For everything there is a season...

Kali just took off for her final college class of the spring semester. If the younger two can tear themselves away from their feathered friends outside, they have a fun afternoon of sewing with Grandma. I've got a sleeping Bear on my front as I find myself pondering the seasons we have just completed, the ones we are firmly in and the ones coming up. To say I'm feeling pensive these days would be a bit of an understatement. My mind continues to be a very active and often unsettled place. There are things in life right now that are a source of immense joy, healing, relief, pleasure and hope and there are things that give me an overwhelming sense of loss, grief, failure and not enoughness. I'm doing my best (aren't we all most of the time?!) to let all those things coexist and to offer myself compassion for the swirling. What I'll share here are some of the seasons we are in right now that are keeping me on my toes, a source of chaos, and providing us with so much fun and cuteness!!

Chick season!! So many cute fuzz balls around here and more coming all the time! Right now we have a few fierce and protective mamas! But there's still opportunities for snuggling and adoring these little friends.

One day when Terah and Alida had Olivia and Caramel out for playtime they were peeping and the girls wondered if they were cold (it was before this HOT stretch). They quieted down as soon as each had a spot in a kid's coat!

Young and old alike, chickens LOVE to dust bathe! And wow how they can disturb and then move soil doing it. It's both annoying and highly entertaining AND we are grateful that they take their health seriously with VERY regular dust baths. Thanks chickens!

Soccer season! Most days Terah will ask when her next practice or game is. It's a very enjoyable addition to their week AND makes our week feel quite a bit fuller. I do love seeing them have so much fun out there. I, on the other hand, am pretty ridiculous in my ability to get all internally worked up during games - especially Alida's! Last night's was a bit of a nail biter, hanging at 2-2 for long time WITH Alida in as goalie until her team had a burst of something and scored 2 goals in the last 10 or so minutes. I felt my heart rate slow. Silly me! The kids are just having fun and don't really care much about the score, but it definitely brings back my days in competitive athletics. I don't miss that pressure and am so glad they have the opportunity to play in a rec league!

Alida gave up a game to have a date night with me and Jason - we had gotten tickets to see Dance Nation at the JMU Forbes Center in honor of her 13th birthday. It was fun and special to do something the three of us. I won't do a review here of the play...

Green season! Is there any other way to describe it? The mountain is almost entirely green and there are things growing and sprouting everywhere - plants we intend to have growing in particular locations and plants that are not intentional or where we want them (i.e. weeds!). We spent pretty much an entire Monday family work day on the side garden - weeding, redoing/mulching paths, transplanting raspberries, etc... It looks great in there, EVEN the onions (I cheer them on often when I walk past). I'm also babying my raspberry transplants because I'm pretty eager to pick white and red raspberries this year with our new and improved trellis systems!

The Tangly Woods' civic scientists (ok, especially me) are doting over our little plots. I was NOT pleased to see one of our two sunflower sprouts nibbled off this morning when I went down for my daily watering and adoration, especially of the little lentil plants. They are SO cute (this picture doesn't quite do the little row of seedlings justice). Anyway, I've put another round of Sluggo down in hopes that it will stop more nibbling from occurring. Alida and Terah have been as excited as me as things started sprouting BUT there are too many things to be excited about these days and some days the chicks have been winning the attention competition, if there is such a thing! I'm sure Jason is peeking in on the plots more than I know about, but so far I don't think he has had much extra bandwidth to pay too close attention (especially when there is barley and peas close by!)

Speaking of barley, I found this photo on Jason's phone and can almost hear him singing, "These are a few of my favorite things..."

Terah's definitely one of my favorite people and I enjoyed some snuggle time in the hammock together during her Mommy and Daddy time recently. I do love snuggling with her, until she becomes a wiggle worm and then the enjoyment plummets!

Seasons of growth and change! Kali and Jason enjoyed another day of Sassafras Enterprises work together. Who knows if this will be a one job thing or something they do occasionally, but they both seemed to be in good spirits at the end of the day. I'm still getting used to children growing up into young adults and how that changes both what they need from me and what they are capable of. This week it was so handy to have Kali's help with a car pick up from the shop after soccer when Jason was not along (this heat moved the "get the AC in the Matrix fixed" up on the priority list). 

Kali is not the only one helping with the business from time to time. Alida seems more interested in the bookkeeping and was helping out a bit on Jason's office day this week. He did lose her when he was trying to explain to her how his spreadsheets worked.

