Tag: parenting

Lessons from a Little Brown Duck

~ Crystal Sands ~ 6 Comments

It is the end of an era on our homestead. Last Thursday morning, just a little after 8:00 AM, Anna Maria passed away.

She made it far longer than I thought she would after Luna passed a couple of weeks ago. For three days, Anna Maria sat and wouldn’t eat. I thought her end was very near. But, finally, one night, she came for the peas at bedtime and ate some. Then, the next day, she had some of her favorite wheat bread and ate more peas. I came to understand that she had been morning Luna. They were both old and near passing at about the same time, so they would sit together under the trees–just sit and be close for most of the day every single day. I didn’t understand the depths of Anna Maria’s sorrow until she started to get better. Of course, she was still near the end as well, and she finally passed late last week.

Anna Maria had a spirit and strength like I simply cannot describe. She went through so much but had such a will to live. She loved her life. It was pretty much as perfect as a duck’s life could get, I suppose, complete with peas every night before bed time from the servant and life with a flock that embraced her for who she was. The flock is still out of sorts without her. I have never seen them this upset for this long.

But there was so much I didn’t understand about Anna Maria. My way didn’t match her way, so for seven years, I did everything in my power to care for that injured, blind duck. Most often, she would hate me for it, though sometimes, she would come to me if she was injured. I never knew which one it was going to be with her, but I learned over time that it was going to be her way, not mine. And that was an important life lesson for me. It was one I wish I had learned sooner.

You see, my daughter, my oldest of my two children, has not spoken to me since last Christmas. I am so ashamed writing these words. I have always been of the mindset that if a child stops speaking to a parent it is on the parent to change and fix things, but I have not been able to do any fixing here. And it has been devastating.

In the last eight months, I have come to realize that my help for my daughter felt like control, though it was hard to watch her struggle so much–and she did struggle. Still, I realized a few months ago–thanks to Anna Maria–that she would rather struggle on her own and do things her own way and in her own time.

My epiphany came some time in late winter or early spring. There was still some snow on the ground, and Anna Maria would get stuck on the humps of snow. Since she was blind, rather than watch her struggle, if I saw her stuck, I would run outside, pick her up, and help her get to where she was going. She would always get upset though.

I always thought it was related to our history together. When I adopted Anna Maria, she had been badly injured due to over-mating, which is really common if you don’t have the right balance between males and females on a farm. The day I went to my friend’s farm to meet Anna Maria, my friend took me back to show me where Anna Maria had been rehabilitated thus far. There, in a crate, sitting quietly, sat a little chocolate Indian Runner duck. I could see her skull a bit, and I could see her eyes were a bit bubbly. I knew this meant sinus infection from the over-mating. She looked thin, dry, and tired.

My friend asked if I wanted to try to meet her, and by some miracle, Anna Maria went right to me. I held her in my arms for well over an hour as I toured my friend’s farm and the kids visited. Anna Maria never fussed, never left my arms, and seemed like she was meant to go with me. Now, after having Runner Ducks for over eight years, I deeply understand what a miracle this was. To say that Runner Ducks are skittish is to put in mildly. I will still never understand that experience with Anna Maria, except that she must have also understood she was meant to come with me.

But, oh my gosh! When I got Anna Maria home, it was on. I had to isolate and treat her, and she hated me for it. She bit and bit me during tub time when I would have to clean her sinuses. My arms were covered in bruises, and I was exhausted. I couldn’t believe what I had gotten myself into.

However, the day some months later I saw Anna Maria playing in the pool of water with the other ducks, it was all worth it. It was sunset, and the water droplets glistened as they rolled off her back. It was the first time I ever saw that duck experience joy–and it was pure joy. It was worth it.

I guess I just didn’t know where to stop with Anna Maria, especially after she went blind a few years ago. Her wounds never fully healed. It looked like they were healed on the surface, but Anna Maria remained fragile for the rest of her life. I definitely came to deeply understand long-lasting effects of trauma in my years with Anna Maria, and because of this, I am sure I over-mothered. The day of my epiphany, I decided not to run outside and help that little duck around the snow pile.

I just sat and watched out the window. For several minutes, she struggled. She kept bumping into the snow and getting turned around. She seemed distressed but determined. My instinct was to run save her from this trouble, but I resisted. And then, suddenly, it was like the nature of the obstacle clicked with her, and she went around and made it to her destination.

