Ordinary Time

Fine Line Creative Arts Center has a new exhibit... On the Wing ... which opened tonight. J. and I had been feeling a little as though we needed to up our summer fun quotient, so we decided to have an early dinner (for us, we ate at 6:30) and take everyone to the opening. To add to the fun, we decided to stop by our local ice cream stand for dessert. I recommend the exhibit if you are in the area. It's all bird-related art and there are some really interesting pieces on display. Of course the ones I liked the best were also the ones that were most certainly not in our budget. It seems our family tends towards quirky, as it was the quirkier pieces that caught everyone's attention. I think this dodo was the hands-down favorite. Here are a few more. There was heavy lobbying to buy the penguins. I did love them. L. offered to make me my own set if I bought her a kiln and pottery wheel. Suddenly, the penguins seemed like a much better financial choice. We did not buy the penguins...

One of the things I took away from reading Braiding Sweetgrass was the idea that the natural world is full of gifts. Instead of something that we just take, it changes the relationship to see us living with other living beings who share their gifts with us. As things ripen outside our house, this idea becomes more and more tangible.  H. has been a mulberry picking machine.She loves to help and having defined tasks is perfect for her, so picking mulberries is right in her sweet spot. It's wonderful because the picking is often the one thing I don't have time to do. I have mentioned that we love mulberry syrup, and at the rate we're going, we will have syrup to enjoy when the snow is on the ground and mulberries are a long away dream. Today I canned 4+ more pints. (The plus is for what ended up in the refrigerator because I didn't have enough to make a full pint and thus couldn't process it. The jar in the refrigerator was very close to full, so it was actually close

I don't know about you, but I could use some far less serious and concerning things to think about right now, so it's good it's Monday. All of the serious and concerning things I don't want to have to think about could also be an explanation as to why I have so much spinning to show you this week. I find spinning to be incredibly calming, and you get cool yarn out of it to boot.  So let's start with the show and tell. First, the sock yarn I showed you last week. Nothing has changed except that I wound it into a skein in order to wash. Oh, and there is one teeny tiny skein you can see on the bottom. I had two bobbins with a little bit more yarn on them than the third, so couldn't use them to make a 3-ply. So, I decided to learn how to chain ply which is where you take a single yarn and then using loops and things turn that single into a 3-ply. It has been on my list of things to figure out, so that felt like a success this week.  Next I finished spinning two hug

I had mentioned yesterday that R. has had a rough several days. Last night and much of today were better, but she is still operating with very little margin it seems based on our little fun fest at dinner. Pre-dinner is always a little rough for her in general. She feels hungry which is definitely a trigger. We have been doing a lot of work on naming what she is feeling and practicing different coping mechanisms to manage the wait. Today was more of the same except that she was very unwilling to participate in doing any of our planned coping activities.  I'm writing this out because 1. I'm not a perfect parent and do make plenty of mistakes, and 2. Perhaps my mistakes of the repair of those mistakes will help someone else.  Let's return to back before dinner when R. wasn't accepting my help with feeling hungry before dinner because that is where I made my first mistake. When she wouldn't cooperate, instead of remaining calm, thinking about what she might need, and p

Given the state of the world... er, country... I can't use the word 'bullets' anymore for these weekly updates, so I'm changing the name. They'll probably still be on Friday, but because yesterday was horrendous, I posted about other things. So here we are. I picked my first cucumber from our garden this year. It is a good thing the cucumber plants seem to be productive because we are pretty much out of all canned pickles right now. I canned 3+ pints of mulberry jam the other day and have started on another batch which will probably make about the same amount. There are still a lot of mulberries on the trees that have yet to ripen. I always forget how long the mulberry season actually is. I picked up the bulk order today. It was amazingly small considering what it usually consists of. Given the price of gas these days, I think I need to rethink what the tipping point is for when it is worth ordering versus how far it is to drive to pick it up. I'm pretty sure to

There is so much that could be said about the events of today, but writing is strongest when the topic is narrow, so I'll stick with the narrow for the evening.  More than one post caught me eye this morning celebrating the decision and then announcing in some way or form that now the church needed to rise up and take care of the children. While there was always the added 'and those in foster care', the tacit implication was loud and clear. There will now be many children born who cannot be raised by their birth mothers, so make sure you, Church, are ready to stand in the gap.  I find this disgusting. Let me count the ways. 1. This implies that the Church only now has a duty to widows and orphans. Now that they have legislated draconian measures without any added supports to women before they are charged with murder. Um, this is call to aid the widows and orphans in their distress hardly a new expectation (and I might add, it doesn't say to create widows in distress, ei

Every year for her birthday, the woman who run Felines and Canines asks for photos of all the animals that have found homes through them. As I was looking through my photos, I realized we didn't have a recent one of Kenzie. J. got some good ones on a walk this evening. When Kenzie joined us in 2016 , his age was estimated to be around two. We have no idea if that is correct or not,but I suspect he was actually closer to four or five. When you add six years onto that it makes him ten or eleven with a good chance that he is a little older. Kenzie is a good dog, but has always been on the anxious side. Age (and living with more puppies than he really enjoyed) has just exacerbated his anxiety. He is now on a daily dose of Trazadone which has helped immensely.  We knew he was much grayer than he was, but it wasn't until I looked at that old post I linked to that I realized exactly how much grayer he is.  Kenzie still loves to go on walks, especially if is in the forest preserve whe

