cici at home

at first, we kept ourselves busy

It's the best way, for us anyway. Deployments, thankfully, don't happen too often around here. Still, those first two weeks - even on a super short deployment - can be really really rough.

the swingset was finally set up. it has a great slide.

We went to the zoo. I don't know why the zoo is always so hard to get to. When we're there, we have a great time. But it seems like we could there a bit more, ya know? Where does the time go? Where did our summer go?

But do you see my seven year old budding photographer? I need to do a post on her photos. Fascinating stuff, the things kids take pictures of.

We've traveled north, to Grandma and Grandpa and friends and visited relatives. And while there, spent time at the beach.

We've spent a lot of time noticing the way foamy waves wash ashore, covering our fingers and toes; watching the water leave; waiting for it to come back. Repeat.

We've tried our hand at carving stamps.

But we have yet to use those stamps. I can't find a white t-shirt (long sleeved) for the middle boy. And...we're doing something else with the stamps.  Remember the TV show, "While You Were Out?"

Let's just say, before it was a TV show - it was my husband's life.

the taste of spring

Because I want to remember the excitement of realizing that you are in a berry patch. That somehow one of us did not make it out of our pajama top that day.  That his big sister lovingly pulls him down the row, showing him the difference between a green strawberry not yet ready and those plump, juicy, red ones just waiting to be picked.

That sometimes, one of them likes to be alone.  That, possibly, he is not eying the strawberries. He might be noticing the leaves. The bugs. The bees. The sounds of the birds.  Or maybe he is noticing the strawberries. He may be looking for the "biggest one of all" or the "tiniest of all" or the "reddest one of all..."

That the jars are "funny" and look different (than the usual pint sized jars we use - I picked these up at some thrift store over the winter).  The way "strawberry rhubarb" is not written, but drawn. Drawn simply so you can satisfy momma and still get outside and "do".  That "strawberry" does not quite fit across a label and that strawberries are triangles.

Spring in a jar: to be opened, remembered, and enjoyed during those darker months of winter.

mrs. robin redbreast

decided to stay at our house.  In our Bradford Pear tree, to be precise.  The kids first spied the nest a few days ago (a week ago now? I dunno).  It seems remarkably low, to me - I don't think it can be mroe than 6 feet up.  But what do I know? I haven't been building any nests lately and the height suits us just fine.

Last September, the weakened Ike made his way through our little town (our house was one of the few that escaped any damage). Weakened, I say, but still roaring through at just under hurricane force.  Ike removed a very large tree limb from the Bradford Pear.  Isn't it wonderful how that works? Such a destructive force paving the way for new life...

My daughter was almost in tears when she first saw those fuzzy heads popping up.

And now she's taken to watching and observing them daily, of course.  And daily reporting back to me what they are doing.  "Mom!" she rushes in the house, face flushed, eyes wide. "The mommy robin was away but now she's back and I saw them! Their mouths were open! Like little pyramids!" I think she's going to explode at this bit of news.  "I saw them!" and out the door she runs. Observing again.

Now she's got her camera out.  Taking little videos - the results varied, to be sure.  Shaky pictures of the tree and leaves and - every now and again - a bit of the nest, a bit of fuzzy head - and she brings them back to me, a proud mama my daughter is.

"Mommy! Look at them! Look at them! Aren't they...aren't they...WONDERFUL?!?" she doesn't have a word that fully expresses this new life.

Yes, honey, they are. They are.

uh...no. that's not dinner you smell

it's the smell of dried leaves

being held underneath a magnifying glass.

thanks, daddy, for teaching the neat tricks.

trashpicking transplant

I grew up in the shadow of Mt. Rainier. When I was 23, I moved to the midwest. I hated it. I missed the trees. I missed the mountains. I missed the ocean. I missed my home.

And then one day I met a friend who offered to take me to a local and popular day hike. It was a 400 foot incline! That would, my friend assured me, ease the homesickness of the mountians! 400 feet!

