Thursday at the Little Pink House

When a reader wrote and asked for a glimpse into the daily lives and weekly routines of the YLCF team members, we all agreed we wanted to give a realistic picture while yet casting a vision of a happy, productive home life.  When I chose Thursday as my day of the week, I wasn’t so sure I should write about this Thursday.  My plans weren’t very firm, and I knew the day would probably completely run away from me without much being accomplished.  But the idea was to be realistic—and realistically, this is what life looks like on our farm in the summertime!  (But the realism stops at the photos—to be truly “real”, there would be no photos of Thursday, for none were taken!  The accompanying photos are selections from the past month when we actually remembered to take pictures.)  So here’s our Thursday—not from the perfect stay-at-home farmer’s wife who does nothing but read books to her daughter and collect eggs all day, but from a mommy and farmer’s wife, none the less!

Mondays are our “day off”—meaning our family-owned and operated produce and antique store is closed.  Usually, I try to do laundry on Mondays—but this last Monday we were making a produce delivery to Town, and a trip to Town with a capital T always ends up taking an entire day, no matter how hard we try—especially being that we only make it there about once a month.  So this week I did laundry on Tuesday—it dried quickly, the weather warming more each day this week!  Wednesday found Dad and Marlys at Farmer’s Market as always, while Ruth and I helped Merritt open the store for the day.  And that brings us to today, Thursday, July 16, 2009…

Between our big Buff Orpington rooster and the little person kicking inside me, I usually wake up frequently from about four on each morning.  This morning, though, Merritt and I had both managed to fall back asleep until nearly seven-thirty.  At which point we began our day like we try to every morning: whichever of us is most awake prays, then Merritt gets up to feed the chickens (the rooster’s crow having intensified since 4 a.m.) and move irrigation pipe, while I relish a few more moments in bed, wishing (as I squint, my glasses being far from the bedside) that I kept a large print Bible on hand for early mornings.

When Merritt makes it out of our one-room house and off to work without Ruth awakening, I either steal a few more moments of sleep, pull on a sweatshirt to go water my sunflowers and herbs, or sneak outside with my laptop in hand to try to check email and read the day’s blog posts.  (Lately our next-door wireless “fast internet connection” has been reaching nearly to our front door, which has made keeping up on my internet to-do list much easier!)  This morning I opted for the laptop, and nearly finished writing a post for ylcf.org.

The house quiet, Ru slept in until eight-thirty.  Our night owl needed it after yesterday!  The first thing she usually does upon getting up is to stumble bleary-eyed to her high chair.  No cuddling, no potty—nothing until she’s eaten.  This morning was no exception.  We shared banana and cold cereal for breakfast.  Then Ru snuggled with Pooh Bear while Mommy got ready for the day.  Just about then, Merritt got home from moving irrigation pipe, ready to grab a quick bite of breakfast and go open the store.  Poor Daddy, with a pregnant wife and a growing daughter he rarely has company for breakfast when he’s changing pipe each morning!

The big “to-do” on my list today was going to town (town with a small t) to get our church directories printed.  Somehow it always takes a while to get out the door with Ruth, and this morning was no exception.  I ran back in the house at least three times, to grab cheese sticks, some board books, and her blankie—none of which one can go to town without!  (She already had her pink toy cell phone in hand so she was good to go on that account—a girl’s got to be just like Mom, you know!)

First we had to go over to Papa and Nanna’s to get a box to mail a wedding present to newlywed friends (congratulations to Garret and Melinda—wish we could have been there!).  When we got there, my sister-in-law Marlys decided she’d join us in our trip to town.  While I packaged up the box, Ruth begged some fresh fruit smoothie off her “Auntie Mouse,” but got more on her shirt than in her mouth.  Such things disturb my perfectionist daughter in the extreme!  When we finally got out to the store, her daddy wanted to know what all the crying was about that he’d heard on the telephone a few minutes earlier!  We gave him goodbye kisses, convincing Ruth we’d come back to work at the store later that day (as much as she likes to press the pink “Total” button that makes the cash drawer come out, we needed to get to town—and she was missing a shirt!).  A quick stop at home to grab a clean shirt for Ru, and we were finally on our way.

