Saturday is a special day

It's the day we slave away in the garden for nine hours yet still not

finish! I have some more corn and my melon and giant pumpkin plants

are ready to go in but waited so long to do it the weeds had come back

since David last tilled. Much gratitude goes to Bro. Ferrin, who

hardly knows me, but enthusiastically retilled it, calling the hour of

physical labor on a Saturday "better than Prosac." I'd have to agree.

Physical work outside has been a bastion against the crazy for three

gardening seasons now.

I had read that you can plant radishes with carrot and beet seeds 
because they ripen so fast that when you pull them it spaces the other 
root veggies as they start to get going.  I won't be trying this again 
because 1. Really, who can eat the six buckets of radishes that 
result?  I used six in a salad last night and not even the chickens 
could finish off the rest. 2. By the time I finally got out there to 
rescue the patches from the speedy weeds, some of the radishes were 
gigantic mutants. 3.  Pulling up the weeds and radishes stressed the 
carrots and beets and half couldn't  stay up without all that radish/
weed support. So here are some monsters.

Potato flowers. Supposedly they are ready to start eating when they 
flower. To store or get the nice hard skin, you leave them a few weeks 
after the plants die. Looking forward to digging me up a treat.

Mayflower pole beans. This variety was actually on the boat!

Inca rainbow corn from Bakers Creek Rare Seeds.

I love getting back in the dirt. Joblessness is sweet!  Thanks Dave!  
(And Happy Fathers Day!  I adore you!)

Sunday Update

Ben and Noah had a great time with dad on the Father/Son Campout this past weekend, despite below-freezing overnight temperatures and Noah falling in the river.  Apparently they went through bags of marshmallows in the traditional "mallow-as-torch" game, and Noah made his own gourmet 'smore complete with fire-blackened mallows.

The girls got pedicures and dinner and then my sweet mom gave me 18 hours of total solitude, taking the girls home to sleep over.  That was weird and wonderful.  I got all the carrots, radishes, broccoli, more peas, onions and all the potatoes in--7 varieties in all.  So strange to start a task and work it to completion without interruptions.  But of course, we are working on not having the children be seen as interruptions but the project itself, right?

Still, it was great.  We had lots of luck with red potatoes in our first year here, so I did some of those, California Whites, Norkota Russets, and some lovely "All-Reds" with pink flesh.  I talked about potatoes a few years ago, but I am still amazed by the process--a seed potato is just a potato with lots of eyes--you cut each into chunks, at least an inch around, with 1-2 eyes a piece, let them dry in the shade a bit (mine dried in 8 hours with a fan) and pop them in the ground, eyes up.  Each plant can make 6 potatoes, and on many of the seed potatoes, I got six pieces to plant.  Pretty good returns there.

It felt so good to get my hands dirty again, although today I remembered the exhaustion that comes after a farm day.  So tired!  I'm having trouble uploading pics for some reason, so I will do it through email after this post.

Ben is getting into a more pre-teen seriousness, but has finally mastered his paper route (finishes before Scouts without any help from me!) and he's a good student and a hard worker. I love him so much but somehow am always furious with him. He makes me nuts--probably because he's so much like I was and I want to spare him the problems I had.  But, I'm trying.  He's my first little guy and I want the world for him. 

Sophie is a sweet chatterbox.  She helped me get the chick pen split for mother hen to take the other side tonight--not usually a Sunday activity, but I saw a rodent in the coop today because the door was open and was nervous about the chicks being in there another night.  The cats make it so I rarely see those things (alive, anyway) but we do have plenty of fields around us and I know they're out there.  A rat can eat chicks, although I think the thing I saw scutter by so quickly was a mouse.  But I didn't want to risk it. Sophie was a great help out there and I really enjoyed her company.  I'm looking forward to more of that.  If I can just keep her home--she is always trying to leave and play elsewhere.  You'll think I'm being too hard on myself when I say I think it is because we have too much craziness and yelling and inter-kid fighting in our house.  But I think that because she said so much.

Ben and Sophie are starting with a new piano teacher (other than me) next month--we have friends that take from her and she is pretty hardcore, but turns out amazing pianists.  I'm excited about that.  They also are both in Tae Kwon Do--Ben is high-brown and Sophie is orange belt.  They both go to Capitol Hill Academy, which we love, and Noah will start there next year.  I've almost finished their website, check it out!

Lucy and Noah do preschool at a popular neighborhood in-home school and go to what we call "Monkeynastics" for some reason.  We'd taken a break for the holidays and are barely getting back to it.  After two weeks in the pre-K/K class, Noah got booted to the 6 YO boy class--he can do amazing things--the fastest cartwheel I've ever seen!  Lucy got bumped to the second level Pre-K/K because, they said, "She's fearless."  This week we are going to visit a "Twinkle Class" with the local Suzuki violin teacher and get them on her 16-month waiting list. 

I always said my kids would do a sport and an instrument but I have to admit I pick sports that don't require enormous investments of time or cash.  I cram all the activities on one or two days so I can be a homebody on the others.

Popcorn really is popping all over the trees these days--although not yet on the apricot tree--and Lucy wants to sing that song many times a day.  Sometimes she let's me sing that instead of Jingle Bells at bedtime.  A nice breather there.

Noah and Ben have their own rooms now, and WOW!  They both have clean rooms!  The roommate situation made for a trashed room 100% of the time.  Apparently they both just needed space.  Finally Noah is free to just build and play cars on his car rug in his own room--it definitely was a good move for everyone.  He is such a little sweetie.

David's been a bit under the weather but in improved spirits because I am now home to make sure he eats meals and takes vitamins--no kidding, a noticeable change.  I've enjoyed having him home an extra week and just want to say that the iPhone is great for a marriage--texting random thoughts, playing the "Words With Friends" app together (you can't call it Scrabble!), sharing pics of what we're doing with the kids, or his meal when he goes to a new crazy hamburger joint back East.  Now I ALWAYS know what state he is in--both geographically and mentally.  So, thanks, Steve Jobs!

There's the family for this week. 

Fall 09

White turkeys are the ones generally sold commercially. I meant to take a picture of both the bronze and whites before, but I just have a white before and a bronze after.

And After II (yes, we cook our turkey's upside down, it's part of a very elaborate turkey roasting ritual my husband carries out):

Our white hens that we got last year still lay wonderfully--one big fat white egg a day usually. But, I'm down to 6 now. I had them loose for much of the summer and I guess I lost two to predators.

Cute lucy on the tree ladder.

Lucy and Noah in the back yard.

Mother hen (used to be the rooster I called "sissy chicken") and her 12 chicks out learning how to forage. She is pretty fierce if you get too close, as you can kind of see in this picture. She's a great mother, and she does gather them under her wings, just like the scriptures say God will do for us.
I need to take more pictures of the trees here--it is so gorgeous. Yesterday we got the sod cutter rented again and took out more grass for next year's garden. It seems counterintuitive to follow up my miserable neglected failure of this year with expanded ambitions for next year, but we feel we should try again. The first year was very fulfilling, and we did get some good out of this year's but I was learning how to juggle the work/family/health/garden issues.

