I’m still not entirely sure what to say about Burning Man, nor what pictures to show here. My heart is full of love and gratitude. We have endured and celebrated nature, the elements, life, humanity, friendship, silliness, joy. My impressions of Burning Man are swirly and colorful.

Nevada desert on the way to the playa

Sunset after a brief rainstorm

I am so glad we went, and especially glad that we camped with so many wonderful friends. Our campmates were super fun and very patient with our small taggers-on. They helped us look out for the boys, entertain them, and graciously shared their “space yogurts” (yogurt in a tube) and other goodies that were novel and exciting. Two friends even volunteered to babysit one night so Ian and I could have a much-needed date!

Our children were brave in the face of not only a hostile environment but also a Saturnalian one, where grown-ups generally don’t behave as usual, where instead they act silly, dye their hair pink, dress in funny clothes (or none at all), and spend their time playing, adventuring, or lazing about. It was a place where you might gleefully talk with strangers and give a made-up playa name just for the fun of playing at being someone else. Best of all, our boys got to see that play is for everyone, that all human beings need long stretches of time to do nothing, or only what we want to do, and that these moments are crystalline and pure. Climbing, running, jumping, dancing, flying kites, making friends, laughing and telling jokes, creating art, falling in love, being—these are the things that make life worth living.

Lucas climbing a pole on top of the Nexus nightclub

Super fun Genesha art car that passed us by one day

A dust-weary Asher, me on the afternoon of the burn, and our dashing Agent Daddy

Lucas fearlessly walking a tightrope about 10 feet off the ground

This tuna art car drove by during one of our family bike outings

Asher’s very first kite-flying experience; hold on tight!

My boys playing boccie ball

Decorating our parasols like jellyfish; Lucas jumping on a trampoline; Asher dancing with the Salmon of Knowledge

Lucas and Asher also got to see, and we ourselves were reminded, that challenges are worth facing because the rewards are often great. Braving our fears or walking out into the unknown is our task, our surest course to learning who we are and what’s important to us. By purposefully venturing into a desert of nothingness, we fill it with our hopes and dreams and remake ourselves. I watched both of my children, in their own individual ways and according to their ages, encounter their limitations and push past them, gaining confidence and respect along the way.

It was a different kind of Burning Man for me and Ian. Having our kids along was a ton of work and we spent much (most?) of our time making sure that their needs were being met. Keeping two sensitive children safe and happy, hydrated and fed, rested and slathered with sunblock in the desert is pretty much a constant effort. Ian worked ceaselessly to take care of all of us. There was a lot less aimless wandering just to see what there was to see. There were moments I felt despair because I thought I was missing all the fun, but mostly I let that fleeting feeling wash over me and away, and we managed to relax into a new kind of Burning Man experience. We got more sleep this year on the playa than ever before, thanks to the boys’ tuckering out and needing to be home and in bed fairly early. We ate like kings, with lots of fresh produce and barbecued tri-tip dinners. We spent more time near and in camp, which meant time together as a family and with our peeps. We let Burning Man come to us much of the time, and the sweetest folks wandered into our communal shade and spent time with us. Our camp gave out water, drinks, food, advice when it was asked for, a place by the fire, and generally enjoyed that special/sacred hospitality relationship. To all the desert beauties that we met, thank you! You’re my little potato.

Lucas is VERY happy to have seen the Man burn this time! Here he is after the burn on Saturday night. I’ve never been in such a whiteout before! For long moments the Burning Man disappeared from view completely, then eerily reappeared through the waves of flying powder.

The truth is we saw a teensy-tiny slice of Burning Man, maybe 1 percent of what was out there. However, what we saw was wonderful. We are tired and a little sad to have to resume normal life now that we are home again. We are loving this breathtaking miracle called running water. My thoughts are dreamy and I feel like I need a rest after my vacation. I feel a creative pulsing in my veins.

All in all, Best Family Burn Ever.

Here is my electroluminescent wire (EL wire) coat for Burning Man. My talented husband made it for me. I asked for flowers and I absolutely love it! Ian is the BEST! (Thanks also go to E for giving me the coat several years ago.) We are going to be the glowingest family of four on the playa this year.

