Watching

They creep around in the trees at night:


{this fading sunset reflected in his eyes}

A nut driver

This flat tire? It wasn't on my car.



Not merely hours after the man of the farm got into an airplane and flew off across the country. But it's no big deal, you know, because someone had the foresight to purchase a certain tool thingie... because the last three times our roads-which-are-in-perfect-condition (cough, cough) gave me a flat, it wasn't me who couldn't get the tire off the car.

And to quote The Bean, "It's tooooo tight!"

These boys of mine are just old enough to be dangerous.

"Just back the car up to the shop, Mom."

They thought they had it all under control.

"We'll just turn on the air compressor and use Daddy's nut driver."

I snorted.

"Daddy's what?"

Try not to laugh, people. It gets worse.

I knew that tool was in my trunk for this precise moment so I told the boys that, no, I was the one who had it all under control. After all, I am the mom. Then I opened the little black plastic tool case in the trunk and both boys gasped and jumped and squealed, "A NUT DRIVER!".

*angels singing*



Really.

Except it was a piece of JUNK!

"Don't say dat Mommy"



"Girl, where are your hair clips?"

Maybe it was a cheap piece of junk. Maybe I didn't know how to use it. Maybe I don't know how to do my little girl's hair. Maybe some weird you-get-what-you-pay-for combination of them all. But I'll tell you what... when somebody needs cupcakes to celebrate his birthday at preschool the very next day, and a horrid lapse in kitchen ingredient inventory caused by a thyroid medication mishap (that I really don't want to discuss) means that I haven't got a single drop of vegetable oil in my cupboards or butter in my fridge...

It is not ME who will find a way.



I am a nut driver. Yes I am. Thankyouverymuch.

(and it is also not me who's very third post on this blog was about a flat tire)

Telling a simple story

44. Putting the garden to sleep for the winter.
45. The chickens joyfully scratching through that freshly tilled soil.
46. Recognizing the immense value of the tiniest of creation.



47. Allowing myself to fully enjoy the moment I discovered I'd swept the floor of a difficult photo challenge.
48. Seeing real progress on a behavior modification programafter only four days.
49. Her tiny sweet voice singing, "My moon-light me ha-ppy!" (see number 48)
50. Being brave enough to activate another custom function on my freshly-back-from-repair-but-still-pulling-my-hair-out-frustrating camera... and having that finally make all the difference with my focusing issues.

It's easier with a remote

While I was running back and forth through the alfalfa, tripping over kittens and nicely (or not) asking the dog to get out of my way, attempting to do this:


{featured on Shutter Sisters}

Unknown to me... my brand spankin' new two dollar and sixty-six cent camera remote was waiting patiently in my mailbox. Two of them, actually. I hate to consider any cheap plastic from China a disposable item, but, well... I lost my first one months ago and I have sorely missed it. So I ordered two.

Since the first one never turned up in the washing machine, I'm assuming it went through the lawn mower.

Wanna know how much shipping cost? For my two tiny $2.66 items which came to a whopping $5.32 subtotal?

It's partly why I ordered two, you know. If I'm going to pay shipping on one miserably small purchase, I might as well double what I'm getting. I'm right, yes? Right?

In my best Chinese accent: one dollar (you have to say it really fast)

I know. I could hardly believe it either. Good thing I ordered two!

But wait, it gets better! Allow me the pleasure of reading a bit of the user manual to you:

"Use this remote to picture yourself, picture your family union. No body is missed."

Oh! But wait! Wait! It gets even better!

The dumb thing isn't even supposed to work with my camera.

His support

Every time I mentioned it, his quiet comment was always the same. Always.

"No film"

It was where he drew the line.

"No film"

This whole photography thing of mine is all his fault. When I was drowning under the deep darkness of depression, being smothered by undiagnosed hypothyroidism, in the midst of trying to understand one child with undiagnosed autism and utterly exhausted from dealing with another child who would never ever sleep, AND in complete and absolute denial that I was again pregnant... he was the one who told me to get a hobby. Something for me? Yes, the blame is squarely on him. But he carries it well.

