soup from h&*%

In my effort to productively use the tomatoes we have been harvesting from the garden, I scoured my battered copy of Joy of Cooking for recipes that require fresh tomatoes before heading to the commissary a few days ago. I stocked up on garlic and basil for bruschetta and heavy cream for tomato soup. Since real Italian bread wasn't available, I decided to go ahead and make the soup, which ended up being a huge mistake.

First, I chopped some onion and put the oil in the pan, turning my back for a moment to tell Mary to chop up the tomatoes, only to hear her scream, "Mommy!" Turning around, I discovered that the oil in the pot had caught on fire and was shooting 18 inches above the rim, almost hitting the exhaust fan. I yelled, "Open the back door!" and grabbed the pot, ran out onto the back porch and threw the whole mess into the grass below. After racing around the garage, I found a trash can and filled it with water to dump on the smoking pot.

With my only large pot permanently out of commission, I proceeded to make the soup (I didn't even have to cut up another batch of onions) and put it in batches in the blender. Another mess ensued with even a 1/4 full container swirling up and burning my hand and spattering red goo all over the counter.

Finally after a big cleanup, I served my homemade tomato soup to a unenthusiastic audience. Every child asked for a piece of bread as an alternative to eating my preparation-intensive dinner. Maybe that was a good thing, since eating a large bowl of the stuff made me more sick than I have been in a long time. So... I think in my effort to use up the rest of our garden produce I will refrain from any more culinary experimentation and take it all down to the food pantry so someone who's tummy can handle tomatoes will put them to good use.   

sprucing the place up

With less than 3 weeks left in Maine it is time to start the serious cleaning required to put a house to bed for the winter and since Tim only has about a week of "vacation," I'm trying to get most of that cleaning done prior to his arrival. As I tell the children, it isn't fair to make a mess and then walk away, expecting "Mommy, the servant" to clean up afterwards. Every morning I wake the kids up and say, "Take care of your jammies," After every meal I say, "Clean up your dishes," and every evening I order the children to clean up the huge mess they have made outside in their play. But over time the barn and loft and garage have turned into places to deposit all their stuff such as 8 bottles of bug spray, gardening gloves and pruners, Timmy's 14 toy tractors, and everything else one can think of. Tools need to be put away, seed packets for next year should be stored in a cooler (so the mice don't eat them), and the spilled fertilizer needs to be swept out to the grass before Julia Ellen tries to eat it. 

This past weekend Will mowed the entire yard by himself and considering that it encompasses the area around the garage, barn, and new house, as well as a strip all the way down the driveway, $10 is pretty cheap payment. Mary cleaned out the garage and vacuumed out the van for $6 total, and Maggie tidied up the barn loft for another $3. Yesterday I started the inside chores of cleaning out the oven and scrubbing the tub and toilet to remove all the iron stains that have accumulated over the summer. We still have a ways to go, but by the time Tim arrives next week, I want the place looking shipshape so he can enjoy the tiny bit of vacation he certainly deserves.    

a published author

Tim is our resident writer, he has had articles in several Catholic magazines such as New Oxford Review, Angelus, and several Catholic medical publications. But, after taking a writing course, I submitted (and had accepted) an article I wrote to Cricket children's magazine group. Then I heard nothing, for TWO years! This past week I received a letter in my inbox saying that they were sorry it had taken so long, asking me to proofread the edited piece and expect a contract within the next few weeks.


Only a month ago I got another email from an on-line friend asking for a short bio and address because an old blog post, detailing our decision to homeschool was to be published in a new book entitled Stories for the Homeschool Heart. While I am not expecting fame and fortune, book signings at the local mall, or people asking for my autograph, it is nice to think that all my scribbling have contributed to something that people want to read.

children of the corn

No, I'm not taking the children to a Stephen King film festival (but, I should take them to see the spooky wrought iron fence surrounding his house in Bangor), but cooked up a big pot of corn for supper. Finally, our Silver Queen is ripe, but we were not able to start harvesting until September because silly me planted a 90 day variety. Next summer I'll plant a much faster maturing corn, knowing that they children beg, literally beg me to serve them this vegetable for lunch and dinner. Both nights we have set the water to boil and gone out and picked plump ears, stripping off the husks at the compost pile, before cooking the already tender veggie for only 3 minutes.

Will sets out the plastic holders and Mary pours the milk, while my job is to push each holder into the ends and smear butter in an assembly line fashion. Twice I have had to harvest seconds in the middle of supper because of the clamor, "Can I have another piece, pleeeease?" Julia Ellen refuses to eat the kernels I cut off the cob, but holds the greasy piece in her tight grasp and gnaws them off before attempting to chew off the whole tip. I'd give them corn every night, but our patch has to have a few days respite to produce more ripe ears.

Our next culinary project is to make pumpkin pie from scratch, using fruit we grew ourselves and not from a can. I'm only guessing, but am pretty sure that turning pumpkin into pie is going to take longer and be slightly messier than harvesting and cooking corn.  

incentives vs punishments

The kids have had a fabulous summer going to camp, swimming at the pond, riding their bikes until 9pm, playing in the woods, and helping me in the garden. The 4-7 year old crew really does like hoeing the weeds, laying down hay for mulch, and picking produce. All I have to do is say, "I'm going to the garden to get some lettuce (until the wild turkeys ruined most of my lettuce bed) or pick some tomatoes" and find myself surrounded by eager helpers. Julia Ellen demands to be part of the fun, but she isn't so helpful since she tries to pick green cherry tomatoes and stand in the carrots.

So, when September 1st rolled around and I laid out the schoolbooks in stacks I knew it was going to be difficult to transition from "all fun all the time" to "get your work done before play" time. Of course the little ones seem to understand this best, maybe because they don't do very much work, 30 minutes at most, before they can resume their summer activities. The girls give me a little grief, but they practice the piano without grumbling and they even occasionally start on their stack of workbooks before going to bed to get a head's start on the next day.

Will is another matter. Starting from 7am, when I have to threaten to pour cold water on his head to get him out of bed (I don't wonder when I stumble over books in the mysteriously lighted bathroom every morning), to prodding him to get each subject completed, to getting angry over his messing around instead of seriously practicing the piano, my day is spent trying to give everyone else enough attention while simultaneously keeping him on task. There is nothing wrong with him, no condition or disability that hampers his ability to work on a 7th grade level unless you count laziness as a disease.

So far in the past two weeks I have promised the children to go bowling if "everyone" got their work done in a timely manner (we ALL knew who I was referring to) to yesterday lowering the boom after a particularly bad report from his piano teacher. He now has to practice 30 minutes before each meal until I get a follow up good report, which means he will have logged 9.5 hours of practice before his next lesson, ensuring that result. I've threatened to enroll him the local public school when we get back to Virginia, but with the guarantee of violence and drug activity, I'm not willing to follow through. Something has to change in the way we proceed with homeschooling, I certainly can't see myself admonishing a 16 year old, "If you don't finish 11th grade I won't let you get your driver's licence." He does like homeschooling and doesn't want to "go away to school" but I'm at a loss of what to try next.   