I accepted, interested at the concept of such a "severe" hike.  Did I dare tell them I had hiked Mt. Townsend? That the elevation gain alone was 2900 feet? Its peak 6280? That this particular hike is not even necessarily "challenging" to the true hikers of my Pacific Northwest Home? This was exactly the problem of midwesterners - they think a hike with an elevation gain of 400 feet was something exciting! Something big! I was supposed to get excited about a 400 foot incline?

Thankfully, I kept my mouth shut and went on the hike.  It was good. I learned to find the beauty that was inherit in this region of these United States of America.  In fact, the region kind of grew on me and eventually I quit looking for Mt. Rainier out my rear view window.

And now, a year and a half after moving again I'm finding that I am in a situation much the same as when I was 23.  A new area. New terrain. Missing an old home. I thought it was flat in my old home, but I didn't know flat.  This area - this is flat. Nothing but fields. Fields of corn. Fields of wheat. Fields of soybeans. But there is beauty here and I need to train my eye to see it.

Isn't that what it always is? A training of the eye? A shift of perspective?

So when my daughter's 4-H group met to clean up a local biking trail, I threw the camera in the bag and thought I'd start framing my viewpoint.

I'm not "there" yet. Even 30 miles away the view is better, I think.

Here, the rainbows are better.

And that's the start.

my life is a secret garden

The radio has been off. The TV has been off.  No news.  It's been great. Refreshing - even if naively so.

We have been listening to "The Secret Garden" and I find myself thinking in a thick, Yorkshire accent and whistling to our little robin redbreasts. A robin has yet to hop about on my laundry basket, chirping with me and keeping me company.

I can't find snowdrops. I didn't even know what snowdrops were until The Secret Garden, but now our garden needs them.  I didn't plant bulbs last fall.  But I found these little pots with tulips and hydrangeas already started. Our garden isn't secret, but Mistress Mary has definite plans on where to put the young spring heralds.

Dickon has been playing with the wind.

And Collin has taken que and kicked off his shoes at even a hint of 70 degrees.

Yes, he's barefoot with pants, gardening gloves, and a pajama top (not shown - garden shovel). He liked it that way this morning - and we all now how prone to hysterics our little Collin can be.

blink, and i miss it

Maple sugaring. I took my daughter to a local park to see how this is done several years ago.  Since then, we've missed it. This year, we remembered just in the nick of time and were able to visit a maple sugaring demonstration this last weekend - the last weekend of any maple sugaring goings-on around here.

Did you know that when the leaves begin to bud, the maple sap turns bitter? They taste each bucket of maple before it is poured into the larger buckets to be boiled down.  It only takes a smidgen of the bad stuff to render the entire batch useless. This is the kind of worthless trivia that sticks with me forever.

How'd ya like to stand over this and stir (assuming there is a fire beneath it) until your maple has boiled down?

Here is today's vat, heating up. Boiling down.

My kids prefer Mrs. Butterworth.

twice as nice

Even if you are deep in the mire of resperatory ick. Even if you are coughing up a lung when the initial storm blows through.  You are completely capable of running outside to admire the beauty of a promise.

freak weather

Is it small talk if I talk about the weather on my blog? I usually hate small talk. So I haven't been blogging. But I thought I'd start up again with an effort to maintain some kind of regular posting habit. Of course, now that I've actually comitted my goal to public eyes its pretty much a guarantee it won't happen.

So back to the weather.

I suppose its freakish. You never know what you're going to get this time of year.  But it warmed up to...are you ready? 50 degrees.

And so my children threw off their coats and went "wading in the stream." More acccurately: splashing through an oversized puddle.

Anyway, we never met a puddle we didn't like.

sugar snow

I'm sure the Ingall's weren't using Mrs Butterworth's.  But I made pancakes for breakfast.  And it was snowing like crazy. And my daughter asked if she could make sugar snow. And then my son asked too.  I was outnumbered, and powerless to resist their charm.

They insist it was delicious.