Every concoction was different than the next, some in very pretty colors. This was my favorite:

The kids and I go through the yogurt and fruit smoothies anyway,
but I started to add more veggies when Jason took up juicing.
I'm gonna say go easy on the sprouts. If you overdo them,
you've got what essentially tastes like a sprout smoothie.
And, there's nothing wrong with it, if a sprout smoothie is what you set out to make.

Oh. This is JUST dawning on me as I type: Zoralee, the child who has always said things like, "Yay!! Broccoli!" has recently stopped wanting vegetables. I know that it weirded her out to have spinach in the smoothies, but oh my. What have we done?!? I hope it's an unrelated phase, I hope it's an unrelated phase, I hope....

Anyway, since we started eating a more "Paleo" style diet a few months ago, we have really cut down on wheat and other grain products. The kids and I still eat a lot of dairy, but Jason, not so much. And yes, fresh produce is expensive, but I really think good health is worth that cost - especially when it coincides with spending very little money on chips, crackers, pop, and every manner of pre-packaged food. It is so freeing to not have to run down every aisle at the grocery store. We stick almost exclusively to the edges for the fresh and refrigerated stuff. As time goes on and our gardening and canning skills improve, we'll be able to cut out buying canned goods too!

Granola Doll in fresh produce ecstasy

*********************************************

I'll close by showing a few shots of wrapping the deer Jason shot a couple of months ago. More details of his hunt are available upon request. :)

Always, always, always, we're learning lessons! Now what we've got to work on is trying the same experiments twice in a row so that we can apply those lessons.

from the prairie's edge - our life as told by our stack of books

2012-01-30T14:45:00.000-07:00

This recent stack of books gives a pretty good indication of what we've been doing, discussing, and preparing to do...

- the hymnal our church uses; I've taken up playing piano for worship about once a month

- Nourishing Traditions: food history, recipes, and inspiration to eat well

- Good Montana Morning: a cook book from my folks, written by the owners of a B&B in Whitefish, in the same home where I used to take piano lessons!! (some really fun recipes)

- Sepp Holzer's Permaculture - he is THE GURU on permaculture, which is possibly the most earth-shattering concept we have run into in the last five years. That seems like an extreme statement, so I might have to see if Jason agrees, but seriously, so many of the world's ills as it relates to health, food production, water and soil contamination, hunger, drought, concerns over big business, an individual's ability to care for themselves at the most basic level and not rely on any entity (including government) could be addressed by permaculture. But wait; there's more! Each family learning how to grow or raise even a little fraction of their own food (and doing it smartly, as nature does) can prepare themselves for all manner of life's unexpected curve balls. Power outages, natural disasters, and sudden income loss are some we've seen a lot of recently, right? We can thereby free ourselves from the "need" for such steady income and can choose to live how we want to live - using our time for pursuits that are meaningful to us individually and as families. Sorry I keep mentioning this, but I just think it is a rad concept that has all kinds of beneficial ramifications. And it is attainable. Even just doing a couple of raised beds in the lawn or some container gardens in the house, hey, it's a start! That's where we are.

Gaia's Garden - not sure about this one, another of Jason's. Probably permaculture related...

Last Child in the Woods - a plea to get our kids outside, interacting with nature, for their health and well-being

Family-Friendly Farming and Everything I Want to Do is Illegal - two books by Joel Salatin. This guy is another permaculture / local food guru, who strives to go beyond organic in everything he raises. Salatin describes himself as a "Christian Libertarian Environmentalist Capitalist Lunatic Farmer," and he is interesting! You might have seen him featured in the documentary, Food, Inc. He appears in all kinds of youtube clips too.

Entering The Stone - Recommend! Recommend! Barbara Hurd writes beautifully about caving, like going into actual physical caves under the earth, but also plumbing the depths of one's own emotions and experiences, dealing with loss in life, and change. The feel of this book sticks with me through the day; it's one of those.

Nurtureshock - This is the third time I've borrowed the same book from a library (twice in MT and once here), mostly because it's thick and hearty, and I was borrowing it at inopportune times. It has ten chapters about ten totally different aspects of parenting, based on solid research that looks at hundreds of studies across cultures, economic status, etc. The topics were chosen because they most strongly fly in the face of modern, conventional wisdom. There are some sobering looks at several aspects of public education, including why "gifted and talented" programs are dead wrong in who is admitted into them as much as 73% of the time. The first chapter of the book, "The Inverse Power of Praise," grabbed my attention, because the conclusion is very much in line with Montessori-inspired thought and what I've read in other books like Unconditional Parenting: that needless praise is often just the flip side of needless criticism. Nowadays, it's assumed that children need to hear how awesome they are at everything, but the truth is they need us to be engaged with them about their accomplishments and failures and to encourage them to keep trying. Kids who are told they're naturally smart give up on difficult tasks much sooner than kids who are congratulated on trying hard. Other topics in the book are why children lie, how we can help siblings to get along (though almost all of them bicker and quarrel - in fact, if they are distant and disengaged from each other, chances are that's how their adult relationship will be too), whether or not self-control can be taught and a look at a revolutionary program in schools called "Tools of the Mind", and the startling negative effects that our culture of sleep deprivation (early high school start time) has on teenagers.

Native American Ethnobotany - welllll, this lugger of a book is an amazing resource of plants used for food and medicine by native groups, but it's not a sit down and mull over type. It must be in high demand within the ND library system, because we were only allowed to have it out a week, which is barely enough time to read the introduction. Jason was wanting to get ideas about things to plant on our land.

- I forgot to add in a plumbing how-to of Jason's, which he has been reading like an action thriller. Hopefully within a week, he can really start work on the new house. Meanwhile, we will be here at the old one for another couple of months.

2012-01-26T22:04:00.000-07:00


Good heavens!! That dog was utterly ginormous! Did you see the size of his teeth, Florence? Florence?

for A, and anybody else who's stuck in colder weather

2012-01-26T20:57:00.000-07:00

blogger format

2012-01-20T22:05:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to figure out how to use the "dynamic view" in Blogger, yet keep gadgets on the edge of the page (like the list of blogs I read, and the archives of my own blog). Anybody have experience?

december 2011 trip to ohio, maryland, & w. virginia

2012-01-19T23:05:00.000-07:00

Here are a selection of shots from our visit to see some of Jason's family last month. We flew into Cincinnati, where Uncle Jim and Aunt Kate live, rented a car and drove out to Maryland and W Virginia, visited mostly Jason's immediate family there (sorry we didn't get to hook up with everybody - maybe this summer!), and then drove back to Cincinnati to fly home.

If you are crying inconsolably to see more of our family trip (and don't pretend you ain't), I posted like 160 pics to facebook, and I can certainly shoot you a link to view them, even if you don't have a facebook account.

at the Krohn Conservatory with Uncle Jim and Aunt Kate

I don't know where Zoralee gets her expressions....

Zoralee's 3rd birthday

A fun little series of geographical factoids about Zoralee is this: she began her existence in Alaska, was born in Montana, had her first birthday back in Alaska, second birthday in Texas, and third birthday in Ohio.

For Zoralee's birthday, we went to the Cincinnati Zoo. If you're familiar with our attempt 1 and attempt 2 to visit North Dakota zoos and pumpkin patches, you'll know how spectacular the Cincinnati Zoo was - for all of us! And we were literally the ONLY visitors that day, on account of the pouring rain. So the animals were alert and responsive to us. It was great. Just great.


The gorilla keeper told Zoralee to climb beyond the silly fence and get right up to the glass; he said both humans and gorillas enjoy the interaction, so why not? The babies showed Zoralee their tricks and brought a box over to play with her. We were in no hurry to leave - I mean, how cool was this??

Zoralee and Haven (Uncle Cam's niece) at the Cincinnati Museum Center
When our own Jim and Kate turned up sick, Rach set us up with her step-in-laws,
and it wound up being a real highlight to hang out with them!
The Children's Museum at the Cincinnati Museum Center is awesome.


two plaid-shirted, jeaned, tennis shoe'd dads and their little blondie daughters

at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia

This set of wings was lying around in a back room at St. Peter's, where we went for a fund-raiser luncheon. It was to be used for a Christmas play that night. Hefty things; I wouldn't trust them on a toddler, especially a tipsy one who has had even a single drop to drink.


my free bird mother-in-law

breakin' the law

We visited the National Zoo in Washington D.C. (which is free!), so we hit two amazing zoos in a week's time. LUCK-Y.

a close up sighting of our favorite zoo bear


A she-gorilla had a crush on Jason and kept following him around. That feigned shock, open-jaw "aren't YOU something?!" expression is the same one I used to woo Jason years ago, so I kept my eye on her.

Jason with his sisters and Mom

a wild night of family dancing

a little story about the dancing:

After everybody had shaken their booties for a good long while to pop and rap music, Jason and I winked at each other. It was time to deliver our very clever joke. We said casually to our two twenty-something nieces, "Oh heyyy, maybe you guys would be interested in our music for a change," knowing they would say, "We don't care about your folky music," which they did indeed say. Then Jason pushed the button on his iPhone, and we started jamming to 50 Cent's "Hate It or Love It." Yeeeeahh boy, we were con-nect-a-tect-a-tect-ing with the young folks, that's for sure. They watched us be fools for a minute, and then Ashley said, "Umm, you guys already played this joke on us last time."

Oh. Right. Best of all, we'd used the very same song for our joke two years before, because it's like one of five rap songs we know.

What would it feel like to not be a couple of spaz-oids? I'm afraid we'll never know.

two of Jason's high school buddies, Jason and Jesse

Ziah with two of Jesse and Emmy's three kids, Jasper and Brielle

winter pic and some notes

2012-01-14T22:08:00.000-07:00

I am serious. I'm on the computer, yes, yes, and now I'm logging on to blogger right NOW, and I'm posting a quickie blog - like a single picture, maybe two, and a couple of sentences - if it's the last thing I ever do.

today

I don't think I've mentioned before that we have an extra dog. Shasta has been with us for a few months, and we're dog-sitting until her parents get a place to live where they're allowed to keep her.

This week, the kids and I rode the train from Montana back to North Dakota. 14 hours on a train with a baby and a toddler - - this maneuver is NOT RECOMMENDED for a single adult if it's your sanity and love of life you wish to maintain. Actually, it wasn't too awfully terrible until the last couple of never-ending hours, when neither child would fall asleep but instead chose to be whiny and irritable and act like, well, like they'd been cooped up on a train for a whole day. At the end there, Zoralee was run over in the aisle (her own fault) by a very tall man who literally folded in half over top of her and caught his hands on the floor or a seat arm to keep from totally toppling over. So sorry, dude.

The day after we got home, we closed on our new old house. A person has to sign their name one jillion times on one jillion papers when they are buying a house.

For the last couple of days, I've been doing the very unglamorous post-trip chores of laundry and unpacking while battling a small flare up of the winter blues / post-partum / something or other. Felt like a million dollars today when I made a huckleberry cheesecake and a batch of dill sauce from a cookbook my folks gave me for Christmas (two recipes, unrelated to each other - the dill sauce can be put atop scrambled eggs or other breakfasty entrees). The kitchen is still a wreck, but I say, "never mind about that."

My birthday was yesterday. Thanks for the well wishes! It was an ordinary day of grocery shopping, getting books at the library, and setting up a new bank account. Amidst those ordinary things, Zoralee threw around a couple of innocent size-related insults. At the grocery store, she said, "That lady has a big bum," which, to be fair, was true. At the bank, when we were in back with the one lady who opens new checking accounts, Zoralee said, "This is a small office." I'm not sure what CEOs she has been hanging with to know the difference, but she does lead a fairly exotic imaginary life, so it's tough to say.

Night! Can't wait to catch up with the rest of you'ses blogs....tomorrow or soonish.