Too well, perhaps.

As my skills outgrew my equipment, he gently pushed me toward the more... ahem... professional expensive options.

But there has to be a line. Somewhere. And he drew it.

"No film"

For some reason, I casually mentioned it again. And again. Maybe it was something I read, that I thought was worth discussion. Or some quality of an analog image I saw, that dropped my jaw. Or some itch deep within me, that I didn't understand.



Or, possibly, three unused rolls of expired film rolling around in a drawer had something to do with it.

When it came to "if I spend my birthday money on this, and shoot one roll a month, would our marriage be over..." he sighed in loving defeat and told me I might as well get a glorious expensive medium format camera.

But that was where I drew the line. He didn't have the slightest clue what he was suggesting.



31. A new challenge: Fear of failure. Fear of success.
32. The perfect fit of an old beat-up Canon in my hand.
33. Expired Fuji 400 film.
34. Forced slowness.... the quiet of deliberately making every tiny decision for each click.
35. A notebook gathering much more information than I imagined. So much more than shutter speed, aperture and ISO.



36. My mind's view of the finished image.
37. The snap of a shutter that sounds like pure magic.
38. Not looking at the back of the camera even once.
39. Complete satisfaction in the face of delayed gratification.
40. Another reminder that I am human, as I simply enter "oops" in my notebook for image number three.
41. The entertainment my mother-in-law provided by her disbelief that I can't see the pictures on the back of the camera.
42. Listening to my boys oooh and aaaah after waiting so long to see the pictures.
43. Support and encouragement of a husband, even when I know he'd really rather not.

Early morning

6:00 am

Homework. I try to make it tolerable with hot cocoa and powdered sugar donuts.

No deal.

He wants his usual. Oatmeal mixed with applesauce and a spoonful of honey.

We struggle. It's not easy with an attention span of literally three seconds.

I dig the rocks he has collected out of his backpack. He adds.



Did I mention powdered sugar donuts?

Or that the Bean gets up at 5:30?

With the wind

Our house shook as the warm wind blew nonstop. Five days, or was it four? Gusting to fifty-five miles an hour.

On these October days, it seemed cruel to keep the kids inside when it was summer-day hot outside. Out our windows, the air swirled thick with what looked like snow. Cattail seeds. The wind drove the unending swarm of them through our yard. Each time I stepped out to collect eggs, or capture runaway sections of duct-work (we're in the midst of a furnace project), or rescue our young apple trees from the protective fences they had become hopelessly tangled in, or chase after whatever else was escaping our yard... the cattail seeds got me. That and the dust from combines busy miles and miles around, they got me. I came back in the house with a scratchy throat, watery eyes, and sneezes that made my little girl giggle.

That last day of brutal wind, the cattail seeds had all blown away. Far away. To Canada, I suppose. And it wasn't quite as dusty. So we ventured out.



The popcorn maze had taken a real beating.

The boys gathered what they could.

Whether it's mature enough to actually pop, we have yet to discover.



If not, the chickens will eat it.

The act of gathering it up, the running back and forth in the warm windy afternoon sunshine after five (or was it four?) days cooped up in the house... Well, it was perfect.





21. Wearing shorts in almost-mid-October in North Dakota, when a cloud of cattail seeds could easily have been snow.
22. My husband taking charge of the little girl so I could just hang with my boys.
23. Exploring every square inch of the tree that crashed down in our backyard.
24. The boys' joy upon discovering a Wood Duck's old nest high in a hole on that tree.
25. Our wonder at the hidden life that quietly surrounds us.
26. Imagining fuzzy ducklings jumping from that nest all the way to the ground, in our backyard, just like they do on our Planet Earth movie.
27. Ripening sunflowers that (mostly) stood despite the pounding wind.
28. A pile of popcorn cobs that one way or another, will not go to waste.
29. Autumn sunshine.
30. Forgetting for a few hours that I had piles of laundry to be folded and spelling words to help the first grader learn and dinner to be made, and instead just completely soaking up that beautiful gusty afternoon with my boys.