Talk about fall, we picked tons of apples yesterday from the neglected tree way back on the property (you have to commando crawl under a fence to get over there, then pass the buckets back over when done). Some of them were so perfect and huge. If we found a wormy one, we threw it to our neighbor's (very grateful) sheep. I have applesauce canning on the agenda this week.

Yesterday I also inventoried my food storage, and I'm not so bad as I thought. We are fervently working on that now. I'll go on record that I think the constant media talk of signs of recovery is just that--talk--and I personally think we haven't yet seen the worst of it. I realize only 20% of economists agree with me on that, though.

I heard a comment in general conference that perfectly summed up what I've been feeling as I've been reading about both the economy and studying the scriptures much more than I have before (funny how well they go together!)

It was D. Todd Christofferson who said, "We cannot presume that the future will resemble the past—that things and patterns we have relied upon economically, politically, socially will remain as they have been."

I think there is a lot of false security thrown about in the name of what has always happened, but real security is in obedience to and trust in God and trying to live by the Spirit.

Complications II

So I was doing a little better and starting to get up and around, just tired. I was taking massive doses of Vitamin C because they said it would speed healing, and that appears to be true, the incision opening has been healing from the inside out nicely. So when I started feeling flu-like symptoms on Thursday I thought there is no way I could be getting sick with all this Vit. C. But it just got worse, with headaches and backaches and then whole body aches and chills and sweats and then this lump on my stomach above the incision started growing quickly and by last night was big and hard and red and hot to the touch. So apparently I had an infection and had to go back to the hospital. My mom is a chemist/microbiologist at Lakeview Hospital here in Bountiful and she was concerned because infections, especially around your guts (vs. a hand or leg, etc.) can spread very quickly and get scary, so she made me go to the ER. I'm glad I did, because they told me it was a good thing I came in. I had to get some crazy nuclear-bomb style IV antibiotics and they had to cut me open a little bit (1/2" cut, 3" deep) to let whatever was in there drain out. They filled it with packing and now I have yet a new hole in my body that needs to close up before I can return to normal ife. Gross, I know. My mom took me home to her house at 2 a.m. after we left the hospital so I could have some undisturbed sleep (something that doesn't exist at my house), and I slept until 11 when David finished teaching Sunday School and came and got me. We've made arrangements to have everyone shuffled around for the next couple of days, because before all this happened David had committed to go to WA state for a quick business trip, so he left this afternoon and is returning Monday night. He feels guilty, but we couldn't have anticipated this.

Anyway, I am assuming this eventually will end and I'll feel/be better, but until then, it's back a few steps.

I did order chicks (they come in two weeks) and got all my seeds in the mail. David tilled the gardens Friday and my mom planted peas yesterday (my mom is so great.) The neighbors who moved in just behind us are going to work with us on our animals and garden, which is a huge help since I can't do anything but place orders with people right now. A sad thing, because we got all commercial chickens last year (these new ones are heritage breeds) I'm having problems with my fryers that I didn't kill. I kept 4 fryer hens alive to see if they'd lay, and although they eat too much, they lay gorgeous, huge brown eggs. Well, I'd neglected to think about how fryers are bred to be killed before 12 weeks. Like the huge-breasted thanksgiving turkeys, who literally can't stand up if they are allowed to live after a certain time and are completely unable to mate and be bred naturally--these commercial meat animals can't live healthy past a young age because of our greedy selection of unhealthy animal strains for maximum meat. So our tremendously fat, waddling fryers are getting red, raw stomachs from their dragging on the ground. I knew it wasn't cost-effective to keep them, but loved how funny they look when they run and the gorgeous brown eggs, but now it just seems mean--they aren't designed to live this long (they are 10-11 mos old). A healthy, normal chicken breed can live 12-15 years. although generally laying hen flocks are replenished each year with new chicks and older hens are taken out of commission after their prime laying years (age 3-4). Anyway, that's just sad. So, David's going to have to take them out next week with the help of neighbor Dan, who, although we are novices ourselves, wants to work along side us to learn what we've been doing.

All that farmy stuff cheers me up, as I am generally anti-social, depressed and under-estrogened these days, the first two probably being due to the last one.

Anyway, consider yourself updated. Back to bed for me.

Seed order

I tried to stick to heirloom varieties and hope to save some seed, some of these are rare/extinct

Items of interest noted.

MELON AML110 $3.00 1 - Ananas D' Amerique A Chair Verte (Green Fleshed Pineapple)

This historic heirloom was grown by Thomas Jefferson in 1794. It was offered commercially in the USA in 1824, and it was illustrated in color in France in 1854 in the Vilmorin Album. This wonderful variety has become very rare. The fruit have netted skin and light green flesh that is firm, sweet and highly perfumed. Productive plants can be trained up a trellis.

MELON AML113 $2.00 1 - Banana

90 days. Banana-shaped fruit, smooth yellow skin and sweet, spicy salmon flesh. 16”-24" long, 5-8 lbs. It was listed in 1885 by J. H. Gregory’s Catalogue, which said “When ripe it reminds one of a large, overgrown banana... It smells like one, having a remarkably powerful and delicious fragrance.” This is one of my all- time favorites, being very sweet and great for specialty markets.

MELON AML123 $3.00 1 - Kansas

A very rare heirloom from Kansas; the vines are vigorous and the yield is great, oval-shaped ridged and netted fruit, the flesh is orange and has exceptional flavor, very delicious! A very dependable variety, fruit weigh around 4 lbs. One of our most endangered varieties and also one of the best. Perfect for farmers’ markets.

MELON AML155 $3.00 1 - Million Dollar
In 1886, the steamship "Cambridge" was slowly traversing through the thick fog, traveling north to Bangor from Boston, along the rocky coasts of Maine, when it ran aground on Old Man Ledge and began to slowly sink in the cold Atlantic ocean. In the days that followed, many of the hardy souls took small boats out to collect the sinking cargo, which included this great melon that was so good that it has been grown in Maine for the last 124 years. Now it is almost extinct, and almost never offered commercially. The flesh is soft, creamy and so fragrant that ripe fruit can perfume the whole garden. A delicious-tasting melon that is medium sized, elongated and faintly netted.

GREEN BEAN BN108 $2.00 1 - McCaslan 42 Pole

GREEN BEANS BN111 $2.50 1 - Mayflower

This is the bean that is said to have come to America with the Pilgrims in 1620. This old cutshort green bean has great flavor and the red/white beans are quite tasty. A long-time staple in the Carolinas. [so it's a green bean and then a soup bean - VC]

BROCCOLI BR105 $1.75 1 - Waltham 29

BEET BT102 $2.50 1 - Golden Beet

CELERY CE101 $2.00 1 - Tendercrisp

CORN CN105 $3.00 1 - Country Gentleman Sweet Corn

90 days. Introduced in 1890 by S.D. Woodruff & Sons. Sweet, delicious and milky; tender white kernels on 8" ears. The ears have no rows, as this is a shoepeg type, and kernels are packed in a zigzag pattern. One of the best heirloom sweet corns.

