The boys and I made another batch of jam last week, which was Week 11 of summer vacation. You see, we mamas must be creative to survive summertime. We must also do our best to create and squeeze sweet moments out of these long, warm days at home.

I wish I could say we plucked all of these strawberries from our garden, but we don’t grow enough berries to make that possible. I also wish I could say they were organic berries, but alas, they weren’t. They were the next best thing: on sale!

What is absolutely wonderful, however, is that my kiddos and I worked together on this project. Lucas and Asher were great about chopping all the strawberries. (Getting to use real knives is a thrill for them.) Their cooperation and good natures made this such a fun activity. I just love how capable and helpful they are these days! They got to decide on the sweetener for our low-sugar jam—they picked honey!

The chickens benefited, too.

We call this Mama and Sons’ Strawberry Honey Love Jam. Good name, no?

I should be doing a bunch of other things right now. Instead I’m going to talk in this space about fitness, my own fitness, in particular.

I am having more success this year than possibly ever before. Which is why hurting my back last weekend has really thrown me off. See, I’m not not exercising this week because I don’t want to. Well, OK. I’ll turn that around: I’m not exercising this week not because I’m too lazy, or my kid is sick, or there’s no time, but because I can’t. Because I should heal from whatever the hell I did to myself. Because I don’t want to make this mild injury worse.

And, well, this not exercising is kind of driving me nuts. I can actually, honestly say it: I’m missing my exercise this week. I’m feeling really hampered by this mild back pain, this slight impediment to my normal, everyday movements. And I don’t like it. I don’t want to rest.

Those who know me will realize how big that is.

Ian deserves all the credit, except for the fact that those calories I’ve been burning regularly since January 17, 2011 were my calories and I burned them. But Ian helped an awful lot—by coaxing, encouraging, cajoling, rousting, pushing, and loving me into our shared exercise and my fitter, stronger body.

It’s worked. I’ve accomplished 121 workouts since we started seven months ago. I won’t go into all the gritty details. The truth is I hated many of them, especially those that began and ended before 7 a.m. But what I like is the accumulation of them. The collection of workouts. The notches on my bad-ass belt. The sparkly jewels on my custom rainbow-and-unicorn reinforcement star chart that Ian made for me.

My relationship to exercise in general has always been wobbly—often emergency-room wobbly. Exercise has always meant to me asthma, asthma, and more asthma, running around toxic school fields of allergic green death. There have been some small exceptions in my adult life, since asthma maintenance drugs have improved immeasurably over those I took as a child. The crux there is they were always brief exceptions, short forays into the realm of normal people. In high school I enjoyed dancing in musical theater productions quite a lot. In college I walked all over the hills of Santa Barbara, Berkeley, and Saint Andrews in Scotland. During one of my office jobs, Ian and I managed to drag ourselves to the gym with good regularity.

Something always came up, though. Asthma. A massive deadline, or a whole season of them. A nursing baby in arms. Then another. It just got more and more complicated.

K, never mind all that. The point is: I’ve been running. A little. Since about March. A little here, a little there. Almost 2 miles, then almost 2.5. Then 2.7 miles a bunch of times, then that distance without any walking breaks at all.

Last Saturday, I ran 3.8 miles in a row without stopping. And when I was done, I felt fantastic.

So, I’m a runner? Me? Asthma girl? Running is the freakin’ Holy Grail to me because it’s always been so unattainable.

And now I’m benched. Slightly injured. For now. For not much longer, I hope. Because now that I’m on a roll—succeeding at this difficult thing—I really don’t want to lose it all and go back to Square-One Failure. The Harpies are shouting in my ear, “See, you can’t actually be a runner. You’re no athlete. Who do you think you’re kidding?” And I fear I will have to start over. I have fears.

I also have two stars to go before my rainbow is complete.

Earth Day is Friday, April 22—tomorrow! Even if this holiday isn’t something you grew up celebrating, you can bet that your kids are aware of it and eager to participate. Over the last few years, we’ve been doing a bit more to honor the ideals of this day and our kids just eat it up. Here are a few ideas from our family to yours.

1. Plant a tree: This is every bit as appropriate on Earth Day as Arbor Day. This year we’re planting a tree for two reasons: My great-aunt Nana passed away last fall, and we will plant a tree in her honor and in honor of Earth Day. We have chosen a beautiful pink dogwood for our back yard.

2. Make a terrarium or a dish garden: I wrote a tutorial about how to make a moss terrarium for Little Acorn Learning’s April Afterschool Enrichment Guide, which is full of amazing activities, recipes, poems, and much more. You can find it here: http://www.littleacornlearning.com/.  Here is an in-progress shot of the dish garden we made yesterday. We used moss we collected on a recent trip to the foothills and wheat grass seeds. Lucas included a spiral of small stones we found in our yard. We are adding beeswax bunnies and Easter eggs to it.

