Routine and Rambling

As the basic necessities of life are more-or-less under control, we are trying to get into something of a routine. Schooling has been hit-or-miss since moving here, though we read enough all the time that Jadon and Isaiah are working through Sonlight Core 2, having read all the previous Cores, some more than once. But it felt good on Monday, for the first time in a month, to read history and science, to learn and discuss for a few hours.

That evening, we read the entire book of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, with Phil listening in. We laughed and enjoyed it, even though it’s not quite the right season.

Phil worked on Monday, finding files, getting his office set up in the office trailer.

He found two more dead chicks, so we are down to 49 Rhode Island Reds, and 1 exotic. He strung an extra light, hoping that the extra warmth would be enough to prevent further loss. Thus far, it has. I was encouraged to glance through Joel Salatin’s Pastured Poultry Profits and see that he says that a loss of 1-2% in the first week is normal; we’re not too far off that, especially with the chicks being stressed with no heat lamp for several hours the day before.

On Monday afternoon, Phil said, “I think I’m going to hike to the other side of the creek.” So we all went along, taking a slightly different route than usual. The 40-ish acres besides the clearing is much a mystery to me; we found little spits of land I do not remember seeing. Our land is not a continuous slope; it has gradual slopes, with some steep drop-offs, with bottom land in the flood zone by Hog Creek, which bisects our long rectangle. I was thrilled to see how much mostly-flat land we have: there is plenty for paddocks, plenty for expansion for more sheep or cows. And having steep slopes of hardwoods between future paddocks wonderful, too—these “buffers,” as they are called, support biodiversity, among other benefits that I have read about and subsequently forgotten.



The woods were surreal—beautiful.


Many of the leaves have fallen, now that we’ve had two frosts, but the yellows that remain, against the pale woods; glorious.

And so easy to walk, now that the underbrush is denuded; so easy to see, with the thick layer of leaf carpet underfoot, rather than obscuring our vision hanging on the trees.

The children joyfully ran on the hilltops, and all was most excellent.


Then Abraham was stung by a wasp. While he was wailing, Jadon came charging towards us, face contorted, shirt pulled up off his skinny back. A wasp was still on his back, so Phil flicked it off with his hat. Jadon had a swelling the size of a my finger, and inflamed skin the size of a teacup top, and he wailed for, perhaps, the next half hour. Then Phil found a feather and passed it to Abraham. Other children-who-shall-remain-nameless tried to entice, threaten, trade, or otherwise acquire said feather, which further disturbed the peace.

Between Jadon’s whimperings and the feather disputes, the second half of the walk was more clamorous than the first. Such is life.

It was almost exactly two years ago that we first walked the land (October 22, 2007); we had three children then. What a difference two years makes!