Good riddance!

So, for the past two and a half years, I have shrouded myself in a pink or a purple hooded sweatshirt.  They brought me home, post-surgeries, they kept me warm in the chemo-chair, they covered my bald head and then they passed as "real clothes" while I was trying to figure out how to be a mom to three.  Over the past couple of years, I have worn them probably four out of every seven days.  (By the way, Moose Jaw, you make some seriously durable clothes!)

I have come to realize that I am an all-or-nothing kind of person, that I deal best with thorough separations.  And so, as one step in an effort to move on from the _____ (I don't mean for that to be a swear.  I just really don't know what I want to call IT.) of the past few years, my sister and I held a Hoodie Destruction Ceremony.

Notice the ceremonial candle in the background.  It just seemed appropriate.

It is finished.

Victory!

Just to make sure...

And then Madame Clicquot and Snyder came to celebrate with us!  L'chaim!

- a cleansing sigh-

P.S.  A funny note regarding the title:  I once told my GranniOna, as we were leaving her house, "Good riddance!"  I had no idea what it meant, but I thought that it sounded intelligent, because it was longer than "Goodbye."  Oops!

Last and this weeks' harvest

Although we didn't plan anything for Labor Day weekend, all of the sudden, Bam!  We were happily booked solid: babysitting, Market, an African (including us, the honoraries) gathering in honor of a visiting Brother, an extended family lunch, sleep-overs, an extra hair-braiding session, a visit to dear old friends in Illinois... Wow.  Consequently, I am combining last and this weeks' harvest.

I didn't even plant this broccoli, but it volunteered.  And it was most delicious!  Those potatoes were left-overs that I found as I was weeding at the dacha.

So, the volunteer acorn squash have been falling off of the seriously mildewed vines.  I'll see what I can do with that one.  The Galia melons have also been just falling off the vines.  This one was good enough, but not dreamily tasty as it should have been.  To next year!

I am so thankful for all of these tomatoes!  Presently, I am oven-drying some to make Lidia Bastianich's most delicious, and my children's favorite, artichoke heart and dried tomato pasta sauce.

Those are our Silver Something seed pumpkins, which are supposedly very easy to hull.  We'll see.  The first Macaroni pepper was ready, along with some more Sunshine peppers.  And more tomatoes!

I do believe that we'll be eating fajitas this week.

In addition, we have harvested lots of kale, mizuna and basil.  

Check out others' harvests at Daphne's Dandelions.

Welcome, China, India and Germany!

So many families from around the world (Puertollano, Sevilla, Brussels, Parma, Perugia, Québec, Cherkassy, Shevchenko, Yalta, Jonquoi, Santiago, Addis Ababa) have invited me into their home and taken very good care of me.  For some time now, I have wanted to do the same for those newly arrived from Elsewhere.

Every year a woman from our church organizes what has become to be known as The Tour.  Newly arrived international students sign up (This year there were 200!) and then they are grouped and assigned a driver.  The driver takes them on a very informative and fun (Swings over the river?  Yes, please.) tour of the city, ending with dinner in an American family's home.

Due to the difficulty of the past three years, this is the first year that we have participated in a long time.  Rob and our downstairs neighbor did the tour part and then brought them back to our house, along with a carful of Germans, for dinner.

It was such a blessing all around.  No one wanted to leave when it was time.  I am so thankful for these new friendships.  We have tentative plans for a Chinese feast cooked by "Maggie" (I say xiexie in advance!), a trip to the archery range with the Deutschers and maybe a bit of golfing with "Doris."

Thank you, God!

O pile of plates!  I was ready for thirty guests; but two of the carsful got lost, ending up elsewhere for dinner, leaving us with twenty.

"So, welcome to the U.S.  Have some Mexican food!"  In addition to the Mexi-feast that RaRa and I prepared, only some of which you see here, Rob made venison kabobs.  It was the first time for all of our guests to have that meat (Google deer!) and it was a huge hit.

One of the five seating areas that I had prepared.  Who knew that we lived on such an enormous compound?

This book is always such an ice breaker.  We ended up having every one share their home town.

The happiest boy's saucy smile

G redeemed his personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut tonight, thanks to the library's summer reading program.  The child was SO excited... to go in the station wagon with PapA, to go to a brand new place, to pick his own topping, to eat a different dinner than the rest of us (Which was definitely his loss, from my point of view.), and the list goes on in his mind, I am sure.  Good job reading, my son!

(Ty, upon learning that he would do the Readers' Challenge next summer, once he can read, and win a free pizza, ran to the shelf, took down a book and began sounding out letters.  He told me though that he wants a coupon to Pizza Shuttle and not Pizza Hut.  If only!)

New toys!

A pizza!

The children were entranced by the light shining through the tiles.

Girumy told me that this was the Aurora australis.  I know, I know, we are in the north, but they've only learned about the southern light show so far.

