Fearless

Sena and Aiyana slept over at their grandma's house after Thanksgiving, and while they were there, Ed and I watched Fearless, the 2006 Chinese movie starring Jet Li.

I loved it. We only watch movies two or three times a year, so when we do I want to pick something that won't leave me with the feeling that I just wasted a couple of hours. I was very happy that I followed my friends Matt and Shandra's recommendation with this one. I loved everything about it: the martial arts, the story, the teachings, and the gorgeous scenery. There's a quote in the trailer, by Lao Tzu, which reflects on the theme of the movie:

Mastering others is strength. Mastering oneself makes you fearless.

Beautiful movie, definitely not a waste of time.

Peace

I have been so happy reading my poetry book before falling asleep at night. Below is another poem I really like by Sara Teasdale. Another nice thing that happened is that Sena and Aiyana have taken quite an interest in poetry as well, even though we're done studying it as part of homeschooling for a while. They still read and recite poems just for fun, and for me that is a beautiful thing to see.
 

  Midsummer night

 

Midsummer night, without a moon, but the stars

      In a serene bright multitude were there,

Even the shyest ones, even the faint motes shining

      Low in the north, under the Little Bear.

 

When I have said “This tragic farce I play in

      Has neither dignity, delight nor end,”

The holy night draws all its stars around me,

      I am ashamed, I have betrayed my Friend.

 

Two pictures and a lovely poem

November afternoon: Sena, Aiyana, and their cousins Julia, Stella and Lucy reading books together

And a beautiful poem by one of my favorite poets:
 

Prayer

by Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

Until I lose my soul and lie
Blind to the beauty of the earth,
Deaf though shouting wind goes by,
Dumb in a storm of mirth;

Until my heart is quenched at length
And I have left the land of men,
Oh, let me love with all my strength
Careless if I am loved again.

Morning milking routine

It snowed overnight and everything was very pretty under a light white blanket this morning.

Here is Opal waiting for to be milked under the peach tree.

 Sena, saying good morning to Jasmine.

Sena's asked if she could help me milk Opal, and I agreed. She's been coming out with me for about a week now. Here she is washing Opal's udder before milking.

 Aiyana's been coming out too, and spending time with the calf, Olive. Here she is brushing her.

Sena, milking while Opal is eating her treats. This morning we gave her brussel sprout tops, carrots and turnips. She loves her treats and waits for us eagerly every morning.

Aiyana getting a kiss from Olive.

Looks like she liked it.

Aiyana's good friend Yo is visiting this weekend. 

More kisses?

Peace

Apples harvested before frost

Happy Opal eating a cover crop of rye, vetch, clover and forage radish. Look at how lush that looks! The cows love it. I am very excited that now the covercrops we plant to sustain the soil over the winter not only do that and improve the soil for next season, but also provide a source of food for the cows at this time of the year when grass has pretty much stopped growing.

Aiyana with the dress my mother bought her in Spain. She wore it for Halloween. Sena wore a Pilgrim outfit (and won a prize for most original costume at gymnastics) but I don't have a picture unfortunately.

Peace

Yesterday was Sunday, our relaxing day, but it didn't turn out so. In the morning, we found out that the weather forecast changed from 29F to 23F for last night's low. That's quite a change and it put us in frenzy mode. Everything that's still out in the field, that could survive a light frost had to be re-evaluated whether it could take a hard frost (which 23F certainly is) or not. Sparing the details, our day ended up being running around between spinach, cabbages, beets, bok choi and many others, and covering everything with row covers and sand bags (many, many sand bags) against the frost. And then recovering, again and again, because the wind, which was blowing strong at 30+ mph kept ripping the covers right off as soon as we put them on. That's winter production. I always think "this is not worth it", but keep doing it anyway.....

At one point, after a couple of hours of sand bags and row covers, I lay down on the ground to rest, and it felt so blissful that I almost throughout that the whole ordeal of covering and fighting with the wind and running around like mad was worth it just for this relief. I must suggest that if you haven't laid down on the earth recently, you treat yourself to it. Pick a nice clean spot, with unsprayed grass if possible and just let your body be supported by the earth. To me, it feels like therapy, and if you have the luxury of a few minutes of peace and quiet just to do that, and pay attention to the sights and smells around you, I bet you'll feel restored. I did, and got right back up and into it again, with the covers and everything else.

