Rutabaga Dreams

I’ve been trying to take the kids out to the property more now that the weather is warming and the ground is drying out.  I had hoped to go quite a bit last week since we were taking that week (as well as Holy Week, but we were visiting my Mom and busy at church) off from school, but illness got in the way of that plan.   Now that we’re all mostly better, we went there for several hours this afternoon and enjoyed the spring sunshine.

Gregory and I planted radish and lettuce seeds (it is so cute to hear a two year old say “night night, seeds!” as we covered them up with soil),  I picked up construction debris and also took some measurements for the wall behind our woodburning stove.  Emma discovered some sort of larvae in her little “pond” (really a deep hole made by the grade-all when it got stuck in the mud back in December and since filled with rainwater and snowmelt).  She hoped it was dragonfly larvae and I suspected might be mosquito larvae.  Sure enough, a quite Google search once we got home revealed that we are currently harboring mosquito larvae.  I guess it is time to fill in our little pond…

We all really enjoy being out there on the property.  It really is great for the kids (and for me, for that matter) to have that space to explore and romp around.  Every time we’re out there I’m so glad we’re doing this and so looking forward to living there.  But then I get back to the apartment and look at Quicken and our spreadsheets and I think this is the dumbest, most ridiculous thing we’ve ever decided to do.  I also wonder how we’ll ever be able to pull it off so that we can actually finish the house enough that the county will let us move in. *sigh*  It is sometimes hard not to think that things look pretty grim.  Matt’s started suggesting, half-seriously, I think, moving to the property again once our lease on the apartment is up in early summer.  Let’s just say I’m not enthused about the idea of moving back out to the property with a newborn in tow!  I’m glad he’s not entirely serious about doing it, because, really, at this point I just can’t imagine doing the tent thing or the trailer ever again.  If that makes me a wuss, so be it.

So, really, I don’t recommend this whole process to anyone, unless you’re either independently wealthy (or at least a hefty bank balance), have no children (or grown children), and/or live somewhere other than CA where you can move in a lot sooner and not have anywhere near the same restrictions and requirements.  Really, all three would probably be best, but I think it is doable so long as you fulfill one of the above criteria.  I find myself really looking forward to a year or so from now when I think things will be quite a bit more settled and not quite so scary.  I have no idea though how we’ll get from here to there.  I guess we’ll just keep taking it one day at a time and I’ll keep praying that everything just continues to work out.

On a less depressing note - have you ever heard of a two year old who will come up to you and ask you to wipe his nose for him?  I certainly haven’t, but I have one here!

Now that the weather is warming up, I’m thinking about starting up my worm bin again.  I haven’t had it stocked with worms since before Gregory was born (I *ahem* forgot to keep it moist enough when the temps were in the 110’s and all my worms croaked), but I remember it being a fun activity with Emma when she was a toddler, and I bet both the kids would enjoy it now.  I also hate throwing away all our food scraps - where we used to live we could at least put them in the greens container and they would get composted, and at the property we buried all our scraps.  Here we have a very primative recycling program and all that useful organic waste has to go in the trash.

There’s a worm farm not too far from here so I’m thinking that it would make for a fun field trip once we’re all well again.  I still have the old bin, I just need new bedding (my MIL is going to provide the newspaper out of their recycling bin, so I’m set there) and once we have the worms we should be ready to go.  I’m a little worried that it might still be too cold at night for them, but I think if I have them right up against the apartment building on the patio they’ll be ok.  This place leaks enough heat that they should get some warmth!  I still have to figure out how to keep them alive over the winter with our below freezing temps, but I have some time to research that.  I don’t suppose anyone reading this has any experience with that?

Everyone except Matt is doing much better today.  Matt’s working from home in his PJ’s and making horrible coughing and hacking noises (now isn’t that a lovely picture?  Sorry hon  ), but Gregory has said and done more this morning than he has in the past two days combined.  He’s still not 100%, but he’s far more himself than he’s been since Sunday.  Emma is still coughing, but it seems to be lessening quite a bit.  I’m still a little under the weather, but definitely better too.  I’m hoping that we can all kick this by Monday - just in time to start school again. 

