countrypeapie

good day sunshine

2010-08-21T16:39:00.014-05:00

What better way to spend the morning than to run, meet good friends for coffee, mosey over to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens to see an art exhibit, and then head downtown for some fair trade shopping ~

striking nature photography by a friend and fellow blogger

gorgeous paintings and drawings of flowers by another friend ~ i wish i could link you to her blog, but she doesn't have one ~ yet ~ (hint, hint)

sculpture/water feature at the botanical gardens

lily pads

water lily

funky little critter on the Alabama woodlands trail

Lycoris squamigera

shark rock

Argiope aurantia

Sojourns

Naptime.

where i left off

2010-08-09T16:01:00.008-05:00

Highlights since last I blogged ~

rooster donation

Sometime in June, this fellow appeared at our house. We haven't had a rooster in a while, and I love waking up to a good crow, but this one gets started at around 4:30AM and goes all. day. long.

six

We celebrated Neal's birthday at Rickwood Caverns State Park. (Thanks, Allison, for the picture!)

red clay groovy

With the help of Laurie Kramer, Artist in Residence at Art Works Alabama, the Girls Scouts of North Central Alabama made Alabama mud tie-dye t-shirts.

cargo

Did I mention we're going to build a shipping container home on the banks of the Locust Fork? The picture above is an example of one that's being built close to Palisades Park. Our design is somewhat similar in that we're placing the containers on either end, but we'll also be incorporating some hay bale construction in between, and shoring up the sides with dirt for the sake of insulation. We're hoping to cut the driveway and place the first container this fall. Up until now, we've devoted most of our time to pesky details, such as locating the plat, arguing with the loggers, and proving that the now-gated road that provides access to our land belongs to the county and therefore should not be gated (they gave us a key; we're still working on this one). We're antsy to make some real progress, as time and money allows.

blount springs

2010-04-24T10:55:00.008-05:00

Every day, on the way to school, we pass a white sulphur spring that smells like rotten eggs. It's one of several mineral springs found in Blount Springs, Alabama.

Blount Springs was once a popular resort where people came from all over to heal themselves in the magical mineral water. My father-in-law can still find the spot where the old train station used to be.

white swirls of sulphur in the water

there are several of these ~ i think they're spring portals

an old stone wall

a hollow tree trunk ~ i always wanted to live in one of these when i was a kid

go ahead and make your own caption for this

tree love

the man eats raw eggs

2010-03-14T18:58:00.005-05:00

Me: Lee --
Lee: Yes --
Me: Tell us about eggs.
Lee: What would you like to know about eggs?
Me: What prompted you to begin eating raw eggs?
Lee: I believe we have established that I am mildly insane.
Me: Were there any other contributing factors -- health benefits, taste, etc.?
Lee: Yes.
Me: Please elaborate.
Lee: I'd heard about eating them before and that they're really good for building muscle and they are supposedly a perfectly balanced food. For years, I believed all the propoganda PR hype from the anti- raw egg people -- that they were really bad for your cholesterol. But after further research, just out of curiosity, I found that there are quite a number of sources that espouse the health benefits of raw eggs and that explain that detrimental effects only come from cooked eggs, because cooked eggs change the structure of several different elements within the egg. I had also believed the hype about salmonella until I did further research and found that the percentage of eggs that are infected with salmonella is somewhere in the neighborhood of one in thirty thousand eggs, but those eggs are factory hatchery eggs, where the chickens live in unhealthy conditions and are fed unhealthy foods.
Me: So it's a darn good thing our chickens starting laying again recently.
Lee: Si. Yes.
Me: How many raw eggs are you eating each day?
Lee: No more than two.
Me: Do you season them, or do you just crack them into a glass and drink them like Rocky?
Lee: Well, that's an interesting question, Meg. Not really that interesting, but worth answering at least. (Insert loving look from me to Lee here.) Until today, my process was to take eggs that are no older than six days, thoroughly wash my hands, and then wash the shell of the egg with hot water and one drop of soap, crack it into an egg-drinking glass (has to be the right size), and then drink it. At first I thought it would be icky, but in actuality, since I've begun to consume raw eggs, the thought of cooked eggs has become more icky.
Leah: You eat raw eggs, Daddy?
Lee: Yes, yes.
Leah: Ewwww!!!!
Lee: They really have no flavor -- barely perceptible flavor. But, as to your question, do I season them: for the first time today, as an experiment, I put a dash of hot sauce on the egg (Leah: Eww, gross!) before I drank it (Leah: Eww, double gross!), and it therefore tasted like hot sauce.
Me: Are the anti- raw egg people, like, militant?
Lee: Insidious. It's a worldwide conspiracy.
Me: Why doesn't the egg industry address this issue and promote the consumption of raw eggs?
Lee: The egg industry represents egg factories, which produce nasty eggs. I would never eat a raw egg from an unknown source.
Me: Are you going to start eating all of our backyard eggs? Because I still like them scrambled.
Lee: Then we need more chickens.

found between the dust and buttons

2010-02-15T17:15:00.004-06:00

Today, while tidying up the kids' room, I came across a journal that Leah kept last year, when she was in the second grade. Some excerpts:

If I were president I would help the poor.
I would make gas prices lower.
I would make school longer.
I would also make chocolate bars bigger.
I would also make giant packs of cookies.

I learned that the rain forest gets 60 inches of water each year and that jaguars like to eat fish and that sometimes the rain forest will flood.

5 things I learned
1. Sound travels faster in liquid than it travels through air.
2. Sound travels faster through solid than it travels through liquid and air.
3. An echo is a sound that bounces off of something.
4. Some sound waves are made to just go in one way.
5. Scientists have special microphones to listen to whales.

The life of Leah Waites
Leah was born August 29 2000 in Alabama. She went to kindergarten at Redmont and learned how to fingerknit and paint. She went to first grade at Hayden and learned how to do math and she learned all her alphabet. She went to second grade at Hayden Primary also and she learned how to write in cursive and she learned about different word meanings.

Spring
In spring you hear birds singing. You see the flowers bloom. You smell the pollen in the air. You feel the breeze go by. You talk to your plants so they will grow.

why i'm a heathen

2010-01-10T11:35:00.007-06:00

i pledge allegiance to a flag of all things known and unknown
i reject all other flags other than to find them pretty
i am not allied to random acts of birth
i do not worship the idea of a god that would choose one person over another
based on random acts of birth that result in cultural- religious immersion
and then expect some other person with some other random cultural-religious immersion
to preempt the others
my god is all things known and unknown and my god accepts all things known and unknown
and the telling of stories is the telling of stories and is not the road to redemption
or the path to heaven or the truth with a capital t
i am quilting a flag of all flags and once i am done it will still only be pretty
because it will still not represent all things known and unknown
it is mainly something that keeps us warm
and the miracle can be represented through story
but the miracle is not something that happened in a story
it is all things known and unknown
and it has no name
and there is no list of all the names we create at the end of the line
with a pass next to one and a fail next to another
the miracle is all around us and needs no embellishment
attempts to manifest the miracle through any medium are what we call art
of course something happens after we die
our bodies decompose and feed the earth (if we let them)
making food for new bodies to live
the miracle is not a spectacular show or a bestseller
i respect art and desire warmth
i respect your art and hope you are warm
but my flag does not fly over any one nation under any one god
it is too big for that

fancy

2010-01-02T12:57:00.002-06:00

i am falling asleep to embers
only i am not falling asleep

i am dry-eyed, dry-throated, dry
the heat steals my water

my son has bad dreams in the next room
tosses and protests
injustice is relative

we have a bed
and an oven
the futon is folded up for sitting
the water runs
the roof holds

we got the fancy guppies at the shop owner's
recommendation
they are hardy, live long
the snails and plants clean the tank so we don't have to

fish must be different from people because fancy and hardy
don't go
luxury is relative

interview with a kefir freak

2009-12-05T09:55:00.011-06:00

pouring fermented kefir into a glass jar for storage in the refrigerator

kefir grains ~ there are different shapes and textures, but apparently the flat and stringy kind, as shown here, is the best

So Lee, tell us about kefir.

~ Where do you want me to start?

How do you pronounce it?

~ I say KEFFer because it sounds better to me. I believe the original pronunciation is kuh-FEAR. It's Russian. It's from the Caucasus Mountains.

What is it?

~ It is a fermented/cultured milk product similar to a drinkable yogurt.

How do you make it?

~ Well, first you acquire the kefir grains from someone. These kefir grains are the same kefir grains that come from the Caucasus Mountains, that have been passed down hand to hand for thousands of years. Second, you add milk in a glass or ceramic container -- never metal -- in fact, you avoid contact with metal at all stages except when straining -- and you ferment for anywhere from 24 to 72 hours, then strain into a glass or ceramic container and refrigerate.

You don't refrigerate it while it's fermenting?

~ No, that slows down the process.

Do you drink it straight from the fridge?

~ Yeah, you can. You can enjoy it in any number of ways.

Such as....

~ Mix it with fruit and make a smoothie. Add it to bread recipes. Drink it straight if you're brave (it tastes kind of like buttermilk), mix it with salad dressings. My personal favorite is one tablespoon honey, one tablespoon ground flax seed, and a half pint of kefir.

Why do you do this?

~ I haven't been sick since I started drinking it. My social anxiety, which I've suffered from for years, has virtually disappeared.

So you can eat out at restaurants now?

~ I still don't enjoy it, but I can. Too noisy. I can't focus on my food or my fellow diners.

And you can shop now, without having a panic attack?

~ No. And I say this for purely political reasons.

Huh?

~ Now you're going to try to make me do the shopping.

(Damn.)

Are there known health benefits, aside from your anecdotal evidence?

~ The claims are numerous.

Why do you choose to make your own kefir when you can buy it in some stores, such as Whole Foods?

~ I'm not sure why, but store-bought stuff doesn't have the same effects. It may just be the potency of freshness. Plus, I get a kick out of making my own stuff. I made my own sauerkraut, grew my own mushrooms. Things taste better when they're fresh. The store-bought stuff never helped my stomach.

So, like yogurt, kefir aids digestion?

~ Ten times better.

Where did you find the grains to get started?

~ I paid $20 to have them sent from the kefir lady. Most people frown on paying for them. It's supposed to be a way to share god's gift of the health-giving kefir grains, and most people in the kefir community prefer to give it away, especially seeing as how kefir grows, like any culture. Finding something to do with the excess kefir actually becomes a challenge, because it's too beneficial to simply throw away. Once exposed to the generous health benefits, one would certainly become eager to share.

Then why did the kefir lady charge for them?

~ She claimed it merely covered the shipping and her material investment. To me, she seemed established, and being new to the kefir community, I felt more comfortable dealing with someone who seemed obviously established and verifiable.

So, conceptually, is it kind of like sharing sour dough in that you grow something, you keep it alive, and then you can share a little with others, who can in turn grow it and keep it alive, and use it to make things?

~ Sure.

Anything else you want to say about kefir?

~ Google it.

fires and fish

2009-11-21T22:00:00.004-06:00

The kids found two of these flashlight/magnifying glasses while we were cleaning out Lee's grandmother's house. I can't tell you how many times I tried to start fires with magnifying glasses when I was a kid. Never worked. I don't know where Leah and Neal got their fire genes, but they can smoke a leaf in about two seconds flat.

