Challenge #26: Go To The Beach

Here's a summery challenge for you:  find a beach somewhere and go to it!

Maybe this is easy, for you live within walking distance of a lake or an ocean.  Or maybe there is one just a short drive away.

For other people, getting to a beach might be a herculean task.  Maybe you have to plot out an entire day on the calendar to get to a beach and back.

But that is why I decided to make it a challenge; because even though I live in Michigan, the state surrounded on three sides by water, I live in the lower middle, where it's a bit of a drive to get to the shores of the big lakes. And, I confess, most of the small lakes around here with beaches aren't all that interesting, and usually very crowded with what our family (living in the sticks, as it were) refer to as 'city people'.  Not in a derogatory way; just as an identifier:  "all those city people from Lansing (Detroit, Ann Arbor, etc)".  Meaning simply that that particular beach is the only one within an hour or more and will be crowded with every beach seeking member of the metro population.  Not like the more spacious beaches of the big lakes, and definitely not like the beaches of Lake Superior, way up in the top of the Upper Peninsula.

I think that is where DH and I got spoiled on wanting quiet, sparsely populated beaches--those few years we spent living in the U.P.  It was after we moved back downstate that we got so picky about having a beach that wasn't full of 'city people'.

I digress.  Back to the topic at hand!

When my kids were little, and I wasn't working outside the home for hours and hours every weekday (so, like 1998 to 2002), I often took them to a nearby rural state park with a small beach that wasn't full of city people. The beach itself wasn't anything exciting, but it was water, and sand, for a hot day and you weren't cheek to jowl with a bunch of other human beings who were also seeking water and sand.

We would get out one of my big rectangular laundry baskets, load it up with beach towels and not-yet-inflated swim rings, as well as sunblock and snacks.  It made the perfect beach tote for a large family: everyone's necessary gear fit into it, and it could be hauled by two of the kids if my hands were filled carrying smaller siblings.  We also took water or lemonade in our gallon sized thermal jug.  With those things, we were ready to spend a hot afternoon relaxing at the beach.

Then we moved to this little place here.  Neither DH nor I knew of a beach within a half hour drive of our new home.  I also worked until one o'clock every weekday, and part of the afternoon on Sundays.  I stopped taking the kids to the beach for those two reasons.  Unless we were on vacation, my kids didn't go to the beach again until their late high school years, when they would be invited occasionally by friends to drive about forty-five minutes to get to the favorite 'local' one.

Well, when we were in South Carolina earlier this month for Toad's birth, I finally went to the beach again.  I confess, it had been two years, since DH and I's short trip to Myrtle Beach, since I'd been swimming or just sat in the sand and relaxed.  And, when DD2 suggested it--let's take K3 and go to the beach!--I resisted at first.  Unfamiliar area, the ocean and it's currents, so many people, yadda yadda yadda.

But she talked me into it as a way for K3 to run and make noise and have some fun when her life had just changed dramatically with the arrival home of her new baby brother.  Now she had a super tired Mommy and Daddy, and people dropping by all the time, many of whom were telling her to sit still and be quiet around the baby.

So, since grandmas are such suckers for wanting their grandchildren to be happy, I agreed.  I even drove!  A feat in itself since DH usually does the driving/navigating in unfamiliar areas.  But he and DD1 had left the day before because both of them needed to be back to work, while DD2 and I stayed a few extra days to help with the whole 'bringing home a new baby' thing. So if DD2 and I were taking K3 to the beach, I needed to drive us there.

And you know what?  I had fun.  I had so much fun on that beach with K3 and DD2.  It was so enjoyable (and, being a Monday after the holiday weekend, the beach was pretty empty) that it made me wonder why I didn't make an effort at home to get to a beach at least once a summer.

Hence the idea for this week's challenge.

Go to the beach.  Even if you think it's a lot of trouble to get to.  Even if you aren't excited about going.  Just go.  Do it.  Pick one, make time in your schedule, and go.  You can thank me later.

DD2 & K3, heading to the water

shrimp boat, coming in closer as the tide came in, covering up most of the beach 

(same boat that is barely visible in top right corner of the first picture)

Finally!!!

