Just Peachy!

Fruit has kept me so busy that I haven't even been able to blog about it. This week, however, the wind is blowing and the temperatures have turned cold. It is finally feeling like fall. I feel so blessed to have enjoyed a long summer. I know back in Big Timber, the wind probably started blowing weeks ago, and the furnace in my house has been running, too.

This is the first year that the peach trees on the family homestead have produced. It's probably mostly due to the fact that Nathan has been watering and tilling around them, and he's made sure that we were going to get a harvest. We went out one night and picked six boxes of peaches. I took two home to can, and my mother-in-law took home the rest. I worked on and off for two days and ended up with 24 quarts of peaches. I sent twelve over to my sister-in-law who just had a baby. I know she's not going to get much canning done this year. The rest I put in the shed, and I was feeling pretty content. No need to do more, because I still have peaches that I'm trying to rotate out.

A couple of days later, Nathan said we needed to harvest again. This time my mother-in-law was out of town. It was a Friday night, and now, all the trees were ready, so we clean picked the entire row. Here is the guy responsible for the bountiful harvest.We picked all our boxes full and then had to round up more-- thus, the diaper boxes and my laundry hampers.
All told, we picked another 8 boxes that night. Oh, they were so yummy, but they just don't last long enough fresh...
So, I started canning, and canning, and canning. I tried to convince my husband to give away some of the peaches, and I got the, "Michelle, there are nine kids in this family, all with families to feed," response. Yes, I know that among the clan, we can use all eight boxes, but you see, this time I was canning alone.
I sliced them as I bottled them. You can really stuff the jars that way. By the time I was done, I had another 54 quarts of peaches. 78 quarts! From five trees, and that isn't counting the ones that the other picked to can and dry.

After it was all said and done, I feel blessed that we had such a bountiful harvest. For now, I'm just glad the hard work is over!

Repenting

I am forever having to apologize for things I say, and this case, things I write. I did not intend to make everyone at Girls Night Out feel guilty. Mostly, I'm just venting my own frustration at starting over and trying to find my place in another ward-- one where I already know everyone, but am not close friends with anyone. Plus, my life was vastly different when I lived here before. I worked full time and I had only two kids. My friends were all teachers, and with a male-female ration of 20-5, my friends were mostly men. It was a strange situation, and needless to say, I didn't hang out with my coworkers on the weekends. The few women friends that I worked with then have all moved away. And, in this ward, there is sometimes a closed-circle feeling about the social groups.

This week, however, I realized how blessed I am to have my calling. We went to a Stake YW "Training" which was actually just a fabulous dinner and night with other leaders. We all carpooled together, and I have to tell you, I work with four of the most fabulous women in the ward. I love them. Amid all of this feeling out of place and unconnected, these four women and my wonderful Miamaid teacher have helped me feel loved and needed.

So, I'm sorry to have offended anyone with my last post. I'll figure all this out eventually, and I'm not mad at any of you. I hope you all got some extra sleep this week and recovered from being out until one in the morning. (Can I just tell you, that you're all crazy! I only stay up until one in the morning if someone is crying.)

In Poor Taste

Apparently I've been burning bridges. I'm pretty sure there was another Girls Night Out last night, and this time I wasn't invited... most likely it's because I don't like Facebook and games that make people behave badly.

Since I'm already on a roll not making friends around here, I might as well add fuel to the fire. This week I received a very disturbing invitation. I have changed the names to protect the innocent. It reads:

Mary's "American Girl" Movie and Birthday Party

Come celebrate Mary's 7th birthday with us. We want to introduce you to a new favorite thing of hers: Emily Rose @ Home. We provide unique high quality and affordable clothing and furniture for 18-inch soft-body dolls. Our clothes will fit the American Girl Doll, Magic Attic, Our Generation, etc. Bring your daughter and her doll and try it out. Be one of the first to see this new and exciting merchandise! Samples of clothes and furniture will be available to look at, feel and try. Great gifts for granddaughters, too. Remember, Christmas will be here before you know it!

That, of course, is followed by the RSVP number, etc.

Wait just a minute, People!

I'm all for birthday parties. And, I'm all for sales parties. But, I completely object to a sales party that is disguised as a birthday party. Let me give you my thought process as I read this....

My daughter is invited to this party. I don't recognize the name of the girl, and look, she's seven and my daughter is only five, so I'm pretty sure they just went through the entire primary roster and invited every girl. I would be obligated to bring a gift, and on top of that, they want to show my daughter these neat, and most likely expensive doll clothes, then use my own daughter's powers of coercion to force me to buy them, too.

Can I say loud and clear, NO THANK YOU! Then, two days before the party, I received a facebook message reminding me of this party. It took a great deal of self-control on my part just to delete the message and not send back a nasty reply. (But, you know, I thought of Kim's nasty email that was accidentally sent, so I was trying to play nice here.)

Am I wrong to be so upset about this? I cannot help but feel that it is in poor taste. What does that teach little girls about birthdays? It's not enough to have a party and have everyone bring a gift, but they have to buy stuff, too? Plus, I don't even know this little girl, so they'll invite my daughter as long as they think they can drum up business from us, but if it were a regular party, she would have been excluded.

