How Covid-19 almost killed me, and a chicken beer garden

I’ve been trying to think of a name for our house. It’s not fair that only fancy English people get to have cool names for their homes like Waddesdon Manor and Buckhurst Park. On Pinterest I call our home The Harmony House for obvious reasons. (Not to be confused with our previous “Not-a-Home” on Home Ave for the .2 seconds we lived in the city and hated every second of it).  I’ve been thinking of Chateau Harmony, or The Harmony Stronghold, but the former is too refined for a home full of dirty dishes, legos and little boys and the latter implies we’ve got sturdier walls and a battlement tucked away somewhere.  ...I’m going to have to keep thinking about it. 

Some people do their best thinking and meditating while they run. I am not one of those people. Running is not in my genetics, I always look like I’m either about to turn into a tomato, or have a heart attack regardless of how long or short the run is or what the temperature is.  Jim and I started running together since he’s been working at home, and during our first run together he kept asking if I was ok and telling me that I was doing great. I wanted to murder him, but my lungs couldn’t prioritize any extra movement, so I settled for glaring at him instead. It’s a miracle he wanted to keep me as a running partner.  My run is his fast walk, so we’ve worked out a better system where we start out together and finish together but he does an extra mile in between. It’s still galling, but at least I can wheeze and groan in peace. Covid-19 almost took a sinister turn during my run yesterday in my effort to successfully “social distance” from a mask wearing couple. I ran off the sidewalk onto the local elementary school lawn which apparently has canceled their custodians as well as class because I found myself ankle deep in clover.  A half dozen bees immediately made their angst known and I remembered belatedly that I’d forgotten to wear my epi-pen. I can never remember if you’re supposed to stand still with bees, or run. Can they smell fear? Whatever the case, it was my fastest mile ever. Maybe this is a potential new training program. 

The baby chicks are growing like...well babies. They pretty much eat, poop and sleep (and grow before our eyes).  My internet reading said to clean out their brooder and replace the shavings once a week, but I was cleaning it out every other day and my house still smelled like the inside of a barn. Plus, they were starting to outgrow the giant terrarium, so I decided it was time for new measures. They are now ensconced in the garage in their new quarters I built out of leftover Council beer boxes. So they now have a one-of-a-kind, craft industry, art deco beer garden, or: Le Chic Biergarten. They seem less than impressed. 

But hey, maybe that’s what we can name the house? 

Surviving the flood and the great chicken escapade

I’ve wanted chickens for a long time, but didn’t see any way to make it happen.

But necessity is the mother of invention, and there’s nothing like four growing boys and a limit on eggs at the grocery store (if there are any on the shelves at all) to force one to throw their shoe over the fence and figure it out. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who was thinking in this direction, because baby chicks were sold out everywhere I called. Mail order chicks from reputable places were back ordered until May and I didn’t think the chicken dream was going to happen until a friend found a mail order place that had some.

I am not one for fancy chicken breeds, I’ve tried to be the chicken whisperer in the past, but I don’t do well trying to keep up with Silkies or Polish breeds. I’ve played wet nurse, vet and undertaker to more “fancy” chickens over the years than I care to recollect, so I just wanted plain hardy Rhode Island Reds. …During this coronapocalypse I might as well have wished for the moon. 

We learned the hard way that California doesn’t allow mail order chickens in the state, and  it looked like all was lost. While I was trying to figure out a way to smuggle them across the Arizona border, my network of chicken spies alerted me that the local ranch & feed store received a new shipment of 200 New Hampshire chicks...first come first serve. I jumped in the car faster than you could say “but where will we put them” and high tailed it down there and came home like a rain boot wearing, spring version of Santa Claus, shouting “Merry Easter everyone, I’ve got presents!” and dumping out a cardboard box full of cheeping yellow fluff.  Thankfully we’ve got a giant snake terrarium (empty!) that’s been appropriated and turned into a chick brooder...which is kind of funny in a circle of life kinda way. 