The realization came over me. Both Anna Maria and my daughter needed to struggle on their own and didn’t like my tendency to try to help too much, to try to fix things for them. They just wanted to figure things out on their own–at least sometimes. Sometimes, they needed me. I mean, there was more than one occasion over the years when Anna Maria was hurt and would come to me for help, but it was apparently my job to know the difference between the times when she needed help and the times she could do it herself. I needed to slow down and pay more attention to what she was telling me.

My heart broke because I wish I had learned this lesson earlier, before I lost my daughter.

Thursday morning, before Anna Maria passed, I held her a long time, just like I had done that first day I met her. She knew and I knew, and I think we were both thankful to say goodbye to each other. Ron and I put her in a bowl of water, so she could drink if necessary, but we knew she was close. I told her that I thought it was time to go see what else there is.

As I walked away, our male duck, Spyro, tried to mate with her, so I ran him off and moved her bowl to the other side of the fence. In this way, she could be near her land but safe from Spyro. This is life on the farm.

It worked out because she was right outside the kitchen window, so I could watch her while I made tea and coffee for me and Ron. I must have checked every ten minutes, and I could see her drinking sometimes but mostly being still.

Then, a little after 8:00 AM, I went outside to tell Boudica to stop digging a giant hole, and then I saw that Anna Maria had let go. She was still warm when I picked her up. I cried the big cry that hurt my chest. Giving into the cry felt worrisome though because of my long COVID, so I pulled myself together and realized I was just going to have to tough this out without giving into the grief.

Anna Maria was buried next to Poe and Sophie. All three of these creatures were my teachers of their species. I love my teachers.

The night before last, I received a message from my daughter’s partner that my daughter is struggling and might need me. I wrote back right away. I haven’t heard back.

Gratitude Tuesday

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

It has been such a long, cold winter that we are running low on firewood. This makes my teen son who runs quite hot quite happy. However, the cats and I are chilly in the evenings, and we all miss the fire in the wood stove. Thankfully, we are starting to see a melt, and it feels like Spring is, truly, just around the corner. It is also nice that the kitties hang out with me in the evenings now instead of in front of or underneath the wood stove. My lap is now the warmest spot.

I am teaching a rhetoric class right now, and one of my students wrote about how she sends emails to her co-workers every single Wednesday to tell them how grateful she is for them. This resonated with me on so many levels. First, I have been trying very hard to convince my mother of late that people will help you more if you treat them kindly. She is resistant to this idea, but I don’t think it’s wrong. It’s true that there will be some who will just take advantage, but by and large, my kindness to others has resulted in a great deal of happiness and support in my life. I think my student is wise, rhetorically speaking, to send gratitude emails.

But there’s also just the goodness for goodness’s sake–that overwhelming feeling of good when you have helped someone or done some good in the world. It’s so real. Just yesterday, my son and I experienced this. He was driving us home from his cello lessons (he recently got his learner’s permit), and there was a person with a sign asking for money. We have been trying so hard to save every penny of late that we haven’t been helping others like we would normally. This has impacted me mentally quite a bit. I like to be as generous as possible, but I also understand that hard times are upon us.

I have not had cash in my wallet in quite some time, but by some miracle, I actually had some cash. It was a $20.

I hesitated. “That’s a lot of money right now,” I said.

“Please,” my son said. “I’ll pay you back.”

So I handed him the money, and he handed it to the man.

The man was so grateful. We watched as he packed up his bag. It was enough that he could be done for the day, it seemed.

“Being giving made me feel better. I feel better than I’ve felt in a long time,” my son said. “If you ever get lucky and win at capitalism, you share, share, share,” I said. “You’ll be a happier human for it.”

The story reminded me of how helping others really just helps you. I don’t tell that story to make it seem like we are so great because we are not. I have been so worried about the state of things that I haven’t been very generous to the world at all in recent months. But I am grateful I had that $20. It led to a good conversation with my son about the joy of being helpful to others and how we can’t lose that in tough times. And, truly, it felt so good to be helpful.

With that in mind, I am grateful the hens are laying now. Before I start selling eggs I plan to give a few dozen away because eggs are such a precious gift right now. I mean, they always were to me, but I think, right now, those beautiful eggs might lift some spirits. I took one dozen to my neighbor, and she paid with a hug. I was grateful.

I am also grateful that the snow is melting, that my son and I are gaining in health and strength, that Boudica is able to go on short walks again, and that my brother, who has been very ill, is in recovery after a liver and kidney transplant. We talk on the phone at least twice a week now, and I am so thankful for his conversation. He is so curious about our farming, and I tell him everything I can about the chickens, ducks, and what all we do around here. He lives far away, but he said he had a dream he was with us at our house working in the garden wearing a straw hat and that it was all wonderful.

