where i left off

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.

found between the dust and buttons

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.

no excuse

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

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

no time to talk

scarlet runners ~

kikiriki ~

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

buggy 1 ~

buggy 2 ~

a few of his favorite things

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.

no weeds here, ma'am

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

leah's top eight reasons

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.

things that happen here

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.

roboparent

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.