CORN CN135 $4.00 1 - Rainbow Sweet Inca Corn

A beautiful multicolored corn that was developed by Dr. Alan Kapuler. This sweet corn is wonderful cooked fresh, when the colors are still very pale; delicious real corn flavor. Mature ears are great for grinding into flavorful flour, and are perfect for fall decorations. The kids will love this one.

CARROT CR101 $2.00 1 - St. Valery [yes, I got this because of it's name]

70 days. The Vilmorins of France mentioned this variety in 1885 and said it had been grown a "long time" then. A large handsome variety with bright red-orange roots; smooth, 10"-12" long & 2"-3" in diameter. Sweet & tender. Rare. Our favorite!

CARROT CR102 $1.25 1 - Danvers 126 Half Long 70 days.

CUCUMBER CU109 $2.00 1 - Delikatesse (for pickling, comes from Germany)

EGGPLANT EG155 $2.00 1 - Blush

Pretty, banana-shaped fruit are creamy white with a lavender blush that graces each fruit. Stunning to look at and even better to eat; delicious, tender-fleshed fruit are ideal for frying and are easy to slice.

PEAS GP104 $2.25 1 - Lincoln

GARDEN FRUIT GR102 $2.25 1 - Chichiquelite Huckleberry

GREEN MANURE GS105 $4.50 1 - Hairy Vetch [you till this under right as it flowers as a nitrogen fixer and for organic matter. ]

HERB HB175 $2.75 1 - Stevia [a fabulous no-calorie sweetner with no impact on blood sugar--Japanese and Brazilians have used it for centuries, but of course our FDA has pandered to the sugar and chemical industries (big, long, scandalous story) and keeps it labeled as a "dietary supplement" so it won't compete directly with neurotoxins (asparatame) carcinogens (saccharine) and digestive irritants (sucralose). Get some at Trader Joes if you live in such a lucky place.]

HOT PEPPER HPP103 $5.00 1 - Anaheim - 1 oz. [ I accidentally bought a ton of these seeds, I think we'll start them all and have Ben sell the small plants this summer instead of a lemonade stand (along with all our extra melon plants and acorn squash, which I also overordered accidentally]

MELON ML102 $2.75 1 - Prescott Fond Blanc

70 days. The most unique and beautiful French melon we sell! The fruit is 4-9 lbs., very flattened and ribbed, with warts and bumps. Melons have grey/green skin turning straw color; flesh is salmon-orange. Once one of the best known melons, it was mentioned in the 1860's, but it likely is much older. The flavor is very rich if picked at perfection and the fragrance is heavenly. This is a favorite melon of mine, almost unheard of in this country.

ASIAN MELON OML107 $3.50 1 - Tigger

The most amazing melon we have grown. The fruit are vibrant yellow with brilliant fire-red, zigzag stripes, (a few fruit may be solid yellow), simply beautiful! They are also the most fragrant melons we have tried, with a rich, sweet intoxicating aroma that will fill a room. The white flesh gets sweeter in dry climates. Small in size the fruits weigh up to 1 lb. - perfect for a single serving. The vigorous plants yield heavily, even in dry conditions. This heirloom came from an Armenian market located in a mountain valley. It was the most popular melon at our Garden Show last August and makes a unique specialty market variety. Pkt. (25 seeds).

ONION ON113 $2.50 1 - Gold Princess

SWEET PEPPER PP143 $2.50 1 - Jimmy Nardello Italian

This fine Italian pepper was grown each year by Giuseppe and Angella Nardiello, at their garden in the village of Ruoti, in Southern Italy. In 1887 they set sail with their one-year-old daughter Anna for a new life in the USA. When they reached these shores, they settled and gardened in Naugatuck, Connecticut, and grew this same pepper that was named for their fourth son Jimmy. This long, thin-skinned frying pepper dries easily and has such a rich flavor that this variety has been placed in "The Ark of Taste" by the Slow Food organization. Ripens a deep red, is very prolific, and does well in most areas.

LETTUCE BLEND SB103 $3.00 1 - Rocky Top Lettuce Salad

SUGAR PEA SN106 $2.50 1 - Sugar Snap

SPINACH SP101 $1.50 1 - Bloomsdale Long Standing

WINTER SQUASH SQ113 $2.00 1 - Sweet Meat [my friend tells me this big grey monstrosity is the sweetest squash and is better for pumpkin pies than pumpkin]

WINTER SQUASH SQ136 $7.50 1 - Table Gold Acorn - 1/4 lb. [accidentally bought WAY too much--that roadside plant stand is now a must, as orders can't be changed.]

SUMMER SQUASH SSQ107 $2.00 1 - White Scallop

50 days. A very ancient native American heirloom squash, grown by the Northern Indians for hundreds of years, this type was depicted by Europeans back to 1591, and one of the best tasting and yielding varieties still around today! Great fried and baked. Flat fruit with scalloped edges, beautiful!

SUMMER SQUASH SSQ110 $2.00 1 - Striata d'Italia [a yummy basic zucchini-striped, we did this last year]

TOMATO TM126 $2.00 1 - Amish Paste [a fabulous roma type, for canning]

TOMATO TM132 $2.00 1 - Riesentraube [cherry--supposed to have amazing flavor]

TOMATO TM181 $2.00 1 - Bonny Best [for canning and slicing]

Next step is mapping it all out! I'm excited for my Sophomore year of gardening--sure hope I am up to the physical work of it by the time I need to be.

Even if you're just doing pots this year, check out http://rareseeds.com/seeds/ for some fun experiments--you may save an endangered species while you're at it.

This was definitely a task that cheered me up, although with naps and kids, etc. it took me most of the day.

Last Harvest Pictures (See post from many weeks ago)

This was a beautiful day. We literally had 3 HUGE wheelbarrows of squash. Everyone helped all day that day—Sophie and Ben helped pick grapes, Ben chopped down corn stalks, and we all carried our 30 pumpkins around in a festive mood. We have so many kinds of squash I don’t even know what some of them are. (Note to self for next year—Valerie, please WRITE DOWN and MARK all your plants like EVERY gardening book tells you to! Why do you ALWAYS think you are the exception to the most basic rules??!)

How not to rant

Here are 14 very interesting comments about the government socializing our banks. 

 

See, we can't afford nationalized healthcare, we can't afford nationalized education (I'm not really for that anyway), but, it turns out, we CAN afford nationalized trillion-dollar banks. Who knew?

