End of Summer

"Lord, it is time. The summer was very big. Lay thy shadow on the sundials, and on the meadows let the winds go loose. Command the last fruits that they shall be full; give them another two more southerly days, press them on to fulfillment and drive the last sweetness into the heavenly wine."
-Rainer Maria Rilke

Well, yesterday may have been the "unofficial" last day of summer but, in a year where summer was very un-summerlike...well, it's hard to make that call. Plus, we're still getting goods from our garden. Yes, the yellow squash is done, as is the corn and the beans. But our okra and tomatoes don't seem to know the meaning of slowing down. We even still find the occasional zucchini, hiding under its own giant leaves. In fact, I made a vegetable lasagna tonight that used zucchini in place of noodles. It was very good, by the way, and I'd be happy to share the recipe.

As I shared back in May, we were pretty late getting our seedlings into the ground so we are just now harvesting our cantaloupes and watermelons. Above you will see our first Moon & Stars melon. It is an heirloom seed and was very common here in the Missouri Ozarks back in the 1800's. It was decently good. It wasn't a deep red but it was very juicy and eatable. In fact, John cut it up and we all sat on the front porch, slurping juice and spitting seeds. Our cantaloupes, so far, have been good as well. They have only a hint of a rind, which makes for just that much more melon. Once we cut up one of these puppies, we pretty much eat it at every meal. Thankfully, cantaloupe is one of the few fruits that August will eat.

And the tomatoes... ah, the tomatoes. We somehow ended up with a ridiculous amount of cherry tomato plants, which has been a bit frustrating. We've made a few batches of sauce but we've basically frozen the rest. We figured, no sense heating up the kitchen now when we could do it in the cooler weather. But these tomatoes shown above are actually the volunteer plants that shot up late this spring. The previous owners had a few tomatoes planted along our house and a few of them were actually still producing tomatoes when we moved in last November! Many tomatoes, however, fell to the ground before we even showed up on the scene and from those seeds came the above tomatoes. And they are delicious! I made a grilled turkey, cheese and tomato sandwich on sourdough bread the other day and I do believe it was one of the best sandwiches that I ever did eat!

John has started some seedlings for a Fall garden, but I think it will be on a much smaller scale than the Summer garden. We've got a lot going on right now (he at work, me at home) and it seems right to rest a bit and regain some energy. It will be early Spring before we know it, anyway, and we'll start the whole cycle over again then.

Welcome!

I just wanted to take the opportunity to say "Hello!" to those of you that have begun to follow my blog on a regular basis. As much as I hate to admit it, I look at you all as my mini fan base, my groupies, my entourage, so to speak. Thank you for helping me grow a big ole head!

To my family and friends, thank you for your love and devotion. It is such a gift to be able to share my life with you and to know that, as much as is possible, you are still "right there". Leaving Atlanta and moving to a totally new city was a very difficult thing to do and it brings me so much peace and comfort to think that you get to stowaway on the journey with us. Please, continue to keep close.

And to those of you who have somehow stumbled upon this little speck of cyberspace, it is wonderful to have you. When I acquired my first unknown (to me, that is) "follower", I did take pause for a moment or two. I wondered if my writing voice would change or if I would start painting myself in a different light. But then I realized, I don't have time for the putting on of airs. It's hard enough to authentically share my life with you, let alone give my thoughts time to percolate in some hot house of chimeric ideas in order to create some phantasmic version of myself.

I'm afraid that all of you are only going to get plain ole me.

And, as always, I love to hear your comments. Please feel free to tell me what you think about what you see or read here.

Thanks again for reading.

"If the only prayer you said
in your whole life was,
'thank you,'
that would suffice."
--Meister Eckhart

Letterboxing

The boys, Beulah and I decided to go on another adventure today. Our purpose was multifaceted. The main goal was to enjoy, yet another, perfect weather day--the kind that gently heralds in Autumn. I am also trying to be creative about how to get the boys outside and moving. If I achieve that goal, then I also accomplish an exercise session with Beulah dog, which is vitally important. So I decided to try Letterboxing with the boys.

