Planing and Sawing

I asked Phil this morning what he had done yesterday—I hadn't seen him much, and was curious. He had done a bunch of little tasks: started to put in a cut-off switch for the pump, so we won't run it dry (finished that today); started to set up the sawmill; started to plane his new work table. A day where he was on the go the whole time, but didn't finish much.

Today, he was very pleased with the finished appearance of his table, planed sufficiently and varnished.

The incredible windstorm and rainstorm overnight woke me several times: the trailer was rocking! Our rain gauge, we realized this morning, must have had the water left in it after the last big rain, and it broke on freezing. Phil estimates two inches fell. Happily, he was able to bring the cows a hay bale: I wasn't sure he would be able to get to them.

In the late afternoon, Phil started to saw for our friend. He did one 8' long log, which yielded 93 board feet. He was pleased, overall, with how easily that went.

Our string of strange breakages continues, however: Phil realized yesterday that he damaged a section of the sawmill when he dragged it up the slope. And today he put a new blade in, and at some point, it caught on a metal post. So he'll put in a new blade. So strange to have something break every day!

Phil asked a local farmer if we have worse luck than usual. "Oh, no! You can be sure that whenever you must desperately need something, that's when it will break. Farmers fix things constantly."

Is that encouraging? Hmm.

With the strong wind blowing all day, I went outside as little as possible. I figure I got a lifetime of wind when we lived in Boulder, and I'd just as soon avoid it. The three younger boys put up the mattress and spread out with pattern blocks, cars, Playmobil, and Duplos (Phil was thankful the Legos didn't join the mass of bright plastic on the floor). Jadon and I read. It was a good day.

A Haiku for You

In my new robe
this morning —
someone else.

Famous haiku writer Basho wrote that poem. I like the idea that every morning you get up and you're a little bit different than you were the next day. Every day, a new you.

A strong, warm wind blew all day, sometimes with little flurries of rain. It wasn't until dark fell that the torrents came down.

I spent my farm hours today weeding around trees. I started out trying to dig up grass patches in the comfrey, then considered weeding between trees in the rows, but that seemed ridiculous. So I did spot weeding right around the trees: one of these days, we'll bring peastone up and keep the ring around the trees clean.

Yesterday I went and checked my hives. The two swarms last year are doing great: they have two deeps still heavy with honey. The original hive, though (the one I didn't feed supplemental honey to), was very light. The super was empty, as was the bottom deep. I swapped the bottom deep and the top deep (not full of honey, but with some at least), and plan to start feeding that hive soon. Today would have been good, but I forgot.

My First Outdoor Work of the Year

Yesterday morning I headed out to the bread-baking area of the barn to make breakfast: toaster oven, Nutrimill, KitchenAid, all lined up for me to make the two loaves for the day.

Except that the KitchenAid was gone. Gone!

A strange thing for a thief to steal, in a strange place. Why come all the way down the driveway, right by the house, to take the KitchenAid but not the toaster oven? What?

Phil came to the barn. "Did you even look? The KitchenAid is right there!"

And it was: lying on its side, bread hook snapped clean in half. I use the bread hook every day. The dratted dog must have jumped up to get ... cat? mouse? food? I'm using the paddle for the moment to mix the bread, but that's not really a kneading action, and it's not good for the motor.

Another strange accident in an ongoing string of unfortunate accidents.

Today was a glorious day: weather in the 70s, sun. Phil was up in town most of the day; I spent two hours cleaning out the little greenhouse. I didn't finish (photo is "after," so you can imagine the "before"). It makes me excited to think about this year's growing!

A friend called Phil yesterday: boards at the local mill had gone up from $5.50 to $9. So the friend will bring the logs from his farm, and Phil will custom saw them. This is the first time we've tried such a thing, so we'll see how it goes.

Phil headed down to get the sawmill from the lower pasture. Because of his trip to town, it was dark as he was getting it packed up to move. I headed over to open gates for him, as he would have to drive up through the cow herd. I went to stop the water; while there, I noticed that a line of fence seemed down.

It was quite dark by then, and I didn't know if the electric fence was actually off. As I came to where I thought lines should be, I would swing my sweatshirt out to see if it met with resistance. None. And the cows are trained to follow people to new paddocks, so as I went down slope to tell Phil that a line was down, all 14 cows followed me. A few looked like they tripped a bit on the downed line, as they hopped and bucked.

But it seemed counter-productive to fetch Phil, leading the cows ever farther from their proper paddock. So I headed back upslope and then just stood, surrounded by potential live electric wire, frisky cows, and darkness.

