First things

Yesterday was a gift--the magical first morning that the temperature in Houston drops below 70 and the humidity falls under 90%.

We are pretty well back in the swing of school. My throat is sore after our home days because our curriculum requires me to talk and read so much. In addition to our normal school work, I have been trying to read out loud more. We are currently finishing up The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. It is a nice companion to The Search for Delicious by Natalie Babbitt which we read earlier in the summer. Harper and I read The Good Master by Kate Seredy which I especially loved because it is set in Hungary.

Helena likes pretending she can't really read, and last night I realized that I think she is afraid I will stop reading aloud to her once she can read on her own. I assured her that wasn't the case. She has also declared she never wants to learn to ride a bike or tie her own shoes. She did get her first ever haircut the week before school started. When I asked her how she wanted it to look, she replied, "Straight and dark!" Alas, it is still curly and blonde.

Harper got her ears pierced. She chose the most expensive pair of earrings Claire's had to offer, because she liked that they were the tiniest, and also that they are REAL gold and REAL diamonds.

Hudson has been helping Daddy with the yard, and also learned a few chords on the guitar.

Back to the book learnin'

We started back to school a week ago. Even though I took our first day of school pictures on the day before the actual first day (because the lighting is terrible at 6:45 a.m.) we still had a lack of enthusiasm. Just about the picture taking, not about going back to school. We are all excited about that.

 

Enough! Harper was experiencing some Shoe Drama, which has since been resolved.

 

 I have had a much easier adjustment this year. Our school depends on parents to buy all curriculum and then get it prepared for the entire school year before the school year begins. This system is really well thought-out, but also really challenging for me. But now I have 3 huge binders bursting with all of the things we are going to learn together this year. Excelsior!

A good day for little birds

We have zero activities scheduled for this summer. This is not the cultural norm in Houston. When I hear about all of the zoo camps and golf camps and robotics camps and art camps and miniature horse camps and soccer camps and swim teams, part of me, naturally, panics a little that my kids are missing out. Then our Tuesday went like this:

1. we woke up at 8:15
2. they fixed their own breakfast, then played with Legos and blocks
3. I read out loud (The One and Only Ivan). They read to me a little.
4. We strolled down to the pool
5. We stopped for a nice long visit with three scissortail flycatcher babies.
6. We swam (I read my book. Kristin Lavransdatter, which I meant to read a year ago but could never find at the library. Hooray for inter-library loan!) for 2 hours until everyone was hungry for lunch
7. We strolled home, stopping again to visit with, (L-R) Peep, Little Chirp, and Cheep:

8. After lunch, I started ordering our books for school while the kids built a blanket fort upstairs. It took up their entire room, and I had to navigate a peace treaty when Helena accidentally caved in the door.
9. Then it started raining and they went outside and played in the rain with umbrellas.
10. When it stopped, we walked over to check on the babies. They were fine.
11. We went to the library to pick up some books, then to the grocery store to get some tortillas and avocados for dinner. The husband was working late so after dinner, we took a walk and saw some loggerhead shrike fledglings that let us get really close.
12. We read some books, and then they all went to bed in their sleeping bags in the fort, though Harper ended up in her bed after a few hours.

That is a good list, I think. We didn't partake in any electronic activities, which always seems like a victory. I don't know if it's better than miniature horse camp, but I know it's free, and I think we all liked each other better at the end of the day. That feels valuable.

Hey Dude, part 3

I just got in from my evening stroll (thanks again Fitbit) and the fireworks have already begun in our neighborhood. Because why just celebrate Independence Day when you can celebrate Independence WEEK? You know what might quiet things down a bit? Requiring celebrants to answer a few basic questions before they can ignite their explosives. Let's pass that law. Tell me the significance of Lexington and Concord and I will let you light this Blackjack. Or maybe have them recite a few lines from "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere"? That should quiet things down.

I think this will probably be the final installment of the Dude Ranch series. Then I think I might blog about last year's vacation since I never did. Very postmodern of me to play fast and loose with linear time.

Minutes after we arrived at the ranch, I was unloading the car, the kids had run off to explore, and I heard a shriek from Harper. All I could distinguish was, "HUDSON!" Of course I immediately thought there had been some sort of stampede, or maybe a rattlesnake, or, best case scenario, a scorpion. In fact, she had spotted Hudson's favorite bird, which we had, until that moment, only seen in books: the scarlet tanager. We had several other sightings throughout the week, and Hudson was well pleased. There were also hummingbirds swarming around a mimosa tree just off the porch of the main lodge, and several barn swallow nests full of babies in full view of the rocking chairs. Their flying lessons were a joy to watch. One afternoon, I noticed a fledgling had gotten itself entangled in a horsehair in its nest (note to barn swallow mommies: just because a particular material is ubiquitous, does not make it safe for nest building). The parents tried in vain to peck the poor baby loose, but had given up. It was flapping and dangling from the mud nest, and I decided to intervene. Thanks to Hudson's Swiss Army knife, I was able to snip it free. It was a spectacular moment for the husband, Hudson, and me when that tiny creature, who seemed to be nearly dead, flew from my palm, freed.

