Noticing

I took my coffee out the door this morning, slipped into my gardening clogs, and watched the sun blaze over the horizon, lighting the clouds with pink and orange. It’s all waking up out there, filled with birdsong, buds ready to burst into leaves, tiny creek rushing to drain the land. Every day I check on the daffodils, urge them to hurry up and open. I feel like I need to plant things, but when I expressed that thought to my husband, he got a kindly, pitying look, “It’s much too early.” Never mind; I will not let the late, rogue frosts we get here freeze my delight in the benevolence of these warm days.

We have a row of milk jugs that we split in half to winter sow some flowers and lettuces. The tops fit over the bottoms full of soil and make mini cold frames. I have never tried this method before, so we shall see. It was easier than rigging up grow lights in a space that isn’t big enough to accommodate all the things I want to grow. I have also decided that the Amish ladies who have greenhouses around here deserve my support when it is safe to plant tomatoes and peppers. It is a lot better to pay them than to babysit plants in our unpredictable spring. One unwise choice to leave them in the sunporch at night instead of bringing them into the living room or basement can kill off weeks of work. To date I have found six greenhouses within twenty minutes of our house. None of them have websites, so it’s a word-of-mouth delight trail we follow, one after the other. I can hardly wait!

The forsythia bush that is clinging to the creek bank is still showing only cracks of color at the buds, but I have been bringing in branches to the warmth and they open right up. We have a steady supply of brilliant yellow blooms in the house. It begins! The fresh cut florals that delight my heart, even if it’s just a few tiny crocuses at first.

There’s a mosquito flying around me, an opportunist who slipped in the door when I left it open while I was making chicken scampi last night. Across the road from our house is a shallow swamp that is a breeding ground for these pests, but it is also a swamp that is alive with spring peepers that trill their hearts out every warm evening.

Every beautiful thing has its price. If you want to enjoy the sunrise, you have to wake up and get out of bed. You place more value on the things you make sacrifices for, and certainly you are more grateful when you wait a long time and then it comes, it is here, you can have it!

Addy and I cleaned the sunporch yesterday. Somehow it is the place that collects everything we don’t know what to do with over the winter. It is like a gigantic utility drawer for excess furniture, recyclable trash, cardboard boxes, and boots. We put the cardboard in the shed for gardening layers, boxed up the donations for Salvation Army, put the boots in bins in the basement (I know, we’ll be getting them out again),and washed the floor. Addy was enthused, “I could live out here!” She’s always the one who loves to rearrange and domesticate wild places.

I noticed that our elderly neighbor was out picking up sticks in her vast yard yesterday, and walked over to chat. She is a spry little octogenarian who wears sparkly lip gloss and plays pickle-ball to stay nimble, but it was a big job, so I sent the girls over to help her. It was the task of a half hour, with them all helping, and she was relieved to have it done. She rewarded them each with a can of ginger ale, after being assured and reassured that their mom won’t mind. Possibly by the time you are in your eighties, you think of teenagers sort of in the same rank as toddlers who might not be able to handle fizzy sugar.

I cleared a space on the desk in the office to write this noticing post this morning. It is in a state of becoming, an exciting state! We planned floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in this room when we bought the house, and last week Gabriel built them. I have been painting and scheming, finally giving this room the love it needs. Hopefully today I can finish it and take care of the piles and boxes on the floor. There are still boxes of books in the attic that we have’t had space to put out, and there is a growing pile of culls.

Addy was helping me with this project, and kept mentioning books she never read. I was appalled! How can you be almost thirteen and never have read Little Women? Or the Little House books? The Wheel on the School? I guess what happened was that about the time she was into Henry and Ribsy the older children were into The Hobbit or The Bronze Bow, and she skipped along with them, leaving a whole delightful section of Elizabeth Enright and Eleanor Estes books unread. I tend to pick our read-alouds for the more advanced listeners, so there we are. She is making up for lost time, and happily, the books are right there at eye level for her.

Gabe took Rita to orthopedics this morning to have them look at her swollen knee. It started acting up during volleyball, so we kind of assumed it’s a minor sports injury. X-rays showed nothing, but the knee remains swollen four months later. We had a child with Lyme disease that manifested in a badly swollen knee years ago, so possibly it’s that. Our doctor mentioned sending her to ortho to have it drained, and I chickened out on the spot. Gabe takes the children to any appointments with the potential to make their mother faint. This is one of those. I do not do needles, tubes, and fluids collecting slowly in clear containers. I have accepted that no matter how sturdy and practical I might be, this is not a mere mind-over-matter situation. I have fainted an embarrassing number of times, including at appointments for my children. How wonderful that my husband loves needles and blood draws!

Well, I have noticed long enough, and it appears that this room will not paint itself. When it is all done, I will show you a picture, and that will be hallelujah!

I hope your day is happy and warm, and contains something precious.

February Recap

In contrast to January, which is a long month that can’t quite quit, February has been a very speedy month. We hunkered down and survived, if you can call smearing cream cheese on a toasted bagel a “survival challenge”. We feel the sap rising at the end of February, as we lift dry, trembly limbs to the stronger rays of sunshine. Our children think it was the Lamest Winter Ever, Worse Than Last Year. (Interpreted to mean not enough snow and ice.) We had a few gloriously pristine snows, but not many, so it was a slate grey world, full of mud. It was about as bleak as it can get. For a person who struggles every winter to stay grounded and out of the pits, I am wondering why I am feeling so cheerful this year?