When Phil, mill in tow, finally came upslope, we opted to leave the cows as they are for the night.

But a semi-permanent fence line going down: that hasn't happened before. That was today's odd accident.

Pictures of Projects

My camera's card stopped dumping photos onto the computer a week ago (perhaps the fine red dust finally settled too thickly in that small opening). Phil, though, showed me how to dump photos via a cord, so my blog will be more visually pleasant again.

The boys have bulb crates where they keep their special things. Abraham's crate had started to overflow, so we worked together to clear it out.

Actually, he had few toys and gifts in the crate. Mostly he had drawings he's worked on over the last four or five months. A lot of drawings. A whole stack of drawings. I had expected to be able to easily eliminate massive amounts of the papers, but as I started to look, I found myself captivated again by the little Buzz Lightyears and stuffed monkeys and sharks; the little characters, drawn carefully (and repeatedly) in pen and pencil. Thousands of little figures. In the end, I just put them all in a box, labeled it with the year, and put it in the storage trailer. Paying it forward.

Phil returned from a trip to town last week with a startling announcement: "I've returned with urinals!" He remembered reading about gardens that have straw bales for the male workers to use to start the recycling process of nutrients to garden fertility. Great idea.

But the dog, aided and abetted by the chicken and guinea, made short work of that "urinal."

Phil spent Saturday chipping, once Jadon and Isaiah shoveled out the back of the truck from the chips on Friday. Jadon helped him then, until they grew hungry for lunch. The truck got stuck. Phil got the truck free. It was a day of chipping. I was feeling pleased with the quantity of chips we're getting, until I reread in Gaia's Garden that a truck load of wood chips will cover about 50 square feet of garden. At a truck load a day, we're not getting a huge amount of new garden fertility. Hmm.

Sunday I went back through my underlined notes, trying to list the various plants the author recommends for various purposes. After several hours, and with a hundred dense pages yet to go, I gave up: it's overwhelming, how many interesting and enticing plants there are! I've ordered my vegetable seeds: now it's time to find some less usual seeds.

We woke today to rain, which effectively ruled out any lower pasture work: too slippery. So Phil and Jadon headed up to the barn to design and build a workbench.

It turned out well, and Phil is loving the extra work space. I suppose a his workroom is like my kitchen: the more counter space, the better.

Isaiah and Jadon have been playing on a pulley system that sends them up to the roof and back down. It reminds me of the hayloft games of the last century.

A few daffodils have started to poke out in the apple orchard. The photo shows a tree I weeded last year, and I'm hoping that I can weed and put peastone down in the center of the daffodils at some point this spring.

After so many days of cold, the thaw came today. Phil was glad to shower. As for me, my hair still is looking cute after nine days of no maintenance. How was I surviving with the longer hair before? Ouch!

And I was glad, too, to see a cheery golden sunset.

Bathing Bummer

Phil chipped in the lower pasture. It was a normal day chipping: boys shoveled yesterday's chips out of the truck; Jadon went down with Phil until they came up for a break and the truck got stuck; the chipper had a piece keep falling off.

By dusk, Phil came up, smelling of some petroleum product (or several), excited to bathe. Our water lines had finally thawed as we broke freezing today (yay!), and so we did the dishes and the boys bathed while Phil made dinner.

Isaiah always bathes last. He is famous in our family for his 45 minute showers. I'm not sure what he does in the bathroom all that time. I know that he sat in front of the heater for about ten minutes, drying off, before he started getting dressed.

A 45 minute shower really depletes our hot water, though, so rather than showering right after Isaiah, Phil waited a bit.

Dutiful Isaiah turned off the space heater in the RV. We've been eating in the trailer this week, and Isaiah had no way to know that the heater has been running 24 hours a day this wekk, trying to keep the lines thawed. Usually we view untended space heaters as a liability, and so he followed proper energy conservation and fire danger practices when he left the trailer to come and read with me and the brothers before bed.

When Phil headed over shortly afterwards, he found the RV dark and cold. And frozen.

Poor guy!

A Paradigm Changing Page

Get over it ... farming doesn't pay. More accurately, though, it is our economic system that fails to describe accurately what agriculture is, what is does, and the true value that agriculture has for humanity. Agriculture is what it is and it doesn't fit into the nice, tidy box of economic theory. Living on a farm or ranch and paying the bills with wildly erratic and oftentimes tiny cash flows is a challenge for everybody who is doing it.

....

My advice is to get over it. Your agricultural enterprise probably will not pay all of your bills. Don't beat yourself up over this. Don't hold yourself up to a standard that the entire agricultural economy is not attaining.