I am grateful for the community I have been able to make around Farmer-ish. The journal is coming back online on the Spring Equinox, and I can’t wait to share it with you. And I am grateful to have a community to share it with. Thank you for reading and supporting in all the ways.

Every Tuesday, I am going to try to write about the things I am grateful for. We need good things. We need love and kindness and gratitude. How else can we combat the darkness, right?

I would love for you to join in. Are there things you are feeling grateful for right now?

The Shortest Day

~ Crystal Sands ~ 1 Comment

I have been so busy this week with all the work that goes into Christmas-ing and all the work that goes into parenting and all the work that goes into homesteading and all the work that goes into, well, work, that I haven’t been able to write, though I have started two blog posts that will remain unfinished.

However, despite today being the shortest day of the year, I can the light–and it’s coming, isn’t it?

The holiday season is a lot of work for so many of us. I can’t help but think I am definitely doing this wrong. As a professor, my work picks up greatly in December, and as a cello mom, I get extra busy in December because that’s when all the music things happen. It’s joyful, of course, but between my long COVID and my son’s long COVID, it’s just extra hard to keep up this year. My son, the cellist, has been in a borderline crash state for at least a week, but his whole semester of work has been bearing fruit this week. I had to keep him going with good food, lots of support, and lots of nagging about the importance of rest (something that is harder for a teenage boy that one might think). Dear readers, I am happy to report he made it–and he played so beautifully.

Last night, he played a gorgeous piece of music with a violinist partner, and it was breathtaking, but honestly, the whole night was breathtaking. It was a winter concert featuring Swedish folk songs, Vivaldi, Bach, poetry, and warm, wonderful people. The night ended with some Swedish hot cider that was so perfect on a snowy night that I am determined to find out what it was and get the recipe. I’ll keep you posted on that because I think it was elderberry, and elderberry is so good for you in the winter. It was definitely spicy.

I talked to a violin mom before the concert, and she expressed her desire for rest. We talked about how hard the holiday season can be on moms, and she told me a story about the years she lived in Sweden. She said, when she got there, she was given a book with instructions on how to prepare in November for rest in December. “Rest in December,” I said out loud with longing. We agreed that there must be some way to get some of that here in the states, but we agreed that we didn’t know how. Still, I need that book because, well, maybe one day…

In the meantime, I have much work tonight, but after I finish grading some essays, I am getting a bit of a break. I am also treasuring a lovely day I have had.

I woke up this morning still hanging onto the beautiful concert from last night. I shoveled snow before breakfast and then finished the Solstice cake you see pictured here. It came out perfectly! I was super thankful because, when you make something just once per year, you forget some of the strategies. I took my son to a cello recording, took a gift to a loved one, and then came home to find one egg when I put up the chickens for the evening. Ron made dinner and cooked up some of his purple cauliflower. It was so pretty.

Tomorrow, the light begins its, but tonight, I am going to finish grading my students’ essays and enjoy this warm fire in the wood stove and reflect on a lovely evening last night and day today.

The cycles continue, and I am reminded that I am a very fortunate human. I am tired in my bones, but rest is coming. I hope you all have a lovely Solstice.

I’m sharing my recipe for my Solstice cake below. It’s from Volume II of the Farmer-ish annual.

Ingredients

Cake

¾ cup unsalted butter, slightly melted
1 ½ cup sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
2 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cardamom
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup buttermilk

*Please note that my version of this recipe is a much milder spice cake. The recipes I adapted this from use more ginger, cardamom, and nutmeg. Some also add a small amount of black pepper. Our family, especially our youngest, prefers a milder spice cake. You can adjust if you like spice cake a little more spicy.

Frosting

8 ounces cream cheese, softened
¼ cup butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract 
1 to 2 cups powdered sugar (just add until your frosting is the thickness you want)

Decorations/Toppings

For the toppings, you can use anything you want. I sometimes use plain gingerbread cookies (to match the ginger-colored cake) with the berries. I have added golden candied ginger in the past as well, but the berries are everyone’s favorites. I use raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries, and the colors are lovely.

I also have these two little handmade snowmen candleholders that make an appearance every winter Solstice, and I adore them.

Directions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 8-inch round cake pans thoroughly and set aside. 

With a mixer, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and continue mixing. Add in your vanilla. In a separate bowl, add all of your dry ingredients, whisk them together. Then, in little bits at a time, add your dry ingredients and buttermilk to your egg, butter, and sugar mixture. Pour your batter evenly into your two pans and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Be sure to check early and often on your cake. You do not want this cake to be dry. 

