Despite best laid plans, children packing boxes means that we may not find our cooking tools in a timely manner upon unpacking. I brought my Instapot in the Suburban with me, anticipating such challenges. We had bean soup, ham soup, split pea soup, vegetable soup, more bean soup, did I mention ham soup? Then one day, a bit of silver and a bit of black peeped out of a box, and there were the pots and pans, and then the utensils, and so after a week or so, we feel just that much closer to settled. It’s amazing how soup can nourish all of life in its simplicity!
There is joy in so many little things in this house. For instance, the stairs are something I never knew we needed! Atticus has found that he can bound down the stairs, catch the banister pole at the bottom and fling himself into the mud room. Great joy! He has been prohibited from doing so, as one day the pole will dislodge and fling into the mud room with him. The stairs come down into the kitchen, and in the mornings, sleepy children come down and sit on the stairs, leaning their heads against the rails while they watch me making breakfast. There is nothing quite like a beautiful child sitting on stairs, trying to make intelligible morning sentences. And then stairs are a toy to send a slinky down. How did I not know we needed stairs in our kitchen?
And we find other beautiful things in boxes. Atticus found his tap recital costume, and for several days, we were treated to tap dances and flashes of green as he dashed by. I found a wooden bucket I didn’t know I owned and thought it would be very keen to send Judah’s baseball snacks in it. He didn’t see the quaint value in the presentation, but he did come home with an empty bucket. We used egg cartons as padding in fragile boxes (I mean, our chickens haven’t laid a single egg in California since November, so why not put those cartons to good use!), and since our hens are busy thanking us for moving by blessing us with nearly a dozen eggs daily, we are putting them to good use! For several days we had temperatures in the teens. Our eggs came to us as egg slushies that needed to thaw before beating. Now I understand why there is a custard shop on every corner of Springfield!
My kitchen is seriously adorable. I must mention that. It’s not because I had anything to do with it. The former owner put a lot of sweat equity into this house, and her kitchen design is perfection!
New friends are everywhere here! We have met our neighbors to the north of us. There is a house where the parents live, the house where she grew up, and her father grew up before her. There is a house where the daughter lives, a house she lived in since she was in second grade. The son lived in our house until he sold it to us. It has been very upsetting to his mother to have him move so far away…all of 1/4 mile away. But people here often stay on the property their ancestors claimed before the last century. To leave the land is a sign of everything changing. The original claim may only have 50 acres remaining, but it remains!
The bull next door belongs to this legacy. The pond my children swim in has been a place where children ran and played and worked the ground for over 100 years. These kids are simply carrying on the spirit of family and life that already exists here.
Our barn is an interesting space where the old is at the heart of the new. The old barn remains, and the new structure was simply built around it. In the loft, Judah found a boat buoy made of Styrofoam and immediately understood the treasure in it. The barn doors on the north side need to be replaced, so he took one of them to build a raft, named it ol’ Bessy 2, and it now has more hours of use than the house.
Last week was icy and snowy, this week is warm and sunny. Tomorrow it will rain. Right now, though, these kids are all glowing and free, their hearts are beating strongly in their brave, wild chests, and there is nothing more perfect than that!
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