Newsprint

All over the county this week folks will be recycling some 1300 words I wrote for a Times-Standard special section on the state of the county's dairy industry (they're putting one of these out every Sunday for the next few weeks, each one focusing on one of the county's big industries). Oh, folks will also be recycling a very sweet picture of Jonah drinking a glass of milk. And a couple of typos. Then again, they do that every week. [Somehow they found a way to introduce typos into my article. That's right, me, the compulsive proofreader. Ack. Just so you know: I didn't write that cows eat "salads of fresh clover and us." I don't care how good that milk tastes, I'm not buying it.]

I think this is going to wind up online somewhere; I'll update with a link when that happens.

Hope you are all enjoying your Sunday. We're out mowing and weeding and planting in the sunshine.

Evening Constitutional

A very friendly sheep, originally uploaded by nrbp.

It is Spring now: time to ease into all this daylight, shed our winter coats (I'm looking at you 3 cats who are covering every surface of my house with your fur), break out the allergy medicine, tune up the mower, put air in the tires on all of our bikes, turn over the dirt in the garden space, take leisurely walks at the end of the day.

Sometimes we'll drive down to the fish hatchery or to the river, on a rare summer evening we might make it all the way out to the beach, sometimes we don't get any farther than the anthill in our yard. Once the weather starts to clear up, and if we aren't running up against bedtime, we try to make a habit of getting outside for a little bit right after dinner.

More often than not, we'll head down our street to the next "Not A County Road" where there's a tiny little farm (chickens, friendly sheep, a couple of disinterested horses, a few cats and dogs). The children are learning that they have to stay close to us while we are on the main road (sidewalks? or even much of a shoulder? out here?), but once we've turned off of it, they're free to run ahead. They love feeding the very friendly sheep. The horses, however, are not swayed by promises of greener grass from the other side--which hasn't stopped us from trying to make friends. It's slow going sometimes: we have to stop to look at flowers, pick up bugs, poke sticks in slimy mud, point out our barn, our house, our cars parked in our yard just two houses over; we don't always make it to the top of the hill where there is a view of the river.

There are times when I wish we were raising our children in a big city--or even a small city, at that--because of the stuff urban areas have that we do not. The French immersion schools and the art museums and the Trader Joe's. Then there are times like the afternoon recently when a fellow showed up at our back door asking if we might be interested in selling some of the land we've got (about 3 acres, and I didn't mention that we don't own the place). He acted like it was foolishness to have all this space--to want to have all this space--around us. Times when what we have here is just perfect, just what we need, just what we couldn't do without.

More pictures over on Flickr.

Goodbye to All That

It's official! There is no longer any carpet in our house!

John and I--the kids sometimes making things harder, but overall doing a terrific job of staying out of the way--spent the weekend pulling up the old, dusty, icky carpet in our room. We've been talking about doing this ever since we moved in and now it is done. The floor underneath is not in the best of shape, but it is all wood (probably about 100 years old). It's going to be so much easier to keep clean. Whoever put the carpet and 2 layers of padding down sure was into their staple gun: my hands are all achy from pulling hundreds of them up. Of course now I want to paint. (And I've been talking about doing that since the minute we moved into this place too...)

We finished at about 3pm (what's that in normal time? gah, I hate the time change), moved some of the furniture back where it belongs, John took a shower and then, because I am insane I am the best mother ever the kids deserved a good treat, I took them to the pool, then out to dinner, then out to icecream. I am worn out.