Yesterday was D.'s 19th birthday, today is J.'s birthday, and tomorrow is our 31st anniversary. It's a busy three days. There is also another layer on these three days which hadn't been there originally. Five years ago on D.'s birthday the movers came and took away all the furniture and boxes from the Big Ugly House. Fiver years ago today, we did the final cleaning and crammed as much as we could possibly cram into our two vehicles, and locked the door to the Big Ugly House for the final time. Five years ago tomorrow we sat in our hotel room waiting for the phone call that would tell us that we officially closed on the sale of the Big Ugly House and the afternoon would involve closing on our new house.  I've been thinking about that transition a lot over the past couple of days. I've also been thinking about the ensuing five years. There was so much of it that was hard while there were also parts of it that were good. Having a pandemic in the middle didn'

Hey, I'm on the correct day this week! Yay me! Parts of the week felt very busy, but I did get some time in the studio where I was able to finish spinning the singles for the sock yarn I've been working on. Today I started plying it. I'm probably 3/4 of the way done. Here is what it looks like on the niddy-noddy. (I still need to tie it together and give it a good wash, but I'll probably wait to wash it when I have it all plied.) Remember, this is the what started as raw  CVM sheep fleece which was a Christmas gift from B. This is my first time making yarn starting from scratch. (Well, truly starting from scratch would involve owning sheep. Since we don't, I'll have to be content with this.) Because the yarn is such a dark brown, it's difficult to really see what is going on. Here's a better photo. This lets you see the individual strands of yarn a bit better. My spinning is getting a little more consistent, I'm happy to see. This is a 3-ply yarn whi

This evening was our big June birthday bash/Father's Day celebration. For as long as I can remember, we have had strawberry pie for June birthday desserts. This was one of two. (This is an excellent pie. Click the link above if you've never made it before. Plus, it's also easy.) Making two strawberry pies this afternoon took care of one of those buckets of strawberries which was another plus. They are very ripe and if we don't use them immediately they will be past their prime.  Yesterday I spent all afternoon canning strawberry jam. I ended up with eight pints plus a little extra which went into the refrigerator. It's not necessarily a long process but the jam and the pie both took longer than I expected. I realized it all comes down to the size of the berries. Some of the berries were small. Some, depending on the child picking, were very small. So instead of coring nice big berries which would be done very quickly, I was coring very small berries which takes sig

Today we decided to make the spontaneous decision to go strawberry picking. We didn't get to go last summer and it had been two years since I had made any strawberry jam. The weather was good, was not swelteringly hot, and the berries were ripe.  H. was a hard worker and picked a lot of berries. Don't let those two full buckets fool you, some people were not enthused about picking strawberries.  We ended up with 16 quarts. Less than we have picked in the past, but then we have fewer people both picking and eating these days.  The other exciting event that happened today was that the giant baby ducks have been here a week. It also means that the birds have been stuck in the coop for a week as the new birds acclimatized. Today we could finally let them all out again. The giant baby ducks were not entirely sure but eventually left the pen and did a little exploring. They are starting to hang with the other ducks a little bit. Here you can see exactly how much bigger the giant baby

So there's this actor who seems to have lost his mind as so many have over the past two years or so, and he has made a movie. It's a movie about homeschooling. Now, you all know that I am a huge advocate of homeschooling, but I won't be watching this movie. There are a couple of reasons for this.  First, since this fall will be my 26th year of homeschooling, I'm pretty sure that there is nothing this particular movie can teach me. This isn't meant to be anything but a mere statement of fact. I just don't need it. That alone wouldn't be reason enough for me to write about it. There are plenty of homeschooling resources out that which aren't aimed at me and that is just fine. I don't need them, other people find them helpful, and life goes on. If this were just a nice movie about the benefits of homeschooling this would certainly fall into that category. But it isn't. Well, maybe the movie itself is; I'll never know because I made it (barely) t

Instead of waiting until Sunday when we will celebrate all the June birthdays as a group, G. and L. decided they wanted dessert and presents on the actual day. So that's what we did. (Today is also B.'s birthday, but we'll celebrate that on Sunday when he is here.) Because it is stinking hot today, G. and L. chose one of our family's favorite cold salads. It's pasta with cooked chicken, dried cherries, slivered almonds, a little onion, celery (or, if you forget to buy celery you use cucumber), with a dressing. It is very good. For dessert they stuck with a cold theme and had ice cream in waffle cones. Well, they were actually waffle bowls so that it was easier to put toppings on. Both of them have received a couple of early birthday gifts, so it was a modest gift opening this evening.  G. received a necklace from Grammy. And I knew the hoodie would be extremely popular, since G. pretty much lives in them. I think I was right. L. received a case for her Switch from G

Today has been Monday all day and I don't know why. I'm not sure what yesterday was supposed to be. So just to confuse me completely, I'll do a Monday post on the day that is not Monday. Plus, I think we all need something a little lighter for a bit, don't you think? I finished weaving the project I had on my floor loom on my birthday, then took the rest of the week getting it washed and trimmed and pressed. Here is the final project. This is the gamp portion. (Do you have any idea how difficult it is to take a picture up close of something very long?) This is about 14 inches wide and over a yard long. Here is a close-up where you can see some of the patterns better. I'm very happy with how it turned out. I showed it to one of my weaving teachers over the weekend and she thought it was well done which made me pleased. I'm going to be hanging this in my studio where I can both see it and use it as a reference for twill patterns.  Then since I had warp still on th

  This post is really not about Delta the guinea pig. This is merely a photo that will show up on the FB link because it always takes the top picture. Plus, who doesn't love a cute little guinea pig? I put this photo here because while I'm going to write about the next photo, I don't want it showing up where it can be seen far and wide. You'll understand why in a minute... or you'll understand immediately. It all depends on a variety of factors.  So let's talk about this for a moment, shall we? I've now seen this in several places today. The first time I kind of scrolled on by, but as I paid more attention, I became more upset by it, and here we are. I'll begin with a connected comment. I understand the desire behind this (sort of). Parents want to protect their children believing that there are things children should not have to deal with until they are older. I understand the concept in the abstract; in the personal, I find it much more difficult maint