 

So I'm just passing on various thoughts of other people, some of which I agree with.  The last one was very interesting, and at first I didn't know if I agreed:

 

 Perhaps our country is too concerned about having a growth economy. We are obsessed with the notion of having more everything including money but, do we really need it? I think both our planet and ourselves would benefit from a zero growth economy. Perhaps now is a good time to learn to make that work and consider what we can do to reduce our patterns of consumption.

To be ambitious to expand self development, learning, love, kindness, spiritual knowledge, connection to God, charity--now what kind of world would it be if we only sought to expand those things we can actually take with us? 

 

It made me think of the wonderful lyrics of "Simple Gifts," that teaches a principle this year's garden has really brought home to me:

 

 

 

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain'd,

To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,

To turn, turn will be our delight,

Till by turning, turning we come round right.

 

 

 

Could it be that man's requirement to work the earth by the sweat of his brow demands just the things that get us back to God?  Humility, work, diligence, and being subject to (and working with) cycles of nature. 

 

When true simplicity is gained, to bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed.

Fall

It is so fun to start seeing the leaves turn everywhere and the mountains turn red. I have a tree in my backyard that has bright green, yellow, orange and red all mixed in on the same tree! I know, it's picture time.

The garden is shamefully overgrown, but it's at the end, so I don't feel so bad. The squash are all wrapping up, still lots of tomatoes coming on. After 5 days ignoring the garden I found zucchinis the size of small children. Sadly, some corn is going to waste, but I might make corn bread out of it. Some melons are still coming on too.

I canned 23 quarts of peaches on Monday night, was up until 1:30 a.m. with my mom (thanks, mom!). Thanks also to my aunt who got them for me from a farm in Provo. Diane, you were right, canning is way easier than I thought.

This weekend I will finally get to the plum jam, they're all picked and pitted and in the fridge. I picked my last fruit tree this week--the pears, and will be canning them also this weekend hopefully. David has planned to finally get the chicken coop run done (complete with top) so the free-range days will be over.

And guess what I found in the coop today!? Eggs! 9 or so. I thought they'd wait until spring, but apparently they'll do a bit already. Wow. The coop needs cleaning out and the nests especially, which are basically full of dried poop--it will be great for the garden, though.

I SO need a tractor.

Work is going great, we have monthly reviews there--crazy, huh?-- and everyone is happy with me. But every day it is more clear that me being gone all day is just not working for the family, Noah especially, but Lucy for sure and even Ben and Sophie have issues. And while tons of people work and say, "They'll get used to it." I think, "Do I want them to get used to the idea that I won't be here for them?"

I am praying very hard that my work will be flexible with me after the new year and let me work from home half time. I know my kids well and I don't have to wait for someone to have a breakdown or need therapy before I can see that it is not in their best interest to have this situation long term.

Still, I love the job, I need the money, and I hope to stay there a good long time, so let's hope they'll work with me.

Dave's pro bono job is going well, but he already is looking forward to the day that he'll have one job and not two. We are stressed about the bar and related matters, but it looks like they may be hiring next year, so if we can get the bar thing done, I think his chances are good. I can't go into much detail, but I really need your prayers here.

Singing like crazy--the concert is Oct 18th and I have practices two nights a week until then. I also started lessons with the conductor's wife--totally a coincidence, I'd asked her about taking me on before I even knew about the choir, she's a U of U voice professor. She was wonderful and supportive and seemed very hopeful that I could get my game back on. I go during lunch, so I have to skip the workout every other Thursday.

Things are good, but the house is totally falling to pieces. What a state things are in!

Well, off to bed!

Trying for weekly, really!

Well, this is last Sunday's post. It's been for the best that I haven't posted, because almost everything in my head consists of very angry political rants. So, let's stick to the family, shall we?

David is now working 20-30 hours a week pro bono for the Utah Federal Public Defender. They petitioned to allow him a waiver to practice with his CA license for a year (he takes the Utah Bar in February). He has been sworn in by the court, has clients, has a legal assistant, and has already made appearances. He is thrilled and absolutely loves it. The whole situation is rife with opportunities for the future, references and contacts, and he's getting to do things he always wanted to. Today he got to talk to a real live bank robber! I guess that type of thing will get less exciting with time.

Ben loves school. Can you believe it? After everything we've been through the last two years? He has a great, experienced teacher, he's learning so well. He already graduated from phonics and was put in the Latin class. He loves words. He loves the order and structure of the school also. I drive him and my friend Elaine's kids in on my way to work (It's just at the foot of Capitol Hill), so I get some brief alone time with him then we all listen to and discuss a Book of Mormon Chapter. It's a great way to start the day.

Sophie is loving school also, and always carefully refers to "my teacher" (never "grandma"). She seems happy and is reading well. We've been reading Little House lately again, and she's really enjoying it. She's at the school fair with Dad, Ben and Noah right now.

Noah LOVES his preschool, which is T and TH mornings. He goes to Elaine's MWF and Thursday afternoons and Kims on Tuesday. It is a lot of juggling for a little guy, and although he loves Lincoln (Elaine's son) he's still sad sometimes about missing his family. I miss him a lot too. I was home sick yesterday from work and we had a wonderful (although horizontal) one-on-one day together with lots of books, TV, baths, and snacks. I hope my time away from him full time isn't too long, he is at such a wonderful age.

Lucy also seems to like her daycare, a few houses down the street. She loves the dog "Sassy" and has been talking up a storm all of a sudden since she started. Although her main phrase, since she has a constant diaper rash, is "Bum huwt!" She is just a sweet thing. Again, she's so young, I hope to not miss much. We really only have 2 hours a day, and on Tuesdays with choir, I don't see her for 36 hours straight.

Work is going well. I got the company listed on the Utah 100 and had a press release widely picked up this last week. I have some things in the fire, but no leads yet (I'm supposed to get 110 a month!) Were starting to make headway there on the branding side, though.

Choir is great and hard and fun. Brett and I agree seeing each other weekly is "odd." But we don't always talk, which is fine. I just started studying with the associate choir director, Jane Fjeldsted, and she's just amazing, and seems to understand what I'm trying to do with my life, as it follows a lot of what she felt like she was supposed to do. She's a blessing. The music is very cool.

On that note, I have tickets for our fall concert, which is super intense and amazing, with songs in African, Philipino, Japanese, Tongan, Latin--maybe some English thrown in. But it isn't boring stuff, there are drums and live African dancers--like I said, very intense and cool. I need to sell at least 4 season tickets (4 shows--looking at you, mom and Paw/Maw-in-Law) and 10 others for October. Donations are also needed, as this choir, although it has a very famous, talented director, lives in the shadow of a certain other large choir, which will remain nameless, but happens to be funded by a multi-million dollar organization, so expectations for choirs are high, but our funding is not quite on par with that.

See the show details here. Ticket prices are cheaper if you get them from me--$15 for one show, I think $45 for season.


So, if you live here, please buy a ticket for my choir performance in October. I have just a week or two to sell them, so call me!

