Tuesday, September 27, 2011

weekend, again

This time of year, I feel so nostalgic for everything. I miss the bleached gold fields of wheat stubble as they are plowed under, and the radiant blue bowl of sky we've had every day for weeks, even as I wake to it for (at least) one more day. Every cell in my body knows these seasonal rhythms. These long days of early fall are savored because they are fleeting.

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Saturday was Dillon's final Farmers Market of the season, and I miss it already. It sounds crazy, but these early Saturday mornings, two folding tables, thrift-store-baskets full of vegetables I'd grown...and these simple things allow me to feel like I'm living out a fantasy I've had for years. It has been such a good thing for me. Maybe it's not so crazy at all.

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On Sunday, while Mike stalked the elusive Elk, the girls and I set out on an adventure. Elk Horn Hot Springs is only 50 miles from our front door, but we had never taken the time to visit. So we threw our suits, towels, and some snacks in the car and we were off (actually, it is never really that simple, but that is the lovely thing about memmory...)

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The Grasshopper Valley is breathtakingly stunning. The mountains are unbelievably close and craggy and comforting all at the same time. The community is quirky and small...walking through Ma Barnes Country Store felt a little like stepping into an eposide of Northern Exposure. I love it. For a second I was ready to relocate...

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The hot springs was wonderful, with golden aspen leaves rattling overhead and a mellow Sunday feeling over the whole place. The sky clouded up, then cleared. The girls took turns jumping from the slick blue-painted steps. I had good conversations with complete strangers and Amelia quickly implanted herself into a group of kids.

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Just beyond the hot springs we found a great stream and hung out for a while, dipping toes, befriending caterpillars, soaking in the day.

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This caterpillar is now living in a clear plastic spinach tub (with holes poked in the top, of course). He has met Amelia's entire preschool class, and explored my mudroom for a bit before being found and returned to his moss-lined spinach tub. His name is Arthur.

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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"The day is like wide water, without sound
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet..."

Wallace Steves, Sunday Morning

Sunday, September 25, 2011

why, hello there fall

We've had some great weekends lately; mini-road trips, an equinox potluck with friends, farmers market, hotsprings, soaking up the incredibly blue September sky, and feeling our manic summer rhythm slow down just a little.

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Last weekend we ventured to the Bitterroot to see friends (and new babies!) then up to my mom's cabin for our last night at the lake until next spring.

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We walked by this 'cabin' and I loved the quilt hanging over the railing - so very 'fall-in-the-mountains.'

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I loved this picture of Amelia looking at these yellow leaves, because it expresses the way I've always felt toward the beginning of fall - a little tentative, not quite willing to let go of my (slight) mourning for summer, but still a bit impressed. Why, hello there fall...

Then back home again, and it seems everything around me is reaching, stretching, growing for that last bit of warmth;

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On our way into town the other morning, Garrison Keillor read a poem by Louise Erdrich on the radio that really resonated for me. I keep coming back to one particular line:

The Glass and the Bowl

The father pours the milk from his glass
into the cup of the child,
and as the child drinks
the whiteness, opening
her throat to the good taste
eagerly, the father is filled.
He closes the refrigerator
on its light, he walks out
under the bowl of frozen darkness
and nothing seems withheld from him.
Overhead, the burst ropes of stars,
the buckets of craters,
the chaos of heaven, absence
of refuge in the design.
Yet down here, his daughter
in her quilts, under patterns
of diamonds and novas,
full of rich milk,
sleeping.


I love the line; "nothing seems withheld from him."

I'm living through days that feel that way.
I am keeping my eyes open, drinking in these last gold days.

Nothing seems withheld.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

deep breath

After a day of feeling like I am, quite possibly, not cut out for this mama-gig...

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I put the girls to bed upstairs, and take a minute alone.
To think about the things I noticed today
that I am so grateful for.

* the sound of a dried leaf blowing along the sidewalk as I walked downtown
* Aven patting my shoulder and telling me I love you, too because she is so used to being told first
*Amelia going to bed with big plans to make coffee for me in the morning (we set up the coffee maker, she just has to turn it on when she comes down in the morning)
*The bowl on my kitchen table overflowing with red tomatoes, and having our first salad of fall greens with dinner tonight
*finding time to do something just for myself - even if it is just sitting on the porch watching the sky get dark

*That tomorrow I will get to try again.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

tiny dancer

We're back to semi-scheduled days.
Mornings of breakfastbrushhairteethgetdressedbackpacksnacksshoeshurryoutthedoor

(yes really)

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Oh, and time for reading on the couch a little before locating shoes...

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Aven had her first dance class today.
I think sometimes her big sister overshadows her, and I was thinking she may be a little hesitant trying something new all by herself.

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Um, no. She tapped her little heart out.
And how did it happen
that there appears to be very little trace of 'baby' left in that girl?

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

morning notes

I woke up early this morning to a quiet house. The air felt still and heavy.
Wind had come up overnight and brought smoke in from Idaho. Across the valley, I could barely make out the Ruby Mountains.

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sunrise through the windbreak

Mike had gone to the mountains and the girls slept quietly upstairs. I took a minute to straighten up the kitchen and found this self portrait on the table;

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and this note on the counter from Mike;

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fyi guys; a tissue box makes a very romantic notecard when your significant other has a headcold.
Well played, Mike.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Sunday, September 11, 2011

This morning I woke
to my daughter crawling into bed
with me, to new sunlight
warming the walls.

I woke slowly, made coffee, set
a bowl of bread dough
in the window to rise.

As the day warmed I hung
clean laundry on the line
to absorb the day, the air

finally clear of smoke after a week
of wildfire. I watched my children

build castles in the sandbox, study
the moving shadows of leaves
across their arms and legs.

This day.
I move slowly
through it.

Ten years ago the world
was falling apart.

I hadn't known for hours afterward;
without a television, the radio
left off that morning. I'd gone
for a run in Greenough Park,
ignored a phone call from my mom
asking if I was okay.

I walked to class in a strange quiet.
I still didn't know.

On campus, people were huddled
around TVs, watching the same
loop of footage. The buildings fell
and fell. I stood and watched, too.
What else could I have done?

In class, my poetry professor
wept. We tried to share
what we knew,
which was little.

It was a golden day; late
summer honeylight
like it is today.

Today I am sitting on my porch ,
watching my children,
trying to decide which parts
of this to carry
with me.

What I will do is this;
I will pack seven quarts of tomatoes
into jars for the winter, I will freeze
these peppers and squash.

I will teach my children peace
and kindness. I will take the time
to reflect, to heal. I will bake
the dough rising in the window.

I will remember.
I will write this poem.

Friday, September 9, 2011

settle

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I was not raised by settlers. Both of my parents have lived a lot of different places; even just in the last few years. So have my brother and sister. From tropical islands, to the desert, to mountain-ringed college towns; my people are spread out. And they tend to keep moving. Luckily for me, they have always chosen places I love to visit.

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I've never lived anywhere for more than 6 years at a time, and while that doesn't seem particularly nomatic, I still think of myself as someone who can pack up, pick up, and put down - planting a new life in a new town with a new perspective. My circuit has been small - minus a three month stint in the Caribean - each town I've lived in is within a few hundred miles of the next one.

From my driveway in Beaverhead County, I look up at the west side of the Tobacco Root Mountains, but as a kid growing up in Bozeman I knew the outline of their eastern side.

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While these moves have made me more adaptable and self-reliant, creating a new 'home' can be difficult. It is important to me to feel like I'm part of a community. Even traveling in foreign countries, I have an urge to belong, to really know a place, to know its people, its rhythms.

It is a basic thing, I think, to want to feel connected to the people around us. To feel invested in the place we live.

The other day my dad sent me and email with this piece of a poem;

"The true meaning of life is to plant trees under
whose shade you do not expect to sit-"
Nelson Henderson

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So this all leads me to the original point of this post, which is to say that I'm beginning to feel very a home in my newest setting. I'm beginnning to feel like I have a tribe of friends to call for support, favors, sharing ideas or bits of our days. I feel like I'm finally doing something I've wanted to do for a long time, by growing and selling at the farmers market. I'm excited about things to come; both in new friendships, and new adventures in farming.

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I'm looking forward to the changing schedule of our days, too, as Amelia goes back to preschool three mornings a week, and both girls begin dance classes. They are changing so quickly. The other evening we went to the playground and instead of Aven's usual requests to catch me, mama, or help me, mama, little sister wants to do it all by herself. And she did. Even the fast slide.

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And we have baby swallows in the barn. It is sort of irrelevant to anything I've said, but it makes me really happy.

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Happy weekending out there!

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

fall planting

I'm trying some new things in the garden this fall. With the added protection of the hoop house, I'm planting things that like it cool with the hope of harvesting through the fall (and maybe even winter). I've been reading this book and am excited to see if I can actually make it happen here in southwest Montana.

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The other day, Mike and I pulled out the spent corn plants and the rest of the peas. In their place, I planted carrots, spinach, lettuce, kale, and beets. I've never done so much planting in September, and I love the thought of walking into the hoop in February to dig a few carrots for dinner.

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A newly seeded bed

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Meanwhile the tomatoes are rolling in. So far the productivity award goes to the 'Silvery Fir Tree' plants for early red lovelies and loaded vines. If you have a short season, and you've never tried them - I recommend.

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The second cutting of hay is down in our pasture. With a forcast of hot dry days ahead of us, the whole valley seems to be filling with the smell of freshly cut hay. Summer doesn't feel quite over yet...

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Sunday, September 4, 2011

turning

I've been feeling this urge lately to celebrate the 'turning.' As summer begins to slip into fall, I seem to focus more and more on the details. The daily celebrations of this very minute. From eating raw tomatoes standing barefoot in the garden, to pointing and catching my breath as Canadian geese fly low over our house in perfect formation.

This time of year we are balanced so precariously on the edge of a new season, and that means colors intensify, life slows down a bit (even when we're still racing from the garden, to the river, to the girls' first day of dance class). There is time to reflect.

And lately, reflection has looked a lot like celebration.

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The Beaverhead County Fair is a big deal. Labor Day weekend in Dillon is a big deal. I absolutely love the fair. I love the glossy animals, the talk of harvest, the pies, the quilts, the little boys in giant straw cowboy hats. There is something so fundamental about it all. There is pride in the making, raising, growing of something useful.

And then there is the cotton candy.

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We did it up right, bought bracelets for unlimited rides, and stayed until it got dark and all the lights came on.
Until next year...

The weekend was full. I sold veggies at our local farmers market, the girls and I floated the Madison with an old friend and her kids, we lined up on the median of Helena Street in Dillon with friends to watch the Labor Day Parade and catch candy in our hats. Clear cold skies alternately brought our first frost, and radiated an intense fall-blue.

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Our wheat has been combined and is on its way to becoming many many many loaves of bread. Mike is thinking winter wheat, which means this field may not be just stubble for long.

I took the girls on possibly the most ill-planned of hikes in my experience as a mama.

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When we got to the trailhead, I realized Amelia had no shoes, only water-sock type things that are at least one size too small. Aven had poured apple juice all over her pants. As in saturated. So her pants remained spread out on the hood of my car (trying to dry) while we began our 'hike.' Of course Aven immediately fell and scraped her knee. Then did it again. And again.

What I love, though, is that later that evening, when I looked at the pictures I took, it looked like we'd had a pretty good time.

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We stopped to explore a hand-hewn log cabin.

And, really, that is why I keep coming back to this space, this blog. Because when I look back on my day it is full of the most incredible string of moments. I don't see the mountains of laundry, or the diaper changes, or the times I fall short and lose my patience. I see us having a pretty damn good time.

And we do. Really. Every day.

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Here's to embracing the turning; as we move through it, and as we look back on it.
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