There was a matter of a conversation with God last fall, “Honestly, why do I live somewhere so bleak for so much of the year? Is there something You are trying to teach me?” (I know, duh.)

I love Pennsylvania. I just don’t love November through April in Pennsylvania. That’s half the year, and when I thought about it, it seemed like kind of a lot. I am a cheerful person, in general, but I realized that I am giving myself a pass on complaining about the weather.

“You know, it isn’t My will that you fuss about the overcast sky and the brown and the ugliness.” Oof. It wasn’t a long conversation, but it was pointed. I am not saying I had a transformation just then, and embraced mud season, but I made a commitment to stop letting my mouth complain. Sometimes the words just slipped right out without me even thinking, and then I would have to reframe. “Isn’t is interesting how we live under a mushroom cloud? Look, you can see the edges of it on the horizon when we drive south. I wonder what wind currents are causing that?” Sounds a little whiny still, I know. When the you have an agreement with the Lord, He is very kind in reminding you when you forget it.

Anyway, that’s point 1 for my flourishing in less than ideal situations. Don’t be a fuss pot. C.S. Lewis learned to love rough and stormy weather so much, he considered people who complained and stayed holed up to be missing an elemental gusto. (Get it?) Note to self: Be like Clive Staples.

Point 2 is Take Your Supplements. I did not skip the vitamin D and B. This year I bought a seven-day pill organizer for A.M and P.M. and now I am officially weirdly old.

Point 3 is a luxury that I have not always had: Sleep. I did not set my alarm unless we had an appointment somewhere in the morning. Homeschooling requires a lot of effort and investment, but we have hit the sweet spot where I realize that not everything is lost if we don’t start at the crack of dawn same time every morning.

Point 4 is related to calming down. Avoid Caffeine. It occurred to me that there is something wrong with a lifestyle where I cannot survive without caffeine. So I kicked the habit. I drink decaf coffee, and now I sleep better and now I am weirdly old. Oh, maybe I mentioned that before. In the interest of transparency, there were a few diet Coke days. What a gross way to get a boot in the rear, but it does work.

Those are the four things that come to mind for what has changed in my life that may have helped me cope with the seasonal depression that normally afflicts me. I have a bonus for you, a word that is new to me. Fika, which in Sweden is the term for sitting down with family or friends to have a hot drink, often with something sweet on the side. You can use it as a verb or a noun. We fika a lot at our house! Come, join us!

We’ve been finishing a bedroom in the basement. The guys installed large windows, rewired it, drywalled the ceiling, put in can lights, and trimmed it. I painted it, and Greg and I went to Gabes to look for a rug, bedding, etc. He moved his stuff down there last week, so I filled about 20 nail holes and re-caulked the cracks in the paneling and trim in his old room. I love repainting and furnishing a room when there isn’t a time crunch. (The haste around our remodel/move still gives me the post-move willies, just remembering how we put our furniture in the centers of the rooms so that I could finish the painting.) For this room, I chose a color called lullaby. My family thought it would look like a nursery, but it doesn’t. It looks restful in a blue-grey sort of way. With the white chalk-painted furniture I am working on, it will be even better. I don’t overthink the colors I choose for my walls. I just pick what I like, and then it makes me happy. There you have it, home interiors by Dorcas. It’s a very uncomplicated recipe, but I stand by it.

I made a dress -coral colored with little white flowers- for Addy a few weeks ago. The first time around I made it with her outgrown pattern, size 10/12. It was pretty unbelievable for a while, but there was nothing to do except cut and sew another bodice, size 14. For once I had bought extra fabric, a great mercy. Addy has gotten so many hand-me-downs in her life that she is excessively grateful for new dresses, and it is a pleasure to provide them. She prefers brighter colors than the other girls. Her recipe is uncomplicated too.

We went to Hobby Lobby this week, our favorite store in the world. We needed cotton yarn, felt, and some paint. We came home with fabric for hoodies and throw pillows, cute containers for beads, gold calligraphy ink, and some picture frames. I teased Rita about having a hard time with self-control, and she said, “You have no idea how hard I was holding back!” Me too, girl, me too.

The girls slept in their camper last night, despite the chill. I bribed Rita so that I could share a paragraph she wrote about it.

    “If you go down the trail on the left-hand side of our shop you will come to a cute little camper with a wooden porch and flower boxes. The outside is white and green. If you decide to peep in you will be confronted by a door that sticks like glue. Pull like a mule and it might open. Reluctantly. If you get the door open, step in quickly. (So as not to let any heat escape from the lazy little heater.) Don’t forget to wipe your feet! To the left is our reddish-purple couch\bed. On each side small windows look out to the woods beyond. On the wall straight in front of the door are my spice shelves. Woven carpets cover the ancient linoleum floor. To the right are shelves. One has the cooking appliances; hot plate, electric water boiler, waffle maker, and popcorn popper. The others hold anything from plates and cups to pans and mouse poo. Everything is artfully arranged to take up as little of the limited space as possible. If you ask politely I might make you a cup of tea.”

This is the view off the back deck this morning. It was a little crisp out there, but they danced in through the snow in high spirits.

That was the view off the deck yesterday. I stood out there in bare feet, not even shivering, and listening to the roaring of the creek after our night’s thunderstorms. Isn’t weather interesting?