Is unfortunately being spent like this:

From Tuesday mid-morning:	Today, around noon:

I’m not sure what it is exactly, but it seems to cause extreme fatigue, lack of appetite, a slight fever, a cough and a runny nose. We all have it, to varying degrees. Emma is probably the best off, while her cough is the worst she doesn’t seem to have the other symtoms. Matt is hanging in there, but definitely not 100%. I slept quite a bit yesterday, but I’m doing better and thankfully not coughing. I hate coughing a lot when I’m pregnant - it tends to lead to contractions. Ugh. Poor Gregory seems the worst hit, and is very, very subdued and tired. He’s gradually getting better, but it is taking longer than I would have thought. If you are so inclined, pray for us - especially Gregory.

We did end up going up to the house on Saturday as I mentioned a couple posts ago, and I took the opportunity to take some pictures while we were there.

First, here’s the garden. I fixed the taller structure last week (it did not prove capable of handling our snow load, but it at least proved fixable) I added a few more stakes to make it a bit more sturdy. The hurdle course for preschoolers is actually covered with deer netting, and is now held down with logs to keep the rabbits out. This should help keep the plants from being nipped from above or the side. At some point I hope to fence in a garden area so that I don’t have to cover each bed, but that will have to wait until I know where I want the garden and also for more funds. Right now I’m using scrap wood from the construction process and deer netting we’ve owned since we lived in the Santa Cruz mountains.

And here’s a shot taken from our upstairs bedroom window. As you can see, there’s a lot of work to be done! Someday I hope this will be a view of a nice garden, a medium sized lawn area (big enough to play badminton and no larger - neither Matt nor I are big fans of mowing lawns) and perhaps a patio.

Here’s a view to just to the right of the last picture. I’m hoping that someday in this area there will be a deck next to the house and a nice little gazebo with a wood fired oven and a seating area.

And here’s a close-up of that area next to the big cedar (in the foreground, next to the pile of branches) in the picture above. This is Emma’s pizza shop, and it has provided hours and hours of fun and entertainment for both kids.

And here’s one of her pizzas. Mmm… crunchy.

And here’s a picture of our journeyman electrician and his apprentice. Our master electrician (Matt’s brother) was out the week before last but went back to Alaska a little over a week ago. Thankfully he was able to get a lot done while he was out here and we are forever grateful for his help!

And here’s a shot standing in the master bedroom and looking through the master bath and into the kid’s bath. See all the wiring and plumbing pieces (including a bathtub!) here and there? That there is progress.

So, lots of work ahead of us, but also lots of progress being made. Yay!

Happy Easter, everyone! Alleluia, Alleluia!

And on a more mundane note, I finished those bags I mentioned in my last post at 12:03 a.m. this morning. I would have been done sooner but I was having a hard time with the tension on my sewing machine. I can’t tell you how many times I broke the thread while doing some of the final seams! I am proud to report that the most frustration that I felt or even thought was a heavy sigh. A couple of years ago… well, suffice to say it wouldn’t have been pretty. It is nice to stop and reflect a moment now and then on just how far I’ve come, rather than always thinking about how much farther I have to go.

Well, enough with the self-reflection. Here’s the bags. I think they turned out quite well!

(I should mention that the directions for making these bags came from this Pretty Tote Tutorial, found via a link from Sew, Mama, Sew)

This morning I dyed Easter eggs with the kids and it was a great success.  Gregory opted for the toddler full body approach to egg dyeing and his hands are now a lovely purplish-red color.  (I’ve relaxed so much as a mother…  there’s no way I would have let Emma dye eggs this way!)  We’ve washed and washed and I think that they are about as good as they are going to get for now.  He was a little unhappy about it at first and kept showing me his hands and asking to wash them again (our boy does have a touch of fastidiousness about him sometimes) but I distracted him with lunch and now he seems to be ok now.  His eggs turned out remarkably well given the various dunkings they received in all the different dye colors.  I wouldn’t have thought it would be a terribly effective way to dye eggs, but they ended up looking quite nice - not the muddled brown color that I expected.  Emma’s as all quite lovely as well - she of course carefully used the egg dipper and the spoon to dye her eggs various lovely colors.  I wonder, is it ever possible to hard boil enough eggs for dyeing?

