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August Update 2012

Okay, school’s in session.

Jay asked me to spend the the first day of school on-site, in case the sudden change was too much of a shock for any of the children.

I camped in a workroom one wall from Melody and Elisha’s 1st & 2nd (combined) class and heard their first interactions with their teacher (Elisha’s spontaneous and musical, Melody’s called-on, but confident). The teacher kept going no matter what, continued her lesson without hiccup, and I began to realize how very different this rhythm was than anything I could do.

Before the end of the morning I was pretty agitated, actually. The hum and energy and metronome-steady press so close to me was nearly overwhelming.

I went into their classroom at lunch, and read to Melody after she finished eating.

She’d seen an illustrated version of Heidi in the book basket, one she remembered reading at home, and asked for it. For the next few minutes she lay in my arms and just soaked up Mama. While the rest of the class thrummed by their desks waiting to be released to recess.

The next morning (and every morning the rest of the week) Melody made it clear she was not interested in going away to school anymore, but we emphasized this was not a decision she got to make.

At the same time, I understood.  The clip and the rhythm and the push of an experienced teacher is very different that what any of us are used to, and it was nothing that I would be comfortable with myself.  I wrestled briefly with whether I could make my kids do something I wouldn’t do myself.

My conclusion was two-fold:

  1. I already had done this. I wasn’t asking her to do something I never endured.
  2. I think all children need both structure and the opposite in their lives. If my kids can get the structure side of things from someone else, that means that I don’t have to make it happen. And that. is awesome.

Continue reading →

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Next Steps – more infrastructure

Whew!

Reminded today why I was sure as a kid I hated writing.

And I’m instantly a supporter of smart, on-line registrations.

You know the kind– where forms replicate your information as soon as you check same on your mailing address.

I filled out paperwork for three kids for school, and for a doctor appointment at a clinic they’ve never visited before. Four pages for each kid for each set. And I swear they wanted addresses and every phone number onevery page.

Maddening.

My hand was cramping up by the end, and hurt to use.

Can you get carpal tunnel from writing when you don’t get it from typing?

Anyway, I decided to ‘bite the bullet’ and get all my kids tested for Celiac disease, just because there are health repercussions if they have it and don’t know to take care, and also because I’m ready (at times) to just simplify my life by making the whole crew GF.

Thing is, as testing works these days you can (by definition) only be diagnosed with CD by the lab finding damage in one’s small intestine.  If someone has been off of gluten long enough that no damage shows, there is no way to be 100% certain about that individual’s status.

So before I got really serious about including the kids all the time, I wanted to get this ou of the way so they can make their own choices down the road with all the data.

That’s tomorrow. And I’m always nervous about meeting a new practitioner, because I have a (maybe overactive) tendency to read into what people say and how they treat me.

And I expect them to know more than me, since they’re the ones who’ve been educated in these things.

 

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School Plans for Fall of 2012

We are very excited (nervous, anticipatory– not anxious) about school this fall.

As you may know, this year is Jay’s “turn” to travel to Antarctica again (because this is the internet I’m not going to specify when. Those who need to know and don’t should have our email).  Because of the combined weight of single parenting and the other challenges during his absence we looked into “away” school as a means of lightening my load.

The result is we’ve picked a Christian school (uniforms and all) that we’ve committed to for the fall semester. We’ll reevaluate at Christmas as to whether the children will finish out the year there.

Natasha is already excited, Melody already trepedatious, and Elisha vaguely positive, but mostly neutral.

School starts early enough in the day that Jay will take the kids on his way to work, but that will mean retraining everyone’s sleep schedules: they’ll need to leave with Daddy before 7:30 in the morning, which means they’ll need to be up around 6, which means we’ll have to try and have everyone down by 7:30.

We’ll experiment with some of those changes (up and down) closer to school’s start in August.

And for me, now that I’m settled that Fall semester (at least) is happening away from home, I’m trying to wrap my head around the implications. Of course there’s the ~6-hours alone each day, and that currently seems like a fairy tale.