What's in a name?

So... I love names.

It makes me quite happy to answer to Dunham, Amichka, Deppy-san, Punky, AlyOnooshka, Tía Sofía María, Tofi, Ames and Amster Frackle.

Had I chosen to re-name my children completely, we would have Henry, Charlie, or Oskar and Rivkah, Zoya, Beatrice (said the Italian way) or Thessaly.

The hens have given me a new reason to name, for which I am thankful: Ymo, Dotte, Aster, Ali, Orp, Orpa, Rhoda, Golda, Ilka and Henya and Henya.  Our coop is called The Poule House.  And I've already been thinking of names for our next batch: Athena, Meghen, Henrietta... Get it?

I, with so much gusto, happily learned hundreds of plants' botanical names once upon a time.  Each of my kids has five names.  I have even named a few houseplants, my favorite being Gilbert.  

But, I am currently name-blocked.  

This is the thing: As I homeschool our kids, they haven't learned the common lingo.  We haven't labeled what we do as "school."  It's just "time to read," or "calendar time," etc.  So many people lately have been asking G if he is in Kindergarten or what grade he is in and he just looks at me like, "What?"  Finally I decided that I needed to explain everything and so now he says, "Oh, we do homeschool."  

This is putting the pressure on me to come up with a name for our school.  It would be so much easier for them to say, "Yes.  I go to..."  We would be spared the looks, questions and smiles that don't hide the fact that you think that I'm crazy.  But, what do I name it?  I feel like I want something in Latin, but...???  Has anyone a suggestion?  Jenks, I feel like you would have something witty.  

To be continued...

This week's harvest

Now, this is better!

So, I can't grow onions.  These puny little things are the best that I've ever done.  What am I doing wrong?  Maybe they were too shaded by the enormous wall of Brussels Sprouts.  These little ones are enough encouragement for me to try one more time, next year, God willing.  Now, that sunflower... I know that the kernels aren't dry enough yet, but I figured that I'd try to let it dry indoors before the creatures eat them all.  I have one more enormous head yet to harvest, but the multi-branched, smaller flowered specimens are my offering to the animals.

My first spaghetti squash of the year... it seems a bit early, but it was the right color and had a nice thump, so I picked it.  There are so many more to come!  Then the potatoes!  These are the last from the dacha.  Such nice specimens.   I am keeping a few of the nicest of each kind to use for seed next year, if I can keep them well through the winter.  There is more squash every time I turn around, but our friends downstairs are helping me use them up: zucchini chocolate bread, zucchini blueberry birthday cake, zucchini pumpkin bread, ratatouille (minus the eggplant), zucchini smashed potatoes, zucchini tacos, zucchini latkes, zucchini hash... The tomatoes are trickling in, thankfully.  Oo!  There is just nothing like a perfectly ripe tomato, still warm from the sun.  And the eggs: I believe that the puffball, Ilka, is done being broody, thankfully, although I still haven't seen an egg from her yet; but at least the others are able to get to the nesting boxes without being pecked.

We had this kale in a delicious millet salad.

Peppers!  Corn!  Basil!  Tomatoes!  I love summer!

Bring on the tomatoes!

Check out others' harvests at Daphne's Dandelions.

In other garden news... on Sunday, while working at the dacha, Rob took the kids for a walk.  Once I finished my work, I started looking, looking, looking for them.  I even yelled their names, disturbing the much-needed peace.  Finally, a fellow gardener, whom I had already asked if she had seen my oh-so-conspicuous family, spotted them and called to me.  There was Rob, laden with produce, a Coke and some Sunkist packets.  "Where have you been?" asked I.

Years ago, we rented a plot in a different area of the same garden where we are now.  Across the road from us were some... well, at the time I guessed that they were Albanians, because I was consumed with Albania at the time.  For sure, I knew that they were eastern Europeans.  Well, I was close.  Today, Aïda, a sweet little Bosnian-American, saw our children walking by and came up to them, asking if they would play with her.  And before Rob knew what had happened, the children were playing hide-and-seek and he was the happy recipient of some serious eastern European hospitality and offers of more... if you know what I mean.

This all made me so happy and so sad at the same time.  The smell of the peppers we were given sent me back to Baba Lida's Crimean kitchen, where I was once put to serious work, chopping peppers, eggplant and onions for a delicious mix that was then canned up for winter.  I am happy remembering those times, but I am sad too.  I should have been in Baba Lida's Crimean kitchen every weekend helping her, learning from her.

-a sigh-

Maybe I'll get invited to Baba Aïsha's Bosnian kitchen...

As Rob came out of Dyed Fahat's garden, this is what he found: All the kids were relaxing on the swing, Mita was quickly sipping a Coke and G was slamming the Sunkist.  I am sure that they knew their secret pleasures were soon to end, thus the rapid consumption.  Ty's treat was foiled by that tricky straw.