Down by the Salley Gardens

I sing this to the little guys almost every day as we snuggle down for nap time.  LOVE. 

It is a beautiful song, a beautiful poem.

Down By the Salley Gardens 

By William Butler Yeats

 

Down by the salley gardens

   my love and I did meet;

She passed the salley gardens

   with little snow-white feet.

She bid me take love easy,

   as the leaves grow on the tree;

But I, being young and foolish,

   with her would not agree.

In a field by the river

   my love and I did stand,

And on my leaning shoulder

   she laid her snow-white hand.

She bid me take life easy,

   as the grass grows on the weirs;

But I was young and foolish,

   and now am full of tears.

Lil' Eliza Jane

 A niece!  The sweetest thing.

Born "on Christmas Day in the mor-ning". For realz.

Sweet Eliza Jane, named for my sister.

 Here she is, three days old.

Erik and Ashley are smitten. (Of course!)

I can't stop smiling whenever I see her.

 She was a breech baby until 39 weeks. Un-un-un-un.

Then she was posterior. Un-un-un-un.

Then Ash pushed for 5 hours after laboring on and off for three days. 

UN-UN-UN-UN. (Lil' Eliza's head was at an odd angle.) (She had a tilted conehead.)

In the end Ash feels good about her birth, and I'm so glad.

One week old, lips pursed.

"It is amazing how fast they change." But seriously.

I thought she looked more like Ash this time,

though when she opened her eyes I saw Erik.
I can hardly wait to smooch and snuggle her come March!

First time skiing this season

The boys are super-pumped to ski this year --

We've only had one prime weekend thus far this season

(back at the end of November), but they skied both days. 

 Getting Jamie's skis on is a two-man operation.

Holy smokes.

 Diego and Truen were already outside for awhile before

we were able to wrestle Jamie's skis on.

(See our native grass & flowers along the driveway?

Beautiful summer & winter, awesome snow-block.)

 Blaine said that all the boys have improved from last year.

Jamie is strong and amazingly coordinated

with little patience for messing up, though more he had than last year.

I watched him successfully turn around with his skis on, stepping carefully.

Amazing.

 Diego flails all over the place --

super-enthusiastic and loving it,

but not much interested in besting it.

(I have no doubt this would have been me too.)

Truen is slower and more interested in working at it.

He also loves squatting down and sliding along close to the ground.

(The red "belt" came about after we pulled the coat out and realized the zipper was missing.)

E-yi-ya

 Remember this guy...?

Two weeks old

June 2013

Curly-headed Eliah Len 

18 months old

December 2014

 Painting like one of the brudders --

He absolutely insisted on it.

Funny how life changes: I never even considered him,

whereas I'm sure I had Truen painting long before this.

He's still such a baby to me.

Running up our driveway last weekend --

This year it has been "November in December"

and "December in November" in terms of snow and temps.

The Semi-annual Pumpkin Picture

 

My two favorite shots - #18 and #31.  Blaine went bananas behind me to keep their attention while I snapped away (thank goodness it wasn't another 2012).  Often the very first picture is the very best, but not this year.

We didn't carve pumpkins last year.  I can't remember exactly why, though I think it may have been the combo of new baby and no pumpkins from our garden.  Or maybe it was too cold?  Or could it have been that we were too upset about my BIL's cancer?  I honestly have no memory.  I don't even remember being sad about it.

This year Diego and Truen carved their own pumpkins.  In typical fashion, Diego imploded and stomped off all upset in angst and sheer disappointment, as carving was harder-than-it-looked and things-weren't-perfect, while Truen patiently worked toward the end goal without a hitch.  Jamie wanted a "mad-looking" pumpkin and Eliah was just happy to mingle.  The feathers strewn around are the remnants of butchering from the previous weekend.

Years' past for all our viewing pleasure:  

2012

2011

2009

2008

2014 Apple-picking

There aren't many apples in the middle, but climbing is fun.

 Jamie wanted up so badly . . .

 

And another little feller did too.

 "Bountiful Harvest"

I've been so amazed by apples this fall.

What a gift!

