Time is tracked in lists.
April - The numbers of eggs our chickens lay per day. What is the average? (3.6) What is the MAD (mean absolute deviation)? (.706) What is the normal range? (2.89 - 4.3)
May - The wild flowers we see on hikes. The birds we mange to identify.
Time moves fast, slow, doesn't exist at all.
Adam dates a check the 8th. "Where have you been", I say. "Today is the 15th."
Time is tracked in shopping lists and meal plans.
Ivory pours over recipes for cookies, candies and desserts. She creates excuses to makes sweets and delivers them to neighbors: toffee, gummies, french macrons. I discover wishful items added to my shopping: corn syrup, marshmallows, food coloring, candy molds. I ask her to make a list breakfast, lunch, and dinner ideas. Sylvan does the same. His has a singular theme: meatballs. While, I am sequestered in the bedroom in one zoom room after the other, I text Adam the link to the night's recipe and he cooks dinner.
Ivory lists what she wants for her birthday.
Some days it is challenging to get work work done, other days I tally up my hours, and realize I accidentally worked too many. School takes all day. School takes half an hour. The kids are bored. They want attention, direction, anything. I feel guilty. The kids disappear for hours into their own, self directed projects.
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| Sylvan's creation: a sea gull in a sea side setting. Made from felt and embroidery floss. |
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| Ivory's Creation: A Sea Otter holding a Sea Shell. Made from felt and embroidery floss. |
The kids amaze me.
They drive me nuts.
Adam drives me nuts.
I'm glad I like them.
I drive me nuts.
Sylvan writes hot glue sticks below balloons. My grocery list has been taken hostage.
Time is tracked in arbitrary goal lists for the month, the season:
- Try out a new hike per week.
- Transplant plants. Plant plants. Give away plants. Pull grass. Plant more plants.
- Make a list of all the plants we grow, harvest and eat.
- Figure out what to do about summer camps
We get outside.
We cross a swollen stream on a log bridge and I'm scared that this is stupid, that I should have filled out the card at the trail head before we entered the wilderness area, even though we plan to be only a few hours. I think: "maybe I should have brought another adult." I have bear spray for bears or strangers. I have visions of the kids being whisked away by rushing water. I only breathe easy after we cross the stream the final time, and make a note to return later in the year, when the snow is no longer melting off the mountain tops - and to bring Adam.
We park at hidden trail heads.
We hunt for river bottom morels. We find a dead porcupine. We keep looking and find a few mushrooms in the mud. They are gritty.
We watch a humming bird do an elaborate dance. A stranger points out a giant snag with a cavity holding three great horned owlet. I sadly decline their offer of binoculars.
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| Arrowleaf Balsamroot |
I look for Clarkia. I keep looking.
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| Missoula Phlox |
I give away tomatoes, peppers, watermelon, cantaloupe, borage and basil to people on my list and folks who just happen to walk by my house. I plant sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, milk weed. It rains and rains. It is rainbow season.
I turn my notebook upside down and backward. Early harvests are logged.
- Sorrel, #of bunches: 111
- Parsley, # of bunches: 1111
- rhubarb: 1 1/2 lbs, 12 ounces
- green onions: 1111
- walking onions: 1
I cancel the first two weeks of summer camp. I tentatively hold onto the later spots, unwilling to commit to canceling all plans, but then think I should have just made the call. So many unknowns.
I get a notice to pick up Ivory's items for the Band Coffee Fundraiser. These orders were made a reality ago. I add it to the list.
Sylvan is over tired. We stayed up too late and I'm not sure how. I go to kiss and tuck him in and he is crying in bed: "I am not learning anything." The statement is untrue, but I know how he feels. I worked 8 hrs today. I don't know that I got anything done. "Buddy, did you see the countdown today? There are only 17 days of school left." Seventeen days. Where does the time go?
I curl into bed holding a copy of an Anne Rule collection I found in a little free library down the block. I add this book to my 2020 Missoula Public Library Reading Challenge under the category of guilty pleasure. I stay up too late.
I wake up later than planned. I hit the snooze button. I write down three things that made me happy yesterday and overcook (almost burn) the Cherry Claffoti.
I can't keep time.
I can't keep time.
Current Reading
As a Family - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
Me - But I Trusted You, Anne Rule's Crime File #14
Adam - A Man Without A Country by Kurt Vonnegut
Ivory - Hearts Unbroken by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Sylvan - James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
