The Good and Bad Of Living In Old Houses

It's 7:30 a.m. and there is pounding on the roof that is seriously rattling our old windows. The work up there is right above Grace's room and is causing the chandelier in her ceiling to jingle. For a few years now, we've had a leak in our roof, along the front wall of the house - where the 'old porch' (which is now part of our living room) meets the 'new porch' (the one we sit on in the mornings and evenings and in between). Every year, with the first chance of rain, we would clean out the gutters and sweep the roof. And then wait to see if the fix that we had tried the winter before would work. But alas, the drip, drip, drip would begin, somewhere along that front line. SO frustrating! Finally, this year, we got the referral of a roofer from a trusted friend and they are on day three, the final day, of fixing the roof. Old houses have issues, but they also have character and charm, which is what you have to remember when you are about to bust out the checkbook and write a whopper to the roofing company. Over the past few weeks, Jamey has fixed a leaky pipe to the tub, the old screen door, and our dishwasher (also leaking). But the roof is just too tricky for us, thus the swallowing of the pride and hiring of the crew.

On day one, while the guys were removing old shingles and plywood, one of the crew brought me a page of a newspaper that they found. It seems the 'new porch' was added in 1951. We now know this because the builders used newspaper under the plywood. This page from the sports section of the LA Examiner on Sunday, June 16 is all that remains. Because we are a weird family, we all think this is the coolest thing we have seen for a while! Jason and I were particularly excited to see the picture of the baseball players in their uniforms, and the story about a pitcher named Holcombe who had a great game against the Boston Red Sox. On the other page is an ad from a store that was selling 'gowns' for $5.99 and some kind of corduroy fabric for a dollar a yard. Jason and I looked up the year 1951 in my "Baseball Chronicle" book (yes, I do own a year-by-year history of baseball, and yes, we do use it often. I told you we are a weird family!) In 1951, the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn and the Giants were still in New York. Joe DiMaggio retired at the end that season, and Micky Mantle was a rookie. The best player in the American League was Ted Williams, Roy Campanella was best in the NL, Willie Mays was rookie of the year, and Stan 'The Man' Musial won the batting title. Towards the end of the season, in the National League championship series, the Giants beat the Dodgers on a three-run walk-off homer by Bobby Thompson, known as 'the shot heard 'round the world', and "the Giants won the pennant! The Giants won the pennant!" What an amazing year - and what fun to think about all of that happening as a porch was being put up on the front of our little old house!

Bartering In The Neighborhood

In the summertime, some children watch pets while friends are on vacation and get paid to do it. It makes a pretty great, relatively easy beginning job. My neighbor has 2 very large dogs and 3 miniature horses (it is vitally important that it is known that they are not ponies, but real miniature horses. There - now it is clear.). One of the miniature horses is a baby, making it therefore a miniature miniature horse. Last weekend, I fed the animals for them so that they could go to their granddaughter's dance recital down in Burbank (the big city). In true Garden Farms fashion, I did not accept any paper money for doing this (that would be a rip off, because it is so easy to feed these animals), but my neighbor needed to give me something. She often gives me fudge or chocolate cake or brownies for feeding the pets, which is ok (we are, oddly, not a big chocolate family), but this time she gave me a couple of really useful items, pictured here. A bag of lemons (they don't grow up here - it freezes in the winter) and a wheelbarrow full of horse droppings. GOLDEN! The lemons are inside, being used up slowly but surely. And the horse droppings are out in the corner of the garden, slowly decomposing. I would have put them in the compost pile, but Max the Dog kept eating them (what a disgusting creature!) so I had to put them where I could fence them off. Now that's a payment we can really use!

Goodbyes, Small and Large

We have almost reached the end of year thirteen at Cal Poly, and as usual it is time to say goodbye to students, staff and interns who are moving forward to their own adventures. It's hard to imagine what life will be like without some of them, but then who would want to stay in college forever? Well, maybe Jamey and I would....that's why we like our jobs so much! (For example, last weekend I went to TWO Cal Poly baseball games - awesome!) All of the goodbyes, celebrations, and reminiscing have made me feel oddly sentimental and nostalgic.

