Busy Days

We have been working hard on our little farm these past few days. The rain has stopped and the earth is drying. The plants are reaching up and down with green tips and hairy roots. I am now applying myself to the happy task of filling 2oo square feet of gopher and deer-proof garden beds with seeds and home-grown transplants. The boxes are constructed of huge redwood beams and galvanized wire mesh, so I expect to be using them for many years to come. They will hold onions, leeks, root vegetables, lots of greens, and many kinds of herbs. Tucked in here and there will be flowers, too, including some red peonies that I have dreamed of for years. Thank you Ruchama!! Each of the children have a little section all their own. Ellie planted flowers and chamomile for tea. Izzy will be growing peas, carrots and flowers. Aliana, ever practical, figures I will be growing enough vegetables for everyone, so she is going with nothing but showy, delightful blooms.

I also have a large sunny area that Izzy and Papa are discing in the first picture. This will be planted in corn, beans, squash, melons and potatoes. Yum. I just have to get up the nerve to use the gopher traps. Yuck.

I don't do Sudodku...

but golly do I play games.









Back when I was a working girl I took over a department in my company that was staffed by three people. After helping to move the facility to a newer and much more efficient space I staffed it by myself for quite awhile. Around this time the president of the company brought in an efficiency expert. Yeah, really. He was a little bossy leprechaun of a man. He made his way to my desk one day and interrupted my work flow by asking me, "What did you do to bring down the payroll numbers in your department so drastically?" I attempted to hide my irritation at the interruption and find words that wouldn't sound too condescending. "I figured out how to do things as efficiently as possible, I made them buy me a telephone headset and I come in really early before everybody else gets here and wants to make small talk." He clearly wanted more from me, but I really didn't know what else to say. I worked as fast as possible for eight hours or so every day. I was well rewarded for my work. Asking for a raise after proving able to work as well as three people was easy.





But really, that was not my motivation. In this life it is necessary to do certain things. Different things for different people, and even different things at different times. These tasks can be performed in a perfunctory manner or with pleasure, even, dare I say, relish. At that time in my life I needed to go off to work every day for dollars. So, I found a way to make it downright fun. It was a terrific game to figure out ways to shave a few minutes off my tasks. When I had a boss it was satisfying to say, "Okay, finished that, can I go home early now?" When I was the boss it was great to have enough time to work on tasks beyond the normal scope of the job. It made my time at work far more interesting to vary my involvement in the company that way. But, really just the game of it was loads of fun. By the end I was probably shaving seconds off my time, but it was still enjoyable. It kept my mind awake.





These days my work keeps me home. I rear children and animals, tend gardens and rising bread. I continue to adore my efficiency game. Just as I was able to cut payroll costs for my company all those years ago, I can now take my pleasure in trimming dollars, and sometimes even cents, off our utility and grocery bills. Years ago I had to go to work. These days I truly must find ways to save money. Life for our family has changed in many ways over the course of the last year, and I am far from my single working girl days, but I am still enjoying my favorite game.

Routine but not dull

I like to stay home. It is absolutely my favorite place to be. I view errands in town with a general level of grumpiness and usually turn them over to dear Patrick, oftimes with a list more detailed and controlling than I care to admit. I have turned grocery shopping into one giant expedition once every month or so, when I drag Aliana along and show her some real world application for all that damn math I make her do. When the garden really gets rolling I think I will be able to cut the frequency down to every few months. Long live the chest freezer! All of that means I'm now only obligated to venture out once a week to take the kids to a day of workshops at our homeschool program site. My dear Patrick climbs out of bed every morning and drives away to ensure we have a small cash flow, while I have the liberty to stay at home and find ways to avoid spending those dollars. I am grateful beyond words for his willingness to divide our labor the way that we do.

So, what do I do all day.? Have a bon bon and let me catch you up on Days of Our Lives...

The hours in my days are neatly bookended by animal chores. Every twelve hours I milk Rosie the goat. Every single day, 7AM and 7PM. In summer I'm outside in the sunshine both milkings, in the winter I hide under cover from the rain or dark or cold at least once. I love having a living being depending upon me to be on schedule. It makes me actually do it!

Caring for other animals and the garden takes up time every day. Dishes, laundry, cooking, and homeschooling happen every day. My days are nearly all alike. I do have a loose weekly plan to accomplish things that don't need to be done daily, such as checking food stores on Friday, making cheese and bread on Tuesday, or planning our school week on Sundays.

Living the way we do, like sardines in a can, means that working surfaces must be kept clear when not in use. So tidying things up happens all day, every day. Flat surfaces with elbow room are at a premium in an 800 square foot home. It is enormously difficult for me to begin a cooking project if the counter is full of dirty dishes and condiment containers. Any hope of concentrating on a math lesson rests on beginning with a clear table. After many gentle and a handful of far from gentle reminders we have all settled into the habit of cleaning up one mess before we begin making a second one. Naturally we all need occasional reminders, but generally the house stays pretty tidy these days. I wouldn't want a visitor to peek behind my cupboard doors, and the laundry regularly overflows the capacity of the basket by about 700%, but I find it much easier to keep my head above water than I ever have before.

One thing at which I continue to marvel is the fact that even though we let go of truck loads of material goods when packing and moving last year, we are still finding things to give or throw away. Once a day I give the kids a few minutes warning, and then walk around to find things that aren't put away, threatening to donate anything I find lying around to the thrift store. The first time I found toys on the floor I tried to be lenient and give the kids another chance. to tidy up. Much to my surprise Isidore informed me that they had left them on the floor because they didn't want them any more. The choices they make about what to keep or give away fascinate me. Legos stay, tinker toys go. Wooden dolls and little metal cars stay, the marble maze set goes. Homemade cardboard shield and fabric scrap cape stay, fancy animal costumes go. Less toys mean less clean up for the players.

