A Snapshot of Our Lives Away From Work

Cross-posted at the Withywindle Blog

Regardless of your religious observance (or lack there of), holidays are about taking time away from the everyday to be with friends and family. This Easter we had an unexpected dinner at our house as my in-laws (who's house we normally would have had dinner at) were away at the last minute. I had a moment yesterday of perfect contentment and found some time to jot it down:

It’s afternoon, and I am standing at the counter making a spinach casserole. I am wearing our infant son in a front pack as I drain the spinach and mix the other ingredients. The baby is asleep, and I occasionally peer down at him and kiss his head. I put a ham in the oven a few hours earlier, and now it fills the kitchen with its good smell. On our table in the corner filled with windows is a blue and white flowered table cloth, and later we will set it with my grandmother’s china, and my step-mother’s crystal glasses. It is warm and sunny outside, and fresh air and sunshine pervade our farm-style kitchen.

Our older son is playing in our back yard with his cousin. My husband and his sister and her husband are outside supervising the boys, but really doing more conversing while the kids work out their own play. Later they will (with a small suggestion from me) discover the joy of climbing the big rock in our yard, and I know that it will be a large part of son's playscape for the years that we remain in this house.

I am deeply content. I love the sounds of the children in the yard, and although my back aches a bit, also love the feel of my small son resting against my body. I can hear him breathe, and am comfortably warmed by his body. I am aware of how much I love cooking for my family, caring for my children, and being a mother. I am pleased that we are able to have our extended family in our house for this Easter dinner, even though we celebrated our own holiday two weeks ago. Before we start our meal we will give thanks and recognize both the Easter holiday, and the celebration of spring.

NaBloPoMo for April

I've decided to undertake NaBloPoMo for the month of April, but will mostly be posting on the Withywindle Blog, with a few cross-posts here. Happy Spring!!

Weird Science - A List of Pecular Lists

Cross-posted at Withywindle Blog.

The site How Stuff Works (new to me) has a really interesting compilation of facts and articles, many of which are sorted into 'top ten (or five, in some cases)' lists. I think I could spend quite a bit of time sorting through all their info, but here's a quick list of some of their weirder lists that I discovered on my first foray:

• 5 Strange Things in the Smithsonian's Collection (includes some macabre presidential artifacts and a chunk of Rt. 66)
• Top 5 Ghost Tours (world-wide; 3 in Europe, 2 on the east coast of the US)
• 5 Lost Cities
  
• 4 Paranormal and Other Strange Roadside Attractions (I'm particularly diggin' the museum in Louisiana)
• Top 5 Worst Corporate Icebreakers
  
• 5 Wacky Small Town Festivals (Festival of Near Death Experiences, or Headless Chicken Festival anyone?)
• Top 5 Unsolved Brain Mysteries (Nature vs. nurture, the mysteries of sleep and more)
  
• 5 Modern Abandoned Cities
  

International Space Station Resource

I've been really interested in seeing photos of the International Space Station from the inside, and found this great, interactive resource while I was searching NASA for pics: http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/ISSRG/.

Backyard Tracking

Took a short break from household tasks to go out and look at tracks in our backyard and the adjacent power lines this afternoon. Found whitetail deer and red fox in our yard: the deer walked straight through, fox(es) stayed to the brush line. Next door in a clearing under the power lines were deer, fox and eastern coyote (or coywolf, as Jon Way is appropriately calling them). Two sets of older coyote tracks and one newer - possibly from last night or this morning. One of the older coyote tracks intersected with a fresher red fox trail traveling along the far tree line. The red fox carefully stepped inside the old coyote tracks for a few paces before traveling on along the tree line again (not before urinating in the intersection, however).

Can't believe (well, alright I can - we have a infant at home) this was the first time I got out tracking this season. I definitely need to break out my snowshoes and get out down at our OE center this week...

Rewilding - A Conversation on Conservation

The NPR radio show On Point had a fantastic conversation with Caroline Frasier (author of "Rewilding the World; Dispaches from the Conservation Revolution") about the concept and progress of "rewilding":bringing back large areas of wilderness around the globe. An example of this is the Y2Y - Yukon to Yellowstone Initiative.

The process of rewilding (and the part of the radio program I was able to listen to today) brought up some questions for me, which are probably answered in Caroline's book. I wonder what the criteria is for rewilding. What is the state of wilderness that people want to bring back (and why)? What about human-wildlife interactions? Everything from wildlife in backyards to mitigating roadkill when major roads and highways are part of a proposed wilderness/wildlife corridor are important parts of the conversation. Not to mention that there is a large segment of the population (at least in this country) that doesn't want to see an increase in wildlife interactions (particularly with larger carnivores) in their towns/neighborhoods.

Another part of the rewilding conversation is the reintroduction of top-level predators where they've been extirpated, something that is near and dear to me as I've been studying the wolf reintroduction process for some time. I'm quite interested in find out how this topic is broached by the different conservation projects in Caroline's book.

Hope to pick up a copy of this book soon and learn more....

Family Update - Birth Announcement!!

Our newest family  member was born on November 22nd, 2009 at 2:13 PM, weighing only 5 lbs., 14 oz., despite being 13 days past his due date. We brought him home from the hospital on Nov. 24, and he and I are both doing well (other than some sleep deprivation...).


Welcome to the family precious little boy!!