1st words

Now Julia Ellen is saying a few words such as "da" for dog and "yes", but who I am thinking about is Charlie, the fourth child I am teaching to read. After an entire year of kindergarten he was still having trouble knowing what sound each letter made so we decided to keep working on a mixture of K and 1st grade work before enrolling him officially in 1st grade.

We also added in Teaching Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, which a friend recommended about 7 years ago when we started homeschooling. Combining this instruction with a foundation and continuation of phonics lessons has resulted in 3 very eager readers who must visit a library at least once every 7 days (I don't know what happens if they go 8 days. We even make it a priority to stock up before blizzards and hurricanes). Yesterday Charlie read his very first words: at, eat, and met. I know it won't be long now before he is reading all the Bob books we own and moving on to more intellectually stimulating fare.

It is so exciting to be a part of this learning process that will lead to fulfillment and a whole world of opportunities. Thank goodness we homeschool, for these days a child who is not reading by the end of Kindergarten is likely to be labeled deficient, when all he needs is a little more time and practice.   

produce saturation level reached

Even after pulling up the bean plants and several squash vines, we are inundated with veggies. I have been taking a bag or two of produce to our town's food pantry, but it only is open once a week, too long for tomatoes to be sitting out. We picked all the ripe pumpkins in anticipation of Hurricane Earl, so of course we merely received 2 hours of rain, but despite almost no wind all my tomato plants fell over.

There are 8 more pumpkins in the patch yet to turn orange, rows of sweet corn that is almost ready, and over a hundred of green tomatoes in various stages of ripeness. We ate our first home grown cantaloupe and are checking the 5 still in the garden every day in hopes of harvesting another.

So far we have been very happy with our first year of gardening, next summer I want to plant more beans and put some up as well as can tomatoes and sauce. I'm going to try to start the melons inside and build a trellis to keep their undersides off the dirt/damp hay that allows them to rot before they ripen fully. 

Our favorite crop so far? Pumpkins, which grow almost as fast as kudzu and need tons of room (which we certainly have) are the hands-down winner, but the clear spines along the leaves and stem hurt like the dickens. Before we leave for Virginia, I must pull all the vines to compost and I will be sure to wear my work gloves. Ouch! 

hurricane, it's a comin

One of my favorite children's books is One Morning in Maine which shows children the powerful forces of nature that affect the coast. From the morning fog and shifting of the tide to a hurricane that knocks down trees we can only prepare and wait. Luckily in this modern age we can prepare for category 4 storms that 100 years ago would have killed swimmers, boaters, and fishermen. Now we simply batten down the hatches, stay away from the rocks along the shore, and stock up on supplies in case of power failure.

I've been through my share of big hurricanes (no cat 5s thank goodness) from having to sleep on the hallway floor during Gloria, attempting to get back to my dorm during Hugo, and losing electricity for 3 days (with 3 little children) during Isabel. We are expecting nasty winds all day Saturday so I've stocked up on gasoline for the generator (for the well pump, it would be scary to be without a supply of water) and today we will hit the commissary for milk (we typically go through 8 gallons a week) and the library. I don't expect us to be affected much, but I am praying for those who are getting pounded by the wind and heavy surf.

he's already skipping school

and it is only our second day! With Hurricane Earl on the way and a heat index of 105 we were all a little discombobulated anyway, but proved to be a little more chaotic yesterday with a mixup about Mary's riding lesson, "Oh, Mary was supposed to be there 20 minutes ago? She is still in her jammies, eating breakfast, but I will get here there ASAP."

After I fetched her back home we heard a familiar noise, the chug chug of a tractor, "Will! They are haying if you want to go help!"

So, between babysitting for me and an impromptu invite for the big kids to go to the lake, the only school activity completed was piano practice. (Actually that isn't true. Timmy, Charlie, and Maggie did their school. Mary had woken up early and finished almost everything, but all Will managed to complete was vocabulary and map skills. They are not exactly core subjects so it doesn't count as a school day.) The rest of the afternoon we stayed out of the heat reading books and I watched while they played a game involving riding bikes and a hose. Needless to say they were all dripping and much cooler by the time supper was on the table. This morning I will point to Will's stack of books on the floor and say, "No skipping schoolwork today, Bud!"

edited to add:
with the public school kids sent home at 11:30 due to the classrooms being 104 F (Maine schools do not have AC) and the same neighbor inviting the kids to go to the lake again, Will STILL hasn't finished his work. At this rate he will be in 7th grade until June 2012. But if I let everyone else go and made him stay here to finish his math it would be held against me for the next 5 years. Since I have to work with this child every one of those 1825 days, I just gave him a short break. A short one, for he will have it finished by the time he goes to bed tonight. Got it Bud?

house progress

On Sunday afternoon as I was mowing the grass and the kids were all outside playing, a strange car pulled into the driveway. The girls rode their bikes up to see who it was and a man said, "You have such a pretty place here that I wanted to take a picture." I have to say that I agree, but it seems a little strange to stop at someone's farm, especially when the house isn't finished yet.

The inside painting has been progressing along. We changed the color in the foyer from lemon meringue, which turned out to be waaaay too bright (the juxtaposition of the deep green and the yellow made me want to start singing the College of William and Mary fight song, since those are their colors) so I decided play it safe and use all historic colors for the first floor and went with a lighter buff color. The master bedroom is a deep brown/grey which looks very rich, while the schoolroom in the basement is a bright green that pulls your eye right out the windows to the grassy field. Next to be painted are the children's rooms in Honolulu blue and amethyst mist and the music room in a delft blue. It will be so lovely to live in a house where I picked the colors rather than living in rentals where someone with no sense of style decided that bubblegum pink is a good color choice.   

all faired out

On our third trip to the Union Fair for the year our family really scored big. While we didn't get up and out the door in time to sign the little boys up for the pedal tractor pull, Timmy won a bicycle in the free bike drawing. Some might think we have an unfair advantage, being able to get 6 tickets at every drawing, increasing our odds of winning, especially since Maggie won a bike a few years back, but they each only get one ticket like everyone else. This was Timmy's first new bike and he proudly rode it through the fairgrounds to the van so we cold stash it until it was time to leave.

Since the big kids had missed the Kent Family Magic Circus act on Friday we stayed for that and then Will was chosen to participate in the clown act in The Flying Wallenda's trapeze show (he was the "M" in the YMCA song). All in all, we had a great time at the fair, but luckily we had a day to recover before we begin school for the year on Monday morning.    

you did what?!

We spent 8 hours at the fair.

8 hours filled with rides, eating cotton candy, onion rings, and pizza, getting lost, and finding each other. 2 hours were spent by the children in agony because the generator that powered the rides went kaboom and Smokey's Entertainment had to fetch a backup from the Windsor Fairgrounds.

Of course Will was in his element, getting close to the action and giving us the straight skinny on the cause of the power outage, "They thought it was the fuel line, but apparently the fuel level was slightly too high and they are having to replace the filter. They can fix it and then switch the whole thing back over because the Pharaoh's Fury takes so much power that even the backup generator (the size of 1/2 a semi) can't run it and everything else too." I just felt sorry for the folks stuck in the Zipper and at the top of the Ferris Wheel (they powered it back up for 5 minutes to get them all out).

