Living Among Us

Living in a very rugged rural land you learn very quickly that you are seldom alone. In Southern Humboldt County you will often find far more wild life then people. And some of the people may look a little wild themselves. We are lucky to have a 80 acre homestead, although most of it is unusable because of the steep terrain and thick forest. My closest neighbor is almost a mile away. We are fortunate in our neighbors. Here in SoHum you hear the stories of the weed crazed Bulgarians or Mexican Cartel starting land wars with the people living closest. Not so in our case. At least not yet. In case of emergency or seeing something out of the norm the people living on our quiet little mountain are quick to call each other and keep each other safe. Usually those calls are fire related. Lately they are Mountain Lion related. It started innocently enough with a "Have you seen my house cat" call. Then another and another. Over the summer and fall months there have been close to 20 house cats go missing. 1 dog has been attacked. So many of us have set up game cameras to try to catch the predator in action. We now have so many pictures we are almost certain we are dealing with more then one cat. At times when you are alone in the forest it feels like there is a pride of lions just out of view watching you. We have stopped letting our kids free range. We have fenced in our pigs and chickens. We are lucky to have two very good guard dogs that keep it out of our yard but other neighbors have not been so lucky. And now we start the debate on how to handle this situation. As a mother my first instinct is to protect my family and hunt the thing. But the Native American in me screams that this was their land before ours and it has more right to kill me then I it. Relocation has never entered my mind though. Why would I exile it to become someone elses problem? So for now we are being cautious and sticking close to home. Never leaving the house without a cell phone and my trusty .380.

Homeschooling

I never thought I would be a homeschooling mother. Much less teaching three kids. The decision to home-school our children came about quite suddenly. Our Bug was in preschool and Sunny was still a babe. I kept noticing all the bad habits Bug was picking up. And the germs. And how she started shutting down when things didn't go the way she thought/wanted them to. After many conversations Bug finally told us that there were several boys in her class that were being very mean and sometimes violent to her. Right about this time California started its pro-vaccination campaign. Our family has a history of vaccination reactions that require us to skip them. Reasons that are not entirely my own to share there for I wont. While we could get a medical exemption I was hesitant to keep my child in a school system I had no faith in. The large class sizes, lack of supervision or discipline, and really mean kids were not my ideal learning situation. So we started to explore our options. The first year we tried a long distance through the mail school. I quickly realized that I needed more supervision to keep me on track. Still to this day we would rather do all our "book" work on one day and all the fun hands on stuff the rest of the week. Another down side was this school was super expensive. With me staying home to teach the kids we were down to a single income and the cost was killing us. The second year Bug transitioned to our local charter school. We would meet with her Teacher once a month and she would make sure we were sticking to the state standards. This is one of the biggest problems I have for this system. They very closely tell me what I can and cannot teach. And when I have to teach these things. In California that means common core. Which is harder for me to teach since it is not how I was taught. One thing I love is that since this is part of the public school system it is free. They actually give me and allotted amount of money to spend on supplies of my choice. Any parent will appreciate this with the amount of arts, crafts, and science experiments children love to do. This is our third year and we have stayed with our charter school. Also enrolling Sunny in Kindergarten. Bug is now in 2nd. While I expected it to be a little harder to teach two different grades at the same time the biggest challenge is keeping my very active almost 2 year old out of our stuff and entertained while we do our work. I might be slightly blessed with two very smart eager learners. They usually will do any and all work that I ask of them. Since I have two kids to keep track of I decided to meet with our teacher weekly to help keep us on task and she also helps provide me with ideas to help the girls in anything they need it with. The hardest part of homeschooling for me is keeping my own head out of it. My anxiety shows itself in the strangest ways. You know that nagging worry we get as parents that we are messing up our children. Now I also have the worry that I am making them fail at learning too. Meeting weekly with the teacher has helped that feeling immensely. Then if anything is going off course or we didn't finish she is right there to stear us back on course. Watching them learn is so rewarding and worth all the stress. The way their little faces light up when they get a right answer or a difficult concept comes clear is magical. And it can be a lot of fun if you let it. How many opportunities does an adult get to play with water beads or make playdoh.