Continue reading →

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Homemade Pumpkin Granola Bars {Guest Post}

Today I’m participating in the Ultimate Blog Swap. You’ll find me posting over at Whole Foods on a Budget, telling some of my story about entering the “whole foods” (not the food store chain) lifestyle. It wasn’t a graceful (or entirely willing) transition…

At the same time, I’m pleased to welcome the talented Danielle from Mostly Food and Crafts to Serendipity ScrapNook. I’m excited about this recipe because it’s a chance to make a recognizable snack safely gluten free (Be sure to start with GF ingredients to end up with a GF product.  In this recipe the only thing you need to be careful of is the oats. All other ingredients are naturally GF.)

My Name is Danielle and I blog at Mostly Food and Crafts I blog about cooking and crafting with and for my two kids. We love finding recipes and projects that we can do together. Today I am going to share a quick recipe that my kids really enjoyed.  The recipe is for Pumpkin Granola Bars, I chose to share this recipe because I wanted to show you how easy is can be to make healthy treats for your kids.  And not only are these healthier than the bars you find in the stores but they taste better too.  They are so easy to make and you can customize them to your or your kids taste preferences.  

 I participate in a fun group called the Secret Recipe Club – and this is how I discovered this tasty treat. My kids actually asked me to double the recipe next time I make them – I guess that’s better than a two thumbs up – right?  Enjoy!!

 

What you need:

2 1/4 cup oats
1 tsp of cinnamon
1/2 tsp of allspice
1/4 tsp of ground cloves
1/4 tsp of salt
3/4 cup of light brown sugar
3/4 cup of pumpkin puree
1/4 cup of honey
1 tsp of vanilla extract
What you do:
Preheat oven to 350.
Spray 8×8 or 9×9 pan with cooking spray.

While the oven preheats, combine the oats, spices and salt together in a bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, pumpkin, honey and vanilla til smooth. Mix your wet and dry ingredients together until all of the oats are moist.

Evenly press the mixture in to the pan and bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown.
Let them cool before cutting them with a sharp knife.

(Click through for a “bonus” craft project from Danielle: Clay Pot Critters.)
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Leftovers Belong!

You know the other thing I never see on food blogs?

Left-over meals.

As in, What do I do with this leftover tomato-turkey soup that no one will touch?

Well, I re-purposed it in a tex-mex chili, using up the last of the turkey I had to cook because the freezer died.

And the chili was great.

But I haven’t figured out how to post that recipe:

Saute one large chopped onion. Add grated garlic, and finish sauteing.

Stir in one quart chopped turkey, along with 1T cocoa powder, 1T cumin and 1T Chili powder. and a 7oz. can of green chilies.

Stir a bit to toast and highlight the flavors.

Add 2 quarts leftover savory tomato soup (?!), a few ladles of diced tomatoes in juice (eyeball your favorite ratio) and salt to taste.

Simmer 30 minutes, then add cooked (e.g. canned. In my case, again, leftover) beans and simmer till warm and/or folks is ready to eat.

One reasonable question is how I made the savory tomato soup in the first place. (I remember using Garam Masala seasoning). But that is a bit of a moot question, since no one liked it. (Even Jay didn’t take seconds, so it had to have had issues.)

But the chili tasted great, and I canned the leftovers for quick meals in the future.

Only trouble (and I can live with it) is the recipe’s not exactly what you can call “reproduceable.”

And it seems (from my brief acquaintance) that’s the goal of food blogs.

Well, maybe I’ll start a new trend.

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Early May 2012

So we’re barely out of April, but still loads going on.

(I hope really soon to start back up with the menu-building posts– because it could mean *I’m* back on a menu.)

We decided to sell Cream. It was really hard for Natasha and me.

The one consolation we could offer her is that she now has her very own rabbit. It is the last silver fox (cross) we have, and Natasha named her Black Beauty. We’ve given Natasha full ownership (along with care) and Natasha will be able to keep BB as long as she lives, if that’s her desire. She just has to maintain the present level of care.