Orchard scenery: this year we have 5 geese, 5 ducks, and 8 chickens. 

 The geese are grazers and keep the grass nicely clipped.

They seem to like Blaine, but haaaate the boys and hiss at them.

There are three Embden and two White Chinese.

 We have to herd the geese and ducks in every night --

Eliah is showing exactly how it is done, arms outstretched,

though we usually have brooms or toy bats in hand to widen our span.
I always bring E-yi-ya in the backpack when I do it, so he knows. Cute.

 Ducks are so funny!

Swedish Blue and Swedish Blacks
We have been getting beautiful grey eggs from them.

 And while we were at it, we picked the rest of the pumpkins and squash --
This van is used like a truck to haul things like wood or straw.

 The fellas with their Da

 With Mama

 Bzzzzzzzzz

 "What big eyes you have, grandmother"

And even bigger!

A quote from an interlude

At the end of last week, Diego and Jamie were sitting together peacefully at the kitchen table playing with Legos while I was tending to the baby in the tub.  This, in and of itself, is an amazing and rare event worth noting.  Unless enmeshed in an extremely active and imaginative game together, they are usually fighting.  Especially when it involves Legos.

::: Sidenote: I think I finally understand why I fought so much with my brother who is five years younger than me.  I see it in action every day. :::

So anyway . . . Diego came into the bathroom and gave me this terrific quote from Jamie, who had been talking to him about the Lego motorcycle's kickstand.

Jamie said to Diego, "Do you know how to get this stander off?  ...do you?  It's pretty hard for big boys."

I love this in so many ways, in the fact that this is a perfect snapshot for Jamie's language and communication right now.  That they were getting along so beautifully and Diego actually came into the bathroom to tell me the story with pleasure and amusement, ahhhhhh . . . it made me so happy at the time.

But the icing on the cake was Diego's finishing touch to the story.  He said, "You'd better write that down, Mama."

The thoughtfulness.  His tender heart.  He knows that about me.  It left me feeling all warm and fuzzy on the inside as I rushed to Jamie's Special Notebook to write it down before the next big emergency would knock it right out of my mind.

Then a couple of days later, I wrote it down in Diego's Special Notebook.

::: A final sidenote: I've noticed that if I don't write things down immediately, that particular thought or memory is essentially vaporized.  (Where is my mind?  Way out in the water, see it floating.)  But worse, I've also come to realize I don't remember some of the things I do write down.  Reading it either triggers the memory, or I thank myself for writing something down that would be otherwise lost to time and space.  My brain is too full, too full.  :::

Misc. check-in

I'm eating a snack of a banana, walnuts, and kimchi.  Who knew it would be such a great flavor combination??  But it really is.  Bite of banana, handful of walnuts, bite of kimchi.  Yum.

My original snack plan of two boiled eggs with a side of kimchi fell through when I discovered raw eggs in the carton marked "Boiled".  Amazing, but not.  The culprit?  Old Leroy.  The guy absolutely destroys me in the Tidy and Organized departments, but somehow uncooked eggs always end up in the boiled egg carton.  The scallywag.  I love him.

My parents are here in their second half of a two week visit.  This afternoon they are taking the three older boys to a movie at a theater (their first time ever) and then out for dinner.  I'm home with the babe, who mysteriously took a half-hour nap as his usual time, which necessitated another nap coinciding perfectly with the late afternoon matinee.  The bliss: an hour at home by myself before a quiet evening at home with my mate.

Ahhhhhh.  And so, as to not waste time, my little bloggerific pop-in must be cut short.  I have the 2014-2015 school year to plan.  I normally do this in April, but this spring just didn't allow it.  When I started brainstorming my parents' visit, I realized that my planning time is literally "now or never".  Do or die.  So I've been pecking away at it here and there while they are here to manage the boy-ohs.

AND.  My mom and I are teaming up to clean out and wash our kitchen cupboards inside and out.  Yessssss!  My dad is reading all the boys' school books to them each day and almost done reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe aloud, the start of our second time through the series together.  Awesome.