Hay is late this year.  As of this morning, my hay field was still standing, uncut.  For the last two months, pretty much since before the field was ready for cutting, our weather forecast has called for rain every second or third day.  We need three good, dry, days for making horse hay.  Four would be even better.

It wasn't just horse hay that hasn't gotten cut on time this season.  All hay has been late in my neck of the woods.  First the farmers (we hire a small, local farmer who lives less than two miles over) had to get their grain crops planted for the year.  Then they had to cut their own hay.  And after that, they do the custom cutting & baling for those of us lacking our own mowing, raking, and baling equipment.  With the long cool spring, no corn got in the ground until about mid-May (corn is usually an April thing around here).  And after corn, the soybeans needed to go in, most of which didn't get started until after Memorial Day.  There was not a single hay field cut before the second week of June, and many of those were destined for cow hay, which can get a little wet.

While I wasn't thrilled with the delay in getting my own hay done, I understood it.  That doesn't mean DH hasn't been driving me crazy, asking just about every day for the past three weeks "When is your hay going to get cut?  Have you heard from your farmer?"

And every time he asked, I had to say "Not in the next three days; it's gonna rain again tomorrow."  Or "Supposed to rain day after tomorrow."  And "No, I haven't heard yet."

Just to make DH happy, I called the farmer yesterday (after I checked the 10-day weather forecast and found the next 7 days to be devoid of precipitation--HOORAY!!).  The farmer confirmed that I am tops on the list for this good spell of weather.  Time to get that horse hay made, while we have a decent forecast, otherwise there might not be a second cutting this year.  Being a month late in getting first cut off the field, if we go into a drought now, which usually happens mid-June through about mid-August, the grass and clover won't rebound enough to cut and bale before we go into the cool, wet fall, when it's about impossible to make horse hay in Michigan.  If the grass isn't long/tall enough, it just doesn't bale well.  Nobody wants bales that fall apart whenever you try to pick them up.

If you haven't guessed by now, horse hay is kind of a picky thing.  Sorta like horse people, a little bit elitist.  (I say tongue-in-cheek, since I have been a horse person for going on thirty years. . .)

This afternoon, shortly after lunch, once last night's heavy dew was good and dried, I rejoiced to hear tractors out on the road.  Now, I hear tractors on the road many times each day, thanks to  a large  and sprawling dairy farm that has acreages all over the neighborhood in about a two mile radius.  The tractors I heard after lunch, however, were different tractors.  And they didn't drive by with a feed wagon, or a manure spreader, or a load of round bales or a silage wagon attached to the back.  Nope, they pulled up my driveway, and into my hay field.  The farmer had brought not one, but two mowers to get my field cut as quickly as possible!

little tractor

bigger tractor

It is amazing the feeling of relief that came over me as I watched the tall grasses fall in rows behind the tractors.  I couldn't help grabbing the camera and taking pictures.  I guess subconsciously I had been doubting this day would ever come; that there would ever be hay taken off my field this year (honestly, DD1 asked me on Tuesday night, when it was raining yet again, if we were just going to brush hog the field since it was all ready the middle of July).  DH's incessant pestering about 'when is your hay going to get cut' hadn't helped dissuade this doubt any.

No, we were not going to 'just brush hog' it.  Definitely not, not now. Not now that the tractors were finally here, finally mowing it down. 

Seven acres of fresh cut hay is a beautiful sight. Even if it isn't primo quality hay by virtue of the slight over maturity of the grass, it is beautiful.  It is feed for my horses this winter.  It is extra bales to sell, hopefully enough extra to cover the cost of what bales I keep.

looking out over the 5 acre 'old' (original) hay field

the two acres of 'new' hay field I planted last year

where the 'old' and the 'new' meet;

the new field is greener, having just recently matured

(I am planning to keep mostly the hay off the new field this year

 and sell as extra the bales from the 'old')

There is still much work to be done, getting about 350 bales hefted into the barn loft for feeding out in the next twelve months (hopefully only eleven months--hay season 2015 surely can't be as wet as 2014 has been).  That will be a long, sweaty, prickly afternoon yet this weekend where tempers will flare and daughters will try to weasel out of helping and DH will ask, about a million times "Have I told you I hate doing hay?"  But once it's done, once those precious bales I need to keep are safely stored indoors, there will be a sense of security that will overcome any blizzard the winter may bring.

