Spotlight on Dee!

Time to slow down for a minute, in the middle of all the baseball and spring holidays and gorgeous weather and garden days and just look at this second son of mine. Its all too easy to get revving right up like crazy and just survive parenthood. (we all do it, its necessary) Every once in a while we need to take little ordained appointments with ourselves to notice our lives. This is my "Notice Dee" pause button session. Time to take a deep breath and be present with who he is.

Suddenly, I feel like this boy is stretching out and getting all long-legged. I can tell his face is changing too and he's relaxing into his big boy role now. Its cool to see him learning to deal more amiably with pressure and anxiety and figure out how to confidently set boundaries for himself and make choices that can allow him to feel emotionally safe. For instance, he still occasionally has migraine type headaches from junk food but he now refuses proffered foods that he knows will make him feel like crap or limits how much he eats and voluntarily puts the rest away for later or just pitches it. Its great to learn that kind of confidence. So much else emerging for him right now too...

Dee Loves

1. Shadow play. This is one of his latest obsessions....the high bleachers at baseball practices are one of his favorite stages for shadow casting. His favorite thing to do is to make his own shadow into things just but changing his body position or holding things that can change the shape of the shadow he throws. He's pretty brilliant at it. He can make himself look like a weight lifter, a roman column and Darth Vader using nothing but a spare sweatshirt and his own body.

2. Scootering in the backyard. We have a pair of little Razor scooters for the boys to share and Dee loves to ride one or BOTH of them. He works on tricks a lot lately which kind of new for him. Usually Ru or Nib are hot dogging all over. Its a mind game for him though, he is less of the crash and burn type and more about clever engineering mixed with whimiscal jokes. My favorite at the moment is when he rides two scooters at once!

3. Wearing his pajama top in the daytime. He thinks its a very clever joke on his Mommy and the height of efficiency to go chance just his pajama pants when told to get dressed in the morning. Its amazing what a mother won't notice when her boy shows up to the table dressed in jeans and tennis shoes, with his teeth all brushed and his bed made. Keep your eyes open...I bet you catch him doing it.

4.What-If questions. He loves to ask me which kind of imaginary vehicle would go faster, what would happen if a volcano blew up on the moon and what I think would be the hardest thing to get in through a keyhole. Lots of these kinds of questions while we are driving places in the car. Love hearing that little mind a whirling.

5. Braiding. He asked me one day how I braid my hair and so I showed him on three strands of grass. Now its a frequent activity....sometimes he braids my hair and sometimes he braids other things: ribbons, plant stems, cords or even seaweed.

6. Pokemon. He and Ru play Pokemon pretend games and battles almost perpetually around the house and he is the master at sound effects, always making all the sounds for each character in an astounding variety of sound registers and voices. He is also the walking encyclopedia of Pokemon factoids. Ru always consults him to answer questions like "What color is Digalit?" "Tell me one the strongest attacks that Slo-King has?" He has an incredible memory for a the data and is very pleased to be consulted like a kind of personal reference librarian.

Dee Loathes

1. Doing Things Without Mastery. He has the hardest time being an early learner at any subject and really feels frustrated and easily like he is being made a fool of, simply because he isn't demonstrating high skill at any given task. He prefers to say he "doesn't know how" so that he can fly under the radar while he practices, only admitting that he can when he feels really confident and smooth. This is tricky in school.

2.Taking a bath. Never much for bathing, he still hates it. He doesn't scream through bathtime like he did when he was a baby but he sure does grumble and gripe about the suggestion that he take one. Once in the tub he loathes the soap getting in his eyes and the being chilly when you come out of the bath, having water in his ears and countless other little physical irritations and inconveniences about the whole process. So many reasons to never get clean.

3. Mushrooms. I don't know where he gets it. Mushrooms are one of God's best inventions, if you ask me...but my boy isn't of the same opinion. Even if I mince them and mix them into a mixture and cook them, he'll often discover they are there and make sure I know that he doesn't approve.

4. Math homework. I don't know if its the fact that A (who teaches math at our house) keeps a strict progress schedule and makes it clear when his students are "behind" and insists that they get no weekends off in such a status, or if its just the subject matter itself that get Dee's goat. Whatever it is, almost nothing gets under his skin and makes him melt down more spectacularly. Its very tough for me because I see so much of myself in him. I have a hard time listening and watching and remember, "This is NOT my emergency, its his." because I was so frustrated by math for so much of my young learning years. Weird how empathy can be a stumbling block sometimes.