In addition to the print shop, our list included two banks, the post office, the library, the glass shop to get screen for our new screen door, the week’s sale items at the grocery store (orange juice and shredded wheat—plus the weekly purchase of 2 gallons of whole milk!), and then biding our time at the thrift stores until the church directories were read to pick up.  It was easy to spend extra time in town today because it is the week of the annual sidewalk sale.  However, I must admit, that very fact made me kiss my husband a few extra times before we left, and drive a little more carefully.

It was just three years ago, this same week in July, that Marlys and I came into town on Thursday to sell baskets at the sidewalk sale.  While we were in GoodWill today I heard the fire siren go off, and I couldn’t help myself—I grabbed my phone to call my husband.  But then I saw it was twelve o’clock.  The fire siren always goes off at noon, Gretchen! Later in the afternoon, though, it went off again, and soon the ambulance drove past.  Marlys and I looked at each other, knowing exactly what the other was thinking.  Three years ago, we’d watched that same ambulance drive down the same main street headed the same direction.  And three years ago, it had been going to get my brand-new husband, Marlys’ brother, after a welding accident on the farm shattered his leg and burnt his arm.  “I just talked to Mom and Dad, Gretchen, don’t worry,” Marlys reassured me today.

But I called Merritt anyway.  Just to hear his voice.  Just to know he was okay.  Some memories are still too fresh to handle that much deja vu. My hubby reassured me he’d hardly moved from his chair behind the counter at the store.  And I told him all about the finds we were making.  While my heart was quieted in thankfulness that he was still okay.

Marlys had found a maternity shirt for me at GoodWill—not on the maternity rack where I was looking, of course!  She’d noticed the “Bundle of Joy” tag on a shirt stuck right in with the regular shirts, and it fit me perfectly (not to mention being 50% off for the sidewalk sale!).  Then Marly hit the jackpot at the yarn store, finding enough sale yarn to make a sweater (just the thing one wants on a ninety-degree day like today!) and I found leftover greeting cards for 50 cents each, giving me ample opportunity to replenish my dwindling supply of birthday cards.

Quite done with our shopping, with a very tired and hot little girl, not to mention feeling rather tired and warm ourselves, we called the print shop.  But when they said to come back at two, they meant 2 p.m. sharp!  So with fifteen more minutes to kill we stopped in at the other thrift store.  I found a hardcover first edition of Born Free which I’m quite sure is worth at least the dollar I paid for it!

Our church directories finally in hand, we took Marlys back to her house then stopped at the store to see Merritt.   Ruth hand-delivered the apple fritter we’d bought him (he’d told us to get lunch if we needed it—aren’t apple fritters lunch?).  But the girl must be farm-raised, because she much preferred cherries to the doughnut!

As is the case more often than not in the midst of summer, lunch was quite late.  And since longtime family friend and now next-door neighbor Katie usually cooks dinner for us Wednesdays and Fridays (our Farmer’s Market days), most welcome as her help is, it leaves us with few leftovers in the fridge on Thursday!  Ruth ate mashed potatoes and cheese and nibbled on an onion.  I ate mashed potatoes, cheese, and some thin slices of sweet onion on top of two sliced tomatoes fresh from the farm garden.  Merritt got home by three—Marlys having grabbed a quick bite and gone out to the store to give him a break.  I fried up some summer squash to go with his potatoes—no danger of ruining his appetite for dinner this afternoon!

Then it was nap time for everyone.  Or at least so we told Ruth!  In a one-room house, it is hard to convince a little person to go to sleep when everyone else is up!  As soon as she’d finally started breathing evenly (after some dancing around on the mattress just to settle down after that stressful day in town—plus some standing on tip-toes to spy on Dad and Mom!), Merritt and I snuck outside to put a new screen in the wooden screen door he’d found at an auction a couple months ago and had all painted (red to match the chicken coop and soon-to-be-painted front door) and ready to go.  Putting in screen is more stressful than one might think, but we finally got it done without it breaking!

