A Running Collection

It was Saturday evening. George was in Georgia visiting his parents. We were on the car carpet driving cars around. There was a knock at the door. Neighbor: "Are your sheep here, because there are some sheep out on the road." Well, they were not here, they were on the road. We've learned our lesson. Bringing sheep home is a useless task. They will come home "wagging their tails behind them" -- eventually. And they are much happier to do this if there is good corn to eat in their feed bucket. Well, we didn't have corn. George suggested loading the kids up and heading out to get some corn (It was 7:00 p.m. -- almost bedtime). I decided to grab their feed bucket. It was in my lap. Don't know why. I also thought perhaps we should take a lap around the neighborhood to see if we could spot them. Just as I gave up and put the car in reverse, Amelia spotted them. They were playing with some neighbor children a good half mile from the house. The neighbors wer...

There must come a day with all children. That day where they wake up and decide to become the road side stand entrepreneur. There is nothing that will stop a child on the mad mission of setting up their store at the end of the driveway. I'm convinced of this. Amelia has been dreaming of it for some time. She's started on it a few times and her collection of wares never made it to the road.  Today would be different. Last night she made sugar cookies, so I suggested that she try to sell those along with the very small unique hat she sewed this morning and the braided bracelets she's had piled away. She took them in a yogurt container and piled it all on a table. When I had William situated I went out to see the set up. The sign was in the road and they were huddled together in a cold sprinkling rain. They looked pitiful! We sat out there for a few minutes. It was enough. We went in out of the rain. After lunch and a bit of a rest, the sun was out. Amelia wa...

 He stands on the chair because that means he can reach us and converse with us. He speaks another language, but we are catching on. He stands on the chair because he will be eye to eye with Amelia and  closer to the pop corn and crayons and salsa and glue sticks and math problems. If I turn away for an instant, he will climb on top and plop in the exact middle of it all. His curls dance around his head. It moves all day from here to there. He practices and plays and creates and converses. He matches and puzzles and chats and sings and dances with the thump of just one foot. He wakes up looking for his sister and then a chance to cuddle with daddy. A cuddle with William involves his body perpendicular to our necks as he stares towards the sky and chats away or rolls around a bit. And he did quite a bit of rolling through the night on first William camping trip last weekend. It was camping at its finest. George Wilder is ready to set up the tent and Amelia built our fir...

Amelia wanted to have a coffee shop party for her friends to celebrate her birthday. We planned it all week. We named the coffee shop, "Amaruma Coffee." George Wilder says it means, "Good Coffee". We made the logo. Of course it included a tree (Amelia draws trees constantly) and coffee beans. We made decisions about what to serve and how to serve it.  Then Amelia decided to make a castle. She found some bricks in the yard and started making a wall/castle. George Wilder was responsible for making the mortar from ash and water and dirt. They worked on the wall/castle for days. The coffee shop became the side show and the castle would be the center of play. They walked through exactly how the day would go all afternoon Thursday. It was nearly impossible to do any school work Friday. They looked longingly toward the castle/wall. There was work to do. It had to be finished and decorated and set up for extensive castle visiting. There were problems to be sol...

Sitting in a sun beam with William. In the grass. Barefoot. Except for the one moccasin on his right foot hanging on for dear life. He is trying to plug the camera into the download cord. The sheep pull and eat the grass growing. Lucy rolls around in the warmth. The children are in the back yard playing with Amelia’s birthday presents from grandmother. The wind lifts a leaf and lets it down again, so gently. Gentle. It is a gentle day. It was cold enough for gloves and an ear warmer for a long run this morning. Oh the glorious cold air filling up lungs and blood. Oxygen. Tap tap of feet. The road is solace and silent so early. The children played their fiddles with daddy after breakfast before we settled into school work and Daddy took off on the motorcycle for school.We poured outdoors as the day warmed and picnicked before collecting our seeds and planting greens because we can. It will be a contest with the bugs. I want to win this competition. Greens i...

Over the weeks we prepared for January 18th. We were dilegent to look ahead and plan. The fly by the seat of our pants (our normal tactic) would not work for this. We were preparing to host a house concert for Eric Taylor. A house full of music and people. We pruned and picked and yanked and hauled in the yard. We dusted, scrubbed, tidied, cooked, brewed, folded, collected, and rearranged inside. We sat and made lists and time lines. We planned. We borrowed chairs and a sound system. We set it up in the living room. We made it look cozy and homey and it was just that. By two in the afternoon we were ready for the show. As the sun sank low, they came flowing in. Faces, mostly new, came. Our goal was to give a night to our guest that was different. Our goal was to make everyone feel like we had planned the event for them. And it worked. And we did it. Lots of BBQ. Lots of slaw. Gallons of homebrew. Gallons of sweet tea. Lots of flickering candles. The children made a weave in and out o...