5. Being ordered along on hikes. Dee hates most forms of being ordered around, he's the independent sorts (fits right in at our house...we are a house of clashingly independent thinkers and strong wills) and he doesn't hate hikes themselves or the outdoors which is one of his favorite retreats and play spaces. But he really does hate being told that he'll be going hiking with the family at such and such a time in so and so many minutes though. "Go get your shoes on, we're going for a walk soon and yes, you have to come." is pretty much always certain to put him in a bad mood. No choices, forced forward walking, ordered time in nature with a strict schedule....all his buttons.

6. Being asked about his eye. Remember this post?  This doesn't embarrass or infuriate him like it used to but does annoy him. He gets asked all the time if he's okay and "What happened to his eye??" and told that his eye looks funny and it gets old. Its hard for a kid who lives with some little visual difference to understand why its so broken-record-fascinating to everyone around him. He feels like, "Big deal! My eye! Who cares! I don't wanna explain again." If you're a new California friend who wonders why his eyes looks different, ask me for the story on the side, out of ear shot.

Delicious Words

"I want to practice some words that are not my name, Mama. These are the words I want to know how to draw...."book, pineapple, candle, star and flower." -My Preschool Student

I feel like I'm doing something right. 

Ru, Right Now

I love doing these little posts. They are deceptively hard though. It seems so simple to jot down a fast list but it is actually quite the exercise in slowly down and observing. Its amazing how easy it is to live with people and not really observe them or notice how they are changing and evolving. It takes some real thinking and puzzling and remembering to dig up a nice batch of personal characteristics. I like the sweat involved, its good relational muscle-work.

May we all, notice the ways those we love are growing and changing....and I don't just mean the children. Everyone wants to be seen as alive.

Right now, Ru is like this:

Ru's Favorites

• Daddy's chocolate chip pancakes: His favorite food of all-time at the moment. Its a weekend treat tradition at our house.
• Skateboarding: His current sport of choice. The board and helmet goes everywhere with us in the trunk of the van so that he can whip it out at a moments notice in any store parking lot. He's loving the new skateboard class we found to attend once a week.
• Playing video games: He's really into racing games right now, especially a particular game where you race boats through really vivid terrain. It makes me clutch at my chair arms to watch.
• Competition: He will do almost anything if you can find a way to turn it into either a challenge, a race or a contest. He's a natural athlete psychologically as well physically.
• Pomegranates: If we buy them, he eats them. Suddenly all the pomegranates are gone. Bam!
• Cheeseburgers: Its that pre-teen thing comin' on. I can see it now!
• Comic books: He loves them all, from Archie to Spiderman.
• Snow and ice: He freaks out when all our snow melts and its a party day when it snows again. Its kind of emotional whiplash living in Connecticut in winter for this kid, this however is a good year for him.
• Books on cd: He'll listen by the hour. A and I have both recorded some stories for him and we sometimes get them from the library too. The appetite is bottomless. Reading them himself voraciously is the next hurdle.
• Our chickens: He's the Keeper of the Fowl at our house and he loves to hold the hens and talk to them while he feeds and waters every morning. Love to peek out the kitchen window while I'm getting breakfast and see this gentle piece of him.
• Science: He's my deep outdoors lover. Anything about the world outside will have him hooked.
• Disney's animated Robin Hood: He is quoting little bits of it around the house and its his first pick if a movie is ever suggested.

Ru's Un-Favorites

• Leaving people he loves: He is heartbroken, real tears and genuine misery every time we drive out of his relatives and friend's driveways.
• Soup: I can't kick it. He won't touch the stuff.
• Going to sleep: He'll stay up as late as possible. The boy is a night owl through and through.
• Having Daddy work in California: Ru is a real Daddy's guy and he really hates it that A is working one week a month in another part of the country. Handily, A has planned it so that he is only gone during the five work days and not for any weekend time.
• Zipping his winter coat: I can tell him as many times as I want to but, the boy runs hot and he likes his coat to flap.
• Getting things out of the basement: You know, its a basement. There are things down there.
• Leaving his top shirt button open: He's a straight-laced kind of guy. Every time we go to church I double-check his buttons before we get out because he loves to slyly button up again in the car, chokingly tight, right up to his chin.
• Cooked carrots: I remember not liking them too. Not sure why. They're sweet and crunchy raw and maybe just too perfect from a kid's perspective to be improved upon? I dunno. He hates them.
• Quiet Time: I am iron-fisted about quiet time happening every day and although Ru is too old for napping he still has to spend a quiet hour alone taking a break and he really can't stand it. He's an ultra-extrovert and spending an hour alone in perfect silence is a real exercise when he'd rather be in the middle of a crown laughing loudly and chatting it up.

