Autumn, Geneology and Italian Novels

Even here in California, the land of eternal sunshine and placid seasons that go stepping on fairly evenly...we have begun to notice that autumn is coming in now. The blackberries are almost done everywhere. The vines just blushing crimson and lying barren at the side of all the roads. Grapes are in, sitting heavily on every farmer's table at the market on Wednesday nights downtown. They sell every color: misty Concord blue, reds with a shine on their cheek and the pale dusted yellow ones that taste a darker sweet right before you swallow.

 The oaks on every hill have acorns beginning to drop and every walk we take brings pockets full of shiny little nuts to the laundry pile and the kitchen counter top. Such a deliciously seasonal problem. I have been collecting them when I find around the house and I now have a little heap on the kitchen window above the sink. I like how acorns and apples both glow when you polish their cheeks.

 The apple tree is still dropping fruit in the yard and the boys alternately bring the fruit eagerly to me and play kickball with them, splattering them satisfactorily against the foundation. Mommy is not so very keen on this game of course because it means a lot of scrubbing after the fruit has been discovered dried onto the wall the next day. Not all of the ideas can be good ones.

 We are working away at Latin, a new subject for us this year in our homeschool, and memorizing the locations of the European seas while I follow in real-time the travels of my Michigan pal who has gone to Italy to find her family's roots. I am also neck deep in my own genealogical obsession so the combination of travel + family history + real life geography studies has me utterly captivated. I am living off her photos and sharing them with the boys every time another one pops up like it was their father away on a business trip. They are a little mystified I think but game for whatever strange thing Mom want to show them. The fact that A's brother Miq lives in Italy right now helps them to see that there might be something interesting in the whole thing. We have been dreaming of hitting up The Mediterranean for our next big family adventure for a while. Once we thought we'd combine Morocco, France, Spain and Italy but we have been wisely counseled to avoid Moroccan water until our children are a little older. Our latest revisions of the dreamed of trip have us tooling around Italy and spending a lot of time letting our kids romp with their cousins in the castle they are renting, (not a joke) My childhood friend is making it look so very good.

Now accepting books that make you see visions of the Italian countryside and dream in Italian. Under The Tuscan Sun and......?

April Buzz

We are having warmer days all the time now...gardening happens, laundry keeps getting behind. We are putting seeds and plants in the garden and lingering and lingering to weed them. Lots of lazy outdoor homeschool reading and math in the sunshine. Then we keep having an occasional short sprinkle and all the locals warn me to get ready, because now it will be the last rain and get dry out. Interesting climate and such a different kind of weather. I feel like I did all winter. I have no idea what to expect or what anything indicates. Normal is a setting on the dryer. This is one way to get that effect.

Went driving out to farms today, maybe the first time I have really done that in an exploratory and rambly way since we moved here. Its time to find a farm to get eggs at and maybe milk although I am exploring taking them out of the diet of some of us in the family...sad day at face value, but greater health and happiness is the worthy goal.

I am really enjoying being the Team Mom for Ru's baseball team. Little League is a community that I really appreciate and feel safe in, so much lack of pretension and warm welcome for people of all levels. Its been a great way to boost my confidence with management tasks (eep! Reminder emails!) and get to know lots of people. I know who is charge of snacks and several coaches, I know who to call when you lose papers and where the meetings all are held. Being on the ins is a great way to feel more comfortable. Its always so exciting to meet more of our neighbors via playing on a team together and this time is no exception. So many people we could walk to hang out with...you know....if I was feeling brave enough to invite them over to play. EEP! Must keep being brave.

The fruit in our area is starting to ripen, strawberries are up and I am dying to do a big pick so that I can sock some strawberry jam and frozen fruit in the freezer. Am also dreaming of Paleo shortcake.... The cherries are going to start in the first week of May and then we'll be all into the plums and the apricots and so on....can't wait. Am hoping to do some serious canning this year. There will be tomato sauce making at my house (Holla if you want in!) and I want to do peaches, maybe pears and some applesauce too. The first year after a break in the canning schedule is always overly optimistic. Heh.