Ian and the kiddos spent the weekend getting ready for our vacation in the desert. Fortunately, we don’t have to buy any major items, especially considering Friday’s expensive emergency car repairs. Oy! Our desert equipment needs fixing up in some cases, but we have most of the things we need.

Ian has tons of electroluminescent wire leftover and/or recycled from old Burning Man art projects and he decided to decorate the boys’ nighttime jackets for 1) visibility and safety, and 2) fun!

This is what a creative guy with a thrift-store jacket, a stash of EL wire, and a glue gun can achieve in about an hour. Asher thinks his jacket is the coolest, and Daddy is the BEST! He’s right on both counts.

I have long coveted the window stars I’ve seen at the Waldorf school and in photos. I bought a book of how to make them a while back and got so overwhelmed by the complex instructions that I didn’t attempt one for a year.

Eventually, in my combing the Internet, I stumbled upon the right kind of transparent “kite paper” and bought it. My paper is square, so I can now make all the stars that require squares.

Many of the stars in this book require rectangular tissue paper cut to specific sizes and I haven’t tried that yet. I guess my rotary fabric cutter would do the job, but I don’t know if that would be bad for the cutter.

This star was pretty easy to make, although I had to ask Ian help me figure out how to assemble the five points into the star. It was confusing because the instructions were wrong in a couple of places. The book could use a good editor in its next revision, I think! Still, I’m looking forward to making more of these. They’re pretty.

True love is being able to pick out library books for your lover.

Lucas is pretty sure that these chickens are meant to be lap chickens—at least Midnight.

Avalanche and Snowdrift graze in the backyard. The hens are enjoying morning and evening ranging hours. Alas, they are displacing the mulch in my flowerbeds a lot. I’m wondering if I could coax them to the school field two doors down and back again (but I would be afraid of off-leash dogs).

Lucas’s garden is about to overwhelm us with juicy red tomatoes. Just this week they are turning red.

A magical moment at Sacramento Waldorf School just before the summer camp play began. The oak tree at the Oak Stage is magnificent.

A backyard visitor graciously paused for my photo. I’m pretty stoked about this shot.

Evening picnics on the lawn are fun. There’s a bit of sandwich-eating, a bit of snuggling, a bit of wrestling, a bit of coaxing the hens to eat out of our hands, and …

… a good bit of airplane rides with Daddy.

We are having full, full days with summer camp and day care and work for Mom and Dad.

Today there was a play performance at summer camp. Lucas was a tax collector in the “Dragon with Thirteen Tails,” performed on the Oak Stage at Sacramento Waldorf School. We also got to see a gymnastics demonstration, as the children have been doing movement and assorted gymnastics in the awesome gym.

Some days, to get out of the heat, we play with puzzles.

And with chalk in the cool morning.

Lucas goes to piano lessons on Wednesdays. This week he noodled around until he figured out the first part of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” When he told his piano teacher, Mrs. Tan, she helped him work on it and learn the next little bit. I love that she goes with his interests!

We swim at Grandma’s and Papa’s house, and at swim team practice and swim lessons. Only four more of those are left!

We watch our garden grow—the things we planted …

… and the things we didn’t, like this volunteer sunflower!

And we watch and care for the chickens. Oh, how they are enriching life around here! Our first week of chicken farming has been going well. We’re all fascinated by them.

At first the chickens slept on the ground in a cuddle puddle, all higgledy-piggledy, piled on top of one another in the corner of the chicken run. They hadn’t gotten the lay of the land yet, I think. Gradually they are claiming this new space as their own. Ian had to pick them up one night and put them on the roost inside the chicken coop, but after that, they seem to get it. Last night we found them roosting just where they’re supposed to be (where it’s safest), without any help from us.

We gathered sixteen eggs in the first four days, after that, I lost count. They are averaging almost four eggs per day. They eat pretty much ALL of our kitchen scraps, including milk leftover from the boys’ morning cereal (for the calcium). I didn’t know chickens drank milk, did you?

The eggs taste wonderful!

We’re getting chickens!

