The Island

Friday and Saturday we went in the boat with my parents to "The Island" as Liam likes to call it.  This is not any of the usual suspects when people around here talk about islands; instead it's a little state park, in the south part of Puget Sound, McMicken Island.

As luck would have it, I forgot my camera, so the photos here are all culled from other places on the Internets.  (Here, actually, thank you.)  It's hard to go forward without photos because the place really is magical.

It's a tiny, small island, connected to a much larger island at low tide by a sandbar.  Liam and I walked across it.  Then walked back.  On the sand bar side are amazing eel grass beds and every kind of intertidal creature you can imagine.  On the other side is an eagle nest and a giant erratic left by the last glacier.  Big enough to be marked on charts.

I hadn't thought much about magic for many years, but when you have a small child around you develop a new relationship with the idea.  That moment when the water under the row boat is 5 or 6 feed deep and clear so you can see to the bottom, and that secret undersea world starts to peek out at you.  Magic.  Noise of kingfishers, scolding and diving, also magic.  Seals.  Tides.  Sandbars.  Islands in the first place.  All magic.  And why not.

At low tide we saw moon snails (and brought home an empty shell), reefs of mussels, a sand dollar garden, every manner of sea star, sea anemones, hermit crabs.   Liam carefully collected some of each, brought them back to the boat to live for an hour or so in pots and pans with a little sea water, until they were even more carefully returned to their homes.

Tonight we walked out down the ally to bring in the yard bin.  One of the neighbors was out and we got to talking about the island.  Liam loves to tell people about it. She told how night before last they saw a great horned owl in one of the trees across the road.  Passing through.  We talked about owl boxes for a few minutes.  They promised to call -- day or night -- if it came back.

Right after Will died we had an owl take up temporary residence in our yard.  It would sit in the rhododendron tree, or in the mash up of fir and hemlock across the ally.  We heard it every night.  I still think of it.  I remember laying there listening to it over the rain, trying to figure out what type of owl it might be. I thought it was a Saw-Whet owl, I told them.  No, they told me, male screech owl. Calling.  It was here for eight weeks.

The south part of Puget Sound is made up of finger inlets.  Six or seven main ones, depending on how you count.  Henderson, Budd, Eld, Totten, Hammersly, Case, and Carr.  I guess I count seven.  Before we got here, separate bands of native peoples lived along the shores of each inlet.  The clam legend  teaches that in the long ago time the Raven put people into clamshells and dropped them all around Puget Sound. According to the story, this started the various small bands of Native Peoples up and down Puget Sound.  Magic.

CF Awareness Month and Creating a Real-World Social Network

May is CF awareness month. 

You can help.  Giving money to support drug research for a cure is great.  I do that.  In my mind, though, bringing dinner by some night when someone really could use it is. . .better.  Coming over to play cards or watch a movie or just hang out with someone who would otherwise be alone, also, better.

My 90-odd year old across the street neighbor, Mr. Z, who generally still mows his own lawn God-bless him, drives out twice a week to deliver meals-on-wheels to seniors.  He tells me, otherwise they might not see anyone.  He wants to help.

He and I talked about this one day last fall when Liam and I went over to rake leaves for him.  Mr. Z protested that he could rake his own leaves, thank you very much. (This is true but it's really, really slow these days.)  He protested and protested.  Finally I took him aside.  John, I said, I'm trying to do something here, I'm trying to teach this kid about neighbors and taking care of people -- he's only going to learn that by doing it and seeing it done.  Will you help me?  He stopped protesting.  Can I give him a dollar he asked?   Sure, I said, he'd love that.  We raked leaves.  In the winter we shoveled snow.   Sometimes John gives Liam a dollar.  More often not.  Sometimes, not as often as I'd like, we bring soup over.   

You could help someone with CF, or you might help someone else.  Just get out there, be present in your world.

Check this out if you need some CF-related motivation:
Emily's entourage 
Emily's entourage, TEDx talk, about using social media to create a community of support
New medications are making are difference, these make me feel so hopeful.

