Well, our Wall of Wood just keeps getting bigger. The porch now stands with four racks of wood all full, leaving our little overflow rack left to hold the kindling. Grandparents take The Spicy Barracuda every other Saturday and ever single Wednesday. These have become wood cutting days in our house. The racks have rapidly become occupied and the neighbors are increasingly thinking us insane. We are now all set for the winter to bring what it may. (Though you would never know it was coming with 104 degree heat waves!)

This last month was our fourth trip and we have now developed quite a system. The effectiveness of the day has hinged on this learning curve and proven to be incredibly useful in allowing us to still enjoy the process of wood cutting. We can go and get the firewood while still maintaining some time at home to stack before having to pick the Barracuda up. The entire trip usually takes us four hours and it is about a 45 minute drive each way. That leaves about 2 and a half hours for us to cut 1/2-3/4 of a chord of wood. By making the process quick, firewood has become a very pleasant "date" for Jules and I.

As Robert Frost so eloquently stated "The woods are lovely dark and deep, but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep." This is a bit what firewood cutting is for us. There are so many wonderful things to see in the forest. There are dried river beds to explore, and shelf fungus to discover, and trees so ancient it boggles the mind how majestic they are.












But we have promises to keep and much work to be done, so the wonders of the forest are set aside for a different time. This is not to say that the giant snail we saw crawling along a log a few trips ago wasn't interesting enough to watch for a bit, or that the crazy colored bug which crawled across my splitting wedge wasn't cool enough to take a moment and inspect, but in general we try to work the entire time at quite a quick pace. This makes the time go rather quickly and exercise to be had without a gym membership.

The first time we went out, we were duphuses at this whole process. I would stand and watch Jules cut wood not knowing what else to do. He would try to cut things that pinched the chainsaw or didn't give it enough gas and the motor died repeatedly. I tried to split wood at the same time he was and felt like a complete failure because it took me so much longer than it did for him. It was the heat of the day because we didn't get up early enough. Horseflies were everywhere. Sheesh! We were a mess. What follows is the system which we have figured out and works for us. I think everyone needs to find their own rhythm and style, but sometimes seeing what others do can aide this significantly.

We divide the labor in overlapping chunks so that neither Jules or I is ever idle. The work runs very fluidly and seems to really minimize either of us getting overly tired or overly worked. The only portion not shared by the both of us, is me crawling into the bed of the pickup to finish the stacking. Due to size and the camper top being on, it just works better for me to sit inside the truck bed to stack.


Our National Forest has specific rules for firewood harvesting. For this reason you will not see us felling any trees. Currently, you can only cut fallen wood or trees which the Forest Service has felled in order to do road maintenance.

After finding a spot to do some cutting, we carry up all of our tools and decide on a path to carry out all of the wood. We try to keep our impact on the ecosystem to the most minimal possible and usually carry in the same way we carry out. This is also the reason we use only our hands for this process. Somehow using a wheel barrow or other method for wood removal seems disrespectful for the forest. We wish to work for our wood and give full respect to the amount of time and energy it took the tree to grow.

From left to right we have: the hatchet, my ax (wooden handle), Jules' axe (yellow handle), and the maul.

After everything has been carried in we survey the logs and decide just what we should cut and what we shouldn't. This normally has to do with the accessibility of certain logs, the type of trees (creosote content), and the level of decay. From that point, Jules puts on his very stylish safety goggles and we both insert our ear plugs. First he cuts large sections of the log into chunks to split. I help by supporting various logs, or shifting their position so that he can cut them clean through.
One of these sections is reserved as a chop block for Jules to split the wood. The rest start to be split by me.

After about five to seven sections have been cut by Jules (and my assistance with logs is not longer needed) I start to roll the sections to a relatively flat spot to begin splitting them. When we first began, I used the hatchet to make the initial cut into the chunk I was splitting and then used it again to hammer the splitting wedge into place. As I have gotten stronger with each trip, I can now make the initial incision into the chunk of log with my axe. This cut is make as deeply as possible, as close to the center of the log as possible. I then knock the axe out of the log (because I always get it stuck) and begin hammering in the splitting wedge. The splitting wedge is a fickle instrument. It never likes to stay put. I hold the wedge in one hand and use the back of the ax to hammer it into a place where it will stand by itself. The tricky part comes in the initial hit on the wedge with the maul. You have to smack it dead-center really, really hard. There is no tapping involved. This is whomping. This whomp drives the wedge in to the point it will hopefully not flip out with consecutive hits. Once the maul drives the wedge in completely, the log will split in half and is then stacked for Jules to split it further. By having me begin using the splitting wedge before Jules has finished with the chainsaw I can get a little bit a head on splitting. Jules can cut the halves into pieces much faster than I can split them in half. So I start splitting and making a pile of pieces for him to split up when he finishes with the chainsaw. With the pile waiting for him, I can hopefully half the logs continually without him needing to stop and wait for more to cut up.

When Jules is done with the chainsaw, he takes off his exceptionally fashionable safety goggles and sets the chainsaw aside to cool. This is a very important. I mentioned we were duphuses when we first began this firewood thing. Well, due to not letting the chainsaw cool and then grabbing the manifold Jules gave himself one righteous burn resulting in a heck of a scar. Another interesting safety tidbit is about ear plugs. Earplugs are nice for the noise from the chainsaw, but what I really like them for is the sound of the splitting wedge. The loud "Pink!" of metal on metal is so very a foreign sound that it cuts right through my head. We leave our earplugs in the entire time until the end when we are only carrying the wood out. But I digress.