Merritt went back to close the store for the day.  I watered my herb garden, having noticed my sage wilting despite the soaking rain three days previous.  Then a certain little girl woke up from her too-short, too-late nap in rather sad spirits.  Our daily “best-laid plans” of having the house picked up, dishes washed, and dinner on the table when Daddy gets home from work went quite awry today.  I’d planned a light, no-bake dinner considering the late lunch.  But after Ru clung to me, having to sit on the counter next to the sink while I washed eggs (they always lay in “hen’s dozens” of eleven instead of baker’s dozens of thirteen!) and dishes (Ru was far past her usual trick of grabbing my legs to turn me around to face her instead of the sink!), I got the chicken pieces cooked up in soy sauce in the skillet, then threw them in the freezer to cool…and we sat down and read Pooh books until Daddy got home.

I chopped up the fresh bok choy while listening to a speed-read version of Eloise Wilkin’s Poems to Read to the Very Young. Ru turns the pages so quickly you only get about two lines of each poem read before it’s on to the next! Saving aside a few pieces of chicken for Ruth, I tossed the bok choy and chicken with some sesame dressing, sesame seeds, salt, and pepper, and we sat down to dinner.

While I did dishes, Ruth “helped” Daddy hang the screen door. (She thought she should write on the door just like Daddy had when he was marking where to screw the handle on!) Then we all came inside to cool down a bit with a bowl of ice cream. Merritt read from Frog and Toad Together—having appropriately landed on the story of Frog and Toad eating melting ice cream cones! Tonight Ruth decided that sharing ours wasn’t enough—she got out her own bowl (now in the bottom drawer where she can reach them—the original idea being that she’d learn to help set the table, but it has turned more into a way to ask for food without talking!) and opened the silverware drawer in obvious need of a spoon. After her bite’s worth was gone, she brought her bowl back to us showing its empty state. After one more bite, she proceeded to swirl the spoon around in the bowl to get a bit more flavor on it, then licking it and swirling it again!

All sticky with ice cream, Ru and her rubber ducky took their nightly shower, which cooled them both off considerably (at least Ru—I rather guess the ducky was cooler before the shower started!). Then Merritt headed out to change the irrigation in the alfalfa fields once again—a twice daily ritual for most of the summer (pretty much whenever he’s not cutting or baling those same fields!) that takes anywhere from two to four hours out of the day, depending on how it goes. Now I’m hoping that my too-tired little girl, fortified with a sip of milk, another hug, and covered once again with her blankie, will settle down to sleep before her daddy gets home—otherwise bedtime will be stretched out even later once again.

And I’m spending my evenings like I spend most of them—watching the fields to catch a glimpse of my husband, waiting to see the lights of his vintage truck driving home. Sometimes it’s in the hammock, sometimes it’s in this lawn chair catching a bit of an internet connection, sometimes it’s from the window. But always I’m thanking God for another day…another day with the ones I love…another day here in our little once-pink house…

Tomorrow brings us to Friday, the day we prepare our CSA boxes for pickup, and another Farmer’s Market. I’m sure I’ll be helping Merritt at the store a good part of the day, while Ruth takes a nap at Nanna’s and helps Aunt Marlys bake bread for the CSA boxes. Saturdays are a bit slower because we’re not scattered in so many directions—but the store is usually busier than ever. Then comes Sunday, the day of rest—it’s fellowship with the believers at church and then a Sunday afternoon nap before we start it all over again on Monday…

The rest of the week…

• Monday at the Farm in the City by Lanier
• Tuesday in the Writing Life by Elisabeth
• Wednesday in North Idaho by Chantel
• Friday in Sunny Southern California by Ashleigh
• Saturday at Castleberry Farms by Jeannie
• A Peek into Your Day by YLCF Readers