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. 🙂

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.)

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.

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.)

Every Spring

There are a few days each spring that are so glittery green that you feel as though the air itself is tinged with color, and you feel that if you blink, it might disappear. It’s the same time that the bleeding hearts and pansies show off their best, all the tiny crinkled leaves are unfolding by the minute like origami in a massive installation, and the birds are totally uninhibited in their courtship songs and rituals. I marvel, hold my breath, try to take in the miracle, and then my eyes can’t stay open anymore. When I wake up, it looks like summer. It is my favorite, favorite thing, what I long for every winter. And it always comes, as promised.

This year was astonishingly early here. No frost for the whole month of May? Yes, please! I know it’s not over yet, but there is no freeze in the forecast and with no full moon for another week, we boldly planted out tomatoes and peppers last week. I have covers and sheets ready for any hint of chill, because I also listen to old-timers, but I cannot quite hold myself back.

Gabriel gave me a wonderful gift in the form of an act of service that took a few days: he edged and placed borders of rocks/logs around my gardens to keep the grass from constantly growing into the planting areas. It all needed to be squared up with the patio and driveway, since my initial method of unrolling old hay bales was pretty much seat-of-the-pants, eye-it-to-look-good. The driveway got changed and fixed last year, so we now have a curb and a solid reference to go by. Every day I look out the windows and rejoice!

Big things have been happening. There is a post and beam pavilion being set up, also designed and built by my husband, who can do pretty much anything he sets his mind to. (Given enough time…let’s be realistic.)

Alex has been here for a few weeks, and he took on the task of edging and mulching all the fruit trees and other landscaping. He also tilled the garden for me, and helped spread horse “by-products” onto it. Half of the garden is planted, and the other half will be quite soon. It has been so wonderful to have him here, available to help when he doesn’t have part-time work.

Normally I revel in these springtime tasks, but this year found me so anemic that I had to sit and rest after digging a hole in the garden. “Looks like the beef liver isn’t cutting it,” said my nurse husband when he saw my labs. He also said,” This is the level where people get transfusions and we should probably just go to the ER and take care of it.” So we did, and it helped a lot, but it will be a while before I get back to normal. I hadn’t realized how much I was compensating for my low hemoglobin until I started feeling better. I hadn’t noticed how much energy was going into staying upright, and how little was actually getting to my brain. Ha. (Very mirthless ha.)

This is too public a forum for details, but I can assure you that I am under good medical care and there is a plan to get to the root of the problem. Should be fun. Sarcasm aside, I am so very grateful for options and help. How often I have thought of the woman who stooped to touch the hem of Jesus’ robe, and that moment when she felt His strength coursing through her! A friend recently told me she thinks that lady touched the bottom of His robe because she was so weak that she was down on the ground. I agree with her. It is a great comfort that He is accessible to those who are completely flattened by life.

I moved all the houseplants onto the back deck this week, so the house feels more open. We don’t need green therapy inside for some months, hallelujah! We have also been clearing out some holes with shamefully large deposits of things that don’t have a home. Springtime is the time to let it go, dig down through the strata in the closets, and assign the stuff a place or a donation box. “The thing is,” Olivia said, “we like stuff,” and she hit the nail on the head with that observation. We like making stuff and having it, thrifting for it and restoring it. I don’t see a problem as long as we share our stuff and don’t let it take over our lives, do you?

We have been to homes where there is no clutter, no rugs to catch dust, nothing slightly imperfect or mismatched or chipped, no real flowers or plants, and the minimalism is impressive indeed. It would be so easy to clean this place, I think. “That’s like an Air B and B,” the kids said, “it’s too sterile.” So in the interest of coziness, we embrace having stuff around and taking care of it. We even embrace dust and strata in closets, up to a point. I have limits, and I am sure you do too. I’d love to hear where you draw the line in your home. Do you keep things that you haven’t used for a year, for example? How do you figure out what to store, in case you need it? What makes something a keepsake?

Every spring there is my birthday and Mother’s Day, which are only a week apart (unfortunately, because I love celebrations and I wish my family weren’t still tired from figuring out one before another one shows up, to be honest). Gabriel surprised me by inviting friends for a cookout on my birthday, and it cheered me right out of a funk of surprising ickiness where I was feeling like my birthday was lame and not fun. I told you that my brain has not been getting enough blood flow, right? Sometimes I remind myself of what my older friend Ellen says, “When you feel down and depressed, you have to know you aren’t thinking right. You have to get your head straight about how good God is, and start thanking Him, and that takes care of it.” It’s very good advice, and she lives it. Maybe by the time I am seventy-five, I will have learned this lesson.

