Help- The Herald Angels "Sing"...

My particular little corner of Purgatory has been enhanced this year; resulting in even less brain function available for positive uses.

Smidgen- now to my horror 9 years old - has become an enthusiastic singer.  This is much my doing, since I have worked for multiple years to teach her "how".  She was not a "natural".  That doesn't bother me; many "non-natural" singers can and do learn, and sing beautifully.

I, unfortunately was a natural.  One of those sometimes despised individuals who learn new long melodies almost instantly; and correctly.  And my sense of pitch, inherited from my mother; was such that our very meticulous high school band director - would have the oboe give the A to tune the band- and use my ear to indicate flat/sharp - for the entire band.  Thank god I never thought that was anything to be snooty about; I'd have been killed quickly.  Just physics and dumb genetic chance.

Smidgen, to my very great joy as a parent, has reached the point where she enjoys her music.  And she loves learning new songs.  She now sings- constantly.  And only semi-conciously; yesterday was "Silent Night".  All day.  Erupting repeatedly in inattentive moments; being suppressed, then re-erupting.  Even the periodic "Look, kid!  Go outside and sing to the dogs and cats for the next half hour, ok?", once performed; does not result in any decrease in the internal pressures driving the eruptions.

Many of you know what comes next; there are multiple aspects of "music" that she has not mastered- or even noticed, yet.  Her internal sense of relative pitch is ok; but what ever key you are singing in, when she joins in she will bring her own key with her.  She'll stay in a key, once found; but her sense of melody is unique, in my experience.  She learns melodies ( like phrases and variations in Silent Night) - not sequentially, but by gestalt.  She knows, truly, the entire gestalt of the entire Silent Night.  When she sings; she reproduces the gestalt accurately - and completely at random.

The outcome for the onlooker is jarring.  It works ok if she's singing the same song (in the same key this time) with 2-3 other people, then you're likely at the end to hear "My, Smidgen; you sing harmony beautifully!  However did you learn?" which will result in a baffled, and growling, Smidgen.

Oh, the sanity!

Happy Everything; Anyway.

:-)

Life intrudes.

I'm struggling with about 10 (literally) thorny problems here at the moment; some local, some much larger than that, all of them requiring my full brain- simultaneously. And it's hot.

So, of course, a great deal of my brain (and body) capacity is being devoted to just not exploding. Annoying the way that works.

Sitting at the computer, fingers clacking away on the keyboard as I crank out earth-shaking words the world desperately needs- Smidgen comes up the ladder and right up to me, obviously demanding attention. Using all available restraint, since interrupting me- while the keyboard is clacking- is something she knows is really, really, really going to cause trouble- I turn to her: and 100% of the brain shifts, dropping everything. There's a tear, and a wad of pink tissue paper she's holding to her mouth-

I'm a daddy. Just am. It's a fact; my kids are the most important thing in the world.

I look in her eyes, and it's clear she's not in dire distress.

"Is it your tooth?" I ask.

"Uh-huh. Look." And pulling the tissue away, there is the loose tooth she's been showing off for weeks- now protruding at a right angle - but very definitely still attached.

"Mom says you have to get it out."

Oh, really. Spice is passing the buck. And Smidgen is looking at me - like I will, of course, handle this.

At the speed of Google, my brain searches all - and I mean all- possible ways of weaseling out of this, and can find none that will not diminish me in Smidgen's eyes. Trapped.

My fingers don't look like useful tools here, the second incisor is tiny, tapering, and slippery; and the adjacent gums tender. Trying to grab and yank would have way too much trauma potential, for all involved.

Pliers? Oh, really not. My internal reference database on tooth extraction comes up with Mark Twain's amusing version from Tom Sawyer- the thread around the tooth, and a quick yank. If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly. I call for thread.

That, at least, Spice provides. Tying a slip-knot noose in thread is tricky enough, and takes 3 tries before I have one I trust to do the job. Like chopping the head off a chicken- this is not a job you want to have to do twice.

Smidgen, who cries when mean people break toys in cartoons, is a rock in any real crisis; she stands steady and trusts me to do the right thing. Hard to explain how much that matters.

I manage, with huge fat fingers, to slip the thread around what I think is the right place on the miniscule slippery bit of ivory; snug the noose up, and while chatting with Smidgen like we're not quite ready to do this yet, my hind brain pulls the trigger, surprising both Smidgen and I, and the yank happens...

