Lenkaland

Two days of wild winds and our backyard is a strewn with leaves.  The pool . . . good luck seeing the pool through the leaves and pine needles.  I couldn’t resist a little trip to the backyard with the camera.  This was my favorite photo of the day.  I love how I can see the water bending around the leaf.  Holding up.  For now.

The sad deep end of the pool.  The water isn’t even under trees.  It’s just the wind.  Blowing in strong gusts and flinging leaves everywhere . . . I found the patterns beautiful.  My husband just walked in saw a lot of work.  ”What a mess,” he said.  Oh my.

I tried to catch a sense of the wind, but I wasn’t having much luck.  I caught the end of a gust, or a beginning, but it all seemed too still in the photos.  The trees swayed and danced themselves naked

My favorite leaf of the day (and the yard is covered in leaves).  This one caught my eye, all darkness and fire.  A song of nature, alive and dying and lovely.

I photographed a big tree in the yard.  Tried, unsuccessfully to catch a leaf midair on film. Then these little jewels caught my eye from tthe shadows.  Perfectly striped green on red, catching the last afternoon sun.

Magical.  The best part?  The whole time I was outside (which was only about ten minutes because I can’t handle cold at all anymore, and Ian has an ear infection, and Anika had a giant stack of homework, and, and, and . . . ) oh, yeah, the best part?  Getting out there.  Having the energy to make the effort to capture these wild fleeting days. That was the gift.  My feet hurt like crazy today, but the fatigue wan’t so bad.  Maybe the medicine is working after all

Happy last days of Autumn.

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Yes, more snow! This storm was kind enough to dump rain at school all day (a whole week of indoor recess, hurrah ). It changed to snow in the late afternoon. And it was blustery, sideways-swirly snow. Like being inside a snowglobe.

The blustery winds meant snow flew every-which-way, coating pine needles and branches.

Spring is trying to bloom!  Until the poor horse is buried again

Building a snowman.

Brave flowers.

Finishing touches on the snowman.

Snowman!

Snow princess

“I dropped my glove!”

And that ends our snow adventures for today.  Snow-day tomorrow?  I hope!

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We woke up Friday morning to this overnight winter-gift.  Anika is not sitting down, she sunk this deep in the two-foot drift.  Oh, and the power was out.  Power outages come with the storms around here.  Lots of trees to crack limbs on heavy wires.  The night before, we lost power for a few hours, got it back for awhile, then lost it again.  Each time I woke up to the sudden silence or whir of machines humming to life again.  The world gets so incredible-still when the power goes out.  No refrigerator, computer-cooling-fans, fish tank bubbles.  Nothing.  Pure quiet.  Little unsettling

In the morning I used my ingenuity to warm up water for hot cocoa and tea.  Tried the fondue pot.

Made a few cute little bubbles, but finished it off by holding it over the gas-lit fireplace.  They really should mold those ceramic logs to hold a pot over the fire.  Not flat, but a clever crook where you could boil a pot of water when the power goes.  Would be a great invention.

At first the kids were confused.  Ian was even a little angry.  ”No working!” he yelled at the many electronic devices in the house.  Anika and I showed him that gluing googly eyes with glitter glue is better than any electronic fun

Then we pulled out the Playmobils and set up a the Magic Forest.  Until the Dragon Knight came with his Undead Legion (1 skeleton by the tent) and kidnapped the Spring Fairy Queen and the forest slowly fell apart . . .

We needed Outside.  We geared up and played right outside the garage because the snow was deep enough to swallow Ian whole.  A slide going into a snowbank is always fun

Anika waded out towards the road to see how the neighborhood fared.

Ian found the summer-stash of bubbles.  Bubbles in the snow, sure!

Pumpkin needed a clean cage, so he came outside, too.  We gave him snowballs to play with in his cage.

Ian was brave after watching Anika pack down a snowy trail.  He followed her into the deep with ski-poles for balance.

Shelter under the apple tree.

Anika on our road.  Not much traveling today.  The power came back on, hurrah!  So I helped the chilly kids go inside to warm up and I took a little walk in the backyard (just to photograph the pool).

I loved their wild-horse rising up out of the snowdrifts.  My imagination took about a hundred flights of fancy thinking of frozen-steeds leaping up out of long-buried snow  . . .

Last, the pool.  Beautiful in the shape and color and stillness.  No swimming today

A fun day in the end.  A long haul for me, with the cold, and the aches, and the fatigue, but I enjoyed it through my family.  And this morning Anika said, “I wish we could have the power out again, Mom.”

We slow down .  I’ll remember that.  With heaters

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We had a surprise visitor in the Dragonfly Class today.  A Great Horned Owl.  A lovely woman cares for injured raptors and brought this beautiful owl to school to share with her grandson’s class.  We are studying owls and she kindly brought the owl to the Dragonfly Class as well.

What an amazing treat!  The owl has a permanently-injured wing.  An owl with a disability!  :)  You can see that her feathers are askew closest to the camera.  She was either hit by a car or flew into a car and broke her owl-wrist (part of her wing).  She can no longer hunt.  She was so other-worldly with her studious attention of our kinder and first grade students, her stillness, her sense of knowing, somehow, more than we could even hope to know as humans on this earth.  She was a secret-keeper.  I know why owls are called wise.  Her energy was above us all

I might make her my new mascot, because she did not regard herself any differently due to her disability.  She was not sad or lost.  She was all-owl.  Her limitations did not diminish her energy.  She was fantastic.

