Don't be my baby

The not-worrying-about-pets zone

The trip to Cuero made me think about pets. Hombre and I used to own a big male iguana. That's what I got for buying my college boyfriend an adorable, tiny lizard and then marrying the guy: ten years of dealing with an increasingly surly and powerful reptile whose special skills were molting and belching. (I refer to the iguana, of course.)

Not that I minded; I thought of Emmett-Claude as our "baby" in that way that only non-parents can. Leaving him when we went on trips was a nerve-racking ordeal. He required all kinds of special care and handling--proper lights, vitamins, humidity, and no wearing yellow because it enraged him. I fussed over every contingency. I'm sure the pet-sitters rolled their eyes behind my back.

On the way home last weekend, I realized I hadn't worried once about our dozen pets while we were away. I give our great pet-sitter ninety percent of the credit for my peace of mind, but my changed attitude plays a part, too. I love my critters but I don't think of them as my children. Frankly, it's a relief.

What does she see in him?

One of the kids' parakeets has an untoward interest in my three-foot-tall, scrap-metal praying mantis. Also, she and the other 'keet poop in their drinking water every day. So glad they're not my kids. Think of the money I'm saving on therapy.

Busy and Busier

Dogzilla is mellowing but still makes time to chew laundry off the line, tote live rats in her mouth and eat the odd roll of electrical tape. Perrito, who is ten pounds lighter but has twice her strength, routinely busts through sturdy fences like the Kool-Aid man in a dog suit. He hasn't figured out how to bust back, though. He caps his feats of strength by whining pitifully on the other side of the fence until we rescue him. Thank dog he's not my son.

Wanda digs in for a dirt bath.

The chickens are a little messy but they give us eggs. Apart from some adolescent bad behavior and the shrieking whenever they ovulate, they'd be tolerable as daughters. But then I'd feel weird about the eggs.

I can't take fish-tank photos for anything.

The freshwater fish in our tank are pretty and silent, ideal would-be children who just happen to eat their young and their dead. No, thanks.

Though he's twice her size, Big Hank outweighs Snoopy by just one pound. The rest of his volume is hair.

What about the bunnies? They're so mellow and snuggly. Imagine my mortification when the vet explained that the bald patch on Hank's back was not a skin disease but evidence of rough domme trade dished out by little Snoopy during what the kids innocently call "horsey rides."

I love my pets, quirks and all, but thank goodness I don't have kids who practice cannibalism, rat-licking or fence demolition. By the same token, not one of my companion animals has ever called me a poophead, peed in my bed or stepped on my glasses. It all evens out, and I'm delighted to have all of them around, kids and pets. But I'm glad I don't have fourteen children.

Making learning fun

One day last week Hurricanehead made an announcement:

"Today is the day I yearn to weed!"

It had nothing to do with yard work. He'd decided he was going to read--and he did. I printed some Montessori alphabet cards and phonetic words. Hurricanehead enjoyed sounding out the words and building them himself with the alphabet letters. Then he got his Red-Letter Alphabet Book and started building words from its pages.

When he got to the page with 'crab,' Hurricanehead carefully selected the c, r, and a cards. As he looked for the b, his gaze fell on the p and he looked up at me with a glint in his eye. I bit my tongue as he moved the p into place and proudly read his creation.

"Crap!"

He spent the next few minutes switching out the p and b while chanting, "crab, crap, crab, crap!"

Reading had been appealing enough, but the ability to create potty words and read them aloud without censure was almost more heaven than the boy could handle. What better motivation to continue learning?

"Give him a picture of a ship," my friend Theresa suggested. Courtney admitted that her daughter's favorite early spelling game was to put an s in front of 'not.' The possibilities for a customized curriculum are endless, and much more interesting than Dick and Jane or even Bob.

How do you keep learning interesting for yourself and/or your kids? Crab crap? Dangerous experiments in the garage or kitchen? Dick and Jane? Please share.

Birds of Cuero, Texas

Texas is a birder's playground, or so I've been told. Cuero, the town we visited over the weekend, is a stop on one of the state's Great Coastal Birding Trails. Time of year matters, of course, as does knowing what you're doing. Since we visited on a foggy winter weekend and know very little about birds, I did the best I could:

The great bronze pelican inhabits the antique-store microhabitat of the downtown region.

This robust Anhydrous Milkfat hen shares the Great Bronze Pelican's antique-store habitat.

See you at The Doll House, turkeys.

The Doll House is a diner. I was quite disappointed to find it closed on our Sunday morning walk, because I wanted to ask about the turkeyfowl-dollhouse connection. There's always next time, but if any of you know, please share so I can quit scratching my head.