No tooth. What? Did the noose slip off? Tooth fly across the room? I'm going to have to do this again??

Surprise, the thread noose just snipped through the tiny remaining bit of gum tissue, and the tooth, now out, is still there, slightly stuck to her lower lip. Got it.

All the trauma, imaginary in any case, is over, now it's all pure fun.

I wouldn't be surprised if this photo comes back to haunt her, in her teenage years. What you have here is a very goofy-looking kid, with swimming-pool hair, and a nice new gap in the teeth. It is pretty distorted by the "close-up-clown-nose" effect of the camera. I assure you, this is a child who has repeatedly drawn "what a beautiful little girl!" comments from total strangers. No, really. Hard to tell here, I have to admit- though as daddy, I can still see the beautiful little girl while looking at the Huck Finn Grin.

Off she goes.

And for today- I'm a success.

That'll keep me going a while.

(ps. If you wanna see the beautiful version; here's one.)

sledding

For the winter deprived; Smidgen and snow.

Yes, sledding means you gotta pull your sled up the hill.

That Aermotor in the background is indeed our house water source.

We do have other kinds of sleds, including a classic Flexible Flyer; but this was the choice today. "The snow is pretty fluffy still, the flatbottom sleds will be faster..." "Hu'uh. This one!" Boy, nobody listens.

:-)

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ok, so the second photo is "clickable", and gets to the full size pic, where you can actually see her face. The first photo- won't. I uploaded them at the same time; exact same procedures. Anybody able to clue me in on why one works and the other doesn't?

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etbnc- how do you see those anchor tags? I use Safari- and at this point, can't see any differences.

I DID, though; take your hint; and look at the hypertext language in Edit mode; and was able to copy the stuff from the working one, subbing the numbers from the first; and - it works! Many thanks! Right here:

Ah, winter.

Sorry to be so quiet- this is a crazy busy time of year for us; one of our crops is chestnuts, and guess when you sell them?

The sales window for traditional markets is small, and it can't be done "later"; only "now". Just for extra fun, of course, two of our vehicles, the farm truck and the family car, have decided that now is the time for them to die; or almost die. So lots of extra monkey business there.

And, last night winter finally, really, closed down on us; 8 inches of snow, overnight. On icy hard-frozen ground. The John Deere 4WD was slipping sideways quite a bit as I plowed out.

Supposed to be a time of rest for farmers. Ho ho ho.

Murphy, and his laws, keeps hanging around, too, lest we become complacent. One of the things you have to do to market your chestnuts is, wash them. That takes water. We're off the grid, so, having reliable supplies is something that takes a bit of forethought.

We just thought fore to the extent of installing a new 2,500 gallon cistern. Polystyrene, alas, but concrete pre-fab was way more expensive, and any custom concrete possibilities even more so. If I had my druthers, I'da dug the hole and laid up fieldstone for a cistern myself; but I don't have the luxury of doing work that slowly, at the moment.

The well pump is a plain Shurflo 9300, a pretty reliable, though slow machine with a good track record. We actually own 3, via the weirdnesses of off-grid living, 2 currently dead but rebuildable as backups.

And, we just purchased a new solar panel, to directly drive the pump; no batteries to be connected; sun shines, pump pumps, into the huge cistern. Theoretically.

You DO need a "pump controller", a little solid state thingy, to prevent the odd chance that your panels may suddenly put out more electricity than your pump can handle, which will burn out your pump. That's a real concern for us, since exactly that can happen on very cold sunny days. Unbeknownst to many, solar panels will put out 1% more current for every 3° C colder it gets. Since panels are "rated" at hot normal temperatures like you'd expect them to be in Florida in full sun in the summer- on a cold day in February in Minnesota; when the air temperature is 25° below 0 F, and the wind is blowing at 30 mph, so the panel is really that cold; and the sun is shining full blast- on a snow field that's bouncing even more light onto the panel- you can suddenly find yourself with WAY more power coming out of the panel than it's rated at.

I found that out by boiling my batteries, the first year I had solar panels. Sure, the information was available - deeeeeeeply buried where nobody ever sees it. Gosh, why is there acid bubbling out of the top of my batteries?

And our spiffy Shurflo pump controller; just purchased with the new panel- has lots of cool facts about it available on the web; except all the technical specifications (or at least, I couldn't find them).

