The Bethlehem Fair, birthplace of holy memories

We just did our annual trip to the county fair, one of my very favorite, ever end-of-summer rituals. Little things can make wonderful traditions.

 We live in a size-able city that is a bedroom community of The Big Apple...that means that living around these parts is quite urban and rather devoid of fairs. In urban New England, people in our neck of the woods have mostly grown up attending carnivals which are like fairs, minus the agricultural bits. I love agricultural bits.

 I love the part about how you park in a tromped down hay field and walk forever to get to the gate. I love the quilts and the baking contests and the view from the top of the ferris wheel that is all trees and rolling hills and the occasional church steeple.

I love that you have to wear your old boots because the midway is just a dirt path that gets messy from so many feet tromping through it all week. I love that nobody thinks twice when our four year old has grass stains on both knees and our toddler is hanging off the fences by the livestock pens.

The fair was one of my childhood rituals. I grew up entering things I made, dreaming of owning a horse of my own after visiting velvet noses in the horse barn and spending my savings on the Tilt-a-Whirl and The Scrambler. I feel so right at the fair, lots of great memories there. Wonderful, precious to me, part-of-who-I-am, things-that-make-the-world-feel-right-memories. Its simple stuff and silly stuff, (the ridiculous carny patter on the midway still makes me laugh out loud and The Scrambler makes me giddy) but its so happy and so gritty and inspiring to me.

 I always come home and want to go to visit the area farms more and grow bigger carrots and teach the boys to knit and work more carefully on my pie edging. I love that fairs make me think of things that I can do myself and want to do them. I love that they make me proud of capability and relaxed warmth and my own state. I love how much the fair has become a celebration for my sons. Its super fun to share the things you love with the next generation.

And I have to say, my husband, who isn't an agricultural devotee has been very gracious about learning to appreciate this ritual that I love so deeply. Affectionate shout out to him for making me feel understood and helping the kids value things he knows matter so much to me.

Birthday, Peaches and Planes in My Dreams

This coming weekend will be our first time as a household celebrating my sister, Lockbox' birthday together. We are planning in some serious shore time, a peaches and cream pie (recipe here!), sparklers, some read alouds, some late night chatting and some cozy mornings sleeping in. We are all still enjoying her presence so much. We'be set up some nice boundaries for personal space and responsibility which are preserving but I think our warm friendship is the most important factor. I have cool siblings. I feel lucky.
We havn't been peach picking in quantity yet. We got a small bag of white peaches from a farm but I aim to pick more like a bushel for canning, fruit leather and freezing for smoothies in the winter.
The garden is clipping along nicely with tomatoes ripening every day, our first cabbages ever and several sweet dinners of baby beets in our bellies. I am really hoping against hope that our sweet potato vines bear.
I have a mad yen for a free plane ticket. A good friend was having a baby shower in Colorado, my sister Foxy is nursing my beloved, tiny premature nephew along in Michigan and I also feel like I am kind of desperate for a small,  careless foray into vernal Vermont. Nobody has shown up with a magic ticket though so I might have to stick with dreamships for transport.
I painting the house madly!!! The trim is starting to look reliably white and glossy around the house. Feeling awesomely capable after charging the drill up myself for the purpose of home rescue.
Tomorrow I do laundry.

What's Left In The Bucket?

Newsflash!!! It is still summer. I realize the kids are all going back to school, we are getting hints of fall weather and the grocery stores are all setting up displays of Halloween candy...but it is, its still summer.  :)

In the spirit of still having time and living in the now instead of the near future....here is what is still left on my .....

2013 Summer Bucket List.

1. Take the boys fishing
2. Ride a ferry
3. Pick peaches and blueberries, maybe bkackberries.
4. Plan my homeschool curriculum for this year.
5. Lie in the hammock in the back yard and read a book.
6. Go crabbing.
7. Make my traditional plum tart.
8. Assemble an Herbal Medicine Chest is preparation for cold weather and sickness season.
9. Go to a festival.
10. Can tomato sauce and peaches
11. Paint the front porch portico.
12. Make a new friend.
13. Bake a lemon meringue pie.
14. Make a big, vivid abstract painting to hang above my bed.
15. Hang the hummingbird feeder.
16. Oil my cutting boards with beeswax and lemon.
17. Listen to country music with the windows down
18. Get the boys a playhouse and some stumps for their corner of the yard.
19. Call a junk man to take a load to the dump
20.Do henna designs with Lucy.

Storms and Sniffles

Spending a rainy day in today. There's a terrific wind outdoors bending the tops of the tall trees in the neighborhood. We were out this morning with our homeschool co-op pals and as we drove home the road was littered with fallen leafy branches blowing around in circles. We are supposed to get a big rain to boot but so far we've seen nothing but clouds and a lot of big gusts. We've got a crazy level of humidity today which makes me glad that I pre-baked dinner last night to make co-op day easier on myself.

The nice thing about stormy days pre-rain is that they always bring really interesting light. Fascinating to watch how different colors look in the changing palette we have coming in through our windows. These are lipstick pink chard stems....kind of a late summer echo of the rhubarb stalks. Great colors, right?

Baby Pom is sniffling away from a little cold. Although he is being very resolute in spite feeling stuffy and having a very pint-sized and tragic, little cough. I think we will spend tonight nursing in the rocker and propping him up on a stack of pillows between sessions. Time to get out the Vicks and drink extra cups of tea after the sun goes down to keep up with the milk demand.