My three-year-old daughter has been my steadfast partner in the garden from the get-go. I really want her to learn what food actually is, and where it comes from, and I want her to enjoy being outdoors, getting wet and getting dirty (no problems there). So I really try to incorporate her into the daily garden chores as much as possible, for as long as I can maintain her interest. That said, there are days when the heat, a sinus headache, and my own gardening anxieties get the best of me.

Case in point, I made an early morning of it recently, trying to get our fall transplants in the ground while it was still cool, and while I still had the energy to do it. I have had a few of the seeds come up that I planted a few weeks ago – turnips and daikon, and it looks like some chard or lettuce – but not nearly as many as I had hoped.

After the weedy, sprawling mess that my spring/summer garden has become, the blank slate of a fall space comes as something of a relief.

New beginning! Fresh start! A second chance!

And yet, seed planting is always a little anxiety-provoking to me. I have a hard time with that period of time between dropping a seed in the dirt and seeing something green poke up its head. I can’t stand not being able to see the progress. What’s happening down there? Is it working? Why do some seeds seem to sprout within 24 hours of planting, and others of the same veggie and variety take weeks? When that first tiny speck of green finally pokes its head up out of the soil it’s always a great relief to me. I think that’s why when I found THIS, just moments after pointing out the new sprouts to my daughter on that morning, I was less than thrilled.

I didn’t fuss – I explained.

Sure Mom, call it what you want.

But, let bygones be bygones. Moving on. What came next was a back and forth about gardening gloves. I kept putting them on her and she kept taking them off. (I secretly don’t blame her. I hate wearing them too.) I put them back on her again and explained about the manure compost that I had put down the night before, and how she can’t play in it.

It’s cow poop!

Uh huh.

The gloves came off. The gloves went back on. The gloves came off. Literally and figuratively.

Okay. That’s it. You’re out of here.

She walked off across the yard with slumped shoulders. I went after her to make sure that she was okay. Whereupon she told me that I had embarrassed her about the smushed turnip seedling.

Sigh.

Look kid. Here’s the thing. This is all pretty new to me too, and Mom gets pretty worked up trying to do everything perfectly. And yet, perfection continues to elude me. Go figure.

So we try again.

I dig a hole, and she slips in a tiny lettuce plant. We pat the dirt. Job well done.

We do it again. Then she wants to make the hole. Then I make the hole, and slip the plant in, and she pats.

Don’t pat the green part! Don’t touch the plant! Watch your knees! Do you see where your knees are?

Yes, Mom.

And then she loses interest, and starts digging in an empty bed where there are no seeds planted, and no manure compost. And I feel guilty.

Go for it, kid.

And the turnip seed, you ask? Did I get what I paid for?

Heck yeah.

In 2000, my son presented me with one of my favorite Mother’s Day presents ever: A Leatherman Multi-tool. I can’t remember which model it was, only that it had so many blades and points and screwdrivers I felt that I easily could get lost in the woods with it and some twine and survive by my wits alone.

At this time, I was camping and bicycling regularly in the Rocky Mountains. The multi-tool was always with me – in my bike bag or my camping gear crate, and when it wasn’t in one of those places, it was in my purse, though it had started looking pretty gnarly from much use.

Then the September 11th attacks happened. Without even thinking, I started to board a plane and was astonished when airport security said my Leatherman had to go or I couldn’t get on the plane. I put it in a basket with other items that were supposed to be mailed back to their owners, but that was the last I saw of it. Though I did understand the necessity of preventing potentially harmful materials from entering the planes, I was deeply upset by the loss of this truly handy tool.

Late last week, our assistant editor, Caleb Regan, to whom I had told this story some time earlier, came in my office with a very nice surprise. A brand new Leatherman Super Tool 300! I was pleased to a degree most women reserve for diamonds or a trip to the Bahamas.

I’ve just started cycling again and have no camping trips planned yet, but this baby is almost a good enough reason to dust off the tent and check the sleeping bag for rips. Even though it doesn’t have a corkscrew, I’m sure I could come up with some sort of field expediency that would remove cork from bottle. What it DOES have is pliers – needlenose and regular – as well as wire cutters, an electrical crimper, two knife blades (including a serrated blade – always important for slicing that great French bread one schleps on a camping trip), a wood and metal file, a saw, screwdrivers, an awl, ruler, can-opener and wire stripper.

I could start a new civilization with such a tool.

