Ordinary Time

Because we are now learning about Tudor England in history, I have asked everyone to read at least parts of Utopia by Thomas More. Earlier today, Y. comes stomping into my bedroom where I am working at my desk to complain about Thomas More and his supposed perfect society. She has a bone or two to pick with him.  This evening while we were fixing dinner, J. was continuing the discussion offering different ways that Utopia can be interpreted. Nope, Y. was giving no quarter and proceeded to list all the ways he was wrong.  She may not like or appreciate the book, but I bet it stays with her. 

Today was warm. Warm as in we opened up the windows and I contemplated changing into a short sleeved shirt. It's still February, mind you, historically my least favorite month of the year because of the unrelenting cold weather.  Late this afternoon a storm started rolling in. It was totally dark by 5:40 because of the heavy clouds. When I went to feed horses about the same time, it was just starting to rain lightly. Further west, where TM lives and J. works there was some significant hail. But ever the photographer, TM braved the falling balls of ice for a good photo. By 6:30 I was keeping the live weather forecast on my phone because of the number of tornado sightings. It was a rather stressful forty minutes as we kept track of where tornados were. One did pass about three miles south of us. Poor Kenzie spent the storm sheltering in the downstairs bathroom, which he does whenever a storm passes through.  I'm sure he didn't think it was the optimum way of celebrating his r...

Over the weekend I decided I wanted to spin something pretty, so I dug through my fiber stash and pulled out a couple of merino/silk dyed braids that I got a while back. I didn't really have a plan for them, so was a bit unsure what kind of yarn I wanted to spin. This particular fiber seemed to want to spin on the fine side, so I decided to do that. I could always make it a bit thicker by playing.  As I was spinning, I realized that the color of the braid was reminding me of some yarn I picked up at a thrift store several years ago. There was a lot of it, and I thought it might make a decent warp for... something. It was fairly thin and had a soft drape to it.  This is where the rather outlandish idea began. What if I used the thrift store yarn for the warp and kept my new project as singles and used them for weft. They were about the sand diameter as I was spinning, so it could make a lovely twill fabric.  I have a lot of the yarn and I have eight ounces of the fiber (wh...

This could be brief as I don't think there was all that much that happened this week. J. and I went out for two Saturdays in a row which is pretty unheard of around here. Last week we went out to dinner just ourselves as we couldn't remember the last time we had done that. Last night we met our very good friends the P. Family mom and dad because it had been far too long since we had seen them. Some children think it is a bit profligate of us to go out two weeks in a row. We have been living pretty frugally since the new year (our two nights out not withstanding) because we have had several large bills which we are working on getting paid off. But I did splurge on one thing ... a laundry sorter.  This falls under the heading of why didn't I do this sooner? I'd been using baskets to sort laundry, but they take up a lot of floor room in an area that doesn't have a lot of floor room. I had a similar sorter in the old house, but it was made of PVC pipe and would always b...

It's that time of year when you start seeing eggs baby chicks. We're no exception here. I asked L. to take the eggs baby chicks out so they could get some exercise, so she took some pictures of them while they were enjoying the sunny weather.  Want to see? Just enjoying the view. Admiring the tulips that are beginning to come up. The chicks' first snow. Sitting under a tree. Now a little biology lesson. All these chicks eggs chicks are fertilized. How do I know? We have two roosters. They take their job very, very seriously. I assure you, they are fertilized. And, yes, all the eggs we eat are also fertilized, while the eggs you buy in the store are not. (Yes, I realize sometimes you can find fertilized eggs in the grocery store, but they are labeled as such.) This sometimes confuses people, so I often find myself giving chicken biology lessons. Hens lay eggs regardless of their fertilization status. A hen will lay whether there is a rooster around or not. For fertilized...

I was at a memorial service this evening, so will save the weekly update for later. But I know people are wondering about the pony.  I think she is slowly improving. That would be an emphasis on slowly. She is up on her feet more, they seem to be a little less sore, and she's eating more. That's all good news. But, she still has enough times when I look at her and wonder if she is actually getting better. I wouldn't call her out of the woods yet. She has been showing a little more interest in life, though, and will nicker at us when we come to pass out more hay.  I wish I had a functioning crystal ball, because if I knew she would get better, I'd give her as much recovery time as she needs. But if she can't beat this, then it doesn't seem fair to ask her to keep going. The short answer continues to be that I just don't really know how she's doing.  Here she is from a couple of days ago trying her darndest to get Java's unsoaked hay from under the sta...

Co-op days take it out of me, leaving little energy to cone up with something to write. Instead, enjoy the picture I took this evening when I went out to feed the horses. And looking the other direction. I love the pink clouds in the blue sky.