In the meantime we looked at Julia Ellen's favorite part of the fair: the poultry barn with its quacking ducks and crowing roosters. We watched a magic show put on by a family of 9 (even the mom juggled a spatula, plunger, and baby doll representing what every mom balances: cooking, cleaning, and kids), a horse pulling contest, and a trapeze show.

Finally, after many more turns on the bumper cars and trips down the dump truck slide, the sun set and with the baby starting to fall asleep in her stroller, we slowly walked back to the car and drove home to bed. The plan today is to return for the last day of the fair (but no rides!) and say goodbye to the ducks, cows, and sheep for another year.    

rainy day, rainy day

Apparently we are experiencing the same weather that has kept Obama from enjoying his $50,000 a week vacation on Martha's Vineyard. Our plans to go to the Union Fair for the day so the children could ride the Sizzler and the kiddy train to their heart's content were put on hold until Friday. With only the garage, the barn, and our tiny apartment to play in, the kids went stark raving mad yesterday. Pillow fights, wrestling, and pony rides resulted in one huge crazy mess. 

This morning promises to be more of the same, but I have tickets to the bowling alley that the kids earned from the summer reading program. We had to forgo the other rewards of a roller skating session and tickets to a minor league baseball game (the logistics of driving 3 hours to Portland for a 7pm game with 6 children were too daunting), but even I can handle bowling. It isn't exactly free with having to rent shoes and paying for myself, but it seems like a good alternative to sitting in 1000 square feet and attempting entertain all the children with few toys, no unread books, and no electronic media devices.    

the perfect day

It is starting to get cool here in Maine with temps now in the mid-70's so I pulled out a pair of size 10 jeans yesterday before walking out to the garden. The waistband slid down to my hips, making me look like the Saggy Baggy Elephant. Apparently, running 5 miles a day has not resulted in any weight loss, but a redistribution of sorts. So, while the big kids were at their first piano lesson in almost a month, the little ones and I hot-footed it up to the Goodwill in Bangor where I scored 2 pairs of jeans that actually stayed around my waist. Serendipitously, they sported yellow tags, which meant my purchase was 50% off.

We had plenty of time to swing by the commissary and replenish our milk stock before pulling up in front of the piano teacher's house. I was surprised by her commenting on how well the children had played, especially Mary (who goes in my bedroom and shuts the door to practice, making me wonder if she is touching any of the keys at all).

To reward everyone, we hit the road for Craig Pond and had the entire place to ourselves for much of the afternoon. It was the most relaxing trip to the beach I have had in years with the little children happy to play in the shallows and the older children swimming together out to the rocks and not bickering.

To top off my idea of the ideal summer day in Maine, the children all bathed and brushed their teeth without too much complaining and I was able to close my eyes by 9pm grateful for my children, my husband, and all blessings I have been given.   

ego enhancement

Yesterday after swimming lessons we headed up to the "big city" to run a few errands. Since it was lunchtime the kids voted to go to Burger King even though most just wanted french fries and chocolate milk. As I am a connoisseur of fast food, I headed off of 95 at the Union Street exit because that restaurant is quieter and for some reason has better burgers than the one near the mall. The kids collected straws and napkins before staking out a booth. As I was filling my drink cup, an old crusty Mainer appeared at my shoulder and said, "You homeschool, don't you?"

"Yes."

"I can tell, those are real good kids you got there." 

While we were eating, I noticed a woman looking over at us every so often. After saying grace, we were laughing and blowing straw wrappers at each other, I was handing out cash for Charlie to go get another cheeseburger and milk, and Maggie kept popping up for more ketchup. This lady came over and said, "I have to tell you how beautiful your children are. They are so well behaved too." 

"Well, thank you."

Then the old gentleman came over to our table after he finished his meal and gave us another compliment, "Aye, those are good children. You take care of them."

To top off our 30 minute visit to BK, one of the cashiers also came over to our table to tell us how polite Maggie was when she went up alone to order some extra french fries, "She said, 'thank you'. It shows what a good job you are doing with these kids."

Gosh, if I didn't have to go home and live with these "good, polite, well behaved" children, I might just get a big head. Call me 'mom of the year' and I'll laugh harder than anyone.

still on my own

Today is the day that Tim was going to come up to Maine for a week's respite. Was going to come up. We will be on our own for 11 weeks, which is the longest we have been apart since he was deployed 7 years ago.

Many military families are separated for long periods of time, of course not voluntarily, but with the great distance between Virginia and Maine neither of us can jump in the car and visit for the weekend. I have friends who can pop their 5-6 kids in the car and travel hundreds of miles without another adult, but I'm not that brave or lucky. I know perfectly well that my tire would blow out on a steep hill in Connecticut, I would accidentally get off the New Jersey Turnpike and end up in Manhattan, would have some sort of panic attack on the Delaware Memorial Bridge. I couldn't even go to downtown Belfast yesterday without managing to get stung by a bumblebee in my own car and almost hit an SUV. So, driving down to Virginia (and back) for a visit is out of the question.

I'm disappointed that Tim can't see the progress on the house, hear the children express thanks for sending them to summer camp, listen to him reading them stories, and express amazement at my lovely garden (and help me eat some of this produce). The builder is disappointed that Tim isn't here to see the furnace room with the neatly labeled copper pipes, the postman will be disappointed that Tim isn't here to talk to him about his son's possible military options, and the children are disappointed not to be able to curl up on their daddy's lap. But he will be up in a few more weeks and then we will go to the lobster pound one more time, walk around the fields and woods, pat the tractor, and close up the place in readiness for another winter in suburbia land. 

Our summers up in Maine are the highlight of our year, full of sunshine and fun, but once we get back to Virginia we are all together again, which is the way a family should be. One day in the not-too-distant future hopefully we will all be able to live year-round in Maine and the summers apart will become a distant memory.   

big pumpkins, little pumpkins

While my 'Baby Bear' pumpkins are growing like gangbusters (we must have at least 15 fruits nestled under the umbrella like leaves), I cuddled up under my down comforter the past few evenings and read Backyard Giants, The Passionate, Heartbreaking, and Glorious Quest to Grow the Biggest Pumpkin Ever by Susan Warren. The book follows the 2006 growing season of several growers/breeders in their quest to harvest a 1500 pound world record winning fruit. I learned a great deal about the joys and heartbreaks involved in such an endeavor, but it did not make me want to grow a pumpkin that I couldn't eat or have to use a tractor to pick up.

Sometime in the next month my dark green orbs will turn bright orange and we will gently place them in the back of Tim's truck with as much care as a prize contender to transport to our Virginia house. There we will cut some up for jack-o-lanterns and some we will eat in pie. Pumpkin growing has been a very satisfying growing experience and I have already picked up a few packets of seeds for next year's crop. With all our open fields, maybe we will try a couple of those giant pumpkins, just for grins.      

agonizing about color choices

I have been ripping out photo spreads out of Better Homes and Gardens, scouring home decorating books from the library, studying the Benjamin Moore paint cards intently, and painting scrap pieces of drywall in anticipation of this week.

