I have been obsessed with "the olden days" for as long as I can remember. I devoured historical fiction. Books like Little House on the Prairie, Anne of Green Gables, Secret Garden, Little Women and the American Girl series were my magical gateways to golden days gone by, days I longed to be a part of. I loved the notion of the simple, quiet lives, close-knit communities, self-sufficiency, and old-fashioned ideals...and maybe, if I am honest, the dresses. Until I had Liam, I used to say that I was born in the wrong century. I can't keep up with the quick pace of life these days. I never have the latest and greatest anything, and usually cannot even see the point in whatever it is. I often feel slow and out of place and decidedly uncool. But...there is nothing quite like having a life-threatening pregnancy complication, emergency birth and premature baby kept alive by machines to knock the romanticizing of the past right out of you. Suddenly, the past is just a dark and scary place where you and your baby would be dead and you are feeling quite ready to embrace modern medicine and modern technology. In fact, you sort of want to wrap yourself up in the safe cocoon of modern living and never look back again. But, after a healing period, I discovered there are still things I envy about the way people lived so long ago; however, most of the things I love have more to do with simple living than those "olden days" I used to long for. Things like cooking from scratch, sewing and knitting, an abundant kitchen garden, less technology, more walking, slow living, room to breathe... and, maybe still, those dresses. These are the simple things I want to capture for myself and for my children, even in the fast-paced, "latest and greatest" time that they are growing up in. My hope for them is that, many years from now, their childhood will stretch on for ages in their memories and it will be full of lazy, quiet afternoons, wild adventures in nature, cooking lessons from mom, crunchy beans plucked straight from the garden, and maybe just a little bit of unsupervised trouble. I hope that they will remember that we made hot chocolate on winter nights and snuggled up with movies during thunderstorms and went to the farmer's market on Wednesday afternoons for eggs and milk. One of the ways I am attempting to slow our lives down is through seasonal living. This is something I am just starting to embrace and I am still quite new at it. All it really means is being more aware and accepting of the seasons and the changes they bring. It sounds so easy but once I really started diving into it, I became aware of just how out of touch I am with the rhythm of the seasons. We are taking the re-introductions slow. I am throwing the windows open and turning off the air conditioner. We are spending as much time as possible outdoors in all sorts of weather. We are figuring out when to plant the things we want to eat in our garden and we are learning to eat and store food in season. This week, our local strawberry farm posted that the strawberries were ripe, so that meant that this week "seasonal living" was picking as many strawberries as we thought we might need this summer, since the strawberries we planted this year will not produce fruit until the fall. On Thursday of last week, without any notice, I slathered the boys in sunscreen, packed them in the car and declared it Strawberry Day. ,The boys impressed me with their picking abilities this year! In spite of growing tired after an hour, we still managed to bring home about 15 pounds of strawberries! We brought them home, cleaned them up and sorted them into three categories: For Eating, For Baking, For Freezing. We then spent the afternoon turning them into strawberry limeade concentrate, strawberry lime popsicles, strawberry coulis, and lots and lots of whole frozen strawberries for smoothies and ice cream and other various things. The boys have put in their requests for strawberry muffins, strawberry cake, strawberry shortcake, strawberry pancakes, and many other versions of baked strawberry goods, all of which end in "cake," so a strawberry baking day is in our very new future. We also brought a bucket of strawberries for our shared snack during forest school today because sharing is caring! I hope that one day, as spring rolls around, the boys will begin to anticipate Strawberry Day. I hope in the winter their mouths will water at the thought of spring and strawberries. I hope one day they will associate the taste of a sun-ripened strawberry with springtime and playing outside and planting things in the garden and soft grass under their bare feet. I hope when they are 90, they will savor a bite of strawberry cake and think, "It is just the way my mother used to make it every Spring."
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Spring in the South means one thing: Strawberry Pickin'. Actually, it probably more accurately means: Pollen. But strawberry picking sounds far more pleasant, don't you think? Unfortunately, Chattanooga has a shortage of pick-your-own strawberry patches, but we were able to find a family farm about 20 minutes away and this week they announced that the berries were ready for picking! The weather was perfect for picking (and eating) strawberries. We joined our friends and the boys lasted an entire thirty minutes before Rory grew tired of being on my back and Dexter started running into the electric cattle fence repeatedly and Liam began a steady stream of whining. Thirty minutes of strawberry picking bliss is a win in this season of our lives. Liam chose exactly nine strawberries that he felt were adequate for picking. He then proceeded to remove every green leaf from the top before placing them carefully in his bucket, complaining a bit that he only had nine strawberries, and then shoving them one by one into his mouth as we walked away from the fields. Dexter was a very enthusiastic picker. His bucket was found to be overflowing with berries of all shapes, sizes, colors and textures. Once I removed the green ones and the rotting ones, I was very impressed with his dedication, especially considering he only ventured to lick two strawberries before declaring them "very yucky" and refusing to taste another. Rory enjoyed the up-and-down ride on Mama's back and the delicious berries he received over the shoulder as we picked. My dream is to one day pick all the strawberries for the year during our picking adventures. We are not quite there yet, but we do enjoy the experience and for a few days we enjoy strawberries for snacking and strawberries in our smoothies and strawberry muffins and strawberry cake. The boys are always proud that they picked the berries and every year we take home a few more than the year before.
We are getting there slowly and, I must say, it is a pretty tasty journey. |
WHO AM I?
I am Michelle: a wannabe hippie in love with a bonafide geek. We also spawned. I spend my days with our four wild, beautiful boy children and I overshare about our life online because I am a Millennial and that is what we do.
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