I've got me a 3 year old and a 6 monther

2011-12-11T17:30:00.001-07:00

These pictures are from a couple weeks ago, but they get across the two coinciding points that I've got fast-growing children and that time waits for no mama. We're on vacation to visit Jason's family on the east coast, so I've got a lot to post when we get home. Meanwhile, Zoralee turned three the second day of our trip and Ziah turned six months today! Ziah weighs 17 pounds on Nana's scale. I'd have to look back at my extensively well-organized records,* but if memory serves me right, Zoralee was like 18 pounds at the age of 2. Don't quote me on that. Point is, these two are built differently, and it shows - - in the thighs, among other places.

Gosh, I wish I could tell you the things each of them are doing, but we've got zoos and Christmas lights and cousins to see, and cookies and cakes and other piles of carbohydrates to consume, so I'm not in a good position to bloggity-blog-blog all the live long day.

Except, that last sentence reminds me of one of Zoralee's quotes from a couple weeks ago. I told her not to sass me (can't remember the context), and she said, "I AM gonna be sassy all the live long day to you!" So, how 'bout them apples.

* scraps of paper tossed with care into a pretty, plaid bag

survive and thrive friday: first deer with the bow (!), deadfall trap, bowdrill fire-making

2011-11-25T21:31:00.000-07:00

physical training

* * *

Our biggest news is that Jason got his first bow-and-arrowed deer this week! It was a saga, a battle between man and beast that spanned the course of three days. Each night, as the sun went down, the man returned home, head hung low. He took off his leafy, scentless, silhouette-breaking clothes, not sure he would be able to track and finish off his chosen deer. And the deer bedded down in the tall grasses, thankful he'd escaped death for one more day but alert for when that weird bush would show up again and shoot sharp things toward him. When it was all over and Jason drug his 4x4 buck down the valley toward home, a squirrel ran along through the trees, watching him. There's a teepee ring on the hill right near the house here, so Jason wondered how many times this scene had played out in this same place over time - the squirrels watching as braves brought meat home for their families.

The meat is hanging in the barn now, waiting for us to get to it - hopefully tomorrow. I grew up on deer meat, and we always got together as an extended family to process whatever game we had. But this will be our first time to process a deer just the two of us. It feels a really grown up thing to do, maybe too grown up (!); I honestly don't know if I'll recognize which chunks should be cut into steaks or roasts or ground into hamburger. I'm thinking we may end up with some roasts the shape of Texas or West Virginia rather than, say, Colorado. Wish us luck.

Deer-hunting season is a reminder to me of many good things: trips into the woods with my dad, grandpas, aunts and uncles, thermoses of hot chocolate, lumpy fanny packs of matches, flashlights, hand warmers, and other emergency supplies, roads and hills named after family hunting events, "you go this way, I'll go that way, and we'll meet at the bottom of this draw...," and back home, counter tops and tables cluttered with maps and binoculars, and piles on the floor of warm long johns and blindingly bright orange hats and jackets. And stories, always stories. In my family, when you turned 12, you represented the potential for two more deer tags, so off you went to a hunter's safety class to get certified. It felt pretty hard-core to contribute to the family's meat supply, and I am really grateful for that experience.

* * *

This is a small trap Jason has been experimenting with "to work out the kinks in the comfort and safety of our home," because you never know when you might need to give a major headache to a sweet, curious little squirrel out in the wild. Actually, of course, the idea would be to eat what you catch. I'm glad Jason is thinking along these lines, should all hell break loose and we're forced to eat weasels, because I sure as spit ain't.

The log is held up precariously by these three sticks.
Crazy enough, only one stick is touching the ground! It's like a magic trick that
baffles and entertains the onlookers and simultaneously kills small animals.
Here, a curious, colorful, miniature alligator nibbles at the bait.

The onlookers' eyes close as the sticks come loose and log crashes down.

"Gopher, Everett?"

Jason got his deadfall trap inspiration from this book.

Here's a website that has instructions with photos.

* * *

Finally, a couple shots of bow-drill fire-making. In this particular experiment, all we got was smoke and no fire, but Jason subsequently figured out that your wood types have to be the same (at least for some of the components). Maybe another day we'll have pictures of fire to show. Also, it's getting pretty late, and I don't feel like explaining how this works, so maybe you should google it if you're interested. Or else just use a match and paper.

Let's survive!

Let's thrive!

Unless we're a deer or a rodent in the crosshairs of Jason!

scenes of winter

2011-11-23T17:08:00.001-07:00

diving off a to-do list into winter

thumb

Who's freezing - show of hands?

2011-11-22T15:51:00.001-07:00

What about alternating days of each?

survive and thrive friday: snot sucker, buying a house, and PERMACULTURE

2011-11-19T15:30:00.000-07:00

In case anyone was under the ridiculous impression that every single Friday I would reveal a "Survive and Thrive Friday" post, ohhhhh, ha ha ha! No, no, no, no. It's just that when I ever do post about surviving and thriving (things we're trying in the pursuit of self-reliance, self-sustainability, and more wholistic living), heh heh, it'll be on Fridays, see. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Or Saturdays. And not necessarily the same Friday or Saturday every month. No way, man.

* * *

Let's start right in with no more ado but with lots of snot. Rachel showed us a Nosefrida snot sucker over the Skype, and I was instantly sold on it. We've all been sick for a couple weeks, and nights are 134% worse than usual because babies keep waking up irritated at having to mouth breathe. Come to find out, you know what's even cooler than sucking a tiny dab of snot at a time out of a baby's nostril? Sucking a tube full.

After dropping into casual conversation a couple of times the fact that I was gonna go out and buy a Nosefrida for $25, Jason brought home a 30 cent length of tube from an auto store. He cut the end off one of our nasal aspirators and stuck it on the tube. Tuh-duhhhh. Works like a frickin' charm. The actual Nosefrida has a couple filters interspersed, but in our experience so far, the snot doesn't even come two inches up our homemade tube, so there's no way it could reach the sucker's mouth. I would advise to be careful and not suck too hard or for very long, because there's a tiny set of lungs on the other end!! I was so excited about better sleep that I was a little vigorous at first, and Jason had to put the Whoa Nellie on me. Good old Ziah didn't seem to care one ounce. For the first couple days, he just laid there when I sucked the snot out of him, literally. I love this kid. Pretty soon he wised up and got wiggly over it, but it was a nice snot sucker honeymoon while it lasted.

You know, in this whole survive and thrive thing, I feel like I could write a lot every week, but most of the time it would be about conversations we're having, inspired by the survival podcast I keep mentioning. And that could get old, talk being cheap and all, so I'm gonna try to limit my mentionings to things we're actually trying / doing. No guarantees though, because some of these concepts are way too earth-shattering to not mention before we've verified for ourselves that they're true. Er...right!

The biggest news is that we put an offer on a 100+ year old farm house two Fridays ago, and it was accepted! It was a rather quick situation, and we're still in the throes of getting financed, having it inspected, blah blah blah. In general, we've been hesitant to get into housing debt, but when we saw this one listed and then viewed it a couple days later, we knew it was enough of a fixer upper that we could for sure come out ahead. And North Dakota is one place we feel confident investing in real estate. We still have the heebie jeebies about the debt, and about being part of the U.S. banking system at all, but we'll see. How home-ownership plays into surviving and thriving is thus and so: 1) building equity that we can turn into the cold, hard cash we need to be closer to "the dream," and 2) having our own space in which to practice permaculture concepts.

What the heck is permaculture, right?! Well, it is a crazy EXCITING concept - in my own words, it's creating little ecosystems that are as close to self-sustaining as possible (just like nature does it), but with the results / outflow / products being things that are useful to you, the creator. It's like a garden that you put a lot more initial intention into so that, while it's operating, the least amount of your energy is required to reap big rewards. A key word is efficiency, and permaculture-esque ideas apply to the running of a household or any human endeavor, really. You could have a little greenhouse in which to grow produce year round - Jason is working on a design for one now - with your chickens located right inside the greenhouse so that their poo is instant fertilizer and their heat helps keep it warm. They would also provide CO2 for the plants, which would provide oxygen for them. Permaculture is such a huge topic, and I don't even have it all worked out in my own head, that I'd better refer y'all to a couple of websites we've been visiting and learning from.

"An incredible example of permaculture in action can be seen in any of the short youtube documentaries about Sepp Holzer in Austria. Amazing stuff." - Jason

Here's one that gives you a quick overview of Sepp and his wife's homestead, and how they've basically thrown away all modern, conventional farming and gardening wisdom and instead watched nature itself for how to grow things without degrading the landscape.

Jason downloaded FOR FREE this permaculture designer's manual; we have yet to delve into it, but the writer, Bill Mollison, is the guy who came up with the permaculture term and the concept as it is envisioned in modern society. You have GOT to start with this interview of Bill Mollison from 1991. I think it'll inspire you to start the manual, like it has me.

A guy named Paul Wheaton at www.richsoil.com has lots of interesting permaculture-related stuff, and from there I found this link about caring for cast iron cookware. We probably use our cast iron 90% of the time, but have SO not perfected its use. Food still sticks a lot. Well, this page is chalk full of insights, and I got several tips I instantly integrated into the care of my pans. They have a forum at www.permies.com.

That's it for now, folks. Happy surviving and thriving!

halloween 2011: little lost polar bear and the herbivorous dinosaur

2011-11-09T22:59:00.000-07:00

- guest appearance by Cinderella -


Once upon a time, there lived an energetic polar bear with a rainbow tummy.
She had been displaced from her Arctic homeland.

Polar Bear was on a search that had taken her far from her natural habitat.
It was a search for what we all crave: meaningful effort, a sense of belonging,
and candy.

Before she knew it, she was wandering the fields and highways of North Dakota.

Little Lamb was Polar Bear's trusty companion.

The trip had been hard on Little Lamb -

a broken leg, a lot of riding by the neck in the crook of Polar Bear's arm -

but he had no idea of the dangers that were just beyond the next hay bale.

Or maybe he did.

"A little patch of woods!" squealed Polar Bear with delight.

"Now this is the type of terrain I recognize!"

"Weeee! Aren't the woods fun, Little Lamb?"
Polar Bear looked around to see what other fun might be had.

She noticed something in the grass just a few trees away.

Why, it was an herbivorous dinosaur! He sure was hungry, but apparently well-fed.

And pensive.

And tricky!

Polar Bear watched the little dinosaur from her vantage point behind a tree of some sort.

He seemed friendly enough. She was about to step out and make his acquaintance, when

Oh, no! What was that in the background, approaching so deftly,

while the dinosaur sucked his thumb in oblivion?

Polar Bear wasted not a single second.

"Raaawr!" she cried ferociously, as she jumped out from her place of hiding.

But she suddenly felt weak and inadequate with her felt cloth claws.

Polar Bear grabbed two sticks from the forest floor.

The creature was all up ons the tiny herbivorous dinosaur!

He was a goner for certain unless Polar Bear could intervene!

"Oh, no you don't!" yelled Polar Bear, and she threw those two sticks far, far into the woods.

The toothy creature, inches from the herbivorous dinosaur, screeched to a halt

and ran instead toward the deep woods after the sticks.

"Oh mies, little herbivorous dinosaur! Are you okay?"

"Uh, yeah. Why?"

"Well," began Polar Bear, "I was hiding behind a tree, hugging it like this, watching you."

"Creepy, but okay," said the dinosaur. "Then what happened?"

And Polar Bear recounted to the herbivorous dinosaur the haunting events

that had taken place behind his Bumbo seat only seconds before.

"You're kidding!" said the herbivorous dinosaur, and he sucked his thumb to calm down.

"Well, Polar Bear, I owe you one! Hey, why don't you come with me tonight

to a special little event they call Trick or Treating? I'm going with my pal, Cinderella.

I'm not 100% certain what the deal is with it, but we wind up with a basket of candy."

"Are you for real?" asked Polar Bear. Was this actually happening?

Did this space cadet of an herbivorous dinosaur really know

where to find copious amounts of candy?

"I'm in!" she declared, and off they went for town.

Cinderella warmly greeted Polar Bear.