When we first arrived in Maine back in June the interior of the house was framed, but since then we have slowly seen the drywall crew install, sand, and prime the walls, watched the front porch become a reality, and marvel at the engineering involved in installing our new furnaces (to combat Maine winters we have decided on both a wood boiler for cold days and a propane boiler for shoulder season when the temps get above 30F. This from a southern girl who didn't know that it could get much colder than 30F!).

Having mostly lived in rental housing, I have never gotten to chose colors for a home, put shelves on the kid's bedroom walls for all their dolls and trophies, or have enough wall space in the schoolroom for maps AND a chalkboard. And, since Tim hates any change to his surroundings, once the walls are painted and the furniture placed they will be there for the next 30 years, I better choose well the first go-around. 

I have narrowed my colors to 12, repeating some in several rooms (for example the boy's bath, the music room, and the basement bath are all light blue). The builder bought the first two colors and put the first coat on today, turning the house from a white shell to a preview of what it will look like in less than 2 years with all our furniture placed inside. I'll post some of the rooms with color over the next several weeks, not only to share with friends, but also with my husband, who has left the selection completely up to me. For some reason I can post pictures here with not too much trouble, but attaching pictures to email is an impossibility using dial-up.

Here is the living room/kitchen and front hall (the bottom portion of the walls will be wainscoting in glossy white to match the trim and windows):   

less than a week to go

until Tim arrives for a week's vacation. The Union Fair begins Saturday and it will be lovely to be able to attend as a family, watching the children on the rides, licking scoops of ice cream, and rooting on the participants in the pig scramble. The program arrived a few days ago so Mary and I have decided that Sunday, Wednesday, and Saturday are the best days to go. Of course, just buying all-you-can-ride bracelets for 5 children is almost $100, so they know that we can only do that one day. 

I don't want my husband to think that I've been this giant slacker since he's been gone, so the whole place has to be spic and span for his arrival. The children's beds have been stripped and the sheets bleached, the garage cleaned, and the van vacuumed out already, but we still have to tidy the barn, cut the grass, clean off the accumulated papers off every flat surface, and mop all the floors. I need to clean out the oven from a bad baking experiment and iron all the shirts and dresses that have piled up. I'm sure that after a week of all our activities the house will become messy again, but I'm sure Tim will appreciate our efforts for the whole 15 minutes it stays perfectly clean. 

there are few things...

more beautiful than waking to a beautiful sunrise.

more helpless than listening to a child cough for hour upon hour in the middle of the night. 

more satisfyingly revengeful than killing a nest of "ground bees" that injured your children.

more funny than watching a sleeping child roll off the sofa in slow motion.

more terrifying than looking up while driving a tractor and seeing a hornet's nest bigger than a balloon right above your head. 

May the next 24 hours be a little more calm and restful. Luckily, I'm guaranteed another lovely sunrise tomorrow. 

terror in the fields

About 2 hours ago, while I was starting to mow the edges of the fields, the boys were trailing at a distance behind me. All of a sudden I heard screaming and I looked behind me to find the boys racing around, waving their arms. I knew immediately what had happened and turned off the PTO, pushed the throttle down, put it into neutral, and jumped off the tractor. Timmy and Charlie were covered with dozens of yellow jackets, crawling all over their shorts, going up their shirts, and all over their socks. The scene was reminiscent of the drawing in Little House in the Big Woods when naughty Charlie the cousin got stung by a swarm of yellow jackets.

I couldn't brush them off fast enough, but dragged them away from the swarm, stripped them down to their underwear, and started back to the house. The builder had heard the screams and came to help me. Together we got the boys to safety with a few more stings along the way. I stuck them in the tub with about a quart of baking soda and applied a poultice of baking soda to each sting. Timmy had about 10 stings, while Charlie got it worse with about 20 welts. He also got stung on his lip, which swelled to twice its normal size within a few minutes.

My mind was filled with the memory of my aunt's friend who died last month after being stung by a single bee. However, I didn't detect any breathing difficulties, I got them dressed, wrapped each in a blanket, and gave them cups of iced lemonade, and read them a few stories. Tim was consulted and so I dabbed each red dot with Benedryl and dosed them with grape flavored Tylenol. They both seem to be back to their normal selves, but the memories of being covered with stinging insects will likely never leave them. I hope this episode does not make them frightened of running free on the farm, but it might make them a little hesitant to trail behind the tractor for a while.

freedom for me, but not for thee

I would never subscribe to such a radical publication, but I do enjoy reading the library's copies for homesteading and gardening articles in Mother Earth News. Why do I consider it radical? Interspersed between articles on circumventing local codes to live off the grid and convert cars to run off of oil or wood, there is an undercurrent of progressivism in  wanting to control the American population that are not as "enlightened" as themselves. From constantly ranting about the evils of "big oil" to encouraging government regulations in every aspect of our lives in the name of saving the planet, the magazine's editors show their true colors. But the worst attitude they exhibit is their frequent bashing of those of us who are raping the earth by having children. Here is a recent snip from a letter they published,

"Overpopulation is the root of all humanity's problems, and family size needs to be limited to two children, one child or no children for a sustainable future. Some of our brothers and sisters disagree with that because of religious ideals and a belief that God will fix it. I am here to tell you that is pure and utter ignorance. We procreate and we need to challenge our belief that it is OK to have as many children as we want. Human population doubles every 40 to 45 years....I would love to have a boy and a girl, but I know too much. I cannot bring them into an overpopulated, overpolluted, overexploited, war-torn planet in good conscience."

I'm sorry, but this man sounds like a certain relative of mine, a pompous blowhard who thinks that he is the smartest person in the room. His dismissive attitude toward those who believe in God and the sanctity of life is typical of greenies. I can't tell you how many times I have been glared at in the fancy-schmancy, super-expensive hippy co-op in town (I go to buy local honey and maple syrup) for having a long line of children trailing after me. I have a feeling that he will one day regret not having children, but by then it will be too late. I recall reading somewhere (perhaps in the Bible?) that there have always been problems due to man's proclivity to sin. Overpopulation wasn't the reason Cain killed his brother, there were only 4 people in the entire world at the time. Noah didn't need to build an ark because of too many people, but because almost all of them were nasty and brutish and full of hate. 

I was thinking of bumper stickers the other day and one idea developed: 

Who is going to experience demographic success if the prolifers have 6 kids and the proabortionists kill all of theirs?    

and so we begin...

the most exhausting and longest week of the summer: sailing week. Both nearby (within 45 minutes, since everything is a long drive in Maine) towns where the kids have taken lessons in the past were not offering them due to instructor burnout or the director being away on a ship. So, we signed 3 of the children up for lessons in Lincolnville and knew that it was going to be a haul getting them there and back every day. Class is from 10am to 4:30pm and with the distance, I have decided to stay in the vicinity, rather than make the trip back to the farm and waste all that gasoline and risk a speeding ticket.

