Independent Child

Yesterday was Hitter's 16th birthday.  We celebrated by taking pizza to her volleyball practice for the team and having ice cream cake after dinner.  She hates parties, didn't want to go anywhere, and her only activity request was to sleep. 

I don't believe that wishing while pregnant for what your child will be like actually forms any part of their personality or appearance, but damned if Hitter isn't exactly what I hoped she's be. 

The last time Hitter did something make-up-y

She's sarcastic and honest, has a style all her own and doesn't give a damn if it doesn't follow trends or match what her friends are wearing.  She couldn't care less about brand names or if what she likes is popular.  She has a boy's hair cut and wears her shirts sloppily enough that she gets referred to by strangers as a boy. She can jump straight up 36 inches from a flat footed start (the athletic director calls her a freak of nature, which makes her laugh). She can do 50 Marine Corps style push ups without pause.  She's got a 4.0 GPA, tied for valedictorian, which she doesn't want, because she'll have to give a speech, but she doesn't want to mess up her GPA for college entrance.  She only wears make-up at Halloween.  She wore black leather work boots with her prom dress.

All the flats were too girly

 



 

Hitter has a best friend (Bunny) who calls me mom.  She is the only person on this earth who Hitter lets hug her with abandon.  They use each other as pillows, sit in the same chair, stay up all night watching Walking Dead, hit each other, insult each other, and damn the person who tries to come between them.  Hitter had a crush on a boy last summer... we've camped with his family for years and years, and for the first time she didn't hide in her tent reading all week.  She hung out with Scout.  She FLIRTED.  Bunny started texting with Scout since Hitter was talking about him non-stop.  For a couple of months it was the three of them, constantly on the phone, on face book, etc.  Then Hitter stopped.  'They like each other' she told me, 'and I'd rather be friends with both of them than only have one.'

 

Hitter is an Leftside Outside Hitter (hence the name) for her high school volleyball team.  This will be her second year on varsity.  She catches an amazing amount of air... she's 5'4", and can get her elbow above the top of a regulation height net.  She's got a line drive serve that Aces about half the time.  Her coach is working with her to combine the two into a jump serve.  She still has another year of high school ball after this, I have no doubt she'll get it down.

 

Getting some air

 

Volleyball is her sport, there might as well be no other.  She picked her college (a high ranked small private college) in part because they have a dedicated volleyball team, but aren't a big enough school to make the paper in any meaningful way.

 

Am I bragging?  Damned straight.  I could go on forever about this girl of mine.  She's played an instrument for 7 years.  She is part of the only club at her tiny high school that discusses issues of discrimination, and I got phone calls after she made an impromptu speech on love, and how it can't be stopped just because some people say it's wrong.  She has a massive attitude.  She hates attention directed at her and will flat ignore teachers if she doesn't feel like responding. She detests being touched without initiating (and she never initiates).  She'd rather read than do anything else.  She likes rock and alternative, hates country and pop.

 

She leaves for college in just two tiny, short, will go by like nothing years, and she is so independent and self sufficient I'm afraid she will never call me and I will lose one of the most amazing people I know.

 

Happy Birthday my beautiful independent child.  You are everything I could have ever wanted.  I love you.







Life As We Know It

So one of Knight and my stated goals is to be self sufficient.  He'd like to spend less money on groceries.  I'd like to live in 1850 and live off the land.  Ok not -literally-, I like the internet too much for that.  But I do have a fondness for crafts of the era... when sewing, canning and spinning wasn't met with 'You do what now?' but was considered part of what every young woman knew as a matter of course.

Unfortunately,  the world being what it is, and the economy being what IT is, I work a 40-50 hour a week job.  Because we chose to live outside city limits (better school, less taxes, more space, less rules about what we can do on our own land) I have 10ish hours of commute a week. Add in sleep and family/school/sports/etc time.... Well, not a lot of time to focus on my hobbies.

(Except for sports photography.  It says something about how much I do that when other parents ask if I'm showing up at X game for a sport none of my own kids play.  Probably says more that the answer tends towards yes.)

This whole area is now in ground garden.  And overgrown weeds.

ANYWAY.  This is my first year of having an in-ground garden (as opposed to an in-pots garden) since I was a teen living with my parents.  I didn't do much of the hard labor then... also we used an area that had been used as a garden for a few years before we moved to that house, so the soil was pretty much ready to go.  Soil here, not so much.  Actually, three years ago it was a mass of blackberry brambles (the weed of the PNW), at least once it was used as a burn area in the past 20 years, and probably in relation to being a burn pile, attempts to sprout broken bottles and bits of metal on a fairly regular basis.  Also I suspect a previous owner thought a rock garden was a good plan.  Add to that two people who only have a vague idea of what goes into a garden before the seeds.

Last year's garden, all in pots.

Yeah.

Knight rented a rototiller while I was at work and.... kind of failed miserably at actually tilling the soil.  He didn't really have a clear idea what was supposed to happen.  And the dirt did get turned over... just not very much.  So Monster and I ended up going back over about a 15 x 15 foot area with a pickax and shovels.  Hellllloooooo blisters.  But we cleared it enough to plant.  I did a mix of seed starting and starts bought at the big Farmer's Market in town.

My rows....are not very row like.  More clustery.  And they definitely are at an angle.  But they are In. The. Ground.  And we've gotten food off them!  So far I've gotten 5 heads of lettuce (right before we headed to California, where our produce isn't allowed to go), 2 yellow squash, a zucchini, a bunch of shelling peas, 4 tomatoes (Black Prince, heirloom), 5-6 grape tomatoes, a bunch of chilies, random bits of broccoli... I think that's it.  I have more lettuce coming up, acorn and summer squash growing, more peas, more chilies, so many tomatoes I may run out of jars to can them in, and cucumbers showing signs of actually doing something.

Salsa from last year's garden

Lessons learned this year:

1. start seeds earlier.  This is a tough one for me, as it doesn't actually get spring like here until end of June, and indoor cats who think starts are either for eating or peeing.  But I found some hints that I'm going to try next year, namely clear totes apparently make excellent mini greenhouses.

2. borrow a rototiller and make sure we know how to use it.  This is part necessity and part Hitter's coach's wife was horrified we rented a rototiller when they have an herb farm.  I got scolded and told to borrow theirs.  Also she'll come down and help me if I ply her with good coffee.

Plan for the rest of the year is to continue with what we have, then spread compost, lay down a cover crop, rototill all that in before hard frost/snow, whichever we get this year, then compost again and let it all stew until next spring.  I'd like to expand to at least 20x20, although 30x30 is doable if we have actual tilled ground I can work without killing my hands.  I want non GMO corn (if I can still find it, if not, no corn), beans, peas, lettuce, tomatoes, cabbage, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, carrots, radishes, peppers, chilies, onions, pepperchinis, and whatever else catches my eye between now and planting time.  All organic and heirloom.  http://www.rareseeds.com/ is a great website for seeds.

Ok, in between typing I have canned a double batch of strawberry rhubarb jam, strawberry syrup and rhubarb syrup.  Now off to do dishes and mop the floor because sticky.