The same sense of security DH feels in the fall when we've hauled from the woods, and split and stacked a winter's worth of firewood next to the wood boiler.  Another long, sweaty job where daughters try to be scarce and bickering seems to come as natural as breathing, at least until everyone gets into rhythm and we work as a well-oiled machine.  But at least I don't hate doing firewood.  ;0)

Summer Knitting

My knitting is sporadic in the summer time.  Not completely stopped, but going in fits and starts as I have time.  I did spend several hours in the car knitting on the way to and from DS2's concrete canoe competition last month, all of which resulted in this new sweater for K3:

Prior to that, I made these socks, which actually were the socks of the month for May at the LYS (local yarn store).  I finished them right around the beginning of June, before the weeds in the garden went gonzo and ate up a lot of knitting time.

About the same time I finished the socks, I finished this infinity cowl for DD1's birthday.  I had picked up the yarn back in November, at the LYS's 2nd anniversary sale (50% off, if I remember right), and planned for it to become DD1's birthday present since purple is her favorite color. The picture doesn't do the lace pattern justice, but it does accurately show the color and shine of the yarn.

Then, for all the traveling to South Carolina, and the waiting times while I was there, I brought along yarn and patterns for some dish cloths I needed to make for a dish cloth exchange I had signed up to participate in.  The two I made for that are shown in the next two pictures, both of which for some reason keep wanting to load sideways--argh!

I had also brought along the pattern for a cloth I'd been wanting to make for myself for about a year.  I'd tucked it into my knitting bag 'just in case' I finished the first two before returning home.  As it turned out, I did finish those, and was able to do about half of this one while in SC.  And K3 even helped me knit a few stitches in several of the rows! She wanted so badly to do what Grandma was doing, so I would place her hands on the needles, put my hands over hers, and guide her through 4 or 6 stitches until she got tired of that and wanted to run around again.

There is a companion pattern to the above dish cloth, which I decided to make since I still have enough of the yarn to make yet another dish cloth.  I am currently 75% done knitting that pattern.  Then I will move on to probably another pair of socks.  I'd like to do some for myself, but I think it would probably be a good idea to get cracking on some to give as Christmas gifts. Especially since I have about four skeins of sock yarn in my stash designated as socks for specific family members.

Mulberries

When we bought this little place here, at one corner of the property was a smallish mulberry tree.  The purple kind, not the supposedly more desirable white kind.  But that was A-okay with me, because I like purple mulberries.  I'd only ever had them on the intermittent occasion that my parents and I attended the annual family reunion of my paternal grandmother's side of the family down in Kentucky.  At the park where the reunion was held was a huge old mulberry tree and the berries were always ripe at reunion time.  So, for me to find a mulberry tree at this little place here seemed like a great and wonderful thing.  Mulberries of my own! Mulberries every summer!

It hasn't quite worked out that way in the twelve years that we have now owned this little place here.  Some summers I've been so busy that I forgot to check the mulberry tree until all the berries had gone.  Other summers there weren't many berries at all even though I did check at the right time.  And, honestly, that mulberry tree of mine isn't in the easiest place to harvest; on the edge of the ditch between the front field and the road. There is some poison ivy in that area that we haven't gotten around to eradicating yet.  Plus, most of the branches are over my head, so I am unable to reach most of the berries.

A few years ago I noticed a seedling growing on the eastern edge of my garden. Joyfully I identified it as a mulberry tree, and decided it could continue to grow right where it was.  Most volunteer seedlings we get in the garden get pulled and transplanted within a year or so, but this one, this little mulberry tree, was right on the edge.  The edge of the garden seemed a perfectly good location for a tree with edible fruit.  Easy to get to, no poison ivy, and level ground that I can set a ladder on when the tree grows too tall for me to reach much.

This year it has an abundance of berries.  When K3 was here, they were just starting to get ripe, and we'd check that little tree daily for berries that were ready to eat.  At first she wasn't so sure about that; eating the little purplish black things that Grandma was picking off the tree. But within a few minutes she'd tasted them, and found that she loved them, and her face and hands were stained purple with their juice.

If a day went by where I'd forget to check the tree with her, she'd say "Grandma, yum!" (I only heard her say 'mulberry' once, the last day she was here) and point at the tree. Then we would walk to the edge of the garden and eat some mulberries.  She did this with DS2 on a day he came to visit, and I was able to get a picture of them as they picked and ate the fruit.

