Our Own Experience with Adam

On April 11, Phil and I were chatting before the boys woke up when we heard an unexplained thud from the playroom.

We found an expiring bird, who had been confused by the window.

When Isaiah woke up, we looked at it together, its olive feathers, its gold head, and its black and white checkered breast. So a beautiful, interesting, delicate creature to hold.

But though we researched as best we could, in both books and online, we could not figure out what it was. The lack of knowledge bummed me out a bit. Since Adam named the animals, how sad that this one went to its demise, unknown.

On Sunday, we were at a friend's house when Isaiah found a tiny egg, only a bit bigger than a jelly bean, beautiful in shape and color. With the technology available today, we took a picture with a phone, texted a father who knows all things birds, and within five minutes received an answer that the egg was that of a Carolina wren. The nest was soon discovered in the gutter (falling to bits and apparently abandoned). But the egg had been named by our own version of Adam.

Sometimes it's all about who you know.

I sent the photo of my unknown bird friend and this morning learned that it's an ovenbird, a warbler.

Robert Frost wrote a lovely poem titled "The Oven Bird." And so that little thump in early April led to poetry today.

There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.

Abraham's Birthday

Phil slept on the recliner last night. We got home from our friends' house and he got a sore throat so badly that he couldn't sleep. "Where is the NyQuil when I need it?" was his question to me today. (Since NyQuil has both artificial color and flavor, not to mention pretty serious drugs, we don't keep it around. But that is the one thing that Phil likes to put him to sleep when he's sick.)

He was prepared to go to the store, but I found a bottle of structured water that has helped me in the past, ASea, and that relieved his pain enough that he could sleep.

And so he spent Abraham's birthday dozing and watching movies. I tried to read to the boys at one point, but they were energetic and excited. So they had a happy day, and I made cinnamon rolls and pizza and chocolate cake.

Abraham opened some presents.

His favorite of the day was a Star Wars Lego set: that made him very happy. And, for a change, he built it all himself, without relying on his brothers.

The theme of their favors and decorations was pirates (courtesy of Phil's mom, who never fails to make sure I have princess plates for my birthday, and something pleasant for the boys).

And my favorite of the pirate loot was the mustached sunglasses.





***

I've been thinking some about the creative process since going to the creative time Float last week. I've written eight more poems since then, in my second ever burst of creative poetic output.

What is odd to me about writing poetry is that I don't necessarily want to. Isn't one of the cliched literary characters the hack poet? I've read enough prose that I feel comfortable with my prose. It's not the stuff of the Great American Novel, but I am content with that. For the most part, I think I am clear and readable, and when I reread later, I like what I wrote, and feel no sense of self-consciousness.

Poetry is completely different. I have no measuring rod in my head. I can easily recognize that I am not Herbert or Hopkins, nor even Rossetti. But where do I fall on the scale between good poetry and hack poetry? I have no idea. I have no idea how to edit, either.

It is a bit surreal, and because of that, other than a few attempts, I haven't bothered with poetry.

But isn't that just another expression of my need to be perfect? "If I can't write a perfect poem, I won't bother."

It seems that that might be silly. If I write something and I feel something go out of me, and it moves me and I like the result, I probably shouldn't care about whether the entire world thinks it's a bad poem.

(What a shift in blogging! With apologies to my long-time readers, who started off years ago with the descriptions of a wide range of frenetic homesteading tasks, and find now that I have shifted to introspective contemplation on the nature of my creative output.)

May 9, 10, 11

Caleb can put himself into a sitting position, instead of simply (mostly) holding his balance when placed.

And he crawls perhaps more quickly than the brothers would prefer.



(I love that these photos show Jadon's thespian side, as well as the amazing difference in size between my oldest and youngest sons.)

Phil was sick on Friday. He made it the whole month of April without a day of sickness (though he sometimes felt a bit bad). Since he eats at Panera on Thursday morning and is generally worse Friday, we wonder if there is something in the coffee or the plain bagel or ... I don't know what.