This doesn't mean don't get into farming or ranching. What it does mean is understand that you are playing blackjack against "the house" and the house is using a rigged deck. Rural life is an incredibly rewarding lifestyle and despite the fact that farming doesn't really pay, we can figure out how to stay in the countryside, stay on the farm and live a good life. Going out of business is one of the many forms of unsustainability.

Almost two years ago now, permaculture expert Mark Shepard came to do a private training session on the farm. (He had hoped to make it a more broad workshop, but I was overwhelmed with the details. So it was just Phil and I and my parents for the weekend.)

His book, Restoration Agriculture, came out recently, and I started to read my copy late last night. After admiring the pictures of his farm, I started reading, pretty randomly, near the end. And the above quote stood out to me.

The last year I have been beating myself up, feeling that we have a full-time hobby farm and little to show for it, without a really viable option for actually making a living. That may be realistic, or that may be pessimistic (and it certainly isn't prophetic); whether it ends up being true or not, it isn't hopeful.

And then I remembered that Mark had said something similar: "Stay on the land. Get a job at a gas station, work as a bartender in your off hours, just do what you must to stay on the land."

I don't know if I can express how freeing it was to read that page. That's right—there are rewarding parts of this lifestyle. (I had almost forgotten.) I have a good life. (I had had some doubts.)

Though I realize it is foolish to entirely remove money from the good life equation, to realize that we are making it, month by month, seems a bit more of an accomplishment than it did two days ago. I'm playing against a stacked deck. Okay. I can keep going.

Phil Troubleshooting in the Cold

Phil has been working out in the 20 degree weather, in the wind and driving light snow. I go outside as little as possible.

Thursday morning, Phil managed to reassemble the chipper entirely. He had had a hard time with the bearings, but by hooking on a clamp or something, he managed to whack everything together in short order.

Then it was time to deal with the clutch. He had tried to bleed the line before, but it hadn't made much difference. "I know what I did wrong, though." Unfortunately, the plastic tubing required could not be found, so that was a 90 minute trip to town.

We worked on bleeding the line for some time. The clutch finally started to have some resistance, but suddenly it didn't. I checked the fluid reservoir, and it looked almost empty. I wonder, in retrospect, if it had gotten empty, and more air went into the line (the book cautioned against this; otherwise, you have to start over). A few more attempts, but finally Phil just refilled the reservoir and pumped the clutch hundreds of times. Now it works well.

Was that hour or two we spent in the Big Blue Barn what made the difference? Who knows.

But the day was far gone, and by the time Phil brought hay and minerals to the cows, and got the chipper hooked back to the tractor, the day was done.

The water had frozen in the line to the cows yesterday. So today that was a first priority: get water for the cows.

Well, first Phil went out to make eggs for breakfast. I think he was getting water for his coffee. He turned the spigot on. And it came undone so he couldn't turn it off!

The water on the ground froze quickly. If that had happened to me, I don't know what I would have done. I don't know what he did, but he finally managed to get it stopped.

Happy breakfast making!

The line to the cows was not going to work, so he headed up to fill the tank on the trailer. After 100 gallons, the pump ran out.

Is our well almost dry? Is this an extreme cold thing? It's too bad Phil wasn't here when the service guys came last year to put in a new pump. It would have been interesting to have them measure the actual water level.

With that sobering bit of frustration, Phil took the 100 gallons over to the cows. They finished much of it, while he took the tank and trailer down to the creek.

The pump we bought last September to drain our "pool" did not come with instructions. So Phil spent a good amount of time trying to figure out how to make it work. But finally the tank was filling.

Then Phil fell into the creek! It sounded like quite a tumble, but thankfully, though he fell head-first out of the trailer, he ended up on his feet. Boots, pants, over pants all soaked. And quickly frozen. But he didn't drown in the ice water.

It actually hadn't occurred to me until right now that that could have been the end of him: drowned in the freezing waters of the creek. He's often with the cows for an hour. I wouldn't have gone to look for him for a long time. Some things are better not to imagine.

When the cows were watered again, he left the water trailer, changed clothes, warmed up, hooked up the chipper (again), and headed down.

For about four hours, he was down in the lower pasture, working in the cold air. For those four hours, nothing broke, everything worked. Four hours of the precious wood chips pouring into the back of the truck.

Then, at 6pm, when it was quite dark, he started to head up the slope. But the light snow had slicked over. Despite the frozen ground, there was no chance of him coming up slope with either truck or tractor tonight.

But with all the setbacks of this week, he returned in good spirits.