There are still more mulberries ripening this week.  Last night I put a handful of them on top of my slice of angel food cake during dessert.  Yum!

Toddler Days

The week and a half that K3 spent at this little place here brought back memories--good and bad (like how few diapers DH ever changed when our four kids wore them; he didn't change a single one of K3's, GRRRR!!).  The days were packed full, yet I got very little from my regular chores list accomplished each day.

Mostly it was care of K3; the dressing, the brushing of teeth and hair, keeping her entertained and out of harm's way, bath time and reading time and song time and bed time interspersed with breakfast, lunch, dinner, laundry, packing DH's lunch on work days, and making sure dishes got done every night.  Every day a full day, six a.m. til about eleven p.m. Every day a tiring day.  But each and every day started with a big smile from my favorite two year old (she is one of those children who wakes up happy every single morning).  And each and every day wrapped up with snuggles and stories and songs before she went to sleep and I tackled the dishes and swept the floors before I went to sleep.  Just like old times, when my kids were young.

We didn't go on any fancy outings while she was here.  Just to the grocery store twice, if you can even call that fancy.  Well, DH, DS2, and both DD1 & DD2 did take her canoeing, but I stayed home and tried to catch up on weeding the garden while she was enjoying the boat ride with Grandpa, who normally does not carry passengers in his canoe.

What we did do was feed and water the poultry every morning, letting them out of their pens and coops.  We shut them in again each night.  Several times in between the letting out and shutting in, K3 liked to just sit in her little lawn chair and observe the birds in their chicken-ness, duck-ness, goose-ness and turkey-ness hunting for bugs and eating clovers as well as grass seeds and various weeds. I have to admit, I like to just sit and watch them too.

We also played ball a lot.  She loves to run, as most toddlers do.  Let me say here, to parents who may just be in possession of a toddler of their own:  being a toddler is not a passive activity.  Toddlers need to be burning off energy constantly.  To expect them to sit, contained and quiet for more than fifteen minutes at a time is being unrealistic.  It also leads to lots of tantrums. (One of the first questions her mama asked, over the phone on day two of K3's visit, was "How many tantrums has she had?"  I replied truthfully "None."  Ain't nobody got time for that.  We'd been too busy running and playing).  Let them run, and run with them.

me and K3 playing soccer,

'shirts vs skins' style

When we weren't running or playing ball together, K3 would play ball by herself, whacking it across the yard with a hefty plastic yard stick and then running to catch up.

One of K3's most favorite things to do, when we weren't kicking a ball around the yard, or whacking it with the yard stick, was to run from one end of the deck or front porch to the other, while saying "Grandma, go, RUN!"  I bet we ran a couple miles during her visit, thirty feet at a time.  We also had fun 'off roading' with the stroller, where I would run as fast as I could, pushing it through the yard over bumps and down hills, or through the paths in the garden, while she leaned forward, laughing and squealing with every bounce or turn.

Climbing was another favorite activity, which I let her engage in within safe limits. I believe climbing is a good skill, it develops not just strength, but also large motor skills, and problem solving abilities (Hmm, how do I get from down here to up there? Now that I'm up here, how do I get down?).

Playing in the water was good for giving me a chance to cook dinner several nights running. A dishpan full of water, a cup, and our enclosed back deck (no way down from the deck except through the house), and K3 was entertained while I tended a hot stove.

She had a few 'farm only' adventures, like seeing two raccoons up close and personal, after they were caught in the live trap set in the barn. (We'd been having a coon/chicken problem again. . .)

contemplating a raccoon

And every day of course included some time spent with books (we made a trip to the library too).  Most of the time I read to her, but sometimes she wanted to read on her own.

She sure kept me busy while she was here to visit.  I admit, some days I felt like I was getting absolutely nothing accomplished (and that brought back lots of memories!).  Especially as the weeds in the garden grew and grew, or I needed to get dinner cooking and she was being clingy.  But I wouldn't trade time with that girl for anything in the world.

