Cherry Blossom Haze

Just today, the cherry blossoms started opening. This next week will be stunning, the weekend may be a glowing daze. We are having magnificent weather with gentle breezes and buckets of sunshine alternating with torrential winds, chill and rain, rain, rain. The lawn is ready for a first cut and all the raised beds have been planted except for the potatoes and the children's garden. Our plum trees started opening their blossoms this morning. Must keep an avid watch on the fungus and pests and be liberal with my organic sprays and compost tea. I am also planning to order a giant dump of mulch to keep everything handily tucked in and moist for when the hot weather arrives. Its also time to divide any perennials I want to trim down and QUICK, finish the brick trim on the front walk! EEP!

 The boys are getting so panicked about being outdoors at all times that they are trying desperately to throw off the yoke of household chores. I am trying to remember to be insistent but it is SO hard! I am terrible at staying consistent and modeling the things I want them to learn. Most of parenting has been parenting myself, I swear. I must finish my chores before I get all distracted while feeding the chickens and wander over to check out the seedlings and trim the pear tree and admire the crocus and see if the grape vine is budding. Adhere! I must learn the things I am trying to teach. No time like the present. 

 This morning I gave myself a haircut. I would include a photo but I doubt it would be very dramatically visible to anyone. I cut about four or five inches off the ends but it was so stringy and brittle and damaged that there wasn't much volume left. I have to say that I love me some YouTube tutorials. That's where I taught myself how to cut my side angle bangs. That's where I learned how to cut my sister Lockbox's curly hair and that's where I went this morning when I had the itch to fix the scraggly, dried and breaking mess that was my hair. I parted and trimmed and brushed and angled and trimmed again until I had trimmed it all into gradual piecey layers, framing my face on both sides, all serious damage trimmed away and the parts that are left mostly falling in a regular and even fashion. I feel so much better. Cutting my own hair makes me feel like a dog that had all the winter mats trimmed of its paws or a sheep that's been sheared right before the June heat hits in waves. Its so relieving and freshening! Someday maybe I'll go to a salon and have them do it all for me but its hard to trust a random pair of shears when I know what I want and my own experiments are free.

 The bikes are back out and I am realizing that even though Dee is 7, I haven't really focused on working on getting him riding on a two-wheeler without training wheels very confidently. Goals for the Spring! Also, we seriously need to weed down our collection of wheeled vehicles. We do not need the gigantic fleet that we posses. Yay for the approaching neighborhood swap day!

 I am drinking a fair amount of protein shakes these days. I have decided that my new workouts and maybe just my normal activity warrants a more reliable protein supply and I have been whizzing them up when I am too busy to have a real sit-down lunch or when breakfast seemed like it had more produce than muscle feed in it. One of favorites has been a "pumpkin pie" version made with coconut milk, canned pumpkin pulp and cinnamon + vanilla protein powder. Yum! Its a treat that I don't really mind the boys indulging in with me and sometimes its serving as an ice cream substitute after dinner if I whiz in frozen fruit (Yay, new Costco membership this year!!!) and then scoop it into a bunch of tiny bowls.

 Pom is trying to potty train although I have been impossibly lazy about it. Here he is about to turn three and I am not there yet. I am embarrassed to admit that the "last baby" thing has infected me and threatens to allow me to spoil him. Argh! How can that be me? I know about that crazy stuff and I hate the idea of being like that. Its also just hard to be dedicated to the toilet cause when there is baseball practice and swimming lessons and co-op and gardening not to mention the laundry and the mopping. So much to keep on top of and his wearing diapers still seems somehow excusable. The good news is that he seems motivated himself on some level. He's doing pretty well at keeping clean at this point, telling me to take him to the bathroom when the need arises without any prompting. Staying dry is a whole 'nother story but hey....we can't ask the sun, moon and stars all at once!

I have been working on very little painting lately although I have a couple of ideas percolating and A is taking one of his necessary but unpopular trips to the West Coast again this coming week. I also hope to watch a few movies, maybe finish painting my bedroom and push a little bit of extra yoga into my life. Optimist much?

Hey, listen....its Spring!

The Late Winter Crawl

The baby has learnt to crawl. Suddenly I am aware again of every open doorway, our looming stairs, and the cords in every room that he so dearly loves to chew on. We are also in the midst of the human-carpet-sweeper stage, every little crumb and scrap of paper and stray bit of styrafoam is edible if it comes anywhere near his now-perfect pincer reach. Life is about to get really, really energetic. Its a season of movement and experimentation. Go!

I have my annual case of spring fever. I can feel it bubbling up inside of me and sometimes foaming out my ears without warning. I am positively magnetically drawn to the bundles of cut daffodils in the grocery store. I cannot escape the place without a cluster or two in my paw. I have started seeds for the veggie garden and have packets full of warmer weather seeds sitting by for wistful fondling. Time to grow some sprouts for sandwiches to fend off the blues.  Right?

The weather has been sunny and the morning sunrise occasionally breathtaking and I can palpably feel the days lengthening. I am praying morning prayer as a Lenten resolution using a Divine Office app on my phone in the middle of the morning which feels like the right thing to do after having seen a stunning sunrise. I have candles to light in my Mama Space in the sunroom and a little tabletop fountain to tinkle wetly in the background too, a beautiful prayer space. If I pray upstairs, where I write, outside my writing window I can see sapsicles hanging from the broken branches of the big sugar maple if the day is cold and chill sometimes a squirrel nibbling the sweet ice and bounding away to check out the tasty goodies on our compost pile.