Life is pretty good, so very, very busy, but with good stuff. My house is a total mess, which stresses me. And if my garden was this neglected three months ago, nothing would have grown. But I'm still getting tons of corn, squash and tomatoes, now melons even. I know yield would have been even better if I'd had the time in the last month, but I'm fine with that.

Ok, I can't help myself, I just have to get it out. Silly Paylin was making me insane, retarded political banter was making me insane, and now this bailout is making me literally insane.

This huge bailout is handily giving the taxpayer all the irresponsible institutions' bad debt. They say it's for the people, that if the stock market collapses, the people will suffer. That is true to some extent, but it isn't really for the people at all. And we will suffer anyway, both long and short term. Because of this bail out, and because of what led to it.

They are now simply printing fake money, pushing off the bubble bursting, but only making it bigger when it happens. And while the financial industry touts free market and deregulation in good times, they are now part of the most overarching socialization of our economy that has ever been perpetrated on the American people. It may put off the disaster we earned from irresponsibility, but it won't avoid it.

Meanwhile, single working moms and unemployed dads are told they need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and be responsible for themselves, yet if you are on wall street you can step right up to the free money, and the taxpayer will foot the bill.

I've never been so angry at our government in my life, and can't imagine that this sham is going to go over in the name of our protection--there should be riots in the streets--but wait--there's something good on TV . . .

The Great Chicken Massacre of 2008

Well, it was really only six roosters. It appears that 3 of my 10 layers are probably roosters, so I kept all 4 female fryers alive. It was much easier this time around. David took an idea from a guy at my work and we still used the "killing cone" but we used large pruning shears first, which broke the neck and got them dead fast and then finished off with a knife. I tried to pluck one, which looks nice in the end, but took so long I said bag it and had David skin the rest. It was a better division of labor, he said, for him to kill and skin and for me to gut. It took way longer than a respectable person should take, but since he put them on ice after skinning, I had to gut cold chickens, which was SO much better psychologically than warm ones.

I eat less meat all around now since that first chicken murder, but suffice it to say that I'm fine with killing and cleaning chickens now (and probably most animals of similar size), which is a skill that may come in handy sometime, who knows.

Mom helped pick lots of garden stuff and I have 10 pounds of cherry tomatoes because I didn't plan well.

For dinner Saturday, we had a chowder with corn (neighbors who apparently didn't see my corn field), potatoes and onions (my garden) and brocolli (Costco) with zucchini banana bread (my garden and a facist banana republic governing oppressed workers with the Chiquita militia, respectively). We were proud of our #7 produce count for one meal.

The doctor told my on Friday I will probably need a hysterectomy this year. Any wise advice on that is welcome.

Michele asked what race I was preparing for--the answer is a sprint triathlon (or, the sissy triathlon). I already do almost the equivalent over three days but I'm moving toward doing them all on one day in less than 90 minutes.

• Swim: 750 m(0.5 mi) (I currently can do 900 in 30 minutes)
  
• Bike: 20 km(12.4 mi) (I am not quite there yet because my lunch hour is too short and I am too slow and stationary bikes are dumb, and I need to get me a real bike)
  
• Run: 5 km (3.2 mi) (I'm slow because I can't run yet and have to walk, but I can do it in 50 minutes).

It's good times. I want to be able to do this in one day, even if it just on my own, before I have to go get cut open.

So the funny choir story. When David was on a mission I dated a very nice guy for 9 months named Brett. He was very complimentary and, let's just say it, fawning, and even though if the record was read back it would be clear I told him repeatedly that I really felt I needed to be with David, my actions spoke otherwise because of my own selfish need to have a nice guy fawn on me. Plus, he really was a good friend and I liked him. Just not in the irrational, apparently eternal infatuation-style way I liked/like my totally grumpy and un-fawning David.

So, this went on until the Wednesday before the Saturday David got home, when I was visiting him in Provo and just woke up and said, "Crap, I gotta go."

I drove away, never spoke to him again, was married two months later, I heard gruesome reports on the results of my horrible handling of the situation, and learned in 2000 that he had never married.

So, the funny story--you saw it coming--yup, he's in my choir. I'll see him every week now--and he's a baritone and I'm a SII, so we literally face each other the whole time in the U-shaped room.

The good news: he did finally get married three years ago. He has a 22 YO stepson and no children.

I saw him and after an initial, "Oh crap!" I just went up on the break and said, "Hey, we gonna talk and be friends or would you rather not?" He stared at me in confusion then horror (have I changed that much? He didn't recognize me!), then he quickly covered with friendliness. We parted, then I realized he was absent the next 20 minutes of practice. Then, in an attempt to get it all laid out then and not drag things on, I asked him to talk with me a few minutes after practice to make sure it would all be cool with our weekly seeing each other and whatnot. He was nice and chatty and offered me a nice platonic yet snug hug, which was strangely familiar despite the years. Fifteen years is enough for him to get over me being a total self-absorbed @$#* and completely messing with his head and life, right? I know a good week is enough to get over me, but to get over the leavings of my evilness?

Arg.

Life is stranger than fiction.

David says I can still go to choir, he just doesn't want to ever meet this person.

Well, back to a crazy busy week. Manic ambition is a slave driver.

pics

Despite the bee concerns, it seems every flower in the garden has a bee in it. This is a round zucchini plant, yummy for slicing and frying or for stuffing.

Children in the Corn: here's Noah, but this pic is a few weeks old, the corn is much bigger now.

This is about a standard harvest every 3 days, in order L to R: Italian striped zucchini, round zucchini, hot peppers, yellow squash, cucumbers, lettuce, chard, red potatoes.

Here's that pie I made way back when we picked the cherries

Ben, tie and pie.
The farm business really does help the kids learn to work--here they are shelling peas--they did a great job harvesting green beans on Saturday (about 4 gallons--my aunt picked the same amount last Saturday, and they are supposed to have a second batch of beans come on before the season ends.

Here is our stew pickings we foraged for on that Sunday a few weeks back, and below, the stew.

Yesterday our friends the Mosses came over for dinner. Carrie and I picked green beans, zucchini, yellow squash, basil, onion and potatoes and then came in and had pork chops (David's contribution), smashed red potatoes, a zucchini/yellow squash/basil/onion/tomato stir fry, fresh white nectarines and creamed green beans. We never eat like that for some reason, it was truly amazing--and except for the pork, all from the garden. Next year it will be al of it, because David and two neighbor men are going to raise pigs. Hm. Oh, to hear one of my favorite songs ever, just go over and visit the Mosses blog.

Things are great--enjoying work, went to the gym every day during lunch, kids doing ok--I think a little unsettled again going from the week together camping to having everyone back to work.

I'm scheming and dreaming as usual, focusing on the goals I want to reach before 40 (3.5 years away), but the schemes are now ridiculous enough I can't even blog about them. :) I like aiming absurdly high--it's exhilarating.

Tomorrow is the day all our major financial stress is supposed to end--everyone gets paid and the budget from here on out is positive--that's definitely exciting, although it does sound like famous last words, doesn't it?

