Roles of Men and Women

July 13, 2014Leave a comment

There has been a lot of talk about the equality of man and women. Empowered women want the same privileges, responsibilities, and roles as men. I have never felt a need or desire to join any movement of these feminist women, for I have never in my life felt like I was less than man.

It is good for women to get paid the same for men for doing the same job. It is good to not be discriminated against because of gender. But I do not desire or seek the responsibilities of men. I don’t want to sign up for the draft, I don’t want the priesthood, I don’t want to have to make a living for my family.

I am a stay at home. And it is not a degraded role I am stuck in. It is career and a calling I choose. I can grow children inside of me, I can feed my babies, and I can care and nurture for them in so many ways. What higher calling is there of being a mother? And no man can grow a child, or nurse. It is a privilege only for women.

So I am not concerned that men are stronger, more adapt at physical labor. I am not concerned that men hold the priesthood and not women. I am not concerned that there are more men in the workplace and in leadership roles.

Because I know I have been given a beautiful life, that is as important if not more so, than any of that. I have the opportunity to raise and shape the next generation. I have never felt like I was unequal to men, many times I have felt more valued.

If women demand the same roles as man, where does that leave men? Already education rates are falling in men. We should encourage them to step up and work to become the providers and leaders of our families, communities and countries. We need them in the more visibility leadership positions, in positions of strength.

So that I as a women can work in a hardly visible, but much more important supporting role. So I can shape my growing boys, so I can create a great Home that all people come back to and need.

I think I can understand that feeling about a housewife’s work being like that of Sisyphus (who was the stone rolling gentleman). But it is surely in reality the most important work in the world. What do ships, railways, miners, cars, government etc exist for except that people may be fed, warmed, and safe in their own homes? As Dr. Johnson said, “To be happy at home is the end of all human endeavour”. (1st to be happy to prepare for being happy in our own real home hereafter: 2nd in the meantime to be happy in our houses.) We wage war in order to have peace, we work in order to have leisure, we produce food in order to eat it. So your job is the one for which all others exist…C.S. Lewis (pg 447-Letter of CS Lewis 1988 ed.

When our lives are over, and if I spent all my time simply giving birth to raising my boys, and serving people quietly as a women, will my influence be less than a man’s? I think it will be greater. Anyone can be a CEO of a major company, but only I can bare and raise my children.

Garden Update and the Chicken Run

July 10, 20143 Comments

It’s been hot. I’ve been spending most of my time gardening just trying to keep everything irrigated. Previously, I’ve been hand watering with watering cans during the twice-weekly irrigation turn. I’m discovering this isn’t enough for the plants right now, so I’ve taken advantage of the soaker hoses already in place.

I’m glad my garden isn’t that big right now, that I’m only focusing on a few beds. If I was trying to worry about everything on my overgrown lot, I would get burned out pretty quickly. I’ve been working on an overall landscape plan lately, and it is getting me excited to extend the garden…but I’m not in a hurry to do so.

July marked the start of summer harvest. I haven’t been getting anything out of the garden for a few weeks (unless you count parsley), and just this last week I’ve got my first zucchini, tomato, and pepper. I’m excited to start cooking with more vegetables–our vegetable intake always goes up in the summer and fall.

The chickens also started laying eggs. I ate the first small egg for breakfast this morning. We have been experimenting with their run lately. We want the run to be movable and also roomy. Their current run is a length of chicken fencing with a double strand electric fence on top to prevent them from flying over. It’s not perfect, but works pretty well.

We tried just using an electric fence to give them some more room, but the chickens were not deterred. Then they free ranged for a while. I like having the chickens around the yard. My boys liked to chase them around and just watch them. Only problem is every time they free range I find something in my garden chewed on. A while ago it was the eggplant, and this time it was my fennel. I also want to focus their efforts on a section of the weed patch in the backyard, so eventually I don’t actually have a weed patch back there. (Chickens are excellent cultivators and weeders.) We’ll stick with the current run for now, but I think in the future when the teenage chickens are ready to join them and they need more room, I’ll go with electric net fencing.

Enjoy some pictures from around the garden…more project info on some of the things pictured will be coming.

Fireworks

July 9, 2014Leave a comment

Unlike most of my life when I don’t use my camera, I remembered that I had a firework setting on the fourth and actually used it. It’s pretty fun to take photos of fireworks because it is very easy to get a good picture.

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We had a family reunion for my Dad’s parents on the fourth. It was a lot of fun with swimming, food, cousins I haven’t seen in years, and the great firework display. The next day we went to Seven Peaks and did even more swimming. It doesn’t get old when it is over 90 outside.

Parkstrip Bed

July 1, 2014Leave a comment

This park strip bed is mostly on my neighbor’s yard. My neighbors are getting old, and most of their landscape is taken care of by a variety of relatives and professionals. One such person tilled up the bed, and I knew I had to take immediate action. I went out and talked to them and volunteered to take over the bed, explaining some of what I had envisioned. It was readily agreed to, and I promptly mulched it in wood chips. I then took out my design hat and and brainstormed several directions the bed could take.

