I spent the last week in and around Glacier National Park in Montana. Spring mountain weather being what it is, there was a lot of rain on the western side of the mountains. We could see, very clearly, how the mountains caught the clouds and there they would sit until they had dropped enough rain to make it up and over the peaks. Cresting the Continental Divide, we would very quickly emerge from the clouds and into open blue skies. But where we sat, or hiked, on the West side was always covered by clouds. We could get glimpses of snowfields and rock faces, but then they would disappear again while another mountain peaked out.
All this sitting under the clouds got me a little gloomy. But then the summer solstice came. And I spent it under the clouds. Even through I knew it was the longest day of the year, it felt like the big skies of Montana were pressing down on us. And it seemed so mystical to me that the was a bright blue sky with hours and hours of sunlight up there, I just couldn’t see it right now. It raised me spirits and felt a lot like hope — knowing it was there was enough.
I did a lot of stitching on the porch of our cabin, reflecting on the unseen sun and listening to the evening rain.
My little story cloth took a swim on Sunday, when we spent the day next to a mountain creek (the prettiest little creek that you ever did see!). At the time I was very interested in my lunch, when I saw this little bit of fabric tumbling past me in the breeze. I leapt after it, but it moved quickly down to the water and floated on top. I thought it would stop there, since it wasn’t blowing in the wind… but I forgot about the current. The swift current.
It didn’t take me too long to catch the adventuring story cloth, and I didn’t get too wet fishing it out. But I spent a while thinking about the current after that. I had been thinking about electrical currents — the metaphorical charge you feel when an idea flashes through your brain. And also literal currents, since my kids spent the previous day wiring a robo-car with my husband. But now there is a new kind of current to think about — the river current!
What is pulling us? What are the forces that surround us?
Once upon a time, you would have learned everything you needed to know about mending from a relative or neighbor. You would have learned this as a kid, likely, and now you would already have a system for keeping up with torn knees and unraveling hems. But in this time, our time, mending is on track to become a Lost Art, and you may not have learned anything about darning, patching or stitching. And where are those friends and family now? Can they still teach us how to maintain our clothes? They are getting older and harder to find. But we are lucky to have a neighbor in Katrina Rodabaugh, a Germantown, NY resident and author of the just released Mending Matters: Stitch, Patch, and Repair Your Favorite Denim & More.
Her motto is simple: “Just begin…You’ll improve techniques as you practice. You’ll gain insights and confidence as you navigate forward.” And many folks are eager to begin, to learn mending as a way of slowing the consumption and waste cycle. But those of us with kids look at the mountain of clothes that they wear hard and bring home broken. And we wonder, is it worth it to patch their clothes? Do I have to conquer the whole mountain?
I talked to Rodabaugh, who has two young boys, and she offered her encouragement for the newbie mender. She reminds us to take it “one garment at a time. One patch at a time. One stitch at a time.”
The kids’ clothes are the conundrum, really. They grow out of them so quickly, it’s hard not to wonder if it’s worth it to fix them. Rodabough’s strategy? “I try to mend my older son’s clothes as soon as the tear becomes visible. This way I can preserve his clothes for as long as they fit him and also pass them to my youngest son.”
And her handiwork lives on after her kids outgrow a patched jacket, because she passes clothes on to friends or strangers. “The mending lives on beyond us,” she said. “Most of my children’s wardrobes are secondhand so I like to think their garments are well-loved for years before and years after.”
We teach our kids about recycling and energy conservation, so why not waste reduction? Rodabaugh’s two boys, “view mending as a normal way of caring for clothing. Plus, they love the stitches and patches on their clothes.”
And isn’t that what we want for a family culture of sustainable living? We can reintroduce healing practices as “normal” and let our kids learn from their families, even if it skipped a few generations prior. Originally published in Dirt Magazine Nov/Dec 2018
When we commit a chunk of money to a vacation, we hope that we will come
out of it with some good memories and awakened interests and family
connection. I mean, it’s a lot of money. And a lot of work to plan, pack
and carry out. So we want some return on our investment, right? We want
to have fun, dammit!
But how? What’s fun for a grown man and also fun for a four-year-old?
Our vacation strategy was inspired by Dr. Brene Brown, author of The Gifts of Imperfect Parenting. She writes about her experience trying to find out what felt like “play” to everyone in her family — which can involve some detective work. Once Dr. Brown had her info, she drew Venn diagram to find the overlaps.
Taking a page from Brown’s book, we’ve tried to identify what is play for all of us, and where our play lists overlap. It’s not a big cross section. Our kids are fast and reckless in crowded museums, slow and aimless in wide open spaces. The list of group activities that satisfy me, my husband, a 4- and a 7-year-old is short. But that’s okay — helpful, even. We can fix those activities as the center of our vacation planning.