Allow your cakes to cool a bit. When they are cool enough, remove them and let them sit on wire racks to cool further. During that time, mix your frosting ingredients with your mixer. Just make sure to add enough powdered sugar that your frosting is the right texture to work with. Tasting is encouraged. 

For decorating, I followed the method of leaving the sides of the cake exposed to show the pretty ginger color. Add your frosting and colorful toppings in whatever way makes you happy.

Enjoy on the Solstice with some warm tea or cold milk. 

Making Bread

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

Day 288 of 365

I have spent the day making bread and have much work to do tonight. I have many ideas floating in my head today, but I will just share this quick thought for the day: Of all of the skills I have learned to become more self sufficient, I think bread making is my favorite. Well, second favorite. Caring for chickens and ducks is my most favorite.

I was getting ready to roll out two loaves of French bread when I stopped to take this picture because the dough and the bowl and the flour and my rolling pin are all so beautiful to me.

Bread making is so important. Fresh homemade bread makes every meal seem better, and it’s so much cheaper to make than to buy. And I don’t even do sourdough, though I really want to. I really, really want to. I should try to get started with that. It seems like such a frugal way to make bread.

Today, my son, Ronan, asked me how much he would spend on groceries when he’s grown. He’s trying to figure out how much money he needs to make to support himself because, with any extra money, he’s going to buy musical instruments. He asked if he would maybe spend $150 a month on groceries. I chuckled and said, “way more, sir!”

He commented that our whole family only spends about $700 a month and that includes other stuff like cat food. I reminded him that we grow a ton of our own food, so unless he’s a farmer on the side too, he’s definitely going to spend more than $150 a month on groceries. I should add that he’s a foodie and loves really good, organic food. He gets sick if he eats very much non-organic food. One time, someone brought Oreos to orchestra rehearsal for the kids to eat at break. Our son ate an Oreo, got sick, and then was mad at Oreos.

I told Ron about Ronan’s questions about groceries and said we need to be sure to teach him how to make bread, that it will help him save money and give him access to quick, good food. Ron agreed. Ron’s going to teach him how to make wheat loaves and Challah, and I am going to teach him how to make French bread, but I realized as I was writing this that I should get him to learn sourdough with me. It would be a great thing to do together, right?

I would love to know what breads you make from scratch or which ones you long to make. Oh, and I would really appreciate any sourdough tips. My worry is that I will get it started and then life will get crazy and I won’t be able to keep it up. Is it hard to keep up?

Cello Mom

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

Day 154 of 365

Tonight, I am writing my blog post while I am sitting in the back of a large church listening to an orchestra play Beethoven—and oh my goodness, they play it beautifully. They are mostly kids. There are a few adults, but these children are serious little musicians. They talk about Bach on their breaks. They are my son’s people—or at least as close as he’s been able to find so far. 

The music is mesmerizing to me at times. Joyful at times. And, as a teacher, I love that the conductor is first and foremost a teacher. He explains things so well. He compliments often. He provides feedback with careful kindness. The coolest thing is when the musicians are not quite giving him what he wants, and he will tell a story to describe an emotion or grab a violin and demonstrate or sing notes. And, then, just like magic, this large group of child musicians gives him what he was hoping for. It’s absolutely a treasure to me as a teacher to watch great teachers in action. Because of my son’s cello journey, I have been able to watch a couple of master teachers in action—and I am a better teacher, parent, and human for it. My son is fortunate to have come into contact with such masterful teachers–but so am I.

When my son was in preschool, he started begging to play the violin because he heard a violin at his school. We dismissed this, thinking he was too young, and he was a rowdy boy. When he was seven, because the begging had continued off and on for over two years, I Googled violin lessons in our area and called to make an appointment to get a rental violin and lessons set up. I knew nothing about such things. I grew up in a culture without classical music, except for in the cartoons I loved. My husband, Ron, had played piano as a child but rebelled against it while he was busy rebelling against everything. I was so nervous about taking our son to classical music lessons, but I could see this fascination he had was something. 

Less than a week before his first violin lesson was set to start, our son decided he really, really, really needed to play cello instead. He had been sitting in the car with my husband listening to classical music, and some cello piece came on the radio. And that was it. He needed that sound. 

So I called and changed the violin lessons to cello lessons, and my son’s journey began. He’s been chasing a beautiful sound ever since—only it was my journey too, really a journey for our whole family, one that impacts every aspect of our lives, from the way I do my work to the number of animals Ron and I are able to manage on our little farmstead. 

