Summer Fun

Well, I did it . .. I completed my first half-marathon. My time was 2:12, which I am pretty proud of. I set out just to finish the race and really felt good while running. More than anything, I was pleased at how fun it was and how good I still felt at the end. It was the inaugural Rock n' Roll Marathon/Half-Marathon in Seattle. I went up with a bunch of girlfriends to run it. We all had a great weekend and it was a fun race.

I've also finished the greenhouse (finally). It's far too hot to do anything with it now, but it is ready and waiting for cold weather growing (or at least attempts at growing).

The new raised beds are working out great! The garden is much easier to keep weed free (those aren't weeds you see . . .those are volunteers) and we are enjoying food from the garden already. At the moment we are dining on raspberries, sugar snap peas, onions, beets and starting just a few days ago . .. squash. I love the summertime eating.

Finishing up those big projects really lifts my spirits. I have a list a mile long of projects big and small. It seems like this should discourage me, but it really keeps me going whenever I finish just one of those projects. I have to remember that we moved here because we were out of projects at the old house. Next up: improvements/repairs to the chicken setup, replacing all the burned out bulbs (alas, there are SO many), fixing the diningchairs, figuring out what is wrong with the automatic door on the barn . . .and the list goes on.

Next up . . .camping.

Here chicky, chicky, chicky

Well, the girls are growing. They don't look like babies anymore, and definitely not like grown chickens. Just sort of in that (very) awkward, in between stage. They live in the garage now. They have graduated from kind of smelly, to downright stinky! I'm counting down the days they have left in the garage. And I spend my time with them trying to teach them to come to, "Here chicky, chicky, chicky." I have the feeling it is time poorly spent.

The weather has been terrible. Absolutely drenching downpours, gale winds, and then inexplicable sunshine. So weird. Annoying too, because it really prevents any work in the yard. I suppose it is a good thing I waited to plant the veggie transplants. Maybe this weekend. Rumor has it that we have some warmish sunshine headed our way.

They Grow Up So Fast

Here we are, finishing up week two and heading into number three. Already they have many feathers (some more than others), they seem to have all the basics down (eating, pooping, scratching--for food, scratching--as in curing an itch, stretching, flying, worm eating). We had warm weather and sun for a few days so they got plenty of outside time. They look so different from even a few days ago.

This little black one is the boldest of the bunch. She can be counted on to come running any time you show up with a worm.

This is a close-up of their current feather growth. Most already have these tails sprouting, and every day they get a new patch of wings.

And here she is showing off her latest talents of wing spread and walking the balance beam.

Between chickens and garden chores we sure are keeping busy around here these days.

Easter Peeps . . .the REAL ones!

We had two kinds of peeps this Easter and neither one contained marshmallow. First to arrive were the peeps coming from our new chicks. Wee babes, born this past Wednesday, they were relocated from the feed store to our house on Friday. Three belong to a neighbor, but the other four will move to our coop this summer.The second set of "peeps" was the group of friends that gathered for our annual Easter brunch.

As always, too much tasty food! I ate it for brunch, then again for dinner, again today . . .I need the leftovers to be gone, and soon!

Here are the chickees today. They grow so much every day it is incredible. I'm hoping to let them have some outside time later this week when it warms up.

How is it that my Easter has come to this? None of the pictures in the magazines shows two bedraggled boys who are overdue for a shower and wearing muddy shoes and sour expressions. I scoff at the idea of us getting a real holiday picture in our household . . . it would belong only on the front of one of those prank cards.

Recap of the week: We lost our first hen to a mystery predator. For now the other ladies are confined. At least the weather is crummy so they don't seem to mind so much. We thought we had another hen that was sick, but it turns out she was just molting The first of the seeds has sprouted in the new raised beds, so far we have lettuce, spinach and a radish or two. Next up is building the rest of the raised beds and then levelling off the ground to install the greenhouse. Now, if only the weather will cooperate by turning off the rain and giving us some sunshine!

A New Garden Project

The sun came out for a week or so and served its purpose to infect me with Spring Fever. Now that I am fully under the spell, the sun has gone into hiding and sent rain in its place. If that isn't utterly frustrating, I don't know what is. I've been sneaking out in the dry spells and working on my newest garden project which is part recycling, and part long overdue garden structure.

When our new neighbors moved in they asked if they could remove part of our fence that looked like this:

We said yes, and that we would like to keep the panels that were removed. So, that left us with this:

And now, I am transforming them into these:

I've actually gotten into a bit of a rhythm with the deconstruction, which turns out to be the hard part. I'm really cranking now . . .I think today I should be able to pretty quickly create another six to ten. I've already completed five, with another set of materials all cut and ready.

We'll just see if the garden is any easier to manage, more productive or just prettier with raised beds this year.

And, on another note (pah-dum-dum) here is a picture of Brady with his violin that I particularly liked:

IT bands . . .who knew?