So many changes and coming so fast! A space opened up this week to finally help Alida and Terah go through their clothes (again)! In the months since we pulled the bins down from the attic, some of Terah's clothes went from too big to too small (she outgrew them while they were sitting in the bins!). And if I'm not impressed enough with the growth inside our home, all I have to do is step outside to get an additional dose of how quick living things can grow. 

Redbud season has officially come to an end, but not before I got to take in the redbuds and dogwoods blooming simultaneously. 

There are many pictures of peas and grains that come into our computer from Jason's phone. I guess the magenta pea flowers can take over for the redbuds for a bit. 

And the peach blossoms are gone, but now there are little tiny peaches giving us a sense of potential but not optimism. There's A LOT of things that could go wrong between now and when we would bite into a juicy ripe peach. But they aren't just enjoyable if we get to eat them. I get a little shot of something positive every time I look at this photo.

It's not a spinach year like last year but we are enjoying gobs of it fresh. Not sure how much we'll put up in the freezer but that's ok. Thankfully we have other options for freezing greens if the spinach doesn't pan out - though it is a favorite!

The baby finches outside our window on Mom's Christmas wreath just fledged yesterday. I know because I took this photo seconds before they all took off. I was worried that Dad might be quite upset with me for disturbing them but I seem to have been forgiven pretty quickly (and assured they were probably ready if they all flew off - HOW do they go from practice flapping in a nest to just flying up into a high tree?!).

Times of sweet connection! And then time with people we love! Times of connecting and reconnecting, of familiar relationships and ones that feel fresh and new. They are each different and each precious. Here's some moments I savored recently!

And when I say "moments" I sometimes mean just a moment. This cutie pie is a snuggler BUT he also doesn't stay still for very long. I was all ready for a long hammock snuggle but we got about as far as taking this selfie!

He was extremely patient this Tuesday when Terah was going through clothes. It didn't hurt that he got his choice of many things to try on and was very happy to prance around in clothes that were way too big for him!

Bear is now up from his nap and so the remainder of this blog post may be even more disjointed than normal. We're upstairs where he is happily playing with the plastic fruits and veggies with Terah while Mom and Alida are working on a comforter top. He's pulling up to standing now and really likes patty cake. He now imitates us saying "yay" at the end.

I look at the picture above and I'm taking back to scenes with the kids and their dear friends together playing years ago and carting Terah around as a baby. Look at them now! As they told baby Terah happens, they all have teeth now and no one is still nursing from their mama in college!

 

Having one of my sisters close again geographically has been a very sweet and deeply treasured gift. We savored a beautiful hike up to Hensley's Pond together.

A few days later Karen, Sue and Ezzie came out for the afternoon/evening! I love that our kids have outgrown most dogs now... Ezzie is now solidly a fun dog to have around for ALL of us. What a relief - I was eager for this day to come!

There's no seamless connection to these next two photos and I'm not even going to try. I just love this picture of Jason laughing. I want more and more and more of such moments! 

I almost forgot cheese season! The grass is green, the milk is amazing and I'm slowly restocking the cheddar cheese shelves! Other than a little of a strong cheddar that only Jason is eating and a small amount of parmesan from the rinds, we are OUT!

I'll end by saying that we are not going to get sheep anytime soon and (probably) not a rabbit, BUT Sunday made both tempting... We did a whirlwind of things Sunday afternoon - from a barn open house/celebration to an 80th birthday party to a concert. The only one that made me really pine for something was the first where we saw some VERY cute lambs and baby bunnies. That said, I'm gonna try to just enjoy the memories and the photos because life is plenty full without adding a new kind of mammal to Tangly Woods just now!

Spring in all its fullness! Finding moments of flow!!

Spring has fully settled in here at Tangly Woods and it's the time of year when I blink and I feel like I've missed something. Warmer temps have things growing fast, blooming vibrantly and all at a rapid pace. I am not at all ready for red bud season to leave us, but the trees are now focused on leafing out. I'm trying to keep up!!!

On one of my treasured walks with a dear friend this week we were talking about fun. I had been listening to a two part series on the importance of fun on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast and it was articulating many things that I've felt over the years. As my burnout got pretty intense, one of the most disconcerting things that I noticed in my life was that things that had been fun for me no longer felt fun - same activities but totally different feelings in my body. Everything started to just feel like another obligation, another thing that I had to do, and the pressure was crushing. 