Prickles

If you have ever looked at the Valentine’s card selection with all those one size fits all sentiments, and felt like your love is not best expressed in a mass-produced way, then you will know why I write my own cards. Jonathan Rogers sent an excellent email prompt on writing your own love letter that is meaningful, and the gist of it was simple: don’t try to write about feelings, but instead write about things that only you and your spouse have in common. Memories, quirks, inside jokes. This is easy for me, being a detail-noticing sort of person. It is super hard for my husband, and I do not expect him to crank it out every time. 🙂 I do find original sentiments on a scrap of paper totally irresistible.

Back to Valentine’s Day and cards: I found myself trying to watercolor a prickly little hedgehog, holding two heart balloons. As we say at our house when a project turns out slightly less than we hoped it would be, “An attempt was made.” Once it was dried, I flipped it over, and that’s where I could really let loose. Words!

I didn’t write mushy stuff. It’s a coded list just for my husband, but one item was *how you have taught me about buying quality that lasts a long time, like Carhartt coats*.

Therein lies a tale. We were newlywed. We did not have much money. Our grocery budget was less than $30 a week, self-imposed so that we could save up a bit. There was no money for chocolate chips or other frivolities in that budget. However, Gabe needed a heavy work coat because he was working outside and winter was upon us. Also, he had a strong sense of the fitness of things, and a puffy jacket that he wore when he was teaching school was not appropriate for building decks. I discovered that he needed a very specific coat: tough, not longer than the waist, somewhat tailored, good sturdy pockets, heavy-duty zipper, etc. We decided to go to a local hunting outfitter store to check out their inventory, and there it was on the Carhartt rack, the exact coat he needed. Unfortunately, it cost over a hundred dollars, and I was shocked that he was trying it on, then actually planning to buy it. “Don’t you think we could find something at a thrift store?” But wanting to be a good wife, I expressed my disapproval only once, then I let it go. After all, as he explained to me, “This coat will last me twenty years.” (It did. He still wears it when he works outside.)

Not only did he buy the coat, he also bought a Carhartt hat that day. The hat was the thing that really annoyed me. I could have bought four pounds of cheese with that money, and made it last a very long time in our un-cheesy lives! The hat was a small uneasiness between us for quite a while. One can pick up hats for free, I reasoned.

You know, I don’t remember how we resolved our differences on that issue. Probably with a teary speech that marinated for a month before I figured out what to say.

I read a cute little saying somewhere before we got married that said, “Marriage is two prickly people trying to live in very close proximity without hurting each other.” I thought it was funny then, and I still think so. That’s why I made an attempt at a hedgehog card.

It is true.

If we have learned anything in the 22 years since then, it is to let things go. Keep those accounts short. Do not marinate for a month, then come out with a wordy bomb that blows the other person out of the water. We do not always agree. Not even close. But we try to listen to each other without being threatened and rattling our prickles at each other. We keep learning to rearrange our lives so that we do not constantly hurt each other. It’s not that hard.

That’s all I have to say about that.

No, you can’t see the other side.

Being extra…

… With potatoes.

You may recall that it was a good year for my potato growing. I have never been very successful, but this year I have bushels of them. I swan right past the bins at Aldi, feeling smart that I am not plunking down $8 on a staple food. The obvious problem with growing potatoes is needing to have storage options. If they get colder than 40 degrees, the starches turn into sugar they taste sweet. Definitely they should not freeze!

Until this week, I had put mine in crates in the garden shed, covered with heavy carpets. When the weather took a dip way under freezing, we had to move them into the heated shop where it stays 50 degrees.

When you grow your own potatoes, they are not graded, which means you get a lot of tiny ones mixed in with the nice big baking potatoes. I remembered hearing Amish ladies talking about canning potatoes, and decided to give it a go.

The first step, of course, is to wash them. If you have ever washed a sink full of potatoes the size of an egg or smaller, you will understand why we were trying to think of a better way. Suddenly I also remembered hearing Amish ladies talking about washing them in their clothes washer. Let me tell you, these women know things! It pays to listen. So we dumped them in on gentle cycle, cold water, no soap. They rolled around – gently – and came out squeaky clean.

We did not peel them, only cutting out weird spots and any eyes that were sprouting. Then we diced them so that we got a lot more potatoes into a jar. We added a teaspoon of kosher salt to each quart, and poured boiling water to cover the potatoes before putting on lids and rings.

I have only been using a pressure canner for a few years, and I have no idea why it took me so long to get one. They are the bomb for low-acid foods! We canned our potatoes at 10 lb pressure for 40 minutes, and there you are! Seven meals with ready-to-go taters for about an hour of work. (Seeing as we let the washing machine do most of the work for us. You’re welcome to that tip, even though it’s really a tip from a smart Amish lady.)

Coping With the Damp

This is the view out the windows these days.

These are the days we don’t move very fast. Mornings are calm (a much nicer word than lethargic), as each one fixes his own mug of something hot. (Gabe has been working mostly night shifts, and Gregory is the not-slow exception in the mornings. He gets up in the pitch black, packs his lunch, and is usually out the door with something in a go-cup before too many of us are out of bed.) Olivia is a black tea person, Rita makes a single shot of espresso with lots of steamed milk, Addy likes hot chocolate, and I prefer a decaf Americano with maybe a bit of cream. Gabriel is happy with whatever someone offers him. Hot drinks are an essential component of surviving winter. It’s a good thing I make mugs, because they go all about the house with us and still there are more in the mug drawer.

These are the days of making food in the cast iron skillet. Did you know comfort food is often cooked that way? Sausage patties. Egg and cheese on sourdough sandwiches. Apple crisp. Fried potato wedges. Casseroles with bubbling cheddar pooled on top. Sometimes I make an attempt to fancy things up, but then the sauce swallows up the pattern, which is not what I envision when I line up the potatoes, but they are good anyway!