So reading them, now that I've got it in my hands... yeah, yeah, x volts in, y amps in, etc, etc... oh, look "Operating Temperatures: +14°F to + 135°F."

Excuse me?

Unwritten subtext: "We designed your spiffy gizmo to work in Florida; don't try using it anywhere you have actual winters."

They left that part out of the sales brochures.

Sigh.

Ok, my point.

There's a LOT of our world that now works this way; machines, devices, and processes- are designed to work beautifully, within specific parameters.

But, they don't tell you up front what those parameters are. And finding a person, a live one, who truly knows what they are, and how much they can, or can't, be stretched- is often incredibly difficult.

My water system is currently going "pocketa pocketa queep".

And my major response is; I get to wait until Monday, when at 9 AM Pacific time, somebody may, possibly, get my phone message. And may, possibly, pass it on to someone who knows something.

Perhaps.

So, I'm going sledding, with Smidgen. Spice is off to check the electric fence for the horses; on snowshoes.

Baked squash tonight; the woodstove is cranking out the heat.

Complex systems may have lots of collapsible pathways; but fire is hot, and squash is good food.

I have issues.

Smidgen, who is in kindergarten now,  came home a day ago and announced that "Troy still has talking issues."

Which cracked me up.  I love the way our language changes.  "To have issues" is not that old a phrase; goes back only to the 80's, I think, and was unknown before then.  Now it's become this powerful and universal explanatory.  I love imagining exactly how it bounces around in the kindergarten room.

I have issues, at the moment.  We've had this momentary karma crash, apparently.

While my health is currently not an issue, everything else is.  Our poultry, both guineas and chickens, are disappearing, at a really alarming rate.  Something is eating them (the piles of feathers attest) but we can't figure what.  Have to figure it out.

Our tree crops are dropping like crazy; and we can't pick them up fast enough.  And- we got clobbered by the flooding rains a couple days ago; with more on the way.  We only got 4 inches out of it, not the 10 some neighbors did.  But when you're picking stuff up off the ground, and the ground is mud- it's not good.

The storm was what our grandparents would all have called "the equinoctial storm".  Smack on the equinox, this time.  They all new/believed that you can expect a major rainstorm event every year, close to the equinox.  Lots of mysticism about why; but for our location, my 30+ years of watching tends to affirm their opinion.  The balance of sunlight has shifted from light to dark; the weather shifts too.

Besides pounding crops into mud, we got hit by a karmic lightning bolt.  Well, the surge, anyway.

For decades, it's been my rigid practice to unplug everything during lightning storms.  After frying 8 (no exaggeration) answering machines, it seemed the best practice.  But.  This time, the DSL connection was left on; and my computer was connected.

We heard a very loud POP from the direction of the DSL, and every circuit breaker in the house tripped. The thunder roll came a couple seconds later; this wasn't a hit on the house.

Took a while to figure out what and where.  After resetting all the breakers; the DSL modem; and my computer, were stone dead.  The surge evidently got into the DSL line, evaded all their protections, then via ethernet wire into my computer, then into the power lines, and "poof".  Lighting does anything it wants to, is the actual physical law.

I was really pretty dismayed to discover how dependent I've become on the computer and the web.  It's a chunk of my life; and when it's not available, things get out of kilter.  How the hell am I supposed to plan what to do when I can't look at the radar loop?  Or when that urgent email conversation is disrupted?

I used to, of course.  Changing back is strangely difficult, though.

Meanwhile.  More rain on way.  Gotta get crops in.

Unreliable, That's What You Are...

You're supposed to be humming that to the tune of "Unforgettable", of course.

I've been away from the farm for a bit, traveling/talking.  Got back a few days ago, to the usual stack of urgencies, old standards and new surprises.

One of the few nice ones was this:

Click the pics for bigger.  The best crop of morels we've had in quite a few years.  I knew they were out there; and all 3 of us (minus any mushroom stomping dogs) went out looking this morning; with just this one basket.  What we have here is the yield from just 2 patches, one grey morels, and one brown (or white and yellow, depending on your vernacular.)

Unreliable; is what they are.  I don't have a clue how to predict the morel yield; it's just wildly variable, from year to year.  We have no shortage of dead elms, ever; so that's not it.  I think I do remember a year when we had nearly so many per tree, but it was decades ago.