Saturday he finished off the soffit and put up the metal flashing that will keep the water from damaging the wood. That was a good and needed project.

Sunday was Mother's Day. That means so little to us, like Valentine's Day or Father's Day or Memorial Day. It was a day of beauty nonetheless: we went to a friends' and enjoyed a prolonged look at some of the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11 and then had a pot luck dinner that lasted until 9:30pm.

We are in a season where we fellowship and talk, and the talk generates new topics to talk about, new thoughts and understanding.

We talked about Noah. One friend had seen the recent blockbuster movie, and he said that he liked that it conveyed some hint of the intensity that Noah would have had. One translation reads that "Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith."

So often Noah gets passed over as if he were the original conservationist, saving the animals. How many cute children's toys have two giraffes and two lions (one with mane)? But that word "fear" struck me: here is Noah, for over a hundred years building an ark, motivated by his fear of God, preaching without cease to doubters.

And I grew weary of a few desultory attempts at farming? What kind of an intense man must Noah have been?

And how thankful I am that I don't need to be quite that hard!

Or Abraham, who dwelt as a stranger in his own land, the land of promise, living in tents while he looked for a city with foundations, whose builder and maker is God. How amazing these Patriarchs!

In the midst of this delightful talk of faith, Caleb pulled himself to a standing position on the sofa. He then lost his grip, tumbled backwards, and hit his head on the foot of the coffee table. I think he caught himself somewhat, as he had no bump, and I don't think it was that traumatic, because he pulled himself up on a chair today.

He's barely seven months. What an intense little guy!

Float

As the UVA semester winds down, we had three friends come for a lunch of Pad Thai. Isaiah had made a marvelous dessert of peanut butter cookies dipped in chocolate with vanilla ice cream on top. It was such a lovely time of fellowship and laughter. We exchanged stories of how God called each of us. What a blessing.

Then Jadon, Isaiah, Abraham, and I headed up with our friends to the UVA campus. Our church was hosting a gathering for artistic types, a chance to "Float," from a Chesterton quote.

Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion. To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain.

Although I would not describe myself as creative (I have no patience, and even less gifting, for creating visual arts), I am raising creative sons, and they were enthusiastic to go. Jadon occasionally works on a story about mutant hamsters, so he brought that. He answered questions about his work.

Isaiah happily tried out paints on one of the easels they had, mixing colors for the first time in his life.

I was impressed with how he started with the branches, but then had no trouble painting over them entirely, so that the branches all but vanished under the various colors of green.

The real genius of this painting, though, is in the deer. I love the deer.

Then, being Isaiah, he sat and talked to his (college-aged) friends for the rest of the time.

With the easel freed up, Abraham tried his hand at painting. His first attempt, an age-appropriate study of a house, had one flash of brilliance: when he painted the grass, he didn't paint where he planned the tree roots to go, which makes the tree surprisingly well grounded.

His second painting I really like, the lion stretching his back leg.

The daylight photo doesn't do justice to how richly he mixed the paint, in an almost Van Gogh-like build up.

To go from cliched house to inspired lion in one painting to the next ... how lovely.

And in honor of our friend and the time there, Abraham also drew an octopus.

I was gratified that our professional-quality pencils and markers were put to good use by other artists there.

Caleb slept in the arms of one of our college student friends.

The boys got to socialize with people fifteen years older than them. We heard two English majors read poetry. Two friends sang songs they had written. We looked at art and listened to music.

I wrote a poem.

On a day that it hit 91, we are blessed to be a space that is naturally cool, in a community that nurtures our sons, in a city that fits us so well.

I don't know if there is a lifetime quota of days that feel like a gift. I hope not, because I certainly feel like I might be hitting my limit soon.

Tuesday and Wednesday: Redeeming the Time

On Tuesday, Phil was up early, ready to work on his compost pile all day. Instead, on the third load of the day, he ruined the band. (I asked him about it: he had loaded the spreader more than needed, and he had tilted it. The band caught and tore before he could stop it.)