To make it even more difficult on myself, I got seven boxes of 'stuff' from our homeschooling days down out of the attic to sort through yesterday. Friends of mine are writing a book about our little co-op, and needed some pictures of our projects and materials (plus, I admit it, we are old now, and can't just remember everything we did, so we needed to look through papers and workbooks to remember the names of publishing companies we used). My friend Sara and I had so much fun looking through the boxes and remembering what amazing things we were able to do. We visited museums, tidepools, deserts, and artists' studios. When the kids studied the moon, we did fun projects during the day, and then hung out on one family's trampoline for a couple of hours at night, gazing at the moon and talking to each other. When Grace learned about Egyptian history, she made cuneiform tablets out of clay and wrote her name in hieroglyphics. Jason was allowed to pick out his science topic every year, so we have amazing projects on insects, spiders, amphibians, reptiles, and the ocean. And don't even get me started on the art - most of it is actually framed and hanging in our house.

I ended up throwing away most of the 'busywork' items - math worksheets, grammar books, spelling lessons, etc., but kept the really good stuff - one box for each child. Later that night our family had fun glancing through the boxes and seeing how far the kids have come. I think my greatest desire was that I wanted my kids to learn how to think for themselves (you wouldn't believe how rare this actually is!) and to be creative, and I realized last night that they really have become those kind of people....but in a cool, socially normal kind of way.

Now a weird thing is happening to me - every time I walk past the garbage can outside, a little voice in my head says, "You are throwing away your kids' childhood!". I do not need that kind of guilt - or clutter, for that matter. I keep reminding myself that their childhood is still part of them, like a building block, and a foundation. And we will always have fantastic memories, great friends, a love of learning, a spinal column made out of wooden spools, and a variety of assorted items made out of Plastina modeling clay.

Frolicking

Oh, how we love our neighborhood! Although I often refer to many of them as "my hippie neighbors", and they would consider it a compliment, they are some of the most caring, generous, and interesting people we have ever known. Grace and I have often joked that she should have a patch on her cheer uniform that says, "Sponsored by Garden Farms" because of all the cookie dough they have purchased from our fundraising. One year the neighborhood raised thousands of dollars for a fellow neighbor who had a sudden aneurism and became disabled. They take meals (really good ones) to new moms and sick folks. We all go Christmas caroling at the local nursing home in December. If we ever need any kind of tool, or garden/home advice, it is given cheerfully and generously. We consider it a huge blessing to live here.

So, when we received an invitation in the mailbox, for an engagement/'May Day' celebration, I knew I had to go. Guests were encouraged to wear 'spring costumes' (thus the hats, hawaiian shirts, and one neighbor dressed as a tree that I saw. No kidding. I myself wore flip-flops and felt springy enough) and to bring musical instruments (thus the djembe drums from the 'drum circle' crowd). There was food. Organic of course. There were party favors - small fairy magnets and colored crystal rocks. There were songs. And of course, there was frolicking and dancing around the May Pole, which involved the intricate weaving of ribbons and some kind of song that sounded like a Native American chant, but in Celtic. This would be the point where we ducked out and headed home. ( Jamey made a joke about not looking back and becoming a pillar of salt.) But not before we congratulated our engaged neighbors, who are both very sweet, and who seem very happy.

Perhaps we will host a neighborhood Christmas party this year...a real one, with actual Christmas carols, and nativity scenes, and a birthday cake for Jesus.....just to balance it all out....

Boy and Girl

Recently, Jason turned 14 and Grace turned 17. This made a lot of thoughts run through my mind, such as, "Oh my gosh, I must be so old now, but how can this be?"

It is so fun to watch both of them live their lives and grow up. We just love the people they are, and the people they are becoming. It's also quite entertaining to see how different they are. The above photo is but one example. It was taken along the Nacimiento-Fergusson Road on the way home from an overnight camping trip to Big Sur, which was how Grace wanted to celebrate her birthday (we took the family, four of Grace's friends, and Max the Dog, who was in heaven the entire time). Jason celebrated a couple of weeks ago by having some friends over and "microwaving stuff you're not supposed to microwave" (not in mine, in one we got at a thrift store for $5).

The boy in the photo hasn't showered in a couple of days, even though he played a baseball game. It's okay, though, because he is wearing a beanie. He also didn't bring his toothbrush on the camping trip "because it's only one night". He only takes serious photos for school and for sports, because if you do those wrong, you have to do re-takes, and one time is usually considered torture enough. Besides, why be normal if your sister is right there beside you smiling nicely? He might be happy because the previous night, the girls paid him 2 dollars to run around the campground waving a pink flag. So he has been loaded up with girl-attention and some money at this point.