Once the chainsawing is finished, Jules begins splitting the halves into smaller pieces. He has gotten quite a good at this and splits them rapidly. He says that if you treat the large piece as if it were a wheel and cut your sections like pie wedges, the grain helps with splitting. I have not yet graduated into doing this as my arms weren't as strong as his were and my aim was a bit awkward. I looks to me like if you cut your wood at angles around 35 degrees, they split the best. Whatever the case, the split pieces are then thrown into a large pile for us to carry out of the woods.

When Jules first starts his splitting, I'm still using the splitting wedge and the maul to give him more material. When there are no more chunks for me to split in half and stack, I begin to carry out the large pile Jules as split up. He continues splitting the wood into nice burnable pieces and I start a pile down at the truck.

Carrying firewood out is different for Jules and I. I'm not a sprinter and he definitely is. To me, I'd rather carry a few pieces with minimal strain and carry more trips. Jules prefers to carry larger loads fewer times. Most importantly, wear long sleeves. It seems so funny to now write, but wood is covered in splinters. COMPLETELY COVERED! They are small and invisible, but incredibly annoying to find all over your arms, chest, stomach and everywhere. Long sleeves and an extra shirt to put on for the drive home will do you wonders.

Whatever the case, the wood all gets to a pile outside of the truck and I can shinny my little self (I'm 5'2"; Jules is 6'4") nicely into the back of the pickup to begin stacking all the wood for us to carry out. At this point we have a pretty good idea of how large of a pile is needed to fill up the truck. The first couple of times, we would stack and then realize we needed more wood and have to go back and cut. But eventually it all fits in, we load up the last of our tools (now having let the chainsaw cool before handling) and head back home. Jules' truck is a Toyota Tacoma and with the camper top on it can hold somewhere between 1/2-3/4 of a chord of wood depending on how big we make the pieces. It does us quite nicely, but you can definitely feel it on the way home. We surely won't be stopping too quickly and might possibly need new shocks in a couple of years!

Culturally, this cutting our own heat is a bit of an interesting conversation issue. Jules and I are both forest lovers. The harvesting of trees for timber usage is something I personally have spent time working to prohibit around our parts. Many hours have been put in with a local grassroots environmental organization to stop the decimation of our national forests for timber usage. As much as I have had friends appalled at the idea of us "killing a tree" the other option for our household is Natural Gas. The natural gas company is trying to permanently destroy over 40 miles of old growth forest in our area for the usage of cheaper energy. Our removal of two trees from the National Forest to heat our house for over a year seems so very, very small in comparison. Secondly, by working for this wood, by seeing exactly where our heat comes from, our consumption is dramatically lower than it would be by flipping a switch. Both Jules and I believe in pristine wilderness areas which are not touched by the likes of man. However, we both realize there is enough room for all of us if we control our usage and sustainably plan our forestry.

Secondly, so many people have complained about the amount of work! However, when really asked, none of them have ever cut firewood before. They seem to feel the task is enormously laborious, well unworth the benefit, and completely asinine. To us, it is time together, spent working in pace with the cycles of our life. It gives us a time to talk, to be together, to feel fulfilled in a job done well and completely. We come away with so much more than a truckload of wood.

Charlotte's Web is long gone, but not a bit forgotten. Though his lip began to quiver a bit at Charolett's passing, no tears were shed. A sniffle or two perhaps, but no tears. He laughed and snickered with Templeton the rat and was delighted with the goose's stuttering speech (my favorite character personally). He thought Mrs. Arable quite wrong about a barnyard being a terrible place for young children and thought slops sounded just atrocious. The smashing of Templeton's spoiled egg caused a turned in face all scrunched up at the smell and the fair made him ask about three or four times (in that chapter alone) if we could go to one of those. Now small spiders are gracing his hands as he finds them all over the garden and carries them about. (He still exclaims panic over large spiders though.) All in all, rave reviews and quite a quick read. I think this one took less than two weeks. So we are on to the next book: Winnie-the-Pooh.

Now I was a bit concerned with this due to which copy of Winnie the Pooh we own. You see, it is so old there is no ISBN number to get a picture from Google images. After much searching I stumbled onto it by adding the word "vintage." Moreover, it's copyright is 1926. There are no colored pictures except the solitary bear in yellow on the front. The red canvas book has long since lost, what I believe, was gold sparkly lines bordering the front and rear covers trying to make it appealing to young children. This is not Disney. The language is not contemporary at all. It is the sort of book that if taken to the Antiques Roadshow the expert looks at you in bewilderment and exclaims "Why were you handling this, let alone reading it to your child!?" It is one of those books that doesn't get to reside on the child's bookshelf and only gets to be read with Mommy taking it down from her bookshelf. But I don't care; I love it. I believe it was my grandparent's, and I know it was my mother's. In any case, what it has in sentimentality, it totally lacks in flash. Small Barracuda boys are a bit addicted to flash.

The greatest thing has happened though: he loves it. Since Saturday's beginning there hasn't been a night which goes by that a request for at least a chapter isn't sprinkled into conversation. Tonight, after getting in trouble for sneaking peas from the garden (I literally had to tell my child at dinner he must finish his strawberry shortcake before he could go eat our garden peas!) his quivering little voice asked, "Can we still read?" He adores Pooh's bewildered antics. He understands the complexity of language and comprehends the story line. No Disney, No color, Hardly any pictures....a hit! Whew! Take that flash! At this rate we are going to be moving on to Stuart Little by Monday of next week. Wow, so much for my dubious mothering.

There aren't too many great things that the Pacific Northwest can claim come from all our rain. If you grew up here, the benefits are many, but you are used to a lot of grey skies and it is just normal. However, if you are from out of town, the rain can be a bit of a complete downer. In fact, I have known more than a couple of people who needed to move due to the onset of seasonal depression from all our rain.