So how is this a problem?  There's all this food out there- just screaming to be harvested.  Irritating, disruptive, and pretty much impossible to ignore.  My guess is we'll wind up freezing some.  It's a little hard to dry things here right now- we're off wood fuel for cooking and on propane; and the weather is frequently cool/cloudy.  One mushroomer friend dries his - on the dash of his car.  But I'm a little too afraid of bad plastic stuff in cars- you know, that lovely "new car smell"- which is in fact toxic.

So; work, work, work.  On top of regular chores.  :-)

Then; there's the cat/kitten problem.

Our regular cat is missing in action.  He's been gone for 3 weeks, and we're guessing he's not coming back.  He was (or is) an intact tom, and extraordinarily sweet and well behaved; which is why he was intact; we were thinking about arranging for kittens one day.  But he would, like most toms, take off occasionally; usually for 2-3 days.  He'd come back a little scarred and scabby; but happy.

Not this time.  It's very sad, of course; we'll miss him.  He was part of the family.

We also have mice, however; and we need a cat.  I casually discussed this with Spice a few days ago, basically saying "we'll probably need to think about a replacement eventually..."

The result, one day later:

Two black orphaned kittens.  2 weeks old- a dicey age.  Spice took Smidgen to her end of school picnic, on the teacher's parents' farm- and there the 30 pre-schoolers were confronted with a dead momma cat, and 6 dead kittens.  Shocking, and fascinating, of course.  Spice noticed that 2 of the kittens, cold and very hungry, were in fact still moving slightly...

She proceeded to rescue them, right in front of the kids.  Just like in the movies.  "I'll need a sharp pen knife, and a ball-point pen..."  

Ok, what she actually said was, "I'll need an egg, condensed milk, sugar, water, and some kind of syringe with no needle."  Which was not quite right, but close enough to revive them.

You can buy "kitten formula"; which is wildly expensive, and not quickly available out on the farm.  Or you can make your own.  This formula works for most young mammals; I've used it for baby cottontail rabbits, too; quite successfully.

Actually- condensed milk is not the right thing- you want to use dry milk; it's more digestible.  So; something like this; 1/2 egg yolk (only) counts as "1 part"; then add 3 parts reconstituted dry milk, 1 part cooking oil, and 1/3 part sugar.  Get it into them, somehow.

It's time consuming as all get out.  They need to eat frequently, including in the middle of the night; and kittens this young need help just to pee; you have to massage their tummies.  Their eyes are open; vets give kittens this young a 50-50 chance.  So far, we've been tending them 2 days; and they seem to be doing ok; one coughing a little.

But it's rewarding, too, of course.

Both males.  Probable names, Snowball, and Henri.  Smidgen loves saying "chat noir".

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Update, 5/23.  We started giving Snowball, the cougher, a pinhead's worth of antibiotics yesterday- and today he is a good deal more active.  Both still with us; seem to be thriving.

And the morels?  Ha.  Unreliable is right.  Just got back from looking at another 60 or so reasonably appropriate dead elms.  2 of which had appreciable numbers of morels.  My first statistical sample included 10 elms; 2 of which were absolutely loaded, and another 3 of which had moderate crops.  So much for statistical predictions.  Hm.

Happy Spring.

I'm worried about all the worrying out there.  Too many people, getting too scared, and too sad.  We need to remember the good stuff is still there; and some of the good stuff- always will be. 

(click for bigger)

Happy Spring- whichever way you say it.  And if you take a careful look- yup, there's a little bit of chocolate still on the corner of Smidgen's mouth.

Limbo - computers, electricity, weather, wood, health, economic...

Too much dangling going on around here.  Downright discombobulating.

So, last week, Spice's computer finally, really, died.  Since she handles orders and phone calls for our business, that's a problem.  Beelar being still here, before returning to grad school, where he has been computer SysAdmin for a whole department- he decided this was the time for a business-wide update.  Buy one new machine (which I'm working on now) - transfer info all around, get a new backup system; and get all workers using the same OS (Leopard, if you want to know.)

And it was all much more painful than necessary, starting with the fact we have a new FedEx driver- so our packages wind up wandering the earth, looking for a house.  (You can't see a building of any kind from our mailbox...)  Then, the transfer process; "migrating" my machine onto the new one- from PPC chip to Intel chip; with all my computer files since 1986 in there...  and I really miss my goddam "enter" key, thank you so goddam much, Apple.

Won't get into the details here; just- it took about 6 times longer, with 8 times more cussing, than Beelar anticipated.  He did get us here though!

