Day Ninety-Two: Getting Ready for the Shed

Jeremy continues to get things ready for our new 16' by 20' shed building. He tore down most of the well house where our well, pump, and pressure tank have been housed. All of that will be moved into the new shed. The old well house was a cedar post, two by four, and plywood affair, sided with tar paper. Arkansan architecture for sure. We had Owen pounding nails out of the two by fours that came out - a perfect job for a 15 year old. Jeremy cut down a couple more little trees that were in the way, and I think with a little more clean-up, we will be ready for the delivery of the shed! 

I weeded outside a little bit, and checked on and watered some plants I planted recently - my parsley which is looking pretty pitiful, holy basil (also known as tulsi), tomatoes, two tomatillos. I found a beautiful caterpillar on my dill, which I think is an Eastern Swallowtail caterpillar. Very exciting! It may demolish my dill, but it needs it more than I do. I'll just have to plant more next year. 

After a morning of work, Owen, the kids and I went back to the pool. Taiya has started swimming without her floaties for a good few feet, and she shouts, "Mama, look, I'm swimming! I'm swimming!" William keeps trying to swim unaided by flotation and keeps dunking himself, scaring me each time. But he'll get the hang of it too, I know. He's really comfortable swimming all over the pool while he's wearing his floaties, so he's learning fast. 

Owen went home this afternoon, with the promise that he'll be back another time. I don't know if he liked it here or not, but we liked having him. Before he left, Taiya was showing him all her doll stuff up in her room, and it was so sweet to overhear their somewhat one-sided conversation, her chattering away, him giving one or two word replies in his deep mumble. He is unceasingly kind to his little cousins, and I'm grateful for that. I hope he comes back again to stay with us in the land of minimal AC, slow internet, chatty children, and boring adults who like to garden and work in the woods and go to sleep at 9 pm. It's quite different from his urban life, but I hope the change was okay for him. 

For dinner I made rice, curried chickpeas, and steamed broccoli. When it was all done, William said, "But you said we could have bacon too!" So we made bacon too. And it was delicious. The kids are completely untroubled by the fact that the bacon used to be one of the pigs we fed on our daily rounds of evening chores. It's pretty amazing to me, who became a vegetarian at age 10 because I didn't want to hurt animals, that they can just accept this and move on without blinking. We have about 15 meat chickens we're raising now, and Jeremy plans to butcher them ourselves. Taiya cannot wait to pluck them so she can have the feathers. I've never done any butchering myself, so I'm going to have to really push my boundaries to participate in this process. But I think if I just follow the kids' enthusiasm and lack of over-empathizing with chickens, I'll be okay. I hope. 

In the news, cases of COVID continue to rise in Arkansas and the governor continues to do nothing. In Sebastian County, officials are going to have a meeting about the confederate monument that stands tall, proud, and offensive on the courthouse lawn. Fort Smith, they city where the courthouse is located, has an African American mayor who is old enough to have suffered through segregation in Fort Smith. He has joined the protest marches, and I am hopeful that his presence will ground the discussion surrounding confederate monuments a little. Also in the news, Biden was within the margin of error in polling in Arkansas. This gives me hope.