Okay - thus ends the sermon.

Tapping Trees

Bright and sunny and off to the woods today; back into the tall trees dragging an unlikely assortment of tin, drills, plastic, curiosity, and hope.  Maple tapping.

There is sometime at once both grounded and romantic about tree tapping in my mind.  It calls up for me the notion of more seasonal work-filled days where when you need something you go outside to get it.  My sense of tree tapping lives somewhere among the feelings I get from canning tomatoes,  bringing soup to neighbors, what I remember of Little Women or Ann of Green Gables or one of those, and everyone I've ever met from the midwest.  Some set of partially formed ideas about people taking care of themselves, sticking to their knitting and just going about their business trying to do the right thing, and not making a big deal of it for pity's sake.

Of course, the idea that we might can make our own maple syrup from something that we get out of a tree is also, well, just on the face of it, totally magic.

So, anyway. In winter, if you're looking, the maples are easy to spot through the woods.  They are big, wide, sort of lumpy, heavy limbed, moss and fern covered trees.  The moss and ferns are bright, bright green in the sun.  The trees stretch their branches up, up; ending in a sort of multi-trunked and substantial thicket in the top.  I should have got a picture of that.  Not all smooth stem and then twigs and sticks like the smaller alders and seed cherries. They aren't so tall as the firs, but they are way more sprawling.  Liam was picking them out from the other trees on his own before any time at all.  Our maple is the Big Leaf Maple, Acer macrophyllum.

We've never tapped trees before.  I thought it was impossible out here in the NW until last year I read something about it, and then the vegan tapped a test tree and got some sap.  Which he drank down and proclaimed just a little sweet.  So I went my normal kind of crazy and ordered up a tree tapping set up consisting of taps, food-grade sap collection bags, and tin bag holders.  A book of instructions.   This year I am determined we are going to collect enough sap to boil down to syrup.  Just wait and see.  We're going to go about it like it's no big deal, and we'll just get it done because we like maple syrup around here and why shouldn't we make our own?  It's out there for the making, apparently. (Or, more precisely, let's hope.)

Of course, tree tapping is a really big deal if you're five, especially since the trees are at the vegan's house.  And the outing included typical vegan's house activities like an impromptu dance party on the shed roof.  And then a hunt all through the shed for just the right drill bits and set up.  And an up close encounter with polliwog eggs in the pond -- still so small and slimy.  And an inspection of the trailer full of scrap car parts (Don't ask.) along with a lesson on how the clutch works.  (A note, in the pictures Liam is wearing my coat and one of the vegan's hats; because, amazingly, I managed to leave the house without a coat or hat for him.)

After all that, the tree tapping was sort of an also-ran, so when the sap (which vegan and Liam have taken to calling "maple juice") didn't come rushing out, it was a little bit of a disappointment.  Vegan said, you know, it's like the chickens and the eggs and the garden and most everything else, it just takes a little time.  There was much peering into holds and trying to detect any hint of sap.  Checking and re-checking of the collector closest to the house.

And then it was time to go. The vegan had the tractor to pull into the shed and do something to.  We had grocery shopping, dinner making, and pea brush to rig up in the garden at home.  We'll get a report about the sap conditions tomorrow, hopefully.

I'm going to pretend it hasn't been over a month away from this space trying to get my camera working and find enough wits to organize a thought.  Let's just quietly pick up where we left off, shall we.

I leave you with a tree tapping series, which is way too many pictures, but, just because I happened to catch them all in a row.

Pet Parade!

My mother was kind enough to lend us her SWD and join us in the pet parade today.  Liam was so excited; he has been talking about the pet parade for approximately 100 years. 

I cut and hemmed a blue dog coat out of one of my stash of goodwill tee shirts that are around for just this sort of thing.  This morning  Liam decorated the paper feathers and arranged them.  Presto -- SWD to peacock.

After the feathers were done we hustled over to pick up grandma and grandpa and get lined up for the parade.  Word to the wise: if the parade starts at 10:00 and the costume judging starts at 8:30, you really do not need to be there before 9:45.  (We were there about 9:15; grandpa went to get coffee.)