It was also time, last week, to do a serious update on our electric system- once again Beelar's chore; partly because he's still flexible, and the electric components are in a dark cramped corner, of course.  This involved switching out back-up inverter #1, for a real replacement inverter; sine-wave, this time, instead of "modified sine".  We also removed the original inverter, an ancient square wave from Tripplite, forsooth, which had still been wired in as backup #2.  Main house inverter (modified) had died some months ago.)  And, repositioning the battery charger into the inside, permanent mount.

Main point being- for 4 days, the upstairs of the Little House was inside out, making sleep a little dicey.  Feels great having actual sine power, though, and knowing that the wiring is good for the next 20 years again.

Weather- 4 nights ago; it went to -10°F; real midwinter cold.  This morning, I woke up to the sound of rain; and overnight it didn't even freeze.  A little bare ground showing here and there on the south slopes.  But.  We've got a big late winter storm heading right at us; predicted to drop 6-10" on Thursday evening.  Right back to winter we go.  And we're low on firewood...

Which means getting out and cutting a bit before it really gets messy, using our "backup" trees; a few dead elms specifically not cut previously- because they're very close the house, and can be reached even if we're in foot deep mud, or meter deep snow.

That'll be fun because I'm still recovering from the cold of the century; and the tooth extraction... a bit wobbly on my feet just yet.   Smidgen is out of her cast- but still needs to be careful of the arm, since it's not totally healed yet.  Great fun for parents; with a big puppy who would out-bounce Tigger, desperate to play...

Oh, yeah, then there's the continuing drama of total world financial implosion.

Here we dangle.

Gonna go cut firewood.  That, I can do something about.

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So, in the process of procrastinating, while pretending to check out the new computers, Spice's sis sent this: Haiku by cats

Should cheer you up; I laughed a couple times.

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still procrastinating.  The Cat Haiku thing seems to be phenomenon; one I've been oblivious to.  More.  More.

therapy

Casts have changed from the good old plaster-of-paris days.  

(click for bigger view)

Not only do they come in the color of your choice- with, or without glitter- but they weigh a small fraction of the old ones.  And they were insistent about fixing up the bear, too.  And Smidgen was insistent that the "I told you so!" had to go on the bear's cast as well as her own.

Winter sun makes for interesting photographs.

And, yeah; in case you were wondering, we're pretty sure Smidgen is the most beautiful child on the planet.

The doctor who put the cast on told her she was "awesome!" for the way she just took it all in stride.

sigh.

Well, I have a new excuse for not posting here more often.

Smidgen; who is going to be 4 next weekend, is an extremely intelligent, joyful, and active little girl.  And she is also probably the most pig-headed of my 3 offspring (though Middle Child  was a close second...)  

So.  In spite of constant training; cautioning, remonstrating, and disciplining by every mode conceivable- on Friday she was being careless and silly on the stairs-  and lo and behold; she fell pretty much all the way down; and broke her right arm.

At first we thought it was just a really good sprained wrist.  But on Saturday it showed increasing swelling, so we zoomed in to the doctor.  Yup; both radius and ulna, just above the wrist.

At the moment she's in a half-cast; due to have a full hard cast put on tomorrow.

Meanwhile- it hurts, and she can't do many of her normal activities- so a few more hours a day are disappearing into a black hole somewhere.

Now; on day 4; the pain is decreasing, so she's getting more cheerful- and more...  active.

When Beelar broke his leg around age 12- sliding on his feet basically down a snowy cliff (I wasn't here) - I wrote "I told you so."  on his cast.  Very popular with the other kids in his class.

Smidgen has heard that story.  So in the mandatory interview with the cop to be sure this wasn't a case of child abuse, she told the cop with a big smile "My Daddy is going to write "I told you so" on my cast!"  Putting the surrounding doctors and nurses into paroxysms of smothered laughter, and puzzling the cop quite a bit.  (We passed the tests.)

We'll see.

A change in plans.

Our Christmas plans have been totally upset.  We were going to be traveling to Middle Child's home; they were going to be hosting our little family gathering for the first time.

What happened was a good dose of strep throat; both Spice and Smidgen got the formal diagnosis yesterday.  In the middle of last night, Smidgen had a fever of 103.2°F.  The tylenol eventually brought it down; but all parents know what it's like, holding a burning child in your arms.

