We're in between rain showers here.  May, the rainy month.  When I worked in the National Forest, there was one May where a storm would start up every single Friday just as I started my campfire for the program.  Never failed.  We've got a fairy ring in the yard and a tiny bit of sun residue right now.  Maybe it will dry off enough for the children to play in their tent for a bit.  Until then, a warm bath and some links for May.

*Old School Gerry Backpack :: I rode in one of these.  I've got a photo I should scan and share with you all.
*How to Take a Walk in the Woods :: Good thoughts.  You don't need to be an expert.
*Felted Rainbow Rocks :: My dad would just love one of these wool geodes.
*This.
*The Paradox of Choice ::  A good TED talk, not that I've heard a bad one.
*Wall Mounted Clothes Drying Rack
*Funky Monkey Baked Oatmeal :: Easy and good.  Might scale back the chocolate chips, oddly.
*How to Build a Tomato Trellis :: So many ways to grow tomatoes out there.  This one looks like a nice alternative to the cages that always seem to tip over.
*DIY Candied Orange Peel :: I'm always in pursuit of the best recipe for this.  Maybe this one.  I think I'd run my through the dehydrator, too.
*Felted Wool Balls for Toddlers :: Little cat bells inside.  I do think of my children as being slightly similar to cats--they get rowdy as night falls.  Loving this blog, by the way.
*Make Your Own Cranberry Sauce :: Totally doing this.  Maybe I can find cranberries before the baby comes.  Or get Mike to stockpile some after. . .
*Internships: Low-Paid, Unpaid or Just Plain Illegal? :: I did a lot of work in college, all four summers and volunteering during the year.  Didn't amount to a hill of beans.  I was paid, though, and it was pleasurable work.
*Alaskan Sourdough Starter :: Sounds good to me.
*Ramp Pizza :: I would never eat this, but it is a good use for a local flavor.
*A New Way of Seeing Children :: Great thoughts here, good reminders:
  The deepest mystery of parenting is that we often miss the truth about children's behavior, and yet it is so simple. Children are human beings just as we are, and behave in   accordance to how they are treated, just as we do. We seldom stop to consider that this is simply an inexperienced human being with real feelings, who is doing the best he can do, given all the circumstances of his life up to that moment. For how could he do any more? And why would he do any less?

We had the most wonderful kind of anniversary yesterday.  It was just perfect for us and where we are right now.  Often, they've not been much fun--Mike would be working or things just wouldn't align well.  But this year, they did.  I feel like things are doing that lately and I really hope they keep going.  It is such a balm to my spirit to have things go more easily after so many hard years.  We are not out of the woods yet, but the way is becoming brighter in these last couple months.

My mother watched both children at her house while Mike and I went to the Burger Bar.  We had grander plans at one point, but we both independently really wanted to go the same place that we both knew would be great.  It's small in there, but the people working are always friendly and generous (free fries while we waited for eggs to be delivered).  The food is always excellent.  I went for a bacon cheeseburger with a fried egg on it and Mike got one with a Newcastle gouda cheese sauce and fried egg.  Extra protein since I'm pregnant, right?

Arriving at the Old Davis Homeplace, the children had a great time without us.  They (and my parents) need the practice for when the baby comes.  I thought they'd both be exhausted on the ride home, but Roan slept just for the ride and was ready for more once we got home.  Yesterday was the first truly hot day, so we got out the sprinkler and I took Willow over to get a small pool.  I had higher hopes of a nicer plastic pool (if that's possible), but the cheapest model seemed to be quite enough.  She kept running around saying, "I love it!"  Roan was less than pleased by the sprinkler, but they also seemed to love playing in the emptied pool as much, if not more.

While I didn't get my sunflower house put in yesterday (okay, Mike didn't), it was a success.  It was too hot anyway and he had photos to edit.  I got laundry washed and dried, hanging it out at 5:00!  I couldn't' believe the heat.  It totally sucked my energy, but some time in front of the fan with ice water and a burrito and I was ready for whatever chores came next.  Yes, yesterday was a feast.

These early years are intense, aren't they?  Everything, nearly, seems to require immediate attention.  You're always on your toes, anticipating the next need or potential mess.  Some days, I go along very calmly, taking each thing as it comes and handling it all serenely.  Other days, I'm a frazzled mess, my mind failing to focus.  I'm trying to have the serene outnumber the frazzled.  The people I'm working for don't yet have the moral compasses to be consistently considerate or concerned when I struggle.

One thing that is helping is that the children are getting older.  Willow has become a very willing helper.  She cleans up messes and does various chores happily.  She'll go pick chives for me or get the mail.  It's never been something I really pressed; I just figured it would come with time.  Roan will even run little errands for me, which is extra sweet to watch.  Of course, this is all variable.  It doesn't always work out, but it is working out with increasing frequency.

I suppose many things that trouble our hearts, apart from the obviously very serious, all work out in time.  It's just a matter of your own sense of urgency and ability to be patient.  People are who they are and become who they become.  For all the worrying my mother did over me, the well-behaved child, I don't worry that much.  These people are little and are with me or Mike all the time.  Our world is small for now and trust comes easily.



If you want your children to be generous,
you must first allow them to be selfish.
If you want them to be disciplined,
you must first allow them to be spontaneous.
If you want them to be hard-working,
you must first allow them to be lazy.
This is a subtle distinction,
and hard to explain to those who criticize you.

A quality cannot be fully learned
without understanding its opposite.

~The Parent's Tao Te Ching

We're having a bit of a cold snap here.  The warm, humid weather blew out last night and we're expecting frost the next two mornings.  I imagine this will be the last frost we have until Fall, but we've had snow in late May before.  The Naturalist Rally was quite rainy, so we came home, feeling proud enough that we got us all up, dressed, fed, and in the Nature by 8:00.  There's always next year or the one after that.  I hung the prefolds out this morning, hoping they'll dry in the abundant wind and sunshine.  We'll see.

For now, I am marveling in the simple joy of preserving food.  I took last year's strawberries and made them into jam.  Somewhere along the way, I prepared the amount needed for jelly instead of what I needed for jam.  I didn't have endless pectin, so I turned to The Farmer's Wife Canning & Preserving Cookbook to assist my efforts.  I learned to do an acid test and used those fractions we learned in school.  The end result is more cooked, but much easier to spread than the pectin jam, which seems to set so hard.  I got twice as much jam and used less sugar than with pectin.  Success!  I think I'll do it again and save my pectin for a trial with apple jelly.

I've been looking through the freezer in all this, too, seeing what's left and running out.  I'm hoping to get some more rhubarb to store away for a dark day.  I'm trying to cook a little more from the pantry lately, which is decidedly heavy on berries and vegetarian choices.  The children loved the pesto and I have plenty left to last until the basil is big enough to pick from.  I've also got plenty of blueberries, so Mike's request for blueberry buckle will be fulfilled soon.

The rosy cheeks of the mother and daughter on the cover of the cookbook may seem a little over the top, but there really is great joy to be found in correctly preserving and consuming foods.  One last thing--we're having strawberry shortcake for supper with fried eggs and I just might wrap the first asparagus in bacon.  Too kitschy?  I don't think so.

The strawberries arrived yesterday.  Mine are just now blooming, but King's got theirs in and we all hopped in the car to pick them up.  $16 for 16 pints of strawberries is a great deal.  They seem to be a different variety than previoues years--larger, less sweet.  But, they didn't arrive about to turn into wine, so I considered that a big plus.  Most of them have gone into the freezer.  I've cycled out the ones from last year and those will go into jam tomorrow.

The Mount Rogers Naturalist Rally starts tonight, so I've been busy with my short list of things to do--name tags, signs and a short speech to honor Carrie, its former chairwoman.  She's done nearly all of the work of the rally for a number of years and has just recently given her title and responsibilities over to the committee and the Blue Ridge Discovery Center.  I'm excited to honor her and I know she'll be overwhelmed by all the love.  She always swears she's not really a naturalist.

I've been in a bit of a cycle of eating out lately, between midwife appointments, Mike's weird new schedule (supper very early on nights he works), and lingering ennui of pregnancy.  I'm determined to break it and I'm hoping today was a good start.  I made an awesome lunch--sweet potato fries, cinnamon butter for dipping, and sun dried tomato pesto using preserved food from last Summer.  It was a hit all around, even if Mike was forty minutes late for lunch.  Such is life with retail, though.  Tonight, they're serving an overpriced chicken dinner, but we're taking our own food that costs less than one meal and feeds all four.  I like it when it works out that way.  And you can bet there will be strawberries in the cooler.

The nature table these days.  It's taken on a Minimalist Rainbow Look.  In the tiny bowl with the poppies is a feather from a sleeping bag and dried dandelions.  There are some walnut shells around that Willow calls "hedgehogs."  I'm not sure what it is with the plethora of hedgehogs that seem to be in many children's books.  But they're out there. . .  Roan ran off with the candle again, which is fairly standard.  There are candles of various sizes stashed around the house.



We've had a lot of rain lately, but we've found a little time to be outside (or just plain escape, if you're Roan) every day.  The rest of the time, inside.  Today and tomorrow will bring a break and some mowing.  Mowing and candles--the two biggest things in Roan's world right now.

