Good intentions

It was time to dig out the box bulging with envelopes that hold little bits of hope. There was one item in particular I was searching for. I rummaged through the box five times. Five times! No oregano seed. The one thing I really wanted. It wasn't there.



My beautiful oregano arrived at a tragic end last summer. Our epic drain tile project met the neighbor's gigantic payloader. Guess where? Right on top of my flower and herb garden. Although I grabbed a shovel and rescued that oregano in time, my good intentions went awry. I forgot about it. My oregano dried to a crispy memory of it's once glorious self.

Good intentions aren't always enough.

Oregano is a perennial, it will grow back from the root every year. Once it's growing happy and strong I suppose a gardener has every right to toss the seed packet out. Unless, you know, it's been saved from a monstrosity of a machine named Big Bessie and then abandoned.

Dried oregano is fine, really, but not if it was supposed to grow again the following year.

I settled for onions and leeks.



I caressed the cilantro seed too. Cilantro won't transplant. I know better. I don't know what came over me.



This is one of my favorite things to do when winter has become so dreary.  That earthy smell as I open a bag of seed starting mix, the rattle of the seeds as they race each other out of the packet, the trickle of water running through beautiful little pots, the squeal of a helpful toddler as she dumps potting mix all over the kitchen floor...



Oh yes, I grabbed the parsley too.

This is certainly a better winter project than whacking a hormonal adolescent rooster with a green plastic handled, seven dollar machete.

Not that I'd know anything at all about that.

What we have

My mind was made up.

I had suddenly come to the realization that my relationship with our vintage 1980's dishwasher... it just wasn't working out. It was far too demanding. Finding myself in a position to have to practically wash dishes before and after whatever it did with them, was ridiculous.

I'd walked away before. But this time? This time I meant it. For real.

I even reclaimed the custard cup that spent the last six months upside down, supporting the sagging right corner of the bottom rack.

OVER. Totally.

And yet... here I sit, a week later, waiting. I'm waiting impatiently for that rattling and humming to stop so I can rinse my darn dishes off and go to bed. Again. Why do I keep going back?

The honest truth? I feel like whining and complaining about all the large appliances in this house.  I fought them all day long. Every single one.

Then our home sighs as the furnace moans and does it's job. The content little half-Siamese stretches out long in front of her favorite vent. Outside, it is cold. Very cold. We are warm. I am grateful.

In the midst of battle earlier, I screamed at my washing machine. (I was soundly defeated.) Even if I had to ring out soaked socks and underwear by hand, we do have clean clothes. When we moved here, we didn't know the previous owners would leave their washing machine, so we brought ours. It's a wonderful thing to have a spare washing machine. It screeched as my husband slid it across the concrete basement floor and into place. I am grateful.

The dishwasher is finally done with whatever it does, and sure enough, it was a good thing I stayed up to rinse those dishes off.  I turn on the faucet.  The water that comes out?  It's clean and hot. I expect this, but why? Clean water is really something, and hot water something even more. I am grateful.

Darkness out my window, the clock ticks, I tap at my keyboard, my children snore... I'm glad for having stayed up. Glad for the quiet.

When I stand up from this computer and push in my chair, I'll run my hand along the table. This is the table where my children gather to color, build dinosaurs out of play doh, eat, fight like siblings always do... the same table their grandfather sat at as a boy. Every scratch, every ding, every embedded piece of glitter, every creaky wobble of this table tells a story. I am grateful.

I'll tell myself that I'm not going to use that dishwasher again. Ever. I'll think I mean it, but I know better. It does kind of, sort of, clean my dishes.

And yes, I am grateful.

The penguin

Sooner or later, I knew they were going to arrive.

Our weather has been so very lovely. How could they resist?



The chickens aren't too happy about it, I can tell you that much.

Rain

I am so thankful for old plaster walls and ceilings.

Our littlest one has a habit of leaving a trail of complete destruction wherever she goes, like the Peanuts character Pig-Pen, except it's not dust.  It's everything.  Absolutely everything.  I really do try my best to stay a step ahead of her, but it's just impossible.  I cannot win.

