these are the days

I feel like my blog posts this summer are a broken record.  We're busy.  Life is full.  It's summer.  Repeat.  My head spins circles around my neck as I juggle the quirky duties of a given day.  Just tonight: we harvested 160 head of garlic, installed a light in the chicken coop as a last-ditch effort to train our pea-brained hens to return to their home at dusk, contemplated how to remove the stench from the rubber boots Hazel insists on wearing without socks in 90 degree heat, and calculated how much longer I can ignore the 6 loads of clean laundry piled on my studio floor.      

In my fantasy world, summers are slow and lazy, steamy, hot, mint julip-sipping on shady porches.  In reality, my lazy comes with winter and she's curled up next to a fire sipping whiskey-laced hot chocolate, brandishing knitting needles and rubbing the cold from her toes.  We live in the mountains, not the south, after all.  

Despite my best intentions of largely staying home this summer, I cannot ignore the calling of far-flung family and friends.  It has been the summer of long-lost relatives and it's-been-too-long friends.  The kind of relatives you haven't seen in a decade or more and for no good reason.  The kind of friends you haven't seen in 3 years and yet you pick up conversation as though it's been 3 days and nothing's really changed because it hasn't.  

My mom was here for a week and then a week on the road together, visiting family.  I have very little photo documentation of this fact (that my mom was here), but if you came over you would see my sparkling windows and the stack of books she tirelessly read to Juniper.

Upon returning from family visits in Laramie and Cheyenne, my mom and I both had a 36-hour turnaround before embarking once again.  She drove back home, I gathered my family and drove to Bozeman, Montana to eat, drink and witness our friends get married.  Now here I am, back home, wrangling chicken brains and toddler boots.    

:: Snaps.  Mostly July, a little August.  Some of these photos are almost a month old!  Times like this, I get Instagram-envy.  Speaking of envy, Hazel gets bike-envy but that's about to change.  Anyway.  Snaps.  Evening rides to the berry patch:         

:: Hazel runs, a lot, in that charming way toddlers do: all knee-slapping, high-stepping but barely projecting forward.    

:: Hazel also insists that I wear a helmet while...walking, or cooking, or....  

:: How she starts her mornings as a second-born.  

:: My man and I celebrated our ten year anniversary by...drumroll...finishing the chicken coops and getting the dusty little buggers outside of our garage.  On the bright side, my mom had just arrived and happily watched the kids while we went out to dinner--just the two of us--for the first time in almost 4 years.  Holy shit.      

^Pictured here in front of the Red Rangers' (the meat birds) chicken tractor.^  

10 years ago:

But those damned chickens are happy.  Now we just need a fenced run/garden mote for the hens.  

^The hen house.  One day soon...oh, hell, it will probably be on my 38th birthday...there will be a run attached to this living space.^    

:: Since our camping trip to Devil's Tower, there has been a climbing and bear-clawing obsession in my house.  In this lego rendition, a sister escapes from the clawing rhino-dino (I mean bear).   

In this version, the first sister throws a rope to the baby sister and dog, rescuing them from the clawing bears.  

My step-dad was born and raised in Wyoming and his art is a reflection of the stories that nurtured him.  I am so grateful to own so much of his art.  This is his early rendition of Bear's Tipi (Devil's Tower).  Juniper insisted we move it to her dresser.  

:: We took my mom out on the river.  Peaceful.  Cool.  Bald eagles lining the banks.    

My man oared the raft, wrangled the children and fished.  Talk about multi-tasking.  

^Mom, you're either going to love me or hate me for this one.  I think it's a great photo.^

Hazel took pride in dragging around a stringer of cutthroat trout.  

:: Laramie and Cheyenne.  Visited good friends...

Relatives I hadn't seen since my wedding day (see above photo)...

Met and played with (then hugged and missed) a new cousin...

Explored town.  Juniper chose this pink "infants" stocking cap for Hazel.  She wears it like a two-foot tall thug on the warmest days.  

Juniper: torn between her fear of wind and wanting to watch trains.

The day-long drive back home.  Even now, almost two weeks later, she wears the glasses upside down.  She knows they're upside down and she likes it that way.  Style.    

The road home.  My windshield.  And goofing around with my new camera (squeee!!!!!!!!!!).  

:: Laundry, baths, back in the car and up to Bozeman.  Bone-crushing bear hugs and friends who are more than that.  

A Montana wedding and this lady.  Oh, *this* lady (and her sly guy, not pictured here).  Miss them.      

Yo.  Ten years baby.  (Does he need a new hat?)  

Oh.  I almost forgot.  Take note all future newlyweds and wedding planners:  There was a kid's room at this wedding complete with kid comfort-food, toys, kid movies and 3 babysitters.  Babysitters!  Juniper thought she'd died and gone to heaven.  She ate so much fruit she crapped her pants.  Hazel wasn't going for it and every time her eagle-eyes pinpointed me, she started bawling.  My man was one of many dudes donning an Ergo and toting a baby on the front while the women got drunk and danced.  In the end, I had the most fun dancing half-blitzed with our gaggle of children.  These are the days.          

flash bang boom! and Devil's Tower

Just like that, July goes out with a boom.  I have about four blog posts in my head, and they will likely stay in my head until September.  Oh, summer.  You are like a hyperactive child.  Camping!  Hiking!  Swimming!  Gardening!  Fishing!  Canoeing!  Rafting!  Biking!  Playgrounds!  Playgroups!  County fair!  Art fair!  Concerts!  Farmer's market!  Can I?  Can I?  Can I please?    