So, it's not what you're thinking . . . gangs of nerdy computer people huddled around a mass of musical instruments? Not at all! I've been sidelined with a hip injury since late January. It was exacerbated by the heavy walking on hard surfaces that we did on vacation. The pain got to be so bad that literally every step I took was painful.

It's been a few weeks of rest and, finally, a definitive diagnosis of . . . ."tight IT bands". They run along the outside of your legs, tying everything together from your pelvis to your knee. I had never heard of such a thing (until my kind running friends informed me right away that this was the problem, though I must admit I did not completely believe them). I finally gave in and went to see the doc who confirmed that he was pretty sure it was a tight IT band. I realized, far too late, that ramping up a running program with no knowledge, no plan, and no stretching was not a good idea. I know . . .duh! But really, I thought I could just run and if it was too much I would know!

I've learned my lesson. I've been stretching the IT bands since Saturday and today was my first day without pain every step. Yay!!! Such a huge relief! I have been cranky beyond belief for the past three weeks. I feel like I am finally coming out of the cloud as I can see some light at the end of this tunnel.

My new mission (as assigned to me by the doc) includes regular stretching, regular cross-training, regular core strengthening work, a slow start up on my running program and a subscription to Runners World. Again, who knew? I thought it was a magazine for die hard runners but it turns out that it is for newbies too!

So, a new pair of shoes (picked for me by a running specialist with a slew of cool tools) and a new outlook! I'm actually excited to finally have some guidance on how to avoid injury. I really do enjoy running and I think I'll like it even more if I am not injuring myself doing it.

Playing Catch-up

Ok, so it's been awhile and here is the long overdue update. But I have lots of good excuses. I really do. First it was this . . .

A really bad cold that hit the whole family . . . Brian and I the worst. And then I suffered the indignity of trying to get some "real" cold medicine. It's really quite ridiculous what one has to go through to obtain good cold medicine these days . . . so I'm hoarding it. But I did manage to get some and it did a world of good.

Then there was this . . . .

A long overdue update of the barn. A finishing really. We had to completely finish one side (drywall, paint, floors, trim) and then do the other half. Here is the halfway picture. It is now finished, except for finishing touches and putting everything back in place.

But, I did manage to finish up a few other things, like the blueberries . . .

They all seem to be doing well . . .all of them have little buds on them, so I think they survived the transplant. Now we just have to wait about six months to see if they bear fruit.

And finally, the very best excuse of all, is that we took a family trip to Mexico. We had a great time and loved our hotel. We took a few excursions and enjoyed an all around terrific vacation.

The view from our room at Moon Palace.

Brian and I waiting for a bus to somewhere (we waited for a lot of buses).

The family at Tulum, overlooking the sea.

Brady finally got relatively close to one of the iguanas.

Brian and Brady on the top of Beach Palace--a hotel in the hotel row of Cancun.

The boys spent hours and hours and hours playing minigolf which was just outside our hotel room.
Brennan at the activities center. We played a lot of tennis, rode some bikes, played some ping pong, and Brady hit the X-box on the days he needed to avoid the sun.

A close up of one of the iguanas . . .they were everywhere . . .and they were huge!!

We spent two days at Wet n' Wild and the wave pool was one of the boys' favorites.

Brady's favorite was the bumper boats.

And, in the midst of all of this, we passed the one year mark of Cooper living with us.

Phew. And there you have it!

Little inspirations

Don't you wish you could snooze like that? This cat inspires me. She shows up on our doorstep one cold Christmas Eve. From the start she let us know what she wanted. Sometimes food, sometimes just a good rubdown, other times a door she wants opened. She persists loudly until she gets what she wants . . . oblivious to any eye rolls, sighs or insults hurled her way. She at times seems unsettled and nervous, but she'll soon work it out and just sack out with her belly in the. She is a spectacular hunter by night and by day she perfects the art of lounging and being a housecat. If only we all could take such easy care of ourselves.


Another odd bit of inspiration hit me today as I was refilling the hand soap in the bathroom. I was pouring from a huge refill container into the small dispenser. I realized that if I tried to rush this process I just made a mess of it. And when I slowed down and just let the soap take its time trickling (slow, but steady) that it all went along smoothly . . .no glubs, no mess . . .just nice and easy. And the light filtering through the blue ribbon was really very beautiful . . .almost peaceful. I'm thinking I ought to approach life more this way, because isn't life so much cleaner and more enjoyable when we just relax and do things at a natural pace and enjoy the view along the way? Every time I try to hurry it up I end up making a mess. So for today, it's all about being the liquid soap.

