End of Year Letter

12/24/24

Hello to all of you, dear to us for many reasons. We are thankful for our network of loved ones who cheer us on! As I write this, I am sitting in a comfortable armchair by the blazing fire that Addy built. We have a bit of snow on the ground to cheer the outdoor scene, and we leave the twinkly lights on all the time to cheer the indoor scene. There is a pot of soup simmering on the stove, a mug of hot tea at hand, and a book waiting to be read once this letter is written.

The typical end-of-year reflections make us happy that some of the hard stuff is history. We had significant health issues, more doctor’s visits than you can shake a stick at, infusions of various sorts, a surgery, a broken finger, juvenile arthritis, persistent bronchial infections, a pay cut, a fender bender, and some heartaches we never expected to face. Yet here we are, dusting ourselves off at the end of the year, relieved that we made it and seem to be stronger. We know without a doubt that Immanuel is who keeps us in peace and gives the grace of life.

Now that we got the disclaimers out of the way, let’s talk about the daily load of benefits we are given, often without even noticing them . We got off to a nice start in January: Gabe surprised me one Sunday after church and told me to pack some clothes for an overnight stay. He had reserved a local cabin for us to enjoy while we talked over goals and dreams for the new year. We are capable of soaring to great heights on these dates, but we are also old enough to be very practical and strive for achievable goals. We didn’t get them all done this year, but we made an effort.

One of the things Gabe was hoping to do was to take time for lots of outdoor recreation. He and Gregory went on a backpacking trip with friends in January, with the weather so mild that they didn’t feel like they suffered enough to count it winter camping. The girls also had their first try at an overnight backpacking trip with friends and their dads. They loved it, and were quite cozy in a trail shelter at night. We explored a number of new-to-us parks, including McConnell’s Mills, Minister Creek, and Kinzua. We made repeat visits to the beautiful Cook Forest as well as Presque Isle. We are still exploring this NW corner of Pennsylvania and finding new places to love.

In April our address happened to be in the path of totality for the eclipse, with some extended family here to share it with us. It felt very odd to have the whole world go dark in the middle of the day, with the spring peepers starting up a chorus just as all the songbirds went quiet. It was an experience we won’t forget!

This spring we reveled in the returning green on our own acres. We’ve been tending the ground for four years now, and it is starting to return the love. I found myself so anemic that I couldn’t dig a hole without resting, but my family stepped in for me. Gabe made a beautiful border of mossy creek rocks and long tree trunks along my garden beds to keep the grass out of the borders. Alex was here for a while and helped with a lot of projects: planting and mulching the garden, fixing the hole in the privacy fence, and edging around all our fruit trees. The guys did one really big project, erecting a post and beam pavilion on the concrete patio in the garden. We used it a lot this year to host friends and neighbors outside. We discovered that the posts are the perfect width apart for hanging hammocks, so there were a number of outdoor sleepovers.

We still get our homeschool evaluations done by a friend in Bedford County each spring. When we were done with them, the girls and I headed to our beloved Shawnee State Park for the afternoon. We always love to walk around the lake; the girls run up and down the dam slopes like they used to do, look for snakes on the rocks, and eat the partridge berries beside the trail. I had flashbacks of the days when I carried a baby in a pack as I pushed a stroller while simultaneously helping to tow the bikes. It’s a lot easier these days, I must say!

Gregory got to go rock climbing with two friends in May. They chose the Red River Gorge for their adventures and had a high time. I looked at the pictures he was sending, committed him fervently to the safekeeping of the Lord, and what do you know? He was fine.

June was our month to travel to western North Carolina to see the cousins for a week. Some of the guys and the young folks did a rigorous hike on Grandfather Mountain, the hardest hiking our girls had ever done. They were completely worn out by the time they got to the top, but flushed with the pride of having made it. We got to connect with lots of old friends on that trip, and came home feeling weary in body but refreshed in spirit.

The summer was glorious, with rain whenever we needed it, although locals said it was a dry season. We met up with my sister’s family in August at a campground called Mosquito Lake. (Why would you ever go there? Well, it had to do with trying to find 2 sites beside each other. It turned out we got the ones directly downwind from the pit toilets.) The downpours didn’t last long enough to dampen all our fun, but they did give us the drippy experience that people don’t tend to like. That was the trip where I did an undignified and sudden stop on an E scooter and broke my little finger. Gabe set the dislocation and splinted it so that it was OK until we got home. A pinky is a humble member, but surprisingly insistent when it is upset. I had to kiss writing and pottery farewell for six weeks, and I am still doing exercises to get the full range of motion back.

In the beginning of the year we made a goal to go to a Weekend to Remember conference. We decided to pick one that was far away, so Gabe and I flew to Sacramento in November. We were reminded about the many reasons we have to stay in love and be tenacious about growing in our marriage. We had two extra days to explore in California. We drove to the Lake Tahoe area one day and in a bizarre turn, got stuck in a blizzard on the Donner Pass while we were driving. I spent the time reading articles to Gabe about the ill-fated Donner Expedition. Thankfully the road closure only lasted a few hours so that our E car had enough juice and we were not tempted to indulge in any cannibalism. Twenty minutes down the mountain we met up with friends from the conference. They had just picked their pomegranates and never see a snowflake on their farm! We drove south along Rt.1 the next day, along the wild Pacific Coast and then inland to a fold in the mountains where there were Redwoods. There was a chill in the damp air, more shivery after reading the cautionary signs on how to act if you see a cougar. I will not go into detail about California traffic, but suffice it to say, we got to practice some of the things we had been talking about in the marriage seminar.