Terrible picture, but what you see here are two snails and a fancy guppy. There's another fancy guppy that must've been hiding behind the rock. (I'm not exactly sure what makes them so fancy.) There's also one of those small, tank-cleaning catfish thingies named Roger. The really cool thing about this particular combination of plants and creatures is that the water stays remarkably clean, which makes this aquarium a low-maintenance addition to the household. We've had it for months now, and it seems to be a healthy little ecosystem.

Mmmmmmm -- Lee just made brownies. Gotta go!

you know you're old when...

2009-11-03T20:41:00.004-06:00

~ There is a drop-down for the year you were born, with a huge selection of years in the visible box, and still you must scroll down, down, down to find your year.

~ You used to call your friend who works in a doctor's office to ask for valium. Now you call to ask for eyedrops to treat pinkeye.

~ The librarian at your daughter's school starts talking about that Bon Jovi song, Dead or Alive, and you say, I remember when that song came out -- it was so popular, and she says, How old are you?

~ You find yourself trying to explain to your kids what a tape recorder is.*

~ You find yourself trying to explain to your kids that Drake and Josh did not write Here Comes the Sun.

~ You find yourself trying to explain yourself to your kids, period.

~ You actively promote the notion that Because I said so is a reasonable explanation for why a child must do whatever you say.

~ You take detours that allow you to show people all of the places you used to live, and you find yourself saying This wasn't here a lot.

~ You can't remember if you've already done a blog post just like this one before, and that's okay.

~ You can neither spell nor define familiar words without consulting a dictionary.

~ You squint for no apparent reason. (You do not need glasses. Nope. Not you.)

*Seriously, though -- tape recorders are fun.

late harvest

2009-10-28T22:15:00.001-05:00

boston

2009-10-26T21:01:00.012-05:00

I used to travel on business quite a bit. I never once took a trip that didn't end up being a little crazy in some way, but the nuttiest trip I ever took was to Boston. I won't go into all of the details here, but it did inspire me to write a song.

I've been neglecting both blogging and playing music lately, so maybe if I jot down the lyrics, it will count a little towards both.

I have issues with presenting song lyrics in my blog (refer to previous song lyrics post). But I've also found that the older I get, the worse I spell, the worse I edit, and the less I care, so I'm proceeding with that general approach toward the blog. It's this or nothing tonight.

(Funny thing: My band once played at Bottletree in Birmingham, and we opened with this song because it's very fast and energetic, kicking off with the boomwhackers in F and C. The show was a benefit for Black Warrior Riverkeeper, and it so happens that the president of the company I work for is also the father of the Riverkeeper, so he was there in the audience. I guess it was okay, because I still work there.)

The name of the song is Boston, but I like to call it the punkass song, just because it's fast as hell and we do it with a lot of attitude.

Flying underneath the stars into Boston / I had never seen constellations on the ground
I named them after the people I knew / One was Elizabeth, one was you
The lake was like a black hole pulling us into the runway / Into the runway
The drinks were a poor substitute for feeling genuinely better / Genuinely better
I dial 8 and then 1 and then your number / You're like the pen on the desk in the hotel
I just figure you're there for me

Crawling out of bed at six thirty in the morning / 23 degrees in the sun and the snow is
Blinding on the way to the big boardroom meeting / B-O-R-E-D, big boardroom meeting
Where the power is wielded in points on a white screen and we all ask our questions / All ask our questions
The strategy hovers like a preying mosquito, we will curse when it bites us / Curse when it bites us
I try to keep my shit together / I'm a professional, shit together
But I just want to go home

Too bad no one was there to see me step out of the stretch limousine
In front of the Days Inn / Pimping in Atlanta on a layover night
Three days later we're back again with the hot spring breakers
Wearing their flip-flops, wearing their fake tans / With their teeth as white as the snow up in Boston

why i don't miss my microwave

2009-10-24T15:06:00.004-05:00

I haven't had a microwave in years. Even after a friend gave us one during our move out here, I didn't use it, and it has since been dropped off at a donation site. It finally occured to me one day that it didn't take much longer to boil water on the stovetop than it did in the microwave, and pretty much everything that will cook in either an oven or a microwave tastes WAY better when it's cooked in an oven. I don't really do frozen dinners, and popping a potato into the oven is no more difficult than popping it into the microwave -- you just have to do it earlier.

Microwaves take up a lot of space, they're loud, and sometimes you put things in them that really don't belong. I mean, you would never throw a styrofoam container full of leftovers into the oven thinking, "If it doesn't cook for very long, it's okay, right?" And with a microwave, you can't always tell which plates are going to warm up nicely and which are going to burn the living crap out of you. Give me a good oven-to-table plate -- I know it'll burn the crap out of me every time. That's what pot holders are for. You wouldn't dream of removing anything from the oven without a pot holder, but how many times have you grabbed hold of that mug or bowl or plate in the microwave, expecting it to be hold-able, only to discover it's not?

We once threw a party at our old house in Roebuck Springs, and someone showed up with some sauce that was supposed to be heated in a microwave. When she discovered we didn't have one, she didn't know what to do. It reminded me of the time I was talking about my old 45s to a much younger friend, and he asked me what a 45 was. My eyes got really big and then I laughed. Not at him, but at the reminder that we all exist in our own cultural contexts.

I showed the party girl how to empty the sauce into a saucepan and heat it on the stovetop using a very low flame. Perhaps this will come in handy someday when she's lost in the wilderness of someone else's kitchen.

But the biggest reason I don't miss my microwave? Three words: red sauce splatter.

the joy of hugs from other people's children, and how not to make a sit-upon

2009-10-05T21:40:00.004-05:00

This year, I decided to become co-leader of Girl Scouts of North-Central Alabama Troop 449. Troop 449 shares its meeting time and space with another troop, so tonight the room was packed as we made sit-upons and square knots.

A sit-upon is like a stadium seat, and making one is very much like making a pillow. So much like making a pillow that I sort of forgot all about the idea of a stadium seat and pretty much started helping them make pillows. A pillow is best when it's very fluffy, and its seams are very tight. This is because your head doesn't support the weight of your entire upper body.

Imagine you're a sweet little brownie scout. You stuff fluff and newspaper into a plastic bag, so that it will be water proof. You don't intentionally stuff air into your plastic bag, but it's there, and you don't squeeze it out, because your co-leader doesn't tell you to. Your co-leader wants your pillow to be fluffy. You tie up the plastic bag, air and all. You put your plastic stuffing bag into your vinyl sit-upon after sewing three sides of the vinyl together. Your stuffing bag doesn't take up all of the space inside the vinyl, so your co-leader helps you tighten and gather your stitches around it. You now have a nice, fluffy, oddly-shaped pillow with air inside of it that can't escape, because you've tied it into the fluff bag. What you have is a balloon-pillow, really. For your butt. Which is all well and good until you actually sit upon it, which if you'll recall is the entire point.

The way I choose to imagine it is that most of the parents were too busy talking to all of the other parents to notice as their dear little brownies proudly sat their dear little butts upon their dear little balloon-pillows and blew them right out -- popped the seams off without even the satisfaction of a whoopie cushion-ish noise to turn it into a hilarious prank.

Now back up a bit, to when the girls selected their pieces of vinyl. Leah got the one piece that had something like 500 holes along the edges. WAY more holes than any other piece. She was very insistent that she use that piece, and began sewing it together. She asked for help only once, when her holes wouldn't align, and she stayed late to finish. By the time she was ready to stuff it, all of the blow-outs were old news. She knew to squeeze the air out, and I knew to leave her stitches alone. So she ended up with the best sit-upon of the bunch. It looks and feels just like a stadium seat. And suddenly I am aware that this could be bad for me. That this could appear as though I have pulled a classic cheerleader's mother's stunt, sabotaging all of the other girls so that my daughter appears to be the best. She even decided to finger knit a handle. Next thing you know, she'll be embroidering her name on the front and adding fringe along the edges.

So yeah, the parents might not appreciate my mad crafting skills (or Leah's), but I think their children actually like me. Several of them gave me happy little hugs, for no apparent reason other than the joy of hugging. Lucky for me, hugs are unbreakable.

no excuse

2009-09-09T20:29:00.011-05:00

The kids' schools didn't show the school speech. The school speech that was all about staying in school. So I kept them out of school to watch it. Then we went to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute ~

First we walked around the park ~

Then we went inside, where we couldn't take pictures. No need, really. It's the sort of thing that etches itself into your memory. Neal asked if the KKK costume was a ghost. Leah asked why only four little girls were in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church when it was bombed ~

Both Leah's and Neal's absences are considered unexcused by their schools.

scenes from inside the car

2009-09-06T10:23:00.004-05:00

leah likes to make origami cranes on her way to school in the morning ~ they seem to have flown into my cup holders

neal likes to make a bed for his favorite stuffed animal ~ looks pretty cozy to me

to be or not to be

2009-08-16T09:18:00.004-05:00

these roses decided for themselves ~

this one is

this one isn't

they're right next to each other

i think the one that's blooming gets a bit more sun ~ maybe the other one just needs a little p-rose-ac.

how to make a tomato basil sandwich

2009-08-12T21:20:00.005-05:00

~ Grow tomatoes. Slice them. They are beautiful inside.

~ Toast some whole wheat bread and spread it with mayo and feta cheese.

~ Grow basil. Pinch off some leaves and arrange them on top of the mayo and feta.

~ Place the beautiful, giant slices of tomato on top of everything, put the sandwich together, and slice it in half.

~ Wow.

~ P.S. If you've grown cucumbers, you may add thin slices of those as well.

~ Did I mention Wow?

close there is

2009-08-08T17:55:00.009-05:00

roosterman stares through glass
sheds feathers from a haughty fan

hens and chicks step to shallow pan
sip water and peck for last night's corn

(wild birds steal oats and flax
hide in trees with treasure grains)

grass grows tall

foolish are we in sandals and shorts
riding bikes through bumpy fields
dodging turtles
ducking pines
squeaking brakes for sharpest turns

but

close there is a river
close there is
cold rushing smooth skipping stone in water
green vining fingers sliding long through limbs
dirt clinging sweat breathing salt licking birds singing
all along the fork

yes

close there is a river

chicks

2009-07-30T19:57:00.005-05:00

One of our hens disappeared for a while ~

Seems she was busy ~

no time to talk

2009-07-20T18:11:00.011-05:00

scarlet runners ~

kikiriki ~

homegrown salad (the tomato in the middle is a black cherry, hence the dark innards) ~

buggy 1 ~

buggy 2 ~

big

2009-07-11T12:06:00.006-05:00

I don't mean to brag, but holy moly are my tomatoes getting big ~

They're getting so big that every day I worry about something terrible happening to them, like finding giant green worms devouring all of the leaves of the plants. Which I did. Fortunately, they had little time to do any permanent damage, and they left most all of the fruit alone. We (and by we, I mean Lee and our friend Harry) pulled them off and threw them into a pot of hot, soapy water, which seemed to do the trick.