Ah, the joys of parenting. From the moment of birth, every new experience is a lesson for both the parent and the child. Starting with the first tentative step, followed by the first skinned knee, parenting is a series of ups and downs. You praise your children’s accomplishments, and you help them work through their disappointments, all the while trying to instill in them a set of morals that you believe will help them grow to be responsible, caring people. There will be moments of intense pride. Conversely, it’s inevitable that there will be periods they’ll stumble. Even good kids make bad decisions, but you hope that they’ll learn from their mistakes and not repeat them. Enter the teenaged years, and with gained independence comes greater accomplishments and, unfortunately, bigger mistakes.

Shelby is a good kid. She’s a bright child in every sense of the word. Her colorful clothing matches her sunny disposition. She’s smart, creative, and witty, and when she uses those traits in combination, she’s the Queen of One-liners, laced with a biting sarcasm that seems much beyond her thirteen years. Other times, she’s just plain goofy. She oozes enthusiasm for life with every bouncy step she takes. She is both my sweet angel, and my scary monster under the bridge.

Keith and I were so proud of her accomplishments during her Middle School Promotion back in June. In a sea of boys in shirts and ties their mothers laid out for them to wear, and girls decked out in sparkles and gold shoes worthy of high-school prom night, Shelby bounced up to receive her “President’s Award for Outstanding Academic Excellence,” given for maintaining an “A” average in every semester of all three years of middle school ... and she received it in her funky, spiked hair with the silly bow, a patterned peace sign dress, and black high-top Converse tennis shoes.

“Gasp!”

“How could you let her dress like that for graduation?!” my friend uttered. Huh? Part of being a parent, I believe, is teaching children that who they are is more important than how they look ... or how someone else thinks they should look. Conformity isn’t all it’s cracked up be. Do we really want our children to be die-cast Stepford cookie-cutter models of what we think of as the perfect child. I like her quirks and her Shelbyisms, and whatever phases of hair styles and clothing she goes through, I hope she never loses that in an effort to conform to somebody else’s standards. Even Keith, though proud of her academic achievement, was disappointed in the way she looked – I was disappointed in him for saying so. I saw it differently: I thought she looked exactly like Shelby – her appearance fit her personality to a tee, and I wouldn’t have expected it any other way. But it didn’t matter that I thought she looked cute; it wasn’t about what Keith or anybody else thought. It was her night to shine, and if she wanted to shine wearing high-top sneakers, that was her choice. I was as proud of her confidence in expressing her individuality, as I was in the award she earned.

And I was more disappointed in her for a choice she made later that month than I ever thought I could have imagined being. That she didn’t put herself, or anyone else in danger, or that on the grand scale of her life this would be a small pebble that doesn’t carry much over-all weight, doesn’t matter. There was no gray area in this choice; she knows right from wrong, and in this case, decided to do something without giving thought to the consequences.

What do you do when a child chooses wrong over right? Ground them? Does keeping them inside the house, barred from seeing friends and taking away phone, television and computer privileges, and giving them extra chores, teach them anything? In my experience, it does nothing but produce a moping, miserable child, who makes everyone else in the household miserable during the period of confinement. Keith, at times, would like to keep her locked inside the house, if for no other reason than to keep her protected and safe from the world outside.

Instead of grounding, I sentenced her to two weeks of community service, starting with taking fifty dollars of her own hard-earned babysitting money – a fortune for a thirteen year old – and donating it to a charity or organization of her own choosing. And she had to write a one-page essay on why she chose that particular organization.

The essay was the only part of her punishment she balked at. “An essay? Mom, it’s like you’re making me go to summer school.”

In one of those moments of stereotypical parental corniness seen through the eyes of a teenager, I replied, “It is summer school…and it’s called The School of Life.” (Even I rolled my eyes at that one.)

The essay was completed the next day. She chose to give her donation to The American Cancer Society, citing in the essay a long list of people in her life who’ve been affected by cancer, and her desire that a cure be found to help them. Sadly, shortly after, one of those on her list – her best friend’s father – passed away after a long battle with the disease. Writing the essay may have made her realize that no matter how bad she thinks she has it (having to actually write something during summer vacation – “OMG!!! The horror!!!”), there are people who have it much worse, and the harder lesson, that even as hope fades, we must continue to help however we can.

The community service part proved to be harder than I thought. Because of her age, many of the typical places where one might volunteer here in town – the Humane Society, the parks and recreation department, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Visitors Bureau – require an accompanying adult, and are open only during the day on weekdays, or on Saturdays. Keith and I both work during the times she could have volunteered at any of these places.