I was able to go to the Holy Thursday Mass by myself, which was quite lovely.  (both the service and going by myself *grin*)  The priest gave an excellent homily that I’m still thinking about, and the whole service was quite nice and reverently done.   It was interesting at the end in particular, because this church is so small that there was no other place to take the consecrated host to so they just set up a small side table about five feet way from the tabernacle.  Not exactly ideal, but it was still handled quite well.  (I know, this makes no sense to non-Catholics, sorry)  It was so nice to be at Mass and be able to focus entirely on the Mass.  Oh, I’m sure my mind wandered at times - I’m by no means perfect of course - but my  level of prayerful participation was far greater than it usually is without two little ones to keep an eye on!  I would really like to try to go to Mass on a weekday by myself sometimes.  Matt and I have talked about it and we’ve agreed to it in theory, we just haven’t quite worked out the details yet.  I also read an extremely interesting piece in Journey to Easter about Holy Thursday that I’m trying to wrap my mind around.  I find Pope Benedict’s writing to be extremely clear, but also extremely hard to summarize in my head and get ahold of.  As I read it, I think - wow, that’s so amazing and profound! - and then later I try to put it into my own words to better assimilate it and I have virtually no success.

I also took the kids to the Good Friday service yesterday, which had mixed results.  Gregory was not pleased to be there, although I think it made a real impression on Emma.  I spent the entire service trying to hush Gregory and keep him from being too wiggly, which made it hard to think at all about the service.  The comments from the people behind us didn’t exactly help.  *sigh*  The lady next to us made a point of saying how good the kids were though, and to not listen if anyone says otherwise, which I thought was very nice and made me feel much better.  I had a moment of delusion and decided to try and stay for the Stations of the Cross after the service, but bailed after the second station.  I really should have known better - especially since we went outside for a bit between the service and stations.  Gregory was about ready to mutiny when I said we were going back inside after he was allowed to run around in the grass for ten minutes!

I was hoping to go to the Easter Vigil service this evening, but I’m not sure I’m going to make it.  I had this bright idea to make little Easter bags for the kids since their baskets are somewhere in storage…  but of course I haven’t done anything more than wash the fabric.  Also, I am really very tired and my body is acting up on me quite a bit.  I’m not sleeping well because of the soreness in my back and hips and that is making me very stiff and tired.  The baby seems to be in a diagonal position right now (and has been for several weeks) so I have a lot of pushing against my left pelvis and right ribcage.  I’m also having sporadic Braxton-Hicks contractions that are far stronger than they were in my last pregnancy.  I’ve heard from others that these get stronger with each pregnancy (oh joys) and so far that’s been my experience.   (I hope that isn’t always the case for your sake, Emily!)  In a way I’m glad of them though, because they are giving me plenty of opportunity to remember all those little tricks for getting through contractions - don’t clench your teeth, remember to breathe, relax your body, etc.  I’m already doing all those things much better now, and almost automatically at times, so that’s very helpful.

So that’s a little picture of life right now.  I think I’ve rested long enough (it was nice of Matt to leave his laptop here so that I could rest in bed and type at the same time, don’t you think?) and now it is time to get the kids together so that we can go over to the house.  I’m going to try and see if I can do a little work either on the house or the garden (we planted strawberries last week and they need better critter protection, so I may try to work on that) before I collapse, and the kids will get a nice opportunity to run around and enjoy the sunshine.

My Mom:  Help me out here (as we survey a collection of nuts in their shells) that’s an almond, that’s a brazil nut, there’s a hazel nut, that’s a walnut, and what’s that one?  What other nuts are there?

Gregory (Clapping his hands):  And DONUTS!