Because all of my labels faded while the plants were in the cold frame, I've no idea what color to expect as they ripen. I'm guessing pink or yellow. Stay tuned.

summertime things

2009-07-05T20:21:00.009-05:00

homegrown white scallop squash with purchased cauliflower, vidalia onion, and garlic ~ sauteed in olive oil with oregano, cumin, black and cayenne pepper, and salt ~ served over whole wheat spaghetti with a carafe of mint tea ~ colorful, no ~ flavorful, yes

~~~~~~~

Not long after Leah was born, I went to Chicago on business, hauling my dual chamber electric breast pump through the airport only weeks after 9/11, awkwardly explaining that it was not an explosive device, then plopping down on the floor in the entrance to the ladies room to use the only outlet I could find.

Later, when she was older and no longer nursing, I went to London for a week on business. I remember trying to explain to my colleagues that I felt a biological drive to be with my child. Childless themselves, they seemed interested for a couple of polite minutes, and then started some other conversation as I nursed my Stella and decided that the next night I would stay in and order room service.

Today, we took Leah to her first resident camp, a Girl Scout campground on Lake Guntersville. I LOVED camp when I was a kid, and I have been looking forward to introducing Leah to the joys of summer camping -- archery, boating, riding, etc. And like any parent who rarely gets a babysitter, I have been looking forward to having time -- time to spend with Neal, time to relax to the degree afforded by having only one kid in the house instead of two. But now that we're home and she's not, it feels exactly as it did when she was so much younger, and I was working full-time and traveling quite a bit, looking around bitterly at all of the stay-at-home moms, wondering how in hell so many of them were able to swing it, and when in hell people were going to get pissed off enough about healthcare options (or lack thereof) to start a revolution. Well, the missingness feels the same. The political stuff doesn't, because this is an entirely different context -- a context of choice. Guess I just kinda ranted there for a second.

But in any context, I wonder if the missingness ever gets any smaller?

sunday brunch

2009-06-28T11:11:00.002-05:00

Homegrown black beauty zucchini and early golden summer crookneck squash, sauteed with vidalia onion from the farmer's market, and served with yellow grits. I love it when Lee cooks.

green things

2009-06-27T10:07:00.007-05:00

I wouldn't necessarily say we're winning the battle against the squash bugs, but we are managing to pick a few squash here and there ~

The tomatoes are growing like mad, and we are growing impatient as we wait for them to ripen ~

best guacamole ever

2009-06-23T22:05:00.003-05:00

Wait until it's really hot outside. Go to the store. Buy five perfectly ripe avocadoes. A perfectly ripe avocado is like al dente pasta, where your fingers are your teeth. One tomato, garlic, lemon. Be sure you have salt, black pepper, and cayenne in your pantry.

At home, pull out a cutting board, two knives (okay, I'm picky with the knives; I like a regular steak knife for cutting the avocadoes and the lemon, and a serrated bread knife for cutting the tomato), a soup spoon, a garlic press, a masher, a big bowl for the guacamole, a medium bowl for the scraps, and a very small bowl for the lemon juice.

Cut the avocadoes in half lengthwise. Squeeze the seed out of the side it ends up on. Use the soup spoon to scoop the avocado meat out of the shell and into the big bowl. Press two cloves of garlic into the big bowl. The best thing about a garlic press is that you don't have to peel the garlic. Cut the lemon in half widthwise and squeeze both halves into the very small bowl. Use the soup spoon to remove the seeds, and then dump the juice into the big bowl. Dash of salt, three turns of the pepper mill, and three shakes of cayenne.

Mash it all together. It's okay to leave some chunks. Chunks are good.

Cut the tomato in half widthwise and squeeze all of the seeds out into the scrap bowl, which by now also contains avocado shells and seeds, the remains of the garlic (which you have immediately scraped out of the press in order to immediately rinse the press, because lord knows there is nothing harder than removing dried garlic from a press), and a spent lemon. Chop each half of the tomato into chunky pieces and throw it on top of the guacamole. Use the soup spoon to lovingly mix the tomato into the guacamole.

Eat with tortilla chips and maybe a Corona. I'm not a big Corona fan, but it seems like the right thing to do.

Oh yeah, the scraps: put them in your compost heap!

I would have included a picture, but it's gone.

cycles

2009-06-14T21:03:00.006-05:00

On Saturday, we all wished Mister Neal a very happy fifth birthday. He is freckled and dimpled and fresh, unfurling green, like the bean sprouts reaching upupup toward the top of the tepee.

He got his first real bicycle, with training wheels, a helmet, and some pads. There is nothing like that gasping moment of excited big kidness spinning around in spokes and pedals and tires.

We are clearing the downed hackberry from the yard, trying to make way for his party.

Before ~

After ~

I don't think a helmet and pads would have saved this old lady. But she grew big and strong, and she lived a good long time. And that's how things roll.

maters! and other stuff

2009-06-10T18:51:00.014-05:00

The tomatoes are getting bigger every day ~

I think these are Royal Hillbillies, but there's an element of surprise to this particular crop. I cut up a bunch of old plastic containers to make markers for them while they were seedlings, but the ink faded while they were in the cold frame. They could be Royal Hillbilly, Yellow Brandywine, St. Pierre, Black Cherry, or, apparently, Arkansas Traveler, although I don't remember labeling any as such. I seem to recall reading that tomatoes aren't worth the effort of starting from seed, but as a first-time seed-starter, my experience is that they are just as easy as any of the other things we started.

~~~ other stuff ~~~

These magnolias were blooming on a tree at Lee's grandmother's house in Montgomery ~

This luna moth was on the side of a building ~

This pretty perennial is tucked into the periwinkle ~

These feet are happy in their Merrell's ~

homegrown

2009-06-07T12:17:00.013-05:00

I put these Chinese yellow cucumber seeds in the ground last Sunday, and here they are as of last Thursday. Amazing what four days can do!

White bush scallop squash ~

you might not be a domestic goddess if...

2009-06-03T16:45:00.002-05:00

~ You find yourself eating yogurt with muesli out of a Christmas mug using a fork.

~ Days later, you still have little white dots all over the floor from when your four-year-old made shaved styrofoam with the shaved ice machine.

~ It doesn’t bother you one bit to leave the clothes on the line in the rain. The sun’ll come out tomorrow.

~ Your idea of clearing the recycling out of the kitchen typically results in the recycling clinking in your car trunk for, like, a month.

~ You have quilts hanging up in your windows instead of curtains, just like when you were in college.

~ A friend recommends the Roomba for daily maintenance, but notes that it doesn't replace your weekly deep cleaning, and you think, Good Lord, what IS she talking about?

~ You notice there is a spider’s web between your guitar and the bookshelf it’s resting against when you pull it out to put some stickers on the case. Wait a minute: this means you’re not a rock star, either. Damn. What the hell happened?

things that happened over the weekend

2009-06-01T20:42:00.004-05:00

1. Made important business call from home while kids played outside.

2. Received note from kid number one during important business call: Come outside! Giant tree down in back yard!

3. Mourned loss of big, old hackberry.

4. Went to Montgomery to help with yard sale. Return on investment for yard sale: not so hot. Did manage to come away with this and this.

5. Mourned fact that kid number two expelled almost every known bodily fluid onto places it didn't belong while in Montgomery helping with yard sale. Return on investment for kid number two: still crunching the numbers.

6. Learned enough about wild plants that I am now enjoying home-brewed sassafras tea. See more here.

7. Planted cucumbers.

8. Displaced camera purchase with purchase of one full sized violin for kid number one, and one quarter-sized violin for kid number two. Totally okay with that.

pail

2009-05-27T21:14:00.005-05:00

I love the way its handle fits in the distal hinge joints of my fingers. The way it swings back and forth as I walk. The way it makes me feel useful, strong, and farm-y. The way it holds things: weeds, dirt, water, ash. The way it may be left, full or empty, anywhere, and it just fits.

Memorial Day at Paw Paw's pool

2009-05-27T21:00:00.007-05:00

Acoustic Cafe

2009-05-21T20:22:00.004-05:00

Rurality recently posted some lovely pictures taken at Steve Masterson's place, just a hop-skip-and-a-jump from where we live. Every May, Steve is the gracious host of the Acoustic Cafe. We can't make it this year, but if anyone out there is looking for a great little music festival this Memorial Day weekend, check it out.

Here are some pictures from the 2006 event. (I no longer have them on my computer and attempts at downloading them from a Shutterfly shared site didn't work. You don't have to sign into Shutterfly or create an account or any such thing -- just click View Album and then click on each picture individually or watch the slide show.)

that farmhouse feeling

2009-05-20T08:40:00.009-05:00

Two things I like in my appliances: retractable cords and timers.

The past two evenings, drunk with sunshine after a month or more of rain, we have set the timers. Lee made French honey bread that finished baking in the bread machine at exactly 5:50am, just before the magic coffee maker that grinds the beans revved its engine and took off ~

Full of crust and butter and coffee, I contemplate forgiving the chickens for eating my pretty pink roses, which appear to have had enough buds on them to recover ~

It only took one day of sunshine to dry these out, but they sprang right back after a good soaking. I'm not sure what they are; the tag said something as enlightening as Flowering Plant ~

The tomatoes wear tiny fruit that hangs in a graceful droop ~

That's pokeweed growing on the other side of the fence. Lee wants to leave it there so that he can make poke salad, but I for one am skeptical of anything you have to boil three times before it stops being poisonous enough to kill you.

Did I mention we found a turtle? We were loading some wood from a fallen tree when we spotted him beneath the branches. Neal named him George Josh but Lee and I like to call him George Joshington. We made an outdoor habitat of our old rabbit cage. (Which might lead one to wonder whatever happened to our old rabbit. Well. At first he lived indoors with us, but then he chewed through all of the electrical cords, so we moved him out to the chicken coop. Often we let him roam freely through one section of the coop or another, until one day we couldn't find him in any section of the coop. He appeared to have escaped, Alcatraz-style. We later saw him hip-hopping happily in the field. Attempts to lure him back with baby carrots were unsuccessful.)

No pictures of this, but believe me when I tell you that I returned home from a Saturday morning run to find a frog in the tub. We set him free.

(Making progress on the camera front: picked one out, but an untimely flat tire has forced me to delay the purchase until next month.)

a few of his favorite things

2009-05-19T21:45:00.004-05:00

Me: Neal, I have some questions for you.
Neal: Okay.
Me: What's your favorite color?
Neal: Blue.
Me: What's your favorite animal?
Neal: Elephant. No, dragon.
Me: What's your favorite food?
Neal: Hotdogs and beans.
Pause.
Neal: Now. Let's talk about candy for a little while.

deer valley, utah

2009-05-17T10:31:00.021-05:00

It was snowing when we got there ~

The man who drove us from the airport to the hotel is a composer who also plays in a rock band that has toured in Japan. He was nice enough to take a picture of us in front of the hotel ~

left to right: Brent, Neeru, Rick, and me

The conference was hosted by our software provider, so in between ooohs and aaahs over the snowy mountains -- and fabulous food -- we learned all kinds of exciting geek-stuff. (Sorry -- no pictures of the exciting geek-stuff.)

another group shot, courtesy of Alta Anthony at Johns Hopkins University Press

Ski season had just ended, so most of the shops and restaurants were closed, but we did manage to find a cozy book store with a resident cat watching over the register. I needed a book for the plane ride home and could have spent hours browsing. My companions were very patient, and finally I chose a book of poetry by Gary Snyder.

