Month: February 2015

Suzy, My Love

| Hope

Lately, the kids and  I have been going for an occasional walk down the road to the field in which Niko’s favorite cow, Suzy, lives. Of course, Suzy isn’t her name. That is to say, it easily could be, but as far as I know, the cow was nameless before we encountered her.

It was Christmas, and Aaron’s parents were here for a visit. We’d walked down that road for the first time that day. It’s a winding country road with no shoulder, and until that day I’d never walked it in the eight months we’d lived here. Despite the lack of paved shoulder space it turned out to be a pleasant walk. We walked about half a mile, until we ended up next to a pasture with three young heifers.

Niko started life as a city boy, and he’s been a bit unsure about cows, especially since last summer when a  startled young steer trampled a barbed wire fence and got stranded in our yard. Frightened by its unfamiliar environment, made anxious by its separation from its buddy on the other side of the fence, and in pain from a barbed-wire gash, the steer abandoned its formerly gentle nature and gave way to panic. It marauded about, lowering and shaking its head, pawing the ground,  trampling the grape vine, devouring the lettuce, and bellowing. Neighbors and the animal’s owners helped return it to its field, but after that Niko was a bit nervous about our bovine neighbors.

Separated friends.
Munching my overgrown lettuce.

But in this new field there was a small, pretty, brown-and-white cow with gentle eyes. Niko’s eyes widened as he looked at her. He stared long and hard. Then, with no precedent at all that I know of, he lifted his hands to his mouth and began to moo. To our astonishment, that little cow lifted her head, uttered a long moo in return, and walked directly to him.

“Moooooo!”
“Mooooo! I come to you!”
“You called?”

Of course, then he didn’t know what to do. Even a young heifer is pretty big next to a four-year-old, and despite his pleasure at her response, he was a bit intimidated. His grandma, Kay, tried to encourage him to stroke her nose through the fence, but the slime streaming from it was a bit of a deterrent. Still, love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, and despite Niko’s disgust, he clearly loved this cow. His eyes rested on her with adoration, and it took some convincing to get him to leave her when the time came to walk home. She was distraught as well, stretching her neck out and mooing as we walked away. “Goodbye, Suzy!” called Kay, and Niko echoed, “Bye, Suzy!”

Almost convinced to pet her nose. Not quite.
Almost convinced to pet her nose. Not quite.

Now, every time we drive by that field, Niko waves to Suzy, and each time we walk that way, she ambles over to greet us. Niko still avoids the slimy nose, but still gazes adoringly at her. And every time, we call, “Goodbye, Suzy!” as we leave.

It’s nice to have a friend, even of the bovine ilk.

Revenge Is Scary!

Image | | Hope

I’ve been following this blogger for a little while, and I absolutely love her sense of humor as well as her skill with a pair of scissors! She uses cut paper to create gently humorous comic strips, usually featuring her daughters. This one made me chuckle. Revenge can be scary…especially when you have sisters. Click here to see the whole story.

IMG_2355-3.PNG

An Introvert With ADHD

| Hope

I’ve long known that I’m an introvert: it’s not that I don’t like people, it’s just that I can’t manage too much time around others without needing to recharge. I do best when I know in advance that human interaction is on the horizon, so I can plan for it and mentally prepare myself. A scheduled playdate for the kids or a routine meeting at work is fine; an unexpected trip to the mall or the arrival of a substitute in my classroom with a summon to an unexpected meeting might throw me for a loop.

I don’t think I’m unique in this regard. An article I just read that reviewed a recent study on introverts said that anywhere from 30% to 50% of people are introverted, so my needs for Alone Time, advance warning before interactions, and a chance to quietly recharge after People Time are all pretty normal. What’s different about my own brand of introversion, though, is that it’s accompanied by ADHD. This means that, while most introverts are content and even happy to skirt the periphery of a crowd and observe others’ interactions, it’s easy for the swirling movement of the crowd and the noise and lights that all go along with social gatherings (or trips to the mall) to become overwhelming, causing me to become agitated, irritable, or withdrawn.

An article about introversion that I just read caught my attention because many of the characteristics as described in this particular case are dead-on for my own experience, right down to the need to avoid caffeine before important events and a dread of talking on the phone. The article’s author, Alena Hall, summed it up nicely:

Little cites the theory of extraversion by Hans Eysenck and research by William Revelle of Northwestern University, explaining that introverts and extraverts naturally differ when it comes to their alertness and responsiveness to a given environment. A substance or scene that overstimulates the central nervous system of an introvert (which doesn’t take much) might cause him or her to feel overwhelmed and exhausted, rather than excited and engaged.

Interesting, huh? (If you didn’t already click the link above, click here to read the article.)