Yesterday went well, after prying Mary off my arm due to her sporadic shyness, we went to my friend Jennifer's house until after lunch. Between her and her sister who is visiting for the summer there were 8 other children, so the visit gave my little ones a fun break from their sometimes bossy older brother and sisters. Later we did a little shopping and spent some time in the air conditioned library before heading back to the pond just in time to watch Mary haul wet sails.

We didn't get home until 5:30, where we had to unload the car, clean out the trash that had accumulated during the day, and set everything up for this morning before eating supper and bathing everyone. Will and Mary and Maggie are having a blast at their lessons, learning a great deal about sailing, and out of my hair for a short while, but I'm going to need a week to recover from the experience.   

creepy crawlies

I'm not particularly fond of insects, but I'm not a ninny who freaks out everytime she sees a spider and expects her husband to smash it. Bugs are expected in gardening and someone has to pluck them off, spray them, or smash them underfoot. The past few summers our two young peach trees (which have never produced a single peach) are the favorite food and breeding ground for Japanese Beetles. I go out several times a day, collecting my Mason jar off a bench, and go to work knocking the bugs into the jar. Despite my best efforts, I usually can capture only 1/2 of the insects that are on the plant, allowing the rest to fly away or burrow into the grass. I should buy a trap, but haven't managed to get around to it, perhaps I find killing the nasty suckers therapeutic. I can't do anything about the economy or my Senators' voting record, but I can drown dozens of shiny beetles that make the leaves in my orchard resemble lace.

(not to disparage anyone who doesn't aspire to being an entomologist, I screeched and jumped pretty high the other day when I found a beetle crawling in my hair. They tend to go every which way after shaking the peach trees to knock down any hidden bugs onto a sheet I spread on the grass.)

whoohoo, we are finished!

Today we finally wrapped up the very last question on Will's religion test and he wrote the last paragraph and copied over his entire book report neatly. All we have left to complete is the California Achievement Test which arrived yesterday. I have been nagging and coaxing him through the last few weeks of 6th grade for a month after everyone else finished and am so grateful to not have to do that for... oh, about 3 weeks before we start all over again.

While he was writing, the UPS driver rapped on the door and handed me two boxes: Will and Maggie's books and lesson plans for the new year. (Charlie and Mary are taking another 4 months to finish up their current grade) Not one to twiddle my thumbs, I already have the 1st quarter's lesson plans in the little binders and the remainder in huge 3" auxiliary binders. Julia Ellen helped me put the new books on the bookshelf and now we are all ready for the new year to begin. 

Of course, within 30 minutes of sealing his quarter's work in the manila envelope, Maggie and Mary decided that they really wanted to get some of their schoolwork out. I just wanted to scream, "Girls, please allow me enjoy my summer vacation for just a few moments before I have to contemplate starting our 8th year of homeschooling."

a girl with an appetite

My grandfather used to joke that I had a hollow leg when I would eat 3 helpings of vegetable soup and still manage to scarf down an ice cream parfait for dessert afterwards. But I don't hold a candle to Julia Ellen, who at 17 months of age ate for supper tonight: 1/2 container yogurt, 2 slices of canned pears, 1 bowl applesauce, 1/2 of a hot dog, and 6 slivers of watermelon, with milk to wash it all down.

Note that she is not the neatest eater, but 90% of the food did make it into her mouth.

growing plump

No, I'm getting fat, in fact, I've been running about 5 miles a day and am within 1 pound of my pre-pregnancy weight. My watermelon and pumpkins, on the other hand, are growing bigger every day. We had two volunteer watermelon plants this year, my guess is that they were seeds that failed to sprout last summer. So far we have about 10 tiny melons, the largest is the size of a large eggplant.

The pumpkins are about the size of a softball right now, I think they are Baby Bear variety and will mature early.

Somehow my peas are within days of harvest, despite planting 2 months too late, and I must have 10 tomatoes that will be ready this week. The squash is overwhelming in productivity, on Friday I gave away 13 and gave put 5 more in a box at the pool for someone to take on Saturday morning. No can eat that much squash, despite my efforts at eating it sauteed with onion and pork sausage several times this past week. Julia Ellen is my only co-patriot in eating the stuff, but she can't eat more than a few slices. I already have tons of ideas for next year's garden, including many more peas and much fewer crooknecks.

I should have realized...

that going to the town's ecumenical service instead of driving up to Bangor for regular Mass was a bad idea, but I made the executive decision for us to attend. The service was divided 3 ways by the Congregationalists, the middle age Catholic lay women who run the local parish (the rotating priest declined participation at the last minute), and the town's Evangelical holy rollers.

Not only did the service drag on, but the Catholic "performance" (because that is all it was) was off key, warbling, and invoked snickering in the back of the church. Our family quietly snuck out during a 10 full minute rendition of How Great Thou Art, and while driving home, I asked God to forgive our attendance. I told the children afterwards that I was sorry I put them through that and if I ever suggested such a thing again to remind me of this day and tell me, "no!"

a quiet afternoon at the beach

After finishing a bit of school and piano practice (of course it took 3 times longer than necessary), we packed up the van and headed down to our favorite pond. Since I only had the boys and Julia Ellen, the few hours we spent were peaceful, other than the few times I had to pull the baby out of the water after she tipped over. I'm glad we waited until a cooler day, the small beach was all ours until we had to put our chairs and boogy boards in the car and head up to a neighboring town to collect the girls from summer camp. This weekend is supposed to be the best of the summer in terms of weather, temps in the high 70's and light puffy clouds. Our plans include seeing a town parade, swimming lessons, and a trip to another pond which hosts a large population of frogs which the children love to catch and release.

make hay while the sun shines

The homeschooling family at the other end of our road have goats, chickens, and several horses, so they need many bales of hay to see them through the winter. Our family has many acres of hayfields, but no farm animals yet, so every summer around this time they cut, spread, tedder, and bale our hay. Will and Mary started helping stack the bales on the hay wagon last year and Will has proved to be such a competent assistant that he has been given truck driving lessons as payment.

Yesterday, under threat of imminent rainfall, everyone took turns stacking, driving the tractor, and transporting hay to their spacious barn. Mary is missing out while at camp, but since only 1/5 of the hay has been cut, I'm sure she will have ample opportunity to increase her arm muscles by lifting and toting 20+ lb bales of green matter.

all I want is a little obedience

Tim noticed from the tone in my voice that something was different this week. Yes, a big something was different: Will came back from 2 weeks of camp and the girls left for their turn of swimming, archery, campfires, dining hall fare, and miscellaneous camp fun. I got excellent reports from his scoutmaster on his attitude and helpfulness and he persevered in obtaining 5 merit badges while some kids dropped out. But one of my frustrations with this particular child is the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde personality switch once he gets home. When I ask the girls to practice the piano or watch the baby they actually follow directions, but Will feels the need to give me grief, attempt to weasel out of it, or say, Yes, Mommy," but then not follow through.

Yes, it is a pain to still have to be doing school at the end of July, but whose fault is that?
Life was so relaxed there for the time, but apparently now I have to revert back into Mean Mommy mode. My mother always said, "I'll get my revenge when you have children who act exactly like you," but I don't want revenge, just cooperation.

say cheese!