Another pretty leaf photo.  Before meeting the owl, I took the class on an Autumn Hike to inspire poetry.  The leaves are splashing color across the sky.  I felt myself pushing too hard.  I’ll pay for the extra efforts tomorrow.  But seeing the sun through the leaves was magic.  A beautiful day

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We have a nice new routine, Ian and I, when the sun shines in the backyard.  We have the former puppy playpen set up on the overgrown lawn.

Pumpkin gets to hop on the grass.

Ian finds this amazing.  He loves feeding the bunny.  He discovered that Pumpkin adores fresh basil leaves from our herb garden (not too many, of course).  The bunny goes right up to Ian.

Pumpkin is a good bunny.  And a brave bunny.  And a forgiving bunny.  Because Ian tries to be good.  But he is also two.  So occasional pokes or loud noises are part of Ian’s fun day.  Still, Pumpkin plays with Ian.  And Ian loves the games.  He laughs and laughs at the jumping bunny.

Even a jumping bunny doesn’t hold Ian’s attention for long.  He is two, after all.  So he finds a stub of chalk to decorate the bunny’s play-space.  The Great Job sticker is from gymnastics this morning.  Ian is finally staying with his class (most of the time).  Hurrah!  Below the words is a little dog with a space helmet (space-theme stickers).  Ian saw it and pronounced, “Whoh, whoh.”  Which his how he barks for a dog.  ”Whoh, whoh, khu-khu.”  Give it a little breath and it is Darth Vader breathing.  Ian has Darth Vader shoes (now called his Cuckoo shoes, which is the quick way to breathe like Darth Vader).  His sticker has a dog breathing like Darth Vader.  I guess everyone in space breathes khoo-khooo .  And Darth Vader needs a best friend

And finally, a dandelion.  I love beautiful weeds

Tomorrow Ian and I join Anika’s class and the Dragonfly class on a trip to the pumpkin patch.  Should be exciting.  Hope I feel a little better than I felt today . . .  I just want to get over this dratted cold .  Bedtime for me

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Amazing goodies from the garden today.  Peter Rabbit would love this carrot!  Anika was worried that she would never get to pull up a carrot in her whole entire life because Ian and Giovanni had harvested a couple while she was at gymnastics.  Never fear, Anika.  The biggest carrot is yours!  And, yes, it tastes delicious, after we go wash it off.  Ian was worried when I hung back to take a photo.  He turned, “Mom, Mom!”

So we all washed the carrot and the kids showed off their prize.

Autumn is a beautiful season!  I’ve never grown carrots before.  Or pumpkins.

This one is growing huge!  I hope it turns orange for Halloween.  Ian is very proud of the pumpkin

Good times in the garden

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This weekend I took the kids to our accessible river spot.  Bridgeport is one of the few beaches that doesn’t require climbing over major boulders.  The river was crazy-high!  The beach was swallowed up by water.  We still found a little strip of sand to play.  Ian threw chunks in the water and Anika built a mini-castle.  A lovely day.

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First of all, thank you to the veterans and soldiers out there.  We owe our world to you!  Thank you thank you!

The weekend was mellow for us.  Why do I say that?  Not really.  Not if you count the gardening, digging, housecleaning, and laundry-folding of it all

I mean mellow in that we stayed home and kept our adventures low key.  We planted an herb garden, which is huge for us.  We’ve lived here for three years and one summer I was pregnant and the next Ian was crawling and eating every bit of gravel he could find, so this is the first summer in a long time where I can enjoy outside.  We fixed up a few beds with some flowers and tomato plants.  Then we were inspired to create an herb garden with basil, cilantro, and chocolate mint.  Yummy cooking at our house (though not with all of the herbs at once ).

I am paying for the fun with a sore back, though.  Oh, well, the price of adventure . . .

On Sunday, Grandma and Deda had us over for a barbecue.  Anika found a cute fuzzy caterpillar.
She made it a home in a paper cup and drove it in the back of a toy truck.  I thought the poor thing was doomed.  She would bring it to school on Tuesday for sharing, she said.  I would do my best, but who can stand in the way of a curious scientist-kid?

Then, an hour later.  I’m going to let him go, she said.  And she did.  I was proud of her.  Not often a seven year old can resist the temptation of a cute, fuzzy caterpillar.

We had a wonderful night with delicious food and good times.  My favorite quote of the night came from Anika.  You know that part of the night when we all come and sit on the couches and everyone gets calm and tells stories?  That’s my favorite part.

Mine, too.

Oh, and I’ve been having such fun with flower pictures- I created a gallery for my favorites here.

Loving the garden!

We’re so inspired, we may build a raised bed for planting more fruits and veggies.  Gonna be a yummy summer!

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Life is surprising.  We’re playing in the garden and I might as well bring the camera to our local wonder-nursery, Weiss Brothers.  Then I come home with these images.  Awesome!

Oh, and some cool flowers for the garden, too.  And tomatoes.  And we’re going to plant an herb garden tomorrow.  I never really know where I’ll find the next adventure.  But it’s fun to find out!

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