"Any friend of the herbivorous dinosaur is a friend of mine," she gushed.

And then they played it cool for a couple of minutes.

Cinderella had a little slipper trouble...

"Why does that seem familiar?" wondered Polar Bear.

And with empty candy baskets, they prepared to take Cinderella's neighborhood by cute storm.

Cinderella was the definite front man, the go-getter, the ringer of bells, the stater of phrases.

Polar Bear was not a fan of either the halloween decor or any masked children she encountered.

Before she had left Cinderella's house, two young Spidermen walked by,

and she'd jumped into the car in utter fright.

Polar Bear hung back, approaching doors just close and just long enough

to receive the blessed candies. A long trip makes a bear cautious.

But little by little, she found the bravery she had summoned in the woods,

helped along by grandmas like this, who handed out trinkets one at a time,

slowly and gently, enjoying the presence of those who visited her doorstep.

There was much glee all around.

"Let's go to another house!" Cinderella and Polar Bear exclaimed after each house.

Knowing that Polar Bear had found her place amongst the other random candy-seekers

and had exercised bravery in saving his life,

the herbivorous dinosaur quietly took it all in from his perch.

And sucked his thumb to stay calm.

Chicken Little - a look back at Halloween 2010

2011-10-31T13:19:00.002-06:00

Okay, one more story about disappointment, this time in video form, from one year ago today. Sorry for the recent spate of downer posts! It's just that things seem funnier when they're shrouded in the foggy mist of sadness (and in these cases, it's mostly adult-perceived sadness; our child appears to be doing okay).

s

three course meal

2011-10-31T13:00:00.001-06:00

thumb

coffee

bacon

(naughty Papa)

pumpkin decorating

2011-10-31T12:57:00.001-06:00

pumpkin patch attempt number three - GONG

2011-10-29T22:06:00.001-06:00

[Gong is a reference to The Gong Show from the 70's and 80's, where they gonged a large bell when a talent act was bad. Got that from Melissa. This was definitely a Gong experience.]

* * * * *

If you haven't read our sad story of being in Bismarck a few weeks ago, a story that included a closed zoo and a closed pumpkin patch two days in a row (the main reasons we drove to Bismarck), you might want to. Otherwise, re-read that last sentence, and you'll be good to continue on to this update.

So.

I decided to try again, this time in the city of Minot, optimistic that not all pumpkin patches in North Dakota are crumby with a capital CRUMB. Boy, was I wrong. In fact, this particular pumpkin patch couldn't have been any crumbier unless it was situated in a pit of venomous snakes who, as a side talent, could scream out your most embarrassing moments.

After a long day of shopping, during which we didn't find much of what I'd gone to Minot for, we headed through the chilling wind and unmarked construction detours for the pumpkin patch. As soon as we pulled in to the driveway, my anticipation evaporated. I knew we were in the right place, because there was another family walking around in a field of 7 or 8 pumpkins. A lady stood next to one of those super cheap sheds you can buy at Lowe's for like $99. I got out of the car and asked if they were open. "Yep, yep!" she said through frozen lips, and I could tell she was mustering up enthusiasm that she did not, in fact, naturally possess. "Well," I said, "Tell me what there is to do here. And 'doing cartwheels in this empty field' doesn't count as an activity, heh heh, because we could have stayed home and done that." I didn't say the cartwheel part. Dangit. Anyway, I could see exactly what there was to do here [nothing], but I wanted her to say it, wanted her to admit to me and my children that her pumpkin patch was ridiculous. But instead she kept up her pretend excitement and said, "Well! You go out into the patch! Pick what pumpkins you want!!! Bring 'em back to me to pay!!!! Aaaaaand..." At this point I'm waiting for the grand finale, the punchline, I dunno, anything, and she goes, "Aaaand, have fun!"

What proceeded next was one of my most bizarre, conflicted parenting experiences to date. I didn't want to act as disappointed as I was, arching my back, throwing myself to the ground, flopping my legs about. You know. But I also didn't want to act like, Tuh-DUHHHH! We're here! The long-awaited pumpkin patch!! or Zoralee would've been from that point forward confused about the meaning of phrases like, "this is gonna be so cool!" and "this oven is hot" and everything else I've ever said. I have never been as at a loss for how to respond as I was right then.

I was trying to get a read on Zoralee's perception of the situation when the other family came back to their car, parked next to us. The dad said to the kids, "Did you have so much fun?!?" And the kids go, "Yeah!!" I looked them over for signs of being, you know, space aliens, and dumb ones at that, but saw no antennae or tails. What the crap?! These people would go into a familial fit of bliss if they ever saw a real pumpkin patch. What else don't they know about? Cotton candy? Electricity? As they loaded up, the dad said, "Do you want to carve our pumpkins when we get home?" The kids yelled, "Yeah!! What are we gonna carve them with?" Dad: "Our laser vision! ha ha! Just kidding. A knife, silly!"

I looked over at Zoralee. She had heard them talking and was now excited too. But there was nothing exciting for her darting eyes to land upon. I thought my heart would break. Even now, as I re-tell the story, there wells up in me a tremendous, gross emptiness. Watching your kids be disappointed is THE WORST. Truth of the matter is, Zoralee was only one year old at her last (and only) pumpkin patch, so she's only going off of photographs. Still, you can probably tell by her tentative stance in this first photograph that she too didn't know to respond when I encouraged her to stand by the prettiest, fall-est thing around - a long stalk of dried out corn. She may have also been wondering why I allowed her out of the house in a mock fur coat and sweat pants, but I digress.

I'm trying to describe just how pathetic of a scene this was, but you know what? Just look at the pictures. I mean, no, I didn't Photoshop pumpkins OUT of the pictures. It was just this measly. If you haven't been to a pumpkin patch yourself, browse some family blogs - everybody's at pumpkin patches this time of year. You'll see a lot of orange in the photos. A lot of sincere smiles. A lot of apple cider and hay bales and wagon rides. Vendors. Farm animals. And best of all, a lot of pumpkins, yo.

Quintuple yay - FIVE pumpkins to choose from!
Make that four! One of them is obviously rotting! Weee!


The pumpkins were being picked up and taken inside, as a freeze was anticipated. I asked if we could get onto the flatbed for a photo. Truthfully, I brightened up the pumpkins a little with photo editing. Otherwise, it would've been too sad for any of you readers to bear.

I have never in my life understood the appeal of taking one's children to a place like Disneyland. I just don't dig big, man-made, cartoon-themed experiences. But you know what? Now I get it. I'm there. I understand. You want to take your kid to a place they are guaranteed to be awed, guaranteed to have their anticipation dwarfed only by their glee. They should be awed at the Grand Canyon, but until they reach a certain age, they simply won't be.

On the way out of town, we stopped in at Subway for a sandwich. I wanted to eat in the car, make some headway for home, but Z begged to eat at the tall tables with tall stools. She was sincerely stoked about it, and like a fool, I still almost insisted we take it to go. Then I realized that her excitement [over eating at a tall table] was the exact emotion I'd been wanting to witness in her. Duh. So, we ate at the tall table, Ziah poised on my knee.

THE END.

And with that, my friends, our pumpkin patch saga draws to a close. Thanks for tuning in and sharing with me a sense of dread and dismay at the state of the world. Happy coming winter!

survive and thrive friday: camouflage, difference between self-sustainability and self-reliance, and a homemade mouse trap

2011-10-21T23:56:00.002-06:00

I took these pics before the inception of Survive and Thrive Friday, but I'm including them since being camouflaged is a pretty survival-relevant idea, canigetawitness.

Do you see the moth?
If not, there's a hint at the bottom of this post.
Fun times, right? Participatory blog reading.

Jason's hunting clothes, becoming one with the forest (as far as scent)

* * * * *

Now then, the terms self-sustaining and self-reliant. I have used those words somewhat interchangeably, which I guess is fairly common, but a podcast by Jack Spirko a few weeks ago put me to pondering. In that same podcast, Jack talks about lifestyle design, and asks people to consider if the life they now live looks anything like what they would intentionally design for themselves, and if not, what they can do to work toward what they want. He has a lot of great thoughts. Side note. Anyway, if the systems we currently rely on were to shut down (power, water, availability of fuel, food, etc.) self-reliance, says Jack, is getting by temporarily. It's the bandaid fixes. Food in the pantry. Flashlights and candles. A generator. Self-sustainability, on the other hand, allows a person to produce their own power/food/warmth/shelter and live indefinitely in that state. Both are important to think about and work toward; neither should be ignored.

It's interesting how the two are best measured. Self-reliance should be measured in time. Like, if we're keeping bags of beans or canned goods in a pantry, maybe we have 4 weeks' worth of emergency food on hand. Self-sustainability, though, is measured in percentages - what percent of our needs we would be able to fill ourselves (or within our small community). For now, because the existing systems are working okay, most people aren't too self-sustaining. As an example, maybe folks who garden are 30% self-sustaining in the specific area of food, being able to provide vegetables for themselves. If they know how to hunt small and large game, or how to keep chickens for eggs and meat, or if they plant some fruit trees on their property, or keep bees, their self-sustainability percentage increases. See what I mean? The idea is to keep upping the percentage of self-sustainability as you go along - slowly, deliberately, with the acquisition of skills and equipment, animals, whatever you're going for, and at the same time to better situate yourself for self-reliance, the quick fixes to get by if the system you rely on shuts down. The failure could even be within your own system (poor growing season, disease among the animals, etc.), so self-reliance is essential as the back up plan.

That idea sure clicked some things into place for me.

Well, that's the end of the warm, fuzzy section about the world as we know it potentially ending. Next up, a method for trapping mice and other rodents!

Most of you who read my blog probably read Rachel's too. Her recent post called, "There Is One Kind of Hippy I Will Never Be," is about her fear of rodents, amphibians, bugs, and every other small creature known to Earth. This is a perfect segue from that - a small rodent trap. What it has to do with survival is several fold. First, though we don't eat the rodents we catch, we could if times were, like, really hard. A person could conceivably set this same system up for larger animals with a 5 gallon bucket or crud, a 50 gallon drum. Secondly, even though we don't eat them, just disposing of mice is good for our health, since mice can spread diseases just by being their cute but nasty little selves. Thirdly, this is much safer to have around kids than spring loaded mouse traps, which could no doubt snap off fingers or toes unwittingly. You can opt to put a bit of water in the bucket, so that is something to be aware of with kids, but it doesn't take much water. Jason learned of this mouse trap from a fellow employee in Glacier Park, and the first time we set it up here in ND, we caught four mice in 45 minutes. They had taken over our home while we were on a vacation, and by the time we returned, they were brave and plentiful little party animals. Have your party in our bucket, you little mice-ies.

Here's the recipe, so to speak.

1. Find a bucket. Ours is a 2 gallon bucket.
2. Cut a stick to be a skosh longer than the bucket's diameter. It should stick tight in there just by pressure.
3. Cut a hole in both ends of an aluminum can or plastic juice can that you can put the stick through. The holes should be bigger than the diameter of the stick, so that the can is able to freely spin on the stick.
4. Smear peanut butter in a line around the can - toward one end rather than in the center.
5. Put an inch or so of water in the bucket.
6. Find a plank-like stick and secure it somehow to the bucket.

The idea is that the mouse smells the peanut butter. He scurries up the plank to find it, sees the peanut butter, and steps out onto the can. (If he can stretch to the peanut butter without stepping onto the can, it's no good.) The can spins on the stick, and the mouse falls into the bucket. If you have water in it, the mouse will drown. Sorry, yo. If you do not have water in it, it is a live trap, and I'd go with a bigger bucket to insure no jumping escapees. Meanwhile, the trap stays perfectly functional for the next victim; there is p.b. all the way around the can, so it doesn't matter where it stops spinning.

Man. This feels really different to blog about than, say, a nice book I'm reading or a funny character I met in town. But, it is what it is, and that wraps up another delightful edition of Survive and Thrive Friday.

Survive!
Thrive!
Hot dog!

