Thirty-fifth Tuesday

I read this sentence to my field biology students this morning:

"We turned downriver on a path skirted by willows in which red-wing blackbirds made the day still more liquid with their 'Kon-keree! kon-keree!'"    -from Rascal by Sterling North

The reason I like that sentence and the reason I read it to my students is that it is very specific.  Sterling knew that he was going downriver past willow trees and hearing red-wing blackbirds.  He knew the exact liquid call that the red-wings make.  Think how dull that sentence would be if, instead, it read, "We went by the river on the path past the trees and heard birds sing."  The second sentence might describe the same event, but it lacks the power of specific knowing and naming.  Good writers know that specificity matters.

This year, I'm trying to help my mostly suburban, fairly nature-illiterate, somewhat distracted and distractable students to observe, notice details, make distinctions.  I am urging precision and attention to particulars in their naturalist's notebooks.  I am pushing them to learn names.  I hope that by doing this, not only will their nature knowledge grow, but they will also feel a deeper appreciation of the magnitude and majesty of God, who made not just birds, but red-wing blackbirds, hummingbirds, and barred owls.

In class this morning, we looked at leaf shapes, margins, and apices.  We found a sphinx moth caterpillar.  We learned about Procyon lotor (the raccoon, in honor of Rascal) and his taxonomic classification.  It was all very specific.

After class, we joined the other moms and students  in the worship center for our co-op prayer time.  I heard children thank God for "the world," "everything You do for us," and several other fairly non-specific things.

As I listened, I kept thinking, "Thank you God, for sandwiches."  Isn't that odd?  I'm not sure why I was thinking that except that Joel and I had talked about sandwiches on the way to co-op and I had described a particularly good turkey, tomato, lettuce and gorgonzola cheese one I'd eaten on Sunday.  Maybe, since it was lunch time, I was hungry.  Maybe the Holy Spirit was prompting me toward thankfulness for a rather mundane, but fairly specific thing.

I was afraid if I prayed that little prayer of thankfulness for sandwiches out loud, the children might start to giggle.  But then, something happened.  Several other very specific items came to mind - frequent flyer miles, the car repairman, my shoes - and I felt I could no longer be silent.  God gives us very specific gifts each day.  How often I miss how appropriate and timely his gifts are because I fail to name them, one by one, with detail and precision.

I think a general prayer of thanks, like that second sentence above, can be correct, but lacks power.

The lesson for prayer this morning was, for me, the same one I am trying to teach my students in field biology:

Slow down
Be quiet
Sit still
Observe carefully
Look at the details and
Record the specifics.

The work of noticing and naming specifics works the same way for me, in prayer as it does in field observation.  I marvel more and God gets bigger.

And so, now, I give thanks for:


1221.  ice cold limeade with ginger syrup
1222. comfy, cushioned flip flops
1223.  frequent flyer miles
1224.  an honest, close-by, kind car repairman
1225.  schedules that dovetail
1226.  turkey sandwiches, especially with gorgonzola cheese
1227.  the air conditioner in my car on a hot day
1228.  the way the sun hits the fern on the porch in the morning
1229.  a fan at night and cool air
1230.  Kristin who met Laura and Ijen and then Tom and went to the park on a Sunday afternoon and then ate ice cream at my house about five (?) years ago and sat in my living room to talk about missions yesterday
1231.  a very happy young man who has met a very special young woman, John and Helen you make me smile
1232.  doctors that can figure out strange fevers and lingering coughs
1233.  reviving neglected communication and being received and forgiven
1224.  Amanda, who pays attention to details
1225.  a week in NY with Erin and her family
1226.  a curious middle school girl not afraid of a caterpillar
1227.  tiny winged jewels, sitting on an open palm and suddenly disappearing in a buzz of wingbeats

Thank you, too, again to Ann for prompting so many of us to thank God for all the particulars!

Field Biology - our first outing

After our first class on Tuesday and a visit to the Hummingbird Festival today, I'm thinking my co-op middle schoolers this year are going to be a trip!  Lively, curious, talkative, engaged, and little random at times, they are a fun group.  I'm getting more and more excited about learning with them this year.

Today was our first field trip together and it couldn't have gone better.  We arrived at the park early, rode the shuttle bus to the nature center and arrived just as one of the nature center staff began talking about the huge black rat snake he was holding.  We learned all about the snake, as well as other hummingbird predators.  Did you know that praying mantises sometimes eat hummingbirds??