The highlight of the trip: climbing to the top of the wall ~

Special thanks to Neeru for the pictures.

it!

2009-05-08T20:40:00.007-05:00

Julia has tagged me for a meme! So just in case the DVR list in my last post didn't satisfy your thirst for information about me, you're in luck -- here's lots more!

What are your current obsessions?
Growing tomatoes, murdering poison ivy, hating the codependent relationship I have with my cell phone.

Which item from your wardrobe do you wear most often?
Sports bra. Cause I'm sporty.

What's for dinner?
Lentils and rice with parmesan cheese, broccoli, yogurt with Grape-nuts cereal sprinkled on top. (Actually, that was last night's dinner. I just didn't want to fess up to the fact that tonight we went to Taco Bell.)

What's your greatest fear at the moment?
That my son will never remember to walk instead of run in the parking lot.

What are you listening to?
My best guess is that it's a giant moth fluttering into the kitchen window screen.

If you were a goddess what would you be?
But I AM a goddess.

What are your favourite holiday spots?
Smoky Mountains, Rocky Mountains. I like mountains. And woods. The Sipsey Wilderness is nice. England always feels like home, though I've been only a handful of times.

What are you reading right now?
Newsweek. I finished The Geurnsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society while in Utah earlier this month (wonderful book). We're going to the library tomorrow to return some things -- not sure what I'll dig into next.

What is your guilty pleasure?
Putting entirely too much half and half in the bottom of my mug before pouring the coffee.

Who or what makes you laugh?
My kids and my husband, Will Ferrell, Tommy Boy, The Big Lewbowski.

What is your favourite spring thing to do?
Wear sandals. My feet like to breathe.

Where are you planning to travel next?
I'm seriously considering going to Chattanooga to do a half-marathon trail run later this month.

What is the best thing you ate or drank lately?
Steak and salmon at the Stein Eriksen Lodge in Deer Valley, Utah.

When was the last time you were tipsy?
At the opening night reception for the conference in Utah. Which is funny, because the conference itself was hosted by Mormons.

What is your favourite ever film?
Too hard to narrow down. There's a particular camera movement in Wonder Boys that is utterly graceful. I love Lost in Translation. The Nightmare Before Christmas.

What is the biggest lesson you've learned from your children?
Eating and sleeping on time are essential to one's well being.

What song can't you get out of your head?
Well, I don't know what it was before, but now it's that song that goes Well, I can't get you out of my head....

What book do you know you should read but refuse to?
Look Homeward, Angel, by Thomas Wolfe. Not because of modern day criticism (to be honest, I would probably enjoy its meandering style), but because I associate it with the summer before my senior year of high school.

What is your physical abnormality/abnormal physical ability?
Physical abnormality: my spine is crooked (not so much so that you can tell by looking, but I did have to wear a brace when I was young). Abnormal physical ability: ummmm -- I can run 26.2 miles -- does that count?

What is your favourite colour?
All shades of blue are nice. I like a little bit of red here and there. In early April, the deep red clover against the high green grass, with an occasional orange/yellow wildflower standing out, is simply striking.

I tag The Country Experience, mountainmelody, and Heather K. You're it!

mindlessness

2009-05-06T21:38:00.005-05:00

I feel like blogging but I don't feel like thinking. I don't feel like doing pictures and text and laying it all out just right. I'm frustrated that I still haven't gotten a decent camera. There is no good reason I still haven't gotten a decent camera, just like there is no good reason I still haven't cut my hair.

A list would be good right about now. Hmmm. Ever wonder what we record on our DVR? No? Oh well, here you go:

House

The Office

30 Rock

Monk

Psych

Reaper

The Daily Show

The Colbert Report

Namaste Yoga

and a bunch of scifi and adult cartoons for Lee

We did manage to get a few of our tomatoes into the ground this afternoon ~

They are actually much taller than this, but we set them deep down, burying some of the leaves as you often do with tomatoes. The soil is amended with coop junk, and the plants are mulched with a layer of compost and a sprinkling of coop hay. They're planted in an area where we're making some raised beds by double digging and terracing, in part of the yard that we didn't turn over with the terramite. Lee has claimed the terramite-turned area -- it is now the island of lost plants. I am ruthless in my culling of seedlings, but he can't bear to let any of them go.

Ah, well -- I couldn't resist adding a picture and text after all. I feel better now.

pretty little surprises

2009-05-03T20:25:00.009-05:00

In the spring of 2007, after finding our house in Hayden but before permanently moving in, I transplanted some irises from our yard in Roebuck Springs. They didn't bloom at all last year, so I thought I'd done something wrong -- thought perhaps the bulbs weren't deep enough. Then someone told me I might have to wait up to five years after transplanting them before they would bloom again. This made me feel both hopeful and disappointed at the same time. I had given up on expecting any blooms this year -- everyone else's were sticking out their fuzzy little purple and yellow tongues, and mine were just sitting there making pretty little green Vs at the foot of a tree.

Then one day last week, I noticed that one of them had three buds on it! The others were showing no such signs, but this one was about to pop!

and pop it did (drat that cell phone lens!) ~

These roses surprise us every year -- they are among the many things that were here long before we were (double drat that cell phone lens!) ~

I've been trying to catch roosterman atop his well for quite a while. He likes to spring from here to the treetops. Before we had chickens of our own, I had no idea how high they could fly ~

Here are some of our tomatoes in the coldframe. This shot was taken a couple of weeks ago -- they're even bigger now. They are beyond ready to be put into the ground, but I spent last weekend preparing to go to Utah (business) for a few days, and this weekend was rained/tornadoed out. We'll set them out next weekend, come rain or shine ~

Stay tuned for a recap of the Utah adventure....

absent minded

2009-05-01T17:00:00.004-05:00

the dog ate it, well
at first i forgot, then
later squandered, as though
it were disposable, some thing
i could live with
out

plucking and puzzling tongue
to paper

(like i forgot to refuse meat, or
your best friend's name)

there isn't much time, remind
me again
i wanted to be a poet

swelter - not venom but memory - inside
this tropospheric tent, eyes unzip

blackberry blossoms, fruits
(sometimes
smarts)
sometimes falls/
is thrown
perfectly ripe to the ground

comes some thing canine, or
else forgotten

no weeds here, ma'am

2009-04-30T21:36:00.016-05:00

Lately in the afternoons, the kids collect wildflowers for their self-styled flower shop. They carefully pick them, trim them, gather the stems, and wrap a little tape around them. In order to acquire a bouquet from the shop, you must offer flowers of your own.

It's hard work gathering all those flowers. Time to take a break ~

~ maybe sit in a rusty chair

~ and think about blackberry jam

one way to wake up

2009-04-25T21:03:00.002-05:00

When Lee stepped out onto the porch this morning and said Oh my God!, I thought surely something had happened to one of the chickens. But no. Instead, a bigass cow was casually strolling down the middle of the road. Lee hopped into the car to alert the Sanders, and thus ensued a cow chase. At one point, a woman came along in a gray car and Lee jumped out into the road to stop her. She didn't slow down, so he lifted his hands to his head and pointed his index fingers out from his temples in the universal sign for There's a cow in the road. She never stopped. It occured to me that perhaps he had mistakenly made the universal sign for I'm a crazy devil man jumping out in front of your car, so maybe it was all just a misunderstanding. A bit later, having lost track of the cow (I don't really understand how this happened), a man rode past on a bicycle. Lee yelled, Have you seen a cow? He hadn't.

It took three people to find the cow and put her back where she belonged.

how to enjoy being stuck in traffic for an hour

2009-04-24T13:11:00.003-05:00

1. Get stuck at night, on your way home from somewhere. For instance, let's say you go grocery shopping. You didn't want to go grocery shopping, but your life is such that grocery shopping is one of the only things you do that offers you a break from work and family life. Getting stuck in this instance means that your break is longer.

2. Get stuck somewhere close to a business that operates one of those insanely high-powered spotlights, so that you'll have something to look at through your moon roof (because the moon itself, as well as any stars, is not visible).

3. Plug your MP3 player into your car stereo and turn it up loud. Really loud.

4. Turn off your engine and your headlights (because yes, you have been stuck for that long).

5. Pretend you are at an all-star laser light show featuring Drive-By Truckers, Neil Young, REM, John Lennon, Nina Simone, and some world music folks whose names you can neither spell nor pronounce.

6. Do not think about the food that is melting in your trunk.

vacation chronicles, day five: return

2009-04-19T09:54:00.004-05:00

Tuesday, April 14

The kids want to see the battleship before we head home, but first things first: we drive back down to Foley, pick up the car (it starts!), and return the rental car. So much for a cheap vacation.

The kids LOVE the battleship, and the submarine, and the airplanes. It just so happens that the annual meeting of USS Alabama World War II vets is being held on the day we visit, and we encounter lots of older men sitting on deck, in common a wistful gaze across the bay, somewhere past water and sky.

in the brig!

That about does it for the Waites family spring vacation. I think the older you get, the less time it takes to be able to laugh about things that might seem kinda yucky while they're happening. Just now, thinking back on the trip in its entirety, I feel a silent bellysmile spreading up to my mouth and then my mind. It just might turn into a full-fledged chuckle.

vacation chronicles, day four: mobile

2009-04-18T08:19:00.026-05:00

Monday, April 13

We wake up, eat breakfast, and grab a whole bunch of brochures. We drive around looking for the Spanish Fort. There was no brochure for it, but we keep passing signs that say Spanish Fort. Eventually, we figure out that Spanish Fort is the name of a town, and as far as we can tell, it is no longer the location of an actual Spanish Fort. So we shuffle through our brochures and head for Bellingrath Gardens.

Dauphin Island is not far from Bellingrath, so we head that way, crossing the looooong bridge that has roller coaster -like uphills and downhills. We find Fort Gaines and roam the grounds, pausing at the blacksmith's room for some present-day action.

Done with the Fort, we head toward the water.

Then we call my younger brother, who lives in Mobile, and he meets us for a yummy seafood dinner, followed by a tour of his home and some ice cream.

In between all of this, there are a couple of calls to the car repair shop down in Foley. By the time the day is done, the car is fixed and we arrange to pick it up the next day. I try to offset the cost and hassle by noting that at least it didn't break down during a regular work week, thus disrupting Lee's schedule. My spin on this does not gain much traction, but all in all we have had a really nice day. A really vacation day.

vacation chronicles, day three: relocation

2009-04-17T17:05:00.006-05:00

Easter Sunday

The kids sleep late even for a holiday that comes with presents. They awake to baskets filled with books, desk supplies, giant bubble wands, hemp cord (for stringing together the shells we found that have perfectly small, round holes already worn into them), and snacks.

Our host graciously tows the Jeep to a repair shop, and Lee and I decide that we don't quite feel like we're on vacation yet. I log onto the laptop, transfer some funds, and reserve a hotel room in Mobile while Lee tries to find a rental car place that's open on Easter. Our host lets us borrow his truck to pick up the rental car at the airport, and we pack up and head north.

On our way out of Foley, we stop at Lambert's Cafe, home of throwed rolls, for Easter dinner. Indeed, they throw rolls to you from all the way across the room! As you eat, servers come around with buckets full of side items like okra and fried potatoes. The kids get helium balloons on the way out, and play on the wooden train for a while before we leave.