Living in our teeny abode has made the housework load many time lighter, as well. Sweeping the floor takes a few minutes. That's the whole floor, not one room. Once a week I wash the windows. All three of them. In order to simplify the dish-washing chores we each own one plate, one cup, one bowl, etc. Even 4-year old Elizabeth can rinse her bowl out after breakfast and leave it ready for lunch.

Less is good.

Magic Mist

Elizabeth tells me that mist is magic. I have to agree with her. Everything appears different under the cover of mist. The world seems to shrink to include only those things within one's sight. Perhaps part of the magic is that the fog narrows one's view, and even thoughts. On foggy mornings I can't gaze off into the distance and remember riding my horse up and away and off over those hills. Instead my thoughts turn to chores to be done within the shroud of fog. I should trim the goats hooves this week. I really need to stock up on cracked corn for the chickens. There is fencing to be done. I think we'll have pea soup tonight. After I 've finished the chores I should bring in some more wood for tonight's fire.

I had a similar experience last week making a very long drive through the fog. I usually find myself thinking ahead to the end of my journey, anticipating climbing out of the truck and unbuckling the kids. Making my way through the mist was different. I was forced to concentrate on the few feet I could see ahead of me. Peering into the fog took up all my attention, and the time flew by. We almost seemed to be home before we set out.

I think Elizabeth is on to something.

Stuck in Lodi

This blog is coming to you today from beautiful Lodi, California. Patrick is working on a national (!) advertising campaign for the KOA. We are staying in one of the darling little cabins they offer while he shoots all day. The kids will be modeling for some of his shots around the pool and playground later in the day, but for now they are enjoying a very large television and real cheerios. I am going to ignore the internet for the rest of the day and read the entire newspaper.

Cheers!

Long Days, Crappy Food

Last month I signed up for Path to Freedom's 100-foot diet challenge. We have had a lot of fun dreaming up homegrown meals. We've scoured our cookbooks for egg recipes, stayed up late talking about ideas for dishes, remembering things our relatives made. We've all greatly enjoyed planning our meals.

The problem has been finding the time to make them. The past few weeks the shop has opened its jaws wide and eaten us. Sometimes owning one's own business kinda sucks. I love spending my days working with my partner. I really appreciate being able to bring the kids to work instead of dropping them off at daycare. But I don't like it when everything breaks and people get mad at me. There are days when the idea of punching out at five o'clock and going home sounds delicious.

I know there are people who work long hours and fit cooking from scratch into their busy schedules. I would like to be one of them. Some days I wake up early and use the pressure cooker to whip up some variation of rice and beans and vegetables. It makes everyone's day better to eat a real meal instead of something that came out of a box. It's the logistics of it that kill me, though. I have to get up early enough to have enough time to cook it, then I have to have clean tupperware to use for transport. At the shop we have to have clean dishes and silverware. Then after the food is eaten dishes have to be done at the shop and the tupperware have to make it back home for the next day's meal. It all theoretically works fine, but the reality is that usually one of the pieces of the chain end up missing. I didn't wash the tupperware, or get up early enough, or maybe when we get to the shop we don't have clean dishes at lunchtime. The result is way too much expensive, salty processed food for our meals at the shop.

So, we have lots of homegrown menus up our sleeves for the weeks to come.

I am sure that things at the shop will get easier, and we will find more time to cook wholesome meals again. When Patrick and I met and were courting, as he likes to say, we cooked together all the time. It was a wonderful way to get to know each other. We long for the kind of days that allow time to chat as one of us chops the garlic and the other stirs the sauce. Cooking with the kids is also such wonderful time together. I love to watch little hands holding giant spoons.

So... stay tuned for more 100-foot diet meals. Such plans we have in store!

King of the Clutter Busters

I'm a bad partner. Really. Here's the story. We have been rearranging and cleaning the shop this week. A lot of junk is gone and it's much easier to share our working space with three kids now. They have a nice chunk of floor space for drawing, legoes, school work, and watching movies. It's in a corner of the back room so we aren't trekking through their games on the way to the bathroom.

Naturally during the course of the super-fling-boogie we broke out the clutter-buster crowns. Yesterday we were still going full tilt when we had a family wander in asking about a portrait. I grabbed Patrick and they talked for awhile about locations, wardrobe and times. Eventually the family departed and only about ten minutes later did Patrick realize that, yep, he was still wearing the crown. If I were super-wife, the story wouldn't go like that. No, super-wife would have thought about a projecting a professional image and noticed the handmade paper crown on her husband's head. She would have in fact removed it before she asked him to talk to prospective clients. She would have done this even on a Friday afternoon at 5:17 after a very long day spent sneezing and dusting and telling the kids to stop fighting and then sneezing some more. She also probably wouldn't have tripped over a half-eaten bagel and a lego spaceship on the way to the backroom to summon Mr. Photographer Guy.

Yeah. So. I think we might not get that portrait job. But it was awfully fun to share a real-live belly laugh with King Clutter Buster. I'm pretty sure super-wife didn't have that in her appointment book.

I really do thank my lucky stars daily that I have the opportunity to spend my days at work with my family, even when it's really damned hard.

Famous

Patrick is famous again. Isn't he cute? Nice sneakers, too.

Our small town paper is actually the smallest newspaper to ever be awarded a Pulitzer Prize. There, now you know.