It makes things green. We have cheap hydroelectric power. But most of all, we have access to Hood Strawberries. Oh dear sweet Mary Mother of God, these berries are so good. You will only find them in Pacific Northwest grocery stores which sell seasonal berries because they exist for only three weeks out of the year and don't keep much more than a couple of days. They don't travel well and so they also tend to be a bit expensive. Oh, but it is worth it. There is very little in existence which says summer more than these strawberries.

We could have visited our local organics store, paid a lot more, and quickly acquired a very small little container of berries to munch on for the next couple of days. One better, there are many roadside stands advertising the onset of strawberry season with berries spread all over their tables ready for anyone to drive up and purchase. However, if there is one thing I have seen in us raising our own food, it is the importance exposing the Barracuda to the process of growing. By choosing to U-Pick your berries they are not only cheaper and you can get large volumes of berries, but you can see the farm and develop a relationship with those who grow your food. So much of the time it is forgotten that our food comes from the ground by people who work sun-up to sun-down. It is a lot of work for a reward often gone unappreciated. It is important to me that The Barracuda not miss these facts about his meals.

After packing a picnic lunch, and getting gasoline, we were on the road to the farm. The drive is gorgeous, only about 30 minutes, and a great way to build the anticipation of the event. The U-Pick farms in our area step up a tent right off of the parking lot where they sell boxes, have a weigh station, and park the large wagons used to hall everything to and from the fields. We had our 5 gallon bucket weighed by Ashley (a local farm girl) and she pointed the way to the fields. They rotate the picking every other day or so, allowing the berries to ripen and be picked evenly rather than totally annihilated. You are rarely in the same field twice in one week.

The Barracuda hopped into a wagon with our bucket and I began to pull us up the dirt road, past the herb garden, and through the peach orchard, to rows upon rows of strawberry plants. The romance of such a walk surpasses the mere 5 minutes it takes to get there. You would never know we were only thirty minutes from the city. Life here is just plain slower. The jobs require more time, harder work, and a level of patience which slows the pace of life. As a city dweller, the Barracuda wouldn't know such a world exists without our excursions. I would like him to realize other people fully live the type of life we are allowed to have small portions of with our lifestyle.

Jules and I have often wondered just how weird our undertaking in simplicity is. When the Barracuda and I got within view of the strawberry fields it was very obvious our family is not alone. The fields were full of people. Families, moms, kids of all ages, and even grandparents were out picking in groups with their own picnic lunches. These were all homeschooling families (school is still in for another week and it was noon on Friday) who were out picking to make jam, can, and generally have a desire to experience the slower pace of life much like our family has. It was a welcome relief for the Barracuda to see other kids doing the same things we were and much fun was to be had among all the children.
Picking your own berries requires that reminder of patience, of a slower pace, of harder work. It is a very simple task, but one to enjoy the rambling up and down strawberry rows taking in all the farm environment has to offer. This means you will get dirty hands, bitten by bugs, and if you are not careful a sun burn. It also means you will get to hear your child amazed at how berries can go from green to purple in the course of their lives. The Barracuda could see the pollination we had talked about for his homeschooling first hand in the progression of the berries. I was able to talk to other moms who let their children roam the fields as I did enjoying being outside on a great day. (The fields are open and flat so kids have to go quite a ways to be out of sight and ear shot.) We were all enjoying a Friday afternoon in the sun, with our families, taking part in the season. The Barracuda picked berries with me, as did most all the other children. There were people with colanders, Tupperware, cardboard boxes, and bowls all there to enjoy the season in our little chunk of the world. It was quite refreshing.

With our five gallon bucket filled half-way, our hands and knees very dirty, and our stomachs rumbling we trekked back to the weigh station to pay for our harvest . By having our bucket weighed first when empty that amount is recorded with masking tape on the side of the bucket and then subtracted from the end weight. This way we only pay for the berries and not the extra 2.25 pounds of bucket. We stood in line, paid, and then ventured off into the peach orchard for a picnic lunch of tree climbing and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.











The afternoon passed quickly and soon we were home to get cleaned up and can our wonderful bucket of bounty!

After washing the berries, the Barracuda capped and sliced them while I cleaned up the kitchen and prepared the cans. He is getting so good with both his axe handling and his knife skills that I hardly have to watch him anymore. This has helped significantly with getting things around the house done. He can be set to one chore (taking in the wash, preparing food to can, making kindling, cleaning the yard before mowing, his schoolwork) and I can take on an entirely different task within the same vicinity knowing I won't have to constantly observe and mediate. By the time he was done slicing, strawberries were all over his hands, his legs, his right eyebrow, his left cheek, and a bit mushed into his hair. Upon further inspection both elbows and his neck also has been christened with bright red juice. He was just plain sticky, dirty, and quite tasty according to Guadalupe who wouldn't stop licking him all over. So the strawberries went into a saucepan with 1/2 cup of sugar and the Barracuda went into the bathtub.

All in all 8 and 1/2 pounds of berries yielded 3 full quarts of berries. Previous 8 1/2 pound batches have given us 9 pints of berries and syrup. Both are processed at 6 pounds of pressure for eight minutes. With another couple of trips we will be well set up for the winter and be able to enjoy our three weeks of deliciousness all year round.

Jules will come out with us next time as the school year finally winds down and he is free (Only one more week! Not that I am counting). Over the summer we will be back to the farms for blueberries, blackberries, peaches, pears, and corn. We can all enjoy the whimsy of watching our food go from plants to our table and slowly creating family food traditions which will hopefully last all the way through much eye rolling and personal teenage embarrassment from the Barracuda. Little does he know how much the girls will enjoy strawberry picking dates, harvest festivals, and corn mazes!