It's always the Chisholm Trail somewhere

On Saturday we left Austin (on the route of the historic Chisholm cattle-drive trail), near Round Rock (named after the stone in Brushy Creek that marked the Chisholm Trail crossing), and drove to San Antonio (once a major stop along the old Chisholm Trail). From there we proceeded southeast. Somewhere between Smiley and Cuero we saw westbound horsemen waving orange safety flags, leading two covered wagons and, by Hombre's estimate, about 50 cowfolks on horseback.

The most traffic we saw on Highway 87

Cowboy in mirror may be closer than he appears

I woke Hurricanehead from a nap to see the horses, and we wondered why these riders had taken to the open road. It was the first sunny day in a week; I assumed it was just a good day for a long ride. But later, in downtown Cuero, I saw a poster for the upcoming San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo.* The folks we saw were the Cuero Rawhide Riders, making their way to the rodeo along--you guessed it--the old Chisholm Trail.

At this point I wondered if there was any place not on the Chisholm Trail. The answer, it seems, is not really, if you're talking about south-central Texas. The maps I consulted were a tad confusing, but the phrase "hundreds of feeder trails" helped it all make sense. Pretty much anywhere you had cattle headed to the main Chisholm Trail could have been considered part of the trail.

My aunt and cousin still raise cattle near Cuero. Their cattle get to market the modern way, in trucks on paved highways. But it's a safe bet that at some point they're on the Chisholm Trail.


*Lest you underestimate the cultural significance, know that my mother--who owns no livestock and rides no horse--is waiting to put her house on the market until after the SA rodeo.

Gone to Texas*

Redneck Mother slept here.

I took the family to Cuero over the weekend. We visited my 95-year-old great-aunt and my dad's sister and we soaked up regional history, sunshine, Tex-Mex, and family stories as well. I plan to blog about it all week: quilts, cattle, courthouses, trail drives, Lithuanian settlers and a few thoughts on the lost city of Indianola. You're gonna need a Texasectomy by the time I'm done.



*Don't I already live in Texas? I live in Austin. This was a trip to the Texas that gets along without Starbucks and where you can drive for miles seeing only pastures, horses and cattle--what people from elsewhere envision when they think of Texas.

Rainy-day reader

The children were skidding toward cabin fever this morning as the just-above-freezing rain continued. A brief outing to the grocery store, however, has restored the boys' interest in staying indoors. In celebration of domestic calm on a yucky day, I offer a few links.

David Owen offers stock-market grief counseling.

In his Broken Promise Land series, Waco Tribune-Herald writer (and family friend) J.B. Smith looks at illegal immigration, its dangers, and how a Baylor professor is helping identify those who don't survive. You might have to do a free registration to view the articles; it's worth it.

Nobody combines crafts and knitting with nature photography like Knitting Iris. I could spend all afternoon looking at her archives. Alas, I must bake cookies instead.

Update: About those cookies--I recently got a bottle of Saigon cinnamon. It's powerful stuff. Rocketboy used it to goose his morning cocoa and ended up with something so much like liquid Red Hots he couldn't drink it. However, if you use Saigon cinnamon in this recipe--without decreasing the amount of cinnamon called for--you will find Cookie Nirvana. And yes, that is my stage name.

Documentaries that you will like

When the disc arrived in the mail I was flummoxed: Sandwiches That You Will Like. It couldn't actually be sixty minutes worth of sandwiches. Could it? I'm no TV-foodie--I'd rather eat than watch--and the thought of a sandwich documentary made my eyes glaze.

Rocketboy, however--the kid who recently got his own chopping knife and a steel to keep it scary sharp--was taking notes. In anticipation of our trips to Boston and to Houston's museum district, his radar was pinging. Sure enough, sandwich shops in both cities were featured along with others across the country. I was summoned to the living-room watch, learn, and Google-map said establishments.

It was actually pretty interesting. It turns out that Thelma's in Houston is pretty close to where we'll be staying (I haven't picked a hotel just yet), making it perfect for a carnivorous field trip. It looks like we'll be eating roast beef at Revere Beach this summer as well.

My disinterest in watching people cook aside, we see a lot of documentaries around here. I don't know if it's because we homeschool or because I'm shacked up with Mr. Nonfiction, but I'm going through a major doc phase. Over the last year, I've enjoyed Sicko, The Real Eve, Who Killed the Electric Car?, Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser, An Inconvenient Truth, Jesus Camp, This Film is Not Yet Rated, and David Macauley's Mill Times. (Only two have recently failed to hold my interest--Manufacturing Consent and Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price.) Let's not even start on the episodes of Extreme Engineering, Popular Mechanics for Kids, and anything dinosaur-related that the little dudes love.