Chipper Woe

Yesterday evening, Phil couldn't maneuver the truck: the clutch wasn't working. He got up and went right away to get more fluid. Back home, the older boys cheerfully suited up in warm clothes to go down and help him.

Phil managed to get the truck working again. Then he started chipping.

The second branch somehow threw off the entire feeding mechanism, so that it was crooked, and stuck, inside the machine.

So Phil drove the chipper up to the barn and disassembled it. He got to a point where he just needed to add bearings, but they would not fit. Tomorrow he'll try heat.

Since he doesn't know what caused the chipper to jam, and the machine is still not really functional, he ended up with a full day of effort and less than nothing to show for it.

It makes me wonder if this level of frustration is common to all farms, or if we suffer (and endure) an unexplained level of resistance and malfunctioning.

Chipping Away

Despite temperatures that never broke above freezing, Phil taped his fingers and loaded up the truck for a dump run. When he came back, he and Isaiah headed downslope for some chipping in the lower pasture.

A while ago, we talked about the inherent dangers in forestry. Chainsaws, I have read, are the most dangerous tools you can use without a license. Falling trees sometimes fall in unexpected directions. And though Phil usually takes a walkie-talkie with him, if he were knocked unconscious, I might not notice for hours—the sound of the chainsaw doesn't reach me at the house.

And so the boys have a new job: go down with Dad and be ready to contact me in case of emergency. At some point, it would be better to have them actively participate in the felling and clearing, but for today, I was proud that Isaiah headed down without complaint. He read a book and shivered, but returned cheery (and cold).

After about two hours, dusk was falling. Phil was physically done, too. After two days shy of two months since he hurt his finger, he will need a bit of time to get back in shape. Ouch.

Shorn!

My sister has a friend who works in an Aveda salon. "We should have her come and cut your hair," she said a few times.

I love long hair. I always have. And even though, by the end of the week, my hair would be so tangled it took 15 minutes to comb out, and would come out in clumps, and often would make my scalp hurt for the next week, the idea of long curly locks remained irresistible. Even though my husband is a short hair man. Even though I reached a point where I didn't like my hair down, ever, and wore it up at least six days a week if not seven.

At some point, the reality of life needs to meet the dream of princess curls. Harumph.

And so, flush with the feeling of homeopathic well-being, last Friday I went under the scissors and came out looking quite different.

I like that my scalp never hurts, that I need to do nothing to my hair after I wake up, that I feel cute when I look in the mirror. One friend at church today said, "It matches your personality!"

Another friend wondered if anything was coming up around the farm. I went looking. There had been hints of daffodils back in December. Yes, the daffodils are well up now.

My bees surprised me: two hives had green pollen balls: either they have gone foraging somewhere unexpected in early January, or they have been eating their stores and clumsily dropped some bits. One hive showed evidence of a good bit of sugar crystals, and those came from their stores last fall.

The ground where the cows grazed during our absence has been thoroughly massaged. Their hooves made thousands of little mini lakes, and their grazing has left the landscape mostly free of weeds. Perfect.

Because we are moving the location of our road, Phil set hay bales out for them to graze on the old road. Perhaps the extra organic matter and manure will help that section grow well.

And I was surprised to note that my comfrey has completely died back, so that out of the mass of green this fall, there remains mere blades of green, surrounded by masses of quick-decaying black leaves.

On a completely different note, I received a collection of Isobel Kuhn books for Christmas. I had read her book In the Arena some years ago, and felt like she was a mentor. I started a short book yesterday, about some of the godly people (Second-Mile People) she has known. One section stood out to me, about a friend who told

how her Lord, as she continually looked to Him, unfolded new lessons of the Spirit-led life, the resting-in-Him life, the anxious-for-nothing life, the 'more abundant' life which is continual peace and frequent joy. Her dear laugh is forever associated now with Phil. 4:6 as she gave me 'her own' translation&mdash'Be anxious for nothing!—not even for your failures!'

Now on some level I probably knew that before we moved: that we act, and God either gives the increase or doesn't. But I had completely lost sight of that. There has been a feeling for me that after the farm becomes productive, after we have some success, that will be worthy of God.

But a dead bull? A failed market garden? A landscape that hasn't changed as much as I feel it should? Be anxious for nothing, despite that?

That's a freeing idea, indeed.

Phil Does Plumbing

When we had a new pump installed in our well, we were told we needed to swap the order of the pump's filter and something else. When Phil had installed the filter, he had gotten the order wrong.

His finger is finally well enough that he can bend it, so after caring for the cows early this morning while the ground was (finally) frozen, he headed up to do this dreaded, but long-awaited, plumbing.

