Off the Grid-iness

What's going on around here? Something is different..

This morning, one of our first to-do's was to take our homemade chicken stock, simmering through the night, off the stove and drain it. We left a a stewing hen's carcass, carrots, onions, celery and a bunch of parsley behind as we poured out a silky, golden stock, smelling, though I say it myself, heavenly. Bone broth, as I learned from Nourishing Traditions, a cookbook I find myself pouring over the way spiritual scholars seek out the great religious texts of the world, is "extremely nutritious, containing the minerals of bone, cartilage, marrow and vegetables as electrolytes, a form that is easy to assimilate." Mary Fallon, co-author of NT, attributes "the decline in the use of meat, chicken, and fish stocks" as a "lamentable outcome of our hurry-up, throwaway lifestyle." Few of us buy meat still in tact, "on the bone" as Fallon calls it, unlike our "thrifty ancestors [who] made use of every part of the animal." Homemade chicken stock...

At the library yesterday, after making a large selection from the children's side, we stopped off in the gardening section, only to meander a few rows over, past animal care (where Dory selected a book on hamsters), before cookbooks, there! that book! Made from Scratch: The pleasures of discovering a homemade life. An unexpected find that went straight into the bag, with great delight.

A slew of books, actually, littered around the house (Handmade Home and Coop); on hold at the library (Radical Homemakers); online magazines checked on a daily basis (Mother Earth News and Mary Jane's Farm)...

Yesterday morning, awake before the rest of the family, I sat in our living room, pouring through our seed catalogue, checking and double-checking that we had all we wanted and no more. We picked Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds for delving into the world of growing our own food. Our virtual shopping cart is now full to the point of tipping over and yet I thought, I bet this is a drop in the bucket to real homesteaders...

Homesteading? Is that what we're moving towards?

Surely not. Off to a farm forty miles from anything? Hmm... I love where we live, to me centrally located to what's most important (parents within a fifteen minutes drive, our local park and library a quarter mile walk, many friends anywhere from three to fifteen minutes away, a farmer's market a three mile drive on three different days, Matthew's work and mine easily accessible). Creating our own energy... Matthew's first question: is wind-powered satellite-television possible?

Yet books about keeping a family cow and how to raise your own chickens appeal to me.

Maybe this isn't a surprise. Moving out of the mainstream appeals to me lately, not different for different's sake, but a genuine questioning of what I value and what I hope to model to our next generation. We're already parenting in mostly unheard of way (still trying to follow Dory's lead, in co-sleeping, breastfeeding, cloth diapering until potty trained, the list goes on), so its not surprising these other worlds would start to pull me in.

I would have thought this a tiny community, difficult to find and impossible to incorporate into an everyday lifestyle, available mostly through beautiful blogs and websites. Not so. In fact if I start to look around, I can see where it's been happening around me this entire time. Mental flashbacks to my parent's garden when I was three and four and my dad's stories about me picking tiny green tomatoes far too soon. Some of our first friends when we moved home, who live on a tiny farm, with goats and sheep, she spinning her own wool, both of them commuting half an hour into work everyday. Another friend who makes her own yogurt, juice, broth, dried fruit, the list goes one, while, during winter, a supermarket and interstate sit in view behind the woods and creek at the back of her house. A neighbor one street away who used to keep chickens...

I'm curious how many of us have these longings as of late? Perhaps disillusionment with work, the government, the media, stemming from a realization the promise given won't be fulfilled by that particular establishment, that their brand of happiness just doesn't do for me. Maybe a sudden longing, as generations before us pass on, a call from the past, tugging at the fingers and heart to find the same dirt that slipped through our great-grandparents hands. Or a modern concern, an understanding we don't want to be labeled the "throwaway" society, this isn't the legacy we want to leave behind...

Check "all of the above" for me.

So something is afoot, something definitely moves through the house. I have no idea what I'm doing and, because I came of age during the dot.com boom, I mostly look to books and websites for understanding. Another something on the list, sandwiched between "find raw milk source" and "learn to sew"- talk to people. Find people! Other living, breathing humans, preferably in the same room people from who to learn.