Our little Bean dumped some water onto the floor.  In her defense, she then brought me the lid of the container and said, "UH OH!".  I ran upstairs to the scene of the crime with a gigantic towel, to find only a little water.  Perhaps more impressive was the fact that my guilty little Bean was completely dry.  Not even a drop on her socks.  But the evidence, the empty container, spoke the truth.  It must have gone through the floor.

I made it back downstairs in time to hear the four-year-old announce in his don't-worry-I've-got-it-all-under-control voice, "we will call this room the rain forest".

Sure enough, it was raining.  If we hadn't been in the house and also in the deepest part of January, it might have been a soothing sound indeed.

Thankfully, our old plaster ceilings can handle a bit of rain much better than the drywall of a fancy new house.

Later that afternoon I giggled at my preschooler as he sat in the living room with an umbrella.



With a sister like that around, it's always a good thing to be prepared.

Scavenger Hunt, January 30

I'm having an identity crisis with my blog changes lately, but I decided to keep using my "old nichols farm" watermark here too, because it matches my flickr username.

Scavenger hunt at Ashley's!

1. Texture

The dim lighting in our basement that required ISO 5000



and ISO 6400



definitely added some texture to these. I am totally embracing the grain my 5DII gives at extreme high ISO settings. It's so uniform and pretty. Almost film-like in a way. (yes, these are also lensbaby shots)


2. Fog

I really tried. I tried to get the fog in my breath since it was a lovely -5F. But it was also windy and it blew away too fast. Apparently, I wasn't outside long enough because my glasses didn't fog up when I came back in. And then when I took a hot shower, I guess our house is really really dry because the bathroom mirror didn't even fog up.

So I'm posting a pic from last November. Not fog literally, but I was shooting through a mental and emotional fog during my Grandpa's burial ceremony.



3. Button

Hey little Bean, could you show me your button?



YAY! Again?



Okay. Nevermind. Where is your brother?



Those are my very favorite buttons. I love their oldest brothers the best of all, but he wasn't here to show his off.

4. Beverage



Hmmm... two hands looks silly. Maybe I shouldn't have spent all that time setting up the tripod, and just gone with one hand.

5. Seventies

Seriously!? This one had me completely perplexed.

It's all about personal interpretation, right? Right.

I give up.

Mmmm... happy.

I tried to take a picture of one floating in a glass of milk. But it sank before I got my camera settings right. So I had to eat it.

I dropped another one in the glass. It sank too. I ate it.

Third time's the charm, right? Nope. I ate that one too.

It wasn't such a bad deal.



You Capture - Happy

Shooting the moon

The snow crunched under my feet in that certain way.  My jacket protested every move I made with an extra-crisp stiffness.  It proved my suspicion beyond a shadow of a doubt.

It was colder outside than what the website told me.  They can't fool me.

Friday night as I walked out to The Road They Do Not Plow, I briefly wondered why I insist on doing this on the coldest night.  Every time.  But then, it's January in North Dakota and why should I expect anything less?

I sunk my tripod into two feet of snow.  At least I knew it wouldn't blow over.

I yanked the thick fuzzy mitten off my right hand and traded it for a lighter one that would allow me to push buttons and spin dials.  My fingers were already numb.  I looked back toward the warm glow of the house.  Why in the world was I doing this?

Soon enough, as I fumbled around with the gear I had hauled, my beast of a dog realized we weren't going for a walk.  She'd had enough of this nonsense.  I was abandoned as she headed back to her cozy bed of straw in the barn.

And then, I was reminded why I torture myself so.



Standing here under an endless prairie sky, with coyotes howling off in the distance, I feel so small - but not alone.



I stand in awe when a long exposure shows a dark night for what it truly is, in ways my human eyes cannot see.



I don't care how cold it is.  Whether I walk away with decent photos or not, this is worth fingers that hurt for the next two days.  Although, I might stick a thermometer out the front door after I get back to the house, to see how cold it really is.  You know, just for bragging rights.