These are days when we light candles and plug in twinkly lights and build fires in the fireplace just for the ambiance. I would rather cut back on my daily food than live always chilled, if it were a matter of affording one or the other. We are not at that place yet, and I am thankful. Also we have a lot of daily food stored up that I grew in the good earth right outside my door, and this is the time to revel in that feeling of accomplishment. It actually is nice to rest right along with the gardens. Sometime I wouldn’t mind trying tropical gardening though, and having bougainvillea climbing up my trellis in January.

These are the days when everybody is in each other’s space all the time. Reading another’s book, because it was laying right here and it looked interesting, but there was a marker in it and how could you? And who ate the last of the chocolates? Also why are there no more Lady Grey teabags? Anybody play a game with me? Shall we start this 1000 piece puzzle? And then we do it in a day because we can.

These are the days I pep talk myself into pulling on boots and whatever else is necessary to get outside, clear the cobwebby spaces in my brain. I stroll down to the creek, look at it roaring along brim-full. I look up through the skeletons of trees, admiring their bones. The sycamores with their straight branches and twigs all reaching upward. The graceful droop of the willows. The squiggly twigs of the walnuts and cherries and apples. The enormous limbs of the ancient oaks in our backyard. Learning to identify naked wintertime trees makes them less sad to me; they are elegant and brave, individual fingerprints against the sky. I watch the red-tailed hawk hunting over the field, shrieking as it rides thermal winds. The clouds have just enough definition for me to see that they are tearing along with occasionally a shred of blue space.

These are the days of damp and chill and lots of stuff going on that we can’t see, but we know it is happening. Meanwhile, we take our vitamins and our constitutionals and we are okay. How about you? Are you doing all right?

The Christmas Letter, a Week Late…

… with apologies to those of you who got this letter in the mail. This is the hasty cell phone picture we took of our crew on Thanksgiving. I love it because we were all so happy to be together, and it didn’t cause anyone too much pain to dress up and try to be coordinated. 😉

Dear Friends,                                                                                                       12/2023

Season’s greetings! It is the time of year when we find ourselves a little obsessed with light, looking forward to the turn of the solstice and more daytime hours. Daylight here does not equate sunshine, but it is my challenge for this winter to learn what God wants to teach me by calling me to live in such an overcast area. (Without complaining: shew!) And of course, the good news is that the Light of the World has come, and it is our great privilege to walk in that Light!

            We have been blessed with a year of adequate stamina to live at a full gallop for surprisingly long stretches. Ha. A lot of the busyness was our choice, and the rest was simply a call to faithfulness in our everyday life. No time for twiddling thumbs just yet.

            Gabriel started a travel position with UPMC at the beginning of the year. It means that they send him to under-staffed hospitals across the state instead of regionally. We decided to give it a try for a year, and were pleasantly surprised at how well it went. Occasionally there were five shifts in a row, but having him home for up to a week at a time is not a problem! Most of the assignments are in Pittsburgh; the farthest from home was in western Maryland, which happened to be the hospital where he did his nursing training, so that was interesting. He continues to love his work in the emergency department. In his spare time this year he has done a lot of cleanup in the woods around here, felling dead trees and cutting firewood. It’s only a five acre place, but it is a needy place. We enjoy the challenge, although he wouldn’t mind having a little more time to do woodworking with his collection of antique hand tools.

            My year can be summed up with teaching, pottering (both with clay and about the house), gardening, cleaning up copious amounts of mud, and writing (in fits and starts). All of these things I love to do, except for the muddy parts, but it’s a given with the rural lifestyle and hobbies we have chosen. I admit, I am not always very philosophical or even reasonable about it in the moment of mess.

There was a day we got home from picking up groceries, the front door was open, and there were muddy dog prints through the house where Lady had gone back and forth, back and forth, to try to find her people. This was at the height of the digging that was going on in our yard to install rainwater drains and fix the lane. It was epic in a grimy sort of way. Eventually the lane did get fixed, but a broken gas line got missed and the lane had to be dug up again when the weather got cold and it was obvious that the heat wasn’t working in the shop. The patio and sidewalks got poured during a stretch of beautifully warm weather in November. We did not get the lawn reseeded in November; I’ll let you imagine how that works out with an indoor/outdoor dog. But we can walk to our cars without splashing through puddles and that is progress!

            We managed to get two long trips into the year. In late February we flew to Florida to spend some time with my parents down there. It is amazing to me that you can get onto a plane at the absolute snottiest of times here (That’s not a complaint. It’s a pragmatic statement of fact.) and two hours later you can debark in brilliant 80 degree sunshine. Our family got to stay in my uncle’s house in Sarasota, the house where Grandma lived when she was alive. It was still full of her things, little notes here and there, and just the feeling of her. I loved that part! It is on a secluded dead-end street, which we also appreciated. Aside from one very chilly day when the guys were attempting to fish in the Gulf, it was a gloriously sunny interlude for all of us.

            This fall we decided to take a few weeks to travel through the Midwest. We packed a trailer full of camping gear and planned the itinerary around the Handworks Festival in Amana, IA. The festival was wonderful! The guys met a lot of their woodshop and forge heroes; during supper we spotted Roy Underhill at a table nearby! We ladies enjoyed strolling the town, visiting shops full of handmade goods and fingering the gorgeous woolens at the mill. After two days we drove on north and spent half a week with Gabriel’s brother’s family in Lake Andes, South Dakota. It felt a bit sad that our time in the big sky country turned out to be wildfire smoke season. It was still an amazing time of catching up and bonding, and the cousins showed us some of their favorite places along the mighty Missouri River.

