We dropped by our old neighborhood this weekend. Stopped in for a visit with Rose. Looking out her front door at our old house, we noticed that the new owners had torn out all of the plants in the flower beds and put down mulch. All of them. Including the hydrangea and the butterfly bush and the big clump of phlox that proudly bloomed in a pale purple all summer long. They must not be gardeners.

I can't blame them, really. I know it must be overwhelming for former apartment dwellers to inherit more than a tiny patch of garden. I know how the weeds creep in. I know how it is to want to erase the blatant thumb-print of the former owner and make the place your own. After all, we tore out every single yew that shrouded the front of the house when we moved in.

But then I thought about all the daffodils and tulips hidden in the ground. I wondered if any of them would survive the upheaval and surprise the new owners in the spring anyway. I hope they do.

Rose said she watched as they tore everything out and tilled it up. Every once in a while, she wandered outside and waited for them to look up so she could wave. They never did. I told Rose they would probably plant some little square shrubs, something more manageable. We laughed. Little do they know a quick tilling and some mulch are not the answer. Bee's balm and burmuda root chunks are snickering under the layer of mulch, waiting for the right time show that they won't be so easily defeated.

Then we looked at Rose's garden. A mish-mash of flowers she loves intermingled with the weeds she is having a hard time keeping under control. "Do you see that weed?" she asked, pointing at a five-foot-tall plant topped with a spray of purple flowers. I had reconized it earlier as one of the plants that grow in the pastures around here. "I wish all weeds bloomed," she said. "Then people wouldn't know how weedy my flower beds are."

"That's not a weed," I told her. "That's a wildflower."

It is a wonder that I have the right to claim to be a gardener. I keep telling myself that one day, I'll get serious about this gardening business and do it 'the right way'. In the meantime, I continue to compulsively and impulsively dig up sections of soil and haphazardly throw seed down or shove mangled roots of some sort into holes.

Today, I finally planted my fall garden. If I can call it a garden. This week, in the middle of the excitement of getting footings poured for the house, we managed to string up some fencing to keep the chickens (and deer?) out of the 'garden'. As I put the finishing touches on the fencing, I had to laugh at the tiny little plot I had prepared as a temporary garden. (You should see the magnificent one I have in my head... laid out in a couple terraces above the pond, surrounded by a quaint wood and wire fence similar to the one I saw in a This Old House magazine.) Anyway, today I planted (in square-foot-and-a-half patches) some Romaine lettuce, spinach, cilatro, carrot, and radish seed (always plant radish). These were seed choices left in my collection I thought I might see some results from this fall.

I have yet to eat a tomato out of my own garden this year. The chickens have pecked mercilessly at any fruit showing a hint of red, and bugs have done their share of damage as well. I still have hope that I will get a chance to eat at least one tomato from the five surviving plants.

Let me take a moment to reflect on Finley.

When she was four, I bought her one of those big boxes of crayons. One day I walked in on her to find that she was organizing the box based on the color's beauty. On the right side of the box were the colors she thought were beautiful: reds, pinks, oranges, purples, and blues. On the left were the 'ugly' colors: yellows, greens, browns, greys, and black. I felt sorry for the colors on the left. How do explain to a four year old that colors you don't think are beautiful in themselves have use and merit, and that when they are used in the right way make a beautiful world even more beautiful?

Now she is six. She still has a definite sense for beauty, and it makes me a little nervous. I don't want her to be shallow. Her first week in school, she came home and told me that a boy she didn't like was line leader that day. "Why don't you like him?" I asked her. "He doesn't look very nice," she said. I asked her if he was nice to her. Yes. Carefully, I explained to her that even though he may not look as nice as she likes people to look, there were other nice things about him besides looks, and if she paid attention, she would probably find that he would be a very good friend... and that was more important than looks. Then, just to be safe, I threatened her with severe punishment if I ever found that she had been mean to him in any way...