Day in Our LIfe

Our days start early. Earp wakes around 6am. If I am lucky I can snuggle him in my bed and he will let me doze for another hour. Then he wants his sisters. The bond they have is fierce. By fierce I mean that they could hug each other as easily as hit one another. It’s a crazy emotional love hate relationship. As soon as he goes to wake his sisters I head to the French press. Need super strong black coffee asap. Then I usually start us all on our chores. Beds get made, dishes washed and put away, and breakfast started. Honestly, I am not big on cooking. Until my Husband came along I could burn boiled water and some days that is still the case. I have learned a few simple meals over the years I will proudly admit to anyone that will listen. So breakfast is usually omlettes (hello we have chickens), pancakes, or bagels. Then we start school. Its around 10am at this point. Usually takes us around 3 hours to cover the basics. Language arts, math, social studies, science, pe, and electives( ukulele, American Sign Language, Ballet, and Arts and Crafts). Somewhere in there we have lunch. And snacks. And more snacks. I cannot believe how much these three small children eat!! My Husband comes in from whatever tasks he has been completing outside and makes the family dinner. We have all agreed that Mom gets way to frustrated and emotional when no one eats the meals that she cooks so yes Dad cooks dinner. Some things we just have to change in order to make ourselves happy. We let the kids watch a little tv while we shower and relax. Sometimes we play games or wrestle or finish craft projects or school work that didn’t get done. By 8pm we put all the kids to sleep so that I get to spend a little time alone with my self and a little time with my Love. Then it is off to bed around 10 to start the whole thing over again. It’s the stuff that we tend to learn in our free time we like the best though. This year we had our first litter of piglets born on the homestead. We lost some. But most of them thrived. We learned how to castrate the males, and why you should castrate them at all. We then learned and perfected our slaughtering and butchering of the same pigs. We learned how to properly smoke and cure our own hams and bacon and how to make sausage. Not just any sausage but the best tasting sausage we have ever had. That we could say with 100% certainty had no hormones or antibiotics. Was free range and gmo free. Food I could feed my family with no guilt only pride. That we as a family could provide this food for ourselves. Together. It makes me so proud. All three children helped raise feed and butcher these animals. And all three loved the meat we were provided as well. Respecting it because they knew it. Where it came from and the work it took to bring it from piglet to pork roast. This life is not easy. There are obstacles and set backs and doubts at every turn. Every decision is questioned. But it has been worth it.

Spider Web Crafts

Fall is on steroids at my house right now. Homeschooling a 2nd grader and a kindergartner is craft intensive. This week we are focusing on making some fun spooky spiderweb crafts. Specifically, painted glue and salt webs and a fun paper plate yarn weaving web. Both are super easy, and the kids had so much fun! Bonus points for me having all of the materials already on hand. For the glue and salt web you will need: 1. Glue 2. Salt 3. Thick Construction Paper 4. Watercolor Paint and brushes 5. Cookie Sheet Draw out a spiderweb pattern on your paper. Make sure that there is a little extra space between your lines because you don’t want the glue to run together and make a big blob. Then lay your paper in the cookie sheet and sprinkle generously with salt. Make sure to cover ever inch of the web. Pick up the paper and tap it in the cookie sheet to knock off loose salt. Let dry over night. When dry simply paint in any style you wish. The girls loved the way the salt sucked up and spread the paint! For the Paper plate webs you will need: 1. Paper Plate 2. Black tempera paint 3. Hole punch 4. Yarn 5. Pom pom 6. Ribbon First paint the plate black. When dry cut out a large circle in the middle. Take the hole punch and punch a bunch of holes around the edge. My girls kept asking for more and more hole. Then you simply weave the yarn back and forth through the wholes in whatever pattern that they want. We then glued some ribbon on our pom pom and glued the “spider” into the web. And just like that your house is decorated for Halloween. Right???