Along the way, we slept in a lot of neat places, boondocking wherever we wanted. That was our first experience of simply pulling off the road and setting up a campsite on public land. The no-fires rule was the biggest stretch, but we were prepared to cook with a small Blackstone griddle. We have never gone camping without getting pickled in campfire smoke, so that was a novelty. Gabriel had done a lot of homework and found some beautiful campsites, most notably on the rim of the Badlands.  By the last night on the road, however, we were so tired of setting up tents and blowing up air mattresses that we got a motel and enjoyed long showers and white sheets. Home looked absolutely wonderful!     

            We saw Alex pretty often this year, mostly when we went back to Bedford County. He is currently working as a ski instructor at Snowshoe Resort in West Virginia, and he is loving the work. Our family picture was a quick snap I insisted on taking after Thanksgiving lunch because we were all together and that is harder to accomplish than it used to be!

            Greg is working with a local construction crew. Along with learning new skills, he is especially enjoying working with some of his friends. His hobbies include woodworking, fly tying and fishing, and cooking manly chunks of meat with sauces that use lots of butter and garlic. I really like when he cooks, but we haven’t always seen eye to eye on techniques or cleanup methods. We are so grateful that his last EEG showed zero seizure activity! He is reveling in the freedom to be able to go rock climbing or to hitch up the fishing boat to his Nissan Pathfinder and drive himself places.

            Olivia is in tenth grade and keeps herself studiously on track with her biology and algebra video courses. I look over her shoulder occasionally and get excited when there is a grammar/composition concept that I can teach her. Other than that, I check the work and keep the records for the school district. Her favorite thing is to make something with her hands with yarn or felt while listening to audiobooks. This year she has worked her way through a hand-lettering book, which comes in very handy when I need someone to make place cards or labels. A few weeks ago, she started driving on a learner’s permit, very carefully. I am excited to have an errand runner coming along soon!

            Rita is fourteen now, and as full of big ideas as she was when she was a toddler, only now she can actually pull them off. Her current big project is tanning a deer hide. The hair is harder to strip off than she thought it would be, but she perseveres. She’s my gardening buddy, and she loves to pick fresh things, then go cook them on the hot plate in the old camper we turned into a playhouse. She also has a respectable teepee in the woods where she and Addy cook over open fires. One of the highlights of her year was pulling a big pike out of our tiny creek when she was fishing. We didn’t eat that one, but she has butchered many a fish for supper.

            Addy is twelve now, and nearly as tall as her sisters. She is catching up with them in many ways, an elusive goal of hers ever since she was tiny. I can ask her to clean up the house, and she really goes for it! She likes making a fire in the fireplace, setting up tea parties, and dressing up nicely. She has spent a lot of time writing chapters for various books she has started. Recently we had a sad day when there was a glitch with the computer, and it swallowed a lot of her work. I could have cried with her.

            It’s hard when life is hard on your children. There are so many things we learn through the pains, though. With the children growing older, they have lots of interests outside our home. The girls played volleyball with a homeschool group this fall. At first it was discouraging for them to try so hard and feel like they just weren’t getting it. As they practiced and practiced, I watched them gain confidence and improve. I often tell them, “You have to be willing to be bad at something before you can be good at something. That’s just how it works, and guess how I know!”

            This has been a happy year, but of course, it included a lot of challenges. We choose to focus on the pleasant things for the annual letter.  However, there is no good story without conflict. There is no victory without a battle. When I think about the next year, it gives me courage to know that we are overcomers in Christ, and He is already there!

            Blessings and much love from all of us!

-Dorcas for the Peights

What To Do

You know that long week between Christmas and New Year’s Day? I’m sure you have found plenty to do, but I figured I could mention some of the things we have done, just for the anyhow. The whole week feels kind of “anyhow”, doesn’t it?

We suspended all regular scheduled activities. Gabriel had a larger chunk of time off work than we remember ever happening around Christmas: three days! Our plans to have my parents and sister’s family here over that time were all nixed by sickness in their households. We pivoted hard, lit all the candles, and celebrated on our own, with a local friend joining us for Christmas lunch. It was so warm, it was simply amazing in a brown and grey sort of way. There was one tiny snow pile left in the morning, but it was melted by noon.

My favorite gift is this vacuum sealer for jars. Rita got a gleam in her eye when she saw it, and we promptly started sealing jars full of random dry ingredients. It works like a charm (without batteries!) and opens a whole vista of possibilities in the pantry. My other favorite was The Terrible Speed of Mercy, by Jonathon Rogers. I have to say, Gabriel really came through on my Amazon wish list. I don’t know if there is a better definition for “broad hint”, but it works for us.

This week there were games and puzzles and eggnog made with raw milk, free-range eggs, and freshly ground nutmeg. We have perfected a lavender latte that even my brother Nate would surely approve of. There were cookies and way too much candy, so that I hid some of it away for later festivities when the cousins are better and come to see us after all.

The girls spent hours and hours assembling this tiny book nook. It required much more patience than I have, but they loved it.

We made bread: normal bread, garlic bread stuffed with cheese and butter, raisin/cinnamon sourdough bread. We’re working on the leftovers of ham and potatoes, but we also had nourishing vegetable soup and lots of oranges.