Next, we headed to the hummingbird banding area, where hummer researcher Susan Campbell was in the process of examining and banding the first hummer of the day.  When she finished, she turned to Nick and asked if he'd like to release the bird.  Wow!  He was pretty excited.  We all watched as Susan placed the hummer on Nick's palm.  The bird sat for about 15 seconds and then took off.  Pretty thrilling!

Then we watched the entire process with the second hummer of the day.

Susan wrapped the tiny bird in a "stocking" and then...

measured it...

banded it...

let it feed...

and examined it closely with the hand lens.

Then the hummer was ready for release.

The woman who held this hummer for release was so enthralled with it.   We all watched, amazed, as the hummer sat on her hand for about 3 minutes.

After the wonder of the hummer banding, we headed into the nature center to listen to a talk by a Master Gardener on Pollination Gardening, growing shrubs, flowers, and herbs that will attract hummers, butterflies, and bees.  I decided that I need to plant some weigela plants in my garden this fall, for hummingbird attracting flowers next summer!

After the plant talk we met, Dr. JB, who told us about hummingbird migration, the other varieties of hummers that visit this area in the winter, and the feeder he designed.  He told us how he got interested in hummers 40 years ago and shared a bit of hummingbird and bird banding trivia with us. He was supposed to give a later talk, but since we weren't staying that long, he was kind enough to talk to my class before his scheduled presentation. What a fascinating and gracious man!

After all those activities, the kids were ready for a little bounce action!  Gotta love their energy.

How about hummer tattoos....

and, of course, no festival would be complete without face painting.

Isn't she cute!

We hiked back to the parking area along the dragonfly pond trail and then came to the house for lunch and a swim.  I can't wait to hear the kids talk about the festival when we get together in class next Tuesday.

Tournament video

You  may remember our trip to Oklahoma in June for Joel's soccer tournament.  Well, Matthew went along, too, and made a video for the team.



Enjoy!

Well, I'm here...

I did survive the good-byes and it wasn't easy!

I watched the hallway fill up for the second time in a week, with suitcases, backpacks, and more; saw the boxes go to the attic and the bags of cast-off clothes to the garage for later drop off at Goodwill; peered into two bedrooms that seemed very empty.

 The road trip was long  -  two full days of travel to Minneapolis.  But when we got there, I remembered why I love that city.  Parks and lakes, Somali women in long dresses, Native American influences, Thai food, Maria's, Bethlehem.  The city holds special memories and dear friends....

...especially, this dear one!  It is a rare gift to have a friend who opens her home, fills the fridge with food she knows you like, puts fruit and flowers in the guest room and a chocolate on each pillow, stays up late to talk and talk and talk, includes you in a dinner and movie evening she had planned with a friend, goes to three grocery stores to buy eggs for French toast, gives you a jar of her parent's maple syrup, and then, best of all, offers to be an aunt to the son you're leaving behind in the city a two days drive away.  Amanda, you're the best.  Thank you is quite insufficient.

After a last grocery store run with me (jello, pickles, Arizona tea, and Yorkshire Gold!), and a father/son stroll around the lake with Coty, it was time to take Matthew back to his apartment and begin our long drive home. We hugged on his doorstep and said our good-byes.

If you know my husband, you know the quavering voice, the long pauses, the sip of water and clearing of the throat that mean he is choking up with emotion and fighting tears.  When we pulled away from the curb and turned the corner to Columbus Avenue, I looked over and saw that the fight was lost.  Tears were streaming down his cheeks as his hands gripped the steering wheel and his shoulders shook.

He told me then about a moment earlier when he and Matthew were sitting on a bench by the lake, a moment when no one walked by, the breeze stopped, the geese were silent, and the grasses at the water's edge barely stirred.  It was a moment, he said, when nothing seemed to change.  And then it was over.

"Did you want to freeze that moment?" I asked.

And I thought, well, yes. Sometimes I do want to freeze time. I don't want any more changes.  I want to stop my children from growing up any more and keep them, just as they are, close and happy and healthy and here.

I want piano music and a work apron draped over the kitchen stool.  I want the sounds of footsteps through the garage and the bang of the backdoor flying open and hitting the open laundry closet door.  I want a familiar arm across my shoulder.

But more than that, I want Matthew and each of my children to become all that God intends for them to be, which, of course, means growing up and stepping out and saying good-bye for a time and making new starts.  And so, back home, I pray for grace in the changes, grace to learn new ways to love, and creativity in new ways to mother.

I give thanks...again and again and again...for the undeserved gifts that my children are -  to me and increasingly these days, to so many others.  When I feel their absence, that indeed, is sweet consolation.

Thirty-fourth Monday

I am thankful...