The pet parade is a local institution, sponsored by the newspaper.  It's very small town and fun.  The rotary band leads the parade and the bag pipe group walks at the end.  In between there are line-ups for large dogs, small dogs, and floats.  My favorite this year was the big golden dog  that was dressed as a lion. 

At the end of the parade we got to enjoy another local institution -- feather guy -- dressed like a blue cat with pink feathers today.  Feather guy is at every event and dances to whatever music happens to be around, or if there's no music around he just dances.  Also, the newspaper people handed out ice cream.

 

In other news, we went from wishing for air conditioning at 94 degrees yesterday to wondering if it is okay to turn the heat on inside during August at about 68 degrees today.   I have to say I prefer today's problem to yesterday's by far.

Patchwork

A few weeks ago Liam and I and the vegan were on the way to my parents house to watch the landing of the 2012 canoe journey (Really, you should click this link, it is an amazing thing and was a privilege to see.) and we stopped at an estate sale.  By "stopped" I mean we followed the signs at least 15 minutes out of town to a little lake were the estate sale people were dismantling the contents of this house / life out onto tables and boxes and piles, and marking everything with masking tape price tags. We were there on a Sunday afternoon; everything half price.

It turns out this was the same little lake that I lived on briefly when I was just out of college and working for the first time.  So long ago.  Vegan said, I remember hearing when you were living out here.  You were with . . . then.  Yeah, I remember; long time ago. . .then we moved to that house in town and you moved into the garage apartment.  Right, and I parked the sauna in the back yard.  Yeah; I remember that sauna, you were with . . . then.  Right, she married someone who sells cars. 

These estate sales are strange to me.  I think, where are the family / children / friends / who are meant to take custody of this stuff?  I look around and wonder who went first, the husband whose tools we are sifting through in the garage or the wife, whose measuring cups we are sorting through in the kitchen.  I wonder what year they took that vacation to Yellowstone and brought this book home.  When they last looked at all these slides or listened to all these records.  Whether they bothered to put up all those Christmas decorations in recent years, or if they'd just been in the box.

These grandmother's flower garden hexagons were stuffed in a zip-lock bag on a table with holiday napkins, random guest-type towels, and assorted other stuff.  They weren't on the sewing table, which I had already rummaged through for notions and dressmaker's paper.   Twenty dollars, except I paid ten.  I wasn't going to take them home but ran back in to get them at the end.

I didn't realize until we got to my mother's house how many there were.  Twenty-five, about.  All hand sewed.   The needle and thread were still in one of the blue ones, almost done.  The hexagon template tucked in with the work. 

So I guess I'll try to pick up this work in progress and do my bit.  Finish the blue one.  Find some cotton and cut the white hexagons and start putting it together.  Find out if I'm capable of these seam allowances which appear to be all about one-eight of an inch.  Crazy straight and even.  I'll need to track down a thimble.

I wonder if she loved the sewing or if it was a pain in the ass to her.  I wonder why she put it down; and who rolled it up and stuffed it into the zip-lock bag.  How it came to be unfinished.

Yesterday on the way back from a dinner something the vegan and I decided to try to drive back to his house through the forest.  So in we go and up, up, it's all managed land, a mix of what passes for clear cuts these days and deep woods.   Down and around following the line of some creek or another, out onto the gravel roads, and then up again, skirt the top of the peak, and start to work our way around the next hill.  We take the downhill road, getting dark now, but we're close.  It's a less traveled road and we go through tunnels of branches, leaves and sticks whacking the car on all sides.  Then, just in the twilight: tree across the road.  And us without a chainsaw.  We turn around.  Go back to the last fork.  Take the uphill road this time; a mile to a dead end.  Turn around and head to the next fork back, debate.  Try the downhill again.  Find ourselves following a different creek bed, down a ways and through a campground.  It's dark now; the sparks from the fires make a surprising light.  The vegan says, you know, I think this is Porter Creek.  We're going to come out of the forest not eight miles up the same road from where we went in.  Except two hours later.   And we did.  Drove home on the main roads and watched for meteors.  