I gave up on professional photographs of the children many years ago when the photographer couldn't get both children to look in the same direction at the same time. I had better luck capturing candid moments and at least a few times a year taking a decent photo of the ever-expanding group of children together. Last year we drove to the top of Mt. Battie and I took at least 30 snaps of the kids sitting on rocks with a beautiful backdrop of the island dotted Penobscot Bay. Not one shot came out where all the children were looking pleasant. Someone was either hidden behind another, scowling, or making a funny face. We did manage to get a decent photo for the annual Christmas card after I made the threat of not leaving until they cooperated, but there was no panoramic backdrop, just green leaves.

Yesterday morning I made the girls all wear pink and dressed the little boys in red, tossing a spare red shirt in the tote bag when we drove up to Camp Roosevelt to collect Will. With the girls leaving for camp today, it was the only opportunity to attempt a group photo in many weeks. However, after I loaded the pictures onto the computer I again discovered that one kid in each shot was not cooperating. I guess we will try again after Mass today for that one elusive picture that shows a cheerful bunch of children enjoying their summer in Maine.

amazing sea monkeys?

As a child, I never filled out the order form for Sea Monkeys advertised in many children's magazines. The descriptions showed little creatures cavorting around in circles, doing daring tricks, and growing before your very eyes. I was tempted to ask my mother, but I knew that she couldn't afford the $9.95 plus S&H, realizing that for that money, all I would receive was a bunch of shrimp eggs and some packets of food. But as a parent I decided to splurge on a Sea Monkey kit when I spied one a few weeks before Christmas for just $3 at the thrift store.

Maggie was thrilled with her gift, but when we tried to hatch the little suckers in frigid January, not one baby brine shrimp appeared. So I sent off for some more eggs and held onto the packets until we arrived in Maine. Maggie added the water purifier (not certain it was necessary with well water, but I didn't want another dud batch) and a day later added the eggs. Within a week we had dozens of itsy-bitsy moving dots in the container, which is equipped with magnifying circles to better see the creature's growth.


We have been the proud caretakers of Sea Monkeys for a few weeks now and while it is interesting viewing every time we visit the bathroom (they prefer a north facing window), I can say that I'm glad I didn't pay retail for the experience. The next pet we will acquire will be an animal for the farm and it will be one that the children can pick up and cuddle, not one that needs a magnifying glass to view.

its safe to come over now

Our household only comes down with various illness about two times a year, the last being during the Great Blizzard of February '10, but as Tim the clinician points out when speaking of statistics, "A small percentage of a really big number is still a big number." What he means is that if only .2% of a given population gets a certain disease, if the population is say, 10,000,000, that 20,000 get sick. If only 50% of our family comes down with a 24 hour tummy bug, I'm cleaning up vomit out of the car seats and doing load after load of laundry for 4 days. Apparently Charlie, our tough child, escaped unscathed and since I haven't gotten a phone call from camp, Will evaded it as well.

On the positive side, my van is now sparkling clean after a thorough vacuum and scrub with upholstery cleaner. Perhaps on Saturday we can finally collect Will at Boy Scout camp without causing a scene. Just this year we have had to stop a program and send out searchers in the growing dusk to look for Charlie, run through registration hauling a dripping baby and her carseat into the bathroom to scrub down, have a temporarily lost 4 year old returned to us, and been chastised several times to stop climbing on the boulders.

Now that our social schedule is open again, we are having an old friend and his two boys come up for lunch today and are planning a meal to take to a new mommy (her 6th) on Thursday.

the little garden that could

Last summer I bought a few tomato plants, but then a fungus got them (the same fungus that caused the potatoes to rot in the fields of Ireland in the 1800's) and I didn't get more than a few mouthfuls of produce. So perhaps I bit off a little more than I could chew when I bought 12 tomato seedlings and 6 crookneck squash seedlings at the garden shop last month. I didn't really think about what would happen if they actually grew and produced.



We had a bit of a glitch when the baby squash started turning brown, but a quick Google search told me that it was blossom end rot, caused by a lack of calcium in the soil. Maine's very acid soils are great for blueberries, but not so great for veggies. I tossed a couple of handfuls of lime, which supplies calcium and raises the pH, around each plant while Charlie raked it in and Maggie watered. (Note the clover which I interplanted as a cover crop. They are NOT weeds, Charlie is a great weeder.) Two weeks later we are overwhelmed with 4-5" squash, more than I can saute with onion, even if I ate it every night for supper.



This afternoon I'm going to offer some to the drywall guys and hope that they take some home as well as investigate the possibility of giving some to the local food bank. I better hurry 'cause the tomatoes seem to all be poised to ripen next week and while I am salivating at the thought of a ripe tomato sandwich, a girl can only eat so many BLTs.

everyone pitch in

Maggie was the first to start vomiting on Thursday with Timmy and Mary falling in line behind her on Friday and Saturday. I had to call the babysitter and cancel my race plans only to discover that it would have disastrous to plow ahead and run as I quickly came down with whatever tummy bug the kids brought home. We went from a perfectly clean apartment to complete chaos in less than 6 hours as Mommy was not available to pick up, scrub, and organize. But the good that came out of my illness was the cooperation that the children exhibited. They bathed the baby, cooked dinner, made pallets on the floor to camp out in the living room, read stories, swept the stairs, and brought me ice water. I'm still very weak and stiff, but I think a mere hour of wiping and sweeping will put everything back to rights.

Blueberries for Julia Ellen

Now I know exactly how Little Sal's mother felt in Blueberries For Sal as we went yesterday morning to our town's blueberry patch. I didn't know about this opportunity until Tim took the boys for a spin in the Jeep a few weeks back and drove down a dead end road. It ended with a gorgeous view and a sign that implied that town residents could pick berries. We joined a few other folks, but for the most part we had the hill to ourselves. Everyone took turns using the small blueberry rake I bought years ago at an antique shop, while Julia Ellen plopped herself in one spot and stripped the bushes in her vicinity clean before toddling over to another patch. We filled our little baskets full and in less than 30 minutes headed home to clean and gorge on wild Maine blueberries. It takes longer to pick out the leaves and unripe fruit than it does to scoop them up with the rake, but the reward to taking a huge mouthful at once is worth the work. Maggie gave a quart container to our builder, so for our little bit of work, many folks are having a delicious breakfast this morning.

why is it that...

I gracefully receive a complement on the children's behavior at a restaurant only to see the 6 year old spill an entire cup of Hi-C all over the table and the floor?

I put the baby down in the grass for a minute to pick a few raspberries only to hear a mind-numbing shriek because a yellow jacket stung her on the face?

I stayed awake reading until 1am just because I couldn't put down the latest Jodi Picoult novel, only to be awoken at 5:30 to a vomiting 7 year old and a baby who wants to be held?

I mow all the field edges successfully for the first time only to hit the edge of the barn door when backing the tractor in?