My lecture hasn't stopped her interest in visual beauty, however... Joe told her one day that he had made a new friend: a girl named Katie. Finley's first question was "Was she beautiful?" And yesterday, she told me about her new friend at school. "She's very pretty," she said, then went on to describe the clothes the girl wore that day.

So on top of all the other prayers for my children is that they would be able to enjoy the obviously beautiful things in the world, but also have eyes to see the hidden beauty of things as well...

The Yolk Is On Us

A couple of weeks ago, we had some hot, dry weather here, temps reaching the upper 90's. We stopped finding eggs. I heard that hens stopped laying in very hot temps, so figured that was the case with our hens. Finally, it cooled off a bit, and we got some rain, and once again, we started finding some eggs in the nesting boxes in the coop.

Today, Chris came in and said he found a few eggs out in the stable by the tractor. Two of them were broken, and there was one whole brown egg. I was a little confused. I know Elizabeth, the only one I thought to lay brown eggs, had been giving me a daily egg, and I had gotten one for the last 5 or 6 days, I thought, and had already gotten hers this morning. Was she laying more than one a day? I took the egg inside and washed it off and set it out to dry.

Later, I went outside to bush hog for a bit. When I came back to the stable to park the tractor, Chris and Finley were standing by a cache of 16 eggs. Now, I doubt they ever stopped laying. They just found a cooler place to do it: under the bush hog. And I was wondering why the polish hen hadn't given me any more eggs once it cooled down... but I guess she still preferred the shelter of the tractor.

So I raked out the old hay to discourage them from laying there any longer. This time the yolk's on them.

Two Year Old Beggar

Z is mastering the art of begging. In her sweet, little voice, she'll ask for things. "Watch Cars, Mom? Pease, Mom, pease?" or "Mo milk, pease? Pease, Mom, pease?" Makes it hard when I need to say 'no'.

This week's project:

Jane's new home...
One of the first things I wanted to do when we moved was set up an area for Jane to safely hop around and munch on grass.


This past week, I finally decided to take the bull by the horns and get it done... especially since I was very tired of the ammonia smell that would waft from the litter pan to my nose as I tried to enjoy a sit on the porch.


I hauled an old hutch that was left here by the previoius owners (hereafter abbreviated 'lbpo') to the shop with my wagon (lbpo) and shingled it to weather proof the plywood roof (shingles:lbpo). Then I gathered fence posts (lbpo) and left over garden fencing, and created her hop area. The gate is a section of fence fixed to two long pieces of rebar (lbpo). The legs of the gate slide into conduit I pounded into the ground, and the top sides are velcroed to the fence posts that make the gateway. Some old deck boards (lbpo) make up Jane's ramp. I also tacked on bits of shingle (lbpo) to the ramp for a non-skid surface. At the time of the photo, Jane had yet to brave a trip down the ramp.

These are the moments I live for

a light rain adding a touch of coolness to the warm summer air
sheltered away on my porch where all I can see is green and fence and sky and all i hear is the rain on the tin roof above me
hands busy with a project that is finally seeing some progress
hummingbirds buzzing by
kids playing happily in the pool in the rain

A Rambling Update

I keep meaning to take a photo of my lawn tractor and wagon get-up. It sure is convenient to have around.

Today, after dropping Finley off at school, I started down our drive, and thought to myself, "The road feels a bit rougher than normal. Perhaps I have a flat." Sure enough. The kids and I walked up to the house, loaded up the wagon with a Chris' portable air tank (with the dim hope I could just re-inflate the tire and get the van to the garage) and car jack (I prefer not to use the little hand jacks that come with cars if possible) and headed back down the drive, Z on my lap, Joe steering.

It ended up that the tire had a pretty good sized hole in the side (from what, I can't figure) so I was forced to put on the spare. I miss the days when I had an actual tire for a spare, and the spare was conveniently located in the trunk. This spare is the kind that you have to crank the doughnut down via some obscure hole in the bumper, then crawl under the vehicle to lift it off its cable hanger thing. Anyway. The van is now parked at the house.