Early on, our son was smitten with that cello. He was pretty squeaky, of course, but not as squeaky as I thought he would be. His teacher at the time mentioned he had seen very few students learn as quickly as our son was learning. Still, it seemed our son was at such a disadvantage because there is a language and a culture to classical music that was completely foreign to all of us. I didn’t even understand at first that you needed a music stand, so for the first two months, I stood in front of my kid holding music. 

It didn’t take us long to learn that our kiddo was pretty serious about the cello. One night, when we went to tuck him into bed, he started to cry. He didn’t know how to tell us without disappointing us, but he didn’t want to be a farmer like his daddy when he grew up. He wanted to be a cellist. He was just seven years old, but it seemed like he really meant it. 

So I started reading everything I could and learning as much as I could. I found this blog written by a cello mom who also teaches writing, though her son was an extra level of serious. He got into Julliard’s pre-college program. Our kiddo is not that serious. I learned there were some sacrifices I was not willing for my son or our family to make. Still, I could see from the blog there was a culture to learn and that parents of little classical musicians had to be pretty devoted to the music as well—and to driving. 

This summer, our son was at a camp on the coast of Maine. We would stay in the little town, sometimes, just sitting the car working or reading. I noticed other parents doing the same. I smiled so big when another cello parent got out of his car one day at the end of the day and said to us, “I need a chauffer’s hat. I’m really just a chauffer.” It’s true. There is a lot of driving.

There’s the driving. There’s the practicing. Thankfully, our son is just completely willing to practice his cello, but he also has to learn the piano if he really wants to be a musician. My son does not have the same love for the piano that he does for the cello, and sometimes, I have to be the nag about piano practices. I hate being the nag. Interestingly, once he starts, he will usually play and play. There’s also the keeping up with a schedule that seems to get more and more intense as he gets older—right when I am hitting menopause and can honestly barely remember what day it is from the menopause brain fog I am sometimes in. There’s snacks for orchestra. There’s making videos for auditions. There’s the constant worry over if he’s doing too much for a kid.

Thankfully, Ron and I are in this together. We make a good team. He drives the long distances. I drive the short distances. Ron also gives our son this kind of belief that anything is possible if you just work hard and believe in it with all of your heart.

And it’s all the most magnificent thing in the world to me. I have fallen in love with classical music and have found the cello speaks to me in a way other instruments do not. I guess my kid inherited this from me. The music has become one of the greatest joys of my life. It literally heals me. When I take my son to his cello lessons, I just sit and soak in the cello playing. I will literally feel a certain feeling in my arms, my legs, in my chest. I remember reading one time that the resonance of cat purrs is healing to both cats and people. Truly, the cello has this same power, the same kind of range of sound–or something—at least I am convinced of this. 

And Ron has been changed for the better too. He plays classical music to his plants in the garden every summer. And the music is a part of the centering of ourselves that we both needed for so long. 

The music brings me peace. It helps me connect to that magical thread that exists in the universe that only some of us are able to find some of the time. But it’s there. 

One winter a few years ago, one of our ducks broke her leg on the ice. I was devasted. I thought she might have to be euthanized, but I read that healing was possible but would take a long time. Determined, we moved that duck into the house, and she lived with us for eight weeks. During that time, we discovered that she loved the cello. After she was able to walk again, when our son would start playing his cello, she would come from wherever she was in the house and sit at his feet. She loved the deeper tones the best. I am convinced the cello helped her heal.

It was a powerful experience for me, seeing this animal experience music so similarly to the way I experience music was a part of a kind of spiritual journey for me, one that involved connecting more deeply with animals. And, after that experience, every time we had a duck with bumble foot requiring foot soaks in our guest bathtub, to help calm them down, I would play classical music for them. I would play different pieces until I found one that suited the duck. I can say for certain that horns are not appreciated by ducks, but cello is. And Bach is a favorite for sure. 

I have been writing so long tonight that the orchestra is nearly finished with their rehearsal. I Iook up sometimes to watch my son play and am thankful parents are allowed to sit and watch. I’m way in the back, but I can still see him a little. I love the way he sways to the music. I love that he gets to be a part of this big, beautiful sound, of something so much bigger than himself. He said one time he time travels through music, and isn’t that just the truth? Hopefully, he’s learning a skill that will help that empathic soul he inherited from his mom and his dad have some peace, some sanctuary, in a mad world.

And, oh my goodness, I love watching these children make beautiful music. By the way, they are rehearsing in a church named Hope. How perfect is that? 