Nib just lost one of his great big front teeth this morning, which is really cute. I was pretty pleased when it came out to see how bright and clean and solid it was. I am slowly but surely cleaning up our diet. Especially my last two children are made out of darn strong nutrient, dense ingredients. Mama finally got her ducks in a row! Ru is wiggling out his first really large molar after a long break in the tooth losing regime. His adult tooth is coming out eagerly through the side of his gum above it! Pretty wild. MUST REMEMBER TOOTH FAIRY DUTY TONIGHT!!!

Ladybug Mosh Pit

 We took a hike with our new homeschool friends recently to see the winter ladybug clusters. Our new pals are hardcore, just the way we like our friends so, we all hiked through a redwood forest in the rain with minimal gear and cover and maximal mud and toddlers to see the spectacle of the jewel insects gathered in bright clusters and crowds on the sides of the trail.

 The hike was stunning with or without ladybugs, the redwoods and the rainy season forest world of California blows my mind. Its like some jurassic Fern Gully world that is 15 minutes from my house. Wild. Utterly. It was so exciting to hop right out of the car and see that basically as soon as we left the parking lot we were lost in a forest paradise.

 After our hike I did some reading about these gorgeous insects. It was such a consuming thing to see a branch turned glossy red with their crowded wing covers that the boys were pretty obsessed. It was much much harder to convince them to return hike because they were so interested in watching them. They each tried to carry one home on their hand, Pom cried some bitter tears when his "own bug" spread wings and rejoined kith and kin.

 Ladybugs are famous for being a gardener's friend because they eat aphid which are a major plant pest in the garden bed. Turns out that the earlier understanding of ladybug diet was a little unclear and after further observation and research scientists have decided that they are definitely not carnivores but omnivores. They do eat a lot of aphids and other soft bodied pests but they also eat nectar, sap, pollen and even fungi.

Someone on the hike told us that they number of spots denote age which turns out to be a commonly repeated myth. The spots show their species, there are a lot of different kinds of ladybugs....both native to our shores and imported and they can vary in appearance but the number of spots is the best differentiator.

I've noticed before that when you hold a ladybug you often start to sniff a peculiar stink. Turns out that's a back-up plan for their scarlet wing covers which are already a warning sign to birds to let them know that they taste terrible. If they are hassled or stressed they will start "reflex bleeding" a substance from their knees that smells bad and tastes worse than their natural flavor. Crazy! Right?

There are also some species of ladybugs which lady fertile eggs and then lay a bunch of infertile eggs in among them to be food for the forthcoming children. What a strange but clever system. Motherhood is pretty vast and wild.

If you ever need a break from winter and come visit we'll take you to see the ladybugs where they cluster in the redwood groves. Its astounding and gorgeous....California is amazing.

The Blue Belly Brilliance

The boys and I have long been nature lovers and over the past two years or so, I have been working on getting us all into nature journaling. As we have migrated West and lost our Nature Table space with a smaller home I have been working over new ways to deal with science. One way has been to work our nature journals into a more prominent place in our usage. Instead of just using them to draw assigned subjects as we studied certain topics (conifers, frogs and their life stages, snowflakes and how they form etc.) I have changed them to our identifying log.

 We try to take a walk every day in the neighborhood and we have successfully managed to work a weekend family hike into our new Western lives as well. These two venues plus just our general love of nature and honed awareness of the animals and plants around us have given us a steady way to use the journals. When we see interesting things that we don't know about (daily! everything is new!) I photograph and we observe and tell each other what we each can see about the subject. For instance, recently, Nib saw our first lizard! We were all so excited to see one in person and in one of our local parks, a short walk from our house. We all got to see it quite close up and I got some pictures with my iPhone.

Then later in the week, we got to the part where our journals came in handy. We got on the computer together and using whatever markers we could dig up from the photo we took and from our collected observations we looked up that lizard. The lovely thing about identifying things on the internet is that you can get so darn specific. We found several pages that were all just about lizard of the The Bay Area....no other creatures or regions to muddy the waters. Field guides are top notch for browsing and will work for identifying but the internet is a little like asking a noted biologist who knows your area's flora and fauna.

