Day Two: Seed Starting and Glitter

The sun has set on day two, and it was actually pretty fun. I am ignoring the news that this thing may go through July or August, because that is way too much to take in, too big a change in our normal routine to really comprehend. Today we had fun. Tomorrow, we will try to have more fun. Beyond that, I’ll take a lesson from Iris Dement and 'let the mystery be.'

It was gray, cold, and rainy again today. I woke up early to get a couple hours of work in at my computer before everyone else woke up. Jeremy did chores early too, to get back to the house in plenty of time to help keep the kids occupied. William woke up and immediately started asking how the new baby chicks were, and whether any of them had gotten eaten in the night. Then he had to play with them right away. He likes to take one out of its warm box, put it on the couch where it inevitably poops, then put it back in the bin again. He has been very helpful in feeding the chicks, and he always wipes up the poop, so I guess he’s half way to being a farmer.

Taiya has become a “science video” star this week. By star I mean she’s made three science videos that we’ve posted to Facebook, at her request. I told her this morning that several people, like her Mimi and other friends had commented that they loved her videos, and she started bubbling like a glass of champagne. It’s safe to say we’ll be continuing that activity. It’s fun for me to be her camerawoman. I never know what she’s going to say, and she is so sweet and entertaining.

The kids busied themselves with oobleck, legos, and moon sand for much of the morning, Jeremy got a big hunk of pork going in the smoker, and I was able to do some up-potting. I went ahead and

purchased a seedling starter heat mat this spring after years of trying to start seeds without one, and lo and behold it works! I have been getting amazing consistency with germinating all kinds of things. That means, though, that I have to do something with them once they’re up and going. So, I happily played with plants for a while today, and got an old shelf put up in the window to start stacking all these babies on. So far, I’ve got holy basil, unholy basil (regular culinary variety), Thai red hibiscus, black krim tomatoes, sorrel, and flat leaf parsley all sprouted and going strong. Tomorrow I’ll start some more varieties of seeds in the space I made in my germination tray when I up-potted (put into bigger pots) the little seedlings.

The rest of our day kind of floated along like a leaf on a current, without a lot of paddling in any particular direction. Yes, there was some screentime for the kids. Probably not the best quality. They’ve been watching some show called “Glitter World” or something. Glitter is in the title, I know that, and it sounds… okay? I don’t know. It was no StoryBots. I did try to get them to do a “Lunch Doodle” drawing time online with Mo Willems, one of our favorite author/illustrators, but they were not in the mood. Taiya has kept up with her school work, but other educational activities have been less formal. 

We did afternoon chores all together, and that was wonderful. We played with our puppies, got all the goats rounded up, fed the pigs, and had fun hitting bumps in the farm truck. I have been taking lots of pictures and videos of all our activities, with the hopes of using them for work. I was videoing our sow Lucy eating her supper, trying to show how we fence her in and feed her, and Taiya said, “she can bite my daddy’s arm off!” and William piped up, “and her ears are as big as a racecar!” So we’re definitely using that footage.

After a dinner of roasted broccoli, smoked pork, and quinoa, the kids watched the second half of the movie they started last night, I got a little more work done, and that was day two. Mundanity at its best.