You Don't Have To Be Normal

Its a list day. Ka-ching! Having one of those real butt-kickers where all kinds of things get done and I feel completely in control of my own existence. (Aren't those the best?)

Time to enumerate my confidence and share things I am doing over at my house to bust out of the mold. Not everything that everyone needs to be copied...sometimes we get stuck in zones of group-think and never consider opting out. Maybe you need a boost today and one of these things could be a new experiment for you.

 10 "Normals" That I am Rejecting. 

1. You have to shower every day. I shower once or twice a week. Whew. Scary to admit socially here in The States where daily showering is and iron rule but there it is. It works really well for me, from what I read its better for my body and it also saves water, time and money on toiletries.
2. Kids love toys! Buy them more! I just kept picking up and packing up more and more and more toys. I did it a little bit at a time. One fitful load on one twitchy day after another. Eventually we got down to one small box of Duplo Legos, one shelf of books, about 5-10 costumes for pretend and a toy kitchen with nothing in it but a set of four wooden bowls and two spoons. That's all I have in our playroom right now. Everything else is in the basement in a giant nest of forbidden boxes. I'm not sure what to do with the stored items but I do love the new uncluttered existence and I love that the playroom is much more accessible and I love the idea of "having" less and getting my children's possessions down to a more manageable collection. Now I just need to figure out how to teach children to keep their smaller batch of goods away. Tips?
3. Nobody knows their neighbors these days. I am resolved to know my neighbors. To have my kids know our neighbors, to not be suspicious of the people who live around me but instead grateful for them. I live in a city neighborhood on purpose and feel so lucky to be surrounded by folks who make neighborhood associations and plant trees together and have community cook-outs. We should all be so lucky. It isn't just for the 1950's. Your community is what you make of it. We can all learn the names and faces that surround us.
4. Youth is the currency of the day. I think we should all embrace aging. Every year you earn, you earn. I walk the line by encouraging myself to be youthful in spirit, embracing of beauty, brave and flexible but I'm no Botoxing, perpetually 29, trying to pretend I'm not getting older, depressed because another birthday is arriving type. Grey hairs are badges, wisdom is hard fought, our elders our inspiring leaders and youth is just a starting point...not a panacea.
5. Wild mushrooms are DANGEROUS! You know how I feel about wild food, right? Someday I'll get to the bottom of the American terror of eating wild mushrooms. I'm not sure why we have a gospel as a culture that fungi will kill you deader than dead but we do. Truth. Wild mushrooms are eminently learnable and delicious. Wild mushrooms can be toxic but no more so than many of the things in your grocery store which doesn't really freak everyone out. Flowers, plants, detergent....its all potentially dangerous. Mushrooms have no superpowers. They just got really bad press somehow. I'll eat your mushrooms anytime.
6. Real women do it all by the sweat of their own brow. Man, I'd like to kill this one dead. I grew up with a wonderfully empowered, can-do kind of culture that taught me how to be happy with little, make things out of nothing and pull myself up by my own boot-straps. That's great and I'm super grateful. Its really made me who I am. The part that I don't dig is the insidious lie that real women, cool women, strong women....need nobody. They clean their own houses, they make their own clothes, they watch their own kids, and grown their own food and their husbands do nothing but earn money! Its crazy!!!! Women need men who pitch in. Women need friends who spot them on bad days. Women need hired help who bring professional muscle to the task. Women need older mothers and aunties to advise them and lend hands when they can't hack it all. Really real women admit that they need help and seek it to make their lives better. End of story.
7. Boys will be boys. Boys will be wild and rambuncious but they will also be overly sensative and cry all the time. They will break stuff and be mean but they will also love gardening and babies and try hard to paint faces accurately. Boys and girls are allover different and the same. Trying to excuse or explain or expect a snips and snails and puppy dog tails when you really get individual children, touched off by all kinds of different stimuli is often more harmful and ignorant than it is galvanizing in my opinion.
8. Embrace your flaws and paint them with glitter. I think its bad to be fat. I think it hurts to have poor people skills. I think that being sloppy is unacceptable. I think there's no real good in pretending that these things are "part of who I am" and boldly proclaiming them our favorite new forms of personal expression. I do think seeing yourself in an open-eyed way is important. Honesty is key. But then self-guilt as step two is no real help either. The way to handle your shortcomings is not through self-abuse and shame but instead through acceptence. I see these flaws. They are. I'm lovely and strong and can do better.  I'm going to try these things to see if they help.
9. Babies sleep in cribs. I've never owned a crib. Freaked out yet? My babies sleep in my bed with me and then in a little basket or cradle on the floor next to me and then on a mattress on the floor. Skipped all the normal American baby sleep stuff. Whoops!
10. Children should never be made to eat anything if they don't want to. I have a one bite rule. A and I disagree about this one. He is much more straight-up American about eating and hates the idea of children being "forced" to put anything in their mouths if they don't want to. I believe strongly in good manners at the table. I think its incredibly rude to the chef to be unwilling to taste the food (barring allergy, of course) and I am insisting that my children learn to politely try anything they are offered. No chicken nugget outs at our house! I'm the mean mommy!!!

