• A potential problem

    On Sunday afternoon the dog unearthed a rabbit nest, and then the kids gallantly saved two bunnies from a set of frothing canine jaws.


    The word “saved” is ambiguous. Saved for what? To be butchered? To be fed to the dog? To die from starvation? Seeing as I don’t care much for rabbits, particularly the wild kind, I wasn’t too thrilled—whatever would we do when the bunnies grew into two adult garden-loving rabbits?—and I told them so.


    But then I remembered the hours of fun I had with my friend Amber back when we were little girls and turned part of her barn into an animal hospital and spent hours trying to feed and coddle their viciously wild barn cats. It was so much fun to (try to) take care of those little kittens, pretending that their survival depended on our hard work and loving care.

    Fast forward twenty-five years and here I was, my delighted children clustered around me, their hands cupping two, real-life, side benefits of country living, looking at me expectantly, hopefully. (It didn’t escape me that I was being handed a free, hands-on educational experience, not that I was about to do any teaching).

    “Go out to the barn and find a cage,” I said. The kids gasped with surprise (am I really that strict?) and then yipped with joy and tore off to round up all the things that two little bunnies could ever possibly need.


    When Yo-Yo came in and asked me to look online to see what bunnies eat, but I pointed him to the world books instead, telling him to look it up himself. He yanked the thick blue book off the shelf and ran back outside where I could hear him reading out loud about grasses and climate and such. Later when they asked for milk to feed the bunnies, I did find a little medicine dropper for them and show them how to wiggle the tip in behind the rabbits’ clenched front chompers and gently squeeze the milk in, drop by drop, looking all the while for the occasional throat twitch that would indicate it was indeed swallowing. (Feeding the bunnies did tug on my heartstrings, just a little).

    The children have been faithfully feeding the bunnies milk and slipping them bits of carrot and snap pea and cuddling them in all their free time, but then the inevitable happened: the littlest Bunny Foo-Foo died. “Are you sure?” I asked, going outside to investigate.

    They lifted the bunny and hung it upside-down to show me how very dead it was. (Mr. Handsome thinks it had internal injuries—the dog, you know…)

    “Okay, then, go throw it on the burn pile” (the burial ground for most of our dead, wild animals). They obeyed, no tears or drama whatsoever.

    The remaining Bunny Foo-Foo appears to be thriving, jumping so high he bangs his head on the roof of his dog-carrier cage. The kids are determined to sell it for the bargain price of five dollars, but I told them I doubted they will have many buyers clamoring to snatch up their pet.

    I’m not too worried about this potential problem yet, figuring I have plenty of time to let it work itself out before I will have to step in and make any decisions. I’ll let them nurse it back to health, raise it, and then, if it hasn’t taken a bite out of a child’s finger, died or escaped, we’ll deal with it then. They can play with their new pet as much as they like as long as they are gentle the the bunny, as long as they take turns holding it without fighting with each other (we’re not doing so well on that one), and as long as they washed their hands with soap after each visit to the bunny’s house, and as long as they keep it out of my house.

    About one year ago: Work. (It looks like we won’t be getting any blueberries this year—our local blueberry farm closed their PYO option after being open for only two days. I’m sorely disappointed and am taking this misfortune as a sign that we need to get busy and plant ourselves some blueberry bushes.)

  • Salvaging the compost

    The other day—

    (You do realize that’s a euphemistic phrase, don’t you? It means that whatever I’m about to tell you happened a while back, perhaps a good deal of a while back, perhaps as long as a couple months back, but since I never got around to writing about it until now, and since I want my words to seem fresh, I say “the other day” because it sounds more recent (and more relevant) than “a couple ages and eons ago.”)

    Where was I going with this? Oh yes, red beets.


    The other day (maybe a week and a half ago, if you’re wanting the hard, irrelevant truth) I thinned out my beets. I don’t have a very big row of beets since no one else in my immediate family enjoys them, but I do plant a handful of seeds so that I have enough to eat some fresh, make a salad (or two or three), and possibly whip up a chocolate beet cake for a church potluck. Right about then, after feasting my heart out, I start to get sick of beets and begin to feel rather glad that there is no point in canning them since no one else likes them anyway. So I cheerfully, and without guilt, toss the large, woody beets that are still hanging out in the garden onto the compost pile, and move on to preparing and eating other foods, relieved to lay off the beets for another ten months until the next beet season swings around and provides me with the opportunity to glut myself once again.

    So anyway, as I was saying, I thinned my beets. For the Amelia Bedelias among you, that does not mean that I slipped girdles on my beets to restrain their slowly swelling bellies, nor does it mean I took a knife to them, trimming their round frames into hourglass figures. It means that I went down the row pulling up the beets that were crowding too close together, making the row thinner, not the beets.