I had read about this activity before and thought that it sounded like the grandest fun. The best explanation for what it is comes from the description of the book The Letterboxer's Companion:
"Letterboxing is an intriguing mix of hiking, puzzle solving, treasure hunting, and rubber stamp artistry, topped off with the thrill of discovery."

Basically, people create boxes that hold inside a bound blank book of some sort and a rubber stamp and then they hide the box somewhere in the world. At the Letterboxing website, people post where they've hidden their box, along with directions on how to find it. Once you find the box, the idea is that you will take the stamp that is inside and use it to stamp your own book, showing that you found the box. Then, you are to take your own stamp that you've chosen to represent yourself or your family and you stamp it in the book within the box, recording that you, too, have found the box. Many people make their own stamps, which is so very cool. At the website, we clicked on Missouri and found locations within our county. All of them happened to be at the same park, but it is a BIG park with miles of trails that twist and turn throughout the woods, so there is still a sense of grand adventure.

I decided that we would try and find one of the five boxes, as I had no idea how difficult this would be or how long we would have to hike to find it. It turned out to be the perfect level of difficulty for my boys' first attempt. It was easy enough to find, yet provided a basic challenge in following directions. The above pictures show the tree, or crag as it was described in the directions, in which we found the box, the box hidden inside the tree, and then the book within that held the stamps of all those who had found the book before us.

We will definitely do this again. As I don't know how to carve my own stamp just yet, we'll probably just try to pick one out at the craft store. It might be neat for each of the boys to pick out one for themselves, as well as have their own books to be stamped. Then, whenever we travel somewhere, we could look up possible Letterbox locations in the area, and have a grand adventure somewhere else in the country.

Can you tell that I thought this was as much fun as the boys?

"I decided that adventure was the best way to learn..."

Lloyd Alexander

Climb a tree - it gets you closer to heaven.


~Author Unknown

Eat your heart out, Eric Carle!

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.
--Richard Buckminster Fuller

Well, we are doing a bang up job with this monarch fostering. We can almost see them growing right before our eyes. Each day, Aidan and I sit down with each of our four containers and make observations about what we see. I ask Aidan some questions about the caterpillars, like whether there is any difference in food consumption based on the size of the caterpillar or whether a bigger caterpillar poops more or less than a smaller one. Then, when he gathers his thoughts, he narrates back to me what I should record in our log. One fun aspect of this daily activity is the hands on measuring that Aidan has gotten to do. We take the caterpillars out of the container, in order to clean it, and while they are out, Aidan takes the opportunity to get out his ruler and, as accurately as possible, measure each one's length. We're not able to measure every single one, every day since some of them like to hang out on the side of the container and we don't like to disturb them. Plus, they are really hard to unstick, even if we wanted to. But, it's really exciting to be able to record their ridiculous growth.

Two wonderful bonuses from this experience (which was supposed to be merely for fun and enjoyment but has turned into so much more):
1) Aidan has learned, from having to measure accurately, how an inch is, most simply, divided into fourths. So, when something is two fourths, that is the same as one half.
and
2) By having to dictate to me what he wants me to write, he has to put his thoughts into complete sentences. In just one week of doing this, his "writing" skills have improved immensely.

This project has shown me that "science" doesn't have to be all big and complicated. Instead, it's actually the smaller, more intimate observations and discoveries that make a bigger impression and, magically, light the fire of curiosity even more.

Painted Rock

Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.
A.A. Milne

This is one of the many reasons that I love living in Missouri. Last week, the boys and I got a bee in our bonnet and decided to check out a nearby Conservation Area known as Painted Rock. It is a good chunk of acreage along the Osage River, with a very nice hiking trail just the right length for those with shorter legs.

It was an absolutely beautiful day. Cooler, Fall-ish temperatures, dappled sunlight streaming through the trees, a dog with boundless energy, and a view that was hard to beat. Glorious!

