The Play

I'm tired and I need a change of scene

This play is good, but it is old

A new character might be the thing, 

Someone kind and maybe bold

I've tried to move but stuck is what I get

This play moves all around me

Can someone please change the set?

I don't seem to be able to

Whisk me backstage, change my costume

While people in black rearrange the place I know

Remove the furniture, hang up a moon

Once it's made new, then out again I shall go

Things have been busy around here, which is why I haven't posted so very much. We just finished making all the hay on our road during the sunny weather, and still have several more fields to do a few miles away. There are now 95 tons of hay in our barn and us kids even got some money for our work. 

This isn't our field and my mom is the one who took it but I am using it anyway. :P

We have also been insanely busy with making blacksmiths forges, something our family does as a business. After a popular Youtube guy published an interview with Dad and Cori, everyone went and bought a forge (right after they left some comment about Cori's muscles. Weirdos.)

Zack, working on forges

Last Friday, there was a folk dance. These dances we go to are awesome and full of other homeschooled, Christian people, for the most part. But this one was particularly fun for me, because in addition to awesome, high-speed dancing, the host family's son and his wife brought their six week old baby, who they were kind enough to let me hold for like 30 minutes. I don't get to hold infants very often, so I enjoyed that.

  

The dance

So that's a little bit of what I have been up to lately. What about you?

dance me into the night

You're wild 

Don't you know that's why I love you?

 Never passive, neither tame nor mild

You're a dangerous thing

Don't you know that's how you were made?

And it's befitting for a king

So do me a favor 
And don't ever be tamed

p.s

Ooo, a screaming contest!

Sunshine, for starters. Much more sunshine.

(Yep. This is one of those posts.)

Squealing as I try to crash my brother's model airplane and laughing with him as he pulls up just in time

Helping hardworking men who say thank you

Bittersweet memories of people who have forgotten, but who I can't seem to let go of

Homegrown things


(Blueberries? Oh man.)

Long, thoughtful hours on the seat of a tractor.

  (Sometimes I think I might have a country bone in my body, but I am somewhat consoled by the fact that it's my funny bone.)

Phone calls in the garden

Stacking hay late into the night and getting a nose full of dust

Bareback mule rides through tall grass at dusk

(And hoping I you don't get bucked off)

Butterflies by the river

Summer. So cliche and yet, somehow still sweet.

That's mine. What's yours?

P.S

Haha

The Things Nobody Else Sees

The things nobody else sees

The things I see alone

The lovely grace in my grove of trees

An ancient bovine's crumbling bones

These are a few things I see alone

An mammal is breathing I N and O UT

It's breathing.

Don't you get it?

No, you don't.

You've never seen.

\\\///

An insect is moving, creeping, crawling

It's moving. 

Don't you get it?

No, you don't.

You've never seen.

You may have looked,

A fleeting glance granted

But you've never seen,

You just looked and were unenchanted

Looked and kept on walking

Have you ever seen?

Are you another who comprehends?

How often I've imagined you,

Imagined being what they call friends

But maybe it's just me....

Seeing the things nobody else sees.

p.s

 to accompany a rambly post

Do Hard Things

I don't like it

and

I don't want to

How many times have I thought this phrase?

So often, it starts to amaze

But why? 

What does it cost you, to do what is right?

After all, it's not by your own might.

It's hard

and

It's painful

So what if it is? 

You've forgotten you're His.

But why?

You're a child of the High King

Preparing for ruling.

You're a child of the High King

So do hard things.

Insects and Fairs

Klickitat River

        This weekend was by far the most fun I've had in a lonnngggg time. I was invited by Arthur Dunn to go on an butterfly collecting trip with him, one of his naturalists friends and a lepidopterist, Caitlin LaBar on Saturday. Needless to say, I was a bit excited. 

        

There were lots of butterflies, as well as some very cheeky crickets Arthur and I took the time to catch. I didn't take many pictures, but here are a few

Swallowtails 

Pale Swallowtail

We also saw a rattlesnake facing off with a squirrel. The squirrel was antagonizing the rattler and he seemed to have had about enough of the squirrel and was leaving. 

The rattlesnake. See it?

Caitlin, Arthur and Marianne

A deer that died sometime in the winter. No beetles underneath, sadly.

So yeah. Best day evah.

THEN on Sunday, my family had a booth at the Mother Earth News fair for the blacksmithing forges we make. While nowhere near as much fun as Saturday was, it was still an enjoyable day.

Cori blacksmithing

Lady Em from The Life and Times of Emily C. 

Yours truly, sunburning.

Cori, giving a lesson to this year's guy-who-stays-and-watches-literally-the-whole-time. There always is one.

Mom

Also, I  home with two chicks. Because they're adorable. Their names are John Carter and Jay, even though they're both females. Autumn bought two as well.

Jay climbed up there on the way home,

And then was joined by everyone else. I was so tired and sunburned at this point.

Autumn's face here about sums up how all of us were feeling by the end of the day. 

That's what I've been up to. What about you? 

Dun dun dun

A Lullaby

The day is gone, my love

and you spent it well

Now do you hear the cry of the mourning dove?

She's telling you to rest with her coo

rest, she sighs

Sleep in the arms of one who dearly loves you

A day well spent is a treasure to keep

a blessing indeed

And so is a dark starry night full of the deepest of sleep

So rest now and don't be afraid 

not of the night

The moon shines on the pillow where your head should be laid

And even were the stars snuffed out

and the moon made darker than ash

I would never leave you darling, I'm here for you; 

You have only to ask

listen, listen