We arrive at our hotel, hand over the debit card, and are informed that it has been declined. What?! Online transfers are real-time. Crap -- what happened? She runs it through again, this time for a bit less after we promise we won't make any long-distance calls from the room. Success. I rush upstairs to boot up the laptop and figure out what happened.

Oh. The rental car company added a $200 deposit to the total amount. When I transferred the money, I left myself only a $200 buffer. I transfer some more.

We're all a lot happier to be in a hotel. Everything is clean. There is a small balcony that overlooks the bay. The kids are giddy thinking of the breakfast that will be offered downstairs in the morning. We are finally starting to feel as though we are on vacation.

vacation chronicles, day two: foley

2009-04-17T08:28:00.004-05:00

Saturday, April 11

We wake up in Foley, Alabama, after having arrived in the middle of the night (we stopped for a while in Montgomery on the way down). We are staying in the guest house of a main house that was once a barn. Contrary to the sound of it, this house on the bay is amazing. The details are amazing. The furniture is amazing. The fish tanks are amazing. They have acquisitions, like Muhammad Ali's boxing glove. What economic downturn? We are amazed, and a little out of our element.

The guest house is a bit cramped -- there is one bed, a sofa, and a small air mattress. It's also a little awkward staying in the guest house of someone you don't see very often, but he is extremely nice and generous, and he takes us on a boat ride to an island where other boaters hang out, drink beer, and listen to country music. They all seem to have gobs of money and to be strangely oblivious to the state of the nation. They're also, well, kinda redneck (not that there's anything wrong with that...). It's an odd combination -- again the out-of-elementness -- but we relax in spite of ourselves, and the kids have a grand time building sand castles and collecting shells.

Later that night, we load up into the car and find the nearest Wal-Mart so that I can grab some Easter goodies for the kids. Lee and the kids wait in the car while I shop. Tired of waiting, they head across the parking lot to Bebo's convenience store for some snacks. Right around this time, I finish shopping and stand outside to wait for my ride. I wait, and I wait, and I wait. Damn -- I left my cell phone charging back at the guest house. I start to get a little worried, and then suddenly Lee and the kids appear. On foot. Because after Lee turned off the car at Bebo's, it didn't turn back on.

We all head back to Bebo's with our bags in tow, and Lee buys a can of starter fluid and gets to work. No luck. He thinks it's the fuel filter, which is something he can fix, but in the meantime, we ask the cashier if we can leave the car there overnight, and we call a cab. We try to make the cab ride sound like an exotic experience to the kids, but like all cabs, it smells too strongly of cheap cologne and the driver keeps trying to talk to us about sports.

We make it back to the guest house, watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and fall asleep on Easter eve.

vacation chronicles, day one: departure

2009-04-16T21:18:00.004-05:00

Friday, April 10

Perhaps I was being a little ambitious. Pick up son's birth certificate from health department, register him for kindergarten, work six hours, pack, and head to the beach, preferably with the kids asleep in the car.

Picking up the birth certificate was easy. I added it to my folder containing the social security card and the utility bill (to prove that we live in the school district). Went to the primary school, filled out the forms, handed over the info. Did you know that any old utility bill will not do? State law: it must be a power bill. Conveniently (or not, as the case may be), we pay the power bill online, which means that I must go back home to print it. Oh, and apparently, although the registration instructions do not state this, you are expected to bring your child with you for screening. Screening. It's kindergarten. I mean, do they give him a pair of scissors to see if he'll run? Okay. So I go home, work for a while, print the bill, pick up my son early from daycare, and take him to be screened. He passes! Whew. I'd hate to think he's not prepared to begin a year of "school" that's not even really required.

Registration done, we head outside and are almost to the car when a voice comes over the PA: Blount County schools will be closing at 1:00 pm due to expected bad weather. I look at my cell phone: it's 12:30 pm. I take my son's hand, we turn around, fetch my daughter, and head home.

Once home, the wind picks up. A lot. I'm trying to work with both kids in the house, and then feel compelled to add TV to the mix so that I may monitor the weather. The TV is on for a few minutes before the power goes out. Interesting. Whatever happened to that weather radio I got for Christmas one year? I call Lee. "Do you know what's going on with the weather?" Because there is no good place to be in our house during really bad weather.

Fortunately, while some other places saw wicked hail and tornadic activity, we saw only wind. Lots and lots of wind. Eventually, the power was restored, just in time for me to send one last email of apology to my workmates for taking a vacation in the middle of a crisis. A vacation that, so far, is off to a frenetic start.

(And did I mention that in the midst of all this, our dog is at the vet, hooked up to an IV, recovering from dehydration due to the parvo virus? So we can't take her with us as we had planned. Don't worry, though -- she's okay in the end.)

books and other stuff

2009-04-08T19:23:00.007-05:00

I borrowed a giant wildflower book from the library, but I still don't know what these are ~

~ a little blurry, but perhaps you can help? we had a flowering bush like this when we lived in the city, too ~ perhaps it doesn't qualify as a wildflower?

chickens in the yard

seedlings in the coldframe

We've used The New Seed-Starters Handbook and Guide to Alabama Vegetable Gardening as reference books over the past couple of months. And on the subject of books, I got a couple of great ones for my birthday: The Wall and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I devoured The Wall and recommend it for children as well as adults. I've not yet started the other one -- looking forward to taking it with me to the beach. The beach! Happy sigh.

I love getting books as gifts because it's the only time I ever add anything to the shelf. All else comes from the library. When I first visited The Evelyn Thornton - Warrior Public Library, I was a bit aghast that it consisted of a single, tiny room. I was accustomed to taking the kids to the downtown Birmingham library once a week. But you know how picking things out at the store can be overwhelming these days, because there are just so many shampoos and cheeses from which to choose? I like the Warrior library because it's the opposite of that. There are a few really good choices, and that's all I really need.

happy weekend

2009-04-05T13:44:00.021-05:00

This past Friday was my 39th birthday. (And no, I have not been 39 for the past several years!) My fabulously amazing General Manager made me this ~

a luscious pound cake, still warm from the oven!

Lee gave me a beautiful necklace, some ginger-scented goat's milk soap, and some Higher Ground coffee, all of which he purchased at Red Rain in Homewood, Alabama. Sadly, Amy Vickers' environmentally friendly general store is going out of business at the end of April. There are lots of good deals to be had from now until then, but I sure will miss them when they're gone.

On Saturday, I took Leah to a Girl Scout event at Rickwood Caverns ~

bluegrass

face painting

cool rocks

creeping phlox with shadowy intrusion

trillium, which i was able to identify thanks to a post by Annie at Edifice Rex

don't know ~ do you?

big bunny

And on Sunday, we ate a delicious dinner at my mom's, after which the kids sifted through a big box of quarters in order to find one from each state. Plenty of Delaware, but man is Missouri ever hard to find.

Perhaps the most exciting news of the weekend is that my brother, sister-in-law, and niece scored VIP passes to President Obama's speech at Hradčany Square in Prague. He waved to my niece!

while i was sleeping

2009-04-02T21:32:00.008-05:00

When finally I crawled out of bed after a week's worth of sickness, I discovered that the dogwoods had bloomed ~

Miss Wisteria soon will send word
to the privet and mimosa tree
(by way of the bumble bee):
Put on your pearls, girls -- step past your bounds!
Kudzu's not the only thing taking over this town.

day of sun

2009-03-22T18:06:00.018-05:00

Things that were built today ~

the beginnings of our cold frame

laptop with swivel monitor and swivel qwerty keyboard, designed and built by Leah and Neal, using their screwdriver set, scrap wood, a block, and some yarn

Things that were discovered today ~

twins!

coyote track? (nothing for scale, but it's bigger than it seems -- definitely bigger than a Maya print)

Things I need help with ~

What is it? If the flowering quince identification is correct, then this is something else. The quince blossoms are orange-red, and they produce small, green, crabapple-like fruit. In fact, last year we thought they were crabapples. These blossoms are pink. I'm pretty sure this is the same tree that produced small, red, apple-like fruit last year.

These little white clusters are growing wild in the woods. What are they?

Blogs are so selective. If I choose not to disclose the fact that I'm running a fever and couging up something evil, you'll never know, will you? Back to bed....

leah's top eight reasons

2009-03-21T17:36:00.004-05:00

why it's no fun being a grownup:

8. You have to drive.
7. You never have time to get a haircut.
6. You have to buy your own stuff.
5. You have to take care of crazy kids.
4. You have to work all day.
3. You have to pay bills.
2. You have to make dinner.
1. You have to clean up throw-up when your kid gets sick.

Apparently, youth is not always wasted on the young.

action shots and things that hide

2009-03-18T21:47:00.008-05:00

At the beginning of the week, we thinned our tomatoes and eggplant and relocated the squash to roomier digs ~

They'll be heading out to a cold frame in the near future -- we've got lots of salvaged windows that we'll be putting to good use.

The kids found some mushrooms tucked between the great big hackberry tree and the monster wisteria vine ~

Using our handy dandy pocket naturalist guide to mushrooms, we think we have identified these as Common Psathyrella (Psathyrella candolleana). Or something like that.

Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor) on a log, I think ~

We're gathering enough eggs to be able to give some away these days, but Lee came across this wild nest underneath some salvaged materials in the yard. As much as we don't need any more eggs (or chickens), it's still a little disappointing that these weren't deposited in the coop ~

Easterius Eggisus

just hanging around

2009-03-15T15:00:00.004-05:00

things that happen here

2009-03-15T10:30:00.024-05:00

Remember when it snowed a couple of weeks ago?

The very next weekend, we started some of our seeds ~

tomatoes

eggplant and squash.

The only ones that haven't yet sprouted are the ground cherries, which are really a type of tomato. There's no need to start squash indoors, as you can see by the way it has shot up after only one week. We just figured we'd get a head start since we're a little behind on some other things. We have about a jillion more to start, and we've got to tend to these little germinators as well, thinning some and relocating others.

Gone are the daffodils ~

and the forsythia ~

giving way to spirea ~

Periwinkle is its simple self ~

The tulip tree sheds its dressing ~

Lythrum at Goblins in my Garden helped me know these bright little blossoms as flowering quince ~

The shiitake log is busy making shiitakes ~

That little dot to the right of the mushrooms is a ladybug, the indoor population of which is enough to drive anyone mad, but at least now they have a kitchen sprouting garden to visit.

Life grows ~

and leaves evidence of itself ~

in the form of a phone, a globe, a miniature tornado-maker, half of a hard-boiled egg, pistachios and shells, a screwdriver, and the work of children.

cluck, sizzle, strum

2009-03-11T20:27:00.004-05:00

The other day I found an old friend of mine on Facebook, and she turned me on to the Alabama Chicken and Egg Festival in Moulton, AL. In particular, she gave a shout out to the Carolina Chocolate Drops, who'll be playing at the festival next month.

