Whew. This summer felt like the scene in the Lion King where they're racing through the gorge with a wild herd of wildebeasts (sp???) right behind. No slowing down allowed or the world would END!! More specifically, everyone would get hungry and grouchy and there would be nothing left in the frig and then I would be catching up for the next week. Not that that didn't occasionally happen but I must say, I ran a tight course and now . . . now school has started and so have piano lessons and school sports and, well, the kids are still hungry. Good grief. We eat a LOT.Anyway, I have been missing blogging and journaling and sitting still and even thinking. I have been missing the reflective part of my brain which is off somewhere sulking because it gets no attention these days. At the bottom of the approximately 7 lists I'm working through at any given moment. I am going to give it some chocolate and tell it to wait a little while and all of a sudden it will be winter here and there will be nothing to do but reflect in front of the fire because our world will become blue and dark and frozen. Right now, there is the garden to bring in.
Speaking of which, this has been the most absolutely fantastic year for gardening ever. We have: corn (amazing!!!! that never works for me!), squash (about 50 ranged around our kitchen - all types), onions (hanging to dry all around the dog's pen for all the world like we're warding off vampires), tomatoes (still unharvested but having completely destroyed the tomato wires and taken over a huge clump of space like they're considering world domination), potatoes (half under the house but disappointing - mostly drowned in the bottom lower corner), parsnips, carrots, beets, swiss chard, spinach, lettuce (all still in the garden), peas (kind of missed them), beans (40 cups in the freezer), cucumbers (6 quart jars pickled), raspberries (jammed, mmm), and 8 pathetic little green pepper plants that never got around to doing more than looking like green leaves. We are eating garden feasts whenever possible.
In other news, the goats turned out to not be pregnant. This was disappointing. They don't appear to mind. Maverick has no idea that he is a goose and as long V's of his kind trail over every morning and evening he happily pecks at our grass and follows us around and even pants in the heat because he can't remember how to walk around the garden (let along fly over it) to get to a handy slough. We work on chasing him into flight but as he doesn't like to fly higher than our heads or faster than the kids can bike, he isn't going very far.
I've been working with Jetta a little more in the last two weeks and we're progressing to exercises in the saddle, which I must say is a wonderful feeling. It's also wonderful to have her respect on the ground. She's totally stopped the chewing, pushing, shoving and generally disrespectful behaviour that had me watching my back. Not to mention that I can clean her hooves with her picking them up for me politely. It's a lovely change.
Tomorrow I was supposed to go for a ride with my riding buddy again for the 18 - 20 kms between our houses. However it's supposed to be 36 above and I have to say I wimped out. It does not at all feel like a crisp September day out there. It's sweltering. Maybe in the next few weeks. Not that I'm complaining! I want to store up all the heat I can. However, it does make me tired. And not feeling like wearing jeans and being far from sources of water.
I have so many stories to tell of this summer! It's hard to know where to start in describing such a wonderfully crammed two months. I was a sergeant major with the kids and that worked great at keeping all of us sane and fed and the house more or less presentable. They all cooked lots and cleaned lots and in return I took them all out for blizzards lots. And myself slightly less often :) I have in the last 5 months (well, since March 1) lost 17 pounds and I'm pretty darn proud of myself. So the occasional blizzard was a real treat. But take my advice and NEVER look on DQ's "nutrition information" site. It will do nothing but discourage you. My favourite blizzard is the Turtle Pecan Cluster, but with coffee flavour instead of the caramel. That is a perfect blizzard. Yumm. I'm getting hungry again.
I just read "The Book of Negroes" by Lawrence Hill. Amazing. Such an amazing immersion into such a completely different existence than my own. There are so many tragic and heroic stories in the world. I was telling the kids about Terry Fox and just welled up. Courage is so inspiring. I wish I had more. It feels like all I can do to get through each day and just keep everyone emotionally on an even keel. I got a flyer in the mail by Steve Bell, who I really admire, about fasting for change in response to the East African crisis. I can't even begin to figure out how to fit that into my head although I would love to, theoretically. That would require energy I don't have right now. We are also sponsoring a little girl through World Vision and I really want to sit down as a family and write to her. Waiting for that moment when we're all together and no one is breaking down. Normal life is all I can do to stay on top of, and that's really not inspiring.
Okay, this is what you call a blog post without much reflection - more random rambling. I figured out how to read stats on who reads this and found out there are page views from Brazil and Latvia and Singapore!! That is so cool! So I can ramble here and people from all around the world actually read it! I feel so important! It's all about me. So much for inspiring! I guess I'm going to have to work on the reflective and unselfish parts of my brain in the next while. But not just now. Way too tired. I'll tell some stories in the next post. Nice to see you all again. You know what I mean.
