Busy Hands Homestead

Every morning I make a list of three things that made me happy the day before. A practice I started when life became crazy - and that was a while ago - years ago. Little things: walks, dinner, kid crafts, baking bread, flowers opening, bathing, sleeping in, having a shower to shower in. Time is tracked in lists. April - The numbers of eggs our chickens lay per day.  What is the average?  (3.6) What is the MAD (mean absolute deviation)? (.706) What is the normal range? (2.89 - 4.3) May - The wild flowers we see on hikes. The birds we mange to identify. Time moves fast, slow, doesn't exist at all. Adam dates a check the 8th.  "Where have you been", I say. "Today is the 15th." Time is tracked in shopping lists and meal plans . Ivory pours over recipes for cookies, candies and desserts.  She creates excuses to makes sweets and delivers them to neighbors: toffee, gummies, french macrons.  I discover wishful items added to my shopping:  ...

Strong, cold wind blows down the beach, the water is so cold my toes tingled and the kids still get soaked from head to toe, splashing in the space between solid land and sea. The kids shriek and run.  They gather up rocks, poke at pieces of jelly fish, and these moments alone would have been worth the drive.  The moments with friends and the most decadent camping food, in the history of camping, would have been worth the drive. But, the excuse for this trip, is a moment 1 minute and 55 seconds in length. Intellectually, I had been prepared for this moment. We had listened to podcasts, heard other people's stories, shushed the children on the eleven hour drive split between two days: "Shhh!!! Listen, to this story.  They are talking about what we are about to see." "Don't look at the sun without your glasses.  It's dangerous." The sun was bright, the temperature dropped, our shadows become duplicate, the spaces between the leaves turne...