 What normal do you opt out of? Anything interesting or unknown?

School Year Brainstorm

Its school planning time at our house! First Day is fast approaching and although we haven't yet starting thinking about fall, pumpkins or leaf-jumping....I am thinking about study topics, ways to make reading fresh, exciting field trips and anything else that might prime the mental pumps for the boys and I.

I'm a Charlotte Mason/Unschooler. I lean heavily on exciting, well-written books to spring board learning and makes topics come alive....we read-aloud until our eyes fall out. Lots of the time when A is gone we linger at the lunch table, nibbling at our food and reading a few extra chapters of whatever book we are reading at the moment.

We try to spend a lot of time outside and I believe in free-flowing, real-time exploration in the natural world. Skinning knees, digging up beetles and popping seed pods are all legitimate learning activities at our house. Lots of the boys time outdoors is just random and unsupervised, self-directed fooling around that results in lots of interesting questions later on. "Mom...what is that little bug that rolls up when you touch it?" or "Mommy, we were ripping leaves up and saw some of them had white juice inside. Why does it get black on your hands?"

I am doing what I can to include warm familiarity with visual art, this last year we started doing artist study work to learn some of the "greats" and their techniques. I am also really happy to get the paints, yarn or glue out and set the kids to work making something beautiful of their own. I am a little bit of a stickler about "real" crafts and work really hard to make sure that the kids are introduced to the process of making beautiful things that aren't just crappy throw-away Styrofoam stickers and random construction paper cut-outs. A little bit of that kind of thing in a playgroup or Sunday School class doesn't poison the waters but I want to be sure that they really understand and expect to create genuine beauty and utility not just throw-away Oriental Trading Company crafty-garbage.

We are starting to work on useful life-skills....money-education, chore instruction, shopping lessons, navigation, memorization, etc. Lots of excitement ahead in that category this year.

Here's what I am trying to work into my curriculum planning and schedule arranging this year....

20 Homeschooling Brainstorms For 2013

1.  Ru has started learning sleight of hand and wants to perform a magic show for outsiders with rehearsal period, costumes and real admission fees!
2. I want the three big boys to take ice-skating lessons this winter...maybe I'll even join them.
3. We will have a much awaited field trip to The Mashantucket Pequot Museum during October, Native Heritage Month. 
4. We have started a new allowance/chore system and I am planning to do some workshops about budgeting, financial goals and exciting ideas for boy-friendly charity.
5. Ru did the summer reading program at the library and I told him as a reward he could get his own library card and a special appointment with one of the children's librarians to talk about all the rights and privileges thereof.
6. The boys have requested that we go to a real, old-fashioned cider mill where they can watch their cider being pressed before we buy a jug.
7. Ru and now Nib (desperately eager!) will be enrolling in Fall Ball, our local Little League's autumn session.
8. I found and am burning this wonderful collection of classic poems, arranged for children and read aloud by Librivox readers.
9. Dee has started learning to read and this year he'll keep working through 100 Easy Lessons and then tackle real books for the first time.
10. I am magpie-ing the idea of unit themes for each month of the school year.
11. We're going to join our friends in the homeschool group for Field Trip Friday adventures.
12. I am introducing Latin to the house. I have ordered two systems (1 and 2) and we'll try them out and see what works for us.
13. Nib will learn to write his name this year and solidify his alphabet.
14. I'm on the look-out for a Spanish playgroup.
15. I am hunting for music lessons and starting a beginning music theory workbook for the three biggest boys. 

Its gonna be an exciting year! I'm geeked for book buying and activity scheduling.