Instead, we spent time picking up trash on the Kal-Haven Trail, and after the weekend tourists went home leaving behind a beach littered with garbage, we cleaned up after them. I held the bag, and she did the dirty work. She dressed Quetta in a t-shirt she’d printed with “Donate to the Al-Van Humane Society.” Shannon pulled the wagon, and they went door-to-door collecting much needed cleaning supplies, blankets, towels, and office items for the shelter. These experiences may have reinforced the idea that we are all stewards of the earth and the creatures contained within.

Clothing, books, and odds and ends from her own room and closet were bagged and taken to Goodwill, so that people less fortunate than herself may benefit from things she often takes for granted.

The library was an exercise in tedium. She manned a table set up for the children’s summer reading program. The program participants she logged in during the evening hours where few and far between. The time she wasn’t manning the table, was spent “sight-reading” the shelves – books had to be put in alphabetical order according to authors. She didn’t like it – it was “bor-ring.” But not all jobs are exciting – some are tedious, but still must be done given the same attention to detail as tasks that are fun.

And she did get to have fun during this time. I put her and her friend to work serving lemonade and refreshments during the nursery’s annual “Art in the Arboretum” event. Afterward they cleaned up and put away chairs, loading them on a trailer attached to a John Deere Gator, and driving them back to the barn. She commented later that night, rating the various things during her community service time thus far, that this was by far the best (the library ranked worst).

Then came the highest ranking task on her list. Enlisting her friend’s help again, they painted the “band stand” in the children’s garden. She surprised me a bit with this project; I figured they’d use left-over paint from home, but she spent $70 of her own money buying rainbow colors for the railings, and black and white for a checker-board floor. (Look at them – punishment spent behind the bars of a rainbow-colored jail; I laughed when I took the picture thinking it so appropriate.)

They not only painted the structure – they painted their clothing, their legs, shoes, and anyone who happened to visit the children’s garden that day. Visitors are immortalized in brightly colored hand-prints on the beams of the structure.

When the last book was properly shelved, the last piece of trash picked up, the last chair folded, and the last paint brush cleaned, I wonder what, if anything, this has accomplished. Will she remember any of it years from now? Will it help her somehow, somewhere along the way? I’d like to think she gained more from the experience than she would have folding laundry and cleaning bathrooms at home. But I don’t know; parenting is as much a learning process as is growing from a child to an adult.

You give your children the tools you think they’ll need in life. They get your guidance, support, encouragement, and respect. There will be times you’ll be proud of how they put those tools to use. Sometimes even with the best of tools you can provide, they’ll struggle, and you’ll try to be there to help them figure it out. As a parent, you have to expect that on their walk through life, there will be a few minor splatters along the way. Even that’s okay – splatters add character; character builds strong individuals. And strong individuals have the confidence to wear paint-splattered tennis shoes when everyone else around them is wearing dress shoes. Shrug. Or something like that; I’m not sure exactly – in the job of parenting, I’m still learning.

Back in my day, it was pretty clear.

The country kids rode the school bus.

Or their horse.  Or their snowmobile.  Or their John Deere.

Or if you are Amish, a horse and buggy.

It wasn't that the country kids wouldn't walk to school, it was just too far.  Up to 30+ miles for some in the district.

The city kids walked to school.

There was no in-between.

This past week, a local middle school in a nearby city celebrated "Walk to School Day."

Have you ever noticed how many things we took for granted as a kid, now becomes a special day?

Police and volunteers assisted middle school kids on the 1/4-mile walk. 

Growing up on the edge of our beautiful bay-side town, I had the pleasure of walking to school, year after year.  Each year was a milestone, as the school locations changed. 

East and North for grade schools.  West for middle school and high school.

Those walks created who I am today.  Smelling the budding fruit trees in the spring, learning neighbor's dogs, cutting through farmer's fields, feeling the warm breeze coming off Lake Michigan in May, contemplating how to handle classmates before entering the school, battling strong winter winds against open fields.

Yes, like Opie from Mayberry, some of my life lessons were learned on the walk to school.

Street smarts.

Parents didn't drive us if we were running late.  We simply ran, clinging to our small paper bag filled with a PB & J, an apple and a cookie.

It was simply your responsibility each day to get to school.  Rain/sleet/snow.  Didn't matter.  You dressed the part.