My sister, who also came for the visit, is playing ponies with the fellas every afternoon.  My Little Ponies.  Diego would perish of embarrassment if he knew this was common knowledge.  Bwahahahaha.  They're playing with my old ponies, the ones that Jayna also played with as a girl, and they all looooove it.  It is the sweetest thing.

The Big Brother Effect

See the glee? They were totally bugging him in this picture.

"That dummy Trwuen is dwiving me cwazy!"

Jamie told me this in a play voice this morning, just joking, and continued to tell me that Truen had destroyed his "thwift" store.  I was focusing on getting breakfast made so I'm still not quite sure what he was talking about but it definitely made me laugh, then gave me pause for reflection.

Because really . . . neither Diego nor Truen would have ever talked like that at three years old.  (I would have been appalled!)  They wouldn't have had any frame of reference for that kind of language.  But three year old Jamie?  With two big brudders?  Oh my.

His target is usually Truen and I've heard him call him "dork" multiple times in recent days.  But today?  Dummy.  Oh dear.  This is definitely the year we've started the "You are an example to your younger brudder(s)" talks.  We have been on patrol and there has been plenty of reprimands and redirection, but man . . . it still leaks through somehow.  Eegads.

I will comfort myself with knowing this is normal (I could hear my mom laughing as I composed this post in my mind while finishing breakfast), aside from the fact that he sounded so darn cute and funny while saying it, of course.  I will also choose to remember this afternoon, when he came into the kitchen and exclaimed, "Trwuen! Your bawling game is totally awesome!"

Danie Blizzard indeed.

Blow-out nature post

This is a strange re-entry from a week without posting, but it can't be helped.  I've been meaning to post on all this for more than a month, detailing some of the excitement at our house.  But, you know.  Life gets in the way.  We've been up to all kinds of things.

And so, while the baby is taking a much-needed "mega nap" and the boys are playing peacefully after nap/quiet time . . . the inspiration hits.

(Nevermind the house, which looks like a hurricane hit it.)

Both Blaine and I are intrigued by the intricacies of the natural world, both flora and fauna, and enjoy introducing its varied pleasures to our boys.  So with that in mind, here are some of the highlights from the last couple of months:

Last August Diego found an enormous green caterpillar with a brown face,
crawling in the grass under the basswood in our front yard.

We put it in a jar with a twig and basswood leaves and

after a few days it curled itself up into a cocoon, wrapped in leaves.

We kept it in the root cellar over the winter,

brought it out this spring,

and THIS is what it hatched into: 

 A polyphemus moth

It was HUGE, close to the size of my hand.
It was in the cocoon from August 2012 until June 2013.

It came out of its cocoon a few days after Eliah was born --

We had no idea what exactly it was until that point.

That night we put it on a rotted log alongside the garage.

It sat there for a good hour before it finally up-and-fluttered-away.

I actually got to see it happen --
It buzzed its wings a couple of times before it took off.

The boys were out and about on the acreage with Blaine,

but I was still sticking close to the house at that point in time

during my postpartum recovery period.  So lucky.

 The #2 amazing thing: morel mushrooms in our grove!

What the??  We were amazed.

This was the second week after Eliah was born.

Blaine went mushroom hunting on the first warm day after significant rainfall,

and bada-bing-bada-boom, there they were.
Tons of them.

 They were beautiful, just gorgeous --

I felt strong enough that I went out into the trees to see them.
(Still recovering from childbirth at the time, you'll remember.)

We had no idea that we could find morels in SW Minnesota.

My parents were here that week and since

I was obviously not up to kitchen work, we dried them --

They needed to be used/stored within 24 hours for peak flavor.

Un-un-un-un.  So exciting.

 Then there was our "pond life" aquarium 
and garter snake terrerium.

We had 2 varieties of snails, 2 crayfish, 2 fish, 

all kinds of water bugs, a leech, and 8-10 tadpoles in the aquarium.

Blaine and the boys dug up mud in the shallows of a nearby creek.

We had so much fun observing all the activity in the morning sun,

particularly the cranky crayfish tending their burrows.

