I drove before I had driver’s ed. Didn’t you? I shudder to think of attempting to operate a car for the very first time under the scowl of that teacher. Since I spent three teenage summers working on my uncles’ dairy, I learned to drive tractors; then graduated to Boris, the 4-speed stickshift 1957 Chevy pickup; and finally moved up to my cousin’s dirt bike. The only time we wrecked that was out in the barley field, and he was driving. (At least I think he was.)

So I think it’s only fair to give my daughters a few pointers before they sit behind the wheel of the Driver’s Ed car. A few weeks back when I took the kids up to the lookout, I had Emma drive. She did pretty well; this is on the way home. (Look at the tachometer; she’s not going that fast.) Of course, it was back roads virtually the entire way, and it helped that I kept the vehicle in second gear much of the time.

(Note to neighbors: Emma is no longer on the roads and will not be until spring, when you’ll see her tooling around in the STUDENT DRIVER car.)

(You know what? I just noticed the little screw hole by Jacob’s neck.* Could it be that the door is switchable on this washer? I’ve looked at it before without noticing the screw holes. Flopping the door would be so handy because the dryer is necessarily against the outside wall and in order to load it, we have to move clothes over the top of the washer door. This is inefficient, and in labor, inefficient = bad. I’ll check it when I get home. Oh never mind; our washer is on the fritz. Hopefully it’s not dead; it’s done well for approximately 8 years at 12 loads a week. [about 5000 loads!])

We’re believers in making kids work. Not only can we not do everything ourselves, but this will make their future lives so much easier. Learn to do the stuff you have to do, and learn to enjoy it whenever possible. Also, kids, learn to enjoy doing all the work while mom and dad are lounging around eating Bon-Bons. They’ll appreciate it.

–Just so’s ya know, if Jess and I ever did actually lounge around we’d immediately fall asleep. And I haven’t had a Bon-Bon since I was a missionary in Argentina (are those real Bon-Bons?)

*Note: Please do NOT notice that Jacob is wearing a necklace. This is a direct result of having six older sisters (we hope).

Long, long ago when I was considering trading in my old Camry for a four-wheel-drive something or other, I wondered if I should buy an old pickup truck. For various reasons, I opted not to; and though I’m glad we have the Jeep, we’ve had to make do occasionally. For example, when we built our house we fit much of it inside the Jeep and BGF. Sheet lumber, closet doors, cinder blocks, you name it.

Last fall (sheesh, has it been that long already) I was driving to work when I saw a trailer for sale just outside of town. It was older, looked home made, and had a slightly disheveled air about it; but the tires were in great shape and it was decent size (5’ x 12’, with 2’ high sideboards—enough to hold a cord of wood). Besides, we would only use it about eight times a year: six cords from the hills, and a trip each in spring and fall for manure. I called the owner and asked what he wanted for it; when his asking price was only a quarter of what I expected, I stifled a gasp and said I’d take it.

I spent the next year (!) trying to get a hitch for it. Here’s a hint: Don’t buy a Reese Towpower Class III hitch and expect their hardware will fit your 2002 Jeep Liberty. It won’t, no matter what they tell you. I ended up buying a brand new hitch and getting my hardware from the co-op in town, and it works like a charm. And now we can use the trailer.

A couple of weeks ago I took a couple of kids up the road for a load of wood. Our gravel road turns into Forest Service Road 203 less than a mile away, and our backyard (not counting the freeway corridor 50 miles south of here) contains thousands of square miles of national forest and public land. That’s pretty handy to have behind your house. We have enough firewood for this year, I think, but the leaves are already starting to turn, and I think any extra wood would be a good thing. We didn’t even make it all the way up to our huckleberry patch before I saw a whole congregation of downed trees off the right side of the road. I whipped out my trusty chain saw and, three hours later, we came grinding back down the hill in low-low gear with a six-week supply of wood (about 1 cord). Katie rode all the way down on top of the woodpile, bouncing like a spring when we went over bumps. Becca hopped out at the bottom of the driveway, asking if she could ride up on the top of the Jeep. Sure, why not? It took about a 27-point turn to get the whole kit-n-kaboodle turned around at the top of the driveway, but we finally got it aimed right and the kids and I emptied the trailer out. Now all the wood you see here is split and stacked up back by the propane tank, doing its best to dry out in the temperamental fall weather. It may not get used this year; if not, it’ll sleep under tarps and snow all winter, awaiting its turn to spill its sunshine into our warm home.

