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.

I’m so busy with work I almost didn’t notice, but sometime this week (August 22nd? 23rd?) marks the seventh anniversary (7th!) of my self-employment.

In August 2003, I left the best job I’ve ever had to stay home with my 1-year-old son, Lucas, because frankly I couldn’t hack leaving him with a nanny every day.

I think I made it all the way to the end of that generous, third “reintegration” month, working three days a week at the office and two days at home. That’s when I realized it’s not normal to cry every day you go to work. (During my morning commute, at my desk, in the bathroom, at lunch, on the way home.) Maybe a little at first—but after three months, it was starting to look less like a “difficult transition” and more like depression.

After a lot of soul searching and a hasty look at my bank account, I threw caution to the wind and quit that great job. It was the right decision for me and my son. It was the right decision for my mental health.

I left to go freelance with no freelance experience. No savings. No contacts. No babysitting. Not one tiny clue how to run a business. And it was seven years ago! Did I mention that part already?

I’ve had some really hard years. I’ve had a few spectacular years. I’ve had many, many late nights working and I’ve lost many weekends to my projects. I’ve had seasonal work with ultra-busy months and dreadfully slow months. I’ve had hundreds of days with my kids that I would not otherwise have had. I say yes to stinky projects sometimes. I am occasionally so busy I have to say no to gems.

I’m the boss. My own boss.

And while I may have a tendency to be nostalgic about those old office days, with old office friends and everything else that went with office life, I’m not sorry.

Because, when you factor in all the various pros and cons, tally all the tick marks, and weight it all up, I now have the best job I’ve ever had.

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.

Lucas off to camp, Daddy off to work. Me and Asher with all kinds of time for …

chalk drawings on the patio,

inspection of garden flowers,

and the study of sun and shadow, curves and lines and points …

for free-ranging hens, like Avalanche here,

and for growing pumpkins, green and ghostly white,

for purple morning glories, cana seed pods,

and corn in the morning light. How do we know when it’s ripe?

It’s August, so the crepe myrtles are blooming, bursting!

We’re busy, so the playroom needs sweeping. A million precious things scattered a million different places.

And then the blocks simply must come out to play,

and Mommy simply MUST work a tad.

“Bob the Builder” is fun for Asher. Chapter 8 is not so fun for Mommy.

The leftover Ciro’s pizza simply MUST be Lunch.

“I will take my nap on the couch. For ONE minute. And then you wake me up and say, ‘Asher, it’s time to wake up to play!'”

Mia’s Apple Tree

Cameleon Was A Spy

I’ll be damned! He is asleep on the couch, just like he promised.

More of Chapter 8 in the hush of the sleeping preschooler, who,

miracle of miracles!

awakes with a smile and gentle

pat, pat, pat footfalls,

bear in hand.

We fetch Lucas from summer camp, where he wove a tiny rug.

“When can I go to big-boy summer camp?” Asher asks. Again.

“Buckle up, boys. We’re going to the library,”

where they cannot see the books for the computer that has kid games and a candy-colored keyboard.

But the Carmichael Library is newly remodeled and lovely, as is evident in the rotunda. Mommy wants to take more pictures, but then feels too much like a weirdo.

There’s also too much bickering between Asher and Lucas over the computer, so Mommy decides to check out.

Three books for boys, three books for Daddy.

We visit Great-Grandma and Great-Aunt, who are fine and old and loving and mysterious and bored until we arrive.

They don’t believe we have chickens.

Home again, we collect the day’s eggs. The green ones are lucky, don’t ya know.

And “Toy City” grows and grows some more.

For dinner, tasty snapper, spinach, snap peas, garden tomatoes, à la Daddy.

Sundown.

There’s still time for chicken ranging, feeding, and holding,

for watering the garden,

for watering the boys, giddy and nekkid, screeching and laughing.

“MY FOOT! I stepped in chicken poop!”

Shivering.

Shower. Teeth. Jammies. Stories. Lotion for eczema. Songs. Cuddles.

“You check on us?”

“Oh yes.”

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.

The Wicked Kings of Bloon is written and illustrated by Steven Kellogg and is copyrighted 1970. Kellogg is the author and/or illustrator of many books for kids, as you can see on his website, including Is Your Mama A Llama by Deborah Guarino, a favorite in our house. As you can see, I have had Bloon since I was young enough not to realize that I shouldn’t be writing “Scool Book” on my books. My hardback copy was purchased for $1.00 probably about 1975, but that’s really just a guess.

Kellogg’s artwork is amazing—rich and colorful, textured and emotional. To my eye, it appears to be both watercolors and colored pencils.

The story contains several morals, the main one being that war is wrong and doesn’t make anyone happier.

“Bloon is a summer land of warm golden fields and tiny villages. The gentle folk who lived there spend their days walking through the flowers, telling silly stories, and snoozing in the sun.”

The citizens of East Bloon are happy, simple people living in a bucolic world near the Land of Monsters, but that isn’t a problem for them at all …

… until “the meanest hag of them all,” Hepzibah, raises her twin sons, Horridge and Heathfern, to despise one another. See how wicked she is? She’s about to mow down that flower!

