200th post?? And other stuff.

Hi Friends! So we just got back from a nice long hike up a new-to-us trail-- right up towards Mount Waialeale, so we could hear river sounds in the valleys on either side of the trail, and happy cows mooing under the ohia lehua trees, and we snacked on thimble berries and wondered about a single foundation stone next to a mid-jungle stand of banana trees and ti. Rosie managed all 4 something miles without a single complaint, as long as we kept up the scary-encounters-with-animals stories. We ranged from the actual (the chihuahua that traumatized baby Maile and the mountain lion that jumped on Dr. Brotherson's horse) to the fantastical (that time I was transformed into a were-cougar). And also, she made up a story cycle about a creaky tree who only wishes he could be friends with some other creaky trees, and then he is, and they make a whole creaky forest! And there lives a nice tigress named Ellemena, who hunts rabbits, is scared of spiders, and who carefully stepped over the Tiny Rock which makes anyone who touches it tiny.

Last night, on a long drive home from dinner-at-the-beach, Maile fell fast asleep, all sandy, and Rosie wanted to hear every three nephite story I could remember or invent. Mysterious hitchhiker does good and you turn around the thank him/them... and they're gone! And also Jesus stories which tended to fall apart for me: Noah and the Ark: And then God, uh, killed all of the people, because apparently he is prioritizing the survival of many species over the survival of individuals, and then He kind of says sorry and paints a rainbow...? Or the Good Samaritan: This guy was really hurt, and, nobody helped him, except for this guy that nobody else liked because he was mixed-race, and he, uh...wait, what? The best was Jesus Healing the Leopards. I'll stick with that one.

I wish I could faithfully record every charming thing these charges do and say, but all I've got is little mini-moments and the hope that it's all recorded somewhere, that I'm not really forgetting all this wonder and delight. Except for the poop. I can forget that.

Maile has no fear of me. Rosie, as a baby, if I said in a serious voice, "no throwing food!" she would cry and never ever, throw food again. Maile, I say, "Don't bite your sister!" in my scariest mom voice and she just looks at me for a second and then breaks into giggles. And those dimples! Even though she took a bloody chunk out of Rosie's shoulder, she is unrepentant. And she is baby-mad. Her go-to thought is: baby.

Since my last post I had a birthday. It was a nice simple birthday day-- one bite of breakfast in bed, then a lovely fancy lunch at my favorite 22 North. Someday I'll have to do a proper review but I'll just say: tasty. Plus there's a lawn so the maniac children can run within view of my table and my heaping kabocha pie with vanilla ice cream.
Some recent photos!

the children trying to squeeze into the smallest possible space.

Science experiments are exhausting.

Wait, no, they're awesome!! This one was about the strength of paper.

how I found the cheese.

Aww, kids and whipped cream!

Awww, the kids and salad!

Merbuff goat

Daddymatt goat

Merbuff and Rosie-goat

And one of our new chickies! They've already passed through the cute, peeping in the box stage, and are now on to their long slow teenage-hood, where they get chicken acne, demand food, and don't produce eggs in return.

Brr, mothers day brunch was freeeeezing. Like 68 degrees or something.

Happy mother's day to meee, happy mother's day to meee...

One day we made lunch and desert at the same time: cheese, tomatoes, and basil pizza; and yogurt, strawberries and mint pizza.

My favorite kind of day: everybody in the rain, in the garden, muckin about.

my little potato harvest! Potatoes here always get blight, but they still can produce a nice little clutch before they shuffle off.

Putting baby to work.

unsafe swinging practices.

this one's for you, bro!

frog eggs under a rock. Well, I assumed they were frog eggs. A couple days later i saw a mama centipede wrapped around a clutch that looked very similar, but neon green. So...Maybe we should have squished these.

Chicken sh#* slugs. The more chickens you have in your yard, the more likely these slugs are to look like chicken doo. Cool huh! Selective pressure at play! Cuz, um, the chickens won't eat them if they look like, um, you know. So only the really hehe crappy looking ones survive to reproduce, hence, garden full of fake chicken $@#. Everybody with me??

desensitizing baby to furry things.

RJ art-shot.

This is how RJ sees her daddy.

Another RJ.