Anyway, Mother’s Day was special in a different way. Gabriel was at work three hours away, and the rest of us woke not feeling great. Addy and I both had swollen eyes and I think I sneezed a hundred times that morning. Olivia and Greg had no voices. Only Rita was fit to go to church, so Greg dropped her off. I was going to listen to the sermon online, but the website was down, so that didn’t work. I sat like a bump in my chair and napped when I wasn’t busy sneezing. Olivia had assembled a lasagna for lunch and was fixing some side dishes to go with it when Greg left to pick Rita up again after church. He told Rita that there isn’t any lunch at home (because obviously, Mom was sitting in her chair and nothing happens that way) and they were hungry, so they went to KFC for chicken nuggets. Meanwhile the girls at home finished the meal and set the table pretty and we waited and waited. At last we called, and they were finishing up their nuggets, oblivious to the awful faux pas of having missed lunch with their mom on Mother’s Day. They felt really bad about it, but I bet it will make the family archives of funny stories.

I have been thinking a lot about parenting, about the long-term proposition it is, about the way we are asked to give up ourselves and give lavishly and never give up, either. So much giving. This spring I found myself fresh out of oomph, feeling like a hoarder. I need to save my strength. I don’t want to be inconvenienced. I don’t feel like sharing. Could you all just leave me alone and not need anything for awhile? What do I think I am saving my strength for in those moments? What is a hoarded power bank going to do for me in ten years if now is the time that my child needs my love and attention? What good will it do me in a lonely world of the future if I have kept myself well-preserved but inaccessible? I know, there are boundaries, but many times “boundaries” are just a way to make me feel good about being selfish. It’s a buzzword in the current therapy speak, and I don’t see it in Jesus’ life anywhere at all. I think of the Kingdom principle in Matthew 10:8, “Freely you have received, freely give.”

That’s plenty for me to chew on today, for sure. I truly believe God does not waste anything we give to Him, but I no longer expect to see short term rewards. Not to say that that wouldn’t be gratifying sometimes, but it seems as if it is more like planting trees. You shovel and fertilize and stake and prune and water and hope. It’s a very long-term situation. And here’s the thing: the end result is all grace. It is all out of our hands anyway. It is His business, what He does with what we give Him.

I remind myself of this again and again, because being human means feeling like I deserve things or don’t deserve things. Sometimes I just need to shut up my feelings and get my head straight about how good God is.

Every spring the miracle happens, just as He promised. I have seen forty-seven of them now, so I know. He is good.

Now that April’s here…

…and almost gone, I thought it might be appropriate to send out a bit of an update. It’s a little silly. I pay for this web domain, and I don’t even use it much anymore. I find myself at a loss as to how to close up this sort of chapter, but I do feel like the world has moved along since I started blogging and I am hopelessly out of touch. I asked a computer nerd recently if he has any advice for monetizing a blog, outside of plastering it with ads, and he said no, he doesn’t know any other way. I am thinking about moving to Sub-stack, but that is all. Thinking is a far cry from doing.

Mondays are my days to catch up with the stuff I pushed off for a week. I had to spend some time to find an actual person to cancel my monthly Chat-books subscription today, since the app literally did not have a button to finalize the cancellation. I know this, because I tried to cancel in the end of March and didn’t follow through with the last step, which is one option only, “A team member will credit your account $10 and give you any assistance. Stay subscribed.” That’s a little shifty, I think. Anyway. I wanted to see what the minis are like, and they are cute, but I hardly take 60 photos in a month, and certainly not all worthy of printing into a booklet. I should have done these while the children were little. My best advice is this: if you try Chat-books, don’t bother with captions. They are very time consuming to put into the app, and the photos are much smaller. You can easily use a fine point Sharpie and write your captions on the white margins after you get the booklet.

I had to handle 20 mugs that have been waiting over the weekend, and then I mowed the yard until I got a flat tire. I know how to run an air compressor, but taking out a tube and fixing a leak… not so much. The grass got out of hand with the recent rain, so Olivia finished with the push mower. The girls ate leftovers from the weekend, and I did a bunch of messaging that I have been neglecting. I have caught up with my clerical duties, even posting receipts in the budget. Hallelujah!

