Still here

Hello, world. It's me. I know it's been six months since I last checked in -- a record, yes -- but I'm still here.

I'm still on the farm, but tonight my children are not. They're at their dad's place, his small apartment in the village, their new second home.

Instead of reading them stories and tucking them into bed tonight with never enough 'I love yous,' I snatch a hug, glance a peck on each cheek, and watch them rush out the door towards the headlights of his waiting car, moths drawn to a flame.

Instead of strolling down the driveway tomorrow morning and waiting for the bus amidst knock-knock jokes and who-gets-on-the-bus-firsts, he'll send them off from his streetscape doorway with hugs and kisses and reminders about street safety before they walk to school with their friends.

Instead of bracing for after-school bursts through the front door, a flurry of backpacks and artwork and dogs barking and calls of, "Mum, what's to eat?" peppered with stories of schoolyard drama and how many goals, the dogs will still be sleeping in front of the fire at 4:05 pm as their young charges walk to the park or the library or home. His home.

It's exciting, this new second home, and I want to be excited, even happy, for them. For him. And yet, right now, I'm just sad and scared and empty.

But I'm still here.

Between two worlds

I've come to dread mornings. It's not that I mind getting out of bed per se, though on days when the wood stove has almost gone out and I'm snuggled under a pile of wool blankets it can be hard, but it's getting the kids up, fed and out the door for school that makes me want to lose my mind. Especially since I know I get to do it all again the next day. And the next.

I know the value of routine and giving kids lots of time in the morning (especially if they're dawdlers like mine) but no matter how early we get up, or how many lists I write, and how much warning and prodding and eventually hollering I do, there is almost always a last minute scramble followed by running down the driveway for the bus. The routine seems to deteriorate as the week progresses: on most Monday mornings the kids are ready to go a full 20 minutes before the bus arrives, and they're rewarded with time to read, draw, listen to music -- whatever. But by Wednesday, my carefully crafted routine has fallen apart and once again I'm yelling and they're scrambling and usually one, if not all, of us ends up in tears.

Sometimes I wonder if my expectations are too high because as soon as I ask them to do more than the basics -- eat their breakfast, brush their hair and teeth, and wash their face (they pack lunches the night before) -- there is a cacophony of whining, talkback, attitudes, and sometimes even temper tantrums. I admit to not always being consistent with them -- sometimes I make hot breakfast as a treat, other times it's up to them (usually when I'm making something else, like today it was homemade granola for tomorrow's breakfast) and while we need to bring in wood every day, I don't always make them do a load, and as Ella forgot to wash eggs last night I asked her to wash all eight of them this morning (which she proceeded to do in a sink full of her yet-to-be-washed breakfast dishes… ugh) and that evidently takes a ridiculous amount of time and before I know it Jack is still in the woodshed, Ella has yet to have her hair braided and the bus is at the end of the driveway. (We're lucky in that the bus passes our farm twice, but the kids always want to get on the first pass so they have extra time with their friends.) They's only missed the bus a handful of times in 4-1/2 years, but too many times the kids have left their "other" responsibilities (the abovementioned dishes, wood, etc.) and I'm left to clean up the mess.

I know my reaction doesn't help -- the more they drag their feet, the more impatient I become and the more my tone starts to rise. Before I know it I'm cajoling and prodding and hollering again, because I'm just asking them to pull their weight and is that really too much to ask? You always hear that the country is a great place to raise kids because it teaches them responsibility, but in our case it seems to be teaching them how to push mum's buttons until she explodes. (And yes, I'm being somewhat disingenuous here.)

As I've always been home, they're used to mum being there and picking up the slack when they don't get things done (like their laundry or dishes or taking out the recycling), but I have other jobs beside being a mother, like working to pay the mortgage.

And while I believe that mothering is my most important job, I often feel caught between two worlds (and I know I'm not alone), especially now that the kids are getting older (Ella is eight, Jack turns 11 tomorrow). I believe that to become functioning and contributing human beings they need to learn the value of work, responsibility and seeing tasks to completion, but against that, I want them to have as much time to just be kids. They're only young once, and before I know it they'll be off to school and I'll have just myself (and the barn animals) to look after.

Growing up my mum was always home and while that provided security when I was younger, it became stifling as I grew older, especially as she fell deeper into her alcoholism. She had no real life of her own, beyond my father's and mine, and as I grew from a pre-teen into a teen, and tried to find my own way in the world, she stewed in her codependency and inability to take an active interest in her own life, instead sinking hooks into mine. I know this made her deeply unhappy and this, in turn, fueled her drinking and her rages against my dad and me, but as much as I committed then to always be there for my kids, I never wanted to lose myself like she did.

And therein lies a seemingly impossible conundrum: always being there for your kids without losing oneself. I know that parenting is like reaching for an ever moving target and the kids and I are always changing, but too often I seem stuck in the middle between two opposing armies -- one side doing too much and the other not enough, for them and myself.