Bluegrass, chickens, and eggs -- what more could you ask for? Thanks, Ashley V.!

climate controlled

2009-03-08T23:24:00.008-05:00

Yesterday, I opened my freezer to find the Alabama snowman looking up at me from the bottom compartment. Apparently he has been living there all week. I didn't have the heart to tell him that it was 70 degrees outside. A freezer seems a bit like a zoo when a snowman is inside of it.

alabama snowman

2009-03-01T10:02:00.001-06:00

all tomorrow's omelets

2009-03-01T06:26:00.003-06:00

starting from seed

2009-02-28T10:33:00.005-06:00

We finally ordered our seeds! Not these, exactly, but I thought I'd show some examples of seed packets from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I learned about them from one of my favorite addictions, Garden Rant. Jere Gettle's story is worth checking out: he began the business at the tender age of 17 and has grown it into an entire town. The catalog itself is a work of art.

We've charted our plans and will start some indoors and some outdoors. Some will go into raised beds, some directly into the ground, and some in containers. We chose seeds based on whether we thought they would succeed (here is a great resource for Alabama, although I don't know how much they take rare and heirloom varieties into consideration), and we also indulged in some that are just plain cool.

The great thing about seeds is that you can get a lot of them for very little money, and once the plant establishes itself, you can use its seeds over and over again. That's the plan, anyway.

two jobs with one terramite

2009-02-24T20:54:00.008-06:00

What do you do when you discover you have a leak in your water line, and a shovel just won't do the trick? Why, you violate child labor laws, of course!

Making the most of our eight-hour time allowance, we decided to use the terramite to turn over the earth for garden experiment, part deux.

Garden experiment, part un, took place last year, and resulted in a few zucchini, some beans, and lots of marigolds. Flashbacks of turning the hard, rocky ground with a Honda tiller were enough to convince us that while perhaps unorthodox, the terramite would definitely do the job.

I expect garden experiment, part deux, to fulfill all of its new-improved promise primarily because it will be full of shit. That's right -- excrement. Chicken and rabbit, to be exact. Plus a whole buncha rotten food, decayed leaves, and a little woodash. Go worms, go!

yellow is the color

2009-02-19T20:04:00.007-06:00

birth of a runner

2009-02-17T19:39:00.012-06:00

Preface ~ Marathon stories are a lot like birth stories: they're only really interesting to those who share a similar experience, or those who intend to share a similar experience sometime soon. The non-runner gets lost in chip times, pacers, GU, and body glide. So, to my few but regular readers, please indulge me, and I promise I shall return to stories about country life, pictures of multicolor eggs, and adventures in organic gardening very soon.

I never really wanted to run a marathon. I signed up for Danny's Couch to 5K group after giving birth to kid number two. More specifically, after I found myself wearing maternity clothes several months after giving birth to kid number two.

When I started the program, I couldn't run an entire lap around the track. After years of ballet, swimming, nautilus, yoga -- this was depressing, to say the least. But I had never been a runner. I watched them from my car and wondered how they could just keep going. Indeed, I cursed them from my car: Good lord, why the hell are you running in the middle of the road?

Danny's program is phenomenal. Teeny tiny baby steps: Walk half, run half. Go home. Oh crap, we're jumping up to two miles today?! Take us off the track and let the creek distract us into thinking two is easy. From 5K to 10K -- why not? Hell, I ran a 10K -- wouldn't a half marathon be something? But a full -- no, I don't ever want to do a full. Those people are just crazy.

Then comes the day of the 2008 Mercedes Marathon. I sign up for the half. Everything falls into place. I sleep well, I drink enough water, I eat right, my body doesn't do anything wacky. Sure, I have to piss like a mother once I hit Valley Avenue (the 2008 course is not a double loop), but by the time I hit the full cutoff point, I think to myself, Damn. I feel great. I think I could turn off here and do the full today! I don't, of course, but I finish strong and I finally understand: They're not really as crazy as we think they are. They just know they can do it. I have a whole year to work up to the 2009 full -- why not?

So I do. A friend jokes that deciding to run a marathon is a lot like deciding to have a baby: You think to yourself, Oh, it'll be fun. It won't change things much -- we'll just carry it around in a backpack wherever we go. And suddenly you are up at 4:30am tending to its needs. You give up all other extracurricular activities. You must tend to it no matter what -- freakin' rain, shine, snow, wind chill, freakin' rain -- or it will not survive. Sure, you can enjoy a rare night out drinking with your friends after the show at WorkPlay, but no matter what time you go to bed, it is not going to let you sleep late.

After months of training, then comes the taper. Forgive the scrambled timeline of the metaphor, but the taper is a lot like the end of the third trimester. You've had your fun, and now you're just ready to get this thing over with. You wait. You get antsy. They tell you to rest. You have no idea what to expect after the first 20 miles, because training doesn't take you past the first 20 miles. You take it on faith that you can tack a 10K to your longest run to date. WTF?

Finally, it is the night before the race. Okay family, here's the deal: I am turning the lights off at 8pm. You are not disturbing me for any reason. I must sleep. The alarm is going off at 4:30am because we live in Hayden. I must sleep. Do you understand? All of which translates into: kid number two crawling into bed with you in the middle of the night, dog waking up twice to lick your face in the middle of the night, you having to pee in the middle of the night, your heart racing uncontrollably in the middle of the night because how in the hell are you going to run those last 6.2 miles on no sleep....

The morning goes well. You drink your coffee, you eat your Snickers Marathon bar, you somehow manage to shove six or seven energy gels into the small inner pocket of your shorts, you pin your bib, you attached the hell out of your chip the night before. No way that thing's coming off.

You get there an hour before it starts. You pee three times before the gun goes off: twice in the Boutwell bathrooms and once in between a sticker bush and a brick wall. You make it to mile five before having to pee again. No way -- they locked the doors to the School of Business? You mean I have to stand in line at the port-a-lets? I HATE port-a-lets. No good bushes in sight. Damn. And oh, yes, please remind me why I HATE port-a-lets. Good lord -- if my stomach had been that off I woulda just stayed in bed. I mean, seriously, I don't think I could make that much of a mess if I tried. What the hell happened in there?

After starting out strong (too strong, really -- classic mistake), that first bathroom break really puts a dent in our pace. Our = me and my running partner, Ira, who is hereafter referred to as Wonder Woman, or W2 for short. W2 saw me through all of my training. W2 is strong. And nice. And thoughtful. W2 gave me a 26.2 necklace, and a sticker for my car. I would not be here were it not for W2.

W2 and I have a deal: even though we run at about the same pace, if either of us feels like shooting ahead or lagging behind, then so be it. I consider her the stronger runner, so I don't want to hold her back when it comes down to it. She feels the same way about me. So be it.

Our first loop is fast and strong, relative to our usual pace. The spectators are fabulous, the volunteers are outstanding -- they are even playing the Ramones on Clairmont Avenue. As we near the end of the halfway point, several motorcycle cops pass us with their sirens on, instructing us to move over to the right. They are escorting the Kenyan to the finish. Before we are even halfway done. Crazy thing about being a back-of-the-packer on a double loop -- you get lapped by all of the elites.

At the halfway point, W2 asks how long we've been running. When I tell her, she gets a big grin on her face and says it is a half marathon PR for her.

At the start of the second loop, things change. There are fewer spectators, fewer volunteers (though still enough, and still outstanding), fewer runners, not as much loud music -- in short, it is a little lonely out there, and W2 and I have been running too hard to chat much. As we make our way up the hill toward the Alys Stephens Center, W2 reminds me that if she starts to slow down, I can just keep on going. I say that if she starts to slow down, I will probably want to slow down, too -- that is, if I don't do it first. I think she is just making conversation, but a little later, after walking through a water stop (a brief but necessary break in order to avoid choking), I suggest that we start running again at the nearest light post. She suggests that we wait until the second light post. Fine by me, but uncharacteristic of her. Still, I don't think much of it. Not long after that, she begins to feel queasy and needs to walk in order to avoid being sick. We think perhaps she will feel better if she does get sick, but that doesn't happen, either, so we continue to run/walk until about halfway down Cullom, when she says, Go. But wait -- the go on plan did not take sickness into consideration -- it was just a plan to accommodate the fact that we might end up running at different paces. You don't just leave your sick partner, do you? Shouldn't I stay and help -- trudge through the finish line together because that's what friends do? She never gets sick -- this is a huge blow. This is not the time for her to be alone. Is it? Go, she said. I will be mad at you if you stay. Make me proud. So I went. To be perfectly honest, I still don't feel quite right about that.

Which brings me to Phil. Phil runs marathons as part of his ongoing training schedule. No biggie. Phil is generous and kind, shares, teaches, helps -- Phil is going to help you finish your marathon, no matter what. After finishing the entire course, Phil begins to run back the other way to check up on his friends. He finds me and he asks about Ira. He is concerned when I tell him where we split up -- it is a long way back. So he keeps on running until he finds her, and he runs her all the way to the finish. Ira -- I mean, W2 -- is so Wful that she finishes only a smidgen after her goal time.

I finish strong and am happy with my time, but a little frustrated by the number of times I have to pee. Five. I even have to stop between miles 25 and 26, knowing that it will add precious minutes to my time. Okay maybe one precious minute, but still. I take a few brief walk breaks during the final 10K -- my ego is annoyed by the fact that I am walking when my friend Catherine sees me at mile 24, but she takes a goofy picture of me and that cheers me up, so I pick up the pace and am running strong by the time I see my family cheering for me at mile 25. I am kind of surprised that some of the people who are running with me at that point appear to be far fitter than I, but they aren't going any faster than I am. Others are clearly downtrodden, but they persevere. They cover the distance. They know they can do it. (Once you're past mile 20, you really have no choice but to make it back somehow or another.)

Somewhere between miles 22 and 24, I think, This is nuts. I don't think I ever need to do this again. And damn, I really shoulda gotten new shoes at the beginning of the year. But a funny thing happens once it's over. They said you could do it, and you do. And you know that you could do it again. Better.

And here's where the birth metaphor ends. Because you never think of having more kids so that you can get a better one next time (at least, I hope you don't). You don't want kid number two to be any better than kid number one. But marathon number two -- if you don't pee so much, if you don't take any walk breaks except at the water stops, if you set your Garmin to warn you when you're getting off pace, especially in the beginning, when you're feeling strong but you need to conserve, if you buy new shoes when you are supposed to.... Yes. You could. You could do it better.

best meme ever

2009-02-12T21:41:00.001-06:00

Click here.

marathon

2009-02-10T20:02:00.005-06:00

Tonight I feel cowish. The good, strong heart of a cow. The primitive song and the rhythmic footfall. The steady eye.

On Sunday, I will run like a cow. Heart and song and footfall. If you think a cow cannot run, then you do not live among cows. I am not built like a cow. I do not resemble a cow. When you see me, you do not think, cow. But on Sunday, I will run like a cow.

the gang's all here

2009-02-08T17:27:00.011-06:00

My older brother and his family have lived in Prague for the past decade or so, and my younger brother and his family have lived all over: California, Oklahoma, and now Mobile, Alabama. It's rare that we're all together, but this weekend we were, and I got to meet my striking red-headed nephew for the very first time! He's the little one on the far right. His older sister is next to him in white. My kids are on the left, and the remaining three belong to my younger brother and his wife:

Striking red-headed nephew is also known as "the dude." Here are the dude's parents, his mom* explaining to me why she doesn't like having her picture taken:

What's one of the neatest things about family gatherings at my mom's house? The horseshoe pit.

