Spring Dreams

I love spring. Everything is green and bursting with floral decadence.

Sometimes, when I'm in my yard admiring what few flowers I am blessed with and thanking the Lord for a reprieve from the cold misery of the last six months, and I look around in just such a way, at just such an angle...


...I can almost imagine that my gardens might look more like a beautiful, manicured court-yard garden...




Just like that, I am strolling through in glorious sunshine, admiring the fresh spring blooms.







Then I catch myself and run back inside to don a lovely, ephemeral and high-waisted number like this:



Thus properly attired, I return to my reverie.





As I stoop to inhale the perfume of some heavily scented lilacs...


...I happen to glance from the corner of my eye and see a person in the distance.

My heart catches in my throat...

Can it be? Is it really him?

Why... yes...

I quickly smooth my dress and pull my shawl a little closer over my shoulders.

I take a few breaths in a futile attempt to calm my pounding heart...



He approaches as I adjust my bonnet.








It is him. My own dear Mr. Darcy Nathan.


He greets me politely, "How do you do..."







No, wait. Scratch that. As this is a revisionist fantasy and I've always preferred Colonel Brandon...





There. That's better.



Now, where were we? Oh, yes...

He greets me with a polite bow and I answer with a modest curtsy. We speak of pleasantries, somewhat tensely as we maintain our sense of propriety, and stroll off to tour the gardens together, dreaming of our future...

Real Food for Mother and Baby

I know, I know-- two posts in a row about giveaways... but this one is WAY to good to pass up! This book has been on my reading list and if I don't win a copy (and I never do...), I might have to splurge for it.



When Jonah was a baby, I knew there were problems with modern dietary assvice for pregnant and nursing mommas and their babies. I just didn't know where to find the right info... I basically followed a Nourishing Traditions diet for myself, but I really had no idea of the best way to start Jonah on solid foods. There was no way I was going to follow the standard "processed cereal and jarred baby food" prescription. But I had to do a lot of searching around to find out what to do. As it was, he had a really hard time eating food until he was about 14 months old. Before that, we battled eczema and constipation and a runny nose while I fooled around trying to figure out what to feed him!

How I wish I had had this book available! Nina Planck is a well-known author and activist on a crusade for real food. I just can't wait to read her latest book, Real Food for Mother and Baby. In honor of Mother's Day, Anne Marie over at Cheeseslave is giving away three copies! I'm going over there to enter right now!

Potting

My Mom makes pots. Beautiful pots and useful, too. She's been doing it as long as I can remember and her work is always improving. I love her pottery. (Though I've never had any desire to make pottery myself. I remember once when I was very little she told me in her studio one day, "You don't have to feel like you should do what I do. You can do what you want to do. You should always pick what you like." I was actually relieved!) Every time I visit my family, I raid Mom's studio for seconds or things that have sat on the shelf too long. I have a pretty decent collection of things that Mom thinks are horrid. I love having dishes that are so unique and earthy and handmade.

All this to say that she's actually giving away a lovely piece of pottery on her blog! Go check it out at this link and enter to win!

ETA: Oh, and I just noticed that the contest is actually ending tomorrow at noon! I should have posted this sooner! If you want to enter-- hurry!

Four

Today, my little boy turned four years old. Four. Whew.

My Mom did a sweet post about him if you would like to see a couple cute baby pictures.

In honor of his birthday, he got to...



Shovel manure with his daddy!



Till the garden!

Hey... no breaks around here. Ya gotta work to eat. (He loved every minute, of course, and cried when Daddy wouldn't let him help mow the lawn.)

We let him play, too, though. He had lots of fun outside with all the kids who came to his party.

And he LOVED having construction trucks on his birthday cake!



In fact, he asked if he could play with it. I told him no, we would cut it and eat it, but he could play with the trucks afterwards. "Is that okay?" I said. No, it was not okay. Then he wouldn't be able to drive the trucks on the road! I explained that the road has too steep a grade for actual driving...

(Hey... Never mind the sloppy frosting. I don't do nearly enough cakes to get good at it, and anyway, it's supposed to be MUD! Mud is sloppy, after all.)






He opened presents and was even excited about new boots from Grandma and Grandpa. The kid lives in rubber boots.




He had lots of friends around to help him try out his new toys, which included a very cool helicopter, airplane, race-car-carrying semi truck, and some fun new games.