Gratefulness

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

Day 116 of 365

I didn’t know if I should title this blog “Gratefulness” or “Gratitude.” I decided to go with “gratefulness” because I feel like being grateful is a process, something I am working toward. When I am feeling grateful, I am a much happier human, so I try very hard, most of the time, to focus on my gratefulness. I can usually do this fairly well. I am grateful every single morning I wake up. I used to not feel that way. I dreaded my days too much. Some of my days still have some dread, but overall, I am happy for my life every morning.

Most of the time, when I take a picture, I am taking a picture of something I feel grateful for. I guess that’s kind of the point of photographs in a way, right? To preserve a moment you feel grateful for?

When I wake up, I do two things: First, I ask myself what has to be done that day and what time, in terms of appointments or meetings at work. My teaching work doesn’t require a lot of meetings, thank goodness, but I do have some every week. Plus, my son has a lot of music lessons most of the year, so I am always thinking about which lesson or orchestra rehearsal he needs to go to. He’s pretty serious. It seems that he wants to be a cellist in some way when he grows up. He said, one day, his dream is to be a principal in an orchestra. It surprised me that he had such a specific dream. So, for real, my husband and I are part-time drivers for our student cellist. There are soccer moms and hockey moms and dance moms–and there are cello moms.

But I digress. After I go through all the things I have to do that day, I just start focusing on the happy. And I have much to be happy for. Lately, I beat Ron to the morning chores because I’m getting up extra early because I am worried about my baby chickens. Ron says they will be fine. It’s true, they are all fine and really do pretty well integrating into the flock. So they are fine, but I still worry a bit.

When Ron comes out to start his part of the farm chores, I am so happy to see him. I don’t know if this will sound sappy or not, but, most of the time, I am so darn happy to see my husband’s face in the morning. He’s a good human and good life partner for me. I still get mad at him because we are both very stubborn in our own ways (I am generally very laid back, but if I think something is really right, I won’t budge without a lot of good evidence.) When I see his face, I tell him how glad I am to see him in the morning. I like being around him.

I am also thankful for the chickens and ducks. I love doing morning chores most of the time, especially in good weather. It’s lovely here in Maine right now. September in Maine is a dream to me. When I was a kid, I watched some movie set in New England in the Autumn, and I was like, “oh, I need to live where they have that season.” I am from Texas. There’s not a real Autumn in Texas. So I am generally very thankful to live in New England. I like most of the weather. I mean, yeah, in March, I’m not loving Maine But in September, I am most in love with Maine.

I am so thankful to see our dog, Boudica. She sleeps next to my side of the bed, so she’s right there when I wake up every single day. After losing Gus, I have tried to remember to be extra thankful I get to spend some of my life with our Great Pyrenees, Boudica. She’s still a bad roommate sometimes and wears me out barking about squirrels. We live in the Maine woods. There are so many squirrels, and Boudica wants them nowhere near us. I try to be patient though and remember she also keeps the bears away from the chickens and ducks, and I am very grateful for that.

And, of course, I am grateful to see my son in the morning. I have an adult daughter as well. I know how much you miss them when they leave, so I try to treasure every minute of time my son is still at home. I also know how important my teaching time is with my youngest now. I get to learn from my experiences with my first child and do better. There is a 12 year gap between them. The youngest was a very big surprise. We are older parents, my husband more than me, but still, when our son was in school before we started homeschooling him, I would look around at the other moms and think, “Oh my gosh! I am old.” I was in my 40s, and the other moms were in their 20s. Anyway, I am thankful to have time to teach him.

I still try to teach my older child, my daughter, but she’s stubborn, like me, and in the age range where she is not listening my teaching very much, I think. But I am hopeful she will come back around. She’s a sweet, kind, beautiful human, and I know she has to find her independence. I just wish I could teach her all the things I know now–to save her the pain. But I realize that, sometimes, humans have to learn lessons in their own ways, through the own experiences. And I am very thankful for her too, though I don’t see her every day. But when I run through my list of things to do each morning, if a visit with my daughter is on my list, I am especially thankful for that day.

So these are core things I am thankful for every morning. I make this point to remember to be grateful, and I have practiced it so much now that I am pretty good at it. I am a grateful human, and I am happier for it. Because it makes me happier (I tend to be too much of a worrier), I work toward gratefulness. That’s a process, right?

I practice it throughout the day. I am thankful for cello lessons and practices. I am grateful for the delicious food from the garden. I am thankful, every day, for the eggs. I thank our hens for the eggs, every single day. I am grateful for delicious tomatoes from the fall harvest. I am grateful for jam put up for the winter. I am grateful if I have time to read something for fun that day. I read a lot for work, and I mostly enjoy it. Still, it’s so much better when I get to read whatever I want. For a time, I was a writing center director managing very large grants. I never had time to read when I was in that job. When I quit to homeschool my son, I made a point to get some reading time back, and I couldn’t believe how happy it made me to read something besides work materials.

