On This Miraculous Planet, On Real Food, On Union with all that is
When we first settled in our home I wrote a small series entitled “Farm Beginnings.” Having been informed very kindly by a farmer that we have a homestead not a farm – I am entitling this Homesteading middles.
My father, when he was alive, loved to do silly poems. Ahem:
Homesteading middles
Rhymes with giggles
Read MoreDearest Beloveds,
About two weeks ago your father and I started noticing this conversation happening. One of us would be washing dishes/feeding the dog/chopping vegetables/putting on socks/etc.
“Momma/Dada! Where are my socks/hat/shoes/big boots/bathing suit/goggles/etc.”
“I will be right there. Give me a second to finish up and I will help you.”
A small pause.
“It has been a second. WHERE are you?!! I can’t hear you moving!”
Read MoreDearest Beloveds,
This morning I was reading to you a variation of the Twelve Iron Sandals - except for this time the enchanted prince was a pig not a dragon. (I prefer the dragon, for obvious reasons.) The last paragraph of the story included this sentence, “And they ruled as only kings can rule who have suffered many things and through their suffering, becoming loving and wise.”
It reminded me of this quote from Resmaa Menakem’s latest blog piece, “When White Bodies Say: Tell Me What To Do.”
Read MoreDearest Beloveds,
When we lived in Michigan I thought the 5 pound boxes of blueberries one could purchase were obscenely amazing. I would eat blueberries for a week straight, until my tooth enamel yelled at me to stop (too much acidity).
Now we live in New York, with pick your own berry farms surrounding us and I realize that obscene is not the word. The words are glory, bounty, lavishness, profusion, cornucopia, richness, or abundance.
Read MoreWhen my father died, everyone told me (those who have lost a parent), several things with much repetition on certain themes. The first year is the hardest. Grief comes in waves. Sadness will hit you out of the blue and take your breath away. Losing a parent sucks and your life will never be the same again. I was told I am lucky to have adored my father and that he was a good man.
So far so good on all of those.
Read MoreGood morning my Beloveds,
Before I launch into what I want to talk to you about today… I want to bring up something that happened last night to the Bean. Bean, you dropped a water bottle on your toe and nearly sheared off your toenail. In the bath, your father was telling you that he needed to pull off the remaining nail so that your toe wouldn’t get infected. You were not happy about this idea and tears were falling fast.
The Dragon asks me. “What happens if your toe gets infected?”
“Well, worse case scenario, they would have to cut off your toe.”
Dragon, you pause, contemplate this exaggeration and then shift the interchange to awesome.
“With a chainsaw?”
Read MoreDearest Beloveds,
I am not sure if this should be spelled depodding, or depoding (rhymes with coding), so I am going to embrace the over utilization of the dash and go with de-pod-ing. (Un-pod-ing sounds even weirder).
De-pod-ing (verb) - to de-pod The act of untangling the psychological, physical, and emotional rules/barriers/mandates that have been in place since March 2020 per Covid-19.
Read MoreDearest Beloveds,
There are times when I think about the lessons your father and I are trying to teach you and I feel proud. To look in someone’s eye when they talk to you, to not give up before you try, to share our allowance with others who have less, why we turn the lights/fan off when we leave a room, how to take turns, why it is important to eat salad etc etc.
Other times I am not so proud - this morning was one of those times.
Read MoreDearest Beloveds,
The subject of this letter was in my original outline that I wrote before Baba died but the sentence sounds better with a double barrel as opposed to just Meme, so there we are.
Meme lives with us because when your Momma was in my early twenties I helped Meme put Grandma (her mother) into a series of assistant living and nursing homes.
Read MoreDearest Beloveds,
It has been a while since I wrote because we have been all over the place in terms of doings. Our RV trip to NM, your Dad taking off time for us to split wood, our first trip on an airplane in 2 years… the past two months seem to have flown by.
And here we are, the glory of spring has passed and it is now summer weather.
Read MoreDearest Beloveds,
When I was growing up I had an anatomy book in which I obsessively reread the reproductive pages. Having a sister, I don’t know if I was obsessed to see the rendering of the male genitalia (so OUT there compared to my discreet slits) or it was seeing the pictures of the tadpole sperm encircle the egg so fanatically.
The book was very good on XY chromosomes but skipped over the mechanics.
Read MoreDearest Beloveds,
I know I need to focus and go back to the outline I made of what I wanted to cover for you two in these letters, but I feel this is super awesome and I don’t want to miss this.
There are three games we are currently playing at dinner: I Spy, Animal Vegetable Mineral, and Guess the Number - each with their own vagaries, shall we say. I Spy is fairly straightforward.
Dragon, “I spy with my little eye something yellow.” Then we all guess and can usually figure it out fairly quickly.
Animal, Vegetable, Mineral involves partners because sometimes the items can be tricky.
Bean and I will drum on the table and sing while the Dragon whispers his to Dada.
Bean, “Animal, Vegetable, Mineral.”
Dragon, “Animal”
Bean, “Do we eat it?”
Dragon, “No”
Bean, “Does it have four legs or two?”
The Dragon will look at Dada in confusion. Dada, “I think four legs.”
Dragon, “It has wings and drinks blood.” (Darling, for some reason, after more than 2 or 3 questions, you always jump in with a huge hint.)
The Bean smiles hugely, “Is it a mosquito?”
Dragon, “YES! A squito!”
The Guess the Number game has changed the most since we started playing it a few months ago. It used to be that one player would have a number in their head between 0-20 and the other players would guess. The player with the number would say higher or lower and eventually the number would be revealed. Bean, with your math learnings, you have changed the whole equation.
First, you share the new rules, “Okay, so come up with a number between 0-50. Momma, do you have one?”
“Yes.”
“Is it an odd number?”
“Yes.”
“Does it have a 4 in it?”
“Yes.”
“Is it 41?” I nod no. “43?” I nod no. Your voice and face get more and more animated as you circle round the number and hone in on what it could be. “45?”
“YES! You did it! That is amazing! I love how you honed in on that so rapidly by using your noggin. Such good noggin work!”
It is incredibly impressive Bean to watch you use your math prowess to approach the numbers game in such a new way. I can see your neurons firing so bright and that is awesome.
This snapshot of our current life, so grateful I am for you both. Thank you for being my beloveds.
My life vision is to love, be curious, identify my Cranky Monster, and be brave enough to speak from and for The Good.
Click here for more about me.
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