A Year (to date) of Facebook Posts

Between work, pregnancy and home concerns, I haven't been taking the time to journal that I'd like to (I have started working on Rowan's scrapbook again, which is something...). Lately, it's been easier to keep my updates going on Facebook, so I compiled (most of) my postings from 2009 to look back at the year:

• is icing a sore back and cursing being a clutz! (Jan. 18)

• is listening to R's breathing through the monitor (Jan. 19)

• is trying to psych up her 4-year-old for the Super Bowl (it's not working) (Feb. 1)

• tried a neti pot for the first time today... (Feb. 6)

• has just seen 'pictures' of the new baby... 9 weeks 2 days, 1 inch long, and beautiful little heartbeat... bliss. (April 8)

• is psyched once again for the [Contra Banditos] CD recording... less than 3 weeks to go! (May 5)

• loves hearing the crickets outside the open kitchen door (ahh, spring!) (May 19)

• felt the baby moving for the first time last night!! (May 30)

• spent a lovely day celebrating father's day, our anniversary and the solstice at DeCordova Museum; now off to make twice baked potatoes... (June 21)

• is having a baby boy!!! 12 oz. as of this evening, and quite the little gymnast! (June 30)

• is tired of the nausea and constant fatigue. (July 18)

• went canoeing today with the guys. Yea! (July 25)

• enjoyed celebrating Lammas yesterday. (Aug. 2)

• now has a broken toe.... grrr. (Aug. 11)

• off to the Catskills - hope everyone has a fabulous holiday weekend! (Sept. 4)

• is on her own with R for the weekend. Man, the house is quiet after bedtime... (Oct. 9)

• smells like a campfire (yum). Thanks Brenda! (Oct. 10)

• is officially in the last month of her pregnancy. (Oct. 13)

• is glad R. had a great time at his party - thanks to everyone who came and helped make it successful!! (Oct. 26)

• Had her last day of work yesterday, and will be at home preparing for baby. (Oct. 29)

• Happy Halloween, blessed Samhain, and happy 5th birthday to my beloved son! (Oct. 31)

• is still pregnant, but only has 4 more days until her due date. Does housecleaning really bring on labor??? At least my house will be clean.... (Nov. 5)

• due today, but no progress to report. Raspberry leaf tea, housecleaning and walking are all being tried... any other recommendations?? (Nov. 9)

• ...still incubating. Have an ultrasound on Monday and doctor's appointment Tuesday to schedule an inducement. Oh well.... (Nov. 15)

Letterboxing as a Means to Exploration

We took one of our many trips out to the Catskills this past weekend (probably the last before the baby comes), and since my mobility is more limited these days (9 weeks to go!) I went to the North American Letterboxing website to look up area boxes we could search for without too much hiking. The result is that we discovered some new places, one of which turned out to be the most beautiful walk I've ever taken on the east coast... and I'm pretty sure we never would have discovered this incredible mountain meadow if we hadn't been in search of a letterbox. When we started letterboxing this past winter, I hadn't considered this aspect of it - all the new places it would take you, or new features of places you already knew, but hadn't discovered.

If you're not at all familiar with letterboxing, it's much like geocaching, but without the GPS. See the Letterboxing website for a full description (www.letterboxing.org), but the basic idea is finding clues (usually online, and there are many, many websites devoted to letterboxing) and searching out the box(es). The boxes contain a log book of some sort, and a rubber stamp (with or without ink pad) usually hand-carved and unique to the box. Carry around your own stamp (pre-made or hand-made), ink pad and journal/log book for recording the boxes you find. That's pretty much it!

As I might have mentioned (once or twice) I love creating lists, so tallying up our box finds is always satisfying. But the real rewards are the intangibles... spending time outside with my family, and finding new places to treasure and re-visit.

I'm Not Dead Yet - Updates and More

Ugh - has it really been over 5 months since I've posted? Doesn't matter I suppose, that I've had loads of great post ideas along the way (what the heck were they, anyway?). Well, I'll blame my pregnancy (6 months along!) and resulting fatigue for much of it. Not to mention that spring and summer just get crazy-busy with outdoor ed and camp.

So if you don't live in New England, this may be news to you, but we haven't had much of a summer here, weather-wise. Only 6 days in the month of June with no rain, and several days of severe storms in July along with unseasonably cool temps (too many rainy days that didn't get out of the 60's to even think about) have made this a nearly forgettable summer. Nearly, that is, if you can overlook the two days in a row of tornado watches, flooding rain, and a microburst in town that brought a foot of water running down main street, along with quarter-sized hail. We were fortunate (!!) at camp not to get quite the severity of the storm that hit town, but frighteningly close cloud-to-ground lightening right during dismissal time was more than enough for us. Whew. I have no desire to go though that ever again.

Given how tired I've been (weekends are usually spent in recovery mode), I haven't gotten a chance to get out and play (when not at work, anyway) much this summer, which made our trip this weekend even better. We took the canoe out for the first time this season with the initial idea of paddling the Nashua River up in NH. What on earth we were thinking, I have no idea. Did I mention the flooding rains we've gotten around here? And never mind that we drive past a good stretch of the Nashua to and from work, and just Friday were amazed at how high the water level was. So we get all the way up to Nashua, just to have Obo's father read us an article in the newspaper about accidents on the river and warning people to stay away. Great.

Ok, so we drove back down to MA and paddled at Paradise Pond in Leominster State Forest. One of the things I love about Paradise Pond is how secluded it feels (even though it's right off rt. 31). With the surrounding hills and over 4,000 acres of forest, you feel like you're in the middle of nowhere. They don't allow motorboats, which goes a long way towards the solitude paddlers can experience. R. had a great time - so much so that when we stopped for a picnic (and it was the picnic I used to persuade him to go paddling in the first place) he was all about getting back on the water as soon as we were done eating.

Not much else to report, I don't think (or at least nothing that's coming to my tired little brain). We're looking forward to attending the Lammas Fair at the work (it's an outdoor ed center & camp; camp) hosted by the Society of Elder Faiths. With the busier season, we haven't been keeping up with their events as much as we'd like, so I'm sure this will be quite enjoyable. Off to bed... I'm hoping to keep the blog more active going forward, but rest first!