Yellow Ladybird

I'm taking this week off from work... the first vacation I've taken in the last two years that hasn't involved a newborn or a move to a new house, not that I'd call either of those "vacation".  I was sure that with a full week, I'd write up a storm, stocking up on a bunch of posts to tide me over until Thanksgiving, or whenever the next break from the usual routine comes. Obviously that hasn't happened. Instead we've been busy with a bunch of little projects. So following Kim's Make and Listen series, here is what we've been up to (well, at least the "making" -- about the only interesting "listening" was Neil Diamond's Forever in Blue Jeans in the fabric store. I love that song.)

Placemats and napkins. Katherine needs to take a placemat and napkin to school with her lunch each day, and having just received my first sewing machine as a birthday gift, I thought this would be the perfect get-to-know-my-new-sewing-machine project. Growing up, I occasionally used my mom's sewing machine in random bursts of creative energy, but was always discouraged by the final outcome - usually due to crooked lines and pieces of carefully measured cloth that didn't match up. Not much has changed. I would call my decision to make the placemats/napkins a random burst of creative energy, and I am definitely discouraged by the crooked lines. Luckily no one seems to care.

Curtains. Aware that I own a sewing machine, but unaware of my straight line limitations, Katherine's teacher asked me to sew the curtains for the first grade classroom. I warned him about possible crookedness, but he didn't seem concerned. So I agreed... they look great folded, but they measure two inches longer in the middle of each panel and I have no idea why. They also kind of curl up at the corners, another mystery. 

Trail. We needed a connector trail from the yard to the main trail. Actually, my sister and I just needed an excuse to get out the clippers and hack away at dead tree branches and drag logs through the woods. We now have a nice connector.

Wood pile. Our wood for the winter (finally) arrived! Good thing I'm taking the week off so we could have a family wood stacking day. We've been looking forward to stacking wood since our early days of dreaming about life in the country. Today we were livin' the dream. I think the novelty would wear off if wood stacking day came more than once a year.

Apple crisp. It didn't last long enough for a picture. 

That has been our week. Busy. Now we start the transition into the school year... 

We had dinner with friends the other night - our first friends here in Vermont. We reminisced, as we walked through the woods, about how different the kids were when we first moved here, and how they’ve changed over the past year.

In our neighborhood in D.C., outside time centered around trips to the playground, family outings to nature centers, and walks around the monuments. A special outing on a cold, rainy day was a bus ride to the train station for hot coco – or for a really special outing, a ride on the bus and metro, escalator included. My kids were city kids.

When we arrived in Vermont, I eagerly tried to send them out to play in the yard while I made dinner, or cleaned, or just wanted a moment of quiet. But they wouldn’t go. They’d stand stubbornly by the door and wait for me. If I did manage to shoo them out the door, they’d wander aimlessly around the driveway for a few minutes before returning to the steps to peer through the window to see when I was coming out to join them. These same kids who would race down the city block, let themselves into the playground, and climb for hours without a second glance at me seemed uncomfortable in this new, undefined space around our house. They were fearful of the woods and wary of the steep slope of the driveway and street. There were no fences holding them safely in their play space, no sidewalks or stop signs to mark their boundaries. It must have been overwhelming to a three- and five-year-old.

But slowly they have eased into their new surroundings, regaining the confidence they had in the city. Katherine started biking up and down the hill, and Clara started digging in the mud and collecting rocks. Katherine joined me on long walks in the woods, and Clara followed caterpillars across the driveway. By spring, they were out the door before I could stop them.

Now, in our new home even further out in the country, we walked through the woods with the friends who had welcomed our city kids to their neighborhood one year ago. The kids ran ahead of us, disappearing into the trees, only an occasional streak of yellow shirt or shriek of laughter giving us a sense of where they were. They looped around, meeting us from the other direction, red-faced and out-of-breath, pausing for only a minute before running off into their new freedom again. The woods is now their playground, and they have settled in.  

I am reminded once again of the advice I was given years ago: it takes a year, a complete cycle through the seasons, to adjust to a major life change.

In the other part of my life, the one where I do research in second language acquisition, the work has been very writing intensive this summer, leaving me with little energy for this space. I have a lot of thoughts swirling around that I would love to put down, but when I sit down to write, I find I am all written out. So, I continue on with pictures, recipes and books... 

Today, a few pictures. We are all about mud and cake this week. 

Tune in tomorrow for what is possibly my all time favorite "This moment" picture! 

I hear them from in the kitchen, their voices traveling from one side of the house to the other, and I know in a few seconds they will pass through my view from the window. My six-year-old runs with the wind; fast and agile, Katherine flies up the steep grade of our tiered yard and leaps back down the slope over the protruding tree roots without slowing her pace, calling over her shoulder, "Come on! Let's ride bikes!" Clara lags behind, her three-year-old legs sturdy and strong, but not yet fast.

I head outside with the baby and wander around the yard to keep an eye on them while they ride up and down the street. Michael, the 10-year-old across the street, has set up his new jump and is practicing tricks on his bike. My girls watch in fascination. Katherine cautiously takes a turn riding slowly up over the ramp and bumping down on the other side. Clara contents herself to ride around it in circles.

I busy myself picking dandelions and forget-me-nots, feigning oblivion so as not to intrude on their play. I circle up around the back of the house. As I wander back down the other side I hear Michael call out, "Let's race up the hill and back down - whoever gets there first wins!"