And if any of this sounds like I am disparaging technology or haranguing how life has fallen apart since the development of the internet, let me relate this snippet from moments ago. Dory, at two and a half, just plopped up on my lap to nurse, and with the laptop open in front of her announced: "Mommy, yook! I'm having bobos and pushing buttons on da internet!"

New Bedtime Ramblings

While naps are not entirely gone, they are mainly phased out. At two and a half, Dory can handle a good solid ten to eleven hours straight waking-time before nerves start to fray. An hour after that she goes to bed. So suddenly I have free evenings! Already I have started some laundry, emailed a few friends about getting together for lunch, eaten a quiet dinner, and found two different Meryl Streep films to alternate watching. (Julie & Julia and Defending Your Life). I don't watch nearly as much television as I once did (any guess as to why?) and it feels positively glutinous that, with the press of a "Back" button I get double Meryl. Her laugh, in both films, is infectious.

Other happenings.

I want to learn to sew. I have many friends who are accomplished sewers but only one in town. She has recently moved. I am now faced with finding time for class (difficult) or finding a book, getting out the machine my Grante Suzanney so kindly loaned me and just figuring it out. I want to be brave and bold and just do it. So tonight at the library I checked out Socks from the Toe Up. Exactly. A knitting book. I'm not ready for brave and bold sewing but I am ready, after four and a years of knitting, to learn a new cast-on. I will stay posted on progress.

The library trip merits a mention. Tonight, Matthew surprised Dory and I by arriving at work (where I nanny) and picking Dory up. They came home to play and, when I left work twenty minutes later, I stopped at our neighborhood library and... wandered. Now, Dory and I visit the library weekly. I consider her an avid reader by the number of books she enjoys having read to her. We come away with a stack for her every time we come home. Because of Dory (well, mostly- I might have had a few) I have officially hit my book loan limit and had to put books back. (How many does Knox County consider too many? Anything over 35.) I mean only to make the point, I get my library fill.

I had one book on hold to pick up. Yet to wander the shelves, even for ten minutes, on my own... temptation was too strong to dash in and out again. Just like, I imagine, anything in life, it can be nice to do it unaccompanied. I gave myself a few extra minutes and just wandered. Because of this I discovered the socks book and a new Amelia Peabody mystery that I would not have known was available had I not chosen to meander. I might also have come home with Barbara Kingsolver's , a book I've read a couple of time nows, but which I always find inspirational, especially as my fingers start to dog-ear pages of these new seed catalogs.

What a good, happy ending to a strange, bumpy month. Welcome, February!

Sing! Sing a Song!

Its Saturday morning, Matthew and Dory are playing in the living room and I am tucked up in bed, with this laptop, a stack of books, a candle burning and I can see about two inches of Knoxville snow* out of my window, an occasional flurry sweeping in another handful of snowflakes. And for some reason, I have the song from Sesame Street ("sessy street" as Dory calls it) in my head. This version particularly. We are thoughtful and limiting on what Dory watches, but Sesame Street is still a classic to me. Especially scenes like this one.

I have no special blog to write today, except for working to build a habit. So I'll mention the books by my bed right now.

Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy by Sarah Ban Breathnach
Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting by Michael Perry
All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Batholomew
You Are Your Child's First Teacher by Rahima Baldwin Dancy

I also have the Winter 2010 of Interweave Knits

Also
Angelina on Stage and
Llama, Llama Red Pajama

And I've just been invaded- time to read those last two books! Will write more about my reads later. Definitely a theme developing though... What books are you starting this new year?

And I'll mention, just now Dory thrust a crayon and piece of paper at me to make our grocery list. She said we need; Bread, Eggs, Cheese, Blankets, Sofa, Pillows, and Curtains. Sounds like an ideal list for a wintry Saturday to me.

Happy snowy Saturday to you!

*Knoxville snow: an inch to three, melts fast, rarely stops up traffic or sticks on roads, but sends our whole town (myself included) into a frenzy for bread and milk. Everyone goes to get bread and milk. Gluten-free, dairy-intolerant people race to the supermarkets for bread and milk. Causes me to wonder, is this some strange plot by our local grocery stores to sell more bread and milk in these crazy diet days? Just a thought...

