Music

It thrills my heart and my ears to hear the lovely ladies and fine young gents singing all day long, humming their favorite tunes and making up their own songs-- at the table, in the car, as they play, at night as they drift off to sleep. Plinking on the piano, tapping the drums. Clanging through the house that's been transformed into a music parade route. Someone always making music.
Music was a part of my childhood too: Family sing-alongs, Mom on piano and Dad on guitar and the rest of us joining in with our voices; guitar lessons and choir; listening to Johnny Cash and Frankie Lane records; old-time fiddling get-togethers at the Grange; singing and humming through the day. We didn't just sit and listen passively to the radio, we made music. Music was a vital living enterprise.


Our visit to the east side of the mountains was filled with music. Backyard guitar, fiddles, voices in the warm after- noons. I got to sing with my Irie Sis, something I've never done before. (Click on her picture to read about her guitar adventure.) I think she's always been a little shy of singing where others can hear. What a joy to hear her voice; it's lovely. It was a treat to hear David and my dad play together, Dad on the fiddle and David on his guitar. Later, Megan and David playing together, singing and talking quietly.

I picked up Dad's guitar once everyone had left and plinked around. I haven't played since high school. I still remember how to play; I was able to pick out a new song by ear the first time I tried. I'm still surprised at how natural it felt and how much I've missed playing.

Music is rooted in my soul, along with books and gardens and forests. I passionately want for my children to understand that music is theirs; not just something that we can listen to, but something that we can create. Recorded music is such a blessing: Can you imagine not being able to hear Mozart unless there was a live performance nearby? Or not being able to hear Ella unless you were fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to attend a concert? The trade-off is that music has become a passive entertainment for so many people. When we can hear the most talented musicians in the world, our own singing and playing suffers by comparison, at least to our ears. Families rarely gather around the piano in the evening because they can watch American Idol instead.

Along with the kids, I sing all day every day. I love singing. But now that the baby isn't really a baby any more I find myself longing for...something...a new challenge (or the revival of an old one), something to fill that more-and-more-often empty space in my lap. Think it would be silly to ask for a guitar for Christmas?

Fishing with Grandpa

It's beautiful up here. Fishing with Grandpa is the highlight of the summer for the lovely ladies and fine young gents. They talk about fishing with Grandpa all throughout the year and when summer arrives they can barely contain themselves for the anticipation. Grandpa is the most patient fishing teacher and helper around. I suspect it's really Grandpa that's the highlight of the summer and catching fish pushes the outing to the top.

Anthony Lake is a highlight of my summer. Stunning. While my kind husband took the gents for a walk I listened to the water and the ospreys and not much else. The quiet is beautiful. The ospreys were diving for fish. (Scroll down and check out the feet, wow! You can also hear a recording of their cry.)

The drive up to the lake is beautiful. Baker County is beautiful country. We spend a few hours fishing, enjoying the air and the company, then we head back down the mountain. Simple, quiet. Not the activity and noise and thrill of, say, the county fair or a birthday party. We're creating memories, the kind that renew and refresh us because they remind us of times we spent with people who make us feel treasured and respected. Memories of peaceful time filled with quiet conversation that doesn't go much of anywhere because it doesn't need to go anywhere. It's really about spending time with Grandpa, creating and sharing a mutual love of peace and beauty and the outdoors.

And here we all thought we were just catching fish and trying to keep the baby from falling in the lake.

And after we get home? Mmmmm....Fresh fish for dinner.

Random Ramblings: Vacation

I'm trying to catch up. We've been so busy and there are so many things to post: fishing with Grandpa, the garden, music, more vacation reading. Whew!

Rewind to mid-August: My marvelous golf-mad husband left to golf in Scotland, leaving me alone with Puking Boy and the rest of the crew. We visited my dad in Eastern Oregon for my grandparents 65th wedding anniversary, which my sister already wrote about, and I am lazy enough to link instead of doing all that writing myself. Ignore the part where she compares our children to ants.

Random photo from the shindig, the boys in their matching shirts. Makes it easy to spot them:

And one more, heading back from the party.