You know, it is rather strange but I’ve found that ever since our whole tent experience over the summer I’ve become far more pragmatic than I once was, especially in matters concerning what we eat and some of the products we use.  Part of this is budgetary, but there’s also a part that is just fed up with substandard products that cost more, even if they are supposed to be better for the environment.  For example, I used to use a very environmentally sensitive dishwashing detergent.  It didn’t have any dyes, phosphates, and was completely plant-based and biodegradable.  Any green buzz word that could possibly be applied to dishwashing detergent was used on the packaging of this stuff.  And I used it for months and months at our old apartment…  and I got used to cloudy, spotted glasses, a dirty dishwasher (yes, the inside of the dishwasher gradually turned a grungy brownish color), and spotted dishes.  When I moved into this apartment though, I couldn’t find what I used to use, and I had sticker shock when I went to the local natural foods store to find a substitute.  Since I used to buy directly from a co-op from the same vendor that this natural foods store uses, I know what their mark-up is…  and I just couldn’t stomach paying over 100% markup for something that frankly doesn’t work all that well.  So, next time I went to Safeway I bought a container of Cascade and I’ve been reveling in non spotted dishes, clean, uncloudy glasses and a clean dishwasher ever since.  Yes, it has phosphates in it, and yes, those will be bad for our septic system once we move.  But you know what?  I just can’t quite get myself to care enough to switch back.  Is that shallow of me to prefer clean things to something that is known to do at least some degree of environmental damage?  The same thing goes for washing machine detergent.  I used to have to examine every piece of clothing and treat it with a stain remover.  I tried environmentally safe ones, but they were expensive and useless.  Spray n’ Wash was my usual laundry day companion.  Again though, once I moved I started using Tide for similar reasons and now I don’t have to minutely examine every piece of laundry before washing it.  Everything just comes clean.  Laundry is ever so much easier to do and I’m rewashing so much less that I really doubt I will be giving this stuff up, even after we move.  

However, in the grocery area, I’m more of a pragmatist by need than desire.  We still eat very little meat, which is a decision we’ve made for both budgetary reasons and animal and human welfare sorts of reasons.  We don’t have a problem with raising animals for meat, rather we have a problem with how animals are generally raised for meat in this country - and how the workers who work with the animals and process the animals are generally treated.  Right now though the meat we do eat is no longer anywhere near humanely raised - it’s all factory farmed.  How else can you get chicken legs at 88 cents a pound and ground beef (15% fat) for $2.29 a pound?  (recent prices from WinCo)   However, this however is something I do want to try and change once the money pressures ease up a bit.  Ideally when we get into our house and have our chest freezer again, we’ll buy a half a free range cow occasionally and perhaps some pork too.  I’d also like to raise chickens for meat and eggs.  Matt really wants to raise a pig for meat, but that is a little more than I think I can deal with at the moment.  I’d also love to have a diary cow (think of all that cheese I could make!) but for a lactose intolerant family that is probably rather silly.  I think we’ll settle for goats and just get used to that goat-a-licious taste.  

As for fruits and vegetables, I’ve made that same sort of compromise as well.  About half of our fruits and vegetables used to be organic, and now it is pretty much zero.  We have a lot of concerns about what industrial scale farming does to the land in terms of pollution and erosion, and also what it exposes the workers to in the course of all the spraying that goes on.  I’d love for us to have a big year around garden where we could get a good portion of our fruits and veggies, but I have no idea how realistic that really is.  It would be great though!  Most likely, we’ll probably at most be able to provide about half of our needs in this area (due largely to time and space considerations) and I’m not sure where the rest would come from.  

So perhaps I’m not so pragmatic as I think I am, or perhaps it all depends on who I’m comparing myself to.  But I will say that I am no longer willing to pay more for stuff that just doesn’t work all that well, environmentally friendly or not.  Perhaps that seems like a no-brainer to some, but to me it is a big step in the direction of pragmatism.

Last weekend we were finally noticed when we milled about outside of church, trying to look friendly (or at least non-threatening).  Our overtures of shy smiles and timid hellos were not essentially ignored as they have been for the last several months, but instead someone actually introduced herself and then proceeded to introduce me around to a number of people.  I had long suspected that at least half the people who go to this particular service knew each other from other places, and I had that confirmed last Sunday.  Many of them are even homeschoolers and were pleased to hear that we homeschool as well.  We met two families who have girls about Emma’s age.  I had a nice chat with several people, and we were invited to a lunch potluck out on someone’s property tomorrow.  I’m excited about it, and I hope this marks the beginning of actually getting to know some people up here.   Perhaps I’ve even found a homeschooling community we’ll fit into better than what I’ve found so far.  I guess I have high hopes, but I’m trying not to be too overly optimistic.  We’ll just have to see how it goes - I’ll be sure to report back.