Before we were married, Phil had remodeled a kitchen, taking it down to bare studs and rebuilding from there. During that project he learned that he enjoys electrical work, with the precise wiring and circuits. And he does not enjoy plumbing work, with blow-torches and pipes. I think the main frustration is that with plumbing, if it isn't perfect and he tests it, there's a leak. Which isn't a huge deal except that, in order for joints to fit well, the area needs to be dry, which requires a lot of blow-torching.

Come to think of it, we had a lot of leaks at our house in Boulder. But that, we discovered late in our stay there, was because our house was under about 140psi, rather than the more standard 30-40. We were the first house off the hydrant, and some installer had not regulated our pressure correctly. No wonder we had so many plumbing problems!

Happily, our well does not produce anywhere near 140psi, so Phil did the whole plumbing task in an hour or two. All those months of waiting and dreading, and it didn't even require a trip to the hardware store!

We're thinking on Monday he will be able to begin "real life" again; if it's warm, perhaps laying blocks. If it's cold, perhaps chipping.

The Next Adventure

Rain, along with some enormous, fluffy snow, fell all day yesterday. At least four days running. By the end of the day, the cows were miserable, and so they burst out of their confines to wander the orchard. Phil closed the gate across the driveway, but they had more interest in the hay in the blue building than pines across the street. Since the almost-four inches of rain had left the ground sopping, sucking-mud, Phil did what he could to make the barn hospitable, and left them for the night.

I opened my eyes to sunshine this morning. Sun! We happened to be in Colorado for their week of extreme January cold (high of 6), and since the sky has done nothing but precipitate on us since our return, I welcomed the cheery sun.

Phil had to corral the cows. I knew that some boxes we shipped from Colorado might arrive today, and we needed the gate open (good thing, as the four boxes did arrive in the afternoon). He set up the new cow pen next door, walked the cows over to it, and brought them food and water.

For me, I've been working, getting ready for the next adventure. I have been longing for more learning lately, even looking at an MFA in creative writing. Really, though, I can't imagine going back to an environment of term papers, exams, group projects, and class discussions.

My sister has encouraged me for months (years?) to become a homeopath, and I have mentioned my wish (several years running now) to pursue natural healing. I checked naturopath schooling, and that was about as overwhelming as going back to med school. Chiropractor school, too, is too much in both cost and time. Various herbal schools and courses have tempted me, but as much as I enjoy reading herbal books and making herbal remedies, if I have a problem, I never go to my tinctures. I go to my homeopathic kit.

My one look online at homeopathic schools overwhelmed me. Many classical homeopaths appear to study in India. That wasn't going to happen! But after my wonderful appointment with the homeopath in Colorado, I investigated correspondence courses again, and found one that seems suited to where I am in life. My sister, too, has become such a homeopathy advocate that I suggested she try the course, too.

So yesterday we both signed up. A new adventure! A new course of learning.

When will I find the time to study? Hmm. I will need to continue to delegate, I think!

We are both excited!

Home Again

The boys and I flew home yesterday. We had had our family Christmas present opening on Sunday afternoon: eight rounds of cheers and laughs and love.

The cousins had played happily together.

On the flight home, I made good progress toward finishing one of my presents, the fascinating Perennial Vegetables. Other than asparagus and rhubarb, it's hard to think of vegetables that I would plant once and enjoy for more than three years. The book details about 100. I have a very weedy patch of asparagus and a few plants of stinging nettle. I suppose that is about 2%, which is more than nothing. But I'm interested to see what more I can add. It's an interesting, attractive idea!

During our week in Colorado, Phil had joined us for an unexpected overnight, as a client needed some help. The last leg of his return flight was cancelled, which meant that he got home some four or five hours later than expected, after renting a car and driving the final 77 miles from Dulles to Charlottesville (the cows, after all, needed a farmer to be there). But other than basic survival for animal and man, not much had happened around the farm.

It didn't help that we arrived in a downpour. A downpour Phil said had lasted the better part of the last two days. He had brought us all boots, so we managed to get from van to trailer without too many mud puddles and too much grossness.

By morning, the land was spongy under 2" or so of rain. There's little to do on the farm under a heavy layer of water, with a busted (but slowly healing!) finger. Even just delivering hay from the top of the driveway to the bottom almost got the tractor stuck.

As I got back to work, I did what the homeopath had suggested: I delegated. Phil made breakfast, lunch, and dinner. When the cows got out, the older two boys went to help round them up. After dinner, the older two went to do the dishes. This was like a minivacation for me: a day to read and get a bit of extra sleep, trying to catch up on both.