I apologize for my absence as of late. Life kind of threw up all over us this last week. Running a thousand miles an hour, every day, for going on two years now finally hit Jules and I in the face. Coupled with the stress of this last quarter of the school year, our cup of endurance ranneth over. ::sigh:: But life as a way of helping us out when we need it and a few late night baths while eating Pop-Tarts (there are just some things that can't be as good when homemade!), the arrival of a new book ordered from Powells, and much sleeping it off has given us back some light at the end of the tunnel.

This past year's food shift has taken quite an unexpected turn. When this all began, I thought that if I began to remove processed foods from our life in favor of foods I personally created our family would somehow become healthier. What I now realize is that what I really wanted was for our family to become healthier in more than just the physical sense. I've been addressing our physical chemistry with the removal of food additives, but not the culture with which we eat our food.

Homesteading, or Voluntary Simplicity, or whatever you want to call this lifestyle, causes you to shift the way you look at the surrounding culture because, for the first time, you are removed from it. As Micheal Pollen writes, "To reclaim this much control over one's own food, to take it back from industry and science, is no small thing; indeed, in our time cooking from scratch and growing any of your own food qualify as subversive acts." With this removal from current cultural trends, I now find myself looking about at our lives and finding large empty holes where I might never have seen them.

For the last two years, Jules and I have been juggling a life which includes one full-time (and then some) teaching job; one part-time, semi-erratic restaurant job; a precocious child who is too young for school; me in school; and a fairly small household budget. What this all boils down to is that we don't every really see each other. When Jules goes to work, I take care of the Barracuda; Jules comes home and takes care of the Barracuda while I go to work. It is emotionally exhausting.

This job/childcare juggling is becoming a mainstay in our society when more and more people are becoming two person working families, but I don't know how they do it. Perhaps they don't, and that is why divorce rates are so high. Even though both Jules and I are reaching breaking points (this mornings stressful bickering included the lines "I don't like my existence" and my retort "My world isn't filled with joy either!" both of which now make me laugh) we realize there is no one else we would be struggling through with. The end of the school year is near and in less than 10 days and we will have our family back. However, some major changes are coming from this realization of yet another hole created by the mainstream cultural juggle of work/childcare: family intimacy.

It has become apparent that our family doesn't dialog well. We have fun together; we work well together; we love each other and can be silly, but not much talking about substance. Perhaps this comes from a lack of modeling (though that seems way to easy a blame). Growing up, communication wasn't a strong point among members of my family. Dinner centered around eating as fast as possible so that none of us had to speak to one another.

As much as our family dialogs well in one on one situations, the act of community conversation is lacking. I find myself wondering, "What would we discuss around a dinner table?" or thinking of the agonizing, forced conversation we are all dreading when we come to the table. But this summer, the adventure begins a new with family dinners and conversation.

Secondly, our TV is dying. We are not switching over to digital. Here in the States, if you are not a cable subscriber, you will need to purchase a converter box for your television set to work. We're not buying in; we are unplugging. Though much of our television is now present on the Internet or checked out of the local library, the ease of flipping a switch and turning off interaction will be gone.

Third, music will be coming back into our house. The Barracuda has always loved music. He can dance far better than either Jules or I, mystifying both of us and other onlookers as we all wonder "where did he learn to do that?" His musical repertoire includes everything from The Beastie Boys and Andre 3000 to The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan to Solomon Burke and The Band. The Barracuda (so named after the Heart song) has a drum circle drum that he enjoys playing incredible rhythms on, writes and sings his own songs, and finds the rhyme schemes on the classic poetry we use when homeschooling him only to beat out the words on his drum when reciting the lines. It is something that is apparently in his blood.

As much as Jules and I enjoy it, we haven't done all that much (other than dance parties) to foster it. This next year that will be changing. I have purchased a guitar and am one again teaching myself to play. Jules wants to learn how to play the banjo something awful. And, just the other day, a childrens' guitar was found at the local Goodwill for $20. Last year's Solistic present was Guadalupe, this year's will be music.

So, for now, I am left looking within for patience and personal solace. I read in an old National Geographic that the primary task of a farmer's wife was that of patience. At the time I thought it was dramatically underestimating the efforts of farm women, but now I understand. The hardest part of all is reminding yourself this too shall pass, spring will come again, the rains haven't left forever, and soon the snow will be melting.

Memorial Day weekend is traditionally a family holiday filled with the excited acknowledgment summer is coming. In our household, Memorial Day is a bit different. Memorial Day means that Jules does not have to teach school and if I can get the evening off, we have childcare. These two things combined with the nicer weather our area experiences in May mean that firewood season is upon us. So Memorial Day is spent with Jules and I purchasing 12 bottles of beer, sharpening our axes, and driving the two trucks (Jules' and my family's Old Beater) up into the remote areas of our local National Forest. With the two trucks we figure we can get a chord and a half each time and minimize the number of total trips. Around here the permit is $20 and allows for four chords of wood (the general consensus among all for one year of house heating). Technically the season ends in November, but I don't know who on Earth could get their vehicle up there, or once there could get through the snow to down the trees. However, the trees are all tagged and the wood is first come, first served so this is a moot point because once 85-90% of the tagged wood (and they do check) has been cut the season is closed.

With the idea of killing our Natural Gas bill this next year, we're getting ready to heat the house with only our fireplace. This means not only stocking up on wood, but also building the racks for the wood to dry and honing our skills to be able to chop enough without putting ourselves in permanent chiropractic care. So a chainsaw has been purchased, firewood racks have been built, and the overgrown vegetation of our backyard is becoming kindling.

Directly behind our backyard is a The Neighbor Who Does Not Care. I cannot blame him too much as we think he is renting the house. He does keep the lawn moved and junk from piling up, but the trees between our fence and his house are so awfully overgrown. Much discussion has gone down amongst the neighbors that the overgrown vegetation must be taken care of. However, very little has really been done. Yesteday, Jules had had it. The next thing The Barracuda and I know, Jules is standing on the fence hacking away.