Playful Parenting

I have another excellent book to add to my list of parenting reads: Lawrence Cohen's Playful Parenting. (Linked it in the sidebar, for more information.) I stumbled across this one at my library and thought it might have some useful suggestions for more imaginative play with Dory. And it does. But, oh baby, it is so much more than that.

Dr. Cohen digs into the emotional, mental, and psychological importance of play in a child's life. Play can open a child's self-expression, can help heal an emotional hurt, can strengthen or even create a bond between child and parent and is always needed- from birth to the teenage years (and adult years too, though Cohen points out, most adults idea of play is relaxing and being stationary, which can make it difficult for adults to engage in child's play!). Children find their power through play, they find their voice through play, they work out confusions and fears. One of my favorite examples describes a three year old girl, who's gotten a shot, comes home and now wants to play doctor. She wants to administer the "shot" and she needs an adult, preferably a parent, to administer to. Through this game, she is now in control, she now has her power back, and the one who took the power away (i.e. hello mom! hello dad!) is now looking to her. Give her her power back, Dr. Cohen says. Play with her. Be the patient! Shriek, cry, let her know it's painful! Allow her to work out what happened, what it means, and to feel her autonomy in her world again.



I've read this time so many times, but it always bears repeating: children have so many decisions made for them everyday. Most of us parents, no matter how lightly we hope to tread, still make lots of choices for our child (this shirt, this food, this time to leave, this stop to make) and that can leave a little one feeling frustrated, disempowered and marginalized, at best. Dr. Cohen explains, you can help your child regain his sense of himself through play. Let him lead. Let him guide. You follow. Get on his level and give him the reigns.

Of the many, many useful suggestions of this book (read all of it- it's worth it), this stood out with me the most. Be your child's advocate for maintaing his sense of worth, his sense of importance, his sense of relation to this world by helping him maintain his power.

Other points that stood out to me:
Girls need physical play! Boys need more cuddles! In our attempts to give our children "roots and wings," our overly stereotyped idea of the sexes leaves girls feeling rooted, but timid and fearful and boys feeling adventurous and often reckless and with no grounding. Play can build and strengthen these underdeveloped areas.



Be flexible. Your child may want to play the same game a very different way- for instance, yesterday, she wanted you to give in and let her win. Today, she wants a challenge. Follow your child's lead. Sometimes she wants to build her confidence, other days she wants to see herself tested. Let her decide.

Participate consciously. Even if you're exhausted, even if you're sore, even if you've worked all day, even if you've already spent the entire day together- be present when you play. Conscious playing fills a child's need for your attention and fills his feelings of worthiness and importance in the world. Often, once he's full, he can play on his own for even longer periods of time, especially as he gets older. And if you aren't able to do this for extended periods, set time aside everyday (even if its only ten minutes!) and play fully and actively with your child.



This is a child's world. Play is her world. This is how she learns, how she processes and understands, how she participates. Respect that. This is her way of relating. Respect that. Even if you are not in a mood to play too, respect that this is her work in the world right now.



For me, the best part of Playful Parenting is how little I really knew beforehand. The more I know, the more I thrive and enjoy parenting. Before reading this, I had some basic concepts- play is important, interaction in play is really important, find toys that allow for imagination (which typically means avoiding anything with the phrase "requires AA batteries"). I'm home with Dory everyday, we play for seventy percent of it (at least), and I hoped this book might give me some ideas on how to shake our play up. I revel in having my expectations blown away.

Playful Parenting is rich with insights into our children, how their minds work, how they communicate and what they need from us to thrive and grow. Just an exceptional read. And for the little bit of information I've posted here, I've barely brushed the surface.

It's definitely a Good Mama read.

And, there are so many more good books to go. Currently, I'm reading Naomi Aldort's Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves and I can't wait to write more about it. Another amazing, amazing book. Also on the list: The Hurried Child, which was first popular when I was a wee one and is still much talked about today (that's promising), Free Range Kids and Hold Onto Your Kids. There are so many exceptional, thinking people writing about children and yet so few naptimes and late nights in which to read. I would have started years ago if I had any idea how interesting and amazing this parenting-thing would be...