Tag: hygge

We’re snacking and hiding…

~ Crystal Sands ~ 4 Comments

I cannot get the chickens to come out of the coop. A handful will come out every day, but even on the nicest days, most of the chickens won’t leave the coop. It all started when we had to have our biggest trees removed from our property. It changed the landscape around here, and the chickens didn’t take it well.

I bought some organic lettuce heads and bagels to give the chickens some snacks and reduce some boredom. It worked too well.

But it’s been more than two weeks, maybe three now, and everyone just seems to be in the habit now of staying in the coop. It is cold outside most days…and there’s snow on the ground. I have also been bringing snacks to the coop, so I guess there isn’t much of a reason to leave.

I can’t really blame them. We are snacking and hiding from the world around here too.

Our family was so busy with work, school, and music right up until the Solstice that I don’t know how we made it. The first couple of days after we were able to stop we almost couldn’t sit still. But I knew we all needed some serious rest–like serious rest. So we are embracing it. Our health demands it, I think.

We get up early to bring warm water and fresh food to the chickens and ducks and then go back to bed. Then, when we get up later, we sometimes just eat pie for breakfast. We hang out with the dogs, sit by the fire, play video games on our family Christmas present, and are literally just hiding and snacking. I haven’t even read the news very much, though I realize I need to check it at some point, as I have been worrying about bird flu and heard there was a case in a backyard flock in Vermont.

But I am going to be like Ruby and hide my head in the corner a little longer, though, at some point, both the chickens and I will have to face things. We have gotten two eggs in total in the last week, so I really need those stinkers to get outside and get some sunshine. I guess it will help when I am not delivering fancy snacks to the coop–and when we run out of pie in the house.

I had to drag myself out the day after Christmas to meet a farmer friend to buy some honey. We got to talking about chickens, and I was lamenting that my chickens won’t come out of the coop.

“Do you feed them in the coop?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Well, then what reason do they have to come out of the coop?”

Indeed.

Pick a Card

~ Crystal Sands ~ 1 Comment

After an intense year in 2023, I was looking for ways to calm my mind and rest my body. Over the holidays, Ron suggested playing cards and asked if I wanted to learn how to play Gin Rummy. I said I did, and I am so glad. I love it so much. Gin Rummy has that perfect combination of luck and skill that make a game fun for me.

If a game is all skill, I’ll never win around here. Ron and Ronan (our son) are both incredibly competitive, like family game nights are not very possible kind of competitive, so if there is a skill to be learned and some kind of “win” at the end, both of them will master said skill and then make it so no one (and by no one, I mean me but probably any other human as well) will want to play with them.

Thankfully, I can win sometimes at Gin Rummy. I have pretty good luck, and I’ll take it.

Every morning and often at night for the past month, I find Ron, especially after morning chores, and hold up the cards as if to ask if he’ll play again, and he almost always obliges. It has been especially fun some evenings to allow our son to play online with his friends while Ron and I sit by the fire, play cards, and listen to classical music. The best is when we listen to videos of our son playing cello.

The other night it hit me pretty hard. Soon, our boy is going to be gone, and our lives are going to be so different. Our son’s plan is to attend a conservatory for cello, and I do believe that’s likely to happen for him. I have wondered: What will I do with myself when I am not being a full-time mom? I have been a full-time mom for nearly 27 years. What do I do next?

It will be just me and Ron and our cards and the fire and videos of our boy on his cello. When this hit me, I started to cry thinking about the youngest leaving the nest, but then Ron said something funny, and I remembered how very much I love this man, this amazing human I get to know, and I realized I’m going to be okay. We’re going to be okay.

I’ve often worried about our son taking the music with him when he goes, but we will have recordings that I will treasure for the whole of my life, and I’m sure he’ll just keep making more. In the meantime, I’m thinking some about what I want to do with the rest of my life when I am not a full-time mom anymore.

I don’t know what I’ll do, but it definitely involves Ron, cards, music, farm animals, and, hopefully, calm.

And, hopefully, I’ll keep my good luck.

photo credit: Laine Cooper, Unsplash

Be it ever so humble…

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

Day 67 of 365

This week was such a busy week for our family. It’s hard to run a little farm and then leave to go do anything else during the summer. You are quite tied to your land. I don’t mind this. I love this place so much, but it’s a reality. So when you have to be on the coast all week for your child’s music camp, you have a busy week. On top of this, I had several classes I teach end, which meant epic end-of-the-term grading of big research projects. It was a week!

It was a fantastic week, though. My son played in two concerts and did very well. I used to have a lot of anxiety watching him play, but now I get less nervous. I have seen he’s a solid cellist and will continue to get better and better. He’s kind of steadfast in his growth and reliability, and I have come to an understanding that getting to this point is a sign of good progress as a classical musician. He still messes up tiny bits in longer pieces, but he hides it well. It’s cool, as a mom and a teacher, to watch someone learn and improve at such a difficult skill. He is fortunate to have an amazing teacher. He learns well from the way she teaches.

I had tremendous joy watching him perform in both concerts this week, and I think the joy is doubled just by seeing all of the children making music. They are all wonderful! I can’t play any instrument at all, though I love music. I admire all of them greatly. When the younger children first started to play, I cried and cried and couldn’t stop. They had some squeaks. Those strings are hard to play, but they were brilliant Yeah, it was a fantastic week.

But I was so glad to get home tonight and know I get to stay home tomorrow. I missed our animals, especially Boudica. I won’t have to worry that the baby chicks are okay tomorrow. I will be here to keep an eye on them. They are in a fenced area, but bad stuff can still happen. There are many chicken predators in the Maine woods. There are extra chicken predators for baby chicks. So no worrying about the baby chicks feels like such a relief.

And I missed our trees, which may sound strange, but I did. I missed the coolness of our house (we have so many wonderful trees). It was hot being in town all day. I finally found a decent spot to work outside under a tree, which helped, but I still missed our trees. I missed having tea with Ron on our deck in the mornings. Those are critical to starting the day with joy. They are like one of my hygge rituals, even in summer.

When we pulled into the driveway tonight after a long drive home from a perfect evening of music, I felt such joy at getting to be a homebody for a few days. Tomorrow morning, I’m having tea with my husband on our deck where I can visit with my tiny neighbor, who is sitting on her second clutch of eggs! I really missed our Eastern Phoebes. I know my time with them is short.