I Want to Be Strong, Like a Mama Raccoon

Trusting in our children, to climb on their own

Published in P. S. I Love You on Medium.

Baby Raccoon Photo by Gary Bendig on Unsplash

The Return of the Sun, From the Eyes of a Child

A poem about true fairy tales, to banish the night

I just published this on Medium.

Equinox Picture by Comfreak on Pixabay

 

When I Discovered What I Was Really Capable Of

Yes, men are strong, but that doesn’t mean women are weak.

published in The Ascent on Medium

Photo by Avi Richards on Unsplash

The Eggs Have Hatched!

Well, our favorite robins are at it again. They must have been okay with us tramping all around on the deck,

The first hatchling snuggling their egg siblings

because they laid another clutch of eggs in the same nest, directly under the boards of our deck,

And the eggs just hatched!

Two out of three eggs hatched yesterday, so I knew the third one was close. I actually managed to get the 3rd egg hatching on film!!!! So here it is:

And now I'm gonna quit videoing, as I have daily videos of the last babies, so I'm just gonna chill out about documenting and enjoy peeking at these ones.  

When You're the Only Vegan Family in Town

My latest piece for Raise Vegan is called "When You're the Only Vegan Family in Town."
It's pretty autobiographical, with a little advice.

Family pic - watching the salmon spawn at the Illahee Preserve!

Robins' Nest at Our House -- From Newborn to Flying Video

I finally compiled my cell phone footage of the robin's nest into one video!
12 days of baby birdies: growing feathers, snuggling, yawning, eating, pooping, getting ready to fly.
The video's over 16 minutes. Feel free to skim (obvi).


They start out so cute, and by the end, when their parents are keeping their distance while feeding them, I'm like, "Oh yeah, birds are totally dinosaurs."
The nest is empty now, but the internet informs me that robins reuse the same nests, so the mama might lay eggs there again, maybe even this spring. We loved watching both parents care for their babies. The frequency of feedings reminded me of the early days of breastfeeding.

For those who don't know, Charles discovered this nest, right under our feet, on our 2nd story deck. When we lie on the deck, we can peek at the nest between the boards, so I positioned my camera there and just left it recording and walked away. We didn't know about the nest before they hatched, so we're not sure how old they were on Day 1 of this video, but the internet tells me robins leave the nest around 13 days old, so we must've caught them when they were brand new!

Right after eating, the babies poop; that's what the parents are putting in their mouths! Apparently, when the baby robins are very young, the parents eat the poop, and as the babies age, the parents will take it away with their beaks but drop it instead of eating it. Friends who have seen our car, it does seem as though every bird in the neighborhood is using it as a target for their baby's poop.

The Mushrooms in the Store are Fine to Eat.

Tzivia's new ukelele song is called, "The Mushrooms in the Store are Fine to Eat."

just a lil baby chanterelle we found.

Tzivia has been mushroom-hunting many times,
and she knows some mushrooms are fine to eat

 

very pretty, but not fine to eat.

(after cooking) but most
are not.
She wrote the words
to this one when we
were in the co-op
this week.

Trampoline Tent Camping

Charles, Tzivia and Lupin are going to sleep in our tent on our trampoline tonight. I am both so happy that they're sharing this special time and so happy that I have this special time allllll to myself.

Give up on this blog thing?

Perhaps I (Darcy) don't have what it takes to keep up a blog anymore. I probably averaged more than one post per day in my livejournal for 7 years straight or so, but I just don't spend that much time online anymore (a good thing!)

When I'm online now, it's usually to totally relax -- to watch documentaries or browse necklaces on etsy.

I think Facebook ruined blogging for me a little, not because I took my blogging energies to Facebook, but because I resisted using Facebook for so many years, and the principle of the thing -- that we should be creating real community and truly talking with our friends and going outside and experiencing things -- holds true for blogging.

At the same time, I do still love some blogs, when their purpose is in no way trying to be a replacement for face-to-face interactions. But I guess I just don't feel like I have the time in my life right now to live AND to tell about it. Or maybe I do want to tell about it, but in my paper journal. And I want to do a better job of connecting with friends.

One good thing that came out of this (well, two) is that we've started taking more photos (even if I didn't find the time to share them), AND those photos have revealed to us that we have a really great life, filled with love and laughter and food and nature. I sorta suspected our lives were great, but now we have proof.