Turned out that Nib's lizard was a Western Fence Lizard also known as a Blue Belly. We didn't get to see our lizard's stomach and it wasn't breeding season so we had no clue they can be the dull grey brown on top and hide a streak of the most mermaidy blue-ish teal on their stomachs. Astounding that skin can be that color! We'll be looking in the spring to catch the show for sure!

The notebooks come out and we print our photo and sketch and draw it in along with a date of our entry and the date we saw the observation. Then some of us have been adding some other views or details from other photos online and we write in whatever fascinating information we read about our new discovery. For instance, this cute little lizard that Nib introduced us to in one of the reasons Lyme's disease hasn't gotten as rampant in this part of the country. A powerful protein in Blue Belly blood de-activates Lyme. When ticks feed on our new, reptile friends, these little, local lizards they are cleaned out and each tick becomes Lyme-free for life! What a wonderful thing to know about! The more I know about Nature the more laughable I think it sounds that we might map it all out and that we as humans are the truly sentient and brilliant species who hold the keys to all things in our little hands.

Nature journaling is giving us a place now to be motivated to indentify and know these know creatures and plants and the amazing stories they all have. We are learning and making dynamic, artistic record books about our unfolding knowledge. What a wonderful world!

Dying The Tub Purple

We almost dyed the bathtub purple today during a lesson on the Phoenicians which was exciting. Whew. Yay for bleach. Seriously, I know it t'isn't green but it gets anything out. The shirts we all dyed purple are out in the washing machine having their first wash and after I finish writing I am going to dash out to the garage to lay them out on the heaps of boxes (we still don't have a dryer or a clothesline hooked up) and we'll see how they really turned out in the morning. Dido would be proud! (the Phoenician queen who founded Carthage, not the singer....although maybe she'd fancy purple shirts too....who knows!)

I love it when I have the energy, and thought and time to actually get to the cool projects like this. We all enjoy the whole learning business a lot more if becomes less about galloping through our required reading and more about dabbling and trying things and exploring our way through more hands on experiences. This is the kind of teacher I want to be.

"sidewalk" orange from one of our strolls through the neighborhood

So, there's that proud fact. There's also the fact when we left the house for a walk so the shirts could have their dye soak....a certain child took it upon himself to go stir the bucket full of dye one last time and sprayed the tub with a grapey drip stain. That's how it got purple. I was aghast when we got back from sidewalk windfall harvesting oranges, apples, limes and jelly-palm fruits (Oh, California!) and found out that all this time the shirts had been soaking beautifully but so had our newly be-speckled tub. Boo!

The good news is that although I was super pissed (not my proudest teacher moment) and the child in question quickly lied to me...I calmed down and he got brave and confessed...which meant I had to calm down even more and remember to be kind and a safe place for that scary admission of guilt. So, he helped me clean it off the wall trim and I scrubbed the tub and it ALL came off! What a thing....plus, the bathtub actually got properly cleaned. Maybe tomorrow someone should spray something all over the inside of the van? Man, do I need to get to cleaning the car.

In other news... We are settling in well...this morning Aaron, I and our van all became registered Californians at the DMV (best license picture every!), the kids are excitedly involved in 4-H and see their piano teacher for the first time this coming Wednesday, we all have library cards and have scheduled a "Library Day" once a week on our calendars, I even have several new friends who have first names I really remember and although I'm not to the last name or phone number stage with most of them....I feel hopeful. I have begun hauling anything I am wondering about back outside to the garage. Yes, that means that the garage is completely overwhelming and insane but it means that I have slightly more room to think and process the house and what should go where. Its amazing how quickly it gets overwhelming. The list of things I actually missed while we were waiting for our absurd about of possessions is impressively small:

• My juicer
• My hair dryer
• My spices
• The coffee maker
• My cowboy boots
• My hiking shoes
• My guitar
• The kids crayons and paints
• My good chef knife
• My field guides
• A full-size shovel (the previous tenants had left a trowel)
• A washing machine
• My sundresses

I was talking to a sounding board kind of friend the other day and realized that I need to take almost everything back to the garage and only unpack and bring in the things that I truly want and think we're going to happily use. There is so much extra. Must cull and must own what we actually mean to. Pinterest board about Brilliant Yard-Sale-ing in the works! I will not hold on to all this STUFF!