My Father’s Hands

| Hope

Sofia’s hair has recently become long enough for tiny pigtails and dainty barrettes. It’s wildly curly and needs to be thoroughly wetted in the morning so that it transforms from a crazy collection of fluffy cowlicks to an adorable set of tightly curled ringlets all over her head. I love combing it and watching the curls bounce into place.

Sofia’s very first pigtails.
Sofia’s very first pigtails.
First pigtails!

A couple of days ago, I came across a little tangle in her hair. Tugging to get it out, I lost control of the comb, and it slid down across her ear. She flinched away, of course, and I chuckled. I couldn’t help laughing — I’d suddenly remembered my own experiences with ear-combing.

When I was four, my parents, residents of a Christian commune in Northwestern Ontario, decided to join another family who’d recently moved to a trapline in Northern British Columbia. It was a remote, beautiful place next to the Stikine River. Our family lived in a tiny cabin right next to the river, and we used the larger cabin up the hill as communal headquarters as well as living space for the other family.

Back on the commune, making breakfast was a chore shared by all the women in turn. Around the time we left, the population of the commune was about 200, so there would have been somewhere between 20 and 50 adult women to shoulder that task. On their mornings to cook, they would get up early, tiptoe out of their individual family homes (or dormitory, if they were single back then), and go to the main building to prepare the meal, which was served at seven. With so many women sharing the job, each woman only had to make breakfast once every couple of weeks. But on the trapline, there were only two women, so my mother would leave the house early about every other day, leaving my dad to get my brother and me ready for the day.

My dad is a gentle, creative man with craftsman’s hands. Those hands can achieve just about anything. Chopping down trees, smoothing the bark off the logs, building them into a shop. Creating his own lathe inside that shop, spinning wood on the lathe into delicate shapes: handles, round picture frames, jewelry boxes, a family of dolls for me. Those hands could sketch wildflowers, create an embroidery pattern, and make delicate stitches on fabric. They can execute a skilled pen-and-ink drawing, form a silly comic, make a detailed charcoal scene. His hands can coax music out of any instrument he picks up — a guitar, a recorder, a banjo. He made his own fiddle, mandolin, dulcimer. Truly, my father’s hands can do anything. Anything except comb a four-year-old’s hair without combing over her ears.

It would start off well. He’d ask my mom for pointers. She’d show him how to hold the hair in one hand, combing tangles out of the ends first, working upward. He’d try so hard to be gentle, starting on one side, successfully avoiding the first ear, working around to the other. We’d be almost done. I’d finally relax, positive that this time my ear would be safe. And then, RIP! The comb’s teeth would scrape over my sensitive ear, I’d wail, and he’d slump in defeat.

The rare times that my dad would manage to get all the way through my hair without combing my ear, he’d succumb to an even worse pitfall. Just above my ear on the right side of my head, hidden under my hair, is a wen. It’s a bump that used to be small, before it was built up with all the scar tissue from having its top ripped off with a comb, over and over. My dad would be so focused on avoiding my ears that he’d forget about the wen. The comb’s teeth would catch the top and rip off the fragile skin. Blood would seep out, matting my hair. We’d arrive at breakfast with one side of my hair still bedtime-fuzzy, stuck together with blood, and my mother would sigh and shake her head. And then for days I’d flinch anytime a comb came close to me, because while combing my ear was painful, combing the top off the wen was agonizing.

It’s funny, though. Having my hair combed by my dad hurt back then, but now, that sudden memory is heartwarming. I’m so glad that I have the memory of my father’s strong hands cradling my head, working a comb through my hair, making my hair shine despite the awkwardness that came from the unaccustomed task. And now it’s my turn to do the same for my daughter, feeling her baby hair spiral around my fingers, finding tricks to get her head in the right position, gently easing tangles out, and remembering how hard my father tried to be just as gentle with me as I try to be with my own little girl.

The Only Good Slug Is a Dead Slug

| Hope

Over the last few weeks I’ve been on a relentless crusade to eradicate slugs from our yard.

I should point out that typically I don’t enjoy killing anything. I’m filled with guilt when I swish a spider down a drain. I mourn when I find a mouse in a trap. I hesitate before flattening a fly. When I find stink bugs or moths inside, I take them outside and release them. Once upon a time, this reluctance to kill applied to slugs as well. They’re almost cute, with their dainty little horns. Their slow glide along the ground is nearly graceful as they prowl in search of food. And occasionally I’ll discover one with lovely bright colors — so close to being pretty. When we first moved to Oregon, living in a rental house with a small yard and no garden, I called Niko over to watch in amazement as a large orange-spotted slug devoured a blade of grass. I thought of them as harmless.

Sliming along a raised garden bed.
Sliming along a raised garden bed.

But now? Now I am filled with a deep passion of hatred for these destructive nibblers. Last year I saw slug-holes in my nasturtiums and basil, oregano and baby cucumbers, and I was sad. But this year, witnessing the chunks eaten out of the tops of hyacinth buds, new dwarf irises, and baby daffodils, I am enraged. Those slimy thieves are going down.

