Ordinary Time

It's been an enjoyable weekend with decent weather and only a few things on the calendar. That is just about ideal to my way of thinking. Here are some highlights.  I did a little gardening. I've been trying to do a bit at regular intervals because if I try to think about doing everything it becomes overwhelming and I do nothing. Here is the gardened area. It could use some more perennials, but one step at a time. The low bar is for it to just not look abandoned. And here is what is left to do. It is a very long garden. L. is enjoying her summer job as a deck hand on the paddle wheeler on the Fox River. This morning most people got up early so I. could take them fishing.  The sheep have been earning their keep by trimming around the bases of the silver maples. If they were just a bit taller, they could have gotten all the poison ivy. The ducklings are nearly two weeks old and are significantly bigger. The wisteria we planted a few years ago is blooming. I can't tell you how...

Let's play a little game. But first a little background. A good friend of mine has been sharing her thoughts about what it is like to parent a medically complex child and the amount of advocating that is necessary to ensure decent care.  I was reminded that your average parent has no idea what is involved in raising children who don't fit the mold, either in terms of medical needs or neurodiversity or past trauma. It can be a lot. I will also remind everyone who has to deal with us, that we, warrior moms who stopped caring about what people thought of us years ago, are created by a medical system which is not always set up to help. It can be tiring to be the only one advocating for your child or for care providers to treat your child as a valuable human being. I would urge everyone of you reading to do your own advocating whenever you come across attitudes which convey the idea that any child (or adult) is less human than another. With that out of the way, let's play... Nev...

You all know that I dislike advertising and try to limit my exposure to it. I tend not to watch television which means I get to miss the ads which go along with it. In my social media I delete or block pretty much any sponsored item or promotion that comes across my feed. I listen to either the classical music station  or NPR, neither or which play a lot of advertisements. Probably the place I view the most advertisements is on the tollway along the stretch with the endless billboards. I really enjoy my lack of exposure to advertisements. Sometimes, though, I do catch something here or there which catches my eye and is where I'm leading with all of this. And I can't even tell you what the advertisement was for except that it was some sort of store because I clicked through to the block page before seeing the rest of the text. What I did see was, "Simplify your life, buy ___."  If this doesn't sum up our material age, I don't know what does. In my personal bubb...

K. has been taking a lot of photos recently. Here are some of his latest ones. 

One of the things we typically do when everyone is over is have epic badminton games. That would be epically hilarious as none of us are fantastic players. A really good volley is four consecutive hits that make it over the net.  Last summer, we realized that the state of the rackets and birdies were virtually non-usable. A. surprised us with a new badminton set and J. had also gone and picked up some more birdies. These things made playing a lot more enjoyable.  But as we were playing one last "game" this evening, we noticed that the birdies were shredding.  We decided it was time to get the other new birdies because we were well stocked. We don't know if those birdies will shred or not because we didn't use them long enough to find out. They were so light that when you hit them, they would go for a bit then looked as though they stalled out and then just drop to the ground. We went back to the shredded one because at least made it over the net. Hopefully glueing in ...

(All photo credits to K.) Duck is definitely one of the most adored animals here at the farm and her popularity has risen even higher after the events of last night. I've decided that everyone could stand to be a bit more like duck.  Duck is kind When Fluffy the Rooster took himself off to live alone in the barn, Duck would always come up to visit him. Sometimes a random hen would make the trip, but Duck was faithful with her visiting. (Sadly we lost Fluffy a few months ago.) Duck stands up for herself More than once someone has seen Duck grab Zorro (the rooster who is twice her size) by the neck and yank him out of the way when he tried to push by her. Duck doesn't put up with that. And really don't even think about taking the eggs she is sitting on. Duck doesn't put up with nonsense. Duck stands up for others Last night we are all convinced that she saved the young hen's life and probably all the other chickens' lives as well by holding the raccoon at bay unti...

If you are a long time reader, you are aware of out ongoing battle against the raccoons we inherited when we bought the Big Ugly House. It took years before we had finally managed to get the house raccoon-free.  We have been free of raccoons for many years now. It was lovely. Then a couple of weeks ago we started seeing raccoon evidence outside. This was not met with joy, I can tell you. Then, this morning, when I entered the kitchen to get the day's first cup of coffee, I found L. in the middle of making a hearty breakfast and looking as though she had been awake for a while.  This was because she had, in fact, been awake for a while. She had been awake since 5:00 am, when she was awakened by some very loud sounds from the chicken coop. Being a good chicken carer, she rushed outside grabbing a shovel on her way. The shovel was a good idea because when L. got to the coop, she discovered a raccoon INSIDE the coop. It escaped through the wire roof when it saw L. coming after it ...

When I'm talking with parents, I often urge them to try to use humor to lower the emotional temperature in their home. (To be clear, using humor that is just generally funny or self-deprecating to the parent is what I mean. Making fun of a child, especially one who is struggling, is never going to end well.) Humor can help make things less intense and take the edge off things. By using humor, we show our children that we aren't angry and the situation is much less dire than it could be. These are all great reasons to nurture your sense of humor. Imagine my excitement when I was reading a book about a totally different topic this afternoon and came across yet another reason to add the use of humor into your parenting (or relationship) toolbox... it helps create a sense of felt safety and connection. I know I am always nattering on about felt safety and connection, but the more I read, the more I parent, and the more I work with other parents, I become more and more convinced tha...

This is what I've been working on for the past couple of days and it's far more interesting than showing you a picture of my computer and telling you I spent the afternoon on Teams. (A new online  Certificate program in Equine Assisted Services began today, which I am co-facilitating.) This is the English paper piecing (EPP) project I have been working on. After fiddling with the placement for a few weeks, I finally had something I liked.  This is seven hundred hexagons. You can see it wasn't quite enough. I figured that would be the case, so I wasn't surprised. Here are the three fabrics I'll use for the last forty or so hexagons. In the meantime, though, I really need my studio table. I was also more than a little concerned that some animal or child would accidentally move them around. Today I spent labelling each hexagon with it's place in the design. (It's paper piecing so there are papers inside that I can write on.) I went by column, giving each colum...

As you pull into our driveway, the first sign you see is this. You'll notice that would be 'ducks' plural. But we haven't had more than one duck for several years. I love ducks and ducklings; I don't love brooding them. It's the biggest reason we have had just Duck for so long. L. promised she would be the one to take care of ducklings, so in February I ordered four Welsh Harlequin ducks.... three hens and a drake... with a hatch date of May 18. They have been eagerly anticipated. Yesterday I received the notice that they had hatched and shipped. All we had to do was wait for our post office to call and say they arrived. I don't like little baby ducks (or chicks) to have to live in their shipping box longer than necessary, so I was relieved when the post office called about noon to say they had arrived. L. and I immediately cashed out to collect them.  I'm always relieved when I peek in the box and see that everyone has survived.  Can you see the little ...