Hint for the moth picture: the moth looks like a leaf.
Okay, okay the real hint is this: look to the far left, barely above center.

a touch of ppd, and mom's astounding, kick-pants chocolate sauce recipe

2011-10-21T08:00:00.000-06:00

[written Wednesday]

Today, I have a terribly messy house and brain, and they both seem to get more cluttered as the hours tick by. I am noticing a pattern. The day after a very full, busy day, I am completely demotivated. When I write that out, it's clear to me what I should do: either pace myself so that even the busy days have time for rest, thereby making the next day less pendulum-ey, OR let myself totally relax the next day (as much as possible with two small children) and indulge in life-ful things without mind for where they fall on my never-ending priority list. Instead, I generally attempt to combat the demotivation by walking around listlessly, starting small tasks and not finishing them, and feeling like a failure for not accomplishing something.

I have managed to keep our fire going and all of us fed today, but that's about it. And when I say "fed," that includes one meal of protein bars. So, there you go. Oh, wait. I have also let Kaladi in and out of the house 13 or 19 times.

Anyway, I think I've got a touch of the old postpartum depression. It's nothing major. Nobody needs to jump into their cars and race over here to intervene. I just have felt a little out of mommying mode and more into whatever mode it is when you lay in a big fluffy bed and eat ice cream all day. I don't have a fluffy bed, so that, among other reasons (two with names that begin with Z) has made that particular fantasy impossible to live out.

We took Ziah to a pediatric appointment at around three months, and they had both Jason and I fill out postpartum depression surveys. I guess I scored a 7 on mine, but the Doc said they aren't worried until it reaches 10. I thought it was funny that we didn't even talk about the questions that lead to the 7 score. I don't know what the high score is, but like my sister said, "10 they're worried, 7 they ain't?! New doctor!" But anyway, yeah, I think it's just a touch of ppd. Reminds me of my childhood. Whenever any of us did something repetitive, we'd say we had a touch of Tourette's. One of my brothers has Tourette's, you know, so we're allowed to use humor and still have it be PC. And if it's not PC, frankly, my dear, I don't give a fruity tuesday toot-a-loot boogers for brains.

I was talking to a friend who learned recently that ppd can take a lot of forms, some of them surprising. Neither of us had really considered ourselves ppd-ers, because we weren't depressed in the ways we envisioned that term to mean. But for both of us (only when we had boys - anyone else have that experience?), it has come as anxiety and also fear of bizarre things. For example, I am daily afraid that little Ziah will be sent to a concentration camp. Um, that would be a perfectly rationale fear in some parts of the world. Not as likely here. But you know what? Life can change in a hurry. Countries can fall apart in a hurry. The point remains though that it's not one of those fears I can DO a lot about, and worrying about it is neither improving my quality of life nor warding off concentration camps. Besides, when I let loose of some of the more ridiculous fears, I have time for the ones like a tiger dragging the children through the bedroom window at night while we sleep. Stuff like that.

All of this is going someplace besides strictly a venting session, not that there would be a problem with a straight up venting session. But the place that it's going is that on days like this, I feel like making a batch of my mom's kick-pants chocolate sauce recipe, which I'm not going to do this particular day, on account of lacking motivation. Doh. Anyway, Mom got this from a magazine or something years ago, and it is a family favorite. It is pretty much the best taste ever, if you're a fan of dark chocolate. I may have posted it before (?).

Mom's Astounding Kick-Pants Chocolate Sauce

1 C sugar

2/3 C cocoa powder

1/2 C cream

4T butter

2t vanilla

Combine all ingredients but the vanilla, and heat to boiling over medium-high heat, stirring frequently. (I first combine the sugar and cocoa powder to each other, to cut down on lumps.) When the sauce is well blended, Stir in 2t vanilla. Serve warm over ice cream. Drop your jaw at the mind-bending delicious factor.

Bismarck or bust! (yes)

2011-10-16T01:07:00.003-06:00

We took a two-day trip to Bismarck for a change of scenery last Sunday. I'd found out from some moms at a play group that Bismarck was the place to go for a zoo, a pumpkin patch, hotels with cooler-than-average swimming pools (with long slides and kid sized wading pools), plus ordinary city stuff, which is, of course, extraordinary to us.

The weather was cool and cloudy our whole drive there, and then about 10 minutes outside of Bismarck, it started raining. Jason asked Zoralee if it was raining on her side of the car too, a reference to a kids' book we'd gotten from the library not long back. In the story, a girl and her dad are headed to a zoo and it starts raining.

Anyway, we pulled up to the gate, and there was a sign that said the zoo was closed today due to a water pipe breaking. Jason and I looked at each other for a long minute before Zoralee's little inquiring voice brought us to the fact that she had to be told. Her face wrinkled up, and then she cried - silently, tearfully, disbelievingly. To the Zoo Worker People, I'm saying that better have been a pipe of about 3 feet in diameter, totally broken in half, with water spewing every which way, even into the warm cozy nests of the baby ostriches, for you to close down the zoo. Zoralee's reaction would've broken the heart of the most hardened criminal.

At least that moment provided opportunity to quote my Grandpa Lautaret, who once said, "If this isn't the crowning disappointment of our entire trip, we're in for a real jolt somewhere along the line."

Jason pulled up a map of the zoo on his iPhone, and we navigated the roads around it to see what animals we could. There were a few animals hanging out in the rain, actually - bison, a lone wolf in the far far distance, and a few animals we'd never even heard of, so it wound up not being a total loss.

The Bismarck zoo is only open three days of the week, so this was our only shot, but Jason and I weren't completely deflated, because we knew about Part B of the plan, which was to hit up Papa's Pumpkin Patch. We didn't mention that to Z, "just in case." We tried to be vaguely comforting, like hey, let's see if there's anything else fun to do in Bismarck! We pulled in to the pumpkin patch parking lot and saw other cars there. We saw people inside the fence, carrying pumpkins, standing on bales of hay, just generally being real autumn-loving. But I looked at the window next to the entrance. "Why does that sign say Closed?" Silly people must've forgotten to change their sign all day.

I got out and asked one of the employees what was happening. He said they were closing down for the day because of the rain. All the other autumn lovers were making their final purchases and coming out.

*%$#!

I gave him my sob story about a little girl who'd driven for hours to get here, and that the zoo was closed too randomly. He wiped away a few tear and then said they would FOR SURE be open tomorrow, if it wasn't raining. All of that's true except the tears. He even asked a lady nearby, who appeared to be more in charge than he was, and she agreed: yep, they'd be open tomorrow if it wasn't raining. I had to go back to the car, where Zoralee was waiting hopefully for "something fun," and break the bad news that this potentially fun but nondiscript place wasn't open today either. She was a little sad, but more tired than anything. We headed for the motel.

When we got there, Jason made absolutely sure that their swimming pool was up and functional before we checked in. Then we woke up Zoralee, gathered Ziah and our belongings, and sloshed through the rain and puddles into the room, dog and all. It was a good room. We regrouped and decided to hit up a nearby Mexican restaurant.


Chips and salsa and a fancy umbrella drink can bring a girl around again. Can you tell what color Zoralee recently decided is her favorite?

I debated and debated between their famous fish tacos and their famous super burrito. The waiter suggested the fish tacos, so I went with that. EEEEEngh. Also, their salsa sucked; it was like somebody opened a can of stewed tomatoes and put in a couple flakes of dried cilantro. Oh well. Jason's food was decent, and Zoralee's was even free on account of it being Sunday.

Back at the hotel, Zoralee and I went for a swim in our exceedingly random swimwear. I'd just thrown out her swimsuit a week before. Fortunately, she had a pink body suit from a dress up ballet tutu outfit, and I had - oh, it doesn't even matter. Let's just say I wasn't approached by any modeling agencies. The motel had no fancy slides, but the set up was nice - a regular pool, a hot tub, and a warm in-between temperature wading pool. None were shallow enough for Z to walk around in, but it was really wonderful to hold her as we hopped from pool to pool. We joked and splashed. It was a good feeling to be able to concentrate on her and her alone for a little while.

When we walked between the pools, if Zoralee got ahead of me, she'd jog / bounce a bit with excitement. Just before what was to be our final dip in the big pool, she was lightly running, and, as though she was the poster child for a Don't Run At Pools campaign, her feet slipped out from under her at the exact moment I was saying, "Zoralee! Don't run!" Bonk went her back, and konk went her noggin. It didn't seem to me that it was a particularly hard fall, but she cried quite a bit, poor thing. That put an end to swimming, which was fine; bed time was overdue.

We slept as a family in a King sized bed with a roll away pushed up next to it (and blankets over the crack to connect the beds). It was a fun way to sleep, albeit not excessively restful for me. We've done our share of co-sleeping in various configurations, but all being on the same level like that, Ziah scooched close to me, and Zoralee scooched close to him. It was a super cute visual, but I was too tired to get the camera. The next morning, Zoralee and Kaladi were wrestling around in the motel room, and Kaladi accidentally scratched below Z's eye. This happens about once a month anyway, but it sure enough had to happen this weekend.

We ate a decent motel-provided breakfast, and then Jason and Ziah headed to a junk yard in hopes of finding an electrical light dealy for the Subaru, while Zoralee and I went to the thrift store for sweaters and jeans. The potential for savings that our family had right then was out of control, right? I found some sweaters, but the jeans weren't happening. My post baby hips and belly can't get together and decide what size I am. But we got a couple cute decorations for Z's room. We had only made it through one store when Jason and Ziah wheeled in to take us to Red Lobster for lunch. No lobsters in the tank. Not a single one. And then, you know, I can't remember the last time I ate at a Red Lobster, but I'm thinking the servings aren't super substantial. Like, I scarfed down everything on my plate in about 5 seconds - hey, 3 shrimps and 3 scallops don't take long - plus the extra tidbits on everybody else's plates, plus the complimentary warm rolls. And I could've totally eaten that much again. Oh. Maybe that's why I was having a hard time finding jeans to fit. Heh heh.

This probably sounds like a Debby Downer post, like I was looking for the bad in everything. At a certain point, I think I actually was, because it got to be so downright hilarious. Jason and I were laughing our heads off, and hopefully Z had some moments of fun too. As my dad texted, it was just like the pioneers. Yep, we could totally relate to the types of disappointments the pioneers must've encountered as they made their way across the prairies in covered wagons. Yep.

Anyway, nothing could dampen our spirits too much, because IT WASN'T RAINING, so there was still the pumpkin patch, with its hay rides, hay bale maze, fall treats, and of course, pumpkins to browse and pick! Oh, what fun pictures we would get with the children in a pumpkin patch, red nosed from the crisp fall air. Here's what the sign said, after all:

But nope!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not a car in the parking lot.
CLOSED.
We learned later from their website it was due to the mud from yesterday's rain.

Now, I am a patient woman. I am. But I seriously wanted to punt a Pumpkin Patch owner across a field of rotting pumpkins. Jason had that scene from National Lampoon's Vacation in his head, the one where they pull up to Wally World after their whole travel ordeal, and it's closed. Chevy Chase punches the moose. Well, if I'd have had a can of spray paint, you can bet your bippy I would've sprayed a big X over each of that scare crow's starry eyes. And if that weren't a message enough, I would've sprayed below the red letters, "Open?! Ha! You call this OPEN?! Ha! You bunch of hippocrites. This place isn't OPEN! And it's not even RAINING. And what's more, YOU SHOULD UPDATE YOUR PHONE NUMBER, CUZ THE ONE FROM YOUR WEBSITE IS DEFUNCT ON ACCOUNT OF YOU MOVING LOCATIONS. DAAAAAARN YOU!!!!!!!"

So we found a fruit stand instead.

brimming over with gratitude

letting Z control the tunes - she chose "Hey, I Love You" by Michael Franti

Well, when the going got that tough, the tough decided to go for coffee. Or, as Jason called it, "The Cure for Disappointment." It made sense to finish off two Starbucks gift cards that had been rattling around the dashboard from two Christmases ago. Zoralee was asleep again, so Jason and I each ordered a $27 drink for ourselves and pulled up to the pay window with our gift cards. The young man informed us that one card had zero dollars and zero cents on it, and the other had 85 cents. Oh, real swell. [Shuffling about the car for loose change.]

As our final stop before we planned to screech our tires real hard on the fast road out of Bismarck, Jason ran into Menards to grab supplies for a window replacement project, and he was only gone for 45 minutes or so, during which me and two kids sat in the car instead of being at another thrift store finding jeans to fit. No bitterness for me though. Yay! Fun times in a parking lot!

Just so you don't fear Zoralee hoarded all the disappointment to herself, here's this.
I was nursing Ziah and must not've been what you'd call "present." Suddenly his fidgets
caught my attention, and I looked down to see him being power-squirted.
Hey, it happens.

HOWEVER. The drive home included a pretty sunset and the rest of a good podcast. Zoralee did great in the car both ways. Ziah, not so much, but this is the paragraph about redeeming things. We loved each other. We laughed. We cried. I found sweaters. The coffee beverages were delish. Zoralee learned about disappointment in life, and then learned it again. And again. And again.

Right, soooo, we're pretty much gonna just chalk that one up to a bust.

:)

survive and thrive friday: making yogurt, podcasts, paleo diet, stacking wood

2011-10-15T16:55:00.002-06:00

Survive and Thrive Friday is hereby and thus and whithertofore a new post series!!

It's so easy to start something new. Why, look. I just did it with the above sentence. Now then, ongoing maintenance of new projects and also punctuality aren't my strong suits, but, oh my, it's Saturday already. Well, how's about we all just concentrate on the fact that I'm here to introduce the pilot post to this new series? Yay!

By way of introduction...

Jason's and my conversations and dreams have for about a decade centered around or touched on the ideas of learning the old, basic skills necessary for self-reliance, self-sustainability (or more accurately, small community-reliance and sustainability), reducing our need for large entities whose people we're totally disconnected from (for food, clothing, shelter, electricity, etc.), and living more simply to have time for what we want to be doing each day. Any of you who we've spent more than a day with know we're dead set on "getting out" of mainstream culture someday soon and building a small community with like minded folks. Maybe every now and again I can pay Jason in shiny rocks and funky sticks to post a guest blog, but meanwhile I'll probably often say "we" as though I have multiple personalities; it's just the influence of Jason chiming in. On these subjects specifically, I don't know any more where my thoughts begin and his end.

This series is about survival, yes, but also thrival, which is a made up word just for the sake of rhyming. We've been wondering a lot how much the dissatisfaction and disenchantment of our nation's inhabitants are because most people don't know how to do anything basic for themselves or their close communities any more. Total reliance on faceless entities can't be good for us, especially when we're not reciprocating to said faceless entities other than by handing over green, rectangular strips of paper. Know what I'm saying? There are so many steps between going to a job for The Man in the morning and then eating food around the table at night. So! I am excited to post the things we've been talking about and learning, as well as websites, books, friends' ideas, and other resources we're running across.

End of introduction. Beginning of cool stuff:

1. I've been making yogurt in the crock pot! Today I'm on my fourth batch, and so far I give it a huge thumb up. It is wildly simple to do, and I think it tastes better than any other plain yogurt I've had. We buy raw milk from a local farmer here, but you can make yogurt from store bought milk too, just not ultra-pasteurized milk. Here's the recipe I've been following. How this falls under surviving and thriving is that yogurt is unbelievably great for the digestive system and thus working toward optimum health, and it has been valued as such by people as far back as four thousand years ago, if Wikipedia is to be believed. It's sustaining in the sense that you only need about 1/2 cup of store bought yogurt one time, or someone else's homemade yogurt, for a starter, and after that, you continue to use your own yogurt to make more (well, by adding it to milk). That's the beauty of housing weensy little fast-producing bugs in your own heated crockery. Side note: I myself have had to buy new yogurt starter 3 of the 4 times, because I neglected to set aside 1/2 cup of the homemade stuff, and a certain unnamed individual (but whose name spelled backwards is nosaJ) ate the last of it before I'd started a new batch.

2. Jason has been listening to podcasts by a guy named Jack Spirko over at www.thesurvivalpodcast.com, which covers an unbelievably diverse range of subjects, from permaculture to bee-keeping to nutrition to fuel-making to hunting to home security measures. Jack interviews folks in person or by telephone, anybody who has helpful, relevant material to offer to the community: doctors, gardeners, bloggers, hippies, militiamen. Last week on our road trip, we listened to a conversation he had with a blogger named Courtney Clay about the unschooling principles she raises her son with; it was great! As with every topic he covers, there are so many points of interconnectedness, and if you're listening with someone else, you may have to pause the broadcast several times to go down your own rabbit trails. Along with the interviews, Jack gives a fair amount of monologues with his loud, strong voice, and at first that took me some getting used to, because I am generally not a fan of rant-and-rave one-sided talk radio and thought he might fall into that category. But we've been impressed that his interviews are very respectful and open. I also get a kick out of his liberal use of the word "frickin.'"

3. We've been significantly cutting grains from our diet, and somewhat legumes, eating what is known as a Paleo diet. It isn't a "diet," per say, as it's known today, but rather a lifestyle whose food is close to what our pre-agriculture ancestors would've eaten. We've gone low or no wheat a couple of other times, and just as before, within a day or two, Jason's back and joints feel so much better. I think I sleep better too, though that's a little hard to judge in my particular life situation, having a baby, a toddler, and a husband whose ideas of proper waking times are all different from each other. And in case any of you are the smart alecks that my family members are, I'll go ahead and answer you now: sure, we"ll take boxes of pomegranates for Christmas in lieu of other presents, and yes, we intend to continue building fires and using the common wheel. Speaking of fire...

4. Family wood stacking is one of my favorite activities from childhood forward. I am not a work out at the gym type of girl, but I love incorporating exercise into whatever else I'm doing. Wood stacking is THE thing for getting exercise, being outside, and doing something useful all at once (as well as brushing up on Tetris skills).


Fortunately, there are dead trees around the property that need cleaned up. Jason says, "This time of year, you tend to look around the forest for death to take advantage of."

making a quick, sturdy, wood shed

Okay, that wraps it up for today. Hope to hear YOUR thoughts on these things and more.

Survive!
Thrive!
Rah rah rah!

milksharing

2011-10-08T15:10:00.002-06:00

For all new moms or new moms to be, are you aware of the concept of milk sharing? That is, if you are unable to feed your baby breast milk (or enough break milk), for the variety of reasons that can occur, there are very possibly women in your area who are willing to pump and share their extra milk FOR FREE. This is for no other reason than that the milk sharers believe in the health benefits of breast milk, even for babies not their own, and will put their boobies where their mouth is. Or rather, where the baby's mouth is. Okay, babies' mouths, plural.

Anyway, I just love stuff like this, where we go at it old school.

World Milksharing Week was in September, so I'm a little behind the curve, but I suppose it's always the right time to pass along a good idea, just in case it helps somebody. There has been quite a bit of discussion about milksharing at my sister's blog these days, so I am going to direct you that way. The posts you're looking for (if you don't get side tracked by all the other hilarious and interesting things she writes about) are from late September, early October 2011. She supplemented with donor breast milk for her son, Bennett, as she wasn't able to supply him with 100% of what he needed. She has recently been working on the other end of things, helping to find donors for our friend, who was at her wit's end with formula (and who wrote this moving post at her cool blog).

If you have extra milk or need milk, you could start at this link to find a recipient or donor in your area. I also saw some face book pages that were U.S. state specific. Others of you more in the know, feel free to mention further resources in the comment section.

white on black on white on black

2011-10-02T22:51:00.000-06:00

strolls and rolls - late summer and fall

2011-10-02T22:50:00.000-06:00

We debated: leave Z in the backpack in an obviously uncomfortable position,
or put her in bed at the risk of waking her. We opted to leave her.
Half hour later we heard a crash. She had fallen over and bonked her head on the desk.
A Plus, Number 1, Professional Parents right here, folks.

"Just keep watching that blinking camera light,"
thought the hungry wolf as he crept closer to the unsuspecting family.


We're wondering if this pic represents more life to come.

(photo credit to Monsieur Jason for the shot of Kaladi up on the hay bale)

9/11 memorial

2011-10-02T22:39:00.001-06:00

We attended the 9/11 memorial this year at the International Peace Gardens. On the way there, we listened to radio interviews of people involved in ongoing memorializing efforts. A poet, whose name I am sorry to not be able to find, wrote a poem that became famous in the aftermath of 9/11 and then wrote one this year specifically about steel workers - those who built the towers and those who, some 50+ years later, dealt with the wreckage. These guys involved in the clean up, she said, knew which pieces of wreckage belonged throughout the building, where people would've been in their last seconds. They knew that the large numbers written across beams were floor numbers, marked back at their initial installation. They have an understanding of the building, a skeletal knowledge of it that lends a different heaviness to the events.

Also interviewed was the creator of the new memorial at ground zero, the reflecting pools. It was especially moving to me to hear some of the thought and intentionality that went into the plan. Around the pools are name placards of everyone killed in the attacks, and the designers spent a year discussing with families the idea of adjacent placard placement - names placed next to friends' names, etc. There were all kinds of considerations and connections, more than you'd ever think, and the designers wanted to accommodate all requests. As a small instance, one woman lost her father on one of the airplanes and her best friend in one of the towers (!). The names of those two victims are beside each other.

Here are a few pics of the service.


an unidentifed batch of U.S. Border Patrolmen and Royal Canadian Mounted Police

some of the tower wreckage, I assume from the 58th floor (??)

I am not clear on why the Scottish/Irish bagpipe and kilt thing is so heavily connected to funerals and memorial services in our country, and to the military and law enforcement. Tradition brought by Highlands type immigrants, no doubt, but why has it stuck? Don't get me wrong - the bagpipes are rad. In fact, we knew a bagpiper in Montana, and he could've totally played at Jason's and my wedding. Dad and I were all for it (rad, right??), but Jason and Mom voted it down. That's tough - bride and father of the bride against groom and mother of the bride. Somehow they won. Total side note.

* * *

A week later, Zoralee asked more about the events of 9/11. It sure is hard to know how much to say to a two-year old. I've continued with the philosophy that seems most right to me - tell the truth, even if I leave out some of the scariest or most confusing details. I told her there were people who were mad at our country and decided to fly airplanes into tall buildings in New York City. But even in plain, over-simplistic language, that's a pretty weird and scary notion. Never the less, that's what I told her. And we looked at her map to see where NYC is.

As an afterthought, so that she could make geographic connections, I told her that now cousins Taylor and Dalton are going to college in NYC. She went to her play room for a few minutes, then came out and asked me if Taylor and Dalton died in NYC. I explained that no, the 9/11 things happened a long time ago, and Taylor and Dalton were in NYC now. She then wanted to know the names of the people who died. So we looked it up online, and I found lists of the deceased. I must've said aloud (though I didn't realize it) that oops, this particular one is a list only of those who died in the towers, but we would go ahead and read it anyway. Then I read aloud a dozen or so names, and she said, "Oh" after each one. I went to something else on the web, and a few minutes later, Zoralee asked for the names of the people who were in the airplanes.