Slug-eaten iris. Last straw!
Slug-eaten iris. Last straw!

So, a couple of weeks ago, as you can read here, I set out both cornmeal and a honey-yeast mixture in jars throughout the garden, and waited.

The cornmeal was immediately effective. The slugs loved it. They didn’t seem to be immediately incapacitated by it, but they were distracted from the plants and easy to catch. The side of the jar acted as an umbrella, keeping the cornmeal dry — until we got a driving rain that splashed in. After that, it was less effective. My gardening New England aunt told me the cornmeal needs to be dry in order to catch the slugs, and the evidence in my garden certainly supports that. It seems that both water and slime from previous slugs renders the cornmeal an ineffective trap. I picked up some more cornmeal in the bulk section of the grocery store, both a coarse polenta/grits grind and a finer grind (I plan to mix them), so I’ll be making new traps soon.

Cornmeal in jars, ready to go.
Here comes an unwitting slug…
Die, slug. Die!

Why does the cornmeal work? My knowledgeable aunt explained that, in order to move over the rough, dry cornmeal, the slugs have to produce more and more slime, so much so that they become dehydrated. Result: dead slugs.

At first, the yeast mixture was less successful. I followed the instructions in the article I’d read, boiling honey and yeast together, despite my worry that killing the yeast by boiling it would make it unattractive to the slugs. I was right. They weren’t interested in the least in the one jar I put out that first day. So, I sprinkled fresh yeast on top of the mixture that still filled the pitcher, and waited a day or so till it began to foam gently and smell pleasantly yeasty (it wouldn’t have taken so long if I’d had more yeast). I refilled the jar I’d set out and then placed more jars throughout the gardens. By the time I’d finished the last jar, the first jar already had its first prey. Victory. Next time I do this, I’ll add the yeast after the hot honey water has cooled, and add more than the small pinch I sprinkled in after the initial failed experiment — I was out of yeast when I refreshed the pitcher, but I now have a new jar.

The yeast and honey mixture works like a charm.
The yeast and honey mixture works like a charm.

Meanwhile, since my aunt told me to NEVER squish slugs in the garden for fear of releasing eggs into the soil, I’ve been carrying around a disgusting jar of salt water into which I drop any slug I encounter while weeding or planting or just strolling. It’s gross, but I don’t care. This is war.

Death to slugs. The only good slug is a dead slug!

Valentine Breakfast: Bakewell Buns

| Hope

I came across these delicious muffins in a blog post from Cooking With Craic a couple of months ago. The author, a Canadian living in Ireland, had fallen in love with the popular Irish pastries, and had developed a delicious recipe. She says,

The bakewell. You can find these at most bakeries around the country. They consist of shortcrust pastry bottoms, jammy middles and Madeira sponge tops.

I’ve been waiting for a good opportunity to make these, and yesterday I finally found the perfect timing. I had planned an easy dinner: throw a slab of meat on the grill for an hour, toss some yams into the oven, make a salad, warm some sourdough bread. Done. And Valentine’s Day seemed as good a time as any to make a sweet treat. So while the meat was cooking, I rolled out some of the Pioneer Woman’s Perfect Pie Crust that I’d had conveniently waiting in the freezer, whipped up a Madeira sponge batter (I’d never heard of it before this recipe, but I’m very happy to have experienced it), and popped the buns in the oven just as the meat was coming out. We sampled some after dinner and saved the rest for today’s breakfast. I’m thinking they’d be best for brunch or for a mid-afternoon snack, not so much as dessert. So yummy! Here are some pictures:

Circles to line the cupcake tins
Piecrust bottoms
Raspberry-cherry jam filling, made last year from our own fruit
Topped with Madeira sponge batter
Irish Bakewell Buns!
Absolutely delicious.

You can read the recipe here.

“White Couch Feeding”

| Hope

Every now and then something comes along that’s too good not to share. Today my aunt, the mother of six children who are nearly all grown now, shared this delightful collection of ridiculously serene stock family photos that have been realistically captioned by moms. My aunt had a good laugh at it and then shared it with me, remembering that I’m in the middle of parenting my own rambunctious kidlets (though I doubt I’ll ever be able to match her collection of six of them).

My favorite captions:

You were right! Ever since we started White Couch Feeding with Emmett, he’s been eating like a champ.

And this one: IMG_2317.PNG

Click here to see the whole collection.

Sweet Funny Valentine

| Hope

At four years old, Niko’s understanding of “Valentimes” Day is pretty sketchy. “Why is there an arrow in that heart?” he demands. I tell him that there’s a story about someone named Cupid who had a special arrow that he would shoot into people, making them love each other. “But that’s not nice. He shouldn’t shoot people. That hurts.” I explain that it’s a SPECIAL arrow that doesn’t hurt. He’s not convinced. “He shouldn’t hurt people,” he insists.