George and why he must now go

I can't believe that I'm having to tell you this. I never, in a million years, would have believed that it would come to this. But I'm afraid, dear readers, that the George that we grew to know and love has now become, well...how should I say it? Okay, mature, in a "manly" kind of way. He has reached his peak, if you know what I mean. And I'll tell you this, it is not pretty.

Just look at those eyes! You can tell just by the way he's looking at you. He's thinking, "I wonder how hard it would be to fly up on her back and peck the daylights out of her?"

I know, I know. I can't believe it either. But it happened. George has turned on us and I'm afraid there's no going back.

It began slowly and, ironically, it happened to John first. I went away for a weekend recently and so John was on chicken duty while I was gone. Well, John doesn't ordinarily spend a lot of time around the chickens, especially when it comes to giving them their bread and butter, so when he told me that George wasn't all that friendly to him, I kind of wasn't surprised. I mean, he was wondering where his sweet Holly mama was, the one who normally visits him twice a day to feed and water him. The one upon whose face he has looked and thought, "Are you my mother?" since the very beginning. I could understand that his feathers might be a bit ruffled at this "strange" man barging in on his yard.

Oh, and that's another thing. It really is His yard. It has been for quite awhile. While they were yet chicks, Aidan made that observation. "Mom," he said. "Obrahma will never be the head rooster."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because he's not aggressive enough. See, look at George. He has no problem pecking other chicks. If Obrahma won't peck, he can't be the head rooster. It will be George."

Truer words were never spoken! George is the head chicken. If only he was strutting around the chicken yard, led by his head. Unfortunately, he is now led by one thing, and one thing only. The pursuit of his lady friends. Or any lady friends, I discovered. I guess by nature of being female, I am looked upon as another possible conquest, despite my being 25 times bigger than he, and a HUMAN, thank you very much!!!!!

The other morning, armed with a cultivator, just in case, I opened up the chicken door to let out the chickens. As is my custom, I let down their door/ramp and then stand to the side to let them out. I usually stand there and watch them all come down, greeting each of them and telling them good morning. Well, once George emerged, he began his morning ritual of chasing down any chicken that tried to get food or water before him, or, so it seemed, any chicken that looked at him wrong. When he finished all of that running around he turned and saw me and, I suppose, realized that he hadn't chased me yet. I felt it before I experienced it. He was going to come at me. I held up the cultivator (like a hoe but with a forked end) so that it would be between me and George. That didn't seem to deter him a bit and he briskly walked over to me. I didn't want to wait and see what he would try so I kind of nudged him away with the cultivator. He nudged back. I nudged him again. He nudged me again, but this time it was a little stronger. I came back stronger.

(I must admit, that at this point, despite my growing hysteria, I did take a moment to note that the fact that his body was strong meant that he had a lot of muscle which meant that he would weigh a lot which meant he would make for a fine roaster in the oven. You think I'm kidding but I am totally serious. If this chicken was going to go down, at least he would make for good eating.)

He tried to dance around to an unguarded side of me. I danced along with him. He kept coming towards me. I kept pushing back. You get the idea. I didn't want to wait around to see how creative he was going to get. I just wanted to get out of there. I danced myself around so that I could slowly back up to the barn and escape through the door. As a last ditch effort to save my face (figuratively and literally), I turned and ran full throttle. I closed the door in his face and ran all the way to the house. That was not fun at all.

So, we've talked to the boys and they are okay with it. George will be butchered along with the other roosters. We always said that George and Obrahma would stay, but I'm even wavering on Obrahma now. What if, once George is out of the picture, he decides to man up and take over? I would be crushed. I used to think it would be nice to have a rooster around so that we could have more baby chicks in the future but, honestly, we've got way too many chickens and I need baby chicks like I need a hole in my head! Plus, the crowing, which August was so excited about, is not even a need. Our neighbor has a few roosters now and we can hear his plenty fine.

It will be awfully quiet around here, sans the roosters, but it will be a whole lot calmer as well. I like calm.