Lee: 21, Josh: 3. Not exactly regulation play. BURN! says Lee to Josh, nevertheless.

* SIL has an actual camera and knows how to use it, as opposed to my crapass cell phone and hasty clicks. Check out her blog for beautiful shots of all kinds of interesting things.

full moon pie

2009-02-02T21:44:00.005-06:00

I was deleting some pictures from my phone when I came across this one. We celebrated Leah's seventh birthday shortly after we moved out here, before we had a functional kitchen or even a bathroom sink. Our guests had to wash their hands in the tub. I couldn't bake a cake with no oven, so I did the next best thing. Okay so maybe it wasn't the next best thing.

fine german engineering

2009-02-01T19:23:00.007-06:00

Well, we did it. We got another dog. A German Shepherd pup named Maya. We're keeping her close for now, only letting her roam by leash until she knows it's home. She spent most of the day running between the front porch and the rest of the house, sliding around on the floor for lack of traction. For anyone interested in really great books about raising dogs, check out what The Monks of New Skete have to offer.

I'm dog tired (ouch), and I've grown weary of the captcha game (although I did find it amusing that the one I most recently encountered was "besynucl"), so that's it for the first day of February.

highland court

2009-01-26T22:39:00.007-06:00

In my last post, I mentioned Sloss Furnaces. I spent most of my young adult life living in various apartments on Southside. The last place I lived as a single girl was called Highland Court.

Glen and Joe and Becca lived in Highland Court. That model chick and her cute musician husband lived in Highland Court. The crazy girl who didn't own a pair of comfortable shoes and turned up the techno music at 3am lived in Highland Court. I had a small balcony and my dog Lucy and the long, narrow stairwell up to my door. I rode my bike everywhere and fell asleep to Michael Hedges or John Coltrane or Peter Gabriel. As happy as I was to get married, I had a hard time saying goodbye to Highland Court.

Every now and again we'd build a little fire in the middle of the courtyard and stay up all night. One night we decided to walk to Sloss at around... hell, I don't know... maybe 2? 3? 4? On the way, we had to stop for a train. There was a cop parked next to the tracks. The train was carrying tank after tank after tank. The cop said he was there to make sure nothing happened. He didn't hassle us at all, which was fortunate given our general state of mind. It was a little odd.

The train rolled past and the tanks got smaller. The cop took off, and we kept walking. I don't remember how we got onto the premises -- whether we had to sneak through or climb over anything, or whether it was all pretty accessible. But we got in, and we wandered through, and we climbed up that really high tower, which is way higher than you realize until you're up there. We smashed our cigarette butts into a film cannister so as not to litter. And later I wrote a song.

I'm a little reluctant to post song lyrics, because they never quite work unless they're being sung. Poetry is meant for the page; lyrics are meant for the song. But I'm going to give it a go and see how it turns out. I think I probably wrote this in 1998 or so. I typically fingerpick variations of C and G with a capo on the fourth fret when playing it. It's called Highland Court.

Came dancing through the courtyard,
wings and wands and fairy dust
Sprinkled it beside me on a night made out of August
Followed them to the railroad,
saw them ship the tanks off for the war
It used to be that war was just a word
we never heard

Taught me how to read the map,
how to find the belly of the tree
Biggest one in all the forests east of the Mighty Mississippi
Older than my daddy,
old as god, old as mercy
It used to be that mercy was just a word
we never heard

Climbed the stairs to the furnace,
climbed down into the canyon's bowl
Ate my granny apple, lay back as the time unfolded
Quiet as the backseat
in the dark on the way home
Quiet is a ladle full of words
we never heard

Yeah, well -- not quite the same as a poem. Music adds rhythm and inflection and an emotional sense that would otherwise be built into a poem. Lyrics alone are confusing and easy to stumble over.

Wrapped up in this song is a whole nother adventure in the Sipsey Wilderness, as well as one in the Little River Canyon, but I'll save those for another day. They all took place while I was living in that little apartment, with all of those people that I wonder about now.

(And yes, I do consider "a whole nother" to be perfectly acceptable Alabama grammar.)

adventure in oneonta

2009-01-24T20:27:00.010-06:00

Today we met Annie of Edifice Rex! This woman is building her house from the ground up, using passive solar design and lots of salvaged materials, among other hip, green approaches. Here is a shot of her and Lee, discussing smart building versus stupid building:

And here are the kids, standing at the spot where the spring and the creek converge:

Once home, Lee was inspired to start a Yahoo group called Blount County Earth -- a place to share information, resources and ideas for residents of Blount County, Alabama, specifically creative/alternative building, farming and other sustainable living practices.

So cool to meet blogfriends. Turns out we were both at the Cowboy Junkies show at Sloss Furnaces waaaaay back in the day. I like it when the world is small and friendly.

I'll close with a gratuitous shot of recently gathered eggs, which are now being made into huevos rancheros for a late-night snack:

how i feel about today

2009-01-20T18:42:00.001-06:00

Hell.

Yeah.

Baby.

Amen.

mlk day captcha

2009-01-19T21:10:00.004-06:00

aindselp

- noun: turn-of-the-century farm implement

That's about as much as I can muster at the moment. I wonder what turn-of-the-century farmers used their aindselps for? You tell me. I am off to bed. Tomorrow is a big day!

let's go fly a kite

2009-01-18T16:54:00.007-06:00

The unbelievably-cold-for-Alabama snap has passed, and today was just perfect for flying a kite:

I didn't take any pictures of Lee climbing the ladder to the very top of the Kite-Eating Tree. You'll just have to imagine that.

sunday evening captcha

2009-01-11T18:27:00.003-06:00

outions

- noun: preparations to leave a place

Example:

In order to get to the party on time, we need to start making outions.

This word works best when pronounced as though you are from Canada (oo-tions).

city vs country: the junky yard

2009-01-11T08:32:00.005-06:00

Junky yards are a dime a dozen wherever you live (or at least, in neighborhoods not far from wherever you live). I usually assume the best -- that someone is in the process of cleaning up -- because I've been there before. (Still go there sometimes.) But there is one particular category of junky yard that I never saw when I lived in the city: the eternal yard sale.

A couple of years ago, the inhabitant of a nearby trailer decided to have a yard sale. At the end of the weekend, most of the stuff had not been sold. This is when most people would donate the remaining items, or else shove them all into a hidden corner. But this remarkable woman wakes up every morning with renewed hope and faith that someone will stop by and want something. And very slowly, over the past couple of years, the amount of stuff in her front yard has dwindled, though not to the extent that you can't tell it was originally a yard sale.

Here is what I find most perplexing: some mornings, I see her out in the yard, pulling weeds or raking leaves, and I think, huh. Wouldn't a yard covered in leaves be better than a yard covered in junk? So I suppose she is keeping things tidy for the next customer, and the next, and so on, throughout eternity.

eggs!!!

2009-01-07T21:49:00.005-06:00

This is the best thing that has happened to us in a while. The chickens are starting to lay in the coop again. Even our "teenagers" are growing up and we're getting some lovely blue/green eggs.

parental discretion advised

2009-01-04T19:43:00.003-06:00

I sweartagod it's only a mushroom. A shiitake. Lee ordered it from Fungi Perfecti. He puts them in his miso soup every morning, along with some fresh ginger.

Lee is a man of many concoctions. He is sitting here next to me, so I think I will take this opportunity to interview him about it.

M: Can I talk about all of your concoctions?
L: Sure. You wanna know what I just now drank?
M: Okay.
L: Five dashes of cayenne pepper in water. I used it to wash down my curcumin pills.
M: What do those do?
L: Oh, everything. I am also soaking two cacao beans in water to remove the skin, revealing the delicious nibs inside.
M: Any others you'd like to mention?
L: Of course red wine, my favorite staple, which I prefer to drink early in the morning.
M: Don't you do some kind of algae?
L: No, alfalfa. I mix 1 tablespoon alfalfa with 1 tablespoon brewer's yeast, and it tastes really good with chocolate soy milk. Earlier today, I mixed approximately 4 ounces kefir, 1 teaspoon ground flax seed, and 1 teaspoon flax seed oil, and then consumed it. But my favorite, as you know, is garlic. Simply smoosh, wait ten minutes, and consume raw. I put it in water and drink it.
M: Yes, that one's fun.
L: I take 1 tablespoon unpasteurized apple cider vinegar with a teaspoon of local honey or blackstrap molasses every now and then.
M: Are you the healthiest man alive?
L: No, but it keeps me going.

So there you have it.

L: But I've got more.
M: Really?
L: Goldenseal root tea, or any old green tea. I like to chew raw cinnamon sticks. And I like anything that's cultured, like unpasteurized sauerkraut and kimchee. I also take a quarter teaspoon of the apple cider vinegar mixed with distilled water in a neti pot to flush my sinuses. Which I quit doing for a while and then I got a cold, so now I'm doing it again.
M: It's way past time for the kids to go to bed.

if it's sunday, it's captcha game day

2009-01-04T10:43:00.004-06:00

Today's word is...

ruscapp

Hmmm. How about...

- noun: a slang term used by software developers to refer to an outdated application

Bonus: Jenga! Here is a shot of the tower created during a game between Leah and Lee. It lasted for several more moves, finally falling on one of Lee's turns. A most spellbinding game!

sew groovy

2008-12-30T16:22:00.005-06:00

The event that sort of kicked off our string of bad luck was the passing of Lee's maternal grandmother back in October. Since then, we have been making trips to Montgomery to help clear out her house. I believe it's safe to say that this woman kept everything. EVERYthing. I spent a good hour tossing items from the pantry that were not from this decade (or this century, for that matter). Some of the canned goods were oozing black from the bottom (can you say botulism?). My hour of labor yielded no visible results; the pantry is still packed.

So when I was asked whether I might be interested in a closet full of fabric, I was inclined to say no. I am trying to get rid of stuff, not collect it. And when I say a closet full, I mean that she could have started a small fabric store. But once I started going through it, I just couldn't help myself. There was some really good stuff in there:

Those are just a couple of samples of the HUGE and HEAVY bag full of fabric I must now wash. (It's kinda old and stale.) Once it's all ready, I can get to it using this:

Time to start making things for next Christmas....

at long last

2008-12-29T16:52:00.004-06:00

Other than some sinus irritation, Leah's MRI results are normal.

Phew. (As opposed to phick.)

The doctor's office was extremely apologetic about how long it took. The holidays, combined with the moving picture quality of the results, delayed the feedback. Thank goodness we don't have to do that again. I'll be consulting with them and the pediatrician again next week to determine whether we need to shift gears and visit the twitch clinic. Some days it's so minimal that we hardly think about it; others it's so bad that she holds her eye and asks for a warm, wet washcloth, and the worry grabs hold again. The twitch clinic would try to determine whether it's your basic twitch, or whether it looks more like Tourette's (the age of onset fits).

Did I hide my nervous wreckishness well?

would you like to play a game?

2008-12-28T21:45:00.005-06:00

CAPTCHA: Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart

Of all the captchas I encounter on various different sites, I like Blogger's the best. They're readable, they don't include numbers, and they're never actual words, although they have actual word potential. Perfect nonsense.

For several days, I have been recording my captchas with the goal of creating definitions for them. (Here is where taking Latin instead of French and Spanish would have been useful.)