Between the stress of travel, the work associated with shutting down the Little House so it could freeze without permanent damage; getting a local friend to feed the guineas and chickens, and the extremely high probability that the strep will jump to anybody nearby, it was mutually decided that we'd really better not make the trip.

So.  One day before Christmas, we've got to re-figure everything.

To a large extent, it's easier on us than on Middle Child.  We've got to do some fast shuffling, but they were planning on a full house- and now will have just two.  "We" includes oldest son Beelar, who is here with us in the Little House.

Christmas for us is a pretty big deal- more about family than anything else; and the change of the year.

 Smidgen was disappointed not to be seeing her other brother; she'd been talking about it for weeks.  But we're managing.

We've got beautiful Christmas snow here; both on the ground and falling, right now.  And strep, coughs, and fevers notwithstanding; we're cozy in the Little House, and Smidgen has refocused.  She's cheerfully humming and singing Christmas songs, between coughs.

It helps to be able to change directions with a minimum of drama.  Taking it all in stride is an important skill; and likely to be even more important in the coming years.

Hope your Solstice Celebration, in whatever form, is a good one.

We have each other.  That includes you.

Time to go make cookies.

Ok, so maybe I'm a slow learner...

When I got engaged to Spice, I announced that to a friend here, and he (married with children) shot back with the speed of a spinal reflex "Slow learner, huh?"

Spice was not there at the time, but has heard the story repeated on occasion.  I think she's forgiven him.

I've taken on another dog that amounts to something of a genetic crapshoot.  Maybe; I hope; less of one than Bruce was.  (I really recommend people read the story of Wully I linked to before- it doesn't turn out the way you expect.)

The new puppy is 10 weeks old; female instead of male; and a cross between a Catahoula Leopard Dog female and a Boxer male.

I'd never heard of a Catahoula Leopard before- but it's a herding dog, bred first for performance and temperament, not color or form- and probably the deciding factor in my jumbled calculations, bred for working hogs.  And cattle.  We almost acquired some hogs this fall- with the specific intention of pasturing them under some of our tree crops.  Controlling them is going to be work, and the lack of a fully trained dog was part of the reason we didn't.

So, this is Delilah; and Smidgen, of course.  As far as I can tell, other crosses of Boxers with longer muzzled breeds wind up with a normal long muzzle, not the short bulldog face Boxers have.

Reports on the web about Boxer crosses, and Catahoula crosses, tend to be good; there's actually a small industry for "Boxadors" and "Bullboxers".  Both breed are "wonderful with children" - and protective.  And there are several stories about people who actually own both Catahoulas AND chickens.  yay.

The fact is, of course, even with purebreds, each dog is a genetic lotto ticket.  I confess to having a soft spot (in my head) for hybrids.  You can lose the bet, either way.  If this one doesn't work out, we may well try some of the purebreds that are used commercially for chickens.  Yeah, they exist!  So far as I can tell, the top choices are Maremmas, or Anatolian Shepherds.   Both really really pricey, and at least as much of a handful to train and keep, so far as I can tell.

Delilah so far looks very promising -(at 24 hours...).  She loves being with us, she sticks close when we're outside; she behaves well on a leash.  

2 problems.  She howls if you leave her alone.  Which I'm expecting her to get over in a day or so, once she learns she's really home, and safe, and not about to have her life turned inside out again.

And- she climbs.  No, really- Catahoulas climb trees- straight up, like 15 feet; using their sharp claws.  Didn't know that one before we found her climbing up into places no dog has ever gone in the house before.  Fun.  Just means dog-proofing places that weren't before- and as soon as possible, she's supposed to be a 95% outside dog, anyway.

Many thanks folks for all the good wishes - and good advice.  In fact, we'll be taking some of it; we're going to try using the muzzle process.  Getting an older dog, already trained, wasn't really an option- it would take too long for us to find an appropriate one where we are; we did look into it.

And we'll be doing one other thing differently; in another month, we will be looking to add a second puppy.  Once Delilah is really bonded to us humans; adding a canine playmate might well help burn off excess energy, looking for trouble.

That's the idea, anyway.  The lady at the shelter agrees.  We'll see.

A small dance

This morning brought a surprise; a version of the Last Dance I have not seen before.

This has been an odd year, weather-wise; extremely wet in the spring, then extremely dry in late summer and early fall; and cool, throughout.  The corn and beans are late and locally stunted by the summer drought; at least one neighbor had corn on shallow soil dry out and die with half-formed ears.