3. Go on a hike, take along a trash bag, and pick up any garbage you may spot along the way. (Kitchen or latex gloves come in handy for this activity.) Recycle those things that you can. Note: don’t let children pick up certain kinds of trash, especially anything that looks like it might be medical waste. Many communities have park or creek cleanup days that need volunteers.

4. Do a science experiment. For young children, seed projects are great because they are fast. Here’s what we did last year. Some of our pumpkin seedlings even survived the transfer out into our summer garden and we harvested pumpkins in the fall from our Earth Day experiment! I don’t know about you, but I love cycles like that.

5. Start a worm farm: All you need is a boxy container (a styrofoam cooler does the trick nicely—I know styrofoam is lame, but it works well for this project), and a container full of red worms from the bait store, or else dig up the worms yourself. Put some normal garden soil into your container, shred some newspaper into small strips, wet it all down, and add your worms. Poke a few holes into the container for air circulation. Then put in your vegetable kitchen scraps daily. Stir once in a while and keep it moist but not wet. Before long you’ll have loads of worms (and worm babies!) and great soil for your garden. (It helps to have a plastic or metal container underneath the whole worm bin, to catch any drippings. These drippings make excellent fertilizer.)

6. Learn about the weather or the water cycle. Check your local parks and recreation department for children’s nature classes or day camps. Try this page of links at The Water Project for science experiments for kids.

7. Read books about caring for the environment with your kids. Last April, I wrote about quite a few children’s books we recommend for Earth Day. Adults can check out the works of Richard Louv, Rachel Carson, David Sobel, Robert Micahel Pyle, and Bernd Heinrich.

8. Start a vegetable garden! Good Friday (also Earth Day this year) is a traditional day for planting seeds and seed potatoes. Lucas is outside preparing his garden plot. We have worked into it our soil full of worm castings  from last’s year’s worm farm. That should give our garden a good start!

9. Make space in your yard for wild creatures: add a birdbath, places wild creatures can use for cover, and plants that attract bees, butterflies, and birds. This spring I’ve seen birds actually bathing in and drinking from my birdbath. It was very cool!

10. Take your recyclables in and redeem them for cash; donate your family’s proceeds to a charity such as NRDC or National Wildlife Federation, or any number of other worthy charities. Better yet, if you can support wildlife and habitat restoration efforts in your own community, do that.

That’s 10. I bet you can think of dozens more. If you have a nifty idea to share, please do so! Happy Earth Day!

I’ve been so busy that I’ve not had a lot of time to write lately. But while I’ve been working, spring has sprung! I did sneak away with Asher last week to visit the Sacramento Waldorf School farm in the late afternoon.

We wanted to see the black butterflies on the yellow flowers …

the seedlings in the pyramid greenhouse …

Princess the pony, grazing by the American River …

rows and rows of glowing lettuces …

Honalea, the school cow …

calla lilies growing in the shade …

But most of all, we went to see the baby lambs, Milkshake and Licorice. Asher says, “They are a-DOH-able.”

Happy spring!

Happy first day of spring! It’s raining like crazy. What’s up with us, you ask? Lots and not much at the same time, it seems.

Mama’s busy with work—two books are chugging along, hot and heavy. One new one is just starting up. All three feature different tasks and require different portions of my brain, so that’s something to celebrate. I give thanks whenever I get to use rusty brain cells. Alas, these hours spent working mean I take fewer pictures.

We are—at present—all healthy and strong. This is also something to be celebrated! Pardon me while I whoop and holler. Woo hooo! Yippie!

In fact, we’re getting stronger every day. Our workout regimen is paying off for Ian and me (which is something I feel I can finally say out loud in this space). It’s still very hard for me, but I’m doing it—and although I have a hard time being positive about it at 6 a.m., when it’s time to start sweating. It’s much easier to be positive afterward, when the workout is done, and now I can fit back into some of my skinny clothes. I’ve lost approximately 9 pounds. Ian, well, Ian looks and FEELS terrific! And anything that makes my love this happy is worth it—whatever it takes.

Asher gets stronger after every meal, just ask him. He bares his muscles and asks me to feel how they’re growing from all the good food he eats.

Asher’s Dreamland adventures are getting more complex and elaborate. There’s a new character there—James—who hangs with Asher and Kompatchuk. They go out everyday and fight bad guys. Apparently, they are extremely competent at the superhero business. They do ninja moves and kung fu and plenty of magic. Just about any weapon in the world is available to them and they rescue people in dire straits. Asher also does a lot of work there: mostly in factories with systems and equipment and donations. And, oh, the competitions! They are held often, and Asher always wins. Furthermore, in Dreamland there is tons paperwork to deal with, like chapters and grading. Asher works constantly on his computer, programming and energizing and downloading. I haven’t yet heard him use the phrase “leveraging the synergies,” but I expect it’s not long now until I do. Honestly, he can talk 35 minutes nonstop about this stuff.

