foraging

It's super duper hot here.  Which means great berry weather.

We are the weirdos pilfering the berries on the sides of the paved paths in our small city.  We brave the hobos, sudden long boarders and, sometimes, a bit of awshucks embarrassment to have a little warm berry snack, about the most delicious thing you can imagine eating.

We've had people say, omg, you can't eat that.  Because it's transgressive to just eat food without the intermediary of a vendor.  Without the permission implied by the paying for a commodity.  Like we consumer animals and we eat products, not food.

I think that we have an obligation to ourselves to maintain some autonomy from commercial interests.  Saving seeds, growing a garden, trading with your neighbor, growing fruit trees, learning what wild edible species you can forage in your area (particular invasive species or crazy prolific like dandelions).

But I think that about everything.  Making your own clothes, your own art, your own fun.  Not all of it, but some.  Enough to know you can do if the alien lizard monkey beasts do take over and we have to live exclusively by our own efforts.

Ten years ago people used to ask why bother sewing clothes when you can anything you want at Walmart instantly for less money.  People don't ask anymore; DIY has come into it's own since then, and there are plenty of manifestos out there that have explained it better than I ever will, but, generally, everybody gets it now.  That's why they spend money at Walmart to buy home décor and clothes that look handmade.  Culturally, there is value (or even just aesthetic) in doing it (or appearing to) yourself.

I'm still in the actually doing it for yourself mode. It's what, to me, constitutes freedom. 

fence

 It's fence painting weekend!  Actually, now that we've gotten going on it, it's turning into fence painting summer.  There is no way we are going to finish in our allotted three days of painting because we have a LOT of fence and a LOT of distractions like sleepovers, skateparks, feeding ourselves, wine...

I have mentioned a couple times that my house is a whole 644 square feet of wonderful, but that my yard is, relatively speaking, a good size.  It's a 175 feet deep.  It was established at a time when people were expected to have a home, a garden and an outhouse.  I joke that we bought a yard with a shack on it, which is funny, until it's time to upkeep the fence that circles the perimeter.  Not so funny anymore. 

I have a curious relationship to yard work.  In general, I like the outdoors, especially when it's on the other side of the glass, peered at overtop of the edge of my book.  I'm not a fan of actually being outdoors, in the sun, for hours, because I'm a vampire.  But I have very few jobs in my life where I can see an actual end result like yard work present.  Weeding the garden looks good (especially since I let it go so long).  So does mowing the lawn.  So many inside things that must be done but never actually look done or are, in fact, Done.  You only know that they are done by when they aren't done, because nobody notices that it gets done until you fail to do it.  I'm looking at you, laundry.

So, though I must spend time outdoors, doing work jobs, painting is something with appreciable results and a definite end.   At least I hope so.  We haven't made nearly the progress we've hoped for.  And the second coat will probably be much less satisfying since painting white on white is not quite the same impressive looking progress.  But, if I work at, every day, over the next week-

This is probably never going to be done, is it?

It doesn't help that I paint like I'm trying to bludgeon the fence to death.  It's tough on the arms and I have yet to subdue little more than half the beast.

I was trying to look at a bright side to all this but failing a little bit.  Thus, instead of trying to derive satisfaction from a job well done, I'm going to find another angle.  Like, look, the trees are gorgeous!

Yay, cherries!  Good stuff I have to work not at all to get!  Also, they look nice with my white fence and undead complexion.

And there is, indeed, an end in sight, when it gets too dark to work, so I may sling inside and read my book.

The book, by the way, is Shrill by Lindy West, which I am enjoying very much. The book mark is by Boy Child, and it is part of his design to attach a full set of deer antlers to his head to wear to the medieval faire this summer.  Not only is he a great artist, he is also a snappy dresser.

