Blog Archive

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Tougha Customers, No?


Outside, the perennial hibiscus are the size of plates. Inside, Bea is just down for a nap, exhausted by our morning bakery/shopping expedition. Downstairs, the cousins are assembled with bowls of noodles and sauce, and Grandmama is singing them "Italian songs" to get them to eat--Sole Mio, I hava you here to eata my spaghetti, you are so beeeautiful. . .To which they objected that she was singing in English and not Italian. Well. Tougha customers, no?

Here's a bit from Martin's e-mail to his dad:
Yesterday, Merry and Josiah caught minnows all day in the creek and insisted they be allowed to make "fish stew." So, grudgingly, I dumped the little guys in boiling water, chopped their heads and tails off, and put what was left into a broth the kids helped me make. We all ate some, but after, Merry said she didn't like feeling the bones between her teeth, and felt sick about seeing the fish swimming and now eating them.

Immm. Fresh fish stew. We convinced Merry and her cousin Josiah to make a habitat for the minnows and crawdads today instead of serving us all (I sloshed some of my minnow stew in the wiegelia bushes, Aunty Heather shoved some of hers through the deck boards, Mom lay awake last night with a slightly roiling stomach and thought in detail about the minuscule bit of minnow she ate pre-hotdog for supper and Josiah pronounced it was very delicious.)

Good times.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Good Things

Playhouse two days ago--now we've put up all the walls!



It's almost ten and Martin is still out, wrapping things up--literally--due to the 10to 20 percent chance of rain. Two coats of paint on the french doors, shed floor painted, two out of three floors of the house cleaned: that catalogs my accomplishments for the day.

My sister, her three kids, and my mother arrive tomorrow night; some days later my father and brother-in-law join us. We are going to be ready to party! Now if only we can get the gazillion things done that are left before they arrive at suppertime!




Wednesday, July 14, 2010

pics


Camel & lavander

Elspea picking peas


NO time to write except to say: toothpaste takes off sticky, ill-mixed paint! That, an an industrial strength brush on your skin WILL take even the most foul paint of your skin!

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Roofing in the Darkness: the Girls Playhouse Continues

What light Martin is going on is beyond me. His inner light, perhaps, or the fireflies, or his supersonic night vision goggles. Now that it's more or less pitch outside, I am glad to hear the screen door slam. I think that means that the roof is up. After I read to the girls tonight, they reported that "Daddy was on the other side" before they scooted off to bed. I do not think they were speaking figuratively, or at least I hope not.

My contribution to the fence and playhouse is holding a few rafters in place, buying gatorade and klondikes, and spending TWENTY-SEVEN days straight with the children. Yes, you heard me correctly. This week I've been putting them to bed every night. Tonight we suffered the second flour-eating incident of the week (that's when Bea waits until I've cleaned the kitchen to clamber onto the counter and eat handfuls of flour from the gallon jar I keep there for baking), an assault with a building block (middle child), and much moaning from one eight-year old, who is also a very active informant. Three days in the nineties has made us all a little fractious, though overall--and now that I am more clear-headed due to five minutes without any children--the three weeks of construction have been enjoyable and relatively facile. I am ready for a bit of a break though, and I'm sure Martin will be, too.

The reason, my dear friends, who are scratching your feminist heads at this division of labor--the reason is that if I had built either fence, playhouse (or last year, shed, and the year before, our front fence), they would have all been laughable disasters. I say this because I know myself and my mathematical and spacial limitations. I don't know how good I am at being with my own children--I'm grateful that they are all alive! But this is about division of labor and who's naturally inclined and talented, not about who's swinging a manly arm with a hammer attached and who's suckling the brood. Martin shows a remarkable aptitude for building, which is foreign to me, coming from a family who only raised a hammer to hang pictures.

Note that the fence ends abruptly on the side yard? It LOOKS weird, but it's planned--our forsythia hedge, which is somewhat smallish at the present moment, will someday meet the fence and carry on down the side yard in style. And the big blue shade tent is just in the Children's Garden temporarily, to give Martin some respite--usually it's over the adirondacks (until our fruit trees grow bigger and stronger.)Also, that funny little bit of deer fence is only temporary.

He just came in; he says that if he gets up at five in the morning, we may just be able to leave after breakfast to go on our overnight trip to Deep Creek, Maryland. Five a.m. is a wonderful idea, don't you think? I'll pat his back as he rolls out of bed: Good job, darling! Keep the old cylinders firing!--and all that.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

a few more

What can I say? Not much, because it's still HOT. Martin's still putting up the roof, smeared with sunscreen and on his upteenth bottle of gatorade.

But Bea is so cute, even in hot weather. The one of her with her tongue out like a happy puppy dog is from my friend T. M. and all the others are thanks to Martin's dad.



I'm so hot & lazy I don't even take pictures anymore! I just strained my back bringing up the window unit air conditioner so I think I'll go sit in the cool blast and drink tea. Over and out.

Little Sparkler


Thanks to a friend, here's Bea's first sparkler, on her second fouth of July.

People, I can't write anymore. It's too hot. Martin's out putting the roof on the kid's new play house, which he designed and has been building himself. Nothing like roofing in almost 100 degrees!

Sunday, July 4, 2010

What Martin and His Father Did

At last!

All photos, courtesy of Ken Cockroft. . .all fence, courtesy Ken Cockroft and son.

All (or at least a great deal of) dizzy joy at finally having some privacy, MINE!

It's so hard to sit down at the computer these days with all the excitement--but I wanted to show you how wonderful this fence really is. It passed the naked test! Beatrix, in her favorite state, running around in her own flowery sanctuary, buck nude. As the sweet older lady who dropped by the other day and found Bea sitting on the couch, watching TV, in her birthday suit, observed, "It's much too hot for clothes!"


The summer is so sweet. Today the girls and I lay under the maple and watched the cardinals, listened to the wind, and squabbled with each other.