Rita’s tiny chicken started laying tiny eggs, which she gloats over and fries for tiny meals. The chickens are living their best December lives, since I am allowing them to free range. They scurry to the ground under the bird feeder first thing every day, scratching up anything the chickadees may have dropped.

I ran out of printer ink half-way through the annual Christmas letter, so when the ink refill came in the mail, I finished that. I actually love that little rite of passage! Some of you will be getting those letters this week. There were quite a few letters in our mailbox this week, as well, and I bless every one who takes the time to send us a family update!

The students around here worked long and hard to get through second semester exams before the holidays, although one of them did not quite get her pre-algebra test done, so that was kind of hanging over her in this aimless week, and finally she just did it. That means that the girls are halfway through this school year! Wow.

By Thursday, Addy was so bored that she decided to do some lessons just for the anyhow. I won’t say we worried overmuch about doing maths in PJs, and we might say, “Some things were learned without too much supervision or aggression.” Addy is currently finishing an astronomy report that she thought would be terribly boring. The problem was that she chose that enigmatic planet, Uranus, and I had to help her dig up some excitement, but in the end she prevailed. Conclusion: we humans could not live on Uranus.

Olivia is trying to narrow down her ideas for her library research report coming up. She needs a large subject so that it can fill many pages, and was considering a history of France. “No way!” advised Rita, “you don’t want to deal with all those King Louies!” I agreed, and she is now thinking of doing a report on the country of Mongolia. Yogurt, yurts, and yaks sound much more writable.

The older girls played volleyball and Addy and I went sleuthing for bubble tea and a quiet place to read library books. Then we still had time before we needed to pick up the girls, so we stopped to visit a friend who is 104 years old. As usual, Sister Fran’s tiny frame was spilling over with sweetness. She held Addy’s face in her withered hands and blessed her for her smile and her sparkling eyes, “May the Lord bless you and keep you all the days of your life, sweet child.”

Gabriel and Gregory spent two days in the basement, cutting out openings in the block wall for egress windows so that we can have bedrooms down there. The wiring needed to be redone, and a wall installed. They are ready for drywall and light fixtures. It took me back to the other days of renovations when my best contribution was hauling out trash and sweeping, sweeping the endless mounds of debris.

This morning when the sun shone brightly through the south-facing windows, I noticed a thin film of concrete dust that apparently filtered up through cracks onto everything, so we spent some time fixing that problem. The dog bed got washed, the pine branches that were shedding got thrown out, and here we are. It’s only Friday yet.

I googled “why isn’t my dryer heating?” this morning, and thankfully hung sheets on the line in that same sunshine that had shown me the dust in the house. It’s gone now, smothered by the solid clouds we have come to expect, but it was there long enough to reassure us that there is, in fact, a sun up there. That is good!

I have one more frog to eat this week, and this post has been my stall tactic. I need to do the tax prep for my pottery business. It has been the worst stressor in our marriage in the past. My husband is a very credible accountant and I… am not. However. I have learned to keep records more carefully throughout the year. Last year I did the books all by myself and this year I will do so again. The statements are printed out and right here beside me. Thoughts and prayers appreciated.

Acquaintances and Friends

Today I met Sue and Pete when I was on a walk in the waning edge of day. I wanted to get in a few miles in the fresh air before dark, which meant getting out of the house before four. There’s a place about a half mile from our house where I have only ever waved at the folks. Today they were outside, cutting up a massive pine tree, piling the branches beside the road. My first impulse for stopping in was simply because I wanted some of those evergreen branches, especially the ones that still had pines cones attached. I kept walking to my turnaround point, and when I got back to their place she was still out side, poking up a small bonfire. I waved, smiled, and headed up their lane

One doesn’t just ask outright for pine branches, though, when one has never even talked to the neighbors. First we talked, introduced ourselves, “I’m Sue,” she said, “and Pete is taking a break in the house.” She told me they had been working the entire day, trying to get that tree cut up. This spring our neighborhood was traumatized when a rotting tree branch fell onto a car during a storm, killing the hapless driver. Sue knew that lady; she went to the same church. Ever since then she has been bothered by any dead-ish trees in their yard.

“Sue,” I said when a suitable amount of small talk had been made, “what are you planning to do with all these pine branches?” And she told me that Pete was going to keep cutting them up and clearing them away until they were all gone because they are that sick and tired of picking up pine cones and raking needles and worrying about the tree falling onto the house.

Now we do not have a single evergreen on our land, and every time I want to decorate with something green in winter, I have to find some public land to cut a few branches. Today especially I was hankering for the scent of fresh cut pine, so I asked Sue if it would be okay to cut some of those branches to decorate my house.

“Sure, you can take the whole thing,” she said, “but you know about those needles…” and I assured her that I do know and I don’t mind at all.

I walked on home and got my trusty little Subaru with a garden tote in the back and a clipper. When I got back to their place, Sue brought me a box of pine cones because she has six buckets full. Pete came out and we stood in the twilight, talking about the neighborhood in the good old days. He went to school with the man who sold us our property. He knows everybody. Same as Jim, who was born in the house just across the road and now lives just on the other side of the woods. And Dianne, one house over, has lived there for nearly sixty years in the house her husband built, and the other neighbors have been there for their entire marriage, which is about twenty years. We are very much the new kids on the block.