The kids couldn’t be more thrilled, and it’s like having our own YouTube channel running 24/7.  Being quarantined with chicks, children and a worm farm while it rains for 40 days and 40 nights has got me feeling like a modern day Noah. Do you think he grew microgreens? Surely they didn’t live off of dried goods the whole time? Maybe he had a green house somewhere in the ark.

I was listening to a gardening podcast that talked about how seeds learn from the climate and soil they’re put in and then pass on that information genetically to their offspring. So if you have heirloom seeds that don’t do well the first year, gather the seeds and try again anyway because they probably “learned” to deal with whatever curveball you’re throwing at it. I feel like my plants this year though are getting a false sense of reality. I keep telling them not to expect rain like this next year and not to tell their children or grandchildren about it because it doesn’t happen very often. 

And yes, I am now talking to my plants. I haven’t quite succumbed to playing classical music for them yet or laying hands on them, so clearly I have retained some of my sanity. ...maybe. 

Grocery shopping, Ducking at the yards arme and The Waltons

It’s been so long since I left the house, that when I had to drop the car off at the shop, Jim asked if I still remembered how to drive. We’ve been doing the social distancing maybe a little too successfully around here, because I had no idea how bad it was out there. Had to venture out to Costco today because I stocked up for two months in January and it was time to fatten the coffers or start hunting gophers and possums. Costco had a line down one side of the building and across a little street, but they were super organized and everyone was quiet and efficient. Walmart was a bit more like the jungle. San Diego passed a new ordinance requiring/strongly suggesting masks and so with all of the home-rigged masks there was a strong Mad Max vibe going on. At one point I backed up to let a man pass, and a lady started yelling at me because I’d violated her six foot space. I don’t handle yelling well so I’m happy to be back at home and have no plans to venture back out anytime soon. Pro tip though: If you’re having a hard time getting enough food for your large family with all of the “limit 1” restrictions, try a Business Costco. They don’t have any toys, or clothes or anything because they cater to restaurants, but your regular Costco membership still works and you can get things like a 50lb bag of flour for $17, a 40lb box of chicken for $38 and 50lbs of potatoes for $10 (you can also buy peanut butter, yogurt and pickles by the bucket, but I’m not to that level yet.) Bonus, no one will judge you for your full cart.

Over here in Chateau Ramsey, spring has come, the birds are chirping, kids are happy, healthy and sleeping better than they have in months. San Diego is experiencing it’s .2 seconds of lush greenness. I’ve been loving this slower pace of life so much, I spent a day consciously videoing little snippets so I could remember this stage of life. (although I can’t even remember which day it was…Tuesday? or maybe Wednesday? I’m not sure.) The kids and I made it into a Walton’s-style montage (see video at the bottom). Man-made calendars have ceased to exist for me, but I do know we’re due for a super moon (pink edition) in four days and that it’s supposed to rain two inches next week. Give me another month of quarantine and I will be wearing homemade clothes, dancing in the moonlight and canceling our internet service.

I’m spending my extra time at home editing my nanowrimo novel and writing a book for my middle boys. They love Diary of a Wimpy Kid, so I’m trying my hand at a historical version of it in hopes it will lure them into reading more. I’m starting with Columbus since that’s what CC will be starting with next year for Cycle 3. In reading through some original documents I found this list of punishments listed by the Santa Maria’s Marshall:

“The Marshall is to punish offenders and to see justice executed according to directions; as ducking at the yards arme, haling under the keel, bound to the capsterne or maine mast with a bucket of shot about his neck, or setting in the bilbowes.” 

It took me awhile to figure out that “ducking at the yards arme” meant “tying you to the front of the ship and letting you get dunked as the ship goes up and down through the waves”. And that was a mild punishment compared to the “haling" under the keel”.

So there’s your random trivia for the day. I’m off to feed my pet sourdough (we named it “Sandy”) and contemplate how grateful I am public officials haven’t implemented 15th century punishments for corona-violations.

Garden villains and the reluctant baker

Embracing the whole Little House On The ̶P̶r̶a̶i̶r̶i̶e̶ City thing is not going quite as well as I hoped.