Lucas is in a really good place most of the time these days. (Creating the triangle prism above out of skewers and string is how he spent part of this morning.) He’s happy at school, learning like crazy, and enjoying life. His only real complaints center around not having enough time to have all the play dates he would like to have, and having to practice his piano. Lucas loves playing the piano, just not practicing. Next week he will perform in his fourth piano recital. He’s been playing less than a year. Lucas would dearly love to start taking martial arts classes. Unfortunately, although I think he’s ready to do it, it’s not presently in our budget.

Asher has formally been accepted into the Red Rose Kindergarten at Sacramento Waldorf School. This is very exciting and wonderful, and is exactly where I want him to be. Now I spend lots of mental cycles worrying about how we’re going to pay for it. But never mind about that. Let’s focus on how he calls me the “Princess of Love” instead, shall we?

Firefly, our special-needs, almost-starved-to-death chick, seems to have made a complete recovery. I have to say, I’m flabbergasted. I thought sure she was a goner, and that we’d be having that kind of teachable moment around here. She is not only walking, but also now runs and flies short distances.

So, yeah. I guess we’re good! One final thing: Thanks, Mom, for the new shoes for the boys, and clothes for Lucas!

Home-raised eggs have yolks that are huge, bright, and orange. Those are commercial eggs on the left and bottom.

Our littlest chick, Firefly, hasn’t been well at all this week. She has been so weak and unable to stand since Sunday morning. Every evening for three days I said good night to her, fully expecting to find her dead in the morning (I even cried a bit).

It now seems Firefly may have other plans.

She has been standing a lot more today. When she’s resting, she seems to have her feet under her, as though she has better control of her legs. I thought before it was her left side that was weakest, but now I’m seeing weakness in her right leg, so maybe I was wrong before? She is eating a lot of food, and appears to me to be stronger for it. I’ve seen her stand when I put my hand toward her, but also when I’m not close by. She’s been on her feet rather a lot for a dying bird, I think. I held her for a while today and she perched on my hand and flapped her wings— something she hadn’t been strong enough to do in days. She’s even preening her feathers a little.

The fact that she seems to be improving has me wondering if the other, bigger chicks were keeping her from the food. I hear that chickens will do that sometimes to a little bird, and Firefly is definitely the “runt” of the flock. In fact, while they have grown tremendously, she remains tiny. Perhaps she was just being starved to death, and now that she’s eating she’s gaining back some strength. (If this was the case, I’m sorry I didn’t notice sooner!)

I wonder if she might make it. Then I wonder if we’ll end up with a hen that can’t be with the others and that needs lots of extra care. I have to admit, I’m rooting for her.

The other chicks are huge now. They seem nearly three times the size they were when we first brought them home. They look like proper BIRDS now, and act like them too. Pecking, scratching, flying, leaping, perching, jostling to be higher than the others—they do it all now. Their favorite game seems to be Jump on Your Head, in which one chick will literally jump on top of another. That chick in turn will jump on the head of the next chick, and so on. They make quite a racket doing this.

They still sleep in a pile, which is really funny and kind of sweet. And I thought human babies were light sleepers! The chicks take many naps during the day, but often the naps are only five or ten minutes long. And once one chick disturbs the pile, they all wake up and jostle about. I’ve watched the same chicks fall asleep and be awakened over and over again in just a short time.

Buttercup is eyeing me through the wire in this photo. They pay intense attention to me when I come near, which I do fairly often to feed them and check/freshen their water.

Three chicks stand out as the most active, most dominant of all: Chestnut, Sunshine, and Lightning. They are three different breeds and they each have a “sister” of the same breed who is more docile. I’m wondering if any of these three might end up being roosters. I sure hope not.

Inspired by SouleMama {this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

73 degrees on February 6? I love California! Many thanks to my favorite rock stacker and my favorite acorn planter for showing me this beautiful, local hike to Goose Flat. It was nourishing for my soul and I can’t wait to bring my family here.

We had several glorious, sparkly days in a row last week. (I love California!) For me they culminated in this perfect walk we took last Saturday. Ian, the boys, and I visited a small section of the American River Parkway called the San Juan Rapids trail.

It’s a great, short walk (for little legs), which are compelled to follow brother wherever he may roam.

Even out on a limb, so to speak.

This photo was taken from the top of Crystal Mountain, a giant hill of rocks left over from the days of industrial gold mining. This trail is familiar to Lucas because it’s right near his Waldorf school and he hikes here with his class often—this is good because he gets to be the authority on the area. He likes that very much.

If all goes well, it won’t be too long before Asher is hiking here with his Kindergarten class, hoping to find quartz crystals of his own.

May I present my almost-4-year-old? Isn’t he mighty?