If you've got any documentary recommendations, for kids or adults, kindly lay 'em out in the comments. It's going to be cold and rainy here all week, and the more flickering pixels we can watch, the happier I'll be.

What's sproutin'?

Today featured the most wintry-weather crapulence so far this season. In Austin, of course, that means the temperature hovers above freezing and it's raining. Those of you who live where there's a real winter may laugh, but fellow sun-belters can relate. It's gross outside. The bunnies and children are sulking indoors.

I'm focusing on what's germinating in anticipation of warmer weather in a few weeks. I started fifty peat-pots of seeds last week and with the exception of some cayenne seeds from 2004 that have finally expired* I'm reaping quite a sprout bounty on the kitchen counter: Roma and beefsteak tomatoes; kale, collard and broccoli; basil and cilantro; black-eyed Susan and yerba anís. This weekend I plan to move them all into larger pots. Where I will keep them for the next eight-odd weeks is beyond me; it's my first real success (knock wood) starting seeds indoors.

Outdoors, my parsley and cilantro plants are covered in case of sleet, and my black-seeded Simpson and Bibb lettuce seedlings are under homemade row covers the boys helped me build with chicken wire and some old sheets that I cut to fit the wire frames.

After years of middling results and notable failures, I'm starting to get the hang of the gardening thing. My frozen avocado seedlings might beg to differ, but everything else seems happy. What gets you through the winter? What are you looking forward to?

*On advice I read somewhere (maybe Square Foot Gardening?) I store all opened seed packs and saved seeds in airtight containers in the fridge in hopes of preserving their sprouty goodness.

East Texas politico swallows entire leg

I only heard about this little gem because it happened in Hombre's hometown, a spot called Sulphur Springs. Having visited Sulphur Springs many times over the years, I've seen that its quaint downtown and funky courthouse square are damn near deserted. As in many other places, the young head for big cities and Wal-Mart sucks local merchants down the drain.

You might think boosting business downtown would be a priority for everyone on the city council, even if it means allowing the sale of demon rum so people don't cross the county line to spend their money at Bustin' Loose. But this is east Texas, where elected officials sometimes have other priorities:

"I figure if the alcohol comes in, the gay bars will come in too, don't you imagine?" Jordan said. "I would imagine they could. I don't know that we have any ordinances against it. It's something I'd have to check out and see."

Jordan also said he was "kind of offended" when told someone asked if he was gay following his statement.

"I didn't appreciate that after I found out, " he said. "I didn't hear it — I heard somebody say something, but I didn't know it was aimed at me. I thought my brother was going to go back there and deck 'em."

Gary Jordan: teetotaling heterosexual, bravely protecting his neighbors from the logical outcome of consuming alcohol--gay sex. Jordan didn't stop with his foot in his mouth, either. That would have been too easy:

"When [Jesus] talks about turning water into wine, he turned that water into the best-tasting grape juice ever tasted. He did not turn it into fermented drink."

Rick Murray, who plans to open a steakhouse downtown, took umbrage at the remarks.

"It seems like a very convenient interpretation," Murray said, addressing Jordan. "I think most Catholics ... "

"The Catholics need to read the Greek to see what it says," Jordan parried.

Before you write the whole town off, know that the righteous did prevail. There will be beer and wine in downtown Sulphur Springs. But thanks for showing us that neat leg-in-mouth trick, Gary.

A Hurricanehead year

Hurricanehead is four years old today. Last night Hombre asked him what he'd learned from being three, which caused him to collapse in giggles. I guess I'll have to piece it together from the evidence.

Like many budding philosophers, he found inspiration in nature:

I was down on the ground weeding a flower bed when Hurricanehead walked up, put a grubby hand on my shoulder, heaved a big sigh and said, "It's hard to get a bee out of your nose with a hammer."

He explored his personal style:

As I took his fall clothes down from the closet shelves this morning, I could see him imagining himself in each and every turtleneck and fleece pullover.

He spent the rest of the day turning those dreams into reality, which means he spent half the day bonking into things with a shirt over his head.

He begged to differ:

"Butt-head," Hurricanehead ventured.

"It's Buth-ed, I told you."

Long, thoughtful pause.

"No, I think it's Butt-head."

He also weaned with no fanfare, worked very hard on a number of important projects, attempted to assert himself, and communed in spirit with the jaguar:

Today Hurricanehead ate Chinese food for the first time. He and his brother used chopsticks with surprisingly good results, thanks to the cool Fun Chop clips that a friend gave us. We managed to dine out, expose the kids to a new cuisine, use unfamiliar utensils and celebrate a birthday without wrecking the joint or saying anything too inappropriate. Word to new parents: it does get easier as they get older.