Will's birthday today.  I have a long day at work up north.  We'll get take out, and GG and GoGo will come over, and I made two very small yogurt / tea cakes.  One vanilla chocolate chip, because Liam will like it.  The other lemon with rosemary because Will would have liked it. 

Fences, flowers, and dancing the may pole

Liam's little school had its spring celebration today and they danced the may pole. 

The whole place was decorated with flowers.  Knowing that the children had done this themselves was wonderful.  Everyone was given a flower petal for a ticket.  Children gave the tickets and children took the tickets.

Liam had told me (tearfully) that he would not sing and he did not want to dance.  He has anxiety issues, other issues. . .he is who he is and right now that's a person who wants to, but often feels he can't because he is too scared.  He told me (tearfully, again) that Teacher Nick told him it was a "have to."  There aren't many "have to"s at his little school.  His teachers understood that, for him, "have to" is what it would take to push through the concerns.  They are so kind to all the children.  Liam came in first, closest to Teacher Nick.  This is to help him, but it is done so no one notices.  No one says -- you can be next to Teacher Nick; they just make it happen naturally, quietly; and let the love and support flow in that way. 

Little Liam, he is so very concerned about not doing it right. . . not being perfect.  But, he did it.  He  sang (a little) and he participated.   He was so excited afterwards.  And he was pretty exhausted later this afternoon; asleep by 7:15.  Now he knows that he can -- another step. 

At dinner tonight, Liam asked me: "Mommy, what did you do when you were at school?"  I said, well, you know, this and that.  But what I thought was never, ever anything as wonderful as you get to do every day at your little school.  

 

Adventures

Sigh.  I thought I was doing pretty good keeping up with this place, but I seem to have fallen off the wagon.  So, here is a workman-like update: since Auntie Chris has been staying with us, we've been going on adventures over the weekends.

First, the Aquarium.  We saw fur seals, harbor seals, two kinds of otter (sea and river).  Octopus.  Touch tank.  It's much spiffed up since 20 years ago when I was volunteering and working there summers, thinking I was going to be a marine biologist for reals.  Liam loved it and proclaimed it almost as good as "Auntie Chris' aquarium in Monterey."

Next, we went to Mt Rainier to see the snow.  All our lowland snow had melted.  Of the three people who currently live in this house, one missed it.  Acutely.

We mostly saw the snow out the car windows as we drove up, up, up the icy road to Paradise.  Once there, one run down the designated sledding hill was enough to help us decide that this type of sledding was too ambitious.  So, we played in the snow and then drove down, down, down the icy road to a lower part of the mountain (not as cold, not as windy) were we played in the snow some more, and a very nice man let Liam help him chop snow off a pic-nic table and carry the snow blocks to build a snow/ice wall.  Liam thought this was beyond fun.

Can I just say that it is so much easier to face the idea of an outing of any sort, but especially a long-ish one, with another adult on board.  Auntie Chris leaves on Monday and I'm already missing her.

And, lately we've been working on the side-yard fence and the. . .wait for it. . .chicken coop.  I think we're on track for chickens by next weekend.  That's right.  It appears I have well and truly said yes to chickens.  Stay tuned.

It gets better

It is looking more and more like Washington State will soon join the ranks of states and tribal nations that recognize gay marriage.  Go Washington! It's about time.

If you're uncomfortable with this idea, or scared, or feel like you just don't know who these people are, check out the it gets better project.  Scroll through, I bet you find someone who looks just like you.

There are all kinds of families; all kinds of love.  Bring it.

Shamelessly inspired by this post here.

Live(ish) Video Snow Update

We are having a "snow event" here.  It's exciting.  Sort of.  If it weren't for all the various forms of road-based travel I'm supposed to engage in this week it would be more fun.