Gabe is still working a travel nursing position for UPMC and spends a lot of hours driving, listening to audio books along the way. He loves his work, but he is always happy to switch gears completely to something like woodworking, tool restoration, or small engine repairs on his days off. He is quite skilled at finding rusty metal at auctions or flea markets to resell on marketplace. I share his zeal to save things from the landfill, but do not always have the visionary capacity he does. My pottery production this year was very relaxed, but I made enough to set up a booth at a local market. That was so much fun! I did a lot of puttering this year, and surprisingly, it did add up after a while. I am so thankful to be feeling strong again, and able to deal with the challenges of keeping a household afloat in a fairly even-keeled fashion.

Greg has been working on a building crew. He took off six weeks this fall to go to SMBI for a term, a good experience all around. He sorely missed having tools to work with his hands after a day of study, and became known as the guy who went to bed early. One weekend we met him and handed off some carving knives and his backpacking gear so that he could do a solo hike on his 20th birthday. He had a great time, but underestimated the calories he would need and nearly starved on the way out. Occasionally he offers to make supper for us, usually something meaty and spicy that we never eat unless Greg cooks.

Olivia got her driver’s license this year and is working a part time job she loves at the Faith Builders’ thrift store. It is conveniently only a mile from our house. She is very close to finishing her high school credits, but decided to wait to graduate for another year to give some space for working. Despite growing up into these busier adult things, she still squeezes in her books and crochet projects to keep her spirit healthy. I am very thankful that she is self-motivated with her schoolwork, because pre-calculus is so far over my head that I am not even good at checking the work.

Rita took care of my garden this year, choosing rather to prune raspberries than do laundry, to pull weeds than to clean floors. That worked out very well for us. She sails serenely through her school assignments, although high school is requiring more time than she wishes it would. This hunting season she asked around for some deer hides to tan and was also given a coyote pelt to try out a new method for her: brain tanning. The shop smells a little funny but she is almost done with the process.

Addy is good at flying around the house, tidying things and tucking random stuff away. To her credit, she remembers where she stashed things if we have a household mystery. She still loves writing, which just blesses my heart. Addy is also the one who remembers to feed the animals and check on their water. Her cat comes running when she calls, ready to be held even though he is now an adult, grown sleek on chipmunks. This fall all three girls were part of a volleyball team made up mostly of home schoolers. They didn’t have a terribly brilliant season, but from a parent’s point of view, the things they learned were more valuable than winning a lot.

We’ve been so grateful for the goodness in the ordinary days of living this year. There are a lot of unknowns in the coming year, but we know the one who does know all things, and that is enough.

Blessings and love to all!

Gabe and Dorcas and crew

Moving in a New Direction

I’ve been needing to find a different direction for my public writing, which has faltered and nearly petered out altogether, as you may have noticed. The place I am in currently is a very different place from where I was sixteen or so years ago when I started blogging. In fact, the whole world is a different place, and people don’t really read blogs anymore.

At that time I was quite literally breathing and eating for my children as I gestated one after the other of them. They were artless and cute; it was hilarity to take notes on our days. I processed the unbelievable events you couldn’t make up by writing about them and finding the thread of humor. It kept me sane and cheerful, and my children love reading those stories. They like getting a front row seat in the plays I wrote about their own memories.

There is a big however. I have a household full of young adults now and they are still hilarious and cute to me, but if I were to write about them in the same ways I used to, they would have a few things to say about privacy. I respect them too much to splash their stories all over the internet, hence I find myself often unable to write what I know best, which is my everyday life.

I pay a fee every year to keep this domain name, and I have considered folding up the blog once and for all because it isn’t worth the $ to keep it online when I am posting about once a month. Not only that, but the Wocket in my Pocket theme does not feel as relevant as it used to when the kids were little.

With this in mind, I have decided to start writing on Substack. I do not intend to have paid subscriptions at this point. It is free and uncomplicated. They say it will be easier than maintaining a WordPress site once I am used to the new ways of doing things. Eventually I hope to export these archives over to that page, but I haven’t figured out how to do it yet.

I am starting out this Sub-stack page with childhood memories, mining for the gold in the earthy strata of living. You can read my first post here.

One thing that is nice is that it has a very easy subscriber button for you to receive emails. The comments section is simple as well, and I do hope there are fewer ads. Come on over and say hi. 🙂

Thankfulness and Uneasy Relationships

I doubt anyone was watching for the annual slightly strange list, (it’s late) but I have been collecting it in a notebook anyway. This year it’s a theme of first world problems.