Even though this first time we go into the forest The Barracuda will be hanging out with Uncle Flint and Grampa, he is not absolved of work. One of the most important things Jules and I wish to impart on our son is the realization that nothing can be taken for granted. If you aren't working for it now, you will be paying for it later. At 4.5 he has daily and weekly chores, saves his allowance, and has rolls in the garden and water harvesting. Firewood is another household job which he is to have a part in.

Currently, The Barracuda is in charge of kindling and stacking. He uses his tomahawk to strip branches and chop them into stackable kindling. This is a skill in the making, but he is doing remarkably well. His adz swinging in The Hole has really help strengthen his arms and gain controlled hand-eye coordination.

(Yes, his hair is green. His screaming blue mohawk has faded into a shaggy green mohawk.)

More than just learning a good skill, he has to chop firewood with both Jules and I all together as a family. If we are all going to use the heat, we are all going to participate in acquiring it. It is much harder to carelessly burn more wood than necessary if it is has taken hours of work to chop and stack it. Likewise, it is much harder to senselessly log our forests if you use the resource for heating your home and have had to watch a majestic tree fall. An appreciation for working and the earth needs to be fostered young and that is what we are trying to do. Whether it is taking the larger split pieces or his own personal kindling, he definitely feels part of the process and pride of ownership in our household. Much like cleaning his room everyday and helping us harvest water, firewood is becoming a very normal part of his daily life. As Jules jokes, "The family that slays together (trees that is), stays together."

To some the idea of chopping wood during the summer and beginning axe handling at four and a half might be a bit early. But the more I watch our family simplify, the more I realize how much our life was far more out of whack before all this. We now change with the seasons in the same way the earth does. Our food, our chores, our lives, all shift together rather than maintaining this homoginized feel of droning on. It makes things like chopping kindling in the backyard an enjoyable, smiling event because we do it only time a year. The summer is the only real time for us to go cut due to Jules being off of school and the snow line being low enough, so in a way we are celebrating the are ushering in of summer much like everyone else. We are merely doing it by preparing for the late fall. This seems to be the theme of simplicity: Plan ahead and work hard together so that the small joys in life can be shared and appreciated by all.

Somewhere at one of the many grandparent's houses, The Barracuda got the idea of waffles. He has been on a mission ever since to have these tasty treats for breakfast, dinner, snacks and any other time he can find a way to squeeze in the suggestion, "We could have waffles..."

With the recent addition of buttermilk to our household, waffles weren't too far off. The only hold out had been the waffle maker. I used this excuse time and again as the reason that waffles hadn't made their appearance. After all, if someone had invented Bisquick then waffles had to be just plain tiresome to make from scratch. I don't know if the previous waffles were Eggo's or not, but in our house we mix our waffles.

Ever resourceful, The Barracuda visited my father's house as per usual and happened to find the old household waffle maker in the pantry. This would have been no issue before, but since the advent of reading there isn't much that passes The Barracuda by. So he asked, "Grandpa, can we borrow your waffle maker?" To which my father looked both sad and baffled, he didn't think he owned one. As you can see, the waffle maker got lots of use over at his house. It turns out this waffle maker was a hold out from the divorce and had been sitting in the pantry ever since being unpacked. The Barracuda, prompt as ever, went scurrying off to procure his new found treasure and prove its existence. Now our household has a waffle maker. Blast the ever resourceful child!

Waffles have now made a very fond entrance into our breakfast lives. Where once there was no breakfast at all, only coffee, there are now meals spent together. On Saturday and Sunday mornings we now sit together and eat a breakfast of pancakes or waffles. Jules and I are all about the pancakes, The Barracuda wants the waffles, so we compromise.

One batch of waffles makes six large waffles. There is no way, even with Jules gorging himself, that our family can eat 6 large waffles. The extras are saved in a Ziploc baggy for the rest of the weeks' mornings before work and school. This way I don't have to get up unrealistically early to make waffles, then do the dishes. (If that were the case there would be no waffles.)

Surprisingly, waffles are crazy simple! I don't know what Mr. Bisquick was thinking inventing an entirely new product to make something so very, very simple. Isn't there cancer to cure? All that it takes are two eggs, some flour, a little baking powder, and milk. So here is our families version of waffles:

Ingredients
2 eggs, separated
2 cups of flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 cups of buttermilk
3 Tblespns honey
1/8 teaspoon Allspice
1/4 teaspoon Cardamon

3-4 Tblspns of butter (I just scoop some out of the jar)

You are going to need three bowls (don't worry, two wash really really easily) and a whisk. Separate the eggs into two of the bowls. Whisk the egg whites till they form stiff peaks - this is definitely the hardest part. Set aside the egg whites and add the buttermilk, honey, Allspice, and Cardamon to the egg yolks. Whisk them all together and set aside. In the third bowl, whisk together the flour and baking powder. In our family we don't really use salt, but if yours does add a 1/2 teaspoon of salt into the flour mixture.

Make a well in the flour and pour in the egg yolk goo by thirds. Mixing thoroughly between pours. Melt the butter and pour into the egg yolk goo, mix thoroughly. Fold in the egg whites and you're done!

The entire process takes about 10 minutes or less! Waffles make a great breakfast, and easy brunch, a quick dinner, and just about everyone likes them. Not only this, but with summer here the fruit you can put on top of them has just multiplied significantly. The best part of the homemade waffles - other than eating them - is that everyone thinks they are super difficult, just like I used to! You can be super mom with little effort at all and no one would no! You could even surprise mom tomorrow with a batch of them and she would think you went to enormous amounts of trouble. A great Mother's Day present for very little cost and not much effort, but lot's of love.