Yesterday was all about kids sledding.  Across the street the houses have a short, but pretty good, hill.  You can tell when it's okay to go over by listening for kids yelling and laughing.  (The house we sled at is about 3 houses away; it is home to another Liam, 4 months younger -- and 4 inches taller -- than my Liam.  They go to the same preschool.  It's funny at play dates to be calling my child "Liam H."  As in, "Boys, keep your hands and bodies to yourselves please; Liam H, I mean you.)

Today was pretty quiet.  Tomorrow we will try to have as normal a day as possible.  Tomorrow night and Wednesday and Thursday we are, apparently, going to be buried in snow.  Cliff Mass, the only weather person I pay any attention to says 11-18 inches on top of what we already have.  (I'm a good deal south of Seattle, we tend to get more snow here than in the city.)

It is snowing pretty hard now and we're meant to get about 2 inches over night.  (Newsflash: that was just updated to 3-5 inches overnight.)  Here's a live(ish) update of the back yard.  If  while you watch you say out loud whatever hysterical snow survival advice strikes your fancy, you will know what it is like to watch local news in my part of the world.  Some of my favorites: "The roads will be slick and icy." "At this point, we are suggesting that everyone who does not have to travel, stay home." "This is a serious weather event; you want to bring your pets indoors." "State patrol asks that you do not leave your car on the side of the freeway."  (Okay, that last one was from one of the previous snow events, I think.)  In most ways we don't really do snow very well around here; on the other hand, I sort of enjoy the whole: the region will now shut down on threat of winter conditions.  Makes for better sledding. 

PS -- Auntie Chris talked the Internet-Powers-That-Be into upgrading my internet to much faster, so I was able to upload this video with minimal cursing and anxiety.  Thanks Chris!

Boat naming outtakes

At the boat naming Liam was excited to "help" wash the boat and play all around it.  In some of these pictures he looks exactly like Will to me.

 

 

 

Lantern Walk

I go outside with my lantern my lantern goes with me,

Above the stars are shining, here on earth shine we,

So shine your light  through the still dark night,

La bimma la bamma la boom boom boom

‘neath heavens dome, till we go home,

la bimma  la bamma la boom boom boom.

Lantern walk at Liam's little school begins with a story inside and ends with a fire in the back yard.  In between the children and their people walk to neighbors house and sing songs to brighten the dark night and remind neighbors to warm one another through the long winter.

There are 11 children.  If I'm very lucky he can stay here through the second grade.

A big moon brightened the lantern walk tonight and even though the west wind brought cold and rain all day we had a break from the weather that lasted just long enough.  Perfect.

 

*Edited to reload video

Owl

The little owl had a good Halloween.  Small parade at school -- lovely.  Then a walk up and and down our street with the neighbors (cat and falcon).  I'll post on making the costume some time in the next week, it's a keeper.  Thank you to GoGo and Grandpa for walking around with Liam and me and to GG and Grandma for staying home and handing out candy and cleaning up the kitchen!

Behind. . .and the Procession

There are little things and big that make me know I live in the right town for me.  I've lived other places; and thought about living other places again.  But, when I reflect, I know that this crazy little place, near the sea, in sight of the mountains, small enough to walk around, this is my place.

The Procession is one of those reinforcing things.  Here's basically how it works: it's a parade, it happens around Earth Day each year, nothing motorized is allowed, it's human powered in all ways, there is a community art studio leading up to it and people make these costumes, the bands are all rag tag, anyone can march, and at the end, everyone who hasn't marched so far falls in after the last band and walks the rest of the way to the end where there is a big party.  That's it.  Actually, the Procession always makes me cry because it is sweetness and community in the way that just breaks your heart it is so perfectly, genuinely human.  You could have one in your town too. . .and I hope that you do, really, it is a treasure.

We start with the city closing off the streets and passing out sidewalk chalk so all the streets are decorated.

 

Then the parade starts.  This year featured lots of little kids (as usual), bats and a bat cave, a really bid spider, birds, a razor clam dig, and whales, jellyfish, zebras, lemurs and others (not pictured).  Priceless.

 

 

 

 

Mommy and Liam watched the whole thing: