Ordinary Time

Yesterday I finished reading the book You Can't Say You Can't Play by Vivian Gussin Paly. Now, if you are a long time reader her, that name should be a little familiar as I've been a fan of hers for a long time. If you are newer, you might have missed some of my previous posts. I wrote about her book The Boy Who Would be a Helicopter and The Girl with the Brown Crayon quite a few years ago.  What I love most about Ms. Gussin's work is the respect she shows children and her willingness to look carefully at her own actions, always questioning is this is the best way to teach children. This book is no different. The book starts out with a tumultuous feeling in her classroom that leaves her unsettled. As she thinks about what is happening she begins to wonder if every child feels truly welcome and accepted or are they merely visitors to the classroom community. She notices this most strongly when children (and it is more often then not the same children) are told they cann

Today was near fifty and sunny. It was beautiful! I was able to be out in just a sweatshirt and jeans. It was so wonderful to feel warm sun shining on me. So, I made use of the day by shoveling horse poop nearly the entire day. The dry lots are looking significantly better.  While I was out I realized that the three horses spent a lot of time just standing at the fence line, Emmy on one side, Bristol and Java on the other. They were hanging their heads over the fence and just being together. Now, at this point I should back up and say why they were in different pastures. When we got Emmy, she had been boarding with our vet. Emmy was not a team player and our vet spent too much time stitching up horses from too many fights that Emmy was a part of. This had been a long-standing problem and one we had been warned about. Emmy just didn't like other horses. Not wanting to need vet visits any more than necessary, we made sure to give them each their space. This worked well for the first

It is amazing the difference a little sunshine and (even slightly) warmer weather can make in ones outlook on life. Spring might just actually arrive someday. To that end, I decided that I really needed to do something about ordering seeds, so that is what I've been working on the past couple of days. The dire news I'd been hearing about seed supplies being low didn't seem to affect me, as I was able to get just about everything I wanted. I don't think I'm going to be growing as many different things this year, but will instead focus on growing more of the things we eat a lot of. I need to start thinking about getting things set-up to start seeds soon. A reader asked how our chickens and other birds were doing during the horrible cold spell. They are all fine. The chickens spent most of the time hanging about inside the coop, only coming out to get some food and water. We did put scratch down in the bottom of the coop to keep them occupied. The ducks and geese didn&

 Y. actually turned 14 last Sunday, but not everyone could be here until tonight, so that is when we celebrated. (That would be everyone but P., who was missed.) I love that everyone still is able to gather for as many birthdays as they can. We had a stir-fry with the left-over jiaozi from lunar new years, roasted green beans, and then apple pie for dessert. (This was the first pie I made with the caramel apple pie filling I canned last fall, and it was very good... and very easy. Opening a jar and dumping it into a pie crust is kind of nice.) Y. is actually a little more excited for tomorrow to come since that is when she can take out her earrings that she had her ears pierced with and start wearing different one. (Earrings, not ears.)  (Do you see Olive trying to help blow out the candles? She came with A. for the party.) Happy Birthday to my beautiful, smart, and caring child. I am so glad you are a part of our family!

Yesterday was wonderful. It was above forty degrees and sunny. It was wonderful to be outside again without having to wear five different layers. I took advantage of it to spend some time grooming horses and cleaning out the tack room. When is it a high of 6 for weeks on end, nothing gets put away, just thrown in the general direction of where it needs to go so you can get back inside as soon as possible. Things had becomes... not good. Here is my newly nice and tidy tack room. Everything thing is put back into the correct bin, garbage thrown out, and everything swept. I even got all my horse meds sorted into my new hard case (a Christmas gift) so that the mice wouldn't eat them.  The tack side. I still need some more saddle racks, but those have been in short supply during the pandemic. No, I realize that doesn't make any sense, but there you are. And some student art work hung on the wall. So that's the nice looking part of the post. Today, we were still above freezing, b

Some weeks I feel as though I have a lot of energy to do creative meals and other weeks, I don't. This was a don't week. There are a lot of old standbys here which don't take much work. I think everyone is feeling their emotional margin to be a bit slim at the moment. We are all tired of pandemics and social isolation. Coming up on the year anniversary means that many of us will feel a little bit on edge as our bodies remind us of the trauma of venturing into the unknown last year... sheltering at home, everything canceled, worrying about supplies, worrying if everyone would be okay, just worrying.  Be gentle to yourself. Free up your schedule as much as you can to give some space. Acknowledge that what you are feeling is real and valid; you are not imagining having your feelings all over the place. And realize that it will pass. Plan some easy non-nonsense meals for yourself and your family, too. Monday, Feb. 22 Biscuit and gravy casserole      This is one of those meals w

We've had a bit of snow here. Evidently, we've had more snow in the past couple of weeks than we usually get during an entire winter. And we're not done, because more snow came down this afternoon. How much snow? Well, let me show you. For this one, you're going to have to enlarge the picture to really appreciate it. If you look past Java towards the far fence, you will see drifts that are up to the middle rail of my 3-board fence.  Here, you can see how the chairs seem to have lost their legs and are sitting on the snow. And this is the pond. Somewhere. At least this is where we left it. I'm pretty sure I took a fourth photo, but beats me what my phone did with it. It was of my mounting block. My mounting block with three steps. The snow is up to the very top step which means it is not a terribly useful mounting block as it is the same as standing on the ground.  We are starting to wonder exactly how long it is going to take all this snow to melt and what kind of a

Since I was having a little pity party for myself yesterday, it seemed best to just avoid the computer. I'm feeling more balanced now and it seems safer to blog. Living during a pandemic can make you feel as if you have no friends. I'm an introvert, but I hate living in my little bubble never seeing anyone. It does make one wonder, "If I were to disappear would anyone even notice? Other than my immediate family, of course." So that pretty much sums up yesterday. Today was warmer and sunnier. We were invited to a sledding party to celebrate the birthdays of some friends and we all got to see people. My children played with other children for the first time in I don't know how long. For a few hours life seemed almost normal and it was good. I received my first Covid vaccine on Thursday. My arm was sore, but that was probably due more to being jabbed with a needle than anything. I'm not really looking forward to dose number two. But I am looking forward to having

I'm afraid that I have used my writing time for the evening doing some editing on an article that is going to appear sometime next month. This means you are get a photograph. I took this the other night. This is poor Kenzie not resting in his soft, squishy dog bed because Nefertiti is in it instead. He is such a gentleman, he won't kick the cat out, instead, he stands there staring at his bed with a pathetic expression hoping to guilt the cat into moving. The cat doesn't care. The cat likes the bed and stays there for as long as she jolly well pleases. Kenzie then eventually gives up and lies down near his bed. Since Nefertiti likes to roam the house at night, she doesn't stay there forever, just long enough to annoy the dog and establish herself at the top of the animal pecking order. Kenzie did eventually get his bed back.

Emmy grows a winter coat as if her ancestors were roaming the frozen Mongolian steppe rather than running around the hot Arabian desert. It is an extremely think and an extremely long coat. It is also extremely soft and feels very much like a minky blanket. Everyone who has ever petted her in her full winter glory just wants to bury as much of themselves as possible in her soft fuzziness. This is great until February. February is when she starts to blow her coat. It is a crazy time to start significant shedding because February is not typically a warm month, but I think she starts so early because in order to have a summer coat by the warm weather she has to start early. There is just so much hair.  Hair that comes out in great tufts if you are rubbing her. Hair that gets all over everything. At least with winter gear on, the outside is all nylon and her hair doesn't stick to it. I spend the month of March totally covered in Emmy's hair. Anyway, as I was looking at the amazing

I'm very much enjoying our week off of school. I'm not so sure the children are. I have been asked more than once what we will be doing tomorrow (or this morning or this afternoon). There have been a lot of children at loose ends. I haven't been doing too much of anything myself, and this is exactly what I've been enjoying. Sometimes we get so caught up in the productive, finish the to-do list mode, that we forget to just take a break now and then. I'm finding that I just need to rest, either just sitting doing nothing or some hand work that I enjoy, but that's about it. I might have thrown in a load of laundry, but even that hasn't taken much time.  R. has had a good few days and I think I just need to recover. For someone who really likes to have a list of things accomplished at the end of the day I'm remarkably okay with all of this. Resting just feels good... like I can start breathing again. The children in the background have managed to entertain t

We are still cold. (I know, most of you are, too.) I will be so happy to see a return of at least double-digit numbers. To be clear, that would be double-digit numbers with a positive sign in front of them in case the weather got any ideas about being tricky. Because it is so cold, even my riding lesson in the heated arena was cancelled today. On the plus side, this meant I could get to the grocery stores before winter storm number 389,209 hit this afternoon. You will see that this week's theme for meal was comfort food. Warm food. Food that would make you gain weight except that just breathing while being outside uses up huge amounts of calories, much less dragging around buckets of water, trying not to let the wheelbarrow full of muck fall on you because you accidentally fell off the packed snow path that was covered with drifted snow so you couldn't see where you are going, and mucking stalls. We are officially at the time in the winter season where I am absolutely convinced

We don't normally do very much, if anything, for Valentines' Day as a rule other than make cards for friends if we will be somewhere there will be an exchange. With Covid and the fact that my children go no where and see no one, I decided that making a bigger deal of minor holidays is needed. To that end, I had planned ahead and purchased the supplies to make hot chocolate bombs. My children adore hot chocolate in all it's forms, so this seemed like a treat.  Today I set myself up in the kitchen and made them. While they turned out well enough to eat and enjoy, there is a significant learning curve involved. I also way over bought the good chocolate bars I was using, so we have plenty to make many, many more. Here's how the initial batch turned out. This is the nicest one. As you can see, those in the back were not, um, perfect. The only thing I would change is the thickness of the chocolate shell. Next time, I will paint the chocolate on, chill it in the refrigerator f

Between R. having another rough day and the verdict on the impeachment, I feel totally dispirited. But different reasons, but it just didn't feel like an uplifting day. Since I had no margin to do much of anything and because J. had R. outside for a while while he was snow blowing the drive, I retreated to my studio for a bit. Because I find working at the spinning wheel to be profoundly soothing, that is what I'm going to write about. Perhaps you need to feel a little bit soothed as well.  My goal for the past couple of weeks had been to really get comfortable using my new wheel . (Well, new to me, my new wheel is actually older than my old wheel.) It felt like a steep learning curve at first. In general it is a much easier to wheel to use and doesn't fight you quite like my other one. It is easier, that is, once you get everything set correctly. There are several different ways to adjust it and that was what took some figuring out. My old wheel has very few ways to adjus

Happy Lunar New Year!! And welcome to the Year of the Ox (in China) and Water Buffalo (in Vietnam). I was on my game this year and we celebrated on the actual day. Having it fall on a Friday was certainly helpful. What Y. remembers most about celebrating the Spring Festival and what really make the holiday for her is making great piles of jiaozi (dumplings). So that's what we did. Eventually these three girls filled four baking sheets full. We ended up with enough for everyone to eat their fill plus some left over. These we will freeze and have with the dumpling stir-fry that Y. wants for her birthday later this month. We also had a lotus root stir-fry. All three girls love lotus root, and it is a comfort food for them. Have I mentioned how much I adore my new giant wok? I'm not quite sure how I cooked without it. I also found these adorable rice bowls. Everyone got the animal for the year they were born. Plus, I found some great Year of the Ox/Water Buffalo li xi envelopes. An