City Affection

We were in NYC this weekend, down for a day-jaunt to show Lockbox the sights. So much to see and so much to try to explain. I rambled off and stuttered up a few times when I was trying to specify why New York hits me between the eyes. Lots of it is ubiquitous to any city...energy, cultural diversity, great food, art, sheer beauty. But there are so many little, funny things that are just New York although some of them are hard to describe. 

 The ubiquitous yellow cab. The way pedestrians brazenly and energetically jaywalk anytime and anywhere they please. The rows of stalls in china town with bright heaps of produce side-by-side with the booths selling cheap scarves and knock-off watches. The way people push through almost unfeelingly to cram into a subway car or elevator but also wink at little kids on the sly and help carry strollers up and down subway steps without being asked.

The way cheap black umbrellas accumulate in the gutters after a sudden, gusty rain like a batch of fallen blossoms. The smell of the over-sugared, roasted almonds in the sidewalk carts on a winter day. The glitter that lingers in the street dust the week or two after Chinese New Year. The ultra-chichi ladies with their glamly costumed mini-dogs and the completely wacky, raggy bums in the parks.

 So many, many things....some of them things that sound odd and some obvious but all of them important in some small way.

The first few times I was in the city I didn't like it at all. I felt swept under by the volume, the dirt, the sheer over-done grit of it all and couldn't enjoy it. It was like that the more than once, I'd guess about the first three or four times. New York slyly grew on me when I wasn't looking, the real clincher was when I spent a day walking all over the city with A's cousin, a life-long New Yorker who showed me the city she loved. The affection she felt came shining through and suddenly I could see it too, irreversibly, like one of those Magic Eye puzzles and I wondered why I couldn't see it all along.

So much fun to feel like I own a tiny piece of this city emotionally and to now be able to take my sister along on a tour of what makes me smile here. I hope she understands a little bit of what I'm sharing when I tell her how it feels that ride the Staten Island Ferry in the heat of a July day or stroll the Union Square Farmer's Market and buy rooftop honey from beekeepers living the golden urban life above this pavement. Its a good world, and a strange adventure but one I feel really lucky to be living. 

Painless Penny Pinching

Last night A and I made an important career decision together.  It was one of those crystal times when I felt clearly that we were making an important, life-altering choice. Sort of a weighty, fork-in-the-road kind of a sensation. We're taking the left fork and things will be different from this time on. This is not only a your-life-will-never-be-the-same kind of choice but a hard-work-is-ahead, you're-playing-for-all the-marbles kind of choice. On the one hand, I love adventure and am a survivor so I believe in living on the edge so last night I felt pretty excited and motivated, but in the background is the pale and quaking me that hates change, feels secure in the known and believes contentment "the way." This morning I feel kind of wobbly and scared by the enormity and intimidating nature of making a big, scary choice like this.

We're on a new austerity plan now. Time to trim the needless waste in our life, time to live on less financially and make more happen with what we have already. I'm a person who walks this kind of line uneasily. On the one hand I'm not a high-roller, I kind of hate money and status items and I get a great deal of satisfaction from clever, frugal-living. On the other hand, I don't like stifling fun, rationing pleasure or forgoing enjoyment and I'm a bit lazy about doing everything myself to save a buck. Time to figure out not only how to save money objectively but how I will best and most happily save money. What things do I truly not need? What things can I change that will make me happier or just as happy and also thriftier? And what ways can I trim a little off the edge and still leave enough to make life feel pleasant? This whole discussion feel selfish and egotistical and entirely white-collar America. Argh. But you know, this year my theme is acceptance, this is part of it. This is where I honestly am psychologically about saving money and I know that if I plan a bleak, bread and water system for the next four years it will never work, I don't really believe in forced, purposeful, chosen deprivation and I'll never do it if that's what I attempt.

Last night I sat down and made up this list. Here's my current ideas for "Painless Penny Pinching"---the way I roll. Got anything to add? Books to suggest? Tweaks you think would help? Please contribute. We'll need all the help we can get.