This week A is taking a breather week before beginning his new job (that exciting, new life phase that will require thrift!) so we are doing lots of sitting around together and watching intriguing TED Talks at night and having slow mornings. There are just a few days left and then he will be off to train for two weeks in California leaving me and The Little Fellas for a fourteen day solo run. I am packing all of us in the car and taking off for Michigan to do some maple sugaring and maybe a little ice fishing with my parents in the north woods to keep us peppy and occupied. Good times ahead and lots of great blogging of the adventures along the way!

A Lion And Some Chickens

The golden, warm weather of yesterday's January thaw has gone and now we're having a wild blustery day up here on the hilltop. Lots of reading, lots of sorting through the seed bin, lots of dreaming about chickens (we're getting some!) and a little plotting about new bees (our hive bit the dust). Its a homestead dream day. I have been researching chicken coops and planting dates and talking to beekeepers on the phone about what I might have done wrong. After I push "Publish" on this post I'm off to the upstairs to rummage around in my homesteading book department and fuel the dream. This weekend I am hoping to put up a hoop house or two over some of our raised beds to get some early cold weather veggies started.

While I dreamed and researched and scribbled notes the boys have been having a playdough, graphic novel and drawing, drawing, drawing kind of day. Lots of interesting masterpieces making appearances. I am kind of smitten with this lion Ru created. I love his cheerful face, his humpy back, his tassely feet and his brush-bottle tail.

Garden Soak

Feeling a little low today so I started the day with a little meditation in my sunroom Mama-Space and then strapped a warm mug of tea to my side to keep my company while I dressed various short people and made breakfast.

But the real pick-me-up was some garden time. God, I miss being out in the garden. Right about the time February is arriving, I am starting to go crazy for a touch of something, anything that's green. The weather was incredibly warm and inviting this morning, a light, misty fog rolling down our hill and an inviting giant mud puddle by the back door waiting for the boys. I took the pruners and some stray yarn (for tying up raspberries), a trowel, some scissors, and a trowel out and I just did...ceaselessly for a little over three hours. Pom rode along on my back, sleeping peacefully through most of my work.

The smell of leaf mold, the damp earth on my knees, mud on my hands, and the sight of all those tiny green tips working their way out of the soil, promised me that this isn't forever...soon we'll be well again, soon there will be spring and soon we can cure our grumpy days with picnics.

Boy, does that sound good!

I feel a lot better.

Green Brain

I have Green-Brain. Its that time of year. There are any number of things sprouting and greening and budding in our sunroom which is very cheerful. This is a good time of year to be one of my houseplants. I'm dreaming of gardens and gardening and yet feeling so cold averse that I want to spend all my time snuggled up indoors. All of that amounts to much more attentive, loving care for the plant members of the household right about now. I am clinging to each little chartreuse leaf and unfolding blossom to tide me over until the warm comes back and until the baby is willing to me wander farther than a foot from him with my pruning shears and my trowel.

Almost every night I am carting the clanging metal compost can outside to our backyard pile and dumping more veggie trimmings and fruit cores. I feel very motivated to grow the heap, thinking about all the earthworms that I hope are churning away in the core of the pile, making me sweet fertilizer for filling up anemic raised beds, and tucking around my sad strawberry plants. Its a good time of year to be anything gardeny that wants my attention. Green leaves, and curling tendrils and produce of all kinds from my own land are what I am dreaming about at night, craving at the library, and turning my camera on whenever I look around for subjects.

Pom is not a fan of plants, unless he can eat them. He puts everything in his mouth and is scooting around backwards making himself angry at the way everything gets father and farther away every time he moves. And he is starting to make stabs at standing and stepping a little with hands to hold. The doctor tells me he is 5th percentile for weight and height but I find it hard to be too concerned, when he's so impossibly round and happy.  He's just a small, plump, happy man.

Caution: Spring Explosion Impending!

 Just yesterday morning the forsythia branches that I had in a vase on the sideboard looked like this. They were mostly still dormant and covered with tightly closed buds but the first blossom sprang open at the tip of a branch and that lovely lemon yellow made its first appearance.

This morning the bouquet looks like this. There is hardly a closed bud left in the bunch. I know it will be just as dramatic when the same performance happens outside, a bunch of sticks and then suddenly, BOOM, a flash of yellow and we'll be on to the garden season.

I am madly digging and dividing and picture snapping and sketching and thinking to myself that I really need to get a garden journal to write all of it down in. The weather yesterday and today was so lovely, a little fore-taste of what is ahead. I know that rain will come and we'll still have a few chill days before it is really full on but this lovely golden stuff is what we're headed into...and in not very long, I can hold on through the maple blossoms and the re-emergence of the grass and the first crocuses. Really, how much willpower does that take?

I have five little yellow crocuses blooming along one wall of the house and this morning I discovered a whole line of little hyacinth clusters, all down the back of our property line: little gifts from previous residents. I wonder how long ago they were planted and what the gardens looked like then. Nothing  like it does today I expect but I do wish I could see old blueprints for all the derivations of the lives our landscaping has had. You never know what lovely ideas were there that would be excavate-able. Ah for a time machine! Until then, I guess I'll settle for a pen and my trowel.

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• Spring Sprang and then went back to sleep! (mickiesbloominggarden.wordpress.com)
• Flowering Branches (graceandivy.wordpress.com)
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