Spring Equinox 2011

Whew! This post marks a little over one year since we moved here, started up the garden, and began this blog.

What do we have to show for ourselves? Well, naturally a few gray hairs. I won't be writing a retrospective of the past year; the blog speaks for itself on that count. I will, however, wrap up the winter and declare our course for the season to come.

First of all, while pictures and an account of Alten have been sadly lacking, he has not been idle. In the past month, really, he has taken up crawling, climbing on things, showing comprehension of some of the sign language we've been using with him and, ta-dah! He has produced two teeth! The latter was especially exciting to us since he seemed to be working on them from around month four. He's been sleeping a little better, took a 2-hour-long uninterrupted nap the other day, and is eating rice like there's no tomorrow. As to the crawling, he says it's only truly useful for getting to things upon which one might pull one's self up.

Equinox was spent visiting my brother, Chris, who had a mishap on his bike a couple of weeks ago (those of you who know him have probably already seen the x-rays on his facebook page). He's up in the hills of West Virginia at the Mountain Institute, which is beautiful and more than an hour from the nearest emergency room. We had intended to walk all over tarnation with him, but he was in some pain, so we hung out and stayed warm instead. The pictures on the site above are bewitching, but they still don't do full justice to the peace and magnificence of the area.

Following directly on the heels of that trip I got in the garden to dig, and prepared 150 ft² for the Kamut wheat we had flatted already and the collection of other spring wheats that we had some seed for. Related to this, I've updated the Garden Stats in the sidebar with this year's figures. The current figure of 449 ft² includes fall-planted wheat, rye, and garlic, and the perennials we started last year, namely alfalfa and clover. I'll finish planting the Kamut today and update the number. It doesn't include all the cover crops that we started last year to keep the soil happy over winter - those will get ripped out in the next month or so.

Last year we finished out at a little over 42% of the total area getting dug and planted. We are already a month ahead of last year, so I am optimistic we'll get it all in, and in good time.
So far we have flatted parsley, celery, wheat, parsnips, leeks, onions, kale, cabbage, lettuce, and probably something else I'm forgetting.

Other projects we have to complete before the season gets into full swing are flat-building, fence-finishing, compost-bin-constructing, and erecting some kind of temporary housing on the site. Each will probably get its own post except for flats, which already got covered in a previous post. I will say, however, that most of our pallet-flats survived well enough to head into a second season. We'll just need twice as many to meet our ambitions this year. Our sister-in-law Rachel came over from PA the week before last to lend a hand tearing up pallets and translating them into flats, so we're full of appreciating for that...

In early March we kicked-off our year's teaching schedule by heading out to California to present at Ecology Action's Three-Day Worshop. We taught classes on sustainable diet design, bed preparation, seed starting, compost, compost crops, garden planning through the Master Charts in How to Grow More Vegetables, and a few others, and John Jeavons taught the rest (for pictures of the one in November see this post). Just last Saturday we taught a class locally on starting seedlings. Aullwood Audubon Center and Farm's Center for Lifelong Learning has a very active education program for children and adults, and we are on the list this Spring teaching the seedling class and a day-long class on soils and compost (which will be April 9, if you're in the area). The seed-starting class went very well - it is always a treat to teach, and I always come out learning more through the experiences participants share. Among other prospects this year we'll be back at Aullwood to teach Fall classes on grains and seed saving.

In miscellaneous other news, the county decided that the bridge on our road (and bordering our property) is not in great shape, and needs to be replaced. See photo at right, where the blotches down the center lane show the surface damage to be reminiscent of tooth decay. Too bad Google Earth couldn't get a side shot - rebar was actually falling out of the concrete underneath. Of course, we'd prefer they just tear it down and dead-end the road, but they weren't interested in our opinion. The upshot, since they weren't going to listen to us anyway, is that they had to cut a bunch of trees down to make way. These were cut into 18" lengths and filled Mom's large pickup truck six times. Thus we have heat for next winter. The workers also ground up the tops and gave us two dump truck loads of wood chips. Sadly, Alten is too young to fully appreciate the dump trucks, excavators, bulldozers and such.

So here we go! It's officially Spring, the days are getting longer, we're getting marginally more sleep, and the garden calls...

