Frankie: Mom, something happened to Asher! Maybe I punched him in the face.
Me: Maybe you did?
Frankie: Yeah, maybe. I'm not sure.
Right.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Waterfowl
Dear Seth,
Ask and ye shall receive...
Tonight I am thinking about ducks. Khaki Campbells to be specific. I want some. Maybe four, maybe five. No more than five. I'd like to have them just to have them--to watch them swim in their kiddie pool and root around in the mud. It seems I have a soft spot for animals that do that sort of thing. KCs like to munch on snails, mosquitoes, and other backyard pests. We will gather their eggs and make puffy gluten free cakes with their rich fatty yolks.
Khaki Campbells out-lay chickens and aren't nearly as noisy. But where chickens are smart enough to sleep tucked into a pretty coop, ducks prefer to nest on the ground. That's all well and good until you stop to consider the hidden dangers of a backyard in Dixie.
Last summer our neighbor spotted Nate in the yard and leaned over the back fence to offer up a warning. He'd been pet-sitting a friend's prized Macaws and had carried them out onto his patio for some fresh air. Too late he'd discovered a stealthy predator devouring the last of his pal's jungle birds.
"Hey you need to watch out for your babies," he said. "Don't let them play out here alone. I just killed a big snake, I'm sure there are more."
When a Good Ol' Boy, from the land of swamp monsters and roaches the size of mice, warns of a "big snake," he ain't kiddin'.
(Now Seth, don't be too hard on him for setting those pretty parrots out on the deck in the first place. Having once fried a box turtle to a scaly crisp, I know first hand how easy that mistake is to make.)
Backyard marshmallow roast with Papa- winter 2008
Our backyard is a little piece of Southern wilderness tucked into the corner of a quiet cul-de-sac. For the most part that's just the way we like it, but in addition to the snakes, there are often lithe leggy foxes hunting the squirrels that scale our trees and traumatize our cat. While the squirrels do seem to keep the foxes altogether occupied, I've no doubt that Mr. Fox would find a duck and her eggs a welcome diversion.
But Seth, good news! In the time it has taken to write the post thus far, my mammoth farm boy has presented a solution. We will build a duck house and nighttime run! It will look like this-
Ask and ye shall receive...
Tonight I am thinking about ducks. Khaki Campbells to be specific. I want some. Maybe four, maybe five. No more than five. I'd like to have them just to have them--to watch them swim in their kiddie pool and root around in the mud. It seems I have a soft spot for animals that do that sort of thing. KCs like to munch on snails, mosquitoes, and other backyard pests. We will gather their eggs and make puffy gluten free cakes with their rich fatty yolks.
Khaki Campbells out-lay chickens and aren't nearly as noisy. But where chickens are smart enough to sleep tucked into a pretty coop, ducks prefer to nest on the ground. That's all well and good until you stop to consider the hidden dangers of a backyard in Dixie.
Last summer our neighbor spotted Nate in the yard and leaned over the back fence to offer up a warning. He'd been pet-sitting a friend's prized Macaws and had carried them out onto his patio for some fresh air. Too late he'd discovered a stealthy predator devouring the last of his pal's jungle birds.
"Hey you need to watch out for your babies," he said. "Don't let them play out here alone. I just killed a big snake, I'm sure there are more."
When a Good Ol' Boy, from the land of swamp monsters and roaches the size of mice, warns of a "big snake," he ain't kiddin'.
(Now Seth, don't be too hard on him for setting those pretty parrots out on the deck in the first place. Having once fried a box turtle to a scaly crisp, I know first hand how easy that mistake is to make.)
Backyard marshmallow roast with Papa- winter 2008
Our backyard is a little piece of Southern wilderness tucked into the corner of a quiet cul-de-sac. For the most part that's just the way we like it, but in addition to the snakes, there are often lithe leggy foxes hunting the squirrels that scale our trees and traumatize our cat. While the squirrels do seem to keep the foxes altogether occupied, I've no doubt that Mr. Fox would find a duck and her eggs a welcome diversion.
But Seth, good news! In the time it has taken to write the post thus far, my mammoth farm boy has presented a solution. We will build a duck house and nighttime run! It will look like this-
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Too Cool for School
or maybe just too itchy.
Jense got to skip school on Monday 'cause she was all dosed up on Benadryl and Zyrtec. Some kids have all the luck.
Friday, April 16, 2010
The Human Experience
War. Theater. Dogs. Death. Faith. Babies. Music. Blood. Marriage. Family. Water. Birth. Mud.
Do you ever just think about what it means to be human? And wonder if you're making the most of it? If some of what you're doing is unavoidable, and some of what you're doing isn't enough? Wonder what should change, what should stop, what can be put off 'til later, and what must be done now?
I think kitchens should smell like coffee, hallways should smell like books, bedrooms should smell like flowers, and children should smell like grass.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Little Jay
Tonight as we were finishing up another chapter of The Dawn Treader, Jensie asked me whether or not C.S. Lewis is dead. I told her yes, but she asked if I could Google it to be sure.
When I asked why, she said "Oh, I was just thinking that if he's dead and can't write anymore, I'll help him out by writing a few more books for the Chronicles of Narnia."
After tucking the kids into bed I sat down at the computer to veg for a while and chat with Nate. He asked whether or not I've saved anything Jensie has written lately, so I pulled out her journal and read a couple of pages out loud. Nate and I said "goodnight" and I continued to flip through the pages of her little notebook.
She's articulate, thoughtful, thorough, and so girlie. It's too much.
I went straight to her room to tell her how proud I am of her--for using her brain, for her love of books, for the things that she writes, of the way she observes everything going on around her, and never forgets what she's seen or heard...
Her response?
"Uh, did you know you woke me up?"
When I asked why, she said "Oh, I was just thinking that if he's dead and can't write anymore, I'll help him out by writing a few more books for the Chronicles of Narnia."
After tucking the kids into bed I sat down at the computer to veg for a while and chat with Nate. He asked whether or not I've saved anything Jensie has written lately, so I pulled out her journal and read a couple of pages out loud. Nate and I said "goodnight" and I continued to flip through the pages of her little notebook.
She's articulate, thoughtful, thorough, and so girlie. It's too much.
I went straight to her room to tell her how proud I am of her--for using her brain, for her love of books, for the things that she writes, of the way she observes everything going on around her, and never forgets what she's seen or heard...
Her response?
"Uh, did you know you woke me up?"
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Slow Like Honey
I want my kids to grow up slow. This summer that means...
- Rock Slides at the Honey Pot
- Playing Huck Finn in the woods
- Grasshoppers on the river trail
- Bubblegum Toothpaste
- Falling asleep to The Chronicles of Narnia
- A Ride on the Heber Creeper
- Fresh cucumbers
- Sprinklers
- Mt. Timpanogos
- Farmer's Markets
- Homemade ice cream
- Picnics on Fridays
- Snail Olympics
- Space camp
- Night games
- Two-wheelers
- Cousins
- Fish tacos
- Relay races
- Campouts at Payson Lakes
- A visit from Dad
M'mmm, it's so good I can almost taste it.
__________________________________________________________
I like this song. It's Country. So sue me.
I like this song. It's Country. So sue me.
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