So here I am, thinking about April and that Gabe will get back from work tomorrow, after five days, and then we will feast and be merry because he will be home for a week.

I kept feeling an urge to pinch myself while I was mowing. “We made it,” I thought, “all the way through winter. I am actually smelling cut grass and feeling hot sunshine on my face and my feet and my arms where I rolled up my sleeves. We are pale as potato sprouts, but we made it!” Speaking of potato sprouts, we planted our wrinkly leftover potatoes last week. There was a bit of smugness in the air, because for the first time ever I grew a potato crop that lasted longer than the winter. I also planted pea seeds that I saved, and lettuces. I have a lot to learn yet in the seed saving department, but it is a start.

The ornamental trees we planted two years ago are blooming, and so are the tiny fruit trees we set out last spring. (It’s a thing Peights do: plant trees. We planted over 50 at our first property over the course of 18 years. We’re at 25 here, in 4 years, but we also cut down about 10 or 12 trees, so it’s all going to even out.)

I drove past our former orchard a few weeks ago, and was astonished at how big the trees were, how prolific the blooms. The year we moved (2020) was the first that there were going to be apples. So someone else gets to harvest what we planted. That’s the thing about planting a tree. It is very possible that you are planting for others, and that is a compelling reason to plant them, I think.

Who does more tree planting for the next generation than parents? Metaphorically speaking, I have entire food forests that have been planted for me, and I am so grateful.

Last weekend my parents came up and we got to celebrate my dad’s 71st birthday on Sunday. Rachel’s family sneaked in while he was napping that afternoon and surprised him mid-snore. Good times!

The girls are finishing up their last school projects. Rita is earnestly wishing she had not chosen Ghengis Khan and the Mongol Empire for her history report, but here we are, too deep into the research to about-face now. “It’s character building to push through hard things,” I say. She wants character, so what can she say? Addy did final exams today, and we are so close to packing away the textbooks and just rounding out the portfolios with projects. I don’t recall ever getting done in April, but they did not take many holidays, and now it feels really great!

Sometimes I wake at night and can’t fall back asleep. Anybody else have that happen to them? Weird, isn’t it? It seems such an unnecessary problem to have. I keep earbuds on my nightstand, and I set my audiobook timer to 30 minutes. I usually fall asleep before the time is up, unless it is a very riveting listen. Then the next time, I go back about ten minutes and find the spot where I lost consciousness. It’s a two steps forward, one step back situation, but it works. Currently I am listening to Surprised by Joy, (It happens to be an Audible free listen if you have prime membership. You’re welcome.) and have gotten to the teen years of my friend Clive Staples, the era where he lost his faith. I store in my heart these testaments to the grace of God pursuing and wooing his children, and I know that He is still the same God today, full of love and kindness; full of pity, like a father, ready to help every one of us.

Occasionally listening to the audiobook doesn’t appeal to me. I have another prop. I lie in bed and put on the whole armor of God, from the helmet to the shoes, piece by piece. By the time I get to the end, I find that there isn’t much of a crack for the intrusive thoughts of the enemy to get inside my mind.

If the armor feels cumbersome at 3 AM, which is prime time for worst-case-scenarios, have you noticed?.. I visualize the secret place of the Most High, and I creep in and lay my head down in that quiet safety. Jesus never did get to be middle-aged, but I am sure He understands sleeplessness and 3 o’clock in the morning messes that we cannot carry anyway. So He offers rest. Sleep is wonderful, but rest is amazing.

And yes, there is melatonin, but it is faulty. So is chamomile tea, because while it may lull you to sleep at bedtime, it will urgently awaken you a few hours later. It is kind of funny, the more you think about it. As with so many other minor ailments in life, humor just might be the best medicine.

I’ll close with a smattering of photos of the trees and the double tulips that have given me joy this week. Blessings and a happy spring to you!

Noticing

I took my coffee out the door this morning, slipped into my gardening clogs, and watched the sun blaze over the horizon, lighting the clouds with pink and orange. It’s all waking up out there, filled with birdsong, buds ready to burst into leaves, tiny creek rushing to drain the land. Every day I check on the daffodils, urge them to hurry up and open. I feel like I need to plant things, but when I expressed that thought to my husband, he got a kindly, pitying look, “It’s much too early.” Never mind; I will not let the late, rogue frosts we get here freeze my delight in the benevolence of these warm days.