Here's hoping that the next 24 hours are less traumatic.

collapse the system

The Helena, Montana school system has come out with very inappropriate guidelines for teaching sexual education, including explaining homosexual sex in 1st grade and different sexual positions (including anal sex) in 5th grade. Somehow they think that more information at earlier ages leads to better decision making, the exact opposite of what has occurred in society over the past 30 years. Today, with sex education, we have 75% of teens engaging in sex and infected with various venereal diseases. Obviously, staying away from promiscuous behavior would eliminate all these diseases as well as teen pregnancy, but then Planned Parenthood would lose all that revenue from birth control, treating disease, and abortions. Can you guess who helped write this school system's proposed policy?

Yes, many parents are outraged, but once the hubbub dies down, they will willingly send their children in to be exposed to this pro-youth sex propaganda. The solution is for parents to get some guts and pull their children out, homeschool them for however long it takes for the school board to realize they have no students for their teachers and staff to indoctrinate. They would quickly back down and resume covering what they should: reading, math, science, history, writing... and not performing social science experiments. Some parents and children might find that they prefer school at home and never return, but this might be the best thing to happen for those who are getting bullied around by the people who are supposedly serving the community.

just call me Ma Ingalls

After stopping a few time on my afternoon runs to eat some enticing raspberries on the side of the road, I convinced Timmy and Charlie to go pick berries with me. Mary babysat while Julia Ellen slept and the little boys and I headed through the woods with our berry cartons. A few years ago, a developer got the idea to build houses on 40 acres next to ours and went to all the trouble of cutting down trees and putting in a short gravel road before the economy took a nosedive. Now the property is on the market and unlikely to sell due to the appearance of the land, it isn't wooded and not even close to open pasture, just a mix of spindly trees mixed with scrub. But that scrub contains a whole lot of raspberry brambles which is just perfect for us.

It was slow going, the berries were small and since Timmy is only 4 we had to listen to a constant barrage of, "When are we going back home? There are a lot of berries over here. Is this one ripe? Are we finished yet? Can I eat some of my raspberries?" I also had to keep an eye and ear out for the threat of a bear filling up on the sweet jewels, but luckily I didn't have to face down any wild creatures to protect my own little cubs.

We collected about 1/2 a pint of fruit before we got too hot, but, inspired by the offerings at the local diner, we made homemade wild raspberry muffins for dinner. Leftovers will be served for breakfast, split open and broiled with a pat of sweet butter. Yum!

working vacation

Before we drove up to Maine, I found a piano teacher in town and made arrangements for them to continue lessons sporadically during the summer. Will was complaining about how much harder Miss Ellen is than their former teacher, "She expects 3 times as much!" I understand their frustration, but I know that they have made progress in even the few weeks this month. Maggie and I sat down together every day this past week because she had to say the note names aloud as she played each of her 6 pieces. The first day she cried the entire 30 minutes, but the next day I resorted to attitude medicine: smartie candies that I popped in her mouth if she said the notes well. The difference was phenomenal and by Monday's practice she only had to play each one 2 times to show me her skill.

I have to say that I have learned how to read most of the notes without having to resort to my cheat sheet that Will made for me. She still mixes up B and D sometimes (D dangles off the treble clef), but she is still faster than I am and is playing the right key at the same time. This is homeschooling: learning together and making adjustments in the best way to teach each child to help them achieve their goals.

cute baby alert

This morning, our first day without Will, we decided to hit the road and go to a local pond. After the kids loaded all the gear and I packed the cooler with some drinks and snacks we were down the road by 8:45. The vote was for Knight's Pond, but then we changed our minds and went to a closer lake. Our crew had the park to themselves for almost an hour before the crowds started to arrive (think 50 people at the max). The kids dug holes and chutes in the gravel, swam, hunted for treasure (Mary actually found $1.25), and had a marvelous time. We left at lunchtime to get home in time to unpack and get ready for the babysitter. Obviously, the baby was enchanted by the water.

well, aren't we lucky?

BANGOR, Maine — The first family will spend next weekend vacationing on Mount Desert Island, according to U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree.

President Barack Obama and his family are scheduled to arrive Friday, July 16, and stay through Sunday, July 18. (I hope it rains the entire weekend, especially since I'm running my first road race on Saturday in almost a year. Should I wear a shirt that reads, "Maine: the way life should be, that is until Obama showed up"?)

Information about where the family would stay and the sights they might take in while visiting Maine was not available Friday night. The visit is a personal family vacation and no public appearances are scheduled, Pingree said. (Yeah, gotta get in those expensive family vacations while the taxpayers are footing the bill. Will someone tell them to stand back and beware of rogue waves that have killed many people here?)

“What an honor that the Obama family has chosen Maine for vacation when they could have gone anywhere in the country,” she said. “I think the Obamas will really enjoy the quiet woods, beautiful coast, wonderful people and everything else that brings thousands of families here every year.” (most folks who come to Maine sniff the pine scented air and enjoy the secluded beaches, I think the Obama clan are more about photo shoots and fancy food, I mean HOW many magazine covers have they done in 18 months? And how many "regular" people are they going to see during their stay? Michelle, the food dictator, might have a coronary over seeing the number of enormously fat people who live here.)

While White House officials were mum about where on the island the first family would stay, Obama has political connections on MDI. George Mitchell, U.S. special envoy for Middle East peace, owns a home in Seal Harbor. Mitchell and his wife, Heather, have two children, Andrew, 12, and Claire, 9. The Obama children, Malia and Sasha, are 12 and 9, respectively.

Last August, the first family visited Yellowstone National Park and Grand Canyon National Park. The Obamas also spent time on Martha’s Vineyard in August 2009. (my guess as to the Obama's next family vacation: Everglades National Park, 'cause those national park fees are a bit steep for someone who only earns $5 million a year)

Information about whether the family would arrive in Air Force One, the presidential jet, was not available. Neither the Bar Harbor Airport in Trenton nor the Portland International Jetport has runways long enough to accommodate the Boeing 747. (Oh, like they are going to land in Portland and drive 4 hours up the coast to Bar Harbor? This is a guy who has to fly from one side of DC to the other.)

Air Force One could land at Bangor International Airport (home of the famous troop greeters who have welcomed every soldier returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Their contribution to the war effort was not for show, unlike Obama's famous soldier bracelet incident where he couldn't remember the guy's name.) and the Obamas could take a helicopter to the airport in Trenton, then take a motorcade to MDI. Last summer, Air Force One landed on Cape Cod, the family took a helicopter to Martha’s Vineyard, then rode in a motorcade to the 28-acre compound where they stayed. (how many tourists had their vacations shortened because of that huge traffic jam? Unfortunately I might get stuck behind the Obamamobile myself since we have to pick Will up from camp on Friday night and drop him back off on Sunday. I'll be sure to have my hand ready to honk if this bozo gets in my way.)

home again

My quiet, shy Mary was a chatterbox all the way home from camp yesterday, "We shot stuffed animals and I got a F on my swimming band. We were cold when we woke up at 11pm for ice cream. My best friend cried every night and had to go home early." She talked so fast that I couldn't understand most of her explanations, but I did get, "If Maggie goes, can I go back?" Apparently she didn't suffer from any homesickness, but did miss Julia Ellen, especially when she heard her baby sister say, "Maaa!" at her appearance. So, yes, we are contemplating sending both the girls later this summer for another round of archery and rifle shooting, crafts and horseback riding, dining hall dinners and late night ice cream parties for winners of the clean cabins contest. She has a few more freckles on her nose and a duffel bag full of dirty clothes, but Mary might be a little less shy than she was last week.

what a load of $#*&

My garden soil is more of a sick shade of gray than a rich black due to a lack of organic material. The fields have been hayed for as long as anyone can remember so all the nutrients have been taken out over the years, with nothing done to improve it. The area is so large that the small amount of compost that I produced didn't make a difference in fertility, so last fall I covered all three beds with a deep layer of spoiled hay and Tim tilled it all in this spring. This year I am determined to raise the quality of the soil as much as possible for future garden harvests. My ultimate goal is dirt that looks like chocolate cake, teeming with earthworms, and able to produce veggies so tasty that even my children will say, "Yum!"

