2015 Review

I haven't written much on the blog this past year (six entries total to be exact).  Less-than-ideal internet service, three small children demanding lots of attention, life seeming more steady and less dramatic, etc., etc.  I think we're all in the post blog-honeymoon phase.  But I do enjoy coming back to this record from time to time and reading through entries in my own personal online scrapbook.  So, in an attempt to re-capture some of what happened this past year, I present the Great 2015 Year-End Month-by-Month Review-palooza.

It was actually not that easy to choose a photo for each month.  Some months I had no photo for the event I wanted to post.  Other months had so many events to choose from it was difficult to decide which one to focus on.  Some months (Feb/Mar/Aug/Oct) didn't have any particular stand-out event at all--just the steady thrum of life happening in our home and work, going to the library, being with friends and family.  So for what it's worth to my future self (and anyone else who might be interested) . . .

 January: a get-together of old and new friends

February: the first dozen

March: exploring our new town

April: saying good-bye to the PA homeplace

May: Mom/Grandma moves to VA (here seen at our place on Ada's 2nd birthday)

June: Pearl!

July:  Rhodes family all together

August: Bergton Fair (riding the Ferris wheel with my honey)

September: family road trip to MD to visit Ruperts

October: watching my weeds grow

November: another road trip, this time to IN to visit the Rho-Sho's

December: celebrating Advent (here with a shepherds' supper in our home)

There were so many other things to mention: 

the many snows we enjoyed from Jan-Mar

my children being good, goofy friends for each other

the Lenten season and Easter

times spent with siblings (from near and far)

forging new friendships

continuing to make a house a home

an epic battle with bugs at 38-39 weeks of pregnancy

settling into our church home

seeing baby chicks hatch out

harvesting/canning/freezing food

sending loved ones on a new journey

various fall festivals and holiday celebrations

This is life.  It just keeps happening, pulling us along in its current.  And for the most part, I'm enjoying the ride.  (Except for those days when it seems like there are more melt downs than I can count on my two hands, but let's just leave that for another day, shall we?)  Happy 2016 everybody!

Little Bit of August

A few photos from the past two weeks to keep this blog from extinction.  =)

Kitchen Help 

Pearl (she looks so peaceful here, but this was 

the day she had a fever of 102!  Poor thing)

A1 watching the goings-on at Grandma's neighbors'.

I think they were digging a ditch for the electric lines.

Easter Peeps

Easter Sunday--watching the sun come up over Supinlick Ridge; a chorus of geese against the morning sky; church service; egg hunt (see pictures below); a drive to Pennsylvania to see Grandma.  A full day.

 Ada didn't mind this makeshift 

"Easter basket" one bit!

Two

Thrilled

Eating the loot--they each got two

plastic eggs with treats and the 

rest were real hard-boiled eggs.

Mom and kids

First Family Collaborative Poem

A Snowy Day Poem

In the DAA style 
(first line: David
second line: Atticus
third line: Anita)

The snow is falling down right in our yard.
Snow po!
I can only see a little bit of the grass.

Dispatch from Willow Breeze Lane

Borrowing from my brother's travel dispatch idea . . . a picture of a moment in time.  One photograph from this morning and a picture in words from right now.

Tiny white flakes settling on already white fields
children's laughter and enthusiastic munching sounds
smell of fresh-baked bread and cinnamon rolls filling the house.

Music soft as snow settling on my eardrums
waves from the woodstove like a warm hand on the back of my neck
tortilla dough resting until its time

Somewhere out there my husband wanders through the snow
some invigorating alone time in places of quiet but alive beauty
a return to this cocoon, place of hidden growth, awaits

Saturday's Work

 Two days ago, we did what we had intended to do the previous Saturday but couldn't because chickens run fast!!!!  This time, they were kept penned up until captured.  Three roosters . . .

Final Portrait

 The Deed is Done

Plucking No. 1

 Plucking No. 2 (I asked David to take this

to prove I helped too, although I have to admit

he did the most and the worst parts of it)

 Day's End

Having done in chickens all day*, I was in no mood to cook supper.  We went out for pizza and put those babies in the freezer when we got home.  Chicken noodle soup on Sunday. 

*The process didn't actually take ALL day.  We got naps, gathered wood, cooked breakfast and lunch, etc.

Hope on a Warm Day

You can't see it everywhere yet, but the trees are starting to redden.  Arms lengthen towards the chilly sky.  Buds swell.  It has not even been a year since we first saw this neglected homestead property, but I am reminded of a picture I posted (maybe on facebook?) of this same tree in April with it's fuzzy blossoms reaching towards the sky.  I had captioned it, "hope rises up."  At that time, I was thinking mostly of the hope that we would finally close on our property and be able to call it our own.  This year, belly full of baby, I am thinking back to two years ago and a poem I had penned then while I awaited another birth.  

It seems there is always something to wait on and be hopeful about.  As soon as the looked-forward-to event happens and we enjoy a season of celebration, our heart gets pulled on towards the next thing.  I don't think it means I'm not enjoying the present moment or living now.  There's just something about the human condition that pulls us ever into the future.  There is a time to dwell on the past, to enjoy the present, and to look ahead--with hopeful expectation--to the future.  

Maybe it's the sunshine and balmy breeze of this 60-degree day that gets my heart beating full of hope again.  A lot of bad, but sincere poetry, gets written in the spring as we begin to see and feel life budding in the landscape again.  I guess it is the perfect time of year for Lent--beginning in two weeks!  A time to feel the heaviness of loss as old, brittle limbs snap from our bodies.  And yet, we discover there is also a lightness to loss, a freedom in the pain of pruning, that readies us for a coming season of growth.  

To those of you looking forward to the future with some trepidation and some excitment (and I can think of quite a few of you), take heart in the still-barren landscape around you.  Life is already beginning to push forth again.  Which reminds me.  It may just be the time of year to prune that old grapevine and see what happens this summer!