The Spicy Barracuda sees Jules a lot. He sees me a lot. However, with our work schedules been opposed and the budget for child care limited (non-existent), he doesn't see much of both Jules and me at the same time. So Thursday nights and Saturdays have become Family Nights. This is specific time which has been set aside for us to do things as a family. Sometimes it is watching a classic movie. Sometimes it is going to Chuck E. Cheese or bowling. Sometimes it is riding our bikes to the park and the local hot dog shop or playing games together around the table after dinner. It doesn't really matter what the activity as long as it is spent as a family with the central point of playing together. Honestly, it is pretty great.

Today, Family Day was spent at the Farmers' Market. The Farmers' Market is filled with family friendly activities and plenty to see. With Guadalupe still having a bit of angst when it comes to strangers, she reluctantly stayed home. Hopefully, if The Walks continue she will soon get to come along. Being a gardener, the whole experience is quite voyeuristic for me. I want to see what other people are growing, and how well they are growing it. I want to ask them questions about having bees and harvesting honey. I want to marvel at their beautiful flowers, upon flowers, upon flowers. I want to taste the cheese they may from their cows and marvel at how different all of it is and how they made it themselves. I want to show the Barracuda how beautiful leeks grow with their leaves all fanned out and how many varieties of pears exist. I want to taste, and talk, and see, and experience the energy of people who spend their lives growing and creating sustenance.

Jules loves all of the above things as well, but particularly he likes the food. Street food is something I could live on for a good 4 years eating it every meal of every day. Jules might be able to for the rest of his life. Farmer's markets are a wonder at all the different kinds of delectable street food. There was exotic coffee and local wineries. There was a stand with three different kinds of kettle corn. (It was very difficult to resist and I don't know if I will be able to next time.) There were tamales, and gyros, and Asian stir-fry noodles. There were muffins, and cookies, and breads of all kinds. There were jams, honeys, and pestos. There were dozens of kinds of cheese - Jules favorite! People were selling eggs, seafood, and grass fed beef by order. We settled on pears, honey, goat cheese, a blueberry cornbread muffin the size of Barracuda's head, a giant cookie, and two meditarranian gyros filled with sweet spicy chicken, rice, and fresh veggies and yogart sauce. Our little red wagon was quite full, as were our tummies.

The Spicy Barracuda's favorite part are all the people. People watching and street entertainment are some of the finest around at street fairs and farmers' markets. There were hippies playing tight rope on a slack line. Barracuda had to try! There were hacky-sac circles. Barracuda really wanted to try. There were people doing paperwork on blankets, couples cooing over each other on benches, families with children running about. There were musicians ranging in age from three violinist girls who were about 10 to a man dressed just like Jimmi Hendrix. There were string quartets complete with cellos. There were drummers in circles. There was even a gorgeous woman rhythmicly moving to African dance who was just plain mesmorizing. (I think African dance might join my Life List.) Watching all the different urbanites which flock to these events for leisurely fun is quite the example of all different walks of life being able to coexist and have fun together. The Spicy Barracuda ran through the park, created his own music with a favorite stick, poked the stick into the fountains, said hello to just about anyone and everyone, danced a bit, and then got into the car to drive home quite tired.

The rest of our day was spent working in the yard and prepping for the summer which is definitely on the way. Current, Spicy Barracuda is passed out in a tent which was quickly pitched in the backyard when he decided at dinner to try camping out. Sleeping outside in a tent is something he has done a couple of times before on family camp outs, but doing it solo is a new experience. We will see if he makes it the whole night.

The greatest part of Family Night is that it not only gives us a chance to be together, but it allows us to interact in a completely stress-free way. Wandering about the Farmers' Market has no time constraints, not expectations to live up to, no deadlines or social graces which need to be upheld. More over, you can see all different kinds of people freely being themselves and this encourages the same behavior in us. We can come home and enjoy working in the yard while the Barracuda and Guadalupe play together being a silly as can be. Overall, the implimentation of Family Nights have helped with all of us trying new things and becoming much closer together.

The more I look at it, the more the shift in our life hasn't been so much into simplicity (though this has occurred) it is in changing the perspective of how live to appreciate the small things we do every day. What used to be the mundane, annoying little things we had to fit into every day have now become events. We celebrate the activities by doing them together and making something positive occur from them. It is through these "events" that we can appreciate the small, normal things that make our life. We had normally read before bed time, but make an event out of choosing a classical chapter book and creating a story. It constantly rains here, but we made an event out of it by harvesting the rain and really quantifying the water to be useful. Everyone has to go to the grocery store, but we created an event out of it by limiting the trips to once a month, choosing to really create our food every day from scratch, watching it dwindle and then refilling it as a family. Mornings were just dragging ourselves out of bed, till Jules and I decided to make an event out of them by creating personal time for ourselves. Everyone walks their dog (hopefully), but it has finally come time to make an event out of that as well by creating "The Walk."

Our beloved Guadalupe is newly 6 months old and with that has come quite a bit of territorial behavior. She adores her family (even Bell Bell) but being a shelter rescue if anyone else moves too fast she gets very scared and sometimes snippy. That has always been true. However, if a total stranger comes up to her on the street when we aren't right there she will down right freak out at them. This is completely new behavior. She has always been territorial around the house, but frankly, I kinda liked that with Spicy Barracuda and I being home alone during the day. It makes me feel very safe to know that when I am walking my dog with my child, or at home alone, I have something there which will protect me. However, getting angry at strangers who just find her cute isn't going to work.

So I began to read up on Rottweilers and found out that this is really, really normal. It isn't an obedience issue. She comes when called, even if she doesn't want to. She doesn't jump up at people and quiets her barking when told to. She sits, fetches, and heels very well. She adapts to new rules incredibly fast and has never been even slightly aggressive to anyone in the family regardless of how the Barracuda wrestles with her. She just doesn't like anyone else to mess with her at all.