I took a trip to the garden center and ended up with a currently simple, but effective design. There are three grasses Calamagrostis ‘Avalanche'(Variegated Feather Reed Grass), Deschampsia ‘Schottland'(Scottish Tufted Hair Grass), and Helictotrichon ‘Sapphaire’ (Blue Oats), and a ground cover Oenothera “Shimmer” (Evening Primrose). I want to plant more in the bed, but decided I would start with a basic foundation and add more later after I see how these plants did. (It’s cheaper that way too.)

The garden is super easy to maintain–I hand water it twice a week right now, and it will need even less water later on. The only other task is weeding, which I do once a week with a winged weeder. The weeds were coming up pretty good because of all the tilling at first, but now its hardly any work at all. (I wouldn’t have tilled the bed first if I was in charge–I would have just done a light hoeing to get rid of the weeds.)

I like the bed mostly because it is the only part of my garden that isn’t a tree, something I don’t want, or an annual. Right now it’s a bit underdeveloped, but it’ll just keeping getting better as the plants grow in.

Doing What I Love

July 1, 20141 Comment

Sometimes I get discouraged with being a stay at home mom. The only person I am really accountable for what I do is myself…and God and my husband and children, but they tend to be more forgiving. I’m not very gentle or forgiving with myself, and sometimes I hold myself so accountable I spend the whole day beating myself down for not being perfect. Sometimes, I am a much worse mother than I ever thought I’d be. Motherhood brought more stress, lack of sleep and responsibility then I have ever dealt with before in my life, and it also brought coping/reactive mechanisms that are less than desirable.

Sometimes I am super happy I’m a stay at home. I get to choose what I do with more freedom than I ever have in my life. I can read books, go hiking, and garden and I get to share what I love with two very moldable people. I have more opportunities to go after what I love doing, improve myself, and serve other people. I have developed new interests, found friends, and most of all I get to be loved and love others more deeply than ever. I get to engage in a work that I know is meaningful every day, by nurturing and raising children.

tree

Just a matter of perspective. I read in an article that a stay at home mother desired a child inclusive life, instead of a child centered one. If I constantly focus on my children, and our inadequacies, life isn’t grand. But if I’m focusing on a variety of interests, and I’m including my children in them, that’s when life is most beautiful. A good life is sitting outside and reading a new book while occasionally helping children move tires or acknowledging their latest sand building. It is going on a tiny hike and playing bear hunt on the way back down.

I can choose to focus on what I’m supposed to be doing, on making life productive and perfect…or I can find playfulness and happiness in engaging in what my children and I love to do.

Protected: In Defense of Yellow Lawn and Weeds

June 27, 2014

Boys

June 27, 2014Leave a comment

Apparently I was meant to mother boys. We have another one coming in December. The doctor was doing the ultrasound, and he stopped at one point and I looked at it and knew before he said anything that it was a boy. I was hoping a bit for a girl, but I’m not disappointing over another boy either. I love the ones I currently have so much, I don’t mind another.

These pictures are from a recent trip to Bear Lake that was a lot of fun. And my boys love sand. They are out playing in the sandbox for hours, and still adore beaches.

Volcanos

June 16, 2014Leave a comment

I decided to kill the grass again because giant volcanoes are fun.

The great idea of the day was to use baking soda and a tiny amount of water to make a moldable dough. The kids played with it for a while, and they we formed a volcano with it and added an entire contained of vinegar and killed off all the dinosaurs. And the grass underneath since plants don’t like concentrated vinegar. (It does grow back.)

Chickens

June 15, 2014Leave a comment

We have an unexpected rooster. Legally, we are not allowed to have roosters, nor did we ever plan on keeping one. But now that he’s here…he beautiful, and actually one of the friendliest of the flock. It’s been fun seeing his crow change from what I first thought was my toddler crying to a pretty nice cockle-doodle-do. He actually has great timing to be our alarm clock in the morning. His fate is still undecided: butchering or giving away are both still options. But for now he can stay.

The chickens feeder and water got updated to this homemade version made out of 3″ PVC pipe. It’s been very easy to use and keep clean, and cost us about $20 in supplies.

Finally in chicken news: we got new chicks. They are are a fun batch that love to eat right out my hand.

Vegetables

June 13, 2014Leave a comment

The veggies are doing just fine. At the end of the cool season crops, I had some expected surprises.

Flowers. The yellow is broccoli raab and the purple is radish. Radish has a surprising pretty flower, and its nearly three feet tall. These particular plants never really bulbed up well, so the flowers were a good consolation prize.

That was a bit over a a week ago, and with increasing temperatures, my front garden is in need of a makeover. The heat is punishing the cool-season crops and aphids have moved in. But I want to get some seeds before I change it to a warm season garden, so it’ll look a bit bad for a while

The tomatoes are doing better than hoped for, and my zucchini was yet to die. The asparagus transplants that were almost dead when I planted them are bouncing back. And I’m now enjoying snap peas. I never pick enough to actually get them inside, they just make a delicious snack out in the garden.

Here are the tomatoes:

And just a week later: