Eleven

My middle child had a birthday this week.  Luke, blond as a Viking (their blood does, indeed, flow in his veins), obsessed with fishing, a natural athlete and musician, with lots of fire under his butt (yep, just like his mother), turned eleven.  He is really starting to come into his own, his puppy energy maturing into something deeper, steadier, but no less energetic.  I really like who he is becoming.

Here he is holding fishing spoons he received as a gift, made with silver and gold, which apparently attracts the right kind of fish (it works for me, too, since I love everything glittery and have hoarded such things like a magpie ever since I was a little girl).  Watch out, Luke, your mother will steal your fishing gear while you are sleeping!

He also got waders for fishing, and whipping cream, which is to be sprayed directly in one's mouth in our family.  Yep, that's how we roll.

For his birthday party he invited two of his closest friends.  They spent three (plus) hours watching football at a restaurant, since we don't have TV, and afterwards went home to play football in our yard.  As I'm writing this, I hear lots of cheering and smacking (of footballs, and not heads, I hope).

I adore these preteen boys.  They have known each other since birth and are such good buddies, growing into gangly thoughtful young men, and the best thing is that they still think we adults are kind of cool.  There is not too much eye rolling going on.  Yet.

In other news of the week, we went on a family biking trip to Samish Island, which started with breakfast at a famous bakery, then commenced with blue skies, blue water, and lots of pedaling (little Eva on the ride-behind bike).

Later on, because we were having such a good time, we headed to Padilla Bay, a lovely research facility in a vast estuary providing education and research.  Their exhibits are fabulous and kid friendly, and some of the hiking paths sport lovely views of Puget Sound in one direction, and Mount Baker in the other.

If I were a cow, I would want to graze with a view like that.  See snowcapped Mount Baker in the background?

Other activities this week revolved around autumnal walks in the neighborhood, and COFFEE!!!  I am now officially a coffee drinker, a habit I kicked 20 years ago, but somehow started again a couple of weeks ago.  I love it.  I love the taste, and I love how happy it makes me feel.  I also love milking the goats in the morning and adding a few squirts of milk straight from the teat into my cup.  That's deluxe country living right there.

I'm getting goats again! And piglets!

A few months ago, I sold my goats, after having raised and milked them for over a decade, because I thought I needed a break from milking, breeding, birthing, feeding and worrying about them. Besides, our family was leaving on a five week road trip, which would leave the rest of our farm and critters attended by a house sitter. Caring for goats would be a lot to ask of a house sitter, so the timing of selling my goats worked out perfectly.  It broke my heart.

However. It is now spring, and all of my friends' goats are having babies. I am getting baby goat fever. I think I'm annoying my goat-owning friends by pushily volunteering my help when a doe goes into labor. “Call me anytime!” I tell them. “I'll keep my phone by the bed side in case there's a goat birthing emergency.” Or I drop by their barns and inspect the does' tails to see if the babies have dropped and labor has started. I just want to be there, immersed in the messy miracle of birth, amniotic fluid, and cute goat babies.  Two of my friends just called me a couple of hours ago AS THEIR GOAT GAVE BIRTH, and I got to "witness" the whole thing over the phone.  I love my friends! 

So I decided to get goats again. This time, I will not push for maximum milk production so I don't have to make hard cheese from ten gallons of milk every four or five days. This time I will attempt to milk once a day (and leave the babies on the mamas), and then just make easy stuff like yogurt, kefir, chevre and the occasional Gouda, Tomme, Cheddar or Manchego. I think it's doable. What do you think?

I've been working frantically to get the goat barn ready.  Steve built it over a decade ago out of recycled and salvaged materials and poured concrete on half of the floor for easy cleaning.  Last week, I cleaned up the messes that have accumulated in it over time.  I washed the milking stand, and mucked out the bedding I didn't remove after I sold my goats because I was too depressed about them being gone. I also shoveled a bunch of compost made with their manure to spread on the garden. 

It might not look pretty to you, but it is so much better than before.  The milk stand will be on the left.

Steve helped with the scraping.  Notice the bare upper bodies?  In March?  Crazy, right?

I'm pretending to milk a goat.  Soon.  Soon.

Oh yeah!  The garden is gonna like this!

Now let me show you the piglets.  We got four this year, and they like to curl up in their food dish to take a nap.  Ahhh, pigs!  We have a great system with our moveable pig pen and electric fence.  They get moved to fresh pasture regularly, doing a good job of eating grass and rooting in it.  Since we only have five acres, all this happens on our neighbor's pasture.

With all this cleaning, mucking, shoveling and digging, we managed to get some bike rides in as well.  You gotta take advantage of this weather.  So one day, I got on the bike with my ten year old son for a little ride, and we accidentally biked 22 miles, to be met by the rest of the family at the bakery in town.  And the day after, we tried out the tag-along ride-behind bike that was given to us.  Eva rode 8 miles on it on her maiden voyage!  As a reward, we biked to the river.  What a life!  What are you feeling blessed by this week?

Fun (and an-almost-recurring nightmare) in the Catalina mountains

Friday, January 30, 4 pm

I just got back from a majorly amazing and sweaty bike ride. Seven miles up, up, up a road with gorgeous scenery in the Catalina mountains just outside of Tucson. I never imagined this area to be so beautiful – dramatic rock formations, oceans of golden grass, Junipers with alligator bark, yucca stalks twice as tall as Steve.

It's seems to be a popular road for type A, male bike riders. They kept passing me on top of high-tech racing bikes, with fancy bike jerseys, heavily muscled calves, and serious demeanor. None of them acknowledged me – this strange middle-aged, high-on-endorphins, sweaty woman, huffing and puffing on her ghetto mountain bike. They must have seen my huge smile, the byproduct of exercise, alone-time and nature, but nobody smiled back. Huh. They must have been too busy being professional bikers. It's serious business, that.

Steve and the kids met me in the RV at a trailhead where the boys will mountain bike down the Bug creek trail back to our campsite. They are not back yet, but I bet they will wear huge smiles and maybe some bloody scrapes. (Last time they went mountain biking, Steve crashed and scraped up his hand, which now looks like something out of a vampire movie).

These are the only pictures I have of my bike ride: on the way down in the RV.

This morning, we saw a tarantula on a hike. Since I was little I've had a recurring nightmare of being locked in a public toilet stall filled with big, black spiders. (I wonder what this dream reveals about my psyche. Dream interpreters, anyone?). When the kids bring home books from the library about wildlife, including gargantuan spiders, I can't even touch the book, knowing a spider lurks in there, even if it's not alive.

So you can imagine how I reacted when we came across this fine specimen. The only reason I even got near it was to take a picture for the blog. If you don't like spiders, please skip this photo. I won't blame you.

The hike led us to an abandoned prison camp, where Americans locked up conscientious objectors to World War II.  They made them build the road that now leads up to Mount Lemmon.

Here are some highlights of the hike, minus the prison camp, because there was not much to see.

This trip will be dubbed “the trip of skirts”, knitting wise. I am knitting my second “Little Flirt Skirt” - a fun, wooly, bouncy skirt. It's perfect for this weather – worn over some black leggings, or just by itself when it's warmer. I finished one with blue alpaca and wool, with yarn from my amazing mother-in-law Donna, who sent me a huge box of yarn for Christmas. The second skirt will be hot pink. I'm indulging my inner Diva.  

We've been hanging out with our friends Brandie and Bradley (they got married at our homestead five months ago).  Good times, good times!

And here are some pictures of leaving Sedona, driving up the Colorado Plateau, and hiking in a secluded canyon somewhere.