Beach-combing can keep all of us happy for a long while. When the little one loses interest, he can play in the water or dig or run or snack. Being in calm coves helps make it easier to trust him not to get knocked over by a wave, plus we all love finding a secret place out in the wilds. A warm day at the beach is so lovely, but we also spent a wet and cold week at the beach in the temperate rainforests of Washington State. Long underwear and rain gear for all. We spent that week hunting for agates, jasper and other rocks on the beaches, then warming up by the wood stove while we sorted all the treasures. And washed the treasures and polished the treasures and read about the treasures…
I have also realized that I need to separate being out in nature from hiking. Hiking with kids kind of makes me miserable. I feel stuck in the slow lane while I just want to move forward. And something about trails makes kid’s shoes turn to iron weights. Three steps in and they are tired. So, we aim to find a place where we all want to linger — a mountain stream is my favorite. The kids play in the water, and my husband and I are happy to join in for a bit. Then we can read, picnic, whittle, talk or just lie on warm rocks.
Also on our short list of fun-for-all activities is buffets (specifically breakfast or an Indian buffet) since everyone gets exactly what they want and the feel of abundance is a balm to the limits and constant compromise that come with travel. You want to eat a bowl of strawberries for breakfast? Go ahead, kid.
For a midwinter weekend getaway, we have a three-year-and-counting family tradition of going to a suite hotel upstate with an indoor pool, large breakfast buffet, and evening cocktail and snack hour. We eat junk food, watch TV and leave the hotel once a day to take a walk. We indulge and lounge and play and rest. It’s not exotic or expensive (off-season rates!), but it does feel decadent – for everyone.
Originally published in Dirt Magazine, Jan/Feb 2019. Updated May 2019
Pumpkin custard baked in 1/2 cup mason jar. Portable and delicious.
Trying to eat locally and seasonally seems daunting when you are feeding the picky three-year-old or the perpetually famished 13-year-old. Even trying to explain it to them (and why they don’t get cereal for breakfast) seems tough enough, let alone trying to source, shop, prep and cook local meals for your family. I’m not going to lie, it’s way easier to get the same grocery items week after week, and avoid the extra effort and drama that variety brings.
But you and I both know why eating locally is important, both for our community and our family. The question is how you can still keep your children fed and happy, especially when they need an after school snack – five minutes ago. Is there local snack food?
Glad you asked. Here is a list of some of our favorite snacks that we can source locally and/or make at home. I have left out the obvious fresh fruit & vegetables, but you already know you can serve your kids carrot sticks.
Apple sauce
Baked apples or pears
Baked potatoes
Berries & whipped cream
Cheese & apples (cut apples into flat slices and eat it like a sandwich)
Cheese & tomato jam
Dried apple rings
Edamame (soybeans, steamed & salted)
Fruit leather (peach is our favorite)
Hard boiled eggs (or deviled eggs if you can manage mayonnaise*)
Homemade crackers
Kale Chips
Mayo (oil, egg yolk, acid and salt. Oil and the acid would require exceptions or thoughtful sourcing)
Oven fries
Peaches and cream
Pickled cauliflower (fermented, takes well to any spice mix – my favorite is curry)
Pickled green beans (I ferment them in a salt/water brine, easier than cucumber pickles)
Popcorn (use lard or butter, plus salt and dried dill)
Popsicles (fruit, yogurt & honey)
Pumpkin custard (like the pie, but without a crust)
Recently, I took a look at the news, and took a look at our bookshelves. One made me feel hopeless, and one filled me with hope. The books that we are reading, especially the read-aloud books, spark so many conversations, and become examples we can point to when a 7-year-old is trying to grasp big concepts, even when we shield him from the specifics of the front page headlines.
I used the Common Sense Media book reviews to gather books that share a wide range of experiences, so many of which overlap with our own lives, goals, struggles and dreams. A Different Pond shows what father-son time looks like for a refugee family trying to make ends meet in America. Harriet Gets Carried Away is the story of a wildy imaginative girl who has unexpected adventures from the grocery story to Antarctica, all while her two dads wait to place their order at the deli counter. El Chupacabras is a bilingual story that has us all shouting “una tortita de cabra” or, “a goat pancake!”
Common Sense Media book reviews go into detail about the occurrences in the book. They measure content categories including: Educational Value, Positive Role Models & Representation, Violence & Scariness, Consumerism, Sexy Stuff, Language, and Drinking & Drugs. Additionally, they seem to seek out books that feature a wide range of characters, including sensitive boys, powerful girls, neurodivergent kids, gay parents, single-parent households, people of color, immigrants and many more. All that to say, the stories are amazing and it works a lot better than just looking at the library bookshelves and grabbing a few with interesting titles. Plus, if you get them on inter-library loan, you can put them on hold at home and then just pick them up at the library desk a couple days later.
Here’s a sampling of books we got recently from the library (some coming via the inter-library loan system):
Interstellar Cinderella by Deborah Underwood, age 3+
What if… by Samatha Bergner, illustrated by Mike Curato, age 4+
Harriet Gets Carried Away by Jessie Sima, age 4+
El Chupacabras by Adam Rubin, illustrated by Crash McCreery, age 4+
The Word Collector by Peter H. Reynolds, age 4+
Julian is a Mermaid by Jessica Love, age 4+
The Princess In Black by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale, illustrated by LeUyen Pham, age 5+
A Different Pond by Bao Phi, illustrated by Thi Bui, age 6+
Polly Diamond and the Magic Book by Alice Kuipers, age 6 +
Ruby Lu, Brave and True by Lenore Look, age 7+
A Boy Called Bat by Elana K. Arnold, age 7+
Originally published in Dirt Magazine, Sept/Oct 2018