Budget airlines. You can (cheaply) speed to your destination at 500 miles an hour and you cannot be upset about that. And yet there is the anxiety that is unassigned seating and being among the last to board with only middle seats available and nobody meeting your eye, because they do not want you to sit in that seat.
The detergent aisle at the store. So many ways to get clean, but you scoot past as fast as you can after picking up that one unscented thing before you pass out with Island Breeze overload.
Reusable straws. Much better than all the waste, but there is the uneasy question of whether the person who washed the dishes actually used the little straw brush or just swished them through the water and hoped that took care of the milkshake residue.
Parking garages. An indication that you are someplace teeming with people and excitement and muggings in dark, claustrophobic places.
Parking meters. So many places to go and you can play “How many quarters will still not be enough quarters?”
Buffet lines. Think about the lovely sharing of food and never mind all the (unsanitary) hands touching the serving spoons.
Water fountains. Best just to drink the water and not think at all.
Water bottles. The green option that spares you the water fountain, but how are there so many? Is it normal for them to live on the kitchen countertop? Are they canoodling in the cupboards with their cousins, the insulated coffee tumblers? Is that where all the freebies with logos come from?
Italian food. Yes, it tastes amazing, and yes, your breath smells like garlic for two days and you don’t even know it.
Home remedies when the OTC stuff that is too much or not enough. Yes, garlic is good for you and it might even work better than the prescription. Also yes, you smell like garlic.
Library books. How amazing to be able to borrow whole worlds for free- and to lose them so easily too!
Boots. Practical, ubiquitous footgear where we live. Always in front of the door, ready to be tripped over. Six people with at least 2 pairs each, and not a boot tray big enough to handle the volume.
Eye exams. So many choices, one or two? three or four? five or six? All the choices while in close proximity to a person who showered with Irish Spring and drenched himself with Bay Rum so that your nose is tickling and finally you just SNEEZE.
Health care professionals who are young enough to be my children. Brisk and well-educated in the latest of whatever is latest. But do they know things?
Pedestals. Beautiful for cakes and horrible for people.
The inter-webs. So many helpful connections, but you access them through a minefield of booby traps and wormholes.

This post serves no purpose aside from entertaining myself, and possibly you, with the flip sides of our conveniences and comforts, not the least of which is my very sensitive nose. Add to the list if you want. I would be happy to be entertained by your uneasy relationships.

Falling into Rhythms: Noticing

One day I heard an acquaintance say, “If one more person talks to me about ‘seasons of life’, I am going to…(insert desperate reaction here).” Well, this is me, talking about it, but I thought I might give it a slightly different angle. I took her point to be the way I used to feel when I was up to my eyeballs in charming, sticky, little needy children and someone would chirp helpfully, “Enjoy every minute! They grow up so fast.” At that point it might have felt more validating to hear, “Yup, this is intense, but you’ll make it. Let me hold the baby while you (insert desperate action to keep up with toddler here).”

I am looking at rhythms these days. We used to start every school day with read-aloud time. It was the way we did it. That has changed, and I don’t love it, but life is very different now. In this era, one girl gets up early to study, then dashes off to her part time job two mornings a week. The students are mostly self-motivated, and my main responsibility is to make assignments and ensure that they get done. I check work, keep records, and only occasionally read aloud. This morning I read a chapter to Addy to convince her that she really does want to do a book report on this book, and I was reminded that this is a timeless activity. When winter comes, I hope to pick it back up, even if it is just the two of us.

I am typing this while I babysit the pressure canner. Our Giant Eagle had a meat sale, and I decided to can a bunch instead of putting it in the freezer. The recent power outages that our siblings experienced in NC has me thinking it might be prudent to be a bit more prepared. I look at our shaky economy and our divided country, and I wonder how long it will be until it all falls apart. We are here for such a time as this, obviously, because here we are. I’ll make large pots of soup to share when that happens. Actually, I’ll make large pots of soup anyway. I love making soup, simmering the broth, chopping the vegetables, frying the meat, sprinkling the seasonings and tasting, adding more salt until it’s just right. It’s such a wonderfully satisfying way to make a meal.

Speaking of soup, I have a hankering for a large tureen that holds about a gallon. When I looked them up on Amazon, I found the perfect ones, but the price made me step away quietly. Unless I find one at a thrift store, I do not want to have a tureen that cannot be used because it might get broken. Meanwhile I am attempting to make one. The struggle bus is being ridden on a bumpy dirt road, let me tell you. I am not skilled enough to throw large amounts of clay so I threw two sections and connected them in the middle. It developed a bit of a wobble, but I trimmed it into a respectable semblance of a tureen. Then I made two lids to see which style I like best. The one fit perfectly. I know because I set it onto the tureen to check, and then it stuck as if I had glued it there. I called Rita to help me separate the two, an operation that ruined the lid and warped the rim of the bowl. I went ahead and attached handles, just in case it comes out semi-OK. It will likely be a flower pot. Oh well, shake it off and try another day.

Today started out chilly. I wore a bulky chenille sweater for a few hours, but it got too hot so I switched it for a yellow-green one I bought 13 years ago for our family photo. I still feel affection for this sweater and periodically shave off its pills so that I can keep wearing it. I can’t locate the photo with the whole family, but below is our couple’s photo. Not only did we have five babies, we were babies ourselves, even though we were in our thirties. Someday we will look back at this very time in our lives and talk about how young we look. This idea always fills me with cheer.

Recently I switched out the linens and lightweight cottons in my closet for the heavier knits and sweaters. I have a number of short-sleeved sweaters, which are the smartest thing ever, likely the design of a desperate peri-menopausal woman. (It’s tricky, at my age, to know how to dress, because I am sometimes plenty warm. Clears throat meaningfully.)

I planted my garlic last week, at least a hundred bulbs. I want a bigger harvest next year than I had this year. We have been having lingering coughs, and I have been advised repeatedly by people who know that I should ingest garlic fermented in honey. This is not my favorite thing, but I have become desperate enough to try it. The first time I tried to swallow a clove, I thoughtlessly chewed it and nearly choked. Today’s clove got cut into pieces the size of largish pills, and swallowed, which worked much better. I have also made a garlic salve with coconut oil which I slather on at night because that’s when the cough is worse. Have you noticed that when you’re sleep-deprived, it’s hard to ~~deal~~ heal? I have had over three weeks to try different remedies. From this vast platform of experience, I am here to say that the garlic has been more successful for this particular attack of bronchitis than Vicks or cough drops or Mucinex or prescription cough meds from the doc. At this point you might as well stick me in a baking dish and call me Lasagna.

The last fall ritual that marks the end of the garden work for me is digging up the dahlias, hosing them off, dividing the tubers, and storing them for winter. That is not my favorite chore, but I waited for an unseasonably warm day, which made it feel more like a privilege. All that is left to do is mulching the beds for winter. We have been carrying the leaves from our neighbor’s maple tree over to our garden. Bill does not like mess of any kind, so he diligently mows in circles and blows his leaves into piles every day. If we don’t get them picked up that day, he tarps the pile so they don’t blow around. The girls haul them in an old sheet and dump them on the garden. Everybody wins. Well, the girls feel like they get the short end of the stick, but I remind them that for ten minutes of minimal effort, they can bless the socks off an elderly neighbor, and that matters.

We still have hickory and oak leaves sifting down. I don’t like these tough ones for mulch because they don’t break down much over winter. We resort to blowing them to the edge of the woods. There is a long caterpillar of leaves all along the periphery of the lawn.

Recently the rugosa rose has put out a final push of fresh pink blooms amongst the fat orange hips that have already ripened all over the bush. A few honeybees hadn’t gotten the memo that the nectar season is over and were rolling around in the blooms. There is a humongous kale plant in the garden, and I will be able to harvest from that until Christmas. This is the third year for this particular kale. It was only a little stump this spring, but I didn’t pull it out, and sure enough, it revived and thrived. I also have a lovely row of parsley and beside it are carrots in the ground, where they continue to get sweeter and bigger. We like to walk out there and just casually pull a few carrots when we need them. It’s a lot easier than trying to store them, and with the mulch on the garden, they don’t freeze unless it gets super cold.

Gardening is a rhythm that hums in my blood. Right now it is at a minimum, but it is always there, my therapy. All the houseplants are inside, their summer green still glad and strong. I’m happy, and it’s fall, and that is a small miracle.

Last year I asked the Lord to do a work in my heart because I have a history of collapsing a bit when my flowers die and the long dark sets in. This was an exceptionally gorgeous, breathtakingly amazing fall, and I was here for it. This surprised me as much as anyone. All I can say is that God is kind, opened my eyes to the beauty that is this season.

I suppose it’s never too late to develop healthier rhythms. (I just had to tie that little moralizing bow at the end. Bless.)

For an Election Year

Today I can reject the swill that does not satisfy my soul.

I can beware the upthrust rocks of rhetoric,

the sucking mud of media,

the pitfalls of popular opinion.

I can refuse to be a spectator to the sport of the scum slingers.

I can fling off the choking fuss of fret about the future.

Today I can be still and just look up,

unwordly, open-eyed.

I can raise my gaze in the ancient posture that

centers the focus where my Help comes from-

ethereal practice to see what is intangible

and yet more true than what is urgent-in-my-face.

Today I can wait, and have my strength renewed,

spirit gaining altitude on wings of hope

that what is seen is most certainly not all there is.

I can be patient as I strain toward the day

when only righteousness will reign.

Today I can know that right now in my soul all is well and

someday all will be well.

Things Keep Happening

I find my writing muscles have sadly atrophied this summer. Every time I went to write something down, my little finger commenced to aching, an excuse that even Mr. Putter and Tabby did not come up with when they tried to write a book. I suppose that would be as good a place to start as any with this update.

Way back in August, three days after my doctor cleared me to do whatever I want now that I had healed up from surgery in the spring, we went camping with my sister’s family. It was good times all around, except for maybe the hour of drenching rain one evening. Rachel has six children, five of whom are younger than my youngest child, so we are still in very different stages of mothering. She had been dispensing snacks and taking small people to the potty and supervising play most of the day. After supper we decided to go on a wild spree on the e-scooters. We felt like shopping, and the only option was the ever-present Dollar General right outside the park entrance.

Off we scooted, about 15 miles an hour, one foot balanced behind the other. I was on the edge of the road and she was riding behind me when suddenly she put on a burst of speed and cheered as she glided past me, “I’m going to buy CHOCOLATE!” That declaration of freedom was all it took to set me off, and I started laughing enough that I ran my scooter off the edge of the road.