I like this picture, not because it's great photography, but because I know that everyone was hot and a bit dusty, a little tired, and in good spirits. The kids had been playing on the baseball diamond and the bleachers, running and jumping and chasing and yelling and just having a good time. The bigger ones looked out for the little ones. The older folk sat around and chatted. It reminded me of get-togethers with friends and family when I was a kid. Lovely.

The gents were worn out. Just after Dad told me that everyone was remarking on how well-behaved all of the kids are, and how they didn't hear us raise our voices to the kids the whole day, an exhausted young gent pitched a screaming yelling crying tantrum over bedtime. I was, um...., less than patient. Might have said something along the lines of go to bed or I'll duct tape you to a tree. Not really, geez. That's only what I wanted to say. I am sure that my threatened consequence was marginally more reasonable. Not one of my most stellar parenting moments, shall we say. Let's hope that none of the folks outside could hear the hollering (not-so-fine young gent) and yelling (not-so-patient mommy) coming from the basement.

We got home from the trip exhausted from driving and driving, and worn thin by steering ladies and gents through unfamiliar environments and food that's different, lugging in the mounds of laundry that we've brought home and so forth. It just plopped right out of my mouth: "I need a vacation from my vacation." Cliche it may be, but I did get my own little vacation. I drove to the Oregon Coast with my sisters for a weekend visit with Mom and her marvelous husband, Dick. I did have to take the youngest fine young gent, so it wasn't all naps and beach strolls, but it was enough of a vacation that I returned refreshed and ready to start school.

Hot Wheels

The fine young gents are Hot Wheels fanatics. We've got a bucket full of Hot Wheels and the like. They browse toy catalogs looking for cars and car-related accessories. They spend hours with their cars on the car rug. Favorite movie? Cars.

Old car show at the park while we were on vacation. Delightful. They were in Hot Wheel heaven.

Think they'll grow out of it?

What I'm reading

I finished reading The Golden Spruce. As Vaillant unfolds the story of this unique and magnificent tree and the man who cut it down, he weaves together such varied subjects as history, geography, culture, logging and environmental activism, botany, weather and marine conditions, psychology and spirituality into a nearly seamless narrative. Vaillant manages a fine balancing act. He is able to explore the culture of loggers and the larger societal-cultural forces at work within the logging industry (and beyond, since the logging industry doesn't exist in a vacuum) with sensitivity while clearly depicting what has happened to the giant forests of the Northwest and to the giants within those giant forest. On what Vaillant refers to as the "logger's conundrum":

"Another reason I like falling," he [a tree faller] said, "is I like walking around in old-growth forests. It's kind of an oxymoron, I guess-- to like something and then go out and kill it."....Of course, any of our lives, closely examined, can be found to hold gross inconsistencies; slaughterhouse workers, loggers, and stockbrokers are simply less insulated from them than the rest of us who benefit from their labors. It seems that in order to succeed-- or even function-- inthis world, a certain tolerance for moral and cognitive dissonance is necessary. (p.220)

I came away from reading this book with a deep and very real sense of grief for the forests we have lost. No matter where you fall on the continuum of environmental beliefs, The Golden Spruce is well worth reading for the story of the tree and of the surrounding people and lands.

New words: katabatic, internecine, silviculture

I saw David briefly two hours ago. (Da5id's thoughts on The Golden Spruce on his blog.) I forgot to give back his book. Oh well, next time, along with the Christmas thank you's from the kids that I found when I cleaned out my junk drawer.

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I've passed the halfway point, reading The Reformation. Mostly interesting, with occasional patches of pretty dull. I find myself looking up names of people and of the different confessions or battles in the index to refresh my memory when I run across them again. "Who was that guy again?" or "What did those folks agree to (or not)?" After 50+ pages of more names, dates, and agreements the names, dates, and agreements I read about two chapters before start to slip. It's like trying to think through mud. But I must say that I am still enjoying the challenge. Now more than ever, since I'm halfway through.

I'm on my fourth bookmark, though half of one of those bookmarks is taken up with notes and words from The Golden Spruce.

More words from The Reformation: irenic, soteriology, conventicle, peripatetic

I Spy: "Girlie stuff"

I spy a pink poodle and a nose of yellow,

A unicorn, HOPE, and a GIRLS RULE pillow.