So here's to the end of another day of painting and getting things done, slowly and painfully.  I am sure, sometime around August, when the fence is fully painted, it will look very nice and I will bask in satisfaction of a job well bludgeoned.

summer marches on

It's been a week or so since my last post because we've been generally summering and getting about.  Camping, visiting the farm, hiking, getting too much sun and too much heat while dodging storms... that's what it looks like around here.

today in the 'hood

the strange beauty of jumping

Gravity is a quirky master.  Since we have failed to remove the trampoline, I still get to take bazillions of photographs to make what I consider a oddly beautiful yet creepy pictures of suspension, when inertia and gravity play their tricks. 

Here is a few from today, with our young friend over for a visit. 

stairs

It's stair running season!  Yay!

In my town we have several spectacularly long and steep staircases climbing their way out up the steep cliffs that the Red Deer river has carved out over thousands of years. 

Sprinting the stairs is my favorite form of exercise outside of roller derby.  I don't know why I like doing it, actually, since it makes me feel a bit sick.  It's the only exercise outside of non-stop burpees that makes me want to throw up within ten minutes of starting.  Perhaps it's the thrill of the light-headedness?  Why ever I like it, I do like to get out a few times a week to the stairs.

Running the stairs is fairly popular activity amongst the crazier of the outdoor exercisers around here.  On a nice summer day, you can hardly move on the steps for all the sweating, agonized people running up and down.  I've met other people who like to hang out at the wooden pavilion right at the top with spiked coffee, watching the stair runners for entertainment.  Apparently I'm not the only one who often feels like throwing up.  Some people do.

Here is kid camp at the base of the stairs. 

The childs like to have a snack and then spy on people walking the paths on the other side of the river.

They also like to spy on me while I do my stair laps.  I hope sometimes too that the childs use their binoculars to look at nature but I won't hold my breath.

After the stairs (honestly, I can't run it very long - twenty minutes at the best), the childs and I truck off down the paths and off the paths to do a bit of exploring.

Girl child is a bit of a daredevil and is convinced that I hate adventure, but we do enjoy exploring our urban wild areas. 

When we're done with the nature, there is a full playground at the top of the stairs where the childs can run out the rest of their energy while I read a book.  For not having to venture more than ten minutes away from the car, we can enjoy and exhaust ourselves fully over a couple of hours.  And we don't even have to carry our picnic stuff around with us. 

Anybody else enjoy their wild urban spaces?  I don't know what we would do without ours.

My theatre kids.  Why can't they ever just smile nicely for me?

the short and happy life of our trampoline

I'm not even entirely sure how we ended up with a trampoline.  Last summer there was a truck that arrived with a collection of pipes and mesh.  It is or was - I'm not sure, as possession of it, as I said, is shrouded in mystery - my good buddy Lexi's, but then it ended up in my garage needing safe haven and a few patching repairs.  The trampoline itself is over twenty years old.  Lexi jumped on it as a child.  And now my children jump on it.

As my neighbor said ominously, as he watched The Man put up the trampoline, 'Oh, now you've gone and done it.'  He went on to say that trampolines attract random kids like shit attracts flies.  And, unsurprisingly, he is right.  We have discovered, as thousands of parents have discovered before us, that while the trampoline is great fun, there is a fairly high risk factor for the jumpers. Personally, I believe that risk can be managed successfully, especially if your children value their unbroken bodies and do not act like jackasses. Unfortunately, that can't be said of the neighborhood kids, so the trampoline will have a shorter than expected stay in our backyard this summer. We have a few more days with it - along with some heavy supervision by myself and The Man - and then it will go back into the garage for a spell or find perhaps find a place where it is less likely that I will have to stand by and nag fifty kids to please, damnit, follow the few, simple frickin' rules we've put into place for your own bloody safety. 

Instead of degenerating into a rant about personal responsibility and the inability of kids these days to manage their own risk, I'm just going to sign off and go take some more pictures of the kids jumping while the neighbor kids peek through the fence, looking forlorn, now that they've been forbidden to bounce. Having to limit who gets to jump wasn't a fun decision, but becoming a raving lunatic trying to manage a million kids is even less appealing.