All the trees are showing responses to the year, too; mostly they are running late.  The crops we're harvesting are 2 weeks later than average, and still driving our days.  The forecasts yesterday were for real frost overnight; we've had a couple "radiation" frosts already, where the air temperature doesn't even hit freezing, but frost forms on grass under open sky anyway; with no real freezes.  So I was on alert this morning; up before the sun, not certain what to expect.

Coffee in hand- made on the woodstove this year, since we ran out of propane a month ago and it's been cool enough for the fire to be a comfort since early September, I watched the sun touch the treetops.  The walnut to the south of the Little House still has its leaves, and since the thermometer was showing an air temperature of 27°F, a good solid freeze, it really seemed likely they would begin sailing soon.

Nothing.  One hackberry leaf.

Eventually, I gave up and turned away from the walnut, wondering how all the various factors had combined this year to leave the leaves still attached- and found that in the little ravine north of the house- the sugar maples were providing a steady rain of bright yellow leaves.

Just the maples on the north slope, very specifically.  The sugar maples don't usually participate in the Dances I've watched, and the shower of leaves they were making now was not of the same intensity as a "true" Dance; still, it was noticeable, real, and charming.

Smidgen was up in time to see the last of it, from inside- she was a bit too slow in getting clothes on (she'd still prefer to be a nudist) to get outside while the little rain was going on, but she saw.  

Later today, we'll go down the hill, under those maples, and scuff the leaves.  She discovered the joys there all by herself, no instruction needed, and kicks the fallen leaves all up and down the paths now, generating lots of noise and mini-whirlwinds of leaves as she goes.

Not the full experience- but plenty, today.

Slow it.

Thanks, everybody, for the great comments and additions to the last post.  Lovely stories.

We do read at bedtime, too. Smidgen is a high-energy kid, and takes a lot of winding-down; so we entice her with a story (ok, or 2) first, then songs. She's listened her way all through Charlotte's Web, Redwall, and the first 3 Little House Books now.  Took a few tries to get her past the point of wanting to flip to the next picture, but she's there.

It's a big chunk of time, every day. And every once in a while, I find myself nudging myself about some chore that's still waiting - "hurry this up, for crying out loud; it's taking forever, and X is bloody urgent, and you know it..."

X IS bloody urgent. But this is where this sleep ritual turns into training for the parent; of a particularly forceful and valuable kind.

Most times, it's relatively easy to look at the almost sleeping child and see- what's REALLY the most important thing here.  And the most ephemeral.

I'm blessed to have 2 grown sons with whom I get along very well; they were best men at my wedding, for crying out loud.  My head knows, and remembers, the joy I had in their babyhood; the snuggles, tears, discoveries, bandaids and songs.

Oh, but- my body does not remember, not really.  Until - I feel the small warm fingers of this present Smidgen in my hand, and listen to her breathing quiet, and hear her very small yawn.

Then, I can physically flash back- and fully recapture; I had this same moment, with both boys, at one time or another.  It was so precious, and so fleeting.  It makes me try harder to fix this current moment in memory- to hang on to it.  It makes me KNOW- in the deepest philosophical sense- this is what's most important.  And most urgent.

And it sinks in.  This takes time; requires time; demands time.  My time.  Now.  The rewards, in this case, are immediate, and powerful.  There is nothing else I could be doing that could reward me like this.

If I'm not too sleepy by this point, the progression of thought is pretty straightforward.  Essentially- everything worth doing takes - time.  Slow, thoughtful, mindful time.  

Almost everything on your list of "green" or "sustainable" actions will have that requirement.  You need to be "present" - beginning to end- and I fear it will never be "like falling off a log".  

I'm inclined to think that's a good thing, though.  It just takes some getting used to.

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On a very different note; I got a good pat from Andy Revkin today, at DotEarth- comment #41, in case the link doesn't land you there...  DC, and Crunch, I see movie posters...  :-)

Because: Yes.

Today is Smidgen's 3rd birthday.  Do I have time to be doing this post?  Of course not.  But I'm doing it anyway.  Why?

Because- yes.

That's Smidgen's straightforward answer, when I ask HER "why?" 