I just like the irony of this picture. The wintery tree and the volleyball net and shower which clearly belong to summer. I used to see things like this and miss summer . . . but now I'm more patient and can happily wait. Because really, if summer came tomorrow then we'd miss Spring. And Spring is not so great unless you've just finished Winter. I'm finally learning to appreciate the necessity and beauty of the cycles of life. It's a simple thing, but it sure has taken me awhile to catch on.

On to February

Lots of Canadian Geese have been flying over lately. Some in such large masses that the whole family is drawn out to the deck to look at the sky in awe with our mouths agape. Only after we made it back inside unscathed did we realize that we were lucky to have escaped being pooped on. I like this picture because it is exactly like the season here . . .some clouds, some blue sky, always something alive and moving about and then the tree, still slumbering through winter and awaiting Spring's new leaves.

It snowed . . .again. At least this time Mother Nature had the courtesy to wait until the kids were already on their way to school. It's pretty, but really, we're done!

And another Superbowl Party under our belts. Small and lowkey (and cold . . .the heater in the barn went out) but fun. The kids are tired today. My body is tired from all the yuck I ate yesterday. Today I must purge the house of the tempting, bad for you stuff and head back to veggies and good food.

Hopefully, today will end our streak of bad appliance luck. Today we have the dishwasher repair man here and the barn heater man on his way. There is always the coffeemaker which must be mailed back today and the refrigerator which seems to have taken on a personality of its own and beeps randomly throughout the day and night. I'm afraid to even talk about how everything is fixed now, or wonder about what is next . . . because I'm sure it would be something.

Dance a Little Jig

I think the picture says it all. This was our first 40th b-day party in awhile (Happy 40th Matto!) and we had a great time. So much fun to hang out and be silly for a day. There is always the flip side, which is that as the day draws to a close you are pulled back to the responsibilities that await you at home. I have to remind myself that everyone is not out having fun like this all the time while I am at home doing family stuff--right?? And if we went out partying all the time it wouldn't be as much fun as it is when you only do it every so often. . .right??? (You can see I'm still working on convincing myself). I love the life I have . . . and sometimes you have to dabble a bit in what you've decided to forego, and miss it just a little bit.

Brrrrrr . . . .

Ok, so it's not THAT cold, but to my little personal thermometer it is too cold. Tonight I had to go out and lock up the chickens for the night. I had to layer on so many clothes before heading out that even my own dog (who stood there and watched me apply the layers) was spooked at the sight of me. (duh!) Even with my Michelan Man suit it was cold enough out there to encourage me to make it a slow jog. Slow jogs in the dark, over uneven surfaces with a dog running interference is simply a bad, bad plan. I did, however, manage to avoid the lone brick my son tossed off of the top of the tree fort today.

What I really want to know is why these chickens can't figure out how to lock themselves up safely at night. They have figured out how to remove all of our styrofoam insulator blocks from the crawlspace vents. They have figured out how to help themselves to the cat food stash in the garage. They have figured out how to break open the straw in the barn and build a nest. Yet, they can't seem to provide for their own basic safety. . . . go figure. Bird brains!

A Good Kind of Tired

This is what 'the spot' looked like when my day started . . . .I spent the day fetching, transporting and then planting ten 30 year old blueberry bushes. Now I can check off one more fulfilled compulsion. What is it with me and my ridiculous farming compulsions anyway?! At least this one was cheaper than the greenhouse is going to be.

I was too tired to take an 'after' picture so that will have to wait until tomorrow (yes, I really was THAT tired).

I am sore, dirty, hungry and tired tonight, but it is so satisfying knowing that it was energy expended toward something productive. Of course, now that I have 10 in the ground I am just certain that I need another 20 or so.

And I am so exhausted that I don't want to cook. What a waste . . .because we all know how good food tastes when we are really hungry, right? Well, wouldn't it be nice to have your own cooking taste THAT good? I wonder why it is that food always tastes better when someone else makes it, especially after a day of manual labor. Wait . . . that gives me an idea . . .maybe the next time I have dinner guests I'll run them ragged first--flat out exhaust them--and then feed them . . .they will LOVE my food that way. Hmmmm. I have to give this some serious thought.

You are my sunshine . . .

You gotta love the sun! It's been showing itself for almost a week now, and I still appreciate every moment of it. It's stirring the spring fever, but we still have so long until planting time . . . .or do we?

I finally located some mature blueberry bushes for sale. It seems they need to be moved and planted this weekend so I may be digging in the dirt sooner than anticipated. Another obsession to check off my list. I don't know why I 'have' to have blueberries (mature plants) but I do!


Even though it is sunny these days, I still can't bring myself to go running outside . . . I convince myself that I'm going to get really, really cold at the furthest point out in my run . . .then what would I do? Instead I headed to the Y again. I kinda wish peer pressure had a stronger effect on me--I would probably be in a lot better shape if I was afraid to walk out of a fitness class that I wasn't liking. But really . . .if the music isn't any good, why bother? (See how good I am with excuses?)