and one more.

Ari tells a story; finds his toes.

not a commune

I love where I live. It is a beautiful property, and having moved so much as a child, I feel really lucky to be able to see this land through the seasons and to have this place for my children to call home. And we could never own this place if it we not for the other folks we share the land with. Yes, we share this land. And no, we are not a commune.

We share some tasks (like care of chickens, mowing lawns, etc) and some items (laundry facilities, lawnmower, gardening tools.) We have meetings. Our kids play together. We share one large building (where our home offices, art studio, playroom, guest rooms and said laundry facilities are located,) and many fields, cross-country ski trails and wooded areas. But we are not a commune.

We have our own homes, independent finances (we don't pool our money!) and make our own choices for our families. We don't wander about nude (okay, the kids do sometimes...) or grow pot or sacrifice animals. We are just some folks who like each other and who decided to go in on a piece of land that none of could of afforded on our own.

When we first bought the property we tossed about several names to try to define what we "are". "Intentional community" seemed too grand- there are only 6 (plus kids) of us after all, co-housing seemed a bit of a misnomer since we don't actually share houses. So we settled on "intentional neighbourhood" (though we rarely call it that, it's usually just termed "the farm.")

This land was once a commune though. It was owned by a christian community that had upwards of 40 people here, schooled their kids in the main house basement, shared meals and finances and gardens and a strict faith. We don't know all the details, but clearly things didn't work out for them. But we are glad to inherit the fruit of their toiling- the large "big house" that was their dining hall, school and church, the four family cabins, the water systems and gardens and fields and barns and outbuildings.

And I love it. I love that my children will grow up with so much space and will have other children close by with similar values, that they will have other adults to mentor them and will play on the swings in the barn and collect eggs on Saturday mornings and fly kites in the front fields and run naked in the sprinkler, and gather raspberries and ski in the back woods. And I love walking down the driveway to borrow flour or ask advice on a good cold remedy. And I love nights like this where it's dark and quiet and we are cozy in our own little home.

sleepless

I keep opening my blogger file and trying to post a new blog entry only to find that I can think of nothing whatsoever to say. This is mostly due to Ari's current sleep regression and the extreme sleep deprivation that Perry and I are under. Ari has been waking and crying tons in the night which is a new development. In the past he has mostly just squirmed enough to let me know he's hungry and I've breastfeed him without either of us fully waking. But according to this article (linked by another mama of a 4 month old,) it seems he is processing all his new tricks instead of sleeping.

And there is so much to process! The toe grabbing and the bathtub splashing and the rolling from back to front and back again, and the belly squirm (that can wiggle him right off the blanket after much grunting and groaning,) and the grabbing and chewing of objects held out to him. Its no wonder he's having a hard time sleeping, but we've got hope that this too shall pass- one day in the not to distant future, we all may sleep again.

baby two feet

apple sauce

This applesauce will be a good food for Ari in a few months, but for now he’ll just gum the apples a bit. The cold cellar is brimming with them, but this variety doesn’t keep well so we’re making juice and applesauce of them. The windows fog up with the steam from the pots and the house fills up with that warm autumn smell. These apples are from my mom’s tree in town, our little two-tree orchard isn’t producing much just yet. The tree we planted over Ari’s placenta is doing well, but gray jays ate most of the apples before we got to them. The haiku apples (the tree is thus named because it was given to us as a gift at our wedding covered in love-themed haiku’s tied on with coloured string,) are not quite ready and would make perhaps a bowl of apple sauce. But my mom’s tree was prolific this year and now we’ll fill up the freezer. It seems fitting that Ari should eat these apples this winter as I ate a good deal of them last winter
when I was pregnant with him.

Tonight we were invited to join our neighbours crab boil.They had just come back from the coast where they'd chartered a fishing boat. The weather was terrible for them, but they were generous with their meagar catch and we had a lovely meal out at the campfire. I hadn't eaten crab since my summer on Haida Gwaii and it was a good treat- though not quite as thrilling as eating it right on the beach. Ari was quiet, mesmerized by the fire and all the people to watch. We came in smelling like woodsmoke and hopped in the bath. Ari is really loving the water these days and gets so excited when bath time comes- and splashes and kicks his little feet, gasping when he gets a face full of water. Its so fun to watch him, there is so much for him to learn about; apples and water and the whole wide world.

it feels like fall today.

The potatoes are in from the garden and the leaves on the willow out back are nearly all yellow now. We spent so much time focusing on the spring- knowing that the baby was coming with the warmth and the sun and the longer days, and now the baby is here- Ari is here- and both spring and summer have passed us by. I guess that makes him two seasons old. Two seasons old and holding up his head and laughing at our jokes (those witty ones that go something like this: “aaahhhh- boo!” or "hi baaabeeeey!") and rolling from back to front and sometimes vice versa, and wiggling around enough to give us inspiration to start the baby proofing process.

This will be quite a project as this quaint but ratty little cabin in the woods was not put together with toddlers in mind (who they had in mind when they built on fire wood rounds and put the end room directly on the earth, we've yet to discover.) The fiberglass insulation peeking between the logs (looking inticingly like cotton candy, though I have no intention of him knowing what that is for some time,) and the exposed shelves that serve as a pantry with all our dried goods stored in glass jars, and the woodstove right in the centre of the living room, all need attention in order to be made safe before the big crawling event takes place. The uneven floor ought to be fun though, I'd imagine balls and wheeled toys would roll quite nicely.

So we'll continue building more shelves and storing the potatoes and generally preparing ourselves for all the next season has to bring. Baby and all.

and it begins

right here.