1219.  That we traveled 2500+ miles without traffic or incident
1220.  That I survived the good-byes.

More tomorrow.  We just got home from two 10 hour days of driving and I'm beat...but very, very thankful for God's traveling mercies and for two very dear boys whose absence will be felt....

Thirty-third Monday

This is a week of leavings and good-byes.  I could feel sad, and I do at one level.  I always feel the hole left in our family life when someone leaves, and I long for a hug, the sight of a young man walking in the door from work, a face to face conversation .  I miss my children terribly when they leave.

We've now tipped the scale more on the side of having children out of the home than in the home.  There have been many partings.  Growing ones getting on airplanes or pulling out of the driveway for drives to far away places.  We are a far flung family - rural NY state, Denver, Brussels, and soon to be, Minneapolis. I feel the space and distance.  I grieve the absences.

Far bigger than the grief of good-byes, though, is incredible gratitude.  I have been given the gift of six children.  Marriage has added two, soon to be three, more.  In spite of my many failings as a mother, my children - in what feels like a stunning gift of grace - still love me. They say so and they show it in innumerable ways.  Somehow, through hard times, thoughtlessness on my part and theirs, misunderstandings and miscommunications, disagreements, and even angry silences,  love wins.

Wendell Berry wrote,

"Grief is not a force and has no power to hold.  You only bear it.  Love is what carries you, for it is always there... shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery."

On this quiet morning with no one else at home, having said one good-bye and facing another parting later in the week, I'm carried in the shining gold stitches of love and thankfulness to God for...

 Erin, Luke, and Clara,

 Jonathan and Kandyce,

 

Thomas and Kay,

 Andrew,

 Matthew,

 and Joel.

Surely, the Lord has been good to me.

#'s 1207-1218

A tribute to a great homeschool mom

If you are a homeschool mom, get a cup of tea and sit down for about 7 minutes and watch this wonderful video tribute to an amazing mom, who just happens to be a dear friend of mine.  When we lived in Massachusetts, Mary and her family lived just across the border from us in NY state.  We did so much together when our kids were younger, until our family moved to Cameroon and then down south.  I have such fond memories of field trips (many of which are mentioned in the video), co-op type activities and studies together, bird walks in the woods behind her house, and many, many encouraging conversations over tea.  Every homeschool mom should have a friend like Mary.

 Mary and me in 2005, just before Erin's wedding

Thanks to Mary's daughter, Anna, for allowing me to share the video with you.

If you look closely, you will see some young Pinckneys (Erin, Jonathan, and Andrew) in some of the pictures.

Enjoy and be encouraged!


Mountain View Home School from Anna Batcheller on Vimeo.

Today was the last time...

...Matthew will play the piano at church for awhile,

...this particular family grouping will be together til Christmas,

...and last time to see this smiling face in person.  He's on his way to Brussels.

Bon voyage, Andrew

And the winner is...

...well, first let me tell you how we did it.

I wrote your names on little slips of paper, folded them,

and placed them in this great hat.

Matthew, owner of the hat, reached in a pulled out a slip.

 Can you read it!!!  It's

LISA

in Bolivia!

Lisa - let me know which purse you want and I'll get it in the mail to you, pronto!

More "perfect size" shoulder bags

Keeping this post at the top til Friday...for newer posts, scroll down...

Remember the bag I told you about earlier this summer.  I still love it.  I've carried it all summer.  My young friend, Cameryn, came over to learn how to make one of her own. 

And do you remember that I said there might be some more bags, maybe one for you?

Well, here they are.  Four of them.   In a variety of fabrics.

If you'd like the opportunity to win one of these, leave a comment on this post with a way for me to get in touch with you, email address, blog link, etc. If you're chosen, you get to pick the bag you want.  If you aren't chosen, I'll be putting the rest of the bags on sale soon....an etsy shop in the works, perhaps!

A few close-ups...

China/India

fabrics purchased in the Xiamen Fabric market and Hyderabad, India last summer, size is approximately 8 x 11 inches.

Toile and Flowers

sweet little children in apple greens with tiny purple flowers on the inside

Soccer Mom

Black canvas with white stitching lined with soccer ball fabric, pocket on the inside has red and white polka dot edging

Indian Stitchery

 Richly embroidered fabric from Chirala Handlooms, which we visited last summer, back is quilted solid section from the same fabric, handle is gold from embroidered fabric border.  This bag is smaller than the others. (7 x 9 inches)

So, there they are.  They'll be up til Friday.  Join the fun!

*Kristi, this is for you!