Something is eating my garden. The internet says to place surveillance to identify the villain. What did they do 500 years ago? Sit up all night watching their garden? It’s a miracle to me that humankind has managed to win the struggle against pests for thousands of years. What did they have that I don’t? I feel like I need to build an entire fortress around, under and over my garden (and I don’t even have deer or normal wildlife to contend with…just rats, gophers, squirrels, raccoons, rabbits…Ok, so maybe we do have quite a few.) Bah. I keep trying to think of what I have on hand that can be used to create a barrier. I have a ton of yarn in a bin somewhere…maybe I can knit a net or something.

I bought a 50lb bag of organic, high quality, non-GMO flour as a Christmas present to myself which turned out to be a rather fortuitous Christmas present. Between avoiding the grocery store, and the grocery store being bare most of the time I’ve had to put aside my dislike of baking. (I know, flour is an odd choice in self-care Christmas presents for someone who doesn’t like to bake… don’t judge, I honestly don’t know what I was thinking). Baked goods are one of the only things keeping my children full these days… paleo or Whole30 eating went right out the window. It’s now a la pancakes for breakfast and cookies for lunch. I’ve decided to really throw caution to the wind and attempt sourdough bread making. I asked my sister why all of the recipes are in grams and she gave me a look that said “oh honey, how innocent and ignorant you are”. So now she’s loaning me a food scale which I’ve also successfully avoided my whole life. Apparently accuracy is excessively important when making sourdough bread. This does not bode well. We will not survive the winter.

I’m glad the shelves aren’t too bare though, because it’s clearly going to take a lot more work before I come close to being successful at the Ma Ingalls things. At least I’m having fun?

Teaching Kids How To Learn

Sometimes I feel like Wendy with the lost boys around here, but it doesn’t really matter how you teach kids to learn things on their own as long as it gets done. If you’ve hung around Classical education circles at all, then you’ve read or heard about Dorothy Sawyer's essay titled “The Lost Tools Of Learning”.  (it’s a quick read and I highly recommend it). I’ll admit, I read and ingested the information while my kids were still in diapers and it seemed like a laughably far off abstract goal, but a worthy one?

Then I had one boy after the other who struggled with writing, reading and everything in between...basically poster children for those who do NOT do Classical education. My personality gravitates more naturally to the Charlotte Mason school of thought (and I still like it in theory and intuitively teach that way), but I was too unstructured of a mom to use it well. Classical Conversations is where we ended up, which is like the McDonald’s of the Classical education world. Franchised and systematized. Not going to lie though, it’s been a struggle. Nothing about homeschooling has come easy, last year Charlie memory mastered for the first time and it was through blood, sweat and tears. I googled ways to make things stick, I sat with him for hours, we tried all of the tricks. Over the years I’ve read enough books to fill a library on how to utilize working memory, how to work with kids with dyslexia, apraxia, auditory processing disorder, ADHD etc. One of these days maybe I’ll write my own curriculum with all of the things I’ve picked up from a hundred therapists, books and research, but for now… if anyone feels like they try to explain a concept to their child a dozen times and it’s not sticking, or if you’re in CC and have a kid who is struggling to memorize their grammar work, here are a few things that work around here. 

1. Flashcards with stick figures and pictures. This was the game changer last year. Last year I had to sit down and figure out where all of the holes and struggles were and then make up silly mnemonics and draw them onto flashcards or white boards. The three rules are: It has to be colorful. It has to be silly/funny. It has to be IN and ON the words themselves and not above it or beside it (i.e. “The Progressive Era” gets turned into a car with a giant ear riding on it). 

2. Laminate things that need to be memorized. Homeschooling moms are like Monica Gellar when it comes to laminators. We will laminate anything. We love laminating. It’s more satisfying than picking dried glue off your hands. Add some wine and a few friends and it’s my ideal party. Laminating memory work was the game changer this year. I let Charlie take it outside, on a skateboard,  in the mud, in the shower or wherever else. Since he’s an active boy, this is really what made the difference this year. But since he already learned how to memorize last year, it was a lot easier this year.