For a moment I hesitate, suspended between my instinct to call out "No! No races - Clara is too young, SLOW DOWN!" and my desire to allow her space to figure it out on her own. I look up the steep hill, covered with patches of loose gravel, and the scene unfolds in my imagination: Michael skillfully races down the hill, Katherine close behind, anxious to keep up, maybe even win. Clara, who has not fully mastered her back-pedal brakes, speeds out of control, barely keeping her balance on the tiny, blue two-wheeler. I can see her fear as she looses control, handle bars shaking as she skids across the gravel. She'll fall off, break her arm, need stitches… I won't be able to stop her in time.

But despite the anxiety-driven vision rushing before my eyes, I can't bring myself to call out my warning. From the depths of my own childhood, memories of running free with neighborhood kids silence me. We rode bikes as fast as we could pedal, we did tricks on roller-skates, we forged secret passageways through neighbors' yards, we climbed high in trees where we held tree-house meetings. I broke my arm once, my sister got stitches. But during those long hours after school, and on summer evenings when we played until dark, we were free to figure it out, and it was magical.

I hold onto that cherished time in life, and in a display of casualness, I lean down to help the baby blow the seeds off a dandelion. The white flakes swirl around me as I watch the bike race out of the corner of my eye. Michael and Katherine come speeding down the hill, Clara not far behind, a look of fear on her face as she struggles to control the shaking handlebars. She skids on the gravel, tipping dangerously, unable to brake. Her feet shoot off the pedals and drag on the ground until she wobbles to a stop. She doesn’t fall.

Michael calls out the next race and all three head back up the hill again, as fast as they can pedal. I turn away and look for more dandelions, deciding that perhaps I don't need to watch them so closely.

It is so nice to be sitting at my computer, at my desk, at home, connected to the internet! Some people talk about how great it is to take a step back from social media... Not me. I missed it every day we didn't have it. 

But no internet did have its advantages. We've made a lot of progress settling in here. Mostly cleaning (indoors and out), but now we're starting to slow down and enjoy our new place. 

Here are a few pictures. (One day I'll get back to writing about parenting, but for now I'm consumed by the yard - and so are the kids, which means I'm not actually doing all that much parenting)

The first weeded garden bed.  

The other garden beds still look like this. Pretty, but totally out of control. 

Here is a little weeded patch with tomatoes planted by Auntie M.

And raspberry bushes. The kids spend a good part of their day snacking off the raspberry bushes, especially now that we've figured out they are a wild variety and are ripe when they are deep purple, not bright red. 

This space was thick with dead branches, but an hour with the clippers (I now love clippers and would be happy to clip away all day) and we made a little "house" for the kids. My mom sent us the hammock 10 years ago, and we never had a place to hang it (no yard and/or no trees). Usually I get rid of such unused, random things, but somehow this was overlooked. I think it made its way into the camping box, where it was safe in our hopes of camping again one day.  

The craft porch. Glitter, paint, spilled water, a million tiny pieces of cut up paper... I don't care. They can make whatever kind of mess they want and only half clean it up. During the day I look past the mess at the view, at night I simply close the door. 

And the night sky. I can always count on a night sky for calm and perspective. 

It's hard to blog with no internet. But we should have it by the end of the week, so I'm hoping to get back into my normal routine of wasting away in front of the computer screen into the wee hours every night, and then regretting it bitterly at 5 am when Alexandra wakes up. 

But in the meantime, I thought you might like an update on the chicken coop.  Three hours with a pitch fork, shovel, broom, and putty knife, and the coop is CLEAN. Fresh straw and pine shavings and a sun-dried mud pit make for happy chickens. I think they even like me now. They used to run away whenever I was near, but now they ignore me. I don't think I'll be carrying them around anytime soon (or ever, if I can help it), but we're making progress. 

Katherine and Clara have started naming the chickens. The names seem to change regularly, but as of yesterday they were: Dora, Dora, Golden Egg, Golden Egg, Speckled, and Best Chicken in the World. They have also started claiming specific chickens to be their "very own". I'm sure it's just a matter of time before they start fighting over who belongs to whom. 

We inherited six chickens when we moved, and while I don't know anything about chickens, I'm pretty sure the coop needs a good cleaning.

If you have chickens, I'd love to hear how you clean your coop, how often, with what, etc. I need details; "Use pine shavings" is a little too general. For example, do you rake or shovel out the coop? Where do you put the used (what do you even call it? Bedding?) Can you dump it in the woods? Compost it? What do you use to clean the floor/walls? I've heard about vinegar/lavender/citrus concoctions... does anyone have a brand or recipe for this? What about the outside section of the coop? Any suggestions for the mud pit it has become?

Please advise!

1. Avoid going to Home Depot with children at lunchtime, especially if it means driving an hour each way.

2. Don't wait until moving day to begin packing. 

3. Remember that small children still need to eat and sleep regularly. 

4. Cry when you realize how much "stuff" you have. 

5. Treat yourself to coffee and chocolate croissants as necessary.

And plan on your kids needing clean, dry clothes at some point during the move.

Last week was filled with heavy rains, a leaky roof and flooded basement, a power outage, closing on what is now our house(!), and the beginning of moving chaos.

We love our new (very old) farmhouse, but there is so much work to do - fun work like gardening, feeding chickens, and exploring our new space, and not so fun work like clearing away cobwebs and packing. 

We will be busy this next week. I'll be back with updates and pictures next week, and maybe even a tutorial on how not to carry out a move with three small children. #1 Do not take three small children to Home Depot at lunchtime, no matter how anxious you are to get outlet covers.

As promised, here is a picture of our Easy Canvas print that arrived today (sorry about the poor lighting - thunderstorms and only one lamp here). It turned out really well - I love this picture of our favorite family spot.

Only one day left to enter the giveaway they are hosting. Enter here and you will automatically receive a 60% off coupon and perhaps win an 8x10 canvas of your favorite picture!