Pete likes to garden, and he told me about his way to get peppers to set fruits, (plant them close together to help them pollinate ) and we discussed our odd tomato year. I mentioned that I’m doing mostly no-till gardening, and he said, “Oh, yeah. Ruth Stout method.”

I almost laughed out loud. Who would’ve thought that I have a neighbor named Pete who knows about Ruth Stout? It just made my day.

So did my evergreen arrangements on the porch.

The Annual Slightly Strange List

I am thankful…

… for the privilege to go “home” for Thanksgiving, even though I never lived in that house, to unpack in my parents’ guest bedroom, put my feet on their coffee table, and visit long and slow with them and my brother Nate’s family.

… that my husband, who was supposed to work Thanksgiving Day this year, had the choice to work the day before and the day after, so that he could join us for a beautiful feast on the actual holiday.

… that my son made it back in time from a harvest job out West, driving 14 hours so that we could all be together for a day.

… for shared memories and old jokes and photo albums full of snapshots of a funny childhood that wows our children and their cousins with its quaintness.

… for words: quirky, hilarious, perfectly descriptive words discovered in a game of Balderdash in the living room. And for the antics of the children we have produced who entertain us regularly with their almost-adult selves. Not to mention hearing them voice their own refreshing, occasionally startling opinions

… for colored glassware, and that the pieces I bought at a thrift store to decorate for Christmas did not quite all break when the box fell out of the back of an inexpertly packed Suburban when we opened it. At least one survived, and also the white pedestal bowl for fancy serving.

… for the meat sale I managed to hit while I was “home” for Thanksgiving, so that I could pick up cases of chicken at unbelievable prices just before we hit the road to come north again. Which, incidentally, is when the box of glassware fell out of the vehicle, along with a lot of other things that were not secured because we needed a space in the back for the meat, and our leaning tower of baggage did not have structural integrity when the hatch was opened.

… for a sense of humor because when I came through the parking lot with the trolley of meat, I texted my son to open the back, he complied, and everything spilled out. The space behind our vehicle looked as if a gypsy caravan had disgorged its contents: suitcases, baskets of dress-ups that the girls had sneaked along, boots collected and thrust in at the last minute, and a bag of vintage fabric scraps spilling out. Also the box of glassware. And I stood there and giggled helplessly while I tried to assist my son who was grimly reloading and muttering under his breath about his sisters who cannot pack lightly.

… for a pressure canner so that I could make short work of processing a lot of chicken for quick meals this winter.

… for having found a kiln repairman not terribly far away who replies to my questions and plans to come as soon as possible to check out what is wrong with my kiln that it keeps giving me grief at extremely inopportune times.

… for having had a premonition to not take any custom pottery orders, because if I had, I would be stressing about the Christmas deadline.

… for try before you buy, and cyber shopping because shopping in department stores gives me the actual heebie jeebies on Black Friday. But when you need boots, you need boots, and the sales right now really are phenomenal. And when your child has no boots either, you need to figure out something before the snow flies. Also flannel sheets, because it’s coming, oh yes, it is!

… for the amazing resources we have to have comfort and cheer. I feel gratitude every time I pull on wool socks, don a colorful cable-knit sweater, wrap my hands around a hot mug, light a candle, or turn up the heat.

… for knowing people who look and sound like Jesus, and inspire me to become more like them. This week a friend I have known since I was a tot lost her mom in a shockingly sudden way. “Linda’s mom” is how I think of Iva, who was unfailingly glad to see me and catch up with me, “Linda’s friend.” I remember a time in childhood when we were at their house, and the adults seemed a little stressed, possibly about church issues or maybe a business problem. Iva was pulling an amazing concoction of graham crackers, butter, and brown sugar out of the oven when we got there. I kept running in and out of the kitchen to sneak more bars until my mom saw me and reproved me because I was being a piggy. Iva just laughed and took my relish as a compliment. The impression I got was that they were so easy to make that she would be honored to make another panful of bars if I ate them all. Her whole life was characterized by giving freely and it was because she loved the One Who freely gave to her. There was never a question about her motivation to love, and I am grateful to have known her.

… that our house is south-facing so that every time there is even a stray ray of sunshine in the wintertime, I am aware of it, and so are the plants that line the windowsills. Like right now when I am sitting in an armchair in a puddle of golden light.

… for hope, and for goodness that is given in so many perfect gifts from Above. Graces that surround me and mine, mercies new every morning. Yesterday when we were getting close to home, I saw the solid cloud cover up ahead, compliments of our Lake Erie weather system. I took a picture, and I asked the Lord, “What would You like to teach me about this?” You may wonder at His answer, but He said quite clearly, “It’s a blanket. You can get under it. It’s safe.” And so I say, “Thank You.”

Winterizing

October was a magical month, all but the week I spent either being sick or feebly trying to get strong again. That week did bear some fruit in the list I compiled of Things To Do Before Winter. It was long, detailed, and discouraging, according to my offspring. It also included something really fun that I have been hankering to do ever since we moved.

My view from the chair in the living room included this wall, with outlet covers, of course. I decided the time had come, and my eyes hurt too much to read or watch something, but they were fine for scrolling on Etsy. Gabriel was working, so I sent him screenshots of various wallpapers and we agreed on a whimsical one that was on sale. (Clinched the deal, that did. Have you looked at wallpaper prices since it has come trending back onto the scene? :O)

I admit, my choice was influenced by the colors and patterns that will spark joy in the dark of winter. However, it is just as I envisioned it with the antique sideboard I bought at Salvation Army and cleaned up with much sanding and washing. Comments have been varied and polite: One son walked right past after work and didn’t notice the wallpaper. The other son said it was nice, but might look dated in a few years. My husband and the girls are solid fans, so that’s a win.