I was happy to find, on my return, a James Thurber book I remembered from childhood: Many Moons, about an ill princess who wants the moon so she can get better. The jester figures out that she believes the moon is smaller than her thumbnail, as she can cover it up, and sometimes gets caught in the top of the tree. She knows it's made of gold. She gets a gold moon and recovers, but, as Abraham asked, "What happens the next night when the moon rises again?"

Exactly the question in the book. But the princess knows that the moon's return in the sky is the like the tooth or the flower that regrows, and so she falls asleep, gold moon around her neck, real moon in the sky.

Illustrated by Marc Simont, who also illustrated the Nate the Greats (the wonderful Dashiell Hammett-type detective series for early readers), the boys listened and laughed out loud. If you have children under ten, and don't mind if a bumbling wizard makes an appearance, check it out!

So, Have YOU Seen Les Miserables?

Since we moved to Virginia, I've seen both Toy Story III and Beauty and the Beast in the theater. Tonight my sister and I went to see Les Miserables.

I listened to the musical compulsively throughout high school. I saw it at the theater in college. The movie made it much more dreary than I remembered. But then, there is a reason it's titled "The Miserables."

Powerful movie. Most of the singing wasn't as good as the CD version with the Broadway actors, but there is something magnificent about surround sound and extreme close-ups of people belting out their words. It was worth it to trade a bit less rich vocals for the intimate emotion of the actors.

I had forgotten how lovely Jean Valjean's character is.

And Marius, usually a character I view as an anemic love interest, was phenomenal. Besides being adorable, he completely redeemed the "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" song that I used to skip over. He and his barricade friends had such gorgeous voices!

I'd recommend the movie, but I don't know that I ever want to watch it again. It isn't a happy way to spend a couple of hours.

On the other hand, we've watched While You Were Sleeping the last two days, and we walk around quoting lines. Best romantic comedy ever! Totally clean, completely quotable, funny and sweet.

When I reached high school, my family would often watch movies on Sunday night. When we watched While You Were Sleeping, we finished it and my Mom said, "Rewind it [since it was still in video]. We're watching it again!"

And we did. It was a memorable evening, as no other movie received similar treatment.

Classical Homeopathy

I have long been a fan of homeopathy. Whether Belladonna brought back chickens on the brink of death due to heat stroke or Apis took away the burn of a bee sting; whether Nux Vomica cured hiccups or Rhus tox cured poison ivy, we have need of the little pellets multiple times a week.

My extended family, though, took homeopathy to the next level. First my sister went to see a classical homeopath in Denver. After a two hour appointment, she took a dose of Pulsatilla. Before she drove away, the brain fog lifted. She had felt exhausted since she gave birth six months before, so to have energy and clarity, instantly, was a great blessing.

Her spouse went, and he was helped. My dad went, too, and though he has multiple health issues, my mom thinks he is improving.

In December, then, when my blog posts started to sound more down than usual, my dad suggested that, when I visited Colorado after California (Phil went home to care for the animals: the boys and I went from California to Colorado), that I go to the homeopath.

Besides a low "life force" (the homeopath way of saying "depressed," or low in vitality), I have been waking up with numb hands most mornings after I eat pork. Something else triggers numb hands, too. Since rheumatoid arthritis runs in the family, and numb hands can precede full-blown rheumatoid. And inflammation in the body is, as a general rule, something to avoid.

I had eaten soy lecithin in chocolate on Thursday. The morning I headed to see the homeopath, I woke up with both hands and forearms numb.

On Friday, I went for my appointment. I was interested to see that the conversation headed almost entirely away from physical symptoms (I mentioned inflammation early on, and it didn't come up again, for example).

Instead, Mary Ellen steered the conversation towards perfectionism. "That is eating you up."

I don't remember mentioning perfectionism, as I had sort of thought I was mostly cured. Ha.

We also talked about my need to delegate more tasks, and to have more margin. She said, "You're working past your limits," and I protested, "No, no. The amount I do in a day is probably more than most people, but I'm capable of handling it. Except for the fact that I reached a place of despair in December. Oh, right."

We had this identical interaction not once, but twice.

I mentioned how I pull myself out of despair. "I'm a one in the enneagram, and for ones, we're supposed to go into nature or write until we figure out what's the underlying issue. At this point, going into most parts of the land just depresses me, because I can see how much we have to accomplish, so I just write until I feel better."

To me, this seemed like a self-aware statement: see how well I handle my life? Not only do I know myself, but I know how to self-soothe in an appropriate way!

