Busy Hands Homestead

In 1960 John Steinbeck embarked on a trip across the United States in search of America.  As an American writer, writing about America, he felt he was only writing from memory and he know longer was familiar with the people of his country.  His adventure is chronicled in his 1962 book Travels with Charlie in Search of America .  With his beautiful use of language he describes a plastic wrapped nation, fed by homogeneous mediocracy, populated by political cowards, and a country side that is so defined by the drive for the next best model of X that the country side itself is invisible. He noted one exception: Montana.  "It seemed to me that the frantic bustles of America was not in Montana....  that the towns were places to live in rather than nervous hives.  People had time to pause in their occupations to undertake the passing art of neighborliness."   Fifty some years after Steinbeck's journey I wonder what he would see today.  What would he th...

A few weeks ago I sat in the noisy gym at the Y (during family fun time) listening to a voice mail from one of my WIC counselors asking me to call her back regarding the online session I had just completed.  At my last visit I had been offered the choice between a follow up in office visit or an online session on wichealth.org after which I would just email the office. I took the online choice and all I could think was: SHIT!... because there is nothing like an online, blank, anonymous appearing box to solicit my honest and uncensored opinion on a subject, especially a subject related to food.  And that opinion had NOT been kind.  In my mind the person reading my criticism was not received by the sweet lady I look forward to chatting with every few months but rather the creator of the lack luster content I had found when I clicked through the segments of my Meatless Meals Section I had chosen to complete. When I finally did speak to her, I...

It is the first day of spring. Out side of the window the chickens are still rooting around in the grass. Sylvan is asleep in my arms. He has been curled up there for the last five minutes, and those are the first continuous minutes of sleep he has had all day. He fell asleep on my hip while I was cooking dinner but refuses to be put down at all. A mysterious fever has been plaguing him, into which even the Dr. had no insight. Ivory is puttering around in the dining room, setting up a picnic in front of the furnace for her droves of imaginary children and class mates. The toys are steadily spreading out from their shelf on the living room through the dining room and stop at the kitchen door. I am sitting in the corner of the living room curled up in our blue arm chair – waiting. We are all waiting for Adam to come home from work. The longer days, often mean longer and often unpredictable hours. He came home late from work yesterday too, dinner and bed time...

     He squats down, the blue dust pan in hand and smashes it into the pile of dog hair, dirt and crushed cheerios on the kitchen floor. Grinning he pushes the pile around the floor as if saying: “look Mama, I am helping you.” Just a few moments later he is sitting smack dab in the middle of the kitchen table both hands in the pie pan filled with crushed corn chex I am using to bread chicken legs. “Look Mama, I can help you”. We begin our up and down ritual that consists of me setting him on the ground and him climbing back up faster than I think should be possible. I set him back down, hugging him close, not using my hands because they are covered in raw chicken juice.      It almost seems impossible that Sylvan was born just a little over a year ago. Last year, this fast as lightning, climbing, running forward and gingerly stepping backward, full of hugs and kisses snuggly little guy was a wrapped up little cocoon hiding under my coat from winte...

     Our household has been pulsing from chaos to mess, chaos to mess, chaos to mess. For the last week we (with the wonderful help of friends) have been shuttling everything we own, including our two dogs, seven chickens and massive piles of wood, across our neighborhood with Sylvan and Ivory in tow. Figuring out where to sleep, where to wash laundry and how to cook dinner on top of the mess. The washer and dryer are finally hooked up, and while many small piles remain everywhere, I am beginning to see our new house become a home.      All through this process I keep thinking of someone I love very much, who is day after day taking care of someone she loves very much, as he is fading away, and wishing I didn't live thousands of miles away. I have no words to offer. I know nothing of death and dying except that it is inevitable, and I often wonder what exactly we talked about in that Death and Dying class I took in college. Why is it o...

The day after Adam defended his master's thesis, we loaded up a rental truck and he drove from Stillwater, Oklahoma to Missoula, Montana. A month later I crammed our tiny car full of all the things we managed to forget to pack into the truck, put my daughter into her car seat and made the trip north to join him. I took the Orange street exit, and I will admit it, promptly got lost. So rather than being absolutely ecstatic, I was more than a little grumpy when I finally managed to fine the MUD site where we would be living for the next year. I was even more grumpy when I walked into our new home, only to see how literal my husband had taken my request to not move in completely with out me.... everything, and I really mean almost everything was still in boxes or laying on top of boxes. So, I unpacked, sorted, moved furniture and slowly put my life back in order and started to explore this new place we lived in. In August Ivory and I will have lived in Missoula for...

We were supposed to be drifting in a canoe on a lake, but instead Ivory is drifting in and out of sleep on the sofa. I cancel all of our play dates, and resign myself to a quite day at home. I pick up the yard (where does all this clutter come from?) drifting in and out of the bedroom the living room and the yard to check on the sleeping children. It is a drifting kind of day. The flat pod peas Ivory planted weeks ago are ready to be harvested. But picking them can wait for her, and I leave them hanging, translucent in the morning sun. “Stir-fried with thin slices of beef”, I think to myself. Between naps, we read chapters of Lucy and the Green Man by Linda Newbery. We read about the passing of seasons, summer waning, winter arriving. That seems so far away. Summer and sunshine seem to have just now entered our lives. We read about Lucy's grandpa passing away and my voice cracks a littl...

“I've got this”, is the thought, or the more the feeling I relish in as I wake up, change a diaper, nurse my son back to sleep and slip out of bed. My husband is already in the kitchen making breakfast and his lunch after having taken out the dogs. We dance around each other, resembling chaos more than a waltz, and before my whole wheat pancakes are done he is gone. Sylvan has joined me in the kitchen, and we clean up while we wait for Ivory to join us. What to do today? On a beautiful sunny day like this? I briefly consider an outing.. walk along the river, visit the library, but no. I think we will just stay home. Throw open the doors and windows and relish the day. Ivory walks out of her room in a foul mood. Already crying about how she wants to keep on her shirt, and how Daddy told her she could.... Oh, no. Not to today. “How about you go to back to bed and we start over”, I say, trying to come up with some solution so that I can cling onto that 'I...