    I’m guessing you probably already knew that.


    Of course I couldn’t throw away the pulled plants, so I gathered them into a bowl and took them inside, intending to cook them up for my lunch.

    I had planned to eat only the greens, but the little beets, some skinnier than a pencil, looked so yummy that I decided I would eat them, too. I cut them off and set them aside in a little bowl—I would boil them first and then serve them along with the greens.


    It appeared that the only beet part I was going to toss out would be the red stems, but then I got to wondering if they would be good to eat as well. So I called my mom and she said, Sure, go ahead and eat them if you want; it certainly won’t hurt you.

    I boiled the little beets in a pan of salted water till they were almost, but not quite, done, and then I added the stems. When both the beets and stems were fork-tender, I poured them into a colander to drain while I wilted my greens in a pan of hot butter. Once the greens were sufficiently cooked, I scooped them onto my plate, piled on the stems and little beets, and dug in.


    It was a huge pile of roughage; I made it three-quarters of the way through before I called it quits. I had eaten salad for breakfast that morning, so I was feeling a little nervous about all that fiber flooding my system. Maybe there was a limit to the amount of salvaged compost that a human body could digest. Maybe I had overdone it. Nothing happened to me though, except that my cheeks turned rosy red, my fingernails lost their white spots, and my split-ends mended themselves. (My ears also grew a couple inches and my nose started twitching, but by the next morning those symptoms had vanished, so I think they were a fluke.)

    Red Beet Greens

    The greens from baby beets, about one large bowlful, or about 8-12 cups
    2 tablespoons butter
    salt and pepper, to taste

    Melt the butter in a large soup pot. Add the greens, salt liberally, and toss gently till they have wilted. Allow them to cook, uncovered, for three to six more minutes (the shorter amount of time for newer greens and a longer amount of time for the not-so-new greens).

    Yield: Will feed one to two adults when served straight-up as the main meal (the gray fuzz that sprouts on the back of your hands will disappear within twenty-four hours), or it will feed four to six adults when served as a side dish, or, when tossed with a pound of cooked spaghetti and freshly grated Parmesan and served as a main course, it will be make a hefty main meal for four to six adults.

    About one year ago: One freaky kid

  • Chapter Two: The Miss Becca Boo Reading Situation

    Remember all that stuff I told you about how Miss Becca Boo still isn’t reading but she doesn’t seem to mind? The other day my friend Shannon watched my kids, and later she filled me in on a little interaction that transpired between Miss Becca Boo and Jalyn, Shannon’s daughter who just turned six and started to read.

    Miss Becca Boo was sitting on the couch, absorbed in some books. Jalyn walked into the room and asked, “Are you reading those books?”

    Miss Becca Boo said, “No, I’m looking at the pictures.”

    Jalyn said, “Would you like me to read them to you?”

    Miss Becca Boo said yes, the girls snuggled up together on the sofa, and Jalyn read the books to Miss Becca Boo.

    “Did she act embarrassed?” I asked Shannon.

    “Not at all,” Shannon said. “I was watching really closely because of the stuff you’ve said and I think she is either totally clueless or else she has amazing self-confidence. And I don’t think she’s clueless.”

    ***

    Aren’t most people ashamed of (or at least subdued by) their inferior abilities, even at a tender age? By all accounts, Miss Becca Boo ought to be blushing with embarrassment and ducking her head in shame when a child younger than her can read books she can’t. (Mr. Handsome was a late reader and he knows firsthand the heavy shame that comes with falling behind.) But she’s not, and even though I’m grateful (of course), I’m also downright mystified.

    While I know that some of our decisions (keeping her out of the school system and letting her learn on her own time table, to name two) have played a role in this, I am not naive enough to take all the credit. We did the same things with Yo-Yo, and before reading clicked with him, he articulated embarrassment about his inferior abilities. And I doubt she gets her confidence from me. I’m riddled with all the standard feelings of inadequacy and fight many a mental battle in the War of Self-Acceptance (excuse my drama).

    Maybe Miss Becca Boo has a non-judging personality, one that allows her to accept herself and others. Maybe she’s just not aware enough yet to feel bad that she’s behind and once she does she’ll push herself to learn. Or maybe, irregardless of how far behind she falls or what anyone says, she’ll learn when she’s ready, no bad feelings involved.

    I’ll have to wait a few more months till I can find out how this ends. It’s kind of like a real-life mystery complete with twists and turns and ah-ha moments, but minus the smoking gun.


    The story isn’t over yet. Hang on for Chapter Three.

    About one year ago: Brown Bread and Fancy Granola and French Chocolate Granola (the chocolate granola is well on its way to becoming a classic).