If you are local and interested in coffee with me....please report below. I need socializing.

Isolation And A Washing Machine

All the experts say that one of the keys to "good blogging" is to be perfectly consistent. Oops. I took a month off, with no warning or explanation and as one reader pointed out....it looked like quitting. Surprise! It's just me, blogging erratically while aiming at consistency. Things I am learning in my life...



We now have a washing machine, which feels very luxurious. Our old dryer is on the moving truck, driving across the country with all of our belongings. We have one week left to get our plans straight for where things should go before our world becomes a chaotic whirl of boxes and homeschooling.

All this moving craziness has meant pushing formal homeschool learning off (except for math and reading) until this coming Monday. In California you have to pick a method of homeschool registration and that research has also taken time. I have decided that I am going to give it a year and basically continue our current model while getting to know area homeschoolers. Then in the fall of I want to try connecting to a charter school or an umbrella organization (options here in CA) I will know a little more about the options and have had time to decide what I think. Sometimes it is good to defer some of the crazy and the new and the pressure and give yourself a few outs to keep things a little simpler. These are lessons I need to teach myself.
We have found a park day, homeschool playgroup to hang out with which is really encouraging and fun. Love getting these little pieces built into our life again. I am also looking into joining 4-H and have a co-op that is studying science on the docket for options too. There is a much larger buffet of choices out here.

I am starting to get to the point of moving where you feel a little lonely. I know my way to the local grocery store and I remember my own zip code now, I have a library card and favorite neighborhood walks but I don't have chums yet. I wish we had a babysitter for a night out once a week to explore and reconnect and I wish I had a community of mamas to kick back with and laugh hysterically beside for Lady Night outings, I wish I had a church community to share the sacred and support my children with an undergirding network of faith and to serve as a safe place for spiritual letdown and restoration and I wish I had a little circle of painters who were growing and making and observing the world in streaks and puddles of paint and advice.  I miss al of that but I know that it will all come. 

This part is a little frayed. It's hard to keep settling and nesting and making and finding and learning and starting over because it's depleting even though it's fresh and fun. Must refill. So I am reading Madeline L'Engle's A Circle of Quiet which is crazy good and I am working out every single morning (day 12!) and I am drinking coffee and deadheading my new roses. Prayer is good, texting is good and family rocks.

Rise above, friends! I will too!

Living On Feminine Overdrive

Being on my period turns me into a weeping, sentimental maniac. I love that I feel deeply, I get the powerfully feminine vibrance of it all but after a while it feels like a drug trip that won't end. I have the hardest time seeing reality through the fog of induced extreme feeling and by the end of lots of days I just want to hide in a box. And maybe never wake up. Hormones suck.

I am normally a person with very little malaise, jaded entitlement and dull boredom. The world is a sparkling place and I love that I see each shell and bead and notice all the little things, appreciating it all. This time of the month though, I'm on such a ridiculous hormonal ride that its like being my usual perceptive self x 1,000,000,000.

 I was teary watching Ru start his first riding lesson. The sun was golden in the dust of the riding ring as he climbed the mounting block in his little velvet riding helmet and....there I was crying with joy over the beauty of it all. I did it discreetly. I think. I mean, I wasn't sobbing....just a few sniffs and a hurried wiping with the sleeves of my chambray shirt. The other boys didn't even notice, they were too busy swinging on the fence rails and trying to throw horse poop at each other. Dear little things. WHY are they so insane?!?! Here I am killing myself for them, being a wonderful mother and they continue to do things like attack each other and fight, no matter how kind I am to them. Why me???? Is all my life for nothing???? I have spent my life on this. This is it. Four ill-behaved boys and a house that is a giant mess....that's my whole life. My Lord. What have I done? I could have gone to mime school or married that rich Korean guy I met in Guatemala. Guatemala...there is a Guatemala. I mean, doesn't that just tear you to pieces??? What a beautiful world we live in. The world is incredible. I can't even handle it.

Its sort of like that.