“‘HORRRRRRRRIDGE! Horridge, you little wretch, why can’t you do anything right? Why can’t you be like Heathfern?'”

“‘HEATHFERN, you ugly beast, why are you so clumsy and awful? Why can’t you do anything right? Why can’t you be like Horridge?'”

That would do it, don’t you think?

By the time the boys were twenty, they had flattened their miserable shack with their fighting and Hepzibah kicked them out. “‘I hate you,’ hissed Horridge. ‘I’ll get you,’ spat Heathfern.”

Horridge left the Land of Monsters and came to the peaceful village of East Bloon, “where he found the happy villagers giggling, tickling each other, and dancing around the square.” Horridge decided he wanted to be king of East Bloon, so he threatened the villagers. “‘Unless you make me your king, I will topple the tower of your town hall at dawn tomorrow!'” And with the help of a powerful magnet, he did. The villagers, not knowing what else to do, made him their king and brought him all of their precious treasures.

Horridge grew fat from eating all day and all night. “He insulted the ladies. He punched the village elders. He threw things at the members of his court. And still he was not happy.” One day, he spied through his spyglass the friendly neighboring village of West Bloon, only there was a fat, horrible king looking back at him. Heathfern! “‘EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-YOG!’ shrieked Horridge.” And the once-peaceful village of East Bloon began to prepare for war. “The last whisper of joy went out of life in East Bloon.”

Horridge went to the Land of Monsters and enslaved a giant, cuddly monster, wrenching him away from the arms of his beloved, to be a beast of war. “For days, the gentle creature lay in chains grieving for his mate in the mountain cave while the court blacksmiths scurried about measuring him for a suit of armor.”

In time, the fateful day of battle came. Soldiers from both East Bloon and West Bloon marched out of their fortified cities. “‘Smash them! Smash them! Bash them! Crush them!’ bellowed the kings.” The war beast of East Bloon lumbered forward, until he recognized his beloved, covered tip to toe in armor of her(?) own to fight on the side of West Bloon.

“Crying out for joy, the two happy animals toppled their riders, tore off their metal plates, and fell gurgling into each other’s arms.” This was the wake-up call that the villagers needed. They whispered and conferred among themselves, and then dethroned the kings Horridge and Heathfern, in favor of a peaceful United Kingdom of Bloon.

The trappings of war were thrown off and demolished. “The East Bloon band broke into a joyous tune and the armies flung themselves into a rousing polka.” Since the brothers could not put aside their differences and join the villagers in a peaceful life …

… the villagers sent them flying …

… right back to their hag mother.

This is the first book I can remember tackling the idea of war. That these gentle people could be convinced by bullies to abandon their happy pursuits and go to war really bothered me. I used to wonder why Hepzibah was so cruel, and how anyone could think parting those two gentle creatures was OK. I guess the story is a product of its time and it was very powerful to me.

I pulled this book out last week and read it to my boys for the first time. Lucas was appropriately aghast at the behavior displayed by Hepzibah, Horridge, and Heathfern. So, I’d say the book is still doing its job.

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!

Some blessings for counting:

1. Organic strawberries with lunch
2. Air conditioning
3. Hobbies and art to enliven and enrich life
4. Potty-training successes—finally!
5. Blueberry flavored iced-tea
6. Automatic chicken watering devices (like a drinking fountain for chickens)
7. A bumper crop of giant green tomatoes
8. Doors that begin opening as soon as others start closing
9. My brilliant, loving husband
10. Spiders sitting smack in the middle of their webs

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.   😉

Some random thoughts …

Is it wrong to have a “pet” black widow spider? I have one in my backyard and I’ve not told the children about it, nor do I want it killed. It has a secret lair, which seems to me to be kind of miraculous and good, since it’s outside the normal traffic patterns of our lives. What I really want is a macro picture of its pretty red hourglass. And a long black dress with the same design to match.

My Asher has caught a cold and is staying home today, not so much because he is slowed by it, but because he is most likely contagious right now—I mean, insofar as I can guess such a thing. I’m wondering what to do about swim this afternoon. He is stubborn and demanding.

I’m trying to figure out a new project I have to do by September. It’s the reorganization and recreation of some curriculum for the instructors’ resources that go with a textbook. Puzzling … puzzling …

Last night my father in law and Mimi came over for dinner to celebrate two overdue birthdays and an overdue Father’s Day. Ian grilled the best chicken breasts I’ve ever had—moist, perfectly cooked, and flavorful—and Mimi brought a gorgeous carrot cake, in which the special ingredient was crushed pineapple. Divine.

I’m sending all my love to two friends today. They need it.

I think perhaps we’re still tired from the late night on the 4th, or at least, that may be Lucas’s case. He’s dragging. We’re all feeling a trifle crabby, even though everything is perfectly … normal. There is an uncomfortable degree of bickering between my children. Summer days are full and hot and long. My brain is split in two thanks to my two jobs; and I’m feeling like I’m not doing very well at either of them.