Later that day, Jason suggested I watch Loose Change, a provocative documentary that purports there's a lot more to the events than what we've been led to believe. Of course, I'm familiar with this notion, but haven't read or watched a whole lot on it. If I do take time to hear ideas, get better informed, etc. and develop a more complex narrative about 9/11, hopefully Zoralee won't ask about it until next year, at least... Some of you who have had seven, eight, nine years to explain this to your kids, what have you opted to say?

apples

2011-09-29T20:53:00.000-06:00

Peaches in the summertime, apples in the fall

If I can't have you all the time, I won't have none at all
- Gillian Welch, "Wayside / Back in Time"

Zoralee has loved picking and eating apples from the property here. There are two varieties of small apples (one is a crab apple we didn't know was strictly decorative until late in the game, but it doesn't appear to have hurt anyone), and cute mini plums. By now the apples are pretty mushy because of the night time freezes, but Zoralee's still gung-ho. She likes to pick a bucketful and graze out of it for several days while she plays or lays around; I find partially eaten miniature apples in the weirdest places. She even takes that bucket to the bathroom and to bed. Today we set up apples to site in a .22 rifle Jason got from his granddad. Between shots, Zoralee and Papa walked downrange to set up more apples, and she had the impression that any un-shot apples were sitting up on the boards specifically for her to retrieve and nibble.

from the prairie's edge: road kill, finding girls, mickey mouse watch man, the coming winter

2011-09-22T21:09:00.000-06:00

Why did the chicken cross the road?
To get to the other side.

Why did the frog cross the road?

He was stapled to the chicken.

- elementary school

While we're in North Dakota, I think I'll call these long, varied updates, as well as region-specific posts, "from the prairie's edge," eh?

My mother-in-law, Barb, was amazed by the quietness and isolation each of her nine days here. She lives and works near D.C., where the traffic can keep you for an hour from your destination two miles away. We shook our heads whenever we saw on the road a dead gopher or bird, who would've had like 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 30 seconds of the day when no vehicle would've crossed its path, but instead chose one of those rare, fateful seconds to make a run for it.

This snake doesn't qualify as road kill, really, because it was still alive.
It was real slow, probably a victim of road glancing.
I wouldn't post actual road kill on my blog. Sheesh.

Jason is having a blast teaching Kaladi to "find the girl." Kaladi seems to love search work, and she's kicking tail with very little training. She naturally ground tracks, which means she follows the scent someone has left behind while walking. Some dogs naturally track by sniffing the air, which isn't as good for a lost person, because they're reliant on wind conditions. Maybe they're better at sniffing out drugs. Anyway, Jason shuts Kaladi in a room in the house, and he has Zoralee walk to some location on the property and hide behind a garbage can or a building or a bale of hay. Then he lets Kaladi out and tells her to "find the girl" or "find Zoralee." She puts her nose right to the ground, gets on the trail, and RUNS to her. Zoralee then drops a treat for her and says, "Good girl! Good girl!"

Blue. Every day at my house, six blue eyes look back at me. Eight, if you count Little Lamb, Zoralee's favorite stuffed animal.

Mickey Mouse Watch Man. We first encountered him at Walmart a few weeks ago. A jovial grandfather type, he walked up to Zoralee and put his wrist right in her face. He stared at her intently with a huge grin, practically bursting with anticipation at her response. He was showing her his Mickey Mouse watch. And she was a deer in the headlights. She doesn't tell time yet and isn't super familiar with Mickey Mouse; anyone else in the store would've been more impressed with that watch than she was. But it was no matter. He was delighted. Laugh and laugh did he. Then last week, he saw us again - by the meats at the local grocer, and just as eagerly showed her his watch. We saw him again near the spices. Then at produce. Each time, he said hello to Zoralee most cheerily and laugh laugh laughed. This time she laughed too. But things turned serious, DEATHLY SERIOUS, over at produce, when his wife, Janet, said she'd heard about a melon recall on the news. Best to avoid melons, we all concurred, at least for a little while. Lots of serious head nods and squinted eyes. No joking around about that.

And speaking of local flair, when we were driving through one small town, we picked up their local newspaper. A couple of the highlights are as follows. The front page news was that the paper will not be printed in color for some time; the guy who did that has quit. Very cute, and sad. Also, the reports from the surrounding towns are mostly who went to whose house for supper. I quote (with names changed): "Donald and Edna Verhorn were Friday visitors of Pete and Joann Sanders." I'll tell you one thing, I better not hear these old-timers moaning about privacy lost via social media. Hello. These are totally status updates, but put into print, albeit several days later.

* * *

Fall is upon us, no question now. Last week we woke up to a downright chilly house, and it lit a fire under each of us independently to shape up and get ready for winter. The voice of Elephant from Mo Willems' I Am Invited to a Party! keeps haunting me: "WE MUST BE READY!" So I bought canning jars in town for putting up the crab apples in the yard. Aaaaand, that's it. That's the only canning plan I have; if we get stranded out here, it's apple pie 'til spring, baby. Unless I send Jason out on snow shoes to fetch a can of cool whip. Then, it's apple pie and cool whip 'til spring, baby. Oh. And while you're at it, honey, grab some Cream Soda - that's what I'm talking about. That same day, Jason took off work early to come home and cut wood. Little update: we have now had freezing weather a couple of nights, so the apples are mushy. I missed the window to can them. Ridiculous.

The thing is, Jason and I are actually excited for winter. We don't say this when the locals lament the departing summer, but since we had that stint in south Texas before this, we're basically coming off a whole year of summer. We both like power outages and crazy storms and having to cancel plans and hunker down, so a winter here on the frozen plains could be fun! It feels like, if we're going to avoid a Donner party type situation, we better know what the heck we're doing.

At this juncture, I'm going to enthusiastically recommend a children's book called, Ox-Cart Man. It'll get you excited to stack wood and can beans for winter, as well as plan needlepoint projects to sell next summer in nearby villages. Not the catchiest title ever, unless you're in a sarcastic mood, but Ox-Cart Man is a right dandy story! We have it from the library now, and it is definitely one I'd like for my kids to own. Ahhem, Grandma or Nana, givers of Christmas presents. Even now, I feel like a dimwit spending time on the internet instead of dusting off the old loom and spinning out a few shawls.

While we were in Montana last month, Jason got a wood stove, which we hauled here to ND, along with the 800 pound beastly upright piano I inherited from my great-aunt Wilma a few years back. Mom and Dad cried and cried to see that dust collector leave their basement, but boy was it a nice wagon trainy feeling to bring it and the stove to our little house on the prairie. Jason finished installing the stove a couple of week ago, and we've been enjoying it so, so much. We've been disappointed when the weather pendulums back to warmish. I know - we should be slapped.

from the prairie's edge: big, deep day

2011-09-22T21:04:00.001-06:00

"O bury me not on the lone prairie."
These words came low and mournfully
From the pallid lips of the youth who lay
On his dying bed at the close of day.

- old cowboy folk song

This day, the day of which I now write, happened almost a month ago, but it felt like enough of a doozy to lay down on Blogville. It was while Barb was here, and it was extra thick with profoundness. We sloshed through the realms of theology, history, the cycle of life and death, and physical survival against wild animals, walked on the border between two countries, and closed out our day with a tradition as old as man. By day's end, my head was spinning and my heart heavy, so it must've really been something for a two and a half year old. I should record it in Zoralee's baby book as "The Deepest Day Ever." That is, when I [cough] start working on her baby book...

The first thing happened while I was sitting on the porch with the kids. I was holding Ziah in my lap, and Zoralee was ahead of me by 10 feet. Out of the woods at the edge of our yard jogged a coyote, straight for the porch, straight for Zoralee. I told Zoralee (firmly, but I thought pretty calmly for the circumstance) to come to me, which she inexplicably did at warp speed, though she hadn't seen the coyote. He was gray white, so fluffy and healthy. My first thought was how beautiful it was. He heard my voice, looked straight at me, turned, and jogged back down the path. He was within 25 yards. As soon as Kaladi caught a whiff of the coyote, her hair went up and for 10 minutes she alternately ran around the property and back to check on us. The wind was so strong, loud and swirly, that I don't think the coyote knew we were there until he got that close. And Kaladi had a hard time with his scent because of the wind. He may have been coming to her food dish, so we now keep that inside at night.

Jason was sleeping and Barb was running an errand in town, so we were the only witnesses. That was event #1, certainly the most startling. Also on the porch during that couple of hours, we observed and talked about a dead dragonfly caught between two boards, and we watched a butterfly struggle in a spider's web, knowing the probable ending to that particular predicament.

When Jason woke up, we all took a road trip into the Turtle Mountains, up to Lake Metigoshe to see all the little lake cabins and dwellings. It was a busy weekend, so all the restaurants were full. We ordered food at a drive-in and sat by the lake to eat. Then it was back down to the plains, where we visited an old historic church, then the long drive home.

on the shore of Lake Metigoshe - sand castle in the background created by Z and Papa

Zoralee asking, "Where is God?"

We spent quite awhile wandering around the graveyard, again talking with Zoralee about death, and about remembering the dead. Families were buried near each other, some members born a century or more apart, never to have met, some making it into old age and others living a single day. To walk so lightly on the grass above their graves, to read their names and try to fathom the same fate befalling us, even our precious tinies, is frankly too much to bear. My eye is on the Eternal, but dang, those old gravestones seem to hold hope down by the chest, hold her strong to the cold, wet mud.

Then we came home and made fire. Fire is good. Little fires don't suggest that you ignore the cold world all around, but they offer a space to get warm, quiet yourself and regroup.

moments with Nana

2011-09-16T21:16:00.000-06:00


Barb took this picture, and we get a kick out of Z, The River Dancer.

a little fire pit for the porch (best $37 we've ever spent)


the Metis Indian fiddle festival at the Canadian / U.S. Peace Garden	s

dancing to the fiddle tunes

Thanks, Nana, for your visit! You took on dish and laundry duties unblinkingly, made sure I focused on my list of projects, and gave the kids (one high energy toddler in particular) the attention and love they needed. We love you!

nope

2011-09-10T14:33:00.000-06:00

Remember that freckle Ziah had on top of his head at birth? The one I so loved, figuring it would eventually be covered by hair but then uncovered by old age for someone else to enjoy as much as I, his mother, had? Well, when we first got to North Dakota, I kissed that freckle right off his head. One day I was just kissing it and loving it when suddenly I noticed it was a different shape. I rubby rub rubbed it, and off it came. A couple people had suggested at the beginning that it might be a tiny blood splotch or something, but after it survived several baths and two weeks' worth of kisses, it was looking like I was right.
Nope.

Ziah's most common look: baffled

Remember how I thought for sure he was teething early, what with the drool and period of restless nights and seeming discomfort?
Nope.

*
Based on Zoralee, we, Jason and I, thought we produced skinny-legged little things. My favorite cloth diaper combination for her had been Kissaluvs' Size Zero fitteds with small Thirsties covers. Since the Kissaluvs go up to 15 pounds, they worked for Zora from birth until she was totally diaper free. So while I was pregnant with Ziah, I bought 10 of those jokers. I even got them as "seconds" for a discounted price, meaning they were new, just had aesthetic flaws that wouldn't affect performance. How happy was I! Even better, the Kissaluvs website said the "seconds" tended to be skinnier legged. Hoorah hoorah! Because I pop out skinny-legged babies!!!!
    Nope.

Also based on our experience with Zoralee, we feared we produced children who would rather stay bitterly and groggily and whinily awake, NO MATTER WHAT, rather than succumb to slumber.

Nope.
When he's tired enough, we can actually lay Ziah down on his tummy and he'll go right to sleep. I am aware of the Back To Sleep thing, but I tend toward the theory that SIDS is caused by mattress toxins, so we've taken precautions that direction. Hope I'm right and it's not another "nope," cuz he sleeps way better on his belly. :o? He also sleeps for several hours at a whack in the night, several times 6 or 8. Once 10.

We kinda thought babies must need soothing intervention for every possible life hiccup.

    Nope!
This guy is a champion thumb-sucker when he's ready for sleep. Not only is it undeniably one of the most darling sights I've ever beheld, but so far that's all he uses it for.

You might think a mama would tire of kissing her baby boy's face all the day long, that there would be days she'd think of him as ordinary, rather than super handsome and super charming. You might assume she'd stop taking such delight in fat rolls, wide eyes, and gurgled utterances.

