Attention Span Deficit

Thought 1: I really should probably lose a few pounds…

     was interrupted by

Thought 2:  Hmmm…  I bet those fudge-dipped, chocolate-chip granola bars would taste even better if I spread peanut butter on them...  yeah, definitely.

Bloody gumdrop brains

I am not a vegan, I am not even a vegetarian.  I am, in fact, a fully committed carnivore who welcomes my place in the food chain both as predator and as prey, meaning that I would consider it an honorable death to be eaten by a grizzly bear or a tiger. 

But I do think food is important, and I hope to cultivate in myself and my family a healthy relationship with the the earth; with the soil, the flora, and the fauna that nourish us and give us life.  For me that process begins, at least, with understanding where food comes from.

And ideal setting for this kind of education would be a farm where we could go about the daily business of reaping and sowing.  As I’ve written about previously, I would love to live on one.   It would be awesome to even have a garden – to plow the earth and plant seeds and eat fresh corn on the cob, cucumbers, and summer squash with dinner like my parents do. Sadly, we don’t.  So we do the best we can given our busy schedules and small plot of rented land.

We shop at the local farmer’s market Saturday mornings:

We grow and eat our own herbs:

We stock our fridge and counters with “slow foods” and eat them whole when we have a chance.

We visit farms (thanks for the Audubon Society membership, Cami!) and talk about what happens there (even though our daughter doesn’t speak a lick of English).

And we go to a small, local zoo, where we watch other animals eating.  Remember that song about the kookaburra?  You know, the merry king of the bush that eats gumdrops and laughs all day?  Well, apparently" “merry” is a euphemism for “violent” and “gumdrop” is a euphemism for “small rodent.” 

Whilst visiting said zoo, Squiggles and I watched a kookaburra having lunch.  He caught a mouse, but instead of eating it forthright, spent a good minute or two bashing its head against the branch on which he was perched – ensuring the mouse wouldn’t make any trouble once inside, perhaps.  We were just a foot away, so close that we were splashed with …. ummm… mouse fluid.

I considered taking my daughter to the next exhibit, but (in a move that will likely cost me mother-of-the-year award) decided to stay and let her watch as the large bird beat the rodent senseless and then swallowed him whole.  Squiggles watched carefully, absorbing every detail as in her way,  and then ran off to see the pelicans with no immediate signs of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Maybe over time these experiences will give her a healthy perspective on food, biology, process, and consumption.

Or maybe, this day:  Squiggles, in her early twenties, will be sitting in a cushioned chair in an air-conditioned office, and will say to some kind and nodding phychologist, “…And then there was the time she made me watch that bird beating the crap out of this cute little mouse…”

Parenting, really, is just gambling with the highest stakes imaginable.

I need to go wash some murine entrails from my person.  Enjoy some Wendell Barry quotes:

 

"One of the most important resources that a garden makes available for use, is the gardener's own body. A garden gives the body the dignity of working in its own support. It is a way of rejoining the human race."
— Wendell Berry

"What I stand for is what I stand on."
— Wendell Berry

"The passive American consumer, sitting down to a meal of pre-prepared food, confronts inert, anonymous substances that have been processed, dyed, breaded, sauced, gravied, ground, pulped, strained, blended, prettified, and sanitized beyond resemblance to any part of any creature that ever lived. The products of nature and agriculture have been made, to all appearances, the products of industry. Both eater and eaten are thus in exile from biological reality."
— Wendell Berry

"Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do."
— Wendell Berry

"I dislike the thought that some animal has been made miserable to feed me. If I am going to eat meat, I want it to be from an animal that has lived a pleasant, uncrowded life outdoors, on bountiful pasture, with good water nearby and trees for shade."
— Wendell Berry (What Are People For?)

Saturday.

Last month, we drove 4 hours to go to Long Beach.  This month we drove a half hour to Devereux Beach in Marblehead. 

Squiggles apparently overcame her fear of enormous bodies of water.

And even splashed around a bit by herself (with me hovering nearby… don’t worry).