Now e-scooters are not designed for hasty changes in terrain, and it stopped very abruptly while I kept on running at 15 miles an hour. I took gigantic steps, pell-mell, and just as I thought I had gotten it under control, I tripped on my flip-flop. My pinky did its best to stop my fall, but it proved inadequate to the task, and crumpled.

The first thing I did was look around to see if anyone had noticed my epic fall. Nobody in sight, and Rachel was ahead of me, so she only saw the part where I was sitting on the asphalt, feeling foolish. The next thing I did was examine a rather pathetic little finger, obviously dislocated. There were no other injuries of note, except my shattered dignity, but I soon recovered that.

We scrubbed the mission for chocolate and other DG delicacies and returned back to the campsite. Gabe got my finger back into the proper position and whittled me a splint. I took a bunch of pain killers and the camping went on.

When we got home, I had the finger x-rayed, and it was indeed broken. The doctor said Gabe did a good job of setting it, and it should heal fine on its own, unless I was concerned about how it looks. “I don’t care about that,” I said, “but I really would like it to work. I have to be able to type and to make pottery with it.” I was given an enormous splint that came almost to my elbow.

A pinky is pretty minor in the world of broken bones, but turns out you use it a lot. I couldn’t believe how often I accidentally bumped it, trying to do ordinary things. One day Addy poured a few M n M’s into my palm, and I dumped them all out because there was no little finger obligingly curling around to catch them. I couldn’t peel potatoes, hold a pen, pull weeds, pick beans, throw pots, etc.

It is now healed, but needs therapy. I can type, stiffly, and I think just using it normally should soon extend my range of motion. I am now good to go, again.

Would you like to hear what I did to my knee when we were camping last weekend? No? Yeah, I don’t feel like talking about that either.

I did have a few complaints for the Lord as I was hobbling around, putting away camping gear. “Do you really want me to just not do anything this whole entire year?” He didn’t answer, so I just kept hobbling. Eventually it will loosen up. It always does.

It’s the time of year when I feel like things are piling up that need to be done, urgently, before winter. It helps me to get dominion of just one thing at a time. Because the girls are pretty much self-directed in their schooling these days, I can putter at projects one at a time. Eventually the household ship that is listing heavily to port starts to right itself.

Right now my mind is constantly with my brothers Nate and Kenny and Gabe’s brother Wayne who all live in the mountains of western North Carolina and are wearing themselves out, day after day, helping their neighbors in any way they can. Thankfully all of them live on high ground and did not have flooding in their homes, but they are living with the reality of no electricity and loss of infrastructure. They are besieged everyday with the griefs of a community staggering under a weight of unimaginable suffering. They are living on little sleep, going on fumes and the grace of God. We hear only snippets of their lives when they manage to get to Starlink internet access.

Aside from supporting organizations that are bringing aid, I don’t know what to do to help. I feel guilty while I steam grapes and can juice and clean up the basement storage room. When I turn on the heat, there is a twinge of guilt too. I don’t know what to do to help.

There are a lot of situations in life where the only thing to do is the next thing. If I sit inactive in my overwhelm at the sorrows of life, something is missing from the world that is supposed to be there. What is right in front of me, that is my work today.

This morning I took dominion of the freezer drawer. It is supposed to be the freezer for bits of things that need to be handy in the kitchen. Why it gets into such a state, I do not know, but I am suspicious it might be the children. I took out 13 partial bags and containers of frozen fruit from the summer smoothie making. There were a lot of bags of half loaves of bread too, and an ice cream bucket with about 3 cups in it. There were containers with a few slices of ham or some sliced bell peppers that I never remember to use when we make pizza. (Not all the children’s fault after all.) I have a bowl of frost-bitten treats for the chickens, which will turn into eggs in the long run, so that is ok, I suppose.

Yesterday Rita and I went out into the glorious sunshine that feels like a novelty after two weeks of drear. We trimmed the overgrown raspberries and cleaned dead plants out of the garden. She cleared her patch and hauled the stuff to the compost pile. I caught her looking at me a little oddly, and then she declared, “I am so glad you aren’t anemic anymore!”

Me too, dearie, me too!

It has been a summer, that’s for sure. There has been so much goodness and hardness mixed. My dad is fighting liver cancer with all his might, and we do not know yet whether the treatments are working. My mom is pouring her heart into caring for him. Our hearts are being enlarged even while we recoil from hard things. God alone knows what will be next, but He is there. Amen.

(My finger has tolerated this typing quite well, although p is hard to reach. My writing muscle feels stretched and happy. Thanks for listening. )

I will conclude with a little extra warmth on a chilly morning, thanks to my one child who does not need to be bribed to let me post photos.