No time to think, no time to reflect.  And I really like both of those things.  No wonder I'm partnered with a long winter.

So here I am.  A dinner of cutthroat trout (pulled from the river), garden green beans (with fennel, pickled onion and fried almonds), and a green garden salad sits happily in my belly.

My garden is a green explosion and I keep meaning to write a post about it, but as soon as I'm ready my photos are outdated and the garden has taken on a new personality.  I think it actually changes faster than a toddler.  You start writing down all the first words and the next thing you know, words bolted, phrases are ripe and sentences just coming on.  All from a tiny seed, warm sunshine and glorious water.  It's incredible.            

New favorite way to eat beets (thanks to my mom): roasted, peeled, sliced thin, sprinkled with goat cheese and fresh parsley.  Yum!  Even my beet-hating husband likes it.  (Juniper still prefers her beets to be "clean"--no cheese or parsley.)

:: (More) Summer Snaps.  Are you ready?  I hope I don't crash anyone's e-mail.  (I'm sorry guys, but this is the best I can do in these crazy days.)

: Earlier this month, my family packed our bags, threw the canoe on the truck and drove across the great, empty state of Wyoming, landing near the eastern border at Keyhole state park with a HUGE lake (like, I think we only saw one little finger of it).  Not far from home we passed a grizzly sow with two cubs, no time to stop.  The drive took us all day, we arrived after dark while fireworks erupted over the lake and lightening split the sky in the backdrop.  We met with my dad (for 24 hours), and my cousin's family.  For the first time Juniper and Hazel met the kid whose clothes they wear almost daily.  And for the first time I met my cousin's smart, bouncy, cheery, inquisitive six-year-old who stops only to eat, draw and read.  It was dark and I hadn't seen my cousin in five years, her husband in eleven years, and yet we all hugged dark, hooded figures as though it had been yesterday (hooded because it had been raining).  Right away, young cousin M whisks Juniper away and asks, "Are you three or are you four?"  Juniper slides right into pace with her like a big kid, but turns to me and adoringly asks, "Mama, how old is me?"

The next morning--even before breakfast and morning pees--my kids were swept into my dad's arms and led across the grassy ravine to M's campsite.  And from that point on our campground was a swirl of "fairy princesses" flitting through the ponderosas.  We had brought the fairy wings and cousin M handed-down the pink dress, which Juniper didn't remove for 4 days straight, except to eat ice-cream.  (Oh, the princess phenomena.  I have a post in my head about that one, you know it.)  

  

Juniper copied cousin M's every move.

Let's get things straight here.  Fairy princesses also like to inspect rotting fish on the lake bank.  With grandpa.  
        

Fairy princesses try out the front-porch swing of a "bear's den."

Meanwhile, Hazel Iris--true to form--fell out of the camper-trailer and rolled down the sharp metal steps pretty much first-thing.  In subsequent days and weeks, she would cut, scrape and bump that exact spot 3 more times.  The other day, my man noticed she has a chipped front tooth.  She's only had front teeth for a few months.  This kid, I tell you.

How cool is it that grandpa still motorcycle-camps?  

  

We hiked around nearby Devil's Tower, (or Bear's Tipi, or Bear's Lodge).  We talked a lot about the bear who made the claw marks in the rock and the sisters who escaped (there are many versions of this legend).  We saw rock climbers and talked to them about their gear.  Most of the time Juniper was whining about the wind, but let's not talk about that now (actually, it's getting better--or less windy, hard to tell).  

^Native American prayer bundle.^

^Juniper, cousin M and her dad.^

^Cousin M and her dad, me and Juniper, my cousin A.  Sorry about all the confusing initials but I forget to get permission and, well, people of my generation are skeptical about internet anonymity.  You understand.^

Hazel, our climber.  The thing is, she's so good at it.  Then, when you're least expecting it, she falls.  Not here though.  She was as nimble as a mountain goat.    

Ice-cream cones afterwards.  

And chase in the grass. 

A day-time visit back to the bench where we had watched the fireworks and lightening storm that first night.  

Relaxing days in camp topped with canoeing and warm-water fishing (walleye!).  

Lake swimming.  They are just getting their feet wet here; they actually did swim, but I stayed on the beach with Hazel who isn't a fan of anything cooler than bathwater.    

Did I mention my cousins drove from Ohio?  And my dad from the northwestern coast of Washington?  My family is literally spread east to west, north to south.  Right now, (I wrote most of this a few days ago) I am with my mom in a hotel in Cheyenne, visiting *more* relatives I haven't seen for a decade.  I declare: no more!  We need to start wrangling reunions.    

I had intended to shove all of July's snaps into this post, but I won't torture you.  So goodnight folks.  I'll hit publish and start the next one.