Seriously.

That's slightly overkill...right?

What do you guys do to cope with over the top emotions? I breathe, try to realize that they aren't real, sometimes I laugh. I go outside. I eat. (more often than I'd like to admit although I am eating only healthy foods) I work. I control things that I can manage, like obsessively folding the napkins and scrubbing a spot out of the upholstery. I read because escape makes me happy. I space out. I hug my kids. I turn on music and dance. (although honestly this often inflames things emotionally, truth be told) and sometimes I just cry. I text my husband. I count the days on my calendar until I will feel normal again. I garden until my fingers hurt. I call friends. I know that I'll be sane again soon. Until then, I'm just over here sucking blood and howling at the moon, waiting for the spell to break.

Ru did have his first horseback riding lessons, which is a big dream he's been carrying for a while. Pretty amazing to watch him fearlessly up there on the big mare they paired him with, leaning into the work, learning to direct and hold his own.

The weather has been made to order....sun and gentle breezes, warm air and open window humidity level. Just exactly right. Grass is frothing at the edges of the highways now and the hens have started trying to take dust baths in their yard again. Yesterday we had the guinea pigs out in the lawn while we planted pansies in the urns at the front door and spread new mulch at their feet.

I am eating clean and exercising, sometimes with A and sometimes by myself, but consistently no matter who comes along for the ride. I have learned that I love tricep dips and hate wall sits and that I can do real push-ups. My current record is 13 in a row! I also found out that one of the water bottles that I own already has ounce marks on the side, as if it was just waiting for me to start watching my fluid intake and actually use it to try to get hydrated. Lemon water is my new best friend.

I think I'm almost to the point where I can actually say I've taught two children to read. One more library card awaits for our family. Teaching small people to do things that have nothing at all to do with normal human function is miraculous. I feel like I have taught someone to climb walls or revive babies from comas. So beautiful to see the words on the page slide from jumbled symbols to smooth, linked codes that untangle steadily and watch the little voice managing it all perk up with expression and cadence. Life is beautiful. Okay...time to go to bed. I'm tearing up again.

Hydration and The Ice Age

The nice thing about chilly weather is that I stay hydrated. I am living off of a virtual deconstructed i.v. of hot beverages, rotating coffee and tea by turns...dreaming of a hot toddy tossed in for variation. Also, I keep up on my wash...there's no chore in the world that sounds better than folding clothes, fresh out of the dryer.

The poor chickens on the other hand and probly getting very sick of their breakfast time slipping further and further into the morning because the resident farmerette can't seem to get up the gumption to go tromping out through the frosted leaves and fill their water and feed. Brrrrr!!!! On the upside, I have a new coat (this is surprisingly encouraging for outdoor chores!) and on the downside, it is after all, only November.

A was talking to the boys the other day about the concept of an Ice Age and their eyes got pretty darn wide. They like chilly weather as much as any kid. Snow is twelve shades of fabulous and there's almost nothing better than dipping your mittens in mud puddles after you have scooped out the ice film on the top, as a stiff November gale whips down the driveway. All that aside, I think the idea of an entire era of frozen living with snow and ice that was higher and thicker and colder all the time put the fear of God into them. They keep checking with me from time to time now to see if an ice age is starting yet. I keep reassuring them that that's not how they arrive...and that this is just New England in late fall.....I think. Time for another mug of tea. 

We are off to Michigan to see my parents, a couple of my sisters and my much beloved grandma for Thanksgiving this weekend and even though travel is a hassle and family can be stressful...I'm really looking forward to it. Its so good to be with those you know and to settle in where you are well loved. It is also such a comfort to know that even if I do that ridiculous thing where I always choke at dinner--just for tradition, wear earrings that are utterly too large and glamorous for stacking wood, completely forget to be on time to anything or boss everyone around non-stop they all totally get me and while they might laugh at me outright or roll their eyes they laugh, nobody will be disowning me anytime soon. Its all  part of the great comedy that is family. I'm me and they all get it. I love it.

 I hope you all have a cozy start to the holiday season, and feel launched into familiar places of festive dreaming, warm knowing and brave new edges of growth.