A few more pictures to wrap things up. As you can see, my mom and I look absolutely nothing alike:

 Hudson had a tiny blue beetle on his fist. Also Grandfather Pate next to him.

 Our cowboy Chris asked me if I had ever heard of The Red Hat Society. I assured him I am a few years away from official membership.

 This was the breakfast trail ride. Biscuits, gravy, and a lovely view.

 We stopped at the Alamo on the way home and the kids celebrated the heroes of the Alamo by going in the gift shop and buying stuffed horses that resembled their favorites from the ranch. Actually, Helena bought an owl and named her Ruthie after her favorite horse.

Hey Dude, part 2

Random thought for the day: I was thinking about Ireland yesterday and wondered, "The land of ire! But WHY?" I am sure I could google that and find out why such a lovely land was deemed full of ire.

Other random thought for the day: I tried to go out and finish my 10,000 steps just now after I got the kids in bed, and I ran into one of my neighbors who was walking his pit bull. Our neighbors across the street just moved with their enormous Rottweiler, but we still have another Rottweiler, another pit bull, a very grumpy rescue Shar-Pei, and 2 gigantic American Bulldogs, just on our rather short street. That is A LOT of Potential Aggression. I think should the zombie apocalypse come, the zombies might give us a pass. Especially because of Sasha the Chihuahua, who would slay the zombies with her piercing YAP.

At the dude ranch there were four incredibly gentle and helpful labs named Pearl, Sancho, Bravo and I can't remember the fourth one. They would trot off with us on hikes, generally bound through meadows in an entertaining fashion, bathe in the creeks and watering troughs, and never once did they try to steal food off the table or sneak into our cabin. The kids loved them.

Every night after dinner there was some sort of entertainment. My favorite was this guy, Clayton Fifer, a retired teacher who told stories about the Buffalo Soldiers and the native American tribes who once lived in Texas. He was a fount of information and he would also break into song at regular intervals, something I generally admire in a performer. Plus he had real buffalo robes for the kids to try on.

They also loved climbing this sprawling oak tree and spent hours up there visiting with the cousins. Any time I couldn't find them, they were either in the tree or watching the horses. Twice the cowboys let them help feed the horses at the end of the day and the kids were just thrilled. Farm chores are so much more fun than unloading the dishwasher or picking up the Legos at the end of the day.

Hey Dude, part 1

Lots of catching up to do. The school year went by in such a blur, and I can't even account for all of those hours I was planning to be productive while the kids were otherwise engaged. Wouldn't it be awesome if I had written the Next Great American Novel? Nope. Harper Lee has a new novel coming out though, so probably I am just waiting so I don't have to compete with that.

My parents did an incredibly wonderful and generous thing and took us on vacation last week. We went to a dude ranch near Bandera, Texas, and had such a very fine time. I picked the place based on online reviews, and was a touch apprehensive when we drove up and everything was Exceedingly RUSTIC. It turned out that everyone and everything there was so Exceedingly Wonderful, that the rustic became charming and perfect within a couple of hours. The kids fell in love with the horses and the cowboys and the ranch dogs (the total opposite of Sasha they were) and the goats and donkeys and the creek and the barn swallows and fireflies. I fell in love with the lack of phone service or wi-fi, and also that 3 times a day, a bell would ring alerting us that someone other than me had prepared a meal for us to eat. Here are some pictures:

 

Let's make this a series, shall we?

Harper does things that merit notice

Harper has again been named a finalist in the PBS Kids Writers' Contest. She got in the top 30 (out of 800 entries!) with a charming tale entitled Little Lost Owl. A burrowing owl gets blown away from his family and gets taken in by a family of barn owls. My favorite moment is when Mrs. Barn Owl offers the little owl something to eat, and two of the choices are "caterpillars or voles." WHAT will he choose?? Harper suggested that it would be the Best Prize of All if the winner got their book published, instead of just receiving a bag of public broadcasting paraphernalia, and the hope that they might win at the national level and get an ipad. I could not agree more, dear one. I suspect you might get published yet.

She also had her piano recital on Sunday, and played "Ecossaise", the first song from Book 2, with enthusiasm and confidence. The Grandparents Pate were here to celebrate all of this with us, which made it even sweeter.

I got a fitbit for Mothers' Day. I casually asked The Husband what they even WERE a few weeks ago, and he was so terribly excited that I was expressing any interest in Something Technology (maybe you will remember I am a General Luddite) that he went and bought me one. I feel a little bit like a character in Brave New World, and also I should confess that after I put the kids in bed just now, I realized I was only at around 8,000 steps, so I went outside and walked around the block until it started buzzing on my wrist and having the little 10,000 steps party. Am I enslaved already to The Machina??

We harvested our first strawberry from our little raised-bed garden. I referred to it as the "$100 strawberry" because that is about how much it cost to start a raised bed. I cut it into three tiny pieces and the kids proclaimed it The BEST STRAWBERRY EVER GROWN. Unfortunately, the wild bunnies in our neighborhood tend to agree, and have figured out how to circumvent the net I have wrapped around the bed.