All the books have said the same basic thing: Rottweilers need activity in large amounts or they become temperamentally aggressive. So The Walk has been instituted. Every morning the Spicy Barracuda mounts his noble stead (a rockin' little bicycle) and we go for a very brisk 1 hour walk around the neighborhood. The last 10 blocks or so we race so that the Barracuda has to ride as fast as he can, I jog, and Guadie full on runs. We arrive back to the house panting and significantly more mellowed out for the day.

The exercise has done wonders! The winter nicely gave me a present of about 10 pounds to shed and this exercise has been very helpful. The difference in both Guadie and the Barracuda is equally amazing. When we missed The Walk only one day due to some broken plumbing and spewing water taking precedence, they both were hyped up beyond belief. It was one frustrating bouncy day around our house! Apparently this really gets the ya-ya's out of both of them and is great for me.

By leaving the house at 9 o'clock (no exceptions) we arrive home at 10:00 and don't have time to lazily begin our day. It is hard to let time get away from you when your wake up call is power walking! When we come home we have breakfast, brush our teeth, and begin with school for the day. The structure of having a specific starting point has made a wonderful flow. It provides the Spicy Barracuda with a specific, definable moment when things are going to start during our day. He knows what to expect and when things will be happening. Before this, time was the major designator and he is still too young to be able to really wrap his brain around what all that means. When we get home from The Walk he is ready to go. Who knew setting aside one hour in the morning could alleviate so many problems for the rest of the day!

My son and I have begun reading Peter Pan before bedtime. This is my attempt to have him exposed to great literature and use his imagination. A great added perk is the wonderful conversation which has spun out of it and all the questions he is now asking. His patience for listening has become quite impressive and he rarely interrupts any more, content to just listen and ask his questions later.

I would like to clarify that we aren't talking Disney. There is a great dislike within me for how much Disney steals, rewrites, waters down, and generally simplifies leaving so little left of substance. I enjoy the animated movies as much as the next guy (and some of the music is incredibly well done), but I don't feel that having a child watch Pocahontas or Beauty and the Beast does the actual tales any justice whatsoever. Alright, I'm stepping down from my soapbox now.

The beginning of the story is a bit convoluted for younger children, but I think the idea of having to give the book a chance is important. Sometimes it is the first hundred pages you have to diligently plod through, not just the first twenty-three. At any rate he hung in there till Peter showed up to have his shadow stitched back on and is thoroughly entranced at this point.

Taking the time to spend a good thirty minutes or more in the evening just sitting next to him and sharing a story is a simple pleasure we rarely engaged in before. By the time he was to go to bed, I was more looking forward to personal time than thinking about the opportunity we were passing up. It wasn't until we learned of the need to homeschool him next year (his birthday misses the cut off by 4 days and the district turned down our appeal) that I decided it was necessary to begin actively engaging him in literature. We have gone to the library for quite some time now, and he reads almost completely without aid, but I mean real literature; time-honored, classic books. It has turned into a real bonding experience for us and hopefully something he will fondly remember when he is older.

Peter Pan is an enchanting story so entrancing to children and adults alike it has become embedded in our culture. The best part, for me as a parent, is now re-reading the story and finding so much of the language deeply poignant and touching. The whimsy and mystical approach to which it is written are things that might fly completely over his head right now, but I hope will stick in his mind somewhere if only to give lingering wonder to other aspects of the world.

Stars are beautiful, but they may not take an active part in anything, they must just look on for ever. It is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no star now knows what it was. So the older ones have become glassy-eyed and seldom speak (winking is the star language), but the little ones still wonder. (pg. 22)

Perhaps in reading to my son at night, I can rub away some of my glassy eyes and re-instill a little wonder in myself.

The Spicy Barracuda is currently sick with Jules and I fending it off. Today was a day of snuggling on the couch, watching movies, and taking it very very easy. Barracuda is allergic to most all over the counter kid's medicine due to a filler that is commonly used. Rather than hives and vomiting on top of being sick, we resort to using herbal remedies. (Jules would like me to rephrase that - nasty herbal remedies.) I'm a big fan of not using the chemical products, but since most herbal remedies need to be used when you first feel the onset of sick coming, they are hard to use with a child. If the Barracuda had told me a week ago he was starting to feel like he might be getting sick, we wouldn't really be here right now playing catch up with battling viruses. I must say, however, at four and a half he does remarkably well with the whole feeling icky and taking medicine thing.

Our household uses horehound when we are sick with colds. Horehound is an herb that has been prescribed from as far back as the Greek physician Dioscorides in 40-90 AD. He advocated a concoction of horehound for tuberculosis, asthma and coughs. The herb is an effective immune booster. It is quite nutritious, containing vitamins A, B, C and E, essential fatty acids, iron, potassium and marrubin (an expectorant). Mainly, Horehound has proven to be effective in loosening phlegm and mucus in the bronchial tubes and in the lungs, however it will also relieve coughs and sore throats. The German government's committee of herbal experts, known as Commission E, has sanctioned horehound for use against bronchial problems, including laryngitis.

Footnote: Information and recipe acquired from A-Z Health and Beauty
http://health.learninginfo.org/herbs/horehound.htm

Horehound works really well for us, but I will warn you it tastes terrible. There is no getting around it. Jules and I create a fowl tasting (and smelling) tea by using 1/4 cup of Horehound and letting it boil on the stove till it is the color of hardwood stain. By condensing it this much you only have two swallows to get down, and only have to ingest it about 4 times. Though it will not make you feel amazing, it will prevent you from becoming full blown sick. Having the Barracuda try this, however, would be completely useless. So, he uses a cough syrup.