This Week I Smelled…

roasted chicken, bathed in lemon-butter infused with rosemary, thyme, garlic, all from the garden: a fit birthday meal for the man of the house.

warm, creamy vanilla in the Boston Cream Pie I made for dessert. I cooked the pudding, fragrant and brilliant with egg yolks from my happy hens and milk from cows that get to eat grass all day. Quite compelling.

the sharp nip of newsprint on an bi-monthly newspaper that I subscribed for in Gabe’s name, for his birthday. (What does one get for a man?)

the tea-tree/peppermint shampoo he bought at Sport-clips, our favorite and we’ve been out of it. We would rather buy food than shampoo, if it really comes down to it, but it was a nice splurge.

the Sunday evening popcorn that Addy makes every week, with browned butter and nutritional yeast flakes, pulling me right out of my nap.

the crushed grain of the communion bread and the rich grapes in the cup, reminding me of a body, broken and poured out for me.

the medicinal scent of crushed chamomile, growing in the middle of the rocky path where Addy and I were sauntering in the evening breeze.

the sludgy green swamp at the edge of the trail, where waterbirds stand statuesque, waiting for dinner to swim by.

the woodsy aroma of bracken ferns and rotting leaves, sun-splashed yet cool in the underbrush along the trail that some inspired person reclaimed from the forsaken railroad bed.

the acrid smell of the glaze kiln firing, and the dusty scent of it when I opened the lid, hoping all was well. Not quite all was well, as it rarely is, but most of the pieces were good, which was gratifying after not having done pottery for awhile.

disgusting fish emulsion fertilizer that makes my plants happy and is only slightly less stinky than the comfrey concoction I tried.

earthy cucumbers that we cut up for snacks every day, and the (generic, not Hidden Valley, per insistant request) ranch dressing that some of the people in this house consider a staple food.

line-dried sheets: the scent of the sun and the wind trapped in cotton.

raspberry kefir, tangy and sweet, our favorite flavor.

day lilies, pouring charming spice into the garden the whole day.

grease on the guys’ clothes and hands, as they work on the endless car maintenance around here: brakes and axles and calipers and such.

the card-boardy warehouse scent of boxes of new schoolbooks, unpacked, categorized, and shelved for another day because I cannot put my head in that space just yet.

peanut butter on bananas for a pick-me-up snack.

Downy-scented dryer vent on the breeze as I rode the scooter up the hill to see the sunset.

honeysuckle and freshly cut hay on the same ride, which I liked a lot better.

What did you smell?

I Saw

a pile of papers and stuff I need to do at my desk, so I unplugged the laptop and took it somewhere with less urgency.

my husband come quietly into our room, back early from men’s camping because his glasses broke and he needed his contacts so he can make breakfast. I stayed in bed.

a picture of a garden with only white flowers planted in it, and it was beautiful. I looked out the window at my splashy portulaca row and the purple coneflowers and yellow day lilies, and I knew I would never be able to manage a monochrome garden.

a box of glazed mini donuts on the counter that my daughter brought back from the store where she works, and I snagged one to go with my decaf coffee.

two people at Walmart, both quite grown up, hugging dirty, much-loved stuffed animals while they shopped. Then I drove away, and I saw a man walking his dog, who was carrying a big teddy bear in his mouth.

a little green truck that was so cute, I wanted to pet it.

a garter snake sunning itself, in that split-second before I mowed over it, and I did not stop to assess the damage. Then I saw a large pile of dog poo and casually mowed over that too. The next thing I saw was a roll of green garden tape for tying up plants and I couldn’t stop in time, so I mowed that, then I had to extract it from the same spot that had just splattered the poo.

that the locust trees beside our driveway are already scattering yellow leaves, and I gripped a little more tightly to the summer magic.

a fawn kicking up its heels beside the road, “bound and leap, like a zephyr set free,” just like in Milo and Otis.

a large crayfish and a small catfish that my daughter caught with her bare hands.

Addy’s kitten practicing a stalking movement as it hunted in its imagination, and I thought about how I would be moving on if I were one of the chipmunks stealing the chicken food.

the raspberry canes so loaded with fruit that they hang completely onto the ground, breaking down their support wires, and form a tunnel where it is rich picking, but not fun picking.

the first ripe cherry tomatoes, yellow and so sweet they completely obliterate from our memory the ones in plastic boxes. Hallelujah!

hot sunshine wilting the world, and cool rain restoring it in a cycle of breathtaking beauty that is almost heaven, but not yet.

the ground venison that tastes gamey in my freezer. I decided to treat the chickens with a little every day. Just like that, the slumping egg production picked up, because deep in their hearts, chickens are greedy little carnivores who need protein.

an old Subaru Outback beside the shop, waiting for someone to buy it for parts so it can be moved on and continue some sort of useful life now that it no longer performs for grocery hauls and milk runs.

my daughter, who is a small person, driving a Suburban with the seat set all the way up and forward so she can see over the dash.

a small Kia for sale beside the road, whose owner was selling it because she didn’t want to pay to get the brakes fixed, which were terribly bad. It was cheap, and we needed a little car for the daughter who can drive, but who cannot drive a manual transmission and is a bit undersized for running errands in a Suburban.

when my husband put it up on the lift, and it was really bad around the wheels, no grease ever apparently, and so he has been working on it in all his spare time.

my son pack his car to the gills, “off on a new adventure,” he said. And I felt my heart lurch and settle down again as I committed him to God and let him go.

my baby turn thirteen, and we celebrated her with the things she loves: art supplies, books, and a snorkeling mask.

my Greg, who struggled to eat anything except pale carbs when he was a youngster, chopping and mixing up a chimichurri with fresh onions, garlic, and herbs. Without a recipe. I saw it with my own eyes, and then I ate it. It was good.

my parents, who are needing courage to face my dad’s liver cancer diagnosis. I saw the aerating fountain he just bought for the pond, and the planters full of flowers on the deck, and the hummingbird feeders abuzz with activity. I saw how much they are surrounded and supported with loving friends.

my doctor, and then I didn’t see her for four hours as she performed a skilled surgery, and then there I was, done! It was astonishing, really, and I am so grateful to have that over. By faith I see normal life and health again, just around the bend.

a brilliant sunset, purple glow instead of orange, spread over the whole sky.