First photo for Live Every Moment - Autumn

Without nuts

"I'm surprised you didn't come home with a bag of nuts", I said.

My husband laughed. "What?"

"The last time you picked someone up from the vet, you brought me an envelope full of teeth."

He laughed again. "I forgot all about that!"

Continuing to count

12. October days that feel as though summer might just stay forever and ever.
13. Bare feet on warm gravel.



14. A brand new fiber optic cable buried along our driveway.
15. The sweet smell of ripening melons on our back porch.



16. That delicious moment when the complex subject I've been studying starts to seem ridiculously simple.
17. Little cats with more than nine lives.



18. A diagnosis from Canon that the focus was indeed operating improperly on my big camera.
19. Repairs being fully covered by that one year warranty. Amen.



20. Being encouraged to continue with self portraiture by friends who declare their self portraits are inspired by mine... such a beautiful humbling circle.



Also linking up with Selfie Magic

That light in black and white

Scavenger Hunt at Ashley's!

1. Inspired by a Book or Movie

Grandma and Grandpa went to Alaska. Grandma and Grandpa took our little video camera along. Grandma and Grandpa showed our kiddos lots of cool movies they made, including... tugboats.

These two are headed out for a ride in their tugboat. I wanted to come too.



2. Brown

This is the best dog ever.



Except when she chews the trim off our house and kills fawns and destroys my broccoli plants and steals bread from the chickens and digs holes where I least expect them and eats the neighbor's cats and gets sprayed by skunks.

What a life.

Yeah. Otherwise she's pretty awesome. And pretty photogenic too.

3. Hazy

Mmmmm... warm hazy late September afternoon sunshine... And, oh, what's that? My kids are not only playing together nicely, but they're actually having a smashing good time? Yes, thank you. I will.



That light in black and white? Yes. Yes I will.



4. Coffee or Tea

I'm not a coffee or tea drinker, but once in awhile I add a pinch of that instant coffee stuff to my hot cocoa.



5. Linger

After church... the kids drag their feet through the gravel, hide in the bushes, and hunt whatever small creatures they can find. The wind and sun are both strong. We linger.

KinderGARDEN wrap up (all of the above)

Around here, things generally don't go as planned. The garden proved to be no exception.
a. Maybe I was dreaming too big.
b. Maybe the weather was entirely uncooperative.
c. Maybe we just couldn't get our act together.
d. All of the above.



It was a fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants Spring.
a. Our bean tunnel became a Morning Glory tunnel, and even that almost wasn't.
b. The pumpkins never had a chance.
c. Our corn maze became a popcorn maze.
d. All of the above.



I believe at one point I even said, "To heck with it all", and
a. Hauled one of the kinders off for an afternoon at our favorite greenhouse
b. Pretended that I had a nice un-swampy garden like the city folks do.
c. Resorted to WalMart as a seed source. May God have mercy on my soul.
d. All of the above.



In moments of temporary insanity, we...
a. Did actually work our butts off in the garden.
b. Decided to just grow stuff in the house instead of in the swamp.
c. Handed over too much camera to a kinder and told him to go crazy with it.
d. All of the above



July was the month things really got exciting.
a. We grew baby birds and watched ants tend herds of aphids.
b. Toys, metal ratchet sprinklers and electric fence posts met the wrath of the lawn mower.
c. We Fed ravenous dinosaurs freshly harvested kale.
d. All of the above.



Miracles happened. We started finding all kinds of treasures:
a. Sweet corn by the arm-full
b. Buckets and buckets of glorious raspberries
c. Sweet juicy little melons.
d. The popcorn maze actually grew. Bigger and bigger and more and more fun.









The crown jewel of our KinderGARDEN was without a doubt the popcorn maze along with it's the Morning Glory tunnel entrance and towering sunflower hallway exit.





a. It was theirs.





b. It was fun.





c. Like, really fun.





d. All of the above.

As much as I tried to fight it... it's true. All good things must come to an end.

Linking up one final time this year with The Inadvertent Farmer's KinderGARDENS