pumpkins, corn, and what on earth is flatus?

  

Yesterday, I woke up with a million things to do, but told myself one way or another I would take my kids to the pumpkin patch. Rain or shine (which, at my house, really means dishes done or not), we would go. So, we went. And I'm so glad. They had so much fun. Gavin and London are here staying again while their mama works hard driving truck in beet harvest. By "working hard," I mean "enjoying four different audiobooks a day in the peace and uninterrupted quiet of a farm truck instead of wrangling children." I'm on to you, Jen. If I wasn't nursing this baby, I'd be driving truck, too. We know who really works hard in harvest--grandmas! In any case, my kids are thrilled to have them around. I'm glad, especially that London and Jonah have gotten to be such good friends, and that he is no longer "that baby. Don't hug him."

I had never been to Swore Farms before, and it's charming. They have a great little corn maze you can hit before the wagon ride out to the patch. This maze is just long enough that the kids start complaining, "When are we ever going to get out of here?" but only just near the end. Perfect. My little bear seemed fascinated to look up through the leaves into the sunshine. Also, random farm facts and questions are posted through the maze, from which we learned that cows produce 200 pounds of "flatus" a day. I dare you to look up the definition of flatus*, and then let me know if you laughed at this fact as hard as my kids did.

I would post a funny photo of my mom trying to drag in the absolute largest pumpkin from the patch, but she would probably refuse to ever babysit my kids again as retribution. Almost worth it, but not quite. It took three of us to get it into the pumpkin wagon, and then the pumpkin weighing girl at the front gate just plopped it on her scale like it was nothing. "I handle pumpkins twice this big every day," she said. We felt silly. I swear it was a humongous pumpkin.

*flatus: cow farts and burps

apples, sweater weather, and too much canning

  

October is my favorite month of the year. Isn't it everyone's? I always love that first day you can wear a sweater. (I will remind myself of this in January, when I am ready to set fire to all sweaters.) 

I'm a sucker for giant boxes of fruit in October. Right now, I have a giant box of apples that I need to make into applesauce. Last month, I canned about 8,000 jars of peaches (OK, it was only 56, but it felt like 8,000), so I'm sort of over canning, but I couldn't resist the honeycrisps at the farmer's market last week. I will swear that this is my LAST canning project for the year, but next week there will be some other lovely fruit that needs to become jam. I don't even eat jam. It's like hoarding, but with produce. Every October, I need an intervention. I don't have time for canning.

Anyway...

The apples aren't applesauce yet, but I was itching to make some apple something, so I tried this recipe for criss-cross apple crowns. I'm usually not a fan or recipes involving premade anything (and, truthfully, these would probably be much better with homemade biscuit dough, and not much harder to make). But they were easy, and cute, and made my contractor say, "This is too pretty to eat." (I make my builders treats every day. I wonder if this is why they are taking SOOO long to finish. Maybe I need to stop feeding them.) It makes me laugh when these tough, builder types say "cute," or "pretty." Those are ladies' words, aren't they?

Lina Bina is growing like a weed. We're still fighting off thrush. We've exhausted all of the medical options that I know of (nystatin, something else that starts with an "f"), and so now I'm resorting to quackery and witch potions. I will try almost anything, at this point, though I'm still not brave enough to try the purple stuff. She does seem to be a little happier. Maybe she's feeling better, even if her tongue is still cheesy. I can't believe how much she changes every day, how much she desperately seems to want to say something. My kids have all been that way. Fast talkers. Excited about the world. So many things to discuss, you know. Today, I started packing away the newborn size clothes. It made me sad. I will have to just have another one...

two sofias

It has been a long time since my whole family was together. Logan and Katrina moved to Boston a year or so ago (which is the perfect excuse for that trip to Boston that I still haven't been on!) so that he could attend the Berklee School of Music. I still love bragging about that, about having a brother attending the prestigious Berklee (and I have to say "prestigious Berklee," of course). There may be a little bit of a pianist in me that's vicariously living her dreams through him. Or just jealous. Take your pick. Anyway, I was very excited to see him and Katrina, especially with that adorable baby bump. Seriously, have you ever seen a cuter baby bump? To say that I am excited about getting another niece is probably the world's greatest understatement.

Anyway, since it is so rare for the family all to be together anymore, we took a trip to Jackson, Wyoming, which is a favorite family destination. We always go to the Bar J Wranglers cowboy show and then take a hiking trip near Jenny Lake the next day. Sadly, I spent a lot of this trip NOT socializing with my siblings, which made me sad. Lina was horribly cranky (thrush, I think), and doesn't like to nurse covered. I know it makes several of the family men squeamish to see her nurse uncovered. And, so, I spent a lot of time tucked away in a room at the cabin (not ours, but glorious, nonetheless), trying to keep her happy and/or catching up on sleep. Oh, well.

The hike went off without a hitch, though. I have been looking forward to this hike for weeks. Lately, my soul has needed to see a forest, and my booty has needed a good walk uphill, so this was a perfect day for me. We bought a boba carrier to add into the rotation with the boba wrap, mostly just so we would have a place to put Sofia during the hike. Turns out the boba carrier is not super compatible with Ryan's long torso, but we made do. Next time, we will switch. He can wrap Emmeline and I will backpack Sofie. In any case, it was a good day. I love Jenny Lake. The hike isn't hard, but it's gorgeous. Even on a crowded labor day weekend, the trail had plenty of space and the other hikers were friendly. And the lake... Oh, I wish I had taken a decent photo of the lake. We somehow ended up on the mountain with nothing but an iPhone camera. Probably a good thing, as we had plenty of other things (kids) to haul, but a photographic loss all the same! I bought an annual pass to the national parks, with the optimistic thought that maybe we can come back again soon.

We partied for Sofia's second birthday party. Lately, I've been trying to teach Sofie the right answers to all the common questions. "What's your name?" "Sofia." "How are you?" "Fine, thank you." "How old are you?"

Well, the typical response to this question is, "I'm two Sofias!" Funny girl. How are you two already? I'm in love with her. She is my little sunshine.

first day of school

 

First day of school, 2013, where there were several tears shed (by both children and a certain troublemaking German Shepherd puppy) over who did and did not get to ride the school bus. Matt is a fourth grader this year and is mostly excited about getting lockers (the intermediate school used to be the old high school). I hope he has a good year.

emmeline grace

 

 Welcome, my beautiful girl. Emmeline Grace arrived early this morning, via C-Section (still the awesomest way to have a baby, in my opinion--I did great with this one). She is seven pounds even, and I'm not sure how tall. I think at least a half a pound is just hair. She is cuddly and likes to be wrapped as tightly as you can manage. I am in love. Also, I am really happy I'm not pregnant anymore.

that lame first post

Well, hey there.

(There is no way for a first post on a new blog to be anything but lame. I know this because I’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes, and I’ve written fifteen different paragraphs and then erased them, and I’ve given up on this post being anything but lame. But here goes...)

We just planted our family in a beautiful farmhouse on a completely untamed patch of land that is part of a big farm near the Snake River. Our front yard is a gravel driveway and a decrepit orchard that was destroyed by goats several years ago. Our backyard is a brambly mess of trees, both living and dead, that includes a little old brick house that is nasty and needs torn down. Our property includes a cute little red barn, a half-finished chicken coop, and a whole lot of mud. (SOOO much mud...) Our house is so new that I can’t even bring myself to hammer a nail to hang a painting. (And, since I have kids and pets, it is also full of mud.) We are completely in love with the whole place. Everything in life feels like a blank canvas right now.

There is a lot of taming that needs done around here, and I am, frankly, a little overwhelmed with everything that needs to be done. But there are great possibilities.

Since everything else is new in life, it just makes sense to also start fresh with a blank canvas here. I could go back to an old, well-established blog, but it feels like going back to the old town. There’s nothing wrong with it. There's some great history and a lot of great memories there. But I don’t live there anymore.

So, welcome to Wild Dirt (a fairly literal title, but also somewhat representative of the chaos that comes with living with my particular mix of children and animals). For the moment, I am looking at this as an experiment in whether I want to keep up with a blog or not, so I hope you will visit the way my friends in real life visit—with a full awareness that life is a little wild and unpredictable and that I can’t be trusted to stick with anything. But I will do my best to chronicle the ups and downs of life on an Idaho farm, particularly as we have NO idea what we are doing, which I figure is always fodder for some good entertainment.

My next post will, hopefully, be less lame.