I am here

Hi.  Still here.  Life has been busy this autumn, in a good way, with one sad curve ball thrown in--we lost my kids' great-mamaw.  Oh, there is so much to blog about.  So many necklaces of words and photos I'd love to string together.  The time will come.  For tonight, just wanted you to know we're still here.

kind of like an avalanche

I'm still reeling backwards but not tonight.  Tonight, it's today, and yesterday, and the day before.  Okay?

This last week our slow, cold spring took a leap forward.  Now, all three meals are consumed outside.  Morning coffee's in the front porch swing, eyes sweeping up to the rapidly waning snow line.

Speckled baby robins hop about our yard and iridescent hummingbirds buzz past our ears.  Every morning a red-tailed hawk rides the thermals up, up, up that sentinel of a mountain.  Western meadowlarks sing with wreckless abandon stamped yellow on the treetop.  Mourning doves fool the kids into believing they're owls.  My first-ever tulips smack me daily with their robust beauty.

Four-year-old conversations bounce from God to pollination to death to nutrition to the locations of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.  Hazel joins the conversation with a two-year-old's sense of dictatorship.  ("NO!  It's NOT a bee!  It's a WASP.")  I furiously dig, plant, tend.  Corn and beans are tucked snuggly into warm, moist soil.  New beds are going in, new trees, new shrubs.  Hazel my sidekick helps me water and pat seeds into the ground.  Juniper swims through her thick, busy pretend world, coming up for air and roping us in.  

:: Snaps.  From today, yesterday, the day before, and probably the day before that.

:: Front porch breakfasts.

:: Short, open, garden fence under construction so we can let the chickens into our yard again.  Also, where I toil.    

:: Childhood was meant to be played dirty.  My future flower bed, current mud pit:    

:: Lunch at the picnic table.  (After clogging the drain with bath numero uno.  Hey Jasmine, now I know what you do with that outdoor shower!)      

:: Front porch horseplay.  

(The crib is in limbo; nobody sleeping out there or anything.)  

:: My latest apple tree--Norkent--gracing the garden.

:: Along the driveway and below the dining room window.  Late last summer this was a weedy, gravely patch of blech.  My man made the beds, I tucked in the bulbs.  It is young and has some filling-out to do, but I know it will happen.

:: Saturday we went to the Old West Days parade.  Juniper and a friend pounced at candy while Hazel stayed in the stroller, covered her eyes and surreptitiously ate Juniper's candy.  

:: What my husband does with the kids when I go to some hippie class on growing herbs.  Pajama hikes to an avalanche:

:: Hazel.  The fearless, accomplished climber.

:: Juniper has been obsessed with the book and video series, "The Magic School Bus."  Anytime we see a school bus it's magic, and she watches with awe and expectation.  Like it's going to shrink, turn into a bee and fly into a hive.

Me, earlier that day:  "Juniper, do you want me to do your hair today?"

Juniper:  "Um, no thanks.  Leave it down.  I like it that way; it's kind of like an avalanche."  

:: We sold the camper trailer we bought when Hazel was 4 months old.  It served us well for those early years, but we are so happy to have it off our hands.  We drove to our old friend's house for a bar-b-que and camped in their yard.  Hello, new family tent!  Purportedly, in a sever wind and snow storm, you will be the last tent standing.  Shall we put you to the test?

    

finding zen

Oh, hi!  
I'm not really sure where to start this.  Today I'm using one of my "day off" gift certificates I got for Christmas (BEST gift EVER).  So far, I've run to the grocery store for some cough medicine because I'm tired of waking up in the middle of the night and coughing for hours, then greeting the morning exhausted.  I've showered.  I've managed some of our family finances.  I have a pot of coffee by my desk, NPR turned up loud while my family probably just finished Juniper's gymnastics class and is, as we speak, picking up our raw milk share "at the farm with the funny turkeys."

Usually, I make a point to enjoy the now of parenthood, the moment we're in--chubby babies and toddler tantrums alike (okay, I could skip the tantrums).  But I'll admit, I've been looking forward to 2-and-4 since Hazel was born.  Just wait until they're two and four!  You may have heard me say these words.  And I'll also admit, 2 and 4! didn't come with the stroke of autumnal birthdays.  But now?  Now?  Now, we're at TWO and FOUR and it's awesome.

They have this whole sisterhood that has nothing to do with me; their own magical little world.  And granted, they've been playing together like peas in a pod for a good year, but that play has extended outside and Hazel's okay if I'm not there.  

On this day, we were out all morning.  I headed in to make lunch, they stayed out.  I brought lunch out for our first picnic of 2014.

:: These days, Juniper has nary finished her last bite of breakfast before she slips on her boots and coat and heads outside.  Just a month ago, it took a small act of divine intervention to get my kids dressed in all their gear and outside.  In our world, snow is mundane and spring is magic.  Water!  Mud!  Robins!  Oh my!  

^Preparing to set sail on a pirate ship, in case you can't tell.^

Juniper: "Mama, we have a beach so close to our house!  It's just a short walk.  We don't even have to drive!"  

^Hazel's signature scrunchy face and forehead injury.^

:: Life and emotions are such a yo-yo and parenthood exaggerates that fact.  So one day I'm writing about this new independence, the awesomeness of 2 and 4! and the next day I'm beating my head on the kitchen floor (okay, not really).  I take the liberty to get myself dressed and cut my toenails, then I spend the next two hours paying the price.

Creamy crayons, which are not as washable as they claim, on: the floor, the kitchen wall, the table, the kids, the toilet, the sink, the bedroom wall, the wool rug.  We clean up, we go outside.  Hazel cries the entire time because she's two and wants to climb the tree like a four-year-old.  It's our third day home in a row.  A small town on a Sunday.  We need to get out but there's no where to go.  And just like that, awesome turns to awful and my head is on the kitchen floor.
And then, the coin flips again.  Hazel goes down for a nap, I find my zen.  We're back to awesome.  

:: I know I haven't been in this corner for a while.  But I have been whiling away at a few projects.  This one here: an oak toy chest Juniper received on her first birthday from her great-grandparents.  It was made by their 93 year old friend, now gone.  It was a little rough around the edges and has a heavy lid.  I sanded it smooth as a baby's bum, rounded out the corners, put a safety hinge on the lid and a natural oil finish.  My girls now have a dress up chest.

:: Got an early start on leeks, basil and lupine.  Tomatoes and peppers next in line.  

:: Scattered about my house and purse, tucked inside journals and piles of mail, are scraps.  Kid quotes I've jotted down.  Some adult quotes too (I need to write down more of these because really, we say some pretty goofy things to our kids).  I have spent a few evenings consolidating these into a book.  I'm almost done but I keep writing down more.   A few random gems:

Juniper choosing squash seeds: "This one looks like it has a lot of love in it."

Hazel, singing to the tune of Country Roads:  "Mashed potatoes, take me home...."  

Me: "We always eat dead things."

My man: "Mmmmm.  Yummy dead chickens."

Juniper, in her classic third-person:  "Juniper's not a woman.  She's just a girl making pancakes."

:: Once the kids are in bed, lately, I've been spent.  And yet the need to do something for myself is overpowering.  All I could bring myself to do of late, is knit.  I'll watch a movie and whip magic with two sticks and a length of wool.  This here sweater is for me.  (I told you I needed to do something for myself!)  The first sweater-for-me in far too many years.  The wool is handpainted "peaches" from Mountain Meadows wool.  It was grown, shorn, spun, and dyed in Wyoming.  Actually, it has never left Wyoming.  Love that.