We also realized this year that we have a garter snake den on our property,

under a cement slab near our quonset.  It was wild --

The boys were catching 7-10 snakes a day,

feeding them worms and even "basking" with them in the sun.

Finally . . . a baby praying mantis.

Truen got a bit obsessed with mantises this June,

and we indulged him by ordering mantis egg sacs off ebay.
We released them into the garden after they hatched by the hundreds.

(They are a tropical variety that dies with the cold weather hits.)

This particular little fella is living in the chard,
hopefully wreaking havoc with this year's grasshopper explosion.

We are hoping to catch a mantis and keep it as a pet this winter.

Smitten

Yes . . . I am that busy.  No time to write, but take a look at some pictures.  In order of date, starting with a week ago last Sunday.  Baby Eliah is the sweetest most darling little fella.  Totally in love.

 Two weeks old with Mama

In the boys' "Tipi House"

 Two-ish weeks with Jamie

Sunning his wittle diaper rash

 Two-ish weeks with Truby

Waking up from another nap

 Three weeks old with Diego

Dramatic lighting from the storm that blew through

. . . one of my faves.

Snuggling with Dada at three-ish weeks

Another one of my faves . . .

The sweetness.

The boy is named

::: Eliah Len :::

It took us 5 days, the longest ever.

His name is like a little sunburst in my mind --

I wake up saying it to myself at night, so happy.

The babies

 Squeeee!  Aren't they adorable??

On Sunday we spent most of the day in the garden.

Blaine planted while I took notes or got water --

Lettuce, kale, chard, spinach, peas.

The goslings and ducklings were with us the whole day.

 The chicks? They were in their box the entire time.

Chicks are sooooo last year.  LOL

(But seriously, they are a lot smaller and more timid.)

 These babies are the sweetest things and LOVE to be with people,

particularly the goslings.  I think the ducklings would be more shy,

but they follow the goslings everywhere,

and peep in distress if they get too far away (the cutest).

Here they all are, snuggling with Truen while he played in the dirt.

 After planting and the subsequent clean-up,

we took a stroll to the orchard and around the farmplace.

We initially tried to keep the babies penned in the garden

(it was such a long walk for them), but they were so distressed 
seeing us walk away from them that we let them come with us.

Here they are, following the crew.

 But after their long walk they were tiiiiiiired.

When we stopped for a rest in the grass, 

they nuzzled right up to Diego and immediately took a nap.

Did you know that waterfowl have two sets of eyelids?

We didn't, though it makes sense.  

One is clear, on the inside of the outer eyelid, and goes front to back.

They were snuggling with Blaine as well.

In fact, they love him the most --

if he is outside they stick by him,

and when he walks away, even if there is someone else near,

they peep in distress and try to follow him.

The fellas' main obsessions these days

Diego and his bug terrarium.

This collection includes: flies, spiders, asian beetles & box elder bugs

He puts in wet cottonballs for them to drink from,

but doesn't refrain from imposing the predator/prey dynamic.

He spends a lot of his day hovering over it,

adding to the collection and wondering how soon the spiders will eat.

I thrifted this 5-gallon tank and terrarium cover last fall --

I knew it would get heavy-duty use, but already??

We still have a thick snow cover!

Truen and one of his many "houses".

Trubies is MEGA into building fort-building this winter.

He hung a towel from an open oven door on this one,

clipping and pinning an extra blanket and scarf to create a wall.

The drawer and open cupboard form the back wall --

and the little thing you see hanging from it?

That's his "animal skin".

Truen and Diego are wearing their "twin" shirts --

It rarely works out that they wear them at the same time,

but somehow it worked out in these pictures, taken on different days.

Jamie: participating in or pilfering whatever his brudders are doing.

In this case, he is happily posing in front one of Truen's paintings.

He was also heavily involved in Truen's little "house" in the picture above --

I had to make him a separate fort to ensure he didn't wreck it.

He also hauls the footstool over to Diego's bug terrarium,

squealing, watching, attempting to break in, etc.

Other hobbies include

Lego destruction, crayon-eating, and scissor stealing.

Doesn't he look just adorable in his undies?

What a little fella ♥