Mental Health Awareness Day

Anxiety For as long as I can remember I have always worried about what people think of me. Of doing or saying the wrong thing. Before I got pregnant with my son these feelings were always a small voice inside my head. One easily pushed to the back. Acknowledged but manageable. With my third pregnancy things started to get, let’s just say intense. I was no longer able to ignore the voice in my head telling me I was wrong. Not just a self-doubt now. But a smoldering fire of anger that could blaze into an uncontrollable inferno at the least provocation. I was frustrated and resentful of my family. Unable to be stand being touched by the innocent belly rubbers I actually sprained a stranger’s fingers when they tried to touch me in the grocery store. I brought up my concerns to my doctor and midwife to be told it was common for women carrying boys to get extra hormonal and that it would pass with the birth. HA! With the arrival of my sweet babe I became a hostage of my emotions. Anything someone else did for my boy I would redo. Even my Husband dressed the baby wrong. Washed him wrong. Feed him wrong. Even now that Earp is 21 months I cannot leave him overnight with anyone. And by anyone I mean his Aunty or Gram. My closest family. The ones that were perfectly capable to raise myself and my Husband. I second guess every decision I make for my children and our lives. With our third child we needed to expand our home to accommodate our larger family. Hello nervous breakdown. Trying to decide which colors to paint their rooms, or light fixtures, or flooring would literally reduce me to a crying puddle on the floor. And then I would get angry that I was so “crazy” and out of control. When I again brought these feelings up to my doctor they literally locked me in their office until a psychiatrist could come and evaluate me. I was told I was sleep deprived and to go home and give my child to a sitter and sleep. Oh and take this handful of pills everyday and try not to think about my problems. Since I was nursing I refused to take the meds. But I did listen to their advice that I needed to talk to someone. Unable to afford a therapist I did the next best thing. I joined Facebook groups and read other bloggers with some of the same issues. And do you know what I found out. I am NOT CRAZY! That I am not abnormal. Or selfish. That I am not ALONE. There is a whole internet world out there full of stories like mine. These brave women are telling their stories to help others. And they have helped me. I find the most help from Brittany Gibbons at brittnayherself.com and from fit_teacher_rachel on Instagram. Their honest and usually hilarious posts keep me sane even when I feel crazy. Things I have learned are self-care is not selfish. That a little time to myself makes me a better mother and wife. That working out is not optional. Even if that working out is just stretching and meditation. That I cannot be everything for everyone and that is ok. It is also ok to say no to invitations or extra-curricular activities or anything else that I feel I cannot handle at this time. Because my happiness is just as important as everyone else’s. And believe me my family would rather have a calm happy mommy then go to that fifth 4H group. All of this is ok. And if you are like me and you feel that you need someone’s permission to go for a walk instead of doing that 8th load of laundry then I give you that.

Some of my favorite hikes lately. My first trip walking the Golden Gate. And a shot from a hike of Bear Harbor on the Lost Coast

We Are Back

WOW it has been a long long while since I have had the time to sit down at a keyboard and type something for myself. Let's see if I can catch everyone up. I am now the mother of three, yep three, feral children. Bug is now 7 Sunny is 5 and Earp is almost 2. We have a boy in the family people. And let me just confirm, boys are just as crazy as everyone says. Right this second he has not one, not two, not three, but five giant bruises on his little cherub head. My kids are my life. We home-school so they are LITERALLY my life. We are together 24/7. So far we are all still alive. Thriving even. Sure there are days were I could pull my hair out. Days where we never get out of our pajamas and the baby has lovingly smeared oatmeal in my hair. But then I take my kids out in public and I feel pretty good about our choices so far. I mean its only Second grade and Kindergarten I can't mess it up that much can I? That is the thought that wakes me up at four am. The thought that keeps me looking at craft projects and speech impediments at midnight. Kids are hard. With two I felt in control. I had my shit together. I made lunches with those cookie cutter sandwiches and no one watched anything that wasn't from PBS or the discovery channel. Three kids. Three. Kids. Its war. And I am pretty sure that I am loosing. Any hoo did I mentioned we remodeled our house? Took ourselves from a modest 900 square ft to 2000 square ft. And we are still married. I think that is one of a marriages biggest tests. If you can survive living through a construction zone for months on end while you negotiate/argue about every single minute detail, you are pretty much guaranteed to stay married until one of you dies. Who knew we cared so much about light fixtures and electrical outlet covers. Don't get me started on big things like paint colors or flooring. Who put me in charge of the light fixtures my kids would have for the rest of their childhood anyways???? Things that have not changed, we still live on a rural homestead. We raise our own pork, rabbit, and chicken. We did the whole goat and milking thing for awhile but I don't think the large breed goat is the animal for us. Our homestead is completely off grid. We run solar, some wind, have our own fresh spring. Garden what and when we can. We are a family that believes in the simple life. The slower pace. I hope to take you along on our journey. Let you peak into the craziness that is our day to day. I will try to post weekly from now on. I will also try to give you an honest look into our private life. There will be cussing. And crazy hair. So Sit down and grab a cup of coffee here we go.....