3. Cross the mid line. With younger kids you can do this with hand motions. With older kids, you either have to sit down with them and learn a bunch of Fortnite dance moves, or do those hand slappy things…  or bribe them. Whatever the case, taking a drink of water then breaking memory work into moves that cross the mid line really works. And don’t ask me why the water thing is really important, but it’s a scientific thing. 

I’m so proud of Charlie because while I dragged him through memorizing last year, this year he took ownership of it and did it himself. I remember when Jamie finally figured out how to memorize things and it’s almost better than the moment a kid is truly potty trained...almost.  

It gives me hope for Robbie and Will even though we’re still in the trenches. 

Amusing Links, plus the weirdest and stupidest thing I did today

Usually Mondays around here are busy and stressful, but since we’re in Neverland or Wonderland or maybe Stranger Thing’s Upside Down world, I tried to infuse some stress back into it by filling the house with the fresh scent of rotten meat and Chinese fringeberries.

I’m on day 3 of a migraine and I’m pretty sure Jim feels like he’s married to Professor Trelawney . Since word coming out of France and Spain is to avoid ibuprofen at all cost right now, I decided it would also be a good idea to avoid my alien powered, high octane migraine prescription as well. I call it yoga for the trigeminal-autonomic reflex pathway…. I’m trying to work with the pain, listen to my body, and not just medicate and power through at 100 mph like I normally do. It’s not going well. So far my “don’t hyperventilate and work with the migraine” plan caused me to make 4 lbs of rotten meatballs. This is not normal for me, I have poor eyesight but a highly tuned olfactory system. The fact that it took me a few hours to identify the weird smell as rotten meat cooking in my oven is something that never happens in this household. I indigently thrust a freshly cooked rancid meatball under Jim’s nose while he was trying to do his job on the front line of the current healthcare crisis, and demanded he smell it and taste it. He said it tasted fine, but he’s also known to eat moldy things and uncooked chicken, so he was no help. Thankfully I caught it before I ruined the entire batch of sauce… the sauce… as in the sauce that Jim’s late Italian grandmother taught me to make in order to be married to her grandson. The one that heals all woes and is the perfect quarantine relief food (and I almost screwed it up).

That was the stupidest thing I did, the weirdest thing I did was toss a bunch of Chinese fringe berries and dandelions into the vitamix. The kids are like Pavlov’s dog when they hear the vitamix’s jet engine ramp up in the kitchen. William looked at the gray sludge and asked dubiously what kind of smoothie it was. Robbie was the only one who cheerfully volunteered to try the fringeberry dandelion concoction, but it wasn’t for human consumption. I listened to a gardening podcast about not being irritated with pests, weeds, etc but instead work with nature instead of fighting it (noticing a trend here?). Our neighbor has a Chinese Fringe tree that dumps these olive berry looking things all over our flower bed and sidewalk. I googled it and they don’t compost very quickly, but they’re full of great nutrients, so I decided to work with nature and toss them into my vitamix and then compost bin. The dandelions were just innocent bystanders that got swept up with the tide.

My compost now smells very good. Apparently you can also pickle these berries like olives and eat them (which I’m adding to my list of possibilities if the grocery store stays empty).

I love lists of links, and in case you do too, here is my current list ( know they don’t look like links, because I can’t figure out how to format my squarespace skin, but I promise they’re all clickable)

1. 13 edible plants you can find in urban environments.

2. I wish our church would do something like this creative Russian Orthodox priest. Or at least keep the doors unlocked like the Catholic and Episcopalian churches.

3. A free book on rational thinking.

4. The most powerful fire engine in the world

5. A book review about President Hoover that is almost better than the book itself.

6. An ex Pickup Artist’s thoughts on how to pray.

7. And last but not least: The aforementioned Sauce recipe that heals all woes (or at least it does for everyone in my husband’s family)

I’ll just be over here enjoying pepper tree tea with some sauteed dandelion and pickled fringeberries. My liver has never been happier even if my head is not. The only thing I have left to do is install a bidet.

The one where I attempt to garden...

Happy Spring! I took this picture because I loved the contrast of the colors, and was so excited to actually be planting something in the garden I’ve worked so hard to dig. But you can tell I’m a newbie gardener because within a few hours my nails looked like this. 