Hurricanehead also told me that because he's four I can no longer call him "Tiny Boy," which has long been how he and I both refer to him.

"I'm big now," he assured me.

So you are. Happy birthday, son.

Feeding curiosity

As a reward for a good-behavior milestone reached, I took the boys to breakfast this morning at the restaurant of their choice: Denny’s.

“Denny’s is where you end up,” my friend Theresa said, shaking her head when I mentioned it. “You don’t set out to go there.”

In my dining inferno, Denny’s ranks just above the Waffle House (whose two signature flavors, as I recall, are mayo and second-hand smoke) and open dumpsters. But I had told the kids they could pick the place, and Denny’s is shiny.

I put on my game face, braved a freak downpour and ignored the greasy handprints on all that shiny chrome. Rocketboy ate most of a junior Grand Slam. Hurricanehead picked over the pancakes I had to order a la carte in order not to have them decorated with whipped cream to resemble a smiling space alien. (Quoth the waitress, “I’ll see what I can do.”)

The sun came out as we finished our meal and Rocketboy adjusted the blinds, revealing spit wads on the window shade. We left as the clouds gave way to blue sky and--although I didn’t know it then--an honest-to-goodness new day. The first clue came as we drove by a coming-soon Mediterranean buffet place.

“We have to go there when it opens,” Rocketboy insisted. “I want to try food from all around the Mediterranean Sea.”

Thinking he was blowing smoke, I rattled off a list of cuisines from the region: Moroccan, Egyptian, Lebanese, Spanish, and so on. I didn’t mention Greek because he already loves the Greek place near our house.

“I want to try them all,” he insisted.

Still testing, I mentioned Phoenicia Bakery.

“Why haven’t you taken me there?” he demanded.

“I don’t know,” I said, not reminding him that only last week he’d flipped out when I offered to take him to a Filipino grocery. He didn’t want to try anything “weird.” But that was B.D.: Before Denny’s.

“There are a lot of ethnic places to eat in town,” I told him. “There’s an Ethiopian place that’s supposed to be really good.”

“We must go,” he said.

At Costco this afternoon, I had to pry the child away from the packaged sushi; I told him we’d get some made fresh at the grocery near home. On the way home he pointed out a Japanese place and asked if I would take him. This evening he presented us with a homemade, balanced meal of his own designing: turkey and cheese sandwiches, apple slices and carrots.

“You have to eat some of everything,” he told his little brother. “It would be an insult to me if you don’t.” This, from the child who heretofore hissed like a possum in a leg trap when we served vegetables.

When I asked Rocketboy what sparked his sudden interest in new tastes and foods, he couldn’t say. I suspect our breakfast at Denny’s showed him that it's time to move on to greener pastures. Maybe they put some sort of culinary-curiosity substance in the pancake batter. Whatever the cause, I don’t think we’ll have to go back soon.

Baby food

Someone brought over an unexpected treat this afternoon: peanut-butter pie. I hadn’t had peanut-butter pie since right after Rocketboy was born and one of the church ladies brought over a meal complete with that dessert. I will forever associate peanut-butter pie with the exhausted hunger and stunned delight of brand-new motherhood. One bite of today’s pie and Rocketboy was an eight-pound, wiggly snurpler with a cord stump again. Mmmmm.

Is there a food that takes you back? (Don't say 'ice chips.')

Dirt on the brain

I played around last night with the USDA's new Web Soil Survey after reading about it in Organic Gardening. If you garden it's worth checking the data for your area. I found my soil's water-holding capacity, parent material, and a host of other things to pluck a garden geek's heartstrings and deepen your understanding of your soil.

I learned that my house sits on the line between two regions, dividing the stony limestone clay front yard from the chalk-based clay back yard. Clay is clay, you say? Not so. One region drains better and has more organic matter. The other is--ha, ha!-- where I'm growing my vegetable garden.

And yes, my garden is growing, slowly. Some of last year's strawberry plants and their runners have re-emerged to join the new Chandler plants I added last month. French Breakfast radishes are popping up, which makes up for the Cherry Belle seeds that were lost to an errant chicken dustbath. Tiny Bibb and Black Simpson lettuce seedlings are up. Garlic is garlicking along but won't be ready for weeks. There are a few almost-ready carrots keeping the parsley company. Both the Dorsett apple tree I planted last winter and a small pomegranate sapling still have green leaves despite a few light freezes. The bunnies have diligently prepared the area under their outdoor pen for a new fruit tree, and the hens graciously turn the compost at every chance.

I've ordered spring seeds. The boys and I are going to try our hand at starting seeds indoors, beginning with broccoli. What are you growing right now or planning to grow this spring? Do any of you grow herbs or veggies indoors during the winter?