I want to model that women can be strong and independent and have lives that are theirs alone (while teaching them the value of real food and "simpler living" in our materialist world), but I've also committed in my heart to home-cooked meals and family sit-down dinners, help with homework and baked after-school snacks, bedtime stories and pre-dawn snuggles. Can I do all that and still retain some sense of me? I don't know yet but on mornings like this it feels like neither side wins.

love cards

Over dinner last night Ella told me that all of the kids at school get stuff for Valentine's Day -- chocolates, toys, cards and the like. I hear this a lot -- whether it's at Christmas, Easter, St. Patrick's Day, birthdays, whenever -- friends at school invariably get lots of stuff. (One friend even got a trampoline for Easter. When I was a kid I got a chocolate bunny.)

Every time these conversations come up I feel my hackles (if I had hackles) rising. I mean, stuff is one of the problems with society. Our love affair with stuff is at the root of many environmental and social issues. (Instead of listening to me rant about this, check out "The Story of Stuff".)

But bringing it back to the dining room table, I gently tried to reaffirm to the kids (without sounding like a total grouch) why I'm encouraging we stop coveting stuff: because we're watching our spending, because stuff invariably ends up at the thrift store or landfill, and days like Valentine's Day, or Mother's Day, or any Day that has its own Hallmark card, have largely evolved into a marketing scheme that encourages people to spend money on stuff to show others how much they love them. And instead of taking one day of the year to show our appreciation fr each other, why can't every day be Valentine's Day or Father's Day? (This isn't a veiled excuse to eat more chocolate, even if I had a big sweet tooth, which I don't.)
 
The kids have been getting this speech for years and they seem to get it (Jack even said to me several times this past December that although it was a small Christmas, it was an awesome Christmas) and I tell them how much I honestly understand that it's hard to be "different" from other families. So far, at ages 8 and almost 11, there hasn't been much of a backlash (though I'm bracing for it).

But we find other ways to mark these special days, often with homemade treats and some sort of crafting. Jack no longer makes Valentine's Day mailboxes with his class (that's grade five for you) and he said there wasn't an in-class party or anything this year. However, he could have bought a $2 carnation for that special someone. He wanted absolutely no part of that. None. Nada. I think he was a bit mortified by the idea.

But Ella still loves to craft Valentines for her friends. So last night, while Jack practiced his skateboarding in the garage, we made simple paper heart flowers and attached them to colourful postcards.

While I know most kids at school with be exchanging store-bought cards (no judgement there -- just stating a fact), I love our annual card-making ritual. Each year the cards get a bit more fancy, the cutting is a bit more precise and there's more glue on the cards than on the table. She hasn't yet been teased for her homemade creations and I hope when that time comes she can find the strength to follow her heart. Especially on Valentine's Day when love for oneself should trump love for more stuff.

Making felt wee folk

Ella has been feeling under the weather for the last few days. On Saturday she was lethargic and grumpy, yesterday she was feverish and sleepy, and this morning her chest rattled when she coughed. She said she felt fine to go to school (she so loves school) but I knew she wasn't fine; besides the cough, my little girl had lost her sparkle.

So she stayed home today and after her brother and dad left for school and work respectively, I got her settled on the couch, gave her a chest massage with some essential oils (marjoram, bergamot, lavender and geranium -- more a relaxing blend than the immuno-stimulant one she gets a bedtime) and set her up with some books, promising that once I'd finished my chores and must-do work, we'd spend some time together.

I gave her the choice of three activities: work on some Brownie badges, do some baking or start a new art project. She chose art.

This was hardly surprising as Ella is rarely without a pencil, crayon or marker in her hand. She is constantly drawing, writing and creating and when asked what she wants to be when she grows up, the answer is the same as it was when she was two-years-old -- an artist. (Though sometimes she adds teacher-gardener-mother-rock star as a secondary career.)

Ella was so upset about missing school that I wanted to do something special with her. I thought we'd try an art project that's been on my mind for months and months now -- making my fairy lover her first felt wee folk from fibre artist Salley Mavor's book.

(If you haven't already discovered her work through her books or her blog , Mavor is a fibre artist who creates the most incredible, beautiful 3-D storyboards populated by whimsical felt wee folk.)

While the making of the wee folk requires the skill, care and patience of big hands (but not too much skill, and the instructions were very good), Ella was quite happy to sit with me and make the important decisions about which pipecleaners we'd use for the body, what colours of embroidery floss we'd use to wrap the legs and arms, and of course answer the big design questions as to which petals we'd use for her skirt, what felt we'd use for the tunic and would she have blond, brunette or rose-coloured hair?


In a busy life of bills, farm chores and must-dos, I still find it hard to make time to do art without it feeling like some kind of indulgence. And yet when I do make time, I realize how much I miss it. We are all artistic beings and nurturing our creativity, in whatever form, makes us whole.

It also helps little (and big) girls find their sparkle again.

Tiny interloper

When I went to let the chickens out of the barn this morning I noticed the lid on their feed bin was flipped upside-down. Not too unusual, but then I saw there was a small heaping of detritus accumulated in the centre of the lid, which I first dismissed as a mix of shavings, feathers and other chicken debris (i.e. poop).

Then it moved.

I brushed away some of the debris, took a closer look and this is what I found.

A small salamander covered in crud... and kitty litter.

How this tiny creature got from the kitty litter, which is in a separate room, to the top of the chickens' feed bin is completely beyond me.

Even more amazing is that she got past the chickens. (Those hens are fierce carnivores, given half the chance.)

I washed her off and at first I though she was a blue spotted salamander.

On closer inspection, I'm wondering if it's a Jefferson salamander,which is currently listed as "Threatened" under both provincial and federal wildlife acts.

Jeffersons have especially long toes and can release an ooze-like substance when threatened.

This one was certainly sticky as I tried to rinse her off and just look at those toes!

But it does seem somewhat out of its usual range. Most Jeffersons are concentrated in southwestern Ontario, around the southern portion of the Niagara Escarpment and the western portion of the Oak Ridges Moraine. (For all your non-Ontarians, that's about three to four hours west of here.)

Regardless of what kind of salamander she is, I'll keep her only until the kids get home from school so they can help me re-home her -- on the edge of the woodland, close to the stream and ponds, amongst the leaf litter. At least that's where I think she'll go, though I'm not up on the the standard 'endangered salamander release protocol'. Google is no help either.

Unfortunately if it is a Jefferson, they're quite particular about their habitat, which is why they're under threat -- largely due to habitat loss and degradation due to urban development. They don't typically travel far from their birthplace, which makes this barn discovery even more odd. Stranger yet, this isn't a fluke discovery -- each spring I find a one or two salamanders in the barn, which is nowhere near the woodland or the wetland. However, the well that feeds our barn is down by the pond, so perhaps they make their way up through the drain.

It's all a big mystery and I hope this wee creature takes to its new home. But then again, anyplace is better than living in the chicken coop!

* * *

After school photo update:

Bye bye, salamander. Good luck and stand away from the chickens!

Luuk hat is done!

I finally finished Ella's Luuk hat. It was one of those project that was supposed to be quick and easy that morphed into a miserable mess of wonky pink loops and mismatched twists. Each time I got to the decrease, I had to rip it back -- and I did this four times. Seriously? It's not even like this was an intarsia or Fair Isle knit project. It's a simple hat, for pity's sake.

This project sat stewing in my knitting basket for almost a month (OK, maybe the hat wasn't stewing, but I certainly was) until on Saturday night when Ella said to me, "Mama, I hope you finish my hat before I go back to school on Monday." (The kids have been off since March 9th for their school break.)

Then Jack said, "Of course she will, Ella."

Two hours later and the hat was done. Notes to self: 1.) don't knit while half asleep and, 2.) read the pattern.

I'm thrilled with the result. I think my girl is too.

She didn't want any embellishments on the top (the pattern calls for a wee bobble), so I finished it very simply. (You can find the Ravelry pattern here.)

It has a lovely snug fit and covers her ears nicely, which will be great when the cold weather returns.

Granted it's been 20 degrees Celsius the last two days, so the hat didn't stay on her head long.

However she did wear it to school this morning. Of course she did.

Seedy Sunday

The view from here

Baby duck love

It looks like my computer issues are finally resolved. It wasn't the satellite after all, but the router that probably got fried during the big windstorm. My internet service is still slow at times (granted, the signal is travelling up to space) but at least it's not timing out anymore.

And that's great, because tomorrow I'm offering another giveaway sponsored by Penguin Canada.

But before I get to that, I'm going to subject you to a ridiculous number of photos of our new addition: Mrs. Nibbles. Yes, Ella named her.

I was on my barn rounds this morning when I decided to check on Betsy -- the newly-single broody hen who recently kicked out her duck partner Jemima.

I thought I heard some peeping, so I took a quick peek under her skirts.

A just-hatched Muscovy duckling.


Unfortunately, as soon as Betsy saw that her tiny charge wasn't one of her kind, she freaked out a bit and started pecking at her. Given last year's tragedies with our duckling losses, I simply couldn't go through that heartache again, so I quickly scooped up the new hatchling, cupped her between my closed hands and brought her back to the house.


She was still crusty, so I'm thinking she was less than an hour old.

As I wasn't finished the day's editing work, I set up a makeshift brooder in my home office, using a deep plastic bin, some dried grass newly warmed by the sun and my desk light, refitted with an old incandescent bulb that throws off a surprising amount of heat.


It didn't take long before she started fluffing up and looking more duck-like and less on-the-brink-of-death like.

When the kids came home from school, I fabricated some excuse for getting then into my office -- even though I'm usually telling them to get out of my office. It took them a few moments to notice the brooder on my desk (perhaps a testament to just how messy it is in here) but when they did, Ella gasped and Jack broke out into a huge grin.

"Where did this come from?" they asked. Given that I was the kid who brought home wounded birds, stray pets and even tried to convince my parents that the garage was the perfect place to house a horse (in Toronto, no less) -- and never truly outgrew these tendencies -- it seemed a fair question.

"Betsy the chicken hatched her," I said.

"Really?" said Ella. "Wow.... Can I hold her? Please, can I?"


I said yes, but only after they washed their hands, unpacked their bookbags and lunches, and had a snack. We were gone for about 10 minutes, if that, when I hear a "peeping" sound clear across the main floor.

"Maybe she's hungry," said Ella.

"I don't think so," I replied. "Maybe she just misses us," I said with a smile.

Ella and I walked back into my office (nothing gets between Jack and his post-school snacktime) and even from across the room, I could see the brooder was empty. Empty? Where could the duckling have gone? She could barely stand up, let alone fly...

Right. I looked down and there she was, stumbling around my office rug like a drunken sailor.

"Are you my mother?"

Ella dropped to the floor, gathered the duckling in her dress and proceeded to stroke its tiny fragile body. She started chewing on Ella's dress buttons, so I thought maybe we could introduce a bit of food to our new charge.

I was out of the room for all of five minutes.

I guess any creature that comes to live on Rowangarth Farm has to get used to some degree of silliness around here. That and a whole lotta love.

Reflections on a woodland walk

“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately,
I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life,
To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die
Discover that I had not lived.”
- Henry David Thoreau

It may be something of a cliche to quote from Thoreau when talking about the simple life, but he was my introduction to the idea of intentional living -- at least in the literary sense. And while I don't live in the woods, I spend a lot of time there.

It's a place that I find grounding. In a world that is often rushed and hurried, Nature moves at her own pace. But she waits for no one, and her gifts are both spectacular and fleeting.

I anticipate the arrival of the trilliums each year. As a spring ephemeral perennial, the trillium is only with us for a short while. Without frequent trips through the woods, it's easy to miss it.


While the white trillium may be known as common, I think it's anything but. That said, I'm always delighted to find one of the less common red trilliums.

This is the first year that I discovered trout lilies, with their nodding yellow heads and mottled leaves.

Another new find was this tiny six-leaved flower, perhaps from the Anenome family?

And these cup fungi were an intriguing discovery.

For the last few springs, Ella and I discovered the first trilliums together -- this was the first year I took this walk alone. Like her brother, she now goes to school five days a week.

The similarities between raising children and appreciating Nature's treasures isn't lost on me: it's about savouring the time you have, being present and not letting life's moments pass you by. Because like the trilliums, I miss them when they're gone.

Madcap Monday -- Let sleeping ducks lie*

* A nod to James Herriot, author of "Let Sleeping Vets Lie".

Forest walks and spring magic

We're not church-going folk, so Easter weekend is more of a secular holiday around here -- but it's a celebration just the same. For us, Easter is about honouring the earth's rebirth and all the green goodness that spring brings. (I just hope the green goodness stays, because if I see one more snowflake, I think I'm going to snap!)

While Ella was sick with a high fever for the first two days of a four-day long weekend, by Sunday morning she had her sparkle back. The kids and I had a serious case of cabin fever and felt in need of an adventure, so we went for a walk in the woods.

I spend a lot of time in the woods; I feel like I can breathe more deeply there. The forest grounds me, soothes my spirit -- it always has. When I was a child, I'd spend hours exploring the ravine behind my house and lose myself in make believe and pretend play. As I grew older, the forest became a place of solace; somewhere I could be alone, work stuff out and just be.

As a grownup, while I may be in the woods, I'm not always present or paying attention to what's around me -- I'm lost in thought about life, the universe and everything.

But children truly exist in the moment and their minds are free to see the wonders of Nature through such playful eyes. And as we walked, the kids shared with me all their magical discoveries.

Did I see:

: old tree roots or a hand with gnarled fingers? Or maybe a seaweed covered octopus...

: balancing on a fallen log or a crossing a treacherous drawbridge?


: a simple rock face or the walls of a great castle?

: a big mushroom or a stage for the forest fairies?

: an old saw or buried treasure?

: a dead stump or a magical ladder that transforms a "little 'un" into "big 'un"

: a little boy or monkey boy?

: tree bark or a mighty pirate ship?


: stinky wet dog or a swamp monster?

Every grownup can use a bit more magic in their life, don't you think?