When I picked gardening as one of my New Year’s resolutions, I had no idea it was going to fortuitously be one of the only hobbies still legal by spring.  

It’s supposed to be relaxing, but is instead stressing me out. I couldn’t buy plants because I’m not independently wealthy, which leads me to my first question. For those out there who are sewers as well as growers, is gardening like sewing? You know, where it costs you twice as much money to buy fabric, own a machine and buy basting tape and buttons than it would to just buy a dress from the store (but you do it anyway for the love of sewing and the fact that you can’t just waltz into Target and buy a Daenerys Targaryen costume?) 

I carefully researched which vegetables and herbs grow in partial shade because our urban-ish backyard backs up against a towering apartment complex that blows out Marijuana smoke like a forge of Mordor. Add an out of control elm tree of some kind and a straggly pepper tree, and it’s clear our backyard is just perfect for gardening. I’m not in over my head at all. 

All of the seed packets say “full sun” even though the internet very clearly tells me “partial sun”. I’m sure this makes sense to real gardeners, but to me it feels like there is some sort of secret cabal going on where everything can be blamed on Apollo.  

And what in the world do the watering instructions mean? Does “two inches” of water mean the width, length and volume is optional? There are too many variables! I watched several YouTube videos to figure it out and that did nothing but convince me gardeners really love their plants and they sound like they’re speaking a foreign language. I need a cheat sheet for dummies.

.... Or flash cards because I’m going all Hermione Granger on gardening when it probably takes more of a Luna Lovegood touch. 

3 Ways To Combat Anxiety (that don't cost anything, and aren't the normal suggestions)

Some people have asked why I took up blogging again. A few years ago, I gave up social media for Lent and enjoyed it so much I never really came back. But one of my New Year’s resolutions this year was to write more, so here I am. The weird, “fake news” titles are lifted off of Pinterest and are funny to me. But you may have to have a sense of humor like April Ludgate to appreciate it. Ahem.

Three Totally Normal Ways To Combat Anxiety:

1. Cold Showers: A few years ago a friend of mine was going through a hard time, and as I tried to help her, I found that instead of being a supportive person, I started to drown with her (turns out “putting on your own oxygen mask first” is a lot harder than it sounds.) Someone suggested the “Wim Hof” method. I assumed this was a new version of hot yoga or a long lost ancient form of meditation. Instead I was surprised to find out it’s the name of a grizzled old Netherlands dude who lost his wife to depression and suicide years ago, and has been working with research scientists ever since. You can get the basic gist here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np0jGp6442A Basically you over oxygenate your blood with deep breathing and then get into ice cold water and control your breathing. Not only did it reverse my downward spiral, it accidentally also cured my PMS. It’s not possible to do the cold shower part here in Southern California during the summer (when the coldest shower water is still warm), but since it’s still March we’ve got a few more good months of WimHoffing left.

2. The Tiffany Aching Trick: Terry Pratchett may be one of the greatest sci-fi/fantasy authors of the 20th century… or at least one of the most witty ones. His books are like classic SNL meets Hogwarts. But I digress, in one of his children’s books the main character is a young witch name Tiffany Aching. She does this trick when she’s stressed or worried, where she stops and looks at herself from the outside to notice all of the details and get some clarity. You can read the grown up, non magical version on this in a book I read called Gorilla Mindset, but you should be forewarned: My husband and one of my best friends said the information in it was obvious and stuff they do without even thinking about it. I however needed the step by step instructions. First, next time you are happy stop and “capture it”. Notice where the blood flow is going, what your muscles are doing, where your bones are oriented on top of each other. Second, set that whole body thing back up the next time you feel anxious. It’s pretty easy, but difficult to remember to do. It’s more fun to read the Tiffany Aching books.