So he switched to working on the soffit. I am happy enough for that: the exposed underside is aesthetically unappealing.

And water runs down and wicks back and needs a better removal system.

It's been on the list for some time. In lieu of other tasks, today is the day.

We started to pick asparagus from our land! Started from seed in 2010, we finally have had enough to harvest for a good meal!

I had a friend come down and hang out in the evening. We walked the land: visited Gracie Lou's grave. The daffodils must have bloomed around her grave without any eyes to see, but, unlike the tree that falls in the forest, I think those blooms were seen.

On Wednesday, Phil worked on the soffit until he finished it. He wandered the orchard and actually took inventory. There were a few of the 29 varieties that had no survivors. It is time to put some of that land to better use. Surprisingly for me, some of the lower levels of the orchard, with what seemed the least profitable soil and the worst sunlight, were actually doing the best: the fewest deaths, the largest trees.

That might be because of rootstocks. Or something else. There is so much we don't know.

Monday: We Use Our Manure Spreader

We are so loving our life with our friends these days, I've suspected for some time that dairying is not really the wave of the future for us. As if Phil (or I) wants to leave our friends' house to go home and milk our unproductive cows.

Happily, Phil came to that today, too. If he milks every 36 hours, that's probably okay. It makes our variable life reasonable. We only need a gallon or so of milk anyway.

Ironically, if we switch our herd to primarily beef, the cow that moves from the bottom of the list to the top: Fern. She has beautiful conformation and she gives birth annually without difficulty. If we don't have to deal with trying to milk, she's a fine cow.

Poor Phil. Keep the cow that's a pill.

In the afternoon, he brought down our new manure spreader and started to build a compost pile. He uses the tractor bucket to scoop us the matted hay and manure, puts it in the manure spreader, then drives the manure spreader over to the side of the field and spins it out. The material comes out uniformly light and airy.

He got through several loads before dark.

We were overjoyed by how easily it transformed our deeply matted compost into fluffy, airy material.

Our Life Is One Long Party

Our friend pulled out the storage trailer. Suddenly it was gone, and to me, the spot looked like it was missing a tooth.

How different a view from outside the house trailer door!

Thursday the rain finally stopped.

Friday Phil moved the RV back and got grazing started a bit more, as well as worked on general trash pickup around the farm. He had bought some trash cans on Thursday and we filled all five of them already, just one month later.

Friday night was a party. We had somewhere over 20 friends come down. It is such an honor to have visitors, and although the party only ran about five hours, I was still so excited I was up until 1:30 and woke again at 4:30, just glad, glad, glad.

I did take several naps the next day, though.

Saturday Phil went to an orcharding workshop with Michael Phillips. He went last year, and got to go again this year. He found it helpful.

Half an hour after he got back, I took all five boys and headed into town for Synergy, a time of worship at the very cool Paramount Theater on the downtown mall. The worship leaders from ten local churches all got together and worked out a night of worship. We were front row in the balcony, which offered a perfect line of sight for the whole stage. The set lasted almost two hours, and it was very loud, but very fun. We went down to talk to our church friends in the front area until we were booted. Then the boys and I walked the mall with friends until almost 10pm.

When we lived in Boulder, Phil and I would walk Pearl Street pretty regularly. It is fun to have a walking mall designed by the same man. It's a lot more ratty in Charlottesville, but still fun on a gorgeous weekend night.

Home at 10:45pm, we left at 8:15am so I could help some friends watch children for a class the hour before church. After church, and talking until the end, Phil took the boys home (they watched a movie), and I went with two friends. We got lunch and ate from the Skyline Drive, overlooking western Albemarle County. It was so beautiful.

Then we went to Costco. I hadn't been in such a long time, it was an expensive trip. But so wonderful to be well stocked again.

Straight to community group then. We finally left at 9:30pm, after I had had over twelve hours of pleasant fellowship of the saints, after a weekend of pleasant fellowship of the saints.

Bring it on!