In the last couple of weeks, however, I have been going through a tough spot. I’ve been very worried about a situation I could do little to control. I was so worried that I forgot some to be grateful and just focused on the negative. Thankfully, today, with the help of Ron (he’s pretty good at self examination too), I was able to get back around to feeling grateful.

And, tonight, as Ron and I made dinner together, I remembered to be grateful. And when our son loved the dinner, I was happy. And I get to go for a walk with a friend tomorrow and hear wonderful stories she tells. I love people who tell me stories, especially stories I really like. When Ron and I first started dating, I just made him tell me his stories over and over. He’s had a very interesting life, I think. And I finished Volume II of the annual, which feels amazing because I have been working on that every spare moment for months. So I have much to be grateful for–family, food, and the ability to grow and learn.

Sometimes, I fall down, but I keep trying. I have some privilege that I didn’t grow up with, and I try to remember that; overall, I am such a fortunate person through anyone’s lens. I try not to take that granted.

I believe in the act and process of gratefulness.

“I Speak Chicken”

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

Day 27 of 365

It was a bit of journey to go get the baby chicks that were intended for Kate. I had to drive about an hour and a half each way, so I asked my son, who is 12, to go with me for the trip–and to help with the box of chicks on the way home. I knew their crying in the car would make it difficult for me to drive. I am not a fan of driving anyway.

Some context on my kiddo: He’s not a huge fan of the farming life in general. When he was very little, he seemed to love it. On his first day of pre-school and then again for Kindergarten, we did the little board kids hold for a picture with a statement about what they want to be when they grow up. For those two years, he wanted to be “a farmer” and then it was “a farmer and a scientist.”

Then, when he was 7 years old, he started playing cello. One night, as we tucked him into bed, he started to cry. When we asked him what was wrong, he said he didn’t want to disappoint us but that he didn’t want to be a farmer like daddy when he grew up. He wanted to be a cellist. Of course, we explained he certainly did not have to be a farmer.

In the years that followed, we discovered he didn’t like chickens once their “poop got big,” didn’t really like dirt, and had a pretty big aversion to insects. These things are definitely problematic for life on the farm. Of course, you gotta let your kids be who they are, but on the inside, I’m always a little sad when my friends share stories of their kiddos raising chickens, milking goats, driving tractors, and just being overall little homesteaders.

Of late, he’s been going through big stuff, mostly the stuff of growing up in a mad world, I think. His generation has so much on their shoulders, I feel. He’s fairly sheltered since he’s homeschooled, but he’s very smart and also an empath. He’s aware of the world, and it takes a bit of a toll on him.

I brought snacks, the Beatles CDs, and thought the road trip to get the baby chickens could be fun break from the routine. It was. On the way home, he held the baby chicks, and, as expected, they cried.

“What can I do?” he asked.

“Talk to them like a mama hen does,” I said.

“What does a mama hen say?”

“They purr. Hey, you can roll your R’s really well from all of those language classes. Roll your R’s for them.”

So he did. He turned it into kind of singing, and you know what happened? They sang back!

For about an hour on the trip back home, that kiddo sang and talked to those baby chicks, and they sang and talked right back.

“I think this is something I can put on my resume. I speak chicken,” he said.

“You speak chicken quite well apparently,” I told him.

For real, when I saw that the baby chicks were kind of rejecting Kate, which was leading to her rejection of them, I had to wonder if somehow they were hoping for my kiddo’s songs. I am sure that’s not the case, but it turns out they are going to be getting my kiddo’s songs anyway.

It was between the hours of about 6:30 and 7:30 AM on Saturday that I kept trying with Kate and the baby chicks. Of course, you get to the point where you realize you are pushing your luck, and you don’t want the mama hen to accidentally kill the babies. So I pulled them all, as you know if you read my post yesterday.

My son was still asleep during all of this, but when he woke up that morning, I met him with a chicken book and a coffee milk.

“Congratulations, you’re a parent!” I said.

I explained the situation, and he seemed great with the idea of helping me. In my long day yesterday of getting a brooder set up for the babies, that kid helped me the whole way, carried the heavy stuff and helped me with the drill. It’s going to be a journey. It’s been several years since we raised a brood of chicks by hand, as it’s always easier when a mama hen does all of the work.