•No more Amazon book buying (use up A's closet stash, inter-library loan, and
borrow from friends instead)
•Make our own cards for holidays and trim the list for who gets one
•Make birthday gifts for friends
• Grow our own veggies and freeze what we can for the winter
•Shop at Stop and Shop, Save Rite, Aldi, or Grade A and wave goodbye to Whole Foods or Fairway
•Borrow homeschool supplies or books from my circle of friends
•Limit dates to $20 dollars or less and get more creative
•Buy annuals in Michigan when we go this spring, prices are wayyy cheaper
•Shred newspapers or junk-mail for guinea pig bedding and feed them grass and weeds from our yard and scraps instead of buying bedding and pellets and hay from the pet store.
•Kill Netflix? (EEP!)  and instead watch YouTube stuff, and borrow movies from friends and the library
•Only go to single $ restaurants and limit frequency (once a month?)
•Unsubscribe to anything I am not using or don't need online and make sure that the menu planner I am using is the best deal financially.
•Use coupons and shop sales for food. Stock up on good deals.
•Get a new lid for my travel coffee cup and make myself coffee instead of buying it
•See if we can get better insurance rates
•Turn house temp down a touch, maybe even just at night?
•Only run the dishwasher when completely full.
•Wash clothes in cold water when possible.
•Weatherize the house.
•Keep an active inventory of what is in our freezer and pantry that is used in the coming week's menu plan.
•Menu plan every single meal...not just dinners.
•Get plant divisions from neighbors and dig wild instead of buying any new perennials.
•Buy special paleo foods online where I can get cheap prices.
•Get energy star appliance upgrades ASAP.
•Vacation close to home....maybe even at home
•Shop carefully for gas (even Carleen)
•Stop going to the extra Saturday yoga class and go to my studio more instead if
I want a weekend boost.
•Pack food for vacations and make a pact to stay out of stores while
driving to and fro and set a cap for any shopping we do at our destination.
•Shop ahead for holidays
•Make more easy clothes for the boys (simple knit pants from t-shirts?)
•Envelope budget for groceries for the week.
•Make our own cleaning supplies
•Carpool with friends
•Use the city bus
•Go to free classes at the library for kid-fun.
•Wash, vacuum and wax our own car instead of going to the car wash.
•Regularly freeze any food in the fridge that isn't getting eaten to reduce waste
•Shop clearance sales for kid clothes and also thrift shop when in Michigan when visiting family because prices are much cheaper.
•DIY for home repairs, teach myself what I need to know. I can do it!
•Make tangible financial goals and reward ourselves when we meet them!
•Save our change
•Review our utilities and be sure we are getting the best rates possible from our providers
•Line dry clothes, especially in warm weather
•Refinance our mortgage again.
•Use the local library passes for area activities.

What do you do to save money without feeling sorry for yourself?

Dee Wonders

Dee asks me most wonderful questions right now. I write them down in my phone when I think of it. And sometimes I re-read the list to make myself smile, to look up the answers later for him when I have a moment and to remind myself to wonder about all the little assumed mysteries in the world. We are so busy sometimes that we adults (and increasingly even our children) don't allow ourselves  to stand agape at the puzzling tiny thoughts and the amazing ideas we encounter all the time.

Here are some of his best zingers, be inspired and listen for your own curious little thoughts.

Dee's Finest Questions

What does a baby's skull look like?
Why do raccoons wash things?
Could we go see people boxing?
How do ice cream trucks fill up?
How hot are fireworks?
What's the highest a person can count to?
What does a cuckoo bird look like?
And when do they usually say cuckoo?
How can Siri be in a phone?
What is orange pulp?
Why don't we hire some day-laborors?
What is snail slime?
What is inside a camera that goes click?

Why November?

November is one of those maligned months...it isn't very colorful, its the end of fall and before winter. And then the holidays come tromping and stomp right over whatever is left of November's own personal identity. Today we sing the unsung hero...what makes this month lovely in its own right?

10 Good Reasons To Love November 

1. All the leaves fall down and reveal vistas we forgot we had......suddenly the world looks all new again, even out our own familiar kitchen windows.

2.The bird feeder goes up in the window like ours did today. Its great to get personal with some of the birds again just as so many other are leaving for parts further south.

3.You can reliably light a crackly fire in the fireplace for the first time.

4.Our own local New England cranberries come into stores again! I love cranberries for their bright color, the way they naturally thicken when boiled down for a sauce or a jam, for their tart tang (I'm a tangy girl!) and the fact that they come so unmistakably from here. We don't get cranberries shipped in from Chile!

5. Hot tea becomes the thing again! I get to dig out my favorite, cozy mug and try to decide between English Breakfast, Chai and Earl Grey. Tough problems.

6. Roasting vegetables in the oven, low and slow sounds like a good idea again! Toasty carmelized parsnips and carrots and cauliflower and butternut squash is divine munching material. Toss any veg in olive oil and drop in snips of thyme or rosemary, generous doses of salt and spread them on a cookie sheet. Bake at 450 until toasty and fork tender!

7. Leaf kicking starts! October gets all the attention with the pretty displays but all through November the leaves are accumulating in drifts and piles and everyone is raking and leaf blowing huge heaps of crackling leaves. No time like the present to jump in!
 