I have a card, one of those inspirational ones that were so popular in the mid-nineties (which, coincidentally is when I bought it), that summed up my philosophy so neatly that I framed it and have kept it in my bedroom for going on twenty years.  It is has a picture of a small girl, probably no more than four years old, in a dress and straw hat, standing on a hill in the sunset.  Below the picture is a quote, which I believe is attributed to Forest E. Witcraft, although on the card no author is given.  The quote says:

"A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove. . . But the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child."

In every one of the above pictures, I see those words in action.  The world isn't going to be much affected by how tall the weeds in my garden got.  Or if dinner wasn't served at exactly the time I wanted it to be, a night or two.  But for K3, everything I did those ten days or so of her visit, was important; for those days I was defining her world.

Moms and Dads (and even Grandmas and Grandpas), think on those words when you are feeling frazzled and unsure if you are spending your time most effectively or not.  Toddler days don't last forever, but the things you do during them, the attitudes you have, will.

Challenge #25: Count Your Blessings

I almost hate to title this challenge as such, because counting your blessings seems to be rather a trite phrase and practice touted by those self-helpers (and zealous religious persons) when a person is feeling overwhelmed by the events in their life.

Trite or not, it is an exercise I do when I feel myself focusing more on the negatives and 'have-tos' than the positives and 'want-tos'.  So, today, I find myself mentally counting my blessings.  Maybe you want to write yours down as you count them, I sometimes utilise pen and paper in my blessing counting.  But this morning, I am mostly busy doing other things with my hands, so it is a list in my head that I am creating.

Such as:

1. I am blessed with wholesome, homemade bread.  (We are down to our last 1/4 loaf, so making bread is high on today's to-do list for me. And since I don't want to buy that chemical-laden stuff called bread from the store, I must make my own.)
2. We have been blessed with abundant rain this season.  (So much so that the lawn needs to be mowed and the weeds in the garden seem to grow knee-high in just a day or two. And the hay still stands, a month late in cutting.)
3. I was blessed with a week and a half of having K3 at my house.  (I am cleaning up and stowing away the books and toys she played with while here.  Missing her too, but oh so glad for that tiring time I got to have her with me. Long distance grand-parenting is hard on the heart.)
4. I am glad to have a garden to weed.  (Really.  Even though my back, legs and one elbow are stiff and sore from all the weeding I've done in the last two days and there is still so much more to do before I'm caught up, I realize that many people are not able to have a garden at all, and here I am with nearly a quarter acre!)

See what I am doing?  Instead of overwhelming myself:  "oh woe, I have to make bread", "oh woe, the lawn needs to be mowed again--and the hay is still not cut--because it keeps raining about every second or third day", "oh woe, I miss K3 and look at all this stuff I have to put away", "oh woe, the horrible weeds in my garden, I'm never going to get them all", I am focusing on how blessed it is to be given these tasks and situations.

If you are feeling overwhelmed at all today, count your blessings. It's hard to count them and not feel some glimmer of joy. 

Even if you are content right now, count your blessings.  It will make you feel even better. 

As so many things in life are, it's all a matter of attitude.  (How's that for some more trite rhetoric?)

And Then She Threw Up On The Computer. . .

Which is why you haven't heard from me in almost two weeks.  Having K3 here for a visit was a blast, pictures and posts about that coming soon, but unfortunately there was one day where she had a sour stomach and DD2 had the laptop out on the couch.  I'll spare you the gross details and the lecture DD2 got about not being on the computer when she was supposed to be minding K3 while I cooked dinner.  But the computer ended up in the repair shop while we all went down to South Carolina to welcome Toad into the world.

Posts about him coming soon too, I promise.  I have a ton of catching up to do at home (garden, flowerbeds, hay to make if the weather ever cooperates), and it appears the new keyboard on the laptop (just retrieved from the repair shop yesterday afternoon) isn't working right--no numbers and an intermittent space bar--so it will have to go back today for more fixing.

Meanwhile, please be patient and keep checking back.  I have not abandoned this blog!  I'm just a low-tech lady with one laptop to share and no smartphone (I'm too cheap to pay for data; I still believe a phone is for talking on and a computer is for getting on the internet, no sense paying a monthly bill for data on a phone and wireless internet for the house, especially when the data plan for one phone is almost as much per month as the internet access for the house).  In other words, while the computer is incapacitated, you will not see any new posts from me.