Our three oldest doing what they thought was Mom's job. Many hands make light work.

Jess and I are super-hyper-overachievers, and with the first half-dozen of our children we thought we could handle it all while our children sat around reading The Lightning Thief (where does he keep the lightning once he’s stolen it, by the bye?) or Harry Potter for the 17th time.

But with seven children, we can’t do that any more. And we won’t! Bwa ha ha ha haaaa!

Emma’s assignment this afternoon is to fix the legs of the stool in my studio. Becca’s assignment is to key in the names of selected art galleries whom I’ll pester with my art. Katie helped me with the Jeep’s tires this morning, so she’s off the hook except for her regular chores. Abby’s assignment is to find another piano piece to play at our family piano recital in May. Go go go!

Actually the kids are really fantastic about helping. They have their chores to complete every day, and they do about as well as I did when I was their age—and I was a pretty conscientious kid.

But there’s enough work around here that it’s time to step up a little bit. They want to; Emma asked to learn how to start a fire, and she’s been doing it every weekday morning for the last two weeks. (She does pretty well, too). Becca and Katie are fantastic helpers with the younger kids. One evening last week Jess and I were sitting at the table talking after dinner while the kids were running around breaking stuff. Jess and I like to talk, and we don’t get much chance to do it. So I said,

“Emma, Becca, Katie, come.”

They came. They’re good at coming when called, mostly.

“Please load and start the dishwasher and wash all the dishes. You may finish when the kitchen’s clean.”

And they did! And it looked like they had a pretty good time. And Jess and I enjoyed the chance to talk for a little while.

So I think I do this again. Soon. Regularly.

What do you think? How do you help your kids pitch in around the house?

But enough about buckwheat already! This post was supposed to be about our butter. (Which is quite tasty, if somewhat chunkier than the storebought “bread spread”, which we have taken to calling PHVO at our house [for Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil, which is what it is.]). (Can anyone suggest how I can avoid using parenthetical statements all the time? [I’m so distractable that I’m always inserting parentheses (which frequently have nothing to do with the subject [which in this case has become so lost that my (parenthetical observations have completely overpowered the post [Parentheses are neat. (You can keep stacking them inside each other [like those little Ukranian dolls (and at the end of the statement [they all unwind at once (like this)])])])])]).

Back to the butter. Since we now get raw milk from the neighbors (someone alert the FDA! Help! Help! I’m engaging in Non-Government-Approved Agricultural Activity!!!), we have plenty ‘nough cream to make bucketloads of butter every week. Last time Jess just gave a quart jar of cream to each child and had them shake it till it butterized, but I don’t see that activity holding its appeal for very long. It will quickly turn into Work. I can just hear the kids now: “Make bed, clean room, throw jammies on floor, practice piano, feed chickens, gather eggs, make butter. Mommmmm! Do I hafta?” So, being the good Dad I am, I called in the aid of the (dramatic music here) Power Mixer. Da da taaaaaa!

Rule Number 1 of making butter with the Power Mixer: Always Put a Lid On First. This is the sad voice of experience.

Rule No. 2: Get the cream out of the fridge first thing in the morning and don’t plan on making butter till sometime after lunch. This is because cream needs to be not cold if you want it to butterize. This is the impatient and frustrated voice of experience.