Nature Day

It was a lovely lazy morning to start school. We whizzed through our morning chores and off we went for a nature day. We left without a plan. I had thought to scoop the ponds but forgot the nets. We reached the bridge and the ladies and gents fanned out along the path searching for just the right sticks. I didn't get to play this time. The youngest fine young gent wanted to play Poohsticks too; he's certain he's big like the others. I focused my attention on keeping him on the bridge instead of on watching the water flow under the bridge.

We brought along sketch pads and pencils. The oldest fine young gent, who doesn't usually enjoy drawing, sat and sketched a dried flower-turning-to-seed-pod. It was quite detailed, in color even.


His sister is a talented artist. She'll add this sketch to the lovely nature journal that she started last year.

We picked blackberries, picnicked, walked down to feed the ducks, and splashed in the water. A lovely relaxing outing without much of an agenda. While the lovely ladies entertained the fine young gents, I picked enough blackberries for a cobbler. Once home we had a cooking class: the girls made the cobbler while I coached.

The eleven year-old lovely lady was, I suspect, at a bit of a loss today. It's her first year being homeschooled instead of going to "real school" (her words), and this beginning of the school year celebration day is very different than the first day of public school. Sure beats sitting at a desk!

Our first day wasn't all sunshine and wandering. We completed another "I Spy" picture, dolls and such. I don't know if it was too much sunshine or not enough lunch or just plain orneriness, but there came a point during this "fun"project when I told them, respectively, to stop pouting (ladies) or to stop fighting (gents) and, darn it all! to have fun or else. Rotten kids.

I don't and didn't mean it, of course, the rotten kids part anyway. As a matter of fact, we all got a good laugh out of me playing Grouchy Old Mom. Good thing they don't know that even though I was clowning and pretending to demand fun-ness or else, I actually meant that part. I was hoping no one would take me up on the "or else" because I had no idea what it would be except that it would be something that was No Fun.

Sounds like a do-nothing day. But here's what we covered: nature studies and science, art, nutrition, home economics and mathematics, working in a diverse group (again), and we got some exercise.

School tomorrow? This evening the oldest lovely young lady and I joined my sister and her oldest lovely young lady for an evening of blackberry picking. We've got purple fingers and scratches everywhere and several pounds of blackberries in the kitchen. Tomorrow we're making jam.

Now In Session

I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. ~Pablo Picasso

NO GAS NEXT 46 MILES

We're a little past the halfway point on our trip clear across the state, an eight-hour journey. I'd gotten out of bed at 3:00, yes that's a.m., poured myself two giant travel mugs of coffee, rousted the kids out of bed at 3:30 and loaded them in the car thinking they'll sleep most of the trip away. (They didn't). Sooooo..........to recap: Up way too early, way too much coffee, driving and driving and driving with kids up way too early and giddy with excitement. I'm a little punchy.

The travel information sign on the side of the freeway reads: NO GAS NEXT 46 MILES.

Can you see where this is going? I make a really bad gas joke and giggle. One lovely lady is kind enough to give a courtesy laugh, the other doesn't hear me through her headphones, and their very polite lovely young cousin pretends she didn't hear me. I don't think her mom makes jokes about passing gas (scroll down to the last paragraph), at least not around the kids. The fine young gents, on the other hand...the very literal five-year-old gent reminds me that (Duh, Mom) it means gas for the car, and three-year-old gent worries that the gas police will get us if he accidentally farts.

The baby thinks it's funny mommy laughed, so he laughs too. He's my new favorite kid.

I have finally discovered the way to put the kibosh on the kids making fart jokes: Make them myself.

I Spy

I spy BUS and three kids in bed,

A pink-roofed house, and cars that are red.

Shhh....don't tell the kids that today was a school day. We built another I Spy, cooperative learning at its finest. Granted, one-and-a-half year old fine young gent was briefly banished because he kept sitting on the mat and knocking over the blocks, but he rejoined us once the pictures were taken. Now all three fine young gents are happily demolishing and reconstructing the scene.

Here's what we've learned: Working in a team with people of different abilities and interests, physics and construction (you can't see the marble maze or the triumphal arch of blocks in this picture), math and logic: sorting and categorizing, and let's throw in reading and writing too even though we haven't gotten to writing our rhymes yet.

We're going to have a fun year together.