Thursday in the Life…

…of a gardener/wife/teacher/mom. At our tax appointment the accountant asked for my occupation. I really would have enjoyed blowing him away with all my hats, but didn’t think that would be modest. Haaha.

I didn’t set an alarm because we were up late last night and it was my husband’s day off. At seven I heard a knock on the door and knew instantly that it was one of the teachers from the local school, come to pick up the book order that I had just sorted through yesterday. Thankfully she knows me well and didn’t object to me being quite sleepy and a bit underdressed.

Breakfast was corn meal mush, served as porridge, with sausage patties. Half of the crew went “Ewww,” and half went “Yumm,” so I knew I hit it just about right.

It was so warm that I opened kitchen windows to let the frying smells out. All day while we were doing school and laundry, we kept looking out and determining to get into the fresh air as soon as possible. The clouds were sailing along and all would be blue sky for a while, then it would get darker again as they clumped together, obscuring the sun. But it was so soothingly warm that the cloudiness didn’t dampen our spirits at all.

My mom brought cookies over just before lunch and we had a chat about some sewing she is doing. I washed the eggs while we talked and sent her home with 2 dozen which was good, because my fridge can’t hold them all.  All the children had cookies, so there was no complaining about hunger. I helped Rita finish her math sheets, then realized that it was 1 PM and I didn’t have any plan to feed people.

A scrounge around the fridge yielded hotdogs and grapes. I cooked a kettle full of mac and cheese the favorite way around here (milk, Velveeta, salt, pepper) and called it lunch. They all said “Yumm,” so I knew I hit it right.

Gabe was drooping from a very late night, so he went for a nap before resuming his current graduate studies assignment. I thought about a nap, then I thought about the laundry I wanted to hang out, just because it was so gorgeous outside, and I did that (yeah, I know that’s a little late in the day). I made big plans for the boys when they got done with their assignments.

Addy came to me with a very pronounced wilt in her usually chipper parade. “I hurt all over and I need to go to bed,” she said. Uh-oh. I dosed her with Tylenol for her fever and elderberry syrup for an immune booster. She fell asleep in minutes.

As soon as Alex finished his algebra, we went to pick up some old produce for the pigs, generously provided by our favorite local store. We have discovered that they do not like potatoes raw, but they hogged down grapes with astounding swiftness. The goats first ate all the cabbage leaves, then delicately took bites out of the potatoes, and the chickens pecked at it all. It’s so entertaining, this animal business.

We coordinated our outdoor jobs so that they could do their chores while I watched out of the corner of my eye, even though I was raking leaves out of the flower beds. Long ago I figured out that boys will be much more willing if their work can somehow involve a power tool or a blazing fire. That is why they cut off the dead ornamental grasses with a small chain saw today. 🙂 Instead of wheelbarrows, they used a lawn tractor and trailer to haul composted manure and mulch to the asparagus bed. The grasses made an impressive blaze that was much better than putting them on a compost pile.

Under the dead leaves I uncovered some ambitious daffodils shoots with fat buds. Whenever I clear dead stuff out of flowerbeds, I think of sour little Mary Lennox in her Secret Garden, and the therapeutic thrill she got when she found fresh sprouts coming up. This is very early for our region, but I suppose we might as well embrace the warming trend, with its attendant mud and bugs. I shall hover a little over the plants that are likely to get the shock of the year in March, but who knows? Maybe this will last.

I took some time to throw potatoes into the oven to bake, then went back out and wandered around the pond with Gabe. There was a pair of mallards on the water, and you can feel the gurgles of new life pushing up all around. There were even bursts of real birdsong, not just the chirping of the winter but the warbles of spring.

The children were playing at roping heifers (each other) in the back yard. Addy felt well enough to romp around for a while until her drugs wore off. I never have to guess with her. Either she has her bounce or she doesn’t.

Once more it was time to eat, and I cannot even imagine how life would be if we wouldn’t be required to do that. It is the aspect of nurturing that I feel most guilty about not really loving. What I am shooting for is faithfulness here, and maybe one day it will come and hit me between the eyes that I actually love to cook. 🙂  I heated up canned beef and made gravy for the potatoes. There were green beans and applesauce, and everybody seemed happy with it, so I knew it was not stellar, but OK.

We girls cleaned up the dishes, Gregory folded laundry, and Alex did the barn chores. The movie for tonight was on PBS, titled Spy in the Wild: Animal Intelligence. Addy chortled with glee when the monkeys kept trying to crack their nuts with rocks, so I know she was feeling better. Nevertheless, it is the couch for her tonight. It’s a secondary gain that makes feeling peaky almost worth it.

And that’s that. The end of another Thursday.