She clearly is related to me – is rock collecting genetic?

The water was perfect. 

I took Squiggles out and about, and then swam by myself for an hour or so while Tim played with the baby.

Swimming was grand – I’m getting braver, too. 

But.

At one point I heard a sort of low grumbling sound, which I decided was probably a shark on his way to eat me.  I swam hurriedly to shore and then realized the sound was coming from above.

It was a blimp.

Long About a Saturday Night

Have I mentioned that Tim finished his PhD?  He did, and is now back in medical school for the final two years.  Among other things, this means that we have become very, very poor.  So poor that I am considering darning Squiggles’ holey socks.*

We are so poor that we don’t have cable television, which in our poor-reception town means that we don’t have television.  We are reduced to spending our evenings taking nature walks, skipping rocks on lakes at sunset, and birdwatching.   Luckily there is a local venue (a couple blocks from our house) that offers these activities – free!

Someday, when we have real jobs, we will spend our evenings…

                        … doing the same sorts of things.

 

*Unfortunately, I missed that day of home-ec.  Oh wait, I  didn’t take home-ec… I took wood shop instead, which might explain a lot about the state of my house…

Buzzing in my bosom

Tim asked for a bicycle GPS for his birthday; unfortunately, when we looked into it, we found that said devices are far more expensive than we can afford on our meager, double-student, seriously-are-we-ever-going-to-have-real-jobs salaries.

So we have continued to print out the directions for our bike routes on small pieces of paper, laminate them with packing tape, and fashion them to our cycles or bodies with various sophisticated mechanisms such as clothespins, hair elastics, safety pins, or pieces of string found on the side of the road. Sometimes I get lazy and just write the directions on my arm with a sharpie.

Today, however, we made a last-minute change and rode the Great Brook Ramble instead of what we had originally planned.
We didn’t have the directions, and hadn’t ridden the route for a couple years. We decided to wing it, and hoped that the turns would look familiar.

About half-way through the ride (coincident with a very familiar feeling that I didn’t actually know where I was in relation to the rest of the physical world), I recalled that my phone has navigation capabilities, so I punched in the cross streets of our endpoint. I tucked the phone away and as I rode with the wind on my back, my chest occasionally vibrated and piped up with helpful advice such as, “In 600 feet, turn left.”

Garmin, you’re so not needed.

The route took us past many small farms, Great Brook Farm State Forest, and some gorgeous houses I’ll never, even with a real job, be able to afford. I believe the following field becomes a cranberry bog in the fall.

“Smile!” I said.

“No,” he said.

Luckily his glare looks kind of like a smirk, which is kind of like a smile, which indicates that the subject of this photo is enjoying himself.

House Rules.

Hear ye, hear ye…

I am a baby.
I can barely walk.
I only know a couple words.

But.

I know what I want, and the following rules WILL be followed.

1.  Only Mommy is allowed to dress me after a bath.

2.  ONLY Daddy is allowed to rock me to sleep at night.

3.  You will offer me a piece of anything you are eating.

4.  Unless you are eating cherries.  I HATE THOSE SO BAD, why would you give me that crap?

5.  You will let me out of this house at approximately 8:00 each morning.  It doesn’t matter where we go, but we will go.  We will.  Or I will stand at the gate at the top of the stairs leading down to the door that goes outside and shout angry, unintelligible words. I would prefer that we go to Cami’s, Nana’s, or a walk around the lake, and don’t give me that stupid Dora sippy-cup, I want a real water bottle.

6.  Upon arriving home, you will close the gate at the top of the stairs.  It is unacceptable for that gate to be open.  I could fall, people – close the d#%^ gate!

7.  During the day, I will nap in my carseat; however,

8.  At night I will sleep in my crib.

9.   At the store, you will not humiliate me by making sit in the shopping cart.  I will walk about the store by myself.  You can’t take away my dignity. 

10.  You are permitted to kiss me, but only when I’m in a very good mood (cookies help).  And don’t even think about cuddling with me. 

11.  Unless you’re Daddy and it’s bedtime.