I have a few observations about peel and stick wallpaper. I’ve hung murals before, and it wasn’t that bad, but this was a lot trickier. For starters, it was Very Sticky. Removeable, yes, but the first strip had to be pulled off and repositioned a few times to get the edges perfectly straight. It pulled a bit of paint off in the process, therefore we also had a few spots that were no longer sticky. Once that was up, it was easier, but the wall has a slight bulge in the middle, due to a cast iron plumbing pipe that the dry-waller had to bend his work around. The fourth strip was impossible. It matched on the top and on the bottom, but not in the middle where the bulge was, and there is no stretching or repositioning peel and stick. Olivia and I sweated it until we both were hot and bothered and needing chocolate to soothe our feelings of outrage. Unfortunately, the only chocolate in the house was a bent-and-dent store gamble, and it was white and crumbly. We had to soldier on without reinforcement, but we got it done. There were a few small bubbles that we just pricked with a pin and smoothed out. My conclusion: peel and stick is best saved for small spaces. I much prefer working with pasted wallpaper sheets that can be pushed and moved a bit on the wall as I apply it.

Was it worth it? Yes, it was.

The winterizing list included things like “dig the last potatoes”. Check. I had a row that I hilled in the traditional manner of gardeners, and the rest were Ruth Stout’s (tiny little lie alert) “no work” method of mulching. The idea was to see which method produced better/more potatoes. The mulched ones should have gotten more mulch, for sure, which may have produced better results, but the hilled ones were bigger and more plentiful, no question about it. So maybe next year I will try hilling first, then mulch so that we can avoid the weeds that were a problem this year. At any rate, this is the first time I have gotten bushels of potatoes for my efforts and I like the feeling. Do your worst, winter. We are set for carbs to stave off starvation.

Another project was cleaning up the leaves that didn’t fall for a long time due to a late frost. I lived in a shagbark hickory grove as a child, and I Know What I Know about raking leaves. Hickories are not heavy until they get wet. My children did not understand my urgency, but we did shifts with the leaf blower for hours. For days. Our trees are impressive and tall. Some of the leaves were chopped with the lawnmower and went on the garden. Some were blown into the edge of the woods where the multifloras hold them like a rounded caterpillar. Finally we just burned some. We also burned our hickory leaves when I was a child, and it brought back memories of pyrotechnics created with a metal rake dug into the burning pile, the last little smoldering nuts at the end. We finished up the bulk of the leaf cleanup on October 31, and the next day it snowed. Sometimes it feels so good to be right.

The biggest item on the winterizing list is ongoing. I took down the moveable electric chicken fence and scooped up the rich compost with the tractor bucket, spreading it on the garden. Then Gabriel began his work of cutting down the rotting cherry trees that leaned over the chicken yard and the privacy fence. Last year a huge tree fell onto the shop, bashing in the roof where Gregory’s forge is. It split off of a clump of trees and revealed that the entire interior was decayed and full of bugs. There are about five of these trees behind the shop, and they bother us with their air of disaster waiting to happen. One of them leans over the neighbor’s trailer, and we will need professional help with that one. The rest require skill and ingenuity to take down ourselves. Gabe is very good at felling trees, but I get nervous when I am the one asked to position the tractor bucket or tow a rope attached to the tree on one end and the Suburban with the other. It’s simple. No pressure, or anything. Just watch the branches and ease it forward when it starts to fall.

We have a humongous pile of firewood to burn in the fireplace, and a lot still to clean up. This spring we got a small DeWalt chainsaw that runs on a battery, and it is my pet. It cuts small limbs like a breeze and has made it so much easier for me to help with outdoor messes without yanking my shoulder out of the socket to start a saw. I helped cut up the trees, not paying attention to the vines that twined all the way to the top. The trees were covered in grape vines, but with the leaves off, I didn’t notice that some of the vines were hairy and lethal. It has been years since I had such a miserable case of poison ivy. Last night during cell group I had to keep excusing myself to go apply cortisone lotion. The alternative was to sit there and scratch shamelessly, which I couldn’t do.

We did fun things in October, too. We celebrated our twenty-second anniversary with a few days in a sweet cabin in a small town nearby. We have fought for our marriage in many ways over the years, not just fought against the marriage destroyers, but also for the marriage builders. It is possible to be twenty-two years in and enjoy each other more than ever. There have been times when anniversaries were a taking stock and feeling like we’re not getting the mileage out of our relationship that we want to, and the catching up is as painful as it is necessary. If we have learned anything, it is to keep short accounts. Life is just better when you have fun together, that’s what I say.

We celebrated Gregory’s nineteenth birthday and got the glad results of zero seizure activity on his most recent EEG. We surprised Gabriel’s dad for his sixty-fifth birthday and had a short time with loved ones. Alex was here twice on his way to and fro a harvest job in Wisconsin. Like my friend Tina says, “You just need to lay eyes on your adult children every once in a while.” The girls did first quarter exams and finished up their volleyball season. Olivia decided that she wants to learn about sourdough and produced a first loaf that was swoon-worthy. Occasionally we even took off and just soaked in the clear blue air, shuffling the leaves on the trail with our feet.

I did not get the whole house cleaned thoroughly, but that part of the list was a little far-fetched anyway. So, do you get winterizing urges? Or do you get to live somewhere without cold and dark?