We have a row of milk jugs that we split in half to winter sow some flowers and lettuces. The tops fit over the bottoms full of soil and make mini cold frames. I have never tried this method before, so we shall see. It was easier than rigging up grow lights in a space that isn’t big enough to accommodate all the things I want to grow. I have also decided that the Amish ladies who have greenhouses around here deserve my support when it is safe to plant tomatoes and peppers. It is a lot better to pay them than to babysit plants in our unpredictable spring. One unwise choice to leave them in the sunporch at night instead of bringing them into the living room or basement can kill off weeks of work. To date I have found six greenhouses within twenty minutes of our house. None of them have websites, so it’s a word-of-mouth delight trail we follow, one after the other. I can hardly wait!

The forsythia bush that is clinging to the creek bank is still showing only cracks of color at the buds, but I have been bringing in branches to the warmth and they open right up. We have a steady supply of brilliant yellow blooms in the house. It begins! The fresh cut florals that delight my heart, even if it’s just a few tiny crocuses at first.

There’s a mosquito flying around me, an opportunist who slipped in the door when I left it open while I was making chicken scampi last night. Across the road from our house is a shallow swamp that is a breeding ground for these pests, but it is also a swamp that is alive with spring peepers that trill their hearts out every warm evening.

Every beautiful thing has its price. If you want to enjoy the sunrise, you have to wake up and get out of bed. You place more value on the things you make sacrifices for, and certainly you are more grateful when you wait a long time and then it comes, it is here, you can have it!

Addy and I cleaned the sunporch yesterday. Somehow it is the place that collects everything we don’t know what to do with over the winter. It is like a gigantic utility drawer for excess furniture, recyclable trash, cardboard boxes, and boots. We put the cardboard in the shed for gardening layers, boxed up the donations for Salvation Army, put the boots in bins in the basement (I know, we’ll be getting them out again),and washed the floor. Addy was enthused, “I could live out here!” She’s always the one who loves to rearrange and domesticate wild places.

I noticed that our elderly neighbor was out picking up sticks in her vast yard yesterday, and walked over to chat. She is a spry little octogenarian who wears sparkly lip gloss and plays pickle-ball to stay nimble, but it was a big job, so I sent the girls over to help her. It was the task of a half hour, with them all helping, and she was relieved to have it done. She rewarded them each with a can of ginger ale, after being assured and reassured that their mom won’t mind. Possibly by the time you are in your eighties, you think of teenagers sort of in the same rank as toddlers who might not be able to handle fizzy sugar.

I cleared a space on the desk in the office to write this noticing post this morning. It is in a state of becoming, an exciting state! We planned floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in this room when we bought the house, and last week Gabriel built them. I have been painting and scheming, finally giving this room the love it needs. Hopefully today I can finish it and take care of the piles and boxes on the floor. There are still boxes of books in the attic that we have’t had space to put out, and there is a growing pile of culls.

Addy was helping me with this project, and kept mentioning books she never read. I was appalled! How can you be almost thirteen and never have read Little Women? Or the Little House books? The Wheel on the School? I guess what happened was that about the time she was into Henry and Ribsy the older children were into The Hobbit or The Bronze Bow, and she skipped along with them, leaving a whole delightful section of Elizabeth Enright and Eleanor Estes books unread. I tend to pick our read-alouds for the more advanced listeners, so there we are. She is making up for lost time, and happily, the books are right there at eye level for her.

Gabe took Rita to orthopedics this morning to have them look at her swollen knee. It started acting up during volleyball, so we kind of assumed it’s a minor sports injury. X-rays showed nothing, but the knee remains swollen four months later. We had a child with Lyme disease that manifested in a badly swollen knee years ago, so possibly it’s that. Our doctor mentioned sending her to ortho to have it drained, and I chickened out on the spot. Gabe takes the children to any appointments with the potential to make their mother faint. This is one of those. I do not do needles, tubes, and fluids collecting slowly in clear containers. I have accepted that no matter how sturdy and practical I might be, this is not a mere mind-over-matter situation. I have fainted an embarrassing number of times, including at appointments for my children. How wonderful that my husband loves needles and blood draws!

Well, I have noticed long enough, and it appears that this room will not paint itself. When it is all done, I will show you a picture, and that will be hallelujah!

I hope your day is happy and warm, and contains something precious.