Breathing Deep

A little thunderstorm brought Knut home to us in time for supper the other night.  They’ve been in the fields a tiny bit, but the rain keeps kicking them out.  Thankfully it didn’t really drench everything.  He got to color a bit with the little girls, though, while I got supper out of the oven.  That was nice not to having them screaming at me that time of day.

After the little kids were in bed, I was reading to Silje and David, but my eyes kept darting over to the window where I saw the sun setting and casting the most magnificent pink across the sky.  Knut was picking up some sticks in the yard, and I read faster and faster until I could say goodnight and rush outside with my camera.

We went to the nursery that morning to get a few plants.  I got a few flowers for the flower bed, and some tomatoes.  Really it was more of a stressful experience than it normally is.  I didn’t think either the kids or I could handle going to town that day.  There was so much that needed to be done at home, and no one was behaving well enough to go into public.  Yet, we had to go grocery shopping, and that was a non-negotiable.  The animals were out of food too.  And of course, as most country dwellers know, if you’re going to town, you pack the day in with errands.

So it was a stressful trip to town, and I’m sure every onlooker thought I was a mean mother, and I probably was being one.  Sometimes you just have to yell at your children to climb down from the mountain of chick food this instant and stop acting like monkeys.

I was so stressed out about the trip to town before I left, because of my crazy kids, I looked up quick if there were any essential oils that dealt with stress.  The main one seemed to be lavender oil.  So I grabbed my little brown, glass bottle of lavender oil and stuck it in my pocket, and before we went into each store, I’d open up the bottle and take a big whiff.  When I realized what it might look like, I decided that maybe I should stop doing that.  Oh my.  I could see the headlines: “Homeschool Mom Caught Inhaling Suspicious Substance in Vehicle.”

Once we got home, we had a late lunch, and then nap time fixed everything.  It was such a quiet, peaceful afternoon.  I got the rest of my bulbs planted in our new cutting garden for some enormous flowers like Gladiolas.  Knut got our new French-style beds all worked up while we were in town.  I’m a little nervous about using that plot because that soil is used to packed grass, and I’m not sure it’s ready for vegis.  I don’t want to risk my whole crop of vegetables for the year on this questionable soil.

So I’m restructuring my vegetable bed plans.  I’m moving the “essential” crops that we just cannot manage without all winter, down to the old garden.  The new, fun, and experimental crops will be in the new beds, and we’re going to be heaping compost on those new beds all summer long.  Then we’ll cover the beds in a thick layer of compost over winter, and by next spring, I think we’ll have a more workable plot to deal with.

At any rate, all the outdoor air, all the digging in the dirt, all the cats snuggling up against my legs, and figuring out where the new flowers should go in the front flower bed…it just did me a world of good.

By the time Knut got home for supper, it was a completely different house than he saw when he was home at lunch.  We were giggling and laughing, and supper was ready.  It made for a lovely evening.  It allowed Knut to gather his little girls in his lap and color with some crayons, instead of comforting me and helping me figure out what in the world was for supper.  Not that that’s ever happened…;)

I’m loving seeing the trees and bushes start to finally bud up now.  The lilac bushes are finally starting to show a bit of green.  Even Ingrid’s little elm tree is starting to show signs of life.