    Nope, nope, and nope.

conference

2011-09-09T21:39:00.001-06:00

mama vs. papa: friendship

2011-08-24T11:18:00.000-06:00

Zoralee's big pretend world right now is Madeline. She's Madeline, and either the dog or I is Miss Clavel. Often "Miss Clavel" is knocking at our front door, and when Zoralee opens it, in walks a waggy-tailed Kaladi. Ziah is either Pepito, the little boy in the stories, or he represents the other 11 girls who live with Madeline at the boarding school. So if Ziah is sleeping, the other 11 girls are sleeping, and suddenly Zoralee takes extra care to be quiet. Since Madeline has a Papa, Jason is still just Papa. (But as a side note, she has taken to calling him Pops lately.)

today

Zoralee: Mama, can you ask me, Madeline, what's wrong?
Me: What's wrong, Madeline?
Zoralee: Pepito doesn't want to be my friend anymore.
Me: Oh really? Did Pepito say that?
Zoralee: No.
Me: Well, maybe you could talk to Pepito. Ask him why he doesn't want to be your friend.

5 minutes later, when Jason enters the room

Zoralee: Papa, can you ask me, Madeline, what's wrong?
Jason: What's wrong, little miss Madeline?
Zoralee: Pepito doesn't want to be my friend anymore.
Jason: Well, you can tell Pepito to suck your big toe.

eavesdropping

2011-08-21T00:40:00.000-06:00

These are the best years of your life. Remember that.

2011-08-21T00:17:00.001-06:00

Everybody with older kids or grown up kids says things like, "They grow so fast," and "Enjoy every minute, because time flies." I didn't necessarily agree with those sentiments (at least, regarding parenthood) until after Zoralee had turned one. Honestly, her first year totally crept by. Not that I didn't enjoy much of it, but there was so much adjustment, so much to learn, so little sleep, that it felt a lot longer than a single year. But her second year and now Ziah's first couple months are really starting to fly, and it's giving me that sobering sensation that this is it, this is life, this is my children's childhood, and I don't want to let it slip away uncherished.

For the past few days, Ziah has been drooling like crazy, fidgeting a lot during sleep, and sucking his fingers more. Barb (mom-in-law) suggested that though it's early, he could be teething. Well, tonight I felt his bottom gum line, and sure enough, there is the slightest hint of sharpness! What a slap to my sense of time! That was actually an impetus to blogging tonight and inspiration for the myriad other tasks I have in mind for improving our quality of life and getting down in writing, video collage, or what-have-you the things I want to say and remember.

"These are the best years of your life. Remember that." When Zoralee was six months old, I was holding her in my arms, and a kindly bearded gentleman looked me in the eye and said that. Ever since, I've given so much thought to that line. I understand the truth in what he said, and I try to revel in each day's light, but I also believe (without proof) that there is beauty to be encountered in nearly every season, and enlightenment about yourself and those you love, and closeness to God, and other things that would deem a year "best," even years without young children, even whole lives lived without young children. I want to think that we go from strength to strength, one best year to another best year, even when some of the best years are awful. Thing is, that man might've been right, and I won't know until it's nearly over, until I'm sitting there looking back on my life. And so, for now, I'm considering this one of the best years of my life, and I have two kids who do a pretty good job of reminding me how true that is.

"I refuse to read this book until someone turns it upright."

"Thank you. Now then, is that a simple silhouette
of a white bird on a black surface?! Genius!"

smokin' hot anniversary

2011-08-20T23:27:00.000-06:00

We celebrated our anniversary this year with a simple but delicious dinner out. The kids both zonked, which was great, because Jason and I were able to visit in the fashion of completing entire sentences without interruption. We also enjoyed guessing about the lives of the locals and eavesdropping on the conversation going on behind us between two old couples, also out for their anniversaries. Our favorite line was by one of the men to his wife. She was talking about their niece and great-nephew, but because of the sentence structure, it sounded like she was calling him (rather than his mother) their niece. To be sure the other couple wasn't mistaken, he said resolutely, "HE'S not our niece." She agreed in all seriousness and continued with her anecdote.

Anyway, Jason and I made googly eyes at each other, nothing between us but a table, two children, and some amazing prime rib, finishing with an ice cream sundae that had rum and cinnamon encrusted pecans. DELISH. And then, though Jason was ready to leave, since he was holding the heavier of the children, he indulged me to order a decaf coffee, and we extended our date by a good 20 minutes. Funny how your standard of quality time changes.

It's always something different, my love! Happy 12th!


My fingers have been too big for my wedding band since mid-pregnancy, so lately I've been wearing my adjustable engagement ring. It says, "Love," but depending on the light can look like "rove," appropriate since it was purchased from a machine for 25 cents.

reunion in MT pics

2011-08-20T22:48:00.000-06:00

Here are some shots from our early August Lautaret reunion in Montana. I posted a bunch more to a facebook album, for those who prefer that format. And if you aren't my facebook friend but want to see those, I am sure it would be easy to set up access. (My mom-in-law is here to love babies and wash dishes, so wee-hoo for internet time!)

Jason and I and the kids drove 14 hours to the Flathead Valley over night. What a golden way to travel with kids. I could hardly relax, just figuring one of them would wake up anytime and hate us and life from their (disad)vantage points in their Torture Devices for Children, a.k.a. car seats, but they did great. A DVD player got Zoralee down the road after the sun came up and sleep was no longer on her mind (just like home life, despite big thick curtains - grrr), and Ziah was pretty content until the last 1/2 hour.

We started off at my folks' place for a few days, the highlight being to celebrate the first year of life for my nephew, Bennett David. He is such an awesome little bundle of energy, as you're about to witness a sliver of during his cake eating:

the reunion proper - -


Just a picture of people playing volleyball, you might think. But look again. Isn't it also a picture of a darling pigtailed child in a pink inter tube, a toy she stole mercilessly from her cousin, Bennett?

my dad reading excerpts from Patrick McMantus at the campfire

delving into joke-telling, mostly your classic "a nun walks into a bar" stuff

a family favorite - softball

our Kaladi hanging with the Ertz herd

Uncle Ralph actually caught a fly ball from this left field position.

most of the gang

old timey serious

outdoor game prep

indoor games

Cousin Lonita and her Percherons


all of the emotions one might expect to feel at a concert of Marshall Catch (Unkin Luke's band) - surprise, glee, and confusion

I notice Rachel didn't post this shot over at her own blog.
I bear the burden then of keeping it real.

my immediate family and grandparents on Mom's side

grandfather and grandson in matching straw hats,
which were recovered from the dump by the boy's father
(and duct taped for maximum frugality / coolness)

a 3 hour tour (echo in a minor key: a 3 hour tour) of Flathead Lake

first injuries of the camp - bloody nose and hornet sting

at the summit of a little family hike
(south of Troy, Montana)

Mom, scaling a cliff or so

Cousin Lisa posing whilst I played with camera color settings

inside the mind of Zoralee

2011-07-29T08:00:00.000-06:00

a variation on the Thai shrine, including food gifts to the gods??

Z's role-playing often includes being a dog. She wants me to give commands for her to obey.
I'm not sure where the disconnect is from this to following real life instruction...
(I guess she's working it out through play, which I do think is awesome.)


If any one knows what this yoga pose is, let me know. If anyone can do the pose, kudos to you.

three on the floor

the fly-over happenings

2011-07-26T00:30:00.002-06:00

We're here in North Dakota! I know I said that already, but, well, I'm reminding myself. In truth, it's just for a few days more, then we're off to Montana for a family reunion. We don't let the moss grow under our feet. Just weeds, which are quick to come, very pretty, and quick to go. The weeds around here, and the indigenous grasses and intentional crops, are all fantastic! So much color and variety. I haven't grown tired yet of the scenery. Check back after 7 months of winter.

* * * * *

The ticks are petering out, both individually and as a species. When we find a random hanger-on-er, he is slow and sickly.

The unpacking is slow going. Now that we're up and functional, excess boxes stacked up in the living room just don't get gotten to. They are a big gloppy booger in what I want to be a simple, clean, feng shui-ified nose. They're wearing me down. And you know what they mostly contain? Memorabilia from the last three decades of our lives. What I say is, if stuff from your past holds you down, get rid of it! That's what I'd say to YOU anyhow. What I actually do is hang on to it, moving it around the country several times, wishing I'd never kept it so I didn't have to make tough decisions.

While I can't say I'd recommend moving to a new state within a week of a baby's birth, if you're gonna do it, better take along your mom or mom-like figure. She'll unpack and organize things, do laundry, keep the kids while you nap, make meals, grocery shop, and otherwise leave you wondering what you yourself did that whole time. Just after we arrived in North Dakota, the trains stopped running through on account of the flooding. So, after Mom had been here a week, Dad drove over to pick her up, and they wound up staying almost another week to help unload the van, run errands, and hold children. Good beginnings are so important, I believe. What my parents gave us was the gift of a good beginning to a life here, because it would've taken me months to get the house this functional.

Speaking of household help, I am reading The Help, which Nikki passed along to me. It's a great book and has been delicious to read slowly, stretched out into dozens of two and three-page reading moments. It's a fictional work about two black women and one white woman who live in Jackson, Mississippi fifty years ago and undertake the daring task of writing about what life is like as a black maid for white families. There are so many conversations I would love to have about this book, so many sub-themes to explore. I will have to ask the two people I know here if either has read the book. :o?
*
I now regularly grocery shop at Walmart. There is very little that can be done about this strange fact. The small local grocer is limited, though I plan to buy there when I can, but that means hauling the kids into two separate stores just on principle. Not that principle is unimportant, but uhhhh, does anybody know if it's illegal to leave kids in the car, just for like 5 minutes?! I mean, the car would be running but locked. And it's a tiny town.
*
By now, my head is starting to peek above the home life water surface. Getting a handle on Ziah's natural rhythms and schedule is making it possible to plan our other work and play around him. There still aren't enough hours in the day to do everything I wish I could, but we're all four alive and healthy. (Actually, it's hay season around here, which is reeking havoc on poor Jason's lungs, but otherwise we're good.) Consistent meal preparation is another big rock that hasn't yet made it into the jar. And house-cleaning. And dishes. Hmm. When I think about it with a clear head, having just eaten a spicy radish, laundry is the one thing I am caught up on....most of the time. Gee whiz, maybe I'm still drowning after all. Anyway, we've been discussing finding a high school gal who would come by once a week to watch the kids for a few hours while I get caught up on other stuff. Now I view every grocery-checking or ice cream-serving teenager with freshly squinted eyes. Exactly how responsible, kind, and fun loving are you? Don't even look at my children if you can't unpack a floor lamp from your travel bag like Mary Poppins. Actually, scratch that. Seeing Mary Poppins again as an adult, she was pretty snotty.

Speaking of Mary Poppins (which I am, because Zoralee got the movie from the library recently), remember how she blew in and blew out with the changing winds? Well, that's how our cell phone reception was here until we got a signal booster device from Verizon. We had to stand beside a specific window or outside on a specific spot on the porch. But now, not only do we have the internet, we can talk on the telephone from anywhere in our home. We are a modern family.
*
And speaking of libraries (rabbit trail bullet points are such a hoot), at ours we found Madeline books, which Zoralee adores. J and I like them because of the unique artwork and clever poetry. Come to find out, Madeline's a classic children's character, 70+ years old. Do you people know about Madeline, created by Ludwig Bemelman? He purportedly said, "We are writing for children, but not for idiots." I'm not sure who he meant by "we," unless he had a turd in his pocket, but I appreciate the sentiment. [How do you like that reference to the old who-do-you-mean-by-'we' jokes, especially one so ironically juvenile?] We also found some cartoon adaptations of Madeline on Netflix; they stick very closely to the books or the spirit of the books and are just as charming.
*
Irony is, ironically, rather common place.
*
Zoralee has crossed another threshold of maturity and understanding; Jason and I have both noticed it. I can't rightly explain what I mean; she is just...older now. I better not start expounding on her or Ziah in this post, or I'll never get it done. Maybe just one leetle picture.