Today's captcha is...

phick

- noun: an unsophisticated urbanite (a big-city hick)
- interjection: expressing upset or tension as opposed to relief or fatigue (opposite of phew)

What do you think phick should mean?

a little something i left out

2008-12-26T08:08:00.008-06:00

Death of a Jeep

I told myself it was because he never downloaded the pictures onto my computer, but really it was because it was all just too much at the time. Dear readers, you'll never believe what happened today: a small portion of the universe imploded right over our house! Now, I know you've already left several concerned and sympathetic comments, but please keep coming back for more!

So here's the story: In between the death of our dog and Leah's MRI, a three ton company van ran a red light and crashed smack dab into Lee. I mean, like, the only thing between the van and Lee was Lee's car door, which couldn't be opened afterwards. Pieces of the dashboard flew off, Lee's head broke his door's window, and the sandwich he was eating for lunch ended up on the hood of the van.

When Leah found out, she said, "Poor Daddy. First Dee died and then the Jeep died." Which pretty much sums it up.

Lee is absolutely fine. Physically. But he gets depressed every time he sees a Jeep, and because the Jeep used to be mine, I can relate. You can't beat the turning radius on that thing. And it held all of his tools, ladders on top, without being obnoxiously big. The red-light-runner's company's insurance paid for a rental truck, which was a bigass pickup that was impossible to park and made us feel like ugly Americans. So he's driving my old Altima and looking for a replacement Jeep.

And lo, we shall make a mess of hoppin' john on the eve of the new year, and we shall eat that hoppin' john to bring forth many miracles; to know but good news and glad tidings in the days to come.

merry morning

2008-12-25T10:16:00.005-06:00

Still no MRI results (I think the pictures ended up being pretty messy; we might have to do it again, with sedation -- ugh), but we managed to have a very merry Christmas anyway.

Here is Neal telling Santa that he wants a trampoline. Santa must have listened, because there was a mini-trampoline under the tree that Neal and Leah have taken turns bouncing on all morning long.

mri

2008-12-18T22:32:00.004-06:00

if everything comes apart in this helium cooled
superconducting electromagnet,
we're coming apart
together
i think
as i hold your hand that won't
bestillnomatterwhat

rings and zippers -- no worries, they said
just before the wallmuralwhales
began to thump and howl and
my ring began to vibrate so
i moved it to my other hand --
the one that was holding your feet that won't
bestillnomatterwhat

no worries, they said from behind the glass
but my baby didn't come with one of those
mr safe green stickers
and good thing i thought of her ponytail holder
-mom, does she know she's moving her feet?-
two minutes, maybe; two hours, not likely she'll
bestillnomatterwhat

i want to fall asleep standing up
-- no, i want to crawl inside the tube,
poke fun at each other's ear plugs,
notice that you are weeping
- mom, is she okay?-
i think so, just fidgety, just
bestillnomatterwhat

The Commons

2008-12-11T19:57:00.005-06:00

A while back, the Library of Congress partnered with Flickr to place a bunch of really cool old photographs online, open to comments and tags from the public. Since then, other libraries, museums, and archives have joined in the fun. To get a sense of what's out there, and the remarkable way that folks can participate in the conversation of history, go here, being sure to scroll down through all of the comments until you get to the really good stuff.

from halloween to hohoho

2008-12-05T18:18:00.013-06:00

Wicked:

In case you were wondering what we do for fun out here:

Abstract, by Leah:

The first version of this sign said, No Boys Aloud. I thought that was equally appropriate.

Hiiiiiiiideehooooooooooooooooo:

yesterday was hard

2008-11-29T08:18:00.007-06:00

Lee found her. Close to home, beneath juniper branches and leaves, lifeless but intact. We suspect she was hit by a car and crawled into the brush. She still looked so D -- I found myself staring at her belly to be certain it was no longer making little ups and downs.

I took the kids over to Mom's for a belated Thanksgiving dinner while Lee took D over to his dad's to bury her. Now she makes things grow.

meme

2008-11-27T20:32:00.005-06:00

I think normally people ask you to do these, but I ripped mine off of a blog I was browsing via another blog:

WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: Farmer Dean
(Mother’s & father’s middle names)

NASCAR NAME: Curren Cecil
(First name of mother’s dad, father’s dad)

STAR WARS NAME: Wamarg (Wameg for short)
(First 2 letters of last name, first 4 letters of first name)

DETECTIVE NAME: Cobalt Dog
(Favorite color, favorite animal)

SOAP OPERA NAME: Barnard Hayden, but everybody calls me Pace
(Middle name, city where you live)

SUPERHERO NAME: Indigo Stella
(2nd favorite color, favorite alcoholic drink)

FLY NAME: Maes (or Mees; it's superfly to have an alternate spelling)
(First 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name)

GANGSTA NAME: Strawberry Thin Mint
(Favorite ice cream, favorite cookie)

ROCK STAR NAME: Sika Pinecrest
(Current pet’s name, current street name)

PORN NAME: Candy Overlook
(1st pet, street you grew up on)

day three

2008-11-27T08:06:00.006-06:00

Some things just don't fit. When your dog disappears, vocabulary is too snug; requires unbuttoning. There is no trace of predator, no trace of accident, no trace of unfortunate event. Coyote, car, snake -- there is none of that. She does not roam away from home. Ever. We have called and driven and walked and made signs. Leah made a list of places to look, and clues, and kept asking, But what's different about today? And the answer is nothing. Nothing but the missingness.

We keep expecting her to show, keep looking sideways out the front door, over to where her bed and an unopened bag of dog food wait for her return. My head feels cloudy, as though there is something that will suddenly become clear: Oh yeah, I forgot, she's in the ....

Yesterday, a turkey ambled through our yard, mingled with the chickens for a bit, and went on her way. I might normally take this as a sign of good fortune -- a Thanksgiving shout out from Mother Nature. Instead it just seemed weird and haunted. Nothing fits.

tending fires

2008-11-20T22:04:00.004-06:00

Field grows frost in the big of night,

in the negative space where cold and quiet silently implode,

leave behind the empty big of night

where slow things grow.

Earthworms find us out,

discover we have made sun like gods of the indoors,

abandon the unturned compost,

curse the floor and wither.

We want to make a man of snow.

In the shadow of the broken rooted oak,

shoulders under shawl of hay and leaves,

we shall build his predictable demise,

then crawl inside to tend the fire.

the left side of the page

2008-11-10T20:33:00.005-06:00

Look what I found in Leah's school tote bag. Pretty typical Alabama split.

I had to laugh when I heard someone in another state talk about using a touch screen to cast her ballot. Here in Hayden, we used black magic markers to connect one side of an arrow to another.

home on the free (?) range

2008-11-10T19:20:00.006-06:00

Free range chickens. You think you're so natural and eco-friendly -- tossing your corn, strewing your hay, gathering your eggs. So many eggs -- you give them away! And the surprise chicks are adorable, aren't they?

Flash forward. Going on 20 chickens, all but three of which are hens, laying eggs everywhere but the coop and roosting in the trees. They're still great garbage disposals -- between them, the rabbit, and the compost, not a scrap of food is ever really wasted. But when there are so many, it's hard to think of them as pets, and when you're not willing to eat grocery store eggs anymore, but you're not gathering any, either -- well, not a lotta egg eatin' goin' on. Which is kind of a bummer.

Our neighbor Mister Sanders says they'll come back to the coop in the spring. And he's probably right -- most chickens don't lay much in the fall and winter. And after the sadness that accompanied the death of our first Rooster, Eddie, I was tickled when the new roosters, hatched in the summer, began crowing for the very first time just last week. A feeble but noble attempt, growing stronger each day. No better sound in the world to wake up to.

So we strategize. We make plans to lure the chickens into the coop and create a chicken run, so that they have limited freedom but also no choice but to lay where we can find the eggs. Because as much as I love having them roam about, the romance is over, and I want mine scrambled, thank you very much.

roboparent

2008-11-10T19:07:00.004-06:00

Leah: Mommy, Neal's putting his butt in my face.

Me: Neal, stop putting your butt in other people's faces.

...as I mindlessly continue to fold two loads of clothes.

how to prepare for an economic downturn

2008-11-09T11:10:00.007-06:00

1. Move into a house that you find on the side of the road. Strike a deal with the owner that you will be nice to the house in exchange for taking comfort in the house.

2. During the first couple of months at the house, boil water on a camp stove to heat the bath water that was filled from the hose into the tub on the front porch, because you have not yet treated the house to a working bathroom. Hang your children's giant, multicolor parachute in front of the tub so that the rare passing car doesn't see you naked in a tub on your porch.

3. Spit your toothpaste off the side of the porch during those first couple of months, too.

4. Again on the front porch, wash your dishes in a different tub and dry them on a rack. You do not need the parachute for this. It is okay for rare passing cars to see this. They will just think you are a bit strange. But you're pretty sure they already thought that.

5. Send your children to public school. This has the added benefit of authenticating your belief that the government should provide decent public education for all children, and inspiring you to become actively involved in that cause, because you are now privy to the actual budget.

6. Get free food from yours and your neighbors' gardens.

7. Sleep with your family in a tent inside your house because of the spiders. When you finally overtake the spiders and create actual bedrooms, you don't take them for granted. And you know that you could go back to sleeping in a tent if you had to.

8. Save up for a wood burning stove. In advance of your purchase, be sure you have acquired a husband who will become obsessed with scavenging free wood from the side of the road.

9. Come by your other big ticket items in curious ways. For instance, rather than purchasing a television set, get one for free from your husband's brother's anarchist friend who found it necessary to flee to Canada all of sudden.

10. Eat rice. A lot of rice.

happy

2008-11-07T08:30:00.007-06:00

Rainbow over Birmingham

Lately as I drive down the road, wishing I could capture the colors of this season in words or paint or pixels, I find myself erupting into spontaneous fits of laughter. Barack Hussein Obama. I don't think many people have felt anything but cynicism toward the government since Watergate days. Who would have guessed that we would feel a collective sense of hope again?

(And by the way, rabbits poop a LOT.)

bumper sticker politics

2008-11-05T19:55:00.004-06:00

Like many Americans, and at long last, I woke up this morning feeling proud of our country. But even before the acceptance speech of last night, I was already feeling hopeful, and not just because of the polls.

The other day, I spotted a car with a "Choose life" license plate. I happen to be in favor of a woman's right to choose what happens to her body, but the thing that struck me about this car with this license plate is that it also had a blue dot sticker and an Obama sticker on the bumper. In all my travels along the interstates and highways of this state, I have never until that moment seen someone express any level of complexity on his or her bumper. It's usually either "You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands" or "F the president." What we would normally think of as a mixed sociopolitical message struck me as diversity of thought and a refreshing expression of opinion without any accompanying obnoxiousness.

A few days later, I was recycling at the Conservancy downtown when a car pulled up with a McCain/Palin bumper sticker that said something about pitbulls and had a lipstick smooch on it. I stopped myself from mentally rolling my eyes, because damned if they weren't recycling. Back in the day, the only people stopping off at the Conservancy were hippies and upper middle class Volvo drivers. This car with this sticker at this place in this time. I think we are starting to come together.

belated boo

2008-11-05T19:47:00.004-06:00

Happy pumpkin

Scary pumpkin