Family night tip of the week--wow, we see so much better results if we have FHE during dinner! Everyone is quiet (eating), and relatively listening. Our last FHE was the first one I can recall where we actually felt the Spirit and things went like they are "supposed to." Ben gave the lesson--it was just great.


I'm nervous for school starting--four kids in four different places--the homework thing. We're starting some music lessons and sports on top of everything. But, I'm trying to prepare and live in the now. Still haven't nailed down a school for Noah, but everyone else is pretty much taken care of.


Despite the FISA and the retarded Cap-n-Trade plan my Obama shares with McCain, he's still my favorite. I realized when I got mad about FISA and took him off my blog some thought he no longer had my vote. 'Tis not so, I'm still reading heavily on it all, and I guess he can't please me on everything.


David taught Gospel Doctrine today and topic was war--he did such a great job. I thought it would be more touchy than it was, but he was able to make some good, scripturally-based bipartisan points. There were a few wacky comments, but overall it was a great meeting and everyone gave great feedback. I realized today that on the days I don't have to play for primary I enjoy the ward and church better. I'm grateful that it is an alternating week schedule, because I also like playing piano.

Tonight I finished my very first hymn arrangement--a duet of "In Humility" (272). My cousin wanted to sing it together in church and I've never seen an arrangement of it. I am so happy with how it turned out! Turns out it probably doesn't have arrangements around because that particular song doesn't allow stuff like that without permission. I just may send it in and ask for permission to post it free on the web, however, I don't feel bad just using it for one Sac. Mtg. It was very rewarding and educational for me.


Sorry this is random. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the pics I've been promising for so long.

xoxox

What a difference six days makes!

I can't believe how much the garden exploded while I was gone! Much thanks to my dear mother for keeping plants and chickens watered and cared for.

I keep promising pictures, they're piling up. I have over 6' corn, squash plants taking over the place, and a tree full of white nectarines almost ready to pick and freeze--a few are perfectly ripe but most are almost there. Tomatoes are just starting--it was two yesterday, six today. You know where this is headed, I have over fifty tomato plants...

Much thanks to Carrie for lining me up with an arsenal of canning jars.

Have super fevered kids the past three days--Noah almost hit 105 today. Looking forward to having health insurance in 20 days.

I am very grateful to a nice family who talked in church today. Sundays bum me out because, unlike life in Pasadena, I don't look forward to going to church at all, and have onery thoughts much too often. I didn't feel well myself today and wanted to stay home with the sick kids, but couldn't find a sub for the primary piano. That was the Lord getting in the way, because this family with five kids under ten with two working parents were truly kindred spirits. They were open about their trials and experiences and reminded me that the Lord loves and guides each of us individually. When we're open with each other about what we're going through, it really helps other people feel less alone. I'm usually the open person, but today I was the "less alone" person.

Not a vegetarian yet,

Valerie

A better day

I had Dave post that thing about the kid earlier because my work blocks a lot of sites and I couldn't get on blogger. I got a call at 8 a.m. from Paw-in-law and realized I may have managed to stress out people just like I was stressed out. Sorry if I did that to you.

I am learning something about myself. When I have tons to do, I get all fired up and am a whirlwind of productive creativity. When I have a lot of downtime or unstructured time, all of a sudden I am a bump on a log. I had all the time in the world to do the personal projects I'm taking on before I went back to work, but was stagnant. Perhaps it was discouragement about things, financial frustration--those things can be paralyzing.

But, if I was all rich and hopped up on Prozac I think I'd still be more motivated by being busy. Isn't that a funny word--business=busy-ness. It makes business seem so inane--the cause of being busy.

At work the new employees had a big 4-hour meeting on the Franklin Covey Four Disciplines of Execution today. I'll be honest, I'm a little burned out on the Covey cult and don't drink the Kool-Aid, if you know what I mean. Mainly because I think he's getting paid too much for stating the obvious, both of which he is, but most of us need the obvious stated and many are willing to pay him for it. So, kudos to him and whatever.

I'll say it. In the end, it was totally great. The whole point was to get tools to bridge the gap between what you want to accomplish and what you actually do, and I felt like I got my mind around the actual concrete things in both my job and my personal life that I can do to get me what I want. I sipped just a bit of the Kool-Aid.

Oh, I wish the camera cable wasn't in where Lucy is sleeping, I have SO many pictures for you, including no less than 20 pounds of produce I picked today. I spent my evening making zucchini bread, grating bags of zucchini for the freezer, roasting chiles--it's a fun time.

Well, it's 11:37, I need to get up at 6 and I still have empires to build tonight, so I'd better go.

My 101st Post

Highlights of today--found two (big) cucumbers I hadn't seen before, the first, and ate one of them with salt on the spot. Came up with a good PR idea at work which people liked. Dreamed about how I want to start this or that business. Wrote several new blogs I never intend to start in my head. Listened to two full operas at work (we can have headphones), one of which brought me to tears. Found a new voice teacher for myself. Talked to some friends on the phone. Watched a flash-flood thunderstorm come down out the window at work. Ate sweets.

Downside was when Sophie dramatically and accusingly told me that she was forgetting she even has a mommy lately (yesterday I got another version of this statement from her), and when I came home David rushed downstairs to get some work done and I was left with three children fighting over my lap and crying for attention while Ben tried to talk over it to tell me about his day. Also, I ate sweets, and I'm up 10 lbs since moving here! I wanted to buy a cow, not be one!

Yesterday my friends the Hunters came over which was super fun--I love being in a place all my long-lost friends come to visit.

Things are good. My husband has the hardest part, because we both have identical income quotas and he has to make his while watching the kids all day and then working into the night. That's modern living, I guess. He's a good man.

PS. There was actually an article outing that funny blog I mentioned below, if you want to know who is really writing it.

Harvest has begun!

Thursday the apricot tree was ripe and we picked them all, and the zucchini is coming in with more every day--they are SO good!

Today I thought I had what I needed for stew and got the meat on during church but came home and realized I had no potatoes or carrots. So, the kids and I headed out to the garden to see what we could put in our stew. I checked the russets, but they were tiny, like a kumquat. I went down to the reds, and they were perfect new potatoes, from an inch to three inches. Many of the pea pods were fat and ready to shell, so we set the kids to work on that. We took some of the 2" carrots that aren't even close to done, just so we could say we had carrots. The stew was fabulous. I never had a just-picked potato before and they taste so real and potatoey. It was just heavenly. Pics are coming.

I love work, the garden is great, the kids are happy and things are looking up. It feels so good to do something I am good at for once, and to be making a positive impact on our situation (also for once). I feel confident that we are on the path the Lord has laid out for us to answer our prayers--sometimes I guess the answer isn't always magic fairy dust but hard work. I feel truly happy for the first time in--so long I can't remember.

