Busy Hands Homestead

I braid one thin braid after the other and secure the ends in a rainbow of hair bands carefully selected and organized. The motions seem like right of passage and it is officially summer break. We are on the tail end of a whirlwind road trip, moving down the highway at moderate speed.  We took the converted school bus we are currently living all the way to Niagra-on-the-Lake and back.We are rolling along, somewhere between the east and west boundaries of South Dakota. We cooked dinner while the day darkened and the stars emerged in the sky. We drove and drove and drove as we put the jagged peaks of the rocky mountains behind us and the landscape became flat then then the plains grew to hills and mountains and water.  The lush green of a deciduous forest, ferns and flowers all around us.  Somewhere along the way our bus gained a name - meet Alice. The dense vegetation broken by ponds dotting the landscape, the intermittent water become vast a...

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...

For an entire week our mornings and evenings were filled with the chink, chink, chink of cherry pits. Two cherry pies, cherry danishes , and quart bags of pitted cherries are in the freezer.   Jars of apple cherry jam are on the shelf. Once a year we drive up to Finley Point to pick cherries in the summer sun and then jump into the clear  cold water of Flathead lake.   The silver fruit picking ladder gets warm  in the sun and is almost to hot  to touch against my skin as we move from one tree to the next. The sticky, sweet, dark red juice runs down my fingers as I fill the same basket over and over, carrying it up and down the ladder, and we fill the cardboard boxes we brought along. The kids pick cherries for a while, and then get distracted and sprawl on blankets, eating lunch and running through a sprinkler the owner’s of the orchard left on. Between my feet and the ground, between where I stand on the ladder and where the ...

“You know what's great about plants.” “I don't know. What?” “That they are plants!!!” Sylvan looks at me incredulously. “Don't you get it?” Ivory shrugs, and eats a raspberry. The sky is peach and glowing. We are sneaking a few raspberries at dusk. The kids are up, way to late, once again. The three of us walked down the street to water our garden plot. Adam is washing the dishes. The house is finally starting to cool down. These fifteen minutes of my day are the only ones that seem to echo the rhythm of past summers. I am trying to breathe – just breathe. The sky fades to dark. On the way home, I cradle a hand full of raspberries to share. Soon after, we fall into our beds, on top of sheets and blankets. I feel like I am treading water – cold icy water – that makes it hard to breathe. I could dip under any moment. My days and weeks are filled up. I run back and forth, back and forth, drop off ki...

Since we arrived home, nearly midnight, on the fourth of July, our days have been full. Our days have been brimming, no, over flowing with activity.  The weeds were all pulled to reveal little rows of seeds that sprouted in my absence. Kale has been coming into my kitchen by the arm full. Onions are being pulled. We had our first cucumber, followed quickly by many more. Zucchini, Chard, Eggplant, Purple Beans and Snap Peas, Mint, Parsley, Rhubarb, Strawberries, Blueberries and Currants move from garden to plate and sometimes just straight from plant to mouth.  Our hens, which were little more than awkward, gangly adolescents, are now shiny and proud. We check the coop every so often for that very first egg.  Will it be brown? Blue? There are berries to harvest.  And a sink full of strawberries fills our house with a sweet fragrance as they simmer in the process of becoming strawberry syrup and butter.   ...