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Alten in October

We have this great calendar that was given to us at a baby shower for Alten. It is a thirteen-month calendar where you can write down firsts, cute things done, weights and sizes, and paste current pictures. We've done an ok job of recording everything except the photos. To date, we haven't actually printed any of the pictures we've taken of him (though grandparents have). All our copies are stranded on this laptop in front of me, which is already been resurrected once.With this in mind (together with the many friends and family too far away to visit regularly), I'll post as many pictures as I can on the blog :) Because one computer may die, but the web is forever, right?

The top picture shows Alten's first interaction with a cat, specifically Grandpa and Grammy Royer's Sphynx. Our cat here at home will have nothing to do with him.

At left, Alten believes it is time to start solid foods. In this case a ceramic bowl. The scrambled eggs inside weren't apparently all that interesting.

And at right we have Margo and Alten decked out in cool rainy-day garb.

Above is Alten's first soccer ball, with which he is enamored. It was sent as a gift from good friends up north. At left Alten holds Sophie the Giraffe, which is natural latex with food based paints, and has lots of great things to chew on.

On the right is our currently 14 lb 12 ounce boy, no doubt watching the window or the ceiling fan (both of which provide endless fascination).















And last but not least, an action photo. Alten dearly loves chewing on anything that gets close enough, including my chin.










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August Smiles

Well, about a week ago Alten started smiling with a little more intention. As the book told us, earlier on babies do smile, but they are inside smiles, inadvertent and reflective of a sense of inner peace. Which we could all use, I'm sure. And we were always delighted to catch one of those, most of which happened when he was asleep. But there is something special about having a little baby (especially one's own) looking into one's eyes and smiling.
Back by popular demand, then, are some pictures of Alten.

At left is one of our recent trip to Mojeji Ranch, where Margo had business with the Youth Peace Travel Team, and Alten and I got to tail along and visit our friends, play games, camp in a tent, pick beans and tomatoes, mock guinea hens, and drive cattle.



And here is Alten after a bath, which is quite the popular time with him.







And finally, patient Mama took a wonderful video exhibiting the smiley boy.

Carrying On

Since we have the blessing of working at home most of the time, we get to be around Alten as much as we want. Which is, of course, constantly. The only downside is that, at best, you have one free hand. When holding such a young baby, though, one must support the head as well. That leaves one able to walk around freely, but not actually do anything.

Luckily, humanity solved this problem tens of thousands of years ago (if not earlier). The solution is to tie the baby to yourself! Gently, of course. We came across plenty of examples before Alten's birth, from reading Continuum Concept to talking with friends to seeing strangers in health-food stores. We were convinced even then that we were going to give it a serious go, with hopes that we would be able to work with our baby in the garden from the beginning.
The internet was, as always, our resource for what is possible. We found many examples, and put our favorites on our baby shower lists. To date we have three that we've tried and liked. And please remember when viewing the pictures: we haven't mastered them yet, so if the setup looks a little awkward it's because we're not pros. Yet.
Our first carrier was the of the "mei tai" persuasion. Its origins are Chinese, and it is basically a square piece of cloth with a fabric strip coming off each corner (here Margo is hiding the lower strap with her arm). Ours came from Mei Tai Baby, and was a gift from our former garden manager, Ellen. It was the first we tried Alten in, and it is how we found out that he reeeeally doesn't like being restrained. Initially he was fine in it while asleep, but if he awoke in it there was hell to pay. He's getting much more used to it, though. It's Margo's current favorite.
The next is a Baby Björn carrier, which was a gift from friends in Lakewood, Colorado. It's high tech, with metal and plastic and fabric and cool snapping things. It was the first one we could successfully keep him happy in, and is pretty easy to pop on and off. I have sported Alten around the grocery store a couple of times in it. I have also worn it in the woodshop, where it was comfy enough for him that he went to sleep while I was banging on the loppers that I'm trying to repair. The downsides are that it can only be worn on the front and that if you bend way over it feels like the occupant can fall right out. But it's great for walks and shopping.

Finally, my current favorite, the baby wrap. It was introduced to us by our friend Rebekah who, when we visited her family in February, gave us a complete workshop in which baby products and philosophies they found helpful. The baby wrap is a simple piece of fabric, in our case about 24" wide by 15' long, which you tie around yourself in processes reminiscent of origami. I was hooked by Rebekah's demonstration. Of further inspiration was the website WrapYourBaby.com, which gives instructions for more than 15 ways to tie your baby to you.