8. Ticks, mosquitoes and other pests of the woods go away! I love being outside in crispy, worry-free November on a hike! Sets my mind right at ease.

9. Its stargazing season again! One of the things I love about summer night is their long light but it doesn't make for good star watching; for that you need early nights. I love that by the time we've come home from getting A from work the sky is dark and we can walk to the house with our heads tipped back enjoying the show.

10. The air gets cold enough to play dragon! I tell my boys that's what we're doing when we blow big clouds of misty breath in the cold. :)

How to Identify Trees

View up the trunk of a Tulip Tree.

Do you think trees are beautiful but feel clueless about how to tell them all apart? Maybe you didn't grow up in a "naturey" family or maybe you learned a few by osmosis in childhood (maple, oak, birch...etc.) but feel unimpressive at that level and stumped about going further. Maybe you're a homeschooling mama like me who wants to teach her kids the names of the trees she doesn't even know. Don't despair! You can do it!

American Beech meets the ground.

I am always teaching my little boys about how to identify trees. I think A gets a little annoyed sometimes by my, "Hold on! Look boys...what's this?" bunny trails when we're hiking or walking the neighborhood or on our way from the house to the car. The man deserves credit though....he keeps his mouth shut and lets me keep on with my perpetual, nature pop quiz.

Underside of a fallen White Oak leaf.

I love trees. Who doesn't really?!?  They feel important and warmly beautiful and they demand our attention.  Learning their names is a good way to feel like you're genuine friends. I often have people watch me identify a tree and then sigh and shake their heads, "That's amazing." they say... "I could never do that."

Truth is, they could. And so can you. Here are five steps. 

1. The best way to start is to pick one specific tree to learn. Choose a tree you have on your property or in your neighborhood, something you see all the time will jog your memory, give you more practice and help your new knowledge stick. I think the best way to learn a new tree when you're starting from scratch is to ask someone you know who knows about nature. Either have them pick one tree and show it to you or show them a tree you've selected. Its not cheating to have someone tell you the answer....its learning. That's how you start when you don't know anything yet! Use your network with no shame.

American beech leaves, all bronze after the frost.

2. Once you have the name of the tree...google like crazy! I use the internet all the time now for plant i.d. There is all kinds of information out there now and its all just waiting for you to use it! Type the name of the tree you found into Google and read about your tree. Type: "tips for identifying ___________" and fill in the blank with your tree's name. Read about the special things unique to that tree. Write down the list if you wanna be really comprehensive, if you're feeling fast and loose, try to remember one or two of the things you read. Some of the sciencey words used to describe the tree parts might be off-putting and unfamiliar...don't be cowed...google those too!

Nib sniffing leaves he found on a hike.

3. The next time you see "your tree" again stop for a minute and look at it for the special characteristics that you read about. Notice anything else you missed before. Look at the tree like its a person. Pretend you're a kid...generally fool around: notice how it feels and how it smells and what its shape is like. Smush up a leaf and notice the sap and the scent of the smashed greenery. Snap off a twig and put it in your pocket to look at later. Kick around under the tree and see if you can find any seed pods from it to bring home. If you think of it, take pictures.

Fallen, autumn Ginko biloba leaves.

4. Teach someone else about your tree. This is where kids are fabulously helpful. If you don't have kids...teach your grandchildren or a neighbor boy or a kid at the bus stop. Teaching other people passes on the knowledge that we have (very few people know how to identify a tree...most people will be impressed and will want to know what you tell them) and it is also the very best way to cement your own knowledge in your mind.

Tulip Tree seed pod.

5. Do it again! The more times you learn a new tree and go read about it the more technical, descriptive words for tree parts you will absorb and eventually you will be able to find a tree in the woods, type the characteristics into Google (deciduous, opposite leaves, glaucus buds, palmate leaf shape) and you'll have figured out the answer to a puzzle on your own! Its a tremendous feeling. Until then, remember:

• Practice makes perfect.
• There's no shame in making mistakes....its how we learn.
• Celebrate every victory! 

 Go be a nature genius! You've got it in you.

Summer Leaves With A List

We are officially two days into fall and I think it's grand. Summer was lovely at our house this year but September is a very graceful month, slipping us slowly into a season of cool evenings and boots with a side of crackling leaves. I am thumbing through the pages of my cookbooks looking at roasting and broiling and braising and thinking vaguely about Thanksgiving dinner.