The girl looks like an ad for camping. She has a knack for wearing cute outfits at the appropriate times. She plans out everything, down to the small details, and it works just about every time. Her camping dinner included tri tip, grilled veggies, grilled pineapple, a salad, grilled garlic bread, and smores for dessert - probably the best camping meal we've ever had. Even the weather cooperated. And there are 139 pictures in an album on Facebook to document the occasion. Really cute photos - even this one, which is possibly my favorite, because it is a classic example of what I love about my boy and my girl.

Good Bread!

My 'Farmgirl' group was over a couple of weeks ago to learn about grains and bread-making. Everyone used my grain mill to grind some whole wheat flour (this must be done outside, or by my gracious and valiant husband, since it gives me instant allergies....plus it makes a lot of dust!), and we made homemade tortillas and a couple of loaves of my becoming-famous brown bread. I actually got this recipe from my friend Katie back in my homeschooling days, and I love it because it involves no yeast (therefore no waiting around for it to rise), and it is delicious. Oh, and when you are not sure if you will have 15 people or 20 people over for dinner, let's say, because, for example, you work with college students and no one ever rsvp's, easy loaves like these are a good filler! I made it last year for our annual St Patrick's Day dinner, and this year, one of our staff guys (who did rsvp, so bonus points for him!), sent me a text message that read, "No pressure, but are you making that brown bread again this year?" When I answered yes, he sent me another text that said, "YES!!!!" That pretty much made my day!

Here is the recipe in case you want to try. It is very easy, which is good, because I am, of course, very lazy.

BROWN BREAD

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1/2 - 3/4 cups packed brown sugar

1/4 cup unsulfured molasses

2 cups buttermilk

optional ingredients: 1 cup raisins and/or 1 cup chopped walnuts

Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl, and mix the liquids in another bowl.

Stir liquids into the dry, until just-mixed. Add any optional ingredients.

Pour batter into a greased, floured loaf pan and bake at 375 for 50-60 minutes.

Remove from pan, and cool well before slicing.

Pappas family addition: When serving, spread with a really good amount of butter.

Enjoy!

Small Quick Updates...

1. Jason turned 14 on Sunday, and to celebrate, he and 5 friends microwaved "things you're not supposed to microwave", including a light bulb, cd, and a whole egg (we bought a $5 thrift store microwave for the occasion, and did it all outside. The light bulb was colorful and amazing, kind of like a Pink Floyd concert, or so I'm told)

2. Grace got her SAT results back and CRANKED, just like we figured! What a smarty-pants. Now she's running for Senior Class President. I stand in amazement of her almost every day....

3. We got three small chicks, to replace the 5 older hens that retired to a large acreage in Los Osos, down by the beach. The new ones are Barred Rocks, which means they will be the black and white kind pictured above when they grow up. For the moment they are spending the cold nights in a box in our living room, under our desk light, pecking the cardboard and waking me up several times each night.

4. Jamey spoke at a men's retreat up in the redwoods, north of San Fran, and took Jason and his friend Deven. They had a spectacular time and found yet another fantastic bbq restaurant.

5. Baseball season started!!! To celebrate, I signed up for MLB Audio on my computer so I can listen to games while I am working. Also, Jason's Babe Ruth League games have started and he is on the Angels this year. So far the team is 3-0 and he is batting .500. Show off.

6. Today I filled up the truck with gas and the final amount was $85.69. It's so awful I took a photo (on my cell phone, which I haven't yet learned to transfer to this blog). I may have gotten a little teary.

7. My Farm Girls group met at my house and we ground wheat into flour and made bread from scratch. I learned that kneading the dough takes approximately 10-15 minutes by hand, and about 60 seconds in a cuisinart. Guess which one I will be using from now on?

8. Jamey and I helped to process applications for staff, stint (one-year overseas missions), and internships, for students who are hoping to work for Campus Crusade in our region next year. We had about 165 students apply!! That's a huge increase from last year.

9. Because of all of the winter rain, the oaks and pines around us are so loaded with pollen that they are yellow. Pollen coats our cars, porch, and front walk with yellow dust. SO, I am currently running on the treadmill inside the gym, where my nose is assaulted not by pollen, but by "After Shave Man", the guy who wears way too much cologne.

10. We got a new, cool gopher trap and caught our first gopher! And so it begins.....