Yesterday, at the top of Upper Creek Falls, with my guys that are still at home...

L to R:  Thomas (21), Joel (15), me (29+), Matthew (17), Andrew (19)

Andrew heads to Brussels on Sunday for a semester of study and we take Matthew to Minneapolis next week to start his studies at Bethlehem College and Seminary.  We sure will miss them and I'll be down to two at home.  Joel would have been the sole son remaining at home, but Thomas transferred to UNCC to finish up his degree and will be living at home.  We and his fiance, Kay, the writer of that sweet note in a previous post, are pretty happy about that!

_________________________________________

*and others who've been wanting to put names with faces!

Thirty-second Monday

Thankful this morning for the gift of extended family....

1195.  Mama and Daddy, so generous and loving, brought lunch yesterday for us all
1196.  Anne, my sister and friend, we talk about kids, composting, life...
1197.  nephew Kennan, one of the boys - we enjoy all the time he spends here
1198.  niece, Annsley, so creative and talented and Coty's pool buddy
1199. nephew, Joseph, funny, smart, creative, here for a sleepover/campout with Thomas last night

For the next addition to our family...

1200.  Kay is home from camp and her wedding dress hangs in my closet!

 a note she left on our garage white board a few weeks ago

For hard work and tangible results...

1201.  in the garden
1202.  with lesson planning
1203.  with knitting projects
1204.  around the house

cleaning out the spice cabinet

And thankful for a decision made....

1205.  to drive to Minnesota in a week and a half to take Matthew to school

And for time ahead this week...

1206.  to get away to the mountains and a favorite creek with all my guys this time!

Pit composting

With all the travel last summer, my garden was rather neglected.  This summer, I've spent a bit more time developing the middle garden, especially the retaining wall garden.  Every year I learn more and more about what I can successfully grow.  This year, I've come to the not so startling conclusion that in spite of my excitement about more place for veggies when we finished that wall, like most of the rest of my garden, it is just too shady.

The patty pan squash I tried earlier in the summer produced lush bushes that took over the bed, but because they didn't get enough sun, the flower stalks grew leggy and tall. As the little squashes started to develop, the long leggy stalks couldn't support them and the baby squashes just broke off.  I ripped the plants out a couple of weeks ago and planted a flat of impatiens that I still had sitting in a shady spot.  I'm hoping these flowers will catch up to the ones on the other side of the bed that are lush and colorful. 

The plan for next year.  More shade loving flowers.  Lots of color.  A mix of perennials and annuals.  Though they are often overused as landscape plants, I really do love the ease, vivid colors, and spreading growth habit of the impatiens and the bold colors and heart shaped leaves of the caladiums. (a few more lovely photos of caladiums here).

Enough about the flowers...this post is supposed to be about pit composting!  So here's the scoop.  Literally.  You dig a hole and dump in your veggie waste.  That's the method in its simplest form.  Here's what I did.

The section of garden underneath my clothesline, just below the screen porch has been neglected the last couple of years.  A few day lilies and a bronze fennel were limping along.  I decided to transfer the day lilies to another bed and clear everything else out of the bed.  Then I dug a pit about two feet square and a foot and a half deep.  Into this pit, I put the veggie waste I've been saving up.  I added a layer of leaves (I have an abundance of leaves all the time!), another layer of veggies, a layer of leaves and then covered it with the soil I had dug out.
 

 Mounds of soil at the bottom right of the photo are the filled pits topped with soil.  Just in front of the garden tools you can see the pit in progress.

I'm going to have the boys help me by digging similar pits along the length of this bed and I'm going to try my hand at a modified version of bokashi composting which I read about in my latest issue of Fine Gardening magazine.

If you google bokashi composting, you'll get lots of articles.  This is the one I found to be most helpful.

I'm not going to put money in purchasing EM bokashi starter or the time in making my own right now, however.  Instead, I'll just collect my veggies scraps as usual in my stainless steel counter top compost bucket and then dump them in my pre-dug pits as I collect them.  I'll mix them with leaves and soil as I go and cover the pit completely with soil when it's full.  It's an easy, sort of lazy way to go, but I expect a the pit composted garden bed to be quite fertile by next spring.

If you want to read more, here are a couple of articles about pit or trench composting. 

For compost for my other garden beds, I'll still be using my above ground compost bin, but I'm moving it near the pit compost bed and will be using more leaves and some shovels of dirt to try and speed things up.  One day, I'd also like to try this arrangement.

I must say, its a pleasant walk along the newly mulched path to the compost area.  I don't think anyone will mind taking out the compost any more!