I like this one best at the moment because 1) Alten seems to tolerate it well, 2) it holds him very close to my own center of gravity, which is good for my back, and 3) he doesn't sway around in it as I walk.
We now feel confident in forging ahead with baby-wearing, and look forward to becoming more comfortable working in them.

Introducing Alten Lee!

I've been meaning to get to this post for at least a week, but have been somehow distracted by something cute and cuddly in the next room over...

Meet Alten! He was born in the wee hours, 3:57 am on June 28th, weighed in at 9 lb 9 oz, and was 21" long. He got a 9 on his 5-minute Apgar, for those of you who put stock in early standardized testing. Though he went a week and a half past his due date he came out with all the signs of being right on time.

The weeks leading up to his birth were getting more and more uncomfortable for Margo. We who once said "The baby can come whenever it wants" began saying "Ok baby, we are ready for you now."

In planning for the pregnancy we knew we wanted a home-birth if possible, and started seeing a midwife in California before we left. Between December and April we had no appointments, because we hadn't yet decided where we would be living. As soon as we set down our roots here in Ohio we started asking around, not even knowing if home-birth was legal in the Refined East. By grace we stumbled onto a home-birth midwife who is professional, knowledgeable, gentle, and inspires confidence and calm.We did end up birthing at home, in our bedroom, in a peaceful, safe atmosphere. It went beautifully, and I was grateful for the presence of our midwife and her team.

Above right shows Alten one day old on a changing pad made for us by friends in California. He's swaddled in a receiving blanket made for us by our Aunt in Florida because, as she said, "They just don't make those blankets big enough anymore."

At this point I would like to say that, from the time we announced the pregnancy up to this day, we have felt surrounded by the love and support of our friends and family everywhere. We've been given patience and understanding, money and gift cards, clothing and accouterments both purchased and hand-made, and words of wisdom and encouragement. We expect we will need a lot more of those last two, especially. Many, many thanks to all of you who kept us in your thoughts and/or prayers. Alten has a ton of aunts and uncles out there, and we tell him all about them :) And now for a bunch of pictures!

This is how Alten and I relax best.



And this is what a well-fed Alten looks like...









He has started training in his parents' disciplines. Here is some deep yoga (we think this is the one he has been rumored to practice for months at a time).






And here he is practicing his Aikido tenchi-nagi.















And finally, here's the whole family...
I think it is safe to say there will be more of this kind of thing in coming posts...

Wiggles and Giggles

A complete change of subject matter is in order as I, Margo, compose my first blog entry. I’ll have you know I’ve already created several in my head, so you’ve enjoyed various imaginary-entries on topics ranging from garden planning, tough choices in a first season, using the goods in the kitchen, and rain water barrels! I hope you’ve enjoyed them.

But now, I’ll just make a quick note about the most prominent reality of life: PREGNANCY! We are now at 40 weeks. The counting is a little strange, basically this means full term, at our “due date,” and very large! I’ve now gained 30-35 pounds, surpassing Dan months ago and full of baby.

Little Royer-Miller has several baby names on the list for selection when we meet him/her and some pet names we use now. I oscillate between Little Munchkin, Wigglet, and Babilicious.

Movement is one of the most amazing things, the baby moving I mean. (Though my movement at this stage is notable.) It started as butterfly flutters in my belly in January and has now progressed to major kicks with tiny feet sticking out of my belly on the left side. Leg action just under my ribcage is visible to family members sitting across the table. And the little butt is probably the cutest thing ever on my right side, sometimes it rolls around as the feet move. All of this is totally miraculous and periodically sends me into giggle fits. Will I giggle as much at her/his every move when in front of me instead of inside? Only time will tell.

Last note, as you can see from the previous pictures I continued to work in the garden, transplanting and weeding on hands and knees, through 8 months. At this point my body doesn’t like it. So I prepare for the baby at home, room prep, cooking, napping, grounding, etc. while Dan prepares by getting as much done in the garden as he can. All his work feels so important and special to me right now, not being comfortable there myself. It is his gift of support and keeps us moving forward on our path as we wait for the new arrival to grace our lives and join the journey.