"Now I could be wrong," said Mary Ellen, "but I think the fact that you can't get out into nature, but have to be constantly going inside in order to cope, shows that you're suppressed."

It made me laugh. Okay, it's probably true.

She gave me a dose of a remedy I'd not heard of there in the office, and sent some more home with me to take as needed.

I felt nothing different in the office, though she said my color had come back.

I went to my sister's to pick up the boys, and she was shocked. During that 20 minute car ride home, I had, apparently, completely changed demeanor and voice. I was quiet and passive as I sat down for lunch, hardly able to form a complete sentence.

I remember that, but had I been alone, I wouldn't have known whether I was just hungry or tired or actually reacting.

And for hours I just wanted to fall asleep. But I only see my sister a few weeks a year, so we hung out, and after three or four hours, I felt normal again.

We had pizza for dinner that night, with good pork pepperoni. I had more chocolate. I expected to be numb in the morning.

It wasn't until I had been up for some time on Saturday morning that I realized I had had no numbness.

And the fact that I have energy and desire to blog makes me think that single dose did more than just clear up some blocked circulation. Since I don't write when I'm feeling too low, I think I'm doing better.

Great news.

Gaia's Garden

Once or twice a year, I read an amazing book that helps clarify my life or an aspect of farming. Last Christmas, that book was The Small-Scale Poultry Flock, which Phil is currently reading and enjoying. I also loved Sepp Holzer's Permaculture.

In life, I enjoyed Louisa Williams's Radical Medicine (a textbook I haven't finished, but have enjoyed immensely).

And now I am devouring Gaia's Garden. I've read it every spare moment since Christmas, and what a treasure! I feel I have a better vision for how to connect the pieces of what we've tried. We're going the right direction, but a few additions will make the garden pop.

• Clarity for what went wrong with my lasagna garden. I put down cardboard, and covered with mulch, but I had a complete takeover of weeds. What would have been more successful would have been to cover the cardboard with three flakes of hay, and wet it all down until spongy, then cover with a few inches of seed-free material (woods chips, for example). The weed seeds, apparently, just rot until a few inches of barrier. This makes much more sense.
• How to plant a healthy guild. We long for fruit trees with life underneath enough to offer stable support. The book recommends a circle at the dripline of the tree: daffodils around the trunk (though we think we'll stick with peastone directly around the trunk, then daffodils), and a ring of daffodils at the dripline to prevent grass encroachment. Then some comfrey for mulch, some berry (currants?) for height stacking, some herbs for general healthy (yarrow, mint), some bee-attractants (phacelia, buckwheat). A nitrogen-fixing shrub (Siberian pea), maybe even planted in the hole with the tree, boosts nutrition (keep it trimmed below the tree, and perhaps cut it off in the fifth year or so). Fill in this circle of loveliness with a good mulch, and gradually begin to connect these circles, until the entire garden is rich with life, pollinators, insect predators and such.

Perhaps what I appreciate most about the book is that I have either attempted to source almost all the trees and plants he mentions, or I have them actively growing already, just not in a coherent order. To connect the pieces shouldn't be a big jump.

Growing season is coming, and I think I'll be ready!

Isaiah's Happy Birthday

Few days, even birthdays, offer unalloyed pleasure. Isaiah's ninth birthday proved an exception.

After his ideal breakfast of pancakes with blueberry syrup (cooked to light brown perfection by grandpa: I remain pancake-making incompetent, so my griddle cakes end up black or raw, or an unappetizing combination of the two), we headed out.

Phil's parents live near Apple Hill, an area in the hills of California where a group of family farms have cooperated to create a market of vineyard-orchard-Christmas tree pleasure. Boa Vista remains open year-round, offering their delectable raw sweet cider. We picked up some for the road, and enjoyed hot apple cider around an applewood fire. I had a moment of orchard envy (our 300 or so trees seem mighty small beside so many), but then remembered that I'm not really ready for employees or migrant workers. For the moment, we'll try to keep it all scalable.

We went to the train museum next, a delightful place for boys. Jadon and Grandma went on the tour (that was Jadon's highlight), while Phil and I followed the other boys as best we could. The rattling sleeper car that made me just a bit seasick; the engine where we sat and felt like we were driving; the model train with four different sized tracks as it went up the mountain, the amazing selection of Brio-type train tracks to enjoy—it's a great museum, on the western site of the transcontinental railroad.

The lighting prevented good photos inside, but when we went next door to eat our delicious picnic lunch, Isaiah and Abraham found a large historical artifact to pose near.

Green is Abraham's color.