I say, if you want to sell doll clothes, then sell doll clothes. And, if you want to have a birthday party, have a birthday party, but let's not confuse the two.

Feel free to chide me. Like I said, I'm on a roll burning bridges.

Merry Christmas to Me

We spent Labor Day weekend at our house in Montana. Oh, how we miss our house! I miss the long, hot showers, and the tile that I laid myself. I miss our neighborhood and our friends. It was a bitter-sweet trip, to say the least. I got most of my tears out of the way the first night, so then I could just enjoy being there.

We drove all the way to Deer Lodge before stopping for a break. We'd had short, potty-breaks too early in the trip, and Nathan gets antsy to just get there. So, finally, we stopped at McDonald's in Deer Lodge because they have a playland. To our frustration, McDonald's had taken out their playland last year. So, we drove around Deer Lodge looking for their city park, which we found, and unlike McDonald's, we had the place all to ourselves.

Only in Montana would you find a horse-shaped jungle gym.
Hey, wait for me!

Mazie, the wild cowgirl.


"I can do that, too!"
"Hey, look at me! I'm a wild cowgirl, too."
Here comes trouble...

I'll pretend not to see him.
"Too high? No way. I'm having fun. Go away, Dad."
Hear me roar! You may be stronger, but I scream louder.And then we all got back in the car. Isn't that always how the pit-stops go? Everyone's having fun, but when it's time to get back into the car, everyone is mad and crying?

Anyway, we arrived late Thursday night, and Friday we went to the school and around town to see our friends. The school was so nice about our visit. The teachers let us interrupt their classes and everyone gave the boys big hugs.

On Saturday, I was able to enjoy last year's Christmas present. Remember how Nathan bought me a four-wheeler? This was the first time I've actually been able to ride it on trails. We've used it around the farm, but this was our first real family ride. It was also the first time that I'd been back into the mountains that burned during the 2006 Derby Fire. The destruction was pretty amazing. Everything is still black three years later. We stopped near a Forest Service cabin and let the kids play in the creek. Then we headed back because all the kids wanted to play with their friends.
The water was ice cold. Josie would dip her feet in, squeal and scramble out again. Not the best picture of Nathan and I, but our photographer is only ten, so we'll let it slide.Getting ready to roll.
I'm short on pictures of our ride because as soon as we unloaded the four-wheelers, I realized that I'd left my camera at the house. Thank goodness for camera phones. However, my phone doesn't have a cord, so I have to email myself the photos using my cell phone. (I wouldn't recommend this unless you have the data package, or you'll end up with some big charges.) That's why I only have four photos.


I'm glad we made this trip. I needed to see it all again and remember that we'd had a good life there. Still, I hated the drive. Every time we drove that trip, it got harder, and we were seriously considering not coming home anymore. The roads are always nasty at Christmas, and the kids never travel as well as we hope they will. While we were there I had this weird anxious feeling like it wasn't home anymore and we needed to go. I had the realization that you can't recapture a life that you've lost. For better or worse, this is our life now.... Now, if the house would just sell, we could move on.

Coming Soon!

I will post soon. I will!
I have several things to post about.

Peaches

Football

The wild JoJo monster

Soon, I promise!

Running

No, I haven't taken up jogging again, although my tummy and behind keep reminding me that I should. I feel like I have been running through each day for about a week. We spent Labor Day weekend in Montana, and I did enjoy some much needed down time, but I no longer have the Internet connected in that house, and no one in the neighborhood had a wireless signal that I could catch.

September is harvest time... for SO many things. Sweet corn, apples, tomatoes, peaches. It's the tomatoes and peaches that have stolen my days lately. I would love to have sweet corn in the freezer, but I have canned corn that badly needs rotating out of food storage, so I chose not to put the good stuff in the freezer this year. Ditto on the applesauce.

Still, lately I've felt like my life is running me instead of me running my life. I purposely leave my weeks wide open, and all of a sudden they are filled with commitments I somehow didn't intend to make. Do you know what I mean? This running feeling produces in me a resentment that usually puts the brakes on everything.

Whoa, there! This is my life, thank you very much, and NO I'm not going anywhere today. But, then the peach tree in the driveway says, "Fine with me, but the peaches are ripe." Plop! Off they go onto the ground, and then I have the fruit guilt that Earlgirl so perfectly captured last fall. I'd forgotten about that bit of rural life-- the fruit need and the fruit guilt. (Use it all, can it all, don't waste any!)

If tomorrow, between loads of laundry, dishes and digging myself out of the canning mess, I have a few moments to sit down, I might blog for real. With photos. And no sentence fragments.

Corny Smiles

Late crop sweet corn is just ripening. Nathan took off on the four-wheeler the other day and came home with the most wonderful dinner surprise! Josie ate three of these half-ears and loved every bite. Mazie, now toothless in front, struggled a bit, and was mad when I finally cut the corn off the cob for her.

Give me more!Ethan is enjoying his newly-grown front teeth. (He didn't have them last summer.) Dylan speeds through his ear. He knows that if he finishes before dad, he might get a second.

These happy times and corny smiles brought to us by the Sabin Farmily. (Like how we pick first and ask later?) Vicki, tell your hubby, he's the best corn farmer around!