We also had to pick forage radishes for the cows, because we thought they'd all get ruined by the cold, so I picked as many as I could and put them in the root cellar where they should store for months. Ed harvested all the apples that were left on the trees, which turned out to be about 5 bushels, so today I'm canning apple sauce.

After all that, it turned out the forecast was off, and the low was only about 32F, which made all that work unnecessary...But I guess better to be prepared this way, than to end up losing all the veggies and fruit that we could've saved. It had to be done anyway, hard frosts will be coming soon, no doubt about that.

We've been making fires every night now, which is one of my favorite things about the cold season. I've been bringing hot rocks from the stove in to warm the bed at night. I love that.

Opal and Jasmine and Olive are doing well. Milking is a little harder in some ways, with the cold mornings, but easier in others, such as lack of flies. I am much more bundled up when I go milk, which makes it harder to move around, and my hands are cold, which makes me reluctant to put them on Opal. Poor girl, she's all nice and warm, and then I shock her with freezing hands on her udder, but she's so good, she doesn't complain and warms me right up. Sometimes I hug her around her huge belly just to be near her, feel her heat and smell her amazing smell. Aiyana said this morning that I smell like cows, and I don't mind that one bit. I love that their earthy sweet smell is on me.

Peace

Cape Cod Vacation

We went to Cape Cod on a little vacation to celebrate the end of the season, just like we did last year in mid-October. We stayed at Nickerson State Park again, in a yurt. We planned to spend 4 nights, but only ended up staying 3 because it got rainy and cold.

We got there last Sunday, and after setting up in the yurt, we went for a little bike ride to a beach near Orleans. It was quite overcast, and windy, but we were well prepared with warm clothes.

On Monday, it was sunny and gorgeous. We rode to Marconi beach, 26 miles round trip from the campground, the longest ride Aiyana ever did. The beach was stunning, and made me instantly happy when I saw it. We saw seals playing in the waves; the girls played in the sand, and I just sat and looked out and eventually fell asleep in the sun, listening to the waves crashing on the shore. It was amazing.

Park ranger on the empty beach.

Ed, Sena and Aiyana

Me, very happy to be here

A very steep stairway came up the bank, and from the top of it the view was exhilarating.

We snacked on Autumn Olives, which grew plentifully along the bike path.

Aiyana on her bike

On Tuesday, Sena was feeling sick, so Ed stayed at the yurt with her and I took Aiyana to Sandwich, to the Thornton Burgess Briar Patch museum. Thornton Burgess is one of our favorite children’s books authors. I saw his “Fables of the Green Forest” series on TV when I was growing up in Romania, and always remembered his characters and the stories they were involved in. A few years ago, I quite by accident came across one of his books at a used book sale and immediately recognized it as the stories I used to love. I bought that book, which was Jimmy Skunk and read it to the girls, and since then they’ve been hooked and read all his books. Then I found out that he was from Cape Cod, and that’s how we came to visit his museum in Sandwich.

A cute little gift shop at the museum

Next to the museum, there was a jam kitchen, and there was jam making in progress, which was a nice surprise since I’ve been getting a little into jams myself this year. The smell was delightful, and it reminded me of my great-aunt’s kitchen in Romania, when she used to make sour cherry preserves.

Cranberry and beach plum jam in progress

On Wednesday, we went to Provincetown by car. It was rainy, and windy, and although Sena was feeling back to normal, she did not want to bike, and neither did the rest of us. We visited Pilgrim monument, a tall tower from the top of which you have a great view of the cape. We also visited the museum connected with it.

Quite windy up there. But fun for the girls.

Family picture

The stairway leading to the top of the tower

Later that afternoon we went to a beach south of the Cape to watch seals come out of the ocean at low tide. We were told that up to 200 of them will come out. When we got to the beach, there was a strong wind and driving rain, which made the scene very "dramatic", as Aiyana put it. Although it wasn’t the most comfortable, I found the views and the atmosphere very beautiful in their own way. But then again, to me the ocean is always beautiful, and I’d stare at it for hours no matter what the conditions. Just to be in its presence feels amazing.

Sand dunes on the way to the ocean

Sena, coming to the beach against the strong wind

Seals in the water! (Too hard to get a picture of because of the rain and heavy churning of the waves)

Despite the rain and cold, Aiyana was happily playing that she was flying in the wind

That's Ed down there.

Peace