Today is Y.'s 17th birthday, if you can believe it. I'm not sure I can. She chose dumpling stir fry for her birthday dinner and apple pie for the dessert.  Before we could celebrate, though, we first all headed down to the library because we had an appointment to get K.'s, Y.'s, G.'s, and L.'s passports applied for. I hate letting those Certificate of Citizenship documents out of my possession and will rest easier when they are returned.  An hour later, we made it home and started the celebration.  The candles are a '1' and a '7' if you can't tell. Our '1' candle has seen a lot of use over the past eight years and is looking a bit short. Because L. Y. loved birds and was thrilled to get a 750+ page book all about them.  And a really cool crochet book from Grammy. Happy Birthday, Y.! We love you!!

Today I finished co-teaching a training module on working with young people in the Equine Assisted Activities realm for Athena Herd Foundation . As I was reviewing the material for today's session, I realized that two of the videos we had assigned the group are actually pertinent to my post from Sunday . I think they are also just really useful for parents or anyone who works with children and young people. They don't take long and are well worth your time.  One of the main takeaways is that adults working with children need to know their own bodily states so that they can create safety for the children around them. One reason I am excited by Equine Assisted Learning is that it is a valuable tool for gaining that self awareness. If you want to be a better parent, spending time with horses via Equine Assisted Learning is a very effective way to reach that goal. Bittersweet Farm LLC 

I think I need to put on longer warps. I adore the actual weaving part of weaving, so once I have a warp ready to go I tend to finish projects fairly quickly.  Here is the scarf all finished. It's pretty close to how I imagined it would look. That twisted fringe took me the better part of Sunday afternoon to do.  And a slightly closer shot. And another close up because it's difficult to get a good photo of it. And on the dress form to give you a sense of length and width. The project I need to work on right now is doing some more weavings on my pin looms. I'm going to be visiting my mom in March. When I was there last, we had visited a local yarn shop that I like. One of the owners had shown me an amazing shawl she had made with pin loom weavings connected with free form knitting and crochet. I've been obsessing a bit about it ever since. On a whim, I emailed asking if I could take a private lead to learn how to make one. I was thrilled when she was free on the day I wa...

[This is a post where I might alienate some people. Just a heads-up.] I've been stewing over this post for several days now. Sometimes I come across things in relation to helping struggling parents, particularly those with adopted children, that have some surface things that sound okay, but there are some real problems underneath. In this one instance in particular, I even took it to my fellow parenting experts who help with the large Parenting With Connection FB group because I wanted to be sure it wasn't sour grapes on my part. I don't feel in competition with other parenting coaches, but I am also a flawed human. They all confirmed my own concerns.  What concerns me the most is that I firmly believe that there are some things that may seem to help a family in the short term, but could do untold damage in the long term. Creating connection and felt safety take time. Healing from past hurt takes time. There aren't really quick and easy fixes here, especially if the hur...

There's not really much to write from the week. The week started, I got sick, did nothing for several days, and now I feel better. It's not terribly exciting. We did actually get some schoolwork done today, catching up on the biology we didn't do earlier in the week.  We were learning about the phylum mollusca. In one of those rare serendipitous moments I realized we were having scallops for dinner. I love it when things connect.  If you're now curious, the recipe was "Seared lime scallops served over sauteed spinach with candied walnuts" out The Whole Foods Market cookbook I found on the library sale table a while back. It sounds very goofy, doesn't it?  I get bored with the same dinners, so we'll try one or two new recipes a week on average. H. often asks, "Have we had this before?" I wasn't entirely sure it would be popular, but that doesn't stop me from putting things on the menu. Only one child did not care for the scallops and I...

Yesterday I felt well enough to not sleep all day, but definitely didn't have much energy to do anymore than the absolute necessities. Which is why I found myself reading for three hours in the afternoon. (I'm 100% sure it contributed to my full recovery today.)  Those three hours allowed me to finish Babel by R.F. Kuang. This is one of those books that I'm glad I have read, but equally glad to be done reading it. It is not a happy book. (Which is probably why it took me over a week to read.) It is incredibly well written and by the second half the story is compelling.  A brief synopsis. This is speculative fiction, so the story is set in Victorian England in Oxford, but a Victorian Oxford where the burgeoning industrial revolution is powered by silver instead of steam and machines. The silver bars create a kind of magical power if two words (match pairs) are engraved on them. The two words need to be from two different languages and it is the combination of deeper meaning ...

We don't do a whole lot for Valentine's Day as a rule. Some years I may get everyone a small treat, but not always. J. and I pretty much ignore it between ourselves. It's kind of a non-holiday holiday for us.  But H. has been working diligently on something for about a week now. I had no idea what she was up to, but at one point she needed J.'s help on her special project (her term).  Well, this morning she presented me with this. It hangs, though I didn't get a photo of the bolt it's hanging from. That was the bit she had needed help with.  It has three dimensional hearts and beads. And I love had she made the circle of hearts curved downwards. I was kind of gobsmacked by it. She planned and made this all on her own over the course of many days. I love watching the artist inside her bloom. It is quite possibly one of the nicest Valentine's Day gifts I have ever received. 