That's one of the reasons it felt so striking when I recently made my own rolled oats and I was giddy about it. I didn't do it because I think everyone should be making their own rolled oats and so I was modeling something I thought others should emulate. Nothing could be farther from the truth! I happened to have oats that we had bought years ago. We have a pasta maker already. I have and use a dehydrator regularly. And I was familiar with the process enough that it didn't feel overwhelming and I had the time and space to do it. I get a kick out of making things with my hands. And there really is nothing like watching the pasta maker gobble up those soaked oats and spit out rolled ones. So satisfying. So FUN! But the fun was not the activity, it was the mindset I had while doing the activity. For just a few minutes I found myself in what they were calling a "flow state" and I was fully present to what I was doing right there, right then. 

That is NOT common for me! I am nearly always contending with a tape playing in the background of my mind - what I could or should be doing that I'm not, the people I'm not tending to while I'm tending to others, the many things on our to do and project lists that we'll probably never get to, wondering if it is ok to thrive here at Tangly Woods while so many others are struggling to survive, pondering whether any of what I'm doing matters in the grand scheme of things and wondering what that grand scheme is, analyzing the past and ruminating about the future, and on and on and on! So those moments of "flow" and feeling full present are so welcome when I get glimpses of them! 

That's a long intro to come around to say that one of the benefits for me in pausing and reflecting back over a period of time and looking at the pictures that Jason and I have taken is that it helps me stop and reflect and see all the beautiful moments that make up our lives. And while it puts a very incomplete picture out there for others to look in on, in some ways what I put out in this space is actually helping to balance what is often happening inside me. I see the photo that I took when Luca and I were walking home to Tangly Woods and he is munching on red buds like corn on the cob and I am reminded again that he is my teacher!! He is an expert at being present and staying in flow state. He's so so good for me! 

On another note, I'm still not sure how I feel about his rapidly expanding and improving vocabulary and pronunciation when that means that sometimes he seems to be pondering making the full switch from "Nel Nel" to "Janelle!" I'd be Nel Nel to him his whole life if I had my way!

I've got some pretty expert teachers at flow and presence right in my own home too. Alida and Terah have enjoyed many hours fully absorbed sitting outside with their little chick friends (especially Olivia, Caramel and Buddy). They go out for chores and I won't see them for hours. There are days that I get all wrapped up in the messages around productivity and responsibility and being ready for the "real" world and privilege and hard work and on and on. But then I remember that in my mid-40's I'm working pretty hard to unlearn a lot of those same messages. I breath a little easier and savor walking outside and finding them fully focused on watching these little rapidly growing creatures dust bathing or pecking grass and marveling at them. I think, "I want to be like them!!"

In all honesty, that last few weeks have not had a lot of moments of flow for me. There's a lot of "fun activities" in the mix, but I've only had glimpses of being fully present. I've been in a preoccupied state much of the time and so being present hasn't come easy for me. That's why this pause is feeling pretty important to me today.

In no particular order, here's some things that stand out from recent days! 

Soccer is in full swing!!! Alida had her first game yesterday and played a combo of midfield and defense in the first half goalie the second. It was such a fun game to watch - I love how much she loves playing! We were joined on the sidelines by my parents and sister, Karen (sadly Sue wasn't there to join our mini-celebration of their wedding anniversary with mint tea and fresh cookies!). Soccer photo credits here to my dad!

After the game we went to Sweet Frog to use some coupons we had (let's just say our $20 of coupons didn't even cover 1/2 the cost for the 5 of us to each get a cup of frozen yogurt). This is NOT an advertisement for them. If you want ice cream, go to Smiley's!!! But it was something different and in that sense a fun little outing.

A much more enjoyable outing recently was Jason and I's adopt a highway walk with our eldest. The red buds were delicious. The conversation was full and rich and interesting and stretching and fun. Picking up the trash was, well, picking up trash...

On the home front the gardens are bursting! I find myself in total adoration of the little pea plants. And the carpet of dill (YAY!!) where it went to seed last year. And the tiny beets coming up (even after we were not going to plant any to simplify things and I caved!). Jason, on the other hand, could just look at the grain crops all day long and can't stop gushing about the lush barley! 

I'm feeling hopeful about the onions this year, though it's pretty early for that sentiment. They've stayed green, they aren't dying off and there's new growth. You can do it onions!! And my gratitude to neem oil for it's help with the critters.