Maybe (probably) we'll pick this up again sometime.

xo

I'll leave you with some pictures from the last week or so:

Belly rubs at Pigs Peace Sanctuary

Dinner I made us one night

Reflections at Greenlake

Ducks!

Swimming back to shore, duckless.

Tuckered out.

Our family <3

so much to share and so little time.

He drank the whooooole thing and then he started a bar fight.

P.S. We climbed hiked up a mountain yesterday. And then, instead of resting my weary limbs, I went to work. THEN I rested my still wearier limbs. Now back to work.

It is so beautiful out.

New Bamboo Utensils

Luna surprised me this week with a sweet set of Bamboo utensils (knife, fork, spoon, chopsticks), and they are amaaaazing.


Ok, part of the reason I find them amazing is because I don't care for metalware. (Shall I explain? Nah, maybe some other time.) So usually, be it at home or at Plum, I am using plasticware.
It takes a lot for me to be embarrassed enough of my weirdness to use an actual metal fork.
This is what I usually use:

(also awesome) They say they're BPA-free, but they're plastic, so... who knows.

Anyway, Bamboo! Definitely not bad to put in my mouth three times a day.

The spoon is featured here with a perrrrrfect bowl of oatmeal (made on the stove with coconut milk, water, salt, cinnamon, oats and raisins) served with the best maple syrup of all time, which Luna got from a vendor at the Georgetown Carnival.

The fork is seen here alongside a late-night dinnerish snack I whipped up -- roasted garlic, local asparagus and broccoli, mushrooms and organic tofu over garlic basil penne pasta (I had eaten a few bites before I remembered to take a picture).

Also, here's a picture I took of a bee on a chive blossom:

Have you ever had a chive blossom? They are DELICIOUS - sweet, spicy, onion-like but (obvs) with the texture of a flower. These ones were growing in the Ballard pea patch, and I may have foraged a few for myself.

Year and a Half Anniversary

Yesterday was our year-and-a-half anniversary. Half-anniversaries are strange, because the weather -- everything, really -- is like the exact opposite of how it was when you met. We met a couple days before the winter solstice, so our half-anniversary is just before the summer solstice.

Comic Luna drew for me of our first kiss. He gave it to me on our second date (in which he cooked Pad Prik King for me and we danced around the carpet to Edith Piaf). The comic hangs above our bed now.

We met when night was at its longest, but falling in love at the very start of winter meant basically getting the cheat code to skip winter. That first night, when we met, after the symphony, after dinner, we found ourselves on the swings at Cal Anderson Park, and I was wearing a dress as low-cut as the one I wore yesterday.


"Do you ever get out of the city?" he asked me, and he stumbled over the words a little bit, like he was nervous.

"Not really. I don't drive so I haven't really seen much of the state yet."

"Would you like to? We could get a cabin on the coast."

Our first date. And we both had this realization that this was not a first date conversation, but we also realized that the normal rules didn't apply.

I got off my swing and went over to him, somehow shared the swing with him (haha, I think I straddled him?) and we kissed, and I said, "I would love that."

And two weeks later we were sharing a little A-frame in La Push, hiking through the rainforest and making vegan s'mores.

He wrote our names, with his finger, on an Artist's Conk (Mushroom)

It was the first week of January. We held hands and ran into the ocean together, then immediately ran back out, freezing and giggling.

Ancient tree!! We set the camera timer for this picture, because we were alone (people-wise) in the forest.

Now it's supposedly the start of summer, though I felt as cold yesterday (sitting on a boulder together at Magnuson Park, by the lake, laughing at our awesome dog, then trying to soak up the failing sunlight while having a dessert picnic in the parking lot of PCC) as I did a year and a half ago when we met.

Conclusions:
This particular spring and summer are pathetic excuses for sunny seasons.
Luna will keep me warm, come spring or summer or winter or fall.
Desserts are delicious.
I need to take more pictures, especially if I'm going to keep up a blog.
We're in love.



P.S. I've been very busy this week, overwhelmingly so. I was imagining I'd be blogging every day, but now I see that that's something only my funemployed self could do. Since I haven't been posting, I haven't pushed myself to take pictures, but we have had some delicious food this week, and here's one example:

Chilaquiles Luna made us for breakfast -- Corn tortillas scrambled with tofu (and veggies, in this case), topped with salsa and "sour cream" (garlic aioli on this one). I was feeling under the weather, slept for about a million hours straight, then woke up to this. Yummm.