But there are pros to raising them by hand. You get to be closer to them, and they are closer to you. Plus, it can be good for the soul for an empath living in a mad world.

The Exhausted Parents’ Guide to Roasting Pumpkin Seeds

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

by Heidi Skurat Harris, guest blogger

Every year, I take my son to pick a pumpkin at a local church fundraiser. He uses two criteria for selection:

  1. The pumpkin must be perfectly round and unblemished.
  2. The pumpkin must be perfectly clean.

As anyone familiar with pumpkins knows, those criteria make the perfect pumpkin as common as the Great Pumpkin.

This October 16th, 2021, we found the perfect pumpkin in about 20 minutes. In truth, we found it in the first 5 minutes, but we had to look at all of the rest of the pumpkins (and some twice) before my son could, with confidence, select said pumpkin. I tried to convince him to pick a lumpy, gnarly pumpkin that looked really cool, but apparently because I’m in my mid-40s, I don’t actually know what “cool” means.

(I mention the date because I would like credit for taking the boy pumpkin hunting a full two-weeks before Halloween while there were still a lot of pumpkins to choose from, which almost never happens.)

For the remainder of this blog, I will call the perfect pumpkin Phyllis and my son Darby.

Darby clocks in right at the 25th percentile for height and weight on the pediatrician chart. He can still fit into some 4T clothes and has trouble meeting the height requirements on fair rides.

He’s a little guy.

Phyllis, on the other hand, would clock in at 75th percentile for weight and height at the gourd doctor. If she were a cat, she’d be a chonk. If she were a Starbucks drink, she’d be a trenta–a full 31 oz. of pumpkin spice love. 

She’s a hefty girl.

I paid by circumference, so by my estimates, Phyllis was approximately $10 more expensive than a grocery store pumpkin with similar qualities. But I shop local.

Phyllis and her favorite reading material–photo courtesy Heidi Skurat Harris

Pumpkin carving is an activity that  parents both cherish and dread. It’s the fall version of egg dyeing at Easter–fun in theory but the clean up makes you thankful that you don’t have to do it again for another year. My kids pester me to do it for about two weeks leading up to the event and then lose interest about 2 minutes into the work because “This is hard!” and “I HAVE PUMPKIN ON MY HANDS! GET IT OFF RIGHT NOW BEFORE IT DESTROYS ME!!!”

The first step in our pumpkin transformation is scooping out the guts. Unlike human guts, Phyllis’s guts are delicious (unless you’re a zombie, and then the former are more satisfying).

While Darby is slashing at Phyllis (supervised, of course), I bake Phyllis’s delicious innards, in particular, her little pumpkin children. My favorite part of Halloween is not dressing up or handing out candy. My favorite part is roasting pumpkin seeds. I have often thought about buying 12 pumpkins just to get the seeds, but the carving…

Here’s how I roast pumpkin seeds. It’s not an old family recipe that reminds me of my grandma Hattie’s house and her checkered apron. You’d probably get about a dozen better recipes just by Googling “roasting pumpkin seeds.” But it works for me and probably will for you as well.

Recipe for Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

1. Rinse all the pumpkin intestines off of the seeds in cold water. Like dealing with your Uncle Bob at Thanksgiving dinner while he tells the same story he told last year, seed rinsing takes time and patience. And just as you won’t be able to stop Bob before he gets to the dicey part of his story, you won’t get the seeds fully clean, and, in either case, it really doesn’t matter.

(At this point, you can brine them with salt and water at a boil for 10 minutes, or you can just be lazy like me and skip this step.)

2. Dry the seeds.

3. Season the seeds. Because I am, according to my children “basic,” I use olive oil and salt. You can get fancy, though, and use paprika, black pepper, cumin, garam masala, rosemary, thyme, pumpkin spice, or cinnamon.

For a lower sodium version, you can season them with the tears of your children when their Phyllis-o-lantern doesn’t turn out exactly like the photo on the pumpkin carving instructions.

4. Bake the seeds. I always forget what temperature and what time to bake them for, and every year I promise to write it down and don’t. I have a gas oven, and I bake them slowly at low heat (300 until they’re crispy, flipping once). You know your oven better than I do. So set some heat and watch them until they are done, which will be at least 20 minutes.

5. Let the seeds cool.

6. Store the roasted seeds in a bowl with a tight lid on a high shelf so your kids won’t sniff them out and eat them all in 10 minutes.

My roasted pumpkin seeds are best served with pumpkin ale or spiced cider or a glass of white wine or red wine or, let’s face it, pretty much any beverage that makes you feel better about scraping pumpkin innards off your ceiling fan.

Enjoy!