Mondays continue to be one of the highlights of my week when the five of us spend a good part of the day working in the gardens together. Each week is different, but the commonality is having a day clear of other competing priorities and just focusing on home tasks together. This past week included the rather dirty but successful task of emptying out the composting chicken coop. Kali and I did most of that together, while Jason and the younger girls did some slightly less smelly tasks like planting out Alida's birthday flower bulbs - a task that will hopefully add splashes of color to our summer! That said, I don't mean to complain about our task - my wrists and elbows complained but I actually enjoyed it AND especially love seeing the habitants of the compost coop come and go. Mamas and chicks...I just never tire of that combo. We just gave the most recent mama upwards of 30 chicks to tend!

After having a week focused on the home front, Jason did 3 Sassafras work days away from home this week. He needed an extra set of hands for one of those days, so Kali joined him. He tried to play it cool, but I know how much he enjoyed being accompanied for the day by one of his daughters!

He also got to teach another daughter how to use her new mini (and very cute) chain saw. Sadly the thunder scared our younger two inside before she got to do much with it. Next time...

It's definitely picnic season at Tangly Woods. It's the time of beautiful puffy clouds and changing mountain landscapes. It's often hard to come inside, so we bring the food out with us. And the food! I do love spring meals. I realized recently that without a baby on my hip most days, I have stopped doing many of the things I could do easily with a baby. With older kids, I can do heavier work and be out in the gardens and so I often don't do the things that I could do with tiny people in tow - picking violets and red buds and tea...Bear and I did that together this week!

Dilly egg salad with pickles, fresh oregano pesto, homemade farmer's cheese, stinging nettle garlic biscuits, spinach salad with Tangly Woods' eggs, violets and red buds!

Yesterday afternoon our box arrived from the Land Institute. So we pivoted quickly (making my cheddar cheese process rather inconvenient) and spent the late afternoon/evening getting our plots for the Perennial Atlas Project up and running. It made for a LATE night - we were eating dinner at 9:45 p.m. and I was too tired to chew my salad so it went in the fridge and I ate some chocolate mousse with raspberries instead. 

Here are your Tangly Woods' civic scientists at work. Here's a little bit about the project we are engaging in over the next 3 years:

The Land Institute’s civic science communities bring people together to learn as they grow and study perennial grain crops. This project focuses on three perennial grains and their annual counter parts, sainfoin (a legume), silflower (an oilseed), and Lewis flax (an oilseed). This study is designed to help support perennial grain research and lay the ground work for the creation of a perennial atlas, a set of maps displaying perennial grain performance, diseases, and more. The goals of this project are to engage a diverse community of civic scientists in a multi-year social, agroecological and geographic research project to produce a perennial atlas and further improve civic science research. Civic scientists will plant and maintain research plots containing perennial and annual grains. Civic scientists will interact with their plots to make observations, collect data, and share their thoughts and data with researchers.

A few delights in recent days included a day visit from 3 people who were part of Jason's workshop at Oak Spring Garden Foundation. We were compensated generously to host them from 10-4 to talk chickens and we had such a good time that no one was ready to part at 4 p.m. They ended up lingering into the evening for dinner and Ransom Notes and finally pulled themselves away around 9:30 p.m.! The pigs also enjoyed their visit and the extra back and belly scratches. (Side note for the record: the day before Jason also hosted a JMU class for a short farm tour while I was in town)

Speaking of special visits, we are finally all healthy again and got to savor our Bear day again this week. I keep thinking he can't get any more precious and then somehow he manages too. We figured you can never start too young learning to play Rook!

While the younger girls were occupied with their paper making project in the kitchen he joined to observe but then busied himself swiping one of the rugs they were using. He looks pretty proud of himself, doesn't he?!

Paper making teaching and inspiration credit goes to my cousin Colette and her son Birch! 

Now here we are on a cloudy Sunday morning! We have a day ahead of being together in various combinations of humans here and out and about (meeting up with Emily, Jonas and Ivy at what we call the Blue and Yellow Park this afternoon). It's Terah's turn for some Mommy and Daddy solo time today too and I'm banking on her wanting to spend at least some moments of it snuggled in the hammock Jason put up this week (I have yet to try it out!). It has been calling to me every time I walk out the side door...

Speaking of places that call to me, I'll end with a photo a dear friend took on our walk to Hensley's Pond this week. We got spritzed on for a good portion of it and the raindrops on the pond were mesmerizing. I love that place!

Now for homemade waffles - I do love Sunday brunch made by our kiddos!!