We sold all of the non-Orpington chickens (and the extra rooster) last week, and I’ve sold a total of 14 meat rabbits so far, for breeding stock.  I expect to sell one more trio this week, along with the angora buck (and I’d let the mama-A go to, if I could find an interested buyer).

I have a few small baskets of angora from what I’ve collected over the last year, so I think one will do fine to keep me as busy as I want to be with wool.

It was a relief to find critters leaving (nearly) as fast as we wanted, and then this week I went out to feed the chickens and found a slaughterhouse.

A marten had gotten in and torn out the throats of every bird in the place.

Thankfully for me, three of the hens broke out; they were the only ones to survive (but they mean I still have home grown eggs so I can still eat eggs). I stayed up till after 3a.m. Thursday morning, trying to work through salvaging all the meat. Continue reading →

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Sickness

We’re currently fighting a serious bug going through our house.

Melody’s fever seems to have finally stayed away (after four days of persistence), and everybody’s been pretty listless on both ends of the fever (N and E have had symptoms as well.  And it’s been interesting to observe how feeling yucky really does make you act yucky. It’s a backwards sort of nice that I can say, Woah, this is really out of character!)

Melody went through an entire square box of tissues Saturday. Elisha and Natasha picked up her cough by Sunday evening, and until yesterday (Tuesday) Elisha’s the only one who could hang on to energy.

Sunday I stayed home with the younger two. Elisha was a great helper, and Melody got dressed, which was an accomplishment compared to Saturday.

Monday both girls held their low fevers and needed lots of holding by Mama. Which was fine, accept when people want to eat, too.

Conveniently, when they’re feeling this crummy, they don’t seem to care as much about food.

 

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April 2012 Update

So it just took asserting how much I planned to blog (both here and at Untangling Tales) for life to expand and fill all writing time.

So let me just give a quick two week update, since a slow one would take two hours.

Jay was gone for one of the last two weeks. While he was gone:

  • I got an average of 6 hours of sleep/night (leaving me with a 14-hour deficit).
  • Both our baby goats got sick.
  • Buttercup (a rabbit) had a litter of *9* kits (though she was down to 7 three days later. Those all are doing well.)
  • I forked the compost from the outdoor coup and filled it with chickens.
  • One of our chest freezers died, and I had to do a Tetras/canning scramble to save as much as I could from the meat freezer.

On the upside the freezer-death happened right before the weekend my mom had offered to keep the kids, so my marathon work sessions didn’t have to fit around the needs of the kids. I just didn’t have the time/brain cells to do as much novel work as I’d hoped to accomplish.

Cream (the white faced doe kid) was close to skin and bones and she came back with a few days of focused care, but Friday night (two days after Jay got home) her twin, Sugar, died. It wasn’t really expected, since Cream had looked so much worse than her sister and recovered.

So now we’re left with the question of whether to get a second goat (because all the writing talks about how goats don’t do well alone), or to sell Cream so she’s not living as an only-goat.

We’d rather keep Cream, it’s the second goat that’s tricky.  The kids- all 4- and I went to see a Nigerian doe today, but “Molly” was much too rough and aggressive with Cream, so we had to pass. (Made me *so* grateful we’d brought Cream and knew before we brought a new goat home that they weren’t compatible.)

~ ~

The snow is almost completely melted here, Jay’s moat is doing it’s job just as it should, and we’re beginning to simplify our life here in other ways.

I’ve been looking at my choices and thinking about how much of what I do is externally motivated and how much intrinsically motivated.  I realized I was doing too much just because it was “sensible” and “could pay off later,” but that preparation was reducing my margin now, and margin is what I need, more than I need (say) rabbits that people might pay more for later.

In this case I’m referring to showing and keeping records.  The level of detail and engagement required to do them well eliminates my breathing room for things that matter more to me: like reading and meal planning.

Yeah. Reading and meal-planning matter more to me than a “potential” side business– especially considering the low level of payoff that looks to be available.