Yesterday after I ran 4 miles I took a quick shower and headed up the road to the riding instructor's barn for a little nitrogen boost for my compost piles. I backed the truck right up to her manure pile and pitched it half full of wood shavings and not-too-smelly horse poop. After supper, while Will watched Julia Ellen, I shoveled it right out and then thoroughly rinsed out the truck bed. Tim doesn't like any of his possessions dirty and would not have been pleased if he had seen the pile of excrement, but my rationale is that the truck is 15 years old and we did deem it a farm truck. One day we will be hauling live animals in it, so this exercise is just a little foreshadowing of what will come. Yes, I will wash it out with soap and make it clean enough to sleep in, 'cause I might be staying in it once my husband finds out what I did.

slow, slower, and slowest

Yesterday I started running again after I hired a babysitter sight unseen. Last week I posted a notice at the pizza parlor downtown and finally someone called seeking a job. Yeah, it is only for 5-8 hours a week, but that is $50-$80, a not-insignificant sum. Luckily she seems to be a nice girl, was a nanny for a baby last year, and rides from the same stable where Mary takes lessons. We arranged for her to come at 2pm every weekday to have a set time that didn't interfere with any other activities. But boy is it hot, even after a brief rainstorm. I think I walked as much as I ran during the 2.5 mile excursion. A cold shower felt soooo good and hopefully over the next few weeks I will lose those last 5 pounds that are keeping me out of the collection of cute shorts I brought up to Maine.

What is even slower than my pace is Will's progress at finishing up the school year. He still has a tiny bit in 2 subjects, a slightly bigger chunk in 2 more, and 1 more dreaded book report to complete. We could get it done within a week or two, but he is leaving on Sunday for 2 weeks of camp, making the school year drag out into August.

The slowest thing of all is this computer on dial-up, the days of click, click, click to navigate the web have slowed to click, go do a chore, come back and wait some more, then give up in frustration. Checking my email takes an hour due to the long waits for the screen to load. It would be more efficient to do everything on-line at the library, but that involves putting everyone in the car and trying to watch them in a public space at the same time I'm writing or reading. Well, there is no Utopia, so I'll just do the best I can trying to keep up with the news and my favorite blogs.

One day I will be running faster, Will is going to finish 6th grade (only then we will have 7th to fret about), and high speed internet will reach the wilds of rural Maine. Until then, I need to push myself, motivate my child, and have patience for the quirks of small town services.

boy is it hot!

Even up here in Maine where no one has air conditioning and few folks have a backyard pool (why do all that work for the 4 days a year it would be useful?), the thermometer topped out at 90 degrees today. While we have lots of space to play and stuff to do outside, I have never bought the children even a wading pool up here. There has always been the option to go to Knight's Pond or go to the beach in Stockton Springs. However, I just didn't want to deal with a likely sun burnt and cranky toddler (yes, Julia Ellen started walking in earnest this past week) so we drove up to ToysRUs and bought a hard plastic pool and a SlipNSlide that Will talked me into. Good thing he did as the kids had a blast running and flinging themselves down the wet plastic while Julia Ellen got to sit in the still water all by herself.

As for my method of keeping cool, I pulled out a sleeveless floral cotton shift this morning that I picked up at the thrift store a few weeks back. Somehow it makes me look skinny and doesn't constrict at all. I even planted some more corn, sunflower, and bean seeds to fill in the gaps in the garden without sweating. I feel really sorry for all the people in hot places such as Virginia, like my husband who decided to stay inside in the air conditioning and read a book all by his lonesome.

one kid short

If I don’t already have proof that my children are growing up, I only have to dress the baby to know for sure. “I bought this sweatshirt for Maggie,” I mentioned the other night when we went to the lobster pound for supper. “Grandmother bought this dress for Mary when we got back to the States,” I said when getting her dressed for Mass yesterday, “There is certainly no way she could fit into it now!”

Mary and I had a girl’s day out a few weeks ago, buying that first support undergarment (even though she really doesn’t need any support right now), and celebrating with lunch. Now she is at camp with a multitude of other girls doing whatever they do at summer camp. We talked about what to expect and what I need her to do: be sociable, eat enough so she doesn’t come back skinnier than she is now, participate, take showers, and brush her teeth. I do worry about her since she still hides behind me when asked a question, but I know deep down that she will be fine. In fact when we were pulling away from cabin #10, she and her new friend Lizzy were racing toward the bath house with bathing suits in hand to take their swimming test. It reminds me that soon enough she will be at college and not have me to nag her to do her schoolwork, practice the piano, and practice basic hygiene. One day I won’t spend every moment of the day trying to get someone to behave, but since Julia Ellen is not quite 16 months old, that day still seems very far away.

on my own

May St. Christopher, patron Saint of travelers, pray for Tim on his journey back to Virginia. He didn't want to leave and we didn't want to see him go, but his leave is over and someone has to work to pay for all the swimming, sailing, riding, and piano lessons. The farm looks well kept and hopefully will look even tidier in the next few weeks. The neighbors started haying their fields with a little help from Will and Mary with plans to soon start on ours.

tractor queen

Tim has been giving me tractor driving lessons this week and I have to say that I am a LOT more confident than I was on my first lesson several summers ago, I was terrified of tipping over on practically flat land! Driving a 40 horsepower farm tractor is much different than driving a car or even a riding mower (I can't believe that I was once scared of driving one of those) because you have to remember to put it in the right gear, remember at which speed to put the throttle on depending on the situation, use the 4 wheel drive in the fields, but not on the pavement, and constantly adjust the mower height. The machine is huge and is very dangerous to children on the ground as well to the driver. I have mowed around some of the fields, but when I was caught in a huge downpour Tuesday evening, I quickly pulled up the 7' mower, cut off the PTO, and put it in 3rd gear to get back to the barn. Of course by the time I carefully backed it in, the rain had almost stopped.

To make mowing the edges of the fields safer for Tim and myself I have resumed my pruning of the trees that stick out. A local man died last year when a branch whipped back into his chest while he was mowing. Well, three hours using heavy duty loppers and a pole saw has worn me out so badly that my muscles ache just sitting still. I can't lift anything more than a teacup, but no branches are going to slap me when I get back on that tractor.