Oh, I have learned that although I seriously know hardly anyone here, all the women at church seem to know that I am working and some apparently have reached the conclusion that my husband is not working and is "making" me work so he doesn't have to take a job he doesn' t like. Of course they don't know all the details of our situation or that the bishop (let alone the Lord) are fully on board with our plan, but who needs facts when you've got interesting conjecture? It's amusing that people have enough time on their hands to form judgments on people they don't even know. Maybe they should get jobs.

I am honest when I say this doesn't bother me, but it is interesting to juxtapose my role and mega-activity in E.Pas. with my fringe status here. I didn't realize I was such a liberal--I was a conservative in LA., for heaven's sake!

Just wait two weeks when David is assigned to teach on righteous justifications to go to war as stated in the scriptures, where we learn our current foreign policy is expressly forbidden in the BoM. We're going to make a lot of friends with that one.

Today someone asked in Sunday School, "Who are some modern day Corihors?" (an anti-Christ in the Book of Mormon). And the first thing out of someone's mouth was the name of a recent democratic mayor of SLC. Oh BROTHER.

On that note, everyone I've met here thinks global warming is a hoax. Does that mean miles of ice lost off Greenland and the poles is a hoax? Or sea level rise? It's just weird. Sure, it's been politicized and most proposed solutions are ineffective, but just saying it isn't happening? That takes some real guts--or is it faith?

I saw The Dark Knight last night, you just can't go wrong with Batman. It was an action-packed film with lots of ideas to think about in the battle between good and evil. The question is, can you actively attack and conquer evil without meeting it on it's terms and becoming the evil you are fighting in order to win? Is there such a thing as attacking with goodness? In the global spiritual battle of good vs. evil, I'm thinking just being good and teaching good is the only weapon you can use that doesn't require you to take on some evil yourself, you can't actively go out and beat people over the head with goodness and make them good. The end result (of the film) was that the one doing the good thing will look to the world as if they are evil. There are many scriptures saying that will be true in the last days. It's an interesting thing to think about.

How come thinking hard just brings one to more questions? Well, the good news is God is in charge and there for us in a very personal way in this crazy world. We just can't get through this unscathed without Him. This is why the idea that we have a loving Heavenly Father who we can talk to anytime and anywhere is something we proselyte so heavily as a church--none of us are meant to go through this life alone. For that I am SO grateful.

Observations on leaving kids to go back to work

1. My kids absentmindedly call me "dad" when they want something
2. Absence does make the heart grow fonder. I am a pretty hot commodity now and get lots of cuddles.
3. Lucy prefers David when she's upset.
4. I do tend to spoil a bit more, just as they warn you against.

But, I am getting more into the groove, and less in that psychological shock of "Oh no! I'm a working mom!" I seem to be shifting gears well between work and home.

This week has been hard on everyone, but mainly on my 15 year old cousin, who has watched the kids every day from 1-5 and is a little burned out. My mom has done 7a-1p and actually loves it, and is cleaning my house in the process. She wonders what my problem is that I can't do both. I am really grateful to her and glad she's adjusted to the idea of hanging out with four children without panicking. She is a saint. It is so good to be mothered. I'm sure my kids feel the same way, but at least they are getting mothered by Mommy's Mom.

Today I got home a bit late and Kim, another saint, was feeding my children along with hers, and then she fed me. That was a lifesaver. We came home and reviewed the garden, weeded a bit and set the sprinklers going. And...

I picked my first zucchini!!!

It was an Italian Striped, and a total surprise, I hadn't looked underneath there in several days, so I thought we were still in blossom stage all over the garden. I also picked a globe zucchini--almost the size of a tennis ball, all round and cute, it was buried down in there, too. I picked a small onion and some basil and am going upstairs to fry it up and gobble it down right now. Oh, and I also found a green pepper which I picked, blanched and put in a freezer bag.

I have to keep things picked so they'll keep producing. The chili peppers are kind of wanting to be picked, but I need to decide what I'm going to do with them--freeze, roast and freeze, make salsa verde? Any suggestions?

I have a feeling that soon I'll have a blessing so great that I will not have room to receive it. But, I can always take baskets to work if I get overwhelmed.

Oh, I reviewed my first writing project of about 10 pages with my boss today (which is why I was late home), and he liked my stuff, so that's a weight off. We see eye to eye on style and approach, which is huge. He has promised never to read my blog again, so that's also nice. I also finished a 20 page marketing plan for the remainder of the year today, so let's see if he's up for everything I'm asking for.

David's home tomorrow, we made it!

The Massacre that Didn't Happen

I know several of you are waiting with excited horror for me to tell you how it is to murder chickens, but I manhandled a few on Friday (much to the affront of the chickens) and decided they are still too scrawny. We're postponing harvest day to mid-August.

The weekend was, and likely will be in the future, just a yard frenzy of weeding, thinning the last batch of corn, and fencing a long row of tomatoes (thanks, mom!). I keep saying I'm going to thin the apple tree and plant one last batch of carrots, radishes and parsnips, but it's not happening yet. The small garden is neglected and needs to be the weeding focus this week.

We have a working mower now, which makes everything look nice and provides me with lots of mulch and litter for the chickens. Even if you just container garden, I recommend signing up for the newsletters at http://www.garden.org/home for your region. (Thanks, Michele!)

I wasted much of Saturday breaking our front lawn sprinkler system then trying to fix it. One set didn't work, I made it so it worked, but couldn't be turned off and there were geysers everywhere. It ultimately was "fixed" back to the state we started in--they don't work.

Saturday night I saw my sweet friend of 23 years, Janet, get married to Steven. She was gorgeous, it was a nice event at a country club up in the southeast corner of the SL valley. I feel that they will be happy, and I'm so glad.

The actual 4th was less Fourthy than the 28th--the kids melted down at a family BBQ and we had to take most of them home before fireworks. Ben and David enjoyed them, though.

My new life requires a very early bedtime and rise, so that will be it for now.

PS: You won't believe the size of my zucchini plants!

Back to Work

My cherry tree

My first day was fine--forms, HR stuff, orientation. Nice lunch at a hippie place (how did they know?--oh, ya, I guess it could be that they read my blog). The work will be interesting. The benefit of the crazy intense interview process is that going in to a place you've spent several hours in and met everyone who works there doesn't feel very new or nerve-racking. They have a full two weeks of training scheduled, so hopefully I’ll know enough after that to be useful.

I need to get out in the yard and plant carrots, parsnips and radishes and put "scare ribbon" in the cherry trees and on the grape plants. It's a fat, metallic ribbon that easily moves in the air and reflects light to scare off the birds. I hope it works, because bird netting is much more expensive and a pain to put on a 30 ft cherry tree, and the birds are starting to get excited about my cherries.

Thanks for your sweet and supportive comments. Posts may not be long, but I'll try to keep them coming.

