• Raleigh Half-life

    I have been looking forward to this year of my life, particularly this fall season. I am 36 years old and have been in Raleigh for half my life. Fall always signifies change is coming that I can feel deep in my bones. I still remember picking up a maple leaf on the back side of the student center, just outside a c-store, and saving it as a remembrance. I don’t know what year it was or what I was…

  • Must Listen

    My friend sent me this talk several weeks back, and she was sent it several years ago. So yes it’s a bit old as far as things on the Internet go, but I think the message to mothers is so excellent. It’s just an 18 minute listen.   I don’t know how many of us deaden the passion in our souls, but I know there are quite a few people who have forgotten who they are. They’ve checked out for…

  • She Got A Snake!

    Yesterday evening we let the chickens forage in the garden, which has a 4′ picket fence. Chickens are definitely rough on the veggies beds and sling dirt all over the paths. However, they sure can find the bugs! There were particularly many bugs under the pole bean teepee, which had a large piece of decaying cardboard on the floor to stop the weeds. It stopped the weeds and created wildlife habitat. The chickens were in there tearing it up, when…

  • No More Peach Tree

    No more peach tree. It was infested all up the trunks (there were multiple trunks due to poor pruning and management) with peach scale bugs that would have been difficult to treat, and after 8 years of losing crops to fungal diseases, we decided to call it quits. I shed some tears as this was a symbolic tree, the one we bought after a second miscarriage. In truth, we can’t just burry our grief in the ground and expect it…

  • Thoughts

    My husband has no recollection of ever having sobbed in his life, so yesterday evening when I was trying to explain how my bouts of depression felt, there was a clear disconnect in my ability to communicate. “Have you ever cried really hard? Like where your whole body is heaving?” “No.” “Okay, well…. that’s how it felt.” It was maybe Friday when my body and my spirit felt as if I’d just spent hours doubled over crying, only I hadn’t…

  • Treehouse Chicken Coop

    For the past several mornings, I’ve woken up with what I refer to as “fire fingers”. My fingers tingle, and the numbness goes up to my shoulder. I’m covered in scrapes, and my hands feel like sandpaper. My husband now has the neighbors thinking he’s a professional carpenter. We haven’t been to the gym in months — we haven’t done anything social. We haven’t signed up for spring soccer. We skipped THE BIG chess tournament. We have worked our patooties…