Before we leave it too far behind though...I think its respectful for us to give Summer her due and remember what she was to us this year. I'm following the pattern I set last year by making a list that details what epitomized the last few months at our house here in 2012.

This Was The Summer Of.....

• Beets. I grew my first this year. Been trying for years. Woot!
• Baby Pom. Although he wasn't born in summer this summer season has been very focused on him for us in many ways. We've seen him change from tiny, pink scrunched up person to a very alert, lovely, blue eyed soul with his own set of little ideas and preferences. We're so incredibly glad he came.
• Mosquitoes from hell. The mild winter and hot summer weather meant they proliferated in crazy numbers, even in our city storm drains. Hello West Nile Virus high for our state! Gah!
• Our first honey harvest. We had a really small one but it was ours none-the-less. 10 glowing pint jars of honey from our own backyard. Next year I plan to not have a baby right when the supers need to go on for honey loading. Maybe we'll have a real harvest next time. 
• Cousin visiting. My boys saw every single one of their cousins this summer and made lots of happy memories rolling in sand, toasting marshmallows and giggling. 
• My great sugar detox. I can honestly say that besides honey and maple syrup on occasion or the very, very rare tiny cheat I am sugar and white flour free. I feel amazing. I am in for life.
• The heat wave of 2012. We had really high temperatures this summer, breaking several records and stressing plants to the max. Thankfully in our part of the country we also had steady rain too which meant we missed the drought that hit the American Midwest full on. 
• Our first homegrown tree fruit. See this post for an account of how we finally picked the first fruit off a tree of our own planting.
• The guest room. We had my parents, A's parents, and even Miq and  Penny come to stay this summer! More company than we've ever had before over the summer! May there be more in the future! So fun to use our guest space.
• My first art show. I have one piece hanging right now in a local gallery. Just a small one..and only one. But such a coup! Am very motivated.
• The return of the barbeque! So wonderful that this spring A figured out what was wrong with our grill and fixed it himself so that this summer we could finally enjoy grilled goodies after a whole year or so of wishful thinking.
• The seared eggplant. I grew two kinds of eggplant this year and they were very happy so we were rolling in this vegetable we were only newly acquainted with so we broiled them, we fried them and we stir-fried them allllll the time. So good. We're in love.
• Guinea pigs. Even though they really came in the spring before the baby I am letting them be included in the list. They are a very fun addition to the house, happily nibbling bits of swiss chard stems from our hands now after a lot of petting, getting to know them and bringing them fresh grass and maple twigs to gnaw. 
• Illness. I hate to remember it but its so true. I think we were sick on and off for all of June. So rotten. So bizarrely timed. So not something I ever want to repeat.
• Lawn "camping." This is a family classic and I realize that, its not like we invented anything in this respect, it was just something we'd never tried that will certainly be repeated as a tradition. Ru's idea. He's a bright boy. 
• The lily beetle. We had a mysterious influx of these bright red little beetles that eat lilies of all kinds this spring. They were on almost every lily plant we have. Never saw them before in my life....but there they were....way too bright to miss.
• Birding. The boys have been learning birds busily, collecting and identifying feathers and we've been reading slowly through The Burgess Bird Book For Children which has been the engine and fuel for the fire. So much fun! :) Keep meaning to take them over to the local Audubon Society.
• The wild lawn. Having a baby + insane mosquito population in our yard has meant that I've spent less time than maybe ever in the history of our marriage in the yard and garden. All that really happened after June was an occasional mowing. Yipes! Its a jungle out there. Looking forward to the frost so I can get out there and hack it into shape.
• The great mushroom famine. I am pretty much always find a few caches of wild mushrooms over the spring and summer but this year between our very hot temperatures, the mosquitoes again (which stopped the huntress not necessarily the fungi) and having a newborn....we didn't find any mushrooms at all. Not one. Sounds really odd to say that.
• Computer games. They came. I tried to fight it but they're here, unstoppably and undoubtedly with a long career ahead of them in our house. Ru now has his own allotment for daily game time (its a matter of minutes, don't worry....nothing ridiculously out of control). I cringe, but what can you do? We still have no Gameboys or Segas or Xboxs.

I hope your summer was a good season and if it wasn't I hope Autumn comes into your life trailing a woodsmoke scented  peace and lots of new adventures that will imprint themselves on your memory. Maybe you should make a list of your own to remember this summer's now before it sifts out the door. Or one up me altogether and make one for Autumn at the end of this season. Its a concentrated kind of processing and appreciation to distill your memories and impressions into firm bullets on a list.