closing up camp

I'm inside now listening to the rain.  For the first time in our Family Week history, it held off till the end.  We got our fill, almost, of campfires and s'mores, tenting and outdoor living.

This afternoon Sugar, Spice, and Nice had their last Quiet Time in the tent, kitties curled up beside them in their sleeping bags (except for the ones who couldn't resist the smell of the sausages I was cooking over the fire for tonight's soup).  Then, in the wind from the approaching storm, they helped my Farmer pack up the tent.  I put away camp chairs.  Stacked the few remaining sticks of firewood against a tree.

The fire still burned - low -, a lone potato and a handful of chestnuts left on the grate.  We kept the fire going all week.  This morning's breakfast fire was the first time we needed matches since we started it last Saturday.  Even then, the ash was warm.

Every meal for a week, we ate around the fire.  Most days we cooked once or twice using the campfire:  hot dogs (of course), toast, chicken satay, grilled tomato & cheese sandwiches, hobo packets of potato and sausage, scrambled eggs, potatoes in foil, apples, onions, sausages, and more and more s'mores.  Meals took forever, somehow.  No one seemed to mind.

We didn't do anything flashy this week.  No grand experiments.  No pricey field trips.  Not even many photos.  We just lived.  Outside.

Nice found her own "poking stick" for the fire (I'm a little possessive when I've got a good one).  Spice made "pencils" to write on an old pallet, by holding sticks in the fire till their ends were blackened.  Sugar hauled firewood and cut brush for resurrecting a fire from the previous coals.

They played with corncob dolls with braided "hair".  Baked "bread" wrapped up in grape leaves in the fire, to feed the cats.  Went fishing.  Walked back in the woods to wade in a very small spring-fed "swimming hole".  We went to the tractor pull at a local fair, ate funnel cake and elephant ear.  One day we took bikes to a nearby park to ride the trails and spent the morning riding, walking, even running in the sunshine, and ended up getting pizza to eat in the pavilion.  For a very cold ten minutes on the warmest day, the children and my Farmer had the last swim of the season in our pool.

Last night after dark, we walked over the rise to catch the moon as it came up full over the cornfield.

And now the week is over.

Tonight Lil' Snip will get a much-needed bath.  We'll tuck them all into their inside beds, their pillows still smelling faintly of campfire smoke.  We'll leave the windows open a crack for the music of rain and cricketsong.

And then in the morning we'll eat breakfast sitting at the table, dressed in churchy clothes like civilized folks, and go sit in circulated air for two hours, listening to people sing and talk into microphones and surreptitiously thumb their smartphones ...

... and our week outside will fade into vapor like a dream ...

caged poet

This morning I sat by the fire we brought back to life from last night's coals, watching smoke spiral upward into the morning sunshine which streamed through the dancing leaves like so much gold dust poured down from heaven.  Oatmeal in a mug, with swirls of maple syrup, warmed my hands.  Sugar, Spice, & Nice dressed in the tent to an accompaniment of their own squeals of excitement.  Their favorite kitten had figured out how to unzip the tent flap, and dashed out with her booty: Spice's shirt.

After our oatmeal I speared some bread & cheese to experiment with toasting.  Spice & Nice happily shared my first batch, assuring me that it was a success.  I fed the second round to Sugar as she washed up dishes, and my Farmer and Lil' Snip (who slept late after a stuffy-nosed night) took turns with the last of it.

Next up for today:  digging worms and fishing for my Farmer and his progeny, while I enjoy the quiet solitude of laundry and more campfire cooking.

I love my family.  I am grateful for this week of interlude.   I can say, in all sincerity: "The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance."  (Psalm 16:6)

And yet ... to have the heart of a poet, and to be trapped by the myriad mundanities of serving a family, is to live, though winged, in a cage.  If I ever finally learn lasting contentment, it will be the fruit of surrender.  

I am determined to find beauty in the bars that enclose me.  

And when I do, I think I will find that the bars do not enclose so small a space as I first thought.  

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some tomatoes to transform into bisque for our campfire lunch.

family camp 2013

This marks year three? Four? Six? of our now-traditional "Family Week" (a.k.a. staycation), in which my Farmer takes a week of vacation and we camp out in the backyard.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I guess you could say it really started on Friday, this year.  My mother came to watch the children for my (almost-) monthly day off, and I roamed the Southern End in the minivan, from library to river overlook, at my leisure.  Saturday, my Farmer took the children (all four!) to work with him while I stayed home to read, nap, and take a nice long walk in the sun.