Rule No. 3: Send a couple of kids all the way down to the end of the driveway without a coat (and preferably toting something fragile) so that Mom will go running out of the kitchen when the cream turns to butter. This is because the butterization happens quickly, and the buttermilk will come spurting out of the holes in the Power Mixer lid, and your wife will be not happy with you when she sees buttermilk on her counter. Buttermilk is great for homemade biscuits. (Not for the Pillsbury Detonating Canister kind. If you add homemade buttermilk to those, the chemical reaction will cause your kitchen to burst into flame.) This is why you must distract your wife first.

Rule No. 4: Rinse butter. If you do not rinse butter with cold water until the water runs clear, the milk stays in the butter and goes rancid. This is icky.

Rule No. 5: Enjoy. It is especially helpful to get bread crumbs and butter globules all over your keyboard. You are not allowed to gloat at the wretched mortals who must eat PHVO on their Pillsbury Remotely-Resembles-Biscuit Food Product, since you yourself were eating PHVO not so long ago.

On the way back from town on Saturday we decided to pull off the beaten path and bounce down to the river in the Jeep. It’s springtime already anyway (note the scarcity of snow on the mountain, and kids sans coats) so we thought we’d throw a few rocks in the river and take some pix. The kids discovered coon tracks, how to skip rocks, and what happens if you follow a muddy estuary too far upstream while wearing nice clothes. The dogs re-discovered that they are four-legged fish. I discovered the luscious mix of bare branches, mountains, and reflections that may turn into a graphite painting one of these days.

The rocks are green because they’re covered with algae. There’s a dam upstream that controls the water output of the river, which fluctuates throughout the day depending on demand for electricity. So when enough city dwellers switch on their TVs to watch their football games, it lowers the water in our river,  exposing the slimy rocks, and making our poor doggies have to run further before they hit the water.

I like to take little side trips like this occasionally. Our lives are so ridiculously busy that if not for spontaneous jaunts, I wouldn’t get to spend a lot of time with the kids. And they’re more important than most anything else I do.

What is going on in this video?! I am making bread in the kitchen (this is before I had learned to put Pam on my hands so you can tell the dough is pretty sticky) while the kids have the music on. It’s Abba, actually. I’m singing along in as obnoxious a voice as possible, making fun of the lyrics as I go.

The noise in the background is the wheat grinder, making wheat flour for next week’s batch of bread. The sound is in mono. The video is pretty shaky since Emma’s holding the camera in her hands (she actually drops it at one point). She’s sitting on the stairs behind the kitchen, trying to keep hidden behind the wall.

I am actually a classically trained singer. I have sung tenor for years as a solo performer, in small ensembles, and in choirs. I have individual voice and operatic training, and have soloed for oratoria and other classical works for audiences of hundreds and even thousands of people. But it’s fun to pretend otherwise at home. Nobody noticed except for Emma (and Jess, who told her to go grab the camera).

On Saturday I took some of our heaps of extra money and invested it in Memories for the Kids at the local ski hill. When we lived in town (and were much wealthier*) we would go two or three times a year, but now that we’re out in the sticks and poor, once a year will have to do. Left to right is Emma-who-doesn’t-like-having-her-picture-taken, Abby, Katie, and Becca.

Skiing is one of the few “fun things” we do that actually costs money. Sledding, hiking, swimming, camping, stacking firewood—all these amusements can be done pretty much for free. But it’s a pain trying to downhill ski in a place without an actual ski lift. (Yes, there’s always cross country skiing. Haven’t done that one yet.) We think it’s worth it.

This was Abby’s first time skiing, and she was actually pretty good. Her first time down the bunny hill was tough, but it always is. The older ones were generally in tears by the time they arrived at the bottom of the hill, and the ski lift was a new trauma. We always left a ski or a pole or an arm behind to be carried up by the next charitable soul to come up behind us. But Abby was a good sport, and took four trips down the hill by the end of the night .She got to where she could stop pretty well, either by making a “pizza” with her skis or by just falling down, and she now proclaims skiing to be her favorite sport.

This is good. She’ll be ready for next year.

* Meaning we didn’t budget