And yet, I did. After spending much of the day sleeping, I'm beginning to feel a bit better, so I'm hoping that after a good night's sleep tonight I should be back to functioning tomorrow. Today, though, I had people who made me tea, cleaned the barn and fed horses, moved laundry, made dinner, and generally occupied themselves. It is restful to not have to wonder what chaos is lurking outside your bedroom. 

I haven't had a chance to weave since before Christmas. I had ordered the pieces that I needed to get the last six shafts on my loom working, so had put on a short warp to work on while I waited for everything to arrive. When I went to tie up the loom for the project I realized that I couldn't. Tying up is the process of connecting certain shafts to certain treadles. I hadn't really realized that thus pattern required more treadle hooks than I actually had. So instead of weaving, I added a bunch of treadle hooks to my order.  So I waited. And waited. And waited some more. No package. Finally last week I emailed wondering when my order might ship. Well, not until the steel order that they had made arrived so they could make my heddle bars. Who knows when they will be made and then ship? But they did send the rest of my order which arrived late last week. The long awaited treadle hooks. I could actually do something with the warp on my loom, which I did. This is a scarf in ho...

A friend asked about how to go about involving young children in cooking, and when I started to answer, I realized that I had a lot more to say than just a FB comment. And since Y. made some absolutely delicious steamed buns for Chinese New Year that I wanted to share with you, this seemed like a good time to write a longer post about children and cooking   First the baozi (or banh bao, we use the terms fairly interchangeably.) There were four steamer trays full, plus three more that didn't fit. It's rare that we have enough steamed buns to satisfy everyone. My only contribution was getting down a pan and answering a question about which tool to use for one step.  Now onto children cooking. I'll start with what I wrote in my comment and then continue. For really young ones I stick to things that have limited mess potential.. ripping lettuce, kneading a little bit of dough, slicing soft fruit such as bananas with a dull knife, etc. The trick is to find small tasks to occu...

Tomorrow is Tet and Chinese New Year. We have done some decorating and Y. is all set to spend the afternoon making baozi/banh bao for part of our dinner. We'll also be having cucumber salad and lemongrass chicken stir-fry, so definitely a Chinese-Vietnamese combination.  When I was at the Chinese market earlier this week, G. was excited to see kimchee for sale, mentioning a desire to try some. So I bought a small jar. G., L , and Y. have been enjoying it very much and the small jar is not going to last very long. A storm blew through yesterday and the sky was definitely dramatic.  We have moved on to Tudor England in history. Due to the musical, Six, my children know far more about Henry VIII's wives than I did at that age.  It has felt like a busy week this past week, but I don't know with what. I do know that the laundry is pretty out of control and that I will be spending a bit of time dealing with it tomorrow.  We started back to our co-op yesterday after our Jan...

This is my public service announcement that it really is worth your while (and dealing with the inevitable mess) to teach your children to cook and to bake. I'm talking from an early age here. Because if you do this, then when you ask your fourteen year old if they are interested in trying a garlic naan recipe for dinner, there is a good chance they will say yes. And then they will figure out the recipe and you can enjoy homemade naan for dinner.  These were made by G., and this is what was left. They are very, very good and were a fraction of the cost it would have been to buy this much at the store.  ____ Vienna is still hanging in there. She lays down a lot and just when I think that this may be the end, the next time I go out to check on her, she is standing up and trying to get into places she shouldn't. So I have no idea what we should expect prognosis-wise. I do know it feels a bit exhausting. 

So it seems yesterday was Monday and when I didn't think I had anything to write, I could have shown the one and only thing I have worked on. Because I still don't have anything to write about, I'll show it to you even if it is Tuesday.  I have been knitting a hat for myself out of that yarn I spun from the batt I had made.  I really like how the increases look. Clearly, I have zero bandwidth for anything non-pony related, so this has been perfect. I had only a few increase rows left and am now on the part where I just knit 18 inches, going around and around and around. There is absolutely nothing that I need to count or think about. It's the perfect project for my current mental state.  If you're curious, this is the Musselburgh pattern by Ysolda Teague. There are a couple of things I really like about it. First, it's written for a lot of different gauges. You knit the first bit with the yarn and needles you want to use and then find your gauge. It makes the wh...

Vienna continues to hang in there. We are doing our best to keep her comfortable, but despite all of our best efforts, there has really not been significant improvement. I have a bad feeling that a major decision will have to be made at some point this week.  But life goes on for other family members, and I'm trying not to wallow. After what felt like a month of clouds, seeing the sun was most welcome.  Nefertiti always wants to go outside, but due to the high volume of coyotes, this just isn't a possibility. That is unless someone is willing to wrestle her into her harness, which is what Y. did. Neffie hates the harness right up until the second when she realizes she is allowed to walk out the door, then she's all for it. The chickens don't mind Kenzie at all, but they were not fans of a cat outside the pen.  There was some bike riding. And K. spent some time out with Vienna and got some pictures. She is looking a little less unhappy in this one.