Sunday after church we attended a feast of locally-grown goodies at my Farmer's farm, a fund-raiser to which we were given complimentary tickets.  From the smoked potatoes and fried green tomatoes to the cheese trays and mini-burgers on freshly-baked buns to the peach cobbler and molasses ice cream, it was a palate-pleasing experience we will not soon forget.

After the respite of Sunday naps all around, we gathered up the firewood and started the first of what we hope are many campfires this week.  We roasted apples, fresh bread, and marshmallows.  And then ...

... we had a drop-in!!  Family from California, in for a funeral, stopped in to hug, chat, admire, and share dreams.  Acquaintances were refreshed, photos were snapped, farming methods were swapped, and walnuts were juggled.  As night fell, Lil' Snip - accustomed to daylight bedtimes still - came to me, enraptured with the sunset:  "the sky looks different, Mommy!"  We tucked him in and waved them off ...

the days were just packed . . .

 . . . packed loosely, though, and as full of stillness as they were of activity.  So lovely long and slow, the handful of days felt like luxurious weeks.  Last week my Farmer took off work and stayed home with us to play.  Here's what we did:

The girls helped my Farmer set up the tent, and we embarked on the good life - out of doors.  

Campfires galore were on the menu, followed by roasted hotdogs and s'mores at every opportunity.  All three daughters slept in the tent overnights till the weather betrayed them, three nights in all.

Sugar, Spice & Everything Nice went mushroom hunting with my Farmer ...

 

Cheesemaking started on Monday and the process pretty much continued all week.  Check out the whole story here. 

On Tuesday we tried papermaking, something Sugar has been waiting to do for quite some time.  There were a few hitches along the way, but it ended well.  Details required a separate post.

More campfires ... 

And then, an ambitious project out of the blue, courtesy of my own roving mind:  to create a playspace in a generations-old junk storage spot.  I present to you .... 

.... The Loft.

..... the workers ....

.... and the results!

We were not the only ones creating something new.  My brother and his wife blessed the family with a new member and we were thrilled to be available to visit him.

And all week long, the thankful things.....

# 142 - hot breakfasts

# 144 - luxury of a mid-morning coffee break with my Farmer

# 146 - that light-filled bank of clouds

# 148 - new spaces, reclaimed

# 149 - Chopin piano on the stereo, to raindrops

# 150 - the lullaby of Spice reading Paddington Bear to Nice

# 151 - my mushroom meatball pizza - edible love

# 153 - bravery of a butterfly

# 154 - oyster mushrooms in the fog

# 159 - friends' differences, laughter, soul-sameness

thanking in the week

How easy it is sometimes to be grateful. This week is a particularly easy one to thank in – we're vacationing from home this week, and looking forward to all manner of enjoyment together.

Up for consideration: cheese-making, tent-sleeping, hammock-napping, campfire-sitting, woods-stomping, mushroom-hunting, comforter-quilting, railroad-riding, restaurant-eating, paper-making, movie-watching, cookie-baking, bike-riding, and story-reading, along with a healthy dose of the mundane (floor-sweeping, rug-shaking, grocery-shopping, dishes-washing, diaper-changing, and even dentist-going.)

I am eager for all of it, though, just for the togetherness of it. Somehow, preparing a meal for a family that is all right here is joy a few significant notches higher than when one very important member is gone all day.

My special beauties collected already, since Friday:

# 119 – excited whispers of sleeping-bagged daughters

# 118 - “head-rattling” hard pretzels and hot spice tea

# 117 – saying “yes”

# 116 - crickets for sleepsong after months of fans

# 115 – white muslin curtains on dark, scrolled rods

# 114 - hymns in the dark

# 113 - campfire's embers: sunset in ashes

# 112 - his first s'more

# 111 - that the list so quickly lengthens

# 110 - buttered toast with daughters around dim table, delicious!

# 109 - Lil' Snip glistening drool, agape in wonder at cold, and first sneakers, and fleece hoodie, and pecans on the driveway, just right for little fists

# 108 - the daughters playing school when I give them the day off!

# 107 - all four sleeping in for once!

# 106 - the Word, mine for the reading

# 105 - pulling on socks again

# 104 - air cool to make me thankful for four walls

# 103 - getting up anyway

Oh yeah. This week's an easy one.  Care to share your own gifts in the comments?  Small or large, easy or hard, each one drops from His loving hand....

Gratitude opens our eyes to truth and strengthens our arms for the burdens of life.