Back to my beloved tractor and wagon: I am finally learning how to back a trailer up. Today I managed to back the wagon into the garage so that I could easily unload the tire and jack. This is not to say that I am good at it. I keep forgetting that I need to turn my wheels in the opposite direction that the back end of the wagon needs to go, and I usually start to jack-knife at least once or twice before I get the wagon somewhere in the neighborhood of where I want it. But I'm learning.

In other news: We had been without a good rain at The Funny Farm for a good three or four weeks. The pond had nearly dried up, the grass was crunchy, but at least the hot, dry weather made for a nice clothes drier. Saturday night we finally got a good bit of rain. The morning found the water level in the pond much higher, but the surface was littered with dead fish. We didn't even realize there had been that many fish in the pond and weren't sure what exactly caused their demise. Were they dead before the rain and just stuck in the mud, or did the sudden influx of fresh water put them in shock? Thankfully, I spotted one little fish still alive near the banks, so we are hoping the population bounces back.

The hens had been on strike the last few weeks, but have started laying again now that the weather is cooler.

Last week, I finally pulled up the plastic where I had planned for the veggie garden and turned over the soil and dead grass. Now I just need to decide what to plant for our fall garden and surround it with some fencing to keep the chickens out. I saw one of the chickens pecking among the tomato plants yesterday. I am hoping they don't ruin all of the fruit. It would be nice to eat at least one tomato from my own garden this year...

Last Sunday, I started dismantling some of the old barn, stacking the old tin, throwing rotten wood into one pile and reusable posts in another.

We also got our builder's permit last week. Now we have to start building...

A Finley Story

ThE HORsE ThET IS FREE
by Finley Knight

Once there were horses, and one horse wanted to live all alone. It wanted to live somewhere under a part of the world.

It went under water when it was raining. She fell on a shark!

Then the horse said, "There is no place for me."

Then it remembered where its old home was. It had to go forward and turn left. Then it should go straight some more, then you would have to start galloping. Then you had to jump over a river.

Then the horse had babies.

THE END

First Day of School

It's hot outside, so I decided to let Joe and Fin veg out in the air conditioning and watch a movie while Z took a nap. Finley wanted Snow White. Joe did not. So I picked out two 'gender-neutral' movies for them to choose from. Finley threw a fit and decided she didn't want to watch either one, and went to sit on the couch and pout. I attempted to explain that she should be thankful that I was going to let them watch a movie, but because of her attitude, she won't get to watch one. She stomped away to pout further, and a few minutes later, I found this note on her door:

School Daze

Tomorrow is Finley's first day of school- public school, and I am in a daze.



For many years, I've been surrounded by many amazing moms that home school, and I really wanted to be one of them. But by the end of last year, I realized a few things: 1. Finley and I don't click in a good teacher/student way. Trying to be fun enough for Finley to want to try to learn what I was trying to teach her was so exhausting that, well, let's just say that I really couldn't handle much of it. 2. Finley needs people other than just me. One day when I dropped Finley off for her enrichment classes, a lady walked up and gave Finley a big hug and told her she was so glad to see one of her favorite kids. Finley lit up. And a light went on for me... I don't have to try to be the sole provider of all of Finley's emotional needs. No one person can give us what we need. That's why God has us in a variety of relationships...


So when we found a property zoned for a school that gets rave reviews from everyone I ran into, I didn't find it hard to make the decision to send her to school here. I felt relief and peace.


I am curious to see what the dynamic will be around here with Finley gone all day...


Next year, Joe will be old enough to go to kindergarten, but I can't say that I'll be ready to sign him up. Joe has such a different personality than Finley, that I don't think home schooling would be quite the same struggle. Joe tends to make things fun for himself. And I don't get the sense that he is hungry for more social interaction than what he gets at home. In fact, thinking of sending him away to school all day puts a queer feeling in my heart. So we'll see.