From there, we took the boys to their fabulous surprise: Build-a-Bear! Jadon and Isaiah had gone at around ages 2 and 4, and when I pulled their dogs dressed as Buzz and Woody out of storage, the little boys were most intrigued. The ear of Jadon's dog soon fell (was pulled?) off, and Isaiah didn't always choose to share his dog, and so we decided to treat the boys.

Have you ever made a Build-a-Bear? It's a cute experience. First choose a bear body. Then while you press a foot pump, an employee stuffs it. You can dictate whether you want more stuffing, and then you put in a little heart before the employee finishes the bear (in an ingenious bit of prestitching, the finishing requires no needle, just a shrewd bit of tugging and tying.

All boys were enthusiastic to stuff their bears, except Joe.

After Joe's dog, Abraham's Snowy the polar bear, Isaiah's Tar the black bear, and Jadon's Bob Johnson the monkey were stuffed, they "washed" their new friends. The "showers" send out a stream of water, and there are brushes available to fluff.

Next the boys had to choose costumes. Prom dresses and tuxes (we know a man who used a Build-a-Bear to help him propose) to average cute clothes for boys and girls, from princesses to firemen, there was an array. No more Buzz and Woody, though. Abraham chose a navy uniform for him, which I felt especially appropriate, as we were in California for Gramps's 90th birthday, and he was in the navy during WWII.

Joe found a Jedi costume, complete with lighting up light saber. His dog's coloring matched the costume well! (And note the "Dressing Room," complete with mirror, where the bears can dress up.

In the end, we had Darth Vader monkey, Spider Man bear, navy bear, and Obi Wan Kenobi.

And four happy boys.

While some adults got Starbucks, the boys and I rode the escalators up and down. A highlight (it's the simple things in life).

We stopped for Chipotle take out.

Then headed back for a small party with a dino theme.

Isaiah had even remembered to take the mylar balloons, left over from Gramps's 90th, and put a dot between the 9 and the 0: Happy 9.0!

After a few bites of cupcakes, and a few games, Isaiah came to me quietly and said, "This has been my best birthday. The only thing that would have made it perfect was if I could have gone back to the bowling alley and played air hockey." That was a simple request to fulfill, so he and Phil played a few games of air hockey, and Isaiah returned, full of happiness and thanksgiving for a great day.

And all went to bed with their new friends. That is a good day!

Why I Like Sutter's Mill

While we were in California, we stopped by Sutter's Mill, the place that began the Gold Rush. Historically, that's a fun thing to see.

Personally, it is a special place for me.

Phil and I got engaged over the phone. I was in Idaho in school; he was in Colorado. We figured we would like to get married, but it felt silly to make plans without a firm commitment, so on February 9th (our personal Valentine's Day), he proposed.

But it's hard to send a ring via phone or fax, and so I was ringless.

I met his family over spring break, about four weeks later. The days passed, and no ring appeared.

The day before I went back to school, we went to Coloma, to see Sutter's Mill. And Phil pulled out of his backpack my long coveted Lord of the Rings trilogy, in hardback with a slipcover. (Phil had casually mentioned the previous fall that I shouldn't let my parents get me that set for Christmas. That seemed like a dead giveaway for what he was planning to get, so I was a bit stymied when it didn't show up for Christmas. And not for my birthday either!)

The Fellowship of the Ring was poking out of the slipcover, and there was my ring behind it. I would like to think that Phil found gold at Sutter's Mill, too, almost thirteen years ago now.

Sunday the 6th: Fairy Tale Town

When Abraham was about three months old, we took the boys to Fairy Tale Town in Sacramento. We finally made it back last Sunday. The Sherwood Forest section was closed for renovation, which made it seem much smaller than I remembered, but my oldest the last time was the age of my youngest now, so the size of the stride of my sons is a good bit larger.

At that point, we had never thought about moving to a farm, so the tractor was an attraction.

Now, it's just a way to look good.

But, really, what a charming place. A slide in the shape of a shoe (there was an old woman who lived in a shoe).

A hippopotamus drinking fountain, apropos of nothing.

Jack and Jill went up a hill to fetch a pail of water.

The cheese stands alone.

Dorothy wants to return to Oz.

Dorothy has good friends.

And the pirate ship of Captain Hook.

With a plank that ends in sharks.

Joe followed the yellow brick road.

And he sat on a turtle in the little garden, with plants from A to Z.

An incredible wishing well. I wish I had one at my house: drop the coins in a slot on the side, and they would roll in a beautiful arc around and around, gradually going faster and faster until they were flying. We tried one penny, then two at a time, then two right after the other. It was a dance, and we watched until we ran out of coins.