Horehound Cough Syrup
1/4 cup dried horehound
2 cups of water
3 cups of honey

Put horehound and water in a pot and heat until boiling. Let steep 10 minutes and then strain. When cooled add honey and mix well. Bottle up for use later.

Originally I wanted to grow it in our garden, that is until I got a look at the plant. As much as horehound is a wonderful medicinal herb, it isn't going to win any beauty contests. Also, it is related to mint and will take over. Hard to kill and a glutton for punishment, the plant will grow most anywhere and is very difficult to get rid of. Well, that killed the garden idea. Now, we pick horehound up our at a local herb shop and it is very reasonable in price when purchased in loose leaf bulk. It can be purchased at some natural stores in cough syrup already, but when I purchased it this way for the Barracuda at Whole Foods it was almost 10 dollars a fluid ounce! So, we kept the jars and now I make it.

In our house sick also means it is time to start defrosting the chicken stock from the freezer. Whenever chicken is on sale, I usually buy at package or two for the sole purpose of making chicken stock. Usually it is chicken quarters or thighs, but it doesn't matter. Whole fryers work as well, they are usually just more expensive than a package of pieces.
Chicken Stock
Ingredients
2 chicken quarters
5 celery stalks, tops too
3 carrots
1 onion
1/2 stick of butter
4 garlic cloves
3 rosemary sprigs
4 thyme sprigs
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Cut the veggies into large pieces and then dump everything into a giant stock pot and heat on high until boiling. Boil about 5 minutes and turn down to low/medium heat. You want it to simmer all day, just below a boil. Stir frequently and check the water level so that the ingredients stay below the water level. After 6-8 hours, use a strainer to drain the liquid into another bowl. At this point the chicken should have fallen apart off of the bones. I separate the chicken (as best I can) and dump it in with the liquid and freeze it into tupperware containers. The murshy veggies then go to our compost pile. These become the bases for soups, sauces, and casserole all month. It stretches one package of chicken a long long way. I'm sure the same thing would work with veggie stock if your household didn't do meat.

To turn the chicken stock into soup all you need to do is re-add some onion, carrot, a clove of garlic (due to being sick), and some noodles. This means our family can have home-made chicken soup in about 10 minutes on the stove.

It works out really well for us to readily have the chicken stock all made up. I can either defrost it the night before or pull it out and microwave defrost it if I forget. By using a day off to make up three or more Tupperware containers, I don't have to bother with the extensive cooking during the times when life is so crazy I can't think about it or when I feel just as yucky as those I'm cooking for.

When we make stock, we turn off the heat and let the warm smell of the soup fill the house. The Spicy Barracuda and I snuggle up on the couch and he read a book to me while I knit. We have great conversations, watch a movie together, and just enjoy each others' company. In this way, soup and stock are great ways to not only nurture your body but each other as well.

One of the major differences that our family has developed over the last few months is a shift away from the end product. Though we almost always start out with a desired end result, along the way it becomes apparent that what we really get out of our endeavor is going through the process together.

How disgustingly Zen is that!
The best current example would be our mornings. Most mornings I am awakened to this...

My blurry eyes take a moment to recognize that the cold wet thing in my face is our puppy's nose wanting to go outside. She is awake, and therefore I should be as well. Did I mention she is my dog?

Getting out of a snuggly, warm bed curled up with Jules is a very difficult thing, but I don't really want to know the consequences of ignoring Guadalupe. So up I get, out she goes, and I promptly stumble back to bed grumbling to Guadie that she better understand how much I love her to do this.

About two hours later, Jules gets up for work and I follow to make him coffee. About a month ago we invested in an espresso maker. It was $32 dollars and a fabulous purchase! As much as the coffee is nice, the way it has slowed the pace of our morning is the true benefit.

Jules loves coffee. In fact, the addiction is full blown to the cost of about 4 dollars every morning he drove to work. Counting the customary tip, that gets a bit pricey at 25$ a week. So our $32 dollar purchase, coupled with the 8 dollars in syrup for his iced mochas, was recuperated in about a week and a half.

Jules' morning used to be a rushed dash involving sleeping to the last second, and then trying to fit in feeding the cat, ironing clothes, assembling all his stuff for classes, trying to remember his lunch, and being out of the house in time to pick up coffee and battle traffic. I would sleep through all of this and Jules' envy would silently brew. Inevitably, his lunch would be forgotten, I'd feed the cat when I got up, something would be spilled with no time to clean it up, and the stress level of the morning would be all consuming rather than a gradual waking up to the day. Now, Jules gets to sleep in a bit longer. I feed the cat as I'm preparing his coffee and putting his lunch into Tupperware. With me setting his lunch out, he doesn't forget it. But most of all, we get time to talk to each other, to wake up together, and to begin the day enjoying one another. It has amazed me how much better my days are when I begin them with a smile and something positive. Even better, it allows us so much needed time without parental responsibilities.

As much as we try to fit in personal time for us to just be adults who love each other, any parent knows that doesn't happen as much as it should. Most of the time these stolen moments are groggy times at night when the Barracuda has gone to bed and we are beat from the day. By rearranging our morning, we can now save the coffee money and begin the day smiling with each other.

As much as getting out of bed a bit earlier seemed full of groggy discontent, I'm beginning to adore our personal morning time together. It also forces me to get up on the morning and begin the day in a good way. I can now eat breakfast, exercise, and have a moment to breathe into some tea. By the time the Spicy Barracuda awakens, I can have breakfast ready for him and snuggle up for a minute before he starts his PBS Kids cartoons.

The small things we are beginning to fit in our life make me very happy. As much as we love our coffee in the morning, it is the personal interactions which are being reintroduced which make the day that much better. It slows the pace of our lives from the very beginning of the day and really sets a wonderful tone to the rest of it.