No police escorts, no orange cones, no volunteers.

My heart aches for children today. 

Please folks – know that "doing for" sometimes actually means depriving your child.

Until tomorrow – grateful for my past – God willing,

Woodswoman

As I believe I’ve mentioned here before, I’ve always been a bit of an odd duck. While my hobbies are arguably charming in an adult, they are undeniably quirky in a child. From teaching myself to bake bread in 4th grade to getting a pasta roller for my 12th birthday, I was a collector of unusual hobbies. The winner in this string of strangeness, however, was the fact that I, as a grade-school boy, learned to knit.

I grew up in a house full of women. And perhaps even more formatively, I grew up in a church full of old ladies. While my high school peers were out partying in the woods, I was sipping soup at luncheons. The fact that the gang I ran with couldn’t run anymore never really fazed me. So I adapted to their culture – meaning I brought my knitting along to meetings, cranking out lopsided scarves for family members who graciously accepted – and even occasionally wore – them.

Eventually, in a desire to masculinize my hobbies, I gave up knitting and tried my hand at whittling and at wiring oil lamps for electricity. I had very moderate success at both of these, but found that wood shavings and metal shards were not as welcome on the living room rug as were the tufts of fluff left behind after a long night of knitting.

A few years later, however, when my wife was pregnant with our first child, I felt this need to knit. I don’t know if it was some kind of weird, empathetic nesting instinct, but I wanted to create for my child – crafting with my own hands something that would warm and comfort her. As an aside: I did, somewhere along the line, decide that at the very least, I needed a more manly knitting bag – and I picked up a Sears Craftsman tool bag – very manly and durable, if perhaps a bit at odds with its original purpose.

My wife, LeAnna and I have been thinking a lot lately about work. We’ve been wondering if perhaps we’ve been mis-educated to believe that avoidance of manual labor is the pinnacle of education and evolution – that to prove that we’ve arrived in the world, we should work with our heads and not our hands.  What we’re wondering is whether that system has steered us wrong, disconnecting us not even so much from our heritage, but from some essential part of who we are as people. That as people, we were made to create. That on some level people were meant to work for their food. And that, similarly, part of our care not just for ourselves but for each other involves a physical act of creating. In my Eastern European family, that often involves cooking food for each other – and, of course, applying a liberal dose of guilt until the person eats it.

Similarly, I think my experience with the baby blanket was about that same impulse – the need to use my hands to physically contribute to the well-being of my unborn child. And for me, that had to be more than simply bringing home a paycheck that pays the mortgage. So when we found out we were expecting our second daughter, I was not at all surprised to find myself at the craft store, picking out the perfect yarn for the blanket in which we’d take her home from the hospital. Into that blanket, I knit more than a cabled pattern of blended angora – instead, it was knit with hope, and love, and just a fair dose of hard work.

Some days are just full of life and beaming with sun! Those days are the ones we all look forward to, the ones that are just easy to breeze through with no real hang-ups! I have begun to find those days are more and more prevalent. I find my mind is more at ease with decisions my husband and I have made pertaining to our future and what we see in it.

We both currently work “off farm” jobs and that is a new venture for me, I did not work a Monday through Friday 9-5 job for over twelve years. I did have a few part time evening jobs here or there, in between our children. I stayed home with the kids and would provide daycare for a few friends for extra income.

You may be asking, How did I get myself where I am today? Well, it all began when my parents moved back home from Iowa over a year ago! They were moving into a Senior Housing Facility, it was just too much for my parents to take care of everything that went along with living in a “house.” They decided to move closer to family and find an easier living arrangement. It is a brand new, state of the art, 32-unit building. We all had our doubts about how they would fare; Mom cried, Dad worried he would be losing his independence and we were all SCARED!

They settled in, and in no time Mom has become the Mother Figure even though she is the youngest person there, and Dad, well, let’s just say he is the Watchman. They have become “Everything to Everyone” that they come in contact with at their new home.

I was the closest sibling and was not working, although I was very pregnant, so I took on the role of making sure they were okay. I stopped in every day and sometimes would be there from morning till night. I began to know everyone on a first name basis, including the property manager. So when she asked me if I would be interested in being her assistant I was intrigued. I could work and still have my kids with me, well, actually with my parents right around the corner but nonetheless with me.