 I'm a strong believer in turning the tables on your children, as soon and as often as possible.  Since she's well into the age of "why?' - she gets it right back.  "Don't tickle me!"  "Why not?  It makes you laugh and wiggle.  You like to laugh and wiggle, you do it all the time, all by yourself.  Why not?"  

"Because: don't!"

Strikes me as quite wise- and generally irrefutable.  I hope to use it often.

It has happened a few times that I have been asked "why"- why are you doing "this"- meaning living this way?  My answer is simple.  For the children.  Mine, yes; but all of them, really.  We need to leave our children a world that has a future to offer them.  And it seems obvious to me, that if your children are desperate- my children will suffer.  So yes- for all of them (whether you actually have any, or not.)

So I'm taking the time today to put these self-indulgent bits regarding the journey so far together.  Smidgen does get a kick out of seeing herself on the web, of course- hope you enjoy these too.

Because: yes.  

This is where we started- Smidgen, age 1 day. 

(all these photos can be clicked on for larger versions.)

Smidgen, age 3-days.  My hands, and hers.

Death by carrots.  The Way is not smooth.

First ocean experience- well before dawn, due to jet-lag.

Ocean-shmocean, now THIS is really interesting.  (with big brother Beelar)

Ok, yes, waves are cool.

So are big brothers, and tree roots.

(you really need to see the bigger version of this one)

Some tourist attractions can be interesting...

Limits.

Enough tom-foolery.  This is the plan.

(Bigger version recommended.  Note how precisely I hold the stylus, 

and ignore that bit of chocolate at the corner of my mouth.) 

Happy Birthday, Smidge.

September- no stove.

Time has been sneaking past me here; perhaps I could blame it on the medications for my "out" back.  Or just the blur of constant work.  Our harvest is still going on, and will for a while yet.

The back is better, but not entirely back.  Slogging on.

I was tickled by several of the recent comments here - one stating they liked the glimpses of real life best, and I could leave out the general discussion; another glad to see I was making "real" posts again, after a bit of an enviro rant- must be doing something right; if all parties are equally happy and displeased!

I'll continue to write both- partly because I need both for my own sanity.  It does get frustrating, pushing on icebergs and not seeing anything happening.  The rants help blow off steam, and who knows, may even reach a person or two.

So- a bit of the real world, here; it's October.  And for the first time since I built the Little House- we didn't have the wood stove in operation during September, not once.

In a normal year, there's a week or so of cold, often rainy weather, when we crank up the woodstove for the first time of the season; we need to stay warm.  But not this year.   We had rains; but they were warm, and came all in one day, not slowly over 3.  It never even occurred to me to light the stove.

The woodstove is a huge part of autumn and winter.  It changes how we cook (you can't bake potatoes on a propane burner - or pies) - changes our work- the need for wood, and feeding the stove takes precedence over almost everything, when it's zero outside.  It changes our eye on the weather- if a storm is coming, we need to get wood under cover in the shed, before it gets wet, or buried in snow.

I enjoy it immensely.  A tick of the seasonal clock.  I love sitting where the radiant heat warms me- chilly on one side, over-toasty on the other.  I love splitting wood, in fact, and doing all those little chores involved in keeping my family safe and warm.

So it was a shock when I noticed it was October; and no stove.  Yes, I'm afraid it really is global warming, our constant companion, again.  Actually, I know for a fact that I've burned far less wood in the past 3 winters than was usual in the '70's and '80's.  

Doesn't mean I don't still have to prepare and think ahead for a "real" winter- that can still happen, of course.  My biggest problem with wood last year was... mud.  Usually we move firewood to the house on snow sleds.  I arranged things originally so the wood yard is out in the sun- and uphill from the house.  The wood dries nicely out there, and it's pretty easy to get a sled load, and just guide it as it slides downhill to the house.  But sleds don't work well on mud- nor do wheelbarrows.  I had to just carry it in my arms more times last year than any other I recall.

Changes in our lives; here now.

So- the video here is just for fun; and because I've just figured out how to include video, since I updated my browser.  It's around 18 megabytes; hard on a slow connection- ...  This is Smidgen, of course; running for the pure joy of it- it's a new concept for her.  Then to my surprise, she stopped- and started to sing.  I was so lucky to catch it.  Can you tell what she's singing?

Boy, I gotta tell ya.  That's a dangerous clip for me.  I'm afraid I could just sit here and watch it over and over.  Probably not quite so dangerous for you- but I'm her daddy.  It was pretty tricky running backwards and using the camera-