He feels a certain sense of power, I can tell, selecting Valentine cards for first his classmates, his teachers, then a few family members. He takes the responsibility very seriously, pondering each choice as if it will change lives around the world and through all of history. I have to practice my slow breathing in order to keep myself from ripping the cards from his hands and snarling, “Just let me do it!” I know my impulse is wrong. Bad mom. But I do let him make his choices despite my impatience, so there’s that.

I never experienced this holiday as a child, though I do remember looking forward to February because of the bags of cinnamon hearts you could buy. I grew up in a Christian commune, part of a group known as the Move which held as a minor part of its flexible, ever-shifting doctrine the concept that holiday celebrations were worldly and sometimes pagan and ought to be avoided if one wished to truly dedicate oneself to God. Valentine’s wasn’t actively frowned upon like Christmas and (Lord preserve us) Halloween, but neither was it encouraged or promoted in any way when I was a child. So I never decorated Valentine shoeboxes or prepared cards for an entire class or fretted over whether I, too, would receive candy and cards from friends. I don’t feel I missed anything, particularly — but it’s one more point of connection with my son that’s missing. It’s not an essential one, but sometimes I wonder how many of these disconnected experiences can build up before we have so little in common that we can’t communicate. A silly worry, maybe, but it’s there.

This anxious thought buzzes around in my head, along with Are these cards too big for the shoeboxes? Will other families send candy, or will we be the Bad Parents handing out sugar? Will Niko be able to stay calm during a classroom celebration?  and Did I remember to turn off the oven? as Niko painstakingly scrawls his name in each card. I can never think about just one thing, never truly focus on the task at hand — always my mind is busy with many ideas, questions, worries, plans, all bouncing in different directions until I simply can’t continue. Partly ADHD, partly motherhood, I guess. Luckily, I’m working with a four-year-old, and our attention spans run out at about the same time. We put the stack of cards carefully aside while he colors in another card and I help his baby sister hold a crayon on a piece of scrap paper. He peppers me with questions. “Why do we love each other on Valentimes? Is today Valentimes? Will it always be Valentimes? Can I make a card for you? I want a card that says Niko.”

Writing Valentine cards
Writing Valentine cards

I try to explain that yes, ValentiNNe’s Day (stress on the NNNNNN as a tactful pronunciation correction…) is a special day for loving each other, but really we always love each other, and that he will have lots and lots of cards that say Niko once all his classmates bring their cards to school. He isn’t entirely convinced, but he’s enjoying writing the cards, so he accepts this for now.

After school Wednesday, the day of his class’s Valentine celebration, his face shines with the aura of a child who’s had an excellent time. On his head is a red heart-festooned headband, with heart-tipped antennae bobbing on the front.He didn’t make it; he wasn’t feeling especially participatory, but he wanted to wear one, and a kind friend made one for him. He touches it carefully, with pride, telling me about his antennae that he can smell with, pointing out the heart cutouts, adjusting it on his head. Then he shows me his little mailbox, crammed full of tiny cards. His face reflects his amazement. “Look at all my cards!” His amazement grows when we open them at home, and he discovers that some of them have special treats: a deconstructable little hamburger, a Spiderman and a heart eraser, sticky gel clings, a lollipop.

My love bug
My love bug

Clearly, this holiday is going to be a favorite. Love, arrows, antennae, candy…how much better can a day get? I don’t miss celebrating it when I was little, but at the same time, I’m glad I get the chance to see the pleasure on my son’s face as he looks over his little cards and gifts, evidence that another child was thinking about him, too.

Happy almost-Valentine’s Day!

Trellis for Squash Vines

| Hope

As I scrolled through my Facebook feed this morning, I came across a how-to article that a friend had posted on her timeline. It was a trellis for squash vines, so the vines climb up instead of spreading out over the ground:

Squash Trellis http://www.organicgardening.com/SquashTrellis
Squash Trellis http://www.organicgardening.com/SquashTrellis

Last year, I had demonstrated my inexperience by planting half a dozen cucumbers in a small space — one end of a triangle-shaped bed about six feet long with a four-foot base — and I seriously regretted it. The vines tangled, grew on top of each other, and spread out of their bed, running into the garden path and threatening other beds in the wheel-shaped garden. I’ve been trying to think of a better way to do it, but the trellises I’ve thought of have been large, permanent structures. This one looks perfect. Sturdy but lightweight, movable from year to year. It will allow the vines to take up less garden space while the fruit stays dirt-free. Check it out:

Save space in the garden without sacrificing a single squash by making a simple, inexpensive, and easy-to-build trellis. Ours easily handles six to eight delicata squash plants and takes up only 16 square feet of garden space.

Click here to read the article.