I saw the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

Ways to Get Hurt

I was challenged to make a list of the hazards we encountered in our free-range country childhood. How fun! Of course, it wasn’t all glowing, cookies-floating on top of water. Are you prepared to be appalled?

We got poison ivy every summer. Even though we knew what to avoid, there was so much of it, it was inevitable. In second grade I had such a bad case that my eyes swelled shut and I couldn’t go to school. I was still a bit funny-looking when I did go back, so I stood with my eyes very close to the blackboard to draw. I was trying to put off the moment when the other children would see my face. In my peripheral vision, I saw JR checking me out with astonishment. He always spoke the truth with vigor, but this time he was speechless for a bit. Then he simply asked the obvious, “DO you have poison ivy?”

Speaking of school- we walked to school- a whole herd of us from our neighborhood, swinging our lunchboxes and black bonnets, braving heat and dust and neighborhood dogs. There was a bus for the people who lived further away, but we only had about a mile. If it really rained, the bus would come pick us up.

We picked treasure out of a trash pile. It was a gleeful high point of any Saturday to be allowed to meet our neighbors at the spot where trash got dumped, sift through it for treasures. I never found anything special, and I can’t remember what the thrill was, actually.

We got torn by blackberry thorns. Blackberries are ready to pick in the hottest part of the summer, so you can imagine thin cotton clothes, flip flops, and buckets tied around our waists with strips of cloth. Blackberries have vicious thorns, but the fruit was worth hacking through thickets to get it.

Sometimes we felt edgy and ate a few berries we weren’t sure were edible. The test rabbit would nibble a berry, and we would stand around and watch to see if they would topple over. Nobody ever did, but most poisonous berries taste too vile to enjoy anyway.

But chiggers! Have you ever experienced the misery of chiggers on hot skin?

None of us kids ever broke a bone, despite our best efforts. That bed sheet parachute for jumping out of the hay loft – that should have been something broken at least. What can I say? We were built sturdily.

We had bike wrecks, and toboggan crashes, and skating smash-ups. I have three shiny parallel lines on my wrist from the figures on a friend’s skate. One of my friends hit her head so hard while skating, she couldn’t remember who the president was, and had to go for a cat scan. Now THAT was an injury in our world. The emergency room? Gasp!

Once I fell off a horse at full gallop, so I have a patch of funny looking skin on my leg as a result. I think we got all the gravel out that time.

My left hand has a scar from a gash I got when I wiped out on the school playground. It didn’t heal for the longest time, and then one day a little piece of rock surfaced, and it could finally heal shut. The up-side was that I had a scar for quick reference when I couldn’t remember which hand was left or right.

When I was about ten, I decided to learn to swim by jumping into a little pool in the creek. It wasn’t a deep hole, and I had heard that’s the way to do it. I took off my life jacket and jumped in, swallowing about a quart of water before hauling myself out to the edge to consider my options. We hit on a better method, wading out chest deep, then turning around and swimming to the edge. Eventually we got strong enough to swim across. Would I recommend this method to my children? No, no I would not. My Mom, in her defense, would always tell us to take our life jackets along, and we did. We just floated them instead of wearing them.

Swimming in creeks and ponds meant encountering snakes, snapping turtles, leeches, and crayfish. The bluegills were always nibbling on our toes when we held still. Our swimming clothes became stained an earthy shade of mud. That may have been because we routinely sat in the squelchy hot mud to warm up.

We got snagged by fishhooks, and stung by the catfish we caught. We ate bitter sheep sorrel and chewed rye grass and cheeses, all completely free of washing, in their native dusty habitat.

Going barefooted all the time was great, until we developed toe crack sores (I don’t know what to call them. In Dutch they were “kee gretzlies”) from walking on the baked clay soil of Kentucky. We’d tie yarn around our toes to keep dirt from collecting in the cracks. Of course, we had bandaids, but they didn’t stick on the undersides of toes.

There was a time when I accidentally stepped barefooted on a toad. Never will I ever forget that feeling. I have worn flip flops ever since.

We slept outside, under the stars, every unprotected skin surface fair game for mosquitoes, spiders, and ants. These camping occasions usually resulted in campfire smoke in our eyes and lungs, poorly cooked proteins for our supper. We were usually grumpy the next day, a bit hung over from less than optimum rest, scratching our welts and looking for the Cortisone tube that was always empty.

We hiked without cell phones or GPS, wearing sneakers without proper grip. My brothers went spelunking in a cave that went nobody knew where. We were glad when they all came out again, following their ropes.

As I was writing this, I kept thinking that we weren’t complete idiots. We had boundaries, however loose. We used common sense, solved problems, found our way, dressed our wounds ourselves.

We probably tighten the boundaries a bit for our children. For one thing, we have better access to protective gear, helmets and such. We go to the ER for stitches, and we are very conscious of water safety.

It’s a tough one for parents in this safety-first world, where one could be reported if a little boy carries a pocket knife.