Then Daddy brought out the BIG present--



His very own bike! This bike was given to us by someone who had outgrown it (we would never buy a bike like this) and has been out in the barn waiting for summer. It's actually a little too much bike for a little kid-- complete with a heavy frame and three sets of shocks-- but I'm sure he'll make good use of it. It might be a lot of weight to peddle around, but at least it has heavy tires for riding on the dirt roads. Daddy put training wheels on it, but I'm sure he won't need those for long.

While getting ready for bed, Jonah was telling me all about his very fun day. "A fun cake, and a fun bike, and fun playing, and fun toys, and..."

I was so very thankful that a friend of mine came early (with kids to play with Jonah!) and helped me with cake decorating and supper cooking. It's always so much easier to work with a friend. And I only had one minor mishap-- I actually burnt the spaghetti noodles. Can you believe that? I didn't even know that was possible. It was salvageable, though, thankfully, except maybe my pot... I way overestimated the noodles, too, so I think we'll be having spaghetti tomorrow, too. We won't mind that, though.

We might, however, have a serious sugar-crash tomorrow...

Poultry Prison

Earlier this spring, we done got struck with a turrible great idea. We had some nice weather, so Nathan spread some composted manure on the garden and tilled it. Then, knowing that our goal is to avoid tilling as much as possible since that's better for the soil structure, we decided to try not to till again right before planting. That's when the idea came. We said to Ourselves, we said, "I know! Since we always fence the chickens out of the garden in the summer, lets get it set up so that the chickens can be fenced in for the spring! That way, they can keep weeds from taking over before planting, and they can work at "tilling" in the mulch and eating up the bugs. Come planting time, we can just lock them out and plant!" We like to leverage our poultry forces, you see. Buy making a work camp.

It seemed like a fantastic idea at the time.

Nathan put up the fence, pushed the chicken tractor up to the garden, and set it all up to lock them in.

Then he added more fence.

And then... some more fence.

It started to look like an internment camp.

The Garden Gulag.



Wire. Everywhere.


Also, pipes, boards, rocks and more wire. Anything to keep those buzzards in.




We don't have real chickens. We have a whole flock of Houdinis.

I'm kind of afraid that we just trained them how to manage a fence. Now when it comes to keeping them out in the summer when things are growning (which has always worked fine in the past), they'll just let themselves in at will.

Everytime that we think we have them all blocked in, they find a new way. Their flight skills are steadily improving. They haven't quite resorted to digging their way out of Alcatraz, but I wouldn't put it past them. This morning, I caught them in the act of their latest great escape.




Fly to the fence, then to the peak of the chicken tractor.




Then dare each other to go first.




A couple of weeks ago, I caught them eating the greens in my cold frame. It was warm, so I had taken the glass off at put a screen of fencing over it to "keep the chickens out." Or so I told myself.

Ah-ha ha! Funny joke.



They reached their scrawny necks through the fencing and managed to deimate my poor little chinese cabbage that I was letting go to seed.



I needed to get some early things planted in my raised beds. It's not easy to plant seeds when the chickens are coming along and digging as I plant.

I had Jonah distract them with some grain and I planted as fast as I could.




Nathan made me a couple more fence screens to keep them from scratching up the newly planted dirt.


(Never mind the pouting child. I always seem to have a pouting child around here...)

Today, finally, we've reached then end of the chicken prison. Today, is May 4th, which means that tomorrow is May 5th and the Amish say that we mush plant our potatoes on May 5th. So I will.

And I can lock the chickens out and start fighting them to stay that way.

Nail Pulling

Nathan has been pulling nails from some wood that he salvaged from a deck. He's planning to build me a goat fence. As often as he's able and the sun is shining, he goes out to work on the pile of boards. Jonah takes his little hammer and works on the pile of boards, too. To his Daddy, this work is pulling nails. For Jonah, it's "Me and Daddy are buildin' a house! Bye, Mom! Gotta go work on the house!"

Maple Syrup Winners!

Okay, so I know I'm a day late in picking winners for the maple syrup giveaway. I've been busy agonizing over painting my living room. But I'll post about that later. To relive my stress, however, I decided to visit the Random Integer Generator and pick a couple of winners!



Here they are:


Heather in MT
Karen Deborah

Congratulations! Email me at rosie.kate.squirrel@gmail.com with your mailing address to claim your sweet reward!