Grandma’s next-door neighbors are relocating to Rhode Island and they must find a new home for their five hens. Since we’ve been talking about getting chickens for about two years, we decided that now is the time. The hens are two years old, tame,  and laying. Perfect! The coop they are presently in cannot be moved as it’s more of an outbuilding than a coop, so we have to build our own chicken house. In our area, there are plenty of raccoons, opossums, and skunks who would love to feast on our girls, so we have to provide them with a safe home.

We visited the hens on Saturday just to make sure our children wouldn’t be terrified of them. I wanted to discover any phobias before we invested the time and effort into moving the chickens to our home. Then we set out for the local feed store, a place I haven’t been in many, many years. We met the chicken expert and pecked his brain a bit, then Ian started designing and figuring and calculating and masterminding.

On Sunday, we hit our home improvement store to buy building supplies. Then we came home and started work on our coop.

Lucas hammering

Asher hammering

Measuring and marking with his new carpenter’s pencil

My husband is so clever! And handy! And handsome!

Endless fascination

Asher did his natural work of mimicking and playing with the hardware. (He also did an amazing interpretive dance wearing mardi gras beads and a sword—LOVE.) Lucas was a big help to his dad and kept on task through most of the day, keeping a good attitude. Both boys are over the moon about getting chickens and promise to do their chores.

The coop is coming along well! After the first day of construction it already has a raised floor, back, and sides. Next is putting on the roof, building some nesting boxes, and putting on the front doors. The boys were so cute while helping Daddy yesterday. We made good progress over the weekend, but there’s still a long way to go, including sinking some fence poles and building the run. We are thinking about using a few vinyl flooring tiles on the floor of the coop so it scrubs clean really easily, like a kitchen floor. The whole front of the coop with be two big doors, so it will open completely when we want to clean it.

Me? So far, I’ve been in charge of photography, holding heavy lumber, beer buying, iced-tea and popsicle distribution, editing to keep up our bottom line, and dreaming of what colors to paint the coop.  

We all had a wonderful 4th of July holiday this year, with swimming, friends, barbecue and yummy food, and fireworks of course. I didn’t feel like pulling out the camera until nighttime. Maybe it was the good conversation, maybe the perfect temperature of the swimming pool …

After dark, the Fire Sprites appeared and colorful shenanigans ensued. Some of them were so fast and so flighty that it was nearly impossible to capture their images. Often, the best I could do was to photograph their fiery flight paths and trails of sparks.

And then some of the Sprites became so tired from all the flitting about, they fell asleep. Yay America!

Thursday was a big day for both of my children. Lucas attended his first swim meet (we had missed the first two meets of the summer due to illness) and Asher finished his second session of swimming lessons by jumping off the diving board.

Here’s Lucas (in the black shirt) doing a great backstroke. He is is becoming a stronger swimmer thanks to all this practice! This, and having fun, are our two big goals for this experience. I am also hoping that this is the right amount of team and competition for my beginning athlete.

He’s new to diving, as are many of his teammates. They are given the choice to dive from a standing or seated position.

Here’s Asher floating calmly with Miss Brittany. He has come a long way in the four weeks he’s been taking lessons. For the first time, on Tuesday, he didn’t ask my “WHY do we have to do swimming lessons?!” He just came along quietly and did the work. I think he’s finally settling into the routine of it, so I signed him up for another session! (We have to be there anyway!)

The coup de grace! Asher jumped (was helped) off the diving board with his noodle. He was cheerful until he had to walk the plank; then his face was full of grim determination. Jay was there in the water to reassure him and make sure Asher didn’t slip out of his noodle. He popped up quickly, blinked, and made his way to the ladder. We cheered like crazy!

Asher got a certificate for completing the session and a lolly. BIG treat!

Lucas reported that the swim meet was pretty cool, but there was a lot of sitting around and waiting for his turn in the water. They did a warm-up swim, then each child raced in three events, with multiple heats. In between races, they rested. During a regular practice, the kids swim for 45 minutes with only very brief rests.

Lucas’s swim meet culminated in ice cream sundays. Daddy came to see the kids swim, and so did two grandmas, so my kids had quite the cheering section.

Four more weeks to go.