Most recent development, as of 5 minutes ago: a mouse trap that Jason set went off and is now missing. Great. We've got a mouse running around the house with a trap attached to it somehow. I haven't even written about the rodent dramas. Like I say, not enough hours in the day....

prayer for a new baby

2011-07-24T03:30:00.001-06:00

Ziah Dwight -
may God make clear to you each road;
may He make safe to you each steep;
should you stumble, hold you;
if you fall, lift you up;
when you are hard pressed with evil,
deliver you -
and bring you at last to His glory

- excerpt from the section called "Coming Into The Light - Birth" in Celtic Daily Prayer:

2011-07-15T23:36:00.000-06:00

"These guys are watching Rio in the theatre."

family moments

2011-07-15T23:24:00.000-06:00

stop! in the name of love

kitchen dancing

evening cycle

snack time on the go

bugs - most notably, ticks

2011-07-15T22:00:00.002-06:00

Oh, there ain't no bugs on me, on me.
There ain't no bugs on me
There may be bugs on some of you mugs
But there ain't no bugs on me.

[traditional]
*

Oh, there ain't no ticks on me, on me.

There ain't no ticks on me.

There may be ticks on some of you hicks (or sticks)

But there ain't no ticks on me.

[our variation #1]

Oh, there ain't no ticks on Ziah, on Ziah.

There ain't no ticks on Ziah.

You can search both low-uh and high-uh

But there ain't no ticks on Ziah.

[our variation #2]

If non-farming persons like ourselves were going to move to North Dakota intentionally, it would be nice to live on "the edge" - of something. And as it turns out, we do! I mean, the exact geographical edge. Beyond the front yard are farms and fields; beyond the back yard are hills and forests. Things that normally go along with edges are wildness, danger, and intrigue, and our life here has been no exception. It's just that you have to think on a smaller scale. Bugs, my friends. Bugs of flight and bugs of bite.

The first bugs we noticed were the ticks. Lands alive, we noticed the ticks. They are supposedly a spring time phenomenon, and they do appear to be waning in number as it gets hotter, thank the Lord. Rarely have I felt such animosity toward an entire class of living things as I now do toward the tick. We have picked ticks from every conceivable crevice and flat spot on each human and dog who calls this family their own. Only one tick has attached itself to Ziah before we could wipe it away, but the rest of us - not so lucky. And the thing is, these ticks can be apparitions if they so choose! You will search yourself or a fellow sojourner high and low and find nothing. Moments later, you will randomly reach back to scratch your back, and there's a stinking tick. There's no way it crawled that fast from the ground to your back, and yet it wasn't there a moment ago. They say ticks only crawl upward from blades of grass; they do not fly, and they do not fall out of trees. The all-knowing They.
*

One day, Zoralee and I happily skipped into the forest beyond our yard. Mind you, we were on a mowed grass trail. Zoralee was singing. I was taking photographs. Ziah slept peacefully in a pack on my chest. All at once, Zoralee noticed a tick on my leg. As we looked closer at ourselves, our eyes adjusted to tick vision, and we realized we were both covered in them. It was disgusting and really disconcerting. We ran back to the house, slapping at ourselves, tossing articles of clothing, wondering how we'd get this many of the horrid creatures off of us at a faster rate than they could attach themselves and sap us of our life blood. Zoralee had three in her ears alone.

my skirt, even after picking some ticks off

Ticks do carry diseases, but I was glad to learn the other day, via google, that they do not burrow themselves into your brain and stay there indefinitely. As a kid, I believed you had a narrow window of time to get the tick out of your scalp before tweezers, matches, and all the tools of the lay person were insufficient and it became necessary to secure a good surgeon. Hey, I also believed that we kids, playing in the fields behind our neighborhood, could be seen by the pilots in airplanes flying overhead unless we hid our fingernails, because duh, the sun could reflect off our fingernails, alerting them to our presence. How a pilot would land an airplane before we'd run the 100 yards back to the house, and what he or she would do with a handful of children building scrap wood forts - these were questions I didn't ask myself back then. So, let that be a lesson to you about the hazards of home schooling. Actually, that was before we were home schooled. Hmm. Maybe that's why we were home schooled. Anyway. (I'm teasing; I'm all for good home schooling)

Once ticks ingest their mammal blood meal - over a couple days, if I remember right - they drop off and go about their business, which probably includes breeding. Yes, making more ticks. They serve no other purpose, none of beauty and none of filling a niche in the ecosystem, at least no purpose that I'm willing to validate. The thought of a single tick laying hundreds and hundreds of eggs makes me want to spray our yard, and indeed, the whole of North Dakota, with whatever poison would do the trick, however dangerous and nasty of a substance it may be. And that's why overly emotional people should not be in positions of power whereby they make decisions that affect the health and welfare of the country's population. Ticks make people overly emotional.

A final gross tick story. Mere hours ago, I was carrying a pile of books from one room to another and saw a piece of gum stuck to the edge of one. I picked it off, and again, my eyes adjusted to tick vision, and I saw that it was an engorged tick, so huge that its legs were all curled up into itself and barely poking out. Ticks are oval shaped, you know, but if they were circles, this one would've almost been dime sized. Into the tick jar it went, which is our chosen method of disposal, and it made all the other dead or dying ticks totally jealous. It was NASTY on steroids. And it obviously dropped from someone around here, having satisfactorily partaken of a blood meal, heck, a whole blood buffet. It came from Kaladi, no doubt, though again, we search her pretty thoroughly whenever she comes into the house. Apparitions, I tell you.

There are lots of other bugs too that have been around in unusual numbers, the high waters no doubt contributing. Mosquitoes, common house flies that seem to cover entire sides of buildings, and beautiful dragonflies in two varieties. Dragonflies have always been, in my mind, a rarity. Something you point out to your walking partner when you see one perched on a rock. So, it's magical when they are flying all around you at every level of vision, close up to far away. When one hits your windshield, you kind of get the feeling you've just killed a fairy. They don't make as big of a thud as, say, hitting a bird, but they're not as inconsequential as a mosquito either.

in this little corner of sky alone, 8 dragonflies show up on film

A couple weeks ago, the little stream by the house suddenly had several varieties of life in it, thick schools of what looked like baby crawdads, minnows, snails, and one or two other things. I mention them, because they were bug-sized and some may very well have turned into bugs. Who knows? Each morning, when the stream was full, they swam around and around the eddies. As the day wore on and the stream subsided, more and more of them got stuck and died on the rocks at the edges. It started to smell. But by the next morning, the stream had washed the dead ones away, and there were teams of new ones, still the variety.

I often wonder what we'll see next when we step outside. But however they travel, whether by swarm, troop, or drove, the main question I have for them is, "Do you eat ticks?"

the train ride

2011-07-09T22:54:00.000-06:00

four people, four bags, four pillows, and seventeen hours


Zoralee in the Observation Car, observing not so much the scenery as the rowdy preteen boys with their electronic games

from the mountains to the prairies

2011-07-05T20:32:00.000-06:00

The kids (plural -whoa) my mama, and i came by train to north Dakota a few weeks back, Jason and kaladi by station wagon. No Internet yet, but by gum, when we get it, I've got stories and photos galore. This blippet alone is taking forever by iPhone, and blogger won't allow pics from the device (or I don't know how yet).

We'll catch y'all soon!

what we see in Ziah Dwight by day 3

2011-06-14T22:06:00.000-06:00

Ziah - light; working; to tremble; a type of grain
Dwight - Mountain of Zeus; devotee of Dionysos (Greek god of fertility); but most importantly, the name of Jason's father and grandfather

our Ziah Dwight

only cries occasionally and briefly
easily soothable (wow, what a delicious trait)
will have brown eyes, per Papa
will have blue eyes, per Mama
likes to cuddle, have his face close to yours, or somehow be touching
stout little guy - broad shoulders, thick thighs, 2 discernible starts to biceps
likes to eat
quick grower (8 lbs, 13 oz on day 3, which is up 4 oz from birth weight)
has toots of sulphur
at the opposite end of the anxious/mellow spectrum as Zoralee
contemplative and quiet
has Mama's toe and foot style (where Zora has Papa's)
laid back
cutest freckle on top of the head (which, sadly, will be covered by hair most of his life but could make a reappearance in old age)
peaceful to be around

a few pics of our new guy

2011-06-13T22:29:00.000-06:00

2011-06-11T16:34:00.000-06:00

Ziah Dwight Stoffer

8lbs 9oz. born at home June 11, 2011 at 3:41am

This is Rachel, posting for Lori. She will be posting more pictures, more details, and more awesomeness just as soon as she's more fully rested. Right now, little Ziah is nursing like a champ, loves to lick arms, boobs, and shirts, and has a super melllow and easy-going personality. We have all fallen in love with him already, our little line-backer.

she's here! meet the new addition!

2011-06-10T01:32:00.000-06:00

Cruel blog title, I know. And no, there's no baby yet. I'm 41 weeks, and there are starting to be some signs of coming labor. So! Believe you me, there'll be a sincere post or several when he or she makes their grand entrance.

Anyway, since the baby has been taking its sweet time, and since we've been planning to add a dog to the family at our earliest convenience, and since Jason has this precious window of vacation that he could be spending training a dog, we went for it. I think it's a neat full-circle sort of deal that we got this dog at the tail end of this pregnancy, and we had to put down our last one, Beth, in the first trimester of my pregnancy with Zoralee.

So, who is this delicious goddess of a dog? you may wonder. She's a year old Lab/Shepherd mix from the Humane Society, and we have absolutely fallen for her. We visited her several times before taking her home, and she exhibited more and more of the traits Jason wanted in a family watch dog. We also visited dozens of others, but we kept coming back to Dotty, whose name we are transitioning to Kaladi. We couldn't see sticking with the name Dotty for the next decade but figured a rhyming name would be less confusing for her. Kaladi Brothers Coffee was the local roaster up in Anchorage, so it'll remind us of back home. Dotty Kaladi, as we currently call her, is as dark as the darkest, thickest coffee you could brew (just our style), and her eyes are a delicious brown, the way coffee looks after it has been properly doctored up with Sugar in the Raw and whipping cream. (Oh, yes we do use whipping cream.)

Dotty Kaladi is super duper smart and wants to please. She is sweet and licky, excitable like puppies are, but with a gentleness that reminds us a lot of Beth. Fully house-trained, doesn't chew - I mean, come on! She's a dream boat! We felt comfortable with her background; she was given up strictly due to her owner moving, not behavioral or health problems. Granted, we haven't let her totally roam free with the chickens or cat or baby Bennett yet - we're doing slow, gradual introductions with a long line leash - but she sleeps in our room quite contentedly and shows no aggression toward Zoralee or Molly the Schnauzer. Within a few days, she has caught on to heeling and several other commands, and she acts like we're her long lost family. It's fun being dog-owners again, and we're excited to see how many times she saves our lives from burning buildings and whatnot.

Zoralee's first force ride

2011-06-10T00:51:00.000-06:00

(and by "force," I mean horse, not forced)

Jason had long been anticipating giving Zoralee her first horse ride, which he got to do on Harley, whom he had trained three summers ago, when I was pregnant with Z. All was well for the 10 minute ride around the yard, until the bumpiness apparently bumped the excitement and bravery out of little Z and she broke into tears. Still, it was a beautiful experience to witness, and hopefully she won't remember the ending so much.

things people do while they wait for babies

2011-06-10T00:37:00.000-06:00

walk

discover

create

musicify

sleep

tend to personal hygiene

the baldy/shaved lineup: Uncle Jason, doll, a pottying Bennett, and Grandpa Larry

dance

pose

my parents and siblings

play

There's nothing quite as yuppy-ville as watching your kid sip a steamed milk
as she mills around with the other playground children.
(also note Unkin Dave and B on the slide)

- Z's Restaurant -
Bennett and Grandpa Larry are just two in a long line of seven satisfied customers.

Hi. My name is Vicky, and I'm a riding toy addict.

argue

eat

add ginormous horses to the herd (these 2 are my cousin's Percherons)