The Real Tuesday

I so appreciate your supportive comments. It really has helped today. I interviewed with another 9 people today--2 higher-ups together, three of the creative team I'd be on together, and then the four other members of the team together. I liked everyone and they liked me. The first meeting, with the President, took a little more than my average friendliness. I eventually broke him with my explanation of why I liked the company. Apparently they were his reasons, too. He was much more engaging after that.

The company is Access Development. My briefest description is that they have a discount network of over 200,000 merchants, including big name folks like Target and Eddie Bauer, and restaurants and such. They sell use of this network to large groups and companies under the client's own brand, for example, the Arizona Teachers' Union Discount Card. Then the teachers carry the card around and use it at the places they regularly shop. Merchants get loyal customers, companies and organizations make their employees/members happy, businesses reward their customers, and the cardholders get things cheaper. So it's not a really hard sell--everyone gets something they want, this company just brings them together.

I talked to two more old bosses today--that's such a trip! My boss from 12 years ago (that I worked with for less than a year) was very nice and said he'd be very complimentary--apparently he's a national laboratory bigwig based in Maine now. And then good old Joe Edward from Sprint--always good for a laugh. Those references were both set up for calls tomorrow.

Before I left today the man who would be my boss, Andrew, asked if I'd be around tomorrow for him to call "in case there's anything I'd like to discuss with you." He and the other management folks are going to a management retreat at noon and I get the vibe he wants things wrapped up before he leaves.

So, my guess is that I'll get a preliminary offer tomorrow. Or, they will call me on one of my answers to a question I got today and throw me out of the running all together--I can't explain, but I've got a little fear that I may be caught in a deliberate omission of fact. I have worked to be very honest with them while not sharing additional info that, although related to my business life, I really didn't want to discuss. I have a completely valid answer for them if it comes up, but I don't know. So, I'm betting tomorrow I'll be hired or prematurely fired.

After the interview I came home and just felt like my world was shaking. This would be such a big change, coming so fast, and so different from what I'm doing or what I thought the answer to our problems would be, so at odds with the identity I'd imagined for myself, and with so many spiritual and logistical challenges. Plus I was a little anxious about my evasive (to put it kindly) answer to a direct question.

I actually needed a blessing from David to calm down. The blessing said that I needed to move beyond the difficulties of the past, that the opportunities that were coming were from the Lord, that I would be given the strength to take on the additional responsibilities and that I shouldn't underestimate my resources or abilities as I go into this. I did feel better, but still a little overwhelmed.

I spent the rest of the day weeding--over 3 hours, and I only did the little garden. The big garden I can weed more with a hoe, so it should be quite so labor intensive. Even though it is something that I'll have to do again every week, I enjoy it. So much of household life is like pushing the rock up the hill only for it to roll back down and be pushed up again. But somehow, the weed thing doesn't discourage me as much as, say, the dishes thing, or the feeding everyone three times a day thing.

I've got to make a menu plan for my family tonight. I have faithfully made and followed different menus for my family so many times in the past eight years, that I can't believe that I'm starting from scratch yet again. I'm ready for bed right now.

Since I pretty much know the group of people who read my blog, I just want to say that I appreciate you letting me dump on you and that you actually take an interest in my life--I feel supported when I talk to you guys on the phone and know that you know what is going on and care. I love that via the blog I am still connected to great folks like "Nordy" (when are you coming to Utah?) and that it motivates me to keep a journal better. Hail the blog!

Busy week

Four generations! That lady with hardly any wrinkles in the middle? Yep, she's 88. Let me tell you about granny's skin care regimen--sheesh! I can't, it's a state secret anyway.

I look like my dad in this picture, which is very, very disturbing to me, but everyone else looked cute, so I'm swallowing my pride and putting it in.

The chickens are getting so big! Here's Lucy at sunset, following me around while I took some pics of the fatties.
All the chickens are the same age, and some of the fryers are girls, so it is not a gender thing here, all about breeding. Fryer's on the left, laying hen on the right (and bottom). Although you can see the bright red comb on top of the fryer, so it is a boy. The girl fryers' combs are pale and smaller, and there are none that I've seen yet on on the layers.So here's the West garden all going green! And Lucy. The hose and my bag of compost make it unkempt, but hey, we're working here. Far left row from front to back, two acorn squash plants and four varieties of potato, beets in back. Middle row front to back: chard, carrots, onions, peas, tomatoes. Right row is all squash and beans with corn in the back.

This is my tallest corn. I just weeded it three days ago, and you can see it is already being overrun, so I'll be on that tomorrow. It's the Sabbath after all.

Here are the tomatoes on the West garden side, they are all of a sudden growing fast, they must like this warm weather we've finally been getting this week.
Saturday was so productive, the coop is almost done, everything was weeded, I thinned the corn (but cheated and took all the extra plants out and replanted them somewhere else). There was organic pesticide sprayed on all the fruit trees, grapes and berries. I still need to thin the fruit on the fruit trees. I am stressing over my compost and going to get some professional advice on that at the garden center this week.


I had a 3.5 hour job interview on Friday for a full time job in marketing for a company in SLC. The position has been open for four months, and I sent them a resume on Monday, they called Tuesday, we did a phone interview Wednesday, I put my portfolio on the web for them Thursday, and then I did the crazy interview (one room, two interviewers, two breaks, three water bottles), and they said when they are ready to make an offer they start reference checks.

Well, they are having me schedule the reference checks for Monday and Tuesday.


It was so weird rehashing my whole life with them. It will also be weird talking to my old Sprint boss--immesshed, educational, intense and all-encompasing are the words that come to mind of my time being what he called his "work wife." A very different time, and that corporate life is such a very different world. But, it was one I was strangely happy and relaxed in on Friday.


David is getting a bit more work from the company he's been with for three years. Last month we thought they'd dried up completely, but now it looks like it will keep us going a big longer. We are still actively looking hard for a regular position for him also. Between the two of us, we will be able to execute a 7-year plan to put our lives back in a good place. I have talked to my Bishop and other trusted counselors and feel very relieved about this plan. I know that being here in Utah will make things easier for the kids.


Plus, this wonderful woman I was working with when I was deciding on doing a day care, she lives three houses down and runs the sweetest little 8-child, all-girl day care complete with French and ballet. I told her I likely need to be on her very long waiting list, and she said she will have an opening in late August and I'm officially on the top of the waiting list as far as she's concerned. That is a huge relief for my concerns about Lucy.

Well, it looks like after all the many, many doors we've pushed on and keep pushing on, one is opening. It is not the door I thought would be the right one for us, or that I thought I wanted to be the right one, but I can see that right now, it is a miracle that it seems to be a very timely solution for us.

Anyway, I'll let you know. Maybe my references will let the cat out of the bag about me and there won't be an offer after all.

But if so, then I'll be a working full time farmer with four kids. That will make for a lot of interesting blogging which I will never have time to do. However, I really like the company and know I'd be good at the job. Plus, paychecks are nice.

PS--if you click on the link about my dad above, you'll learn that he was in fact one of the inventors of the PC. Cool huh? But he's dead now. And he was nuts.