It think it's safe to say that Roan has moved beyond nursing.  Now, when nap time comes along, he says, "Carry me."  It's the sweetest thing.  And it's nice that he still needs the rest.  I put him on my back and sometimes I don't even finish wrapping him before he dozes off.  I walk around a bit, wash some of the lunch dishes and then go lay him down on the bed.  At one point, I feared our wearing days would end too soon, but I don't think that's the case.  Pure sweetness, he is.  Even if he tries to drink the watercolors.

The talk of our neighbors and friends has been the two rhubarb pies I made last week. We finished off the last pieces yesterday. The recipe I like is from Betty Crocker's Picture Cookbook. It doesn't require anything extra and uses uncooked rhubarb.  While I got many compliments ("best rhubarb pie ever!" I was told and "doesn't even taste like rhubarb!"), I credit it all to having a good recipe.  Sweetness varies with rhubarb and this year's pies were tart, more like apple pies.  It was the kind of pie that wasn't overdone when served with ice cream.  I got one pie to "Be Bop," but I didn't have luck getting the second to "A Re Bop."  Oh, well.  Here's how it goes:

• Pastry for a two-crust pie (you can see mine here)


• 1 1/3 to 2 cups sugar


• 6 tbsp. flour


• 4 cups rhubarb, cut into 1" pieces


• 2 tbsp. butter

Heat oven to 425° F.  Line a pie pan with one crust.  Mix together sugar, flour and rhubarb.  Dot the top with butter.  Cover with the second crust and cut to vent.  Bake 40ish minutes, or until the juice bubbles through the vents.

That's how I feel lately.  Mainly, because I did.  Let's start at the beginning, shall we?



I've been carrying my children for four and a half years now.  For a long time, nine months or so, I used homemade carriers.  You can't go to the store and just buy things like this, after all.  Mike's mom gave me a homemade ring sling, I sewed a couple pouch slings (duds) and a mei tai (winner!), and I dyed some cotton crepe for a wrap (another dud).  Then, in the Summer after Willow's birth, I saw a woven wrap for sale on MOMYS.  I had enough money to buy it and that was it.



I won an Ergo in a drawing the next Summer and we hiked every week with it or the wrap.  Roan was born and he quickly became too strong to contain with my arms.   I'd nearly worn my mei tai out by that point and a couple more wraps joined our home.  Nothing extravagant (and there are many chances to be extravagant!), just patterns I liked.  But, then, a chance, a lottery.



I left a comment on a thread on The BabyWearer for an opportunity to purchase a very special handwoven wrap that was part of a custom group.  The rules were that you could not own a wrap from this weaver already.  It was a gesture of goodwill and generosity on the part of the seller, a way to level a very competitive playing field.  These are serious business--long waits, lotteries for custom slots, auctions, resale that is much higher.   Serious.  And I won.  The price was extremely fair and this wrap was gifted to me for my upcoming birthday by my grandmother, who never gives any gift without it being early.  I'm a lucky girl!



The wrap was designed with the Colorado River and Plateau in mind and its colors are just perfect.  It's comfortable and soft, stays tied easily and suits us very well.  What a treasure!  Yup, thirty is going to be awesome.

These little dears may not look like much, but they may be the best cookies to come along since Molasses Crinkles. Anything with "crinkle" in the name, make it. The chocolate crinkles we had at Christmas were devoured, too.  This recipe originally called for lemon peel, but I almost never have whole lemons. The orange flavor is just delightful. And yes, shortening. It has its place when it comes to cookies.  See how few were left once I got a photo?



Adapted from Betty Crocker's Cooky Book

1/2 cup shortening
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1 tbsp. finely grated orange peel
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp ginger
granulated sugar

Heat oven to 350° F.  Cream shortening and sugar.  Mix in egg and peel.  Blend dry ingredients (minus granulated sugar) and stir into wet.  Roll in 1" balls.  Dip tops in granulated sugar.  Baked on an ungreased cooky sheet for 10 to 12 minutes.  Makes three dozen cookies.

It's gotten to be that time again.  Be-bop-a-re-bop is running through my mind again.  We went over to Don's yesterday and got some rhubarb from his garden.  The children watched Prairie Home segments on youtube while I looked through the canning and freezing books to see how I should freeze rhubarb.  There's plenty, it seems like I ought to save some for later.  Roan seems quite fascinated by it.  I found him in the fridge this morning, sizing the pieces up.  I'm hoping to make a pie today.  I woke up feeling like I need something to revive me, probably all the more reason to bake a rhubarb pie.  Here's one from a previous year to motivate me:



"Nothing gets the taste of shame and humiliation out your mouth like rhubarb pie!"


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