Anyway, we decided we’re not interested in stretching beyond what our family needs/is using, so we’re in the process of selling off extra/older rabbits.  We just finished selling all the mixed-breed chickens, today, so in a couple of weeks if we still have hens that want to go broody we should be able to let them and still end up with consistent layers.

We still want the eggs (since store-bought make me ill), and the “ethical” meat, but I’m sick of how much I’ve been trying to manage.

Along those same lines, I don’t anticipate a garden to be in our plans for this summer.  If it happens it happens, but I think for now we’ll just work at stabilizing our ballance. Once we find it.

(I’ve got other projects/ideas percolating– primarily having to do with food– and that’s where I want to spend “extra” energies.)

No promises any more. I’ll give what I can, and no more.  There will always be more to teach and learn than I can be a part of, and accepting that is part of accepting reality.

Admittedly, hard for me, but I’m learning.

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Schooling (and a birthday trip TMI)

Melody wrote this story shortly after Grandma Florie let her bring a pillow home.

“The tale of Melody’s bed.”

“My bed is the best bed in the world. It has a pillow which came from Grandma’s house. It has a dinosaur blanket on it. Like I said, my bed is the best in the world.”

She read it aloud to me, which helped me translate it for you. This is the longest stint of voluntary writing she has yet done, and she was very pleased with it.

Her face and body language as she shared it reminded me irresistibly of a puppy, tail like a propeller, nearly jumping our of her skin with joy.

BTW, this is what school looks like at my house. When I’m not there with them (say, reading aloud) they have their set of workbooks they plow through.

I’ve been very thankful for how motivated they are by workbooks: being able to say they’ve done X# of pages, or that they’re this close to the end of a chapter spurs them on better than any of my praise or requirements.

And it seems to help, too, when they have similar subjects.  I can be frustrated by their attention to fairness, but it creates a mellow endurance for work they’re not interested in, and I am thankful for that.

~ ~ ~

Yesterday, for Jay’s birthday, he took they day off and flew our family to Tok in his mom’s 172 (it lives at the Fairbanks airport and is the plane Jay used when he learned to fly). Once we landed back in Fairbanks Jay and I had a forehead-smack moment where we realized we hadn’t taken *any* pictures on the trip. Continue reading →

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No Right to Not Be Offended

I have a pretty strict no-provoking policy among the kids.

For many years this has been enshrined in my mom-phrase, “Don’t. cause. problems.”

The idea is that many people (and children most-blatantly) find their ability to affect the emotional (or physical) state of other people to be quite entertaining.

It’s closely related to the delight of the small child who realizes s/he can knock over a tower of blocks.  After the initial shock, interminable repetition becomes hilarious and a delight: I, aware of my finiteness in this vast world I do not understand, nevertheless have the power to effect change!

Or something equally giggle-inducing.

So, desiring a maintenance-pattern that requires the least amount possible of my direct intervention, I taught my children from a very young age that this form of entertainment was a barely a degree more acceptable than swinging the cat by his tail.

The resulting problem is one I can see in our society as well:

When people become used to living in a neutral environment, where conflict is not blatant, anyone who makes life harder seems bad.

I am agitated, therefore they are provoking.

 ~ ~ ~

Earlier this week, while I was out in the barn, there was a small earthquake in the house. Natasha, in a blanket-sleeper and boots, staggered (having just awakened) out to tell me that Melody wouldn’t stop screaming.

Apparently Elisha (on his bed) began making a noise that Melody (on her bed) found “annoying” and he would not stop come pleas or high decibels.

In negotiating the situation, I asked if he had been following her around with the noise, and found out, no, they had just (both) gone back to their room after breakfast.

~ ~ ~

Because Elisha was the one causing Melody’s discomfort, she assumed he was the one that needed to change. But they were both in places they were allowed to be, doing nothing intrinsically bad.

In fact, both children frequently enjoy making random noises together, kicking the air and creating competing rhythms.

Continue reading →