3. The Jane Austen Exercise: This can be customized to any favorite era. I can’t remember which book I got this idea from, but it was definitely from some very non-interesting book whose title will occur to me as soon as I try to go to sleep tonight. Basically it said, when you’re having a bad day or feel like you’re spiraling, to imagine that you have a force field all around you, or you’re wrapped in some sort of invisible bubble wrap that nobody can get through, or envision yourself having very thick banana skin. That didn’t work for me at all (all I could think about was star wars and food), but it springboarded an idea that does work. I run everything through a Jane Austen filter to see if it’s still worth worrying about. “I’m running late, the car’s out of gas and half the children forgot their shoes” turns into “Forgive me dear Edith, the horse threw a shoe. Farrier’s these days are so unreliable. And look at these adorable street urchins I’m ministering to for the day.” (Note: this only works on minor issues, if you try it on big issues and find yourself being held captive by a sociopathic Mr. Wickham, then you probably aren’t over-reacting).

Mud pits and Warrior Moves

Spring has come, which usually means an almost indiscernible shift from 68.2 degree winter days to 71.4 degree spring days. This year however, we seem to actually be channeling our inner Pacific Northwest and getting a decent amount of that phenomenon called rain. I was so proud of myself for french double digging a little 12x12 garden in the back yard, but now I have to face the fact that the digging is finished and now I have to plant something. Seeds? (am I too late for that?) Plants? There is so much conflicting information on the internet, I’m frozen with indecision. Meanwhile I have a homemade La Brea tar pit in my backyard. I snared an 11 year old homo sapien male in it this afternoon. He sunk up to his shins in my beautiful fire swamp.

The children have turned the house into their very own parkour/ninja warrior jump house. There is a new intricate game of tag going on that is more complicated than the rules for Settlers of Catan. It’s somehow a blend of wrestling, rock paper scissors and reverse tag. My job is catch falling lamps, and remove abandoned beverages before they get knocked over.

We did get lots of school done though. Cottage school is great for that. Sometimes I wonder if some 18th century Latin tutor is rolling over in his grave at the hybrid, home school, community driven lifestyle we’ve carved out for ourselves in this little corner of urban agglomeration.

…maybe I should assign gardening class next.

Stuck at home? My top 3 favorite toys (or rather, my kids' top 3 favorite toys)

Since impending d̶o̶o̶m̶ home time may be in all of our futures, here are my top three time-passers that are a much better use of your money than Costco’s toilet paper. Whenever it rains in Southern California (which doesn’t happen a lot), Jim foregoes the motorcycle commute and takes my suburban. (Note, it’s mine even though he technically paid for it..ahem.) My only other option is taking him to work at 5am and then picking him back up in the afternoon. While I wouldn’t want to complain about stumbling into some clothes and staggering into the car like an intoxicated teddy bear who stuck their finger into an electrical outlet (I’m not a morning person), if possible I opt to stay at home and let Jim take the car.

It was a pretty happy, peaceful, chill day around here, but that was probably because rain has an almost sedative affect on native Californians. So take this list with a large grain of salt.

1. These brain flake things. A friend brought them for William to play with and they were an instant hit. I picked up a few containers for Christmas and they’ve been the most used toy since then. Even the older kids make all kinds of weird ironman armor and laser wrist things. I don’t ask questions, I just duck when I’m told

2. Kinetic Sand. We have lots of different kinetic sand in the house, but this one is the favorite. I don’t think it has anything to do with the sparkles (which are sadly overrated and exaggerated in the picture) but because it’s the softest. Once you start playing with it, you can’t stop. Even adults have been known to pause in front of the sensory bin and then not move until forced.

3. The card game Rat-A-Tat-Cat. This is one of the few card games that even small children can play and it isn’t a form of slow torture for parents and older kids. Death by candy princesses and sneaky squirrels is one of the leading causes of parental demise. Also, if you have a kid who’s missing speech therapy, you can also turn this game into an impromptu session where you endlessly discuss the cool cats and nasty rats (the illustrations are hilarious). It’s won all sorts of awards, including a Mensa one, but I haven’t noticed it making my kids any smarter… granted, I haven’t checked and we may not be the best target audience. Still, anyone can play this no matter where they are on the IQ spectrum. We’re on our third deck.

Not that I’m hoping we’ll all get quarantined by the Coronu, but at least we’re prepared

…and there are plenty of leaves in the backyard if the toilet paper runs out.