We do really want our children to have stamina, not wither at every adversity. We want them to appreciate the enormous world out there, to be survivors, able to think on their feet and figure out which way to go. It can’t happen in an armchair.

I guess that’s why we look back at our childhood with such fondness. It seems uncomplicated and just wonderful. Even with chiggers.

June is Like That

On Sunday night we got home from a week with the brothers and their families in North Carolina. It was a grand time of connecting and catching up and letting the youngens go to coffee shops and make bamboo huts and play pickleball and swim in an icy mountain creek and sleep on the trampoline.

Gabe and his brother Wayne took 14 of our collective offspring (my brothers’ children too) on a rigorous 6.5 mile (almost 7 miles!) hike up the profile trail on Grandfather Mountain. We ladies stayed behind and picked them up about five hours after they started their adventure. I drove a Suburban up the mountain, and that is as close as I got to hiking on this trip to the beautiful Smokies. I did cross the Mile High Bridge and nearly blew off the mountain in one of those gusts they kept warning us about.

When I was catching up in my diary, I found myself mapping the days by the fabulous food we were served: Becca’s seafood paella, Carma’s homemade pasta with Alfredo sauce, Hilda’s carne asada, the trout BLT at the Live Oak Gastropub. All the food was a wonderful adventure!

We actually planned an extra day on this trip to catch up with old friends who are not family. It was a time that was rich with connections, and by the time we drove into our own lane, we felt that we would need a few days to recover from all the excitement.

I don’t know why we ever go away in June, though. It is so beautiful here this time of year! I almost missed the tiny Asiatic lilies that never bloomed before. Every morning we are serenaded with the triumphant birdsongs that signal a successful hatch. (Let’s just pretend we don’t also have starlings croaking in glee about their babies.) If we slow down on the salads, the lettuce will bolt. I don’t ever eat store-bought lettuce, undressed, just for fun, but garden lettuce is that good, I can stand out there and just eat it like a rabbit. It is advisable to watch for slugs and earwigs though.

Speaking of rabbits: tonight when I was checking on the garden (I do that every day) I noticed that I no longer have a promising row of broccolis. I now have a pitiful row of stalks stripped of any identifying leaves. Then I saw that the sugar snap peas have also been chomped. And as charming as Peter Rabbit is, I feel such an affinity for Mr. McGregor. Apparently the garden fence is not shocking. I checked it by bravely grabbing hold of it. Nothing. No wonder I have pests.

Gabriel has our patio/pavilion finished, except for metal on the roof and a small matter of a pizza oven he wants to build in one corner. We are loving that outdoor space, and spend a lot of time out there. I potted up a bunch of perennials and set them around to soften the edges. The whole thing is delightful, except for the mosquitoes. The mosquitoes we have always with us.

This evening I have the back door open, with just a screen door to keep out the bugs and the night. The girls’ voices are carrying up from their campfire in the woods. They have friends here and just sent an emissary in for food to roast. I sent sausages, a few hotdogs, and a loaf of bread for toast with fresh jam. They have been in and out of the creek all afternoon, which, as I recall from childhood, makes one roaring hungry. My mom used to let us take a Tupperware container of cookies out to share. It was great, because we could float the container on the water and sail the cookies to each other. I do remember the damp from wet hands reaching in to the container, but none of us died from the bacteria we consumed so glibly.

Both Gabe and I were raised with freedom to roam and build fires and cook dubious things outside. We went barefooted and wore practical, sometimes downright ugly clothes. It didn’t matter very much if we tore them or stained them, and we cut our sleeves off short for the hot weather. We star-gazed on the porch roof and climbed silos to gain heady views in the daytime. We rarely sat around in the house in the summertime, and we did kind of a lot of things that were not strictly safe. Guess what? I wouldn’t trade my childhood for any safe armchair experience. We sure as anything send our kids outside now that we are parents. In the world we live in, it feels more important than ever to teach our children how to be grounded to realities. Real dirt loaded with bacteria, water with crayfish in it instead of chlorine, sunburns and freckles, bandaids on blisters, and the collapse into bed at night, completely knackered by the day’s work and play. I could talk about this for a long time, so I will just shut up now, and hope some of you agree with me.

Oh, one more thing… we had ZERO screens in our childhood lives, and we lived to tell the tale. We didn’t even listen to radio. Yet we grew up to be fairly normal people, probably with overactive imaginations, but that’s not the worst that could happen. Our children do have some screen time most days. They use apps to study languages and practice instruments and play Minecraft. They listen to audiobooks and ask to watch movies. It would seem so simple if we could time-travel back to the ’80’s. But we can’t. We are here, now, in this era. It is a tricky one. We listened to Stolen Focus on our trip, and I felt a little panicked for our digital society. Then we got Plough Publication’s latest issue titled “The Good of Tech.” This is the tension we find ourselves in. Lord, help us!

I have to keep looking at the calendar to keep track of where we are going, which day it is, and should the garbage go out tonight, or did we miss it last night? Our homeschool evaluations are done, and we really should be making plans for next year, but I don’t want to! Not yet! It’s June, and it goes by much too fast!

Is anything brilliant happening in your summer? (The perfect watermelon is brilliant, in my opinion.)