I felt up to the challenge, even if I was due to have a baby in eight weeks! It all seemed like the perfect situation, my parents, my kids and a job all rolled into one. I thought it was exactly what I was looking for, hum, maybe not! I love seeing my parents every day and more than anything I love seeing my children spending time with their grandparents. There is nothing like seeing my one-year-old son walking hand-in-hand down the driveway with my 74-year-old father or the smile that emanates from my mother’s face as soon as she sees Tyler running to her. Those are priceless memories that I will hold dear to my heart forever.

I am at a place in my life when change seems like the only way to go, like I have said so many times before, to help me find my way to the life I am meant to be living. I have had a few new opportunities offered to me that would inevitably force me to choose, to stay working where I am or to allow our little bakery to grow?

This shoe no longer seems to fit, so I am ready to try a new pair. I believe I am ready to kick off the heels and put on my baking shoes! I keep thinking of that little saying “Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained.” I have nothing to loose except this wonderful opportunity.

It will not be easy to leave all the people I interact with on a daily basis, but I will be there often to see my parents, and I will still be able to share this little boy that they have all come to love so much. He is the sunny side of the path for every life that he touches, and I am ready to be a little selfish, I want to spend time with him and watch him and our business grow. So with my little bundle of sunshine in my arms and the beautiful path ahead of me I will take these steps with a sense of excitement for what lies ahead. This brings us one step closer to where we want to go and even if there may be a cloud in the sky there will always be a ray of sunshine by our sides!

“It’s a …”

I received this text message from my brother, Josh, earlier today while I was at work and he was either sitting in, or just leaving, a doctors’ office. A minute later, his next response came, “Girl.” My brother and his wife, Nikki, will welcome a little baby girl into their family in August, God willing, and I couldn’t be more excited.

Sometimes in life, we’re hit with one of those moments that make you take a step back and go, “This is going by fast.” Usually, it’s holidays and birthdays and dates that make us remember loved ones that have passed on. In this case, it’s a great feeling to be getting older.

And it felt even better to get the next message from Josh, saying, “It looked really healthy.”

There are many things that I’m looking forward to doing with my niece and her Daddy: watching football, grilling out, hunting and fishing … it turns out I don’t do a lot of the things little girls do, but you know what?! I’ll give anything a try to earn the affection of this particular little girl.

And she just might have a little tomboy in her. (Though knowing Nikki, I wouldn't count on her noodling for catfish.) After all, her dad came from a family of four boys and one girl – our mom – so I think Dad’s in about the same situation as me. We don’t know what, exactly, little girls are like.

I’ve never seen anything wrong with little girls being tomboys. My girlfriend’s siblings include her two sisters and no boys, so her dad raised her to hunt and fish. That turned out to be pretty cool for me because she understands and appreciates what I love to do.

It wouldn’t be a good thing, though, if she were better at my hobbies than me.

But I digress …

I know there’s the typical answer of playing with dolls, but for all the women out there, or for the fathers who have daughters, can I get some help? What do little girls do?

In the meantime, I’ll be thinking and praying about the health of that little, hope-she-doesn’t-look-like-her-dad, girl.

I find myself going through the emotions of an anticipated change – the different stages of excitement, then worry and longing, while all the gaps are filled with questions. How will we make all the ends meet, where or what will our main source of income be, medical insurance for our five children … the list almost seems endless.

How far do we want to take our dream? Do we want to have a true Homesteading lifestyle where we live off the grid, or do we want to continue to operate a small farm with the security of a full-time job; a paycheck we can rely on every week, and medical insurance that covers every possible ailment we may ever encounter?

The choices span such large variables. Should we wait until our children are older, so they are not so vulnerable? Or will waiting rob them of the true experience and opportunity to learn, live and love life on a farm? Where do we want to lay down our roots? Do we stay in our home, town or even state? Should we continue to look for farms in Vermont, New Hampshire or Maine if we really have no intentions of leaving where we are now? Our lives have been rooted in this place were we stand, our children have all started their lives here, we have experienced so many firsts. This place is so full of our memories. Is this the place where our life is meant to be? I am sometimes afraid that there is too much to try and take with us if we leave, and I am not sure I am willing to leave any of it behind.

I know that it is not a home that makes the family but a family that makes the home. I am convinced that we could make a life anywhere with or without; even in a cardboard box we would make the best of things! The most important things we have are our children, health, happiness and each other. We can do without the rest, it's just the letting go part that is so difficult. So we will continue along on this rollercoaster of life and enjoy the ups, get through the downs and look to each new day to bring us closer to our true life.